Putin has squandered the moral credit conferred on Russia by its immense contribution to the defeat of Nazi Germany. The tale of the Great Patriotic War is one dear to the Russian nation and has long been rehearsed in novels, movies, plays, and public monuments. Each of these attests to the rigors of that earlier war and extols the people’s heroism, sacrifice, gallantry, and triumph. Every Russian, irrespective of education or social standing, can recite this inspiring story—from the siege of Leningrad, to the battle of Stalingrad, to the storming of Berlin. Admittedly, Russia’s moral credit was taxed during the Cold War and some nonconformists raised inconvenient questions about the cult of the Great Patriotic War. But this moral credit was never exhausted, not even by the suppression of Hungarian reformers in 1956 or the 1968 crushing of the Dubcek regime in Prague or the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan. But now, thanks to Putin’s Ukrainian folly, the moral credit treasured by Russians since 1945 has been depleted.
Think of the awareness now dawning upon young conscripted Russian soldiers involved in a bungled war, evidently waging it without reliable logistics, and all the while enduring high casualty rates. The grandparents and great grandparents of these conscripts—as repeatedly taught via family lore and official accounts—won the greatest war in history and were decisive to saving humanity and civilization. But now, rooted in the experience of conscripts in Ukraine and through them seeping into broader Russian understanding, an inverted new tale is taking shape.
There is a glaring discrepancy between what Putin has said to justify his war and what conscripts in Ukraine are learning. The typical Russian conscript, whose age corresponds roughly to that of American college students, is not encountering Nazi drug addicts trying to perpetrate genocide against ethnic Russians. Not only is Putin’s mendacity revealed by the absence of Nazi villains. So, too, Putin’s nonsense about Ukraine as a bogus country without genuine identity is evidenced to conscripts by the steadfastness of Ukrainian soldiers that they fight and the vast support given them by civilians. These civilians, incidentally, include grandmothers of a kind familiar to any young Russian conscript. Now (and in coming weeks) he must withstand tongue-lashings from people who look like and sound like his own babushka—older women infuriated by the outrages committed by Russian lads in uniform, who by custom should be respectful of their elders, protective of the innocent, and bearers of sturdy morality.
In a foreshadowing of denunciations to come, an eighty-year old grandmother (a Russian incidentally) recently wrote an open letter to Putin’s young soldiers. It included these words:
“What will you gain from murdering your Ukrainian neighbors, who did not want war? Where is the joy in destroying an independent country that does not belong to you? . . . People around the world hate the destruction you’ve caused. Thousands of antiwar protestors in Russia will not respect you . . . Wake up from being brainwashed by false propaganda . . . The ghosts of murdered women, children and defenders of their country will haunt your nightmares.”
In effect, as the Russian soldiers in Ukraine will have to admit on the basis of their experience, the cloak of heroism has slipped off. Slipped off from Russia and settled on Ukraine, its people, and its leader. Mariupol has replaced Leningrad as a besieged city defiant against overwhelming odds. Kyiv and Kharkiv have replaced Stalingrad as sites of a brave people fighting for life against a ruthless foe.
Continued
https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/182826
Think of the awareness now dawning upon young conscripted Russian soldiers involved in a bungled war, evidently waging it without reliable logistics, and all the while enduring high casualty rates. The grandparents and great grandparents of these conscripts—as repeatedly taught via family lore and official accounts—won the greatest war in history and were decisive to saving humanity and civilization. But now, rooted in the experience of conscripts in Ukraine and through them seeping into broader Russian understanding, an inverted new tale is taking shape.
There is a glaring discrepancy between what Putin has said to justify his war and what conscripts in Ukraine are learning. The typical Russian conscript, whose age corresponds roughly to that of American college students, is not encountering Nazi drug addicts trying to perpetrate genocide against ethnic Russians. Not only is Putin’s mendacity revealed by the absence of Nazi villains. So, too, Putin’s nonsense about Ukraine as a bogus country without genuine identity is evidenced to conscripts by the steadfastness of Ukrainian soldiers that they fight and the vast support given them by civilians. These civilians, incidentally, include grandmothers of a kind familiar to any young Russian conscript. Now (and in coming weeks) he must withstand tongue-lashings from people who look like and sound like his own babushka—older women infuriated by the outrages committed by Russian lads in uniform, who by custom should be respectful of their elders, protective of the innocent, and bearers of sturdy morality.
In a foreshadowing of denunciations to come, an eighty-year old grandmother (a Russian incidentally) recently wrote an open letter to Putin’s young soldiers. It included these words:
“What will you gain from murdering your Ukrainian neighbors, who did not want war? Where is the joy in destroying an independent country that does not belong to you? . . . People around the world hate the destruction you’ve caused. Thousands of antiwar protestors in Russia will not respect you . . . Wake up from being brainwashed by false propaganda . . . The ghosts of murdered women, children and defenders of their country will haunt your nightmares.”
In effect, as the Russian soldiers in Ukraine will have to admit on the basis of their experience, the cloak of heroism has slipped off. Slipped off from Russia and settled on Ukraine, its people, and its leader. Mariupol has replaced Leningrad as a besieged city defiant against overwhelming odds. Kyiv and Kharkiv have replaced Stalingrad as sites of a brave people fighting for life against a ruthless foe.
Continued
https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/182826
