I just received an email from Russia that explains the peculiar workings of the book-publishing business in the country.
A single monster publisher has a monopoly on the book-publishing market. An author who wants to get published needs to pay an enormous bribe to the publishers. This is how things always are when you remove the capitalist competition for the consumers’ attention from the market.
A recent book fair in St. Petersburg concentrated on showcasing books and projects that promoted the creation of governmental bodies that would eradicate all ideas that departed from the party line. This is now said openly and nobody even tries to conceal these plans.
The state supports writers with grants. However, in order to get state support, you either need to denounce Jews all day long or collaborate with the secret service.
A recent state-sponsored poetry contest only accepted contributions that celebrated the occupation of the Crimea or promoted saccharine Orthodox religiosity. The quality of the poetry presented there was awful but nobody cares about small things like these any longer.
Putin invaded Ukraine in order to defend the Russian language and culture (from whom it is still not clear but whatever). Those of us who actually care about the preservation of the Russian language and culture can’t fail to see that the real danger to it stems from the current government of the Russian Federation.
Writers from Russia are sending these messages to foreigners because that’s their only way of being heard. Nobody in Russia (or Ukraine) speaks any language but their own, so there is an enormous sense of isolation from the world. At the moment, the entirety of the Russian intellectual life has been ghettoized on the Livejournal website. Livejournal is owned by one of Putin’s pocket oligarchs who obviously does what his master tells him to. Livejournal differs from WordPress or Blogspot in that it is next to impossible to leave a comment on a Livejournal blog if you are not a Livejournal subscriber. I think it’s important to help these dissenting voices to break through.
Clarissa's Blog 
This has been going on for a while. I notice it every summer when I go back to Kyrgyzstan if I stay in Bishkek rather than Kara-Buura.
http://jpohl.blogspot.com/2011/08/russian-publishing-trends.html
http://jpohl.blogspot.com/2012/08/russian-publishing-trends-2012.html
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Ah, I had no idea you’d written about this! Thank you, these are great posts.
As the state withdraws from funding higher ed in the US, college departments will increasingly turn to outside sources of funding. I will not be surprised if soon we will see fully Stalinist history departments everywhere in the US.
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In my experience (Russian speaking, part of a community of dissidents though I’ve long since moved to the US), the discourse has already largely shifted to Facebook away from liver journal, in part because everyone recognizes that Russian LJ can be shut down at any time (and already has been on multiple occasions).
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Yes, that’s true. Facebook, however, is almost as problematic for disseminating ideas as Livejournal. It’s very insular and attracting new readers and participants through Facebook is not possible. Facebook is for sharing your ideas with people who already know you and already agree. I almost never publish any opinion pieces on my Facebook because all of my readers already know all that.
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I agree it’s problematic, but it is not impossible. Many people I know post lengthy notes or statuses publicly (anyone on Facebook can access them), and these get shared within networks that go beyond the user’s network, quite quickly. I’ve found some interesting new people this way whom I didn’t know before. I don’t think it’s the greatest forum either, and the general problem is not solved. But in my experience the people who really want to participate in some sort of discussion (very few, sadly) find a way to do this no matter how serious the restrictions are. In previous generations it was samizdat, in this generation it’s various corners of the internet. You can argue that all of this is just the same small group of people talking to each other, and you would be mostly right. But in the absence societal mechanisms enabling real open dialogue, these people are at least keeping the fire burning, which is probably all they can do. And it’s important that they keep doing it.
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“But in the absence societal mechanisms enabling real open dialogue, these people are at least keeping the fire burning, which is probably all they can do. And it’s important that they keep doing it.”
– Of course, I agree completely. At least, people are doing something.
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