Please answer the following questions:
1) Do you believe that attitudes of today’s University students toward Russia and Russian culture differ from those of their parents and grandparents? Elaborate!
2) What are your opinions of the DVDs presented this week (Oct. 12-14)?
11:10 pm
1) I believe that today’s University students’ attitudes towards Russia and Russian culture does differ from their parents and grandparents. I feel that Russian culture is very traditional with some tactfully made literature, art, and other entertainment. These pieces of culture become classics and are subjects for people to contemplate years later. Even with the huge amount of academic culture students today feel that Russia is not a common topic to discuss and many do not keep up with the culture. My grandparents feel that Russia is very oppressive towards its people since it was a struggle just to send packages to family in Russia. My parents feel that Russia is constantly in competition with other countries especially during the race to the moon. Lately, Russia has been accused of relying on past practices and not being open to other countries and their ideas. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently went Moscow and Kazan and stated that Russia should diversify and open up to remain in good relations with the U.S.
2) The DVD presentations were very well put together. However, the films mostly showed a bad side of Russia. It showed hardships of the poor and dominance of the rich while making everyone seem like barbarians. This is a universal concept but the DVDs seemed to try to represent Russia as the only country with a harsh history. As every country progresses it will have challenges and struggles.
11:44 pm
How do we know what the attitudes of today’s university students toward Russia are? With some luck, we will likely only know the attitudes of family members in the university student age group.
The films for the week of Oct 12-14th presented general background information. Except for reports in the press, we don’t really know what the current situation is in Russia.
1:35 pm
Re: DVDs this week. It was wonderful to learn more about Siberia, really interesting stuff. I love the comparison of opportunity in Siberia to opportunity in the US as it grew and developed. Interesting also to see the gulag remains, almost erased from the landscape. While watching the first DVD about the Tsars, I missed learning more about the different groups of people in Russia and how they faired during those years– it was as if history belonged only those those who ran countries.
Re: Student perceptions of Russia today: It would be hard to believe that current students could feel the weight of the threat of cold war that we experienced in the 50’s and 60’s, or the oppression in Eastern Europe. I don’t think any of the tragedies of the 20th century are felt as deeply. whether it was the pogroms in Russia, WWI, the “Killing Fields” in Cambodia, the holocaust in WWII, or the Hungarian Revolution. While history is written by rulers, the reality of history is only conveyed in the day to days experience of hardship, lawlessness, murder, and oppression. That said, I think that the children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren of Russian immigrants probably do share an older and more oppressive view of Russia than those who lack a personal history.
4:33 pm
Re:Russia Resists U.S. Position on Sanctions for Iran: It is possible that Russia has economic ties to Iran which could be hindered by sanctions. The geographical closeness of these countries allows for good trading. However, China relies on Iran’s oil more and is resisting sanctions because of Russian influence. Another reason for Russia’s resistance on sanctions is because of their rumored involvement with Iran’s nuclear program. Russia may not want sanctions because they are helping the program.