Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Don’t Blame Dostoyevsky

theatlantic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 251 posts

Re: Don’t Blame Dostoyevsky

#31

Post by dynamic_sausage »

nathell wrote: post #18

Well, I can live with not blaming Dostoyevsky. But when I read Pushkin's "To the Slanderers of Russia", or Brodsky's "On the Independence of Ukraine", I can't help noticing the same mindset of entitlement that perpetuates and fuels the present war. It beats me how Brodsky, the same person who penned "Bosnia Tune", could have succumbed to that thinking.

Yep. Likewise for Solzhenitsyn who denied Ukraine and its language the right to existence in no uncertain terms. See e.g. the 1990 essay "How should we organize Russia": (link in Russian)

https://ru.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9A%D0%B0%D0%BA_%D0%BD%D0...

Re: Don’t Blame Dostoyevsky

#32

Post by jevgeni »

biohax2015 wrote: post #14
mihaic wrote: post #11

Living in Eastern Europe, I have to say that I've always felt that there was something brutal and thuggish about both Russian and Ukrainian culture (they are more similar than Ukrainians want to admit). The article merely hints at this while talking of the "illiterate peasants" that create the foundational popular culture. The Russian people's spectrum is incredibly wide though, and have also produced some of the dee…

The greater the suffering of a people, the deeper the art they produce. (This is not a justification for violence of course.) Russia has been a nation of serfs for millennia now.

Why be interested in art for serfs?

Re: Don’t Blame Dostoyevsky

#33

Post by biohax2015 »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #28
biohax2015 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The greater the suffering of a people, the deeper the art they produce. (This is not a justification for violence of course.) Russia has been a nation of serfs for millennia now.

Quoted post unavailable.

For sure, there is not a straight line and what I said was an oversimplification. In fact, it may not even be true.

Re: Don’t Blame Dostoyevsky

#37

Post by WesolyKubeczek »

zmgsabst wrote: post #20
vlyubin wrote: post #13

A Ukrainian here - couldn't disagree more with the author. Take a beloved in the West author like Solzhenitsyn, whose "compassion" suddenly evaporates when Ukrainian question is raised. Even a modern sci-fi author Sergei Lukyanenko does not shy away from racial jokes against Ukrainians or Lithuanians in his Dozor books. Ukraine is a pawn at the world stage, but if the West is serious about battling russia (for its ow…

Quoted post unavailable.

Have you read the Minsk agreements? Have you fucking read it? Do you know what they have in them, point by point? Care to quote them?

Re: Don’t Blame Dostoyevsky

#38

Post by dynamic_sausage »

darepublic wrote: post #23
nathell wrote: post #18

Well, I can live with not blaming Dostoyevsky. But when I read Pushkin's "To the Slanderers of Russia", or Brodsky's "On the Independence of Ukraine", I can't help noticing the same mindset of entitlement that perpetuates and fuels the present war. It beats me how Brodsky, the same person who penned "Bosnia Tune", could have succumbed to that thinking.

Dostoyevsky was also a nationalist, right? He had a lot of bad things to say about Germans and Polish. I am comfortable just reading his work and taking what I appreciate from it and disregarding the dated or problematic parts. Would have no issue applying the same logic to Pushkin

This is a good point. Just like it should be ok to read Kipling for his literary merits, keeping in mind you don't have to agree with his politics.

Re: Don’t Blame Dostoyevsky

#39

Post by zmgsabst »

HeckFeck wrote: post #12
rflec028 wrote: post #4

Those who terrorize Russian diaspora for the actions of their government have rocks for brains.

It has seeped into even major UK broadsheets like the Telegraph. They printed a sympathetic article on how uncomfortable it was for a steward to award a Russian tennis player the winning prize. Baffling. Usually these sentiments are decried in the strongest terms.

I think we seeing that many who decry racism didn’t mean it.

They just wanted a cudgel for power — they’re perfectly happy to engage in that behavior themselves, when it suits them.

Re: Don’t Blame Dostoyevsky

#40

Post by WesolyKubeczek »

thejackgoode wrote: post #21
vlyubin wrote: post #13

A Ukrainian here - couldn't disagree more with the author. Take a beloved in the West author like Solzhenitsyn, whose "compassion" suddenly evaporates when Ukrainian question is raised. Even a modern sci-fi author Sergei Lukyanenko does not shy away from racial jokes against Ukrainians or Lithuanians in his Dozor books. Ukraine is a pawn at the world stage, but if the West is serious about battling russia (for its ow…

As a fellow Ukrainian: "Ukrainian question" is a colonial narrative term that deprives Ukraine of subjectivity, it should not be reinforced

Yeah, it’s identical to the “Jewish question”. I argue that whoever has any “question” like this at all should be stopped by all means.
Post reply on HN