"Come again? Russian Empire fell well before the start of WWII, about 1917 I think. Russian empire was originally the kingdom of Muscovy, Moscow and a piece of land around it, the lands west belonged to the Lithuanians"
The Russian Empire was originally many small nations that eventually formed together to become Kievian-Rus,(Rus city states) GD of Moskva, and then Russia, the lands from kiev, moskva and sankt petersburg is commonly thought of as the birth of the Russian nations IE where the "RUS" part came from, Lithuanians come from yup you guessed it, Lithuania.
"So the empire grew on the conquest of other nations"
Some by Conquest, absorbed many by default, due to growing power and dwindling power of others, which is most obvious when Novgorod was absorbed by Moskva when Novgorod's trading power eventually dying down. Examples of these smaller kingdoms(duchy sized kingdoms)were Ryazan, Tver, Vladimir, Polotsk, Rostov, Galich etc etc these Principality, duchies, counties came and went, many of them had rulers and blood lines which were all related to Rurikovich in one way or another so they were all legally absorbed this all came to the end when Grand Duchy of Moskva proved the strongest and the most long lasting when they finally pushed back their enemies the Mongolian hordes.
"These nations fight until this day to free themselves from this occupation btw"
Who? The chechens? Last time I checked they are happy, and before that they were fighting each other in bloody clan wars and before that, Islamists from outside started flooding Russia due to the fall of the soviet union where supposed "Wahabists" started uprisings demanding proper islamists to fight against non-believers.
We'd have people trying to free themselves from occupation here too in the United States if it wasn't for the fact we killed most of them.
"Especially during the reign of tsar Peter I Russia made huge efforts to conquer the lands to the west to get acess to the Baltic"
Peter the First, is known as Peter the Great for a reason, so please try to use his proper name, Peter the Great did nothing different then anyone else was doing at the time, Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Sweden and Ottomans all were expanding powers, Do you really think all those great powers became what they were merely by chance? Or did they do the same thing Russia did? Also Russia already had ports on the Baltic, so much so the most famous of these port cities had one named after him, so yeah they already had port access.
"wrestling St Petersburg area from the Swedes."
Sankt Petersburg wasn't a city when he "wrestled" it away from the swedes, infact it wasn't anything much to speak of, but with that said, it was no more swedish lands then it was russian lands.
"So no, the lands west of Moscow are not native Russian lands and fighting for them is like the English fighting to keep India."
Indeed they are, going back to those "early days" around 1000 AD right around the time Poland cropped up as a Kingdom, Brest-Litovsk area was in the Kingdom of Galich whois King, King Danylo would become the first King of the Kievian Rus and Guess who he was related to? Everyone else! they were all Rurikovich blood.
Moral of the story, lands change hands alot over time.
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chris12345678
12 years ago
::The Russian Empire was originally many small nations that eventually formed together to become Kievian-Rus,(Rus city states) GD of Moskva, and then Russia, the lands from kiev, moskva and sankt petersburg is commonly thought of as the birth of the Russian nations IE where the "RUS" part came from, Lithuanians come from yup you guessed it, Lithuania.
Thank you for the history lesson, that's very nice but you do seem to be missing the point here, which is very simple. The Roman Empire grew from a city-state and included half of the then-known world. That doesn't mean that present-day Romans can go and invade Egypt and Spain just because they used to rule over it, install themselves in Cairo and make movies how bravely they fought for their motherland. The Mongols had the largest empire ever but that doesn't mean that Mongolia has the right to attack Hungary, China or Iran, install themselves in Budapest and make movies how bravely they fought for their motherland and await worldwide acclaim.
The point then is: Russia invaded a sovereign nation without declaring war, bestially murdered thousands of its soldiers, took over its territory, installed itself in its cities and make movies what a bunch of good guys they are for resisting when someone tried to smoke them out. To me at least that doesn't sound right.
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MJohnathen
12 years ago
Since you decided to just take a single statement from my entire wording I won't bother replying to you properly this time, instead I shall say: Brest was Russian for hundreds of years, and it has once again has become Russian lands, If you want to claim that Russian peoples don't have ownership of that land for whatever reason thats great, but your argument will only prove that it's no more polish lands then anyone elses.
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chris12345678
12 years ago
::Since you decided to just take a single statement from my entire wording I won't bother replying to you properly this time, instead I shall say: Brest was Russian for hundreds of years, and it has once again has become Russian lands, If you want to claim that Russian peoples don't have ownership of that land for whatever reason thats great, but your argument will only prove that it's no more polish lands then anyone elses.
My reply to your entire statement is coming up shortly, even though you deliberately avoid focusing on the point here but instead dive into history, which may not be such a good idea after all, not that I disagree with everything you say. According to my sources this town was a part of Poland 1,000 years ago and the subject of fighting between the Poles, Kievians (that's not the same as Muscovites unfortunately) and Lithuanians, and had been until Russia jointly invaded Poland with Prussia and Austria in the XVIII century. Here is an old map that I have found that establishes this fact:
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.rymaszewski.iinet.net.a u/images/pol10cen.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.rymaszewski.iinet.net.a u/3maps.html&h=418&w=450&sz=128&tbnid=Ma2GvxSvp6wFEM:& amp; amp;tbnh=118&tbnw=127&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dmap%2Bof%2Bpoland%2Bm iddle%2Bages%26tbm%3Disch%26tbo%3Du&zoom=1&q=map+of+poland+mid dle+ages&hl=en&usg=__Wtxto2_kh3BlASjbv0vufwYBzOs=&sa=X& ; ;ei=ZNuzT9fUGKH06AH9zLSSCQ&ved=0CBcQ9QEwAg
And history of the town:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brest,_Belarushttp://en.wikipedia.org/wik i/Brest,_Belarus
I quote from this source: "first mentioned in the Primary Chronicle in 1019 when the Kievan Rus took the stronghold from the Poles,and is one of the oldest cities in Belarus. It was hotly contested between the Polish rulers (kings, principal dukes and dukes of Masovia) and Kievan Rus princes,laid waste by the Mongols in 1241 (see: Mongol invasion of Europe), and was not rebuilt until 1275, later it became part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania".
So the Kievians "took the stronghold from the Poles in 1019", meaning it used to be ruled by the Poles in the first place, right? After that it was a part of Lithuania and that would be why it's called "Lithuanian Brest". Then Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth ruled it until the partitioning of Poland in 1795, and it was only ruled by Russia from 1795 to 1919, so your statement "Brest was Russian for hundreds of years" either comes from a complete lack of knowledge about the subject or is a deliberate lie, which I'm hoping is not the case.
Incidentally, the article mentions "on January 13, 1660 the invading Muscovite Russian army under Ivan Andreyevich Khovansky took the Brest castle in a surprise early morning attack, the town having been captured earlier, and massacred the 1700 defenders and their families". So 1939 was not the first time the town experienced an "invading Russian army", who savagely murdered 1,700 of the proper owners, apparently including women and children. A fine portent of things to come, which puts this whole episode portrayed in the film in an interesting new light that the makers would rather steer clear of, wouldn't you say? Now why don't these Russian filmmakers make another movie about this 1660 siege in which the Polish garrison defends their motherland against the invading Russian army and in the end is savagely butchered along with their families by the Russians? We'd call this one "Fortress of War 1660". I trust they would be as accurate in the details as in the first movie, especially showing children cut to pieces by Russians.
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pvodov
12 years ago
chris,
Clearly you've established some kind of fetish with Brest :-) I think you ought to take a trip there now and make that movie about the 1660 siege.
I'm not sure what point you're trying to make now. That any film set in a European city needs a 5 minute preamble about its entire 1,000 year history?
This film is about a very specific event that took place during the German invasion in June 1941 - about the soldiers stationed there and their defense of the fortress in very tough circumstances. This was one of the only "feel good" stories that came out of the horror of early days of the war for Russia & other republics. That's the story of the film. Not a dissertation on the complex history of Brest.
And by the way, what was the "savage murder" happened in Brest in 1939? Soviets took Eastern Poland with almost no resistance or fighting, especially from local population. (Yes, of course Polish army was concentrated on German front, but nevertheless, point is, Soviets walked in, took mostly POWs with almost no casualties.)
The film was geared for the Belarus/Russian audience who know enough of history to know that this was a border-city & know how many times these places changed hands between 19th cent., WW1, (Russian) civil war, & WW2. And who also know about Katyn' - Stalin's order to execute Polish officers. But again we're getting off-topic.
Following your argument - any movie about Pearl Harbor invasion is incomplete without a prequel about how Americans invaded and annexed an independent kingdom of Hawaii in 19th cent. Or any film about Pacific battles of WW2 I guess is off-limits now.
Why doesn't US make any movies about the Philippine-American war, or the Spanish-American war, or how we set up banana republics and then supported dictatorships in Central America?
European history is very complex and bloody. Take the 30-year war - or what Ottoman empire did, or any war from 18th century & earlier - massacre, including women & children, rape, starvation, was sadly common. Mongols burned most of Kievan Rus' also, and yet there's no movie about it that made it to US.
If you want to get angry - make a movie about the lost city of Konigsberg. That, I agree is a case where Soviet Union took a city that was fully German (Prussian) and kept it as a trophy.
Or better yet - Babi Yar in Kiev. One of the first instances where Nazis entered a city, and systematically killed 33,000 people(all of Kiev Jews) in two days. How many Americans have heard of Babi Yar?
In the case of "Brest fortress" movie, it actually follows real characters and real accounts and memoirs. Compared to the plethora of trash out there, it is actually one of the better films out there and your criticism just seems disproportional. Can we at least agree about that?
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spookyrat1
9 years ago
In the case of "Brest fortress" movie, it actually follows real characters and real accounts and memoirs.
For better or worse, despite Brest's borders being in a continual state of geographical flux over hundreds of years, I liked this film.
Soviets defending their motherland in Poland?
Much as it might stick in some people's caw, this was the Soviet motherland at that time.🐭
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pvodov
12 years ago
chris,
take a look at this map from 1931:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c8/Nationalities_in_Second_Polish_Republic_ca._1931.png
You can see that the area that Soviet Union was claiming during 1939 was roughly the area that was populated by Belorussians & Ukrainians. (Belarus & Ukraine were part of Soviet Union). Also this was roughly the area that was part of Russian empire going back for hundreds of years.
You can make the exact same point in 1919 when the new nation of Poland was being drawn - how dare they carve up Belorussian, Ukrainian, & Russian lands and give them to Poland!
So you can't compare this to Mongols & Hungary, or Romans & Spain. This wasn't Soviet Union claiming other people's land for history sake. Cities like Brest were populated by folks of same language & blood as the soldiers who fought there, and for some of those soldiers, Brest was part of Russia when they were in grade school.
Like others said, your argument can be made about for example Pearl Harbor. Wait a second, wasn't Hawaii invaded and annexed by US less than 100 years earlier with brutal consequences for the locals? Why do we make heroic movies about Pearl Harbor attack in 1941 then?
My point is not to defend the actions of one country or another, I do want to stress though that the story of Brest fortress is a famous one in Russia & former republics because of how long the soldiers lasted and stood their ground for weeks, being virtually cut-off and without supplies from day 1. Hitler himself visited the site later and used it as an example of heroism for his own soldiers to look up to. The movie actually made a good effort to follow eye-witness accounts and memoirs.
Lastly, the movie is about June 1941 events, not 1939. You are tying events together that happened 2 years apart. The troops that took Eastern Poland in 1939 were not the same cadets who were stationed there in 1941 when Germans invaded. This movie is about their story. Let's leave it at that.
Peace
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