WEBVTT - Part One: Tzar Nicholas II Was A Real Dick 0:00:01.000 --> 0:00:05.120 Oh, it's Behind the Bastards again. The podcast that is 0:00:05.160 --> 0:00:08.280 every week, but it's also this week, and we'll be 0:00:08.320 --> 0:00:11.240 the next week until the heat death of the universe 0:00:11.400 --> 0:00:14.320 or the end of my contract. This is a podcast 0:00:14.360 --> 0:00:16.319 where we talk about the worst people in all of 0:00:16.400 --> 0:00:21.079 history and folks, we got a banger for you this week, 0:00:21.160 --> 0:00:24.040 and to help me deliver give birth to this banger, 0:00:24.120 --> 0:00:28.880 the midwife of of several hours of of of Russian history. 0:00:29.440 --> 0:00:36.080 Jeff consider right now, like I'm gonna get your hands 0:00:36.159 --> 0:00:39.520 up in They're gonna get all do it really get 0:00:39.520 --> 0:00:42.680 in there, just get all the placenta of information all over. 0:00:42.680 --> 0:00:45.120 We do male placenta to every one of our guests. 0:00:45.159 --> 0:00:48.480 Don't ask where it comes from that it's I take 0:00:48.479 --> 0:00:52.040 it from my vitality. It is one of my favorite 0:00:52.040 --> 0:00:55.280 moments traveling was in Japan, going to like a pharmacy 0:00:55.320 --> 0:00:58.440 to get contact solution and stumbling onto an entire aisle 0:00:58.480 --> 0:01:02.920 of placina based products, mostly horse um, but I had 0:01:02.960 --> 0:01:05.160 not been aware that it was used for that until 0:01:05.200 --> 0:01:07.319 that point. It was a fun moment. Are you gonna 0:01:07.319 --> 0:01:10.640 get strong erna? Exactly? If you're not taking horse Place 0:01:10.640 --> 0:01:15.319 center to get you going? That's why I run so fast. Yeah, 0:01:15.360 --> 0:01:17.880 I run like, you know, forty five miles an hour 0:01:17.959 --> 0:01:22.480 when I read now, Jeff, Jeff May, you are a 0:01:22.560 --> 0:01:25.800 stand up comedian. You are also a podcaster. UM. You 0:01:25.840 --> 0:01:29.040 do a podcast on the game Fully Unemployed Network Friends 0:01:29.080 --> 0:01:30.920 of the Pods, Tom and Dave have both also been 0:01:30.959 --> 0:01:33.800 on the show where you talk about Batman. Tom and 0:01:33.880 --> 0:01:36.959 Jeff watch Batman. You also have the Jeff May Has 0:01:37.000 --> 0:01:40.840 Cool Friends podcast Jeff has called Friends, Jeff Has Cool Friends. Um. 0:01:40.880 --> 0:01:42.800 Anything else you want to plug up here at the top. Yeah, 0:01:42.800 --> 0:01:44.520 I also do a show called You Don't Even Like 0:01:44.600 --> 0:01:48.240 Sports with Adam Todd Brown, sports podcast for people that 0:01:48.360 --> 0:01:51.800 hate sports, um, and which is most of my fan 0:01:51.880 --> 0:01:55.360 base because I am a professional nerd specifically, as well 0:01:55.400 --> 0:01:58.880 as you have a Batman podcast, I do. Well. It's 0:01:58.880 --> 0:02:01.040 funny too because Jeff Has Well Friends used to be 0:02:01.240 --> 0:02:04.560 a corporate podcast for a big nerdy company and then 0:02:05.120 --> 0:02:07.840 we we split up, and I was just like, well, 0:02:07.840 --> 0:02:09.320 I'm just going to change the name and keep doing 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:13.120 what I was doing. Mm hmm. Well, Jeff, speaking of 0:02:13.160 --> 0:02:15.839 what you were doing, were you having a good day 0:02:15.960 --> 0:02:19.399 up until this point? No? No, no, no no no. 0:02:20.040 --> 0:02:21.880 For two years, that's that's good because we're going to 0:02:22.000 --> 0:02:26.240 talk about somebody really unpleasant. How do you how do 0:02:26.280 --> 0:02:29.400 you feel about czars? Well, I don't know. I mean 0:02:29.440 --> 0:02:32.040 I think you knew this about me, but I am. 0:02:32.400 --> 0:02:35.400 Before I got into stand up and this, I was 0:02:35.480 --> 0:02:41.000 a teacher, taught world history, including Russian history. Uh. And Buddy, 0:02:41.080 --> 0:02:46.559 let me tell you there's a few of them that, yeah, 0:02:46.960 --> 0:02:49.880 you got a favorite, are or at least favorite. I mean, 0:02:50.000 --> 0:02:52.480 I would say that if we're if we're going through 0:02:52.600 --> 0:02:55.120 like the entire history of up since the inception of 0:02:55.120 --> 0:02:58.040 the words, are up towards Nicholas the Second, I gotta 0:02:58.040 --> 0:03:00.720 be honest. Peter the Great is fascinating to me. He 0:03:00.840 --> 0:03:03.360 was pretty great because people were like, this man is 0:03:03.360 --> 0:03:06.360 a seven foot tall giant monster that toward Europe and 0:03:06.400 --> 0:03:09.440 came back and decided to just shave everyone's beards or 0:03:09.520 --> 0:03:11.960 tax them on it. And that's just wild to me. 0:03:12.480 --> 0:03:15.200 What a life. Yeah, Pete the Great's a fun one. 0:03:15.480 --> 0:03:18.040 We're not talking about a fun one today, Jeff. You're 0:03:18.040 --> 0:03:22.080 talking about the least impressive of the czar's Nicholas the Second. 0:03:22.320 --> 0:03:27.120 Oh yeah, yeah yeah. And it's so it's one of 0:03:27.120 --> 0:03:31.000 those things like there's this weird thing Americans kind of 0:03:31.000 --> 0:03:34.320 have with royalty sometimes. Right, there's a lot of Americans 0:03:34.360 --> 0:03:37.000 who love the British royal family FETs your thing, like whatever. Um, 0:03:37.040 --> 0:03:39.240 there's a weird number of Americans thereout history who've gotten 0:03:39.280 --> 0:03:41.720 really obsessed with the Romanoffs since you know, they were 0:03:41.760 --> 0:03:44.280 all killed by the Bolsheviks. Right, there's like movies and 0:03:44.920 --> 0:03:49.120 that's really comes down to, Right, it's like Anastasia. Yeah, 0:03:49.200 --> 0:03:52.360 they got a bad rap and they It's one of 0:03:52.400 --> 0:03:55.600 those things where there's this attitude people have. Obviously the 0:03:55.640 --> 0:03:57.720 kids got a bad rap, right, kids never deserved to 0:03:57.760 --> 0:04:01.840 be machine well gunned down by a variety of forms 0:04:01.840 --> 0:04:06.000 in a basement. That's always bad. Um. But Nicholas and 0:04:06.600 --> 0:04:10.320 Alexandra get who's the czar and the arena, get a 0:04:10.360 --> 0:04:13.680 lot of like slack from people. They're they're nearly always 0:04:13.720 --> 0:04:16.800 portrayed even when like they're shown to be incompetent. You 0:04:16.839 --> 0:04:20.760 can't really show Nicholas is being anything but incompetent um. 0:04:20.800 --> 0:04:22.440 But you know, like, well, he was a good man, 0:04:22.560 --> 0:04:24.719 he loved his wife and his kids. He was you know, 0:04:24.839 --> 0:04:27.120 he was you know, broken down by the weight of 0:04:27.160 --> 0:04:30.760 this impossible job, and like he was a terrible person. 0:04:31.360 --> 0:04:34.320 He loves a monster. I love what people are like, 0:04:34.640 --> 0:04:36.960 he's a good person. He loves his family. It's like, 0:04:37.120 --> 0:04:39.599 that is not the criteria for being a good person. 0:04:39.640 --> 0:04:42.440 I hate to break it to you, but that's just biology. Yeah, 0:04:42.440 --> 0:04:45.599 a lot of people love their families and manned concentration camps. 0:04:45.600 --> 0:04:48.560 There's pictures of them with their kids outside Auschwitz. You know, 0:04:49.120 --> 0:04:52.159 you know, you know. But he said, it's just a 0:04:52.240 --> 0:04:57.240 horrible crap. Yeah, yeah, it's it's um. He's like, he's 0:04:57.760 --> 0:05:00.400 he gets way more slack than he deserves. And this 0:05:00.480 --> 0:05:02.640 is going to be an episode about trying to put 0:05:02.720 --> 0:05:04.240 him in his proper context, because I think if you've 0:05:04.240 --> 0:05:07.840 seen Nicholas the Second and Alexander accurately, they're like Bashar 0:05:07.920 --> 0:05:11.200 al Assad, they're like Hitler, They're like like they're they're 0:05:11.279 --> 0:05:13.960 real bad people who kill a lot of folks to 0:05:13.960 --> 0:05:17.240 stay in power. They there's a reason that they finished 0:05:17.600 --> 0:05:21.400 the way they did. Ye not for nothing. I think 0:05:21.400 --> 0:05:25.000 we put Resputant, we give We were like, well, Resputin 0:05:25.160 --> 0:05:30.120 was bad and he victimized these people. So yeah, and 0:05:30.160 --> 0:05:32.520 it's one of those things where like if you actually 0:05:32.520 --> 0:05:36.279 read the history, Resputin is not not the most objectionable person, 0:05:36.360 --> 0:05:38.360 and in fact, there's times when he's the guy being 0:05:38.400 --> 0:05:40.720 like boy seems like, yeah, I'm pretty anti Semitic. I'm 0:05:40.760 --> 0:05:44.040 not down with that. It's this is I have a 0:05:44.040 --> 0:05:46.520 feeling because obviously it's been a while. I've I've been 0:05:46.560 --> 0:05:49.240 retired for almost a decade now, and i haven't been 0:05:49.240 --> 0:05:52.200 in college in twenty years. But at this point in time, 0:05:52.240 --> 0:05:54.280 like it seems like a story that's not going to 0:05:54.400 --> 0:05:57.840 have a lot of heroes in it. No, no, um, 0:05:57.880 --> 0:06:01.720 not none at all really now, um, And I think 0:06:01.760 --> 0:06:04.360 that's that is really the overarching story when we talk 0:06:04.440 --> 0:06:07.720 about like the murder of the entire Romanov family, when 0:06:07.720 --> 0:06:09.840 we talk about the tragedies that came in the Russian 0:06:09.880 --> 0:06:12.719 Civil War and the millions that died in that Um, 0:06:12.920 --> 0:06:15.480 part of why everything was so ugly and so violent 0:06:15.680 --> 0:06:19.760 was that the system that the Romanovs perfected over the 0:06:19.800 --> 0:06:26.159 course of generations was inherently brutalizing, and when it collapsed, 0:06:26.279 --> 0:06:28.760 there was nowhere for things to go but really badly. 0:06:30.200 --> 0:06:35.279 I mean, that's Russia. That's Russia. Baby. Let's tell you 0:06:35.320 --> 0:06:38.280 that there's so many there's so much retroactive like, well, 0:06:38.320 --> 0:06:42.960 they did what they could they say things were different. 0:06:43.120 --> 0:06:47.720 It was bad time. Yeah, you know what Ivana people 0:06:47.800 --> 0:06:50.000 on giant frying pan. It's just what you do when 0:06:50.000 --> 0:06:53.480 you have power. Is intense part of world. You know, 0:06:53.920 --> 0:06:56.839 he's crazy. He did the next Siberia. Granted he killed 0:06:56.880 --> 0:07:01.359 many people there, but he didn't exit. And you do 0:07:01.480 --> 0:07:03.160 have when you go over to that part of the 0:07:03.160 --> 0:07:05.800 world to have conversations with people. They are often very 0:07:05.839 --> 0:07:08.400 phlegmatic like that where it's like, you know, it was 0:07:08.440 --> 0:07:12.679 a rough time. Everyone did what they could. We tried 0:07:12.720 --> 0:07:14.880 to do what we want, but you know, things that 0:07:15.200 --> 0:07:17.520 sometimes your rule or cut your head off. There's nothing 0:07:17.560 --> 0:07:19.920 you can do about that. You just move forward. It's 0:07:20.080 --> 0:07:23.480 all like Russian literature is so depressing. Yeah, like all 0:07:23.520 --> 0:07:26.400 the happiest stories are like and then he died in prison, 0:07:26.520 --> 0:07:33.440 isn't that nice? Yeah, it finally was over. So UM, 0:07:33.600 --> 0:07:36.960 I think we need to start by noting that because 0:07:37.120 --> 0:07:41.760 number one, monarchy thankfully has has mostly passed um, although 0:07:41.760 --> 0:07:45.360 it's getting its little resurgence in some areas. UM people 0:07:45.400 --> 0:07:49.320 tend to forget how successful monarchism wasn't a lot of cases, 0:07:49.320 --> 0:07:52.880 and how successful the Romanov version of monarchism was. This 0:07:52.960 --> 0:07:55.160 is by by any reasonable if you're looking at this 0:07:55.200 --> 0:07:59.680 as a historian, by any reasonable judgment of you know, success, 0:08:00.320 --> 0:08:04.120 the Romanov dominated monarchy in Russia was one of the 0:08:04.160 --> 0:08:07.240 most successful governments in human history. The Romanov family came 0:08:07.280 --> 0:08:10.320 to power in sixteen thirteen after a civil war and 0:08:10.520 --> 0:08:12.640 like ten years of fighting and stuff in the death 0:08:12.680 --> 0:08:14.920 of the previous are and they stayed in power for 0:08:14.960 --> 0:08:17.120 more than three hundred years. That's longer than the United 0:08:17.120 --> 0:08:21.000 States has existed. This one family ruled Russia. UM. While 0:08:21.040 --> 0:08:23.560 the Romanovs were in charge of the Russian Empire, it 0:08:23.720 --> 0:08:27.080 grew consistently by an average of fifty five square miles 0:08:27.120 --> 0:08:30.640 per day twenty thousand miles per year. By the end 0:08:30.680 --> 0:08:32.560 of the eighteen hundreds and the events of the story 0:08:32.559 --> 0:08:35.160 we're talking about this week, the Russian Empire ruled one 0:08:35.280 --> 0:08:38.920 sixth of the land mass of planet Earth. Um. They 0:08:38.920 --> 0:08:42.440 were good at this. I like how they're basically like 0:08:42.520 --> 0:08:45.800 you can describe their monarchy like the blob. Yeah, I mean, 0:08:45.840 --> 0:08:48.160 people are just like and then within three months look 0:08:48.200 --> 0:08:50.120 at what we've predicted. It's like that scene in the 0:08:50.160 --> 0:08:52.679 Thing where they used the apple too to show you 0:08:53.040 --> 0:08:56.080 what's going to happen to the world. Yeah, yeah, that's 0:08:56.080 --> 0:08:59.000 what That's what the Romanovs were doing for like a 0:08:59.000 --> 0:09:01.680 couple of centuries without a whole lot of pushback that 0:09:01.760 --> 0:09:04.480 was effective. You know, you get your moments. There's always 0:09:04.520 --> 0:09:07.520 you know, military successes and reversals, but like they really 0:09:07.600 --> 0:09:10.080 kept chugging along. And the benefit that they always have 0:09:10.800 --> 0:09:13.720 is that, like, yeah, their military is usually not the 0:09:13.760 --> 0:09:16.920 best or the most easiest to maneuver into place, and 0:09:16.960 --> 0:09:20.400 their their navy, you know, waxes and wains and its efficacy. 0:09:20.520 --> 0:09:23.800 But there's just so much Russia that that you never 0:09:23.840 --> 0:09:26.240 want to start a fight with them. No, you never 0:09:26.240 --> 0:09:28.360 get into land war in Asia. I think we've learned 0:09:28.400 --> 0:09:33.640 that very specifically. Yeah, now, yeah, yeah, well, but before 0:09:33.679 --> 0:09:36.480 they came to power, czar was more or less before 0:09:36.520 --> 0:09:39.360 the Romanovs, um czar was just kind of an interchangeable 0:09:39.360 --> 0:09:41.520 word for king, right, Like it didn't being a zar 0:09:41.640 --> 0:09:43.319 wasn't wildly different than being a king and a lot 0:09:43.320 --> 0:09:46.880 of other parts of like the feudalist Europe in that period. 0:09:47.240 --> 0:09:50.120 But it means right, yeah, it comes from Caesar's same 0:09:50.160 --> 0:09:52.880 root word as kaiser, right, Both kaiser and tsar come 0:09:52.920 --> 0:09:55.360 from Caesar, which is you want to talk about having 0:09:55.400 --> 0:09:58.080 an influence on history that used to just be a family, 0:09:58.559 --> 0:10:01.240 Like that's the last name that became our by word 0:10:01.320 --> 0:10:05.000 for billions of people for king. I mean, that's that's 0:10:05.040 --> 0:10:10.680 influence right there, that's that's influenced baby's. Yeah. And actually 0:10:10.720 --> 0:10:12.600 you could say czar has kind of had its own 0:10:12.640 --> 0:10:15.319 journey like that because like especially, I think people say 0:10:15.360 --> 0:10:17.080 it less now, it really in like the eighties and 0:10:17.120 --> 0:10:20.079 early nineties, constantly you would hear like, oh, the president 0:10:20.120 --> 0:10:22.240 has appointed a drugs are you know, someone to like 0:10:22.360 --> 0:10:25.480 oversee the specific aspect of the government or a trade 0:10:25.600 --> 0:10:29.040 gaps are or whatever. Um, So it's you know, the 0:10:29.760 --> 0:10:33.000 Romanovs are really responsible for that because by the modern era, 0:10:33.520 --> 0:10:36.839 being a czar is not like being a king kings 0:10:36.880 --> 0:10:40.000 and most of Europe there's constitutional monarchies, there's limits on 0:10:40.040 --> 0:10:42.240 their power. The nobles will hold. Even in a lot 0:10:42.240 --> 0:10:44.640 of areas where there's not really democracy, it's still ceremonial 0:10:44.640 --> 0:10:46.520 because the nobles are the ones in charge and the 0:10:46.600 --> 0:10:50.839 king is more of a figurehead, um. And it's not 0:10:50.960 --> 0:10:55.119 that way with the czar's and they are really um, 0:10:55.160 --> 0:10:59.920 they're totalitarian rulers in a way that very few government 0:11:00.040 --> 0:11:03.360 in history have ever really been. The czar is in 0:11:03.360 --> 0:11:06.320 the late eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds very close 0:11:06.360 --> 0:11:09.640 to an absolute autocrat um. That means no real checks 0:11:09.640 --> 0:11:12.040 on their power, no real influence from the people. This 0:11:12.160 --> 0:11:16.000 starts to change in Nicholas period, but um czars maintained 0:11:16.040 --> 0:11:18.920 total power long after pretty much every other crowned head 0:11:18.960 --> 0:11:22.120 of Europe has been either turned into a figurehead or 0:11:22.160 --> 0:11:25.120 reduced to just another organ of the government. And that's 0:11:25.200 --> 0:11:27.920 that's significant. That says a lot about what the Romanov 0:11:28.000 --> 0:11:32.920 family valued that they maintained that kind of absolute power. UM. 0:11:32.960 --> 0:11:36.640 You could probably argue that Russian the Tsarism was kind 0:11:36.679 --> 0:11:40.320 of the most controlling sort of feudalism practiced on the 0:11:40.400 --> 0:11:43.160 largest scale, at least in Europe UM, and you can 0:11:43.160 --> 0:11:45.439 make a case for worldwide, because again it's a sixth 0:11:45.440 --> 0:11:48.120 of the world's land mass. For most of the history 0:11:48.160 --> 0:11:50.600 that the Romanovs are in charge, the vast majority of 0:11:50.600 --> 0:11:53.840 people in Russia are serfs. They're pretty close to slaves. 0:11:54.080 --> 0:11:55.920 They are bound to the land. They are kind of 0:11:55.960 --> 0:11:59.200 the property of the noble that controls that land. UM. 0:11:59.280 --> 0:12:01.640 And the way the whole system works is the nobles 0:12:01.720 --> 0:12:04.439 maintained the peace in their little area, and they pay 0:12:04.520 --> 0:12:08.120 taxes to the czar. In an exchange, the czar uses 0:12:08.160 --> 0:12:10.480 those taxes to build an army, to take more land, 0:12:10.600 --> 0:12:14.600 to exercise more power, and to maintain this absolute structure. 0:12:14.640 --> 0:12:16.839 So these are let's the nobles have total control over 0:12:16.880 --> 0:12:20.199 their little area, and in exchange, he's the absolute monarch 0:12:20.280 --> 0:12:23.920 of the entire country. It's like an MLM scheme. Yeah, 0:12:23.960 --> 0:12:26.680 it is a lot. I mean, yeah, feudalism absolutely is right. 0:12:27.440 --> 0:12:29.560 When I used to teach feudalism, I used to teach 0:12:29.559 --> 0:12:32.360 it based on like the kids working their desks. I 0:12:32.440 --> 0:12:34.160 was like that, you're the surf, this is your plot 0:12:34.160 --> 0:12:36.080 of land you have to work. I am your noble, 0:12:36.200 --> 0:12:38.480 I have a noble my principle that I have to 0:12:38.520 --> 0:12:40.960 answer to, and then he has a superintendent that he 0:12:41.040 --> 0:12:42.920 has to answer to. And it all kind of like 0:12:43.600 --> 0:12:46.120 you know, it's it's all. It's all a similar structure 0:12:46.160 --> 0:12:48.840 to to most things. When you read break down what 0:12:48.880 --> 0:12:51.640 feudalism is. Yeah, yeah, I mean, yes, we could talk 0:12:51.679 --> 0:12:55.800 a lot about the way our system works, um, and yeah, 0:12:55.520 --> 0:12:58.640 yeah that's that's a fair point. Um. But this is 0:12:58.640 --> 0:13:01.480 obviously a more hints a version because you don't have. 0:13:02.200 --> 0:13:03.920 You don't have you don't have the ability to like 0:13:04.040 --> 0:13:06.280 move around. Um. And this is one of those things 0:13:06.280 --> 0:13:10.160 that works pretty well when kind of everybody's doing it. Um. 0:13:10.240 --> 0:13:13.320 As things modernize, you suddenly have this problem of like, well, 0:13:13.320 --> 0:13:15.960 how do you industrialize if somebody is a part of 0:13:16.000 --> 0:13:18.040 the land that they live on, as opposed to an 0:13:18.040 --> 0:13:20.360 individual who can move to a city and get training 0:13:20.400 --> 0:13:36.440 to be a machinist or um. And in fact, oftentimes 0:13:36.440 --> 0:13:38.720 when zars were overthrown or killed and these are romanovs 0:13:38.840 --> 0:13:41.640 was we're talking about, it wasn't because they'd been super brutal. 0:13:41.679 --> 0:13:44.319 It was because they had used a mix of brutality 0:13:44.400 --> 0:13:47.440 and like liberalizing things. So they had given people some 0:13:47.480 --> 0:13:50.520 power and then not liked what they did with it 0:13:50.559 --> 0:13:52.839 and like tried to crack down. And that often leads 0:13:52.880 --> 0:13:55.360 to like the kind of upset that gets as are killed. Um, 0:13:55.400 --> 0:13:58.520 it's not Simon Montfiore, who was a historian who wrote 0:13:58.559 --> 0:14:01.800 a great book called the Romanovs um describes it as 0:14:01.840 --> 0:14:03.520 like the problem a lot of Tsars have as not 0:14:03.559 --> 0:14:06.920 being consistently harsh. Right, Um, that's the thing that will 0:14:06.920 --> 0:14:08.600 get you killed as czar. And that's the thing when 0:14:08.640 --> 0:14:11.640 you're a kid, if you're going to inherit the Romanov dynasty, 0:14:11.679 --> 0:14:14.960 that's what's drilled into your head throughout childhood is you 0:14:15.080 --> 0:14:19.920 have to be consistently harsh. Um, And it's a dangerous gig. 0:14:20.120 --> 0:14:26.200 Six of the last twelve Romanovsars are assassinated in office. Um. Yeah, 0:14:26.240 --> 0:14:28.960 that's that's not that bad. Yeah, Like I feel like 0:14:29.000 --> 0:14:31.000 I could make it through, you know, yeah I could. 0:14:31.040 --> 0:14:32.680 I feel like I could have been a great czar. 0:14:33.160 --> 0:14:35.320 I bet I would have been. Yeah, I know I 0:14:35.320 --> 0:14:37.760 would have been killed. Yeah, I don't think I would 0:14:37.760 --> 0:14:41.560 have a great czar. I'm pretty chill. Yeah, so, like, 0:14:42.080 --> 0:14:43.840 you know, I'd be like, you guys can do that. 0:14:44.080 --> 0:14:46.680 You're gonna kill me, Okay, I guess I saw this 0:14:46.760 --> 0:14:49.440 one coming. If the way I played video games with 0:14:49.640 --> 0:14:52.880 confidence not a job for you, I think I'd be 0:14:52.920 --> 0:14:56.920 a great czar. Hey, again, it's just consistent brutality. Yeah, 0:14:56.920 --> 0:15:00.400 so Iphie would be better. Usually when tsars were assassin senated. 0:15:00.920 --> 0:15:03.520 In fact, all of the times ours were assassinated up 0:15:03.560 --> 0:15:05.960 to the modern period, it's never the peasants, right, There's 0:15:05.960 --> 0:15:10.200 not that you don't have successful peasant revolutions in Russia. Um, 0:15:10.360 --> 0:15:13.200 like not during the time the Romanovs are in power, 0:15:13.240 --> 0:15:15.800 it's the noble. It's the nobility who murders them, like 0:15:15.880 --> 0:15:18.760 it's someone sums are does something that pisces off these 0:15:18.800 --> 0:15:21.400 nobles that are also powerful, and they kill the czar 0:15:21.560 --> 0:15:24.120 and others are winds up in charge, you know, tail 0:15:24.200 --> 0:15:26.840 as old as time. That's that's like that happens every 0:15:26.880 --> 0:15:29.680 time you see some kind of assassination. It's very rare 0:15:30.400 --> 0:15:35.120 that somebody bumps into an archduke or you know, successfully 0:15:35.160 --> 0:15:38.120 breaks through the walls of the Imperial Palace or whatever. 0:15:39.440 --> 0:15:45.040 Not counting you know, recent events in American history. The 0:15:45.080 --> 0:15:48.760 populace will have access to people at that level. Yeah, 0:15:48.800 --> 0:15:50.960 you do not, um. And in fact, part of why 0:15:51.040 --> 0:15:53.880 Tsars actually really tend to be at least most historians 0:15:53.920 --> 0:15:57.360 tend to think that the Csars were beloved generally by 0:15:57.400 --> 0:15:59.680 the peasants. And this is because of the distance they 0:15:59.720 --> 0:16:02.440 have it because the peasants don't ever get to see 0:16:02.640 --> 0:16:05.120 this are really uh. They referred to him as the 0:16:05.200 --> 0:16:07.880 literal the little Father Um God is you know, the 0:16:07.880 --> 0:16:10.400 big Father Um and he was kind of this benevolent 0:16:10.480 --> 0:16:13.760 but almost ethereal force because the nobles who ruled them directly, 0:16:14.120 --> 0:16:16.040 were the ones they had issues with. Right, That's kind 0:16:16.040 --> 0:16:17.960 of the brilliance of this system. All the peasants are 0:16:17.960 --> 0:16:19.800 gonna hate the noble who's telling them what to do. 0:16:19.920 --> 0:16:23.240 But the tzarre like you never see that motherfucker, Like 0:16:23.280 --> 0:16:27.560 he doesn't know what's going on. Right, he make life 0:16:27.600 --> 0:16:32.040 easier for you. But the nobles, you know, they got 0:16:32.040 --> 0:16:33.960 to do their thing, and I'm I try to be 0:16:34.040 --> 0:16:36.840 hands off. You know. Yeah, you actually hear this story. 0:16:37.040 --> 0:16:39.760 If you read people talking about like like kind of 0:16:39.760 --> 0:16:42.720 political discontent with the Nazi Germany. A lot of Nazis 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:45.800 would when when members of the Nazi high command would 0:16:45.800 --> 0:16:48.040 do ship that like even Nazis thought was fucked up. 0:16:48.040 --> 0:16:50.680 They'd be like, well, Hitler must not know about this, right, Like, 0:16:50.880 --> 0:16:52.680 he wouldn't do this to us. He must just not 0:16:52.760 --> 0:16:56.920 be aware of what's going on. Classic good guy Hitler, Hitler, 0:16:57.280 --> 0:17:02.320 he just got again. I'm good. I'm doing I've been 0:17:02.360 --> 0:17:05.800 paintings this whole time. Just Hitler fumbling with papers like 0:17:05.880 --> 0:17:09.240 Chevy Chase at his desk. I'm just playing with my 0:17:09.240 --> 0:17:12.960 my good German shepherd here. Why would I be doing 0:17:12.960 --> 0:17:20.840 anything evil? Allav There's this very common phrase among the peasantry. Um, 0:17:21.119 --> 0:17:24.160 that is the czar is good. The nobles are wicked, right, 0:17:24.240 --> 0:17:28.640 so he is he is beloved. Often at least that's 0:17:28.640 --> 0:17:31.399 what you're not getting Gallops, not rolling through the Russian 0:17:31.480 --> 0:17:34.000 steps and being like how do you feel about this? Right? 0:17:34.600 --> 0:17:37.360 There's I think and I do tend to think that 0:17:37.440 --> 0:17:39.600 this is so consistent. I'm not gonna obviously, I'm not 0:17:39.600 --> 0:17:41.720 gonna second guess a bunch of historians who write stuff 0:17:41.800 --> 0:17:44.720 like this, but it's also consistent enough that I think, well, 0:17:45.119 --> 0:17:47.720 the czar believe this, and maybe that's why that went 0:17:47.800 --> 0:17:50.000 down in history, but maybe a lot of peasants would 0:17:50.000 --> 0:17:53.320 have been like, well, actually funk that, dude. Yeah, it's 0:17:53.359 --> 0:17:56.680 definitely you definitely see the cult of personality in situations 0:17:56.720 --> 0:17:59.119 like that where you where you see you know, the 0:17:59.119 --> 0:18:01.160 person that's on a annable up at the top, Yeah, 0:18:01.160 --> 0:18:03.760 they're great. He's the champion. And the people that I 0:18:03.840 --> 0:18:06.560 actually have to deal with our assholes. Yeah. And part 0:18:06.600 --> 0:18:08.600 of why I do think this is probably still broadly 0:18:08.640 --> 0:18:10.880 accurate is that you see this today, right, you see 0:18:10.920 --> 0:18:12.520 a lot of like a conservatives who will be like, well, 0:18:12.560 --> 0:18:14.399 I don't like this thing that happened under Trump, but 0:18:14.440 --> 0:18:16.680 I don't like I like Trump, and like he probably 0:18:16.760 --> 0:18:19.520 just like couldn't do anything about this, you know. Um, 0:18:19.720 --> 0:18:22.400 it's just how human beings work, you know, like Russian 0:18:22.440 --> 0:18:26.520 serfs and Americans in Kentucky or or California are all 0:18:26.560 --> 0:18:30.240 the same people. Basically, they're just in different circumstances. Um 0:18:30.320 --> 0:18:33.160 at the table, you don't know what's happening at the table, right, 0:18:33.280 --> 0:18:35.560 And it's easy to just pretend that this guy that 0:18:35.800 --> 0:18:38.960 you've been conditioned to like by a shipload of propaganda, 0:18:39.000 --> 0:18:41.240 and there has a lot of propaganda. It's very easy 0:18:41.280 --> 0:18:42.959 to just be like, oh, he's like God, you know, 0:18:43.359 --> 0:18:45.240 like I don't have to think about him as a 0:18:45.240 --> 0:18:47.000 person because he's not a person, you know, he's this 0:18:47.080 --> 0:18:49.800 like semi divine figure. And there are really is they 0:18:49.840 --> 0:18:52.200 would not say it that way. Desires did not pretend 0:18:52.240 --> 0:18:55.399 to be divine, but they are chosen by God. Like 0:18:55.520 --> 0:18:57.879 that's the whole thing about this. Are they are picked 0:18:57.880 --> 0:19:01.439 by God to absolutely rule Russia. And so there's this 0:19:01.520 --> 0:19:04.639 attitude that like if you question those are or if 0:19:04.680 --> 0:19:06.919 people want to have input in their own ruling, that 0:19:07.040 --> 0:19:11.040 is satanic because God has set down this this system. Obviously, 0:19:11.080 --> 0:19:12.639 this happens other parts of the world, you know, the 0:19:12.640 --> 0:19:15.040 Mandate of Heaven, YadA, YadA, YadA. Um. This is not 0:19:15.080 --> 0:19:17.760 the only time this sort of thing happens. But what's 0:19:17.840 --> 0:19:20.399 unique kind of about Russia is that up until the 0:19:20.880 --> 0:19:25.879 modern era, the tzar is owns everything in Russia. He 0:19:25.920 --> 0:19:28.600 is the personal owner of basically a sixth of the 0:19:28.640 --> 0:19:31.119 world's land mass. Like, we can talk about who the 0:19:31.200 --> 0:19:33.720 richest person in history was, it's almost certainly whatever the 0:19:33.800 --> 0:19:36.399 last Tsar was, because he was the personal owner of 0:19:36.440 --> 0:19:40.959 all of Russia effectively. Um, Like, it doesn't get much 0:19:41.000 --> 0:19:46.720 wealthier than that, Jeff Bezos doesn't, can't pretend to that ship. Um, 0:19:46.760 --> 0:19:49.439 And like, well, wealthy enough that when they tried to 0:19:49.440 --> 0:19:53.120 gun down the Tsar's family, it was it took a 0:19:53.160 --> 0:19:55.359 ton of bullets and a ton of time because people 0:19:55.520 --> 0:19:57.960 bullets kept getting stopped by all of the diamonds sewn 0:19:58.040 --> 0:20:00.960 into their clothing. They removed set and teen pounds of 0:20:01.000 --> 0:20:07.080 diamonds from from the dead Romanov family. Um, they could 0:20:07.080 --> 0:20:09.000 have done better. That's just what they could get out 0:20:09.000 --> 0:20:10.920 of the palace, you know, Like that's how fucking rich 0:20:11.040 --> 0:20:15.320 these people are. Um. Yeah, And so this is a 0:20:15.359 --> 0:20:20.399 really totalitarian system um and probably the most totalitarian system 0:20:20.440 --> 0:20:23.640 could be in an era before modern technology, and being 0:20:23.720 --> 0:20:26.720 the center of that as the czar, like fox with 0:20:26.840 --> 0:20:28.600 your head and I want to read a quote from 0:20:28.600 --> 0:20:32.000 the book The Romanovs by Simon Montfior which describes kind 0:20:32.000 --> 0:20:34.760 of how what this does to a person? Then this 0:20:34.800 --> 0:20:37.720 is him kind of giving a broad overview of czarism. 0:20:38.119 --> 0:20:40.480 All of the monarchs were dutiful and hard working, and 0:20:40.520 --> 0:20:43.800 most were charismatic, intelligent and competent. Yet the position was 0:20:43.840 --> 0:20:46.520 so daunting for the normal mortal that no one sought 0:20:46.560 --> 0:20:49.359 the throne anymore. It was a burden that had ceased 0:20:49.359 --> 0:20:52.159 to be enjoyable. How can a single man manage to 0:20:52.200 --> 0:20:55.480 govern Russia and correct its abuses? Asked the future Alexander 0:20:55.520 --> 0:20:57.840 the First. This would be impossible, not only for a 0:20:57.840 --> 0:21:01.000 man of ordinary abilities like me, but even for a genius. 0:21:01.359 --> 0:21:03.680 He fantasized about running off to live on a farm 0:21:03.720 --> 0:21:06.480 by the Rhine. His successors were all terrified of the 0:21:06.480 --> 0:21:09.000