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> That the Wagner group enjoys such popular support, while their Nazi sympathies are also common knowledge^ makes this justification questionable. I remember r

> That the Wagner group enjoys such popular support, while their Nazi sympathies are also common knowledge^ makes this justification questionable. I remember reading somewhere, that "Nazism" means something rather different in Russian culture than in Western culture. In the West, you say "Nazi" and the first thing most people think of is the Nazi mass murder of Jews, the Holocaust–that's what the school curriculum focuses on. But in Russia, you say "Nazi" and the first thing most people think of is the Nazi mass murder of Russians–that's what the Russian school curriculum focuses on. In the West, "Nazi=homicidal anti-semitism"; in Russia, "Nazi=homicidal Russophobia". But, given that, what sense do they make of a group of Russian "Nazis" who support the Kremlin and fight its wars? It is a bit like if you met a group of neo-Nazis, and discovered they were all openly and proudly Jewish. If something doesn't make sense, people often just choose to pay no attention to it. Similarly, the Russian accusations that Ukraine is a "neo-Nazi regime" seem ludicrous to Western ears – "Zelenskyy is of Jewish descent, his great grandparents died in the Holocaust, how can he be a Nazi?" But to most Russians, for whom the primary meaning of "Nazi" is not "antisemite" but "Russophobe", the idea that "Ukrainian nationalism=Nazism" makes more sense, and Zelenskyy's Jewishness appears irrelevant.

klyrs 3y ago
[flagged]
- skissane 3y ago
  Obviously I didn't downvote you, since you were replying to me, and you can't downvote direct replies. But here's my guess as to why others did it: You didn't come across as getting the point of what I was saying – my point was "if in your own mind, your fundamental definition of group X is that they are anti-Y, people who are (openly and proudly) X and Y simultaneously doesn't make any sense, and when faced with a situation which makes zero sense given pre-existing assumptions, many people will react by just ignoring it". "Neo-Nazis who are all openly and proudly Jewish" was just an illustrative example; "neo-Nazis who are all openly and proudly LGBT" or "neo-Nazis who are all openly and proudly Romani" or even "neo-Nazis who are all openly and proudly LGBT Romani", work as examples too. Your comment also comes across as a generic tangent which isn't trying to add anything original or insightful to the discussion, just repeating facts most people here already know. Yes, we all know the Nazis committed crimes against many different groups – you didn't mention the disabled, the mentally ill, Poles, Serbs (murdered by the Nazis' Ustashe allies in Croatia), Black people, Jehovah's Witnesses, Freemasons, the Czechs of Lidice, among others – but is simply pointing that out adding anything useful to the conversation? We don't need to list every single victim of Nazi crimes every time they become the topic, and "you forgot about X, they were victims too" is rarely a valuable contribution. Finally, reaching for "anti-LGBT sentiment" as an explanation for the downvotes, rather than considering other possible explanations, such as those I mention above – isn't helping either.
kuhewa 3y ago
> But in Russia, you say "Nazi" and the first thing most people think of is the Nazi mass murder of Russians–that's what the Russian school curriculum focuses on. In the West, "Nazi=homicidal anti-semitism"; in Russia, "Nazi=homicidal Russophobia". In Canada there is a monument to a Nazi SS division [1], because it was made up of Ukrainian volunteers fighting the Soviets, post-Holodomor that was seen as the lesser of two evils. So with that small bit of trivia in mind, your explanation really does make sense and I'm surprised I haven't seen it put or thought of it that way. I reckon that context is probably also relevant to the "nazi-ism" of Ukrainian paramilitary (and now formal military) units like Azov Brigade? (although being close to totally ignorant on the subject, for all I know said groups are equally antisemitic). [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorials_in_Canada_to_Nazis_and_Nazi_collaborators https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorials_in_Canada_to_Nazis...
- skissane 3y ago
  Similarly, here in Australia there have been some news stories in recent weeks concerning pro-fascist sentiments among Croatian Australians: https://www.smh.com.au/national/healing-wounds-the-jewish-and-croatian-community-come-together-20230622-p5dijd.html https://www.smh.com.au/national/healing-wounds-the-jewish-an... Whether we are talking about Ukrainian nationalists, or Croatian nationalists, or Finns, or whoever else – if the Nazis are the only people willing to be your allies, what do you do? And in India: Subhas Chandra Bose, one of the leaders of the Indian independence movement, chose to ally himself with Hitler and Imperial Japan. Many Indians today still view him as a hero, and do not think his willingness to fight with the Axis condemns him. At the controversial Yasukuni Shrine in Japan, where Japan's war criminals are deified, there is a statute honouring the Indian judge Radhabinod Pal, who was the only judge at the Tokyo War Crimes Trial to acquit all the defendants. Through the memories of Bose and Pal, the governments of India and Japan have found something to bond over–their shared sympathy for the losing side in the Second World War.
  - gdy 3y ago
    "if the Nazis are the only people willing to be your allies" Hmm, I wonder why. Maybe because of this [0]: "An UVO brochure from 1929 stated: "Terror will be not only a means of self-defense, but also a form of agitation, which will affect friend and foe alike, regardless of whether they desire it or not." The UVO organized a number of assassination attempts on some of the most renowned Polish and Ukrainian politicians, some of which were successful." [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_Military_Organization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_Military_Organizatio...
jquery 3y ago
The Russian understanding of Nazism, like elsewhere, also includes aspects of racial purity, anti-Semitism, and ultra-nationalism, and a focus on "degeneracy" as the source of a nation's decline ("weak men make hard times"). Of course, the optics of being seen as a Nazi are very bad, so even Nazis are constantly pointing fingers and saying "no, THAT person is the true Nazi." But the facts aren't on their side, so we have no obligation to humor them when they say absurd things like "Zelenskyy is the true Nazi", when the man, aside from being Jewish, also isn't espousing Nazi ideology.
zarzavat 3y ago
[flagged]
- reaperman 3y ago
  I lean more anti-fascist than Nazi apologist, but there's a huge difference between: > “Wagner” is literally a Nazi dog whistle. Wagner group are not just small-n “nazis” and > Or at least some of them are. This isn't the type of substantive comment that HN is looking for. It definitely leans towards "flamebait" while lacking substance that the rest of us can work with or learn from. I don't even necessarily disagree with you, but I would argue that this comment doesn't add anything helpful to this discussion.
  - zarzavat 3y ago
    “Some of them” = the group leadership who name the group, given that it is a Nazi reference. Richard Wagner was a notorious antisemite and Hitler was a fan. It’s like calling the group “88 Division”. Sure, not all of the grunts working for them are dyed-in-the-wool Nazis, but the leadership sure are.
    - skissane 3y ago
      > given that it is a Nazi reference. Richard Wagner was a notorious antisemite and Hitler was a fan. Wagner was never a Nazi – he died six years before Hitler was born. Wagner isn't my thing, but not all fans of his music (even today) are Nazis. Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism, was a big Wagner fan–of course, he knew Wagner was a rabid antisemite, but he managed to look past that and appreciate his music in spite of his antisemitism. In 2001, the Israeli conductor Mendi Rodan–a Holocaust survivor–conducted the first public performance of one of Wagner's works in Israel since before the Second World War. If a Holocaust survivor can separate the artistic value of Wagner's music from Wagner's Jew-hatred, can others? I wouldn't recommend naming something after him–especially in contemporary English-speaking culture which is very focused on the historical associations of names–although it is easy to forget how specific that (relatively recent development) is to a particular cultural sphere, something alien to much of the globe–but I wouldn't assume someone who did so was necessarily motivated by any sympathy for Nazism or antisemitism, especially someone coming from a culture which lacks that focus. Actually, here's an open source project named Wagner, and obviously in reference to the composer – https://github.com/spite/Wagner https://github.com/spite/Wagner – maybe an unfortunate choice of name, but I see no reason to accuse the author of sympathy for Nazism or antisemitism > It’s like calling the group “88 Division”. Sure, not all of the grunts working for them are dyed-in-the-wool Nazis, but the leadership sure are. "88" can mean a lot of different things. To Australians of a certain age, it may make them think of Australia's bicentenary celebrations in 1988. Some in the UK may remember "Charter 88", a left-of-centre constitutional reform pressure group founded in that year. In Chinese culture, 88 means good luck–and as someone who lives in a country with a significant Chinese minority, I've seen it used in that sense a lot over the years. I have no idea what (if anything) "88" means in Russia, but I wouldn't assume a hypothetical Russian group with "88" in its name necessarily had anything to do with Nazism. "88" as a neo-Nazi code is part of American culture, in other cultures 88 means completely different things, or nothing at all. Even in US culture, it has meanings unrelated to Nazism (amateur radio, NASCAR)
musictubes 3y ago
That is what I have heard as well. Let’s be real, antisemitism never fell totally out of favor in Eastern Europe. I never bought for a second that Putin or any of the higher ups were worried about it. This also explains how a Jewish man can be called a Nazi with a straight face by Russian media and leaders. For many Russians, Nazi means Western European aligned organizations that kill Russians.
justsomehnguy 3y ago
> "Zelenskyy is of Jewish descent, his great grandparents died in the Holocaust, how can he be a Nazi?" This level of kindergarten logic from a grown ass men never cease to amaze me. >> In March 2015, Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov announced that the Azov Regiment would be among the first units to be trained by United States Army troops in the Operation Fearless Guardian training mission.[282][283] US training however was withdrawn on 12 June 2015, as the US House of Representatives passed an amendment blocking any aid (including arms and training) to the regiment due to its neo-Nazi background.[284][285] *However, the amendment was later removed in November 2015,[284]*

klyrs 3y ago

[flagged]

skissane 3y ago
Obviously I didn't downvote you, since you were replying to me, and you can't downvote direct replies. But here's my guess as to why others did it: You didn't come across as getting the point of what I was saying – my point was "if in your own mind, your fundamental definition of group X is that they are anti-Y, people who are (openly and proudly) X and Y simultaneously doesn't make any sense, and when faced with a situation which makes zero sense given pre-existing assumptions, many people will react by just ignoring it". "Neo-Nazis who are all openly and proudly Jewish" was just an illustrative example; "neo-Nazis who are all openly and proudly LGBT" or "neo-Nazis who are all openly and proudly Romani" or even "neo-Nazis who are all openly and proudly LGBT Romani", work as examples too. Your comment also comes across as a generic tangent which isn't trying to add anything original or insightful to the discussion, just repeating facts most people here already know. Yes, we all know the Nazis committed crimes against many different groups – you didn't mention the disabled, the mentally ill, Poles, Serbs (murdered by the Nazis' Ustashe allies in Croatia), Black people, Jehovah's Witnesses, Freemasons, the Czechs of Lidice, among others – but is simply pointing that out adding anything useful to the conversation? We don't need to list every single victim of Nazi crimes every time they become the topic, and "you forgot about X, they were victims too" is rarely a valuable contribution. Finally, reaching for "anti-LGBT sentiment" as an explanation for the downvotes, rather than considering other possible explanations, such as those I mention above – isn't helping either.

kuhewa 3y ago

> But in Russia, you say "Nazi" and the first thing most people think of is the Nazi mass murder of Russians–that's what the Russian school curriculum focuses on. In the West, "Nazi=homicidal anti-semitism"; in Russia, "Nazi=homicidal Russophobia". In Canada there is a monument to a Nazi SS division [1], because it was made up of Ukrainian volunteers fighting the Soviets, post-Holodomor that was seen as the lesser of two evils. So with that small bit of trivia in mind, your explanation really does make sense and I'm surprised I haven't seen it put or thought of it that way. I reckon that context is probably also relevant to the "nazi-ism" of Ukrainian paramilitary (and now formal military) units like Azov Brigade? (although being close to totally ignorant on the subject, for all I know said groups are equally antisemitic). [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorials_in_Canada_to_Nazis_and_Nazi_collaborators https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorials_in_Canada_to_Nazis...

skissane 3y ago
Similarly, here in Australia there have been some news stories in recent weeks concerning pro-fascist sentiments among Croatian Australians: https://www.smh.com.au/national/healing-wounds-the-jewish-and-croatian-community-come-together-20230622-p5dijd.html https://www.smh.com.au/national/healing-wounds-the-jewish-an... Whether we are talking about Ukrainian nationalists, or Croatian nationalists, or Finns, or whoever else – if the Nazis are the only people willing to be your allies, what do you do? And in India: Subhas Chandra Bose, one of the leaders of the Indian independence movement, chose to ally himself with Hitler and Imperial Japan. Many Indians today still view him as a hero, and do not think his willingness to fight with the Axis condemns him. At the controversial Yasukuni Shrine in Japan, where Japan's war criminals are deified, there is a statute honouring the Indian judge Radhabinod Pal, who was the only judge at the Tokyo War Crimes Trial to acquit all the defendants. Through the memories of Bose and Pal, the governments of India and Japan have found something to bond over–their shared sympathy for the losing side in the Second World War.
- gdy 3y ago
  "if the Nazis are the only people willing to be your allies" Hmm, I wonder why. Maybe because of this [0]: "An UVO brochure from 1929 stated: "Terror will be not only a means of self-defense, but also a form of agitation, which will affect friend and foe alike, regardless of whether they desire it or not." The UVO organized a number of assassination attempts on some of the most renowned Polish and Ukrainian politicians, some of which were successful." [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_Military_Organization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_Military_Organizatio...

jquery 3y ago

The Russian understanding of Nazism, like elsewhere, also includes aspects of racial purity, anti-Semitism, and ultra-nationalism, and a focus on "degeneracy" as the source of a nation's decline ("weak men make hard times"). Of course, the optics of being seen as a Nazi are very bad, so even Nazis are constantly pointing fingers and saying "no, THAT person is the true Nazi." But the facts aren't on their side, so we have no obligation to humor them when they say absurd things like "Zelenskyy is the true Nazi", when the man, aside from being Jewish, also isn't espousing Nazi ideology.

zarzavat 3y ago

[flagged]

reaperman 3y ago
I lean more anti-fascist than Nazi apologist, but there's a huge difference between: > “Wagner” is literally a Nazi dog whistle. Wagner group are not just small-n “nazis” and > Or at least some of them are. This isn't the type of substantive comment that HN is looking for. It definitely leans towards "flamebait" while lacking substance that the rest of us can work with or learn from. I don't even necessarily disagree with you, but I would argue that this comment doesn't add anything helpful to this discussion.
- zarzavat 3y ago
  “Some of them” = the group leadership who name the group, given that it is a Nazi reference. Richard Wagner was a notorious antisemite and Hitler was a fan. It’s like calling the group “88 Division”. Sure, not all of the grunts working for them are dyed-in-the-wool Nazis, but the leadership sure are.
  - skissane 3y ago
    > given that it is a Nazi reference. Richard Wagner was a notorious antisemite and Hitler was a fan. Wagner was never a Nazi – he died six years before Hitler was born. Wagner isn't my thing, but not all fans of his music (even today) are Nazis. Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism, was a big Wagner fan–of course, he knew Wagner was a rabid antisemite, but he managed to look past that and appreciate his music in spite of his antisemitism. In 2001, the Israeli conductor Mendi Rodan–a Holocaust survivor–conducted the first public performance of one of Wagner's works in Israel since before the Second World War. If a Holocaust survivor can separate the artistic value of Wagner's music from Wagner's Jew-hatred, can others? I wouldn't recommend naming something after him–especially in contemporary English-speaking culture which is very focused on the historical associations of names–although it is easy to forget how specific that (relatively recent development) is to a particular cultural sphere, something alien to much of the globe–but I wouldn't assume someone who did so was necessarily motivated by any sympathy for Nazism or antisemitism, especially someone coming from a culture which lacks that focus. Actually, here's an open source project named Wagner, and obviously in reference to the composer – https://github.com/spite/Wagner https://github.com/spite/Wagner – maybe an unfortunate choice of name, but I see no reason to accuse the author of sympathy for Nazism or antisemitism > It’s like calling the group “88 Division”. Sure, not all of the grunts working for them are dyed-in-the-wool Nazis, but the leadership sure are. "88" can mean a lot of different things. To Australians of a certain age, it may make them think of Australia's bicentenary celebrations in 1988. Some in the UK may remember "Charter 88", a left-of-centre constitutional reform pressure group founded in that year. In Chinese culture, 88 means good luck–and as someone who lives in a country with a significant Chinese minority, I've seen it used in that sense a lot over the years. I have no idea what (if anything) "88" means in Russia, but I wouldn't assume a hypothetical Russian group with "88" in its name necessarily had anything to do with Nazism. "88" as a neo-Nazi code is part of American culture, in other cultures 88 means completely different things, or nothing at all. Even in US culture, it has meanings unrelated to Nazism (amateur radio, NASCAR)

musictubes 3y ago

That is what I have heard as well. Let’s be real, antisemitism never fell totally out of favor in Eastern Europe. I never bought for a second that Putin or any of the higher ups were worried about it. This also explains how a Jewish man can be called a Nazi with a straight face by Russian media and leaders. For many Russians, Nazi means Western European aligned organizations that kill Russians.

justsomehnguy 3y ago

> "Zelenskyy is of Jewish descent, his great grandparents died in the Holocaust, how can he be a Nazi?" This level of kindergarten logic from a grown ass men never cease to amaze me. >> In March 2015, Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov announced that the Azov Regiment would be among the first units to be trained by United States Army troops in the Operation Fearless Guardian training mission.[282][283] US training however was withdrawn on 12 June 2015, as the US House of Representatives passed an amendment blocking any aid (including arms and training) to the regiment due to its neo-Nazi background.[284][285] *However, the amendment was later removed in November 2015,[284]*