Ivan The Terrible (Sunday History Read)

BBC Education - History 2000 ^ | undated | BBC

[Doctor Stochastic]

"National Virgin Competition"?

Sounds a bit like judging varieties of olive oil.

[Hacksaw]

They hung onto feudalism for many, many years longer than the Europeans.

Literally until the Bolsheviks took over. Serfdom was only recently abolished prior to that.

[Washington-Husky]

Vladimir is a name of Slavic origin, and means, roughly, "to rule the land" or, alternately, "to rule with peace" (since mir means both world and peace).

Walter, which apparently is Germanic in origin, has as its root "Walt(en)" which means, "to rule" in German. ("Valteris", a Lithuanian variation of Walter, means "rule people".)

So, it is quite possible that Walter is the German equivalent for Vladimir in that it conveys the concept of rule or power.

[Savage Beast]

Thanks, Husky.

[Hacksaw]

Anastasia introduced Byzantine customs to the court and Ivan adopted the two-headed Byzantine eagle as the Russian seal--which has been reprised in post-Soviet Russia.

That explains all those vodka bottle symbols :)

[SunkenCiv]

This topic was posted 7/28/2002, thanks Hacksaw.