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> in Ukrainian history we almost never lost by being defeated Nice to see Ukrainians reinventing German Stab-in-the-back mythology from interwar period.

kozak 9y ago
It's much more complex than that.
- dagenleg 9y ago
  After making such a statement it would be proper to elaborate on what you meant there. Don't get me wrong, I am not yearning for a debate on Ukrainian historiography here, I just believe that borderline chauvinistic statements like that should be checked.
  - kozak 9y ago
    I get your point. It would be chauvinistic if I said that we are so strong that we can't be taken by force (which is impossible), while actually I'm just saying that we are too corrupt (so that every time a pivotal point comes, someone gets bribed and betrays). And also, I'm speaking of the last 300 years, and not really the _entire_ history.
YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago
As in all things, Greeks invented this first. Remember Efialtes, the guy who betrayed the Spartans in Thermopylae? (In modern days also, all my friends who like football, their teams never lose a match. It's always the referee who is on the side of the other team).
scarmig 9y ago
It's a very powerful hammer in our psychological toolkit, and it's been used countless times throughout history. No one wants to blame the Everyman and his masculine valor for failing the country. So the parts of the national leadership who started the war need to deflect blame, and they do it by attaching themselves to martial myths and posing as defenders of the Everyman. Not like those other dastardly effete leaders who oppose war, who are in a rhetorically weaker position because they're correctly acknowledging that individual valor doesn't play a major role in the outcome of the war. They're easily portrayed as trivializing valor and not glamorizing it sufficiently. If you talk to old white American soldiers, you can hear the same thing about Vietnam (damn liberals!) and more recently Iraq (damn liberals!). I'm sure you could hear similar things from old Brits nostalgic for Empire.

kozak 9y ago

It's much more complex than that.

dagenleg 9y ago
After making such a statement it would be proper to elaborate on what you meant there. Don't get me wrong, I am not yearning for a debate on Ukrainian historiography here, I just believe that borderline chauvinistic statements like that should be checked.
- kozak 9y ago
  I get your point. It would be chauvinistic if I said that we are so strong that we can't be taken by force (which is impossible), while actually I'm just saying that we are too corrupt (so that every time a pivotal point comes, someone gets bribed and betrays). And also, I'm speaking of the last 300 years, and not really the _entire_ history.

YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago

As in all things, Greeks invented this first. Remember Efialtes, the guy who betrayed the Spartans in Thermopylae? (In modern days also, all my friends who like football, their teams never lose a match. It's always the referee who is on the side of the other team).

scarmig 9y ago

It's a very powerful hammer in our psychological toolkit, and it's been used countless times throughout history. No one wants to blame the Everyman and his masculine valor for failing the country. So the parts of the national leadership who started the war need to deflect blame, and they do it by attaching themselves to martial myths and posing as defenders of the Everyman. Not like those other dastardly effete leaders who oppose war, who are in a rhetorically weaker position because they're correctly acknowledging that individual valor doesn't play a major role in the outcome of the war. They're easily portrayed as trivializing valor and not glamorizing it sufficiently. If you talk to old white American soldiers, you can hear the same thing about Vietnam (damn liberals!) and more recently Iraq (damn liberals!). I'm sure you could hear similar things from old Brits nostalgic for Empire.