Metafolklore, Volume 1: The Surreal Diary of an Unwilling Spy, Fourth Edition - Softcover

Avakov, Alexander V

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1536857653 ISBN 13: 9781536857658

Verlag: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2016

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Reseña del editor:

This book is a fictionalized diary. This three-volume edition of the book has parallel texts both in English and in Russian; English text is in black, Russian text is in red. Volume 1 is devoted to Early Years. The book is written in a very unconventional way and describes an unconventional experience. It is about the collision of cultures, which any new immigrant may experience. But it is also about the life of a particular kind of newcomer — a highly ideological, even idealistic, political refugee from a country that is the main geopolitical adversary of America. The narrative is a mixture brewed from the high-minded expectations of a former Soviet dissident contrasted with the world of “folklore” where insinuation is reality and with the daily prejudices and outright spy mania found in the various strata of American society.At the same time, this book has an aspect of a folklore study. Elements of folklore — folklore units — are analyzed both from the point of view of an immediate meaning and from the point of view of a broader meaning. The immediate and broader meaning is uncovered through interpretation in contexts. In the process of this interpretation the book navigates in contexts on two levels: (immediate) Contexts and (broader) Metacontexts. These Contexts and Metacontexts are built with the use of citations, which exemplify folklore in the world of ideas (hence the title of this work, Metafolklore). Books used as sources for these citations are primarily those of literature, philosophy, and law, but also of other areas of human knowledge. The Metacontexts are presented in three distinct perspectives: anthropological, psychological, and humanistic. Plus there are Metacontexts representing a dialogue of the author with his daughters who give the perspective of second generation immigrants.Strictly speaking, this book falls in between fiction and nonfiction; not accidently it is called "a fictionalized diary." But even so it leans towards nonfiction in the genre of ethnographic surrealism.The book covers the life of immigrants from the U.S.S.R. in the U.S., remembers life in Russia, describes personal experience of a dissident in the Soviet Union and then, after emigration from the Soviet Union, with the Western intelligence and counter-intelligence organizations. It gradually concentrates on the modus operandi of the Committee for State Security (KGB), Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), New York Police Department (NYPD), National Security Agency (NSA), ECHELON, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), Department of Homeland Security, MI5 (British counterintelligence), Mossad, Saudi Intelligence, and ISI (Pakistani military intelligence). It covers frontiers of legal theory of surveillance and of citizen’s rights versus such surveillance and how modern surveillance can lead to electronic totalitarianism. What distinguishes this book is the intensely personal account of the events and issues.Because of its coverage of surveillance in America this book has run into certain resistance from some part of the public in the United States. An archetypically hostile reaction to this book was expressed by William Askins, ex CIA Clandestine Service Senior Operations Officer: "This book is chock full of secrets. The public doesn't need to know this stuff and it should be suppressed!" These words, representing usual criticism from certain circles to this kind of literature, were written about one of the sources, which is cited in the book; actually “Metafolklore” has much more “secret” information and the opposition to the cumulative effect of this book is more acute.

Biografía del autor:

I was born in the U.S.S.R. in 1954 in the family of talented engineers. Since early age I had been intellectually curious and interested in economics and philosophy. I had studied for five years in the Mathematical Department of the Ural State University in Sverdlovsk (now Ekaterinburg) specializing in mathematical economics. At the final year at the university I distributed pamphlets with a liberally-minded critique of the Soviet system. I was arrested, accused of “Anti-Soviet Agitation and Propaganda” (which was a notorious article of the Criminal Code in effect annulling freedom of speech guaranteed by the constitution) and sentenced to 1 and ½ years of hard labor. I spent my sentence in a KGB-run labor camp among other dissidents, including former journalists, historians, military people, and diplomats. After completing the sentence I was subjected to extrajudicial punishment of “administrative supervision” for the refusal to cooperate with the KGB. During my time in the prison camp and after it, using my chance of socializing with interesting people, I have expanded my education by including semiotics, anthropology, law, sociology, and history. In 1981, when the country was “cleansed” of subversive elements, I was allowed to emigrate to the U.S. In America I have been watched by the FBI counter-intelligence under the absurd pretext (according to the FBI documents received under the Freedom of Information/Privacy Act) that I “had a solid educational background” and “was not Jewish.” I have had a successful career as a computer programmer, have travelled extensively abroad and right now am a VP, Senior Systems and Database Architect at an international software company.

Über diese Auflage

• Verlag: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1536857653
• ISBN 13: 9781536857658
• Einband: Tapa blanda
• Anzahl der Seiten: 475