SANS BLOG

In a couple of weeks, I’m interviewing Christopher Shulgan about his new book on Aleksandr Yakovlev, former Soviet media komissar, ambassador to Ottawa, and ideological bastion of perestroika.

Yakovlev, from rural beginnings, rose to an elite position in Soviet society. He fought for Stalin as a young officer, took bullets for him, and worked for him afterward. He went to the States as a student, one of the first Soviet citizens to see America in a generation, and became a political middleweight under Kruschev. But he fell from grace under the Brezhnev regime, at the height of hi influence. They tossed him off to Ottawa in the Trudeau years because he pissed off the Russian nationlists by threatening the Stalinist status quo with his knowledge of Marxist principles. He favoured freedom of the press, internationalism and open democracy, all of which were too “cosmopolitan” (read: Jewish) for the nationalists, who vied for hegemony with the smal pockets of proto-perestroikniks tha existed across the board.

 He came to Canada as a paraiah to his own staff, and a mystery to his Canadian counterparts. He educated himself in the means and methods of democracies, and when he returned to Russia he advised Gorbachev in the process of perestroika, all the while being accused of Westernism by his old (and ongoing) enemies.

 I’m only half way through the book, but I can already see the misconceptions I had about the ol’ CCCP dissolving in front of my eyes. I was impressed to read into a society that was only controlled on the surface of things. Beneath all the rigid structures and complex bureacratic manouvering, there was, on a very populist level, an extent of open debate and public discourse that I had not considered possible. It seeped into mainstream Soviet press, and guided the political battles of each decade under Soviet rule, and the struggle betwen those forces still seems to exist today.

Shulgan’s book is titled The Soviet Ambassador and can be purchased through McLelland.

This Is Guy Stevos In The Field

 I am Guy Stevos. I was born in 1982.

MY CITY - TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA

 I feel intricately connected to the city my of birth. I remember calm, snowy Decembers, riding around Willowdale on a sled, eating candies while my arthritic grandmother gave her knees and ankles out for my happiness. I recall trips to downtown to visit Trudeau era buildings that charmed me with their strange but endearing sense of mid-century utilitarianism and the pervasive influence of science fiction movie aesthetics. I actually remember Red Rocket subway cars, Caribana when it was on University Ave, and the city before all the condos went up on the waterfront.

I left when I was 11, spent 7 or 8 years in Winnipeg freezing my ass off in -40 degree Celsius winters, and slapping at mosquitos in the summer, but I discovered how to live a free life out there, and got a perspective of what it’s like to live in the rest of the country. It was the kind of place where you grow immune to sketchiness quickly, and develop an appreciation for hoserism that reaches philosophical levels.

 In the year 2000, I booked it back to Ontario to go to school at Queen’s University in Kingston, which had its ups and downs. Ups included: running the campus radio station, meeting some excellent people, and being a man about town in general…but the downs were quite dull, seeing as how university in a small town can often be a stifling environment, devoid of the creativity and exuberance of a larger city. Mostly, all the energy went into mindless boozcaholistic douchebaggery.

MY CAREER - AUDIO ENGINEER

I stumbled into this, really. I studied film and media in university, but it didn’t get me anywhere. Bored out of my mind, I started working for CFRC in Kingston and got my hands dirty doing the technical end of our legendary football broadcasts. I discovered what it meant to listen to the world through different sources, how to piece together disparate elements into a cohesive whole. I was exceptionally good at it, but I had no concept of the science behind it.

After some time in audio school, where I learnt from some of the country’s best mixers and producers in the film, music and radio, I got a job as a technician/engineer/producer at CIUT Radio. We broadcast at 15,000 watts, from a transmitter antenna atop First Canadian Place. I can see it from almost everywhere in the city.

I spend alot of time in studios working on news programs, and all summer on remote broadcasts from festivals around Southern Ontario. I occasionally contribute on-air segments about technology, and once in a while I interview authors about their books, mostly dealing with 20th C. European history.

For kicks, I do a radio show called The Electric Sound Basement. I play mostly dance music and electronic stuff, but it reflects only a small part of what I listen to. I could say all that stuff about music being the most important thing in my life etc etc but it’s not, suprisingly. My ipod collects dust and I try to get in as much quiet time as possible each day.

MY FAMILY - TRANSYLVANIANS FROM THE CRADLE TO THE GRAVE

Both sides come from that storied place along the Caprathian Basin known as Transylvania. They spoke Hungarian but lived mostly under Romanian politial influence. My father’s side is Jewish and most likely came from the East in the late 1700s or early 1800s. My mother’s side has most likely been in Transylvania for 1000 years, as her maternal side carries the tell-tale features of Asiatic genes and rural Szekely ancestry. Under the Austro-Hungarian Empire, both sides of the family did relatively well. Supposedly the gentile side was of noble stock (which was lost due to outrageous sepnding and gambling by one patriarch, as the story goes), while the Jewish side were humble intelligentsia who worked as teachers, lawyers, musicians and doctors. Then WWI happened and a bunch of us died, and then the same thing happened in WWII, and you can well imagine how crazy life has been for them since the dawn of the 20th C. Someone once said to me, “Your famiy has been effected by every major world event in ways that other families haven’t.” It’s true, and if you read this blog in the future, you’ll hear more about it.

Read a post about it from my old blog to get a sense of what you’re in for.