Genocide Denial - the Midianites and the Holodomor

I am still trying to decide for myself what the term' genocide' means with all its nuances and difficulties, but I feel pretty secure in saying that I do not believe that there is a lot of middle ground in the definition. If you have a desire/intent to rid yourself of a group of people specifically for something that they 'are' or what they have, it's genocide in my definition- no matter how successful you were at doing so. I take issue with the term 'somehow less genocidal' because genocide = genocide period. Causing the death of people for their politics is just as much a genocide as doing so for the excuses of race or religion. As we have studied this semester, I have found myself going back to things I have read or heard about that dilute the intensity of the word genocide by excusing or diverting the conversation away from the facts. An example is the attempted extermination of the Midianites by the Israelites in antiquity. The Israelite and their prophet Moses were frustrated by growing religious tensions between the two groups of people and that some Israelites were converting or following teachings that came from the Midianites religion. The God of the Israelites told Moses to kill all of the Midianites and the Israelite armies were sent out and conquered their foes returning home with all of enemy's property/ livestock as well as the women and children who survived the battle. Accordingly, when the soldiers returned to Moses with all the bounty, he is angry and tells them to kill everyone but the virgin girls. That was done and the passage ends with ritual purifying.

Some apologists suggest that God – and therefore Moses- only allowed the virgin girls to live because they would have had nothing to do with idol worship and that was why everyone else had to die. Others state that killing and war were necessary evils at the time and this was normal behavior. At least one source suggests that as Midianites are mentioned later in the Bible, this couldn't be a genocide because not all of the Midianites were killed- They were able to fight another war with the Israelites later. However, boy children and infants would also have had nothing to do with idol worship and they were killed and if some people managed to escape death that doesn’t make a genocide 'not a genocide'.... it simply changes the evaluation of its success.

Today the Russian government still denies the existence of the Holodomor in Ukraine in 1932-33. (For a brief description and information see here.) I think the fact that the Russian government and diplomats took the time and opportunity to help shape the language of the “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide' to exclude a 'targeted group' in their country makes one thing really clear to me... the men who helped craft the definition knew that what they did was genocide and so worked to make sure it wouldn't 'qualify'. I frankly find that heinous. I find the denial and the active participation to bury the crime almost as heinous as the original transgression. I believe this partly because I think that people who deny it because they genuinely do not believe the 'crime' happened and believe it has been made up are people that are so ignorant I can feel sorry for their lack of knowledge and understanding. Having a full knowledge and working to deny something for financial motives or to give yourself more credibility in front of other governments and the international community is pretty challenging for me to understand. I also find it provocative that a signatory of this convention who has basically agreed to try to 'prevent and punish actions of genocide in war and peacetime' ... is actively trying to distract the world from their own culpability and failings in the same areas. So to look at the Holodomor as 'somewhat less genocidal' seems a bit distracting and disingenuous; i.e. it's either a genocide or not. The major reason that seems to be given – that Stalin’s plans killed millions... many of whom were not Ukrainian, seems disingenuous at best because what that statement tells me is that those who say it recognize that it is a genocide.... just a much bigger one that encompassed a large 'class' of people rather than just Ukrainians.. (Lastly, I find a small irony in the fact that Russia has politically accepted the existence of the Armenian Genocide in Turkey and denies this one... they seem to be so alike in my mind that every argument to prove the “Great Catastrophe' proves the Holodomor as well.... deportations, false political accusations, government seizure of property, denial of food shipments and journalists, etc...)

That begs the question then as to whether the Holodomor is a genocide or not? The legal definition of genocide includes acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national ethnical, racial or religious group. Acts include killing or causing serious physical/ mental harm and imposing measures intended to damage the group, prevent re-population and/or forcibly removing youth from the group to integrate them into other populations. When the whole of the Holodomor is looked at in this perspective and broken down, we can see how clearly this 'series of decisions/acts fits into the legal definition. Joseph Stalin created the artificial famine by decreeing impossible quotas on grain/ other food products and tight enforcement of them. When it was obvious that his plan was causing starvation and mass death, he did not change anything about the policy and actively denied food aid offered from other countries. If he didn't know what the consequences were when he started his plan, he certainly had the information to figure it out and stop it as time went by. However, written evidence suggests he knew full well what the consequences would be for the peasants by ordering 'the destruction of the kulaks as a class'. When he was told about what was happening from some of his own men, Stalin was quoted as saying, “Wouldn't it be better for you to leave your post and become a writer so you can concoct more fables!” He created orders to shoot anyone who stole even a small amount of food and reflected that it would be much easier to just deport all the Ukrainians but that wasn't possible. Along with other evidence, it seems clear that the intent to kill and demoralize the Ukrainian population has been proved. The Holodomor included millions of deaths as well as serious mental and physical harm as has been testified to by the survivors in their stories of cannibalism, deaths and oppression. Starvation as well as the inability to disperse themselves to safer areas also curtailed births as family relationships and communities collapsed. The Holodomor fits the definition of genocide without any difficulty. It is regrettable that its existence is still being denied and a source of contention between Russia and the Ukraine. The challenges that both countries are going through now seem to stem from the same problems and ideas that caused this genocide in the first place. Moving forward from a place of contention doesn't seem like a great way to move forward... more like a way to potentially have another serious conflict arise again that has the potential to turn into a genocide. I hope that will change… another genocide would be more than tragic, it would be… I just don’t have the words…

pictures from: http://freethoughtnation.com/moses-and-the-midianites/, http://www.patheos.com/blogs/tinseltalk/2012/01/was-moses-black-urban-daily-proposes-black-actors-for-spielberg-biblical-epic/, http://rt.com/news/holodomor-famine-pirozhenko-ukraine/, http://ocfordarfur.wordpress.com/2008/09/

Dangerous Rhetoric

Yesterday, I found myself in an unusual situation in more ways than one. As I couldn't sleep, I went to the gym before work... way too early in the morning and found myself running on a treadmill in front of four television screens. The irony is of course that I haven't owned a television in over a decade and so experiences with one are few and far between... but four! It's a bit like being offered piles of riches that you don't think you need and are confused as to why others think they are valuable. This opportunity gave me an interesting opportunity for reflection and experimentation.

As most everyone in the first world probably knows by now, an airplane manned by pilots employed by Malaysian Air was shot down and crashed near Grabovo, Ukraine. With 298 people on board flight MH370 - all who perished- the only thing that seemed known immediately was that everyone on the plane died and that the plane was shot down over eastern Ukraine along the border to Russia. So as I jogged on the treadmill, I looked up at the screens and over the next few minutes I realized my opportunity- all four televisions were showing news from four different stations; ABC, FOX, CBS, and NBC. So for a girl who doesn't watch news, I was able over the course of over a hour to watch all of them at once and really compare their coverage of the situation. And even from a lack of experience as a news hound, what I found wasn't really surprising.

On three of the stations, the story seemed to be covered pretty thoroughly, but also with some caveats. As the news was raw, the situation just unfolding and with very little confirmed information. Only the confirmed facts were given definition and were described in definitive terms – all passengers were dead, the flight, where it went down, etc... After that, the language was was more vague... “Investigations are underway, the black box might be, etc... There were pictures... frankly, terrible and devastating photos and descriptions from eyewitnesses that felt so painful and hard to hear. But not a lot of speculation or opinion. And there would be breaks from this tragedy- each station took time to talk about other events such as wildfires, the situation in Israel and Gaza (just as horrible a problem I might say), the indictment of FedEx over shipping medications illegally and gold found in a shipwreck off the coast of South Carolina. And more such as a court overturning another gay marriage ban, the typhoon headed toward China... The world is a big place with much going on in it.

The same could not be said of FOX news. While they seemed to have the same details, it was pretty astonishing to me with how they used them. Small lettering on the bottom of the screen would say the 'facts', but the people talking didn't give any facts without a lot of supposition and even things that were only opinion.... Most of he time they didn't bother to mention any facts that I was learning from the other stations. I felt the anger of the commentators but I was also impressed by how neatly they could draw me in and if I hadn't been able to see the facts from other sources at the same time, I may never had gotten them. The wording that was used was also extreme and violent in its own right. It is no exaggeration to say that every sentence spoken, every word that was said seemed conveyed to expressed three points and only those three points.

1. That this tragedy was caused by the Russians and ordered by Vladimir Putin himself.

2. That President Obama must 'break' Russia and Putin to show the Russians and the rest of the world that we are the mightiest and must be feared and obeyed. That war, violence, 'blood', all have been caused by the evil that is Russia and we the good must vanquish it.

3. If we as America do not do this, we will all die and only terror will win.... with Russia and Putin as its leaders.

All the rhetoric made me think... and with was terrible. Some of the words still burn in my head over twenty four hours later. “Russia has their fingers printed all over this all ways”.... Really? How do we know? (Don't get me wrong, I suspect that in many ways this comment is true about this situation, but...) And then pictures of John F Kennedy and Ronald Reagan would show up on the screen with some of their words in quotes about bringing down Russia, tearing down communism and its evils... and then “The President must, he must... Eye to eye, toe to toe, he must stop them... whatever means are necessary.” “President Obama must show them what happens when Putin sheds the blood of innocents... and perhaps the most ironic quote that sticks in my

mind came from Geraldo Rivera- “I told you yesterday Putin has blood on his hands.” Yup, the same guy that my friends and I used to laugh at in high school who five days a week make the term 'talk show' synonymous with interviewed strippers, skinheads, white supremacists, families who hated each other, etc.... He's now reinvented himself as a political commentator. So I was able to listen to him wax poetic on the evils and wrongs by Putin- many of which must have been exaggerated...something he used to do on his talk show... he was well known for it.

I am no friend of Vladimir Putin. I do not know him and am aware that living in this country I will not have many opportunities. It has been obvious to me for years that as America and Russia are enemies, the media in this country can never really see anything that has to do with Russia unbiasedly. We as a people are still trying to understand their history and their culture without coloring it through the lenses of our biases and prejudice. And we are doing it poorly. This experiment cemented two things into my head. First of all, I have heard to the polls and studies that show that those who get the majority of their information from Fox news are more ignorant of the reality of the world than people who get their news from anywhere else. But it also explained the constant fear and anger I sense in so many of the people I know who are 'die hard' FOX news fans. How can you not be when you sit and listen to so much anger... and so much falsehood or at least unproven accusations that when they are proved false ... will never be redacted. That language is dangerous for all of us- even those of us who do not hear it. We have to live with the pain and anger it causes in others, many of whom we care about. After over an hour yesterday of interaction and attention, I will avoid giving any of my time to that station again. I only wish that so many others could see it for what it is. There is enough hate and anger in the world as it is without manufacturing more.

Yesterday so many died in a plane crash.... in the conflicts in Gaza, in Africa from malaria, in Syria... everywhere. So many people are frightened and sad and unsure what to do in their lives. In fact, some numbers suggest that 1 in five of the dead in Gaza are children- children may sometimes be called little terrors but very few people would call them terrorists worthy of death. Instead of creating anger, fear and division, couldn't we work together to grieve and to fight it, fight the terror and the pain with an equal amount of love and good will as well as the basic law enforcement stuff? I can only hope.....

Did the Russian State... Part VI by Nils Johann ( A Short Introduction to the Period... 'The Mafia ?)

“A prince ought to have no other aim or thought, nor select anything else for his study, than war and its rules and discipline; for this is the sole art that belongs to him who rules, and it is of such force that it not only upholds those who are born princes, but it often enables men to rise from a private station to that rank. And, on the contrary, it is seen that when princes have thought more of ease than of arms they have lost their states. And the first cause of your losing it is to neglect this art; and what enables you to acquire a state is to be master of the art. ”

In the State-formation histories of Scandinavia and the wider 'West', Finn Fuglestad uses the term “Mafia Society” to describe early state formations. I am partial to introduce that term when discussing state-formations in England and Russia, or anywhere, for that matter. It is a term that should be kept in mind during the further reading. It should be seen in relation to Spittler's definition of 'despotism'. The term describes a situation where strongmen either do, or do not, get along. They cluster together, in order to 'racketeer' in territories they dominate, or they plunder their opponents. Wealth and power in the period are still highly personal, even though the term 'Crown' and 'state' are used at points in this text.

Machiavelli makes a good companion to the period, and his contemporary work delivers a good description, rather than a normative tale. His work marks him out, as a sign of change taking place, as Berg Eriksen writes in the foreword of his translation: “The possible restoration of Roman
power [e.g. a strong bureaucratic state] in Italy would be the newest thing imaginable”. 'The Prince' has proven itself as a stable control-guideline for the comparison.

Moreover, we can in the period, see new attempts at institutional bureaucracies next to the person of the Monarch and his 'Bojars'. This paper will demonstrate, how Ivan and Henry established internal discipline within their organization. We will look at how they both ran their 'firms'. In both the territories work starts to effectuate a more efficient tax-system, and state
institutions are established to carry this out.

Did the Russian State... Part V by Nils Johann (Why, and how to compare the Rule of Henry VIII with the Rule of Ivan IV?)

Maybe the best way to clear the question, of the comparability of the formation period of the Russian State, is by comparing more or less contemporary case. Noam Chomsky formulates this approach in several of his publications but the most elegant formulation stems from“Manufacturing Consent”(1992):

“Interviewer: I'd like to ask you a question, essentially about the methodology in studying 'The Propaganda Model' and how one would go about doing that?

Chomsky: Well, there are a number of ways to proceed. One obvious way is to try to find more or less paired examples. History doesn't offer true, controlled experiments but it often comes pretty close. So one can find atrocities, or abuses of one sort that on the one hand are committed by "official enemies", and on the other hand are committed by friends and allies or by the favored state itself (by the United States in the U.S. case). And the question is whether the media accept the government framework or whether they use the same agenda, the same set of questions, the same criteria for dealing with the two cases as any honest outside observer would do.”

As long as 'The Cold War' lasted, it may have seemed like there was a definite line separating “Eastern” and “Western” culture. The global political power-struggle that took place, did, or at least it seems to have, overemphasized difference. Most likely this dominantly happened as a conscious relation towards the conflict by the authors, and to a lesser degree because of the restricted opportunities to communicate and cooperate across the political divide that was formed by 'The Cold War'. It was primarily a power-political divide, but not necessarily a clear cultural divide. To most conflicts between any given parties, a certain animosity will follow. It becomes easier to dehumanize the enemy, and this is done by starting out, to look for differences, not for
commonalities. Dichotomies that support this attitude of animosity have to be found out and cultivated. When these differences are cultivated and (over)exaggerated, they will after time be held to be basic truths, and misinterpretations will happen.

Surely the period we are going to discuss; Russia, roughly from the 15th to the 17th century, is somewhat removed from the issues of the 'Cold War'. But the 'Cold War ideology' may have been lurking in the background, in the consciousness of the historians interpreting. Even if there is an honest appreciation for historical facts internalized in the scholar, this is not in itself a guarantee for an accurate assessment of the past. At least not in the environment of contagious anti-communism, before, during, and after the time of the Soviet Union.

This paper is not the first attempt at comparison. Edward Keenan already deemed it futile back in the 70's, to find any means of aligning Russian history, with its “European” contemporary counterpart. But for those who have seen his works, it becomes clear how concerned he was with “detail”. In Keenan's world there was not much room for comparing anything. Michael Cherniavsky, Halperin's mentor, however inspires an attempt at comparison, portraying the traits that make Ivan a proper “renaissance prince”. There are many traits that offer themselves as similarities.

There is no question that Russia is different from Britain during the 16th century, just like every other institution is different from the next. The biggest difference between the two units might be the size and the geographical attributes they contain. In the time, transport by boat was far more efficient than overland travel, giving a comparative logistical advantages to the English. They are surrounded by the sea, whilst the Muscovites were depending on their river-systems, to connect an area that in average was far less densely populated than England, and at least, ten times more expansive. Further difference is that far more sources have survived in England. Wooden Moscow was 'put to the torch' several times by various enemies. In addition England got its first printing press in 1476, while the first Muscovite press was set up in 1553. English sources are also more widely accessible to western scholars, than sources written in Russian variations.

Arguing for a Sonderfall still might not be the most fruitful thing one can do, even though, I must admit it could be done in any case, regarding any institution. -The refusal of the abstract concept of the forest, in favor of our favorite tree. The Crowns of both Henry and Ivan, handle their opponents and the nobility harshly, they constantly make war and their finances suffer. The way their respective parliaments function seems kindred. Behaving like prototypical Autocrats, both are good examples of the ruling-style of their period, being held up as the best form of government in Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan or the Matter, Forme and Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesiastical and Civil (1651) about a hundred years later.

Did the Russian State... Part IV by Nils Johann (On the 'Miracle' of Western Europe)

A challenge that one faces when entering into the debate of an eastern or western culture dominating Russia, is the terminology itself. What is 'The West'? Is 'The West' something definable? Or rather, can it be used as a definition? It is a term that is inherently used, and it simplifies and creates order in one's mind. But does it help to understand something, or does this categorization lead us astray... or make us lazy? The suspicion arises that the category contains a lot of praise, to one self, one's own. Because it is to be understood positively, is it not? When our 'Anglo-Saxons' write about 'The West', they write about their own, their identity, and self-image. They show how they would like to portray themselves today, often at the risk of sacrificing historical fact, in favor of tunnel-vision, with regards to sources and interpretations.

The claim made by Landes and other 'Eurocentrics' (rather 'Occidentofiles') is that 'European' institutions that arose during the industrialisation, and the Industrialisation itself, can be traced back into 16th century, to their 'embryonic' state, without causing huge problems of verification. (Landes even claims the 15th century holds the 'seeds' for future industrial development.) This is best illustrated by the discussion that broke out, after David Landes and Andre Gunder Frank both brought out a book on the subject of 'world economic history' during the same year. They positioned their works extremely antithetical to each-other. In “ReOrient- Global Economy in the Asian Age” (1998), Andre Gunder Frank manifests the economical superiority of Asia for the period before the disjunction that happened around 1750 to 1850. -Something that is not widely contested. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz, Adam Smith, and other Europeans in the time were well aware of this, and they idealised China as a model for copy, and a 'Europe of the East'.

David Landes in his Wealth and Poverty of Nations (1998) does however not want this to be true. In his grasping for straws, he alleges to have found exclusively English (and when he can't force them to be English, they are Dutch) 'seeds' for explaining the Industrial revolution, back in the 15th century. This, despite the general problem of finding or constructing data-series that reach further back than 1750. His attempt at writing a 'world economic history' must be seen as a failure, because the book is mostly about Europe. His effort at documentation for his narrative is good, but rather eclectic- we might call it a case of historical tunnel-vision. Landes, as Max Weber did in 1950, also places a lot of weight on cultural exceptionalism. But it ends with a circular argument where culture is special because it is special. Of course we can agree that culture is special. But it should be noted, that it is also highly plastic, adapting itself to, and echoing, changing material circumstances. The same goes for alleged, peculiar western institutions. They are made for fulfilling a pragmatic purpose, and the institutions that do not 'bend with the wind', will eventually 'break'. The 'sexual revolution' of the 1960's could be an example... be seen as a 'breaking down' of cultural mores by beatniks and French philosophers, and a loss of 'Christian Values'. But was it not also caused by the discovery of penicillin and 'The Pill'?

As a matter a fact we know 'Europe' only takes the economic lead after about 1800, and we know that this is due to the 'industrial revolution'. The exploitation of the western colonies in order to gain surplus currency to access oriental markets, had been important up to that point. (Occidental gold and silver, and shipping, because few 'Western' product were of high enough quality, to be of interest to the Asian market, until the westerners also started dealing in drugs and erotic art.) Frank does not completely decline the plausibility of 'inherit qualities' or a longer period of preparation for this jolt in European productivity, and he explains it best in his own words:

“But it was not so thanks to any of the 'qualities' and 'preparations' alleged by Weber, Marx and their many followers, including Landes still today, who observed nothing in Asia and only myths in Europe...Instead he [Vries] makes repeated references to possibly peculiarly European institutions. Since Vries does [can?] not specify or even name any, he conveniently also protects himself from any specific rebuttal. But I can assure him again, as the book already did, that every previously alleged European institutional exceptionalism has long since been knocked down as a straw man. To illustrate the point, I quoted what Hodgson wrote over thirty years ago already: "All attempts that I have yet seen to invoke pre-Modern seminal traits in the Occident can be shown to fail under close historical analysis….This also applies to the great master, Max Weber." If Vries can do better, let him.; but he would be well advised not just to refers us back to the tired old shibboleths of David Landes.”

He then proceeds to illustrate his point, by comparing the European surge by the rise of mammals, after the wiping out of the dinosaurs, meaning that the external economical factors of Indian and later Chinese relative decline, made room for European growth. Only because the surroundings changed, expansion was made possible.

“But Europeans [sic: Some European historians] have wasted nearly 200 years of time erroneously and uselessly examining their own allegedly obviously exceptional navel instead of looking for possible exceptional qualities that only became particularly useful due to an event largely extraneous to ... Europeans themselves.” In the wake of this feud, some good work was done to explore the subject further. Jack Turner's documentary 'What the Ancients knew' (2005), gathered a wealth of evidence supporting what Frank already claims, especially in relation to Chinese economic-force-superiority up until the 19th century."

An other example from the 'Occidentofile' perspective is Robert Bucholtz' lecture-series on the rise of modern western civilization. It is even more fitting for the place and period that will be discussed later in the paper. Bucholtz specialization is the English royal court, and he is therefore, quite familiar with England. Bucholtz' 'West' therefore, is a constantly eastwards growing
'West', into areas less known to him. The eastern border is at the outset of the lecture, in the period after the black death, drawn alongside the Rhine river, and, including Italy in the south. 'The West' to Bucholtz is as much a state of mind, as it is a geographical term, and as time progresses, more areas mature into this proposed (English) mindset. It is an Anglo-centric proposal, connecting to 'The West', things that are considered virtues in Bucholtz' culture today. A more critical interpretation of the lecture would give us, that what happens actually has the opposite causal effect of what is suggested by the narrative of Bucholtz. -As England integrates values and techniques from abroad, this shapes England. The protestant reformation takes place in the 'Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation', and as we know, some of its principles are adopted in England. Suddenly the H.R.E. is party to Bucholtz' narrative of the 'West'. It is a case of 'tailor-fitting' the data to fit with a preordained result.

This poses a problem to us, because it follows that 'The West' of Bucholtz, Ferguson and Landes is seen from a tunnel, opening in the direction of what they express to hold dear. Then, the 'West' is not the dictatorships of Franco or Pinochet, even though both were situated in the the West? Is it not the slums of former 'Western' colonies? Is it not the 'antebellum' United States, where the Congressmen wrote in high-born poetic prose about freedom, to hide the fact they were owning slaves? - And something that is too often under-communicated: The situation of the African slave, is not all to unlike to the situation of the European peasant from the 16th to the 19th century. Is 'The West', not the cheap labor of children in the coal-mines of South Yorkshire, that fueled the industrialization of England, and the constant state-sponsored murder of those that opposed the exploitation? Winston Churchill may not have had Gandhi murdered, as Adolf Hitler allegedly suggested to him. But the Great British Empire surely had no problem with starving away, both the Irish, and Indians, or the inhabitants of White-chapel. The Royal Navy did in the end contribute its bit to halt the slave-trade, but only after the criminalization of the trade in 1807. It took, however, until the late 1860's, before total compliance to this act was forced through. We could go on, the examples are many, -of what 'we do not want' 'The West' to be. But what is 'The West', or rather, what would we like it to be? -In this context, it is Parliamentary systems, the rule of law, and the freedom of private enterprise and property. Liberty and justice, checks and balances, prosperity and the right to voice ones opinion. Features that Niall Ferguson in his latest book dubbed “the six killer-apps of western civilization”. A problem is of course that many of these institutions, and freedoms, first materialize much later than even 1800. Through unions and 'class-struggle' (*in a broader sense of the word). Equal voting and legal rights, never materialised during the existence of the Great British Empire, and on the mother-isle, they only became reality in 1928. In Ferguson's U.S.A., It took until 1965 for these basic civil rights to be signed into law by president L. B. Johnson.

It seems, every time that non-European state-formations have stability, their governments can inherently within this discussion be described as despotic or tyrannical. “Freedom” from this sort of government supposedly leads to innovation and development, caused by market-like competition and exchange. There is a different perspective on development in general. There is a certain truth to the words of Hobbes; that the 'freedom' of the 'barbarian' might be nasty brutish and short. The least developed areas of today are at the same time the most unstable and conflict ridden ones. Order was prevalent in the East, when these areas up until about 1800, also had a technical lead, on poor, war-torn, Western Europe: Stability equals surplus of capital, surplus of capital; wealth, equals innovation, because it reduces relative risk when it is affordable to take a loss. In modern firms research and development is the relatively, most costly sector, and access to capital, and a large amount of surplus-capital, distributed among a large part of a population will open the possibility for innovation to a aggregated extent. In Ferguson's narrative the end of the Ming dynasty in China and the factionalism and wars that followed, are a definitive triggers of decline and stagnation of development. But he has no quarrels with portraying this same sort of contemporary fractioning, as the institutional strength of Europe, spurring proto capitalist competition. It is a total contradiction, spurring doubts about the reliability of the competition narrative, as a European advantage.

All in all, it is a question of perspective, of focus, and of intent, when one wants to write about 'The West'. Another challenge is of course also that the 'West' has changed over time. It has not always been as ideal, as the connotations to the term may imply. As we will see, historical thinking and historical accuracy can be a huge challenge. 'The Cult of British Exceptionalism' does in this regard also overemphasize and distort the subject when handled by many 'Western' historians, forcefully superimposing present structures on the past. Davis' “Late Victorian Holocaust”, is an exception from the rule. -A rare example of the opposite, as it rather focuses on the brutal, 'despotic' manner in which the 'Victorians' of Great Britain, spread 'Western Civilization' in order to exploit and enslave the world.

It seems quite likely that the 'Cult of British Exceptionalism', is a result of non-recognition of the exceptional ceterius paribus development, that the surplus accumulation of the Industrial Revolution, the harnessing of immense amounts of natural power for human needs, caused, for what it was: A brief fluke of West-European material-wealth-superiority. Because some gentlemen had unlocked the secret of turning heat into motion, giving them and their peers a leading role for two hundred years. Of course it was extraordinary, like the locomotive suddenly speeding up, next to the horse and cart. There was a need to culturally explain it, ex post factum, so historians and thinkers started making up stories, cultivating plausible explanations for the fluke. Like Marx, writing his short essay on the positive effect of British imperialism in India. Or Weber, inventing the tasty, elegant theory about how 'Jesus and Luther caused factories to be built'. It is about as verifiable as the Book of Genesis. It is of course also a philosophical question, where the person trained in a tradition of Hegelian idealism will undoubtedly be looking for 'the emperor's new robe' cheering, while enthusiastically not seeing it.

As a last thought on this issue; maybe it was not enough, or maybe it was to vulgar, for the Europeans, starting our craft of writing histories, back during their age of industrial revolution, that the 'political power had grown out of the barrel of a gun', -that had been mass produced. For Harald 'Haarfagre', one of the first kings in Norway, it had not been enough simply to be King, by holding
a sword either. He had traced his linage back to Methusalem The Old, Jupiter, King Priamos of Troy and the Norse God-King Odin. Caesar had claimed to be the heir of Venus, and Swedish noble houses of the 17th century traced them selves back to Atlantis of legend. So why not claim to be the noblest race? Have the purest blood? And a to be in possession of a special, inventive, mind? The
best Kings and the finest state-institutions, or the best culture? Or can we content ourselves with the fact, that turning heat, into motion, into work, into wealth, is miraculous enough? Landes' friend in arms, Samuel Huntington sums it up elegantly when he writes: “The West won the world, not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion, but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do.”

Comments? Questions? :)

Did the Russian State... Part III by Nils Johann (The Myth of 'Oriental Despotism')

“...nor is it good to have many rulers. Let there be one ruler, one king,...”

We tend to look at the Eurasian landmass and then we single out about a 5% of it. We say; this is freedom, enterprise, 'development', in complete opposition to the other 95%, ruled by Oriental Despotism. That these other nineteen twentieth, should be no more or less special, or equal, in their 'strangeness' seems to be rather more likely. But this is not what is usually seen, when we talk of this mythical difference, between two more or less incomparable units. It is not amazing when travelers in the 16th century find new places to be strange, but this does not make these places more strange for us looking back through more than four-hundred years of passed time. The Work of Goldstone, like Frank's, points in the direction that there might be serious errors in how 'The West' and 'The Rest' are presented. These errors skew our understanding of our history in general. He suggests an alternative interpretation:

“The California school reverses this emphasis and sees Europe as a peripheral, conflict-ridden, and low-innovation society in world history until relatively late. Superiority in living standards, science and mathematics, transportation, agriculture, weaponry, and complex production for trade and export, has multiple centres in Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley and the Yellow River Basin. From these regions civilization spreads outward,...while western Europe remains a primitive backwater. When civilization spreads West with Carthage and the Roman Empire, it remains rooted in the Mediterranean and then—with Byzantium—in Anatolia.” “Except that something goes haywire in England. Charles II dies without an Anglican heir, and the throne passes to his Catholic brother James.”

We should not interpret this as a straight forward dissemination theory because that would be unoriginal, but as a more complex gradual transplantation, or adoption, of tools and technique for government. This then fits rather well with Gerhard Spittler's explanation of 'despotism' and how it has worked. And Spittler's 'despotism' is not the mythical 'totalitarian', 'oriental despotism'
-understanding of the word of Wittfogel and Ferguson.

How 'despotic' is 'The East' really in comparison to 'The West'? The question is interesting because Spittler diagnoses 'despotism' to be the management-form of primitive state-structures. 'Despotism' is described as a rule over farmers with a military-state, that has little developed bureaucratic structures, or codex laws. - as an opposite of 'bureaucratic government'. Spittler, however, found that Prussia of the 18th century, and West-Africa of the 19th century compare rather well in this regard.

“The peasantry in a peasant state is characterized by a great diversity of local customs and by defensive strategies. Both are related to peasants' semi-autark household production. Under these conditions the central government lacks information and the means of control. Administration by intermediaries and despotism becomes widespread because it is well adapted to this situation. In order not to be infected by the “chaotic diversity” in the countryside, the bureaucracy maintains its distance from the peasants. But on the other hand, it also tries to penetrate the peasantry. Bureaucratic administration requires the collection and storing of information, so a precise census is a basic tool for bureaucratic work.”

As an extension of this, we can assume that almost every state, until the development of industrial society, were peasant states, trade being, in general, marginal. The road away from despotism, to a more bureaucratic state, with more order, less random violence or ad-hoc power, is similar. This would in turn mean a tempering of the aristocracy and the centralization of power to the Crown, as it again, from the period after 1450, increasingly happened in all of Europe. Mind, not as a straight progression, and not at all always successful.

The portrayal of the “oriental despotism” therefore seems methodologically unsound. The theoretical separation of 'The East' and 'Western Europe' seems to be creating some confusion when it comes to understanding the workings of reality, rather than being helpful in this regard, as a theory should be. To help us along it might be helpful to summarize some scientific theorems. A false dichotomy arises, when the premise for the given research proposes that there are only two possible outcomes that are mutually exclusive. With the induction of such a premise, we run the risk that maybe both outcomes are wrong, or that they are not mutually exclusive. The danger for research-work, premised by a false dichotomy, is that it may lead into a falsity in logical reasoning. The result could be misguiding, leading us to make wrong conclusions. The false dichotomy is therefore also a common rhetorical technique, where only two choices exist, only two real alternatives. A false dichotomy can just as well be an intended fallacy, created in order to force a decision where none of the alternatives, are necessarily the correct choice.

The western rim of Eurasia is more similar in its development up until about 1800 than might seem palatable. Splitting Russia off from the state-formative processes taking place in other locations alongside 'The Rim' therefore does not serve the purpose of gaining understanding, but causes alienation. The terminology in use for later periods still puts the “dictatorship” of the USSR next to its 'imagined-free', NATO opponent, in an imaginative exercise of a combination of hypocrisy, avarice, and ignorance, that trumps any nuance. In the same manner the brutal occidental Barons of late medieval Europe are painted to be 'Arthuresqe' figures of myth next to the bloodthirsty oriental Despot.

Comments? Questions...? :)

Did The Russian State... - Part II by Nils Johann (On the 'Curse' of the Orient)

In the essay 'The Mongol Origins of Muscovite Political institutions', by Donald Ostrowski, it is suggested that the organization of the Muscovite state could, to a strong degree have been influenced by the Mongol overlords that taxed, or demanded tribute and hostages from the Russ princes in the period. Ostrowski expresses himself quite diplomatically, and is explicit on the stance, that from this, it does not follow that the Russian state, that springs out of this state, later in time, is inherently of 'eastern' conception or constitution. The article makes room for what Ostrowski calls a 'pseudo-Byzantine' development, after the gradual severing of the ties between the Khans and the Lords of Moscow after 1430 -when the princes stopped 'visiting' the Khan in Sarai.

It is a sensible assumption that people or cultures, that are in contact with each-other do learn from each-others techniques. Thus also in the realm of management and statecraft. The problem with this approach however is that it does not seem likely that the Tartars had a refined statecraft, being steppe-nomads and good warriors, that mostly formed their war-bands based on brittle, personal allegiances. Conquest, for the former raiders, therefore, must most likely have been a “learning by doing” experiment. Due to their high degree of personalized, not institutionalized rule, their dominions also get brittle once the ruler dies. With time the tartars also adopt sedentary life, but it is rather a consequence of their dealings with sedentary and urban culture where they conquer.

It was a widely held opinion from the 1850 and onward, that the Asian states were “despotic”. Also the Asian peoples lacked the European/Western ability for rational thought. -Thus a mongoloid Russia would explain a backward Russia. Karl Wittfogel runs with a less extreme notion than above, of what Mongolian influx might mean, as Ostrowski also mentions in his article. To criticize Wittfogel today might seem to be like kicking in open doors, but his most famous work "Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power." "Wittfogel's scientific contribution in the ideological conflict with Soviet Communism" still echoed in the lecturing rooms when I started to interest myself for Russia in 2005. (With that quote it should be abundantly clear that we are not reading history, when reading Wittfogel) The book takes its thesis about the 'Hydraulic society', developed in his book “Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft Chinas” (1931), and superimposes the concept on Russian history, to explain his contemporary Soviet Union, using the concept as a 'grand theory of everything'. Thus Soviet Communism is explained as follows: Along the great rivers like the Euphrates or the Jiang-tsek-iang, centralized states arose because the coordinated regulation of irrigation was crucial for agriculture, and the steadfastness required by agriculture made people easier to rule. This gave rise to a system of government Wittfogel named “Oriental Despotism”. Later this mode of government would also spread to the whole of Asia, remaining more or less
unchanged up to Wittfogel's time. It is also spread to areas without irrigation-systems, like Russia. With the Mongol invasion, Wittfogel claims, Russia was “asieatesized” and thus the despotic structures that had risen in the Far-East were integrated into the coming Russian systems of government, commencing up until Soviet Communism.

The story is a nice and elegant one. The narrative is beautiful and it seems at the first glance to “explain it all”, and to make sense. It was well received in the climate of the Cold War. The only problem of course, is that it cannot be true. It's highly incredible, unscientific, speculative and tendentious. The vast oversimplification that was needed to formulate Wittfogel's assertion has with time rendered Wittfogels work to be seen as outdated and incorrect, but his spectre seems to cling on in our discussion. The various weaknesses, are as well made clear by Joseph Needham's Review of Oriental Despotism (1959). Wittfogel work seems perfect for the Zeitgeist that surrounded him in the United States of the 1950's, distancing him from his own past in the German Communist party, while telling a story, elegant, comforting and assuring to his surroundings.

Alexander Yanov (1930-) can be seen as in opposition to Wittfogel's narration. In his trilogy Yanov tells a somewhat different story. He puts the responsibility for the “break with the West” in the lap of Ivan VI. -There was no Mongol imprint. He also rejects that paternalistic tendencies is something exclusively Russian, -something that should be less hard to accept when considering
Western Europe at the same time. Yanov advocates that the period from 1480 till 1560 is a period of “European tradition” in Russia, whilst the 'Oprichnina' of Ivan IV breaks this tradition. After that it was a long and hard struggle for Russia to “get back to Europe”, and it finally gets there after the breakup of the USSR. This is also in part tendentious, as it leans on a positive, highly unrealistic, mythological portrait of western Europe.

The works of Yanov and Wittfogel are representatives of two opposing archetypal interpretations of Russian history and Russia. The one understands it as “meant to be” 'European', the other as 'Asiatic'. -Or 'Western' and 'Eastern'. It is important to note that not all writing about Russia falls into this category. Ostrowski, who's focus is primarily on early Slavic history, has also published extensively in the field of comparative history, and methodology, and this seems to keep him from oversimplification and generalization.

Comments...? Questions...?

Did The Russian State Form in a Different Manner than Its Occidental Neighbours? - Part I by Nils Johann

Can Russia be seen as following the same formative patterns as the new bureaucratic (proto-) states rising in Western Europe? A discussion in historiography, world history and the problems of long chains of causality, exemplified by a comparison of Russian and English political history during the reigns of Ivan IV and Henry VIII. (Late medieval/Northern Renaissance period, 16th century.)

While studying medieval Russia two questions kept popping up in the Literature: Does Russia have its background in “Eastern” (Asiatic) or “Western” (European) culture? Does a possible Asiatic background account for the perceived “backwardness” of the land? During the reading, a suspicion of double-standards for the 'scales' we use to measure the 'East' and the 'West' arose. Marginal cosmetic differences seemed to be exploited to exasperate a narrative, of a distant, strange, and mythical Russia. The historiographical discussion will start with the more specific grand works and perspectives concerning Russia, opened up by Ostrowski's essay on "The Mongol Origins of Muscovite Political institutions", which served as a inspiration for this work. What then also needs to be addressed is the claim of Russian backwardness which is the main narrative thread in Alexander Yanov's work, and in large parts in other writings, like the work of Wittfogel. Is the way Russia is portrayed up to this day, intentionally overemphasising minor differences, as a result of the political tension that ensued between its rulers and the neighbors in 'The West', rather than a matter of fact? Could the portrayal also be the result of sloppy methodology... even if some Russian scholars themselves adopt this view during the zenith of British hegemony, in the middle of the 19th century? It became my desire to look at the subject with a 'Homeric blindness' and a 'Ranke'an' moral disassociation.

While dealing with this question the main challenge gave itself by the seemingly ethereal qualities of terms like 'Europe' utilized in the discussion. An approach was finally opened up by 'zooming out' and taking a look at Frank's work in "ReOrient- Global Economy in the Asian Age" (1998) and by the discussion that ensued between him and Landes, Goldstone, Vries, Pomeranz and others. I still remember discussing the 'hot topic' of the 'special' European development with Vries back in 2004, and also that it ended with Vries passionately leaving.

I will make an account of this larger discussion further on because it will provide the proper context for discussing what 'Western Traits' actually are, and how far back we actually are honestly able to superimpose this term back in time. Goldstone's suggestion: To see Europe as the (*'barbaric') rim-lands of “Civilization”. Civilization at first spreading from Mesopotamia, in the direction of Europe, is a good perspective for helping us understand this.

With the narrative, that: Every time non-European state-formations have stability, their government can inherently, within this discussion, be described as despotic or tyrannical, we might be led astray: As long as there was order in China, and India, up until about 1800, these areas also maintained a technical lead on poor, war-torn Western-Europe: Stability equals innovation, because relative risk is reduced, and more persons are allowed to specialize. Risk becomes acceptable when it is affordable to take a loss.

In order to answer the question of the paper, what follows is an introduction to the greater European realm during the lives of Henry VIII (*1491-†1547) of England and Ivan IV (*1530-†1584) of Russia. This context is important, because looking at Russia isolated, can sometimes make us forget the realities of late-medieval/Renaissance life, in its westward neighbors. We could go into the trap of unintentionally only comparing it to our life experiences today, leading us to handle the subject-matter unhistorical. The demonstration will then continue by looking at, and comparing their reigns, which are more alike, than proponents of British exceptionalism, or of the Asiatic culture of Russia, would care for. We start out by comparing their families rise to power and their relation to the other noble families. There follows a comparison of their household management, the legal status of the Emperors, and their warfare.

In several works by, amongst others, Crummy and Yanov, the reign of Ivan IV is held up as an example of 'non-European' political behavior. When we with that approach compare Ivan's reign to that of Henry VIII, interesting choices for conclusion open up. Neither Henry, nor Ivan, are behaving like the Europeans of Ferguson or Wittfogel. The alleged “democratic”, free Occident, stands like an elegant myth, with its cradle in a later age. In short, the privilege of a few noblemen in Britain after 1688, does not make out as credible freedom, and in the 1540's, English political conditions do not stray remarkably from conditions in Russia. In the comparison of chapter 4, a pattern will emerge, that highlights the similarities in behavior of the two Monarchs and their Crown. Both castigate and subjugate the other competing nobles. In order to accumulate capital they reform their management and communication systems, laying the groundwork for a bureaucratic state. They do this in order to exploit the realm, and to aggregate power in their own hands. This enables their wars of conquest. Standing gunpowder-armies enable them to project their power further than their predecessors. It should be acknowledged that differences between England and Russia, but when looking at the grand motions, an impression of similar development for the period forms.


Comments.... Questions? :)

Introduction to Nils Magnus Johann and his Research and Writings on Russia

Boy, do I have a treat for my history loving friends! I am very excited to have the opportunity to be able to share a paper from a friend that I met online who also loves history. This is an amazing paper – well thought out and researched- and I feel honored to introduce him and his work to my readers! :)

I apologize that I do not have a good biography of the author yet, but I hope to soon and I will upload it when I can. I need to break up his post into several parts, but I will post a few pages a day so that there is continuity for those who are interested in reading it. Please also feel free to leave comments of feedback and I will make sure that he gets them! So with out further ado, here is the title and a short tidbit of what the paper will cover over the next week or so. So let's begin!

Did The Russian State Form in a Different Manner than Its Occidental Neighbors?


Can Russia be seen as following the same formative patterns as the new, bureaucratic (proto-) states rising in Western Europe? A discussion in historiography, world history, and the problems of long chains of causality, exemplified by a comparison of Russian and English political history during the reigns of Ivan IV and Henry VIII. (Late medieval/Northern Renaissance, period, 16th century.)

Introduction: Did the Russian state form in a different Manner than its Occidental Neighbors?

On the 'Curse' of the Orient.

The Myth of 'Oriental' Despotism».

On the 'Miracle' of Western Europe.

Why and how to compare the Rule of Henry VIII with the Rule of Ivan IV?

A Short Introduction to the Period of the Comparison. ('The Mafia-Society'.)

The Development after the Time of the Black Death.

The Circumstance of the Two Ruling Houses and their Nobility.

Give to God what is God's and to the Emperor what is the Emperor's.

'Some of us have talked...'

Their Great Heists.

Father of all Things.

A bloody Trail of Death and Destruction?

Conclusions.

My Popular Hits 2010-2011

It has been a few years since I started this blog and so much has really changed since then. My home, my family, my friends, the church, my life, my health…. so much is so different and, in many ways, new. This blog was started to help connect to family due to their encouragement and suggestions. But it has opened so much more opportunity for me. This blog still helps me keep in touch with family and I do feel less alone, but I have also made some friends from different countries and enjoy those small friendships. I have learned about other cultures and I have found deeper relationships with some family members than I have ever had before. This has been a wonderful blessing to me…

Last week, I got an email from my blogger account that congratulated me on reaching over 50,000 views. It is a stunning thought. I do not feel like I even really know one hundred people… and yet so many thousands have crossed the path of some of my thoughts. It is a feeling that is both overwhelming and a feeling of pure awe. So while I am sure I have a small group of followers and I am sure that most of the time… I can be quite boring, rambling, etc…. I thought I would take a few minutes to list the top ten posts that I have written that have been viewed over the last few years. I hope you enjoy! :)


1. Peter the Great: The Modernizer of Modern Russia (7794 views- first published 4/15/2011)








2. Ivan the Terrible: The First Czar of Russia (6025 views -first published 3/30/2011)








3. Debunking Some of the Myths of Medieval Daily Life (4121 views - first published 3/8/2011)









4. Some Snapshots of Life on Gondwana (3141 views - first published 8/18/2010)




5. Thoughts on the Document 'Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen' (1757 views - first published 9/19/2011)






6. The 'Worst Shark Attack Ever' - An Example of Human Failure and an Easy Scapegoat (1431 views - first published 6/24/2010)





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The Life and Art of Carl Heinrich Bloch (1090 views - first published 3/13/2011)






8. The Rise of Moscow after the Mongol Conquest (937 views - first published 2/21/2011)



9. Random Thoughts on Oral History, Interviews, and Technique (827 views - first published 2/23/2011



10. The Subjugation of Kievan Rus : The Tartar-Mongol Conquest and its Influences / Ramifications (827 views - first published 2/23/2011)






Is there a post that is your favorite? A post that maybe you really enjoyed but didn't see on the 'most viewed' list? Anything you are willing to share...? :)

The Reforms and Legacy of Peter the Great

Peter Alekseevich Romanov was born in June 1672 and died at the age of 53 in his beloved town of St Petersburg. Though his life was relatively short, the works of his mind, ambition and will have affected the country of Russia to its present course. Peter the Great pushed his constituents through new laws, reforms and his attempts to bring modernity to his country. This paper will discuss the reforms that were enacted during the rule of this tzar and their lasting legacies.

One of the major reforms that Peter I started with was the military. Before his time, Russia may have depended on its waterways for trade, travel and other pursuits, but the protection of those waterways could depend on a haphazard set of circumstances. In good times, these waterways and the lands of Russia itself were mostly protected by the local towns and villages themselves- the groups could have little to no knowledge of military techniques or leadership. The 'official' armies of Russia- the Streltsy or the Cossacks as examples - could be seen as professional units, but even these units were run at times by foreigners and not by native Russians. The Russian country had nothing that could be described as a navy in actual terms before Peter I. One of the major changes during this time was the creation and development of a navy. He borrowed ideas and training from other countries and created a strong Russian Navy that was officially founded on September 12, 1698. During his youth, Peter the Great had learned a lot about building ships - he had even built a few of his own- and he used this knowledge to increase security around Russian waterways, but to also conquer and claim new waterways as well. The Russian navy became a force that other monarchs would have to reckon with.

The military itself was also modernized and streamlined. The tzar recognized that he could not keep his country safe-nor conquer more lands- without a reliable and well disciplined army. One change he made was to open military academies for the teaching and training of military skills to a larger group of people. The military also became a permanent institution in the sense that it was no longer haphazard or ill-equipped. The military became a standing presence with some constituents required to serve for twenty-five years and quotas for conscripts... as well as lifelong draftees. After this was accomplished, the Czar did away or eliminated the Streltsy -with some difficulty but it was done. One change which Peter I made was to stress that the military's purpose and interests should be the interests of the state- not their own desire or even the desires of the Tsar himself. He made sure that the military was better equipped and trained in some of the styles of western military/armies and ready to face the challenges of empire building that he (Peter I) wanted. Out of all of his goals for modernizing Russia, it is thought that this one was the most important to the tsar.

The Orthodox religion didn't escape the notice of the Tsar and it underwent many changes during his reign. Previously, the Russian rulers had exerted some influence on the church but had left it mostly free of interference in its day to day operations and organization. The church was reorganized so that the powers of church leadership fell into the hands of the Czar... and not church leaders. One way this was accomplished was the creation of the Holy Synod in 1721 which replaced the power of the Patriarch of Moscow with a group of individuals mostly loyal to the tzar and not to the church. The creation of the 'Chief Procurator', a secular representative of the government who works within the church, also put the church leaders under the close supervision of the government. His government also passed a decree in 1722 that required priests of the church to disregard confidentiality in the confessional for certain matters or concerns that were governmental in nature. Tsar Peter was generally considered a 'secular' tsar and he was also known for his religious tolerance, passing laws allowing for inter-religious marriage, etc... The tsar also attempted to modernize the clergy which would result in the reduction of monks and nuns in great numbers as well as the reduction of church owned/ controlled land. Lastly, Peter issued the Spiritual Regulations that served as the bylaws for all religious activities in Russia.

There were also a few ways that Peter I attempted (and succeeded) in reforming the government. The Tsar abandoned the practice of gathering the zemsky sobor to discuss matters of special importance and he also moved the Russian 'capital' to his new city of St. Petersburg. He eliminated the Duma and replaced it with a group of individuals that acted more like a Western Senate than the former institution. And after signing a treaty in 1721 with Sweden, the Tsar was offered the title of Emperor and Russia was then known as an empire. Some reforms that were performed improved the management of government finances and control of public money. The tsar's love of education goes hand in hand with his governmental reforms as he attempted to create a meritocracy (and not an aristocracy) and to push western education onto the nobles and other constituents by importing books as well as starting institutions of learning. Tsar Peter's attempt to change the class structure by given regards for merit and service and not just for birthright did make it possible for a slight blending of some of the classes. His reforms also helped local governments to more efficiently keep order and collect taxes. Other reforms included cultural reforms that were brought about as the Czar attempted to push his people into adopting more western modes or dress, no beards (or you paid a tax), and more emphasis on conformity and obedience to the ruling power. He changed the calender in Russian to the Julian calendar in doing so changed the way most of Russia kept track of their days and holidays.

My inclination is to see Tsar Peter as a great reformer. He certainly made many large and lasting changes to many aspects to the lives of the Russian people. His changes in the military certainly made the country safer from potential foreign invaders. Collecting and developing new taxes gave the czar the money to enact not only other reforms, but to build the city of St Petersburg as well. Having any ability to blur the lines of class certainly takes work in my opinion, and making Russia into the vast and strong empire it became and survived as for so long also took quite a bit of energy, focus, ambition and endurance. However, it seems like many things didn't change all that much as there was still one man firmly in control of the country- a man who spend a great deal of time putting even more of the country and people under his control that any other ruler before him. Because he didn't share the power and in fact consolidated it even more, that must have created inefficiency, creative inhibition and problems with even making sure that the tsar's orders were being carried out correctly. I imagine that many individuals were not likely to offer suggestions or their own ideas and were likely to maybe even avoid tasks at all for their own protection... so I am quite torn by this man. I see him as doing many great and wonderful things, but I also see the side of him whose ambition and need for control caused a great deal of hardship, fear and death for many of the people he felt he was fighting so hard to elevate and improve life for. While I still see him as a great leader and I still feel that the name 'Peter the Great' can still be considered appropriate, I can also see him and his actions through the lens of knowledge that will show not only his successes, but his quirks, his difficulties and his failures. However, as this tsar was unwilling to be bogged down and focused on his failures during his lifetime, maybe we too should see and remember them, but not focus too heavily on them. His legacy was a strong country, a larger country and empire than when he was first given the crown and a country that was trading and successfully participating in European affairs and concerns. He transformed commerce and industry, the church and its activities and quite simply, changed the way that most Russians lived and how the country was viewed by the outside world. His legacy can be seen today in the culture of Russia, the buildings of his beloved St Petersburg and in almost any corner of government and culture in Russia. Whether you appreciate his reforms or not, no one can dispute that his changes and attempts to modify and modernize Russia on such a grand scale can still be felt today.... in the simple act of looking at a calendar... in worship... in the splendor of the great city that bears his name.