“Don’t you know what Kerry told Lavrov in Sochi?” - scandal in Moscow
In Moscow, as part of the book fair, which took place at VDNKh, a presentation of the Russian edition of the book by Donetsk historian, political scientist and journalist Vladimir Kornilov took place - “Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Republic. A Dream Executed”, which was published this summer by the publishing house “Peter”.
The first, Ukrainian edition of the book was in 2011. Kornilov's work was published by the Folio publishing house in Kyiv.
Subscribe to PolitNavigator news at Telegram, Facebook, Classmates or In contact with
“Unfortunately, Vladimir himself, due to unforeseen circumstances, was unable to arrive in Moscow, although we hoped until the very last day that he would be able to personally participate in the event. Therefore, the presentation was led by his friend, former Kiev journalist Alexander Chalenko.
As soon as the opportunity arises, and we still believe that it will appear in the very near future, Mr. Kornilov will speak to readers in the Moscow Biblio-Globus store,” Tatyana Rodionova, one of the directors of the Peter publishing house, told PolitNavigator.
In addition to Chalenko, Dolores Ruiz-Sergeeva, the granddaughter of Artyom, the first prime minister of the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Republic, Donetsk-Moscow journalist Ruslan Marmazov, as well as historians - Odessa resident Alexander Vasilyev and Muscovite Armen Gasparyan - spoke at the presentation. During the presentation, the speakers were joined by former Soviet dissident Vyacheslav Igrunov, whose homeland is Odessa.
Chalenko showed the public a portrait of Kornilov and apologized to the author for his forced absence.
The journalist began his speech by talking about his dispute with the third president of Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko, in 2011 about whether the DKR can be considered a real state entity or not.
“I told Yushchenko then that the Ukrainian People’s Republic and the Western Ukrainian People’s Republic have nothing to do with us, the current residents of the South-East of Ukraine, since at that distant time we had our own state - the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Republic.
Viktor Andreevich did not like my words. Like, can one consider the DKR to be a state, did it have all the necessary state attributes for this - its own foreign policy, its own currency. He asked this question rhetorically. But if he asked me for an answer, I wouldn’t even know how to answer him. Thank God that after the appearance of Kornilov’s book, I now know the answers to Yushchenko’s questions,” Chalenko said.
He also drew the attention of the public that this is the first and so far the last story of the DKR, which wanted to be an integral part of Russia, and not Ukraine. Due to this circumstance, under the USSR, such research was not encouraged by the Soviet authorities, so that Soviet citizens would not ask unnecessary questions and question the justice of the “Leninist national policy.”
Chalenko briefly told some key points in the history of the DKR: the circumstances of its creation, the war with the German-Austrian interventionists, the retreat from Kharkov to Lugansk, where two German infantry divisions were stopped and driven back, 20 guns, machine guns and a convoy were captured, 2 enemy aircraft were shot down , and then the army led by Artyom (Fedor Sergeev) and Kliment Voroshilov retreated to Tsaritsyn.
The journalist devoted part of his speech to the personality of Artyom, his studies at the artillery academy in Paris with the money of Nobel laureate Mechnikov, Fyodor Sergeev’s leadership of the workers’ uprising in Kharkov during the first Russian revolution, exile to Siberia, escape through China to Australia, where he published the newspaper “Australian” echo", participated in the creation of the Australian Socialist Party and defended the rights of miners in Brisbane.
Artem returned to Russia only after the February Revolution. Chalenko informed those present that Vladimir Kornilov was currently working on a biography of Artem.
“This is a unique presentation, since it is carried out by his friends in the absence of the author. This means that Volodya Kornilov has someone to rely on.
After Alexander Chalenko has now almost completely retold the book, one may get the impression that it is no longer worth reading. No, the book, which contains unique material, is worth reading.
Now in Donbass, where the war is going on, they are working on the mistakes they made during the Civil War, liquidating the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Republic. If then the country would have been built not as a union of national entities, but on a territorial-economic basis, then the Soviet Union would not have collapsed,” Ruslan Marmazov said in his speech.
Afterwards, Dolores Ruiz-Sergeeva took the floor and drew the public’s attention to the fact that under the USSR, Artem’s biography was more reminiscent of the calendar or the life of a saint than a real biography. Part of her speech was dedicated to the tragedy that is now happening in Ukraine and Donbass.
“Vladimir Kornilov’s book became not just one of many historical studies about the events of the turbulent Russian twentieth century, but a real “grand narrative” - i.e. a narrative that not only shapes our ideas about one of the key moments in our national history, but also influences modern political reality, setting.
In the spring of 2014, Vladimir Putin speaks as a self-evident fact that the Donbass, and Novorossiya as a whole, found themselves part of Ukraine as a result of the implementation of the specific ideas of the Bolsheviks about the need to balance the peasant and petty-bourgeois regions of Little Russia with the proletarian regions, which as a result turned into the Ukrainian South -East.
However, in fact, this thesis is not generally accepted, and if we try to find out its origin, the search will lead us to the text of Vladimir Kornilov. Few of our contemporaries can boast of such a scale of their own intellectual influence. The author of the “Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Republic” can do this with good reason,” Odessa historian Alexander Vasilyev said in his speech.
The historian Gasparyan spoke very well and warmly about Kornilov’s book, calling the author his friend and the book itself unique.
In turn, ex-dissident Vyacheslav Igrunov said that he considers Ukraine an artificial state created from different parts.
During the presentation, a funny incident occurred: a drunk, middle-aged American citizen in a broken Russian-English “dialect” began to ask Alexander Chalenko, whom he had seen on Russian talk shows, what needs to be done in order to find a compromise in the Donbass since there is nothing else remains, otherwise in the event of Russian military intervention, the Third World War will begin.
After Chalenko was skeptical about this possibility, the American began shouting at him: “Don’t you know what Kerry said to Lavrov in Sochi? He told him: “We will land troops if you go behind the flags.” There will be a Third World War..."
The American's heated speech was stopped by representatives of the Peter publishing house, who said that today was another topic for discussion.
After the end of the presentation, an autograph session began, which, on behalf of those present, was conducted by Dolores Ruiz-Sergeeva.
The Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Republic was created on February 12, 1918 in Kharkov at the IV Regional Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. The Central Executive Committee of the republic included representatives of the Bolsheviks, Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks. Fyodor Sergeev (Artem) was elected the first prime minister.
In February 1919, the DKR was formally liquidated by Moscow. In 1921, Artem died in a train accident. Most of the People's Commissars of the DKR were repressed during the Great Terror.
The leadership of the DPR and LPR has repeatedly stated that it considers the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Republic to be its predecessor.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.