61. Latvia’s Profound vs Shallow Traditions [11]
The following series (not exactly serials) concern the importance of self-sacrifice in the creation and maintenance of a community. Do not be put off by the name "Latvia", the name of the country where I live, because you can probably replace the name with that of your own country. I believe self-sacrifice is "religion" without you or me necessarily having to believe in God.
If one gives credibility to Anatoly Fomenko’s historical chronicle, which involves the projection of past events closer to our time (to counter the self-antiquitization of the Catholic Church and neo-Christendom as a whole), the politics of Russia soon are seen as contradictory, ambiguous, and conflicted. This is because—as Fomenko argues—the history of Russia was not written by the Russians themselves, but was rewritten by the hirelings of the Romanov tsars, who—as implants of the West—destroyed much of Russia’s real history. Whether one agrees with Fomenko’s take on history or not, his views must be taken into account for the reason that it offers not only another perspective, but makes current events more understandable.
In a world where literacy is limited to the court and its outposts, the rewriting of history is an obvious tactic for anyone who defeats and displaces the previous court or the “Old Believers”. When the Original Empire http://www.nationalgeographic.com/resources/ngo/maps/view/images/russiam.jpg was largely illiterate, with literacy limited to the court and its circle, it was possible for the usurping Romanovs to remove the old history and change it to a new one. This is how the “good news” of “new times” (and a new calendar starting with the year 1) came about. As we know, the Western calendar came to Russia late indeed. “In the old days Russia used the Byzantine calendar which counted years from the ‘creation of the world’ in the year of 5509 BC (JU). In the year of 7208 AD (1699 JU) the Russian Emperor, Peter I Alexejevitsch (Peter the Great) announced the adoption of the Julian calendar and that the nearest 1 Januar will be 1 Januar 1700 JU and the Julian calendar remained in use until the revolution in 1918.” Quote from http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:uwA6099S7nYJ:www.norbyhus.dk/calendar.html+Julian+calendar+in+Russia&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&lr=lang_en
While the rewriting of the old chronology and of the history of the West began with Scaligeri (1540-1609) http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Joseph_Justus_Scaliger.JPG , according to Fomenko, the new chronology was completed by Dionysius Petavius (1583-1652) http://www.nndb.com/people/737/000097446/ . In Russia, Gerhard Friedrich Miller (1705-1783), a German scholar, on orders of the tsar, rewrote its history. Even before Miller did his rewrite, Peter I had reset the Russian calendar.
Indeed, the Russian Orthodox Church lost its independence and became subject to the dictates of the state—as it had always been in the West. This is why not only the Romanovs, but the Russian Orthodox Church is complicit in the profound insecurity within the Russian peoples psyche. Somehow, the Russians feel they ought to be crusading against the West, but ever since the fall of Constantinople (1204), the West has been on a Crusade against the people of the East, against the lands of arch-Christendom.
This is not to say that the reforms of Peter I, the Great http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tsar_Mikhail_I_-cropped.JPG were not necessary to keep Russia abreast of technological innovations of the West. However, the introduction of technology came with an introduction of historical chronology according Scaligeri, who—hired by the Catholic Church—did his best to please the Catholic Church. Though Russian resistance to these changes was fierce and involved millions of people, the methods of the tsars’s court were brutal and prevailed.
The chronology of history introduced by the West and forced upon the people of the Original Empire, confused not only its secular authorities, but—in the long-run—spiritual authorities as well. A sense of antiquity lingered long (even today) in official, church, and folk memory, but the arrows of the future penetrated deeper into the past than the arrows of the past penetrated the future. Many Russians, who insist that Russia is the home of a “third Rome”, are ceding to Catholic Rome what never belonged to it. It is only through the bloody victories of western Rome that it advanced from third rank to second.
Moreover, what Catholic Rome brought was not only neo-Christianity to the “early” Christianity of the Russian Orthodox Church, but both have pretty much wiped out any memory of arch-Christianity, the Children of John including. Indeed, the latter are still remembered by Latvian folk-songs, but no longer by its people. One ought not to be surprised that these changes in theological perspectives also had a detrimental influence on the Balts. One of the world’s 10 least patriotic countries (2nd—according to Forbes magazine) is Latvia.
If one gives credibility to Anatoly Fomenko’s historical chronicle, which involves the projection of past events closer to our time (to counter the self-antiquitization of the Catholic Church and neo-Christendom as a whole), the politics of Russia soon are seen as contradictory, ambiguous, and conflicted. This is because—as Fomenko argues—the history of Russia was not written by the Russians themselves, but was rewritten by the hirelings of the Romanov tsars, who—as implants of the West—destroyed much of Russia’s real history. Whether one agrees with Fomenko’s take on history or not, his views must be taken into account for the reason that it offers not only another perspective, but makes current events more understandable.
In a world where literacy is limited to the court and its outposts, the rewriting of history is an obvious tactic for anyone who defeats and displaces the previous court or the “Old Believers”. When the Original Empire http://www.nationalgeographic.com/resources/ngo/maps/view/images/russiam.jpg was largely illiterate, with literacy limited to the court and its circle, it was possible for the usurping Romanovs to remove the old history and change it to a new one. This is how the “good news” of “new times” (and a new calendar starting with the year 1) came about. As we know, the Western calendar came to Russia late indeed. “In the old days Russia used the Byzantine calendar which counted years from the ‘creation of the world’ in the year of 5509 BC (JU). In the year of 7208 AD (1699 JU) the Russian Emperor, Peter I Alexejevitsch (Peter the Great) announced the adoption of the Julian calendar and that the nearest 1 Januar will be 1 Januar 1700 JU and the Julian calendar remained in use until the revolution in 1918.” Quote from http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:uwA6099S7nYJ:www.norbyhus.dk/calendar.html+Julian+calendar+in+Russia&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&lr=lang_en
While the rewriting of the old chronology and of the history of the West began with Scaligeri (1540-1609) http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Joseph_Justus_Scaliger.JPG , according to Fomenko, the new chronology was completed by Dionysius Petavius (1583-1652) http://www.nndb.com/people/737/000097446/ . In Russia, Gerhard Friedrich Miller (1705-1783), a German scholar, on orders of the tsar, rewrote its history. Even before Miller did his rewrite, Peter I had reset the Russian calendar.
Indeed, the Russian Orthodox Church lost its independence and became subject to the dictates of the state—as it had always been in the West. This is why not only the Romanovs, but the Russian Orthodox Church is complicit in the profound insecurity within the Russian peoples psyche. Somehow, the Russians feel they ought to be crusading against the West, but ever since the fall of Constantinople (1204), the West has been on a Crusade against the people of the East, against the lands of arch-Christendom.
This is not to say that the reforms of Peter I, the Great http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tsar_Mikhail_I_-cropped.JPG were not necessary to keep Russia abreast of technological innovations of the West. However, the introduction of technology came with an introduction of historical chronology according Scaligeri, who—hired by the Catholic Church—did his best to please the Catholic Church. Though Russian resistance to these changes was fierce and involved millions of people, the methods of the tsars’s court were brutal and prevailed.
The chronology of history introduced by the West and forced upon the people of the Original Empire, confused not only its secular authorities, but—in the long-run—spiritual authorities as well. A sense of antiquity lingered long (even today) in official, church, and folk memory, but the arrows of the future penetrated deeper into the past than the arrows of the past penetrated the future. Many Russians, who insist that Russia is the home of a “third Rome”, are ceding to Catholic Rome what never belonged to it. It is only through the bloody victories of western Rome that it advanced from third rank to second.
Moreover, what Catholic Rome brought was not only neo-Christianity to the “early” Christianity of the Russian Orthodox Church, but both have pretty much wiped out any memory of arch-Christianity, the Children of John including. Indeed, the latter are still remembered by Latvian folk-songs, but no longer by its people. One ought not to be surprised that these changes in theological perspectives also had a detrimental influence on the Balts. One of the world’s 10 least patriotic countries (2nd—according to Forbes magazine) is Latvia.
[More to follow.]
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