Masha Gessen
NY Review of Books
New York, NY, United States
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Past articles by Masha:
To Be, or Not to Be
Thirty-nine years ago my parents took a package of documents to an office in Moscow. This was our application for an exit visa to leave the Soviet Union. More than two years would pass before the visa was granted, but from that day on I have felt a sense of precariousness wherever I have been, along with a sense of opportunity. They are a pair. → Read More
Russia’s Gay Demons
Early in Vladimir Putin’s first presidency I spoke to a Moscow banker, with reason to care on this point, who said he detected no trace of anti-Semitism in Putin personally, but that Putin would encourage popular anti-Semitism in a second if he thought that doing so would serve his interests. So far, Putin has not felt the need to demonize Russia’s Jews. He has instead identified the enemy… → Read More
Migrant, Refugee, Gay: You’re All Welcome at This Table
Masha Gessen, a visiting professor at Amherst, tells why, on this Thanksgiving, her annual ritual of hosting strangers is more important and more difficult. → Read More
Three Tales of Moral Corrosion
Here is one way to take stock of the ways in which this year has changed us. Consider three stories of alliances—or misalliances—unfolding in three different important institutions in this country. One involves Congressional Democrats and the president in Washington; the second is a story of political troublemakers descending on Berkeley; and the third involves political actors welcomed and not… → Read More
Immigrants Shouldn’t Have to Be ‘Talented’ to Be Welcome
When Americans focus on immigrants’ economic contributions, they fail to stand up to the Trump administration’s fundamentally hateful agenda. → Read More
Trump’s Hoodlums
Trump’s base shares his contempt for the Washington institutions that are once again exposing their duplicitous nature. Some of this base also happens to be armed. Over the last two weeks, we have seen Donald Trump send out signals to the vigilantes of his own choosing. “Be wary of paramilitaries,” the Yale historian Timothy Snyder warned in his recent book On Tyranny. → Read More
Why Autocrats Fear LGBT Rights
Trump’s campaign ran on promises to “take back” a sense of safety and “bring back” a simpler time. When he pledged to build the wall or to fight a variety of non-existent crime waves (urban, immigrant) he was promising to shield Americans from the strange, the unknown, the unpredictable. Queers can serve as convenient shorthand for change. → Read More
Trump Gave Putin Exactly What He Wanted
For decades, Russian leaders have had to face questions about human rights from their American counterparts. Not anymore. → Read More
How Putin Seduced Oliver Stone — and Trump
“The Putin Interviews” on Showtime tell us a lot about what would make someone admire Russia’s autocratic president so much. → Read More
The New Face of Russian Resistance
As long as some Russians, including some very young ones, are willing—as they were on Monday—to brave streets filled with riot police, they keep an unreasonable hope alive, and they increase the chances that opposition activist Alexei Navalny will survive and stay out of prison. That’s not nothing. → Read More
Trump’s Incompetence Won’t Save Our Democracy
History shows that stupidity and autocracy aren’t mutually exclusive. In fact, they go hand in hand. → Read More
The Autocrat's Language
Donald Trump has an instinct for doing violence to language. Using words to lie destroys language. Using words to cover up lies, however subtly, destroys language. Validating incomprehensible drivel with polite reaction also destroys language. This isn’t merely a question of the prestige of the writing art or the credibility of the journalistic trade: it is about the basic survival of the public… → Read More
The Real Madman
Trump has become the real version of the man Putin plays on television—an unpredictable, temperamental, impetuous man who will push reality past the limits of the imagination. Putin’s relationship to television is different from Trump’s because Putin controls Russian television outright. But war has been good for him, too. It’s all about the ratings for both men, in the end. → Read More
Don’t Fight Their Lies With Lies of Your Own
We don’t need to traffic in conspiracy theories to realize how outrageous Trump is. → Read More
Russia: The Conspiracy Trap
The dream fueling the Russia frenzy is that it will eventually create a dark enough cloud of suspicion around Trump that Congress will find the will and the grounds to impeach him. More likely, the Russia allegations will not bring down Trump. Meanwhile, while Russia continues to dominate the front pages, Trump will continue waging war on immigrants, cutting funding for everything that’s not the… → Read More
'Total Catastrophe of the Body': A Russian Story
After a week in critical condition, the young Russian journalist and pro-democracy activist Vladimir Kara-Murza has been improving. He remains hospitalized in Moscow, with a diagnosis of “acute intoxication.” Kara-Murza has been a vocal proponent of individual sanctions—so while most Russians have probably never heard of him, he has made a record number of enemies among the people who run the… → Read More
In Praise of Hypocrisy
The president makes a bittersweet concession to an American norm. → Read More
The Styrofoam Presidency
In his small-mindedness and lack of aspiration Trump resembles Putin, though the origins of the two men’s stubborn mediocrity could not be more different. Both men want to be ever more powerful and wealthier, but neither wants to be or even appear better. → Read More
The Threat of Moral Authority
In his now familiar way, Trump has come across as clueless, as though he doesn’t know who Representative John Lewis is, which district he represents, and more important, what history he represents. But his instincts are guiding him into a confrontation that is hardly new: it is a response that has occurred over and over when an autocratic leader is challenged by the voice of moral authority. → Read More
Lessons From Russia: Verify Everything, Don’t Publish Rumors
Trump has taken a page from Putin’s playbook on dealing with the news media. Here’s how to avoid getting lost in the fog. → Read More