Torture, castration, rampant sex, murders galore and dwarf tossing. Were Russia's Tsars [tr]

UK Daily Mail ^ | January 29, 2016 | Roger Lewis

[C19fan]

As we know from the stupendous BBC adaptation of Tolstoy's epic novel, War And Peace, the Russians are very good at war, not so pie-hot when it comes to peace. Military parades, manoeuvres and a good scrap are what they like best - and as Simon Sebag Montefiore says in this panoramic study, to Tsar Nicholas II, even World War I, in which Russia fielded more than 1.2 million men, was nothing more than 'a bracing national rite'.

[C19fan]

Game of Thrones Russian style.

[EQAndyBuzz]

If it wasn’t for the dwarf tossing, there would have been total chaos.

[PIF]

So we are to believe Russia fielding 1.3 million men during WW I was something to be impressed about or was somehow significant? Good Grief! Russian lost more than that in single battles with the Germans during WWII!

That one huge glaring error makes the thesis of the whole piece suspect ... and what about China?

Where’s ETL?

[Lazamataz]

Russia has always been a country of oppression and sadness.

[Fiji Hill]

I found Simon Sebag Montefiore's Jerusalem: A Biography (New York: Knopf, 2011) to be an excellent popular history.

[Fiji Hill]

Historian and strategist Edward Luttwak once wrote that historically, the Russians fought well when defending their own territory but not so well when fighting outside of Russia.

[PIF]

Same could be applied to many other countries, except France ...

[Nailbiter]

My first thought was drawf tossing was so 80’s in the US- of course then I realized this was russia after ww1

[lafroste]

One of my all time favorite books was “Peter the Great” a history book about The czar’s life and times. It was quite the tome, but was excellent. I thought I knew how to party. I don’t even rate an amateur ranking.

[BigEdLB]

Dwarf tossing. Probably reacting to the munchkin scenes from, “Wizard of Oz”, after one too many shots of vodka.

[IronJack]

I read his biography of Joseph Stalin, and it was tedious at best.

[353FMG]

It’s the result of the weather and vodka.

[null and void]

You'll never see the Wizard of OZ in quite the same way again...

[Zionist Conspirator]

I'm no fan of the Romanovs, but one is a "religious maniac" for waking at 4am to pray???

Someone's never heard of tiqqun chatzot.

[LibWhacker]

For 304 years, until the dynasty came to an end in 1917, the Romanovs were a line of 'megalomaniacs, monsters and saints'.

After which came only monsters.

[katana]

I had the same reaction. Someone waking at the same time as farmers starting their chores or bakers putting loaves out to rise could only be a shock to someone who’s never done a real day’s work in their life.

[central_va]

Dwarf tossing has an undeserved bad reputation.

[BigEdLB]

LOL

[Jimmy Valentine]

The Russian mistake in WWI was their failure to reprise how Alexander I beat Napoleons Grand Armee.

[ghost of stonewall jackson]

tell it to the red army in ‘45, or alexander’s army in 1814...