The Writer Dmitry Bykov on Putin’s Russia, the Land of the “Most Free Slaves”

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

Politics, Arts, News, Wnyc, Books, David, Storytelling, Society & Culture, Yorker, New, Remnick

4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 15 July 2022

⏱️ 22 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Until very recently, Dmitry Bykov was a huge presence on the Russian literary scene. He is a novelist, a poet, a biographer, and a critic. He was a frequent presence on Echo of Moscow, the liberal radio station that was closed after the invasion of Ukraine, and his blunt political commentary made him an enemy of the regime. Bykov was teaching in the United States, at the Institute for European Studies at Cornell University, when the invasion of Ukraine began, and because of his forthright opposition to it, he may not be able to return home as long as Putin remains in power. Bykov calls Putin’s dictatorship “the final stage of Russian decline.” He blames not only Putin himself but the Russian people for the failure of democracy to take root. “In Russia they have a choice: to change the country—change themselves—or to keep Putin. They prefer to keep Putin,” Bykov tells David Remnick. “They’re really ready to die, but not to change their mind.” Most Russians, he continues, seem content “to make Putin responsible for everything, exclaiming, ‘We didn’t know, we couldn’t prevent him.’ ”

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:09.7	Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Until very recently, Dmitri Bikoff was a big presence on the Russian literary scene.
0:18.2	He's a novelist, a poet, a biographer, and a critic. He's also one of the
0:22.9	most outspoken and brilliant critics of Russian life and politics. He was a frequent presence on
0:28.6	Echo of Moscow, the liberal radio station that was finally shut down after the invasion of Ukraine.
0:35.4	And as a commentator, he pronounced scathing judgments,
0:39.2	truly scathing on the nature and character
0:42.7	of Vladimir Putin and the increasingly authoritarian regime
0:46.7	he was building.
0:47.7	And that never endeared him to those in power.
0:50.9	In recent years, Beekov has been teaching on and off
0:53.3	in the United States at Cornell University,
0:56.0	but because of his forthright opposition to the war in Ukraine, it's not at all clear that he'll ever return home.
1:03.0	You were just in Ukraine. Tell me about the circumstances of the trip and what you saw.
1:10.0	You can only feel it.
1:12.7	You know, that's really a strange feeling of people who leave after death.
1:17.5	They have decided for them on the 23rd of February,
1:22.0	the dead, that everything is lost,
1:24.8	and now they're quite free.
1:26.5	You know, that's like Japanese school of samurai.
1:29.6	Imagine that you are dead and then act. You are living after death. Everything is finished.
1:34.4	So feel yourself free and decisive. They are free and decisive. It's a kind of carnival after death.
	...

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