Ilya Yablokov

In “The Invention of Russia,” Arkady Ostrovsky goes against received wisdom, and shows how the media have helped to invent the very country they claim to so dislike.

Recent heated discussion about the political, economic and cultural legacy of the early post-Soviet years is crucial for understanding what is going on in Russia today. These arguments attract social network users, journalists and academics. In her project Gorby media [in Russian], Natalia Rostova explains the significance for the Russia media of the period when Gorbachev was in power, and its conclusion in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Vladimir Gelman analyses the path of the political changes, which ended with the introduction of an authoritarian regime in Russia. In his book [in Russian] All the Kremlin’s Men, Mikhail Zygar presents his history of the Putin-era Kremlin elite, offering his readers a chance to see behind the scenes of current Russian politics. All these projects appeared in 2015, a clear indication of the need for an interim summing-up of the frenetic past 30 years and the moment when the Putin regime entered a period of decline. This is equally important for an understanding of what really happened to Russian society, but, chiefly, what it will be left with when Vladimir Putin leaves the scene.

In his book The Invention of Russia, journalist Arkady Ostrovsky, of the Economist and Financial Times, looks at the transformation of the Russian media and, with it, of the whole country. To do this he examines the history of some of the flagship publications and heroes of the turbulent 30-year period from 1985 to 2015. At the very end of the period of stagnation, as remembered by the chief ideologist of perestroika Alexander Yakovlev, the political elites were determined to put an end to the “lies,” which had become the norm, and “conformism was a credential” (p. 64). The book concludes with Putin’s post-Crimea ideology, where loyalty and cynicism are more important than any other professional qualities, and the elites are convinced there is no truth – in either Russia or the West. On the contrary (p. 31), everything is governed by money. In the interval between these two chronological points, a series of events enable us to come up with answers to many topical questions about the Russian media, including why Russian journalists gave in so easily, exchanging the relative freedom of the perestroika times for loyal service to the Kremlin, and why they took part in the overt propaganda of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict of 2014-5.

Each chapter of the book is a striking episode in Russia’s political history, highlighting the appearance (or disappearance) of a newspaper or television channel; the stage is peopled with cult personalities – journalists whose influence placed them on a level with the leaders of the country. All the chief influences, which formed post-Soviet media landscape are there. The author, who spent many years in Russia and has an enormous number of acquaintances in Moscow political and cultural circles, clearly has empathy for this period of Russian history, and some of the details he shares with us have obviously been picked up in conversations. This makes them difficult to verify, but he nevertheless manages to maintain a balance between sympathy and criticism, even when talking about ‘icons’ of Russian journalism and liberalism, like the newspaper Kommersant or the NTV channel during the era of journalist Yevgeny Kiselyov and media tycoon Vladimir Gusinsky [1993-2000].

Loyalty to the government or an owner is actually a bitter legacy from the Soviet past

In defiance of the received opinion that journalistic freedom was destroyed by Putin’s Kremlin, Ostrovsky shows clearly that loyalty to the government or an owner, the absence of ethical principles, the shop floor solidarity and willingness to support the government in power is actually a bitter legacy from their Soviet past. If Alexander Yakovlev had not been one of the Politburo leaders, there would have been no one to protect editor-in-chief of the cult newspaper Moscow News Yegor Yakovlev [no relation] from the attacks of the conservatives. The reforms were introduced top-down, though under pressure from society, but the government almost always kept its hand on the controls, using them infrequently in the 90s and rather more frequently in the 00s.

The book starts with the story of the men of the 60s, whose few years of political and cultural thaw [1953-64] had laid the foundations for the politics of perestroika. The liberals in the Soviet government, who did not agree with Brezhnev’s swing to conservatism, had held on to their belief in socialism with a human face, and kept their peace, only to make a triumphal return in the 80s with a new agenda, which would attempt to update socialism. But, as the hopes of reforming the USSR melted away, Yegor Yakovlev, who had turned his Moscow News into the chief media outlet of the epoch, handed over the reins to his son Vladimir, who founded the newspaper Kommersant. It was quite clear by that time that the principles of the preceding generation were no longer relevant for its successors, who had taken on the no less enormous project of constructing capitalism from the ruins of the fallen empire. The triumphal arrival of the “men with money,” whose language and style were created in the pages of Kommersant, coincided with a rejection of the principles of ethics, morals and honesty (p. 144) in favour of success and prosperity.

Money turned out to be a disaster for post-Soviet journalists

Money turned out to be a disaster for post-Soviet journalists. The lack of professional principles and, chiefly, the impossibility of earning enough to be able to remain independent, resulted in publications and individual journalists being completely dependent, and at the beck and call of their owners and/or the government. As early as 1992, editors-in-chief appealed to Boris Yeltsin to save them from the inevitable economic ruin they were facing as a result of the Gaidar reforms, and the collapse of their subscriptions market. Yeltsin helped by allowing the editors to use their assets (including buildings) as they saw fit. In 1996, the journalists and editors-in-chief turned out in support of Yeltsin, thus preserving their careers and their prosperity. The journalists’ conscious efforts to support the ruling president by smearing his opponents in the 1996 propaganda campaign “Vote or you will lose out” have gone into the textbooks of modern Russian history.

In one of the book’s chapters, Vladimir Yakovlev is trying to agree a loan for the development of his newspaper, with Alexander Smolensky, one of the key 90s oligarchs. Yakovlev agrees to block any negative information about him or his business. Loyalty to an investor/owner is a golden rule for post-Soviet journalists. In 2013, deputy minister for telecom and mass communications Aleksey Volin came up with an elegant formula when he advised students of journalism always to listen to the “uncle” [Rn: dyadya] for whom they would be working, because “he will tell you what to say or write, and what not,” irrespective of whether this ‘uncle’ appeared in the form of an industrial tycoon or a well-dressed official from the presidential or regional administration. Hearing and obeying what has to be done and, preferably, pre-guessing what the boss wants is much more important.

Journalistic loyalty goes hand in hand with another concept – “conformity” [Rn: adekvatnost]. Censorship and blacklists are extremely heavy-handed instruments for influencing and controlling the media. Russian journalists and media-managers’ success is the result of shrewd attempts to use one’s talent (unlimited) in such a way as to chime with the spirit of the age and the wishes of the government. The author describes Konstantin Ernst as the embodiment of this principle. He is the apparently irreplaceable director general of Channel 1, whose successful combination of entertainment and ‘correct’ news, as well as his participation, as an undeniably talented producer, in key events of the Putin years – the Winter Olympics and Eurovision – have turned him, in Ostrovsky’s words, into one of the “demiurges creating myths and explaining reality” (p. 320; the other talent was Oleg Dobrodeyev). His senior position in the hierarchy of Russian politics for more than 20 years gives Ernst enormous room for any manoeuvre dictated to him by his professional intuition.

Journalistic loyalty goes hand in hand with another concept – “conformity”

Another important factor in the development of journalistic loyalty and conformity is to be found in the tragic events resulting in the deaths of colleagues. 56 Russian journalists have been murdered since 1992, and these are only the crimes whose motivation has been confirmed by investigation. There are many other examples of attacks on freedom of speech, the most notorious being the Oleg Kashin affair, which enabled the journalistic community to organise itself for a time. On the other hand, the outcome of that same Kashin affair showed that no self-organisation could help if it is not backed up by the political will of Russia’s leadership.

The history of the Russian media throughout this period is another striking example of how Soviet elites became post-Soviet elites. The smooth transition from loyal party members to “red directors” and then to efficient managers (a good example is Pavel Gusev, editor of Moskovsky Komsomolets since 1983) have ensured an uncritical attitude to both the Soviet past and the post-Soviet present. Not for nothing was this on the political or intellectual elites’ agenda. Yevgeny Kiselyov, Igor Malashenko and Oleg Dobrodeyev – the top managers of NTV channel, and liberal icons of the 90s – all came from the Soviet elite. Perestroika and the collapse of the Soviet system enabled them to make brilliant careers, unattainable in their wildest dreams in the USSR, and their fortunes. The rout of the old NTV, which the book describes in detail, and the career paths of Kiselyov, Malashenko and Dobrodeyev are a vivid illustration of the values and rules governing Russian politics and the media. Of the three, only Dobrodeyev has managed to hang on in the top league: he heads up the state media holding VGTRK [the all-Russia state television and broadcasting company], adapting unquestioningly to the spirit of the time and moving over from liberalism to patriotism at just the right moment.

In the post-perestroika years “the invention of Russia” as a nation was a natural process, which was hijacked by the country’s political leaders. And the longer the invention process is in transition, the more possible are the tactical victories for the politicians. In this context, it is difficult to overstate the role of the media. Russian media are currently probably the only element holding the state together across its vast expanse, from Kaliningrad in the west to Chukotka in the east. Curiously, Ernst’s experience in creating the image of an ideal country during the opening of the Sochi Winter Olympics ignored the perestroika period, which marks the beginning of modern Russia. This is yet another proof that today’s post-Soviet elites are unable to analyse and reflect on their difficult recent past. This will be something for future generations, who will have to take account of all their predecessors’ mistakes when they are creating a “new Russia.” When doing this, they will find Arkady Ostrovsky’s book invaluable.

Ilya Yablokov is a Teaching Fellow in Russian at the University of Leeds. He received his MA with distinction from Central European University (Budapest), and a PhD in Russian Studies from the University of Manchester (Manchester).