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David Satter is an American authority on Russia – a man who cares so much about Russia and the Russian people that he bothers to understand them. And to tell the truth about them, as he knows it. Speaking of knowing: His latest book is “The Less You Know, the Better You Sleep.”
With Jay, he talks about Putin, the diaspora, democracy, Trump, Stalin, literature, and a lot more. An experienced, learned, and bold scholar and journalist. He says that Westerners have misunderstood Russia for years – they think the rest of the world is like them. Satter, for one, avoids that mistake.
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Might want to put a nickel on the tone arm: all of the little skips distracted from the experience.
I have been talking about West profound misunderstanding of Russia for years – “imagine unimaginable”. Great interview. Speaking of Russian writers: towering figures of 20s century would be Andrey Platonov and Venja Erofeev. There are some decent translations – but the deliciousness of reading them in Russian is unparalleled.
Confession: I only listened to half of this dribble and quit. Nordlinger’s problem is he doesn’t know enough to ask good questions. All softball stuff. Of course Russians aren’t like us. Geez. So what? Neither are the French, Germans or British. And he dwelt on the bombings of the apartment blocks. Democracy has a terrible stink in Russia precisely because of what happened in the 90s. Few want to go back there.
I enjoyed the podcast and will be checking out Mr. Satter’s books. I do hope Trump is beginning to see the true Russia and Putin, but I kind of doubt it. One dinner with China and Trump was singing their praises. I dread how he will be played by Putin when they meet.
An interesting, useful conversation. Mr. Satter makes an excellent point about how a better political-social order in the Ukraine will put pressure on Putin’s regime. Americans need to understand how differently others think and see the world. The conversation was a good advertisement for Mr. Satter’s books.