Throughout life there are moments, precious moments, meaningful moments, where some question – the answer to which has remained fuzzily but not entirely defined in the back of our mind, perhaps for many years – is suddenly made clear by some revealing but unplanned event. Such revelations remain fixed, perhaps as sweet moments, long remembered. I experienced such a moment today.
Bored with the exhausting and constant necessity to keep up with the myriad ongoing changes in the world (yes, absolutely necessary if we want to be situationally aware and ready for whatever transpires from that, rather than burying our head in a foggy world of the unknown), I tend to divert my attention at times to other things. I can unashamedly admit that I do spend more time than I probably should in the world of online video games and occasionally watching old western movies. These are valid diversions from ‘real life’ issues, and in recent days, as it has become obvious that Russia is in no danger of defeat in its struggle for security and a more peaceful and cooperative world, but assured of eventual (perhaps even soon) total victory – something I have believed from the beginning is actually inevitable, no matter what the western, enemy powers, may try to do – I can afford to relax and indulge myself a little more. And though the building of the ‘more peaceful and cooperative world’ may take a little longer, it is already ongoing and progressing very nicely – with much of the world involved – thank you very much.
So there is nothing to seriously worry about. The Russians, no-one else, are in full control of the human end and the forces of time and nature can be trusted to roll along at their own speed. Seasons and years come and go, at a pace over which mere man has no control. And while those relatively few human beings who are involved at the cutting edge of the proceedings, where destruction and chaos reign, and life is somehow ‘cheapened’ by the process (perhaps requiring of them great sacrifice) may find this more difficult to appreciate, everything is unfolding as it should – under the circumstances. The fault, the cause of all the suffering and delay, lies not in the eventual goal but in that which opposes it.
To return to my original point on something happening today, while browsing for a distraction, I came across this amazing movie (why do we still call them ‘movies’?) which encompasses much of what I am talking about here and provided the answer to a question I had long kept ‘fuzzily undefined’ in the back of my mind: What is the difference between a ‘Motherland’ and a ‘Fatherland’? …and do we need both? …or are they the same thing?
I do not personally feel that I have either a ‘Motherland’ or a ‘Fatherland’, having left the land of my birth for another, in which I have now spent more than half of my life. I cannot imagine I could think of either of those countries in that way. Perhaps that is just me, or maybe it is an Anglo-Saxon thing. Or even a Celtic or European thing. Is there any real connection or bond among any of those peoples to ‘land’ or ‘culture’ in the same way as there obviously is – going back millennia in time for, say, Russia, China, or many other nations of Asia, Africa, South America, or the aboriginal peoples of other lands? And what does having a ‘Motherland’ and/or a ‘Fatherland’ actually mean to the peoples for whom such connections are meaningful?
Well, this movie provides an answer to that question, and the depth of feeling and commitment such people invest in those concepts. ‘Concept’ is an inadequate word to use in this context. It is more, I suspect, a sense of belonging, of respect, of duty (or rather of ‘responsibility’) to preserve, and a higher relationship than even the familial. I also suspect that outsiders could never fully understand all that it means.
In the movie an officer of the Red Army, in 1941, as they formed the last line of defence between Moscow and the advancing Nazi army of Hitler, is talking with a soldier on the subject, and he says (in this, the English dubbed version, which I suggest was carefully translated – and remarkably well dubbed):
“‘Motherland’ is where we live. ‘Fatherland’ is how we live.”
While there is much more that could be said, I think those few words will always remain with me as sufficient to describe the whole subject.
Please enjoy ‘Panfilov’s 28 Men’ – a genuine story from Russian history and a very well made movie from the 2016 Russian film industry. Strangely enough, the broad range of typically British dubbed accents, for me, do not detract from the gripping and at times emotive tale. The authenticity of the equipment, including weapons and tanks (all of which were the genuine article, I believe), I found quite amazing for a 2016 production – more than 70 years after the event – and portrayed without a hint of the special pyrotechnic effects so ubiquitously used in western movies. But then, having won the war almost single-handedly, the Soviet Union would have amassed whole warehouses of captured and repaired German war materiel.
Not Something Else 
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