RUSSIAN HOLIDAY

A lust for adventure.

by Ave Maria

Most Audrey Hepburn fans today are blissfully ignorant of the hidden edge in the title of Roman Holiday. When the ancient Romans wanted to take a holiday, it usually involved snacking on some peanuts at the Colosseum while watching slaves fight each other to the death or being eaten by lions. The phrase “Roman holiday,” current in the Victorian and Edwardian periods, referred to unusually cruel or scandalous entertainment; in the film, it refers to the scandal of Hepburn eloping with Gregory Peck.

We moderns have very little appreciation for the Roman sense of fun. Protestants and Marxists have preferred to take the side of the slaves. But at least on the abstract level, there is something to be gained from walking a mile in Roman sandals.

THE BOUNDLESS INSANITY OF NEO-RUSSIAN IMPERIALISM

by Duns Scotus

"...trousers wide as the Black Sea..." - Nikolai Gogol 

Russia is an imperialist entity. By its very nature it is forced to be. By the way, an empire, in case anyone has forgotten, is a state that does not recognize boundaries. All the great empires have had this in common, an obliviousness of boundaries, especially when their "vital interests" are concerned. They will continue to grow until they became overstretched or face opposing forces, whereupon some attempt to establish "defensible boundaries" will be made.

The Roman Empire, for example, after being taught a lesson in manners by the fierce German tribes, fixed on the two greatest rivers of Europe as its boundaries. But behind those two front lines, which endured for hundreds of years, lay hundreds of other boundaries that had been trampled underfoot and forgotten. Yes, there are boundaries and boundaries, and, as with anything else, not all of them are created equal.

But back to Russia, a country that has never been able to sit quietly within a given skin. Where does this constant cracking and stretching of its husk come from? The most obvious cause is its geography. It has few if any natural boundaries. Its mountains are in the wrong positions and almost all its rivers flow in the inappropriate direction, being better suited for facilitating transport – and therefore invasion or expansion – than serving as useful limits between states.

“RUSSIA'S ORTHODOX JIHAD” AND THE REFLECTIONS OF AN AMERICAN LIVING IN RUSSIA

by Cainus Maxus

“United States of America was established as a state without traditions. It identified itself with a twisted conception of freedom and felt that its enormous power is due to its global mission. Which means nothing else than exporting its “values” to the world, whether or not it is needed. Since usually there was no demand for it, only the violence left of course hidden under the guise of such nice words as world peace, democracy, liberalism.” 

Gábor Vona of Jobbik, Hungarian traditionalist political party

The American Conservative recently published a blog post with the title "Russia’s ‘Orthodox Jihad'." While it is an interesting presentation of views that are rarely heard in the West regarding Russia, it contains a problematic theory, which states that the push-back against the West is bouyed by the idea that Putin is leading an "anti-W.E.I.R.D." coalition. This is an acronym that stands for "Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic."