More than 70 years ago, Allied victory in the Second World War brought with it a powerful wave of hatred for all things German. Since the end of the war, the Germans repeatedly accepted responsibility for their actions. They made reparations to the Allied nations and lifelong compensation payments to concentration camp survivors. Nevertheless, it took decades for the hatred to subside in countries that had suffered under their occupation.
Today, Russia’s atrocities in Ukraine, committed in the name of of ‘denazification’ and ‘protecting Russian speakers’, have inspired many Ukrainians to reject everything Russian: to try to forget the Russian language and erase all Russian classical literature – with its imperial flavour and patronising of conquered peoples – from memory.
How and in what form Ukrainian culture will retain its Russian-speaking component will become clear only when the war ends. But the longer the war continues, the more Russian-speaking culture will suffer in Ukraine, Russia and the world.
