Re: Reflections on Nicholas II - His Character Traits Good and Bad #2

[tyumen]

Here are a few more : The Russian Singer Sewing Machine Company   International Harvester Corp.   Westinghouse Brake Co.  J.M. Coates Co.   & National City Bank.

[Forum Admin]

The great Russian Bronzecaster/Artist Evgeny Lancere. He had a very talented pupil in Paris in the late 19th early 20th century, an American of some aptitude who returned to the US and made a small name for himself, Frederick Remington.

The Imperial Porcelain Factory was turning out pieces equal to anything else in Europe.  The Imperial Lapidary Factory in the Urals produced pieces far surpassing anything made in Europe at the time, works in semi precious and precious stone we can not even begin to match today in quality or skill of craftsmanship.

Benois, Kustodiev, Samokisch, Aisavosky, Repin, Bakst, both Vasnetsov brothers, Marc Chagall, and the entire Mir Iskustva movement in art.  Plus many others.

Serge Prokhudin-Gorskii, who made full color photographs some thirty years before Kodak was able to do so, when nobody else in the world could.

Nikolai Tesla, who did more to advance the electrification of modern society than Edison could have dreamed of.

Prince Lev Galitzine, who was Europe's foremost expert on Wine and oenology.  Prince Galitzine not only  accumulated the largest and most important collection of wine in the world, but also taught Europe about advanced wine growing and making techniques, and taught wine appreciation to all of Europe, some 100 years before the rest of the world caught on.

More to come, this is just off the top of my head.

[Forum Admin]

Here are a few more : The Russian Singer Sewing Machine Company   International Harvester Corp.   Westinghouse Brake Co.  J.M. Coates Co.   & National City Bank.

 You forgot some obvious ones: coca cola, Kodak, Ford Motors, National Geographic Magazine and Hoover Vacuum cleaners.

[tyumen]

FA, was not my intention to name just the American companies I was looking at an article today  by David W. Mcfadden "Alternate Paths Soviets and America 1917-1920" about the struggle of the U.S. companies to prevent being nationalized by the Bolsheviks.That is why I just mentioned the Americans. also, I think that Nicholas II reign deserves some credit to modernize Russia. It just my opinion that all progress was nota result of the revolution and founding of the Soviet State.

[tyumen]

The Putilov works employed 12,000 in manufacture of industrial machinery and railway locomotives. In the Northern Caucasus, Baku Oil was a major entity.
Imperial Russia was a founding member of the Olympic Games movement and took 3 medals at the 1908 London Olympics 

[Mexjames]

"Nicholas and Alexandra" has some space devoted to progress during the Empire.  Unfortunately we know more about the bad things that happened, but the fact that as we see here, Russia had a number of first-rate scientists, artists and businessmen, says a lot about the country.

Economically speaking, since the time of Tsar Peter and with more certainty, since the reign of Empress Catherine the Great, the Russian government went to great lengths to make sure the rouble was a stable currency.  All those treasures that were built over the centuries of Romanov rule provided the country with a solid basis for foreign trade.  Also, Ukraine was a prime exporter of cereals, second to none, probably even before the US started with that.  Grain was shipped from Odessa and other Black Sea ports to the rest of the world.

The rogue Soviet regime owed a lot to the Empire.

[Naslednik]

A few more come to mind:

Music: Stravinsky -- who 'reformed' 20th century classical music (even the movie music you hear today).  Sometimes I think that the revolution in music happening in St. Petersburg was cut off at the ankles by the political revolution, with Rachmaninov, Prokofiev, Stravinsky all dispersed.  I wonder if we would have been so alienated from 'modern music' if the energy going on in Russia had not been interrupted.

Policy:  creation of The Hague, distribution of land to kulaks under Stolypin, residency for several years of British Parliamentarians to help the early Duma, very good harvests prior to WWI, some advancement in education (needed lots more, I know) and enormous growth of the Russian middle class.  Also, in spite of what we often read, the Russian Army was considered a well-trained force, and officers well educated.

[RomanovMartyrs]

Abdicating for Alexei made sense because (1) he was only 12 years old (2) he had hemophilia and couldn't carry out the duties of a Tsar.  

Can someone please explain this to me, I am very confused. I understand that Alexey had hemophilia, but I do not understand what duties he can't carry out? I really don't know the specific duties of the Tsar, so probably this is why I can't understand.

Thanks in advance!

[Alixz]

Personally - I have always thought that Alexei could have taken over as tsar.  He was smarter than his father and with his Uncle Michael as Regent I think he would have done fine.

It would have been hard for Alexandra to let him go, but I think in the long run things would have been better if Nicholas had not had such tunnel vision.

Things would have had to change and the autocracy would not have been preserved, but perhaps some lives could have been saved.  Even Olga Nicholaevna could have been a help to Alexei and Michael as she could stand in as "first lady" so to speak.

Michael's wife Natalia, would have still had to take a back seat as a morganatic wife, but she was pretty resilient and would have survived with her dignity intact.

I know that Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna would have still wanted to see her son on the throne, but Empress Marie would have been around to help out and give good advice.

[victoriakin]

The ultimate decision to abdicate on behalf of Alexei was perhaps a major mistake - but it was also the first time that Nicholas had broken his 'faith' in what he saw as his & his son's role. This mistake was the result of a father's concern for his son. It WAS a mistake but an understandable one.

I take with a grain of salt the reasons being offered for why Alexei was not proposed for the reign. I don't believe that a mistake of this type stated was made, and I don't believe that Nicholas had a choice. In every of numerous photos taken of Alexei he was strong and well, with illnesses taking place without affect to his studies or his duties with his father. I've known children in our own generations who've had suffered far worse and achieved far greater because they were not royal or embattled by rebels. Of course along with the history, there's never been a cessation of the politics.

I'm afraid I see it in exactly opposite terms.  The mistake wasn't abdicating on behalf of Alexei, it was carrying on all those years as if Alexei would be able to one day become Tsar.  All that covering up and pretending that everything was fine -- it did enormous damage -- this is the very thesis of Massie's Nicholas and Alexandra.  He says so in the forward. 

Abdicating for Alexei made sense because (1) he was only 12 years old (2) he had hemophilia and couldn't carry out the duties of a Tsar. 

Measures could be taken to ward off dangers of excessive bleeding, once this vulnerability was known, and in all the years up to 1918 there were no outward signs and only speculation on the part of others as to the importance of this situation. As to covering up and pretending that everything was fine, Nicholas did not do so. In speeches numerous, he admonished the rebels who were gaining strength, and in 1905, in the very city where he found his ultimate demise, he overtook a revolution attempt by distributing a book he had written.

Unfortunately my attempt to find links to refer you to which I had found when first studying the subject has failed. The internet search engines do not support this subject matter well. The articles I found indicated Nicholas had an acute perception of the turmoil around him, addressed it as he was able to, and was overpowered by those throngs who intended to overpower him.

[victoriakin]

Hmmm. 'Tis strange how quickly they seemed to change. I have watched film of peasants treating Nicholas II and his family as deities, and yet they did indeed rebel with a zeal. :-/

One must remember that the revolution forced an atheism across the land, an isolation from other corners of the world, and an intimidating stronghold making anyone shake with fear, at the same time that they took the names of Alexei himself and instilled a Prime Minister of the Polit Bureau called such. They did all forms of assassination including character assassination at every possible opportunity they could, and in the words of one Russian shopkeeper I spoke with, never taught of the Tsars anything but that they were bad.

It wasn't the people who revolted, but those who decided that they wanted to control the land instead. That's how any widespread dissidents operate. Based on my readings it has seemed to me as though the Duma, which Nicholas did establish much to the historical chagrin of those claiming he wanted to be an "autocrat", became infiltrated with those rebels, hence his attempts to control and battle with those powers. Theirs was not a system based like the Constitutional where there were accountabilities, but there was a system of ministries which grew themselves above the monarchs, due to their own greeds for control.

I would not see anyone in the Romanov family as weak in body or spirit, or management capability; but they were dealt a weildy blow.

[Kalafrana]

'I take with a grain of salt the reasons being offered for why Alexei was not proposed for the reign. I don't believe that a mistake of this type stated was made, and I don't believe that Nicholas had a choice. In every of numerous photos taken of Alexei he was strong and well, with illnesses taking place without affect to his studies or his duties with his father. I've known children in our own generations who've had suffered far worse and achieved far greater because they were not royal or embattled by rebels. Of course along with the history, there's never been a cessation of the politics.'

Interesting point. Obviously, the family didn't normally take photographs of Alexei while he was ill. However, as he got older his haemophilia attacks became less frequent, though the consequences of boyhood attacks would have caught up with him had he lived into middle age (and three of his haemophiliac cousins died as the result of car accidents in their 20s - the two Spanish Infantes and Rupert of Teck). The most obvious thing he couldn't do was ride, which was something very much  expected of rulers then, particularly in order to review troops. However, I have read somewhere that Alexander III hated horses and only rode when there was absolutely no alternative, so that might not have been too much of a problem.

Maybe Nicholas's over-protective tendencies came into play here.

Ann

[victoriakin]

'I take with a grain of salt the reasons being offered for why Alexei was not proposed for the reign. I don't believe that a mistake of this type stated was made, and I don't believe that Nicholas had a choice. In every of numerous photos taken of Alexei he was strong and well, with illnesses taking place without affect to his studies or his duties with his father. I've known children in our own generations who've had suffered far worse and achieved far greater because they were not royal or embattled by rebels. Of course along with the history, there's never been a cessation of the politics.'

Interesting point. Obviously, the family didn't normally take photographs of Alexei while he was ill. However, as he got older his haemophilia attacks became less frequent, though the consequences of boyhood attacks would have caught up with him had he lived into middle age (and three of his haemophiliac cousins died as the result of car accidents in their 20s - the two Spanish Infantes and Rupert of Teck). The most obvious thing he couldn't do was ride, which was something very much  expected of rulers then, particularly in order to review troops. However, I have read somewhere that Alexander III hated horses and only rode when there was absolutely no alternative, so that might not have been too much of a problem.

Maybe Nicholas's over-protective tendencies came into play here.

Ann

Ann, if Nicholas had been "over-protective", he would not have had his son Alexei be second-in-command with him during the struggles of WW1, would not had taken him to the barracks and the lines to inspect the troops, onto ships and navy vessels, and would have kept the boy away from all such responsibilities and on-the-job-training. I don't see that Nicholas was over-protective, or even unreasonably shielding of the significance of his son to the succession. Accounts I've read ten years ago spelled out quite clearly that Alexei was a commanding force in the military and was well-received, well-respected, well-trained, and unprotected any more than his father protected himself.

[Kalafrana]

I don't think Nicholas was necessarily over-protective all the time. However, there was a definite tendency to baby Alexei - exemplified by the entire family continuing to refer to him as Baby when he was a teenager (even if, as someone has pointed out elsewhere, they didn't necessarily call him Baby to his face).

Ann

[victoriakin]

I don't think Nicholas was necessarily over-protective all the time. However, there was a definite tendency to baby Alexei - exemplified by the entire family continuing to refer to him as Baby when he was a teenager (even if, as someone has pointed out elsewhere, they didn't necessarily call him Baby to his face).

Ann

I'm not sure at this particular point in time that the interpretation of the term "baby" was correct. Everyone knew that it was Anastasia who was the baby of the family, but one also has to be very careful to ascribe familial affectionate nicknames as separate from treatment. Alexandra called her husband Nicky, and in the family, Anastasia was termed Stana. Nowadays, nobody says that "baby" in love songs means you are diapering your lover, yes?