In praise of the Little Red Men: cultural revolution in Perm

Yelena Fedotova 5 August 2011

Marat Gelman is a well-known Moscow cultural figure. In 2008 he went to curate the Museum of Contemporary Art in provincial Perm, where his ideas for a cultural revolution have encountered considerable local opposition. Arguments about art soon developed into a fully-fledged political battle, recounts Elena Fedotova

At war with the Little Red Men: a contrarian view

Roman Yushkov 5 August 2011

Former spin-doctor and gallery owner Marat Gelman has arrived in Perm with a plan to bring "cultural revolution" to the city. Not all locals are happy with the results of his endeavours, reports Roman Yushkov.

Multiculturalism and postmodernity: a challenge to our political structures

Ger Mennens 5 August 2011
Mono-cultural nationalism can no longer provide us with the national identities we need. The formation of multi-cultural civic identities requires a new way of drawing our political maps.

Derick Thomson at 90: Gaelic poet in the world

David Hayes 5 August 2011
Ruaraidh MacThòmais (Derick Thomson) has as poet, scholar, teacher and editor made a profound contribution to Gaelic literature over six decades. The quality and range of his work deserve belated recognition in the context of the culture he has done so much to enlarge, says David Hayes.

Translating Monsters into Songbirds: the Stories of Etgar Keret

James Warner 2 August 2011
Etgar Keret is an Israeli author of urgent, cryptic, popular fiction. His fantasies can be read as coping strategies for a violent world of irresolvable moral ambiguities

Why isn’t the tent protest in Israel covered in the global news?

Tehila Sasson 2 August 2011
Is Israel’s tent protest part of the ‘Arab spring’, or closer to the housing protests of 1960’s Britain? How we answer seems to determine whether or not this protest is newsworthy.

The geometry and arithmetic of exile: a Russian writer’s view

Oleg Yuriev 1 August 2011

What happens to a writer when he is no longer surrounded by his own language and reality? Emigres, exiles use a kind of cunning to adapt and continue functioning as writers, but they have to make so many adjustments that some fall silent. Oleg Yuriev examines some famous literary exiles to consider his own position and attitudes to literature in his former country.

News International: Britain's Mafia

Matthew Richmond 28 July 2011
Murdoch's hold over Britain over the last three decades has been nothing short of mafia-like. Much can be learned through a comparison between the Italian mafia the Comorra, and the media mogul's empire

The Reactionary Imagination

Tom Mills 28 July 2011
An elite-dominated public realm does not allow people to understand their true conditions, creating a vacuum filled by reactionary, and often racist, ideas. The corruption of the media system is now under the spotlight, but the problems run much deeper and are shared also by liberal institutions

Theatre of Inhumanity: a damning portrayal of the UK asylum system

Liz Allcock 27 July 2011
A new play shines a light on the dark side of the British asylum system, portraying with brutal clarity the inhuman treatment dealt out to those drawn to this country by the hope for sanctuary

Barnett is wrong; the public had little to do with Murdoch's fall

Daniel Jones 26 July 2011
Was it the public's outrage that brought down the News of the World? And Ed Miliband's courage that has led to a wide-reaching Press inquiry? Anthony Barnett thinks so, but perhaps he was being a little too generous...

Blue Labour's controversial ideas are good for Miliband and his party

Stuart Weir 26 July 2011
The Labour party would be the losers if they cut the Blue Labour project adrift due to misjudged comments on immigration. The controversy provoked by Blue Labour ideas is healthy for the party, and a sign that Labour may be able to regenerate itself

The dark side of democracy: autochthony and the radical right

Nira Yuval-Davis 26 July 2011
Racialised and forced migrants are the spectre of the 'other' in the autochthonic dream of the 'pure' otherless universe which we must confront. This border-zone is our political as well as our analytical challenge, says Nira Yuval Davis

Is the hacking scandal the British establishment's 'Napster Moment'?

Deterritorial Support Group editorial 25 July 2011
There are two new models of crisis: the 'Wikileaks Moment' and the 'Napster Moment'. They involve the technological freeing up of information, and the consequent delegitimisation of the elites who have controlled that information. The News of the World scandal relates to both

A Brief History of Britain’s Power Elites: through Murdoch and beyond?

Michael Cassio 25 July 2011
War with Hitler’s Germany spelled the end for Britain’s old power elite. A new political class emerged, including the media tycoon Rupert Murdoch. Now the Murdochs are revealed in their true colours: as aggressors at the head of a global empire. So what now for the collapsing British state?

This week's editor

Heather McRobie


Niki Seth-Smith is a freelance journalist and co-editor of OurKingdom.

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