Ukraine’s Bohorodchany Iconostasis: At Risk Again

Posted on May 14, 2022 by Brian H. Gill

Birczanin's photo of the Manyava Skete courtyard. (August 8, 2009)
(From Birczanin, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)

If no news is good news, then there’s good news from Manyava, Ukraine. Or maybe it’s Maniava. I’ve seen both transliterations of Манява. In Polish, I gather that it’s Maniawa.

I haven’t run across an “official” version of the name in my language’s alphabet. Since the “Maniava” and “Manyava Skete” Wikipedia pages aren’t consistent, I won’t fret over which is the right one. But I’ll try to stick with “Manyava,” except when I’m quoting a source.

Anyway, around 3,500 folks call Manyava home.

One Wikipedia page says Manyava is a village. Another calls Sauk Centre, Minnesota, where I live, a city. I call Sauk Centre a town, partly because I figure that 4,300-odd folks aren’t enough make Sauk Centre a city.

But here in Minnesota, it’s “City of Sauk Centre,” and I’m drifting off-topic.

Manyava’s no-news is that the Russian military apparently haven’t gotten around to “liberating” it yet. Possibly because it’s in Western Ukraine. And not a big enough target.

Liviv, on the other hand, about a hundred miles north of Manyava, was home to maybe 717,000 folks when Putin’s generals started their Ukrainian neo-Nazi hunt.

I gather that most of Liviv is still intact, apart from some missile strikes — a remarkably high fraction of which hit military targets.

At any rate, Manyava is famous for the Manyava Skete. A skete is a particular sort of Eastern Orthodox monastery. The Manyava Skete is at the edge of Manyava.1

The Manyava Skete is famous for the iconostasis in its church, the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. Which isn’t there any more. The iconostasis, I mean.

There’s a bit of a story behind that.

A Village, a Monastery and a Kingdom

Mykola Swarnyk's photo of the Bohorodchany Iconostasis in the National Museum in Lviv. (2022)
(From Mykola Swarnyk, via Smithsonian Magazine, used w/o permission.)
(The Bohorodchany Iconostasis, as displayed in the National Museum, Lviv. (2022))

Where was I?

Manyava and Liviv, Ukraine.

Russia’s Ukrainian neo-Nazi hunt, invasion, whatever.

Manyava’s claim to fame: the Manyava Skete.

Right.

Other monikers for the Manyava Skete are the Ukrainian Athos and Great Hermitage Monastery in Manyava.

The Great Hermitage Monastery was the only Orthodox monastery in Galicia in 1781.

This Galicia was the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria. It was part of the Hapsburg Monarchy at the time. Then, in 1804, it became part of the Austrian Empire. Which was also run by the Hapsburgs.

The Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria isn’t, by the way, the Kingdom of Galicia.

That kingdom used to be on the Iberian Peninsula’s northwest corner. It was run by Hapsburgs, too. Then Charles II of Spain finally died.2

A Hapsburg Interlude

Hugo Gerard Ströhl's House of Habsburg coat of arms, conforming with one of Habsburg County. (1890)The Hapsburgs were remarkably successful European rulers from around 1273 to 1780.

Or 1806, or 1918: I could pick several plausible ‘last of the Hapsburgs’ dates.

The northeastern Hapsburgs didn’t inbreed themselves into oblivion. Many folks say they’re Habsburgs, not Hapsburgs.

Either way, we’ve still got fairly high-profile Hapsburgs. Like Gabriela von Habsburg, artist and ambassador; Georg von Habsburg, diplomat; and Walburga Habsburg Douglas, lawyer and politician.3 And that’s another topic. Topics.

Back to Manyava. Or Maniava.

Origins of the Bohorodchany Iconostasis

Mykola Swarnyk's Photo: Icon of Christ the Teacher, from the Bohorodchany Iconostasis by Yov Kondzelevych. (photo taken July 2, 2013) From Mykola Swarnyk, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.I’ve read that Job of Manyava, Ivan Vyshensky, Zakhariya Kopystensky and/or Yov Kondzelevych founded the Manyava Skete in 1601. Or 1606. Or maybe 1611.

And that the Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine’s name for the Manyava Skete is the Maniava Hermitage.

On the other hand, I found general agreement that Yov Kondzelevych was a talented artist. And that he helped make the Bohorodchany Iconostasis. Along with many other folks.

They were working on the Bohorodchany Iconostasis at least from 1698 to 1705. We’re pretty sure about this, because inscriptions on the “Christ the Teacher” and “Ascension of Christ” icons include those dates.

When they were finished, the iconostasis was installed in the Manyava Skete’s Church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.4

So, if the Bohorodchany Iconostasis was made for the Manyava Skete’s church, then how come it’s not called the Maniava Hermitage iconostasis? Or some name like that, at any rate.

I’m guessing that it’s partly because a Hapsburg emperor wanted his subjects to be happy and enlightened: by his standards.

The Age of Enlightenment in Retrospect

Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine's photo of Yov Kondzelevych's Maniava Hermitage iconostasis (1698-1705) photo from Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine (IEU), hosted by the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, used w/o permission)
(From the Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine (IEU), used w/o permission.)
(The Maniava Hermitage iconostasis, including upper tiers.)

The Age of Enlightenment had been in progress since 1637, 1650, or 1687. Or maybe it started in 1701. Or 1715.

Europe’s self-described enlightened aristocrats strove to support knowledge, reason, and religious tolerance. That’s what they said, at any rate.

I figure it seemed like a good idea at the time. Particularly as an alternative to disasters like the Thirty Years’ War.

I still think Enlightenment ideals like pursuing knowledge and happiness, freedom and tolerance, make sense.

1566 propaganda print, celebrating faith-based vandalism.And I certainly think encouraging people to think is better than inspiring berserk rage through religion-themed propaganda and weaponized pietism.

I also think sapere aude, “the battle cry of the Enlightenment,” makes sense.

Although I also think “dare to be wise” is a better translation. And that Horace said it, more than a millennium before the days of Descartes, Newton and Kant.5

“Dimidium facti qui coepit habet; sapere aude; incipe!”
“He who has begun has half done. Dare to be wise; begin!”
(“Epistles,” Book I, epistle ii, lines 40-41; Horace (ca. 20 B.C. – 14 B.C.)

How the Enlightenment’s enlightened rulers implemented their noble-sounding ideals is another matter.

Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II, “Enlightened Ruler”

Pompeo Batoni's painting of Peter, Grand Duke Leopold of Tuscany (left), and Emperor Joseph II (right). (1769) From Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, used w/o permission.Take Josef Benedikt Anton Michael Adame, for example.

In my language, the name’s Joseph Benedict Anthony Michael Adam. But I’ll call him Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor. Or just plain Joseph.

Joseph is the chap with the dark coat in that painting. It’s Pompeo Batoni’s 1769 portrait of Joseph and his brother, Peter, Grand Duke Leopold of Tuscany.

Grand Duke Leopold became the next Holy Roman emperor, and made a decent job of it. But I gather that Joseph is an Enlightenment superstar.

He arguably earned that reputation.

Joseph promoted education, confiscated monasteries and other church property, and made religious freedom a legal right. As long as folks didn’t get together for worship in groups of more than a hundred, and met in someone’s house.

Or, if they insisted on having more than a hundred present, their church didn’t look like a church and didn’t have a door opening onto a street.

Can’t have religious tolerance if folks go around worshiping any way they want, you know.

Anyway, some historians dubbed Joseph’s domestic policies Josephinism: hailing him as an “Enlightened ruler.”

I’ll give Joseph credit for sincerity, and for having the good sense to commission a Mozart opera and a Beethoven funeral cantata. Easing up on press and theater censorship strikes me as a good idea, too.

And maybe he really believed that monasteries were “sources of superstition.”

Anyway, Joseph’s officials took over the Manyava Skete on July 1, 1785. The monastery stayed closed until the 1990s, when the Soviet Union collapsed. Or was rebranded as the Russian Federation.6 And that’s yet another topic.

A Confiscation, a Purchase and an Abrupt Move

Google Street View: Bohorodchany. (May 2015) From Google Maps, used w/o permission.)
(From Google Maps, used w/o permission.)
(Bohorodchany, Ukraine, before the Russian invasion. (May 2015))

Three years after the Manyava Skete became government property, folks in Bohorodchany, some 16 miles north of Manyava, bought the monastery’s iconostasis.

They paid the equivalent of about $12 USD in today’s market.

Fast-forward more than a century. The iconostasis was still in Bohorodchany’s Church of the Holy Trinity. A Swiss-German journalist, Victor Tissot, wrote about the “precious monument” in the late 19th century.

Bohorodchany was near the front lines in August of 1914, during a Russian invasion.

A great many folks were getting out as fast as they could, when Austro-Hungarian troops rode into Bohorodchany.

The soldiers weren’t there to “liberate” the town. They and some of the locals dismantled and packed the town’s iconostasis into trucks. Then the soldiers took the pieces to a museum in Vienna.

Bohorodchany, by the way, isn’t a town. It’s an urban-type settlement, the same way Sauk Centre is a city.

Next stop for the Bohorodchany Iconostasis was the Royal Castle in Warsaw, Poland: a country that existed again, officially, after World War I.

If you think that all sounds complicated, then you’re right. If you want simple, read an airport novel7 or listen to political speeches; and that’s yet again another topic.

Events, 1924-2022

Kasia Strek's photo of folks protecting artwork in Lviv's Peter and Paul Garrison Church.)
(From Kasia Strek and Smithsonian Magazine, used w/o permission.)
(Covering sculptures that can’t be moved in the Peter and Paul Garrison Church, Lviv.)

Fast-forward again, this time to 1924.

Paul Whiteman and his band played Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” in New York City’s Aeolian Hall, New York City.

The Ottoman Caliphate collapsed.

And Andrey Sheptytsky, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church’s Metropolitan Archbishop, bought the Bohorodchany Iconostasis.

Archbishop Sheptytsky had parts of the Bohorodchany Iconostasis displayed in the Lviv Ecclesiastical Museum.

Ishvara7's map of empires and colonies. (1900-1910)The Russian and Austro-Hungarian Empires had been fighting over who owned what parts of eastern Europe until World War I ended both Austria-Hungary and the old Russian Empire.

Parts of Ukraine became an anarchist state, followed by a succession of people’s republics, and were part of the Soviet Union when Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Russia invaded Poland in 1939.

After that, Hitler’s Germany invaded Ukraine.

Some Ukrainians saw the Wehrmacht as an improvement on Soviet rule. Understandably, I think, considering what Stalin’s Holodomor had done to them. And the churches which had been shut down by Stalin’s commissars.

That lot had the Bohorodchany Iconostasis dismantled, but not destroyed. I don’t know why, since they’d been eager enough where it came to destroying icons.

The commissars hung one of the massive work’s panels in a folklore museum and warehoused the rest in Lviv’s shuttered. Cathedral

Anyway, the 1939 Soviet-Nazi non-aggression pact lasted until 1941. After World War II ended, Ukraine’s Soviet rulers went back to protecting Ukrainians from poets, historians and other folks who use their brains. Then the Soviet Union dissolved.8

And now Putin’s military is back, killing Ukrainians.

War, Human Life, Art and Making Sense

Kasia Strek's photo of the the Sheptytsky National Museum's director, Ihor Kozhan, and panels from the Bohorodchany Iconostasis before they were packed and taken from museum.)
(From Kasia Strek and Smithsonian Magazine, used w/o permission.)
(Bohorodchany Iconostasis panels, before they were packed and moved to safety. (2022))

A frame from Ukraine's National News Agency's video showing aftermath of Russia's liberation of Bucha. (April 3, 2022)Oddly enough, Putin doesn’t seem to have thought of ‘de-Nazifying’ Russia.

That would make at least as much sense as his Ukrainian neo-Nazi hunt, since Russia’s leaders made a deal with Nazi Germany.

Maybe some notions are simply too daft for anyone to consider as an excuse for mass murder and/or genocide. And that’s still another topic, one that I’ve talked about fairly recently.

This week, I’ve been focusing on a particular item in Ukraine’s cultural heritage: the Bohorodchany Iconostasis.

Since I’ve been skipping lightly over dead Ukrainians littering the country’s streets, I’d better clarify a thing or two.

I don’t like war. It kills people and breaks things.

But sometimes it’s less bad than the alternative. So I won’t criticize Ukrainians who are trying to keep Russian troops from killing their neighbors. I’ve said this before.

If I had a choice between either saving a human life or preserving a work of art, I’d pick saving a human life.

But if I could do both, then that’d be my choice. So I think folks in Lviv who are taking portable artwork to relatively secure spots, and putting hopefully-protective covers over sculptures that can’t be moved, are doing a good thing.

There’s more to say, about iconostases — or would that be iconostasi? never mind — rood screens, religious art, and art in general. Lots more.

But I’m running out of time this week, so I’ll be brief. For me.

Creating art is part of being human. As such, it’s a good idea. Within reason. Creating religious art and using it to get closer to God is a good idea. Again, within reason. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2501-2503)

Finally, a reminder: comments and ‘likes’ should be possible again, now that I’ve made my Brendan’s Island website and this blog more secure.

So please, click the ‘like’ button. And if you’ve got something to say about this week’s topic(s) and what I’ve written, leave a comment.

Now, the usual links to more-or-less-related stuff:

1 Manyava, mostly:

2 Kingdoms, kings and emperors:

3 House of Hapsburg:

4 Origins of an iconostasis:

5 Bright ideals:

6 ‘Isms,’ artists and history:

7 More history:

8 Still more history:

Posted in Discursive Detours | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Learning From History: It’s an Option

Posted on May 7, 2022 by Brian H. Gill

Somebody's cartoon, showing French invasion of England by tunnel, balloons and kites. (1805, 1803, or around 1792)
(From Wikipedia, used w/o permission.)

From 1803 to 1806, Napoleon Bonaparte was defending France from the United Kingdom, the Holy Roman Empire, the Russian Empire, Naples, Sicily and Sweden. Or being thwarted in his dreams of conquest.

At any rate, tens of thousands of dead bodies later, European politics had changed a tad.

But not, arguably, all that much. Wars of the Coalition got up to at least number six. And a century after that, what we call World War I started.

Napoleon had planned on invading England during the War of the Third Coalition. He’d prepared a fleet, but decided that a trial run in the English channel would be a good idea.

I gather that at least part of the fleet sank and a fair number of sailors died.

Seems that Napoleon had considered sending troops across the Channel in balloons; but thought about it, and realized that the wind might change direction.

That picture’s someone’s idea of a French invasion of England. It would have been an impressive operation, with troops arriving by ship, balloon, tunnel and — I think those are kites, over at the right.

The picture was published in England, France, or somewhere else, in 1805, 1803 or maybe around 1792.1

Plans, Dreams

Somebody's cartoon, showing French invasion of England by tunnel, balloons and kites. (1805, 1803, or around 1792)
(From Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)
(Albert Mathieu-Favier’s proposed coach service under the English Channel. (1802))

A French mining engineer, Albert Mathieu-Favier, thought that a tunnel under the English Channel would be a good idea. And he’d worked out most of the necessary details.

Horse-drawn coaches would travel through an upper tunnel, while a lower one would collect groundwater. I’m not sure how he planned on removing the water.

Anyway, folks riding in those coaches would travel by the light of oil lamps, with a breath of fresh air in mid-Channel. Mathieu-Favier’s plan included an artificial island with stables, where horses would be changed.2

It sounds like a well-thought-out plan, including ventilation shafts to give horses, drivers and passengers a fighting chance of survival.

Mathieu-Favier’s tunnel was never built, Napoleon didn’t use balloon-borne troops, and a tunnel under the English Channel remained a dream.

National Security and a Railroad that Wasn’t Finished

Friedrich Graetz's 'The Lion can not face the crowing of the Cock,' an American view of the Channel Tunnel Scare from the American humor magazine Puck. (January 1, 1885)
(From Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)
(The French are coming! The French are coming! (1885))

Or, for some, a nightmare.

Sir Edward Watkin had a business interest in British railways, and thought a tunnel connecting England and France was a good idea.

Garnet Wolseley, 1st Viscount Wolseley, and Prince George, Duke of Cambridge, thought such a tunnel would be a threat to national security. And Queen Victoria didn’t like it.

Meanwhile, Sir Edward Watkin had started digging at Shakespeare Cliff between Folkestone and Dover.

Almost two kilometers later, Parliament told Sir E. W. to stop, which he did. Thereby saving England from invasion. Or putting a spoke in the wheels of commerce.

Either way, work on a Channel tunnel began, again, in the late 1970s. The tunnel — tunnels, actually, and that’s another topic — opened for business in the early 1990s.

And, so far at least, French troops haven’t poured through the Eurotunnel Folkestone Terminal, between Cheriton and Newington, where Danton Pinch used to be.3

Remembering the Past: Makes Sense to Me

An artist's impression of the 'Fête de la Raison/Festival of Reason' at Notre Dame, Paris, during the French Revolution. (1793) From Bibliothèque nationale de France, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.I spent most of this week learning how I could fix some technical issues, make A Catholic Citizen in America more secure — and afford the process.

As a result, I didn’t have much time left for writing this thing.

So I found a few fun facts about the Channel Tunnel, Napoleon, and British politics; started writing and hoped I’d think of something to tie it all together.

Ideally, I’d have experienced a ‘eureka’ moment, and you’d be reading my profound and pithy perception.

But that didn’t happen.

Instead, I’ll repeat what I’ve said before.

I think we can learn from history, but that we don’t have to do so.

And I think remembering that history is more than just a chronicle of wars, assassinations, political meltdowns and disasters — natural and otherwise — is more than just a good idea. It’s what makes history something other than a glum-fest.

That’s why I don’t and won’t hop on whatever doom and gloom bandwagon is passing by.

My attitude is more like what Durant and Santayana said, than the more familiar Hegel “…never learned anything…” quote.

“Perhaps the cause of our contemporary pessimism is our tendency to view history as a turbulent stream of conflicts — between individuals in economic life, between groups in politics, between creeds in religion, between states in war. … History has been too often a picture of the bloody stream. The history of civilization is a record of what happened on the banks.”
(Will Durant, As quoted in “The Gentle Philosopher” (2006) by John Little at Will Durant Foundation)

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
(“The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress,” George Santayana (1905-1906))

“What experience and history teach is this — that nations and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it.”
(“Lectures on the Philosophy of History,” Georg Hegel (ca. 1830s) Introduction, as translated by H. B. Nisbet (1975))

I’ve talked about this before, and why I spent most of this week not writing:

1 Napoleon’s invasion that didn’t happen:

2 Chunnel, Tunnel sous la Manche, whatever it’s called:

3 A hamlet, two Englishmen and a rail terminal:

Posted in Discursive Detours, Journal | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

I’m Back! — So are Comments and ‘Likes’

Posted on May 6, 2022 by Brian H. Gill

I spent most of this week on a voyage of discovery — nifty metaphor, that — which ended with A Catholic Citizen in America finally complying with Electronic Frontier Foundation’s dream of personal freedoms and online civil liberties.

In other words, this blog and my Brendan’s Island website are now reasonably secure. Which is nice.

And you should be able to make comments and/or ‘like’ recent posts here. That hasn’t been possible for months. I’m not entirely sure why, and don’t know if my actions this week fixed whatever the glitch was. But my oldest daughter, who lives in another state, tried commenting and liking — and both worked.

So I’m a happy camper. Or a hopeful one, at any rate.

Now I’m looking for something to say that’ll be ready by Saturday. Or, rather, that’s what I’ll be doing as soon as I do the usual links to more stuff:

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I’ll be Back, or, Resolving Technical Issues (Maybe)

Posted on May 3, 2022 by Brian H. Gill

It’s been well over a month since anybody’s been able to comment on posts here. And I’ve been getting increasingly frustrated. At least partly because I’ve been using increasingly-outdated software and services.

That’s the not-so-good news.

The good news is that I’m pretty sure upgrading my hosting will solve most of my problems. And maybe create new ones, but that’s a bridge I’ll burn when I get to it.

Even more good news, upgrading may make commenting on posts here possible again. Or maybe not. I hope so, though.

Back to not-so-good news.

After posting this, I’ll be getting started on that upgrade.

If all goes well, in a few days A Catholic Citizen in America will have HTTPS hosting — if that’s the way to express the idea. That’s good news, since I gather that HTTPS has become a standard for websites.

And possibly for good reason.

With everybody and their uncle online these days, including folks with alternatively-ethical habits, security is a reasonable concern. That’s why the Electronic Frontier Foundation and others started pushing HTTPs in 2016.

The idea, according to a Wikipedia page, is “…to protect page authenticity on all types of websites; secure accounts; and to keep user communications, identity, and web browsing private….”

All of which sounds like a good idea. The Electronic Frontier Foundation1 says they want to “…preserve personal freedoms and online civil liberties…” — which also sounds like a good idea.

But I grew up in the Sixties, when folks with another viewpoint said they were preserving freedom. I didn’t think ‘free to agree with me’ was a good idea then, I don’t now, and that’s another topic.

Bottom line, HTTPS sounds like a good idea. Particularly since it’s now a community standard of sorts. And I’m told that getting HTTPS for my brendans-island.com domain will make less-antiquated hosting tech available.

So that’s good news.

But switching to HTTPS will mean that brendans-island.com — and A Catholic Citizen in America — will be offline for a while. Maybe a few hours, maybe a day or two. I don’t know. Then, when they’re back online, I’ll be discovering how my weekly routine has changed.

I’ve talked about some of this, and vaguely-related stuff, before:

1 Civil liberties, the digital frontier and acronyms:

Posted in Journal | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Ukraine, Russia, Annexation; and Learning from History

Posted on April 30, 2022 by Brian H. Gill

Ukraine's Ministry of Internal Affairs, photo showing folks looking for bodies. Gagarin building of the secondary school number 18 in Chernihiv. (March 6, 2022)
(From Ukraine’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)
(Looking for bodies in Chernihiv’s secondary school number 18. (March 6, 2022))

I hadn’t planned on writing about the mess in Ukraine this soon.

But stuff happened.

So I’ll be writing about Russia’s purported military. Also what two alleged generals said, and a whole lot of allegedly-dead Ukrainians.

“Purported?” “Alleged?” “Allegedly?”

Pulitzer's New York World front page headline and illustration stating that a torpedo or bomb sunk the Maine. (February 17, 1898)Seeing news services avoiding “Remember the Maine”-style sabre-rattling is nice. So is their implied caution about claims which haven’t been verified.

But the “purported” proliferation of “alleged” has gotten on my nerves.

So I’m not dropping “alleged” and “purported” into every other sentence.

But I haven’t verified everything I’ll be talking about, much as I’d like to. I don’t have the resources available to outfits like BBC News and Reuters. And even they see fit to qualify their statements.

So I’ll skip “alleged” and “purported,” and assume you realize that I’m not omniscient.

Another thing: I don’t like war. It kills people and breaks things.

Avoiding war is a good idea.

But sometimes war is better than the alternative. I talked about life, love and legitimate defense last month.1

So, much as I’d prefer that Ukraine stop being a war zone, I sympathize with Ukrainians who have been fighting Russian troops.

Scylla, Charybdis and the Moskova

Chernilevsky's photo of the Russian cruiser Moskva. (July 22, 2009)
(From Chernilevsky, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)
(The Moskova, pride of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, while it was still afloat. (2009))

The guided missile cruiser Moskva was the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s flagship, and arguably most powerful warship in the Black Sea region.

Then it sank.

Why it sank depends on who’s talking.

Ukrainian officials say it’s because they fired two R-360 Neptune missiles at it. A senior American official says the Ukrainian version fits available evidence.

Russia’s Ministry of Defense say the Moskova sank because it caught fire, which set off some of its munitions.2

I’m not sure which version makes the Russian navy look worse.

They Said What?!

From Mack Sennett Studios: a publicity still from 'In the Clutches of the Gang.' (1914)
(From Mack Sennet Studios, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)
(Keystone Kops. On screen, funny; as role models, not so much. (1914))

The Moskva may not have been state-of-the-art, but the Soviet-era missile cruiser had a sophisticated defense system.

The outer layer of its triple-tier defenses should have detected and stopped the missiles three or four minutes before they hit.

And if the first two layers didn’t work, the Moskva still had its AK-630 rotary cannons.

Granted, the AK-630 was designed for defense against aircraft and helicopters, not missiles. One the other hand, firing several thousand rounds per minute as a missile flies the last couple miles, pinpoint accuracy may not be vital.

At any rate, the Moskva’s S-300F and OSA surface-to-air missiles, chaff and decoys, and electronic jamming should have kept both Neptune missiles from reaching the ship.

Maybe the Moskva’s radar wasn’t working. Or the crew was distracted. Or the ship’s missiles wouldn’t fire. I don’t know.

Whatever the reason, Ukrainian missiles flying through the Moskva’s three-layer defense system doesn’t make the Russian navy look good.

Russia’s official explanation isn’t much of an improvement over Ukraine’s.

Their version has the Black Sea Fleet’s flagship run by folks who let their ship catch fire, after which it sank.

Either way, the captain and crew of the Moskva come out looking like latter-day Keystone Kops.3

Nazis and NATO

A frame from Ukraine's National News Agency's video showing aftermath of Russia's liberation of Bucha. (April 3, 2022)
(From Ukrinform TV, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)
(Ukrainians, liberated by Russian troops in Bucha, Ukraine. (April 3, 2022))

What’s happening in Ukraine depends, again, on who’s talking.

I gather that Russia’s line is still that they’re hunting neo-Nazis. Or liberating Ukrainians. Or something like that.

And anyway, Putin and company say NATO is out to get Russia. So Russia is just defending itself. And Ukrainians who are really Russians. You can tell which Ukrainians are ‘really Russians.’ They’re the ones whose bodies aren’t littering the streets.

The national parliaments of Canada, Estonia, Latvia, Poland and Ukraine say that Russian troops are committing genocide. Some legal scholars say yes, others say no.

Oddly enough, I haven’t run across claims that disagreeing with Putin proves that Canada, Estonia, Latvia, Poland and Ukraine are run by Nazis: neo- or otherwise.4

Sadly, what Russian forces have been doing in Ukraine will probably reult in NATO members becomming more actively hostile towards Russia.

Perceptions and Responses

Ministry of Defense of Ukraine's photo, showing results of a Kramatorsk railway bombing. (April 8, 2022)
(From Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)
(Some of the 57 Ukrainians who missed their train in Kramatorsk. (April 8, 2022))

I’m no legal expert, but I suspect that proving genocide will be difficult. Mainly because it strikes me as needing proof of intent.

That said, assorted rapes, torture, informal executions — “extrajudicial killing” in academese — and looting by Russian troops look like genocide.

Or maybe the result of giving weapons to a bunch of marginally-trained yahoos. Who are upset because Ukrainians fought back.

But the situation, bad as it is, could be worse. As far as I can tell, not even Russian officials are trying to brush off bodies in the street with “boys will be boys.”

And a remarkable number of national governments are acting as if Russia’s invasion isn’t business as usual. Some are even saying they’ll help Ukrainians avoid being wiped out.5

I strongly suspect having everything from satellite imagery to camera phones giving us something besides government press releases as evidence helps.

Information technology, evidence, testimony, propaganda and bias — are cans of worms I’ll leave for another time.

Today Donetsk, Tomorrow the World?

Ishvara7's map of empires and colonies. (1900-1910)
(From Ishvara7, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)
(‘The good old days’ of empires and colonies, before World War I. I don’t miss them.)

Hitler didn’t say “today Germany, tomorrow the world.”

But he might have said “Denn heute gehört uns Deutschland/Und morgen die ganze Welt.” At any rate, that’s part of “Es zittern die morschen Knochen,” a marching song for the Reich Labour Service.

“Tomorrow the World!” is also a 1944 film hardly anyone watches any more, and I’m drifting off-topic.

Or maybe not so much.

Germany annexed Austria and Sudetenland in 1938.

The Slovak Republic became, on paper at least, an independent state in 1939: a day before Germany annexed part of Bohemia and Moravia.

Sudetenland, Bohemia and Moravia had been part of Czechoslovakia.

Czechoslovakia is a country that happened when World War I’s winners decided it should stop being part of Austria-Hungary. I gather that the territory became a couple socialist republics in 1992 or thereabouts.6

Although all that annexation sounds like what Russia’s military has been doing in Ukraine, I don’t think Putin is a Nazi.

But I do think remembering people and events that happened before this week’s news cycle is a good idea. And I think that, although the 1938 Munich Agreement may have seemed like a good idea at the time, its “peace for our time” didn’t last long.

Goals and Fears

Lencer's map of Ukraine, showing areas which were disputed or not internationally recognized. (March 6, 2022)
(From Lencer, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)
(Map of Ukraine, including places previously “annexed” by Russia. (March 6, 2022))

I don’t see much chance of achieving “peace for our time,” Munich 1938-style.

“Ukraine war: US wants to see a weakened Russia”
Matt Murphy, BBC News (April 25, 2022)

“…Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused the West of attempting to ‘split Russian society and destroy Russia from within’.

“Mr Austin, a retired four-star general, was speaking after meeting Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv….

“…At a news conference in Poland after the visit, Mr Austin told reporters the US wants to see ‘Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine’.

“The Pentagon chief added that US officials still believed Ukraine could win the conflict with ‘the right equipment’ and the ‘right support’….”
[emphasis mine]

“Kyiv accuses Moscow of ‘imperialism’ after Russia flags interest in south Ukraine”
Pavel Polityuk, Reuters (April 22, 2022)

“KYIV/MARIUPOL, Ukraine, April 22 (Reuters) – Moscow wants to take full control over southern Ukraine, a Russian general said on Friday, a statement Ukraine said gave the lie to Russia’s previous assertions that it had no territorial ambitions.

“Rustam Minnekayev, deputy commander of Russia’s central military district, was quoted by Russian state news agencies as saying full control over southern Ukraine would give it access to Transnistria, a breakaway Russian-occupied part of Moldova in the west.

“That would cut off Ukraine’s entire coastline and mean Russian forces pushing hundreds of miles west beyond current lines, past the major Ukrainian coastal cities of Mykolaiv and Odesa.

“Moscow says it is conducting a ‘special military operation’ to demilitarise Ukraine and liberate its population from dangerous nationalists. Ukraine and its Western allies call Russia’s invasion an unjustified war of aggression….”
[emphasis mine]

A Newfangled Idea that Makes Sense

Thomas Nast's 'The Usual Irish Way of Doing Things.' (September 2, 1871)Even if I wasn’t Catholic, I’d almost certainly think that genocide is a bad idea, or any government policy based on the notion that having the ‘wrong’ ancestors made folks enemies of the state.

Mainly because many of my ancestors are Irish. And that’s another topic.

Again, I don’t know if Russia’s leaders have decided that since Ukraine should be part of Russia, culling Russia’s metaphorical flock is okay.

If that’s the case, then we’re looking at what happens when one nation’s leaders uphold traditional values while others act as if a newfangled idea makes sense. The newfangled idea in this case is the notion that genocide is not a a ruler’s sovereign right.

“…When Lemkin asked about a way to punish the perpetrators of the Armenian genocide, a law professor told him: ‘Consider the case of a farmer who owns a flock of chickens. He kills them and this is his business. If you interfere, you are trespassing.’ As late as 1959, many world leaders still ‘believed states had a right to commit genocide against people within their borders’, according to political scientist Douglas Irvin-Erickson….”
(Genocide, Wikipedia
and see Raphael Lemkin, Early years, Wikipedia)

I think what’s happening in Ukraine looks like genocide. But I also think that it could be what happens when kill-happy thugs are let off the leash, an old-school ruler decides that it’s time for conquest, or maybe a combination of the above.

“Actions that Threaten the Security of the Continent”

From Lx 121, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.

Detail of 'The Apotheosis of Washington,' United States Capitol rotunda; Constantino Brumidi. (1865)My youth and the Sixties overlap, so I don’t have the old ‘Washington the ascended’ attitude toward my country.

That’s not, actually, a foregone conclusion, and that’s yet another topic.

I’m pleasantly surprised that so many national leaders, including mine, say that killing Ukranians is a bad idea. I’m even more pleased that a fair number are apparently backing up their words with actions.

But I am very much aware that not cooperating with a wannabe conqueror is risky.

“Russia sharpens warnings as the U.S. and Europe send more weapons to Ukraine”
Charles Maynes, NPR (April 29, 2022)

“MOSCOW — As the U.S. and Europe boost military aid to Ukraine, Russian authorities have escalated warnings and criticism, arguing the aid is not only fueling the conflict but also boosting the risk of direct confrontation between Russia and NATO powers.

“In some ways, Russian criticism over foreign military assistance to Ukraine is not new. Russian President Vladimir Putin seized on the delivery of Western arms to Kyiv as part of his rationale to launch what he insists is a limited ‘special military operation’ in February.

“Yet as Russia’s stated goals in Ukraine have narrowed to the ‘liberation’ of the eastern Donbas, the Kremlin’s amplified rhetoric reflects efforts to build public consensus for the need of a protracted — if not existential — war with the West.

“‘The tendency to pump weapons, including heavy weapons into Ukraine and other countries, these are the actions that threaten the security of the continent, provoke instability,’ Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters Thursday. It was the latest in a series of statements from Moscow that the conflict in Ukraine risks spilling into a wider conflict with the West….”

Helping Ukraine’s military keep Russia’s military from killing more Ukranians will offend Putin and his pals. Which could mean trouble.

United Nations General Assembly, March 2-April 7

Maps by Jurta and Pilaz: showing how countries voted on United Nations General Assembly Resolutions ES-11/1 through 3. (March 2 April 6, 7, 2022)
(From Jurta, Pilaz, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)
(UN General Assembly Resolutions ES-11-1, ES-11-2, ES-11-3, (March 2, April 6-7, 2022))

Whoever’s making decisions in Russia may decide that nations criticizing their “special military operation” are enemies of the state and must be destroyed.

Which makes what’s been happening at the United Nations so surprising. Maybe “shocking” is more like it.

“UN General Assembly votes to suspend Russia from the Human Rights Council”
UN Affairs, UN News (April 7, 2022)

“The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution on Thursday calling for Russia to be suspended from the Human Rights Council.

“The resolution received a two-thirds majority of those voting, minus abstentions, in the 193-member Assembly, with 93 nations voting in favour and 24 against.

“Fifty-eight abstained from the process.

“Russia, China, Cuba, North Korea, Iran, Syria, Vietnam, were among those who voted against….”

The United Nations General Assembly had been busy before that April 7, 2022, vote.

From March 2 to April 7, they’d passed United Nations General Assembly Resolutions —

  • ES-11/1
  • ES-11/2
  • ES-11/3

— None of which upheld Russia’s sovereign right to “annex” Ukrainian territory and kill Ukrainians.7

European governments, at least, may remember what happened the last time they achieved “peace for our time.”

Some non-European abstaining nations may be hoping that places like Canada and Poland will foil Russia’s ambitions. And, just in case Russia wins, hoping that they’ll be “annexed” without too much “liberation.”

The Weimar Republic, United Nations and Learning from History

'Reparations' cartoon.The UN General Assembly’s April 7 vote, calling for Russia’s suspension from the Human Rights Council may or may not actually have a practical effect.

The last I checked, the Russian Federation still has the Soviet Union’s old position as a permanent member of the UN Security Council: with veto power.

Just like the French Republic, the Republic of China, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Maybe we’re looking at a major change in the international status quo. If so, I suspect it’s a change for the better.

I don’t see how the UN Security Council, or the United Nations, could have been formed without giving those five governments so much influence. But I think it’s among the United Nation’s biggest flaws.

As an American, I can ‘feel good’ about my national leaders having veto power in the UN.

But also as an American, I see it as equivalent to — say — Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and New York state having veto power over a major part of the federal government.

Finally, although I think stopping Russia’s military from killing Ukrainians is a good idea, I also think Russia’s military isn’t the problem.

And weakening Russia’s military may not be a good solution. Not in the long run.

As I see it, Russian troops are running wild in Ukraine because Russia’s leaders sent them there. With different leaders, Russian troops might be less likely to indulge in mass murder. And Russian sailors less likely to scuttle their own ships.

And although I sympathize with a desire to see “Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine” — that sounds far too much like efforts to cripple Germany, after World War I.8

Maybe the Weimar Republic would have made poor decisions, even if World War I’s winners hadn’t decided to punish Germany for having lost.

But I very strongly suspect that Hitler and the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei would have had a much harder time getting control in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

And that’s yet again another topic.

This is where I’d start explaining why I think keeping someone from killing my neighbors is a good idea, and that treating my neighbors as if they’re people — even if they’re not acting nice — is also a good idea.

But it’s getting late, and I’ve talked about that before. Often:

1 Wars, old and new:

2 Pride of the Russian Black Sea Fleet:

3 Scylla and Charybdis, Keystone Kops and the Russian Navy:

4 One side says Nazis, another says genocide:

5 Dead Ukrainians and “Gulliver’s Travels:”

6 Remembering “peace for our time:”

7 Annexation and the 21st century:

8 A little 20th century history:

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