Historical look at various civilisational differences between Russia and the West

One of the factors mentioned in the Polish-Russian/RuSSian discussions that I took part in the past was that both Germany and Japan were occupied by the Allies and Germany was subjected to denazification. However, RuSSia didn't get "de-Sovietised" after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

It's worse than that....

Germany could look at its past and rightly claim that the nazi period was a fluke... an evolving civic society that took a disastrous wrong turn but many intellectual, economic and cultural achievements showed it would and could get back on a more productive path again.....

all of russian history is a clusterfkvk of dysfunction and violence.... the soviet period, as awful as it was, was far from the worse.... and not much in the way of real economic or intellectual achievements to show for it (and not that much culturally if you compare it with Germany or France for example) they even had slavery

russians don't really have any (true) story they can tell themselves to do better.... the closest they have is winning WWII but soviet/russian history after 1944 is nothing to be proud of...

It's a tragedy since many russians are very intelligent... but simple intelligence is not enough without the appropriate social insititutions which.... they don't have and they have no prospects of getting....

Ukraine is a very different case, culturally a bit more like Poles than russians (more individually oriented and more likely to openly criticize those in power)...

I'd say it wasn't that much of a fluke. The evils there started several decades earlier (Kaiser Wilhelm's famous 'Hunnenrede' speech was probably the first warning sign, or perhaps even the war crimes in the 1870 invasion of France) and we should be under no illusions about the millions there today who would have preferred Germany to have won WW2 rather than lost it.

r*SSia is no different.


And many many more aren't. Just sheep in villages or blocks.

Yes, as I wrote it was one of the factors mentioned when many of us still believed that if Putin's generation is gone RuSSia will change... We were having those discussions before 2014... After 2014 discussions stopped.


How many millions exactly?

Well putain gave them a story to explain all their terrible history (or their massive failure after 1991 at least): "The west did this to you because they're jealous of russian superiority!"

It makes no sense but enough people bought it that that's the story they tell themselves...

More like: "They want to get our recources!"

Or: "The West wants to DESTROY* RuSSia!"

*for reasons unknown, I guess lol

*resources, sorry ;D

They do. However, they have very narrow sewer pipes that is why you mustn`t flush toilet paper down with your shyt, you have to put it in the special bin next to the throne. Amasing!

Disgusting🤮

in russia? I did not know that.... It's the traditional way in Greece, Bulgaria and Turkey (maybe Romania).... but didn't know about russia... though I do know they still use squatters in parts of the former USSR and they sometimes have toilets without any partitions so people can watch each other? have a chat? what do you talk about at a time like that anyway?

Russia has seen herself traditionally as apart from Europe proper, again, preferring to be called "Eurasian" instead of either European or Asian!

Unlike Poland, The Czech Republic or Slovenia, she continues to resist various Western European trends, both the Christian religion as practiced in Catholic countries (preferring to follow the Russian Orthodoxy, much like Greece). along with the Latin alphabet.

From Peter The Great up through the current "Czar Vladimir", Russian along with Soviet leaders, regarded themselves in essence as sworn enemies of the West.

Therein in a nutshell lies the difficulty.

That is even symbolised in their national emblem - two headed eagle which looks east and west.

Yes, for example.

I've noticed that there are a few "Russophiles" on this forum.
When I read the OP I wondered how many posters would agree. I must admit I was happy to read that a majority do not hold any admiration for Russia.

So I said to myself "Is it all emotion?" "Is Russia a cancer on Western Civilization and pretty much the world?"
I decided to ask AI (artificial intelligence) via the ChatGPT site.
I formulated a couple of generalized question seeking, in one example, a list of positives and negatives.
Except for some positive general responses in the areas of culture and science, most of the examples were negative.
You can keep asking AI the same question over and over and it will attempt to be more specific, more detailed; to approach it from different angles.

Pretty much any way you "cut it", Russia does not come out as one of the high points of humankind.

PUTIN is a cancer on Wester Civilization, agreed Marion. However, why allow one or perhaps several rotten apples to destroy the entire bumper crop of pre-Soviet culture which has given us the likes of Lobachewski, Tschaikowsky, Gorki, Dostoyewsky, Tolstoy, Mendelejeff, along with a host of others??

HITLER too was a cancer, maybe the worst malignancy in human history, granted. But does that mean we stop listening to Wagner, Beethoven, Strauss, quit reading Kepler, Planck, Oberth, or close our eyes, minds and hearts to Grunewald, Duerer, Goethe, Rilke or Fontane?

Leave us all kindly not throw out the baby with the bathwater!

Several OK (though not exceptional compared to others of their time) authors, some syrupy and slushy music that only really works if you use a vast (and nowadays unaffordable) orchestra and some chocolate box paintings.

Not to mention those vile jewelled eggs that the romanovs used to give each other. As tasteful as an orc oligarchs tacky yacht.


After reading your post, I did the same. The positives were nothing special (pretty well every country has beautiful landscapes) and the negatives were chilling.

It wasn`t a problem to be a Russophile before the Russian invasion. Russians can be charming people if they want. Many Poles had nothing against them.

However, the war has changed everything. Remaining a Russophile now when we know that a vast majority of the Russian society supports mad Putin and his cruel war is a joke.

Hmmmmm...Yes, in many cases that is exactly what it means. Do you remember the last scandal involving Wagner's music in Israel?

It was a Jew though, maestro Daniel Barenboim, who finally introduced Wagner to Israel!

It's still controversial there of course and perhaps Barenboim was partly influenced by his English wife, Jacqueline Du Pré

The worst problem with Russians is they don`t want to change. So many centuries have passed and they are still the same as they used to be 500 years ago. I mean their negative qualities, of course.

Such as:
-Russians are very servilistic to their rulers. The tsar, communist secretary or gangster ringleader like Putin only frowns and most Russians shyt in their pants and do what they are told to do.

-Russians have always been troubled by their backwardness in relation to the West which gives them a huge inferiority complex. They try to cure it with imperialist attitude: they say - yes, we are underdeveloped and barbarian, but at least the world fears us! We can conquer any country we want! And in result of such thinking, they happily invade their neighbours.

Anything else?

Massive lack of self-awareness? Massive lack of empathy? As a people... they seem to lack a theory of mind... they sincerely don't understand how they are perceived or how their actions are interpreted... I remember before the full-scale invasion began they thought the world would be impressed by them....

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind

Man, Maf, I have to say - you've made Russophobia into some form of art. After reading some of your messages, I feel I've sat through a "2 Minutes of Hate" like in 1984.

I've started screenshotting your posts recently, so I can show them to the kind people I meet, that ask me for proof of Russophobia.

This one is characteristically great: Russia as a nation of autists.

Your approach mirrors Novichok's style, in its grinding consistency. You'll convince the most guilt-ridden and pro-American Russian, to finally embrace hate for the West. After all - what's waiting for such a person there, when these Westerners do not differentiate between "good" and "bad" Russians? Best to stay in Russia and close to Putin, than be routinely exposed to being called a miserable, thieving, slave race.

Really - good work. The self-awareness bit you write about, however... that could use some improvement. Nobody's perfect.

More like of sociopaths...


I'm sure maf does, just like I do.


Or get rid of Putin and CHANGE, so people outside of RuSSia (not only in the West) could change their opinion about you people.

But, I know, that's HARD and would demand an actual effort on part of RuSSians, so you won't do it...

*sigh*

This is the basic Russian weakness, they don't have the balls to go for change and are scared of freedom and democracy.

If Russian people don't change their hardcore attitude the country will die or be killed off in WW3.

Milo, if you Brits had the balls, you would have disposed of your kings and queens the French way a long time ago.
As far as "freedom and democracy", I would never mention those two as a citizen of the UK or the US. Nobody upstairs gives a sh*it what the commoners like you and me think.

Back in Katyn, NKVD asked the first ten what they thought about Russia.

When they got that Russians were sociopaths, mongols, and barbarians good for fertilizer or dog food, the NKVD decided that Poles and Russians would never be friends and turned them into fertilizer and dog food.

Sometimes, keeping your stupid mouth shut is good for your life expectancy.

If it is true that every forum has more readers than users, then the existence of this board is actually good news for Russia.

Think about it: any chance person who comes across this board and is even remotely sane is bound to be repulsed by the sheer amount of nonsense spouted here, ranging from hateful racist outbursts to amateur psychological/sociological analyses. In such case two things can happen: such person can close their browser tab in disgust and never return or develop some sort of Russophilia as a healthy psychological reaction.

It's one thing to oppose the actions of Putin's government and think that this war is a horrible mistake that will bring misery to both Ukrainians and Russians, and another to change a previously regular, thematic forum into a hate-fest including the spelling "game" of regularly putting capitalised SS in the name of country that lost millions of its citizens in their struggle against the nazis.

Some of it could partially be justified at the very beginning of the war with shock and fear, natural in such situations, but today it is just a vicious hate campaign, visible also in some media and wide political circles. Madness.


Funnily enough, if you asked me about Russophobia two years ago, I would have also shaken my head in disbelief and asked for proof.


That's OK in English I suppose, but in Polish "pełnoskalowa inwazja" sounds very clumsy. It is, however, constantly used in the media and by politicians (e.g. Duda keeps banging on about this "pełnoskalowa inwazja" all the time). It's almost as if they received instructions on what to say and what expressions to use - instructions written in English and hastily translated into Polish. This idiotic newspeak word doesn't even exist in the Great Dictionary of the Polish Language...

wsjp.pl/

It also doesn't exist in the PWN dictionary...

sjp.pwn.pl/szukaj/pe%C5%82noskalowy.html

A native Polish speaker would say "inwazja na pełną skalę" instead of using this newspeak adjective "pełnoskalowy". If all of a sudden mainstream media...

polsatnews.pl/wiadomosc/2023-02-24/wojna-w-ukrainie-rok-pelnoskalowej-inwazji-rosji-na-ukraine-niepowodzenie-planu-putina/

pap.pl/aktualnosci/news%2C1089468%2Cnewsweek-pelnoskalowa-inwazja-na-ukraine-w-ciagu-najblizszych-48-godzin

... and ruling politicians start using it, then maybe (just maybe) they have their instructions written for them in English? If so, they should at least hire more careful translators.

I think it's enough to read few of Velund's and Crno3 posts to wonder why you'd ever like anything Russian.


But at first killed many in Union with the Nazis.

Hitler's Germany and Stalin's russia were allies until the outbreak of war between them, but they never conducted joint military operations as allies.