Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm baffled how this seems only to apply to the Ukraine this one time. Any meaningful discussion is labeled "whataboutism" and dismissed. You will surely agree with me that Russia is not the world's pioneer in wars of aggression. What about (oh no, whataboutism! We can safely dismiss the argument without thinking now) all the other countries that did, and do the same? Should we also dismiss their cultural output? I'm…
> That is not the point. I want to know why you think we should dismiss Dostoevsky but not Shakespeare. Basically every great artist and intellectual was part of a war-waging genocidal empire, and many of them pro-regime in varying degrees (Dostoevsky being a good example of the "varying"). I’m not on the “boycott dead Russians” train but the difference is timeliness. Russia is today engaged in a colonial war of aggr…
Don’t Blame Dostoyevsky
181–190 of 251 posts
Re: Don’t Blame Dostoyevsky
#182I 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…
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Re: Don’t Blame Dostoyevsky
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm baffled how this seems only to apply to the Ukraine this one time. Any meaningful discussion is labeled "whataboutism" and dismissed. You will surely agree with me that Russia is not the world's pioneer in wars of aggression. What about (oh no, whataboutism! We can safely dismiss the argument without thinking now) all the other countries that did, and do the same? Should we also dismiss their cultural output? I'm…
It really comes down to race, but most will never openly admit it. Let's face it, the Russian invasion of Ukraine is a white people war. The 11 million muslims killed (and many more displaced) by the collective west (NATO) since 1990 don't count, because they're brown. But when a non-western majority white country wages war, as George Carlin famously said "That's Our F*ck!ng Job": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qyG…
Exactly. This is the absolute core of the issue.
"On France’s BFM TV, journalist Phillipe Corbé stated this about Ukraine: “We’re not talking here about Syrians fleeing the bombing of the Syrian regime backed by Putin. We’re talking about Europeans leaving in cars that look like ours to save their lives."
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/02/civili...
Re: Don’t Blame Dostoyevsky
#184Re: Don’t Blame Dostoyevsky
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do you ignore that the one Federation that didn't teach Russian in schools was forced to change their policy? Russia can have all the written rules they want, they follow them the same way they followed their statements during February that 'they had no intention to invade Ukraine', or agree to allow Ukraine shipment of grain then bomb the ports to ensure no ships will risk docking there, or their law making non-…
> Why do you ignore that the one Federation that didn't teach Russian in schools was forced to change their policy? What federation? I have no idea what you're talking about. I made a specific claim about the status of minority languages in Russia and Ukraine. Do you have any evidence to show that it is inaccurate? > Russia can have all the written rules they want What exactly are you implying in this specific instan…
1. There was one republic that did not include Russian as the primary language for education, and they were forced to change that. I will try to dig up something on it, I didn't bookmark such a random thing.
2. They are free to have official languages, as long as they include Russian. They are not free to exclude Russian.
Ukraine did not clamp down on Russian prior to Russia annexing 10% of Ukraine in 2014.
Re: Don’t Blame Dostoyevsky
#186Re: Don’t Blame Dostoyevsky
#187Re: Don’t Blame Dostoyevsky
#188Re: Don’t Blame Dostoyevsky
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Take a beloved in the West author like Solzhenitsyn, whose "compassion" suddenly evaporates when Ukrainian question is raised. Solzhenitsin is one of the best literary chroniclers of repressions in the Soviet Russia (One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, The Gulag Archipelago, In the First Circle), with the degree of earnestness and realism that approaches Tolstoy's. How does his compassion to Ukranians, or lack…
Solzhenitsin was also a right wing Russian nationalist who was absolutely part of the problem. That "realism that approaches Tolstoy's" you mentioned is actually mostly folklore and vastly exaggerated for propaganda purposes (see https://www.nytimes.com/1974/02/06/archives/solzhenitsyns-ex... ). > Solzhenitsyn's Greater Russian, Orthodox-driven nationalism, Elder notes, "once made him appear sorely out of touch, but…
> That "realism that approaches Tolstoy's" you mentioned is actually mostly folklore and vastly exaggerated for propaganda purposes
I can only vouch for the realism of his description of a hospital in his Cancer Ward (published in 1966), and for a scene of phonetic spectral speech analysis in In the First Circle (1968). Both unusually lifelike and showing first-hand experience.
Re: Don’t Blame Dostoyevsky
#190As someone who's read Anna Karenina three times and yet despises anyone in Russia who puts up a Z, or who idolizes Stalin. The cleanest way out is to separate them. The work of art stands on its own, and you can't critique The Epic of Gilgamesh by complaining that they still had slaves back then and there was no health care system. I haven't read Pushkin, not being into poetry OR speaking Russian, but if Pushkin said…
I dont think great litterature can be neatly compartmentalized like that.