tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6419599995602821000.post3770531711314142942..comments2018-07-02T17:56:42.458-07:00Comments on February 31st: The uses of literacy?Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07026605356104584889noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6419599995602821000.post-5095590978315314162014-05-11T02:31:39.078-07:002014-05-11T02:31:39.078-07:00I've read a fair amount of Turgenev, but not m...I've read a fair amount of Turgenev, but not much Herzen. As far as I remember, he was a radical who became disgusted with radical violence. I really should get round to reading Tom Stoppard's "The Coast of Utopia", which has Herzen as its hero.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07026605356104584889noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6419599995602821000.post-71068870735359513352014-05-07T01:50:31.508-07:002014-05-07T01:50:31.508-07:00Playing the ethnic card, no doubt. On a weakly rel...Playing the ethnic card, no doubt. On a weakly related note, I recall a Russian-Israeli poet yelling at Bykov, "Dmitry Lvovich Bykov, you're not a Jew!" (implying Bykov's mother was not Jewish) in a heated online argument some 15 years ago. Bykov used to be an aggressive, ardent online polemicist on literary forums, and provoked his opponents into all sorts of personal attacks. He could be a bit of a bully, too, when he resorted to his ultima ratio, "I am a recognized poet with a body of published work to my credit; and what are you?" How irrelevant and petty all that seems now.<br /><br />Turgenev was a moderate in the best possible sense of the word. Herzen could be quite a leftist on some issues, such as religion, but he was deeply disillusioned by 1848 and developed a non-dogmatic, moderate approach to politics. It's hard to pin Herzen down, but he would undoubtedly despise Putin and Putinism.Alex Khttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05922917428608106970noreply@blogger.com