I'm probably writing this post a week too late, but all those Western people/media comparing Putin to Hitler instead of Stalin, who was also a fascist AND ordered a genocide of Ukrainian people in 1930s, made me realise that maybe, perhaps, the West conveniently forgot about all war crimes and other monstrosities that Stalin commited. And maybe, perhaps, that's one of the reasons that the West doesn't really 'get' Eastern Europe and that too many "takes" on current war in Ukraine is just - ok I will use that word - disgusting.
Of course, conveniently for Putin, we don't have time now to learn all history of Eastern Europe. But if you want to educate yourself and try to understand why Eastern Europe is so 'hysteric' about Russia now AND to understand today Russia more, I recommend you read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. It's a short novel - I believe between 100 and 200 pages - that describes one day in gulag camp and is based on experiences of the author himself. Gulag camps - if you don't know - were forced labour camps in Siberia during USSR (and it's really telling that English Wikipedia calls them "forced labour camps" while Polish one just outright calls them "concentration camps"), but the history of sending criminals and political opponents to Siberia dates waaaaaay back to tsarist Russia (and is still continued today). I believe most Eastern Europeans have that one person in family that was sent to Siberia, bc anyone could be sent if they were unlucky enough (in my case it was both my grand-grand-grandma and grand-grand-grandpa). That's one of the reasons - I believe - we are so scared of Russia, because of generational trauma that is an effect of years and sometimes centuries of oppression. As I remember it, the book is pretty disturbing, so please be warned, but if I could read it at age of 15, so can you.
janainaart
discoholicmusic
kaledo-art
