Nice western culture or do the western hate Russia?

[ILay]

Sorry, maybe the article was already discussed, but still i'd like to post it here, cause i just read the remarks on it in one of newspapers and would like to have yours.

Please read it. it's quite interesting.
Published in "Ottawa Citizen" 07-January-2000 by Mr. Jhon Robson.

Quote

Russia under Putin will suck, as always

"We are one of those nations which do not appear to be an integral part of the human race, but exist only in order to teach some great lesson to the world." Pyotr Chaadaev

John Robson The Ottawa Citizen

The accession of Vladimir Putin has everyone wondering if he's the miracle man who will finally make Russia a normal state. Previously they thought it might be Yeltsin, Gorbachev, Andropov, Brezhnev, Khrushchev, Stalin, Lenin, Aleksandr II, Catherine the Great, Peter the Great, or ...

I have some bad news, folks. Normal for Russia is filthy, corrupt, menacing and hollow. Nothing good has ever happened there, nor will it. Russia is a lump of dung wrapped in a cabbage leaf hidden in an outhouse. You doubt it? Then join my tragical history tour.

First, Russia was cursed by nature. It has a narrow band of relatively fertile soil that tapers off from southwest to northeast, but most rain falls in the northwest and Russia gets drier and colder as you go east. Its frontier, unlike ours or the Americans', led nowhere.

Except, of course, to loathsome invaders. First, though, from the north came the same Norsemen who ravaged Western Europe. But in Russia they didn't govern, in the sense of providing security in return for protection money. They just built walled towns and stole stuff. Then Vladimir of Kiev adopted the Orthodox religion, which helped wall Russia off from the West and contributed to what one historian calls the puzzling "intellectual silence" of Russian history. So did the Cyrillic alphabet.

Then came the Mongols in 1237. They, too, provided no services, and felt no obligation, to their subjects. They just stole stuff and killed anyone who asked questions. Then the Black Death ravaged Russia and finished off the Mongols. So Ivan III stopped paying them tribute in 1480 and promptly set about stripping his subjects of their few liberties. The nobles were brought to heel, and the independent cities broken. Around this time, as Richard Pipes notes in his masterful Russia Under the Old Regime, the blurry distinction between lands the ruler held personally and those he granted to nobles in his capacity as monarch was resolved. But in Europe, especially England, most became the latter, while in Russia the reverse happened.

Then came Ivan the Terrible, who divided the country into an outer part he ruled unjustly and an inner part where his psychotic secret police slaughtered thousands. Ivan killed his eldest son and left the throne to an imbecile without heirs. Then (then, you say?) came the Time of Troubles, lasting until the Romanovs seized power in 1613. During this time the peasants were enserfed but, this being Russia, there is no clear record of when or how.

Then came Peter the Great, a giant (6'8") who forced westernization down the throats of his reluctant nobles (along with anything they abhorred, including corpse flesh), built his capital in a swamp and forced his courtiers to cut off their beards. So rather than taking root, western habits were aped for safety but despised. Peter also held sacrilegious orgies, and had his only adult heir tortured to death in front of him. Then Catherine the Great, another westernizer-by-force, murdered her wretched impotent husband Peter III, brought Voltaire to her court, turned the whole country into a Potemkin village and drove her son Paul mad. Later he was assassinated.

Then Aleksandr I, head of the orthodox, theology-free church, finally read the Bible in his 30s and was converted. God told him to exterminate liberalism throughout Europe so he formed the Holy Alliance. Then Aleksandr II lost the Crimean War, emancipated the serfs and was assassinated. Nikolai II fitfully promoted reform, lost the First World War and was assassinated.

After that, people say, things went rather badly. But already in the 19th century to be "Russian" about things meant insisting your own country was best without knowing anything about other countries and not much about your own. And in 1839 the visiting Marquis de Custine lamented the absence of a "citizen class" and wrote "there is no people of Russia ... "

And it has been said that to understand Russian history you need only know that Russians made the biggest bell and the biggest cannon in the history of the world, and neither worked. Substitute Marxist ideology for the religious bell and the Red Army for that cannon, and you can see that nothing has changed. Nor will it. Russia is doomed by history and culture.

It stinks, literally and figuratively, and always has. People there have no manners, and as Pipes argues, no cultural capital, particularly no tradition of decency toward strangers. In Russia, when someone is swindled, popular sympathy goes to the swindler. Communism, of course, made it worse: Communism makes anything worse.

But the bottom line is: Russia has SUCK, SUCKS, and will SUCK.

John Robson is Senior Writer and Deputy Editorial Pages Editor.

Copyright 2000 Ottawa Citizen

Unquote

I leave it without comments.

[This message has been edited by ILay (edited 06 February 2000).]

[ILay]

Hi everybody!

I'd like to post here another article posted in another canadian newspaper which shows the perception of the canadian readers / correspondents.

I could not find the archieves of the newspaper online, so i can only put just my back-translation from russian.

Original published in "The Toronto Sun",
russian translation published in "Power" ("Vlastj / Âëàñòü" -- part of the "Commersant publishing house") on 8th of February 2000.

Enjoy!

Quote

in the middle of January mr. Jhon Robson, Senior Writer and Deputy Editorial Pages Editor devoted his column to the one of most miserable [piteous] apologies which ever happend to be published by a daily newspaper.
....
I have never read anything about Russia which could be compared with mr. Robson's article.
....
I think his article is the most accurate [precise] and compact essay of Russian history i've ever read.
The meaning of the article is that nothing, most probably, will change in Russia under old KGB politician Vladimir Putin. Same as few has changed under Eltsin and prior under Gorbatchev, Andropov, Brezhnev, Chruschev, Stalin, Lenin, Alexander the 2nd, Catherine the Great, Piter the Great, Ivan the Terrible... And so on to the deeps of history down to mongol horde.
...
I do not know mr. Robson personally but i hope it will be enough of excuses.
If not taking into consideration his unseemly crudity,
his grim valuations of the future of Russia are totally right [proper]
...
This is the up to date face of the russian history

Unquote

I did not post the article in full, words missing include information that the autor does not agree with individual indignities of russian people.

Sorry for a poor translation,
and i leave this article without comments as the priveous.

[This message has been edited by ILay (edited 07 February 2000).]

[Lilly]

Stick to the Globe and Mail. The only thing that the Toronto Sun has to offer is the Sunshine Girl and Boy. The columnists are uninformed, partial and plain morons.

LillyNomad

[ILay]

2 Lilly:

sorry, i'm not informed well enough about the press of Canada--

Is Ottawa Citizen of the same level as The Toronto Sun: Sunshine G&B, uninformed, partial and plain?

I just stress your attnention that the article in The Toronto Sun was only the reaction not the unaided observation.

Sorry again, but if T.s. and O.C are just yellow press could you please name those who are worthy reading and evaluating the opinions of american inhabitants.

tnks+brgds.

[Lilly]

I did. ~ ~

Best Regards,
LillyNomad

[Mihail]

Gorbachev, Andropov, Brezhnev, Khrushchev, Stalin, Lenin

Were not Russian leaders, they were leaders of Soviet Union... that guy is probably untintellegent...

[joydiver]

Here is a different reaction (and I hope, the majority agrees with it) to Robson's article by Angelina Lewinson in The Ottawa Citizen

"As a member of a Russian minority in Ottawa, I would like to thank John Robson for his poisonous thoughts presented in his column on the day of the Orthodox Christmas ("Russia under Putin will suck, as always," Jan. 7).

The author, who is usually a serious, thoughtful, conservative, knowledgeable and overall kulturny writer, in a sudden rush of venom, makes a cold-sweated tragic historical statement that "Russia is a lump of dung wrapped in a cabbage leaf hidden in an outhouse." The Russian cabbage-roll must have been not too well-hidden since, it seems, Mr. Robson was able to find it and swallow it, hopefully with a lot of Russian vodka to chase.

Mr. Robson's column, written in a language unworthy of the editorial page of a self-respecting newspaper, is not only an insult to people of Russian ancestry but also to all Canadians. His column presents Russian history and culture like a serial comic strip intended to mislead less-educated readers in a simplistic, one-sided, vulgar, distorted and hateful manner. Mr. Robson is obviously confused by his own historical findings because he cannot make the distinction between the rulers of Russia and the Russian people.

For your edification, Mr. Robson, the Russian rulers have exploited the Russian people, collected taxes, built labour camps and declared wars. They even won some wars -- the important ones. Just ask the French and the Germans. The Russian people, on the other hand, have died in wars and labour camps, built cities, contributed to science and created music, literature, art, architecture and films. I could give you some examples but Mr. Robson, probably, would not recognize their names anyway, because, as you said "You need only know that Russians made the biggest bell and the biggest cannon in the history of the world."

One can only wonder in amazement about the circumstances which compelled a seasoned journalist like you, Mr. Robson, to write such a dumb-witted version of Russian history, its people and culture. Claiming immunity because of ignorance will not cut it. You must have been bitten by a Russian bear while sitting in that Russian outhouse and writing this slanderous piece.

Mr. Robson, you owe us a public apology."
I totally agree with it. Like my husband says, a few years ago most westerns didn't even know where Russia is, and now only lazy won't use a chance to kick Russia in the stomach.
However, this kind of slander seems like a personal matter. I wonder, who could hurt that guy so much.