Edward Snowden and Ludmila Ulitskaya exist in the same world. Ulitskaya, one of Russia's most famous novelists, scientists, and playwrights, and Edward Snowden, IT professional, former NSA contractor, and international whistleblower, have both practiced their right to free speech and have been met with unfavorable government response.
Ludmilla Ulitskaya, speaking at PEN's The Closing of the Russian Mind? A Conversation on Expression and Creativity in Putin's Russia Thursday at the Jewish Community Center in Manhattan stated how pleased she was to be speaking along with Anna Nemzer, novelist and editor at TVRain (Dozhd), Maria Stepanova, author, poet, critic and founder of online journal OpenSpace.ru (now Colta.ru) and Ilya Danishevsky, writer, poet, and Chief Editor at the Vremena publishing house. Conversation Moderator, Masha Ghessen, author, editor, journalist, and PEN Board Member asked Ulitskaya and the panel about the (in)famous 86% percent of Russians who are reported to be supporters of Putin and his policies and the 14% of Russians who are not. Ghessen asked whether 14% in a country as large as Russia is very little. Ulitskaya stated how happy she was the 14 % of Russia had a chance to meet with the 14% of the United States, instead turning the question on the audience. Are we the 14%? What does it mean to be in the 14% in Russia and what does it mean to be in the 14% in the United States?
This question has been at the background of PEN's advocacy and previous event shedding light on the chilled climate of free speech in Russia. Whether featuring discussions on Natalia Estimirova's work and murder or advocating to end impunity on behalf of Anna Politskaya, PEN has shown how dissidents are followed, targeted, verbally attacked, beaten, and killed without adequate investigations or arrests, if any, creating a culture of impunity, thwarting justice and accountability. As PEN issued its newest report, Discourse in Danger detailing the role of the Roskomnadzor, the regulation of NGOs, laws regarding homophobia, and control of television, the theme of the Conversation became the shrinking Russian space within which the supposed 14% could discuss these policies. The kitchen, in particular, was a focus of this space. Ulitskaya likened today's atmosphere to the bygone days of the 70s and 80s, when people had to create political spaces in their kitchens, carving out their public civic life in private, attributing the cause of this shrinking to an atmosphere of fear that has been restored. Nemzer painted a bleaker picture, stating that Russians work neither for today nor tomorrow, but the day after a tomorrow, a distant future for which she believes Russia's Soviet past has not prepared today's public. Danishevsky confessed fear has produced in him a feeling of being lost and alienated from the other 86% of the population and the most paralyzing effect of it has been self-regulation: on corruption, LGBTQ discussion, as well as Russian foreign policy.
"There is an editor living inside of you", Stepanova described; it is like a bug living inside you telling you "Don't write that!" "Don't print this!" Don't publish that!" No external censorship is necessary in a system that creates an internal censorship as extreme. In that sense, the panelists were the rare few and far between of the 14%. As they made clear, the 14% were a composition of diverse voices, no one Russian among them thinking alike. Even on stage, there were clear disagreements in opinion between the four. As William Butler Yeats once wrote, "the best lack all conviction, while the worst. Are full of passionate intensity"; those who think independently do so in independent ways.
1991 saw a greater freedom and diversity of opinion than today. Ulitskaya harkened back to a more hopeful time in Russia during Perestroika when freedom of speech and expression was indeed a possibility in Russia, the first during its history, and somewhat of a miracle for some. Leaving its Soviet Past, the country saw a cultural, musical, social, political, and economic revolution. Citizens saw in bookstores for the first time the books for which people were imprisoned. Today's government, however, has reimagined pre-Perestroika censorship. Unlike the Soviet Era, in which content banned never lived in the public space, the dangerous space beyond the kitchens, but of which everyone speaking in their kitchens was aware, the kitchens of today have set lists. NGOs are placed on lists. Names of activists are spelled out on set lists. Novels like Art Spiegelman's Maus cannot be sold for the image of the swastika rather than Spiegelman's meaningful stand against fascism. Ulitskaya is pressured to refrain from writing about inclusive LGBTQ families in children's books. Instead, she restructures her meaning and her truth so as not to damage the delicate sensibilities of homophobes. The subjects of suicide, alcohol, drugs, violence, as well as homosexuality are regulated in children's literature.
Thus the hidden is obvious. As Marina Stepanova retells, those speaking the words which are unsaid are refused an outlet for those words, justified with the same refrain: "you have to understand". You have to understand, if we publish this, we will draw unwanted attention upon ourselves. You have to understand, we do not want to be closed down. In the summer 2014 as Russia denied having troops in Ukraine aiding Pro-Russian rebels, several burials began to be held in the small town of Pskov, Russia for young men. Everyone knew it was Russian soldiers who had died in Ukraine, but it was left unspoken. It took the bravery of individuals willing to speak out, like Oleg Kashin, who had suffered from fatal attacks himself for being an outspoken dissident.
The Conversation panelists do not provide easy answers on how to disrupt the shrinking of the public space. After all, would another personality, in opposition to Putin, change the system? Or rather, would the system keep perpetuating itself despite the person or party in charge, working to keep itself working, rather than doing so for the people? As Ulitskaya offered a literary metaphor in the hope of bird changing the system with the simple act of flapping its wings, a Deus Ex Machina solution, for now it seems the bird its desperately flapping its wings in futility.
The Conversation ended instead on a warning--it can get worse. As an audience member inquired into the lesser instances of antisemitism in Russia than the past, panelists warned the tide can swiftly turn. Antisemitism is hate. Currently, the hate has a different target, yet this hate can be transferred when necessary. Though the age-old scapegoat remains inactive, its can be resurrected as a popular tool for gaining support. Lest we forget the words of Martin Niemöller "....then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out-- / Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me--and there was no one left to speak for me." The intelligentsia cannot remain silent as silence is deadly.