Is this just the latest spasm of
history that Russia can and must endure
in order to triumph again? Writer EgorKholmogorov exhorts Russians
to hold on just two years more.
Russia Must
Hold Out or Land on the 'Dustbin of History' (Izvestia, Russia)
"The late eminent
geostrategistVadim
Leonidovich Tsymbursky liked to paraphrase Dostoevsky
when talking about pro-Western Russians: 'We are Europeans and are pursuing fun.
No more and no less!' But the geopolitics of 'fun' has exhausted itself under
the joyful applause of homosexuality and infanticide. Such people cannot even
be called clowns; they are too evil to be clowns. … If we can get through the
next year, we will not break, we will not give in, we will not beg for a 'fun'
pain-free death. We'll be masters of the circumstances, including even of
Europe. However, if we break we'll be thrown onto the dustbin of failed
civilizations. We'll be left to rot, with smoke coming off the pile and fleas
and rats crawling all over us."
Writer EgorKholmogorov discusses how
nothing in history is predetermined
My generation has a strange relationship with history. We
grew up with the conviction that history would be written by and for us. Almost
every boy grew up reading The
Book of the Future Commander and saw himself, if not as Miltiades at Marathon or
Caesar at Pharsalus,
then certainly as Prince
Sviatoslav defending Dorostol
or Prince Vladimir
taking Korsun [ancient name for Crimea].
But history deceives us, screeching to a halt before our
very eyes. That is exactly what happens in The
History of a Town [Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin's 1870 a satirical novel] and again in 1990,
when the book was made into a film entitled Ono.
During perestroika it was shown to
the intelligentsia. While the film is a bad parody of Russian history, the
sensation of decay and of history being washed away that it creates is quite
accurate.
But time never really stands still. At some point in the
1990s there was a sense of time running backwards, running over and killing,
ravaging and nullifying everything in its path, zeroing out all that came
before. The country receded to a time before 1917, before the 17th century all
the way back to the Paleolithic era of 17,000 BC, before the mammoths were
extinct and the ice caps melted. Culture was then based on hunting the big
game living along the Don
and Donets rivers, but there was a collapse and the hunters themselves
became extinct due to hunger. The immense post-glacial space was filled with dirty
puddles and the shore covered with piles of fish bones and oyster shells that were
descended on by desperate coastal nomads.
At some point these fish bones became the limit of our
existence. It seems as if, having being confronted with the end of history,
Russia decided to succumb to the innocent pleasure of decadence. We became an
unrepentant country of petrodollars, each year alternating between "we are
a young country of 20 years" to "we have a great history going back thousands
of years." In any case, history - 200 years since the Battle of Borodino, 300
years of St. Petersburg, 1,000 years since Yaroslavl was founded and 1,100
years of Russia - seemed like something of a natural resource that could be exchanged
for a stable currency and better popularity ratings.
Our future appears similarly constrained. Russia did get a
little spoiled. It somewhat went to seed, rarely flexed its muscles, grew
somewhat lazy and divested itself of its remote non-European regions. In the end
our own middle class, which wanted to live "like
other people" - without failure or ambition – was celebrated. We would be
diminished and reduced, dissolved into the periphery of Germany, becoming
nothing more than a vast chunk of land next to Estonia and Romania.
Today it seems absurd, but not long ago many thought this
was the best possible outcome. Through trial and error and because of
diminished foreign policy ambitions, new leaders and a new ideology were chosen.
The basis of this syndrome of learned helplessness was of
course based on concern over Russia's fate. Ultimately, we bought into
historical euthanasia- to walk away quietly, slowly and without pain, blood or
dirt, fascinated by the Louis Vuitton bags given to
unloved women. We thought: "Perhaps we don't even deserve that?"
"Don't deserve that!" Please! Molotov cocktails were
lobbed by Maiden goblins onto our heads. It became clear that there wouldn't be
any euthanasia. It looked like the "Cossacks would be set upon by the cackle
of gas-powered chain saws" accompanied by the hoots and laughter of the "civilized"
world.
What happens next, I really do not know. Despondent
Europeans suddenly got up on their hind legs and issued a roar - not like a
bear, a bear is too brutal, but like something more predatory.
It seems to me that this transformation of Russia was the
result of a spontaneous, instinctive exposure to nature rather some cunning
plan. The version that accuses us of being calculated and deliberate fails to
take account of our constant stalling and loss of momentum during subsequent
events.
But one short burst was enough to make the pendulum of
Russian history return to its usual swing (although it didn't appear so for us,
Russian history's modern stepchildren). The forgotten tools of this history,
which the current population knows little about, are all of a sudden back in
our hands, and we are remembering how to use them.
It is a sense we are living on the set of a Russian version
of the blockbuster Night at the Museum. Here
they've stolen the Scythian
Gold; there is Prince
Vladimir with his entourage; here is 18th century Cossack Ermak
with his men; there, one after the other, are admirals and commanders Fyodor Ushakov,
Alexei Senyavin, PavelNakhimov, Alexander Suvorov and
Mikhail Kutuzov. And then, members of the Home Guard and the Azov Battalion.
Even Gogol,
his ancient Kazakh Taras and his prophecy about the "approaching
Orthodox czar from the East" suddenly turned up as unwanted guests. Mighty
ancient words and tectonic fault lines are too serious for this age.
History suddenly speaks to us through geography. In the annals
of centuries gone by, things stumbling from Prince Svyatoslav who took Kerch-Panticaeum
[in Crimea] to the genius of Athenian democracy and Pericles, who sent the
Athenian fleet on an expedition to the Black Sea and Crimea. Incidentally, and
I don't know why, being reminded of this terribly embarrasses sensible "supporters
of democracy." [Pericles is said to have taken a
fleet into the Black Sea to demonstrate Athenian power and secure the grain
route from the Tauric Chersonese (the Crimean
Peninsula in modern Ukraine].
Posted By Worldmeets.US
Evidence suggests that the course of history can be changed
by small groups. It turns out turn out it takes just a few people - fewer than
the conquistadors needed to take down the Incan Empire - for fissures to appear
in the New
World Order.
History is full of pain, blood, tears and tragedy. Which brings us to May 2 in Odessa
(pro-Russia unrest in Ukraine). There had already been six months of
martyrdom in Donetsk, Gorlovka and Lugansk. But there
had been many tragedies in the era of stagnation - meaningless tragedies bereft
of the experience of catharsis or purification. This year there was no such meaninglessness.
On the contrary, every wound and every death made those who survived lighter, bolder
and meaner.
Of course, there are those who are made seasick by the
pitfalls of history as if someone poured sand and glass into their engines.
Some gathered openly in crowds to fight the spasm and demand, "Bring us
back our euthanasia! We want neither life nor pain! We are ready to
disassociate ourselves from this country – a country that is a shadow of
itself."
The late eminent Russian geostrategistVadim Leonidovich Tsymbursky liked
to paraphrase Dostoevsky
when talking about pro-Western Russians: "We are Europeans and are pursuing
fun. No more and no less!" But the geopolitics of "fun" has exhausted
itself under the joyful applause of homosexuality and infanticide. Such people cannot
even be called clowns; they are too evil to be clowns.
I'm certain that if we can get through the next year, we will
not break, we will not give in, we will not beg for a "fun" pain-free
death. We'll be masters of the circumstances, including even of Europe. However,
if we break we'll be thrown onto the dustbin of failed civilizations. We'll be
left to rot, with smoke coming off the pile and fleas and rats crawling all
over us.
Once history has settled and cooled, everything appears logical
and predetermined, but during great historical spasms, nothing is ever
predetermined. Historical destiny is not really fate - but action.
