When COVID came in 2020 I decided to reread the Russian novels I read but didn't understand at 20. This time I got maps and histories. I finally have a clear idea how the Crimean War developed which is pertinent to current events. So, when the invasion of Ukraine began I had some knowledge, but I admit to growing up with the USSR a big dark place on the map. I'm a librarian so see things through from the vantage of libraries. When I read that the papers of Alexander Kolchak (1874-1920) had been bought for 3 million euros and returned to Russia I had to go back and focus on the Russian Civil War, which--of course--had been barely mentioned in any classes I ever took. That's really how I learned about the Russo-Japanese War which is written about in this post today (and Kolchak's role). The arc is so great it is going to take a lot of posts from MT to understand.
I am glad to have this new substack on Russian Dissent to learn more.
This is the type of article that leaves me behind the rest of the pack. I know nothing of Russian history, motivations, lifestyle, war policy, strategy you name it. Russian was to the best of my knowledge was never discussed in school. I can grab bits and pieces of understanding, tv is full of propaganda, someone in the middle of the Russian/Ukraine will take the fall for this war. There are no winners both sides are to blame. Isn’t everything you said about Russia applicable to the United States. Russia is having a war with Ukraine, okay, the United States government is having a war on its own citizens since the beginning, American Indians, Refugees, Italians, African Americans, women, children and the list goes on.
I know we are all part of the answer and the problem, that this is the society as we know it. You know there are times when I wish everything would just stop. You know, we just take a breath, sit on the front steps or porch, talk and listen. I once took a class in philosophy or some such nonsense (it was a college requirement) Absolutely stupid, no basis in any kind of reality I experienced. Philosophy doesn’t pay the rent.
This is powerful and dark and worth re-reading. Although it’s an indictment against “the consciousness of the modern mass Russian,” many of the charges can be leveled against us in the West. The metaphor of the Titanic’s crew being “unwilling to acknowledge the existence of icebergs,” (or to acknowledge the reality of anything, really), but to resolutely keep on keeping on, surely applies, just for starters, to our failure to apprehend human-caused climate change and the impending catastrophe of accelerating global warming. The deluge of misinformation in the West is not issued in exactly the same way as propaganda emanates from the Kremlin, but its effects, especially a sense of chaos, are similarly destructive. I’m no scholar of Hannah Arendt, but to me Kagarlitsky is writing here about the interplay of propaganda and the banality of evil. Arendt wrote: “The result of a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth is not that the lie will now be accepted as truth, and truth be defamed as lie, but that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world - and the category of truth versus falsehood is among the mental means to this end - is being destroyed.” I feel it’s harder and harder every day, on both sides of the new iron curtain, to take one’s bearings.
When COVID came in 2020 I decided to reread the Russian novels I read but didn't understand at 20. This time I got maps and histories. I finally have a clear idea how the Crimean War developed which is pertinent to current events. So, when the invasion of Ukraine began I had some knowledge, but I admit to growing up with the USSR a big dark place on the map. I'm a librarian so see things through from the vantage of libraries. When I read that the papers of Alexander Kolchak (1874-1920) had been bought for 3 million euros and returned to Russia I had to go back and focus on the Russian Civil War, which--of course--had been barely mentioned in any classes I ever took. That's really how I learned about the Russo-Japanese War which is written about in this post today (and Kolchak's role). The arc is so great it is going to take a lot of posts from MT to understand.
I am glad to have this new substack on Russian Dissent to learn more.
I did write abt the Kolchak papers at my substack which is about lost libraries and censorship. (free: https://kathleenmccook.substack.com/p/admiral-kolchak-the-returned-archive?s=w)
This is the type of article that leaves me behind the rest of the pack. I know nothing of Russian history, motivations, lifestyle, war policy, strategy you name it. Russian was to the best of my knowledge was never discussed in school. I can grab bits and pieces of understanding, tv is full of propaganda, someone in the middle of the Russian/Ukraine will take the fall for this war. There are no winners both sides are to blame. Isn’t everything you said about Russia applicable to the United States. Russia is having a war with Ukraine, okay, the United States government is having a war on its own citizens since the beginning, American Indians, Refugees, Italians, African Americans, women, children and the list goes on.
I know we are all part of the answer and the problem, that this is the society as we know it. You know there are times when I wish everything would just stop. You know, we just take a breath, sit on the front steps or porch, talk and listen. I once took a class in philosophy or some such nonsense (it was a college requirement) Absolutely stupid, no basis in any kind of reality I experienced. Philosophy doesn’t pay the rent.
This is powerful and dark and worth re-reading. Although it’s an indictment against “the consciousness of the modern mass Russian,” many of the charges can be leveled against us in the West. The metaphor of the Titanic’s crew being “unwilling to acknowledge the existence of icebergs,” (or to acknowledge the reality of anything, really), but to resolutely keep on keeping on, surely applies, just for starters, to our failure to apprehend human-caused climate change and the impending catastrophe of accelerating global warming. The deluge of misinformation in the West is not issued in exactly the same way as propaganda emanates from the Kremlin, but its effects, especially a sense of chaos, are similarly destructive. I’m no scholar of Hannah Arendt, but to me Kagarlitsky is writing here about the interplay of propaganda and the banality of evil. Arendt wrote: “The result of a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth is not that the lie will now be accepted as truth, and truth be defamed as lie, but that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world - and the category of truth versus falsehood is among the mental means to this end - is being destroyed.” I feel it’s harder and harder every day, on both sides of the new iron curtain, to take one’s bearings.