Paul
Goble
Staunton, May 10 – As the last
remaining World War II soldiers pass from the scene – and the youngest of them
would be over 90 – Vladimir Putin has shifted their message to the world from
“never again” to an aggressive “we can repeat our victory” from people who
played no part in that victory or suffered in any way from the horror of
conflict.
But in the face of all this militant
bravado, many Russians, including those who originally created the Immortal
Regiment idea that the Kremlin has hijacked, are in small ways maintain their
dignity and the dignity of those who fought and died so that their children and
grandchildren wouldn’t have to.
And just as they are keeping alive
the memory of their forefathers, so too all those who care about Russia and its
future after Putin need to take note of and keep alive what they are doing.
Otherwise, the Kremlin leader will win as he often has not on his merits but because
far too few are prepared to actively oppose him and call his bluff.
In a comment on the Kasparov.ru
portal, Aleksey Murashov says that with each passing year, Victory Day is
becoming more offensive and off-putting because it is becoming ever less its
original self, a day of sadness and memory and of reflection that those who
died on the other side died as they did. “Everyone wanted to live and not to
fight for world greatness,” he says (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=5AF29574DA91D).
“But
the powers that be weren’t interested in both sides then or now. And therefore
we see each May 9 become full of more hysteria and falsehood under the sauce of
patriotism. Who needs this? Only those in power. And they exploit the
image of Victory and not of Memory or Suffering. But what was Victory in that
way? It was when someone was able to Defeat Death.”
Only
one country today continues to glory in Its Victory, its Great Victory,”
Murashov says. “It isn’t interested in the victims of that war, and when it
does consider the losses, it considers only ‘its own.’ This country just as
before divides the entire world into its own and aliens – and with the passing
of years, it does this ever more so.”
And
all this, he says, means that “today, the most insane of the patriots instead
of saying ‘never again,’ which is what people said for many years after the
war, are crying in ecstasy ‘we can do it again.’ What is this?” Murashov asks
rhetorically. “This is insanity.”
While
one wouldn’t know it from the official Russia media or the speeches of Putin
and his minions, many other Russians feel the same way. Igor Dmitriyev and Sergey
Lapenkov, who in 2012 developed the idea of “The Immortal Regiment” before it
was “privatized” by the state and used in ways they never intended (sibreal.org/a/29122892.html).
On the official site
of their project, there are now more than 406,000 names. They are overwhelming
male and soldiers; and so the two of them decided to launch a subpage devoted
to the women who waited for them and fought other battles on the home front of
World War II in the Soviet Union.
Lapenkov
says that “we want to remember the stories of these women” and thus to remind
everyone that “’the Immortal Regiment’ is not about war, but about peace and
about peace. Because each woman who awaited the return of a soldier from the war,
wanted him alive, wanted that this war end so he would never have to leave home
again with arms in his hands.”
What
people in power think is a matter of indifference to us, he continues. “We have
not set ourselves political or doctrinal tasks. We have a very simple goal: we
would like that as many people who suffered and lived in those times be kept in
the memory of their descendants.” Obviously, he and his colleagues are among
the sanest; those who talk about a repetition aren’t.
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