Ultranationalism or extreme nationalism is an extreme form of nationalism in which a country asserts or maintains detrimental hegemony, supremacy, or control over other countries (usually through coercion) to pursue its interests.
British political theorist Roger Griffin has stated that ultranationalism is essentially xenophobic and is known to legitimise itself "through deeply mythicized narratives of past cultural or political periods of historical greatness or of old scores to settle against alleged enemies".
I'm sure you will agree that the general Russian attitude toward Ukrainians fits that description. In my reply above, I gave references to show that it also describes a Ukrainian perspective toward ethnic Russians in Ukraine. The Russian case more fits the first quote and the Ukrainian more fits the second.
I gave Taras Kuzio as an example because he is a Ukrainian historian who is well-known in the West. Richard Sakwa is interesting to read alongside Kuzio because they cover the same history but from opposing perspectives.
Thank you for the Times of Israel article about the Azov fighter. That was quite interesting to get a first-hand perspective.
>> Based on what is written about this article elsewhere...
BTW, if you know of references discussing the Jeffrey Burds article, I really do want to see them.
> How do you do that? By supporting the factions that are. What are those factions? Hypernationalists, which in Ukraine's case means Banderites & other Nazi-aligned factions
You're describing a tiny fraction of Ukraine's armed forces and source of popular support, much of which has been destroyed or captured in the last year of war. It's simply untrue that Ukraine is being sustained by neo-Nazi elements.
> Regarding Russia/Ukraine conflict there's even more. There's no separate Ukrainian nation. It's not genes, it's not anything else
You seem to think that because Ukrainians and Russians have some shared heritage (cultural, linguistic and biological), they cannot be separate nations. But many other pairs of nations also share a significant degree of these things – Germany and Austria (and German-speaking Switzerland too), France and Belgium (Wallonia), Belgium and the Netherlands (Flanders), the US and Canada, the UK and Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. Do you apply the same standards to any of them?
> Republic of Ukraine was created by Lenin and later was supported by Stalin who promoted "ukrainization" of eastern regions of Russia.
Neither Lenin nor Stalin invented the Ukrainian nationalist movement. There were already people within Ukraine who viewed themselves as belonging to a distinct nation from Russia; Lenin and Stalin just decided to ally themselves with some of these people and grant them some of their policy wishes.
> We do not yet fully understand why they did it
Marxism was originally an anti-nationalist movement–hence, it was very natural for the Bolsheviks to oppose Russian nationalism and support the demands of ethnic minorities for autonomy. Then, in the 1930s, Stalin gradually changed his mind about the topic – he began to see ethnic autonomy movements as a potential threat to his rule, and started promoting Russian nationalism and Russification in response.
That's beside the point. Right now, there's a growing nationalist sentiment growing in Ukraine. If you go to Ukraine and shout this historical fact in the streets of, say, Kiyv, you might just encounter a group of people who violently disagree with the "underlying idea" (which you won't express, but they'll perceive) that Ukraine is Russia's bitch.
Imagine shouting about the Armenian genocide in Instanbul, or about the extermination and oppression of Native Americans in a major city in Texas.
Maybe not exactly, but you get the idea.
> My ancestors never immigrated from a country called Ukraine even though they were Ukrainian (or back then often called Ruthenian)
Yes Azov was founded right after, which tells you already there is some correlation with the Maidan. But do you think Azov was founded by a bunch of newborns, or maybe by the same militarly trained people who participated in the Maidan?
> The irony here is that you claim to be concerned about the dangers of Nazism. But then almost in the same breath, you dive head-first into weird tribalist diatribes like this.
So since you have nothing to deny the fact that Ukraine's identity is deeply rooted in nazism and violence, you resort to defining what I say as "weird tribalist diatribes", which is nonsense.
> Ukraine has neonazi militias that enjoy some level of government support and that have been involved in violent incidents in the past.
I'm trying to say that this would likely happen in any country where political unrest and corruption leads to a violent change of regime. That militia formed during Euromaidan, and they are useful to the government in so far as they are against occupation by Russia. Just as Nazi Germany was useful to my country (Finland) in the second world war.
Nazi bad, but a small group with nationalistic ideals fighting for the nation doesn't mean the nation is nazi, and it would be irrational to reject the aid of such a group in the fight against occupation. It'd be good for virtue signalling at most but you don't fight a country the size of Russia or China by thoughts and prayer and virtue signalling. And I'm pretty sure Putin would have some excuse for attacking Ukraine with or without a minuscle amount of neo-nazis in the soup.
If Ireland is invaded by a giant neighbor, the government isn't going to ask their infantry whether they're nationalists before letting them fight for your country.
If Putin thinks nazis are the reason to invade a country, he ought to invade Finland too. I'd still hope our nationalist party takes up arms and goes to the front lines to defend Finland. And they should have the Government's full support in doing so.
> yet point out and criticize that Neonazism does indeed enjoy broad support there.
This is extremely misleading (and I personally would argue wrong, but I assume good faith on your side) given that Ukrainian support for neo nazism is comparable to countries in western Europe, while russia who attack them is has a lot more neo-nazis, both in absolute numbers but also by percentage.
As for the Azov regiment, here is what wikipedia writes (emphasis mine):
> and allegedly continuing association with far-right
groups and neo-Nazi ideology,
Anyone who has followed the war in Ukraine can tell you that Jews and other minorities are heavily represented in modern Azov, including high profile members, which makes accusations about Azov being nazies somewhat ridiculous.
Again, I assume good faith on your side, but please be careful so you don't spread Russian "Z" narratives. It is incredibly damaging.
>Ukraine has existed as a country for a very long time. It has been fought over and divided by neighboring countries for most of its existence. I am saying that it's time for Ukrainians to find, define, and defend their identity.
I ask, what is its identity? Because historically it has close ties to Russia and a shared history with all Slavic people. In fact, how do we define what Ukraine was over history, since if that image I posted is correct most of it's territory was given by the Russian empire or Soviet leaders. Furthermore, Kiev was just as much the birthplace of Russia as Ukraine- current Russia and Ukraine were once indistinguishable as the principality of Kiev: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rus_de_Kiev_en_1237.png
>Stalin wanted to assimilate the rest of the soviet republics into one homogenized Russian-based people. Holodomor was a part of it. Re-read the Wikipedia article and the primary sources.
Re. Stalin: Let's not re-write history. USSR was Russia and Russia was USSR. No other country really mattered under Stalin and it was the Russian way or the highway.
Perhaps I am not familiar enough with it. Nonetheless, interesting how the hundreds of years of years of shared history should be disregarded because of the actions of one man who was ethnically neither Ukrainian nor Russian, and yet, according to you, killed Ukrainians in the name of Russians.
> I ask, what is its identity? Because historically it has close ties to Russia and a shared history with all Slavic people...
This is exactly the patronizing point of view that the Russians take of the Ukrainian identity: that it does not exist or that Ukraine is simply a part of Russia. This is exactly what the protesters are fighting. The fact that there are protesters on the streets right now is proof enough.
Moreover, any cultural identity does not exist in a vacuum. By your logic we can argue that the US has no identity of its own and is still just a breakaway British colony that is due to join the UK any day now. Just because one country invades another and subjugates its people for a period of time, does not make the occupied country a part of the occupying country. By that logic Poland has nearly as much claim on Ukraine as Russia does. Or, and I really like this one, Russia is just a part of Ukraine, and should immediately surrender all of its territories to Kiev immediately. After all Kiev was where Russia came from when Moscow was an insignificant fortress in the north.
> No, I am not Ukranian, nor Russian. Also I don't support either side. I think either regime is equally corrupted.
I am sorry, but as an ethnically Jewish, Belarusian-born, Russian-speaker residing in US, I have to say what you're engaging in is the equivalent of "mansplaining" (EDIT: or "patronizing" if you prefer).
To wit, on my Facebook, the only person who is presently in Ukraine (who attended school and a university in US before moving back to Ukraine after graduation) is also Jewish, takes his Jewish roots far more seriously than I do (he had his icons set to the Israeli flag a multiple times), and is posting protest related pictures, and reposting _Russian language_ messages like "My dad was seized by Berkut. Are there any lawyers here that can help out?"
In terms of Ukrainian-Americans posting on this that I know none shown any signs of ultra nationalism and have plenty of Jewish, Russian, and other former-USSR friends in US, and in terms of religion happen to include agnostic, Orthodox (Western Ukraine has a larger Catholic presence as it was part of Poland and Austro-Hungarian Empire), and a Muslim.
(I tend to note that Passionate Americans That Know Everything Because They Read it On the Internet Somehow are going to likely 'splain this way with a Zionist conspiracy -- in a language very similar to what ultranationalists themselves use, ironically -- but Israel itself generally takes a "realpolitik" approach to these kinds of situations and the Israeli _government_ has made no statements).
My personal view of this is the extent to which the Western Media is under-reporting this story (and in my view they are: this has rarely, for example, come up on my Yahoo News pager which is generally syndicated from mainstream sources) is playing into the hands of ultra-nationalists. Keep in mind that Ukraine is far from the only country in Europe to have ultra-nationalist voted in as part genuine views and part protest votes: Golden Dawn in Greece had far greater electoral results and is far scarier, there's also Jobbik in Hungary, BNP in UK, National Front in France, and so on...
It is very much in Russia's interest to make sure ultra-nationalists become the dominant party in this: should the leader of Svoboda run against Yanukovich, the result would be a land-slide for Yanukovich. The best analogue for this is actually probably when David Duke (a KKK leader, anti-Semite, the full nine yards) ran for governor of Lousiana against a known crook (the bumper stickers were "vote for the crook, it's important"). He received many votes as a protest, but it would be insane to think his views represented the mainstream conservative US politics (he ran as a republican party candidate, but his opponent was endorsed by the republican party).
I should also note that generally in former USSR "right" doesn't mean what it means in US: the political spectrum there is best describes as a circle: mix of left-wing and right-wing liberals on one end (a spectrum between those who favour a Scandanvian-style welfare state and those leaning towards classical liberalism -- essentially the entire US/UK/Canada would simply be called "liberalism" in former USSR) and a "red-brown alliance" on the other.
I'd also add that Svoboda is actually very much anti-EU (again not much different from other far-right morons in Europe) and realistically speaking, should they come to power in any shape or form (they will never win a democratic election), they'll be overthrown far quicker than you can say "faster than Morsi/Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt". Since anti-Nazism is a very strong unifying theme between Russia and Western Europe, no one will actually tolerate a neo-Nazi state in Europe.
> Ethnic cleansing? Never mind that Russians and Ukrainians have the same ethnicity, what is this supposed to mean?
They really don't. Even ignoring the fact that it's idiotic to talk about a single Russian ethnicity given the Russian Federation is comprised of multiple distinct ethnic and cultural heritages, Ukraine has a distinct and independent ethnicity.
Just because they look alike to you and you can't tell apart which language is which, that does not mean they are not separate and distinct ethnicities. Hell, don't take my word for it. Just listen to what Russia's regime has to say about Ukraine and what they perceive their untermensch role towards Russia should be to understand how silly it is to not talk about ethnic cleansing.
> Doesn't Russia has its own Nazi problem at the domestic level?
Every western country has some localized neo-nazi phenomenon. But I don't think any of them have official sanction or form part of that country's armed forces. This might be a first.
> It does not justify the invasion at this scale against a functioning democracy.
The only thing that matters here is Putin's words because he has the military power to back them. He says Russians have been murdered in large numbers. And there is some evidence that things like that happen.[1][2]
The point is that in case of Ukraine the pro-russian half of the population did not want to be governed by us-installed government who started their reign by changing the language legislature in favor of the ukranian language. The anti-russian political tilt resulted in federalisation demands from the eastern regions as well as crimea which progressed into full-blown separatism (eventually supported by russia).
I believe it is quite immoral to blame Russia for supporting pro-russian separatists when the federal government installed by the US was effectively nationalistic.
The history of that region is indeed very long and very complex, and the black and white picture painted by both western and Russian media is downright frustrating.
To give examples, Crimea was historically neither Russian nor Ukrainian, it was Tatar, and Ukraine is itself a weird cultural patchwork of Poles, Lithuanians, Prussians, Russians and a long list of other minor ethnic groups.
>This is exactly the patronizing point of view that the Russians take of the Ukrainian identity: that it does not exist or that Ukraine is simply a part of Russia.
Personally I believe Ukraine and Russia should be equals in whatever future association they make. I see nothing wrong with saying Russia should equally be a part of Ukraine. It is just easier to imagine the opposite because Russia is bigger.
>This is exactly what the protesters are fighting. The fact that there are protesters on the streets right now is proof enough.
There are all sorts of protesters out there, and I have read that most of them are protesting corruption, not the trade agreement or East vs West. Anyway, let the elections decide.
>Just because one country invades another and subjugates its people for a period of time, does not make the occupied country a part of the occupying country.
Except Ukraine willingly joined the Russian empire in 1654. And again, many Ukrainians would like closer ties to Russia.
>Moreover, any cultural identity does not exist in a vacuum. By your logic we can argue that the US has no identity of its own and is still just a breakaway British colony that is due to join the UK any day now.
The similarity is that the US and the UK have very strong relations, and a difference is that many hundreds of years have elapsed since the American revolution. But, similarly, during the American revolution, there were royalists, and a foreign power (the French) did intervene to defeat the British. The point is that many Ukrainians would like closer ties to Russia, particularly those in the East.
Also, why pick the US when you can pick Canada- the Queen still comes by to visit, we have a governor-general, we are part of the commonwealth, and so on. A lot of people here feel close ties to the UK because of their British heritage.
> support Ukrainian army as private persons, without government/state.
How do you hope to defeat Russia without coordinating with the lawful and most powerful institutions in the country? Note also that probably all foreign government assistance, especially the motherlodes of assistance from NATO states, including cyber, will be going through the Ukranian government.
> You could just donate, or you could create some business opportunity
How will creating business opportunities do anything to protect the freedom of the Ukranian people or defeat the Russian invasion? It seems like a major distraction from a crisis.
> any government got totalitarian power and does not account on people
Calling the Ukranian government undemocratic is a leading talking point of Russia and their allies. How do we distinguish what you are saying from them?
All your points seem to reduce support for and divert it from the Ukranian government and their military. Isn't that absurdly dangerous in this moment?
> I'm Ukrainian activist for 10+ years, have been on Maidan, etc, know many other activists.
With due respect, in this atmosephere, how can we take the word of an anonymous person on the Internet? Would you trust such a person? How would you distinguish them?
>Again what does all this have to do with flower crowns and embroidered dresses?
ask the nationalists. It was the article and the original comment author who originally brought it up as a symbol of Ukranian nationalism. I just mentioned most notable examples of that nationalism.
>the centuries-long campaign to suppress Ukrainian culture
you obviously just don't know what you're talking about.
> Yup - they're literally saying that the fact of a tiny fringe group that managed to get involved with the Muj in Chechnya -- is equivalent to saying that Ukraine as a whole (or its government, whatever) supported those folks.
Yup - they're literally saying that the fact of a tiny fringe group that managed to get involved with Crimea and Donbass in 2014 -- is equivalent to saying that Russia as a whole (or its government, whatever) supported those folks.
Yup - they're literally saying that the fact of a tiny fringe group that managed to get involved with the terrorists in Baghdad/Kabul -- is equivalent to saying that Iraq/Afghanistan as a whole (or its government, whatever) supported those folks.
In other words, the person registered "77 days ago" loses their entire awareness of role reversal in an attempt to fit reality into their botched worldview. It would be nice to hear, at least, what Ukraine did do to prosecute the so called fringe group that was threatening foreign relations of the entire state, but that would be too much for you to answer. Especially in the light of knowing that UNA-UNSO got integrated into the governing body of the country [1]. Let me guess: "they are still the minority". Great coping nonetheless.
Well, I can accept the definition at Wikipedia. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultranationalism)
Ultranationalism or extreme nationalism is an extreme form of nationalism in which a country asserts or maintains detrimental hegemony, supremacy, or control over other countries (usually through coercion) to pursue its interests.
British political theorist Roger Griffin has stated that ultranationalism is essentially xenophobic and is known to legitimise itself "through deeply mythicized narratives of past cultural or political periods of historical greatness or of old scores to settle against alleged enemies".
I'm sure you will agree that the general Russian attitude toward Ukrainians fits that description. In my reply above, I gave references to show that it also describes a Ukrainian perspective toward ethnic Russians in Ukraine. The Russian case more fits the first quote and the Ukrainian more fits the second.
I gave Taras Kuzio as an example because he is a Ukrainian historian who is well-known in the West. Richard Sakwa is interesting to read alongside Kuzio because they cover the same history but from opposing perspectives.
Thank you for the Times of Israel article about the Azov fighter. That was quite interesting to get a first-hand perspective.
>> Based on what is written about this article elsewhere...
BTW, if you know of references discussing the Jeffrey Burds article, I really do want to see them.
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