tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6568915967186844196.post9219114216857083930..comments2024-03-26T14:19:33.332-07:00Comments on Bench Grass: From Now On, No Defeats, II: The Crisis in 1942, I: The RiverErik Lundhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05728486209757153685noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6568915967186844196.post-43504465975700269222012-07-08T18:05:06.652-07:002012-07-08T18:05:06.652-07:00Good Lord, no. The Dalai Lama's role in Chines...Good Lord, no. The Dalai Lama's role in Chinese politics. <i>Obviously.</i><br /><br />(The connection, for those who want to incorporate it in their own schizophrenic ravings, is with the Kalmyks, the most recent grazers of the Volga meadows, who were related to the Oirats/Dzhungars, the supposed "left wing" of the Mongol hordes that inhabited the Dzungarian basin of the northern Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. It's as exotic a region of the world as there still is. Peter Perdue and James Milward have given us modern histories.<br /><br />Or maybe I should say archetypically romantic, given De Quincy's epic treatment of the flight of (some of) the Kalmyks' home to Zungharia. Even today, The Kalmyk Autonomous Republic west of Astrakhan is the "only Buddhist government" in Europe, per Wikipedia.)<br /><br />My point, if I had one, would be that we need to pay way more attention to where the grass grows as we write our histories. But I may have intimated that belief on occasion here before.Erik Lundhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05728486209757153685noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6568915967186844196.post-82369503368206954012012-07-07T17:22:21.202-07:002012-07-07T17:22:21.202-07:00Were that so, whole nations would not have grazed ...<em>Were that so, whole nations would not have grazed along the banks of the Volga between Volgograd and the sea on the greatest water meadow in human history, and we would actually understand the scope and scale of the crisis of 1942.</em><br /><br />OK, so in the next you're going to tell us something fascinating about the significance of that water meadow for Soviet agriculture. Right?Alexhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17153530634675543954noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6568915967186844196.post-29011940605893764882012-07-05T21:16:03.426-07:002012-07-05T21:16:03.426-07:00I've been diligently reading about World War T...I've been diligently reading about World War Two- and history in general- for almost 25 years (5/6th of my life) and I always learn something new from your posts. Thanks for writing.ChrisMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06264355590211481637noreply@blogger.com