[sBqQu3U0wH]

>However, after the war started, I lost all interest in reading anything Russian. I know it's irrational, but these lost their luster instantly.

Many share the same sentiment, and some do that more strongly than others. Interestingly, it never had that effect on me, however, though I cannot speak Russian, except read, but my vocabulary is extremely limited. I think it's important to distinguish between current events and the culture, literature, and art that spans centuries.

[rimliu]

Alas, one can argue that the current events are the result of the culture that spans centuries :(

[pyrale]

I would be curious to see how one could seriously argue this. People making this kind of claims tend to grasp at straws to make connections and make implications much more deterministic than they actually are.

[AnimalMuppet]

OK, I'll try - not as a rigorous argument, but not as a strawman, either.

Events shape cultures. You can find cultural remnants of past events that impacted a group decades later (especially traumatic events).

And, cultures shape events, because cultures shape the people that cause (at least some of) the events. And cultures shape peoples' response to the events.

So when you see a pattern that looks fairly similar across centuries, then you have at least some ground for suspecting that there is a stable system there - that events keep happening that shape the culture in a consistent way, and the culture keeps shaping events in ways that will give rise to the same kinds of events happening.

I wouldn't go as far as "deterministic". I don't think that much involving humans is ever truly deterministic. But there does seem to be a pattern of history, if not repeating itself, at least rhyming.