Between Two Fires: Truth, Ambition, and Compromise in Putin's Russia - Hardcover

Yaffa, Joshua

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1524760595 ISBN 13: 9781524760595

Publisher: Tim Duggan Books, 2020

Synopsis

From a leading journalist in Moscow and correspondent for The New Yorker, a groundbreaking portrait of modern Russia and the inner struggles of the people who sustain Vladimir Putin’s rule
 
“Unforgettable. . . . This is a book about Putin’s Russia that is unlike any other.” —Patrick Radden Keefe, author of Say Nothing

In this rich and novelistic tour of contemporary Russia, Joshua Yaffa introduces readers to some of the country’s most remarkable figures—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 walks an individual path of compromise. Some muster cunning and cynicism to extract all manner of benefits and privileges from those in power. Others, finding themselves to be less adept, are left broken and demoralized. What binds them together is the tangled web of dilemmas and contradictions they face.
 
Between Two Fires chronicles the lives of a number of strivers who understand that their dreams are best—or only—realized through varying degrees of cooperation with the Russian government. With sensitivity and depth, Yaffa profiles the director of the country’s main television channel, an Orthodox priest at war with the church hierarchy, a Chechen humanitarian who turns a blind eye to persecutions, and many others. The result is an intimate and probing portrait of a nation that is much discussed yet little understood. By showing how citizens shape their lives around the demands of a capricious and frequently repressive state—as often by choice as under threat of force—Yaffa offers urgent lessons about the true nature of modern authoritarianism.

About this title

About the Author:

Joshua Yaffa is a correspondent for The New Yorker in Moscow. For his work in Russia, he has been named a fellow at New America, a recipient of the American Academy’s Berlin Prize, and a finalist for the Livingston Award.

Review:

“Joshua Yaffa’s portrait of a people is a triumph—a brilliantly original, deeply literate path through the moral struggles and calculations of a modern Russia he knows in his bones. He is allergic to the caricatures of the ruler and the ruled, and is, simply, a beautiful writer, with the humane, tragicomic eye of a novelist and the tough-minded rigor of the best journalists.”—Evan Osnos, author of Age of Ambition

“Between Two Fires is a study of compromise, opportunism, and the fraught moral choices available in Putin's Russia. In a series of carefully reported stories, Joshua Yaffa shows how people choose—sometimes consciously and other times not—to adapt, change and otherwise 'make do' in an authoritarian state. This is the real story of how modern authoritarianism works and even thrives, by manipulating the motivations of the regime's most capable and ambitious citizens.”—Anne Applebaum, author of Red Famine and Gulag

“In Between Two Fires, Joshua Yaffa brilliantly captures the complex choices and compromises that Russians make to survive, thrive, or remain true to one’s principles in Putin’s Russia. Through captivating storytelling, Yaffa drills deep into profiles of a very diverse set of Russian personalities, capturing with nuance the contradictions of contemporary Russia.”—Michael McFaul, former US ambassador to Russia and author of From Cold War to Hot Peace

“This is a book about Putin’s Russia that is unlike any other—an account not of the leader himself but of the ways in which contemporary Russians reckon with the state he has created. With a novelist’s eye for the telling detail and a philosopher’s grasp of moral nuance, Joshua Yaffa strings together a sequence of unforgettable portraits. The result is a profound inquiry into the myriad gradations of individual compromise in post-Soviet Russia.”—Patrick Radden Keefe, author of Say Nothing

“Few journalists have penetrated so deep and with so much nuance into the moral ambiguities of Russia. If you want insight into the deeper distortions the Kremlin causes in people’s psyches this book is invaluable.”—Peter Pomerantsev, author of Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible

 

About this edition

• Publisher: Tim Duggan Books
• Publication date: 2020
• ISBN 10: 1524760595
• ISBN 13: 9781524760595
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 368