How to Survive Authoritarianism: A Russian's Phrasebook for Everyday Life in America

Maria Kuznetsova and Dan Storyev talk about their new book "How to Survive Authoritarianism: A Russian's Phrasebook for Everyday Life in America."

America is not the first country to experience the stirring of tyranny; in Russia, it has been the law of the land for generations. Over the years, a vernacular of double-speak emerged, one that helped ordinary people make sense of how illiberalism takes shape and makes itself felt in daily life. It allowed them to talk about authoritarianism and to subvert it—with a healthy dose of humor and irony along the way.

In this edifying yet lighthearted glossary, two exiled dissidents share one hundred Russian idioms and turns of phrase, from “apparatchik” to “samizdat.” Some, like “power vertical,” give name to a hyper centralized form of government. Others are playful, like mnogohodovochka (“master plan”), used to deride bizarre, misguided state measures. Taken together, they make up the vocabulary we need to understand what is really taking place, and offer a roadmap to what might still lie ahead.

About the Speakers

Dan Storyev is a writer and speaker focusing on authoritarianism and societal collapse. He grew up between Russia and the US, and worked as a conflict correspondent and human rights defender. As a correspondent he traveled all over the world, including Myanmar, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Israel-Palestine and more. Dan’s writing was featured in the New York Times, the Nation, Foreign Policy and many others. He holds a BA from the Johns Hopkins University and an MPhil from the University of Oxford. Dan was involved in anti-authoritarian organizing in the US, Russia, UK and Kazakhstan. He led the English department at OVD-Info, a human rights watchdog.

Maria Kuznetsova is a Russian human rights defender, writer, and policy researcher on authoritarianism, democratic backsliding, and the technologies reshaping both. She lives between London and San Francisco.

She is the co-author of ''How to Survive Authoritarianism: A Russian's Phrasebook for Everyday Life in America'' (W. W. Norton, 2026), an irreverent glossary of 100 Russian terms that gives Americans the vocabulary to recognize and resist tyranny.

Maria spent years defending civil liberties inside Russia, most recently as spokesperson for OVD-Info, one of the country's largest human rights organizations. Before and during the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, she led international campaigns for political prisoners and anti-war activists and became a frequent voice on Russian repression in international media, including NYT, The Economist, the BBC, and Reuters. She was detained, searched, interrogated, and surveilled by Russian security services for her work.

She holds a Master in Public Policy from Harvard Kennedy School, where she was a Human Rights Defender in Residence at the Carr-Ryan Center and Young Leader fellow at Belfer Center for Science & International Affairs.