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Comment by cess11 | Hacker News Reader

It's best understood against the backdrop of a very long series of colonial endeavours. The circassian genocide is well documented.

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> circassian genocide

You are aware that Circassia is 3 countries and more than 4000km away from Tajikistan, right? And that the ethnicities involved in the Circassian genocides are wholly separated from Tajiks?

Yes, why? Would Tajikistan for some reason be the only adequate example of muscovite colonial history?

Circassian genocide was especially nasty, but ancient history (and somewhat inline with America's genocidal colonial conquests West). And not that it justifies the genocide, the Circassians were big slavers of Slavs (especially young girls). Also some of the biggest bastards on the Russian side were actually ethnic German.

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigory_Zass

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea_slave_trade#Circassi...

The late eighteen hundreds is "ancient history"? That's antiquity to you?

I get the impression that this might come as a surprise to you: 'In the context of the Circassian slave trade, the term Circassians did not necessarily refer to ethnic Circassians, but was used as an umbrella term for a number of different ethnicities from the Caucasus region, such as Georgians, Adyge and Abkhazians, in the same fashion as the term "Abbyssinians" was used as a term also for African slaves who were not from Abyssinia.'

That Moscow is a european colonial project was kind of my point but obviously that flew at a level seemingly mesospheric to you.

I’m well aware of the Mountain of Tongues and Circassia, having traveled that region extensively (including Adygea) and read a number of history books about it.

My country (America) had their own colonial project around that same time period (and also conflated various native groups) - like, ever heard of Manifest Destiny?

The US is still a colonial project, Puerto Rico being the obvious example. It's irrelevant however.

You describe 1863 as ancient history, so I'm not keen on putting any trust into the words you're using or claims to being educated on the subject.

What's your nationality? Because it is absolutely relevant. If you don't employ some empathy and self-reflection of your own history when judging the historical actions of others, you literally get no say in the matter.

My ancestors were mainly sami and travelling peoples. The swedish crown more or less eradicated them.

Not sure why that would make me empathetic towards muscovite genocidaires.

Well that makes you related to my wife, who’s part Komi (her father’s first language). But even they're not butthurt about what the Russians did to them - it was a long time ago. And actually, the Soviets made an effort to preserve the language - she had to take classes in school and much of the local signage is in Komi. People there on the river will even greet you in Komi, still.

And btw, the fact that Circassia itself was the result of the westward expansion of a Persian speaking people who also subjected other cultures (not to mention were big slavers) just shows that you have literally no idea what you're talking about and grasping deep into history for reasons to be bigoted against Russians. Not to mention that the people running the Russian Empire at the time were actually Germans (who also considered themselves superior to Slavs), including many of the top commanding generals behind the genocide.

Downplaying one of modernity's most complete genocides with 'they were actually persians that sold some slaves' and 'actually some of the people in charge were western european' is frankly disgusting.

Moscow's reach for the Black Sea had nothing to do with anti-slavery idealism or whatever you're getting at, they wanted ports and trade and didn't consider muslims as human as christians. It also seems to me that you don't consider serfdom a form of slavery, only international slave trade, which isn't a position I share.

Do NOT put words into my mouth about what I consider slavery or not (or anything, unless I explicitly write it). Yeah, Slav serfdom was shitty as was Russian Imperialism. And American Imperialism, British Imperialism and so-on.

And I'm not downplaying anything (and sure, the Russian Empire made justifications for what it did), I'm pointing out that my God - that was two centuries ago. By your measure, every modern American and Spaniard is a genocidal maniac...

I didn't. Your reading comprehension in english might not be as good as you think.

Sure you are. You're bringing up excuses.

Antiquity ended at the dawn of medieval times. That's like half a millenium earlier than where you want to put it. 1863 is quite some distance into modernity, well into the age of the railroad.

I haven't made anything in this about individuals, rather centering it around Moscow, which has at times been sacked by mongols, crimean tatars and culturally dominated by Paris. But well yeah, the US is quite genocidal. So what? Do you consider it the golden standard of statecraft or something?

Colonialism does not justify genocide

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