Russian leadership is promoting the idea that criticizing Russia and sanctioning Russia for what it is doing right now is “Russophobic.” If this all wouldn’t be so tragic, this would be hilarious.
Yet another time, Russian leadership is promoting the idea that criticizing Russia and sanctioning Russia for what it is doing right now is Russophobic.
A recent example of that outrage has been that Ossetian-Russian conductor Gergiev, who was scheduled to conduct an orchestra in Italy, has gotten so much pushback that the performance couldn’t happen—that he couldn’t appear.
Gergiev has been one of Putin’s most loyal people. He’s probably happy at the forced reunification of Ossetia, or of the theft of land from the state of Georgia and adding it to the state of Russia.
While I do disagree with Russia doing this by force to Georgia, I do understand a little bit that when Georgia became independent, some issues remained with its formerly autonomous Soviet socialist republics. So this is complicated. It doesn’t justify how Russia did it. It doesn’t justify that Russia is still occupying South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and that they’ve exerted this influence on Georgia.
I must admit I’ve liked Gergiev. I’ve liked some of his work. I’ve especially liked his rendition of Shostakovich—this production of the war symphonies where he also is part documentary, part performance of the symphonies, where he talks about how Shostakovich always was living under a razor’s edge, basically with regard to Stalin.
I can only imagine that he is in a similar situation towards Putin. Once you get too close to the flame…
Nevertheless, you made your bed. You chose your allegiances. It’s not like I admire Gergiev for staying loyal—it would have been much better if not. But he has his reasons. But then he needs to also accept that having Russian culture display itself abroad at a time when Russia uses that culture, as it used to do in the Soviet times, as a political tool to sow division in the West—that this is not acceptable.
This is not about music. This is not about culture. This is about politics. This is about trying to confuse us about the nature of the Russian state as it is right now.
When I’ve criticized Russia, I’ve criticized its government, its president, the actions of the state, and those who are willing participants in that. And this is what the world has been doing towards Russia.
You’ve seen how President Trump—almost embarrassingly so, maybe you can strike the “almost”—has tried to almost beg Putin to make peace. The many times where Trump has given Putin a chance beyond reason has been infuriating, just as it has been infuriating that Joe Biden has only supported Ukraine as much as so that Ukraine barely survives.
We see now that Trump apparently has had it. Same with the German government. Olaf Scholz—timid beyond reason, not understanding how appeasing such a regime will only make matters worse. And now Chancellor Scholz seems to have understood that message as well.
Again, I can’t get my mind around one of the most steadfast defenders of Ukraine being Boris Johnson—the person that I… well, enough said. All I say is “Boris Johnson on a zipline.” But nevertheless, some people show understanding even when you don’t expect it.
But the sanctioning, the so-called punishing of Russia, is meant to achieve the end of the war. It is meant to make it so difficult for Russia to continue waging the war that they’ll stop. None of these actions mean that there are armies marching towards Moscow—the old Russian narrative.
“Yeah, the French tried to conquer us.” Yeah, they did. “The Nazis tried to conquer us.” Yeah, they did—after you were allied with them, by the way. Germany and the Soviet Union started World War II together until Nazi Germany then stabbed them in the back.
I do understand the Russian trauma. I grew up under Soviet rule in East Germany, but still with that mindset. I do understand what they think like. I do have to share that initially I had to really disentangle in my own mind Russian propaganda from Russian reality.
But there’s nothing Russophobic in the actions of the world against Russia.
Who is Russophobic is Russian leadership. They seem to be so afraid of their own people that they put them in prison, that they torture them in prison, that they force young men to the front. How many times do we have to see videos or pictures of young men barely 18 being sent to the front after a week of what they call training, and the next day they’re dead?
Is this not Russophobic—to send your own people into a slaughter?
And as the attacking force, Ukraine has no choice. Ukraine has to defend itself because the alternative to what Ukraine is doing now—sending their own people against the attacker—is Bucha, is Mariupol.
Once we found out that the Russian government actually seems to have been sending Ukrainian young people that grew up in an occupied area against Ukraine, against their fathers, brothers, relatives, country—this is the evil that is ruling Russia right now. The perversion, the Russophobia that is in control in Russia.
Everything that was built after the fall of that horrifyingly evil regime, the Soviet Union—everything that was built, everything democratic, everything functioning, everything on a civil society level, everything on a moral level, everything cultural—is being perverted and destroyed right now by the Russian government. They are the Russophobes.
They don’t deserve to say that those who are against the government are Russophobic.
I’m not Russian, but I learned the language. I was rather good at it. I didn’t have much practice. I had to learn it from grade five. My first words in Russian were “доска (doska)” and “окно (okno)”—you know, blackboard and window. I still know that. I still know the excitement, even though I know they were an occupying power, to sit in the classroom to have this different alphabet. The teacher was all into it. Her pronunciation was… well, what it was.
I even continued into university, took Russian classes there. That’s how non-Russophobic I am. My favorite composers include Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky. Well, Tchaikovsky seems to be rather Ukrainian originally. Prokofiev probably too. So maybe we have to rewrite our information on that.
Nevertheless, if you say you kill your own people, you slaughter those that you consider your brothers, you occupy the other brother people—Belarus—and if people stand up against it, then you’re Russophobic… I mean, these are whole new levels of ridiculousness. I don’t even have words anymore. This is it.
Ceterum censeo Ucrainam esse defendam. Слава Україні!
[This was originally posted to YouTube as a video. This post is a slightly abbreviated transcript, preserving the oral style of the video.]
Erratic Attempts 