Posted on 12/07/2008 2:36:17 PM PST by SunkenCiv
Russia's Supreme Court has ruled that the last Tsar, Nicholas II, and his family were victims of political repression and should be rehabilitated... Nicholas, his wife Alexandra, their five children, doctor and three servants were shot dead by Bolshevik revolutionaries in July, 1918. Lower courts had previously refused to reclassify the killings, which had been categorised as simply murder... The Romanovs were shot by a firing squad without a trial, in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg. The Supreme Court "declared as groundless the repression of Tsar Nicholas II and his family and ordered their rehabilitation", the judge's decision said on Wednesday. The ruling overturned a decision by a Supreme Court panel in November 2007 not to rehabilitate the imperial family... Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, official attitudes to the royal family have changed dramatically. In 1998, their remains were reburied with great ceremony in St Petersburg... A spokesman for the Russian Orthodox Church, Georgy Ryabykh, said the decision "strengthens the rule of law, restores historical continuity and 1,000 years of state tradition".
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
I’d guess that the Russian crown wanted to open up commerce and communication within its realm, as well as with the outside world. The early 20th c war with Japan was a disaster for Russia, and although the railway project antedates that, it seems likely that, had things gone differently (i.e., no WWI), a port and naval presence in the Pacific would have followed. For the war with Japan, the Russians were forced to circumnavigate Africa just to get to the theater (I forget what happened there, some diplomatic row with France or England or whomever was running the Suez Canal). Again, seems like Russia should have thought it throw a bit better before trying to wage a war with Japan.
I've heard of a school of thought who believe or believed that Schlieffen never intended his plan to be used, that he meant it as some kind of staff exercise.
It was truly tragic how many lives the British lost in the repeated battles for "wipers."
The more I reflect the more important I think WWI is in our history. Everything changed afterword and most of the trends we see today began as a consequence of the awfulness of that war, distrust of nationalism, distrust of the military, multilateralism, pacifism, etc. Only the clearly perceived need to defeat Hitler's evil was enough to delay these trends for a time. I just read the first volume of Churchill's WWII memoirs and it's amazing how much of the nuttiness that drives we conservatives to distraction in foreign and military affairs was already evident during the interwar years.
:’) The main reason for the left’s opposition to Hitler was, he attacked Stalin’s USSR. During the period between Hitler’s rise from obscurity to the phony war period, the Commies saw Hitler as the best possible leader for Germany, even as he purged their fellow Commies inside Germany. The Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggression pact dropped a bomb on everyone at the time (at least those interested in politics), as it appeared that Hitler and Stalin were allies (which in fact, they were for a brief time; at first, Stalin reportedly couldn’t believe that Hitler attacked him, and Stalin wasn’t a sentimental guy).
Perhaps I spoke out of turn; all I know about Russia is what I've read which is patchy. I don't know what they make for export (other than oil and possibly wood), but for the tourist industry and probably natives as well they make a lot of beautiful wooden products, usually birch, matriosha (sp?) dolls, bowls, samovars (boy had a senior moment on that), beautiful shawls (I have one my sister gave me), can't think of what all else.
I think you are right in what you said, you know how it is when hate is drummed into you and it takes on a life of its own. Thanks for the link to Olga's scrapbook; I looked at a lot of the photos of her.
I read elsewhere that it was -81F in one part of Siberia today, hard to imagine temps that low.
I picked up several books and artistic items on ebay a few years back. My screen name comes from one of the books which I loaned my son and never got back. It was about a little Russian fox named Aliska which became almost tame and a household pet, they took it to the country for the summer, had to go back to their city home and left it with neighbors to look after it. It disappeared shortly after, kind of sad. They bought the little fox at an outdoor market like our flea markets.
ping
I have more replies later, but it’s bedtime, I’m off tomorrow but I could get called into work so I’ll just say, “God Save the Tsar and his family.” It was so, so wrong what the Commies did to them.
I think the idea of emmigrating to Russia is nuts. They way Putin is going things could get very bad. Then there is the climate. If you are not from the upper midwest, you cannot even begin to imagine how unpleasant summer and winter can be. Four years in Iowa was enough for me.
Probably. But things could get bad here, too. Everything in Russia would be harsher and more inefficient but they have so much more room than we do. Whole small towns nearly empty. Guess we have some of that, too. Their people are resilient.
Yes, winter is bad in the midwest and probably worse in Russia. Further north and it is even worse here, I mean awful. We at least get some sun and thaws now and then. I'm stubbornly resisting all appeals to go to CA w/family and/or FL. No way, doesn't appeal to me. I refuse to go anywhere where you have to have ac to survive the summers w/o it. Also CA I had my fill of that when I was young, and it has changed since then.
If I were younger and adverturesome like I once was with skills I now have, I'd like to at least visit off the beaten path places there if they allowed it.
“building the Trans-Siberian railway was more about projecting European Russia to the Pacific russia...?”
Don’t forget the Russian Japanese war in 1906(date?) which must have been a humiliating defeat for a big country by that upstart Japan. However, you are probably right about the difficulty of shipping grain from the east.
“Yes, winter is bad in the midwest and probably worse in Russia.”
Yes, and the summers from what I saw in Iowa can be bad too. My first summer there we had a solid week of 106 to 107 daytime temps, with nightime lows of 93. No AC or fan either. Have son in Miami, after several one and two week trips there my husband and my reactions after about 4 days was always “Ho, hum another perfect, sunny BORING day in paradise.” I find the mid Atlantic area about right. Mostly not too hot or cold, and plenty of Spring and Fall.
It’s like I’ve said, Putin doesn’t want to restore the old Soviet Union, he wants to restore the old Russian Empire.
Sorry you had such a bad time of it during your visit, makes you not want to go back. It sounds like you live when the temps aren't so extreme now which would be nice.
The heat never fazed me when I was growing up; I'd be out doing sports or active things, played 18 holes of golf, we walked back then, no matter how hot it was, can't handle it any more. This summer was bad when we had a storm and I had tons of tree branches to cut up; luckily it wasn't super hot or I'd work in the evening when it cooled down a bit. One summer that happened, the heat shot up, and a fellow came along and I paid him to clean it all up and haul it away, don't think I could have handled that by myself.
It brings us back to the lead story. I read about their suffering in the Ipatiev house. The ventilation was poor, and the empress suffered from a heart condition, probably made the whole family's suffering worse. I don't know how hot and humid it gets there but could be similar to the midwest.
Even in captivity, the czar kept to a work regimen, walked, chopped wood, kept busy while all the time being strength for the family.
:’) Six of one...
Putin’s stated that the fall of the Soviet Union was one of the greatest disasters in history.
You have a gift for understatement! :-))
Thanks. ;’) My favorite line (a stolen one of course) in such a context is, “the Elephant Man had a little puffiness around the eyes.” ;’D
Do you have the link?
They made a mistake by keeping Alexis’ condition a secret. IF the public had understood then they wouldn’t have thought so badly of the Tsarina about Rasputin.
When I really think about it, they could have done a lot of good for the Imperial couple if they had known.
I think it was 1905.
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