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Wikipedia

Masha Gessen

January 16, 2023

Masha Gessen (born 13 January 1967) is a Russian-American journalist, author, translator[1][2] and activist who has been an outspoken critic of the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, and the former president of the United States, Donald Trump.[3]

Masha Gessen
Gessen in 2015
Born (1967-01-13) 13 January 1967 (age 56)
Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union (now Russian Federation)
NationalityRussian
Citizenship
  • Russia
  • United States
Occupations
  • Journalist
  • author
  • activist
Spouse(s)
Svetlana Generalova
​
​
(m. 2004, divorced)​

Darya Oreshkina
Children3
RelativesKeith Gessen (brother)

Gessen is nonbinary and trans and uses they/them pronouns.[4][5] Gessen has written extensively on LGBT rights.[6] Described as "Russia's leading LGBT rights activist,"[7] they have said that for many years they were "probably the only publicly out gay person in the whole country."[8] They now live in New York with their wife and children.[9]

Gessen writes primarily in English but also in their native Russian. In addition to being the author of several non-fiction books, they have been a prolific contributor to such publications as The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, New Statesman, Granta, Slate, Vanity Fair, Harper's Magazine, The New Yorker, and U.S. News & World Report. Since 2017, they have been a staff writer for The New Yorker.

Gessen worked as a translator on the FX TV channel historical drama The Americans.[2]

Early life and education

Gessen was born into a Jewish family in Moscow to Alexander and Yelena Gessen.[1] Gessen's paternal grandmother Ester Goldberg, the daughter of a socialist mother and a Zionist father, was born in Białystok, Poland, in 1923 and emigrated to Moscow in 1940. Ester's father Jakub Goldberg was murdered during the Holocaust in 1943, either in the Białystok Ghetto or a concentration camp. Ruzya Solodovnik, Gessen's maternal grandmother, was a Russian-born intellectual who worked as a censor for the Stalinist government until she was fired during an antisemitic purge. Gessen's maternal grandfather Samuil was a committed Bolshevik who died during World War II, leaving Ruzya to raise Yelena alone.[10]

In 1981, when Gessen was a teenager, Gessen's family moved via the US Refugee Resettlement Program to the United States.[11] As an adult in 1991, Gessen moved to Moscow, where they worked as a journalist.[11] They hold both Russian and US citizenship. Their brothers are Keith, Daniel and Philip Gessen.[12]

Career

Activism and journalism

 
Masha Gessen at the Moscow International Book Festival, 2011

Gessen was on the board of directors of the Moscow-based LGBT rights organization Triangle between 1993 and 1998.[13]

In an extensive October 2008 profile of Vladimir Putin for Vanity Fair, Gessen reported that the young Putin had been "an aspiring thug" and that "the backward evolution of Russia began" within days of his inauguration in 2000.[14]

At the Sydney Writer's Festival in 2012, Gessen expressed their view that the institution of marriage shouldn't exist. They said: "Fighting for gay marriage generally involves lying about what we're going to do with marriage when we get there. Because we lie that the institution of marriage is not going to change, and that is a lie. The institution of marriage is going to change and it should change, and again, I don't think it should exist."[15]

They contributed several dozen commentaries on Russia to The New York Times blog "Latitude" between November 2011 and December 2013. Among their subjects were the banning of so-called "homosexual propaganda" and other related laws; the harassment and beating of journalists, and the depreciation in value of the ruble.[16]

In March 2013, politician Vitaly Milonov promoted the Russian law against foreign adoption of Russian children by saying: "The Americans want to adopt Russian children and bring them up in perverted families like Masha Gessen's."[17]

Dismissal from Vokrug sveta

Gessen was dismissed from their position as the chief editor of Russia's oldest magazine, Vokrug sveta, a popular-science journal, in September 2012 after Gessen refused to send a reporter to cover a Russian Geographical Society event about nature conservation featuring President Putin because Gessen considered it political exploitation of environmental concerns.[18][19] After Gessen tweeted about their firing, Putin phoned them and claimed he was serious about his "nature conservation efforts." At his invitation, Gessen met him and Gessen's former publisher at the Kremlin, and were offered their job back. Gessen rejected the offer.[20][21]

Radio Liberty

In September 2012, Gessen was appointed as director of the Russian Service for Radio Liberty, a U.S. government-funded broadcaster based in Prague.[22][23] Shortly after their appointment was announced and a few days after Gessen met with Putin, more than 40 members of Radio Liberty's staff were fired. The station also lost its Russian broadcasting license several weeks after Gessen took over. The degree of Gessen's involvement in both of these events is unclear, but has caused controversy.[23]

Return to the US

In December 2013, they moved to New York because Russian authorities had begun to talk about taking children away from gay parents.[24] In March of that year, "the St Petersburg legislator [Milonov] who had become a spokesman for the law [against 'homosexual propaganda' towards children] started mentioning me and my 'perverted family' in his interviews," and Gessen contacted an adoption lawyer asking "whether I had reason to worry that social services would go after my family and attempt to remove my oldest son, whom I adopted in 2000." The lawyer told Gessen "to instruct my son to run if he is approached by strangers and concluding: 'The answer to your question is at the airport.'" In June 2013, Gessen was beaten up outside of the Parliament; they said of the incident that "I realized that in all my interactions, including professional ones, I no longer felt I was perceived as a journalist first: I am now a person with a pink triangle." They stated that "a court would easily decide to annul Vova's adoption, and I wouldn't even know it." Given this potential threat to their family, Gessen "felt like no risk was small enough to be acceptable," they later told the CBC Radio. "So we just had to get out."[25]

In a January 2014 interview with ABC News, Gessen said that the Russian gay propaganda law had "led to a huge increase in antigay violence, including murders. It's led to attacks on gay and lesbian clubs and film festivals...and because these laws are passed supposedly to protect children, the people who are most targeted or have the most to fear are LGBT parents."[26]

Gessen wrote in February 2014 that Citibank had closed their bank account because of concern about Russian money-laundering operations.[27]

As of 2020, Gessen serves as Distinguished Writer in Residence at Bard College. Previously at Amherst College, they were named the John J. McCloy '16 Professor of American Institutions and International Diplomacy for the 2017–18 and 2018–19 academic years. In October 2017, they published their 10th book The Future is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia.[28] They were included in the 2022 Fast Company Queer 50 list.[29]

Personal life

Gessen married Svetlana Generalova, a Russian citizen who was also involved in the LGBT movement in Moscow, in 2004. The wedding took place in the U.S.[13][30] Generalova and Gessen later divorced, and by the time Gessen returned to the U.S. from Russia in December 2013, Gessen was married to Darya Oreshkina.[31][32]

Gessen has three children—two sons and a daughter. Their eldest son, Vova, was born in 1997 in Russia and was adopted by Gessen from an orphanage in Kaliningrad for the children of HIV-positive women. Their daughter, Yolka, was born to Gessen in the U.S. in 2001. Their third child, a son, was born in February 2012.[33]

Gessen tested positive for the BRCA mutation that is correlated with breast cancer and underwent a mastectomy in 2005.[34]

Awards

Summaries of select works

The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin

External video
  Presentation by Gessen on The Man Without a Face, 8 March 2012, C-SPAN

In The Man Without a Face, Gessen offers an account of Putin's rise to power and summary of recent Russian politics. The book was published on 1 March 2012 and translated into 20 languages.[41]

The New York Review of Books described the book as written in "beautifully clear and eloquent English," and stated that it was "at heart a description of th[e] secret police milieu" from which Putin originated and was "also very good at evoking…the culture and atmosphere within which [Putin] was raised, and the values he came to espouse."[42] The Guardian called the book "luminous";[43] the Telegraph called it "courageous".[44]

CIA officer John Ehrman's review stated: "As a biography it is satisfactory, but no more than that" and "little of what Gessen has to say is new." He described the images as ". . effective as anti-Putin propaganda".[45]

Words Will Break Cement: The Passion of Pussy Riot

External video
  Presentation by Gessen on Words Will Break Cement, 12 March 2014, C-SPAN

A.D. Miller wrote in the Telegraph that "even readers who do not share Gessen's esteem for Pussy Riot as artists will be convinced of their courage." Miller described Gessen as "the right person to tell this story" and said their journalistic approach was "scrupulous and sensitive".[46] Booklist described the book as "prickly, frank, precise, and sharply witty."[47] The New York Times called it "urgent" and "damning."[48] The Washington Post called the book an "excellent" portrait of Pussy Riot and said that "Gessen gives a particularly brilliant account of their trials".[49] The Los Angeles Times said that Gessen was "Not just a keen observer of these events" but "also an impassioned partisan."[50]

The Brothers: The Road to an American Tragedy

External video
  Presentation by Gessen on The Brothers, 29 April 2015, C-SPAN

Published in April 2015 by Riverhead, The Brothers investigates the background of Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the perpetrators of the Boston Marathon bombing.[51]

Bibliography

Books

  • Gessen, Masha (1994). The rights of lesbians and gay men in the Russian Federation : an International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission report = Права гомосексуалов и лесбиянок в Российской Федерации : отчет Международной Комиссии по правам человека для гомосексуалов и лесбиянок. Foreword by Larisa I. Bogoraz; introduction by Julie Dorf. San Francisco: International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC).
  • Gessen, Masha (translated by); Lipovskaya, Olga (preface by); Gorlanova, Nina; Volodina, Galina; Paley, Marina; Polianskaya, Irina; Tarasova, Yelena; Nabatnikova, Tatiana; Shulga, Natalia; Narbikova, Valeria; Sadur, Nina (1995). Gessen, Masha (ed.). Half a Revolution: Contemporary Fiction by Russian Women. Pittsburgh, PA: Cleis Press. ISBN 978-1-57344-006-6. OCLC 31518015.
  • Gessen, Masha (1997). Dead Again: The Russian Intelligentsia After Communism. London: Verso. ISBN 978-1-85984-147-1. OCLC 36201042.
  • Gessen, Masha (2004). Ester and Ruzya: How My Grandmothers Survived Hitler's War and Stalin's Peace. New York: Dial Press Trade Paperbacks. ISBN 978-0-385-33605-5. OCLC 54529515. - also known in the UK as Two Babushkas: How My Grandmothers Survived Hitler's War and Stalin's Peace[52]
  • Gessen, Masha (2008). Blood Matters: From Inherited Illness to Designer Babies, How the World and I Found Ourselves in the Future of the Gene. Orlando: Harcourt. ISBN 978-0-15-101362-3. OCLC 171151566. - a New York Times Notable Book of the year
  • Gessen, Masha (2009). Perfect Rigor: A Genius and the Mathematical Breakthrough of the Century. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 978-0-15-101406-4. OCLC 759834681. - about Grigori Perelman
  • Gessen, Masha (2012). The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin. New York: Riverhead Books. ISBN 978-1-59448-842-9. OCLC 859327104. - Short-listed for Pushkin House Russian Book Prize 2013, Long-listed for Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction 2012
  • Gessen, Masha (2014). Words Will Break Cement: The Passion of Pussy Riot. New York: Riverhead Books. ISBN 978-1-59463-219-8. OCLC 880926302.
  • Kasparov, Garry (foreword by) (2014). Gessen, Masha; Huff-Hannon, Joseph (eds.). Пропаганда гомосексуализма в России : истории любви / Gay Propaganda: Russian Love Stories (in Russian and English). New York: OR Books. ISBN 978-1-939293-35-0. OCLC 907537609.
  • Gessen, Masha (2015). Brothers: The Road to An American Tragedy. New York: Riverhead Books. ISBN 978-1-59463-264-8. OCLC 905658714.
  • Gessen, Masha (2016). Where the Jews Aren't: The Sad and Absurd Story of Birobidzhan, Russia's Autonomous Region. New York: Nextbook/Schocken. ISBN 978-0-80524-246-1. OCLC 959936125.
  • Gessen, Masha (3 October 2017). The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia. New York: Riverhead Books. ISBN 978-1594634536. - 2017 National Book Award for nonfiction[53]
  • Gessen, Masha (20 March 2018). Never Remember: Searching for Stalin's Gulags in Putin's Russia. New York: Columbia Global Reports. ISBN 978-0997722963.[54]
  • Gessen, Masha (2 June 2020). Surviving Autocracy. New York: Riverhead Books. ISBN 978-0593188934.[55]

Essays and reporting

  • Dorf, Julie; Gessen, Masha (Winter 1992). "From Russia with Homo Love" (PDF). Out/Look: 48–54.
  • Gessen, Masha (2 March 2012). "Vladimir Putin and Mikhail Khodorkovsky: One Man's Truth, Another Man's Tyranny". Vanity Fair.
  • Gessen, Masha (11 March 2014). "Is Vladimir Putin insane? Hardly". Los Angeles Times.
  • Gessen, Masha (2 June 2017). "Opinion: Trump's Incompetence Won't Save Our Democracy". The New York Times.
  • — (3 July 2017). "Forbidden lives : the stories of the gay men fleeing a purge in Chechnya". Letter from Moscow. The New Yorker. Vol. 93, no. 19. pp. 22–28.[56]
  • — (27 July 2020). . The Talk of the Town. April 2, 2020. The New Yorker. Vol. 96, no. 21. pp. 14–15. Archived from the original on 17 April 2020. Retrieved 16 October 2021.[57]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b "Masha Gessen". Contemporary Authors Online. 2016. Retrieved 16 January 2017.
  2. ^ a b Thomas, June (21 April 2016). "The Art of the Perfect Subtitle". Slate. ISSN 1091-2339. Retrieved 16 November 2017.
  3. ^ Gessen, Masha (10 November 2016). "Autocracy: Rules for Survival". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved 16 January 2017.
  4. ^ Gessen, Masha [@mashagessen] (23 June 2020). "I avoided the topic of pronouns for a while" (Tweet). Retrieved 7 August 2020 – via Twitter.
  5. ^ "Маша Гессен: о Трампе, тестостероне и терроре". Youtube. Archived from the original on 20 December 2021. Retrieved 9 March 2020.
  6. ^ Gessen, Masha (9 October 2019). "The Supreme Court Considers L.G.B.T. Rights, but Can't Stop Talking About Bathrooms". The New Yorker. Retrieved 9 October 2019.
  7. ^ UNC. "Masha Gessen: "The Rise of Radical 'Family Values' in Russia". University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Retrieved 15 May 2014.
  8. ^ Hayes, Chris. "Russian Journalist Gives a Snapshot of Gay Life in Russia Masha Gessen w Chris Hayes". MSNBC. Retrieved 15 May 2014.[dead YouTube link]
  9. ^ "Masha and Keith Gessen on Writing About Russia". The New Yorker. 17 March 2019. Retrieved 29 June 2020.
  10. ^ Pollitt, Katha (6 March 2005). "'Ester and Ruzya': Grandmothers of Invention". The New York Times. Retrieved 28 January 2020.
  11. ^ a b Smith Rakoff, Joanna. "Talking with Masha Gessen". Newsday, 2 January 2005.
  12. ^ Smith Rakoff, Joanna. "Talking with Masha Gessen, Newsday, 14 June 2017.
  13. ^ a b "Биография Мария Гессен" [Мария Гессен / Maria Hessen: Biography]. www.peoples.ru (in Russian). Retrieved 16 March 2022.
  14. ^ Gessen, Masha (1 October 2008). . Vanity Fair. Archived from the original on 14 April 2014. Retrieved 5 June 2017.
  15. ^ Gessen, Masha. Sydney Writer's Festival, 2012.
  16. ^ NYT. "Powerlessness and Pretense". The New York Times. Retrieved 12 May 2014.
  17. ^ Gessen, Masha (26 August 2013). "When Putin Declared War on Gay Families, It Was Time for Mine to Leave Russia". Slate. Retrieved 15 May 2014.
  18. ^ Amos, Howard (10 September 2012). "Putin to pilot hang-glider at head of endangered Siberian crane migration". The Guardian. Retrieved 29 January 2017.
  19. ^ Gessen, Masha (10 September 2012). "Flying Putin, Fired Editor". The New York Times. Retrieved 29 January 2017.
  20. ^ Skavlan, Fredrik. "American/Jewish/Russian journalist Masha Gessen wrote negative book about President Putin". Skavlan. Archived from the original on 20 December 2021. Retrieved 15 May 2014.
  21. ^ Aschberg, Robert. "Stora Journalistpriset 2012: Masha Gessen". Stora Journalistpriset 2012. Archived from the original on 20 December 2021. Retrieved 15 May 2014.
  22. ^ "Radio Liberty Hires Gessen". The Moscow Times. 17 September 2012. Retrieved 5 January 2013.
  23. ^ a b Cohen, Ariel; Helle Dale (13 December 2012). "How to Save Radio Liberty". The Heritage Foundation. Retrieved 5 January 2013.
  24. ^ Ghomeshi, Jian. "World Pride: Masha Gessen on defiance and exile". Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 28 June 2014.
  25. ^ O'Brien, Lara. "Masha Gessen on the State of Vladimir Putin's Russia". CBC Radio. Retrieved 11 May 2014.
  26. ^ ABC. "Russian Author and Activist Masha Gessen Answers 5 Questions". ABC News. Retrieved 12 May 2014.
  27. ^ Gessen, Masha (11 February 2014). "Banking While Russian". The New York Times. Retrieved 15 May 2014.
  28. ^ "Meet the Visitors – Amherst College". Retrieved 27 November 2017.[permanent dead link]
  29. ^ "Masha Gessen is No. 11 on the 2022 Fast Company Queer 50 list". Fast Company. Retrieved 19 June 2022.
  30. ^ "Семья Генераловых — Персоны". Эхо Москвы.
  31. ^ Bethune, Brian. "Russian dissident Masha Gessen on Pussy Riot, Putin and Sochi". Maclean's. Retrieved 17 May 2014.
  32. ^ Margolin, Emma; Johnny Simon. . MSNBC. Archived from the original on 19 May 2014. Retrieved 17 May 2014.
  33. ^ Signorile, Michelangelo (6 September 2013). "Russian Gay Activist's Plea: 'Get Us the Hell Out of Here'". HuffPost. Retrieved 6 September 2017.
  34. ^ Groskop, Viv (4 July 2008). "Masha Gessen talks about blood, babies and the burden of knowing too much". The Guardian.
  35. ^ "National Jewish Book Award | Book awards | LibraryThing". www.librarything.com. Retrieved 18 January 2020.
  36. ^ "About – Stora Journalistpriset". www.storajournalistpriset.se.
  37. ^ Business Wire. "2013 Media for Liberty Award Honors Vanity Fair's "The Wrath of Putin" by Masha Gessen". Daily Finance. {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  38. ^ Committee, Wallenberg. "Masha Gessen to Receive Wallenberg Medal – Wallenberg Legacy, University of Michigan".
  39. ^ Kellogg, Carolyn (15 November 2017). "Masha Gessen, Jesmyn Ward, Robin Benway and Frank Bidart win National Book Awards". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 16 November 2017.
  40. ^ "2018 Prize – Masha Gessen". The Dennis & Victoria Ross Foundation.
  41. ^ Vuolo, Mike (14 March 2014). "Words Will Break Cement: The Passion of Pussy Riot". Slate. Retrieved 17 May 2014.
  42. ^ Applebaum, Anne. "Vladimir's Tale". New York Review of Books. Retrieved 17 May 2014.
  43. ^ Harding, Luke (9 March 2012). "The Man Without a Face by Masha Gessen – review". The Guardian. Retrieved 17 May 2014.
  44. ^ Miller, A D. "The Man Without a Face: the Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin by Masha Gessen: review". The Telegraph. Retrieved 17 May 2014.
  45. ^ . www.cia.gov. 12 February 2014. Archived from the original on 6 November 2020. Retrieved 23 October 2020.
  46. ^ Miller, A D. "Words Will Break Cement: The Passion of Pussy Riot, by Masha Gessen, review". The Telegraph. Retrieved 17 May 2014.
  47. ^ Booklist review
  48. ^ Nazaryan, Alexander (9 January 2014). "Punk, Skirts, Balaclavas: A Russian Revolution". The New York Times. Retrieved 17 May 2014.
  49. ^ Applebaum, Anne. "Book review: 'Words Will Break Cement: The Passion of Pussy Riot' by Masha Gessen". The Washington Post. Retrieved 17 May 2014.
  50. ^ Marcus, Sara (14 January 2014). "'Words Will Break Cement' documents the Pussy Riot revolution". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 17 May 2014.
  51. ^ Bosman, Julie (May 2013). "First Book Is Planned on the Tsarnaev Brothers". The New York Times. Retrieved 17 May 2014.
  52. ^ Rounding, Virginia (9 July 2004). "Against all odds". The Guardian.
  53. ^ "2017 National Book Awards". National Book Foundation. Retrieved 15 November 2017.
  54. ^ "Never Remember: Searching for Stalin's Gulags in Putin's Russia". Columbia Global Reports. Retrieved 16 November 2017.
  55. ^ "Surviving Autocracy". Riverhead Books. Retrieved 8 June 2020.
  56. ^ Online version is titled "The gay men who fled Chechnya's purge".
  57. ^ First published on newyorker.com on April 2, 2020.

External links

  • Masha Gessen on Twitter  
  • Appearances on C-SPAN
  • Masha Gessen at IMDb  
  • "The Wrath of Putin" re: Russian prime minister's relationship with Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Vanity Fair, April 2012.
  • "A Call from the Kremlin" re: face-to-face meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, The New York Times, September 2012.
  • "Putin Biography Chronicles Rise Of A 'Street Thug'", interview with Dave Davies on Fresh Air, 1 March 2012.
  • Review of Blood Matters, The Independent
  • Review of "Words Will Break Cement: The Passion of Pussy Riot"
  • Masha Gessen on the Muck Rack journalist listing site  

January 16, 2023
masha, gessen, born, january, 1967, russian, american, journalist, author, translator, activist, been, outspoken, critic, president, russia, vladimir, putin, former, president, united, states, donald, trump, gessen, 2015born, 1967, january, 1967, moscow, russi. Masha Gessen born 13 January 1967 is a Russian American journalist author translator 1 2 and activist who has been an outspoken critic of the president of Russia Vladimir Putin and the former president of the United States Donald Trump 3 Masha GessenGessen in 2015Born 1967 01 13 13 January 1967 age 56 Moscow Russian SFSR Soviet Union now Russian Federation NationalityRussianCitizenshipRussia United StatesOccupationsJournalist author activistSpouse s Svetlana Generalova m 2004 divorced wbr Darya OreshkinaChildren3RelativesKeith Gessen brother Gessen is nonbinary and trans and uses they them pronouns 4 5 Gessen has written extensively on LGBT rights 6 Described as Russia s leading LGBT rights activist 7 they have said that for many years they were probably the only publicly out gay person in the whole country 8 They now live in New York with their wife and children 9 Gessen writes primarily in English but also in their native Russian In addition to being the author of several non fiction books they have been a prolific contributor to such publications as The New York Times The New York Review of Books The Washington Post the Los Angeles Times The New Republic New Statesman Granta Slate Vanity Fair Harper s Magazine The New Yorker and U S News amp World Report Since 2017 they have been a staff writer for The New Yorker Gessen worked as a translator on the FX TV channel historical drama The Americans 2 Contents 1 Early life and education 2 Career 2 1 Activism and journalism 2 2 Dismissal from Vokrug sveta 2 3 Radio Liberty 2 4 Return to the US 3 Personal life 4 Awards 5 Summaries of select works 5 1 The Man Without a Face The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin 5 2 Words Will Break Cement The Passion of Pussy Riot 5 3 The Brothers The Road to an American Tragedy 6 Bibliography 6 1 Books 6 2 Essays and reporting 7 See also 8 References 9 External linksEarly life and education EditGessen was born into a Jewish family in Moscow to Alexander and Yelena Gessen 1 Gessen s paternal grandmother Ester Goldberg the daughter of a socialist mother and a Zionist father was born in Bialystok Poland in 1923 and emigrated to Moscow in 1940 Ester s father Jakub Goldberg was murdered during the Holocaust in 1943 either in the Bialystok Ghetto or a concentration camp Ruzya Solodovnik Gessen s maternal grandmother was a Russian born intellectual who worked as a censor for the Stalinist government until she was fired during an antisemitic purge Gessen s maternal grandfather Samuil was a committed Bolshevik who died during World War II leaving Ruzya to raise Yelena alone 10 In 1981 when Gessen was a teenager Gessen s family moved via the US Refugee Resettlement Program to the United States 11 As an adult in 1991 Gessen moved to Moscow where they worked as a journalist 11 They hold both Russian and US citizenship Their brothers are Keith Daniel and Philip Gessen 12 Career EditActivism and journalism Edit Masha Gessen at the Moscow International Book Festival 2011 Gessen was on the board of directors of the Moscow based LGBT rights organization Triangle between 1993 and 1998 13 In an extensive October 2008 profile of Vladimir Putin for Vanity Fair Gessen reported that the young Putin had been an aspiring thug and that the backward evolution of Russia began within days of his inauguration in 2000 14 At the Sydney Writer s Festival in 2012 Gessen expressed their view that the institution of marriage shouldn t exist They said Fighting for gay marriage generally involves lying about what we re going to do with marriage when we get there Because we lie that the institution of marriage is not going to change and that is a lie The institution of marriage is going to change and it should change and again I don t think it should exist 15 They contributed several dozen commentaries on Russia to The New York Times blog Latitude between November 2011 and December 2013 Among their subjects were the banning of so called homosexual propaganda and other related laws the harassment and beating of journalists and the depreciation in value of the ruble 16 In March 2013 politician Vitaly Milonov promoted the Russian law against foreign adoption of Russian children by saying The Americans want to adopt Russian children and bring them up in perverted families like Masha Gessen s 17 Dismissal from Vokrug sveta Edit Gessen was dismissed from their position as the chief editor of Russia s oldest magazine Vokrug sveta a popular science journal in September 2012 after Gessen refused to send a reporter to cover a Russian Geographical Society event about nature conservation featuring President Putin because Gessen considered it political exploitation of environmental concerns 18 19 After Gessen tweeted about their firing Putin phoned them and claimed he was serious about his nature conservation efforts At his invitation Gessen met him and Gessen s former publisher at the Kremlin and were offered their job back Gessen rejected the offer 20 21 Radio Liberty Edit In September 2012 Gessen was appointed as director of the Russian Service for Radio Liberty a U S government funded broadcaster based in Prague 22 23 Shortly after their appointment was announced and a few days after Gessen met with Putin more than 40 members of Radio Liberty s staff were fired The station also lost its Russian broadcasting license several weeks after Gessen took over The degree of Gessen s involvement in both of these events is unclear but has caused controversy 23 Return to the US Edit In December 2013 they moved to New York because Russian authorities had begun to talk about taking children away from gay parents 24 In March of that year the St Petersburg legislator Milonov who had become a spokesman for the law against homosexual propaganda towards children started mentioning me and my perverted family in his interviews and Gessen contacted an adoption lawyer asking whether I had reason to worry that social services would go after my family and attempt to remove my oldest son whom I adopted in 2000 The lawyer told Gessen to instruct my son to run if he is approached by strangers and concluding The answer to your question is at the airport In June 2013 Gessen was beaten up outside of the Parliament they said of the incident that I realized that in all my interactions including professional ones I no longer felt I was perceived as a journalist first I am now a person with a pink triangle They stated that a court would easily decide to annul Vova s adoption and I wouldn t even know it Given this potential threat to their family Gessen felt like no risk was small enough to be acceptable they later told the CBC Radio So we just had to get out 25 In a January 2014 interview with ABC News Gessen said that the Russian gay propaganda law had led to a huge increase in antigay violence including murders It s led to attacks on gay and lesbian clubs and film festivals and because these laws are passed supposedly to protect children the people who are most targeted or have the most to fear are LGBT parents 26 Gessen wrote in February 2014 that Citibank had closed their bank account because of concern about Russian money laundering operations 27 As of 2020 update Gessen serves as Distinguished Writer in Residence at Bard College Previously at Amherst College they were named the John J McCloy 16 Professor of American Institutions and International Diplomacy for the 2017 18 and 2018 19 academic years In October 2017 they published their 10th book The Future is History How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia 28 They were included in the 2022 Fast Company Queer 50 list 29 Personal life EditGessen married Svetlana Generalova a Russian citizen who was also involved in the LGBT movement in Moscow in 2004 The wedding took place in the U S 13 30 Generalova and Gessen later divorced and by the time Gessen returned to the U S from Russia in December 2013 Gessen was married to Darya Oreshkina 31 32 Gessen has three children two sons and a daughter Their eldest son Vova was born in 1997 in Russia and was adopted by Gessen from an orphanage in Kaliningrad for the children of HIV positive women Their daughter Yolka was born to Gessen in the U S in 2001 Their third child a son was born in February 2012 33 Gessen tested positive for the BRCA mutation that is correlated with breast cancer and underwent a mastectomy in 2005 34 Awards Edit2005 National Jewish Book Award for Ester and Ruzya How My Grandmothers Survived Hitler s War and Stalin s Peace 35 2012 Stora Journalistpriset Swedish Grand Prize for Journalism Guest of Honor 36 2013 Liberty Media Corporation Media for Liberty award for their article The Wrath of Putin published in the April 2012 edition of Vanity Fair 37 2015 University of Michigan Wallenberg Medal 24th recipient 38 2017 National Book Award for Nonfiction for The Future Is History How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia 39 2018 Hitchens Prize 40 Summaries of select works EditThe Man Without a Face The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin Edit External video Presentation by Gessen on The Man Without a Face 8 March 2012 C SPANIn The Man Without a Face Gessen offers an account of Putin s rise to power and summary of recent Russian politics The book was published on 1 March 2012 and translated into 20 languages 41 The New York Review of Books described the book as written in beautifully clear and eloquent English and stated that it was at heart a description of th e secret police milieu from which Putin originated and was also very good at evoking the culture and atmosphere within which Putin was raised and the values he came to espouse 42 The Guardian called the book luminous 43 the Telegraph called it courageous 44 CIA officer John Ehrman s review stated As a biography it is satisfactory but no more than that and little of what Gessen has to say is new He described the images as effective as anti Putin propaganda 45 Words Will Break Cement The Passion of Pussy Riot Edit External video Presentation by Gessen on Words Will Break Cement 12 March 2014 C SPANA D Miller wrote in the Telegraph that even readers who do not share Gessen s esteem for Pussy Riot as artists will be convinced of their courage Miller described Gessen as the right person to tell this story and said their journalistic approach was scrupulous and sensitive 46 Booklist described the book as prickly frank precise and sharply witty 47 The New York Times called it urgent and damning 48 The Washington Post called the book an excellent portrait of Pussy Riot and said that Gessen gives a particularly brilliant account of their trials 49 The Los Angeles Times said that Gessen was Not just a keen observer of these events but also an impassioned partisan 50 The Brothers The Road to an American Tragedy Edit External video Presentation by Gessen on The Brothers 29 April 2015 C SPANPublished in April 2015 by Riverhead The Brothers investigates the background of Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev the perpetrators of the Boston Marathon bombing 51 Bibliography EditThis list is incomplete you can help by adding missing items June 2018 Books Edit Gessen Masha 1994 The rights of lesbians and gay men in the Russian Federation an International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission report Prava gomoseksualov i lesbiyanok v Rossijskoj Federacii otchet Mezhdunarodnoj Komissii po pravam cheloveka dlya gomoseksualov i lesbiyanok Foreword by Larisa I Bogoraz introduction by Julie Dorf San Francisco International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission IGLHRC Gessen Masha translated by Lipovskaya Olga preface by Gorlanova Nina Volodina Galina Paley Marina Polianskaya Irina Tarasova Yelena Nabatnikova Tatiana Shulga Natalia Narbikova Valeria Sadur Nina 1995 Gessen Masha ed Half a Revolution Contemporary Fiction by Russian Women Pittsburgh PA Cleis Press ISBN 978 1 57344 006 6 OCLC 31518015 Gessen Masha 1997 Dead Again The Russian Intelligentsia After Communism London Verso ISBN 978 1 85984 147 1 OCLC 36201042 Gessen Masha 2004 Ester and Ruzya How My Grandmothers Survived Hitler s War and Stalin s Peace New York Dial Press Trade Paperbacks ISBN 978 0 385 33605 5 OCLC 54529515 also known in the UK as Two Babushkas How My Grandmothers Survived Hitler s War and Stalin s Peace 52 Gessen Masha 2008 Blood Matters From Inherited Illness to Designer Babies How the World and I Found Ourselves in the Future of the Gene Orlando Harcourt ISBN 978 0 15 101362 3 OCLC 171151566 a New York Times Notable Book of the year Gessen Masha 2009 Perfect Rigor A Genius and the Mathematical Breakthrough of the Century Boston Houghton Mifflin Harcourt ISBN 978 0 15 101406 4 OCLC 759834681 about Grigori Perelman Gessen Masha 2012 The Man Without a Face The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin New York Riverhead Books ISBN 978 1 59448 842 9 OCLC 859327104 Short listed for Pushkin House Russian Book Prize 2013 Long listed for Samuel Johnson Prize for Non Fiction 2012 Gessen Masha 2014 Words Will Break Cement The Passion of Pussy Riot New York Riverhead Books ISBN 978 1 59463 219 8 OCLC 880926302 Kasparov Garry foreword by 2014 Gessen Masha Huff Hannon Joseph eds Propaganda gomoseksualizma v Rossii istorii lyubvi Gay Propaganda Russian Love Stories in Russian and English New York OR Books ISBN 978 1 939293 35 0 OCLC 907537609 Gessen Masha 2015 Brothers The Road to An American Tragedy New York Riverhead Books ISBN 978 1 59463 264 8 OCLC 905658714 Gessen Masha 2016 Where the Jews Aren t The Sad and Absurd Story of Birobidzhan Russia s Autonomous Region New York Nextbook Schocken ISBN 978 0 80524 246 1 OCLC 959936125 Gessen Masha 3 October 2017 The Future Is History How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia New York Riverhead Books ISBN 978 1594634536 2017 National Book Award for nonfiction 53 Gessen Masha 20 March 2018 Never Remember Searching for Stalin s Gulags in Putin s Russia New York Columbia Global Reports ISBN 978 0997722963 54 Gessen Masha 2 June 2020 Surviving Autocracy New York Riverhead Books ISBN 978 0593188934 55 Essays and reporting Edit Dorf Julie Gessen Masha Winter 1992 From Russia with Homo Love PDF Out Look 48 54 Gessen Masha 2 March 2012 Vladimir Putin and Mikhail Khodorkovsky One Man s Truth Another Man s Tyranny Vanity Fair Gessen Masha 11 March 2014 Is Vladimir Putin insane Hardly Los Angeles Times Gessen Masha 2 June 2017 Opinion Trump s Incompetence Won t Save Our Democracy The New York Times 3 July 2017 Forbidden lives the stories of the gay men fleeing a purge in Chechnya Letter from Moscow The New Yorker Vol 93 no 19 pp 22 28 56 27 July 2020 Lorena Borjas The Talk of the Town April 2 2020 The New Yorker Vol 96 no 21 pp 14 15 Archived from the original on 17 April 2020 Retrieved 16 October 2021 57 See also EditLGBT rights in Russia Russia under Vladimir PutinReferences Edit a b Masha Gessen Contemporary Authors Online 2016 Retrieved 16 January 2017 a b Thomas June 21 April 2016 The Art of the Perfect Subtitle Slate ISSN 1091 2339 Retrieved 16 November 2017 Gessen Masha 10 November 2016 Autocracy Rules for Survival The New York Review of Books Retrieved 16 January 2017 Gessen Masha mashagessen 23 June 2020 I avoided the topic of pronouns for a while Tweet Retrieved 7 August 2020 via Twitter Masha Gessen o Trampe testosterone i terrore Youtube Archived from the original on 20 December 2021 Retrieved 9 March 2020 Gessen Masha 9 October 2019 The Supreme Court Considers L G B T Rights but Can t Stop Talking About Bathrooms The New Yorker Retrieved 9 October 2019 UNC Masha Gessen The Rise of Radical Family Values in Russia University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Retrieved 15 May 2014 Hayes Chris Russian Journalist Gives a Snapshot of Gay Life in Russia Masha Gessen w Chris Hayes MSNBC Retrieved 15 May 2014 dead YouTube link Masha and Keith Gessen on Writing About Russia The New Yorker 17 March 2019 Retrieved 29 June 2020 Pollitt Katha 6 March 2005 Ester and Ruzya Grandmothers of Invention The New York Times Retrieved 28 January 2020 a b Smith Rakoff Joanna Talking with Masha Gessen Newsday 2 January 2005 Smith Rakoff Joanna Talking with Masha Gessen Newsday 14 June 2017 a b Biografiya Mariya Gessen Mariya Gessen Maria Hessen Biography www peoples ru in Russian Retrieved 16 March 2022 Gessen Masha 1 October 2008 Dead Soul Vanity Fair Archived from the original on 14 April 2014 Retrieved 5 June 2017 Gessen Masha Sydney Writer s Festival 2012 NYT Powerlessness and Pretense The New York Times Retrieved 12 May 2014 Gessen Masha 26 August 2013 When Putin Declared War on Gay Families It Was Time for Mine to Leave Russia Slate Retrieved 15 May 2014 Amos Howard 10 September 2012 Putin to pilot hang glider at head of endangered Siberian crane migration The Guardian Retrieved 29 January 2017 Gessen Masha 10 September 2012 Flying Putin Fired Editor The New York Times Retrieved 29 January 2017 Skavlan Fredrik American Jewish Russian journalist Masha Gessen wrote negative book about President Putin Skavlan Archived from the original on 20 December 2021 Retrieved 15 May 2014 Aschberg Robert Stora Journalistpriset 2012 Masha Gessen Stora Journalistpriset 2012 Archived from the original on 20 December 2021 Retrieved 15 May 2014 Radio Liberty Hires Gessen The Moscow Times 17 September 2012 Retrieved 5 January 2013 a b Cohen Ariel Helle Dale 13 December 2012 How to Save Radio Liberty The Heritage Foundation Retrieved 5 January 2013 Ghomeshi Jian World Pride Masha Gessen on defiance and exile Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Retrieved 28 June 2014 O Brien Lara Masha Gessen on the State of Vladimir Putin s Russia CBC Radio Retrieved 11 May 2014 ABC Russian Author and Activist Masha Gessen Answers 5 Questions ABC News Retrieved 12 May 2014 Gessen Masha 11 February 2014 Banking While Russian The New York Times Retrieved 15 May 2014 Meet the Visitors Amherst College Retrieved 27 November 2017 permanent dead link Masha Gessen is No 11 on the 2022 Fast Company Queer 50 list Fast Company Retrieved 19 June 2022 Semya Generalovyh Persony Eho Moskvy Bethune Brian Russian dissident Masha Gessen on Pussy Riot Putin and Sochi Maclean s Retrieved 17 May 2014 Margolin Emma Johnny Simon Faces of Russia s LGBT community MSNBC Archived from the original on 19 May 2014 Retrieved 17 May 2014 Signorile Michelangelo 6 September 2013 Russian Gay Activist s Plea Get Us the Hell Out of Here HuffPost Retrieved 6 September 2017 Groskop Viv 4 July 2008 Masha Gessen talks about blood babies and the burden of knowing too much The Guardian National Jewish Book Award Book awards LibraryThing www librarything com Retrieved 18 January 2020 About Stora Journalistpriset www storajournalistpriset se Business Wire 2013 Media for Liberty Award Honors Vanity Fair s The Wrath of Putin by Masha Gessen Daily Finance a href Template Cite web html title Template Cite web cite web a last has generic name help Committee Wallenberg Masha Gessen to Receive Wallenberg Medal Wallenberg Legacy University of Michigan Kellogg Carolyn 15 November 2017 Masha Gessen Jesmyn Ward Robin Benway and Frank Bidart win National Book Awards Los Angeles Times Retrieved 16 November 2017 2018 Prize Masha Gessen The Dennis amp Victoria Ross Foundation Vuolo Mike 14 March 2014 Words Will Break Cement The Passion of Pussy Riot Slate Retrieved 17 May 2014 Applebaum Anne Vladimir s Tale New York Review of Books Retrieved 17 May 2014 Harding Luke 9 March 2012 The Man Without a Face by Masha Gessen review The Guardian Retrieved 17 May 2014 Miller A D The Man Without a Face the Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin by Masha Gessen review The Telegraph Retrieved 17 May 2014 Intelligence in Public Literature The Man Without a Face The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin and Mr Putin Operative in the Kremlin www cia gov 12 February 2014 Archived from the original on 6 November 2020 Retrieved 23 October 2020 Miller A D Words Will Break Cement The Passion of Pussy Riot by Masha Gessen review The Telegraph Retrieved 17 May 2014 Booklist review Nazaryan Alexander 9 January 2014 Punk Skirts Balaclavas A Russian Revolution The New York Times Retrieved 17 May 2014 Applebaum Anne Book review Words Will Break Cement The Passion of Pussy Riot by Masha Gessen The Washington Post Retrieved 17 May 2014 Marcus Sara 14 January 2014 Words Will Break Cement documents the Pussy Riot revolution Los Angeles Times Retrieved 17 May 2014 Bosman Julie May 2013 First Book Is Planned on the Tsarnaev Brothers The New York Times Retrieved 17 May 2014 Rounding Virginia 9 July 2004 Against all odds The Guardian 2017 National Book Awards National Book Foundation Retrieved 15 November 2017 Never Remember Searching for Stalin s Gulags in Putin s Russia Columbia Global Reports Retrieved 16 November 2017 Surviving Autocracy Riverhead Books Retrieved 8 June 2020 Online version is titled The gay men who fled Chechnya s purge First published on newyorker com on April 2 2020 External links EditMasha Gessen at Wikipedia s sister projects Media from Commons Quotations from Wikiquote Data from Wikidata Masha Gessen on Twitter Appearances on C SPAN Masha Gessen at IMDb Bloomsbury Books author pages The Wrath of Putin re Russian prime minister s relationship with Mikhail Khodorkovsky Vanity Fair April 2012 A Call from the Kremlin re face to face meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin The New York Times September 2012 Putin Biography Chronicles Rise Of A Street Thug interview with Dave Davies on Fresh Air 1 March 2012 Review of Blood Matters The Independent Review of Words Will Break Cement The Passion of Pussy Riot Masha Gessen on the Muck Rack journalist listing site Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Masha Gessen amp oldid 1132030430, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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