I have not thought much of Hobsbawm since this post from mark s:
hobsbawm is and always has been a dismal cultural hypocrite - key sentence: " Whenever Hobsbawm enters a politically sensitive zone, he retreats into hooded, wooden language, redolent of Party-speak."
EH even wrote about jazz, which he loved, under a pseudonym, so as not to fall into disrepute w.the party (jazz of course being a music where "message" and "medium" can't be cut adrift from one another, as per the standard-issue brainless idealism of the line enrique quotes)
-- mark s (mar...), November 3rd, 2003.
The article Mark linked to is regrettably no longer available for free, but is worth reading if you're not familiar with it.
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 30 January 2006 17:52 (eighteen years ago) link
― bethune, Monday, 30 January 2006 17:58 (eighteen years ago) link
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/br/thumb/b/b9/Honecker.jpg/180px-Honecker.jpg
http://www.dhm.de/lemo/objekte/pict/KontinuitaetUndWandel_photoWalterUlbricht/index.jpg
― Eisbär (llamasfur), Monday, 30 January 2006 18:02 (eighteen years ago) link
seriously, i'm more awed than appalled. it's like frozen caveman or something.
― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Monday, 30 January 2006 18:08 (eighteen years ago) link
― jocelyn (Jocelyn), Monday, 30 January 2006 18:23 (eighteen years ago) link
However, if not, then it is just a simple matter of bethune not having learned that, if one point of view is obviously wrong, it does not make the opposite side obviously right. The propaganda wars of the twentieth century were like Duelling Banjos - both sides were playing the same damn lying banjo.
― Aimless (Aimless), Monday, 30 January 2006 18:42 (eighteen years ago) link
― trappist monkey, Monday, 30 January 2006 18:49 (eighteen years ago) link
― trappist monkey, Monday, 30 January 2006 18:55 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 30 January 2006 18:56 (eighteen years ago) link
http://www.soviethistory.org/images/Chrome/photobar1936.jpg
― Eisbär (llamasfur), Monday, 30 January 2006 19:00 (eighteen years ago) link
Can we stop scaring bethune away with taunting? I'm interested in what he/she has to say.
― Cathy (Cathy), Monday, 30 January 2006 19:00 (eighteen years ago) link
http://images.encarta.msn.com/xrefmedia/sharemed/targets/images/pho/t059/T059123A.jpg
― Eisbär (llamasfur), Monday, 30 January 2006 19:01 (eighteen years ago) link
― Eisbär (llamasfur), Monday, 30 January 2006 19:07 (eighteen years ago) link
― mookieproof (mookieproof), Monday, 30 January 2006 19:08 (eighteen years ago) link
Cathy, I heart you, but I said that it wasn't available for free in my post!
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 30 January 2006 19:17 (eighteen years ago) link
― Cathy (Cathy), Monday, 30 January 2006 19:21 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 30 January 2006 19:25 (eighteen years ago) link
― DV (dirtyvicar), Monday, 30 January 2006 19:31 (eighteen years ago) link
"Stalin, who presided over the ensuing iron age of the USSR, was an autocrat of exceptional, some might say unique, ferocity, ruthlessness and lack of scruple. Few men have manipulated terror on a more massive scale. There is no doubt that under some other leader of the Bolshevik party the sufferings of the peoples of the USSR would have been less, the number of victims smaller. Nevertheless, any policy of rapid modernisation in the USSR, under the circumstances of the time, was bound to be ruthless and, because imposed against the bulk of the people and imposing serious sacrifices on them, to some extent coercive."
― Cathy (Cathy), Monday, 30 January 2006 19:44 (eighteen years ago) link
Apparently, he was only 5'3".
― Cathy (Cathy), Monday, 30 January 2006 19:51 (eighteen years ago) link
Ah, but I have. ;-) His stuff always ends up on reserve over here, so I've dipped in from time to time.
I have to say that piece you're quoting doesn't do much to change my image of him.
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 30 January 2006 19:59 (eighteen years ago) link
actually in ref. to TOMBOT's earlier question, soviet film probably represents the single most lasting and awesome artistic achievement by the USSR. of course, the vast majority of the good stuff was mercilessly cut by censors or flat-out banned (and was usually implictly critical of the regime and especially socialist realism anyway), but there's a lotta good shit to be found.
― ZR (teenagequiet), Monday, 30 January 2006 19:59 (eighteen years ago) link
otm
― mookieproof (mookieproof), Monday, 30 January 2006 20:02 (eighteen years ago) link
― andy --, Monday, 30 January 2006 20:06 (eighteen years ago) link
― The Man in the Iron-On Mask (noodle vague), Monday, 30 January 2006 20:08 (eighteen years ago) link
― M. White (Miguelito), Monday, 30 January 2006 20:08 (eighteen years ago) link
It's telling that German soldiers would walks 200+ miles to be captured by the Americans.
― andy --, Monday, 30 January 2006 20:15 (eighteen years ago) link
― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 30 January 2006 20:19 (eighteen years ago) link
― Cathy (Cathy), Monday, 30 January 2006 20:20 (eighteen years ago) link
I think German policy in the occupied Soviet Union might have a lot to do with that.
― The Man in the Iron-On Mask (noodle vague), Monday, 30 January 2006 20:22 (eighteen years ago) link
The early Soviet era (pre-Socialist Realism) - revolutionary era blending into Lenin with stragglers into Stalinism was ripe with art. Rodchenko and Malevich and El Lissitzky, Constructivism/Suprematism, etc. Eisenstein and early Soviet film, of course.
Also, The Man With The Camera and I Am Cuba for later achievements. And Tarkovsky.
Also at issue is our insularity - westerners in general know relatively little about the painting or the photography or the writing of the later Soviet era, and film knowledge is largely confined to those who broke into the Euro art film market (Tarkovsky), but not much about popular film making.
― Erick Dampier is better than Shaq (miloaukerman), Monday, 30 January 2006 20:23 (eighteen years ago) link
You can also treat the failures with more than a 'well, shucks, it was bound to hurt anyway' diffidence.
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 30 January 2006 20:28 (eighteen years ago) link
― andy --, Monday, 30 January 2006 20:29 (eighteen years ago) link
― Masked Gazza, Monday, 30 January 2006 20:29 (eighteen years ago) link
dovzhenko's "earth"
kuleshov
meyerhold
all totally brilliant
― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 30 January 2006 20:31 (eighteen years ago) link
ts: the great depression vs collectivization/"liquidation" as a "kulak"/mass famine
― mookieproof (mookieproof), Monday, 30 January 2006 20:35 (eighteen years ago) link
― jocelyn (Jocelyn), Monday, 30 January 2006 20:36 (eighteen years ago) link
Not to mention that maybe if there hadn't been all those military purges then just maybe the Nazis wouldn't have been so successful as they were initially. And how much further death was the result?
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 30 January 2006 20:38 (eighteen years ago) link
― Erick Dampier is better than Shaq (miloaukerman), Monday, 30 January 2006 20:41 (eighteen years ago) link
― ZR (teenagequiet), Monday, 30 January 2006 20:43 (eighteen years ago) link
― jocelyn (Jocelyn), Monday, 30 January 2006 20:45 (eighteen years ago) link
That isn't how I understand Hobswbawm's attitude at all. But, oh well.
― Cathy (Cathy), Monday, 30 January 2006 20:50 (eighteen years ago) link
― bethune, Monday, 30 January 2006 22:11 (eighteen years ago) link
Anybody seen "Night Watch"?
― kingfish kuribo's shoe (kingfish 2.0), Monday, 30 January 2006 22:16 (eighteen years ago) link
Katyn Forest Massacre
These "objective" observers obviously have a vested interest in painting as dark a picture as possible of most of the SU's most successful and transformative policies and programs.
The Artificial Famine/Genocide in Ukraine 1932-33
― Eisbär (llamasfur), Monday, 30 January 2006 22:26 (eighteen years ago) link
― kingfish kuribo's shoe (kingfish 2.0), Monday, 30 January 2006 22:31 (eighteen years ago) link
― Mike W (caek), Monday, 30 January 2006 22:31 (eighteen years ago) link
Having quasi-left wing versions of Holocaust deniers is a major bummer.
― Erick Dampier is better than Shaq (miloaukerman), Monday, 30 January 2006 22:34 (eighteen years ago) link
― jeffrey (johnson), Monday, 30 January 2006 22:44 (eighteen years ago) link
― bethune, Monday, 30 January 2006 22:48 (eighteen years ago) link
just atheist things
― À la recherche du scamps perdu (Noodle Vague), Monday, 3 August 2020 11:02 (three years ago) link
I've seen Remember Holodomor stencilled on walls all across Lisbon and along the coast. Ukrainians second largest immigrant group
― cherry blossom, Monday, 3 August 2020 11:43 (three years ago) link
Some dick I heard in passing on the radio yesterday was just thinking thoughts about whether Ukraine regretted getting rid of its nukes
― À la recherche du scamps perdu (Noodle Vague), Monday, 3 August 2020 12:00 (three years ago) link
In an unrelated note here is a 10 mins interview with Nadeszha Mandelstam, who wrote a couple of great memoirs of her husband (who was in the end sent to prison and died there) and that time.
https://t.co/uCun5aOjYCNadezhda Mandelstam talking about Osip Mandelstam.(english)— flowerville_ii (@flowerville_II) July 27, 2020
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 3 August 2020 12:41 (three years ago) link
"im so horny for josef stalin!" "oh no!" you say, clutching your pearls. "he's a pisces"— wint but AI (@dril_gpt2) December 4, 2020
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 5 December 2020 12:53 (three years ago) link
kids these days irl
― Left, Saturday, 5 December 2020 14:42 (three years ago) link
My son drew this five years ago. Other artists have failed to capture Stalin’s cheeky grin. pic.twitter.com/FziNNJVtnQ— Jon Dennis (@JonDennis) November 21, 2021
― mookieproof, Sunday, 21 November 2021 20:55 (two years ago) link
Stalin knew how to read books pic.twitter.com/CMQgz2gIHH— Daniel Zamora Vargas (@DanielZamoraV) February 19, 2022
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 19 February 2022 11:10 (two years ago) link
"rubbish" "scumbag" "piss off"
^^^
me reading the Graun
― calzino, Saturday, 19 February 2022 11:16 (two years ago) link