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I hope you will never see this letter (1961)

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Re: I hope you will never see this letter (1961)

#71

Post by detrites »

Stratoscope wrote: post #50
RedCondor wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What blatant political statement?

GP may be referring to this: > Raise them as people who will deserve to live a new communist society. > I wish to dedicate this flight to the people of the new communist society... Would it seem political if someone wrote: > Raise them as people who will deserve to live a new capitalist society. > I wish to dedicate this flight to the people of the new capitalist society...

The reason those seem starkly at odds is not likely to be a result of devotion so much as the tyrannical structure that typically surfaces around the former persuasion, compelling (usually by continual threat) such affirmations repeatedly.

Re: I hope you will never see this letter (1961)

#72

Post by [deleted] »

krisoft wrote: post #69
jll29 wrote: post #61

From a modern perspective, it is a bit harsh to demand from one's wife ¨Hey babe, I am not coming back, please raise our two kids, oh and by the way please help our parents also!¨ - if she really was not at all informed.

> Hey babe, I am not coming back But that is not at all what the letter says, isn’t it? It says he thinks everything will be all right, but he is writing the letter just in case something goes wrong. > if she really was not at all informed She surelly must have known that she married an air force pilot. She might not have known the exact details of this particular mission, but she also must have known that he was wor…

[deleted]

Re: I hope you will never see this letter (1961)

#73

Post by stereolambda »

rglullis wrote: post #65
stereolambda wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt they would make you a cosmonaut without being a convincing communist, the same way they wouldn't probably make you an American astronaut if you were one. If he were a doubter, it would still make sense to include that to potentially make it easier for his family to obtain or preserve a decent position in the Soviet society. These sorts of heroes were supposed to be idols and demigods of the country. This wasn…

> I almost wrote how people are clueless about living under totalitarianism, where there can really be no such thing as truth or honesty Now let's apply this to the modern days, where declaring yourself as a conservative can kill your career and activists feel justified in screaming to your face on the street if you refuse to regurgitate their rally cries.

If you want to go there, being harassed by an opinionated mob is actually a mostly democratic phenomenon. In an autocracy, it would be a beating, either by the police, or thugs operating in agreement and probably paid by the police. You wouldn't even think of speaking openly of your views, or being beaten, as of things a sane person would do. Not condoning anything BTW.

Re: I hope you will never see this letter (1961)

#74

Post by aivisol »

RomanPushkin wrote: post #42

There were also the other words of Yuri Gagarin, on the way back from space: "Я горю, прощайте товарищи" ("I'm on fire. Farewell, comrades"). The capsule somehow managed to land successfully, and he ended up being alive.

He didn't land in capsule, he parachuted at approx 7km altitude or so.

Re: I hope you will never see this letter (1961)

#75

Post by rglullis »

stereolambda wrote: post #73
rglullis wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I almost wrote how people are clueless about living under totalitarianism, where there can really be no such thing as truth or honesty Now let's apply this to the modern days, where declaring yourself as a conservative can kill your career and activists feel justified in screaming to your face on the street if you refuse to regurgitate their rally cries.

If you want to go there, being harassed by an opinionated mob is actually a mostly democratic phenomenon. In an autocracy, it would be a beating, either by the police, or thugs operating in agreement and probably paid by the police. You wouldn't even think of speaking openly of your views, or being beaten, as of things a sane person would do. Not condoning anything BTW.

Does it really matter the what and the who, if in practice both are effecting total submission and/or supression of dissent?

Re: I hope you will never see this letter (1961)

#76

Post by southernplaces7 »

jll29 wrote: post #61

From a modern perspective, it is a bit harsh to demand from one's wife ¨Hey babe, I am not coming back, please raise our two kids, oh and by the way please help our parents also!¨ - if she really was not at all informed.

Yes, because asking your wife and the mother of the children the two of you created together knowing that they're a commitment of decades at least, to then take care of those children for as long as she can is just so old-fashioned and sexist? What's the "modern perspective" he missed out on here? That caring for one's own children is a circumstantial and fluid responsibility depending on convenience levels? Asking her to help his parents is also wrong how? What a sadly shallow concept of marriage one would have to have if making such requests is too much to ask.

Re: I hope you will never see this letter (1961)

#77

Post by stereolambda »

rglullis wrote: post #75
stereolambda wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to go there, being harassed by an opinionated mob is actually a mostly democratic phenomenon. In an autocracy, it would be a beating, either by the police, or thugs operating in agreement and probably paid by the police. You wouldn't even think of speaking openly of your views, or being beaten, as of things a sane person would do. Not condoning anything BTW.

Does it really matter the what and the who, if in practice both are effecting total submission and/or supression of dissent?

Look, I think your career ending example would make a better case for what you are trying to argue. If you dig into history of longstanding democratic countries like US and Switzerland, you find plenty of rioting and chaotic infighting throughout centuries. Classic republican (as in, US founders) thinking would be that while unfortunate, this is preferable to a police state being able to establish a true monopoly on violence. Then you could have your "order" and "safety", but at the cost of naturally deteriorating toward thinking and doing only what the central power allows you.

Re: I hope you will never see this letter (1961)

#78

Post by sagaro »

ifdefdebug wrote: post #47

That he felt need to include such blatant political statements in a letter like this is telling.

I am not sure about the 1950s in Russia. But to add some color to this patriotism, I have heard many stories from my grandfather in India who had fought for freedom against the British, where it was quite common for people to put country first, strongly identify themselves with the freedom movement and write letters to loved ones about missions/movements they are going to take part in where they might not return and how they hoped their sacrifice would lead to a better and free India.

Right now the politics is shit. And hence we aren't able to relate to this. And it would be insane for us to write a letter to loved ones with political statements. But at that time, when it was a national movement, maybe it wasn't that odd.

Re: I hope you will never see this letter (1961)

#79

Post by FpUser »

noduerme wrote: post #33
FpUser wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. It does not

Real letters to wives don't include patriotic and political phrases about children being raised in a new paradise to come, except those written by cult members and those (in this case) written under duress.

You definitely have no clue about what happens in real life. You could easily find similar praises among the average Americans. I've encountered the same things in Canada as well.

Re: I hope you will never see this letter (1961)

#80

Post by refurb »

schoen wrote: post #54
rodary wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This sound is an ‘affricate’, meaning that it’s pronounced by starting with a /t/ and releasing it with the tongue so that it finishes with a /ɕ/ sound. I don't agree. I don't start with a /t/ when I'm about to say any Russian word that starts with ч (ch). The tongue is in a different place altogether. With т, the tongue is closer to teeth than when I start with ч (ch). This should be true for all since we're talki…

I don't speak Russian so I'm somewhat reluctant to quarrel with someone who does on this point, but the phenomenon of being used to write an affricate sound that starts with a dental stop is super-well documented in linguistics literature -- on the basis of extensive studies with, and often by, native Russian speakers. That dental stop might or might not be exactly the same sound as any of those that are written with…

This reminds me of a conversation I had with a Vietnamese speaker about the word "đúng" which means "right" or "correct".

To my English ears it sounds like "doom" (Southern Dialect). The "ng" ending sounds like an "m". But to this Vietnamese speaker, they said "no, 'ng' makes a sound like the English word 'sung'"

And the vocalization you mentioned for the Russia sound is similar. "ng" in Vietnamese is the same "ng" sound in English but you close your mouth at the end and purse your lips like the "m" sound in English.

But I think we're both right, it's just that each person hears the same sound in different ways due to the language we grew up with.

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