Posted on 11/01/2004 4:34:15 PM PST by TapTheSource
Judging by the kind of society the Russians have been able to create for themselves and occasionally export to others (like the Baltics- since 1700's) these aspects, if they have ever been there, are not sufficient. The best description I ever came across of the social characteristics I am talking about, comes in Russian proverb
"Ty nachal'nik - ya der'mo, ya nachal'nik - ty der'mo" - "If you're the boss, I'm POS,if I'm the boss - you're POS". Now tell me what, if any, improvement would occur in such a system if that same arbitrary boss is sophisticated and cultured?
Hit piece - propaganda.
Please see # 63.
With knowledge, we are forearmed. Putin is a world leader with whom we work...but not a "comrade" or friend.
So if you compare Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Rachmaninov and others with the tribal singers and dancers, then who are people like Turgenev, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Chekhov? They must be the primitive tribal story tellers in your eyes.
I specifically referred to the way of life, i.e. to how people relate to one another [...]
Have you ever been in Russia?
"Have you ever been in Russia?"
I was born in Moscow (thucking USSR) in 1955; and grew up and lived in the aforementioned country till 1981. I suppose it means that have indeed been in Russia. And as for Tolstoy etc. - they are precisely story-tellers, either over the fire or without it.
I am curious, are you an ethnic Russian?
As for your comment about Vargars bringing civilizations, was that before or after they pillaged and burned towns up and down Ireland and England? Settled Normandy, a really poor district of France, I've been there and the Normandy Invasion was the best thing to happen to them for 600 years, now they have some tourism. Or attacked and besieged Paris? Yes, Vargars why the empitemy of civilization.
Keep your arguments coming. You pitch em, we'll bat them.
That saying was born for the Bolshaviks, just like: "Ti predyrivasya to chto ti nam platish, i mi predyrivayemsya to chto mi bydem rabotat."
Simple facts: 1. you hate russia and russian culture, ok, that's well documented and established, so like everyone's yours is a highly biased opinion. 2. You haven't been back to Russia in 25 years, so your views, knowledge is antiquated at best and based off of extremely biased and ignorant Western reports.
Did I miss anything?
Ok, enough of this crap. Aside the fact that you loath and detest anything Russian. What is your criteria of "great" civilization? Sinfeld? J.Leno? Britny Spears? The Piss Christ? Gay Rights? Feminism? Marxism (another Western invention), Nihilism (another Western invention). What? Inform us stupid people, please.
On another thread you mentioned the Vargars (Vikings) as bringers of civilization. If that is your benchmark, then you must consider Islam at the top of the list.
Start with the Magna Carta as a criterium of the great civilization. And as for your Russia - you could take it.
Well, France, Germany, etc do not have anything of the sort. Tsar Nicholar II gave Russia a constitution, of course other parts like Poland and Finland already had constitutions. But then again, a constitution trumps the Magna Carta any time. So besides a document giving some voting rights to the nobility, what are your other criteia? I'm really interested in what it is you view as "civilized".
Magna Carta was more than it is commonly assume today, see: The Secret History of the Magna Carta. It was indeed a great document.
See also the full text of Magna Carta
But Russia at the time of Magna Cart and in following few generations had another achievement, possibly with greater consequences for the Christian world.
Russia struggled with the greatest source instability and destruction - the unlimited steppes of Asia. From there came the Huns, Genghis Khan and numerous others. After Mongols became Muslim this new mortal threat was overcome by the Russian princes and people - first in the manly fought battles, then through slow and patient work. In the steppes and in the Siberia the churches were build, towns were established the Gospel of Christ and civilisation started to take roots.
England was in much more privilleged position - she had the heritage of civilisation from the Roman times, fully defined Christian doctrine and patterns of organisation, she was sheltered by Europe from barbarians and destruction, with easy climate and acccess to the trade routes. And much more.
England built on the achievements of others, Russia had to start from zero and has to keep watch against the forces of chaos until today. This is what gives the strenght to the Russian culture. That is why Russian music is more pleasing to the American ears on July 4th than Gershwin.
Worth re-reading....Ping.
Its fascinating that the Russophiles usurp everything as "Russian" Chekov, Gogol, and even Tchaikovsky are either born in Ukraine or lived in Ukraine during their creative years. Russian despots ere oppressive back then too.
"Ukraine played an important role in the life of Tchaikovsky. His greatgrandfather Fedir (Fyodor) Tchaika was a cossack of the Myrhorod (Ukraine) battalion, and his grandfather - Petro (Pyotr) Tchaika studied at the Kyiv academy having changed his name to Tchaikovsky. He subsequently studied medicine in Russia and settled in Ural in 1774 where the composer's father Ilya Petrovych was born and in 1840, the composer himself.
For over twenty years Tchaikovsky spent almost every summer in Ukraine and stayed for a few months every time. He was very comfortable at his sister's in Kamianka. In his November 1878 letter from there to Nadezhda von Meek he wrote: "I really feel very well here, a sense of peace has overcome me here, which I searched for in vain in Moscow and St Petersburg."
Tchaikovsky's letters from Ukraine to Nadezhda von Meck, from Kamianka, Kyiv, contain many examples of his infatuation with Ukraine, its landscape, Verbyntsi, Nyzy, Brayilov, colourful folk for costumes, folk traditions and songs, all of which inspired him in his work. In one of his letters he wrote that while staying in spectacular natural settings in Italy and Switzerland he never felt "such moments of sacred infatuation with nature, which is even more than infatuation with art" as that given him amid the natural scenery of the Ukrainian Brayilov.
A large part of Tchaikovsky's work was either fully or partly composed in Ukraine and many contain Ukrainian musical material, the opera Mazeppa, Cherevychky (The Little Shoes) the Second Symphony, Songs set to the verses of Taras Shevchenko, Dumka for piano, and others. He used Ukrainian melodic material in his First Piano Concerto, and the Third Symphony. The Liturgy also projects a Ukrainian aura."
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