Why I still celebrate Victory Day (despite United Russia's best efforts to ruin it)
This May 9 marked the 71st anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe - the anniversary that Russia and much of former Soviet Union celebrate as Victory Day (European countries celebrate it on May 8).
Last year, I went on a long rant about how the United Russia apparatus profaned not just the holiday, but the collective memory of World War II for the sake of Ukrainian Crisis propaganda - which, unfortunately, remains as relevant now as it was then. In recent months, the government has been using Nazi imagery to talk about fighting Islamic State/Daesh. You can argue that while the genocidal apocalyptic cult that commits wanton atrocities aren't Nazis, they are Nazi-like enough to make for a valid comparison.... But I'm still not sure how to feel about that.
I have been thinking a lot about what the holiday means. Something that seems so simple when I was a child has gotten a lot more complicated. In many parts of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, the war was anything but straightforward. And it's not just former Soviet Union - consider Philippines, which was under American occupation at the time it was invaded by Japan, or all of the territories of the British Empire that had independence movements. And lets not forget about the internment of Japanese-Americans right here in United States.
Plus, there is the nagging question I've heard in some form or another for the past 10 years. After everything Stalin did, both in Soviet Union and abroad, after everything that happened to my own family and millions of families like mine, was Hitler's defeat really a victory for my people (and the people of what would become the Eastern bloc)?
I thought long and hard about it.... And, a few days before Victory Day, I think I finally settled on an answer I'm comfortable with.
Yes. Yes it was. And yes, it is something worth celebrating it.
First of all... as I've written many, many times before, Nazis were trying to exterminate us. Even for Slavs who didn't have a drop of Jewish or Romani blood, the ultimate faith would have been the same. We were meant to be used for slave labor and eventually exterminated. The fact that Slavs were lower on the extermination priority list doesn't meant they would've had any future in the Thousand-year Reich.
Look at what happen with the occupied parts of what is now Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. Stalin once supposedly said that a death of a person is a tragedy, but a million death is a statistic - but it's hard not to stare in horror when you look at just how many millions upon millions of people perished, how entire towns and villages lost nearly all of their population.
And it wasn't just the people. Nazis meant to exterminate our cultures - save the few things they found valuable and erase the rest, erase our legacy, erase centuries of artistic and cultural achievement, like it was never there.
Another big reason why I still think it's worth celebrating is that there were millions upon millions of people who fought and bled and died to protect their homes, and millions more still who kept the supplies, medical care and other support coming. There are still more millions who lived in occupied areas, who either resisted as guerrilla fighters or just tried to survive the best they could. Hundreds of thousands died in the city of Leningrad, while thousands more lived through hunger, cold and hopelessness.
The fact that the Nazi forces were eventually pushed back, that the Siege of Leningrad were eventually lifted, that the Nazi forces were eventually removed from Stalingrad, Kiev, Odessa, Minsk and Brest-Litovsk... That had to mean something.
It had to have been worth something.
Which brings us to something I've touched upon many times before. My generation could well be the last generation for whom the war had personal significance, for whom fighting wasn't abstract. The Siege of Leningrad wasn't just a historical event - it happened in the city I grew up in. It's one thing to talk about millions of soldiers defending the city, but it's quite another to know that those soldiers included my great-grandfather, and my other great-grandfather was taking care of the wounded. Grandma Tanya was evacuated from Leningrad before the Siege happened, while Grandma Nina was trapped inside - but both were profoundly affected by it, and both told em plenty about their experiences.
Grandma Nina's grandmother died during the Siege. I didn't know her, but I know Grandma Nina, and I know how the death affected her. And because of it, one of the city's smaller mass graves becomes that much more meaningful.
It would have been nice if the Stalin didn't exile members of certain ethnic groups from their homes shortly after the war ended. It would have been nice if Grandpa Roma and Grandpa Slava weren't sent to labor camps a few years later. It would have been nice if parents and grandparents of some of the people I've met over the years didn't have to flee Poland after Soviet-imposed government took power. But it's not the history we got. And it is the history we have to live with.
There is a Russian expression, one that translates roughly as "one doesn't interfere with the other." When I think about it, I always knew that history was messier than history was messier, more complex than the popular imagination makes it out to be. Grandma Nina would talk about heroism - but she would also talk about that one time when two adults tried to eat her. And while she was young, she knew enough to realize even then that it was far from an isolated incident.
It's not easy to accept complexities. It's not easy to celebrate what's laudable while acknowledging the reprehensible - or even the well-meaning gestures that had dark consequences. We, as human beings, strive toward simplicity.
United Russia would prefer its history simple, one where Russia never did anything wrong. It makes it that much easier to galvanize people, to use history to their advantage. But I would like to believe that it's still possible to celebrate heroism while acknowledging that we weren't always the force of good. That there are legitimate reasons why people in other countries might feel the same way about the Soviet military. Or that these same soldiers may not have always lived up to their ideals.
It's easier said then done... But I do think it's something worth striving for.
For now... I would like to take the time to celebrate the people who have saved their countries for certain annihilation, the millions who have died hoping that millions more will have a chance to live. They were not paragons of virtue, the walking ideals - they were men and women, like you and me, flawed, vulnerable, all profoundly affected by what they saw and did. They are our great-grandparents and grandparents, our great-uncles and great-aunts, people that we knew and loved and respected.
За нашу победу.
Last year, I went on a long rant about how the United Russia apparatus profaned not just the holiday, but the collective memory of World War II for the sake of Ukrainian Crisis propaganda - which, unfortunately, remains as relevant now as it was then. In recent months, the government has been using Nazi imagery to talk about fighting Islamic State/Daesh. You can argue that while the genocidal apocalyptic cult that commits wanton atrocities aren't Nazis, they are Nazi-like enough to make for a valid comparison.... But I'm still not sure how to feel about that.
I have been thinking a lot about what the holiday means. Something that seems so simple when I was a child has gotten a lot more complicated. In many parts of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, the war was anything but straightforward. And it's not just former Soviet Union - consider Philippines, which was under American occupation at the time it was invaded by Japan, or all of the territories of the British Empire that had independence movements. And lets not forget about the internment of Japanese-Americans right here in United States.
Plus, there is the nagging question I've heard in some form or another for the past 10 years. After everything Stalin did, both in Soviet Union and abroad, after everything that happened to my own family and millions of families like mine, was Hitler's defeat really a victory for my people (and the people of what would become the Eastern bloc)?
I thought long and hard about it.... And, a few days before Victory Day, I think I finally settled on an answer I'm comfortable with.
Yes. Yes it was. And yes, it is something worth celebrating it.
First of all... as I've written many, many times before, Nazis were trying to exterminate us. Even for Slavs who didn't have a drop of Jewish or Romani blood, the ultimate faith would have been the same. We were meant to be used for slave labor and eventually exterminated. The fact that Slavs were lower on the extermination priority list doesn't meant they would've had any future in the Thousand-year Reich.
Look at what happen with the occupied parts of what is now Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. Stalin once supposedly said that a death of a person is a tragedy, but a million death is a statistic - but it's hard not to stare in horror when you look at just how many millions upon millions of people perished, how entire towns and villages lost nearly all of their population.
And it wasn't just the people. Nazis meant to exterminate our cultures - save the few things they found valuable and erase the rest, erase our legacy, erase centuries of artistic and cultural achievement, like it was never there.
Another big reason why I still think it's worth celebrating is that there were millions upon millions of people who fought and bled and died to protect their homes, and millions more still who kept the supplies, medical care and other support coming. There are still more millions who lived in occupied areas, who either resisted as guerrilla fighters or just tried to survive the best they could. Hundreds of thousands died in the city of Leningrad, while thousands more lived through hunger, cold and hopelessness.
The fact that the Nazi forces were eventually pushed back, that the Siege of Leningrad were eventually lifted, that the Nazi forces were eventually removed from Stalingrad, Kiev, Odessa, Minsk and Brest-Litovsk... That had to mean something.
It had to have been worth something.
Which brings us to something I've touched upon many times before. My generation could well be the last generation for whom the war had personal significance, for whom fighting wasn't abstract. The Siege of Leningrad wasn't just a historical event - it happened in the city I grew up in. It's one thing to talk about millions of soldiers defending the city, but it's quite another to know that those soldiers included my great-grandfather, and my other great-grandfather was taking care of the wounded. Grandma Tanya was evacuated from Leningrad before the Siege happened, while Grandma Nina was trapped inside - but both were profoundly affected by it, and both told em plenty about their experiences.
Grandma Nina's grandmother died during the Siege. I didn't know her, but I know Grandma Nina, and I know how the death affected her. And because of it, one of the city's smaller mass graves becomes that much more meaningful.
It would have been nice if the Stalin didn't exile members of certain ethnic groups from their homes shortly after the war ended. It would have been nice if Grandpa Roma and Grandpa Slava weren't sent to labor camps a few years later. It would have been nice if parents and grandparents of some of the people I've met over the years didn't have to flee Poland after Soviet-imposed government took power. But it's not the history we got. And it is the history we have to live with.
There is a Russian expression, one that translates roughly as "one doesn't interfere with the other." When I think about it, I always knew that history was messier than history was messier, more complex than the popular imagination makes it out to be. Grandma Nina would talk about heroism - but she would also talk about that one time when two adults tried to eat her. And while she was young, she knew enough to realize even then that it was far from an isolated incident.
It's not easy to accept complexities. It's not easy to celebrate what's laudable while acknowledging the reprehensible - or even the well-meaning gestures that had dark consequences. We, as human beings, strive toward simplicity.
United Russia would prefer its history simple, one where Russia never did anything wrong. It makes it that much easier to galvanize people, to use history to their advantage. But I would like to believe that it's still possible to celebrate heroism while acknowledging that we weren't always the force of good. That there are legitimate reasons why people in other countries might feel the same way about the Soviet military. Or that these same soldiers may not have always lived up to their ideals.
It's easier said then done... But I do think it's something worth striving for.
For now... I would like to take the time to celebrate the people who have saved their countries for certain annihilation, the millions who have died hoping that millions more will have a chance to live. They were not paragons of virtue, the walking ideals - they were men and women, like you and me, flawed, vulnerable, all profoundly affected by what they saw and did. They are our great-grandparents and grandparents, our great-uncles and great-aunts, people that we knew and loved and respected.
За нашу победу.