WHAT IS TRUTH?
[Excerpt from: “Russian strategic culture: Why Russia does things the way it does”
By Martti J. Kari, former intelligence Colonel in the Finnish Defense Forces
“The Russian idea of truth is interesting. After all, language tells how people think, how they perceive the world, and how society thinks. The United States has two words for positive rights: “liberty” and “freedom.” Russia has two words for truth and three words for lie. This is certainly not a coincidence.
There’s the word “PRAVDA,” which is truth but not absolute truth. Rather, the kind of truth that gets rid of awkward or bad situations. It’s like tactical truth. “ISTINA” is the opposite of a lie. ISTINA is TRUE, as true as can be. But PRAVDA is rather… sometimes it can be true, at other times not so true.
There are three words for lie. “Vranyo” is a WHITE LIE but on the strategic level. It is also kind of a way to get rid of nasty situations. The Russians know it, but we don’t realize it. We think that there are only truth and lies in the world. It’s just black and white. But the LIE in Russia was born under Mongol rule; violence and lying were the way to survive. This tradition has been in their system ever since.
Russia has the word “krugovaya poruka,” or GANG GUARANTEE. It means that when we have some set of people with a common goal. Be it the Kremlin leadership or the Russian armed forces or whatever. We have a common goal so I step out of the circle and lie to an outsider. My gang hears that I lie but they don’t judge me as a liar because they understand that I am using TACTICAL TRUTH (vranjo) to achieve the greater goals of our gang.
The use of tactical truth, or a lie, is accepted if it is done for the benefit of the in-group. Just like you can steal when you don’t steal too much or from the wrong guy. You also get to lie if you lie for the sake of the gang.
It’s a form of DOUBLETHINK, as Orwell showed in 1984. At the kitchen table, different things are said than outside the home. Everyone understands that Bob speaks very differently around the kitchen table than he does in public. Everyone understands why he does so.
The in-group creates their own story. For example, “We had nothing to do with the poisoning of Skripal.” Or that “We have nothing to do with the shooting down of the Malaysian plane.”
This is based on the fact that we in the West, under the rule of law, when we make an argument we need to be able to unequivocally prove our claim to be true. But when Russia makes an argument, there are always small gaps left here and there. We Westerners start to think about it, “Is that really so?”
The notion of lie and truth works differently in Russia. For example, in 1939, Russia installed a puppet government in Finland. They pushed the narrative that the working population of Finland was tired of Marshall Mannerheim’s “fascist junta” even though it was the rightful government of Finland. When Russian troops invaded Finland, they noticed it wasn’t so. We don’t REALIZE the use of Russian tactical truth.
When they went to CRIMEA, Putin said, “They are not Russian forces.”
If our commander-in-chief of the Finnish Defense Forces were to deny that a Finnish soldier was a Finnish soldier, that would lead to unfortunate situations. The soldier would go on a strike or get depressed or something. But the Russians were proud that the president was able to use TACTICAL TRUTH.
Putin said, “They are not Russian forces.” We started thinking here in the west, “Well, who are they then? Where did they come from?” This gave Russia the two or three days needed to take over Crimea completely. THEN Putin remembered, “Oh, they were Russian troops after all.”
OR the shooting down of a Malaysian plane. It has been proven unequivocally that the missile that shot that plane down was from a Russian Air Defense Brigade. The wildest stories that were moving in Russia were that, when the situation was at its hottest, the people were already dead there on the plane. This story was spread.
Those people who died in the accident did not die in the attack but they were already dead (before the missile struck). But no one questioned it because the Russians knew it was a tactical truth. They did not question how the captain agreed to fly a plane full of dead people, about to be shot down.
No one questioned it because they knew it was a TACTICAL TRUTH.
OR, IN THE DONBASS REGION, brave miners fought the “fascist junta” in Kiev. HOWEVER, some so-called civilian protesters had apparently FORGOTTEN to remove their Russian Armed Forces tags.
OR “We have nothing to do with the hacking of the DNC, the US Democratic Party.” In fact, they got caught, both the GRU, the Russian military intelligence service, and the FSB, the civilian intelligence, were both caught on the servers.
Or that “We don’t have anything to do with the poisoning of Skripal.” Except that there was a Russian intelligence colonel who had received the Hero of the Russian Federation honorary medal from Putin. There was also a doctor present who was tasked with making sure Chepiga, who was performing the poisoning operation on Skripal would not be exposed to the poison himself.
The funniest thing here is that Chepiga’s grandmother, who lives near Arkhangelsk, in her foolishness had published a picture of Chepiga receiving the medal from Putin himself. You’ll never guess what happened to Grandma after that? Grandma disappeared.
We need to understand that the use of Russian truth and falsehood is completely different from our thinking. If they say something, they won’t necessarily mean it but the tactical truth is meant as an instrument to slip through a slightly open doorway to get out of a nasty situation.”
There seems to be some sort of a psychic need to outdo Russians at every turn. A name like 'Volodomir' is likely part of that; this hoho claim of too many Russian words for lying and truth could also be part of it.
The idea of wanting to ban the use of Russian in Ukraine is part of the same thing.
The good news about the Ukrainian language is that in 20 years from now, it will be gone, along with all the other dead languages that small nations still use for anything. TV and the internet will have killed it just like they have killed the Southern accent in Texas. Russian will still be here.