In Russia, a new generation is striving for a free life, says exiled author Glukhovsky. But Putin is trying to influence them so that they submit. The author, who was convicted in his home country, sees an increasing danger for Europe.
The author Dmitry Glukhovsky (“Metro”, “Outpost”), who fled from Russia, hopes that people will resist Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin in his exile in Europe. “In the last three decades before the war, people of a generation have grown up who strive for a normal, human, happy and free life,” said the 45-year-old. Tens of millions of Russians in the cities do not support the war against Ukraine and have the potential to resist the system.
Glukhovsky’s new book “We. Diary of a Downfall” has just been published by Heyne-Verlag. In it, he uses many events of the past ten years to trace how Russia under Putin has developed into an increasingly authoritarian state and, in his view, is heading towards the abyss.
The result is a kind of reference work with pointed descriptions of drastic events, including the poisoning and death of Kremlin opponent Alexei Navalny, who bravely opposed Putin like no other and uncovered corrupt and mafia structures. Glukhovsky’s texts revolve around state doping, not only at the Winter Olympics in Sochi, election fraud and historical oblivion, nuclear threats and fundamentalist state ideologies, as well as repression and fear-mongering as a form of government. Above all, however, it is always about the destructive war of aggression against Ukraine, which Glukhovsky – like many other experts – did not see coming.
“Rich with an inferiority complex”
“Some people see Russia as an evil empire,” writes Glukhovsky. “I see it more as a realm of misfortune, misunderstandings and unfulfilled hopes, a realm with an inferiority complex, with a naive desire to astonish the whole world, a realm of endless self-doubt that, despite everything, continues to prove itself want.” It is necessary to re-establish Russia as a state because Putin has led the country into a dead end, says Glukhovsky about the book’s publication.
He expects that in the next five to seven years the Kremlin leader will also try to “spoil this new generation” and subjugate them. Nevertheless, he is optimistic about the future because the war is unpopular in Russia and many people in the country hope for a different life. At the same time, he expressed the fear that any victory for Putin would lead to “the authoritarian structures becoming further entrenched” and that this would become a danger for Europe.
Glukhovsky admits that separation from home “tears a hole in the heart and soul.” It’s getting harder to write about Russia. “You stop feeling with your heart. This has happened to previous generations of political emigrants,” he says. “I already have the feeling that I no longer fully understand what is happening there.”
The author was sentenced in absentia in August 2023 to eight years in a prison camp in a controversial trial because he is said to have discredited the Russian army. His books, which were bestsellers in Russia, are also practically banned in his homeland.
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