Re: [Cz-L] GQ magazine: "Chernovtsy was a kind of notorious backwater"

Josif,
 It is hard to explain conditions of life under the Soviets to an outsider..
 I lived only for 2 years and got the taste.
  We have list members who spent more time under the Soviets.
    They can tell.
   The backwardness of 1980 was not the same as in 1932.
    In 1980 Cz was isolated - tourism was out.
    In 1932 it was a free town.
     In 1980 it was Muscovite tyranny.
      In 1930 it was Romanian baksheesh antisemitism.
       Not the same.
        We fled...

Hardy
----- Original Message -----
From: "iosif vaisman" <iosif.vaisman_at_gmail.com>
To: "HARDY BREIER" <HARDY3_at_bezeqint.net>
Cc: "czernowitz-L" <Czernowitz-L_at_cornell.edu>
Sent: Monday, November 28, 2011 6:40 PM
Subject: Re: [Cz-L] GQ magazine: "Chernovtsy was a kind of notorious
backwater"

Hardy,

Sorry if I made impression that the word "tragically" should be taken
too literally. As I said, Mila Kunis clearly was speaking in jest, and
it was a journalist, who did not quite get it.

On a more serious note, "backwaterness" is hardly correlated with the
ability to speak German or recite Schiller at the age of 5 (and I
hope you realize, that 5-year-olds in Chernovtsy of the 1980s did
recite various good poets, including Schiller, if they or their
parents were so inclined). While many things had obviously changed in
Chernovtsy during the last century, the level of "backwaterness" in
the 1980s was very much the same as in the 1930s or 1910s.

best,
Iosif

-snip-
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Received on 2011-11-28 11:05:49