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From everything I hear, those who were born in the early 80ies still have memories of the Soviet Union, but not of the "cold war," because this mindset was pretty much gone from the mid-eighties.
You might find interesting this song ("Goodbye America") that was created much earlier, but was officially recorded and circulated only in 1994. It was popular already with that generation.
You might find interesting as well one of the comments left on Youtube;
"Well really, I never thought about the lyrics of this song in my childhood. But now they are as timely as ever. "We were taught for too long to love your forbidden fruit." It's true, in the nineties, before the break-up of the Soviet Union and after it - we loved America and her wonders so much. All of Russia was pro-American. American baseball hats, Coca-Cola and McDonald's, jeans, music, movies - everything was American or with American symbols. We loved America with all our hearts and hated Soviet Union with all our hearts too. Something similar is happening in Ukraine now as well."
Woah, that comment left on Youtube that you quoted! Is that person and essentially are you saying that Russians born in the early to mid 80s were pro-American? Cause that's hard to believe given the communist indoctrination that was at the time prior to 1990! Unless that stuff stopped before than that is.
I'm not a Russian, but I was born in 1982. We didn't need a boogey man under your bed, we had the USSR. The USSR was something so scary, alien and violent that I couldn't imagine. Also because my grandfathers had killed Russians in WWII, they told horror stories how terrible the moloch in the east is.
When the Soviet Union collapsed, it's still the best day of my life ever. The fear was gone. The beast wasn't defeated, but it was detained for a while. And as an adult I can face that beast now with courage.
And I will also teach my children to hate Russia. A legacy passing down.
I was born in 1978 in the USSR and remember mid-80's well. The USA was for us kids also so scary, alien and violent. Reagan for someone like Hitler for me. I remember at school we had so-called Peace Lessons on 1 September, when teachers told us frightening stories about the evil US wanting to start a nuclear was against us peaceful Soviets...
So propaganda worked both wats.
A few years later, as the Perestroika went on, everything changed. It was a complete turnaround in attitudes, the West started to be portrayed as good in everything, while Soviet people condemned and made fun of themselves...
In fact, all these events of late 80s -- 90s were quite humiliating for Russians. That's why we see some revanchism now...
Now why would you teach your children to hate a country that doesn't even exist anymore? So you'd teach them to hate them for what they once were in a long gone past?
Someone living in Finland has a good reason to dislike Russia. Look at the history between them and you will see why.
I was born in 1978 in the USSR and remember mid-80's well. The USA was for us kids also so scary, alien and violent. Reagan for someone like Hitler for me. I remember at school we had so-called Peace Lessons on 1 September, when teachers told us frightening stories about the evil US wanting to start a nuclear was against us peaceful Soviets...
So propaganda worked both wats.
A few years later, as the Perestroika went on, everything changed. It was a complete turnaround in attitudes, the West started to be portrayed as good in everything, while Soviet people condemned and made fun of themselves...
In fact, all these events of late 80s -- 90s were quite humiliating for Russians. That's why we see some revanchism now...
I am just a bit older than you but here in the USA we learned much the same about the USSR. We all expected Soviet missiles to come raining down on us any day. We saw President Reagan as our protector, he was strong and built up the military. The movie Red Dawn depicts the American cold war nightmare scenario, a full blown Soviet invasion. The early to mid 80s was the last big hurrah for the cold war, a lot of threats and rhetoric in those days. It was in the late 1980s that the cold war mentality started to lighten up here as well. To be honest back in the early 1980s I could never have imagined that in 35 years I could have a friendly conversation like this with someone who lives where you do. I never thought the Soviet Union would disappear like it did, and in fact I would have guessed the big war would have happened by now. I am so glad the things we expected to happen never did. I really do hope the problems with Putin and Ukraine don't take us back to the bad old 20th century days regarding east vs west. People under 35 just don't get how dangerous those days were.
Someone living in Finland has a good reason to dislike Russia. Look at the history between them and you will see why.
Yeah i read about that and agree that is a terrible history, but that's a long time ago, it's the past. And I didn't make this comment without thinking.
I was raised the same way to hate/dislike Germans because of what they did to us in the war. Germans were bad people, they were all Nazis, couldn't be trusted and even their language was ugly and mean.
This was because my grandparents were dragged out of their home by Nazis and thrown on the street (with my grandmother pregnant), beaten up, they plundered their house and burned it to the ground. My other grandmother also had a terrible time in the war but never talked about it, but when my aunt met her old friend from kindergarden 40+ year later and she restored the relationship with her old friend, my grandmother broke all contact with my aunt, because apparently the father of that girl was NSB during the war. Now that girl wasn't even born yet at the time of the war, but nevertheless my grandmother didn't speak to my aunt for 8 years!!!
I can understand this hate from old folks that have seen the war, but not from young people that didn't.
Now I've worked for several years in Germany and sometimes vacation there and I've come to know Germans as very good, friendly people from a beautiful country. And i think if a Finn would go to Russia he'd find out there's some pretty nice folks over there as well.
It would be crazy if I would raise my children to hate Germans for something that long ago. And I think the same goes for Finns and Russians. The past is the past.
My parents told me that teachers in school often speak about neutron bombs from USA to scare kids Otherwise, it was a good, peaceful times here, but we wasn´t part of Soviet union
Yeah i read about that and agree that is a terrible history, but that's a long time ago, it's the past. And I didn't make this comment without thinking.
I was raised the same way to hate/dislike Germans because of what they did to us in the war. Germans were bad people, they were all Nazis, couldn't be trusted and even their language was ugly and mean.
This was because my grandparents were dragged out of their home by Nazis and thrown on the street (with my grandmother pregnant), beaten up, they plundered their house and burned it to the ground. My other grandmother also had a terrible time in the war but never talked about it, but when my aunt met her old friend from kindergarden 40+ year later and she restored the relationship with her old friend, my grandmother broke all contact with my aunt, because apparently the father of that girl was NSB during the war. Now that girl wasn't even born yet at the time of the war, but nevertheless my grandmother didn't speak to my aunt for 8 years!!!
I can understand this hate from old folks that have seen the war, but not from young people that didn't.
Now I've worked for several years in Germany and sometimes vacation there and I've come to know Germans as very good, friendly people from a beautiful country. And i think if a Finn would go to Russia he'd find out there's some pretty nice folks over there as well.
It would be crazy if I would raise my children to hate Germans for something that long ago. And I think the same goes for Finns and Russians. The past is the past.
You are confusing Russia with Russians. Hating all Russians for what the Russian government has done is total BS but hating Russia for what it has done is a reasonable thing to do in this part of Europe.
It would appear I'm somewhat older and remember well the stories my father brought back with him from serving over 4 years overseas during WWII. Germans rushing to surrender to allied troops from western nations due to the reputation Russians had garnered in areas they had taken. German officers killing allied troops upon capture.
In that sense we grew up not fearing Germans, just disliking them. They had, after all been vanquished. On the other hand we genuinely feared Russia with pictures of Khrushchev pounding his shoe on a desk while shouting "we will bury you" for all the world to view and Russia's tendency to invade it's neighbours along with building a stupid wall to keep it's occupied territories citizens caged.
Any country required to resort to those tactics of restricting it's citizens from travelling out of it's borders is a failed state regardless of how it may portray itself.
There followed many years of Russia invading neighbouring countries and I remember also the picture shown to me by a fellow public school student who had escaped from Hungary, it depicted him manning a sandbagged machine gun facing a Russian tank....
Russia today under Putin is trying to regain that old glory while ignoring what it cost Russia in terms of world respect and societal advancement. He won't be happy until the world fears Russia again. He will enjoy his life of luxury and Russians will all line up to buy stale bread again.
I was born in 1978 in the USSR and remember mid-80's well. The USA was for us kids also so scary, alien and violent. Reagan for someone like Hitler for me. I remember at school we had so-called Peace Lessons on 1 September, when teachers told us frightening stories about the evil US wanting to start a nuclear was against us peaceful Soviets...
So propaganda worked both wats.
A few years later, as the Perestroika went on, everything changed. It was a complete turnaround in attitudes, the West started to be portrayed as good in everything, while Soviet people condemned and made fun of themselves...
In fact, all these events of late 80s -- 90s were quite humiliating for Russians. That's why we see some revanchism now...
its no wonder many Russians yearn for the soviet days , when the cold war ended , much of the nations wealth was raided by various individuals who were backed by wall st etc
insane gap between rich and poor in Russia
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Cause that's hard to believe given the communist indoctrination that was at the time prior to 1990! Unless that stuff stopped before than that is.
