This week was the beginning of the next stage in my new life, la vita nuova as an independent author. After a ritual week on the liminal beauty of the Bay of Lorne in South-Eastern Australia, I transformed from a government official, wounded and now retired, to become an independent author.
I have produced three episodes of the podcast/channel on the state of play of the war in Ukraine. How do we make sense of the events leading up to the war in Ukraine, and throughout the year of 2022? There have been many news stories, many podcasts and many channels looking at the unfolding events in Ukraine from day to day, In these episodes, however, I step back from the daily news cycle, and explore what it means for us as ordinary citizens looking on at these distressing events and wanting states to find their way back to diplomacy and dialogue.
Yesenin's poetic celebration of rural life was itself far removed from Yesenin's real life.
Over the last few weeks I have collected a fair swag of Russian world history and literature.
So, it seems reasonable at least to ask: what will happen in the West if Russia wins the war in Ukraine?
Something tells me Chekhov and the innovations in drama he bequeathed to us may appear in my podcast series on the gifts of Russian culture.
War is terrible. War is troubling. War poses difficult questions for us all. This war in Ukraine, which is spreading globally through sanctions, bans, social media and slogans, presents those questions too. This episode of The Burning Archive responds to a listener question that just might help us get closer to peace, and that make... Continue Reading →
This debate from a major show in India gives a good insight into how the USA has alienated Indian elites. It is one event in an rushing cascade of intellectual revolt against the Anglo-American world, against the Netflix stream of American thinking about the world, diplomacy, democracy, economics etc. The world is saying: America, look at me, I am the captain now.
So much of the history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is the tragic encounters of the elites of empires and ethno-linguistic national identities. We are seeing a new version of this struggle between confected social media national identities, concealing troubled and exclusive ethno-lingusitic reasoning, and collapsing imperial orders.
We are not entering World War III, I think, I hope, I insist on believing. But we are entering the final phase of the Hundred Years Cold War of the Anglo-American Powers against Russia. My forecast is that the system of power that has led this war will collapse, perhaps surprisngly quickly, but likely over five to ten years. Seven great fault lines are cracking open during the Ukraine crisis that will shape the social, political, cultural and international orders we navigate through.
The NATO-Russia War and the last phase of the 100 Years Cold War. Advice on staying sane in an information war, a Kulturkampf. The Great Separation in the Multipolar World. Folly and fraud in Melbourne. Lev Gumilev, and the traditions of Eurasia in Russian thought. Legutko on the demons of liberal democracy, the totalitarian temptation that is collapsing the buildings of the old world order.
The last phase of the Hundred Years (mostly) Cold War. Kingsnorth on the dead liberal order and post-democratic societies. Decisions made in anger will collapse the Western media-theatre state. Letter to Prime Minister of Australia on situation in Eastern Ukraine. Marina Tsvetaeva on poets with and without history.
The Burning Archive 