Posted on 04/06/2022 2:19:49 AM PDT by Cronos
The countries neighboring the Russian Federation have to defend themselves not so much from the very Russian language, but from everything that is attached to it. In the fall of 2019, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke about the attempts to ‘blatantly reduce the Russian language [and culture] space in the world’. He put the blame on the ‘primeval nationalists’ and the governmental policy of individual countries. Well, that’s where one has to agree with the Russian president. The Kremlin policy indeed does not serve the cause of the Russian language. Unlike English, the Russian language is deprived by Moscow of a main prerequisite [for continued functioning as an international language], its political neutrality.
Learning English does not mean encroaching upon the [national] identity [of the country concerned] – a Lithuanian who has learned to speak English continues being a Lithuanian, and a Kazakh continues being a Kazakh. Whereas the Russian language [has been and] is being sold by the Kremlin in a package with loyalty to the empire and acceptance of the Russian version of history. Moscow has made every effort to turn ‘Russian schools’ abroad into factories to create [separate] communities of ‘Russian people’. Those, who should be in opposition to their own country, its history and [State] language, are meant here. That [has been and] is being done just for using them subsequently as leverage, as an instrument for influencing and as a pretext for interference [in the domestic affairs of another State]
As a result, neighboring countries are forced to defend themselves not so much from the language itself, but from everything that is attached to it as part of the "package offer". Moreover, for the former Soviet republics, this product is supplied as a case for invasion. Any native speaker is declared Russian property, which Moscow must protect. This is exactly what we observed in the spring of 2014 in the Crimea
At the same time, everyone who is trying to rise "above the fight" sings in a common choir with the official Kremlin. Everyone who now and then tries to sit on two chairs. Instead of telling uncomfortable truths, they prefer comfortable half-truths. For example, they talk about the need to hold an "honest referendum" in Crimea.
Any such statements are a story about "tribal". In fact, we are being told: if people who Moscow considers “their own” live on some territory, this is a reason for the invasion. Reason for annexation and occupation. And while the Russian oppositionists themselves are convinced that they are "protecting their own", in fact, everything is happening the other way around.
In fact, at this moment Moscow sends a signal to its neighbors. As long as you have people who are ready to call themselves "Russians", your territorial integrity is in question. As long as those whom we consider "ours" live with you, be prepared. And all this sounds like a direct call to Russia's neighbors to worry about assimilation and de-Russification.
Compatriots, Russian-speaking schools, compromising history textbooks. At the suggestion of the Kremlin, all this is now turning into a bomb planted under the sovereignty of neighbors. The example of Crimea looks unambiguous. Do you want to protect yourself from intrusion? Strive for inner solidity. Speech homogeneity. positive discrimination. A unified and sovereign view of the history of their country.
Otherwise, there is a risk of waking up and seeing Russian tricolors in one of their regions. And the Kremlin and the "opposition" will begin to assure in two voices: if Russian trains in the occupied territories are not derailed, then the new status quo should be consolidated.
The gods of alphabetic truths could not find their flock in Russia. The Kremlin has been trying for years to put under arms all the classics without exception. It was thanks to his efforts that the moral authorities of the past began to play the role of traveling salesmen selling imperial banners.
Russian propaganda attacked head-on. She took, for example, Pushkin's poem "To the Slanderers of Russia", drew an analogy between the Polish uprising and the Ukrainian Maidan, and then sent the classic "to fight for the DPR". Without a share of doubt, she declared people from the 19th century to be the moral tuning forks of the events of the 21st century.
All of this was kind of scary. Because any person belongs only to the century in which he was formed. Otherwise, we will have to remember that Pushkin was a slave owner, Dostoevsky was a xenophobe, and Fet was an anti-Semite. We don't do it just because the past should belong to the past. And the aesthetics of past centuries should be pulled up to the present, but not ethics at all.
Do you want to understand which side Pushkin would be on today? Then let him be born in 1970. He will finish school under Gorbachev, join the army of one country, and demobilize in another. He will watch "Swan Lake" in 91, make his choice in 93. Let "Kursk" and "Beslan" happen under him, the abolition of elections and the disappearance of freedom. First, put the classic through the meat grinder of everyday life, and only then will you find out whose banners he will be on.
Instead, Moscow has appointed culture as the locomotive for the political agenda. If you want to respect Chekhov and Tolstoy, be kind enough to rejoice in the Crimea and Donbass. If you want to admire Gagarin and Dostoevsky, get used to praying at the brick walls of the Kremlin. Russia consistently packed its heritage with "spiritual bonds" and proclaimed the fifth column of all those who did not agree with this. Is it any wonder that neighboring countries try not to buy this set meal?
It is likely that the Kremlin will eventually get the opposite. And we will continue to observe how the area of the Russian language will shrink. How residents of neighboring countries will read Russian classics in translations and in foreign literature lessons. How each country will bristle with its own sovereign version of World War II. In which there will simply be no room for Russian "spiritual bonds".
Moscow wanted to fight for the "Russian world"? She should be congratulated. She lost.
Excerpt from Pavel Kazarin's book "The Wild West of Eastern Europe"
This war started in 2014. The big media coverage started when certain investments were threatened.
I stopped reading; poorly written article.
We’ve seen this before in history. It does not end well.
All languages have political implications. But that still doesn’t excuse the Ukrainians for banning the use, teaching and learning of Russian, persecution of Russian speakers, etc., all of which they have been doing for some time, although it got worse under Zelensky. The Donbass in particular, because it is a border area, had many native speakers of Russian.
In fact, the first language of Zelensky himself was Russian, a fact that perhaps accounts for his zealous persecution of Russian because he doesn’t want anybody to question his Ukrainian purity.
The languages are very similar, with most differences being in writing (there are a couple of letters that are different) and in pronunciation. I read that they share about 60% of their vocabulary and that even an uneducated speaker of one language could understand about three fifths of what was said in the other language.
It’s one thing to have an official state language, which is reasonable, and another thing to attempt to eradicate any other language and its speakers, which our hero Zelensky is doing.
Live in a country learn, learn the damn language. Want to speak only Russian, move to Russia. Not a difficult concept.
And the US has turned the English language into a source of RIDICULE for the world, no longer requiring immigrants to learn it, even to a basic level, coming up with new pronouns that never existed 10 years ago, and not even clearly defining what a woman is.
“Well that + ethnic Russians being ethnically cleansed. “
Oh PLEASE, nothing wrong with Ethnic Cleansing as long as the cleansers are supported by the Media, Soros, WEF, DNC, Deep State, and Bidenistas. I guess - since no one was bothered by the cleansing of the Serbs in the former Yugoslavia.
This war started in 2014. The big media coverage started when certain investments were threatened.
Russian troll.
Ukraine requires schools in Ukraine to teach in Ukrainian. I guess that's "ethnic cleansing" to a russian supporter.
And the US has turned the English language into a source of RIDICULE for the world, no longer requiring immigrants to learn it, even to a basic level,
You're not being consistent in your arguments. Ukraine is not allowed to require the Ukrainian language, but you argue for English to be required here in the US.
According to Russian propaganda requiring that a cashier in Ukraine speaks Ukrainian with Ukrainian-speaking customers is “forbidding the Russian language”.
Some Russians do desire to refuse to speak the language of the country they live in, but the rights abused here are those of customers to be able to conduct their business in their own language in their only homeland not of the snotty immigrant employees.
Hope this doesn’t give democrats the idea to use Ebonics as an excuse to invade Red State America!
“Ukraine requires schools in Ukraine to teach in Ukrainian. I guess that’s “ethnic cleansing” to a russian supporter. “
I think having 14,000 of your people killed by Ukrainian government-sanctioned Nazis probably does more to explain the Ethnic Cleansing part.
Even if true it does not justify war. Nor does it justify Russia's fomenting and arming a rebellion by the Russian minority in Donbas. There are many ways short of war for the Russian speakers in Donbas to address the issue.
And yes, the Russians in Donbas are in the minority. For although around 70% of the residents speak Russian, only around 40% identify themselves as Russian. Language does does not equal ethnic identity. A majority of the Irish speak English but do not try to tell them that they are therefore English and not Irish.
So, are all of the Putinphiles on this site OK of Spanish becomes an official protected language on the southwest and that such people identify as “Mexican”’rather than American? Would Mexico be justified in invading to correct the “cultural genocide” by “American Nazis?”
“This war started in 2014.”
More like 1944 when advancing Soviet armies depopulated eastern Ukraine of native Ukrainians and settled peoples. The villagers were marched in front of the advancing troops to clear German minefields and locate, then assault German positions. By the time the Soviets got to Germany there were none of these people left. Stalin then resettled Russians into the depopulated eastern regions to work the collective farms, establish a greater Russia and counter Ukrainian nationalism. This was done in nearly all conquered territories of eastern Europe.
Soviet/Russian ethnic provocation has been so resented that no one wants to be included in Russia’s sphere of influence, however through the activities of the FSB nearly everyone is.
Very good point.
Moving Russians into Ukraine also happened under the Tsars. Also Jews into Ukraine following the Napoleonic wars.
But that hardly justifies the current Ukrainian regime shelling Russian majority sections of their country. Which is why those areas tried to secede.
Calling people Putinphiles ignores just how ‘green’ so called civilized nations are about to become.. not to mention godfather Joe's proclamation of ‘real’ food shortages..
Personally, starvation is the last means I would choose to end this flesh life.. and no way could I cope watching my grandchildren suffer such fate..
Freaking liar Russian troll!
Russian Supremacists and their agenda has been totally exposed. They think they are the Slavic master race and intend on liquidating any and all opposition. This is a holy war if there ever was one.
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