Annals of Neo-Soviet Hypocrisy
Filed under: Russia
You may recall that back in early August we reported on how Russian state-owned RTR television had Photoshopped a false version of the front page of the esteemed British daily the Times of London in order to launch an attack on hated dissident Boris Berezovsky.
Now, it turns out that what is sauce for the Western goose is not necessarily sauce for the neo-Soviet gander. When Putin's Kremlin is the recipient of this kind of activity, they lash out violently. Click the jump to read all about it.
A Saratov newspaper is in hot water after local officials ruled that a photograph it published of President Vladimir Putin as beloved fictional spy Otto von Stirlitz was extremist. Saratovsky Reporter was issued a formal warning following a complaint by the Saratov branch of United Russia about the photograph, which was published Aug. 31, the newspaper's editor, Sergei Mikhailov, said Thursday.Investigators are also examining whether the photograph is libelous, said Tatyana Sergeyeva, spokeswoman for the Saratov regional branch of the newly formed Investigative Committee.The photograph shows Putin's head pasted onto the body of Stirlitz, the hero played by actor Vyacheslav Tikhonov in the 1973 made-for-television series "17 Moments of Spring," a staple of television programming to this day. Also in the photograph is Mikhail Isayev, a Saratov city lawmaker, whose head is on the body of Nazi official Heinrich Himmler, played in the film by Leonid Bronevoi. "Stirlitz, I ask you to stay," Isayev tells Putin in the picture, using a famously ironic line from the film. In the film, Stirlitz is a Soviet agent who infiltrates the upper echelon of the Nazi Party in wartime Berlin. Despite numerous close calls, Stirlitz remains cool under pressure and is never discovered as a spy, contributing greatly to the allied defeat of Germany. At issue appears to be the portrayal of Putin -- who served as a KGB officer in East Germany -- in an SS uniform, despite the fact that Stirlitz is an unequivocally positive character. "Any associations with fascism in a country that went through World War II are improper," said Yevgeny Strelchik, a spokesman for the Saratov branch of the Federal Service for Mass Media, Telecommunications and the Protection of Cultural Heritage. The newspaper's editor said they had run the photograph merely for a laugh. "We just liked the play on words," Mikhailov said, pointing out that Stirlitz and Isayev actually have the same last name. Stirlitz's real name is Maxim Isayev.
It's perfectly possible that this newspaper could be shut down, or the journalist, editor or publisher arrested, because of this incident (in fact, if that were all that happened they might be lucky, since many journalists in neo-Soviet Russia have been killed outright), and the chilling effect of merely making the threat of doing so extends far beyond this one newspaper. This is exactly what destroyed the USSR: A fundamental inability to be consistent, to follow anything remotely like a rule of law, combined with total isolation from the real world, cocooned within a comforting womb of lies and delusions, preventing the possibility of reform and improvement. How can there be any hope for Russia, if is going to so ritualistically repeat the mistakes of the past?
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