the stars of this year's event is the outspoken russian american journalist and activist mushing gessen she has been awarded the twenty nine thousand leipsic book fair award for european understanding. these days people are lining up to interview matia gessen the younger of the award winning work the future of his history how totalitarianism reclaimed russia. it makes a provocative claim. russia's future is shaped by its past and you might say that about any country but what i mean specifically about russia is that. the seventy four years of to tell a tyrant ism shaped an entirely different society than what we have seen elsewhere in the world russia has not told and his story about its history and specifically the history of stalinist terror. stalin ruled the soviet union with an iron fist until one nine hundred fifty three but even today the dictator is celebrated as the one who helped defeat hitler stalin dreamed of a mighty empire but millions of russians lost their lives as a result something that often goes unmentioned. and so it's very hard to tell a story about it but without a

about the federal reserve bank it is a bank of india then we're talking about the national industry gessen is insane c.b.i. then we also hardaker existence against the highest court that is the supreme court of india so this might stick if there is analogous and that the government was believing and then perhaps going back the past record one could say it may not be completely unfounded and it's an interesting point you make about the timing because do you think the verdict coming just ahead of the elections helps prime minister narendra modi consolidate his hindu voter base because of course the court verdict will be popular with hindus. of course if you have to realize that the chief or accuser here i mean though a person was accused of some yes in london happens to be a member of the it illogical partner of the ruling party that is to say this was just friends of exxon so he's acted sort of clear sic i nd of the best sort of popular base among the in the war to us and let's talk a also about the other two verdicts that were against him alia he was acquitted on two of the charges in twen

joining me now is masha gessen. i really wanted to talk to you this morning. good morning, first of all. >> good morning. >> i wanted to talk to you because the thing -- the two things about the trump era that seem to be true are, one, that trump creates his own reality, full stop, and his party follows along with the reality that he creates, but the second one is that donald trump has not been able to really impose that reality on a majority of americans. consistently about the same percentage approves of his performance, about the same percentage it levers up and down by one or two percentage believe whatever it is he says and on this mueller report a smaller than what would normally be his base believe his version of the findings and you can see it there that bill barr put out. what do you make of the fact that donald trump has not been able to expand the universe that believe his reality? >> you know, on the one hand it's good news and it is helpful for us to realize that it's not half and half, that we don't have this, you know, divided america, evenly di