Review: Żmija

Żmija by Andrzej Sapkowski
My rating: 5 of 5 stars



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We, the People

 What we observe in Afghanistan now, that was Kremlin's expectation for Ukraine in 2014. And they were right about the army, Ukrainian military was almost nonexistent back then. They were right about law enforcement, its personnel en masse fled or committed treason. They were right about state in general, state apparatus was in full disarray after Yanukovych regime collapsed. They were wrong in only one thing, and this was their undoing. The People. Ukrainians.

The Kremlin's grand geopolitical design of Novorossia, the rapid offensive of their proxy forces from Donetsk and Luhansk regions, the capture of Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhia, Kherson, Mykolaiv, Odessa regions, providing land access to the already occupied Crimea and the occupied Transnistria in Moldova, all these grandiose dreams of the Muscovite führer, that should have consolidated his legacy as an imperial 'collector of lands' - all this was crushed by Ukrainian people.

Advancing Russian proxies pushed the same narrative as the Taliban. "We are liberators. We come to free you from this decadent puppets of the Western countries in your capital and to bring you to the true light" (only this 'true light' was not the Islamic fundamentalism but Russian imperialism in this case).

But all these pro-Russian forces were fought back by common Ukrainians. By Citizens. By Volunteers. They gave the state precious time to regain itself. And the 'great design' of the Kremlin collapsed. We would fully free from their mercenaries Donetsk and Luhansk regions as well if not the intervention of the Russian regular army.

So this is the difference. People.

Much Adoe About Nothing in the boarding school

 A genuinely hilarious comedy. I haven't laughed so hard for quite a some time. The British movie of 1950 is a perfect example of the classical genre of the comedy of situation. Additionally, I took a lot of pleasure in the language itself. The British English of the after war England sounds in three dimensions simultaneously: professors, pupils, and commoners (such as the groundskeeper). An excellent excursion into the morals and social life of those years as well. Strongly recommend.

Review: Strategic Narratives: Communication Power and the New World Order

Strategic Narratives: Communication Power and the New World Order by Alister Miskimmon
My rating: 5 of 5 stars



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Review: Deep Storm

Deep Storm by Lincoln Child
My rating: 5 of 5 stars



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meditatio

 

Both in modern Russian fiction and in modern Japanese anime (manga, dorama) the genre of “popadanci” is extremely popular – when a person, usually an average one, without special talents, or even just a loser, gets into another world, or in the past. But there is a fundamental difference. In Russian opuses, the protagonist, as a rule, immediately undertakes a task of colossal proportions, becomes an adviser to Stalin, say (or reincarnates in Stalin’s body), which leads, for example, to the USSR becoming a global empire. Everything is focused on great power, the hero tries to build a paradise (as in the Russian chauvinist vision) on earth.

Japanese works, for all their external naivety, actually demonstrate the hero’s difficult path to self-knowledge and self-improvement, healing his inner traumas, overcoming fears and finding εὐδαιμονία in a purely Aristotelian sense, as a state of happiness and peace with himself and the universe. And although in some places these heroes have questionable moral qualities and prefer to position themselves as cynics (reminiscent of Callicles from the Platonic dialogue) – in the end, faced with difficult life decisions, and they go through a certain internal transformation, rethinking themselves and their attitudes to others.

Needless to say, the Japanese way impresses me much more.