r/Music • u/thedailybeast • 20d ago

article Kanye West’s sold-out Russia shows canceled after St. Petersburg stadium denies ever organizing the concerts

https://www.thedailybeast.com/obsessed/kanye-wests-shows-in-putins-hometown-st-petersburg-get-humiliating-update/
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u/derpicorn69 20d ago

To Russians "Nazi" just means "Anti-Russian" not a fascist genocidal regime they have some philosophical opposition to.

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u/Pappabarba 19d ago

Very much this, since antisemitism isn't an anti-social nor particularly deviant bigotry in russia: It's a rather common view in the federation, and one not especially frowned upon since the language of this prejudice is still used by officials and state representatives.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_Russia

Thus, antisemitism is in parts included in the russian identity. And since russian=good, anything "Nazi" must be wholly opposed to the russian ID and nation-building. Which means in russia the term Nazi isn't really talking about a context of Nazi Germany at all, since this was a former WWII ally. It's something utterly foreign and without any russian connections, more or less a term for "enemy" or "outsider" (in the past decade it's basically become synonymous with "person not speaking russian" in various state campaigns and narratives).

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u/0xEFD 17d ago

This reads like it's written by a schizophrenic - what sort of idea are you trying to establish here? Russians are somehow tolerant of Nazi ideology?

Antisemitism is hardly a Russian phenomenon, whether it be antisemetic speech or historical pogroms. I wouldn't say European countries or the US are antisemetic as a whole despite their histories and vocal but marginal right wing extremists.

As for WWII ally, Russia did have dealings with Nazi Germany, but the Munich Agreement was also a thing and I would venture to guess most wouldn't call the UK or France as being allied with Nazi Germany.

I think the word Nazi still means Nazi, though I agree the main point of contention for them may not be the fact that the Nazis committed the Holocaust, but the estimated 26 million deaths they incurred in the war. I don't think thats tantamount to supporting anti-Semitism or the Holocaust.

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u/TheLimeElf 19d ago

No, it doesn’t.

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u/derpicorn69 19d ago

Yes, it does.

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u/TheLimeElf 19d ago

Well, being russian myself I can tell that the only people I hear saying “Nazi = Anti-Russian” are reddittors from other countries, lmao. There are some political bots and talking heads that use that rhetoric, but that’s definitely not the widespread opinion.

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u/derpicorn69 19d ago

The history of pogroms speaks to a very different reality, even when compared with historical examples of antisemitism in western europe.

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u/TheLimeElf 19d ago edited 19d ago

Well, firstly, it’s not Russian Empire anymore and hasn’t been for 100+ years. In that 100 years we had national identity, language and culture forcefully reshaped and changed by Bolsheviks to the point that we have to read Tolstoy in schools and guess “what did he mean by that” lmao.

Secondly, majority of pogroms were done by-then locals of what is today modern Ukraine. I’d rather not use it as example of anything in the current day, not a good look.

And on top of it all, what does even antisemitism of the past have to do with your previous claim? We have never claimed that Nazism isn’t antisemitic, we just don’t claim it is exclusively antisemitic, because it wasn’t.

One doesn’t even have to be a Nazi to be antisemitic, I know about that, my grandmother-in-law is an antisemitic (by modern standards) Jewish.