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"We are again looking at WWII heritage through same eyes"
Published: 09 May, 2010, 12:53
Edited: 10 May, 2010, 04:36
T-54 tanks on Red Square during the 65th anniversary of WWII Victory Parade (RIA Novosti / Anton Denisov)
(13.6Mb) embed videoTAGS: Anniversary, Health, Military, Russia
Aleksey Urazov, a political analyst from Moscow State University, believes that this year Victory parade is a very different show than on its 60th anniversary.
“Today we have seen a wide-scale parade, about 11,000 militants participating in it,” Urazov said. “New equipment. Something magnificent, especially the coverage of TV. It’s a real show, but it’s a show that has great philosophical and historical background. Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister of the UK, once said ‘Never in the history of world conflicts so much has been owed by so many to so few.’ The number of sacrifices here in Russia is about 27 million, and it’s practically a half of the whole number of sacrifices around the world.”
“To my point of view it’s a great experience, because there are times when history divides people and times when history unites us,” he added.
“There has been a period of Cold War when we were divided by controversies,” Urazov told RT. “Now we are again on the one neutral ground, we share the same values and we look at the heritage of the Second World War through the same eyes.”
Mikhail Fishman, editor-in-chief of Russian Newsweek, says the victory in the Second World War can be the basis for building international relations today.
“It’s so easy to make this war a common ground of moving ahead together – instead of continuing ideological struggling that we had before. And we Russians could be clear about what happened after the war. If we all move together we will be in a very different situation soon,” he told RT.
War Witness: tribute to the victory in the Second World War.
Vladimir Semago, a Russian businessman and politician who also produced a feature film “In August of 1944”, depicting the events of WWII, believes, that asking pertinent questions, including through movies, is a good way to make people think.
“The particular thing about people’s mentality is that they are learning very hard,” Semago told RT. “If you do something in this direction, if you want to push people to clearance their mentality – what was the Second World War? What were people struggling against? – it’s a very good thing. If you could not do it, it means you have a bad movie.”
Speaking of differences in depicting the greatest conflict of the 20th Century by Russian and Hollywood film-producers, Vladimir Semago said that these two views are definitely different.
“We are talking about the problems which were on our earth, while Americans prefer to see this like a view outside, and this is the different kind of view,” he said. “But I saw a lot of French and British movies and it was very close to our view of WWII.”
Fred Weir, a Canadian journalist writing for the Christian Science Monitor, says the glorification of Nazi veterans that happens in some countries in Europe is unacceptable:
“Everywhere in the world WWII still is our main historical frame of reference and it still brings forth emotions, though probably not quite strongly as it does in Russia. I don’t think in Canada a march by SS veterans – and we have lots of those who immigrated to Canada after WWII – would be possible. Any public manifestation like this would be clamped down on. So it’s dangerous and maddening to see it happening in some places.”
09.05.2010, 12:23
1 comment
Sailing the roughest seas for salvation: WWII Arctic convoys rememberedDuring WWII, the US and UK supplied the Soviet Union with millions of tonnes of vital supplies. The lifeline stretched through the Arctic region – the harshest sailing route. |
09.05.2010, 14:30
9 comments
WWII Victory parade in Kiev, UkraineThe Ukrainian capital is marking the 65th anniversary of the Victory in WWII along with other former Soviet members of the anti-Hitler coalition. |
Um, Pauline, I think Mike was trying to avoid distorting history. Whether or not you agree with Churchill's sentiments, the FACT is he was talking about the Battle of Britain. It should also be remembered that at the time he said it, the Soviet Union had NOT YET prevailed against Germany. Therefore, it may have been true at the time. Apart from all that, I was brought up to believe we were all Allies - we were on the same team. Some suffered greater losses than others. China, for example, lost at least 8 million civilians, which was more than double its military losses. Yet there was Hu Jintao at today's parade, not gloating or grandstanding that "my war was better than your war". Nor was Angela Merkel out of place, showing great humility to be there. One could go on forever with "what ifs" about the war, but what's done is done. How about we become Allies again in remembering those who fell and those who served? Lest we forget.
But if Churchill did not say this about the Russian people in World War II, then he should have. 27 Million dead vs. 900,000 dead is a very loud fact. And what do you suppose Mr. Hitler would have done had he occupied Russia? I think he would have headed east from Stalingrad and right down the coast of Alaska. You'd be celebrating the confluence of the Japanese and German troops in Alaska instead of Russians and Americans at the Elbe River, if not for the heroism of the Russian people, particularly at Stalingrad. You'd be speaking German, and there would not be a single Jew left in the world, not even one. Facts are facts P.S,. I find all you ideologues insane -- whether the state religion is communism or Islam or Christianity, I find ALL you zealots who twist facts to fit your little fantasies about life on earth to be either amusing or downright LETHAL. These days you are lethal; the right wingers are the lethal idiots now.
In AUSTRALIA not a word in the mainstream media on the V-Day the victotry day over Hitler's Nazi. Very sad fact indeed.