Ukraine: The Haze of Propoganda

[evilnel]

From Moscow to London to New York, the Ukrainian revolution has been seen through a haze of propaganda. Russian leaders and the Russian press have insisted that Ukrainian protesters were right-wing extremists and then that their victory was a coup. Ukraine’s president, Viktor Yanukovych, used the same clichés after a visit with the Russian

Comments

[apostle_of_eris]

great
I wanted to talk about the centuries of history (not least that in the experience of Ukranians, Nazi rule is far less bad than Russian rule), and the whole thread is two rival "It's all about MEEEee"s.
phooey

[mingemonster]

unlike this sparkling gem of a comment

[moonshaz]

Please, do talk to us about those centuries of history and how they play into all of this. There are people here (of which I'm one), who I'm sure would be very interested. It sounds fascinating to me!

[alexvdl]

I'll agree with that. It's super interesting to me how little stuff that happened fifty to sixty years ago can culminate in world shaking events like this one.

[apostle_of_eris]

Peter the Great (Czar from 1682-1725) decided that Russia needed a "warm water port", leading to Russia messing around in the Caucasus for the last 300 years. The first time Crimea was annexed by Russia was 1783.
When the Bolshevik coup ended Russia's participation in World War I, the Ukraine was given to Austria. The Ukrainians threw out the Austrians and fought off the White armies attacking from the west every spring and Trotsky's Red army attacking from the northeast every fall, until Bolshevik control of Russia was secure enough to send in the secret police to kill off the indigenous leaders.
In the winter of 1932-33, Stalin tried to kill off resistance by forcibly taking all the food in the country. By some estimates, over twenty million people starved to death that winter.

My "bumper-sticker summary" is that the Russians treated the Ukraine so badly that being overrun by the Nazis was an improvement.

After the war, Stalin deported the population of Crimea and replaced them with Russians.

[soleiltropiques]

That is a very interesting comment.

I can see how the Crimean war of 1853-1856 fits in with that as well (I mention it because it came to mind for me recently).

I also knew about the famine (=definitely one of the big genocides of the 20th century), but your comment is a really interesting assessment regarding the overall big picture. :)

[soleiltropiques]

If that is the case, why didn't you post a comment attempting to change the direction of the conversation? Or start a new one?

[apostle_of_eris]

OK