This Forum intrigued me and I thought that maybe I will join, he-he.

I'm from Poland, so maybe a bit further than most of the forum users so far (taking into account the proximity of the Anglo-Saxon world, the distance between, for example, the USA and Great Britain does not seem so big here), but it seems to me that there was no one from this part of Europe yet ?! (Central, not Eastern - how often this region is misspelled in anglo-saxon literature and media).

I'm interested in the history of many epochs, from antiquity, through the Middle Ages to the present day, although I especially like the interwar period (1918-1939), the Napoleonic era, the 16th and 17th centuries, and the history of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome.

I hope to learn a lot here and learn, about things that I had no idea about before.

REGARDS!

Hello.
We Brits feel a certain affinity with Poland right now, the two European nations that seem to be at the forefront of the fight against Putin are GB and Poland. We appreciate that you are closer in every respect and have more to lose than anyone, so Poland's stand is all the more admired.

Welcome Sigbert.  We have a contributor from the Netherlands and one from Denmark and there used to be a Belgian gentleman who contributed but sadly he passed away last year.  Caro is from New Zealand. It is good to get a perspective from people in lands other than the UK.

Bienvenue Sigbert, et salut from southern France.

MarkUK wrote:

We Brits feel a certain affinity with Poland right now, the two European nations that seem to be at the forefront of the fight against Putin are GB and Poland.

You really shouldn't believe everything you read in the Daily Mail.

Perhaps you might like to expand your reading to include some French, German, Italian, Polish, Romanian, Bulgarian and Czech media websites (all readily available online). Most of the heavy armaments in support of Ukraine have come from just these countries and the US, and to a lesser degree the UK, but these states are obviously wary about weakening their own national defences and are cautious about involving NATO directly against Russian aggression. Nevertheless each of those countries has accepted many more Ukrainian refugees than has the UK, and most have also immediately given work-permits, temporary ID card and access to social/child/medical/old-age  support ... while the UK as always prevaricates, quibbles about the cost, penny-pinches and seems to make it as difficult as possible. Welcome to the UK  ... here's your ticket to Rwanda.

Meles meles wrote:

You really shouldn't believe everything you read in the Daily Mail, Mark. Perhaps you might like to expand your reading to include some French, German, Italian, Polish, Romanian, Bulgarian and Czech media websites (all readily available online). Incidentally each of those countries has accepted many more Ukrainian refugees than has the UK and most have also immediately given work-permits, temporary ID cards, and access to social/child/medical/old-age  support, ... while the UK as always prevaricates, quibbles about the cost, penny-pinches, and seems to make it as difficult as possible. Welcome to the UK  ... here's your ticket to Rwanda.

That's true.

You just have to remember that the biggest obstacles to aid for Ukraine are, first of all, Germany, Hungary, Italy and, unfortunately France (I'm writing "unfortunately, because my girlfriend is French.) I'm not talking about the society, but about the elites of these countries, which are very pro-russian.

Most of them have no idea what Russia really is. And it is a kind of Mordor, regardless of the authority there. It is a country where people have been slaves of power for centuries, where the will of one person (or a group of people) decided the fate of tens of millions of citizens (if this word is appropriate for Russia at all). It is a country of suffering above all of the Russians themselves, oppressed for centuries by one or another government.

Unfortunately, the Russians like it. They like to be oppressed, they like suffering, which means that they are kind of masochists. It is enough to ask a Russian how he would evaluate the times of Stalin, most will say that they would like to return to those times, because maybe there was some murders, maybe people were imprisoned in camps (called gulags), but at least the country was a power. And they like it that they were a superpower then, and that others were afraid of them.

This is what the Russians think. They are oppressed by their authorities and feel some sick excitement at the thought that others were also afraid of them.

So it is a country built on fear and suffering, and in my opinion it should not survive in its entirety. Russia must fall and must break up into many smaller countries - this is the basis of the future geopolitical shape of Europe. This country is a anomaly, it is too big and it must fall apart.

Józef Piłsudski - Marshal of Poland and one of the main architects of Independent Poland after 1918, and the winner of the war of 1920 (although it should be added that he never graduated from any military school and was a self-taught person, and in his youth a socialist and revolutionist, but not "red" just white and red), once stated that "Russia should be torn at the national seams". Today, however, it should be added that not only in this way, but also in sustaining the disagreements, for example, between Moscow and St. Petersburg and striving for the real disintegration of this country.

Welcome to Res His, Sigbert.

You wrote:

It is a country where people have been slaves of power for centuries, where the will of one person (or a group of people) decided the fate of tens of millions of citizens (if this word is appropriate for Russia at all). It is a country of suffering above all of the Russians themselves, oppressed for centuries by one or another government.

Unfortunately, the Russians like it. They like to be oppressed, they like suffering...

I found that comment very interesting - I read something similar recently by an academic from the University of London. I will try to track down the article. This Russian predisposition towards suffering seems to be the legacy, as you suggest, of centuries of serfdom, coupled with a terror of invasion (understandable, given the history of the Russian people) from a cruel and barbaric enemy. Wasn't it Ivan the Terrible who became the model "strongman" leader who offered a sick kind of "protection" while inflicting atrocities of his own?

I know there are (or used to be) posters here who consider the British as a nation of "subjects" rather than a nation of free "citizens", but that is hard to swallow (most of the time). We find the Russian submission to their own leaders' nonsense as beyond belief, but then we have not been invaded for a thousand years, and even then the Norman invaders gave in in the end, even if it did take the English a while. History moulds a nation's character, for better or worse. Tacitus's comment that the Romans "make a wasteland and call it peace" surely applies to Russia's imperial ambitions - they are making a desolation in the name of "liberation". Both the Russian leaders and the Russian people seem to be masters of denial and self-deception. But, that said, I know we British should be careful when we start on that topic...

Do the Russians have a sense of humour? I've never come across evidence of it. They seem perpetually sunk in a Slavonic misery alleviated only by vodka and parades of Very Big Missiles.

PS I wonder what Tolstoy would make of it all?

PPS

MM wrote:

You really shouldn't believe everything you read in the Daily Mail.

The average Russian is only happy when he/she is being oppressed, they see it as a mark of strength in their leadership.

MarkUK wrote:

The average Russian is only happy when he/she is being oppressed, they see it as a mark of strength in their leadership

Oh dear, whatever have I started?

Is that a quotation MarkUK? (attributable to whom, I wonder) or might it just be made up to suit your own opinion?

Meles meles wrote:

MarkUK wrote:

The average Russian is only happy when he/she is being oppressed, they see it as a mark of strength in their leadership

Oh dear, whatever have I started?

Is that a quotation MarkUK? (attributable to whom, I wonder) or might it just be made up to suit your own opinion?

I have a question for Meles meles. You're from France, right? I would ask you to explain to me where this terrible russophilism came from among the French? I can't really understand this, where does this disgusting love for Russia come from among the Gauls? I understand the distance between France and Russia, but I do not understand this incredible love for the Russians? I would be grateful if you would explain it to me.


And by the way, I will add that I have a friend of a professor at the University of London (although he is a bit older than me), who is Palestinian with whom we once discussed the issue of jewish ghettos organized for the Palestinian people.

I have not seen any of this supposed Gallic love of Russia of which you speak, Sigbert81. Are you perhaps referring to Macron's attempts at finding a diplomatic solution to the war and his (failed) face-to-face meeting with Putin? But maintaining diplomatic contact with Russia is surely not russophilism, and since Putin refuses any direct communication with Zelenskyy, contact via France, Germany, Poland and others is almost the only way for the Ukrainian government to communicate with Russia. Or are you saying that all diplomatic efforts to resolve the war should be abandoned? Macron might be arrogant, vain and overly keen to be seen as a great international statesman (and that is how many in France also view him) but I see nothing to suggest that he or his government in any way supports Putin. Indeed the contrary would seem to be the case as evidenced by his strong line on sanctions (admittedly fairly easy for France as it imports relatively little Russian oil or gas, generates most of its electricity by hydro and nuclear, and is basically self-sufficient in food including cereals) and by the amount of military assistance already given to Ukraine - and anyway Macron is only the president, he is not France.

Historically if there is one country in central or eastern Europe that is viewed with particular favour by the French it is Poland, there being between 500,000 and one million people of Polish descent currently living in mainland France. And if there's one country that is deeply in love with corrupt Russian oligarchs and their illicitly-gained cash, sadly I think it's probably the UK. It pains me to say it but Russian dirty money, laundered by London's banks, has been heavily invested in buying up British real estate and British companies (to say nothing of hiding money in British tax havens overseas). Russian money also partly bank-rolled the brexit campaign and it has been supporting the UK's Conservative political party for some years. There's even an ex-KGB officer (Alexander Lebedev) sitting, unelected and for life, in the upper house of the UK's parliament (the House of Lords) simply because he is a jolly good friend of the UK's Prime Minister, Alexander Johnson. Now that's russophilism.

Meles meles wrote:

I have not seen any of this supposed French love of Russia of which you speak, Sigbert81. Are you perhaps referring to Macron's attempts at finding a diplomatic solution to the war? But maintaining diplomatic contact with Russia is not russophilism, and since Putin refuses any direct communication with Zelenskyy, contact via France, Germany, Poland and others is almost the only way for the Ukrainian government to communicate with Russia. Or are you saying that all diplomatic efforts to resolve the war should be abandoned? Macron might be arrogant, vain and overly keen to be seen as a great international statesman (that's how many in France view him) but I see nothing to suggest he or his government in any way supports Putin - indeed quite the contrary as evidenced by his strong line on sanctions and the amount of military assistance given to Ukraine - and Macron is only the president, he is not France. Historically if there is one country in central or eastern Europe that is viewed with particular favour by France it is Poland, there being between 500,000 and one million people of Polish descent currently living here. And if there's one country that is deeply in love with corrupt Russian oligarchs and their illicitly-gained cash, sadly I think it's probably the UK.

Macron would like Putin to "save face", and Russia somehow emerged from this war undamaged. So how do you think about it? After all, neither Putin nor the Russians participating in this bandit attack on Ukraine, nor those almost 90% of the Russian population supporting Putin - they don't have faces anymore, they have disgusting snout! There is nobody to talk to there, because you don't talk to murderers and rapists of women and small children. You don't talk to bastards who abuse and sexually rapes children, taking away the most beautiful period in human life - childhood, where kids should focus on playing, learning and discovering the beauty of this world (they will get to know the disgusting side of this world sooner or later). So how can you talk to such people? And Macron is constantly calling the Kremlin and it is not known what he is expecting, because Putin is simply humiliating him. There is nothing to talk about with murderers of women and children, they should be shot at. And talks with Russia can be started when they withdraw from Ukraine, give up Crimea and Donbass, pay the Ukrainians financial compensation and apologize.

Russia must bear responsibility for its crimes and must face unequivocal condemnation of the entire international community.

What is happening now in Bucza, Borodianka, Mariupol, Konotopa, Mikołajów and many other Ukrainian cities? There were not only shots at random passers-by (e.g. people went out with their dogs for a walk and did not come back anymore, because a Russian criminal in a uniform shot them on the spot, and the dogs were then lying around the bodies of their owners), where tanks were run over private cars with children in the middle, where women were raped not only by these bastards, but for fun, e.g. with brush sticks, where people were shot in the back of the head for fun. So what to call it - an attempt to save face by the Russians? After all, it is not only Putin and his entourage that is to blame here, because Putin does not personally carry out these crimes and rapes, this is what ordinary Russians, ordinary subjects of the ruthenian mir (i.e. the Russian world) do. So why is Macron calling Putin? I don't understand that.

In Poland, we remember well the times of the ruthenian mir, the times of the so-called "liberation" from german occupation. My grandmother (born in December 1930) once told me how her mother was afraid of being raped after the Soviets entered and how young girls were hidden in attics or basements, or their faces were smeared with grease to make them look ugly. After entering, the Russians wanted three things: vodka, women and ... everything that had any value (this was what their "liberation" consisted of, from property, dignity and life).

Anyway, it was an unbelievable wilderness, which at the sight of the toilet did not know what it was. I once read stories of how after the Soviets entered Lviv in September 1939 (Hitler attacked Poland on september 1, and Stalin came to his rescue on september 17), when the entire eastern territories of Poland were incorporated into the USSR (officially into the Ukrainian People's Republic and the Belarusian Republic Ludowa), the addition of Soviet soldiers to private apartments began. There was a bit of humor about it, but even more fear and uncertainty, when, for example woman representatives of the Soviet "Red Cross" (of course it was called differently in the Soviets) housed in a private apartment, did not know what the stove was for and to warm up ... fireplace in the middle of the room. Another example - a Soviet officer chased a Polish woman with a pistol in her hand, because he said that she must have spoiled something in the toilet, because as soon as he put his head in the toilet to wash his hair, the water only ran for a short time. Yet another example - after the Soviets entered, all goods immediately disappeared from the shops and came the times of rationing, shortages and queues. During one of such expectations, in front of the shops, among the people standing there, there was a Soviet officer who praised life in the Soviet Union and said how everyone lives well and fairly there. But to the question: "Do you have oranges and bananas in the Soviets?" He replied, "Of course, there is one factory that produces oranges and two that produces bananas."

And finally, I would like to add Meles meles - that Poles in France seem to live mainly in the northern and eastern regions of France, there are probably not many of them in the south?

It also seems to me that the French are not particularly fond of Poles, because the French (especially the older generation, as young people approach these matters differently) were also characterized by a certain arrogance and conviction of their greatness (but I have no complaints about that , we Poles also thought for some time to be better than Ukrainians, Belarusians, Lithuanians, and sometimes even ... than the French and British, hi-hi).

In any case, the real closeness of Poles and French was in the times of the incredible Napoleonic epic, in which we fought hand in hand for a new shape of Europe, against all this hardened ancient-regime empire. The Poles, moreover, are more Napoleonic than the French and remained with the Emperor to the end, never betrayed him. As the only foreigners, there were also Poles who were initiated into the plans to release the Emperor from St. Helen, but it didn't come to that in the end.

Regards

MM wrote:

 And if there's one country that is deeply in love with corrupt Russian oligarchs and their illicitly-gained cash, sadly I think it's probably the UK. It pains me to say it but Russian dirty money, laundered by London's banks, has been heavily invested in buying up British real estate and British companies (to say nothing of hiding money in British tax havens overseas). Russian money also partly bank-rolled the brexit campaign and it has been supporting the UK's Conservative political party for some years. There's even an ex-KGB officer (Alexander Lebedev) sitting, unelected and for life, in the upper house of the UK's parliament (the House of Lords) simply because he is a jolly good friend of the UK's Prime Minister, Alexander Johnson. Now that's russophilism.

Macron is your President, but, as you say, he is not France. Johnson is our Prime Minister, but he and his cronies, the despicable crew who led the country into the chaos of Brexit and into what you call "russophilism",  are not the UK, MM. You have toned your post down since I first read it, and I am glad you did. I note you now use the word "sadly" in your edited message when you speak of the British gangster capitalists and their various Brexit and Russian-inspired wheelings and dealings. But remember half of the UK voted against Brexit (that includes my very important vote): those who voted for it were either the said gangster capitalists who did a brilliant job of conning us all, and who did, and are doing, very nicely out of the mess; or they were the sad and the angry and the dispossessed of our decaying nation, the sufferers of Shit Life Syndrome, UK citizens who, like their cousins in the USA, saw a  narcissistic rogue and conman as their saviour. I, like most of the people I know, was and am a passionate Remainer, but I understand fully how people were conned by the diabolically clever Dominic Cummings's campaign (watch "Brexit: the Uncivil War") .

Please don't tar us all with the Brexit brush. That said, I admit one of the greatest errors of my life was voting Conservative in 2019. Like many others, I  did so simply because I feared the chaos an extreme left-wing government led by Corbyn would bring. I thought Johnson the lesser of two evils: how wrong I was. The evil - and idiocy - were, with hindsight, pretty equally balanced.

But this is not the time nor the place for rehashing all that. What worries me here with our new poster's comments and the various responses to them, is that we are all falling into the same trap - let's find someone or some nation to hate/despise/blame. No one can excuse what Putin's government has done since February (indeed since 2014), but war crimes - atrocities - are as old as history itself. Few of the "advanced" nations are blameless. Remember My Lai? Remember the Holocaust? Serbia? The Nazi invasion of Russia? The British in Ireland? That's just within living memory.

There are many theories about the roots of human cruelty and the human urge to oppress (which begins in the playschool sandpit); and this thread, with its cheery little "Hello Everyone!" title is hardly the place for a discussion of such things, but human evil is "sans frontières". That is our problem, not the Russians.

Meles meles wrote:

MarkUK wrote:

The average Russian is only happy when he/she is being oppressed, they see it as a mark of strength in their leadership

Oh dear, whatever have I started?

Is that a quotation MarkUK? (attributable to whom, I wonder) or might it just be made up to suit your own opinion?

It's my opinion. The one chance Russia had to escape from totalitarianism was in the early 90s under Yeltsin, but the economy went belly up and the experiment ended.

Temperance wrote:

There are many theories about the roots of human cruelty and the human urge to oppress (which begins in the playschool sandpit); and this thread, with its cheery little "Hello Everyone!" title is hardly the place for a discussion of such things, but human evil is "sans frontières". That is our problem, not the Russians.

Forgive me Temperance, I think you're wrong. You cannot save the whole world - there is no such possibility. You won't be able to change the world either (although many think they will). The only thing you are able to do to eliminate or at least limit the evil around you is to change yourself, or possibly the environment around you. This is really enough that a person can do in his life. Not any great revolutions that accumulate even more suffering, harm, pain and death, but a gradual evolutionary change of oneself.

We are so created (We, People) that we are looking for beauty and good in the world that surrounds us, and in which there is also a lot of evil and suffering. I am not going to be smart and moralistic here, but I believe that everything depends on us, and especially on our thoughts, words and deeds. I do not want to continue this topic in this direction on this forum, so (if you are interested in it at all) I invite you to view what I am writing on my blog (unfortunately in polish, but it is possible to page translation. I was even planning to write in english or possibly in french, but I'm a bit of a lazy and I don't feel like it too much - unfortunately). However, since I can't paste files yet, I will present the blog link like this (of course, only for those willing):


h t t p s : / / g r o t a r a g n a r a . b l o g s p o t . c o m / p / j a k - z y c - m o r a l n i e - i - d o s t a t n i o . h t m l


However, it should also be remembered that the Russians themselves doom themselves to the contempt of the whole world by the actions they commit in Ukraine. Temperance you write that the British people are "decaing", but ask yourself why? Some time ago I talked to a French resident in Poland who said that he left France because there are no more values ​​there, people do not appreciate such virtues as patriotism or bravery. Another said openly: "France is no more, the left and liberals have destroyed my country."

What do you think, Temperance, why the Ukrainians have been defending themselves for three months, even though everyone thought their resistance would last only three to five days? Is it because - as the head of British intelligence recently stated: "they are fighting for lgbt"? The mere statement about it already disqualifies this man from the group of intelligent people, because he does not understand that the strength of Ukrainians that drives them and mobilizes them to resistance is precisely their patriotism - that is, love for the homeland. These people fight for their families, their neighbors, their land and their country, because they know well that only in an independent country will they and their children be able to develop, and any form of dependence is oppression and ruthless exploitation (after all, the victor wants to prosper at the expense of the exploitation of the conquered people). Therefore, it is only in their own (national - although this word has been either forgotten or slandered in the West) state that they are able to realistically build their future. It has been forgotten in Great Britain, France, Italy, Spain, even Germany. And don't think that I am some kind of nationalist, because I have never been one, but I am certainly a realist and I can clearly see that nations can develop only in their own strong, but democratic countries. There is no other way and the UK, France and Germany have made many mistakes along this path since 2015.

Sigbert wrote:

Forgive me Temperance, I think you're wrong. You cannot save the whole world - there is no such possibility. You won't be able to change the world either (although many think they will). The only thing you are able to do to eliminate or at least limit the evil around you is to change yourself, or possibly the environment around you. This is really enough that a person can do in his life. Not any great revolutions that accumulate even more suffering, harm, pain and death, but a gradual evolutionary change of oneself.

I'm not out to save the whole world, Sigbert, and I am sure I get many things wrong. But if I have learnt one thing after a fair few decades of struggling to understand myself and my fellow human beings, it is that the people who cause the most trouble in this world are the ones who know they are "right", and who project all their own faults onto others - the people whom M. Scott Peck has called "the People of the Lie". I actually agree completely with your comments about the need constantly - and honestly - to take a moral inventory of oneself and to "evolve" as necessary. But how difficult that is: denial and pretence - at both the individual and national level - is so much easier and more comfortable than rigorous honesty about oneself. Being "right" - or righteous - is the default position of many of us.

The problem with the great tyrants, present and past, is a psychological one: they are utterly incapable of this honest self-appraisal and the "evolution" of which you speak. The Putins, the Hitlers, the Stalins - and all the others depicted in the image of hell shown below -  simply cannot face their own inner darkness, cannot "evolve" in the way you suggest. The truth about themselves must be avoided at all cost, even if the cost is the creation of a hell on earth. The rat-killer becomes the king rat (see Putin's autobiography for the rat reference). God help us all when such people obtain political power.

As I say, it is an old story, one as old as history itself. I offer no solution or salvation. There is just eternal vigilance, I suppose, as Thomas Jefferson noted, and we - certainly in the UK - have dropped our guard in recent times. I give MM that much. But we are all on high alert now, I believe.

In the early part of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia I did see mention online of Russians protesting against the invasion.  Now I see less of them - I can't help wondering if Russians who hold such views are keeping silent because they worry about repercussions from their government. A lady I knew in my late teens/early twenties who had two Polish parents but was brought up in England married a French citizen but of Polish descent and ended up living in Alsace.  Their sons grew up speaking Polish, English, French and a form of German that was spoken in Alsace (not sure if it's still spoken unless as a minority language).  I think one of her sons went to live in Poland after he grew up.  We used to exchange Christmas cards (latterly online) but I've heard nothing back these last few years so I'm not sure if she's still with us.  That lady's father was from Lvov - which was Polish at the time of his birth.  Boundaries of countries seem to have changed very much over the centuries.  I can't remember where I mentioned it before but it even happened a little between England and Scotland (before there was such a thing as the UK and the two countries were still independent of each other).  Berwick-on-Tweed used to belong to Scotland but now it is part of England but the county of Berwick is still in Scotland (to be fair most people know that in the UK at least).

However, in one important respect, Berwick-on-Tweed is in Scotland even today - the football team play in the Scottish League.

Re those who "KNOW" they are right :- |
“The presence of those seeking the truth is infinitely to be preferred to the presence of those who think they've found it.”

―  Terry Pratchett,   Monstrous Regiment