A letter to Evan Gershkovich | Opinion
Not everyone passes the tests you will encounter there, but you share a key qualification with all of these distinguished graduates: a highly developed sense of humor. I don’t know you, but it’s clear from the accounts of those who do that you share the trenchant wit of Brodsky, who once wrote a tongue-in-cheek guide to surviving prison as a writer.
Your heroism has meaning, both personal and public. When your parents escaped the Soviet Union where they, like Brodsky, faced persecution for their Jewish heritage, you might have shied from the place forever. You knew, as only those Jewish families who survived the modern era in Central and Eastern Europe could know, how dangerous places with such a long history of intolerance can be.
You needed Russia, but you also recognized that Russia needed you. Even before the Ukraine War, Putin’s brutalizing of the free press allowed for popular support of his cruel policies. Somebody had to take up the pen after the death of Kremlin critics like Anna Politkovskaya had left it like a bloodied standard on the field of journalism.
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