by Marco Imarisio
passed away suddenly at the age of 71. Together with Sukrov, you launched the concept of sovereign democracy, on which the vertical of power in Moscow is still based today. And the dissident social networks count him among the founders of the regime
FROM OUR REPORTER
A learned quote for each sentence. Always scratching your head, waving your hands, cursing. Gleb Pavlovsky, who died suddenly last night of natural causes at the age of 71, was content at his home in Moscow with his role as the talking cricket and the immunity that came from his past as a dissident persecuted by the USSR and father of the Russian network, but above all through his fame as the man who built up Vladimir Putin.
The latter was only a partially true label. In 1999, on behalf of Boris Yeltsin, he agreed to serve the new and little-known prime minister. She stayed with him until 2011, overseeing his first two campaigns and following him through his first eight years in the Kremlin. He had become a trustworthy man. To the point that in 2004 Putin entrusted him with a rather delicate task, sending him to Ukraine to manage the candidacy of pro-Russian Viktor Yanukovych. He said he did his duty and led him to victory, but then those directly involved got in the way of the Maidan protests. It was he who, together with Vladislav Surkov, launched the concept of sovereign democracy, on which Putin’s vertical of power is still based today.
Putin says he has always remained loyal to the people to whom he is committed. Perhaps that’s why he’s allowed Pavlovsky to speak up against him undisturbed over the past ten years from the headquarters of his association, the Efficient Policy Fund, a few hundred meters from the Kremlin. He was outraged by the president’s staggering with Dmitry Medvedev, which he called a farce, the suppression of street protests, the end of the liberal illusion in the name of which he had condoned or feigned some already obvious signs of direction that Russia was taking. Precisely because of this dual role, or because of a conversion that seemed late to the purest of protesters, it is strange to read the reactions to his disappearance.
Government agencies speak of it with some deference. Some Telegram channels close to dissidents even define him as one of the founders of the regime. In the first decade of the new century, I wrote messages to top management to say that we needed to present the news and our decisions in a certain way. TV was very boring back then. Then came Ukraine, which since 2014 has caused a real conflict that could be shown, and with it today’s propaganda was born, which in an unstoppable process of self-condemnation affects normal people and also their rulers. When this power model ends, and it will certainly end, it will be very difficult to change people’s perceptions. Therefore, there will be no abrupt transfers of power. That is why it will be decades before we have another Russia. This is how one of his last interviews he gave to this newspaper ended.
February 27, 2023 (change February 27, 2023 | 12:14)
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