As Novye Izvestia has already reported, Moscow investigators, after an appeal by ANO Veteranskie Vesti, began checking the song of the singer Manizha “Russian Woman”, with which she will represent Russia at Eurovision. "Veterans" appealed to the head of the Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, with a request to initiate a case against Manizha for extremism and to stop the distribution of the video of her speech. They believe that the stage performance performed by Manizha is aimed "at gross insult and humiliation of the human dignity of Russian women on the basis of their attitude to nationality".
This collision caused a real shock among the American lawyer Yulia Nikolayeva, who does not understand at all what can be checked here:
“What a wonderful story with Manizha and her song.
First, she revealed the absolutely medieval level of condo racism. For the fact that Russia should be represented at Eurovision by an ethnic Russian, 60% voted even for the relatively advanced audience of Echo of Moscow, to say nothing of the "deep" people. Russian Russians are distinguished by the fact that they do not distinguish between "Russian" and "Russian", putting an equal sign between them and throwing out from this equation dozens of ethnic groups living in Russia and having Russian citizenship. The super-international USSR brought up one of the most nationalist societies in modern Europe. This diagnosis is aggravated by the fact that the country, which has absorbed vast territories inhabited by dozens of indigenous peoples with their own culture and language, bears the name of a specific ethnic group. Ethnic Russian, by the way, is also a dubious definition, since whoever has not walked along this ethnic group. Many Russians will be very surprised if they do a genetic test or dig into their haplogroups.
In fact, to say that only Russian can represent Russia is the same as saying that only a descendant of the "Mayflower" who sailed on the ship can speak from the United States. To be indignant that an ethnic Tajik woman will represent Russia at the song competition, how to be unhappy that Russia was represented at various international competitions, for example, by Kostya Tszyu or Margarita Mamun, Vladimir Kramnik or Alina Zagitova. The fighters from Russia are traditionally from the Caucasus. How to deal with this?
The second episode of this scandal is even cooler. The Investigative Committee checks Manizha's song for calls to extremism. I can imagine how the trailblazers go nuts, considering the application:
"You're over 30, hello, where are the kids?
You are generally beautiful, but now, you would lose weight
Put on longer, put on shorter
Grew up without a father, do what you don't want
Are you sure you don't want to? (You don't want to, but you need to)
Look, it's true, you and I are not a herd".
This, it turns out, is an impartial image of a Russian woman. Oh how! This is indeed very profound, as befits a deep people. But seriously, I can understand the aesthetic differences - it's still a matter of taste. But extremism, the Investigative Committee, the Kremlin's comments ... It's not even up to mice, to ciliates, chess word..."
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For its part, the pro-government telegram channel "Kremlin Washerwoman" is putting forward a quite sensible proposal: to stop supporting the Eurovision Song Contest at the state level, and then problems like this will disappear by themselves:
“Checking Manizha's song raises the question of the principles of participation in Eurovision. I drew attention to the outrageous engagement of this competition in imposing an ultraliberal agenda that rejects traditional values and the universally questionable nature of the quality of the performers' songs. Russia's participation in this competition at the state level is more of a discrediting factor than a reason for pride. Thus, participation in Eurovision should be exclusively private, commercial in nature and exclude any kind of state support. And since the 1st channel in the society is positioned as a state one, its support for this competition hits the reputation of not only the channel itself, but also the country. The fact that the song “Russian Woman” has become the most popular on the official channel of the contest on YouTube does not mean anything, since the “cheating” of votes in this channel is a widespread phenomenon and there can be no question of any objectivity in this case..."
And it's hard to argue with that. The only objection that may arise is this: will the absence of state support for Eurovision in Russia hurt the national pride of Russians? It's no secret that for most of them, Eurovision is something like the World Ice Hockey Championship, in which it is not participation that is important, but victory...