Friday 28 September 2012

Collective memory

Finally!!
Finally I've found time and topic to write some analytics, as I promissed in my pilot post.
This aummer I had great oppotrunity to visit Byelorussia. And after this visit I've made some conclussions about Slavic mentality.
I was born in Ukraine, but I was drowing up in Russian media sphere, now I'm studying in Poland and that my last visit to Minsk showed me such an interesting difference between this 4 ethnic groups.
I hope that you know, that all these ethnic groups are Slavic, our languages are very similar, and culture also doesn't difference a lot.
All of these, today independent, countries has its own politics in all spheres. But we all have some moments in the history when we were together and today it'ss interesting to see how different are the opinions of the residents of each country on the same question. I've analyzed it on the example of the Soviet Union as a moment in their history.
And here are the conclusions.
Maybe, youve admitted, that Russia in the last years tries to show that that everything that was done and achieved in that time it was only because of that fact that Russia was the leader in the USSR. Of corse if we'll look in the past we'll see that the main actor in the SU was Russia, but in the question of the II World War we can not say that it was only the achievement of Russia. If we'll remember the statistics we'll see, that russians, ukrainians and byelorussians were fighting together. They all died for the USSR..
And today Russia tries to change such understanding. The President of Russia doesn't lose any moment to say that Russians were fighting, that  they died and he tries to underline that it was really not Soviet Union but Russian Union..
In Ukraine you'll see another situation.. They admit that fact, that they were in the Soviet Union, and that part of them were fighting on the one side with the russians and other, but all the time they say that they also were fighting contra USSR. And you should'n remember USSR but the ukrainia nnational leaders as St. Bandera and other.. Theey tries to show that the whole time that Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union they were trying to become independent Ukrainian state.. But histotical  facts are showing to us some another history. That Badera was collaborating with Nazi and he was helping them... But it's another history, it wasn't my topic..
In Poland the siituation is more difficult. First it that fact that Poland never was a part of the Soviet Union. It was  occupied by the USSR army, and it has it's own government but have to comply to Moscow. The residents of Poland, honestly, even today hate everything that is connected with Russia. There were a lot of organizations that were fighting for the independence, but it was impossible. You should remember Szare szeregi, AK, NIE and other..
And, finally, Byelorussia. You know, it is the only country that doen't try to write it's own history or to rewrite as it's common in Ukraine and Russia. They know a lot of great and sad moments in the history of the Soviet Union and they admit it. They understand that it was such priod in the history.. It's very unsual, comparing all the previos countries.. And, you know, you can meet people, who are proud about that fact that the USSR is their past.. It's amazing!
I think the reasons of such  differences could be explained by the politics of the each country. Russia always was trying to show how great power it has. Ukraine is seeking for it's own way, and now tha nationalistic parties and groups become more popular, so it could be normal.. Poland as a European country, now the EU member tries to forget that history. Only the Byelorussia, even that there's a difficult situation in the country tryes to hold that ideas of the SU and bring them to life..


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