Pilar Bonet, journalist and author of the book ‘Shipwreck of the Empire’: “There is a parallel between Hitler’s Germany and today’s Russia”

Written in the first person, with dialogues and first-hand data from people he has met personally, whose identities he has largely kept under false names, The crash of the empire. Margin notes (Gutenberg Galaxy) describes the pain, silence and mystery that mark the existence of these successive faces, one of which is a country fighting with all its might against its brotherly neighbor… Ukraine is thus in much of the plot of the work.

We talked to Pilar Bonet at the launch of her book in Madrid.

A book written in the first person: The journalist sees what is happening closely, but they do not tell him.

My goal was to get others talking. It is my duty to tell what I experienced and the notes I took.

Many heroes you talk to will tell you their stories and stay in touch with you. This is very important for a reporter…

It is true that sometimes personal relationships are established, and this allows us to go beyond the normal relationship between the questioner and the answerer: then they tell you more.

Then, of course, it describes what it takes for others to perceive from a first-person perspective…

I’ve been there since 1984. Historical times have passed, these are also personal times; You have seen many things up close and met many people. Then the accumulated experience allows you, first of all, to preserve your own point of view, so that it is not conditioned by the point of view of colleagues who must represent other, more prestigious media. No matter what, I’ve always tried to define my relationship with reality, period. That’s where my work with people comes from: knowing that what they tell me comes from the reality of what I have to say.

How much pain there is still from the USSR to Russia.

The fate of the 15 countries that left the USSR was very different… Each of them searched for themselves, reinterpreted themselves one by one, even invented the past, after all, they are looking for each other, as everyone does. identities with structures that never existed. As in families with younger siblings, everyone tended to defend themselves against the eldest, the Russian empire. Others tended to move towards decolonization; This does not mean that they were formerly colonies, although they were partly so. After all, it was a quest for everyone. The global search, the individual search, the study of a history, a biography that would allow one to have a space of one’s own or collective, an environment in which one could act as a State.

You have a journalistic look, but you look, you have human compassion…

For example, when I talk about Ukraine. What strikes me most in this situation is the sense of helplessness experienced by Ukrainians. Feeling helpless, lost. That’s where that word comes from orphans What’s in the title of the book? This is how people became orphans. They have lost their reference point, which could be dictatorial or authoritarian, and in the face of Russia’s attacks they shout “Ukraine, Ukraine!” They have gone from shouting “” to speaking in favor of Russia… These are people who don’t even have the tools to think about their situation, but the situation is so overwhelming that I don’t think they can be blamed for anything. They’re just lost, don’t know where to go, and they go with whoever comes first.

USSR, Russia… As if they contained a mystery, now they seem like words of pain…

Imagine you were left stateless, left without parents, lost your job, estranged from your siblings… Life was secured and suddenly everything blew up… In Russia, all roles were reversed. The engineer who goes to place a rocket on the moon becomes an oligarch’s taxi driver. I don’t want to blame the West because I don’t like to blame, it seems too trite to me. But it seems to me that they did not know how these people should be treated, or it was not considered appropriate. It was thought that nothing was happening here in those countries, now look what is happening… In a way, what is happening reminds me of what happened when the Spanish lost their colonies. I don’t know how long it takes to get over 98 here…

Maybe until now…

Definitely. So why should we want anything else from those who live a familiar past and seek a future they cannot find?

What were the main losses experienced by these countries?

Each of them had different experiences. For example, Russia experienced the pain of transitioning from being a global power to a regional power, which caused it to feel ignored and harassed with the perception that the whole world was against it.

Ukraine is now a big drama. What is your current impression?

A real tragedy. They don’t deserve what they did, what happened to them, what they went through. The invaders are trying to destroy them. To understand what the Russians did to Ukraine, you have to examine what the Nazis did. Resentment, disappointment and war… Just as the Germans advocated staging the war, now the Russians are doing the same. There is a parallel between Hitler’s Germany and today’s Russia… This is a propaganda game, and there are many people who are sensitive to propaganda, not only in Russia but also in the West. Because there are some comfortable thought clichés. But I believe that many people who initially supported Putin were forced to remain silent in this war. And I think Putin has a lot to hide.

What kind of impression did this book leave on you?

Feeling tired. I wrote this at our home in Ibiza; While I was writing this, I was visited by my sister who said the house was full of ghosts. I was kind of stuck in a bubble, experiencing all of this very intensely even though I was away. Those who were there in Ukraine lived under bombs, of course they lived differently. But I experienced everything very emotionally. Now I see that I need to keep my distance.