This is just too awesome for words. I shall carry it everywhere.
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The sky is high. The Czar is far.
This is just too awesome for words. I shall carry it everywhere.
Natalia A. 
Although Feminist Anonymist’s call on Natalia’s “Slavic Oppression” card is superficial and probably disingenuous, and Ren’s and Natalia’s response with their own “Slavic Oppression Card” is appropriately lighthearted, there actually is a serious foundation for Natalia’s past complaints about anti-Russian, anti-Ukrainian, and generally anti-Slavic and anti-Orthodox prejudice in the Western media and in Anglo-American culture generally.
For readers who are interested, consulting the web site “Johnson’s Russia List” and searching under the term “Russophobia” will return a list of articles regarding Russophobia in the Western media and in U.S. foreign policy. The author Anatol Lieven in particular is active in pointing out Russophobia in U.S. foreign policy.
Also worth reading are two articles by Wladislaw George Krasnow, Ph.D., of Russian-American Goodwill Associates (RAGA — see its web site), which can be found at:
http://www.raga.org/jrl_fri_oct_27_html.
A Greek-American attorney named James George Jatras has coined the term “pravoslavophobia” for modern Anglo-American culture’s phobic fixation on the differences between Orthodox culture and Anglo-Protestant culture, with Orthodox culture being viewed as backward and as an impediment to social and intellectual progress. Jatras’s own political slant is overtly sectarian and too conservative for my own outlook, but his point about “pravoslavophobia” is accurate in summing up Anglo-Protestants’ view of Slavs and Orthodoxy generally as exotic and colorful but too backward and un-modern to be taken seriously.
President George W. Bush’s comment, I think in December 2007 or 2006, after Russian elections, that a preference for authoritarian government rather than democracy is “in the Russian DNA” unconsciously echoes, in its biological reference, Anglo-Protestants’ view that Slavs are somehow inherently unfit for modernity. In Russian blogs cited by Global Voices, some Russian bloggers endorsed Bush’s view that Russians prefer authoritarian government, but found Bush’s biological reference puzzling and inexplicable — whereas American media objected to Bush’s acquiescence to Russian authoritarianism but had no problem with Bush’s biological reference, precisely because the “Russian DNA” comment echoes the reflexive Anglo-Protestant view that Slavic Orthodox culture/populations are inherently unfit for modern “progress.”
Similar prejudice against Slavic Orthodox culture/populations can be found in 19th and 20th-century French and German sources. After 1919, Adolph Hitler’s Slavophobia was simply an exaggerated version of German and Austrian Slavophobia that had influenced Prussian and Austrian foreign policy since the 18th century.
Natalia’s complaints about anti-Slavic bias in BBC reports also have a serious foundation, and an author named John Gleason has written an entire book on the origins of British Russophobia.
Russian media sources have recently made the claim that the U.S. government in particular regards Slavic Orthodox populations as militarily expendable, as shown in NATO’s bombing of Serbia in the 1990s and in the practical unlikelihood that the U.S./NATO would militarily defend Ukraine from a Russian invasion. Even aside from Russian media op-eds, a case can be made, starting with the Yalta Conference in World War II, that Anglo-American policymakers do not regard Slavic populations, and particularly Slavic Orthodox populations, as worth defending with Western blood.
Sorry for this long post, but Natalia’s complaints do have a factual basis and are worth investigating.
I’m gonna get mine embossed, I think…
LOL!
Interview Request
Hello Dear and Respected,
I hope you are fine and carrying on the great work you have been doing for the Internet surfers. I am Ghazala Khan from The Pakistani Spectator (TPS), We at TPS throw a candid look on everything happening in and for Pakistan in the world. We are trying to contribute our humble share in the webosphere. Our aim is to foster peace, progress and harmony with passion.
We at TPS are carrying out a new series of interviews with the notable passionate bloggers, writers, and webmasters. In that regard, we would like to interview you, if you don’t mind. Please send us your approval for your interview at my email address “ghazala.khi at gmail.com”, so that I could send you the Interview questions. We would be extremely grateful.
regards.
Ghazala Khan
The Pakistani Spectator
http://www.pakspectator.com
That’s amazing. I want to has card, too!
A nice article. I am also Slavic (Macedonian) and I have Orthodox background, even though I am not very religious and I must say I agree with this post. Lots of times I feel like Westerners threat us as we are not worthy. For example, lets take the European Union. There was no problem for the Slavic Catholic countries. The first Orthodox countries to be integrated in the EU where Romania and Bulgaria, although Romania is not Slavic it is under lot of Slavic influence. Right after they became a part of the EU there has been lots of comments that a mistake has been made, that they did not deserve it. And there was no such comments when Portugal, Greece or Poland were accepted as EU members, even though they were far behind the EU standards at the time they were integrated. Now, the countries to join EU last, will be Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia (I do not include Kosovo since the case is controversial) all three Slavic and Orthodox.