Circa 1990, I was lying on my blanket with a couple friends, about halfway up the natural amphitheater that showcases the Edmonton Folk Music Festival. The amphitheater was on the south side of the North Saskatchewan River, in Edmonton’s river valley. We could see downtown Edmonton, on the north side.
There might have been another 3,000 people there that night.
The temperature was just right. A little breeze to thwart the mosquitos. The sun was moving below the horizon, giving us a great transition from day to night. Edmonton’s skyscrapers were lighting up the background. Cars and their headlights ascending and descending the river valley roads added movement to the scene.
On stage were three folk artists — and their guitars: Guy Clark, Roseanne Cash, and Rodney Crowell. They took turns singing their own well-known tunes. They helped each other out with backup vocals and strumming, careful not to overpower the main artist of the moment. We got a natural version of their music, better than their recorded works. For 45 minutes, the big crowd was stilled. Silent. No rustling. Total attention to the music. Something wonderful happened that night. At the end of the act, my friend said, “We’re not gonna see that magic again.”
He was right. Thirty years later, I haven’t been to a better concert since. The musicians. The weather. The crowd. The place. It all came together so well. It could not be replicated. That concert is still lodged in my mind.
I have had a similar magical experience on Medium
My Connections to Eastern Europe
My heritage is the peasant classes of Eastern Europe. I am half-Slovak, half Ukrainian, all Canadian. I grew up with these two cultures kind of around me, kind of not. There was pressure to assimilate the younger people into the English world. My grandparents had acquired basic shaky English. While they managed Canada, they preferred their own communities.
I developed a passing interest in Eastern Europe. I paid more attention to news articles and analyses from that part of the world than other parts. While I became knowledgeable, I can’t claim to be an expert.
I spent one year living in Slovakia, teaching English, re-connecting with that culture. I spent three weeks in Ukraine, turning a business trip into visiting with my maternal grandparents’ family in Bukovina. Let’s just say that people from my heritage did not like the Russians.
When Russia amassed a big army on the Ukrainian border before February 2022, many analysts thought this was just geopolitical posturing. But I thought: “The Russians are going to invade.” My reasoning was that Ukraine had been preparing itself to no longer be the economic playground of the Russian oligarchs. The Russians had to stop this.
I was right on that history, but wrong on the next bit. I was predicting the Russians would have an easy victory in Ukraine, almost like when the Nazis invaded Denmark. And once Ukraine was under Russian control, the Russians would continue annexing other parts of their former Empire, from Finland to Bulgaria. To avoid a big war with a big adversary, NATO would have folded faster than a wet noodle dropped on the floor, throwing their smaller allies under the bus.
But something happened. The Ukrainians stood up to the Russians; we did not anticipate that. By their actions, the Ukrainians told us they didn’t want to be under Russia’s thumb again. And while the Russian army was big, it turned out to be a third-rate war machine. I — and many other analysts more knowledgeable than I — got these two points wrong.
Four Russian Journalists on Medium
Medium has no shortage of writers writing articles on the Russian-Ukrainian war. Many are supporting Ukraine. But some writers are more of a pacifist nature, suggesting Ukraine must head for peace talks and surrender a big part of Ukraine for a permanent peace deal.
For my understanding of this conflict, I have attached myself to four Medium writers. Each of them has a different background. Each of them as a different approach to telling a story. Individually, they seem to be no different than the other 50 or so other Medium contributors of this topic. Yet when I read them together, there is a magic happening.
I will briefly describe these four writers. My apologies in advance if the bios are a little inaccurate.
Brian Kean spent 30 years in St. Petersburg, setting up business units of various kinds. Setting up business units is tough enough in one’s own culture, but for this American to do this in Russia for so long can only be a big measure of Brian’s fortitude — and forgiveness. Brian gives his personal stories of doing business in Russia — and then relates these stories to Russian culture and politics. He even shows us how his business experience relates to action on today’s front lines. Methinks Brian should compile his Medium stories into a book. This book will be useful to the future inside and outside political players of Russia’s destiny to rebuild Russia.
Nadin Brzezinski is of Russian heritage but spent much of her life in Mexico. She knows how to navigate the Russian internet. She analyzes the press releases coming from the official Russian media, which are obviously heavily censured and full of doublespeak. She is able to read between the lines to come up with a more accurate version of the truth. Sometimes, Nadin reports on unofficial releases from the unofficial resistance in Russia, who are trying to stay on the right side of the ire of the censors. While she often uses the expression “take my analysis with a grain of salt,” she seems to be right more often than she is wrong. Another Nadin expression is: “I hope I’m wrong, but . . . .”
Chris Snow is a historian and philosopher. He connects Russian past with Russian present. We have learned that this war is at least two centuries in the making. He is also a great reporter for the small resistance movement in Russia and Russia’s faltering economy. Sanctions are working.
Dylan Combellick is a former analyst within the U.S. military. He spent much of his career on Russian issues. He has likely been in a few back rooms with facts and perspectives flying around that most of us will never see. Even though Dylan is now on the outside, he uses his inside experience to bring us a better real-time perspective. He goes into much better detail than the mainstream media and their talking heads.
The Unified Four
So we have four writers with four completely different ways of telling their side of the Russia/Ukraine war. But as their approaches and stories interweave, I see a pattern forming. They have come to a collective conclusion, a conclusion that they, as individuals, might not have yet realized its full potential. Here is my summation of their work:
The Russian people have a strong psychological need to dominate other ethnic groups. When Russians are on top of the cultural pecking order, they are in their happy place. They will overlook the silly decisions, oppressive governance, and corruption of their political leaders as long as this Russian dominance prevails.
With this Russian psyche being so well established, how does Ukraine, its neighbors, and the rest of the world make peace with Russia?
My answer:
There will be no long-term peace until this Russian psyche is broken.
So the Russian army must be clearly pushed out of Ukraine. That means Donbass and Crimea stay in Ukraine’s hands. If Russia gets any of this territory, the Russian psyche has not been broken. The Russians will be happy to play the cat hanging around the Ukrainian mouse cage — and patiently wait for the cage door to open. Unfortunately, the loss of Donbas and Crimea is still a plausible outcome of this conflict.
Even a Russian defeat would not be the end of this geopolitical tragedy. We should anticipate a lot of civil disorder in Russia for, historically speaking, Russians do not like military losers in their political leaders. There is a Russian resistance movement already in place; it could become a new political force to challenge the Putinists and their ilk; this new force will too likely be “not nice.” As well, there are about 100 ethnic groups still in Russia proper under the Russian thumb: some of these groups have the desire, ability, and location to form their own small nations. And China has historical claims to Russian provinces in Russia’s East. All these post-war possibilities are indeed unsettling. There are no easy answers. The breakup of Russia is a path humanity might have to endure, which is, in my opinion, better than letting the Russians keep their domination psyche.
Analyzing Different Media Sources
A common axiom is that the truth is better found by reading several sources of a political topic. But there are some challenges with that. Take, for example, CNN vs. Foxx. Most readers here would say CNN is more truthful with the news, but there’s too much sensationalism in CNN to give them a pass on the truth. Or in my Canadian example, the three networks — CBC, CTV, and Global — more or less tell the same story in the same way. Neither model of media competition brings confidence that the truth has been found.
But with the different approaches of Kean, Brzezinski, Snow, and Combellick coming to the same conclusion, we come to an independent truth. As much as we might not like the possible outcomes of that truth, the truth should guide us into walking on the least troublesome path.
I have been wondering how to make the “different approaches leading to the same conclusion” technique more common in media. We need better ways to finding the truth than we have today. Alas, I have no insight on how to make this “truth finding” happen on a regular basis.
But I can say is that the trio of Clark, Cash, and Crowell on the Edmonton Folk Festival stage 30 years ago came from years of three artists honing their musical skills. Then one night, the magic happened.
I am seeing a similar magic with Kean, Brzezinski, Snow, and Combellick. It’s going to be hard to replicate it.
Maybe someday we will figure this media magic out. We need to apply it to more societal issues than just this war.
Published on Medium 2023
Russian-like Soldiers in Your Home Town
