You’re not going to find many books to the effect of, “see how hegemonic we aren’t”, so you mainly need to look at how the ussr treated republics within it, and especially preserved national minorities.
The USSR academy of sciences published works in many languages, same for the state publishing houses.
There are also some longer works on the languages of the USSR, because there was such a diversity of them and the constitution mandated their protection, but I haven’t read them.
Compare with the US (wiped out every indigenous language), or the UK (tried to do the same for Irish and Welsh). It’s always projection with these anticommunist westerner historians.
Forced other languages to use cyrillic if they didn’t before, aligning the spelling of words with Russian
Made Russian a mandatory subject in schools
In mostly urban areas made sure education was primarily provided in Russian
Made indigenous people learn Russian, but Russian immigrants to those areas did not learn the indigenous language there
These were all policies aimed at “unifying” the various cultures in the Soviet Union and strengthening control.
Early Soviet Union is as you described, promoting various cultures and languages. Lenin saw that as a way to gain favour with the local populations. Later leaders however went down a different path.
Eastern Ukrainians weren’t grateful to be bombed by NATO-funded banderites for several years in the donbass, nor were most Ukrainians glad to have their government overthrown in a US-backed coup in 2014.
I wonder if you’d apply the same standard in reverse. If a Chinese ambassador says something about the US, should I just take them at their word with no further evidence, until someone can prove that their claim is wrong?
If said Chinese ambassador wrote a book that was also sourced (like this British ambassador’s book is in a fair few places), their claims aren’t disputed by any factual evidence and is generally corroborated by historians, I’d be inclined to believe them yes.
I wouldn’t expect said ambassador to have a scientific study backing up every single sentence in the book. If he’s writing about his experiences, that can be a valuable perspective on things. I wouldn’t treat it as gospel necessarily but I can still apply critical thinking to ascertain whether or not they’re a credible source.
You trust an anti-communist british ambassador at their word?
I trust someone who was actually there more than a random user on the internet, yes. If you have a source that shows the opposite, feel free to share.
You’re not going to find many books to the effect of, “see how hegemonic we aren’t”, so you mainly need to look at how the ussr treated republics within it, and especially preserved national minorities.
The USSR academy of sciences published works in many languages, same for the state publishing houses.
There are also some longer works on the languages of the USSR, because there was such a diversity of them and the constitution mandated their protection, but I haven’t read them.
Compare with the US (wiped out every indigenous language), or the UK (tried to do the same for Irish and Welsh). It’s always projection with these anticommunist westerner historians.
You can see the diversity here https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_Soviet_Union
Perhaps also read https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russification then, which is linked on that page. It explains how the Soviets:
These were all policies aimed at “unifying” the various cultures in the Soviet Union and strengthening control.
Early Soviet Union is as you described, promoting various cultures and languages. Lenin saw that as a way to gain favour with the local populations. Later leaders however went down a different path.
@dessalines @ChairmanMeow Why won’t those ungrateful Ukrainians just surrender to Putin’s kindly embrace?
Eastern Ukrainians weren’t grateful to be bombed by NATO-funded banderites for several years in the donbass, nor were most Ukrainians glad to have their government overthrown in a US-backed coup in 2014.
Surrender? The people of donbass already voted to secede before the raf got involved directly. They don’t want to be a part of Ukraine.
@mathemachristian Also: Putin was popularly elected.
I dont get your point.
I wonder if you’d apply the same standard in reverse. If a Chinese ambassador says something about the US, should I just take them at their word with no further evidence, until someone can prove that their claim is wrong?
If said Chinese ambassador wrote a book that was also sourced (like this British ambassador’s book is in a fair few places), their claims aren’t disputed by any factual evidence and is generally corroborated by historians, I’d be inclined to believe them yes.
I wouldn’t expect said ambassador to have a scientific study backing up every single sentence in the book. If he’s writing about his experiences, that can be a valuable perspective on things. I wouldn’t treat it as gospel necessarily but I can still apply critical thinking to ascertain whether or not they’re a credible source.