A thought in Blue and Yellow

 

(I truly hope this is the first and last non-technical blog post I place here)

I still remember the war stories that my late grand-father, a platoon comander in the Romanian Royal Army at the time, a participant to the fight against the Soviets  from 1941 to 1944 and then to the war against the Axis until May 1945, was telling me when I was a child.

I remember how he told me about the national tragedy of the Polish people who, attacked from the West and then from the East, had barely enough time to use the Romanian Bridgehead to evacuate through Romania part of their Treasury and Army, to continue the fight from British soil. It was an event that affected greatly the Romanian population at the time.

The Poles never surrendered. They never bowed their heads. They proved to be a nation of heroes, even when completely overrun by enemies from all sides and even with their country erased from the map.

I also remember how he told me about the bravery of the Finns during the Winter War. How their troops were skillfully going on skis, unnnoticed, behind the enemy lines and bringing panic, havoc and death within the ranks of the Soviet invaders. How the Red Army had such a poor performance that Stalin had to supply the invading troops amply in order to defeat the Finns.

Finland sued for armistice and suffered tremendous losses both then and after WW2 but they managed to stay independent and not subject to the Communist yoke like the Eastern half of the continent.

I also remember how my grand-father was praising to me the bravery of the Greeks. Initially attacked by Fascist Italy, they resisted bravely and even managed to repel the enemy into the Italian-occupied Albania.

Italy performed so badly in that war that Germany had to come to help them and my grand-father told me how impressed the Germans were of the fighting spirit of the Greeks. So impressed that they allowed the Greek officers to retain their daggers and swords (symbolic elements of the military uniform) even in captivity.

Maybe an urban legend, but an ispiring one to me.

I mentioned these stories for several reasons:

• because they aren't about one Giant against another Giant, like the Axis against the Allies. They are about a Giant going after a much smaller opponent.
  
  Today we see the same: a Giant going against a much smaller nation, commiting one of the most blatant and coward acts of aggression - much like Germany against the Poles, USSR against the Finns or Italians against the Greeks.
  
  
• because, just as Romania stood to help her Northern neighbour in 1939, she has to stand to help her Northern neighbour again.
  
  
• because the current fight is way more than the Putin regime or the balance of power in Europe and worldwide.

The current fight is about the right of 40 million people to their history, to their identity and to their destiny without anyone else's interference.

And as a Romanian British, I cannot do but empathise with that.

We, Romanians, know very well what it means to be divided and ruled by others - for centuries. We, Romanians, know very well what it means to have others to tell you who you are, where you're coming from and where you should be going.

We, Romanians, know very well the price to have your own name, your own language, your own intepretation of history and your own destiny. And Ukrainians are fighting precisely for that, I think.

And that's why, while deploring the situation in which the brother Russian nation finds itself in, I cannot do but express my deepest sympathy for the Ukrainian cause.

And to my Ukrainian colleagues whom I had the pleasure to work with at Barclays, I say: regardlesss of the outcome of the current conflict, if the bravery and dignity of your nation didn't win the respect of others, it certainly won mine.

Слава Україні!