Free Press in Russia — We Should be Grateful for What?

One of the greatest ironies in literary history has to be the discrepancy between Russia’s pathological strangling of free speech and how many great writers and poets—Dostoevsky, Lermontov, Nabokov, Visotsky, to name a few—came out of its womb.

Vladimir Putin has pointed out that the mere discussion of whether or not there is a free press in Russia is a move in the right direction. Such a discussion is surely a good thing, but that’s where it pretty much ends. The Russian government still exercises tight control over the three major television networks and many print publications.

And where the government is not practicing direct censorship, it is being aided by the private sector. A few months ago, the Kommersant newspaper reported that non-media corporations—mostly financial and industrial—are buying media outlets in order to increase their political influence. In short: the quality of Russia’s serious news media is in decline.

The Russian literati mentioned above are surely not turning over in their graves, because they know better.  They’re probably just smiling,  with sarcastically curled lips.

Russian Journalist Murdered — What Else is New?

Another Russian journalist, Anna Politkovskaya, a long-time critic of Putin’s policies and the war in Chechnya, was murdered last week. In a generally well-written article about her death, “In a Risky Place to Gather News, a Very Familiar Story,” New York Times journalist Steven Lee Myers made a mistake in writing, “Her murder has made her a symbol of what Russia has become.” This sentence may be beautifully written, but it’s untrue. As a Russian and someone who knows Russian history, I have to offer the following correction: Her murder has made her a symbol of what Russia has been for hundreds of years. To say that Russia “has become” a state institutionally hostile to the freedom of the press is to conveniently forget that the Russian—and formerly Soviet—government always did its best to suffocate even the remotest attempt at free speech, most recently in the 20th century.

Although American grievances about censorship in the United States are often legitimate, they look hyperbolic and metaphorical when compared to Russia’s preying on and devouring of free speech. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Russia is the third most dangerous country for journalists in the world, after Iraq and Algeria (good company). Furthermore, according to CPJ, thirteen journalists have been murdered in Russia since Putin took office. There’ll be more.

But let’s take a trip back in time to the ’60s: Soviet censors at first did not allow Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” to be published. And this was after Stalin’s reign of totalitarian brutality… “A Day in the Life” was only published thanks to Khrushchev. But then Solzhenitsyn was kicked out of the country. This was no aberration. The fact that Russia had so many great writers, yet such contempt for free speech, has to be one of the greatest literary ironies of all time.

Those who spoke out against government propaganda—therefore, for the truth—were “removed” in a variety of ways, not the least of which was a shot to the back of the head. I’m not suggesting that the current Russian government is behind Politkovskaya’s murder, but contrary to what Putin would like us to believe, the government will not make a serious effort to investigate, nor will it loosen its grip on the press. Little has changed.