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

[Kalafrana]

Victoriakin

I have yet to work out why anybody would want to call their lover baby, or be called baby by them.

There was, I think.  a definite infantilising tendency in the imperial family. Various contemporaries remarked on how young the girls were for their ages, and in the previous generation both Marie Feodorovna and her sister Queen Alexandra have been described as treating their adult offspring as if still children. Certainly to my eyes some letters between Alexandra and the future George V verge on the sick-making (though maybe I'm just used to something different - my parents were definitely not that way).

Ann

[victoriakin]

Victoriakin

I have yet to work out why anybody would want to call their lover baby, or be called baby by them.

There was, I think.  a definite infantilising tendency in the imperial family. Various contemporaries remarked on how young the girls were for their ages, and in the previous generation both Marie Feodorovna and her sister Queen Alexandra have been described as treating their adult offspring as if still children. Certainly to my eyes some letters between Alexandra and the future George V verge on the sick-making (though maybe I'm just used to something different - my parents were definitely not that way).

Ann

Families are different, to be sure. But in my lifespan, I have never heard of the word "baby" being excluded as a term of endearment between friends, lovers, and the what not. If you listen to the lyrics of popular music, you find that it is prevalent. If you see popular movies you see grown women call their grown men "baby", and the reason why they do that is because it is a term of endearment like "darling". I don't think that infanticizing, or infant contexts enter any of these contexts. In fact, calling a baby a baby, is merely a descriptive noun of the level of maturity. Every other usage of the word "baby" is as a term of endearment. In some business environments, in smoke-filled rooms of grown men, you'd be amazed, but the word "baby" is thrown around very loosely. I can't say that the word isn't overused, but it does not mean that the person is "babying" that other. It is familiarizing, it is just a way of expressing a close affinity or affection.

[Kalafrana]

'Families are different, to be sure. But in my lifespan, I have never heard of the word "baby" being excluded as a term of endearment between friends, lovers, and the what not.'

We're going to have to disagree on this one. I keep thinking of the various junior schools I went to, where to call someone 'a baby' was a deadly insult!

Ann

[PAVLOV]

I call my dog "baby", which is a term of endearment. I could never imagine calling a grown up "baby" !

I have just paged through " A Lifelong Passion", and cringed with embarrassment at the things they wrote each other. Very purile and infantile.
" Lovy", "Wify", "baby", "huzy", "boysy" " sweetykins'  etc etc.

I suppose that is the way things were at the time. I would be so turned off.

It sounds as if she could possible have breast fed him as well, given half the chance !

Poor man, he tried, but it was all just too much for him. There were too many irons in the fire to control. He started reasonably well, but got progressively worse. I think he just lost it in the end, and was just going through the motions, so to speak, and waiting for any opportunity to escape.

And he did, taking everyone with him.



   

[Jessamy]

It sounds as if she could possible have breast fed him as well, given half the chance !

LOL!!   I think it had a lot to do with the way he was raised by his mom. She tried to keep him a child as long as possible, as her sister did with her children as well.  Not such a good method for raising an autocrat!  I believe he would have been much happier had he been born the son of a farmer.

[Kalafrana]

'LOL!!   I think it had a lot to do with the way he was raised by his mom. She tried to keep him a child as long as possible, as her sister did with her children as well.  Not such a good method for raising an autocrat!  I believe he would have been much happier had he been born the son of a farmer.'

Oh yes! But few future monarchs have been keen to succeed - the only one I can think of was the Kaiser! No doubt the Prince of Wales will do his duty when the time comes, but I think he too would rather be left to his organic farming.

Ann

[Constantinople]

given the polemic opposites in his parents, it is a wonder that he didnt become pschzophrenic.  Given the approach to parenting and autocracy of his father, it is no wonder that he was drawn to his mother.  The image however of her breastfeeding him as an adult is too strange to contemplate.

[Alixz]

I call my dog "baby", which is a term of endearment. I could never imagine calling a grown up "baby" !

I have just paged through " A Lifelong Passion", and cringed with embarrassment at the things they wrote each other. Very puerile and infantile.
" Lovy", "Wify", "baby", "huzy", "boysy" " sweetykins'  etc etc.

I suppose that is the way things were at the time. I would be so turned off.

It sounds as if she could possible have breast fed him as well, given half the chance !

Poor man, he tried, but it was all just too much for him. There were too many irons in the fire to control. He started reasonably well, but got progressively worse. I think he just lost it in the end, and was just going through the motions, so to speak, and waiting for any opportunity to escape.

And he did, taking everyone with him. 

I, too, have always thought that Alexandra and Nicholas had an infantile way of addressing each other.  However, (and I am always chastised for this by other posters) I have always felt that Alexandra felt the need to mother and instruct Nicholas rather than be his partner.  Many women, even to this day, try to "mother" their husbands, but Alexandra was the "mother of all mothers".

It has been said that men marry women who remind them of their mothers.  In Nicholas's case, I believe it to be true.  Even though Marie was a socialite and Alexandra wasn't, Marie was a cosseting type of mother just as her sister Alexandra was and just like her daughter in law Alexandra was. 

All tried to keep their children young and at their sides for too long.  But it must have been a Victorian thing because Victoria did the same thing with Princess Beatrice.

[TroubleTwin2]

So its been a while and is some what moved a way from this, but I would just like to make a comment about calling Alexei "baby" and the context it was used and what not. I read somewhere ( I can't quite remember were, but it was related somehow to the family) that in Russia family's would sometimes call the youngest member of their family baby because they were the baby's of the family (age wise that is). Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

[Naslednik]

I believe that Nicholas' sister Olga was also called Baby from time to time, and that this practice extended beyond the IF and Russia. We have to put ourselves into Victorian times to look at things with balance, and gushing names like Sweetie, Darling, Dear one, etc, were part of the culture.  My Edwardian grandmother always called her children and grandchildren her 'dears.'  I call my kids "honey bunnies."  Frankly, I think current western culture has gone way too far in the undemonstrative direction.  Don't you think we all could loosen up a bit and belt out some "darlings"!?  I mean, our loved ones are our darlings...

[AGRBear]

Here is a good side of Nicholas II which we rarely read:

GENERAL WRANGEL by Alexis Wrangel p. 48:

>>Some days after my arrival,  I entered the service of the Cazr as his aide-de-camp. I had had many opportunities of meeting the Czar and chatting with him.  He produced an impression of extraordinary simplicity and unusual kindliness on everyone who met him -- the results of the outstanding traits of his character, his perfect education and his complete self-mastery.  He had an alert mind, was skill in the art of innuendo, and possessed an amazing memory. He remembered not only events but names and dates.  One day he spoke to me of the battles in which my regiment had taken part, although it was a long time ago, and we had done nothing noteworthy, he even mentioned the villages in which the regiments of our division had been quartered.<<

AGRBear

[Kalafrana]

'I believe that Nicholas' sister Olga was also called Baby from time to time, and that this practice extended beyond the IF and Russia. We have to put ourselves into Victorian times to look at things with balance, and gushing names like Sweetie, Darling, Dear one, etc, were part of the culture.'

This is true, but I still find it sick-making! Perhaps I am a bit of an extreme case, as I decided when I was eight or nine that I was too old to be kissed, and by then I had already managed to persuade my mother to drop the first of my infant nicknames (the second, which was much less embarrassing, lasted until I was in my twenties).

'Frankly, I think current western culture has gone way too far in the undemonstrative direction.'

I would disagree, since I constantly see modern parents calling their offspring darling etc, and pawing over them as if they were lapdogs! And as for calling the child Baby, I feel like saying, 'Doesn't the child have a name?'


Ann

[Eddie_uk]

I call my dog "baby", which is a term of endearment. I could never imagine calling a grown up "baby" !

I have just paged through " A Lifelong Passion", and cringed with embarrassment at the things they wrote each other. Very purile and infantile.
" Lovy", "Wify", "baby", "huzy", "boysy" " sweetykins'  etc etc.

I couldn't disagree more, I call my partner baby all the time, it's soooo sweet!  I find such terms endearing!

[Lucien]

I call my dog "baby", which is a term of endearment. I could never imagine calling a grown up "baby" !

I have just paged through " A Lifelong Passion", and cringed with embarrassment at the things they wrote each other. Very purile and infantile.
" Lovy", "Wify", "baby", "huzy", "boysy" " sweetykins'  etc etc.

I couldn't disagree more, I call my partner baby all the time, it's soooo sweet!  I find such terms endearing!

The above apparently don't have a clue on love and it's tracks Eddy.....infantilising....really....get l**d...

Anyway,yesterday,november 1st 1894,our baby,our beloved dearest Nicky became the new Tsar of Russia after Alexander III dies.

[Petr]

Interesting controversy brewing. In his press interview a few days ago Putin referred to Nicholas as Bloody Nicholas, a Bolshevik term given him after the Khodynko disaster. This caused a minor furor given that he had been declared a saint by the Church and particularly in view  of his recent general rehabilitation.  Apparently, this is not the only time Putin has used this pejorative appelation.  I guess Putin is not so far removed from his Communist youth. Also a little known tidbit. Putin's mother was Georgian who remarried and abandoned him or so it was reported in the Georgian press.  Interestingly not much has been publicly disclosed about his early background other than his service as a KGB officer.