Someone Who Takes U P Arms Agains Their Own Country
Drivers take a knee n support of the Black Lives Matter move before the Austrian Formula One Thou Prix race at the Reddish Bull Band racetrack in Spielberg, Austria, Sunday, July 5, 2020.
AP
For Russians, kneeling goes dorsum to the 13th century and it's never been a positive gesture.
On July 5, F1's Austrian Thousand Prix began with protests against racism and discrimination and supporting the Black Lives Thing movement. Most of the drivers took a knee joint in solidarity with the cause, yet five drivers abstained from making the gesture.
Amidst those who refused to take a knee was the merely Russian F1 driver, Daniil Kvyat (racing for the AlphaTauri team). His refusal to take a knee generated criticism online, with some fans accusing the standing drivers of a gesture that looked bad:
Withal, Kvyat'due south Russian fans met his decision to remain continuing with encouragement.
Merely what do Russians see wrong with the at present-famous gesture that American football game thespian Colin Kaepernick famously revived a fews years ago?
'Nosotros accept washed nothing wrong'
Russia'south first-ever F1 commuter Vitaly Petrov was 1 of the kickoff who came to the defense of his fellow commuter:
"I believe each person has a right to express his views. And each person tin exercise information technology in his way. Each has his ain opinion near whether to take a knee or not. It's adequate to telephone call for taking a human knee, but information technology'due south non adequate to criticize someone who does not agree with you on this," said Petrov.
Russian parliamentarian and one-time professional heavyweight boxer Nikolay Valuev likewise dismissed the gesture as inadequate, in his view. "We take a knee before the flag of the state, the Motherland, maybe before our parents. I do not empathize this gesture as being against racism. I do non consider myself a racist, only why should I accept a genu? I do not understand this at all," said the politician.
The general public and Russian F1 fans also expressed their back up for Kvyat.
"Daniil, all adequate [people] in Russia are with you," wrote one user.
"Russians exercise non take a knee," wrote another.
"To take a knee once is not the same as to respect Afro-Americans your whole life. Bear witness it with your deeds and not gestures," wrote another F1 fan.
"Well done for not taking a knee. If asked, say that Russians take never orchestrated genocide and never wiped out other people. We have done nothing wrong to take a articulatio genus now," wrote another internet user.
Bowing to khans
Americans and Russians empathise and interpret the kneeling gesture in different ways.
While stateside, taking a knee currently represents a protest confronting racial discrimination, most Russians do not run into it as such.
Instead, Russians generally translate taking a knee every bit a sign of submission. The celebrated roots of this uncompromising position might go back to the 13th and 14th centuries when Russian land was dominated by the Mongol Empire and the Golden Horde.
When Mongol ruler and founder of the Golden Horde Batu Khan invaded Kievan Rus' in 1237-1242, Russian princes became politically dependent at the Khan's will.
Back and so, information technology was customary for Russian princes to travel to bow to the great khan, their practical vassal. And sometimes, the Russian princes were forced to kneel earlier their foreign vassal. In a style, taking a knee before the khan was akin to a medieval tradition of homage, a ceremony when a vassal pledges his allegiance, reverence, and submission to his feudal lord.
Prince Alexander Nevsky begging Batu Khan for mercy for Russia.
Getty Images
When the Great Stand between the forces of Ivan Iii of Muscovy and the forces of Akhmat Khan on the Ugra River ended the Tatar-Mongol rule over Moscow in 1480, bowing to khans ceased in practice.
Baskaks past Sergey Ivanov.
Museum of Moscow
Much afterwards, when the Russian nobility emerged as a class, kneeling before anyone was considered a humiliating experience: it could have damaged a nobleman's reputation and question his noble origin.
This is how Russian classic poet Alexander Pushkin describes a humiliation incurred by the kneeling of a nobleman in his novel The Helm'due south Girl:
I was over again conducted to the Pretender, and made to kneel earlier him. Pougatcheff extended his veined manus towards me.
"Buss his hand — osculation his paw!" Everybody repeated.
I should accept preferred the near violent of deaths to such abject humiliation.
Pugachev'south tribunal.
Arkady Plastov
As opposed to kneeling, a tradition called бить челом - (chip' chelom, "chirapsia ane's forehead") was more than acceptable and widespread in aboriginal Russian federation. At start, it referred to a literal bowing to a higher authority (i.e. moving 1's brow forward) to demonstrate the highest respect. It soon caused new meanings: to bow, to beg or plead for something, and to greet someone.
In the Russian linguistic communication, the phrase was ofttimes used in writing in private correspondence as a course of greeting and sit-in of respect and an honorable attitude.
Equally it stands, many contemporary Russians still regard kneeling as a gesture of submission or a deplorable appeal to a higher authority, an abject plea for mercy. And hither lies the key difference from the American culture in perception of the gesture.
Refusing to take a articulatio genus today does not mean Russians support racism. After all, Russian F1 commuter Daniil Kvyat was wearing a T-shirt with "Cease RACISM" printed on it.
AlphaTauri's Russian commuter Daniil Kvyat wears a shirt reading "End Racism" ahead the Austrian Formula 1 Grand Prix race on July v, 2020 in Spielberg, Austria.
AFP
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Source: https://www.rbth.com/history/332413-take-knee-black-lives-matter-russia-f1
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