Again, "The Russians" provides a perspective on the world you just can't get anywhere else, and Evgenia's uncle is THE coolest guy ever, a living indictment of the view of reality I (born in '54 in a small town in Minnesota) grew up with...
Just listened to this now and immensely enjoyed the episode, really absolutely fascinating.
Some of it reminded me of Slezkine’s Jewish Century (which I know from another post at least Yasha read as well).
What I (like 323_1312) did find a bit odd is how dismissive Sergey was about Jewish discrimination. While in the Great Terror Jews indeed seem not have been targeted as Jews (according to Slezkine), for the post-war Stalin years I thought Slezkine made a quite convincing argument that there was indeed pretty explicit discrimination of Jews (who overall still remained well represented in public life and even senior government positions, but just not as much as in the pre-war period).
I do think it has a lot do with class and position within Soviet society. On a personal level it influenced a lot how much you felt and experienced antisemitism there…
It hurts when he says "there was no problem" because the problem was always lurking behind closed doors. Attitudes shaped opportunities.
Re: Another Revolution, and Evgenia's comment at 1:09:40 - It's funny as to how stupid this is, but there's this news program about bars in '91 where drunk morons blame the Jews for having to drink out of jars instead of glasses. https://youtu.be/DfmNYaukPdI?t=148
Again, "The Russians" provides a perspective on the world you just can't get anywhere else, and Evgenia's uncle is THE coolest guy ever, a living indictment of the view of reality I (born in '54 in a small town in Minnesota) grew up with...
Just listened to this now and immensely enjoyed the episode, really absolutely fascinating.
Some of it reminded me of Slezkine’s Jewish Century (which I know from another post at least Yasha read as well).
What I (like 323_1312) did find a bit odd is how dismissive Sergey was about Jewish discrimination. While in the Great Terror Jews indeed seem not have been targeted as Jews (according to Slezkine), for the post-war Stalin years I thought Slezkine made a quite convincing argument that there was indeed pretty explicit discrimination of Jews (who overall still remained well represented in public life and even senior government positions, but just not as much as in the pre-war period).
Anyways, still a fantastic episode.
I do think it has a lot do with class and position within Soviet society. On a personal level it influenced a lot how much you felt and experienced antisemitism there…
It hurts when he says "there was no problem" because the problem was always lurking behind closed doors. Attitudes shaped opportunities.
Re: Another Revolution, and Evgenia's comment at 1:09:40 - It's funny as to how stupid this is, but there's this news program about bars in '91 where drunk morons blame the Jews for having to drink out of jars instead of glasses. https://youtu.be/DfmNYaukPdI?t=148