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"Forms of ‘fossil fascism’ are rapidly emerging as a mixture of ultranationalism, deception, disinformation, repeated lies, othering and eventually warmongering."

Mr. Montefiore fully expects Potemkin’s remains to make their way to Russia, where they could feature in “a chillingly crass and television spectacular of ultranationalism.”

Literature, therefore, must fight against the convenient and collective amnesia that is imposed from above and shaped by ultranationalism.

What remained of independent news media, politics and culture — voices that had survived other crackdowns by Mr. Putin — all but evaporated, replaced by a militant ultranationalism piped through state television.

Such spectacularized violence cannot be abstracted from those political and economic forces driving hyper-capitalism, ultranationalism and the politics of racial sorting, spiraling poverty and soaring inequality.