Czars Quotes
He had tripled the size of Rus, pulling together the disparate areas which had been under the thrall of the Golden Horde. The custom was when the Grand Prince died he left parts of his dominion to each of his sons and grandsons. However. Ivan changed that pattern and wanted one son to be the ruler over all of what was becoming a large unified state. After that his pattern was followed by all the Czars until the Russian Communist Revolution in 1917." Ivan the Great
This vision, known as "The Third Rome" saw not only Moscow as the seat of Christianity for the world, but saw the Czar as the Head of the Christian unified Church. Constantinople had fallen to the Muslims and Rome to the Barbarians and the Pope had virtually no power at the time. Particularly interesting is his vision of transforming a civil Emperor to the head of the Church—one who was strong and wealthy enough to end the schism of the Eastern and Western Churches and command all. In this sense, he was following the Muslim concept of a single secular and religious, all powerful, leader—like the Caliph.
This quotation provides an insight into Stalin’s bizarre and ruthless character.
Czar Nicholas II was a relative of Queen Victoria and her uncle, King Leopold. They were both skilled and popular monarchs. In contrast, the Czar was not only hated by his own people, but as this private letter shows, was not thought very well of by his own more accomplished relatives and fellow monarchs. Nicholas II was so bad, that he was the last of the Czars as the Communist Russian Revolution forced him to abdicate and then he was murdered.
He was forgiving them after his troops had killed some protesters the previous “Bloody Sunday” just for protesting their working conditions. See {613674} for how callous he was regarding demonstrators.
The general had reported to the Czar that he had peacefully dissipated a protesting mob without firing a shot. The Czar felt that the absence of shooting and killing protesters would simply encourage more protests. See {613675}.
Ivan the Terrible. He was referring to himself as God’s Chosen One. He and the Church were aligned against the Nobles, whose lands Ivan wanted. He would execute hundreds of “traitors” every month. He even executed the families of his enemies in very cruel ways. He claimed to be “cleansing” the land of sinners in preparation for the coming judgment day, and the church backed him up on this. The Church gave him carte blanche to “punish” all sinners and his paranoia eventually got around to the church fathers themselves who became the final victims.
What is fascinating about this quotation is that England itself was an aristocracy with a monarchy and very few elements of fairness and equality. The aristocracy and the monarch very much used the system and the common people for their benefit. However, the degree of abuse and tyranny and absence of any sense of equity, shocked even this English aristocrat. Behoof was a Middle English word derived from words that mean to profit from. By the time he used it, it meant benefit or advantage—a slightly wider meaning, but even in 1591 it was not a commonly used words but one used more by the intelligentsia of the day.
5th Marquis of Lansdowne. Nicholas II was very indecisive and was very easily persuadable.
Russia, under the Czars, controlled Moldova and part of Romania. In those area the upper and middle class was educated in Russian schools and most became assimilated. However, the Czars saw education of the their feudal peasants as anathema (not unlike the American Slaveowners were opposed to educating slaves). As a result, the Romanian peasants never became Russified.
A few months later, that is exactly what Germany did. She was hoping that England would not enter the war despite her treaty obligations, but she was willing to risk the possibility. The Czar had a strong espionage and intelligence service active in Germany, but, like so many other intelligence failures, the intelligence operatives and analysts had military and economic facts but had little understanding of the German culture which propelled Germany to what to most other cultures was “irrational policy making.” People and nations often engage in irrational activities, even against their own self-interest.
The Czar of Russia was often referred to as “The Autocrat of all the Russians” He was the most entrenched and powerful monarch in the world with absolutely no possibility of his giving up his crown and power. That was the analogy that Lincoln used here to express his pessimistic view that the Southern slave owners would never voluntarily give up their slaves. He was right of course in both cases. Force during and after the Civil War freed the slaves, and the 1917 Russian Revolution ended the Czar’s reign.
