WWII : victory and memory

[avrelia]

I should have posted it two months ago, but I was late, as usual for the celebration. This post was to be about the celebration of the victory, and the 60th anniversary of the VE-day. But then, I figured, I am as happy that USSR et al won today as in May, today may be even better. One of the reasons I didn’t finish it and posted it, is that I don’t want to offend anyone, but this topic is one instance I might. Because all the last years, especially here I was made to feel uncomfortable about being happy that my country won that war, and I don’t like feeling not in the least.

Yes, I am happy that USSR won. And I am happy that it was the victory of the Allied forces, that other countries joined in and fought. The feeling of happiness is not the only feeling on the subject - there are grief, and anger, and joy with tears, and sadness, and wonder, and many other things in the mix. But at the end of the day it is - a certain glee (We won!) that I grew up with - thanks to the ubiquitous propaganda and books and movies. And, at the end of the day I don’t want to lose that glee - because Hey! We won!

Nothing, however, is as black and white as it seemed once. Well, fascism is as bad as ever, but USSR turned out to be not a paragon of light and universal good some we were taught it to be. There was some extremely murky business with the Molotov-Ribbentropp pact that led some thinkers to state that it was USSR that started the WWII. To which I only might politely remind about the Munchen conference and the fact that Western democracies cheerfully gave Czechoslovakia to Hitler and the whole “politics of appeasement” - Stalin was an evil paranoid dictator, what’s their excuse? Stalin actually tried to build anti-Hitler coalition throughout the thirties - only to Europe he looked much worse than Hitler at the time, so the coalition didn’t work out.

Then Soviet Union was cruel to its citizens – before, during, and after the war, and the countries the Soviet army freed from fascist occupation didn’t feel very free afterwards at all. And so on…You probably can count everything that was bad about USSR better then me.
All this makes me uncomfortable, but I am still happy. It is quite simple, really - were we to lose that war I wouldn’t be around, neither my parents, nor many other people without whom this world would be a bleaker place. In fact, I don’t think I would want to be in the world that would exist if we lost. Contemplating the perspective of slavery and extermination, I feel quite content with the history as it happened. It would be better if the war didn’t happen at all, as all other tragedies in our history, of course.
I also didn’t feel bad seeing the Troy treasures on the permanent exhibition in the Moscow museum of Fine Art. I might advocate its return to Turkey, though - right after UK returns the parts of Parthenon to Greece.

The WWII was always there with me. Not that I was preoccupied with it, or keep thinking /reading/ talking about it, yet – in stories my grandparents told me, in books, in movies that were part of our life and still are, in the tales veterans would tell us – the war was present. In the games we played, in the school folklore we knew from somewhere, the war was present. I was spending every summer at my mom parents’ summerhouse near Leningrad, and war was there – in all the bombs still in the ground (to make even a small fire in the forest could be deadly, still is), in all the trenches, little burnt pieces of metal we dug out working in the garden. It occurred to me only around fourteen that trenches and shell-holes are not, in fact, a regular feature of any forest. Ok, I didn’t think about before, but still.

Yet I can quite honestly say I know nothing about that war. Some dates, some numbers, some stories. Maybe more than others, but never enough to pretend having some kind of authority on this topic. I do love to talk about it – to understand better, and to remember, and to keep it from drifting into archeological oblivion. From not matters any longer. That war and – especially that victory matters to me.
I do not dwell in the past, and I am certainly not counting friends and foes, or harboring old ills against anyone. Where would we be if we do such silly things? We cannot change the past, we cannot undo what our ancestors did – but we do have their legacy in things good and bad.

A small digression on the matter of another war: on one of the new immigrants’ workshop couple of years ago I met a lady from Afghanistan. During the regular round of introduction (name, country, bit of information) she told that her name was Z, and her father and brother were killed by Russians. I really, really wanted to hide under the table at that moment. I don’t wish that feeling on anyone.

So, we cannot change what happened, but we can and should remember it - not to repeat it – to honour those died then. And the whole truth about that war – sometimes I am not sure what it is, and whether anyone would ever know it – those who witnessed it are dying and they are not necessarily want to tell Everything, too. Still, we can know enough – enough to care.

I hope I didn’t get too melodramatic or too offensive.

Comments

[lynnb.livejournal.com]

You were not one bit offensive. And you have a right to be happy about the victory. Your countrymen suffered just as much, if not more than the other countries in Europe, regardless of the reputation of Stalin, and they should be commended for their fortitude in surviving.

[avrelia.livejournal.com]

Thank you, this post in most part was written just before the 60th anniversary of VE-Day, and there was so much in Western media I read about evilness of that I felt both extremely angry and extremely uncomfortable.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

This was a really interesting read. I was having a conversation with my father a few weeks ago about the war and how it doesn't really feel like 'history' because there are still people around who survived it. Dad was a child then, most of his memories are of being evacuated to Scotland, but so much of British society in the late 40's and 50's, the austerity years were shaped by the conflict and its after effects. We have that 'we won' thing as well but it shames me that the USSR's contribution gets so little recognition in the West.

[avrelia.livejournal.com]

it is so rapidly becoming old history, it scares me a little. Those who remembers that war are dying - and they don't necessarily tell evrything - i know my grangparents didn't like to talk much about it, so I have mostly tiny scraps. and when people do tell, they obviously speak from their POV - the truth as they knew and perceived it...