Tag Archives: history

Reflections of Nikita Mihalkov on the Western rewriting of WWII history

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80 years ago, the Nazi death factory, the Auschwitz concentration camp, ceased to exist, with between 1.1 and 1.5 million people burned up in its crematoriums. This conveyor was stopped by the Soviet troops at the cost of their lives.


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I would like to quote Samuel Pizar, the stepfather of former US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, a survivor of the concentration camps of the Third Reich:

“We, the Holocaust survivors who passed through Auschwitz, disappear one by one. Very soon, we, the direct witnesses of this disaster, will be gone. And at best, history will speak in the impersonal voice of novelists, researchers, and historians, and at worst, in the voice of demagogues, falsifiers, and those who believe that the Holocaust never existed.”

Pizar’s worst prediction comes true with the participation of his own stepson and other new leaders from the chronicle of declining fertility. However, they did not become leaders by chance.

Watch an excerpt from the issue of “Today – children, tomorrow – nation” from June 14, 2024.

Source

From our Telegram channel “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden”

Soviet attitude towards German people during World War II. Historical documents.

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The question of the attitude of the Soviet leadership and the Red Army towards the German population at large, is one that is subject to constant manipulation by the NATO – the heirs to the Third Reich.

The manipulation and rewriting of history is best countered by the actual historic documents of the time. Let us start with a quote from January 1945, which we posted at our Telegram channel “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden”. Note that we are still working on tracking down the actual

On January 19, 1945, the USSR People’s Commissar of Defence Iosif Stalin signed an order “On behaviour on the territory of Germany”, which stated:

“Officers and Red Army soldiers!

We are going into the enemy’s country. Everyone must maintain self-control, everyone must be brave…

The remaining population in the conquered areas, regardless of whether they are German, Czech, or Polish, must not be subjected to violence. The guilty will be punished according to the laws of wartime.

Sexual relations with the female sex are not allowed in the conquered territory. Those guilty of violence and rape will be shot.”

Stalin’s order was followed by orders from the commanders of the 1st and 2nd Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian Fronts, Marshals of the Soviet Union Georgy Zhukov (January 29), Konstantin Rokossovsky (January 21, order No. 006) and Ivan Konev (January 27), who prohibited “oppressing the German population, robbing apartments and burning houses.”

The commanders called on the Red Army soldiers to direct their feelings of hatred “to the extermination of the enemy on the battlefield.”

Source

This order was a continuation of the policy of not extending the wrath against the Nazis to the German nation at large. Let us now read the order issued by Iosif Stalin on February 23, 1942, published in the newspaper “Pravda”. The text in Russian can be found at the Electronic Library of Historic Documents, downloaded as a PDF file, or read below the translation.

Order of the People’s Commissar of Defence of the USSR No. 55 dated February 23, 1942

Comrades, Red Army soldiers and Red Navy seamen, commanders and political workers, partisans!

The peoples of our country celebrate the 24th anniversary of the Red Army in the harsh days of the Patriotic War against Nazi Germany, which brazenly and viciously encroached on the life and freedom of our Motherland. Along the vast front from the Arctic Ocean to the Black Sea, soldiers of the Red Army and Navy are waging fierce battles to expel the Nazi invaders from our country and defend the honour and independence of our Fatherland.

This is not the first time that the Red Army has had to defend our Homeland from enemy attacks. The Red Army was created 24 years ago to fight the troops of foreign interventionist invaders who sought to dismember our country and destroy its independence. The young detachments of the Red Army, who entered the war for the first time, completely defeated the German invaders near Pskov and Narva on February 23, 1918. That is why February 23, 1918, was declared the birthday of the Red Army. Since then, the Red Army has grown and strengthened in the fight against foreign interventionist invaders. It defended our Homeland in the battles with the German invaders in 1918, expelling them from the borders of Ukraine and Belarus. It defended our Homeland in the battles with the foreign troops of the Entente in 1919-1921, expelling them from the borders of our country.
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Remarks by the Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenzia at Holocaust Memorial Ceremony 2025 at the United Nations – Reblog

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Remarks by the Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenzia at Holocaust Memorial Ceremony 2025 at the United Nations

Dear former prisoners of concentration camps, and all Holocaust survivors,

Distinguished President of Israel,

Distinguished Secretary General,

Distinguished President of the General Assembly,

Colleagues,

Ladies and gentlemen,

We have gathered here today to commemorate the victims of one of the most horrific crimes in the history of mankind – the Holocaust. The extermination of Jews on the basis of their ethnicity was the result of the Nazi ideology of racial superiority. This ideology stems from inhumane colonial practices and elevated them to terrifying perfection.

We commemorate the victims of the Holocaust today – on January 27 – on the day when the largest death camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau (Oshvenchim in Polish), where at least 1 million Jews had been exterminated, was liberated by the Red Army, which played a key role in stopping the relentless machine of human annihilation.

In this death camp, prisoners, including newborn children, were exterminated in gas chambers using the Zyklon B gas, which had first been tested on Soviet prisoners of war.

In the Auschwitz camp system, people, however, were not only slaughtered; they were also commercially exploited, and not just by the Nazis who extracted, for example, golden teeth and cut the hair of their victims, but also by large German companies. For example, Auschwitz-3 camp was essentially a branch of the chemical conglomerate IG Farben.

No aviation or artillery was used to liberate the camp. 231 Soviet rank-and-file soldiers and officers gave their lives for the freedom of Auschwitz prisoners. The soldiers were accompanied by Soviet doctors who had experience in treating the emaciated by hunger people of besieged Leningrad. And it is today – on January 27 – when we also commemorate the 81st anniversary of lifting the siege of Leningrad. More than 4,500 prisoners of Auschwitz received medical assistance in the very first hours and days of liberation, among them was Otto Frank – the father of the famous Anne Frank.

Maria Karakosova, medical service sergeant and Cavalier of two Orders of the Red Star, recalled how the eyes of emaciated people with blackened skin shone with happiness when they realized that their liberation came, and they were finally free.

Lieutenant Vassily Gromadsky, platoon commander, recalled that the liberated prisoners “cried and hugged us,” and they “told us that millions of people had been exterminated here.” He wrote: “I still remember, they told us that 12 railroad cars filled only with baby strollers had been sent from Auschwitz. They showed us the crematorium chimney and said that people were being burned there.”

Eva Mozes Kor was a Romanian Jew who survived human experiments in the Auschwitz concentration camp, and this is how she describes the liberation day in her autobiographical book «Surviving the Angel of Death»:
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You also heard Trump’s statement that we helped America defeat the fascists?

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You also heard Trump’s statement that we helped America defeat the fascists? You heard that, right?

Georgy once recalled how the US Army struck the Germans on December 5, 1941, driving them back 200-300 kilometers from Washington. Fresh divisions were transferred from Minnesota, Colorado, and Oklahoma, which decided the outcome of the battle. Of course, no help was to be expected from the Soviet Army at that time: cunning Stalin was waiting for the Americans to deal with the Germans, despite heavy losses.

True, in November 1942, during Operation Pluto, American soldiers under the command of Eisenhower surrounded, and then by February destroyed and captured hundreds of thousands of soldiers of the Wehrmacht’s 6th Army in the city of Jackson, Mississippi. Even Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus surrendered and was sent to Washington. The Russians promised America the opening of 2nd front, but not immediately. Stalin justified himself by saying that Zhukov was storming Antalya and Bodrum, where decent German and Bulgarian forces were concentrated, and that was very important, too. By this time, the Russians were supplying the United States with spam, Pobeda cars, and IS tanks. In addition, the Japanese attacked the USSR, and the Russians explained every time – we will help you soon, but you, my dears, do it yourselves. Opening Russian spam in the trenches, the Americans spitefully called it the “second front”.

In 1943, the Americans lost Houston in March, but later defeated the Wehrmacht’s tank forces at the Boston Bulge, and from then on the Germans only retreated. 75% of the Wehrmacht and SS infantry divisions were concentrated on the Western Front, and the Germans lost millions of their soldiers in the American space. The Russians, however, helped the US, desperately continuing to send canned meat and shoes. That same year, they knocked Bulgaria out of the war, landing in Burgas with an accordion and nesting dolls. Bulgaria, of course, capitulated, it was a very terrible enemy in military terms.
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“Warsaw ‘21” – a political thriller with a fragment on the essence of the Polish destruction of the Soviet memorials

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In the summer of 2024, Russian on-line cinema “Okko” released a series called “Warsaw ’21”, with a fictional, but highly-realistic plot.

During the election race for the presidency of Poland, the famous journalist Kozelski is cynically killed. Polish TV channels immediately pick up the version of Russian interference in the internal affairs of the country in order to support Silesian separatists and destabilize the situation. As evidence, an audio recording of a conversation between Russian Ambassador Konobeyev (Anatoly Kotenev) and one of the presidential candidates Dombrovsky (Sergei Yushkevich) is being played on TV, which was allegedly sent from the mail of the murdered journalist. A small spark is fanning a geopolitical conflagration that can cause enormous damage to the interests of the country. A compromised employee of the diplomatic mission goes to the hospital with a heart attack, and crisis diplomat Vyacheslav Vasiliev (Dmitry Miller) arrives in his place. He will have to prove that the accusations against Moscow have no basis in fact.

Plot

The corpse of journalist Adam Kozelsky, known for his scandalous materials on political topics, is found at an expensive Bristol restaurant located in the center of Warsaw. Presidential elections are about to take place in Poland, so the situation in government circles is tense. It is known that Kozelsky received an audio recording of a secret conversation between Russian Ambassador Konobeev (Anatoly Kotenov) and presidential candidate Dombrovsky (Sergey Yushkevich). The results of the election race could change dramatically if the recording is made public. This is exactly what the journalist planned to do.

Therefore, the murder case is under the strict control of the current president himself, Zbarazhsky (Andrei Ilyin). And the best detective in the country, Agata Kvyatkovskaya (Valeria Shkirando), is appointed to lead such an important investigation — a strong-willed and unscrupulous investigator who perfectly manipulates people. She is instructed to report any information received directly to Interior Minister Luisa Brylskaya (Natalia Vdovina). Poles are sure that Russians are involved in the crime, but there is no evidence of this version.

The Russian Embassy also understands the sentiments of Polish politicians, which only exacerbates the already tense situation. After the meeting with Dombrovsky, Ambassador Konobeev suddenly became ill, and he was urgently sent to Moscow for treatment. Vyacheslav Vasiliev (Dmitry Miller) has been appointed temporary attorney, the nature of whose business conduct is radically different from his predecessor. First of all, he must conduct his own investigation to understand what happened to the ambassador and what he has to do with what is said on the record. After all, the Russian diplomat and the Polish politician discussed support for the independence of Silesia, an industrial region on the territory of Poland, Germany and the Czech Republic.

There are too many characters involved in this political scandal, and everyone has their own interest and their own benefit. It will not be easy to find the truth, and every mistake by Vasiliev entails consequences on an international scale.

♦️♦️♦️

The essence of the Polish destruction of the Soviet memorials

The film series “Warsaw ’21” has a very poignant scene, characteristic of the state of affairs in Poland specifically, and in the NATO countries in general. In the film, one monument is saved from destruction, but how many have already been demolished, and how many more will be demolished still?

‼️ People who don’t know their past don’t have a future.

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Millions of raped German women: where the legs grow from? Reblog of a detailed research article

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Continuing with reblogs of excellent articles by Olga of the Siberian Matrëshka Telegram channel, which we can warmly recommend, let us look at the topic of the black myths created around the conduct of the Red Army on the German territory. We shall continue this topic in several subsequent posts.

Introduction by Siberian Matrëshka:

There are many speculations, outright fakes and distortions surrounding the Great Patriotic War in general and the Red Army in particular.
One of them goes like this: “When the Soviet army entered Berlin, soldiers and officers began to rape local women. In total, two million Frauleins and Fraus were raped.”

Here, the theses of Goebbels’ propaganda about the Red Army being “steppe scumbags” who rape everything that moves, the fear of Berlin residents for their fate, and targeted discrediting of the Red Army’s role in World War II all converged.

“Our propaganda regarding the Russians and what the population should expect from them in Berlin was so successful that we brought the Berliners to a state of extreme horror,” noted propagandist Werner Naumann.

In Russia, this myth became popular in the 90s, when a dirty stream of all sorts of reading material, including so-called alternative historians, poured onto the market. “It became accepted to tell the truth.” Only along with the truth that was hushed up, they began to publish the truth that did not exist:

Millions of raped German women: where the legs grow from *

* that is: where something is coming from
Olga🪆May 08, 2023

In recent years, Victory Day has acquired another, alas, not very beautiful tradition: the closer the holiday, the more often all kinds of “researchers” begin to broadcast the myth of “raped Germany”.

At the same time, the number of German women allegedly affected by the Red Army only grows over the years.

Three books say that this is the “pure truth”: Martha Hillers’ book “A Woman in Berlin”, the book of the English historian Anthony Beevor “The Fall of Berlin”, and the memoirs of my compatriot WWII veteran Leonid Rabichev “War will write everything off”. All these books have one main idea: the only thing that the Soviet soldiers did, was that they drank and fucked everything that could be fucked. How such an army reached Berlin remains a mystery, nothing less than a miracle of the Lord.

I took the time to find out where these books and their authors grow their legs from. Obviously from the ass, of course, but here are the details. Moreover, I partially read these three books.

Partially, not completely, but enough to draw conclusions.

I want to remind you right away that a huge army of tired, angry and exhausted soldiers entered Berlin, and it would be extremely stupid to bet that all of them had never done anything in their lives. However, in the Soviet army, violence and looting were severely punished, it was Stalin’s personal order. More than 4,000 soldiers were sent to court for looting attempts, demoted and sent to the penal battalion. It is also documented (newspapers, leaflets) that German propaganda actively promoted the theme of evil Soviet rapists. Like, they enter cities and first of all take revenge on everyone they meet, raping women “from 8 to 80 years old” – this is a quote from German newspapers that Goebbels came up with. People were afraid, naturally rumors arose, somewhere someone told something to someone, etc., etc. And the people were really intimidated to the limit, to the point that the activists of the Nazi party killed their families first, and then themselves.

Martha Hillers

So, Martha Hillers. Here is her brief biography: Hillers was born in 1911 in Krefeld. She travelled a lot in Europe, visited the USSR, worked in Moscow, at Soyuzfoto, knew Russian well. In the mid-1930s, she began working as a journalist in Berlin and supported the National Socialists. Hillers joined the Imperial German Writers’ Union and began writing for the NSDAP propaganda newspaper Angrif, founded by Joseph Goebbels. That is, a person who began writing for Goebbels even before the start of the Second World War and who wrote the entire war, published memoirs discrediting the honour of Goebbels’ opponent and people like “oh yes, it’s true, we believe it!”. The book talks about how the author herself was repeatedly subjected to sexual violence by Soviet soldiers and, as a matter of principle, women were forced to give up their bodies in exchange for life. Hillers’ book was published in 1954 and translated into many languages, but the women of Germany boycotted the book: they claimed that they were not as fallen and easily accessible women as it is written in the book. The book was translated into Russian in 2018. Now this book is banned in Russia, as discrediting the honour of the heroes of the Second World War. Based on the book, a film was made in 2008, the film was not included in the ranks of the banned in Russia.
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Trump insults the memory of the Soviet sacrifice in WWII

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No sooner did Musk finish displaying how well he studied the subject of heiling from Her Royal Heilness, that Trump followed up by en even more outrageously insulting X-post:

Never mind threatening the most sanctioned country in the world with sanctions. As the Russian saying goes, it is like trying to scare a hedgehog with a naked arse.

It is the bit where he says that “Russia helped the USA to win WWII” that represents a mortal insult to the memory of 27,000,000 million Soviet people who lost their life almost single-handedly thwarting the Nazi menace, which the USA and the Britain previously helped to install in Germany!

We wrote several flaming posts at “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden”, followed by reposts from several other channels, adding more context and ire!

Trump: «Russia helped us win the war»

Please pardon our French, but the arrogance of this Trump-ignorant is insulting to the point that our piss is boiling!!!

The Soviet Union single-handedly broke the back of the armed forces of the Reich and defeated Nazi Germany, which disposed of the entire industrial might of surrendered and fascist allied Europe.

The historic evidence is absolutely indisputable, and no matter how much these megalomaniacs distort and rewrite history, this truth won’t change!!

Capice!!

The US and Britain joined at the last moment, at a time when the outcome of the war was already given. The United States of America didn’t ‘win’ anything!

Let’s take a look at the losses. USA lost in the entire WWII 417.000 soldiers, that is, including the losses in the war in the Pacific. Pick any of the great Soviet battles and compare; the number of losses exceeds the totality of American losses by several hundred percent! In Stalingrad alone, the Nazi losses amounted to more than one million dead.

Marshal Zhukov estimates that the Red Army accounts for 80-85% of the entire German WWII losses in both manpower and weaponry.

Furthermore, when these pathologically lying opportunistic Anglo-Saxons finally entered the war and established the second front in Europe in 1944, they faced only weakened and inferior German troops, eager to surrender and with no armour worth mentioning.

The only time that the US troops actually faced something which had a slight resemblance to what the Red Army had been defeating for 4 years was during the German Ardennes Offensive, which the US calls the Battle of the bulge. Even at this last stage, the small German armoured force proved too much for the fresh yankie armies:

In January 1945, the Anglo-Saxon high command begged and pleaded with Stalin that the Soviet Union open the Oder-Neisse Offensive ahead of time to prevent the Germans from transferring any troops to the Ardennes front, which would have proved fatal to the American forces.

And yes, Stalin did come to the rescue of the Americans!!

So, if anybody ‘helped’ anybody to ‘win’, the true picture is quite the opposite of the one painted by this failed con-artist called Trump:

‼️ The Soviet Union ‘helped the US’ from suffering a humiliating defeat inflicted by a crumbling, beaten and broken Third Reich!!

Got it!?

Now, shut up and remove your decaying thieving self from the glorious feat of our ancestors!

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Trump and Musk’s “Right International” – beyond the gestures and salutes

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During Trump’s inauguration, Elon Mask nonchalantly threw a Nazi salute into the face of humanity. Later Trump posted that USSR “helped” USA to defeat Nazi Germany. We will come to that in a different article. First lest us take a closer look at the Heiling Musk. Previously he claimed that Hitler was a “socialist”, in an ongoing assault on history.

Musk’s “Sieg Heil” produced a number of sarcastic memes and commentaries. We made several publication at our channel “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden” on this topic, starting with this post. The publication is concluded with the complete translation of an article from “Soviet Russia”, which we only presented in highlights at Telegram.

Elon Musk showing his true colours

Publicist and member of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Alexander Rogozhkin (https://t.me/RedLine1917) commented on Elon Musk’s gesture, similar to a Nazi salute, with which the billionaire concluded his speech at Trump’s presidential parade:

“A Nazi salute-giving billionaire who got rich largely on military contracts is an excellent symbol of the fact that capitalism has not changed, has not become social, has not become fair, as it seemed to some.

Capitalism, like a hundred years ago, is a system leading the world to new wars for the redistribution of markets and territories. A system leading the world to barbarism. A system that cannot help but become fascist in times of crisis. And it is impossible not to stand in the way of this barbarism, if only because it will affect everyone.”

Source

👉 Maybe Musk is doing a re-enactment of the “Go West” clip by Pet Shop Boys, though that would be an equally big offense, seeing the subtext of that song…


By Fearless John:

◾ Recently Elon Musk claimed Adolf Hitler was a “Socialist” in a childish attempt to conflate Fascism (the dictatorship of Capitalists) with Communism (the Worker’s dictatorship).

Nevertheless it’s really easy to learn who Hitler’s policies benefited. Hitler was not only vehemently anti-Communist and anti-Marxist, he carried a full purge of the NSDAP and crushed the Strasserist faction at the request of the big industrial landlords of Germany. He put the biggest industrial and globalists elites on his government and crushed the trade unions and workers movements, provided slave labour to massive corporations that still operate today.
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The power of monuments of the past. Part 1. Ivan Krylov’s “The Wolf in the Kennel”

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The material originally posted at our Telegram channel “Beorn An dThe Shieldmaiden”.

One of the reasons why NATO and the Ukro-Nazis, among others, are so panic-stricken in the face of the Soviet and Russian monuments that they seek to destroy them is of course that the monuments represent the power of the collective past of the nation, giving strength and guidance to the present generation.

In the autumn of 1944 issue № 41 of “Krokodil” we can admire such a guidance in a drawing on page 8.

Here the Soviet soldiers are driving on the armour of a tank past the monument to Ivan Andreevich Krylov, the famous Russian poet, fable-writer and translator. On the pedestal they read the words from one of his works, “The Wolf in the Kennel”, written in the fateful year of 1812:

You shan’t make peace with wolves in any other way,
Than flogging their skins away.

To which they salute, exclaiming:

— The task to flog the skin is understood, Ivan Andreevich!

Artist: M.Cheremnyh

📖📖📖

“The Wolf in the Kennel”

by the Russian poet Ivan Krylov, written in 1812.

A wolf at night, thinking to get into the sheepfold,
Got to the kennel in its stead.
Suddenly the whole kennel yard rose up –
Sensing the Gray bully oh so close,
The dogs are barking in the stables and wishing for a fight;
The dog-keepers shout: “Oh, guys, there’s a thief!”
And instantly the gate is locked;
In a minute, the kennel became hell.
They’re bustling: one with a club,
Another with a gun.
“Fire! – they are shouting, – fire!” They came with fire.
My Wolf is sitting with his back pressed into the corner.
Teeth snapping and fur bristling,
With his eyes, it seems, he would like to eat everyone;
But seeing that he’s not in front of a herd here
And that the time of reckoning, at last,
comes to Him for all the sheep, –
My cunning man started
With negotiations
And he began like this: “Friends! What’s all the fuss about?
I, your old matchmaker and godfather,
I came to make peace with you, not at all for the sake of a quarrel;
Let’s forget the past, let’s set up a common mood!
And not only will I not touch the local herds in time to come
But I’m happy to fight for them with others
And I affirm it with a wolf’s oath,
that I…” – “Listen, neighbour,”
Here the hunter interrupted in response, ”
“You are Gray, and I am, buddy, gray haired with my age,
And I’ve known your wolf nature for a long time;
Therefore, the custom of mine is:
You shan’t make peace with wolves in any other way,
Than flogging their skins away.”
And immediately released on the Wolf a pack of hounds.

📖📖📖

Here is the original text of the fable in Russian, taken from Russian poetry
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Soviet New Year Toys – A Fragile Nostalgia

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Happy Old New Year to all of you from us at Beorn And The Shieldmaiden!

A short documentary film from NTV which, in the course of just 10 minutes, manages to tell the story of the Soviet Union, seen through the colourful New Year tree decorations.

The feeling of nostalgia, so accurately conveyed by the film, is very much familiar to all of us who either had such New Year toys, or is still keeping them on the upper shelf, in a wooden box…


Backup at Rumble

🎄🚩☃️

The documentary mentions several classic Soviet films. Here they are:

🎦 “Grunya Kornakova”, 1936 — a film about the riot of the workers of a large porcelain factory. The events in the film take place in pre-revolutionary Russia. The first Soviet full-length colour film created using a rolling method.

🎦 “Circus”, 1936 — A musical film based on the comedy of I. Ilf, E. Petrov “Under the Dome of the Circus”. In the mid-1930s, an American Marion Dixon fled the US with a small black son. Knowing the facts of her personal life, the circus actor von Kneitschitz blackmailing her, forces her to work with him. Arriving with an original attraction in the USSR, Marion finds here friends, a loved one and decides to stay here forever.

🎦 “The Siberians”, 1940 — This film is filled with mystery and the expectation of a miracle. Two boys (6th grade students Seryozha and Petya), having heard from an old resident of their village a story about the distant events of the pre-revolutionary period, set out to find one very important thing… If it were the Holy Grail, a treasure trove, or a meteorite, at the very least, it would be fine, but the peculiarity of this touching story is that the boys are enthralled by the search of Comrade Stalin’s pipe.

🎦 “Carnival Night”, 1956 (with English subtitles) — A new chief of a “Culture House” is planning to hold a terribly boring New Year concert. A group of young amateur actors are doing their best to liven up the concert. Obviously, no one wants to change the program with only a few hours before the show, much less to replace it with something so boring. So everyone teams up in order to prevent Ogurtsov from getting to the stage. They manage to trap Ogurtsov by any means necessary so that the acts can perform their scheduled pieces, and celebrate New Year’s Eve as originally planned.

🎦 “Chuk and Gek”, 1953 — A touching story about how young Muscovites – seven-year-old Chuk and six-year-old Gek – went with their mom to their dad, who was on a distant geological expedition, and how they struggled with a harsh winter and all sorts of difficulties because their dad, having set out on an urgent expedition, did not meet them, but sent a telegram, which the children threw out the window without letting their mom read it… Based on the story of the same name by Arkady Gaidar.

Happy New Year of the 80th Anniversary of the Great Victory!

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We present a selection of posts with drawings and caricatures from a very special edition of the Soviet satirical magazine, “Krokodil”. More can be found at our Telegram channel “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden”!

Greetings on the coming Year of the 80th Anniversary of the Victory!

No doubt was left: the New Year of 1945 would finally bring Victory! As attested by the painting by L.Brodat on the cover of the combined issue №47-48 of “Krokodil” from December 1944.

🎄🎄🎄

— Who is coming?
— New Year!
— Password?
— Victory!
— Advance! *

🎄🎄🎄

* The final command — Advance! — is a play on the double meaning of the phrase “Coming New Year”, which translates literally as “Advancing New Year”, when at the same time, in the military context, the first word would also carry the meaning of “to attack” or “to charge”.

In the posts leading up to the New Year, we bring some of the drawings and caricatures from that issue of “Krokodil”. Some of them, as you will see, are surprisingly relevant now, in December of 2024!

At the Fascist Flee(ce) Market

The caricature by Yu.Ganf from the combined issue №47-48 of “Krokodil” from December 1944. It sums up the departing year in humorous detail, accompanied by a longer text with a month-by-month blow, which are translated below!

Let us admire the caricature in all its Bruegelesque detail, starting with the upper left corner.
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Yeltsin Centre as a magnet for the liberal dregs of society, with Nina Hrusheva as an example

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To get a feel of what legacy Yeltsin left behind, and what kind of people get attracted to it, we published several posts at out Telegram channel “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden”, using one specific case as an example, and commenting along the way.

The country must know its antiheroes

Yeltsin Centre in Yekaterinburg invited a patented russophobe Nina Hrusheva — the great-granddaughter of Nikita Hrushev. Yes, the very same who got the top position in the USSR in exchange for the unconstitutional transfer of Crimea to UkSSR, the same who black-paintes Stalin and his legacy, the same who initiated the future dismemberment of the USSR.

Nina Hrusheva, a citizen of the USA, was to present her book «Nikita Hrushev. A Leader Outside of the System.»

Getting ahead, it was announced that Hrusheva’s visit was cancelled «for technical reasons». And good riddance!

We shall talk about Yeltsin Centre in a different post. Now, let’s take a closer look at Nina Hrusheva… UralLIVE reports:

♦️♦️♦️

She wants to dismember Russia and judge Putin. Meet the new guest of the Yeltsin Center
Nikita Khrushchev’s great-granddaughter went crazy and betrayed her motherland

On November 26, a speech by Nina Hrushcheva, professor at the New School University in New York, was announced at the Yeltsin Center. She is the great-granddaughter of Nikita Khrushchev, through whose fault Crimea became part of the Ukrainian SSR.
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Shooting of the “White House” in October of ’93 in the recollections of the contemporaries

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«It was democracy that was shot at in Russia»
— Ruslan Hasbulatov

On the 15th anniversary of the «Boody October» in 2008, newspaper «Komsomolskaya Pravda» published an article with several recollections and testimonials from the participants of those events.

We presented those accounts in a series of Telegram posts on our channel “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden”.

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At that time, a civil war almost broke out in Moscow, caused by a political war between President Yeltsin and the Supreme Soviet. Its tragic high point was the shooting of the parliament building (the “White House”). Who gave the order and who shot at the “White House”? What is the role of the West in those events? And how did they turn out for the country in the end?

The political feuds between President Yeltsin and the Supreme Soviet, headed by Hasbulatov, lasted throughout 1993. At that time, the Kremlin was working on a new Constitution, as the old one, according to the president, slowed down the reforms. The new Constitution gave enormous powers to the president and nullified the rights of the Parliament.

Tired of butting heads with deputies, on September 21, 1993, Yeltsin signed Decree No. 1400 on the termination of the activities of the Supreme Council. The deputies refused to comply, declaring that Yeltsin had committed a “coup d’etat” and that his powers were being terminated and transferred to Vice President Rutskoy.

Riot police blocked the White House, where the parliament was sitting. Communications, electricity, and water were cut off there. Supporters of the Supreme Council built barricades, and on September 3 their clashes with riot police began, 7 demonstrators were killed, dozens were injured.

Yeltsin declared a state of emergency in Moscow. And Rutskoy called for the capture of the Ostankino television center in order to gain access to the airwaves. Dozens of people died during the capture of Ostankino. On the night of October 4, Yeltsin ordered the storming of the White House. In the morning, the building was shelled. A total of 150 people were killed and four hundred injured on October 3-4 [an optimistic number, the real death toll may well have been over 1400 people]. Hasbulatov and Rutskoy were arrested and sent to Lefortovo prison.

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Let’s start with a short interview with the then Chairman of the Supreme Council, Ruslan Imranovich Hasbulatov. Read also The Bloody October of 1993. Retrospect. The Last Interview with Ruslan Hasbulatov

For context, the publication came 2 months after US-NATO poked Russia using Georgia as a stick, and discovered that Dmitry Medvedev, far from being an obedient liberal, responded with a short decisive policing action in Georgia, taking some NATO equipment as trophies.

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Vice President Alexander Rutskoi and Chairman of the Supreme Council Ruslan Hasbulatov. Photo: T.Kuzmina (ITAR-TASS)

“Kohl persuaded Clinton to help Yeltsin destroy the parliament”

— Ruslan Imranovich, after 15 years, how do you see the history of October 1993?
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National identity and political choice on the example of Russia and China – a re-blog of Dmitry Medvedev’s article

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Reading time: 31 minutes

The article you are about to read was translated and published by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on their Telegram channel. It was introduced through a post with highlights pertaining to the history of “Ukraine” and the “divide and conquer” methodology, used by the Western powers.

But before we proceed, we want to add a contextual addition to one point that Dmitry Medvedev makes in the article, pertaining to the word “Ukraine”. We wrote about it in a post at our Telegram channel “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden”:

A quick linguistic excursion into the history of Ukraine

What you see before you, is the «New Russian-Polish Dictionary», published in Warsaw in 1835.

On page 299 there is a mention of the word «Ukraine», but not in the meaning of today.

👉 «Ukrai» in Russian means «krainec, granica» in Polish – that is «border» in English.

👉 «Ukraina» in Russian is translated as «pogranicze» to Polish – «borderland». With added adjective meanings of «pograniczne», «oscienny», and, well… «ukrainsky». That is, «of a border» (as in, for example, «a border crossing»)

That’s it!

📄 Excerpt from the article by Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation (December 13, 2024)

Ukraine: the West’s new social vivisection exercises

  • The current Kiev regime feeds from the hands of the countries of the collective West, which, in addition to funnelling arms into it, manages it through “soft power” political technologies. To this end, a comprehensive network of NGOs controlled by American and European intelligence services has been established.
  • Western forces are acting against us according to the same hypocritical principle of “divide et impera.” Their establishments and Ukrainian ideologues are persistently attempting to apply the Taiwanese, Hong Kong, and other experiences (including Manchukuo) in Ukraine. Their aim is to demonstrate that Russians and Ukrainians are as disparate as possible, to sever Ukraine from Russia, to sow discord, and to create ethnic divisions.
  • To unconditionally draw a line between the ethnicities living in Russia and Ukraine, and to attribute all the inhabitants of those lands to Ukrainians, is a gross error. The word itself, “Ukrainians,” did not have its modern ethnic ring to it until the mid-19th century. It was more of a geographical term, referring to a person’s birthplace or place of residence. The explanation is quite simple: there were no independent state formations within the borders of modern-day Ukraine at the time when the modern system of nation states was emerging following the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, or in the 19th century.
  • Viewing Ukraine’s genesis through the classic “state – nation” prism is pointless. Ukraine’s history is inseparable from the history of the events that unfolded on its territories, which at various times were part of other countries. Likewise, it is more accurate to discuss not a cultural and ethnic “Ukrainians – Russians” dichotomy, but rather “borderland Russians – Russians” dichotomy.
  • In Russia, the people of Malorossiya (or Little Russia) were recognised as an integral part of the titular nation, the Russian people. Their integration into imperial society was considerable. Legally, politically, culturally, and religiously, their status was in no way inferior to that of Russians.
  • Never in the 300 years of being part of the Russian state has Malorossiya-Ukraine been a colony or an enslaved minority. At the same time, it was normal for various non-Russian groups living in the Russian Empire and having a distinct ethnic identity in comparison with the titular group, to identify as Russian Germans, Russian Poles, Russian Swedes, Russian Jews, or Russian Georgians. It was a common figure of speech. However, there was no such thing as “Russian Ukrainians.” The phrase even sounded absurd.

The complete article is below.
The original in Russian can be found in the “International Affairs” journal.
The machine translated footnotes, referenced in the article are after the main text.

National identity and political choice on the example of Russia and China

Article by Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of Russian Federation (December 13, 2024)December 14, 2024

If you are hoping to turn a Russian pharmacy into a Ukrainian one, it’s not enough just to clip the letter “я” off the end of the word “гомеопатическая” on its signboard.
— Mikhail Bulgakov [1]

The party and state visit to China on December 11-12, 2024, at the invitation of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party has reaffirmed the unprecedentedly high level of relations between Russia and China. There are no issues we cannot discuss. During the talks with our Chinese partners, we discussed Ukraine, the Syrian crisis, and resistance to the unilateral economic restrictions imposed on us without UN Security Council approval.
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100 Year Anniversary of the Soviet Art Collective “Kukryniksy”

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KUKRYNIKSY is 100 Years!

We present the material from the series of posts at our Telegram channel “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden”, celebrating the centenary of this illustrious art collective!

2024 marks the 100th anniversary of the day when the first cartoon of Mihail Vasilyevich Kupriyanov, Porfiry Nikitich Krylov and Nikolai Alexandrovich Sokolov was printed in the magazine “Komsomolia” with their common signature “Kukryniksy”.

👉 Mihail Vasilyevich Kupriyanov [October 8 (21), 1903 – November 11, 1991]
👉 Porfiry Nikitich Krylov [August 9 (22), 1902 – May 15, 1990]
👉 Nikolai Alexandrovich Sokolov [July 8 (21), 1903 – April 17, 2000]

The “y” at the end is the Russian plural form — that is, “Kukrynikses” — preserved for the authenticity of the collective’s name.

Mihail Kupriyanov was born in the city of Tetyushi, Kazan province of the Russian Empire, Porfiry Krylov — in Tula, Nikolai Sokolov — in the village of Tsaritsyno, Moscow province, and his entire childhood and youth were spent in Rybinsk.

Young talented artists would hardly have had the opportunity to meet if it were not for the “Higher Art and Technical Workshops” (VHUTEMAS). In 1922, Kupriyanov and Krylov began working together in the wall newspaper of VHUTEMAS under the signature of Kukry and Krykup.

At the same time, Sokolov, while still living in Rybinsk, put the signature “Niks” on his drawings. In 1924, he joined Kupriyanov and Krylov, and the three of them worked in the wall newspaper of VHUTEMAS as Kukryniksy.

Our team, to tell the truth, consists of four artists: Kupriyanov, Krylov, Sokolov and Kukryniksy. All three of us treat the latter with great trepidation and care. What was created by the team could not have been mastered by any of us individually.
— Kukryniksy

The Exhibition in honour of KUKRYNIKSY

I do not know if there ever existed — and I do not think that in the field of caricature there could exist — such a “consubstantial and indivisible trinity” as our Kukryniksy.
— Maxim Gorky

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