Pozor Rossii and Western anti-Russian sentiments

[Anyse Joslin]

Francoise,

I would like to thank you for such a well-tempered as well as thought  
out reply.

I am here, in SEELANGS, among some of the very best scholars of  
Russian, Russian history, etc., and I remember when I was very young  
that I wanted to study Russian in order to more understand the Russian  
people as well as their history and so on. I would hope that anyone  
who learns the language of any nation as well as about its own group  
culture or "whatever" would do so, not to tear it down in revocation  
of its own historial "reality" (even US historical "reality" is  
distorted, as we know) but to "try" all the more so to  understand  
that culture as well as the history, culture and so on. I believe that  
we, in this area of "unique" study, would strive to help others to  
break down the many barriers that always exists between almost any two  
cultures in the world.

I would also hope that no one would take such a line of study for  
granted and, instead, be a proud "servant" to sharing those things  
that make us so much alike as well as that which makes us so different.

Anyse


On Jan 20, 2009, at 3:52 PM, Francoise Rosset wrote:

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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