Third Rome Revival
One of the wild cards in international relations in the world today is Russia. What are her strategic goals and where will it lead her? The only communist nation to give up Marxism (eastern europe doesn't count because communism was militarily imposed on them by the Red Army during WWII) and ironically was the birthplace of the communist revolution and was the cockpit of Marxist/Leninist policy and direction over China, North Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Cuba, Central and Southern Africa and tiny Grenada. First Gorbachev then Yeltsin and now Vladmir Putin, the Russian nation has now metamorphasized into a Psuedo-Czarist state with a majority of ex-communist apparatchiks currently steering her into an unknown horizon that I believe will find itself in direct opposition to the Islamic Jihad slowly making itself known on her southern borders.
If the Islamic Jihad justifies their attacks on the West for revenge of the "Crusades" by the Franks and the Catholic Church then how much more will the Islamic Jihad rationalize their war on Russia? Much more so. Russia is nearly hated as much by the Moslems as Israel and has historical roots that no good Mohammedan can ignore. Russia has three characteristics that stands it apart from her Western and Israeli counterpart: (1) She is Slavic (2) she is Eastern Orthodox and (3) she has constantly waged war on Moslems be they Turks, Afghans, Iranians or central eurasians throughout Russian history.
From Wikipedia:
The Russo-Turkish Wars were a series of 10 wars fought between the Russian Empire and the Turkish-ruled Ottoman Empire during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. Their conflict during World War I is often counted as the 11th.
Most of the time, the wars were fought over control of the Crimea, the Black Sea, or the Balkans. It was one of the longest conflicts in European history, spanning 241 years, far longer than the Hundred Years War between England and France. On average, only 19 years of peace separated two open conflicts between Russia and the Ottoman Empire. The Russo-Turkish wars were one of the main causes for the decline of the Ottoman Empire.
And even more from Wikipedia:
Within decades after the Fall of Constantinople to Mehmed II of the Ottoman Empire on May 29, 1453, some were nominating Moscow as the "Third Rome", or new "New Rome". Stirrings of this sentiment began during the reign of Ivan III, Grand Duke of Moscow who had married Sophia Paleiologue. Sophia was a niece of Constantine XI, the last Eastern Roman Emporer and Ivan could claim to be the heir of the fallen Eastern Roman Empire.
The idea crystallized with a panegyric letter composed by the Russian monk Filofei in 1510 to their son Grand Duke Vasilli III, which proclaimed, "Two Romes have fallen. The third stands. And there will not be a fourth. No one will replace your Christian Tsardom!"
It should be noted that, contrary to the common misconception, Filofei explicitly identifies Third Rome with Russia (the country) rather than with Moscow (the city).
Since Roman princesses had married Tsars of Moscow, and, since Russia had become, with the fall of Byzantium, the most powerful Orthodox Christian state, the Tsars were thought of as succeeding the Byzantine Emporer as the rightful ruler of the (Christian) world. The word "tsar," like kaiser, is derived from the word "caesar".
Grand Duke Ivan IV was proclaimed the first Russian Tsar on January 16, 1457. On November 2, 1721 Peter I restyled himself as "Emporer and Autocrat of All Russia". The new title was supposed to reflect both the traditional claims of his predecessors and his success in establishing Imperial Russia as a new European power.
This "Muscovite Third Romism" persisted into the October Revolution, beginning of the Bolshevik era in the Soviet Union. At the time Nikolai Bydarev wrote, "Instead of the Third Rome in Russia, the Third International was achieved and many of the features of the Third Rome pass over to the Third International." Some scholars have seen Muscovite Third Romism as the Russian equivalent of the United States' Manifest Destiny, and other concepts used to rationalize imperialism.
So now in the 21st Century we see a very interesting and historic creature arising in the world that harkens back to the glory days of Czarist Russia perhaps even as far back as Byzantium. We have the modern accutrements of civilization to soften our most barbaric inclinations but the old wounds of war and reprisal hidden by time still remind us that some things stir beyond our control and make them felt in the conciousness of this current generation of humanity.
From Yahoo News:
Historic Russian admiral Fyodor Ushakov -- a hero of Russia's wars against Turkey and Napoleon Bonaparte -- was designated the patron saint of nuclear-armed, long-distance Russian bombers by the Orthodox Church.
Russian Patriarch Alexei II, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, carried a reliquary and an icon of the admiral, who was canonised in 2004, into the Moscow chapel of the Russian Air Force's 37th Air Army in Moscow, Russia's RIA Novosti news agency said Monday.
"I am sure he will become your intermediary as you fulfil your responsible duties to the fatherland in the long-range air force," the patriarch said.
"His strong faith helped Saint Fyodor Ushakov in all his battles," the religious leader said, reminding his audience that the famous admiral of the 18th and 19th centuries never lost a battle.
Fyodor Ushakov distinguished himself in numerous naval battles in the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, most notably in the Russo-Turkish war between 1787 and 1791.
Ushakov's canonisation as a saint in 2004 follows a strong tradition in Russia of close relations between the Orthodox Church and the state, which was revived after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.
Yes indeed, some wounds never heal. They periodically break open to reveal the festering animosity that brings nations to the brink of war and to world war itself.
If the Islamic Jihad justifies their attacks on the West for revenge of the "Crusades" by the Franks and the Catholic Church then how much more will the Islamic Jihad rationalize their war on Russia? Much more so. Russia is nearly hated as much by the Moslems as Israel and has historical roots that no good Mohammedan can ignore. Russia has three characteristics that stands it apart from her Western and Israeli counterpart: (1) She is Slavic (2) she is Eastern Orthodox and (3) she has constantly waged war on Moslems be they Turks, Afghans, Iranians or central eurasians throughout Russian history.
From Wikipedia:
The Russo-Turkish Wars were a series of 10 wars fought between the Russian Empire and the Turkish-ruled Ottoman Empire during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. Their conflict during World War I is often counted as the 11th.
Most of the time, the wars were fought over control of the Crimea, the Black Sea, or the Balkans. It was one of the longest conflicts in European history, spanning 241 years, far longer than the Hundred Years War between England and France. On average, only 19 years of peace separated two open conflicts between Russia and the Ottoman Empire. The Russo-Turkish wars were one of the main causes for the decline of the Ottoman Empire.
And even more from Wikipedia:
Within decades after the Fall of Constantinople to Mehmed II of the Ottoman Empire on May 29, 1453, some were nominating Moscow as the "Third Rome", or new "New Rome". Stirrings of this sentiment began during the reign of Ivan III, Grand Duke of Moscow who had married Sophia Paleiologue. Sophia was a niece of Constantine XI, the last Eastern Roman Emporer and Ivan could claim to be the heir of the fallen Eastern Roman Empire.
The idea crystallized with a panegyric letter composed by the Russian monk Filofei in 1510 to their son Grand Duke Vasilli III, which proclaimed, "Two Romes have fallen. The third stands. And there will not be a fourth. No one will replace your Christian Tsardom!"
It should be noted that, contrary to the common misconception, Filofei explicitly identifies Third Rome with Russia (the country) rather than with Moscow (the city).
Since Roman princesses had married Tsars of Moscow, and, since Russia had become, with the fall of Byzantium, the most powerful Orthodox Christian state, the Tsars were thought of as succeeding the Byzantine Emporer as the rightful ruler of the (Christian) world. The word "tsar," like kaiser, is derived from the word "caesar".
Grand Duke Ivan IV was proclaimed the first Russian Tsar on January 16, 1457. On November 2, 1721 Peter I restyled himself as "Emporer and Autocrat of All Russia". The new title was supposed to reflect both the traditional claims of his predecessors and his success in establishing Imperial Russia as a new European power.
This "Muscovite Third Romism" persisted into the October Revolution, beginning of the Bolshevik era in the Soviet Union. At the time Nikolai Bydarev wrote, "Instead of the Third Rome in Russia, the Third International was achieved and many of the features of the Third Rome pass over to the Third International." Some scholars have seen Muscovite Third Romism as the Russian equivalent of the United States' Manifest Destiny, and other concepts used to rationalize imperialism.
So now in the 21st Century we see a very interesting and historic creature arising in the world that harkens back to the glory days of Czarist Russia perhaps even as far back as Byzantium. We have the modern accutrements of civilization to soften our most barbaric inclinations but the old wounds of war and reprisal hidden by time still remind us that some things stir beyond our control and make them felt in the conciousness of this current generation of humanity.
From Yahoo News:
Historic Russian admiral Fyodor Ushakov -- a hero of Russia's wars against Turkey and Napoleon Bonaparte -- was designated the patron saint of nuclear-armed, long-distance Russian bombers by the Orthodox Church.
Russian Patriarch Alexei II, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, carried a reliquary and an icon of the admiral, who was canonised in 2004, into the Moscow chapel of the Russian Air Force's 37th Air Army in Moscow, Russia's RIA Novosti news agency said Monday.
"I am sure he will become your intermediary as you fulfil your responsible duties to the fatherland in the long-range air force," the patriarch said.
"His strong faith helped Saint Fyodor Ushakov in all his battles," the religious leader said, reminding his audience that the famous admiral of the 18th and 19th centuries never lost a battle.
Fyodor Ushakov distinguished himself in numerous naval battles in the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, most notably in the Russo-Turkish war between 1787 and 1791.
Ushakov's canonisation as a saint in 2004 follows a strong tradition in Russia of close relations between the Orthodox Church and the state, which was revived after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.
Yes indeed, some wounds never heal. They periodically break open to reveal the festering animosity that brings nations to the brink of war and to world war itself.
posted by Bruce R. McConnell | 10:15 PM
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