Thirty years ago, in December 1991, the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) ceased to exist. The Russian Federation, along with a few other states, emerged in its place.
Addressing viewers on the Russian state TV channel, His Eminence Metropolitan Hilarion, Chairman of the Russian Orthodox Church Department for External Relations, suggested on this account that while the breakdown of the USSR seemed like a catastrophe for a number of contemporaries, the real catastrophe which had brought it about — along with many other calamities and woes of the 20th century — was the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the ensuing elimination of Imperial Russia.
"The Russian Empire was home for many ethnic groups living in peace and accord with one another, and was developing economically and socially at a brisk pace," said His Eminence. "All of that was destroyed by the Communist takeover. What followed, everyone knows or should know: The Red Terror, genocide, elimination of free farmers, elimination of Cossacks, persecution of the Orthodox Church — a whole host of incredible tragedies that befell our nation.
…God rest you, merry gentlemen, and keep you in your mirth !Was ever kingdom turned so soon to ashes, blood, and earth ?
'Twixt the summer and the snow – seeding-time and frost -
Arms and victual, hope and counsel, name and country lost !
Let down by the foot and the head -
Shovel and smooth it all !
So do we bury a nation dead...
And who shall be the next to fall, good sirs,
With your good help to fall ?
(Rudyard Kipling. R.I.P. 1918)
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What Should We Remember?
Olga Kutanina
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