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Putin likes to quote a sentence from Czar Alexander III, who said that Russian has only two allies - the army and the navy. As a citizen, this makes me sit up and take notice. This is a concept of self-imposed isolation, a defense strategy that sees Russia surrounded by enemies.

Vladimir Sorokin

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Vladimir Sorokin
Age: 69
Born: 1955
Born: August 7
Librettist
Painter
Playwright
Science Fiction Writer
Screenwriter
Visual Artist
Writer
Vladimir Georgiyevich Sorokin
Concepts
Enemies
Putin
Army
Concept
Surrounded
Citizens
Sentences
Russian
Czar
Enemy
Sees
Isolation
Czars
Makes
Strategy
Allies
Alexander
Two
Likes
Sentence
Imposed
Self
Russia
Citizen
Quote
Take
Defense
Notice
Navy

More quotes by Vladimir Sorokin

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Nothing has changed in Russia since Ivan the Terrible when it comes to the divide between the people and the state. The state demands a sacred willingness to make sacrifices from the people.
Vladimir Sorokin
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When I turn on the TV in Russia I see a general calmly claiming that our missiles are ahead of the latest American models by three five-year plans. It's a nightmare. We are creating a concept of the enemy, just as they did in the Soviet era. This is a giant step backward.
Vladimir Sorokin
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The worst thing that can happen to Russia is indifference in the West - that is, if it were interested in nothing but oil and gas.
Vladimir Sorokin
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Germans, Frenchmen and Englishmen can say of themselves: I am the state. I cannot say that. In Russia only the people in the Kremlin can say that. All other citizens are nothing more than human material with which they can do all kinds of things.
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The Khodorkovsky case is typical of the oprichnina - the system of oppression.
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The bureaucracy has grown such powerful roots in Russia, and corruption is so widespread, that people from opposition have no interest in changing anything.
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The West should be even more vocal in insisting that the Russians respect human rights.
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Orthodox churches, autocracy and national traditions are supposed to form a new national ideology in Russia. This would mean that Russia would be overtaken by its past, and our past would be our future.
Vladimir Sorokin
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As a storyteller I was influenced by the Moscow underground, where it was common to be apolitical.
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I have Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin to thank that a Russian writer can not only write anything he wants, but also publish it.
Vladimir Sorokin
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In Russia there are special people who are permitted to do anything. They are the sacrificial priests of power. Anyone who is not a member of this group has no clout with the state.
Vladimir Sorokin
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I ask myself whether Russia is moving in the direction of democracy. I don't believe it is! Bit by bit, Russia is slipping back into an authoritarian empire.
Vladimir Sorokin
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In Russia no one is surprised when an official accepts a bribe while at the same time portraying the state as some sacred entity to which the bourgeois should pay homage. This all sounds absurd. But for Russians it is completely normal.
Vladimir Sorokin
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I'm not a prophet or a teacher, I just ask questions. I don't think a writer should be a teacher, but should know how to pose the questions and explain the problems.
Vladimir Sorokin
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My television teaches me that everything was wonderful in the Soviet Union. According to the programs I watch, the KGB and apparatchiks were angels, and the Stalin era was so festive that the heroes of the day must still be celebrated today.
Vladimir Sorokin
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Everyone in Russia must awaken the citizen within himself.
Vladimir Sorokin
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In Russia one can be as pure as can be and still lose everything in a flash and end up in prison.
Vladimir Sorokin
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As a child I perceived violence as a sort of natural law. In the totalitarian Soviet Union, oppression held everything together. It was the sinister energy of our country.
Vladimir Sorokin
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The Russian writer Vladimir Nabokov once said: In a Democracy, portraits of a nation's leader should never exceed the size of a postage stamp. That won't happen so quickly in Russia.
Vladimir Sorokin
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The citizen lives in each of us. In the days of Brezhnev, Andropov, Gorbachev and Yeltsin, I was constantly trying to suppress the responsible citizen in me. I told myself that I was, after all, an artist.
Vladimir Sorokin