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sorry, but argument 'I never heard of' is more invalid that argument 'I heard about' (because you simply can't heard about everything).
Anyway, I wrote about Russian elites attitude to Polish culture, not about how Russian state treated Polish.
P.S. Three last kings of Commonwealth were two Germans (who hate Polish political system) and one Russian Agent (and sexual lover of Czar) who founded a school for the... Russian army officers.
And the official reason for erase Poland from map was attempt to reform the country in the the American fashion (Polish have similar system to Italian republics - republic ruled by noble families with elected "King" instead of Venetian "doge"- but almost all European countries was autocratic).
Last edited by schizotypalAureliusz; 01-06-2012 at 01:20 AM..
i have always wondered why Russia is not considered part of the west. States such as Israel, Turkey and Japan are considered Western because of democracy and capitalism but Russia is not. Russians are a mix of European and Asian. Slavic and Viking and later Mongols ruled Russia for a couple of centuries until the Czar stop paying Mongol tribute but Mongols left a cultural imprint on Russia and many of Russia regions especially with religions such as Islam and Buddhism which Mongols have adopted. Russia did Westernize itself however it did not have overseas empires like Spain and Great Britain. Russia did not embrace the age of Enlightment and it was late to embrace the industrial revolution. While the rest of the world used Gregorian calenders Russians used a primitive and out dated Julian calender which the adopted from the Byzantines. The Final nail in the head was Russian Revolution and Communism. After world War 2 British and Americans crated bi polar world on whos western and whos not. If your communist and dont belive in god your not western, if a country belives in capitalism, democracy and god including Jews and Muslims, then they are western. I guess modern day Russia is still in the same boat as China and India.
i have always wondered why Russia is not considered part of the west. States such as Israel, Turkey and Japan are considered Western because of democracy and capitalism but Russia is not. Russians are a mix of European and Asian. Slavic and Viking and later Mongols ruled Russia for a couple of centuries until the Czar stop paying Mongol tribute but Mongols left a cultural imprint on Russia and many of Russia regions especially with religions such as Islam and Buddhism which Mongols have adopted. Russia did Westernize itself however it did not have overseas empires like Spain and Great Britain. Russia did not embrace the age of Enlightment and it was late to embrace the industrial revolution. While the rest of the world used Gregorian calenders Russians used a primitive and out dated Julian calender which the adopted from the Byzantines. The Final nail in the head was Russian Revolution and Communism. After world War 2 British and Americans crated bi polar world on whos western and whos not. If your communist and dont belive in god your not western, if a country belives in capitalism, democracy and god including Jews and Muslims, then they are western. I guess modern day Russia is still in the same boat as China and India.
Since 04.10.2010 Russia was considered by some Polish as 'democratic', and anyone, who said words as 'GRU', 'Chechnya', 'FSB', 'Chodorkowsky', 'Politkowska', 'Litwinienko' or something like that became immediately called 'rusophobic conspiracy theories beliver'.
Russia still isn't democratic, ruled by secret services, still does many crimes against human rights and its citizens.
i have always wondered why Russia is not considered part of the west. States such as Israel, Turkey and Japan are considered Western because of democracy and capitalism but Russia is not.
Turkey and Japan are NOT considered culturally western (though turkey did a lot of westernization under Ataturk of course) and Israel has unwestern cultural elements. All three were part of the western alliance during the cold war, which is something else - east germany was not part of the "political" west but it was always culturally "western".
I haven't bothered researching the evolution of the word, but it seems to me the concept of Western in its current incarnation was originally little else than shorthand for Protestant.
We already mentioned some differences in Russian foreign policy from the West, but another interesting situation is the breakup of the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. I remember how differently the Russian news media was reporting the break up compared to many other countries. Basically they saw the Serbs more as the vicitims.
Meanwhile in the United States and other western countires, the media was showing the Serbs bombing Catholic churches in Croatia, murdering of Muslims in Bosnia, ethnic cleansing in Kosovo and the advance of the Serbian army against civilian towns.
I am not saying the two views are equal. For instance, to this day, we still hear occasionally about some Serbian atrocity or war criminal. But it is interesting how the media in different countries report the same story so differently.
Russia's differences with the West started (as rightfully has been mentioned by JTUR earlier) by her alignment with Byzantium, rather than with Rome. That determined in many ways her geopolitical interests of the future, her historical support for Serbs including. Since Serbia used to be part of Byzantine Empire, and once fallen to Turks with an attempt to Islamicize the nation, Serbs became a cause for Russian protection ( as Bulgaria); Byzantine's lost cause of Christianity became Russia' s cause. In return for this protection ( and liberation of Serbia from Turkish Islamic domination) Serbs were loyal allies of Russia for many decades. Otto von Bismarck, who out of all European politicians understood very clearly the importance of Russia's interests in Balkans, was warning his fellow German politicians to respect them. He was the one as well who said that if the war in Europe would ever happen again, it was going to be because of the "darn silly things in Balkans." Or something like that - at least these words were attributed to him.
This particular material ( Russia's section at least) explains rather well the complexity of situation and Russian international politics in that region driven by Russian geopolitical and cultural interests.
So obviously, even when Russia was in no position back in the nineties to have the same kind of clout in Balkans that she had a century earlier ( no, make it even twenty years earlier,) the rhetoric inside of the country remained the same. And of course from historical perspective her approach to Serbian question simply couldn't be the same as of other major powers. As often it's a matter of "truth and justice from whose perspective exactly?"
I haven't bothered researching the evolution of the word, but it seems to me the concept of Western in its current incarnation was originally little else than shorthand for Protestant.
i have always wondered why Russia is not considered part of the west. States such as Israel, Turkey and Japan are considered Western because of democracy and capitalism but Russia is not. Russians are a mix of European and Asian. Slavic and Viking and later Mongols ruled Russia for a couple of centuries until the Czar stop paying Mongol tribute
There were no "Csars" in Russia during Tartar-Mongol invasion.
It was a prince of principality of Moscow who refused to pay tribute to Mongols. Only after Tatar-Mongols were defeated and Russia was united, the prince of Moscow (that became a new capital at that point,) decided to acquire the titular "Tzar" ( Cezar.)
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but Mongols left a cultural imprint on Russia and many of Russia regions especially with religions such as Islam and Buddhism which Mongols have adopted.
The only "imprint" I see left ( if indeed any) is that Russia of course has a sizable population of muslims, and tartars are one of these people. However from what I know Tartar-Mongols ( that conquered Russia) were not muslims in those days in any way.
Another thing - Mongols live in such country as Mongolia, and it has got nothing to do with Russia. Mongols are definitely not muslims on top of that. The regions in Russia that DO have Buddhist population again has has got nothing to do with original Tartar- Mongolian invasion. Those are the natives of the Siberian/Asian lands that Russians acquired as colonies later on in history.
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Russia did Westernize itself however it did not have overseas empires like Spain and Great Britain.
Acquiring colonies "overseas" was never a philosophy of Russian kings; they always preferred to take over what's next to their borders and to incorporate it into Russian Empire. It took some time apparently for Great Britain during the "Great Game" of the late nineteenth century to figure out that after taking over Asia, Russian Empire had really no interest to go after the "jewel" of British crown - India.
So to say that if Russia "did not have overseas empires like Spain and Great Britain" she didn't have colonies per se, is wrong as you can see.
And since your knowledge of material is rather weak to begin with, you can't really come to the right conclusions as well, sorry.
I don't understand why. It's European and it did imperalize other countries during the 20th century.
You mean, other than the fact that the "western world" is generally considered to be central and western Europe, North America, and Australia/New Zealand?
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