November 21, 2013

RuNet Tackles History


RuNet Tackles History

Sometimes, when you’re just too overwhelmed by the infinite selection of blogs, your best choice to is to turn to the very same internet to find your way. Doing just that, I found myself on a “rating of RuNet’s blogs and posts” (http://top-50.ru/, retrieved 11/17/13), and the third post down caught my eye: “How historians made up the Mongolian Empire (part 2)” by Kungurov.  Expecting something thought-provoking, I launched into part 1.

What I should probably have realized is that “most popular” is not always synonymous with “best.” Completely lacking in substantive evidence or cited sources, the post did turn out to be a stellar example of the Russian blogger’s capacity for condescension and sarcasm:

“In order to reason,” he writes, “one must master logic – meaning the art of mking non-contradictory arguments. The language of even the most rudimentary logic is absolutely incomprehensible to something like 90% of primates. Learning Chinese? Sure thing – you don’t need anything but memory for that, even if you have to cram in a couple thousand characters. The language of logic, on the other hand, requires something completely different: mental effort, intellectual discipline.”

This aside on logic, naturally, ended as an insult to anyone who dared question his “findings” by citing established historians. But not everyone was put off by the insult: the comments were nearly evenly split between those who agreed and those who leveraged an equal dose of sarcasm in opposition.

But why the sudden interest in Mongolia? Kungurov’s point may not be as much historical as it is political. Russia’s Historical Society recently unveiled guidelines for a new textbook of Russian history to be taught in all schools. One of the often-discussed points of the new guidelines was to soften the tone in discussing the Mongolian invasion – seems a little impolitic to refer to a period as the “Tatar-Mongol Yoke” when there are Tatars and Mongols living within Russia, don't you think? Well, Kungurov just takes the revision one step further.

The unveiling of the guidelines (and accompanying academic discussion) also proved to be a good jumping-off point for other, less conspiracy-theory-prone bloggers. Wielding no less sarcasm than Kungurov, Dmitrij_Chmelnitsky laments the current state of historiography in Russia (a state which, oddly enough, is what allows Kungurov to write and be taken seriously), while Baikalmonarchist, on a related note, seeks the real motivation for the project: “the state’s attempt to impose its own interpretation of historical events, to replace history with ideology.” Others are less intimidated or impressed by the government’s efforts: Ejhle finds the attempt at covering post-Soviet history lacking, and Ekho Moskvy’s blog gives a sigh of relief – just a few terminology changes, nothing to worry about!

Long story short, you want responses to current events? Or new (sometimes very original) intepretations of history? RuNet’s best blogs have you covered.

 

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of our Books

The Latchkey Murders
July 01, 2015

The Latchkey Murders

Senior Lieutenant Pavel Matyushkin is back on the case in this prequel to the popular mystery Murder at the Dacha, in which a serial killer is on the loose in Khrushchev’s Moscow...

Moscow and Muscovites
November 26, 2013

Moscow and Muscovites

Vladimir Gilyarovsky's classic portrait of the Russian capital is one of Russians’ most beloved books. Yet it has never before been translated into English. Until now! It is a spectactular verbal pastiche: conversation, from gutter gibberish to the drawing room; oratory, from illiterates to aristocrats; prose, from boilerplate to Tolstoy; poetry, from earthy humor to Pushkin. 

The Samovar Murders
November 01, 2019

The Samovar Murders

The murder of a poet is always more than a murder. When a famous writer is brutally stabbed on the campus of Moscow’s Lumumba University, the son of a recently deposed African president confesses, and the case assumes political implications that no one wants any part of.

Jews in Service to the Tsar
October 09, 2011

Jews in Service to the Tsar

Benjamin Disraeli advised, “Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.” With Jews in Service to the Tsar, Lev Berdnikov offers us 28 biographies spanning five centuries of Russian Jewish history, and each portrait opens a new window onto the history of Eastern Europe’s Jews, illuminating dark corners and challenging widely-held conceptions about the role of Jews in Russian history.

93 Untranslatable Russian Words
December 01, 2008

93 Untranslatable Russian Words

Every language has concepts, ideas, words and idioms that are nearly impossible to translate into another language. This book looks at nearly 100 such Russian words and offers paths to their understanding and translation by way of examples from literature and everyday life. Difficult to translate words and concepts are introduced with dictionary definitions, then elucidated with citations from literature, speech and prose, helping the student of Russian comprehend the word/concept in context.

Faith & Humor
December 01, 2011

Faith & Humor

A book that dares to explore the humanity of priests and pilgrims, saints and sinners, Faith & Humor has been both a runaway bestseller in Russia and the focus of heated controversy – as often happens when a thoughtful writer takes on sacred cows. The stories, aphorisms, anecdotes, dialogues and adventures in this volume comprise an encyclopedia of modern Russian Orthodoxy, and thereby of Russian life.

The Moscow Eccentric
December 01, 2016

The Moscow Eccentric

Advance reviewers are calling this new translation "a coup" and "a remarkable achievement." This rediscovered gem of a novel by one of Russia's finest writers explores some of the thorniest issues of the early twentieth century.

About Us

Russian Life is a publication of a 30-year-young, award-winning publishing house that creates a bimonthly magazine, books, maps, and other products for Russophiles the world over.

Latest Posts

Our Contacts

Russian Life
73 Main Street, Suite 402
Montpelier VT 05602

802-223-4955