#slavic studies

[ohsalome]

The western stereotype about Ukraine and Ukrainians was created by the russiacentrism in the entire field of slavic studies. Remember Yuval Harari, who in 2019 consented to have russian edition of his book censored and even rewrote some parts, because "russia is world-leading power". So it goes: russia is a "world-leading power" and Ukraine is its backyard, a bleak suburb; something that makes no difference if it exists or not. We were invisible, hidden in the shadow of this great giant.

The origin all these stereotypes come from the history textbooks. All politicians, prior to choosing whether to send us weapons or not, were sitting their asses in Oxfords, Harwards, Cambridges, etc. And when they opened the history textbooks, they learned that russian history began at the christening of Kyiv. And what was ukrainians' place in this history? Bah, that's just some primitive tribespeople running around, who cares. That's the worldview russians taught the european politicians.

In 2014 I was approached with an apology from Karl Schlögel, one of the leading german specialists in slavic history, who told me "My whole life, I only saw Kyiv as a third biggest city of the russian empire". This is a very typical situation. You can waste your entire life telling western europeans about our culture, our authors, etc., but they would only be looking through you. We remained unseen and unheard, because there was only "big russia", and who the hell you are? You have never been here. You have 72 hours to spread your legs before great russian army and appease putin, to make everything fine again.

______

- Oksana Zabuzhko, in and interview with BBC News Ukraine

[trystofachlys]

Who knew it’d be so hard to get my hands on ‘Eros and P*rnography in Russian Culture’ the 1991 classic.

[slavic-roots-western-mind]

The 然's

突然，虽然，忽然. and the other 然's can often get mixed up, so here's a quick explanation of some of the most common ones!

突然 (Túrán): This means suddenly or unexpectedly

居然 (Jūrán): This kind of means suddenly, but more in the sense of "surprisingly" or to suggest disbelief at something that happened.

忽然 (Hūrán): This also means suddenly or unexpectedly, but it has a more stronger connotation.

既然 (Jìrán): This is a conjunction meaning "since" or "now that"

既然the weather is great, let's go out!

既然 you aren't busy, let's go watch a movie.

不然 (Bùrán): This means "otherwise" or "or else";

You should study, 不然 you won't do well on the exam.

虽然 (Suīrán): This means although or even though.

虽然 I'm not good at singing, I still like to go to the karaoke.

当然 (Dāngrán): 当然 means certainly or definitely and can be used as a reply:

Can you help me with A? 当然!

自然 (Zìrán): This can mean nature or naturally.

China's 自然 is very beautiful.

She speaks Chinese 得很自然.

仍然 (Réngrán): This can mean "still" or "yet".

I仍然 haven't read that book.

依然 (Yīrán): Similar to 仍然, this also means still" or "yet" but it's usually used in more formal and literary works, whereas 仍然 is more often used in spoken language.

果然 (Guǒrán): 果然 can be used to mean "indeed" or "as expected"

This movie is 果然 interesting.

竟然 (Jìngrán): This is an adverb used to suggest surprise or something unexpected.

He竟然forgot her birthday.

显然 (Xiǎnrán): This means "clearly" or "obviously".

This soup 显然 hot.

偶然 (Ǒurán): This means "accidentally" or "by chance".

We 偶然 met at the same cafe.

How many other 然's do you know about? Drop a comment!

[snejan]

[hristinasview]

Maybe I'm back, maybe not. .-.

[learnukrainian]

Free online courses about Ukraine

Basics of the Ukrainian Language and Culture - https://www.open.edu/openlearn/languages/introduction-ukrainian-language-and-culture/

Ukraine: History, Culture, and Identities; this course is available in English, French, Italian, and Norwegian on Coursera: https://ui.org.ua/en/sectors-en/the-first-online-course-about-ukraine-in-english/

The Making of Modern Ukraine with Timothy Snyder: https://www.coursera.org/learn/the-making-of-modern-ukraine

Crimea: History and People on Udemy: https://www.udemy.com/course/crimea-history-and-people/

[love-promethea]

and when the guilt consumes you, what will you hold onto

[markantonys]

the music in WOT is never random. even if it's just very soft background music, it's relevant to the scene. practically every time there's music playing while egwene is onscreen during s2, the tune is egwene's theme, rearranged and reinstrumentated in dozens of different ways to match the tone of the particular scene. mat has quick little snippets of his theme tune play during various scenes of his, often mixed with the old blood theme from s1, and it finally blares out in full glory for the first time during the horn of valere scene, to parallel how mat is truly finding himself for the first time. even secondary characters like liandrin, siuan, and aviendha have their own dedicated theme tunes that play during their scenes and are never repurposed as background music in other characters' scenes. and all the themes have lyrics in the old tongue that suit the character or concept the theme is about! in conclusion, lorne balfe is truly doing the Most, and i'm so grateful he's the composer for WOT and i hope he'll return for every season the show goes for.

[brunettesparklejumpropequeen]

[ohsalome]

As a fact of history and problem of contemporary geopolitics, Russia’s nature as an imperial power is incontrovertible. After World War I, the Russian Empire avoided the permanent dismemberment that befell other multi-ethnic land empires, such as the Ottoman Empire and Austria-Hungary. The Soviet Union not only reconquered most of the non-Russian lands that had declared independence from Moscow in the wake of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution (including Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan)—but even expanded the empire in the course of World War II, annexing Moldova, the western part of Ukraine, and other lands. Nor did the Soviet Union participate in the decolonization era. Even as the French and British empires were being dissolved, the Soviet Union was expanding its colonial reach, tightening its grip deep into Eastern and Central Europe with bloody crackdowns and military actions.

[...]

During the Cold War, Western universities, research institutions, and policy think tanks opened numerous centers and programs for Soviet, Russian, and Eurasian studies in a bid to better understand the Soviet Union and its heritage. However, these efforts had a strategic flaw: Born in an era when Moscow’s control reached far beyond today’s Russian borders, these programs inevitably framed the region through a Moscow-centric lens. Today, even as they dropped “Soviet” from their name, most of these programs have inherited this old Moscow-centric framing, effectively conflating Russia with the Soviet Union and downplaying the rich histories, varied cultures, and unique national identities of Eastern Europe, the Baltic States, the Caucasus, and Central Asia—not to mention the many conquered and colonized non-Russian peoples inhabiting wide swathes of the Russian Federation.

[...]

In many cases, Western academic programs require students to study the Russian language—often including courses in Moscow or Saint Petersburg—before they have the option of studying any of the region’s other languages, if they are so inclined and if those languages are even offered. A similar problem affects cultural studies, including literature and art, where the many ways Russian works—including the classics read by countless high school and university students—transport Moscow’s imperial ideology are rarely addressed. This only perpetuates the habit of looking at the former Soviet-controlled and Russian-occupied space through the prism of the world’s last unreconstructed imperial culture. Unwittingly, today’s Russia studies in the West still replicate the worldview of an oppressor state that has never examined its history and is nowhere near having a debate about its imperial nature at all—not even among the Russian intellectuals or so-called liberals with whom Western students, academics, and analysts generally interact and cooperate.

Finally, Western academia also presents Russia itself as a monolith, with little or no attention paid to the country’s Indigenous peoples. By now, many who study Russian history are at least vaguely familiar with the Stalin-era genocide of the Crimean Tatars and their replacement on the peninsula by Russian settlers. But why not shed more light on the Russian conquest and subjugation of Siberia, one of the most gruesome episodes of European colonialism? Or Russia’s 19th-century mass murder of the Circassians, Europe’s first modern-era genocide? What have we learned about the short-lived Idel-Ural state, a confederation of six autonomous Finno-Ugric and Turkic republics crushed by the Bolsheviks in 1918? Why not highlight Tatarstan, which proclaimed its independence from Russia in 1990? Nascent efforts to give Russia’s Indigenous peoples a voice have gotten underway, including the Free Peoples of Russia Forum that last convened in Sweden in December 2022—but they have hardly registered in Western academia. Not only are Western scholars’ interests and relationships Russia-centric; within Russia, those relationships and contacts are Moscow-centric. It’s as if Russia’s highly diverse regions didn’t exist.

[pol-ski]

Noun genders in Polish | Polish for Beginners

[princessmacabre]

day 8/100 days of productivity

got up at 6.30am

morning tea & poetry

note taking for upcoming projects and new ideas

social media updates // booktok

doing laundry

vacuumed

did the dishes

cleaned the kitchen

some extra cleaning in the bathroom

novel writing; finished my third and final draft. now i have revise it until its ready to be published…

doing a little better. thats all i could ask for. bisous

xx

[slavic-roots-western-mind]

Chinese Desserts

There's quite a large variety of treats and desserts in China (more than you can imagine), so here are some of the most common ones!

Almond jelly/tofu - 杏仁豆腐 - xìngréndòufu Despite the name, almond jelly doesn't actually have almonds in it. Almond jelly is made from gelatin and almond milk, although some recepies use dairy milk instead.

Glutinous rice balls - 汤圆 - tāngyuán These rice balls are made from glutinous rice balls with a sweet filling, such as red bean paste (a pretty popular filling in desserts, I've been fooled more than once when purchasing what I assumed to be a chocolate filled pastry).

Red bean buns - 豆沙包 - dòushābāo One of my favorite desserts so far. These are steamed buns with a sweet red bean paste filling that I'd definitely recommend.

Egg custard bun - 流沙包 - liúshābāo A sweet and savory bun, with a lava-like egg yolk filling. A pretty interesting dessert, as it's both sweet and savory.

Pumpkin cake - 南瓜饼 - nánguābǐng I haven't tried this yet, but it definitely looks good. A fried and crunchy cake with a sweet filling such as red bean paste.

Eight treasure rice pudding - 八宝饭 -bābǎofàn This is a pretty popular dessert, especially during the Lunar New Year. It gets this name becase of the toppings, which are eight or more different types of dried fruits and nuts arranged on top of the sweet rice, with (once again) red bean paste.

Hawthorn stick/ Candied Haws/ Sugar coated haws/ Bingtanghulu - 冰糖葫芦 - bīngtánghúlu This treat has quite a few translations and you may have probably already seen it. This is basically candied fruit covered with a sweet, crunchy and sugary syrup. Traditionally, Hawthorn is used but other fruits such as grapes, strawberries and oranges are also popular options.

Sachima - 沙琪玛 - shāqímǎ I haven't tried this snack yet, but it looks quite fascinating. Sachima is made from fried batter stuck together with a sugary syrup, with an interesting texture.

Sesame balls - 芝麻球 - zhīmaqiú Similar to the rice glutinous balls, this treat is also made from glutinous rice flour with varying fillings including lotus seeds, mung bean and red beans, and sesame seeds.

Water chestnut cake A sweet pan-fried cake made from chinese water chestnut, with a unique semi-transparent appearance.

Wintermelon puff/ Wife cake/ Sweetheartcake - 老婆餅 - lǎopóbǐng This cake has many names, mainly because it has several different origin stories, each more fascinating than the next. This dessert is a flaky pastry with wintermelon, almond (not red bean this time!) paste and sesame filling.

Fortune cake - 发糕 - fāgāo Not a fortune cookie! This is a spongy steamed cupcake cake commonly made for the New Lunar Year celebrations and occasionally other events. They're usually a white-ish or brown-ish color, but they're often dyed bright colors to add extra festivity.

Mooncake - 月饼 - yuèbǐng This is a pretty well-known dessert, commonly prepared for the Mid-Autumn Festival. Mooncakes are smallish steamd/fried (depends on the region) cakes with a sweet filling that can also sometimes have an egg yolk inside.

Osmanthus cake - 桂花糕 - guìhuāgāo This is a unique traditional pastry made from glutinous rice flour, honey and osmanthus. This cake has a really interesting texture, as it's quite dense but also airy in a way? I'd definitely recommend trying it, as it's not super sweet and goes really well with tea.

[virgosstudy]

Some Slavic/Russian folklore from a postcrosser in Russia!

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[messy-nyks]

The Fernweh Saga by @lacunafiction - Davor edition

I-I think Ms. Verner doesn't like him...😳

Davor "Dove" Kovač 🐝 RO: Becca Warrick

Personality: cautious // aloof // pessimistic // flirtatious (only towards Becca ...and Reese??) Traits: head // independent // resistance // believer Past affinity: math Primary ability: extrasensory awareness Past susceptibility: forward. 'it’s better to push forward. don’t look back on the past when you have new places to be and things to achieve.' <<< his motto

🕊️ Fernweh: Davor lived a happy life there and didn't think about leaving in the future. Maybe for some trips, but he knew it would always be his place, his safe place... 'It was a mistake to come back here.' - that was his first thought when he tried to fall asleep on the first night in Fernweh. The nightmares came back as he thought they would. He wants to leave as soon as possible because he feels that it is not safe for Becca to be here.

🕊️ Gramps Dan: That was his gramps who taught Davor how to play the guitar. As a young child, Davor always admired him and believed he was the most intelligent person in the world. After the death of his parents and how his grandfather treated him, he was devastated and angry. He wanted answers soo badly but didn't get any. He lived loathing his grandfather ever since. The news of his passing stirred up a lot of negative emotions that Davor had previously managed to suppress. At the beginning of the story he couldn't care less about his grandfather, but because of his journal he started to believe him. Things that his granfather lived through made Davor even more angry at this messy town …but he's willing to forgive his gramps…

🐝 Becca Warrick: It was a ...funny story that brought both of them together and they look after each other ever since. He considers Becca as his precious (not in a negative-possessive way) treasure, he literally can't let anything bad happen to her. That was also she who came up with the nickname 'Dove'... (and she's literally the only person who calls him that, others wouldn't dare...). He had feelings for her for quite some time but didn't act on it... until now. Although he didn't express it, he felt very nervous about Becca being in the town where he grew up. He was curious (but also scared) about what she could think of this town. He felt like he was revealing more of himself to her…. and he forgot about any worries pretty fast, because the town started being weird as fu--.

🕊️ Reese Verner: Back then Davor was quite cheerful and enjoyed competing with Reese regularly. They teased each other a lot. Davor always thought that Reese had a crush on him, was it true tho? donut know, but he certainly had. ...why does he appear in his nightmares? Maybe the crush stage never disappeared...? Seeing him again was a nice experience, sure... but ignoring the circumstances, he is still unsure if it was worth it and is struggling with his thoughts… Would it be worth it to return to Fernweh just to see him... again? welp, good thing he doesn't have to think about it much, am I right?

🕊️ Sofia Dorran: The two of them maybe did not have a strong relationship, but he knew Sofia is the ideal person for engaging in intelligent conversations. He enjoyed spending time with her, solving the puzzles that gramps created for them both. Davor wasn't a fan of fantasy books, but she managed to change his mind about them. Davor knows that Sofia did take good care of his grandfather, but he still doesn't quite know if he's grateful for that or wished she spent her time more... valuably... He was tempted to ask Sofia to borrow that book she found in his grandfather's bedroom, but he thought better of it. It's better to leave Fernweh… Even so, his curiosity wasn't properly fed.

🕊️ James Corvin: Maybe not brothers by blood, but definitely brothers by choice. Davor treated him as if he was the brother he always wanted to have. Back then Davor always placed a high value on his family… until now. At the time, Davor tended to be more impulsive and James was usually the one who kept him from getting into trouble (which often involved Reese). It was really hard, for both of them, to see each other after so long. Their first interaction was pretty awkward... I would even say that most of their interactions were . James noticed how Davor changed the question is: for the better or worse? I don't even know. Everyone can sense, that things around them are different now, and they aren't as close as before. Will it change?

🕊️ Alek Corvin: …To say that Alek wasn't a fan of Davor would be an understatement. Was it because James spent most of his time focusing only on Davor trying to get him out of trouble? Did Alek observe any possessiveness from Davor towards James? Or maybe simply because of the bond between those two, which was truly something that others would envy and desire? Davor never considered it, especially when he left Fernweh permanently. :)) As you can imagine, Alek doesn't seem very happy about Davor's return… But he took an interest in his new friend, Becca, which did not go unnoticed by Davor and he isn't really happy about it.

🕊️ The Waitress: Oh boy, it seems that Davor has taken up a new hobby, which is glaring harshly at the waitress. He finds her mistrustful and he smells trouble. Had they met when he was younger, there may have been a slim chance of them getting along.

🕊️ Waffles!: So um… Davor has a little issue with dogs and because of that his relationship with Waffles isn't as wonderful as I wish it would be... However, I believe that with time and help from Becca, they will eventually become friends.

[learnukrainian]

Castles of Ukraine

Бердичівський замок

Дубенський замок

Золочівський замок

Замок Любарта

Vocabulary:

Замок - zamok - castle

Королівський замок - koroleevskyi zamok - royal castle

Королівська сім'я - koroleevska seemia - royal family

Принц - prynts - prince

Принцеса - pryntsessa - princess

Король - korol - king

Королева - koroleva - queen