Eduard Limonov

Eduard Limonov
Eduard Limonov 2011.JPG
Eduard Limonov in 2011
Born Eduard Veniaminovich Savenko
(1943-02-22) February 22, 1943 (age 70)
Dzerzhinsk, Gorky Oblast, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
limonov2012.ru

Eduard Limonov (Russian: Эдуард Лимонов, real name Eduard Veniaminovich Savenko, Russian: Эдуа́рд Вениами́нович Саве́нко; born February 2, 1943) is Russian writer and political dissident, and is the founder and leader of the National Bolshevik Party. An opponent of Vladimir Putin, Limonov is one of the leaders of The Other Russia political bloc.[1]

Early life

Limonov was born Eduard Veniaminovich Savenko in Dzerzhinsk, a Gorky Oblast (now Nizhny Novgorod Oblast) industrial town on the Oka River in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic of the Soviet Union. Limonov's father—then in the military service – was in a state security career and his mother was a homemaker.[2] In the early years of his life family moved to Kharkov in the Ukrainian SSR, where Limonov grew up.

By Limonov's own account, he began writing "very bad" poetry at the age of thirteen and soon after became involved in theft and petty crime as an adolescent hooligan.[2] Limonov adopted his nom de plume for use in literary circles during this time.[2]

Limonov has been married four times. In 1966,[3] together with his first wife, Anna Moiseevna Rubinstein,[4] he first came to Moscow, earning money sewing trousers, but later returned to Kharkov.[3] Limonov moved to Moscow again in 1967, marrying a fellow poet, Yelena Shchapova, in a Russian Orthodox[2] ceremony in 1973.[4] During the Moscow period Limonov was involved in the Konkret poets' group and sold volumes of his self-published poetry while doing various day jobs. Having achieved a degree of success in this manner by the mid-1970s, he and his wife emigrated from the Soviet Union in 1974.[2] The exact circumstances of Limonov's departure are unclear and have been described differently. Although neither he nor Shchapova were Jewish, the Soviet Union issued him a false Israeli visa to do so, but soon after the pair came to the United States.[2] Limonov settled in New York City, where he and Shchapova soon divorced.

Limonov worked for a Russian-language newspaper as a proofreader and occasionally interviewed recent Soviet emigrants.[2] Like Eddie, the immigrant protagonist of Limonov's first novel It's Me, Eddie, Limonov was drawn to punk subculture and radical politics. Limonov's New York acquaintances included Studio 54's Steve Rubell and a Trotskyist group, the Socialist Workers Party.[5] As protagonist Eddie finds out as a consequence, the latter is a victim of the FBI.[6]

Limonov was himself harassed by the FBI.[7] As Limonov later retold it in France, the FBI also interrogated dozens of his acquaintances, once asking a friend about "Lermontov" in Paris.[8]

I did not find the freedom to be a radical opponent of the existing social structure of the country which pompously calls itself the 'leader of the free world,' but neither did I notice it in the land which represents itself as the 'future of all humanity.' The FBI is just as zealous in putting down American radicals as the KGB is with its own radicals and dissidents. True, the methods of the FBI are more modern. . . . The KGB is, however, studying the techniques of its older brother and modernizing its methods.[8]

The first chapter of It's Me, Eddie, was published by an Israeli Russian-language journal.[2] Finished by 1977, it was consistently rejected by publishers in the United States and only brought out a few years after becoming an instant success in France in 1980.[2] In interviews, Limonov says this was because the book was not written with anti-Soviet tones, like other Russian literature admired in America.[2]

Disillusioned, Limonov left America for Paris with his lover Natalya Medvedeva in 1980, where he became active in French literary circles. Having remained stateless for thirteen years, he was granted French citizenship in 1987.[8] His Soviet citizenship was eventually restored by Mikhail Gorbachev.[citation needed] Limonov and Medvedeva married but were divorced in 1994.

Limonov has been later married to the actress Ekaterina Volkova and has a son Bogdan and daughter Alexandra with her.

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Writing

Limonov's works are noted for their cynicism. His novels are also memoirs, describing his experiences as a youth in Russia and as émigré in the United States.

Russian film director and screenwriter Aleksandr Veledinskii's 2004 feature film Russkoe ("Russian") is based on Limonov's writings.

Since the late 1990s, Limonov has been a regular contributor to "Living Here" and later to the eXile, English-language newspapers in Moscow. These are the only known sources where Limonov has written articles in English. When he joined as a contributor, he specifically asked the editors of the paper that they preserve his "terrible Russian English style." Although most of his featured articles are political, he also writes on many topics, including "advice for ambitious youngsters."

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Political career

Eduard Limonov in March 2010

In 1991, Limonov returned to Russia from France and became active in politics. He founded a newspaper called Limonka (Russian nickname for the modern lemon-shaped F1 hand grenade; presumably, a play on his pen name Limonov [Lemon] and the explosive nature of the material), and a small, equally radical political party called the National Bolshevik Party. The National Bolshevik Party (NBP) believes in the creation of a grand empire that will include the whole of Europe and Russia, as well as Northern/Central Asia to be governed under Russian dominance. Although the group never managed to obtain an official party status, it remains active in protests on various social and political issues, in particular harshly criticizing the regime of Vladimir Putin. One party program used in the past supports a man's right not to pay attention when his girlfriend talks to him.[9]

In 1996 a Russian court judged in a hearing that the NBP paper Limonka had disseminated illegal and immoral information: "in essence, E. V. Limonov (Savenko) is an advocate of revenge and mass terror, raised to the level of state policy." The court decided to recommend issuing an official warning to Limonka, to investigate the possibility of examining whether Limonov could be held legally responsible, and to publish its decision in Rossiiskaia gazeta.[10]

In the 2000s Limonov's NBP has liberalized to an extent, even denouncing all xenophobia and antisemitism on its official website. The party is part of Garry Kasparov's United Civil Front. During the 1990s, he supported Bosnian Serbs in the Yugoslav wars; and Abkhaz and Transnistrian secessionists against Georgia and Moldova, respectively.[11]

Limonov was jailed in April, 2001 on charges of terrorism, the forced overthrow of the constitutional order, and the illegal purchase of weapons. Based on an article published in Limonka under Limonov's byline, the government accused Limonov of planning to raise an army to invade Kazakhstan. After one year in jail, his trial was heard in a Saratov court, which also heard appeals from Russian Duma members Vladimir Zhirinovsky, Alexei Mitrofanov and Vasiliy Shandybin for his release. He maintained that the charges were ridiculous and politically motivated, but was convicted and sentenced to four years imprisonment for the arms purchasing, while the other charges were dropped.[12] He served almost two years before being parolled for good behavior.[13] Following this experience, he wrote a drama on the Russian penitentiary world, "Death in the police van". The stage is a police van in a courtyard of the Butyrka prison, (Pugachev has been a famous inmate); he says that the prison is severely overcrowded (cells meant for ten people are occupied by one hundred, who sleep in shifts), narcotics and alcohol are cheap and easy to procure through the wardens; since usually there is but one needle per cell, AIDS and tubercolosis are rampant. The comparison with the communist prisons, with which the author is well acquainted, is not favorable.

Limonov was a strong supporter of Serbia in the wars that followed the breakup of Yugoslavia and achieved notoriety by participating in a sniper patrol in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Bosnian war. Paweł Pawlikowski's film Serbian Epics includes footage of Limonov travelling to the front lines of Sarajevo in 1992 in the company of Radovan Karadžić, then the Bosnian Serb president and later an accused war criminal. At one stage in the film, Limonov is shown firing a sniper rifle in the direction of the besieged city.[14][15][16][17] When asked about the incident in 2010, Limonov claimed he had been shooting at a firing range and that Pawlikowski had added an extra frame to make it appear as though he was shooting at occupied buildings. This explanation has been challenged.[18] On another occasion, Limonov said that he "celebrated his 50th birthday in Kninska Krajina [...] by firing from a Russian-made heavy gun at Croatian Army headquarters".[19]

Limonov was initially an ally of Vladimir Zhirinovsky and was named as Security Minister in a shadow cabinet formed by Zhirinovsky in 1992.[20] However Limonov soon tired of Zhirinovsky's, accusing him of moderateness and of approaching the president and consequently split from him, publishing the book "Limonov against Zhirinovsky" (1994).

On March 3, 2007, Limonov and members of his National Bolshevik Party together with other left and right-wing opposition activists took part in organizing Saint Petersburg Dissenters' March involving scores of people rallying against Vladimir Putin and Valentina Matviyenko's policies. Limonov was detained by police in the very beginning of the rally.[21]

On April 14, 2007 Limonov was arrested after an anti-government rally in Moscow.[22]

On January 31, 2009 Limonov together with a number of members of the National Bolshevik Party were detained by the Police during an Anti-Kremlin rally in Moscow.[23]

An online video posted on 22 April 2010 showed Limonov, Viktor Shenderovich, and Alexander Potkin having sex with the same woman in the same apartment. Shenderovich described this as a honey trap arranged by the Russian government.[24]

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Selected bibliography

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See also

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References

  1. ^ "Kasparov on Voronezh: If This is a Democracy, Let Us March". The Other Russia. 31 May 2007. Retrieved 2 September 2009.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Hayes, Karen L. (1995). Contemporary Russian Satire: A Genre Study. pp. 101-105. ISBN 978-0-521-47515-0.
  3. ^ a b http://persona.rin.ru/eng/view/f/0/10434/limonov-edward-veniaminovich
  4. ^ a b http://russiaprofile.org/bg_people/resources_whoiswho_alphabet_l_limonov.html
  5. ^ Meier, Andrew (2 March 2008). "Putin's Paraiah". The New York Times. Retrieved 8 March 2012.
  6. ^ Limonv, Edward. It's me, Eddie: A Fictional Memoir. New York: Random House. p. 91. ISBN 0-394-53064-0.
  7. ^ Rogatchevski, A. (2003). A Biographical and Critical Study of Russian Writer Eduard Limonov, Studies in Slavic Language and Literature, 20 . Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen Press. p. 167. ISBN 0-7734-6847-1
  8. ^ a b c Limonov, Edward (1990). "Thirteen Studies on Exile". In John Glad (ed.), Literature in Exile. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press. pp. 49-58. ISBN 0-8223-0987-4.
  9. ^ Sedgwick, Mark (2004). Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 231-232. ISBN 0-19-515297-2.
  10. ^ "Signs of the Times". Post-Soviet Media Law & Policy Newsletter, Issue 30-31. Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, May 30, 1996. Retrieved 4 May 2009.
  11. ^ Meier, Andrew (March 2, 2008), Putin’s Pariah. The New York Times. Retrieved on 2008-07-10.
  12. ^ http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/7245-11.cfm
  13. ^ http://english.pravda.ru/main/18/88/352/10294_limonov.html
  14. ^ http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/karadzic/radovan/marketplace.html
  15. ^ http://www.osa.ceu.hu/db/fa/304-0-16-1.htm
  16. ^ http://findingkaradzic.blogspot.com/2006/05/how-karadzics-poetry-helps-to-prove.html
  17. ^ http://www.sarajevo-x.com/clanak/071018010
  18. ^ Marc Bennetts, "Eduard Limonov interview: Political rebel and Vladimir Putin's worst nightmare", The Guardian, 12 December 2010, accessed 27 August 2012. See also Bernard Besserglik, "A Novel Treatment," The Times Literary Supplement, 2 March 2012, p. 1.
  19. ^ Nick Holdsworth, "News of the World," The Times, 29 March 2003.
  20. ^ http://www.lenta.ru/lib/14159271/full.htm
  21. ^ http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2007/03/e6afa38b-be72-4ce0-91a4-c32374c14424.html
  22. ^ http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/CA772AF7-694C-4476-BBA8-B49F7A6BFB4B.htm
  23. ^ "Thousands protest across Russia". BBC. 2009-01-31. Retrieved 2009-01-31. 
  24. ^ "Sex Video Continues Smear Campaign Against Russia's Opposition". Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. Retrieved 8 March 2012.
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External links

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Last modified on 10 May 2013, at 11:42