Comments on: Putin as Narratological Node in Russian History

By: mab

mab — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 16:14:00 +0000

Hm. I may have to make a lot of shashlyk:>)

By: db

db — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 14:34:00 +0000

... who said it and when?

Too easy.

By: mab

mab — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 13:18:00 +0000

“Russia’s past was amazing, its present is more than marvelous, and as for the future, it is greater than anything the wildest imagination could picture; that is the point of view for examining and writing Russian history.”

Okay, folks, for a grand prize of shashlyk at my dacha… who said it and when?

By: Chrisius Maximus

Chrisius Maximus — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 18:53:00 +0000

“Language like “consolidated vertical power” and “terrible repressions” disguise the fact that he murdered or displaced millions of his own citizens in the process.”

“Terrible repressions” means “that he murdered or displaced millions of his own citizens.”

By: Sean Guillory

Sean Guillory — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 18:29:00 +0000

It's another sign of the Hegelian swing of things in Russia. I just wonder how far right the pendulum is going to travel before correcting itself.

Many would argue that the current swing is the correction. Despite the efforts of the Soviet system to break with its Tsarist past, it nonetheless reconciled with it. So too with post-Soviet Russia. The effort to carve out the Soviet period as some sort of historical cancer has failed as a political project. Post-Soviet Russia must have a national history that corresponds with the political present and I think that this text is one way to do it. In this sense calling it a new "Short Course" is a misnomer since its ideological aspirations appear to be far grander.

By: W. Shedd

W. Shedd — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 17:32:00 +0000

Language like "consolidated vertical power" and "terrible repressions" disguise the fact that he murdered or displaced millions of his own citizens in the process.

It's a little bit like saying Ghenghis Khan liked to ride horses, was an excellent shot with a bow, traveled the world, and was very organized.

It's another sign of the Hegelian swing of things in Russia. I just wonder how far right the pendulum is going to travel before correcting itself.

By: W. Shedd

W. Shedd — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 17:28:00 +0000

That test is what made my mother-in-law reply that she couldn’t teach history in Russia now.

By: Chrisius Maximus

Chrisius Maximus — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 16:45:00 +0000

The little snippet on Stalin I read was in the vein of “Stalin is an ambivalent figure; like Peter the Great, he modernized the country and presided over great victories, but at the same time there were terrible repressions.” That sort of stuff. Pretty noncontroversial really.

By: Sean Guillory

Sean Guillory — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 16:22:00 +0000

Oh and Chris, surely the fact that Stalin strengthened vertical power but didn’t allow private property is a sign of ambiguity.

By: Sean Guillory

Sean Guillory — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 16:21:00 +0000

Thanks for the link db. I’ll add it to the main article.