Jewish questions

[Barbara]

"Andrey Andreyevich Vlasov (1901–1946) was a talented Red Army commander who distinguished himself in the Battle of Moscow, Vlasov was captured by German forces in 1942 while leading the 2nd Shock Army in the Siege of Leningrad.

Disillusioned with Stalinist leadership, Vlasov defected and offered to lead a Russian force against the Soviet government.

The Russian Liberation Army (ROA) consisted primarily of Soviet prisoners of war (POWs) and personnel from security units who chose to fight for the Germans rather than perish in POW camps.

The movement aimed to overthrow Stalin and create an independent Russian state, issuing the "Prague Manifesto" in 1944 which detailed their anti-Bolshevik, anti-imperialist platform.

In 1945, the ROA grew to about 125,000 members.

Oder Front: The First Division of the ROA engaged in its first battle against the Red Army in February 1945.

Prague Uprising: In May 1945, some ROA units unexpectedly assisted the Czech resistance against the German occupiers in Prague.

Surrender and Fate: The army tried to surrender to American forces to avoid Soviet vengeance.

However, many were handed over to the Soviets.
See Euphrosynos Cafe thread on the Cossacks and others who suffered the same horrible tragedy

General Vlasov and other leaders were tried in Moscow and executed by hanging on August 1, 1946.

The legacy of the Vlasov Army remains a sensitive topic in Russian history, often debated in the context of treason versus anti-Soviet resistance."

Today's Russia has viewed the Vlasov project extremely negatively, chastising Rocor members whose relatives enthusiastically took part in the ROA as : traitors to "the Motherland"

Whereas Rocor, generally speaking, sympathized with that goal of getting rid of Stalin. [Who wouldn't, especially if one was a Russian emigre from the Bolshevik Revolution or a later refugee from the Soviet Union ?]

I did some reading about this epoch and recall that Vlasov and his movement were secular, though, not Orthodox. There were other anti-Soviet Russian movements which were more Orthodox-Church oriented.

Though Vlasov attended a Russian Orthodox seminary in his youth, he seems to have lost his faith somewhere along the way, no doubt in the climb thru the ranks of the Red Army.

A priest noted in a diary entry that Vlasov did not receive Communion nor confess during the years of World War II, a perilous time when one would imagine one would MOST be in need of the Sacraments.

[Barbara]

Rocor-MP's Synod's 2009 Epistle is below.
The missive tries to be as diplomatic as possible toward the Russian Federation and MP
while still standing up for the Church Abroad's historical ideals and members who participated in the ROA

Note the use of the traditional Russian term Fatherland for Russia
as opposed to the Soviet "Motherland".

"bolshevism" is not capitalized, perhaps to play Communism's darkness down a little as the Soviet Union was still a recent memory in 2009 for many RF citizens - and even a positive memory for quite a number.

Note also the interesting observation at the end of the Epistle that many in Germany were during World War II - and remain today - opposed to a strong central govt. in Russia


General Vlasov south of Berlin in 1944 with other ROA members
[photo credit : Radio Free Europe]

In fact, I think the ROA was mainly the project of one German officer, Captain Strik Strikfeldt.

Actually many German officials including the Fuhrer himself opposed the ROA movement due to Hitler's - demonic - characterization of the Slavs as 'subhuman'.

"NEW YORK: September 8, 2009

The Synod of Bishops Comments On Protopriest George Mitrofanov’s Book, "The Tragedy of Russia. Forbidden Themes in the History of the 20th Century"

During its September session, the Synod of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia discussed the polemics revolving around the book published this summer by a church historian, Professor of St Petersburg Theological Academy Protopriest Georgy Mitrofanov, titled Tragedija Rossii. “Zapretniye temy istorii XX veka [The Tragedy of Russia. “Forbidden” Themes in the History of the 20th Century].

The book is a compendium containing published articles and sermons written and delivered by Fr George from 1990-2000.

We are saddened by the glaring vitriol in the arguments surrounding this book, and the contentious and disturbed spirit expressed by some of the critics of this book.

Since the matter involves a compendium which includes the works of Fr Georgy written over almost a decade, we will allow ourselves to touch upon only one of the topics, the historiosophical and historical evaluation of General AA Vlasov.

It was this topic that set off the more painful disputes among Russian Orthodox Christians both in the Fatherland and in the diaspora.

The tragedy is indeed a great one surrounding those who are commonly called “Vlasovites,” that is, the participants in that movement upon which the Russian Freedom Army [Russkaya Osvoboditel’naja Armija, ROA] was founded.

In any case, it must be examined without bias and with complete objectivity. Without such an approach, the science of history becomes political propaganda.

It seems to us that for a better understanding of what happened in Russia, and with Russia, in the critical years of the last century, we must avoid a black-and-white juxtaposition of historic events.

These events by their very nature were so complex, so self-contradictory and multi-layered, that an attempt to characterize them with one label is doomed to failure.

In particular, calling the actions of Vlasov treasonous is in our opinion a superficial simplification of what happened. In this regard, we fully support Fr Georgy’s effort to approach this question (in fact, a whole series of questions), with a suitable yardstick for this problem.

In the Russian Diaspora, where some of the survivors of the ROA found themselves, General Vlasov was and remains a symbol of resistance to godless bolshevism in the name of the rebirth of Historic Russia.

Under the circumstances they found themselves in, could General Vlasov and the “Vlasovites” have done anything else?

We hope that future Russian historians view those events with more fairness and objectivity than we see today.

Yet to the question “Were General Vlasov and his supporters traitors to Russia?” we can answer, no, not at all.

Everything they did was for the sake of the Fatherland, in hopes that the defeat of bolshevism would lead to the rebuilding of a powerful national Russia.

Germany was viewed by the Vlasovites solely as an ally in their struggle against bolshevism, but they, the Vlasovites, were prepared if faced with the need to use armed resistance against any colonization or division of our Homeland.

Paraphrasing the famous words of the late Russian philosopher Alexander Zinoviev, General Vlasov and his followers, while “taking aim at communism” took all imaginable measures “not to hit Russia.”

And this attitude, these efforts were not muted among the Vlasovites, and so those in Germany and other countries who hated Russia did all they could to prevent the creation of a battle-ready Russian Freedom Army, let alone a Russian national government.

An in-depth study of the history of the ROA and its founders, we trust, will confirm our statements, founded on undisputed facts and confirmed by eyewitnesses, of whom, alas, the majority has already departed to their ultimate destination.

But until historians can speak their final word, we must not angrily and mercilessly berate our brother, even if his words contain what causes some indignation and disagreement. “Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”"

https://www.synod.com/synod/eng2009/9pr ... ement.html