Re: Piss Poor Propaganda [Was: Re: A good documentary.]

Vladimir Makarenko wrote:

> So after all the BS around here and before I saw the movie "Baltic
> Nazism" (translation is mine, otherwise maybe translated as proposed by
> Martin - "Nazism Baltic way") I really thought it's just a propaganda
> style shoot.

> No. That the Russian opinion is given without any masking doesn't make
> it "propaganda", besides it gives at least some insight for an outside
> viewer what was going on and originated from. Basic facts, - M-R pact,
> or that Estonian SS volunteering was negligibly small, and practically
> zero in Lithuania (well,- Henry told once so). Latvia's situation is
> interpreted as a case close to a civil war.

> VM.

[corrected text]

I downloaded the movie this morning and watched some of it -- I suppose
I'll try to suffer through the rest later. It is quite obviously a
propaganda film, something the director makes crystal clear with the
very first scenes, deftly joining documentary footage of the war to
recent shots of Shtab protests -- protests carefully designed for
exactly this effect, with radical Russophone politicians like Pliner
and Gilman sporting yellow stars of David and prison stripes to try to
impress Western film crews (if the intent is not already clear from the
name of the production company, "The Third Rome").

Please note that Gospodin Gilman demands the "liquidation" of Latvia,
claiming that its very existence is a "total evil" like unto Nazism.
The "Canadian pensioner" is to be evicted from Riga Castle, which is to
be the Palce of the Young Pioneers once again. Cut to Rubiks, a
convicted criminal who led the Committee of National Salvation that
would have gleefully co-ordinated repression had the coup against
Gorbachev not failed. This is "the Russian opinion without any
masking"? If so, "the Russian opinion" should be wholly disregarded as
irredeemably twisted and fundamentally sick.

Interpreting "Latvia's situation [...] as a case close to a civil war"
is hardly new -- it's merely warmed over Soviet falsification of
history. People like Rubiks cling to it because their whole world-view
is dependent on it. I would go further to suggest that most of the
ethnic Russians in Latvia refuse to accept the fact of occupation
because it is psychologically impossible for them to face their
history.

I'm afraid you can now read _Soviet_ documents that accept the fact
that the Legion was formed by coercive conscription, e.g., in the
secret report by the People's Commissar of State Security of the USSR,
Vsevolod Merkulov, to Jānis Kalnbērziņš, head of the Latvian
Communist Party, dated 24 July 1943.

Nobody except Hui and his ilk would deny that there were some Latvians
who committed war crimes. Andrew Ezergailis' estimate: "The criminally
guilty, using the criteria of the war crimes trials in the West, would
involve about 500 to 600 men, 1,000 at the most. That would include
four dozen journalists who wrote, edited, and published Nazi propaganda
about the Jews." (_The Holocaust in Latvia_)

Trying to tie in supposed Nazi sympathies during the War -- which were
definitely not widespread, as has been discussed here quite often --
with the current situation... or, more specifically, with the current
resentment for Latvian independence and democracy by Russian
chauvinists, aging, irrelevant _homines sovietici_, and disaffected
young Russophones ...is a pathetic attempt at primitive propaganda,
nothing more.

Could there be a valid "Russian view," really? Sure, why not -- there
are facts and different perspectives on those facts, and much depends
on how you string the facts together to make a story. I certainly don't
expect many Russians to swallow Latvian nationalist history. As Leo
Dribins, one of the leading historiographers of Jewish history in
Latvia, suggested -- there are Russian historians who remind him of
Baltic German apologists, Latvian historians of the national school,
and those (like Ezergailis) who have benefited from Western approaches
to history.

When the new history of 20th C Latvia was published in Russian by
Jumava, some Russian historians said they wouldn't comment on the
brouhaha because the controversy had nothing whatsoever to do with
history -- one admitted privately that it is impossible for Russians to
deal with Baltic history at this time. Any perusal of the Russian
language press makes the truth of that unfortunate assessment obvious,
and Jânis
(idoc) is correct when he notes that this primitive approach is
unsuccessful -- oh, sure, many of the same useful idiots who opposed
the condemnation of communist crimes (signing their names next to
Rubiks') may eat up stuff like this movie, but serious people simply
won't. Claiming that Latvia is a concentration camp, as many of the
leaders involved with Shtab do, simply doesn't fly.

I could go to Mississippi and shoot video footage of KKK members and
Southern separatists, black nationalists and ghetto dwellers, put it
together with all the sledgehammer subtlety of Oliver Stone, and screen
it as a definitive overview of contemporary race relations in the US.
Maybe the same people who swallow this flick without salt would buy it,
eh?

It's unfortunate that some of Latvia's loudmouthed politicians deepen
this farce by asking that this movie be banned and writing to
Ambassador Kalyuzhny (who didn't see it and says he doesn't want to see
it). The best response is that of reputable historians, who summarized
the film as a jumble of distortions. So it is.

Vsego khoroshego,
/P

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Peteris_Cedrins

.

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