The End of TV and the Future of Russian Politics

Though they remain a solid majority, fewer and fewer Russians are getting their news from TV.

Where do you most often get your news about Russia and the world?

. 2009 2013 2018
TV 94% 88% 73%
Internet (journals, websites, etc) 9% 21% 37%
Friends 26% 24% 18%
Social networks 6% 14% 28%
Radio 41% 16% 15%
Newspapers 37% 20% 13%
Journals 8% 4% 3%
Other 0% 1% 0%
Not interested 0% 1% 2%
N/A 0% 1% 0%

This trend is accompanied by an even greater loss of trust in TV; while 79% cited it as one of their most trusted news sources in 2009, since 2013 that figure has hovered around 50%.

Meanwhile, both the popularity and trust towards Internet portals and social media has basically quadrupled.

This is strongly concordant with what my own personal observations. The TV continues to blast out noise and light amongst provincial boomers. But as you head into the bigger cities, including Moscow, and go down the generations to the yuppies, more and more people getting information from online websites, social media (in terms of audience sophistication, Facebook > VK > odnoklassniki), and YouTube personalities such as Yury Dud’.

This may well form part of the explanation behind the recent spate of United Russia losses in the September gubernatorial elections:

  • UR candidate Andrey Tarasenko beat KPRF candidate Andrey Ishchenko, but only thanks to the last minute fraud that was so blatant that, in an unprecedented step, the results have since been annulled, and a new election scheduled for December.
  • UR candidate Svetlana Orlova lost to LDPR candidate Vladimir Sipyagin 37% to 57% in Vladimir oblast.
  • UR candidate Vyacheslav Shport lost to LDPR candidate Sergey Furgal 28% to 70% in Khabarovsk krai.

These are the sorts of people who may well be running Russia in another 10-15 years, as the trends that are getting established now set the stage for politics after Putin.

  1. SWPL is winning out over sovok, and the idiot box is going out with them.

It is going to become progressively harder for the kremlins to push empty suits on the regions. They have (wisely) decided not to try to power through with massive fraud. So they are going to have to up their game instead and actually field competitive candidates. The kremlins would also do well to get a better grip on how those intertubes work; Putin’s low level of Internet literacy is a widespread rumor, and I can confirm with high confidence that it is correct.

Furthermore, we can be confident in expecting the Internet to make deep further inroads into TV, eventually displacing it as the premier information source.

  1. Reanimation of opposition politics. It’s not really a secret that both the KPRF and the LDPR is “nominal” opposition, with elections constituting a sort of referendum on the regime as opposed to a genuine political competition. But as the boost from Crimea wears out, and Putin edges closer to retirement, we can expect this “systemic” opposition to become more serious. As the (liberal) journalist Leonid Ragozin recently noted: “It’s only a matter of time before it switches to real, or as the Kremlin likes to dub it – “non-systemic” opposition. It also emboldens the systemic opposition by reminding both the Communists and LDPR that they control powerful mobilization machines capable of operating independently from the Kremlin.

  2. The most competitive factions are Communists and nationalists. As opposed to the single digit percentage approval liberals that the Western media fawns attention over (which only enjoys considerable support in the yuppiest, SWPList quarters).

  3. And of the two, I submit that the nationalists have the better prospects. Long-time readers will know that I have long been bearish on the KPRF’s long-term prospects due to demographics. Its current, somewhat Marxist, somewhat traditionalist base is dying out, and frankly I suspect its long term fate is to be commandeered by marginal SJWs, as has been the fate of most Western Communist parties. A sad but appropriate fate.

But we can add another reason to that: There is no real class struggle in modern Russia. The raising of the retirement age, which has temporarily decimated United Russia’s ratings, should have been a boon to the KPRF. Instead, it has passed without effect: The party’s electoral rating was 9% in August 2018, exactly the same as in December 2017 – and down two percentage points from 2016. In contrast, the LDPR has risen by a couple of percentage points since 2016. Even though Zhirinovsky unequivocally declared that he supports the pension reform, e.g. during the LDPR gathering that I recently attended in Moscow.

Comments

  1. Thorfinnsson says

    But we can add another reason to that: There is no real class struggle in modern Russia.

    I suspect there is an unreported class struggle between Russia’s 1% and the oligarchy. What’s the viable path to true wealth in Russia today beyond systemic high level corruption?

    Working class Russians not so much, especially for the younger ones who aren’t outraged that apartments are no longer a state benefit. The material conditions (and media conditions, or rather lack thereof) which were widespread in the past to mobilize outraged workers no longer exist in modern countries.

  2. hahahahaha! Even by Karlin’s standard of braindead 5th column scumbag garbage….this drivel of a post takes the piss. Lie after lie, from start to finish

    A few months ago Putin steamrolled the opposition in the same regions in the Presidential elections

    United Russia have won 18 out of 21 Gubernator elections this month , all 18 by large, huge margins you dumb pri*k, add in Duma, Zak.sobraniya elections and so on ( although the Khabarovsk governor lost, despite plenty of recent good work after years of relatively average performance……….United Russia still won the mayorship of Khabarovsk)…ER have actually had a hugely successful election period this month you dumb POS

    It was the KPRF candidate who cheated in Primorye, against Tarasenko, who last week beat him by 23%

    It’s not really a secret that both the KPRF and the LDPR is “nominal” opposition, with elections constituting a sort of referendum on the regime as opposed to a genuine political competition.

    ….more insanely lying bollocks….which one of these liberast freaks you give a handjob to, that made you type this spambot nonsense?

    Zhirik with the fraction of the posts still has roughly the same number of followers on Social media as Navalny

    This bollocks about “end of TV”…. WTF is on all day on Perviy Kanal or NTV that is going to influence how somebody votes in a regional election you dumb twat karlin?
    On the internet there are videos millions of views of Russia television political debate shows every day. These pseudo polls are more a measure of people all around the world using computers than any comment at all on Russian elections

    Typical , afte sodomising the dum c*nt Bershidsky all day…Karlin goes for the equally pathetically inept cown Ragozin

    Does the cretin Karlin actually give any numerical figure of how many are watching television

    Pensioners listening to Radio have free reign to listen to all sorts of opinions and tales…as they do on state tv …and in the Russian newspapers at national and regional level

    Coward. Conman. Californian C*nt

    Putin and United Russia’s support is highest in the lower age brackets too you thick POS

  3. anonymous coward says

    There’s no such thing as “true wealth”. Wealth is a social construct, and “true wealth” is a dumb myth anglos tell themselves to soothe their conscience.

    That said, if you want high profits and low risk in Russia, your choices should be metals, fertilizers or IT.

    Corruption is high risk and low profits. The only plus side is low startup costs.

  4. The most competitive factions are Communists and nationalists

    After United Russia falls, they merge in the name of national unity or something, becoming a new vanguard party and establishing a nazbol regime.

    Then they send the air force to bomb Israel. Meme it.

  5. That said, if you want high profits and low risk in Russia, your choices should be metals, fertilizers or IT.

  6. Now, now. Please calm down, my sovok friend.

    I agree with your main point – Putin is thr bestest leader ever, United Russia is really cool with the kids, and Russia’s provincial poor are really overjoyed that their roads are cracking and kids get burned alive in school fires due to lack of safety regs, while their tax dollars can go where Allah wants them: into Peskov’s overseas bank account.

    God bless United Russia, death to America

  7. On a more serious note, I’m not surprises at all by the trends Karlin’s showing – it’s Russia continuing to crawl out of the Third World and becoming more “Western” in its politics.

    Nationalists vs. SJW commies also characterizes the young “Generation Zyklon” in every Western country, especially the US, and that will be Russia’s future too. Putin’s corrupt strongman uniparty, which is typically Third World, will appeal less and less to the Russian people as the old generations die off. It’s an obsolete boomer ideology with no future, just as Clintonite centrism has no future in the US.

  8. That means Germany is politically Third World too. :0

  9. Germany isn’t third-world like the ex-USSR, but it’s indeed ruled by a centrist boomer establishment which has no future among the young.

  10. Putin edges closer to retirement and people wonder who will replace him. What I want to know is who will replace Zhirinovski? I mean in terms of entertainment and outrageous statement value. Can these shoes be filled?

  11. Karlin must do it.

  12. Thorfinnsson says

    Based on the reactions he gets from other Russians here I’m not sure he’s terribly electable in Russia.

    Granted, Felix Keverich seems supportive of Karlin (not without disagreements, but disagreements are fine).

    But then Karlin can always lie and run on a National Sovokist platform. Free apartments AND the destruction of the hated Ukronazis!

  13. So, you hate us? Whereas I find you to be highly amusing! 🙂

    BTW, I’ve never been able to figure it out, from so many of the contributors here, why nationalists of all stripes and persuasions are deemed to be positive around here, except for Ukrainian ones? It doesn’t really add up and adds a sense of mystery to your MO…

    Incongruence?…

  14. Russia’s provincial poor are really overjoyed that their roads are cracking and kids get burned alive in school fires

    Things are steadily improving each year, even in areas like fires and road traffic deaths.

    Improvements – for example in traffic deaths, fire deaths, murder rates, very significant, although from a very bad base situation.

    • I was going to suggest Karlin an analysis about road deaths. In this area, a lot has to do with steadily updating the car fleet though (newer car fleet with things like electronic stability control, airbags, anti-lock brakes, etc) .

  15. Thorfinnsson says

    Just wait until some Canadian nationalists appear. You Ukrainians will come in for a break then. 🙂

  16. I have relatives in Canada. They’re happy being Canadians and I’m happy being an American. No one is dreaming of ‘unifying’ the two countries. I drink Jim Beam, they prefer VO or Windsor – it’s all good! 🙂

  17. I was thinking how Ukraine could become a cool country, and Ukrainian nationalism something which inspires people around the world.

    Imagine if Ukraine has 20 years of neoliberal dictatorship similar to Pinochet, and could succeed in being the first country to fully realize Chicago school economic reforms by 2040?

    Additional policies implemented so Ukraine becomes the world’s more attractive, international tax haven.

    Ukraine then gives free citizenship to any people around the world with assets over a certain level (maybe $10 million), as well as lifetime freedom from taxation for potential capitalists, and safety from extradition for all wealthy people who will ever live in Ukraine.

    Ukraine could exit all international agreements on extradition and financial crimes. Other policies, such as full drug legalization, becoming world center of psychoactive drug research, and introduction of fully 0% corporation tax for all multinationals.

    Aesthetics completely changed. Embroidery and khokhols, replaced with attempt to recreate Chicago of the 1920s.

    External international image of Ukraine would be improved, with sponsorship deals with Justin Bieber or Ariana Grande to add statements about low taxation policies of Ukraine to their songs. (By this time, Ukraine will be very popular with international celebrities, who go there for its 0% taxation policy of the wealthy, legal drugs, etc).

    They could also rename all cities, by adding prefix “neo” in front of everything, which makes it sound more modern. So for example, “neozhitomir”. Also there could be a nationwide competition with teenagers around the country, to develop a cooler name for Ukraine.

  18. My, you have an out of control imagination…(it’s cool though). A lot of what you say is interesting, but remember:

    You might be able to take the khokhol out of Ukraine, but you’ll never be able to take the Ukrainian out of a khokhol!

    Remember Jack Palance at the Hollywood commemoration of ‘Russian’ actors? 🙂

  19. Old school Canuck nationalists don’t like Ukies because they, along with the usual suspects, played a significant role turning the once great Anglo-Canada into a multicultural Trudeaupia.

    From Wikipedia: Perhaps one of the most lasting contributions Ukrainian Canadians have made to the wider culture of Canada is the concept of multiculturalism which was promoted as early as 1964 by Senator Paul Yuzyk. During and after the debates surrounding the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism Ukrainian leaders, such as linguist Jaroslav Rudnyckyj, came out in force against the notion of English – French biculturalism which they believed denied the contributions other peoples had made to Canada. Partly in response to this, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau shifted Canada to a policy of official multiculturalism.

    It’s been all downhill from there.

  20. I was thinking how Ukraine could become a cool country, and Ukrainian nationalism something which inspires people around the world.

    Ukraine will need cooler celebrity supporters than Anne Applebaum and Lindsay Graham. Where do the two Millas – Jovovich and Kunis – both born there, stand on Ukrainian nationalism?

  21. Thorfinnsson says

    Wow, this is a gem. An undiscovered basis for Russo-American cooperation.

    It turns out both Russia and America have phony countries bordering them which need to be liberated from Ukrainian delusions of grandeur.

    Who knew?

    That said I’ll throw our Ukies a bone–they’re good commenters, if overly focused on the Ukraine.

    At least there is no Ukrainian “Gerard2” here (I love Gerard2, but not for flattering reasons).

  22. Why not?

    Imagine this objective: to match by 2040, the GDP per capita of Bermuda, even if this requires importing domicile status of several millions wealthy foreigners that have legal difficulties in their home country.

    What’s the most gypsy area of Ukraine? This could be sold to a joint stock company managed by Boer landowners. Boer shareholders would invest land in Ukraine, due to 0% taxation. And despite not paying taxes, Boer wives will still boost the economy, with their numerous shopping trips in Neokiev.

    The Mormon angle is also interesting. Which city could be sold to municipality of Salt Lake City? Where would Mitt Romney be attracted to buy a holiday home? Imagine the Mormon tax-free state in Eastern Ukraine, attracting even a small part of the vast wealth of the American Mormon church.

  23. It turns out both Russia and America have phony countries bordering them which need to be liberated from Ukrainian delusions of grandeur.

    I’d be interested in hearing about Ukrainian ‘delusions of grandeur’ that you have in mind? How have Ukrainians in either Canada or in Ukraine threatened either the US or Russia?

  24. If what you say is true (and it isn’t) then the Anglo cuckservatives deserve to be lowered on the socio-economic latter. Ukrainians have melded perfectly into a predominantly Anglo society in Canda, as is evidenced by prominaries like Chrysita Freeland and Taras Kuzio – both the products of mixed Anglo/Ukrainian families. Although less noteworthy, I have cousins in Toronto also from such a marriage. Two beautiful gals who are equally versatile in making a Ukrainian borshch or London style fish & chips.

  25. Fascinating stuff, I’m all for it. I’d be interested in your ideas for making Russia great again too…

  26. Don’t blame the Ukrainians for Canada’s failure to hold onto its European heritage. England and France are both further gone than is Canada, you should be grateful that you were not left to your own devices.

  27. Kunis is Jewish so she is not particularly enthusiastic.

    Here is Jovovich singing a Ukrainian folk song:

    I don’t think she is any sort of nationalist, however.

    But Jared Leto was on Maidan:

    http://gawker.com/jared-letos-band-drops-by-the-kiev-demonstrations-1542983070

    The actress Vera Farmiga is a diaspora Ukrainian. I met her when we were kids.

  28. Well I do sort of write about that. E.g. about the fires: http://www.unz.com/akarlin/dies-the-fire-in-russia/

  29. Based on the reactions he gets from other Russians here I’m not sure he’s terribly electable in Russia.

    Many of them boomers, some of them not even Russians, and none of whom actually live in Russia, as AP pointed out. I can do without that particular constituency.

    My ideas are very much in sync with двачеры (Russia’s 4chan), who are destined by fate to one day memetically propel their candidate to victory.

    I can be a viable candidate if I was to invest time in looksmaxing and drastically improving my public speaking. The latter would be my real stumbling block. That, and my extended stay abroad. That is what would probably preclude me from performing well in Russian politics if/when it opens up.

  30. When Canadians fret about “multiculturalism” they are really worried about demographic replacement. There is a strong taboo, however, against discussing the latter issue.

    Would things be any different today if Pierre Elliot Trudeau had not become Prime Minister in 1968? I don’t think so, and I’m thinking about all the things we like to blame him for. By 1968, all of the major decisions had been made. Everything that followed was inevitable.

    “… in 1962 Ottawa ended racial discrimination as a feature of the immigration system. In 1967, a points system was introduced to rank potential immigrants for eligibility. Race, colour, or nationality were not factors in the new system; rather, work skills, education levels, language ability (in speaking French or English), and family connections became the main considerations in deciding who could immigrate.

    In 1969, Canada signed the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, 18 years after it had first been adopted by the UN.”

    https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/immigration-policy

    All of these changes had bipartisan support. Nothing would have been different if the Conservatives had been in power. As for multiculturalism, nothing would have been different either. A country is multicultural to the extent it no longer has a majority group that dominates cultural norms. In the past, immigrants assimilated because the country was overwhelmingly English or French. That is no longer the case.

    And if we had no Ukrainians we wouldn’t have Faith Goldy.

  31. Ukraine and Russia…

    1) Ukraine is too close to Russia, allowing it to enter NATO undermines Russia’s strategic position. The Kremlin did the minimum required for this not to happen in 2014. Taking Crimea secured a Russian base over there, and helping Donbas rebels saved at least one pocket of pro-Russian resistance to the Maidan regime.

    2) Ukrainian identity is based upon flimsy regional difference people of Little Russia had with people of Greater Russia, that developed from Russian peasants living for many centuries under Polish overlords. Russian historical framework does not cut out one peace of Rus’ out of the puzzle. To the Russian, Rus’ is everywhere from Rava-Rus’ka, and Podkarparska Rus to Vladivostok. Ukrainian historiography is forced to come up with hybrid constructions such as Ukraina-Rus’, Rus’-Ukraina that are clearly ahistorical. Some Ukrainian schizophrenics go as far as to claim, Moskali (that is Greater Russians) stole their name “Rus'”.

    The idea of Ukrainian nation has only fully crystallised in the late nineteenth century, and does not have any historical precedence. Some nations are simply better formed than others. In my opinion, just as the nation was created, it can be undone.

    3) Ukrainian identity is almost entirely based on denial of Russianness. Russian language is to be replaced by a codified village patois, beneficial trade relations with Greater Russia are to be severed in favour of doubtful relationship with countries to the West, Ukraine ought to have its own Church with Patriarch of All Rus’-Ukraine (lol), Ukraine ought to have its own history that would establish that Ukrs lived in the area from the time of the Neolithic Trypilia culture.

    I would call this psychosis. Ukraine is a patient, and Russia is the doctor, Russian nationalism is the cure.

  32. The idea of Ukrainian nation has only fully crystallised in the late nineteenth century, and does not have any historical precedence.

    Actually, outside western Europe, this is true just about everywhere. Possibly a little later in Ukraine and Russia than in much of eastern and central Europe.

  33. Well in such case, Ukraine will become the symbol of hope not only for the Russian Federation, but an entire world.

    AP will no longer have to post about loser celebrities from the 1980s. Actually, there will hardly be time to post all paparazzi photos of Justin Bieber, Mitt Romney and Ariana Grande, queuing to renew their Ukrainian passport, or the last time G-Eazy was waterskiing in the Dnieper, and Jay-Z has referenced his offshore bank account in Kiev.

  34. Here is Jovovich singing a Ukrainian folk song:

    Milla Jovovich was born in 1975 in Kiev, Ukrainian SSR,[12] the daughter of Galina Loginova, a Russian actress, and Bogich Jovovich, a Serbian doctor.[13][14] Her maternal ancestors were from the Russian city of Tula.[15] Her paternal ancestors are from the Vasojevići clan and they also lived in Metohija.[16] She spent most of her early childhood in Moscow, Russian SFSR, her mother’s native city,[17][18] and says she was born in Ukraine “pretty much by accident”.[18]”

  35. Yes – remember, it was a good post.

    Traffic deaths could be an interesting topic.

    Varlamov was writing a week or two ago, about how there were 1800 road deaths in the last month, and all the commentators were writing in an echo chamber about what a disaster the situation is.

    But obviously overall trend of death numbers are falling significantly in recent years, even if many reasons are politically nonrelevant (e.g. slowly updating car-fleet as people buying newer cars, with more safety features, like electronic stability control, airbags, etc).

  36. Things are steadily improving each year, even in areas like fires and road traffic deaths.

    Road deaths in Russia have fallen from 27000 in 2014, down to 19000 in 2017- a remarkable improvement.There are still huge numbers of morons on the road, catastrophic accidents and a well-above acceptable numbers of pedestrians being hit, nobody in Dagestan can drive properly……..but the roads have hugely improved, so has driver behaviour, but mainly the roads/junction design /maintenance .

    murder rates have fallen into single digits…which is a miraculous achievement
    All the major non-ethnic republic cities have European crime levels (i.e minimal) or at worst American….considering how not long ago Russia’s crime rates in all areas was a combination of all the worst excesses of South African and central American crime….this is great. All done by entirely democratic methods….whereas imbeciles in America would try to eradicated crime by entirely autocratic methods

    In fires, for some reason……Belarus is atrocious, way above the rest of the ex USSR states.

    Going back to cars, I believe it’s mainly road behaviour and driver behaviour , not updating of the car fleets ( well, m0st of the fatal accidents seem to be involving some dickhead in a relatively modern car)

  37. The idea of Ukrainian nation has only fully crystallised in the late nineteenth century, and does not have any historical precedence.

    So what? The same is true of Germany amd Italy too.

    Ukrainian identity is based upon flimsy regional difference people of Little Russia had with people of Greater Russia, that developed from Russian peasants living for many centuries under Polish overlords.

    Ukrainian history is an amalgamation of currents including social, ethnic, and state processes that took place within the Ukrainian geographical zone for many centuries. The differences between Ukraine and Russia are as pronounced as to serve as the basis of a different nationality.

    Ukrainian identity is almost entirely based on denial of Russianness.

    Not really. It stands on its own and needs no such flimsy basis to exist.

    Russian language is to be replaced by a codified village patois,

    Most languages in the world were originally based on some sort of a ‘village patois’, including Russian. The Russian language was never a native language to Ukraine, but was imported from the Russian north.

    Ukraine ought to have its own Church with Patriarch of All Rus’-Ukraine (lol),

    This is exactly what’s going on right now. Sit back and watch this very important process take place right before your eyes!

    The idea that Ukraine is somehow a subset of Russian history is moribund, regressive, and totally at odds with historical processes.

  38. Ukraine is too close to Russia, allowing it to enter NATO undermines Russia’s strategic position.

    Baltics are about as close. Kiev only 200 km closer to Moscow than is Talinn. And St. Petersburg is right next to Finland and the Baltics.

    Kiev is closer to Warsaw than to Moscow. “Allowing Ukraine to enter alliance with Russia undermines NATO’s strategic position .”

    Ukrainian identity is based upon flimsy regional difference people of Little Russia had with people of Greater Russia

    Ukrainian/Little Russian language more distinct from Russian language than Spanish is from Italian. Songs, folk dress, etc. are also distinct.

    that developed from Russian peasants living for many centuries under Polish overlords

    English identity based on flimsy differences caused by German peasants living under French-speaking Norman overlords 🙂

    To the Russian, Rus’ is everywhere from Rava-Rus’ka, and Podkarparska Rus to Vladivostok.

    This is because Russians believe in fairytales and that similar names have magic properties. A Romanian, whose national idea has less of a fairytale quality, will not believe that his country extends to Rome 🙂

    Rus’-Ukraina that are clearly ahistorical

    Correct. It’s just as historical as Moscow claiming Rus.

    As a descendant of Varangians I reject the idea of Slavs, be they Russians or Ukrainians, stealing my people’s name for purposes of self-aggrandizement 🙂

    But it’s a normal phenomenon. I work with a lot of Puerto Ricans, colloquially even African-looking ones refer to themselves as Spanish at times. Filipinos name themselves after a Spanish king. Eastern Slavs are not alone in their silliness.

    The idea of Ukrainian nation has only fully crystallised in the late nineteenth century, and does not have any historical precedence

    It began in late 18th century as Little Russianism and changed its name in the late 19th century. But the ideology was the same. The Little Russian tract published in the 1790s and shared widely as samizdat in Little Russia claimed Little Russians were real Rus while Great Russians were Tatars/Mongols. The Little Russian language was standardized and based on the dialect of Poltava, the purest Little Russian region, and later renamed as Ukrainian (some Russians believe a fairytale that the standardized Ukrainian language is based on the Galician dialect – the Galician dialect ironically resembles Rusyn very closely).

    Pretty much all nationalisms developed at this time, late 18th to early 19th centuries, nationalism is a symptom of Romanticism. Ukrainian is maybe 2-3 decades behind Russia. The consequence of this delay is Ukrainian nationalism came of age when nationalism was focused on the “common people” (the time when the Grimm brothers and Anderson were gathering peasant fairytales, 19th rather than late 18th century), whereas slightly older Russian nationalism reflected love of everything “ancient.” So Russian standardized language got a lot of fake archaisisms from Church Slavonic while standardized Ukrainian was more naturally based on living peasant speech. Russian language’s more artificial nature makes it simpler than Ukrainian.

    Ukrainian identity is almost entirely based on denial of Russianness.

    Typical myopia. Strongest Ukrainian identity is in a region that in 8000 years only had a 50 year connection to Russia. There is nothing to deny.

    Russian language is to be replaced by a codified village patois

    Basically all national languages are originally codified village patois (otherwise they would be Latin). This is particularly true of eastern Europe, including Russia. Dressing up Great Russian with French and Church Slavonic words doesn’t change this.

    I would call this psychosis. Ukraine is a patient

    Your projection is noted.

  39. Here is the 1790s Little Russian manifesto that became popular among literate Little Russian noblemen and officers:

    http://izbornyk.org.ua/istrus/istrus02.htm

    Strongest Ukrainian identity is in a region that in 8000 years only had a 50 year connection to Russia

    .

    Should have been 800.

  40. Actually, outside western Europe, this is true just about everywhere.

    In some way all nations are modern creations, they were impossible and unnecessary in the pre-modern environment. But as I pointed out, some national myths are more successful than others. The Ukrainian myth is a violet reaction to the Russian myth of the Little Russian peasant. Unfortunately, that is largely the source of Ukraine’s current problems. And it will not end well for Ukraine.

    National myths are constructed out of national symbols that have historical origins. When I say Ukraine has no historical precedence, I mean that Ukraine is a very modern invention, and lacks independent historical source of symbols needed for nation formation. Their identity is based upon de-Russification which brings them in direct conflict with the Russian system of mythology, and compels Russia to assert it’s historical truth in the face of the Ukrainian challenge.

  41. Thorfinnsson says

    Germany? Are you kidding me?

    Germans have been known a distinct nationality for one thousand years.

    Perhaps you’ve heard of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation?

    High German has been spoken for thirteen centuries, and Low German began disappearing five centuries ago.

    Nobody had to come up with a “German Idea” the way a bunch of schmucks cooked up the “Ukrainian Idea” because there was no question of who or what Germans were.

    The comparison with Italy is more apt. Italian regional identities are old, but remain distinct in many cases. So Ukrainians could be the Sicilians of Russia or something.

  42. AP:

    The Istoria Rusov Maloi Rusi is about Rusy, and Malaia Rus’. I don’t read anything about Ukrainians there. And the book is written in 18th century Little Russian variant of the Russian language that I can easily read and understand today. First attempt to write in the peasant patois was done by Kotlyarevskiy in 19th century as a joke, and the latter called the language “Little Russian”.

    Ukrainians as an identity have really appeared as an identity in late nineteenth century with activists like Mykola Makhnovsky and his brochure Samostiyna Ukraina, and the poetess Lesya Ukrayinka.

    I do not claim there wasn’t an idea of separate identity among Rusy of Malaya Rus’. But that was not Ukrainian nationalism.

  43. The Ukrainian myth is a violet reaction to the Russian myth of the Little Russian peasant

    Latvian and Estonian myth, reaction to Balto-German myth of Baltic peasant. Finnish myth, reaction to Swedish or Russian myth of Finnish peasant. Lithuanian myth, reaction to Polish myth of Lithuanian peasant. Etc.

    And it will not end well for Ukraine.

    Region where Ukrainian myth is strongest is most successful. And Ukraine improves as its myth grows stronger.

    National myths are constructed out of national symbols that have historical origins

    Correct.

    When I say Ukraine has no historical precedence, I mean that Ukraine is a very modern invention, and lacks independent historical source of symbols needed for nation formation

    Your magical preoccupation with names, again? Ukraine starts with Galician kings and Cossacks.

    If Russian mythmakers were more honest, their myth would start with Muscovite princes and tsars, rather than Viking chieftains who sold Slavs as slaves to Arabs and burned down Slavic cities. African-Americans don’t claim that English slave traders were their people, after all.

  44. The Istoria Rusov Maloi Rusi is about Rusy, and Malaia Rus’. I don’t read anything about Ukrainians there…I do not claim there wasn’t an idea of separate identity among Rusy of Malaya Rus’. But that was not Ukrainian nationalism

    You attach magic significance to name. Replace Little Russian and Ukrainian and it is the same thing. In fact, many of the same people who developed the Little Russian idea and standardized the Little Russian language renamed themselves Ukrainians and the language that they standardized as Ukrainian.

    So to say that Little Russian stuff wasn’t Ukrainian stuff is transparently silly. I understand your purpose – to support your fantasy that Ukrainians were invented in the late 19th century. But it isn’t realistic.

  45. , I mean that Ukraine is a very modern invention, and lacks independent historical source of symbols needed for nation formation. Their identity is based upon de-Russification which brings them in direct conflict with the Russian system of mythology, and compels Russia to assert it’s historical truth in the face of the Ukrainian challenge.

    Ukrainian ideas and folk songs are often best encapsulated in the music of the wandering kobzar, a Ukrainian cossack minstrel that was around since at least the Cossack Hetmanite period. The music you can listen to here, has nothing at all to do with any ‘de-Russification’ process that you keep alluding to, but rather, is a manifestation of Ukrainian culture, pure and simple. The music is quite intricate, perhaps ‘baroque’ in intonation:

    ttps://youtu.be/rIrS2b0rwjo

    Enjoy – no ‘de-Russification’ necessary – it’s organically Ukrainian! 🙂

  46. Nobody had to come up with a “German Idea” the way a bunch of schmucks cooked up the “Ukrainian Idea” because there was no question of who or what Germans were

    Russians often discuss and argue about a “Russian Idea” (it has been an obsession of theirs) but Ukrainians less frequently do so about themselves.

    The comparison with Italy is more apt. Italian regional identities are old, but remain distinct in many cases. So Ukrainians could be the Sicilians of Russia or something.

    No analogy is perfect. The problem with this one is that Sicilian speech is more similar to standard Italian than Ukrainian is to Russian (it’s why analogies with Scandinavian nations don’t work either). Maybe if Sicily had been part of Spain for 400 years, or something like that, and had further differentiated from Italian – so that it could be considered a Spanish regional identity as much as an Italian one.

    Or it would have sufficient differences with both Spain and Italy to be neither’s regional identity.

    As it is, Sicily is simply a distinct region of Italy, as Zakarpathia is a distinct region of Ukraine.

  47. BTW, I’ve never been able to figure it out, from so many of the contributors here, why nationalists of all stripes and persuasions are deemed to be positive around here, except for Ukrainian ones? It doesn’t really add up and adds a sense of mystery to your MO…

    Incongruence?…

    haha…duh….because it’s a fake nation with a fake nationalism you dumb POS. In the capital city, Kiev, the overwhelming majority of the people speak Russian, Ukrainian internet dominates Russian language, most popular Ukrainian tv shows are in Russian , Ukrainians and Russians idolise the same non-western music groups

    France’s great mathematicians , philosophers, engineers, artists,composers and writers over history don’t identify or get identified as Germans and viceversa

    …..This is the complete opposite situation to Ukraine you thick prick….they struggle to find enough suitably “Ukrainian” figures to put on their banknotes you imbecile.
    This is because Ukrainians and Russians worship/idolise the exact same people over history…because we are the same people you POS

    Ukrainian babushkas, think, talk, walk the same as Russian babushka’s, they decorate their houses as similar in no other countries than Ukraine & Russia (& ex USSR)

    The only real truly “Ukrainian” exceptions are loser, nutjob, scumbag sadists as Bandera Chikatilo and Shukheyevich…..true “Ukrainian” identity

  48. Ukrainian/Little Russian language more distinct from Russian language than Spanish is from Italian. Songs, folk dress, etc. are also distinct.

    Who measured this difference? I would like to remind you that Ukrainian not so long ago was a peasant patois which was synthesised into a language by conscious Polonisation. Regional differences are a common trait among large nations. There is a big diversity among Chinese, some regional languages are not understandable to Mandarin speakers, yet they are not considered a separate nation for that.

    English identity based on flimsy differences caused by German peasants living under French-speaking Norman overlords

    That is true but irrelevant.

    Russians believe in fairytales

    Not really. Romanians have actually adopted the name “Romanian”, it is a modern name like “Ukrainian” that was supposed to be a neutral name to unite disparate regions of Romanian speakers. And it is clearly taken from “Rome.”

    Rus’ however is a united geographical territory settled with Slavic peoples. Ukraine in particular is a place where large part of the people speak Russian. Belarus is almost entirely Russian speaking, and these two nationalisms are strange and foolish.

    My own issue is that Ukrainian nationalism is a violent rejection of Russianness, it is a rejection of unity between all the parts of Rus’ in favour of violent provincialism. You can deny that all you want, but your analysis is lacking.

    Correct. It’s just as historical as Moscow claiming Rus.

    Some Russian nazis have adopted the slogan of their Ukrainian brothers in arms: “Slava Kievskoi Rusi, Novorossia sosi”. This actually begs the question. When Ukrainians say this, they mean Kiev was before Moscow, and we reject the Muscovite project of Novorossia. But when Russian nazis say this, do they realise that Kievan Rus was also in Novgorod and in Vladimir, and Moscow was founded by Yuri Dolgoruki, Grand Duke of Kiev?

    I would not mind a united Rus’ space, a Slavic superstate with the capital in Kiev. It would be a global superpower that would rival US and China. It would propel the Slavic people and the whole of Eastern Europe into a glorious future.

    What do we actually have now? Ukraine regressing into barbarism, Russia ruled by a comprador elite with cargo cult mentality, Belarus ruled by a neo-sovok kolkhoznik?

    REPLACE THIS!

  49. The problem with Ukrainian nationalism is that it is a violent reaction to this Rusianness. All Ukrainian problems are the result of this reaction. Think of it this way, Ukraine has regressed economically and demographically because in the frantic effort to assert its identity, they have severed contacts with Russia, deprived people of jobs, and these people moved elsewhere, to Russia most of all.

    Ukraine cannot function well without Russia, and with Russia the Ukrainian nationalist is anxious that his nationalism is weak…

  50. Thorfinnsson says

    I would not mind a united Rus’ space, a Slavic superstate with the capital in Kiev. It would be a global superpower that would rival US and China. It would propel the Slavic people and the whole of Eastern Europe into a glorious future.

    A united Russia with its capital in Kiev, using Ukrainian colors (new flag design required however as the Ukraine’s flag blows), and that cool tryzub is a great idea. Presumably other than fanatics this will satisfy the Ukies while achieving the geopolitical objectives.

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/95/Lesser_Coat_of_Arms_of_Ukraine.svg/330px-Lesser_Coat_of_Arms_of_Ukraine.svg.png

    Legitimately a fantastic design.

    Downsides: presumably some Russians will be upset, and a capital in Kiev would presumably be economically inefficient relative to Moscow

  51. Ukraine starts with Galician kings and Cossacks.

    Clearly there is a large chasm of time between Daniil Halytsky and Bohdan Khmelnytsky. The two have little in common. And this marriage of incongruent elements is the essence of Ukrainian nationalism.

    Russia does not begin with Moscow Principality. Russia is a historical territory, not state called Russian Federation, or Russian Empire.

  52. If you look at a map of Europe c. 1000, the national borders you see, with the exception of the mess in the center and adjusting for the Muslim presence in Iberia, is remarkably similar to today. This is when the ethnogenesis of most of Europe’s nation states was realized.

    The western borders of Rus likewise closely resemble those of the post WW2 USSR minus the Baltics. It was easily one nation by the standards that passed for such a millennium ago. Probably it was more outright monolithic than contemporary England, where Vikings had settled the Danelaw a few centuries prior, and where Celtic peoples dwelled not just in Wales but in what is modern Cornwall.

    So Russians (Ukrainians, Belorussians) really are one people, even if it’s probably unfeasible to ever politically actualize it again.

  53. According to some, this is what Rurikid princes used to mark their slaves with.

  54. I wouldn’t mind moving the capital to Kiev in a reconstituted Russian Empire. It would be a nice symbolic concession, and Moscow is overcrowded as it is.

    I think the term “Kievan Rus” may well be the supreme blunder of Russian historiography. What is believed by some marginal Russian Nazis and liberals is conventional wisdom in today’s Ukraine, proudly repeated by Poroshenko.

  55. Germany, as a modern nation-state didn’t begin to unite until the second half of the 19th century, thanks to the efforts of Bismarck. That doesn’t mean that the German idea didn’t have antecedents in bygone eras. Similarly, the Ukrainian idea didn’t appear out of thin air in the early part of the 19th century. Modern Ukrainian state building didn’t seriously appear until the revolutionary period in the early 20th century, and was a late bloomer in relation to others.

  56. The western borders of Rus likewise closely resemble those of the post WW2 USSR minus the Baltics. It was easily one nation by the standards that passed for such a millennium ago. Probably it was more outright monolithic than contemporary England, where Vikings had settled the Danelaw a few centuries prior, and where Celtic peoples dwelled not just in Wales but in what is modern Cornwall.

    Probably, but keep in mind that there was no unified mass culture, no easy transport etc. as in today’s nations (or in the age of roads and railroads). The Eastern Slavs left their homeland c. 600 and by the time the Viking Rus conquered them they had been living apart, isolated by distance, for a couple centuries. So even then, the difference between a Slav from Kiev and one from Novgorod or Suzdal would have at least been comparable to the difference between a modern American and an Englishman.

    But what really separated the two was the impact of Polish conquest and centuries-long rule.* This was as significant for Ukraine as Norman rule was for the Germans in England, in terms of impact on language and culture. Poles being Slavs, the end product was not as different, but the influence was as great. Spengler was right, I think, when he observed that England despite being German has a Viking (democratic, exploitative, exploratory) rather than feudalistic “German” or continental culture. Ukraine analogously inherited its politically chaotic democracy and magnate-culture from the Poles. And then of course language. And of course settlement – people forget that when Ukraine was taken over by Russia about 10% of its population were Poles, and these were mostly assimilated into Ukrainians (even Gogol had a Polish grandparent – this was very typical).

    So in this case, drawing conclusions about Ukraine and Russia based upon 1000 is like making a conclusion about England prior to the Norman conquest and on that basis saying that the English and Low Germans are really one people.

    *Russia also got a strong dose of Tatar/Mongol culture that Ukraine did not, but this was not nearly as great as Poland’s influence upon Ukrainian ethnogenesis

  57. Perhaps the EU should move its capital from Brussels to Aachen, in order to reconstitute the Carolingian Empire too? You’ve been playing way too many video games, Anatoly.

  58. Clearly there is a large chasm of time between Daniil Halytsky and Bohdan Khmelnytsky. The two have little in common

    Well, Daniel accepted a crown form the Pope, Khmelytsky slaughtered Catholics. But Khmelnytsky spoke Polish and Daniel did not.

    But he chasm is not as wide as you may believe it to be.

    The Zaporozhian Hetman Sahaidachny was a Galician nobleman, from the same class of people whose ancestors were ennobled by Daniel for the purpose of fighting national enemies:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_nobility_of_Galicia

    During the 12th and 13th centuries, fortified villages were built by Kievan Rus and Galician princes in order to defend the local lucrative salt trade and the borders with Poland and Hungary. These villages were located southwest of Lviv and Przemyśl in areas such as those surrounding Sambir, that in modern times have been the heartland for Ukrainian noble settlement. These villages were populated and defended by poor or minor boyars and druzhina.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petro_Konashevych-Sahaidachny

    Petro Konashevych was born in Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the village of Kulchytsy (Przemyśl land) three miles away from Sambir in the Ruthenian Voivodeship into a Ukrainian Eastern Orthodox noble family. His father’s surname was Kononovych.

    Russia does not begin with Moscow Principality.

    It arguably begins with Vladimir-Suzdal principality but anything before that is wishful thinking.

  59. Thorfinnsson says

    In German historiography the Kaiserreich is also known as the Second Reich, because there already was a preceding Reich–the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. This political entity ultimately devolved into near irrelevance by the time of its dissolution for many reasons, but for centuries constituted the German nation-state.

    Efforts to reunite Germany began once the Wars of Religion gave way to the Era of Enlightenment. The Confederation of the Rhine (Napoleon’s vassal state) was a German nation-state (excluding Prussia, Austria, and the left bank of the Rhine), and Baron vom Stein attempted to unite the princes at the Congress of Vienna.

    This was rejected, but German reunification efforts continued. The German Confederation (with explicitly national borders that excluded the non-German subjects of Prussia and Austria) was formed as a replacement for the Holy Roman Empire, and the Zollverein followed in 1834. German reunification became a question of when, not if.

    Bismarck’s achievement was to rapidly force through the Kleindeutschland solution (Germany excluding Austria) in order to cement Prussian domination of Germany (resented in Bavaria at the time incidentally). In addition to his three victorious wars, less reported is that Bismarck generously bribed the princes.

    There’s a general idea in academic circles that nationalism and nation-states are 19th century ideas. This is false and reflects their own cosmopolitan, anti-identitarian worldviews.

  60. The problem with Ukrainian nationalism is that it is a violent reaction to this Rusianness.

    And just as equally – Polishness. Some Polish nationalists make the same silly argument about Ukrainians really being Poles as you make about Ukrainians really being Russians.

    Polish mythological argument – all Slavs were the same people before the evil Vikings captured eastern ones and forced them to be Orthodox rather than Catholics. This separated brother from brother and forged an unnatural link between Slavs in Ukraine and Finno-Slavic hybrids in Russia. Heroic efforts to undue this damage was undone by evil Russia and partition of Poland. Kijow and Lwow are Polish cities. Etc.

  61. Thorfinnsson says

    Brussels is perfect for the EU. A fake capital of a fake union located in a fake country.

    I realize your suggestion of Aachen is tongue-in-cheek, but it really is too small for an imperial capital. A better idea is Berlin:

  62. German_reader says

    Spengler was right, I think, when he observed that England despite being German has a Viking (democratic, exploitative, exploratory) rather than feudalistic “German” or continental culture

    That sounds really confused, actually feudalism (in the narrow sense of landholding being organized in fiefs and through ties of vassalage) was brought to England by the Normans. In that sense the Norman Conquest made England more, not less “continental”.
    It’s also questionable if “Viking culture” played much of a role in 11th century Normandy, the mainstream view is that the duchy of Normandy was pretty much a standard post-Carolingian successor polity which fully participated in the main cultural and religious currents of 11th century Western Europe (e.g. duke William cultivated close ties to the reforming papacy which supposedly even sent him a papal banner for the conquest of 1066).

  63. So why move the capital of a greater Russia to Kyiv? It’s also today:

    A fake capital of a fake union located in a fake country.

    ? 🙂

    More incongruence on your part?…

  64. Ukrainian/Little Russian language more distinct from Russian language than Spanish is from Italian. Songs, folk dress, etc. are also distinct.

    Who measured this difference?

    Linguists.

    Statistical analysis of Biblical translations, page 323. Ukrainian closest to Polish.

    Map of lexical distance:

    https://alternativetransport.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/lexical-distance-among-the-languages-of-europe-2-1-mid-size.png

    Ukrainian has more words in common with Polish than it does with Russian. But grammar and pronunciation are more like Russian. Overall Ukrainian is about equidistant between the two languages, and more unlike Russian than Italian is unlike Spanish (but closer than French is to either of those languages).

    Romanians have actually adopted the name “Romanian”

    There are also Romansch people in Switzerland and Rum people in Turkey, all names derived and self-identification derived from an ancient source. The same name does not magically mean that these are all one people, it simply means that long ago they were ruled by the same people and took their name. Just as Romans preceded the ethnogenesis of these peoples, Rus preceded the ethnogenesis of the Ukrainian and Russian peoples.

    Rus’ however is a united geographical territory settled with Slavic peoples.

    This space extends to Germany. So?

    Ukraine in particular is a place where large part of the people speak Russian.

    And they once spoke Polish. So?

    Moscow was founded by Yuri Dolgoruki, Grand Duke of Kiev?

    By that logic Portugal is a part of Brazil.

  65. Admittedly I haven’t read Spengler in may years. His argument was that Normans were Vikings with a democratic exploitative/raiding culture. Magna Carta was a lot like the Viking democracies, etc. Before the Normans England was made up of typical German kingdoms.

    Spengler contrasted two types of Germanic cultures – the Viking raiders and explorers of which England was the premier example, and the continental feudalistic ones characterized by hierarchies and duties, as found in Germany (IIRC he viewed America as a hybrid of the two).

  66. There’s a general idea in academic circles that nationalism and nation-states are 19th century ideas. This is false and reflects their own cosmopolitan, anti-identitarian worldviews.

    I tend to agree with you here. The great Ukrainian historian Hrushevsky maintained that the Ukrainian nation actually had its initial groundwork layed by the largest of the East Slavic tribes, the Polyanins. This tribe never settled in any of the territories that latter merged as the Muscovite state, the true predecessor state of the modern day Russians, but were wholly settled in Central Ukraine, around Kyiv.

  67. Remember Jack Palance at the Hollywood commemoration of ‘Russian’ actors?

    No I don’t remember that cretin….I do however remember Dustin Hoffman saying that his family descended from Kiev…….Russia.

    That pretty much sums the situation up

    Even the film version of Taras Bulba wasn’t brought to Hollywood by these fictitious people called “Ukrainians” but by Vladivostok great Yul Bryner and Russian heritage Tony Curtis……that’s because Russians and Ukrainian feel the same in all these folk songs and storys and novels….something an American sack of shit doing your best to destroy the Ukrainian state with your psychotic behaviour…..would never understand

    I’m guessing Jack Palance and the “lobby” gave zilch to Ukraine financially….much as the Banderatards in Canada and the US do now

  68. What relevance to the Ukrainian/Russian question can the statement of an American Jew (Dustin Hoffman) shed on the ethnogenesis of the Ukrainain nation?

    He was raised in a Jewish family (from Ukraine, Russia-Poland, and Romania

  69. German_reader says

    Before the Normans England was made up of typical German kingdoms.

    It wasn’t kingdoms anymore by 1066, Alfred the Great and his successors had built a unified kingdom, which in some ways was more advanced and centralized than anything on the continent at the time (e.g. sheriffs in England were officials appointed and controlled by the king, whereas on the continent count became a hereditary title and political power and the administration of justice became increasingly fragmented after the breakup of the Carolingian empire, with the West Francian/French king controlling little more than his personal domains).
    I’ve never read Spengler, seems like a pretty dubious theory to me.

  70. Even the film version of Taras Bulba wasn’t brought to Hollywood by these fictitious people called “Ukrainians” but by Vladivostok great Yul Bryner and Russian heritage Tony Curtis

    LOL, “Russian heritage” Tony Curtis was born Bernard Schwartz. Any actual Eastern European would know that he looks Jewish.

  71. Before the Normans England was made up of typical German kingdoms.

    It wasn’t kingdoms anymore by 1066, Alfred the Great and his successors had built a unified kingdom

    Correct, but it was very Continental/Germanic.

    which in some ways was more advanced and centralized than anything on the continent at the time

    Alfred the Great was a Continental German-type ruler. The Norman Vikings destroyed his state. This supports what Spengler had written.

    I found a Spengler commentary about this online:

    https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Oswald_Spengler

    Thus we find two great economic principles opposed to each other in the modern world. The Viking has become a free-tradesman; the Teutonic knight is now an administrative official. There can be no reconciliation. Each of these principles is proclaimed by a German people, Faustian men par excellence. Neither can accept a restriction of its will, and neither can be satisfied until the whole world has succumbed to its particular idea. This being the case, war will be waged until one side gains final victory. Is world economy to be worldwide exploitation, or worldwide organization? Are the Caesars of the coming empire to be billionaires or universal administrators? Shall the population of the earth, so long as this empire of Faustian civilization holds together, be subjected to cartels and trusts, or to men such as those envisioned in the closing pages of Goethe’s Faust, Part II? Truly, the destiny of the world is at stake. …

    More. It rings true:

    https://www.counter-currents.com/2012/05/prussians-englishmen/

    England did away with the principle of the organized state, and put in its place the notion of the free private citizen. The citizen demands permission to fight alone in the ruthless struggle for existence, for this is the only way he can satisfy his Viking instincts. Buckle, Malthus, and Darwin later postulated that the basic essence of “society” was the naked struggle for existence. And they were absolutely right, at least as far as their own country and people were concerned. To be sure, in modern England this principle operates in a highly refined and perfected fashion. But evidence of a more rudimentary adherence to it can be found in the Icelandic sagas, where such behavior is obviously spontaneous and not borrowed from another culture. The forces with which William the Conqueror took England in 1066 could be called a “society” of knightly adventurers, and English trading companies have subdued and expropriated entire countries—most recently, since 1890, the inland regions of South Africa. Gradually the entire English nation assumed the characteristics of a “society.” The Old Norse instinct for piracy and clever trading has, in the end, influenced the Englishman’s attitude toward all of reality, including property, work, foreign peoples, and the weaker individuals and classes among his own people. The same instinct has also yielded political techniques that are extremely effective weapons in the struggle for mastery of the globe.

    A concept complementary to that of “society” is the “private citizen.” He represents the sum of certain positive ethical qualities which like all great ethical virtues are not acquired through training or education, but are borne in the blood and perfected after passing through generation after generation. The peculiarly English style of politics is essentially one that involves private citizens or groups of such individuals. This, and only this, is the very meaning of parliamentary government. Cecil Rhodes was a private citizen who conquered foreign countries. The American billionaires are private citizens who rule foreign countries by means of an inferior class of professional politicians.

  72. If it is a blunder of Russian historiography, it was certainly not a conscious one. Kievan Rus was just a name of a period that was marked by rule from Kiev. It was a relatively long period that warranted a separate name. The academic historians of the day could not imagine that some historically illiterate nazi troglodytes in Moscow, or some provincial idiots in Kiev will seriously claim greatness out of this concoction…

  73. Perhaps the EU should move its capital from Brussels to Aachen, in order to reconstitute the Carolingian Empire too?

    Many people of the EU clearly do not find anything symbolic in having Brussels as their capital. They don’t feel like Europeans and believe the EU usurps control over their lives.

    European integration totally fails as a national project, and is falling apart. Four years after the most vibrant celebration of life in support of the EU, the Euromaidan.

    Off topic, what are the chances of Ukraine ever becoming part of the EU if the organisation is in deep crisis? Perhaps Ukraine is not Europe after all, perhaps it is… (not Eurasia, I wish nobody to be Eurasia), perhaps it Rus’? And aren’t Belaus, Russia and Ukraine self sufficient, can’t they build a world onto themselves?

  74. Linguists.

    Statistical analysis of Biblical translations, page 323. Ukrainian closest to Polish.

    Map of lexical distance:

    Ukrainian has more words in common with Polish than it does with Russian. But grammar and pronunciation are more like Russian. Overall Ukrainian is about equidistant between the two languages, and more unlike Russian than Italian is unlike Spanish (but closer than French is to either of those languages).

    hahahaha….this predetermined State Department garbage “academic study” has long been debunked by anybody with more than 2 braincells you sick sack of shit (literally is that about 70 spambot troll posts, with 100000 words you’ve done today alone you demented freak?)

    By that logic Portugal is a part of Brazil.

    This is part of the time-wasting bollocks a sick sack f faeces does to try and waste the time of an intellectual like this Anon poster

    errmmm….if Brazil wasn’t an empty land with local tribes needing to be defeated in a war, or Brazil wasn’t formed in a situation where 95% of the population didn’t want separation from Portugal just before they separated….and the same number wanted reunification after 5 years of separation plus a million other things……then it isn’t the same situation you disgusting scumbag

  75. But why is high Ukrainian closest to Polish? Like I said, the Ukrainian language has undergone conscious polonisation, in order to stress the difference from Russian. This is what Ukrainian identity is all about, violent rejection of Russianness, even the language was forcibly made unrussian.

    I quite understand that Rus is rather ancient history but the Russian Empire is not. Rum Greeks would of course not identify with Rome, and descendants of Roman colonists in Romania would only borrow the name. But Halychyna has a group of Moskvophiles some 100 years ago. I hope you can feel the difference. Right across the border, the Orthodox of Halychyna went on pilgrimage to the Pochaev Lavra. The idea of common space is there still, among some. It is harder to claim to me that this is nonsense on rather irrelevant examples. I am that ignorant as you may assume.

    Germany and Italy were also common spaces which lived in imagining of people. They have the right to be united, why not Russia? Because people want to contain Russia? Because they Russophobic?

    They did not speak Polish, the nobility spoke Polish, the peasants spoke when later became Ukrainian.

    The analogy with Portugal and Brazil is yet another irrelevant analogy from you. Yuri Dolgoruki founded the city of Moscow, and Russian tsars founded: Kharkov, Donetsk, Nikolaev, Odessa, Cherson, and Sevastopol. The exchange was mutual, suggesting a mutually shared space.

  76. Why are yanks always fantasising about how to redraw European borders?

  77. German_reader says

    Alfred the Great was a Continental German-type ruler. The Norman Vikings destroyed his state.

    The Normans weren’t “Vikings” in any meaningful sense, and their conquest of England reduced genuinely “Viking” Scandinavian influences, which had been much stronger before (e.g. during Canute’s reign when England was part of a North sea empire). 11th century Normandy wasn’t really different from any of the other post-Carolingian principalities in the French kingdom.
    I don’t know what “a continental German type-ruler” is…Alfred’s conception of kingship was in line with the common heritage of Western Christendom, and the Norman conquest (which had many deplorable consequences) didn’t really bring any fundamental change in that regard.
    Spengler seems to have been overly influenced by his own time (German heroes against English merchants, as German propaganda had it in WW1), but such contrasts are very questionable for the middle ages.

  78. even the language was forcibly made unrussian.

    How ridiculous a notion. As mixed up as if somebody were to state:

    Even the Russian language was forcibly made unukrainian.

    They’re both separate languages that were developed over time in their own respective zones.

  79. My ideas are very much in sync with двачеры (Russia’s 4chan), who are destined by fate to one day memetically propel their candidate to victory.

    Unless you are referring to /v/ or some other non-political board, this is basically saying that your haters were right all along about you being an anti-Russian liberal, etc.

    The majority at /po/ are the opposite of a Russian nationalist in every way.

    I mostly visit 2ch for other boards, but lurk /po/ from time to time because their memes are often funny. Liberals who can meme, only in Soviet Russia.

  80. But why is high Ukrainian closest to Polish? Like I said, the Ukrainian language has undergone conscious polonisation, in order to stress the difference from Russian.

    Ukrainian language is based, as you correctly admitted, on village speech. Peasants in Ukraine weren’t consciously trying to Polonize their speech. Polish words were a natural consequence of having a Polish-speaking educated class and elements of its speech filtering down to the common people, and of the common people themselves mixing heavily with Poles (remember that a lot of Mazovian peasant settled Ukrainian lands).

    This is what Ukrainian identity is all about, violent rejection of Russianness, even the language was forcibly made unrussian.

    This silly idea is like describing English as a violent rejection of Germanism, even the language being made un-German by the introduction of all those French words. I supposed a crazed anti-English German nationalist cam make such a claim. But you are not the only Russian believing this fairytale.

    But Halychyna has a group of Moskvophiles some 100 years ago

    Sure. They were essentially LARPers. My direct ancestors were among their leaders. The funny is thing is that these Moscophiles, being nobles, tended to communicate amongst themselves in the Polish language 🙂

    They were Romantics with unrealistic ideas. They were sincere, and were willing to suffer for their ideas (great-grandfather was sent to Talerhof). In the end, the idea that corresponded closer to reality won in Galicia, and it wasn’t the fake Russian one.

    BTW they are also very anti-Soviet. Manyh fought with the Whites. One of my grandmother’s cousins and his wife poisoned themselves when the Soviet grabbed Lviv. Better dead than Red.

    Germany and Italy were also common spaces which lived in imagining of people. They have the right to be united, why not Russia?

    Ukraine and Russia being a “common space” was popular in Russia but not popular in Ukraine.
    In contrast, Bavaria did not engage in numerous rebellions against the Prussians and did not “betray” the Prussians in every war by joining whomever the Prussians were fighting. It is a difference.

    They did not speak Polish, the nobility spoke Polish, the peasants spoke when later became Ukrainian.

    The nobility spoke Polish, and lots of Polish words filtered down to the common people’s speech. English underwent a similar process with French.

    Yuri Dolgoruki founded the city of Moscow, and Russian tsars founded: Kharkov, Donetsk, Nikolaev, Odessa, Cherson, and Sevastopol

    Kharkiv was founded by Ukrainian Cossacks and may have been named after one of them Kharko. Wiki:

    The city was founded by re-settlers who were running away from the war that engulfed Right-bank Ukraine in 1654 (see Khmelnytsky Uprising).[2] The years before the region was a sparsely populated part of the Cossack Hetmanate.[13] The group of people came onto the banks of Lopan and Kharkiv rivers where an abandoned settlement stood.[14] According to archive documents, the leader of the re-settlers was otaman Ivan Kryvoshlyk.

    There were about 1,000 Ukrainians living there when the Russians built their first fort.

    Donetsk was built by a Welshman and originally named after him.

    Odessa, Kherson and Sevastopol were indeed built by the Russian state, but the first two were eventually settled mostly by Ukrainians.

  81. I don’t actually browse /po/ heavily but from what I’ve seen there’s plenty of nationalists there (sarcastic/nihilistic so can come off as liberal).

    In any case, point is, my views are not atypical of Russians in my age group. Putin boosterism, unironic Marxism, AngloZionist obsessionism, taking Dugin seriously, etc., etc., is the sort of thing that will come off as weird in the actually existing Russia.

  82. The Normans weren’t “Vikings” in any meaningful sense, and their conquest of England reduced genuinely “Viking” Scandinavian influences, which had been much stronger before (e.g. during Canute’s reign when England was part of a North sea empire).

    I dunno, politically and economically it appeared to be rather Viking. The English Great Councils appeared only after the Norman conquest. I don’t think this was a coincidence. Was English parliamentarism more like Scandinavian ruling bodies (i.e, Icelandic Althing) or in accordance with Continental norms? English exploration, trade, maritime colonization – more like that of Normans/Vikings, or more like Germans?

    Normans spoke a French dialect and were Catholics but they seem to have retained a strong Scandinavian spirit.

    As you note, there were more heavily Scandinavian regions in England when the Normans invaded. But this doesn’t mean that the Normans themselves weren’t Vikings (even if, watered-down ones).

    Spengler seems to have been overly influenced by his own time (German heroes against English merchants, as German propaganda had it in WW1),

    Probably. But was it wrong?

  83. Ideally the still-living, central and eastern European states, form their own group. They would roughly combine the territory of the old Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Austria-Hungary (minus Austria itself, perhaps). So – Poland, Ukraine, the Baltics, Slovakia, Czechia, Hungry, Croatia, Romania, Slovenia.

    The Muslim-free zone:

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/10/Islam_in_Europe.png/1200px-Islam_in_Europe.png

    They would maintain friendly relations with both western Europe and Russia, but would limit immigration.

  84. It’s an idiotic comment by Karlin…saying that Russia is embryonic from Kiev , instead of Kiev being embryonic from Russia actually reinforces the fact that Ukrainians and Russians are the same people.

  85. I think car-fleet is the main variable, and that’s why the ratio of deaths to crashes, will (in my prediction) continue to fall in the next years.

    If you think about average car age now (in Russia) – it’s about 12-15 years old?

    Driver airbags and anti-lock brakes were introduced as standard in new cars about 18 years ago. But with incremental improvements every year (increasing number of airbags).

    While electronic stability control was standardized in new cars about 5 years ago.

    Before airbags, people often die in crash at 60 kilometers per hour. 1990s cars do still badly (possibly fatal crashes) at this speed, especially “small overlap crashes”.

    However, in new cars, with airbags – it’s common to be uninjured in 60 kilometer per hour crash.

    Most serious crashes occurring around this range (60 kilometers per hour), or slower, after braking.

    So as car-fleet updates, we should expect huge reduction in number of deaths per crash.

    • I looked at car-fleet data for Ukraine, where the car fleet is perhaps the worst in Europe.

    In Ukraine, average car age is 20 years old, so most cars still without airbags even.

    For Ukraine, around ten thousand cars produced domestically, and 122 thousand cars are imported each year. Around 3/4 of imports are new cars, and 1/4 are second hand cars (with average age around 5 years). Total fleet size over 9,1 million. Proportion of cars updated each year in all types, only around 1,5%.

  86. Ukrainian babushkas, think, talk, walk the same as Russian babushka’s, they decorate their houses as similar in no other countries than Ukraine & Russia (& ex USSR)

    Even bodylanguage and gestures – are the same.

    But look at situation philosophically. Since 1991, Ukraine tried to create a different identity, and they have had a different national experience. They’re slowly becoming more and more different with each year.

    They have a right to create what kind of separate nationality and country the majority of them want, as anyone else does.

    The question whether it will try to create something attractive and modern in the future, or continue in the African level.

  87. Basically, an expanded and enhanced Visegrad group?

  88. Those countries are economically dependent on Western Europe and Russia though.

    And cause which their economies developing, is primarily from Western European technology, trade and even direct monetary transfers.

    The main generative activity of EU, as well as the most intelligent and dynamic populations, are from countries like – UK, Ireland, Germany, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, France, etc. (And this has been the case since at least 19th century). To some extent, it would not be total exaggeration to say they carry rest of EU (both Southern and Eastern parts) on their backs.

    Muslim free-zone is of course partly a function of this (Muslim immigrants are going to the rich countries, and have often an unfortunately parasitical attitude to their generous welfare).

  89. LOL, “Russian heritage” Tony Curtis was born Bernard Schwartz. Any actual Eastern European would know that he looks Jewish.

    hahaha!!

    Of course I know he’s jewish you dipshit…that’s why I phrased it “Russian heritage” you imbecile. How that relates to the fact that “Ukraine”‘s diaspora are so irrelvant and so imaginary it’s most famous stories are brought to the west by Russians…is laughable …and typical of the time-wasting, pedantic, lying retard talk a freak as you will indulge in.

    Ludicrous you would even make a point like that given Ukraine’s mobster President and their PM are both Jews and the amount of Gruzians and god knows what else in charge in Ukropia

    But playing the game of ‘nationalism” is extremely amusing for a fake nation like Ukraine or for the whole series of “nationalists of fake or failed states and their “nationalist ” credentials , when considering the enemies of Russia:

    Klitshchko senior: German, would have been perfectly normal to be living in a heartland of boxing like America….but this thick moron “Mayor” of Kiev bred in Germany, to the point that quite legitimately he should not be allowed to run for President

    Klitshchko junior,: an obvious homosexual, could have any beautiful woman in Ukraine …but chooses an extremely average looking American actress

    Poroshenko: entire wealth due to Russia, his son married to a Russian, his son goes around with his Russian friends in English schools wearing shirts saying ‘Russia”, so I suppose his grandkids are Russian

    Klimkin: Inept scumbag FM of Ukropia- his childrens grandparents are Russian….his wifes father taking up Russian citizenship, living in Crimea, do his kids visit their grandparents?

    Tomas Hendrik Ilves: a Russian (via grandmother),American, Swedish fuckwit…anything except Estonian…of which this talentless tramp was President

    Radik Sikorski: the most rabid russophobe , when most normal Poles very enthusiastic about Russia ( and went for pro-Russian, left-win parties in the 1990’s as they rebuilt successfully), in a country full of beautiful women….but is married…..to an extremely ugly, lizard-urine skank-jewish-American Anne Applebaum

    Saakashvili: second President of Georgia, married to……a dutchwoman…probably introduced him to all the Cocaine that a freak like that must be in on

    Grybauskaite: dyke president of Lithuania, daughter of a high ranking KGB officer…herself most likely worked for them

    A common pattern in all these fraudsters….though at least they are not totally deranged faeces freaks as yourself

  90. I think that Visegrad+ can stand on its own as a bloc, unlike Dmitry. Polish Perspective has excellent arguments about how EU subsidies to Poland are diminishing, while the benefits that Poland has wrangled out of the core EU have already been mostly reaped.

    One real problem, demographically: Visegrad+ will also be the world’s Gypsy homeland. 10% of the population in Romania and Hungary, 5% (?) in Slovakia – only Poland, the Ukraine, Belorussia, and the Baltics can really be considered “lily white.”

    It’s not a negligible problem.

    First, Gypsies have far higher fertility rates than Muslims almost anywhere in Europe.

    Second, they have been “boiled off” for a century or two to select for Gypsy traits (as Greg Cochran described for the Amish).

    Third, they’re less desirable than almost any Muslims short of Somalis, perhaps. But that map colors Russia a deep green primarily on account of Tatars and Bashkirs.

    Anyhow, with Visegrad+ as its own bloc, you’d have a population broadly comparable to that of Russia, with a Gypsy minority broadly comparable to Russia’s Caucasus Muslims. But much more fertile, and growing more rapidly, unless Putin or his successor opens up Russia to permanent Central Asian settlement (which is not likely).

  91. Lol ok this satire vatnicheskogo mentality has gone too far…

    Hayden Panettiere and Klitschko. That couple is the beauty and the beast, in the nth dimension

  92. Ukrainian babushkas, think, talk, walk the same as Russian babushka’s, they decorate their houses as similar in no other countries than Ukraine & Russia (& ex USSR)

    Even bodylanguage and gestures – are the same.

    This one is the same?

    Are Polish ones different?

    The question whether it will try to create something attractive and modern in the future, or continue in the African level.

    You continue in your cluelessness.

  93. Gypsies are indeed a problem. Maybe they can all be given political asylum in the West first? What if the Romanian and Hungarian government pays for their train tickets west, as the Obama administration paid people form American ghettos to move to small towns?

    Third, they’re less desirable than almost any Muslims short of Somalis, perhaps.

    North Africans and Caucasians, who commit terror acts, are worse.

    Gypsies are a real terrible nuisance but are generally nonviolent.

  94. I know Polish people in my real life, and of course they are very different national identity. They have a unique culture, history, sense of humour, personality. They are a very distinct culture and nationality. It’s just meeting people from another European country.

    On the other hand, Russian, Belorusian and Ukrainian – we’re usually quite minor distinctions (level of different is like between Spanish, Catalans and Basques; or maybe English, Welsh and Scottish).

  95. On the other hand, Russian, Belorusian and Ukrainian – we’re usually quite minor distinctions (level of different is like between Spanish, Catalans and Basques;

    If Catalonia had separated independently in 1991, and then built a school curriculum about their uniqueness, etc.

  96. They’ll raid 4chan /pol/ every once in a while with some “Russia is shit” copypasta that’s been fed through Google translate accompanied by pictures of decaying commieblocks. It always seems like the same pictures too, for as many years as I’ve seen them do it. Sometimes they’ll switch it up with stock photos of Eid in Moscow. During the election there was some feeble attempts at promoting Navalny as /ourguy/ and conjuring a bit of the old meme magick leftover from 2016. They were so bad at it hopefully it karmically backfired and was responsible for his arrest.

  97. Gypsies would be a nuisance if they were a constant share of the population. But if they double with every generation, that’s considerably more than a nuisance. An existential threat, by the mid-20th century, to Hungary and Romania. To the putative Visegrad+ bloc by the end of the century. At a certain point, this may even reverse current trends, in which western Europe is becoming decivilized while eastern Europe improves rapidly. I think living amongst Muslims, on average, is far preferable to living amongst gypsies.

    North Africans and Caucasians do terror attacks now, but they don’t proliferate near as much. And perhaps there will come a time when Islam ceases to be associated with terrorist culture. As was the case before the 1980s. And as it ceased to be part of far left culture after the Cold War.

  98. OK, bad example then. I was not familiar with this aspect of 2chan culture. (though I see this memes from some Russian and Ukrainian users on pol).

  99. Putin boosterism, unironic Marxism, AngloZionist obsessionism, taking Dugin seriously, etc., etc.

    That’s all probably about as American as believing Qanon is real. The idea that disparate forces are in league with one another in some grand alliance, that there’s a super secret club to fight the bad guys and you too can be a part of it. It’s appealing to that same demographic of neurotic boomers with a desire to play act as some kind of rebel in a largely risk-free environment. Pity I didn’t get into that racket back when the getting was good: maybe I could even be living large off the profits from my own line of anti-Atlanticist multivitamins by now.

  100. Lol ok this satire vatnicheskogo mentality has gone too far…

    Suprised a man of your intellect would think this Dmitry….my point about the more than dubious “nationalist” credentials of these freaks is comprehensively proven in the genius of my post.

    Sure I could have left Klitshchko junior out of my otherwise genius comment…but it perfectly assimilates with the rest of my post. For me she is a very average looking woman…and from America, and if she didn’t have blond hair….I would not look twice at her in the street…and the point remains that Ukraine and Russia are packed with the worlds most beautiful woman

    Amusingly enough…..even this years Miss Ukraine is as corrupt as the rest of cesspit Ukraine is…..Miss Ukraine having her title removed for being a (multi-child) Mrs Ukraine…..and currently in a relationship with some clown who works as an advisor to the Poroshenko regime.

  101. Thorfinnsson says

    This is why every country should have a population policy just as countries now have economic policies and foreign policies.

    Or to cop a saying from American business–if you have no strategy you have a default strategy.

    Insane that we don’t plan our populations.

  102. Thorfinnsson says

    Strong agreement.

    Never trust a man, especially a powerful man, with an ugly wife.

  103. She’s really good looking , – ten years ago especially.

    https://youtu.be/9amU-kfzbDc?t=1m33s

  104. <

    blockquote>I think that Visegrad+ can stand on its own as a bloc… One real problem, demographically: Visgrad+ will also be the world’s Gypsy homeland. 10% of the population in Romania and Hungary, 5% (?) in Slovakia – only Poland, the Ukraine, Belorussia, and the Baltics can really be considered “lily white.”

    <

    blockquote>

    What’s this that I read, Anatoly? You’re abandoning Triunism for AP’s idea of an expanded Visegrad+, including Ukraine???…

  105. RadicalCenter says

    Did they make you a GS-15 yet?

  106. Ugly/average girls can be very nice though – not something you can judge without knowing a whole story.

  107. RadicalCenter says

    The Sicilian language is a separate language from Italian. Italian is almost entirely Latinate. As you probably know, Sicilian has a different grammar in important respects, and a lot of vocabulary adapted from Arabic, some from Greek, and a bit from French, Spanish or even Catalan.

    On the other hand, the Sicilian language has been more heavily italianized especially in the past century and a half or so — particularly with the advent of Italian radio and then TV reaching Sicily. Apparently Mussolini made efforts to intensify / accelerate the process.

    So, from what I’ve learned, Sicilian is a separate language, but somewhat less different than it used to be. And some fest that Sicilian is at risk of being assimilated into or gradually shunted aside by Italian.

  108. RadicalCenter says

    AK, you’re right about the threat that the gypsies pose due to their proliferation. The effect is all the more deleterious because they’re in countries where the native populations don’t reproduce at replacement level.

    Sad to say, but I don’t see a good alternative to forcibly reducing and limiting the gypsy population. And I don’t know where they could be deported (though Israel sounds good).

    Maybe pay them substantial sums to voluntarily undergo sterilization at a young age, something, it seems, that is not cheaply or easily reversed. Always good to avoid violence or coercion if possible.

    People may think it’s paranoid and absurd to fear gypsies becoming a majority in Slovakia or Hungary. But fifty years ago, it might have seemed absurd to fear California becoming a Latino-majority State, yet we are almost there. And the gypsies May be worse, on balance.

  109. Wow, a GS-15, any sovok’s dream come true! Almost as good as being Putin’s samovar polisher.

  110. Gypsies would be a nuisance if they were a constant share of the population. But if they double with every generation, that’s considerably more than a nuisance. An existential threat, by the mid-20th century, to Hungary and Romania.

    Good point.

    It’s hard to imagine what a country would be like if it were 20% or 40% gypsy. It would be unprecedented. It wouldn’t be like warzone areas in American cities, because gypsies aren’t really violent. India has people living in the streets, but it seems to be organized and under control. Shanty towns everywhere, everything of value not nailed down or supervised getting stolen, public health disasters from people defecating in public, mass lack of immunization, etc.

    In Chicago they trimmed the number of troublesome people by giving out vouchers and sending people from the projects into blue-collar suburbs like Cicero. Maybe while the EU still exists with open borders, Hungary and Romania can invest in one way train tickets, plus some cash, to gypsies travelling West.

    Or alternatively, keep Romania and Hungary out of Visegrad+ until they solve the problem. Romania has twice Hungary’s population so perhaps only it would have to be excluded.

    To the putative Visegrad+ bloc by the end of the century.

    Visegrad + has about 150 million people. Slovakia, Hungary and Romania are each 9% gypsy, that is about 3.2 million gypsies or 2.1% of Visegrad+’s population. Wiki claims gypsy population doubles not every generation but every 40 years. Taking into account graying and lower fertility among non-gypsies, gypsies will be 5% of Visegrad+ around 2050, maybe 15% by 2100. Western Europe meanwhile will be 25% – 40% Muslim plus African by then. Life in Visegrad will still be less disrupted.

    I think living amongst Muslims, on average, is far preferable to living amongst gypsies.

    I agree, but it depends on numbers.

  111. The Sicilian language is a separate language from Italian. Italian is almost entirely Latinate. As you probably know, Sicilian has a different grammar in important respects, and a lot of vocabulary adapted from Arabic, some from Greek, and a bit from French, Spanish or even Catalan.

    You are right. Lexical distance between Ukrainian and Russian is about the same as between Italian and Spanish. Sicilian apparently has a lot of Greek words – would this make it even further from Italian than Spanish? Or about the same, due to other similarities.

    It would be a shame if the Sicilian language disappeared. Every European culture has its particular beauty.

  112. They’ll raid 4chan /pol/ every once in a while with some “Russia is shit” copypasta

    Yes, I remember those cringe fests. Their internal Russian language memes can be funny though.
    It’s ironic how many of the people who worship the west often have comically poor English.

    @Anatoly:

    I don’t actually browse /po/ heavily but from what I’ve seen there’s plenty of nationalists there (sarcastic/nihilistic so can come off as liberal).

    There is some of that indeed (and they also meme well), but they are a minority. It’s mostly genuine russophobes. Every “Russian Crimea and Novorussia” thread for example has several times more dislikes than likes (the existence of likes and dislikes on a chan board only further confirming its gayness).

  113. All nations have to be born at some point. Ukrainian ethnogenesis came late, but it’s no less real.

    The real debate, I think, is how far the “real Ukraine” extends – but if Russian-speaking easterners start identifying as Ukrainian, then that’s what they are. A people are a nation when they think of themselves as one.

  114. Thorfinnsson says

    Average girls can be, and often are, very nice.

    Ugly girls, or people of any kind, cannot be. Physical disfiguration reveals the deformity of a warped, depraved soul.

  115. RadicalCenter says

    I think you caught my implication that your comments sound like US government propaganda on these issues, tough guy. And it is interesting where your mind goes when you try to belittle.

  116. Thorfinnsson says

    While the EU exists gypsies (and, for that matter, the indigenous lumpenproletariat) should indeed be given one-way travel vouchers to Western Europe along with training on how to quickly access benefits and housing in the West. The “refugee” programs of the European diaspora New World states should also be employed (as frequently as possible as it’s harder to return to Romania from Australia than Italy). The time to do this was ten years ago as Trump, Kurz, and Salvini are probably only the beginning.

    Domestic policy should seek to eliminate welfare/benefits other than social insurance schemes intended to uplift decent families. Benefits for children of married, employed couples for instance.

    There are contraceptives which can last as long as five years. These should be offered to chaotic “poor women” to limit their fertility without tripping the West’s Nazi radar. The state of Colorado is now doing this, and it almost immediately cut births in the target group by 40%. No doubt vasectomies can be offered as well.

    Tough-on-crime policies with a focus on lengthy incarceration should be adopted as well. In addition to being unable to breed while in prison, it makes the entire state systemically hostile to criminal elements which will further spur their emigration. The elimination of street crime will also improve conditions for the indigenous population and their social capital.

    This might be a bridge too far as far as tripping the West’s Nazi radar goes, but the state can start registering people’s ancestries and family networks. This can be done under the guise of medical and historical research, and people enjoy seeing their own ancestries documented. Once the EU crumbles this creates a basis for compulsory measures to limit the gypsies and lumpenproletariat.

    The only question is where to draw the line. Should people who walk slowly be sterilized? I say yes.

  117. . And it is interesting where your mind goes when you try to belittle.

    The height of flattery, to be referred to as ‘interesting‘. And to be thought of as at the top of the pay scale heap too. You’ve made my day – thank you!

  118. The only question is where to draw the line. Should people who walk slowly be sterilized? I say yes.

    How about people who are in incongruent in communicating their opinions? Sorry to have to call you out on this one, but haven’t you at least nominally characterized yourself as being a Christian?
    Hedonism, cannibalism and now an advocate for sterilizing the elderly? Why not euthanize these castaways from Hollywood perfection?

  119. Thorfinnsson says

    Foolish linear thinker.

    “My net worth fluctuates, and it goes up and down with markets and with attitudes and with feelings, even my own feelings, but I try.”

    “Let me just understand that a little bit,” my lawyer said. “Let’s talk about net worth for a second. You said that the net worth goes up and down based upon your own feelings?”

    “Yes, even my own feelings, as to where the world is, where the world is going, and that can change rapidly from day to day. Then you have a September 11th, and you don’t feel so good about yourself and you don’t feel so good about the world and you don’t feel so good about New York City. Then you have a year later, and the city is as hot as a pistol. Even months after that it was a different feeling. So yeah, even my own feelings affect my value to myself.”

    “When you publicly state what you’re worth, what do you base that number on?”

    “I would say it’s my general attitude at the time that the question may be asked,” Donald responded. “And as I say, it varies.”

  120. And now we can add and unfounded egotism to the list…comparing yourself to Trump and thinking that he somehow speaks for you? Dodging simple questions is not the earmark of somebody who is comfortable walking in his own shoes, but rather, of somebody who doesn’t have a defensible platform to stand on. 🙁

    Try again! 🙂

  121. The EU and UK authorities – and NGO scum – tried to do this in Northern Ireland, fortunately there were still just enough former paramilitaries around to put an end to it.

    Fresh racist attack on Romanian families

    There are still some in Belfast but most left:

    Romanian gypsies beware

    Even along the prosperous Lisburn Road, with its restaurants, art galleries, organic cafes and boutiques, attitudes towards the Roma immigrants are negative; it is not difficult to find people who openly admit they do not like the eastern Europeans in their midst.

    Dressed in a dark business suit, Derek Orr said he was “sick and tired” of the Roma. “You can’t walk into a bank or shop on this road without a Romanian woman shoving a copy of the Big Issue under your nose or begging you for money. I don’t mind the Poles and the Slovakians who come here. They work hard, harder than indigenous people from here, but all you see now are these Romanians begging and mooching about. We’d all be better off – them and us – if they went back to Romania or somewhere else in Europe,” he said.

    I guess most went to “somewhere else in Europe”, though probably not back to Romania.

  122. Ugly girls, or people of any kind, cannot be. Physical disfiguration reveals the deformity of a warped, depraved soul.

    Anne Applebaum is by any civilised measure….a dragon, a toxic waste dump of a woman in terms of physical appearance…and it complements the bile from her mouth appropriately

    To be married to her , in a country full of beautiful woman like Poland……is an act of blatant homosexuality by the CIA/MI6 POS agent Sikorski, ex FM of Poland

  123. Anne Applebaum is by any civilised measure….a dragon

    They are a matching couple:

    https://www.wprost.pl/_thumb/3a/14/8e2c2cea838bd88be6ed7b2fef59.jpeg

  124. Swedish Family says

    “even the language was forcibly made unrussian.”

    How ridiculous a notion. As mixed up as if somebody were to state:

    “Even the Russian language was forcibly made unukrainian.”

    They’re both separate languages that were developed over time in their own respective zones.

    You are making here an unrealistic assumption of symmetry. I agree with Lawrence Glarus, who noted some months ago that cultural exchanges between center and periphery are mostly one-way:

    A person from Oklahoma City might want to go to New York, but a New Yorker couldn’t give a damn about Oklahoma City. This is what I’m talking about. Cultural exchanges tend to be unidirectional. This tends to get confused in history, since different cultures tend to come out on top of the international dog pile at different points in time. The Americans might use a derivative of French beef (boeuf) or chivalry (from archaic chevalerie), but nowadays it is much easier to find English words popping up in French than the other way around. These unidirectional cultural exchanges are reflected in the “international community” imperial sphere of influence. It is the Western suit which is the standard for now, and this reflects current cultural hegemony. An American corporation is no more taking cultural cues from the barbarians than it takes cues from the Chinese.

    https://www.socialmatter.net/2018/07/26/a-letter-to-an-imperial/

  125. Swedish Family says

    I know Polish people in my real life, and of course they are very different national identity. They have a unique culture, history, sense of humour, personality. They are a very distinct culture and nationality. It’s just meeting people from another European country.

    On the other hand, Russian, Belorusian and Ukrainian – we’re usually quite minor distinctions (level of different is like between Spanish, Catalans and Basques; or maybe English, Welsh and Scottish).

    The Belarusians and Ukrainians I know who work in Poland (as professionals, not strawberry pickers :-)) say the same thing. They claim that Poles have no sense of humor, which is also my experience, but then I’m Swedish, so what the hell do I know.

  126. Lol this is too much of your Indian ancestors’ faith in karma, reincarnation, etc.

    There’s cool people who are ugly, and beautiful people who are not cool, and every combination in between.

    The same, even for women and relationships. Ugly women can be nicer than beautiful ones, and vice versa. It depends on the particular situation, without too many generalities.

  127. I think Polish people I have know, have a sense of humour, just a different one. It’s more from recounting stories about themselves.

    Overall, I think Polish are culturally a little similar to Germans, in some ways.
    I’ve read German humour is one of the best in the world, you just need to be very good at German to understand it.

    Swedish people – I’ve never actually known any.

  128. Now while other people are discussing something other than Russian news statistics, I’d like to ask Mr. Karlin this:

    This is strongly concordant with what my own personal observations. The TV continues to blast out noise and light amongst provincial boomers. But as you head into the bigger cities, including Moscow, and go down the generations to the yuppies, more and more people getting information from online websites, social media (in terms of audience sophistication, Facebook > VK > odnoklassniki), and YouTube personalities such as Yury Dud’.

    Setting this aside, in general, how bad is the Russian mainstream media (not just via internet, but also traditional media such as television, radio, and newspapers) compared to the American (and, by extension, Canadian, EU/NATO, and Australian) media? Is it any better, or just as bad? I mean, it’s nice to see that there’s alternate media on the internet, but it’d be even nicer to live somewhere where a handful of these “alternate media” viewpoints, especially Pat Buchanan-style foreign policy restraint, are already mainstream, especially for households who don’t have an Internet connection.
    Another question: Is it legal for media outlets in Russia to criticize Putin? (I wouldn’t be surprised if anyone who claimed otherwise were part of this US/NATO-backed smear campaign against Russia, but I still thought I’d ask.)

    Side note: I have doubts about the media in Switzerland and Japan. While Switzerland is not a member of the EU or NATO and doesn’t have any American military bases, it’s still part of Western Europe and doesn’t seem to be immune to the cultural degradation there. The fact that Japan still has American military bases means that (despite not being a “Western” country, let alone part of either the EU or NATO) the integrity of its media is out of the question. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong on either one.

  129. “even the language was forcibly made unrussian.”

    The Ukrainian language was never Russian to begin with. Let’s go back to Russian and Ukrainian 101:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_language

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_language

  130. Updates:

    I looked at this same article on Russia Insider. Two commentators there remarked how the Russian MSM is just as bad as the Western MSM. This made me kinda disappointed; until reading them, I had the impression that the Russian MSM was more objective/less biased than the Western MSM. The reason I even ask is that, while I’m aware that bias exists in televised news, newspapers, and radio news, I don’t want to give up on them completely.
    I remember visiting a page on your site once which discussed the differences between the American, British and Russian MSM (http://akarlin.com/2011/04/national-comparisons-4/). I suppose this could be helpful for anyone else who’s curious of the differences in quality.

    Re: Russian media’s criticism of Putin, I tried searching on DuckDuckGo, but the first results didn’t have answers. I only managed to find the answer by visiting two of your site’s pages, one of which being mentioned earlier.

    Re: Switzerland, one night I stumbled upon the Vineyard of the Saker. On that site, I stumbled upon an anecdote on how he got himself blacklisted in his native Switzerland just for the crime of raising doubt and uncertainty of NATO’s bombing of Yugoslavia. I asked him how a supposedly “neutral” country, not being a member of either NATO or the EU, would cave in to NATO. He told me that Switzerland became an American lapdog since the late 1980s. So much for neutrality!
    Re: Japan, given how it’s still a vassal state of the USA (what with all these military bases there), I’m afraid it’s also out of the question. I shouldn’t have asked about it in the first place; the answer would be too obvious.