This post is a continuation of the last, and can otherwise be called “Konstantin von Eggert: A Case Study In Democratic Journalism (part 2).” Alternatively, one might view it as a refutation of claims that the Kremlin controls or censors the Russian media (Eggert’s own protestations, hilarious and Orwellian in the context of what follows, to the contrary). In this fascinating piece for Kommersant (a moderately liberal Russian newspaper, believe it or not) Eggert takes out his frustrations on Assange for the unpardonable offense of humiliating his journalistic profession – Wikileaks produced more big news stories in a year than dozens of journalists do in their entire careers – and even worse, presenting in a bad light the West that he worships.
***
“Russia Today Hired You To Talk About the Cynicism and Wickedness of the West”
Konstantin von Eggert, writing for Kommersant (January 26, 2012).
Julian Assange will soon be a columnist for Russian state TV channel Russia Today. Kommersant FM’s columnist Konstantin von Eggert decided to write a letter to his new colleague.
Dear Julian! I would like to extent a warm welcome to our club of Russian journalists. Perhaps after you present us with your ten interviews with the politicians and even “revolutionaries” that RT promise, you will finally understand what is journalism. You see, it is not a waste basket, even a flash card-sized miniature one; it is a laborious process of fact checking and protection of sources. I myself, Julian, could have told you this in a private meeting – for my own name figures a few times in Wikileaks publications.
Visual summary of everything Eggert hates.
By all means, thanks for the publicity. But I suspect it would be better if the basics of the profession were to be explained to you by the families of those Afghans, Iranians, and Arabs who had the misfortune to have confidential conversations with American diplomats. Their relatives died when you released details of these conversations on the Web. They died because of your irrepressible vanity and your no less irrepressible hatred for the United States, and the West in general.
By the way, Julian, you’re a grown man and should understand this: Russia Today took you on as one of their staff precisely because of this – to tell the international audience about the cynicism and wickedness of the West, CIA plots, and the lack of democracy in countries like the United Kingdom. Because that is where you, Julian, heroically fought extradition to Sweden (on that small and insignificant matter of rape) in the face of absolutely brutal pressure from the Washington Obkom and the counterintelligence of Her Majesty’s Courts. But now you’ll get even with them all!
I think I can guess at least a few of the guests on your mobile studio: For instance, Bashar Assad (hurry up, you might be late!) and the builder of “Bolivarian socialism” and darling of leftists all around the world, Hugo Chavez (here, I think, you still have time). I am confident, that you will not forget about that other idol of the refined global left, the scholar and writer Noam Chomsky. He hates rotten American pseudo-democracy so much that he’s lived and worked there successfully his entire life.
Don’t forget Thierry Meyssan. This brave Frenchman wrote a book. In it, he revealed that the terrorist attacks of 9/11 weren’t actually organized by Islamists, but by George Bush. But I’m afraid that Raul and Fidel Castro are best left alone. In the light of recent reforms in Cuba, they have now presumably become too spinelessly bourgeois for your broadcasts. Although who knows, maybe the old “Comandante” will loosen up and reminisce with you on the good old days of the anti-imperialist struggle on Soviet – that is to say, my – money.
By the way, speaking of money… Don’t be shy, ask for more! First, everyone has already began to forget about you, so this might be your last chance to hit the jackpot. Second, that is what real fighters for truth do anyway. They go to work for a state propaganda channel – be it Russian, Iranian, or even Georgian or Chinese – and uncompromisingly reveal the whole truth in the eyes of the public. All this will be especially pleasing to your young and sincere fans, Julian, who’d once seen you as a beacon of free speech. I’m afraid many of them will become disillusioned with you. But this is a mere trifle in comparison with the joy of continuing your great struggle – of course, all strictly within the framework of Russia Today’s editorial objectives.
***
I have no desire to systemically identify all the smears and fisk the lies and aspersions cast about by this democratic journalist. I believe the article speaks for itself and shows up its author in a worse light than I could possibly manage myself.
Still, there are a few points that absolutely have to be made:
(1) Needless to say, the “sheer snobbery and pretentiousness” and “unpleasantly sarcastic, sanctimonious, hypocritical” tone (in Mercouris’ words) is on full display. Note the false and overly polite nature of this “letter”, accompanied by repeated kicks straight in the nuts. He waxes poetic on journalism’s preoccupation with “fact checking”, but his own spiel consists almost entirely of rumors, smears, and innuendo. He slams Chomsky for writing critically about America and living there, in the “love it or leave it!” vein of argumentation, while doing the exact same in Russia (with the important difference that Chomsky criticizes all sorts of countries, while Eggert concentrates his venom on his own homeland and other countries that aren’t very friendly with the US). His assessment of his ideological opponents consists of pure caricature, and he absolutely refuses to engage with the substance of their arguments; while this might be acceptable on a personal blog, what exactly such pieces are doing in a major newspaper I do not know.
(2) No, absolutely no, deaths among Arabs, Afghans, etc. have been connected to Wikileaks (despite very great efforts to identify such). However, we do know that there have been dozens of collateral deaths from US drone strikes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, etc. for every terrorist killed. Somehow, I don’t imagine Eggert ever writing anything critical about that.
(3) The flippant and dismissive attitude to the numerous signs of political motivations behind the Assange rape accusations. These include, but are most certainly NOT limited to:
- One of the “victims” tweeting about what a great guy Assange was the day after the supposed “rape” (since deleted from Twitter, of course, but fortunately you can’t really delete things from the Internet).
- The condom used as evidence against Assange not containing his DNA, or any DNA/semen for that matter.
- Why did Anna Ardin not warn Sofia Wilen that Assange was a rapist?
- The remarkable intensity with which Britain is willing to pursue Assange for a crime that is not even a crime on its own soil (up to and including threatening to storm a sovereign embassy)
- The tons of circumstantial evidence that the US is indeed seeking to charge and prosecute Assange.
(4) His assumptions about RT setting editorial policy on Assange’s interview were quite simply wrong. For instance, Assange openly criticized Hezbollah chief Nasrallah’s support for Assad in the first interview, in direct contravention of official Russian policy. Not that Eggert ever picked up on that; his response to that was predictable as clockwork: “It is shameful that the Russian taxpayer funds anti-Semitic propaganda.”
I for one was very glad and interested to hear Nasrallah’s perspective on the Middle East and Israel. I did not notice anti-Semitic statements (unless one considers statements like “Palestine belongs to the Palestinian people” to be anti-Semitic, which is admittedly quite possible in Eggert’s case). I am also glad that Russian taxpayers helped Assange reach a far broader audience than what was possible in the “free” West.
Finally, I am also glad that Russia does not suppress voices like Eggert’s, who wants to ban free speech to defend free speech (that is, “free speech” within the narrow confines of his little Orwellian world). After all, I am not a democratic journalist. I think the Russian people should know their “democratic” heroes.
Who and what is the so called the West?
There are emerged countries like China, Bulgaria, Russia etc..
and developed countries like USA, GB, Canada,Norway etc..
But to talk of the West like it is one country can do only a person who has lived all his life isolated in a country like Russia.
Is the West AlJazeera?
Is the West Saudi Arabia or Singapore if they are not why?
Is the West Ireland and Spain, do they demonize Russia like USA & GB
Poor Russia, you are pitting all world against yourself and you will end up like Carthage.
Look, I use the “West” as a convenient geographical and cultural shorthand in the same sense that it is frequently deployed elsewhere. It is broadly approximated by (1) countries that recognized Kosovo and (2) countries that haven’t recognized Palestine. As a rule of thumb it includes the Protestant countries, the European Catholic countries (but not most of Latin America), the allies of this block (e.g. Japan), and their puppets (e.g. Colombia, Thailand, Georgia under Saakashvili).
Obviously, some countries are a lot more “embedded” into the West than others (e.g., Britain vs. Bulgaria); allegiances can change (De Gaulle kept France at a hesitant distance from “the West”; today, it is one of the main enablers of its imperialism); and the concept itself isn’t all that well-defined (I mainly use it in the sense of that group of countries that are now ideologically dedicated to spreading “democracy” and neoliberalism with Bolshevik-like fervor).
Look, I use the “West” …are you going to explain every time to everybody what you mean by the West?
What means the west in your mind- does not mean the west in the mind of somebody else.
What does the west means in an American warmonger?
The answer is; USA and GB
Anyway to cut short the long discussion with the West you people pit or putting against Russia 1/2 world., no country can stand it.
Russia can be pitted against each developed country, in something will be better off in something will be worst off but to put 1/2 world against Russia is ridiculous.
Then how can you win against the so called west?
how can you win against 50 the most developed countries in the world?
When people participate in Olympic Games, there is not the West versus Russia.
Maybe one day comes a fool and says;
-Look how many gold medals won the west and how many Russia.
Note that all the breathless reports of Turkey and NATO ready to attack Syria are coming from…wait for it…France 24’s Twitter feed.
Thanks for the rebuttal Anatoly. I echo Mercouris’ words exactly, evidently true from the first lines. And nice to see the lies on WL-caused deaths discredited.
I was particularly repulsed by this passage: “I would like to extent a warm welcome to our club of Russian journalists. Perhaps after your present us with your ten interviews with politicians, and even “revolutionaries” that RT promise, you will finally understand what is journalism. You see, it is not a waste basket, even a flash card-sized miniature one; it is a laborious process of fact checking and protection of sources.” He’s clearly been learning very well from his Western colleagues. It just *oozes* with the hypocritical self-righteousness of the elite U.S. media class, an ostentatious commitment to The Truth and love of process, combined with actual contempt for taking on the powerful and revealing their secrets even when it is in the public interest.
I am always kind of grudgingly admiring of people, like Von Eggert, who successfully make their living like this. One has to be impressed: What kind of morally fetid mind is required to combine such cynicism, such disregard for basic facts, with such faux-moralistic self-righteousness?
Von Eggert’s crime is not focusing his criticism on Russia. In targeting his own country he is in fact merely following basic Chomskyite ethical principles. The problem is not when you *omit* the crimes of others’, which is often inevitable, but when you actually *do the apologia* for the those crimes and discredit dissidents in other countries. It’s entirely gratuitous – how does criticizing Assange improve the cause of freedom and rights in Russia? – and shows that the point is not legitimately criticizing the Russian government, but indeed siding with the West.
Eggert looks like a good example of what Orwell called “transferred nationalism.” Since this is built on an idealized and unreal image of the country to which one transfers one’s allegiance, it forces people into absurdities and, eventually, disillusionment.
And that “von” (assuming he added it) would be fine for a comedian or writer of romance novels, but on a journalist it just looks pompous.
>>on a journalist it just looks pompous…
I concur this a case of etymology reversed:it is a “journalist” added to the Von.Von to a signature is like a bow-tie at a non-tuxedo function)))
By the way, are there any good voices condemning these tools in Russian?
Craig James Willy asks: “By the way, are there any good voices condemning these tools in Russian?”
See: http://rublogers.ru/2011/12/16/ee-velichestva-fon-eggert.html
As regards Eggert’s origins, I’ve searched high and low on the net for info concerning this matter: nothing. His biography only starts with the fact that he attended Moscow school № 20.
Is he really a “von”? I should imagine that most Russians would consider any fellow countryman that sports the German aristocratic “von” before his family name to be an insufferable prick.
The conceit of the man is clearly of oustanding proportions.
One small point: the pompous prick probably doesn’t realize it, or would not even dream of admitting it even if he were to do so, that his English at times would merit a little attention, e.g. “Perhaps after your present us with your ten interviews with politicians, and even ‘revolutionaries’ that RT promise, you will finally understand what is journalism” and “everyone has already began to forget about you”.
Viele Grüsse aus Moskau!
Von Moskauer Exil
Dear Moscow Exile,
Peter has said that he is the grandson of the famous actor Konstantin Eggert. You can see Eggert the grandfather in the Soviet silent film Aelita Queen of Mars where he plays the role of the Ruler of Mars.
Eggart the Soviet actor has no “von” before his surname: Eggert the journalist does. If Eggert the journalist is Eggert the actor’s grandson, that means that the “von” in his name is a load of BS.
…Or, the actor did not use “von” during Soviet times as it denotes nobility and/or links to Germany (I know nothng abut Eggert’s family background; was he Baltic German?)
Why don’t you google it? Do you know Russian, there should be a lot of information out there for people who do. 😉
Dear Leos,
I have searched everywhere in Yandex and other Russian search engines for “фон Эггерт”: nothing, apart from references to the pompous twat who is under discussion here. And even if von Eggert were a descendent of some German aristocratic line, he is a Russian citizen and Russia is a republic. I should imagine that there are plenty of descendants of Russian author Count Tolstoy around: I don’t think any of them calls himself “Count Tolstoy”.
Bear mind, if “von Eggert” is a poseur, then in his line of business that would be nothing new. English journalist, political pamphleteer, government agent and novelist Daniel Defoe was just plain old Mr. Foe before he decided to add on to his surname the French aristocratic “de”‘, thus: de Foe, which typesetters soon adjusted to “Defoe”.
There is another “von” active in Russian journalism, namely Nikolaus von Twickel of the Moscow Times, but he’s the real deal: he was born in Munich and comes from a German aristocratic line. Nevertheless, Germany is a republic, so why the “von”? Perhaps he dreams of a rebirth of the Reich or, at the very least, the Kingdom of Bavaria; in my opinion, the vast majority of Germans don’t.
Yours sincerely,
Moscow Exile
Earl of Northumbria
You should not have bothered, I was just trying to take a shot at Mr. AP who was asking a stupid question which he can deal with himself. This anonymous mendacious prick, on another thread, misrepresented something he read on my blog with the intentent to slander me, or as he says warn people against my views. I think he does not realise that much of these views are freely accessible to public, and people can make their own mind.
This heroic internet hamster claimed that I said that Ukrainians are not Slavs, and that many Ukrainians believe that Ukrainian is related to Sanskrit. I am sure he can provide relevant links to these damning statements of mine. 🙂
And meanwhile, I can mock his comment, unless I get a warning…
AK: Okay, I really can’t be bothered looking through and figuring out who started what in the old thread, but please don’t spread it to here.
Problem with the “links with Germany” theory is that the name Eggert by itself looks German. The nobility theory makes sense: a lot of people with noble backgrounds had to lie low or falsify their origins during Soviet times.
Yeah, I think it was the noble thing that would have prompted the removal of “von,” rather than the German link (Eggert was active in the 1920’s and 1930’s, a time when Germany wasn’t so unpopular in Russia).
So why didn’t he change his name entirely if Germany wasn’t popular? 😉
To Moscow Exile and Alex,
I have seen that film “Aelita, Queen of Mars” on Youtube. It was made in 1924 and is usually considered the first Soviet sci-fi film although the sci-fi is actually a minor sub-plot in a film about an engineer who daydreams a lot (which explains the extremely confusing plot in which he shoots dead his wife for being unfaithful and she suddenly comes back to life later on). Konstantin Eggert grand-pere plays Tuskub, ruler of Mars, who is overthrown by a Martian proletarian revolution led by Aelita, the engineer and a radical writer. Aelita then decides she’ll be the new dictator and the Earth men try to stop her.
The film’s message in a nutshell is that fantasising about exotic women in faraway lands gets a person in trouble and people should be happy with what they have (or they will lose it otherwise) and do practical work building a new nation.
There is very basic biographical information on Eggert the actor here at:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0250955/. Note that he also wrote the screenplay for and directed a movie “Gobzek” in which he appears as a minor aristocratic character.
“overthrown by a Martian proletarian revolution led by Aelita, the engineer and a radical writer. Aelita then decides she’ll be the new dictator”
Assuming this summary is accurate, this looks quite fascinating, as it could be taken as a veiled critique of the October Revolution and subsequent dictatorship.
Apparently the film was banned for a long time in the Soviet Union and the Martian slave worker rebellion and Aelita’s attempt to manipulate it might have been one reason. The portrayal of the Martian workers before they rebel is not flattering either: the workers do their jobs and when not required, are dumped into suspended animation in storage chambers.
The scenes on Mars use Konstruktivist sets and designs and the actors playing Tuskub and Aelita wear geometric Konstruktivist-inspired costumes and the influence of this avant-garde art movement on the film may have been another reason for the ban.
The film is worth watching for the sets alone but it’s one of those films where you need to know the plot first before watching as much of “Aelita …” is one man’s daydreaming fantasy and you get no warning of where reality ends and fantasy begins. It is available on DVD (film quality can vary) and it has been uploaded in several parts to Youtube. The film was an influence on Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis” in its set design and social protest theme.
Dear Jennifer and Scowpsi,
Aelita is a brilliant film and it is NOT a science fiction film in any way. Since this is off topic I am going to write about it on Anatoly’s Open Thread.
One may find it helpful on the subject of K.von Eggert-101 the screenshot published by well “sourced and connected” Russian blogger “politrash” http://politrash-ru.livejournal.com/66831.html
Moscow Exile: “Perhaps he dreams of a rebirth of the Reich or [whatever]”
Or maybe it’s just his name. Who cares really? I do know that Austria abolished titles of nobility after the breakup of the Empire, which is why for instance you see the composer Anton Webern sometimes referenced as Anton von Webern. I don’t know what the law is in Germany though.
Dear Scowpsi,
The legal position is that in Austria use of the “von” was formally abolished in 1919. Thus since Webern was Austrian after 1919 he became legally “Anton Webern” not “Anton von Webern”. It was not formally abolished in Germany but as I can vouch for myself it is nowadays very rarely used even by members of the aristocracy.
“Von” as Moscow Exile says is not a Russian title and Russia anyway has not had titles since 1917 though as AP correctly says it was used by some Baltic German nobles and some German noble families that had settled in Russia to serve the Tsar. Eggert’s only reason for using it is to show off his supposed aristocratic ancestry. Doubtless he has some sort of family claim to it. I find his use of it bizarre coming as it does from a self proclaimed moderniser and besotted admirer of the US which of course has no titles. However it is entirely in keeping with Eggert’s ridiculous snobbishness and pomposity for which he is rightly mocked and for which Anatoly expertly takes him apart in his two articles.
The “von” is more a designation mening “from” or “of”, the title would be something like “Earl of…”. It just so happens that in Germany, and Central Europe in general, the name of the family would also be a name of a resident town, village, or castle. My opinion is that Russian noble families have surnames that often have more modest origins.
Perhaps the origins to Eggert’s fraudulent use of pompous “von” can be traced to a bizzare court murder case of one Claus von Bullow,who added “von” upon marrying up to an Austrian ex-nobility…to the delight of NY trash papers…
The only “von” in Russian history that immediately sprang to my mind when reading about von Eggert was von Bennigsen, a Hannoverian general in the service of the tsar who saw action at Friedland, Borodino, Leipzig etc. during the Napoleonic Wars. But after his retirement he went back to Germany: he never became a subject of the tsar. And there was his contemporary, General Barclay de Tolly, who was a subject of the tsar born in Russia and who, despite his aristocratic French “de”, was of Scottish descent, a member of the Barclay clan.
There was no marker term for nobility in Russian: you could be a prince or a count or a baron, but there was nothing like the “de” or “von” as there is/was in France and Germany and no great multiple barrelled names of royal “houses” as there were in Germany and still are in the UK, such as the mouthful possessed by the British head of state’s husband, namely Prince Philip, who was born in Corfu as Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark (hence the term “Phil the Greek” used in the UK) but is of the Danish/German royal house of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg. His in-laws are of
Saxe-Coburg und Gotha, but they changed their house title to Windsor during WWI.
I have come across western Ukrainian and Polish nobles who used “de” although this is rare.
And they probably all lived in France, Or signed their French language works this way. 😉
Nope. An example:
http://pl.linkedin.com/pub/witold-de-sas-zubr/5/617/79a
I once knew of a working girl called Fifi de Filth. She was neither French nor noble.
I guess in the case of this individual keeping de Sas before Zubr was an esthetic thing, because the last means “wisent.” I have only seen “de” on publications in French language written by Polish exiles in Paris. There is always some connection to French in these names with de.
Another example:
http://records.ancestry.com/Stanislaw_De_Korczak_Leszczynski_records.ashx?pid=333990
“de” was used sometimes among Poles and western Ukrainians of noble descent to denote their heraldric sign. So for example, Stanislaw’s surname is Leszczynski and he belongs to the noble family of Korczak so he adds “de Korczak” to his name. Likewise the other guy Zubr belongs to the noble family Sas, so he adds “de Sas”. The only necessary French connection is that presumably the custom came about at a time when educated people all spoke French.
In the case of western Ukrainian nobles, they were typically named after the location of their ancestral territory or village. So those from the village of Kulchytsi were named “Kulchytsky.” Due to Slavic word endings “von” becomes redundant. (in contrast, peasants/serfs often had surnames ending in -enko or -uk, diminutives). De Sas or de Korczak could be used to denote one’s coat of arms.
From US constitution:
Article I, Section 9, Clause 8:
No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States: and no person holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state.
As far as I am aware, there is no similar article in the present Russian constitution. Needless to say, the Russian nobility and its titles were abolished totally and finally in 1917 – in Russia.
This site may prove to be of interest to some:
http://www.almanachdegotha.org/id222.html
There is an organization of Russian nobility in Russia; my mother-in-law was invited by them to join and become “ennobled.”
In a public library where I used to work years ago, we had a book on the Baltic states written by the British journalist Anatol Lieven whose family used to be part of the Baltic German aristocracy. The family traces its lineage back to a Livonian chief who lived nearly a thousand years ago. There is a Wikipedia article on the Lieven family (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lieven) and some of their number used “von” as part of their surname in the past but current members have dropped it.
In Tsarist Russia if you reached a certain level of public service and income, you were entitled to own property and have tenants working for you, and you became part of the aristocracy. Vladimir Lenin’s father Ilya Ulyanov reached the level of Actual Civil Counsellor in the Table of Ranks (see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actual_Civil_Councellor) and technically could call himself a noble; born of poor parents of Tatar or Kalmyk background, he really was a self-made man and proof that upward social mobility did exist in Russia in the 1800s. The British actress Helen Mirren’s family (originally Mironov) attained aristocratic status in Russia some time in the 1700s.
As regards Lenin being the son of a hereditary noble, which he was after his father, having become state schools inspector for the governership, had been moved up in the table of ranks to the position of Actual Civil Counsellor (the rank system resembled the present British system in that there were equivalents to life peers and hereditary ones), Vladimir Ilyich was not averse to using his nobility whenever it suited. After his elder brother had been hanged for his
association with the plotters of tsar Alexander II’s assassination, Lenin, like all other radical students, was thrown off his degree course on the orders of
Alexander II’s son, Alexander III. The young Lenin and his doting mother spent a great deal of time appealing for his re-instatement. In the letters that the young Ulyanov wrote appealing for re-instatement, he signed them “Hereditary
nobleman V.I.Ulyanov”. His pulling of rank failed, however, and he eventually graduated from an extra-mural law course.
There’s a Russian nobility organization in London as well. The last time I was in London was at eastertide many years ago and I attended the Easter vigil there at the Russian Orthodox cathedral in Kensington. That was in 1991 and I became acquainted with several there who claim to be descendants of the Russian nobility, though none of them had visited Russia or could speak Russian (though I dare say there are many who have done so and who can).
They have an annual nobility ball in London. The same happens in Moscow now each year as well.
…And in New York.
As Jennifer says the brothers Dominic and Anatole Lieven are a case in point. Both are genuine aristocrats. A friend of mine who was Dominic’s student tells me that he is very proud of his ancestry and likes to tease his students about it by saying for example when he is travelling to Turkey that he is “going to Byzantium”. Neither brother would however dream of using the “von”.
To get an idea of how obsolete the “von” has become, think how many pre war Germans one knows who used it and compare that with how rarely one comes across it in the names of important Germans today.
Of all the German presidents of the German Federal Republic and of the Weimar Republic before that, only one, Richard Karl Freiherr von Weizsäcker (1984-1994), had the “von” in his name – and he didn’t use the title “Freiherr”, literally “free lord” and 2nd in the German rank of nobility, being above “Ritter” (knight) and below “Graf” (Count).
In the Bismarck Reich there were no presidents, the head of state being the Kaiser. The Kanzler (Cnancellor) was (and still is) chief of the executive. These were Graf Otto von Bismarck, Graf Leo von Caprivi, Fürst (Prince) Chlodwig zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, Fürst Bernhard von Bülow, and Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg. After Bethmann-Hollweg came revolution and the abdication of the Kaiser.
Since that time there have only been three chancellors who were either an aristocrat or of the nobility: Fürst Maximilian of Baden, who was chancellor for one month in 1918; Franz von Papen (1932); and Kurt von Schleicher
(1933). After Scleicher came the Austrian corporal who soon took upon himself the title of Führer.
Well I haven’t seen any evidence that Von Eggert is about the rebirth of the Reich, but arch-Russophobe Edward Lucas did re-tweet an Estonian’s tweet that Kaliningrad is ‘occupied European territory’. While of course re-tweet does not equal agreement, it can be supposed that European in this context is a euphemism for German, and of course, Anatoly has well documented the ‘let’s give all our eastern islands captured in WWII back to Japan’ impulse among Moscow ‘liberasts’. One wonders how Americans would react to activists insisting we give Lousiana back to France or Alaska back to Russia.
“Kaliningrad is ‘occupied European territory’”
Some people seem to have forgotten that Kaliningrad Oblast isn’t the whole of former East Prussia – the southern (and larger) portion is now part of Poland. So this unnamed Estonian is (by implication) calling for Poland to be carved up again.
Thankfully, no government in that region is currently making claims on anyone else’s territory.
Doesn’t von Eggert have a point?
What point? Clarify, or you’re a troll.
The world according to Eggert: Saakashvili has outsmarted the Kremlin by losing the Georgian parliamentary election.
http://en.rian.ru/columnists/20121005/176427054.html
Like Hitler who outsmarted the Kremlin by losing the Battle of Berlin.
I will actually have an article on this coming out for the Experts Panels in another day or two. My basic contention was that it neither “Kremlin coup” (crazy neocons) nor “democratic triumph” (Eggert and Co.), but an oligarchic coup that was took Saakashvili totally by surprise.
***
PS. Interest finding – by this:
Valentina, an acquaintance of mine, is a third year Moscow University student. She told me recently: ‘Whenever I or my friends and college mates hear ‘Georgia’, the reaction is nearly universally positive – food, people, culture and now democracy! The Georgians succeeded where our rulers failed”. The Kremlin may well hear more from Saakashvili – and Georgia’s growing fan-base in Russia itself.
Eggert means a comment to one of his Facebook postings by one Валентина Филиппенко:
Знаете, в своей “молодняковой” среде отмечаю: коннотативная окраска у слова “Грузия” становится все более положительной – с этим Кремлю и ЕР сложно будет
= You know, I’m noticing in my “youth” circles [she appears to be a student at the Journalism Faculty of MSU – great, another democratic journalist in the making]: The connotative coloring of Georgia is becoming ever more positive – this the Kremlin and United Russia will find hard to deal with.
Is this a breach of journalistic ethics? I’m sure Ms. Filippenko would agree with the sentiment, but still, nowhere does “food, people, culture and now democracy!” or even “nearly universally positive” (=/= Georgia’s image becoming more and more positive”) figure in her comment. Unless she further expounded on this to Eggert on the telephone, one has to consider that he invented embellishing quotes, Johann Hari-style. Perhaps a theme for another Eggert post?
***
PSS. Here’s another gem from there, in the same discussion where Ms. Filippenko showed up:
Ramil Gataullin Саакашвили вошёл в историю прежде всего как убийца российских миротворцев.
October 2 at 2:05pm · Like
Sergei Medvedev Российские миротворцы заблудились в горах и оказались на чужой территории…)) Костя, отличный комментарий!
October 2 at 2:12pm · Like · 3
= Ramil Gataullin: Saakashvili above all entered history as a killer of Russian peacekeepers.
Sergey Medvedev: Russian peacekeepers got lost in the mountains and ended up in the wrong territory…)) Konstantin, excellent commentary.
(For context, Mr. Medvedev is a prof at the School of Higher Economics (i.e. bastion of neoliberal thought); Mr. Gataullin is a journalist, who I am surprised is Friends with Eggert.)
Needless to say, it was Medvedev who got all the Likes on Eggert’s page.
Little surprises me from these people, but still, even I am taken aback by this degree of loathing for their country. They really do think it excellent that Saakashvili bombarded the barracks of their own soldiers and killed some of them. To them, Kasparov and his ilk meeting Saakashvili in solidarity immediately after the war wasn’t a cause for disenchantment; it was taking a heroic stand against the Kremlin!
Dear Anatoly,
I will be very interested to read your piece. I am sure by the way you are right and what has happened in Georgia is an oligarchic coup. The repeated viewings of the prison abuse videos on Georgian television may be a sign of this. However I will reserve further comment once I have read your piece.
For the rest
1. On the face of it I cannot see any difference between what Johann Hari did and what Eggert has done.
2. I find the lack of patriotism of these people and their shameless gloating at the injuries done to their own people and country by its enemies utterly nauseating. That is not because I am any sort of nationalist – far from it – but to wish ill of one’s own people and country and to prefer one’s country’s enemies to one’s own country is incomprehensible to me.
Von Eggert does actually have some connection to Royalty, according to http://ceness-russia.org/index.php?id=300
“In 2008 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II has created Konstantin Honorary Member of the Civic Division of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.”
He also got in “same year President Valdas Adamkus awarded him Commander’s Cross of the Order of Merits to Lithuania.” although I don’t think that one allows to him any fancy titles.
So von Eggert and Adamkus have joined those honoured ranks also occupied by the Russian traitor and former Colonel of the KGB Oleg Antonovich Gordievsky, who was appointed Companion of the Most Distinguished Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) for “services to the security of the United Kingdom” in the 2007 Queen’s Birthday Honours.
Somebody somewhere in Whitehall has a wry sense of humour: the CMG is the same award that fictional true-Brit hero James Bond was awarded.
Adamkus, by the way, has the not so-honourable record of being the last living European head of state to have served in the Wehrmacht:
See: http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20050511/39967058.html
There are all of course interesting facts, but I question the wisdom of making an issue of them. IMO what Eggert said (and continues to say) is far more relevant to the analysis of democratic journalism, not to say damning.
I agree: he writes shit. But I find it annoying that his addition of a title to his name, whether bogus or not, and the granting of a title to him by the British government, for some seems to add lustre and authority to the dreck that he writes.
You can’t polish a turd!
Come to think of it, there still is in office a European head of state who, although by all accounts unwillingly, served in the Wehrmacht in WWII: Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger, otherwise known as the Pope Benedict XVI.
The latest piece of idiocy by Von Eggert:
“Due West: Georgian President Stuns Russia’s Leadership
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili confounded his critics, won a place in history and preserved his political future. All this was achieved on October 2 when he admitted that his United National Movement had been defeated in the parliamentary elections…”
http://en.rian.ru/columnists/20121005/176427054.html
No surprise that he is a Saakashvili fan, but this is extreme…
For a sharp, sane view:
Putin: Saakashvili to ‘Cling to Power’
“Saakashvili will try to cling to power,” Putin said in an interview on the Central Television program broadcast on the NTV television network on Sunday.
“I think he will try to offset defeat in the party lists with the single-mandate constituencies,” Putin said.
http://en.rian.ru/politics/20121007/176466644.html
—
Also, wouldn’t mind an opinion on this if anyone has any insight.
Bloomberg put a piece up about Putin’s popularity at 60 (Sixty-four percent of Russians are positive about the Putin era), but then supposedly quoted the Valery Fedorov saying:
“I’m sure he would have had more than 80 percent of Russians supporting his era in 2008,” Valery Fedorov, VtsIOM’s head, said by phone from Moscow. “But that was another era. The new one is just starting. And it’s about people being massively unhappy with the state.”
Did some research on Federov previously, & he has been accused by the usual Western suspects of being in the Kremlin’s pocket & fixing results that they don’t like, & VtsIOM ended up having to take the NYT to court where they won a decision over basically slander.
He looks to be a solid, professional pollster, & VtsIOM a solid organisation.
This quote from Bloomburg seems very dubious – Fedorov, the head of Russia’s oldest polling agency doesn’t even know the result of his own polls 4 years ago (?) & has no problem with statements that he’s not backing up with data.
It could of been something taken completely out of context, but to me it looks like the Bloomberg reporter simply made it up in order to ‘balance’ what looks like good news for Putin.
Putin at 60 Has Rule Rated Positive by Most Russians, Poll Shows
By Ilya Arkhipov and Stepan Kravchenko – Oct 8, 2012 7:00 AM ET
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-07/putin-at-60-has-rule-rated-positive-by-most-russians-poll-shows.html
If I may…your observation is a nail in the head!What makes your it juicier is the fact that all the “constitutional” changes(powers relegated to a Cabinet) were adopted or custom made for a Saakashvili’s post-President’s employment.Conversely,trying to repeat a Russian tandem trick(but to avoid the parallel…)his failure at it became more pronounced!
Thank you for your work, Anatoly. About half a year ago I have written to RIAN about the unacceptable anti-Russian propaganda of this rat named (von) Eggert, but they didn’t even considered replying. I explained my ideas in a polite letter and sent it to their contact address. I got nothing in return. Not even a “OK, we will think about it” or “This is our editorial policy”
I read Voice of Russia instead of RIAN from that point.
Right on! I have been hoping somebody would crucify that fat soulful choirboy of the damned, and was thinking about doing it myself when I was distracted by Miriam Elder. What the hell; at least she got me into Wikipedia on her coattails.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miriam_Elder
I was surprised La Russophobe didn’t cite von Eggert (at least, that I ever saw), because he will say anything and is actually so over the top that he is a caricature of liberal journos everywhere – imagine, for example, a Russian journalist using the phrase, “the primary organ of state propaganda on the world stage” when referring to the Wall Street Journal, or FOX News. He or she would be buried under a barrage of scornful laughter.
Probably there are people who can carry off a bow tie as an accessory of sartorial je ne sais quois – but it just makes von Eggert look like Rush Limbaugh, and focuses attention on the fact that he has more chins than a Guangdong telephone book. There are two men in the world whose choice of the bow tie seems to have been a considered decision to advertise their status as self-righteous pricks; Tucker Carlson ( http://gawker.com/5368463/tucker-carlson-compares-kids-obama-song-to-khmer-rouge?tag=tucker-carlson ) and Konstantin von Eggert.
Kostya is an enthusiastic promoter of regularly-discredited tropes; that the Russian population is dwindling, that the liberal opposition is a building juggernaut that will flatten Putin like a blin, and that Putin has looted the Russian treasury of billions which he will use to pad his luxurious retirement on some tropic isle. Everything is a “crackdown” to von Eggert. I agree with you that he enjoys privileged status as a journalist in Russia both as an advertisement of Russia’s freedom of the press and because the dung he writes provides a handy reference for Russian English-speakers as to the impartiality of the western press on the subject of Russia.
Probably there are people who can carry off a bow tie as an accessory of sartorial je ne sais quois – but it just makes von Eggert look like Rush Limbaugh, and focuses attention on the fact that he has more chins than a Guangdong telephone book.
Mark, can I tell you (again?) that you’re a comedic genius?