Posted on 07/15/2008 5:34:38 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Stalin and Tsar Nicholas II neck and neck for title of greatest Russian
Tony Halpin
He sent millions to their deaths in the gulag, but that has not deterred Russians from voting en masse for Josef Stalin as the face of their nation.
The Soviet tyrant and Second World War leader is battling Tsar Nicholas II for first place in The Name of Russia, a domestic version of the BBC series Great Britons. Stalin had been well ahead in the online vote until the show's producer appealed to members of a popular Russian social networking site to back Nicholas II.
The Tsar edged in front tonight as communists and monarchists whipped up support for their candidates. Stalin has received almost 263,000 votes so far, against more than 267,000 for Nicholas II.
Lenin, the Tsar's nemesis, was third with nearly 187,000 votes. The top dozen included Peter the Great, Pushkin, Catherine the Great, Yuri Gagarin, Boris Yeltsin and Ivan the Terrible.
Alexander Lyubimov, who produces the historical contest for state-run Rossiya TV, said that he had urged a "flash-mob" from Odnoklassniki.ru, a Russian equivalent of Facebook, to support the Tsar against Stalin.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
may the church prevail.
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.
It is true, they are very eastern. Much of it is because their culture was shaped by the Eastern Orthodox Church.
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.
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!
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.
No question - Ivan IV!
He perfectly epitomizes the Russian ruler.
Stalin comes close.
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.
Catherine II “the Great” was a German princess who only learned to speak Russian after moving to Russia.
At least Brezhnev or Gorbachev isn't winning.
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.
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
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” :>)
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.
Ivan the Terrible? Peter the Great?
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.
And that voting can be easily swayed since you can vote as many times as you like.
Stalin spoke Russian, and adapted Russian culture. Therefore, he was Russian.
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