I've never been able to really sympathize with the romanticizing of the czar's death, as he was horribly anti-Semitic. Good riddance to bad rubbish, as they say!
But was his bigotry shared by his wife and children, too...or was it basically him?
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But was his bigotry shared by his wife and children, too...or was it basically him?
The Russian Empire inherited by Nicholas II in 1894 contained fully half of the world's Jewish population, who formed the largest ethnic minority in the country. According to the official 1897 census, 5.2 million Jews lived within the Russian Empire.1 Of this number, all but 300,000 lived within the infamous Pale of Settlement......At the turn of the century, some 650 anti-Jewish statutes stood as official law in Imperial Russia.4 In no other country in the world was anti-Semitism so deeply ingrained, from the lowest level bureaucrats and ordinary Russian soldiers who formed the Imperial Army, to the Russian Orthodox Church, the Government, and the Emperor himself. These forces, which regulated and controlled the lives of the millions who fell under their authority, were nearly unanimous in their suspicion, fear, and outright hatred of Russia's Jews. Under Nicholas II, these Jews were to suffer in ways and numbers previously unimagined.share
All too often, and in most popular biographies, Nicholas II is generously depicted as a simple middle-class man -- a loving husband, a doting husband - existing in a vacuum of simple Victorian decency. Yet the inescapable and unpleasant truth is that this man was also the Emperor and Autocrat of all Russia. By definition, his Autocracy made him responsible not only for the policies of his Government, enacted by thousands of bureaucrats whom he never met, but also for brutalities which he often personally endorsed. .. the complicity of Nicholas II in the persecution of his country's Jewish citizens stands all the more ominous, in sharp contrast to the popular image which has, in recent decades, clouded any accurate, dispassionate examination of his character and reign
Wow...THAT was informative!
Thanks for the analysis. Very informative :)
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I just read a biography of Rasputin, and he was completely free of anti-Semitic tendencies, using his influence to help several Jewish citizens. No even slightly incriminating letters or references survive. Hated all wars, too, and advised Nicholas II to stay out of WW1; lot of good it did him. It's ironic that he was accused of having so much influence on the Imperial family, but his opinion on these matters went unheeded.
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I'm not quite clear how one could achieve that once dead, but thank you for sharing.
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It must be hard for you to watch any historical movies about royals because none of them were keen for jews.
Richard Gere's King David is pretty much the only one for you.
Thee problem (as we see today) is Jews create major ill will. Especially with usury. If you listen to the Jews they claim they were hated because of Jesus but in truth there were viciously cruel Jews in power--same with the 1930s, same today.
They like to destroy those who disagree with them.
Consider Mark Twain's words on the subject of Russia:
The Jew is being legislated out of Russia. The reason is not concealed. The movement was instituted because the Christian peasant and villager stood no chance against his commercial abilities. He was always ready to lend money on a crop, and sell vodka and other necessaries of life on credit while the crop was growing. When settlement day came he owned the crop; and next year or year after he owned the farm, like Joseph.
It is much harder to find anyone who likes Jews when it comes to money or politics.
Voltaire(addressing Jews): "You seem to be the maddest of the lot. The Kaffirs, the Hottentots, the Negroes of Guinea are much more reasonable and more honest people than your ancestors, the Jews. You have surpassed all nations in impertinent fables, in bad conduct, and in barbarism. You deserved to be punished, for this is your destiny..[The Jewish nation] dares spread an irreconcilable hatred against all nations; it revolts against all its masters. Always superstitious, always avid of the well-being enjoyed by others, always barbarous, crawling in misfortune, and insolent in prosperity. Here are what were the Jews in the eyes of the Greeks and the Romans who could read their books....I would not be in the least bit surprised if these people [Jews] would not some day become deadly to the human race."
Immanuel Kant: The Jews are by nature “sharp dealers” who are “bound together by superstition.” Their “immoral and vile” behavior in commerce shows that they “do not aspire to civic virtue,” for “the spirit of usury holds sway amongst them.” They are “a nation of swindlers” who benefit only “from deceiving their host’s culture.”
Baruch Spinoza (himself a Jew) ""The Jews were entirely unfit to frame a wise code of laws and to keep the sovereign power vested in the community;"
Benjamin Disraeli, a Jewish convert to Christianity, "the native tendency of the Jewish race is against the doctrine of the equality of man. They have also another characteristic -- the faculty of acquisition ... Their bias is to religion, property, and natural aristocracy."
Franz Liszt: "The day will come when all nations amidst which the Jews are dwelling will have to raise the question of their wholesale expulsion, a question which will be one of life or death, good health or chronic disease, peaceful existence or perpetual social fever."
HG Wells: "The whole question turns upon the Chosen People idea, which this remnant cherishes and sustains, which it is the "mission" of this remnant to cherish and sustain. It is difficult not to regard that idea as a conspiracy against the rest of the world. ...Almost every community with which the orthodox Jews have come into contact has sooner or later developed and acted upon that conspiracy idea. A careful reading of the Bible does nothing to correct it; there indeed you have the conspiracy plain and clear. It is not simply the defensive conspiracy of a nice harmless people anxious to keep up their dear, quaint old customs that we are dealing with. It is an aggressive and vindictive conspiracy. People are apt to catch up and repeat phrases about the nobility of the Book of Isaiah on the strength of a few chance quotations torn from their context. But let the reader take that book and read it for himself straightforwardly, and note the setting of these fragments. Much of it is ferocious; extraordinarily like the rantings of some Nazi propagandist. The best the poor Gentile can expect is to play the part of a Gibeonite a hewer of wood and a drawer of water for the restored elect. It is upon that and the like matter that the children of the orthodox have been fed. It is undeniable. There are the books for everyone to read. It is not tolerance but stupidity to shut our eyes to their quality."