Ted, I am a translator of Akhmatova and of Mandelstam. They did not have an affair, but Akhmatova was close to both Osip (as long as he lived) and to his wife Nadezda, whose books Hope Against Hope and Hope Abandoned document these years of tyranny and oppression. You don't mention that Akhmatova was forced to write poems in praise of Stalin to try to facilitate her son's release. I don't think that her decades of house arrest and enforced praise really conform to the sense of hidden power in your essay. She outlived the Stalinist regime, survived for some late fame, but I doubt she would say she triumphed in the end. She merely refused to submit, and lived longer than her oppressors.
Thank you for posting this. On the one hand, I am glad that a Russian poet gets attention, but on the other hand, Ted’s post struck me as (beautiful) mawkish nonsense, with all due respect to him.
I just chalk it up to Americans’ fundamental lack of understanding of what it’s like to live in an authoritarian regime. Not that this experience is worth having, but then again, sometimes, per the Russian proverb, “beaten one is worth two unbeaten ones.”
I believe I have some sense of where you might be coming from, but that doesn't mean I agree with you. Ted is drawing attention here to an outstanding case of artistic survival and a triumph of sorts, even if, as he himself points out, Akhmatova didn't live to see her own vindication. Unclear to me how that makes it mawkish nonsense. More to the point, this post was written quite avowedly as an inspiration to "cultural producers" (as the Soviets called them) who feel today that they are very much up against it, and have every reason for feeling so. Sorry you didn't see it in that light, but I trust that many others will.
Louis, did you notice the part about long lines in the crushing cold near the prison Kresty? Do you know who stood in those lines? It was my grandma, and Kirill’s grandma. And millions of other Natalia’s and Kirill’s grandmothers across the country. Their faces disfigured by pain and despair served as a constant reminder of what was part of our family history, when we were 2 years old, when we were 4, when we were six.. and so on. Growing up, we did not have sponge bob of Disney cartoons. We had those faces, or rather what remained of them.
To see it in the light you see it, one has to learn about it in a standalone heroic story from a land a far. But for us, Russians it was a life destroyed slowly and painfully, just like the one in our own families and in the family of our neighbor and of practically everyone we knew, unless they were the families of prosecutors. That is why it is hard to find a Russian who would see it «in that light» like you do.
Just for some context, I've had an engagement with Russian literature and history going back half a century, to when I read The Gulag Archipelago (3 volume, not abridged) as a teenager, then the 19th century classics, Nadezhda Mandelstam's memoirs that led me to her husband's poetry in my 20s and thence to his contemporaries, including of course Akhmatova, and so on and so forth since then.
That's something, in one way, but in another way it can never be enough, for as you rightly point out, the tragic history of your country will be etched into your heredity in a way that is unique to you as a Russian. And certainly the history of Russia, especially over the last 120 years, has been tragic beyond measure.
But even a valid argument can be pushed too far, and I wonder if you are not doing so here. Great art is always both particular and universal; Akhmatova's Requiem, for example, was particular in theme to Stalinist Russia but also speaks to all of humanity surely, if not quite with the same edge or pain as to you as a Russian. To suggest otherwise would be to end up with something like a Wokeist "cultural appropriation" argument, which presumably - hopefully - you are not advocating.
My argument in essence is this: we learn from great art the way we receive the sun's light. If you come from the same culture in which the art was produced, you will likely receive the sun's rays more directly and with greater impact; if not, it will come to you in a more refracted way. But it is the same sun in both instances providing the same life-giving energy unstintingly to all.
Thank you for taking the time and effort to write your response to me, Louis. And also for providing the perspective and the depth and scope of your familiarity with our culture. Just like yourself I believe , - or at least I hope - that I have some sense of where you might be coming from, after living in the Silicon Valley for 20+ years and getting the feel of a cherished gift of freedom that the US grants to its citizens. And I also loved your poetic ☀️ metaphor.
Having said that, I still stick to my sentiment that a rare Russian will be able to see Akhmatova’s story in the light you (or Ted Gioia) see it, for the reasons I outlined above. And I believe it is for the best, though when in 2022 I was literally forced to remove my pre-teen US born children from the US for all the reasons Ted usually laments about in his blog, I have some scary doubts about what really is best. 🙄 Anyway, this is a topic for another discussion.
Back to our subject. We, Russians will always feel territorial about our pains. And also we will always feel triggered by them, whenever an outsider brings them up. Many a time we’ll own our sh#t. I try to own mine.
And I believe Kirill’s comment was well balanced, and respectful towards the author, while expressing his feelings. I dare to hope that I managed to escape the cultural appropriation inclination, a movement that I do not indeed support; while explaining where we are coming from.
All in all, I accept that Ted’s article wasn’t targeted at Russians, so it must have had the amount of nuance just enough for his English speaking audience. Would I love to see a more nuanced text as a Russian about an honourable Russian? Yes, I would have. But that’s for some ideal world scenario. For right now I could just live with your acceptance of the fact that most Russians won’t be able to see this story in the light you see it. We see it in some other light. Which is also deeply impactful. 🤝
The other thing that's impossible to ignore: the political situation in the US. I do *not* think "technocrats" are even 1/10th as dangerous as what we are facing. Anna Akhmatova's life is more like a cautionary tale than any kind of "triumph.
Ted, have you ever seen the movie Burnt by the Sun? I think it's to the point, in ways that nobody born and raised in the US (including me) will ever truly understand. (It's Russian; takes place during Stalin's purges and show trials.)
Like the doctors in the so-called Doctors' Plot survived due to Stalin's death, so did Akhmatova. Others - *many, many* others - didn't, b/c they were ruthlessly disposed of by the regime.
I would like to thank the 2 Russians for their comments. I give the most weight to comments from people who have actually lived these things themselves. It reminds of JK Rowlings remarks in a commencement speech, in which she says 'poverty is romantized only by fools' It is a bit the same thing. People like to imagine some sort of 'moral high ground' to justify meaningless suffering
- “How might American singer-songwriter Iris DeMent and the "Soviet doyen of reverie and suffering" Anna Akhmatova come together? At Bookforum, David Biespiel reminds us that in DeMent's last album, The Trackless Woods, she set to music 18 of Akhmatova’s poems, translated by Lyn Coffin and Babette Deutsch, as a gift to her daughter, Dasha, adopted from Siberia in 2005.” Worth a listen.
I love this album. Iris DeMent described the making of it as a profound experience. It seems to have taken her spiritually and artistically to a place she could not have gone without Akhmatova's poetry.
A great column. Especially timely as we witness American socialism, like a zombie, staggering through institutions, schools, the media--the same impulse to crowd individuals into collectives, the better for surveillance, control, and domination by the true believers. (I live in Oregon; I know whereof I speak.)
One can only wonder which of the current Akhmatovas in our culture will have a bronze statue facing the seat of coercive power.
Enforced equality of average outcomes between groups absolutely is its own form of socialism. There is absolutely no argument in favor of DEI that isn't based on how unequal representation within fields is itself a sign of illegitimate ownership. Just because this is the form of socialism which actually has state and popular support doesn't make it not socialism, especially given that this isn't the 20th Century anymore. Even socialists have now failed their way into accepting some degree of market forces into their systems. American raciosexual socialism is still A form of socialism.
They don't accept it for the sake of market efficiency, you fool. It's only ever a means of rentseeking, and as a means of hobbling possible competitors out the gate. If central planning was good for anything else, it wouldn't be universally correlated with overall economic decline.
You're kidding, right? What on Earth is "American Socialism?" Oregon is a hotbed of Bolshevik activity, eh? Name one Socialist or a Socialist program "staggering" through schools, the media, etc. The surveillance is real, alright, but it's being done by huge Corporations and our right wing protofascist government. Honestly, is there something in the water in Oregon?
This is so beautiful❤️art inspires us to feel things we may not be able to articulate or recognize, but we feel it nonetheless. Not knowing the condition of your child is a hell no parent should ever endure. I must read Anna’s poetry now, for a woman whose convictions and integrity frightened the Red Army, she must have been a complete bad ass. I have two dear friends who grew up in Soviet Ukraine and Soviet Moldova respectively. One just recommended the poetry and plays of Mayakovsky to me last night over dinner. We talked in length about Russian authors she recommended from her childhood, even though she told me translations aren’t as good. I wouldn’t know. She told me her opinions about ballet and how Russia practically “gave it away” to Europe and should have capitalized on it. These are her opinions and I listened and thought to myself that she’s not only grieving Ukraine (her mom is still near a war zone), but the Russian culture she grew up with. It felt very complex and I wish we could separate the politics from the art, but perhaps that’s what fueled such beauty? The ugliness they escaped. Inspiring read🎶
Fine post, but I would not agree with Hoffer that only poets spoke the truth to power in Russua, since Stalin killed so many intellectuals, doctors, Jews and peasants.
I friend of my 10 years of prison for listening to a joke. I myself expelled for ever from Cuban universities because “I kept positions contrary to the line of the revolution”. Shortly before arrested for writing poems, the political police. Later no jobs, the political police watching me, years, people crossed the street to avoid greeting me, I was a worn, a dissident, a counterrevolutionary. It’s called communism, and it’s coming here to uk and Western Europe under the new name of wokism and the rest.
Communism is comimg to Western Europe? That seems unlikely given that a neo-fascist party governs in Italy, and that far-right parties are on the rise in France and Germany and most other Western European countries. You might find "wokism" annoying, but I guarantee you that there is no place where you are going to be put in prison for 10 years for making an anti-woke statement. However, there are many places where if present trends continue, you might be jailed for criticizing a right-wing dictator, including the United States.
I'm worried about a lot of things, but the spread of "wokism", whatever that even is, is at the very bottom of my list.
Oppression and totalitarianism are bad, whether they are done in the name of communism or fascism. But at this moment in history, communism has been largely (and rightly) discredited, while fascism/far right ideology is on the rise all over the place.
Sorry where are you living? Do you know the uk has thousands of people jailed by online post? Do you know what is happening with the rape gangs? Do you know that the election in Romania was cancelled by the bloody globalist? Are you serious or a moron? By the way, the era of the left is finishing. They won’t impose their shit and the destroy Europe. Trump is president and the people are seeing what a bunch of criminals and coward this elites are. Leftism, globalism, wokism, and the rest are a mental illness in the best of cases and a crime against mankind in reality. Now I’m more optimistic. The crap will be cleaned.
although there are cracks in the facade, a problem as I see it is that Putin's Russia ain't much better. although you can get a damn good burger in Moscow if you pay 30 bucks.
Hah, who says NYC rules, the Russkies are undercutting the high end burger market by 20 bucks... impressive. Now if only they would Ukraine the fuck alone...😕
that's a great response. i suppose you've been there. on business? or pleasure? it's a great place- freedom of speech and all that. you gotta love the recent poetry from there too. oh and the great music- they can really swing.
In Russia with its long history of repression, poetry was and might still be important. In the West, it is, as George Orwell put it, the least tolerated of the arts.
Akhmatova understood what was required of her in these darkest situations. I'm not convinced that artists today who clamor after money feel the same way: there is no precedent in American culture for Akhmatova's situation. And also, she was a master and not just any old poet; her genius made the difference as much as her bravery. But at the end of the day it only took her individual stance to make that difference. The more the merrier, I suppose. But perhaps all that's needed is one conscious artist? That's what I like about her story.
I imagine this felt far less heroic at the time and the sad part of this is how this currently would and does play out today. The stakes aren’t so high at the moment in the US but social media can just silence and down throttle artists, poets, etc. You never even exist and are swallowed by entertainment.
You don’t need the secret police to monitor you when every “smart” device, ring camera, Alexa, Siri, etc you own and use is doing it already. Here you actively chose to buy and allow these things in your home. (From NPR today, Apple only had to pay 95 million for getting caught having Siri eavesdrop when not engaged or activated. Less than $20 fine per device. The fine is a minor slap on the wrist to them.)
Greatly appreciate the post and knowing a little about Akhmatova. Will definitely read more.
Ted, I am a translator of Akhmatova and of Mandelstam. They did not have an affair, but Akhmatova was close to both Osip (as long as he lived) and to his wife Nadezda, whose books Hope Against Hope and Hope Abandoned document these years of tyranny and oppression. You don't mention that Akhmatova was forced to write poems in praise of Stalin to try to facilitate her son's release. I don't think that her decades of house arrest and enforced praise really conform to the sense of hidden power in your essay. She outlived the Stalinist regime, survived for some late fame, but I doubt she would say she triumphed in the end. She merely refused to submit, and lived longer than her oppressors.
Thank you for posting this. On the one hand, I am glad that a Russian poet gets attention, but on the other hand, Ted’s post struck me as (beautiful) mawkish nonsense, with all due respect to him.
I just chalk it up to Americans’ fundamental lack of understanding of what it’s like to live in an authoritarian regime. Not that this experience is worth having, but then again, sometimes, per the Russian proverb, “beaten one is worth two unbeaten ones.”
I believe I have some sense of where you might be coming from, but that doesn't mean I agree with you. Ted is drawing attention here to an outstanding case of artistic survival and a triumph of sorts, even if, as he himself points out, Akhmatova didn't live to see her own vindication. Unclear to me how that makes it mawkish nonsense. More to the point, this post was written quite avowedly as an inspiration to "cultural producers" (as the Soviets called them) who feel today that they are very much up against it, and have every reason for feeling so. Sorry you didn't see it in that light, but I trust that many others will.
Louis, did you notice the part about long lines in the crushing cold near the prison Kresty? Do you know who stood in those lines? It was my grandma, and Kirill’s grandma. And millions of other Natalia’s and Kirill’s grandmothers across the country. Their faces disfigured by pain and despair served as a constant reminder of what was part of our family history, when we were 2 years old, when we were 4, when we were six.. and so on. Growing up, we did not have sponge bob of Disney cartoons. We had those faces, or rather what remained of them.
To see it in the light you see it, one has to learn about it in a standalone heroic story from a land a far. But for us, Russians it was a life destroyed slowly and painfully, just like the one in our own families and in the family of our neighbor and of practically everyone we knew, unless they were the families of prosecutors. That is why it is hard to find a Russian who would see it «in that light» like you do.
Just for some context, I've had an engagement with Russian literature and history going back half a century, to when I read The Gulag Archipelago (3 volume, not abridged) as a teenager, then the 19th century classics, Nadezhda Mandelstam's memoirs that led me to her husband's poetry in my 20s and thence to his contemporaries, including of course Akhmatova, and so on and so forth since then.
That's something, in one way, but in another way it can never be enough, for as you rightly point out, the tragic history of your country will be etched into your heredity in a way that is unique to you as a Russian. And certainly the history of Russia, especially over the last 120 years, has been tragic beyond measure.
But even a valid argument can be pushed too far, and I wonder if you are not doing so here. Great art is always both particular and universal; Akhmatova's Requiem, for example, was particular in theme to Stalinist Russia but also speaks to all of humanity surely, if not quite with the same edge or pain as to you as a Russian. To suggest otherwise would be to end up with something like a Wokeist "cultural appropriation" argument, which presumably - hopefully - you are not advocating.
My argument in essence is this: we learn from great art the way we receive the sun's light. If you come from the same culture in which the art was produced, you will likely receive the sun's rays more directly and with greater impact; if not, it will come to you in a more refracted way. But it is the same sun in both instances providing the same life-giving energy unstintingly to all.
Thank you for taking the time and effort to write your response to me, Louis. And also for providing the perspective and the depth and scope of your familiarity with our culture. Just like yourself I believe , - or at least I hope - that I have some sense of where you might be coming from, after living in the Silicon Valley for 20+ years and getting the feel of a cherished gift of freedom that the US grants to its citizens. And I also loved your poetic ☀️ metaphor.
Having said that, I still stick to my sentiment that a rare Russian will be able to see Akhmatova’s story in the light you (or Ted Gioia) see it, for the reasons I outlined above. And I believe it is for the best, though when in 2022 I was literally forced to remove my pre-teen US born children from the US for all the reasons Ted usually laments about in his blog, I have some scary doubts about what really is best. 🙄 Anyway, this is a topic for another discussion.
Back to our subject. We, Russians will always feel territorial about our pains. And also we will always feel triggered by them, whenever an outsider brings them up. Many a time we’ll own our sh#t. I try to own mine.
And I believe Kirill’s comment was well balanced, and respectful towards the author, while expressing his feelings. I dare to hope that I managed to escape the cultural appropriation inclination, a movement that I do not indeed support; while explaining where we are coming from.
All in all, I accept that Ted’s article wasn’t targeted at Russians, so it must have had the amount of nuance just enough for his English speaking audience. Would I love to see a more nuanced text as a Russian about an honourable Russian? Yes, I would have. But that’s for some ideal world scenario. For right now I could just live with your acceptance of the fact that most Russians won’t be able to see this story in the light you see it. We see it in some other light. Which is also deeply impactful. 🤝
The other thing that's impossible to ignore: the political situation in the US. I do *not* think "technocrats" are even 1/10th as dangerous as what we are facing. Anna Akhmatova's life is more like a cautionary tale than any kind of "triumph.
Ted, have you ever seen the movie Burnt by the Sun? I think it's to the point, in ways that nobody born and raised in the US (including me) will ever truly understand. (It's Russian; takes place during Stalin's purges and show trials.)
Like the doctors in the so-called Doctors' Plot survived due to Stalin's death, so did Akhmatova. Others - *many, many* others - didn't, b/c they were ruthlessly disposed of by the regime.
Natalia L - FWIW, I'm from the US, love Russian lit, am probably about the same age as Louis - and agree with you and Kiril.
love the metaphor!
Thanks!
I would like to thank the 2 Russians for their comments. I give the most weight to comments from people who have actually lived these things themselves. It reminds of JK Rowlings remarks in a commencement speech, in which she says 'poverty is romantized only by fools' It is a bit the same thing. People like to imagine some sort of 'moral high ground' to justify meaningless suffering
- “How might American singer-songwriter Iris DeMent and the "Soviet doyen of reverie and suffering" Anna Akhmatova come together? At Bookforum, David Biespiel reminds us that in DeMent's last album, The Trackless Woods, she set to music 18 of Akhmatova’s poems, translated by Lyn Coffin and Babette Deutsch, as a gift to her daughter, Dasha, adopted from Siberia in 2005.” Worth a listen.
I love this album. Iris DeMent described the making of it as a profound experience. It seems to have taken her spiritually and artistically to a place she could not have gone without Akhmatova's poetry.
A great column. Especially timely as we witness American socialism, like a zombie, staggering through institutions, schools, the media--the same impulse to crowd individuals into collectives, the better for surveillance, control, and domination by the true believers. (I live in Oregon; I know whereof I speak.)
One can only wonder which of the current Akhmatovas in our culture will have a bronze statue facing the seat of coercive power.
What? We've seized the means of production?! Why was I not informed??!!
Enforced equality of average outcomes between groups absolutely is its own form of socialism. There is absolutely no argument in favor of DEI that isn't based on how unequal representation within fields is itself a sign of illegitimate ownership. Just because this is the form of socialism which actually has state and popular support doesn't make it not socialism, especially given that this isn't the 20th Century anymore. Even socialists have now failed their way into accepting some degree of market forces into their systems. American raciosexual socialism is still A form of socialism.
My experiences, including years of work in industry, retail, public service and self-employment, do not track with your opinion.
Even market-force-multiplier industrialists have failed their way into accepting some degree of socialism-for-the-rich into their systems.
They don't accept it for the sake of market efficiency, you fool. It's only ever a means of rentseeking, and as a means of hobbling possible competitors out the gate. If central planning was good for anything else, it wouldn't be universally correlated with overall economic decline.
Interesting that you call me fool, then reiterate my point.
Carry on, if that's what you mean. Either way, I'm out.
american socialism? collectives??
Yeah, sounds like the poster is living in some bizarre opposite world than the one we actually inhabit.
yeah... Portlandia😆
You're kidding, right? What on Earth is "American Socialism?" Oregon is a hotbed of Bolshevik activity, eh? Name one Socialist or a Socialist program "staggering" through schools, the media, etc. The surveillance is real, alright, but it's being done by huge Corporations and our right wing protofascist government. Honestly, is there something in the water in Oregon?
Nope.
This is so beautiful❤️art inspires us to feel things we may not be able to articulate or recognize, but we feel it nonetheless. Not knowing the condition of your child is a hell no parent should ever endure. I must read Anna’s poetry now, for a woman whose convictions and integrity frightened the Red Army, she must have been a complete bad ass. I have two dear friends who grew up in Soviet Ukraine and Soviet Moldova respectively. One just recommended the poetry and plays of Mayakovsky to me last night over dinner. We talked in length about Russian authors she recommended from her childhood, even though she told me translations aren’t as good. I wouldn’t know. She told me her opinions about ballet and how Russia practically “gave it away” to Europe and should have capitalized on it. These are her opinions and I listened and thought to myself that she’s not only grieving Ukraine (her mom is still near a war zone), but the Russian culture she grew up with. It felt very complex and I wish we could separate the politics from the art, but perhaps that’s what fueled such beauty? The ugliness they escaped. Inspiring read🎶
Fine post, but I would not agree with Hoffer that only poets spoke the truth to power in Russua, since Stalin killed so many intellectuals, doctors, Jews and peasants.
so few of us have that kind of courage. what supports that? i will think long and hard about this. thanks Ted.
Inspiring read, Ted. I was reminded of Shostakovich the whole time while reading it. Thank you.
Imagine being sent to Guantanamo for suggesting gold toilets or orange spray tans might be in bad taste.
I friend of my 10 years of prison for listening to a joke. I myself expelled for ever from Cuban universities because “I kept positions contrary to the line of the revolution”. Shortly before arrested for writing poems, the political police. Later no jobs, the political police watching me, years, people crossed the street to avoid greeting me, I was a worn, a dissident, a counterrevolutionary. It’s called communism, and it’s coming here to uk and Western Europe under the new name of wokism and the rest.
Communism is comimg to Western Europe? That seems unlikely given that a neo-fascist party governs in Italy, and that far-right parties are on the rise in France and Germany and most other Western European countries. You might find "wokism" annoying, but I guarantee you that there is no place where you are going to be put in prison for 10 years for making an anti-woke statement. However, there are many places where if present trends continue, you might be jailed for criticizing a right-wing dictator, including the United States.
I'm worried about a lot of things, but the spread of "wokism", whatever that even is, is at the very bottom of my list.
Oppression and totalitarianism are bad, whether they are done in the name of communism or fascism. But at this moment in history, communism has been largely (and rightly) discredited, while fascism/far right ideology is on the rise all over the place.
Seven years of prison to a man here in UK for posting on facebook by the way.
Sorry where are you living? Do you know the uk has thousands of people jailed by online post? Do you know what is happening with the rape gangs? Do you know that the election in Romania was cancelled by the bloody globalist? Are you serious or a moron? By the way, the era of the left is finishing. They won’t impose their shit and the destroy Europe. Trump is president and the people are seeing what a bunch of criminals and coward this elites are. Leftism, globalism, wokism, and the rest are a mental illness in the best of cases and a crime against mankind in reality. Now I’m more optimistic. The crap will be cleaned.
Sorry for the mistakes. The corrector! A friend of mine!
Knew of her and her struggle, but your column brings her to life, and with a voice that maybe some will now listen to, or at least read.
although there are cracks in the facade, a problem as I see it is that Putin's Russia ain't much better. although you can get a damn good burger in Moscow if you pay 30 bucks.
Hah, who says NYC rules, the Russkies are undercutting the high end burger market by 20 bucks... impressive. Now if only they would Ukraine the fuck alone...😕
You don't know what you're talking about.
that's a great response. i suppose you've been there. on business? or pleasure? it's a great place- freedom of speech and all that. you gotta love the recent poetry from there too. oh and the great music- they can really swing.
oh I speak French too.
In Russia with its long history of repression, poetry was and might still be important. In the West, it is, as George Orwell put it, the least tolerated of the arts.
Well, as Jake says in the last lines of Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, "It's pretty to think so."
Akhmatova understood what was required of her in these darkest situations. I'm not convinced that artists today who clamor after money feel the same way: there is no precedent in American culture for Akhmatova's situation. And also, she was a master and not just any old poet; her genius made the difference as much as her bravery. But at the end of the day it only took her individual stance to make that difference. The more the merrier, I suppose. But perhaps all that's needed is one conscious artist? That's what I like about her story.
On the topic of the arts: I hope poetry lovers looking for something to read will find something of sustenance in my chapbook, inspired (as it so happens) by the Slavic world much like Akhmatova herself: https://www.lulu.com/shop/felix-purat/night-journeys/paperback/product-p6kvz72.html?q=night+journeys&page=1&pageSize=4
Possibly of interest; fellow Substacker Noah Berlatsky published a book last year inspired by Akhmatova: https://www.everythingishorrible.net/p/not-akhmatova-is-out-on-july-23rd
Thank you for this. I knew the story, but not about the statue
I imagine this felt far less heroic at the time and the sad part of this is how this currently would and does play out today. The stakes aren’t so high at the moment in the US but social media can just silence and down throttle artists, poets, etc. You never even exist and are swallowed by entertainment.
You don’t need the secret police to monitor you when every “smart” device, ring camera, Alexa, Siri, etc you own and use is doing it already. Here you actively chose to buy and allow these things in your home. (From NPR today, Apple only had to pay 95 million for getting caught having Siri eavesdrop when not engaged or activated. Less than $20 fine per device. The fine is a minor slap on the wrist to them.)
Greatly appreciate the post and knowing a little about Akhmatova. Will definitely read more.