Known to some aged American TV audiences, Vladimir Pozner (he was on a U.S. television talk-show decades ago the name of which I can't remember), is a not-so-amiable, soft-talking chameleon/survivor/fellow traveler from Communist Russia from whom I had to endure a silly question on "why Americans are fat" (we have enough to eat, I said), at a-made-for-Russian-TV session at a U.S. NGO involved in promoting U.S. Russian understanding, years after the "capitalist vs. Commie" ideological conflagration/nonsense was over.
It turns out that Russian apparatchiki are no longer willing to subsidize good ol' -- supposedly thin -- now head-shaven Vlad.
Members of the Russian Parliament -- who of course have no connection with the "kick-out-the-foreigners from Russia" Putin regime -- want him far, far away from of the third Rome 'cuzz he don't have a Russ citizenship. Of course, this has nothing to do with his having a "non-Russian"-sounding name.
Below my Facebook comments on Vladimir Pozner being told by Russian politicians to "stay out of the Russian media," on the Facebook page of one of the bright young stars of Russian studies in the U.S. (and she can actually speak the wonderful Russian language, unlike so many USA "Russian experts."):
The clever but vulgar multilingual Pozner is someone, of course, "qui mange à tous les râteliers," but the demand from "representatives of all four Russian parliamentary fractions" (konechno [of course] -- let us not be naive -- on their very, very own patriotic initiative, with nothing to do with dear leader Putin) is yet another example of Russia's leadership (its paranoia supposedly supported by the "narod [people]," or rather by its so-called "representatives") increasingly closing itself off from the outside world -- a decision "justified" by nationalistic rumblings about how "foreigners shouldn't tell us what to do."
Throughout Russian history, may I venture to say, such a parochial attitude, not absent in the USA (I should know -- we Russians and Americans have much in common in our provincialism), has had tragic results for a unique but often tormented Eurasian country -- a country which, in its various geographical configurations, like America situated at the "extremities of Europe" (not that "Europe" is such a big deal, all things considered from a historical perspective) has contributed so much to world civilization when it shared -- yes, shared, not "defended" -- its brilliant culture with the rest of our small planet. Granted Pushkin, in some of his bad moments, might not agree with this.Image from Facebook
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