I decided to translate this article - emailed to me by a friend in Moscow who gets his news in part from Inosmi.ru. This article originally appeared in a Polish newspaper, was then translated by an Inosmi reader, and I'm translating it from that Russian version, so something may be lost in translation. Anyway, I take no position on the article - just wanted to translate it.
The Pinnacle of Russian Hypocrisy
Gazeta Wyborcza, Poland
Sergei Kovalyov
May 2, 2007
The same thing that is taking place in Estonia is happening at the same time in the Moscow suburb of Khimki, where the remains of Soviet pilots who perished in battles with the Germans are being relocated. The only difference is that in Moscow the militia dispersed a demonstration by youthful protesters, but in Estonia demonstrations are permitted.
Russia's protest against the relocation of the monument to Soviet soldiers in Tallinn is the pinnacle of slander and double standards. Russia is protesting because we are ruled by the heirs to the Stalin era, who have never apologized or sought forgiveness for the fact that the Soviet Union turned Central-Eastern Europe into a concentration camp. It would never even occur to them that Stalin didn't liberate but actually cruelly conquered Estonia.
Russia's misfortune lies in the fact that, unlike other peoples, we have no concept of "national guilt" or "historical guilt." And this situation was not an innovation of communism, but dates from an earlier wea. Russia's actions were justified by empire-building, but the idea of creating a Third Rome in Moscow, of uniting all of the Slavs under the scepter of the Tsar. Communism adopted this mentality. If we had a sense of historical guilt, then those who committed crimes under Stalin would have been punished or at the very least subjected to condemnation. But nothing of the sort happened.
It was easier for the Germans to do this after the Second World War, since they were occupied, and de-Nazification was forced on them. In Russia after the collapse of communism nothing of the sort happened, and we can feel the results of this today.
Our politicians, who are protesting the events in Estonia so vehemently, should have at least a tiny bit of a conscience.
For those interested in Polish readers' reactions to this article, the same Inosmi reader has translated into Russian a bunch of comments to the original article (though with a bias - indicated in the italicized translator's introduction - toward translating more of the pro-Russian comments).
The best summary I've seen of Estonia's argument against characterizing the Soviet Army as a "liberating" one was in a comment by Peteris Cedrins at Siberian Light:
The best summary I've seen of Estonia's argument against characterizing the Soviet Army as a "liberating" one was in a comment by Peteris Cedrins at Siberian Light:
If two bandits invade your house, theu both rape you, they fight, and one comes back to rape you for another fifty years — the last is a “liberator”? Because he fathered a bunch of children upon you?
Russia's official - and from all indications unofficial - reactions to this scandal have been extreme. The website of the youth organization Nashi has a whole section headlined "Estonian state fascism," and comments from government officials have been similar to or even harsher than the following:
Alexei Borodavkin, Russia's permanent representative to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said the "blatant human rights violations in Estonia" indicated "indifference and connivance by the EU and NATO, organizations that have given membership to a country that tramples on the values upon which European culture and democracy rest."Copydude also has some fairly trenchant commentary on the bronze soldier - and one Russian's view of the situation.
5 comments:
You wrote:
"The best summary I've seen of Estonia's argument against characterizing the Soviet Army as a "liberating" one was in a comment by Peteris Cedrins at Siberian Light:"
Yes, history and Cedrins tells. Estonians preferred Nazis. Still do. Which only makes the colossal Russian loss of life even more tragic and wasteful. If the Red Army hadn't bothered, who knows what the 'Great Powers' would have done with Estonia after 1945? Probably, like Silesia, Pomerania and East Prussia, Estonia would no longer figure on a map.
Well, I'm not sure describing a foreign intruder as a rapist in one's home indicates a preference, but I'm not intimately familiar with all of the accusations being thrown around here. The phrase I quoted is a bit of a soundbite, so I'm sure that like all such phrases it may simplify things too much for the tastes of someone like you who is closer to and more knowledgable about the situation on the ground.
Since you know more about the lay of the land in the Baltics, who are all these Nazi veterans or Nazis supposedly pulling the strings in Estonia? Wouldn't they be getting a bit long in the tooth by this point? Or do you use that rather loaded term figuratively rather than literally? The blanket reference to Estonians "preferring Nazis" is not convincing without specifics and reminds me of a rhetorical tactic used by a certain blogger who likes to rant about Russians electing a "proud KGB spy" president.
And if it really is true that there are some Estonians who have failed to come to terms with or pay for their compatriots' or their own bad acts 60-some years ago, how exactly is that any different from the Russian failure to have any sort of serious accounting for Soviet-era crimes? Or does the fact that the USSR won WWII and sacrificed so much to do so excuse all the Soviets' prior sins and subsequent shortcomings?
To be honest, the fact that Nashi seems to be playing the "Estonian state fascism" angle hard also makes it difficult for me to take that position seriously, given Nashi's demonstrated propensity to exaggerate and fabricate foreign threats.
Did those other entities you mention exist as independent states during the interwar period? Not sure, but I don't think so. Wouldn't a true "liberation" of the Baltics have looked like something closer to what happened in smaller W. European countries - the formerly Nazi-occupied country becomes independent again, most Nazi collaborators are punished but some go unpunished - rather than re-incorporation into an empire, repressive government, and an attempt to change the ethnic mix?
I don't mean to be standoffish or dismissive (though I realize now that my comment might come across that way), but I've read some of your posts on this topic and didn't see where the legitimate grievances of Russians in the Baltics crossed the line into Estonians somehow being a bunch of Nazi-lovers.
Excellent response, Lyndon.
Tellingly, the Russian media complained about the anti-German (and pro-British) attitude of the Estonian élite in 1939, when Stalin was friends with Hitler and imposed the Mutual Assistance Pacts upon us -- Stalin went on to annihilate that élite, of course.
Detesting the Soviets does not make Balts pro-Nazi. Latvians and Estonians fought on both sides, most of them illegally conscripted. To return to my analogy -- would you really ask a girl who was sandwiched between two rapists which one she preferred, Copydude?
"Russia's protest against the relocation of the monument to Soviet soldiers in Tallinn is the pinnacle of slander and double standards. Russia is protesting because we are ruled by the heirs to the Stalin era, who have never apologized or sought forgiveness for the fact that the Soviet Union turned Central-Eastern Europe into a concentration camp. It would never even occur to them that Stalin didn't liberate but actually cruelly conquered Estonia.
Russia's misfortune lies in the fact that, unlike other peoples, we have no concept of "national guilt" or "historical guilt." And this situation was not an innovation of communism, but dates from an earlier wea. Russia's actions were justified by empire-building, but the idea of creating a Third Rome in Moscow, of uniting all of the Slavs under the scepter of the Tsar. Communism adopted this mentality. If we had a sense of historical guilt, then those who committed crimes under Stalin would have been punished or at the very least subjected to condemnation. But nothing of the sort happened."
I finished watching "А зори здесь тихие" last night, and that combined with this topic reminds me of the cultural mythology building that happens within nations, particularly closed nations like the former CCCP. There are generations of people within Russia who truly believe the CCCP was the peaceful liberator of Eastern Europe from Nazi domination. It isn't some wild stretch of the imagination for Russians to believe this, it is basically a fact (albeit, ignoring the aftermath of Soviet rule).
Similarly, we Americans built our own myths, concerning the benevolence of things like ... the Marshall Plan, for example. (It has become popular within France and Germany to trash the US as opportunistic empire builders, through the Marshall Plan. Free is the cheese in the trap.)
There are obvious large differences between what happened in Western and Eastern Europe and the nature of their relationships with the USA and CCCP. But I am endlessly impressed with the differences between what my in-laws were taught and read vs. what I was taught and read, on either side of the iron curtain. It isn't a big surprise that these realms of belief are in conflict in areas of Eastern Europe. Heck, I started a brush fire with an US soldier hating German on Sean's Russki Blog a couple of weeks ago. From his perspective, the US military in Germany were largely jack-booted thugs, above the rule of law.
It's true, both superpowers had myths, and the myth-making can be fascinating to study. But one of the superpowers deported and killed a lot of people in the countries it "liberated," and the other didn't, and no amount of mythmaking should change that fact. The problem with the lack of a full accounting for the Soviet past is that it allows the unchallenged myths (about WWII and other things) to be resurrected very easily.
And I'm afraid I find it hard to agree with any hint of moral equivalency between the Marshall Plan and the Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.
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