Considering what russia is doing and how propaganda works, it’s not so interesting why there are so many Chekhov and Dostoevsky on a forum for "hackers". It's interesting that there is so little about ballet here :)
"HN is the first in space but last at the ballet"
[Edit: come to think of it, the ballet claque https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claque is an early example of astroturfing; these days it's been automated by the laugh track]
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34529215.
Is it possible that Chekhov and Dostoevsky were just really good writers? That maybe we liked them long before Putin started Putin-ing?
But no, everyone else apart from you is an easily led sheep and Putin or whoever else is the shepherd.
P.S. Also Russia, which is not really Europe.
Now, its eastern\southern\northen parts\colonies - are not (except for the north and south -west of course)