AP Therapy Group - Death of the IF. How do you cope?

[Kitt]

The whole family’s violent death affected me more when I was younger, and I knew less about the murderers.  The AP site and Forum had motivated me to study more about Russia and the Soviet Union.  As a result, I look at all the Soviet killings and see individuals who were murdered in just the same spirit as the imperial family.  When I take the communists as a whole, I see one violent, blood thirsty mechanism.  More honorific,  I don’t think it has stopped in our times.  When some leader finds or envisions themselves or their power in danger, those in power can and do make that individual disappear. 
I also can’t help but think that prior to the revolution, similar ruthless behavior existed, so that the Bolos had plenty of examples to follow.
Even though we have hot messes in this country (USA), I sure am pleased that nothing compares to what that part of the world has had to contend with past and present.
All the best, Kitt

[TimM]

The Communists were just gettin started when they murdered the IF. Of course, the horrors of the Stalin era were just around the corner.

[Tsarfan]

How do I cope with the deaths of the imperial family?  I try to focus on outrages that affected more people more adversely:

- the Holocaust

- Mao's Cultural Revolution

- Stalin's purges

- Pol Pot's "death list"

- Martin Luther King's assassination

- Jack Black's Oscar snub for "Bernie"

[edubs31]

Sarcasm will get you nowhere my dear man!

Maybe I should have changed the title of the topic to "How do those of you who actually give a damn about the IF cope..."

The IF murders are to the Red Terror what Anne Frank is to the Holocaust, yes? Perhaps? It's often easier to focus on a single person or small number of individuals as a representation for a much larger group of victims. As #3 on your list is commonly believed to have said, "when one man dies it is a tragedy, when thousands die it's statistics." Of course he would know!

People can't even make decisions on what to purchase in retail stores if they are given more than two or three options...and they certainly can't wrap their heads around the deaths of millions. That's why the individual stories are important. Your buddy Figes did a nice job of that in "A People's Tragedy" wouldn't you say?

Otherwise I'll be sure to remember your words of wisdom when my father dies. "It's no big deal mom...just think about how many people were killed in Stalin's purges and Hitler's camps" :-/

[Tsarfan]

Sarcasm will get you nowhere my dear man!

Well, damn.

Otherwise I'll be sure to remember your words of wisdom when my father dies. "It's no big deal mom...just think about how many people were killed in Stalin's purges and Hitler's camps" :-/

I do hope your father spent more time getting to know you than the imperial family would have.  They would have viewed any contact with us here as that of master to servant, if they had to condescend to acknowledge our existence at all.  No chance of my getting to play with the toy Mercedes.  None at all.

Bummer.


(By the way, I hope you saw my post that went up on the Founding thread while you were writing yours.  I made a stupid mistake and answered your earlier post with reference to the Konstantin family when it was the Vladimir family you had brought up . . . and you were right about them.)

[edubs31]

Well, damn.

Well not that it won't ever (otherwise I'd be SOL too), just not on this particular thread :-)

I do hope your father spent more time getting to know you than the imperial family would have.  They would have viewed any contact with us here as that of master to servant, if they had to condescend to acknowledge our existence at all.  No chance of my getting to play with the toy Mercedes.  None at all.

Well I'm speaking more about OTMAA than NA...My dad was kind of forced to get to know me. At least if the IF had it would have been by choice. Further I think if you spoke to most of their retainers, particularly the one's that followed them to captivity, you probably would have found that these 'servants' were treated better than most runts working in an office in 21st century corporate America...just as you would have found the 'masters' to be far more hospitable than the President's and owner of multi-million/billion dollar companies who would almost never condescend to grab a drink with (or even read an email from) their fellow 99%'rs!

(By the way, I hope you saw my post that went up on the Founding thread while you were writing yours.  I made a stupid mistake and answered your earlier post with reference to the Konstantin family when it was the Vladimir family you had brought up . . . and you were right about them.)

I did thanks...and you saw mine, yes?

"Give my love to all who remember me." - Olga Nikolaevna

That means even you Tsarfan :-)

[Tsarfan]

"Give my love to all who remember me." - Olga Nikolaevna

That means even you Tsarfan :-)

"I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity."  (Matthew 7:23)

Why do people keep telling me this?

[edubs31]

"Give my love to all who remember me." - Olga Nikolaevna

That means even you Tsarfan :-)

"I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity."  (Matthew 7:23)

Why do people keep telling me this?

Laughs Out Loud!

[TimM]

Further I think if you spoke to most of their retainers, particularly the one's that followed them to captivity

One has to wonder if the employees of Donald Trump or Bill Gates would willingly follow them into exile or captivity.

[Tsarfan]

One has to wonder if the employees of Donald Trump or Bill Gates would willingly follow them into exile or captivity.

Maybe not.  I have to say, though, that I smile at the thought of sending Trump into exile.  Surely there is some island out there where he cannot find a video camera toward which to claw his way.

But then employees of Trump and Gates usually have lives independent of their employers.  The servants who were in direct contact with the imperial family were usually denied outside relationships in order to protect the confidentiality of what went on in the household.  In fact, the servants Alexandra brought over from England were not encouraged to learn Russian, in order to limit their ability to interact with other less personal servants who spoke Russian and were not encouraged in their turn to learn any other language used in the household.  I suspect there was a lot of what we would today call emotional co-dependence involved from the servants' end, something that is often not healthy from a psychological perspective.

You get a sense of this highly-monitored, highly-limited social life of servants in such TV series as "Upstairs, Downstairs" and "Downton Abbey".  One can only imagine the level it reached in the imperial household, where not only family secrets needed protecting but where there were high risks to the physical safety of the family should there be a problem with loose lips.

There was also the worry that, with the whole social structure collapsing, people who had no skills other than service to aristocrats probably felt they had few places to turn for a living.

I have often wondered whether the likes of Demidova and Trupp had the emotional independence to make a truly free choice of whether or not to break their long-time ties to the family.  And, possibly except for Botkin, the servants did not likely feel they were risking death by staying with the family.  And I take a very dim view of Botkin's abandoning his own children to their fates in revolutionary Russia out of a sense of loyalty to the imperial family who, however kind they might have been to him, were, at the end of the day, his employers.

[Louis_Charles]

Well, it's not like Botkin didn't pay the price, and his children did get away, so ...at the end of his day, I admire his loyalty. I have always suspected he did it out of loyalty to Nicholas and OTMAA, and real concern for the boy's health if the only one around was the crazy eight mother. As for how I cope with their deaths, I regret them, of course, but I am not emotionally involved with them to the extent that I grieve. On the other hand, a colleague in my history department thinks I am slightly nuts because I am still ticked off at the French for abusing the ten year old Dauphin to death (::waves to Troy if he happens to be reading: during the Revolution. I do wonder about people who think they would have been best friends with Nastya or Tania, or even date Sunbeam. That always seems like kind of a phase to me, though, like horses and being a ballerina. And if you do build the time machine, Tim, I will help you with the rescue. Although the temptation to biff Alexandra with my swinish hand might be overwhelming . (Points for those who get the reference.)

::beams at Tsarfan:: sarcasm, sarcasm, the devil's weapon!

Simon

[Sarushka]

Although the temptation to biff Alexandra with my swinish hand might be overwhelming . (Points for those who get the reference.)

How many points do I get?

[historyfan]

Although the temptation to biff Alexandra with my swinish hand might be overwhelming . (Points for those who get the reference.)

How many points do I get?

*grin* and me?

[TimM]

I am still ticked off at the French for abusing the ten year old Dauphin to death

After we rescue the I.F. in my time machine, we'll swing by Revolutionary France and grab the Dauphin.

[Louis_Charles]

Tim --- I'm in
Sarah, no fair. After all, they're your imaginary friends.