Ahem. The Baltics got independence when the Soviet regime collapsed. With all due respect to the struggle of anyone who opposed this regime while it existed, attributing the collapse of the Soviet Empire to the resistance in the Baltics is a bit too much. It was mostly driven my processes internal to Russia itself.
Hence, the weak spot in Russia‘s age old decrying of „NATO-encroachment“: It is Russia‘s neighboring countries themselves that immediately sought NATO-membership
Ah yes all the freedom fighters and culture preservationists had zero impact in securing Lithuania's freedom - what an incredibly dumb, disrespectful and frankly depressing take.
depressing - certainly, disrespectful - perhaps, but dumb? if instead of Gorbachev there had been another Stalin (or the current version of Putin), the empire would have endured that period of turbulence intact, and you would still be part of it.
also, the provinces that didn't fight for independence - Kazakhstan, for example - had got it anyway, whether they wanted it or not at the time.
No your logic is fundamentally flawed because it assumes a job has to reach 100% completion to have an effect. What if soviet empire collapsed precisely because the resistance was too costly.
In Lithuania in particular sabotage was a constant reality of the country for bigger chunk of a century. People were breaking the empire not only via outside resistance and cultural identity preservation but also by sabotaging soviet operations in daily activities. The empire fundamentally became unsustainable and collapsed under it's own weight and no new glorious leader could have saved it.
So whether Lithuanians are free because of their own efforts or because it just so happens that soviet empire collapsed is a fundamentally flawed question as these two things are not only correlating but are causal as well.
You're are feeding into a myth of unbreakable ussr and belittling efforts of former member states.
In any colonizer's strategy, this tactic achieves following goals
1. Instills fear, and demotivates and fragments resistance
2. Internalizes inferiority into a colonized nation
I might've been too hasty assuming you are doing this on purpose. But otoh, saying Kazakhstan is independent... that's rich. The moment Kazakh government thinks about denouncing russian as official language, putin will send a new government. Well, maybe not now, as his resources are strained.
Point is: Kazakhstan is far from independent, and Baltic states have done a lot to gain their true independence.
>otoh, saying Kazakhstan is independent... that's rich.
Kazakhstan is dependent on Russia and there is massive corruption, but for the most part it is independent. Just as independent as any other country with massive corruption.
Also, Russian speaking non native-Kazahk people are not treated so nicely there.
Young Kazakh people indeed started questioning the state of things. And I celebrate that.
At the same time, russia has huge influence over the country. Yes, corruption is exactly how russian influence is usually maintained.
That doesn't contradict my claim, however.
>saying Kazakhstan is independent... that's rich. The moment Kazakh government thinks about denouncing russian as official language, putin will send a new government
at the time of the empire's collapse, Putin was essentially a nobody. Yeltsin and the oligarchs didn't really give a fuck about Kazakhstan, Ukraine, the Baltics, and the rest. they were truly and unconditionally independent, and Russia, given its humiliating defeat in Chechnya, couldn't do shit about it even if it wanted to (which it didn't).
Oh, they gave a lot of fucks.
They ensured russian language has a special status in Ukrainian constitution, for example, despite freedom of speech and non-discrimination were already there.
They ensured the presidential candidate with strong nationalistic views, arguing for severing ties with russia, won't make it to elections.
They financed political parties pulling Ukraine back to russia.
There might've been a temporary loss of russian grip on Ukraine in those turbulent times, but that was just a tiny blip on the scale of whole timeline
Every state has a long history of opressing others, I'm sure Russia did it too, but to be honest being from western Europe I have my own colonial history to come to terms with before looking at others'. What I know about XXth century Russia, though, is that at some point and in some places at least they went as far as inventing writing systems for local languages that had none so that teaching could be done in that language; so that exemple alone is enough to tell me that your viewpoint lacks nuance, to put it very mildly.
History of civilizations is certainly interresting but this is not even the point; the point was: why should the interrest of a text from Nabokov about the Russian language be seen through the lense of some modern episode of political violence? This is obvious nonsense, yet it appears to come up frequently, sometimes, with some people. Why? And what can be done to stop the contagion before mankind revert back to clan warfare? (because if we want to look for reasons to hate each others in past or modern politics, sure enough we will get there!)
Colonization of eastern parts of russia involved forced conversion to christianity, violence, rape, mass murder, but not language extermination
Even culture extermination is an exaggeration, sure some areas got forcibly "converted" to christianity (if they were unlucky to be invaded before USSR) but you will see mosques/buddha statues/whatever is applicable and all the local traditions and beliefs mostly going like before
Actually in areas where local languages exist they kept schools teaching local languages and official signs are duplicated in both local and Russian all the way from USSR. I know this first hand;) but even the article you linked will tell you that.
So it was maybe not as good as support for indigenous languages in Canada but not extermination
Only since 2018 it is optional to teach local language in schools, previously there were at least some schools that teach it in every area like that. thank Putler for that too.
Entire history of Ukraine since russia became a thing is a constant struggle for preserving its own language.
Look at what happens now:
1. russia demands russian language to be declared official in Ukraine.
2. russia targets Ukrainian cultural institutions in its airstrikes, trying to destroy anything Ukrainian
3. first things russians do after occupying a territory is "reeducation" of Ukrainian-speaking representatives of the population and burning Ukrainian books
I can continue this list.
Seeing original post at times like this is genuinely confusing. But OTOH, many still choose to be wrong understanding russia's warv against Ukraine. pUtin explicitly said he intends to solve "Ukrainian question" once and for all.
My reply is about what happened within borders of Russia to indigenous languages and cultures. if you think I'm commenting about war against another country you are very wrong
as Lithuania - this is absolutely not true. Even before Soviet union the Russian empire was exterminating language to the point where there's an entire Lithuanian history chapter on Lithuanian book smugglers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithuanian_book_smugglers
Soviet empire wasn't better either. My great grandmother who was a Lithuanian language teacher was sent to Siberian gulags _for_ teaching Lithuanian. Luckily she survived and lived to a 100 just to prove these disgusting people wrong.
i have tatarian friends. they would like a word with you on this topic.
when they are over my place for more than a couple of hours, there is always conversation about russia trying to suppress anything tatarian: both culture and language.
this is their first hand expirience. from few past decades
well... it's not something that they will discuss. especially given that many try to assimilate or already lost their native culture or don't even care about it.
don't like posts of type "ai told me so", but google nicely summarized things in this case
Language Suppression: The most significant recent development was the 2017 law that ended the mandatory study of the Tatar language in schools, making it an optional subject. This has led to a decline in new generations of Tatar speakers and marginalized the language in administration and higher education. Efforts by Tatarstan to revert their script to the Latin alphabet were also blocked by Moscow.
Political and Civic Crackdowns: The Russian government has systematically eroded the political autonomy that Tatarstan gained in the 1990s. Tatar national organizations, such as the All-Tatar Public Center, have been labeled "extremist" and banned, with activists facing fines, detention, and imprisonment for speaking out against the policies.
Historical Revisionism: Moscow promotes a single, "imperial doctrine" of history, suppressing narratives that contradict it. This includes the erasure of Tatar national heroes and the promotion of figures who align with the Kremlin's narrative. Public memorial events related to historical injustices, such as the 1944 deportation of Crimean Tatars, are restricted or prohibited in Russian-occupied territories like Crimea.
Control over Identity: The official state policy focuses on a conventional, apolitical interpretation of Tatar culture, ignoring the community's desire for genuine self-determination. The goal appears to be the destruction of distinct national identities and the creation of a unified, unitary Russian state.
this is essentially what they told me (this is why copy/pasted slop as it's easier than typing half a page), +him been dragged to FSB for "conversation" due to "extremism"
if typing is too much to make an argument then maybe it's not worth it.
extremism laws are no joke, talking about gay things is "extremism", talking about secession also "extremism". But that is true for anyone even if you're white
The guy is one of Putin's top generals, also known as "Bloodhound" (in Russian), anyways, he sounds pretty bloodthirsty too, just from the way he writes. You have to pay for your crimes you monster! You and all your people deserve to die! Every Russian. It's just so monstrous how they decide to just invade another country because they can right? What gives them the right? All their people should pay for it, with blood.
Of course pictures of gay people doesn't encourage being gay, but being gay is fine. Being a pedophile is not fine. If there is even a small chance that something will cause someone to be a pedophile, it's best to minimize it. We aren't talking about pictures of pedophiles, we are talking about what is, in essence, child pornography. Maybe 'encourages pedophilia' is not a thorough enough way to phrase it, but a 'dormant' pedophile is much more likely to become an 'active' one if they are consuming excessive amounts of media related to their interests.
> If there is even a small chance that something will cause someone to be a pedophile, it's best to minimize it.
I have this great idea. It involves clothes that completely cover up the people that could cause temptation, creating separate spaces for them, and so.
The Rufus way will break on updates. But there is a fully supported version of Windows 11 that doesn't have those requirements. Windows 11 IoT Enterprise LTSC
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