Orlando Figes: ‘Gorbachev was a really sharp and likable individual’ | Books

Orlando Figes is a historian and the writer of 10 books on Russian and European historical past, together with the multi-award-winning A Individuals’s Tragedy, in regards to the Russian Revolution – named one of many “100 most influential books for the reason that conflict” by the TLS. Born in London in 1959, Figes studied and lectured at Cambridge and later turned professor of historical past at Birkbeck – a place from which he just lately retired. His newest e book is The Story of Russia, which condenses 1,000 years of historical past right into a tightly written, illuminating 300-odd pages.

You’ve written extensively about Russian historical past in earlier books. What new perspective did you wish to provide right here?
I used to be conscious of the rising disconnect between how we [in the west] see Russian historical past and the best way the Russians see it – notably the best way wherein the Putin regime has propagandised a model that’s more and more imperial. I felt it was necessary to speak in regards to the concepts of Russia’s historical past as a result of, we now see, they have been being weaponised to justify and maintain this conflict [with Ukraine]. I needed to offer the western reader a way of the sacred energy of the tsar, Russia’s particular mission on the planet, and so forth.

Do you suppose that all through its historical past, Russia has been extra reliant on myths than different nations – Britain, for instance?
All of us have our nationwide myths, Britain most likely greater than many, however I believe the function of myths in Russia is especially necessary. As [cultural historian] Michael Cherniavsky put it, the more durable life turns into, the extra the Russians search hope and salvation in myths transcending on a regular basis realities. That’s an concept developed by the church and by the state over many centuries.

Can Putin’s grip on be defined by wanting again at previous Russian rulers?
I believe it may well. Putin has consciously constructed a cult round his persona in a method that’s much like Stalin – this brooding autocrat with duty for the entire nation on his shoulders. Likewise, I believe he’s constructed his regime very consciously on the monarchical precept of authority. As Stalin stated, the Russians want a tsar. Putin has clearly taken a leaf out of Stalin’s e book in that sense. This [his rule] additionally pertains to Russian statecraft and conceptions of authority, which aren’t simply monarchical however sacralised. The facility of the tsar comes from Byzantium, from the conception of the tsar as one facet of a sacred energy. And in Russia that’s difficult additional by the patrimonial custom – particularly that the tsar guidelines Russia prefer it’s his private family. Nicholas II, within the first Russian census of 1897, put his occupation as “proprietor of Russia”. This patrimonial custom is lengthy and nonetheless very a lot alive.

What can we be taught from this?
The failure to grasp the significance of that patrimonial custom is without doubt one of the the reason why the west will get the query of corruption so mistaken. The concept of making an attempt to place a quantity on Putin’s private wealth is not sensible, as a result of he may make himself the richest individual on the planet if he needed to, however the system doesn’t work like that. He owns the individuals who personal the wealth. He can have a palace in Crimea, which [Alexei] Navalny uncovered as large corruption, however I don’t suppose that’s the appropriate method of seeing it, as a result of the palace is an extension of his state energy. He stands for Russia. Till we grasp how the Russians see that historical past, and the way Russian energy has labored, then we don’t actually know the right way to cope with it.

Have you ever ever met Putin?
I’ve, on the Valdai convention in 2015. We exchanged just a few phrases, however the factor I observed was, to my shock, he had a really comfortable handshake. His hand was heat and podgy, and the handshake was comfortable. It jogs my memory of that bit in Solzhenitsyn’s The First Circle, the place he presents Stalin as this somewhat small, previous, yellow man with yellowing hair and a pockmarked face. Behind each dictator there may be the little man.

Do you anticipate the conflict dragging on for years?
I do. I’m no navy knowledgeable, however my sense from studying navy consultants is that the Russians don’t have the assets to go on indefinitely, so that they’re more likely to defend what they’ve taken to date. However then it turns into an financial conflict, and Putin will likely be banking on the west finally caving in, due to political instability brought on by the price of residing disaster. I believe it’s completely vital that the Ukrainians, who’re actually preventing this conflict for us as a lot as for themselves, are given the munitions they require to get to a degree the place they’ll negotiate from a place of relative energy, as a result of the one technique to finish the conflict is diplomacy. However I don’t suppose it’s doable for them to expel the Russians from the Donbas or Crimea.

Mikhail Gorbachev died final week. What are your ideas on his place in historical past?
In Russia, the notion of him – for a very long time now manipulated and formed by the Putin ideologists – is that he was a horrible chief, as a result of he introduced in regards to the collapse of the Soviet Union. I bear in mind making a radio programme in Russia and a schoolkid instructed me that Stalin was a foul chief, however not practically as unhealthy as Gorbachev. The variety of individuals in Russia who see him as a bringer of liberty is small, the intelligentsia, principally. I believe an important factor about Gorbachev, by way of his legacy, is that he oversaw the peaceable dismantling of the communist system. It’s not that he introduced it about – he accelerated it, however it might have occurred anyway. However what’s necessary about him, it appears to me, is that he managed to navigate a method out of a possible civil conflict. I believe that potential was actual, and that was his essential worry. Certainly he stated as a lot to me as soon as. I met him on two events. We had somewhat frisson of disagreement over one or two issues, however he was a really sharp and likable individual.

The place do you write and what’s your routine?
Typically talking, I write in Italy, the place I’ve a home in the midst of nowhere and there are not any distractions. I prefer to maintain a nine-to-five day and write within the morning. I’ve now retired from academia, and one of many large bonuses is that I’ve the remainder of the day to mirror on what I’ve written. I believe that freedom is enabling me to broaden my model of writing. I’ve written a play, for instance, which is on subsequent yr on the Jermyn Avenue theatre [in London]. And I’m occupied with historic writing that isn’t essentially tied to the academy.

What have you ever been studying currently?
The final e book I completed was M: Son of the Century by Antonio Scurati, which is a form of historic novel-cum-biography of Mussolini. It’s multi-vocal, focusing not simply on Mussolini however [socialist leader Giacomo] Matteotti and varied different fascist leaders. I’ve at all times been occupied with historical past writing that is ready to talk one thing of the expertise and the chaos of historical past by relinquishing that narrator’s place of supremacy.

Do you learn a lot fiction?
I do, although I don’t decide up the newest hyped first novel by X, so I’m somewhat gradual off the mark. I’m an enormous Philip Roth fan, as most males of my age most likely are. I’m 62 now, and while you get to my age you start to suppose: I’ve solely obtained so a few years left; there are solely so many books I can learn once more for pleasure. So I’m bit extra selective, and I’ve no hesitation giving up a e book if it doesn’t seize me within the first 20 pages.

Is there a Russian writer who you come back to most frequently?
Of all of them, most likely Turgenev, as a result of I simply establish with and like the person a lot, regardless of his vainness and his weaknesses. As a author he’s, I believe, chic. And his biography, his worldview, I discover very sympathetic. He’s probably the most cosmopolitan of all of the Russian writers, probably the most European in his syntax and magnificence, and the least ideological, in a practice that does are usually fairly ideological.

You write about Dostoevsky and Gogol as proselytisers of Slavophile myths. Does that make you take pleasure in their work much less?
If we substituted “relate to” for “take pleasure in”, then sure. I’m afraid I’m not an enormous Dostoevsky fan. Likewise, I’m not an enormous Vasily Grossman fan. And the third quantity of Warfare and Peace is weighed down by ideology, though it is without doubt one of the biggest novels ever written. I discover the ideological ingredient in Russian literature fascinating as a cultural historian, however I don’t discover it notably engaging as a reader of literary fiction. I a lot desire the Turgenev model.

What sort of reader have been you as a toddler?
I used to be an enormous reader, primarily as a result of I spent a variety of my childhood alone. We had a number of bookshops and the Swiss Cottage library on our doorstep. I used to be a precocious reader, however I don’t say that in a technique to reward myself. Fairly the opposite; it’s to say what a idiot I used to be studying these items earlier than I used to be actually sufficiently old to understand them. So I did learn a variety of Russian literature after I was 13-14. However the author that actually hooked me as a young person was Émile Zola. L’Assommoir was the e book that obtained me occupied with historical past. It’s very impolite in some ways – there are a whole lot of swear phrases in it, and a variety of chamber pots, and unseemly behaviour. However that was all a part of its historic fascination for me.