Sunday, March 12, 2023

Russia has a Future and It’s Likely to Be a Liberal One, Vitukhnovskaya Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar. 10 – Because the new year brought no change and because the war in Ukraine has entered its second year, many Russians have sunk into a deep depression and come to believe that the future is bleak or even that their country does not have a future at all, Alina Vitukhnovskaya says.

            There is a long tradition of such depressed thinking in Russia, the writer says. In the past, people said Russians had to get used to the Iron Curtain and remain silent and now they say that Russia has no future. But that prediction is “in the spirit of bad Russian literature, abstract and generalizing and therefore vulgar and stupid” (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=63D027B5537AE).

            Russia is not some single thing and there is no such thing as inevitability about the rise and death of any country, Vitukhnovskaya says. People including Russians can and do make their own history; and often, that happens precisely after things appear to be at their darkest, most hopeless and bleak.

            Terrible things have happened in Russia for the last two decades and especially in the last year, but the real tragedy now is occurring in Ukraine. To give into pessimism about the future or even its existence is to fall into a trap set by the regime which wants no changes at all – and thus is almost as unforgiveable as openly supporting that regime.

            Instead of focusing on hos bad things are, Russians should recognize that “the empire” has now entered its final stage thanks to its own actions and in a particularly bloody way. And that, if nothing else, Vitukhnovskaya says, means “there is a future” for Russia and it is likely to be a better and more liberal one than many now think.

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