In 2014, in the midst of the annexation of Crimea, the Romanian-born strategist Edward Luttwak, an old veteran of the Cold War, pointed to a major reason for Western blindness to the Putin regime.
"The problem with Westerners,
" he explained from his house in Bethesda, which that day looked like a dacha under the snow,
"is that when they look at Russia, they think they see Anna Karenina, whereas they are facing Genghis Khan politically!”
He was referring to the yawning gap between the brutal face of power in Moscow and the sophistication of Russian culture.
But what the Ukrainians at war are explaining today is that Anna Karenina is not only hiding Genghis Khan, she is at his service, in a Russian cultural world which is, like power, marked with the seal of imperialism.
Read alsoAfter Kherson, can Ukraine hope to reconquer Crimea?
Thus the great Russian literary figures are “kidnapped” and used as veritable weapons of cultural warfare.
A few months ago, a Kremlin propagandist…
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