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Comment by watwut | Hacker News Reader

Western people did not exactly read arab poets while ISIS was expanding their territory either. Also, people in west were never too quick to read Ukrainian, Polish, Czech or whatever literature.

My point here is: if art of other countries is so important for nations being together, why is the Russian one being constantly treated as more important then everyone else? Why not urging us to read Finnish, French, German, Polish, Slovak and Ukrainian? Or literature from Belarus for that matter?

Seriously, why did emphasis on Russian art went UP after the latest invasion?

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> Why not urging us to read Finnish, French, German, Polish, Slovak and Ukrainian? Or literature from Belarus for that matter?

So why don't you? AFAIK, Alexander Dumas for example is studied in schools all over the world. Or Thomas Mann? Nikolai Gogol?

> Seriously, why did emphasis on Russian art went UP after the latest invasion?

Because some freaks tried to "cancell" it and it backfired.

Why do you assume I dont?

> Alexander Dumas for example is studied in schools all over the world. Or Thomas Mann? Nikolai Gogol?

Literally none of them was even mentioned HN or elsewhere for years the way Russian writers lately are.

> Because some freaks tried to "cancell" it and it backfired.

Nah, it does not look that way at all. Also who are some freaks here and why are you calling them freaks, really?

Russian literature has been a mainstay among western audiences for the last hundred years. Works like Punishment and Crime, War and Peace, Anna Karenina are widely known across the world.

First, I am saying that emphasis on them went UP after last invasion. I am not saying no one ever read them.

Second, I am asking why should we treat Russian art as more important then everyone elses - or even as representants for Eastern Europe in general.

This is just tradition, personally I don't believe Russian writers of 18/19 centuries were better or worse than their counterparts living in Eastern Europe, for example. It is indisputable Russia produced some great writers and poets, such as Anna Akhmatova (but especially for poetry 70% is lost in translation). The reason that Tolstoi and Dostoyevski got famous is largely geopolitical; what we are doing now is just a part of tradition. I remember I relatively enjoyed reading Crime and Punishment, but when I started to read Brothers Karamazov, I started to have a feeling there are so many better ways to spend my life than reading these two bricks and this feeling only increased with time. YMMV.

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