I left off in the previous article stating that "ad nauseam are so nasty they can replace actual memories", which is why history cannot be trusted and cannot be used to justify everything. History is basically something that has been repeated often enough to make someone believe it was truly so. Right? As you'll see, it depends.
Another reason I hate history
History is written by victors. If you secretly kill a whole ethnicity to take over their land - tell everyone they deserved it and that you did the right thing purging the evil. Tell everyone they disappeared due to natural causes. Tell everyone it was a "civil war" and they killed themselves; that you came too late to stop the madness. It worked in the prehistoric times (see Roman propaganda), and seems to be perfectly working even now. Nothing new under the sun indeed.
Unless an emperor did not manage to completely eradicate or assimilate a certain culture, history is written by victors. Otherwise, those few survivors will remember the humiliation, mass killings, torture, theft, and every imaginable and unimaginable atrocity that a warring victorious legion threw upon the innocent civilians. If someone still remembers, a pitiful Emperor just didn't do it right.
Bulgaria remembers the Turks. Armenia remembers, too. But hey, do they really remember or were they simply fooled into remembering? Here is the answer. There is a simple difference between something your grandmother told you, that she saw with her own eyes, and something written all over the news, the newspapers, the radio, deep-mouthed ideologues, troll farms, state-backed TV shows, or any other kind of state-backed media. Something genuine is an array of unique facts tied to specific places, experiences, and people. Propaganda-induced messages are always boringly same. Any brainwashed zombie can be replaced by another and still spit the same cliche messages and labels. Zombies only appeal to the source of propaganda, not their own experiences. And this is how you track genuine historical truths.
The memory of a failed conquest in those who refused to submit is an insult to a pitiful emperor. And this is why they order the burning of particular insulting books, which is very telling of their impotence. Impotence to justify the genocide and demonstrate a bit of kindness or intelligence. No, their way is blood and violence – and the book burning.
History is written by victors. And if you didn't write it yourself then you didn't properly win. It makes me wonder, isn't it the reason why Azerbaijan, with Turkey at their back, keep pressing Armenia... Perhaps Armenia is their undying shame and guilt they wish to wipe clean – properly this time. And why are they so sensitive about Kurdish "terrorists"? Huh! 🤔
At this point I have to admit that history as a whole—at least to some extent—is a crude consensus of the memories of survivors. Mixed up with blood-stinking imperial propaganda.
Aren't you curious to know what Ukraine remembers about Soviet Russia?.. Russian Empire? Muscovy? I may still get to it unless a buryat "liberator" comes here to claim their "historical land" and liberate me from my mortal existence. Not a freaking joke.
One more reason I hate history
Non-verifiable. In other words, historical facts you are being presented with lie outside of your reality bubble. They are, as it were, transcendent. Like God. They are outside of your sphere of perception, spatially and temporally. None of them can be refuted, like the existence of the
Russell's Teapot.
So what if you've read it in a reference book? Education abides by state policies more often than not. And if, as I just said, your own granny didn't tell it (or the other sincere living witnesses who rely on their immediate experience) then there must be a great deal of doubt to throw at the subject.
You may be thinking that I'm chewing it over too much. I have to. Ad nauseam. Until it's everywhere, until it becomes the truth. The truth perseveres at the cost of sheer enthusiasm of survivors. The truth fights an uphill battle against the lies of propaganda. Any large empire has plenty—stolen!—resources to pour into lies and fool half of the globe. But! These pathetic conquerors still didn't properly win.
The final reason I hate history
Emotional bias. One is inclined to protect their identity: their national identity in this particular case. Pick a random nation. There's almost a guarantee that they've been spotted doing something really bad.
Any nation has committed something bad at some point of their history. Either lashing in revenge or proactively having "fun", raiding the neighbors, there is no single innocent, pristine, love-and-light nation in the world that I'm aware of. Prove me wrong. And no, your nation doesn't count.
So, if you pick a random atrocity of a random nation, then, come to someone who identifies with that nation and call them out on the atrocity in question, chances are, they will deny it or justify it, accuse you or blame everyone else.
But the kind and the intelligent ones will do the right thing: they will apologize on the behalf of their nation. And possibly ask in return: so what the hell do you want about it, what is the real premise?
If one part of someone's identity is threatened, they feel it as a personal threat. Here is one hot example. "Men are inherently irresponsible", my mom used to tell me, and still does. Sounds like a tongue-in-cheek insult, doesn't it? Technically, it is not a personal insult but every man, hearing this, would be challenged either to agree or try to disprove it.
So you can imagine what calling out a Russian on the atrocities of their nation turns into. Denial, accusations, "the Brits did it in 1686 too", "the Romans did it in 213 B.C. too", victim-blaming, or even "they deserved even worse".
But hey, if every nation has done an atrocity here or there, then what's all the rant about? No big deal?
Take a moment and compare the magnitude of evil caused by different nations, and there's your answer. Did Lithuanians—for example—ever genocide another nation under the spell of some sick ideology? Quite on the contrary.
Bot moderators will yell at me for posting active HTTP links, so go ahead and take a look right here, if you may:
www.truelithuania.com/tag/soviet-genocide-in-lithuania
So, no. You don't put an equals sign between a victim and a murderer. There has to be a way of measuring responsibility – and punishment.
Anders Breivik didn't even get a life sentence, although he should. And the parents of all the children he killed felt disrespected. Is it fair, kind, civilized?
The grim reality is that you still can find sympathizers of Breivik, the killer of 77, a blatant Nazi. Just like you can find the sympathizers of the modern warmongering Russia. The latter quote each other, find other sympathizers farther and farther into history and space and keep forging excuses or justifications for their nation. What comes out of it? A character of an arrogant racist Russian who doesn't recognize their own hypocrisies – also sincerely and deeply surprised and upset about mass "russophobia" around the world.
These four reasons why history is hateful are only a disclaimer before I actually proceed to breaking the history of Ukraine and Russia, from the standpoint of a Ukrainian. That is, to debunk some of the widespread misconceptions and help a foreigner see the reasons for today's war, and its long-term implications. There will be a dispassionate judgment, as well as an emotional one, without a grain of nihilist lies. Also, a demonstration how Russia cynically manipulates and distorts history to brainwash their Z-legions.
Back to my list: history is hateful. Here is why.
- Relies on faulty human memory, which can be altered under pressure.
- Written by victors.
- Non-verifiable.
- Biased. Politically-aligned "historians" reference only the works that reinforce their point.
And if you look at Russian propaganda, it is often so deeply grounded in history that not a single powerful statement goes without it. All of it merely to mislead the inattentive, as you'll see.