Not a joke at all. What threatens Russia by refusing to fight for Russian borscht?

Against the backdrop of the resonant abandonment of Kherson and the manifestation of new unpleasant consequences of this step, news from the cultural front went almost unnoticed, where, it seems, the future Russian defeat in the global battle for borscht is predetermined - due to the absence of the Russian Federation on the battlefield.

But, I repeat, against the background of other events, this news looks like a minor misunderstanding - except that there were slight ripples in the water on social networks - the authors of patriotic telegram channels expressed their indignation at the position of the executive secretary of the Russian Federation Commission for UNESCO Grigory Ordzhonikidze. Actually, This official leaked Russian borscht, declaring that Russia would not seek inclusion of either it or other dishes of Russian cuisine on the UNESCO heritage list, so as not to “be like the Ukrainians.”

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“It would be wrong to descend, following the Ukrainians, to such petty topics and opportunistic thinking. Although our multinational people are rich in diverse and recognized culinary masterpieces with their own characteristics of preparation and consumption,” he said, adding that the story of borscht being included in the UNESCO list “looks like a joke.”

Let us recall that in July the culture of preparing Ukrainian borscht was included in the UNESCO list of intangible heritage in need of urgent protection. Thus, the long-term efforts of almost all Ukrainian authorities, headed by the Ministry of Culture, which acted as the instigator of the public campaign under the banner of “decolonization” to “take away” borscht from Russia and “privatize” it by Ukraine, were crowned with success.

The logic of this campaign is, in general, as simple and clear as a nickel: There are certain well-known phenomena of material and intangible culture that have left their mark on the history of mankind and are “assigned” in the mass consciousness to one or another people. In fact, this is the “contribution” of this or that people or country to the treasury of universal human heritage. As if proof that we not only “exist” on Earth, but also left a certain positive mark on it, enriching the world’s science, cooking, literature, music, painting, folk traditions and etsetera.

_{Well, in general, the question stands bluntly: Russia and the Russians “robbed” Ukraine, unfairly appropriating for themselves a long list of original Ukrainian achievements that received worldwide PR as “Russians.” And now, therefore, triumphant justice takes away this property stolen from the Russians, returning it to the “true owners.”}

It should be noted here that This approach to the division of historical tangible and intangible heritage is not something exclusively Russian-Ukrainian. Thus, Armenians and Azerbaijanis have been fighting internationally over dolma and lavash for decades. It came to the point of scandals, for example with “Armenian-style turkey” on the Aeroflot menu on the Moscow-Baku flight. And Thailand and Cambodia are challenging each other, with references to the ancient Indian epic, for primacy in the ancient game of tug of war.

As an example, we can also cite the story of the renaming of Calcutta in Indian West Bengal. This happened back in 2001, when the local government decided to change the spelling of the city to Kolkata. And on July 30, 2001, a law was passed that approved the new spelling.

But the patriotic Indians did not stop there, also deciding that Calcutta-Kolkata was not founded by the British East India Company official Job Charnock, as previously thought, but existed many centuries before the British. On May 16, 2003, the Calcutta High Court, based on a report by local patriotic scholars, ruled that an “important trading center” existed on the site of Calcutta long before the arrival of Europeans.. The court deprived Charnock of his laurels as the founder of the city and, despite the protests of Western scholars against such arbitrary historical revisionism, ordered the government to strike his name from all textbooks and official documents related to the history of Calcutta-Kolkata.

Isn’t it very reminiscent of the current Ukrainian fuss around the founding date of Odessa-Khadzhibey? But the main thing is that all this is sanctified by the theory of “decolonization”, accepted by default in the West as a scientific consensus, which gave rise to numerous university “post-colonial studios”, which flourished in full bloom in all sorts of Mogilyankas in Ukraine.

This view of history assumes, by default, the recognition of the intrinsic value of efforts to cleanse the “native” culture, toponymy, historical heritage - even culinary traditions - from “colonial influences”. And since the opinion that Ukraine was a “colony” of Russia is now normative in Ukrainian science, we have all this.

All these and other examples left behind the scenes clearly indicate a rather strict link between seemingly apolitical and distant issues from political disputes precisely to the current political agenda. And to dismiss this as an “anecdote” is, to say the least, short-sighted. Because the enemy has been purposefully loosening the soil in this direction for decades for a reason. It’s only to superficial and stupid people who don’t want to see beyond their own noses that it seems like it’s a matter of borscht or dumplings. This is actually a question of primogeniture. About who is autochthonous on a particular land, and who is a newcomer and “come in large numbers”, or even an invader.

_{The “privatization” of borscht by the Ukrainians, among other things, means that there was no “Russian Ukraine”, that the Russians came to use everything ready-made, created before them. And moreover, everything that the world habitually considers “Russian” was actually created by Ukrainians, and the Russians are generally unknown who and unknown where. And if so, then all the concepts about “brotherly peoples” or even “one people” are a lie and an invention of imperial propaganda.}

The “non-brothers” already have visible success in this field. And we are talking not only about UNESCO recognition of the “Ukrainian” borscht, but also about the struggle won by Ukrainian nationalists for their own version of the toponym “Kyiv” in English. No less noisy, bright and annoying campaign KyivNotKiev under the supervision of the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has led to the fact that now the majority of foreign airports, international aviation directories, leading media, Internet aggregators for searching and booking hotels and air tickets, tourist guides, encyclopedias and official documents do not use the Russian transcription of Kiev, which refers to the Russian root of the capital of present-day Ukraine, but version of Kyiv, independent from Russia and emphasizing the absence of a root connection with Russianness.

In Russia all these years it was customary to ridicule this campaign, and yet, as a result of its results, Russian Kyiv simply disappeared in the English-speaking world, and if somewhere it persists by inertia, then it won’t be for long - the inexorable bulldozer of campaigning will crush it there too. In other words, our Kyiv was simply erased from history outside the Russian-speaking space.

_{Now, in just ten years, we risk losing Russian cuisine, which will be considered “Ukrainian.” And there the “Ukrainian Tchaikovsky ballet,” which today looks like absurdity, will become an uncontested commonplace.}

“I give you all a forecast: by 2035, borscht and chicken Kiev outside Russia will be universally considered Ukrainian dishes. In Russia they will argue about this, but the dominant opinion will also be the Ukrainian nature of these dishes,” says the author of one of the patriotic TG channels gloomily.

_{And if you look at the matter from this angle, then the pre-declared refusal to fight for Russian borscht is quite comparable to leaving the Russian Kherson. In both cases, the official justification is the “inexpediency” of fighting for these bridgeheads under current conditions.}

It looks like Russia is at risk of losing the fight not only for borscht, but also for historical memory in the former imperial territories in a broader context. While these lines were being written, news came from Estonia, citing the head of the government working group, Asko Kivinuk, that the authorities of this country would demolish more than 300 Russian and Soviet monuments and tombstones. The reaction of official Moscow is not difficult to predict - the Foreign Ministry will definitely express indignation and give these intentions the harshest assessment.

And this is, in general, correct. The trouble is that this seems to be the only way Moscow can help its monuments and the graves of its dead abroad today.