5 ms·

> this 2003 movie is doing a great job illustrating resurgence of nationalism in Russia circa 2014-2018. Could you elaborate on this point somewhat more?

DenisM 8y ago
Sure thing. Spoiler alert. One of main characters of "Goodbye, Lenin" is an East-German woman who earnestly worked building up the Socialist society and earned high-ranking position, but then she fell into a coma to wake months up after the wall came down. Most of what was built during the soviet times has been or was being thrown out - cars, furniture, food, TV programming, clothing, display advertising. So basically all that she worked for, and was proud of, was thrown to the trash. This undermined her life-long accomplishments, sense of importance, sense of self. Except that it didn't, because her son hid everything from her, as she lay in bed recovering, he draped he windows, brought in old furniture and food, created(!) fake TV program for her, and even brought in kids to pose as Socialist-era uniformed boy-scouts. Eventually unable to keep up the charade he made a video in which Western Germany begged, and was allowed to join Eastern Germany. He took the video of Easterners jumping over the wall to the West and reversed it - it was the Westerners now jumping over to the East. She came to accept the new unified-Germany reality, under these terms, and recovered from her illness. Russian citizens suffered two big problems since the wall fell. First, in the 90s the economy was devastated by the governmental mismanagement, pervasive corruption, and general feebleness of the state. Second, in the oughts the economy improved (thanks to oil prices), but the populace started feeling that Russian contribution to and influence on the world is unappreciated, and maybe even mocked by the west. The the cold war's end, which started out like a truce between equals, was now looking more like a defeat (the theme fo treachery came up as it always does), the turning point there was ascension of the Baltic states to NATO. The industrial achievement of the older generations looked increasingly less important, and there were very few new industrial achievements (see "Dutch disease"). The recent military campaigns did not deliver, and when the subject comes up it goes all the way back to WW2. The soft foreign influence waned with the collapse of the Eastern block and flailing economy. The science was pretty much defunded in the 90s and it took a big hit. Having once been a part of a great project, and no longer struggling to eat every day, people now wanted to get back the sense of importance and glory. And so a virtual parade of past achievements was deployed to sooth the pain, both in the movie and in the real life. A huge part of the modern-day Russian media coverage is dedicated to the achievements of the old days: WW2, the noble Tsarist regime, the heroic Bolshevik regime, the classic literature, the scientists of earlier centuries, the soviet-era cosmonauts, etc. It's quite a mix really, and can be baffling at first but there is a thread tying them up - pride and dignity. And it's not just the government either - you will find a ton of nostalgic material on social media, even predating the 2012 change in policy. I think the government is responding to the nostalgia trend they mined from the social networks, and extending it, which I think is rather innovative. So anyway, I thought of this all when I was re-watching the movie recently, and the puzzle pieces came together for me. Maybe they will for you, maybe not.
- wolfgke 8y ago
  Thanks for the explanation. Makes sense.
  - DenisM 8y ago
    I'm glad it helped. Took me forever to type it out.
- sfRattan 8y ago
  > The the cold war's end, which started out like a truce between equals... Maybe it was taught that way in Russian schools, but I don't know anyone in any part of the West who considers the end of the Cold War to have been a "truce between equals." The Soviet Union collapsed. The Russian Federation is the internationally recognized successor state to a failed empire. It was so in the 90s as much as it is so today.
  - em-bee 8y ago
    the cold war itself started out as a truce between equals
    - sfRattan 8y ago
      Thanks, that makes more sense. I clearly parsed the sentence badly.

DenisM 8y ago

Sure thing. Spoiler alert. One of main characters of "Goodbye, Lenin" is an East-German woman who earnestly worked building up the Socialist society and earned high-ranking position, but then she fell into a coma to wake months up after the wall came down. Most of what was built during the soviet times has been or was being thrown out - cars, furniture, food, TV programming, clothing, display advertising. So basically all that she worked for, and was proud of, was thrown to the trash. This undermined her life-long accomplishments, sense of importance, sense of self. Except that it didn't, because her son hid everything from her, as she lay in bed recovering, he draped he windows, brought in old furniture and food, created(!) fake TV program for her, and even brought in kids to pose as Socialist-era uniformed boy-scouts. Eventually unable to keep up the charade he made a video in which Western Germany begged, and was allowed to join Eastern Germany. He took the video of Easterners jumping over the wall to the West and reversed it - it was the Westerners now jumping over to the East. She came to accept the new unified-Germany reality, under these terms, and recovered from her illness. Russian citizens suffered two big problems since the wall fell. First, in the 90s the economy was devastated by the governmental mismanagement, pervasive corruption, and general feebleness of the state. Second, in the oughts the economy improved (thanks to oil prices), but the populace started feeling that Russian contribution to and influence on the world is unappreciated, and maybe even mocked by the west. The the cold war's end, which started out like a truce between equals, was now looking more like a defeat (the theme fo treachery came up as it always does), the turning point there was ascension of the Baltic states to NATO. The industrial achievement of the older generations looked increasingly less important, and there were very few new industrial achievements (see "Dutch disease"). The recent military campaigns did not deliver, and when the subject comes up it goes all the way back to WW2. The soft foreign influence waned with the collapse of the Eastern block and flailing economy. The science was pretty much defunded in the 90s and it took a big hit. Having once been a part of a great project, and no longer struggling to eat every day, people now wanted to get back the sense of importance and glory. And so a virtual parade of past achievements was deployed to sooth the pain, both in the movie and in the real life. A huge part of the modern-day Russian media coverage is dedicated to the achievements of the old days: WW2, the noble Tsarist regime, the heroic Bolshevik regime, the classic literature, the scientists of earlier centuries, the soviet-era cosmonauts, etc. It's quite a mix really, and can be baffling at first but there is a thread tying them up - pride and dignity. And it's not just the government either - you will find a ton of nostalgic material on social media, even predating the 2012 change in policy. I think the government is responding to the nostalgia trend they mined from the social networks, and extending it, which I think is rather innovative. So anyway, I thought of this all when I was re-watching the movie recently, and the puzzle pieces came together for me. Maybe they will for you, maybe not.

wolfgke 8y ago
Thanks for the explanation. Makes sense.
- DenisM 8y ago
  I'm glad it helped. Took me forever to type it out.
sfRattan 8y ago
> The the cold war's end, which started out like a truce between equals... Maybe it was taught that way in Russian schools, but I don't know anyone in any part of the West who considers the end of the Cold War to have been a "truce between equals." The Soviet Union collapsed. The Russian Federation is the internationally recognized successor state to a failed empire. It was so in the 90s as much as it is so today.
- em-bee 8y ago
  the cold war itself started out as a truce between equals
  - sfRattan 8y ago
    Thanks, that makes more sense. I clearly parsed the sentence badly.