Zice că dracii de ruși vor da gaz de păpat diavolilor de chinezi. Iar aceștia din urmă, îi vor păpa și pe ruși.
Iată evenimentul. (memorare)
Și, ca să le stea în gât celor care vor vrea să-i pape, iată. (memorare)
AM. (memorare) Aici este referința. (memorare)
Two things which all those Russia “scholars” in the United States fail to grasp about Russia because it is beyond the grasp of most of them:
1. Russian peasant commune and its world-view;
2. War.These two factors explain why Bolsheviks were able to get and hold on to power for so long, the same as why Bolshevism transformed itself into something else entirely in Stalin and post-Stalin period.
Crimean War, a simple fact, Russian Army faces Anglo-French force, armed with rifles, with smooth bore muskets which barely have a half range of British and French arms, not to mention not being in the same league in terms of accuracy. I will abstain from comparing respective fleets. Russia loses the war, is humiliated and is forbidden to have any fleet on the Black Sea. As none other than Grand Duke Konstantin noted:
We cannot deceive ourselves any longer; we must say that we are both weaker and poorer than the first-class powers, and furthermore poorer not only in material terms but in mental resources, especially in matters of administration.
Did this thought ever visited Dreher or Billington when almost exactly 50 years from humiliating defeat in a Crimean War, Russia will be humiliated yet again in Russo-Japanese War with Russia’s Baltic Squadron annihilated at Tsushima by Japanese Fleet in one of the most lopsided defeats in history. Almost surreal defeat which exposed Russia’s weakness. Then comes Revolution of 1905 precipitated both by humiliation of Tsushima and by Bloody Sunday. Then comes its suppression with Russia’s peasantry, when not executed, literally whipped–yes, villagers crowded at the central square, with Cossacks administering public whipping of men and women. Russia was literally whipped in 1905-07. And then comes WW I. I have to put it politely, American history, even when one considers Civil War looks almost tame compared to what even old Russophobe and falsifier of Russian history Richard Pipes called “rougher political climes”.
In what state Russia approached WW I is a separate topic, especially after everything became public and was generally settled–for Russia WW I was a catastrophe which resulted in millions upon millions of killed, maimed, displaced and, in the end, proved Grand Duke Konstantin’s post-Crimean War diagnosis correct yet again, this time on a gigantic scale. Can some American journo who can not even speak Russian and who writes some fantasies about some Benedict Option even comprehend what effect those wars which saw millions of Russian lives wasted for the reasons which are beyond his grasp had on Russia and Russians? I am sure he has no clue as one would expect from a product of US humanities “education”. Then it is no surprise that one will try to find some elusive symmetries between Russian and American history when in reality there are none and can not be. I am not sure Rod Dreher had time to actually get himself into the memorial on Poklonnaya Gora in Moscow, but in the Hall of Memory and Sorrow there are 2, 660,000 small chains with tear drops on them, each chain symbolizing 10 people, in all–a memory of 26,660,000 Soviet citizens who died in WW II. Remarkably, those 2,660, 000 chains is roughly the number of Russian soldiers killed in WW I, without civilians. If Dreher wanted to experience epiphany, he should have gone there to take in a remote physical representation of what almost 2.7 millions killed look like as tear-drops. I think he would have had some answers, maybe, and would avoid drawing parallels to a fate of an American nation (???) which has no grasp of horrors of continental warfare and no experience with it.
Then maybe, all those platitudes about culture, GULAG and other Cold War cliches and falsities will yield to an attempt, as late Father Robert Tobias wrote to perceive great depth and maybe understand that real Russian Church is not just in, however magnificent, Orthodox Cathedrals but in this:
Or in this, the closest one can get to living and dead marching together as one.
If that is not a spiritual religious experience, I don’t know what is and that is how Soviet Flag flies proudly by, in many cases, people wearing Christian cross. But that is the fact which is beyond comprehension of the American intellectual class, the thing they cannot wrap their brain around, the same as inevitable leaning to the REAL Left of Russian society. They just don’t get it in the US and Rod Dreher is a symptom of this narrow mindedness which cannot be cured, with protracted pseudo-intellectual discussions about Russian culture or without them. But I repeat myself.
Noroc cu ILD, care ne păzește (bostanii!). (memorare)
UPDATE 05.12.2019: AM ne atrage atenția despre un interviu la TD.
/UPDATE