May 12, 2023·edited May 12, 2023Liked by Events in Ukraine
First off, thank you for that Mikhail Krug video. I enjoyed watching it. Someone should subtitle that from start to finish. Unfortunately, my Russian isn't good enough.
Secondly, this story reminds me of the American 'deplorables', the difference being that these belong to a clear group, people from the heartland, voting for Donald Trump. In Ukraine, there seems to have been a real desire for an enemy, as if society was hollowed out by corruption and disappointment to the point that it wouldn't hold without one.
In that sense, the Russian invasion has been a blessing. Now there's a clear enemy, against which the people can unite. Only problem seems to be that Russia is so embedded in Ukraine, both linguistically and culturally.
It's also interesting to see the parallel with Western culture (or as you say: "Ukrainization of global political discourse"), of the superiority of liberal city dwellers. But perhaps this is a universal thing, and something that many leftist intellectuals struggle with. They feel that they are fighting for regular people, the unwashed masses, but at the same time they are appaled and repulsed by them. George Orwell comes to mind.
Thanks for the comment! Mikhail Krug is fantastic, he has so many great songs and music videos.
You are right about the ambiguous role of leftwing intellectuals. It is a topic that interests me a great deal as well, the way that many leftwing people in Ukraine ended up on the side of the liberals, due to a shared fear of 'vulgar Russian zhlob society'. This became most apparent in maidan, when liberals and some leftwingers united against Yanukovych, and then during the war in 2014, when the same leftwingers became highly anti-separatist, seeing in the eastern separatists the epitome of retrograde bydlo culture. The view of 'nigilist', a very pro-maidan, anti-separatist post-left/anarchist blog, is representative - they considered maidan a powerful 'bourgeois revolution against Russian/Yanukovych semi-feudalism', and viewed the separatists as reactionaries who wanted a return to 'soviet semi-feudalism'. Many also fought in the war on the side of the Ukrainian post-maidan central government, in the process becoming quite rightwing. I have a bunch of material about this that hopefully I will post to this substack some time soonish.
First off, thank you for that Mikhail Krug video. I enjoyed watching it. Someone should subtitle that from start to finish. Unfortunately, my Russian isn't good enough.
Secondly, this story reminds me of the American 'deplorables', the difference being that these belong to a clear group, people from the heartland, voting for Donald Trump. In Ukraine, there seems to have been a real desire for an enemy, as if society was hollowed out by corruption and disappointment to the point that it wouldn't hold without one.
In that sense, the Russian invasion has been a blessing. Now there's a clear enemy, against which the people can unite. Only problem seems to be that Russia is so embedded in Ukraine, both linguistically and culturally.
It's also interesting to see the parallel with Western culture (or as you say: "Ukrainization of global political discourse"), of the superiority of liberal city dwellers. But perhaps this is a universal thing, and something that many leftist intellectuals struggle with. They feel that they are fighting for regular people, the unwashed masses, but at the same time they are appaled and repulsed by them. George Orwell comes to mind.
Thanks for the comment! Mikhail Krug is fantastic, he has so many great songs and music videos.
You are right about the ambiguous role of leftwing intellectuals. It is a topic that interests me a great deal as well, the way that many leftwing people in Ukraine ended up on the side of the liberals, due to a shared fear of 'vulgar Russian zhlob society'. This became most apparent in maidan, when liberals and some leftwingers united against Yanukovych, and then during the war in 2014, when the same leftwingers became highly anti-separatist, seeing in the eastern separatists the epitome of retrograde bydlo culture. The view of 'nigilist', a very pro-maidan, anti-separatist post-left/anarchist blog, is representative - they considered maidan a powerful 'bourgeois revolution against Russian/Yanukovych semi-feudalism', and viewed the separatists as reactionaries who wanted a return to 'soviet semi-feudalism'. Many also fought in the war on the side of the Ukrainian post-maidan central government, in the process becoming quite rightwing. I have a bunch of material about this that hopefully I will post to this substack some time soonish.
Great piece thank you for translating. Btw the paragraph ending in "from Ukraine in general" is repeated
Thanks! Corrected.
Valuable insightful information. Thanks!
Thank you!