Writing Russia

“Like every other culture to have held and lost the world’s attention (think France and Germany), it acquired the terrible habit of viewing every new product or event in grand terms of national decline or renaissance: Even light entertainment is a battleground for the country’s perpetually frustrated quest for global relevance. When a show or a film bombs, the public reaction is not that the writers are bad, it’s that Russia has failed yet again. If it succeeds, the reaction runs along the lines of ‘Finally, something we don’t have to be ashamed of.’ The highest form of compliment to a book, a movie, a show or a song is the word ‘nestydnyi,’ literally ‘unshameful,’ which implies that shame is a baseline condition of existence in Russia — and that the moments when that shame is alleviated are rare and precious. And that’s the secret of Putin’s genuine popularity: his talent for alchemizing this unfounded shame into equally unfounded pride by substituting territorial conquest for actual achievement.”
 — Awl pal Michael Idov’s “My Accidental Career as a Russian Screenwriter” is a worthy sequel to his “My Two Days as a Russian Tabloid Sensation.”