Petersburg Writers Resist Efforts to Force Them into Medinsky’s Organization

Paul Goble

    Staunton, May 10 – Since 1991, there have been two writers organizations in the northern capital, the independent Union of Writers of St. Petersburg, headed by Valery Popov and the St. Petersburg Section of the Union of Writers of Russia led by Boris Orlov. The former has generally be considered a bastion of liberal opinion and the latter of patriotic thinking.

    Last month, Vladimir Medinsky, head of the Union of Writers of the Russian Federation, visited St. Petersburg and announced, alongside St. Petersburg governor Aleksandr Beglov, that the first would go out of existence in early May and its members would join the RF Union (gorod-812.ru/v-peterburge-pytayutsya-konsolidirovat-pisatelej/).

    But the schedule Medinsky announced hasn’t been met, an indication of resistance to this latest attempt at centralization. And some in St. Petersburg says that in some sections of the independent union, not a single writer wants to join any organization headed by the often outrageous Medinsky.

    Moscow may led this attempt die quietly because any effort to enforce it would almost certainly precipitate the kind of resistance in St. Petersburg that would highlight Moscow’s weakness when faced with concerted opposition, especially in a place where independent media and Western diplomats could be counted on to report it.