It's amazing that the Librarian of Congress can be such a blatant
lobbyist for Russia! What if this series had been called "The Face of
Ukraine" and at the same time the Librarian had published (as he did
about Russia) an article in the NY Times urging Congress to continue
aid to Ukraine? This would be unthinkable, but I don't know why the
Joint Committee on the Library feels that it is okay for the head of a
US agency, Congress's library, to work so hard for Russian interests.
What part has Media-Most, Russia's largest media conglomerate, play
here--did they put up funds for this series, and if so, how much?/As to
historical accuracy, this "interpretation" as PBS is calling it, is
certainly distorted, i.e., the historic place called Gaul encompassed
France, several smaller nations, and part of Germany--so would this
mean one could film a series called "The Face of Germany" in PARIS? and
call Paris "the first GERMAN city"? The people of Rus' were called
neither Russians nor Ukrainians, and to blithely slap the label Russian
on everything from the earliest period is an anachronism. This is
distortion and manipulation on a grand scale--TV, "companion" book,
school lesson plans, etc./We also did not need the condescending
description of Hohol (Gogol) as "the small man who came in from the
country, as it were." And what about the identity of many of those
thousands of people who died building St. Petersburg? And what about
Byzantine and Ukrainian art looted from Ukraine and today on display in
the Tretiakov? And if Kyiv (not Kiev, Dr. B.) is the "mother of Russian
cities," and the "first Russian city," then where does that leave
Ukrainian cities. In my opinion, you people at PBS have been duped and
so has the American nation, and the memory of millions of Ukrainians
has been indeed slandered by such mistreatment. For this cavalier
"history" (entertainment for the masses!) and grave insult to Ukraine,
Dr. Billington owes a public apology in my opinion. I know he wants
Russia to be better place, but why must it be so at the expense of
Ukraine? Ýÿ
