Khrushchev's Other Temper Tantrum

h/t Sean's Russia Blog:

“Just now, I was told that I could not go to Disneyland,” [Khrushchev] announced. “I asked, ‘Why not? What is it? Do you have rocket-launching pads there?’ ”

The audience laughed.

“Just listen,” he said. “Just listen to what I was told: ‘We—which means the American authorities—cannot guarantee your security there.’ ”

He raised his hands in a vaudevillian shrug. That got another laugh.

“What is it? Is there an epidemic of cholera there? Have gangsters taken hold of the place? Your policemen are so tough they can lift a bull by the horns. Surely they can restore order if there are any gangsters around. I say, ‘I would very much like to see Disneyland.’ They say, ‘We cannot guarantee your security.’ Then what must I do, commit suicide?”

Khrushchev was starting to look more angry than amused. His fist punched the air above his red face.

“That’s the situation I find myself in,” he said. “For me, such a situation is inconceivable. I cannot find words to explain this to my people.”

The audience was baffled. Were they really watching the 65-year-old dictator of the world’s largest country throw a temper tantrum because he couldn’t go to Disneyland?

Sitting in the audience, Nina Khrushchev told David Niven that she really was disappointed that she couldn’t see Disneyland. Hearing that, Sinatra, who was sitting next to Mrs. Khrushchev, leaned over and whispered in Niven’s ear.

“Screw the cops!” Sinatra said. “Tell the old broad that you and I will take ‘em down there this afternoon.”

Sinatra as quasi libertarian/anarchist hero, whisking Khrushcheva off to Disneyland? I'm gonna commit this story to memory.

Russian Futurists in a Nutshell

From Featuring Talking Guinea Pigs:

Man: 1st generation of futurists
Guinea pig: everyone else

Oriental Trends in the Fall '09 Fashion Season

AKA: How Russians Dress in My Wildest Fantasies.

Design: Karl Lagerfeld

Model: Hanna Rundlof

Ivan IV chic.

Design: Christian Dior

Model: Anja Rubik

Design: Christian Dior
Model: Sigrid Agren
Design: Christian Dior
Model: Heidi Mount
Design: Christian Dior
Model: Erin Heatherton

It's 1920s Moscow -WWI +economic prosperity!

Some comparisons:
Ivan IV & Vasilia Melentyevna
Ivan IV & Beloved Son
Ivan IV at his son's deathbed

Review of Laurie Manchester's /Holy Fathers, Secular Sons: Clergy, Intelligentsia, and the Modern Self in Revolutionary Russia/ by Christopher Read

From the American Historical Review, Vol 114, No 3 (June 2009).

"At the heart of Manchester's book is an analysis of the small--maybe one percent of the population (p.12)--group of sons of priests (popovichi). Traditionally, scholars have dismissed them as raznochintsy (people of miscellaneous ranks). Instead, Manchester presents them as a relatively clearly defined class with its own ethos and with an influence extending well beyond the church and well beyond its numerical strength."

I've always thought of Raskolnikov as a pretty stereotypical raznochinets.

"In particular, she illustrates many places, including the early Bolshevik Party, where popovichi exerted an influence, despite their small numbers. ... Among such fascinating insights, Manchester notes the way the popovichi identified themselves against the earlier, noble-descended intelligentsia, and how the attempt by Dmitrii Tolstoi to corral popovichi within the clerical estate by refusing to recognize their qualifications as valid for university entrance in fact ensured the values of the seminary would spread to society."

Add this to the long, long list of reasons there's never been a strong libertarian movement in Russia: an influential portion of its intelligentsia were the sons of priests (Catholic liberal embrace of the welfare state, anyone?).

"There are also tantalizing glimpses of unusual attitudes among the popovichi toward sexuality. Aleksei Dmitrievskii failed to consummate his marriage because 'romantic passion' was satisfied by his work. 'Scholarship is the most charming of the women in the world...its embrace...takes care of all the afflictions and misfortunes of life,' he wrote. Note surprisingly, his wife did not agree and left him (p. 185)."

Guess who was the son of a priest? Nikolai Chernyshevsky, socialist-marxist-utilitarian extraordinaire, and author of What is to be done? (so good that Lenin stole the title!). There are some great footnotes in this edition that delve into Chernyshevsky's theories about romantic life; if you've somehow dragged yourself through the beast of a 'novel' you'll understand just as well. Manchester based her book on "a study of 207 identifiable popovichi." It's terrifying how accurate a portrait such a study painted.

"...in Manchester's words, 'popovichi did not repudiate the clerical traditions of the Russian Orthodox Church,' but 'they managed paradoxically to see themselves as leaving the clergy in order to preserve clerical traditions and impose them on secular society.' This, she argues, is 'the very opposite of traditional secularization theory and dechristianization' (p.155)."

Noted.

Painting: Philosophers - Mikhail Nesterov

Prague Tales - Jan Neruda

Picked up a copy of this at the DC Public Library for $2 a few weeks ago- more than worth it. All excerpts were published between 1867 and 1876.

"'But why didn't he write out his whole name? What's his first name, Viktor, Volfgang?'
'Well, it's Václav, but he doesn't like it. He says that every time he sees a church procession he wants to get re-baptized.'"

Typical Czech-German pandering.

"'...I don't think I've ever seen a decent, moderately long sentence from any of you. ... It's also quite obvious that you don't even know German properly, and I'll tell you why: because you jabber away in Czech all day! Therefore, with the power invested in my office as Director, I hereby forbid the speaking of Czech in the office, and as your friend and your superior I suggest that you speak only German outside the office as well.'"

Wait, they have the "notes of a neurotic 19th century bureaucrat" genre outside Russia, too?

"Conversations in Czech ceased. Only two very close friends would utter a word in Czech out in the corridor or in the archives. They almost seemed like surreptitious snuff-takers. I keep speaking Czech--and loudly at that. Everyone avoids me."

Tobacco stigma in 1860s Mala Strana? Jeez.

"It is a well-known historical fact that gods arise directly from their people. Jehovah was a gloomy, cruel, angry, vengeful, and bloodthirsty god, just like the entire Jewish nation. The Hellenic gods were elegant and witty, beautiful and joyful, just like the Greeks themselves. The Slavic gods--I'm sorry, but we Slavs lack a vivid enough imagination to create either great states or well-defined gods. Despite the best efforts of folklorists such as Erben and Kostomarov, our erstwhile gods are only an obscure, rag-tag group of divinities with no clear, well-defined characteristics."

Kinda true, actually.

"Of course the priest from St. Nicholas' and his assistants were late, as was the custom at the funeral of any important person so that no one would say Mr. Velš was being hurried on his way."

That's what we call a win-win cultural development.

Summer Reading List, Revisited

A little over a year later, I haven't made much progress. Summer is blogging season; let's go.

Anton Chekhov Short Stories

Boris Chicherin Liberty, Equality, & The Market

Mikhail Bakunin The Basic Bakunin: Writings 1869-1871

Vissarion Belinsky Selected Philosophical Works

Aleksandr Blok Selected Poems

Mikhail Bulgakov The Master and the Margarita

Ivan Bunin The Dark Avenue

Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Brothers Karamazov*
Crime and Punishment
Notes from Underground

Orlando Figes Natasha's Dance

Nikolai Gogol
The Overcoat
Dead Souls

Maxim Gorky Children of the Sun

Thomas Hardy Jude the Obscure*

Alexander Herzen My Past and Thoughts

Aleksey Khomyakov Whatever I can find!

Ivan Kireevsky Whatever I can find! (Turned out to be a fantastic collection of his essays compiled in On Spiritual Unity: A Slavophile Reader.)

Osip Mandelstam The Noise of Time: Selected Prose

Vladimir Mayakovsky The Bedbug and Selected Poetry

Vladimir Nabokov Lolita

Boris Pasternak Dr. Zhivago

Richard Pipes
Russian Conservatism and Its Critics
Karamzin's Memoir on Ancient and Modern Russia: A Translation and Analysis

Andrey Platonov The Foundation Pit

Aleksandr Radishchev Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow

Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin
The History of a Town
The Golovylov Family

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

Leo Tolstoy War and Peace

Life of the Deified Augustus - Suetonius

In studying for my Roman history final (less than 24 hours from now) I reread Suetonius' account of Augustus, and fell in love with the man all over again. Here's why.

"Others criticize his words and actions, claiming that when the ships were lost in the storm he had cried out that he would conquer even against the will of Neptune and that the next time the circus games were held, he had Neptune's image removed from the festival procession."

Arrogance is sexy, and anyone who tells you otherwise is a liar or a fool. Also, Neptune never really got him back... Augustus 1, Gods 0.

"For he used to compare those who sought a minimal gain at no small risk to someone going fishing with a golden hook, when no catch could bring a profit equal to the loss if the hook were gone."

Translation of genius into simple words. Sounds like someone else I love.

"As for the city itself, which was not decked out in a manner fitting such a great empire... he so improved it that it was with justification that he boasted he had found it a city of brick and left it a city of marble."

Always had a soft spot for effective reformers arising from hopeless eras of suck.

"...he would rather endure some loss of revenue than that the honor of Roman citizenship be made commonplace."

oh-em-gee high citizenship theory. (Note: forward that memo to Caracalla.)

"He sought, too, to revive the ancient manner of dress and once, when he saw at a public meeting a crowd of people dressed in dark clothes, he grew angry and cried out: 'Behold the Romans, lords of the world, the toga'd race!'"

Policy enforcement through snark... I like.

"In sealing official documents, reports and letters, he first used a sphinx, then an image of Alexander the Great, and finally one of himself..."

I reiterate: arrogance is sexy, especially when merited. Subordination of Alexander the Great? May as well besmirch Charles Garland, or Alexander Nevsky, or someone equally influential and bad ass.

"He always shrank from the title 'Master' as an insult and a reproach."

Principate vs dominate, 101. Augustus shows 'em how it's done (forward memo to Diocletian).

"Yet he bore the deaths of his loved ones more readily than their disgrace."

Was ever there a better Roman? Like, really?

"Whenever anyone referred to [Agrippa] or one of the Julias he used to groan and even exclaim: 'Oh, that I had never married and died without children!' The only terms he used for them were his three sores or his three cancers."

No, no there wasn't.

"Not even his friends deny that he committed adultery, suggesting by way of excuse that his motive was not lust but policy, as he sought to find out the plans of his opponents more easily through each man's wife."

Once again, Augustus pioneers a timeless and effective political tactic.

"Mark Antony objected... that he had in front of her husband led the wife of a man of consular rank from the dining-room off into his bedroom, later returning her to the party with burning ears and disheveled hair..."

Balls and pimpery.

"He cultivated an elegant and restrained manner of speaking which avoided the vanity of an artificial style of arrangement, as well as the 'rank odor', as he termed it, 'of far-fetched vocabulary'..."

Crap. Two of my heroes come in conflict.

"When he first began to speak, he ordered some frogs to be silent who happened to be croaking in his grandfather's villa and they say that from that time no frog croaked there."

I'd just like to say here that I love cultures of mythology and am totally okay with attributing ridiculous, implausible stories to those excessively admired and reviled. Respek, yo.