Pozor Rossii and Western anti-Russian sentiments

[Francoise Rosset]

I agree with Anyse Joslin and Andrei Shcherbenok, if I understood them 
correctly, that there is a special and sometimes inexplicable 
animosity towards Russia. As a Slavist and a professor of Russian, it 
always infuriated me that the USSR was singled out for special 
opprobium while we turned a relatively blind eye to the Chinese 
communists -- "inscrutable" they were/are, so I guess that absolved us 
from looking too closely.

That said, Russian politics have taken really awful turns recently. 
Look at today's Times and the news about yet ANOTHER lawyer and 
reporter being gunned down with impunity.

As for WWII, while we don't acknowledge Russia's role enough, I'm not 
comfortable either with Russia's insistence on calling it the Great 
Patriotic War, which, in obsessing on their losses alone, tends to 
gloss over other Nazi atrocities, say, the Jewish Holocaust.

Finally, Anyse, the West has NOT always ignored Russia's sufferingI. 
Here's JFK in 1963:

"And no nation in the history of battle ever suffered more than the 
Soviet Union in the second world war. At least 20 million lost their 
lives. Countless millions of homes and families were burned or sacked. 
A third of the nation's territory, including two-thirds of its 
industrial base, was turned into a wasteland -- a loss equivalent to 
the destruction of this country east of Chicago."
American University speech, June 10, 1963

-FR

Francoise Rosset, Associate Professor
Chair, Russian and Russian Studies
Coordinator, German and Russian
Wheaton College
Norton, Massachusetts 02766
Office: (508) 285-3696
FAX:   (508) 286-3640

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