Subject: Kievan heirloom and Evil Nevskii, Re: Mongols as Eggplants

From: [email-masked] (dmitry pruss)
Date: Tue, 12 Jul 1994 20:58:02 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Peter Vorobieff) writes:
>
>Before 1237, Rus was a large piece of Europe with a vaguely 
>different flavor of Christianity (remember - the final schism 
>between the Eastern and the Western churches occurred in the 
>eleventh century only!) with cities like Kiev and Novgorod, 
>with warlords casually besieging Constantinople and marrying 
>their daughters to the princes of French and German states - 
>it was big, it was rich, it was messy, it lived.
>
>After 1241 - NOTHING. ZIP. ZILCH. The lands of Ukraine that fed 
>dozens of prosperous princedoms in the early thirteenth century
>were turned to waste. Only packs of wolves and bands of marauders 
>passed where once proud cities had stood. 

Hi Pete,
I don't think I discussed the matter with you last time (when you were
silly enough to cry all over the net that I'm a fan of Alexander Nevskii)
and I'm even less inclined to do it now, when you demonstrated that you can
and will shut down accounts of your opponents. Effecting October I'm gonna
share my account with a number of my colleagues, and I'd hate to have them
unhooked from the net because of my own folly. 

However you're so damn wrong in your assertions that I make a brief
comment:

The nomads dominated the steppes of today's SE Ukraine and S Russia all the
time before 1241, and Rus' has a history of successive wars against them
and alliances with them - there's absolutely nothing unusual in Nevskii's
choice of the politics of alliance. 

The celebrated Russian assaults on Bysanthium and its dynastic links with
the West were long over before the Mongols came (even if you value these
signs of majesty so much - I don't): the former by Xth and the latter by
XIth century. . 

Rus' effectively broke apart in 1097 at Lyubech Congress, when the dukes
pledged to respect each other souzerenity over their domains. The KIevan
Grand duke was merely the 1st among equals ever since. Under Vladimir
Monomah the Grand duchy nevertheless wielded enough authority to collect
some taxes from the duchies and to call allied troops for a war. Soon after
his death, it finally and irreversibly broke. 1130ies brought secession  of
Polock and Novgorod. Kiev and Chernigow rampaged one another. Galich
followed Novgorod and Polock to turn away from degrading Kiev and to seek
Western orientation. 
Finally Andrei Bogolyubskij interfered into the war for what remained of
Kievan heirloom. His troops took and plundered Kiev, and he took the title
of the Kievan Grand duke to his home seat. That's how Kievan Rus' was
undone - and the Mongols were unheard of yet. 

After the Mongols came and left, scores of other Russian cities were
devastated to the same extent as Kiev - and if Kiev wasn't reborn, it's
largely because its very cause of existence, the Nordic-Bysanthine trade,
ceased to exist. Anyway the Mongols didn't dominate the surrounding of Kiev
any long - it remained a Russian duchy, as weak as other post-Mongol
states, till young Lithuania annexed it - so it paid the Horde's taxes much
shorter time thatn Moscow, and it was burnt to ashes by the Tatars much
fewer times than Moscow - and yet it remained a rural backwater. 

Now you may like or dislike the fact the alliance of an Eastern Despoty
helped Muscovy to uphold its schizmatic faith and separate ethnic identity
- and to drag future Ukrainians and Belorussians away from Catholicism and
the Western political world. In many aspects it was a backward-looking
alliance. I think it's obvious, however, that if post-Mongol Russia picked
any other way, we wouldn't have a Russian state throughout most of its
history, and we wouldn't have a great multi-faceted Russian culture.
Perhaps we would have great Poland or Lithuania or Sweden instead, or maybe
Germany from Baltic to Black sea. Not bad either. 

The point? It's silly to blame Russia for its Mongol roots: if it refused
these roots, it'd disappear alltogether . 

		D 

From husc-news.harvard.edu!das-news.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!news.umass.edu!news.mtholyoke.edu! uhog.mit.edu!news.kei.com!yeshua.marcam.com!usc!hookup!news.moneng.mei.com! howland.reston.ans.net!math.ohio-state.edu!jussieu.fr!univ-lyon1.fr! swidir.switch.ch!newsfeed.ACO.net!Austria.EU.net!EU.net!uunet!nih-csl!pruss Sat Jul 30 02:08:50 EDT 1994
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Newsgroups: soc.culture.ukrainian,soc.culture.soviet,soc.culture.baltics
Subject: Re: Alphabets
Message-ID: <[email-masked]>
From: [email-masked] (dmitry pruss)
Date: Fri, 29 Jul 1994 16:57:44 GMT
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In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Taras Klymchuk) writes:
>As a matter of fact, all of the Moslem republics
>agreed in principle to adopt the single script
>in the future,

not. they had a conference to discussed it and didn't come to common
conclusions. the lettersets are a bit different and the way of spelling the
related words will remain different, which is a marked deviation from the
common Turkic script of the 20ies. (BTW in Arabic script the spelling of
the same-meaning words remained the same too - in spite of their different
pronunciation - so the old scripts promoted a sense of unity between the
Turkic peoples, whereas the new ones promote a sense of separate
identity... see below) 

>which in fact is current Turkish
>script plus a couple of letters for some languages,

Almost correct; the more exact description would be that today's Turkish
script is the common Turkic of the 20ies _minus_ a few letters. E.g. 'X'
ain't used in Tukey - but it is used in e.g. Azerbaijan.

The Soviet Turkic standart _predated the Turkish script rather than was
derived from it. BTW the vocabulary of the contemporary Turkish was also
created by extensive _subtraction of the borrowed words (mainly Persian and
Arabic, including most of the language of administration, law and science).
As a consequences, today's Turkish stands alone in among Turkic languages
of the Central Asia. Something similar has happened to Ukrainian as well,
BTW: the purge of the vocabulary to force a distinction between the *fixed*
*restored* language and its evolved relatives.

It was exactly the acceptance of the nearly-standart Turkic script by
Turkey _and_ the Bolshevik's failure to exploit pan-turkic ideas to their
benefit (whereas Ataturk did exploit them), which made the Soviet
authorities to change the script once again. 

Notably, where pan-*ian ideas of the foreign brothers weren't exploited,
no attempt to change the scrip has been made (in the Baltics, in Georgia
and Armeia), and wherever foreign relatives made such appeal, the USSR
attempted to cut the links by changing the alphabet itself (as it happened
in Moldova, and to a smaller extent with the Karelians and the Jews, where
only minor ethnic subgroups experienced such alphabet experimentation). 

I'm pretty much sure that if Aksenow's Island Krym situation were real,
they'd change the script of the Russian too. ... Although they did change
it - as well as spelling rules - but not to as dramatic extent as Cyr-Lat
switch. 

>AFAIK, so far Azerbaijan only has 
>reintroduced the Turkish script.

Latin Turkic script, to be exact. It does differ from both Turkish and the
old universal Tukic srcipts - e.g. an underscripted 'C' is used only in Azer
and nowhere else in the world. 

There was an article in the Wash Post this winter which dealt with
consequences (the most severe being the understanding barrier between
generations)... the author seemed to be horrified - but didn't have a
recipee of course. One thing that the article noted was, BTW, that the
previous transitions were much less painful because literacy rate was low,
language-specific literature virtually didn't exist, education materials
were scarcy and printing facilities nonexistent. It's gonna be much more
tough today. 

			D 

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Newsgroups: soc.culture.soviet
Subject: Re: Mongols and the other old debts
Message-ID: <[email-masked]>
From: [email-masked] (dmitry pruss)
Date: Fri, 29 Jul 1994 22:28:48 GMT
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In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Peter Vorobieff) writes:
>(dmitry pruss) writes:
>
>>The influence of the Horde, on the contrary, never prompted anyone to
>>change language / religion. In spite of many a negative influence, it
>>allowed to preserve Russian statehood which meant Russian-speaking nobility
>
>Russian-speaking Tartar nobility. 

And Russian-speaking Lithuanian nobility. 

I do see a difference between the situation where the more educated, more
empowered class speaks Russian and the one when they speak German or
Polish. There were centuries when the first situation was much more
beneficial for Russian culture. 

As to Tatars, I don't think that your irony is appropriate. Unless you deem
the descndants of the nomads genetically unfit for the High Destination.
Yes, there was a popular theory in XIXth century which drew parallels
between Mongoloidness and Down syndrome - I don't think you believe in it
though... do you? 

If you do, you shouldn't have given any significance to intermarriages of
Russian nobles with descendantesses of the wild nomads 

>from fucked-up dukedoms of Hungary

Instead you take them as a sign of valour. What a macho complex indeed.

And pretty inconsistent too. If ex-nomadic on-the-way-to civilization
Eastern European Hungary is so desired, what's wrong with 
>
>>Sofia Vitowtowna, the Duchess
>>of Muscovy and one of the major players in the politics of her time - and
>>the daughter of teh most powerful Estern European ruler? 

>_Eastern_ European - that's the keyword.

And Agaphia, Daniil the 1st's daughter-in law, would be no good because
she was a Great Khan's daughter. Wrong forefathers, sure...

Now you know what, Pete? Would you mind to apply the same criteria to the
East and the West of Europe? Otherwise it appears in one place petty
dukedom warfare is normal, in another evil; in one place assimilation and
cultural interinfluence is good, in another place vicious; and even brides
from the great houses mean respect in one place and shame in another. 

Aren't you just racist a bit, Pete, huh? White race, grey eyes, Men of the
North and such sort of romantics? Well, go ahead, think out you imaginary
history a-la Tolkien revisited, and masturbate with a sweet thought of
Swedish lads and Russian beauties hugging one another's white bodies - good
luck! 

Cheers,
			D 

From husc-news.harvard.edu!das-news.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!yale!gumby!newsxfer.itd.umich.edu! europa.eng.gtefsd.com!swiss.ans.net!newstf01.cr1.aol.com!search01.news.aol.com!not-for-mail Tue Sep 13 10:35:37 EDT 1994
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Newsgroups: soc.culture.soviet
Subject: Re: general disgust...ing lot
Message-ID: <[email-masked]>
From: [email-masked] (Alexplore)
Date: 9 Sep 1994 01:31:01 -0400
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In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Max Pyziur)
writes about something I have no interest in, but on the 
other hand :

roman voronka ([email-masked]) wrote:
: >: Mr. Sorokin's position in Kentucky, my dear gentlemen, be aware
: >: that I will provide copies of your postings to my numerous friends
: >: who will bombard your employers with letters of indignation.
: >
: >Count me in Ed.
: >
: >
: >: Ed Ponarin,
: >: [email-masked]
: >: THESE OPINIONS MAY NOT COINCIDE WITH THOSE OF MY EMPLOYER
: >
: >
: >Max
: >[email-masked]
: >[email-masked]

 Empty and unfounded threats, I challenge you to follow through.
 I think that the whole lot of you are clowns.  A veritable circus.
 Frankly I was always amused by clowns.  Keep posting, I promise to
 read.
 RV
....................................................................
Mr. Voronka,

You got the r - i -g - h - t  attitude.
All this sovokin support talk is just that.
The soviets are too weak, lazy and stupid to anything in the real world.

Incompetent.
Small penises.

They're  history.
Old, bad history at that.

How many of them will send letters of support for sovokin?
How many have done so? :)
They'd have to get off their sovok ass to do that, wouldn't they? :)
The shits!

They jerk-off too much on their keyboards. 
The horde is finished.
It's all they can do just to fart and type.     {' _'} 

All they can do is post here what they think they m-i-g-h-t do to help
save his useless,
stupid, soviet, anti-American ass.

Not what they have done. :)

We will post the end score.

No charge this time.

Then ONE BY ONE.

Guess who's next? :)))

From husc-news.harvard.edu!das-news.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!yale!yale.edu!spool.mu.edu! howland.reston.ans.net!swiss.ans.net!newstf01.cr1.aol.com!search01.news.aol.com!not-for-mail Tue Sep 13 10:42:55 EDT 1994
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Newsgroups: soc.culture.soviet
Subject: Re: Unholy Allies, was:Re: Voronka and Alexplore
Message-ID: <[email-masked]>
From: [email-masked] (Alexplore)
Date: 9 Sep 1994 12:05:01 -0400
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In article <[email-masked]>, Boris A. Veytsman
<[email-masked]> writes like a man slowly going to his end point and
final destiny:)

Don't YOU talk about truth, you stupid, lying soviet shit.

You want to go back to Odessa and the retail trade?
You want your wife to do what she can for "hard currency"
 at the port of Odessa ?

And you speak of "truth", etc....

Look at what your "allies" are :  A racist, anti- American, incompetent,
genocidal, fellow liars like sorokin.
Did you ever get off your lazy ass and send a letter to the Math. Dept. of
 KY U. ?
Did your wife or anyone?

Larisa, while I think is neat, is not my ally. Everybody likes her.
So what? She's on YOUR side and you are still being shitty. 
Smart move veytsmans.
She is not with the 'Swarm'. Too bad.

Wait until you go back to your Odessa, 
and the "pot-bellied, crooks like Kuchma" and the others "thieves" in
Ukraine.  :)))

Tell everyone here how you'd fight for Nazis, etc...
Over there they already know.:)))

BTW- how welcome do you think you would be in Moscow either?  :))))

FOOL !

Much later.

From husc-news.harvard.edu!das-news.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!news.umass.edu!news.mtholyoke.edu! news.byu.edu!gatech!nntp.msstate.edu!emory!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu! howland.reston.ans.net!swiss.ans.net!newstf01.cr1.aol.com!search01.news.aol.com!not-for-mail Fri Sep 16 16:05:41 EDT 1994
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Newsgroups: soc.culture.soviet
Subject: Re: Who is this Voronka anyway?
Message-ID: <[email-masked]>
From: [email-masked] (Alexplore)
Date: 13 Sep 1994 23:29:02 -0400
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In article <[email-masked]>,
[email-masked] (Misha Verbitsky) writes:

What about Vladimir Sorokin and the University of KY, the "red communist
directors" of Kharkiv, Ukraine ?

There's a lot of stuff that comes out on internet.

You don't think they'd let a bunch of idiots talk for nothing do you?

It's a job to listen and say nothing, and maybe probe to get them to say
more.
The tedious thing is that everything has to be noted and filed 
etc...exchange data with other friendlies. Wait, drink coffee and eat
shitty donuts. Very boring work.:)

Gotta make things happen or turn soviet yourself.

What do you think the XXA does all day and everyday along with input from
the XXX, XXX, XX or US X.......if you want to be more formal about it.

Or the trained soviet communist, anti-American, agitator propagandists
infiltrating our society like M. Verbitsky at Harvard (and THE REST OF
THEM)?

This is known to those who take an interest in such matters here and
abroad. It's the government's duty to protect people from nazis and
soviets because you guys are more then just foreign assholes.

These people were sent by the "Old Guard". 
Washington, Ottawa, Moscow, Kiev, etc.. we know this. 

They read this even if no one else does. They get paid for this too!

You guys get nothing for it, and you are "expendable", cheap labor.
Working only from the soviet goodness of your hearts. 
Very ineffective, I and others might add.:)

They had no idea what it was REALLY like here did they?

A little quote from some of us to Voronka:

“If I read this right, you're the only friendly we have there right now”
(Tom Clancy).

I heard you guys were so stupid that we can say and do anything and your
programs will still run.

IT'S TRUE. YOU CAN'T ADAPT.

But ignore this. I just can't help myself.

alex thurston

fucking boring, boring, boring, boring - I WANT OUT!