Posted on 07/15/2008 5:34:38 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
This does not minimize the great achievements of Russian authors, scientists, artists, and monarchs. However, to call Russia a "western" country is to ignore the thousands of years of history when it was culturally and politically isolated from the west, yet had strong cultural, economic, and political relations with the east of south.
I think you mean Dostoevsky not Tolstoy. The latter was more internationalist especially later in life.
Evading the issue are we?
Let me explain further: Not sure what your definition of “western” is but if you include the positive aspects of it then there there would never have been any “western” culture without the wisdom of the Levant and that includes Greece ..and even more the “Eastern” Christian Church and its adherents.
I actually found a website with a description of my great-grandparents' home village, Huck (now known as Splavnucha), which is located about sixty miles southwest of Saratov. The site also includes some letters from some of the villagers who opted to remain behind.
Absolutely correct. I agree. I have lived there a few times for a few months and was able to mostly speak the language while immersed in it, after two semesters of formal study. It is a unique culture and one of a kind, imo.
Russia's unique culture will forever set it apart from the west. It makes for a more interesting country as a result.
Oh and BTW-The Russian people did not adopt just any Christianity—they adopted the earliest and most correct form - Orthodoxy.
(As for the Philippines - my travel there showed a fair to middling devout Roman Catholic people worshiping a syncretic blend of traditional and RC beliefs.)
Prosecutors have consistently refused a petition by descendants of the royal family to recognize the killings as political, and a Moscow court earlier this year declined to order them to do so. After its latest decision, in September, the Prosecutor General's Office said an investigation found that no court or "extrajudicial body" had issued any sort of execution or repression order ahead of the killings.
Human rights activists said the ruling fit in with what they said was reluctance by President Vladimir Putin and his government to confront Russia's Soviet past. Putin, who has stressed the need for patriotism and pride, has restored Soviet-era symbols, such as the music for the national anthem, and said Western portrayals of the Soviet era were too negative. Declaring Nicholas a political victim "would be same as recognizing that the history of our state is based on violence and crime," said Arseny Roginsky, a historian and member of the human rights group Memorial. He said the court's ruling was politically motivated and followed an "obvious trend toward the left in the country. Lukyanov said the Supreme Court's ruling meant Russian authorities "do not want to condemn Bolshevism." Roginsky said a document showing that the execution of the czar's family had been ordered by the Bolshevik authority in Yekaterinburg could be found in state archives. In a further indication of political motives, he said, the slayings were carried out to prevent Nicholas from becoming a symbol of resistance against Bolshevism. "Of course the Romanovs were victims of repressions," the Interfax news agency quoted human rights activist Lyudmila Alexeyeva, director of the Moscow Helsinki Group, as saying. "They were shot by the people who held power. And now, as historians have found, the highest authorities knew about it."
I admit-—That news has ruined my day.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
