The Conversation, Danica Jenkins, "How Russian history and the concept of ‘smuta’ (turmoil) sheds light on Putin and Prigozhin – and the dangers of dissent"

siiky

2023/09/13

2023/09/13

2023/09/13

post,politics,war,psychology,society

• https://theconversation.com/how-russian-history-and-the-concept-of-smuta-turmoil-sheds-light-on-putin-and-prigozhin-and-the-dangers-of-dissent-210289

“As Russians know only too well,” Russian author Mikhail Shishkin warns, “one should not wish death on a bad tsar. For who knows what the next one will be like?”

• Mikhail Shishkin, "Don’t Blame Dostoyevsky"

Most famously, he [Ivan the Terrible] decimated the ancient Russian city of Novgorod, whose advanced culture and commercial vitality represented a challenge to Muscovy’s hegemony.

• Ed, "This Day In History: Ivan The Terrible Orders A Massacre In Novgorod (1570)"

“quiescence has been the survival strategy of Russians for centuries”

“The principle of Russian power hasn’t even remotely changed in the last five centuries,” wrote Vladimir Sorokin three days after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. “I consider this to be our country’s main tragedy.”

• Vladimir Sorokin, "Vladimir Putin sits atop a crumbling pyramid of power"