Posted on 07/18/2018 10:03:26 AM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
July 17, 2018 marks 100 years since Russia’s Romanov family was executed by Bolsheviks in the basement of the Ipatiyev house in Yekaterinburg.
Yet outside Yekaterinburg, the 100th anniversary of Romanovs’ deaths is passing with little notice from the government. The memory of Nicholas II’s and his family’s deaths remain largely unprocessed.
The death of the Romanovs remains a controversial moment in Russia’s history. Tsarism and Bolshevism are — for the most part — not presented as conflicting forces in a battle in which one order defeated another. Rather, tsars, Bolsheviks and later communists, are seen as a succession of “greats.” In Moscow, visitors can admire the glamour and grandeur of the tsars at the Historical Museum in the Red Square before lining up for the Lenin Mausoleum only a few steps away.
Today, Russia is facing a rise in the popularity of pre-Revolutionary culture alongside an enduring Soviet legacy. According to recent polls by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM), the popularity of Nicholas II, as well as Lenin and Stalin, has increased considerably since 2008. President Vladimir Putin, who embraces one-man “greats’” from all Russian eras, embodies this unusual combination.
The national narrative of “greats” also stands at odds with academic interpretations, which take a critical perspective of both Nicholas II’s often inept governance and of the Bolsheviks’ violent excesses.
The canonization of Nicholas II and his family by the Russian Orthodox Church as Christian martyrs in 2000 diminished their identity as political actors subject to academic scrutiny.
The narratives of conflict and violence have been subsumed by narratives of “great” leaders. This cult of greatness celebrates impact over ethos. It nurtures a vacuous understanding of Russia’s political traditions and legacies at a time when Russia’s fledgling civic values require a recognition of the past.
(Excerpt) Read more at themoscowtimes.com ...
How do you “struggle” to mourn something?
I think of the miracle of our American Revolution, and its lack of vindictiveness and bloody political retribution. That's truly unique in the history of revolutionary change.
The crop of evil left wing Americans we have now, had they the opportunity, would make Robespierre, Lenin, and Pol Pot look like kindergarten teachers.
I give Russia points for welcoming up to 15,000 Boer/Afrikanner farmers that the West has mostly ignored.
It certainly was a good looking family.
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My wife does not actually like to talk about it, but she is closely related to the Romanovs and was named after Queen Alexandria. She has a rare bone disorder that was common in royalty related to all of the interbreeding. Her condition was the subject of a paper which was the doctoral thesis of a physical therapist that she once went to.
You know, the Russians get it right.
We here in the West are obsessed with trying to put past history into a modern context, and it doesn't work. We just end up destroying our culture in the process. The Russians aren't making that mistake.
Not only were they executed, but their bodies were dismembered and scattered.
Their maids and other servants were executed in the basement as well.
Those who survived the first round of volleys were systematically executed with a bullet to the head...............
“I think of the miracle of our American Revolution, and its lack of vindictiveness and bloody political retribution”
Disagree. Read up on partisan warfare in NC/SC.
I read Massie’s books when they were 1st published——time for some re-reading.
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The Doctor was offered the chance to survive if he chose to join the Bolsheviks, but he refused.
What is keeping the American left at bay is that many Americans are ARMED.
The young Romanov son was a hemophiliac, I understand.
“I give Russia points for welcoming up to 15,000 Boer/Afrikaner farmers...”
Wow! Didn’t know that! Why aren’t we doing the same? All we get are more Muslim savages.
Russians are surely welcoming Afrikaners as their fellow whites, given their huge Muslim problem in Chechnya & Central Asia.
But there’s nothing inconsistent about Russians admiring both Tsars & Red dictators. Both were authoritarian forms of rule, which Russians seem to prefer to democracy.
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