Vortex Kira : reawakening Russian classical liberalism
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navigation: click ►▼, link & ••• — 13 April 2023
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how to contact us
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Leif Smith
303-778-0880
Explorers Foundation, Inc.
PO Box 9100
Denver, CO 80209
USA
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leifsmith@gmail.com — Important: If we are not already in email communication, please put “*****” at the beginning of the Subject: line of your email. This will assure that we don’t miss the first email you send to us.
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Explorers Foundation ••• (home page)
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efBegin ••• (top level for all outlines)
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a list, with explanations, of all vortices •••
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threads, traces of conversations •••
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all glyphs (fragments of Freeorder) •••
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Investments ••• a table of all investments
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freeorder ••• the concept & vision
 
explorersfoundation.org/kira.html — a vortex is a region of Explorers Foundation research and investment — 🔹 indicates new or most recently changed
 
“Kira Argounova entered Petrograd on the threshold of a box car.” — We the Living, Ayn Rand, 1936
 
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🔹Joseph Brodsky on Lenin, in “On the communist origins of diversity, equality, and inclusion ideology” ••• [Heterodox STEM Substack] by Ilya R., 23 Apr 2023 [thanks to Gayle Pergamit]
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Fernanda Eberstadt on Brodsky’s Less than One ••• in Commentary Magazine, 1986
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Joseph Brodsky’s Nobel Price, 1987 •••
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Pyotr Patrushev, his life and work ••• — a remarkable and admirable man. He is remembered, and missed. -ls ~thanks to Alice Messerer for today’s update
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Pyotr Patrushev was a simultaneous interpreter, journalist, writer, and polymath. He interpreted for Australian Prime Ministers Kevin Rudd and John Howard when they met with their counterparts Mikhail Gorbachev, Vladimir Putin and other heads of State.
Pyotr grew up in a small Siberian town, Kolpashevo near the Soviet forced labour camp at Narymsky. He showed a remarkable resilience of the human spirit, making himself a fighter, brilliant communicator, and a thinker.
A pacifist at heart, Pyotr escaped from the Soviet army at the age of 18 and then he escaped from the Soviet psychiatric hospital where he had been committed  and was about to undergo torture by drugs. Finally, he fled Russia by swimming from Batumi in Georgia. This escape was unique as no other refugee had been able to survive the Black Sea swim to Turkey.
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The Transcendent Ape ••• by Pyotr Patrushev (Kindle edition, $0.99)
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“I describe the human predicament in the bigger framework of evolutionary history: that of a mammal and a primate who was subjected to extraordinary selective pressures that led to his survival in the current form, with the potential for genocide and ecocide, as well as for the highest artistic and intellectual achievement,” wrote Patrushev.
“This is a Big History of humanity’s inner predicament under the microscope, shining a sharp, personal, often humorous and sympathetic light on the foibles and follies of religion, mysticism and cults as well as on several millennia of constructive ratiocination about the human condition. Were Darwin alive, he could not have suppressed a gentle chuckle.” —Dr Peter King, University of Sydney.
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An Interview ••• with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, by Paul Klebnikov, in the May 9, 1994, issue of Forbes magazine — offers insight into Ukraine/Russia disagreements
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“Solshenitsyn in Exile” ••• Richard M. Reinsch II, 4 Feb 2019 on Law & Liberty •••
AleksandrSolzhenitsyn300
“In different places over the years I have had to prove that socialism, which to many western thinkers is a sort of kingdom of justice, was in fact full of coercion, of bureaucratic greed and corruption and avarice, and consistent within itself that socialism cannot be implemented without the aid of coercion. Communist propaganda would sometimes include statements such as 'we include almost all the commandments of the Gospel in our ideology.' The difference is that the Gospel asks all this to be achieved through love, through self-limitation, but socialism only uses coercion.” —Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, in Joseph Pearce, "An Interview with Alexander Solzhenitsyn” ••• ~found by Paul Jacobs, Common Sense •••
Recall Churhill’s speech, June 1945, in which he warned his socialist friends that their plan would ultimately require them to employ a “Gestapo”. This didn’t help him win the election but it was a truth that needed to be heard.
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“Russia’s Longest-Serving Finance Minister Backs Crypto “Self-Regulation” ••• by Lubomir Tassev, January 28, 2018
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“Former Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin ••• favors “self-regulation” in the cryptocurrency sector. He believes it will be more effective, at this early stage, than any imposed regulations.”
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Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical •••, by Chris Sciabarra, Penn State University Press, 1999.
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Vortex Kira is not about Ayn Rand, although it’s named after a character in one of her novels.
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“Why I Hate Chris Sciabarra & Barbara Branden” ••• by George W. Cordero
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http://philosophy.wisc.edu/hunt/randpg.htm
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“The Admiral,” a nationalistic movie made in Russia, 2010 — recommended by Mike Lotus & Jim Bennett, co-authors of America 3.0: Rebooting American Prosperity in the 21st Century-Why America’s Greatest Days Are Yet to Come
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The entire movie is available (in 12 parts) with English & French subtitles on YouTube.
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Part 1/12 (was on YouTube, but removed for rights complaints)
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More on Kniper-Timireva and Admiral Kolchack here: http://club.eomsk.ru/?gid=356&pid=84
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Russia, as it is today
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Vladimir Bukovsky, a talk at CATO Institute ••• — if you love liberty, this man is a hero.
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Andrei Illarionov, "The Siloviki in Charge," Journal of Democracy, April 2009. Illarionov defines "Siloviki": "These are the people who work for, or who used to work for, the silovye ministerstva—literally 'the ministries of force'—charged with wielding coercion and violence in the name of the state." The article is at Cato Institute.
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Libertarian Party of Russia ••• (site is in Russian)
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Vitaly Shentalinsky — resurrecting Russia's disappeared writers
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Arrested Voices: Resurrecting the Disappeared Writers of the Soviet Regime, 1993
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"When wolves are hunted, they are driven from behind and ahead of them red markers, which they dare not cross, guide them inexorably to their doom. Well, one day the red markers were gone, the hunters ran away, and suddenly we found ourselves free and alone in the wild forest of our own history." pg. 3.
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The task of this vortex is to learn of and help resurrect the history of Russia's explorers — those who can be an inspiration for a Russia only now being rediscovered.
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Vladimir Nabokov, V.D. Nabokov, Boris Pasternak, Ayn Rand
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11 Nov 09: Jim Bennett provides a link to a Wikipedia article on Vladimir Nabokov's father, V. D. Nabokov, and notes that it might be interesting to "contrast the two Petersburg writers who came to America — Rand and Nabokov. Their lives overlapped in an interesting manner — he lived 1899-1977, she 1905-1982, and of course she went to school with his sisters. He was celebrated by the literary critics, whom he despised, and she was savaged by the same critics, whom she also despised. Neither ever gave a damn about what anybody thought of them. She was a Jew, he married a Jew. An odd pair, despite the fact that they never met that anybody knew."
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Vladimir Nabokov's work may contribute to the emergence of freeorder in Russia. This conjecture is supported by an article in the magazine, "Russia", by Nina L. Khrushcheva. The article is gone, but it has become a book, Imagining Nabokov •••
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V. D. Nabokov (father)
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Prolific writer, most of whose work has not been translated. V. D. Nabokov's work will someday provide significant material for the resurrection of the real history of Russia, until recently entirely buried.
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Vladimir Nabokov (son of V.D. Nabokov, a writer known in the West)
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Russia: Nabokov, Buckley, Khruschev Vladimir Nabokov's work may contribute to the emergence of freeorder in Russia. This conjecture is supported by an article in the magazine, "Russia", by Nina L. Khrusheva (a grand daughter of Nikita Khrushchev). This was suggested by Jim Bennett, I think, but the article may no longer exist. -ls 11/20/16
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Nina L. Khrusheva's articles ••• on Project Syndicate •••
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Boris Yeltsin — "The Hero of His Time" •••
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Ukrainian leader calls for "cleansing" of communist symbols ••• (2009)
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Found in a post by Ian Geldard on Twitter — @igeldard
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Glyphs
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466 - Arrested Voices, by Vitaly Shentalinsky - resurrecting the disappeared writers of the Soviet regime
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451 - The Solution to All Social Problems, as offered by the Bolsheviks
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185 - Invisible Allies, by Alekandr Solzhenitsyn
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371 - Omnipotent Government, by Ludwig von Mises
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106 - The Year of Ayn Rand, 2005 in Russia
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287 - Authoritarian vs. Libertarian Principle in the Russian Revolution, by Emma Goldman
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179 - Yevgeny Zamyatin - Influence on Ayn Rand?, by Peter Saint-André
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143 - Nestor Makhno, Defender of the Ukrania
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242 - Heroes of the Russian Revolution, Writers Who Resisted the Party in the 1930's, by Heller and Nekrich
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Writers
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Russian Writers
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V. K. Arseniev — Dersu the Trapper (recommended by Gregory McNamee)
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Dersu the Trapper: A Classic of Russian—and World—Literature — Gregory McNamee
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Mikhail Bulgakov (work recommended by Lev Minikes, Novosibirsk)
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Bulgakov
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Pyotr Patrushev (at sea, he was a good friend -ls)
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Writer, translator, interpreter. Former marathon swimmer (unaided swim from Russia to Turkey in 1962). Author: Project Nirvana (Booksurge, 2005) and "Sentenced to Death" (Neva Publishing House, St. Petersburg, 2005). Reviews of Project Nirvana and Sentenced to Death: "A wildly imaginative book…Amazing tales..." (Robyn Williams, ABC Radio National, "In Conversation"). "Patrushev's novel brings the visions of Orwell and Huxley together." (Michael McGirr, The Sydney Morning Herald). "Get engrossed into the atmosphere of a real adventure: true and deadly dangerous." EX Magazine.
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http://www.smh.com.au/comment/obituaries/the-extraordinary-life-of-interpreter-pyotr-patrushev-20160429-goi425.html
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http://pyotrpatrushev.blogspot.com/
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Ayn Rand (how do we understand Rand as a Russian writer?)
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Alexander Feht ••• - Composer, Poet, Translator
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"Arion, Pushkin Songs", composed by Alexander Feht, Nikoay Dorozhkin (tenor), Sergy Chechyotko (piano)
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Dimitri Sokolenko: "How I Escaped from the USSR" — recommended by Alexander Feht
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http://rageuniversity.org/PRISONESCAPE/TRUE%20PRISON%20ESCAPES/escape%20FROM%20USSR.pdf
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Roger Sandall on Isaiah Berlin and Russia
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"Authorities agree that no one interested in the history of the nineteenth-century Russian intelligencia should overlook what he wrote on the subject." The Culture Cult, pg. 102
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History of this Vortex
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November 14, 2009: New name approved in discussion with Yuri Anders.
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July 1, 2009: Renamed Vortex Kira, after the heroine of We the Living, by Ayn Rand. "Kira" very like "Cyril"
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June 10, 2008: Vortex Cyril created after discussion with James C. Bennett.
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Future topics
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Ayn Rand, as a Russian (a topic to be discussed in this vortex)
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Pyotr Patrushev (works to be listed here)
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Explorers Foundation Glyphs
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Readings
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One day a proper bibliography may appear here, but for now just some notes —leif
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Keep Forever, Aleksandr Konstantinovich Sokolenko — How an Ayn Rand hero might deal living in a Russian prison camp, an inspiring story. -ls. This book was recommended by a relation of Alexander Feht’s.
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My Disillusionment in Russia, Emma Goldman
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My Further Disillusionment in Russia, Emma Goldman
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The Boshevik Myth, Alexander Berkman
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The Captive Mind, Czeslaw Milosz
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Memoirs of a Revolutionist, Peter Kropotkin
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First Circle, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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Gulag, Anne Applebaum
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Utopia in Power, Nekrich and Heller
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Torn Out by the Roots, Hilda Vitzthum
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The Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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Invisible Allies, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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Arrested Voices: Resurrecting the Disappeared Writers of the Soviet Regime, Vitaly Shentalinsky, 1993
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We the Living, Ayn Rand
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A People's Tragedy, Orlando Figes
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Dragons of Expectation, Robert Conquest (and other important works of Conquest)
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The New Class, Milovan Djilas
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The Road to Serfdom, F. A. Hayek
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The True Believer, Eric Hoffer
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What Is To Be Done?, Nikolay Chernyshevsky
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Modern Times, Paul Johnson
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The Counter-Revolution of Science, F. A. Hayek
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Interesting People
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Andrei Illarionov; Yegor Gaidar; Yuri Anders; Alexander Feht; Dimitri Sokolenko; Pyotr Patrushev; Scott Duncan; John Aglioloro; Yuri Maltsev; Alexei Kudrin
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Contributors to this Vortex
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Yuri Anders, Pyotr Patrushev, Jim Bennett, Leif Smith, Brad Hughes, Peter Saint-André, Gregory McNamee
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To be invited: Alexander Feht, Nina L. Khrushcheva
.oOo.