The latest in our series of translations of Russian national-conservative intellectual Egor Kholmogorov.
For the first part, see: Russians in the 2oth Century. Part I: Origins to WWII.
Incidentally, while counter-mainstream commenters in the West are hardly well compensated, this is unfortunately doubly true in Russia. If you have enjoyed our translations of him, a contribution to Egor Kholmogorov would be much appreciated:
- Paypal: holmogorowATyandex.ru
- Yandex Money: 4276380058863064
Considering the disastrous state of US-Russian relations, the West’s lack of Russia expertise is no longer just regrettable, but potentially catastrophic. So far as neoliberalism.txt is concerned, Russian nationalism basically consists of Stalin, Dugin, and The Foundations of Geopolitics (or rather its Wikipedia summary) – a narrative that the American Alt Right and European identitarians uncritically buy into (e.g. searching “Dugin” on Counter-Currents or AltRight.com yields hundreds of results, vs. virtually zero for Kholmogorov, or Sputnik & Pogrom). This conveniently makes it very easy to dismiss more nuanced and genuine right-wing Russian perspectives.
Expanding the English language presence of other Russian intellectuals is probably by far not the worst way to go about remedying this sad state of affairs.
Russians in the 2oth Century. Part II: Late Stalinism to the Present Day
Translated by Fluctuarius Argenteus
Original: http://100knig.com/russkie-v-xx-veke/
From the Genocide of Tradition to the Era of the Russian Party
However, the post-WWII Russian national revival was highly ambiguous and unstable. Right after the first signs of a political shaping of Russian national sentiment came the harsh backlash of the Leningrad Affair. The show trials led to the extermination of government officials that came to prominence during the war and bore certain traits of Russian national consciousness. The campaigns against “cosmopolitanism” and “kowtowing to the West” did little to strengthen Russian patriotism and much to inflame xenophobic passions that, in the long run, turned against the Russians themselves.
After Stalin’s death, the Soviet leadership started regressing to pre-war ideological dogmas. As early as 1955, they unleashed a fierce persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church, using all the classic tricks of the Union of the Militant Godless, save for the physical elimination of the priesthood. Churches were shut down and destroyed, church services were routinely obstructed and impeded. Thus began the construction of the Russian person of the ottepel era: a godless enthusiast of science and progress, almost devoid of aesthetic feelings that were replaced with futuristic optimism.
One of the telltale signs of an ongoing profound “reprogramming” of the Russian nation was the liquidation of “unpromising villages”, a campaign unleashed in 1958 mostly in Central and Northern Russia – that is, the heartland of the Russian nation. The traditional Russian system of settlement in a network of small villages was uprooted. Russian peasants, forcibly removed from their traditional habitat, were herded into “urban-type settlements” that bore more resemblance to concentration camps, quickly evolving into hotbeds of alcohol abuse and criminality. A simultaneous mass housing construction campaign did much to improve the living conditions of the Russians but was also followed by social and economic maladaptation: the cohesive whole of traditional culture was destroyed to make way for the worship of the television set.
The psyche of the 1960s Russian was denationalised to the extreme, with traits of national identity forsaken in the name of modernist urbanism and a mixture of principles that were Occidentalist and Soviet (but patterned after the West) in nature.
Ilya Glazunov. Ilya Glazunov. The Contribution of the Peoples of the USSR to the Development of World Culture and Civilization (1980).
A sudden change came in 1965 soon after Khrushchev’s downfall. An ethnic revival swept the Soviet Union, with only limited support from the Communist establishment. The so-called “Russian Party” was formed out of a part of the 1960s Soviet intelligentsia and second-tier apparatchiks. It was largely a grassroots civic movement organised by enthusiasts, reaching its apex during the celebrations of the sixth centenary of the Battle of Kulikovo in 1980 (afterwards, this trend tragically reversed).
Georgy Sviridov. Snowstorm Romance.
The main manifestations of the Russian Revival were the protection and partial restoration of Russia’s medieval architectural legacy (first and foremost, Orthodox churches) and the spread of a vogue for everything Old Russian, which became something of a marker of ethnic Russianness. There were close counterparts to Western folk revival, in music (e.g. the great Russian composer Georgy Sviridov), design, ethnic symbolology. Nearly every household used to have a calendar with a picture of the Church of the Intercession on the Nerl as a symbol of rediscovered Russianness. After the end of overt persecution, the “religious fad” (as it was dubbed by indignant Komsomol agitators) made a comeback.
Essentially, Old Rus became a legally permissible symbol of Russian tradition in a climate where the later medieval era and the Imperial period were “ideologically compromised”. Self-identification with Old Rus became a form of ethnic Russian awareness, especially in urban areas. A new urban Russian identity found its reflection in the runaway popularity of Ilya Glazunov, who used contemporary pop art techniques to infuse ethnic Russian imagery with a sharp symbolism.
The “villagers”.
The literary icon of the Russian Revival was the Pochvennichestvo group, which were first and foremost linked to the “village prose” movement in literature. One of their greatest concerns was the defense of Russian nature against destruction by the “great construction projects” of Socialism, in particular, a protest against the flooding of traditional Russian territory during the construction of enormous man-made water reservoirs. The driving force of the “village prose” was a protest against the destruction of the Russian village on the basis that it was “unpromising”.
While the “villagers” tried to stay within the confines of the Soviet system, Alexander Solzhenitsyn adopted a much more radical position. Over the 1960s, he evolved from a humanistic Narodism critical of the repressive Soviet system to a stark distinction between the Soviet and the Russian and a firm emphasis on the revival of Russianness from underneath the Soviet yoke. In his Letter to the Leaders of the Soviet Union, Solzhenitsyn proposed his own programme of de-Communisation in the USSR as a condition of preserving the Russian people. Using the image of the Chinese menace, relevant in the 1970s USSR, Solzhenitsyn called on the Soviet leaders to abandon fidelity to the Communist ideology, invoked by the Chinese, in favour of Russianness, and start settling the wide expanses of Russia instead of exporting revolution:
I am mostly concerned with the fate of specifically Russians and Ukrainians, both being faithful to the old proverb (“grow where you are planted”) and more profoundly – due to the incomparable suffering that we have endured. And I write this under an ASSUMPTION that you have mostly the same concerns, that you do not shy away from your origins, your fathers, grandfathers, ancestors, and the nature you grew up with, that you are not devoid of nationality…
Under the central planning that we are so proud of, we could have avoided despoiling Russian nature by creating inhuman agglomerations of millions. We did exactly the opposite: sullying our wide Russian expanses and disfiguring our dear Moscow, the heart of Russia…
The Russian hope for winning time and winning salvation lies in our vast North-Eastern expanses, not yet defaced thanks to our 400-year clumsiness, we can build not an insane all-devouring civilisation of “progress” – no, we can start with an already stable economy and populate the land according to its requirements and principles. These vast lands give us a hope of not dooming Russia to die in the crisis of Western civilisation. (And, thanks to wasteful collectivisation, there is much empty land even closer.)
Let us remember Stolypin and give him his due without dogmatic bias. In 1908, in the State Duma, he prophetically uttered: “THE LAND IS THE SOURCE OF OUR POWER IN THE FUTURE, THE LAND IS RUSSIA”. And regarding the Amur railway: “If we stay asleep in lethargy, the Amur region will be permeated with foreign influences, and, when we wake up, it might turn out to be Russian in name only…”
The national leaders of Russia, faced with the menace of a war with China, will still have to rely on patriotism and patriotism alone. When Stalin made the same turn during the war – remember! – no one was surprised, not a tear was shed for Marxism, everyone accepted this as the most natural, Russian, and our own thing to do!
Essentially, Solzhenitsyn offered a compromise that would encompass a gradual transformation of the Soviet state. While keeping its power and reshaping it on the basis of nationalism, the Soviet leadership would jettison Communist ideology and reinvent itself as a national autocracy.
Russian history has made me into an opponent of any and all revolutions and armed insurrections. This includes future ones: those that you [the Soviet leadership] desire (not in our country) and those that you fear (in our country). Through my studies, I have grown convinced that mass bloody revolutions are always injurious to the nations that they affect… Over the last half-century, Russia’s readiness for democracy and multi-party parliamentarianism could have only decreased. Their sudden introduction now would only lead to a new and grievous repetition of 1917…
Russia lived with authoritarianism for a thousand years, but at the onset of the 20th century it still preserved much of the nation’s physical and spiritual health. This, however, was due to fulfilling one important condition. That authoritarianism had, if only at its source, at its beginning, a strong moral foundation. Not an ideology of universal violence, but Orthodoxy, yes, seven centuries of the Orthodoxy of Sergius of Radonezh and Nilus of Sora, not yet twisted by Nikon, not yet bureaucratised by Peter… [1]
Everything depends on what kind of authoritarianism we are to expect in the future. It is not authoritarianism itself that is intolerable; it is the everyday ideological falsehood. It is not authoritarianism that is intolerable; it is despotism and violence, insurmountable violence…
Our country should be governed by considerations of an internal, moral, healthy development of our people: the liberation of women from wage slavery, especially from hard physical labour; setting right our schools and the education of children; saving our soils, waters, the entirety of Russian nature; restoring healthy cities; settling the North-East…
An amazing fact: even though Solzhenitsyn was forcibly expelled from the USSR and could not engage in any real dialogue with the Soviet establishment, some practical aspects of the 1970s Soviet policy followed the course chartered in the Letter to the Leaders of the Soviet Union. In the mid-1970s, the destruction of the Russian countryside gave way to welfare programs for the “Non-Chernozem Zone” [2] – tardy but still useful for strengthening the basis of national life – as well as an intensified development of the North-East and the construction of the Baikal-Amur Mainline, envisioned by Stolypin and mentioned by Solzhenitsyn. Unsurprisingly, however, the Soviet leadership didn’t even consider Solzhenitsyn’s call for an ideological shift.
Solzhenitsyn’s Letter caused his ideological breakup with the Liberal dissident intelligentsia led by Andrei Sakharov. The row between “Westernisers” and “Nativists”, both in the USSR and among émigrés, reached levels of acrimony unseen since the final third of the 19th century. The mathematician Igor Shafarevich, a like-minded thinker and Solzhenitsyn’s close ally, circulated an essay called Russophobia in samizdat, killing all prospects of reconciliation between the two camps. In the essay, he branded the Soviet Liberal intelligentsia a “small people” opposed to the “big people” [the Russian majority of the nation]. Like Solzhenitsyn, he saw the essence of the Russophobia of the “small people” in them ascribing the entirety of Soviet atrocities to the “innate nature of the Russians”, their national character, and the Russian historical tradition as a whole.
The Russians Nailed to the Cross
One could imagine that the Soviet system would find a way to merge with Russian ethnic tradition and give birth to a more or less viable synthesis. However, those hopes were dashed in the 1980s with the dramatic self-destruction of the Soviet régime. Moreover, one of its first precursors was manifested in Andropov’s crackdown on the “Russian Party”. As a result of its suppression, it entered the era of Perestroika – with its cutthroat competition of ideologies and reform projects – in a drastically weakened condition.
For other Soviet republics, Perestroika was synonymous with an upsurge of nationalism and Russophobia. Everywhere in the USSR, the Russians were subjected to pogroms, persecutions, and expulsions that varied as per the traditions of the local dominant ethnic groups. However, the Russians themselves experienced the same processes as a form of national nihilism, fawning adulation of everything Western, and a surging Russophobia of the intelligentsia.
A national and traditional alternative to Communism was heavily marginalised and ridiculed by the Perestroika press that linked all talk of ethnic Russian problems to the Pamyat Society [3], while the “democratic” camp denied those problems existed at all.
By the time of the destruction of the Soviet Union, a veritable vivisection of the historical territory of the Russian people, the Russians failed to achieve the degree of awareness and consolidation that would have helped to resist this breakup or to at least use it in the interests of the Russian people.
Allegations claiming that Russian nationally-minded politicians welcomed this breakup and supported the idea of “Russian sovereignty” are delusional. On the contrary, Yeltsin pushed the sovereignty of the RSFSR in the name of a “multinational people” and challenged ethnic autonomies to “grab as much power as you can swallow”.
Transnistria was the only place where the Russians managed to mount a resistance sufficient to stop their assimilation into foreign and emphatically anti-Russian projects of nation-building. The fate of the Russians in Central Asia was dire, with local radicals pushing the policy of expulsion while the government of the Russian Federation turned a blind eye to ethnic Russian refugees. The so-called Ichkeria of Dudaev and Maskhadov became a bloodstained page in the history of the Russian people due to a near-total ethnic cleansing of its Russian population. With the tacit approval of the European Union, the Baltic states maintain discriminatory policies against their “non-citizens”.
The situation of Russians in the Ukraine turned to tragedy. A nationalist frenzy led to ever-increasing attacks on the Russian language and Russian identity that had as their final goal not only a suppression of the identity of the country’s ethnic Russian citizens, but its complete replacement. Education curricula, linguistic policies, and TV propaganda gradually remade Russians into Ukrainians that were expected to hate Moscow for standing in the way of the country’s “European choice”.
In 2014, this aggressive de-Russification erupted into open military conflict, the final outcome of which it is at present impossible to predict. We can notice an obvious Russian insurrection of national liberation in Novorossiya, but, due to limited Russian government support, it is unclear whether the Donetsk and Lugansk Republics would be able to go “the way of the Crimea” and gain independence, or whether they will get pushed back into the Ukraine under the aegis of the “Minsk Agreements”.
In the Russian Federation proper, the first post-Soviet decade was a time of semi-official Russophobia, with anti-Russian doctrines daily proclaimed in the press and on TV by the intelligentsia. The word russkiy became taboo and was gradually supplanted by the more politically correct rossiyskiy [4]. The government favoured the interests of all ethnicities and minorities while completely ignoring the Russians.
This effectively stimulated the collapse of the Russian ethnos. Some groups, such as Cossacks and Pomors, saw that identifying as separate nations was more advantageous, especially given that government sponsorship of ethnic culture specifically catered to minorities only. Groups with fantasy identities sprang up, such as “Ingermanlanders”, while others such as “Siberians” even managed to contrive an artificial language.
The post-Soviet period threw the Russians as an ethnic group into a spiral of horrific demographic collapse. Birth rates fell through the floor while mortality soared, fuelled by drug abuse, alcoholism, street and organised crime. The phrase “the Russian Cross” entered Russian popular speech, referring to the intersection of two lines denoting soaring mortality and plummeting birth rates. Experts earnestly claimed that the Russian population would shrink to 50 million, and analysts routinely fed the papers with scenarios of Russia’s imminent collapse.
An “against the grain” factor of this period was a massive resurgence of Orthodoxy. Millions of Russians returned to the faith, churches and monasteries were reopened, and Orthodox rituals and worldviews returned to everyday life. The Orthodox Christian identity became the main marker of self-awareness for countless people. As a rule, the Orthodox renaissance was inextricable from a sense of belonging to the Russian historical, cultural, and aesthetic tradition.
From a rejection of the 1990s “liberal hell” there came a growth of national awareness as a form of resistance to Russia’s plunge into darkness and self-annihilation. The motives of “I feel sorry for the Empire” [5],“we’ll have our revenge”, “don’t let them bring us to our knees” were brought together in a forceful, if ideologically vague, rejection of a decadent reality. And all of this energy of resistance was marked by the word “Russian”.
It seems all the more natural that, with the self-reconstructive processes of the Russian state relaunched in the early 2000s, the entire trend depended on a larger role for Orthodoxy and an assimilation of ideas and energy accumulated by the Russian resistance in earlier decades. It is not usual now to see those ideas and their heralds manifest in government policies.
Nevertheless, it is still premature to speak of a normalisation of the Russian people’s place in Russia.
The Russian Question in the 21st Century
The 20th century, both in its Soviet and post-Soviet legacy, left Russians with a number of extremely difficult problems:
- The Russian ethnic group is torn apart and dismembered by state boundaries that came into being after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Certain newly independent states pursue a deliberate and consistent policy of attacking the Russian language and ethnic identity.
- The national habitat of the Russians has shrunk, and their demographic situation is precarious. Two decades of calamitous population collapse have given way to a fragile equilibrium that can change for the worse at any moment.
- Russian ethnic awareness has been artificially dissociated from its Orthodox Christian origins and is presently subjected to dangerous attacks, running the gamut from denial of Russian history and traditional Orthodox values to overt Russophobia, e.g. statements on Russian “genetic deficiency” disseminated by certain media from within Russia itself.
- Even the Russian language, the only official language of Russia according to the Constitution, is a constant target of opprobrium. Its status is put into doubt or denied in some regions of the Russian Federation, and the time reserved for its study in school curricula is curtailed in favour of regional languages. The compulsory study of minority languages is imposed even on ethnic Russian students, who are not native speakers.
- Fundamental Russian traditions of environmental adaptation have been forcibly eroded. The campaign against “unpromising villages” wrecked the traditional Russian network of settlements. A total hyper-urbanisation that went hand in hand with the destruction of villages, towns, cemeteries, and churches led to the shrinkage of family memories to three generations at most.
Solving these problems is paramount for the Russian Federation as a state. The very existence of the state is dependent on the direction of the activity and energy of the Russians. A decline of that energy immediately leads to obvious signs of state collapse. Conversely, a growth in Russian activity, as happened in 2014, brought Russia back to being a Great Power. While discussing the “Russian question”, we speak of either unity and development, or the collapse and degradation of Russia as a state.
The cohesion of the Russians and the Russian state is the principal guarantee of Russia’s territorial integrity. The Russian people, Russian culture, and the Russian language have always been and still remain the main factor of Russia’s unity. Regarding such remote enclave or semi-enclave territories as Kaliningrad Oblast, the Crimea, Sakhalin, or the Kuril Islands, their unity with Russia is mainly sustained by the virtue of them being populated mostly by Russians, and moreover, Russians with a heightened ethnic awareness of living at the “frontier”. If not for this “Russian factor”, had everything been dependent only on geopolitics and geography, those territories would have been irrevocably lost during the early 1990s crisis.
Incidentally, even though Kaliningrad is the most “recent” Russian territory, it has stronger ties to the country than many 19th century acquisitions. This is due to it being populated almost exclusively by Russians. We can state with utmost certainty that the level of a particular region’s integration into Russia, its level of compliance with federal laws and regulations, is directly tied to the percentage of Russians in the area. Regions where their numbers are insufficient tend to become ground zero for interethnic conflicts, terrorism, radicalism, and more or less overt separatist propaganda.
Map of ethnic Russian percentage in Russia (via Seva Bashirov).
It is imperative to emphasise a very strong link between ethnic Russian presence and traditionally practised Orthodoxy. Orthodoxy is effectively an alternate form of Russian ethnic presence, and by and large an analogue to Russianness. We could delineate the following three types of Russian regions:
- Regions dominated by the ethnic Russian population and Orthodoxy. Their integration is near-absolute;
- Regions with a non-dominant ethnic Russian presence, but with a dominant Orthodox tradition. There, integrating factors prevail over disintegrating ones;
- Regions with a low Russian and Orthodox presence. In these regions, the level of disintegration is so high that its containment requires special political (and sometimes law enforcement) measures.
As a sui generis type, we could single out regions where, amidst a high Russian percentage, Orthodox identity is constantly attacked by certain cultural, religious, or ideological minorities. Those are mostly large metropolitan areas or borderlands. In such regions, we can detect extremely contradictory ideological trends, including outbursts of radical nationalism (including ethnic Russian nationalism), the emergence of groups nihilistically opposed to the government, and the erosion of national awareness among Russians.
The growth of the ethnic Russian population, both absolute and relative to the population of specific regions, the bolstering of Russian identity linked to Orthodox Christian tradition and the historical memory of the nation, is the guarantee of Russia’s cohesion as a state. The stronger its Russianness, the stronger the unity of the state. Conversely, demographic and cultural decline amongst Russians can only undermine the integrity of the Russian state.
References
[1] Saints Sergius of Radonezh (1314 – 1392) and Nilus of Sora (ca. 1433 – 1508) are often credited with developing a specifically Russian tradition of monastic life and ascetic mysticism within the larger Orthodox communion.
Nikon (1605 – 1681), Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1652-66, enacted a series of reforms bringing church liturgy and doctrine closer in line with that of the Constantinople Patriarchate, which was seen by many as an attack on Russian traditions and provoked a church schism that endures to this day.
Under Peter the Great, the office of the Patriarch was abolished, and the Russian Orthodox Church was completely subsumed into the government apparatus, losing even nominal autonomy.
[2] A bureaucratic term comprising most of Northern and Western European Russia, dominated by low-fertility soils and low-yield agriculture.
[3] A Russian nationalist movement founded in 1980, now largely dormant. Its heyday was during the early Perestroika years, when it became one of the most prominent nationalist organisations. However, it quickly fragmented into several factions, most of them espousing anti-Semitism and conspiracy theories, which made Pamyat supporters an extremely easy target for Liberal ridicule and Russophobic propaganda.
[4] The difference between russkiy and rossiyskiy, both technically meaning “Russian”, is quite difficult to convey in translation. Essentially, the former adjective is more traditional and has strong historical and ethnic connotations, while the latter was meant to invoke allegiance to the modern Russian state regardless of one’s ethnicity (and swiftly acquired connotations of “related to any ethnicity living in Russia EXCEPT the Russians themselves”).
[5] Memetic phrase from the classic Soviet Ostern White Sun of the Desert (1970), used as a sometimes ironic, sometimes earnest expression of shame and guilt for the gap between Russia’s potential and its sorry state.
Kholmogorov’s great lament for the natural contraction and return of the Russian language and culture back to its ethnic homeland and roots does not resonate much in the lands where Russian imperialism dominated for many centuries. In fact, the words ‘imperialism’ and ‘Russian’ never once cross or surface in this made for hire article representing modern day Russian propaganda. It’s a song of lament not unheard of before by dying empires – the song of the vanquished conqueror. Boo, hoo…
Don’t debase yourself to African levels of whining about ‘imperialism’.
(Or maybe do, the sooner the likes of you self-destruct, the better.)
‘Debase’??…what a stupid thing to say!
That’s one thing Russian nationalists really whine too much about, most Russians in the Baltic states are descendants of Soviet era-settlers, their treatment is totally reasonable and humane when compared with the historical standard in such situations (e.g. “suitcase or the coffin” for the Europeans in Algeria). Russians who are unable to learn the local languages after having lived there for decades should just relocate to Russia.
Bit much of a resentful victimhood narrative in this article. I don’t get how one can complain that Russians’ “national habitat” has shrunk when Russia is still the largest country on earth.
That sounds a bit like a description of AK tbh. How does one reconcile enthusiasm for transhumanism and other futurist ideas with all this talk of Orthodox Christianity as the basis for national identity?
One question: what does the part about the “genetic deficiency” of Russians which is supposedly claimed in some Russian media refer to?
This thought crossed my mind too. Don’t expect Karlin to take the initiative and give you a straight answer, though. 🙁
He is of course a more civilized writer* than 99% of the articles published on this website.
At the same time, it is like 19th century political pamphlets, rather than academic history, as there is a description of symptoms, without explanatory framework of the economic and technological changes which are the aetiology. For example, which are the real reason that, for example, people are not returning to villages (although the internet will actually make this easier in the future).
Also why is Russian language constantly shrinking, while Spanish and English are expanding?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7H3bYxSHpbg
Agreed. Especially since the article doesn’t deign to mention the complete expulsion of the Russian population of Chechnya. Now that’s something a Russian nationalist might reasonably angry about.
I took that as a reference to Chechnya:
And yes, that’s certainly something Russians could be legitimately angry about. Baltic states…not so much.
I have to agree with Mr Hack that this article suffers from complete obliviousness about the effects of Russian expansionism on various non-Russian peoples. Such a one-sided narrative of Russian victimhood isn’t credible, but unfortunately it’s a common failing of nationalists to see only the grievances and suffering of their own group and create an elaborate mythology around that.
He is a publicist and this is activism aimed at a Russian audience, so you will not expect academic objectivity, as in a history book written by professionals – at the same time, it is still trying to write in a more objective way than 99% of this site. It’s good to put him in English so people can see one of the orientations which exists at the moment. He is not a professional or academic expert of history – but is also not an idiot (unlike most stuff published here) and he tries to think through his positions to some extent.
I know, and that’s why I find his arguments potentially quite dangerous. Peoples that base their identity on a narrative of their total innocence and victimisation at the hands of others tend to be insufferable and lash out in rather excessive ways.
Russians certainly have many legitimate grievances and are right not to trust the West in its present configuration. I have my doubts though whether Mr Kholmogorov’s ideological myth-making can play any positive role.
He is not shy, that he believes in expanding territory and that Russia should have a global leadership on the world stage, etc – but that’s his opinion, and at least he has courtesy to write it in a usually civilized way.
He’s not going to appeal much to the practical people like myself. And sure this kind of dreamer – (what Jung would call ‘intuitive personality type’) is probably generally not going to have so much of an audience in an English speaking world.
Sputnik i Pogrom are what the alt-right calls “racist liberals”, and they are not even that racist.
They are good sometimes, but so is Dugin.
AK, I think you severely underestimate Dugin just because he happens to be objectively wrong about some areas where you are knowledgeable.
Dugin also happens to be objectively right on some topics where you are completely wrong, such as transhumanism.
That Dugin is more interesting to the alt-right than SiP is normal, considering that this is the movement which does not think that the ultimate purpose of human existence is increasing GDP.
In general he deals with the kinds of things – methaphysical, philosophical and spiritual stuff – which cannot be expressed in numbers but are nevertheless real things of which one can have real knowledge, contrary to that retarded quote of Lord Kelvin that you love so much.
Don’t get me wrong, I really like your blog and I think it’s valuable, but I can also appreciate someone like Dugin and imo both types of thinking are necessary if one seeks to better understand the world.
By the way I have read parts of “Foundation of Geopolitics”, it’s really an impressive book and one can only regret that the only way it will ever be “known” by troglodytes in the west is by some wikipedia “summary”.
And yet this is precisely what Karlin is trying to do here, by translating these Russian myths into the English language and then presenting them here to a wider audience. Also, you seem to imply that there are two platforms for expressing thought here, one for the English speaking world, and one for the Russian speaking one – as if logical thinking (‘practical’?) is the sole province of the English communicating world (most of the world), and a Russian speaking one, where belief in fairy tales and half truths dominate. This is precisely the stereotypical view of Russia and Russians that Russophobes would like to promote.
This makes me more interested in Russia, actually, as a place where mysticism hasn’t completely died and buggery isn’t the normal mode of accepted sex.
Jung had divided four forms of cognition – intellectual, intuitive, sense based, and feeling based. (And he also would categorize people along these lines). Intuitive people are present in all countries, although probably the anglosaxons are less tolerant of them in areas like politics.
We might disagree with these concepts, but I think this can be a useful categorization for this kind of conversation.
If someone with intuitive kind of mind, and their own ideological agenda with local appeal (in this case, it includes some old fashioned things like imperialism, religion, and so on) – writes about the recent history of their own country. This is not going to have popular resonance in an English speaking world.
At the same time, it is good to translate it to English, so that people can access more of the political orientations of other countries.
I can read similar intuitive pieces on American history (the left-wing versions, published sometimes in New York Times), and not have any personal resonance to them, but also find a useful window into American ideologies.
As for my view on Kholmogorov. I’m too much of a practical person, to want to spend time reading his views, let alone to agree with them. At the same time, it is obvious that he is quite thoughtful, and puts effort into his writing and blogging (and thinking about ideology), so it’ll be good to see him being translated. Just compare this post to the average standard of this website (it is a much higher standard).
I don’t want to make this thread about Dugin, but to briefly address this.
Duginists are not racists at all. They are multiculturalist, socially conservative authoritarians who dislike Russian nationalists. Heck, I recall Dugin once criticized Pozner (of all people) for having Rogozin on his show because he spread hate or some SJW nonsense like that. It is almost impossible that any of their websites would have accepted my article on Russian IQ, for instance.
Oh, I don’t know. I seem to find a lot of other interesting bloggers at this site. Kholmogorov certainly isn’t the only show in town! 🙂
Your reliance on Jungian archetypes and psychology seems rather dated though. I used to read his type of pop psychology as a kid*…I haven’t really heard anybody today rely so much on his views as you do. He must still be held in high esteem within Jewish circles?…
*at some point I quit reading novels written by Herman Hesse too…I still enjoy reading comic books from that era though!
So his Eurasianism leads him to combining Christian and Islamic eschatology?
Wow, the guy seems to be even madder than I had imagined.
I’m not so sure what is popular in Jewish higher circles. The only Jewish ancestry people I know are in Israel (everyone in their 20s) – and they read George R.R. Martin and – the girl I know the most, is reading Harry Potter.
Actually I started reading Jung’s books – after I bought his autobiography in the large bookshop in London. He’s relaxing and easy reading.
He’s a perceptive and interesting writer. I don’t think that his theories are scientifically valid, or that he succeeded in his ambitions, or that you could build a psychology from his ideas. But I would recommend reading his essays, and finding some interesting perceptions in there.
That said, I am not expert in any of the areas he writes about, so I would not take strong position. Just say that it is entertainment.
You can read free pdf the English of his book ‘Psychological Types’.
(Scroll through the first 4 blank pages)
https://monoskop.org/images/8/8d/Jung_Gustav_Carl_Psychological_Types_1946.Pdf
Superficially, I would agree with you – and imagine it’s one of the mad people who sometimes try to talk to you in the bookshop, smelling often of urine.
On the other hand, he somehow managed to build a successful career, even though he only graduated from the shit university, at age 42. So probably he is cleverer, more sane and more cynical than we think. He knows his audience want the crazy material, and he provides it.
Sometimes I try to enjoy him more by thinking he might be low-key troll baiting people. His marketing success seems to be based on playing to the hilt every stereotype Westerners have about Russians: the wild-eyed, bearded Old Believer for Stalin vowing to destroy decadent America for once and for all. His fans and enemies alike have bought into it completely, so good on him: I liked seeing him on Alex Jones at least, they have a real great buddy movie chemistry going.
He really would make a great movie villain.
His real passions are for early 20th century occultism or Islamism of the Khomeini school, so they get mixed into whatever he’s writing about at the time. His Orthodoxy is just more like a necessary box tick to play a real Russian patriot (bonus points for choosing to be an Old Believer).
But he is only a slight villain, in terms of being a scammer or seller of snake oil. Otherwise, I am sure he is quite harmless (as long as he gets some money and attention).
The thing is – there are other scammers who do it more subtly, but somehow the most obvious and blatant version, is the most successful.
Looking at the writing style of Dugin, it is written almost as if it is a parody of people pretending to be educated when they are not – for example, the random insertion of banal German words into the text – which themselves have no special signification in German language.
It’s amazing how he even became recorded by prestigious media in English – when you google him in English, you can even find interviews with the BBC and articles in the New York Times.
It makes me feel like I chose the wrong profession. I should just grow a beard, get a shit degree at shit university, and start writing some banal stuff about politics and end times, without actually having any real education or knowledge, or even having any fluency in foreign languages – and you can become famous off this with articles in the New York Times and BBC News?
But really he is a genius at marketing – and that is a natural talent I am sure.
He claims to be one of the world’s leading language learning experts, and has given lectures on how to become fluent in the English, French and German languages.
But his English is like this (and his French and German are far worse).
He is genius at networking and promotion though – to make a career with these talents.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGunRKWtWBs
With the possible exceptions of Poland and Armenia, the victims of Russian imperialism are completely irrelevant countries with no history or culture worth mentioning. In some cases these victims are completely fictitious countries as well, such as Belarus and the Ukraine.
As such there is no reason whatsoever to regret or oppose historical Russian imperialism.
On the contrary, its revival would be quite welcome as it would free up parking spaces in New York City by getting rid of a dozen or so alleged countries currently represented in the United Nations.
Belarus is a now successfully governed country – they can be studied and learned from, as an example for many countries around the world.
I would hardly say ‘the alt-right’ as a whole, more like a much smaller subset of people into mystical crap
Sure, Belarus has done quite well in the post-Soviet period in relative terms.
But it’s still a gay and fake country whose existence is objectionable and offensive. It’s very irritating seeing it on maps.
Looks to me like you’ve got plenty of freed up parking space within your cranium. A Scandinavian Ukrainaphobe pretending to be intelligent – how desperate?
What’s this strange habit of calling countries “gay” that are actually not known for being pro-homo? It really irritated me yesterday when Greasy William called Japanese nationalism “gay” just because the Japanese are convinced xenophobes.
Belarussian national myths (partisans blowing up Wehrmacht trains and the like) can hardly be called “gay” either.
And as AK recently noted, the US is the gayest country of all, where more than 12% of the population claim to be homos.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/phobia
Why would anyone be afraid of such a pathetic failed state–and completely gay and fake country–such as the Ukraine?
American millennial men use “gay” as an all purpose pejorative. I believe this has been stamped out in Generation Zyklon by Homintern. This is because as teenagers we were convinced that to be gay was very very bad.
It was very routine when I was a boy to disparage people and things as “gay”. When I was 14 we once rioted (a tame riot–this was an upper class school) over being served “gay” food for lunch in the school cafeteria.
Belarus and the Ukraine aren’t gay because they’re homo-sexual or have bad myths. They’re gay because they’re bad and shouldn’t exist.
I understand, but it still feels like incorrect use of language to me. Lukashenko in his uniform doesn’t look like a pansy homo to me. Tin-pot maybe.
Besides, I’m not sure one should use “gay” in this meaning anyway, after all it was once a perfectly normal, positive word that homos usurped and ruined for everyone else.
Exact same story in the UK, and I suspect much of the Anglo world.
My (highly anecdotal) impression is that “gay” as an insult was used more frequently in the upper class schools than in the prole ones.
Well, it’s exactly the same with the term schwul in German.
Unless indoctrinated otherwise, I’d say most teenage boys, everywhere, regard homosexuality as something pretty bad.
I have no idea? Perhaps, after visiting a good shrink, you’ll be able to pinpoint the cause(s) of your pronounced disorder.
It’s just extremely lazy trolling
It’s also the best way to express extreme disappointment.
e.g.:
A: “Are they still talking about Russian collusion on TV?”
B: “Yeah, looks like it”
A: “Gayyyyy”
I don’t think you understand why I hate Belarus so much.
It has nothing to do with Lukashenko or his regime.
It’s the same reason I hate Austria’s existence, which you should be able to relate to as a German.
I am always in favor of Anschluss. Fake countries must be destroyed.
I for one welcome the return of Grossdeutschland, the return of the Russian Empire, the reincorporation of Taiwan into China, and the unification of all 26 colonies of British North America.
Our generation is an interesting time capsule on this front.
Homintern made us well aware of the homo-sexuals, which boomers and earlier did not. We reacted correctly–condemning it.
Generation Zyklon however is intensively brainwashed to worship homo-sexuals and other sexual degenerates.
Fortunately if Audacious Epigone is to be believed they’re rejecting their conditioning.
The only disorder is the existence of the Ukraine.
It disorders the map.
It’s also extremely annoying seeing things like “Kyiv” and “Lviv” printed on maps. It’s Kiev and Lemberg.
It’s only ‘extremely annoying’ because you exhibit all of the classic symptoms associated with a branch of xenophobia called Ukrainaphobia. Since you like definitions, let me include this one for your benefit:
Perhaps, several years of psychiatric treatment under the guidance of a qualified physician might help cure you of this unpleasant malady, so that you’ll quit hearing the evil little noises within your brain whenever you hear the word Ukraine or Ukrainians. Good luck Chum.
I’m warning you, old ‘Son of Thor’ the treatment can be a long and nasty affair. Here’s a short video clip of a typical Ukrainaphobe undergoing treatment, being fed visual stimulation of three blackshirted types (actually blackhatted types) beating up a Ukrainian national for the crime of singing some native Ukrainian songs in a local pub. It’s graphic and violent:
https://youtu.be/PitssRMj5gA
Surprise surprise…Mr. Hack…is a hack.
And what is with people from the former Soviet Union always suggesting psychiatric treatment?
Admiral Martyanov does the same thing.
And yes, I do indeed conceptually reject the Ukraine. It’s fucking bullshit, and even if it were real it’s worthless.
let it go.
I have another reply not related to this comment per se.
Your inquiry about our usage of the word “gay” displays a typically German autism.
I don’t mean this as an insult, it’s endearing and one of the many reasons that the German people and their culture must persist.
It wasn’t an entirely serious question…and I think I understand the reasoning behind your preference for large power blocs (iirc a few weeks ago you expressed enthusiasm for the ideas of imperial federation people like Joseph Chamberlain had at the turn of the 20th century, and indeed something like this might have been necessary for Britain to survive as an independent great power in the 20th century, just as Germany would have had to dominate central Europe…instead both were relegated to secondary status in a world dominated by two giant continental-scale powers, the US and the Soviet Union). It’s hard to disagree from the perspective of a Darwinian struggle between nations, and one can certainly argue that in such a contest the rights of smaller nations should be irrelevant. I can’t say though I like it on a level of values.
It’s interesting that this blog is leading to community. You know and remember my views.
And I find you endearing.
Granted, I’ve known Karlin for a long time, but still.
Ron Unz is truly a miracle worker.
Incidentally I have German cousins. My aunt married a German (actually half-German–his mother was Swedish). They are from the Rhineland, which I have visited to see them. It’s beautiful, and I had the good fortune to see a Beethoven concert in Bonn.
My German uncle’s father was a Wehrmacht general who in the first World War lost his leg to a French grenade at Verdun.
I am almost reconsidering my hatred of foreign languages to learn German. Almost.
He’s certainly created the best commenting system I’ve seen on the net, simple yet powerful, with all the functions one needs. And yes, it’s nice there’s something of a community at least on some parts of the site.
Parts of Bonn seem to be infested by Arab thugs now (there was a case a few years ago when a German youth was beaten to death that got some media attention…the probable perpetrator, a Moroccan, was acquitted because there wasn’t sufficient proof one of his friends hadn’t landed the deadly blows, and none of them talked…or were made to talk). It’s also supposedly a centre of Salafism.
The mayor is a part-Indian CDU cuck who used his brown skin color as an argument why he should be elected (“It would be a fantastic sign of our cosmopolitanism if someone with brown skin could become mayor”).
Probably better that your uncle’s father didn’t live to see it…
99% of stuff on this site (if you accidentally step outside your bookmarked Karlin page), is a kind of fake news/propaganda/moralizing. That is just my personal opinion – you can take it or leave it.
I’d say Karlin blog is the opposite of fake news, but for a reason which takes some time to understand. It’s not because it is very accurate, correct and conscientious (I don’t read here and find that I agree with it, or even that it is very similar to my viewpoint) – but rather because he doesn’t care if we agree with him or not, and posts in honest way whatever random shit he thinks at the time, without trying to persuade us to his viewpoint. You can read relaxedly every day, with not any unpleasant sense of being propagandized.
This is probably a result of his being used to having his own strange views, which makes one less obsessed with other person’s agreement. You could disagree with everything he says, but you would not feel any unpleasantness or ill-will. This is a civilized attitude, and is part of the spirit of people – usually more intelligent or individualist people – who happily take complex and therefore less common viewpoints, rather than trying to coincide their viewpoints to other people’s, or make other people’s views change until they coincide with their own (with consequent intolerance for divergence in other people, and the desire to propagandize them to conforming with you).
Anybody who can make statements like you make is a bonafide, f’n, nutjob:
You sound like somebody who’s stark raving mad! Put away your silly books and go outside and get some fresh air and sunshine (and don’t forget to take those pills)…
Well…Europe in 2018 is supposed to be somewhat different than Africa in the 1950s…
But I guess folks like yourself don’t mind being compared to Algeria…
The thing is you can’t have it both ways…the Western and EU propaganda loudspeaker proclaims itself the guardian of universal humanistic values…[even to the point of always being quick to drop ‘humanitarian’ bombs]…
Not to mention that the EU rules about such stuff as voting rights…language rights…education rights…employment rights etc are spelled out in great detail…
Yet none of this applies in the Baltics somehow…Russian people born in those Baltic countries, some for many generations…after all the Baltics were part of the Russian empire for three centuries…do not have citizenship, voting rights, language rights or any other of those EU rights…
And all of that is fine if you just come out and say these facts plainly…ie the high-sounding bullshit coming from the Western megaphone is just that…cut the crap and come out and say it…
We note even in South Africa which native peoples really did suffer true injustice…the whites still have the right to vote and the right to their property etc…
Anyway…the Baltics naturally belong in the Russian sphere of influence and as the Western Empire collapses they will be needing Mother Russia soon enough…as they have throughout their history…
And they will find that most in the US couldn’t give a crap about them…and in fact do not even know they exist…
lol, when the Balts go raping and chopping up Russians every week, you might compare that to South Africa. And personally I think what happened to the Baltic peoples during the Stalin era was much, much worse than the “true injustice” done to blacks in South Africa during apartheid.
And as far as I know, Russians can become citizens in the Baltic states, they just have to pass some language/civics test…according to Wikipedia more than 50% of Russians in Latvia are citizens:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russians_in_Latvia#Current_situation
If you’re too stupid or too lazy to learn the national language after decades of residence, you don’t deserve citizenship anyway.
I’ve never claimed to believe in EU values so such criticism doesn’t affect me personally.
That’s not true as I understand it, Russians whose ancestors were citizens of the Baltic states before the 1940 annexations automatically received citizenship after the Baltic states became independent again in the early 1990s.
The issue is Soviet-era settlers and their descendants. And even many of them have become naturalized by now.
The crypto-Nazi rends his cheeks in sorrow at the fate of the Reich’s little helpers.
How predictable.
Probably they would not turn into Reich’s little helpers if USSR did not annex them in 1940 and subjected them to typical Bolshevik treatments of mass murders and deportations.
The opposite is true – without the executions and deportations there would have been many more little helpers.
In my opinion it is up to the Russians to solve their problems as they see them.
What western observers see as problems maybe are not a problem at all inside present Russia.
Does the west bother with the problems in the west that Russians see ?
Punitive psychiatry.
I can rcommend the commenters here two books, the first is about political changes in E Europe, Europe defined as the area ending with the Ural mountains, the second about the immensely complicated migrations and assimilations that took place there:
Anne Applebaum, ‘Between East and West, Across the borderlands of Europe’, Londen, 1995
Kevin Alan Brook, ‘The Jews of Khazaria’, Northvale NJ, 1999
Actually it’s Lwów.
As utu has pointed out, the usual Soviet terror programme was already used against the Baltic states in 1940/41 before any Balt ever had the chance to become a Nazi collaborator, so you’ve got the causality backwards.
Obviously doesn’t mean the Baltic states should mistreat their Russian minorities today…but as long as you can’t come up with anything more than “one has to learn the local language to become a citizen…unfair!”, this whining about “discrimination” is pathetic.
‘You shouldn’t complain because we could have done much worse’ is not a terribly cogent argument, nor a rhetorically potent one – the long and lamentable life of the German expellees’ whinging chorus makes that obvious.
Your non-denial of the crypto-Nazi charge is welcome though – I might find my Bavarian cousins more bearable with a bit more such honesty from them.
That chorus (rather muted nowadays due to the passage of time) is politically irrelevant, and has been so for decades, so I don’t see your point.
Look, I don’t want to come across as heartless or anti-Russian, obviously the Baltic states should respect the minority rights of their Russian populations regarding Russian schools and the like, and not attempt a policy of forced assimilation or expulsion by stealth (which, to my knowledge at least, they don’t and haven’t tried to do). But all I see from Russian nationalists on this issue is barely veiled arrogance of a “Why do these insignificant nations even exist?” kind, which can’t be helpful for mutually acceptable solutions.
Yeah, shame and honor are white people concepts. Sorry.
The fundamental question for Russia in 21st century is: survival of nation and civilization, in the face of deliberate attacks from a western elite which has ceased to be rational or competent, period.
Nitpicking about genetic DNA, memorized quarrels over textbooks in Lithuania or Tartarstan, ignorant small minded oprobriums against Mr. Dugin, mask but do not manage a conceal a fundamental inadequacy and smallness of intellect.
And Solzhenitsyn, an great man, epic chronicler of Soviet tragedies, and a fool limited by his fatal, forgivable, and fortunately not life long provincialism in outlook. He was right, and wrong. He did great harm to his people and his motherland. And he would have readily owned up to this bit of repentance himself, because in the end, he was a man with a noble soul. The article’ lavish quoting of Solzhenitsyn’s totally unrealistic and dreamy proposal without adding a somber footnote was also lamentable.
The irony is that if they had simply kicked out the Soviet era migrants in the early 1990s, Estonia and Latvia would likely have better relations with Russia today.
There were anti-Russian indimidation and de facto mass expulsions in many Central Asian countries and even in some ethnic minority regions of the Russian Federation like Chechnya and Tuva. Yet this doesn’t seem to harm Russia’s relationship with these nations at all as Russia has cut its losses and moved on to making deals.
The incentives and precedents that Russia is setting are extremely perverse for diaspora Russians. We can all see that if you allow a significant ethnic Russian minority to stay, you get rewarded with intimidation and subversion, but if you just kick out Russians when you have the chance, there are no consequences down the line and you’ll likely have friendlier relations with Russia a few decades later.
It’s also depressing when you see Russians defend this logic with the same perverse racial logic that Western liberals use – “white people like Balts should act with higher moral standards than everyone else” – as it just suggests that the core of poz is already ingrained and it’s only a matter of time before they’re the same as the West.
Don’t look at me, I live in an insignificant nation, and I feel the world could do with a few more of them. Internet Russians apart, Balts get the criticism they do because they wrap themselves in the cloak of European values and don’t live up to them.
Perhaps Russians expected better of Latvians than Kyrgyz. I have been told that support of Latvian independence circa 1991 was startlingly high among the Russians in the Baltic states.
Idiots.
“Ukraine” is not a nation and doesn’t have any rights. It’s a completely artificial Soviet homunculus created to dilute the power of the Russian state. The idea was that if Russia was split into three states, then the Communist Party apparatus would always be bigger and stronger in any power play compared to the collective power of three disjointed Russian states.
The idea was correct, and the dynamic worked as long as the Soviet Union existed.
There’s no reason for Ukraine and Belarus to exist in 2018. They continue along in a shambling zombie fashion in a last-ditch attempt to sell their remaining Soviet legacy anti-Russian influence in a Russia vs USA power play.
Once it becomes obvious that this Soviet legacy has run out the American owners of Ukraine and Belarus will scrap them. (I give it 10-15 years, given how slow and dumb the American State Department is.)
Did Solsjenytsyn write lies anywhere ?
Hard to believe that a hundred years ago there was no nation Ukraine.
Voline ( Vsevolod Mikhailovitsch Eichenbaum), ‘The unknown revolution (Kronstadt 1921 Ukraine 1918-21)’, New York 1955
Even in WWII Ukrainians fought on the German side against the USSR.
Henning von Vogelsang, ‘Die Armee, die es nicht geben durfte, Russen in deutscher Uniform und ihre Rettung in Liechtenstein’, 1995 Ulm-Kissleg
Already around 1000 CE Kiev was an important city, do not even know if Moscow then existed.
Kevin Alan Brook, ‘The Jews of Khazaria’, Northvale NJ, 1999
So you are triggered by Ukraine and Belarus?
They think they are nation, they are not tribal and they – especially Ukrainians – kill their neigbours for not being them.
Thats, in my opinion is enough to make a group of people a nation.
Once it becomes obvious that this Soviet legacy has run out the American owners of Ukraine and Belarus will scrap them.
Who are “the American owners of Belarus”?????
Belarus will eventually accede to Russia, but Ukraine not so much. It’s rather like (todays) Poland in that respect, which is unlikely to reintegrate the Deutschland anytime soon. Maybe it will split in two, only time can tell.
Non- or anti-Russian post-Soviet victim narratives are a dime a dozen, and they all sound something like “those Commie Russkie barbarians raped our virgin soil with their tractors, sullied our 40,000-year old culture with their Pushkin and Tolstoy, and ate all of our lard and sausages”.
They are built around a central assumption of Soviet Communism being just a smokescreen for a form of master race supremacy for the Russians and colonial exploitation for the rest.
They imply that the Russians were the main beneficiaries of the Soviet system, and all and any retaliative and punitive measures against the Russians are a legitimate and justifiable act of righteous post-colonial retribution. Those Russkie colonialists should just shut their trap and deal with it, because muh #whiteprivilege.
The central nerve of the article is that this post-Soviet butthurt narrative is entirely bogus on the following grounds:
1) The Russians got near ZILCH real benefits out of being the purported “master race” of the Soviet Union. Any territorial, cultural, or economic perks that the Russians got out of the Soviets were transitory and half-hearted, could be undone at any moment, and were usually granted out of immediate geopolitical or macroeconomic calculations rather than any real sense of “Great Russian chauvinism” among the Communist leadership.
The Russians were essentially treated as the horse in Orwell’s Animal Farm: the more official propaganda eulogised about the beauty of the Russian language or the largesse of the Russian soul, the more Sisyphean labour was required from the Russians for another Great Building Project.
2) However, the Russians got ALL of the flak for being the purported “master race” of the Soviet Union, becoming an easy target for lurid post-Soviet/colonial victim narratives going as far as likening them to Brits in India, Afrikaners in apartheid S. Africa or Whites in the Jim Crow South.
All and any damage inflicted by Communism upon Russian livelihood is seen as either non-existent or insignificant in comparison with the uniqueness of Estonian, Kazakh, Ukrainian, etc. suffering in the 20th century – or even justified because muh #whiteprivilege.
As if Russians hadn’t been artificially pauperised, famished, deported, and mass-murdered by the million, and were drinking chai with milk under white umbrellas while their Latvian and Uzbek peons busted their arses in the rice fields.
Whenever our leaders speak about “European values”, it means celebrating non-white minorities, sexual minorities, decolonization and so on. In the current vision of “European values”, colonists left behind by white empires are not protected minorities, they’re evil people who deserve to get mass raped and murdered. Russian minorities in the Baltic states should be very happy that they’re not being treated according to “European values”.
The current regime of “European values” also approved the terror that drove out the German minorities of many countries after World War II. I don’t see why they wouldn’t approve of mass expulsions of Russians given that they view Russia and the Russian diaspora as guilty of the same nationalist sin as those Germans. (Europe would have probably gone less crazy about Russia if it had annexed some non-Russian territory like Abkhazia. But Crimea is ethnic Russian so it’s all seen as ethnic nationalism and that’s the ultimate sin in today’s Europe.)
{With the possible exceptions of Poland and Armenia, the victims of Russian imperialism …..}
I wouldn’t say Armenia is a ‘victim’ of Russian imperialism.
Auspiciously Russian Orthodox Christianity expanded southwards at a perilous time for Armenia: it would have been very difficult for Armenia in its condition at the time to remain Christian given that to its south is Muslim Persia/Iran and to its east and west are Turkic counties whose goal was and is extermination of Armenians from their native lands. (Persia/Iran has been and is very friendly to Armenians, but the pressure of Islam from Persia/Iran would be hard to counter).
Even now, Armenia is the only country in the region which welcomes Russian presence in the Caucasus – for obvious reasons.
That painting by Ilya Glazunov is rather cool. But there is no Chernobyl Blowout element in it. Such a traumatic moment of the USSR, and even the world at large.
Armenia is more a victim of Turkish imperialism.
Exactly.
And not just Turk imperialism: far, far worse: Genocide.
It has been a great mistake for the EU to admit so many irrelevant and toxic countries such as the Baltics , Poland , Chekia , Slovakia , Hungary , Romania ,Bulgaria , as well as to foster a coup d`Etat and a civil war in toxic Ucraina .
This will be the end of the EU .
Historic and poweful european countries like France , Italy , England , Spain . feel marginalized by Brussels ( by Germany ? ) , in benefit of the toxics . England already voted out of the EU , and the anger towards this EU is growing in Italy , France and Spain .
The EU should have stablished just trade agreements with the toxics , and with Russia too , which is the most important , historic , and reliable country of eastern europe . But the Americans blind with hegemonism and russophobia would not tolerate it , what will lead to the end of the EU , and of Nato , or worse to an atomic war that will finnish with what remains of the white race .
OT: what do the believing Christians here think about the Miracle of Fatima?
What’s being described here is the slow but inevitable collapse of the Russian Empire. The Russian Federation is now the last of the “white man’s empires” and it’s hard to imagine that it won’t go the way of all the other European empires. Naturally, the dominant colonial ethnicity, which, almost by definition, sees itself as a master race, is trying to hang on. The British, French and Portuguese, Dutch and Spanish empires went through the same process and that’s to say nothing of “intra-European” colonialism which persists in certain European states, not least the Russian Federation itself. Thus, what we learn is that Russians are just a typically European people, doing the typically European things that all Europeans do. Even the “Russian v European” argument is typically European. We all see our continent as “us v them”. We are unique but all the others are clones of each other and, naturally, are ganging up on us! When a European country suffers a major defeat, you always get a revisionist about 15 – 20 years down the road who wants to return to the status quo ante, to “make X great again”, to borrow a phrase. Germany had Hitler, France had De Gaulle, England (and I say “England” advisedly) had Thatcher and Russia has Putin. For Hitler, it was the 1918 defeat, for De Gaulle, it was the 1940 defeat, for Thatcher, it was the loss of the world’s largest empire and for Putin, it’s the collapse of the Soviet Union. Thus, the good news is that Putin is just a perfectly normal and typically European passing phenomenon. The bad news is that if he continues to use military force, he will bring down a second, far more devastating, defeat on his own country, as Hitler did.
By the way, the author’s claims about Ukraine are totally false and Russians make up only about 1/3 of Transnistria’s population.
And, of course, I’d still love to know what a mere translator feels the need to conceal their identity.
Gracias, спасибо.
I wonder, is it too simplistic to say that the zionists (and neocons) hate Russia because Stalin stole the revolution from them, and put them back on the typically Russian track of rule by Царь?
Were the purges an actual civil war, not just a deranged maniac?
Stop player hating.
I’d put the odds of this as 50-50 at best. It is slowly drifting in the opposite direction. As AK put it, it currently is a bit like Donbas, though unlike Donbas it hasn’t been shelled by the West.
Does anyone know the origin of this common fairytale?
You mean like some Russian nationalists or Sovoks do about he 90s in their own country? Or Serbs do all the time, about Kosovo etc.?
Another Ukrainaphobic lunatic trying to express his nonsensical views. You sorry SOB’s all missed the boat and your true calling in the 19th century, when you thugs were called blackshirts. Your pathetic calls of Russian fascism didn’t work then, and certainly wont work today, over a hundred years later:
I’ve already outlined the cure for your evil illness in comment #45. Don’t wait to sign up, it still may not be too late.
Most Europeans of the colonial era were peasants who were drafted into fighting imperial wars that benefited them in no way. Even with the industrial revolution, the average working class coal miner who dug up the fuel for the gunboats worked in terrible conditions for little pay and probably supported socialist politics that was against colonial empires (which only benefited a small set of elites).
Yet even the average European man is supposed to feel guilt over the empire. It doesn’t matter if an Englishman remembers his ancestors as the coal miners who were slaughtered by the state for protesting their conditions, he is still supposed to feel guilt over the profits of dead white capitalists. Russians are hardly treated different in this.
And here we go with the communist nonsense. India almost entirely continued as it had been in the British empire. The whites of South Africa spent massive resources on the biologically hopeless task of uplifting blacks to the level of whites and it’s hardly their fault that blacks cannot do it. The blacks of America were less dysfunctional under segregation with much safer communities, stabler families and so on. There is no plausible trajectory for any of these “victim” groups in which they’d do much better on their own.
For the Baltic states, however, there are perfectly good comparisons in countries that avoided communism and it’s clear that the communist period was a massive setback, 50 years of missed economic progress as they were forced into the path of Soviet mis-industrialization. In 1917 there was the excuse that the system hasn’t been tried but in 1939 communism was a demonstrated disaster.
This is a depressingly common view held by both SJWs/Russian (((Liberals))):
“Lenin and Trotsky were planning to build a Jewish gay feminist communist paradise, but along came Russian chauvinist Djugashvili and mucked everything up”
and Neo-Stalinists:
“Lenin and Trotsky were planning to build a a Jewish gay feminist communist hell, but along came Russian patriot Djugashvili and put everything back on track”.
Well, that sounds exactly like jew thinking to me.
So, if anything, your comment supports my conclusion.
But I wonder if it is actually the case.
If you read my question more closely-I’m asking if this view is the source of Zionist hatred.
It looks like the apple hasn’t fallen too far from the tree. ‘Punitive psychiatry’ given a real boost in the 1980’s under the guidance of Chairman Andropov, seems to have found a new life under the tutelage of former KGB officer Putin (surprise,surprise):
http://www.newsweek.com/russia-putin-psychiatry-punitive-crimea-uzbekistan-prison-jail-kremlin-moscow-661179
Being a Croat, I know something about Serbian mythology. Kosovo is just a belated, small-scaled variant of what their rational historians call “romantic school of historiography”. It all has begun in the 1870ies, with “historians” like Miloš Milojević, and then continued with quasi-historians & writers Sima Lukin Lazić, ..and then to lunatics like Jovan Deretić (not to be confused with a literary historian bearing the same name), Olga Pjanović Luković etc.
Main tenets:
………..
I’m not pulling your leg, this is for real. You got tons of stuff on Internet, Youtube, books at archive.org etc.
I don’t know of any contemporary nationalism in such a surrealist garb.
…
…
…
…
……………………..?
You being a Croat you should shut up about Serbs and rather start talking about Croats to show some contrition in attempt to atone for the crimes your people committed during the WWII.
Given the fact that the ‘6M Jew, 5M others, & gas chambers’ have been shown to be easily debunked frauds / scams, your “crypto-Nazi” childishness does not hold water.
The ‘6M Jews, 5M others, & gas chambers’ are scientifically impossible frauds.
see the ‘holocaust’ scam debunked here:
http://codoh.com
No name calling, level playing field debate here: http://forum.codoh.com
Well, I don’t know about christian, muslim or any other eschatology, but for me all religions are dealing with the same problem, no matter how you look at it, or who you think is right!
On the bureaucratic level, the racism/nationality discrimination in Baltic states is not uniform, and it’s not fair to label Lithuania – which seems quite just – , alongside a kind of systematic discrimination which is used in Estonia and Latvia.
Lithuania does not seem to have problems, and recognized dual citizenship, naturalizes people born in the country. I don’t see the issue.
In Latvia, by comparison, people can have been born and lived for decades, but do not have the correct form of blood. ‘Stateless persons’, who do not have the same rights – for example, they cannot travel or live in the EU. Note – the complicity of EU itself in giving the stateless fundamentally different rights, in comparison to Latvians – aside from the fact they have to pay taxes yet do not even have the basic right to vote.
In Estonia, although naturalization seems to be easier – reading about the discrimination of non-naturalized and Russian-speaking minorities could be even stronger in terms of on restrictions in the professional level (many professions are banned to them), or in terms of rights to acquire property, as well as non-official xenophobia at the workplace.
For example, reflected in labour market statistics, if you’re Russian there, the unemployment rate is between 2-4.5 times higher and your income is 1.5 times lower on average.
http://rulit.org/read/359
Usual pro-Serb faggotry.
http://www.studiacroatica.org/libros/mythe/indice.htm
https://www.hercegbosna.org/STARO/engleski/download.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUpgUGA2wbo
Those poor, poor misunderstood and highly ‘civilized’ Poles, trying to bring ‘Christian’ culture to their neighbors…my only question to you Mr. Krakowska, is what came first, the ‘pacification’ of Ukrainian lands, or the Volyn massacre? Who first opened the door to the barbarism that was to follow?
https://youtu.be/3T5l70SG19I
Percentage of Russians is much lower in Lithuania, so they can be more relaxed about it.
When more than 50% of Russians in Latvia hold Latvian citizenship (and that was back in 2007, I’d suppose it’s even higher now), you can’t seriously claim there’s some kind of racial discrimination barring Russians from citizenship.
The transition was surely hard for many older Russians and their situation deserves some sympathy. But the petty complaints by Russian nationalists remind me, in a highly negative way, of the endless complaining and lobbying by professional “antiracists” and migrant community activists in Western Europe. Almost as if Russians were honorary “people of color” suffering from institutionalized racism.
what do the believing Christians here think about the Miracle of Fatima?
Muhammad’s daughter? Probably better off asking Talha . . .
no, the miracle of the sun in 1917 Portugal. You’ve never heard of it?
For the baltic pseudo-nations euroamerican capitalism will be other disaster , they are being depopulated in fact . They are just such micro weird provinces , that all they can be is servants of their neighbours , servants of the germans , of the swedes , of the danes , of the russians , and now or the yanks , which at it is well kown only leave behind military bases and wars .
I welcome the reunification of all illegally separated parts of Mongolia and rebirth of the Mongol Empire.
https://cdn.britannica.com/700×450/27/61827-004-491AC77E.jpg
The so-called Baltic republics naturally belong to Germans (“Estland” and “Lettland”) and Poles (“Litauen”).
It is unfortunate that their useless languages were not wiped out like Prussian.
While the occupation of Galicia was clearly unjust, the Pacification followed OUN terror attacks and was provoked by them. Just as Sovok partisans attacked Germans in Belarus to get Germans to kill Belarussian civilians to stir up anti-German feelings, so OUN attacked Poles to get Poles to respond heavy-handedly in order to stir up anti-Polish feelings.
Which “useless” language do you speak natively? Dutch?
no, the miracle of the sun in 1917 Portugal. You’ve never heard of it?
Living in Portugal it is difficult to avoid hearing about it, especially since last year was the centennial.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBIs8cuIwTo
Look at the faces beginning just after 4 minutes in the video, these people seem to be convinced they were witnessing something out of the ordinary, wouldn’t you agree?
LOL.
Some Serb (or Bulgarian?) was arguing that the Balkans were the true homeland of the Slavs and Slavic was the indigenous langage of what is now much of Greece.
In Ukraine there was a comedy show that featured a teacher claiming that Ukrainans built the pyramids and dug out the Black Sea. This was presented as real news on Rusisan nationalist websites and some Russian nationalists actually believe this is what it taught in Ukraine. It looks like in Serbia it is no joke, however.
It is unfortunate that their useless languages were not wiped out like Prussian.
Well at least as far as Lithuanian is concerned that would certainly have been a true linguistic tragedy, as it is (or so I am reliably informed) the oldest extant Indo-European language.
For the uneducated, can you please tell us what makes a language “useless”?
You say that the russian industrialization of the rural underdeveloped baltics was a failure .
Bur how do you explain that the 3 countries that have lost more % of population in the world in the last 20 years are the Baltics ? Letonia has lost 20% of its population ( from 2,4 million down to 1,9 million ) , and Estonia and Lituania follow close in the rank .
http://www.lavanguardia.com/internacional/20180105/434075444343/letonia-pais-desaparece.html
How do you explain this baltic ” succes ” ?
As an honorary prole, I can say that “gay” as an all-purpose insult was quite common in my youth. But I never used it much: certain people do protest too much. The one puerile word that I maintain is “dude”.
As an honorary prole, I can say that “gay” as an all-purpose insult was quite common in my youth. But then I grew up.
Some people do protest too much, methinks.
No reason to learn it.
I dunno. That’s why I asked what you thought.
The thing about Fatima is that even if it was some type of mass hallucination then it was a hallucination that would have not been possible had the clouds and rain not broken at exactly the time that Lucia had predicted in advance. And I doubt little Lucia was much of a meteorologist.
Furthermore, we supposedly have witnesses who weren’t even at Fatima but rather up to ~40km away who also witnessed the same sun miracle.
And of course we also had hard core skeptics who were adamant that they saw the miracle.
on the other hand, we also have some reasons for skepticism:
I have no idea what to make of Fatima. I do think that even if Fatima wasn’t some type of miracle it is the only modern report of a miracle that can not be dismissed or convincingly explained.
There’s not really much point to learning any language but English
http://politiek.tpo.nl/2018/04/21/bonusquote-hans-van-baalen-vvd-sloopt-jean-claude-juncker-donald-trump-in-kleiner-formaat/
Juncker in 2025 wants to make Albania and Mecedonia EU members.
Poland is a real country with real culture and history.
The Ukraine is not, and as such has no rights to complain about Polish (or Russian) incursions.
Face it. You are part of a pathetic, fake, loser nationality which does not deserve to exist. You should be completely ashamed of your origins and try to hide them.
If you live in a Anglo country.
His global influence greatly contributed to the perhaps well deserved total demoralization of USSR population, and he was undoubtedly at one point naive and overly simplistic about the aftermath following the Union’s dissolution, a fact he regretted towards the end of his life.
Like a lot of other dissidents from the former Soviet camp, Solzhenitsyn was contemptuous and dismissive toward any one who criticized the West and regarded them as leftists. perhaps some of them were. But we gain a much better insight into the state of western civilization as of 2018 by reading for example “Culture of Narscissism” by Christopher Lasche published in the 1970s, than reading Red Wheel by Solzhenitsyn.
No official historiography, sure & some normal historians like Radivoje Radić had ridiculed all this. But, you have to take into account that publishing success in contemporary Serbia is if a book is sold in 5-10,000 copies.
Numerous crazy pseudo-historical books (Serbs > Egyptians, Siberia, Mesopotamia, Romans, Greeks) had been during 1990s & 2000s sold in 200,000 copies or more.
And Macedonians have, among other things, adopted the fantasy that Alexander the Great was a co-ethnic of contemporary Macedonians or Macedonian Slavs.
Go figure…
This is pretty impolite.
You are a pathetic, fake, loser person who does not deserve to exist. You should be completely ashamed of yourself and try to hide yourself.
The incorporation of the Ukrainian People’s Republic into the Polish state was mired in problems from the very start. It was a bad move that only got worse. Acts of intimidation and attempts at assimilation culminated in the closing of Ukrainian language schools in the predominantly Ukrainian areas and the banning of the Ukrainian language within government organs. Beatings of Ukrainians was not uncommon. Watch the video that I’ve included. Of course, looking back at things now it’s easy to make judgement, but the times were tough including a severe economic downturn. What happened then is done, it’s time to let cooler heads prevail today and into the future.
Of course Ukraine exists. It’s been represented on world maps for more than a century now. No amount of wishful thinking by psychopaths like you can erase this very fact. Get used to it and be sure to sign up for the psychological therapy outlined in comment #45!
That’s kind of the point of the internet.
How interesting.
Do you realize it is actually your discourse about Russians in the Baltics that is 100% certified social_justice.txt?
“White people in America/South Africa/etc. must shut up about their problems because
a) they actually don’t have any problems because white privilege;
b) the ones that they actually have are due to their own stupidity/arrogance/etc.;
c) and they DESERVE to have problems anyway because they are former colonialists and MUST suffer for that.
In any case, all they must do is suck it up and don’t complain, ever.”
Now, replace “White people” with “Russians”…
You could frame the question in costs vs benefits of learning a language given your geographical location, cultural links, ability etc. I think the benefits of learning mandarin probably outweigh the ( admittedly high ) costs, irrespective of who you are of where you live. For those in America, Spanish probably clears that threshold as well. French, German, Russian, Japanese etc. might be useful for small group of foreigners who have ties + high ability to pick up the language quickly.
Disagree. Their situation is not optimal, but it’s understandable why the natives wanted to distance themselves from a group which they never welcomed in the first place. I’m not aware of any repatriation programs being undertaken in the 90s and perhaps much more should have been done in that respect.
That’s like saying the point of a blank wall is to have graffiti on it.
But degenerates gotta do what they gotta do.
I didn’t write any of that, clearly the Baltic states should try to find a modus vivendi with their Russian minorities that is acceptable to both sides. It just seems to me that Russian nationalists often think the Balts’ national interests should be completely irrelevant, and that’s a very one-sided perspective imo. Balts only have their own small states, whereas Russians still have the largest country on earth, that also needs to be taken into account.
http://lowres.cartoonstock.com/business-commerce-small_town-village-idiot-village_idiot-work-dro1376_low.jpg
What an astonishing moron you are…
https://s20.postimg.cc/mv2ajx0bh/medical-complaint-stupid-moronic-doctors-stupidity-11800675_low.jpg
That’s kind of the point of the internet.
For you apparently, not for me (and a number of others here, I think I can safely say)
‘Naturlich’… village idiot…
That’s why the Baltic languages ‘belong to the Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family…’
You’re really on a roll there ‘lederhosen’…keep it up…
https://s20.postimg.cc/equ6erlhp/stock-vector-hilarious-drunk-guy-with-mugs-of-beer-at-hands-on-a.jpg
I haven’t read Shafarevich’s Russophobia, but most people I have talked to about it interpreted the “small people” as referring to the Jews. Is Khomogorov being coy, or is the common interpretation
of the “small people” inaccurate?
Correct. The Polish government engaged in a lot of repressive measures such as shutting down Ukrainian schools, firing Ukrainian professors from Lviv’s university, etc.
However the pacification itself was a response to OUN terrorist activity that was deliberately undertaken in order to provoke a harsh Polish response against the Ukrainian population, to improve its own popularity (it had been a marginal organization until the late 30s).
Captive Nations Committee (CNC) propaganda, as evidenced by the sentiment in Transnistria, South Ossetia and Abkhazia – entities where Russia is more preferred over the former Soviet republics claiming them.
Elsewhere, numerous Romanians and Hungarians, as well as a noticeable number of Poles, aren’t so gung ho in supporting nationalist influenced Kiev regime controlled Ukraine.
So much for the svidomite image of heroic Ukraine, as a bulwark against evil Russia.
He can be used as a punching bag example for anti-Russian leaning advocates – never minding the more objectively intelligent pro-Russian take, that’s not as easy to refute and is (let’s face it) downplayed for that very reason.
If the graffiti is good, sure.
People on the internet opposed to trolling, belligerence, etc. are in contravention of the spirit of the internet. The sort of people responsible for atrocities like Reddit, Facebook, and The Guardian’s comment section.
What’s the more intelligent pro-Russian take?
As long as Ukrainian citizenry is for an independent state, the opinions of Poles, Hungarians, Russians and any other sorry Central Asians is meaningless. Especially yours! It’s telling that you’re still caught up in the old cold war mentality of your sovok fellow travellers – the CNC has long since disolved, and you should take their cue you aging dinosaur.
Why would the opinions of “Ukrainians” be relevant?
The opinions that matter in this case are those in Moscow, Berlin, Paris, London, Washington, and Beijing.
What people in Kiev or Lemberg believe is irrelevant.
This sort of argument had been effective in the late 80s. But now that the Russian national interests have been cheerfully ignored for the past 30 years, the Russians have zero sympathy for appeals to someone else’s interests.
One-sided perspective? Sure. What else did you expect?
Ok, that’s understandable. Seems misguided though to me to get worked up about small countries like the Baltic states. Be angry at the Americans and the Western Europeans, at least there are good reasons for that.
My post was writing about Kholmogorov, not Dugin.
Obviously Dugin is such a phenomenon, and I would legitimate just from entertainment purposes – that he is entertaining people.
Kholmogorov I would not say is crazy (my impression is he is usually trying to be thoughtful), even if he advocates equally things like imperialism and religion.
On a happier note, Georgy Sviridov had been mentioned. What a great composer. Snowstorm Romance is great but there is so much more.
Here is one of the best 3 min musical portraits of Russia: Troika. (Apparently this tune had been stolen by some computer game.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1FtL4uIQ0c
And this is the best 3 min musical portrait of the USSR: Time Forward! It’s all there, both the horror and the exhilaration.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6If6LZH3O_4
They live there. Therefore how they choose to live is solely their own concern.
Did you sign up for the treatment yet? With your severe problem, necessitating an extra long stay, I’m sure that you could negotiate a discounted price?
One can presumably attribute it to the power of autosuggestion: a large crowd had been attracted in the expectation of seeing another miracle, and they did.
There is an interesting book (in Portuguese) which explores the possibility that the apparitions of 1917 were in fact a “repetition” of an earlier Islamic (Shiite) tradition associated with the site. In this connection, many of the local place names are obviously or plausibly Islamic, starting of course with Fatima, which has a hillside known as “das Chitas” (presumably “of the Shiites”); the birthplace of the 3 seers was Aljustrel, and just a few miles away is the Freguesia (Parish) of São Mamede.
https://books.google.pt/books/about/Os_mouros_fatimidas_e_as_apari%C3%A7%C3%B5es_de.html?id=ktppkgAACAAJ&redir_esc=y
I’ve already voiced my sympathies for the Russian imperialists in comment #1: ‘Boo, hoo’
I can do likewise for the Polish imperialists too:
I’m not trying to be cynical or belittle the tragedy in Volyn, but any form of imperialism based on the glorification of one ethnicity over another often leads to such calamities. That’s why I’m a firm believer in the nation state concept, and have no misplaced sympathies for any sort of imperialism: Russian, Polish or even Austrian (yes, yes, I know, the good kind of imperialism). Austrian support for the Ukrainians within its borders was primarily a cynical tool to help control the aspirations of its more active ethnicities, including Hungarians and Poles.
Sure people don’t like to hear complaints – this is human nature. And other things you can read about like ‘Just World Hypothesis’, which add to this natural tendency to hate whiners.
That doesn’t imply that, in reality, national minorities are fairly treated in Estonia or Latvia (even if we don’t enjoy hearing their complaints).
I’m happy to see both points of view, and to see the point of view of the Estonians and Latvians who obviously have their own reasoning.
But the kind of dismissal of this creation of a non-citizen class, with the banning not only of dual-citizenship solutions for them, but also of banning of Russian citizenship, and of Latvian citizenship only by passing impediments. And of situation of Russian-language schooling?
I believe it’s not difficult to say – with all emotional neutrality – that this is an unusual position to find yourself in, in which you are citizen of no-country, and now can’t send your children to public school in your language.
And it’s not as if the national minorities are doing any thing – any violence or hostile actions – to result in this conflict, (or the history) which really has nothing to do with them.
How many of the Russians in the Baltic states are completely stateless? Is it hard for them to acquire Russian citizenship (if, for whatever reason, they can’t or don’t want to become Latvian or Estonian citizens)?
Sure, but given the historical background I don’t think a certain bitterness and paranoia on the part of Latvians and Estonians is surprising.
The Baltic states were forcefully annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940, there was significant terror, and after WW2 the Soviet Union deliberately used Russian settlement to keep them integrated in the Soviet system which most Balts never wanted to be a part of. Given this history, fears that Russian minorities could be a potential fifth column and be used to legitimate reabsorption of the Baltic states by Russia don’t seem completely absurd to me, especially after the events in Ukraine since 2014 (whatever one thinks about them).
I’m not saying the Baltic states are 100% correct in everything they’re doing, specific grievances of the Russian minorities would have to be judged on their merits.
I have through the comments. And while I have worked along side Russians, laughed and fussed with them. I find it a hard case to make that unless I comprehend the complexities and intricacies of Russian history and culture I will lean toward a posture of military force as first response in dealing with them.
As it is, the geopolitical landscape isn’t all that predictable in my view. Given the tensions, as unfortunate as it may be, I am not all that excited about trusting Russians anymore than I am about trusting my own government.
I am interested in what this article and responses mean to me as a citizen of the US, despite the constant ravings of the disgruntled who claim I am a jew working deep in the bowels of Israel’s computer disinformation squad(s).
so you don’t believe it? Are you Catholic or Orthodox?
mass suggestion wouldn’t explain why people 40km away saw it. Although it is possible that such accounts are the product of hysteria spreading and people misremembering after the fact. It’s not like things were well documented in 1917 rural Portugal.
Well presumably you are seeing the protests in Latvia this month, after Latvia is proposing to force national minority public schools to change to the Latvian language from 2019-2020.
This is directly contrary to EU framework on preservation of linguistic diversity.
Here is the link directly – and you can see how Latvia is undermining basic commitments of the European community.
https://ec.europa.eu/education/policy/multilingualism/linguistic-diversity_en
I can understand to some extent the reasoning in Latvia – as they believe to force Latvian as the only language, is to promote mono-culture and cohesion.
At the same time, there is an undoubted injustice for the people who have to suffer this, and a textbook breaking of European commitments that the EU pretends to represent.
In other contexts, this could be described as a soft kind of ethnic (linguistic) cleansing. I would not go so far. But neither would you be very happy to be on receiving side of this kind of policy, which is occurring despite the liberal EU commitments to linguistic diversity.
You’re probably right, I don’t approve of such forced measures regarding Russian language education, the Latvians shouldn’t do that. Maybe the Russian community should take the issue to the European court of justice.
You can boast more if you learn unusual, exotic and small languages which not many people speak.
English is the opposite, because so many learn it, and no-one will be impressed (unless you have some amazing vocabulary and grammar skills, or something like that).
The one that doesn’t leave itself open to the kind of criticism we see at this thread, while making valid pro-Russian points.
I’m neither Sovok, Polish, Hungarian or Central Asian.
The CNC bias live on.
Yes, but could you give some examples or tell us who’s making such arguments?
Not trolling, could be genuinely interesting for some of the readers here.
I’m aware that you were referring to K. I was noting how his loose take can get bashed by Russia bashers in a way that’s counter-productive (IMO) to confronting anti-Russian biases. This observation seems to relate to some of the replies at this thread.
Neither. I am open-minded, if Joshua can do it, then why not Mary? And keep in mind that Pope Pius XII, at the precise time he was infallibly deciding on the correctness of the Assumption also bore witness to phenomenon:
On the other hand, if it really happened one would expect everyone in the area to remember it, not a select few.
I’m not the one trolling here. Anti-Russian bias is a very real situation that’s regularly downplayed. Going thru this thread and the other one dealing with K, reveal the criticisms against him.
so wait, you aren’t Catholic or Orthodox? Are you an evangelical? I thought that you worked for the Catholic Church?
Well I personally believe the entire Book of Joshua is extremely stylized and not meant to be taken at face value.
I think we’re kinda pushing it here.
…
Hilariously enough, it turns out that The Saker wrote a post attacking Fatima as being part of a thousand year Papist conspiracy against the Russian people: https://thesaker.is/debunking-the-fatima-hoax/
I found that by accident while looking for more information on Fatima.
He’s trying to say that he’s not trolling. He isn’t accusing you of trolling. You need to practice your English.
No, I’m not evangelical, and I have indeed done a fair amount of work for an organisation affiliated with the Custody of the Holy Land, and on occasion for various other Catholic charitable organisations.
I guess we can safely assume that Saker was not a member of the Blue Army of Our Lady of Fátima, nor was he a fan of the Consecration of Russia .
I didn’t accuse you of trolling, I wanted to say that I’m not trolling, but asking a genuine question.
K=Kholmogorov? Ok, I’ll have a look at the earlier thread.
I never accused you of being “Polish, Hungarian or Central Asian’? You’ve brought up the topic of the preferences of other ethnicities, not I:
Calling reiner Tor!
What kind of a reply is this? You only accept points of view that are ‘pro-Russian’, as if there’s nothing to criticize within Russia? You’ve finally reached the bottom of the pit of inarticulation. Keep it up Mickey, we’re just about due for another one of your famous ‘Averkoisms’ 🙂
Quite so, the Latvians and Estonians should have been repatriated to Germany.
Or to hell.
https://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fpbs.twimg.com%2Fmedia%2FCuQ73iPWgAEMtEf.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fhistoryfacts247%2Fstatus%2F784818074251919361&docid=pHRqHBP8FM7IWM&tbnid=AEX0HaVNe3YrYM%3A&vet=1&w=1200&h=672&source=sh%2Fx%2Fim
That was 1480, dwindling population of Golden Horde led by King Ahmed faced Russian Ivan , the Grand Duke whose population was exploding .
Rest is history . Golden Horde from China is moving again . Diaspora from Stan and Caucasus are moving looking for resources , following the footsteps of the Ivan’s hungry army
Don’t project your Jewish whininess on Russians. Similar to the ridiculous pretense of the Jews on “superior morality,” which made Israel’s banality of evil all the more visible, the supposed universality of the EU slogan “liberté, égalité, fraternité” exposed the hypocrisy of Brussels’ bureaucrats supporting the open discrimination against Russians living in the Baltic states.
As a result, “Baltic states pay the price for Russophobic policies:” http://www.pravdareport.com/business/finance/15-09-2016/135633-baltic-0/
“Being deprived of European allowances, the Baltic states will have a deficit of the state balance of payment worth 20-25% of the budget. Taking into account reduction of the Russian transit and closure of market for their own goods in Russia, the case is about a default which will surpass the well-known Great Depression in the US many times:” http://www.pravdareport.com/business/finance/15-09-2016/135633-baltic-0/
More: “It should be noted that [in Latvia] the infrastructure was built in the USSR. ‘Russian occupiers’ saved the backward republics, developed their ports, transit infrastructure, and often to the detriment of its own ports.”
—You see, Russians do not whine — they made proper commercial decisions re the ungrateful midgets: “Russia’s decision was a political one and it’s an absolutely justified response to those indecencies against Russians and their President, which are constantly being heard from the Baltic presidents and PMs.”
— This is what the US cowardly Congress is still not able to do — to cut off the ungrateful midget state in the Middle East from the US taxpayers money.
See more at http://www.pravdareport.com/business/finance/15-09-2016/135633-baltic-0/
Where have I heard this before?
Oh yeah, just replace ‘Russian’ with ‘Israeli’.
You sound just like them.
Nothing especially wrong with my English troll. Do you speak for him? He wasn’t clear enough IMO.
Okay.
But even this one has some criticism (if I correctly offhand recall without checkking from top to bottom again), which wouldn’t fly with a more careful pro-Russian advocacy.
What your said:
My reply:
What you said:
My reply:
Not true. You’re quite poor at accurately assessing views which you don’t agree with and don’t like.
“Pro-Russian” can include bigoted views – something evident with other types of pro-national advocacy. I clearly don’t go along with such.
And you’re quite unbelievable in your own portrayal of yourself as some sort of beacon of objectivity. You think that by throwing around the epithet ‘bigoted’ to others, you somehow cloak your own biased opinions as superior – but you’re not fooling anybody here.
And I replied:
So?…
Do you know what Hitler has in common with Lucia of Fatima?
They both suck cocks in hell.
You inaccurately suggested that I back any pro-Russian view. In turn, I corrected you.
Damn. First you disagree, then you reiterate what amounts to “Whites deserve whatever is thrown at them because natives have fee-fees”.
There were none. The Russian government turned a complete blind eye to the plight of Russians in the newly independents states, and only remembered about them to further some immediate geopolitical agenda. Basically behaving the typical Soviet way.
But that doesn’t square at all with your preposterous statement:
which implies that anybody critical of Kholomogorov or his opinions is somehow less ‘objectively intelligent’ than somebody that isn’t critical of him. Ridiculous!
(or perhaps, your statement really is just another ‘Averkoism’, impossible to understand and fraught with structural peculiarities?)…
The author could have just as easily been Ivan Illyin, because Illyin couldn’t have said it better himself.
For you in The West subscribing to this Self-Righteous Mythological Nonsense, you are a Demonic Construction that must be eliminated, in case you don’t know. As part of that process, The Illyinists will pretend to be your friend in your fight with The Western Establishment just as The Imams & Mullahs pretended to be friends with The Left in their Common Struggle to depose The Shah. Today, there effectively is no Left (yes, once upon a time there was a significant Marxist/Communist presence in Iran) left (haha) in Iran. The Religious Theocracy has all but eliminated The Left in Iran, something even The Shah, ruthless as he was, could not accomplish.
Ponder that. If you were to succeed in your struggle against The Western Establishment with substantial aid from the Illyinists, you will be no more within a few short years of accomplishing your goal.
A Struggle not done effectively and for the right reasons is not only doomed to fail but it will also destroy you and your aspirations in the process.
Choose your Bedfellows carefully.
What are you talking about?
Who?
I’m lost
Some conservative/nationalist Russian philosopher of strong anti-Western bent from the early 20th century. Putin is supposedly a fan of him and quotes him occasionally.
Basic advice that Western dissidents shouldn’t get too enthusiastic about Russia is probably sound…but given our pressing issues, this can only be a minor concern.
Check his blog. He’s almost certainly mentally ill.
He probably can’t bang 8s or even 6s.
First of, his name is Ivan Ilyin.
Secondly, his “strong anti-Western bent” is just a recognition of the reality of Western hostility against Russia.
Translation of Against Russia (1948) – https://irrussianality.wordpress.com/2015/01/07/against-russia/
https://irrussianality.wordpress.com/2014/12/22/putins-philosopher/
About the real-existing Russia, sure.
But not about Ilyin and his writing.
Ok, you seem to know a lot more about him than me (are you actually Russian yourself?).
From the quotes you cited above it still seems like an extremely one-sided, maybe even paranoid interpretation of history. By selective choice of materials you could write much the same about many other countries (certainly about Germany).
Western hostility to Russia is often real and a problem (certainly true today), but it’s not the whole story.
German with Russian background.
Previous to my comment, he knew nothing about Ivan Ilyin (sorry I screwed up his name earlier and accidentally typed an extra “l”). How do we know? Because he said “Who?”. Now he’s an Expert. He’s a Quick Learner, I’ll give him that.
Second off, it’s off, not “of“. Two can play that childish game.
For elaboration, see this comment from another thread.
https://www.unz.com/plang/the-neocons-are-selling-koolaid-again/#comment-2299601
Names are holy, your language is not.
I do not intend to make my English flawless.
Schreiben First, Bedenken Second
lol, nice one…thanks for making me laugh!
You once again fail to accurately comprehend what was clearly presented and followed up on.
I wouldn’t characterize Ilyin as anti-Western. He lived in the West, which he preferred over the USSR. There’re conservative Western monarchists.
If alive today, Ilyin would undoubtedly oppose modern day neocons and neolibs, who shouldn’t be confused with the West at large.
Despite all of the hypocritically arrogant and ignorant biases predominate against Russia in the West, a good number of mainstream Russians still seek good Russia-West relations, on the premise that the West en masse will get more objective.
Tucker Carlson isn’t alone. A good number of mainstream Americans and other Westerners (who aren’t so reared on establishment elite prejudices) are willing to consider such an approach.
Obviously, by virtue of this comment, you are yourself very much an Ilyinist whether you’re witting to it or not. Ilyin describes you perfectly.
Names derive from language so your Arrogant Statement implies that Cyrillic is Holy by virtue of your assertion that names derived from it are Holy. The second half of your statement cements your Superiority Complex.
Let me know if my “Demonic Constructions” are making you and Mother Russia sick, and if so I’ll ease up a bit so you can recover your Former Glory.
What’s the other part of the story? That Russia is partly to blame?
I’m reminded of Sam Kiley, who is now CNN’s man in Moscow.
Sam Kiley has a noticeably Anglo-centric, anti-Russian bias, which is quite collapsible.
Within a 24 hour period last week, Kiley said that Russia’s:
Actually, the Trump administration has expressed a willingness to seek better ties with the Kremlin. How sincere that statement is and whether such will happen is another story. There’s a basis for improved US-Russian ties, which has NOTHING to do with trying to screw the UK.
In reply to Kiley, it can be counter-claimed that Theresa May, Boris Johnson and some others in the UK, seek to thwart attempts at improved Russia-West ties.
As for Crimea, Kiley doesn’t note the hypocrisy in bashing Russia over that area, when compared to how the likes of Christiane Amanpour and himself (relative to Crimea) don’t mention the severing of Kosovo from Serbia and the comparative lack of a fuss made over Turkey’s position in northern Cyprus.
I sense what Amanpour and Kiley might say in reply and in turn have a valid counter-reply to their likely follow-up – the type of discourse typically lacking in the “free press”.
This morning Kiley and the US based CNN host Natalie Allen (a hack) clearly favored the idea that the Syrian government did launch a chemical attack, with Russia and the Syrian government casting doubt thru misinformation. Never mind the numerous non-Russian Western sources noting otherwise.
In short, it’s inaccurate to cast the likes of Kiley and Allen as the West. Their clout relates to this piece:
https://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/theatre-syrien/
By virtue of providing Billing for Tucker Carlson, you have discredited yourself as someone who is objective.
Yeah, sure, if you say so. This statement reads to me as follows.
I was referring primarily to history. National-minded Poles had good reason to resent Tsarist Russia (and Germany) in the 19th/early 20th century. Western liberals in the 19th century had good reason to dislike Russia, because its role as the gendarme of European reaction was quite real at times.
I also find some of Ilyin’s statements in the quote above extremely one-sided…like “dragging Russia into destructive wars at inconvenient times”, as if Russia had had no agency of her own and was just subject to Western machinations. Well, one of the most destructive wars (not least for old Russia) was WW1, and imo Russian elites were far from innocent in bringing about that catastrophe.
However, these are mostly historical issues now. Regarding the last 30 years, I’d actually agree that the overwhelming blame for the deterioration of Russian-Western relations lies with the Western powers, primarily the triumphalist Americans with their exceptionalist delusions, and secondarily their European satraps who are unable to present an alternative model for constructive relations with Russia.
I’m understandably not alone in negatively assessing your input here.
On Russia and some other issues, Tucker Carlson has been far more objective than what’s evident at CNN and MSNBC, as well as much of Fox News.
Russians had good reason to fear Poland, given its imperialist activity in the mid 1500s thru early part of the 1600s and how close to 100,000 Poles joined Napoleon in his attack on Russia – an especially high number back then.
Western liberals shouldn’t be confused with the West at large.
Ilyin doesn’t seem like he’d strongly disagree that
WW I essentially strengthened the Nazi and Communist movements which he didn’t support.
Well yes, but Poles would probably say this was a reaction to Russia having been a driving force behind the dismemberment of the Polish Commonwealth.
I obviously can’t claim to know and understand Ilyin’s thought and all its details, but in some ways it seems a bit like a mirror image of Western Russophobes to me…the West as an eternally unchanging monolith, relentless in aggressive hostility against Holy Russia. Viewing conflict between Russia and the West in such civilizational, almost metaphysical terms (the religious imprint on Ilyin’s thought seems very strong) is pretty dangerous imo.
Once again, Ilyin lived in the West. I don’t believe he was anti-Western. One can like the opposite sex, while not seeking to become that sex. Ilyin opposed the anti-Russian influences evident in the West.
An example is how a good number in the West seem to think think that the history of Poland and Russia is analogous to Ireland and Britain. Ireland never came close to threatening Britain in the way Poland has threatened Russia.
As Communism was collapsing, there was a sincere popular pro-Western orientation in Russia. That changed on account of the kind of Western robber baron types that left a bad impression in Russia, as well as hypocritically biased actions which included the bombing of Yugoslavia and preachy neocon-neolib manner on how Russia should behave in Chechnya and in its “near abroad” (former Soviet republics). Downplayed in that condescension, is the fault-lines of the Gamsakkurdias, Saakashvilis, Yushchenkos, Dudayevs and Maskhadovs.
Once again noting that the West shouldn’t be strictly viewed as neocon to neolib to flat out anti-Russian leaning preferences.
Yes, that view seems pretty accurate to me, as I wrote I attribute the major part of the blame for the present state of Russian-Western relations to Western policy-makers.
I just took issue with some of Ilyin’s statements that seemed too black-and-white to me. But since I haven’t really read any of his works, I’m obviously not really qualified to judge his thought in all its intricacies.
‘Europe’ is waiting for the ‘inevitable collapse’ of Russia (not of Russian so-called ‘Empire’) since Batu-Khan. It must be recognized that Europe had a formidable patience and it will exercise it for a long time to come.
One may scratch his head till blood comes out, but he won’t be able to understand what ‘great harm’ did Solzhenitsyn do to his people and motherland? The disparaging of Solzhenitsyn is a purely ‘Western’ affair. They hate him.
You should really read up on him, Ilyin was one of the great conservative philosophers of the 20th century. As others had mentioned, he was no Eurasianist but rather someone who tried to balance what he felt was the best of the European legal tradition with the potential and challenges of modernity.
In so far as Putin quoting him, that seems to be related to Putin’s own belief that he is following in the course of Ilyin’s “Third Way” for Russia that combines respect for national tradition with caution towards liberal democracy, while denouncing despotism and total centralization of power.
Personally, I think Ilyin would hate what Russia has become. He would accuse Putin of putting on a big show of being a responsible leader with very little action to back it up. Someone who puts up the front of being an enlightened ruler who defends the conscience of law, but has only a hazy understanding of what that law means.
It’s parodied in the movie Afonya (1975). Soviet home decor, Old Russian style: a samovar, a Zhostovo tray, a Gzhel vase, some folk figurines, “log” panels on the walls… combined with proudly exhibited foreign alcohol and canned food.
https://b1.filmpro.ru/c/512256.jpg
Oy Vey!
As do many, if not most, if not all sovoks.
A view which also completely fails to correlate with what Ilyin actually wrote.
Ilyin might sympathize with Putin on the belief that the latter has limits in terms of what can be reasonably done.
Another great 19th century conservative Russian thinker:
https://orientalreview.org/2015/06/21/pobedonostsev-personalist-populist-perennialist-patriot-peacenik/
He was against Soviet expansionist and repeatedly condemned its occupation of Eastern Europe.
To be sure, he had cynical views about Western policies towards Russia – does anyone here even disagree? – which was however enough to transform him into “Putin’s Fascist Philosopher” in the American MSM.
I have read almost all of Ilyin’s postwar articles and can state confidently that you’re full of shi- American MSM op-eds. (From the same people who also think that Dugin is Putin’s favorite “philosopher”).
agreed, you just make a mistake of causality – the toxicity spreads from your lands to ours. All the EU money brought only problems to our lands: discord, corruption and misallocation of capital. Now you only drag us down ideologically with your dying senility and decadence. I am all for exiting this travesty. We are the engine of your growth, we are the future, you don’t deserve us.
This Holefield fellow is a nutjob.
https://catcherinthelie.wordpress.com/2018/02/07/russian-trolls-chumps/
I suggest not feeding the troll.
Depends on the context, I don’t quite see how Tsarist Russia was a victim of Western machinations.
Have you written about Ilyin in detail before? Is some of his work available in translation, and if so, what should one read to understand his thought?
I have no doubt that what Western msm and people like Timothy Snyder write about him is hysterical nonsense, but if possible I’d like to see for myself.
Do you have recommendations what I should read by/about him?
Tucker Carlson is a Sanctimonious Arch Conservative Prick. What he and his ilk may give with one hand they take back double with the other.
If you need him as Authority to support your argument, you’ve already lost your argument. If you don’t need him as Authority to support your argument and lend weight to it, then don’t give him Billing.
Who in The West do you really think you’re appealing to with this Poor Pious Russia Bullshit?
I’ll tell you who.
People Like This
FYI, I can find Russian Writers who speak as equally abysmally of Russia as this author speaks glowingly of it. Russia, like any other Country, is The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, but IT OWNS THAT and no author gets to place the blame for Russia’s shortcomings, and it has many, on anyone or anything else but Russia itself.
The author of the New York Review of Books article I linked to mentions how Putin’s recruiting of Ilyin to legitimate his Potemkin Kleptocratic Government is rather ironic when you consider Ilyin’s opinion of The Soviet Union and The Communists. But Putin’s shrewd and since no one is left in Russia to challenge Putin on his Bullshit, he’s able to shamelessly contain Ilyin & Stalin & The Soviets under his Deranged Propaganda Umbrella where Russia, not America, is that Shiing City on the Hill.
Breaking News!!
There is no Shining City on the Hill.
Start with this, but BEWARE, I think, GASP!!, the author might be Jewish. Unfortunately, even though you’re a German Reader, it’s in English. A minor inconvenience, I’m sure. Not ideal by any means, but easily overcome with a modicum of effort.
Ivan Ilyin, Putin’s Philosopher of Russian Fascism
An Excerpt from that link.
This is instructive in many ways, not just one. It should put to rest the notion that there is any “Virtue” in The Rule of Law or the trope bandied about, A Nation of Laws. Ilyin admired Italian & German Fascism as much for their “Virtue” as for their adherence to The Rule of Law. They both were, respectively, A Nation of Laws and they operated according to The Rule of Law, and yet both Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy were Sadistic Totalitarian Butchering Regimes and according to their vaunted Law, it was perfectly legal. The belief that they were “Virtuous” gave them a Blank Check to create Laws that enabled & perpetuated Crimes Against Humanity persecuting any & all who refused to believe in, and succumb to, their Bloody Virtue, or who were otherwise ill-fitting (i.e. the Disabled & the Jews).
Timothy Snyder isn’t Jewish, but iirc of gentile North European (Dutch?) ancestry. I do get the impression though that he caters strongly to the interests and prejudices of American Jews (read his Bloodlands book…not impressed, and the very last chapter strongly irritated me).
In any case, I’m not interested in hysterical hit pieces accusing Ilyin of “fascism”, I want to know if some representative sample of his work is available in English, German or French, so I can judge for myself.
If you don’t get a good answer here, you might try asking this question over at Paul Robinson’s blog:
https://irrussianality.wordpress.com/
IIRC some Jewish critics were upset with him because they felt that his focus on Polish and Ukrainian suffering diluted the “unique” suffering of the Jewish people during those times.
Paul Robinson addressed that article pretty thoroughly: https://irrussianality.wordpress.com/2016/05/12/bandwagon-of-errors/
I haven’t yet written anything systemic about Ilyin on this blog, but if you’re interested in the topic, I’d recommend Robinson’s archive on this topic: https://irrussianality.wordpress.com/tag/ivan-ilyin/
Russian conservatism is one of his core specialties and he has a book coming out soon on this topic.
I don’t think so. What Belarussians want, for obvious reasons, is to avoid the “Ukrainian path”. They are very afraid to be subject of a Maidan-like experiment.
Maybe Paul Robinson can address this. It’s Ivan Ilyin in his own words.
Putinism: Rusia and Its Future with the West
I love this excerpt.
How clever. He’s correct. It can just as easily be read as follows.
Remember, The Rule of Law is very important to Ilyin. It’s a Central Tenet of his Philosophy. So long as its legal, it’s virtuous.
This excerpt also tickles me.
Once again, very clever on his part. He’s also correct once again. It should and could read as follows.
They’re smart to be wary. The West hangs its Vassals out to dry. Look at Trump and Puerto Rico, and Puerto Rico is a Protectorate.
The West cannot be trusted. Former Soviet Satellite States that want to remain independent are going to have to be miraculously clever in walking The Independence Tightrope.
That’s pretty funny, one of the things I found so bizarre about the last chapter of his book was his treatment of characters like Jakub Berman in post-war Poland. The focus was almost entirely on how these people had to live in fear of Stalin’s alleged antisemitism…not on the fact that they were pretty repellent characters themselves who were instrumental in the creation of a communist dictatorship.
He had similar tendencies in earlier chapters imo (e.g. the striking overrepresentation of Jews among NKVD personnel until 1937/38 only gets mentioned in the context of the Great Terror when they fell victim to a system they had earlier been part of; iirc he also had the usual line about Stalin supporting Great Russian chauvinism).
And quite apart from that, it’s just a totally unoriginal book, little more than a tedious catalogue of atrocities.
Thanks, I’ll have a look at it.
I wonder about the books Iljin published in German, I suppose they’ll be difficult to track down, but maybe I’ll try.
So, rumor grapevine concerning the 24 hour American IRS outage has the following:
1: Russian SVR was deeply dismayed by Roselkomnadzors clown car antics regarding Telegram, and believed that Russian cyber deterrence was threatened by this public show of incompetence.
2: IRS was taken down for 24 hours to have some lulz/bragging rights/making someone look more stupid that Roselkomnadzor. One cannot accuse the SVR of setting only modest goals for itself. 2/3 so far.
3: IRS takedown was also because some SVR affiliated rich guys are pretty displeased with the state of US double taxation. You see, normal rich people have tax optimizers, certain Oligarchs have the SVR.
4: Replaceing IRS website with a Roselkomnadzor notice “Website taken down for financial scamming” was considered, but not utilized due either a lack of humor or to the prophecies of Kek not being sufficiently advanced.
I always assumed that he was. But I found him refreshing that he managed to change parts of Holocaust narrative and put it in wider context of butchery that was going on in the East were many actors were involved and that he does not neglect the role of the USSR. I have recently spent several hours watching through his lectures and realized that his take is more evolved version of my own take to which I arrived after realizing many years ago that Jews actually were not murdered in Germany as Germany remained to some extent a “country of law” (Rechtsstaat) and countries that were German allies could protect Jews better than countries that were occupied by Germany like Poland and places that were lawless like Ukraine and Belarus. His narrative met some resistance within the canonical Jewish Holocaustians but I think it eventually got accepted though his narrative is not ready yet to be utilized in the pop-history of Hollywood and newspaper headlines in Holocaustian indoctrination because it is too complex. However there are issues that he does not touch like the number of the dead. He also separates himself from Hannah Arendt take on Jewish culpability in Judenrats etc. On the positive side he tries to have a more balanced view on Auschwitz and the fact that it was chiefly a huge prison/labor camps complex and it began to play a role in extermination of Jews much later when the the final solution in East was pretty much completed.
There is a current political context of his work. Just like Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations” of 1993 neatly foreshadowed and prepared the shift of interest of American Empire form the conflict with USSR to to engagement with Islam, Snyder book by stressing Soviet crimes and culpability in Holocaust and explaining conditioning to which Belorussians and Ukrainians were subjected shifted the attention of the American Empire to the conquest of Russia’s eastern provinces. Thanks to Snyder “the murderous” Ukrainians can be understood and somewhat justified and thus from being just the Holocaust perpetrators they became also freedom fighters against Russian imperialism and thus can be sought as potential allies in the American Empire’s projects. It is possibly this was the main objective of his work. Some writings of Anne Applebaum about the same geographical area served similar purpose, i.e., to warm up the image of Poles, Lithuanias, Belorussians and Ukrainians. It is possible that Applebaum and Snyder sit in the same think tanks or at least are paid from the same sources.
Academia always served the Empire. It is where from comes the подготовка, the preliminary “media artillery” barrage before the main attack.
During the war in Yugoslavia the West sided with Croats who until then had pretty bad reputation as being one of the most murderous actors of the WWII and it was the Serbs who were considered the heroes of the WWII fighting for the right cause. Many people, also in Israel, were confused at that time as they instinctively wanted to support the good Serbs and it turned out that Serbs were not good anymore and the bad guys became the good guys. Similar dissonance people suffer in the case of Ukrainians as they are being transformed into good guys and their enthusiastic participation in Holocaust and genocidal massacres of Poles (also Czechs) in Volhynia is supposed to be forgotten.
This is a good illustration that the narrative is created by power and truth is treated instrumentally. The truth is a rhetorical devices (after Paul Feyerabend). Those who can claim they poses it win. But only in rare case the truth altered the balance of power as it usually power alters the truth, so the winner can also claim the high moral ground.
I didn’t find him refreshing at all, his book is very conventional (it’s also explicitly and vehemently anti-German in its treatment of the expulsions of Germans in the last chapter…I find it ironic you didn’t notice this, given how you constantly accuse me of being a “cuck”). It’s just an endless catalogue of atrocities, no original research. I also found his saccharine statement early in the book that he wants to focus on the victims, not on the killers pretty pathetic…that’s just another manifestation of the modern Western cult of the victim. What’s the point in writing about mass killings when you don’t tell us about the perpetrators and their motives?
He also shied away from dealing in detail with the interaction between Soviet and Nazi crimes in the areas annexed by the Soviets in 1940 (Baltic states and what was then Eastern Poland). From what I’ve read the Soviets presented themselves as fighters against antisemitism in those areas in 1940/41 and there was noticeable support by Jews for the Soviet occupiers (though other Jews became victims of the Soviets and were deported, that’s also true). When the Germans came in 1941, they tried to use that to enlist the local population as participants into their race war. But I guess it’s too controversial for someone like Snyder (who clearly wants to be an establishment historian) to deal with that…easier that just to pretend that the Soviet Union by 1940 was just a vehicle for Great Russian chauvinism and Stalin an antisemite.
Try the German national library: http://d-nb.info/gnd/118970054
Two of his books actually seem to have been republished in recent years:
https://www.amazon.de/Wesen-Eigenart-russischen-Kultur-Betrachtungen/dp/393712974X (apparently published in German already in the 1940s)
https://www.amazon.de/%C3%9Cber-gewaltsamen-Widerstand-gegen-B%C3%B6se/dp/3963210052/ref=pd_sim_14_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=0KNEV58FDG119KMQB9YB
(seems to be a new translation)
My central university library only has some tract by him from the 1920s about private property and communism…but I might try to get hold of that book about Russian culture.
My central university library
So you are an academic (or perhaps a perpetual student)? Must be pretty lonely for you!
Semi-failed academic in precarious employment.
Why? Because of my “extreme” views? Well, I usually avoid talking about politics unless I have some idea where the other person stands.
I did not read the books. I am familiar only with many reviews and his talks.
In his talks he addressed the issue of Jewish collaboration with Soviets which he minimized and claimed that non Jewish collaboration was even larger and he was saying that people believed in Jewish collaboration and that may explain (not justify) their action.
In Jedwabne which I think Poland still is controversial as many people do buy the now accepted story the so called pogrom began with having Jews marching with the bust of Lenin form the monument that was erected during Soviet occupation. I think that bust Lenin was found during the exhumation that unfortunately was prematurely terminated under the pressure of Jewish religious groups.
Probably you are right and I should take a second look at him and read his books first. My mistake came from me being still hopeful.
Yeah, that’s the standard line, and it’s of course true that many Jewish businesses were closed down by the Soviets, bourgeois Jews deported to the Gulag etc.
But I have my doubts whether it’s the whole story.
Some years ago I read a study about wartime Latvia (Björn Felder, Lettland im Zweiten Weltkrieg). It contained some facts which seemed very explosive to me (e.g. membership of the Latvian Communist party in 1940/41 was mostly Russians and Jews, with only the top level being ethnic Latvians…and even more strikingly: The Soviets made a big show of how they wanted to fight antisemitism, which the author demonstrated by reference to numerous leaflets, newspapers etc.)…and which are in stark contrast to what you generally read about Stalin’s Soviet Union in the early 1940s (which supposedly was all about thinly veiled Russian nationalism by then and already well on the way to its later “antisemitism”).
Not that this could be in any way a justification for the mass murders the Germans and some local collaborators later committed. But it did indicate to me that establishment historians like Snyder don’t go out of their way to look at issues that might potentially be controversial.
Now I remember, years ago I bought Bloodlands but then I lent it to an acquaintance before reading it and completely forgot about it. Since then I moved to another country and the still another so I will have to buy it again if I want to read it.
https://www.scribd.com/document/72092745/Collaboration-Of-Polish-Jews-With-Nkvd-and-Soviets
Well, Batka was able to efficiently control “Maidanist viruses” within Belarus. In addition, people seem allergic to take liberal Sirens sings at face value. I think Belarus skillfully managed its post-soviet period and avoided the disease suffered by its two bigger brothers. In the post-soviet space, Kazakhstan and Belarus are the best performers.
Who among US mass media cable TV hosts is more objective on Russia? He makes some cogent point, in addition to having on some quality guests.
You’ve failed to convince differently. FYI, I don’t exclusively rely on establishment sources – JRL court appointed Russia friendlys included.
Because I was asked, here goes:
Like a lot of people on the European political right in the inter-war period, Ilyin initially engaged in a certain amount of wishful thinking concerning fascism, which caused him at first to underestimate its dangers. He also had some sympathy with 1930s authoritarianism, nationalism, and especially anti-communism. But Ilyin was also a firm opponent of totalitarianism. Eventually, the Nazis fired him from his job teaching in Berlin because he refused to include anti-Semitic propaganda in his lectures. He continued lecturing around Germany in defiance of the authorities until in 1938 he fled the country.
Let’s be clear – Ilyin is not a modern Western liberal democrat. There are lots of passages in his work calling for ‘dictatorship’ etc. If that’s all of his work you read, you’ll no doubt think the guy is a fascist or something close to it. But, there’s also a lot in his work which gives a very different impression. Take, for instance, his attitude to law. For Ilyin, law is not something to be obeyed just because it is law and somebody in authority has dictated it. Formal, ‘positive’ law, he wrote, should try as much as is possible to reflect natural law, which he defined in terms of the right of every individual to live a worthy, dignified, and autonomous life, independent of external coercion. Formal law exists only for this end. Moreover, the state exists only for this end – ie the sole purpose of the state is securing individuals’ rights according to natural law. This is a very liberal point of view, and explains why many Russian conservative philosophers nowadays describe Ilyin as a ‘liberal’.
So which is the real Ilyin? The authoritarian or the liberal? The answer is a complex, often paradoxical, mixture of the two. Ilyin supports authoritarianism over democracy precisely because in his time democracies had a nasty habit of collapsing and turning into totalitarian regimes (whether communist or fascist). This is because of the underdeveloped ‘legal consciousness’ of the people. Democracy could be stable in countries where legal consciousness was well developed, e.g. Britain, But elsewhere, and particularly Russia, it couldn’t. Democracy therefore often did a worse job of protecting people’s natural rights than authoritarianism. But the latter is only justified to the extent that it promotes natural rights and ultimately the authoritarian state should develop the people’s legal consciousness to the extent that authoritarian rule is no longer necessary.
This all fits quite well into the Russian liberal-conservative tradition, which believes in autocracy (defined in terms of centralizing power into the hands of a single person) but also believes that autocracy is an inherently limited form of government, justified by its ability to protect peoples’ freedoms. Of course, to modern Western liberal democrats these elements are contradictory. But without passing judgement on it, that is what it is.
Paul
Crimean War, Congress of Berlin and Russo-Japanese War serve as examples.
Doesn’t negate the idea of having competent personnel around that single person, with the aforementioned group being very much involved in impacting the decision making process.
“Modern Western liberal democrats“, have some contradictions of their own.
That’s an excellent response. Thanks. I will chew on it for a day or two. There’s much to consider and ponder.
I wish I could have replied a few hours ago, but if you want to read some of Ilyin’s essays in English, go to this website.
https://souloftheeast.org/tag/ivan-ilyin/
This was how I was introduced to his philosophy several years ago after coming across his wikipedia article. It was good to see the archive is still up for other people to discover.
In particular, you should start with ‘On Forms of Sovereignty’ (1948), which cuts to the heart of how Ilyin perceived the international order and Russia’s place in it.
https://souloftheeast.org/2015/04/24/ivan-ilyin-on-forms-of-sovereignty/
Very nice.
And yet, I suspect, the author would not view Ukraine’s artificial inclusion and forced integration into Russia’s political system so realistically.
Well said.
Speaking of Law, two dimensions of it are paramount for Law to be worth its Salt. The first dimension is what Paul mentioned about Ilyin, that being what constitutes the Law. How it’s derived. Are the Laws in and of themselves equitable? Do they promote Egalitarianism? What System do they preserve & protect & perpetuate? The second dimension is the administration of the Law. It’s of paramount importance that the Law be administered fairly & equitably. If you have to pay dearly to navigate the Law, as you do in America and most countries, then the Law is not administered fairly & equitably, and therefore, Justice is compromised and the Society enabled by the Law is imbalanced, favoring one group over another, and that one group, as the history of Civilization has shown, tends to be The Moneyed Class, and in this sense, the Law has tended to keep those not in the Moneyed Class in their place. The Law in that sense has served as a form of incarceration, creating false Barriers to Entry for those who don’t have Means.
Thanks, that’s great.
Have read the “On forms of sovereignty” article. Actually sounds pretty sensible imo, hard to object unless one is a mindless democracy fanatic (reminds me somewhat of our own times, where the attempt to introduce democracy in a country like Egypt merely led to the empowerment of intolerant demagogues, and then to military dictatorship again…democratic forms are useless unless the population is sufficiently educated and civic-minded).
I should have been more sceptical of the image of Ilyin spread by Western msm…as usual it’s apparently gross misrepresentation.
His dalliance with ‘Islamic eschatology’ coming apparently through a personage who plays the prophets of doom (Sheik Imran Hosein) is baffling, to say the least. The Sheik, who has a no less baffling audience on other ‘Russian’ and ‘Orthodox’ sites, advocates an alliance between Muslims and Russian Orthodox, who allegedly are designated in the Koran (which he interprets in a personal way) as ‘the closest in affection’ to Muslims, against the Western-Zionist Dajjal! He tries to conceal the rabid anti-Christian thrust of all so-called prophecies, which inform the ‘ideology’ of the jihadis in Syria. In those ‘prophecies’ Jesus comes to ‘smash the crosses, kill the pigs, abolish the jizya (by making everyone a Muslim) and finally to submit to the Mahdi!
Dugin is not a Christian. His philosophy was influenced by the ‘Sufi’ esoterism of Rene Guenon, the famous apostate.
First World War and Revolution come to mind.
Ilyin’s view on Ukrainians seemed to be thus.
1) They exist, they are related to but are somewhat different from Russians on points of language and culture.
2) They are still similar enough through shared origins and common religion (Orthodoxy) that they should stay united with Russia against other civilizational blocs.
3) The people of the ‘Russian World’ (of which Ukrainians are a part of) should be ruled under a common government, as they gain more from it by contributing to each other both on a personal and communal level.
4) This government should respect the unique identity of these varied ethnicities in the ‘Russian World’ while protecting them under a strong umbrella of common laws to resolve disputes between communities.
5) This government would preferably be a monarchy, which has the best chance of being immune to mono-ethnic passions and transcend them.
6) An independent Ukraine would be an abomination and threat to Russia since it would be used to undermine the common values of the Russian World.
Notice Putin and the Russian government generally try to follow points 1 through 4 in their domestic policies towards ethnic minorities (a clear sign of Ilyin’s influence), but ignore points 5 and 6 at their convenience and comfort. Modern Russian political identity is very much a Frankenstein’s monster of various conflicting ideas stitched together in a shambling mass. Ilyin sort of predicted this would be one of the results of Communism collapsing:
“There will pass years of national remembrance; settling in; solace; coming to reason; becoming informed. There will come a restoration of an elementary sense of justice; a return to the principles of honor and honesty; personal responsibility and loyalty; a feeling of one’s own dignity; to incorruptibility and independent thought – before the Russian people will be a condition to carry out sensible and not ruinous political elections. And until that time it can be led only by a national, patriotic, hardly totalitarian, but authoritarian – cultivating and reviving – dictatorship.”
‘On Forms of Sovereignty’ (1948)
I think his major weakness as a philosopher was how much he underestimated both the allure and corrupting power of international capital and how common markets can be used a tool of entrapment and subjugation more subtle, encompassing and harder to throw off then any police-state tyranny.
Empty word that spell the death knell of the Ukrainian nation, by first eliminating any vestiges of Ukrainian statehood. These measures have been tried before always to the advantage of the ‘elder brother’ and to the detriment of Ukraine. This is just an attempt to prent Russian imperialism in a more palatable printed form.
More of the same sort of nonsense, where the ‘common values of the Russian world’ would be dictated through the prism of Great Russian chauvinism, to the detriment of Ukrainian cultural and political sovereignty and aspirations. The ‘common values of the Russian world’ and any deviation from Russian orthodoxy in these matters is clearly visible in the authoritarian hand of Russian nationalism at work in the Crimea and Donbas.
What is “Batka”?
Early on in WW I, Russia was very much urged by its Western allies to attack into Germany to limit the German advance on France. With retrospection especially in mind, the Russians weren’t yet ready to successfully launch such an advance.
Max Hastings has stated that had WW I begun in 1916, Rusia’s fate might very well have been much better. By 1917, the situation with Russian armaments had greatly improved, as the morale had significantly declined due to the conduct of the war’s toll.
The Russian “Revolution”, saw a blend of different foreign influences favoring the Bolshes.
Related:
http://www.eurasiareview.com/08042016-fuzzy-history-how-poland-saved-the-world-from-russia-analysis/
Numerous Chinese have told me that the Han and Mandarin languages significantly differ. There was a chance for a continued Russo-Ukrainian togetherness which partly relates to this piece:
https://www.eurasiareview.com/22052011-pavlo-skoropadsky-and-the-course-of-russian-ukrainian-relations-analysis/
To this day, I’m pleased to encounter numerous ethnic Ukrainians of varying ages who don’t buy into the anti-Russian bunk. Much unlike the person mentioned in this piece:
https://irrussianality.wordpress.com/2018/04/23/foreign-minister/
In line with Alexandra Chalupa getting paid over $400K by the DNC, to find material against Trump/Trump campaign, via coordinating with the Kiev regime.
Those are sensible views and align nicely with my own, except the monarchy stuff.
Ukraine is nationalistic and racially homogeneous because of, not despite, Russia. Compare Ukraine, Belarus, all Baltic countries, Hungary, Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia etc. on one side, and France, Germany, Sweden, Netherlands, England, Belgium and other Western European countries (& the Anglosphere post-WW2) on the other.
The former were shielded from the Trotskyite onslaugh that is responsible for the decline of the West thanks to “Soviet” (Russian) influence, whose mentality and corresponding policy toward its less powerful allies was nothing like the Jewish “culture of critique” that today predominates in the Western world, having attained a life of its own and being able to flourish even without the Jewish element responsible for this transition.
This culture of critique (to borrow Kevin MacDonald’s term) spread from the “FUKUS” ( France, UK, US, the nations where international Jewry is the strongest, see the Syria policy) toward their subordinate allies following the Yalta Conference, where the post-WW2 order was agreed upon, but it only gained momentum after the 60s.
Also, compare the demographics of major cities of the former vs the latter. Again, there’s no comparison: the West will take a toll as far as human capital is concerned (it’s already happening), and this will stunt its development. The demographics of major cities, especially among under the age of 7, is a complete disaster. In the United States, it will take 2 decades for the new demographic reality to catch up and be felt (i.e., whites will be a clear minority among children and young adults), but it will happen. From there, it’s only downhill, especially as the random chances of two white persons marrying each other will fall to below 50%. This convergence of a majority “minority” among the age bracket that matters and the decreasing chances of two whites randomly marrying each other will cripple the number of white couples and, consequently, of white newborns. Seeing a relatively high number of whites today, many of them above the age of 40, gives a false sense of demographic security, which is dangerous. Eastern Europe, or more precisely the Baltic-Slavic nations, have a real shot at replacing the putative “West” if it maintains a large population, a nationalistic path, and expand the Visegrad or a similar structure to include other nations in the region, INCLUDING Russia.
All immigration, except East Asian (which I don’t welcome), is dysgenic. Mestizos are awful, Negroes are worse, low-IQ and neurotic Arabs have little talent among them.
Russia, if it’s to prevail, should become more openly nationalistic, get a military officer to defect from the UK or the US, and explain his motives for doing so, which is to say, white people are demonized in the media, government policy and the education system. Replace the anti-Jewish cartoons in Nazi Germany with the treatment toward white people today, and the similarities (e.g. the white privilege industry) are uncanny, it’s an injustice that they are ‘used’ to this state of affairs. Whites are facing demographic dispossession and replacement despite never being consulted on whether they support their own decline, and the very existence of their race, or opposition to its democide which is a prerequisite for its posterity, is considered immoral and evil. All of this is deliberately leading whites to a completely avoidable demise, and Russia should step up and say it will consider “adopting counter-genocide measures” and offer asylum to other white people. There must be an opening, because down the road the people will know who have their back.
The Ukrainian nation does not exist. Even if it did, why would you want to be Ukrainian instead of Russian?
You’re a fucking loser dude.
Your writing is appalling.
Stop capitalizing and italicizing words all the time, and learn how to use paragraphs.
What the hell are you even doing here if you don’t like Tucker Carlson?
And for the love of Christ stop with your random capitalization and italics.
It is right that Russians were not prepared for war, proof that they were not seeking it. As it is known Tsar Nicholas II initiated the Hague Conferences for the limitation of armaments. It was the stubborn refuse of Germany in the first place that pushed Russia to start the program of rearming and modernizing the army in 1912 which had to conclude in 1916. Germans hastened the war because they were conscious that the Russia would become invincible by 1917. They massively miscalculated. People are still not convince that they lost the war in Russia! The revolution they fomented in Russia turned against themselves.
Nickname for Lukashenko.
Why would you want to be someone other than what you are?
Scandinavia is pretty useless nowadays too. You are part German, correct? Why are you not a German?
He is indeed nuts, but I suggest that trolls should always be fed.
An argument worth making.
But Scandinavia is at least worth something, whereas the Ukraine is at least completely worthless except as part of Russia.
It’s who we are. Why do you choose to be an idiot instead of somebody who’s intelligent? It’s who you are!
https://youtu.be/Hvds2AIiWLA
Ilyin strikes me as a brilliant and essentially decent man. Unfortunately there aren’t many English-language works on Amazon (I can read Russian, but doing so is too slow and cumbersome for me to enjoy it for long periods of time). Like the vast majority of Russians, he of course does not escape the blind spot regarding Ukraine.
Correct, but he underestimates the extent of these differences. He thinks of Ukraine as a Russian “Bavaria” when instead it is more of a “Netherlands.” This underestimates of the extent of cultural differences (historical experiences, language, weltanschauung I suppose) and leads to unrealistic prescriptions and the unrealistic idea of a common “Russian world.”
Russian nationalists overestimate these ties. Rus was a loose trade-focused entity run by Vikings, that quickly split up as the Vikings became Slavicised. It wasn’t some sort of modern or pre-modern nation-state. Orthodoxy was the most significant cultural product of this “state” but even here there were differences. For example, Ukraine’s Orthodox Academy, where generations of local Ukrainian elites studied, followed a Jesuit model of education in Latin and Polish. A different world from the scene in Muscovy.
“Russian world” was a modern, not historical, creation but Ilyin assumes it was an ancient one. I suspect he isn’t aware of the costs of this association to the Ukrainian people.
Theoretically, the idea’s modernity would not necessarily have made it unfeasible. Little Russians tried to make it work. But actions taken by the” common government” killed it.
Unfortunately (5) proved incapable of implementing (4). There was a strong Little Russian movement in Ukraine. Its adherents were Rus nationalists who developed and standardized the Little Russian language. They viewed Little Russians as equal to Great Russians as different children of one Rus. The Center, spooked by Polish uprisings, and goaded by Westernizing liberals, adopted a policy of centralization and a forced attempt to impose the Great Russian language, culture, and identity upon the locals. Little Russian was mostly banned, its adherents demoted or sent off to provincial Great Russia. The backlash was predictable. Ukraine replaced Little Russia.
Little Russia/Ukraine and Great Russia/Russia simply had two different and ultimately incompatible political cultures. This might not necessarily have been a barrier for some sort of union, but the large discrepancy in populations provided an easy temptation for the larger nation to completely dominate the smaller one (a factor that was absent in Austria-Hungary and in Poland-Lithuania) and to absorb and culturally destroy it. So the only option was to try to escape.
There is no “common world” involving Ukraine and Russia (unless you mean a much wider “common world” that includes all Slavs, or all Europeans). Might as well say that an independent Poland is an abomination and threat to Slavia because it is used to undermine the common values of the Slavic World, an independent Sweden is an abomination to Germania, etc.
This lack of common world explains the constant friction when Ukraine has been a part of Russia – frequent rebellions, “betrayals”, etc. Russian nationalists incapable of acknowledging that it’s simply a different people, have to resort to conspiracy theories to explain why this group of “Russians” keeps resisting (German, Polish, Bolshevik, American plots or course).
To the extent that Ukraine belongs in a common world with someone – it is a common world with Poland, with whom Ukraine was united for a longer period of time, and with whom it was united during its critical developmental phase, than it was under Moscow. And indeed this is reflected in phenomena such as electoral patterns, that in the 21st century follow old 17th century borders.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Polish-Lithuanian_Commonwealth_%281619%29.png
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TmGACgT-YWA/Vr8RN6reBsI/AAAAAAAAC_8/TMRtX81iGtA/s1600/Ukraine%2Belections.jpg
Japan is an unrepentant war criminal, incest and homosexuality with child have long tradition in Japan. Though Japanese is “Yellow,” but they do not consider themselves yellow Asian, and they are happily being called by the White as an honorary White despite an unnormal one.
“Gay” is abnormal in the view of the world, therefore calling Japanese “gay” perfectly makes sense and appropriate in accordance to Japanese weird characteristics. .
Scandinavia is currently preoccupied with bizarre projects to eliminate genders and has a Pakistani as a national culture minister. I would say that makes it, on balance, worse than whatever you think Ukraine minus Russia is.
The map at the bottom is obviously dated. It would be interesting to see a newer one that represents realities today. Some of the areas close to the center are probably red now, most of the others, purple, with the exception of Crimea. It looks lik the Ukrainian project is spreading east and south at a fast clip, thanks to Putin’s little dirty war in Ukraine.
Although it’s true that a large swath of Ukraine was united with Poland longer than it was with Russia, this of course didn’t leave a great positive experience where today Ukrainians feel any real sense of wanting to unite with Poland, Commonwealth style. This was already attempted at a time when it made a lot more sense (Treaty of Hadiach), and didn’t really even get off the ground. Ukraine is in the final throes of shedding its subservient status to its neighbor to the north, having already done so to its neighbor to the West in the 20th century.
It is not who you are and you will never convince me otherwise.
You’re Russian. Little Russian.
You guys are no different than Canada, Austria, New Zealand, etc.
A totally phony country.
The Ukraine presently suffers from a Western cargo cult. Give it another few years and you’ll see the same thing there.
But yes, to be fair, you make another very reasonable point. However subsuming Scandinavia into Germany (which, ignoring WW2, it has never been part of nor do the countries of Scandinavia speak dialects of German) does not solve for that problem.
And historically the Ukraine offers nothing. I can’t name a single cultural work in the so-called Ukrainian “language”.
Mr. Hack is a loser and a fag from a gay fake country and for some baffling reason would rather have a loser identity than be Russian.
Uniting with Poland would be a major improvement over persisting with your gay, fake identity.
Poles have a real history and heritage. They even have some cultural achievements such as the book Quo Vadis.
What do you have? Nothing.
Perhaps a division of the Ukraine between Russia and Poland, as suggested by Zhironovsky, is the ideal outcome.
Being divided by two powers might accelerate the destruction of this malicious, fake conception as an actual nation that’s taking root in the Ukraine.
Take the cure outlined in comment #45, and then we’ll talk…
Your continued obsession with psychiatry, and even pride in this quackery, is bizarre.
Much like your bizarre obsession with your fake nationality.
So what?
Can you seriously tell me that the Palestinian losers are relevant?
Maybe true, but my obsessions pale into insignificance when compared with your advanced stage of Ukrainophobia – please reconsider taking the cure outlined in comment #45, it may be your last chance at assuming a more normal manner of thinking and communicating.
Stop acting proud of your obsession with quackery and endlessly referencing it. Just forget it ever happened and don’t bring it up again.
And no one is scared of Ukraine. Why would anyone be scared of a banana republic fake state with no identity?
I don’t really know much about the details of Ukrainian (or Polish, or Russian) history, but I have to ask out of curiosity: How do you reconcile that view with the Ukrainian uprising against the Polish commonwealth in the 17th century, and the rather bitter conflicts between Polish and Ukrainian nationalists in the 20th century? There seems to be quite a bitter history here as well (note: this doesn’t mean I find the claims of Russian nationalists regarding Ukraine convincing…I mostly don’t).
They do not really ignore point 5.
Presidents of the RF are basically elected emperors.
Just like the presidents of the Fifth French republic are basically elected kings.
I can see that by the tone of your comment that your predospisition has slightly mellowed. No one has suggested that you become ‘scared of Ukraine’? If these paranoid fantasies of your persist, take a look at the video clip again, it seems to have a remedial effect on your continued psychosis. 🙂
It should be noted that the lands of the Danish crown (German-speaking court, large German-speaking population in the south) were semi-German, hence…
https://www.quora.com/Why-does-Germany-want-to-control-Denmark/answer/Peter-Valdemar-Mørch-1
Ukrainian differs from Russian as Dutch differs from German, and more than Swedish differs from Norwegian. So already your analogy is false.
This conflict was essentially a civil war among Ukrainians, more than a “national uprisings” as is portrayed by many Ukrainian nationalists.
The uprising was largely if not mostly a story of Ukrainian peasants and lesser nobles fighting against Ukrainian magnates (oligarchs, in essence) who had been amassing more wealth and power. The peasants and lesser nobles were actually appealing to the Polish king for help. The main “Polish” enemy of the uprising was not a Pole, but a Rurikid prince who, although a Catholic convert, had continued lavishly funding Orthodox monasteries and schools, and who had kept Ukraine safe from Tatar raids.
That having been said, Poland during the Counter-reformation implemented anti-Orthodox measures that pissed off many but not all Ukrainians, which was an underlying factor in the civil war (many of the Ukrainian magnates were becoming Roman Catholics).
A turf war between two similar peoples over the same territory, done mid 20th century style.
Thanks, that’s informative.
This might be true of Chinese liberals but Ukraine is simply a Western (in the manner of Poland) country. It’s natural, nothing cargo cultish about it.
Mostly peasant people didn’t produce a lot of high culture known outside the borders. So? It is true of Finns, Balts, Slovaks also. OTOH even many Russians acknowledge that Ukrainian folk songs are very beautiful. Carol of the Bells, composed by the Ukrainian Mykola Leontovych and based on a Ukrainian folk carol, is quite beloved in the West.
Ukrainian nationalists have quite a way of rewriting and distorting the past. Numerous examples including England, Scotland and Wales making up Britain and the differences between the Han and Mandarin languages spoken in China, serve as examples that the former Rus territories of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus have a sound basis to be together for much of history.
In terms of religion, Ukrainian Orthodox Christians have more in common with Russian Orthodox Christians than with Polish Catholics. The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) was initially encouraged/coerced upon by the occupying Poles, as a basis to drive a wedge between the ancestors of modern day Russians and Ukrainians. The UGCC remains a minority among Ukrainian Christians.
For clear reasons, Poland doesn’t identify with Rus in the manner of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. In the 19th century and thereafter, the Netherlands and Germany don’t have a shared literary figure in the manner that Russians and Ukrainians have relative to Gogol.
In overall terms, Ukraine wasn’t with Poland for a longer period than with Russia – one of several myths that you repeatedly peddle.
Bogolyubsky, Nevsky and other Russia based leaders had at the time of their existence legit ties to Kiev.
Some of your analogies are false as evidenced by what they overlook. Multilingual states exist with languages just as great if not greater than the differences between Russian and Ukrainian.
In line with your own biases that relate to having previously identified yourself as someone of Polish and Ukrainian backgrounds, who favors close Polish-Ukrainian ties.
It’s historically well accepted that Mazepa and Vyhovsky lost because the majority of the people on the land that they were from (much of the territory of modern day Ukraine) didn’t go along with their going against the territory/leadership of what now constitutes modern day Russia.
Like it or not, more people in the former Ukrainian SSR favor Ukraine being closer to Russia than with Poland. Substitute the EU for Poland and that division changes % wise.
The linguistic differences between Russian and “Ukrainian” are irrelevant as the “Ukrainian” dialect has no acceptable reason to exist.
If not for communism it would be gone by now, which would leave “Ukrainian” nationalism about as relevant as Cornish nationalism today.
Unfortunately we have to suffer the likes of Mr. Hack instead, who would no doubt make a great Canadian patriot as well.
As I already explained, I am not interested in dialogue with you. But your post makes a good prop to elaborate some points:
The Union was done at the initiative of Orthodox bishops in what is now Ukraine and Belarus. All 9 supported it initially, but then 4 backed out. Support was widespread but not universal and led to a civil conflict within Ukrainian society. It was popular among nobles and prominent churchmen, less so among peasants, Cossacks and some nobles.
Wedge was already there. Speaking of Church unions, the Union of Florence in 1438 was supposed to unify the Orthodox and Catholic Churches. Churchmen and elites in what is now Ukraine agreed to it (Kiev metropolitan Isodore was a prominent supporter, as was prince of Kiev Olelko) , those in Muscovy were bitterly opposed. So here is another example of Ukraine’s westward orientation, in opposition to that of Moscow.
Otherwise, you have the Polish-Muscovy wars where Ukrainians were allied with Poland. Some Ukrainian Cossack officer even had the reputation of impaling Muscovites.
Only if you believe the nonsense of the loose Scandinavian state of Rus, which split up in 1132, being Russia (Rus was as much Russia as Charlemagne’s Frankish Empire was France, or ancient Rome Romania).
To review times spent with whom, for readers:
Timeline:
Kiev City and eastern Ukraine: Lithuania, Poland 1362 – 1648 (about 300 years); independent 1648-1654 (6 years); autonomous (own military, legal system, locally elected ruler) but under the Russian tsar until 1709 (55 years); diminished autonomy until 1764 (55 years); integrated part of Russian Empire until 1917 (153 years); Ukrainian SSR 1918- 1991 (73 years); independent Ukraine 1991-present (27 years). Total: Russia 336 years, Poland 300 years, not-Russia 333 years and counting
The “Right Bank” – everything west of the river Dnipro, including most of Kiev province but not Kiev City: part of Lithuania and Poland 1362-1793 (429 years); integrated part of Russia until 1917 (124 years); Ukrainian SSR 1919-1991 (72 years); independent Ukraine 1991-present (25 years). Total: Russia 196 years, Poland 449 years, not-Russia 456 years and counting
Volynia – same as “Right Bank” but unlike the rest of the Right Bank was part of Poland from 1919-1939, missing the first 20 years of Soviet rule. Total: Russia 176 years, Poland 449 years, not-Russia 476 years and counting
Galicia – part of Poland 1349-1772 (423 years); part of Austria 1772-1918 (146 years); part of Poland 1919-1939 (20 years), part of Ukrainian SSR 1939-1991 (52 years); independent Ukraine 1991-present (25 years). Total: Russia 52 years, Poland 443 years, not-Russia 616 years and counting
If Ukrainian is a “dialect” than Dutch is a dialect and the Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish are not even dialects.
Nonsense, communism made Ukraine more Russian-speaking than it was before. According to the Russian census only 6% of Kiev province’s population was Russian speaking in 1897, in so-called New Russia it was about 20%. The area of Ukraine with the least communism is the most Ukrainian-speaking.
It’s Ukraine, you moron, not “the Ukraine.”
Of course, I’d expect nothing less from Trumpanzee.
Memo to President Trump: It’s Not “The Ukraine” Anymore
Dutch is a West Germanic language. The Scandinavian languages are North Germanic.
One could make the argument that it’s a dialect of German since it’s basically Low German anyway.
What sets the Netherlands apart from Germany is that it has a history to be proud of.
Meanwhile the “Ukraine” has no history of any kind.
If the Russian Empire had persisted then the Ukraine would today be 100% Russian-speaking, just as Occitania is today 100% French-speaking and the Mezzogiorno is 100% Italian-speaking. Primary school enrollment reached 80% by the end of the Empire and the language of instruction was Russian.
And unlike with the Piedmontese conquest of the Kingdom of Two Sicilies, absolutely nothing is lost with the extermination of the alleged Ukrainian identity since there is no history or culture there to begin with.
All I ever get from Ukraine apologists comes down to two arguments:
1) We want to be Ukrainian (irrelevant, no one has the right to be wrong)
2) Akshually, the Ukraine was also dominated by Poland
The state’s existence is a disgusting blot on the map of Europe and it must be forever destroyed.
A perfect description of Russia. Thank you. Why is The Donald so scared of Putin & Russia then, I wonder?
Yellow Snow by I.C.P.P.
No, it is the Ukraine. Remember, the Ukraine is a geographical expression, as there is no such thing as a Ukrainian culture or nationality. There exists a parvenu state which pretends to call itself Ukraine.
I do not accept the legitimacy of this state nor should anyone else with integrity.
From your embarrassing article:
Good. The so-called “Ukrainian” state must be immediately abolished and never again revived.
Russia may well indeed be a banana republic as evidenced by embarrassing fiascos such as Rusnano and Skolkovo.
But to argue it has no identity is absurd in the extreme.
Finn, you’ve been playing EU IV and Civ for too long lately. It’s not good for you. Put down the KB+mouse and take some deep breaths.
‘Akshually’ you continue to demonstrate your extreme lack of any erudition and severe form of Ukrainaphobia. You know where the cure is already – take it!
That’s what I have been saying from the day the Maidan protests started. Nationalists were the muscle behind the coup, but the vast majority of people taking Nuland’s cookies couldn’t give a shit and were pro-Western, very susceptible to poz propaganda, which is why purely nationalist protests don’t attract many people.
In the future, should the West prevail, homo marriage and parades, pro-immigration discourse, Russophobia, black worship will be all common features. The place is infested with Trotskyite NGOs that spread the same ideology that infected post-WW2 Western Europe and the Anglosphere (way worse than communism), and many media outlets receive foreign funding.
Poroshenko, for all his downsides, is a self-made man that IMO, won’t get Ukraine into a war because if Russia decides to go all in, he’s toast, his business is toast, so he will maintain the conflict frozen. He has a business empire and is worth more than a billion, what the West offers him will never come close to his net worth.
Got it. Thanks for clarifying. Why not give the Western half to include Kiev to Poland and the Eastern half to Russia?
Any other parvenu states we can dissolve and partition while we’re at it?
I will agree it had an identity, but now, not so much. This is why Putin’s gone out of his way to construct one for the 21st Century, but the problem is, you don’t construct an identity unless you do so to deceive. The identity of a nation or empire derives naturally and organically. It’s not forced. It’s not sown from old, threadbare cloth scraps.
Trio Marenych is among my very favorite folk groups in any language. Thorfinnson needs to roll a fatty and relax.
In contrast to myself, where I always try to cultivate city-states and preserve them, my wife always immediately attacks every single city-state on sight in order to “clean up clutter.” It apparently annoys her that they exist.
Its evident that you don’t know any Russians, but that’s understandable since no one wants to be your friend.
Zhironovsky proposed this and it’s a perfectly sensible idea. Would also help mollify understandable Polish fears about Russian imperialism.
Yes.
• Canada
• Austria
• New Zealand
• Belarus
• Moldova
• Taiwan
• Belgium
• Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Bhutan (alternative: breakup India)
Looks like you married well. 😉
I am okay with city-states and legitimist dynastic states. Kingdom of Prussia–not fake. Republic of Austria–fake.
With respect to city-states the history of the Italian maritime city-state republics (though Venice actually had a hinterland) is fascinating, as is of course the classical Greek city-states.
Other non-national states irritate me.
No. Ukraine is not a geographical expression. It is a spiritual and social expression. Ukraine means “homeland, country, land”. The ancestral land, the Homeland of my people, too. The historical name of Ukraine comes from a medieval episode when a knyaz was killed and “the whole country / land sighed for him”.
Don’t flatter him, dear Pan. He’s not Nordic or anything, he lacks ethnic identity. Besides, I’ve never met a Scandinavian who acts like an infantile monkey, jumping up and down in such excitement and irritability (good – nerve cells don’t regenerate!). In fact, this behavior epitomizes the kind of American that most Swedes despise so much (loud, entitled, shallow, intolerant).
Btw, while I agree with your above comment, there are things that the Nordics are doing today that are actually cool such as the Nynorsk mat concept – New Nordic food, marketing of traditional cuisine to facilitate better diets. And maybe data centers and such. But, yea, Scandinavians are overrated (one time when I was in Norway I paid an equivalent of 20 euro for a “fish” soup with two little bits of fish in it and I still have to figure out how Acne can sell a shapeless, black rag that they call a shirt for $250 in a studio boutique in Södermalm – now that’s an art, I agree).
Btw, I wanted to ask you – have you ever been inside the Lviv opera building?
Who cares what it means in the “Ukrainian” dialect?
To the rest of the world it is a geographical expression, which is why it is preceded by a definite article.
Research the name Thorfinnsson and you might see why I act like an American.
These stories both epitomize Nordic success.
The first is illustrative of Norway’s very high wages.
The second of successful branding, design, and marketing.
Lvov.
Alternatively, Lemberg or Lwow.
Frequently, Anatoly’s posts end full of bitter discussions about Ukraine’s past and future. Maybe the time for new a blog arrived. Something like “Ukraine reaction blog” by AP. That’s in order to avoid messing subjects.
Agreed. This is crucial. I can’t really blame the Anglos here as they’ve never had access to the Russian empire but the senseless, delusional Spencerite yapping about Eurasia…. these guys just live in their heads. They talk about hypothetical Eurasian empires, but they don’t understand how the Soviet Union worked. Of course, both the Russian empire and the Soviet Union were forced – but conquest is only the first stage. The second stage is cultivation. Cultivation involves not only administrative suppression of dissent, but also collaboration. You can’t kill everyone. You have to offer something (Germanic word “offer” – sacrifice, “victim” in German). Kadyrov got his elite horse collection (Russians call that prodazhnaya shkura, sellout). We, Balts, got Olympic gold medals (for many years the USSR basketball team consisted 20% of Balts and Georgians, similar in other sports, such as hockey – for Tretyak there was Balderis, etc.) And Ukrainians here are very special people – today when I read and listen to their interviews, I smile and nod – now I fully understand how they could build and maintain that country. Quality people. I heard that every third soldier in the Red army was from Ukraine. Officers, sergeants – the skeleton of the army! Of course, those weren’t even the best because the best were already under the ground and this is all after all the slave labor that they used to build up places such as Norilsk (somebody mentioned infrastructure above – what about all the infra that the Ukrainian and Baltic men built in the Russian north that’s still in use today, digging out palladium – wanna talk about that? I don’t, btw).
And you’re right, Putin is currently looking for a new form of empire. And the Russians now call their own country “polukrovka” – half blood (meant in a cultural, not ethnic sense, although that’s partly true as well).
I listened to some of Egor Kholmogorov interviews, and he’s actually a pretty delicate guy, if you take away the imperialist part, underneath it you’ll find very beautiful, organic ethno-nationalism.
But you can’t have your cake and eat it too – oops, Ramzan calling!
I don’t care what you’re “interested” in. You keep rehashing BS.
For openers, your timeline is warped, given that it doesn’t include the Rus, Russian Empire and Soviet periods.
The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) wasn’t s0me popularly accepted idea among the ancestors of modern day Ukrainians. Even in Galicia and Volhynia, the UGCC constitutes the minority of Ukrainian Christians. The generally not so pro-Russian friendly Wiki is correct on this score:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_Greek_Catholic_Church
Excerpt –
In fact, a good number of former Uniates reconverted (for lack of a better term) back into the Orthodox Christian denomination. I personally know families with roots to modern day western Ukraine who did just that – joining the Russian Orthodox Church. Your bishops’ point is along the lines of uncritically referencing the leaders of Warsaw Pact nations, as accurately reflecting the views of their respective population.
There’s no legitimate denying that the likes of Mazepa and Vyhovsky lost on account of the majority of the Ukrainian population (in Mazepa’s and Vyhovsky’s domain) didn’t support going against Russia in favor of Poland. That there were some Ukrainians preferring Poland over Russia is emphasizing a minority.
Ukrainians had a great chance to go against Russia when Napoleon attacked in 1812. Many Poles did just that. The Ukrainians didn’t. Russian forces en route to Hungary in the late 1840s, were met with a friendly reception by Ukrainians in the Habsburg part of modern day western Ukraine.
At the outbreak of WW I, Ukrainian separatist activity in the Russian Empire was minimal. The collapse of the Russian Empire influenced a change. Yet, the Ukrainian nationalist leader Petliura agreed to sellout all of Galicia to Poland in order to get Polish support. Petliura needed such because he wasn’t universally accepted in the Ukrainian part of the former Russian Empire. Petliura’s alliance with Poland alienated the Galician Ukrainians. En masse, the Galician Ukrainian Army came under the command of the Russian Whites, who treated them as an independent entity.
The Whites weren’t necessarily against part of Galicia being in an entity with Russia. In turn, the Galician Ukrainians of that period had some proponents seeking to be affiliated with a non-Communist Russia.
In WW II, more Ukrainians fought on the Red Army side than with the OUN/UPA. Moreover, historian John Armstrong believes that somewhere in the area of 30%-40% of the Vlasov commanded Russian Army of Liberation (POA), consisted of Ukrainians, which included General Sergey Bunyachenko, who led the POA in liberating Prague (along with Czech partisans), the last scene of WW II European theater fighting.
In the period between the two world wars, Ukrainians under Polish rule weren’t generally supportive of being a part of Poland. With their brutality, the Soviets blew a golden opportunity to win over the Ukrainians who were part of post-WW I Poland. As historiography reveals, towards the end of WW II, there was much bloodshed between Poles and west Ukrainians – along with fighting between west Ukrainians and Soviets – the latter including a good number of Ukraians. Once gain noting that more Ukrainians were with the Red Army than the OUN/UPA.
There was a Ukraianization campaign the late 1920s-early 1930s, which curtailed Russian identity and Russian language use in the Ukrainian SSR.
That 1897 census is indicative of an empire which didn’t brutally seek to eliminate the language/dialect at issue. Modern day Ukrainian (alphabet and all) was created with Soviet approval and assistance
Typical Sovok myth that ought to be dispelled.
“Ukrainianization” meant that when Ukrainian peasants moved into Russian-inhabited cities, they were taught in their own language. As a result, the cities started to become Ukrainian-speaking. It was a natural process. The same thing happened in once German-speaking Prague, or places in the Baltics that originally had German settlers. I suppose you would call it “Czechification” or “Latvication” and claime that German identity was curtailed in Prague or Riga.
Soviets stopped this natural process in its tracks and started arresting Ukrainian teachers and imposing the Russian language.
Don’t disagree with your post in general but am going to nitpick this:
As a factual matter that’s untrue. You can in fact kill everyone.
He’s a troll. Those are Nordic. Unlike Mikhail, who is dumb and boring, Thorfinnsson is smart and sometimes funny.
Yes, it is beautiful.
And there is an underground restaurant on the banks of the submerged river beneath the building.
… totally imaginary and fake term
except if used as a subset of russophobia, Stalinophobia, sovietphobia,Sberbank/VTBphobia and so on
Netherlands – rebelled against Hapsburg. Not something to be proud of.
All places have some sort of history. Misguided Khmelnytsky managed to defeat in several battles, and probably terminally weaken, one of the world’s leading powers. The Irish never managed that against the British (btw, are they also a fake country in your world? 98% of them speak English).
Or Catalonia 100% Spanish-speaking?
And yet in 1917, about 70% of the population in Russian-ruled Ukrainian provinces of Kiev, Poltava, Volynia and Podolia voted for Ukrainian nationalist parties. In so-called Novorossiya it was around 50%. As Russian rule eased after 1905, Ukrainian-language schools sprung up.
Beautiful folk culture and songs, perhaps the nicest Slavic ones. The language is generally considered to be a beautiful one also. The German Romantic nationalist Herder was very enthusiastic about Ukrainian culture.
From wiki:
Following a trip to Ukraine, Herder wrote a prediction in his diary (Journal meiner Reise im Jahre 1769) that Slavic nations would one day be the real power in Europe, as the western Europeans would reject Christianity and rot away, while the eastern European nations would stick to their religion and their idealism, and would this way become the power in Europe. More specifically, he praised Ukraine’s “beautiful skies, blithe temperament, musical talent, bountiful soil, etc. […] someday will awaken there a cultured nation whose influence will spread […] throughout the world.” One of his related predictions was that the Hungarian nation would disappear and become assimilated by surrounding Slavic peoples; this prophecy caused considerable uproar in Hungary and is widely cited to this day.
:::::::::::::
Prophetic, no? About Slavs vs. Westerners. He didn’t predict Ukrainians getting genocided by Sovoks and Nazis.
To be clear I troll with my deeply held and sincere opinions, but on occasion exaggerated for effect.
I also object to anyone who characterizes trolling as negative. Trolling is a good thing.
That said thank you for your kind remark.
hahaha! A mentally disturbed cunt as yourself openly writes such obvious braindead , attention-whoring lies .Sweden is a highly developed and secure country, “Ukraine” is a failed state and shithole only “supported” by relatives of animal raping Nazi scumbag cowards who fled like pussies in disgrace , to North America, after defeat by the Soviets
Ukraine ……the country de facto ruled by the USA
Ukraine…….the country with its Finance managed by the Lithuanians,Poles and Gruzians
Ukraine…….the country with its Health &Education managed by the bat-shit crazy Canadians and Gruzians
Ukraine…….the country with it’s Military/Intelligence ran and trained by the Gruzians and Americans ( with Gruzians and Chechens openly doing alot of the ‘heavy lifting” on the battlefield)
Ukraine…..the shithole, failed country lead by a man who writes love letters to the FSB and has a son married to a Russian (Yes, the President of the fake country of “Ukraine”, who owes his wealth due to Russian investment and the Russian market, has a Russian grandson)
Ukraine …..the country with it’s national “church” , the Kiev Patriarchate, created in, yep you’ve guessed it….eastern USA!
Ukraine…….the country in it’s pitiful state of existence now,all courtesy of a CIA coup that backed a “protest” organised by an …Afghan, attracting sheep from areas of “Ukraine” that were gifts from the Gruzian, Stalin, taken Hungary,Romania and Poland!
It may help if a sack of faeces moron like yourself actually used your brain….but it’s obvious that is a POS freak like you loses your anonymity on here…then you will 100% kill yourself due to embarassment. Cretin
I would be happy to terminate Ireland’s independence, but no they are not fake.
The Irish are interesting.
“Ukrainians”…not so much.
As I said earlier–irrelevant.
No one has the right to be wrong.
Of course, people would continue to peddle the BS that the “Unia” was done at the initiative of Orthodox bishops in what is now Ukraine and Belarus.
As a matter of fact Isidore of Thessalonica was a Greek hierarch sent to Moscow, where the seat of the Metropolia of “Kiev and All Rus” was for a few hundred years, in 1437 in order to promote Unia and convince the Russians to participate in the Ferrara-Florence Council. He returned to Moscow as a cardinal of the Roman Church and legate of the Pope for Russia and proclaimed the Unia. Russian Prince Vasili II, the Bishops and the people rejected it straight away and arrested him. He did not represent the “Kiev” Metropolia but the Byzantine Emperor and the Pope. The so-called ‘Western’ orientation of ‘Ukraine’ was simply the Polish imposition. What the ‘people’ wanted was the Treaty of Pereyaslav of 1654.
It simply proves that Ukrainian idea was strong even under the Tsars, and disproves the claims that Soviets invented Ukrainianism and that if Tsarism survived Ukrainianism would have disappeared.
As for right or wrong – Ukraine or Little Russia had its own history, culture, and speech, Russia or Great Russia its own, with separate developments over centuries, reflecting circumstances. One can argue about Little Russian vs. Ukrainian identity but a Little Russian/Ukrainian is no more a Russian than a Swede is a Dane or a Dutchman a German.
You compared Ukraine to Occitania. Occitania was taken by France in the 13th-17th centuries. In Ukraine’s case it was 17th-20th centuries, centuries later of separate development.
Evidence to the contrary?
Moscow rejected him, Kiev (prince Olelko Volodymyrovych) supported him.
So already long before the Brest Union, Ukraine was moving westward, Moscow was on its own path.
That the idea was strong does not mean it was or is correct.
It is currently a strong idea that blacks are equal to whites.
You are correct that the Russian takeover of the Ukraine was more recent than the French takeover of Occitania, but it was less recent than the Piedmontese takeover of the Mezzogiorno.
If the Ukraine wants to prove me wrong it can do something of note. To date it has done…what?
I mean I do like the Carol of the Bells. Thank you for informing me of that.
At a fundamental level I simply do not understand why one would want to be part of a joke loser country instead of Russia. All Ukrainians speak Russian so what exactly is the point?
I am aware of this. I like to claim that the Ukraine was invented by the Great General Staff of the German Army. I am aware that that is not true, but it’s such a funny line I can’t resist.
You did a good job educating me about the Polish influence on the Ukraine for the record.
Moving westward to where? Romania? Guatemala? Burkina Faso?
Idiot
Quite true…and alot of Dutch I know seem to find speaking English easier than speaking German.
Ukraine by contrast has proven in a fair contest, the vast majority of them, normal people, politicians, bankers, politicians,academics ….. prefer speaking and writing in Russian….that’s why the authorities there are so afraid of doing what any civilised country would do in the same circumstances..and make Russian a joint official language
What’s also true is that nobody confuses a dutch name with a german name, this is in stark contrast to the fact that the typical “Ukrainian” surnames,if you go anywhere in America or the west …then they will unwittingly use a “Ukrainian” name to describe an everyday Russian ( in the same style English and Americans use Joe Bloggs/John Doe and John Smith) …this is because they know it’s obvious that Ukraine is obviously part of Russia and not a separate entity or identity.Then you have the plethora of “Ukrainians” abroad who in the last 26 years have always said they are Russian, or are perfectly relaxed about people calling them Russian
Hilariously , more glaring evidence of the fakery and freakshow existence of the artificial state of Ukraine are these 2 recent interviews of the hapless ex-President of “Ukraine”…Viktor Yushchenko
https://news.sky.com/story/ex-ukraine-leader-do-not-rule-out-military-action-against-russia-11306185
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-europe-43611547/viktor-yushchenko-ukraine-s-ex-president-on-being-poisoned
The ex President of Ukraine speaking the “fictitious “Ukrainian” “Language” using want any sane person would say is, literally 95+% russian words in a 100% Russian style…with the remaning 5% , basically words (nouns not verbs) that replace that infiltrated ones from the Russian nobility’s love of France 300 years ago. Even more ..he is speaking in the style of a typical Russian man….and this is one of their Presidents we are talking about!
Western ‘orientation’ began with the expansion of Papal ‘crusades’ in the East, initiated immediately after the conquest of Constantinople in 1204 (Hungary, Teutonic Knights, Poland).
You have then the continuation of ‘western’ pressures in the coronation of Daniel as ‘King of All Rus’ (Rex Russiae) by the papal legate Opizo de Mezzano in Dorohochyn 1253.
Yes, ‘Western Ukraine’ pandering to the Catholic ‘West’ is old. But then it stopped representing the ‘All Rus’, whose Grand Prince (along with the Metropolia) moved to Vladimir-Suzdal and then Moscow.
Thank you for confirming this.
Daniel of Galicia was the last legitimate (pre-Mongol) ruler of Kiev. So Daniel took the Pope’s crown, Olelko of Kiev supported the Florence Union, then you have Rus princes going to war against Muscovy with their Polish and Lithuanian allies.
“All Rus” is mostly an ideological construct. Rus split up c. 1134.
Sure. The idea that Ukrainians are Ukrainians and not Russians is correct, in the same way that the idea that Dutch are Dutch and not Germans is also correct. Two distinct regions, with distinct forms of speech, histories, and even genetics (Ukrainians are closer genetically to Slovaks than they are to Russians).
According to wiki, although there are basically no Sicilian schools, the majority of the people in Sicily speak the Sicilian language.
Occitania is different (almost all French speakers now), but it was taken over by France centuries before Ukraine was taken over by Russia.
You must not have much sympathy for generations of Chicago Cubs fans. That is more trivial, but why should someone with self-respect pretend to be someone else? Turn his back on the culture and speech his ancestors had used for centuries and adopt a foreign one that someone else’s people had been using. Might as well use English in that case, America is more successful than Russia.
Lol, actually I am a Chicagoan and die-hard Cubs fan.
I made the quasi-mystical prediction that the Cubs would win the World Series and Trump would win the Presidency as a result of that.
You’re the boring and dumb one, here as exhibited by your rehashed misinformation that has been debunked.
As you might know, Gogol’s “Horrible Vengeance”, describes the violence of the UNIA movement as it was brutally imposed on the population of the territory now known as Ukraine.
Sovoks and Russia haters (whether sugar coated svidos or otherwise) have come to monopolize much of the commentary. Folks like David Johnson don’t appear so well versed on the involved subject matter, in addition to being closed minded with the limited sources they favor. The late Eugene Belaeff noted that a good number of Russia watchers in the West are noticeably more well versed on the Soviet period than pre-Soviet era.
Keep in mind that AP said he is of Polish and Ukrainian backgrounds, in conjunction with favoring close Polish-Ukrainian ties. For his convenience, he side-steps the numerous facts and fact based opinions, running counter to his BS.
A clear example concerns what’s raised in comment number 330 of this thread:
http://www.unz.com/akarlin/russians-in-20th-century-2/#comment-2302963
More rehashed BS from you, which omits the numerous particulars going against your overly biased slant.
Name me one 19th century literary figure who modern day Dutch and Germans each identify as being akin to them.
As for your Ukraine is closer to Poland than Russia BS, there’s no 2oth century Ukrainian leader who proposed being part of Poland. Show me something supporting such along the lines of what Skoropadsky proposed:
https://www.eurasiareview.com/22052011-pavlo-skoropadsky-and-the-course-of-russian-ukrainian-relations-analysis/
The Soviets didn’t invent Ukrainianism. They did use it to conform with their vision of a union of nations. It’s bunk to suggest that the support for a completely separate Ukrainian nation a hundred years ago was as great as the current status quo – greatly motivated in part by Soviet policies. In 1817, the call for a separate Ukrainian state was ess than what was evident in 1917.
BTW, those votes you mention were by no means an accurate gauge on how all felt there. What % of the involved population had actually voted and under what circumstances at the time?
It’s universally understood that Rus as an independent entity ended around the time of the Mongol subjugation period 1227-1240.
The Mongol subjugation period didn’t simply end the sentiment of togetherness. During WW II , Poland essentially ceased to exist. That didn’t end the desire for a Polish state to continue on at some point.
From 1236-1252, Alexander Nevsky held the title of Grand Prince of Kiev. The Riurik line that governed Rus continued on in Russia until the death of Ivan the Terrible’s successor.
Russia is more successful than Ukraine, while sharing a centuries border and back and forth close cross cultural togetherness with Ukraine, which Ukraine doesn’t have with the EU and North America.
The chance of Ukraien joining the EU at some point in the future is put mildly doubtful.
As previously noted, the modern day Ukrainian language (alphabet included) is a 20th century creation. The likes of Gogol clearly show a simultaneous togetherness between Russian Empire era Russia and Ukraien. The Kiev born Igor Sikorsky saw himself as a Russian.
Though a relatively small in number this org reflects a good deal of thinking among a numerous Russians and Ukrainians, in terms of Russians and Ukrainians being close and having the need to continue such:
Russia is more successful than Ukraine, while sharing a centuries border and back and forth close cross cultural togetherness with Ukraine, which Ukraine doesn’t have with the EU and North America.
The chance of Ukraine joining the EU at some point in the future is put mildly doubtful.
As previously noted, the modern day Ukrainian language (alphabet included) is a 20th century creation. The likes of Gogol clearly show a simultaneous togetherness between Russian Empire era Russia and Ukraine. The Kiev born Igor Sikorsky saw himself as a Russian.
Though relatively small in number, this org reflects a good deal of thinking among numerous Russians and Ukrainians, in terms of Russians and Ukrainians being close and having the need to continue such:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Alliance_of_Russian_Solidarists
There’re left wing Russians and Ukrainians who disagree with the anti-Communism of the above org, while nevertheless believing in close Russo-Ukrainian ties with history as a key reference.
You read a bit too much in my ‘confirmation’. I should have said that the ‘crusades’, are the continuation of the assault of the ‘West’ against Orthodoxy which culminated in the IVth Crusade. They are the beginning of the aggression against Orthodox Russia (as the continuator of Byzance), by the West, which will continue unabated until the present days.
It should be mentioned that the Metropolitan of Moscow was the Metropolitan of Kiev with the seat in Moscow. It continued at all times the function, albeit weakened, of representative of both the spiritual and secular interests of the Byzantine Empire.
You have decided to repeat this about me for some reason. For the record, I have very little ethnic Polish ancestry, and no one within living memory of even my grandparents.
More nonsense, as usual from you. First work in the modern literary language was 1798:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Kotliarevsky#/media/File:First_Eneyida.jpg
Little Russian was simply renamed Ukrainian.
Various orthographic reforms were made in the the 19th and early 20th centuries. Same as in Russian, which eliminated some letters such as ѣ in 1918. This does not mean that the Russian language is a 20th century creation.
You don’t speak Russian. English appears to be your only language. Yet you can’t write in proper English either. Poor guy.
I’m accurately referring to what you said at another venue awhile back.
On the matter of people with Polish and Ukrainian ancestry, there’s the example of Gogol and a number of White Russians taking the pro-Russian position. White Russian cemeteries and Russian Orthodox Church congregations in Russia and abroad, are indicative numerous folks with ties to what’s now modern day Ukraine.
Maybe, of course one can start with Bogolubskiy’s sack of Kiev and make a story about an eternal Suzdalian/Muscovite assault against the West and Ukraine.
Daniel of Galicia’s taking the papal crown while Nevsky was in a bitter war against Crusaders, Union of Florence’s popularity in Ukraine (and not in Moscow), Brest, etc. point to a pattern of Ukrainian cooperation with the West in contrast to Moscow’s aversive relationship.
More facts from me countering your nonsense. The modern day Ukrainian alphabet noticeably differs from what was previously written in the Ruthenian/Little Russian language/dialect.
As previous noted, the Rusyn language has words more closely matching Russian than Ukrainian. It has been said that Rusyns are essentially Ukrainians, who didn’t accept the Ukrainian identity for themselves. That observation might relate to the differences with the modern day Ukrainian language which sought to more distinguish itself from other languages.
This all gets back to the reasoned notion that what was evident 200-300 even 100 years ago isn’t as evident in the present.
@eternal Suzdalian/Muscovite assault against the West and Ukraine.
This is definitely turning the things on their heads.
Bogolyubsky had the legit title to the Kiev throne, in conjunction to his being directly related to two rather famous rulers of Rus.
His sacking of Kiev was somewhat akin to Sherman’s burn out in Atlanta. A matter of a civil war and not (as erroneously suggested in some circles) the act of a foreign invader.
In addition to not exhibiting a great prose, you can’t think coherently. Too bad for you.
“There’re” is acceptable English, although shunned by some. Likewise with describing the overthrow of Yanukovych as a coup.
Bogolubski’s mother was a Cuman (Asiatic) princess and his father was a Rurikid prince.
His father briefly ruled Kiev after having invaded it in 1149, was driven out in 1151. He got it back in 1155, was poisoned by Kievans two years later, prompting an uprising against forces from Suzdal.
Bogolubsky invaded Kiev, sacked it, and slaughtered many of its inhabitants before returning North.
Nonsense. Rus ceased being a unified state in 1134. Bogolubsky sacked Kiev 35 years later, in 1169. It was more akin to the British burning of Washington in the War of 1812.
The Civil War ended with union victory. Rus did not unify after Kiev was sacked. Kiev and Russia would not unite until about 500 years later.
No kidding.
Here is Russian written in the 18th century:
http://vivliofika.library.duke.edu/public/journals/41/homepageImage_en_US.jpg
I guess by your “logic” Russian was invented in the 20th century.
You’re quite wrong again as usual.
Bogolyubsky had the legit title to the Kiev throne – something that the counter-Russophile Subtelny acknowledges. In addition to his father, Bogolyubsky’s grandfather was a prominent Rus ruler.
Your analogy with the Brit attack on Washington in 1812 is (put mildly) sheer nonsense. In 1812, the US was clearly established and had succeeded in driving the Brits out of Washington. The circumstances involving Bogolyubsky and Kiev is more analogous to Sherman and Atlanta during the US Civil War.
Drifting off topic again with select cherry picks, while not replying completely to what was said in full – including to the reference concerning the Rusyn, Ukrainian and Russian languages.
From Five hundred years ago and going back further, just how different was what was commonly spoken in Kiev with territory in present day Russia?
In any event, regardless of the linguistic differences over the centuries, Russia and Ukraine have a very good basis for the lengthy togetherness was experienced. As noted, numerous countries having languages just as diverse if not more so.
It is universally understood that Rus as a unified state ended after the death of the last ruler who united it – Mstslav I of Kiev – who died in 1132 (I had elsewhere written 1134 from memory, I was off).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mstislav_I_of_Kiev
Mstislav was the last ruler of united Rus, and upon his death, as the chronicler put it, “the land of Rus was torn apart”.
After 1132 it was split into often warring principalities. By the time of the Mongol invasion in 1239 a unified Rus state was as distant in the past as the Russian Empire is today.
There was no such sentiment prior to Mongol subjugation. Dolgoruky from the North captured Kiev, was poisoned and his forces driven out after a local uprising. Bogolubsky sacked Kiev and slaughtered its people and returned North. There was little unity during the Mongol onslaught. “Spirit of togetherness”, indeed.
That’s right, the 500+ years between the end of the unified Rus state in 1132 and Pereyaslav Treaty in 1656 is just like Poland under German and Soviet occupations. All those wars of Lithuanian Rus against Muscovites didn’t happen, or didn’t mean much. Sure.
Anyways, I’ll go back to ignoring you. If others, smarter than you, would like to discuss your claims with me I will oblige.
Translation: you can’t take having your BS substantively debunked, in conjunction with your warped Orwellian use of “smart”.
It can be somewhat pathetically amusing when the likes of yourself suggest a superior knowledge and intellect.
You once again ignore the numerous presented facts at this thread which run counter to your inaccurately biased spin.
As previously noted, there’s a good reason why Poland and Lithuania don’t see a historical relation to Rus in the same way as modern day Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. You can live in your fantasy that such is warped, when in reality the warped manner is from you.
Yes, Rus continued as an independent entity until 1227-1240 before the Mongol subjugation. Thereafter, ties existed as evidenced by instances like Nevsky’s title to the Kiev throne and the Russian monarchy having a Riurik on the throne thru the successor of Ivan the Fierce (Terrible as commonly translated).
What is this? First time I read abouth this.
http://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?linkpath=pages%5CL%5CI%5CLithuanian6Ruthenianstate.htm
You’vegot to be kidding? Since when did you become a linguist and historian of Slavic languages too?
As so many have already commented at this blog, you don’t even have a decent command of your own native English language, and you’re obviously too retarded to learn Russian, so quit writing about topics that only showcase your utter lack of knowledge. 🙁
As noted by whom? An ignoramus named Mike Averko who doesn’t even have a single clue about the topic he’s writing about? ‘Noted’ and quickly forgot by all! 🙂
Exactly. A Lithuanian-Ruthenian existed but not a Lithuanian Rus.
I keep telling you that Skoropdky was a big nobody in the world of Ukrainian history. He waffled back and forth in his leanings dictated by the exigencies of the day. He traded in his Russian/Ukrainian manifesto for a comfortable pension check in Germany. If you don’t believe me, read this:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/nikolas-kozloff/note-to-ukraine-time-to-r_b_7453506.html
Did you get that Mickey, your beloved Little Russian aristocrat, Skoropadsky, was instrumental in freeing Bandera from a German concentration camp! Hilarious, as are you and your lunatic blind ravings, Mickey! 🙂
The Rus from Lithuania, as distinguished from Rus from Muscovy.
People like this guy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konstanty_Ostrogski
Kostanty Iwanowicz Ostrogski (c. 1460 – 10 August 1530)was a magnate of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and later a Grand Hetman of Lithuania from 11 September 1497 until his death. As a speaker of the Ruthenian language he is considered to be one of the precursors of the Ukrainian language and a national hero in Ukraine.
He started his military career under king John I of Poland. He took part in successful campaigns against the Tatars and Muscovy. For his victory near Ochakiv against the forces of Mehmet Girey he was awarded with the title of Grand Hetman of Lithuania. He was the first person to receive this title. However, during a war with Muscovy he was defeated in the Battle of Vedrosha (1500) and held captive for three years. In 1503 he managed to escape and joined king Sigismund I the Old, who allowed him to resume his post as a Hetman. As one of the main military leaders (alongside Grand Hetmans of the Crown Mikołaj Firlej and Mikołaj Kamieniecki) of the alliance he continued to wage war against Muscovy and in 1512 achieved a great victory against the Tatars in the Battle of Wiśniowiec.
In 1514 another war with Muscovy started and Ostrogski became the commander in chief of all the Polish and Lithuanian forces (amounting to up to 35,000 soldiers). Among his subordinates were Jerzy Radziwiłł, Janusz Świerczowski, Witold Sampoliński and the future Hetman of the Crown Jan Tarnowski. On 8 September 1514 he achieved a significant victory in the Battle of Orsha, defeating an army of Vasili III. However, in 1517 his attempt to besiege the Russian fortress of Opochka became a serious defeat that destroyed any hopes to reconquer Smolensk.
He died in 1530 as a well-respected military commander. Despite his steady loyalty to the Catholic monarch as well as an old feud with an Orthodox Muscovy, Ostrogski himself remained a devout Orthodox in traditions of his family. He gave generously for construction of Orthodox churches and sponsored the creation of many church-affiliated schools for the orthodox children. As one of the wealthiest Orthodox nobles he was buried in the Kiev Pechersk Lavra in Kiev.
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In 15th-16th century the Rus of Poland-Lithuania referred to themselves as Rus and referred to Rus from Muscovy as Muscovites. Conversely, the Rus opf Muscovy described themselves as Rus but referred to the Rus of Poland-Lithuania as Lithuanians or Poles. This transition probably became definite in the mid 15th century. For example the 1428 eulogy Eulogy for Vitold clergy referred to both Rus within the Commonwealth and within Moscow as Rus. However a few decades later this was revised and in the revision the Muscovites were recategorized and placed in the same group as other Orthodox non-Rus such as Moldavians and Bulgarians. Chronicles of the Rus lands within the Commonwealth referred to the Rus lands within the Commonwealth as “All the Rus lands” and inhabitants of Moscow as Muscovites.
Both peoples considered the others to be foreigners. There was no widespread assumption of unity. Why should have there been? Both peoples retained the old name (Rus) for themselves but had been politically separated by centuries, had warred against each other, and had diverged languages.
::::::::
I would anticipate a flood of uneducated nonsense from Mikhail to this post. It will be ignored.
Exactly. A Lithuanian-Ruthenian state existed but not a Lithuanian Rus. Lithuania was never a part of the Rus.
Translation: dog yaps, human won’t bark back. Dog thinks it won an argument.
Good bye. Be a good boy.
“referred to themselves” doesn’t mean they were really part of Rus. Lithuanians were entically Baltic and civilizationally part of the Roman Catholic world.
I was describing the people, not the state. Rus people from Lithuania. However the state was called Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Ruthenia and Samogitia (Ruthenia being the Latin word for Rus).
Mikhail obviously speaks Russian you idiot
Ukrainian is obviously fictitious as a language…but not as a dialect you retard.
Here’s definitive proof of it….from the russophobic ex-President of Ukraine:
https://news.sky.com/story/ex-ukraine-leader-do-not-rule-out-military-action-against-russia-11306185
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-europe-43611547/viktor-yushchenko-ukraine-s-ex-president-on-being-poisoned
The ex President of Ukraine speaking the “fictitious “Ukrainian” “Language” using what any sane person would say is, literally 95+% russian words in a 100% Russian style…with the remaning 5% , basically words (nouns, mostly related to time, not verbs) that replace those infiltrated ones from the Russian nobility’s love of France 300 years ago. Even more ..he is speaking in the style of a typical Russian man….and this is one of their Presidents we are talking about!
I can assure you that ex-president Yushchenko is speaking 99,99% in the Ukrainians literary language. If you think that the two languages are almost identical, then you’re cutting against the grain of what the vast majority of people who know both languages, consider an accurate comparison. I strongly suspect that your knowledge of either language is fictional at best. Any other commenters that know either one or the other language (or both) care to chime in?
The anonymous trolling coward in you strikes again with ZERO substance to refute my subject related points.
As previously noted: from what I understand, my Russian isn’t noticeably inferior to that of Dave Johnson, Alexander Mercouris, Michael Weiss, John Mearsheimer and a host of others who comment on Russia related matters.
The most fluent of Russian speakers (well educated folks at that) have regularly queried me on Russian issues related to foreign policy, history, English language mass media coverage and sports.
As noted by individuals with a knowledge on the subject, who aren’t anonymous trolling cowards like yourself.
You reference a left leaning source who doesn’t know what he’s talking about and ducks follow-up interaction.
That source claimed that Skoro’s group was anti-Jewish. Meantime, more knowledgeable people about Skoro (academics specifically) note that he had the least anti-Jewish of elements when compared to Petliura and the Whites – not that all from the last two were all anti-Jewish.
Skoro’s government is credited with helping develop the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC), which the Soviets (in their early years) later embraced as a means of offsetting the influence of the Russian Orthodox Church. Skoro simultaneously promoted Ukrainian identity without the anti-Russian venom that the likes of yourself favor.
Had history been more kind to Skoro and the Whites, his proposed non-Communist All Russian Federation might’ve taken shape. Modern Ukrainian historiography has taken a more upbeat overview of Skoro, when contrasted to your not so expert source.
http://usa.mfa.gov.ua/en/press-center/news/12296-do-140-richchya-z-dnya-narodzhennya-getymana-pavla-skoropadsykogo
https://books.google.com/books?id=SEXsJ1CzdvEC&pg=PA104&lpg=PA104&dq=pavlo+skoropadsky+ukrainian+autocephalous+orthodox+church&source=bl&ots=UbYbmN8sEj&sig=Uw6KqFlh78Co4PNngSW0b9BeiAk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwilzPTblNbaAhUG0VMKHZ4bBJUQ6AEIPjAE#v=onepage&q=pavlo%20skoropadsky%20ukrainian%20autocephalous%20orthodox%20church&f=false
What you say about Skoro and a Bandera supporter is inaccurate. Freeing someone at the recommendation of a friend or relative doesn’t by default mean that he supports their views. Just like Skoro’s influence to do so in WW II era Germany didn’t make him a Nazi.
Should double ck on who Skoro freed and to what degree. Was it actually Bandera or a pro-Bandera supporter or supporters?
If I’m not offhand mistaken, the non-Russophile academic Mark von Hagen, noted that Skoro was apprehensive about Ukrainian Greek Catholics – an observation noted by some others.
You’ve a clear tack record of ignoring numerous facts and fact based opinions which don’t conform with your fault ridden spin. The below serves as one of numerous examples:
https://www.google.com/search?ei=8NrgWovRMYjr_AalqJzABQ&q=carpatho+russian+&oq=carpatho+russian+&gs_l=psy-ab.12..0i67k1j0l4j0i22i30k1l5.4664.4664.0.6070.1.1.0.0.0.0.82.82.1.1.0….0…1c..64.psy-ab..0.1.82….0.1uekACAt0bs
Bow Wow:
You’re the one carrying on like a boy here. Feel free to repeating fallacies while ignoring the facts and fact based opinions running counter to your inaccuracies.
Understand his limits, which are substantial.
I’ll do your homework for you, as you’re really never quite up to the task. This is what his daughter has to say on the subject:
https://day.kyiv.ua/en/article/society/olena-ott-skoropadska-father-believed-independence-was-only-way-out-ukraine
Also, his son, Danylo Skoropadsky, wasn’t averse to meeting with known Banderites:
http://www.ukrainiansintheuk.info/eng/02/skoropadskyj-e.htm
His son and daughter aren’t him. It’d be academic to see more specifics given – something that you’re prone to shunning.
The article also notes his vision of an All Russian Federation.
A primer regarding his father in law:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyotr_Durnovo
His daughter was speaking about her father. His vision of an All Russian Federation was much different that yours:
In the end, it doesn’t really matter what he thought or what he wrote, for as I’ve already pointed out, he was the ‘biggest nobody’ in Ukrainian history. It’s fitting that you find him to be such an admirable role model.
I wouldn’t be sure about that at all. My feeling is that the EU will try to engage Ukraine. Ukraine should prepare itself and try to be strong.
That’s right, that’s a real American identity (Leif was first!). If I didn’t like Russel Means so much, I’d say it’s the real American identity. But you said you were a Swede (so an r1a), not an Icelander / Tronder.
I have no problem paying a premium for a nice experience (whales jumping, mountains, single person boat ride out in the fjord to see a real viking ship, etc), but it was my Norwegian (and Swedish) friends themselves who have often complained. And, no, in general their salaries are not that high, especially CEO salaries (I don’t know what their full compensation packages are, maybe there’s more to it). My point was more about the aesthetics – while I like the Scandinavian style, I still consider it overrated (my purely subjective opinion).
Thanks so much for that tip, I love hanging out at the cafe during intermission. daydreaming
Btw, the Lviv opera building looks a lot like the Latvian National opera (inside)… if you have a minute, image google Odessa opera (just wow) and then Kharkiv opera (lol). Although I’m pretty interested in Kharkiv now too (while still a bit scared).
Kharkiv patriots are amazing… you know what came to my mind recently… given the Russophone patriots in the east… politically it looks a bit like Western vs Eastern Germany… it’s just a thought.
Dear Pan, as I already mentioned in another thread – they are similar but quite distinct (fluent Russian speaker here). That particular audio clip posted above, is quite easy to understand. But in general, one cannot understand everything that’s spoken on, let’s say, national Ukrainian TV, just based on knowledge of Russian. Significant chunks are hard to understand although some words one can guess (although easier when written). What helps is that grammar is almost identical. I’ve been learning a few words a day casually and picking up a lot of new words through Youtube videos through context (assimilating more vocab) and only now after a few months of casual listening am I starting to understand more (closer to 80%). It’s not easy, it’s a real foreign language, but knowing Russian definitely helps. It’s very beautiful (I heard somewhere there’s a list of most pleasant sounding languages and Ukrainian was number one), esp. those wide vowels as in “мене, тебе”… I also noticed that ppl from Kharkiv (who often learned it from their grandmothers or may have been bilingual since childhood but mostly spoke Russian) speak it with a slightly different accent (but fluent of course, and switch from one to another amazingly fast) than others (presumably from the West) who sound more Polish (I guess?).
I gotta say, though – I also really like Russian, a very powerful, complex, and practical yet very beautiful language.
Theoretically, maybe, in practice – very hard. The Russian military is pretty stretched out as it is (for instance, the troops they station in Kuban are actually meant for the anti-terrorist or whatever operation in Dagestan – more casualties there at this point than at Donbass, btw), they just moved troops to the North Korean border as well. Plus, all the other countless spots they have to cover (Russia is busy). And in case of more activity, they’d need at least partial mobilization – go ask that guy in Omsk who’s sitting in his couch comfortably watching TV if he wants to go get blown up in a tank (with the prospect of not being returned home to his mother, since there will be nothing to return).
I don’t think an Icelandic identity existed then. Probably they thought of themselves as Norwegian.
Since Swedish vikings attacked Russia instead I worked with what was available to me. And after all Leif Ericsson landed in Canada anyway. Though Canada is a fake country so whatever.
Norway is #2 in the world in median household income and #5 in the world in average wage.
USA has a lower median but a higher average owing to the CEO salaries you mentioned. In America the average CEO gets paid the equivalent of 300 workers whereas in Norway it’s more like 10 (and pointless to pay truly high salaries owing to punitive income taxes on top earners).
I’m not an equalicuck so I’m not going to heap praise upon the gay egalitarianism of Scandinavia, but point being the general level of prosperity in Norway is extremely high.
Agreed. It is however a business success.
Thanks for chiming in. I appreciate and concur with most all of your thoughts. I grew up in a Ukrainian speaking home, and learned Russian in college and also by speaking with both Ukrainian and Russian friends who’ve immigrated to the states. I’ve also picked up a lot of Polish, first as a child living in with my Polish godmother, and later conversing with Polish emigres during the 80’s & 90’s (it’s amazing how quickly alcohol helps to loosen up ones tongue). All of these languages are pleasant to the ear, perhaps Ukrainian being the most musically melodic:
https://www.slavorum.org/interesting-facts-about-the-ukrainian-language-you-may-want-to-know/
The most amusing part of the discussion about the ‘Rusianity’ or non-Rusianity of the ‘Ukrainians’ is that, by their own admisssion, they are…Khazars, and derived much pride out of it, as their ‘first constitution’, the ‘Bendery Constitution’ makes it plain:
“God, who is wondrous and unfathomable in his judgments, merciful in forbearance, just in punishment, has ever since the beginning of this visible> world elevated some kingdoms and peoples according to his most equitable judgment and humiliated others because of their offences and iniquities, reduced some to slavery and liberated others, exalted some and cast down others. In the same way, the valiant and ancient Cossack people, formerly called Khazar, was at first exalted by immortal glory, spacious territory, and heroic exploits which inspired fear both at sea and on land not only among neighbouring peoples but even in the Eastern Empire, so much so that the Eastern emperor, wishing to make lasting peace with it, joined his son in matrimony to the daughter of the Khagan, that is to say, the Cossack prince….
Whereas among the three theological virtues faith is the first, one should in this first article deal with the Orthodox faith of the Eastern confession, with which the valiant Cossack people was enlightened under the rule of Khazar princes by the Apostolic See of Constantinople, and to which it has remained unwaveringly faithful then and now, without straying from it to any alien religion…
Whereas the people formerly known as the Khazars and later called Cossacks trace their genealogical origin to the powerful and invincible Goths, and, moreover, whereas the laws of friendly neighbourhood connect and join together that Cossack people by the deepest ties of affectionate affinity to the Crimean state, with which the Zaporozhian Host many a time entered into military alliances, and from which it obtained assistance for the protection of its fatherland and its liberties; His Grace the Hetman shall endeavour, as far as is possible at present, to renew through his envoys to His Most Serene Highness the Khan the old brotherhood and military alliance with the Crimean state and to confirm perpetual friendship…”
Now, people and scholars scratch their heads to explain the disappearance of the Khazars! There are (insufficiently confirmed, one must admit) that the Polish Szlachta were in fact Khazars. That’s why Ukraine and Poland went so well together. Probably they should reunite, under EU aegis, of course, and with the blessing of the overseas Khazars. That would keep the Moskali at arms length. And of course rekindle the ‘deepest ties of affectionate affinity with the Crimean state’ and ‘to renew through his envoys to His Most Serene Highness the Khan the old brotherhood and military alliance with the Crimean state and to confirm perpetual friendship…”
Look who is talking about a “biggest nobody”.
The article you gave as well as my links give a more positive overview of his contribution to history – Ukrainian at that.
Once again, here’s the full translation of his edict for an All Russian Federation:
https://www.eurasiareview.com/22052011-pavlo-skoropadsky-and-the-course-of-russian-ukrainian-relations-analysis/
Ukraine has a very problematical kleptocracy which the EU is aware of.
With that in mind, it appears IMO more reasonable to believe that the chance of Ukraine becoming a full fledged EU member in the not too distant future (if ever) is doubtful – meaning that such an occurrence can’t be completely ruled out.
…no you can’t..and you’re an obious lying clown
He is speaking Russian with the odd non-Russian word ( substituting words in Russia gained from France, because “Ukrainianism” is more an expression of a backwards,loser mentality than an actual culture or country
…errr fluent in Russian, fluent in ukropian you dimwit
….most of the popular political and entertainment shows in Ukraine are done exclusively in Russian you idiot
Nowadays one could probably try and speak Russian in liberast retard circles by “iro-vating” every single English verb, and just anglisising everything….it would turn the beautiful Russian language into drivel, and be abnormal…but it would still be “talking Russian”
Likewise there is Ukrainian as it is meant to be spoken and practically spoken(i.e Russian, with the odd different word thrown in)…..then there is the non-used, moronic, fictitious version claimed by Nazi-Bandera fucktards who escaped to North America after the War, and after 1991 have used GosDep money to promote braindead lies
…..said nobody in the history of the world…ever. Plenty have said this about Russian though. “Ukrainians ” grasped the beauty of the Russian language even more then the Irish ( a real group of people) grasped of English
The point here is that in 2 separate interviews the inept russophobic dipshit ex-Ukrainian President is speaking Russian, well, retarded Russian….there’s no way you could say that’s a separate language being spoken there
He’s a special child for sure.
Russia survives only so long as the price of oil is such that it doesn’t substantially squash global demand. When it comes to oil, the price is set by insiders and supply always equals demand until oil and its derivatives are too costly to consume and produce.
AK: No, it is not. I am going to start trimming your comments for sheer stupidity, like I do to others for excessive rudeness and/or insane conspiracy theorizing.
Russia is a Rentier State who’s Revenue Stream, or GDP if you will, is predominantly dependent on, and comprised of, the extraction & sale of oil/gas to the world. In that sense, it’s similar to The Middle East. It doesn’t have much going for it otherwise. It’s not an Innovator like America & Germany and The West in general, and it’s not an Industrial Powerhouse like China.
I sense Putin and his Inner Circle know this and they have, and still are, crafting a Survival Strategy for Russia beyond The Crucible that is the implications of Peak Oil.
Russia, since it has nothing going for it organically other than its Diminishing Resources, will have to usurp the Innovation & Industry of others who possess it. I believe this is what Putin is doing. He’s stealthily penetrating to the deepest levels all the Targets, and yes America and The West are Targets, he perceives will outlast Russia past Peak Oil so as not to be cornered when Russia Proper can no longer survive on Oil Rents alone.
FYI, I’m the one who suggested lowering the price of oil suitably as The Sanction Of All Sanctions. The National Security State took my advice and yet never paid me for it.
Cheap Bastards!!
The Igor Sanction
Where are Skoropadsky’s followers today? His ‘grandson’ was passed around as a strange oddity (not unlike yourself)in the 00’s and finally returned to Canada, unable to garner any real supporters. His views are very nationalistic and totally at odds with the kind of junk that you’re trying to present. I’d leave some citations, but I forgot his first name. 🙂
Well, Yushchenko is definitely speaking in Ukrainian on that video clip, which makes me seriously doubt your proficiency in either Russian or Ukrainnian. In reality, you’re perhaps a novice in Russian? LatW concurs that he’s speaking in Ukrainian, and not Russian (although he’s studying Ukrainian and finds it easy to understand).
Anybody else out there want to chime in, on whether Yushchenko is speaking in Russian or Ukrainian?
You really are numb in addition to actually being a strange oddity.
The very links you provide along with my references, suggest that Skoro isn’t so negatively viewed – even by some Ukrainian anti-Russian leaning sources.
His practically moderate stance serves as a reasoned basis to best preserve Ukraine’s Communist drawn boundaries – something that wasn’t evident in the manner of the regimes which came after the ousted democratically elected Ukrainian president – in contradiction to an internationally brokered agreement.
But you’ll just likely go on babbling nonsense – much unlike my fact based reasoned input.
So:
Even so, I was struck that Friedrich List – who apart from being the leading advocate of protectionism also remained a German nationalist – advocated its subsummation by Germany in National System of Political Economy.
It seems to have been regarded as a realistic prospect in the mid-19th century.
This is an exaggeration.
There were very active linguistic Ukrainization campaigns in the 1920s, including cities like Odessa, with legal penalties for publishing in Russian, etc.
Ukrainian language book publications reached their all time peak in the 1920s and 1930s (!).
I don’t know about the Ukraine, but in Belorussia, there are incidences of peasant protests in the 1920s against the replacement of Russian in primary schooling with “useless” Belorussian.
At the height of centrifugal tendencies in the Russian Empire, which would create all sorts of ephemeral polities.
https://www.unz.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/russia-civil-war-states.png
The insurgency in the North Caucasus has killed approximately 1,000 pro-Russians (mostly local police and civilians) since 20009; yearly deaths have fallen from 500 in the late 2000s-early 2010 to 134 in 2017.
What does North Korea have to do with anything? Is it going to attack Russia?
Rather, an accurate overview that described the general situation.
Could you provide a link for this? I’m not disputing you, I would be interested in details.
This time was probably the peak of Ukrainian language use in Ukraine, prior to Soviet Russification. IIRC under the Tsars Ukraine had been about 80% or more Ukrainian-speaking (only 6% Russian-speaking in Kiev guberniya but 20% or so in the southern areas).
Already addressed that. Your autistic side is kicking in again.
Feel free to hold the Banderas and Petliuras in greater esteem – thus explaining the Crimea and Donbass predicaments, in conjunction with some realities in Kiev regime controlled Ukraine.
The latter specifically pertaining to a decent portion of the population not comfy in living in an entity where Ukrainian nationalists with an anti-Russian bent have disproportionate clout.
Shame, shame shame, Mickey – your nose is getting longer again – you’re lying. You’ve never answered my question:
(BTW, it’s you who has been diagnosed with being autistic by a medical professional, not I.)
You’re becoming more creative in your lies oh anonymous coward.
As for what you keep rehashing:
What’s the status of Crimea and rebel held Donbass today? Likewise, Kiev regime controlled Ukraine has elements which are understandably not comfy with the disproportionate nationalist influence since the overthrow of Yanukovych.
You present links which didn’t disparage Skoropadsky. In turn, I gave the reasoned impression that his vision for Ukraine would serve its interests much better than what’s evident in the present.
Just answer the question and quit obfuscating your inability to come up with a decent answer:
He has few if any followers in the world today. His movement actually was popular in Germany, Great Britain, Canada and the USA after WWII. His son, Danylo, was the heir apparent, but ‘died under mysterious circumstances’ in Great Britain while in his fifties. The Hetmanite movement basically fizzled out sometime in the 1950’s or during the early 1960’s at the very latest. The last notable admirer of the Hetman that I’ve personally met was Omeljan Pritsak – yes the one who was responsible for the Harvard Ukrainian Research Instiute – an intelligent man who admired the Hetman not because of any momentary shifts in the Hetman’s stance towards Ukrainian autonomy, but for his general conservative outlook. I allow every human being at least one fatal character flaw (you’ve exceeded your allotment years ago!). 🙂
Interesting, sounds pretty cool. So when you first heard Russian, did you understand a lot of it or most it?
The point was just that Russia has to deploy in all directions close to its borders. Even if you don’t count the deaths of the insurgents (just the other day 9 of them were killed and these operations in Dagestan are on the news with some regularity), it is an elaborate, ongoing operation that takes up resources (highly skilled military, FSB and such).
Re: North Korea, I don’t know what the heck it was, but at some point Russia deployed tanks there, on that tiny border with North Korea. I don’t know if they’re still there, but the point is that Russia has to focus in all directions, yes, it’s normal for Russia, but it’s a lot of work (even at a relatively peaceful time).
I first really heard Russian while travelling to Ukraine in the 1970’s as a kid. I really couldn’t understand much at all. They really are two different languages, and if you’ve only heard one of them and not the other, you’ll know what I mean. I couldn’t understand much more than about every tenth word when watching TV there, or when going to the movies. Once I took some college level courses and had the opportunity to converse with immigrants in the 1980’s and onward, I picked up the Russian lingo quite quickly. Today, knowing both languages (Ukrainian still better than Russian), I definitely can see the similarities. The more languages that you know, the better off you are – I commend you for your efforts to learn Ukrainian. How about you, how and why did you first learn Russian?
You cretins are lying to yourselves…inept and a disgrace to see. Particularly from North American pseudo-“Ukrainians”….most likely emigrated in disgrace after the war, and from areas that at the time and for most of history were never “Ukrainian”…( a common feature of US funded moronic cunts promoting the Golodomor myth)
Nobody has really even attempted to backup you,….even that freakshow fucked in the head spamtroll algorithm clown who is on here 22 hours a day. The fact is Yushchenko is speaking clearly a dialect of Russian, called “Ukrainian” in the video.
Go through both videos , word for word, and it’s obvious who is telling the truth
He’s pretty much a waste of time, as evidenced by what he chooses to highlight.
It looks like you’re another good candidate for the treatment outlined in comment #45. Be careful though, try not to blow out a gasket before you get there. 🙂
Once again, the sources you linked didn’t view Skoro in the negative manner that you have.
Your ongoing “popularity” mantra serves to explain the situation in the former Ukrainian SSR. A good number there understandably don’t see the likes of Mazepa, Petliura and Bandera as heroes.
Such is the sorry state in the former Ukrainian SSR, which explains the situations in Crimea and rebel held Donbass, as well as the kleptocratic nationalist presence in Kiev regime controlled Ukraine, whose leaders aren’t popular with the population – whether the latter are pro or anti-Russian.
blah, blah blah…
Hint: I’ve already provided you with a script in comment #419.
You’re once again ducking. You said he was a nothing, while providing links suggesting a more positive take.
“Popular” isn’t always right, with Hitler in Germany being a prime example. Skoro’s
edict for an All Russian Federation was a reasoned blueprint for a non-Communist entity consisting of much of the former Russian Empire.
https://www.eurasiareview.com/22052011-pavlo-skoropadsky-and-the-course-of-russian-ukrainian-relations-analysis/
He’s a’big nothing’in my own opinion. Others may find more to him and his 14 months on the Ukranian stage than I. So, getting back to his legacy, (what legacy?), where are his followers today? Since you can’t seem to point to anything of any substance, I’d have to say that you’re the one who’s ‘ducking’ the question:
Mike Averko’s answer:
That’s describing you multiple times.
Keep on keeping on with yours svido ways.
Ok, Gerard, you win. But only because you cherry picked a slice that is very easy to understand. This is exactly the most frustrating issue I’m having right now with Ukrainian – there would be several relatively simple phrases that can be understood or guessed from context (although the pronunciation would be hard to replicate), but then you’d stumble upon words that are simply different. It throws everything off and makes the whole text incomprehensible. The truth is, very simple words such as зробити, бачити, чути, are indispensable and I couldn’t understand them when I first heard them. In fact, I can see how Russians, when hearing Ukrainian, can at times go “what the…”. I, however, find it interesting.
Also, there’s a whole category of words that have a common Balto-Slavic root, but the way they’ve shaped out makes them sound different and sometimes they even have a different meaning. It makes a big difference whether one understands that питання means question and not attempt or effort, хвилина means minute and not time, важко means hard, difficult and not just heavy, краще means better and not pretty (there’s a Latvian word like that too, that means “pretty, beautiful”). Etc. For everyone who says that these words come from Polish and that they were somehow invented by Poles or Austrians — no, these words come from the common Balto-Slavic ancestral linguistic pool. Baltic is the closest to Sanskrit, and it’s possible that my people came from Dnipro through Belarus. These words stem from thousands of years ago, when our ancestors were still wandering around the steppe and have nothing to do with Austro-Hungary or whatever. Yes, words such as сенс and кордон come from Latin, but they’re not prevalent.
p.s. btw, normally I wouldn’t talk to someone who as is as rude as you, but since you revealed who you are and this topic interests me, I just wanted to tell you that you have a right to feel angry, and I’m very sorry about what happened.
Yeah man, we’ll keep up with our ‘Svido’ & Skoro’ ways! Hep, Big Daddy, Averko! 🙂
I first learned Russian as a kid in Latvia, I had many Russian friends. It was pretty early, before I went to school. In fact, my mom taught me to read Russian before I went to first grade. I don’t have any Slavic ancestry. None of my grandparents spoke Russian by the way and in the parts of Western Latvia where I used to hang out in the summers nobody spoke (or even understood) Russian. But during the school year I was so immersed in it that I had no accent. Only later when I struck out on my own, an accent crept in (it annoys me, lol, now I have to strain myself a little not to have an accent). I learned English in my teens. Btw, I was always wondering how it must be for those Ukies who had not been exposed to Russian at all. To me this is difficult to fathom. 🙂 Knowing Ukrainian will help me follow politics better.
Btw, my grandfather wasn’t originally from Western Latvia, but from Riga, where he lived before the war and studied classical languages (he also knew German), I guess that’s where my love of languages came from. He only retreated to the country side during the war to lay low (he wasn’t part of either of the militaries, luckily). Did your family leave Ukraine before or after the war, Pan Hack?