Russian Xenophobe coming to Dublin

international | rights, freedoms and repression | news report Friday March 16, 2007 06:17 by Vince McGreal vincemcgreal at gmail dot com

Call for boycott of hate-monger

Writers in Ireland are campaigning for a boycott of Russian Xenophobe politician Georgy Pryakhin, noted for his anti-Semitism and race hatred. Commenting on the proposed visit by the Russian parliamentarian, Russian-Irish writer Anatoly Kudryavitsky said " This man is a dangerous extremist masquerading as a writer, and should be exposed as a hate-monger."

In his blog, published on the web at http://unwelcomevisitor.blogspot.com , Anatoly Kudryavitsky writes the following: "Mr. Pryakhin is a former high-ranked Communist party official who once supported Gorbachev (and still uses his name as a cover when he deals with Westerners), but then migrated to the Far-Right end of the political spectrum. He is currently one of the leaders of the Union of Patriotic Organisations, which is the leading Russian Stalinist and Xenophobe block of parties. The leader of this block is the infamous politician and writer Alexander Prokhanov."

The writer Jack Harte, who is organising Mr Pryakhin's lecture in the Irish Writers Centre and has brokered the publication of Mr Pryakhin's collection of stories by Scotus Press, confirms that "Prokhanov's extremist activities are well documented. He belongs to the extreme of the Russian political spectrum, which would be Slavophile (in the ugly sense of this word), xenophobe, anti-Semitic, etc. No doubt he and his followers would be sympathetic towards their counterparts in Serbia, such as Karadzic and Mladic.Prokhanov's extremist activities are well documented. He belongs to the extreme of the Russian political spectrum, which would be Slavophile (in the ugly sense of this word), xenophobe, anti-Semitic, etc. No doubt he and his followers would be sympathetic towards their counterparts in Serbia, such as Karadzic and Mladic." Jack Harte, however, refuses to admit that Prokhanov's parteigenosse Pryakhin is an extremist. Pryakhin's publishing, 'Voskresenye', is going to publish the Russian translation of Jack Harte's novel entitled 'From Under Gogol's Nose'.

So who is Georgy Pryakhin? For a start, he is a self-confessed admirer of Stalin, Pinochet and the Byelorussian dictator Lukashenko. The Russian paper, Sovietskaya Rossiya, states that "Russian Revival party, headed by Gennady Seleznev and Georgy Pryakhin, took the name of the illegal Russian fascist party that existed in USSR in the 1930s." In 2004, the party announced that it won't support Putin, who is, in their opinion, "too much of a liberal". Instead, they have joined the Union of Patriotic Organisations, and now aim at gaining power in Russia for the so-called Russian patriots (i.e. ultra-nationalists.) Quoting Jack Harte, "Pryakhin often declares his dream of unification of Belarus, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan with Russia." This can't be regarded as anything else but a call for annexation of the bordering countries.

Turning to this man's writing abilities, he is a self-published novelist. "Znamya", the leading Russian literary magazine, describes him as an"untalented fiction writer who, as a publisher, tries to rescue his works from inevitable and well-deserved oblivion." Jack Harte confesses that he contacted a member of the Academy of Russian Science but was told that "Nobody here has read his works." This is what Anatoly Kudryavitsky says about Pryakhin's novel called ‘Khazar Dreams’: "In this anti-Semite novel Pryakhin blames Trotsky for all the Russian troubles, not because he was Trotsky but because he was Jewish and therefore "didn't belong in Russia". Pryakhin praises the assassination of Trotsky, and calls the hand of the man who murdered Trotsky with an ice-pick "the hand of God"... I won't continue quoting Anatoly Kudryavitsky's blog: I think we've got the picture already.

So what about us, the Irish, which side are we on? Which of the two principles is closer to our hearts, "free speech for everybody' or 'no platform for fascists'?

You can make your opinion known to the interested parties:

Jack Harte:
jack @ jackharte. com

Scotus Press:
phone/fax: +353 (0)1 412666``3
info @ scotuspress. com

Anatoly Kudryavitsky:
ak2004 @ planet-save. com

The Irish Writers Centre:
19 Parnell Square Dublin 1
Tel: +353 1 8721302
Fax: +353 1 8726282
info @ writerscentre. ie