Marsha Gressen Commentary

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In Masha Gressen’s article “The Dying Russians”, the Russian-American journalist hopes to find the cause for the high mortality rate of Russians post-downfall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Truth be told, I am no expert on Russian history nor the the government’s transition to capitalism, but even without this context, it is easy to see the pitfalls of Gressen’s conclusion. Gressen begins with a prolific description of her experience in Russia in 1993 and her aghast shock over people’s complacency over the growing death rates of their country. Transitioning from this narrative, she goes onto negate countless attempts by specialists like Michelle Parsons and Nicholas Eberstadt who have worked to answer the questions by looking at poverty rates, lack of health care, economic turmoil, diseases, diets, drinking and more. Half of her essay deals with discrediting empirical evidence of strife in the country, but only two paragraphs of her article is dedicated to “proving” her eventual, oversimplified conclusion: Russians are dying because they just lack hope! Who would have known? She doesn’t give enough historical background when she focuses in on the Gorbachev period and the Khrushcev era so her arguments about how “intensive housing construction” correlated to people being inspired to “have babies as well” seemed contrived and rushed. Moreover, she concludes that this depression has become so imbedded in Russian society that there is a possibility that Russians are now intrinsically born with hopelessness. Following this she states, “Is it also possible that other post-Soviet states, by breaking off from Moscow, have reclaimed some of their ability to hope, and this is why even Russia’s closest cultural and geographic cousins, such as Belarus and Ukraine, aren’t dying off as fast?” Strategically dramatic or not, her last few sentences work more against her than for her. Ultimately, Gressen’s rushed articles proves the importance of establishing a thesis that is driven by tenacious research than solely basing itself on paring down other’s work.

29 thoughts on “Marsha Gressen Commentary”

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  28. I feel like Gessen’s article relied too much on emotion to propel her claim that Russians are dying of hope. The main thesis, that the entire population are dying from broken hearts, in itself is entirely based off the reader’s appeal to pathos. The structure of her article does inflict an air of superiority towards the two experts that she mentions. If Gessen did not mention where Parsons’ research went wrong, the article would have a different tone. Because of this, the scientific nature of a type of study like this is completely loss. Her whole article is hollow and lacking a sense of intergrity to me.

  29. As a journalist, Masha Gessen’s task is not to “establish a thesis driven by tenacious research”, but instead to work in a more descriptive and elucidatory manner. As such, in this piece, she does not negate any attempts to discern the reason for high rates of mortality in this time but instead simply points out shortcoming in these analysts’ modes of inquiry. The more pertinent questions concerning social scientific research to be gleaned from this piece are thus better focused on the work of Parsons and Eberstadt (e.g. to what extent can data be used to inform or refine ethnographic research?).

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