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Countering Foundational Myths and Cultural Beliefs

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Countering Foundational Myths and Cultural Beliefs COUNTERING FOUNDATIONAL MYTHS AND CULTURAL BELIEFS: THE REPORTAGE OF ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA By © 2012 Susan S. Novak Submitted to the graduate degree program in Communication Studies and the Graduate Faculty of the University of Kansas in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. ________________________________ Chairperson Dr. Beth Innocenti ________________________________ Dr. Robert C. Rowland ________________________________ Dr. Donn W. Parson ________________________________ Dr. Jay P. Childers ________________________________ Dr. Maria Carlson Date Defended: April 9, 2012 The Dissertation Committee for Susan S. Novak certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: COUNTERING FOUNDATIONAL MYTHS AND CULTURAL BELIEFS: THE REPORTAGE OF ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA ________________________________ Chairperson Dr. Beth Innocenti Date approved: April 9, 2012 ! ii! Abstract Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who reported for Novaya Gazeta about the Second Chechen War and the Chechen civilians who suffered as a result, was assassinated at her Moscow apartment building on October 7, 2006. While the Western world mourned the death of this reporter and publicist who was deemed “the conscience of Russian journalism,” the majority of Russians ignored the news and even expressed delight at her death; to them, she was considered more a Westerner than one of their own, and her factual but impassioned reporting seemed to irritate rather than inform. The polyvalence of her message can be explained in part through a close textual analysis of her stories, which shows that her writing countered numerous foundational Russian myths and ideas that undergird the culture. Much of what she wrote attacked the “Russian Idea” of exceptionalism, leadership, and heroism, and she compared the country’s new leader, Vladimir Putin, and the Russian army troops with the Nazis against whom the Soviet people fought during the Great Patriotic War (WWII). References in her reportage from 1999 to 2006 unraveled the very fabric of popular beliefs to which the Russians were clinging in the aftermath of the economic crisis following the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. This analysis shows that, in her desire to inform her fellow countrymen about the abuses and thereby constrain their responses to one of action against the government, she countered important foundational myths that instead led the Russians to retreat into their own ethnic identity and ignore her messages. The international community, however, not feeling its identity threatened, accepted her messages, although its members did not act to prevent the abuses from continuing. ! iii! Acknowledgments They say the dissertation is the most difficult part, but I take exception to that line of thinking. What lies yet before me is the gargantuan task of adequately expressing my gratitude to the faculty members and friends — some of whom served in both capacities — who shepherded me through this adventure from start to successful finish. I can only hope that my future accomplishments will be sufficient for you to believe that the time you invested in me was well spent. My thanks go to all of you: To my chair, Dr. Beth Innocenti, whose confidence in my abilities far exceeded my own. You have been a teacher and a role model in the classroom, and a friend outside of it. To Dr. Robert C. Rowland, who taught me how to make a damned argument. To Dr. Donn W. Parson, who showed me how to recognize my terministic screens and do some casuistic stretching. To Dr. Jay P. Childers, who completely overturned what I thought I knew about democracy and then helped me put the pieces back together correctly. To Dr. Maria Carlson, who always knows the right sources and has been an !"#$%&' ()* +!(#$,$-.* for so many years. To my friends Dr. Tracy Russo and Dr. Anne Owen: You both know why. To the School of Journalism, for providing my faculty position and financial support for my various conference presentations. And finally, to my Lawrence and Topeka family members, who have fielded my endless phone calls, emails, and texts during each crisis — the expected and especially the unexpected: Take a breather while you can. My tenure-track trials are coming up next. ! iv! “There is not so much difference between the ideologies of capitalism and communism, you know. The difference is simple. Capitalism is the exploitation of man by man, and communism is the reverse.” — John Gardner, The Man from Barbarossa ! v! Table of Contents Title Page . i Acceptance Page . ii Abstract . iii Acknowledgements . .iv Table of Contents . vi Chapter One . 1 Countering Foundational Myths and Cultural Beliefs . .1 Shots Heard ‘Round the World. .5 Roots in Russian Consciousness . .13 Constraints on the Stories . .16 How the Popular Press Sees Her. .21 How the Academics See Her . 23 Theory: The Missing Piece . .26 Chapter Two . 31 Cultural Context and the Russian Mind . .31 Coverage of Media Events . .33 Media Evolution Since the Soviet Fall . .38 Public Response to the News: The Russian Idea . .46 Chapter Three . 55 A Small Corner of Hell . 55 Svoi, Rodnoi, Sem’ya and Chuzhie (Ours, Family and Others) . 58 History . 69 Historical and Present-Day Heroes . .82 Khoziaeva / Khoziaistvo (Patriarchal family heads / Household maintenance) . .93 The Message . .100 Chapter Four . 105 Nothing But the Truth . 105 History . 108 Heroes and Federal Soldiers . 117 Khoziaeva / Khoziaistvo . .124 Zazerkal’e (Through the Looking Glass). 138 The Message . .143 Chapter Five . 146 Is Journalism Really Worth Dying For? . .146 References Cited . .164 ! vi! Chapter One Countering Foundational Myths and Cultural Beliefs On October 7, 2006, four gunshots fired in a Moscow, Russia, apartment building elevator dramatically changed the face of investigative journalism in both the former Soviet Union and the Republic of Chechnya, and they alerted the world to a sea change in the course of democracy in a country that the Western world wanted on its side. The assassination of journalist Anna Politkovskaya, a reporter for the independent Novaya Gazeta [New Gazette], seems to have brought to an end Russia’s experiment with a free press, and with the reporter went the hopes of Chechen citizens for a voice that would relay the stories of their suffering to the rest of the world.1 Chechnya has long been problematic for the Russian people. This region in the Caucasus did not part ways gently with the former Soviet Union following the 1991 collapse. The ensuing 1994 Chechen War went on for nearly two years before Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed an agreement with Chechen leaders in August 1996 that suspended the conflict. Chechen warlords, however, resumed the rebellion in Daghestan in 1999, hoping to free the region from Russian rule. The Daghestani villagers recognized these warlords as Islamic extremists and did not welcome them as “liberators.” Fighting between the warlords and the local population prompted Russia’s new prime minister, Vladimir Putin (a former head of the Federal Security Service, or the “new KGB”), to order a violent attack on several Islamic villages in Daghestan as well as in Chechnya. The warlords retaliated in September 1999 by bombing the Russian army’s military !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 1 Lebedev (2006) offers numerous examples of testimony from Chechens directly assisted as she was reporting about the country. ! 1! compound in Buinaksk. In return, the Russian army continued to push the forces of the warlords back to Chechnya and initiated a bombing campaign in and around the capital, Grozny. Bombings by extremists of four more apartment buildings in Moscow and Volgodonsk sealed Chechnya’s fate: the Russians initiated the Second Chechen War. At this point, the Russian government now easily linked the words “terrorists” and “international terrorism” to the bombings, and administrators began an immediate propaganda campaign to justify Russian actions in the Chechen region as a self-protective measure. The Russian populace broadly supported the insurgence into this Muslim region. However, as a result of Putin’s anti-terror campaigns that destroyed Grozny, enormous numbers of Chechen civilians fled to Ingushetia and Daghestan, where their accommodations became refugee camps that, as expected, could neither safely nor adequately contain the masses. Straight into this fray at the military “front” walked internationally renowned Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, a fiercely determined and fearless reporter whose work regularly appeared in the independent Novaya Gazeta. Politkovskaya was unique in her time and place; as she makes clear, many in her country remained under the sway of Soviet propaganda at that time, so her writings posed a conundrum for Russian readers. Media sources that had been freed from governmental restraints during glasnost’ and perestroika of the late 1980s and early 1990s had now returned like prodigal sons (or in some cases felt forced back) to safety and financial support as state-supported enterprises, and their readers were once again receiving only that news that the government issued or that self-censored publications were willing to print. From the beginning of the Second Chechen War, Vladimir Putin, who had assumed power on New Year’s Day 2000, felt ! 2! the need to manipulate the media, particularly in regard to the reports about this latest incursion to regain control of the de facto independent Chechen Republic. Mereu and Saradzhyan (2005)
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