121–130 of 251 posts
Brodsky derided the Ukrainian quest for independence 30 years ago just like Pushkin did the same for the Polish one 150 years before that.
This is perfectly rational for a writer concerned about his audience size: why should Poles or Ukrainians read inferior poetry in Polish or Ukrainian when a vastly superior poetry is available in Russian?!
I wonder who Shishkin is writing this for, and why he bothers. Readers interested in Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, or Chekhov are presumably intellectuals. Presumably, they will be familiar with the countless examples from history when, driven by patriotic fervor, countries cleansed themselves from the culture of an adversarial state, including language, literature, music, linguistic borrowings, scientific contributions, com…
I'm going to challenge this because I think it suggests that reading the Russian classics is an intellectual challenge with a perquisite of studying Russian history and culture. Dostoyevsky's works are amazing without any background knowledge. No 'intellectualism' is required, just a love of stories. With a few tweaks they could be set in a modern era and turned into Netflex series. War and Peace is considered a chal…
Surely, it's a matter of taste :-) I've read Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, Demons, and The Idiot without particular enjoyment. I would take Tolstoy any day.
Right, blame Gogol: “We all come out from Gogol's 'Overcoat'.” ― Fyodor Dostoyevsky https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/513055-we-all-come-out-from...
Gogol was Ukrainian though. Lots of references to Ukrainian culture in his early writings as well.
Cultural imperialism is part and parcel of Russian literature. Brodsky derided the Ukrainian quest for independence 30 years ago just like Pushkin did the same for the Polish one 150 years before that. This is perfectly rational for a writer concerned about his audience size: why should Poles or Ukrainians read inferior poetry in Polish or Ukrainian when a vastly superior poetry is available in Russian?!
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I'm going to challenge this because I think it suggests that reading the Russian classics is an intellectual challenge with a perquisite of studying Russian history and culture. Dostoyevsky's works are amazing without any background knowledge. No 'intellectualism' is required, just a love of stories. With a few tweaks they could be set in a modern era and turned into Netflex series. War and Peace is considered a chal…
I don't think there was an inference that the books are opaque, just that people reading these books in 2022 are already weird ducks. Well, as weird as anyone reading, say, Tao Te Ching or other non-standard-academic-curriculum "classic" books you'd have to go out of your way to read.
One of my mantras as a reader is that I no longer am in school and no one is going to make me write a paper or discuss overriding themes. I can read the way I like and enjoy what I like and if I missed all the mustard seed references than it doesn't matter to me.
I could go into a side discussion on how literature is taught but I'm sympathetic to English curriculum developers who have to give students some books to read and have some criteria by which they can make sure students have read and understood it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm going to challenge this because I think it suggests that reading the Russian classics is an intellectual challenge with a perquisite of studying Russian history and culture. Dostoyevsky's works are amazing without any background knowledge. No 'intellectualism' is required, just a love of stories. With a few tweaks they could be set in a modern era and turned into Netflex series. War and Peace is considered a chal…
> Dostoyevsky's works are amazing without any background knowledge. Surely, it's a matter of taste :-) I've read Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, Demons, and The Idiot without particular enjoyment. I would take Tolstoy any day.
I am Russian. We will discuss the problems with Russian culture after the end of the war (with the Ukrainian victory, of course). For now, our time would be better spent not mourning Russian culture, but helping Ukrainians and learning how to fight the criminal Russian regime. When my country has begun the greatest atrocity of our generation, there are now more urgent things to do than write articles about the loss o…
I have two major critiques here: 1. There's no reason to think the criminal invasion of Ukraine will result in victory for Ukraine. The Russians will fall short of their maximal goals, but they're having significant battlefield successes now. Sometimes, criminal invasions are completely successful. In this case, I suspect that a long, low-intensity conflict with two entrenched sides is the most likely outcome. 2. Thi…
Your opinion is very one-sided and misses many details:
- Iraq is currently relatively peaceful democracy after decades of tirany and wars (Iran-Iraq war caused 1M deaths)
- Afghanistan under US rule demonstrated significant economic, demographic and human rights growth
- Yemen civil war started with Iran backed shiite houthis took power by force in country with majority of suni population, and Saudis reacted on this
A good read for folks riding on the anti-all-things-Russia bandwagon right now or for people with a more nuanced view trying to understand where the Russian stereotypes, tropes and general bigotry originate from: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34237648-creating-russop...
That book might have been relevent in 2005 but throw it out the window now. All anti-Russian sentiment in the world is due to the fact Russia is literally engaging in genocide against Ukrainians, right now.
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I have two major critiques here: 1. There's no reason to think the criminal invasion of Ukraine will result in victory for Ukraine. The Russians will fall short of their maximal goals, but they're having significant battlefield successes now. Sometimes, criminal invasions are completely successful. In this case, I suspect that a long, low-intensity conflict with two entrenched sides is the most likely outcome. 2. Thi…
>This is not the greatest atrocity of our generation. There have been at least three invasions and occupations that are significantly worse crimes: the US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan That depends on what numbers you're going to believe about civilian fatalities in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen etc. It is often claimed that the Iraq War killed anywhere from 0.5 million to over 1.0 million Iraqis. However these big nu…
That said, the Ukrainian state has survived and is continuing to provide civilian services. Ukraine still produces plenty of electricity (it is even exporting it), and still is able to provide food, healthcare, water, and other essentials. There are tight supplies for some things, like gasoline and some medicines, which is awful.
Contrast that to the devastation after the American invasion of Iraq, the starvation in Yemen, or the chaos in Afghanistan. Iraq still has spotty electricity and deals with violent incursions, and the war has spilled into Syria. Yemeni deaths have been horrific, but equally bad has been the widespread hunger and extreme poverty the war has thrust millions into. I just don't see that kind of suffering in Ukraine. At least not yet. If the war continues at this level of intensity and Ukraine collapses entirely, which I find unlikely (indeed, the level of intensity and casualties is already down significantly from its peak in March) I'll reassess.
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That's a point that deserves deeper study. They have (from memory) 13 countries on their borders, and almost no "natural" borders, e.g. rivers or mountain ranges. They have a history that's blood-curdling. Expecting a new czar to make it like Denmark is a bit much. The West tried in the 90s, and Boris Yeltsin is not remembered fondly over there. The emergence of gangster capitalism was the result.
I don’t think this is right. Germany, for example, has 9 countries on its borders and a blood-curdling history, and it’s a very pleasant place now. The idea that a country of 145M people lacking the agency to move forward doesn’t pass the smell test. I think it’s clear that Russia has some deeply-seated cultural problems that fuel this kind of thing. None of this, of course, makes the banishment of Russian cultural p…