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It says a lot about the broken sensibilities of higher education that an Historian describing how an outcome occurred feels obligated to explicitly dissociate h
by cjensen 11y ago
It says a lot about the broken sensibilities of higher education that an Historian describing how an outcome occurred feels obligated to explicitly dissociate herself with the outcome ("I don’t intend any of this in triumphalist spirit"). Or for that matter, even to express an opinion on the moral correctness of the outcome.
If an historian who happens to be from Egypt describes the governmental system at the time of the pyramids were built, would we expect them disavow the ancient regime? Even if they were describing the system under Nasser, a disavowal would be weird.
- guard-of-terra 11y agoRussian history in 20-th century is so awful that you've got to make some statement about events. Unfortunately, people learned nothing and we're on track to repeat.
- Mikeb85 11y agoRussian history in every century is brutal. They've been fighting off invaders pretty much since the beginning of time. From Mongol hordes to Muslim invaders to European invaders, and so on. And of course you're right - in the 20th century they had a world war followed by revolution followed by another world war in which they lost 20% of their population, and an economic disaster in which they lost half their GDP...
- vdaniuk 11y ago>They've been fighting off invaders pretty much since the beginning of time Right. Russian Empire has grown to the size of one sixth of all land on Earth by defending from invaders.
- dragonwriter 11y ago> Russian Empire has grown to the size of one sixth of all land on Earth by defending from invaders. Well, yeah. They just take very seriously the proverbial advice about the best defense...
- golergka 11y agoNo, it was just a very harsh land that no one except thinly spread poor tribes really wanted.
- Mikeb85 11y agoKeep in mind it's possible to win territory during a defensive war... There was no great Russian conquest. Early Russian history consisted of cultural expansion of Slavic tribes. Kievan Rus started when Vikings (Varangians) became the rulers of Novgorod (by invitation), then assimilated into Slavic culture and established Kievan Rus (Kiev + various territories along the Dnieper to preserve trade with Constantinople). They eventually unified the various Slavic lands, won territory from the Khazars (who of course were nomadic Turkic tribes who invaded from the steppes), until Kievan Rus was eventually destroyed by the Mongol Horde, and Russian cities were forced to pay tribute to the Khans. 'Modern' Russia was established when the Muscovites expelled the Tatars and Mongols from Russia, fought off the Lithuanians, Poles, and others (Arabs, Persians, Germans, French, British, etc...), colonized Siberia (which, much as today, was largely a frozen wasteland), and you get the 'modern' Russian empire. It's history, though bloody from various conflicts, didn't involve massive conquest or colonialism (unlike the Khazars, Khans, Tatars, Poles, Lithuanians, Swedes and Germans they fought against). Russia started as Slavic tribes who were indigenous to the region, not foreign invaders from the steppes, or from the west.
- vdaniuk 11y ago>didn't involve massive conquest or colonialism This is demonstrably false. http://media-2.web.britannica.com/eb-media/50/3850-004-87B10401.jpg http://media-2.web.britannica.com/eb-media/50/3850-004-87B10... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_War#Russian_expansionism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_War#Russian_expansioni... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_conquest_of_Siberia#Massacres_of_indigenous_peoples https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_conquest_of_Siberia#Ma... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocides_in_history#Russian_Empire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocides_in_history#Russian_E... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocides_in_history#Soviet_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocides_in_history#Soviet_Un... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_of_Settlement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_of_Settlement
- Mikeb85 11y agoBecause the Mongols were indigenous to Siberia, right? And had never attacked Russia at any point in history, right? Maybe you should research the establishment of various western countries, to compare? Or how the various empires the fledgling Russian empire fought against were themselves established... Edit - you keep editing it. Anyhow, as for Crimea, neither the Tatars nor British nor Ottomans were indigenous to Crimea. Your point is what, that history is messy? Look up the histories of the various foes that Russia fought in your links, most of them weren't indigenous to those regions, and themselves were invaders. Unless you think Islam is indigenous to the Caucasus, and southern Russia/Ukraine, and not a result of various Muslim conquests north...
- Nadya 11y agoOkay, so there's the Winter War and other battles throughout history where they've won land as a result of an offensive. (see also: Siberia) However, much of Russian land was claimed after winning decisive defensive victories and then going over and saying "We won't kill you if you give us [specific pieces of land]" to which the losing nation's army hands over the land. Something many nations never learned was to not launch offensive battles into Russian during the goddamn Russian winter. Napoleon wasn't the only military leader to lose to the Russians because of that mistake.
- pharrington 11y agoPeople learned how to retain uncompromising authoritarian control without getting murdered dead. These are indeed interesting times.
- tokenadult 11y agoIt says a lot about the broken sensibilities of higher education that an Historian The author of the blog post kindly submitted here is not a historian by occupation or training. He is a linguist who specializes in the study of the English language.[1] (He is a co-author of the definitive grammar of English, the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language.[2]) He writes "Let me state very clearly that I don’t intend any of this in triumphalist spirit" because that is the way that all scholars trained in linguistics write about language differences: languages are not better or worse, if they are natural human languages, but just arbitrarily different in interesting ways that seem to have an arbitrary relationship to their use in human society. That includes the issue of which languages become widespread around the world and which do not--that appears to have very little to do with specific features of each language, despite some of the discussion here. [1] http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/ http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/ http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/wikipedia_is_wrong.html http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/wikipedia_is_wrong.html [2] http://www.amazon.com/The-Cambridge-Grammar-English-Language/dp/0521431468 http://www.amazon.com/The-Cambridge-Grammar-English-Language...