On Wednesday 24 February, a panel of experts met to discuss the legacy of war and communism in eastern Europe. A full house convened for the event to mark the release of the latest edition of Granta, No Man’s Land, which focuses on the ground between opposing forces, twenty five years since the fall of communism. 

Themes of amnesia, nostalgia, construction, rebuilding, liberal democracy, end of history, paranoia, and conspiracy theories led the body of the rich discussion.

Oliver Bullough, journalist and author of The Last Man in Russia and Let Our Fame Be Great who has lived and worked extensively in Russia, chaired the event. Joining him were senior fellow at the Legatum institute and author of Nothing is True and Nothing is Possible, Adventures in Modern Russia, Peter Pomerantsev, and Philip Ó Ceallaigh, author of Notes from a Turkish Whorehouse and The Pleasant Light of Day.

The event began with Pomerantsev and Ó Ceallaigh reading excerpts from their Granta pieces – ‘Propagandalands’ and ‘Bucharest, Broken City’ –  and drawing the audience into the landscape that was to be discussed.

Bullough engaged with the theme of truth being an irrelevant concept in eastern Europe. “This idea that the victory belongs to the persuasive… How pervasive is that? How quickly do you doubt everything?”

“Ukraine is a laboratory of contemporary propaganda… The problem that people have is they have too many sources of information… In all the sociology they say ‘we don’t believe anyone anymore,'” Pomerantsev responded. He went on to say that this phenomenon is not unique to Ukraine but is seen across the world – particularly in the United States.

Ó Ceallaigh commented later on the mistrust that was prevalent in Romania during the time of communism. “One of the deepest wounds of the Communist years was the fact that everyone was snitching on everyone else.” He shared that the younger generation are different in that sense.

Bullough then moved the discussion onto the subject of nostalgia, questioning its significance in the contexts of Ukraine and Romania.

“I think nostalgia might be more about not being happy with the present… The phrase that the separatists used, ‘things will be like they always were’; they’re talking about some kind of dreamscape. On the one hand the internet breaks our idea of reality, fragments it, and in this fragmented space people start dreaming of sort of lost nostalgias… But at the same time when you go and pull down a statue of Lenin no-one seems to care,” Pomerantsev responded. 

“It’s a nostalgia for a fictional past,” added Ó Ceallaigh.

Fascinating @GrantaMag/@frontlineclub talk last night with @OliverBullough & @peterpomeranzev. Now to dive into this pic.twitter.com/Uc5RKAtrT9

— Jack Losh (@jacklosh) February 25, 2016

The discussion moved to the notion of conspiracy theories, with Bullough asking: “Is conspiracy theory essentially yearning for a higher power?”

Pomerantsev commented, “Confronted with the chaos of globalisation, the chaos of too many information sources for our little minds to cope with… people revert to conspiracy theories. And that is a reflection of some of the nasty political movements.”  

“Victims of the violence are actually being confused with the perpetrators, which is exactly what you had in the wake of the Paris attacks… The media suddenly flips and you see things completely backwards. It happens over and over again. This is what we need to recognise,” Ó Ceallaigh said.

An audience member asked the panel to comment on how the West could feasibly improve the current situation in Ukraine and Romania.

Ó Ceallaigh responded, “Throw money at it. In a way it’s as simple as that. It’s crude and usually goes wrong at the beginning, because when you throw money at a corrupt society the people there who are going to take advantage are those in power.”

Both writers encounter people who are longing for a strong leader to bring back security and pride. They will be joining us to discuss whether, following the challenges to democratic structures in Russia, Hungary, and most recently Poland, eastern Europe’s new democracies are at risk.

Chaired by author and journalist Oliver Bullough, who lived and worked in Russia from 1999 – 2006. He is author of two books about Russian history and politics: The Last Man in Russia and Let Our Fame Be Great.

With:

Peter Pomerantsev, the author of Nothing is True and Nothing is Possible, Adventures in Modern Russia. He is a senior fellow at the Legatum Institute, where he runs a project on contemporary propaganda and how to deal with it.

Philip Ó Ceallaigh is the author of two collections of short stories, Notes from a Turkish Whorehouse and The Pleasant Light of Day. At present he is working on a book about the Jewish world of Eastern Europe and its destruction, as witnessed by its writers.

This event is organised by

l-r: Charles Glass, Sigrid Rausing, Janine di Giovanni

On Tuesday 5 May, Middle East editor of Newsweek Janine di Giovanni and veteran broadcaster and journalist Charles Glass joined an audience at the Frontline Club for an insightful discussion chaired by Sigrid Rausing, editor of Granta magazine.

Reflecting on the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and the human realities of war, di Giovanni and Glass discussed their recent contributions to the latest edition of Granta: The Map is Not the Territory, which explores the distinctions between representation and reality.

“The theme that comes to me over and over when I think of Iraq is loss,” said di Giovanni. Her article, After Zero Hour, looks back on her time reporting on the Iraq conflict, remembering old friends who have since disappeared, emigrated or fled.

Di Giovanni described driving the length and width of Iraq prior to the 2003 invasion, aware that, as the impending war approached, many of the places she visited would soon cease to exist.

She read an extract from After Zero Hour: “With that invasion and the insurgent war that followed, Iraq would virtually disappear. The land of date trees, oasis and desert would be marked by checkpoints and graves.”

Glass followed with a short extract from his article, The Battle of Kessab, which examines the fate of the eponymous town in Syria. Kessab was the last remaining Armenian town in Syria, after the Turkish army relinquished control of portions of its border with Syria to Islamist rebels in 2014.Rausing responded to the reading: “What you describe so beautifully in the piece is really the context of the Armenian genocide. How everything that happens reminds people of the original genocide.”

An audience member asked Glass and di Giovanni to comment on the importance of lyrical writing in journalistic articles.

“We have the great privilege of writing poetically for Granta,” said di Giovanni. “For me, writing in a lyrical way in terms of narrative and characterisation is much easier.”

“This kind of language is so important,” said Rausing. “It’s the only kind of writing that will endure and have a life after.”

The discussion then covered the role played by journalists in stimulating positive political change, by providing on-the-ground evidence that can filter into policymaking.

“In some sense there’s a limit to what journalism can do. We can bring awareness, we can tell the story,” said di Giovanni. “The gap between reporting and policymaking is huge… there is an enormous gap between what is happening in the Security Council and in Obama’s office and what is actually happening on the ground. And that is hugely frustrating.”

A final audience question discussed the role of long-form journalism and an increased focus on human stories to encourage empathy and eliminate compassion fatigue.

“For the most part newspapers don’t have space… there are very few outlets. Thank god these things exist, but it’s hard to make a living doing that,” said Glass, highlighting Granta, The New York Review of Books and The Guardian as some of the few publications that champion longer pieces.

“For me it always comes down to the people,” said di Giovanni. “Then you could weave in the humanitarian disaster, you could get the political involvement in it, you could bring in the diplomacy… but I think it’s coming back. I think people want to read longer pieces.”

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The Frontline Club hosted an evening of reflections marking the publication of Granta 125: After the War on 17 October. Two correspondents shared their personal views on developments on the ground, after the battles are fought and the camera teams have moved on to cover other wars.

From left to right: Roma Tearne, Frances Harrison and Lindsey Hilsum

Roma Tearne, Sri Lankan artist, filmmaker and novelist, spoke to Lindsey Hilsum, International Editor for Channel 4 News who covered the Rwandan genocide and Frances Harrison, former BBC Correspondent in Sri Lanka.

Watch it back and listen to the podcast:

https://soundcloud.com/frontlineclub/granta-125-after-the-war-with

Chaired by Roma Tearne, a Sri Lankan born artist, film maker and novelist. She trained at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art and has published five novels. Her latest novel, The Road To Urbino, was long-listed for the Asian Man Booker prize.

Lindsey Hilsum is an internationally respected and admired communicator from the world’s most dangerous flashpoints. She is International Editor for Channel 4 News and has covered the major conflicts and international events of the past two decades. She spent most of 2011 reporting on the Arab Spring, primarily in Libya but also in Egypt and Bahrain, and is the author of Sandstorm: Libya in the Time of Revolution. In ‘The Rainy Season’, published in Granta’s After the War issue, she returns to Rwanda twenty years after witnessing the beginning of genocide.

Frances Harrison worked for many years as a foreign correspondent for the BBC posted in South Asia, South East Asia and Iran. From 2000-2004 she was the resident BBC Correspondent in Sri Lanka. She has worked at Amnesty International as Head of News and is the author of Still Counting the Dead: Survivors of Sri Lanka’s Hidden War.

https://soundcloud.com/frontlineclub/granta-125-after-the-war-with

This event is organised by Granta.

In the new issue of Granta magazine, themed Betrayal, veteran war reporter Janine di Giovanni writes of her recent trip to Syria, the people she encountered there and their stories of life in a country torn apart. Janine di Giovanni has reported on more than a dozen wars for nearly twenty years. She is an award-winning reporter and author, and the former president of the Jury of the Prix Bayeux for war reporters. Her latest book is Ghosts by Daylight: A Memoir of War and Love. ‘Seven Days in Syria’ was supported by funding from The Nation Institute.

She is joined by Frances Harrison who lived in Sri Lanka for 4 years, working as BBC Correspondent and Bureau Chief. She is one of few Western journalists to have travelled extensively in the war zone reporting on the Tamil Tigers during the peace process and one of only a handful of outsiders still in touch by telephone with people inside the conflict area at the height of the fighting in 2009. For many years she worked as a foreign correspondent for the BBC posted in South Asia, South East Asia and Iran. She has worked at Amnesty International as Head of News and while writing Still Counting the Dead – her acclaimed book about the Sri Lanka conflict – she was a visiting research fellow at Oxford University.

With readings and conversation focused on the Syrian and Sri Lankan conflicts moderated by Granta deputy editor Ellah Allfrey, this event explores the ethics of venturing into war zones, the line between truth and fiction and how to tell the stories of war.