rthstewart | In which I take a deep breath and hit the post button anyway

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In which I take a deep breath and hit the post button anyway

So, Chapter 8, The Queen Susan in Finchley, is up.

There’s not much research here. The information on the SS Seatrain came from here.

I really meant to get this up sooner, but I’ve been tweaking Susan and Peter’s conversation for days. I’ve been concerned about a lot of things there. I don’t want Peter to seem pompous or judgmental for acts undertaken in Narnia. I really wanted to show a good relationship between the two of them because without that, the “not a Friend of Narnia” is meaningless. The ends and means discussion reappears, now with the added gloss of what it means to be a Knight of Narnia. It was

min023 who pointed out once how Susan was the only one not a Knight and I've thought a lot about that over the months.

Of immense concern to

l_a_r_m , Lowrey’s fate remains undecided. This is a step forward, as I did intend to kill him.

And of course, the chapter continues the meditation on families and children and the war’s effects upon them. The Churchill quote is deliberately ironic given what the War did to English family life. I’ve been working on the theme for several chapters now with good parents (Tom Clark, Lin Kun and Kwong Lee), bad parents (Harold and Alberta), absent parents (Richard Russell, John Pevensie, Leszi, Jack’s mother, Yi), parental figures (Ruby, Peter in many different guises), and unconventional families and single parents (Ruby as surrogate mother to Jack, Tom Clark, Dalia and Mrs. Pevensie as single parents, Maureen in an Asian family, Peter in a Cheetah family, Cyrus and the Satyrs) and so forth.

I’ve not addressed head on the issue of whether Edmund was one of those absent fathers and whether Morgan was one of those single mothers for a lot of reasons. Most troubling to me is that it reeks of fandom cliché and it’s not a part of the story that most TSG readers have focused upon too much. I’ve tried to show something of how I see the succession after the departure and it’s not the harsh, brutal, or violent upheaval most often shown in fic. Hence the reason for the introduction of Aidan and his many small relations.

snacky , Clio, E,

autumnia , and

min023 have been a huge help with this chapter. So, thank you!

There’s more to come about Edmund and Morgan. Like the Valentine's Day story, I will post it here and not on ff.net.

Some chapters come easily. The conversation between Peter and Susan was not one of them.

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Not sure about Polish, but there are Russians :)..., originally from Smolensk (I am sorry about your president), currently in US. It was my comment regarding "Soviets" that Rthstewart mentioned. Thank you very much for giving a more detailed explanation on the subject. I wrote it after I spent an hour watching my children watch a program about Kurskaia Duga battle. There were a bunch of interviews with Russian and German veterans and both refereed to the fourths of USSR simply as Russians, which was promptly translated as Soviets. By the end of the program my ears turned in to tubes. I know that most Europeans do not use the term and I though that English been Europeans might not either.

Along with Katyn, I actually was thinking about the battle of Warsaw, in particular the rebelation and stand of the "Soviet" troops... But this is another story.

Hellen

PS Rth, Great chapter, as usual. Sorry to use your journal as a chart :).

Thank you, Hellen. I had wondered if you were from that part of the world. As mentioned somewhere in here, I lived in Romania in the early 90s as a volunteer. We had to be very careful in describing what "volunteer" meant, as the assumption in Romania at that time was "slave labor." I understood what you meant about the term "Soviet" versus "Russian" though I certainly do not understand the nuances of when it is appropriate and when it is not. I will do the best I can and where I err, do let me know! From what I saw in my source material, the English and Americans did refer to their "ally" as Soviet and its people as "Soviets" thereby enforcing the fiction. However, most of my source material is written by Americans rather than by English writers. I do find it interesting that Europeans continued to use the term "Russian."

thank you for continuing to read!

The whole problem has in fact strong connections with linguistics. English term "Soviet" can be used both as noun and adjective. In Slavic languages these are two different words. There is a Russian adjective meaning "Soviet", which was widely used (as in examples I've showed above), but a noun has never been created (hence: Soviet man, also Soviet nation etc.). As an English language allows for that, you can use term "Soviet" as noun, but only when it corresponds with intentions of person speaking.

>I am sorry about your president
Thank you

As to the Russians/Soviets problem I should add, that using "Russians" where "Soviets" could be also used humanizes them in a way. It's a bit like using Germans instead of Nazis (though now, especially during official occasions, very often Germans from III Reich are called "Nazis" out of courtesy for currently living Germans. Or political correctness). If somebody translates "Russians" to "Soviets" he modificates the utterance against speaker's intentions.

>I actually was thinking about the battle of Warsaw
I've stopped here for a moment: Why battle of Warsaw?!
Term "battle of Warsaw" is used when refering to the battle from 1920. There was also "battle of Warsaw 1656" and "battle of Warsaw 1705". What was in September 1939 was "defence of Warsaw". But you, as I understand, mean Warsaw Uprising.
That is one of aspects of what I mentioned before, i.e. moral problems of having Stalin as your ally. Especially if he is an enemy of your other ally; USSR attacked Poland in 1939 and despite some political declarations or even acts that war wasn't ended until Stalin grabbed half of Poland and in the rest of it established communist government, dependent to him. Warsaw Uprising was very useful for Stalin - thanks to that he had less Polish soldiers and political leaders to arrest and/or execute.
Western allies decided just to let it all be. I'd wish there was some Lucy there to tell them few words.

Best,
Krystyna

I have been very conscious of when I use "Nazi" and when I use "German" in the story. I will add "Soviet" and "Russian" to that list! And yes, there were huge problems to having Stalin as an ally. I had read that Roosevelt's promise to Molotov notwithstanding regarding the second front, Churchill was perfectly content to let the Nazis and Stalin's forces (Soviet army?) battle it out to the weakening of both.

Thanks again and onward!

Yep, that is proper place to use term "Soviet army". Probably the most proper, when you refer to that as owned by Stalin.
In case you haven't noticed in that amount of mails - there are some new also above.

Krystyna

>I've stopped here for a moment: Why battle of Warsaw?!
Sorry, here I was at a loss for a correct term to use. "Liberation" did not sound right, but what I was referring to is the stop of the Soviet advance for the duration of the Uprising (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Uprising). The story was well known in the USSR and was viewed as a betrayal of Slavic brotherhood for a gain in a political game.

Rth, not to justify anything of what Stalin and his company done and with deep apologizes to Krystyna and he country people, but just to give a little bit of background on what happened around the time of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact took forth.

In the years 1936-1938 Stalin performed Great Purge, in which he executed over a half a million of army offices only, not to count people of other professions and affiliations. These executions quite often are pointed out as one of the reasons Red army was not able to withstand German attack in 1941 and suffered colossal losses in the first days and weeks. Why Stalin did it is quite an open question, which I do not want to speculate about at the moment.
Another part of the picture is that a part of Poland belonged to Russian Empire before the Revolution of 1917. This was the part that according to Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact went back to USSR and this is the where the invasion of Red army took place in 1937. Probably the reason that this land did belong at some point to Russian Empire allowed Great Britain and France not to declare war on USSR as they did on Germany once both armies moved into the Polish territory (There was an agreement between these countries that once one is attacked, the others would declare war on the aggressor) . Also, I think Stalin did not consider this territory foreign and felt comfortable to use the same measures to its population as to the rest of the USSR. The problem again came from the betrayal of the Slavic brotherhood. Polish refugees and military units were crossing to the Russian side expecting protection from advancing German troops, but instead they were either taken prisoners and put in concentration camps or simply executed.

Sorry for the history review, just wanted to give a perspective. Katyn was not the only execution place, just one of the most known ones. Stalin did execute many others, before and after Katyn, Polish and other nationals, he was quite an internationalist… This is about Stalin and executions, the USSR/Russia's fight with Nazi Germany is another matter all together. Since twelfth century the Russian national attitude is that when under attack, no internal disputes can take place. The following fight and success were not because, but despite Stalin and Communists presence. It was a national upraise and quite a spectacular one, but we can discuss it some other time.

>Sorry, here I was at a loss for a correct term to use.
It's me who should apologize for being pedantic. It's just that because of number of battles which taken place in Warsaw some of them are called battles, some - sieges, some - defences etc. As a result one does not understand, when somebody doesn't use that code.

>In the years 1936-1938 Stalin performed Great Purge
I am aware of that, but I'm not sure why you've mentioned that. I don't suppose it has anything to do with attacking Poland in 1939 - if anything, it should be a reason not to attack. And if it was regarding to the situation in 1944 - military situation was completely different then. Quite recently there was published a book written by Russian historian and based on Moscow's archives which clearly showes, that it wasn't questionable that from a military point of view stopping then for few months was idiotic.

>a part of Poland belonged to Russian Empire before the Revolution of 1917. This was the part that according to Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact went back to USSR
Not only those and not all of them. Before 1917 there was no independent Poland at all (not since partitions 1772-1793-1795). So just as much as e.g. Brest, Warsaw was in Russia. On the other hand Lviv was in Austria-Hungary. The only time when Poland's eastern border was a bit similar to that from Ribbentrop-Molotov pact was for some years till 981 and in 1018-1031.

>Probably the reason that this land did belong at some point to Russian Empire allowed Great Britain and France not to declare war on USSR as they did on Germany
Agreement between Poland and Great Britain had secret protocol in which first point made it clear, that by "one of european powers" they mean Germany. In case of some other "power", Poland could ask for support and Britain could give it or not. As they didn't help even with Germany, it's not surprising that they didn't help with USSR. In Polish-French agreements, if I recolect well, it was even openly said.

>I think Stalin did not consider this territory foreign
Stalin didn't consider anything a foreign territory. He would take anything what was available. As you've said, he was quite an internationalist.

>Katyn was not the only execution place, just one of the most known ones. Stalin did execute many others, before and after Katyn, Polish and other nationals
No disagreement between us here. Look above - I have written the same when Katyń was mentioned for the first time. You see, I've read "The Gulag Archipelago" or Bukovsky's book (I'm not sure what is it's English title) for the first time before I've learned what exactly happened in Katyn (I was about 12 then. I'm not certain when I've learned about Katyń issue, but for sure it was later - I hadn't expected anything good from Stalin by that time).

> It was a national upraise and quite a spectacular one
I know that and I'm happy for Russians that they managed to retain their independence. I'd just wish they would let others remain independent too.

By the way. Do you know what Hitler wrote in "Mein Kampf"? (I'm translating from Polish translation, of course):
"The fact of signing peace treaty between Germany and Russia would itself inevitably cause a future war, which result would be certain in advance. Such a war could mean only the end of German Reich."
Quite a prophet, wasn't he?

Krystyna

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In which I take a deep breath and hit the post button anyway

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