The Russian government has gotten back into the story business. This is bad news for people who like to tell stories of their own, but good news for people who like to tell the same old stories.
It would be easy to look at the series of repressive measures adopted by the Russian legislature -- restrictions on Internet and television content, laws against blasphemy, redefining non-governmental organizations as "foreign agents", banning so-called "gay propaganda" -- as a return to the bad old days of Stalinism. That's a simple story to tell, but it's neither accurate nor helpful.
Read the rest over at Huffington Post or Pen/America.
