I have long advocated that Russian political historiography should de-emphasize combatting the Visegrad/Baltic assault on the Soviet interpretation of history (“we liberated Eastern Europe“) and move towards counter-guilt tripping them.
It’s probably not going to happen soon, because Russian officialese is too invested in its WW2 narrative. That is because Victory is the main legitimizing force of the modern Russian state.
So e.g. Polish kvetching about the Stalinist occupation is going to be rigidly answered by counter-claims that the USSR saved from Nazi barbarism, which is true in a narrow sense (the Nazis would have exterminated most Poles, the Soviets exterminated a small part of their elites and saddled them with Communism for 50 years) but is ultimately a defensive reaction and one that has any number of obvious rejoinders (e.g. loose paraphrase of an argument that commenter AP uses a lot: a victim should not be expected to be grateful to a rapist robber saving her from a mutilator-murderer).
1/1Думаем, что еще живые узники нацистских концлагерей, а также ветераны Войска Польского, которые вместе с красноармейцами освобождали Варшаву и другие польские города, помнят и знают истинную цену свободы, в отличие от своих забывчивых потомков.#WeRemember #МыПомним #StopNazism
— МИД России 🇷🇺 (@MID_RF) January 18, 2020
Same goes for attempts to defend say the Nazi-German Non-Aggression Pact by appealing to the Munich Agreement, or Poland’s own friendly relations with Germany in the mid-1930s, aggression towards Czechia in 1938, etc.
While this might be superior to outright denialism of Soviet crimes – it is basically impossible to deny any genocide/massacre and come out of it looking sympathetic, and thankfully the Russian state (if not individual sovoks) have long since moved away from “powerful takes” on issues like Katyn – it’s not optimal either.
Если поляки не помогали бы установить большевистскую тиранию в России (Дзержинский, куча других чекистов; революционный полк "Красная Варшава" участвовала в подавлении ярославского мятежа), то и сами бы не получили красную тиранию (в своей смягченной форме к 44 году) от русских.
— Anatoly Karlin (@powerfultakes) January 17, 2020
Instead, I think a more promising approach is focus on making the following points:
- The common contribution of practically everyone in Eastern Europe to imposing Bolshevik tyranny on recalcitrant Russians in the first place.
- Noting that the Bolsheviks, of course, did far more damage to Russia than to any of the East European polities that subsequently had Communism imposed on them by the Red Army (even Poles agree with this, in my experience). E.g., Katyn: 15,000. Great Purge: 600,000-a million.
- There are examples of this for virtually any nation there. While the Latvians are best known in this respect, one can also identify Polish “contributions”: Dzerzhinsky; general overrepresentation in the early Cheka; the heavy involvement of the “Red Warsaw” revolutionary brigade in suppressing the Yaroslavl uprising in 1918; Pilsudski signing a peace agreement with the Bolsheviks in 1919 just to screw over Denikin, allowing the Bolsheviks to save Moscow.
- In this context, the subsequent imposition of Communism can be framed as karmic retribution for past misdeeds, which forces Poland et al. onto the defensive.
- The Pivot: “When will the Poles [Latvians, etc.] have the courage to take responsibility for their complicity in imposing the Bolshevik tyranny on Russians?” As opposed to conflating us with an ideology that you helped force on us.
This approach is probably not going to make Russian many more more friends in Eastern Europe than the current approach. But at least it’s internally consistent, and will put them on the defensive.
This Latvian, at any rate, strongly endorses it, calling it a “great trolling method” – an ultimate accolade if there ever was one.
https://twitter.com/cheg/status/1218472559857094656
And, best of all, it’s not even an exaggeration.
Chinese helped impose Bolshevism in Russia (40k soldiers was a lot in 1918). Russians returned the favor. There is a certain karmic symmetry in that. https://t.co/qpMyL6DMiR
— Anatoly Karlin (@powerfultakes) October 22, 2018
Please keep off topic posts to the current Open Thread.
If you are new to my work, start here.
This will be much more effective given the current zeitgeist.
Also, 3.3 million Soviet POWs died in German custody from deliberate starvation, exposure and execution. That would make Russians the secondary victims of the Holocaust. Given current Russophobia, it would be helpful to broadcast that info widely before Russia ends up getting blamed for the Holocaust in the next few decades. Generalplan Ost is another thing that should be brought up a lot.
There really needs to be complete de-sovietization. The worst Soviet crimes were oredered by a Georgian Dictator. Beria, another Georgian, carried out Katyn on Stalin’s orders. The creeping rehabilitation of Stalin needs to be sharply curtailed. Never see the Poles raging out on the Georgians now do we?
It’s just objective fact. It’s really not even trolling. The cry-bullying of some of the Balts and Poles exhibits some of the most astounding hypocrisy I have ever seen.
Poles love to bring up their contributions like breaking the 1683 Siege of Vienna, but if we’re going back that far: what about the Time of Troubles, the brutal Polish occupation of Russia?
The Poles act like they never did anything bad in their entire history. Somehow like the Jews they never did anything wrong ever, and it is just cosmic misfortune that they ended up being oppressed by so many people.
Let’s not forget that the Interwar Polish government was the “Jackal of Teschen” and leapt to prey upon on the Czechs in 1938.
I am not a supporter of this use of history, but if you want to – This can be answered more harshly. Poles in the middle ages occupied Western Russian lands, and (in the course of the Polish policy of destroying the indigenous population) forcibly populated these lands with Jews.
On the lands subject to Moscow (since Moscow defeated numerous invasions by Polish-Lithuanian troops, these lands remained free from the Polish yoke), Jews were strictly forbidden to settle. But the West Russian lands (occupied by poles) became the main center of the Jewish population due to the forced settlement of Jews there. Without this, there could be no Bolshevism. Thus, the poles (and Lithuanians) are the main culprits of the emergence of Bolshevism, and bear the main responsibility for all the crimes of Bolshevism. Then you can continue – about fair (but insufficient) retribution, trillions of dollars of reparations, etc.
How’s about a more radical idea.
Instead of whining about the past, sane people can point out that the Western World is led by literal satanist child murderers who are doing their best to exterminate white people.
This would have bonus of leaving little wiggle room for ZOG apologists.
Of course, one should always keep in mind that Kali Yuga still has a way to go – we’re nowhere near rock bottom.
The only thing this proves is just how mentally frozen in time most people in Eastern Europe still are, consolidating the backwardness of the region. It’s also a lesson why petty nationalists cannot co-operate and why ethno-nationalism is ultimately a weaker force than liberalism.
Unfortunately, this is how history is used in the era of victim deification. The most uncharitable blood-libelous version of events is put forward in order to earn the most points.
Since Balts and Poles do this sort of thing, turnaround is fair play on Russia’s part.
Liberalism similarly uses “historical politics”, often even more brazenly
From the linked piece you wrote in 2009 (interesting that you were into full-on Molotov-Ribbentropp revisionism already back then, way before the wave of hysterical Russophobia from 2014 onwards):
Not getting into a discussion about the Baltic states (which did have some notorious Holocaust perpetrators like Arajs commando), but do you still think that way about Poland? And how is this different from the anti-Polish campaign pushed by ethnocentric Jews?
Not that I’m complaining, as long as Russians keep coming up with such stuff, at least there won’t be any pan-Slavic solidarity against Germany, lol.
(and don’t worry, I’ll be off from your blog again, but imo some of the gullible Westerners reading here occasionally need to have the implications of some of your statements pointed out to them).
I like your contrarian and often thought-provoking takes. Furthermore, upping the Germanic ratio is never a bad thing 🙂
Liberalism has far better statistical basis for doing so.
https://ourworldindata.org/
The basic historical narrative of liberalism is one of continuous human progress, an infinitely more attractive proposition than the paranoid rants of petty nationalists. It also has the added advantage of being true.
It was fellow tzar subjects that got involved in russian politics: poles, baltics, jews, georgians etc which makes sense as it was their country as well and had no reason to embrace russian nationalism. The downsides of imperialism.
Hungarians, romanians and bulgarians had nothing to do with the rise of communism. Some Czechoslovakians actively fought the soviets.
No, I don’t agree with that particular detail, though it isn’t central to such arguments. And naturally I don’t much care if Poles and Jews duke it out over that question.
Westerners gullible about what?
What a ridiculous statement, beyond laughable. So is South Africa true now, as opposed to when it was was false, what about Israel is it true or false?
Well, from the time of Columbus until very recently, the world was ruled by those who by current standards are considered white racist-nationalist-gender chauvinist. George Washington is not a liberal by modern standards. For this reason, your link seems unconvincing to me. I am not a nationalist and I am not a liberal, so in this dispute, the person is relatively impartial.
I think you are on the right idea. The “but we saved eastern Europe!” line just makes Russians look delusional and revanchist. I think the crux of your plan lies in point #2, in emphasizing that Russians are not Soviets and Soviets were not just Russians, that Soviets brutalized Russians most of all. Then you can heap whatever atrocity is warranted on Soviets and not have Russians phased by it.
It’s increasingly just becoming history anyway. Like the 30 years war or 100 years war. Nobody really cares about those anymore. And it was “western ideology” in the first place.
This is true, but it just opens another cycle of excuses. Retrospectively they should not have done those things, but at the time they were doing it because of Russian imperialism. That could be ‘karma’ for Tsarist imperialism.
The trick here is to de-escalate and diffuse the butthurt, not get caught up in it and escalate (even trivially and rhetorically). So you need to not twist it at the end into trying to pin it on Poles or Latvians or whatever. It needs to be un-pinned outside of history. To the extent there is an argument over who gets pinned, it will be Russians, because come on. Russians, rather than trying to pass the pin, need to defuse it and put it in a museum.
The pivot just turns it into a flame war and keeps the butthurt going.
The much larger issue for Russia here is that Anatoly’s take on this is a fantasy for Russia. They are stuck in the idea that they liberated Prague in ’68. Czechs don’t hate Russians but it is easy to see that that kind of thing even pisses Czechs off.
If they could take Anatoly’s take without the pivot at the end, they wouldn’t need the pivot because it would actually change the conversation. Instead of starting a pissing match with the Czech Republic when they remember ’68, Russians could join and remember with them, and remember how the Czechs fought with the Whites to try to stop the Bolsheviks. A White Russian mentality toward history would avoid a lot of this butthurt. Placing the pin on Sovietism puts the pin on something that is dead history and can’t fight back.
Sure they did, and some ‘Czechoslovakians’ went to space (actually only one so far, but you get my point).
In an open and free election in 1946, Communist party in Czechoslovakia won 40% of the vote and its allies another 15%. There were no Soviet soldiers in Czechoslovakia at that time, they left in 1945 and didn’t re-invade until 1968.
‘Some’ is a tricky word, there are always some people doing this or that. What matters is the majority view, and whether we like it or not, Communists had very substantial people support after WWII. They were the only ones who could get 100,000’s of their supporters into the street. Interestingly, most artists at that time were enthusiastic comnunists, incl. Milan Kundera. Some were not, so technically you are correct…
The Communist party had 1.5 million members, in Poland it had 3 million members. Very few if any of them were ‘Russian’…
There are some valid reasons why a more aggressive stance might be legitimate.
(1) Current Polish, Balt, etc. historical complaints tend to come “packaged” with political demands. Forcing them to play defense will take the winds out of them.
(2) Large part of Polish rhetoric on Russia (also probably to some extent Germany) is done with the purpose of consolidating Poles around a common enemy. Such an exercise might not be harmful for Russia either.
(3) Last but not least, martyrdom complexes are a powerful state of mind, as both Jews and Poles prove, and there’s a case for nurturing them regardless, as opposed to “oh shucks, we all fucked up” approach.
While this is certainly true, Russia still has to have relations with the non white world. An explicit pro white message will not work considering that it is part of BRICS and wants to improve its trade in Africa. The best approach is not to focus on WW2, instead point out things such as drag queen story hour or parents giving their children sex changes, most sane people in India, China, Africa will not be on the America side here. They could also focus on the ever increasing inequality in America (this is obviously because of the racial transformation).
before Russia ends up getting blamed for the Holocaust in the next few decades.
If Russia had lost the War, the Nazis were going to send all of Europe’s Jews to Russia. So in effect, by claiming victory in The Great Patriotic War, Russia did cause the creation of the Holocaust as it was Plan B for the Nazis which they improvised after their defeat.
To be fair back then there was no internet and allied propagandists were told to hide the uglier sides of Communism until the war was finished, and not everyone had a chance to talk to a fleeing White Emigre
For all they knew Marvelous Gay Space Communism was just around the corner
Quite a lot to unpack here
If you’re not explicitly in favour your own people, what exactly are you in favour of ?
When selling iPhones is more important than the survival of your bloodline, I’d say your priorities need some adjustment.
Let me re-iterate – I find this never-ending Eastern European pissing match a sign of mental retardation.
If you looks hard enough, you’ll find a never-ending litany of past wrongs. Stretching back to the Mesolithic.
So, instead, how’s about a positive message – Communism was bad, but we survived – and now we need to band together against ZOG.
It may not be harmful, but it may be quite harmful (propaganda of jingoism often leads to unnecessary conflicts). On the other hand, the benefits of such “consolidation” are completely absent. So it’s better to focus on promoting more sane things.
I took courses on the Holocaust in college. We even had a “Holocaust Center” at the University. Takeaways are that the Jews think all Europeans and Americans are to blame for the Holocaust. In explaining the origins of the Holocaust, Russian antisemitism was one of the factors attributed to causing the Holocaust.
I never saw this particular theory put forward. I know of the plan to send the Jews to Madagascar as plan A. In the class, we were told that the mass extermination of Jews was not the original plan of the Nazis. It was an improvisation brought about by the fact that no one wanted to take the Jews. Britain was blamed for not opening Palestine to Jewish mass migration, and America was blamed for not allowing the Jews to immigrate on mass to America.
In the popular imagination, it is totally possible that a narrative could be constructed to lay the primary blame on Russia. If elites want that narrative put forward then it will be unless the Russians can preemptively outflank such an attempt by claiming their own victimhood in the Holocaust.
It was not related to ‘propaganda’. It was much more basic: for most people life was not working, there were tens of thousands murdered by Germans in WWII (so much for atrocities, these were real and close by), the economy in the 1930’s sucked, most people had nothing – they wanted change.
Communists won WWII and in Czechoslovakia were very local, claiming that the abuses of Stalinism were a thing far away and of the past, and promising exactly what most of the population wanted: guaranteed work, medical care and education, and an uncompromising stand against any potential German (read: Western) revanchism. You must remember that in 1945-47 Czechs expelled 3 million Germans – that created a lot of new property to protect (houses). The beneficiaries stayed loyal to communists for a long time. The workers in big cities wanted higher living standards and jobs, communists delivered it at the beginning.
There is no mystery there, no ‘propaganda‘. The question that is never asked is how bad do you have to be to lose an election to the communists? Or lose an election to Hitler. The liberals need to take some blame for what happened – they fuc..ed up royally before it started. We might be retracing the same path.
Modern liberal states in the West define themselves by the Gandhi standard, where their legitimacy is wrapped up in elevating the “weakest”, even if it means the eventual submergence of the state’s founding people. Few in the West realize that Gandhi was far more motivated by his racial opposition to whites, and his disgust for Christianity.
It is no different than the pissing match that the A4/West Europe left engages on towards defamation of the US Right. In a system where most news on the US is first created by the NYT, and then laundered through the BBC before being picked up by local media. The US right is viewed cartoonishly, and there is no Fox News International to air out our views.
Western liberals are desperate to show that they are so morally superior to those evil bigoted Americans. It takes advantage of a petty Anti-Americanism that is otherwise a conservative sentiment.
The following contrast is all anyone needs to know about the seriousness of mainstream historiography:
Raul Hilberg, who is a Jew, is considered the most important mainstream Holocaust historian. He also could find no evidence of a central organization, nor evidence of “funding,” nor evidence of a “blueprint.” But, he writes in The Destruction of European Jewry, “In the final analysis, the destruction of the Jews was not so much a product of laws and commands as it was a matter of spirit, of shared comprehension, of consonance and synchronization.”
Elsewhere he described the extermination as a result of …… Mind reading! He said this under oath at the Ernst Zuendel trial in Toronto.
What were the results for each historian? Irving got persecuted; Hilberg got plaudits. They both said essentially the same thing (that they could find no or poor bureaucratic evidence), only Hilberg claimed there was some fantastic mind-meld going on.
Apparently it makes one a Nazi to have reservations about the seriousness of this kind of historiography. Not me, pals – I’m not a Nazi. The Nazis were deeply flawed, to say the least, and many innocent people died because of them. Yet I still have expectations: The discipline of history is supposed to rely upon evidence, not assertions about “spirit” and “mind reading.”
All 3 are true, and you a right about a large amount of Polish russophobia too (as well as germanophobia). They are playing the game. Polish traumatic russophobia (and historical enmity) are probably real but not as big as they seem.
Most of it is really about black sea ports to defend Poland’s vital shipping interests (and end the illegal and reprehensible occupation of the sublime and magnificent state of independent Bavaria).
The White Russian view though, is victimized and plays the same game, it just does it without antagonizing the western part of eastern Europe (or the eastern part of central Europe) and the Baltics. You still get a strategic martyrdom complex. It’s just one that reaches out to the people who vote for Orban and Zeman with an offer to join them in it.
The thrust of the argument that I was presented with by the profs. was that the Nazi Regime was to some degree controlled chaos. Hitler liked to build institutions with overlapping spheres of authority, so that the final decision on anything would rest with him personally. Furthermore, in this atmosphere inter-institution competition ensued, so different people and departments would compete with each other to win favor.
It was argued that what is called the Holocaust was the result of decentralized personal initiative to impress higher-ups rather than a top down centralized plan. The profs argued that Heydrich created a general goal, “the Final Solution”, at the Wannsee Conference, and Nazis down the chain of command pursued this in ad-hoc manner as they saw fit. It was a gradual process that culminated in the extermination camps at the end of the war.
That’s the gist of what was argued by my professors to have happened.
Germany financed Lenin’s revolution (and his return to Russia in the famous sealed train) in exchange for territorial cessions through the treaty of Brest-Litovsk equivalent to 1 million square miles, a third of its population (around 55 million people); a majority of its coal, oil and iron ores; and much of its industry. How can any nationalistic Russian view Lenin favorably? Objectively, he was one of the biggest traitors in Russia’s history. Only Gorbachev caused Russia to lose so much territory.
Nazis – and their Ukrainian and Latvian allies – murdered Jews from the very beginning in 1941. At that time they fully expected to win so that theory is kind of bonkers. It probably means the out-of-this-world US educational system is about to push it. Hollywood can make a movie, mix up timelines, put in a love story – Bandera fighter and a young Jewish girl? – and US army comes to save the day, geography be damned.
Regarding Nazi motivations: they were fluid and most of the time even they didn’t know what was the plan. This reality gets completely lost about Germans: they are great at maintenance and engineering, but absolutely dismal at big picture or understanding how the world works. It is an autistic gene: helpful with mechanics, but unable to plan or deal with ambiguity. Losing in the east, massive bombing of their cities, and a sense of coming doom probably made them more murderous.
What the hell were they going to do if they had taken Stalingrad? Or even Moscow? They didn’t have the manpower to occupy the area. Their only shot at partial victory was to trigger a patriotic rebellion against the Bolsheviks and rule with local help. But you don’t trigger anything by mass murder and openly threatening genocide. They were bumblers with mechanical skills. Soviets did them a favour by ending it at Stalingrad, it could had gone on and be a total horror show. It was un-winnable and only idiots embark on hopeless wars like that.
Lenin was no traitor, since he was a jew he did not betray his own kind.
Controlled chaos is an oxymoron, and your profs. argument doesn’t add up.
Let’s imagine an ambitious Nazi with initiative and career aspirations, so what does he do? He goes off and builds a nice little concentration camp. Just like that. And he tells his fraulein at dinner that the extermination camp is a good way to prevail against a competing institution. Is that how your profs think it happened?
I am a bit more cynical: people don’t put inflammatory stuff in writing. Even in wars. It is the cya principle.
On a related note, since we are examining the common pathologies among Eastern Europeans: there was a dissident band in the communist Czechoslovakia called ‘Plastic People of the Universe‘. One of their songs was “I will build you a little concentration camp…’. Lovely sentiment, they of course meant the commies as inmates. They were eventually charged with something and disbanded – and who else than the liberal icon, Vaclav Havel, came to their defense, free speech, something like that. Heroic.
Out of curiosity, what would happen to any band today that would write a song about building a cozy little concentration camp for its enemies? History is not a broad narrative of good and evil, it is in the details. It is an uncontrolled chaos.
Czechoslovakia was an outlier. Even so, the romance the people had with the communists faded fast. When their popularity sank, the repression increased. In most of the region, at least according to Ivan Berend, communism was more or less imposed. I also find it hilarious you blame liberals for the mess created by nazis & communists.
Liberals were completely powerless against Communists and Fascists across Eastern Europe
Their traitorous and spineless behaviour in the Kerensky Government also helped Bolsheviks win the Civil War
One has to ask why the number great Polish scientists, writers, composers, engineers, philosophers is exactly…..zero, in the time from 17th to early 20th century. ….but the number of success of jews in Poland during this time is much better.
General level of antisemitism was much higher in Poland than in Germany in the 1930’s
All part of the poison pill that Russia swallowed when it annexed non-Russian lands to itself. All of these people (this is also true of Jews from the Pale) did their evil deeds within the Russian space that their peoples were unwillingly part of. If Trotsky had been a Polish and Yiddish–speaking guy in some sort of Poland-Lithuania, or in an expanded Austria-Hungary, he would have been completely harmless to the Russian people.
You are wrong, the repression was by far the worst at the very beginning, in the early 50’s. Czechoslovakia was not an ‘outlier’, there were similar issues in Italy, France, even to some extent in Poland and Hungary. (Poland had its own revanchist issue with expelling Germans.) You are wilfully ignoring what happened to please some silly ideological framework and shallow stereotypes.
The liberals failed and they were extremely unpopular by 1930’s and after WWII. Why do you use emotional throw-away terms like ‘hilarious‘ to avoid the issue? That’s a non-answer.
Because Austria killed or imprisoned traitors instead of sending them to vacations in Siberia
Berend disagrees. You should read his book. He goes through it all quite well.
Yes, we can see this clearly today 🙂
I never understood why some people give murderous and genocidal regimes a free pass because of an economic crisis. Like, just because you got unemployed doesn’t mean it’s suddenly okay to start invading and killing other people. I dislike the narrative that the crisis of 1930s somehow absolves the tyrants of that era, whether they came from the left or right.
Being a monster is a personal choice and responsibility. There are no redeeming circumstances or excuses and those who were responsbile for the bloodshed of WWII and the enslavement of Europe under totalitarian ideologies must be held accountable for it, and their latter-day fellow-travellers should never be allowed to shift blame.
Largely initiated by Rus princes within the Commonwealth, working with nobles in Muscovy who wanted the same rights that their brothers enjoyed within the Commonwealth.
This is the “Polish” figure responsible for the initial invasion of Muscovy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micha%C5%82_Wi%C5%9Bniowiecki
An Orthodox Rus prince. DNA suggests they are Rurikids.
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9D%D0%B5%D1%81%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%86%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B5
The PLC was not some sort of Polish nationalist state, it was a pre-nationalist republic of Polish, Rus and Lithuanian nobles and eastern policies were initiated by Rus princes. Who knows, maybe if Muscovy had been successfully and permanently integrated, the whole thing would have ended up being more Rus than Polish. A true pan-Slavic megastate.
How exactly was the Habsburg Empire different? They annexed non-Austrian (or non-Hungarian) lands. Or pre-partition Poland with its non-Polish lands in the east? Or the Ottoman Empire? Or English in Ireland?
Ruling over different people is simply not a good idea, it usually backfires.
Most powerful people in those lands were Rus princes, not Poles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Orsha
Supreme Commander of “Polish” troops was an Orthodox Rus Prince, Konstanty Ostrogski. The Orthodox Rus Volhynian Chronicle described it as a victory of Lithuanians and Rus over Muscovites.
“In December 1514, Hetman Konstanty Ostrogski triumphantly entered Vilnius. To commemorate the victory, two Orthodox churches were erected: the Church of the Holy Trinity and the Church of Saint Nicholas, which remain among the most impressive examples of Orthodox Church architecture in Lithuania.”
:::::::::
Presenting this overall conflict as a some sort of Polish national war against Russia is silly.
Both Fascism and Communism were defeated within a timespan of 45 years. It is ultimately the result that matters, not the timeline. Furthermore, liberals cannot be blamed that so many inept citizens are so willing to embrace idiotic and self-destructive ideologies.
Huge amount of Russians have bought into the cult of Victory, and if the government adopted Karlin’s talking points, it would have very divisive domestically.
If the purpose of historical memory is to unite the people, we’re better off sticking with Putinism. Thorough decommunization of Russian society is necessary before something could change in this regard.
https://twitter.com/PLinRussia/status/1218123765017694209
That is a very reasonable statement btw, and hard to argue against. But it’s not official Polish narrative. The official Polish narrative is that two savage countries united to destroy Holy Poland, and Russia was the more savage of the two.
Indeed, there was a mix of actual historiography with primary source materials and purely esoteric speculations on the spiritual and philosophical motivations of the Nazis. There was more time spent on the philosophical and spiritual implications of the Holocaust than its history. There was lots of Pathos, anecdotes and narrative woven into the class.
There were 3 professors. An American, a German and a Hungarian Jew. The American focused on moral philosophy and how the Nazis were trying to destroy not just the Jewish body but also the Jewish soul. He would rattle off some Jewish moral teaching then point to an example of the Nazis attacking that teaching. For him the Nazis existed solely as an attempt at totally refuting every tenet of Judaism.
The Hungarian was very old. She was born in some territory annexed by Yugoslavia after WWI. She strangely enough launched into a Hungarian Revanchist tirade about the theft of Hungarian land (no idea what that was about). She later recounted the story of her survival of the Holocaust in Budapest. She focused on the literature of the survivors and how the experience affected people.
The German is the one who focused on the actual historicity of certain events. He had the most relevant and interesting takes on it. I learned about Germany’s masochistic “remembrance” culture. All the Stolpersteine they put everywhere and so on. Berlin has quite an astonishing array of temples, shrines and monuments to tell the German people how evil they are for perpetrating the Holocaust.
To an extent yes. They mostly seemed to be bewildered by the Nazis. Liberals do have a hard time understanding points of view that differ from theirs. They had a hard time squaring the Heydrich, who was “the man with the iron heart”, with the Heydrich, who was an emotive violinist and family man.
Nevertheless, it was a fascinating insight into the world of Holocaust Remembrance and Jewish thought more broadly. The class went through thousands of years of history starting with the Romans in order to lay the blame for the Holocaust on the Catholic Church, Christianity more broadly, the English for inventing blood libel and not letting Jews into Palestine, the Russians for making The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and the pogroms and on the list goes for who’s to blame.
That’s really the opposite of their take on history. It seemed like they were arguing that all of history was culminating in the Holocaust, Shoah, Churban or whatever one calls it. They came pretty close to outright saying that it was another episode in sacred history of gentiles trying to destroy the Jewish people. Actually, the American professor might have literally said that.
Bottomline is that after going through that class I can guarantee that it is totally conceivable Russia could be blamed for the Holocaust in mass media. It already is at least partially blamed for it in academic circles like the one experienced.
“Result” and “defeat” can mean just about anything in this context. Fascism was defeated by a coalition of liberal and communist states. Communism was not militarily defeated.
Liberals are the people most keen on giving inept citizens the right to vote so they do deserve blame.
Interestingly enough, this is also why it’s perfectly legitimate for Ukrainians to hate Communists. True, the Communists were nominally (and sometimes more than just nominally) pro-Ukrainianization, but they also did an awful lot of harm to Ukraine with the Holodomor, purges, central planning (which resulted in economic stagnation relative to the West), imposition of decades of dictatorial totalitarian one-party rule, elimination of Ukrainian independence in 1919-1921, et cetera.
As for your point about the contributions of Poles, Latvians, et cetera to Bolsheviks, Poles could argue that they shouldn’t be blamed for the misdeeds of a few renegades. As for Latvians, though, it’s going to be harder for them to make this argument since most of the people in Livonia (now northern Latvia and southern Estonia) actually did, in fact, vote for the Bolsheviks in 1917. (Courland didn’t actually vote in the 1917 Russian elections since it was already occupied by the Germans by this point in time.)
TBF, though, I don’t think that it’s fair to blame all Georgians for Stalin’s and Beria’s crimes any more than all Ashkenazi Jews should be blamed for the crimes of Jewish Communists.
You are an ideologue and Ivan Berend was a Hungarian communist, I usually don’t see much one can learn from either one.
Calling 1945-89 Czechoslovakia or Hungary a ‘murderous and genocidal regime‘ is simply insane. What genocide did they commit? This is shallow sloganeering that betrays deep ignorance. And who did they ‘start invading and killing‘? Maybe Bavaria?
They were not tyrants, they were incompetent ideologues with a stereotypical view of how society and economy work and a deep resentment against their ‘enemies‘. Come to think of it, you would feel right at home with them, the same shallow stereotyping, same puffy speech-making and slogans, same barely suppressed hatred. Prof. Berend could read to you the Communist Manifesto and chuckle how he really ‘doesn’t believe it all‘, but since being a Director of Academy is so sweet, why not go along. Tyranny of shallow minds is the only tyranny I see here.
Very true. It isn’t fair. I have seen Poles brush with the same broad strokes though. That’s the point of making a statement like “never see the Poles raging out on the Georgians..”
I am putting forward an extreme stance as a parody of the ridiculous Russophobia I have seen some Poles like the now deceased Zbigniew Brezinski espouse.
I remember Brezinski’s histrionics about the annexation of Crimea being another Sudetenland Crisis.
Another reason I hate him, he was the driving force behind the Carter Administration’s Afghanistan involvement:
https://youtu.be/A9RCFZnWGE0
I see a lot of Deus Vult Catholic neo-reactionary type Poles make even more idiotic and Russophobic statements than Brezinski. Hyperbolic kvetching about the Russians is just annoying to me. The Irish have the same small-man complex going on with their Anglophobia. Yeah Ireland is going full globo-homo but up the RAH!! Poland may be going full globo-homo, but Deus Vult and fuck Russia. Some things I have seen Poles say reminds of talking points American Blacks have about whites. Endless moaning about being oppressed. The Russians looted our wealth blah blah blah. Poland seems to be doing fine right now. I don’t see the need to complain so much.
Lenin was mostly an ethnic Russian (with some distant Jewish, German and Kalmyk ancestry). However he hated Russian culture, especially peasant culture, which he saw as terribly backward. Probably no Russian leader hated its country as much as Lenin.
Lenin was probably the most Russophobic Bolshevik. Tough competition, but he definitely wins in my opinion.
The most striking fact about Karlin’s blog is that it attracts few (or no)
angry commenters from Poland, Czechia or Lithuania. The reason is simple –
right now Poland, Czechia, and Lithuania are doing extremely well
economically, and are returning to the friendship that existed 1100 years
ago before the German Drang nach Osten separated them in the succeeding
centuries. Of course, all Visegrad countries and the Baltics are doing
very well compared to Russia. Poland’s GDP grew by 5.1% in 2018,
with no oil or gas. Russia’s GDP increased by 1.2% in 2019. Russia has been
economically stagnant ever since the price of oil went down. What Russia
needs is to grow 4-5% a year, which requires decades of peace and stability.
Unfortunately, the World Bank predicts only 1-2% growth for
Russia in the coming years, i.e., the stagnation is expected to continue.
Anatoly should devote more time to thinking how to jumpstart the
Russian economy, and not be mired in the horrors of the past. There
is no past – there is only the eternal Now.
Quora recently had a cartoon showing Western Slavs having coffee
together and enjoying their friendship (Andrzej Sapkowski’s Hussite Trilogy,
written in the early 2000s, is about to be published in English, and will
probably generate games, movies, and Netflix series. Sapkowski said
how much he enjoyed interacting with the Czechs while he did
research on the Hussite movement). Eastern Slavs were portrayed at Quora
as engaging in constant conflict while for Southern Slavs it’s
war of all against all.
Karlin’s blog attracts commenters primarily from such unhappy
countries as Russia, Ukraine, and Sweden (rape capital of Europe,
daily explosions, no go zones, crazy feminists permitted to run amok, etc).
Central Europe has become a collection of peaceful, happy, and stable
countries, with little to be angry about. It is moving in the direction
of Switzerland, another conservative country, as an ideal.
Russia could not be made responsible for the holocaust by any stretch of imagination. It evacuated 1,6 million Jews from Western Russia to the safety of Central Asia. So, no reason to claim compensations as ‘holocaust survivors’.
So, here there is an ingenious twist. Russia is guilty of resisting the plans of Germany of reviving the Zionist plans of WW1 (The League of Eastern European States, resisted by Russia at the time) for which it was punished with the revolution. Russians were not supposed to fight a ‘patriotic war’ in defense of their country (and least of all to win it).
Russians should stick to the notion that their war was a war in defense of the country, a ‘patriotic war’ (like 1812) and neither ‘a contribution to the defeat of Fascism’, nor a war for ‘imposing world communism’, which is the Western double-thinking narrative.
I almost completely agree with this article.
What I find interesting though is that when one compares things, Serbs have similar problems like Russians do regarding issues of this sort (interpretations of relevant 20th century history, especially former USSR and SFRY-Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia).
I’m not necessarily sure what a “Serb politics of memory” should look like (Korenchkin and Epigon may have better takes than mine), but I think that there should be slightly less “powerful takes” (they are appropriate in some cases though) and “we did absolutely nothing wrong while our enemies are 110% pure evil” standard Balkan nation “X” narrative about the 1990’s wars.
Still though, Serbs sorely need to counter the mainstream narrative of Western historiography about the 1990’s as much as they can, given how absurdly anti-Serb it is (at times it feels like half the world is trying to gaslight Serbs) in regards to anything to do with the Balkans.
You’re mixing it up now. You originally talked about the 1930s and the WWII, which you hilariously tried to blame on everyone except the tyrants responsible for it.
By the time he wrote his book (1996) detailing the long arc of post-war communist failures, there was zero sympathy or excuses for these failures, a fact that must surely enrage sovoks like you.
It is possible he simply discarded – or hid – his true beliefs when he saw that communism was a completely failed ideology. If that is the case, it certainly does not concern me. It would merely re-confirm which school of thought is the strongest one, for the losers are forced to comply with the winners.
It’s a close competition between Lenin and Trotsky. Stalin, on the other hand, turned up to be quite a russophile (among other things, he defended the Cyrillic script when a lot of bolsheviks wanted to switch to the Latin script)
As regards the Czechs, they were expelling the nearly four million Germans from their (the Germans’) land in 1945 after Benes returned to write history in blood, as he said, and re-occupied the Sudeten Area. The death toll was in the hundreds of thousands. The Czechs did invade Germany -as you know, the Munich agreement had transferred the German territories from Czecho-Slovakia to Germany in a manner binding by the Laws of Nations (nowadays called International Law). Hence, when the Czechs occupied and annexed the German territories they did indeed invade another country. If I am not mistaken the Slovaks were also given short shrift by the Czechs in 1945 despite the Slovaks secession in 1939 from the forced union of Czecho-Slovakia of 1919.
Also, koronynatsia as a political tool only lasted until the early 1930’s. Its early promulgation was only a direct reaction of Moscow’s towards the clear and explosive manifestations of Ukrainian nationalism evident on the streets of even Kyiv (away from the countryside) that was evolving during the early 1920’s.
Right now it’s actually mostly liberals, neocons and socialists who are pushing grievance politics, not nationalists (except perhaps in Poland). It’s obviously engineered by the Americans and/or the EU who want Eastern Europe to remain divided from Russia so simply replying by attacking back would be a mistake as it’s exactly what the masterminds want.
We’re having a revealing local spat over this as Finland is ruled by the most pozzed left-liberal government imaginable together with a pro-NATO pro-neocon President and they seem eager to convert us into one of those countries that will demand apologies from Russia for the next 1000 years. Meanwhile the right-wing that has been ascendant in Estonia has started producing people who openly doubt NATO and talk about dropping the grievance mongering.
Many nationalists realize that the whole remembrance culture is a trap. They offer American or European money to fund all these organizations that will provide narratives without historical context and it’s a seductive offer to think that you have all the propaganda machine of a superpower on your side so that you can be one of the good guys against evil Russia. But if you accept their authority to decide who’s the good guy you’ll eventually see the terms changing and it will turn out that the “good guys” have to send soldiers to fight in the Middle East, the “good guys” have to accept migrants and so on.
There’s an opportunity here if Russia moves from viewing World War II as some cosmic anti-fascist struggle of good vs evil and towards viewing it just as the latest episode in the long history of wars with roughly the same participants that we’ve had over the 1000 years. All the stuff about racial superiority and so on was for propaganda and rationalization and it’s not fundamentally different from today when the West insists on the superiority of its rainbow ideology.
That ideology can be turned into a big weakness of the Americans who just approach us all with the one size fits all ideology of “all white people are guilty of colonialism, holocaust, negro slavery and all the evil in the world unless they march in our pride parades” with no historical consciousness.
Then I do not understand the Polish claims to Stalin at all. Poland after 1945 was ruled exclusively by poles
A very important point: Poland’s history cannot be understood without
Polish Messianism, that is the belief that God has chosen Poland as His
new chosen people. In Christian theology the Jews ceased to be the chosen
people when they rejected Christ, and were punished with the destruction
of the Temple by the Romans in AD 70, expulsion from Western Europe
in the Middle Ages, expulsion (and genocide) from Central and Eastern
Europe during WW II, and now continue to be punished with the increasing
numbers of attacks against the Jews in the United States. The Holocaust and
the resurgence of attacks against the Jews in the U.S. were all predicted by
Christian theology (incl. by Martin Luther in his treatise “On the Jews and their
lies) but the hope for centuries was that the Jews would convert to Christianity,
which failed to happen.
Poland’s Messianism was clearly enunciated by Poland’s bard, Adam Mickiewicz,
but Polish theologians predate it to an earlier era by looking at many eerie
events in Polish history:
The Battle of Jasna Góra (Bright Mountain) in 1655 in which, against
overwhelming odds, many believe it was God who defeated the Swedish army in
Central Poland during the Swedish Deluge. This became a turning point in the war,
resulting in Swedish defeat;
The victory in the Siege of Vienna against the Muslims in 1683 which solidified
the role that Poland (and Hungary) played as the Antemurale Christianitatis
(Bulwark of Christendom) in the fight against Islam;
The 1920 victory by Poland against the tide of godless Communism coming from
Russia. Warsaw is preparing to build a Triumphal Arch to commemorate this
victory;
The fact that Poland (and later the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth) offered
refuge to God’s previous chosen people after they were expelled and massacred
by the Western Europeans, incl. the Germans. By 1550 it is estimated that about
90% of the world’s Ashkenazi Jews lived in the Rzeczpospolita (Republic). While
Western Europe was riven by the horrors of the religious wars, the Jews began to
call Poland “Paradisus Iudaeorum” (Jewish Paradise). Russia, by the way, until
1917 explicitly barred Jews from settling in its territory, confining them to the
Pale of Settlement;
Four key persons in Polish history:
Adam Mickiewicz in Dziady (Forefathers’ Eve, part III (prophetic part), 1832), often
compared to Goethe’s Faust, clearly enunciated the doctrine of Polish Messianism
(“Poland, the Christ among nations”);
Stefan Ossowiecki, born of Polish nobility in Moscow and friends with the tsar,
was one of the most prophetic individuals in recent history. Supremely gifted
supernaturally as a clairvoyant, etc, he moved to Poland after the Bolshevik
Revolution. Unfortunately, he was killed by the Germans in the early days of
the Warsaw Uprising (August 1944). The Germans probably didn’t even know
who he was but that’s what the Germans as the Hooligans of Europe (because of
their attraction to extreme violence) do;
St. Faustina Kowalska. This humble Polish nun shook the world when she
began to experience visions of Christ coming to her cell in the 1920s and ‘30s,
and revealing the truth of Divine Mercy, and Poland playing a special role
in God’s plan for salvation. Her 700-page diary was published in many languages
around the world. She was canonized by John Paul II, and because of her the
Feast of Divine Mercy is now celebrated around the world. The painting of Jesus
with beams of light emanating from his body, done following Sister’s Faustina specific
directions to look like the Christ that appeared to her for many years, is now
also well-known;
Pope John Paul II needs no introduction. He probably did more than any
other single person to defeat Communism, although the Solidarity movement
also helped. In the next few days there will be a conference in Rome on the
role that St. John Paul II and Ronald Reagan played in the overthrow of
Communism.
LOL.
Poland after 1945 was not ruled by Poles. It was directed by Moscow. Poles did not determine Soviet policy. But western Rus lands were actually ruled by Rus princes and magnates, they weren’t servants of Warsaw as Polish communists were of Moscow. Western Rus princes often determined Commonwealth policies. These princes were among the wealthiest and most powerful individuals in the entire Commonwealth. Ironically the last Rurikid (ruling family of Kieven Rus) to rule a state was Michał Wiśniowiecki, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania .
You do not things to turn into a forum war between Karlin and CODOH? I know that Karlin will end up banning the CODOH army? Will the CODOH mods end up doing likewise to Karlin’s army?
Americans, Canadians and Australians have holocaust guilt even though they fought against Germany so why not Russia? If the globohomo empire isn’t stopped it will in the end make everyone responsible for the holocaust. They’re getting to the point where Koreans will soon have holocaust guilt.
Appealing to historical facts won’t work if they control history writing so Russia will have to keep academia clear of globohomo collaborators. Eg. I thought that it was an absurd idea that we would have to pay reparations for negro slavery but some academic studied sales records from centuries back and found that tar from Finland had been sold to a British company that traded in slaves and “tar of the slave ships” became the rallying cry. Now blacks go before Finns when hiring for city jobs etc.
Facts are no defense as a big part of the globohomo regime is humiliation of the nonwoke by woke elites and a ridiculous narrative is more humiliating than a factual narrative. Making guilt over Nazi atrocities a new core part of Russian national identity would be very humiliating and infuriating for Russian patriots so they would definitely want to do it.
Are you serious? Visions of Christ or the Virgin are demonic apparitions!
And Western Russian lands (before their liberation under Alexei Mikhailovich and Catherine II) were under the rule of the occupation Polish regime, a regime as repulsive as it is possible to be.
It’s better for your not to waste time on mental gymnastics about “Russian princes”, it’s just ridiculous
Unless you are the type that thinks that becoming non white is conservative, then you don’t want to become Switzerland.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/great-replacement-switzerland
If Lenin was alive today he would get Israeli citizenship because he is a quarter jew, if jews say he is a jew then why shouldn’t I?
His point is that the Commonwealth policies were set by the elite aristocrats, among whom the Rurikid princes were some of the most powerful. So, say, 10 of the most wealthy aristocrats set policy, 3 of which were Rus. As opposed to communist Poland, where the main direction of policy was set by the Soviet Politburo, among whom there were exactly 0 Poles.
Quite a, uhm, charitable description.
The truth is that the Nazi regime had levels of corruption that would make an African mugabecracy blush.
The thing is: even if Germans are good at making clocks and philosophy books, their track record of nation- and civilization building is horrendous. Just look at Merkel’s Germany.
I am happy that we agree on that point. Finland acted rationally and avoided the fate of Germany thanks to the cool head and political acumen of Mannerheim and probably because the Finns were not so ‘Russophobes’. Neither were Russians ‘Finnophobes’.
“Mannerheim’s term as president was difficult for him. Although he was elected for a full six-year term, he was 77 years old in 1944 and had accepted the office reluctantly after being urged to do so. The situation was exacerbated by frequent periods of ill-health, the demands of the Allied Control Commission, and the war responsibility trials. He was afraid throughout most of his presidency that the commission would request that he be prosecuted for crimes against peace. This never happened. One of the reasons for this was Stalin’s respect for and admiration of the Marshal. Stalin told a Finnish delegation in Moscow in 1947 that the Finns owe much to their old Marshal. Due to Mannerheim, Finland was not occupied. Despite Mannerheim’s criticisms of some of the demands of the Control Commission, he worked hard to carry out Finland’s armistice obligations. He also emphasised the necessity of further work on reconstruction in Finland after the war”.
Romania could have avoided Russian occupation if the attempts of Marshal Antonescu to conclude an armistice with the Russians on the same terms as Mannerheim obtained, if those attempts had not been sabotaged by the ‘Russophobes’.
Now tell me how do I feel…how we feel about Russians?
You guys can try to pin blame on latvians, poles, jews, etc. And plenty of it lies on their shoulders.
I understand a lot of russians were passive about the whole thing(unfortunately we were as well..not as quite but still) and its a terrible thing those bolsheviks were doing to russia. But it was you guys who brought those bolshevik demons (latvians,poles, chinese, etc) HERE to our doorstep.
Not counting Siberia and the Far East, the last remnants of civil war were fought in ukraine.
At least I can sleep safely at night knowing that there were less ukrainian commissars than even polish(and ukraine being a larger nation… we arent even shown in half of the charts…I guess there is a positive aspect to being dumb… u cant even get recruited into the CHEKA or other punitive units the due to being illiterate…lol)
https://oko-planet.su/history/historysng/136869-razvenchanie-mifa-krichevskiy-lyu-evrei-v-apparate-vchk-ogpu-v-20-e-gody.html
I still feel like 2.75% is quite a huge number…unfortunately…
Ukraine goes like this
secede in 1917(Before even finlands latvias lithuanias and estonias, etc)
russians invade it anyway even tho lenin has never been to ukraine in his life
1921
gommunism
1932-1933
ww2
1947
yeah thanks im not going to cry mmuh holohoax 6 gorillion ukrainians we wuz genocided n shiet but i really just want you to leave us alone never return and stay far away from us. Im even willing to forgive you the 20th century(not really )but we just cant be friends anymore.
Im even willing to take western globohomo if its in its mild form(which it wont be ofcourse) but..anglo blank slatism compared to soviet blank slatism..well its not actively and physically removing people for wrong thought …at least so far…
Here’s a good post by Mārtiņš Kazainis btw
https://www.quora.com/Why-were-there-so-many-Latvians-in-NKVD-Peoples-Commissariat-for-Internal-Affairs
No, you are mixing up un-mixable: WWII and the 1945-89 years. I was specifically writing about the post-WWII era. I only mentioned WWII and the 30’s to provide context of why communists won in 1946. Even a third-grader would understand it. You chose not to, why?
The colluding narratives are a favourite tool of dishonest ideologues: they say ‘tyrant’ and ‘genocide’ and when caught in a lie, they hide behind, ‘ohh, I meant Hitler, Stalin, blabla…‘. No, you didn’t. You live in a world of slogans, so details of reality are not important. How about working in the Khmer Rouge too? A dishonest game.
I am not sure what you think about the Hungarian communist, Ivan Berend. You quote him as an expert, then you say that he only discovered his true beliefs in an advanced age when communists lost power. How very convenient, it seems to me that you are following a shameless opportunist who wrote for money and positions. How reliable is that? Do you actually believe that he ‘evolved’? Really? And he is your guiding light for post-WWII eastern Europe, that explains the intellectual confusion.
How the hell did anyone convince Finns of all people to partake in slavery guilt?
If anything I would’ve figured they’d try some guilt tripping about helping Germany in WW2, but slavery? Seriously?
These people either have silver toungues or the indoctrination has been going on for a very long time.
What you want you cannot have
Ukraine is tied to Russia by geography, family, history, infrastructure, culture, religion and genetics
The exception to most of this is ofcourse Galicia, but expecting Kiev to separate so easily is not realistic
Corrections: it was 3 million expelled and tens of thousand dead.
If you consider Munich a legally binding agreement than maybe a better approach by Benes would had been for the above numbers to be reversed. After what Germans did to Czechs in WWII, how would that not be within their rights as victors?
Remember that next time you decide to go on one of those ‘Drang nach Osten‘ warpaths and start dreaming about depopulating the Lebensraum or taking the resources there for yourself. We have been at this for 1,000 years, and we always win at the end and the German world keeps on shrinking. Try us one more time and see how much smaller it can get.
Just because we signed a useful treaty in 1654ish(imho props to khmelnitsky who had enough braincells but he should’ve signed a treaty with russia right away instead of wasting time with useless tatars) we cannot be endlessly in debt just because russians helped us push muslims out of that section in europe. I dont want to sit there suffering with russians and going along for the ride if they want to act like retards
we have our own path to live and im basing it on one fact:
since 1917 russians managed to inflict more losses to ukraine directly or indirectly than even the germans or tatars
There was no ‘we’ in 1654, you stupid git.
The idea that something called ‘Ukraine’ exists and is populated by ‘Ukrainians’ is 100% a Soviet invention, a franken-nation created out of whole cloth from communist ideology.
I eagerly await the day Poland takes that anus of Eastern Europe away by force from the so-called ‘Ukraine’. That immediately would solve 90% of the Ukrainian question.
1939 was the worst decision Stalin ever made.
Lol, maybe you should read NYT or Sailer a bit more to get up to speed on all the stuff from the 50’s and earlier that the true, future-facing progressive must never, ever forget.
It already is at least partially blamed for it in academic circles like the one experienced.
And then there’s this:
Michael Kellogg, The Russian Roots of Nazism: White émigrés and the Making of National Socialism, 1917-1945 (New Studies in European History), Cambridge University Press, 2008
But we needed them to pay our pensions! We didn’t know! (Trapdoor opens.)
The explosions and murders are getting a bit tiresome, normalized if you will, so let me instead turn to the lighter side. As it happens, there actually was a multiminute newscast on government TV the other day, regarding how the gender studies department in Uppsala was being oppressed and threatened by ominous forces.
So various unspecified but surely serious threats have arrived, at an unknown frequency but probably by email. However, there was worse to come. At one point, there even seems to have been a plastic bag hung from a door handle, with something inside it that, to the gender studies faculty, may have looked like a bomb. (The news report for some reason didn’t mention whether the object actually was a bomb.) Thus, there are now mall cops guarding the doors of the department so it can continue its important work undistracted. Progress triumphs once more, funded by the tax payer.
Russia is fixated on the WW2 victory cult to excessive levels. People often say the British are obsessed with WW2 but even here talking about it too much is seen as very tedious, always “going on about the war” has become a comedy trope here.
If there was an attempt to start a WW2 “victory cult” here I doubt it would get very far, most British people would reject it in my opinion. The general consensus here on WW2 is that it was a long time ago and that obsessing over it today is divisive and pointless.
There’s an unspoken religious undercurrent here. WWII broke the back of heresies that festered for centuries in Russia, and made Christian Orthodoxy supreme. WWII is viewed as cathartic divine retribution followed by redemption.
Russia could always open up the Soviet archives on the holocaust fraud.
Because for the Britisher the war was rather a cricket match played away. Maybe a rugby one, more brutal than others, but not existential.
Britain had 449,700 dead (military and civilian) out of a population of 46 million in the war (US 418,500 out of a population of 132 million). The Anglo- sphere had less than one million dead! Yugoslavia had more dead than the Anglo-sphere combined (1 million out of a population of 15 million!).
USSR had 26 million out of a population of 17o million in a war fought home. Saying that they ‘are fixated’ about a victory against all odds is shameless. ‘Europe’ suffers that it lost the war.
See:
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/12/14/czech-russian-relations-and-the-roa-conflicting-historical-narratives/
On the myth that Poland saved the “world” from “Russia” including Communism:
https://www.eurasiareview.com/08042016-fuzzy-history-how-poland-saved-the-world-from-russia-analysis/
Part of the ignorance pertains to the sovok influenced factor on issues like what’s brought up in these pieces:
https://insomniacresurrected.com/2019/12/22/the-russophobia-of-officially-commemorating-the-warsaw-pact-invasion-of-czechoslovakia-in-1968/ & https://www.rferl.org/a/czech-president-blasts-moscow-over-1968-invasion-comments/30348707.html
Based on what has been reported, the Czech Republic decided to formally commemorate the 1968 “Prague Spring”. This was initially stated without any apparent negative reference to Russia.
That response changed somewhat after the Russian Foreign Ministry (RFM) protested the planned Czech move to honor the aforementioned 1968 occurrence. Thereafter, some Czechs (Russian sympathetic and otherwise) expressed displeasure with the Russian government.
It’s within reason to believe that the RFM acted against Russia’s best interests on this particular matter. In the post-Soviet era, some Russian officials (including Putin) have spoken against Soviet actions like what happened in Czechoslovakia in 1968. At play, is a diversity of views in Russia on a number of issues.
In this instance, the RFM is giving fodder to those who spin the erroneous likening of present day Russia with the USSR, along with the inaccurate absolute that the Soviet Union benefited Russia at the expense of others. The USSR wasn’t just Russia. Moreover, the 1968 military intervention in Czechoslovakia involved other Warsaw Pact nations, with the support of some in Czechoslovakia.
Czechia formally honoring the Prague Spring as initially stated, isn’t as anti-Russian as the WADA attempt to have clean Russian athletes not being able to represent their nation at the Olympics. Related:
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/01/11/politics-behind-banning-russia-from-olympics/
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/12/19/dysfunction-in-the-olympic-movement/
People of a Russian patriotic inclined background in the West are in a position to have an excellent understanding of anti-Russian biases in the West.
That’s an exaggeration. Most policies were set by the Polish Communist leadership that at least in theory represented 3 million Poles who were members of the Polish Communist party.
How do you define ‘main direction’? There was a general requirement that Poland doesn’t join Nato or become neutral, that they have a ‘socialist’ policy, and that communists are in charge. All else was left to the local leaders in Warsaw.
When you a part of an ‘alliance’ these kinds of restrictions are always present. E.g. Germany can’t leave Nato, can’t declare neutrality, can’t limit capitalism, and lately must also obey the endless social rules like LGBTQ… The problem with communist Eastern Europe in 1945-89 was not the method of maintaining control – that is implicit in any alliance – it was that the policies themselves were not particularly smart or sustainable. Blaming Russians for that is very short-sighted and is simply politicised today to please the new alliance partners.
A good number of Ukrainians were involved in what you spin. Your comment downplays that the Nazi German contribution was short lived on account of the join effort by Russians, Ukrainians and some other peoples who comprised the USSR – not all of them being Communists.
The Nazis were deeply flawed, to say the least
That goes for the present day ones, to say the least.
It was Irving’s political actvities and his glorification of Hitler through ommissions, falsifications and willful misinterpretations of documents that brought him down, not his contention that there has been no written order from Hitler found.
Approximate analogue of the life of the Western Russian lands under the rule of Poland:
Russia conquers Poland and entrusts the management of the conquered lands to Polish politicians who (in exchange for money and power) convert to Orthodoxy, start speaking Russian and proclaim themselves Russian patriots. Catholic poles are officially deprived of all rights (they can not elect and vote, they are forbidden any positions of power, for them education is extremely limited). In schools, universities, courts of the Polish language is replaced with Russian. But, at the invitation of the Russian authorities, millions of Tajiks and Uzbeks are moving to Poland – they (according to Moscow’s plan) should replace the disloyal Polish bourgeoisie. Polish uprisings are suppressed by Russian troops (under the leadership of those Polish politicians who adopted Orthodoxy) with the extermination of hundreds of thousands of poles.
Let’s assume that these Polish politicians who converted to Orthodoxy become important politicians in Moscow. Let’s say one of them (who previously completely destroyed the rebellious population of Krakow) becomes the President of Russia. Do you think this fact fundamentally changes the situation?
Furthermore, liberals cannot be blamed that so many inept citizens are so willing to embrace idiotic and self-destructive ideologies.
They most certainly can be blamed and they should be. Liberals in the Anglo world succeeded while those in German and Russia failed. We can update it to the current year and say that now the Anglo liberals and their Rosemary’s Baby, aka neo-liberalism, is failing. It is not the responsiblility of commies and fascists to help liberals succeed.
Russians won’t even accept responsibility for the Holodomor. It’s crazy to think that they would accept responsibility for the Holocaust.
Correct. furthermore, because the Commonwealth was relatively decentralized and the lords wielded a lot of power, the Rurikid princes set the policy on their lands and directed foreign policy towards adjacent lands. So the “Polish” invasion of Muscovy was largely a project of Rurikid princes from what is now Ukraine and Belarus.
It’s funny that when Muscovites invade Ukrainian territory, Russian nationalists think this is normal and an example of Russians gathering their lands. but when western Rus princes invade Muscovy it becomes a “Polish invasion” that must be resisted.
Maybe they should reframe it as just an explosive chapter of a bigger story about Drag Nacht Osten, where despite being caught between two grindstones of Communism and Nazism the Russians (and Slavs in general) pulled through
Let’s untwist what you have twisted.
Lithuania liberated western Rus lands from Tatars. Local Rus elites ruled. This was not a war of Lithuanians against Rus.
Lithuania then united with Poland, with the support of most of the local Rus lords (dissidents moved to Muscovy; but then, dissident pro-Commonwealth boyars from Muscovy also moved to the Commonwealth).
Rus lords weren’t “given” local power by Polish “conquerers”, they were always in charge. But now they were also in partial control of a much larger state. So now when they went to war against Rus lords from Moscow (war between these princes occurred prior tot he Mongol invasion) they now had access to Polish and Lithuanian troops under their command.
Now you are deliberately mixing times up. After Khmlenytsky’s successful rebellion when Orthodoxy was used by rebels and Catholics were slaughtered, in reaction limitations were placed upon the Orthodox because this was seen as deadly, treasonous and dangerous.
First there was tolerance, then counterformation, then once again tolerance, then rebellion, then persecution. Until the last stage, local policies were set by local princes.
Initiative of local rulers and elites. Poland and Catholicism were more advanced. So Orthodox Academy was the most advanced school in the Orthodox world – it used Latin and Polish as primary languages of instruction. First head of the Russian Synod, because he was Ukraine, composed poetry in these language.
Invitation of local Rus princes who wanted larger populations on their estates and used Jews as managers and artisans. Settlers were mostly peasants from further West; 10% were ethnic Poles (mostly from Mazovia) the rest were Rus. Poles were Rusinized over time.
Rus peasant uprisings were suppressed by a mixture of Rus troops and Polish troops commanded by local Rus lords. In Khmelytsky’s case, he used Tatar allies. So it was Rus lords + Rus soldiers + Polish soldiers + German mercenaries vs. Rus peasants + Rus minor nobles + Tatars.
A Western Rus civil war in which both sides exterminated each other. Rus Catholics and Uniates were being exterminated by the rebels, for their faith. Orthodox were not being exterminated for being Orthodox (there were thousands of Orthodox among the anti-rebels) but for rebellion.
Because the Kuban, Volga, Rostov and Kazakh regions were also starving to death, not just Ukraine
They do not deny it happened, they just refuse to take responsibility for a famines masterminded by Jews and Georgians which killed millions of Russians aswell as Ukrainians
Another example of the kind of misinformation you repeatedly spout. The Polish dominated effort of subjugating Russia included the suppression of Orthodox Christians – something relating to the Polish encouraged creation of the Uniate/Greek Catholic domination for people of a Rus OC background.
Your incomplete overview is along the lines of noting that Nazi Germany recognized the predominately Slavic lands of Croatia, Slovakia and Bulgaria as independent entities – as if that somehow exonerates Nazi anti-Slavic rhetoric, along with the treatment that most Slavic lands experienced under Nazi rule.
BTW, one could note that some Poles (especially among the aristocracy) favored of some Russian actions on Poland which most Poles (at least in the present) don’t support.
The problem is when does it end, this “victory cult”? There is a common myth that England has never faced an existential crisis, yet historically speak the Norman invasion and atrocities like the “Harrying of the North” destroyed England and changed the nation for ever.
We could make a big deal out of this today, as the Irish do about so called “English” (in fact NORMAN) war crimes going back centuries and yet we don’t and the few English people who do are considered to be stuck in the past and very divisive. Perhaps it’s just a mentality difference? I personally don’t think the English dwell on the past that much as a culture.
Slavs seem to be divided heavily based on religion, there really isn’t much pan-Slavism outside of religion. It seems to me that Russians and Serbs feel much more of a kinship with fellow Orthodox Greeks than they do with any Catholic Slavs.
Attempts at encouraging pan-Slavism don’t seem to have had much success because for Slavs religious identity trumps any racial or linguistic classifications.
Will also note the consensus noting that there’s a consensus that the likes of Vyhovsky and Mazepa lost because most of the people on the land they claimed to represent went against the drive to oppose Russia.
At one point, Czechs and Slovaks fit the pro-Russian category, along with the Serbs, Bulgarians and Montenegrins.
Although a minority among their respective group, there’re some pan-Slav/pro-Russian Croats and Slovenians.
@Korenchkin
Troll? Here’s a verse of one of our national songs from 1880s that goes something like
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6J7FEA4tyBo
It’s not the time, It’s not the time, It’s not the time
The Muscovite and Polack to serve!
Unbearable’s Ukraine’s grievance of old
It is time, for us to live, for Ukraine
its impossible to be friends with the russians..i just want them to idc…be friends with china or something. And wall themslves off from us.
we must part company and go our separate ways
end of the story
Romantic interpretation hiding that there were no such clean distinctions. Lithuania gobbled up the Turov territories because Rus’ was in disarray and collapse in the century after the Mongol invasions. And the Rus princes of Galicia raided Polish territory in conjunction with Tatars in the 1280s-90s.
Correct, but Ukrainians were over-represented among the victims and related to this, policies limited to the Ukrainian SSR were stricter than in Russia. Furthermore the more-Russian settled cities weren’t hit, the Ukrainian countryside was.
Close to 10 % of Ukraine’s population starved to death. Russia’s toll wasn’t as large.
Correct and I don’t think it contradicts what I wrote.
The SOBs continued to export grain too, just like the English in Ireland and in Bengal.
True, that has become liberalism defining characteristic. Liberals lack critical thinking and believe that what is put in front of them is the ‘truth‘ that they have to learn and repeat. Liberals are appreciated in academia because academia hates new ideas and is obsessed with controlling any criticism – it implicitly undermines their positions.
Today’s liberalism is a form of educated conformism that is similar to medieval scholasticism, Marxism, and other explain-the-world ideologies. The combination of conformism, career dependencies and dislike of critical thinking is very similar in all of them.
The old Hungarian lady’s dislike of post-Trianon borders for Hungary says it all. In most places that Hungary controlled pre-WWI and lost in 1918, there were very few Hungarians: government officials, some local opportunists, but above all local Jews who were the main carrier of Hungarian chauvinism in those regions. After WWI they became very bitter – some of them literally hate everybody in Central Europe: the local nationalities (because of Trianon), Hungarians (because they are a majority), Russians (because of communism), and Germans because of WWII. Everything they had pre-WWI was gradually dismantled and often in a very murderous way.
How did anyone convince the Chinese that they should dig up the corpses of emperors that died centuries ago, paint loyalty signs all over their houses and livestock and dance the Mao dance? It’s all about signaling and the more crazy you go with it the more you demonstrate your commitment.
The ridiculousness of the ideas is a feature, not a bug, and once things start going this way you will no longer be able to slow down things by pointing out their irrationality, to the contrary, it will just add fuel to the fire.
That would actually be a danger to the elites. Nazism was a Germanic movement that recruited Swedes and Germans and rejected us, Finland is owned Germanic old money and the Swedes even have their own political party that was once pretty explicit about their belief that Finns are a lower race.
Nazi behavior is somewhat whitewashed here because it could provide pro-Russian and anti-Germanic weapons in our culture wars. We can’t even begin to guilt trip anyone over the alliance with Germany as that was kept secret and no one knows who arranged it. President Ryti took all the blame in front of the Allied Control Commission but it’s obvious that he was protecting a whole behind the scenes network. That would be in the ethnic Swedes and Germans who were well connected and intermarried with German elites.
Not even Stalin figured it out – he had ethnic Finnish circles better infiltrated than pretty much any other people but not ethnic Swedes. In the end he ended up dictating the band aid solution of banning Finland from deals with Germany and that worked until Gorbachev screwed everything up.
The EU and the Americans seem to have absolutely no idea who we are and they seem to think we are some sort of Scandinavians who escaped liberal denazification. So they’re pushing for Nazi guilt and of course it’s not having the expected results. Other countries have their alt right alt media that tries to rehabilitate fascism but here the anti-immigrant dissident media has turned into an anti-Germanic neo-Bolshevik circle. It will be, uh, interesting to see what happens if Russia decides to get involved.
There is an ideological attack on everything Russian by Washington, London, Brussels and their noisy sidekicks from Stockholm to Warsaw. West has decided that future hostilities with Russia are inevitable, so the demonisation (as always) must be done to prepare the ground.
When West and Russia fight, Central-Eastern Europe suffers. Most rational people here would prefer to avoid it. But fanatics, ideologues, comprador class, and most Poles can’t wait for the fireworks to start. The memory revisions and re-writing of history are necessary and thus functional, nothing Russia does can change it. Have a look at the line-up of State Dept officials foaming at their mouths at an idea that Trump would scale back the hostilities – these are severely disturbed fanatics with axes to grind going back generations. Opening archives or discussions will not change anything. Let it be and have consequences speak for themselves.
It’s just a lie. The conquest by the Lithuanians meant the preservation of Tatar power (where it existed). After the Lithuanian conquest, Tatar power did not disappear – only Lithuanian oppression was added to Tatar oppression. For the rest, the Lithuanian princes recognized the Supreme power of the Tatar khans over the conquered lands, received a “label” from the Tatar khans, and regularly paid tribute.
And the Lithuanian / Polish rule for any standards was much,much,much,much, much worse than the Tatar rule.
the rest of your mental gymnastics and doublethink about the” beneficence ” of the Polish yoke are not interesting to me at all
Lol remember German Reader is not just German, but is a professionally trained historian German.
His writing on this forum, is incompatible as if a professional oboist tries to play melodies he has transcribed from Schubert lieders, in a Justin Bieber fan convention. Or if a piano tuner comes to tune a piano which is somehow at a school of deaf children, and feels surprised why his effort is not appreciated by deaf children there.
He wants to write about what were reality of the past, while the focus here is about what would create the best publicity.
That is fine for us little people because it is entertainment. However, it has no relation to aspirations (if not often achieved) of the historian.
Since its birth in Thucydides, history – or at least noble and difficult aspiration of history – is to separate what is the reality of past, away from personal interests, womanly superstitions/religion, mythology and emotional desires.
That said, even a German Reader can sometimes come down from his Heidelberg tower. I mean where else except this forum can be found people arguing on the important question of whether beautiful 1/4 Tatar women can be accepted by American white nationalists, or if YouTube videos of historical architecture in Lvov imply that Ukraine is more advanced than Taiwan.
Would probably be more accurate to write failed historian. And the “training” (lol) I got was garbage anyway.
But yes, I do find the attitude to history shown in threads such as these irritating. I will never understand why AK publishes articles like this where he basically advocates creating a convenient narrative for nationalist purposes (because having a common enemy and a martyrdom complex is good for group solidarity, as he explicitly states in one of his comments above) on an international English-language platform. What’s the point of this? It’s not like such articles will advance understanding between Russia and Western countries or lead to a fruitful discussion. It all seems weirdly autistic to me. If all one really cares about anyway is manufacturing a nice story for one’s own group interests, why bring this up in front of a foreign audience instead of sticking to fellow nationalists who share the same goal?
But you’re right about the entertainment value of this comments section, I certainly can’t think of another forum where within the space of two comments one can read such interesting views as “WW2 was divine punishment for heresies” and “Russia could always open up the archives on the Holocaust fraud”… 🙂
I do find the attitude to history shown in threads such as these irritating
I think that you are trying to view history as a discrete unmalleable object. It is not.
There is the objective reality of “what happened” and then there is “the history” of what happened. They are never, and they can never be the same. History is just our understanding of the past and its presentation is subjective and biased. Why do you think that the history of WWII is different in the high school texts of the RF, the UK, Germany, the US, Japan, France, China, etc. One thing that the postmodernists, or whatever they are supposed to be called, got exactly right is that the most important fact about “history” is the identity of the person who is writing that history. Only a very few people have any interest in “what really happened.” Most people are interested in using it in myth making, political warfare, absolving ancestors and peoples of responsibilities, creating grievances, etc. Be happy that you are one that wants to know, and celebrate when you cross paths with a kindred soul.
And what does Karlin have to do with “advance understanding between Russia and Western countries”? In this case, Karlin represents only himself, and his views (regardless of whether they are correct or not) have nothing to do with state policy of Russia in the field of history.
It is also obvious that “understanding between Russia and Western countries” is not possible for reasons unrelated to Karlin’s views
Still, not most people. This is mainly done by politicians and parasites serving their interests.
Main legitimizing “force” of the modern Russian state is anti-communism. Yeltsin’s actions of unseating Gorbachev and seizing power for himself by dissolving the USSR were highly illegal, yet they are the foundation of the modern Russian state. So it follows that the only way to legitimize modern Russian state is to claim that Soviet Union was so uniquely horrible that it had to be terminated by any means possible. Putin, no matter what he may think in private, has to follow this narrative.
On the other hand, worship of Holy Victory is entirely grassroots. It rose in the late 90s as a protest against the official narrative (see above.) It took the state quite a few years to hitch their wagon to this horse.
Still, not most people.
Right. Most people don’t give a crap about the “real” history. Most people don’t have the intellect and/or the education to contemplate it.
Nothing weird about it. Karlin has no platform inside Russia, so where else can he share his insights? In addition, his brand of nationalism is not very popular in Russia, to put it mildly. His hope is that it will grow in popularity as the older generation of “Sovoks” goes away. Most likely, he is wrong.
Soviet Union demanded exactly two things of Poland. Coincidentally, these are exactly the same things demanded today by America.
(1) Be a part of our military alliance, including hosting our troops when we require it.
(2) Declare allegiance to our ideology, but you are free to implement pretty much any policy you want.
Decades from now, when the world turns again, I can totally see Poles complaining about America occupying them.
you have to very naive to take the nazis at their word
Flattered to know you believe me when I say that PUTLER reads me.
Communist poland had completely different policy towards Israel than the USSR you fool.
“Main direction was set” is just vague BS…Unless you are talking about things like Bulgaria not allowing South Stream 2 because of US dictation, 3 American/canadian Presidents in power in all the baltic states in 2008-12 or whatever.
The Poles had very independent control of budget, health, education, culture and so on.
I would add that a Pole was appointed to run the Ukraine SSR upto the Golodomor
Latvian riflemen were important in filling the balance to the, not so popular, Bolsheviks and against the Provisional Government. Given that the two best equipped regiments in the Russian army (Machine gun regiments) plus huge numbers of other troops, were there that was critical. Half the troops not actually at the front were in the Saratov military district. The Latvians took out the majority of officers who opposed the establishment of an army Soviet. Without that, the Whites would have had by far the biggest army and Kolchak and Denikin would have. Lower the gap. Various other Central Europeans, deported to Saratov for the duration in large numbers as suspect by the Tsarist were also of huge importance.
Wait, are you implying that the remeberance narratives in Poland etc. are constructed or even financed by Americans? I’m sorry but you’re out to lunch.
And please do not misconstrue the words of Estonia’s far right leader. He was not the first to doubt NATO, that was in fact Trump. Helme simply (and very rationally) responded to everything that has transpired since 2014 by saying “Guys, let’s hope NATO stays but we need a plan B”. A totally normal common sense reaction, his political opponents misconstrued it to isolate him. On the grievance issue the nationalist opinion is that endless public statements are not always that helpful, it doesn’t mean they will abandon these narratives internally. There is a legal matter of continuity tied to this as well.
One thing how we are different from you Finns is that you guys no longer understand the Russian language. Thus these narratives seem one sided to you. The truth is that there is a barrage of semi-official very aggressive narratives that are directed towards us (including via the 5th column) which you are simply not aware of because you don’t understand Russian and nobody bothers translating it for you.
And btw I do sympathize with you re: Finland’s relatively recent neoliberal turn. I haven’t visited recently but visiting just 10 years ago it still seemed like a somewhat homogeneous egalitarian country, in much better shape that way than the Nordic countries, so reading about recent economic changes after having had hope for the True Finns has been sad. I think forces much larger than the EU are at play now as the movement of people, capital and ideas is just very intense.
You also mention the old Swedish money. But don’t you feel that some of them have by now sufficiently Finnicized? I mean, do you for instance still consider the Herlin family Swedish when they all have Finnish names now? Do these types of folks push a neoliberal agenda there? I was under the impression that most of these folks like to be quiet (as you might know, money loves quiet).
Does “understanding between Russia and Western countries or lead to a fruitful discussion” mean the humble acceptance by Russia of the Western narrative(s) regarding her history?
In India, it is woke to say that laws against homosexuality, now abolished, were a residue of British colonial oppression. Pre colonial India was a haven for gays and transvestites. This could of course be revisionism but it is broadcast without challenge on BBC TV.
Filling/tipping.
Lenin’s sisters were also instrumental in securing the military resources of Saratov for the Bolsheviks. Before they arrived the Mensheviks were more prominent. Lenin’s sisters arrived (literally with gold) and the Bolsheviks suddenly increased their strength in the city and the army. As above, foreign residents from Austria-Hungary and Germany and elsewhere were interned in Saratov where there was anyway a large German population and many Little Russians (native to the area). They resented Tsarism. However, Kerensky was very popular amongst the Russian population. He was the Duma Deputy for the province. The Lower Volga was his power base. Too far from St Petersburg. Lenin’s sisters and their gold persuaded the many non Russians (Latvian riflemen and Lithuanian dock workers being crucial – the point of this post) and many junior officers to form Soviets and promote Bolshevism.
‘Stellar’ exhibition of fake history.
Which facts do you think are wrong?
LOL, “Lithuanian oppression.” Most of the Rus princes stayed in place, as did Rus law, and the incoming Lithuanians intermarried with them.
Speculation of this occurring on a limited basis from time to time. This reminds me of your silly argument about Poland-Lithuania having minor contribution to the salvation of Europe at Vienna in 1683.
And yet no attempt to join Tatars rather than Lithuanians, and no mentions of “Lithuanian yoke.”
Sovok Russian historical tradition knows better.
It’s good that you mention this because the riflemen were hoping to take back Courland since they wanted to get back to their homes out of which they had been pushed out. The battles of January 1917 were very severe (imagine how it is to fight in -36 degrees C when rifles no longer work, munition is not exploding). Then later it turned out that not only were the Tsar’s reinforcements insufficient, but rumors appeared that the Imperial leadership unlike what they had promised wasn’t even planning on completely pushing the Germans out of Courland. The severe losses together with the futility of it made the riflemen (and the compatriots who supported them) feel betrayed. Big part of the country was destroyed, third of population were refugees in Russia.
This war fatigue and the feeling of betrayal created an atmosphere into which the Bolshevik agitators poured their propaganda (the menshevik wing of the Social Democrats as well as the civic party could not compete with this anymore as the Bolsheviks promised peace along with autonomy).
Also, when talking about 1917 it would be wise to roll back the tape to 1905 for a broader context.
On the topic: I actually find this idea interesting from the POV of human experience. We have a few White acquaintances who ran away from Putin’s regime and they are sharing very interesting stories and artwork from that time.
However, Felix (not Iron Felix but Keverich, lol) is right – in Russia itself this idea would meet resistance from red derzhavniks (statists), many such are still roaming Russia. They might dislike this idea more than Russia’s neighbors.
I didn’t write that, nor do I believe it. In fact I’m not sure for whom you’re writing at all tbh. Russian commenters are frequently stating that you’re out of sync with mainstream opinion in Russia (pretty obvious on issues like May 9 celebrations). You’re also heavily influenced by Western (especially American) internet subcultures with all their weird lingo, which must be pretty alien to most Russians. But you’re obviously not trying to appeal to a Western audience either (apart from the occasional bone thrown to the “HBD” crowd), because much of your content will be profoundly alienating to most Westerners who have no particular reason to indulge fantasies about Russian imperial greatness. So I’m not sure what the point of this blog is.
What is interesting is that there was a considerable period during which the Lithuanian nobles were in the process of abandoning their ancestral faith and during that time they would fluctuate between Western and Orthodox Christianity.
It was not at all a given that they would accept the Western tradition. There really could’ve been a Rus megastate.
Sure, unfortunately that is probably true for the foreseeable future, and imo much of the responsibility for that lies with Western policies. I’m also aware that AK’s views don’t represent official Russian views. I just genuinely don’t understand for what kind of audience exactly he’s writing those articles. As I wrote above, it feels somewhat autistic to me. There’s something very strange about openly admitting that you’d like to artificially manufacture a certain historical narrative, with emphasis on a common enemy to enhance group solidarity…especially when you’re doing so on a foreign-language platform where a large part of the audience by definition could never be part of such a project.
How is the Grand Duchy of Lithuania viewed in Latvia by Latvians?
Russia isn’t monolithic. Substantively, ideas are more important than a given person who might or might not be overrated.
Away from this blog, there’re Russian based venues run by mainstream thinking Russian,s willing to present a more sympathetic look to subjects like the Russian Civil War period Whites and the WW II era Russian Liberation Army.
This matter of Russo-Polish history is getting attention elsewhere. In actuality, it has been pretty much played out.
Reminded of how Vilnius became the capital of modern day Lithuania:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjFJpedrRhc
By the way, Lithuania got Vilnius in October 1939. Lithuania was an independent nation then and would remain independent until August 1940.
Doesn’t this mean that Lithuania participated in the division of Poland together with Nazi Germany and USSR? Why doesn’t anyone point this out?
It is viewed very positively by nationalists (I view it with white envy) and in general positively by the mainstream but with a bit more mental distance (although with respect). It covered part of the Latvian territory in the south. I think Lithuanians feel more affinity to Ruthenia, naturally.
The Lithuanian kings had a kind of an on and off relationship with the Teutonic Knights – they fought them but also made deals with them and ocassionally sought refuge with them from their vengeful relatives (lol). Teutonic Knights are cool, too, but I wonder if the Lithuanians could’ve kicked them out and consolidated all the Baltic tribes already in the 13th century. Or maybe not, as there is more cultural diversity now.
They still use the knight on the horse in their coat of arms – it’s called Pursuit, Chase. Pahonia in Ruthenian. Do you know if Ukrainians ever use it anywhere? I think I saw it in some Galicia related video. When they visit in Latvia, you can often see the picture of this Knight displayed on their cars. It is great to see that.
Pfft.
“Doesn’t this mean that Lithuania participated in the division of Poland…” – Not really.
This is not speculation, it is a well-known fact. The Lithuanians recognized the Supreme power of the Tatars over the lands conquered by the Tatars, received a “yarlyck” for these lands from the Tatar khans, and paid tribute to the Tatars. Here (by link) http://www.vostlit.info/Texts/Dokumenty/Zolotoord/XIV/1380-1400/Tochtamysch/jarlyk_jagajle.phtml is a Tatar “yarlyck” to the Lithuanian Prince and Polish king Jagiełło, for the year 1393. In this document the Tatars order Yagaila to collect tribute and hand it over to the Tatars (“С подданных Нам волостей собрав выходы, вручи идущим послам для доставления в казну”)
And how could this be if the Lithuanians were subject to the Tatars? But there were many attempts to escape the Lithuanian yoke – for example, the desperate struggle of Smolensk against the Lithuanian invaders. During this struggle, Smolensk was ready to submit to Moscow or Ryazan, if only not to live under the boot of the Lithuanians.
In this instance, the USSR saw a Machiavellian benefit, knowing that Lithuania coveted Vilnius and that Polish- Lithuanian relations weren’t so good. Most Lithuanians weren’t against having Vilnius.
How many of these same Lithuanians favored Lithuania becoming a part of the USSR? Many of them opposed the USSR. At the same time, one senses that Lithuanians en masse weren’t as anti-Soviet as Latvians and Estonians.
In this case, Karlin is not talking about creating a “ideologicheskie correct” fakes, but about interpretation of historical events – when in the framework of the “policy of historical memory” some events ignored or (in spite of the cannibalistic nature) portrayed in a positive way, while others on the contrary strongly inflated, acquiring the likeness of Christ’s crucifixion (in the historical beliefs of Christians). In this regard, what Karlin has stated above is only a mirror image of the state-approved “historical policy” of Poland. At the moment, Russia does not have a state “historical policy” directed against Poland (or anyone else), but if the EU further inflates its “historical memory”, Russia will inevitably have its own “historical memory policy” directed against Poland as well as other States and the whole EU …. I doubt that fanning hatred in a situation where both sides have nuclear weapons is a good idea. The more people who understand this , the better I think
Already in 1362 the combined might of Lithuanians and Ruthenians inflicted a serious blow to the might and prestige of the Golden Horde at Blue Waters in Ukraine:
https://youtu.be/qX1V2IOqFQo
In order to bask in a petty nationalism, it is pleasing to mention that Lithuanian Vytis-Pahonia now it is freely r(a)iding all the eurozone on the eurocoins like in the glorious pagan past when king Gediminas when straight to Frankfurt and Berlin for the loot, lol 🙂
https://www.lb.lt/uploads/documents/images/news/2_eur_aversas_2.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raid_on_Brandenburg
This is an example of historical mythology. Around 1360, a bloody civil war begins in the Golden Horde, and the Horde itself splits into separate parts. As a result, in 1365, Prince Oleg of Ryazan defeated the Tatar military commander Tagai, and in 1367, Prince Dmitry Konstantinovich of Nizhny Novogorod defeated the Tatar commander Bolaktemir. This was followed by a series of similar events including the destruction of the Horde’s capital (Sarai) by novogrod pirates in 1371.
One of these events was the victory of the Lithuanians over a group of Tatars in 1362. This event did not have any noticeable consequences (the Lithuanians continued to recognize the Khan’s power and paid tribute to him). This was also not the first defeat of the Tatars – in particular, the rise of Moscow began with the victory over the Tatar army in 1300
Posting stats and interesting (but often unnoticed) changes in Russia and EE, it’s less about the opinion then the information
You won’t many single English speaking blogs that posts this many stats about Russia
And people reading this blog had a chance to read about Mishustin months before he became PM and got an English Wiki page
The comments have also attracted several very informed people with differing opinions (off the top of my head: Jaako, Epigon, AP, AquariousAnon, PolishPerspective, Vishnugupta, Thulean, melanf), discussions down here are often more interesting then the articles themselves, even Karlin often participates
The blog, such as it is, is miles ahead of other internet cesspools, I guess being interested in such information acts as a sort of filter (banhammer always helps too)
Anyway…
(1) My primary concerns are not with generating propaganda for RF’s currence stances (I am not being paid by RT after all), but with getting my own views out. Popularity is not a primary consideration, otherwise I would have been some Alt Lite grifter, had kept HBD at a barge-pole distance, etc. That said, 100,000 + visits / month / dozens, sometimes hundreds of quality comments per post is not entirely irrelevant.
(2) Most Westerners are not going to be partial to any Russian historical narrative which does not denounce “Russian chauvinism”, i.e. all of Russian history, apart from 1917-1920s and the 1990s. However, I don’t see how my alternative is intrinsically any less attractive for foreigners than the current one (ineffectual bleating about “rewriting of history”). There will be some section of right-wing Russophiles who will be attracted to it. Just as there are plenty of right-wing and moderate Polonophiles who buy into Poland’s politics of memory.
(3) There are plenty of Russian nationalists who share these general views (i.e. not the Soviets and Eurasianists who are overrepresented on this website, and amongst “Western Russophiles” in general). I don’t have a large audience in Russian as I do in English, so even at a purely practical level, it would be a more effective use of my time to be “spokesman” for those groups to foreigners as opposed to doing my own punditry in Russian. Which I do by appearing on various podcasts.
If we keep in mind the real historical policy (that is, not inciting hatred by manipulating historical facts, but expanding historical knowledge among the population), the state should spend money on high-quality historical films, books, (comics, video games?). To do this, it is necessary to replace the current Minister of culture with a more competent person, and stop funding those mediocre projects that are being funded.
A funny example is that the son of an Armenian oligarch has taken to producing Russian Patriotic comics – in fact, he is more useful in relation to “historical policy” than all the ministries of culture
https://mmedia.ozone.ru/multimedia/1019862977.jpg
At least since you got to Russia you haven’t imitated the Russians, Ukrainians, Nigerians, Somalis, Indians, etc. that come to America and then immediately set up shop and endlessly lecture and harrangue the rest of us about how much better it was in the old country.
None of what you quoted contradicts what I said.
https://www.onthebus.com.ua/wa-data/public/shop/products/29/08/829/images/2368/2368.750×0.jpg
It’s called Enoch, it’s about a dumb Russian kid who inherits a golden cross from his Grandfather and is tasked with travelling through time to help Russians in battles
The quality of the artwork varies but it’s decent, as far as superhero comic books go
According to Russian wiki tribute to Mongols ended after Blue Waters but resumed a few years later, in 1371. Deposed Golden Horde Khan relinquished all claims upon Rus lands in 1395 in exchange for help against his rivals. Lithuanians invaded deep into Tatar territory and defeated Tatars in battles in 1395 and 1397. They were then defeated by the Tatars in a major battle in 1399 and forced to pay a ransom at Kiev. But no evidence of ongoing tribute after that.
Only briefly. And you contradict yourself (see below):
Moscow was also subject to the Tatars. So according to your logic this wouldn’t make sense.
And again you twist history. Russian svidomy mythology at its best.
In Smolesnsk there was a power struggle between an unpopular ruler Yuri and boyars, who supported Lithuania.
Yuri was expelled from Smolensk by a local rebellion in 1392. Yuri escaped to Ryazan. After Lithuania was weakened in 1399 (see above) Yuri’s sponsor, Prince Oleg, and his Ryazan troops took Smolensk. Oleg died and Yuri ruled Smolensk for a few years, withstanding a 2 month Lithuanian* siege in 1404. But when he later left the city to seek help from Prince Vasily of Moscow, the boyars called in the Lithuanians and opened the gates to them. They were free of the hated Yuri, and their city was then part of Lithuania for over 100 years.
Some “desperate struggle.”
Yuri then stayed in Moscow where he got himself into various troubles. Here is what the mythological Russian national “hero” and resister to Lithuanians did while in exile, according to the Chronicle. It is very obvious what kind of person he was and why the people of Smolensk expelled him and invited in the Lithuanians:
And the Grand Duke Vasily Dmitrievich made him governor in Torzhok, and there he without cause killed the serving prince Semyon Mstislavich Vyazemsky and his princess Juliania, as he was seized with a carnal desire for his wife, took her to his house, wanting to cohabit with her. The princess, not wanting this, said, “Oh, prince, what do you think, can I leave my living husband and go to you?” But he wanted to lie with her, she resisted him, grabbed a knife and hit him in the muscle. He became angry and soon killed her husband, Prince Semyon Mstislavich Vyazemsky, who served with him, shed blood for him and was not guilty of anything before him, since he had not taught his wife how to deal with the prince, And ordered that the princess’ hands and feet be cut off and she be throw into the water. The servants did what was ordered of them, threw here into the water, it became a sin and great shame for Prince Yuri,
:::::::::
He then fled and died among the Tatars.
Yuri actually looks like a diagnosable psychopath.
*”Lithuanians” at that time were a mix of western Rus and Lithuanians
Yuri’s victim, the married woman whom he ordered dismembered because she fought off his attempt to rape her, btw, is an Orthodox Saint:
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%98%D1%83%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%8F_%D0%92%D1%8F%D0%B7%D0%B5%D0%BC%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B0%D1%8F
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7a/Iulianiya_Vyazemskaya.jpg/274px-Iulianiya_Vyazemskaya.jpg
This company, to advertise its comics, even released a 20-minute superhero movie (about another hero-a tough police officer from St. Petersburg). Here you can watch this movie with English subtitles
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLt65JxNsWI
This is a based film since the dumbest bandit is an African migrant.
As there is a lot of talk about former Lithuania, which included most of modern Belarus land, there is quite a symbolic economic landmark achieved these days as Lukashenko began to import Norwegian oil through Lithuanian port:
https://eng.belta.by/economics/view/belarus-to-import-oil-from-norway-127422-2020/
btw, the oil in question is from the newest and one of biggest oilfields (named Johan Sverdrup) ever in North sea which began operating very recently and has oil very similar to Urals mark, just can’t find the English link about that atm.
I would only add that the Battle of Blue Waters definitely signaled the beginning of the end of the Horde’s rule over Eastern European lands, most specifically large swaths of Central Ukrainian and all of Byelorusian lands. Prince Olgegard was able to unite the Lithuanians and Ruthenians into a very large and cohesive state. His dynasty’s rule signaled a breath of fresh air and needed sunshine into Ukrainian lands. Being married to a Ruthenian woman, he was very respectful of Ruthenian cultural attributes and his reign was marked with a greatly increased tempo of building new Orthodox churches, the renewal of the Kyivan Metropolia and generally with fresh new life in cities across Ukraine after a very dark episode in its history.
That is, the Lithuanians continued to recognize the power of the Khan and pay tribute to the Tatars, and the whole fairy tale about “liberation from the Tatars” by Lithuanians is a fairy tale.
Known yarluks of the Tatar khans to Lithuanian princes/Polish kings. I’m too lazy to translate, but even without knowing Russian, it’s enough to look at the dates
Ярлык Абдуллы (Мамая) Ольгерду (1362)
Ярлык Тохтамыша Ягайле (1392-1393)
Ярлык Тохтамыша Витовту (1397-1398)
Ярлык Хаджи-Гирея Витовту
Ярлык Улуг-Мухаммеда Свидригайле (1431)
Ярлык Хаджи-Гирея Сигизмунду Кейстутьевичу
Ярлык Хаджи-Гирея Казимиру (1461)
Ярлык Нур-Девлета Казимиру (1466)
Ярлык Менгли-Гирея Казимиру (1472)
Ярлык Менгли-Гирея Сигизмунду I (1507)
Ярлыки Менгли-Гирея Сигизмунду I (1514)
Ярлык Мухаммед-Гирея Сигизмунду I (1520)
Ярлык Сагип-Гирея Сигизмунду I (1535)
Ярлык Сагип-Гирея Сигизмунду I (1540)
Ярлык Девлет-Гирея Сигизмунду II (1560)
Well – probably like you – I do not agree or condone most of Karlin’s views.
On the other hand, his blog is an enjoyable and addictive place for spending time.
So think about this a bit – he is good in this job as a blogger, I assume after many years of experience in this strange profession. Whereas if me and you want to work as a blogger, we would probably be lucky if we had two or three readers, despite the fact (or more likely because of the fact) we would be writing more sensible or realistic views and our personality would be too normal to receive attention.
One of the “hooks” for a successful blog on consumers is to annoy them or try to attain an emotion from them. The world’s most successful internet sites like Daily Mail are designed to annoy their readers, aside from just photos of women in bikinis.
The Russian internet is one of the larger and more diverse ones, but still I think only a few people can live from just posting on it.
Income generating bloggers – these are mainly liberal bloggers, which is where the largest market share for the kind of netizens which read blogs. Otherwise, some teenage girls who become rich from YouTube. Also some YouTubers which have an exciting and glamorous life, that walk around mountains with a beautiful girlfriend – they receive millions of fans by presenting escapism dreams for the bored office cattle audience.
Another thing is “branding”. Karlin has already brand his blog as related to Russia. So this is branding more interesting for multinational discussion.
Finally, Karlin should not write his most controversial views on the Russian internet (e.g. negative opinions about different nationalities), because there are less popular bloggers who go to prison for writing less controversial things. It’s a safety cushion to write those particular controversial opinions in English.
((Swoon))
A bold but necessary move.
In the Battle of Blue Waters it was the son of Gediminas, Arlgirdas (or Olgerd, as our Ruthenian friends call him) who led that charge.
I have this coin, I kept it because it was too beautiful to spend. I should probably get a real numismatic Gediminas coin.
It makes sense because the power of Moscow saved from Lithuanian slavery – as history has shown, Lithuanian rule was the worst option of all .
Your favorite Wikipedia, https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%98%D1%81%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%8F_%D0%A1%D0%BC%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BD%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B0#%D0%A1%D0%BC%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BD%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B5_%D0%BA%D0%BD%D1%8F%D0%B6%D0%B5%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B2%D0%BE
read from
“Племянник Ольгерда Витовт поставил целью овладеть Смоленском, где разгорелась борьба между князьями — сыновьями Святослава, в результате которой великий князь Юрий Святославич был в 1392 году изгнан к своему тестю Олегу Рязанскому и заменён братом Глебом. Это дало повод Витовту к вмешательству: распустив слух, что идёт на татар, Витовт в 1395 году неожиданно появился с войском под стенами Смоленска и заявил претензию выступить судьёй в разрешении спора. Все смоленские князья явились к нему с дарами; взяв дары,”
also https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A1%D0%BC%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BD%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B0%D1%8F_%D0%B7%D0%B0%D0%BC%D1%8F%D1%82%D0%BD%D1%8F
Gediminas numismatic coin is quite pricey now, but imho looks way less aesthetically pleasing to the eye than just Vytis on the ordinary eurocoins 😉
https://www.investicinisauksas.lt/uploads/e_catalog/product_2310_1.jpg
https://www.investicinisauksas.lt/en/shop/product/2310/50-litas-coin-dedicated-to-gediminas-grand-duke-of-lithuania/47/
we would be writing more sensible or realistic views and our personality would be too normal to receive attention.
LOL
Whereas the Lithuanian-Ruthenian princes seem to have tapered off their tribute payments (except for a few intermittent payments) after the Battle of Blue Waters in 1362, Muscovite princes continued to pay the tribute way after the Battle of Kulokovo (1380) well into the 1470’s. I don’t see you diminishing the importance of this battle as you do the one at Blue Waters?
As a result of the war with the Horde, Dmitry reached the point that the Khan (in a peace Treaty) was forced to recognize the Grand Duchy of Vladimir as a hereditary possession of the Moscow princes. This was a turning point in the history of the Moscow Principality.
They are pretty weird to all spiritual boomers, who are the majority anywhere. If I wanted to talk to boomers I’d have spent my energies sidling up to Breitbart and Daily Caller. Or their Russian equivalents. But I respect myself too much to do that.
Anyhow, it’s not even correct, the younger generation of Russian nationalists are familiar with all the /pol/ memes.
https://twitter.com/barenboimb/status/1219697551684915200
This doesn’t diminish the fact that the Muscovite rulers continued to pay the danina into the 1470’s. The danina’s payment to the Khans discontinued earlier in the lands around Kyiv (1331 certainly, later?*), and is the criteria that you set as a sort of litmus test of legitimacy. Actually, the payment of danina continued even after the more dynamic victory of Muscovy over the Golden Horde at the “Stand of the Ugra River”(1480) where now Ivan III paid tribute to other khans in the neighborhood, Kasimov, the Crimea, Astrakhan and Kazan.
*At the time, newly consecrated archbishop Basil Kalika traveled from Volodymyr-Volynskyi home to Veliky Novgorod. He was stopped by Prince Fiodor of Kiev, a Tatar basqaq (tax collector), and fifty warriors.[17] In 1916, new evidence was published that Fiodor was a brother of Gediminas[17] and historians reinterpreted that the 1331 incident shows that Fiodor was still paying a tribute to the Mongols.[18] Lithuanians gained full control of the city only in 1362 after the Battle of Blue Waters against the Golden Horde.[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_on_the_Irpin_River
So what? The video you posted above (about the battle in 1362) is wild nonsense. What does the battle of Kulikovo have to do with this nonsense?
This is some very alternative history
I agree, and my sympathies for Polish right-wingers are rather limited anyway (if it’s some consolation to you, their resentment of Germany is a lot more visceral and intenso imo than of Russia, so on some level they do seem to acknowledge the difference between the German and Soviet occupations). I also think the EU’s declaration on Molotov-Ribbentropp was a mistake. Molotov-Ribbentropp was pretty terrible, and imo Russians who are still defending it are very wrong (not just because of Soviet crimes in the Baltic states and Poland, but also because Stalin’s miscalculation enabled Germany’s war and created the preconditions for the German invasion of the Soviet Union). But simple statements of equivalency between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union are obviously motivated primarily by a political agenda and can be considered questionable for many reasons.
And personally, I’m not much in favour of state-determined officially approved narratives of history anyway.
What does the battle of Blue Waters have to do with this nonsense (Battle of Kulikova)? 🙂
They’re very comparable.
Written by one of the world’s foremost authorities on “Russia and the Golden Horde”, Charles J Halpern. Pages 59 – 60:
I’ll stop here (have serious work to do anyway), and don’t want to offend you more than I probably already have, but tbh I often get the impression that you’re living too much in a bubble of internet subcultures. You should talk more to normal people, all those memes and internet in-jokes etc. are going nowhere as political activism, they’re just a coping mechanism for lack of any real influence.
Very nice, thanks! 🙂 gerai 🙂
Btw, re: Belarus, Luka gave a long interview to Eho Moskvi recently in which he mentioned that he had offered Putin to pay for the oil in roubles but the Russians refused this offer and insisted that he still pay in dollars. Trade deficit between them is apparently 9B in Russia’s advantage.
They paid off the Tatars while fighting others, for a few years. Muscovites were also paying off Tatars (see Mr. Hack’s post)
Your source is a funny Russian svidomist-historian with some strange ideas:
https://aquilaaquilonis.livejournal.com/10563.html
He wrote a book about how Russians’ ancestors created the modern world:
https://fastpic.co/images/kkk_1.jpg
LOL.
So it makes sense you would believe svidomist fairytales about the horrible “Lithuanian yoke” upon the Rus people or the Russian svidomist fairytales about Polish kings being under the Tatars until the 16th century (!).
Meanwhile a normal historian writes this about it:
https://www.academia.edu/2350881/On_the_question_regarding_the_location_of_Proslavia
“The jarligs of Crimean khans containing the list of the lands symbolically presented to the Grand Dukes of Lithuania or Polish kings…This variety of formulations allows to suggest that the use of the word tumen concerning the lands of Podolia was rather a tribute to some diplomatic traditions, not to reality”
So for example the Jarlig of 1507 was for the lands of Ryazan, Pskov and Novgorod – not lands of western Rus, Kiev etc.
Again, it is very funny.
Yuri was a hated ruler whom the people of Smolensk threw out. He could only get the city back with a foreign army, from Ryazan. After he left again to get help from Moscow, the people of the city opened the gate to the Lithuanians and let them in. So he ended up working for Moscow.*
For Russian svidomists, this becomes a desperate struggle of the people of Smolensk against the horrible, oppressive Lithuanians.
*During which time, he tried to rape a prince’s wife, killed the prince, had her dismembered and thrown into a river, and then fled to Tatar lands.
Speaking of Smolensk sieges, here is how the brave people of Smolensk withstood a one year siege by Muscovite invaders in 1632-1633:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Smolensk_(1632%E2%80%931633)
Dear friend, in message 148, you posted an idiotic video, or some other Mr. Hack? When I pointed out to you that this video (about the battle of the blue waters) is utter nonsense, you started writing that the battle of Kulikovo did not lead to the termination of the payment of tribute. This is true, but it doesn’t make the video in message 148 any less idiotic.
Well, after reviewing the video another time, there are some elements presented within that are a little bit quirky. If you have any specific pet peeves about it, let me know, I’ll lend you a sympathetic ear. I thought that it included some cool visuals and would be an interesting “lure” to get a conversation started, I think that I succeeded. I believe it’s a Byelorusian production.
Nevertheless, this is complete nonsense. Kasimov Tatars were soldiers in the service of Ivan III, what he awarded them was a payment for military service, but not a tribute.
“Kasimov’s rulers during this period were considered servitors, vassals in relation to the Moscow principality. This was facilitated by the demesnial position of Kasimov, which was considered part of the grand prince’s domain rather than a sovereign splinter of the Golden Horde. Kasimov Chinggisids did not have a large military force in order to create an independent khanate in the steppe capable of competing, for example, with Kazan, and they relied on the strong Moscow principality performing military service for it, receiving money for proper maintenance and obeying the grand prince’s orders”
Ivan defeated and subdued the Kazan khanate, so the Kazan Khan was officially a vassal of the Moscow Prince (this naturally excluded the payment of tribute). To the Crimean khanate was paid an irregular “pominiki” monetary subsidy so that the Crimean Tatars did not plunder the lands of Moscow, but plundered the lands of Lithuania. The closest analogue is the “tribute” that the United States paid to Algerian pirates in the 18th and 19th century. In the future, you can write any nonsense here – I will not answer, since I do not have time
How many times did Lithuania besiege Smolensk before its final submission in the mid-15th century? 5 times as it seems?
What did the “people of Smolensk” have to do with the Polish army?
As it seems ,the “people of Smolensk” disappeared in these events:
“The citizens of Smolensk had been coping with starvation and epidemic since the summer of 1610. The weakened Russian garrison (with only about 200 remaining soldiers) was not able to repel the fifth attack of the Polish army on 3 June 1611, when after the 20 months of siege the Polish army advised by the runaway traitor Andrei Dedishin, discovered a weakness in the fortress defence and on 13 June 1611 a Cavalier of Malta, Bartłomiej Nowodworski [pl], inserted a mine into a sewer canal and the succeeding explosion created a large breach in the fortress walls. Jakub Potocki [pl] was the first on the walls. The fortress fell on the same day, with the last stage taking place after violent street fighting, when some 3,000 Russians citizens blew themselves up in the Assumption Cathedral“
https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/litovsko-ordynskie-otnosheniya-1419-1429-godov-i-pervaya-popytka-obrazovaniya-krymskogo-hanstva
Scanned specifically for you
https://d.radikal.ru/d02/2001/b2/d41d43d529a3.png
The Crimean Khan called the Polish king his (Crimean Khan’s) slave at the end of the 15th century – he had reason to believe so. I will not answer you further as I am leaving for two weeks.
And yet the people of Smolensk themselves called in the Lithuanians (Western Rus plus Lithuanians) and opened their gates when they got the chance.
Also, it looks like the Muscovites also besieged Smolesnk a number of times:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Smolensk_(1514)
When war broke out again in November 1512, Moscow’s main objective was to capture Smolensk, an important fortress and trade center that had been part of Lithuania since 1404. The Russians, commanded personally by Tsar Vasili III of Russia, laid a six-week siege in January–February 1513, but Grand Hetman Konstanty Ostrogski repelled the attack. Another four-week siege followed in August–September 1513.
Ostrogski was, of course, a Western Rus prince, a Rurikid.
So a Rus prince defeats a siege of a Rus city by Muscovites.
Somehow Russian svidomists imagine that this represents a “desperate struggle” against the Lithuanians by Russians.
And yet 20 years later the people of Smolensk withstood a one year long Muscovite siege.
It looks like a population of mixed loyalties, rather than the Russian svidomist fairytale of a desperate anti-Lithuanian population.
And Zaporozhians in their letter to he Sultan called him worse things; this dopes not tell us anything about the relative power of Zaporozhia and the Ottoman Empire.
Have a safe trip.
You’re splittting hairs here, that don’t really add up to much.
Keeping a typical foe at bay so that he doesn’t plunder your land is tribute, no matter what other name it goes bye, “pominiki”, “monetary subsidy”, “danina” etc; Personally, I call it “insomnia relief insurance” so that you can sleep better at night, knowing that your “friends” don’t try burning down your town. 🙂
In this case, Poland paid tribute to the Tatars until the end of the 17th century. Moscow did the same (also until the end of the 17th century), but we are not discussing Moscow, but fantasies about the “liberation” role of the battle of Blue waters, after which Lithuania/Poland allegedly did not pay tribute to the Tatars and did not recognize the suzerainty of the khans. As you can see Lithuania / Poland paid tribute to the Tatars (until the end of the 17th century), and recognized the suzerainty of the khans (at least until the middle of the 15th century)
Well the way you put it, using my reasoning, I’d have to agree with you. At some point, however, the Tatars were completely cut off from any sort of danina in both the Muscovian north and the Ruthenian south. Battles like Blue waters, Kulikova and Ugra (and others) were all markers of the decline of Tatar suzerainty, and the beginning of new forms of subservience. 🙂
If it’s not too presumptouus, where are you headed?