This may not be the appropriate forum or subforum for it, and if so I apologize, but in my defense, everyone I am about to discuss is a published AH writer and I have written about some of their works in the past in this very subforum. What I am about to write is true, real and (for the most part) verifiable.
I am fluent in Russian. That is, I can read and speak it at about a university student level. I speak it far less these days then when I was in college, but I try to read it every chance I can. I read articles, novels and textbooks. Given I am an AH fan, I also read Russian AH when possible. I have written in this forum on the phenomena here before, and talked of the strain of militarism with in it. What I had not realized at the time was how miraculously timely some of the authors were on the topic of Ukraine.
For eight to five years prior to the outbreak of civil war in Ukraine, a small but quite visible segment of Russian AH writers would set their tales in Ukraine. This in it of itself is not unusual, but what is unusual how consistent they were in their tales: all authors presaged a Ukrainian Civil War with NATO backed Western Ukrainians rampaging against peaceful Russian speaking folk in East Ukraine, who could takes no more and rose up against the foreign invaders and with the fraternal assistance of Mother Russia finally managed to throw off the yoke of the hated foe. What is also rather curious that all of these writers belonged to the same imprint of the same publisher: Yauza, founded in 1993, and whose company's mission statement is to, and I translate now, verbatim: "to bring militarily-patriotic spirit into the education of the next generation of Russia." For those wishing to translate better on their own, here's how that reads in original: "воспитание военно-патриотического духа в подрастающем поколении России." The imprint started life by stamping out PG-rated tales of daring-do from World War Two featuring young protagonists killing Nazis, branched off into military biographies of great Russian generals who killed a lot of Nazis, then transitioned into memories of men who killed Nazis and finally settled on stories of modern day patriotic Russians falling into the past and ending up in World War 2 Soviet Union, where they (you guessed it) killed Nazis. But among these Nazi killing books soon appeared more contemporary AH and future-history, all centered on a conflict between Russia and NATO, or Britain, or France, or all three. The standout author of the imprint was Fedor Berezin, about whom more than one user has posted in this very forum, so I will not spend much time on him, except to re-iterate that if you never had a chance to read his novels, picture the worst far-right, irredentist, cringe-inducing claptrap ever spewed and add exclamation points at the end of each sentence.
But while Berezin is by far and away the biggest star of the imprint, others swim in his wake and have made literary careers out of it. Among them: Gleb Bobrov, Aleksandr Kontorovich and Lev Vershinin. Today I wish to shine a spotlight on Mr. Bobrov, who has become a star in his own right. First, a cover from his 2008 AH novellette about a (then) future-war in Ukraine:
The granite jawed Russian lad in camouflage is pistol whipping a Ukrainian caricature. The unfortunate fellow not only has decided to get a Ukrainian Cossack haircut (one long forelock, all the rest shaved off, a hairstyle as popular and timely in Ukraine these days as Scottish nationalist in 2017 painting their face blue in honor of Mel Gibson in "Braveheart"), has Ukrainian colors (blue and yellow) on the band over the fallen helmet and even went to the trouble of getting a Ukrainian symbol (trident) on the right sleeve. It is the equivalent of a parent of newborn swaddling their infant in pink to avoid anyone coming up to them at a party and going, "oh he looks like a lovely boy... oh, it's a girl... ah, I couldn't tell."
When the Ukrainian Civil War became reality rather than just future-history, Mr. Bobrov was as delighted as a fourteen year old discovering his parents did not realize tumblr has pornographic sites and forgot to block them. He quickly volunteered to be the head of propaganda for one of the many newly minted breakaway Russian government backed "republic" in East Ukraine: The People's Republic of Luhansk. Then again, he had a leg up on the competition, he actually lives in Luhansk. He became the head of their literary union, edited their magazine and official government newspaper and also recently edited an anthology of the experiences of the separatists under the heading "New Russians Fight Back!" Yes, the exclamation mark is in the title.
Not to be outshone, his one time patron, Mr. Berezin volunteered his services to the other breakaway republic: People's Republic of Donetsk, where in addition to being named head of their literary union (take that Bobrov), he also got named Deputy Minister to the Commandant of the Ministry of Defense for Procurement. Which kind of makes him the Alan Clark of the tiny republic, minus the charm or literary skill but with more fascism. And, unlike Bobrov, he was made a Deputy in the Union of New Russia (the confederacy of dunces that is the People's Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk). This is the flag of said union:
No, I am not making that up. That is the official flag of the Confederacy of New-Russia (click the link). This is not a joke. They literally picked that flag and are quite proud of it.
For a little less than a decade, these men beat the drum of war in Ukraine under the guise of AH fiction. For over eight years, these men made a concerted effort to promote an ethnic conflict in East Ukraine where Russian speaking "natives" beat back the "West" Ukrainian speakers would roll back the frontiers of Ukraine and fold East Ukraine into a "natural" union with Russia. And they were far from alone. My research, and that of Russian journalists, found other AH Russian authors who are now wearing military uniforms despite never once firing a shot in the heat of battle and strutting about East Ukraine wearing medals for spewing hate and propaganda. They got their wish. They got their ethnic war and they got to look like prophets. And they used the medium of AH to achieve their means.
I am fluent in Russian. That is, I can read and speak it at about a university student level. I speak it far less these days then when I was in college, but I try to read it every chance I can. I read articles, novels and textbooks. Given I am an AH fan, I also read Russian AH when possible. I have written in this forum on the phenomena here before, and talked of the strain of militarism with in it. What I had not realized at the time was how miraculously timely some of the authors were on the topic of Ukraine.
For eight to five years prior to the outbreak of civil war in Ukraine, a small but quite visible segment of Russian AH writers would set their tales in Ukraine. This in it of itself is not unusual, but what is unusual how consistent they were in their tales: all authors presaged a Ukrainian Civil War with NATO backed Western Ukrainians rampaging against peaceful Russian speaking folk in East Ukraine, who could takes no more and rose up against the foreign invaders and with the fraternal assistance of Mother Russia finally managed to throw off the yoke of the hated foe. What is also rather curious that all of these writers belonged to the same imprint of the same publisher: Yauza, founded in 1993, and whose company's mission statement is to, and I translate now, verbatim: "to bring militarily-patriotic spirit into the education of the next generation of Russia." For those wishing to translate better on their own, here's how that reads in original: "воспитание военно-патриотического духа в подрастающем поколении России." The imprint started life by stamping out PG-rated tales of daring-do from World War Two featuring young protagonists killing Nazis, branched off into military biographies of great Russian generals who killed a lot of Nazis, then transitioned into memories of men who killed Nazis and finally settled on stories of modern day patriotic Russians falling into the past and ending up in World War 2 Soviet Union, where they (you guessed it) killed Nazis. But among these Nazi killing books soon appeared more contemporary AH and future-history, all centered on a conflict between Russia and NATO, or Britain, or France, or all three. The standout author of the imprint was Fedor Berezin, about whom more than one user has posted in this very forum, so I will not spend much time on him, except to re-iterate that if you never had a chance to read his novels, picture the worst far-right, irredentist, cringe-inducing claptrap ever spewed and add exclamation points at the end of each sentence.
But while Berezin is by far and away the biggest star of the imprint, others swim in his wake and have made literary careers out of it. Among them: Gleb Bobrov, Aleksandr Kontorovich and Lev Vershinin. Today I wish to shine a spotlight on Mr. Bobrov, who has become a star in his own right. First, a cover from his 2008 AH novellette about a (then) future-war in Ukraine:
The granite jawed Russian lad in camouflage is pistol whipping a Ukrainian caricature. The unfortunate fellow not only has decided to get a Ukrainian Cossack haircut (one long forelock, all the rest shaved off, a hairstyle as popular and timely in Ukraine these days as Scottish nationalist in 2017 painting their face blue in honor of Mel Gibson in "Braveheart"), has Ukrainian colors (blue and yellow) on the band over the fallen helmet and even went to the trouble of getting a Ukrainian symbol (trident) on the right sleeve. It is the equivalent of a parent of newborn swaddling their infant in pink to avoid anyone coming up to them at a party and going, "oh he looks like a lovely boy... oh, it's a girl... ah, I couldn't tell."
When the Ukrainian Civil War became reality rather than just future-history, Mr. Bobrov was as delighted as a fourteen year old discovering his parents did not realize tumblr has pornographic sites and forgot to block them. He quickly volunteered to be the head of propaganda for one of the many newly minted breakaway Russian government backed "republic" in East Ukraine: The People's Republic of Luhansk. Then again, he had a leg up on the competition, he actually lives in Luhansk. He became the head of their literary union, edited their magazine and official government newspaper and also recently edited an anthology of the experiences of the separatists under the heading "New Russians Fight Back!" Yes, the exclamation mark is in the title.
Not to be outshone, his one time patron, Mr. Berezin volunteered his services to the other breakaway republic: People's Republic of Donetsk, where in addition to being named head of their literary union (take that Bobrov), he also got named Deputy Minister to the Commandant of the Ministry of Defense for Procurement. Which kind of makes him the Alan Clark of the tiny republic, minus the charm or literary skill but with more fascism. And, unlike Bobrov, he was made a Deputy in the Union of New Russia (the confederacy of dunces that is the People's Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk). This is the flag of said union:
No, I am not making that up. That is the official flag of the Confederacy of New-Russia (click the link). This is not a joke. They literally picked that flag and are quite proud of it.
For a little less than a decade, these men beat the drum of war in Ukraine under the guise of AH fiction. For over eight years, these men made a concerted effort to promote an ethnic conflict in East Ukraine where Russian speaking "natives" beat back the "West" Ukrainian speakers would roll back the frontiers of Ukraine and fold East Ukraine into a "natural" union with Russia. And they were far from alone. My research, and that of Russian journalists, found other AH Russian authors who are now wearing military uniforms despite never once firing a shot in the heat of battle and strutting about East Ukraine wearing medals for spewing hate and propaganda. They got their wish. They got their ethnic war and they got to look like prophets. And they used the medium of AH to achieve their means.
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