Russian civilizational - and television - space in our country is slowly but surely losing ground. There are no Russian TV channels in Ukraine anymore. Soon, and the main agents of Russian influence - such as "Inter" - will have to focus on the production of their own content. And the contraband produced in Little Arnautskaya is still a completely different commodity than what is brought directly from Moscow, Vitaly Portnikov writes for lb. Ua.

But the empire does not just give up so easily. And she will always have what she can attract gullible provincials. Something that itself fights against the empire, but cautiously so - to survive. And at the same time inspires respect for its honesty - that's with such an empire, if there were such people there, it would be nice and pleasant for us.

One of such goods for export - LeonidParfenov. A talented TV presenter, author of the cult series "The Other Day" - many still remember the pleasure with which they viewed this movie about Soviet history. I wonder what will happen if you revise it now?.

To many Russian viewers it will seem slanderous - Parfenov spoke about Soviet history without aspiration. And it will seem to many Ukrainian TV viewers to be false - Parfenov spoke about Soviet history without fear. The paradox is that when the historical series "The other day" was aired, most of its viewers remained in the Soviet perception of history and life. From this moment, there have been obvious changes. Russia plunged into revanchism, its society has inherent features of imperialist nostalgia. And the Ukrainians are torn to pieces with the Soviet past, they begin to understand that there was no "union" with Russia, that our country was only a colony of a neighbor. And the fact that the colony was run by local Gauleiters, and a large part of our compatriots simply did not understand the position of their Homeland and faithfully served the empire, the situation does not get better. Only worse.

They can say that Putin is to blame for this transformation of Russian society into a monster. But one person can not suddenly change a huge country. For such changes, the soil is needed. Falsification ground.

Russia could change if its inhabitants understood that in the years of Bolshevism they lived in mud, blood and shit. Yes, many survived. And some in this shit lived beautifully. But be proud of the country in which the civil country was won by ghouls - not to respect oneself. You can be proud only of the fact that you got rid of shit, you could win a small one, but your victory over the former winners. But if you consider the history of the Soviet Union a logical continuation of the history of Russia - then why change something. It is necessary to save the "great power".

So the cycle "The Other Day" by Parfyonov was a multi-parted story precisely about the fact that it's also possible to live beautifully in shit. After Tengiz Abuladze's "Repentance", after Dudintsev's "White Clothes", after the Moscow weeks of memory and understanding of the Russians in what nightmare they actually lived, and their parents, he created an impression of Soviet normality from Soviet life. And this was not normality. It was daily fear, every minute moral decay. And such a story was a forgery. She gave the opportunity to the tired of the truth of the inhabitants of Russia to stop, look back and tell ourselves that everything was not so bad. It gave an opportunity to return to the beloved Russian paradigm about Stalin's personality cult - "yes, there was a cult, but there was also a personality!".

And then there was Putin. He just could not help but appear. God forbid, I do not blame Parfyonov for this. He was just a mirror of a society that did not want to know the real truth about himself, wanted to perceive his own terrible and shameful history as a child's toy. And I got what I wanted. And I realized that to survive, to put it in parfenovski - it's cool.

In this case Parfenov himself in his television career adhered to precisely such rules of unprincipled survival. But we're not talking about him.. We are talking about Russian propaganda and forgery.

Parthenov came to Ukraine to show the film under the pretentious title "Russian Jews". So, the very title of this film is a lie. The very name of this film is forgery. The very title of this film is the manipulation. Because there were no Russian Jews ever. Yes, perhaps they would have appeared if they could have lived in Russia. But even after the annexation of the lands of the Commonwealth (there were never any Jews on the Moscow lands themselves), the imperial authorities did their utmost to prevent Jews from living next to the "Great Russians".

And by the way, if you want to find out what the Russians themselves always considered to be Ukraine, Belarus, Poland and Lithuania, just look at the "Pale of Settlement". Where there was Russia, there were never any Jews, except perhaps "particularly valuable" merchants, but there were few such. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Moscow had about 8,000 Jews, in St. Petersburg - 17,000 - and the government continued to stamp restrictive rulings - for example, when in 1904 "Great Russian lands" allowed Jews to live, especially those who distinguished themselves in the Russo-Japanese war, was accepted A special law, emphasizing that this rule does not apply to the capital. Meanwhile, millions of people lived in the "Pale of Settlement" - Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Polish, Belarusian Jews. These people had nothing to do with Russia. They did not have the slightest opportunity to come to Russia. They never encountered ethnic Russians, the "Great Russians," who also had very few in the lands of the former Commonwealth. In the end, most of them simply did not know Russian. She spoke Yiddish, Polish, Lithuanian, worse Ukrainian and Belarusian. But Russian remained the language of the nobility, the language infinitely far from the "pale of settled" gentlemen and even the language of thugs - it was in this language that the leaders of the Black-Hundred "Union of the Russian People" called for the extermination of the Jews.

So with what, excuse me, why are we, the Jews - Russian? Only because the "Great Russian" emperors mocked us with the aristocracy and the submissive church synod? But mockery does not engender involvement, it engenders only hatred. That's why so many Ukrainian or Polish Jews were in the Russian revolutionary parties - a fact. That's why these people wanted to destroy the empire. That's why they did not want to consider themselves Jews. But from the point of view of their origin, they, of course, were. The only question is how. Trotsky is a Ukrainian Jew. And Kaganovich is a Ukrainian Jew. And their opponents-Zionists - Ukrainian Jews. Jabotinsky was from Odessa and understood Ukraine better than many then "Little Russians". Golda Meir - from Kiev, not from Torzhok. The writers who wrote in Yiddish were all born here - Sholom Aleichem, Mendele, Kvitko, Bergelson. And writers who wrote in Russian - also. By the way, Russian many "Komsomol" poets of the twentieth century - such as Bagritsky or Utkin - learned, alien. But in the "Duma about Opanas" Bagritsky or "Poem about the red motel" Utkin, the language appears on which these people actually spoke. "Opanas" is written almost in Ukrainian. "Motel" - almost in Yiddish. I bet that the readers of both works from Tver and Tambov did not understand and half. I'll bet that Parfyonov does not understand half of these verses. But he is sure that both Bagritsky and Utkin are Russian Jews. But what about.

It is clear why Parfyonov took this film. He needs to live and work. His task of vulgarizing Soviet history, he performed on "excellent". Now he has another customer - Mikhail Fridman, also, incidentally, a Ukrainian Jew who obviously wants to tell Russian people that Jews are not monsters with horns and hoofs and generally have always wanted to be Russian. Tell with the help of a talented TV writer. The fact that the memory of the true history of Ukrainian and Polish Jewry in Russia's foreign lands taken by Russia will be devoted to it, the customer and the author care little about. This is not jazz. Not "Jazz-Fest".

So, Mr. Sponsor and Mr. Author. Jews never wanted to be Russian. Those who like - they are not in your movie. Until 1917, they were baptized and "disappeared", ceased to be Jews. Or they left for the US - and ceased to be "Russian", Ukrainian - whatever. Even when you are shooting your film, you use hundreds of creative and technical findings of these people - those whom Great Russian power squeezed out of the territory of the empire. There were millions like that.

And after 1917 the Jews wanted to be Soviet. Then there was no Russia, it was destroyed. Even Russian could no longer be Russian, and you say - a Jew. And these Jews wanted to be Soviet just to survive. It turned out, as you know, not at all - but this with jokes-jokes and special effects was told in the project "The Other Day". And when Russia began again to appear, most of the Jews who lived there simply left - because it was possible. Therefore, there were no Russian Jews, no and there will be no. There will be, fortunately, never - shema, Isroel, as Ukrainian Jew Grigory Zinoviev, chairman of the Comintern and Lenin's comrade-in-arms, exclaimed before his death. By the way, a red leader was born in the city of Kropiwnicki, which is why after the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks and the occupation of Ukraine was called Zinovievsky. For some reason, Kropyvnytsky, not Perm, is strange, is not it?.

Therefore, the name of the film Parfyonov - forgery. The story that he tries to tell in this film is a forgery. And it differs from the story, which Putin tells in Versailles, only by his ease. Parthenov - carbonated Putin. With syrup.

I did not want to write about this - just because from the very beginning of the appearance of this film I was disgusted. It's disgusting - because I felt like a man who was stolen by a purse - and he should be happy and pretend that this is someone else's money, I have nothing to do with it. But while the theft was committed on the territory of Russia, while Parfenov was driving around with his film there - I was silent. There must be a person somewhere to be, I thought, as in the old Jewish anecdote.

But now Parfyonov came here. With their jokes, little pricks, with their teachings, with their forgery. With my memory stolen from me about my people and my family. And some of my compatriots - that ethnic Jews, that ethnic Ukrainians - began immediately to applaud the Moscow gentleman, to any of his words and to any of his frames. And from this disgustingly doubly.

And the last. This no longer applies to Parfyonov.

This applies exclusively to his patron, Mikhail Fridman, who is going to fund the creation of the Holocaust Memorial Center "Babi Yar".

In Babyn Yar, Michael, our relatives and neighbors, Jews of Kiev, were destroyed. And they were Ukrainian Jews. Not Russian.

Take this into account.

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