Tag Archives: history

“Gauleiter” for Ukraine. The West revived the practise of the Nazis under Hitler

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On the 12th of February 2024 “Argumenty i Facty” published an article, drawing the reader’s attention to the clear parallel between the Nazi position of the Gauleiter in the Reichskommissariat Ukraine and the proposed “special representative”.

A few days later, on the 15th of February, KM.RU in an article titled simply “Ukraine: The Return of the Gauleiter”, further revealed who may become the candidate for this noose-promising title:

Stoltenberg in Kiev


The whole performance is reminiscent of the fascist practice of Gauleiters in Ukraine. This is not surprising. According to the forecasts of many historians, Europe was doomed to return to its terrible historical past.

The other day, the director of the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Sergei Naryshkin, said that the West wants to appoint a “viceroy” in Ukraine “in order to strengthen the mechanism of external control of the territory controlled by the Kiev regime.”

According to the SVR, it is planned to appoint Jens Stoltenberg – who currently holds the position of NATO Secretary General – to the post of special envoy for Ukraine. His mandate expires on the 1st of October 2024. “It is assumed that he will have constant access to President Vladimir Zelensky and know about all his plans,” Naryshkin explained. The tasks of the special envoy will include blocking decisions of the Ukrainian leadership that are not coordinated with the United States and Great Britain. Instead, Stoltenberg will propose the “right” steps, from the point of view of the Anglo-Saxons.

And now, the the article from “Argumenty i Facty”:

The “Viceroy” will be coming. The West revived in Ukraine the idea of Nazis under Hitler

Reichskommissar Ukraine, Erich Koch (right) and Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories, Alfred Rosenberg (center) surveying Kiev Lavra.

The West’s intention to appoint its collective special representative in Ukraine is “an attempt to strengthen the enslavement of the people close to Russia,” said Sergei Naryshkin, head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) on February 12. “Such practices were introduced by the leader of the German Nazis, Adolf Hitler, and all his ‘viceroys’ the Candidate of Historical Sciences, Reserve Lieutenant Colonel Oleg Ivannikov told aif.ru. Ukrainians are capable of kicking this “special representative” out of the country along with President Vladimir Zelensky, the expert believes.

The West intends to appoint its “special representative” in Ukraine, who should oversee the Kiev regime. According to Naryshkin, when discussing this forgotten idea, “such conditions were factored in, as an increasingly difficult situation at the front, difficulties with mobilization and hitches in obtaining Western military assistance, when many Ukrainians began to realize the inevitability of Moscow achieving the goals of a special military operation.”

“This yet another crude attempt by the West to strengthen the enslavement of the Ukrainian people, who are close to us, cannot but cause concern. At the same time, there is a high probability that the implementation of the idea with the appointment of a “viceroy” in Ukraine will not lead to the results desired by the United States and Great Britain,” the head of the SVR believes.

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The Historic Interview of President Putin by Tucker Carlson, with History at the Forefront

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The interview with Vladimir Putin by Tucker Carlson on the 9th of February 2024 has made headlines, and been discussed in and out on all platforms.

We covered it extensively on our Telegram channel “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden”, and we would like to take the opportunity to invite everyone to subscribe to it for daily updates.

The complete interview can be watched in English on the site of Tucker Carlson and on the site of The Kremlin.

One aspect of the interview rightfully caught the attention of the Western audience – the 25 minute quick summary of the history of Russia, including the lands currently carrying the name of “Ukraine”.

What was conveyed by the President is nothing new, at least for the Russians and those who went to school in the USSR – it is part of the standard curriculum of history in the elementary school.

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The 27th of January – Lifting of Leningrad Blockade and the Liberation of Auschwitz by the Soviet troops

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A year apart, two dates that must be remembered by the humanity happed on the 27th of January

On our “Beorn and The Shieldmaiden” Telegram channel, we commemorate both events with a series of thematic posts – Lifting of the Blockade of Leningrad and Liberation of Auschwitz

80 years ago, on the 27th of January 1944, the Blockade of Leningrad that lasted 872 days and cost 1,093,842 lives was finally lifted. The Blockade is recognised as an act of genocide against the Russian people.

79 years ago, on the 27th of January 1945, 25,000 Soviet soldiers and officers opened the gates of Auschwitz, saving the remaining survivors of the Nazi death machine.

To the Warrior-Liberator – Glory!
By V. Sachkov

Soviet poster, commemorating the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp by soldiers of the Red Army on January 27th 1945.

No one is forgotten. Nothing is forgotten.

Brutality of the Polish landowners as the driving force for the Pereyaslav Rada in 1654

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The article you are about to read continues the topic of the Pereyaslav Rada from yesterday’s article Pereyaslav Rada of 1654 – the story of Zaporozhie Cossacks joining Rus, which looked more at the events surrounding the Pereyaslav Rada, which the present article explores more of the preceding decades and reasons while Malorossia wanted to escape the Polish yoke. The introductory note about the term “Ukraine” apply equally to today’s article. A highly-recommended documentary, Project ‘Ukraine’, has a mention of these events as well.

“We wish for the ruler”. The Pereyaslav Rada united two parts of the Russian people

“Argumenty i Fakty”, 18.01.2024

Alexey Kishchenko, “Bogdan Hmelnitsky. The Ascension of Malorossia”, 1880 / Commons.wikimedia.org

It is generally believed that the Pereyaslav Rada marked the reunification of Ukraine with Russia. However, a structure called “Ukraine” did not exist at that time.

370 years ago, on the 18th of January 1654, cries were heard in the city of Pereyaslavl-Russkij (Pereyaslavl-Russian): “We are wishing to be under the Tzar of the East, the Orthodox one! Oh, God! Approve it! Oh, God! Strengthen it! May we all be one forever!”

This is how the people who gathered at the Pereyaslav Rada reacted to the letter of Tsar Alexei Mihailovich, which confirmed that the Russian sovereign “ordered them to take them under his high hand.”

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Pereyaslav Rada of 1654 – the story of Zaporozhie Cossacks joining Rus

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The article below was first published on Dzen on the 18th of January 2021, but it seems to be from 2020. It covers the historical background for Pereyaslav Rada (Accord), the result of which was the so-called unification of Ukraine and Russia”. It this regard, it is worth noting that “Ukraine” was not established as a geopolitical term at that time. One rather spoke of the Zaporozhie Getmanate (or of “Gulyaj-Pole” – “Free-for-all field” in the sense of the lawlessness on those territories). Before 1800-s, “Ukraine” featured in its dictionary form of “borderland”. The term “Ukraine” first became descriptive of a geographic location in the political sense in the first half of the 1800-s. And it was only after the October revolution of 1917 that “Ukraine” acquired the true meaning of geopolitical entity.

As an aside, I am puzzled by some in the Communist circles who distance themselves from the factually correct statement that “Ukraine was created by Lenin (as a geopolitical entity)”. In doing so, not only do they do a disservice to Lenin’s legacy, but also play into the hands of the Ukrainian nationalists. There is nothing wrong with Lenin creating Ukraine in the sensibilities of that difficult time. The similar sensibilities governed the establishment of the Far-Eastern Republic on the shores of the Pacific, and the creation of then tiny Belorussian Republic. What Lenin did made sense in that historical context, short-term. But he could not foresee and cannot be held responsible for how the decision played out long-term. That was something for the future generations to solve. And that future is happening now.

For more details, see the earlier article How Malorossia Was Turned into the Patch-quilt of Discord that is “Ukraine”.

Ukraina – thus were called the South-Western Russian lands of Rzeczpospolita. This name was never official, it was used only in private conversations and became common in folk poetry. It is difficult to define the boundaries of the lands, known as “ukrainnyi”, more so that this name was not permanent and at different times covered varying stretches of land…

With this in mind, let us continue to the article at hand…

Pereyaslav Rada: How Ukrainians were seeking to come under the wing of the Russian Tzar, while in Moscow they’ve been thinking for the longest time

January 18, 2021

Pereyaslav Rada, 1654

The beginning of January 2020 was marked in Ukraine by regular “Bandera” marches of nationalists, which caused a timid protest from the ambassadors of Israel and Poland. Meanwhile, in addition to the birthday of one of the leaders of the Ukrainian nationalists, another historical date falls on January, which is carefully hushed up and ignored by the current authorities of Ukraine. Meanwhile, no matter how hard Zelensky and Co. tried to sweep the inconvenient facts under the rag, it was that date that determined the choice of the Malorossian (Rus Minor, Ukrainian) people for several centuries to come.

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The flight of a Soviet MiG over Israel that prevented a nuclear war in 1973

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In the previous article we showed how the USSR played a key role in the creation of Israel. However, any hopes that the USSR had, showed to be misplaced and on the 10th of June 1967 the USSR broke the diplomatic relations with the Israel over its unleashing of the 6-day War, and the diplomatic relation were first restores eight days before the disintegration of the USSR, on the 26th of December 1991.

MiG 25 R / Bezhevets Alexander Savvich

During that time the USSR criticized and warned against the Zionism on par with the Ukrainian nationalism as the children of the same bourgeois imperialism. We have shown several caricature from that time on our Beorn and The Shieldmaiden Telegram channel. Here is one of them:

The caricature «The Family Portrait — Blood Brothers» is from a 1981 edition of the Ukrainian satitical magazine «Perec», and was drawn by S.Gerasimchuk.

The text over the caricature reads in Ukrainian:

«Imperialism, together with the father of the same crooked sons as Zionism and Ukrainian bourgeois nationalism.»

The Ukrainian nationalism holds the microphone of the «Radio Svoboda» («Radio Freedom»), while Zionism has a scroll with the «Plans of aggression» tucked under the arm.

The USSR was also forced to take some very specific military steps to contain the Israeli Zionism, as will become apparent from the following article.

How did the MiG’s flight over an Israeli city prevent a nuclear war? The risky mission of the Soviet pilot

15th of June 2022

We have heard a lot about the Cold War and the Caribbean Crisis, but not everyone knows that apart from the confrontation in Cuba, the world once more stood on the brink of nuclear war in 1973. Open information is still contradictory, so there are several versions of events. But the fact remains the same – it was the flight of the Soviet MiG that led to the calming of a conflict, which could have ended with an exchange of nuclear strikes.

In early October 1973, a military clash began between a coalition of th Arab States led by Syria and Egypt, and Israel. Coalition forces successfully crossed the Suez Canal and inflicted a tangible defeat on Israel in the Golan Heights area.

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The History of Creation of Israel – The Soviet Side of Story

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The political sensibilities of a historic period may lead to decisions that result in unforeseen and undesired consequences down the historical road. The approval of the creation of Israel by the Soviet leader Iosif Stalin is one such event. True, shortly after wards the USSR would break the diplomatic relations with Israel, once its real natur became apparent. The USSR would even have to perform a little-known military operation against Israel to “dissuade” it from using nuclear weapons on its neighbours.

How did the USSR and Stalin personally create Israel, and why did the Jews betray the Soviet Union after that

6th of February 2021

In 1948, US President Truman was the first to recognize the State of Israel. And the Israelis do not get tired of reminding us about this till this day. Schools, libraries and hospitals in Israel are named after the 33rd President of the United States. For this reason, many mistakenly believe that the United States created the state of Israel.

But few people know that the key role in the creation of Israel was actually played by the Soviet Union and personally by Iosif Stalin. But how and why did the Soviet leader create Israel?

In January 1946, with a difference of only 2 days, Stalin received two letters. One was on behalf of the Jewish National Liberation Committee. The other came on behalf of the Arab committee. The authors of the first epistle asked Iosif Vissarionovich to help in the creation of a Jewish state on the territory of Palestine. The authors of the second one – to not let this happen. A year and a half later the whole world would learn of the decision that Stalin had made.

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Myths about Stalin. Where do legs grow from? Reblog of a detailed research article

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Black myths have always been attached to the Russian leaders who looked after the interests of the country and did not fall under the spell of the outside influences. Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin is one such leader, whose memory was defamed and desecrated both by the internal political rivals, like Hrushov, and by the external enemies. I plan to publish several articles that take aim at debunking these black myths surrounding the historical figure of Stalin. As always, when looking at history, one must remain dispassionate and look at the events not through the prism of modern sensibilities, but as a contemporary to the events, with all the challenges that the leadership of the USSR faced at that time.

Today, on the 145th anniversary of Iosif Stalin’s birth, I want to start with a reblog of an excellent article by Olga of the Siberian Matrëshka Telegram channel, which I can warmly recommend.

Myths about Stalin. Where do legs grow from?

Olga🪆July 21, 2023

First of all, there was no Communism in the USSR. The USSR had a communist state ideology and a socialist system.

One of the most terrible and destructive myths about the Soviet Union is the lie about the “bloody regime” of Stalin, who allegedly destroyed tens of millions of innocent people. Few people know that this myth was created back in Nazi Germany, and only later it was used by the United States in the information war against Soviet civilization.

Despite a number of fundamental studies based on the factual material of the archives, which showed the inconsistency of Joseph Stalin’s accusations of mass repressions and terror, the false myth supported by slanderers like Solzhenitsyn, Radzinsky, Suvorov-Rezun continues to dominate the information field of Russia and the world community. The dirty work of denigrating Russian and Soviet history continues, within the framework of the global historical and informational confrontation between Russian civilization (Rus) and the West. Citizens of Russia (especially young people), not to mention Ukraine and other post-Soviet republics, continue to be stuffed with horror stories about death and murder in labour camps of the GULAG (Main Directorate of Camps and Places of Detention), stories about millions of people who died of starvation and were deliberately destroyed in the USSR, about the alleged premeditation of the Holodomor in Ukraine, about the inhuman cruelty of the Soviet punitive system, “the bloodiest in the world”. The repressions against the kulaks and the “fifth column” take on an absolutely fantastic character in these stories, and Stalin becomes a villain of a literally galactic scale. All this is superimposed on the image of the USSR-Russia in the world – as an “evil empire” and “Russian Mordor”, where there live “fierce” Muscovites, scoops-padded coats, ready at the first opportunity to drown in the blood of all dissidents in Russia itself, as well as to drive to their “concentration camp” and the surrounding peoples.

The myth of the “bloody Stalinist regime” was created back in Nazi Germany. After the Nazis came to power in Germany, they used information and psycho-technologies to properly indoctrinate the population. The Minister of Propaganda was Joseph Goebbels, who propagated dreams of a racially pure people living in Greater Germany, an empire with vast living space. This living space included the territory to the east of Germany, the Russian lands, including Little Russia-Ukraine. The conquest of living space meant a big war, a war with the USSR. Therefore, the Nazi Propaganda Ministry, headed by Goebbels, launched an information campaign around the alleged genocide organized by the Communists in Ukraine, the terrible famine (Holodomor) organized personally by Stalin. The purpose of the Nazi propaganda was to prepare the world community for the “liberation” of Ukraine by German troops from the “bloody Bolshevik yoke”. Later, the Ukrainian Nazis (Bandera) used the same lie about an artificial famine to sit on the neck of the people of Little Russia-Ukraine.

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In memory of the start of Operation «Uran» at Stalingrad on the 19th of November 1942

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Stalingrad Counter Offensive

(UPDATE: 28.11.2023 – additional Telegram posts)

On 19th of November 1942, The Red Army launched the legendary counter offensive at Stalingrad.

In a series of Telegram posts we will commemorate the glorious feat of the breakthrough that led to the decisive victory over the Nazi-german 6th Army on February 2nd 1943.

As we know, the victory at Stalingrad marked the great turning point of the Great Patriotic War, and marked decisively the geopolitical reality that defined the strength ratio of WWII and gave hope and encouragement to antifascists and resistance fighters in all occupied counties. 

Read on either on our Telegram channel Beorn and The Shieldmaiden or through the embedded messages below. Additional posts will be appended to this blog post as we publish more materials on our Telegram channel.

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Myths and Truth about Pogroms in the Russian Empire

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The West is busy re-writing history and miring the name of Russia in the process. It’s been like this since the time of Ivan the Formidable, and nothing has changed to this day.

A NAFO tweet from “Terror Alarm” decided to ascribe the Holocaust to the Russians! That’s a new level of impunity in history rewriting, seeing as it was the Red Army that liberated all the German Nazi concentration camps east of the river Elbe, where millions of people, – among them, Jews – were held and killed.

It was only a matter of time before Russia would be again blamed for “pogroms”, so I started translating the article below, addressing this historical half-truth. And in the process, a certain other NAFO twitter channel, Visegrad24, did not fail to deliver an expected accusation, though in such a way, that it debunks itself, and ties in nicely with the fourtt myth, discussed of the article below. I will thus include the screenshot of it after the translation. UPDATE: Later on the same day, after the West-instigated events in Dagestan, a Swedish newspaper DN came out with an atricle that opens with a direct use of the third myth; this will also be addressed after the translation.

Before we proceed to the article, there is one thing to bear in mind. The Russian word “pogrom” means “destruction of property”, “looting”. It does not immediately imply murder, let alone on ethnic grounds, but the clashes that did happen, sadly resulted in a certain number of deaths.

The article was published on Dzen on the 26th of January 2021.

Myths and Truth about Pogroms in the Russian Empire

Pogrom of 1881

The Kiev pogrom of 1881. Drawing of a contemporary

The so-called Jewish pogroms swept through many cities of the Russian Empire in 1905-1906. Some of such cases have occurred before, for example, in 1881, in 1903 (pogroms in Chisinau and Gomel). But as a mass phenomenon, they unfolded during the 1905 revolution. Most of them occurred in the second half of October (old style), but some outbreaks were noted in 1906.

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For the 80th Anniversary of the Liberation of Northern Norway, the WWII History Is Being Rewritten There

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(Updated 28.10.2022 – added an afterword)

On the 25th of October 2019, the Norwegian state TV channel NRK 2 aired a 3 hour 20 minute long TV marathon, dedicated to the 75th anniversary of liberation of Finnmark, Northern Norway, by the Soviet troops. The documentary went under the title “Saved by the Russians”.

Save by the Russians

It featured a wide range of materials – interviews with the surviving witnesses, official ceremonies, both Norwegian and Russian documentaries, the efforts to locate the unburied remains of the fallen Soviet soldiers, interviews with the politicians and historians, a cultural part, where we could even see the choir of the Russian Northern Fleet sailors performing the Norwegian anthem.

Here are the chapter titles to give an idea of the scope of the documentary: Russians are coming; The King is giving his thanks; Russian liberation; The last days of the war; The battle of Neiden; Mothers and children in a war; War-zone Murmansk; Russian captives; The partisan Trygve Eriksen; The history of the partisans; The choir of the Northern Fleet; Forced evacuation on the North; The liberation anniversary in Kirkenes; The Prime Minister is giving a commentary; The battles on the Litsa front; The big losses of the Litsa dale; Dead soldiers in Litsa dale; The year under Russian governorship; Nidviser speaks about the local population; The children of war; The Swedish children; Child-soldier Alf Rafaelsen; Still finding the remains from the war; The culture of memory; The cooperation across borders; The choir of the Northern Fleet.

At a time when the rest of Europe was descending into a historical amnesia when it came to the events of World War II, with the history being actively re-written, this Norwegian program was a bastion of steadfast remembrance of history.

Norway will never forget the Soviet army’s heroic efforts.

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Israeli Zionists follow in the footsteps of the German Nazis. Genocide and Holocaust of the Palestinians. Destruction of World Heritage

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Over the past weeks, the civilised world was watching in horror and condemning the atrocities committed by the Israeli Zionists against the Palestinian population. Everything that we are witnessing has been done before by the German Nazis against the Slavic and Jewish people, and against the Communists of Europe during WWII. At the same time USA, Ukraine, NATO and EU were egging the Israeli Zionists on to commit more crimes, which is fully expected – the Bidens, Stoltenbergs, Netanyahus, von der Leyens and Zelenskys of today are following in the footsteps of Hitlers, Banderas, Quislings and Mussolinis of the past.

Israel iS Starting to turn the
Gaza Strip
into a
Gas Chamber
for the
Holocaust of the Palestinians

After the number and the scale of atrocities committed by the Israeli Zionists, it is, by now, fully justified to start calling them “Zionazis“!

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“The Yanks Gave the Order: Fire!” – Witness Testimony of Iona Andronov, a Defender of the “White house”

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In my article from November 2015 The ”Wild ’90s” in Russia, as reflected in people’s memory I mentioned in passing a testimony from Deputy Iona Andronov, describing the American involvement in Yeltsin’s coup of 1993. In yesterday’s publication Newspaper “Pravda” commemorating the 30th anniversary of the “Black October” of 1993, the author of the final article made a reference to the same testimony by Andronov.

In fact, this testimony has such significance, that I think it must be translated in full as a separate article. The original document can be found here on the subdomain of the Narod.ru site, dedicated to the events of October of 1993.

Iona Andronov – a historian-orientalist, journalist, writer, the Deputy of the Supreme Soviet in 1993 – also has a homepage on Narod.ru and a blog on Cont. I want to draw attention to a large 110-page long exposing publication in Russian that he has posted on his homepage in memory of the 30th anniversary of Yeltsin’s coup: The Counter-revolution of 1993. Epilog. 30 Years Later. (A chapter from the “Parting Memoirs of a Soviet Journalist”) – also available as a PDF, which expands on the testimony you are about to read, and also adds the descriptions of the actions of the Westward-looking “liberals” and “dissidents” of that time.

The Yanks Gave the Order: Fire!

The 3rd of October 2003
– A version for the press

The plan to storm the Supreme Soviet was developed by Boris Yeltsin’s entourage under the directions of the CIA and the inner circle of US President Clinton. This was told to the correspondent of “EG” by Iona ANDRONOV, a former defender of the “White House”, a deputy of the dispersed Supreme Council, at that time, chairman of the Committee on International Affairs. He is the one who negotiated with the representatives of the American embassy on the night before the carnage, trying to prevent the massacre of the Parliament.

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Newspaper “Pravda” commemorating the 30th anniversary of the “Black October” of 1993

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In this post I am continuing with the remembrance of the events of September — October 1993 resulting in Yeltsin’s unconstitutional power grab. After Yeltsin’s coup, the newspaper “Pravda” was forbidden, which was highly symbolic, as “Pravda” means “Truth” in Russian, and so after October of 1993 and for a long time The Truth was forbidden. The previous posts in the series are: Autumn of 1991 as a Prelude to the “Black October” of 1993 and the “Wild ’90s” in Russia and The Bloody October of 1993. Retrospect. The Last Interview with Ruslan Hasbulatov.

The newspaper published a series of Telegram posts and articles, commemorating that turn to the worse in Russian history. Below, I will translate three materials from Telegram, finishing with a longer article by Doctor of Political Sciences Sergej Obuhov, who asks several highly-relevant questions about those times and how the events echo in today’s Russia.

All the images can be clicked on for higher resolution.

Telegram post 1:

“The Black October”: 30 years

A barricade leaflet.

Today, after exactly 30 years, our editorial office publishes the historical Moscow edition of the newspaper “Pravda”, published on the 1st of October 1993 under the general headline “Politics is over. The dictatorship has begun”. It truly became a barricade leaflet, a “battle leaflet” that contained both a chronicle of what was happening, an analysis of the situation, and the thoughts and experiences of the participants in the events. Even now one can see in it the intensity of those events, the nerve of that time of troubles. For the edification of future generations.

In just two days there will be a bloody suppression of the popular uprising in the worst traditions of Pinochet, and “Pravda” became banned for a long time.

Here’s what the deputy editor-in-chief of Pravda, Viktor Linnik, wrote: “…It is absolutely not necessary to admire Hasbulatov and Rutskoy in order to be outraged by Yeltsin’s utterly cynical actions. Although it is precisely today that both Rutskoy, Hasbulatov, and every defender of the “White House” deserve the gratitude of the Russians for daring to throw the gauntlet in the face of tyranny.

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A brief history of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorno-Karabah

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The conflict over Nagoro-Karabah (“Mountain-top Karabah”) has been going on for a little over a century. In the later years Russia tried to be a mediator and bring a resolution that would satisfy both Armenia and Azerbaijan, in accordance with the Russian saying of “both the wolves are fed and the sheep are whole”. However, the West’s darking Pashinyan did everything in his power to sabotage and discredit Russian efforts, to flirt with USA and France, and to actually lose Nagorn-Karabah to Azerbaijan.

After that, Russia could only try to save the Armenians living there and ensure their safe passage to Armenia poper:

Incidentally, at the moment there are more Armenians living in Russia, than in Armenia itself, but even bigger – or, more influential – Armenian diasporas can be found in France and the USA, which explains the political pull those two countries exert on Armenia.

USSR 1922In this article I want to present a translation of a publication from Dzen that recaps the history of the contested land.

For reference, see the map that I posted in relation to Kazahstan in the article A short look at the short history of Kazahstan through the lens of a 1922 map (inset in the lower left corner).


Nagorno-Karabah: Why Armenia and Azerbaijan have been fighting over it for 100 years

Before the revolution of 1917, there were practically no monolithic ethnic groups anywhere in Transcaucasia, the peoples lived mixed. At the same time, the territory of the future Nagorno-Karabah Autonomous Region was populated overwhelmingly by the Armenians.

In 1918, the newly independent states – Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia – began to divide Transcaucasia among themselves. At the same time, ethnic deportations began in the region.

The situation was complicated by the foreign intervention. Both the German-Turkish, and the British occupiers who replaced them, supported Azerbaijan’s claims to Nagorno-Karabah. The ethnic sympathies of the Turks are obvious, while for the British, the desire to gain control of the Baku oil fields by supporting Azerbaijan was probably crucial.

Although an Armenian National Council was established in Karabah, the attempt to annex the region to Armenia ended in failure. Karabah remained under Azerbaijani military control.

In 1920, the Sovietization of both republics took place. However, the dispute over Karabah has now continued between the Communists of both sides. It is noteworthy that the Russian Bolsheviks also supported Azerbaijan.

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