BREZHNEV -THE MAKING OF A STATESMAN

TITLE - BREZHNEV -THE MAKING OF A STATESMAN

WRITTEN BY - SUSANNE SCHATTENBERG

PUBLISHED BY - I.B. TAURIS/BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC

PUBLICATION DATE - 4TH NOVEMBER, 2021

Described as “Khrushchev without Khrushchev”, in 1964 Leonid Brezhnev replaced the “arrogant leadership” of that Russian premier with an ostensibly more democratic form of “collective rule” and a term in office of eighteen years - second only to Stalin’s in length. Fond of hunting, fast cars and male bonding sessions with the other members of the Politburo at his hunting lodge where he could be the alpha male, Brezhnev was a striking contrast to the previous leaderships. Forging strong relationships with his staff, he established himself as a leader that nobody had cause to fear. This would be played out on a larger scale with Brezhnev’s seemingly sincere desire to be “Europe’s greatest peacemaker”, a drive cut short by his own failing health and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. 

My abiding memories of Brezhnev are of an inscrutable, bushy-eyebrowed and slightly scary man on grainy late 70s/early 80s news programmes - a distant, unknowable and oh-so Russian part of my childhood. I know much more about him after reading this excellent book, and even cautiously admire him. Brezhnev was a man of contradictions, an aspiring actor in his youth with many aspects of his life eventually being hidden from the public (such as his generally apolitical upbringing and early life ) and it is this side that Susanne Schattenberg explores in this scholarly, revealing biography, translated competently from the original German by John Heath. 

Schattenberg’s book joins a very small list of Brezhnev biographies, due to the man himself not attracting the same attention as some of his more “celebrated” predecessors, and also to the difficulty in accessing original files. With restrictions easing a little in recent years, the author was able to make an almost exhaustive trawl of the available archives, enhanced by the inclusion of diary entries and memoirs by Brezhnev’s contemporaries and colleagues at the time. 

Fully illustrated with photographs, some familiar - Brezhnev was the first party leader to have their own personal photographer - while other shots are candid and more revealing. It is that photographer’s own photos that have been used in this book, and they certainly show Brezhnev’s more human and charismatic side. Susanne Schattenberg discovers a man who strove to be more healer than hardliner, and someone who cared deeply for the working people and listened to their problems. She stresses that she hasn’t attempted to whitewash Brezhnev, but merely strove to show all sides of his character.

And in that respect, “Brezhnev: The Making of a Statesman” is a triumph. The writing is concise and lucid and this is much more than just a dry and boring political biography. For example, the chapter on Brezhnev’s foreign policy and his desire to build trust with foreign leaders is riveting and enlightening. The book is biography as archaeology, as Susanne Schattenberg has unearthed a wealth of firsthand knowledge about Brezhnev the man, and her book must be regarded as the definitive work on this much-maligned and misunderstood statesman.

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SPACECRAFT

 I was SO looking forward to this, but…

Author Timothy Morton and I were in perfect alignment in the opening chapter as he spoke of being 13, seeing Close Encounters and Star Wars and making up spacecraft in his head for his own amusement. Sadly, this nerdy bonhomie didn’t last long as I soon encountered the sentence “This is a feminist book about spacecraft and hyperspace”. 

Oh, dear. 

I soldiered on for a bit but when he referred to the Millennium Falcon (the ostensible subject of the book) as “a vulva rushing through the vulva-like realm of hyperspace” I had to call it a day. The points he makes are probably quite astute to someone who can work out what he’s going on about. There is a lot of rambling about how good Star Wars is, which I wouldn’t normally mind reading, but his analyses and conclusions are quite barmy. The kindest description I can give this book is pseudo-intellectual, word salad-y claptrap. This book is not about whizz-bang spacecraft and sci-fi - it is about everything really being a vulva. 

Who signed off on this??

SPEAK NOT

James Griffiths, a Welshman living in Hong Kong, explores how minority languages face extinction in our modern world of “super-tongues” and the race towards globalisation. Taking his native Welsh, Hawaiian and Cantonese as examples, he discovers how some languages have had to fight for their survival and how they are being saved from oblivion. 

The section on Welsh resonates strongly with me as a Welshman. An 1846 government report on education in Wales concluded that the Welsh language was a “vast drawback” to the progress of Wales as a country, noting the tradition in schools of the “Welsh Not”, a wooden stick that was hung around the neck of any child heard speaking Welsh. This led to decades of marginalisation of the language. Later nationalistic acts of protest (or terrorism, depending on your outlook) against the perceived attacks on the Welsh language, including the investiture of Prince Charles in 1969, are examined, many of which were part of my childhood and early life. Griffiths skilfully reconstructs these momentous events and makes me hope he will consider writing an expanded book on this subject. 

It is a miracle that the Hawaiian language has survived decades of colonisation by the British and the French, culminating in the islands becoming part of the United States in a coup. This had an adverse effect on the language as islanders were forced to learn English fluently. A “renaissance” in recent years has led to the survival of the Hawaiian language, culminating in and being accelerated by protests against the building of the Thirty-Metre Telescope at the summit of Hawaii’s highest mountain, Mauna Kea. The turbulent history of Hawaii is eye-opening because it is so jarring when viewed against the public perception of the islands. 

Griffiths admits that including Cantonese in a book about endangered languages is unusual, but this section goes deep into the turbulent history of the Chinese and Tibetan languages, concluding that even Cantonese is at risk given the rapid decline of languages across China and the possibility of losing Hong Kong as a cultural hub. 

Interludes are slotted in between the there main sections, one of which explores the birth of the Afrikaans language and how it became the language of apartheid. It’s legacy is still being felt today and this section contains quite graphic depictions of the violence which still splits South Africa, so be prepared. 

Griffiths also spotlights the creators of Modern Hebrew and the much-maligned “universal” language Esperanto; the former seeking a language of a new Jewish state, the latter hoping to create a tongue too break down barriers between Jews and Gentiles. Both men shared a disdain for Yiddish, widely considered to be the language of the ghetto by most Jews. The Holocaust resulted in the end of Yiddish as the main Jewish languages as so many of its speakers perished, but it has since seen revival and recognition in recent years. 

The main theme of this excellent book is that indigenous languages don’t die out, they are “uprooted by malice or neglect” by the “powerful at the expense of the powerless”. This is usually done through violence, and the reclamation of that lost identity also often leads to violence, as the stories depicted in the book all too clearly confirm. As well as a history of these languages, it takes in politics, religion, identity and mythology. Meticulously researched, profound and often shocking, “Speak Not” is a triumphant celebration of just a handful of the many endangered languages of the world and a reminder of the fragility of national identity. You will also learn how to ask where the toilet is in Welsh, Hawaiian and Cantonese.

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