Czar Nicholas IInd, Last Romanoff Emperor of All the Russias abdicated a century ago.

The Peace of God to all that belong to the light,
Dear Readers,

This March 15th it was a a centenary of a historic event that marked as perhaps none other one the XX century. This event was going to change absolutely the course of History, determining the outcome of two world wars, as well as one of the most tense periods in the international arena ever, the cold war of the XX century.

Tzar Nicholas II, the last Monarch of a dynasty that ruled over all the Russias for more than 300 years was forced to abdicate the Throne in favor of a democratic Republic leaded by his last Prime Minister Alexander Kerensky.

It is an event that seems remote and distant but it affected the lives of millions of human beings around the world.

It is estimated that about in between 3 to 4 million people died in terrible genocides during the Russian civil war that was triggered in the communist coup d'etat leaded by Vladimir Lenin backed by Germany by November of 1917 and lasted to May of 1922, when the bolsheviks gained control over the entire Russian Empire.

About two million more of people became refugees around the world and also became people without nationality, after Vladmir Lenin signed a controversial law that removed the Soviet citizenship to all these exiles around the world.

The Russian exile was a tragedy for the peoples that lived it, but in the long run represented a transfer in arts, sciences and technology that enriched a lot of countries that welcomed these immigrants.

The world would not have had the opportunity to know stelar figures in different fields like Igor Stravinsky, Marc Chagal, Wassily Kandinsky, Vaslav Nijinsky, Sergei Diaghilev, Anna Pavlova, Helena Rubinstein, Arthur Rubinstein, Konstantin Stanislavski, Yul Brynner, Peter Ustinov, Mikhail Fokin, George Balanchine, Golda Meir, Ayn Rand and many more if this sad event never had occurred.

It is interesting to reflect in this anniversary in the positive outcome that comes from this tragic historic event, the outstanding contribution triggered by this forced exodus of intellectuals of the Old Russian Culture to the progress of the western civilization, in spite of the negative propaganda that the USSR did of all of them at some point, trying to depict all that generation of defectors as criminals :

Wassily Kandinsky & Mark Shagalov (Chagall), 2 icons of the modern Art.
The philosopher Ivan Ilyin, exiled in Berlin & Switzerland
The composer, pianist and conductor Sergei Rachmaninoff, the last great representative of Russian late Romanticism in classical music.
The Engineers Vladimir Olhovsky & Pavel Trofimoff, the discoverers of the oil resources of Mexico.
Mark Aldanov (Mark Alexandrovich Landau), Novelist and mathematician
The World Chess champion Alexander Alexandrovich Alekhine
The Movie director André Andrejew
The philosopher Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev
The Hollywood Star Yul Brynner(Yuliy Borisovich Brynner ) very famous for his roles of Ramses in the Ten Commandments and the King of Siam.
The Theologian, Philosopher and Economist Sergei Nikolaevich Bulgakov
The Bioquimistrian Dmitri Sokoloff, professor of the Instituto Polititecnico Nacional in Mexico city and also of the University of Chicago.
Ivan A. Bunin that was the first Russian writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.
The Theologian and pioneer of ecumenism Georges V. Florovsky
George Ignatieff that became a Canadian diplomat and was the recipient of the 1984 Pearson Medal of Peace for his work in international service.
The Nobel Prize in Economics Wassily W. Leontief.
Elizaveta Yurievna Pilenko, nun and poetess, better known as Mother Maria.
The historian Dmitri V.Nabokov
The Chess master, entomologist, and novelist Vladimir V.Nabokov.
Prince Alexander S. "Obo" Obolensky that was a famous international rugby football player.
Colonel Oleg I. Pantyukhov, the founder of the russian scouting.
Olga Preobrajenska the best loved ballerina of the Russian Imperial Ballet.
Alexander N. Prokofiev de Seversky, a Russian-American aviation pioneer, inventor, and influential advocate of strategic air power.
Nicholas V. Riasanovsky, professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley and the author of numerous books on Russian History.
Mikhail I. Rostovtzeff,was one of the 20th century's foremost authorities on ancient Greek, Iranian, and Roman history.
Alexander Schmemann a prominent 20th century Orthodox Christian priest, teacher, and writer.
St John (Maximovitch) of Shanghai & San Francisco, was a noted Eastern Orthodox ascetic and hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia
The philosopher Lev I. Shestov
Igor I. Sikorsky, a Russian-American pioneer of aviation who designed and flew the world's first multi-engine fixed-wing aircraft.
Pitirim A. Sorokin,Russian-American sociologist, founder of the Department of Sociology at Harvard University.
Victor Starffin, the first professional pitcher in Japan to win three hundred games
Otto L. Struve, became an American astronomer.
Ariadna Vladimirovna Tyrkova-Williams, a liberal politician, journalist, writer and feminist.
Marie Illarionovna Vassiltchikov,a Russian princess who was involved in the July 20 Plot to kill Adolf Hitler.
Vladimir I. Yourkevitch, a naval engineer, developer of the modern design of ship hulls, designer of the famous ocean liner SS Normandie.
Vladimir Kozmich Zworykin, a Russian-American inventor, engineer, and pioneer of television technology.
Igor Markevitch ,a Ukrainian composer and conductor

Many of the Russians exiles that came to the west during the different stages of the long sequence of crisis the Imperial Russia experienced in the beginning of the XX century were prominent people in the countries in which they arrived. For instance Calouste Goulbenkian was one of the associate founders of Royal Dutch Company, British Petroleum Company and Shell Petroleum Company, he was the most important petroleum entrepreuner of his generation, known in the History as the 5% man, or David Sarnoff who shaped with his business genius the TV industry in the United States and his so tallented engineer inventor Vladimir Kosmich Zworykin.

When Nicholas II abdicated all his rights and the ones of his son Czarevich Alexei to the Russian Imperial Throne it looks as practically the end of a civilization that lasted a millenium and that was proudly multicultural, but also Christian as possibly no other one in the world, but not completely since their cultural legacy still survive around us vibrantly in many areas.

Please check:

www.history.com...

Thanks for your attention, the thread is opened for the discussion of all the people interested in to meditate in the so vast consequences that the end of the Imperial Russia represented for Humanity.

The Angel of Lightness

Thank you - the Russians have been long neglected in spite of their many contributions.

Red October celebrations now being planned on college campuses throughout America.

Along with a day of mourning for the failed experiment.

Wait, they'll never admit to failure. They'll just rewrite history.

a reply to: Lazarus Short

Yes, unfortunately stereotypes created by the political propaganda machinery used during the cold war made in many circumstances devastating damage to innocent people that were really trying to rebuild their lives in the most positive way they could around the world.

Now, in spite of all that negative influence spread primarily by the media in many countries it was clear that there were from the cultural point of view two different Russias, the one enclosed under the Iron curtain and the one that remained free contributing a lot for the prosperity of many nations. The same could be said of Ukrainia, Poland, Lithuanis, Latvis, Estonia, Moldavia, Georgia, Armenia, countries that were all linked under the Romanoff rule.

Of course there were figures that decided to hide their Russian ancestry and even change their names, like the movie star Kirk Douglas (Issur Danielovitch) or The Primer Minister of Israel Golda Meir (Golda Mabovitch), but in one or other way they brought to the world some of the ethical values and principles their ancestors were educated in during centuries in the Imperial Russia.

Thanks,

The Angel of Lightness

a reply to: NthOther

Well, there will be always people that become fascinating for things they really don't understand, and that they believe represent a culture, although it is clear that communism never had any Historic roots in Russian civilization, it was something brought from Germany and that came out of the mind of the Philosopher Karl Marx who died in London, England, never even dreaming that Russia was going to be the first experiment to put his controversial thesis in practice.

The arrival of Marxism to Russia was not the product of a genuine popular revolution of masses, that is mere propaganda invention, the only truly massive revolution Russia had in 1917 happened in February when the people in the streets asked for democracy not for a dictatorship.

There will be always people mesmerized by Utopias that promise the paradise on earth although in practice they only can carry the worst hell ever conceived.

Russia and the countries historically linked to it were not in the decadence that communists for decades claimed existed a century ago, to the contrary the cultural legacy that in this thread we are discussing shows that they represented a Civilization that was dynamic, diverse and rich in expressions of science, art and technology.

Thanks

The Angel of Lightness

a reply to: The angel of light
I would like to add to your list of exiles the novelist Vladimir Nabokov (and also several of his characters, including the wonderful Timofey Pnin).

a reply to: The angel of light

Fascinating stuff really. The abdication and the events that led up to it were truly a series of seminal events in history. Its sad to know that the abdication, the failure of the monarchy was largely a self inflicted mortal wound.

One thing that came to mind was that even without the war, the Russian Imperial house of Romanov would doubtless have fallen anyway. But it occured to me that something lost on most people was the sheer lunacy of the Kaiser Wilhelm. IMHO, the man was near entirely insane.

By the same token, one can hardly overlook the bizaare and feckless attitude of the British royal family in their failure to rescue and grant asylum to their cousin, the Tsar, and his family. The British did temporarily grant the family asylum, but then withdrew it for fear of socialist reaction in the UK. I would suggest they could have easily helped the family relocate to Canada, Australia or New Zealand, and the fact they didn't is their evidence of their criminal lack of care and that neglect led to the brutal and savage execution of the Tzar and his family.

As a result of this series of events the XX century became mired in a series of revolutions and wars in which tens of millions of people were needlessly killed. The British and French empires collapsed and a hopelessly flawed New World Order was established. It also marked the beginning of the end of Christendom such that today, we live in what some regard as the beginning of the post-Christian era which I believe is the beginning of a new dark age which will play itsef out with the slaughter of more tens of millions of people.

Against that backdrop, it strikes me ironic that this year is also the 100 year anniversary of the aparition of Mary at Fatima. Its interesting to think about that at a time we are witnessing the slow motion collapse of Western Civilization, and its anchor in the values of Christendom.

a reply to: TonyS

I agree in that the British behaved in the most disloyal way somebody could imagine, they could prevent the tragedy of the Royal family in mid 1918, and with that the prolongation of a tyranny that was going to represent a nightmare for humanity.

It seems however one important factor to consider to explain that attitude was all the vast fortune Nicholas IInd had saved in the Bank of England, the same that magically disappeared at the end of the war. We are talking of a fortune about thousands of millions of pounds deposited in bullions of solid gold that the Czar sent to London during the attempt of Revolution of 1905.

Now, I respectfully disagree about how unavoidable was the final outcome of the arrival of Communism to Russia. It was just enough to have Kaiser William II removed from power on time to have changed the course of this chapter of History.

Marxists used their alliance with Germany in a so smart way, they didn't lose time to commit treason in the lowest possible way to create a path for their ascense to power through a coup d'etat.

Thanks

The Angel of Lightness

a reply to: The angel of light

The King of england Nicholas own cousin prevented them from being brought here for safety, he actually feared Nicholas own potential claim to the throne of England as they were both Queen Victoria's descendant's, also there was the whole matter of the Russian royal family's fortune (more properly the Russian's money but that is another matter) which in today's term's would be in the hundreds of billions or even trillion's of pound's (originally 200 million in GOLD rubles - most estimates ignore the fact it was in GOLD and then just base it on Rubles so are far lower and less realistic - in the bank of England alone but also they deposited vast amounts into Barclay's - now HSBC and other European country's as well, factor in inflation and the value of that gold then it would today be immense and not a paltry sum, enough to buy a nation in itself in fact), perhaps one of the reason's Putin was considering re-instating the Russian royal family because then legally if they are blood relative's the bank of England would have to pay up even though it would bankrupt it? (Technically it was personal wealth of the Tsar).

That though is the bank of England which is more to do with the Rothschild's eh?.
www.darkpolitricks.com...
www.xat.org...

a reply to: LABTECH767

Hi Dear LABTECH767,

The topic of the vast fortune that it was owned by the Tsar of Russia in the moment he was shot by the evil Bolshevik commissionaires that isolated him and his family in the Ipatiev house at Ekaterimburg, Ural district in western Siberia, is
extremely interesting.

There are is information about millions of pounds that were deposited in the Bank of England since the World war began, and also in Swiss banks, and there is no doubt that the large list of pretenders that for years tried to convince the public opinion that they were survival members of the family were looking for that money, there were many Anastasias and Alexeis.

Of course also the Soviet Union and currently the Federation of Russia have had claims over that fortune.

Just in money of 1917 it was estimated in about 30000 millions of fluid sterling pounds. Of course that amount has necessarily increased due to different devaluations of the actual acquisition power of currency occurred in a century.

Here some reports of how large was that fortune:

www.nytimes.com...

www.independent.co.uk...

www.businessmir.ch...

Thanks,

The Angel of Lightness

a reply to: The angel of light

Sorry I posted that it is correct but I was very tired and never fully read all of your post, I did read it after and face palmed because you had already posted all the relevant information.

Good information, also the royal family's of the Hapsburg line's and other relatives of the Tsar probably placed there own unfair claim's on this money behind the scene's with it being kept secret so likely it was all pilfered by them long ago.

Sorry I posted that it is right however I was exceptionally drained and never completely read the majority of your post, I read it after and confront palmed in light of the fact that you had officially posted all the applicable data.
www.promoocodes.com...

a reply to: LABTECH767

Dear Labtech,

As far as I know the Bank of England, as well as the Suisse banks have raised a wall of secrecy around the fortune of Nicholas II deposited in their vaults.

I believe to have read that even the extended family members, the Romanoff that are still alive in Spain, France, Italy and USA were never allowed to have full access to that information.

The reason was that for near to 75 years there were not official and credible documents certifying the death of all the direct descendants.

The other issue were the claims of the pretenders, all the list of Anastasias, Alexeis and even Marias that appeared in Germany, France, Romania, and even Australia.

Also even after the exhumation of the bodies buried under the rail road in the suburbs of Ekaterinburg, there were still two missing, the boy and one of the girls.

Explosive new book claims a Russian Princess really Did escape to the West!

The Russian Orthodox Church has been specially reluctant to accept the death of those two children, since only fragments of their supposed bodies has been found in another spot of the Taiga about hundreds of meters from the other already identified corpses.

Russian Orthodox Church blocks funeral of last Romanoff remains

Thanks

The Angel of Lightness

The peace of God to all that belong to the Light,
Dear Readers,

The transition between July to August of 1917 in Russia was turbulent and three events that happened a century ago determined not only the future of that nation but of great part of the world in XX century.

The first event is the riots promoted by the communist leaders Kamenev, Trotsky and Zinoviev in St Petersburg (Petrograd).

The second event was the unexpected return to Russia from his exile of 12 years in Switzerland of Vladimir I. Ulianov ( alias Lenin), who was allowed to cross Germany, as well as Sweden and Finland in a secret machievelian plot arranged by the German Chancellor Zimmerman as his secret plan to assure to Germany the victory in WWI.

The third event is the Military attempt of Coup against the Provisional democratic government of Russia presided by Alexander Kerensky and that it is known as the Kornilov affair since it was leaded by Gral Lavr Kornilov, who wanted to supress democracy and establish martial law in all the country to repress the Bolsheviks.

Please check:
July Days in 1917 Russia

The Kornilov Affair

There is No doubt that there were two great western sponsors of Communism as a political evil regime, one was the mad Kaiser William II of German who planned to create a Revolution to Russia in order to force that country to sign an Armistice and moving out from WWI.

The second one were the wallstreet pool of millionaires that bought from Leon Bernstein (alias Trotsky) futures of monopolies over the promising Soviet Market giving him 30 millions of dollars to finance the bolshevik revolution.

Please check:
Fall of Eagles - Sealed Train Decision (9m)

With the special protection of the Germans Vladimir Lenin traveled in train from the Switzer alps with almost 300 hundreds of his comrades toward the baltic sea. After the reached the sea they took a German ship that brought them to Sweden and through land across that country they were able to reach the border with the Great Duchy of Finland that by that time was part of Russia.

Along Finland Lenin was able finally to arrive to St Petersburg, a city that by August of 1917 was in turmoil and full of political activity, there were a lot of strikes, this time however there was no longer Monarchy ruling but a Young Russian Republic that was trying to survive WWI under the Presidency of Aleksandr Kerensky.

Please check:

Fall of Eagles - Sealed Train Decision (9m)

Fall of Eagles: Lenin returns to Russia

To Russia had already arrived weeks before Lenin the other great Revolutionary agitator Leon Trotsky who came directly from New York, city in which he got a lot of funding for his cause ironically, I am not sure if this is the correct term to use, by the richest investors of Wall Street.

Professor Anthony Sutton from California State University is one of the most reputed experts in the analysis of this obscure conspiracy chapter that link the great lords of American Capitalism with the foundation of the Soviet Union moved by the possibility to use the state monopoly over the economy to obtain incredibly fabulous profits in a pact of evil with the Communists.

Please check:
Prof Anthony Sutton lecture on Wallstreet sponsorship of the bolshevik revolution

Besides the substantial funding from the Great Capitals of New York for his cause also President Woodrow Wilson even issued to Leon Trotksy a Passport in order to be allow him to stay and travel through American Territory.

Please check:
Lenin: The Train

Thanks for your attention,

The Angel of Lightness

a reply to: The angel of light

These will be hugely interesting, thank's for sharing this information and may the good lord keep you and your's safe also.

originally posted by: The angel of light
a reply to: TonyS

I agree in that the British behaved in the most disloyal way somebody could imagine, they could prevent the tragedy of the Royal family in mid 1918, and with that the prolongation of a tyranny that was going to represent a nightmare for humanity.

It seems however one important factor to consider to explain that attitude was all the vast fortune Nicholas IInd had saved in the Bank of England, the same that magically disappeared at the end of the war. We are talking of a fortune about thousands of millions of pounds deposited in bullions of solid gold that the Czar sent to London during the attempt of Revolution of 1905.

Now, I respectfully disagree about how unavoidable was the final outcome of the arrival of Communism to Russia. It was just enough to have Kaiser William II removed from power on time to have changed the course of this chapter of History.

Marxists used their alliance with Germany in a so smart way, they didn't lose time to commit treason in the lowest possible way to create a path for their ascense to power through a coup d'etat.

Thanks

The Angel of Lightness

So that's how the Brits paid for the first world war.

a reply to: pikestaff

Technically the Bank of England is a Rothschild's concern but we do have state level control, if the heir could not be found for the Russian fortune of course the British monarchy could then claim it as direct relative's despite the utterly deplorable behavior of the then king of England toward his cousin the Tsar and his family.
Behind the scenes the vast Tsarist fortune stashed in the Bank of England made Britain even more wealthy than it was since so much of the wealth of Tsarist Russia had been secreted here.
But in reality this was the very height of British Empire and never had we been more powerful and wealthy (though that wealth was in the hand's of an extreme minority) so actually No that is not how we afforded the war, in fact after the war the punitive measures forced onto a Broken Germany directly by the old powers cause such suffering in Germany that it directly lead to the rise of Nazism built upon a list of promises to the German people, whom remember were no more responsible for the first world war than there French, Belgian, Russian or English counterpart's, it was a war of a few, the elite of the day.

a reply to: LABTECH767

Hi Dear Labtech767

The following quotes are extracted from an article by Mr Richard Lourie presented the book "The Lost fortune of the Tsars" by William Clarke.

BILLIONS, billions, who's got the billions? The gold, jewels, land, cash, art and palaces of the Russian imperial family had an estimated value of over $45 billion when the House of Romanov fell in 1917. A great deal of that wealth can be easily accounted for -- the Bolsheviks grabbed it. But enough to make dozens of people gloriously rich eluded their grasp and has been sought and claimed ever since. The mystery of the missing wealth has also given rise to subsidiary mysteries: How did a czarist tiara end up on the head of Queen Elizabeth? Did the British royal family fleece their Russian cousins when buying up their jewelry? Did any of the pretenders -- the Anastasias, the Alexises -- have even a toe to stand on? And if there is any Romanov wealth extant today, who has the right to it now that the principal thieves, the Soviets, have themselves landed on the dustbin of history, to use an expression of which the Marxists were exceedingly fond?....

Please Check

www.nytimes.com...

....the real missing wealth was not in art, jewels or cash in foreign banks but in a billion dollars' worth of gold, some of which was en route to the Remington Arms Company to buy weapons for the White Army battling the Reds during the civil war that began in 1918. Bullion and billions have a way of disappearing in Russia. In 1914 Russia held the world's largest gold stock, but it had essentially run out of gold by late 1921. Something similar occurred at the end of the Soviet era "when the total gold and currency reserves dropped from $11 billion to zero in less than 18 months," Mr. Clarke writes. "Only $7 billion of this recent drain could be accounted for by normal trade transactions. The whereabouts of the remaining $4 billion remains a mystery."

We are talking about the most fascinating mysterious financial squander operation ever in History, one that took away the capital cumulated by a dynasty that ruled the largest empire ever existed for 300 years.

Here another Review of Mr Clarke book by Hamish McRae, that was published in the Independent.

Even after their fortune had been diminished by the First World War, it was still in 1917 estimated to be dollars 9bn, or pounds 30bn in present-day money. By comparison, current estimates of the Queen's wealth hover at 'only' pounds 5bn.
Yet within a few years of the revolution, virtually everything had gone. The Tsar and his children were dead, and the few valuables they still had with them when they were shot (such as the jewels his daughters had sewn into their bras) had been plundered by the murderers. As for the rest, well, most of it seemed simply to disappear.

This has inevitably led to stories of hidden bank accounts, stocks of gold lying in some vault, or hoards of jewellery in private collections. William Clarke, a former financial journalist who made a second career in the City, has written a real-life detective story, piecing together what actually happened to each part of the fortune.

Pls check:

www.independent.co.uk...
Thanks,

The Angel of Lightness

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