Racism in the Soviet Union

[frogwoman]

As posters are bringing in other countries, Serbia seem to have been tolerant towards jews to the point that even the nationalist hate neo-nazis, there was even talk of banning this very very small group of neo-nazis as its a insult to the Jasenovac victims and even a leading jewish president has said something like its more damaging for Serbs than for Jews in Serbia.

Czech Republic has similar history too , if I am not mistaken the foreign minister of Czechoslovakia told Britain what was happening in Nazi Germany and England just ignored it as they did not want to get into a war...

There possibly are other countries east of Germany that were tolerant to jews too. maybe Albania?

I don't think its all grim ...

Yep, it's the same with gypsies in Serbia as well, although the living conditions etc are definitely not ideal, serbia tends to treat gypsies better than other european countries and definitely any other eastern european country, again due to the shared history of persecution.

doesn't mean that the serbs are innocent, or that it excuses anything that happened later, but they have been a bit unfairly demonised imo

and during the second world war Albania's Jewish population actually INCREASED despite the occupation, due to the efforts of the albanian people in protecting them.

not the same situation in Kosovo though, (at least i don't think so) or for that matter for serbs living in albania

i do think though that sometimes not enough is made of the fact that while jews have definitely suffered terrible persecution, there WERE plenty of periods and countries where they suffered only a small amount of discrimination if at all ...

 

[ViolentPanda]

The poles were fed all the propaganda during ww2, and it seeped into public consciousness, this was the view of two polish guys i knew back in the early nineties.

Polish anti-Semitism is far deeper and far older than WW2.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I know this thread is about Russia but the Polish really do seem to have an unfounded hatred towards Jews.......I beleive there's a big skinhead/nazi thing going on in Poland(aswell as russia)

There are, of course, also strong anti-fascist movements in both of those countries.

IMHO part of the problem stems from the "primitive" strain of Catholicism that still holds sway in Poland, and the influence of the Orthodox church in Russia, both of which are exclusionist.

 

[lobster]

not the same situation in Kosovo though, (at least i don't think so) or for that matter for serbs living in albania

That begs the question should Vrakë become a country ? It has the the highest population of Serbs in Albania ...

I am still sceptical towards Kosovo being independent country, I think it sadly will cause more tension than good , its somewhat similar to Israel/Palestine which should be a single state too.

 

[lobster]

IMHO part of the problem stems from the "primitive" strain of Catholicism that still holds sway in Poland, and the influence of the Orthodox church in Russia, both of which are exclusionist.

That's right religion has a huge part to play , Albania's helping of the jew was down to the fact many were not that religious , sure Islam is quite big but its very different to the type in the middle east. Serbia however is religious and is tolerant towards jews, so its not quite so easy to understand,

 

[frogwoman]

That begs the question should Vrakë become a country ? It has the the highest population of Serbs in Albania ...

I am still sceptical towards Kosovo being independent country, I think it sadly will cause more tension than good , its somewhat similar to Israel/Palestine which should be a single state too.

exactly. the recent pronouncements of some individuals in the kosovo government make for somewhat worrying reading

 

[frogwoman]

That's right religion has a huge part to play , Albania's helping of the jew was down to the fact many were not that religious , sure Islam is quite big but its very different to the type in the middle east. Serbia however is religious and is tolerant towards jews, so its not quite so easy to understand,

but the serbian orthodox church, from what i can tell, has a similar "image" of itself to what the jews have commonly had throughout history - the sense of a divine mission, the serbs being "special" and such like, so maybe it's harder for people from that culture to accept anti-semitism as right?

i might be wrong here, but it does appear to be very, very similar ...

also, the traditional enemies of the serbs have been the ottoman empire and catholics rather than jews, the serbs were in a similar position to the jews in that most countries surrounding them were quite hostile towards them and they were occupied for ages and ages by turkey, so it could be that anti-semitism never really had a chance to develop the way that it did in other parts of europe, and a lot of the people probably felt sympathy towards jews (and still do)?

it's a similar thing with the irish, anti-semitism was never a part of Irish culture, although there were plenty of Jews in Ireland who were caught in the middle of the conflict between the Irish people and Britain, but if there does appear to be anti-semitism it seems to be to do with the fact that some individuals were siding with Britain rather than the fact that they were Jews iyswim

 

[nino_savatte]

mmm, didnt Stalin change his name fro Djugashvilli to disguise the fact he was Georgian, or possibly Ossettian?

Iirc, Stalin means "steel" in Russian.

Stalin completed his essay on the topic, entitled "Marxism and the National Question", which was published in March 1913 under the pseudonym "K. Stalin" (this was the first time he used the name "Stalin" in a publishing; he began using this alias in 1912).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin

It was his nom de guerre/plume.