occasional reflections on culture & politics
Just now, I am listening to Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony, named after the iconic moment in time that Leningrad survived German aggression. Germany, in its quest to eradicate what was considered “unworthy life” inside and outside its borders, pushing an aggressive nationalist agenda, determined to gain “living space” for its “ethnically cleansed” “purely German” population, set… Continue reading #208: The Perversion of Everything Russian: From Leningrad to Mariupol
We keep hearing in the news frequently that most Russians support Putin’s war. This is highly misleading, and very probably wrong. There cannot be objective surveys in Russia. All independent journalistic institutions have either been closed or are about to close. Any independent thinking is being actively discouraged, and if discouragement does not work, it… Continue reading #183: What Are Russians Thinking?
Recently, I conducted a little teaching experiment in several of my classes. I simply pulled up a map of the world and asked my students which countries were part of the West. In almost all cases, we found out that many more countries are actually culturally “Western” – whatever that means – than typically thought.… Continue reading #128: Russia Is Part of the West
Erratic Attempts 