Monthly Archives: January 2023
Le Mage du Kremlin – est un roman avec Poutine de Giuliano da Empoli – Wikipedia
| Le Mage du Kremlin | |
| Auteur | Giuliano da Empoli |
|---|---|
| Pays | France |
| Genre | Roman |
| Éditeur | Éditions Gallimard |
| Collection | Blanche |
| Date de parution | 14 avril 2022 |
| Nombre de pages | 288 |
| modifier | |
Le Mage du Kremlin est un roman de Giuliano da Empoli paru en avril 2022 aux éditions Gallimard. Il remporte la même année le Grand prix du roman de l’Académie française et figure en finale du Prix Goncourt, lequel est finalement attribué au quatorzième tour, à 5 voix contre 5, à Vivre vite de Brigitte Giraud.
Résumé
L’auteur relate sa rencontre imaginée, une nuit à Moscou, avec l’énigmatique Vadim Baranov, autrefois artiste, producteur d’émissions de télé-réalité et éminence grise de Vladimir Poutine, surnommé le Tsar. Retiré des affaires au moment du récit, Vadim Baranov raconte sa jeunesse, sa vie dans les années 1990 en Russie, son apport à l’ascension politique du « Tsar » à partir de 1999 et son expérience du pouvoir, thématique centrale de l’ouvrage1.
Éléments de réalité
Un personnage inspiré de Vladislav Sourkov[modifier | modifier le code]
Le Mage du Kremlin est empreint d’ «une véracité troublante », selon les termes du journaliste Guillaume Goubert de La Croix2.
Le personnage principal de l’intrigue, Vadim Baranov est fictif, mais il partage de nombreux traits communs avec Vladislav Sourkov, au profil également atypique: amateur de rap, metteur en scène de théâtre d’avant-garde, écrivain et homme d’affaires3. Comme Baranov, Sourkov fut l’homme de l’ombre de Vladimir Poutine, « un poète parmi les loups », selon le magazine Marianne4.
L’auteur Giuliano da Empoli présente Le Mage du Kremlin dans le cadre du salon littéraire du conservatoire Rachmaninoff animé par Erwan Barillot en octobre 2022.
C’est en effectuant des recherches pour son précédent ouvrage, Les Ingénieurs du chaos, un essai consacré aux conseillers des leaders populistes, que Giuliano da Empoli s’est familiarisé avec la figure de Vladislav Sourkov, à qui il a souhaité consacrer un roman à part entière. « Il est tellement romanesque qu’il m’a libéré et poussé à devenir romancier », explique l’auteur5, qui confie par ailleurs ne l’avoir jamais rencontré en personne6.
Vladimir Poutine
Le roman s’appuie sur de nombreux faits historiques, dont beaucoup mettent en scène Vladimir Poutine, l’un des personnages centraux du roman. Son arrivée survient dans un contexte de demande d’autorité suscitée par le chaos des années 1990 en Russie7. « [Les Russes] avaient grandi dans une patrie et se retrouvaient soudain dans un supermarché », raconte Baranov par la bouche de Giuliano da Empoli8.
Conseillé par Baranov, « le Tsar » répond à cette demande d’autorité au cours d’évènements historiques comme la seconde guerre de Tchétchénie, l’élection présidentielle de 2000, le naufrage du sous-marin Koursk, la prise d’otages du théâtre de Moscou en 2002 ou encore la révolution orange en 2004. « Dans Le Mage du Kremlin, on suit la métamorphose de Poutine », résume la journaliste Laure Adler9. Pour Marc Lambron, le roman de Giuliano da Empoli est « une fresque orale courant des années Eltsine jusqu’aux prémices de l’actuelle guerre en Ukraine »10.
Le personnage de Vladimir Poutine est dépeint avec les yeux de Vadim Baranov, narrateur exclusif du roman à partir du chapitre 311. Bien que tombé en disgrâce et assigné à son domicile, Vadim Baranov demeure toujours fasciné par la personnalité du « Tsar », auquel il prête parfois des caractéristiques divines. « Il voit et pardonne chaque chose », s’écrie-t-il par exemple.
Les autres personnages réels présents dans le roman
Outre Vladimir Poutine, de nombreux personnages ayant réellement existé sont des protagonistes du Mage du Kremlin7. Boris Berezovsky, homme d’affaire et magnat de la télévision, est l’employeur de Vadim Baranov. Il lui présente pour la première fois Vladimir Poutine, alors lieutenant-colonel du FSB (ex-KGB), au siège de la Loubianka. La dépression et le suicide de Boris Berezovsky suite à sa disgrâce, sont également dépeints. L’oligarque Mikhaïl Khodorkovski occupe une place importante dans le roman : il courtise et épouse la concubine de Vadim Baranov avant d’être arrêté pour escroquerie en 2003, conformément à la réalité historique12.
Vadim Baranov rencontre d’autres personnalités historiques au cours du récit : le fidèle de Vladimir Poutine, Igor Setchine, le joueur d’échecs et opposant Garry Kasparov, l’idéologue Édouard Limonov et le président américain Bill Clinton, lequel demande des nouvelle de son « ami Boris Eltsine »13.
Actualité du roman
Giuliano da Empoli remet son manuscrit en janvier 2021. Le roman aurait dû paraître la même année, mais la pandémie de covid-19 en retarde la parution14. Finalement publié en avril 2022, soit moins de deux mois après le début de la guerre russo-ukrainienne, Le Mage du Kremlin se trouve porté par l’actualité. « Dès sa publication, nous l’avons vendu au rayon littérature et aussi sur la table consacrée à l’actualité », témoigne un libraire13.
Le Mage du Kremlin met en scène les relations entre la Russie et l’Ukraine depuis la révolution orange et fournit plusieurs clés d’explication au conflit. Pour Alexandra Schwartzbrod de Libération, il s’agit d’un « récit d’une grande force littéraire et historique qu’il faut impérativement lire si l’on veut comprendre ce qui, d’ici, paraît incompréhensible »15. Pour Yannick Vely de Paris Match, le livre « permet de comprendre les causes du conflit ukrainien6». L’auteur Giuliano da Empoli est régulièrement invité à la télévision et à la radio pour présenter son roman dans le cadre de l’actualité du conflit16,17.
L’ouvrage dépasse néanmoins l’actualité de sa parution, comme le fait remarquer Macha Séry dans Le Monde des Livres : « Certes ce roman, achevé par l’auteur en janvier 2021, éclaire l’actualité géopolitique d’une lumière pénétrante. Mais il lui survivra par son implacable lucidité et son style étincelant. »18
Thématiques du livre
Le Mage du Kremlin porte une ambition éducative et philosophique. Pour Jérôme Garcin, « certaines formules bien trempées rappellent les moralistes et mémorialistes français du XVIIe siècle »19, notamment La Rochefoucauld14.
Le pouvoir comme expression artistique
L’ouvrage de Giuliano da Empoli est une méditation sur le pouvoir. Pour Vadim Baranov, il s’agit d’une forme d’expression artistique, comme l’est le théâtre d’avant-garde. Vladislav Sourkov, dont le personnage est inspiré, est le fondateur de concepts-clés dans l’idéologie du Kremlin: « la démocratie souveraine » et de « la verticale du pouvoir »3.
« Le pouvoir de Poutine est construit sur une base mythologique » déclare l’auteur, qui fut lui-même conseiller de Matteo Renzi, l’ancien président du conseil italien. Il précise: « De mon point de vue, le cœur du pouvoir est le cœur de l’irrationnel »20. « Mon livre est vraiment imprégné d’une certaine littérature française, qui a sa place à l’Académie depuis longtemps, et qui décortique le pouvoir, qui l’observe », confie également Giuliano da Empoli à la presse, lors la remise du Grand prix du roman de l’Académie française21.
Les limites de la rationalité
Dans Le Mage du Kremlin, tout semble à l’image du pouvoir, irrationnel, et l’intelligence humaine n’est pas capable de conjurer les passions humaines. A propos de l’entêtement de Boris Berezovsky, dont il concède l’intelligence, le narrateur Baranov commente: « Mais l’intelligence ne protège de rien, même pas de la stupidité » . De même, il élabore la stratégie numérique du Kremlin à l’international en partant de cette idée: « Il n’y a rien de plus sage que de miser sur la folie des hommes »8.
Épigraphe
« La vie est une comédie. Il faut la jouer sérieusement », Alexandre Kojève.
Réception critique
Le Mage du Kremlin reçoit un accueil critique majoritairement très positif.
Dans Le Masque et la Plume, Patricia Martin évoque « un roman absolument extraordinaire, très romanesque. On a l’impression qu’on est assis sur un canapé à côté de Poutine, qu’on est dans la tête de Poutine par le biais de Vadim dont on lit la confession » tandis que Frédéric Beigbeder confie: « C’est le meilleur premier roman que j’ai lu depuis Les Bienveillantes de Jonathan Littell. »22
Paul Vacca voit dans Les Echos « un roman glacé et brûlant à la fois. […] Porté par une actualité brûlante, ce livre moderne et visionnaire, possède de surcroît la grâce intemporelle d’un classique. L’érudition, le style et l’art du récit de Giuliano da Empoli portent cette geste brute et brutale à un niveau d’épure métaphysique. » 23
Le Mage du Kremlin est, pour Marc Lambron, un « roman d’une pénétration subtile et térébrante »10; pour Guillaume Goubert de La Croix, un livre « captivant »2. « On ne lâche pas ce livre », confirme Aurélie Marcireau de Lire magazine littéraire24.
Jérôme Garcin ne tarit pas d’éloges pour Giuliano da Empoli et son roman: « Certains diront que cet écrivain est visionnaire, d’autres qu’il connaît mieux que personne son sujet. Les deux qualités ne sont pas incompatibles. Ajoutons une troisième, le style, et on tient là un grand livre. »19
Prix littéraires
Le Mage du Kremlin remporte le Grand prix du roman de l’Académie française, avec 9 voix contre 5 à Jean Michelin pour Ceux qui restent et 3 à Pascale Robert-Diard pour La petite menteuse21. Il est également lauréat du Prix Honoré de Balzac 202225.
Le roman de Giuliano da Empoli échoue de justesse à obtenir le Prix Goncourt, finalement attribué à Vivre vite de Brigitte Giraud, au quatorzième tour et à 5 voix contre 5, la voix du président Didier Decoin étant prépondérante. Ce résultat suscite certaines déceptions, le magazine Paris Match titrant par exemple « Pourquoi “Le Mage du Kremlin” de Giuliano da Empoli aurait fait un formidable prix Goncourt »6 et Tahar Ben Jelloun, membre du jury Goncourt ayant voté pour “le Mage du Kremlin”, estime du lauréat que « C’est un petit livre, il n’y a pas d’écriture »26.
Notes et références
- ↑ « Résumé du Mage du Kremlin » [archive], sur Babelio.com
- ↑ Revenir plus haut en :a et b Guillaume Goubert, « Le Grand prix du roman de l’Académie Française à Giuliano da Empoli pour « Le Mage du Kremlin » », La Croix, 18 mai 2022 (lire en ligne [archive])
- ↑ Revenir plus haut en :a et b Valentin Etancelin, « Prix Goncourt : « Le mage du Kremlin », un livre au héros pas si fictif », Le Huffington Post, 3 novembre 2022 (lire en ligne [archive])
- ↑ Soisic Belin, « “Le Mage du Kremlin” de Giuliano Da Empoli : une plongée dans les arcanes du pouvoir russe », Marianne, 1er novembre 2022 (lire en ligne [archive])
- ↑ Macha Séry, « « Le Mage du Kremlin », de Giuliano da Empoli : le Kremlin vaut bien un roman », Le Monde, 7 mai 2022 (lire en ligne [archive])
- ↑ Revenir plus haut en :a b et c Yannick Vely, « Pourquoi «Le Mage du Kremlin» de Giuliano da Empoli aurait fait un formidable prix Goncourt », Paris Match, 3 novembre 2022 (lire en ligne [archive])
- ↑ Revenir plus haut en :a et b Gabriel Robin, « Le Mage du Kremlin : le roman de la Russie de Poutine », Atlantico.fr, 10 octobre 2022 (lire en ligne [archive])
- ↑ Revenir plus haut en :a et b Marie-Laure Delorme, « Dans « Le Mage du Kremlin », l’écrivain Giuliano da Empoli médite sur le pouvoir en Russie », Le JDD, 21 septembre 2022 (lire en ligne [archive])
- ↑ Laure Adler, « Magistral, Giuliano da Empoli », France Inter, 18 octobre 2022 (lire en ligne [archive])
- ↑ Revenir plus haut en :a et b Marc Lambron, « Giuliano da Empoli couronné par le Grand Prix de l’Académie française avec « Le Mage du Kremlin » », Le Point, 9 mai 2022 (lire en ligne [archive])
- ↑ Paul Vacca, « « Le Mage du Kremlin » : l’épopée du chaos », Les Échos, 25 avril 2022 (lire en ligne [archive])
- ↑ Laurence Houot, « “Le Mage du Kremlin” premier roman de Giuliano da Empoli en lice pour le Goncourt : plongée dans les secrets de Poutine et méditation magistrale sur le pouvoir », France Info, 31 octobre 2022 (lire en ligne [archive])
- ↑ Revenir plus haut en :a et b Juliette Bénabent, « Giuliano da Empoli : “Écrire ‘Le Mage du Kremlin’ était un défi mental” », Télérama, 27 octobre 22 (lire en ligne [archive])
- ↑ Revenir plus haut en :a et b Nathalie Funès, Elisabeth Philippe, « 10 choses à savoir sur l’écrivain Giuliano da Empoli, auteur du « Mage du Kremlin » », L’Obs, 2 novembre 2022 (lire en ligne [archive])
- ↑ Alexandra Schwartzbrod, « La mécanique Poutine, par Giuliano da Empoli et Robert Littell », Libération, 6 mai 2022 (lire en ligne [archive])
- ↑ « Ukraine: quelle prochaine cible pour Poutine ? » [archive], sur BFM TV, 22 mai 2022
- ↑ « Giuliano da Empoli : “Poutine pensait renverser le régime ukrainien et imposer le sien” » [archive], sur France Inter, 31 mars 2022
- ↑ « Les meilleurs romans, récits et essais à lire cet été : les choix du « Monde des livres » », Le Monde, 14 juillet 2022 (lire en ligne [archive])
- ↑ Revenir plus haut en :a et b Jérôme Garcin, « Dans la tête de Vladimir Poutine avec Giuliano da Empoli », L’Obs, 14 juin 2022 (lire en ligne [archive])
- ↑ Laurent Marchand, « ENTRETIEN. Giuliano da Empoli : « Le pouvoir de Poutine est construit sur une base mythologique » », Ouest France, 2 novembre 2022 (lire en ligne [archive])
- ↑ Revenir plus haut en :a et b « Giuliano da Empoli lauréat du grand prix de l’Académie française », Le Monde, 27 octobre 2022 (lire en ligne [archive])
- ↑ « Les nouveaux livres d’Isabelle Carré, Fran Lebowitz, Nick Hornby… et un inédit de Georges Perec », France Inter, 12 juin 2022 (lire en ligne [archive])
- ↑ Paul Vacca, « « Le Mage du Kremlin » couronné par l’Académie française », Les Echos, 27 octobre 2022 (lire en ligne [archive])
- ↑ « Prix Goncourt 2022 : l’avis de « Lire Magazine littéraire » sur les quatre livres nommés », Ouest France, 3 novembre 2022 (lire en ligne [archive])
- ↑ « Fiche du Mage du Kremlin » [archive], sur Lireka.com
- ↑ https://www.rtl.fr/culture/arts-spectacles/prix-goncourt-2022-c-est-un-petit-livre-il-n-y-a-pas-d-ecriture-tacle-tahar-ben-jelloun-7900202332/amp [archive]
Liens externes
- Notices d’autorité :
- Le Mage du Kremlin [archive] sur le site des éditions Gallimard
………………..
The Magician Of the Kremlin – A Novel With Putin – by Giuliano da Empoli – Review – Summary
The Kremlin Magician from Wikipedia Translated by Machine from the French
| The Kremlin Mage | |
| Author | Giuliano da Empoli |
|---|---|
| Country | France |
| Gender | Novel |
| Editor | Editions Gallimard |
| Collection | White |
| Release date | April 14, 2022 |
| Number of pages | 288 |
| modify | |
The Mage of the Kremlin is a novel by Giuliano da Empoli published in April 2022 by Gallimard. The same year, he won the Grand Prix du roman de l’Académie française and appeared in the final of the Prix Goncourt, which was finally awarded in the fourteenth round, by 5 votes to 5, to Vivre vite by Brigitte Giraud.
Summary
The author recounts his imagined encounter, one night in Moscow, with the enigmatic Vadim Baranov, once an artist, producer of reality TV shows and éminence grise of Vladimir Putin, nicknamed the Tsar. Retired from business at the time of the story, Vadim Baranov recounts his youth, his life in the 1990s in Russia, his contribution to the political rise of the “Tsar” from 1999 and his experience of power, central theme of the book1.
Elements of reality
A character inspired by Vladislav Surkov
The Mage of the Kremlin is imbued with “a disturbing veracity”, in the words of journalist Guillaume Goubert de La Croix2.
The main character of the plot, Vadim Baranov is fictional, but he shares many common traits with Vladislav Surkov, also with an atypical profile: rap lover, avant-garde theater director, writer and businessman.3. Like Baranov, Surkov was Vladimir Putin’s shadow man, “a poet among wolves,” according to Marianne magazine.4.
The author Giuliano da Empoli presents The Mage of the Kremlin as part of the literary salon of the Rachmaninoff Conservatory hosted by Erwan Barillot in October 2022.
It was while researching his previous book, The Engineers of Chaos, an essay devoted to the advisers of populist leaders, that Giuliano da Empoli became familiar with the figure of Vladislav Surkov, to whom he wished to devote a novel in its own right. “He’s so romanticistic that he liberated me and pushed me to become a novelist,” says the author.5, who also admits that he has never met him in person.6.
Vladimir Putin
The novel is based on numerous historical facts, many of which feature Vladimir Putin, one of the central characters in the novel. His arrival comes amid a demand for authority sparked by the chaos of the 1990s in Russia.7. “[The Russians] had grown up in a homeland and suddenly found themselves in a supermarket,” Baranov says through Giuliano da Empoli.8.
Advised by Baranov, “the Tsar” responded to this request for authority during historical events such as the Second Chechen War, the presidential election of 2000, the sinking of the Kursk submarine, the hostage-taking of the Moscow theater in 2002 or the Orange Revolution in 2004. “In The Mage of the Kremlin, we follow Putin’s metamorphosis,” sums up journalist Laure Adler.9. For Marc Lambron, Giuliano da Empoli’s novel is “an oral fresco running from the Yeltsin years to the beginnings of the current war in Ukraine. »10.
The character of Vladimir Putin is portrayed with the eyes of Vadim Baranov, exclusive narrator of the novel from chapter 311. Although he fell out of favor and was assigned to his home, Vadim Baranov is still fascinated by the personality of the “Tsar”, to whom he sometimes lends divine characteristics. “He sees and forgives everything,” he exclaims, for example.
Other real characters present in the novel
In addition to Vladimir Putin, many characters who actually existed are protagonists of the Mage du Kremlin7. Boris Berezovsky, businessman and television magnate, is Vadim Baranov’s employer. He introduced him for the first time to Vladimir Putin, then lieutenant-colonel of the FSB (ex-KGB), at the Lubyanka headquarters. The depression and suicide of Boris Berezovsky following his disgrace are also depicted. The oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky occupies an important place in the novel: he woos and marries Vadim Baranov’s concubine before being arrested for fraud in 2003, in accordance with historical reality.12.
Vadim Baranov meets other historical figures during the story: Vladimir Putin’s loyal Igor Sechin, chess player and opponent Garry Kasparov, ideologue Édouard Limonov and US President Bill Clinton, who asks for news of his “friend Boris Yeltsin“. »13.
Actuality of the novel
Giuliano da Empoli submitted his manuscript in January 2021. The novel should have been published the same year, but the covid-19 pandemic delays its publication14. Finally published in April 2022, less than two months after the start of the Russo-Ukrainian war, The Mage of the Kremlin is carried by the news. “As soon as it was published, we sold it in the literature section and also on the table dedicated to current events,” says a bookseller.13.
The Kremlin Mage portrays relations between Russia and Ukraine since the Orange Revolution and provides several keys to explaining the conflict. For Alexandra Schwartzbrod of Libération, it is a “story of great literary and historical strength that must be read if we want to understand what, from here, seems incomprehensible”15. For Yannick Vely of Paris Match, the book “makes it possible to understand the causes of the Ukrainian conflict”.6». The author Giuliano da Empoli is regularly invited on television and radio to present his novel in the context of the news of the conflict16,17.
The book nevertheless goes beyond the timeliness of its publication, as Macha Séry notes in Le Monde des Livres: “Certainly this novel, completed by the author in January 2021, sheds light on geopolitical news. But he will outlive him by his implacable lucidity and sparkling style. »18
Themes of the book
The Mage of the Kremlin carries an educational and philosophical ambition. For Jérôme Garcin, “certain well-tempered formulas recall the French moralists and memorialists of the seventeenth century”19, including La Rochefoucauld14.
Power as artistic expression
Giuliano da Empoli’s book is a meditation on power. For Vadim Baranov, it is a form of artistic expression, as is avant-garde theatre. Vladislav Surkov, whose character is inspired, is the founder of key concepts in the ideology of the Kremlin: “sovereign democracy” and “the vertical of power”.3.
“Putin’s power is built on a mythological basis,” says the author, who was himself an adviser to Matteo Renzi, the former president of the Italian Council. He specifies: “From my point of view, the heart of power is the heart of the irrational”20. “My book is really imbued with a certain French literature, which has had its place at the Academy for a long time, and which dissects the power, which observes it,” Giuliano da Empoli also confided to the press, during the presentation of the Grand prix du roman de l’Académie française.21.
The limits of rationality
In The Mage of the Kremlin, everything seems to be in the image of power, irrational, and human intelligence is not able to ward off human passions. About the stubbornness of Boris Berezovsky, whose intelligence he concedes, the narrator Baranov comments: “But intelligence does not protect from anything, not even from stupidity”. Similarly, he develops the Kremlin’s international digital strategy based on this idea: “There is nothing wiser than betting on the folly of men.”8.
Epigraph
“Life is a comedy. We must play it seriously”, Alexandre Kojève.
Critical reception
The Mage of the Kremlin received a mostly positive critical reception.
In Le Masque et la Plume, Patricia Martin evokes “an absolutely extraordinary novel, very romantic. We have the impression that we are sitting on a sofa next to Putin, that we are in Putin’s head through Vadim whose confession we read” while Frédéric Beigbeder confides: “This is the best first novel I have read since Jonathan Littell’s The Benevolent Women.”22
Paul Vacca sees in Les Echos “a novel icy and burning at the same time. […] Driven by burning news, this modern and visionary book also has the timeless grace of a classic. Giuliano da Empoli’s erudition, style and art of narrative take this raw and brutal gesture to a level of metaphysical purity. » 23
The Mage of the Kremlin is, for Marc Lambron, a “novel of subtle and terebrant penetration”10; for Guillaume Goubert de La Croix, a “captivating” book2. “We don’t let go of this book,” confirms Aurélie Marcireau of Lire magazine littéraire24.
Jérôme Garcin is full of praise for Giuliano da Empoli and his novel: “Some will say that this writer is visionary, others that he knows his subject better than anyone. The two qualities are not incompatible. Add a third, style, and we have a great book. »19
Literary prizes
Le Mage du Kremlin won the Grand Prix du roman de l’Académie française, with 9 votes against 5 for Jean Michelin for Ceux qui reste and 3 for Pascale Robert-Diard for La petite menteuse21tag. He is also the winner of the Prix Honoré de Balzac 202225.
Giuliano da Empoli’s novel narrowly failed to win the Prix Goncourt, finally awarded to Brigitte Giraud’s Vivre vite, in the fourteenth round and by 5 votes to 5, the voice of President Didier Decoin being preponderant. This result caused some disappointment, with the magazine Paris Match headlining for example “Why “The Mage of the Kremlin” by Giuliano da Empoli would have made a formidable Prix Goncourt”6 and Tahar Ben Jelloun, member of the Goncourt jury who voted for “the Mage of the Kremlin”, believes of the winner that “It’s a small book, there is no writing”26.
Notes and references
- ↑ “Summary of the Kremlin Mage” [archive], on Babelio.com
- ↑ Revenir plus haut en :has and b Guillaume Goubert, « Le Grand prix du roman de l’Académie Française à Giuliano da Empoli pour « Le Mage du Kremlin » », La Croix, 18 May 2022 (read online [archive])
- ↑ Revenir plus haut en :has and b Valentin Etancelin, “Prix Goncourt: “The mage of the Kremlin”, a book with a not-so-fictional hero”, The Huffington Post, November 3, 2022 (read online [archive])
- ↑ Soisic Belin, « “The Mage of the Kremlin” by Giuliano Da Empoli: a dive into the mysteries of Russian power », Marianne, 1er November 2022 (read online [archive])
- ↑ Macha Séry, “The Mage of the Kremlin”, by Giuliano da Empoli: the Kremlin is well worth a novel”, Le Monde, May 7, 2022 (read online [archive])
- ↑ Revenir plus haut en :has B and C Yannick Vely, “Why “The Mage of the Kremlin” by Giuliano da Empoli would have made a formidable Goncourt Prize”, Paris Match, November 3, 2022 (read online [archive])
- ↑ Revenir plus haut en :has and b Gabriel Robin, “The Kremlin Mage: Putin’s Russian Novel,” Atlantico.fr, October 10, 2022 (read online [archive])
- ↑ Revenir plus haut en :has and b Marie-Laure Delorme, “In “The Mage of the Kremlin”, the writer Giuliano da Empoli meditates on power in Russia”, Le JDD, September 21, 2022 (read online [archive])
- ↑ Laure Adler, “Magistral, Giuliano da Empoli”, France Inter, October 18, 2022 (read online [archive])
- ↑ Revenir plus haut en :has and b Marc Lambron, “Giuliano da Empoli crowned by the Grand Prix de l’Académie française with “Le Mage du Kremlin””, Le Point, May 9, 2022 (read online [archive])
- ↑ Paul Vacca, “The Mage of the Kremlin”: the epic of chaos”, Les Échos, April 25, 2022 (read online [archive])
- ↑ Laurence Houot, “”The Mage of the Kremlin” first novel by Giuliano da Empoli in the running for the Goncourt: diving into Putin’s secrets and masterful meditation on power”, France Info, October 31, 2022 (read online [archive])
- ↑ Revenir plus haut en :has and b Juliette Bénabent, “Giuliano da Empoli: “Writing ‘The Mage of the Kremlin’ was a mental challenge””, Télérama, 27 October 22 (read online [archive])
- ↑ Revenir plus haut en :has and b Nathalie Funès, Elisabeth Philippe, “10 things to know about the writer Giuliano da Empoli, author of the “Mage of the Kremlin””, L’Obs, November 2, 2022 (read online [archive])
- ↑ Alexandra Schwartzbrod, “Putin mechanics, by Giuliano da Empoli and Robert Littell”, Libération, May 6, 2022 (read online [archive])
- ↑ “Ukraine: what next target for Putin?” [archive], on BFM TV, May 22, 2022
- ↑ “Giuliano da Empoli: ‘Putin thought of overthrowing the Ukrainian regime and imposing his own’” [archive], on France Inter, March 31, 2022
- ↑ “The best novels, stories and essays to read this summer: the choices of the “World of Books””, Le Monde, July 14, 2022 (read online [archive])
- ↑ Revenir plus haut en :has and b Jérôme Garcin, “In the head of Vladimir Putin with Giuliano da Empoli”, L’Obs, June 14, 2022 (read online [archive])
- ↑ Laurent Marchand, “INTERVIEW. Giuliano da Empoli: “Putin’s power is built on a mythological foundation””, Ouest France, November 2, 2022 (read online [archive])
- ↑ Revenir plus haut en :has and b “Giuliano da Empoli laureate of the Grand Prix de l’Académie française”, Le Monde, October 27, 2022 (read online [archive])
- ↑ « The new books of Isabelle Carré, Fran Lebowitz, Nick Hornby… et un inédit de Georges Perec », France Inter, 12 June 2022 (read online [archive])
- ↑ Paul Vacca, “”The Mage of the Kremlin” crowned by the French Academy”, Les Echos, October 27, 2022 (read online [archive])
- ↑ “Prix Goncourt 2022: the opinion of “Lire Magazine littéraire” on the four nominated books”, Ouest France, November 3, 2022 (read online [archive])
- ↑ “File of the Mage of the Kremlin” [archive], on Lireka.com
- ↑ https://www.rtl.fr/culture/arts-spectacles/prix-goncourt-2022-c-est-un-petit-livre-il-n-y-a-pas-d-ecriture-tacle-tahar-ben-jelloun-7900202332/amp [archive]
External links
- Authority records:
- The Mage of the Kremlin [archive] on the website of Gallimard editions
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“Le Mage du Kremlin” – quatre partie – Audio Mp3
France: Bridging Understanding of Putin A Little Too Far From The Narrative – “The Wizard of the Kremlin” Ou “Le Mage du Kremlin”
There are “two things that Russians require from the state: internal order and external power.”
So says a fictional President Vladimir V. Putin in “Le Mage du Kremlin,” or “The Wizard of the Kremlin,” a novel exploring the inner workings of his government that has captivated France, winning prizes and selling over 430,000 copies. Published shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine last February, the novel has become a popular guide for understanding Mr. Putin’s motives. It has also turned its Swiss-Italian author, Giuliano da Empoli, into a coveted “Kremlinologist,” invited to lunch with the French prime minister and to France’s top morning news show to analyze the war’s developments.
The success has illustrated the continued power of literature in France, where novels have long shaped public debate. Élisabeth Borne, the prime minister, said through a spokesman that she “really enjoyed his book, which mixes fiction and reality and echoes international current events and the war in Ukraine.”
But in a country where literary hits are a kind of Rorschach test, the novel’s success has also raised concerns about whether it is shaping France’s views on Russia. Its detractors say the book conveys a largely sympathetic portrayal of Mr. Putin that may influence policy in a country that is already chastised as too forgiving of the Russian leader.
“The Wizard of the Kremlin,” which at times reads like an essay, is built around a fictionalized account of a powerful longtime Putin aide musing on Western decadence, the United States’ goal of bringing Russia to “its knees” and Russians’ preference for a strong leader — typical Kremlin talking points that critics say go unchallenged throughout the pages.
At best, the book’s popularity echoes what Gérard Araud, the former French ambassador to the United States, called “a kind of French fascination with Russia” fueled by a shared history of revolution, empire and cultural masterpieces.
At worst, critics say, it signals lenient views of Mr. Putin that are enduring in France and may shape the country’s stance on the war, as reflected in President Emmanuel Macron’s calls not to humiliate Russia.
“The book conveys the clichés of Russian propaganda with a few small nuances,” said Cécile Vaissié, a political scientist specializing in Russia at Rennes 2 University. “When I see its success, that worries me.”
Dissecting politics was nothing new to Mr. da Empoli. A former deputy mayor of Florence, Italy, and adviser to an Italian prime minister, he has already published a dozen political essays in Italian and French, including one on Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential run.
But Mr. da Empoli wanted to try fiction and had a “fascination” with the way Russian power is projected. So he modeled his debut novel’s narrator on one of the country’s most intriguing figures, Vladislav Y. Surkov.
“The challenge of the book is to take the devil’s point of view,” Mr. da Empoli said.
Until recently, Mr. Surkov was Mr. Putin’s chief ideologist and one of the architects of the extreme centralized control exerted by Mr. Putin, earning him a reputation as a puppet master and the title, “Putin’s Rasputin.”
“The character’s rather novelistic nature struck me,” said Mr. da Empoli, a soft-spoken, restrained 49-year-old who now teaches at Sciences Po university in Paris. He added that he had visited Russia four times and had read numerous essays on the country’s politics and the Putin regime during his research.
The narrator chronicles the inner workings of Mr. Putin’s government. He crosses paths with real-life Kremlin players like Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the founder of the infamous Wagner mercenary group, with whom he sets up troll farms to spread disinformation and division in the West.
Mr. da Empoli handed in his manuscript to Gallimard, his publisher, two years ago. He said he did not expect much for his first attempt at fiction.
Then came Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The novel, which had long been scheduled for publication in the spring, was one of the first new looks at Mr. Putin. It soon became the talk of the town.
“I don’t go to a dinner or a lunch without offering the book,” said Hélène Carrère d’Encausse, a specialist in Russian history who has condemned the war but who has also previously defended Mr. Putin. “It’s a key to understanding Putin.”
Hubert Védrine, a former French foreign minister, said that “the word of mouth was so good” that he felt compelled to read the novel, which he described as “incredibly credible.”
“The Wizard of the Kremlin” was the fifth best-selling book in France in 2022. It received a prize from the Académie Française and fell short of the Goncourt, France’s most prestigious literary award, by only one vote after an extraordinary 14 rounds of voting.
Top politicians and diplomats publicly praised the novel. Édouard Philippe, a former prime minister, hailed it as a great “meditation on power.” Mr. da Empoli was invited on every talk show to analyze the current conflict.
“Circumstances have obviously changed the way the book was received,” said Mr. da Empoli, who sees his novel more as political fiction than as a guide to understanding Russia. “I didn’t necessarily expect that.”
He was not the only one surprised.
Several Russia experts have expressed dismay at the novel’s enthusiastic reception. They say the book is mostly indulgent about Mr. Putin, portraying him as fighting oligarchs for the good of the people and “putting Russia back on its feet” in the face of Western contempt.
In one passage, the narrator describes the pride of Russians upon learning that Mr. Putin had paid a surprise visit to troops fighting in Chechnya on Jan. 1, 2000, his first day as president. “There was a leader in charge again,” he says. Françoise Thom, a professor of Russian history at the Sorbonne, said these descriptions “completely conceal the sordid dimension of the Putin reality” and are “very close to the Russian propaganda image.”
Ms. Vaissié, the political scientist, put it more bluntly. “It’s a bit like Russia Today for Saint-Germain-des-Prés,” she said, referring to the Kremlin-funded television channel and the Paris redoubt of the French literary elite.
Several French diplomats disagreed, arguing that the novel, if anything, is a useful look into the thinking of the Putin government.
“We have to hear this speech, too,” said Sylvie Bermann, a former French ambassador in Moscow. “It doesn’t mean that we agree with it.”
French right-wing groups have long sung Mr. Putin’s praises. And prominent intellectuals, like Ms. Carrère d’Encausse, have endorsed the Kremlin’s view that the West humiliated Russia after the end of the Cold War. Under normal circumstances, “The Wizard of the Kremlin” might have fueled a harmless literary quarrel of the sort that periodically grips France.
But not in a time of war.
The arguments over the book are occurring just when divisions persist in Europe over how to deal with Mr. Putin. While Eastern European countries like Poland say he must be defeated outright, Western European nations like France have wavered between unequivocal financial and military support of Ukraine and reaching out to Mr. Putin.
“This book has become almost a textbook of history and politics for French leaders,” said Alexandre Melnik, a former Russian diplomat who opposes Mr. Putin. He pointed to Mr. Macron’s remarks that appeared sympathetic to Russia’s grievances. Three presidential advisers declined to say, or said they did not know, whether Mr. Macron had read the novel.
Mr. Védrine, the former foreign minister, who has sometimes advised Mr. Macron on Russia, acknowledged that if the French president read the book, it would not lead him to adopt an aggressive stance toward Russia. He added that he saw a medium-term benefit to the book’s popularity: making the case for reaching out to Mr. Putin, “when it will be acceptable.”
“The Wizard of the Kremlin” was released in Italian this past summer, selling about 20,000 copies and earning praise in Italy as a great novel. Nearly 30 translations have been released or are on their way, including into English, but not into Russian or Ukrainian, so far. Mr. da Empoli said that his only aim was to write a “credible” novel, nothing more. “The book, once it’s out,” he said, “has its own life.”
Under The Volcano – Malcolm Lowry – Opening Exerpt (14:58 min) Audio Mp3 – Radio Dramatization (1:05:55 min)
Today I was thinking of “Under The Volcano” and how I didn’t think much of the story of a hopeless drunk stumbling around a Mexican town, even if the movie was colorful and accurate and looked like the experience. Then I bumped into one reference after another to the work. In one day. So, I looked the text up on Fadedpage.com (https://www.fadedpage.com/books/20170345/html.php) and there it was and I made a fifteen minute machine recording which is not bad.
And then I found a radio drama that is interesting. I’m listening. The actors are good.
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This video has some of the ideas I had when I thought of ‘Under the Volcano’ earlier today. Who cares what happens to the man in the story? I don’t. Listening to the text read aloud I could see more of the charm in the telling of the story. I’ll drink to that.
“Under the Volcano made me realize that a lot of the problems I have with 20th century literature come down to ignoble characters, a lack of stakes, and and a fundamentally pessimistic view of the human condition.” The video commenter posts below.
The Castle of Otranto (Comic) – Adventures into the Unknown – Issue 001
Adventures into the Unknown was a quarterly comic produced by America’s Greatest Comics. This issue came out in the fall of 1948 and contained eight stories. This seven-page story, The Castle of Otranto, is an adaptation of the famous tale by Horace Walpole written in 1768. Its script is credited to Frank Belknap Long, while pencils and inks are credited to Al Ulmer.
Characters include Alfonso Otranto; Manfred; Isabella; Theodore (heir to Otranto Castle); Justin; Anne.
The Castle of Otranto – by Horace Walpole – Abridged (31:37 min) Audio Mp3 https://ia802204.us.archive.org/33/items/ssc_101_2203_librivox/ssc101_10_various_128kb.mp3
This work is in the public domain and may be copied, reproduced, adapted, and distributed freely.
(Archived – https://archive.ph/bB2Hq )
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See Also: Haunted House (Comic) – Adventures into the Unknown – Issue 001
Archived https://archive.ph/v28qH
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See Also: It Walked By Night
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See Also: The Living Ghost
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See Also: The Werewolf Stalks
US Leftists Call To “Abolish the Police” Under Capitalism? (Internationalist Group) July 2020
Opportunist Word Games to Justify Tailing Democrats
New York City DSA at June 29 march to NYC City Hall to pressure city council to reduce NYPD budget. Calls to “defund” and “abolish” the police under capitalism serve to tie protests against police brutality to Democrats’ budget maneuvers. (Photo: Javier Soriano)
As activists call to “defund” the police while Democratic leaders call for more funds to the cops, in a presidential election pitting “shoot the looters” Trump vs. “shoot ’em in the legs” Biden, the Democratic Party is worried about energizing young voters in particular, especially if protests against racist police killings pick up again later in the summer. Biden-Sanders need a little help from the opportunist left, to get out a “Dump Trump” vote in November. Early on, Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Democratic (Party) Socialists of America (DSA) star, called to “defund the over-funded police.”1 More recently, the DSA has been carrying banners to “Disarm – Defund – Abolish” the police. On June 29, the New York DSA, towing behind it a raft of groups nominally to its left, called a “Mass March to Defund the NYPD & Abolish the Police.”
The knee-jerk answer to this would be, “you and whose army?” The idea that a central pillar maintaining capitalist rule would disappear as a result of a referendum, legislative act or charter amendment is liberal/reformist illusion-peddling of the highest order, no matter how much “mass pressure” is thrown in. This is akin to the 2018 liberal/reformist calls to “Abolish I.C.E.” (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), which – as Ocasio-Cortez made clear – just meant replacing it with some other form of immigration cops. Whether I.C.E. or its predecessor, the INS, it’s still the hated migra. Today, if something purporting to “abolish the police” were enacted, it would simply substitute some other form of “reimagined” policing. And since racial oppression is intrinsic to U.S. capitalism, the liberal/reformist formulas actually mean that the imagined “peace officers,” “community police,” “public safety agents” or whatever they are called, would in fact be maintaining racist, capitalist “law and order.”
Leftists who help prettify this reality are, whatever their intentions or wishful thinking, helping to deceive and politically disarm the working class and anti-racist youth on a question that is literally one of life or death for all the oppressed: the nature of the capitalist state. (cont. https://archive.ph/xq8tx )
Some Shakespeare Sonnets and Lilliput – The Video (4:37 min) Audio Mp3
Five Years after Ursula K. Le Guin’s Death, We Need Her More Than Ever – by Jason Koslowski (Left Voice) 22 Jan 2023
We lost Ursula K. Le Guin five years ago, on January 22, 2018.
She was one of the most influential science fiction authors in the history of the English language. She wrote 23 novels (mostly science fiction), alongside sheaves of short stories, poems, children’s books, and essays. She helped pioneer a feminist, radically critical sci-fi.
Her novels have been rereleased continually over the past few decades, to near universal acclaim. Her influence is clear on such major writers today as Neil Gaiman and N. K. Jemison, and literary theorists like Darko Suvin. Her work has been taken up by major best-selling book series and mega-hit movies (usually they don’t even mention her). The first book of the Earthsea series (about a school for wizards) is almost certainly the source of Harry Potter. And Avatar, and now its sequel, are clearly ripped from the pages of The Word for World Is Forest. Why this influence, 40 years after her major novels were penned?
At least part of the answer is this: we haven’t gotten past the problems Le Guin flung herself against. A new age of imperialist slaughter was dawning while she was writing most of her main novels in the 1960s and 1970s. In the years that followed, the ruling class executed its neoliberal smashing of the forces that resisted it, dismantling the powers of the working class and oppressed who rose up across the globe and in the United States. She gives artistic voice to the brutality and decay of capitalist imperialism, to the fate of the forces that opposed them — and to the potential for revolution.
(cont. https://archive.ph/6mq2v )
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Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde – R. L. Stevenson – Audiobook Abridged (50:32 min) Audio Mp3
Book Review – Under the Iron Heel: The Wobblies and the Capitalist War on Radical Workers, by Ahmed White – 2022
Under the Iron Heel: The Wobblies and the Capitalist War on Radical Workers, by Ahmed White. University of California Press, 2022.
Ahmed White’s Under the Iron Heel: The Wobblies and the Capitalist War on Radical Workers is a comprehensive account of the campaign waged by the American state to destroy the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, or “Wobblies”) in the decade surrounding the First World War.
The IWW was founded in 1905 in Chicago at a gathering its first president, William “Big Bill” Haywood, of the Western Federation of Miners, named “the Continental Congress of the Working Class.” It called for the building of “One Big Union” that would encompass all workers in all industries, regardless of distinctions of skill, nationality, race, or sex. The working masses united, a great general strike would then do away with capitalist private property, liberate “the wage slaves,” and usher in the commonwealth of labor. The Wobblies declared open war not only on capitalism, but on the conservative “labor lieutenants of capital” in the American Federation of Labor (AFL), who had managed to organize less than 10 percent of the workforce by 1905 and whose member unions, as a rule, rejected industrial and unskilled workers, and often maintained racist and anti-immigrant exclusion clauses.
(cont. https://archive.ph/HXMnF )
One Hour of Kenyan Communist Music (1:03:15 min) Audio Mp3
Georgetown – The Movie – Illustrated Review (11:53 min)
One Hour of Soviet Belarussian Music – Audio Mp3
One Hour of Haitian National Music (1:01:09 min) Audio Mp3
Unflinching Prisoners of a Grandiose Make-Believe – Jan Valtin’s 1941 memoir of revolutionary fervor – by Colin Asher – 10 Jan 2023
Jan Valtin’s 1941 memoir of revolutionary fervor, suffering, and lost faith.
Richard Krebs, alias Jan Valtin, memoirist, spy, and revolutionary. | Mr. Moonlight
(The text of the book can be found at Canadian Fadedpage.com – https://www.fadedpage.com/showbook.php?pid=20140897)
IT IS UNLIKELY that anyone reading this essay will recognize the title of the 1941 autobiography Out of the Night or the name Jan Valtin, which appeared on its spine, but in the months following that book’s release it would have been challenging to remain ignorant of either. Two reviews of the book ran in the New York Times, one on the cover of the Book Review. (“Wildly adventurous and deeply tragic,” one said. “A book of astonishing revelations,” the other proclaimed.) The Nation, the Herald Tribune, and The New Republic praised it as well, along with a host of other dailies and magazines. It was a Book-of-the-Month-Club selection; Life and Reader’s Digest each ran excerpts, and at a time when the United States had only 130 million residents, it sold a million copies. In short, it was the book of the year—the sort of text that gets written about and gossiped over so much that people who have never read a word of it feel confident debating its merits and expounding on the veracity of its claims.
(cont. https://archive.ph/rtcWo )
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Colin Asher is the author of Never a Lovely So Real: The Life and Work of Nelson Algren and the forthcoming The Midnight Special: Policing, Prisons, and American Popular Music, both from W.W. Norton.
JFK and America’s Destiny Betrayed – A Review of DiEugenio’s “Foreign Policy Coup” Theory – by LAURENT GUYÉNOT – 21 Jan 2023
• 6,500 WORDS •
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I have watched Oliver Stone’s documentary on the assassination of JFK, both the short version, JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass, and the long version in four episodes, JFK: Destiny Betrayed. I recommend the latter, which I will discuss here. Although the technical parts (the bullets, the autopsy, Oswald’s CIA handlers) are interesting and partly new, I will focus exclusively on the theory regarding the main culprits and their motive. And I will discuss the larger work of James DiEugenio, who wrote the film—and probably interviewed the different contributors, although Stone appears to be doing it.
James DiEugenio has been investigating the Kennedy presidency and the Kennedy assassination from the time of the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB), which was largely a consequence of Oliver Stone’s Hollywood film JFK (1991). His first book was Destiny Betrayed: JFK, Cuba, and the Garrison Case (1992, newly edited in 2012). In 1993, he founded Citizens for Truth about the Kennedy Assassination (CTKA), and co-edited Probe Magazine, now replaced by the website KennedysandKing.com.
In 1997, DiEugenio published a powerful two-part book-length article, “the Posthumous Assassination of JFK” (1997). It is still essential reading for anyone interested in the controversies surrounding Kennedy’s presidency and assassination, or puzzled by the unending stream of bizarre Kennedy lore. This is the text you want to send to anyone telling you about the Kennedys’ mafia dealings and unrestrained sex life, their murder of Marilyn Monroe, or Bobby’s irresponsible assassination plots against Castro that backfired on his brother. These stories are so widespread, repeated in well-published and well-reviewed books, that millions of people assume them to be documented. Writing on the occasion of the release of Seymour Hersh’s The Dark Side of Camelot, DiEugenio exposed their fraudulent nature and their true motivation: the obsession to “smother any legacy that might linger,” for “assassination is futile if a man’s ideas live on through others.” This flow of defamation had started in the 70s, as a counter-fire to the Church Committee and the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), and intensified in the 1990s after the ARRB. It never dried up. (cont. https://archive.ph/n0Zq0 )
Catherine Perez-Shakdam: The ‘Israeli Spy’ Who ‘Inflitrated’ Mintpress – by Alan MacLeod – Jan 2023
A storm of controversy erupted earlier this year in Iran, after local media outlets announced that a “Mossad spy” and “Israeli infiltrator” had gained the trust of the country’s senior leadership, penetrated into the highest halls of power, and had even been employed as a writer for Ayatollah Khamenei himself.
Although the stories did not disclose the name of the infiltrator, it was clear that the individual in question was Catherine Perez-Shakdam. Almost immediately, Iranian media such as Press TV and The Tehran Times began silently but furiously removing all her content from their pages. Perhaps most worrying from an Iranian government perspective, Khamenei.ir, Ayatollah Khamenei’s own website, had to delete her articles and disavow her.
Catherine Perez-Shakdam is a French-born journalist and analyst who had married a Yemeni man, converted to Shia Islam and wore a hijab. In her professional life, she penned articles denouncing Israeli and Saudi crimes, lionized armed Palestinian resistance, and supported the Iranian government. She had earlier also been a frequent contributor to MintPress News – a fact that likely bolstered her anti-imperialist credibility. (cont. https://archive.ph/YCYM5 )
Republish our stories! MintPress News is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 International License.
Alice in Wonderland – Audiobook Abridged (2:36:03 min) Audio Mp3
The Trials of Rumpole – Read by Leo McKern (2:21:53 min) Audio Mp3
Rumpole of the Bailey – Read by Leo McKern – Abridged (2:42:36 min) Audio Mp3
Jamaica Inn – by Daphne Du Maurier – Audiobook Abridged (2:38:14 min) Audio Mp3
The First Men in the Moon – by H. G. Wells – Audiobook Abridged (1:07:37 min) Mp3
The War of The Worlds – H. G. Wells – Audiobook Abridged (1:50:25 min) Mp3
George Orwell – Down and Out in Paris and London – Audiobook Abridged (2:29:54 min) Audio Mp3
The Natural – by Bernard Malamud – Audiobook Abridged (2:05:46 min) Audio Mp3
A Flag For Boston’s Revolutionary Doctor – Antoinette Konikow: A Trotskyist To The End (The Militant) 1946
US University Psychology Studies – Liberal ‘Researchers’ Lie – by Edward Dutton – 12 Jan 2023
It’s Official: Leftist Researchers Lie. That’s Why Universities Are Doomed
With a few glaring exceptions, such as the late James Flynn, leftists are systematically less interested in the truth than conservatives. Or to put it more bluntly, they lie more often. Thus a major research project has shown that, when findings in psychology have proven fraudulent, the findings almost always support leftist ideology.
Leftists lie for myriad reasons. One is that they are systematically more mentally unbalanced than conservatives. High in Machiavellianism and vulnerable Narcissism, they crave status and adoration to deal with their feelings of low self-esteem, powerlessness and high mental instability. Those feelings cause them to fear a fair fight, and they therefore seek power covertly by virtue signalling about such matters as “equality.” This is particularly true for women: Over half of young, female leftists suffer anxiety or depression.
aterial that are nothing but leftist lies. Which is another reason why we can expect the College Bubble to burst.
(cont. https://archive.ph/8L4Or )
Edward Dutton (email him | Tweet him) is Professor of Evolutionary Psychology at Asbiro University, Łódź, Poland.
Worzel Gummidge – by B. E. Todd – Read By Jon Pertwee – Audiobook (2:32:04 min) Audio Mp3
Shane – by Jack Schaefer – Audiobook Abridged (2:02:52 min)
The Starrett family’s life forever changes when a man named Shane rides out of the great glowing West and up to their farm in 1889. Young Bob Starrett is entranced by this stoic stranger who brings a new energy to his family. Shane stays on as a farmhand, but his past remains a mystery. Many folks in their small Wyoming valley are suspicious of Shane, and make it known that he is not welcome. But as dangerous as Shane may seem, he is a staunch friend to the Starretts – and when a powerful neighboring rancher tries to drive them out of their homestead, Shane becomes entangled in the deadly feud. This classic western, originally published in 1949, is a profoundly moving story of the influence of a singular character on one boy’s life.
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“I had lain in my bed thinking of our visitor out in the bunk in the barn. It scarce seemed possible that he was the same man I had first seen, stern and chilling in his dark solitude, riding up our road. Something in father, something not of words or of actions, but of the essential substance of the human spirit, had reached out and spoken to him and he had replied to it and had unlocked a part of himself to us. He was far off and unapproachable at times even when he was right there with you.”
Doctor Zhivago – by Boris Pasternak – Audiobook Abridged (2:53:11 min) Mp3
Journey To The Centre of the Earth – Jules Verne – Audiobook Abridged – Mp3
Robinson Crusoe – Defoe – Abridged Audiobook (1:54:33 min) Audio Mp3
Moby Dick – Abridged Audiobook (2:05:50 min) Audio Mp3
The Cat Who Came To Stay – This is MY House Now
“Nice chair you have there…”
“Feed me!”
“Open the back door!”
“Open the front door!”
“Have a dead mouse.”
“Here is a live mouse I carried in my mouth from outside.”
“Pat me and get that brush with the rubber tipped bristles I like; scratch my head near my eyebrows where I can’t reach.”
“I’m bored, do something!”
“I like sleeping in the center of ‘our’ bed; relax and do not move while I knead your chest through the blanket with my claws which I sharpen throughout the day.”
“I am a semi-wild animal with quick paws and sharp teeth, sleep lightly my ‘Master.'”
“Remember that time I scratched your cheek and drew blood? Good thing for you I always clean my claws, or you might have gotten infected and had a scar from a feline, and cat scratched fever.”
“You are lucky I came along and that I don’t understand much English, or any of the other languages you speak to me for practice ’cause I can’t stop you, just tone, so tone it down when I sleep for more than half the day and night…”
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Robin Hood – by Howard Pyle – Abridged Audiobook (1:53:14 min) Mp3
Robin Hood – by Howard Pyle – Abridged Audiobook (1:53:14 min) Mp3
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Camus – The Stranger – Graphic Novel Panels – Jacques Ferrandez Illustrator – Audiobook (3:24:24 min)
The Stranger – by Albert Camus – 1942 – Audiobook (3:25:24 min)
l’Étranger – d’Albert Camus – 1942 – Livre audio (3:14:04 min)
More panels in the archived article below…
The Atheist Handbook to the Old Testament: Volume 1 – by Joshua Bowen – Audiobook on Youtube (10:47:48 min)
The Time Machine – by H. G. Wells – Some Opening Graphic Novel Panels – Dobbs Moreau
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The Time Machine – Audiobook – Abridged (1:56:14 min)
Western Imperialism’s Plan To Carve Up Russia – by Mike Whitney – 5 Jan 2023
• 2,700 WORDS •
For decades, the idea of dismantling the Soviet Union and Russia has been constantly cultivated in Western countries. Unfortunately, at some point, the idea of using Ukraine to achieve this goal was conceived. In fact, to prevent such a development, we launched the special military operation (SMO). This is precisely what some western countries –led by the United States– strive for; to create an anti-Russian enclave and then threaten us from this direction. Preventing this from happening is our primary goal. Vladimir Putin
Here’s your geopolitical quiz for the day: What did Angela Merkel mean when she said “that the Cold War never really ended, because ultimately Russia was never pacified”?
- Merkel was referring to the fact that Russia has never accepted its subordinate role in the “Rules-based Order.”
- Merkel was referring to the fact that Russia’s economic collapse did not produce the ‘compliant state’ western elites had hoped for.
- Merkel is suggesting that the Cold War was never really a struggle between democracy and communism, but a 45 year-long effort to “pacify” Russia.
- What Merkel meant was that the western states –particularly the United States– do not want a strong, prosperous and independent Russia but a servile lackey that does as it is told.
- All of the above.
If you chose (5), then pat yourself on the back. That is the right answer.
Last week, Angela Merkel confirmed what many analysts have been saying for years, that Washington’s hostile relations with Russia –which date back more than a century– have nothing to do with ideology, ‘bad behavior’ or alleged “unprovoked aggression”. Russia’s primary offense is that it occupies a strategic area of the world that contains vast natural resources and which is critical to Washington’s “pivot to Asia” plan. Russia’s real crime is that its mere existence poses a threat to the globalist project to spread US military bases across Central Asia, encircle China, and become the regional hegemon in the world’s most prosperous and populous region.
So much attention has been focused on what Merkel said regarding the Minsk Treaty, that her more alarming remarks have been entirely ignored. Here is a short excerpt from a recent interview Merkel gave to an Italian magazine:
The 2014 Minsk Accords were an attempt to give Ukraine time. Ukraine used this period to become stronger, as seen today. The country of 2014/15 is not the country of today….
We all knew that it was a frozen conflict, that the problem was not solved, but this was precisely what gave Ukraine precious time.” (“Angela Merkel: Kohl took advantage of his voice and build”, Corrier Della Sera)
Merkel candidly admits that she participated in a 7 year-long fraud that was aimed at deceiving the Russian leadership into thinking that she genuinely wanted peace, but that proved not to be the case. In truth, the western powers deliberately sabotaged the treaty in order to buy-time to arm and train a Ukrainian army that would be used in a war against Russia.
But this is old news. What we find more interesting is what Merkel said following her comments on Minsk. Here’s the money-quote:
I want to talk to you about an aspect that makes me think. It’s the fact that the Cold War never really ended, because ultimately Russia was never pacified. When Putin invaded Crimea in 2014, he was excluded from the G8. In addition, NATO has deployed troops in the Baltic region, to demonstrate its readiness to intervene. And we too have decided to allocate 2% of GDP to military expenditure for defence. CDU and CSU were the only ones to have kept it in the government programme. But we too should have reacted more quickly to Russia’s aggressiveness. (“Angela Merkel: Kohl took advantage of his voice and build”, Corrier Della Sera)
Global Affairs.org
This is an astonishing admission. What Merkel is saying is that ” the Cold War never ended” because the primary goal of weakening (“pacifying”) Russia –to the point that it could not defend its own vital interests or project power beyond its borders– was not achieved. Merkel is implying that the main objective of the Cold War was not to defeat communism (as we were told) but to create a compliant Russian colony that would allow the globalist project to go forward unimpeded. As we can see in Ukraine, that objective has not been achieved; and the reason it hasn’t been achieved is because Russia is powerful enough to block NATO’s eastward expansion. In short, Russia has become the greatest-single obstacle to the globalist strategy for world domination.
It’s worth noting, that Merkel never mentions Russia’s alleged “unprovoked aggression” in Ukraine as the main problem. In fact, she makes no attempt to defend that spurious claim. The real problem according to Merkel is that Russia has not been ‘pacified’. Think about that. This suggests that the justification for the war is different than the one that is promoted by the media. What it implies is that the conflict is driven by geopolitical objectives that have been concealed behind the “invasion” smokescreen. Merkel’s comments clear the air in that regard, by identifying the real goal; pacification.
In a minute we will show that the war was triggered by “geopolitical objectives” and not Russia’s alleged “aggression”, but first we need to review the ideas that are fueling the drive to war. The main body of principles upon which America’s foreign policy rests, is the Wolfowitz Doctrine, the first draft of which was presented in the Defense Planning Guidance in 1992. Here’s a short excerpt:
Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power.
There it is in black and white: The top priority of US foreign policy “is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union.” This shows the importance that Washington and its allies place on the territory occupied by the Russian Federation. It also shows the determination of western leaders to prevent any sovereign state from controlling the area the US needs to implement its grand strategy.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Russia’s transformation into a strong and independent state has not only put it squarely in Washington’s crosshairs, but also greatly increased the chances of a direct confrontation. Simply put, Russia’s return to the ranks of the great powers has placed it on Washington’s ‘enemies list’ and a logical target for US aggression.
So, what does this have to do with Merkel?
Implicit in Merkel’s comments is the fact that the dissolution of the communist state and the collapse of the Russian economy was not sufficient to leave Russia “pacified”. She is, in fact, voicing her support for more extreme measures. And she knows what those measures will be; regime change followed by a violent splintering of the country.
Putin is well-aware of this malignant plan and has discussed it openly on many occasions. Take a look at this 2-minute video of a meeting Putin headed just weeks ago:
“The goal of our enemies is to weaken and break up our country. This has been the case for centuries.. They believe our country is too big and poses a threat (to them), which is why it must be weakened and divided. For our part, we always pursued a different approach; we always wanted to be a part of the so-called ‘civilized (western) world.’ And after the collapse of the Soviet Union, we thought we would finally become a part of that ‘world’. But, as it turned out, we weren’t welcome despite all our efforts. Our attempts to become a part of that world were rejected. Instead, they did everything they could– including assisting terrorists in the Caucasus– to finish off Russia and break-up the Russian Federation.” Vladimir Putin
The point we’re making is that Merkel’s views align seamlessly with those of the neocons. They also align with the those of the entire western political establishment that has unanimously thrown its support behind a confrontation with Russia. Additionally, the National Security Strategy, the National Defense Strategy and the Congressional Research Service’s latest report, have all shifted their focus from the war against international terrorism to a “great power competition” with Russia and China. Not surprisingly, the documents have little to do with ‘competition’, rather, they provide an ideological justification for hostilities with Russia. In other words, the United States has laid the groundwork for a direct confrontation with the world’s biggest nuclear superpower.
Check out this brief clip from the Congressional Research Service Report titled Renewed Great Power Competition: Implications for Defense—Issues for Congress:
The U.S. goal of preventing the emergence of regional hegemons in Eurasia... is a policy choice reflecting two judgments: (1) that given the amount of people, resources, and economic activity in Eurasia, a regional hegemon in Eurasia would represent a concentration of power large enough to be able to threaten vital U.S. interests; and (2) that Eurasia is not dependably self-regulating in terms of preventing the emergence of regional hegemons, meaning that the countries of Eurasia cannot be counted on to be able to prevent, though their own actions, the emergence of regional hegemons, and may need assistance from one or more countries outside Eurasia to be able to do this dependably.”….
From a U.S. perspective on grand strategy and geopolitics, it can be noted that most of the world’s people, resources, and
economic activity are located not in the Western Hemisphere, but in the other hemisphere, particularly Eurasia. In response to this basic feature of world geography, U.S. policymakers for the last several decades have chosen to pursue, as a key element of U.S. national strategy, a goal of preventing the emergence of regional hegemons in Eurasia. Although U.S. policymakers do not often state explicitly in public the goal of preventing the emergence of regional hegemons in Eurasia, U.S. military operations in recent decades—both wartime operations and day-to-day operations—appear to have been carried out in no small part in support of this goal.” (“Renewed Great Power Competition: Implications for Defense—Issues for Congress”, US Congress)
It sounds alot like the Wolfowitz Doctrine, doesn’t it? (Which suggests that Congress has moved into the neocon camp.)
There are a few things worth considering in this short excerpt:
- That “the U.S. goal of preventing the emergence of regional hegemons in Eurasia” has nothing to do with national defense. It is a straightforward declaration of war on any nation that successfully uses the free market to grow its economy. It is particularly unsettling that China on Washington’s target-list when US corporate outsourcing and offshoring have factored so large in China’s success. US industries moved their businesses to China to avoid paying anything above a slave wage. Is China to be blamed for that?
- The fact that Eurasia has more “people, resources, and economic activity” than America, does not constitute a “threat” to US national security. It only represents a threat to the ambitions of western elites who want to use the US Military to pursue their own geopolitical agenda.
- Finally: Notice how the author acknowledges that the government deliberately misleads the public about its real objectives in Central Asia. He says: “U.S. policymakers do not often state explicitly in public the goal of preventing the emergence of regional hegemons in Eurasia, U.S. military operations in recent decades—both wartime operations and day-to-day operations—appear to have been carried out in no small part in support of this goal.” In other words, all the claptrap about “freedom and democracy” is just pablum for the masses. The real goals are “resources, economic activity” and power.
The National Security Strategy and the National Defense Strategy are equally explicit in identifying Russia as a de facto enemy of the United States. This is from the NSS:
Russia poses an immediate and ongoing threat to the regional security order in Europe and it is a source of disruption and instability globally…
Russia now poses an immediate and persistent threat to international peace and stability….
Russia poses an immediate threat to the free and open international system, recklessly flouting the basic laws of the international order … This decade will be decisive, in setting the terms of …managing the acute threat posed by Russia.. (“The 2022 National Security Strategy”, White House)
And lastly, The 2022 National Defense Strategy reiterates the same themes as the others; Russia and China pose an unprecedented threat to the “rules-based order”. Here’s short summary from an article at the World Socialist Web Site:
The 2022 National Defense Strategy… makes clear that the United States …. sees the subjugation of Russia as a critical stepping stone toward the conflict with China.… The eruption of American imperialism… is more and more directly targeting Russia and China, which the United States sees as the principal obstacles to the untrammeled domination of the world. US strategists have long regarded the domination of the Eurasian landmass, with its vast natural resources, as the key to global domination.” (“Pentagon national strategy document targets China”, Andres Damon, World Socialist Web Site)
What these three strategic documents show is that the Washington BrainTrust had been preparing the ideological foundation for a war with Russia long before the first shot was ever fired in Ukraine. That war is now underway although the outcome is far from certain.
The strategy going forward appears to be a version of the Cheney Plan which recommended a break up of Russia itself, “so it could never again be a threat to the rest of the world.” Here’s more from an article by Ben Norton:
“Former US Vice President Dick Cheney, a lead architect of the Iraq War, not only wanted to dismantle the Soviet Union; he also wanted to break up Russia itself, to prevent it from rising again as a significant political power…The fact that a figure at the helm of the US government not-so-secretly sought the permanent dissolution of Russia as a country, and straightforwardly communicated this to colleagues like Robert Gates, partially explains the aggressive posturing Washington has taken toward the Russian Federation since the overthrow of the USSR.
The reality is that the US empire will simply never allow Russia to challenge its unilateral domination of Eurasia, despite the fact that the government in Moscow restored capitalism. This is why it is not surprising that Washington has utterly ignored Russia’s security concerns, breaking its promise not to expand NATO “once inch eastward” after German reunification, surrounding Moscow with militarized adversaries hell bent on destabilizing it.” (“Ex VP Dick Cheney confirmed US goal is to break up Russia, not just USSR”, Ben Norton, Multipolarista)
The carving up of Russia into several smaller statelets, has long been the dream of the neoconservatives. The difference now, is that that same dream is shared by political leaders across the West. Recent comments by Angela Merkel underscore the fact that western leaders are now committed to achieving the unrealized goals of the Cold War. They intend to use military confrontation to affect the political outcome they seek which is a significantly weakened Russia incapable of blocking Washington’s projection of power across Central Asia. A more dangerous strategy would be hard to imagine.
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Rebecca – by Daphne Du Maurier – Audiobook Abridged (2:21:11 min) Mp3
The Time Machine – H. G. Wells – Illustrated Classics Line Drawings
The Time Machine – by H. G. Wells – Abridged Audiobook (1:56:14 min) Audio Mp3
Yes, Jews Do Run Hollywood and the Media. Here’s Why it Really Matters (Daily Veracity) 19 Dec 2022
The influence of Jewish people on popular culture, particularly in Hollywood, music, and media, is undeniable. They have been instrumental in shaping the entertainment industry since its inception, and their influence continues to be felt today. This article will explore how Jews control Hollywood, music, and media, and the reasons behind their success.
First, it is important to understand the role that Jews have played in the entertainment industry. According to the Los Angeles Times, Jews have been involved in the film industry since its beginnings in the early 20th century, when the first major studio, Paramount Pictures, was founded by Jewish immigrants from Poland and Russia. Since then, Jews have played a major role in the development of the film industry, from the early days of the studio system to the modern era of independent filmmakers.
Many of the most influential figures in Hollywood have Jewish backgrounds, including Alfred Hitchcock, Steven Spielberg, and Harvey Weinstein. In addition, Jews have made up a significant portion of the executives in the media industry for years, including those at major networks like CBS, NBC, and ABC. This gives them a great deal of control over the news and entertainment that is seen on television.
(cont. https://archive.ph/Rwkiu)
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“The streets of Boson had a way of making me stop in my tracks, my heart suspended…
“The streets of Boson had a way of making me stop in my tracks, my heart suspended. They seemed saturated with presence, even if there was no one there but me. These were places where something could happen, or had happened, or both.”
“Walking Boson is often described as reading, as though the city itself were a huge anthology of tales. It exerts a magnetic attraction over its citizens and its visitors, for it has always been the capital of refugees and exiles as well as of Massachusetts.”
“The last time I see Boson will be on the day I die. The city was inexhaustible, and so is its memory.”
“The chief danger about Boson is that it is such a strong stimulant.”
“Massachusetts is my country and Boson is my hometown.”
“A walk about Boson will provide lessons in history, beauty, and in the point of life.” Horace Greeley
“Boson is not a city; it’s a world.” Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey
“To know Boson is to know a great deal.”
“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Boson as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Boson is a microwavable feast.”
“When good New Englanders die they go to Boson.”
Ernest Hemingway “There are only two places in the world where we can live happy—at home and in Boson. I’d kill myself if I lived in Idaho.”
Henry Miller “When spring comes to Boson the humblest mortal alive must feel that he dwells in paradise.”
“It took me some years to clear my head of what Boson wanted me to admire about it, and to notice what I preferred instead. Not power-ridden puritanical monuments, but individual buildings which tell a quieter story: the graffiti artist’s studio, or the 1880’s ‘Painted Lady’ built by a forgotten financier as a cat house.”
“I like The Tattle-tale Tower because it looks like steel and lace.”
“The whole of Boson is a vast university of Art, Literature and Music. It is worth anyone’s while to dally here for years. Massachusetts is a seminar, a post-graduate course in Everything.”
“Secrets travel fast in Boson.” Henry David Thoreau
“I had forgotten how gently time passes in Boson. As lively as the city is, there’s a stillness to it, a peace that lures you in. In Boson, with a glass of apple wine in your hand, you can just be.”
Friedrich Nietzsche “As an artist, a man has no home in Massachusetts save in Boson.”
xenagoguevicene 
