War and Peace, Russian style
War is brutal, but Russian war is something else entirely. Glas magazine, which promotes Russian writing in the English-speaking world, delves into the conflicts in Chechnya and the Caucasus in its latest issue — Glas 40: War and Peace — and it's grim but brilliant stuff.
One of the contributors is Julia Latynina, a talented and brave journalist, who specializes in exposing corruption in the Caucasus. Lawlessness, local mafia lords, totalitarianism and rebel chieftains populate the landscape here and Latynina pulls the patchwork threads together to make it all readable, and terrifying. She notes: "Russia's weak, hopelessly corrupt and incredibly venal state authority is gradually slipping down from the Caucasus Mountains — as grease slips off a dirty plate under a jet of hot water — exposing what has been there for thousands of years: a culture of mutual assistance based on clanship and family ties, barbarous cruelty, a cult of individual honour and blood vengeance — with the simple difference that now the blood vengeance is exacted using grenade launchers and Kalashnikovs."
Here's a memorable excerpt from Julia Latynina's novel Niyazbek, translated by Andrew Bromfield:
Gamzat nodded at the man who was being eaten alive by flies.
"What's happened to him?" asked Vladislav.
"A dog bit him," answered Gamzat.
Gazi-Magomed explained:
"They dragged him out of here and said: 'If you fuck a dog, we'll let you go'. So he fucked it. In front of everyone. But the bitch was in heat, and something inside her jammed tight. They got stuck together, and they couldn't get unstuck. The soldier was yelling, the dog was biting him, and the Chechens just laughed. So if they tell you to fuck a dog, don't do it. They won't let you go anyway."
Vladislav squeezed his eyes shut, and when he opened them, the copper stripe of sunlight on the floor had disappeared, and the only things glittering in the basement were the chains.
"Is he Russian?" asked Vladislav, looking at the man bitten by the dog.
"Yes," said Gamzat, and Gazi-Magomed added:
"They wouldn't do that to a Rutul, would they? Or a Lezghin? Or an Avar? If they did that to a Rutul, the whole clan would avenge him. But who's going to take vengeance for a Russian?"
Strong stuff, to be sure, but what's happening on Russia's borders is beyond belief. The Western media, transfixed by hatred of Bush and Blair, remains obsessed with Mesopotamia, which conveniently acts as a cover for cowardice in questioning what's going on in Chechnya and the Caucasus, so we should be grateful to those incredibly brave and talented people who put Glas 40: War and Peace together.
