Now we’re getting somewhere. Putting him on trial would have been impossible, of course, because they were his courts.
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I excluded the children in my first post and limited my statements to the Romanovs, not their servents.
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Which is also what I said. You must agree that it was the excesses of the Romanovs that allowed Soviet Communism to happen. The same shit happened with the excesses of the Shah and his family in Iran allowing the Ayatolla to take control. Just because what followed was worse doesn’t mitigate the evil that came before it.
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It most certainly is not and, as you know, I wasn’t even discussing that. You said you loved the Romanovs and, while you are far from an apologist, I can’t wrap my mind around that.
Really? I’ve long had the impression that no, there wasn’t much at all to the guy. Being a jackass doesn’t take much effort, intelligence, or depth but adding anti-semitic to it would’ve pushed his personal envelope. Not that being a stupid jerk (or the daughter of one) is a capital offense most places, though.
However, from a purely tactical standpoint killing the lot is the logical step. Eliminates a potential focus of resistance to the revolution and all. Revolution can be ugly but once you’ve decided to kill a Czar shooting a dog is easier.
…and no one in this thread says that they have love for Lenin. Killing the Czar isn’t quite as bad as marginalizing the Jews by perpetuating the blood libel either. Sorry, I will not stand for anyone romanticizing the horror perpetuated by those monster Romanovs (not that that’s what you are doing.) That the people who followed were worse isn’t relevent. If the white caps weren’t so horribly evil, the red caps would never have gotten grass roots support.
Please remember, though, that the Romanov family are considered saints and martyrs by the Orthodox Church. We don’t deny that they weren’t perfect, but Tsar St. Nicholas was annointed ruler by the Church, and was murdered by individuals who had the express aim of stamping out the Church. That may not mean much to you, but it still means a lot to us.
I wasn’t aware of that. Still the main reason that the Romanovs were murdered is because they were theiving, lying butchers. It got their kids and servents killed too. I stand by my statement that the Czar got better than he deserved. Saying that they weren’t perfect is an incredible understatement. Maybe the reason they wanted to stamp out the church was because it annointed that unChristain prick as a leader.
I don’t understand how anyone who is the least bit of a Christain could think of Nicholas as a saint but that sort of thing is not limited to the Orthodox Church by any means. Can someone please tell me what the fuck was so great about Nicholas? He was evil, his father was evil and his grandfather was evil. The real martyrs were the vicitms of his evil.
Have you ever even READ some biographies of Nicholas? Try reading about the man himself, sometime. He was a very devout Christian, but he was raised to see certain people as enemies, and he was under the constant influence and intimidation of relatives and court members who were not so kind.
Actually, he WAS intelligent-but he was ignorant and had almost no confidence. THAT was his misfortune.
A devout Christian who thought he was ordained by God to be the dictatorial ruler of Russia, that liberals, socialists, and anyone who questioned his rule should be killed, and that Jews were subhuman.
And it’s not so hard to be a devout Christian when you control the church. And what’s so virtuous about being a devout Christian anyway? It’s ok to order demonstrators shot and Jewish shetls burned down if you say your prayers after?
I could do that, I guess, though I already have. If you recommend a good book I’ll probably buy it. I’d really like to hear your defense of the man first. What was so great about him that makes you “love” him? So far from you we have that he believed in Jesus and he was smart. What good did the man ever do? Does it even come close to making up for the evil? You seem to have this Disnyfied fairy tale in your mind and though you’ve clearly studied the history you choose to ignore it.
From what I’ve read, and from all I have studied, Nicholas was not one suited to his position. He was by nature, a kind, gentle person, however, he was raised to believe in autocracy and bigotry.
As a TSAR, I would say he was horrid.
As an INDIVIDUAL, he was a good person.
If he tried to do well as the Tsar and failed due to incompetence, you would have a point. When you look at what he did, it’s impossible to separate the two. I’m still waiting for some examples of what a good person he was. Buying rollerskates for his kids and fancy eggs for his wife don’t count.
What good did he do with his power and influence?
What good did he do for anyone other than his family and aides?
Did the good that he did even come close to the horror that he was responsible for?
How can you “love” this guy?
I am not expecting long detailed explanations. Just some bare boned facts. I’ll read your citations for the details.
Why don’t we move this over to Great Debates? It is a fascinating topic and I can see both sides of the issue (I have a Jewish friend who loves the Romanovs), but it really has nothing to do with the OP.
The primary reason why the Church canonized the royal family was because they were passion-bearers, i.e. when confronted with martyrdom, they did not resist, but turned the other cheek, as it were. Tsar St. Nicholas may not have been a very good ruler, but when it became clear that his remaining Tsar would only have led to more chaos, he abdicated rather than go down fighting. It was not his conduct as sovereign, but his behavior in the period immediately preceding his martyrdom that led to his canonization.
Modernity and my nick leads me to think that killing the royal family, especially the dog, was unnecessary.
Looking at it as a historian, that’s the problem with ruling through lineal descent: it gives people a motive to kill you and your whole family.
Living in a nation which threw off a king much more reasonable than the Tsar, and buying into our civil religion, I’m no fan of royalty. You got that right. I like to make fun of royalty. Nothing grates on my nerves like hearing “The Kennedys are America’s royal family.” Nothing. Maybe the obsession with British royalty in the US, that’s almost as annoying.
Well said, Beagle. I have no use for royalty either and I could never understand some American’s obsession with Lady Di. The House of Hanover/Windsor is pretty benign these days and are merely annoying.
I am still waiting to hear about one truely decent thing done by any Romanov Czar. I skimmed your web sites, Guin, they portray the bullshit ginger bread and candy cane lifestyle and seem to, at best, gloss over the pogroms.
Leaving the Romanovs for a sec, let’s get back to Pitting that jackass, Sandino. In the China vs. Taiwan thread in GD, he had this to say:
The ignorance spouted here is just overwhelming. For one thing, China IS capitalist–it is a market economy now, albeit one that is somewhat dirigiste. IMO, China today is very similar to Korea in the 60s and 70s–a dictatorship growing an ecomony by throwing state resources at selected industries.
Second, lumping Japan and Korea with China is to ignore the histories of those countries, which arrived at their present economic status through different means. And how overthrowing capitalism in other countries would preserve the “gains of the 1949 Revolution”–itself a highly dubious notion?
Good point, gobear. I do happen to agree that Sandrino is a jackass. I have been to Taiwan six times this year and to China once. I spent a week in Shanghai and it is a thriving Capitalist city. The Taiwanese just want to be left the fuck alone by China.
Sorry for leaving it so late to come back on this - I was away for the weekend.
To be honest, I read his criticism of the Russian Orthodox Church as pertaining to the hierarchy of the time and, while perhaps a bit hyperbolic, I didn’t find it completely unreasonable. I see that he did in fact say “is” and I certainly wouldn’t agree that the current church, and particularly its followers, merit his description.
I acknowledged that Jews had it tough in Stalinist Russia and they suffered throughout the Soviet period from the extreme secularism of the state, as did all those who wished to worship their chosen deity. I don’t think the revolution was good for the jews - I didn’t really think that is what Sandrino said either - he just said it swept away the extreme anti-semetic repression of the czarist period. Of course, I would agree that, from a jewish perspective, the revolution just changed who were doing the repressing, with the possible exception that most others were now equally repressed.
Just for the record, he’s an idiot but I thought that quoting that particular post and adding a large type “fuck you” was pretty idiotic too.