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THE FUTURE IS HISTORY
HOW TOTALITARIANISM RECLAIMED RUSSIA
MASHA GESSEN
NEW YORK T/MEiS-BESTS ELLING AUTHOR
ALSO BY MASHA GESSEN
Dead Again: The Russian Intelligentsia After Communism Ester and Ruzya: How My Grandmothers Survived Hitler's War and Stalin's
Peace
Blood Matters: From Inherited Illness to Designer Babies, How the World and I Found Ourselves in the Future of the Gene
Perfect Rigor: A Genius and the Mathematical Breakthrough of the Century
The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin
Words Will Break Cement: The Passion of Pussy Riot
Gay Propaganda: Russian Love Stories (editor)
The Brothers: The Road to an American Tragedy
THE FUTURE
IS HISTORY
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HOW TOTALITARIANISM RECLAIMED RUSSIA
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MASHA GESSEN
RIVERHEAD BOOKS NEW YORK 2017
Copyright © 2017 by Masha Gessen Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to
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Anna Akhmatova's publishing rights are acquired via FTM Agency, Ltd., Russia.
Verses from Requiem by Anna Akhmatova are quoted from Anna Akhmatova: Selected Poems Including 'Requiem' by A.S. Kline, translator. Copyright © 2005, 2012. All rights
reserved.
Verses from "Snow-Clad Is the Plain" by Sergey Yesenin are translated from the Russian by
Alec Vagapov.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Gessen, Masha, author. Title: The future is history : how totalitarianism reclaimed Russia / Masha Gessen. Other titles: How totalitarianism reclaimed Russia. Description: New York : Riverhead Books, 2017. Includes bibliographical references and
index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017014363 (print) | LCCN 2017034714 (ebook) | ISBN 9780698406209
(ebook) | ISBN 9781594634536 (hardcover) Subjects: LCSH: Russia (Federation)-Politics and government—1991- | Russia (Federation) —History—1991- | Moscow Region (Russia)-Intellectual life. | Russia (Federation)—
Biography.
Classification: LCC DK510.763 (ebook) | LCC DK510.763 .G48 2017 (print) | DDC 947.086—
dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017014363
RIVERHEAD BOOKS An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC 375 Hudson Street New York, New York 10014
p. cm.
While the author has made every effort to provide accurate Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Version 1
IN MEMORY OF SVETLANA BOYM
CONTENTS
Also by Masha Gessen Title Page Copyright Dedication Dramatis Personae Prologue
PART ONE | BORN IN THE USSR
one Born in 1984 two Life, Examined three Privilege four Homo Sovieticus
PART TWO | REVOLUTION
five Swan Lake
six The Execution of the White House seven Everyone Wants to Be a Millionaire
PART THREE | UNRAVELING
eight Grief, Arrested
nine Old Songs
ten It's All Over All Over Again
PART FOUR | RESURRECTION
eleven Life After Death twelve The Orange Menace
thirteen All in the Family
PART FIVE | PROTEST
fourteen The Future Is History fifteen Budushchego net sixteen White Ribbons seventeen Masha: May 6, 2012
PART SIX | CRACKDOWN
eighteen Seryozha: July 18, 2013 nineteen Lyosha: June 11, 2013 twenty A Nation Divided twenty-one Zhanna: February 27, 2015 twenty-two Forever War
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index
About the Author
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
seven people act as the main characters of this book, making appearances throughout the narrative. I have used a modified Russian convention to refer to them. As anyone who has ever read a Russian novel knows, Russians have numerous names. A person's legal name is the full first name plus a patronymic—a form of the father's name. In contemporary life, however, the name/patronymic combination is generally reserved for formal occasions and for older people. At the same time, most full names have a variety of diminutives that derive from them. Most Russians have a diminutive that was chosen for them in childhood and continue to use it throughout their lives; most, though not all, diminutives derive clearly from their full name, which can be reverse-engineered from the diminutive. For example, all Sashas are Alexanders; most Mashas are Marias. Children are almost always addressed by their diminutive.
In this book, those who first appear in the story as children are called by their diminutive throughout (e.g., Masha, Lyosha). Those who first appear as adults are called by their full names (e.g., Boris, Tatiana). Those who first appear as older people are introduced by their name and patronymic and referred to by these names for the duration of the book. Below is a list of the main characters. Dozens of other people are mentioned in this book; their names are not on this list because their appearances are episodic.
Zhanna (b.1984)
Boris Nemtsov, father Raisa, mother Dmitry, husband Dina Yakovlevna, grandmother
Masha (b. 1984)
Tatiana, mother Galina Vasilyevna, grandmother Boris Mikhailovich, grandfather Sergei, husband Sasha, son
Seryozha (b. 1982)
Anatoly, father
Alexander Nikolaevich Yakovlev, grandfather
Lyosha (b. 1985)