BBC and Baltic blues

Thoughts happy and sad from the Venice Biennale

Every November we visit Venice. (We stay here, eat here and here and here and here; this year’s cultural highlights were here and here and here). But it’s a work trip too. Cristina is a trustee of Venice in Peril and I am fascinated by the city’s links to history and politics elsewhere. This year we were able to walk on a temporary pontoon bridge to the cemetery island, where Josip Brodsky (who lived in Venice) is buried in the Protestant Cemetery I have mixed feelings about him. His exquisite response to the judge in his trial in 1964 epitomises the defiance of the Soviet-era intelligentsia to their persecutors.

But it was the same Brodsky who in 1992 wrote this hateful (and rather poor) poem about Ukrainian independence. I find it hard to focus on anything Russia-related these days, and I find it annoying the way that (some) Russian opposition figures in exile feel that their problems, rows and ambitions should be the centre of the story. The Economist’s Charlemagne column got it right this week.

To curtail Russians visiting Europe may be to lump the oppressed with their oppressor. But with apologies to (some) Russians, any other outcome would make Europeans appear hopelessly naive. Let’s have you all over when the war ends.

November is also a chance to catch the tail-end of the Biennale. As I noted in my CEPA column:

the current crop includes an Estonian exhibit on home insulation, Lithuania on trees, Ukraine on roofs, Georgia on adobe bricks, Poland on superstition in architecture, and Albania on reclaiming public space after decades of post-revolutionary individualism. (The Czech and Slovak joint pavilion is being reconstructed this year).

But it was Latvia’s that hit me hardest. Called “Landscape of Defence,” it consists of a video installation showing scenes from the eastern border, interspersed with snippets of interviews. You watch sitting against a pile of stylised anti-tank “hedgehog” defences, made from yellow vinyl cushions.

The accompanying curatorial statement is blunt, explaining that the exhibition’s aim is to highlight how and why the border population “lives under a constant threat of attack”. It outlines the physical border installations (chiefly a fence), new public information efforts, and the reintroduction of compulsory military service. The need for defence must be “acknowledged and accepted”, it concludes. “Our choice of attitude is in our hands – it can make us fear the proximity of war, or it can provide a feeling of reassurance that we are safe.”

I watched the videos with a mixture of sympathy, admiration, and alarm. The plainspoken yet eloquent border-dwellers, talking about the impact of the now fortified and well-guarded frontier on their mushroom-picking expeditions and on local wildlife, contrasted sharply with the sometimes airy-fairy nature of the Biennale. (Reaching the Latvian pavilion involves a ten-minute walk through a self-indulgent collection of pseudo-architectural stunts and puzzles: quite the contrast with La Serenissima’s timeless beauties). The interviewees acknowledged their stress frankly: Russia does not just invade territory, “it invades our minds,” said an unnamed woman. An annotated large-scale map of the border stretches many metres high over the exhibit. Visitors are left in no doubt of the dimensions of the issue, physical, psychological, and personal.

Aside from its artistic merits, if this exhibit, curated by Liene Jākobsone and Ilka Ruby, makes visitors realise that Russia is a threat, and that defending freedom comes at a cost, it is well worth the effort.

But from another standpoint [my emphasis for this newsletter], I worry. Yes, the Baltic states border Russia. But so too do Poland, Finland, Norway (and as maritime neighbours, Canada and the United States). If Russia threatens any NATO frontier, that is a problem for the whole alliance, not just the country concerned. Russia would like it very much if the Baltic states were seen as a special case within NATO, and it would be delighted if one of the three countries feared itself to be the “weakest link”. Such beliefs would, if they took hold, corrode public morale there and stoke trends such as depopulation (who wants to live next to a volcano?). They would weaken alliance solidarity (why risk war for countries that are doomed or defenceless?). They would increase outsiders’ perceptions of risk, meaning higher borrowing costs and hits to trade, investment, and tourism. That could start a doom-loop of decline and despair—and all without Russia firing a shot.

All the more important, therefore, to tell positive stories too. Yes, geography can create a sense of vulnerability (just ask the Venetians). But it is a stimulus too. In all the countries that suffered under communism, the past 35 years have brought an unparalleled cultural renaissance. That will provide plenty of material for future Biennales—and contrasts usefully with the miserable aesthetic stagnation of modern Russia.

These questions of messaging and narratives will be at the heart of my new Baltic International Security Centre, which is gaining momentum. More details to come on this.

Finally, a few words on the BBC. I worked there in the 1980s, and for years never travelled without a short-wave radio (including a foldable antenna).

I listened to the BBC World Service for hours every day, including having it on all night long (a legacy of my days as a nervy foreign correspondent). Now I barely listen to it all — it’s just too painful to hear the sloppy edits, weak scripts, badly chosen items and stumbling presentation.

I didn’t criticise my old employer directly in my Times column this week. Instead I just praised the way it used to be.

To see what it used to sound like, try listening to this.

Best regards, Edward