Putin Laments Death of the Soviet Union

ABC News ^ | Feb. 12

[nickcarraway]

Have you read Brothers Karamazov?

Have I read Brothers Karamazov? I have no doubts its the greatest work of fiction ever written. Although it's hard for me to not rate The Possessed as highly. I only regret I can't read it again for the first time. Every Christian should read Karamazov. Every person who lives in the modern world should.

When I was a sophmore in college, I read Crime and Punishment during spring break. After I read that, it was all she wrote. I had to read every single thing he ever wrote. Some of the stories were no longer in print so I had to find them in libraries. I was able to order The Village of Stepanchikovo.

[MarMema]

OK, so let me just put my foot in my mouth really well - what did you think of the Grand Inquisitor?

[nickcarraway]

Have you read What is to Be Done by Chernyshevsky?

[RussianConservative]

Lies against US is evil, lies against Christian nations, especially Orthodox is applauded.

[nickcarraway]

Well, I haven't heard a lot of that, but there were a few instances where his characters criticize Catholicism. But it didn't bother me, because the image of Catholicism Dostoevsky saw, was that it was almost like a nonsecular communism. Reading Dostoevsky only strengthened my faith- by a lot. He was a genius, who seen what the modern world offered, and drank of cynicism- but he was a complete believer in the truth of Christianity.

[MarMema]

Of course you are forgiven. It is an old thing, the distrust between our countries.

I can tell you stories about the Russian people....

I have one son who was starving to death in a Georgian orphanage during the civil war. When the Americans came to get the remaining (living) children from this place, they found the children had mostly survived because of the coats, blankets and food left for them by the Russian soldiers passing through.

When my husband was in northern Russia adopting our oldest daughter, Tatiana, in a small village, he took her to the park each day to play. She was 7 and told all the Russian people at the park about her new father from America who had come to take her home.
That evening my husband answered the door at his flat more times than he could count, to Russian women bringing him dishes of steaming food, handmade gifts, toys for our daughter. All of which these people could hardly afford.

The Russian people that I have known, and I know a lot of them, have many admirable traits which I believe run deep within their culture. They have done so much for our family, on our many trips there, and always have been more than gracious and hospitable. The Russians gave us three children when we were unable to have more than one, and for this gift we can never thank them enough.

I believe that Putin is a good man, and not a communist any longer. To understand the Russian viewpoint, it is good to study their language and culture, and especially the church which formed their country.

The Russians I know cherish their freedoms, and they have many, many more everyday freedoms than we do here in this country now. Most importantly the Russian people have learned the hard way about what can happen when you turn away from God. We have yet to learn this lesson, I fear.

[MarMema]

Have you read What is to Be Done by Chernyshevsky?

No.....tell me about this.

[nickcarraway]

OK, so let me just put my foot in my mouth really well - what did you think of the Grand Inquisitor?

Not at all. I wouldn't say it was my favorite book if I couldn't answer that. But what was the Grand Inquisitor about? Who tells that story? It's Ivan. The cynic, the rationalist, the atheist. First and formost the Grand Inquisitor is about the views of Ivan- and the modern world- towards Alyosha- the man of faith. Ivan picks that story to demonstrate how he- and the people he represents- see all of the faithful. Like his Brother Alyosha, hence not only catholics, but the Orthodox, or any other believers. But Dostoevsky also throughs down a challenge to Christians in that story about our free will and human nature. And we could go on discussing the meaning of the Grand Inquisitor indefinitely- and I hope we will.

But I think Christians for the most part identify with Alyosha, so that we all have to answer Ivan's Grand Inquisitor. Because that is the modern world trying to counter our beliefs. It's Ivan's way of talking to his Brother about his atheism- and his doubts about atheism- and the incurable love of humanity as he puts it.

[gipper81]

One of the things that always strikes contemporary visitors to Russia is the lack of monuments to the victims of Stalin's execution squads and concentration camps. There are a few scattered memorials, but no national monument or place of mourning. Worse, fifteen years after glasnost, ten years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, there have been no trials, no truth commissions, no government inquiries into what happened in the past, and no public debate whatsoever. This was not always the case: during the 1980s, when glasnost was just beginning in Russia, gulag survivors' memoirs sold millions of copies, and a new revelation about the past could sell out a newspaper. But more recently, history books containing similar "revelations" are badly reviewed or ignored. The president of Russia is a former KGB agent, who describes himself as a "Chekist," using the word for Lenin's political police.

The reasons for this are not hard to fathom. Life is genuinely difficult in Russia today, and most Russians, who spend all of their time trying to cope, do not want to discuss the past. The Stalinist era was a long time ago, and a great deal has happened since it ended. Post-Soviet Russia is not the same as post-Nazi Germany, where the memories of the worst atrocities were still in people's minds. The memory of the camps is also confused, in Russia, by the presence of so many other atrocities: war, famine, and collectivization. Why should camp survivors get special treatment? It is further confused by the link made, in some people's minds, between the discussion of the past that took place in the 1980s, and the total collapse of the economy in the 1990s. What was the point of talking about all of that, many people said to me: it got us nowhere.

But the most important explanation for the lack of debate is not the fears and anxieties of the ordinary Russian, but the power and prestige of those now ruling the country. In December 2001, on the tenth anniversary of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, thirteen of the fifteen former Soviet republics were run by former communists, as were many of the satellite states. To put it bluntly, former communists have no interest in discussing the past, it tarnishes them, undermines them, hurts their image as "reformers."

[source: Anne Applebaum, author of "Gulag: A History."]

[nickcarraway]

Looked up The Overcoat, looks interesting,

Yes, read it, it is one of the most infuential stories in Russian literature. Doestoevsky, Tolstoy, Turgenev, and other have all been quoted as saying ``We all cam out from under Gogol's overcoat. Maybe only Dostoevsky said that, but it's believable that any of them said that.

There is actually a good companion piece to The Overcoat in U.S. literature, I believe. Read Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener.

[nickcarraway]

What is to be Done was hugely influential Russian novel. It's not terribly well-written, and, yes, it's basically propaganda, but it's worth reading. It was Chernyshevsky's attempt to show how socialist intellectuals could change Russia- and the world. Lenin read it eight times or more in one summer. (Then he promptly stole the title- but that's another story.) This novel and it's followers played a big part in Doestoevsky's The Possessed.

[MarMema]

You are certainly gracious. I don't think Feodor was as kind in return.

Dostoevsky nods You might like to read this.

[nickcarraway]

Anytime you want to discuss Russian literature, I am eager.

[MarMema]

Chernyshevsky's attempt to show how socialist intellectuals could change Russia

Sounds like you are heading into Intelligentsia material here....time frame?

What about Pushkin? Have you read anything of his?

[MarMema]

Anne Applebaum, author of "Gulag: A History

Ah yes, the Polish Russophobe. Yawn.

[nickcarraway]

Sounds like you are heading into Intelligentsia material here....time frame?

1863.

What about Pushkin? Have you read anything of his?

Yes, Eugene Onegin, the Queen of Spades, and The Captain's Daughter, maybe a few others.

[nickcarraway]

Do you know about Nietzsche and Dostoevsky?

[MarMema]

What do you think of Pushkin? In Russia he is the man of the year, every day and every year. :-) They adore him, most likely, I think, because of his nationalism.

I have a pic of myself somewhere, quite overdone with Georgian wine, standing in front of Pushkin's home. Which my Russian friends insisted I would cherish, and that I must have to take home. Still baffles me to this day.

[MarMema]

Do you know about Nietzsche and Dostoevsky?

I am not sure what you are asking so probably not. Tell me.

[MarMema]

This novel and it's followers played a big part in Doestoevsky's The Possessed.

Which I have not read yet. I keep trying to purchase it and it falls through each time. What did you think of it?