tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post6528282345441004853..comments2024-01-28T03:56:39.351-08:00Comments on TOM CLARK: Ryszard Kapuściński: The Ukrainian Plan (from Imperium)Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-63299032362253530582014-03-19T17:17:48.225-07:002014-03-19T17:17:48.225-07:00Thanks very much David. I believe I had assumed th...Thanks very much David. I believe I had assumed this writer's work would be known to everybody interested in history. Or perhaps I should say, I believe I had assumed some people are still interested in history.<br /><br />As RK modeled his approach upon the example of Herodotus, I think it's probably safe to assume he was interested in the writing of history.<br /><br />Of course, suffering and history are wicked-kissing cousins, and that fact would go a long way toward explaining the contemporary lack of interest in either.<br /><br />Ignorance goes down better with a blintz, as they used to say around the deli.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-57120521383026227112014-03-19T16:30:08.513-07:002014-03-19T16:30:08.513-07:00Tom,
Your characterization of RK is right on. He w...Tom,<br />Your characterization of RK is right on. He was also a photographer and poet. A less poetic but equally devastating (that word is far too weak) treatment of the Ukraine's cycles of suffering is found in Timothy Snyder's Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin.<br /><br />DavidBe the BQEhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11621320435990191224noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-20287261273579887132014-03-19T16:03:25.878-07:002014-03-19T16:03:25.878-07:00By the way, I hope it will seem redundant to point...By the way, I hope it will seem redundant to point out that RK's book is a magisterial work of personal observation, reflection, reminiscence and historical reportage.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/book-review--biblical-thunder-and-steamy-cries-imperium--ryszard-kapuscinski-tr-klara-glowczewska-granta-1499-1441645.html" rel="nofollow">On Imperium</a>TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-79625787529288673062014-03-19T15:36:12.675-07:002014-03-19T15:36:12.675-07:00Vlad P may have some ways still to go to catch up ...Vlad P may have some ways still to go to catch up with Stalin in the Brutal Despot Sweepstakes.<br /><br />On the character of Uncle Joe:<br /><br />"Stalin is not Russian but Georgian. His cleverness lies in patience, willpower, and good sense. He is confident and obstinate. His enemies accuse him of lacking knowledge and intelligence; they are mistaken. He is not a cultured man in the European sense of the word, not overfed with sophistry and psychological fanaticism. Stalin is a barbarian, in Lenin’s sense of the word, an enemy of Western culture, psychology and ethics. His intellect is entirely physical and instinctive, in a natural state, and without the prejudices or the moral sense of a cultured man. It has been said that men reveal their character in their bearing. I saw Stalin in May 1929 at the Pan-Russian Soviet Congress, walking up on to the stage in the Grand Theatre of Moscow. I was just below the footlights in the orchestra stalls when he appeared from behind a double row of the People’s Commissaries, the delegates from Tzic and the members of the Party’s Central Committee, lined up on the stage. He was quite simply dressed in a gray jacket of military cut and dark cloth trousers gathered into his high boots. Square-shouldered, short, thick-set, his massive head covered with black curly hair, and narrow eyes accentuated by very black eyebrows; his face was darkened by shaggy black moustaches; he walked slowly and heavily, striking the ground with his heels as he went; his head thrust forward and his arms swinging made him look like a peasant, but a peasant from the highlands -- hard, patient, and obstinate. Ignoring the thunder of applause which greeted him, he walked on slowly, took his place behind Rykoff and Kalinin, raised his head, looked at the huge crowd which acclaimed him, and stood motionless and stooping slightly -- his eyes fixed straight in front of him. About twenty Tartar deputies, representing the autonomous Soviet Republics of the Bakirs, the Bouriat-Mongols, Iakouts, and Daghestan alone observed a rigid silence in their stage-box. They were dressed in yellow and green silk kaftans, with silver-embroidered tartar caps on their long black shiny hair and they stared at Stalin with little narrow slit eyes: at Stalin the dictator, the iron fist of the Revolution, mortal enemy of the West and of civilized and bourgeois Europe. When the delirious shouts of the crowd began to die down, Stalin slowly turned his head toward the Tartar deputies: the Mongols’ eyes met those of the dictator. A great shout filled the theatre: it was the greeting of Proletarian Russia to Red Asia, to the people of the plains, the deserts, and the great Asiatic rivers. Again Stalin turned coolly to the crowd. He remained bent and motionless, his unseeing eyes fixed straight in front of him."<br /><br />-- Curzio Malaparte: from A Coup d'Etat that Failed: Trotsky vs. Stalin (excerpt), in La tecnica della colpo di Stato (The technique of coup d'état), 1931, translated by Sylvia Saunders, 1932TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-52934764073633549022014-03-19T13:55:14.973-07:002014-03-19T13:55:14.973-07:00This brings the Great Famine to mind.This brings the Great Famine to mind.Mose23https://www.blogger.com/profile/01100756913131511440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-87490793169754531182014-03-19T13:52:55.718-07:002014-03-19T13:52:55.718-07:00I've always found that photo of Gorky and Stal...I've always found that photo of Gorky and Stalin troubling.<br /><br />Josef was a dab hand at the PR.Mose23https://www.blogger.com/profile/01100756913131511440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-59393827323196168032014-03-19T13:32:13.679-07:002014-03-19T13:32:13.679-07:00Thank you for posting this. The current ongoing n...Thank you for posting this. The current ongoing news story about Malaysian Airlines flight MH 370 has made time seem kind of elastic lately and one thing I've noticed in the "update from the Ukraine" news intervals is how little information is actually conveyed about Ukraine's history and how and why any of this matters apart from the potential effects on Russia's European economic partners and, of course, on Russian-US relations. The coverage has been basically non-historical, unless by history you mean the last 25 years or so. CurtisACravanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00315707533118640284noreply@blogger.com