I apologize beforehand if this doesn't belong here but I am THOROUGHLY confused and need help.
At my gym, there is a guy from Kazachstan. I am good friends with him. But some of the stuff he says appears completely wacky to me.
So for him, basically everything bad happening to Russia is either a jewisch conspiracy or something instigated by other corrupt elites. Here are some pointers:
Ivan the Terrible was only called that way because he killed some 300 nobles who were about to fuck up Russia.
Any truth to this?
Germany was armed up by the English Empire to go and eradicate Communism.
This doesn't make any sense to me. Why would Germany attack France and start a huge air battle with the Empire?
Other points include very apologetic perspectives on Stalin's policies, how countries like Georgia couldn't even record their own culture because they had no language before Russian came along.
He has a lot of good character traits but his history tirades are kind of tiresome sometimes. He sounds like an conspiracy theorist. But here is the thing. I see him read about all that in books he always brings along. And says how this or that historian went into some archives and discovered the TRUTH. I am sorry, my Russian is non existant, I will try to provide the names though.
What I am asking I guess is... Are some of the points I listed legitimate views to have, based on what we know?
I asked a russian friend I have who studies history and she said something bad happened once in USSR days that freaked some people out but no one talks about it for fear of denunciation or what not. It's very difficult to get a clear picture.
Ivan the Terrible is the english translation of his Russian name/title, Ivan Groznii (Иван Грозный). 'Groznii' translates to 'formidable' as well as 'terrible' - so it is more accurate to think of him as Ivan the Powerful-and-kind-of-frightening, not 'Ivan the Absolute Worst'. He was a powerful leader who, among other things, killed his own son. He was not called Ivan Groznii for a single reason; it's an assessment of his powerful but also troubling rule.
As to the Jewish conspiracy - sorry, that is just a straight up conspiracy theory. It happens to be one that is very popular even today in Russia/Ukraine/Belarus, so it is one that even popular Russian historians put forth. It's usually loosely based on the fact that there were quite a few Jews among the high-powered Bolsheviks who led the Revolution in 1917. But it is also based on long-standing rumours about the over representation of Jews in the secret police (nope, sorry, the representation was proportional, Budnitskii Jews Between the Reds and the Whites), in government and so forth. Communism was not forced on the USSR by Jews, Jews did not turn against the Russian Empire during WWI (a contemporary conspiracy)-- it's simply not true. A general distaste for elites is understandable, given the corruption that took place among elites in the Soviet era. But blaming everything on a few people at the top is also a way to avoid blaming the wider population. Lots of people participated in corrupt practices in some small way -- it was essential to survive in the USSR. Focusing on elites turns attention away from the bigger, messier everyday reality.
Finally, was England/Great Britain pro-Communism? No. But is there any evidence that they were working with Germany at any point to push Germany towards a war with the USSR? No -- Germany needed no assistance with that, it was one of Hitler's key goals.
There are lots of books, including books about history, that provide a highly one-sided and skewed version of events. Reading a lot is not a guarantee that you will have a deep knowledge of something. It is important to read different kinds of books, and to be able to read critically -- that is, to ask questions of the text you are reading (why does the author say this? What evidence do they provide to back it up?).
As a historian who spends lots of time in Russian archives, I can assure you that the TRUTH is not located there. Historians piece together the best version of events they can. Good historians do not promise the TRUTH. Another trend in Russian history is what is called 'fetishization of documents'. Basically, people were unable to access information in Soviet archives for so long, they started to mythologize these archives. "All the answers are in there, and if we could just access the archives, we would find the documents that tell us the truth!" essentially. It was a reaction to the vast amount of propaganda the Soviet state was pumping out. But when historians got into these archives, apart from a few major surprises, the big discovery was that even classified and top-secret documents use the same propaganda-heavy language as public documents. The elites were not lying publicly while privately laughing at how gullible the population was-- they were fully invested in the Communist system themselves. So again, while I can understand the tendency to want to believe that a single document from one archive can explain all the secrets to Russia's past (that is, I recognize it as a typical reaction in present-day Russia), my experience in Russian archives has made it clear to me that this is not the case.
Your friend is just a conspiracy theorist with a distinctive Russian twist, sorry.
Well, Ivan killed his son during a violent rage, so if that doesn't sound terrible enough I don't know. Although there´s the alledged legend that Ivan blinded St. Basil´s architect, there´s little historical evidence to validate that fact. About the fact that Ivan killed 300 nobles maybe he was refering to the time when he persecuted nobles from across the country after Prince Andrei Kurbsky defected to Lithuanians. Ivan was never the same after that, he became paranoic. As I said most of this nobles weren't treacherous so it was probably just Ivan paranoical state. On the second accusation, that's something I've never heard in not a single reliable history book. It doesn't make any sense, even if England wanted to arm a country to fight an enemy, it wouldn't make sense it armed an enemy to fight another enemy, and I don't think that no one at the country would have spent a single dime in giving money to Hitler or a ravaging Germany. Actually georgian language according to sources appeared aroudn 430 AD, and russian as we know it today has it's roots on the XIV century. I think that you must star to believe he is a conspiracy theorist believer, the problem with this guys is that try to tergiversate history for the purposes of historians, the truth they are speaking is mostly false. And you can tell that even if you don't know a lot of russian history, and this happens at every country, it really bothers me because from the books I've read they´re mostly ultra nationalists, far right or extremists who want to put History on their own.
So, there's a lot of propaganda and conspiracy and nationalism. Mixing truth with lie is a standard tactic for conspiracy creators, so it doesn't mean everything he says is a lie. Your confusion is a normal reaction, just don't fall for all the conspiracy about Jews etc.
Ivan the Terrible is notoriously misnamed in English translation(some argue that it's because few centuries ago word "terrible" had a broader meaning that covered the correct translation as well, but now it is lost, thus it creates confusion, if you play around with words, it seems legit). In Russian he's called Грозный(Grozny). The best translation for this would be "Formidable", or, at least "Intimidating". So, in modern English Ivan the Terrible should be renamed into Ivan the Formidable. Also, him killing his son is an unconfirmed hearsay. Also, judging on how nobles ruled Russia before he became the king, and, especially after he died(look Time of Troubles), oppressing them wasn't such a bad idea(to paraphrase, if you are paranoid, it doesn't mean nobody wants to screw you up).
Yes, Germany was heavily subsidized by countries like British Empire and, especially, USA, since WW1 all the way to the start of WW2. USA payed them money to keep on with debt, but not enough to repay it, that was one of the reasons Germany went into a terrible economical recession in late 20s after American Depression has started. Germany had a greater success in fighting Soviet forces during Russian Civil war compared to Antanta's Intervention, betting on them to fight off Commies was a logical conclusion. American, British and French rich people invested heavily into Germany, creating them an industry to put into military rails, giving them technological know-how like synthetic oil factories to make aviation gasoline etc. Their politicians went on with this in hope that Germany(Weimar or Nazi, who cares) will be their shield against evil evil Commies, so they turned a blind eye on Versailles treaty violations, agreed with Anschluss and taking over Chechoslovakia. Even when the war has started, they didn't attack(look Phoney War), all in hopes that Germany will attack USSR and won't attack France. Germans were just smart enough and tricked both Brits and French by seizing the moment and surprise attacking them(they were surprised after 8 months of "war", lol). Germans had no allegiances to Brits or USA, and those countries stopped supporting them after the start of the war, so why won't they attack wealthy Brits and Frenchies?
Part about Georgian language is total nationalist crap, their alphabet came in IVth century and they are native to their lands for thousands of years.