Hi there, I know you missed me a lot (ok, maybe you didn’t). I’ve been recently active on Quora (please, follow here), but I cannot let you miss on my precious content. So here is a potpourri of some longer posts and replies I made there recently and consider worth sharing.
Question (original spelling and grammar): What can define Nazi idenity? Are two simple elements fanatical fascism and eugenic sterilization?
It’s well defined in Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. While contemplating the murder of an old pawnbroker, Rodion Raskolnikov, a young, poor, ambitious, smart and arrogant student, kept asking himself,
“whether I was a louse like everybody else or a man. Whether I can step over barriers or not, whether I dare stoop to pick up or not, whether I am a trembling creature or whether I have the right...”
The last one for me is the essence of nazism brilliantly described by a Russian writer long before WWII.
Dostoevsky is and was very popular in [the rest of] Europe, he influenced the XX century thinking a lot. But they got him all wrong out there and made the same mistake as Rodion, they decided they have the right and others [rest of the world] are just lice [untermenschen].
In the novel, Rodion commits an ideal murder. Although he accidentally kills two people, not just the old woman, there’s no evidence against him. Yet, he cannot even use the stolen jewelry, his guilty conscience troubles him, every moment of his existence is poisoned.
Seeking internal peace, he confesses to an investigator who was kinda guessing the truth, but had no proof. Rodion goes to prison in Siberia, but he feels relieved. Also, he is not alone.. there’s Sonia.
Structural nazism rid itself of remorses and redemption, of self-reflection. It’s just having the right and being the civilized garden of Europe.
If you think you are above humans, are you a human at all?
Question: Is Kievan Rus Ukraine or Russia?
Kievan Rus is a purely scientific term that was introduced to describe a specific period of history of Eastern Slavs. Princes of the Rurikovitch family who ruled from Kiev at some point didn’t call their country “Kievan Rus”. The dynasty itself came from Novgorod and was very distributed.
People there and then spoke Old Russian (now referred to as Old East Slavic, which sounds political to me). Also there is Church Slavonic, but it’s a long and different story.
The word “Russian” already existed, no one heard of Ukrainians then though. Prince Oleg came from Novgorod in the 9th century and said: “Се буди мати городом русскымъ”. I don’t care if you don’t read Cyrillics, yes.
Whether or not Kiev existed before being part of that loose union of Eastern Slavs (protostate) built around the trade route from Vikings to Greeks (“из Варяг в Греки”), is arguable, to say the least. At some point Soviet scientists put a lot of effort to add age to Kiev, yet, in Chronicles it is first mentioned as a city named Kiev around the same time as other oldest Russian cities (Novgorod, Ladoga..).
Most likely there was a some human settlement in that area, but not necessarily Slavic.
Question: How and why were the Sami people unable to stop the Nordic people from taking over their lands in Norway, Sweden and Finland, from creating laws against them and from taking their children to missionary and boarding schools too?
Well, they were unable.
The modern political map reflects the result of a prolonged and brutal process of nation-building. Nation-building starts when related tribes (Germanic, Slavic, Nordic, whatever) start forming bigger and more stable unions that subsequently turn into actual states with official laws, military forces, religious and financial institutions, etc. Again, this process is usually brutal and far from being voluntary. Many things may trigger this process.
So, some tribes showed more drive, had luck and were first to complete this process. They were first to get countries (some even expanded to new continents), some of these countries exist now. Other tribes never started this process, or were less successful in it, or were late to start it.
Peoples of the Far North of Euroasia, in particular, Sami/Saami, seem to have never created a state or stable union. Even their languages(!) were never unified into a generalized version, a melting pot of close dialects like it happened to, say, Russian, German, Italian, French or any other modern or classical language that also started as a bunch of similar dialects. In a way, it makes their lore more vulnerable and difficult to promote.
Interestingly, Sami people are ethnically related to Finns (finno-ugric), but form a separate branch in this highly diverse family.
In short, only a state can oppose a state, only a state can efficiently appeal to the “global community”, form alliances, etc. It’s a different level of cooperation. Scattered communities cannot impose their will, a state can.
I’m not at all being judgemental, by the way. It’s not about worse or better, right or wrong. Many Arctic peoples, at least in Russia, still lead their traditional life-styles. They are not or almost not bothered by turmoils of the modern world where countries have complex social sturctures, and, chances are, they will outlive the most “progressive” and “civilized” nations of today. In a 1000 years from now they will still wander along the coast of the Arctic ocean, fishing, hunting rain deer, singing their songs amidst eternal snows. Their civilization as opposed to that of nation-building has its advantages.
It takes a state to make iPhones, it takes a state to make nukes.
Question: Was Ancient Greek a civilization or a nation?
Not a historian here, but here is what I know and think.
They didn’t call themselves “Greek”, at least not all of them (only one tribe). Our perception of Ancient Greece is a generalization and is mostly based on cultural memes and heritage created during the so-called Classical and Hellenistic periods (after Alexander the Great).
Moroever, a lof of our knowlegde comes via Romans. Even the majority of Greek statues are actually Roman copies.
That’s why we have this idea of some kind of monolithic Ancient Greece. Yet, in fact it was originally a loose structure of contesting, though related Hellenic tribes. They did acknowledge their similarity, sometimes they formed loose unions (for example, facing an external threat), sometimes they would fight each other. I’m also generalizing, but I still go to a lower level than the usual perception.
I don’t think that Ancient Greek tribes (and their poleis) ever succeeded in true nation-building. Alexander united them for a brief period and even extended his Empire beyond Greece, but it didn’t last. Instead, Hellenistic states were formed. Modern Greece has nothing to do with the Ancient Greece.
On the other hand, Greeks made lot’s of theories about nation-building which is funny. They liked political science, the word “politics” has Greek origin, as do “economics”, “democracy”, etc. Maybe modern democracies fail, because what was good for free rich male population of Athens 2500 years ago, isn’t good for a modern nation with population of 350m? But I’m digressing.
Coming back to the original question, I would say, it was not a political nation, not an Empire, more of culture than civilization, if we distinguish between the two. It might become a political nation and even survive till today, but Rome appeared to be better at it. And, yes, ethnically, religiously and linguistically they were similar enough for foreigners to consider them all the same. In a way they hardly went beyond what was Kievan Rus for Russians, if any comparison is possible.
Question: Why does the majority of Scotland not want independence?
I don’t know what the majority of Scots actually think, but here is my opinion.
All those hysterical outcries about independence and sovereignty of minor regions are often just sentimental BS fostered and directed by various political forces to balkanize strong countries. I find it quite wicked and manipulative.
With Scots there is probably just pure grassroots hysteria and some original drive for separatism which has its historical reasons. The UK (and England) wasn’t nice on the Celts. Yet, independent Scotland would be far weaker economically, politically, financially. Also, it definitely wouldn’t be “independent”.
Same is true for any case of balkanization, including, of course, Yugoslavia itself.
Pursuit of reason and common sense gives better fruits than pursuit of big words. Mass hysteria over “independence” has recently created more bloodshed and subjugation than it has created actual independence.
Question: Were cultures that were historically labelled as “barbarian” much more civilized than we imagine?
“Barbarian“ (βάρβαρος (bárbaros)) is the term invented by people who also had the word “xenos”— a very vague term that could mean anything from a foreign tourist to a foreign invader.
The gist of the term “barbarian” is failure to understand a foreign language combined to zero motivation to learn it. “It’s worthless gibberish, we don’t care”.
In fact, Greeks used the word “barbarian” for all non-Greek people of the time, including, say, Egyptians. Sometimed they used it to deride other Greeks (Athenians vs Beotians). Interestingly, the word “barbarian” was an antonym to “politēs” (citizen). Romans were more tolerant once they borrowed the word, but it was probably still an antonym to “civis” (citizen > civilization).
Even from this duality you can see how flawed the modern term “civilized” is. It’s simply good old “them vs us”. And, I will repeat it again, as I said in other replies and posts: objectively there is no such thing as civilized and uncivilized (i.e. barbaric). There’s someone who decided “it’s worthless gibberish, we don’t care”.
Were Egyptians less “civilized” than scattered Hellenic tribes/towns? No. Even under the modern weird and supremacist definition of this term, Egyptians were as civilized as Greeks if not more. They had a real functional state. Hellenic archaic art actually looks very much like a bad attempt to copy Egyptian art of the time. Only later did they manage to create something original and accomplished. It doesn’t make them worse, it’s just they happened later and started with education (it’s normal).
To sum up, “barbarian” is just a silly insult that’s only remarkable for its linguistic and historical longevity. There’s no real value or truth in it.
Your [new] profile text is brilliant !
Good to hear from you again Maria.
It seems that the origin of the word Barbaroi was the ancient Greek theatre, where unseen extras would simulate the hubbub and buzz of a crowd by all chanting barbar-barbar-barbar, a device to choreograph the unintelligible sound of many voices at a distance … and was something akin to saying “nine babies” or “cheese” in unison to force a smile for a group photo. It was onomatopœia, to use another Greek term, and, by extension, used derogatorily of strange tongues who were also seen as uncultured. Just another variation of: “What the farmer does not know, he does not like (to eat).”