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Samizdata quote of the day Russian culture on show for all to see in Kyiv’s suburbs. Maybe [some people] thinks Putin drove from Moscow & tied these people’s hands behind back before shooting in street like dogs. Guarantee this was done by common Russian soldiers pissed off becaus of massive casualties they took over last month. If you want to understand true beating red heart of Russia, just look at these pictures closely, but I maybe you have to be like me, part Polish, part Ukrainian, part Russian, and working in all those places for most of life to understand that. People wonder why Ukrainians fight like wild wolves against the invader, this is why. Anyone from this part of world knows what waits for loser when you face Russian soldiers, there is a reason Ukrainian social media calls them orcs. We remember Katyn forest, ordered from above, but also remember the thousands of small atrocities, the ones without sombre memorials where they happened.
– Petr Borysko, who is apparently doing his part keeping the famous Ukrainian tractors rolling.
Bonus: some local humour for these grim days.
“Phew, they didn’t notice me…”
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Considering what they’re going through, the humour and memes coming out of Ukraine are top quality.
Katyn (the massacre of Polish officers, and others, in World War II) was an example of MARXIST culture – not “Russian” culture.
As for atrocities in Ukraine (or anywhere else) being naturally “Russian”, or of “Russian culture” – that is terrible thinking indeed.
One might as well say that atrocities committed by American soldiers show that “Americans” or “American culture” are inherently evil.
Although it is certainly true that long periods of tyranny have a corrupting effect on the general population. Alexander Solzhenitsyn pointed out the massive DIFFERENCE between Russian soldiers behaviour towards civilians in the First World War and the 2nd World War – less than 30 years, one generation, had corrupted so many people.
It may well be that Petr Borysky has suffered a great deal, perhaps he has lost all his family to torture and death – it is indeed possible.
Some Jews after the Holocaust were driven mad by suffering – blaming not Nazi doctrine, but all “Germans” “German culture”.
In their grief and rage they planned to poison whole towns (indeed cities) of Germans – by spreading poison into the water supply, other Jews had to stop them (sometimes by terminal means).
The evil of Mr Putin (whether or not he is ill – he was doing evil things long before his illness) may have driven some people to the madness of hating all “Russians” – of declaring that Russian culture itself (the Russian people) are inherently evil.
If Putin has convinced many people that it is the Russian people themselves who are evil, this may the worst thing he has done.
The evil of Mr Putin may poison the Ukrainians, and many others, against the Russian people themselves – for many years.
By the way – I must commend SOME the American moderate LEFT (something I do not normally do), as they have been careful to NOT confuse the evil of Mr Putin with a general evil of “Russians” – for example I recently watched a PBS (PBS is very much part of the American left) on the rise of Mr Putin – pointing out how he undermined dissent in Russia, for example by throwing the owner of a television station (a television station that had mocked him) into prison – till the man agreed to sell the television station.
The freedom that existed under Boris Yeltsin was NOT responsible for the terrible poverty of Russians at that time – as I have pointed out before, it was the wild Credit Money expansion (the Credit Bubble banking and so on) that was responsible for that terrible poverty.
Western lands, such as Britain and the United States, will soon see such terrible poverty for themselves.
The tyranny that Mr Putin represents is NOT the solution – not in Russia and not in Britain or America either.
Only sound money and honest savings are the solution.
My wife’s got a chum in Lviv, she’s flooding our inbox with jokes daily & seems totally blasé about a missile blowing shit up less than 200 yards from her flat. Three weeks ago, we offered to put her up if she wanted to get out, she said nah, Scotland’s too scary 😀 and offered to put us up if we wanted to come visit. Tough fuckers, Ukrainians.
In the offensive of 1914 Russian soldiers were accused of two rapes – the shame of it was considered a stain upon Russia, a national scandal.
In the early 1940s there were vast numbers of rapes and endless sadistic torture and killing of civilians.
Less than 30 years difference in time – only one generation.
Don’t really care if something is “terrible thinking”, I’m more interested in “is it true?”
I’m going to go with what the locals think over your opinions.
Bulldog Drummond.
Yes – the Ukrainians are tough, including Ukrainians who can not speak Ukrainian (because they are ethnic Russian speakers) and fight because they DESPISE Mr Putin.
Ukrainians and Russians are not different species, or even different races, and most of their history over the last thousand years or so has been the same – although NOT all of it.
There is much corruption in Russia – and there is much corruption in the Ukraine. There is evil on both lands. And much good in both lands to – both the Ukraine and in Russia.
The difference is Mr Putin – whose evil may have toppled over into madness.
I just put this question to one of my Ukrainian chums (Russian speaking btw), he replied thus:
You need to realise your notions about ‘Russian culture’ are not shared by a lot of people, Slavic people, Baltic people, who actually live on the border with Russia. It is not “racism”, it is first hand experience.
Well, she is not wrong 😀
We know which Russian units were there when such terrible acts were committed: 485 dead civilians so far tonight. Three generations of family tied up and shot in front of each other, it wasn’t Putin did it or even ordered it, who thinks he ever heard of Bucha before? Five women found tied up naked dead, they weren’t raped then shot in head by elite nomenklatura or scions of an oligarch, it was just Russian boys from Krasnodar or some other shithole. Bodies left lying in street everywhere, so no secret what is happening, officers knew, took part or did nothing to stop it. Don’t fucking tell me Russian culture isn’t part of this problem.
Not that i care to defend statements made here by [some people], but i wish to offer a partial defense of Russian people: they seem to integrate in “Western” societies more easily than Muslims.
I could say the same about Indian and Chinese people.
And btw [some people] are outraged by the claim that “Islamophobia” is racist, while claiming that all criticism of Russian culture is racist– in spite of Russians being White.
Snorri Godhi: I don’t think many here would find the notion Russians generally integrate into “Western” societies particularly hard to accept. I think the problem being discussed is Russian culture in Russia.
Petr or J. Arestovych or other commenters talking a broadly negative view of “Russian culture” can reply as they see fit, but as with so many things, context is everything. I have had Russian friends (admittedly not in Russia) and some of my views are based on things they have told me. Or take Nigeria… I regard Legos as the most unrelentingly ghastly place I have ever visited, yet I have met Nigerians overseas who I found entirely agreeable people. I think Nigerians often do well when they get the hell out of Nigeria. My problem is not with Nigerians as such, many of whom are delightful, it is with Nigerian culture as it manifests in Nigeria.
But then expats are in the main part (almost by definition) people who have chosen to seek their own interests abroad beyond the context of their original culture.
When one makes sweeping statements about a culture, it does not (or at least should not) mean you think everyone who sprang from that culture is necessarily this or that or thinks this or that. What is an entirely fair statement in general may not be true in particular. But that does not mean the unflattering cultural critique is meritless.
One of the most corrupt, dishonesty-as-culture, insular, rapacious immigrant groups in my home state of Minnesota is the recently-arrived Russian community. I understand that they come from a culture in which they probably need such attributes to survive, but, damn, they’re good at it.
Paul, Perry and others are right. There is a cultural issue here which goes deeper than Putin and indeed allows the likes of Putin to rise to the top. That the history of Ukraine and Russia and Ukraine are deeply interwoven (frequently, and going back a long way with Russia as the bully). Now, I’m not going to try and “out Central/Eastern Europe” Perry but I also have significant contacts and info from that neck of the woods. My wife is a translator with a Russian degree (she knows a lot of Russian history and culture*). Her sister lives in Poland and is married to a Pole. I have significant extended family in Silesia.
On a less personal level. The intertwining of cultures does not necessarily lead to wanting to be part of a greater whole. And certainly not with the big boy calling the shots. The Holodomor casts a shadow for Ukrainians much as the Holocaust does for Jews. Or to put it another way Ukraine (like the Baltic States and others) is in the position of a beaten spouse who just wants out of a terribly abusive relationship.
I have also seen the pictures and video – parts of Ukraine look like Germany did in 1945. They look apocalyptic. I have read things like this. I dunno how true that is but it seems a reasonably creditable source. My first thought was one of extremely dark humour which I guess is the way I react to such atrocities, “Well at least they’re not raping dogs and eating girls”. That was a natural response. I was not trying to make a joke. I was coping, I guess, to seeing things in Europe happening now that I’d got used to seeing in grainy black and white on the History Channel where WWII never stops being re-cycled.
We (NATO etc) need to send Ukraine lots of stuff. Those Polish MiGs, Harpoon missiles, artillery etc.
*Russian culture seems to me to be almost bi-polar swinging between majestic achievement and utter brutality. I do think your idea of a sort of cantonised Russia has merit because the problem is given the size, population and resources of Russia if a strong and evil leader emerges such as Stalin or Putin all Hell can and will be mobilized.
If they were civilians with AKs, then they’re partisans, not soldiers in a war, so they’re not eligible for Geneva protections (i.e., POW status)
I see the subject of Russian troops in the First World War has come up. It is perhaps worth pointing out that Russians were not on foreign soil for very long, a matter of weeks in the case of East Prussia. I think they were out of Austria-Hungary long before the end of 1915. So they couldn’t do a great deal of damage. On what occupation was like it is difficult to find out. I have seen a single photo of a ruined East Prussian village. I have more than once read words to the effect that that the occupation was something that the Germans never forgot. But I have never seen any specific allegations.
It would be interesting to know where Paul got his two rapes allegation from.
They were local residents killed where they lived, including old people, children, men, women, some naked when murdered, some people clearly tortured first.
Bulldog Drummond – I trust you run your company better than you think out your comments.
I hope that, on reflection, you will repent of your attack on “Russians” and “Russian Culture” – when you remember that most ethnic Russians in the Ukraine are fighting AGAINST Mr Putin.
Sir, you have an unfortunate habit of typing before you stop to think – as you showed, for example, when you assumed that I was against all business people (including yourself) when I wrote against the Credit Money subsidy of certain politically connected business enterprises (something that has been condemned for three centuries since Richard Cantillon pointed out the process – but is now on such a vast scale that it has totally distorted the economies of the West).
Bulldog Drummond your remarks against me on this matter were not just inaccurate – they were written in highly offensive language. If you have apologised – I have not seen the apology.
No Nick – the attack is not right, it is horribly wrong.
It is not right because not only Russians and Ukrainians NOT different races (they are from the same race), they also have a mostly common history (although not quite all their history).
Indeed people who attack “Russians” and “Russian culture” in general terms are doing the work of Mr Putin for him – as such attacks are exactly what Mr Putin wants.
Mr Putin is the ENEMY of Russia, the Russian people are his victims – he is selling out their future (betraying them).
The key to the removal of Mr Putin is to get the truth to the Russian people – who are presently fed a diet of endless LIES from the media and education system in Russia.