The first information war. Legends of the "wild hordes of Muscovites of Tsar John the Terrible"
Liberals against the monument to the Terrible Tsar
Today, the level of confrontation between Russia and our so-called. "Western partners" in the opinion of many experts recalls the times of the fiercest confrontation between the USSR and the West during the years of the "cold war".
In the West, the image of a huge aggressive Russia is re-forming, which looms over small and defenseless European countries, intending to invade the Russians tank armada, trample the centers of civilization and democracy on the European continent. And at the head of this dark and totalitarian country is Putin, a ruthless and cruel dictator. Coming from the ominous KGB, Putin in his medieval Kremlin is hatching plans to restore either the USSR or the Russian Empire, i.e. a terrible "prison of peoples" in which freedom-loving Latvians and Georgians, Ukrainians and residents of some "Idel-Ural" and "Cossacks" suffered under the yoke of "Russian barbarians". Information warfare is the most important part of the so-called. "Hybrid war", which our "sworn friends" are waging against Russia. And one of the most important areas of information confrontation is the battle for history. It is well known that those who teach history to the younger generation shape the future of the country. In total, over the 23 of the year in Ukraine, with the help of the textbooks of the “benefactor and philanthropist” Soros, they artificially created a generation of people firmly convinced that a certain “Moskovia” populated by a mixture of Finno-Ugric and Mongols oppressed the unfortunate Ukraine-Russia for centuries by forcibly otgorit ancient Ukrainian people ”from the fraternal family of“ civilized European nations ”. Unfortunately, the work on the distortion of Russian history did not begin with the textbooks of Soros. Karamzin in the ninth volume of his “History” consciously relied only on the testimony of “General Vlasov of the sixteenth century” traitor Kurbsky, on the testimony of the Jesuit Pope's envoy Antonio Possevino, on the testimony of the German adventurer Heinrich Stadena and others “friends” of Russia. In Russian society, liberal historians diligently tried to consolidate the image of Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible as a “bloody tyrant” and “monster on the throne”. Nowadays, Radzinsky, Lungin and other “media people” from the liberal camp work tirelessly to reinforce the lies and slander of foreigners about the first Russian Tsar.
27 August in Orel, a monument to Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible. 450 years ago, the Terrible King founded the glorious city of Eagle. In total, 155 cities were built, 60 monasteries were founded, the Kazan and Astrakhan khanates were built, Siberia was annexed, the territory of the Russian state doubled, military and judicial reforms were carried out, the first regular army was established, Zemsky Sobor was established and Zemsky Sobor was established . But despite this, the decision of the inhabitants of the Eagle to erect a monument to Sovereign John the Terrible caused a hysterical reaction of the liberal public throughout the country.
It would seem that, against the background of the most powerful anti-Russian information campaigns launched in the media controlled by the “world international usurers”, one can ignore the protests of Russian liberals against the monument to Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible. But, curiously, it was during the reign of the Terrible Tsar in the West that the first information war against Russia was launched. And then in all information campaigns against the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union throughout the centuries Russophobic myths invented during this first information war of the 16th century methodically repeated. During the years of the Livonian War, Europeans first began to be intimidated by the invasion of the wild hordes of “Russian barbarians”, economic sanctions against Muscovite Russia were introduced, in modern terms, an “embargo on access to high technologies” was announced. Times change, instead of Gutenberg's printing press, digital technologies and the World Wide Web are used, and myths and legends about the “hordes of Russian barbarians” threatening a peaceful Europe, about the grim “evil empire” led by the “cruel tyrant” remain the same.
The cynicism of Western politicians and fighters of the "information front" knows no limit. “Maidan” in Kiev, where the soldiers of the “Golden Eagle” were burned with “Molotov cocktails” and shot by snipers, were declared by our “Western partners” “peaceful democratic will of the people”. The monsters who cut off the heads of children and women in the United States are called "democratic Syrian opposition." We see how our “Western partners” stubbornly fail to notice the burning of people in Odessa, the OSCE observers stubbornly “do not see”, and for two years the punishers of the Kiev junta methodically smash up the Donbas cities with heavy guns, killing hundreds of civilians - women, children, old men. Talking about "double standards" is already indecent - it is the same as reproaching Dr. Goebbels, because in his speeches on Berlin radio he deceived the population of the Third Reich. This is a real war being waged with our country. And the historical experience convinces that the cries of “Russian aggression” are heard especially fiercely at the time when “civilized Europe” is preparing another invasion of “barbarous Russia”.
About how the "Russian barbarians" attacked the peaceful "Georgia"
For the first time, many of our compatriots are confronted with the fact that it is possible to lie frankly and shamelessly, calling black white, in 2008 year. After the war 08. 08.08 The latest illusions that free and independent media exist in the West have been scattered like smoke. In August, 2008, we all could see what methods the information war is waged with Russia.
On the night of August 8 Georgia treacherously attacked South Ossetia. By order of Georgian President Saakashvili, the Georgian army used heavy artillery and multiple launch rocket systems “Grad” to demolish the sleeping Tskhinval, Georgian soldiers, along with foreign mercenaries, mercilessly and methodically killed civilians, old people, women and children. The Georgian army launched heavy fire on the Russian peacekeepers, who carried out their mission in South Ossetia under a UN mandate. Hundreds of civilians died, and Russian peacekeepers died in the line of duty. These days, all European TV companies continuously showed footage of burning Tskhinval. But viewers were told that the screen was not the dying capital of South Ossetia, but the Georgian city of Gori, which Russian troops barbarously destroy. Weeks in all Western media indignantly told how the Russian aggressors of August 8 insidiously attacked peaceful Georgia.
It took quite a bit of time and in Hollywood they quickly invented a feature film about how the armadas of Russian tanks and hordes of Russian soldiers in August 2008, invaded the Georgian land. On the screen, bloodthirsty Russians ruthlessly exterminate peaceful villagers, shoot happy newlyweds and guests at merry Georgian weddings. Brave American journalists, of course, risking their lives, remove the Russian atrocities. Scary thugs from a Russian Sonderkommando, led by a fierce Cossack mercenary, hunt for reporters, wanting to kill witnesses to the crime. But courageous American reporters save the film that captures Russian atrocities in order to tell the whole world the truth about Russian aggression. At the last minute, heroic Georgian special forces, with whom they once defended democracy in Iraq, rescue Americans from the terrible "Cossack". The film was shot by the author of the famous militants “Die Hard 2” and “Rock Climber”, while the noble President of Georgia Mikhail Saakashvili was portrayed by Hollywood star Andy Garcia.
The Russian army in 2008 for five days completely crushed and dispersed gangs of Georgians and foreign mercenaries dressed in NATO camouflage. A Russian soldier saved the people of South Ossetia from extermination. Recall that the operation of the Georgian army to “clean up” South Ossetia from the population was called “Clean Field”. After driving home the remnants of the 30-thousandth Georgian army, which the United States and the NATO countries diligently trained and armed for five years, the units of the Russian army left the territory of Georgia, which they entered in pursuit of a defeated aggressor. The Russian army, under a UN mandate, carried out a peacekeeping mission in South Ossetia. Russia fulfilled its obligations to the international community, forcing the aggressor to peace. Russia provided irrefutable evidence of the treacherous attack of Georgia on South Ossetia, a lot of documentary evidence about how the Georgian army calmly and methodically killed Russian peacekeepers and civilians. The international community was forced to officially recognize Georgia as the aggressor that unleashed the war. Today, no one is trying to dispute this fact.
But the majority of ordinary people in the US and Europe are still sure that not Georgians attacked South Ossetia, and the Russians in August 2008 attacked the little peaceful Georgia in treachery to seize and occupy a free and democratic Caucasian state. In Hollywood, several militants are likely to film on this topic, write adventure novels about how the brave Georgians, with the help of journalists from the USA who happened to be in the Caucasus, successfully repulsed the invasion from the North of the innumerable hordes of Russian barbarians. And after a while this artistic fiction of the “fighters of the information war” will be used as proof of the eternal aggression of Russia against its neighbors. In the West, a man in the street has long been convinced that the vast Russian Empire, and then the USSR, threatened peaceful European countries for centuries. At first Russian tsars with overwhelming hordes of wild Cossacks tried to conquer Europe, then the general secretaries tried to drive everyone into the socialist camp, threatening nuclear weaponsand now sinister Putin, with the help of former KGB agents, the “Russian mafia” and the gas pipe, is threatening European democracy. Therefore, Russia needs to be surrounded by NATO bases and have a missile defense system near the Russian borders. To save "civilized countries" from the eternal Russian aggression.
Recall the story. To save Europe from the “Russian aggressors” in the 1709 year, Karl XII marched on Moscow. The Swedish king proclaimed in his appeals that he was going to free the Russians from the "intolerable tyranny of Tsar Peter." To save Russia from "tyranny" Karl XII was going to divide the Russian lands into several small states with "democratic" boyar rule. In 1812, Napoleon, at the head of an army assembled from all over Europe, marched to Moscow also to save European civilization from the “Russian threat”. And at the same time free the Russian peasants from serfdom. In the 1854 year, in order to fight the “Russian threat,” Anglo-French troops, together with the Turks, landed in the Crimea and laid siege to Sevastopol. In order for Russia not to threaten “European civilization” they intended to separate Ukraine, the Baltic States, the Caucasus, Kamchatka and part of Siberia from the Russian Empire, and cut off the Russians from the Baltic and the Black Sea. In 1941, Hitler also went to Moscow to "save European civilization from the wild Bolshevik hordes."
Recall that the Swedish army of Charles XII was defeated not in the Scandinavian Peninsula, but near Poltava. The hordes of “two languages” gathered by Napoleon from all over Europe burned and plundered Moscow. And only after that, defeating and expelling the enemy from the Russian land, did the Russian Guard march through Paris. German troops stood near Moscow and on the Volga, devastated and gushing our land with blood, and only after that the Russian soldier, breaking the enemy, reached Berlin and hoisted the banner of Victory over the Reichstag. Every century, Russia is undergoing devastating invasions from the West. But despite this, the European man in the street continues to intimidate and frighten the “Russian threat”. The model of the Third Reich Propaganda Ministry, headed by Dr. Josef Goebbels, was a model of anti-Russian lies and slander. It seemed difficult to surpass Goebbels in cynicism and shameless lies. However, we see that in the twenty-first century, the information war against Russia is no less brazen and unscrupulous than during the Great Patriotic War.
But few people know that Goebbels, it turns out, had very skillful predecessors and the first information company against Russia was deployed in the distant XVI century in the reign of Emperor John Vasilyevich the Terrible.
Sovereign John Vasilyevich the Terrible and the "tyrant" John the Terrible
Ionn the Terrible .jpgIt is interesting that in Russia the first Russian Tsar John IV Vasilyevich is called the Terrible. And in the West - John the Terrible. Terrible and Terrible, it seems clear that these words have a different meaning. In Russian history, the princes Dmitry the Terrible Eyes are known. The Great Prince John III Vasilyevich, who finally overthrew the yoke of the Golden Horde, was also called Ivan the Terrible. In the Orthodox Church, the Terrible is called the Archangel Michael. Always the word Grozny in ancient Russian songs and epics means not terrible, but terrible for the enemies of the fatherland and the enemies of God. But, unfortunately, recently in Russia Tsar John IV has been persistently trying to present not the Terrible Sovereign, but the bloodthirsty tyrant John the Terrible. And the beginning of this attitude towards the first Russian Tsar was laid in the nineteenth century among the liberal intelligentsia. Among the Russian liberal intelligentsia, it was fashionable to get involved in the Western way of life, striving for democracy and “progress”, and despising “backward Russia” and “grim autocracy”. Tsar Ivan the Terrible and for them was the embodiment of "Asian despotism" and "royal chains". This view of the reign of the sovereign John IV through the efforts of the liberals became dominant in Russian society. And in the West, the legend of the bloodthirsty tyrant John the Awful became the basis for the myth of the eternal “Russian threat” hanging over peaceful Europe. And terrible tales about the innumerable hordes of "Russian barbarians" who are ready to invade European nations, destroying flowering cities and exterminating the civilian population spread in Europe from the sixteenth century, since the time when the Livonian war broke out in the Baltics.
Knights of the Temple of Solomon on the shores of the Baltic
To understand the causes of the Livonian war, we must turn to the beginning of the thirteenth century, when knights of the Teutonic Order and the Order of the Sword appeared on the lands of the Baltic States. By this time, the last cities of the Baltic Slavs had fallen under the blows of the Germans. The lands on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea from the Elbe to the Oder were occupied by tribes of obedrites, lyutichs, Pomoryan, vagres. Separate tribes of pagan Slavs did not withstand the methodical onslaught of the German Empire. To the aid of the Teutons flocked knights of knights from all over Europe. Following the Catholic missionary monks and knights, merchants and German colonists moved to the Slavic lands. Soon the remnants of the Pomeranian Slavs were completely Germanized. Having conquered the Slavic Pomorie, the German knights with fire and sword moved to conquer the lands of the Prussians lying to the east. At the same time, having landed and entrenched on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, the Germans forcibly baptized the ancestors of the Estonians and Latvians. In this case, to know all the subjugated tribes exterminated, the rest turned into slaves. Russians with the Baltic tribes have long traded, with some they took tribute, and lived quite peacefully. But no one was baptized by force. In Estonia, Prince Yaroslav the Wise was founded by the Russian city of Yuriev. Most likely, relations with the Baltic tribes would develop as calmly as with those Finnish and Baltic tribes that gradually became part of Russia - the Korela and Belayozersk Chud, the swaddle and the Meshchery. But that all changed with the appearance of German knights in the Baltics. At the same time, the Russian land was subjected to a terrible Mongol-Tatar invasion. Taking advantage of the weakness of the devastated, defeated and devastated by the Mongol-Tatar hordes of Russian principalities, the western neighbors - Poland, Lithuania, Hungary captured part of the Russian lands. With the blessing of the Pope, the German knights, entrenched during this time in the Baltic States and subdued the tribes of the Estonians, Livs and Latvians, continued their famous “Drang nah Osten” - an attack on the East. With the blessing of the Pope, the Teutons and the Swordsmen united in the Livonian Order. Rome declared a crusade against the “Russian heretics”, raising the Swedes, the Danes and the Germans to the war with Russia. The holy blessed Prince Alexander Nevsky defeated the Swedes on the Neva, the German knights on Lake Peipsi, and for a long time stopped the German "onslaught to the East." But the Livonian Order, firmly entrenched in the Baltic States, has since remained a sworn enemy of Russia.
Moscow princes, collecting Russian lands in a single state, invited European scientists and craftsmen to serve; Russia for two centuries of the Horde yoke in some areas of knowledge seriously lagged behind Western Europe. But not everyone liked the strengthening of Muscovy. The Livonian Order at that time actively participated in what today would have been called an “economic blockade” and an “embargo on the supply of high technologies” to Russia. European scientists and craftsmen who were invited to serve in Moscow, the Livonians detained and imprisoned, did not allow important materials and goods to enter Russia. In addition, Orthodox were cruelly persecuted in the lands of the Order. In 1472, the 6 year of January, when the Orthodox celebrate the Epiphany of the Lord, in the city of Yuryev, which was turned into German Dorpat, during the festive procession, the city authorities seized and imprisoned the priest Isidore and all the parishioners of his church. The community of Orthodox Christians of the city of Yuriev, on pain of death, was ordered to adopt the Latin faith. The Russian people remained loyal to Orthodoxy and on January 8, the priest Isidore and all the 72 people among whom were old men and women, young men, young ladies and babies were drowned in ice holes on the river Omovzhe. The Orthodox Church 8 of January honors the memory of priest Isidore and 72 of the martyrs of Yuryevsk.
In Livonia, Orthodox were treated with particular hatred. Latin Catholics have long feuded with Orthodox Christians. But in Livonia, the Orthodox Russian people were persecuted with special malice and cruelty. Some foreign authors even reported that in the possession of the Order for the murder of the Orthodox pay a reward. This hatred can be explained by linking the Livonian Order with the Order of the Templars. Probably many people remember the ominous image of the templar Briand Boisguillebert from the novel by Walter Scott "Ivanhoe". The Knights of the Temple of Solomon, the Templars (“tampl” - the temple), were known throughout Europe for their usury and banking operations, as well as their predilection for the occult, i.e. magic, magic and sorcery. This is no accident, usually a passion for profit, avarice, and pushes people to such activities. The Knights of the Temple concentrated enormous riches in their hands, even began to mint their own gold coins. In Europe, the templar enjoyed notoriety, believed that the knights of the Temple of Solomon engaged in magic and black magic, and are associated with dark power. And for such allegations there were grounds. Many European sovereigns seriously feared the Templars and the templar knights gradually began to possess enormous power and influence.
It ended with the fact that in France, King Philippe the Beautiful defeated the castles of the French Templars. While the French king ravaged the nests of the templars in France, she left Le Havre in an unknown direction flotilla, which is believed to have taken the Templars' gold. It was in 1334. At that time, in Livonia, the knights of the Orders of the Sword-Bearers and Teutons lived far from luxuriously - it was not possible to take from the poor tribes of Livs, Lats, and Ests, although the knights turned them into slaves (after baptizing them). And, suddenly, in poor Livonia, the construction boom begins that same year - at the same time 34 large stone castles are laid, huge stone cathedrals are built, architects and craftsmen from Europe are invited. And in the land of Livonia, in the treasures of that time, golden ecu, which the Templars minted, appear, as archaeologists have noticed. By the way, the charter of the Order of the Swordsmen was, with the blessing of the pope, completely written off from the charter of the Order of the Templars. It should be noted that creating the image of the gloomy “templar” Brian Boisguillebert in “Aivengo”, the Christian writer Walter Scott did not accidentally describe the knights of the Temple of Solomon as Satanists. In Russia they were called "Solomon". This fascination with the Black Book and sorcery explains the fierce hatred in the lands of Livonia for the Orthodox. Defending Orthodox churches devastated and desecrated by Livonians, Moscow sovereigns John III and Vasily III fought with the Livonian Order. The Livonians were defeated, quieted down, and promised not to persecute the Orthodox and pay tribute to Moscow for owning the captured Russian city of Yuryev. But they continued, as they could, to mislead the Russians. And Tsar John IV Vasilievich also had to fight with Livonia. In 1548, about 100 European specialists were invited to serve in Russia: doctors, masters, architects, scientists. But they could not get to Russia - the Livonians did not allow it. The St. George's tribute, which Derpt was obliged to pay to the Moscow sovereigns, the Livonians did not even think of paying. And by any means they tried to interrupt Russian trade in the Baltic. To tolerate more openly hostile actions of the Livonian Order was impossible. The Russian state needed to ensure free access to the Baltic Sea. It should be noted that Sovereign John Vasilievich tried to solve the matter peacefully and negotiated with the Order. And only after it was not possible to agree, did the Livonian war begin.
“Wild hordes of Muscovites” in Livonia
Russian warriors in the Livonian War .jpg The Livonian Order military forces and the militia of German cities were soon completely defeated. Sworn enemy, treachery and power established in the ancient possessions of the Russian princes in the Baltic States (as remembered by Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich and resembled the Livonians during negotiations, trying to solve the matter peacefully), was defeated and crushed. How did the “Russian barbarians” manage with the defeated enemy? In Europe, works were distributed in which the atrocities of “ferocious Muscovites” were colorfully described. The writers seemed to be competing for who would invent more horrible tortures and executions with which the “Russian barbarians” exterminated the civilians of the Livonian cities. But it is interesting how the matter really was. Here is what the Livonian Chronicle reports about the capture of Dorpat by the Russians - the ancient Russian Yuriev.
Voevoda Petr Ivanovich Shuisky, after signing a short siege and bombing the city after the conditions for the surrender of Dorpat, allowed those who did not want to remain under the authority of the Russian tsar to leave the city along with all the property. “After that, all the burghers and military people, with everything that they could take with them, set off on a journey unwilling to remain in the city. They were accompanied by many boyars and horsemen, and they were not caused the slightest resentment. When they left the city, military leader Prince Peter Shuisky demanded that the magistrate send several burgomasters, ratsgers and elected members of the community to accompany him, the prince, to the city. He, the prince, will first of all send to the city a governor with a few people who will bring the banners of the world, arrange a proper order in everything; burghers, on the other hand, must remain in their homes until a good order is established, and may they not in the least care for themselves.
After that, several persons appointed by the magistrate and the community, as well as several members of the chapter and two persons by the bishop, went to the military head (as deputies) in the camp. The prince graciously received them, gave them his hand, promising the grace of the Grand Duke and his petition for them. "
After the “life-archers” of the tsarist voivode entered the city, Peter Ivanovich Shuisky was a “noble and pious man,” as the chronicle says addressed to the inhabitants and the Russian troops.
“Then the prince ordered to declare that on pain of death no one dares to offend the inhabitants of the city. He also ordered to declare that the burgher people would not sell in their houses any drinks for military men, in the prevention of misfortune. All the Russian warriors were placed in the castle, in the cathedral rooms and in the houses left by the residents, and they were strictly watched so that they would not offend anyone, and who was guilty of this, the prince ordered shamefully beating and punishing him; the prince also appointed several boyars with archers for detours in the city, who drove around every day and took away all the intoxicated people and all those who had only behaved inappropriately, and were immediately imprisoned. Seeing this, the burghers somewhat calmed down in their misfortune, and were not afraid of the already open attack and violence.
After that, the magistrate and the community sent the prince a gift basket with wine, beer and various other supplies, and fresh fish and greens, which was accepted favorably, and he once again announced that if there was any complaint about his military people, then let him speak directly to him: he will be able to punish the guilty and protect any innocent. A few days later, he invited me to visit the magistrate’s castle, the community, the Eltermans and the foremen and well treated them. ” So tells about the behavior of the royal governor and the Russian troops "Livonian Chronicle". And in Europe at this time they distribute leaflets in which they describe the atrocities of the Muscovites with unrestrained imagination, spreading rumors about the wild violence, robberies and murders that Russians are doing in the Baltic States.
But the war, unfortunately, flared up. Poland and Sweden joined the fight for Livonia. The Livonian knights defeated by the tsarist troops decided to continue the struggle against the Russians. And in the 1558 year, when enemy troops approached Dorpat, the chronicle reports the expulsion from the city of Livonians of those capable of raising the uprising:
“Dorpat burghers, and those who were only capable of carrying weapons were sent from the city to Pskov. There they were placed with the Pskov burghers and were not released until the magister departed from Ringen to the Riga diocese; then they were again returned to Derpt to their wives and children, to whom, by the way, in their absence, no offense was caused. ”
“In the 1559 year, when the master camped at Nyggenn again, the Dorpat burghers were not sent anywhere; but they were placed in the town hall, they were sent food from their houses and did not cause any harm. ”
During the hostilities, Livonian leaders, who opposed the Russians, were captured. Those of them who managed to take the oath to the Russian Tsar, and then treacherously attacked the small Russian garrisons, killing the archers, were executed. Executed, we emphasize, as traitors. But the captive master and others were treated graciously. Here is what the chronicle tells. Again, we recall - Livonian Chronicle:
“In this way, the Muscovites, in August 1560 of the year, took Fellin’s strongest castle, the country's best fortress, and took the head of the whole country, the pious old master Wilhelm Fürstenberg to Moscow, and gave him and his servants a castle called Lublin (he loved ) where he subsequently died. ”
It should be noted that the Sovereign summoned Master Fürstenberg after many years, who, as written in Europe together with the rest of the captive Livonians, "was cruelly beaten with iron sticks" and offered to become the head of Livonia, which was conquered by the Russians. But the old master refused. Even the Polish writer Waliszewski reports that while Fürstenberg quietly lived for 20 for years on his estate in Russia, various stories about the death of the master went around Europe. In these fables, there were 15 versions of terrible executions that tortured the Muscovites of the master. Violent fantasy "workers of the information war of the sixteenth century" did not allow them to agree among themselves, how did John the Terrible executed Furstenberg.
The rest of the Livonians, evicted together with their wives and children at the height of the war in Vladimir, Kostroma, Nizhny Novgorod, also, apparently, did not feel any particular oppression. The chronicle reports that: “the pastor, named Master John Vetterman, a man of good and honest nature, a true apostle of the Lord, who also went into exile with them, herded his flock as a righteous shepherd”
A Lutheran priest quietly nourished his flock living in Russia. The pastor traveled to Russian cities in which the Livonians were stationed:
“And every hour he admonished fear of the Lord, and even appointed school teachers for their children, which could then be obtained, which in every town on Sundays they read to children from the Holy Scriptures. As a learned man, he was greatly respected by the Grand Duke, who even ordered in Moscow to show him his Liberty (library), which consisted of books in Hebrew, Greek and Latin, and which the Grand Duke received in ancient times from the Patriarch of Constantinople when Muscovite adopted the Christian faith according to the Greek confession. "
“These books were handed over to Master John Vetterman for inspection. He found many good writings there that are cited by our writers, but which we don’t have, since they were burned and scattered during the wars, as was the case with the Ptolomeic and other Liberians. Vetterman said that, although he was poor, he would give all his property, even all his children, so that only these books were in Protestant universities, since, in his opinion, these books would bring much benefit to Christianity. ”
As we can see, the German Lutheran pastor does not experience any persecutions from “cruel and savage Muscovites”. But he was even honored for his righteousness and the scholarship of the attention and trust of Tsar John Vasilyevich. Well, the messages of the Livonian Chronicle do not converge with the stories spread throughout Europe about the atrocities of the "wild Moscow hordes led by the bloodthirsty tsar." Note that the chronicle was compiled by the Livonians, who were defeated by the Russians. That is why they had no reason to embellish the Russians.
But not only the Livonians were magnanimous to Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible, whom in Europe at that time was described as a fierce tyrant, and his troops represented hordes of wild barbarians.
"Bring to Christ with affection and love"
When taking Polotsk in 1563, the sovereign released the entire capitulation of the Polish garrison, generously awarding the soldiers, and granted nobles to the nobles. After the capture of Wolmer in 1578, when the heavy war seemed to end, most of the Livonian cities were taken or surrendered, Tsar Ivan Vasilievich convenes all the noble Polish and Lithuanian prisoners for a victorious feast with the Russian boyars and governors. According to the testimony of the chronicles, the king generously gave them "coats and cups, and he gave others buckets, after which everyone was sent home." The generous and chivalrous act of the Russian Sovereign, which for some reason is not customary to recall.
The capture of Kazan and the conquest of the Kazan Khanate also provide more than one example of the generosity of John Vasilyevich to the defeated enemies. The stubborn and brave enemy of Prince Jadiger, subdued by the magnanimity of the Sovereign, decided to be baptized. Although Tsar John Vasilyevich forbade the giving of privileges to those Tatars who were baptized, the Sovereign wanted the new believers to come to Christ not because of greed, so that there was no reason to be baptized for the sake of earthly gain. But despite this, many Tatars were baptized in the Kazan land under the holy saints Guria and Varsonofy. It is significant that the Sovereign not only did not persecute Muslims, but demanded that they be brought to Christ only by “affection and love”. On the conquered Tatars no one imposed additional burden, compared with the Russian population. And although there were uprisings in the Volga region among the Tatars and Cheremis, these uprisings were severely suppressed, but the wise policy of Tsar Ivan the Terrible led to the fact that in the Time of Troubles, the Kazan Tatars did not want to secede from Russia, but together with the Minin and Pozharsky militia went to liberate Moscow from the Poles. It is interesting to compare the behavior of the Russians in the Kazan Khanate with the attitude of the Turks in the Ottoman Empire to the conquered Christian peoples. Or how the conquerors from Western Europe treated the conquered peoples. And not only the natives in the overseas colonies had to face the cruelty of the European conquerors. Recall how the British ruthlessly and methodically exterminated the Irish.
Old songs in the new version
Despite this, terrible tales about the wild and ferocious Muscovites and the cruel and bloodthirsty tyrant of the Russian Tsar John the Terrible are still spreading in the West. The information war with Russia continues. Nowadays, all the power of anti-Russian propaganda is aimed at creating another myth. In the West, they carefully rewrite the history of the Second World War. The European citizen is convinced that the "wild hordes of Muscovites", in caps with red stars, invaded Germany, forcibly raping and exterminating the civilian population. But the "civilized world" and European culture were saved by the valiant American soldiers who defeated Hitler, heroically crushed the Third Reich, and then managed to stop the invasion of "Russian barbarians" in Europe. How aviation Leipzig completely wiped off the allies with carpet bombings, having destroyed 250 thousand civilians, they prefer not to remember. Although Leipzig was deep in the rear, there were no important strategic sites, military enterprises, or a concentration of German troops in the city. But on the other hand, the US embassy supported Estonia’s reproaches against Russia for the “excessive bombardment” of Tallinn by Soviet aircraft during the war years. It turns out that liberating the Baltic states, Soviet troops, storming the well-fortified Tallinn, in which the German troops stubbornly defended, launched air strikes around the city. Tallinn, we note, at that time was the naval base of the German fleet. The crime of Soviet troops, according to Estonians and the US Embassy, is that some city blocks were damaged by Soviet air strikes and 400 city residents were killed. The US reproaches for the bombing of Tallinn during the Second World War, after the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the carpet bombing of North Vietnam, and also against the background of the recent bombing of Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, look especially original. By the way, the occupied Belgrade, in which there were almost no German troops, an armada of 600 Anglo-American aircraft subjected the seemingly completely senseless and brutal bombardment for the first time on Orthodox Easter on April 17, 1944. The second time, Belgrade NATO aircraft brutally bombed on Easter in 1999. But no one recalls this - strikes were made by the valiant troops of the democratic states, solely for the protection of European civilization. And, as you know, the European citizen for centuries, since the time of Tsar John the Terrible, has been constantly threatened by the invasion of "wild Muscovites." At first, Russia was threatened by Russian tsar tyrants, then bloodthirsty Stalin, then gloomy and gloomy general secretaries, but in 2008, the insidious Putin brought down armored armada on a peaceful, prosperous Georgia. And today, the dictator Putin is going to send his divisions to crush the “freedom and democracy” caterpillars of Russian tanks in Ukraine, in the Baltic countries, then fall on Poland, Sweden, Finland. The "high ideals" of the Charlie civilization are in danger. Old songs about the “Russian threat” sound in a new version.
It will probably soon become clear that the “Russian barbarians” storming Berlin in the 1945 year, without any need, but in their innate “wildness and Asian bloodthirstiness” destroyed the peaceful European city. Unfortunately, not only western so-called ones are working on the creation of such a myth. "Bona fide researchers" and filmmakers. And in Russia there are a sufficient number of “grantoedov” historians who, led by Gavriil Popov, spread tales about how the “hordes of Russian barbarians” outraged in Germany. In the US, they make films about how brave Americans "rescued Private Raina", dashing "Rangers" smashed selected parts of the Wehrmacht. And in the United States and Europe, the population was able to convince that it was the Americans who crushed the Third Reich and saved the world from fascism. Obama even managed to say that his grandfather, it turns out, liberated Auschwitz. And some Russian directors at this time make films “Bastards” and “A few days in May,” claiming that the film scripts are “based on documentary facts.” And when it turns out that all that is described in the films is just the fruit of a sick fantasy of scriptwriters, then these people justify their slander and lies of the artist’s right to “creative fiction”. None of these "artists" think to ask for forgiveness for trying to pass off lies and slander as "documentary evidence" of the Great Patriotic War. The contempt and hatred of their homeland "smerdyakov" in the twenty-first century remain the same as in the nineteenth century. But the “masterpieces” of the Great Patriotic War, diligently created according to the prescriptions of Dr. Goebbels, still remain in the Russian film distribution as well as filled with hatred for Russia and the Russian history of “Tzar” Lungin.
The state does not have the right to allow from the cinema screens the poison of Russophobic lies and slander to pour out into the souls of the audience. After all, over time, these false films will be referred to in the same way as Kurbsky’s letters and “impartial testimonies” of foreigners about the sovereign Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible epoch are cited today.
Today there is no task more important than to preserve and convey to our children and grandchildren the truth about the magnificent, heroic and beautiful history of our Fatherland. It is necessary to resist the anti-Russian slander, telling the truth about the great Russian Sovereigns, about the holy ascetics of the Russian Orthodox Church, about the brave and courageous Russian heroes who for centuries reflected the invasions of enemies from the West, now from the East. The truth about the great nation, which by unceasing prayer, military feat and hard work, for centuries has created the Holy Russian State - the House of the Most Holy Theotokos.
May Holy Rus rise with the prayers of the Most Holy Theotokos and all the saints who shone forth in the Russian land, and squander it in opposition!
Holy Mother of God save us!
Today, the level of confrontation between Russia and our so-called. "Western partners" in the opinion of many experts recalls the times of the fiercest confrontation between the USSR and the West during the years of the "cold war".
In the West, the image of a huge aggressive Russia is re-forming, which looms over small and defenseless European countries, intending to invade the Russians tank armada, trample the centers of civilization and democracy on the European continent. And at the head of this dark and totalitarian country is Putin, a ruthless and cruel dictator. Coming from the ominous KGB, Putin in his medieval Kremlin is hatching plans to restore either the USSR or the Russian Empire, i.e. a terrible "prison of peoples" in which freedom-loving Latvians and Georgians, Ukrainians and residents of some "Idel-Ural" and "Cossacks" suffered under the yoke of "Russian barbarians". Information warfare is the most important part of the so-called. "Hybrid war", which our "sworn friends" are waging against Russia. And one of the most important areas of information confrontation is the battle for history. It is well known that those who teach history to the younger generation shape the future of the country. In total, over the 23 of the year in Ukraine, with the help of the textbooks of the “benefactor and philanthropist” Soros, they artificially created a generation of people firmly convinced that a certain “Moskovia” populated by a mixture of Finno-Ugric and Mongols oppressed the unfortunate Ukraine-Russia for centuries by forcibly otgorit ancient Ukrainian people ”from the fraternal family of“ civilized European nations ”. Unfortunately, the work on the distortion of Russian history did not begin with the textbooks of Soros. Karamzin in the ninth volume of his “History” consciously relied only on the testimony of “General Vlasov of the sixteenth century” traitor Kurbsky, on the testimony of the Jesuit Pope's envoy Antonio Possevino, on the testimony of the German adventurer Heinrich Stadena and others “friends” of Russia. In Russian society, liberal historians diligently tried to consolidate the image of Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible as a “bloody tyrant” and “monster on the throne”. Nowadays, Radzinsky, Lungin and other “media people” from the liberal camp work tirelessly to reinforce the lies and slander of foreigners about the first Russian Tsar.
27 August in Orel, a monument to Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible. 450 years ago, the Terrible King founded the glorious city of Eagle. In total, 155 cities were built, 60 monasteries were founded, the Kazan and Astrakhan khanates were built, Siberia was annexed, the territory of the Russian state doubled, military and judicial reforms were carried out, the first regular army was established, Zemsky Sobor was established and Zemsky Sobor was established . But despite this, the decision of the inhabitants of the Eagle to erect a monument to Sovereign John the Terrible caused a hysterical reaction of the liberal public throughout the country.
It would seem that, against the background of the most powerful anti-Russian information campaigns launched in the media controlled by the “world international usurers”, one can ignore the protests of Russian liberals against the monument to Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible. But, curiously, it was during the reign of the Terrible Tsar in the West that the first information war against Russia was launched. And then in all information campaigns against the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union throughout the centuries Russophobic myths invented during this first information war of the 16th century methodically repeated. During the years of the Livonian War, Europeans first began to be intimidated by the invasion of the wild hordes of “Russian barbarians”, economic sanctions against Muscovite Russia were introduced, in modern terms, an “embargo on access to high technologies” was announced. Times change, instead of Gutenberg's printing press, digital technologies and the World Wide Web are used, and myths and legends about the “hordes of Russian barbarians” threatening a peaceful Europe, about the grim “evil empire” led by the “cruel tyrant” remain the same.
The cynicism of Western politicians and fighters of the "information front" knows no limit. “Maidan” in Kiev, where the soldiers of the “Golden Eagle” were burned with “Molotov cocktails” and shot by snipers, were declared by our “Western partners” “peaceful democratic will of the people”. The monsters who cut off the heads of children and women in the United States are called "democratic Syrian opposition." We see how our “Western partners” stubbornly fail to notice the burning of people in Odessa, the OSCE observers stubbornly “do not see”, and for two years the punishers of the Kiev junta methodically smash up the Donbas cities with heavy guns, killing hundreds of civilians - women, children, old men. Talking about "double standards" is already indecent - it is the same as reproaching Dr. Goebbels, because in his speeches on Berlin radio he deceived the population of the Third Reich. This is a real war being waged with our country. And the historical experience convinces that the cries of “Russian aggression” are heard especially fiercely at the time when “civilized Europe” is preparing another invasion of “barbarous Russia”.
About how the "Russian barbarians" attacked the peaceful "Georgia"
For the first time, many of our compatriots are confronted with the fact that it is possible to lie frankly and shamelessly, calling black white, in 2008 year. After the war 08. 08.08 The latest illusions that free and independent media exist in the West have been scattered like smoke. In August, 2008, we all could see what methods the information war is waged with Russia.
On the night of August 8 Georgia treacherously attacked South Ossetia. By order of Georgian President Saakashvili, the Georgian army used heavy artillery and multiple launch rocket systems “Grad” to demolish the sleeping Tskhinval, Georgian soldiers, along with foreign mercenaries, mercilessly and methodically killed civilians, old people, women and children. The Georgian army launched heavy fire on the Russian peacekeepers, who carried out their mission in South Ossetia under a UN mandate. Hundreds of civilians died, and Russian peacekeepers died in the line of duty. These days, all European TV companies continuously showed footage of burning Tskhinval. But viewers were told that the screen was not the dying capital of South Ossetia, but the Georgian city of Gori, which Russian troops barbarously destroy. Weeks in all Western media indignantly told how the Russian aggressors of August 8 insidiously attacked peaceful Georgia.
It took quite a bit of time and in Hollywood they quickly invented a feature film about how the armadas of Russian tanks and hordes of Russian soldiers in August 2008, invaded the Georgian land. On the screen, bloodthirsty Russians ruthlessly exterminate peaceful villagers, shoot happy newlyweds and guests at merry Georgian weddings. Brave American journalists, of course, risking their lives, remove the Russian atrocities. Scary thugs from a Russian Sonderkommando, led by a fierce Cossack mercenary, hunt for reporters, wanting to kill witnesses to the crime. But courageous American reporters save the film that captures Russian atrocities in order to tell the whole world the truth about Russian aggression. At the last minute, heroic Georgian special forces, with whom they once defended democracy in Iraq, rescue Americans from the terrible "Cossack". The film was shot by the author of the famous militants “Die Hard 2” and “Rock Climber”, while the noble President of Georgia Mikhail Saakashvili was portrayed by Hollywood star Andy Garcia.
The Russian army in 2008 for five days completely crushed and dispersed gangs of Georgians and foreign mercenaries dressed in NATO camouflage. A Russian soldier saved the people of South Ossetia from extermination. Recall that the operation of the Georgian army to “clean up” South Ossetia from the population was called “Clean Field”. After driving home the remnants of the 30-thousandth Georgian army, which the United States and the NATO countries diligently trained and armed for five years, the units of the Russian army left the territory of Georgia, which they entered in pursuit of a defeated aggressor. The Russian army, under a UN mandate, carried out a peacekeeping mission in South Ossetia. Russia fulfilled its obligations to the international community, forcing the aggressor to peace. Russia provided irrefutable evidence of the treacherous attack of Georgia on South Ossetia, a lot of documentary evidence about how the Georgian army calmly and methodically killed Russian peacekeepers and civilians. The international community was forced to officially recognize Georgia as the aggressor that unleashed the war. Today, no one is trying to dispute this fact.
But the majority of ordinary people in the US and Europe are still sure that not Georgians attacked South Ossetia, and the Russians in August 2008 attacked the little peaceful Georgia in treachery to seize and occupy a free and democratic Caucasian state. In Hollywood, several militants are likely to film on this topic, write adventure novels about how the brave Georgians, with the help of journalists from the USA who happened to be in the Caucasus, successfully repulsed the invasion from the North of the innumerable hordes of Russian barbarians. And after a while this artistic fiction of the “fighters of the information war” will be used as proof of the eternal aggression of Russia against its neighbors. In the West, a man in the street has long been convinced that the vast Russian Empire, and then the USSR, threatened peaceful European countries for centuries. At first Russian tsars with overwhelming hordes of wild Cossacks tried to conquer Europe, then the general secretaries tried to drive everyone into the socialist camp, threatening nuclear weaponsand now sinister Putin, with the help of former KGB agents, the “Russian mafia” and the gas pipe, is threatening European democracy. Therefore, Russia needs to be surrounded by NATO bases and have a missile defense system near the Russian borders. To save "civilized countries" from the eternal Russian aggression.
Recall the story. To save Europe from the “Russian aggressors” in the 1709 year, Karl XII marched on Moscow. The Swedish king proclaimed in his appeals that he was going to free the Russians from the "intolerable tyranny of Tsar Peter." To save Russia from "tyranny" Karl XII was going to divide the Russian lands into several small states with "democratic" boyar rule. In 1812, Napoleon, at the head of an army assembled from all over Europe, marched to Moscow also to save European civilization from the “Russian threat”. And at the same time free the Russian peasants from serfdom. In the 1854 year, in order to fight the “Russian threat,” Anglo-French troops, together with the Turks, landed in the Crimea and laid siege to Sevastopol. In order for Russia not to threaten “European civilization” they intended to separate Ukraine, the Baltic States, the Caucasus, Kamchatka and part of Siberia from the Russian Empire, and cut off the Russians from the Baltic and the Black Sea. In 1941, Hitler also went to Moscow to "save European civilization from the wild Bolshevik hordes."
Recall that the Swedish army of Charles XII was defeated not in the Scandinavian Peninsula, but near Poltava. The hordes of “two languages” gathered by Napoleon from all over Europe burned and plundered Moscow. And only after that, defeating and expelling the enemy from the Russian land, did the Russian Guard march through Paris. German troops stood near Moscow and on the Volga, devastated and gushing our land with blood, and only after that the Russian soldier, breaking the enemy, reached Berlin and hoisted the banner of Victory over the Reichstag. Every century, Russia is undergoing devastating invasions from the West. But despite this, the European man in the street continues to intimidate and frighten the “Russian threat”. The model of the Third Reich Propaganda Ministry, headed by Dr. Josef Goebbels, was a model of anti-Russian lies and slander. It seemed difficult to surpass Goebbels in cynicism and shameless lies. However, we see that in the twenty-first century, the information war against Russia is no less brazen and unscrupulous than during the Great Patriotic War.
But few people know that Goebbels, it turns out, had very skillful predecessors and the first information company against Russia was deployed in the distant XVI century in the reign of Emperor John Vasilyevich the Terrible.
Sovereign John Vasilyevich the Terrible and the "tyrant" John the Terrible
Ionn the Terrible .jpgIt is interesting that in Russia the first Russian Tsar John IV Vasilyevich is called the Terrible. And in the West - John the Terrible. Terrible and Terrible, it seems clear that these words have a different meaning. In Russian history, the princes Dmitry the Terrible Eyes are known. The Great Prince John III Vasilyevich, who finally overthrew the yoke of the Golden Horde, was also called Ivan the Terrible. In the Orthodox Church, the Terrible is called the Archangel Michael. Always the word Grozny in ancient Russian songs and epics means not terrible, but terrible for the enemies of the fatherland and the enemies of God. But, unfortunately, recently in Russia Tsar John IV has been persistently trying to present not the Terrible Sovereign, but the bloodthirsty tyrant John the Terrible. And the beginning of this attitude towards the first Russian Tsar was laid in the nineteenth century among the liberal intelligentsia. Among the Russian liberal intelligentsia, it was fashionable to get involved in the Western way of life, striving for democracy and “progress”, and despising “backward Russia” and “grim autocracy”. Tsar Ivan the Terrible and for them was the embodiment of "Asian despotism" and "royal chains". This view of the reign of the sovereign John IV through the efforts of the liberals became dominant in Russian society. And in the West, the legend of the bloodthirsty tyrant John the Awful became the basis for the myth of the eternal “Russian threat” hanging over peaceful Europe. And terrible tales about the innumerable hordes of "Russian barbarians" who are ready to invade European nations, destroying flowering cities and exterminating the civilian population spread in Europe from the sixteenth century, since the time when the Livonian war broke out in the Baltics.
Knights of the Temple of Solomon on the shores of the Baltic
To understand the causes of the Livonian war, we must turn to the beginning of the thirteenth century, when knights of the Teutonic Order and the Order of the Sword appeared on the lands of the Baltic States. By this time, the last cities of the Baltic Slavs had fallen under the blows of the Germans. The lands on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea from the Elbe to the Oder were occupied by tribes of obedrites, lyutichs, Pomoryan, vagres. Separate tribes of pagan Slavs did not withstand the methodical onslaught of the German Empire. To the aid of the Teutons flocked knights of knights from all over Europe. Following the Catholic missionary monks and knights, merchants and German colonists moved to the Slavic lands. Soon the remnants of the Pomeranian Slavs were completely Germanized. Having conquered the Slavic Pomorie, the German knights with fire and sword moved to conquer the lands of the Prussians lying to the east. At the same time, having landed and entrenched on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, the Germans forcibly baptized the ancestors of the Estonians and Latvians. In this case, to know all the subjugated tribes exterminated, the rest turned into slaves. Russians with the Baltic tribes have long traded, with some they took tribute, and lived quite peacefully. But no one was baptized by force. In Estonia, Prince Yaroslav the Wise was founded by the Russian city of Yuriev. Most likely, relations with the Baltic tribes would develop as calmly as with those Finnish and Baltic tribes that gradually became part of Russia - the Korela and Belayozersk Chud, the swaddle and the Meshchery. But that all changed with the appearance of German knights in the Baltics. At the same time, the Russian land was subjected to a terrible Mongol-Tatar invasion. Taking advantage of the weakness of the devastated, defeated and devastated by the Mongol-Tatar hordes of Russian principalities, the western neighbors - Poland, Lithuania, Hungary captured part of the Russian lands. With the blessing of the Pope, the German knights, entrenched during this time in the Baltic States and subdued the tribes of the Estonians, Livs and Latvians, continued their famous “Drang nah Osten” - an attack on the East. With the blessing of the Pope, the Teutons and the Swordsmen united in the Livonian Order. Rome declared a crusade against the “Russian heretics”, raising the Swedes, the Danes and the Germans to the war with Russia. The holy blessed Prince Alexander Nevsky defeated the Swedes on the Neva, the German knights on Lake Peipsi, and for a long time stopped the German "onslaught to the East." But the Livonian Order, firmly entrenched in the Baltic States, has since remained a sworn enemy of Russia.
Moscow princes, collecting Russian lands in a single state, invited European scientists and craftsmen to serve; Russia for two centuries of the Horde yoke in some areas of knowledge seriously lagged behind Western Europe. But not everyone liked the strengthening of Muscovy. The Livonian Order at that time actively participated in what today would have been called an “economic blockade” and an “embargo on the supply of high technologies” to Russia. European scientists and craftsmen who were invited to serve in Moscow, the Livonians detained and imprisoned, did not allow important materials and goods to enter Russia. In addition, Orthodox were cruelly persecuted in the lands of the Order. In 1472, the 6 year of January, when the Orthodox celebrate the Epiphany of the Lord, in the city of Yuryev, which was turned into German Dorpat, during the festive procession, the city authorities seized and imprisoned the priest Isidore and all the parishioners of his church. The community of Orthodox Christians of the city of Yuriev, on pain of death, was ordered to adopt the Latin faith. The Russian people remained loyal to Orthodoxy and on January 8, the priest Isidore and all the 72 people among whom were old men and women, young men, young ladies and babies were drowned in ice holes on the river Omovzhe. The Orthodox Church 8 of January honors the memory of priest Isidore and 72 of the martyrs of Yuryevsk.
In Livonia, Orthodox were treated with particular hatred. Latin Catholics have long feuded with Orthodox Christians. But in Livonia, the Orthodox Russian people were persecuted with special malice and cruelty. Some foreign authors even reported that in the possession of the Order for the murder of the Orthodox pay a reward. This hatred can be explained by linking the Livonian Order with the Order of the Templars. Probably many people remember the ominous image of the templar Briand Boisguillebert from the novel by Walter Scott "Ivanhoe". The Knights of the Temple of Solomon, the Templars (“tampl” - the temple), were known throughout Europe for their usury and banking operations, as well as their predilection for the occult, i.e. magic, magic and sorcery. This is no accident, usually a passion for profit, avarice, and pushes people to such activities. The Knights of the Temple concentrated enormous riches in their hands, even began to mint their own gold coins. In Europe, the templar enjoyed notoriety, believed that the knights of the Temple of Solomon engaged in magic and black magic, and are associated with dark power. And for such allegations there were grounds. Many European sovereigns seriously feared the Templars and the templar knights gradually began to possess enormous power and influence.
It ended with the fact that in France, King Philippe the Beautiful defeated the castles of the French Templars. While the French king ravaged the nests of the templars in France, she left Le Havre in an unknown direction flotilla, which is believed to have taken the Templars' gold. It was in 1334. At that time, in Livonia, the knights of the Orders of the Sword-Bearers and Teutons lived far from luxuriously - it was not possible to take from the poor tribes of Livs, Lats, and Ests, although the knights turned them into slaves (after baptizing them). And, suddenly, in poor Livonia, the construction boom begins that same year - at the same time 34 large stone castles are laid, huge stone cathedrals are built, architects and craftsmen from Europe are invited. And in the land of Livonia, in the treasures of that time, golden ecu, which the Templars minted, appear, as archaeologists have noticed. By the way, the charter of the Order of the Swordsmen was, with the blessing of the pope, completely written off from the charter of the Order of the Templars. It should be noted that creating the image of the gloomy “templar” Brian Boisguillebert in “Aivengo”, the Christian writer Walter Scott did not accidentally describe the knights of the Temple of Solomon as Satanists. In Russia they were called "Solomon". This fascination with the Black Book and sorcery explains the fierce hatred in the lands of Livonia for the Orthodox. Defending Orthodox churches devastated and desecrated by Livonians, Moscow sovereigns John III and Vasily III fought with the Livonian Order. The Livonians were defeated, quieted down, and promised not to persecute the Orthodox and pay tribute to Moscow for owning the captured Russian city of Yuryev. But they continued, as they could, to mislead the Russians. And Tsar John IV Vasilievich also had to fight with Livonia. In 1548, about 100 European specialists were invited to serve in Russia: doctors, masters, architects, scientists. But they could not get to Russia - the Livonians did not allow it. The St. George's tribute, which Derpt was obliged to pay to the Moscow sovereigns, the Livonians did not even think of paying. And by any means they tried to interrupt Russian trade in the Baltic. To tolerate more openly hostile actions of the Livonian Order was impossible. The Russian state needed to ensure free access to the Baltic Sea. It should be noted that Sovereign John Vasilievich tried to solve the matter peacefully and negotiated with the Order. And only after it was not possible to agree, did the Livonian war begin.
“Wild hordes of Muscovites” in Livonia
Russian warriors in the Livonian War .jpg The Livonian Order military forces and the militia of German cities were soon completely defeated. Sworn enemy, treachery and power established in the ancient possessions of the Russian princes in the Baltic States (as remembered by Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich and resembled the Livonians during negotiations, trying to solve the matter peacefully), was defeated and crushed. How did the “Russian barbarians” manage with the defeated enemy? In Europe, works were distributed in which the atrocities of “ferocious Muscovites” were colorfully described. The writers seemed to be competing for who would invent more horrible tortures and executions with which the “Russian barbarians” exterminated the civilians of the Livonian cities. But it is interesting how the matter really was. Here is what the Livonian Chronicle reports about the capture of Dorpat by the Russians - the ancient Russian Yuriev.
Voevoda Petr Ivanovich Shuisky, after signing a short siege and bombing the city after the conditions for the surrender of Dorpat, allowed those who did not want to remain under the authority of the Russian tsar to leave the city along with all the property. “After that, all the burghers and military people, with everything that they could take with them, set off on a journey unwilling to remain in the city. They were accompanied by many boyars and horsemen, and they were not caused the slightest resentment. When they left the city, military leader Prince Peter Shuisky demanded that the magistrate send several burgomasters, ratsgers and elected members of the community to accompany him, the prince, to the city. He, the prince, will first of all send to the city a governor with a few people who will bring the banners of the world, arrange a proper order in everything; burghers, on the other hand, must remain in their homes until a good order is established, and may they not in the least care for themselves.
After that, several persons appointed by the magistrate and the community, as well as several members of the chapter and two persons by the bishop, went to the military head (as deputies) in the camp. The prince graciously received them, gave them his hand, promising the grace of the Grand Duke and his petition for them. "
After the “life-archers” of the tsarist voivode entered the city, Peter Ivanovich Shuisky was a “noble and pious man,” as the chronicle says addressed to the inhabitants and the Russian troops.
“Then the prince ordered to declare that on pain of death no one dares to offend the inhabitants of the city. He also ordered to declare that the burgher people would not sell in their houses any drinks for military men, in the prevention of misfortune. All the Russian warriors were placed in the castle, in the cathedral rooms and in the houses left by the residents, and they were strictly watched so that they would not offend anyone, and who was guilty of this, the prince ordered shamefully beating and punishing him; the prince also appointed several boyars with archers for detours in the city, who drove around every day and took away all the intoxicated people and all those who had only behaved inappropriately, and were immediately imprisoned. Seeing this, the burghers somewhat calmed down in their misfortune, and were not afraid of the already open attack and violence.
After that, the magistrate and the community sent the prince a gift basket with wine, beer and various other supplies, and fresh fish and greens, which was accepted favorably, and he once again announced that if there was any complaint about his military people, then let him speak directly to him: he will be able to punish the guilty and protect any innocent. A few days later, he invited me to visit the magistrate’s castle, the community, the Eltermans and the foremen and well treated them. ” So tells about the behavior of the royal governor and the Russian troops "Livonian Chronicle". And in Europe at this time they distribute leaflets in which they describe the atrocities of the Muscovites with unrestrained imagination, spreading rumors about the wild violence, robberies and murders that Russians are doing in the Baltic States.
But the war, unfortunately, flared up. Poland and Sweden joined the fight for Livonia. The Livonian knights defeated by the tsarist troops decided to continue the struggle against the Russians. And in the 1558 year, when enemy troops approached Dorpat, the chronicle reports the expulsion from the city of Livonians of those capable of raising the uprising:
“Dorpat burghers, and those who were only capable of carrying weapons were sent from the city to Pskov. There they were placed with the Pskov burghers and were not released until the magister departed from Ringen to the Riga diocese; then they were again returned to Derpt to their wives and children, to whom, by the way, in their absence, no offense was caused. ”
“In the 1559 year, when the master camped at Nyggenn again, the Dorpat burghers were not sent anywhere; but they were placed in the town hall, they were sent food from their houses and did not cause any harm. ”
During the hostilities, Livonian leaders, who opposed the Russians, were captured. Those of them who managed to take the oath to the Russian Tsar, and then treacherously attacked the small Russian garrisons, killing the archers, were executed. Executed, we emphasize, as traitors. But the captive master and others were treated graciously. Here is what the chronicle tells. Again, we recall - Livonian Chronicle:
“In this way, the Muscovites, in August 1560 of the year, took Fellin’s strongest castle, the country's best fortress, and took the head of the whole country, the pious old master Wilhelm Fürstenberg to Moscow, and gave him and his servants a castle called Lublin (he loved ) where he subsequently died. ”
It should be noted that the Sovereign summoned Master Fürstenberg after many years, who, as written in Europe together with the rest of the captive Livonians, "was cruelly beaten with iron sticks" and offered to become the head of Livonia, which was conquered by the Russians. But the old master refused. Even the Polish writer Waliszewski reports that while Fürstenberg quietly lived for 20 for years on his estate in Russia, various stories about the death of the master went around Europe. In these fables, there were 15 versions of terrible executions that tortured the Muscovites of the master. Violent fantasy "workers of the information war of the sixteenth century" did not allow them to agree among themselves, how did John the Terrible executed Furstenberg.
The rest of the Livonians, evicted together with their wives and children at the height of the war in Vladimir, Kostroma, Nizhny Novgorod, also, apparently, did not feel any particular oppression. The chronicle reports that: “the pastor, named Master John Vetterman, a man of good and honest nature, a true apostle of the Lord, who also went into exile with them, herded his flock as a righteous shepherd”
A Lutheran priest quietly nourished his flock living in Russia. The pastor traveled to Russian cities in which the Livonians were stationed:
“And every hour he admonished fear of the Lord, and even appointed school teachers for their children, which could then be obtained, which in every town on Sundays they read to children from the Holy Scriptures. As a learned man, he was greatly respected by the Grand Duke, who even ordered in Moscow to show him his Liberty (library), which consisted of books in Hebrew, Greek and Latin, and which the Grand Duke received in ancient times from the Patriarch of Constantinople when Muscovite adopted the Christian faith according to the Greek confession. "
“These books were handed over to Master John Vetterman for inspection. He found many good writings there that are cited by our writers, but which we don’t have, since they were burned and scattered during the wars, as was the case with the Ptolomeic and other Liberians. Vetterman said that, although he was poor, he would give all his property, even all his children, so that only these books were in Protestant universities, since, in his opinion, these books would bring much benefit to Christianity. ”
As we can see, the German Lutheran pastor does not experience any persecutions from “cruel and savage Muscovites”. But he was even honored for his righteousness and the scholarship of the attention and trust of Tsar John Vasilyevich. Well, the messages of the Livonian Chronicle do not converge with the stories spread throughout Europe about the atrocities of the "wild Moscow hordes led by the bloodthirsty tsar." Note that the chronicle was compiled by the Livonians, who were defeated by the Russians. That is why they had no reason to embellish the Russians.
But not only the Livonians were magnanimous to Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible, whom in Europe at that time was described as a fierce tyrant, and his troops represented hordes of wild barbarians.
"Bring to Christ with affection and love"
When taking Polotsk in 1563, the sovereign released the entire capitulation of the Polish garrison, generously awarding the soldiers, and granted nobles to the nobles. After the capture of Wolmer in 1578, when the heavy war seemed to end, most of the Livonian cities were taken or surrendered, Tsar Ivan Vasilievich convenes all the noble Polish and Lithuanian prisoners for a victorious feast with the Russian boyars and governors. According to the testimony of the chronicles, the king generously gave them "coats and cups, and he gave others buckets, after which everyone was sent home." The generous and chivalrous act of the Russian Sovereign, which for some reason is not customary to recall.
The capture of Kazan and the conquest of the Kazan Khanate also provide more than one example of the generosity of John Vasilyevich to the defeated enemies. The stubborn and brave enemy of Prince Jadiger, subdued by the magnanimity of the Sovereign, decided to be baptized. Although Tsar John Vasilyevich forbade the giving of privileges to those Tatars who were baptized, the Sovereign wanted the new believers to come to Christ not because of greed, so that there was no reason to be baptized for the sake of earthly gain. But despite this, many Tatars were baptized in the Kazan land under the holy saints Guria and Varsonofy. It is significant that the Sovereign not only did not persecute Muslims, but demanded that they be brought to Christ only by “affection and love”. On the conquered Tatars no one imposed additional burden, compared with the Russian population. And although there were uprisings in the Volga region among the Tatars and Cheremis, these uprisings were severely suppressed, but the wise policy of Tsar Ivan the Terrible led to the fact that in the Time of Troubles, the Kazan Tatars did not want to secede from Russia, but together with the Minin and Pozharsky militia went to liberate Moscow from the Poles. It is interesting to compare the behavior of the Russians in the Kazan Khanate with the attitude of the Turks in the Ottoman Empire to the conquered Christian peoples. Or how the conquerors from Western Europe treated the conquered peoples. And not only the natives in the overseas colonies had to face the cruelty of the European conquerors. Recall how the British ruthlessly and methodically exterminated the Irish.
Old songs in the new version
Despite this, terrible tales about the wild and ferocious Muscovites and the cruel and bloodthirsty tyrant of the Russian Tsar John the Terrible are still spreading in the West. The information war with Russia continues. Nowadays, all the power of anti-Russian propaganda is aimed at creating another myth. In the West, they carefully rewrite the history of the Second World War. The European citizen is convinced that the "wild hordes of Muscovites", in caps with red stars, invaded Germany, forcibly raping and exterminating the civilian population. But the "civilized world" and European culture were saved by the valiant American soldiers who defeated Hitler, heroically crushed the Third Reich, and then managed to stop the invasion of "Russian barbarians" in Europe. How aviation Leipzig completely wiped off the allies with carpet bombings, having destroyed 250 thousand civilians, they prefer not to remember. Although Leipzig was deep in the rear, there were no important strategic sites, military enterprises, or a concentration of German troops in the city. But on the other hand, the US embassy supported Estonia’s reproaches against Russia for the “excessive bombardment” of Tallinn by Soviet aircraft during the war years. It turns out that liberating the Baltic states, Soviet troops, storming the well-fortified Tallinn, in which the German troops stubbornly defended, launched air strikes around the city. Tallinn, we note, at that time was the naval base of the German fleet. The crime of Soviet troops, according to Estonians and the US Embassy, is that some city blocks were damaged by Soviet air strikes and 400 city residents were killed. The US reproaches for the bombing of Tallinn during the Second World War, after the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the carpet bombing of North Vietnam, and also against the background of the recent bombing of Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, look especially original. By the way, the occupied Belgrade, in which there were almost no German troops, an armada of 600 Anglo-American aircraft subjected the seemingly completely senseless and brutal bombardment for the first time on Orthodox Easter on April 17, 1944. The second time, Belgrade NATO aircraft brutally bombed on Easter in 1999. But no one recalls this - strikes were made by the valiant troops of the democratic states, solely for the protection of European civilization. And, as you know, the European citizen for centuries, since the time of Tsar John the Terrible, has been constantly threatened by the invasion of "wild Muscovites." At first, Russia was threatened by Russian tsar tyrants, then bloodthirsty Stalin, then gloomy and gloomy general secretaries, but in 2008, the insidious Putin brought down armored armada on a peaceful, prosperous Georgia. And today, the dictator Putin is going to send his divisions to crush the “freedom and democracy” caterpillars of Russian tanks in Ukraine, in the Baltic countries, then fall on Poland, Sweden, Finland. The "high ideals" of the Charlie civilization are in danger. Old songs about the “Russian threat” sound in a new version.
It will probably soon become clear that the “Russian barbarians” storming Berlin in the 1945 year, without any need, but in their innate “wildness and Asian bloodthirstiness” destroyed the peaceful European city. Unfortunately, not only western so-called ones are working on the creation of such a myth. "Bona fide researchers" and filmmakers. And in Russia there are a sufficient number of “grantoedov” historians who, led by Gavriil Popov, spread tales about how the “hordes of Russian barbarians” outraged in Germany. In the US, they make films about how brave Americans "rescued Private Raina", dashing "Rangers" smashed selected parts of the Wehrmacht. And in the United States and Europe, the population was able to convince that it was the Americans who crushed the Third Reich and saved the world from fascism. Obama even managed to say that his grandfather, it turns out, liberated Auschwitz. And some Russian directors at this time make films “Bastards” and “A few days in May,” claiming that the film scripts are “based on documentary facts.” And when it turns out that all that is described in the films is just the fruit of a sick fantasy of scriptwriters, then these people justify their slander and lies of the artist’s right to “creative fiction”. None of these "artists" think to ask for forgiveness for trying to pass off lies and slander as "documentary evidence" of the Great Patriotic War. The contempt and hatred of their homeland "smerdyakov" in the twenty-first century remain the same as in the nineteenth century. But the “masterpieces” of the Great Patriotic War, diligently created according to the prescriptions of Dr. Goebbels, still remain in the Russian film distribution as well as filled with hatred for Russia and the Russian history of “Tzar” Lungin.
The state does not have the right to allow from the cinema screens the poison of Russophobic lies and slander to pour out into the souls of the audience. After all, over time, these false films will be referred to in the same way as Kurbsky’s letters and “impartial testimonies” of foreigners about the sovereign Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible epoch are cited today.
Today there is no task more important than to preserve and convey to our children and grandchildren the truth about the magnificent, heroic and beautiful history of our Fatherland. It is necessary to resist the anti-Russian slander, telling the truth about the great Russian Sovereigns, about the holy ascetics of the Russian Orthodox Church, about the brave and courageous Russian heroes who for centuries reflected the invasions of enemies from the West, now from the East. The truth about the great nation, which by unceasing prayer, military feat and hard work, for centuries has created the Holy Russian State - the House of the Most Holy Theotokos.
May Holy Rus rise with the prayers of the Most Holy Theotokos and all the saints who shone forth in the Russian land, and squander it in opposition!
Holy Mother of God save us!
- Viktor Saulkin, Head of the Information and Analytical Center of the Moscow Suvorovtsy NGO
- http://rossiyaplyus.info/pervaya-informatsionnaya-voyna-legendy/
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