I recently learned this lesson the hard way, so let me begin with a few caveats: I don’t know where this footage was taken, I don’t know when it was taken, and I don’t know by whom it was taken. It is identified on YouTube as “Interview with Chechens in Donetsk”. Except for the only flag I see on the video seems to be a South Ossetian one. And since both the Chechen and Ossetian languages are very different from Russian, I don’t understand a word of what they say. All I did see is the words “Vostok Battalion” on one of the vans written in Russian. Now, after all these caveats, here is what I want you all to see:
Look carefully at the woman in red at the corner of the street who is watching as each APC passes her. Do can you see what she is doing?
She is blessing each APC with an Orthodox blessing even though she probably knows that these are mostly Muslims.
So here you have it my Islam-haters and defenders of “Christendom” against the “Islamic threat”: a Russian Orthodox woman is blessing Muslim men (Chechens are Muslims and while Ossetians can be Muslim or Orthodox, but the men on the video look Muslim to be, at least judging by their beards). Muslim men who have left their faraway country to cross Russia to defend Orthodox Russians outside Russia. When was the last time that the so-called “Christendom” came to the defense of Russia, the Russian people or the Orthodox anywhere??
I take no joy in that, believe me, but the historical record is clear: sadly, what is was call “Christendom” in the past (and by some today) or what is called the “West” or even the “Judeo-Christian civilization” (??) has always been against Russia and against Orthodoxy, even though even today they still deny this vehemently.
Sure, Russia did have wars against Muslim states, but with the exception of the Ottomans, these were not religious wars. It is also true that Russia did engage in imperialistic expansion towards the south, especially in the Caucasus and Central Asia (there were no Chechen or Tadjik invasions of Russia to repel – Russia invaded them).
And, of course, there was the abomination of the two Chechen wars recently for which, I sincerely believe, both nations share the blame, responsibility and even shame. And yet today, Chechens (including, I am sure, many former insurgents) are fighting in Novorussia. Why? Because on a deep level we – Russians and Muslims in or near Russia – belong to the same “civilizational realm”. Just like Central Asia or the huge Siberian expanses, the Caucasus is part of a multi-national and multi-ethnic civilization which history has forged, sometimes in peace, sometimes through wars, but which was a reality in the Russian Empire, during the Soviet Union and which today is slowly re-constituting a “Eurasian Union”. This Eurasian Union will always have a strong Islamic component to it and the Wahabis are wasting their time and money when they try to bring the local Muslims under their influence and make them agents for the AngloZionists (like they are trying today with the Crimean Tatars). They will always get some initial results, but they are bound to fail because you cannot roll-back or ignore history.
In a paradoxical way, the AngloZionist aggression against Russia (and China on the other side of the Eurasian landmass) seems to be creating a “reactive consolidation” of the Eurasian Union. If not for the (US sponsored) wars in Chechnia and in South Ossetia, would we ever have seen this woman blessing Muslim soldiers going to the front? I doubt it.
One more thing: poor Ukie death squads. I can just about imagine their horror when they will realize that instead of defenseless civilians, they are facing battle-hardened Chechen and Ossetian warriors. Man, I wish these guys would capture Liashko, just to see how he would behave in their company…
Kind regards to all,
The Saker
PS: I think that my PayPal button issue has been fixed thanks to your help. Can you confirm?
This is a more interesting interview, by an Afghan muslim, fighting for the Slavic civilisation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05wS4uudVc8
Lugansk in the crosshairs:
Ukrainian law enforcement units have assumed a large-scale offensive on Lugansk, the militia said.
“Fierce fighting is underway on the limits of Lugansk. The situation is not clear yet, but reports that the enemy deployed two compact armored groups of about 70 tanks in all, are being confirmed. Immediate unverified reports indicate that a special police task force was dropped on the city from helicopters,” Vladislav Brig, spokesman for the Donbass militia, wrote on Facebook.
The offensive on Lugansk was launched from the southern and western directions, he said, Interfax reports.
Ukrainian army uses about 70 tanks in offensive on Lugansk – Donbass self-defense – Voice of Russia
B.
VladTheFluffy says:
To add to the comments regarding Vladimir Putin’s visit to Central and South America, we should also take into account two quite astounding statements from senior French politicians recently. One stated that it was time for the world to get off the dollar (deputy Foreign Minister?) and the French Defence Minister’s statement that accepting Ukraine and Georgia into NATO now would be a hostile act towards Russia. Coupled with their refusal, despite Washington’s extreme attempts at coercion, to cancel the contract for the Mistral helicopter carriers, perhaps the French are breaking from the Washington imposed consensus.
If so, that’s groundbreaking. This is in contrast to accusations that VP and the Kremlin are not doing anything, this hasn’t happened in a vacuum, out of the blue. If these actions are a real indicator of future French intent it’s a genuine triumph of Russian diplomacy. Remember that these are senior members of the government of a NATO country, not just talking heads.
To this must be added, as stated in a previous comment, the Austrian refusal to cancel the South Stream. Taken alongside VP’s current Central/South American visits, maybe this portends a real change in world affairs.
It seems clear that VP would rather promote the approach, in deed as well as word, that there is an alternative to perpetual war, and that resort to military action should be regarded as a profound failure, not a policy aim. Maybe his Judo training has influenced him on a more profound level than most. And maybe he and the Kremlin are fully aware of the profound horrors of war, which the kill-crazy rabid dogs in Washington aren’t, or don’t care about.
I have come across a report which suggests that Ukraine may have shot itself in the foot – double barreled air conditioner style. The article originated in a Polish magazine, Wprost which is hardly likely to be on best-buddy terms with Russia. The link suggests that Wprost was responsible for publication of the Sikorski ‘blowjob’ leak. The article seems to state (according to a typical yandexlation) that by signing the EU Articles of Association, Ukraine has signed away any claim to Crimea via sections relating to property ownership in those Articles.
Now there are lots of qualifiers; the source, the translation, the legal accuracy etc. I know that Crimea is Russian, that possession is ‘9 points of the law’, that Ukraine will get Crimea back from Russia over its own dead body etc, but the irony of this is too delicious to ignore.
Henry Corbin.French scholar devoted his life to a study of – mainly esoteric aspects of – Shia religeon and philosophy.
A real pathfinder.
< The three major works upon which his reputation largely rests in the English speaking world were first published in French in the 1950s: Avicenna and the Visionary Recital, Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn ‘Arabi’ and Spiritual Body & Celestial Earth. His later major work on Central Asian and Iranian Sufism appears in English with an Introduction by Zia Inayat Khan as The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism. His magnum opus, as yet untranslated, is the four volume En Islam Iranien: Aspects spirituels et philosophiques.[3] He died on 7 October 1978.>
Perhaps see: http://tomcheetham.blogspot.com/
From Liveleak
http://slavyangrad.wordpress.com/2014/07/13/ivano-frankovsk-soldiers-tell-the-truth-july-12-2014/
First Ukrainian Soldier: The situation is such that the battalion is in a difficult situation, both in terms of resources and its territorial position. What they show in the news – that we are encircling the separatists – is, where out battalion is [stationed], exactly the opposite. The guys are at the end of their rope. It’s trouble there. It’s a disaster.
On one side, there are the forces of the Russian Federation standing there, practically 4 kilometres from us. And there is such military equipment there, believe me, that nothing would help us. It’s no longer about flack jackets and military equipment. Do you understand? It’s a completely different [situation]. We just have to get our guys out of there.
Unequivocally, the battalion can’t remain there. Well, the guys stationed there, they are like condemned men facing execution. I say this responsibly – I was stationed there and I came from there. And even then, we have to take them out, carefully. We have to take them out, carefully. And, honestly, I don’t know how this [rescue] is to be done but it must be done. It must be done and it must be done immediately.
Let me repeat, the situation as of today’s morning, I called there and I called yet again: not a single unit of military equipment has arrived, they [the soldiers] are standing in an open field.
[voices of women in the background] We know, we know.
An open field. Buses – you understand the condition of those buses that were already burned down; they were trying to escape under enemy fire. Comrade major, who perished, he was my friend [crying], I would ask for a minute of silence to honor him
Second Ukrainian Soldier: I would like to add that this battalion was sent to do a so-called “combat mission;” this was a criminal order from the superiors.[in the background, women asking] “Which superiors, which region?”
Yes, a regional commander, but all are guilty, we are not going to name them now.
[woman in the background] It’s clear who [it is], it’s Yarko [Note: unclear – either Yarko or Toyarko] who is on top, and he is the only one who can give such an order
Because the battalion we talk about, as a matter of fact, they can perform combat mission only as formulated in the beginning – i.e. guard duty of [important strategic] objects in the region, let’s say, guarding certain checkpoints, but ony further away from the epicenter of hostilities.
However in the midst of combat action it can’t fulfill any mission because of the lack of needed equipment. Even if such equipment were to be provided to the battalion, there is nobody trained to use [it].
[woman in the background] Did you speak to the guys? About retreating, together with you?
Yes, a large number of them agreed to this but they are literally frightened – certain officers were holding them there by any means, [by hook or by crook]. Many wanted to depart with us, and we were planning to take an entire company with us. This would have been very difficult as we didn’t [transportation], and we planned to take a large truck. But at the very last moment they were held back.
I want to add that starting with this criminal order pursuant to which the guys were sent there, and we ourselves went as commanders, we refused to obey further criminal orders because by doing so we would endanger people and we didn’t want to
First Ukrainian Soldier: Yes, we don’t want to be the ones responsible for [the lives of] our guys, do you understand?
Second Ukrainian Soldier: We wanted to preserve their lives and the criminal order is not …
[woman in the background] Yes, yes, guys … but how to get them out of there?
Second Ukrainian Soldier: This is precisely why we came here, to figure out a way to get them out of there. I will finally …
Another Speaker: Understand that I am disclosing all of this so that everyone can realize …
here comes people’s deputy Derevyanko, we must finally do something. Here, please come up here.
Reuters mentioned the banderivtsy crossborder shelling (surprise!), but framed it in such a way that Russia’s so far subdued diplomatic response was “aggressive”, while leaving open who did the shelling. So it looks like the ZPC media war criminals will probably try and frame Novorussians.
The Novorussians are building up quite an armour park, btw:
In Lugansk went another convoy of armored vehicles militias
http://translate.yandex.net/tr-url/ru-en.ru/voicesevas.ru/news/yugo-vostok/2773-v-lugansk-zashla-esche-odna-kolonna-bronetehniki-opolchencev.html
“…The total number of armored vehicles in Lugansk militia of the people’s Republic is about 26 tanks T-64, 30 infantry combat vehicles BMP-2, about 7 of airborne assault vehicle BMD-1 and BMD-2, artillery tractors MT-LB – 6 units and 8 multiple-launch rocket systems BM-21 “Grad”…
That doesn’t include what Donetsk has managed to acquire. Also:
“Rook” over the Lugansk
http://translate.yandex.net/tr-url/ru-en.ru/voicesevas.ru/news/yugo-vostok/2770-grach-nad-luganskom.html
“From Lugansk do optimistic reports that today could raise in the air trophy su-25 attack aircraft (captured 5-6 days ago), which according to eyewitnesses now flying over the city. Accordingly, if this is the case and there is no confusion with the storm troopers of the junta, the pilot, albeit with some delay found, and the plane has led to a healthy state.
Is there for him ammunition and technical infrastructure, we will see in the coming days, for if all that is available, the previously unpunished movement of columns junta on the territory LNR will now be connected with a certain risk, especially in the absence of air defense systems.
From the point of view of the expansion of the combat capabilities of the militia LNR, very useful acquisition, though of course we should not exaggerate the significance of one plane.
Just the Internet there was information that the army LNR carried out air Strikes on the home guards in the area of Aleksandrovka – metaller. The details of what happened there. Confirmation or refutation of the information is still there”
вот так
Newspeak from the Ukrainian Ministry of Truth channeling its master’s voice:
Ukrainian President Petr Poroshenko held telephone consultations with US Vice President Joseph Biden, Interfax cites the Ukrainian president’s press service as saying.
“The talks dealt with intensive coordination between Ukraine and the United States, and with the European partners. Biden assured the Ukrainian president that the United States was prepared to intensify international efforts to forge a peaceful settlement,” it said.
Translation from Newspeak into English:
“Intensive coordination” = new orders and directives have been issued from the Empire.
“intensify international efforts” = more escalating sanctions, mercenaries and and hardware.
“peaceful settlement” = continuation of both war and atrocities
The US vice president conveyed his condolences to the Ukrainian people over combat losses, according to the press service.
…but no condolences to the civilian victims of the latest “peace efforts”. They’re not even “collateral damage”, but go entirely unnoticed.
US ready to ‘intensify’ efforts to reach peaceful settlement in Ukraine – Voice of Russia
B.
@Nora (13 July, 2014 04:58):
Very few Americans owned slaves, but every single American, past and present, has benefitted from it.
Very questionable, Nora. There have been economists, historians and others who have made the case that slavery & segregation may have often had a negative impact on lower-class whites–economically as well as politically. Sure, there was an elite who often profited handsomely from the system. There was also a “respectable” middle-class that got some cheap maids and gardeners out the deal. And there was a group of (somewhat less “respectable”) lower middle-class shopkeepers and artisans who believed they had an interest in rendering it more difficult for any black competition to arise.
But all throughout the South, there also gobs of poor whites, toiling away in the same cotton fields as the blacks, with no hope of education or self-advancement. If they were sometimes paid a penny or two more per bushel than their black co-workers as some token of ‘white supremacy’, it never benefited them much as a group. Nowhere else in the US was wealth more unequally distributed–even between whites–than in the Jim Crow South.
This often carried over into the political realm, too. Many of the Jim Crows laws which officially targeted the blacks, such as poll taxes and literacy tests, also coincidentally (or by design?) disenfranchised many lower-class whites.
Totally agree with you on the Indians, though. That was so bad, it even went beyond slavery and segregation. What happened to the Indians was slo-mo genocide, ethnic cleansing, pure and simple.
Dear The Saker,
http://en.itar-tass.com/russia/740355
Ukrainian war plane has now entered Russian airspace.
Yet another provocation after the killing of a Russian man his morning.
Rgds,
Veritas
@ Daniel Rich (13 July, 2014 09:30):
And the BBC has to vomit a bit more too: Negative views of Russia and Putin on the rise globally.
Ha, ha! Good one, Daniel. Here’s a (much truer) story that we’ll probably never here from the “Brit Bollix Corporation”: Negative views of Anglozionist war-mongering on the rise globally. One can also wish though…
The war in the South East Online 13.07.2014 Chronicle of events (post updated)
http://translate.yandex.net/tr-url/ru-en.ru/voicesevas.ru/news/yugo-vostok/2762-voyna-na-yugo-vostoke-onlayn-13072014-hronika-sobytiy-post-obnovlyaetsya.html
Banderivtsy staged massed attacks in several places, including the use of landings from helicopters, Novorussian Su-25 confirmed used in an attack, nazi aircraft overflew Russian territory in same area of shelling, 2-3 banderivtsy aircraft claim downed along with one of their colonels killed.
вот так
Dear Saker!
Came across my mind. It might be helpful in the current crisis.
Have you heard for Sheik Imran Hosein?
An Islamic scholar who opines the current geopolitical situation through Islamic eschatology and according to his view there is a Koranic prophecy about alliance between Muslims and Rum which is supposed to be Orthodox Christianity. Coming through in the current crisis in Novorossiya?
Thank you for the excellent blog. Best regards from Slovenia, where many people support the people of Donbass and their right for self determination and peaceful living!
An account of the retreat from Slaviansk and Kramatorsk, and the events around Nikolaevka, which led to the decision to retreat. With a video of that night’s retreat and the day following.
Об отходе из Славянска (About the shift away from Slavyansk)
http://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/1664840.html (trans) http://translate.yandex.net/tr-url/ru-en.ru/colonelcassad.livejournal.com/1664840.html
вот так
Dear Saker,
I wouldn’t recomend reading Nahjul Balagha. It is a collection of sermons and letters that will leave you with more questions than answers, if you are unaware of the context. It can a powerful book of advice for those in leadership positions, but won’t explain the theology. Nor will it explain the events of Karbala or its importance to shia Islam. For a list of accessible books, see comment number thirty on this thread on the moon of alabama blog.
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2011/12/the-csm-drone-exclusive-does-not-make-sense.html
Masoud
NATO is terrorist organization
Parto uno
Non si era mai vista una nazione, nel cuore dell’Europa, cedere così di schianto e per mano delle libere e famigerate democrazie Occidentali, almeno dai tempi terribili della dissoluzione dell’URSS o delle guerre balcaniche. Stiamo parlando dell’Ucraina, uno stato fantoccio che se venisse scaraventato ai confini con l’Iraq o l’Afghanistan nessuno noterebbe la differenza, anzi riscontrerebbe istantaneamente una omogeneità politica, economica e sociale con quei territori.
Nessuno farebbe caso nemmeno alla polarizzazione settaria delle sue etnie e delle squadracce che infestano le regioni e le città, portando morte e distruzione ovunque. Al posto dei fanatici islamici ci sarebbero i nazisti, in ogni caso sarebbero tutti filoamericani e contenti. Per questo il giornalista Pepe Escobar definisce Kiev la capitale del Banderastan. Il problema è che l’Ucraina è dentro il vecchio continente, non in Medio-oriente. Dopo il golpe di febbraio, che ha portato alla defenestrazione di Janukovic, le chiavi delle istituzioni ucraine sono state consegnate nelle mani degli Usa, artefici del piano di destabilizzazione del paese con la collaborazione poco astuta di Germania e Polonia, da una gruppetto di oligarchi, i quali per anni hanno alimentato i sentimenti nazionalistici più retrivi del proprio popolo, allo scopo di tenerlo nell’ignoranza e costringerlo ad accettare ogni sopruso delle classi dirigenti dominanti. Tanto, alla fine, la colpa di ogni nefandezza veniva sempre riversata sui russi. Ora che Washington ha piazzato il suo Galautier sullo scranno più alto del potere, la rapina delle risorse pubbliche può cominciare. Certo, c’è da normalizzare il sud-est dove infuria una battaglia tra regolari (per modo dire) e forze indipendentiste, ma ci si può sempre portare avanti col lavoro, in attesa di risultati migliori.
Parto due
Per non perdere altro tempo prezioso e dimostrare ai nuovi padroni di essere capaci del compito di cui sono stati investiti, il Premier Yatsenyuk e i suoi ministri hanno annunciato “la più grande campagna di privatizzazione negli ultimi 20 anni”. In cosa consisterà questa stagione di svendite e liquidazioni del patrimonio pubblico ucraino? Il consiglio dei ministri dell’Ucraina prevede di vendere una quota del 50% di Ukrnafta e il 99% delle azioni del Porto di Odessa. Poi ancora industrie strategiche, mettendo sul mercato il 99% delle azioni di Sumykhimproms, il 75% delle azioni in Turboatom, le partecipazioni di altre 15 imprese del settore energetico, i pacchetti di controllo di una quarantina di società di gas. Altre alienazioni sono previste nel settore della ricerca e dell’agricoltura. Dopo i saldi gli ucraini potranno vendersi solo il sedere (aumenterà il flusso di sbandati verso l’Ue, ladri e puttane à gogo) ma nessun altro vorrà aiutarli. Quindi l’Ucraina verrà scaricata nella pattumiera della storia. Agli Usa basterà assicurarsi che il disordine regni sovrano in ogni angolo del paese cosicché la Russia abbia a lungo una gatta da pelare ai suoi confini. La Russia certo, ma anche l’Europa che si è impegnata ad associare Kiev all’Unione per sudditanza alla Casa Bianca. Un affare svantaggioso che costerà a Bruxelles (ovvero ai cittadini europei) perdite economiche e un incremento di vulnerabilità geopolitica, in virtù del deterioramento dei rapporti con un partner imponente come Mosca.
Parto tre – finito
Intanto, per quante bombe Poroshenko possa ancora sganciare sui civili della Novorossja, non riesce a venire a capo della resistenza e nemmeno della crisi economica. Ogni giorno qualcuno protesta per qualcosa, per il carovita, per la disoccupazione, per l’insicurezza nelle strade (a proposito, Piazza Indipendenza, da noi conosciuta come Majdan, è ancora un bordello di accampamenti e di immondizie, dominato da brutti ceffi e assassini), per i figli mandati a morire nelle zone ribelli. Proprio oggi la compagnia “Naftogaz” ha chiuso le forniture ai debitori. Prima di tutto, alle imprese che continuano ad accumulare debiti, ma le ripercussioni si faranno sentire sulla popolazione. La bolletta energetica è diventata un lusso da quando non paga più la matrigna russa.
In aggiunta a queste grane, crescono le spinte centrifughe nel resto del paese, quelle innescate dalle altre regioni che vorrebbero sganciarsi da Kiev, anche se attraverso riforme costituzionali, per autoamministrarsi, cioè per dare ai ras locali più ampi margini di manovra. Segnalo, tra queste, Liv’v e Dnepropetrovsk. Proprio in quest’ultima il banchiere Kolomoisky, governatore della stessa e proprietario di Privat bank, è diventato una specie di signore medioevale che paga e gestisce un proprio esercito, si fa le leggi su misura, riscuote tangenti come fossero tasse e accumula patrimonio sottraendolo ai suoi avversari. Kolomoysky ha congelato i depositi dei cittadini della Crimea, ovvero li ha derubati di soldi non suoi, ed ha chiesto al Presidente una legge per togliere ogni bene e proprietà a quanti hanno fiancheggiato i separatisti. Naturalmente per appropriarsene indebitamente. Non si era mai visto un banchiere dedicarsi alle rapine.
Questa è l’Ucraina all’alba dei suoi nuovi giorni democratici. L’Europa ha accettato che siffatta vergogna si realizzasse sostenendo e incoraggiando briganti e squilibrati. Dimmi con chi vai e ti dirò chi sei.
The guys in the video are Abkhaz, not Chechens. (But yes, Muslims).
FROM CROATIA
Koji smo mi Hrvati kurac kad jedna Argentina ima bolje odnose s Rusijom od nas.
Anglo-cinisti nas pumpaju da moramo imati negativno misljenje o Rusima zato jer su pravoslavci i zato jer pisu cirilicom!
Zasto Argenticima koji su isto tako katolicka zemlja ne smetaju pravoslavci i cirilica?
Zasto NATO-EU ne smetaju pravoslavci i cirilica kad ih treba primiti u NATO pakt ili u EU?
Cak im ne smetaju ni muslimani kao Albanija, Turska!
Nama Hrvatima po nalogu Anglo-cionista smetaju Rusi koji su Slaveni kao mi a ne smetaju nam Portugalci ili Turci.
Nemam nista protiv Portugalaca ni Turaka ali Rusi nisu zasluzili da ih ovako tretiramo kao sto radimo na zahtijev Anglo-cionista.
Minor comment regarding “Imperial religion.” If too off topic, please delete.
By an accident of history, the Western Empire was overrun by barbarians in the 470’s. Italy was re-conquered by the Eastern Empire in the 530’s, but mostly overrun by Lombards in 570’s (except Rome, Ravenna, and coastal enclaves). Rome itself was conquered by the Lombards in 740’s, then freed in the 750’s by the Franks, who created the Papal States as quid pro quo for recognizing their new dynasty. Since then the Bishops of Rome have been entirely free of Imperial control, as they had been before Constantine. The Carolinian Empire never included the British Isles, entirely Catholic by then; the Holy Roman Empire at its height only included Germany and Lombardy, not the other Catholic Kingdoms. The Bishops of Rome were often imperious, witness Emperor Henry IV standing bareheaded three days in the snow at Canossa to beg forgiveness from Gregory VII, but they never had an imperial church. There was no emperor above them to enforce their edits.
The Church of the Eastern Empire was the real imperial religion in Christendom, on the theory of “symphonia”, a Christian state in harmony with a Christian church. While the theory had much to recommend it, in practice it meant the Emperor legislating for the Church, the Commander-in-Chief enforcing his decisions on the successors to the Apostles by soldiery. It began under Constantine in the Western Empire in 314, 10 years before Nicaea, when he convened the Council of Arles to resolve a conflict between Catholics and Donatists in North Africa. Done ostensibly to maintain civil peace, the Emperors were soon choosing sides in theological quarrels, enforcing their religious orthodoxy of the moment. (The very term “Orthodox” first appears in the Justinian Code of 529, legislating the theology Justinian himself favored at that time.) The imperial oversight continued in the Eastern Empire until 1453 (under the Phanariots for Orthodox subjects of the Porte until 1918), and in Russia under the Holy Synod until 1917.
By other accidents of history (Bolsheviks, Turkish Republic), we are at last free of Christian imperial religion. Perhaps we churches descended from the Apostles can re-unite some day.
re: bombing of Donesk, Russia vs shelling Donetsk, Ukraine: sounds like a bozo read his map wrong…well, remember when the USNato plane bombed the Chinese embassy in Yugoslavia using out-dated maps? or not. more will be revealed Monday but perhaps when the BRIC conference is over, Russia will act because this could be provocation to derail attention from all the alliance building moves Putin is going to make in the next few days.
Dear Saker
I can see nobody is leaving a comment in the Russian blog
and I believe strongly it is because
you are asking for “log in”.
Could you enable the commenting as you have done in the English blog?
@Oleg Nikitin
“That explains why porkshank decided not to go to Rio…”
Porkshank… now this is funny!
You made my day, bro ))
Totally off topic:
In the early 20th century, a Russian photographer, Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii, took some amazing color slides, recording 11 regions of Russia, as part of a project funded by the Tsar. Most were taken in 1909 and some in 1915, so they recorded various regions of Russia prior to the revolution.
The slides have been restored and digital versions are available here. The images cover the topics ‘Photographer to the Tsar: Prokudin-Gorskii’, Architecture, Ethnic Diversity, Transportation and People at Work. A final section describes Prokudin-Gorskii’s methods and how the images were restored.
The illustrations are fantastic, both in technical terms (particularly the vivid subtle color rendition) and as a historical record. I think anyone with an interest in Russia will appreciate these images.
Стрелков: Цель Киева – втянуть Россию в войну с Украиной (Strelkov: the Purpose of Kiev to involve Russia in the war with Ukraine)
http://lifenews.ru/news/136510 (trans) http://translate.yandex.net/tr-url/ru-en.ru/lifenews.ru/news/136510
“…The commander of the militia of the Donetsk national Republic Igor Strelkov sure that Kiev is ready to do anything to involve Russia in the military conflict in South-Eastern Ukraine. This motif politicians Strelkov explained the shelling of the city of Donetsk, the Rostov region, where the morning of July 13 from the explosion killed a local resident and four people were injured.
– After the use of chemical weapons under the Semenovka, I had no doubt. Everything is done to involve Russia in the war, or, Vice versa, to make sure that Russia will join in a war… They “lost coast”… no honor, no conscience, ” said Strelkov, answering the question of correspondent of LifeNews…”
Губарев: Обстрел российской территории – сознательная провокация Киева (Gubarev: fire from the Russian territory is a deliberate provocation Kiev)
http://lifenews.ru/news/136493 (trans) http://translate.yandex.net/tr-url/ru-en.ru/lifenews.ru/news/136493
“…The shelling of the Ukrainian military in the Russian city of Donetsk, located in the Rostov region, where the morning of June 13, killed one person and injured several more Russian citizens is an attempt Kyiv authorities to provoke Russia into war. This is the task of the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko put US leadership, said on air of LifeNews folk Governor of Donbass Paul Gubarev.
– For this purpose Kiev junta does direct bomb attack on a peaceful city of the Russian Federation, ” said Gubarev. – This theme is very strong – to provoke Russia to the troops at any cost. President Petro Poroshenko has set a task to his masters, and he will fulfill it.”
вот так
Dinner to honor Putin in Argentina:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_LBBRpkhFI
Putin Official Visit in Argentina:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVN2PNuV0v4
Putin in the Casa Rosada ( Pink House):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjJYuqgvhT4
Putin with Argentinian President:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8omDfF7xKO4
and during the Press conference where Cristina praises the “restoration that is marvelous and historical architecture of the Kremlin”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pw1uLHqKbgI
Saker:
I am quite aware of the difference between Chechens and Ossetians, thank you. I even pointed out my doubts on this account by saying that while the video identified these men as Chechens, the only flag I saw was a South Ossetian one.
I said before I am mainly Swiss (Paternal) and Anglo-Norman (Maternal) heritage, which is all true. But in a strange twist of fate, my Y chromsome, passed down father to son, is a type of the group G2a, which is very rare in Europe (most of Europe outside South Italy and Greece is R1a [East/West Slavic], R1b [Ibero-Germano-Celtic], I1 [Scandanavian], I2 [Balkan], and N [Finnic]), but most common in Ossetia.
I have no idea how it is that a family that most definitely is from a small village high in the Alps above Bern is related in this way, but most Ossetians are my direct cousins, in a way that the vast majority of western Europeans are not.
God bless them!
@EVERYBODY: About the ethnicity of the men on the video. This is what I got in an email sent to me by a friend. He asked a former Red Army major who worked closely with both ethnic groups. Here is what he can say for sure:
1st car: the driver speaks Ossetian. The other one looks physically very Chechen (possibly half-blood); he speaks in monosyllables, so no certainty of language, yet he seems the one in charge.
2nd car: all the three who speak, speak Ossetian. The fourth one (very likely the commander) does not speak nor show his face, so no identification is possible (perhaps willingly so).
If I get a final and comprehensive reply, I will definitely post it here.
Cheers to all,
The Saker
Anon 7:00:
Thank you for the reminder about Google N-gram.
Here is a demonstration of the invention of a people:
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Ukraine%2CUkrainian&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2CUkraine%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2CUkrainian%3B%2Cc0
As anyone can see, “Ukrainians” did not exist before 1918, and the real explosion of “Ukrainian” existence is only from around 1939 onwards with the annexation of Galicia.
Before that time, these people were just Russians.
This is also the time period when the “Ukrainian Catholic Church” was invented in Galicia:
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Ukrainian+Catholic+Church&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2CUkrainian%20Catholic%20Church%3B%2Cc0
And the “Byzantine Catholic Church” was invented in Transcarpathia:
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Byzantine+Catholic+Church&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2CByzantine%20Catholic%20Church%3B%2Cc0
The “Ukrainian Orthodox Church” was also invented at this time, since an invented people might need an invented religion:
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Ukrainian+Orthodox+Church&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2CUkrainian%20Orthodox%20Church%3B%2Cc0
All the ethnonymic identity’s of Russia’s near abroad – Ukrainian, Byelorussia, Latvian, and Kazakh are essentially fabrications of this time period, unknown in either Russian, German, or English.
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Украинский%2CЛатышский%2CКазахский%2CБелорусский&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=25&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2CУкраинский%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2CЛатышский%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2CКазахский%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2CБелорусский%3B%2Cc0
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Weißrussisch%2CUkrainisch%2CKasachisch&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=20&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2CWeißrussisch%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2CUkrainisch%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2CKasachisch%3B%2Cc0
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Ukrainian%2CByelorussian%2CLatvian%2CKazakh&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=20&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2CUkrainian%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2CByelorussian%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2CLatvian%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2CKazakh%3B%2Cc0
Isn’t it convenient that such peoples should suddenly spring into existence just when Western geopolitics require the dismantling of the Russian Empire?
Seamus Padraig,
Absolutely, and I believe I’ve said so consistently on this blog. We’ve always been an oligarchy, North and South. But the vast majority of whites who came here did manage to better their condition compared to what they left in Europe precisely because so much of the huge amounts of money originally made by land-theft, the slade-trade and slave-labor went into other capitalist and ultimately industrial ventures.
I’m not saying it was ever a good system, and it’s certainly never been a fair one, but that rising tide helped a lot of landless European peasants ultimately at least approach a middle class existence still *DELIBERATELY* denied (by a variety of legislative maneuvers, aka laws, both subtle and overt) to most people of color. So yes, blacks and Native Americans are still being oppressed — in all of the same ways — right now.
And perhaps every bit as sadly, because we still do have the power to change this, altogether too many of We The People are STILL falling for the old divide-and-conquer and trying to feel superior to each other rather than recognize and unite to fight against the oligarchs keeping us all down.
Anonymous 13:25
There is still a huge range of actions that can be taken by anyone dissatisfied with our current status quo. Your options simply depend on carefully thinking through what your goals are. If all you care about is voicing your concern, sure, Tweet away or go to a protest, armed or unarmed. You won’t change a thing but you’ll still feel better about yourself and have a lot of stories to tell whether you get locked up, brutalized, literally penned in far from the action or, most likely by far, ignored.
Learning and teaching via (well-informed) blog comments is just a beautiful invention. However, is that all there is? Really? People are yakking and complaining behind the scenes everywhere, especially in Novorossiya. We want them to take action for change but then whine helplessly about how “dangerous” it is here, etc., etc. Nonsense! But I haven’t seen a discussion yet on what steps we Americans can take either before or after the usual fantasies about fighting off “jack-booted thugs” with automatic weapons.
Used to be we prided ourselves on “ballots rather than bullets”. I agree our elections are now a farce but it would help greatly if citizens, singly or in groups, would actually study the entire Constitution and decide whether we really do want a democracy (which was Not. At. ALL. what our Founding Fathers gave us, btw) — or, if they’re still content with some form or other of representative government, whether and how to limit the power of the oligarchs and increase the degree to which our representatives actually represent US. Unless, of course, somebody has a better idea altogether about how we should govern ourselves. But We The People aren’t even thinking about any of this, we’re too busy whining tyranny and calling each other the usual names.
Accomplishing real change takes time, effort, patience and skill but it’s still very much do-able. The only way these things seemingly happen quickly, however, is when they’re really oligarch-funded, very well-planned astroturf organizations run from the top down rather than by people getting themselves together — and even though what these folks and their stooges are doing may *look* like a solution, isn’t it really just more of the same/part of the problem?
Andrew — Wow. This is fascinating. My children (now in college) love studying the origins, composition and migration of peoples throughout history. They particularly like studying wars. (Boys tend toward that stuff…) The younger one finished Xenophon Anabasis while commuting to his summer job. He’s given it to me to read. And so I shall.
One thing that bothers me here — and I probably am guilty too — but the race/ethnicity bashing is pointless. To call “Anglo-Saxons” or “Russians” or “Germans” evil means that one indicts a whole racial group because they have a certain DNA pattern. That’s crazy. Not all Anglo-Saxons are evil. ZIONISM is evil. Nazism is evil. Fascism is evil. These are not racial constructs. Those choices — of evil over good — should be vilified by ALL humanity — regardless of ones DNA makeup.
As such I don’t think Anglo-Zionism is a particularly helpful construct. I’m an Anglo (plus other things). I’m NOT a Zionist. There’s a difference.
Yonatan – thanks for the link to Prokudin-Gorskii’s photography.
Andrew, exactly.
Now I have a deeper understanding of “Russia” and “all the Russias” which in the aggregate constitutes Holy Mother Russia.
Mozzy, Christian or whatever, Russian patriotism is oriented toward or strengthened by religion, which generates another puzzle.
AGS,
while it may be true that individuals in the Anglo-Zionist empire may be decent people, there is a need for some categorizing to identify what constitutes the empire. Fact is that there is an imperialism or supremacists that can be identified as Anglo-Zionist. This is not to disparage individuals within the empire. But it is something needed to help identify. Just as wahabbis are not necessarily all “bad” – but that mindset is poison, as is Anglo-Zionism.
Andrew, thanks for pointing out this tool. I did not know of its existence.
I did a couple of runs using strings for which I had previous knowledge of the likelihood of occurrence: Finland, Finnish and Estonia, Estonian and checked as a baseline with England and English.
While it is quite clear that there are published references to ‘Ukrainian’ prior to 1900 it is also clear that most refer to Ukraine as a district of Poland and occasionally to Russia and almost never to the people but as a possessive of the region ‘Ukrainian soil’ for example. The people are Poles who happen to live in the part of Poland called the Ukraine.
Coincidentally I got into trouble with an Estonian friend for talking about Estonia as an invented country that was the result of political activity in the mid/late 19th century. When I referred to the movement as being similar to that in Finland and Ukraine at the same time and even with shared creator myths in Finland and Estonia she became quite bolshy.
The results for Finland, Ukraine and Estonia are quite similar to each other in comparison to established countries such as Sweden and Russia. I will share this tool with her next time we meet. While it is not definitive it is certainly indicative.
Andrew,
You just don’t give up. A Google books Ngram viewer *for English* says nothing at all regarding Galicians. In. Galicia.
However, you will notice even there that the terms Ukraine and Ukrainian do not start at 0.000000% in 1800, which approximates the time of the First Polish Partition granting these lands to Austria, who immediately worked on disassociating by various means any loyalty to either Poland or Russia.
As I have said before, I know for a fact that people DID come here in the first decade of the 20th century with an explicitly Ukrainian identity. I also know for a fact that various members of the Galician nobility had been part of a priestly-landowning caste long before that. You might try Googling the pre-20th century history of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Ivano-Frankivsk or Lvov; also Rusyns, Ruthenians and/or the Association of Ruthenian Gentry. The situation before 1918 was very much more complex than you appreciate.
AGS and Andrew,
Actually, there has not yet been found any particular genetic pattern exclusive to any one ethnic group! Unfortunately, it’s just not that simple — there are certain markers (basically patterns of mutation considered to happen at such-and-such a rate) that may be more prevalent in one group or another — and the genetic testing firms base a lot of their “conclusions” on that.
However, Andrew’s finding is not that atypical: bottom line, we’re all mutts of one sort or another bc people didn’t just migrate in groups, just like now they wandered (and messed around) as individuals.
Human origins and migration patterns are a fascinating field but very, very much in flux as newer, better analytic techniques turn everything upside down almost every year or so. So for a while at least, it’d probably be prudent to consider every “conclusion” a very rough hypothesis instead. Otoh, if your family came from Britain, they were a part of the British culture regardless of the route they took to get there or how long ago that was for any one or another of them.
Finally — and this is the real kicker — Y-DNA is only your father’s father’s father’s father etc. and mitochondrial DNA your mother’s mother’s mother’s mother. So all those other people are basically lost, except for whatever little mutation patterns may show up — but you’ll never really know about the vast majority of your forebears except from family history/myth/etc.
It’s still really neat though! ;~)
Nora, during the mid 19th century onward there was, across Europe, a nationalisation movement. Groups that had never previously self identified as being different to their friends, peers or masters were now encouraged to do so.
From what I remember this was usually at the behest of what Russians would call the ‘intelligentsia’ but were the forerunners of our (European) educated middle class. Not wealthy, but because of their education very useful in many roles in a political and industrial environment that needed new skills from educated managers.
If you look at some of the references from earlier times you will see that there are very few references to Ukrainians as being a people. Ukrainian is a possessive of the region which was largely part of Poland. The same can be seen in works of the same period in respect of Estonia and Finland.
Bottom line: Ukrainians, like Estonians and to a lesser degree Finns are an invented nation. Nothing wrong with that but it does lead to misunderstandings and a real cognitive dissonance effect when dealing with people who dearly want to believe that their ‘nation’ goes back to the darkest days of history when in truth, it was an invention of a bloke who, as a hobby, wrote down some legends and invented a written language.
The Google tool is, as I noted, illustrative. It is not definitive, but if a people are almost invisible from the largest corpus of written words until the 20th century there’s a pretty good reason and one that is supported by known history.
the pessimist 21:05
They are magnificent, aren’t they? Color images from 1910!
The Novorossians have started putting out well-produced status update videos. Some of the commentary in this one is hilarious (0:30).
Nora 21:47
In the end (or in the beginning to be accurate), we all came out of Africa.
There is good news on the Ukraine gas position. A new pipeline has been constructed. Initial testing looks very promising.
All the ethnonymic identity’s of Russia’s near abroad – Ukrainian, Byelorussia, Latvian, and Kazakh are essentially fabrications of this time period, unknown in either Russian, German, or English.
===============================
About Latvia, you haven’t the slightest idea of what you are talking about!
It’s so idiotic to refer to Latvians as a fabricated people that it’s undeserving of confutation.
The only fabricated people I know for sure is the American one.
Even the “Ukrainian” would have more standing….
Unconfirmed report suggests Ukies ma be building a ‘filtration’ camp near Slavyansk.
Nora:
You just don’t give up. A Google books Ngram viewer *for English* says nothing at all regarding Galicians. In. Galicia.
Yes it does, and I gave you the viewers in English, German, and Russian. You can’t do it in Ukrainian, of course, because there is no historic corpus of Ukrainian literature back to 1800 – it simply does not exist.
As far as Galicia itself, I’ve tried in the past to point you towards the names of the Galician Church and political organizations in Austria Hungary. These should be sufficiently clear, despite the use of thr archaic latinization “Ruthenian” to obfuscate the clear meaning of the word Russian.
The first Ukrainian political party in Galicia was the “Holovna ruska rada” – “Supreme Russian Council”.
One ofthe first Ukrainian cultural clubs in Galicia was the “Ruska Besida” – “Russian Language”, while another was “Halytsko-Ruska Matytsia”
One of the popular political party in the late Austrian period was the “Russkaia narodnaia partiia” – “Russian People’s Party”
We can go on and on with this. “Ukrainian” identity started creeping in in the late Austrian period and exploded in 1918 and further in 1939.
Hello youtube!
When I first viewed this video (13th july 2014 cca. 11:00 GTM+2) the view count was around 7000. Now, +16 hours later, the view count is 2708!
dusty,
dusty,
Yes to Ukraine being an invented country and yes to that invention being part of the Great Game by Austria, Germany, US, and really Poland, from whence its western regions were “liberated” when Poland disappeared from the map.
The point I have tried to make with Andrew is simply that several different identities/identity-groups were floating around competing with each other in the second half of the 19th century and that the Ukrainian label ultimately subsumed them starting roughly around the turn into the 20th century. I don’t know what he’s read but he not only places that change in the period after WWI but frankly had the effrontery to claim that my husband’s grandparents managed to give themselves a brand-new Ukrainian label not only long after Mr. Nora was born but, excuse me, long after they were dead and buried! Then, when challenged, Andrew slid right into Trans-Carpathian Ukraine, which has a totally different history, and group of people, than “Galacia”, as he was then referring to it. This is not only insulting, frankly, but flat-out wrong and he just can’t back down and admit it, much less apologize. Their family name is actually a famous Russian one, probably originally Tatar, but they very definitely thought of themselves as Ukrainian when they stepped off the boat here and every time any relatives came here to visit — before they disappeared entirely c. 1918 — they, too, called themselves Ukrainian, regardless of whatever Andrew chooses to believe. Sorry, Andrew.
Prose
http://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?linkpath=pagesPRProse.htm
“…The most important genre of Ukrainian prose in the second half of the 16th and first half of the 17th centuries was polemical literature. The subject of the polemic was the religious and cultural struggle between Catholicism (both Latin and Uniate) and Orthodoxy. The rhetorical works on both sides of the debate were highly charged philippics written in Old Ukrainian, Church Slavonic, or Polish. On the Orthodox side the outstanding polemicist was Ivan Vyshensky, a monk who lived on Mount Athos, and whose works consist of sermons and letters to his countrymen. Other Orthodox polemicists were Zakhariia Kopystensky, Herasym Smotrytsky, Lavrentii Zyzanii, and, later, Ioanikii Galiatovsky and Mykhailo Andrella. Another important figure in the polemic, Meletii Smotrytsky, began as a defender of Orthodoxy but later converted to Catholicism. The outstanding Uniate polemicist was Ipatii Potii. Many works written anonymously or pseudonymously have not been definitively attributed to specific authors, among them Apokrisis, Perestoroha, and Poslaniie do latyn. Piotr Skarga and Benedykt Herbest were Polish Jesuits who participated in the polemic.
After the establishment of the Kyivan Mohyla Academy and the Cossack-Polish War Ukrainian prose was enriched with historical writing and scholarship. History appeared in the form of the so-called Cossack chronicles, among them the Samovydets Chronicle, the Hryhorii Hrabianka chronicle, and the Samiilo Velychko chronicle, which give accounts of the Cossack wars, and the Sinopsis, which was composed at the Kyivan Cave Monastery (most probably by Inokentii Gizel). Scholarship from the 17th and 18th centuries covered a wide range of topics: linguistics, as in Meletii Smotrytsky’s Slavonic grammar and Pamva Berynda’s Slavonic dictionary; theology, as in the treatises of Kyrylo Stavrovetsky-Tranquillon and Havrylo Dometsky; philosophy, as in the Latin treatises of Innokentii Gizel and Teofan Prokopovych; and various other works, usually derived from Western sources and often produced as textbooks for the Kyivan Mohyla Academy, on rhetoric, poetics, science, and mathematics written by a variety of authors in Church Slavonic, Old Ukrainian, or Latin. Ukrainian philosophical prose culminated with the work of Hryhorii Skovoroda at the end of the 18th century. His original treatises and dialogues, as well as his fables, were written in the bookish language of the time. Istoriia Rusov, an influential early 19th-century history of Ukraine, bridged the gap between the traditions of the Cossack chronicles and the literature of the emerging Ukrainian national revival.
Cultural secularization and national self-consciousness dramatically changed the Ukrainian cultural landscape at the beginning of the 19th century. Modern Ukrainian prose did not develop as rapidly or as richly as poetry, but it made a clean break with the past in adopting a modern system of belletristic genres and in abandoning the bookish language of the 18th century in favor of the modern forms of either Ukrainian or Russian. Many writers of the first half of the 19th century, among them Hryhorii Kvitka-Osnovianenko, Yevhen Hrebinka, Nikolai Gogol, Panteleimon Kulish, and Taras Shevchenko, chose to write prose in Russian. The unqualified choice of Ukrainian as the language of prose literature occurred in the second half of the century…”
I have relatives from the Ukraine, who departed the region a few years prior to WW1, due to religious persecution. The spoke Ukrainian and Russia, and though considered themselves Ukrainian, they also considered themselves Russian. So by the end of the 19th century there was definitely a Ukrainian identity of sorts.
вот так
Maedhros:
About Latvia, you haven’t the slightest idea of what you are talking about! It’s so idiotic to refer to Latvians as a fabricated people that it’s undeserving of confutation.
The historic division of the Baltic areas was:
Estonia/Estland – The top 1/3 of modern Estonia
Livonia/Livland – The bottom portion of Estonia and the northeast section of Lativa above the Duna River and inhabited by Finnic Livonians and Baltic Latgallians, with the Latgallian are further divded between Swedish/Russian Vidzeme and Polish Latgale.
Courland/Kurland – The southwest portion of Lativa and inhabited by Couronians, Semigallians, and Selonians and also some Livonians along the coast.
Lithuania/Litauen – approximately the modern state, but divided between people who called themselves Samogitians and Lithuanians. To declare oneself a “Samogitian” is no longer allowed in Lithuania, as this would upset the notion of a unified nation state. In 1897, 1/3 of the inhabitants of modern Lithuania said they were Samogitian.
Prussia/Pruessen – The old German duchy, now divided betwen Kalingrad and Poland and inhabited by the Prussians.
You might notice the absence of any place called Latvia or inhabited by Latvians.
The only thing to say about a “Latvian People” is that their national consciousness developed in a modern sense earlier than the Ukrainains in the 1800’s when Russia united all of Livonia and Courland under one government, and that they are an amalgamation of Couronians, Latgalls, Semigalls, Selonians and Livonians. Prior to that, the Latvian language had been spread since the 1500’s by way of the German clergy in Riga as a way to communicate with the peasant slaves in their local dialects in Courland and Vidzeme. As far as the Church was concerned, the speech in Riga was good enough to communicate with every tribe speaking some dialect of it, and thus the local speech was gradually unified, producing at the same time a national consciousness which had not previously existed. At the same time, the Livonians were pressured to give up their language and identity and adopt the new standardized Latvian nationality.
Nora:
Don’t be upset. You just must understand you are comparing what a few people recall years later to you calling themselves 100 years ago vs. the impartial evidence of what Galician society as a whole named its societal instruments – political parties, Churches, social clubs, etc., and what all the major literate civilizations around them referred to them as.
Ukrainianism as an identity in Galicia was slowly building in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. However, as I’ve pointed out in the past, it was such a feeble identity even in 1913 that there is no entry for Ukraine, Ukrainians, Ukrainian Language, or any similar topic in either the Encyclopedia Britannica or the Catholic Encyclopedia.
You need to also understand that its not that the language of Galicia was Moscovite Russian at that time either, it was not. Rather, they spoke a version of Russian heavily influenced by Polish and German loanwords and grammar which now goes by the name West Ukrainian. No, the point is that the people in the main thought of themselves as “Russkij” and further to the east they also called themselves “Kozak” – the two words used by Taras Shevcehnko as ethnonyms.
However, the language you speak influences the identity you give yourself, and the Austrians and Germans and Poles worked hard at making the Galicians think of themselves as not being Russian, and using this “not Russian” identity as a means of propaganda among the “Russkij” and “Kozak” in Volyn, Podolia, and Sloboda Ukraine (which was actually called “Slobozhanshchyna” – again, note the absnece of the word Ukraine which was conveniently inserted later).
This is hardly the first time this has happened. The same sort of problem presented itself when the Greeks revolted against the Ottomans. The Greeks at the time called themselves Romans (Rhomaoi), and they believed they were going to recreate the Empire of Romania around the Agean and Black Seas and on Cyprus. This was extremely inconvenient to the West, as the West had previously identified itself as being the heirs of the Roman Empire, surpressed in history the concept of the Empire of Romania that existed from the 200’s AD on and had acquired a capital in Constantinople. The West insisted that the Rhomaoi were actually Hellenes (Greeks), who had previously been subjugated by the “Byzantines” living in Constantinople who had formed a Byzantine Empire quite separate from the Empire of Romania, which never existed. The insistence on this identity was essentially the price of the recognition of Greece as a nation by Britain and France, and it was not an unfavorable idea to the Masonic Greek revolutionaries, who were not at all adverse with the cognotive dissonance of assigning to a Christian people the word that had been used for millenia to describe a pagan – Elleniki – Hellenes. The Greeks came to adopt this identity and dropped the Romanian identity at the insistence of their new government, which was restricted to Morea and Athens and purposefully not allowed to include the province of Rumelia (Land of the Romans) until 90 years after independence. Rumelia is what is now Greek and Turkish Thrace, Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria, and Constantinople. You can of course appreciate the danger to the west. Had a “Romanian” Orthodox identity been allowed to remain in a free state independent of Turkey that took in all the Christian Romans, it would have included all of Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Albania, Macedonia, Cyprus, Constantinople, Smyrna, Trabizond, Latakia, and Lebanon – such a state today wold have around 70 million people.
I became a tad weary of the use of terms like “Islam-haters”. It evokes the overused “Islamophobia” which is an attempt by the Muslims to think that any criticism of their actions is not due to any wrong from their part, but to a supposed irrational psychological disease affecting the non-Muslims, the equivalent of “antisemitism” or “racism” and so to stifle any dialogue.
Salman Rushdie criticized the coinage of the word ‘Islamophobia’ saying that it “was an addition to the vocabulary of Humpty Dumpty Newspeak. It took the language of analysis, reason and dispute, and stood it on its head”.
I would avoid it.
Hi, I would like to add, that it seems to be inside Donetsk, indeed.
While I hadn’t been to Donetsk since April 1994, I analysed the video to find whatever numbers or words (not located on the convoi’s vehicles themselves).
At some points in the video you see a Tram with the car number 3013.
For example at 4:20 (on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iu-dfeZHlM#t=57 ).
Then again, there are indeed some of these modern ones, here car 3014 in different color: http://www.google.ru/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2F062.ua%2Fuploaded%2FImage%2Farticles%2Fimg062%2FEuro2012%2F14.jpg&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2F062.ua%2Farticles%2Fsport%2Fevro-2012-v-donecke&h=363&w=512&tbnid=na5YEyFWVp6zdM%3A&zoom=1&docid=wbbYntwy99MzyM&ei=jJHDU8LoN-X9ygOk8YKQCg&tbm=isch&ved=0CCEQMygFMAU&iact=rc&uact=3&dur=5172&page=1&start=0&ndsp=20
And here an unknown car in the new color sheme: http://photo.tramvaj.ru/images/dp07/k81.jpg
Language: I also understand no word, but at the beginning of the video at least one of the mean (or 2) appears to speak an Oath against Israel (hard to understand anything, but it sounds like “Israel”, not confirmed, just my impression).
The question about WHEN: From the vegetation/trees it is certainly possible, that this could have been taken recently.
Civilian traffic stopped at the traffic light: modern cars, some expensive SUV’s. Can be 2014’s Donetsk.
Islam: The entire world should be friends with Palestinians, for example.
Before Zionist bloodbaths, land-robbery and genocide, the muslims lived peacefully together with other religions, even even protected the jews during the WW1.
I’m very relieved to see Batalion Wostok :-)
An idiocy equipped with a lot of words becomes just leafy; still an idiocy though! According to your “logic”, just every existing people have been fabricated.
Well perhaps these men have been listening to Sheikh Imran Hosein?
Modern Western Civilization is a civilization of great deception!(Although it has given to Man, many a benefit!) The USSR was also part of this deception but Thank God that Russia is slowly leaving that utter godless model of a state. If only more Muslims and Muslim nations were to make alliances with Russia.
Andrew,
I’m hardly the one whose fragility is on display in this interchange. Nor am I the only one who’s ever called you on the facts you cite as absolute truth or your attempts to shift the terms of the conversation when challenged. And I’m far from the only one here who senses your misinformation might be deliberate. Be that as it may, your all-knowing, condescending tone and ever-increasing word count reveal a desperate need to always be right, and this utterly-predictable response doesn’t even approach a genuine apology for your stunningly ignorant rudeness in the previous parts of this conversation.
Maedhros:
An idiocy equipped with a lot of words becomes just leafy; still an idiocy though! According to your “logic”, just every existing people have been fabricated.
What a people call themselves constitutes their ethnonymic identity. When they are “assisted” by outside forces in obtaining a new identity and calling themselves by a new name, we can say a new people has been “fabricated”. The process is well enough known and it has been played out many times for purposes of great power politics.
This should not be confused with what I will call the “forging” of a new identity via shared history. There are many examples of this throughout history, starting with the very “Romans” I mentioned regarding the Empire of Romania. Another would be the ethnogenesis of the “Dutch” during their war for independence, which also separated them from the main body politic of Germans more specifically from the Flemings with both of whom they share a common language (the Plattdeutsch dialect referring to the Germans). The Dutch are an interesting case because the Dutch who moved to South Africa underwent a second ethnogenesis to become “Afrikkaners”.
Nora:
Please cite the “misinformation” I’ve supposedly posted.
facts you cite as absolute truth
If I can open a book published in 1913 that sits in my personal possession and note things printed in it or not in it, how is that not truth? I’m not arguing whether or not the words themselves are written to express actual truth, I will grant they could be a misrepresentation of the time. What is true is that at the time they were printed, this was mainstream thought about the topic, and the evidentiary matter spans through English, German, Russian, and Galician sources with a unity of linguitic expression.
stunningly ignorant rudeness
The recollections of a person about what someone else who is now dead told them about their own mindset on a controversial and politically charged topic 50+ years after the fact of this being expressed are below even heresay testimony, which is rejected outright in court. I’m not going to apologize to you for pointing out the frailty of human memory, and our tendency to revise our memories in line with what we wish were true or what we discover later we were supposed to think or had realized we should have done. This confabulation of historic memory has been shown time and again to be an inherent weakness of the human mind. I’m sorry if you find this offensive, but I feel it is what it is. Anyway, I have no problem granting that your husband’s family may have thought of themselves as “Ukrainian” if you will grant that this would have been highly unusual at the time.
I’ll give you one more example. The Ellis Island Database.
http://stevemorse.org/ellis2/ellisgold.html?
In it, 153,624 records are tagged with “Ruthenian” (i.e. Rusyn/Russkij), while 7,575 are tagged “Ukrainian”. The Ukrainian identity only becomes really popular relatively after 1917, when it suddenly begins to be 60% of the total of the two (2400 vs. 1500). In the period prior to 1917, the Ukrainian identity was at around 3%.
Its also worth noting both identities are totally overwhelmed by the straightforward ethnonym “Russian” with over 2.25 million coming through Ellis Island and 100,000 in the period after 1917. From this perspective, even at that time, for a people making up 20% of the Russian Empire, Ukrainians managed to be about 2% of the immigrant flow.
Andrew,
“You have no problem granting” ???? Dear, your insecurities are on parade.
I strongly suspect I have far better training than you in both historiography and psychology. More to the point, you know quite well that I’ve pointed out your glaring inaccuracies and gliding misrepresentations on a number of topics in the past. I stopped taking you seriously a long time ago but chose to engage you on occasions where I thought it would be most easy for people who might otherwise fall for your nonsense to see more clearly just how you work. Right now I’ve accomplished my goals and have neither the time nor interest to bother any further with your nonsense, but I might again some time if you get really egregious.
Nora:
I’m an engineer with an amatuers interest in history. If you want to claim better academic training in history, please be my guest, I’m sure you have the credentials if you say so, and I certainly don’t because I am an engineer, not an historian. I only know what I have read or seen.
I remain most curious at what you think I am (purposefully?) misrepresenting here and now or previously. These type of tiresome accusations are just humorous to me, coming as they do from people such as yourself who do not have the slightest inkling of who I am or what motivates me as a person, nevertheless, from what you write you seem certain that I am trying to trick people with “nonsense” and “misrepresentation” and “inaccuracies” – i.e. you appear to be claiming that I am a purposeful and decitful liar, but without coming right out with the old “L”-word itself. If that is really what you want to say, why don’t you come right out and say it and back it up? Otherwise its just typical ad hominem drivel on the internet.
Andrew,
I’m really quite tired of this conversation but I’ll give it one last shot.
You asked for an example and so I’ll provide one: engineers don’t generally mix up feet, acres and miles, and someone with your knowledge of fracking, let alone a well pad on your property, would be expected to be within at least the right order of magnitude regarding how many wells sit on one. Everyone makes mistakes but most people are confident enough to admit them. You compound them instead, generally at that point with a very condescending tone you may not even be aware of. But it doesn’t further your case.
You were also very much in error when stating as an absolute that anti-fracking groups are astroturf. Certainly there’s a lot of astroturf in support of fracking and I don’t doubt for a minute that some of the anti-fracking activists have managed to get some outside funding for their efforts, but that’s not at all the same thing. The whole concept of astroturf refers to an organization designed, run and funded from the top-down in such a way as to look like it’s grass-roots. It’s definitely done on both sides of the political spectrum but I’m not aware of any yet in this arena, especially since it’s rather hard to find any big money or big-time pols genuinely opposed to fracking. Now I could be wrong on this so if you have data that says so, real data, I’d love to see it. (Well, maybe not “love”, since I am opposed to it, but I’d rather know the truth just so I can see what my real options are.)
You do care and your heart’s in the right place — that’s why I’ve been so puzzled — but no one’s an expert on everything and you can occasionally be wrong, especially since facts about people, past or present, are not like formulas and measurements you look up in a book. Also, there’s also something to be said, in our relations with people as well as God, for manners and Christian humility, which sometimes boil down to the same thing. If you are truly sincere, you would do well to enter the data, process and adjust for it, own it cooperatively (no humiliation there, just humanity) and go on.
Andrew,
I clearly don’t multi-task well, and managed to forget to include what I’d planned to put right at the beginning! ;~) (See, it’s really not that hard to admit I messed up — it’s just not that big a deal.) Anyway, here goes, because I do think these points are really important and generally not well-enough understood:
I have in the past pointed out what you misrepresented and how; that’s quite different than calling you a liar, which would in fact be an ad hominem attack, a) because what I did say was backed up with data, but far more importantly b) because I was pointing out what you had *done* rather than attacking *what you are*, which is of course the true meaning of the phrase “ad hominem.”
As another example, people see red when they’re called a racist regardless of whether they really are or not. It’s taken as an attack because nobody likes to be called names, and then responded to in kind. But if instead you simply describe the behavior in question and note precisely how it meets the criteria, the individual may still not agree but is more likely to at least stay on topic. Maybe more important, everyone else can then judge for themselves, which is probably the best you’ll be able to do in any case.
And now I really am done with this!
Speaking of “invented peoples” don’t forget the essential one. To help consult:
Shlomo Sands, “Invention of the Jewish people”.
The more relevant that Shlomo “was born in Linz, Austria, to Polish Jewish survivors of the Holocaust (another invention)”.