Recently, a certain Hanovs has been appearing frequently on "public" television, telling sob stories about how hard it is to be Russian now.
My partner is an ethnic Ukrainian whose mother and brother are now in Ukraine. They call each other every day. She is taking what is happening very personally. So this is a deeply personal issue for me, too.
To be honest, listening to the "cultural researcher" Hanovs on the "public" media, one can only wonder how something so disgusting can even be said at this time, and how brainwashed one must be to see this shamelessness as normal. In a situation where the Ukrainian people are suffering from Russian aggression and thousands, including children, are dying, Hanovs missed a good opportunity to remain silent and shed crocodile tears in the "public" media about the "emotional suffering" that people of Russian nationality are supposedly going through.
How can a Russian man, whose ethnic brethren are engaged in the mass murder of human beings, not be ashamed of himself when he gripes about his "suffering"? Is this "suffering" in the slightest degree comparable to the suffering that the Ukrainian people have to endure because of Russia? How can one publicly display such appalling self-centeredness - I, I, we are "suffering" here.
Are the creators of the Ukrainian suffering - Putin and his army - publicly condemned by the majority of the Russian people? Are these creators and promoters of suffering massively condemned by ethnic Russians living in Latvia? Unfortunately, this is not the case, and social networks are full of posts of Putin fans demonstrating their support for this war criminal.
Instead of the ethnic Russian Hanovs shaming his fellow ethnic Russians for this support for Putin, he dares to shame Latvians who are allegedly showing dislike for Russians "just because of their nationality" and thus causing them suffering. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that there are some expressions of resentment not because of "their nationality", but because of the fact that some people (regardless of their ethnicity) dare to publicly show their support for Putin, for the Russian invasion of Ukraine and for the war crimes committed there. Isn't dislike of the supporters of crimes natural, is it deserving of condemnation?
Who is this shameless Hanovs, who for some reason is favored as an "expert" by our so-called "public" television? This Hanovs represents that breed of revived Marxist preachers who have taken to teaching the local nitwits how to behave, think and speak properly. As in the past German pastors from the pulpit, so now Hanovs in the television studio teaches Latvians the "right" way to unite and stand together. Expressions of hatred against Russians "just because of their nationality" are to be eliminated. No concrete example of this hatred is given.
Needless to say, this Hanovs never mentions that unity in Latvia can only be achieved by the whole of society uniting around the fundamental values of the Latvian state. It is not the ethnic Latvians who have strayed far from them, but those who wear T-shirts with Putin's face, the words "Russia" and the like on them. Whatever Hanovs and his followers say, these Putin fans are almost all ethnic Russians. Then they should also be "taught" and shamed by Hanovs. But no. Hanovs does not reproach the supporters of Putin and his crimes. He is reproaching the Latvians who do not want to turn a blind eye to this support. He calls on us to close our eyes and pretend that these scoundrels do not exist around us.
It is time to speak plainly. All these Russian internationalists, if you peel back the thin veneer of their Marxist rhetoric, reveal themselves to be the basic reprobates/chauvinists we still remember from the Russian era. The same delusions of grandeur, blathering about the "great" Russian culture and language, and arrogant desire to lecture the local aborigines. It is this remark about the "great" that is the litmus test that instantly reveals they've caught the chauvinist imperialist bug.
The words "great", "huge" are the main characteristics that Russians themselves hear and use from birth in relation to their country, whether it is Russia or the USSR. Consequently, everything else is small, insignificant and unimportant to them, and can be ignored. It just gets in the way when the "great" Russian tank comes along. This feeling, so hard to eradicate, is what Hanovs should fight against. But no. He must teach Latvians how to adapt properly to the "great" Russian culture.
It may be added that no other former USSR "republic" (in quotation marks, because that was the name given to the largest administrative-territorial formations in the USSR and had nothing to do with the system of social governance) except Russia has any regrets about the collapse of the USSR and no ethnic group besides Russians has any regrets about the lost "superstate". This Russian vestige of the past; this imperial megalomania should be fought by people like Hanovs, but instead they reproduce with minor adjustments what they do in Putin's Russia: we may mock, scorn and admonish everyone else with our heads held high, and that is normal, but everyone who does not love us for some reason is a pathetic Russophobe who needs to have the "Russophobia" knocked out of his head with missiles and aerial bombs.
It is a great pity that our "public" television is singing along this Kremlin song.