The Voice of a Prophet: Solzhenitsyn on the Ukraine Crisis

The Imaginative Conservative ^ | Jun 6, 2014 | Joseph Pearce

[Rashputin]

The Voice of a Prophet - Solzhenitsyn on the Ukraine Crisis

by Joseph Pearce

The greatest difficulty arose from the ethnic mix in the Ukraine itself in which, in different regions of the country, there were different proportions of those who consider themselves Ukrainians, those who consider themselves Russians and those who consider themselves neither. “Maybe it will be necessary to have a referendum in each region and then ensure preferential and delicate treatment of those who would want to leave.” For this to happen, the Ukraine would need to show the same restraint and good sense towards the regions in which Russians predominated as Russia needed to show to the Ukraine as a whole. This was especially necessary because of the arbitrary nature of the area designated as belonging to the Ukraine: “Not the whole of Ukraine in its current formal Soviet borders is indeed Ukraine. Some regions … clearly lean more towards Russia. As for Crimea, Khrushchev’s decision to hand it over to Ukraine was totally arbitrary.” The way in which ethnic Ukrainians treated the ethnic Russians within these largely arbitrary borders would “serve as a test”: “while demanding justice for themselves, how just will the Ukrainians be to Carpathian Russians?”

[Rashputin]

Part of Solzhenitsyn's thoughts on the Ukraine and what would and should happen there.

I wish it didn't have to be an an excerpt as the article isn't all that long but very interesting and worth reading IMHO.

[Diogenesis]

“Western thinking has become conservative: the world situation should stay
as it is at any cost; there should be no changes. ....
The communist regime in the East could stand and grow due to the enthusiastic support
from an enormous number of Western intellectuals who felt a kinship and refused to see
communism's crimes. And when they no longer could do so, they tried to justify them. In
our Eastern countries, communism has suffered a complete ideological defeat; it is zero
and less than zero. But Western intellectuals still look at it with interest and with
empathy, and this is precisely what makes it so immensely difficult for the West to
withstand the East.”
[Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn at the Commencement, 8 June 1978, Harvard University]

[Sacajaweau]

Thanks so much for posting.

[Sacajaweau]

http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/14/an-interview-with-aleksandr-solzhenitsyn-on-ukraine/

[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

How many times have we "debated" this topic, Rashputin, though you usually respond by slinging poo? (Hence, debate gets put into quotation marks.)

Why is it that Ukrainians and Russians even marched together in the Maidan, and yet, all of a sudden we are supposed to believe that everyone is racist towards each other? Again, let's go over the four facts:

1) Poroshenko, the new President of Ukraine, received a majority of votes from all over Ukraine, including the South and East.

2) Turnout broke records, even without the areas where the Islamics and Communists sent from Moscow disrupted the election.

3) Unlike in Moscow, international observers found no problems.

4) The results were consistent with polls in both the East and South that showed that the separatists are a micro-minority, even under the target zone of Moscow's propaganda war. The Citizens of Ukraine want a united country and do not want to be torn apart by Moscow. Here is a map that shows all the precincts that went to Poroshenko. The red went to him. The grey color represents those areas where no vote occurred.

Now unless all your racist Russkies who just hate the Ukrainians so bad they can't stand it are all packed into that gray little zone, where is this racial tribalism between ethnic Russians and ethnic Ukrainians? Why is it that every time this question is measured, whether by Pew, other international polls, and finally by a Presidential vote itself, that none of this "We hate Ukraine, we want to be annexed by Putin because we are safer and freer there (LOL)" ever comes out?

Here's another question. Why is the self-proclaimed "Prime Minister" of that communist little group, who is supposed to be fighting to protect the Russian ethnicity (like all good Nazis), openly celebrate the Islamic Chechens whom Vladimir Putin is flooding into Ukraine? These same Chechens were not so long ago killing Russians. Even the Islamic dictator of Chechnya, who now says Putin should be President for life (because Putin sends him billions of dollars), boasts that he killed his first Russian at the age of 16.

Isn't there a problem here?

SOUNDBITE 1 - Aleksander Boroday, prime minister of self-declared Donetsk People's Republic (man, Russian, 21 sec): "Chechens are Russian people, no matter what nationality they hold and they protect Russian people in Donetsk and Lugansk, because they consider this land their own motherland, just like any other city, town or village of the Russian federation."

SOUNDBITE 2 - Aleksander Boroday, prime minister of self-declared Donetsk People's Republic (man, Russian 18 sec): "I would like to tell you than Chechens are great patriots of Russia and they are ready to protect their Ukrainian brothers because Russia and Ukraine are actually the same people."

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:hYfLDY-UQPwJ:www.afp.com/en/node/2445159+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

[McGruff]

Looks like the right place to move the border to.

[harpu]

This is a great article and it makes the Ukraine situation clear(er) and also shows just how REALLY ignorant OBozo is for orchestrating his butt-in foreign policy!

[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

Yes, nice place to move the border to if you are a statist Muscovite hungry for outright conquest and theft through force.

[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

Yes yes, Obama who can barely pull up his pants was able to manage a conspiracy so intricate that it even forced Russian agents in Ukraine to murder at his bidding.

[docbnj]

This is an example of the principle that people learn nothing from the obvious lessons of history. For at least 200 years, since the rise of nationalism after the French Revolution, political movements have persisted in the belief that each ethnic group needs its own country. This is in spite of the fact that (in eastern Europe especially) ethnicities were scattered like spots on a Jackson Pollock painting. Every national movement sought its historic or ethnic boundaries, which almost always were more than they occupied at the present. Never once has a serious leader announced the following: “I discover that out nation of Ruritania really is bigger than the territory settled by our folk, and so beginning tomorrow we intend to trim off 30% off our territorial holdings, so as to contract our territory to our central core geography. We expect to have friendly relations, and especially free trade with all our neighbors.”

That is a fantasy. Leaders always want more, and as is often the case, they frame aggression as defense. Even Hitler did this: what a nice fellow, always so concerned to protect German minorities in other countries (though not so nice about his treatment of minorities under his own control).

Putin is following the Hitler tactic, except that he is much more cautious and cunning. Also, another difference is that Putin is less romantic than Hitler, and more pragmatic. Nonetheless, the two are closely similar in numerous ways, and even in some small details.

But who is noticing? Surely not the leaders in the West. Merkel is functionally a Russophile, having dismantled German nuclear-energy, creating a great dependence on Russian fossil fuels, while cluttering the landscape with subsidized windmills and solar panels which simply do not do the job.

Just think: France has a more rational energy policy than Germany! Who would have imagined this?

[PGalt]

Interesting article. Thanks for posting.

[Mount Athos]

Was the USA and NATO like Hitler in bombing Serbia for 72 days to forcibly strip Kosovo from its sovereign territory, creating an ethnic enclave?

Aren’t the Ukrainian separatists just following the example and precedent set by the USA less than 20 years earlier?

[Rich21IE]

Great contribution; very interesting. Thanks.

I’ve been thinking along these lines for quite some time, although I’m loath to air these views in the company of my Ukrainian friends.

“Today, almost six years after his death, Solzhenitsyn’s position is still the only sane and safe solution to the Ukrainian crisis. Those regions of eastern Ukraine which desire to secede from the Ukrainian-dominated west of the country should be allowed to do so. There are already two nations in the de facto sense. It makes sense, therefore, that this de facto reality should be honoured with de jure status.”

[docbnj]

The blue and tan map is very misleading. For one thing, (assuming that it is in the least accurate), it only shows majorities. Then it assumes that everyone goes with their linguistic affinities.
The fact is that Russian and Ukrainian languages are very similar, and there is a long joint history. The Rus dynasty of Kiev is looked upon as the beginning of Russia.
A professor from one of the Siberian universities wrote that there is no reason why Russia and Ukraine should not live in peace on the friendliest of terms. They are in many ways as close as English-speaking Canadians and Americans. The violence is manipulated. The professor promptly lost his position, and will have to find other work.
Nowhere is anyone mentioning the religious differences among the population of Ukraine. Yet Ukrainians ghet along. There is even considerable intermarriage. It is clear that the problems are stirred up from the outside. The motive is also clear: Putin wanted Crimea for its naval access, and now he wants more direct access to Crimea. He also fears any prosperity in Uraine, or anything which might compare well with Russia. He also wants a greater Russia.
Dictators who can make it at home (with low productivity and discontent) ofttimes turn to foreign aggression. Putin likes to look tough. We can speculate, for what personal failings is he compensating? But what we see for sure is than he is cunning, brutal,m and aggressive. He is not a nice guy.

[mac_truck]

Now unless all your racist Russkies who just hate the Ukrainians so bad they can't stand it are all packed into that gray little zone, where is this racial tribalism between ethnic Russians and ethnic Ukrainians?

The only 'racist' spewing hate here is you punk.

And the eagerness with which you push the Kerry/Clinton/Obama line on this forum is disturbing.

Why don't you piss off back to whichever liberal ngo pays you to troll here and let the adults have a conversation ?

[McGruff]

“Ukraine must be free to choose its own future, for itself and by itself,” - Barack Obama

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/06/04/politics/obama-europe/

But not the Donetsk People’s Republic Mr. President? How hypocritical can you be.

[Always A Marine]

Excellent article, Rashputin; thanks for posting. It is useful to recognize that multi-ethnic nation states are modern exceptions and not the rule throughout history, especially in Europe. Large, multi-ethnic states are often cobbled together by force within arbitrary boundaries, or else absorb additional ethnicities by conquest and/or immigration. In all cases, there is a natural and persistent tension that tries to tear such states apart along ethnic lines, and which eventually succeeds as events fracture tenuous non-ethnic ties. Solzhenitsyn recognized this, and the common-sense principle of Subsidiarity provides the logical solution for dealing with the “separatist” phase of civilization’s undulating cycle.

[varmintman]

He [Putin] also fears any prosperity in Uraine, or anything which might compare well with Russia.

What you been smokin? Between Ukraine and Russia, Ukraine is the basket case.

[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

The only 'racist' spewing hate here is you punk. And the eagerness with which you push the Kerry/Clinton/Obama line on this forum is disturbing. Why don't you piss off back to whichever liberal ngo pays you to troll here and let the adults have a conversation ?

More of your third grade insults to anyone who doesn't tow Putin's line?

I wonder, are you able to rationally explain why those of us who oppose Putin must necessarily worship Obama?

The irony is that not only have you been describing the Ukrainians as Nazis (and one of your Putinist buddies have even described Ukrainians, as a race, as incapable of having their own state), and advocating the dividing of their country from behind your computer screen (how about you mind your own business and get your nose out of Ukraine?), but they are, actually, the most communist and anti-semitic forces this world has ever seen!

This is from the recent unveiling of their new fancy flag over in Lugansk. Notice what's on the wall next to that commie?

And, hey, what are these? Are these freedom fighting ethnic Russians hoping to get away from oppressive Nazi Ukrainian Junta?

That hand sign by the way means "No God but Allah," or something along those lines, apparently.

Unlike you pack of Paulistinian conspiracy theorists, I've got the facts to make it clear what's going on here. The fact is, the Kremlin supports every communist organization in the world, and even aids and abets terrorism. They are even building their own Islamic Caliphate in Chechnya, paid for by Russian tax dollars, and have used Chechens to invade countries like Georgia, and now Ukraine. Meanwhile, Putin is establishing Iran as a nuclear power, and you bunch of goobers are spamming me about supporting "Kerry" or the "Zionist-EU-Soros" conspiracy, when we're in the middle of a new cold war!

[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

But not the Donetsk People’s Republic Mr. President? How hypocritical can you be.

Why does one building filled with Communists and Islamists get to take over Ukraine? One man one vote, I say.