Russian history was fairly heroic before the (((Soviet))) era. It’s the american west with worse weather against more advanced peoples with even more viscous traditions.
I studied history first, but I studied art history second, and it was art history that helped me understand the different peoples of this world more so than any other. Economics explains why things happen but art gives you insight into the soul of the people and what inspires them. So this …. russian aesthetic … frames my understanding of them as ‘we few against the world’.
So there are very good books on russian art history. And just skimming through them is probably important.
This is the best ‘textbook’ I’ve seen:
1 – A History of Russia – by Nicholas V. Riasanovsky, Mark D. Steinberg
2 – The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia, by Peter Hopkirk
3 – The Icon and the Axe: An Interpretive History of Russian Culture
by James H. Billington
4 – Medieval Russia’s Epics, Chronicles, and Tales by Serge A. Zenkovsky
5 – While Shakespeare is undoubtably the best poet, the best Novels and Plays in Christendom are the Russian – bar none. The great works of the russian novelists are well known.
So, I see russians as a small poor people, in a hostile territory, struggling to overcome the barbarians. My view of russians is fairly heroic. That they made a terrible mistake with (((stalin and trotsky))) is something I see them escaping – slowly.
The problem is it probably can’t be done domestically better than putin is doing it. His mistakes have been largely international.
And he’s right. Russia emerged from the (((bolshevik))) era by return to her origins. And the west is continuing to fall for the (((cosmopolitan lies))).
Apr 07, 2018 12:56pm