That was well said. Recontextualization is exactly the thing; it’s not that I think the Soviet Union was absolute evil with zero redeeming features. They got more right during the early years although I’m not necessarily a huge fan of that period either, and to a large extent it was Stalin who fucked them up pretty severely with the frankly sociopathic system that the Union turned into.
Russian political culture has been outright brutal for a long time. Eg. these KGB-like secret police organizations have been around for a while and have invariably had brutal methods of dealing with politically displeasing individuals or just who-the-hell-ever in many cases. This, coupled with the cultural ethos that Russia and Russians – and specifically meaning ethnic Russians – are superior to anyone outside their borders and a tendency for imperialism, means that Russian rule has nearly invariably been a shitty time, with Finland being one of the few exceptions as we mostly faced little repression or cultural erasure compared to other Russian “colonies” and this was done intentionally; most of the Russian Emperors during our time as a Grand Duchy in some ways thought of Finland as way to show the European powers that they can run things in a “western” way, and to work as a kind of window to the West. For the last 20 or so years they did try to Russify us, which we – being stubborn fucks – did not take well. We also kept our previous Parliament for the most part even though even starting from Alexander I the Emperors wanted to have autocratic rule, but – again in parts thanks to us being stubborn fucks – it took something like 4 emperors for it to happen. Their other historical or the currently existing colonies (nobody seems to think of Russia as a colonialist empire because their colonies are inside contiguous borders) weren’t quite so lucky, as Russification and “Russian supremacy” has been the standard.
This political culture played a large part in the problems with the Union. It was nominally multicultural (and korenization was briefly a thing until they went back to Russification as usual) but it wasn’t exactly unclear who were ultimately in charge.
And before some smartass barges in asking me why it’s OK if the US/UK/France/whoever does this stuff: I don’t like imperialism any more regardless of who’s doing it.
That was well said. Recontextualization is exactly the thing; it’s not that I think the Soviet Union was absolute evil with zero redeeming features. They got more right during the early years although I’m not necessarily a huge fan of that period either, and to a large extent it was Stalin who fucked them up pretty severely with the frankly sociopathic system that the Union turned into.
Russian political culture has been outright brutal for a long time. Eg. these KGB-like secret police organizations have been around for a while and have invariably had brutal methods of dealing with politically displeasing individuals or just who-the-hell-ever in many cases. This, coupled with the cultural ethos that Russia and Russians – and specifically meaning ethnic Russians – are superior to anyone outside their borders and a tendency for imperialism, means that Russian rule has nearly invariably been a shitty time, with Finland being one of the few exceptions as we mostly faced little repression or cultural erasure compared to other Russian “colonies” and this was done intentionally; most of the Russian Emperors during our time as a Grand Duchy in some ways thought of Finland as way to show the European powers that they can run things in a “western” way, and to work as a kind of window to the West. For the last 20 or so years they did try to Russify us, which we – being stubborn fucks – did not take well. We also kept our previous Parliament for the most part even though even starting from Alexander I the Emperors wanted to have autocratic rule, but – again in parts thanks to us being stubborn fucks – it took something like 4 emperors for it to happen. Their other historical or the currently existing colonies (nobody seems to think of Russia as a colonialist empire because their colonies are inside contiguous borders) weren’t quite so lucky, as Russification and “Russian supremacy” has been the standard.
This political culture played a large part in the problems with the Union. It was nominally multicultural (and korenization was briefly a thing until they went back to Russification as usual) but it wasn’t exactly unclear who were ultimately in charge.
And before some smartass barges in asking me why it’s OK if the US/UK/France/whoever does this stuff: I don’t like imperialism any more regardless of who’s doing it.