Remembering the 1991 Coup
I remember it, and so does Tatyana Malkina. Many of Ricochet's members are young, which fills me with hope and despair. Hope for the obvious reasons, despair because every generation must learn the same lessons for itself, and only experience teaches. College students in America have grown up in a world where these events are history--remote, something to study in class. If you are in college now, you do not remember the fall of the Berlin Wall. Your grandparents didn't fight in the Second World War or live through the First. You have no emotional connection to these events. You cannot recognize, intuitively, certain signs. You must learn everything again, as every generation does.
I have an odd story to tell you. In the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, Gorbachev came to speak at Oxford. He spoke to the L'Chaim society. Judith will remember the L'Chaim society: It was headed by Lubavicher Rabbi Schmuley Boteach, who later became famous for his books about Kosher Sex and his friendship with Michael Jackson. But no one could have seen the future of his odd celebrity at the time. Judith and I were both very fond of the Rabbi.
Gorbachev was by this point a diminished man, not the charismatic colossus he had seemed but a few years before. Still, it was extraordinary to see him: We were aware that we were in the presence of one of history's large figures.
Here is what I remember about him now. I do not remember what he said.
I remember this: I went to the speech with a young lieutenant in the British navy, with whom I was passionately in love. Judith will remember him--and his family--as well. She will remember them fondly.
D. and I still stay in touch, in the occasional, nostalgic way old lovers do. He is in Australia now, a few careers and wives later. Or perhaps just a few engagements, I'm not sure how many wives. He is happy, as he will always be. It's his nature. Logic tells me he cannot still be young.
A few days ago he asked me how I was. I said I was well, all things considered, though it was a shame about Western Civilization.
Indeed it was, he agreed. "Do you remember what Gorby said?" he asked.
"No."
Odd, really--why couldn't I remember?
"He said we were next."
I have been searching my memory for details since he said that. What did Gorbachev say, exactly? Why did he think that? Why can't I remember? There is nothing. I have no memory. I remember the birthmark, of course, the bodyguards, the packed lecture hall.
But above all I remember the fight I had with D. that day. I remember every detail. We fought about pinball. After that, everything unravelled. In retrospect, it was an overdetermined event. But I hadn't seen it coming.
Oxford was already autumnal; it was exactly as the poets described it – a rook-racked, river-rounded city of dreaming spires. For that matter, it also looked the way it does on television. (Brideshead Revisited, the miniseries, was popular among the graduate students; I remember the scene at which everyone would shout, "You're driving up a one-way street!")
I remember Holywell Manor, the graduate annex of Balliol College. The Manor, according to the Domesday Book, was “quit of geld,” and “23 men lived thereon, each with a small garden.” But that was nearly a millennium ago. Memory is cool and dim at first, but I can bring it back, the twelfth-century church, and from there, memory begins to kaleidoscope, the light from the stained glass begins to pour, like wine from a jug, in distilled, luminously pure blues and rubies.
I was certain our quarrel was massive, in the big scheme of things, epic in history.
The Junior Dean endeavored to mediate. He was known around college by his nickname, the Junior Queen. I remember him bellowing at me like a bull in his deep Glaswegian voice. No one knew with whom the Junior Queen had slept to be appointed to his disciplinary position – which came with a splendid suite of rooms in College over the Porter’s Lodge – but a stickler for college regulations he wasn’t, although it was rumored he’d once threatened to have an undergraduate sent down for blasting a disco-house mix of Seal, the offense purely aesthetic.
I remember how much I missed D., and for how long, until something else distracted me.
Everyone who is young now will learn for himself that these things are much less important than they seem at the time.
But I cannot remember what Gorbachev said. And that, I suspect, was important.
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Mar '11
Re: Remembering the 1991 Coup
What's Kosher sex?
Update - Oh, never mind, I googled it.
Update 2 - from the link - "Sex is the woman's right, not the man's. A man has a duty to give his wife sex regularly and to ensure that sex is pleasurable for her." - oh, this is beyond the CoC.
Edited on Sep 28, 2011 at 12:12amMar '11
Re: Remembering the 1991 Coup
I heard Gorbachev speak when he visited Richmond, Virginia, in the early '90's. (He hit the lecture circuit pretty early into his unemployment. At least he knew his expiration date was fast approaching.) It was a Q&A format, with a moderator, but I can't, for the life of me, remember what he said. I know everyone was dying to hear him speak, but he said nothing profound or memorable. Of course, why should he? He was trained by the System to obey and not to think for himself. Oh, and I remember just about everything about the date I was on, as well, which was a bit of a disaster in and of itself. How many bad dates can Ricochet chalk up to Gorby?
Mar '11
Re: Remembering the 1991 Coup
I have only a vague recollection of Tatyana Malkina's question. I'd heard, over the radio, I think, that the tank battalion on-site had declared itself against the coup. When I got the television turned on, there was Boris, standing on a tank. My first impression was, that I was either witnessing the beginning of the most elaborate suicide ever televised, or the back of the Soviet Empire had just been broken. I had no idea which, and I was pretty sure the guy on the tank had no idea either.
May '10
Re: Remembering the 1991 Coup
Thank you, Claire, that was lovely.
Now I'll probably spend the rest of the day recalling people and places from Oxford of twenty years ago (when, while taking a Soviet politics course, I was consigned to read Gorby's PR-book-for-the-West Perestroika, which unsurprisingly was an utter bore).
Edited on Sep 28, 2011 at 5:49amFeb '11
Re: Remembering the 1991 Coup
Claire, don't be so quick to dismiss you personal experiences big or small, real or imagined. When you're facing the end of things in this life, which memories and impressions will bring more peace, joy, and comfort: anything Gorbachev could have possibly said, or your memories of your and life and loves?
Re: Remembering the 1991 Coup
I treat both with rueful amusement.
Sep '10
Re: Remembering the 1991 Coup
Claire Berlinski, Ed.
I treat both with rueful amusement. · Sep 28 at 6:14am
You can say to yourself that you were enjoying Love Among the Ruins
Sep '10
Re: Remembering the 1991 Coup
Pseudodionysius
Claire Berlinski, Ed.
I treat both with rueful amusement. · Sep 28 at 6:14am
You can say to yourself that you were enjoying Love Among the Ruins · Sep 28 at 6:54am
And since irony is a hard dish to take first thing in the morning: I wasn't drawing any parallels between Clara and Claire or between the 2 romances, merely the dystopian forecast of Gorbachev and the 12th century Brideshead Revisited motif.
Britain's elegy: Its not over till the bearded lady sings.
Nov '10
Re: Remembering the 1991 Coup
I have read your novels, your book about Europe, and your innovative account of Mrs. Thatcher, as well as your writings in City Journal, all of which I have found enthralling, and exceptionally well done. In short, I am a thorough fan and find what I know of you and your work fascinating.
This post called to mind your earlier one of some days ago entitled "The Quiet American". I find your writing about your life and your matured observations more engaging than your reports on current events. That may be because I am unfamiliar with Turkey and the eastern end of the Mediterranean. But, I think that you should consider whether your efforts might be more productively spent on those longer and more thoughtful works than on reporting on immediate developments.
I do not know the economics of the two, but I, for one, will buy and read at least once (I frequently reread my favorites) any book that you write and most of those you recommend, and hope that you will write many more while I have the opportunity to read them.
But pray don't stop writing HERE.
May '10
Re: Remembering the 1991 Coup
I do remember the coup. I heard about it on the radio at work and was very scared. It had seemed too good to be true that the Iron Curtain could collapse without violence, even global violence. We were waiting for things to get ugly and hoping it wouldn't spread. The worst fears were not realized, but I clearly remember the "oh no, here it comes" feeling.
I also heard Gorby speak on that lecture tour and remember one thing especially. He described how the Soviet Union had come apart into smaller units of tribe and clan, and then offered that there was no real future for a world that could not get past the old tribal and clan loyalties. "It will all end in fire", he said (of course I'm paraphrasing. Being Russian he spent 45 minutes saying that)
Jun '10
Re: Remembering the 1991 Coup
Will Collier: Thank you, Claire, that was lovely.
Now I'll probably spend the rest of the day recalling people and places from Oxford of twenty years ago (when, while taking a Soviet politics course, I was consigned to read Gorby's PR-book-for-the-West Perestroika, which unsurprisingly was an utter bore). · Sep 28 at 5:46am
Edited on Sep 28 at 05:49 am
I never thought Perestroika was a bore, just hysterically pathetic.
May '10
Re: Remembering the 1991 Coup
The strangest of all the episodes of Gorbachev's post-Soviet life was the day in 2008 he showed up in Assisi to, uh, mediate at the tomb of St. Francis. (He knelt in the cathedral for half an hour.)
Reporters rushed to the scene to probe one more time the recurring question of his spirituality, something that Reagan had pondered frequently. Rumors swirled that Gorbachev finally admitted his Christian faith, which caught the attention of our own Peter Robinson, but it was not to be--not quite.
Too bad. I wish it were true, both for the sake of Gorbachev's soul, and for the beautiful symmetry it would have brought to the sad, wretched history of the USSR.
Re: Remembering the 1991 Coup
1. I imagine that quite a few kids in college these days had grandparents who fought in WWII. Granted, the surviving WWII vets are now all hitting the end of their long lives now.
2. I'd guess that Gorbachev said in an ominous, but semi-bitter tone, that the West would have its day of humiliation too. No, the Soviet Union wouldn't be the one to bury us, but someone or something else would.
3. Beautiful post, Claire.
Sep '10
Re: Remembering the 1991 Coup
Diane Ellis, Ed.:
3. Beautiful post, Claire. · Sep 28 at 12:04pm
It is, and something few of us would have the guts, the skill, or the self awareness to post.
@ M1919A4 - I seem to recall that some reviewers of Claire's biography of Thatcher (no, I have not yet read it) criticized her for bringing herself and her Oxford experiences into the narrative too often. I doubt I'll agree with the criticism when I read the book, but its extremely difficult to write personal memoir without the nagging fear that you're falling sideways into self referential narcissism worthy of a New York Times Op Ed writer. I also think she's made an economic decision regarding the length and subject of her writing already, though I would never dare presume to speak for her, unless I were gnawing the USB cable to her Blue Yeti microphone.
Re: Remembering the 1991 Coup
Claire, thank you for this. Our time in England was so precious to me (for all the craziness of it) that sometimes I almost resist revisiting it in my mind for fear of the sheer disorientation of the contrast with my current life -- a great life, I hasten to add, and in many huge ways a much better one. But England was an idyll of such emotional intensity -- a variety of engagement with life that requires the absurdly myopic, brazen daring of youth, and I guess that's what I miss. It feels such a very long time ago now, and it's hard not to look back on it without yearning.
It's amazing how a period of one's life can feel simultaneously like an impossibly distant dream and an incredibly tangible mental presence: the details remain so uncannily precise, there for the examining (if you can bear it).
We were both very lucky.
Please consider the suggestion of M1919A4. We've both felt hopeless writing commentary on the powers that hold our lives in their hands, and over whom we have no control. Maybe we'd both be well-advised to shift our attentions to the personal.
Nov '10
Re: Remembering the 1991 Coup
I am narcoleptic, and as such, have very, very vivid dreams. I am right now sitting over my cereal dwelling on the dream from which I just awoke. Without going into the details, suffice it to say, it was on, for lack of a better term, the missed opportunities of youth. This seems to be an issue playing itself out in my head quite a bit lately. It is reassuring to know that I am not alone.
This post demonstrates the true solidarity inherent in Ricochet. We are not alone. However remote we may be, we have found a haven for similarly minded folks. And the real bond is not that we all have the same policy preferences, but that we may find in eachother the same passions. And, thanks to the beauty and the unintended emotions that this post spurred, anxieties.
Claire, thank you for the wonderful piece. This is Ricochet to me. And you have a wonderful voice for it. its not really important what he said, in my opinion. I am sure it was something fairly obvious. You remember with quite clarity all the random peripherals of the day. Resulting in a wonderful gift 20 years hence.
Re: Remembering the 1991 Coup
Thank you, all, for the kind comments.
Sep '10
Re: Remembering the 1991 Coup
This is really boring inside baseball cognitive psych that Claire is likely already aware of, but: there's an encoding mechanism in our memories that make emotionally charged episodic memories very vivid (the narrative that we experience as our real lives). At the risk of having spitballs thrown my way from the PC police, there's a male/female difference generally in the way those are encoded (which is why you will often hear writing coaches say that a good writer has to have a male and female aspect to their brains to write well) and I can imagine its doubly true for a talented female writer in a foreign country immersed in a torrid romance, in a high stress environment.
I think in the end you captured what really mattered, and Gorbachev was consigned to the role that chronos assigned him. I suppose if I were giving you crass commercial advice I would say that your peculiar juxtaposition (female, Jewish, brilliant lineage from both parents, Oxford doctorate, ex CIA, Anatolian emigre) is something to be mined for whatever combination of lucre and revelation suits your psyche. You have a brand and a pulpit: best use it.
Jun '10
Re: Remembering the 1991 Coup
Great post. Thanks, Claire.
Sep '11
Re: Remembering the 1991 Coup
A very lovely post.