#Fleeing revolution: Russians exiles in Paris | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

antinous-posts · 4 years

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Jean-Paul Marat

French politician, physician, and journalist

Jean-Paul Marat, (born May 24, 1743, Boudry, near Neuchâtel, Switzerland—died July 13, 1793, Paris, France), French politician, physician, and journalist, a leader of the radical Montagnard faction during the French Revolution. He was assassinated in his bath by Charlotte Corday, a young Girondin conservative.

Jean-Paul Marat

Marat, after obscure years in France and other European countries, became a well-known doctor in London in the 1770s and published a number of books on scientific and philosophical subjects. His Essay on the Human Soul (1771) had little success, but A Philosophical Essay on Man (1773) was translated into French and published in Amsterdam (1775–76). His early political works included The Chains of Slavery (1774), an attack on despotism addressed to British voters, in which he first expounded the notion of an “aristocratic,” or “court,” plot; it would become the principal theme of a number of his articles

Returning to the Continent in 1777, Marat was appointed physician to the personal guards of the comte d’Artois (later Charles X), youngest brother of Louis XVI of France. At this time he seemed mainly interested in making a reputation for himself as a successful scientist. He wrote articles and experimented with fire, electricity, and light. His paper on electricity was honoured by the Royal Academy of Rouen in 1783. At the same time, he built up a practice among upper-middle-class and aristocratic patients. In 1783 he resigned from his medical post, probably intending to concentrate on his scientific career.

In 1780 he published his Plan de législation criminelle (“Plan for Criminal Legislation”), which showed that he had already assimilated the ideas of such critics of the ancien régime as Montesquieu and Jean-Jacques Rousseau and was corresponding with the American Revolutionary leader Benjamin Franklin. More serious, perhaps, was Marat’s failure to be elected to the Academy of Sciences. Some historians, notably the American Louis Gottschalk, have concluded that he came to suffer from a “martyr complex,” imagining himself persecuted by powerful enemies. Thinking that his work refuted the ideas of Sir Isaac Newton, he joined the opponents of the established social and scientific order.

In the first weeks of 1789—the year that saw the beginning of the French Revolution—Marat published his pamphlet Offrande à la patrie (“Offering to Our Country”), in which he indicated that he still believed that the monarchy was capable of solving France’s problems. In a supplement published a few months later, though, he remarked that the king was chiefly concerned with his own financial problems and that he neglected the needs of the people; at the same time, Marat attacked those who proposed the British system of government as a model for France.

Attacks On The Aristocracy

Beginning in September 1789, as editor of the newspaper L’Ami du Peuple (“The Friend of the People”), Marat became an influential voice in favour of the most radical and democratic measures, particularly in October, when the royal family was forcibly brought from Versailles to Paris by a mob. He particularly advocated preventive measures against aristocrats, whom he claimed were plotting to destroy the Revolution. Early in 1790 he was forced to flee to England after publishing attacks on Jacques Necker, the king’s finance minister; three months later he was back, his fame now sufficient to give him some protection against reprisal. He did not relent but directed his criticism against such moderate Revolutionary leaders as the marquis de Lafayette, the comte de Mirabeau, and Jean-Sylvain Bailly, mayor of Paris (a member of the Academy of Sciences); he continued to warn against the émigrés, royalist exiles who were organizing counterrevolutionary activities and urging the other European monarchs to intervene in France and restore the full power of Louis XVI.

In July 1790 he declared to his readers:

Five or six hundred heads cut off would have assured your repose, freedom, and happiness. A false humanity has held your arms and suspended your blows; because of this millions of your brothers will lose their lives.

The National Assembly sentenced him to a month in prison, but he went into hiding and continued his campaign. When bloody riots broke out at Nancy in eastern France, he saw them as the first sign of the counterrevolution.

Activities In The National Convention

In 1790 and 1791 Marat gradually came to the view that the monarchy should be abolished; after Louis XVI’s attempt to flee in June 1791, he declared the king "unworthy to remount the throne" and violently denounced the National Assembly for refusing to depose the king. As a delegate to the National Convention (beginning in September 1792), he advocated such reforms as a graduated income tax, state-sponsored vocational training for workers, and shorter terms of military service. Though he had often advocated the execution of counterrevolutionaries, Marat seems to have had no direct connection with the wholesale massacres of suspects that occurred in the same month. He had opposed France’s declaration of war against antirevolutionary Austria in April, but, once the war had begun and the country was in danger of invasion, he advocated a temporary dictatorship to deal with the emergency.

Actively supported by the Parisian people both in the chamber and in street demonstrations, Marat quickly became one of the most prominent members of the Convention. Attacks by the conservative Girondin faction early in 1793 made him a symbol of the Montagnards, or radical faction, although the Montagnard leaders kept him out of any position of real influence. In April the Girondins had him arraigned before a Revolutionary tribunal. His acquittal of the political charges brought against him (April 24) was the climax of his career and the beginning of the fall of the Girondins from power.

Assassination

On July 13, Charlotte Corday, a young Girondin supporter from Normandy, was admitted to Marat’s room on the pretext that she wished to claim his protection, and she stabbed him to death in his bath (he took frequent medicinal baths to relieve a skin infection). Marat’s dramatic murder at the very moment of the Montagnards’ triumph over their opponents caused him to be considered a martyr to the people’s cause. His name was given to 21 French towns and later, as a gesture symbolizing the continuity between the French and Russian revolutions, to one of the first battleships in the Soviet navy.

The Death of Marat, by French artist and member of the Jacobin Club Jacques-Louis David, was painted just days after the murder. Called the “Pietà of the Revolution” (in reference to Michelangelo’s sculpture) and widely considered David’s masterpiece, the painting is frequently reproduced for its historical and artistic value.

Jacques-Louis David: The Death of MaratThe Death of Marat, oil on canvas by Jacques-Louis David, 1793; in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels. ♡♡♡

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xtruss · 3 years

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Britain's Royal Family Links With Russia

— By James Crawford-Smith | March 04, 2022

Both Elizabeth II and Prince Philip are related to the ex-imperial Russian royal family through their descent from the royal house of Denmark. Indigo/Getty Images

Members of Britain's royal family have spoken out this week against the advancing invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces.

The aggression shown towards the Ukrainian people has been called "truly terrible" by Prince Charles, and Queen Elizabeth II has made a private donation to provide humanitarian aid to those affected.

But what are the family connections between the royals and Russia? Newsweek has the answers.

The British royals have a series of familial links with Russia stretching as far back as Queen Victoria, but which were damaged in 1918 by the murder of Czar Nicholas II and his family.

Many members of Elizabeth II's family have visited Russia in recent decades, including Princess Anne, Prince Charles and the Queen herself in 1994.

Both Elizabeth II and Prince Philip are related to the ex-imperial royal family through their Danish royal descent.

Queen Alexandra, Elizabeth II's great-grandmother (right) and her sister the Empress Marie Dagmar of Russia (left). Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Queen Alexandra, Elizabeth II's great-grandmother, was born a Danish princess and married Queen Victoria's eldest son, the future Edward VII.

Alexandra's sister became the wife of Czar Alexander III and their son Nicholas became the last Czar, murdered by the Bolsheviks in 1918.

Nicholas II of Russia was a close friend of Queen Alexandra's son, his British first-cousin George V (Elizabeth II's grandfather). The pair looked strikingly similar with people often mistaking one for the other.

At the height of the Russian revolution a plan was hatched that would have seen Nicholas II and his family flee to England to be given refuge by George V and Queen Mary.

At the last minute this invitation had to be rescinded for fear that revolution would spread to Britain. The Czar and his family were murdered on July, 17 1918.

Many members of the extended Russian royal family were granted exile in Britain following the revolution, one of which was Czar Nicholas II's sister Xenia.

George V granted her the grace-and-favor property, Frogmore Cottage which would later become the home of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry.

Nicholas II of Russia (left), with his cousin, George V (right) Grandfather to Elizabeth II. Both were strikingly similar in their youth, so much so that people would confuse them for one another. Hulton Archive/Getty Images

George would often visit his cousin when at Windsor and they remained close friends for the rest of his life.

Other imperial refugees made their homes in Paris, Berlin and Canada. Elizabeth II's uncle George, Duke of Kent, married the daughter of one such refugee, Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark whose mother was the Grand Duchess Vladimir, famed for her jewelry collection.

How the Royals Responded to Ukraine, From Harry and Meghan to Will and KateREAD MORE How the Royals Responded to Ukraine, From Harry and Meghan to Will and Kate

Prince Philip's Russian relations were no more distant than Elizabeth II's. Philip's grandmother was the sister of the last Czarina, the tragic death of whom she never fully recovered from.

In May 1994 Prince Charles became the most senior member of the British royal family to visit Russia since the revolution.

On his tour he paid tribute at the tombs of the Czars in the St Peter and Paul Fortress. The remains of the last Romanov Czar would not be interred at the fortress until 1998 which Charles would visit on a subsequent trip in 2003.

Given the hostilities that Russia continues to inflict upon Ukraine it is unlikely any member of the royal family will make a visit to the country any time soon.

Elizabeth II's first and only state visit to Russia in late 1994 is set to be included in an upcoming season of Netflix's The Crown.

Prince Charles pays tribute to the Romanov tombs at the St Peter and Paul Fortress on a visit to St Petersburg, July 2003. Ian Jones/AFP via Getty Images

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epochxp · 3 years

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The Russian Civil War and Board Gaming

Leon Trotsky Reviews the Troops |Radio Free Europe via Russianphoto.ru

The Russian Civil War was one of the first civil wars of the 20th Century, and yet, in many ways, it was a throwback to the 19th Century. The bayonet and the cavalry saber were decisive instruments, but it was also a time where the more modern elements of state-sponsored terror were present on both sides. It was also one of the many conflicts that took place in the interregnum between the World Wars that eventually lit the fuse on the second.

The war claimed the lives of millions of Russians and half the world intervened to attempt to stop the Bolshevik revolution, but the support for the “Whites,” the opposition to the Bolshevik “Reds,” was half-hearted at best, and by 1922, the Bolsheviks had become the masters of most of the former lands of the Russian empire, now known as the USSR.

The conflict is a bewildering mélange of personalities and factions, from Lenin, Trotsky, and the Reds, to the various White factions that ranged from Czarist loyalists to Socialists who were opposed to the Bolsheviks. Then there were the other smaller players, like the anarchist Nestor Makhno, who led the anarchist “Black Army” and played both sides against each other for a while until his army was crushed by the Reds and he was forced to flee, and he died in Paris in exile in 1934.

There have been some board games written about this bewildering war, and as I have an interest in this conflict, I own some of them and have played a few others. I’d, of course, love to play more of them, but let’s go through the highlights and see what’s out there?

Board Game Geek

Ted Racier did a fine job with this game, and it’s still my favorite game on the conflict. I think it models the chaos of the war extremely well, as well as addresses the fact the various White factions were far from united. It also has enough chrome for any veteran wargamer, covering every major unit at the corps and division level that appeared in the war, and having present such major personages as Frunze, Denikin, Wrangel, and Trotsky, his infamous Red Train.

The game does reflect the chaos through a random turn order determined by chit draw (which, to me, is the only way you’re going to manage this war). Logistics can and does play a big role and kills as many units as combat does if you don’t play it right. The game also models the Russian weather well, and in short, it’s a player’s game that gets the history spot on. I’d highly recommend this effort by GMT, and you can get it from them for $50, which is a steal in my opinion for a game of this caliber.

Board Game Geek

I own but haven’t played this, but the game looks good at first blush. Against the Odds (ATO) usually puts out a good game, and this is no exception. It takes a lot for an area movement game to impress me, and this one did. Like Reds, it works off the chit pull system, and I like the stress on the political-military elements and how both had to work hand in glove to win (and historically, this is how the Reds did win). That said, I still think Reds is the better game overall, but the ATO game is a very, very close second, and I’d play either game and have an enjoyable time. Plus, I highly recommend the article on the war that comes with the game. It’s very good work on understanding the nature of the conflict. The game is also still available from ATO for $34.95 for a ziplock version or $39.95 for a boxed version.

Board Game Geek

To be honest, I hadn’t heard of either game until I’d been researching this topic. But I will say I am intrigued by the subject matter. To be honest, most board games on the Russian Civil War handle the strategic level of the war, while there are few that actually look at the operational level (though Red Star, White Eagle about the associated Russo-Polish War is a notable exception).

Board Game Geek

Both games are from smaller publishers and seem to be filling this (admittedly) small niche in the market, and I like HFD’s take on the subject. There was a rather informative interview found here with the designer, and the game has a little of everything for the Russian Civil War player hinging on the high watermark of the White Army’s abortive march on Moscow in the fall of 1919. I am rather happy about the way the subject matter is implemented. I will admit, in some ways, it’s a departure from the usual card draw system HFD uses in favor of a chit pull, which seems to be standard for Russian Civil War games. The game is available for $20.95 from HFD, and I am intrigued myself. I think I might just pick it up at some point soon.

As for White October? I don’t know that much about it, other than it was nominated for a Charles S. Roberts Award, so that does say something about it. It’s available in PDF form from the magazine website, so you’d basically have to print out the components to play it…but that said, for 7 euros, it’s not too much of an investment to try the game out.

I do hope this small bit of an overview has inspired you to give this little-known period a try. I certainly have enjoyed playing games in this period since I first found Reds! in the now-defunct Neutral Ground NYC game store back in 2002.

And, as always, Good Gaming, Everyone.

At Epoch XP, we specialize in creating compelling narratives and provide research to give your game the kind of details that engage your players and create a resonant world they want to spend time in. If you are interested in learning more about our gaming research services, you can browse Epoch XP's service on our parent site, SJR Research.

(This article is credited to Jason Weiser. Jason is a long-time wargamer with published works in the Journal of the Society of Twentieth Century Wargamers; Miniature Wargames Magazine; and Wargames, Strategy, and Soldier.)

#Wargame Miscellaneous #wargames #wargaming #historical games

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moon-mirage · 7 years

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If you’re doing the Cresswell AU thing still, could you do Anastasia? I’ve just been obsessed with that movie/musical lately. Thanks!

Yay, I have so many thoughts about an Anastasia AU. It would be one I would love to write if I enjoyed writing more. :P But I think I came up with a pretty cool story and I hope you’re going to like it.

— — —

Have I watched the movie? Definitely! Several times. :)

Ideas from the movie I’ll use: A whole lot but I’m pretty sure I’ll come up with a few twists make as to not simply copy everything from the movie.

Ideas from the movie I’ll disregard: The magic stuff mostly (which I think the musical did too), and a few other things.

Background

Though I would love a historic setting I’m not sure that I would pick it for fear of getting a few things wrong (though I could place it in a fictional country I guess). However, like with the Jerry Maguire AU, I could see it in TLC’s Third Era setting (minus Lunars) - I feel that gives me the opportunity to play with the Earthen countries and technology we have in TLC. So, once again, I would lean towards doing that.

Now, for the setting, I would keep it in the future version of Russia. I had some ideas and I’m glad I could find a passage from the book that kinda agrees with my take. What I imagine is that Russia can be part of both the European Federation AND the Eastern Commonwealth, The country is vast and culturally it can lean towards either Europe or Asia. Now in the books we learn that the “South Russia Province” is indeed part of the European Federation. That is something I personally don’t see depending on what counts as “South”. For me, futuristic Russia would be divided in the (North) Western Province (which is part of the European Federation) and the (South) Eastern Province which falls under the jurisdiction of the Eastern Commonwealth (and its monarchy).

Since I won’t have Lunars and glamour, I think I can be a bit more creative with the time period. Because in 126 T.E., which is when the canon books take place, the Earthen countries are largely at peace. Therefore, I would set the story roughly in the years following the Fourth World War that led to the Treaty of Bremen and Earth being divided into the six regions we know.

So we still have the same characters, technologies, countries, etc - it would just all happen around 100 years earlier.

As for the historic background that sets the things into motion, instead of the Russian revolution, the princess gets lost during the last battle during the Fourth World War between what was formerly known as Russia and China (before the peace treaty comes to pass). The Blackburns were the former rulers (so they replace the Romanovs in this fic though I wish I could use a non-English name) before the invasion of the Huang line of China. The Chinese army wins the battle, therefore managing to expand the kingdom. What was formerly the Artemisia Palace is now the center of “New” Beijing, the New Beijing Palace. When the war ends and the six Earthen regions sign the Treaty of Bremen, what is left of Artemisia is now within the borders of the Eastern Commonwealth.

Basic Plot Outline

- The story starts thirteen years after the war has ended. Nothing is left of the Blackburn line (no documents, no images, etc) except rumors that the last heir, a daughter, might have survived, taken during the siege by a doctor/scientist in order to protect her. Where she was taken no one knows. Some say she was taken to the European Federation, growing up with the former lover of the doctor. Others think that she is still in the Eastern Commonwealth, raised by the doctor as if she was his own. Others believe she is kept under the exiled queen sister’s careful watch, preventing her from reclaiming her throne. Some say she was badly disfigured during the siege, others that she is a prisoner and others think she doesn’t know her true identity, living the life of a normal girl.

[As you can see and I’m spoilering now, the princess in question could be either Cinder, Cress or Scarlet. Since no one knows who the princess’s father is, there is a possibility that it’s one of the doctor/scientist mentioned here. That would leave either Logan Tanner, the doctor who smuggles Scarlet to France, Linh Garan who adopted Cinder or Dmitri Erland/Sage Darnel.]

- Many tried to find the lost princess, some to reinstall her on the throne, some for the reward money, some to make sure she never comes back in order to destabilise the current monarchy.

- One of the people looking for the lost princess is ex-cadet Carswell Thorne - for the reward money, of course. ;)

- He teams up with the cyborg mechanic Cinder (she takes in some ways the role of Vlad from the movie) who knows New Beijing better, trying to look for clues. Cinder only agrees to find that nebulous princess because Thorne promised her to take her to the European Federation - her only way to escape her stepmother Adri.

[Cinder would also meet Kai, the prince of the Eastern Commonwealth, so there would be some Kaider. ;)]

- Thorne actually has one good lead: A photograph Dr Dmitri Erland, the personal doctor to the royal family, has of the princess. The blue-eyed, blonde child has a remarkable resemblance to the girl he stumbled over at the marketplace earlier that day.

- For Thorne, it’s not important to actually find the princess. It would be enough if everyone thinks he did, earning him money and fame - what more could he ask for? (So, like Dimitri in the movie/musical, he didn’t actually expect to find the lost princess but someone he can pass off as her.)

- He finally finds the girl, Cress, again. She’s an orphan growing up in Mistress Sybil’s orphanage, not knowing who her parents are or where she came from. She’s strangely drawn to the old Artemisia Palace, recognising a few structures that were leftover from the time the Blackburn family ruled but not the ones build after King Rikan ascended the throne.

- Like in the movie, Thorne convinces Cress that while she might not be the princess, there is no reason to believe she can’t be. There is only one way to find out - find the last people connected to the Blackburn line who now live in Paris, France: Levana, the sister of the late queen and her step-daughter, Winter. Cress agrees so she can finally learn more about her past.

- Since Thorne thinks giving a part of the money to Cinder is already more than enough, he doesn’t inform Dmitri Erland. He, Cress and Cinder make their way towards France. [I assume they can’t use the Rampion because Thorne stole it like in canon? And maybe finding the princess is part of getting pardoned? Idk, but using the Rampion would mean they would reach France in ten minutes tops and that’s not enough time to develop my favourite slow-burn Cresswell romance. ^.^]

- Throughout their journey, Thorne tries to help Cress becoming more princess-like like in the movie. She somehow picks up some things quicker than he expected though: Getting Cinder to find out things about the customs and language spoken at the Blackburn court, Cress surprises Thorne by speaking Russian with the dialect of the royals (we know that in canon, while everyone speaks Universal, languages still exist), knowing the outline of the palace and some of the customs and even seems to recognise some people from images. Thorne starts to suspect that Cress is actually the lost princess.

- On their journey, Thorne takes his time showing Cress many things she missed out growing up in an orphanage. Cress starts to question if she really wants to be the lost princess despite having always longed for a home and family. For Thorne, the reward money suddenly doesn’t seem so appealing anymore since it would mean losing Cress. Slowly, Cress and Thorne grow closer, despite Cinder’s warnings, and finally fall in love.

- They are being followed and manage to escape the authorities Adri alerted to Cinder’s disappearance (who legally is her property). Soon, the royal family learns about the fugitive and the cyborg who think they have found the lost princess. While they are now the rightful rulers of the newly-founded Eastern Commonwealth, they know that a heir of the Blackburn line could threaten the stability of their kingdom and send out soldiers to intervene. [This storyline would replace the Rasputin one in some ways and would bring in Kai as a character too who, in canon, was also looking for the lost Lunar princess.]

- In the meantime, Cinder researches more about the lost princess and when they reach France, she separates from Cress and Thorne and makes her way to the small town of Rieux. She finds Scarlet whose grandmother had an affair with Logan Tanner, one of the royal doctors of the Blackburns. Due to the connections and secrets (there are no official birth records of Scarlet who wasn’t born in a hospital but at home), Cinder suspects that Scarlet too could be the lost princess.When special forces arrive to arrest Cinder, she and Scarlet flee towards Paris - and miss the hidden cellar underneath the house. The special forces though find it and send their findings, that Michelle Benoit indeed harboured the lost princess (then severely injured and disfigured in a fire that destroyed much of the old Artemisia Palace) to the E.C. royal family.

[I know Wolf’s heritage is Middle Eastern but I would still love him to be part of the E.C royal special forces. I mean it’s not like people can’t move and work elsewhere. And this way, I can include him in the story. So Wolf leads this operation to find the missing cyborg Cinder.]

- Cress and Thorne still haven’t talked about their future if Cress is the royal princess and what it would mean for their relationship. Instead, they focus on finding Levana Blackburn or Winter Hayle-Blackburn to confirm Cress’s identity.

- Dr Dmitri Erland too arrives in Paris. He heard about Thorne finding a girl that matched the description of the child in the photograph and is desperate to see her. Though he said that the picture showed the lost princess, it’s actually his daughter Crescent who got lost while the palace was attacked. He never lost hope of finding her; therefore, he tricked Thorne into believing that he was looking for the princess rather than his daughter, Crescent.

[I tried to play with the plot twist MM initially wanted to include more into her book series. Since we know TLC, the twist probably wasn’t hard to guess in my fanfic either but I really like that it’s a different take on the Anastasia storyline.]

- Thorne manages to corner the elusive Levana and tries to make her see Cress as he wants her to finally find her family and feels she deserves the life she was always meant to have. He tells her about Cress, Cinder and their journey together, shows images in hopes of convincing her. Levana refuses and gets Thorne thrown out. She then tells one of her henchman (Jacin) to find “Selene” and kill her.

- Winter, who overheard the conversation tries to find her cousin and best friend first and warn her. She and Thorne take off together to find Cress but Winder immediately knows that it’s not her “Selene”.

- That’s when they realise Cress isn’t the lost princess but Cinder. From Thorne’s story and images, Levana figured it out too (she sees the resemblance between her sister Channary and Cinder) and sent out Jacin to get rid of her.

- Jacin finds Cinder and Scarlet and they realise that he’s there to kill the lost princess. However, they think it’s Scarlet and Cinder tries her best to protect her but is no match for Jacin.

- That’s when Winter arrives and begs Jacin to spare Selene. The special forces arrive, some of them torn about what to make of finding the lost princess, Selene Blackburn, now a cyborg they have to apprehend. Kai gives the order that nothing should happen to her.

[It would lead to Selene coming back to the Eastern Commonwealth without any ambition to seize the throne. Instead, a Kaider romance would be implied in which she later becomes Empress, joining the two royal lines together.]

- When Dr Erland (Dr Darnel) Cress learns that she’s his daughter and is more than relieved to found part of her family. That also leaves her free to travel the world with Thorne like they did in canon and end similar to the ending of the movie Anastasia.

— — —

I know there are a few plot holes and loose ends but I really love the idea and I was almost tempted to write it. I like how I could mix the world building we have in TLC, and the plot of Anastasia with the one in the books surrounding the lost princess. So thank you very much for suggesting it. :D

#the lunar chronicles #cresswell #fanfic prompt

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wolfofansbach · 5 years

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“Our country is vast. The globe must turn for nine hours before the whole of our Soviet land can enter the new year of our victories. The day is coming when we will need not nine hours, but twenty-four!”

--Pravda, January 1941

“We will ignite international flames,

churches and prisons we’ll burn to the ground;

for from the taiga to the British seas,

the Red Army is stronger!”

--’White Army, Black Baron’, marching song of the Red Army

The world in 1962, twenty years after the Red Army’s conque--er, liberation of Europe.

WARNING: long as fuck

(I’m aware it’s...pretty far from realistic. Just bear with me. Also the point of divergence from our timeline is a little further back than 1941, hence things like the Profintern still existing and Marshal Tukhachevsky not having been shot).

On June 17th, 1941, the Wehrmacht marshals on the Soviet border, preparing to carry out Hitler’s final war of aggression. The black earth of Ukraine and the farmlands of the Volga. The old Teutonic cities of the Baltic. There is the destiny of the German people.

Stalin will be caught entirely unawares. He has been lulled into a false peace by his pact with the Führer, two years earlier. Or so Berlin believes. Soviet Russia is weak, the Red Army is feeble.

“Only kick in the door, and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down.”

Eastern Poland comes alive with the roar of artillery and the thunder of soldier’s boots. But this not the Wehrmacht marching. It is the Red army.

Too late the Nazis realize it is they, not the Bolsheviks, who have been played for fools. Hitler signed his treaty with Soviet Russia to ensure his rear was secure, while he smashed the Poles and then turned west to dispense with the French and the English. The Bolsheviks were content to let him do just that. In the two years since the non-aggression pact, Stalin has watched and waited, carefully, while German armies overrun Europe, until the whole continent is prostate before Hitler. France, the low countries, Scandinavia, Poland, Yugoslavia, Greece.

The wily old Bolshevik in the Kremlin has slyly allowed the Führer to make himself the villain of the century. the monster holding Europe in chains. Now, whoever steps forward to free the nations from Nazi tyranny will be hailed by the peoples of the world as liberator.

Even if it is the dreaded Red Army that does the liberating.

Lenin had always said that war opened the door for revolution. The first great imperialist conflagration had created the Republic of Soviets and very nearly delivered all of Europe into the hands of red revolutionists. This second war, ignited by Germany with the tacit encouragement of the USSR, will finish the job.

The Wehrmacht is caught on the back foot--Hitler’s great, invincible legions are armed to the teeth, equipped with the most modern, lethal weaponry of any military on the planet. Yes, they are prepared. But for a war of aggression, not a war of defense. They are prepared to march into the Soviet Union, not to be marched on.

Thousands of German tanks, warplanes, countless munitions depots, and armies’ worth of hapless Landsers are massed right on the Soviet frontier, in preparation for the invasion that now will never come. When the Red Army floods over the border, weapons and men are captured by the millions. Entire German armies are encircled and destroyed in those first few days.

The Wehrmacht reels back towards Germany, stunned by the sudden onslaught. Goebbels takes to the radio, boasting that he was right, that now surely all of Europe can see the mortal threat posed by the Bolshevik menace in the east. He tactfully neglects to mention Germany’s own plans for aggression, so narrowly preempted by Stalin’s attack.

On July 10th, red troops march into Warsaw. The Polish people, despising their German conquerors but hardly less suspicious of the Russians, give them a wary welcome.

In the south, thousands of red paratroopers rain down on Romania’s Ploesti Oilfields, starving Hitler’s panzers and warplanes of their precious fuel. The Red Army punches forward, their tanks rolling smoothly over the FLAT plains of northern Europe, driving the German Army inexorably before them.

Hitler’s invincible troopers put up a stubborn fight, but on August 2nd, the Red Army takes East Prussia. Nazi officials and party elites snatch up all the wealth and damning records they can get their hands on, and flee west as fast as they can.

By the fourth week of September, Himmler, Göring, Frank, Kaltenbrunner, and Sauckel, to name only a few, are already sneaking through the Rhineland towards France. Hitler himself, along with Göbbels and a handful of other die-hards, stubbornly refuse to abandon Berlin.

In the south, Soviet troops storm over the Carpathians, barreling straight towards Budapest, scantly defended by the Hungarian Army and a few disoriented Wehrmacht and SS divisions.

On October 22nd, the Red Army’s armored spearheads reach the outskirts of Berlin. An unraveling Hitler, much against the advice of his counselors, joins a German citizens’ militia, animated by visions of an epic, Wagnerian last stand. He is presumably killed in the short battle than ensues. His body is never found. Rumors of his survival will abound for decades.

Despite the feverish attempts of SS fanatics to organize a fight to the death, the city, stunned by the rapidity of German defeat, hardly resists as the red soldiers march into the Pariser Platz. The swastika is hauled down.

What German divisions have avoided falling apart pull back into the Rhineland, and then into France, Stalin’s legions nipping at their heels. Resistance movements in the occupied countries take heart, emboldened by the Reich’s sudden collapse.

Landsers trudging into France and Belgium suffer jeers and threats from the same locals that just months before groveled before them.

On November 6th, the Red Army reaches the Rhine, just in time for the twenty-fourth anniversary of the October Revolution. A handful of divisions capture Denmark in a matter of hours and round up the Nazi troops stationed therein.

The Nazis and their French collaborators attempt to fortify that country, hoping if nothing else to hold Stalin at the Ardennes. Just as the French tried to hold Runstedt’s panzers there only a year ago. But it is hopeless. Rebellions flowers all over the country. The PCF sees a massive upswing in popularity. The south becomes ungovernable as tens of thousands of guerrilla fighters swarm the towns and hill country.

In the first week of December, the Red Army seizes the Ruhr, Köln, and other old industrial strongholds on the Rhine. Even after nine years of Nazi rule, the Rhineland’s old socialist tradition runs deep. In many towns, Soviet troops are welcomed with "hurrah!” and red flags.

Britain watches, stunned. They have fought Hitler two years, now. But the country’s ruling classes shudder as Bolshevism rushes ever nearer to the channel. “Make peace with the Germans,” some urge. “The Bolsheviks must be stopped.”

“Let them wear each other down,” say others.

In Moscow, the Soviet government publishes documents proving Germany’s intention to attack the USSR, and justifying Stalin’s strike as a preemptive one to “liberate the toiling peoples of Europe from imperial-fascist slavery.”

The assault on France begins. What is left of the Wehrmacht, complemented by French fascist volunteers and the Vichy French Army, puts up a spirited defense, to little avail. The Red Army sweeps aside its dissolute foes and storms into Paris on New Year’s, 1942.

Red tank armies wheel southward, driving towards Provence and the Pyrenees. In the east and south, the Red 9th Army seizes Budapest, and then rushes onto Vienna and Prague, while the 18th Army moves into Yugoslavia and towards Greece.

In one of history’s great ironies, what remains of the Wehrmacht ends up crushed against the English Channel, the sea to their backs and the Red Army to their face, the same predicament in which they left the British at Dunkirk one year ago. They are joined in their unenviable position by officers, lords, politicians, activists, and civilians from nearly every nation in Europe fleeing the Soviet onslaught, marked for elimination by their fascist sympathies or class origins.

And like the British at Dunkirk, the Germans look across the water towards London for salvation. They have been at war with England for two years now, yes. But that was a gentleman’s war, wasn’t it? Surely the English cannot leave them to the red steppe hordes?

What remains of the Nazi government, headed by Göring and gathering in the port city of Le Havre, desperately pleas with Churchill to evacuate them, and as many of their soldiers, as possible, before the Russians arrive.

Fierce debate erupts in parliament. Some say that the Germans would never have offered them such a kindness. Leave them to the reds. Many on the right push their insistence that the Bolsheviks are worse than the Nazis.

Riots erupt in London, Birkenhead, and Liverpool at the prospect of Britain being flooded by German refugees, including disarmed soldiers.

Churchill’s government opens negotiations with Stalin. The Council of People’s Ministers promises German prisoners of war will be treated in accordance with international law, but refuses to give any guarantees for Nazi leaders.

The Red Army nears Le Havre and the Nazi government in exile, even as crack SS troops and Milice struggle to hold them back. In the end, Churchill quietly okays an evacuation of the Le Havre government to Britain.

Word leaks to the public. Further riots break out in London at the prospect that British resources are going to be expended to save Hitler’s butchers from the Russians.

Between popular pressure and a sudden red offensive, the operation is a spectacular failure. On March 23rd, 1942, Even as British ships anchor offshore, the Red Army breaks into Le Havre before any of the cowering Nazis can make it to the docks.

Göring’s shambles of a government is captured almost to the last man, save for a handful who slip through the Soviet net. Notably, Reinhard Heydrich slips away, disappearing from the pages of history. For the time being.

Now holding what remains of the Nazi high echelons, Stalin thunders against the British imperialists, who he says “have given the lie to their supposed ‘anti-fascistm’, for they have endeavored to save Hitler’s hangmen from the justice of the people.”

When word spreads across Europe of the attempted rescue of the Nazi elites by British forces, the prestige of the UK and Churchill’s government in particular, within and without the country, plummets.

Meanwhile, the Red Army, having seized and pacified the northern European plain, as well as having driven to Greece, turns its attentions southward. Mussolini’s Italy still stands, quivering in terror behind the Alps. Fascist Spain races to fortify the Pyrenees.

It is easy enough to justify war on the remaining fascist states--they had aided Germany all through the war, after all, and had even pledged men and resources to the bungled invasion of the USSR.

Fascist Italy begs Britain for assistance, they cannot face the Red Army alone, Mussolini pleads. Count Ciano, Mussolini’s longtime foreign minister, curses him to his face, damning him for having entered the war on Hitler’s side and thus having provided Stalin with an ironclad causus belli.

“The hammer and the sickle will split the fasces, and you have only yourself to blame, duce.”

The Royal Navy begins to run guns and ammunitions to Sicily and Naples. From Moscow, Molotov blasts London for her about-face.

“Mussolini and Hitler were devils, except now that the Red Army moves to destroy them, they become your dearest friends,” he charges.

When a Royal Navy destroyer sinks a Red Navy cruiser off of the coast of Spain, the USSR declares war on Great Britain.

The Red Army masses on the Alps, like Napoleon 150 years ago, or Hannibal before him. The fascist army, bolstered by British advisors, prepares to stand and fight.

On June 5th, 1942, the Red Army launches its invasion of Italy. In the old industrial towns of the northern peninsula, many workers and trade unions are sympathetic to the Bolsheviks, and soon stir up trouble in Mussolini’s rear.

Red planes drop leaflets over the country, promising liberty to the workers of Turin and Milan and the peasants of Napoli and Messina. They remind how Mussolini plunged a dagger into the back of the socialists and how his blackshirts murdered the workers’ movement at the behest of the bosses.

There is no full-scale rebellion against fascist rule, but in many parts of the country, support for Il Duce chills considerably.

The Italian Army holds its positions on the Apennine Mountains for some months, to the shock of many.

But on August 18th, 1942, the Red Army breaks through in a grand offensive. Mussolini shoots himself as Soviet shells rain down on Rome. King Vittorio Emanuele is killed when his convoy, moving west towards Ostia and a British exile, is strafed by red fighter planes.

On September 11th, Soviet troops reach the toe of the Italian Peninsula.

In the west, Franco’s government panics. The civil war is only three years over. Millions of Spaniards who supported the republic through the conflict loathe the new fascist government, and many of those millions hope the Red Army will soon march over the Pyrenees to topple it. Such is Stalin’s intentions.

Insurgencies render Andalusia, Vasconia, and Catalonia near ungovernable. A full-scale anarchist-republican uprising in Seville and the surrounding countryside is only crushed by the use of 5,000 regular troops and multiple units of Civil Guards and Falangists.

In Britain, the government struggles to turn the people, primed over the past years for war against Germany, to support instead the struggle against bolshevism. The worst excesses of the Russian Civil War are dredged up, and invented where they do not exist. Lurid pictures are painted of what will happen should England go red.

But the British people are tired of war. Few want a soviet in London, but not many are eager for a conflagration with Stalin.

Nevertheless, Churchill’s cabinet organizes a British Expeditionary Force, which is summarily dispatched to Salazar’s Portugal. Franco’s Spain welcomes the British assistance.

Franco’s government announces to the world again and again that Spain was neutral in the European war, and thus the Soviet Union could have no cause for declaring war on her. They know full well such reasoning will have no play with Stalin, but they hope to at least convince the world at large that the Russians are in the wrong.

Stalin responds: “that the cowardice of the Spanish fascists kept them from an open declaration of war did not prevent them lending aid to their German and Spanish allies wherever possible. The working people of Spain cry out for a liberation from the brutal regime that crushed their democracy and even now holds them in chains.”

Soviet troops mass on the Pyrenees. Spain is in ferment.

In the coffee houses of Madrid and Barcelona, many a joke is made about the “5,000,000 sons of St. Stalin.”

On December 5th, 1942, the Red Army pours over the Pyrenees. Barcelona revolts against the Francoist troops even before the Russians arrive, and when they do, they are greeted with open arms by the republican city. The staunchly conservative Navarre and the Basque Country receive the soldiers with much less enthusiasm.

Franco’s armies and the British forces fortify Madrid, hoping ironically for a repeat of the miracle of 1936, wherein the republican forces held of Franco’s forces at the edge of the city.

No such luck. The Red Army barrels towards the capital, sweeping aside like bowling pins Spanish and British divisions. Franco’s army dissolves. The survivors, along with their British allies, pull back towards Portugal. Franco flees with them.

When red troops storm down the Gran Vía, the occupants of Madrid’s lower quarters turn out to cheer them, waving red flags, while from upper stories the city’s middle classes watch in horror.

Thousands of refugees, including Franco and many of his ministers, crowd the port at Lisbon, clamoring to escape.

The rest of Spain is quickly pacified.

Stalin is glad so many fascist Spanish troops and civilians have fled into Portugal. It will make the justification that much easier. He demands Salazar turn them over.

Naturally, the dictator refuses.

The Red Army invades Portugal in the third week of January, 1943. It is remembered as the Five-Day Campaign.

Franco escapes into a south American exile.

The world watches, stunned beyond belief. How could such a thing happen? In less than two years, Europe is bolshevized. The Red Army is in Minsk and in Lisbon.

In 1919, Lenin had spoken of world revolution. He had believed it on the horizon. The propertied classes of the west had trembled. But the revolutionary wave had fizzled. The Soviet Union ceased to be a found of global revolt and become just another nation-state.

But now, the old goal of the Bolsheviks returned to the forefront. World revolution! A world soviet republic!

Hysteria rules in the Americas, in Japan, but especially in Britain. After all, only that thin, blessed stretch of water that is the channel protects them from the Red Army.

On May Day, 1943, a parade is held in Moscow. Thousands of German prisoners, along with Romanian, Hungarian, and even fascist French and Spanish, are marched through Red Square, before cheering crowds.

Toasts are made to Comrade Stalin, Brilliant Genius of Humanity, Architect of Communism, and now, ‘Liberator of Nations’.

In the newly conquered territories, the bolsheviks get busy. The Nazis have done much of the hard work for them, many of the old states of Europe, such as Poland and Czechoslovakia, have suffered complete debellation at the hands of the Nazis. The Nazis have everywhere destroyed state machinery and national governments. They will have to be rebuilt. And rebuilt under the watchful, brotherly eye of the Red Army, of course.

A “People’s Provisional Government of Poland” is set up. Old German communists and young workers from the Rhineland easily turned from Nazism to Stalinism provide the nucleus for a “Supreme Revolutionary Council” in Berlin. In Spain there is an “Emergency Commission for the Administration of the Spanish Republic.”

All over Europe, these nominally independent governments are established. ‘Fascist’ parties (and the net is cast rather wide) are of course banned from participation, their members where they can be found summarily arrested by the NKVD. All others are allowed to participate, even bourgeois liberals and conservatives. But special consideration is given to ‘proletarian’ parties, as “the liberating class”, whose votes and delegates in the new governments receive outsized weight.

The 1940s are a period of intense political reorganization through Europe. Stalin’s principal goal is to build up bases of solid support in the occupied countries. The Red Army enjoys great prestige for having defeated Hitler and liberated Europe, but it will not last forever.

Stalin focuses on wooing the industrial and agricultural workers of Europe. The middle classes will never see the light of socialism, and the smallholding peasants will be a struggle. But with millions of urban laborers and rural proletarians, the Red Army will have enough to hold down the continent.

Those classified as ‘proletarian’ are given priority in work, schooling, wages, and medicine. The policy is in the main successful. To the surprise of many, especially in Germany. Eight years of Nazi rule was not enough to erase the country’s old, militant labor traditions. The miners of the Ruhr, longshoremen in Hamburg, and ironworkers in Berlin soon become a powerful base of support for the new pro-Soviet government.

Not all are quite as warm to the new order. In spring 1945, a massive uprising erupts in Bavaria, and three Soviet divisions are needed to quell it, with some 20,000 dead. In the eastern countries, Romania, Hungary, and Slovakia, largely peasant, stolid and conservative, the Red Army suffers partisan attacks and native recalcitrance.

Economic and social chaos envelops the continent. Landowners, aristocrats, intelligentsia, and officers are arrested, and shot by the NKVD. Mass graves scar the land from Minsk to Madrid. Farmland and factories are collectivized. Strict censorship of all ‘fascist’ and ‘imperialist’ literature is enforced. Trade unions and parties are subsumed into the ‘Red International of Labor Unions’. School curricula are reformed, to include lessons on Marxist theory and inculcate a proletarian consciousness in Europe’s youth.

It is bloody, weary work.

But by and large, Europe is pacified.

In 1944-45, the Nazi leadership along with many of their European allies (Antonescu, Horthy, Laval, Pavelic and the like) are tried. There is no need to cynically invent evidence in common Soviet fashion. More than enough to condemn Hitler’s regime is found in the documents of the RSHA and the Wehrmacht. Plans to starve millions of soviet citizens in the war that never was. Blueprints for the elimination of the Jews from Europe. Explicit orders to disobey international laws of war.

Himmler and Göring are hanged on the same day, May 8th, 1945. The rest follow in batches. Acquittals are next to none.

In the winter of 45-46, the Polish provisional government, having conclusively dispensed with its internal ‘bourgeois’ rivals, ‘requests’ official admission to the USSR. Moscow, of course, accepts.

Britain condemns the “illegal annexation”. The Soviet Union fires back that a country ruling half the world has little ground to stand upon when making such accusations.

The rest of Europe, under their Soviet-friendly governments, follows suit. Slovakia joins in the spring of 46, along with Hungary and Bohemia. That fall, so do Yugoslavia and Bulgaria.

Germany joins in early 1947. Italy later that summer. France just before the new year.

By the winter of 1949, most all of Europe has been annexed (or been admitted, as official parlance insists) to the Soviet Union.

Sweden and Switzerland had been neutral in the war. Never occupied or allied with the Germans. So it is a bit harder to justify marching the Red Army in. Instead, the NKVD funds and organizes communist dissidents, to foment revolt and eventually revolution.

Britain fortifies herself. The island becomes “one great barrack” as Soviet propaganda describes it. Travel to and from the continent dwindles into nonexistence.

Parliament passes a series of laws effectively allowing for the indefinite internment of any suspected communists or communist sympathizers. Communist, socialist, and not a few social democratic papers are summarily closed down by the government. Trade unions are dissolved or neutered.

The left, even the mildest laborites, become the target of extreme suspicion.

It comes to a head in the autumn of 1945, when Labour wins a resounding victory at the polls, with an 8% margin. Five years ago conservatives and liberals would have regarded as an obnoxious setback to be rectified in the next round. Now, with the Red Army across the channel, the results are greeted with widespread panic by the middle classes and propertied gentlemen of Britain.

To worsen the situation, in Yorkshire, thousands of miners, emboldened by the victory, go on strike, officially endorsed by the Labour leadership. The papers scream that this is bolshevism coming to Britain at last.

The miners are bullied, harassed, and beaten by their boss’s hired men, desperate to end the stoppage. On October 3rd, 1945, a firefight erupts between armed miners and triggermen in the employ of the coal companies.

The sitting Conservative government takes the opportunity to quell the situation, sending in 3,000 troops to ‘pacify’ the north. What results is a bloody battle between British soldiers and armed workers that leaves 382 dead and a country in shock.

The newly elected Labour delegates never take their seats, because the party, officially blamed for the debacle, is banned.

British politics lurch rightward.

Sir Oswald Mosley of the British Union of Fascists, regarding as a bad joke by most respectable Britons prior to the war, suddenly finds the nation quite receptive to his ‘message’.

The BUF rebrands itself the ‘British Patriots’ League’ and stands in the 1950 elections, winning 24% of the vote on a platform of ‘saving Britain from bolshevism, whatever the cost.’

The autonomy slowly being granted to overseas territories is revoked. India and South Africa are subject to direct rule from London.

Across the sea, a similar, if more muted phenomenon sweeps the United States.

Having remained neutral through the war, she has been spared the raw destruction that wrought on Europe and England. But the rapid expansion of the USSR persuades many that if the United States had intervened in the European war, perhaps Stalin’s ambitions could have been checked.

After bombs are mailed to a number of politicians and public officials in the spring of 1946, the Communist Party of the USA is officially banned.

In 1948, under the MacArthur administration, the United States signs a mutual assistance treaty with the United Kingdom, pledging 500,000 troops to be stationed on the British Isles for defense against “foreign (i.e, bolshevik) aggression”.

The world splits into two camps.

Britain clamps down on her colonial empire, with the assistance of the United States. In South Africa and India, separatist rebel groups spring into being, not-so-subtly armed and trained by the NKVD and GRU. Repression is harsh. British paratroopers and SAS men burn Zulu villages to the ground outside of Johannesburg. Thousands of US and British troops are funneled into India.

The overseas holdings of European powers now subsumed into the USSR (Portuguese Angola, the Belgian Congo, etc.) pass under Anglo-American ‘administration’.

In the east, Japan, equally alarmed by Stalin’s expansion, signs an “anti-Bolshevik” pact with the UK and US. France no longer existing as an independent state, Japan is allowed to retain control of French Indochina, against the feeble protests of nationalistic Frenchmen overseas.

In February of 1950, a series of border clashes in Manchuria between the Red Army and Imperial Japanese forces escalates into full-blown war.

Britain and America, while not entering the conflict officially, provide arms, fuel, and advisors to the Japanese military.

Stalin declares his intentions to “liberate the east from the cruel grip of Japanese fascism.”

The USSR funds Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek and communist rebel Mao Tse-Tung in their fight against the Japanese.

The conflict lasts until 1953, when the Red Army finally throws the Japanese out of Manchuria and Korea. Both are summarily joined to the USSR as soviet republics.

But Moscow’s grand ambitions to take China as well founder. Chiang Kai-Shek, now supported by the west (as Japan as been expelled from the country, and the choice is now between him and the reds), defeats Mao in a long civil war, and unifies China under a conservative, authoritarian government.

In Europe, the USSR continues its ‘building socialism’. The German Soviet Republic builds up its industrial capacity to new levels, coming closer to outstripping the Russian SFSR in production.

In 1953, Turkey collapses into civil war as leftist rebels attempt to overthrow the government. The conflict lasts six months, with a success for the left, that establishes a soviet sympathetic state.

In 1955, after years of subversion, Soviet-funded rebels overthrow the government of Switzerland. A provisional government “requests” admission to the USSR, and it duly granted. The little country, much to the horror of its people, is divided up between the Italian, French, and German soviet republics.

In 1956, the BPL wins 46% of the vote in the UK general elections, forming a government. William Joyce, an old-school ‘reformed’ fascist (the British people have a distaste for Mussolini’s old philosophy, even now) is appointed Prime Minister.

That same year, the Brazilian Integrationists, with US support, come to power on a wave of anti-communist sentiment. The ensuing dictatorship disappears and murders thousands. Communist guerrillas retreat into the impenetrable Amazon, where they take up a dogged resistance.

As Germany grows to become the most industrially developed component republic in the USSR, the center of gravity shifts towards Berlin. It is declared the capital of the union in 1957.

In 1958, Soviet-backed rebels in Syria and Iraq organize to throw off British colonial rule. The Red Army moves in from the Caucasus, prepared to lend its assistance.

Prime Minister Joyce warns the newly elected Soviet General Secretary Tukhachevsky that further interference in the region will mean war.

The USSR is undeterred.

London does not have the stomach for a direct war. British colonial troops (along with their US allies) fight a losing war with the rebels in Aleppo and Baghdad.

In 1960, Iraq and Syria expel the Anglo-Americans and, under Soviet tutelage, merge into the Arab Republic.

Palestine follows. Now parliament passes a declaration of war on Moscow. British troops flood the mid-east

In 1961, the Red Army chases British troops out of Egypt and raises a red flag in Cairo.

Panic grips Britain. That summer, a longshoremen’s strike in London is put down by soldiers with 38 dead. Parliament passes a law legalizing ‘contracts’ between employers and workers that forbid strikes and work stoppages, and bind the laborer to his place of work. Once signed, a worker may not quit.

It is widely denounced in many quarters of slavery, but Britain’s fast developing state security apparatus squelches dissent.

This is the world in the year 1962, as red and white duel for mastery of the earth, hands gory with blood.

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thetwoguineabook · 7 years

Text

Blackbird - Complete Timeline 1910-1950

Needless to say, here be spoilers

Pre-story

c.1910: Ina Rittberger abandons her life and fortune in Germany to marry Mikhail Nikiforov, a Russian communist. 1913: Victor is born in then-St Petersburg. 1917: Russian revolution. Yuuri is born in Hasetsu. 1922: Stalin becomes leader of the Soviet Union. 1925: Ascension of Emperor Hirohito in Japan. late. 1920s: Okukawa Minako retires from ballet and marries Celestine Cholmondeley, a professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford. 1933: Victor quits Leningrad State University in his second year and joins the Red Army, attending military school and receiving a Lieutenant's commission. Hitler appointed Chancellor of Germany. 1935: Yuuri travels to England and begins undergraduate study at Oxford at Minako's invitation, reading for a joint honours degree in French and German. 1936: Victor is transferred to foreign intelligence at the NKVD, promoted to Captain, and sent into Germany. July 1938: Yuuri graduates from Oxford, returns home, and joins the Japanese foreign service. August 1938: Celestine begins cryptography work at Bletchley Park. Minako starts to repurpose her extensive worldwide arts contacts into a spy ring and bullies MI6 into hiring her. late 1938: Victor's assignment in Berlin begins. August 1939: Nazi-Soviet Pact signed. September 1939: Germany invades Poland. Britain and France declare war. early 1940: Yuuri is assigned to Berlin as an assistant to the military attaché. Minako writes to him and he agrees to spy for the British. summer 1940: Yuuri and Victor first meet. May-June 1940: Germany invades and defeats France. Allied forces evacuated from Dunkirk. August 1940: First British bombing raid on Berlin. April 1941: Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact signed. June 1941: Germany invades Russia. September 1941: Siege of Leningrad begins. Yuri and Mila join the Red Army. October 1941: Battle of Moscow begins. December 1941: Attack on Pearl Harbour. USA enters the war, Britain now officially at war with Japan.

Berlin

January 1942: Berlin arc begins. Soviet victory at Moscow. Wannsee Conference decides on the 'Final Solution'. March 1942: Having observed him receiving instructions from Yakov, Yuuri deduces that Victor is a Soviet spy. After communicating with Minako, he reveals himself to Victor and they agree to exchange information. May 1942: Victor and Yuuri begin a love affair alongside their spying work. June 1942: Massacre at Lidice, Emil's home village. July 1942: Use of extermination camps in the Holocaust begins. Sara intercepts a letter from Hitler concerning the transportation of Italian Jews to Poland and confronts Victor about it. August 1942: Battle of Stalingrad begins. December 1942: Joint Declaration by Members of the United Nations denouncing the Holocaust, which Yuuri listens to on a BBC Overseas Service broadcast. January 1943: Operation Iskra. Land route into besieged Leningrad established. February 1943: Soviet victory at Stalingrad. Tide begins to turn against Axis nations on the Eastern Front. April 1943: The Nazis announce details of the Katyn Massacre committed by the NKVD in 1939. Victor's refusal to believe in the possibility of Soviet culpability causes a fight with Yuuri. July 1943: Allied forces invade and capture Sicily. Mussolini falls from power. September 1943: Allied invasion of Italy and Italian surrender. The news breaks at a party at the Japanese embassy and Sara refuses to go with her father into SS custody, later fleeing the country with Michele. Nazi puppet state established in northern Italy and new Italian government in the south declares war on Germany. November 1943: Air Battle of Berlin. Japanese embassy destroyed in a British bombing raid. In the aftermath Yuuri shoots a colleague to protect his and Victor's secrets, and escapes to Britain via Switzerland. January 1944: Siege of Leningrad lifted. spring 1944: Yuuri is debriefed in London and begins work as a translator for MI6, having been granted British citizenship. June 1944: D-Day landings in Normandy. The Red Army begins to advance through Eastern Europe. April-May 1945: Soviet and Polish forces capture Berlin. Victor and Otabek raise the Red Banner over the Reichstag. End of the war in Europe. July 1945: UK general election, Clement Attlee becomes Prime Minister. summer 1945: Victor returns home through Eastern Europe, witnessing many Soviet atrocities. Yuuri is awarded the George Cross. August 1945: Atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan surrenders and the war ends.

London

autumn 1947: Phichit begins doctoral studies at Oxford under Celestine, and is introduced to Yuuri. Victor is promoted to Major and assigned to London, undercover as a political exile and a teacher of Russian, as a controller for Soviet agents in the UK. January 1948: London arc begins. May 1948: Victor and Yuuri are 'introduced' to one another by Celestine at a performance of Shostakovich's 7th Symphony, and shortly afterwards resume their affair. June 1948: Berlin Airlift begins. HMT Empire Windrush docks in London with 492 migrants from Jamaica on board- the first of the 'Windrush Generation'. July 1948: National Health Service begins operation. Victor is kicked out of his boarding house and moves in with Yuuri, not informing any of his Soviet colleagues. July-August 1948: Summer Olympics held in London, the first since the war. September 1948: Dinner party at Chez Cholmondeley. January 1949: Yuuri meets with the MI6 Director of Requirements and is offered a potential field assignment in either Korea or Hong Kong. February 1949: 'Leningrad Affair' begins. Treason charges brought against party officials in Leningrad, including Elisabet Babicheva, and Victor is questioned at the embassy in London, causing him to decide to defect to Britain. May 1949: Yuuri spends two weeks on MI6 ops training in Hampshire. August 1949: First Soviet nuclear weapon, the RDS-1, successfully tested in the Kazakh SSR. September 1949: News of the nuclear test breaks at MI6 and the Russian Embassy. Georgi confronts Victor about his connection with Yuuri, and accuses him of spying for the British. After handing over documents on the Cambridge Five to Minako and Celestine, Yuuri and Victor flee to Paris, where Christophe helps them evade Russian agents and accompanies them to Switzerland.

1950: Victor and Yuuri have managed to establish themselves with new jobs and a new life in Bern. They get a dog.

#fic: blackbird

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2700fstreet · 6 years

Photo

THEATER / 2018-2019

Anastasia

Book by Terrence McNally Music by Stephen Flaherty Lyrics by Lynn Ahrens Directed by Darko Tresnjak

So, What’s Going On?

What do you do when your family has vanished, your homeland is in turmoil, and it’s not safe to reveal your identity—not that you even remember it? In other words, “How do you become the person you’ve forgotten you ever were?”

Based on an actual historical mystery, the Broadway musical Anastasia tells the story of Russia in the early 1900s, at a time of tension between the endangered monarchy and the rising power of the Bolshevik revolutionaries, who aim to take over the country. With the overthrow and assassination of the royal family comes a big unknown: Could one daughter, the Grand Duchess Anastasia, have survived the turmoil and begun her own quest toward a new beginning? Well, what do you think?

Let’s find out!

Act I

Lights up on the luxury of a royal Russian palace, 1906, the home of the Russian tsar (the emperor of Russia) and his family, the Romanovs. Little Anastasia loves her grandmother, the Dowager Empress, who is about to leave for Paris, France. Before she departs, she gives Anastasia a music box by which to remember her. Anastasia and her grandmother dream of one day reuniting in Paris.

Caption: The Dowager Empress gives young Anastasia a music box that plays the song, “Once Upon a December.”

More than a decade later, in 1917, Anastasia dances at a royal ball—but the glamour of the night is gone in a moment as shots disrupt the festivities. Then, there’s an explosion—a flash of light—and the end of the Romanovs. Anastasia’s grandmother, still in France, learns by telegram that her entire family is dead.

But all is not as it appears, as whispers on the street of post-Revolutionary St. Petersburg (now Leningrad, named for the new leader, Vladimir Lenin) tell that Anastasia may have survived the murders. A con man, Vlad, (no relation to Vladimir Lenin), and his sidekick, the poor young Dmitry, conspire to find and train an Anastasia lookalike to impersonate the princess, earn the trust of the Dowager Empress, and secure a reward. Years have passed since Anastasia and her grandmother have seen each other—if they prime the imposter with just the right information, will her elderly grandmother really know the difference?

Vlad and Dmitry struggle to find a convincing Anastasia. Then, they meet a young woman with no memory of her past, the amnesiac street sweeper Anya, who makes the perfect faux princess. She’s the right age, a quick study, and falls into the part with surprising ease. She also feels drawn to Paris, though she can’t remember why.

Caption: Dmitry watches as Anya easily handles the used Romanov music box that Dmitry had purchased and was unable to open.

Meanwhile, news of the fraud reaches a young Soviet commissioner named Gleb, who has been tasked with looking out for “counter-revolutionary behavior”—the sort of behavior that Vlad, Dmitry, and Anya are engaging in by claiming that a member of the royal family is still alive. To make matters worse, Gleb’s family has a history of anti-tsarist violence; his father had been a Romanov guard and obeyed orders to fire on (and assassinate) the royal family as part of the revolution. Gleb warns Anya to give up her attempt at impersonating the princess, as it puts her life at risk.

Caption: After Anya startles at a loud sound, Gleb offers reassurance and an invitation to a nearby teashop.

As Act I closes, Vlad, Dmitry, and Anya carry out their plan. With the remainder of their money, they buy train tickets to flee Russia before the country’s borders close. Police raid the train, looking for aristocrats trying to escape. Gleb, it turns out, has been tasked by his supervisor with finishing the job his father helped start: Making sure the royals—and Anastasia in particular—are gone for good.

Act II

We join our crafty crew in Paris, where the Jazz Age, an era of jazz music, arts, and culture, is in full swing. It’s a bright, joyous city—a far cry from dreary conditions in Russia—and the trio is relieved to have made it there. Despite the initial relief of being free of Russia, Anya knows the stakes are high for her planned interactions with the Dowager Empress, who refuses to engage with claimants to the royal name after years of insult from imposters.

Caption: Anya arrives in Paris, where the beauty and freedom of the city fill her with hope.

For Anya, this job is not a con. Yes, she’s learned everything that Dmitry and Vlad have taught her—but she’s filling in memories they didn’t give her. How does she know how to open the music box? And that the Dowager Empress will smell like Sicilian orange blossoms? And that she’s met Dmitry once before, many years ago…? And will she ever find “home”?

Who’s Who

Anastasia/Anya, as Anastasia, the youngest daughter of the Russian emperor; as Anya, an amnesiac young woman The Dowager Empress, Anastasia’s grandmother The Tsarina, Anastasia’s mother The Tsar, Nicholas II, the last emperor of Russia Gleb, a young Soviet official Gorlinsky, Gleb’s supervisor Dmitry, a poor young man who grew up on the streets of St. Petersburg Vlad Popov, a scammer, formerly traveled in aristocratic circles Count Ipolitov, Russian aristocrat and intellectual Lily, the Countess Malevsky-Malevich, the Dowager Empress’s lady-in-waiting Count Leopold, distant relative of the Dowager Empress

Check this out:

Find out more about the characters here: “Journey to Broadway: The Characters”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGoAZD74BxQ

youtube

Let’s Back Up: The Russian Revolution

Anastasia is based on a mystery that emerged after the murders of the last imperial family of Russia, the Romanovs. In 1917, a group of Communist revolutionaries called the Bolsheviks, under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin, overthrew the royal family in a coup. After exiling the royal family, the Bolsheviks shot them, killing Tsar Nicholas Romanov II, the Tsarina, and their five children. This ensured that the Romanovs would never again ascend to the throne.

Caption: In 1913, Tsar Nicholas II with his family (left to right): Olga, Maria, Tsarina Alexandra Fyodorovna, Anastasia, Alexei, and Tatiana.

Credit: Public domain photo. Accessed from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Execution_of_the_Romanov_family#/media/File:Russian_Imperial_Family_1913.jpg

But hang on. Was the entire family dead? After the murders, a rumor circulated that some members of the royal family—and Anastasia, in particular—might be alive. Indeed, several years later, a woman in Germany claimed to have survived the shooting and to be Anastasia.

Enter Anna Anderson.

The Mystery of the Real Anastasia

In 1920, a woman in Germany jumped into a canal and was committed to a psychiatric facility. When fellow patients conjectured that she might be a Russian royal, the woman allowed them to believe they were right and that, not only was she a royal, she was Anastasia. Soon, she took on the name Anna Anderson and, after she left the hospital, attempted to claim her identity as a royal.

Caption: A 1922 photo of Anna Anderson, who claimed until her death (in 1984) to have escaped the Bolsheviks and to be the Grand Duchess Anastasia.

Credit: Accessed from: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AnnaAnderson1922.jpg

Was Anna Anderson, in fact, Anastasia? The investigation proved challenging. What methods could be used to undercover a person’s identity given the lack of physical evidence associated with Anastasia? Without the benefit of fingerprints or dental records, investigators tried other methods to confirm this woman’s identity, including an examination of the shape of her ears compared to Anastasia’s.

Ultimately, after Anderson’s death, DNA testing allowed researchers to determine that Anderson was not Anastasia after all; she was a missing factory worker named Franziska Schanzkowska. In 2007, a burial site in Russia yielded additional bodies, including one that DNA testing confirmed to be the remains of Anastasia, definitively closing the case on the Romanov mystery—and dynasty.

Your Russian Phrase Book

The first act of Anastasia takes place in Russia in the early 1900s. There will most likely be a few titles, terms, and phrases you may not have heard before. Here’s a quick guide to some of them:

Tsar: an emperor of Russia Tsarina: an empress of Russia Grand Duchess: a daughter of the Russian tsar; princess Dowager Empress: the widow of the deceased emperor St. Petersburg/Leningrad: names for the same Russian city; called “St. Petersburg” from 1703-1914, “Petrograd” from 1914-1924, “Leningrad” (for Vladimir Lenin) from 1924-1991, and St. Petersburg again when the former Soviet Union collapsed Ruble: Russian currency Comrade: a fellow Communist Red: the official color of the Communists, which symbolizes the blood of the workers

What to Look and Listen for…

Not sure what to expect? Take two minutes and watch this video on all things “Anastasia” https://youtu.be/vTinr8eXftM

youtube

Then look for:

The historical accuracy of costume designer Linda Cho’s work, from the ghostly beauty of the imperial family’s wardrobe to the neutral, desaturated colors used as the Bolsheviks take over. Pay attention to the Tsarina’s dress, which weighs about 50 pounds. Later, in the 1920s Jazz Age period in Paris, watch for bright, springtime colors and light fabrics.

How technology provides highly detailed settings. Using high-resolution LED screens embedded in the back wall and side turntables, projection designer Aaron Rhyne has made Anastasia the first Broadway musical to engage with this technology. Observe, too, how carefully selected stage lighting choices match the colors in the projections.

Then listen for:

The language connections between Russia and Paris. Before the Bolshevik revolution, French was a commonly used language amongst the Russian nobility. In Anastasia, you will hear the Tsar address his daughter as “Mademoiselle” (Miss) when he asks her to dance. The Dowager Empress is on her way to Paris, where there is a bridge, Le Pont Alexandre, named for Anastasia’s grandfather.

The way composer Stephen Flaherty and lyricist Lynn Ahrens evoke Russian musical tradition in their Act I compositions. The duo listened to Russian composers, including Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev, in order to prepare themselves to write the musical numbers. They used jazz pieces, such as “The Charleston,” as inspiration for the music of Act II, which takes places in Paris in the 1920s.

Musical themes that serve as connections, such as when the music box plays “Once Upon a December” at the start of Act I and again later in Act I and in Act II, serving both as a hint at Anya’s identity and as a sense of nostalgia for both the character and the audience.

Lyrics that reflect the play’s emphasis on “home, love, family.” As Anya says, “It’s never too late to come home.” Listen, too, for the lines that reveal the importance of self-worth and identity. The Dowager Empress captures this sentiment: “You can’t be anyone unless you first recognize yourself.”

Caption: The Pont Alexandre III in Paris, is an opulent bridge that was named for Anastasia’s grandfather.

Credit: Accessed at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pont_Alexandre_III#/media/File:Pont-Alexandre-III-et-Invalides.jpg

Think About…

In what ways do Dmitry and Vlad feed Anya the information she needs to “be” Anastasia? Are there ways in which she seems to embody Anastasia naturally? Do you believe that she demonstrates enough independent knowledge of Anastasia’s life to truly be the princess?

To what extent does desperation caused by poor and/or dangerous living conditions in Communist Russia justify the characters’ decisions? Are Vlad and Dmitry dishonorable in their behaviors? Is Gleb?

Is it possible to understand your identity without remembering your past? What role does family, or lack thereof, play in Anya’s understanding of where she belongs? Consider, too, the attachment that Anya and others have to their homeland. To what extent do both external (for example, governmental) and internal (personal) factors complicate their departures from Russia?

Take Action: Who’s in Your Tree?

What do you know about your own family history? Cast and crew of Anastasia underwent DNA testing to uncover their family histories. Just as Anya’s adventures led her to her long-lost grandmother and her forgotten childhood, genealogical work led the show’s stars to learn about their ethnic origins.

Try creating your own family tree, tracing your roots back as far as you can. When you exhaust your knowledge, ask family members to help you fill in more names and dates. You can also use online resources, including digital U.S. Census records, Ellis Island ship manifests, and other historical resources to find information about your family history.

Check out this sample to create your family tree:

Additional Images

Caption: Anya, a poor Russian street sweeper, yearns to remember her home and family.

Caption: At the Neva Club in Paris, aristocratic Russians who have escaped their homeland enjoy a night of dancing and celebration.

Caption: Dmitry is awed by the full extent of Anya’s transformation from a raggedy street sweeper to an elegant young woman.

Caption: Anya attends a performance of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake and watches a pas de deux, a dance for two people.

EXPLORE MORE

Go even deeper with the Anastasia Extras.

All production photos by Matthew Murphy

Writer: Marina Ruben

Content Editor: Lisa Resnick

Logistics Coordination: Katherine Huseman

Producer and Program Manager: Tiffany A. Bryant

Theater at the Kennedy Center is made possible by

Major support for Musical Theater at the Kennedy Center is provided by

The Kennedy Center Theater Season is sponsored by Altria Group.

Major support for educational programs at the Kennedy Center is provided by David M. Rubenstein through the Rubenstein Arts Access Program.

Kennedy Center education and related artistic programming is made possible through the generosity of the National Committee for the Performing Arts.

#theater #anastasiaat2700F

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fashionbooksmilano · 6 years

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Beauty in Exile

The Artists, Models, and Nobility who Fled the Russian Revolution and Influenced the World of Fashion

Alexandre Vassiliev

Harry N. Abrams, New York 2000, 480 pages

euro 120,00*

email if you want to buy :[email protected]

Russians fleeing from the chaos that followed the revolution of 1917 brought with them styles in fashion that led to a craze for Oriental and exotic clothing, decorated with pearls, silks, and embroidery, which influenced Western culture, not only in popular couture, but the costumes worn by performers at the ballet, modern dance and theater, all illustrated here in copious b&w reproductions. Fashion historian and costume and set designer Vasilliev narrates the history of the Russian emigration in Istanbul, Paris, Berlin, and the eastern Russian port of Harbin, before detailing, chapter by chapter, the fashion houses set up by TmigrTs, various cloth designers, Russian handicrafts, and Russian models from WWI into the 1950s.

orders to: [email protected]

twitter: @fashionbooksmi

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#Beauty in Exile #russians #russian emigration #Irfé #Yteb #Valentina #Diaghilev #Ballets russes #fashion books #fashionbooksmilano

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pamphletstoinspire · 6 years

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Catholic Prophecy - Part 19

70 Catholic Prophecy

^| 53.25 1820-1821 (No precise date). "I see many excommunicated ecclesiastics who do not seem to be concerned about it, nor even aware of it. Yet, they are {ipso facto) ex-communicated whenever they cooperate to [sic] enterprises, enter into associations, and embrace opinions on which an anathema has been cast. It can be seen thereby that God ratifies the decrees, orders, and interdictions issued by the Head of the Church, and that He keeps them in force even though men show no concern for them, reject them, or laugh them to scorn."

Comment: There is no doubt that this prophecy applies to our times. Writing in past issues of World Trends, I have cited many instances of bishops and priests who evinced opinions irreconcilable with Catholic doctrine.

fl 53.26 March 22, 1820. "I saw very clearly the errors, the aberrations, and the countless sins of men. I saw the folly and the wickedness of their actions, against all truth and all reason. Priests were among them, and I gladly endured my suffering so that they may return to a better mind."

Comment: This prophecy only states the presence of errors, without comments. But some other prophecies are more specific; it is not unduly difficult to recognize the errors condemned by Pius XII in Humani Generis and by St. Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis (On Modernism). I cannot elaborate on this subject; I did so in Issue No. 10 of World Trends in which the main errors of our times were examined. In No. 6, I gave evidence that many of the clergy had fallen for these errors. Some young avant-garde priests are now disseminating them freely in parish bulletins in the Diocese of Melbourne.

]\ 53.27 April 12, 1820. '\ had another vision of the great tribulation. It seems to me that a concession was demanded from the clergy which could not be granted. I saw many older priests, especially one, who wept bitterly. A few younger ones were also weeping. But others, and the lukewarm among them, readily did what was demanded. It was as if people were splitting into two camps."

Comment: This is another significant passage in the light of current developments. Catholics are divided, and this division was brought about by the reckless changes in our liturgy and the doctrinal deviations that were bound to result.

]j 53.28 January 27, 1822. "I saw a new Pope who will be very strict. He will estrange from him the cold and lukewarm bishops. He is not a Roman, but he is Italian. He comes from a place which is not very far from Rome, and I think he comes from a devout family of royal blood. But there must still be for a while much fighting and unrest/'

Paragraph 53 71

Comment: This is one of the countless prophecies announcing a strong Pope and one of the few adding that he will be of royal blood. But we shall see more of these. This Pope will make use of his God-given power, the mandate every Pope receives from Christ and which he has the duty to use unhesitatingly and resolutely.

|| 53.29 October 22, 1822. "Very bad times will come when non-Catholics will lead many people astray. A great confusion will result. I saw the battle also. The enemies were far more numerous, but the small army of the faithful cut down whole rows (of enemy soldiers). During the battle, the Blessed Virgin stood on a hill, wearing a suit of armor. It was a terrible war. At the end, only a few fighters for the just cause survived, but the victory was theirs."

Comment: This is probably the decisive "Birch-Tree Battle," which is described in countless prophecies. It will be fought in Westphalia (Germany) under the royal leader who is to become Emperor of the West. All the odds will seem to be against him, but after taking his troops to Mass, he will nevertheless engage the enemy and win. German and Russian troops will flee in disarray. Both the Birch-Tree Battle and the rule of the Great Monarch have been described by so many prophecies from the sixth century onward that it is quite unreasonable to dismiss these predictions as nonsense. Only ignorance can be an excuse. The fact is, contrary to a widely held notion, Communism is not "here to stay," and Democracy is going through its last senile stage. Both the West and the East are diseased, adhering obstinately to their respective follies, or seeking co-existence between their two dying systems, and unable to see that something else is coming.

|f 53.30 April 22, 1823. "I saw that many pastors allowed themselves to be taken up with ideas that were dangerous to the Church. They were building a great, strange, and extravagant Church. Everyone was to be admitted in it in order to be united and have equal rights: Evangelicals, Catholics, sects of every description. Such was to be the new Church. . . But God had other designs."

Comment: This passage is so plain that no elaboration seems

72 Catholic Prophecy

necessary. Sister Emmerick alluded earlier to the same error. All efforts currently made in a spirit of appeasement to unite the churches will be cut short by the Great Holocaust. Reunion will never come about through compromise.

Conclusion: We have reached the end of our encounter with Anna-Katharina Emmerick. What she has told us is anything but heartening. However, there is no cause for despair for the Catholic who is strong in Faith. The cross is our symbol. It is an instrument of torture, but it is also the instrument of salvation. Catholics must never forget this trilogy: "Sacrifice, suffering, salvation."

j[ 54. Fr. Freinademetz (20th century). "All foreign missionaries shall soon be expelled from China. You will have to walk hundreds of miles before you can find a priest. Even then, your journey will often be fruitless. Some priests and some Catholics shall apostatize. A war shall break out once all foreign missionaries have been expelled. Then, some foreign powers shall occupy the whole of China and shall divide it into zones. One of the occupying powers will be pitiless, and very hard on the people. But during this period, nearly the whole of China shall turn to Christianity."

Comment: This prophecy was made in 1906 in China where Fr. Freinademetz was a missionary. It is certainly significant today. In my opinion, Russia will be the "pitiless" occupying power, but it is not possible to say whether Russia will be converted first, then join the allies to crush Chinese Communism, or will wage war first and be converted later. I am inclined to think that it will be as follows: Soviet Russia fights Communist China. At the same time, or shortly afterwards, the period of chaos and anarchy begins in Western Europe.

Soviet Russia meets with great difficulties in China, and the war goes on and on. Revolution breaks out in Russia. Communism collapses. The new Russian government asks for the assistance of the U.S.A. and other powers — which is granted. All together, they defeat China and occupy the land. But the occupying Russian troops have not yet renounced their former ways of dealing with their enemies, hence their ruthlessness.

H" 55. The Prophecy of Premol (5th century). "Everywhere

Paragraph 55 73

there is war! Peoples and nations are pitted against each other. War, war, war! Civil and foreign wars! Mourning and death everywhere! Famine over the whole world. Will Lutetius (Paris) be destroyed? Why, O Lord, dost Thou not stop all this with Thy arm? Must also the elements be the instrument of Thy wrath? Enough, O Lord, enough! The cities are destroyed, the natural elements are set loose, the earth quakes everywhere. But mercy, mercy for Rome! But Thou hearest not my entreaties, and Rome also collapses in tumult. And I see the King of Rome with his Cross and his tiara, shaking the dust off his shoes, and hastening in his flight to other shores. Thy Church, O Lord, is torn apart by her own children. One camp is faithful to the fleeing Pontiff, the other is subject to the new government of Rome which has broken the Tiara. But Almighty God will, in His mercy, put an end to this confusion and a new age will begin. Then, said the Spirit, this is the beginning of the End of Time."

Comment: From this prophecy, it is clear that the true Church will be faithful to the Pope in exile; whereas, the new Pope in Rome will be, in fact, an anti-pope. But, since a number of other prophecies tell us that the true Pope will die in his exile, it follows then that the true Church will be leaderless for some time. Then, it is not difficult to anticipate what the anti-pope and renegade hierarchy and clergy will say:

"See, your so-called Pope is dead; and who can give you a new Pope now? Our cardinals have already elected the new Pope, he is here in Rome." And, indeed, since the true Church will be completely disorganized, and the faithful Cardinals isolated, no new true Pope could be elected, and thus a large number of Catholics will be misled into accepting the leadership of the anti-pope. Such a schism could not happen if the Pope followed A. C. Emmerick's advice "to stay in Rome".

"But", she said, "the Pope is still attached to the things of the earth." And, as is said elsewhere, "He will want to save what he thinks can be saved." In other words, the true Pope, whoever he is at that time, will use his human judgment and leave Rome, instead of remaining firm in the face of the invaders.

1| 56. Maria Steiner (19th century). k 'I see the Lord as He will be scourging the world and chastising it in a fearful manner so that few men and women will remain. The monks will

74 Catholic Prophecy

have to leave their monasteries, and the nuns will be driven from their convents, especially in Italy. The holy Church will be persecuted, and Rome will be without a shepherd. But the Lord showed me how beautiful the world will be after this awful punishment."

|f 57. Werdin D'Otrante (13th century). "The Great Monarch and the great Pope will precede Antichrist. The nations will be at war for four years and a great part of the world will be destroyed. The Pope will go over the sea carrying the sign of Redemption on his forehead. The Great Monarch will come to restore peace and the Pope will share in the victory. Peace will reign on earth."

|| 58. Blessed Johannes Amadeus de Sylva (15th century). "In the Latter Days there shall be great wars and bloodshed. Whole provinces shall be left despoiled and uninhabited, and cities deserted by the people. The nobility shall be slaughtered and influential people ruined, with many changes of kings, commonwealths and rulers.

"Germany and Spain will unite under a great prince chosen by God. But, because of Germany's unfaithfulness, the war will be prolonged until all countries unite under the Great Ruler. After this union, mass conversions will take place by the command of God, and peace and prosperity will follow."

|f 59. Sister Rosa Asdenti Di Taggia (19th century). "A great revolution shall spread over all of Europe, and peace will not be restored until the white flower, the Lily, has taken possession of the throne of France. Not only religious communities but also good lay Catholics shall have their properties confiscated. A lawless democratic spirit of disorder shall reign supreme, and there will be a general overthrow.

"There shall be great confusion of people against people, and nations against nations, with clashing of arms and beating of drums. The Russians and Prussians shall come to Italy. Some bishops shall fall from the Faith, but many more will remain steadfast and suffer much for the Church. Priests and religious shall be butchered, and the earth, especially in Italy, shall be soaked with their blood."

Comment: Here again we have confirmation of East Germany's work of destruction (called Prussia as in all the other prophecies). It is interesting to note that the majority of Bishops will remain steadfast. Perhaps when the chips are

Paragraph 60 75

down, they will perform better than they did during the Vatican II Council.

]j 60. Sister Marianne Gaultier ( 18th century). "So long as public prayers are said, nothing shall happen. But a time will come when public prayers shall cease. People will say: Things will remain as they are. 1 It is then that the great calamity shall occur. Before the great battle, the wicked shall be the masters, and they will do all the evil in their power, but not so much as they will desire because they shall not have enough time. The good and faithful Catholics, less in number, shall be on the point of being annihilated, but a stroke from Heaven will save them. Such extraordinary events shall take place that the most incredulous shall be forced to say: The finger of God is there.' O power of God! There shall be a terrible night during which no one shall be able to sleep.

These trials shall not last long because no one could endure them. When all shall appear lost, all will be saved. It is then that dispatches shall arrive, announcing good news. It is then that the Prince shall reign, whom people will seek that before did not esteem him. The triumph of religion shall be so great that no one has ever seen the equal. All injustices shall be righted; civil laws shall be enacted in harmony with the law of God and of the Church. The education given to children will be most Christian. Pious guilds for workmen shall be restored."

Comment: Many of the prophecies which I have so far quoted are repetitive, but every one of them adds something new besides the description of the main events. Here we have an interesting reference to public prayers; they will cease because people will think that things will remain as they are anyway. Seen in the light of the current crisis in the Church, this statement is significant. How many times have we not heard it said: "Communism is here to stay; we must seek a compromise; we must reach some understanding; we must 'dialogue' and work together for the betterment of mankind."

I could cite actual quotations of such instances of wishful thinking. Not a few priests have been led to believe that Communism indeed works for the betterment of mankind! Not a few priests are of the opinion that individual prayer is futile, and social action the only possible answer to the world's ills.

Even Rome has decided that it is no longer necessary to pray for the conversion of Russia after each Mass. Rome has even received Soviet dignitaries with smiles and gifts while their

76 Catholic Prophecy

henchmen were torturing priests in Bulgaria and elsewhere. The very day that a priest was challenged to renounce his faith or die (I think it was in Bulgaria), Pope Paul VI was shaking hands with Podgorny in the Vatican. This heroic priest's answer was: "I believe in God, I believe in the Holy Catholic Church. My master is the Pope and the Pope will never shake hands with murderers. Why should /?" He was slaughtered on the spot. Meantime, Paul VI was exchanging diplomatic smiles with the murderers.

jf 61. Brother Louis Rocco (19th century). 'Terrible wars will rage all over Europe. God has long been patient with the corruption of morals; half of mankind He will destroy. Russia will witness many outrages. Great cities and small towns alike will be destroyed in a bloody revolution that will cause the death of half the population. In Istanbul (Constantinople) the Cross will replace the half-moon of Islamism, and Jerusalem will be the seat of a King. The southern Slavs will form a great Catholic Empire and drive out of Europe the Turks (Mohammedans), who will withdraw to North Africa and subsequently embrace the Catholic faith."

|f 62. Marie de la Faudais ( 19th century). 'There will come three days of complete darkness. Only blessed candles made of wax will give some light during this horrible darkness. One candle will last for three days, but they will not give light in the houses of the Godless. Lightning will penetrate your houses, but it will not put out the blessed candles. Neither wind, nor storm, nor earthquake will put out the blessed candles. Red clouds, like blood, will cross the sky, and the crash of thunder will shake the earth to its very core. The ocean will cast its foaming waves over the land, and the earth will be turned into a huge graveyard. The bodies of the wicked and of the righteous will cover the face of the earth. The famine that follows will be severe. All plant-life will be destroyed as well as three-fourths of the human race. This crisis will be sudden and the punishment will be world-wide."

jf 63. Ossolinski Prophecy (19th century). 'The Western Lion, betrayed by its emancipated slaves, shall unite with the Cock and put a young man on the throne. This time, the strength of the disturbers of the earth is broken forever. Brother shall shake hands with brother, and the enemy shall withdraw to a far-away country.

Paragraph 63 77

At the Rising Sun the Hammer is broken. When the Black Eagle and the Hammer invade foreign countries, they shall perish on a river. The Bear falls after its second expedition. The Danube shines again in splendor. The Barbarians, stricken with great fear, flee in disarray to Asia."

Comment: The symbolism of this prophecy presents no difficulties, but not everyone is acquainted with the language of many prophets. Here, therefore, is the translation.

England, ( titlel the Western Lion") betrayed by her former colonies (which are still formally members of the Commonwealth), will unite with France and put a young Prince on the Throne. The strength of the Communists is broken forever, and the enemy withdraws to a distant country. In China, the Communist "Hammer" is broken. When Communism unites with Prussia (East Germany), they will both be defeated on the banks of the Rhine River (a correlation from other prophecies). Soviet Russia will collapse after her second expedition. The Chinese, stricken with fear, flee back to their country.

From this, and from inferences drawn from other prophecies, it seems that Soviet Russia and Communist China will be at war, and Russia will suffer military set-backs. At the same time, or shortly before, East Germany will wage war in the West with the support of Soviet Russia, but they will both be defeated in Westphalia by the Great King who will be in command of all the Western forces. These events will take place towards the end of the Great Disaster, not at the beginning. There will be a bloody revolution in Russia, perhaps as a result of her military defeats. Communism will be overthrown. The new government will ask for U.S. support against China, and the Chinese will be defeated, their country occupied.

|f 64. Maria de Tilly (19th century). i see a great darkness and lightning. Paris will be almost entirely destroyed by fire. Marseilles also will be destroyed, and other cities as well."

Comment: The darkness is that of the prolonged night when tremendous lightning will streak across the sky from east to west and north to south.

#catholic prophecy

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antinous-posts · 4 years

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Discover six illuminating facts about the ostentatious French emperor.

1. Napoleon’s family was more Italian than French.

Napoleone di Buonaparte was born on Corsica on August 15, 1769, just 15 months after France had purchased the island from the Italian city-state of Genoa. Like many Corsicans, his parents, Carlo Maria di Buonaparte and Letizia Ramolino, opposed both Genoese and French rule. But when the French quickly overwhelmed local resistance fighters, Carlo began collaborating with them. At age 9, Napoleone, nicknamed Nabulio, was sent to school in mainland France, where he learned to speak fluent French. He never lost his Corsican accent, however, and was purportedly mocked for it by his classmates and, later on, by the soldiers under his command. As a teenager, Napoleone dreamed of an independent Corsica, writing of “unjust French domination” and of his “fellow countrymen bound in chains.” He gradually changed his thinking following the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789, and a final break occurred when political infighting forced his family to hastily flee Corsica in 1793. Three years later, after his first marriage to Josephine de Beauharnais, he made himself sound more French by dropping the second “e” in his first name and the “u” in his last name.

2. Napoleon was arrested for treason following the “Reign of Terror.”

In the early stages of the French Revolution, Napoleon associated with the Jacobins, a political group that in 1793 and 1794 implemented a violent “Reign of Terror” against perceived opponents—a move motivated more by opportunism than ideology. In late 1793 he played a key role in capturing the city of Toulon from British and royalist forces, after which Augustin Robespierre—the brother of Maximilien Robespierre, de facto leader of France during the “Reign of Terror”—described him as having “transcendent merit.” Though briefly beneficial for career advancement, such ties to the Robespierres proved costly once they were overthrown in July 1794 and sent to the guillotine. Napoleon, for one, was arrested on suspicion of treason upon returning from a diplomatic mission to Genoa. Luckily for him, he was released within two weeks and soon after regained his position in the army. He then helped repel a royalist attack on Paris prior to leading a successful conquest of northern Italy that turned him into one of the most prominent figures in France.

3. Napoleon came to power in a coup.

Coups d’état were commonplace during the French Revolution, the last of which occurred courtesy of Napoleon, who returned from an Egyptian military campaign in October 1799 determined to take power. A plot soon arose involving a number of high-level co-conspirators, who provided a façade of legality when, on November 9, Napoleon engineered the collapse of the five-member Directory that headed the country. “What have you done with the France that I left in such a brilliant state?” he shouted outside the seat of government. “I left you peace, I found war! I left you victories, I find defeat!” A day later, a brawl broke out in the legislature between Napoleon’s supporters and opponents until troops moved in and cleared out the building. A new government was then set up with three consuls: Napoleon, who as first consul was by far the most powerful, and two former directors who were in on the coup plot. In 1802 Napoleon became first consul for life, and in 1804, at age 35, he crowned himself emperor.

4. Napoleon and the pope had a bitter falling out.

In 1791 Pope Pius VI publicly condemned the revolutionary government of France for, among other things, guaranteeing its citizens freedom of religion and seizing church property. This mutual enmity remained during Napoleon’s incursion into northern Italy in 1796 and 1797. As part of that campaign, Napoleon attacked the pope’s territories, known as the Papal States, which stretched across a sizeable portion of the Italian peninsula. In exchange for peace, Pius VI agreed to hand over land, money and a treasure trove of art. Nonetheless, the French went ahead and occupied Rome anyway in 1798 following the assassination of a general there. Pius VI was deposed and taken back to France a prisoner, where he died in August 1799. The next pope, Pius VII, originally got off to a good start with Napoleon. They signed a concordat in 1801 that partially restored the Catholic Church’s status, while keeping in place religious freedom. Three years later, Napoleon invited Pius VII to Paris for his coronation. Legend holds that at the last instant he snatched the crown from the surprised pope (who had intended to crown Napoleon emperor) and placed it on his head himself. Whether strictly true or not, their relationship deteriorated from that point forward, particularly after Napoleon annexed the Papal States in 1809. Pius VII responded by excommunicating Napoleon, after which the emperor had him abducted and placed under house arrest.

5. Napoleon’s army was decimated in Russia without losing a battle.

After taking power, Napoleon piled up one military victory after another against Austria, Prussia and other enemies. But his good fortune ran out during an 1812 invasion of Russia, which he initiated to punish Czar Alexander I for not complying with his embargo of British trade. For the campaign, Napoleon raised an estimated 450,000 to 650,000 troops, likely the largest European army ever seen to that date. Rather than stand their ground in the face of such overwhelming force, the Russians retreated, torching the cities, crops and bridges in their path. The first major battle, a bloody draw, finally occurred over two months after the start of the invasion. The Russians then withdrew again and allowed the French to occupy Moscow—but not before setting it on fire. Napoleon thought he had won until realizing that his army, already greatly reduced by desertions and a typhus epidemic, would not be able to survive the winter there. He ordered a retreat, which eventually turned into a rout due to the severe weather and constant assaults on his flanks and rear. By the time his army made it out of Russia, it was down to perhaps a few tens of thousands of men. Emboldened, Napoleon’s opponents immediately went on the offensive, winning the October 1813 Battle of Leipzig and rolling into Paris a few months later.

6. Elba would not be the last word from him.

The terms of Napoleon’s exile to Elba were hardly draconian. He retained the title of emperor and was given full sovereignty over the island, which included the right to build up a small navy and hold lavish parties for visiting dignitaries. “I want from now on to live like a justice of the peace,” Napoleon said. Yet in March 1815, he disembarked on the French coast with about 1,000 men and began marching to Paris. Many of his former troops joined him along the way, and King Louis XVIII fled. Now back in charge, Napoleon prepared to preemptively strike against Britain, Austria, Russia and Prussia, only to suffer a disastrous defeat at the Battle of Waterloo. In June 1815, he abdicated once again and was exiled to Saint Helena, a remote British-held island in the southern Atlantic Ocean. He died there six years later of what was probably stomach cancer.

BY JESSE GREENSPAN

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