After Vladimir Solovyov’s program “The Duel” aired on the Rossiya 1 TV channel, where Vladimir Zhirinovsky and Nikolai Zlobin opposed each other in debates, the question arises: in our modern universities, “docent” is precisely an academic title and a corresponding position or everything still a category from the immortal film “Gentlemen of Fortune” - a nickname? And this question did not arise idlely, because what was heard on the air on February 18 resembles a real theater of the absurd.
Those readers who watched the broadcast of the next “Duel,” I think, immediately understood what we were talking about. Those who, for various reasons, did not see the broadcast with Vladimir Solovyov on the mentioned date, need to explain what happened and how. In the television program, as usual, the main characters in the studio presented their thoughts on the situation in the modern world. During the program, issues of confrontation between NATO and Russia, the counter-terrorism operation in Syria, the geopolitical situation, etc. were actively discussed.
After 56 minutes, the microphone was in the hands of an invited expert, whose comments cast doubt on its expert adequacy and led to the emergence of the question that was identified at the very beginning of this material. The person who took the microphone in his hands (and this person turned out to be MGIMO Associate Professor Nikolai Topornin), with a smart look, gave out something that, as they say, would make you feel bad. After long-winded reflections that the American coalition began its operation, although late, but still earlier than the Russian one, and that there is no point in supporting Bashar al-Assad in Syria, because, you see, they do not support him in the United States and the European Union, Mr. Topornin, addressing Vladimir Zhirinovsky, announced literally the following:
Why is no one coming for Russia, not a single country? You say that NATO is surrounding the Russian Federation. I agree with you... But, sorry, NATO arose as a response to the Warsaw Pact, and then the Warsaw Pact included many countries...
SHTA???
How, excuse me, dear MGIMO associate professor, did the Western military bloc arise? As a response to the Warsaw Pact?.. This is a “historical” turn... I would like to recall the statement of a well-known movie character: “When you speak, it seems that you are delusional.”
For reference:
First. NATO is a military-political (as they call themselves) bloc of states in North America and Europe, the creation of which began on April 4, 1949, and expansion continues to this day.
Second. The Organization of the Warsaw Pact is a document that formalized the creation of a military-political union of the socialist countries of Europe, dated May 14, 1955. The Warsaw Pact ceased to exist on July 1, 1991.
Third. Nikolay Borisovich Topornin is an expert on financial, customs, budget and banking law of the European Union, integration into the EU and the CIS, constitutional law of the Russian Federation. Candidate of Legal Sciences, Associate Professor. Topornin gives a course of lectures on EU banking law at MGIMO (U) of the Russian Foreign Ministry. He is also the author of numerous scientific publications, heads the European Information Center, and serves as a manager of scientific projects for undergraduates and graduate students. Graduate of MGIMO. He has been working at the university for more than 25 years.
From Topornin’s biography and “portfolio”: he speaks English, French, Spanish and German. Trained and taught at European universities: Rotterdam (Netherlands), Brussels (Belgium), Frankfurt am Main (Germany), Osnabrück (Germany), Berlin (Germany), Paris (France), etc. Worked in the information office for more than 15 years Council of Europe as director. Teaches at the departments of European and constitutional law at MGIMO.
If a person who graduated from one of the most prestigious universities in the country and, moreover, has been working there for a quarter of a century, does not seriously know that the NATO military bloc was formed 6 years earlier than the Warsaw Pact Organization (WTO), and that it was the WTO that became a rather late response to the creation of NATO , then the future of Russian diplomacy becomes, to put it mildly, alarming. After all, if Nikolai Borisovich Topornin is able to present a lie as a basis for discussion to a multimillion-dollar television audience, which just so happens to include people with knowledge of history, with an impenetrable air, then what does Mr. Associate Professor and Candidate of Legal Sciences teach his students who have chosen diplomatic service as one of the most important components of protecting the interests of the Fatherland? It can be assumed that Mr. Topornin’s lectures have their own parallel world, in which students are sure that NATO was formed “as a response to the Internal Affairs Directorate,” and that NATO expansion today is “a protective measure against Russia’s steps.” And the whole nightmare is that Associate Professor Topornin, who trained at a variety of Russian and foreign universities, teaches, not at the school of the “god Kuzi” sect, but at MGIMO, a university that determines the face of domestic diplomacy and, in fact, the entire diplomatic school.
After Mr. Topornin’s statements, Zhirinovsky responded to the “associate professor”:
Do you even know what you're saying? NATO was created in 1949, and in response to the creation of NATO in 1955, we are creating a military bloc named after the place of its creation - the Warsaw Pact. And you teach at MGIMO?!! I'll call MGIMO - this is your last day working there. These are doctors of science, they teach our youth... If a person teaches at MGIMO with such knowledge, then this is savagery.
Topornin mumbled that Zhirinovsky was at MGIMO for such knowledge “ would get a bad grade" Who has two? - from Associate Professor Topornin?..
Of course, one can treat Zhirinovsky as a politician in different ways, but how to treat Mr. Topornin after this - the answer is obvious...
And for some reason it seems that Associate Professor Topornin consciously He said what he said - about NATO and the Department of Internal Affairs. This, in his mentioned parallel world, must be considered precisely in this way, that the West is, as it were, trying to kick back from our “aggression,” and graduates of the main university of Russian diplomacy must consider this so... That is, future diplomats a priori must, according to the ultra-liberal interpretation, “repent for what they have done “, because NATO (according to Topornin) is like a victim.
How many more such candidates and doctors are entrenched in our universities? How many more “topornins” are trying to hammer into the heads of modern students something that has nothing in common with Russian and world history, deliberately replacing the facts. The main question is: to please whom is this being done? Stunning incompetence (if so, then how do such people get into universities), or, after all, a well-thought-out game of reformatting historical science, as a result of which, if you try not to pay attention to this kind of “work,” a new Kozyrevism may appear in domestic diplomacy. And Russia has already fully experienced what Kozyrevism leads to.
P.S. Comments on the material about the “Duel” program on Topornin’s Facebook page are closed. Is the assistant professor trying to hush it up? Don’t have the courage to speak out and communicate with the audience, at least on social networks?..
Topornin's speech begins at approximately 56:31 (channel material "
“God, how much we don’t know about the most dangerous events for our people,
“How little we know about those who are ready to destroy Russia or drench it in blood, surrender it to plunder and desecration...
Nikolai Topornin, international lawyer at MGIMO, is one of the haters of Russia, a lawyer for the West and its crimes.
On Vladimir Solovyov’s show “The Duel,” he agreed on February 18, 2016, to the point of complete slander, in his desire to denigrate Russia:
“You say that NATO surrounds the Russian Federation, I agree with you, but, sorry, NATO arose as a response to the Warsaw Pact, and then quite a lot of countries were part of the Warsaw Pact...”
Reference: NATO was created against the USSR in 1949, 6 years before its formation
Warsaw Pact and included at that time
12 states. After the collapse of the Warsaw Pact in June 1991, and
then the USSR, 14 more states joined NATO and now it unites
28 countries. NATO is directed exclusively against Russia.
The Warsaw Pact was created in 1955, 6 years later than NATO and
disbanded in July 1991. The Warsaw Pact included 7 countries
Why did Topornin tell this lie? In order to accuse Russia, represented by the then USSR, of aggressiveness and its threat to the world community, in order to prove the justice and validity of NATO’s attempts against our Russia and the legality of involving more and more countries in its ranks. Now 28 states have been herded into NATO, driven by the ruling elite of these states, bought and blackmailed by Washington. (It’s not for nothing that all presidents and senior officials of Europe and the whole world are bugged by Americans - to collect compromising evidence - so that they can be manipulated like puppets, pulling on this or that compromising evidence)
Now think about how many people who are hostile to the people and the country, who directly serve the interests of the West, are in the most important government, political, and educational positions, including those who shape the consciousness and worldview of our student youth, like this one:
Topornin Nikolay Borisovich Candidate of Legal Sciences, Associate Professor.
Department of European Law, Associate Professor, specialist in financial, customs, budget and banking law of the European Union, integration into the EU and the CIS, constitutional law of the Russian Federation, gives a course of lectures on EU banking law. He is the author of a number of scientific publications, heads the European Information Center, and supervises the work of several undergraduate and graduate students.
Graduate of MGIMO, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, has been working at MGIMO since 1990.
How many people has this assistant professor fooled and turned against Russia?
And the question: How can a candidate of sciences, associate professor at MGIMO, not know that NATO was created 6 years before the Warsaw Pact? Created when the USSR was still licking its deepest, most terrible wounds after Hitler’s invasion and could not physically threaten anyone?
Once he was harshly but rightly imprisoned for criminal ignorance... It is still unclear whether it was an unfortunate slip of the tongue or a deliberate distortion of the facts...
It happened live on the Rossiya TV channel. At the usual late time for regular TV viewers, Vladimir Solovyov’s program called “The Duel” was on. Two irreconcilable fighters came together on the “battlefield” - a regular on the show, the head of the liberal democratic party, the omnipresent Vladimir Zhirinovsky and our former, but now not ours, citizen of the United States, political scientist and historian -.
The conversation turned to the confrontation between the two systems in the last century. In the second part of the program (“with seconds”) a person from Zlobin’s “retinue” joined the competition. The name of this funny character is Nikolai Topornin. He asked the question for a very long time, and at the very end of his monologue he said something that, as they say, cannot be said in a fairy tale, nor described with a pen!
(transcript of speech with necessary abbreviations):
— Who is in the coalition with the Russian Federation? Why... is no one following Russia, not a single country?.. You say that NATO surrounds the Russian Federation. I agree with you. But, sorry, NATO emerged as a response to the Warsaw Pact! And then the Warsaw Pact included quite a lot of countries. Now all these countries that were in the Warsaw Pact have joined NATO... Please explain: why is it that no one follows the Russian Federation, which, according to you, pursues such a peace-loving policy...? Even Belarus and Kazakhstan do not fully support Russia?
Zhirinovsky: You just made the mistake that NATO was created in response to the creation of the Warsaw Pact(Topornin’s nervous grimace). Are you even thinking?(Topornin makes convulsive swallowing movements). NATO was created in 1949, and in response to the creation of NATO, in 1955, we created a military bloc, named Warsaw after the place of its creation.(Topornin blinks pitifully - he’s completely in trouble!). And you teach at MGIMO? This is your last day at MGIMO! Tomorrow I will call the rector... They teach our youth. If a person teaches at the best university in the country with such knowledge... of course, this is crazy.
You can become famous in different ways. Nikolai Topornin did it clumsily. Sorry for the pun.
Brief biography of a non-heroic hero
Kolenka was born in November 1963 into an intelligent Soviet family. At school I studied excellently, which helped me to successfully enter the prestigious capital’s Institute of International Relations upon graduation. Studying at the university was not bad. As a result, after receiving a diploma of higher education, the talented graduate received an offer to continue in graduate school. In 1990, Topornin got a job as a teacher at MGIMO.
Over time, Nikolai Borisovich defended his Ph.D. and became a specialist in European Union banking law. It is on this topic that he gives lectures for international relations students.
Speaks fluently in English, German, French, and Spanish. At one time, I completed an internship in Europe and even taught there.
Recently, he has been a regular on analytical programs on Russian TV such as “Time will tell” and “Meeting Place” in the role of an expert.
He is interested in team sports, especially football.
Topornin's statements
- The negative rhetoric of British Prime Minister Theresa May towards Russia is not connected with a specific attempt on Skripal’s life, but with the general anti-Russian policy of London.
- The danger of the situation with migrants on the European continent should not be exaggerated. They do not threaten his existence. Fading old Europe needs to replenish its workforce, and therefore has a vested interest in the influx of foreigners. The main problem is the integration of refugees into Western society.
- Now the most rabid Russophobes are Poland and Lithuania. And the last one in particular.
- By moving away from the European Union and pursuing its own course, Great Britain is demonstrating not a policy of good neighborliness, but the principles of nationalism.
- Terrorism is a disease of human civilization for which an effective vaccine has not yet been invented.
In 1959, the Second Summer Spartakiad of the Peoples of the USSR opened (until August 16, 1959). For the first time, production teams were allowed to participate in the final competitions of the Spartakiad - winners of the championship of the Union republics in athletics, cycling, weightlifting, and gymnastics, which significantly influenced the level of results in these types of programs.
In total, 78 teams from 60 territories, republics and regions of the USSR took part in the Spartakiad. The best were awarded prizes from the Central Council of Sports Societies and Organizations. About 40 million Soviet citizens participated in the qualifying competitions that preceded the final starts and were held in 190 thousand physical education groups. The final competitions were held in Moscow in 22 sports. Chess, motorsports and table tennis made their debut at the Spartakiad.
8,452 athletes of 43 nationalities from all Union republics took part in the final stage. At the Spartakiad, 12 records of the Soviet Union and 3 world records were set. In the team competition, athletes from the Moscow team took first place with 344 points. In second place is the RSFSR team - 329.5 points, in third place is the Leningrad team - 324 points.