Stalin and Tsar Nicholas II neck and neck for title of greatest Russian

Times of London ^ | 07/16/08 | Tony Halpin

[MarMema]

may the church prevail.

[MarMema]

Stalin is not a Georgian name, and he turned away from his country and people, preferring to be Russian and choosing a Russian name.
They probably like it that he preferred them to the Georgians.

[MarMema]

It is true, they are very eastern. Much of it is because their culture was shaped by the Eastern Orthodox Church.

[Clemenza]

Lets not forget the influence of the "Old Believers", and what was for many years a closer contact with Tatars, Kazars, Persians, etc. than with western Europe.

By contrast, it could be said that Poles are a westernized slavic people, due to both the influence of the Catholic Church, and the historic relations with France and the Holy Roman Empire versus with its neighbors to the east.

[ken21]

that’s funny!

i remember posting last year my observation of a russian immigrant that

was wearing a stalin t-shirt, and

i was told sharply that i didn’t know russia!

[dighton]

FWIW, a fellow who agrees:

Let it be clearly understood that the Russian is a delightful person till he tucks his shirt in. As an Oriental he is charming. It is only when he insists upon being treated as the most easterly of Western peoples, instead of the most westerly of Easterns, that he becomes a racial anomaly extremely difficult to handle. The host never knows which side of his nature is going to turn up next.

— Kipling, The Man Who Was.

[Clemenza]

Kipling was very much correct. Tsar Peter I and Catherine both tried to westernize Russia, but, IMHO, had the same mixed success as Ataturk did in Turkey.

[headsonpikes]

No question - Ivan IV!

He perfectly epitomizes the Russian ruler.

Stalin comes close.

[Stonewall Jackson]

My family was a wedding present to Catherine the Great, so she is not exactly high on our favorite Russians (although to be fair, it was her father who gave his excess serfs away).

In fact, she ranks right up there with Stalin, who forcibly exiled everyone who still lived in Huck (now named Splavnucha) to Siberia and then had the tombstones in the cemetery torn up to erase all evidence of the village's previous inhabitants.

[Greysard]

Why would the Russians select a Georgian over a Slavic Russian?

1. Racism is not very strong in Russia, mostly because (until the last decade or so) there was no reason for animosity toward "foreigners".
2. In Soviet Union children were taught internationalism and cooperation with "other" people, be they within the country or outside (like Angola.)
3. Stalin's murders were not wide known. Talking about them would be a sure way to learn about them from the inside of Gulag.
4. Stalin's bloody war mistakes were not talked about either (like trying to retake Kharkov before being ready). After Stalin's death and Khruschev's actions the knowledge started to spread, but only to those who wanted to listen.
5. Stalin's law and order were essential during the war itself; many are sure that without Stalin literally threatening managers with a gun there wouldn't be enough military goods produced to win the war. After the war, when many gangs were formed by former soldiers used to killing, Stalin had no qualms to order these gangs rounded up and destroyed by any means necessary. This movie is quite illustrative on the subject of post-war crime.
6. Stalin's strict socialism after the war created an illusion of equality and plenty. To that end, people who were "more equal than others" did not mingle with commoners. Stalin built some impressive skyscrapers in Moscow for the privileged workers, for example.
7. The grass is always greener elsewhere, and everything in the past was far better than today. But we know that already :-)

[Fiji Hill]

Catherine II “the Great” was a German princess who only learned to speak Russian after moving to Russia.

[Petronski]

Not Peter the Great? Not Tolstoy or Pushkin? Are Russian schools failing as badly as ours?

At least Brezhnev or Gorbachev isn't winning.

[C19fan]

Tsar Nicholas wasn't much of a ruler. He pretty much squandered the throne left him by his father, Alexander, and managed to alienate just about everybody when he married a German duchess. His hemophiliac son was seen as a righteous curse for bringing in an "outsider."

Didn't most of the Tsars going back to the 18th century marry German princesses. I read about the Tsars family would travel around Germany looking for wives for the sons in the family.

[Fiji Hill]

STALIN KICKED THE BUCKET

Old Joe kicked the bucket, he’s long gone
He won’t worry us from now on
He lived in a place they call Moscow
His number came up and he had to go

Yes, old Joe’s dead and gone
He stayed around too long
And nobody now can save his hide
‘Cause old Joe laid right down and died

Old Joe won’t worry us no more
He killed the helpless by the score
Now I hope he’s satisfied
Since old Joe’s taken his last ride

Yes, old Joe’s dead and gone
He stayed around too long
And nobody now can save his hide
‘Cause old Joe laid right down and died

While near the end, he couldn’t talk
Was paralyzed and he couldn’t walk
He died with a hemorrhage in the brain
They have a new fireman on the devil’s train

Yes, old Joe’s dead and gone
He stayed around too long
And nobody now can save his hide
‘Cause old Joe laid right down and died

Although he was a man of power
He was scared of Eisenhower
So now the devil can retire
‘Cause old Joe Stalin will keep the fire

Yes, old Joe’s dead and gone
He stayed around too long
And nobody now can save his hide
‘Cause old Joe laid right down and died

Ray Anderson

Kentucky Records #573, 1953

[Enchante]

LOL. No, that story was garbled, it was not said that she did it with a horse but that her favorite consort was “hung like a horse” :>)

[Stonewall Jackson]

Yep, my family lived in her father's principality until it was time to marry Catherine off. Apparently daddy was a real tightwad, so he decided to save a bunch of money and get rid of about 10,000 excess serfs by giving them to the Russians so that they could "teach the Russian farmers how to properly farm the land". The thing is, the Russian farmers were all happy with the way they were already farming, so the Germans formed their own villages and stuck mainly to themselves.

My family got out of Russia in 1911 and caught a tramp freighter out of Hamburg heading for Galveston the next spring. My great-grandmother went into labor with my great-aunt Mary as the ship was entering Galveston Bay, so she was taken straight off the ship, thus bypassing immigration. If this hadn't happened, she most likely would not have been allowed into the country, due to a birth defect she had.

Once she was out of the hospital, they caught a train out of Houston to Colorado, where they met up with other Germans who'd been fleeing the crumbling Russian Empire.

[Tallguy]

Ivan the Terrible? Peter the Great?

[MarMema]

Stalin's strict socialism after the war created an illusion of equality and plenty.

And socialism was an easy sell to a country mostly encultured by Orthodoxy. I noted this many times while living in Russia for short durations. I used to conduct polls at grocery stores in Moscow, in fact.

[MarMema]

AP says the czar is in the lead now

And that voting can be easily swayed since you can vote as many times as you like.

[Thunder90]

Stalin spoke Russian, and adapted Russian culture. Therefore, he was Russian.