And while I am at it, North American slavists kind of suck. The Ukrainian friend was at a conference, and an eminent American scholar announced in his talk that there is an ethnic conflict in Ukraine that has caused a civil war.
The friend asked him if he had any evidence to support this (truly outlandish) claim.
“Yes, I saw a video on YouTube,” the eminent scholar responded.
I already knew that slavists were a bizarre bunch, ever since a visited the Chair of the Department of Slavic Studies at McGill and saw that he was sitting under a huge portrait of Putin and a tiny little portrait of Pushkin.
I’m thinking there must be a reason why Slavic Studies is a dying field.
Clarissa's Blog 
I think I tried to tell you this before. BTW since Pushkin’s great grandfather was Ethiopian we are claiming him as part African.
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Ложь как культура и культ \ Синдром отключенного сознания
http://trim-c.livejournal.com/288094.html
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I find it unbelievable that this is written by a professor at Oxford. But he exemplifies perfectly well why I avoid immigrants from the FSU.
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\\ I find it unbelievable that this is written by a professor at Oxford. But he exemplifies perfectly well why I avoid immigrants from the FSU.
Do you think he is wrong? In what?
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Everything. 🙂 Just start at the beginning of the article. These immigrants who are desperate for the former compatriots to tell them that everything back home is bad are miserable, wounded folks who are deeply unhappy because of having emigrated. This is their wound and their dysfunction. And their pouting that the people back home haven’t all died just to prove the immigrants made the right decision by emigrating is unhealthy. If he doesn’t even understand this, which is very basic, maybe it’s not his subject to discuss.
The bloopers are numerous and striking. Saying that bolshevism lowered the cultural level is just bizarre. The Russian Empire had staggering illiteracy rates, even worse than those of Spain, as late as 1916. And the lack of any intellectual life among the intelligentsia was described beautifully by Chekhov.
At least, the USSR taught everybody to read.
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Btw, have you read Владимир Пастухов before? Loved his article (via the above link). Here it is again:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/russian/blogs/2014/12/141208_blog_pastoukhov_syndrome_unplugged_consciousness
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“Vladimir Pastukhov is visiting fellow at St Anthony’s College, Oxford and advisor to the Chairman of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation ”
Searched to find something in English for this blog’s readers and found two recent articles. Unlike in Синдром отключенного сознания, I see in them many things you won’t like. However, I couldn’t find Синдром отключенного сознания in English. Anyway, what he writes is way better than the Slavist you referred to in this post. For instance, he also says that the Cold War never ended.
Putin is ‘Last Soldier’ of a Dying Empire, Pastukhov Says
http://www.interpretermag.com/putin-is-last-soldier-of-a-dying-empire-pastukhov-says/
Putin has Re-Awakened Russian Messianism, Pastukhov Says
http://www.interpretermag.com/putin-has-re-awakened-russian-messianism-pastukhov-says/
QUOTES
“Attempting to restore Russian civilization in any of its historical forms – the USSR, the Empire or Muscovy – is an obvious utopia.” No one can “save an old ‘Russian civilization,’” but it might be possible to “attempt to establish a new Russian civilization” very different from its predecessors and thus having a future.
[…]
In the political sphere, he continues, this choice takes the form of one between “the destruction (conversion) of the Soviet Empire and the reforming of statehood by creating a post-modern constitutional state” or trying to put off this end by restoring one or more of the past systems, the choice Putin appears to have made.
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I keep repeating that emigration is an enormous trauma and of people don’t realize it and treat it, this will be the result. What is sad is that he can sell the trauma as scholarship.
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\\ I keep repeating that emigration is an enormous trauma and of people don’t realize it and treat it, this will be the result.
I do not understand. Do you think things in Russia are much better than he describes?
You remarked to my link about Синдром отключенного сознания that “I find it unbelievable that this is written by a professor at Oxford.”
Do you think he is wrong?
I know people in Russia who believe in Putin’s propaganda.
On another topic – tensions in Europe are growing and a Muslim columnist writes about it:
Islamophobia is on the rise in Germany. […] It is against this backdrop that we have to look at the weekly protests in Dresden against the “Islamisation” of Germany. Few of those attending are neo-Nazis or classic rightwing radicals. Instead, the vast majority are normal citizens. […] The organisers of the Dresden demonstrations claim to be responding to street fights between Salafists and Kurds that broke out in western Germany a few weeks ago. But framing this and other problems as part of a phenomenon of Islamisation is ridiculous.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/10/islamophobia-racism-dresden-protests-germany-islamisation?commentpage=1
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I read this comment to the article about Islamophobia in Germany from a German:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/10/islamophobia-racism-dresden-protests-germany-islamisation#comment-44812567
Never heard about “jews are being chased trough the streets of Berlin in 2014” before.
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Go to a lunatic asylum, you’ll hear this and more. Might even meet a few Napoleons there. 🙂
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His articles in Russian are really good, pity one can’t find them in English. Loved:
Война и мир почтальона Тряпицына
http://www.bbc.co.uk/russian/blogs/2014/09/140908_blog_pastoukhov_konchalovsky.shtml
and
Cто лет невежества
http://www.bbc.co.uk/russian/blogs/2014/10/141002_blog_pastoukhov_ignorance
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Don’t know whether this is a good article:
Третье пришествие большевизма
http://www.bbc.co.uk/russian/blogs/2014/10/141027_blog_pastoukhov_bolshevism_third_round.shtml
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I gave no idea what he’s talking about. Who had gone back to the church? According to the Russian Orthodox Church itself, only 2% of people in Russia are practicing the religion. This is a very difficult religion to practice and even before the revolution efforts were made officially to create at least a semblance that somebody was practicing. People were so tired of that that they joyfully demolished the churches and killed the priests after 1917..
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\\ Who had gone back to the church? According to the Russian Orthodox Church itself, only 2% of people in Russia are practicing the religion. This is a very difficult religion to practice
I think and see on TV that many are practicing the American version. 🙂
Say you are religious, put a cross on a neck and visit a church once a year / month kind.
If it’s OK to ask, are your parents practicing the full Russian Orthodox version?
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“If it’s OK to ask, are your parents practicing the full Russian Orthodox version?”
– Actually, yes. They first destroy their health with the horrifying 40-day fast and then take the time until the next fast to recover. But I guess it does something for them.
“Say you are religious, put a cross on a neck and visit a church once a year / month kind.”
– The Russian Orthodox Church doesn’t recognize it as a practice of the religion. Who am I to argue? This isn’t protestantism, which is a consumerist religion if there ever was one (and we all know that I love consumerism). The ROC, however, is even more difficult than Catholicism.
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\\ Go to a lunatic asylum, you’ll hear this and more. Might even meet a few Napoleons there.
Found article on an Israeli site:
A backlash is being felt: this week Merkel’s conservatives debated banning the burka, the full body covering worn by some Muslim women, and her Bavarian allies had to drop a proposal to oblige immigrants to speak German at home.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4602842,00.html
You would support banning the burka, but the second offer about language does sound lunatic.
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“You would support banning the burka, but the second offer about language does sound lunatic.”
– Of course and of course. 🙂
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\\ – The Russian Orthodox Church doesn’t recognize it as a practice of the religion.
But not Russian Orthodox Russians and others may recognize it.
Good news: at last Israeli school children will learn about Jewish soldiers in Allies’ armies in WW2, and not only about the Zionist Jewish Brigade:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4602563,00.html
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“But not Russian Orthodox Russians and others may recognize it.”
– I dislike ROC profoundly but I still believe the faith itself and the religious practice it is based on deserve respect.
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\\ – I dislike ROC profoundly but I still believe the faith itself and the religious practice it is based on deserve respect.
I probably expressed myself badly. What I meant was that while the church may not include all people who wear crosses and say they believe in the church’s statistics, I as a not religious person do count them as religious in a way. That’s why the author could claim that people “had gone back to the church” in post-communist times, meaning that they embraced some form of religion, not necessary Orthodox one.
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“That’s why the author could claim that people “had gone back to the church” in post-communist times, meaning that they embraced some form of religion, not necessary Orthodox one.”
– The ROC is the most popular one in Russia. Everybody else is doing even worse. 🙂 Islam is doomed there because can you imagine Russians giving up on alcohol? Protestant preachers are making efforts but in the wake of the intense anti-Western propaganda, they won’t attract anybody. Who else is left? Hinduism? Judaism? Obviously, they don’t stand a chance.
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As for people who put on crosses, I wear a Mogen David as an ornament. Would anybody be justified in drawing a conclusion on the basis of this that I have returned to Judaism?
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