Comments by "1midnightfish" (@1midnightfish) on "Interviews from Ukraine"
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@jgreen2015 Actually the Italian language has three single words for different shades of blue: 'blu' is a catch-all for a darker blue, 'azzurro' as you have described (a word much more commonly used than 'azure' in English), and 'celeste' for a paler shade, 'baby-blue' I suppose, also works when the sky is not so bright but still clear. My English is more fluent than my Italian and is definitely my dominant language, but whenever I hear people say 'sky-blue' part of my brain is always confused about which 'blue' they mean: azzurro? Celeste? Speaking of which, like everyone else I've seen lots of Ukraine flags over the past year, some new, some old and weathered, on my screen, irl... and the shade of blue seems to vary. Sometimes 'blu', other times 'azzurro' or even 'celeste': I haven't come across this variation with other national flags, I'm intrigued.
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@jgreen2015 Yes, I would say 'celeste' has a pastel quality, like one of those baby blankets 'for boys', or a clear sky at the end of the day, when it's still light but the brightness of the 'azzurro' has faded. I translate Italian into English, and translating colour can be tricky, so one thing I tend to do when not sure how to render something like this is an internet search of the word: if you want to see the difference between the hues defined by those three Italian words, just type them into a search engine, one at a time, and compare what comes up (I've just done that, adding the word 'colore' to narrow it down to colour-related results) ☺
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@gregtriplex5878 The mental gymnastics involved in writing this convoluted, ridiculous comment is the only impressive thing about it. Other than that, it's absolute drivel from start to finish.
Ukraine was colonised by the soviet union, just as it (and many other territories) had been colonised by the muscovite empire before it. Ukraine has always had its own distinct culture, history and LANGUAGE, that the muscovites in their various incarnations have tried again and again to suppress. These are basic historical facts.
"Divide and rule" is indeed a powerful weapon that's been employed by empires throughout history, all over the world, and it's exactly what putin has been trying to do to Ukraine since 2014. And considering how good he and his gang are at psyops, it is testament to the underlying strength of Ukrainian identity that they have not yet succeeded.
Finally, if the russian federation is, as you say, not "sovyet", why did it automatically inherit the soviet union's seat in the UN Security Council? putin himself has said repeatedly that he sees the end of the soviet union as the greatest tragedy of the 20th century, and is undeniably trying to bring back some sort of monstrous hybrid of the soviet union and muscovite empire. One of the ways he has got to this point has been to reinvent history to suit his rhetoric, and in that, he's been getting help from people like yourself.
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@devansa125 The funny thing is that nobody needs you to tell them that some Ukrainian soldiers often communicate in russian - we know . I've seen some battlefields videos, and also follow a number a number of military bloggers who do sometimes talk about language - some have Ukrainian as a first language, some russian, some habitually speak surzhyk, and switch from one to the other as the situation requires. In a crisis it makes sense to use one's easiest language, and which language that is depends on the person at that particular moment (for me, for example, my easiest language is my second, not my first).
You don't actually deserve this much typing - I'm writing this for anyone else who may come across this thread at some point. And in that spirit, I'll mention a language-related fact that happened in Ukraine a month or so ago: a well-know university lecturer, blogger and TV personality (Iryna Farion) lost her job after stating in an interview that any Ukrainian who still speaks russian, she does not consider to be Ukrainian; she singled out russian speakers in the armed forces. And while she did get some public support, overall Ukrainians didn't like that at all, and nor did the authorities and her employer. So much for the persecution of russian speakers in Ukraine.
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@devansa125 What rubbish. It is obvious to anyone paying even passing attention that there is no civil war in Ukraine, not even the one that putin & co have been trying to fuel for years. And no russian-speaking person is or ever will be a second class citizen of Ukraine, as long as they follow the law and use Ukrainian when required, i.e. when providing a service to others. Which they will be able to do, because most Ukrainians are bilingual. I myself have a russophone Ukrainian relative, who is really happy to see Ukrainian gaining more and more traction in the country.
The current aversion to the russian language in the wider population is completely understandable, considering it's the language of the attempted genocide. Reintegration of the occupied territories will be a challenge, but there are already people working on how to do this in whatever way is best for the country and the population.
No one - NO ONE - will miss the occupiers once they're gone. The collaborators will just follow them when they go, unless SBU gets to them first. It will take a while, but Ukraine will emerge from this latest attempt to destroy it, and transition into the bright future it is now fighting so hard for.
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@rgbforever4561 Again: I brought up 1420 because of the initial statement I was replying to, which was "If democracy was only 50/50 you would not have the courage to conduct these interviews" (it is at the top of the thread, but at this point I despair of people's ability to scroll up and down and read through comments before replying).
I used 1420 to show that some people do have the courage to conduct street interviews in a place like russia, where the balance of democracy - to borrow the language of many of these Ukrainian interviewees and picked up by the original commenter - must be hovering close to 0%. Basically, whether street interviews are conducted in any one country shouldn't be used as a measure of how democratic that country is. How people respond may be a more reliable indicator, but still anectodal.
I love 1420, as I do this channel, and I do draw inferences from these interviews, but I try to keep in mind that I can only trust those inferences to a point. When 1420 interviewed people in the streets of Minsk, the tone and content of many of those interviews was strikingly different, but still ... Belarus...
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