[MrDisposable]

I feel that the Russian identity has been dealt a fatal blow.

The load-bearing pillar of the Russian identity is the idea that we are a nation of defenders, who fought off the biggest invasion in history. We defend, not intrude.

If you remember history, there was another guy who attacked a slavic country, in the morning, without declaring war, hoping for a blitzkrieg. We are that guy now.

I thought about renouncing my Russian nationality. I may have Russian origins, and I may speak Russian, and I may live in Russia – but my nationality would be blank. Null. Nothing. Empty string.

I decided against that. By renouncing my nationality I would also renounce Lomonosov, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Tchaikovsky, Vavilov, Surikov, Vrubel, Tarkovsky, Korolyev, and Gagarin. I refuse to let a single tyrant tarnish the Russian contribution to human civilization.

[0x737368]

I'm sorry but you can't tell me you weren't aware of wars in Afganistan or Chechnya?

And I'm pretty sure Lomonosov and Dostoyevsky don't care about what passport if any you have, please renounce it already and stop this soppy drivel.

[MrDisposable]

  > I'm sorry but you can't tell me you weren't aware of wars in Afganistan or Chechnya?

I am. See my "untangle" response in this thread.

[ant6n]

Also Georgia, or Moldawia. Or come to think of it, a lot of the SU, including, btw, Poland (remember the Hitler Stalin Pact). Oh also, Finland. If you go further back, also Ukraine, and Krim and the East. Seems like Russian history is a long string of territorial expansion.

[Koshkin]

> a nation of defenders

Nonsense. Russian history is full of invasions. That is how empires are created, and that is their mode of existence.

[acdha]

I think the key part is the first part of the sentence you clipped: “the load-bearing pillar of the Russian identity”. Self-image is not an academic historical treatise and most nationalities have parts they like to emphasize more than others — for example, as Americans we love to talk about democracy and freedom a lot more than slavery / Jim Crow, or whether all of our military endeavors hold up as well as WWII.

I don’t know how it’s taught in Russia but for what it’s worth, the major points of Russian history I learned prior to the 20th century was basically the Mongols and Napoleon invading and the brutal conditions of serfdom. Clearly there were other wars but even a Cold War enemy’s educational curriculum tended to emphasize the aspects mentioned prior to around 1950 so I’d have no trouble believing this is how Russians want to see their history.

[cmurf]

>as Americans we love to talk about democracy and freedom a lot more than slavery / Jim Crow, or whether all of our military endeavors hold up as well as WWII.

There are certainly dark corners that remain in the American psyche expressly because we keep kicking that can down the road. This is how the confederacy and southern identity became intertwined, because it wasn't and still isn't made completely socially unacceptable. Let's not forget the Northern states were damn racist, they just drew the line at slavery. And before all the bodies were buried, before the constitution amended to make slavery illegal, the top Confederates, traitors to the United States, were forgiven.

Instead of the United States completely destroying a mortal enemy that tried to destroy the United States, Lincoln, Grant, Johnson, forgave. Grant should not have sat in a chair with Lee at Appomattox. Robert Lee and Jefferson Davis should have been executed for treason. As well as the all of the officers. The constitution of the Confederacy unquestionably stated slavery to be a permanently protected institution in perpetuity. But let's face it, the North didn't have the moral character to do what was necessary. Northern states were too sympathetic to the ingrained national racism.

The fact is, black folks deserved then and still now the promise of a country that did not and does not exist. Only in some nascent sense does it hopefully exist today. But there has never been a reconciliation, and even in 2022 this country does not live up to its ideals, promises, laws - not to black Americans, and not to native Americans.

This is how you get a president of the United States in 2016 who maliciously and intentionally destroyed the livelihood of a black man who takes a knee to try and make white folks aware of the fact this country doesn't stand for everyone. And I am as shocked and appalled at how even NFL management and owners could just look the other way and go along with that, as I am shocked and appalled that signatories to the U.N. charter that insists only defensive wars against imminent attack are legal, and that wars of aggression to expand borders are the supreme international crime - I did trust Russia and China more than I should have. They're really looking like they're going to be outside the UN charter system of international law. That's really dreadful.

[MrDisposable]

Okay, time to untangle.

1. Identity is an internal belief, which may or may not correpsond to the facts.

2. Factually, Russia never was a country of peaceful defenders (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_Russia).

3. During the post-WW2 Soviet era, the main focus of internal propaganda was Peace and Victory over the nazi Germany. It is during that time the identity of a "peaceful defender" was formed and ingrained into the Soviet psyche (and it survived Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan). Later, this identity was reinforced by Putin.

4. I still know a lot of people in Russia who hold that identity. I would still call it a national identity.

5. After the Ukraine war that identity can no longer be held without denial or serious cognitive dissonance.

6. Many people will go into denial, and many people will have an identity crisis.

7. However, "That which can be destroyed by the truth, should be".

[Mikeb85]

To be fair, more often than not, Russia was on the receiving end of invasions. Even when they invaded others, it was often in response to being invaded first.

Look at how the Russian empire formed: it was Moscow re-taking all the Kyivan Rus lands that were conquered by Muslim invaders. Or all the European countries that attacked/invaded Russian lands: Great Britain, France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Poland-Lithuania and I'm probably forgetting some.

So yes, it's fairly apt to say that, more often than not, Russia was defending its own lands.

The fact that Russia is wrong today doesn't mean that it hasn't been wronged many, many times before. A parallel is that many abusers were once abused themselves (and yes the cycle needs to end).

Also, Ukraine's unfortunate history: they were the part of Rus/Russian lands that almost always were passed back and forth. The name "Ukraine" itself suggests that...

[AnimalMuppet]

I'm pretty sure that Russia didn't make it all the way to Vladivostok by "defending its own lands" or "re-taking all the Kyivan Rus lands".

What you say may be true in the west. It's not true of Russia's expansion east of the Urals.

[credit_guy]

If you remember history, there was a guy who attacked Sweden, unprovoked [1]. Who ended beating the crap out of the Swedish army at Poltava, and marked the beginning of the modern Russian Empire. I'm not sure what spin this was given to Russian kids in the history class to qualify it as defensive war.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Northern_War

[lmilcin]

That identity has already been built on a lie. Russia invaded Poland on September 17th 1939 after secret deal with Germany to split Polish territory they agreed on before the war even started.

Then Russians cried foul when the bigger bully betrayed them. Unfortunately allies could not let Nazis overrun Soviets because with access to oil fields Nazis could make Europe their fortress.

And so Soviet crimes were overlooked in the name of greater good.

[acthrowthrow123]

That's true. Even more obvious aggression - Russia invaded Finland few weeks later on 30 November, 1939 even though Finland was a neutral country and to these days trying to be neutral country (is not part of NATO)

[kaczordon]

Not to mention Russia basically re-invading Poland as the Nazis were defeated and then establishing communism there. They also famously paused their army across the river while the Nazis razed Warsaw to the ground.

[yongjik]

> The load-bearing pillar of the Russian identity is the idea that we are a nation of defenders, who fought off the biggest invasion in history. We defend, not intrude.

Don't despair: this idea of a "peaceful defender" was never an objective truth to begin with. I suspect a lot of countries feed similar sentiment to their children. My country (South Korea) certainly did.

A country needs good people who fight to keep it straight. Maybe Russia needs people like you.

[watersb]

A Facebook post, letter to the editor (London Times, I think):

https://www.facebook.com/100058234413220/posts/3780988174745...

The letter reads:

"Sir, Richard Morrison is right to question the wisdom of banning all Russian artists on the basis of their nationality ("Ban Gergiev and Netrebko, but don't cancel all Russian artists".)

In August 1968, the day after Soviet tanks had rolled into Prague to crush the lenient rule of Alexander Dubcek, the great Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich played at the BBC Proms with the USSR State Symphony Orchestra.

With the greatest irony the work he was scheduled to perform was the Czech composer Antonin Dvorak's magnificent Cello Concerto. I was there: the extraordinary intensity of Rostropovich's performance, together with the tears visibly pouring down his cheeks as the concerto neared its end, spoke more than any number of words.

   Julian Lloyd Webber
   London SW7"

[1_player]

> the Russian contribution to human civilization

> By renouncing my nationality I would also renounce Lomonosov, Dostoyevsky, etc.

No you wouldn't. Culture transcends flags and borders, but you're putting the nation ahead of it. You can still appreciate your Russian culture without having to buy wholesale the whole Russian (or any other) nationality. The Russian people have created beautiful things like everybody else on Earth has done. There is nothing unique about its uniqueness. You can appreciate it without having to drape yourself in the Russian tricolour, what you call "identity".

Patriotism and sense of nation is, among other things, what causes people to invade and prove themselves better than their neighbours. Patriotism is just thinking your tribe is better than the others. It's an idea worth eschewing if we want to make our planet a better place.

[BlueTemplar]

Yes, but patriotism/nationalism are also the condition of leaving the tribal stage, being strong enough to not get invaded in the first place. And plenty of nations do not go around invading others.

It's imperialism that you should be worried about : when indeed you get the idea that you're better than others, give up on the idea of nation, and try to have a multicultural country, ruling different ethnicities using separate laws - and some of them always end up more equal than others.

[belorn]

Your story remind me very much of a song in the musical chess where the Russian character tells the audience how while madness may take control of a nations leaders, the hearth of a nation is its people regardless if they stay within the borders.

And you ask me why I love her

Through wars, death and despair

She is the constant, we who don't care

And you wonder will I leave her, but how?

I cross over borders but I'm still there now

[InTheArena]

Even this is not really accurate. World War II started when the Germans invaded Poland, but the Russians also invaded Poland. In many ways this war seems to be Putin‘s attempt at bringing back spheres of influence and a greater Russian empire. That’s not exactly a new experience in Russian history. Russians will even point at napoleons invasion of Russia, and happily forget about all of the war of the coalitions that they were an part of before then. This ignorance of history isn’t a bug in Putins world view - Its a feature. It’s a lot easier to tell the story of napoleon without Austerlitz, and Hitler without Poland, Finland and the Holodomor. Russia is far from alone in this - but unlike others Putin seems to be committed to bringing back the existential wars of the 20th century….

[watersb]

Nothing wrong with being proud of your nation's accomplishments, and being appalled at its violence.

We have been shown the strength of our culture, and the fragility of our institutions, in this era of super-power authoritarianism.

I don't know what the world will be like in ten years. Post-Trump, post-Putin, and hopefully still able to support human life.

[xrd]

I'm American, and I'll go with you, my brother.

[rasz]

>The load-bearing pillar of the Russian identity is the idea that we are a nation of defenders, who fought off the biggest invasion in history. We defend, not intrude.

This is because Russian history curriculum conveniently completely skips 1939-1941 period. Russia was the Aggressor in WW2. They turned sides only after being attacked by their ally in crime - Hitler.

>If you remember history, there was another guy who attacked a slavic country, in the morning, without declaring war, hoping for a blitzkrieg. We are that guy now.

Yes, he was called Stalin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Poland