Comment by asveikau | Hacker News Reader

Comment by asveikau | Hacker News Reader

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I think you miss the point.

I think the point is that what we today might think of as Cold War style rhetoric and rivalry has antecedents in the Russian empire and points earlier.

I would even go so far as to say the whole thing is from the Great Schism. One side has the Latin alphabet and Western churches. Another side has Greek-derived Cyrillic and Orthodox church. Note in this article, the Russians are said to be removing religious shrines and trying to get the Lithuanian language to use Cyrillic instead of Latin characters. Both of these kind sound strange, but it's not really accidental symbolism.

A couple months ago in the context of all the US-Russia political drama I was thinking of this... Some people say the current tension is trying to re-live the Cold War, but if you read about events from centuries ago the tension is all still there mostly in its present form. What if the whole point of conflict is really about how they learned to write and be Christians from Greeks?

If I can split your argument into three, then

> I think the point is that what we today might think of as Cold War style rhetoric and rivalry has antecedents in the Russian empire and points earlier.

Is probably true, people just reference Cold War because it's well known symbol and the rest of the history is not needed for them...

> I would even go so far as to say the whole thing is from the Great Schism. (...)

No, not really... The story in the article is placed when PLC was conquered, and similar things happened not only in Lithuania but also in Poland, where it was done by both Cyrillic Russia and Latin Germany. I'm not an expert on Russian history, but I could bet that at certain times they also tried to uproot other Cyrillic cultures who were deemed unwelcome by the rulers (both communist and before). I agree with the other person that this is just authoritarian thing.

> A couple months ago in the context of all the US-Russia political drama I was thinking of this...(...)

Well this one depends on the general world view I guess? If you tell history as a story of clashing ideas, then there will be a clear narration and you will easily see patterns as you describe, ever repeating conflicts of similar forces. But just one way of looking is often not enough to see the whole thing. I also see the direction of looking at the past tensions as promising, but then when do you stop? In this particular case the way of writing could be just an artifact of an older conflict used to reinforce the current one. We dnn't need to repeat the past, we can just reuse it.

It absolutely dates back to the Great Schism. And the (Roman Catholic) west has constantly been antagonising the east. When the Orthodox requested assistance against the invading Muslims, the crusaders instead conquered for themselves, even sacking Constantinople. How about the Uniate churches? How many times have western powers (Poland-Lithuania, Germany, France, Great Britain, etc...) invaded or attempted to invade Russia? How many times has the west even allied themselves with Islamic empires to attack Russia? Even in modern history, there's a ton of anti-Serbian (read Orthodox) propaganda relating to the Balkans, ignoring the atrocities of every other side. How about the Greek default? The invasion of Cyprus by Turkey. The CIA in Chechnya. Colour revolutions (which all targeting majority Orthodox countries). And so on.

Yes, it goes back to the Great Schism, however it's not Russia which has repeatedly attacked the west. It's not Russia which has a military alliance on the US or Europe's doorstep.

And relating to Lithuania, the earliest conflicts between Lithuania and the then Duchy of Moscow were initiated by the Lithuanians. And today, NATO troops are in Lithuania. To respond to a 'Russian' threat we all know will never happen, given the whole NATO thing.

Edit - Anyone want to explain how I'm wrong?

You're claiming some extreme continuity between the politics of dozens of major political entities over thousands of years and your only supporting argument is that it makes sense to you.

And nearly every post in this thread, and likely the intent of the OP in the first place was to show continuity between the Russian Empire, Soviet Union, and current Russian Federation.

In fact, it's exactly this rhetoric (Putin wants to bring back the USSR/Russian Empire) which is responsible for current western foreign policy.

First your comment reads quite... emotional? Both aggressive and defensive, almost to the point that one wants to avoid the discussion, but you asked in the edit so I reply. I assume you deeply care about the subject, but you need to understand, that if you want others to understand and maybe adopt your view it's better to tone down, avoid many short accusing questions etc... Also defending/explaining war by "but they started first before" always put you in a bad light...

Now, about how are you wrong. Wrong is too strong word here, I'm unfamiliar with many historical events you mentioned but I assume they really did happened. The general idea that Great Schism was a big source of tension, and directly and indirectly by events that resulted from it is and will be a source of tension, this is also true. The problem as I see it is the strength of this effect, you are right that it exists, but your comment reads as it was the dominating force that shaped this part of history, which many people not agree with. You also leave out many historical events that do not fit in, like Russia and Prussia working together to conquer PLC and later attacking Poland in 1939... Similarly when for example Napoleon attacked Russia, the west-east conflict was not the reason, it was just a tool to reinforce the conflict, and Napoleon actually wanted to conquer all and Russia was just one of many...

Wars can start for more "practical" reasons too (like oil) and historical/religious/ethnic reasons will soon follow, they can be present but they are not always the main reason.

Finally that bit about NATO troops could for some people change your comment from "comment about history" to "comment about politics pretending to be about history"...

CIA in Chechnya? West allied with Islamic empires to attack Russia? What are you talking about?

And as for NATO 'on doorstep' - killing Baltic citizens or invading Georgia and Ukraine may ring a bell to the cause.

> And the (Roman Catholic) west has constantly been antagonising the east.

The west is not a religiously unified entity. For example, about one third of the German population died during the religious wars of the 17th century between Protestants and Catholics [1]. Not to mention the more recent Troubles in Northern Ireland.

> Colour revolutions (which all targeting majority Orthodox countries).

The countries that underwent a Colour Revolution (failed or successful) were mostly non-Christian, according to the Wikipedia list of Colour Revolutions [2].

But let's take a look at one successful Colour Revolution in an Orthodox country: the Rose Revolution [3] in Georgia in 2003. In that case, a corrupt authoritarian regime, led by a former Soviet functionary, was overthrown and replaced by a democracy. It is fair to say that most Georgians are glad this revolution took place. Similar things could be said about the Colour Revolutions in Serbia and Ukraine. So I'm not sure why you include Colour Revolutions in your list of bad things supposedly done by the Roman Catholics to people of Orthodox faith.

Georgia is an interesting case, by the way. The Georgian Orthodox Church is the most trusted institution in Georgia [4]. At the same time, successive Georgian governments have carried out a consistently pro-NATO policy, presumably with the acquiescence of the Georgian Orthodox Church. Probably something to do with the tensions between Orthodox Georgia and its Orthodox neighbor, Russia.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Years%27_War

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colour_revolution

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rose_Revolution

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian_Orthodox_Church

History is long enough to dig up as many examples to "prove" a certain antagonism exists.

How many times has Russia invaded or attempted to invade other Orthodox countries?

* Ukraine 2014-ongoing

* Georgia in 2008

* Declared war on Bulgaria 1944

* In cooperation with Nazi Germany, it annexed Moldova from Romania 1940

* Genocide against Ukrainians 30s and 40s

* Ukraine and Georgia again in 1917, 1918

* Declared war on Bulgaria: 1915

* Supported the Serbian invasion of Bulgaria 1886

* Harsh military occupation of Moldova and Wallachia 1829-1834

* Annexed Bessarabia from Moldova 1809

* Annexed Georgia in 1800

* Invaded the Cossack Hetmanate in 1659

And so on, back to the Middle Ages, when Northern Russian princes sacked Kiev.

Does this "prove" that as a historical rule Russia invades any Orthodox country it shares a border with? Should we blame modern-day Russians for things their un-elected government did before they were born?

Also, Russia has invaded 2 Orthodox countries in the last 10 years, this is very different from digging up ancient history.

Most of these 'examples' are so revisionist they can't even be found online.

> Invaded the Cossack Hetmanate in 1659

You mean invaded the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth which the Hetmanate was rebelling against in the first place, which is why the Cossacks joined the Russian empire and were integrated into its army for generations.

As for everything about Bulgaria, Bulgaria was initially annexed by the Ottoman empire, but the third Bulgarian state was created via treaty after a war between Russia and the Ottoman empire. Later the Russians/Serbs/Greeks supported them in a war against the Ottomans, although in WWI/WWII Bulgaria was allied with the Central/Axis powers.

Ukraine/Georgia recently are more complicated, but the issues there go back to the colour revolutions, which were rather openly supported by the west.

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