On 7 Maijs, 07:09, ostap_bender_1...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
> On May 6, 9:34 am, P=C3=A7teris Cedri=C3=B2=C3=B0 (Peteris Cedrins)
>
> <cedr...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
> > The passage regards ethnic Russian soldiers, not ethnic Russians. And
> > again -- nationality is not ethnicity.
>
> It isn't? Then why do you use the fact that 30% of Transdniestria are
> ethnic Moldovans (who want Transdniestrian independence too, btw),
> with the remaining 70% being Slavs as always, as your only reason why
> you want Transdniestria to become part of the nation Romania and thus
> Romanian nationals?
>
> On Feb 4, 4:02 am, "Peteris Cedrin=C3=B0 (Peteris Cedrins)" wrote:
>
>
>
> > On 3 Febr., 08:03, ostap_bender_1...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
>
> > > Peteris,
>
> > > I was doing some google search, I came across your old post,
> > > in which you wrote:
>
> > > > Transnistria, Moldova, and Romania are essentially Romanian.
>
> > > What is it, in your view, that makes the traditionally Ukrainian
land
> > > Transdniestia "Romanian"?
>
> > Wikipedia: "According to the 2004 Census in Transnistria, ethnic
> > Moldovans compose the plurality with 31.9%, followed by ethnic
> > Russians 30.4%, and Ukrainians 28.8%."
>
> You and your Romanian facist friends are so into ethnicity-counting
> that you even separate ethnic Russians and Ukrainians in ordser to
> perpetrate "moldovan plurality", even though in Transdniestria, the
> two are one and the same nation and culture and totally
> indistinguishable except for an "ethnicity" entry in their old
> outdated Soviet pass****ts. In fact, most ethnic Moldovans too are part
> of that russo-beloruso-ukrainian (ancient and modern) Rus nation/
> culture and want nothing to do with communist peasant Moldova, not to
> mention natoist peasant Romania.
>
> So, stop your demagoguery and hypocritical pretensions that you don't
> pay attention to ethnicity. To you, ethnicity is the most im****tant
> factor. In fact, the only factor, the decisive factor. To you, any
> land that has a Moldovan minority, should be forced against its will
> to subjugate itself to Romanian occupation. Just like Britain forced
> Russia's ally Czechoslvakia, because of its German and tiny Polish and
> Hungarian minorities, to be carved up and enslaved by Britain's best
> friends: Nazi Germany, fascist Hungary and dictatorial Poland in 1938,
> effectively starting WWII.
Gee, here I was drowning in guilt over my forefathers' dastardly
subjugation of Russia and Ukraine, but now I feel bad about my British
allies' carving up Czechoslovakia, too... hey, where was that
supremely effective League of Nations at the time?
I would try to stifle any hypocritical pretensions about not paying
attention to ethnicity -- except that I never said I don't pay
attention to ethnicity. I think ethnicity is very im****tant.
Nationality and ethnicity relate in complex ways, however, and it's
often necessary to pay attention to the distinctions. Livs, for
example, are ethnically quite different from Letts, but they're part
of the Latvian nation. Many Poles, Jews, Ukrainians, and -- yes --
Russians are, too. There are plenty of gray areas, including that vast
gray area occupied by homo sovieticus.
You just got done claiming that Ossetians wish to be part of Russia.
Assuming that's true -- it makes Ossetians Russians by nationality,
but not by ethnicity. As a matter of fact, Chechens are Russian
nationals, too, albeit unwillingly so. Like the tsarist empire, the
Russian Federation is multi-ethnic and even multinational in some
ways. So are many other countries, in different degrees.
How does this matter with regard to the Riflemen? Well, they were
Russian nationals. There was no Latvian nation-state, and if you'll
recall -- the Riflemen had just finished fighting for the Russian
Empire, with remarkable valor and immense losses. Yes, they looked
down on Russian soldiers and felt betrayed by the military leader****p
-- I wonder why.
Black Monk asked how I know what they thought -- well, different
Riflemen thought differently, obviously, but one can read about that
era (and I actually met a Riflemen, by the way -- the illustrious Lt.
Col. Dardz=C4=81ns, who detested the Bolsheviks but was not an admirer of
the Russian nation, to put it mildly... it was Dardz=C4=81ns who led the
Troitsk Regiment, which fought the Reds together with the Czech
Legion, across Siberia and back to Latvia [whilst blaming foreigners,
primarily Jews and Latvians, for imposing Bolshevism, many a Russian
will then turn around to whine about _that_ foreign intervention...
there were ca. 10 000 Letts in the White Guard]).
Even among the Reds, the views they held depended on context and whom
we are talking about. Jukums V=C4=81cietis, for example (the first c-in-c
of the Soviet military) wasn't a Party member -- and the German Consul
who met with him in late 1918 came away calling him and his soldiers
"Latvian nationalists." But, then, who describes what views? To the
Germans (von der Goltz, for example), Ulmanis and anyone else opposing
feudalism here was a "half-Bolshevik."
My point, though, is that the primary strain of Red thought was
obviously not about Latvia as a nation-state -- it was, at best, about
a brotherly republic in a sea of revolution that would sweep across
Europe. On the other side, the fact is that the concept of a sovereign
Latvia developed late and rather suddenly. Choices were not clear cut,
and I think it is crucial to look carefully at the strains of thought
and how they twist, and into the chaos in which they grew (for
example, remember that Latvia was occupied by Germany and a huge
pro****tion of the population had been turned into refugees).
Regards,
/P
http://lettonica.blogspot.com/
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