Mikhail Zygar (袦懈褏邪懈谢 袟褘谐邪褉褜) is a writer, journalist, filmmaker.
He worked for Newsweek Russia and the business daily Kommersant, covering the conflicts in Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, Serbia, and Kosovo before becoming founding editor-in-chief of Russia鈥檚 only independent news TV channel, Dozhd (TVRain), which provided an alternative to Kremlin-controlled federal TV channels and gave a platform to opposition voices. Zygar won the International Press Freedom Award in 2014.
He is the author of All the Kremlin鈥檚 Men, a #1 bestseller in Russia that has been translated into over twenty languages and was called one of 鈥�9 books that can help you understand Russia right now鈥� by Time magazine, and The Empire Must Die, a Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of the Year.
Mikhail Zygar has openly protested against the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Now he lives in Berlin and writes a weekly column for Der Spiegel.
His new book War and Punishment, tells the story of how the Russian Empire has oppressed Ukraine since the 17th century. Zygar is trying to dismantle Putin鈥檚 traditional imperial narrative and to start de-imperialization of Russian history.
Ironically, only a few months after reading this book, I refused to watch/listen to the main mouthpiece of the so-called liberal radio station, Echo of Moscow, which I had listened to for 20 years. About 10 years ago, I also refused to read or listen to another supposedly independent liberal giant, Novaya Gazeta. Now, at the end of 2021, after the abominable act of Ekho's editor-in-chief, after the hypocritical speech of the newly minted Nobel member, and after the silence of the guests who have been coming to Ekho Moscow (regarding the act of its editor-in-chief in the 2021 elections), this book has played up a whole different coloring for me. This book was like a revelation. I realized the bitter truth that all these 20 years, the so-called liberals and the so-called independent journalists had been fooling me, deceiving me, leading me astray. At the time I still couldn't understand how they could sing hosannas to Yeltsin, who not only turned Russia into one sick "bandit Petersburg", not only started two wars, not only turned Russia into a country where laws don't work but also brought the current irremovable president to power. This book put everything in its place. Yes, not only this book but also my own observations, YouTube videos, and the book "Out of the Fire into the Fire" by V. Gelman.
I believe that this is not only one of the best books on the politics of post-Soviet Russia but also Zygar's best book. Yes, Zygar does not draw conclusions himself, preferring that readers draw them themselves. It is not hard to do because what Yeltsin did is not much different from what Putin is doing today. The book simply screams: Putin is a young Yeltsin! This is what Yeltsin would have done if he had been young or if he had been in better health. The book, which deals with the 1996 election, also states that this election was the last one that can be called by the word ELECTION: not by the appointment of a person already chosen by the elite, but by the choice of the people. Of course, I agree with this, and I am not the first who has said so. The elections of 1996, as the book shows, were quite messy, but they were elections nonetheless.
What's the point of the book? The author brilliantly shows how the various advocacy groups fought for the realization of their own interests (read: money). Remarkably, in the pages of this book, we see all the elite factions, from the conventional liberals to the communists. But what we do not see is the people.
The author has done a tremendous job collecting information on this period, on the one hand, and interviewing the main participants in those events, on the other. However, just as remarkably, we see mostly those who worked for Yeltsin, thereby showing that the struggle was not with the Communists, but with own people, because it was the people for whom the brand "Father of Russian Democracy - Boris Yeltsin" had to be sold. And they succeeded. Just as a good salesman can sell a defective product to a customer, these craftsmen managed to turn Yeltsin into a giver of freedom and democracy. This is why I wrote that with every year I became more and more irritated by the positioning of Yeltsin in the so-called independent (from the Kremlin) media, as the man who gave us "freedom". But, was it freedom? And let's take a look at what the "Father of Russian Democracy" was doing in this 1996 election. For example, in the book, we find the following statement: "In 1991, when Yeltsin first ran for president, he, being the chairman of the Supreme Soviet and the election favorite, did not come to TV debates - unlike all other candidates. In 1996, history repeated itself: Yeltsin ignored Zyuganov's invitation to talk on-air". Now is it clear why Putin never participates in debates? Why should he do that, if his patron, the " pillar of liberalism and democracy," did not do it.
Another example is that they assure us that it was under Putin that the renaissance of Soviet aesthetics started. But we read in the book, "It is interesting that the return of Soviet stylistics is the initiative of young television and public relations professionals, not of the older generation. 1996 can be considered the beginning of the fashion for nostalgia for Soviet aesthetics." It turns out that Putin has only expanded and deepened the initiatives that began under the supposed liberals. Is that a fact? It's a fact!
All sorts of Echoes assured us during the 20 years of Putin's rule that he removed liberals from the helm of the country, and that is why we remember "with tears in our eyes" the kindly grandfather-democrat Boris Yeltsin. However, we read what Zygar offers us: "But gradually, there are fewer and fewer young reformers in Yeltsin's team, and they are being replaced by people from the old Soviet nomenklatura: recent party bosses, former KGB officers, or red directors. By early 1996, no one of the activists of the Interregional Deputy Group or "DemRossia" was left in power". WOW! It turns out that if you dig deeper, the Father of Russian democracy will turn out to be not a father, but a b***h, as the classic said about Stalin. But all these 20 years we have been told that under Yeltsin there was Freedom, Democracy, and Elections. Well, as the joke goes, there was freedom, democracy, and elections, of course, and we know the names of the people for whom all this was intended.
Let's read on. "Having barely announced his presidential candidacy in February, Yeltsin immediately fired Poptsov, accusing him of having "too much of the dark side" on-air. Why did he fire him? Poptsov was not only the head of VGTRK but also a vocal critic of Yeltsin. Such is the freedom of journalism. Freedom...from criticism. If Poptsov were an ordinary journalist, maybe they wouldn't touch him, but as Otto von Bismarck said, "I am not interested in their intentions, I am interested in their capabilities". Poptsov's opportunities were much greater than those of an ordinary journalist (who would also be swept away, but already during the reign of Yeltsin's successor).
Do you remember how Putin said that the opposition was preparing provocations, etc.? Yep, that's right, he is not the author of this thread. Let's read the book and find the following: "The very next day Yeltsin gives a big interview in the Kremlin to Yevgeny Kiselyov, who asks: "Are provocations possible in elections?" The president answers in the affirmative: well, even Nezavisimaya Gazeta has already written that the Communists are preparing combat troops and may unleash a civil war." Later, the Ogonyok magazine, run by Valentin Yumashev, published an article titled "At Arms. The Communists are preparing for an armed seizure of power". Accusing your rivals in the election that they are preparing a criminally punishable act, that they are about to commit a military coup, does not really tie in with the image of the leading democrat, don't you think? It's more like...a dictator.
P.S. They say: It was a necessary step because if the Communists had won, they would have brought back the KGB, the CPSU, and would have tried to take back the former republics by force. If so, then why didn't Yeltsin ban the CPRF in '91? If he didn't do that, then he believed that their participation in the elections and, as a consequence, their potential accession to power, did not threaten the constitutional order of the Russian Federation. It's like in that joke, you either take off your cross or put on underpants.