海角大神

Steven Lee Myers was a reporter in Moscow for The New York Times based in Russia for several years during the still-continuing "reign" of Vladimir Putin.

In his new biography, The New Tsar: The Rise and Reign of Vladimir Putin, Myers coherently, comprehensively and evenhandedly tells the story not only of Putin鈥檚 glory years, but also of his hardscrabble childhood in Leningrad, his checkered academic career, his undistinguished work as a KGB agent in East Germany, his remarkably loyal service to the mayor of post-Soviet St. Petersburg, and his reluctant but speedy climb through President Yeltin鈥檚 ministries in the late 1990s.

In Putin鈥檚 15 years (and counting) of increasing power, we in the West have grown so accustomed to the Russian leader's sour-cool demeanor that we forget that the impatient bully once had a humble side and that he was once as loyal as a dog to the KGB and then to the post-Soviet money-grubbing politicians. His tenacity, dedication to the assigned task, and 鈥渃oolness鈥� more than any other qualities won him the trust if not affection of friends and cronies. His presidential predecessor and mentor, Boris Yeltsin, 鈥渨as wary of Putin鈥檚 鈥榗oolness鈥� at first but came to understand that it was 鈥榠ngrained in his nature.鈥欌��

Dutiful, serious, abrupt, in 2000 Putin caught, seemingly without any calculation, the vague desire of Russians to follow and obey a man who boldly and unapologetically takes action. Though many details of Putin's private life are shielded from his constituents as carefully as if they were state secrets (when his daughter Maria had a baby in 2012, while Putin was 59, the fact that 鈥淧utin became a grandfather 鈥� was never reported in the Russian press鈥�) he has proved to be the country鈥檚 most popular leader since Stalin the Terrible.

While journalist Masha Gessen presented Putin in "The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin" (2012) as an unfathomable monster, due for an ultimate comeuppance, Myers, more intrigued, more restrained, brings him down to more familiar human dimensions. Even if Putin remains disagreeable 鈥� even reprehensible 鈥� in Myers's telling, he seems all the more formidable and troubling. In just the way some American businesses and bureaucracies are so micromanaged that underlings dare not make a move lest they face the boss鈥檚 wrath, in Russia today there is no functioning government without Putin in charge: 鈥淧utin had made himself the ultimate authority in Russia, but his 鈥榲ertical of power鈥� created paralysis in times of crisis: No one would risk taking an initiative that might evoke his disapproval.鈥�

A grim comedy could be made about the Dimitri Medvedev years (2008-2012), when mild Medvedev took the reins of the presidency while Putin steered from the back seat: 鈥淧utin鈥檚 steely charisma, his absolute determination, his ability to remain above the trials of Russian life, shielded him from blame when tragedies like these struck [in 2011, involving a ferryboat catastrophe on the Volga and a famous hockey team鈥檚 plane-crash]. Medvedev, though, looked overwhelmed as president.鈥�

Myers presents the biographical and historical information so clearly that his thesis is essentially a color or tint rather than, as with Masha Gessen, the driving force of the biography. Myers's thesis is that, though Putin is, in the subject鈥檚 own words 鈥渁n utterly successful product of the patriotic education of a Soviet man,鈥� he has grown into, through a historical accident and by dint of terrific nerve, another tsar: 鈥淧utin did what he did, on his own, because the people had 鈥榚ntrusted鈥� him to rule, to be the ultimate leader, the tsar of a simulated democracy. There was no one now 鈥� from the ordinary Russian to the apparatchiks complicit in the political and economic system he had built 鈥� who would, or could, take the responsibility to change things.鈥�

President George W. Bush and Putin had a brief early spell of at least feigned mutual respect, while Putin and President Obama, who thought he would be dealing with President Medvedev, have seemed to agree to be disgusted with each other. America is Putin鈥檚 b锚te-noire, and as flippantly as a teenager he blames American inference for everything from Russia鈥檚 own domestic terrorism to Internet protests about shameless election fraud. Putin has never stopped feeling put-upon by the West, and continually has his nose out of joint when the US encourages (Putin would say 鈥渋nstigates鈥�) democratic reforms around the world. For instance, 鈥淩eflexively, instinctively, he imagined the uprising in Libya as simply another step toward a revolution being orchestrated for Moscow.鈥�

Mikhail Khodorkovsky, one of the oligarchs Putin railroaded (right into prison) and robbed of his ill-gotten oil company, observed that Putin didn鈥檛 create the (what I鈥檇 like to call) tsarcastic Russian atmosphere on his own; in Khodorkovsky鈥檚 sobering opinion, Putin 鈥渋s probably neither a liberal nor a democrat, but he is still more liberal and democratic than 70 per cent of our country鈥檚 population.鈥�

Myers鈥檚 account of the circumstances that led to the 2012 Winter Olympics in Sochi, which project Putin spearheaded while serving as Medvedev鈥檚 prime minister, is particularly revealing, in part because Putin was drawn out of himself, excited, anxious. His passionate pitch for the games charmed the International Olympic Committee: 鈥溾�楬e was nice,鈥� Jean-Claude Killy, the French ski champion 鈥� explained after the vote. 鈥楬e spoke French 鈥� he never speaks French. He spoke English 鈥� he never speaks English. The Putin charisma can explain four votes.鈥欌��

He can turn it on when he wants to, which is rarely enough, but it is often effective. Myers, unusually wryly, notes: 鈥淧utin wanted the Olympics to be a symbol of Russia, and they were. Corruption plagued every project.鈥�

My only annoyance with the tightly organized, ever-interesting book (Myers鈥檚 first), is that the author, in the deep reflex of many fine journalists, self-suppresses, and refuses to acknowledge in the text any first-person experience of the people he has interviewed and the various crises he in fact covered on the ground (although to his credit, he does provide extensive notes). At least occasionally, Myers鈥檚 best source for an event or impression would have been himself, but we never see his 鈥淚.鈥� It鈥檚 the writer, not Putin, who remains 鈥淭he Man Without a Face.鈥� Why pretend not to have been there, Steven?

The biography comes to a close with Russia鈥檚 2014 invasion and take-over of Crimea, where, not coincidentally, in 1983 Putin and his wife (now ex-) spent their honeymoon in Yalta. For fuller coverage of Tsar Putin鈥檚 involvement in and manipulation of the still unresolved and volatile situation in eastern Ukraine, we will have to wait for a second edition.

Bob Blaisdell is the editor of Essays on Civil Disobedience聽(Dover, March 2016).