Historical memory of the Russian people, or Why do we need scars on the heart
Why do we need to know history? Why understand politics? Why do we need psychological knowledge about people and mentalities? It would seem that there are enough personal problems. What have the others got to do with it?
Not so long ago, our search engines discovered unknown burial places of Italian soldiers during the Great Patriotic War. The remains were carefully collected, sorted, and some of them were identified thanks to the medallions. They were handed over to compatriots and before being sent home, a funeral service for Italian soldiers was held in a Catholic cathedral in Moscow, which was attended by the highest officials of the Italian Embassy in Russia and the children's choir of the Italian school sang.
Mercy towards enemies is one of the mental characteristics of the Russian people. And all would be fine, but the dialogue with one of the participants in these events was very alarming:
- Well, did you have funerals for the Nazis?
- What are you! What kind of fascists are they? Just deceived, unfortunate soldiers …
From these words, I experienced a prick in my heart, and in my mind - a clear understanding of how important it is to call things by their proper names, even if decades have passed since the moment of historical events, and their participants have long been dead. After all, if all these Italian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Finnish (the list goes on) soldiers who invaded our land during the Great Patriotic War as part of the Nazi troops are innocent and deceived people, then who are our grandfathers who gave their lives? defending the Motherland from them?
What were the Italians doing in Russia?
Having won the Great Patriotic War at the cost of incredible human losses and a completely destroyed country, the Soviet Union, nevertheless, did not follow the path of confrontation with former enemies. In numerous films about this war, we saw the enemy in the person of Nazi Germany - they preferred not to mention that our country was attacked by the whole of Nazi Europe, led by Germany.
In the history textbooks, these facts were also silent. In films and literary works, only those historical events were covered in detail in which a few representatives of the European peoples opposed the Nazi troops: the French Normandie-Niemen Air Regiment, the Italian Garibaldi brigades, the Polish army of Craiova, the European Resistance Movement.
As a result of this historical understatement, many people are perplexed: what did Italians, Romanians, Hungarians do in Russia?
In fact, in 1941 about 40 percent of the Germans fought against the USSR, the rest of the opponents were from other European countries. Someone joined the Nazi movement immediately, as, for example, the Italians, other countries were taken by the Nazis until 1941 and, within the framework of the German idea, followed their own interests. Romania claimed the territory of Ukraine, Finland - for the Leningrad region and Karelia, the Hungarians - for Western Ukraine. The Italians fought for the idea, because the very idea of fascism came from Italy. Remember Benito Mussolini. After the Battle of Stalingrad and the turning point in the course of the war, centers of the Resistance Movement appeared in European countries, and allies began to appear in the USSR.
This is the Western skin mentality: inside their country they live according to the law, strictly observing the law "mine is mine, and yours is yours." When it comes to other states, another logic is included, the logic of foreign policy on the principle of "divide and conquer": "mine is mine, and I also want yours too." They have always waged colonial wars, turning the conquered territories into their raw materials appendage. This is neither good nor bad, this is the skin's worldview and worldview.
But for us, people with a Russian urethral-muscular mentality, it seems wild, unfair. Indeed, our mentality is based not on law or restriction, but on the concepts of justice and mercy, good and evil. By joining other countries to our territory, we endowed other peoples with equal rights with us, raised them to our level, taking into account their identity, preserved their language, culture, traditions.
It has always been that way. In the 19th century, when we annexed a part of the Caucasus, protecting us from the Turkish yoke. During the early Soviet state, when we brought literacy and education to Asian countries, when we built factories and allocated mandatory national quotas for universities in all republics. This was the case during and after the Great Patriotic War, when we liberated Budapest and Warsaw with the same fire in our chests, with the same courage, as if they were our hometowns, on the streets of which we grew up, in whose houses our mothers and children live. We helped to restore the destroyed houses, we sympathized with their losses in the war as our own, we were proud of their heroes along with ours, mercifully forgetting that until recently we were on opposite sides of the front. Nothing has changed now: our troops came to Syria not for profit or selfish interests,we came to fight terrorism, we came to liberate.
Probably, this is partly why we preferred not to emphasize the fact that not only Germany, but all of Europe fought against the USSR. It was and it was, the war is over, it is necessary to restore the destroyed, we must live, we must look to the future. This is how our mentality, our understanding of mercy and justice was manifested. And also because the USSR suffered the most severe losses: the European part of the country was destroyed almost to the ground, out of 100 young men who went to the front, only three returned. We have paid too high a price for peace, we have experienced too much pain. It was impossible, day after day, to open these wounds again and again. Because you had to live.
Do we need to remember this today? After all, neither our nor the Western mentality has changed. Europe and the United States still share the notion of law for themselves and for others, and foreign policy is still a divide and conquer principle.
Preservation of historical memory - the question "To be or not to be?" for the Russian world today
Our duty is to defend the truth about the heroes, to firmly resist all attempts to falsify historical facts.
President of Russia V. V. Putin
Today we live in a conditionally peaceful time. A well-fed, quiet life and the ideals of a consumer society whisper to us: do not strain, relax. Therefore, many do not even notice that an ongoing information war is being waged against Russia. They are not only trying to instill in us false "Western values", which call to live for ourselves, not thinking about others, to strive only for the material, forgetting about the spiritual, moral …
Over the past three decades, attempts have been constantly made to rewrite the history of the Great Patriotic War. With the help of solid Western grants, Hitler's fascism is equated with the Stalinist regime, Russia is accused of unleashing the Second World War, attributing to it the idea of world domination, and the feat and heroism of our grandmothers and grandfathers is devalued.
Ruthlessly dissecting the exploits of the defenders of our Motherland, pseudo-historians scoff at our shrines. The fire ram of Nikolai Gastello, who sent a burning car with the entire crew to a mechanized enemy column, instead of ejecting and trying to save his life, is explained by the fact that his downed plane simply fell because the tank was broken and the fuel ran out. Alexander Matrosov, who covered the embrasure of a German bunker with his chest, just stumbled. And Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was … crazy.
Not only is such a mockery of the heroes' deeds unacceptable, while the historical facts and statistics are deliberately omitted: history traitors prudently do not specify that in fact these were not isolated cases - such feats were performed by Russian people in large numbers!
Today many people understand how dangerous such a reshaping of history is, but, unfortunately, not everyone. What this can lead to, we see today on the example of Ukraine. Ukrainian history textbooks were completely rewritten 25 years ago, the media unanimously convinced Ukrainians that the Russians were to blame for all their troubles, Soviet monuments were demolished throughout the country, and instead of them, monuments to Nazi Bandera were built, from which they created a symbol of the struggle for independence of the Ukrainian people. The brutal punishers were declared national heroes.
While still a Soviet girl, I watched documentary footage in the cinema: long queues of naked people in a fascist concentration camp - women, old people, children queuing up to be burned in a furnace, mountains of skeletal corpses raked up by an excavator … Shuddering with horror, I even in a nightmare I could not imagine that fascism could be repeated in the history of mankind. But life shows that if you do not learn the lessons of history, it repeats itself. Here is a fragment of a telephone dialogue between women from Western Ukraine and the Donetsk People's Republic, the retelling of which I heard during personal communication.
- And what is the main street in Donetsk?
- Artem Street. And why do you need it?
- Yes, my son is being drafted into the ATO zone. They promise to give an apartment in Donetsk and two slaves. Here, we choose the street.
Something similar has already happened, isn't it? This is how the spiral of history unfolds before our eyes.
The fate of man and the history of the country
A person cannot be happy alone.
Yuri Burlan
Why do we need to know history? Why understand politics? Why do we need psychological knowledge about people and mentalities? It would seem that there are enough personal problems. What have the others got to do with it?
First, a person does not live in this world by himself - each of us is a part of society. And our whole life depends on what is happening in society and the country.
Secondly, a deep understanding of the processes taking place in society, the country and the world gives a colossal inner confidence in life. Only in this case, we can perceive reality as it is, distinguish truth from falsehood, no one and nothing will make us doubt the truth.
Thirdly, in the modern world it is simply necessary to understand political and social processes. We all remember how the collapse of the Soviet Union took place. Soviet people, accustomed to living in a state of security and safety, provided by the state for many years, were apolitical. As a result, no one even understood what exactly happened - and we lost the country in an instant.
Today, in a situation of colossal internal problems and international tensions, it is absolutely necessary to understand what is happening around, and take this into account when making decisions at any level: at the level of friendship and family, at the level of business and study, at the level of the country, in order to preserve our integrity. Do not allow the country to be destroyed, which our grandparents defended at such a price.
System-vector psychoanalysis helps to understand the causes and consequences of events occurring at different levels, explaining in detail and logically to us the peculiarities of the mentality of different peoples. Knowing the mental characteristics of the inhabitants of Russia and the countries of the West, one can accurately determine who is capable of what, which events are true, and which statements are blatant lies.
This will allow us in the modern global world to build relationships without tension and hostility, without aggression or damage. This will allow us not to lose ourselves and our country. This will allow us to prevent a repetition of the horror when living people were burned in ovens, and blood was taken from children for soldiers. When the Nazis burned down the whole village. When someone decided which nation has the right to the future and to life, and which does not.
Do I need to remember the horrors of war and know the truth about it? Are these heart scars necessary? Yes, in order to live!
