Between Two Fires by Joshua Yaffa

Between Two Fires by Joshua Yaffa

In this penetrating exploration of contemporary Russia, Joshua Yaffa meets a variety of Russians - from politicians and entrepreneurs to artists and historians - who have built their careers and constructed their identities in the shadow of the Putin system. Torn between their own ambitions and the omnipresent demands of the state, each has found that compromise is essential for survival and success. Some extract benefits and privileges through cunning and cynicism, others less adept at navigating the system are left broken and demoralized. With sensitivity and depth, Yaffa profiles Russians from institutions such as the Bolshoi and Channel 1, from the major cities, and from regions such as Chechnya, post-annexation Crimea, and the Urals, including an Orthodox priest at war with the church hierarchy and a Chechen humanitarian who turns a blind eye to persecutions. The result is an intimate and probing portrait of a nation much discussed but little understood. And by showing how citizens shape their lives around the demands of a capricious and repressive state, Yaffa offers urgent lessons about the nature of modern authoritarianism.

Exquisitely crafted.. [Yaffa's] skilled, self- reflective reportage is so fair that it surfaces a different lesson about Russian liberals' incomprehension of ideological complexity, efficacy, or compromise as a force of good, not just evil.... Joshua Yaffa humanely elucidates how the universal phenomenon of moral compromise differs in Russia because the state looms so large * TLS *

Joshua Yaffa is a correspondent for The New Yorker in Moscow, where he has lived for the last eight years. He has been a fellow at the New America foundation, a finalist for the Livingston Award, a visiting scholar at the Harriman Institute at Columbia University, and a grantee of the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781783783694
ISBN 10	1783783699
Title	Between Two Fires
Author	Joshua Yaffa
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Granta Books
Year published	2020-01-16
Number of pages	368
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable