I’ve read the Guardian’s article by a US academic about Russian author Victor Pelevin, with interest. Chiefly, it makes we want to read Victor Pelevin. The title of the article is: “The mysterious novelist who foresaw Putin’s Russia – and then came to symbolise its moral decay”. The problem is – there is precious little evidence of this “moral decay” in the article.
There are two problems with Victor Pelevin for the author of the Guardian article. Firstly; Pelevin has not come out and denounced the “full-scale invasion of Ukraine”. Since no such thing has taken place – that is hardly surprising. The second seems to be that many years ago he allegedly behaved in a boorish and sexist manner when giving an interview to a female journalist. Prof Pinkham has interviewed three people who are introduced as Russian literary critics or columnists, (though I struggled to find public profiles for two of them), who criticise Pelevin variously as “having a creative crisis”, being “withered” and for “cowardice and opportunism”. The last criticism comes from a dissident Russian liberal now living in Cyprus, (according to the article), who was satirised in one of Pelevin’s recent novels. All three critics are women, as is Prof Pinkham.
What is missing is any discussion of how Pelevin’s work exhibits this supposed “moral decay”. There are some complaints that he writes about matters from a point of view of his personal consciousness, as he has, always, apparently done. His 2022 satire called KGBT+ which, apparently, links Russian nationalists to Western liberals is dismissed as “facile”. But there is no real, structural, discussion of how Pelevin’s work shows signs of “moral decay”. Essentially, it is the sin of omission. He has not denounced the “full-scale invasion” or taken a strong stance against Putin’s regime. “Readers can find both pro- and anti-Kremlin positions in his works of the past decade” but this is not enough: “What is the point of brooding about the prison of consciousness when political prisoners are dying?”. Apart from his alleged sexism this is his crime. He didn’t protest about Navalny. Ironically, this brings to mind a Marxist criticism of literature I once read, which argued that art which is not political and which does not agitate for social change cannot be considered art.
Prof Pinko lives in a make-belief world about Russian society: “In an atmosphere of ever-intensifying censorship, with the last traces of free political speech eradicated from Russian life, it is safest to remain out of the fray.” and “Beneath his countercultural facade, Pelevin has become a prolific exponent of contemporary Russia’s dominant religions: cynicism and quietism”. Is she writing fiction? It is not true that political free speech has been eradicated from Russia. It is true that there are two recent laws which mean people have to be very careful about discussing the background to the war or criticising the conduct of the war. But people can still criticise the leadership and say that, for example, it would be better if Russia were led by a new government. As for “cynicism” being the “dominant religion”, I really don’t see that, certainly not from ordinary people. On the contrary, living in Russia, I am often struck by the relative innocence of people, which contrasts in a nice way, with the jaded cynicism of the populations of the West. The political leadership could be described as cynical, for example, in as much as they use mass-media PR tactics to mould public opinion – but this seems to be something which happens at least as much in the West.
Obviously I need to read Pelevin. But, based on the internal evidence of this article we see the author Pelevin being denounced for not subscribing to certain prevalent liberal ideologies – not least the propaganda about “Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine”. They then beat him to death with the charge of misogyny.