Boris Yeltsin would have turned eighty years old yesterday...
(This is obviously not one of the excerpts from my book Nunc Dimittis, which I have been in the habit of posting recently, but a regular comment on selective world events, which I post when I feel like it.)
My readers are by now well familiar with the symbolic significance of La Forza del Destino, in the Russian scheme of things. They are also well aware of my sharply negative view of the late Russian President Boris Yeltsin, whose eightieth birthday was celebrated in Russia on February 1st. The question is why is this man, who has brought so much grief to an overwhelming majority of Russian people who do not buy the freedom and democracy charade covering up for the worst excesses of capitalist profiteering, a collapse of the social security system in Russia, pervasive corruption, immorality, and all other mortal sins, unleashed during the Yeltsin decade of the 1990’s,--- why is this man eulogized today by Vladimir Putin, Dmitry Medvedev, and so many other most unlikely eulogizers, including the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church?
The only possible answer is that, perhaps, Mr. Yeltsin, after all, was not such an out-of-control obnoxious autocrat, as he surely appears to have been. Perhaps, he was a very useful and cooperative tool of Russia’s Destiny, and it is for this reason that he is being eulogized today?
It was no accident, as they say in Russia, that the Yeltsin memorial concert in Moscow on Tuesday attended by Mr. Putin, the Patriarch, and other top dignitaries (President Medvedev was in Mr. Yeltsin’s home city of Yekaterinburg for the unveiling of the Yeltsin monument there), opened with the Overture to Verdi’s opera La Forza del Destino. Those irregular readers of my blog who may have missed my frequent references to the symbolism of this “Russian” opera of the great Italian composer, may read about it in my January 26th posting… La Forza del Destino. All others will undoubtedly immediately appreciate the significance of this opening choice.
(This is obviously not one of the excerpts from my book Nunc Dimittis, which I have been in the habit of posting recently, but a regular comment on selective world events, which I post when I feel like it.)
My readers are by now well familiar with the symbolic significance of La Forza del Destino, in the Russian scheme of things. They are also well aware of my sharply negative view of the late Russian President Boris Yeltsin, whose eightieth birthday was celebrated in Russia on February 1st. The question is why is this man, who has brought so much grief to an overwhelming majority of Russian people who do not buy the freedom and democracy charade covering up for the worst excesses of capitalist profiteering, a collapse of the social security system in Russia, pervasive corruption, immorality, and all other mortal sins, unleashed during the Yeltsin decade of the 1990’s,--- why is this man eulogized today by Vladimir Putin, Dmitry Medvedev, and so many other most unlikely eulogizers, including the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church?
The only possible answer is that, perhaps, Mr. Yeltsin, after all, was not such an out-of-control obnoxious autocrat, as he surely appears to have been. Perhaps, he was a very useful and cooperative tool of Russia’s Destiny, and it is for this reason that he is being eulogized today?
It was no accident, as they say in Russia, that the Yeltsin memorial concert in Moscow on Tuesday attended by Mr. Putin, the Patriarch, and other top dignitaries (President Medvedev was in Mr. Yeltsin’s home city of Yekaterinburg for the unveiling of the Yeltsin monument there), opened with the Overture to Verdi’s opera La Forza del Destino. Those irregular readers of my blog who may have missed my frequent references to the symbolism of this “Russian” opera of the great Italian composer, may read about it in my January 26th posting… La Forza del Destino. All others will undoubtedly immediately appreciate the significance of this opening choice.
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