The barbarism he speaks of macro on the occasion of the brutal and shameful Russian invasion of Ukraine is probably the right word for this moment. It is not from the everyday repertoire, there is something anachronistic and dark in it, as in everything Putin Russia is working these years. When a serious Frenchman, and from the president no matter what he is, in principle you expect seriousness, chooses that very word, it is clear that he is more than taken aback by what he sees. Barbarism is always more than simple inaction, it is an attack on fundamental values - that is why the original Greek term meant those who did not speak the Hellenic language. Another world. In the concept of barbarism, one would say, the emphasis is not on taking over some value, but on its total destruction.
How is such barbarism born? How can it fall so low? Which is all it takes. What can "desirable" Russian political fantasies tell us about this?
First of all, it is necessary - a bunch of lies. And the propaganda machinery that makes people afraid to recognize a lie. That is why the true hero is the Russian football player Denisov who publicly condemned the attack on Ukraine.
In order for people to be able to commit atrocities you must first dehumanize them. How? The lies and nonsense you push them to believe. If anyone knows these mechanisms, it's us here, at least those who witnessed the nineties. Should I not remind?
Do Russians read their great writers? A different type of reading seems to be more popular there.
In this mass orgy of deception, historical revisionism is the basic method. Recently, we were able to read an interesting text about the extreme popularity of a branch of the fantasy genre after 2010 in Russia.
These are novels with "visitors", i.e. time travelers. To people who come to experience - earlier eras. The genre relies on the model of the humorous French film.
Interesting, but in all those fantasies, the West - damn it. From Russia and Germany. Those of Germany, clearly...
For example, states the author of the text of one such book: the modern Russian wakes up in the body Tsar Nicholas II, and manages to do the “right” things. He prevents the October Revolution, manages to preserve the empire, transforms it into a modern superpower...
One of such novels writes the second wet dream of current Russian "patriots": Hitler does not attack Stalinov Russia, he already turns to her as a true and reliable ally, and together they start a war against the Anglo-American Nemani. Something like that. And all that - in many variants.
Therefore, the greatest political fantasy of Putin's consciousness is to be Hitler who "will not make the same mistakes". And at the same time, there is no problem talking about the "denazification" of Ukraine? Imperial cynicism at work.
Putin's self-definition as an incarnation reaches the registers of the pathological Peter the Great. Whose fascination with the West he does not share, but appreciates its success.
When I read all this, I thought - if only our patriots don't "discover" this genre. Admittedly, this genre is not completely unknown here, here some variants of such fantasizing are part of church and so-called. folk traditions. The new Montenegrin version would certainly be special. Maybe less global, but no less imaginative... We would quickly read novels about how it is Milo Djukanovic won at Vučje dol or Krusi, or how, at one time, he brought the printing press to Cetinje. Revisionism is simple: you just have to cross the "line", then anything is possible.
"Neutrality means being with the aggressor," he says Josep Borelj. Sometimes it really is.
That is why the Prime Minister's departure to Kyiv is the right move. It is certain that part of the citizens will resent it or will simply reason from that classic Montenegrin inferiority - what are we going to do there. If there was ever a place for us - then it is there and right now. Because today the heroes of Gorski vijenc live there. Because at this time, Kiev is the capital of Europe. Rome and Constantinople attacked…
In the age Attila.
Bonus video:
