{"id":1545,"date":"2023-02-22T04:05:21","date_gmt":"2023-02-22T08:05:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv-ukrtaz\/?p=1545"},"modified":"2023-02-22T04:05:21","modified_gmt":"2023-02-22T08:05:21","slug":"putin-vs-voltaire-zizek","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv-ukrtaz\/2023\/02\/22\/putin-vs-voltaire-zizek\/","title":{"rendered":"Putin vs. Voltaire, \u017di\u017eek"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Putin, yesterday: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

The West started to turn Ukraine into anti-Russia. This project started back in the 19th century, started by Austria-Hungary Empire and Poland.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Putin, Feb. 21, 2022: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

modern Ukraine was entirely created by Russia or, to be more precise, by Bolshevik, Communist Russia.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>Voltaire, in 1731 (in his Histoire de Charles XII):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

“Ukraine has always aspired to freedom.”<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\"May<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u017di\u017eek, “The Dark Side of Neutrality<\/a>” (responding to Roger Waters, last week, also readable here<\/a>): <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

As an independent voice who follows Russian media very closely, I am well acquainted with what Putin and his propagandists \u201cactually say.\u201d The major TV channels are full of commentators recommending that countries like Poland, Germany, or the United Kingdom be nuked. The Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov, one of Putin\u2019s closes allies, now\u00a0openly calls for<\/a>\u00a0\u201cthe fight against Satanism [to] continue throughout Europe and, first of all, on the territory of Poland.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, the\u00a0official Kremlin line<\/a>\u00a0describes the war as a \u201cspecial operation\u201d for the de-Nazification and de-demonization of Ukraine. Among Ukraine\u2019s \u201cprovocations\u201d is that it has\u00a0permitted<\/a>\u00a0Pride parades and allowed LGBTQ+ rights to undermine traditional sexual norms and gender roles. Kremlin-aligned commentators speak of \u201cliberal totalitarianism,\u201d even going so far as to argue that George Orwell\u2019s 1984 was a critique not of fascism or Stalinism but of\u00a0liberalism<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[. . .]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those who would claim neutrality forfeit their standing to complain about the horrors of colonization anywhere. […] It is obscene to blame Ukraine for Russian acts of destruction, or to mischaracterize the Ukrainians\u2019 heroic resistance as a rejection of peace. Those, like Waters, who call for \u201can immediate ceasefire\u201d would have Ukrainians respond to redoubled Russian aggression by abandoning their own self-defense. That is a formula not for peace, but for pacification.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Putin, yesterday: The West started to turn Ukraine into anti-Russia. This project started back in the 19th century, started by Austria-Hungary Empire and Poland. Putin, Feb. 21, 2022: modern Ukraine was entirely created by Russia or, to be more precise, by Bolshevik, Communist Russia. Voltaire, in 1731 (in his Histoire de Charles XII): “Ukraine has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdPO21-oV","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv-ukrtaz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv-ukrtaz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv-ukrtaz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv-ukrtaz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv-ukrtaz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1545"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv-ukrtaz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1545\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1552,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv-ukrtaz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1545\/revisions\/1552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv-ukrtaz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv-ukrtaz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv-ukrtaz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}