Ура Победа!

(Source)

First off, whenever I use a foreign language title for a post, I get fewer hits, which doesn't perturb me one way or the other. The faithful readers come anyway, often (no doubt) wondering if your beloved Sarge has perhaps gotten into the booze again. (Not that I drink that much these days. For me a wild night is two Guinness, not one. The last time I had too much to drink was March of last year as we Lexicans gathered with The Hobbit to commemorate the passing of our Lex. No, I didn't drive, The Missus Herself was there, as was The Nuke, and the latter has an Uber account, I'll let you do the math.)

Anyhoo, I like foreign languages and abuse them often. So there is that.

Today's post title is in Russian and means "Hooray Victory!" I won't attempt to give you the Russian pronunciation as I know that I would butcher it. (As I once did with the Polish for "Not my circus, not my monkeys." Or "Nie mój cyrk, nie moje małpy." And in truth, this is my circus and yes, those are my monkeys. Or "To mój cyrk i tak, to są moje małpy." Correct my spelling at any time Paweł. I do have at least one reader in Poland. Not that I'm bragging, well maybe a little.)

So, what is it with you and the Russians Sarge?

Well, there is this -

Two days where the hits were over a thousand, Monday and yesterday. As I often do, I got rather excited and started thinking, "They like me, they really do..." Well, maybe they do, maybe they don't (they, of course, being you Dear Reader). So I did some checking and lo and behold, the Russians have returned...

Mother Russia's spambots (for so I assume they are) are out in force and swarming the parapets here at Chez Sarge. Now if any actual Russians are reading this, "Пожалуйста, оставьте комментарий." (Please leave a comment. In Russian. I think. At least Google Translate thinks so.)

While we're on the subject of the Родина, (The Motherland, in Russian, this time I know), I just finished an excellent book by the late John Keegan, The Second World War. I am always amazed by the scale of the fighting on the Eastern Front of World War II and the huge sacrifices made by the Soviets (for the Red Army had more than just Russians in it) on that front.

And sometimes we in the West get it wrong. (I found this article interesting, I have that game, though I haven't played it yet.) Ideology often gets in the way of fact, also the Russian people would definitely quibble with Tom Brokaw's definition of The Greatest Generation.

Yes, Stalin divided Poland with Hitler, yes, the Nazis and the Communists were buddies for a brief period. But Hitler had always intended to move East and gobble up Lebensraum for the German people. What Slavs that survived would be slaves.

Regardless of the fact that Hitler and Stalin were both a-holes with more in common than some people realize, the peoples of the Soviet Union suffered greatly. Did our assistance help? You bet it did. The Red Army had thousands of trucks built in Detroit. American rations, felt boots of Russian design but made in the U. S. of A.

The Murmansk Run, bringing all of this material to Russia was brutal. Many died in the fight to keep the Soviets in the war, after all, they tied down the bulk of the German military. If Stalin had made a separate peace, D-Day would probably not have happened. I imagine the war might have lasted another ten years. Perhaps even England would have been forced to come to some accommodation with Hitler.

German strength on on the Eastern Front exceeded three million at the height of the struggle, facing over six million Soviets. Four and a half million Germans died there, eight to ten million Soviets perished.

It was a titanic struggle fought on a huge scale, the front stretched for over a thousand miles at its greatest extent.

I will write more about that arena at some point. I have written about it before, and will again. There is much to learn there. If you want to understand Russia, you must understand her history. 1941 to 1945 is huge in the memories of the Russians. As it should be.

So if they want to boost my hit count, go for it.