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| Correspondence with Boris Strugatsky 8 letters to date in: Novaya Gazeta (April – July 2009) Russia’s most prominent prison inmate corresponds with Russia’s most famous science fiction author. It was initiated by a letter of congratulations from Khodorkovsky to Strugatsky on the occasion of his 75th birthday in 2008. The great author was honoured by the attention paid by this "young" reader whose date of birth coincides with the year in which Strugatsky’s most famous novel “It Is Not Easy Being God” from 1963 was published. The correspondence has developed into an open, engaging but also no-holds-barred exchange covering provocative issues relating to the future. Khodorkovsky’s lawyer passed the letters on to the Novaya Gazeta, the only largely independent daily newspaper in Russia and where Anna Politkovskaya, murdered in 2007, had been a colleague. The first letter was published in April 2009. There are now eight letters between the two men who have not only their fame in common but clearly also share a strong interest in the future of the earth. The main topics are oil as a commodity, the climate change and the related global challenges. Who other than a science fiction author of worldwide repute such as Strugatsky, who has been dealing with models of the future all his life, including during the Soviet dictatorship - who other than the oil-oligarch Khodorkovsky, who knows Russia’s predatory capitalism inside out because he himself made his fortune with black gold in the 1990s, only to then be given a taste of how the new, apparently democratic, Kremlin deals with its problems – who other than these two protagonists of political culture would be better destined to question the issues of power and survival in the interaction between nations from their very different positions, as well as providing an uncompromising expose of the role played by Russia, and this on behalf of all of those who follow the political, economic and social developments in our global civilisation with concern. "The earth is no longer able to provide for us. We have to limit our needs." M. KHODORKOVSKY "Mankind will not go down. What will collapse is the civilisation of a saturated billion." B. STRUGATSKY The correspondence has currently been interrupted by the reopening of the proceedings against Khodorkovsky. |
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