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Upcoming Screening:

Dates:                               Time:                          Channel/City:

August 1, 2014               9:00 pm                     KCET, Burbank, CA

http://www.kcet.org/shows/age_of_delirium/

 

Age Of Delirium — Available on Amazon.com

age_of_delirium_hardcover

For 20 years David Satter riveted readers of The Wall Street Journal, Reader’s Digest, and other publications with his powerful and intimate reporting of events in the Soviet Union. In a book that totally demolishes any lingering notions that there was anything progressive or humane about the U.S.S.R., the former foreign correspondent offers a devastating picture of a disaster waiting to happen.

Where to buy it

On Amazon:http://amzn.to/1014Bm4

Reviews

“Spellbinding… gives one a visceral feel for what it was like to be trapped by the communist system.” –Jack Matlock, The Washington Post

“Brilliant.” –The Economist

“The brilliance of this book lies in its eccentricity and in the author’s profound knowledge of and sympathy for the suffering of the Russian people under communism. Satter takes the point of view of the forgotten people, the ones the system just chewed up and spat out like so much roughage. He went everywhere, interviewed in out of the way places, found stories that only the artist knows are there, the stories that lie beneath the rough exterior. This is the finest or one of the finest, psychological portraits of Russia in the 1970’s and 1980’s.” –Virginia Quarterly Review

“I had almost given up hope that any American could depict the true face of Russia and Soviet rule. In David Satter’s Age of Delirium, the word has received a chronicle of the calvary of the Russian people under communism that will last for generations.” –Vladimir Voinovich, author of The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin

“Every page of [David Satter’s] splendid and eloquent and impassioned book reflects an extraordinarily acute understanding of the Soviet system. Mr. Satter did not approach his subject as some journalists are wont to do – as anthropologists who suspend moral judgements and focus on examining exotic specimens with clinical dispassion.  Quite the contrary, Mr. Satter understands that to indulge in cold neutrality would be to fail to comprehend the Bolshevik project to remake humanity.” –Jacob Heilbrun, The Washington Times

“What distinguishes Age of Delirium is the author’s strong moral sense. Mr. Satter shows in engrossing detail how what he calls the ‘delusionary ideology’ of communism, by denying both moral values and reality, afflicted Soviet citizens with a mental and spiritual schizophrenia that inevitably led to the system’s corruption and ultimate collapse.” –Richard Pipes author of The Russian Revolution

“Satter deserves our gratitude … He is an astute observer of people, with an eye for essential detail and for human behavior in a universe wholly different from his own experience in America.” –Walter Laqueur, The Wall Street Journal

“Riveting … Satter provides an astonishingly intimate look at the unraveling of the Soviet system on a personal as well as a political level.” –Publisher’s Weekly

“David Satter brings to his writing both extraordinary observational and descriptive powers and a passionate commitment to telling the truth about one of the most monstrous regimes the world has known. This commitment is born of his long experience in Russia, and his closeness to a large number of people in the former Soviet Union whose stories and experiences are so vividly chronicled in this book important reading for anyone interested in one of the central moral phenomena of our time.” –Francis Fukuyama, author of The End of History

“Satter weaves a marvelous and accurate tapestry from characters who lived through the long history of Soviet communism and who confronted its absurdities.” –Vincent J. Scholdolski, Chicago Tribune

“A well written and very vivid account of the events leading to the Soviet collapse, somewhat in the style of John Reed’s Ten Days… A large part of the book consists of the true life stories of ordinary Soviet people, thus providing a good background to the climactic events of 1989-91. These stories are especially good and illustrative, preparing the reader not only for the Soviet regime’s collapse but also for the inevitable chaos and lawlessness afterwards.” –Vladimir Bukovsky, author of To Build a Castle

“In the long run, Satter argues, communism was destined to fail by reason of its materialistic interpretation of mankind. Devoid of any spiritual or transcendent element, it was brute social engineering … Time and again, Satter stresses that the party had done nothing less than manipulate reality to conform to its ideology. Reality itself had thus become a fake on the lines of the Potemkin village.” –David Pryce-Jones, Times Literary Supplement

“… a gripping history of the collapse of Communist Russia that reads like a Dostoevsky novel.” –Conservative Book Club

“Impressive and moving… Satter’s book seeks to portray a Soviet life beyond that of the dissident and the Muscovite intelligent. It has the journalistic strengths of authenticity and evocative descriptions of people and events and it is powered by a commitment to human dignity.”–Dominic Lieven, The National Interest

“Satter is both a journalist and an academic scholar… This background provides a key to the importance of Delirium: It is filled with astute reporting and also non-reportorial conclusions. Time after time, Satter draws a meaningful generalized point from individual situations. When he writes that the Soviet ideology ‘imparted a sense of purpose,’… the facts in the book solidly support his conclusions.” –Robert A. Lincoln, Richmond Times Dispatch

“Compelling… the most horrific and banal aspects of the former Soviet Union are painfully resurrected… What made the Soviet Union viable, indeed what made it tolerable and even beloved, was its ability successfully to create, market and enforce a false but consoling, and sometimes, pleasant reality. It could survive and propagate itself because ‘human beings were inculcated with a false consciousness.’ This believable ‘alternative to the agnosticism of twentieth century modernity’ could not be defeated by Western policies but only from within, by a crisis in the belief it had created. When the regime finally announced it no longer believed its own lies, it was doomed: Gorbachev’s policy of ‘glasnost could not but destroy the Soviet system.” –Max J. Okenfuss, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“Moving and thoughtful…” –Library Journal

“Impressive and harrowing…” –Kirkus Reviews

“This book lays bare the evil behind the ‘Evil Empire’ – and demonstrates persuasively, notably with compelling stories from the lives of ordinary people, why we were obliged to resist it.” –Caspar W. Weinberger, former Secretary of Defense

“Satter was one of a unique few correspondents in the 1970s and 1980s who… sought out Soviet citizens in an effort to create a living document of their experiences.” –Todd Gutnick, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

“A vivid, graceful writer and the Financial Times’ long time correspondent in Moscow, Satter exposes the sham the regime’s values had become, the drunken indifference of workers, and, in particular, the senseless, bureaucratized cruelty of the KGB.” –Foreign Affairs

“One of the distinguishing aspects of Mr. Satter’s work is that he eloquently portrays Communism’s moral decay, showing it is that which eventually led to the Soviet Union’s downfall.” –Natalia Feduschak, Ukrainian Quarterly

“Satter’s method is to look at events through the eyes of Russian individuals, high and low, whom he has interviewed… His is a remarkable example of the human element a skilled reporter can capture.” –Robert V. Daniels, The New Leader

“David Satter has acquired an insight into the reality of Russia which sets him apart from the superficial and credulous travellers who are fooled by the innumerable methods that the Russians employ to deceive foreigners about their country. David Satter was never fooled. His penetrating insight is nourished by a serious knowledge of Russian history and an understanding of the mechanisms at the heart of communism. This theoretical knowledge saves him from illusions. It permits him to choose from the mass of facts those which were really significant and despite its impressionistic and very personal appeal, the tableau he paints is perfectly realistic.” –Alain Besancon, author of Les origines intellectuelles du Leninisme

 

The Washington Times featured “Age of Delirium” in an article by Jeffrey Scott Shapiro (June 5, 2014)

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jun/5/new-documentary-re-examines-fall-of-ussr/

 

Public Television Stations that will show “Age of Delirium”:

Station Name Location Station Name Location
Idaho State Network WCFE Plattsburg, NY-Burlington, VT
KAET Phoenix WDCQ Saginaw, MI
KAMU College Station, TX West Virginia State Network
KCPT Kansas City WFSU Tallahassee
Kentucky State Network WFWA Ft Wayne, IN
KENW Portales, NM WGTE Toledo
KETC St Louis WGVU Grand Rapids
KIXE Redding, CA WHRO Norfolk
KLCS Los Angeles WHUT Washington, DC
KLRU Austin, TX WKAR E. Lansing, MI
KMBH Harlingen, TX WKYU Bowling Green, KY
KOCE Los Angeles (Orange County) WLAE New Orleans
KQED San Francisco WNED Buffalo
KRCB San Francisco (Marin-Sonoma) WNEO Cleveland (Akron)
KRSC Tulsa WNIN Evansville, IN
KSPS Spokane WNMU Marquette, MI
KTWU Topeka WOSU Columbus, OH
KUAC/Alaska 1 Fairbanks, AK + state WOUB Athens, OH
KUAT Tucson WPTD/WPTO Dayton (Cincinnatti)
KUEN Salt Lake City WSIU/WUSI Carbondale, IL
KVCR Los Angeles (San Bernardino) WTIU Bloomington, IN
KWSU Pullman, WA WUSF Tampa
Louisiana State Network WVIZ Cleveland
Maryland State Network WXEL W. Palm Beach
North Dakota State Network Wyoming State Network
WCET Cincinnati

 

Recent screenings on public television stations:

MAY

Dates:                                  Channel/City:

May 5, 2014                      KBDI, Denver, CO

May 6, 2014                      KBDI, Denver, CO

May 10, 2014                    WEAO, Akron, OH

May 10, 2014                    WNEO, Alliance, OH

May 11, 2014                     KPTS, Hutchinson, KS

May 13, 2014                     KENW, Portales, NM

 

JUNE

Dates:                               Time:                          Channel/City:

June 7, 2014               11:30 pm                    MPTV, Milwaukee, WI

http://www.mptv.org/mobile/schedule/current-programs/listings/age-of-delirium

June 8, 2014               4:00 am                     KBTC, Tacoma, WA

June 8, 2014               4:00 am                     KCKA, Centralia, WA

June 10, 2014             4:00 am                     MPTV, Milwaukee, WI

June 10, 2014            11:00 pm                   WPTD, Dayton, OH

June 11, 2014             11:00 pm                   WPTD, Dayton, OH

June 12, 2014              4:00 am                    WPTD, Dayton, OH

June 13, 2014              4:00 pm                    WPTD, Dayton, OH

June 14, 2014              11:00 am                   WPTD, Dayton, OH

 

JULY

Dates:                               Time:                          Channel/City:

July 16, 2014                  11:00 pm                   CPT12,  Denver, CO

http://www.cpt12.org/tv_schedule/program_details.cfm?series_id=87709422

July 16, 2014                  11:00 pm                   K32EO, Colorado Springs, CO

July 17, 2014                  11:00 pm                   WGTE, Toledo, OH

http://www.wgte.org/wgte/schedule.asp?airdate=07/17/2014&stype=TV

July 18, 2014                  3:00 am                     WGTE, Toledo, OH

http://www.wgte.org/wgte/schedule.asp?airdate=07/18/2014&stype=TV

 

“Age of Delirium” Wins 2013 Van Gogh Award

David Satter’s “Age of Delirium”  wins the Grand Jury Prize of the 2013 Amsterdam Film Festival Van Gogh Awards. For more information, visit the Amsterdam Film Festival website: https://www.amsterdamfilmfestival.com/van-gogh-awards/2013-winners

 

A documentary film by David Satter

The film, “Age of Delirium,” is the story of the fall of the Soviet Union as lived and experienced by the Soviet people. The film shows what it meant to construct an entire state on the basis of a false idea and how truthful information led to the Soviet Union’s rapid and unstoppable collapse.

The film exists in a short version (58 minutes) that is to be broadcast this spring on U.S. public television and a version for schools (103 minutes). As of May 1, 51 Public Television stations have agreed to broadcast the 58 minute version. They represent 54 per cent of U.S. television households. The longer version has been screened widely at universities, including Johns Hopkins, Harvard, Stanford, the University of Chicago and Cambridge University (U.K.) The film also exists in a Russian language version (subtitles) and a Ukrainian language version (voiceovers).

The following are some of the persons whose fates are described in “Age of Delirium”:

Alexander Shatravka, who escaped from the Soviet Union to Finland only to be handed back by the Finns and tortured in a mental hospital;

Nina Smirnova, a crippled girl who prayed for relief at a religious shrine and began to be persecuted by the communist authorities after she was miraculously cured;

The young men of Shadrinsk, a city in central Russia who believed in the Soviet ideology only to learn the reality of the Soviet system while fighting in Afghanistan;

Ludvikas Simutis, who fought for the independence of Lithuania after the murder of his father; and

Olexandra Ovdjuk, who survived the Ukrainian famine, and tried to memoralize the victims. The film describes the Brezhnev era, the role of glasnost and the August 1991 coup, which led directly to the Soviet collapse.

In the end, the film uses the stories of Soviet citizens to illuminate the workings of an ideological society. It shows how such a society creates its own fictitious “reality” and it gives insight into both the totalitarian mentality and the state of Russian today where the lingering influence of the Soviet experience continued to make itself felt.

The film is based on the book, “Age of Delirium: the Decline and Fall of the Soviet Union,” which was published by Knopf in 1996 in hardback and in paper in 2001 by the Yale University Press.