Last night I watched a documentary on the History Channel about the first man ever to name himself "Czar", none other than Ivan the Terrible. Trust me, that sick nut earned his moniker. His widespread use of brutal torture methods was used with his aggressive military to forcibly expand his kingdom. It was a chilling account of the dark under-belly of the Czarist line. The whole time that I was watching it, I couldn't stop thinking about Liberal leader Mike Ignatieff.
Iggy has written books and several papers on his Czarist ancestry, obsessing about his family's great contribution to a terrible reign. It seems odd to brag about a failure, though I suppose Bob Rae does it all the time. I had distant relatives in Germany during both world wars. You don't see me running around the world bragging about how my great uncle shined shoes for Otto Von Bismarck. Actually my great grandparents left Germany while Bismarck was "unifying the Empire", so that might have been a bad example.
But back to Ignatieff and Ivan the Terrible. Watching them outline in detail Ivan's brutal acts of torture to "unify" his empire, I was reminded of a video I watched on a recent visit to the site of my colleague Canadian Sense.
Watch and learn. I would be curious to know if any Ignatieff's were employed by Ivan the Terrible?
I am pretty sure the Ignatieffs were already part of the elite during Ivan's times.
ReplyDeleteIvan was very paranoid and brutal as few, but at the same time he obliterated the Tatar occupation and brought all the various Russian kingdoms under the rule of Moscow. This helped Russia survive the aggressiveness of some of its neighbours, particularly Sweden.
Don't fret; they weren't.
ReplyDeleteMight be in his subsequent books if he gains power through his party reforming their coalition.
ReplyDeleteMany academics and pundits have written off the Liberal Party in actually winning the largest number of seats in a general election at the ballot box, so Plan B requires the support of the separtists and NDP.
It will be interesting times in March to see if they roll over and repeat 2009 in just blaming without any alternatives again.