The return of history

Posted by lex, on August 10, 2008

Russia has a very great weight of history. It is a story of encirclement and betrayal, hardship and endurance which comes down to Russian souls from deep antiquity and whose character did much more to shape the Soviet Union than did the communist philosophy which ostensibly underpinned that enterprise.

For those of us in the West who have either never truly studied history or else forgotten its relevance to modern times, it was tempting at first to write-off as something from another century the Russian reaction to Georgia’s ill-conceived adventure in its northern marches: The government attempted military force to reclaim de facto sovereignty to go along with its de jure primacy over the break-away provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Credo

"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me."

— John Paul Jones

"Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature"

— George Bernard Shaw, Caesar and Cleopatra

"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."

— Friedrich Nietzsche

"A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancour, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate."

— Edmund Burke

"Μολὼν λαβέ"

— Leonidas

"Blogito Ergo Sum"

— Neptunus Lex