Holman cooks more books.
Henry Alminas
(also known as "Jew watch" for the benefit of
Jewish groups, no doubt, and probably "spook
hunter" for that of black groups" has arrived at
the point where he deems SU a "benevolent"
society. Gone are the mass graves filled with
Balts - gone are the Gulags - gone is the terror.
Indeed, the eastern scum spent all their time
translating "good books" for their little western
"brothers". Holman, of course, knows just
which books would or would not have been
translated had the Balts managed to stay
independent. He knows which studies would
or would not have been conducted just as he
knows just where these would have been
economically.
One has to understand Holman. This is a
frustrated NYC black communist who finally
thinks he has an opportunity to "get even"
with them white boys. I well recall a post to
a black group (a number of years ago) where
he indicated that yes, indeed, the communist
party offered many opportunities for young
blacks. This post was reposted in this group
for those ambitious enough to search for it
in google.
Getting back to books. Isn't it curious to
note just how much he knows about the
current state of Lithuanian book publishing
- he, being incapable of reading Lithuanian.
Nor, I will bet you dollars to doughnuts, has
he ever been in a Lithuanian book store. Yet
he can write page after page of spin on the
subject. But, then, that is Holman. Lying is
a way of life for he seems to have but little
of it otherwise. I have been in Lithuanian
book stores quite recently. Far from being
the spaces with empty shelves, that Holman
suggests, they were rather large and well
stocked in Vilnius. Indeed, I was rather
surprised and, perhaps, dismayed at some
of stuff that someone had bothered to
translate. But then, publishers pay for
the translation of stuff that they think
might sell. Sometimes they are right
and sometimes wrong. Private enterprise.
Book publishing is in decline world wide.
The reason for this development is obvious.
Books, in the main, were never primarily
vehicles of "great ideas" (though Holman's
definition of these might shock you). The
main function of books (aside from the obvious
educational application) was and still is -
entertainment. That function has now, to no
small degree, been taken over by other media.
There is TV, there are the movies, there is the
computer, there are the magazines etc. etc.
In a way, whatever any of us might feel about
it, books are a dated technology.
Overall, of course, books have nothing to do
with what Holman and his ilk are pushing. This
is just another subject which Holman can spin
to justify a murderous regime and his association
with it. As long as we understand that - all the
rest falls in place.
Best - - Henry
Eugene Holman
<halm...@attbi.com> wrote:
> It is interesting to note that now the scum Holman
> (also known as "Jew watch" for the benefit of
> Jewish groups, no doubt, and probably "spook
> hunter" for that of black groups"
The "Jew watcher" thing has been explained. It was left over (or
practical joke) from a previous user on a public computer at our
computer lab.
> has arrived at
> the point where he deems SU a "benevolent"
> society. Gone are the mass graves filled with
> Balts - gone are the Gulags - gone is the terror.
You certainly know how to do a spin job. I stated quite clearly that
the basic premise is that the Soviet annexation of the Baltic states
was *immoral*, and that everything that happened during the two phases
of Soviet rule has to be understood within that context. I also stated,
equally clearly, that if an abnormal situation persists for two
generations, people who were born within it tend to regard it as
normal, particularly if, as was the case in the USSR, the have limited
access to information about any alternatives. Your "gone are the
gulags, gone is the terror" is your own, rather juvenile and fact-free
interpretation of what I wrote. I neither said not implied any such
thing. Unlike the case with Nazi Germany, the inhabitants of which had
to be de-Nazified in order to get Hitlerite propaganda out of their
systems, the peoples of the Baltic country began to integrate
themselves with the outside world many years before the fall of
communism, one reason being that the communist system began to crumble
in the mid-1980s, particularly when foreign newspapers, foreign
broadcasts, and foreign travel began to become available during the
late 1980s.
> Indeed, the eastern scum spent all their time
> translating "good books" for their little western
> "brothers".
That's not what I wrote, either, o spinner of tales. The cultural
authorities in the Soviet Union did everything possible to convince the
peoples of the USSR that they were riding the tide of history. One
aspect of this was to translate the major works of world literature
written from a strong social critical or leftist slant. Writers such as
Moravia, dos Passos, Steinbeck, Molière, etc. etc. were translated into
Russian and many republic languages because their messages were
consistent with the aims of communist ideology.
> Holman, of course, knows just
> which books would or would not have been
> translated had the Balts managed to stay
> independent.
No, I don't. But I know something about the economics of book
publishing and literary translation in langauges spoken by only three
or four million people.
> He knows which studies would
> or would not have been conducted just as he
> knows just where these would have been
> economically.
You forget that I have been working for the past ten years in the
publishing and translation industries in the Baltic countries. I know
what I'm talking about.
> One has to understand Holman. This is a
> frustrated NYC black communist
Never frustrated, never communist...
> who finally
> thinks he has an opportunity to "get even"
> with them white boys.
I naver had any reason to get even with anyone, since in high school
and university I consistently did at least as well and usually better
than those "white boys" (and girls), always graduating magna or summa
cum laude. I've had a very satisfying life, and you and Jon are the
first people I've ever encountered who just seem to hate me and twist
everything I write.
> I well recall a post to
> a black group (a number of years ago) where
> he indicated that yes, indeed, the communist
> party offered many opportunities for young
> blacks.
There is no denying the fact that during the 1930s and 70s this was
true. The Ameican Communist Party between about 1930 and 1970 or so was
a curious asembly of American blacks (e.g. Angela Davis),
Finnish-Americans (e,g, Gus Hall, né Kustaa Hällberg), urban Jews (e.g.
Samuel Gerson), and FBI informants.
> This post was reposted in this group
> for those ambitious enough to search for it
> in google.
There is nothing to be ashamed of in stating this. The Communist Party
of the United States consistently supported civil rights, women's
rights, and decent wages. They were on the radical fringe and had
little political power, but they were something quite different from
the CPSU or the Chinese Communist Party. Once again, saying that the
Communist Party of the United States supported good causes does not
make a person pro-Communist, it is a statement of objective fact that
anyone can investigate and find to be true. The McCarthyist period
during the early 1950s resulted in the persecution and imprisonment of
many people with communist or leftist sympathies, including many
Holllywood actors (e.g. Charlie Chaplin) and many of my high school
teachers, who were summoned by HUAC, but consistently "took the fifth"
when asked to testify.
>
> Getting back to books. Isn't it curious to
> note just how much he knows about the
> current state of Lithuanian book publishing
> - he, being incapable of reading Lithuanian.
Actually, I do have a basic reading knowledge of Lithuanian, having
worked my way during the past year through *Colloquian Lithuanian* by
Mailute Ramoniene and Ian Press. Unlike you, Henry, I have actually
co-authored a book with accompanying audiovideo course which was
published in Lithuanian.
> Nor, I will bet you dollars to doughnuts, has
> he ever been in a Lithuanian book store.
Hand over the dollars. I am a bookstore addict and have visited all of
the major bookstores in Vilnius and Kaunas. No matter what you may
think of my conclusions, you should know that Gintautas and I have had
some pretty technical discussions in this group about Baltic and
Lithuanian language history. Although I do not speak anything better
than tourist Lithuanian (I was recently practicing sentences such as
"Buvau ne tik Vilniuje, bet ir Kaune."), I have fairly solid knowledge
of the phonologcal and morphological evolution of Lithuanian, at least
as depicted from the standpoint of neogrammarian methodology.
> Yet
> he can write page after page of spin on the
> subject.
Correct. I have been in more than a dozen Lithuanian bookstores and
even seen the book I co-authored on sale there. I have also negotiated
with the marketing manager of the large Lithuanian printing house that
does much of our high-quality printing. For this the language I had to
use was Russian.
> But, then, that is Holman. Lying is
> a way of life for he seems to have but little
> of it otherwise.
You are speaking through your hat. I have been to Lithuania several
times, I always visit bookstores when I am there, and although I
usually speak Russian, which has never bothered anyone, I have learned
enogh tourist Lithuanian to ask directions (Kur yra...? ) and order
basic food and drink (Pras^om, vienas (viena)... Ac^iu.) in
Lithuanian. I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that I know far more more
Lithuanian than you know Finnish.
> I have been in Lithuanian
> book stores quite recently. Far from being
> the spaces with empty shelves, that Holman
> suggests, they were rather large and well
> stocked in Vilnius.
Come off it, Henry, I did not suggest any such thing. Book stores in
Vilnis and Kaunas are packed, since every square centimeter that is
empty is ballast.
> Indeed, I was rather
> surprised and, perhaps, dismayed at some
> of stuff that someone had bothered to
> translate.
That is *precisely* the point I made.
> But then, publishers pay for
> the translation of stuff that they think
> might sell. Sometimes they are right
> and sometimes wrong. Private enterprise.
Indeed. You are making the same point I made, but I was there first. I
have been observing the Baltic book market from slose at hand for the
past ten years.
>
> Book publishing is in decline world wide.
> The reason for this development is obvious.
> Books, in the main, were never primarily
> vehicles of "great ideas" (though Holman's
> definition of these might shock you). The
> main function of books (aside from the obvious
> educational application) was and still is -
> entertainment. That function has now, to no
> small degree, been taken over by other media.
> There is TV, there are the movies, there is the
> computer, there are the magazines etc. etc.
> In a way, whatever any of us might feel about
> it, books are a dated technology.
What you claim is only partially correct. Books rather than websites or
DVDs, remain the storehouse of choice for a nation's heritage.
> Overall, of course, books have nothing to do
> with what Holman and his ilk are pushing. This
> is just another subject which Holman can spin
> to justify a murderous regime and his association
> with it. As long as we understand that - all the
> rest falls in place.
I am really disaapointed in you, Henry. I have never been anti-Baltic,
have spent the past ten years developing the leading and only
pan-Baltic printing house and translation firm ( http://www.pangloss.ee
), and this is the payoff.
You ought to think a little more before you post. Your claim is that
the "russkies" marched into the Baltics and took over in 1940, my claim
is that the Soviets, which included people such as the Lithuanian
communist Antanas Snieckus, choreographed a very subtle subversion of
three states, utilizing local sympathizers, dupes, and people who were
co-opted. Which of us sees the Baltic states as having been confronted
with the greater danger and thus understands the truly pernicious
nature of international communism? I would say that I do. You see the
1940 installation of bogus governments by theUSSR and its local
operatived and its aftermath as a simple instantiation of "russkie"
violence and bullying, quite similar to what the Nazis were doing in
Poland. Yours truly sees it as a far more subtle and all the more
effective and thus unprecedentedly dangerous subversion of states using
a combination of internal and external tactics. Which of us sees
Soviet-style communism as the more dangerous force?
--
Eugene Holman
Edvards Jansons
> my claim is that the Soviets, which included people such as the
> Lithuanian communist Antanas Snieckus, choreographed a very subtle
> subversion of three states, utilizing local sympathizers, dupes,
> and people who were co-opted.
Genocide with deliberate targetting of the elite to minimize
culturally based organization and rebellion against the subsequent
occupation can hardly be dismissed as the "subtle subversion" you
termed it.
The Russians used the same method in every country they conquered,
first killing or deporting (usually to be killed) the most active
and capable people, then banning traditional values and culture,
then imposing foreign ideas that don't work but are enforced by
threat of death.
It is not difficult for larger forces to destroy what is good and
smaller, but neither should malevolent genocidal greed and harmful
stupidity be shrugged off as mere subversion.
-Edvards
Eugene Holman
<edv...@nospam.paldies> wrote:
> Eugene Holman wrote:
> > my claim is that the Soviets, which included people such as the
> > Lithuanian communist Antanas Snieckus, choreographed a very subtle
> > subversion of three states, utilizing local sympathizers, dupes,
> > and people who were co-opted.
>
> Genocide with deliberate targetting of the elite to minimize
> culturally based organization and rebellion against the subsequent
> occupation can hardly be dismissed as the "subtle subversion" you
> termed it.
It was far subtler than just marching in shooting, as they did in
Poland in September, 1939, or fabricating a border incident, marching
in shooting, and establishing a bogus government with zero credibility,
as they did in Finland in November, 1939.
I am not in any way denying or justifiying the genocide and ethnicide
which followed the takjeover. My point is simply that the communists
were prefessionals in the art of government subversion, and that by the
time it came to subvert the Baltics, they had reduced subversion to an
art form. Subverting three governments within the space of a few days
with minimal bloodshed and installing bogus governments that look
credible is not an east thing to do. What was learned in conjunction
with the subversion of the Baltics was reapplied after WW II, when the
communists archetypically got into governments by making coalitions
with the Social Democrats, and then, when everything looked nice and
legal, took over and liquidated their opponents.
>
> The Russians used the same method in every country they conquered,
> first killing or deporting (usually to be killed) the most active
> and capable people, then banning traditional values and culture,
> then imposing foreign ideas that don't work but are enforced by
> threat of death.
I am not questioning this. My point is that the method was the
culmination of numerous, less successful methods. Russia was the first
country to be subverted by the communists, and they succeeded primarily
because nobody had ever had the brazen audacity to do such a thing
before. Although they had little trouble seizing and keeping power in
Moscow, it took years of bloodshed and millions of deaths before all of
Russia was under their control. (Eastern) Poland and Finland were
supposed to be easy pickings, due to the existence of the secret
protocol to the Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement. That they failed to take
Finland is primarily due to the fact that they were not prepared for
such resolute resistance, even if it should not be forgotten that some
people in the Soviet leadership actually thought that there was enough
sympathy for the communist cause in Finland that the Red Army would be
regarded as liberators and the country would be weakened enough by
civil strife to allow a communist government to be installed in
Helsinki, thus the bogus Terijoki government.
>
> It is not difficult for larger forces to destroy what is good and
> smaller, but neither should malevolent genocidal greed and harmful
> stupidity be shrugged off as mere subversion.
>
Agreed. But it is difficult to make the establishment of the
prerequisites for such destruction look half-way legitimate. The
establishment of the bogus governments in the Baltics in June 1940,
although obviously Soviet orchestrated, did not initially look as bad
as it eventually turned out to be. One reason for this is that the
officials in the bogus governments appeared to be respectable and
non-controversial. In Estonia they included a history professor, a high
official in the cooperative movement, a school teacher, a physician, a
major general who had been the defense minister in the previous
government, and a poet.
--
Regards,
Eugene Holman
Thomas Lanzesrtorfer
<hol...@elo.helsinki.fi> wrote:
>In article <3Ly%8.627700$352.134340@sccrnsc02>, "Henry Alminas"
><halm...@attbi.com> wrote:
>
>> Indeed, the eastern scum spent all their time
>> translating "good books" for their little western
>> "brothers".
>That's not what I wrote, either, o spinner of tales. The cultural
>authorities in the Soviet Union did everything possible to convince the
>peoples of the USSR that they were riding the tide of history. One
>aspect of this was to translate the major works of world literature
>written from a strong social critical or leftist slant. Writers such as
>Moravia, dos Passos, Steinbeck, Molière, etc. etc. were translated into
>Russian and many republic languages because their messages were
>consistent with the aims of communist ideology.
It took You up to this day to concede so clearly, that a lot of soviet
publishing had to do with propaganda, isn't it?
It took You up to this day to concede so clearly, that works as good
as the published ones or maybe even better ones were not published at
all, isn't it?
>> Holman, of course, knows just
>> which books would or would not have been
>> translated had the Balts managed to stay
>> independent.
>No, I don't. But I know something about the economics of book
>publishing and literary translation in langauges spoken by only three
>or four million people.
You still have not answered in a sufficient way the Question, which
books would not have been published.
It would be nice to compare Lithunia/Estonia/Latvia and Finland or
Denmark in this respect.
When people are richer, they are able to pay a higher price. It
depends on the price, people are willing to pay for.
To compare the actual saleries with the western prices, seems not
honest to me. Actual western prices are way above what many people are
able to pay for at the moment. Even more when one consider the fact,
that many balts have other needs at the moment. The older part of the
Inteligentia is now in pension and doesn't have to much of free money.
The nouveau riche class isn't much more interested in making money and
consume but not in education. (This is more of a pure guess for the
baltic states, but it is this way in Hungary and Romania, why should
it be to different in the baltic states. And also the information of
and old profesor for German, about 10 Years a go she translated for a
Lithunian choir, point in this direction)
Thomas Lanzerstorfer
Eugene Holman
Lanzesrtorfer <thomas.lan...@siemens.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 24 Jul 2002 21:12:09 +0300, Eugene Holman
> <hol...@elo.helsinki.fi> wrote:
> >In article <3Ly%8.627700$352.134340@sccrnsc02>, "Henry Alminas"
> ><halm...@attbi.com> wrote:
> > <big snip>
> >
> >> Indeed, the eastern scum spent all their time
> >> translating "good books" for their little western
> >> "brothers".
> >That's not what I wrote, either, o spinner of tales. The cultural
> >authorities in the Soviet Union did everything possible to convince the
> >peoples of the USSR that they were riding the tide of history. One
> >aspect of this was to translate the major works of world literature
> >written from a strong social critical or leftist slant. Writers such as
> >Moravia, dos Passos, Steinbeck, Moličre, etc. etc. were translated into
> >Russian and many republic languages because their messages were
> >consistent with the aims of communist ideology.
>
> It took You up to this day to concede so clearly, that a lot of soviet
> publishing had to do with propaganda, isn't it?
Unh, no. The people in charge set the agenda. What I wrote is not a
"concession", but rather a statement of well-known fact for anyone
familiar with the Baltics.
> It took You up to this day to concede so clearly, that works as good
> as the published ones or maybe even better ones were not published at
> all, isn't it?
Once again, this is not a "concession". The communist authorities
"owned" the translators as well as the printing presses. Of course they
set the agenda as to what was going to be printed. Compared to the
other big totalitarian ideology of the 20th century, Nazism, they had
far superior literary taste as well as a far better understanding of
how "high culture" could be co-opted to serve their agenda.
>
> >> Holman, of course, knows just
> >> which books would or would not have been
> >> translated had the Balts managed to stay
> >> independent.
> >No, I don't. But I know something about the economics of book
> >publishing and literary translation in langauges spoken by only three
> >or four million people.
>
> You still have not answered in a sufficient way the Question, which
> books would not have been published.
> It would be nice to compare Lithunia/Estonia/Latvia and Finland or
> Denmark in this respect.
Book publishing in Finland and Denmark is complex: the most important
publishers are driven by "market forces", but in both countries there
are ideologically driven publishers which produce books with a leftist
or, in the recent past, even pro-Soviet, political slant at a loss. The
Baltic countries, with smaller readerships and less buyng power did not
have this "luxury".
>
> When people are richer, they are able to pay a higher price. It
> depends on the price, people are willing to pay for.
Correct. When the potential readership is richer and larger, publishers
can also take greater risks, and they can recover their losses using a
variety of "scams" such as selling beer.
> To compare the actual saleries with the western prices, seems not
> honest to me.
I agree. Nevertheless, books and printed matter in general were really
cheap in the USSR and most of former Eastern Europe. Poor quality paper
and primitive printing technology ensured that ugly but cheap books
would be produced in abundance.
> Actual western prices are way above what many people are
> able to pay for at the moment. Even more when one consider the fact,
> that many balts have other needs at the moment. The older part of the
> Inteligentia is now in pension and doesn't have to much of free money.
> The nouveau riche class isn't much more interested in making money and
> consume but not in education. (This is more of a pure guess for the
> baltic states, but it is this way in Hungary and Romania, why should
> it be to different in the baltic states. And also the information of
> and old profesor for German, about 10 Years a go she translated for a
> Lithunian choir, point in this direction)
The Baltics do not differ in most significant respects from Central
Europe when it comes to assessing the relative merits of acquiring a
classical education as opposed to getting rich as quickly as possible.
However, one important difference must be borne in mind. Hungarian and
Romanian are large languages, each with more than 15,000,000 speakers.
One can afford to take many more risks when publishing books with such
a large potential readership than one can in the Baltics, where
Lithuanian, the largest language, has only 4,000,000 speakers worldwide
and Estonian, the smallest, has only 1,500,000. Translating the
collected works of Plato, St. Thomas Aquinas, Diderot, Kafka, or Eugčne
Ionescu into Hungarian or Romanian, in addition to being an important
milestone for the respective culture, would almost certainly eventually
generate a profit. The same cannot be said for translating such works
into the three Baltic languages, not because the Baltic peoples would
not want these works in their own languages, but rather because the
potential readership would be so small.
--
Regards,
Eugene Holman
Jonhillr
- on top of his previous muck.
Get lost, Ho Ho the Clown!
Running troops across borders killing 32 people in just one incident is *not
subtle* and the subsequent 100,000 killed in the first year is *not* "minimal
bloodshed".
The russian communists were *not* "perfessionals" in the art of government
subversion.
The russian bombing of Tallin was *not* subtle.
Installing bogus governments that looked credible was also *not* done. The only
one fooled here is you.
Having the results of the Latvian 'election' published in Moskow *the day
before* the polls closed in Latvia was as stupid as you.
>The
>establishment of the bogus governments in the Baltics in June 1940,
>although obviously Soviet orchestrated, did not initially look as bad
>as it eventually turned out to be. One reason for this is that the
>officials in the bogus governments appeared to be respectable and
>non-controversial.
You're a moron, Ho Ho. Those russian clowns were as morally corrupt and as
stupid as you.
jonhill
Dmitry Fedotov
> and university I consistently did at least as well and usually better
> than those "white boys" (and girls), always graduating magna or summa
> cum laude. I've had a very satisfying life, and you and Jon are the
> first people I've ever encountered who just seem to hate me and twist
> everything I write.
They can't stand the fact that your knowledge and experience are far more
advanced than theirs. Mos'ka i Slon by Krylov could be a good example.
Henry Alminas
"Dmitry Fedotov" <dmitry....@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:oHZ%8.380$AJ3....@newsfep3-gui.server.ntli.net...
seem to qualify. I recall another admirer of Stalin and his works who
used to show up here (a Wilkes?) - I had greater admiration for him
than Holman - at least he stood up for his beliefs. Although sorely
tempted and despite expressing avid admiration for known Stalinists
- Holman doesn't have the intestinal fortitude to admit to what he is.
By the way, as a product of Stalinist activities in Latvia - how fond
are you still of unca Joe? One more question - why are you still putting
up with being oppressed in Latvia? Russkie paradise is beckoning just
across the eastern border.
Best - - Henry
Thomas Lanzesrtorfer
<hol...@elo.helsinki.fi> wrote:
>In article <27b0kuo5d2r1oti5a...@4ax.com>, Thomas
>Lanzesrtorfer <thomas.lan...@siemens.com> wrote:
>> On Wed, 24 Jul 2002 21:12:09 +0300, Eugene Holman
>> <hol...@elo.helsinki.fi> wrote:
>> >In article <3Ly%8.627700$352.134340@sccrnsc02>, "Henry Alminas"
>> ><halm...@attbi.com> wrote:
>> > <big snip>
>> >
>> >> Indeed, the eastern scum spent all their time
>> >> translating "good books" for their little western
>> >> "brothers".
>> >That's not what I wrote, either, o spinner of tales. The cultural
>> >authorities in the Soviet Union did everything possible to convince the
>> >peoples of the USSR that they were riding the tide of history. One
>> >aspect of this was to translate the major works of world literature
>> >written from a strong social critical or leftist slant. Writers such as
>> >Moravia, dos Passos, Steinbeck, Moličre, etc. etc. were translated into
>> >Russian and many republic languages because their messages were
>> >consistent with the aims of communist ideology.
>>
>> It took You up to this day to concede so clearly, that a lot of soviet
>> publishing had to do with propaganda, isn't it?
>
>Unh, no. The people in charge set the agenda. What I wrote is not a
>"concession", but rather a statement of well-known fact for anyone
>familiar with the Baltics.
So how does it come that even for me Your words about the communists
and their dids sounds like praising them.
How does it come that even for me a s a neutral observer (at least I
see myself this way here) You started with singing the "song of
praise" for the USSR in this thread, and only after a quite hevy
resonse from a lot of participants in this group, You were able to
write a much more nuanced statement.
The only way I can understand such a behaviour is either that You have
sometimes short blackouts, or that You are incapable to write
something nuanced because You focus just on one fact and You don't
consider how You would be understood by others.
>> It took You up to this day to concede so clearly, that works as good
>> as the published ones or maybe even better ones were not published at
>> all, isn't it?
>Once again, this is not a "concession". The communist authorities
>"owned" the translators as well as the printing presses. Of course they
>set the agenda as to what was going to be printed. Compared to the
>other big totalitarian ideology of the 20th century, Nazism, they had
>far superior literary taste as well as a far better understanding of
>how "high culture" could be co-opted to serve their agenda.
The architecture and the tase for paintings were equally horible in
both of them.
But anyway it doesn't make much of a sense for me to compare adult
communison at the age of 30 to childish nazism at the age of 0 to 11.
What is fore sure is that communism had the more developed but as
wrong theoretical foundation than nazism.
>> >> Holman, of course, knows just
>> >> which books would or would not have been
>> >> translated had the Balts managed to stay
>> >> independent.
>> >No, I don't. But I know something about the economics of book
>> >publishing and literary translation in langauges spoken by only three
>> >or four million people.
>> You still have not answered in a sufficient way the Question, which
>> books would not have been published.
>> It would be nice to compare Lithunia/Estonia/Latvia and Finland or
>> Denmark in this respect.
>Book publishing in Finland and Denmark is complex: the most important
>publishers are driven by "market forces", but in both countries there
>are ideologically driven publishers which produce books with a leftist
>or, in the recent past, even pro-Soviet, political slant at a loss. The
>Baltic countries, with smaller readerships and less buyng power did not
>have this "luxury".
Again You compare apples with oranges. Nowadays West in his richness
with still suffering East with his not yet sufficiently developed
possibilities
How would You consider the book publishing and literary translation in
Denmark and Finland? Are there sufficent books in the native Language?
Is the spectrum of published books broad enough? Was it better in
Lithunia under the communists? Why should it have been worse if
Lithunia was not occupied. Was there a hugh difference between
Denmark/Finland and Lithunia before WW II?
>> When people are richer, they are able to pay a higher price. It
>> depends on the price, people are willing to pay for.
>Correct. When the potential readership is richer and larger, publishers
>can also take greater risks, and they can recover their losses using a
>variety of "scams" such as selling beer.
Just curious, which publisher is selling beer? I want to try him!
>> To compare the actual saleries with the western prices, seems not
>> honest to me.
>I agree. Nevertheless, books and printed matter in general were really
>cheap in the USSR and most of former Eastern Europe. Poor quality paper
>and primitive printing technology ensured that ugly but cheap books
>would be produced in abundance.
So what? One get wht one pay for.
>The Baltics do not differ in most significant respects from Central
>Europe when it comes to assessing the relative merits of acquiring a
>classical education as opposed to getting rich as quickly as possible.
>However, one important difference must be borne in mind. Hungarian and
>Romanian are large languages, each with more than 15,000,000 speakers.
I think You overestimated the hungarians a bit and underestimated
Romaniansquite a lot, but anyway.
I got the impression, that out of national pride the smaller
hungarians do a lot more translations than the bigger Romanians. When
I watch Hungarian or Romanian TV (for sure not very often) I see US
soaps in hungarian synchronisation whereas Romanina TV send the same
soaps in English with romanian subtitles.
>One can afford to take many more risks when publishing books with such
>a large potential readership than one can in the Baltics, where
>Lithuanian, the largest language, has only 4,000,000 speakers worldwide
>and Estonian, the smallest, has only 1,500,000. Translating the
>collected works of Plato, St. Thomas Aquinas, Diderot, Kafka, or Eugčne
>Ionescu into Hungarian or Romanian, in addition to being an important
>milestone for the respective culture, would almost certainly eventually
>generate a profit. The same cannot be said for translating such works
>into the three Baltic languages, not because the Baltic peoples would
>not want these works in their own languages, but rather because the
>potential readership would be so small.
I don't think, that translating the collected works of St. Thomas
Aquinas would make much of a sense/be apprejiated in mostly Orthodox
Romania at all.
Romanians are about as strong as Russiaons in their rejection of
Catholicism, and St. Thomas Aquinas is considered to be a very
important Catholic theologian also by the Orthodox. But contrary to us
they don't like him for the most part. Just try to praise him in
alt.religion.christian.east-orthodox and wait for reactions, and You
will understand what I say.
But anyway, please number the baltics who want to read his works in
their native tongue and I would be astonished if they are more than a
few thousand for each language.
By the way, I would be surprised if St. Thomas Aquinas collected works
were published by the communists in Lithunian. This would lead even me
to Your praise of communism :))))
Thomas
Eugene Holman
Lanzesrtorfer <thomas.lan...@siemens.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 25 Jul 2002 20:54:43 +0300, Eugene Holman
> <hol...@elo.helsinki.fi> wrote:
> >In article <27b0kuo5d2r1oti5a...@4ax.com>, Thomas
> >Lanzesrtorfer <thomas.lan...@siemens.com> wrote:
> >> On Wed, 24 Jul 2002 21:12:09 +0300, Eugene Holman
> >> <hol...@elo.helsinki.fi> wrote:
> >> >In article <3Ly%8.627700$352.134340@sccrnsc02>, "Henry Alminas"
> >> ><halm...@attbi.com> wrote:
> >> > <big snip>
<snip>
>
> So how does it come that even for me Your words about the communists
> and their dids sounds like praising them.
Because you are a newcomer to this group.
>
> How does it come that even for me a s a neutral observer (at least I
> see myself this way here) You started with singing the "song of
> praise" for the USSR in this thread, and only after a quite hevy
> resonse from a lot of participants in this group, You were able to
> write a much more nuanced statement.
No I didn't. This thread started with Henry taking another broadside at
me, stating:
Source: Message-ID: <3Ly%8.627700$352.134340@sccrnsc02>
<quote>
It is interesting to note that now the scum Holman
(also known as "Jew watch" for the benefit of
Jewish groups, no doubt, and probably "spook
hunter" for that of black groups" has arrived at
the point where he deems SU a "benevolent"
society. Gone are the mass graves filled with
Balts - gone are the Gulags - gone is the terror.
Indeed, the eastern scum spent all their time
translating "good books" for their little western
"brothers". Holman, of course, knows just
which books would or would not have been
translated had the Balts managed to stay
independent. He knows which studies would
or would not have been conducted just as he
knows just where these would have been
economically.
</quote>
I responded by protesting:
Source: Message-ID: <240720022112099065%hol...@elo.helsinki.fi>
<quote>
You certainly know how to do a spin job. I stated quite clearly that
the basic premise is that the Soviet annexation of the Baltic states
was *immoral*, and that everything that happened during the two phases
of Soviet rule has to be understood within that context. I also stated,
equally clearly, that if an abnormal situation persists for two
generations, people who were born within it tend to regard it as
normal, particularly if, as was the case in the USSR, the have limited
access to information about any alternatives. Your "gone are the
gulags, gone is the terror" is your own, rather juvenile and fact-free
interpretation of what I wrote. I neither said not implied any such
thing. Unlike the case with Nazi Germany, the inhabitants of which had
to be de-Nazified in order to get Hitlerite propaganda out of their
systems, the peoples of the Baltic country began to integrate
themselves with the outside world many years before the fall of
communism, one reason being that the communist system began to crumble
in the mid-1980s, particularly when foreign newspapers, foreign
broadcasts, and foreign travel began to become available during the
late 1980s.
</quote>
As you become more familiar with this group and its denizens, you will
learn that this is Henry's virtual equivalent of kicking the dog.
>
> The only way I can understand such a behaviour is either that You have
> sometimes short blackouts, or that You are incapable to write
> something nuanced because You focus just on one fact and You don't
> consider how You would be understood by others.
We are supposed to be a group that discusses the present and past state
of the Baltic countries. I work on the assumption that readers of this
group have a basic understanding of the basic historical facts and can
focus on details. Some readers of this group don't agree with me, and
insist that I go through a litany explaining the injustice of half a
century of "Russian" domination and "Russian"-operated genocide before
focusing on anything specific. One point that I make that irritates the
hell out of Henry is that the Soviets were not only Russians, that they
did at least as much damage to Russia and Russian culture as they did
to the Baltic countries and their cultures, and that the Sovietization
of the Baltics was the result of operatives and agents working from
Moscow as well as within each Baltic country. Henry interprets my
insistance on calling attention to the fact that the Sovietization of
the Baltics in 1940 had some local input, primarily from upstanding
citizens such as Major-General Tõnis Rothberg and Juhan Nichtig, a
well-known, non-political public figure who had been the Director
General of the Central Office of Estonian Cooperatives, who sereved,
respectively, as Minister of Defense and Minister of Economics in the
Soviet-installed bogus government, and who were co-opted or frightened
by the Soviets, or thought they could have a moderating influence on an
obviously ill-auguring situation, as a claim that the "Balts did the
Balts", a statement which is as silly as it is incorrect.
>
> >> It took You up to this day to concede so clearly, that works as good
> >> as the published ones or maybe even better ones were not published at
> >> all, isn't it?
> >Once again, this is not a "concession". The communist authorities
> >"owned" the translators as well as the printing presses. Of course they
> >set the agenda as to what was going to be printed. Compared to the
> >other big totalitarian ideology of the 20th century, Nazism, they had
> >far superior literary taste as well as a far better understanding of
> >how "high culture" could be co-opted to serve their agenda.
>
> The architecture and the tase for paintings were equally horible in
> both of them.
Agreed. With one exception. The Vans^u Bridge in Riga (
http://mikap.iki.fi/travel/baltic-2001/pics/666-937/Picture05.jpg ),
built during the 1980s, is the most elegant suspension bridge I have
ever seen, a true delight to the eye.
> But anyway it doesn't make much of a sense for me to compare adult
> communison at the age of 30 to childish nazism at the age of 0 to 11.
> What is fore sure is that communism had the more developed but as
> wrong theoretical foundation than nazism.
This is very much what I have been arguing here for years. Being more
developed and capable of evolution, it collapsed as a consequence of
its own impossibility, its own internal contradictions, in a
surprisingly peaceful manner - all things considered.
<snip>
> >> It would be nice to compare Lithunia/Estonia/Latvia and Finland or
> >> Denmark in this respect.
> >Book publishing in Finland and Denmark is complex: the most important
> >publishers are driven by "market forces", but in both countries there
> >are ideologically driven publishers which produce books with a leftist
> >or, in the recent past, even pro-Soviet, political slant at a loss. The
> >Baltic countries, with smaller readerships and less buyng power did not
> >have this "luxury".
>
> Again You compare apples with oranges. Nowadays West in his richness
> with still suffering East with his not yet sufficiently developed
> possibilities
>
> How would You consider the book publishing and literary translation in
> Denmark and Finland? Are there sufficent books in the native Language?
Yes, but they are expensive. A thin Finnish paperbook book usually
costs between 10 and 15 euros. Many books cost twice as much in Finnish
as they do in the original English, due, of coure to translation costs
and the far smaller press run. Much the same obtains in Denmark,
another country with a language spoken by only 5,000,000 or so people.
> Is the spectrum of published books broad enough? Was it better in
> Lithunia under the communists? Why should it have been worse if
> Lithunia was not occupied. Was there a hugh difference between
> Denmark/Finland and Lithunia before WW II?
My understanding is that Estonia, Latvia, and Denmark had living
standards approximately on the same level, while Finland and Lithuania,
more agricultural and less industrialized, were somewhat poorer.
As to books, in Finland we have a wide spectrum of books in Finnish,
but they are very expensive. The unabridged Finnish dictionary, *Suomen
kielen perussanakirja*, in three volumes, each about 700 pages, cost
1800 markka - about 300¤ - when first published. The corresponding book
in Estonian, *Eesti keele sõnaraamat*, one large volume of 1040 pages,
cost EEK 500 - about 32¤.
>
> >> When people are richer, they are able to pay a higher price. It
> >> depends on the price, people are willing to pay for.
> >Correct. When the potential readership is richer and larger, publishers
> >can also take greater risks, and they can recover their losses using a
> >variety of "scams" such as selling beer.
>
> Just curious, which publisher is selling beer? I want to try him!
During the 1970s and 80s the Finnish Communist Party operated a
printing house called Kansan kulttuuri - People's culture - which
specialized in publishing books translated from languages of the Soviet
Union. Some was pure propaganda, such as the works of Lenin, but some
was good literature, such as novels by the Kirghiz author Chingiz
Atmatov and the Estonian author Oskar Luts. They also transklated into
Finnish and published some of the books popularizing various branches
of science that were so popular in the USSR. The losses incurred by
their bookstore, Gogolin nenä (= Gogol's Nose), were covered by the
dances and beer sold at them which were arranged at the House of
Culture and Koittosali (= Dawn Auditorium) by the Communist Party.
>
> >> To compare the actual saleries with the western prices, seems not
> >> honest to me.
> >I agree. Nevertheless, books and printed matter in general were really
> >cheap in the USSR and most of former Eastern Europe. Poor quality paper
> >and primitive printing technology ensured that ugly but cheap books
> >would be produced in abundance.
>
> So what? One get wht one pay for.
>
> >The Baltics do not differ in most significant respects from Central
> >Europe when it comes to assessing the relative merits of acquiring a
> >classical education as opposed to getting rich as quickly as possible.
> >However, one important difference must be borne in mind. Hungarian and
> >Romanian are large languages, each with more than 15,000,000 speakers.
>
> I think You overestimated the hungarians a bit and underestimated
> Romaniansquite a lot, but anyway.
According to my source ( http://www.ethnologue.com/web.asp ), Hungarian
has about 14,500,000 speakers worldwide, while Romanian has 26,000,000.
So I was somewhat incorrect, as you pointed out. Nevertheless, my point
was to show that they are both far larger than any Baltic or even
Scandinavian language, a factor which is important from the standpoint
of publishing and translation.
> I got the impression, that out of national pride the smaller
> hungarians do a lot more translations than the bigger Romanians. When
> I watch Hungarian or Romanian TV (for sure not very often) I see US
> soaps in hungarian synchronisation whereas Romanina TV send the same
> soaps in English with romanian subtitles.
One factor might also be that English and Romanian are rather close,
due to the abundance of shared Romance vocabulary, so Romanians have a
somewhat easier time understanding the English than Hungarians,
speaking a totally unrelated language, would. Here in northern Europe
dubbing is hardly ever used, except in films and programs for children.
On Finnish TV films and programs in other languages have Finnish
subtitles, in movie theaters they have Finnish and Swedish subtitles.
In Estonia and Latvia some television programs have subtitles in the
local language as well as a voiceover in Russian.
--
Regards,
Eugene Holman
Thomas Lanzesrtorfer
with a week delay.
On Fri, 26 Jul 2002 19:29:36 +0300, Eugene Holman
<hol...@elo.helsinki.fi> wrote:
>In article <vsj2kug925jjq4fgn...@4ax.com>, Thomas
>Lanzesrtorfer <thomas.lan...@siemens.com> wrote:
><snip>
>>
>> So how does it come that even for me Your words about the communists
>> and their dids sounds like praising them.
>Because you are a newcomer to this group.
Again wrong!
A short search on my PC for Your name gave me below quotation as first
of Your messages that I saved on my PC. So I know/monitor You at least
for 14 months. I would not call this a newcomer. How about You?
"Subject: Re: Latvian president interviewed in Helsingin Sanomat on
NATO expansion
Date: Wed, 30 May 2001 13:28:22 +0300
From: Eugene Holman <hol...@elo.helsinki.fi>"
>> How does it come that even for me a s a neutral observer (at least I
>> see myself this way here) You started with singing the "song of
>> praise" for the USSR in this thread, and only after a quite hevy
>> resonse from a lot of participants in this group, You were able to
>> write a much more nuanced statement.
>No I didn't. This thread started with Henry taking another broadside at
>me, stating:
>Source: Message-ID: <3Ly%8.627700$352.134340@sccrnsc02>
><quote>
>It is interesting to note that now Holman
><snip shoutings> has arrived at
>the point where he deems SU a "benevolent"
>society. Gone are the mass graves filled with
>Balts - gone are the Gulags - gone is the terror.
>Indeed, the eastern scum spent all their time
>translating "good books" for their little western
>"brothers". Holman, of course, knows just
>which books would or would not have been
>translated had the Balts managed to stay
>independent. He knows which studies would
>or would not have been conducted just as he
>knows just where these would have been
>economically.
></quote>
And what did we excange before in thread "Subject: Re: Kaliningrad
or..."? Shall I quote again Your undifferentiated praise of the
advantages for the small baltic nations to live in the USSR? Have You
ever tried to answer the questions why the (about) the same benefit of
translations should not have happened also without USSR "benefits"?
By the way, how long does Your memory last?
>I responded by protesting:
>Source: Message-ID: <240720022112099065%hol...@elo.helsinki.fi>
><quote>
>You certainly know how to do a spin job. I stated quite clearly that
>the basic premise is that the Soviet annexation of the Baltic states
>was *immoral*, and that everything that happened during the two phases
>of Soviet rule has to be understood within that context. I also stated,
>equally clearly, that if an abnormal situation persists for two
>generations, people who were born within it tend to regard it as
>normal, particularly if, as was the case in the USSR, the have limited
>access to information about any alternatives. Your "gone are the
>gulags, gone is the terror" is your own, rather juvenile and fact-free
>interpretation of what I wrote. I neither said not implied any such
>thing. Unlike the case with Nazi Germany, the inhabitants of which had
>to be de-Nazified in order to get Hitlerite propaganda out of their
>systems, the peoples of the Baltic country began to integrate
>themselves with the outside world many years before the fall of
>communism, one reason being that the communist system began to crumble
>in the mid-1980s, particularly when foreign newspapers, foreign
>broadcasts, and foreign travel began to become available during the
>late 1980s.
></quote>
>As you become more familiar with this group and its denizens, you will
>learn that this is Henry's virtual equivalent of kicking the dog.
That was Your first more reasonable participation to this subject
(handeled in different threads).
A few more remarks:
- I would not be to sure, that a de-Communistified would not be
a benefit even for the baltic states. (Eastern Germany would need it
for sure much more, just look at the percentage of votes for the PDS)
- I think You overestimate the possibility of traveling in for
the Balts.
- I think You overestimate the traveling influence on the
hardcore people.
>> The only way I can understand such a behaviour is either that You have
>> sometimes short blackouts, or that You are incapable to write
>> something nuanced because You focus just on one fact and You don't
>> consider how You would be understood by others.
>We are supposed to be a group that discusses the present and past state
>of the Baltic countries. I work on the assumption that readers of this
>group have a basic understanding of the basic historical facts and can
>focus on details.
But even if one focus on details it need not to sound like "Poor Balts
if they would not have had the benefit of being part of the USSR".
>Some readers of this group don't agree with me, and
>insist that I go through a litany explaining the injustice of half a
>century of "Russian" domination and "Russian"-operated genocide before
>focusing on anything specific.
We can easily agree, that the communists could have destroied even
more, but some words like this don't sound like praise.
>One point that I make that irritates the hell out of Henry is that the
>Soviets were not only Russians,
I don't think that Henry denies the fact, that there were a lot of
communists, that were not Russians (I just start with Marx, Feuerbach,
..... and end with a Austrian name Muri, the former general secretary
of the KPÖ)
Where I would agree with Henry ist the fact, that the USSR continued
the imperialistic behaviour of former Russia seamlessly.
What iritates not only me is, that there are Russiaons who blame
everybody else but the Russians for all bad things done in the name of
Russia. If You speak to them about wrongdoings of Catherina the great,
it was her nonRussian/Prussian herritage, although she did what she
did in Russias interrest. If You speak to them about wrongdoings of
Stalin, it was his Georgian herritage. If its Lenin, I have not heared
and excuse, except, that the Germans/Austrians are responsible for
sending him to Russia. And if one speaks about the cruelty of one of
the KGB chiefs, its often his jewish herritage which is to be blamed.
But "Holy Russia" is not to blame in any case.
>that they did at least as much damage to Russia and Russian culture
>as they did to the Baltic countries and their cultures,
When other nations destroy themselfs, its up to them. But when they
(try to) destroy my nation its not an excuse, that they did the same
to their own nation.
By the way, one interesting thing for me is, that they only were able
to grow on Russian soil to power, although they tried it in a lot of
other countries even with temporal success.
>and that the Sovietization
>of the Baltics was the result of operatives and agents working from
>Moscow as well as within each Baltic country.
So what?
>Henry interprets my insistance on calling attention to the fact that the
>Sovietization of the Baltics in 1940 had some local input,
Why are You insisting on the local input?
- Is it pure historical interrest? Than why there is no
discussion about what "motivation drove these people to help the
Communists?
- Was the local input decisive? If yes, why do You think so?
- What is so special in a local input in such a situation?
- What is the national/political/religious background of the
local input? (both surnames sound german/and/or/jewish to me)
>primarily from upstanding
>citizens such as Major-General Tõnis Rothberg and Juhan Nichtig, a
>well-known, non-political public figure who had been the Director
>General of the Central Office of Estonian Cooperatives, who sereved,
>respectively, as Minister of Defense and Minister of Economics in the
>Soviet-installed bogus government, and who were co-opted or frightened
>by the Soviets, or thought they could have a moderating influence on an
>obviously ill-auguring situation, as a claim that the "Balts did the
>Balts", a statement which is as silly as it is incorrect.
I understand/understood You in about the same way as did Henry. It
seems, that You can't express Yourself in a sufficiently nuanced way.
>> >> It took You up to this day to concede so clearly, that works as good
>> >> as the published ones or maybe even better ones were not published at
>> >> all, isn't it?
>> >Once again, this is not a "concession". The communist authorities
>> >"owned" the translators as well as the printing presses. Of course they
>> >set the agenda as to what was going to be printed. Compared to the
>> >other big totalitarian ideology of the 20th century, Nazism, they had
>> >far superior literary taste as well as a far better understanding of
>> >how "high culture" could be co-opted to serve their agenda.
>> The architecture and the tase for paintings were equally horible in
>> both of them.
>Agreed. With one exception. The Vans^u Bridge in Riga (
>http://mikap.iki.fi/travel/baltic-2001/pics/666-937/Picture05.jpg ),
>built during the 1980s, is the most elegant suspension bridge I have
>ever seen, a true delight to the eye.
For me it's nice, but I would not praise it the same way as You did.
>> But anyway it doesn't make much of a sense for me to compare adult
>> communison at the age of 30 to childish nazism at the age of 0 to 11.
>> What is fore sure is that communism had the more developed but as
>> wrong theoretical foundation than nazism.
>This is very much what I have been arguing here for years.
How does it come, that others don't get it? Could this be a fault on
Your part?
>Being more developed and capable of evolution,
I would not say, that communism was more capable of evolution at all.
I can detect only one evolutional period at the beginning of Communism
(the same time, when they changed from free sexuality in the first
comunes to even more rigid habits than the bourgeois).
The rest I would call "more of the same".
The short period at the end, when some leaders realized the hollowness
and emptyness of the whole building called communism to some extent
was just the natural implosion of the would system.
>it collapsed as a consequence of its own impossibility, its own
>internal contradictions,
Beside the fact, that it lost all its "moral" force (which it lost
quite a long time ago), it was mostly the economic situation after my
knowldege and the fact, that people lost most of their fears in front
of the different secret services, which caused the collaps.
>in a surprisingly peaceful manner - all things considered.
We differ over the surrprise.
>> Again You compare apples with oranges. Nowadays West in his richness
>> with still suffering East with his not yet sufficiently developed
>> possibilities
>> How would You consider the book publishing and literary translation in
>> Denmark and Finland? Are there sufficent books in the native Language?
>Yes, but they are expensive. A thin Finnish paperbook book usually
>costs between 10 and 15 euros. Many books cost twice as much in Finnish
>as they do in the original English, due, of coure to translation costs
>and the far smaller press run. Much the same obtains in Denmark,
>another country with a language spoken by only 5,000,000 or so people.
The difference between original english books and their translation
seem to be about the same for the German Editions, although there are
about 80.000.000 German speakers.
So Baltic republics being part of the West having standards of living
about the same as the West would be able to pay the prices which also
seem to be standard in the West, isn't it?
>> Is the spectrum of published books broad enough? Was it better in
>> Lithunia under the communists? Why should it have been worse if
>> Lithunia was not occupied. Was there a hugh difference between
>> Denmark/Finland and Lithunia before WW II?
>My understanding is that Estonia, Latvia, and Denmark had living
>standards approximately on the same level, while Finland and Lithuania,
>more agricultural and less industrialized, were somewhat poorer.
So no reason why a Free Baltikum (no communist occupation) should have
developed to different from Finland and Denmark.
>As to books, in Finland we have a wide spectrum of books in Finnish,
>but they are very expensive. The unabridged Finnish dictionary, *Suomen
>kielen perussanakirja*, in three volumes, each about 700 pages, cost
>1800 markka - about 300¤ - when first published. The corresponding book
>in Estonian, *Eesti keele sõnaraamat*, one large volume of 1040 pages,
>cost EEK 500 - about 32¤.
And Your conclusion?
>> >> When people are richer, they are able to pay a higher price. It
>> >> depends on the price, people are willing to pay for.
>> >Correct. When the potential readership is richer and larger, publishers
>> >can also take greater risks, and they can recover their losses using a
>> >variety of "scams" such as selling beer.
>> Just curious, which publisher is selling beer? I want to try him!
>During the 1970s and 80s the Finnish Communist Party operated a
>printing house called Kansan kulttuuri - People's culture - which
>specialized in publishing books translated from languages of the Soviet
>Union. Some was pure propaganda, such as the works of Lenin, but some
>was good literature, such as novels by the Kirghiz author Chingiz
>Atmatov and the Estonian author Oskar Luts. They also transklated into
>Finnish and published some of the books popularizing various branches
>of science that were so popular in the USSR. The losses incurred by
>their bookstore, Gogolin nenä (= Gogol's Nose), were covered by the
>dances and beer sold at them which were arranged at the House of
>Culture and Koittosali (= Dawn Auditorium) by the Communist Party.
Thats the only pubisher so far that sold/sells beer after my
knowledge. What do the more serious publishers in countries like
Germany or Austria, where beer is nothing special and taxes for beer
(alcohol) are much lower than in the north.
>> >The Baltics do not differ in most significant respects from Central
>> >Europe when it comes to assessing the relative merits of acquiring a
>> >classical education as opposed to getting rich as quickly as possible.
>> >However, one important difference must be borne in mind. Hungarian and
>> >Romanian are large languages, each with more than 15,000,000 speakers.
>> I think You overestimated the hungarians a bit and underestimated
>> Romaniansquite a lot, but anyway.
>According to my source ( http://www.ethnologue.com/web.asp ), Hungarian
>has about 14,500,000 speakers worldwide, while Romanian has 26,000,000.
>So I was somewhat incorrect, as you pointed out. Nevertheless, my point
>was to show that they are both far larger than any Baltic or even
>Scandinavian language, a factor which is important from the standpoint
>of publishing and translation.
The 3.000.000 figure for Romania seems quite high, the lower figure
seems more reasonable. Maybe one can reach 3.000.000 when numbering
also every Romnanian who understand Hungarian to some level. But they
would not buy books in Hungarian. I know a few Romanians who
unsterstand Hungarian and watch Hungarian TV to cry afterwards how
degenerated Hungary really is.
>> I got the impression, that out of national pride the smaller
>> hungarians do a lot more translations than the bigger Romanians. When
>> I watch Hungarian or Romanian TV (for sure not very often) I see US
>> soaps in hungarian synchronisation whereas Romanina TV send the same
>> soaps in English with romanian subtitles.
>One factor might also be that English and Romanian are rather close,
>due to the abundance of shared Romance vocabulary,
This helped me a lot when I lerned the Romanian vocabulary.
>so Romanians have a somewhat easier time understanding the English than
>Hungarians, speaking a totally unrelated language, would.
To some extent "Yes", but why than subtitles at allß it is also what
people want/are able to pay for. Hungarians are very proud of their
languge and it seems taht they are able to pay for the costly
synchronisation.
>Here in northern Europe dubbing is hardly ever used, except in films and programs for children.
Thats very different to Germany and Austria, where You can hear the
original sound only sometimes, if one has a TV set which supports
switching between sound channels and it is a film without stereo.
I think, its the same for France Spain and Italy, but I don't know to
much about TV there.
>On Finnish TV films and programs in other languages have Finnish
>subtitles, in movie theaters they have Finnish and Swedish subtitles.
>In Estonia and Latvia some television programs have subtitles in the
>local language as well as a voiceover in Russian.
Again, one gets what one pays for. So from films everybody there
should at least have some to good knowledge of English. Not to much
need for translated books, isn't it?
Thomas
Eugene Holman
Lanzesrtorfer <thomas.lan...@siemens.com> wrote:
> As I came back just now from a tour in the Gastein valley I answer
> with a week delay.
Willkommen zurück!
> On Fri, 26 Jul 2002 19:29:36 +0300, Eugene Holman
> <hol...@elo.helsinki.fi> wrote:
> >In article <vsj2kug925jjq4fgn...@4ax.com>, Thomas
> >Lanzesrtorfer <thomas.lan...@siemens.com> wrote:
> ><snip>
> >>
> >> So how does it come that even for me Your words about the communists
> >> and their dids sounds like praising them.
> >Because you are a newcomer to this group.
>
> Again wrong!
> A short search on my PC for Your name gave me below quotation as first
> of Your messages that I saved on my PC. So I know/monitor You at least
> for 14 months. I would not call this a newcomer. How about You?
I've been posting here since 1993 and am, unfortunately, the last of
the "Old Guard". The towering figures of this group when it had a real
exchange of ideas, Zagarin, Perkonas, Tannet, Hietaniemi, and the
notorious Ivan Ivanovich ivanov, have all moved on to happier hunting
grounds. Henry and JonHillr are newcomers who have tried to claim
soc.culture.baltics as a forum for their views and their views alone.
> "Subject: Re: Latvian president interviewed in Helsingin Sanomat on
> NATO expansion
> Date: Wed, 30 May 2001 13:28:22 +0300
> From: Eugene Holman <hol...@elo.helsinki.fi>"
>
> >> How does it come that even for me a s a neutral observer (at least I
> >> see myself this way here) You started with singing the "song of
> >> praise" for the USSR in this thread, and only after a quite hevy
> >> resonse from a lot of participants in this group, You were able to
> >> write a much more nuanced statement.
I "never" praise the USSR. I *do* say that the almost half a century of
Soviet occupation of the Baltics was not a continuous hell, but also
had some positive aspects. Having visited Soviet Estonia several times,
including once as a guest of the Estonian Academy of Sciences (which
also published one of my research projects and conducted, unbeknownst
to me until after the event, a seminar on my thesis on Baltic-Finnic
morphology typology), I think i know what I was talking about.
<snip>
>
> And what did we excange before in thread "Subject: Re: Kaliningrad
> or..."? Shall I quote again Your undifferentiated praise of the
> advantages for the small baltic nations to live in the USSR? Have You
> ever tried to answer the questions why the (about) the same benefit of
> translations should not have happened also without USSR "benefits"?
> By the way, how long does Your memory last?
It's quite obvious that the small Baltic nations gained some advantages
from being part of the USSR; it would be foolish to argue that almost
half a century of (forced) membership in a great power had no positive
impact whatsoever. That does not mean that their forced membership was
morally or politically justified.
Let's take s simple example. I visited the Estonian SSR with a group of
scholars from the Phonetics Department of Helsinki University as a
guest of the Estonian Academy of Sciences in 1976. At that time
instrumental phonetics was a new discipline, and the equipment needed
to do setrious research cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. The
Estonians were not able to afford such equipment (now, by the way,
available for free as computer software), but they could tap tyhe
engineering expertise of the USSR defense establishment and have a team
of engineers construct machines that could emulate the expensive
equipment. This is but one example of how being part of a great power
granted the Baltic states certain advantages.
It is obvious that the three Baltic countries never wanted to be part
of the USSR, and that everything that happened there during the Soviet
occupation was as illegal as it was immoral. That does not preclude the
possibility of something positive being dredgeable from a negative
situation. I think that this is the biggest problem I have with Henry
and his ilk. We both agree that the Soviet occupation of the Baltics
was wrong, wrong, wrong, but he is unable to understand that even a bad
situation can have some positive aspects. For my part, I find it
difficult to conceptualize a situation that lasted for almost having
half a century but had no positive aspects whatsoever.
><snip>
They did indeed, nut not "seamlessly". They killed some 10,000,000
Russians between 1917 and 1924 before they were able to co-opt Russian
imperialism for their own ends.
>
> What iritates not only me is, that there are Russiaons who blame
> everybody else but the Russians for all bad things done in the name of
> Russia. If You speak to them about wrongdoings of Catherina the great,
> it was her nonRussian/Prussian herritage, although she did what she
> did in Russias interrest. If You speak to them about wrongdoings of
> Stalin, it was his Georgian herritage. If its Lenin, I have not heared
> and excuse, except, that the Germans/Austrians are responsible for
> sending him to Russia. And if one speaks about the cruelty of one of
> the KGB chiefs, its often his jewish herritage which is to be blamed.
> But "Holy Russia" is not to blame in any case.
>
> >that they did at least as much damage to Russia and Russian culture
> >as they did to the Baltic countries and their cultures,
>
> When other nations destroy themselfs, its up to them. But when they
> (try to) destroy my nation its not an excuse, that they did the same
> to their own nation.
Only by murdering the opposiion, real and imagined. The communists were
truly horrible people.
> By the way, one interesting thing for me is, that they only were able
> to grow on Russian soil to power, although they tried it in a lot of
> other countries even with temporal success.
>
> >and that the Sovietization
> >of the Baltics was the result of operatives and agents working from
> >Moscow as well as within each Baltic country.
>
> So what?
>
> >Henry interprets my insistance on calling attention to the fact that the
> >Sovietization of the Baltics in 1940 had some local input,
>
> Why are You insisting on the local input?
> - Is it pure historical interrest? Than why there is no
> discussion about what "motivation drove these people to help the
> Communists?
> - Was the local input decisive? If yes, why do You think so?
> - What is so special in a local input in such a situation?
> - What is the national/political/religious background of the
> local input? (both surnames sound german/and/or/jewish to me)
Communism, despite its faults, was a far more intellectual and
"user-friendly" ideology than Nazism. It was, after all, purportedly a
fool-proof methodology for improving the world so that *everyone*
except class enemies could benefit. Thus it attracted far more people
than Nazism, which preached that most of humanity, including the Balts,
was garbage and that only racially pure Aryans were worthy of
inheriting the world.
More Balts than Henry or Jon would like to admit were seduced by
communist ideology. The 1940 installations of bogus governments in the
Baltic countries could not have taken place as smoothly as they did
without considerable local inout: police, translators, operatives.Yes,
the Soviets subveted these countries, but, also yes, they did their
homework and compromised enough locals to make their subversion look at
least halfway legitimate.
>
> >primarily from upstanding
> >citizens such as Major-General Tõnis Rothberg and Juhan Nichtig, a
> >well-known, non-political public figure who had been the Director
> >General of the Central Office of Estonian Cooperatives, who sereved,
> >respectively, as Minister of Defense and Minister of Economics in the
> >Soviet-installed bogus government, and who were co-opted or frightened
> >by the Soviets, or thought they could have a moderating influence on an
> >obviously ill-auguring situation, as a claim that the "Balts did the
> >Balts", a statement which is as silly as it is incorrect.
>
> I understand/understood You in about the same way as did Henry. It
> seems, that You can't express Yourself in a sufficiently nuanced way.
I'm sorry. i do the best I can. I do not argue, despite Henry's
mendacious arguments to the contrary, that "the Balts did the Balts". I
argue that the Soviet takeover of the Baltics in 1940 was a far more
complex matter than the "russkies" marching in and saying, Alexander
Haig-like "Hey, we're in charge here".
<snip>
>
> The difference between original english books and their translation
> seem to be about the same for the German Editions, although there are
> about 80.000.000 German speakers.
>
> So Baltic republics being part of the West having standards of living
> about the same as the West would be able to pay the prices which also
> seem to be standard in the West, isn't it?
>
> >> Is the spectrum of published books broad enough? Was it better in
> >> Lithunia under the communists? Why should it have been worse if
> >> Lithunia was not occupied. Was there a hugh difference between
> >> Denmark/Finland and Lithunia before WW II?
> >My understanding is that Estonia, Latvia, and Denmark had living
> >standards approximately on the same level, while Finland and Lithuania,
> >more agricultural and less industrialized, were somewhat poorer.
>
> So no reason why a Free Baltikum (no communist occupation) should have
> developed to different from Finland and Denmark.
>
> >As to books, in Finland we have a wide spectrum of books in Finnish,
> >but they are very expensive. The unabridged Finnish dictionary, *Suomen
> >kielen perussanakirja*, in three volumes, each about 700 pages, cost
> >1800 markka - about 300¤ - when first published. The corresponding book
> >in Estonian, *Eesti keele sõnaraamat*, one large volume of 1040 pages,
> >cost EEK 500 - about 32¤.
>
> And Your conclusion?
Small languages are expensive to maintain, but it is worth it.
<snip>
> >On Finnish TV films and programs in other languages have Finnish
> >subtitles, in movie theaters they have Finnish and Swedish subtitles.
> >In Estonia and Latvia some television programs have subtitles in the
> >local language as well as a voiceover in Russian.
>
> Again, one gets what one pays for. So from films everybody there
> should at least have some to good knowledge of English. Not to much
> need for translated books, isn't it?
Yes, there is. Even with widespread knowledge of English, many people,
even representative of the younger generation, still prefer to acquaint
themselves with technology and other "difficult" issues in their own
language.
--
Regards,
Eugene Holman
Imbieras
news:030820022121363926%hol...@elo.helsinki.fi...
> I've been posting here since 1993 and am, unfortunately, the last of
> the "Old Guard". The towering figures of this group when it had a real
> exchange of ideas, Zagarin, Perkonas, Tannet, Hietaniemi, and the
> notorious Ivan Ivanovich ivanov, have all moved on to happier hunting
> grounds. Henry and JonHillr are newcomers who have tried to claim
> soc.culture.baltics as a forum for their views and their views alone.
I don't know how to search the entire SCB archive (and I can't remember what
email address I used in 1993), but I wouldn't be surprised if my missives to
SCB go back that far.
> I "never" praise the USSR. I *do* say that the almost half a century of
> Soviet occupation of the Baltics was not a continuous hell, but also
> had some positive aspects.
Geezes. Parse that sentence: I never praise the USSR, but [...] positive
aspects.
Maybe HIV positive. That's about all. Poor old Denmark - missed out on all
the soviet goodies. Did you notice all those OECD countries clamouring to
join USSR from 1945 to 1990?
> It's quite obvious that the small Baltic nations gained some advantages
> from being part of the USSR; it would be foolish to argue that almost
> half a century of (forced) membership in a great power had no positive
> impact whatsoever.
No it would not be foolish to argue that. Greater intellects than yours
argue (and prove) that constantly.
>That does not mean that their forced membership was morally or politically
justified.
Was Stalin a bolshevik?
> Let's take s simple example. I visited the Estonian SSR with a group of
> scholars from the Phonetics Department of Helsinki University as a
> guest of the Estonian Academy of Sciences in 1976. At that time
> instrumental phonetics was a new discipline, and the equipment needed
> to do setrious research cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. The
> Estonians were not able to afford such equipment (now, by the way,
> available for free as computer software), but they could tap the
> engineering expertise of the USSR defense establishment and have a team
> of engineers construct machines that could emulate the expensive
> equipment. This is but one example of how being part of a great power
> granted the Baltic states certain advantages.
Jesus wept. Do I have to explain...? Like, that made all the deportations,
etc worthwhile? What did Denmark do?
> It is obvious that the three Baltic countries never wanted to be part
> of the USSR, and that everything that happened there during the Soviet
> occupation was as illegal as it was immoral. That does not preclude the
> possibility of something positive being dredgeable from a negative
> situation.
If the preceding example is the best you can dredge up, leave the rest of
the examples at the bottom of the harbour.
> I find it difficult to conceptualize a situation that lasted for almost
having
> half a century but had no positive aspects whatsoever.
I don't.
Would you be saying the same if a Nazi occupation of Europe had lasted 50
years?
> Communism, despite its faults, was a far more intellectual and
> "user-friendly" ideology than Nazism. It was, after all, purportedly a
> fool-proof methodology for improving the world so that *everyone*
> except class enemies could benefit. Thus it attracted far more people
> than Nazism, which preached that most of humanity, including the Balts,
> was garbage and that only racially pure Aryans were worthy of
> inheriting the world.
Oh, there's the answer to my last question already. Communism good, Nazism
bad. Now where have I heard that before?
> More Balts than Henry or Jon would like to admit were seduced by
> communist ideology.
Blame the victim?
>The 1940 installations of bogus governments in the
> Baltic countries could not have taken place as smoothly as they did
> without considerable local inout: police, translators, operatives.
Have you heard of an instinct called 'survival at all costs'?
>Yes, the Soviets subveted these countries, but, also yes, they did their
> homework and compromised enough locals to make their subversion look at
> least halfway legitimate.
It only 'looks' half legitimate if you wear the right glasses. (voir tout
en rose)
> I argue that the Soviet takeover of the Baltics in 1940 was a far more
> complex matter than the "russkies" marching in and saying, Alexander
> Haig-like "Hey, we're in charge here".
All sane Balts reject your argument.
Gintautas Kaminskas
Siaubas
>> complex matter than the "russkies" marching in and saying, Alexander
>> Haig-like "Hey, we're in charge here".
>
>All sane Balts reject your argument.
>
>Gintautas Kaminskas
>
And Eugene's not a Balt. He came into the region with a predisposed notion of
what the SU was, what it represented and what it was responsible for - in his
mind. In contrast, there are many that post here that experienced what the SU
was, what it meant to them and their families. Eugene has no concept of this
and cannot answer to it.
As for the SU marching in in 1940 and saying we're in charge here - Eugene
conveniently glances over this event which was more in line with - "We're here.
We own you now. Bang bang bang you're dead." One third of the Baltic people met
this end Eugene. What positive aspect of the SU were they able to walk away
with ? Should they have been thankful that the red army used fairly large
bullets ? Only took one ?
Vidas
Eugene Holman
sia...@aol.com (Siaubas) wrote:
> And Eugene's not a Balt. He came into the region with a predisposed notion of
> what the SU was, what it represented and what it was responsible for - in his
> mind.
Not quite. Although born and raised in the USA during the Cold War, I
came to Finland, a country which had suffered as a result of Soviet
aggression in a manner that the Baltic states never did: armed
invasion, loss of a tenth of its territory, every eighth person made a
refugee, the industrial heartland as well as the second largest city
(Viipuri, now Vyborg) ripped out and ceded to the Soviets, a
$300,000,000 reparations bill payable in sophiscated industrial goods
such as ships and locomotives which a primarily agrarian country did
not produce, wartime leaders humiliated and imprisioned for "war
guilt", a post-war situation, persisting until the early 1980s, in
which the country was independent, but nevertheless constrained to some
degree or another by the whims and interests of the USSR.
> In contrast, there are many that post here that experienced what the SU
> was, what it meant to them and their families. Eugene has no concept of this
> and cannot answer to it.
I know dozens of Balts, and have a very clear idea of what they and
their families, friends and associates went through during the Soviet
period. I also took the trouble to learn Russian and spend a month
living in the USSR to gain some first-hand experience. Although you
might regard me as an outsider, I have quite a clear picture of what
the USSR was and what it stood for.
> As for the SU marching in in 1940 and saying we're in charge here - Eugene
> conveniently glances over this event which was more in line with - "We're
> here.
> We own you now. Bang bang bang you're dead." One third of the Baltic people
> met
> this end Eugene.
Being part American Indian, I would be quite pleased if two thirds of
my ancestors' tribal groupings, the Seminoles and Caribs, had survived
imperialism and colonialism. I needn't even mention the impact of
colonialism on those of my African ancestors, both those who were
abducted, sold into slavery, and used as sex toys by their owners, who
were not even allowed to keep memory of their ethnicity, birth name, or
original language. In other words, I'm closer to you than you think
because I also have genocidal colonialism in my background a few
generations back. Closer to home, nine tenths of Latvian and Lithuanian
Jews perished during the Nazi occupations of the countries. While not
wanting in any way to deprecate the sufferings of the Balts, the
Estonian, Latvians, and Lithuanians emerged from half a century of
Soviet colonialism in far better shape, demographically,
psychologically, and intellectually, than is the norm for colonialism,
even if we restrict ourselves to Europe. The three Baltic countries,
despite the tragic events of 1991, were the *only* post-Soviet
countries to be able to get their act together, revert to a civil
society, and start playing hardball almost immediately after regaining
their independence. This means that under Soviet colonial rule locals
were not only thinking about how to stay in power, but also about
viable alternative scenarios for a possible collapse of the system. It
is quite unusual for colonialists to have such a sense of the mortaloty
of their enterprise, or for colonial masters to tolerate such
discussion and longer-term planning among the people responsible for
maintaining the status quo.
> What positive aspect of the SU were they able to walk away
> with ? Should they have been thankful that the red army used fairly large
> bullets ? Only took one ?
I say what follows with the utmost sincerity.
The most positive aspect of the Soviet experience of the Baltics is
that, for the most part, the national and republic-level leaders were
intelligent and open-minded enough to understand that the system was
heading nowhere. The years between 1985 and 1991 saw the USSR
questioning itself, looking for new directions, even asking
international organizations for advice. The dogma of the Stalinist and
Brezhnev eras yielded to a much more critical assessment of what was
being done and, more importantly, what could be done. When it became
obvious that the system was so rotten to the core that it could not be
tweaked, fixed, or jump-started, instead of trying to defend it to the
last man and bullet, the ruling clique in Moscow spent its last four
months putting together a legal framework which enabled what remained
of the USSR to roll over and die a peaceful, dinosaur-like death. Yes,
I'm perfectly aware of the fact that a few dozen Balts were killed, as
well as a hundred or so people elsewhere as part of the death process.
As far as the Balts are concerned, this is the necessary sacrifice that
had to be made for being in the avant guard: the Balts were the ones
that initiated the process that resulted in the collapse of the USSR,
they were the first ones to expose themselves to what was still a
finely tuned killing and terror machine. But I'm also aware of the far
higher toll in human lives and treasure have been lost shaking off the
colonialist yoke in places like Kenya, Zimbabwe, South Africa, India,
Angola, and Mozambique. If you will accept the Nazi incursions into
Poland, the Baltics, Byelorussia, and Ukraine as exercises in
colonialism, we have even more striking examples.
Never in history has a colonial empire collapsed as peacefully and
intelligently as the USSR did. As I see it, this is at least partially
the consequence of communism having, in addition to its brutal,
murderous side, an intellectual side as well, one more sophisticated
than the standard colonialist argument that the victims deserved
everything done to them because they were too weak to defend
themselves, their interests, their honor, or their land.
--
Regards,
Eugene Holman
Henry Alminas
<<endless reams of Holmanian blather ruthlessly deleted>>
Waal, here we go again. Holman is into his obfuscation/lecture
mode. As always he tells us "don't look her, look over there,
things were worse and you don't care".
I don't quite know how to break this to you Holman but
this newsgroup is called "soc.culture.baltics" - not Seminole
or Hutu or Carib or whatever other group you might wish
to invoke in distracting from russkie depredations. Whereas
I don't wish to question the nature of the assorted skeletons
in your particular genetic bone pile - neither am I much
interested. We have seen all of this several times before
(nor do I doubt that we will see the list again).
Whereas the fate of the Caribs some 300 or more years ago
might be of historical interest to us this is *not* what we
generally debate here. In addition, somehow the concept
of time seems to be absolutely alien to you. The Baltics
have now been free **10** yet you compare very recent
russkie activities with those of **300** years ago. Indeed,
as you well know, all kinds of anti-Balt activities are still
being sponsored by that benevolent neighbor to the east.
In fact, just in case you haven't noticed, most of us
attempt to focus on things that are happening in.. and
with respect to.. the Baltics *today*. It is you who
keeps attempting to push the debate back to the times
of terror by unceasing blather about the blessings of
russkiedom in the Baltics. That subject apparently being
only one step behind your all-time favorite theory of
the unlimited Baltic collaboration with the russkies as well
as the Germans.
Your sick little game is, to say the least, getting rather tedious.
Perhaps you could find a forum where you might be a bit
more appreciated when you tell the members how lucky they are
that only 1/3 of them were eliminated in historically recent
times.
Best - - Henry
Eugene Holman
<halm...@attbi.com> wrote:
> "Eugene Holman" <hol...@elo.helsinki.fi> wrote in message
> news:040820021755054588%hol...@elo.helsinki.fi...
> > In article <20020803231152...@mb-ck.aol.com>,
> > sia...@aol.com (Siaubas) wrote:
> >
>
> <<endless reams of Holmanian blather ruthlessly deleted>>
>
> Waal, here we go again. Holman is into his obfuscation/lecture
> mode. As always he tells us "don't look her, look over there,
> things were worse and you don't care".
>
> I don't quite know how to break this to you Holman but
> this newsgroup is called "soc.culture.baltics" - not Seminole
> or Hutu or Carib or whatever other group you might wish
> to invoke in distracting from russkie depredations.
The "russkies" were not the only ones to depredate the three Baltic
nations. Baltic history does not boil down to a recapitulation of
"russkie" depredations. The experiences the Baltic countries have gone
through during the recently past 20th century are not unique, but share
many parallels with the experiences of other peoples, often far less
fortunate than the Balts, who have fallen the victim of colonialism
and/or pernicious ideologies.
> Whereas
> I don't wish to question the nature of the assorted skeletons
> in your particular genetic bone pile - neither am I much
> interested. We have seen all of this several times before
> (nor do I doubt that we will see the list again).
Nevertheless, the Baltic states serve as an inspiration for peoples who
have been the victims of colonial depredations. All three were able to
liberate themselves from colonial rule, foreign occupation, and
re-establish functioning, reconciliatory, civil societies. Thus, there
are many things to be learned about colonialism and recovery therefrom
by learning Baltic history and following Baltic events. Former Estonian
Prime Minister Mart Laar is currently giving lectures to the Cuban
community in Florida based on the Baltic experience to help ensure an
orderly transition once Castro and his crew exit the scene.
Baltic issues are not only of interest to Balts. Baltic issues are not
without interest or relevance to non-Balts.
>
> Whereas the fate of the Caribs some 300 or more years ago
> might be of historical interest to us this is *not* what we
> generally debate here. In addition, somehow the concept
> of time seems to be absolutely alien to you. The Baltics
> have now been free **10** yet you compare very recent
> russkie activities with those of **300** years ago.
Actually, the Carib Indians are very much alive today, although they
have been absorbed into the Columbians and the inhabitants of many West
Indian nations as a consequence of colonialism, the slave trade, and
other factors. They were not, unlike the Balts and despite their fierce
reputation, able to survive as a viable nation.
> Indeed,
> as you well know, all kinds of anti-Balt activities are still
> being sponsored by that benevolent neighbor to the east.
Undoubtedly. But Russian-Baltic relations have also improved markedly
since Putin's accession to power. Russia understands that it has more
important things to do than bark at the Baltics. The Baltic countries,
in turn, have solved the major problems concerning their
Russian-speaking populations in exemplary enough fashion that Russia
can no longer snap and snarl about alleged ill treatment.
>
> In fact, just in case you haven't noticed, most of us
> attempt to focus on things that are happening in.. and
> with respect to.. the Baltics *today*.
Who was it that recently posted the articles about President Rüütel's
popularity among the Estonians, the incredible restaurant/amusement
part complex in Riga, troubles with the first-in-the world combined
catamaran/hydrofoil making the 80 km trip between Helsinki and Tallinn
possible in 60 minutes, and the Estonian authorities' sudden and poorly
publicized decision to require children seven years old or older to
have their own passports as of August 1? Who in this forum has made at
least one trip to a Baltic country *every month* for the past ten
years? How many of us here are pan-baltic enough to have even visted
all three baltic countries?
> It is you who
> keeps attempting to push the debate back to the times
> of terror by unceasing blather about the blessings of
> russkiedom in the Baltics.
It's you who interprets every comment about 45 years of Soviet rule in
the Baltic that does not drip with hate for the Russians and everything
Russian as "blather about blessings of russkiedom". You conveniently
neglect that more than 5,000,000 Russians died fighting the imposition
of communism on their country during the civil war of the early 1920s,
that the Soviet government killed some 60,000,000 of its citizens, the
overwhelming majority of them Russians, during its stay in power, or
the key role that Russians, often in cooperation with the far less
numerous Baltis, played bringing down the Soviet system and its
colonial empire and social system in a more ordered and micromanaged
fashion than ever witnessed in recorded history.
> That subject apparently being
> only one step behind your all-time favorite theory of
> the unlimited Baltic collaboration with the russkies as well
> as the Germans.
It is no theory but cold fact, which you yourself have admitted, that
there were Baltic collaborators with both the Soviets and the Germans.
Antanas Snieckus, Algirdas Brezauskas, Arvid Pelshe, Boris Pugo, Väino
Väljas, Karl Vaino, Arnold Rüütel; Viktors Arājs, Konrads Kalejs, Evald
Mikson, Herberts Cukurs, Arnolds Laukers, etc. Some of these fellows,
such as Pelshe and Pugo, rose to the highest level of power in the USSR
and were responsible for making and implementing policy in that entire
unfortunate country. Pugo even went so far as to risk his life in a
coup intended to ensure the survival of Soviet power, a decision which
he decided merited committing suicide. This list hardly amounts to
"unlimited Baltic cooperation", and some of the people mentioned above,
such as the recently elected Estonian president Arnold Rüütel, are
currently regarded by their fellow countrymen in a positive light. But
of course if I translate and post a newspaper article pointing this
out, the news is regarded as "Holmanian spew" posted by a "black son
of a bitch".
> Your sick little game is, to say the least, getting rather tedious.
> Perhaps you could find a forum where you might be a bit
> more appreciated when you tell the members how lucky they are
> that only 1/3 of them were eliminated in historically recent
> times.
I live in Finland, work in Finland and Estonia, and have business and
other interests in all three Baltic countries. I regard the past eleven
years of Baltic history as one of the great success stories of the last
years of the 20th century and as an inspiration for all victims of
colonialism, past, persent, and, unfortunately, future. I've been
posting here, an open discussion forum, for far longer than you have,
and will continue to do so. It is you and Jon, not I, who have
intimidated former participants, far more intelligent and interesting
than both of you combined, such as Zagarins, Hietaniemi, Tannet,
Cedrins (although he recently re-appeared), and the inimitable Smirnov.
Despite your pure Baltic pedigree, you do not have the exclusive right
to set the agenda in a group intended for the discussion of Baltic
issues, past, present, and future, and the manner in which they
possibly link up with other, interrelated issues.
And yes, the three Baltic countries, despite the losses, brutality, and
humiliation incurred during 45-odd years of Soviet colonialism and
occupation, emerged in far better shape, with a far better sense of who
they were and where they were going, and far less bitterness (except in
you, Jon, and a few others) towards their former colonial masters than
is par for the course.
As a Balt, you ought to be damned proud of that.
--
Regards,
Eugene Holman
Thomas Lanzesrtorfer
<hol...@elo.helsinki.fi> wrote:
>In article <mv2ikusdojr903ijt...@4ax.com>, Thomas
>Lanzesrtorfer <thomas.lan...@siemens.com> wrote:
>> On Fri, 26 Jul 2002 19:29:36 +0300, Eugene Holman
>> <hol...@elo.helsinki.fi> wrote:
>> >In article <vsj2kug925jjq4fgn...@4ax.com>, Thomas
>> >Lanzesrtorfer <thomas.lan...@siemens.com> wrote:
>> Again wrong!
>> A short search on my PC for Your name gave me below quotation as first
>> of Your messages that I saved on my PC. So I know/monitor You at least
>> for 14 months. I would not call this a newcomer. How about You?
>I've been posting here since 1993 and am, unfortunately, the last of
>the "Old Guard". The towering figures of this group when it had a real
>exchange of ideas, Zagarin, Perkonas, Tannet, Hietaniemi, and the
>notorious Ivan Ivanovich ivanov, have all moved on to happier hunting
>grounds. Henry and JonHillr are newcomers who have tried to claim
>soc.culture.baltics as a forum for their views and their views alone.
To monitor Your post for more than 14 months seems sufficient for me
to derive conclusions from Your posts.
You got me. I really don't know how You posted 1993, but if You have
posted in a different style then, than why to the (whatever You want)
did You change Your style the last year(s)?
>> "Subject: Re: Latvian president interviewed in Helsingin Sanomat on
>> NATO expansion
>> Date: Wed, 30 May 2001 13:28:22 +0300
>> From: Eugene Holman <hol...@elo.helsinki.fi>"
>> >> How does it come that even for me a s a neutral observer (at least I
>> >> see myself this way here) You started with singing the "song of
>> >> praise" for the USSR in this thread, and only after a quite hevy
>> >> resonse from a lot of participants in this group, You were able to
>> >> write a much more nuanced statement.
>I "never" praise the USSR. I *do* say that the almost half a century of
>Soviet occupation of the Baltics was not a continuous hell, but also
>had some positive aspects. Having visited Soviet Estonia several times,
>including once as a guest of the Estonian Academy of Sciences (which
>also published one of my research projects and conducted, unbeknownst
>to me until after the event, a seminar on my thesis on Baltic-Finnic
>morphology typology), I think i know what I was talking about.
For sure You know, what You are talking about. It's Your personal
experience, which You made there and which was quite fine, isn't it?
But You seem to be incapable of trying to imagine, how people felt,
which were living there their whole live.
For You being there as a guest and being even pubished by an institute
of the USSR, for sure it wasn't a continuous hell :)))
- People living all the time there, fore sure had the
"advantege" of living in a "continuous" hell.
- Being pubished isn't the hell at all, thats why You wrote down
Your findings, isn't it? A lot of people from the occupied Baltic
republics were not published at all because of obvious reasons.
>> And what did we excange before in thread "Subject: Re: Kaliningrad
>> or..."? Shall I quote again Your undifferentiated praise of the
>> advantages for the small baltic nations to live in the USSR? Have You
>> ever tried to answer the questions why the (about) the same benefit of
>> translations should not have happened also without USSR "benefits"?
>> By the way, how long does Your memory last?
>It's quite obvious that the small Baltic nations gained some advantages
>from being part of the USSR; it would be foolish to argue that almost
>half a century of (forced) membership in a great power had no positive
>impact whatsoever. That does not mean that their forced membership was
>morally or politically justified.
>Let's take s simple example. I visited the Estonian SSR with a group of
>scholars from the Phonetics Department of Helsinki University as a
>guest of the Estonian Academy of Sciences in 1976. At that time
>instrumental phonetics was a new discipline, and the equipment needed
>to do setrious research cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. The
>Estonians were not able to afford such equipment (now, by the way,
>available for free as computer software), but they could tap tyhe
>engineering expertise of the USSR defense establishment and have a team
>of engineers construct machines that could emulate the expensive
>equipment. This is but one example of how being part of a great power
>granted the Baltic states certain advantages.
Even Your example of advantage is at least "interresting". We can add
to the advantages of being part in a bigger system, that for example
neutral Republics after WW II would not have had:
- the pleasure to host the "famous and big" ships of the USSR
navy,
- the USSR navy gave young baltiv men the possibility of
exploring countries far away from home,
- getting experienced in the newest USSR submarine-reactor
technology,
- being able to serve in a would powers army, airforce, secret
service, ....
and so on and so on.
DID YOU REALLY take Your words SERIOUSLY?
At least I was joking about Your words with my examples of the
advantages.
The Fins were happy to abstain from such goodies or so it seems and I
as a Austrian can easily abstain from all this "wonderful" things too.
Even more, as we are getting the Euro fighter now :))))
In serious mode again:
You describe all the "advantages" out of a mind, as the baltic
republics wouldn't have existed in a frame of connections to the west,
if they would have had the chance to stay unoccupied.
You do, as they would have been located on the other side of the moon,
instead at least at the boarder of the West (Europe), if not in the
center.
Your examples sound all the time a bit like when Mr. Someone tries to
explain the advantages of the American Indians being overrun by the US
army/people as "this way they had the chance to learn a foreign
language", and that fact that they were very sensible to our illnesses
as "the contact with others gave them the chance to make a genetical
progress" and the fact that the live in the reservation was mostly
without sense and leed to alcoholism as "this way they had the chance
to train/exercise their liver".
Mr. Someone could also try to explain the advantages of being a slave
in the US south as "one need not take care to find something to eat"
or "this way the slaves had the chance to get used to a superior
culture".
And than Mr. Someone finishes with Your words: For sure "their forced
membership (in this systems, my addition) was not morally or
politically justified".
How do this words, that I put in the virtual mouth of Mr. Someone,
sound for You?
For me they sound crazy, hypocrite, ..... like propaganda crap.
>It is obvious that the three Baltic countries never wanted to be part
>of the USSR, and that everything that happened there during the Soviet
>occupation was as illegal as it was immoral. That does not preclude the
>possibility of something positive being dredgeable from a negative
>situation. I think that this is the biggest problem I have with Henry
>and his ilk. We both agree that the Soviet occupation of the Baltics
>was wrong, wrong, wrong, but he is unable to understand that even a bad
>situation can have some positive aspects. For my part, I find it
>difficult to conceptualize a situation that lasted for almost having
>half a century but had no positive aspects whatsoever.
Why can't You just say, that the situation could have been even worse.
Why do You need to use the word "positive" for something that was not
positive in a positive but only in a negative sense?
>> >One point that I make that irritates the hell out of Henry is that the
>> >Soviets were not only Russians,
>> I don't think that Henry denies the fact, that there were a lot of
>> communists, that were not Russians (I just start with Marx, Feuerbach,
>> ..... and end with a Austrian name Muri, the former general secretary
>> of the KPÖ)
>> Where I would agree with Henry ist the fact, that the USSR continued
>> the imperialistic behaviour of former Russia seamlessly.
>They did indeed, nut not "seamlessly". They killed some 10,000,000
>Russians between 1917 and 1924 before they were able to co-opt Russian
>imperialism for their own ends.
What does killing of own peole have to do with wether they continued
with the Russian imperialism "seamlessly" or not. They had to kill
their opponents (indifferent if they were reality or imagination) to
establish their power.
But even if they needed some time for finding their own
identification, the timeframe You gave, make this insignificant for
what we are discussing about.
>> >that they did at least as much damage to Russia and Russian culture
>> >as they did to the Baltic countries and their cultures,
>> When other nations destroy themselfs, its up to them. But when they
>> (try to) destroy my nation its not an excuse, that they did the same
>> to their own nation.
>Only by murdering the opposiion, real and imagined. The communists were
>truly horrible people.
????
Dont understand Your comment to my words, except that it shows again
that the only way to get a nuanced statement out of You is to force
You to think deeper.
>> >Henry interprets my insistance on calling attention to the fact that the
>> >Sovietization of the Baltics in 1940 had some local input,
>> Why are You insisting on the local input?
>> - Is it pure historical interrest? Than why there is no
>> discussion about what "motivation drove these people to help the
>> Communists?
>> - Was the local input decisive? If yes, why do You think so?
>> - What is so special in a local input in such a situation?
>> - What is the national/political/religious background of the
>> local input? (both surnames sound german/and/or/jewish to me)
First of all, I don't see much of a connection between my questions
and Your response below. The answers to Your comments follow below.
>Communism, despite its faults, was a far more intellectual and
>"user-friendly" ideology than Nazism.
this depends on which side of the society one was born. the German
nobility, which was easily partly absorbed or let in their function by
the Nazis, might have considered Nazism more "user-friendly" than the
Communists who murdered many of the nobility.
Hey it was even extremely dangerous to have two horses because this
made one a "Kulak" which had to be brought to Sibiria.
You Yourself said "They (the Communists, my addition) killed some
10,000,000 Russians between 1917 and 1924."
Where are the corresponding numbers between 1933 and 1938 for the
Nazis?
This argumentation is not intended at all, to defend Nazis. it shall
just blow out some crap of Your head.!
>It was, after all, purportedly a fool-proof methodology for improving the world
>so that *everyone* except class enemies could benefit.
<sarcasm mode on>
If they (the communists) murder a few people (the nobility for
example) why shall both You and I as proletarians (my father was a
worker, and You as a black also are not a member of them) get into a
fury? The nobility is far away from us, isn't it?
<sarcasm mode off>
The problem was just, that they had a LOT of class enemies. Even two
horses, or a bit more education than the ordinary people made one a
class enemy. As You are teaching at a University, for sure You would
have been a class enemy, except if You were a member of the communist
party.
Goodby until we meet in heaven again. <peng>, <peng> (the second one
was for me, as I also have terminated University)
Now we can continue our discussion in heaven :)))
>Thus it attracted far more people than Nazism, which preached that most
>of humanity, including the Balts, was garbage and that only racially pure Aryans
>were racially pure
Here You are right. Where the Communists belived in classes, where the
Nazis belived racially pureness.
>More Balts than Henry or Jon would like to admit were seduced by
>communist ideology. The 1940 installations of bogus governments in the
>Baltic countries could not have taken place as smoothly as they did
>without considerable local inout: police, translators, operatives.Yes,
>the Soviets subveted these countries, but, also yes, they did their
>homework and compromised enough locals to make their subversion look at
>least halfway legitimate.
What do You think about Mr. Someones words here:
"The 1xxx installations of slavery in the US could not have
taken place as smoothly as they did without considerable local inout
of the slaves themselfs. Yes, the Slavemasters subveted the ideas of
the US but, also yes, they did their homework and compromised enough
locals (slaves) to make their ideas look at least halfway legitimate.
Would You agree wholehartedly?
>> I understand/understood You in about the same way as did Henry. It
>> seems, that You can't express Yourself in a sufficiently nuanced way.
>I'm sorry. i do the best I can. I do not argue, despite Henry's
>mendacious arguments to the contrary, that "the Balts did the Balts". I
>argue that the Soviet takeover of the Baltics in 1940 was a far more
>complex matter than the "russkies" marching in and saying, Alexander
>Haig-like "Hey, we're in charge here".
What is so complicated in finding/compromising a few people to help me
in my bad dids?
What is so exceptionally that they have found a few well known balts
to do this?
Even children at the age of six know how to force others to do bad
things togther with them. When they get older, they may perfection
such things.
The only cigaret I smoked was, because on a school excursion a groop
including me were looking for another group which got lost in the
woods. They got lost, because they wanted to smoke cigarettes. We
found them after some time. As they were more, they forced us to draw
on a cigarette ourself, so we couldn't infomr the teacher any more
about what happened, because we also did it.
Is that as complicated or even as interesting as brain surgery. Don't
think so.
>> >As to books, in Finland we have a wide spectrum of books in Finnish,
>> >but they are very expensive. The unabridged Finnish dictionary, *Suomen
>> >kielen perussanakirja*, in three volumes, each about 700 pages, cost
>> >1800 markka - about 300¤ - when first published. The corresponding book
>> >in Estonian, *Eesti keele sõnaraamat*, one large volume of 1040 pages,
>> >cost EEK 500 - about 32¤.
>> And Your conclusion?
>Small languages are expensive to maintain, but it is worth it.
So no reason why baltic republics, proud of their language, heritage
and freedom should not have had about the same resources (especially
books in their native language) available as free memebers of the
West, as they had as occupied territory inside the much bigger USSR.
W.z.b.w (Was zu beweisen war, what I wanted to prove, and what You
rejected until today at least partly)
>> >On Finnish TV films and programs in other languages have Finnish
>> >subtitles, in movie theaters they have Finnish and Swedish subtitles.
>> >In Estonia and Latvia some television programs have subtitles in the
>> >local language as well as a voiceover in Russian.
>> Again, one gets what one pays for. So from films everybody there
>> should at least have some to good knowledge of English. Not to much
>> need for translated books, isn't it?
>Yes, there is. Even with widespread knowledge of English, many people,
>even representative of the younger generation, still prefer to acquaint
>themselves with technology and other "difficult" issues in their own
>language.
It should not be to hard, as I have seen my slovakian colleagues using
a slovakian book (paperback) about C++ as reference.
For the topic itself I can understand this, but the technical
vocabulary comes from the language it was coined almost all the time
anyway.
It's interesting to hear people/colleagues from Iran talking about
technical subjects in a language I don't understand, with enclosed
words in german or English inbetween. It is as understandable as it
sounds crazy for the most part of it.
Thomas
Eugene Holman
sia...@aol.com (Siaubas) wrote:
> >Never in history has a colonial empire collapsed as peacefully and
> >intelligently as the USSR did.
>
> The su was not a colonial power in Europe. Never.
I think that many of our diffences of interpretation are consequesnces
of our different understanding of what the USSR was.
I understand "colonialism" to mean that a powerful country projects
power into and rules a weaker one for the purpose of grabbing some or
all of its land, "civilizing" its population, and exploiting it
economically. The Soviets had a two-tier colonial empire: 1) countries
or parts thereof which it had fully incorporated, such as the three
Baltic countries, and Romania (Moldova), Finland (Finnish Karelia,
Petsamo, several coastal islands), Poland (former eastern region, bits
and pieces of Czechoslovakia, and Japan (the Kurile Islands); 2)
countries with Soviet-installed governments which allowed them to be
exploited economically and ideologically by the USSR. In at least one
country of group 2, Bulgaria, there was occasionally political pressure
to "upgrade" the country to the status of a full-fledged Soviet
republic.
During the 19th century the objects of colonialist depredations were
typically in distant lands, usually looked different, and had
lifestyles and cultures which, by European standards were "savagery"
and "barbarism". In some places, e.g. North America, Australia, the
Asian parts of Russia, earlier forms of colonialism had acquired a
local dynamic, for which reason what had originally been colonialism
transformed itself into extending the "frontier".
Colonialism has two aspects: 1) land grabbing, genocide, economic
exploitation; 2) civilization, conversion, upgrading. Some
colonialists concentrated more on (1), others more on (2), but all
colonialists projected a combination of (1) and (2) on their victims.
All forms of colonialism work on the principle: "What's mine is mine;
what's yours is negotiable".
During the 20th century two colonial powers, Nazi Germany and the USSR,
modified the idea of colonialism to fit somewhat changed realities:
1. instead of projecting power and influence to distant lands, they
victimized their smaller and weaker neighbors - the Molotov-Ribbentrop
pact of August 23, 1939 is a carte blanche for the colonial
exploitation of neighbors without having to worry about the possibility
of a rival major power intervening;
2. instead of trying to spread Western civilization and Christianity as
"modernity", they tried to spread the "modern" ideologies of Nazism and
Marxism-Leninism.
In all other respects, what these two countries were doing has the two
classic aspects of colonialism as given above. The Baltic countries,
along with Poland and Czechoslovakia, had the misfortune to be victims
of both Nazi and Soviet colonialism. Both Nazi Germany and the USSR
marched in grabbed land, systematically liquidated certain segments of
the population, and reduced the countries to reservoirs of cheap labor
and closed markets for their, often inferior or overpriced, industrial
production. Both the Nazis and the Soviets convinced themselves and the
victimized peoples that they were imposing a new world order, one that
would either last a thousand years (the Nazis) or actually be the
end-point of historical development (the Soviets). Although they were
focusing more on the organization of society and socio-economic
relationships than on spiritual matters and possible salavation in the
hereafter, they were both imposing an ideological package on their
victims which was fully comparable to a system of religious beliefs.
Like true heirs to the legacy of 19th century colonialism, both of them
saw nothing wrong in killing or deporting those who they thought could
not or did not fit into their vision of the future, ideal state.
I would be very interested to know why you think what the Soviets and
the Nazis did to the Baltics, Poles, etc. does not qualify as
colonialism.
--
Regards,
Eugene Holman
Dmitry Fedotov
"Henry Alminas" <halm...@attbi.com> wrote in message
news:nD_%8.131406$Wt3.103961@rwcrnsc53...
>
> "Dmitry Fedotov" <dmitry....@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
> news:oHZ%8.380$AJ3....@newsfep3-gui.server.ntli.net...
> > > I naver had any reason to get even with anyone, since in high school
> > > and university I consistently did at least as well and usually better
> > > than those "white boys" (and girls), always graduating magna or summa
> > > cum laude. I've had a very satisfying life, and you and Jon are the
> > > first people I've ever encountered who just seem to hate me and twist
> > > everything I write.
> >
> > They can't stand the fact that your knowledge and experience are far
more
> > advanced than theirs. Mos'ka i Slon by Krylov could be a good example.
> >
> Hey Dim - but it takes one genius to recognize another - and you certainly
> seem to qualify. I recall another admirer of Stalin
Hey Hen - I'm not admirer of Stalin, sorry to disappoint, don't think Eugene
is either. Stewart sounds more like on your side (to me, anyway).
and his works who
> used to show up here (a Wilkes?) - I had greater admiration for him
> than Holman - at least he stood up for his beliefs. Although sorely
> tempted and despite expressing avid admiration for known Stalinists
> - Holman doesn't have the intestinal fortitude to admit to what he is.
> By the way, as a product of Stalinist activities in Latvia
Sorry to disapoint again, I'm not a product of Stalinism in Latvia. I
wonder what do you base such statements on?
- how fond
> are you still of unca Joe?
Who's that?
One more question - why are you still putting
> up with being oppressed in Latvia?
I'm mot in Latvia at the moment. I've spent a week in Kurzeme in July and
didn't feel oppressed.
Russkie paradise is beckoning just
> across the eastern border.
I thought Russkij paradise is in LA. I don't know geography wery well, but
I think it's to the west from where you are.
>
>
> Best - - Henry
>
>
Dmitry Fedotov
>
> "Eugene Holman" <hol...@elo.helsinki.fi> wrote in message
> news:040820021755054588%hol...@elo.helsinki.fi...
> > In article <20020803231152...@mb-ck.aol.com>,
> > sia...@aol.com (Siaubas) wrote:
> >
>
> <<endless reams of Holmanian blather ruthlessly deleted>>
>
> Waal, here we go again. Holman is into his obfuscation/lecture
> mode. As always he tells us "don't look her, look over there,
> things were worse and you don't care".
>
> I don't quite know how to break this to you Holman but
> this newsgroup is called "soc.culture.baltics" - not Seminole
> or Hutu or Carib or whatever other group you might wish
> to invoke in distracting from russkie depredations.
It's not called soc.culture. russkie either.
Whereas
> I don't wish to question the nature of the assorted skeletons
> in your particular genetic bone pile - neither am I much
> interested. We have seen all of this several times before
> (nor do I doubt that we will see the list again).
>
> Whereas the fate of the Caribs some 300 or more years ago
> might be of historical interest to us this is *not* what we
> generally debate here. In addition, somehow the concept
> of time seems to be absolutely alien to you. The Baltics
> have now been free **10** yet you compare very recent
> russkie activities with those of **300** years ago. Indeed,
> as you well know, all kinds of anti-Balt activities are still
> being sponsored by that benevolent neighbor to the east.
>
> In fact, just in case you haven't noticed, most of us
> attempt to focus on things that are happening in.. and
> with respect to.. the Baltics *today*.
Except Jon and yourself, who are focussing on ruskies, Moldova and sometimes
Chechnia. Amazzzing, don't you have any problems in US? Proposed war with
Iraq may be? It is clear that Jon has no plans to move to Latvija. Have
you ever been to Lithuania Henry?
It is you who
> keeps attempting to push the debate back to the times
> of terror by unceasing blather about the blessings of
> russkiedom in the Baltics. That subject apparently being
> only one step behind your all-time favorite theory of
> the unlimited Baltic collaboration with the russkies as well
> as the Germans.
>
> Your sick little game is, to say the least, getting rather tedious.
> Perhaps you could find a forum where you might be a bit
> more appreciated when you tell the members how lucky they are
> that only 1/3 of them were eliminated in historically recent
> times.
Why not to have Jon/Henry forum to discuss russkies stuff. People will be
amazed of the volume of your research. It will leave Holman to stick to his
Baltic issues and eliminate others (especially with Russian names) to enter
the sacred field. Good bless America and it's President!!! SC Iraq? What
Colorado people think about the war with Iraq? What do you think about it?
>
> Best - - Vytautas
>
>
Siaubas
>of our different understanding of what the USSR was.
>
No Eugene, the problem is that you'd like me to appreciate the SU for certain
things that you feel it may have done well. What I'm saying is that there can
be no downstream appreciation for some perceived good that came out of a
criminal act. For me to agree to this, then I would have to condone the
original crime. I won't do that.
>I would be very interested to know why you think what the Soviets and
>the Nazis did to the Baltics, Poles, etc. does not qualify as
>colonialism.
There's a fine line between what is understood as western colonialism and
simple military adventurism/opportunism. The Nazis didn't try to colonize -
they acted on some twisted vision of rebuilding an arian nation. Hitler let his
own arrogance get the best of him after Austria and Czechoslovakia. He went
after France for WW1 revenge reasons. This is not colonialism. It was revenge.
The SU entered into the conflict initially to repel Nazi aggression. I don't
believe that the SU had plans to keep the huge portions of eastern europe that
it occupied up to around 1943. When Roosevelt and Churchill gifted these nation
upon the SU, then who are they to not accept such gifts ? This isn't
colonialism. The SU wasn't trying to bring a higher level of understanding upon
the loincloth clad Baltic Bantu. The SU was given the opportunity to greatly
expand its borders as reward for its part in WW2. Prior to that, the SU legally
acknowledged the Baltics as sovereign nations. Again, what happened here was
not colonialism.
What happened here was a crime. Don't compare it to other historical occurences
because they are not relevant.
Vidas
Eugene Holman
sia...@aol.com (Siaubas) wrote:
> >I think that many of our diffences of interpretation are consequesnces
> >of our different understanding of what the USSR was.
> >
>
> No Eugene, the problem is that you'd like me to appreciate the SU for certain
> things that you feel it may have done well. What I'm saying is that there can
> be no downstream appreciation for some perceived good that came out of a
> criminal act. For me to agree to this, then I would have to condone the
> original crime. I won't do that.
I understand your position, but I cannot accept it. The United States
began as a criminally subversive, genocidal, anti-female, and
slave-owning enterprise, but eventually evolved into something
acceptable. By the 1980s, the USSR was also on a path which would have
resulted in its becoming a (relatively) "normal" country. The
establishment and initial maintenance of a state always involves
violence and activities which some people would regard as crimes. I do
not see the necessity of admitting that the establishment of Soviet
power in the Baltics was criminal as being contradictory to the fact
that not every single thing that the Soviets did during their 45 plus
years in power in the Baltics was wrong and unworthy of recognition.
Nor do I see giving credit where credit was due as condoning an
original crime.
>
> >I would be very interested to know why you think what the Soviets and
> >the Nazis did to the Baltics, Poles, etc. does not qualify as
> >colonialism.
>
> There's a fine line between what is understood as western colonialism and
> simple military adventurism/opportunism. The Nazis didn't try to colonize -
> they acted on some twisted vision of rebuilding an arian nation. Hitler let
> his
> own arrogance get the best of him after Austria and Czechoslovakia. He went
> after France for WW1 revenge reasons. This is not colonialism. It was revenge.
You are confusing two policies. In the West, Nazi Germany was obviously
seeking revenge. But in the East, inhabited by people which the Nazis
dismissed as sub-humans, they were not seeking revenge, but rather
Lebensraum, a prerequisite for which was selective genocide. What the
Nazis did to Poland - killing off its leadership class as well as its
most prominent minority - is not different from what colonialists have
done elsewhere.
> The SU entered into the conflict initially to repel Nazi aggression. I don't
> believe that the SU had plans to keep the huge portions of eastern europe that
> it occupied up to around 1943. When Roosevelt and Churchill gifted these
> nation
> upon the SU, then who are they to not accept such gifts ? This isn't
> colonialism. The SU wasn't trying to bring a higher level of understanding
> upon
> the loincloth clad Baltic Bantu.
Yes they were. The Soviets were convinced that organizing society and
the economy according to the principles of Marxism-Leninism was a step
forward. Just as 19th century colonialists thought that forcing people
who believed in polytheistic religions and didn't smoke anything to
accept monotheistic Christianity and smoke opium was a step forward.
> The SU was given the opportunity to greatly
> expand its borders as reward for its part in WW2. Prior to that, the SU
> legally
> acknowledged the Baltics as sovereign nations. Again, what happened here was
> not colonialism.
Yes it was. Nations that were not taken seriously were tken over by a
colonial master. You don't have to be "exotic" or of a different race
to be regarded as primitive. Even if the Balts were arguably more
advanced with respect to material culture than the Soviets and Russians
were, the latter were convinced that what they were offering was "the
end of history".
> What happened here was a crime. Don't compare it to other historical occurences
> because they are not relevant.
We disagree on this one. As I see it, both the Nazis and the Soviets
were offering the Baltics a socio-economic product which they neither
wanted nor needed, but which they, the offerers, were convinced was
superior to what the Baltics had. There is no significant difference
here that makes the Baltic experience significantly different from what
other colonialized peoples have had to endure.
--
Regards,
Eugene Holman
Siaubas
>I understand your position, but I cannot accept it. The United States
>began as a criminally subversive, genocidal, anti-female, and
>slave-owning enterprise, but eventually evolved into something
>acceptable.
Ok, Eugene. Can we agree that each of these examples that you cite were unique
? They may share some sort of common characteristic, but their other unique
conditions MAY be significant enough that they should be judged on their own as
opposed to being lumped together with some other historical occurance ?? Please
??
> By the 1980s, the USSR was also on a path which would have
>resulted in its becoming a (relatively) "normal" country.
That's simply your opinion.
> The
>establishment and initial maintenance of a state always involves
>violence and activities which some people would regard as crimes. I do
>not see the necessity of admitting that the establishment of Soviet
>power in the Baltics was criminal as being contradictory to the fact
>that not every single thing that the Soviets did during their 45 plus
>years in power in the Baltics was wrong and unworthy of recognition.
>Nor do I see giving credit where credit was due as condoning an
>original crime.
>
The only credit due is to those brave Balts - in face of soviet hardship and
death - managed to go on and live and produce. This is human nature. The will
to survive.
Imagine how many other successes the Baltics may have seen if one third of its
native population would have been around to contribute.
>You are confusing two policies. In the West, Nazi Germany was obviously
>seeking revenge. But in the East, inhabited by people which the Nazis
>dismissed as sub-humans, they were not seeking revenge, but rather
>Lebensraum, a prerequisite for which was selective genocide. What the
>Nazis did to Poland - killing off its leadership class as well as its
>most prominent minority - is not different from what colonialists have
>done elsewhere.
>
What the Nazi's did was not in an effort to colonize Eugene. They already
invaded. They wanted to kill off the impure to create their aryan nation. I
don't call this colonialism.
>Yes they were. The Soviets were convinced that organizing society and
>the economy according to the principles of Marxism-Leninism was a step
>forward.
Fine, then the soviets were free to make their idiological argument and move
on. Instead they chose to move their army in and subsequently eliminate the
educated classes. Was this a step forward ?
>Yes it was. Nations that were not taken seriously were tken over by a
>colonial master.
So, in your opinion the Baltics are not serious nations ?
>You don't have to be "exotic" or of a different race
>to be regarded as primitive. Even if the Balts were arguably more
>advanced with respect to material culture than the Soviets and Russians
>were, the latter were convinced that what they were offering was "the
>end of history".
Ok. But I still don't see where you think I should start thanking them for it
...
Vidas
Henry Alminas
<<some snipped>>
Holman, having joined the ranks of the "skolars" lectures:
>
> I understand your position, but I cannot accept it. The United States
> began as a criminally subversive, genocidal, anti-female, and
> slave-owning enterprise, but eventually evolved into something
> acceptable.
A. Well now, Holman, think for a minute. The "genocides" as you
term them were ongoing (by Europeans) when the first revolutionary
shot was fired by the presumably "criminally subversive" forces. Deny that.
B. The revolutionaries were no more "antifemale" than the
rest of the western world at that time and a hell of a lot less
than the Islamic and African world even today. Deny that.
C. The slave purchase, transport and holding in the north
American continent (keeping in mind that SA was just as
active) was ongoing when the first revolutionary shot was
fired. Slave capturing transport and holding was equally
widespread within Africa and the Arabic world As a matter
of fact it is still ongoing in some parts of Africa and some
Islamic countries. Deny that.
D. If the Am revolutionaries were "criminal subversives"
than every freedom-seeking person before or since were
the same. Deny that.
I don't think that I will bother with the rest of your
bullshit. Now Holman, it is obvious that you have rather
bitter feelings toward the country of your origin. But, please,
we are not interested in your complexes or traumas.
This newsgroup is not labeled soc... hutu or whatever.
There are newsgroups specifically for that purpose.
Nor are we interested in your unceasing preachments of
the blessings of russkiedom in the Baltics. Go to scr and
preach to them. There, I am certain, you will be appreciated.
There you will indeed find much agreement that the russkies
performed no criminal activities in the Baltics and you can
hug with such as the Wilkes character.
<<mucho snipped>>
Best - - Henry
Eugene Holman
sia...@aol.com (Siaubas) wrote:
> >I understand your position, but I cannot accept it. The United States
> >began as a criminally subversive, genocidal, anti-female, and
> >slave-owning enterprise, but eventually evolved into something
> >acceptable.
>
> Ok, Eugene. Can we agree that each of these examples that you cite were unique
> ? They may share some sort of common characteristic, but their other unique
> conditions MAY be significant enough that they should be judged on their own
> as
> opposed to being lumped together with some other historical occurance ??
I think that the type is more important than the specific features. The
United States, like Brazil, Argentina, Australia, Mexico, and Canada,
not to mention smaller states such as Columbian, Venezuela, Peru, Cuba,
Guatamala, etc. began as new kind of state, one that evolved from a
colonial projection of power into foreign territories, genocide, forced
conversion, and some kind of revolt, sometimes controlled, sometimes
not, against distant rule. When there were no distant colonies left to,
Germany and the USSR projected power, practiced genocide, and forcibly
converted their neighbors.
> Please
> ??
>
> > By the 1980s, the USSR was also on a path which would have
> >resulted in its becoming a (relatively) "normal" country.
>
> That's simply your opinion.
It started with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher gushing: "I
like Mr. Gorbachev. We can do business with him". It continued with the
publicaton of Gorbachev's "Perestroika i novoe myshlenie" which
admitted quite candidly that the Soviet system was preventing the USSR
from fulfilling its obligations to its citizenry to provide them with a
modern, democratic , prosperous life in a "normal" European state. Many
Sovietologists share my view that by the time of Gorbachev's accession
the ruling circles in the USSR realized that the country could no
longer maintain a monopoly on information or quash the aspirations of
its citizenry towards freedom of thought and movement, as well as a
more afluent lifestyle. It was quite evident, by the way, that Estonia
was being used as a laboratory for a new kind of USSR. Here in Finland,
for example, we started to get our first wave of Estonian tourists,
including families with their cars, in 1989. There were very few
defections, one reason being that the people who were allowed out
realized that defections or other betrayalks of trust might derail a
development that was going in a positive direction.
By 1989 the USSR had cultivated good working relations with the UK,
Germany, and the USA. I experienced this quite concretely when I was
guiding a group of American exchange students in Leningrad during
Ausgust, 1989. One Saturday, one of our boys complained of a terrible
stomach ache. The nurse at the hotel first aid station strongly
suspected accute appendicitis. An ambulaance was ordered, and we were
driven to a hospital pronto. The physician confirmed that it was indeed
acute appendicitis, and that the boy, who was understandably
hysterical, would have to be operated on immediately. I had the
thankless task of calling his parents in Michigan and informing them of
the bad news. The hospital staff was extremely helpful, they put me
into contact with the American consulate in Leningrad, and through him
I was able to call the boy's family and inform them of the bad news.
This was Saturday afternoon. We had to leave the boy behind, but his
mother arrived in Leningrad on a special visa the next day.
Having had quite a lot of experience with Soviet bureaucracy, I was
astounded at how seamlessly this problem worked itself out. No bribes
except a tip of pack of cigarettes to the physician in charge, no
attempts to obfuscate. The country was beginning to function along
relatively normal lines.
> > The
> >establishment and initial maintenance of a state always involves
> >violence and activities which some people would regard as crimes. I do
> >not see the necessity of admitting that the establishment of Soviet
> >power in the Baltics was criminal as being contradictory to the fact
> >that not every single thing that the Soviets did during their 45 plus
> >years in power in the Baltics was wrong and unworthy of recognition.
> >Nor do I see giving credit where credit was due as condoning an
> >original crime.
> >
>
> The only credit due is to those brave Balts - in face of soviet hardship and
> death - managed to go on and live and produce. This is human nature. The will
> to survive.
In many dictatorships and colonial countries the will to survive is not
enough. The Sioux wanted to survive in 19th century America, and the
Jews wanted to survive in Nazi-occupied Poland. The Balts took quite a
beating, particularly between 1944 and 1949, but they succeeded in
remaining nominal masters of their own countries as well as in
attaining and maintaining the highest living standards in the USSR.
>
> Imagine how many other successes the Baltics may have seen if one third of its
> native population would have been around to contribute.
Agreed. But they weren't. The Balts were successful in squeezing
maximum benefit from a bad situation.
>
> >You are confusing two policies. In the West, Nazi Germany was obviously
> >seeking revenge. But in the East, inhabited by people which the Nazis
> >dismissed as sub-humans, they were not seeking revenge, but rather
> >Lebensraum, a prerequisite for which was selective genocide. What the
> >Nazis did to Poland - killing off its leadership class as well as its
> >most prominent minority - is not different from what colonialists have
> >done elsewhere.
> >
>
> What the Nazi's did was not in an effort to colonize Eugene. They already
> invaded.
Let's walk through this.
1. The Nazis stated quite explicitly that one of their aims was to
conquer "Lebensraum", living space, in the East at the expense of
inferior nations.
2. The Nazis were also selling a model of an ideal state, one purged of
sub-humans, that is to say Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, and at least some
Balts.
3. Auschwitz was originally established to facilitate the
depolonization and germanification of the Wartheland, the westernmost
part of Poland which was incorporated into the Reich in 1939. It was a
pilot model for what Germany hoped to accomplish in the conquered east.
> They wanted to kill off the impure to create their aryan nation. I
> don't call this colonialism.
As I see it, colonialists want to kill off the racially impure or
different, the non-believers, the speakers of unimportant langauges,
the parasites, the members of the exploiting class. It's really all the
same. What the Soviets were doing inthe Baltics and what the Nazis were
doing in Poland is classical colonialism, the only significant
differene being that the victims were next-door neighbors rather than
"exotic" people in distant countries. Do you not see the Chechyen
conflict as an instantiation of colonialism?
> >Yes they were. The Soviets were convinced that organizing society and
> >the economy according to the principles of Marxism-Leninism was a step
> >forward.
>
> Fine, then the soviets were free to make their idiological argument and move
> on. Instead they chose to move their army in and subsequently eliminate the
> educated classes. Was this a step forward ?
From the standards of today, it wasn't. From the standards that
prevailed in Stalin's USSR it was.
>
> >Yes it was. Nations that were not taken seriously were taken over by a
> >colonial master.
>
> So, in your opinion the Baltics are not serious nations ?
You know that I consider the Baltic countries to be serious nations.
Russians, in turn, tend to equate quantity with quality. More than once
I have heard Russians dismiss the baltic nations as less than serious
because their entire citizenry could not inhabit a single Moscow
suburb. I don't think that way, but many people, not only Russians, do.
> >You don't have to be "exotic" or of a different race
> >to be regarded as primitive. Even if the Balts were arguably more
> >advanced with respect to material culture than the Soviets and Russians
> >were, the latter were convinced that what they were offering was "the
> >end of history".
>
> Ok. But I still don't see where you think I should start thanking them for it
There is only *one* thing that the Balts have to thank the Soviets for.
That is allowing a liberal enough atmosphere to prevail in the Baltics
that issues such as Baltic independence could be discussed openly, and
people such as former Estonian prime minister Mart Laar could be
educated in a liberal enough manner for him to understand that there
were several alternatives to the "truth" offered by the Soviet regime.
I spent a month as a researcher on an exchange grant in Moscow in 1983.
Even then, under Andropov, it was clear that intelligent people in the
USSR understood that the country was vulnerable as a consequence of its
own, self-imposed weaknesses. The dictatorship, although still there,
was not so convinced of its infallibility that it suppressed all
criticism.
--
Regards,
Eugene Holman
Eugene Holman
<halm...@attbi.com> wrote:
> "Eugene Holman" <hol...@elo.helsinki.fi> wrote in message
> news:160820021943047228%hol...@elo.helsinki.fi...> In article
> <20020816001129...@mb-mg.aol.com>,
> > sia...@aol.com (Siaubas) wrote
>
> <<some snipped>>
>
> Holman, having joined the ranks of the "skolars" lectures:
> >
> > I understand your position, but I cannot accept it. The United States
> > began as a criminally subversive, genocidal, anti-female, and
> > slave-owning enterprise, but eventually evolved into something
> > acceptable.
>
> A. Well now, Holman, think for a minute. The "genocides" as you
> term them were ongoing (by Europeans) when the first revolutionary
> shot was fired by the presumably "criminally subversive" forces. Deny that.
No denial. The "westward movement of the frontier" is a euphemism for
genocide of indigenous cultures. Deny that.
>
> B. The revolutionaries were no more "antifemale" than the
> rest of the western world at that time and a hell of a lot less
> than the Islamic and African world even today. Deny that.
The revolutionaries thought in terms of high-falutin' concepts such as
"all men being creted equal". nevertheless, they owned, and, in the
case of Thomas Jefferson, sexually exploited slaves. Deny that.
> C. The slave purchase, transport and holding in the north
> American continent (keeping in mind that SA was just as
> active) was ongoing when the first revolutionary shot was
> fired. Slave capturing transport and holding was equally
> widespread within Africa and the Arabic world As a matter
> of fact it is still ongoing in some parts of Africa and some
> Islamic countries. Deny that.
No denial. Slaves were the computers of yesteryear: big output, low
overhead. With respect to American history I am not as much disturbed
by slavery as I am by the genocide. establishing the American state
meant killing off the people that were already there and plowing under
their culture. More concretely, we celebrate the first Thanksgiving,
when the colonists and the indigenous folks sat together, thankful that
the indigenous folks had transferred the knowledge concerning local
flora and fauna which enabled the colonists to have a successful
harvest. A year later, the second Thanksgiving day, the colonists had
killed off the local indigenes and stole their property. Deny that.
(Hint: You can't).
> D. If the Am revolutionaries were "criminal subversives"
> than every freedom-seeking person before or since were
> the same. Deny that.
The American revolutionaries were criminal subversives from the
perspective of the powers that were. Their struggle to establish and
maintain independence does not differ in any significant respect from
the struggles of the Baltic peoples, twice in the 20th century, to
estabish and maintain independence.
> I don't think that I will bother with the rest of your
> bullshit. Now Holman, it is obvious that you have rather
> bitter feelings toward the country of your origin.
Wrongo. I have no problems whatsoever about being American born, bred,
and educated. On the other hand, I see nothing wrong in discussing the
fact that America has an imperialist, genocidal, missionary history
which makes it more similar to Russia/USSR than many people are willing
to accept.
> But, please,
> we are not interested in your complexes or traumas.
> This newsgroup is not labeled soc... hutu or whatever.
Whio is the "we"? You and Jon?
> There are newsgroups specifically for that purpose.
> Nor are we interested in your unceasing preachments of
> the blessings of russkiedom in the Baltics.
Go take a long walk off a short pier. I do not preach the blessings of
"russkiedom" on the Baltics. My claim is simply that the Soviet period
in the Baltics was not monoltihic, and that the system became flexible
enough to allow various voices to be heard, a factor which was to play
a crucial role in the collapse of Soviet power and the accession of
intelligent, Soviet-educated but anti-Soviet, people to positions of
power.
> Go to scr and
> preach to them. There, I am certain, you will be appreciated.
Sorry, Henry, I ain't leavin'. If you don't like what I post, killfile
me. My Baltic interests and connections justify my presence here far
more than your superficial, selective, and parochial Baltic interests
do yours.
> There you will indeed find much agreement that the russkies
> performed no criminal activities in the Baltics and you can
> hug with such as the Wilkes character.
>
> <<mucho snipped>>
Wilkes character? The Soviets committed many, far too many, criminal
activities in the Baltics, neither have I ever denied this. This does
not mean that every single thing, event, and incident that took place
in the Baltics between 1944 and 1991 was yet another epitome of evil.
Nebuk s^amiulas!
--
Eugene Holman
Eugene Holman
<halm...@attbi.com> wrote:
[REPOSTING WITH CORRECTIONS]
> "Eugene Holman" <hol...@elo.helsinki.fi> wrote in message
> news:160820021943047228%hol...@elo.helsinki.fi...> In article
> <20020816001129...@mb-mg.aol.com>,
> > sia...@aol.com (Siaubas) wrote
>
> <<some snipped>>
>
> Holman, having joined the ranks of the "skolars" lectures:
> >
> > I understand your position, but I cannot accept it. The United States
> > began as a criminally subversive, genocidal, anti-female, and
> > slave-owning enterprise, but eventually evolved into something
> > acceptable.
>
> A. Well now, Holman, think for a minute. The "genocides" as you
> term them were ongoing (by Europeans) when the first revolutionary
> shot was fired by the presumably "criminally subversive" forces. Deny that.
No denial. The "westward movement of the frontier" is a euphemism for
genocide of indigenous cultures. Deny that.
>
> B. The revolutionaries were no more "antifemale" than the
> rest of the western world at that time and a hell of a lot less
> than the Islamic and African world even today. Deny that.
The revolutionaries thought in terms of high-falutin' concepts such as
"all men being created equal". Nevertheless, they owned, and, in the
case of Thomas Jefferson and his father-in-law, sexually exploited,
slaves. Deny that.
> C. The slave purchase, transport and holding in the north
> American continent (keeping in mind that SA was just as
> active) was ongoing when the first revolutionary shot was
> fired. Slave capturing transport and holding was equally
> widespread within Africa and the Arabic world.
Yes. But not the pernicious variant known as chattel slavery. Within
Africa and the Arab world slaves had certain rights and could buy
freedom for themselves or at least their descendants. American chattel
slavery was not this generous.
> As a matter
> of fact it is still ongoing in some parts of Africa and some
> Islamic countries. Deny that.
No denial. Slaves were the computers of yesteryear: big output, low
overhead. With respect to American history I am not as much disturbed
by slavery as I am by the genocide. Establishing the American state
meant killing off the people that were already there and plowing under
their culture. More concretely, we celebrate the first Thanksgiving,
when the colonists and the indigenous folks sat together, thankful that
the indigenous folks had transferred the knowledge concerning local
flora and fauna which enabled the colonists, who arrived in the "New
World" woefully unprepared, to have a successful harvest. A year later,
the second Thanksgiving day, the colonists had killed off the local
indigenes and stole their property. Deny that. (Hint: You can't).
> D. If the Am revolutionaries were "criminal subversives"
> than every freedom-seeking person before or since were
> the same. Deny that.
The American revolutionaries were criminal subversives from the
perspective of the powers that were. Their struggle to establish and
maintain independence does not differ in any significant respect from
the struggles of the Baltic peoples, twice in the 20th century, to
estabish and maintain independence.
> I don't think that I will bother with the rest of your
> bullshit. Now Holman, it is obvious that you have rather
> bitter feelings toward the country of your origin.
Wrongo. I have no problems whatsoever about being American born, bred,
and educated. On the other hand, I see nothing wrong in discussing the
fact that America has an imperialist, genocidal, missionary history
which makes it more similar to Russia/USSR than many people, including
you, are willing to admit.
> But, please,
> we are not interested in your complexes or traumas.
> This newsgroup is not labeled soc... hutu or whatever.
Whio is the "we"? You and Jon?
> There are newsgroups specifically for that purpose.
> Nor are we interested in your unceasing preachments of
> the blessings of russkiedom in the Baltics.
Go take a long walk off a short pier. I do not preach the blessings of
"russkiedom" in the Baltics. My claim is simply that the 45 year period
of Soviet rule in the Baltics was not monoltihic, and that the system
became flexible enough to allow various voices to be heard, a factor
which was to play a crucial role in the collapse of Soviet power and
the accession of intelligent, Soviet-educated but anti-Soviet, people
to positions of power.
> Go to scr and
> preach to them. There, I am certain, you will be appreciated.
Sorry, Henry, I ain't leavin'. If you don't like what I post, killfile
me. My Baltic interests and connections justify my presence here far
more than your superficial, selective, and parochial Baltic interests
do yours. Nebuk asolius!
> There you will indeed find much agreement that the russkies
> performed no criminal activities in the Baltics and you can
> hug with such as the Wilkes character.
>
> <<mucho snipped>>
Wilkes character? As in John Wilkes "sic semper tyrannis" Booth? The
Soviets committed many, far too many, criminal activities in the
Baltics, neither have I ever denied or tried to justify their behavior.
This does not mean that every single thing, event, and incident that
took place in the Baltics between 1944 and 1991 was yet another epitome
of evil.
Nebuk sanavabic^ius!
--
Eugene Holman
Siaubas
>United States, like Brazil, Argentina, Australia, Mexico, and Canada,
>not to mention smaller states such as Columbian, Venezuela, Peru, Cuba,
snip...
I take this as a big no to my question Eugene.
Your analogies dilute any possible point by stringing together endless non
comparable events. I'm starting to believe that this may be your purpose.
>It started with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher gushing: "I
>like Mr. Gorbachev. We can do business with him".
And, according to her later on, Gorby was rational but what he headed was a
cancer on Europe. Gorby was one man. One man did not define the SU.
> It continued with the
>publicaton of Gorbachev's "Perestroika i novoe myshlenie" which
>admitted quite candidly that the Soviet system was preventing the USSR
>from fulfilling its obligations to its citizenry to provide them with a
>modern, democratic , prosperous life in a "normal" European state.
huge snip...
I said that your statement regarding the SU supposedly being on a path to
becoming a "normal" country was simply your opinion. I concede that there are
others that share your opinion as long as you concede that there are others who
feel that the SU was never heading in any sort of progressive direction.
In fact, those are the ones that generally spoke of the SU's impending failure
- which did happen. The SU becoming a "normal" nation never did.
>The Balts took quite a
>beating, particularly between 1944 and 1949, but they succeeded in
>remaining nominal masters of their own countries as well as in
>attaining and maintaining the highest living standards in the USSR.
And this was their doing, not Moscows. Agree ? Moscow was a lousy positive
motivator in many regards.
>Agreed. But they weren't. The Balts were successful in squeezing
>maximum benefit from a bad situation.
Exactly. And where should we be thanking the SU for this ? In placing us in a
bad situation in the first place ?
>What the Soviets were doing inthe Baltics and what the Nazis were
>doing in Poland is classical colonialism, the only significant
>differene being that the victims were next-door neighbors rather than
>"exotic" people in distant countries.
You say that its classical colonialism - but then you indicate that there was
at least one difference...
>Do you not see the Chechyen
>conflict as an instantiation of colonialism?
No. Chechnya's about oil. Russia has been there for decades.
>From the standards of today, it wasn't. From the standards that
>prevailed in Stalin's USSR it was.
I was making the comparison based on your model, not some twisted ultraviolent
historical tragedy.
You agree that based on todays standards the soviet actions were not a step
forward - but you still claim that we should thank them for some things. Am I
the only one that sees the contradiction in what you say Eugene ?
>You know that I consider the Baltic countries to be serious nations.
I know that you consider the baltic nations to be serious business
opportunities but to be honest Eugene I have my doubts as to your feelings
regarding whether or not the baltics are better off independent than soviet.
You haven't been consistant there.
>Even then, under Andropov, it was clear that intelligent people in the
>USSR understood that the country was vulnerable as a consequence of its
>own, self-imposed weaknesses. The dictatorship, although still there,
>was not so convinced of its infallibility that it suppressed all
>criticism.
The damage done was from 1943 to 1981, with a light breather during the
Kruschev years. I don't define the SU by its actions when it was in its last
gasps. I don't feel that I should have to thank the SU for losing the edge of
its tyrranical violent tendencies at that point where it was collapsing.
Am I thankful that it died a somewhat non violent death ? Absolutely, but thats
all.
Vidas
Martin Georgin
> In article <20020816225246...@mb-cm.aol.com>,
> sia...@aol.com (Siaubas) wrote:
>
> > Ok, Eugene. Can we agree that each of these examples that you cite were unique
> > ? They may share some sort of common characteristic, but their other unique
> > conditions MAY be significant enough that they should be judged on their own
> > as
> > opposed to being lumped together with some other historical occurance ??
>
> I think that the type is more important than the specific features. The
> United States, like Brazil, Argentina, Australia, Mexico, and Canada,
> not to mention smaller states such as Columbian, Venezuela, Peru, Cuba,
> Guatamala, etc. began as new kind of state, one that evolved from a
> colonial projection of power into foreign territories, genocide, forced
> conversion, and some kind of revolt, sometimes controlled, sometimes
> not, against distant rule. When there were no distant colonies left to,
> Germany and the USSR projected power, practiced genocide, and forcibly
> converted their neighbors.
Eugene,
I'm not so sure that you can compare what the Soviets did in the
Baltics with colonialisation in the United States, Brazil, Argentina,
Australia, Mexico, and Canada.
What all these countries have in common is that all their colonies
started out as self contained settlements in a hostile foreign land
far from home, which largely remained apart from the native
population, which was regarded by the colonialists as savages with no
culture or any form of legal system to prove ownership of land.
This is not the situation with regards to the occupation of the
Baltics by the Soviets. It was more a case of imperialism than
colonialism. Was the occupation of Kuwuit by Iraq colonialism? Or the
occupation of the Falklands by the Argentinians colonialism. I think
not.
Regards,
Martin
Eugene Holman
mart...@joymail.com (Martin Georgin) wrote:
Try to look at it on a more functional level. The British, etc. claimed
that the people that they colonized were "savages" because they had no
legal system to prove ownership of land, for which reason they, the
British, could evict inhabitants and claim the land as their own. The
Soviets claimed that the people they colonized were "savages" because
they were living in a socio-economic formation which was "primitive"
from the standpoint of the dynamic of dialectal materialism. The fact
that the Balts were so retrograde that they respected concepts such as
ownership of land and other private property was used by the Soviets as
a demonstration of their primitiveness. The Soviets, or Russians if you
will, who invaded the Baltic countries in 1940 and again in 1944,
understood that the Baltic people were more advanced with respect to
material culture. Officially, however, they were not materialists, but
idealists. They were convinced that their socialist model of society
was infinitely superior to anything the Balts had, and they imposed it
on the peoples they victimized with the same intransigence and
unquestionale ideas of superiority that Christian and Moslem
missionaries once imposed their doctrines on unwilling subjects, no
matter what their level of material development.
> This is not the situation with regards to the occupation of the
> Baltics by the Soviets.
It depends upon the degree to which you are willing to abstract. In all
of the cases in question we are dealing with:
1. the imposition of a foreign ideology aimed at improving the lot of
the victims *idealistically* according to the world view of the
colonialists:
2. economic exploitation consequent to the imposition of the foreign
ideology;
3. opening the area subjected to the foreign ideology, whether across
the seas or across the border river, to genocide, ethnocide, and
repopulation by people representing the ethnicity of the stronger
nation.
I see no reason whatsoever to regard geographic or ethnic distance as a
factor. In all the cases in question a stronger nation victimizes a
smaller, weaker, one; imposes its world view, exploits those of the
victims which it doesn't regard as worth killing off outright, and
resettles the partially or totally ethnically cleansed land with its
"more civilized" colonials.
I know from my own experience reading Soviet accounts of the
colonialization of the Baltics that the official version was that they
were doing the Baltic countries a "favor" by "upgrading" them to the
status of countries with socialist rather than capitalist economies.
> It was more a case of imperialism than
> colonialism.
The genocidal deportations of hundreds of thousands of Balts, as well
as their replacement with hundreds of thousands of Russian-speaking
colonialists representing more than 120 nations of the former USSR, are
strong arguments against your claim. The Balts were "fellow Europeans",
but Soviet communism was not based on race or perceived ethnic
fraternity, but rather on the relative value that the imperialist
Soviets accorded different patterns of socio-economic organization.
From the standpoint of the Soviets that set up shop in the Baltics in
1940 and again in 1944, the Baltic countries were as underdeveloped as
any part of Africa, America, or Australia that fell victim to British
imperialism and colonization because they still had a socio-economic
system based on private property and economic relations between classes
that sold and bought labor.
> Was the occupation of Kuwuit by Iraq colonialism?
Too complex a question to answer here. On the one hand, evereybody
knows that Iraq is an artificial nation, and that Kuwait should, if you
look at the map, be a part of it. While I certainly do not approve of
resolving territorial disputes by invasions, I understand that there is
little reason, other than the interests of European powers, in the
existence of a separate Kuwait. mahy other countries, for example
Portugal and Uruguay, exist for the same reason.
> Or the
> occupation of the Falklands by the Argentinians colonialism. I think
> not.
Once again, looking at the map we can see that the British presence in
the Falklands is an historical anomaly, like their presence in
Gibraltar or the Spanish presence in Ceuta or the Russian presence in
the Kuriles or East Prussia. We have to admit that colonialism and
imperialism were once important forces, and that their legacy is a
nuber of complex situations. I am not an advocate of violence, but I
have considerable sympathy with the efforts of victims of colonialism
and imperialism to minimize the consequences. However, these efforts
should not extend to requiring people born to colonialists in countries
victimized by colonialism being forced to repatriate to the country of
their parents or grandparents. People should have the right to live in
teh country in which they were born and to speak the language which
they learned first in public. This does not mean that they have the
right to insist that they can use their first language in all
situations of public communication. In other word, if you are a Russian
speaker born in Estonia, you should be able to speak Russian in public
with your friends or family without having to fear being the object of
violent reactions. On the other hand, you should not assume that you
can live your life in Estonia without having to learn Estonian.
--
Regards,
Eugene Holman
Eugene Holman
sia...@aol.com (Siaubas) wrote:
> >I think that the type is more important than the specific features. The
> >United States, like Brazil, Argentina, Australia, Mexico, and Canada,
> >not to mention smaller states such as Columbian, Venezuela, Peru, Cuba,
>
> snip...
>
> I take this as a big no to my question Eugene.
>
> Your analogies dilute any possible point by stringing together endless non
> comparable events. I'm starting to believe that this may be your purpose.
Not at all. I do not see imperialism or colonialism as being functions
of distance or exoticness. What the USSR did to the Baltics is pecisely
what the British did to e.g. the native Australians. The current unrest
in Zimbabwe is what we would have in the Baltics if the titular and
colonialist populations had been less successful in exploiting other,
in my humble opinion more productive, means for reconciling their
differences.
>
> >It started with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher gushing: "I
> >like Mr. Gorbachev. We can do business with him".
>
> And, according to her later on, Gorby was rational but what he headed was a
> cancer on Europe. Gorby was one man. One man did not define the SU.
No, he didn't. But he was in control of it, and he yelled "Help!".
Although I regret the deaths that the Lithuanians and Latvians had to
suffer consequent to the implosion of the USSR, as a person who has
been living next door, I am pleased that the process took place was
orderly as it did, and that it left a far less bitter legacy than such
processes normally do.
>
> > It continued with the
> >publicaton of Gorbachev's "Perestroika i novoe myshlenie" which
> >admitted quite candidly that the Soviet system was preventing the USSR
> >from fulfilling its obligations to its citizenry to provide them with a
> >modern, democratic , prosperous life in a "normal" European state.
>
> huge snip...
>
> I said that your statement regarding the SU supposedly being on a path to
> becoming a "normal" country was simply your opinion. I concede that there are
> others that share your opinion as long as you concede that there are others
> who
> feel that the SU was never heading in any sort of progressive direction.
Fine. However, being particularly well acquainted with the situation in
laboratory Estonia, I know that there were many people in responsible
positions there who would have been satisfied, in the short-term at
least, with a gradualist position. If history had taken a different
path, the three Baltic republics would have been in a favorable
position in a "kinder, gentler" USSR. Don't get me wrong, they saw the
opportunity to re-establish their inpendence and grabbed it. Had this
not been the case, it is obvious that they would have been some kind of
flagship for a very different kind of USSR.
>
> In fact, those are the ones that generally spoke of the SU's impending failure
> - which did happen. The SU becoming a "normal" nation never did.
>
> >The Balts took quite a
> >beating, particularly between 1944 and 1949, but they succeeded in
> >remaining nominal masters of their own countries as well as in
> >attaining and maintaining the highest living standards in the USSR.
>
> And this was their doing, not Moscows. Agree ? Moscow was a lousy positive
> motivator in many regards.
Correct. But by 1985 Moscow had finally realized this.
>
> >Agreed. But they weren't. The Balts were successful in squeezing
> >maximum benefit from a bad situation.
>
> Exactly. And where should we be thanking the SU for this ? In placing us in a
> bad situation in the first place ?
Geopolitics is a nasty game. As a realist, I am pleased that the Baltic
countries seized and exploited the first opportunity to re-establsih
their independence. As an incurable "what-ifist" I can't help wondering
what would have happened if the USSR would have admitted that almost
everything that it had done was wrong, and that the Baltic countries
were functioning as a laboratory that showed what could and should be
done to make the USSR a "normal" country. One could argue that the
Baltic countries, small and modest, never aspired to such a position.
On the other hand, a very interesting historical opportunity for the
Baltic countries was lost. They probably would never have wanted this
opportunity, but the opportunity to play a significant role in history
usually drops from the sky like a seagull turd.
> >What the Soviets were doing inthe Baltics and what the Nazis were
> >doing in Poland is classical colonialism, the only significant
> >differene being that the victims were next-door neighbors rather than
> >"exotic" people in distant countries.
>
> You say that its classical colonialism - but then you indicate that there was
> at least one difference...
>
> >Do you not see the Chechyen
> >conflict as an instantiation of colonialism?
>
> No. Chechnya's about oil. Russia has been there for decades.
They have also been imposing their will and culture, just like the most
classical of colonialists.
>
> >From the standards of today, it wasn't. From the standards that
> >prevailed in Stalin's USSR it was.
>
> I was making the comparison based on your model, not some twisted ultraviolent
> historical tragedy.
>
> You agree that based on todays standards the soviet actions were not a step
> forward - but you still claim that we should thank them for some things. Am I
> the only one that sees the contradiction in what you say Eugene ?
You interpret me too literally. Invading and colonizing a country is
bad, bad, BAD. Often, however, the invader/colonialist has more
resources than the victim and, more importantly, is sometimes willing
to share them, providing certain prerequisites are met. From every
perspective I can think of, the Soviet invasion of the Baltics was
indefensible, a crime. That fact having been established, however, the
Soviet invaders, post 1950, were not as bad or as selfish as many
other invaders/colonialists have been. The Soviet occupation of the
Baltics was not, I emphasize, post-1950, nearly as genocidal as the
Nazi-German occupation/colonialism of Poland or even the British
occupation/colonialism of Australia.
> >You know that I consider the Baltic countries to be serious nations.
>
> I know that you consider the baltic nations to be serious business
> opportunities but to be honest Eugene I have my doubts as to your feelings
> regarding whether or not the baltics are better off independent than soviet.
I would not consider the Baltic nations to be serious business
opportunities if I did not trust their basic structures of
statsmanship: honest bureaucrats, honest banking and taxation systems,
stable currencies, competent, tolerant, and well-eduated people.
There is no doubt in my mind that the Baltic countries are far better
off independent than as Soviet republics. That does not mean that
playing "what-if" thought games should be prohibited. If history had
taken a different track, and the Baltic countries would have had to
spend ten additional years as test laboratories and beacons which would
have resulted in more successful post-Soviet countries, I would not
regard this as a bad thing. In the short term we are all pleased with
what the Baltic countries have accomplished, and in the medium term we
see Russia, finally under competent if somewhat authoritarian
leadership, also developing in directions which are more positive than
negative. The issue is whether the situation in some of the other
former republics of the USSR might be better if there had been more
time to observe the development of the test laboratory Baltics.
Once again, I emphasize that the Baltic countries had no obligation to
serve as a test laboratory. But, having been given the chance, are
their longer term interests better served by their having concerned
theirselves with their own interests - independence - or would it have
been a better long term investment to try to use advantages which they
had obtained as part of the super-pwer USSR to "tame" Russia and
demonstrate to other former Soviet republic how to establish a
prosperous, functioning society? These are serious questions that
deserve serious discussion.
> You haven't been consistant there.
I think I have been. The Baltic countries were illegally incorporated
into the USSR. As a part of the USSR, they eventually established for
themselves a privileged position. Should they have used this privileged
position solely to their own advantage, or should they have used it as
an investment to try to give other republics of the USSR the framework
- rule of law, respect for bureaucracy - which would prevent some
illegal incorporation in the future.
>
> >Even then, under Andropov, it was clear that intelligent people in the
> >USSR understood that the country was vulnerable as a consequence of its
> >own, self-imposed weaknesses. The dictatorship, although still there,
> >was not so convinced of its infallibility that it suppressed all
> >criticism.
>
> The damage done was from 1943 to 1981, with a light breather during the
> Kruschev years. I don't define the SU by its actions when it was in its last
> gasps. I don't feel that I should have to thank the SU for losing the edge of
> its tyrranical violent tendencies at that point where it was collapsing.
>
> Am I thankful that it died a somewhat non violent death ? Absolutely, but thats
> all.
Here I agree. Eleven years ago on this date, watching the USSR
disintegrate, I was checking out the location of my local bomb shelter.
--
Regards,
Eugene Holman