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Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media.

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Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff.

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Speaker 2: You're a weekly reminder that when there's bad things, there's

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Speaker 2: people trying to do good things, or at least interesting things.

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Speaker 2: I'm your host, Margaret Kiljoy, and my guest this week

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Speaker 2: is Katie Stole. Hi.

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Speaker 3: How are you ugh, I'm okay, I'm good. I'm glad

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Speaker 3: to be here, happy to be here.

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Speaker 2: In fact, Yeah, the world's going great.

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Speaker 3: The world's going great. Nevertheless, I would love to hear

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Speaker 3: some stories about cool people who did cool stuff. Not

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Speaker 3: that we don't have a ton of cool people doing

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Speaker 3: cool stuff right now at this moment in time.

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Speaker 2: It's true. Hey, completely unrelated. There's been all this stuff

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Speaker 2: about people bringing down the stock value of Tesla. But anyway,

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Speaker 2: through all kinds of methods.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, anyway, I'm happy to be here. I feel like

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Speaker 3: this is a bright light in the world, being able

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Speaker 3: to commit talk about good things.

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Speaker 2: I know, and people want to hear more good things.

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Speaker 2: Which of your various news shows should they listen to

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Speaker 2: or watch?

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Speaker 3: Oh well, I'll plug even more news. People know us

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Speaker 3: from some more News. A lot of people know me

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Speaker 3: and Cody from that, which is our YouTube show. But

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Speaker 3: we also have our podcast Even More News, which we're

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Speaker 3: now doing twice a week. Monday's we release one we

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Speaker 3: record Monday morning, release Monday evening, I know, and then

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Speaker 3: another one that we record Thursday's release Friday. We just

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Speaker 3: needed to add an extra episode because there's so much

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Speaker 3: to talk about and we couldn't get through it all.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that actually makes sense.

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Speaker 3: And also we now are doing video versions of them,

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Speaker 3: putting on YouTube because apparently a lot of people like

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Speaker 3: to listen to podcasts with their eyes. I don't know,

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Speaker 3: so we're doing that.

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Speaker 2: I don't understand it. I'm going to pretend to understand

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Speaker 2: it once they make us pivot to video, but for now,

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Speaker 2: I don't understand it.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a whole other world out there, but yeah,

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Speaker 3: sure plug that. We try to We try to find

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Speaker 3: bright spots out there too, but we do talk about

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Speaker 3: the bad spots.

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Speaker 2: That makes sense. Yeah, So, Katie, have you ever thought

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Speaker 2: about what it would be like to be a journalist

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Speaker 2: or a writer during like an authoritarian regime?

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Speaker 3: Is that every cross my mind from time to time?

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Speaker 3: It sure does.

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Speaker 2: Just a fun thought experiment. This week, for no particular reason,

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Speaker 2: I thought, what a fun and random time to tell

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Speaker 2: the story about how people have continued cultural production and

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Speaker 2: news during dictatorship. But first, I'm being reminded by my

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Speaker 2: producer Sophie that I should do the rest of my introduction,

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Speaker 2: like introducing Sophie. Here's my producer, Hi, Sophie.

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Speaker 1: How are you, Hi, Magpie. Hi Katie. You're doing great, Magpie.

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Speaker 2: Thanks. Thanks. And we also have an audio engineer named Rory.

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Speaker 1: Hi Rory, Hey, Roy, Hi Rory.

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Speaker 2: And our theme music is written for us by unwoman.

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Speaker 2: And I think that's the rest of the introduction. You

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Speaker 2: think I would know. I'm on episode like a one

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Speaker 2: hundred and fifty. Well, actually like three hundred, because there's

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Speaker 2: two of every thing.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, anyway, congratulations, that's a lot of episodes.

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Speaker 2: Thank you. It's it's been a wild ride. It's every

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Speaker 2: now and then. I have these moments where I'm like,

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Speaker 2: like my most recent like substack post is basically like

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Speaker 2: it's a really weird moment to read history books for

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Speaker 2: a living, but you actually read news for a living,

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Speaker 2: and that's maybe even weirder.

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Speaker 3: Also a weird thing to do for a living, especially

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Speaker 3: right now.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeahm h. So we're going to just tell a

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Speaker 2: fun family story for no particular reason about continuing cultural

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Speaker 2: production during dictatorship. This week's story is about samas dot,

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Speaker 2: the underground publishing within the Soviet Union and the Communist

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Speaker 2: Bloc countries during the Cold War. You ever you ever

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Speaker 2: heard much about this stuff?

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Speaker 3: No, not at all.

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Speaker 2: Actually, I like it's funny because so many people use

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Speaker 2: samas dot as a I mean, I hadn't run across

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Speaker 2: it a ton myself. It's one of those words where

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Speaker 2: if you don't know what it means, you kind of

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Speaker 2: just ignore it because you're like, I don't know what

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Speaker 2: that means, and arrest the sentence makes sense that you

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Speaker 2: just sort of ignore the word. Yeah, Okay, there's an

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Speaker 2: irony here. I'm doing this whole episode about how people

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Speaker 2: created stuff and distributed it during the dictatorship of the

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Speaker 2: Soviet era. This is the single episode where I could

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Speaker 2: not find a source that was not behind an academic paywall.

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Speaker 2: This is the most i'vory towered. I had to talk

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Speaker 2: to all of my friends with academic privileges to get

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Speaker 2: access to this. Yeah, so there's a little irony there

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Speaker 2: that's interesting. Yeah, the shortest version of it is, for

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Speaker 2: more or less the entire time, there was a Soviet Union,

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Speaker 2: there was strict censorship of the press, and the entire

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Speaker 2: time there strict censorship, they were people evading that censorship

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Speaker 2: through various means. By the time you get to the

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Speaker 2: nineteen sixties and the nineteen seventies, there's this whole culture

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Speaker 2: that springs up around samisdot or self publishing. But we'll

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Speaker 2: talk about why. It's actually a really clever play on

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Speaker 2: words later, in which people would distribute hand typed copies

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Speaker 2: of poems, novels, and news because they couldn't even access

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Speaker 2: like xerox machines. These were generally typed on carbon paper

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Speaker 2: and then retyped by their recipients like chain letters.

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Speaker 3: But good, that's yeah, beautiful actually, yeah. Just the idea

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Speaker 3: of people receiving a hand type poem or what have

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Speaker 3: you and then typing it up and paying it sending

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Speaker 3: it forward, I think is really beautiful.

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Speaker 2: I know totally, especially with the like crime level where

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Speaker 2: you're like, well, I can go to jail for the

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Speaker 2: foreseeable future if they catch me with this poem about

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Speaker 2: being sad about the ocean or whatever it is, because

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Speaker 2: not all of it political, but it was all wildly illegal,

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Speaker 2: and there was a body count attached, although by the

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Speaker 2: end of it people are mostly getting time in prison

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Speaker 2: in a camp that kills about ten percent of the people,

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Speaker 2: but better than earlier where they're just dying. And samas

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Speaker 2: dot as a culture lasted until basically nineteen eighty seven,

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Speaker 2: when Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union,

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Speaker 2: relaxed censorship and people were finally able to publish what

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Speaker 2: they wanted. That's one version of it. It's possible, and

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Speaker 2: I've read two different sources that have different positions on this,

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Speaker 2: that political samas dot actually continued for a few more

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Speaker 2: years until the USSR actually fell completely in think nineteen

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Speaker 2: ninety two. Okay, because at least some people seem to

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Speaker 2: be censored still despite this like overall loosening.

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Speaker 3: It might be some mixture of both.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like almost everyone got to start publishing, and

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Speaker 2: basically the anarchosynical list didn't, is the best I can tell.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: The other annoying thing about researching samas dot, which actually

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Speaker 2: overall I really enjoyed, besides the whole Ivory Tower problem,

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Speaker 2: is that because it was caught up in the Cold War,

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Speaker 2: there's this Western narrative around it. That's basically like some

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Speaker 2: good anti communists who wanted individual liberty and capitalism risked

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Speaker 2: everything to spread the one real truth about what was happening.

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Speaker 2: And there is a little bit of that, right, But

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Speaker 2: there's not a lot a bit of that. Nor was

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Speaker 2: this a like we're all desperate for novels from the West. Please, Westerners,

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Speaker 2: come and save us with your superior storytelling. Some literature

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Speaker 2: from the West snuck in and was distributed to samas dot.

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Speaker 2: But a lot of it was about cultural production in

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Speaker 2: the Soviet Union. And actually a lot of it was

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Speaker 2: about getting cultural production out of the Soviet Union in

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Speaker 2: really cool ways. There's like all this like spy shit

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Speaker 2: where people are like using microfiche like little m hm

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Speaker 2: and like fucking taking photos of all of the book

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Speaker 2: manuscript pages and then like giving them to like foreign

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Speaker 2: dignitaries and shit who are like smuggling them out.

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Speaker 3: Oh wait, that's pretty cool.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And not all of it was even like this

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Speaker 2: is how it is in the Soviet Union. Some of

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Speaker 2: it was like this is my poem about how I

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Speaker 2: wish I didn't have cancer or whatever, you know. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 2: But mostly samisdat was a culture samis dot was fun

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Speaker 2: and exciting. It was inherently cool because it was countercultural.

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Speaker 2: A lot of it was parody, a lot of it

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Speaker 2: was like artsy as fuck. Something that we've seen again

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Speaker 2: and again in our episodes where we talk about resistance

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Speaker 2: to authoritarian communism in particular, is that a lot of

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Speaker 2: the people who are out in front challenging like Soviet

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Speaker 2: era rules and things like that are artists, and they're

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Speaker 2: basically challenging dictatorship through cultural production of plays and poems

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Speaker 2: and songs and all of this stuff. And a lot

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Speaker 2: of it was self consciously what they could called ludic playful.

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Speaker 2: And the CIA has poisoned all of our brains about

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Speaker 2: the USSR, to be clear, but not in the way

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Speaker 2: that authoritarian leftists claim. If you've ever critiqued the USSR

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Speaker 2: on social media, you end up with a lot of

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Speaker 2: people who are like, but actually, you know, everything was

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Speaker 2: perfect there and you only are listening to the CIA's

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Speaker 2: lies or whatever. Right, And the thing is is that

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Speaker 2: the CIA did lie about the Soviet Union and build

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Speaker 2: this false narrative, but not in the way that people claim.

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Speaker 2: The CIA worked hard in the twentieth century to make

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Speaker 2: sure that every bit of dissidence in the USSR was

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Speaker 2: co opted to seem like it's pro capitalism and pro

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Speaker 2: Western But while there's some of that, almost everything I've

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Speaker 2: seen about resistance to the USSR from within the Soviet

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Speaker 2: Bloc comes from socialists, people who believe that we should

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Speaker 2: all take care of each other. They just didn't want

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Speaker 2: a corrupt state apparatus. They didn't want this like weird

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Speaker 2: bad oligarchy instead.

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Speaker 3: I know, it's so interesting how we boil things down

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Speaker 3: to either you're a capitalist or you are a socialist,

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Speaker 3: or it's like yeah, you know, it's like, well, yeah,

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Speaker 3: I know I want this thing, but not by that person.

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Speaker 3: It's like I want our food system to be overhauled,

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Speaker 3: just not by our FK.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, totally, you know, totally. No. This is such a

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Speaker 2: perfect example of it, where you're like, well, I too

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Speaker 2: want more natural food in my diet. I also want

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Speaker 2: to keep getting vaccines on a regular basis exactly and

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Speaker 2: not have the worms eat my brain. Ideally, Yeah, that

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Speaker 2: should happen after I die. It's like a general rule.

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Speaker 3: Yes, then I'm fine, please have at it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah that's that's my hope for one day, but not

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Speaker 2: for now. So for some weird reason. I think studying

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Speaker 2: how people lived and acted and resisted under authoritarian regimes

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Speaker 2: is going to be increasingly important. And Okay, this is

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Speaker 2: a kind of tangent. I'm now offscript. There's this thing

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Speaker 2: where like we all kind of look at what's happening

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Speaker 2: right now, and it's very very easy to draw connections

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Speaker 2: to Nazi Germany. Right, that is a reasonable place to

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Speaker 2: look for our historical parallels. But it's not the only place,

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Speaker 2: Like the world is full of dictatorships that we can

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Speaker 2: look to.

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Speaker 3: I know, I was just recently, like yesterday, I had

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Speaker 3: this thought of, like we could compare it to so

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Speaker 3: many things, maybe we should start mixing it up. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: instead of just well, it's the most readily available for

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Speaker 3: most people to you know, totally relate to, but.

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Speaker 2: Most especially white people in America and probably just people

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Speaker 2: raised in the American educational system. Yeah, know a hell

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Speaker 2: of a lot more about Nazi Germany than they do

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Speaker 2: about like other terrible systems, including the one that's slaved

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Speaker 2: and genocided here on this very continent called the United

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Speaker 2: States of America.

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Speaker 3: Right exactly, we know way more about that than our

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Speaker 3: own history.

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Speaker 2: But AnyWho, and so there's all these other places that

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Speaker 2: we can look and like. The thing that's interesting about

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Speaker 2: the USSR and Soviet block countries, especially by the time

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Speaker 2: you're talking about the sixties and seventies, is you're talking

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Speaker 2: about what does resistance look like for people who like

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Speaker 2: grew up inside this authoritarian system, you know, whereas when

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Speaker 2: we look at the directly fascist governments, they didn't last

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Speaker 2: an entire generation. They were well, Franco did, actually, so

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Speaker 2: franco Is Spain is another good place that we can

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Speaker 2: look to for I don't know. I think this is

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Speaker 2: the thing I'm going to be doing for a little

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Speaker 2: while is looking at how people resisted dictatorships for no

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Speaker 2: good reasons.

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Speaker 3: Again, no apparent reason. Yeah, feels like a good idea.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm going to do it until.

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Speaker 3: It might be how can information in there for no

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Speaker 3: real reason?

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Speaker 2: But maybe yeah, yeah, exactly. So what we have instead

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Speaker 2: of the commune system is the capitalist system, and it

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Speaker 2: asks that we interject this program with the sponsors.

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Speaker 4: So, oh, here are those sponsors, and we're back.

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Speaker 3: So the context, you should see her face, big old smile.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Russia has a long history of people passing around

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Speaker 2: manuscripts rather than finished books in order to bypass censorship,

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Speaker 2: because it is worth noting it wasn't like the Bolsheviks

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Speaker 2: came in and before that, like they were like happy

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Speaker 2: and free under the Czar, you know, like serfdom had

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Speaker 2: only been abolished in sixty seventy years earlier, and like

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Speaker 2: it was a very big unevened in autocratic society. In

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Speaker 2: seventeen ninety there was this book that was opposed to Serfdom,

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Speaker 2: a Journey from Peter's to Moscow, and it was confiscated

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Speaker 2: by the cops. So folks started passing around person to

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Speaker 2: person the actual original manuscripts of it, and they're just like,

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Speaker 2: so you have this like kind of lending library basically.

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Speaker 2: And then in eighteen twenty five you have the Decembrist Revolts,

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Speaker 2: which I think we've covered a little bit in the

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Speaker 2: Nihilist episodes, but there's so many revolts during all of

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Speaker 2: this time, which is where the band gets its name.

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Speaker 3: But I was going to ask, but I just said

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Speaker 3: to me in my brain, I went and like, don't ask.

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Speaker 3: That's a silly question.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it almost certainly is. I haven't even specifically

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Speaker 2: looked it up, but like that's where they get their name.

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Speaker 2: That's who the Decembrists are is a group of revolutionaries. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Cool, love that even more.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. And they had people passing around manuscripts, and folks

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Speaker 2: started having shit published internationally, like especially like printed in England,

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Speaker 2: and then smuggled into the country. Maybe most famously of

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Speaker 2: all these pre Soviet Samas Dots, which don't have that

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Speaker 2: name yet. That name isn't coined until either fifty eight

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Speaker 2: or sixty two, probably sixty two, but I've read both.

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Speaker 2: In eighteen forty eight, Doskievsky, whose name I will probably

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Speaker 2: die not knowing how to pronounce properly, he got eight

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Speaker 2: years in prison for passing around a letter that criticized

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Speaker 2: the Orthodox Church and for trying to use a private

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Speaker 2: printing press to evade censors. So it's not a not

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Speaker 2: a fucking free society, Nope. But as far as I

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Speaker 2: can tell, in the Czaris Times, it was largely the intelligentsia,

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Speaker 2: the sort of upper middle class of academics and shit,

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Speaker 2: who had access to this sort of proto samis Dot.

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Speaker 2: As cool as secret handwritten publishing is, it doesn't break

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Speaker 2: out of a specific social circle, and it doesn't break

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Speaker 2: across class barriers and things that are mass produced have

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Speaker 2: a much better chance of actually like reaching the masses.

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Speaker 2: By the dawn of the twentieth century, a lot of

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Speaker 2: illegal literature is being kind of mass produced. As best

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Speaker 2: as I can tell, the Bolsheviks themselves, who sort of

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Speaker 2: whatever we've done, like probably at least ten episodes about

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Speaker 2: the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks and the anarchists and the

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Speaker 2: s rs and all of that, the people who are

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Speaker 2: going to have the revolution but aren't able to have

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Speaker 2: it yet. Yeah, the Bolsheviks themselves relied on underground publishing

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Speaker 2: before the revolution, And I've read a while ago for

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Speaker 2: a different episode a ton about how different radical groups

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Speaker 2: were regularly getting shit printed overseas and smuggled into the country,

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Speaker 2: and often in bulk. Like I think people were like

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Speaker 2: going to Switzerland and printing like a fuck ton of

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Speaker 2: leaflets and pamphlets and stuff, and then like bringing them

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Speaker 2: back in however they can, into Russia. But the Bolsheviks,

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Speaker 2: even from the beginning, while they believe that they should

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Speaker 2: be able to print whatever they want, they don't think

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Speaker 2: that other people should be able to print whatever they want, Okay,

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Speaker 2: including other socialists, some communists and the anarchists and all

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Speaker 2: of those people. And I will compare this too, and

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Speaker 2: I suspect that the Mensheviks and the SRS also probably did.

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Speaker 2: But I do know that the anarchists did believe in

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Speaker 2: a free press. And so even when the Bolsheviks were

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Speaker 2: like in the middle of attacking the anarchists, the anarchists

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Speaker 2: were like, well, we can't tell you can't print your newspapers.

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Speaker 2: We can only tell you that you can't take over

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Speaker 2: you know, Yeah, which I think is cool as shit. Yeah, like, yeah,

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Speaker 2: in our anarchist society in Ukraine, you can print anti

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Speaker 2: anarchist stuff. Why would we tell you that you can't.

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Speaker 3: Well, right, that's the point. If you want freedom of

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Speaker 3: the press, you have to include things that you don't

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Speaker 3: necessarily like totally.

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Speaker 2: And I don't know whether they I don't know whether

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Speaker 2: or not they expanded that to like the monarchists who

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Speaker 2: were trying to kill them all. I don't know how

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Speaker 2: far it.

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Speaker 3: Went or not, but yeah, like what's the line.

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Speaker 2: But yeah, but they probably weren't killing the poets. We'll

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Speaker 2: get to them. We'll get to the Bolsheviks killing poets

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Speaker 2: in a little bit. Actually, in the next paragraph. We'll

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Speaker 2: get to it, oh perfect, as soon as the Bolsheviks

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Speaker 2: seized power and put down the Russian Revolution. My super

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Speaker 2: short version of it that's very biased by my position

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Speaker 2: is that it was a pluralistic revolution of all sorts

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Speaker 2: of different socialist factions, and then the Bolsheviks were like,

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Speaker 2: just kidding, it's our revolution, went into a civil war

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Speaker 2: to kill all of the other competing factions and put

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Speaker 2: them down by force, and they instituted censorship. By the

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Speaker 2: time the USSR came into being in nineteen twenty two,

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Speaker 2: all literary production was state controlled and sponsored, which is like,

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Speaker 2: there's an upside to this, right, if you're a professional writer,

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Speaker 2: the States like, all right, well, we'll pay you to

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Speaker 2: be a poet, will pay you to make books and stuff.

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Speaker 2: Right if they liked you. If they didn't like you, well,

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Speaker 2: depending on who's in charge that year, they'll kill you,

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Speaker 2: or they'll put you in prison into a labor camp,

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Speaker 2: or they'll send you to Siberia, or if you're really lucky,

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Speaker 2: they just won't publish you and you'll be unemployed.

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Speaker 3: It's like a step in the right direction and concept,

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Speaker 3: but not in execution when we're still utilizing the tactics

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Speaker 3: from before against people that frighten you.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. And it was not just like people who

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Speaker 2: wrote anti Bolshevik stuff. It was like literally just well,

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Speaker 2: we don't like that. You know. They had very specific

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Speaker 2: rules about what kind of literature and what kind of

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Speaker 2: art was encouraged and allowed and published. And among those

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Speaker 2: that they started killing right away were poets, I guess. Okay,

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Speaker 2: so it's like worth pointing out when we think about

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Speaker 2: poetry nowadays, we're like, oh, poetry is really cool, or like, oh,

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Speaker 2: poetry is that thing that we hate when our friends

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Speaker 2: tell us that they do, because then they'll try and

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Speaker 2: make us read their poetry. But we don't want to

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Speaker 2: read their poetry because we don't want to tell them

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Speaker 2: how we feel about it because that would hurt their feelings.

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Speaker 2: You know. Yeah, before the fucking modern era, well, I

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Speaker 2: guess the modern era includes all this before like TV

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Speaker 2: and shit, poetry was the They were like the fucking

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Speaker 2: rock stars, you know, like in England you have people

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Speaker 2: like lining up around the block for the new poem

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Speaker 2: that drops from Lord Byron or whatever the fuck you know.

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Speaker 2: And I mean it's not because they were like inherently

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Speaker 2: like smarter and cooler they totally would have watched TV

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Speaker 2: if they had TV.

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Speaker 3: But right, that's but that was what was available.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: But also you thought differently of poetry in general.

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Speaker 2: Right exactly. And so when we say they're coming for

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Speaker 2: the poets, it's a different thing. It's not like, oh,

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Speaker 2: this person with this kind of niche hobby where they're

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Speaker 2: sort of self indulgent or whatever. I really like poetry

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Speaker 2: and modern poetry. I'm not trying to talk shit, just

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Speaker 2: it's seen differently. Yeah, and I don't want to read

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Speaker 2: your poetry, dear listener, I'm sorry or whatever. Anyway, Okay,

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Speaker 2: there was this poetry movement called the Acmeists that started

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Speaker 2: in the early twentieth century I want to say the

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Speaker 2: nineteen tents, but don't quote me and the Acmeists. Acme

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Speaker 2: comes from the same place as like literally like roadrunner

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Speaker 2: and shit, right, you know, like the Acme brand or whatever,

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Speaker 2: because Acme comes from like a Greek word that sort

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Speaker 2: of means like it's used to mean the best. It's

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Speaker 2: like the okay, the top of a game or whatever.

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Speaker 2: So the Acmists they were a response to the symbolists

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Speaker 2: who came before them, and they were like, if you

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Speaker 2: want to write about something, just write about it as

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Speaker 2: clearly and succinctly as you can. And so this makes

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Speaker 2: it sound like they're poetry is going to be all

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Speaker 2: like utilitarian and kind of blocky, but it actually really isn't,

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Speaker 2: at least not the poet I read for this. The

393
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Speaker 2: poet I read for this is now one of my

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Speaker 2: favorite poets. And it's just it's beautiful stuff. And I

395
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Speaker 2: don't know enough about how to contrast it to symbolism,

396
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Speaker 2: because I'm like, well, there's still metaphor in it, you know, right,

397
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Speaker 2: But the Bolsheviks they're killing people. For example, they kill

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Speaker 2: one of the Acmists, a poet named Nikolai Gumelev, and

399
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Speaker 2: he was not a lefty. He was a monarchist, and

400
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Speaker 2: he was executed in nineteen twenty one without a trial.

401
00:22:07,680 --> 00:22:10,720
Speaker 2: He wasn't executed for taking action against the communist revolution,

402
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Speaker 2: but writing poetry that they didn't like and having ideas

403
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Speaker 2: they didn't like. Wow, So art begins to go underground,

404
00:22:20,560 --> 00:22:24,480
Speaker 2: and artists learn whole new methods of distribution right away,

405
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Speaker 2: including and I don't know if they actually use this,

406
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Speaker 2: but they could have our sponsor, our perennial sponsor, the potato.

407
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Speaker 2: Did you know that you can print with a potato?

408
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Speaker 2: Did you know that you can cut a potato in

409
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Speaker 2: half and then carve out whatever you would like and

410
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Speaker 2: put it on an ink blot or whatever you call

411
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Speaker 2: those things pad an ink pad. I didn't.

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Speaker 3: I did not know that.

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Speaker 1: Actually, yeah, that's why the potato is so perfect.

414
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Speaker 2: I know you can do anything with a potato.

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Speaker 3: I've got some potatoes in the fridge, leftovers tonight.

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Speaker 2: I want potatoes now, our French fries after this. Anyway,

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00:23:03,840 --> 00:23:07,960
Speaker 2: besides potatoes, apparently there's some other ads for some weird reason,

418
00:23:08,880 --> 00:23:20,280
Speaker 2: and here they are, and we're back back. We're so back.

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Speaker 2: So artists start learning whole new methods of distribution, including

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Speaker 2: why I literally have no evidence that they did potato woodcuts.

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Speaker 2: They probably didn't. It would not have been the most

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Speaker 2: effective means. But take, for example, the acmeust poet Anna Akmatova,

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Speaker 2: who has been heralded as one of the country's great

424
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Speaker 2: poets before and during the revolution. And she's the main

425
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Speaker 2: poet who I read during that. Yeah, no, she's fucking amazing.

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Speaker 2: Her poetry is like puts a little rip into your soul.

427
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Speaker 2: But then it's like but it's okay. It's okay, like

428
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Speaker 2: pets the wound.

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Speaker 3: You know, it's like that's kind of poetry.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, she was not a monarch. You can't say like

431
00:24:01,119 --> 00:24:03,600
Speaker 2: the acmeus had the following political tendency, at least that

432
00:24:03,640 --> 00:24:05,439
Speaker 2: I've found, because I've read about three of them, and

433
00:24:05,480 --> 00:24:07,119
Speaker 2: one of them was lefty him, one of them was

434
00:24:07,200 --> 00:24:10,280
Speaker 2: a political and one of them was a socialist. She

435
00:24:10,440 --> 00:24:14,600
Speaker 2: was the non political one. She didn't seem to stop

436
00:24:14,680 --> 00:24:17,720
Speaker 2: the communists and I don't know whatever, Yeah, just trying

437
00:24:17,720 --> 00:24:22,120
Speaker 2: to write poetry. Later, the communists worked hard to sort

438
00:24:22,119 --> 00:24:25,680
Speaker 2: of claim she was a good Soviet patriot. She wasn't

439
00:24:25,680 --> 00:24:29,240
Speaker 2: that either. She was just a poet. When all of

440
00:24:29,240 --> 00:24:32,359
Speaker 2: her friends started emigrating during the revolution and after the

441
00:24:32,400 --> 00:24:35,120
Speaker 2: Bolshevik stole the Revolution in particular, and started like doing

442
00:24:35,200 --> 00:24:39,600
Speaker 2: things like killing poets, she refused to leave, which is

443
00:24:39,800 --> 00:24:43,159
Speaker 2: probably a familiar thought to everyone living in this country

444
00:24:43,240 --> 00:24:45,479
Speaker 2: right now is marginalized in a way that might make

445
00:24:45,520 --> 00:24:49,879
Speaker 2: them vulnerable. She would say shit like a poet can

446
00:24:49,920 --> 00:24:53,280
Speaker 2: only write in the country she's from, which I don't

447
00:24:53,280 --> 00:24:56,800
Speaker 2: think that's true, but you're allowed to decide that for yourself.

448
00:24:56,880 --> 00:24:58,920
Speaker 3: That was her truth. Anyway.

449
00:24:59,280 --> 00:25:02,879
Speaker 2: Yeah, since she's already kind of a big deal poet.

450
00:25:02,960 --> 00:25:05,639
Speaker 2: When the Bolsheviks capture all the big rich villas and

451
00:25:05,680 --> 00:25:08,560
Speaker 2: shit from all the rich people, they offer all the

452
00:25:08,560 --> 00:25:12,640
Speaker 2: big deal artists people places to stay in those palaces,

453
00:25:13,200 --> 00:25:16,200
Speaker 2: so she gets to live kind of one of my dreams,

454
00:25:16,480 --> 00:25:18,520
Speaker 2: which is to live collectively, which is like you and

455
00:25:18,560 --> 00:25:20,879
Speaker 2: all your friends take over some rich person's palace and

456
00:25:20,880 --> 00:25:22,399
Speaker 2: then all live in a palace. But you just just

457
00:25:22,440 --> 00:25:23,520
Speaker 2: like eighty of you or whatever.

458
00:25:23,600 --> 00:25:26,400
Speaker 3: You know, Yeah, that is the dream.

459
00:25:26,440 --> 00:25:27,959
Speaker 2: But they're like, okay, you can move here. But then

460
00:25:28,000 --> 00:25:30,640
Speaker 2: they're like, but we don't actually like your poetry. It's

461
00:25:30,640 --> 00:25:33,679
Speaker 2: not the right kind of poetry, so they refuse to

462
00:25:33,680 --> 00:25:37,679
Speaker 2: publish her. She's not towing the party line. She's not

463
00:25:37,840 --> 00:25:40,600
Speaker 2: really writing politically, near as I can tell. Later she's

464
00:25:40,600 --> 00:25:43,720
Speaker 2: going to write politically and response to what happens to her.

465
00:25:43,840 --> 00:25:48,000
Speaker 2: But she used to be married to Gumalev, the monarchist

466
00:25:48,040 --> 00:25:51,000
Speaker 2: that they'd executed, but she'd actually divorced him, but she

467
00:25:51,080 --> 00:25:54,800
Speaker 2: divorced him well before the revolution started, and so they

468
00:25:54,800 --> 00:25:56,800
Speaker 2: weren't married when he died. But she does have a

469
00:25:56,920 --> 00:25:59,679
Speaker 2: kid with him. She has a kid named Lev Gumalev

470
00:26:00,600 --> 00:26:04,080
Speaker 2: and pretty much because Lev was the kid of someone

471
00:26:04,119 --> 00:26:07,160
Speaker 2: that they'd executed without a trial, they throw him.

472
00:26:07,040 --> 00:26:08,960
Speaker 3: Into jail ah Man.

473
00:26:11,200 --> 00:26:15,560
Speaker 2: So Anna starts hanging out outside the jail every day.

474
00:26:15,680 --> 00:26:18,280
Speaker 2: She starts writing a poem about it, about her time

475
00:26:18,400 --> 00:26:21,879
Speaker 2: hanging outside this prison. And the poem is called Requiem,

476
00:26:22,920 --> 00:26:25,520
Speaker 2: and she has to write it line by line because

477
00:26:25,520 --> 00:26:26,960
Speaker 2: it's not just like she's like, Oh, I'm going to

478
00:26:27,000 --> 00:26:29,280
Speaker 2: write it and I can't publish it. She's like not

479
00:26:29,400 --> 00:26:30,920
Speaker 2: allowed to fucking write.

480
00:26:30,600 --> 00:26:33,879
Speaker 3: It, you know, wow at all, Like not even just

481
00:26:34,000 --> 00:26:34,800
Speaker 3: in your journal.

482
00:26:35,480 --> 00:26:38,720
Speaker 2: Yeah. She writes it line by line and then burns

483
00:26:38,800 --> 00:26:42,720
Speaker 2: each line in her ash tray after she finishes writing it, wow,

484
00:26:42,960 --> 00:26:45,040
Speaker 2: because if the censors see it, they will throw her

485
00:26:45,080 --> 00:26:50,480
Speaker 2: into prison. And so she memorizes this with her friends.

486
00:26:50,960 --> 00:26:53,840
Speaker 2: She goes line by line and whispers it to her

487
00:26:53,880 --> 00:26:58,480
Speaker 2: friends until they memorize it too. People did this for

488
00:26:58,600 --> 00:27:04,320
Speaker 2: poetry sometimes sometimes just until Stalin dies in nineteen fifty

489
00:27:04,960 --> 00:27:09,440
Speaker 2: two three. Sometimes they're doing it until the fall of

490
00:27:09,480 --> 00:27:12,800
Speaker 2: the Soviet Union. You know, this poem does not get

491
00:27:12,800 --> 00:27:17,040
Speaker 2: published in the USSR until nineteen eighty seven or eighty eight, wow,

492
00:27:17,119 --> 00:27:20,040
Speaker 2: or eighty nine. I've read both eighty seven and eighty nine.

493
00:27:20,119 --> 00:27:21,360
Speaker 2: Eighty eight didn't never.

494
00:27:21,200 --> 00:27:23,320
Speaker 3: Mind, well that's right in between.

495
00:27:23,440 --> 00:27:27,359
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, exactly. And the story of how she

496
00:27:27,440 --> 00:27:30,600
Speaker 2: came to write this poem is right in the opening

497
00:27:30,640 --> 00:27:33,320
Speaker 2: of the poem. Most of it is more proper poetry,

498
00:27:33,320 --> 00:27:35,639
Speaker 2: but there's like a prose paragraph kind of section at

499
00:27:35,680 --> 00:27:37,679
Speaker 2: the top, and so I'm just going to read that.

500
00:27:39,200 --> 00:27:42,080
Speaker 2: During the frightening period of the Yezhov Terror, which is

501
00:27:42,119 --> 00:27:44,240
Speaker 2: the name of one of the guys leading Stalin's purchase,

502
00:27:45,119 --> 00:27:48,440
Speaker 2: I spent seventeen months waiting in prison cues in Leningrad.

503
00:27:49,160 --> 00:27:53,080
Speaker 2: One day, somehow someone picked me out. On that occasion,

504
00:27:53,080 --> 00:27:56,040
Speaker 2: there was a woman standing behind me, her lips blue

505
00:27:56,080 --> 00:27:59,280
Speaker 2: with cold, who of course had never in her life

506
00:27:59,359 --> 00:28:03,119
Speaker 2: heard my name. Jolted out of the torpor characteristic of

507
00:28:03,119 --> 00:28:06,840
Speaker 2: all of us, she said into my ear. Everyone whispered

508
00:28:06,840 --> 00:28:13,800
Speaker 2: there could anyone ever describe this? And I answered I can.

509
00:28:14,160 --> 00:28:17,480
Speaker 2: It was then that something like a smile slid across

510
00:28:17,520 --> 00:28:22,440
Speaker 2: what had previously been just a face. And so yeah,

511
00:28:22,480 --> 00:28:26,200
Speaker 2: after spending seventeen months hanging out outside this prison waiting

512
00:28:26,200 --> 00:28:27,520
Speaker 2: to find out what's going to happen to her kid,

513
00:28:27,560 --> 00:28:31,880
Speaker 2: who's done literally nothing wrong. She writes this poem and

514
00:28:32,680 --> 00:28:35,560
Speaker 2: it survives because her and other people memorized it. And

515
00:28:35,560 --> 00:28:37,280
Speaker 2: I'm going to read some of that poem. I don't

516
00:28:37,520 --> 00:28:39,760
Speaker 2: sometimes I read poetry on this show, but it's not

517
00:28:39,840 --> 00:28:40,600
Speaker 2: a huge thing I do.

518
00:28:40,800 --> 00:28:42,360
Speaker 3: We've read that other piece very well.

519
00:28:43,040 --> 00:28:46,520
Speaker 2: Oh thanks, And I kind of figure like this is

520
00:28:46,520 --> 00:28:48,520
Speaker 2: such an important part of the culture resistance, so I

521
00:28:48,600 --> 00:28:51,560
Speaker 2: feel like reading some of it. Yeah. Also, I think

522
00:28:51,600 --> 00:28:54,640
Speaker 2: some of it applies right now as we watch people

523
00:28:54,640 --> 00:28:57,120
Speaker 2: getting disappeared off of the streets. Because that is happening.

524
00:28:57,280 --> 00:28:58,240
Speaker 3: I mean it's chilling.

525
00:28:58,520 --> 00:29:00,959
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, because we often are like, well, what if

526
00:29:00,960 --> 00:29:02,880
Speaker 2: they come for us? They are already coming for people

527
00:29:02,880 --> 00:29:03,479
Speaker 2: in this country.

528
00:29:03,520 --> 00:29:05,520
Speaker 3: This is just a we've been doing a fun bit

529
00:29:05,600 --> 00:29:08,920
Speaker 3: about how it's for no particular reason why this is important.

530
00:29:09,200 --> 00:29:14,000
Speaker 3: Obviously it's the same thing, bit different, but the same

531
00:29:14,320 --> 00:29:16,720
Speaker 3: for people speaking out.

532
00:29:17,160 --> 00:29:19,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, for criticizing El Salvador.

533
00:29:19,760 --> 00:29:22,760
Speaker 3: For yeah, these people, all Salvador people trying to get

534
00:29:22,800 --> 00:29:25,720
Speaker 3: into this country and their social media being checked. What

535
00:29:25,720 --> 00:29:26,680
Speaker 3: are we talking about here?

536
00:29:26,920 --> 00:29:29,440
Speaker 2: Yeah? Anyway, it's funny because the people who are listening

537
00:29:29,440 --> 00:29:30,920
Speaker 2: to this a year from now are either going to

538
00:29:30,960 --> 00:29:33,360
Speaker 2: be like, who we pulled back from that cliff, or

539
00:29:33,400 --> 00:29:35,120
Speaker 2: people are going to be like, oh, that was really

540
00:29:35,160 --> 00:29:38,600
Speaker 2: cute that those are your biggest problems. Back now anyway,

541
00:29:39,120 --> 00:29:43,640
Speaker 2: here's a piece, a bit of requiem. We are everywhere

542
00:29:43,680 --> 00:29:47,440
Speaker 2: the same, listening to the scrape and turn of hateful keys,

543
00:29:48,000 --> 00:29:52,080
Speaker 2: and the heavy tread of marching soldiers, waking early, as

544
00:29:52,120 --> 00:29:55,800
Speaker 2: if for early mass walking through the capital, run wild,

545
00:29:56,000 --> 00:30:01,360
Speaker 2: gone to seed, we'd meet the dead life, the sun

546
00:30:01,760 --> 00:30:06,959
Speaker 2: lower every day, the never mistier, but hope still sings

547
00:30:07,000 --> 00:30:11,680
Speaker 2: forever in the distance. It happened like this, when only

548
00:30:11,720 --> 00:30:16,440
Speaker 2: the dead were smiling, glad of their release. You were

549
00:30:16,480 --> 00:30:20,760
Speaker 2: taken away at dawn. I followed you, as one does

550
00:30:20,800 --> 00:30:24,600
Speaker 2: when a corpse is being removed. Children were crying in

551
00:30:24,640 --> 00:30:29,040
Speaker 2: the darkened house. A candle flared, illuminating the Mother of God.

552
00:30:29,800 --> 00:30:32,760
Speaker 2: The cold of an icon was on your lips, a

553
00:30:32,840 --> 00:30:36,680
Speaker 2: death cold sweat on your brow. I will never forget this.

554
00:30:37,760 --> 00:30:40,840
Speaker 2: I will gather to wail with the wives of the

555
00:30:40,960 --> 00:30:46,120
Speaker 2: murdered STRELSTI inconsolably beneath the Kremlin towers.

556
00:30:46,840 --> 00:30:48,640
Speaker 3: Wow, that's beautiful.

557
00:30:49,360 --> 00:30:52,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like, I'm just like, yeah, I had heard of

558
00:30:52,920 --> 00:30:55,640
Speaker 2: her before. She's one of my best friend's favorite poets,

559
00:30:55,640 --> 00:30:57,760
Speaker 2: but I hadn't really sat down with her before this.

560
00:30:58,280 --> 00:31:02,240
Speaker 2: Yeah the poet almost published abroad in the nineteen sixties,

561
00:31:02,400 --> 00:31:05,440
Speaker 2: but yeah, published in Russia in nineteen eighty seven or

562
00:31:05,520 --> 00:31:09,960
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty nine. Her Son spent years in prison. They

563
00:31:10,000 --> 00:31:11,880
Speaker 2: let him out long enough to fight in World War

564
00:31:11,920 --> 00:31:12,920
Speaker 2: Two in the Red Army.

565
00:31:13,040 --> 00:31:14,960
Speaker 3: Oh how nice of them, and.

566
00:31:14,920 --> 00:31:16,960
Speaker 2: Then they put him back in prison afterwards.

567
00:31:16,960 --> 00:31:22,040
Speaker 3: Come on, fucking wild.

568
00:31:22,080 --> 00:31:26,480
Speaker 2: I know, Okay, I did the one thing, lev her Son.

569
00:31:27,400 --> 00:31:31,000
Speaker 2: He's a bastard. Like when he gets out, he gets

570
00:31:31,000 --> 00:31:34,680
Speaker 2: out when Stalin dies, he becomes a bastard race scientist man.

571
00:31:35,440 --> 00:31:38,080
Speaker 2: He builds up this whole belief system that ethnicities are

572
00:31:38,080 --> 00:31:41,200
Speaker 2: like their own organisms that have their own characteristics, and like,

573
00:31:41,280 --> 00:31:47,400
Speaker 2: oh no, he's a heavy influence on fucking Putin's race science. Okay, well,

574
00:31:47,600 --> 00:31:49,120
Speaker 2: you know, but he hadn't done any of that before

575
00:31:49,160 --> 00:31:49,800
Speaker 2: they locked him.

576
00:31:49,760 --> 00:31:53,440
Speaker 3: Up, and maybe maybe some of that happened to him inside.

577
00:31:53,480 --> 00:31:53,920
Speaker 3: I don't know.

578
00:31:54,240 --> 00:31:56,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like, yeah, it's funny because there's a couple of

579
00:31:56,960 --> 00:31:59,720
Speaker 2: these moments where I'm like, look, some of the people

580
00:31:59,760 --> 00:32:01,360
Speaker 2: that they locked up, we're bad people.

581
00:32:01,480 --> 00:32:04,160
Speaker 3: But like, yeah, sure, but the principle of it has

582
00:32:04,760 --> 00:32:05,560
Speaker 3: remains true.

583
00:32:05,720 --> 00:32:08,080
Speaker 2: It's like, I still got to give people trials and.

584
00:32:08,120 --> 00:32:10,960
Speaker 3: Like exactly, even the shitty people.

585
00:32:11,600 --> 00:32:16,720
Speaker 2: Yeah. So his mom's crew of acmists. They're having a

586
00:32:16,720 --> 00:32:18,920
Speaker 2: hell of a hard time under the new Bolshevik regime.

587
00:32:19,800 --> 00:32:22,880
Speaker 2: One of the more prominent early victims of Bolshevik crackdown

588
00:32:22,880 --> 00:32:27,240
Speaker 2: and self publishing was a Jewish socialist named Ossip Mandelstam.

589
00:32:28,080 --> 00:32:32,440
Speaker 2: He's one of the acmists. He supported the revolution. I

590
00:32:32,480 --> 00:32:35,040
Speaker 2: think he was with the SRS and then later the Bolsheviks.

591
00:32:35,760 --> 00:32:39,720
Speaker 2: And soon after the Bolsheviks take power, they're like, all right,

592
00:32:40,040 --> 00:32:43,480
Speaker 2: all art must serve the revolution and he's like, wait,

593
00:32:43,480 --> 00:32:44,680
Speaker 2: what h.

594
00:32:44,960 --> 00:32:48,680
Speaker 3: That's not what I was revolutionarying for evlutionary ing.

595
00:32:48,920 --> 00:32:52,360
Speaker 2: Well whatever, Yeah, I like Oscar Wilde's take on this,

596
00:32:52,400 --> 00:32:55,720
Speaker 2: which is, you don't have art for socialism sake, your

597
00:32:55,800 --> 00:32:58,280
Speaker 2: socialism for art's sake. Yeah.

598
00:32:59,040 --> 00:33:02,760
Speaker 3: That one always the right phrasing. Yeah, yeah, that was good.

599
00:33:03,080 --> 00:33:07,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, And unfortunately the Bolsheviks must not have heard of

600
00:33:07,880 --> 00:33:12,040
Speaker 2: Oscar Wilder. They totally wouldn't have become Bolsheviks. They were like, no,

601
00:33:12,160 --> 00:33:15,120
Speaker 2: we don't really like that free expression stuff. And so

602
00:33:15,240 --> 00:33:20,200
Speaker 2: he starts writing politically but not actually about politics. He

603
00:33:20,240 --> 00:33:23,360
Speaker 2: starts writing about the autonomy of the individual versus giving

604
00:33:23,360 --> 00:33:26,360
Speaker 2: yourself over to the state, and he starts writing the

605
00:33:26,440 --> 00:33:30,440
Speaker 2: personal as political in a really direct way, like literally,

606
00:33:30,480 --> 00:33:33,720
Speaker 2: it becomes a revolutionary or counter revolutionary if you're a

607
00:33:33,720 --> 00:33:39,960
Speaker 2: Bolshevik act to write about individual love, not even like oh,

608
00:33:40,080 --> 00:33:43,160
Speaker 2: loving a person is better than loving the state, just

609
00:33:43,240 --> 00:33:47,040
Speaker 2: literally being like I'm in love with this person, yeah,

610
00:33:47,080 --> 00:33:51,160
Speaker 2: instead of writing about the love for your comrades. So

611
00:33:51,200 --> 00:33:53,680
Speaker 2: he's struggling to get published as a poet, and he

612
00:33:53,720 --> 00:33:58,400
Speaker 2: supports himself writing children's books. Throughout the nineteen twenties, you

613
00:33:58,400 --> 00:34:01,600
Speaker 2: get the first culture of what will later be called Samisdak,

614
00:34:01,640 --> 00:34:04,160
Speaker 2: but it's still not called that at this time, and

615
00:34:04,240 --> 00:34:07,760
Speaker 2: kind of around Osip, the Jewish socialist guy, they're called

616
00:34:07,960 --> 00:34:12,640
Speaker 2: underwoods because of the brand of typewriter that everyone was

617
00:34:12,760 --> 00:34:16,520
Speaker 2: using is an underwood, and they would pass around their

618
00:34:16,560 --> 00:34:21,440
Speaker 2: poetry and their books an original manuscript like type written form.

619
00:34:22,560 --> 00:34:25,200
Speaker 2: Osip is very aware the eye of Sourn is like

620
00:34:25,280 --> 00:34:27,359
Speaker 2: on him, so for I had to get a Lord

621
00:34:27,400 --> 00:34:29,879
Speaker 2: of the Rings reference in here so much, that's right, Yeah, yeah,

622
00:34:29,920 --> 00:34:30,120
Speaker 2: thank you.

623
00:34:30,280 --> 00:34:30,440
Speaker 1: Yeah.

624
00:34:31,239 --> 00:34:33,200
Speaker 2: So for a while he and his wife fuck off

625
00:34:33,239 --> 00:34:35,960
Speaker 2: to Armenia basically one of his higher up. He's like,

626
00:34:36,120 --> 00:34:39,560
Speaker 2: the literary scene is kind of close to power, and

627
00:34:39,640 --> 00:34:43,960
Speaker 2: so like Stalin's like kind of paying attention to him, right,

628
00:34:44,280 --> 00:34:46,560
Speaker 2: and he's like, I don't like that. And so one

629
00:34:46,560 --> 00:34:48,360
Speaker 2: of his other friends is a little bit more in

630
00:34:48,480 --> 00:34:50,799
Speaker 2: with everyone gets them basically being like, oh, yeah, we

631
00:34:50,840 --> 00:34:53,399
Speaker 2: totally need someone over in Armenia while you go over

632
00:34:53,440 --> 00:34:55,520
Speaker 2: there for a while. And he's like, I will.

633
00:34:56,200 --> 00:34:59,000
Speaker 3: Bid move sounds like I know, I know.

634
00:35:00,400 --> 00:35:05,760
Speaker 2: Meanwhile, he has this friend named Vladimir Mayakovsky, and nineteen thirty,

635
00:35:06,520 --> 00:35:10,880
Speaker 2: this poet Vladimir kills himself. And this man had been

636
00:35:10,880 --> 00:35:15,520
Speaker 2: a committed Bolshevik revolutionary. He had spent years writing pro

637
00:35:15,560 --> 00:35:19,240
Speaker 2: communist poetry during the revolution. He was like the soul

638
00:35:19,480 --> 00:35:23,239
Speaker 2: of Soviet poetry according to everyone for a while, right

639
00:35:24,840 --> 00:35:28,719
Speaker 2: until he found himself banned and censored like all other

640
00:35:28,760 --> 00:35:32,400
Speaker 2: people who actually believed in art and beauty and shit

641
00:35:32,480 --> 00:35:36,759
Speaker 2: like that. And so he killed himself, and in my

642
00:35:36,840 --> 00:35:39,839
Speaker 2: mind as yet another victim of Stalin. From my point

643
00:35:39,840 --> 00:35:42,520
Speaker 2: of view, many many of the original Bolsheviks are killed

644
00:35:42,560 --> 00:35:47,480
Speaker 2: by Stalin. In the nineteen thirties. After he died, Stalin

645
00:35:47,600 --> 00:35:50,120
Speaker 2: was like, oh, he was great, and he loved us

646
00:35:50,160 --> 00:35:53,200
Speaker 2: and we loved him, which has just got to be

647
00:35:53,239 --> 00:35:57,759
Speaker 2: a horrid fate for your legacy. Osip comes back from

648
00:35:57,840 --> 00:36:00,920
Speaker 2: Armenia and he starts writing poetry that he couldn't publish

649
00:36:00,960 --> 00:36:04,640
Speaker 2: because well, he just couldn't get anything published. So at

650
00:36:04,640 --> 00:36:07,040
Speaker 2: this point he's like, he starts writing poetry about how

651
00:36:07,080 --> 00:36:09,880
Speaker 2: he's doomed to die, that the Bolsheviks are going to

652
00:36:09,960 --> 00:36:13,640
Speaker 2: kill him. That is the poetry he writes. And then

653
00:36:14,160 --> 00:36:17,360
Speaker 2: in nineteen thirty three he wrote a poem that accused

654
00:36:17,440 --> 00:36:21,879
Speaker 2: Stalin of murder ooh, and two of the lines from

655
00:36:21,880 --> 00:36:27,560
Speaker 2: it are he rolls the executions on his tongue like berries. Oooh.

656
00:36:28,320 --> 00:36:31,720
Speaker 2: He wishes he could hug them like big friends from home.

657
00:36:33,880 --> 00:36:36,560
Speaker 2: He didn't even publish this, he just started spreading it

658
00:36:36,600 --> 00:36:38,640
Speaker 2: mostly by word of mouth and on like one or

659
00:36:38,640 --> 00:36:41,799
Speaker 2: two typewritten manuscripts, And most of his friends are like,

660
00:36:42,239 --> 00:36:43,080
Speaker 2: the fuck are you doing?

661
00:36:43,280 --> 00:36:45,560
Speaker 3: And they're like, why would you even say that to me? Man?

662
00:36:46,280 --> 00:36:49,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, So he was arrested and tortured and exiled and

663
00:36:49,719 --> 00:36:52,279
Speaker 2: then died in a prison camp of heart failure. YEP.

664
00:36:53,800 --> 00:36:58,600
Speaker 2: Poets and authors kept going memorizing everything that they could,

665
00:36:59,200 --> 00:37:01,360
Speaker 2: so that it could be public one day when society

666
00:37:01,440 --> 00:37:06,560
Speaker 2: was free once more. One author, Marina zvechya Yeva, sold

667
00:37:06,560 --> 00:37:09,640
Speaker 2: her little hand bound, hand sewn poetry journals and called

668
00:37:09,640 --> 00:37:15,680
Speaker 2: it Overcoming Gutenberg. Other people called it quote writing for

669
00:37:15,760 --> 00:37:18,560
Speaker 2: the desk drawer, since they knew it could never go anywhere.

670
00:37:18,560 --> 00:37:20,560
Speaker 2: They were just like, I'm writing this other one for

671
00:37:20,880 --> 00:37:23,520
Speaker 2: no one, But you couldn't actually keep it in a

672
00:37:23,520 --> 00:37:25,320
Speaker 2: regular old desk drawer because that's what's going to be

673
00:37:25,480 --> 00:37:26,520
Speaker 2: tossed by the fucking series.

674
00:37:26,560 --> 00:37:28,360
Speaker 3: I was going to say, it doesn't sound like you

675
00:37:28,360 --> 00:37:30,800
Speaker 3: should leave it just laying around and needs to be

676
00:37:30,880 --> 00:37:32,720
Speaker 3: hidden under some floorboards or something.

677
00:37:33,160 --> 00:37:34,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, they are literally burying it.

678
00:37:35,280 --> 00:37:35,640
Speaker 3: Yeah.

679
00:37:35,840 --> 00:37:40,120
Speaker 2: Yeah. During the peak of Stalin's terror in the nineteen

680
00:37:40,160 --> 00:37:44,400
Speaker 2: thirties and forties, there weren't underwoods going around anymore. Not really.

681
00:37:44,640 --> 00:37:48,480
Speaker 2: There weren't people passing manuscripts anymore. There were just whispered

682
00:37:48,480 --> 00:37:52,799
Speaker 2: words and memorization like Requiem. People would have to hide

683
00:37:52,800 --> 00:37:55,440
Speaker 2: the fact that they were writers at all. Many of

684
00:37:55,480 --> 00:37:58,279
Speaker 2: them were writing from labor camps where they'd been sent

685
00:37:58,400 --> 00:38:04,480
Speaker 2: for writing. But then in nineteen fifty three, Joseph Stalin

686
00:38:05,160 --> 00:38:11,680
Speaker 2: made perhaps his great contribution to global communism. He died.

687
00:38:14,040 --> 00:38:16,239
Speaker 2: The man who replaced him for about ten years was

688
00:38:16,239 --> 00:38:20,279
Speaker 2: a guy named Nikita Krushev, And the overall vibe of

689
00:38:20,280 --> 00:38:22,840
Speaker 2: this guy is like, hey, I'm not Stalin, which is

690
00:38:22,840 --> 00:38:26,360
Speaker 2: a good vibe to have coming in after Stalin. Absolutely,

691
00:38:27,520 --> 00:38:31,000
Speaker 2: this fundamental dictorial nature of the USSR doesn't go away

692
00:38:31,080 --> 00:38:33,800
Speaker 2: under him, but he lessens it up quite a lot.

693
00:38:34,040 --> 00:38:38,680
Speaker 2: It's not like free press, but more stuff is getting

694
00:38:38,719 --> 00:38:43,680
Speaker 2: approved right, Okay, not free, but for your yeah, totally.

695
00:38:43,760 --> 00:38:46,560
Speaker 2: You can't just do whatever you want willy nilly like

696
00:38:46,600 --> 00:38:48,480
Speaker 2: writes stuff down and let people read it.

697
00:38:49,000 --> 00:38:51,080
Speaker 3: Sure, that would be wild.

698
00:38:51,080 --> 00:38:55,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's easier to get it approved. And so

699
00:38:56,200 --> 00:38:58,480
Speaker 2: some people are able to start writing again under Krushev.

700
00:38:59,040 --> 00:39:00,680
Speaker 2: Don't worry, like ten years old is going to get

701
00:39:00,680 --> 00:39:07,000
Speaker 2: ousted for not being whatever. Yeah, and more stuff is

702
00:39:07,040 --> 00:39:10,600
Speaker 2: allowed through, including a book by perhaps the most famous

703
00:39:10,600 --> 00:39:13,960
Speaker 2: author going to talk about this week. He is not

704
00:39:14,440 --> 00:39:16,799
Speaker 2: quite cool people who did cool stuff, but he's a

705
00:39:16,880 --> 00:39:19,080
Speaker 2: complicated guy who did cool stuff.

706
00:39:19,480 --> 00:39:20,560
Speaker 3: Okay, okay.

707
00:39:20,840 --> 00:39:22,520
Speaker 2: A reoccurring theme on this show.

708
00:39:22,840 --> 00:39:25,560
Speaker 3: Uh oh, that's could be its own spinoff. I guess,

709
00:39:25,840 --> 00:39:26,120
Speaker 3: I know.

710
00:39:26,239 --> 00:39:29,040
Speaker 2: Really that's the secret subtext of half of the episodes.

711
00:39:29,080 --> 00:39:33,040
Speaker 2: It's like your heroes were more complicated than you thought. Yeah, yeah,

712
00:39:33,080 --> 00:39:35,160
Speaker 2: but not in a like so fuck them forever way,

713
00:39:35,239 --> 00:39:37,319
Speaker 2: but you know, no, well some of them, but.

714
00:39:37,520 --> 00:39:41,400
Speaker 3: Yeah, sure, but you can understand that people are complex.

715
00:39:41,480 --> 00:39:42,440
Speaker 3: In fact, we all are.

716
00:39:42,840 --> 00:39:45,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, well not me. I fortunately have been blessed by

717
00:39:46,000 --> 00:39:46,959
Speaker 2: never doing anything wrong.

718
00:39:48,680 --> 00:39:49,319
Speaker 3: Good for you.

719
00:39:49,760 --> 00:39:51,960
Speaker 2: Yeah no, and uh, anyone who tries to bring it

720
00:39:52,000 --> 00:39:53,840
Speaker 2: to my attention I've done something wrong is actually the

721
00:39:53,840 --> 00:39:56,000
Speaker 2: one doing something wrong is really important for people who

722
00:39:56,040 --> 00:39:56,760
Speaker 2: you're in the Goolag.

723
00:39:56,960 --> 00:39:59,080
Speaker 1: You're perfect, We've been established, and.

724
00:39:59,040 --> 00:40:01,080
Speaker 2: That's why I should be in charge the Narco Gulag.

725
00:40:01,360 --> 00:40:05,279
Speaker 3: That's absolutely, that's right. If they criticize you, then there

726
00:40:05,360 --> 00:40:07,560
Speaker 3: must be something deeply evil about them.

727
00:40:08,040 --> 00:40:08,200
Speaker 5: Yeah.

728
00:40:08,200 --> 00:40:10,760
Speaker 2: I was thinking, like, well, they're not like permanently flawed.

729
00:40:10,800 --> 00:40:13,800
Speaker 2: They could just be taught again. We'll call them teaching

730
00:40:13,840 --> 00:40:17,920
Speaker 2: again camps. Oh yeah, do it better this time? Is

731
00:40:18,360 --> 00:40:20,880
Speaker 2: the subtitle build back Better?

732
00:40:23,160 --> 00:40:23,600
Speaker 3: All right?

733
00:40:24,560 --> 00:40:28,080
Speaker 2: And that book, the more famous one and the author

734
00:40:28,400 --> 00:40:30,839
Speaker 2: and the rise of Samasdak culture, which I still hasn't

735
00:40:30,840 --> 00:40:33,240
Speaker 2: even been called that yet. We're going to talk about

736
00:40:33,920 --> 00:40:34,600
Speaker 2: on Wednesday.

737
00:40:35,280 --> 00:40:38,879
Speaker 3: Ooh, Wednesday, I know, I don't know, I just wanted

738
00:40:38,880 --> 00:40:40,120
Speaker 3: to add some flair. I don't know.

739
00:40:40,800 --> 00:40:44,359
Speaker 2: How are you feeling about underground publishing so far?

740
00:40:45,080 --> 00:40:47,880
Speaker 3: I think this is really rad. There's so many parallels

741
00:40:47,920 --> 00:40:52,880
Speaker 3: to be brought to as we've established modern day. I

742
00:40:52,920 --> 00:40:58,960
Speaker 3: think it's cool. It sounds pretty punk rock, Yeah, complicated, scary, terrifying,

743
00:41:00,160 --> 00:41:05,319
Speaker 3: potentially demoralizing era where people such as these that you've

744
00:41:05,360 --> 00:41:07,280
Speaker 3: outlined here are vital.

745
00:41:08,040 --> 00:41:08,440
Speaker 2: Yeah.

746
00:41:08,600 --> 00:41:09,520
Speaker 3: Yeah.

747
00:41:09,719 --> 00:41:11,040
Speaker 2: One of the things that I think about on a

748
00:41:11,080 --> 00:41:13,160
Speaker 2: regular basis. A long time ago, I did an episode

749
00:41:13,160 --> 00:41:17,640
Speaker 2: about the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, and when I think about that,

750
00:41:17,719 --> 00:41:22,600
Speaker 2: like closed doomed society, the things that they smuggled in.

751
00:41:22,719 --> 00:41:27,080
Speaker 2: There was three things that mattered to them, which was food, arms,

752
00:41:27,760 --> 00:41:31,600
Speaker 2: and the means of printing. Like, the means of printing

753
00:41:31,719 --> 00:41:34,759
Speaker 2: was so important to people, and I think that's a

754
00:41:34,760 --> 00:41:37,480
Speaker 2: thing that we sometimes take for granted. And obviously it

755
00:41:37,520 --> 00:41:41,280
Speaker 2: would be harder to silence the free production of stuff

756
00:41:41,360 --> 00:41:44,640
Speaker 2: in the modern era, but not impossible. Like, for example,

757
00:41:45,239 --> 00:41:48,240
Speaker 2: did you know that every commercially available like home printer,

758
00:41:48,520 --> 00:41:50,839
Speaker 2: leaves a fingerprint that can be tracked forensically.

759
00:41:51,880 --> 00:41:52,840
Speaker 3: I didn't know.

760
00:41:53,000 --> 00:41:55,719
Speaker 2: I didn't know that. Isn't that fun? It's one of

761
00:41:55,719 --> 00:41:58,200
Speaker 2: those things where you're like, when you're in like normal

762
00:41:58,239 --> 00:42:01,799
Speaker 2: time society, you're like, well, all right, I mean I'm

763
00:42:01,840 --> 00:42:05,240
Speaker 2: not doing anything wrong, so whatever. You know, there's free speech.

764
00:42:06,120 --> 00:42:10,480
Speaker 2: But when you're like, oh, if you live in a dictatorship.

765
00:42:09,920 --> 00:42:15,640
Speaker 3: Right, we're actually so much more traceable, trackable, detectable, yeah,

766
00:42:15,680 --> 00:42:18,120
Speaker 3: than you could even imagine, even if you're reading something

767
00:42:18,160 --> 00:42:20,719
Speaker 3: on your computer and not posting it. Well, it's I

768
00:42:20,719 --> 00:42:23,680
Speaker 3: guess that's imaginable at this point, people have access to

769
00:42:23,760 --> 00:42:25,000
Speaker 3: your hard drives.

770
00:42:25,040 --> 00:42:27,120
Speaker 2: But yeah, depending, but yeah.

771
00:42:27,160 --> 00:42:31,799
Speaker 3: Depending, and then there's other forms of censorship. It's it's

772
00:42:31,800 --> 00:42:32,520
Speaker 3: all relatable.

773
00:42:33,040 --> 00:42:36,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's not hopeless. And I mean, one, we're

774
00:42:36,719 --> 00:42:39,439
Speaker 2: also not there yet, or we might not get there.

775
00:42:39,480 --> 00:42:42,400
Speaker 2: We might continue to have it not free speech, well

776
00:42:42,440 --> 00:42:44,000
Speaker 2: except for, of course, the people who get pulled off

777
00:42:44,040 --> 00:42:47,520
Speaker 2: the streets for participating in protective free speech activities. Besides

778
00:42:47,600 --> 00:42:50,840
Speaker 2: those people, God damn it, what a fucking time.

779
00:42:53,280 --> 00:42:57,360
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, I like to remind myself we aren't. Actually

780
00:42:57,760 --> 00:43:02,120
Speaker 3: it's happening, but it's we're not the endgame. There's still

781
00:43:02,160 --> 00:43:04,520
Speaker 3: time for us to change this outcome.

782
00:43:04,960 --> 00:43:08,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally, But I also think it's it's worth people

783
00:43:08,880 --> 00:43:11,640
Speaker 2: understanding that, among other things to prepare for. I think

784
00:43:11,680 --> 00:43:14,400
Speaker 2: it's worth people thinking about how they would continue to

785
00:43:14,480 --> 00:43:17,960
Speaker 2: produce culture under different circumstances.

786
00:43:18,840 --> 00:43:21,160
Speaker 3: Now is the time to have those conversations and to

787
00:43:21,200 --> 00:43:23,120
Speaker 3: have with yourself with other people.

788
00:43:23,400 --> 00:43:25,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, but we're not going to tell you how we're

789
00:43:25,200 --> 00:43:27,040
Speaker 2: gonna Well, we're just going to keep going forever because

790
00:43:27,040 --> 00:43:27,879
Speaker 2: everyone loves us.

791
00:43:28,239 --> 00:43:33,319
Speaker 3: Yeah, you can't stop me from podcasting. Maybe they could, Yeah, right,

792
00:43:33,400 --> 00:43:34,840
Speaker 3: that's hope.

793
00:43:35,239 --> 00:43:35,640
Speaker 2: I think.

794
00:43:36,400 --> 00:43:39,800
Speaker 5: I don't think it's like that's like a conversation Robert

795
00:43:39,840 --> 00:43:43,799
Speaker 5: and I have like every couple hours, like, hmmm, we

796
00:43:43,840 --> 00:43:45,920
Speaker 5: could keep doing this, I think.

797
00:43:46,000 --> 00:43:49,160
Speaker 3: Right, yeah, totally, yeah, yeah, probably.

798
00:43:51,280 --> 00:43:54,279
Speaker 2: Anyway, we'll probably be back on Wednesday.

799
00:43:54,719 --> 00:43:56,440
Speaker 3: We'll probably see you Wednesday, folks.

800
00:43:57,040 --> 00:44:00,600
Speaker 1: In the meantime, listen to you know, all the things

801
00:44:00,600 --> 00:44:01,920
Speaker 1: that we that we do.

802
00:44:01,840 --> 00:44:05,680
Speaker 3: While while you can, oh yeah, while you can.

803
00:44:05,719 --> 00:44:09,000
Speaker 2: When politics with prop Listen to sixteenth Minute of Fame,

804
00:44:09,239 --> 00:44:12,239
Speaker 2: Listen to Better Offline. That's it. Those are all the

805
00:44:12,280 --> 00:44:13,120
Speaker 2: cools on media shows.

806
00:44:13,200 --> 00:44:13,399
Speaker 1: Right.

807
00:44:13,880 --> 00:44:15,720
Speaker 2: No, no, those other.

808
00:44:15,600 --> 00:44:19,560
Speaker 5: Ones forgot it could happen here. Forgot weird little guys.

809
00:44:19,840 --> 00:44:22,520
Speaker 2: Oh I did forget weird little guys. I'm so sorry.

810
00:44:23,120 --> 00:44:25,960
Speaker 2: I mean, and also it could happen here and behind

811
00:44:25,960 --> 00:44:29,560
Speaker 2: the Bastards and behind the Bastards, which has a lot

812
00:44:29,600 --> 00:44:31,200
Speaker 2: more about. If you want to learn more about Stalin,

813
00:44:31,280 --> 00:44:36,960
Speaker 2: listen to the really old episodes of US Yeah, and

814
00:44:37,120 --> 00:44:42,040
Speaker 2: listen to actual news on the even more Variety Yeah,

815
00:44:42,160 --> 00:44:44,600
Speaker 2: or the some more variety.

816
00:44:44,680 --> 00:44:47,600
Speaker 3: We got that news. We've got it, some of it

817
00:44:47,760 --> 00:44:48,960
Speaker 3: and even more of it.

818
00:44:49,760 --> 00:44:52,280
Speaker 2: I first actually heard about you, not on Behind the Bastards,

819
00:44:52,320 --> 00:44:55,800
Speaker 2: but on Worst Year Ever. Really that was a good show.

820
00:44:56,040 --> 00:44:58,399
Speaker 2: I really liked I know, we did.

821
00:44:58,800 --> 00:45:01,480
Speaker 3: I miss that. Yeah, it was fun. It was also

822
00:45:01,960 --> 00:45:05,200
Speaker 3: very hard to balance all everything.

823
00:45:05,440 --> 00:45:07,560
Speaker 1: We did it during one of the hardest times in

824
00:45:07,600 --> 00:45:08,040
Speaker 1: the world.

825
00:45:08,320 --> 00:45:11,239
Speaker 3: Yeah, we burnt ourselves out. Nice, But then you guys

826
00:45:11,280 --> 00:45:14,360
Speaker 3: also launched all of your other shows and lots of things.

827
00:45:14,760 --> 00:45:16,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, now we're even more tired.

828
00:45:17,680 --> 00:45:19,720
Speaker 3: Now we're even more even more tired.

829
00:45:20,239 --> 00:45:22,319
Speaker 2: And then there's also this thing where I'm like, even

830
00:45:22,360 --> 00:45:24,000
Speaker 2: though I'm tired and a little bit burned out, there's

831
00:45:24,000 --> 00:45:25,879
Speaker 2: also like a fire under me a little bit more

832
00:45:25,880 --> 00:45:29,120
Speaker 2: where I'm like, yeah, for sure, oh I better. Like

833
00:45:29,239 --> 00:45:32,400
Speaker 2: researching this stuff was like, well, I want to know

834
00:45:32,440 --> 00:45:35,000
Speaker 2: about how they did this, you know, and like all

835
00:45:35,040 --> 00:45:36,359
Speaker 2: of them. I mean, that's the thing I like about

836
00:45:36,360 --> 00:45:38,360
Speaker 2: my show is I genuinely care about the things that

837
00:45:38,440 --> 00:45:44,120
Speaker 2: I talk about, but like it's been I don't know. Unfortunately,

838
00:45:44,160 --> 00:45:46,560
Speaker 2: it allows me to run on fumes sometimes, is how

839
00:45:46,640 --> 00:45:47,919
Speaker 2: much I care about motivate stuff.

840
00:45:48,120 --> 00:45:52,520
Speaker 3: Right, It's an extra bit of motivation, but it's also

841
00:45:52,600 --> 00:45:56,880
Speaker 3: feels like a necessity at times, like I've got to Yeah, no,

842
00:45:57,200 --> 00:46:01,040
Speaker 3: I know what you're saying. It's hard to articulate, but yeah, And.

843
00:46:00,880 --> 00:46:03,320
Speaker 2: I want to not be entirely self aggrandizing about the

844
00:46:03,320 --> 00:46:06,040
Speaker 2: podcasting field here. I know that everyone is experiencing this.

845
00:46:06,160 --> 00:46:07,560
Speaker 2: I want to be really clear about that.

846
00:46:08,239 --> 00:46:14,080
Speaker 3: Oh, everybody has their own relationship to it, regardless of

847
00:46:14,120 --> 00:46:17,479
Speaker 3: what you do for a living or yeah, you know.

848
00:46:18,440 --> 00:46:20,319
Speaker 2: Welcome to the apocalypse, or we still have to pay

849
00:46:20,440 --> 00:46:25,400
Speaker 2: rent and yeah, yep, we'll see you all on Wednesday.

850
00:46:25,800 --> 00:46:26,960
Speaker 3: Wednesday.

851
00:46:26,960 --> 00:46:31,760
Speaker 1: Bye.

852
00:46:33,320 --> 00:46:35,800
Speaker 5: Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production of

853
00:46:35,880 --> 00:46:38,960
Speaker 5: cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media,

854
00:46:39,120 --> 00:46:42,359
Speaker 5: visit our website Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out

855
00:46:42,440 --> 00:46:45,839
Speaker 5: on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get

856
00:46:45,880 --> 00:46:47,040
Speaker 5: your podcasts.