Tolstoy, Komyagin and the Other Russia

About this episode

Bill Weinberg discusses the new offensive in Ukraine and the plight of imprisoned anti-war poets and artists in Russia.

Eclipsed from the headlines by the war in the Middle East, Russia launches a new offensive in Ukraine with an unprecedented wave of drone and missile strikes across the country—even hitting an historic monastery in Lviv. Meanwhile, two young Russian poets, Artyom Kamardin and Yegor Shtovba, remain imprisoned on "state subversion" charges related to public readings of anti-war poetry. They join other imprisoned poetic anti-war activists, such as Daria Kozyreva, and numerous artists and activists imprisoned for opposing the new dictatorship of Vladimir Putin. The recently passed Russian rocker Nikolay Komyagin, frontman for the post-punk band Shortparis, was also an icon of artistic resistance. Long known for their defiant sound, after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine they released the music video "Apple Orchard," on an anti-war theme—resulting in them being blacklisted from major venues in Russia. In Episode 320 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg places these courageous voices in the context of a dissident tradition in Russia under the dictatorships of the czars, the Soviets, and now Putin—from Leo Tolstoy to Shortparis. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon…

People in this episode

Host: Bill Weinberg

Topics covered

• Russia
• Ukraine
• anti-war poetry
• artistic resistance
• Vladimir Putin
• dissident tradition

Keywords

• drone strikes
• missile strikes
• Artyom Kamardin
• Yegor Shtovba
• Daria Kozyreva
• Nikolay Komyagin
• Shortparis
• Leo Tolstoy

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Apple Orchard, CounterVortex

Places: Russia, the Middle East, Ukraine, Lviv

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