Olexandra Povoroznyk: Tsars, spies and colonialism

By Dilip -
Colourful onion-domed churches capped with sparkling snow, seductive spies in lavish mink coats, dancing bears, strong-willed revolutionaries…we see these tropes everywhere. They feature in Netflix shows such as Shadow and Bone, in Marvel blockbusters, gritty Cold War-inspired thrillers, and children’s animated films like Anastasia. Western pop-culture’s fascination with Russia – or, rather, with a simplified and fantastical version of Russia’s complicated history – is understandable.

Back in the 1960s, at the height of the ideological rivalry between the US and the USSR, Russians were Hollywood’s go-to villains. When news of Russia’s involvement in the 2016 United States presidential election broke, old tropes came back with a vengeance and, once again, Hollywood started looking to Eastern Europe for inspiration.

The way the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union are portrayed in American media isn’t just unrealistic – at times it borders on absurdism. Liberties are taken with history, language, culture and politics. Slavic languages are turned into decorative nonsense (the Bourne Trilogy is a repeat offender), real-life events are swapped for fictitious ones, and most characters are walking blond-and-blue-eyed stereotypes....

https://www.eurozine.com/tsars-spies-and-colonialism/


Sergei Loznitsa, the Ukrainian film-maker who refuses to be cancelled


Don’t cry for me, Dostoevsky


Book review: Day of the Oprichnik, 16 Years Later


THE CANCELLATION OF RUSSIAN CULTURE. By Gary Saul Morson


P.B. Mehta: Ukraine invasion has revealed a new world disorder


JUAN COLE: The US would be on firmer ground declaring Putin a War Criminal if George W. Bush had been Tried / Aditya Chakrabortty: Western values? They enthroned the monster who is shelling Ukrainians today


Rohini Hensman: The Historical Background to Putin’s Invasion of Ukraine / Chris Hedges: The Greatest Evil Is War


10 Theses on the Proliferation of Egocrats (1977

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Ukraine: India refuses to take a clear position on the Russian invasion


Jonathan Steele: Understanding Putin’s narrative about Ukraine is the master key to this crisis / Oliver Stone: American Exceptionalism Is on Display in Ukraine / Mariia Shynkarenko: Not about NATO


Tory lobbying row over unregulated ‘Westminster Russia Forum’ / Donald Trump can't stop praising Vladimir Putin


Ukraine: Women giving birth in basements and bunkers / Russian bombing of maternity hospital ‘genocide’


ALFRED MCCOY - The Geopolitics of the Ukraine War: Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping in the Struggle over Eurasia


Why we need a new spirit of internationalism. By EDWY PLENEL; March 4, 2022


Noam Chomsky: Internationalism or Extinction (Universalizing Resistance)


Jason Fields: Putin's brutal record in Chechnya and Syria is ominous for Ukraine / My comments on Vladimir Putin's apologists


Rebecca Solnit: It’s time to confront the Trump-Putin network / George Monbiot: We must confront Russian propaganda / Moscow police detain children for laying flowers at Ukrainian embassy


Sergey Faldin: Putin is digging his own grave in Ukraine / Berlin stands up against Putin at huge anti-war rally / Indian Student Killed In Shelling In Kharkiv


Nesrine Malik: Let the horror in Ukraine open our eyes to the suffering of war around the world


Stalinism: A Study of Internal Colonialism (1977) by Alvin Gouldner


Book Review: Sankar Ray on Sobhanlal Datta Gupta's 'Comintern and the Destiny of Communism in India'


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