Podcast: the other Russia —from Tolstoy to Komyagin

Submitted by Bill Weinberg on Sat, 03/28/2026 - 20:13

Eclipsed from the headlines by the war in the Middle East, Russia launches a new offensive in Ukraine with an unprecedented wave of drone and missile strikes across the country—even striking an historic monastery in Lviv. Meanwhile, two young Russian poets, Artyom Kamadarin and Yegor Shtovba, remain imprisoned on "state subversion" charges related to public readings of anti-war poetry. They join other imprisoned anti-war poets, such as Daria Kozyreva, and numerous artists and activists imprisoned for opposing the new dictatorship of Vladimir Putin. The recently passed Russian rocker Nikolay Komyagin, frontman for the post-punk band Shortparis, was also an icon of artistic resistance. Long known for their defiant sound, after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine they released the music video "Apple Orchard," on an anti-war theme—resulting in them being blacklisted from major venues in Russia. In Episode 320 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg places these courageous voices in the context of a dissident tradition in Russia under the decitatorships of the czars, the Soviets, and now Putin—from Leo Tolstoy to Shortparis.