Translated material
Before losing meaning
The article by the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry was cut
The deterioration of relations between Russia and the United States is expanding into new areas. The matter is no longer limited to disputes about missile defense, European security and the independence of Kosovo. Yesterday, the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement about the failed publication of the head of the department, Sergei Lavrov, in the American magazine Foreign Affairs, in which he accused the authoritative publication of ideological censorship.“The editors of the magazine, citing their own requirements, subjected the article to significant editing, if not censorship. The article was shortened by 40%, losing much of its original meaning. Some editorial changes were suggested by S.V. Lavrov would do no less than subscribe to the well-known foreign policy approaches of the current US administration, which cause fundamental rejection in us... As a result of exhausting and sticky communication with the magazine, examples of which can only be found in the history of diplomacy, it was considered advisable to refuse to publish S.V.’s article . Lavrova in the Foreign Affairs magazine. This experience brought to mind the worst features of the Soviet censorship past, which, it seems, someone in America would like to repeat... It is a pity that in some of the American media a protective tendency is making itself felt, narrowing the intellectual resource of America. We are convinced that the United States deserves better,” they said on Smolenskaya Square.
And it doesn’t matter that Sergei Lavrov wanted to address the readers of the American magazine precisely in order to refute common anti-Russian stereotypes. The main thing is to protect naive and gullible Americans from the dangerous ideas of the main Russian diplomat. This or other motives motivated the editor-in-chief of Foreign Affairs, James Hogue, we do not know. His office declined to comment to Vremya Novostey.
As the Russian Foreign Ministry explained yesterday, the reason for presenting Lavrov’s article in May under the title “Containing Russia: back to the future?” was a discussion initiated by the American magazine itself on the topic of “containing Russia.” The stated topic of discussion immediately raised serious doubts. As Sergei Lavrov noted in his article, “the very formulation of the question indicates that for some, almost nothing has changed since the Cold War.”
The last straw was the requirement of Foreign Affairs to provide the article by the head of Russian diplomacy with a subtitle that would talk about “preventing a new Cold War or conflict between Russia and America.” “Meanwhile,” they recalled yesterday on Smolensk Square, “such a subtitle fundamentally contradicts the key thesis of the Russian minister’s article. Because Moscow proceeds from the fact that there can be no talk of any new “cold war,” much less a conflict between our countries. There are no objective grounds for this."
“There is no censorship as such in America,” Nikolai Zlobin, director of Russian and Asian programs at the Washington Institute of World Security, noted in an interview with Vremya Novostey. - However, each publication has its own publishing policy, its own rules and restrictions. Almost 100% of publications in the United States are private. They are managed by teams of directors and editors hired specifically to carry out the functions of control and correction.”
“Published since 1922, Foreign Affairs is one of the leading American magazines dealing with US foreign policy,” recalls Mr. Zlobin. - It is published by the Foreign Policy Council, an influential public organization that leans towards Democrats in opposition to the George W. Bush administration. This magazine has its own position and its own restrictions, which have nothing to do with censorship. “In the end, if the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry wants to publish his article in the United States unchanged and without any subheadings, he can easily do this on the pages of thousands of other American publications.” “In Russia they are used to the fact that if a big official publishes an article, it goes off with a bang and the editor is afraid to touch a comma in it. In the USA, both Bush and congressmen will be edited,” testifies Vremya Novostey’s interlocutor.
In the Soviet reference book “Foreign Press” from 1986, Foreign Affairs publishers were described as “representing the interests of the US ruling elite.” There was nothing in the Russian minister's article that directly threatened the interests of this elite. Sergei Lavrov only analyzed the international situation and the problems in solving which Moscow and Washington can and should cooperate. This is a settlement in Iraq and Lebanon, a solution to the Iranian and North Korean nuclear problems, a peacekeeping operation in the Sudanese province of Darfur, and determination of the status of Kosovo. “Russia and the United States have nothing that separates them; Together with their partners, they share responsibility for the future of the world. It is not Russia that needs to be contained, but all those who want to deprive the world of the benefits that a strong US-Russian partnership provides,” readers of Foreign Affairs will not see this fundamental conclusion of Sergei Lavrov in the magazine. And this fact will only confirm the validity of the reasoning of the head of Russian diplomacy.