By a Russian:
Prince Vladimir Odoevsky, 1803-1869, was a gifted man. Apart from writing philosophical books, stories for children and composing pieces of music, he also wrote science fiction, trying to imagine what his country would look like in 2,500 years, in 4338.
The fact that among other utopian inventions Odoevsky described something very close to the Internet and blogging was brought to public attention by — surprise, surprise — a blogger. Ivan Dezhurny, a Russian music producer, is generally fond of futuristic literature. Reading Odoevsky’s novel “Year 4338”, written in 1837, Dezhurny republished selected bits of the book on his personal blog to the delight of his readers.
Odoevsky suggested in future there would be a kind of connection between houses that would allow people to communicate quickly and easily, the way they do now via the Internet.
But then again:
But what’s really disturbing here is that this “Ivan Dezhurny” character is completely ungoogleable outside of the MosNews article and (as of the time stamp of this post) one referencing site with identical text. Whoever heard of an ungoogleable blogger? Sure, the Wired article hints at the possibility of blogging anonymously or under an assumed name, but then, er, wouldn’t MosNews be calling him his blog name or “an anonymous blogger”?
Of course this might have something to do with the blog being in Russian but as my Russian is lacking I guess I’ll never know.