the soviet union was just the russian empire with a new aristocracy. russian ruling systems have barely changed since the russian princes started extorting the populace for their mongol overlords. the only thing that changed where the surnames of the people at the top and their titles, from "princes" to "inner party" and whatever putin calls his buddy group.
Agreed, your insight and presentation of the course matter is incomparable. As an individual I ponder deeply about political, social and leadership structures. You really help bring about some form of understanding of the modern chaos that has ensued and the propaganda both negative and positive that has transpired from it. Thank you greatly Kraut. I await your next video with great impatience as I am Tamil but born in the west. If I understand correctly there is a great difference between Indo-European society and Davidian society, especially gender roles and crossing the classes.
I appreciate you resisting the current trend of painting the Mongols as some kind of positive, enlightened force. It's always struck me as strange and a little gross when I see them presented as this amazing economic power that was so beneficial to the people they conquered. As though brutally destroying dozens if not hundreds of towns and cities if they didn't fully capitulate to them was a perfectly reasonable, unobjectionable thing.
@Gr8sc0tt Mongols became progressive when they started to adopt the culture of nations they conquered. Many consider Yuan dynasty as a golden age for China. But sack of Baghdad is just extreme even for mongol standards. Normally if a city surrenders mongols would pick useful people for themselves and use their skills. In Baghdad they murdered everyone and burned the library.
@@jeffbenton6183 by that time Islamic powers were already divided amongst each other and weakened by nomadic Turkic invasions and shia sunni schism. Caliph was weaker than ever and scientific progress was already shifting to Europe. Mongols were I'd say final nail in the coffin.
These thumbnail images are getting more and more elaborate and eye-catching. Their quality does more justice to the longstanding quality of your videos. Regards to the artist.
5:23 - 5:30 "the Russian princes recruited army of cavalryman who paid not in money but in land" well that basically the definition of west europe feudalism but then you said this feudalisn didn't exist in medieval russia
If you go to Azar Gat Feudalism a deep societal and economic system. It only applied to medieval Europe, Japan and Bronze Age China. Something like the three Kingdoms, Sengoku Jidai or the HRE would not have been possible in Tsarist Russia
When talking about Mongols being responsible for increased isolation and autocracy in Russia, while mentioning the decline of feudalism in Europe due in part to the black plague, it's fun to consider that the Mongols were also a major contributor to the plague spreading throughout half the globe.
I think on some level that might also have contributed to the largely positive perspective that many western scholars tend to have on the Mongols these days, because in retrospect, western and central Europe were probably the biggest beneficiaries of the Mongol invasions, even moreso than the Mongols themselves. However if we were to examine the effect the Mongol conquests had on the places they actually conquered, I don't think the conclusion would've been nearly as positive on the Mongols.
@@bobjones2959 Therefore, the opinion still prevails in Russia (and in principle it was the only one) that the Mongols are an indisputable evil that brought only ruin and death to Russia. Although there are sometimes researchers who talk about some advantages in this hell.
@@LMB222 If I'm not mistaken, they way they contributed to it was more indirectly by reopening the Silk Road, which was from there that the Plague traveled some good amount of time much later.
@@СтариГенералъ You turned into your oppressors. Russian state represents everything that Mongol Empire and Golden Horde used to. I would really like to see an alternative history where Kievan Rus survived or Novgorod was the uniting power in Russia. But we got Muscovy and slaughter of Novgorod instead.
Russian here. Pretty accurate. The only thing you forgot to mention was the quality and quantity of arable lands in Russia in the Middle Ages compared to Europe. Europe had much more and much better arable lands with a much better climate, which made it possible to save up surplus food for getting the economy moving. Meanwhile, the Russians were busy not with economic development, but with survival. That applied also to the ruling class, with princes often going hungry themselves more than once in a season.
yeah..like your pesants did not endure slavery with extra steps. had to fight for those who were put in place to protect them and stuff like that. it might be true that russian winters are hard and long. but that russia did not have fertile land back than is like saying russia is not comiting warcrimes in ucaine today.
Under any circumstance, this man, this dude, this austrian gentleman manages to make such quality videos of the most interesting currents of history and often ignored dictacting parameters, it is absolutely fascinating.
I was today years old when I found out that some historians portray the Mongols in a favorable light..... They may have conquered the largest area of any army ever, but they did so at a tremendous human cost. Tens and dozens of millions of people from China to Persia to Russia to the Levant to Hungary were slaughtered in their insatiable thirst for plunder and tribute. They burned, destroyed and sacked possibly thousands of towns and cities, and enslaved and subjugated the people they conquered. Some places that they attacked took hundreds of years to recover, demographically and economically. Kind of a no-brainer that they were a negative force in human history.
economically, yes, but in terms of military, they caused a lot of progress, similar to how the ancient greeks and romans caused military development by conquering large areas. to resist the mongols, chinese and european states were forced to develop military material and tactics to resist their invasions, such as building stone walls and castles, improving military formations, and the creation of professional military forces, notably heavy infantry and cavalry. in western europe, mostly in france, this was forced by the moor invasions from iberia. in central europe, it was the nomadic tribes such as the bulgars and mongols that forced these developments. without these invasions, europe would not have gained the military and technological progress that lead to worldwide military dominance and colonialism.
If the Mongols never existed, imagine the world nowadays. No communist China, no communist Russia. . . I hate this fucking mongol-like cultture that so many asian countries have. Fuck that.
You see Mongols from the westerners point of view is a good thing because they were never under mongol invasion themselves, and those ugly easterners who even count how much of them die to the benefits of Western civilization
Well, there's a very interesting and good scene in a channel 4 series "Utopia". What if the mongols weren't around and we would face the same problems we do but with a billion people more? It's an excercise in futility but still.
The Mongols had positive review from Marco Polo though. Western Europeans once had favorable views about the Mongols because both the Mongols and Catholic Christendom were enemies of the Abbasid Caliphate and Mameluke Sultanate of Egypt. In short, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
This video convinced me that Putin is not Hitler or Stalin reborn. The Russian spirit moving through whatever current fleshly vessel occupies the Kremlin is the ghost of the Ghengis Khan wearing a Slavic skinsuit.
@@IAmTheOnlyLucas technically Stalin is also Ghengis Khan in a slavic skin suit, like Putin EDIT: way too many people thought I was saying Stalin was Slavic (I know he’s not, he was born in Georgia). I was referring to him coming to power in Russia.
Yes. Bad enough how much money goes into PsyOps warfare. Look at the pathetic russian army. But then look at Fox News and Co. Dangerous destabilisation of the west. Just by words. I think they took this desinformation thing to seriously.
What about the influence of geography on absolutism? Russia has little natural defenses like mountains. This might have led to centralization due to lack of ability to defend local areas without the state.
@@taptiotrevizo9415 That's interesting, because Poland was always more of a Confederacy than an Empire? They seemed to go the exact opposite direction that Russia took, being more decentralized than the typical European state. It still seems plausible to me that being on a large flat expanse of land could still lead to reliance on local lords for national defense, under the right conditions.
Compare that to Ethiopia (110 million) today where the people from the mountainous region of Tigray (population 6 million) are beating back the central government in a civil war. Mountains are op.
@@keeganmoonshine7183 Every time I hear of highlanders resisting a local government or power (and surviving) I'm reminded of the state motto of West Virginia: "Mountain Men are Always Free".
I know UA-cam's algorithm forces creators to abandon quality for quantity. I really hope you continue to fight this trend, you deserve much more viewers and subscribers. Also looking forward to that video on India.
Ok, this is weird, but straight forward some mistakes: 1) slavs were hunter gathrers, but not nomads 2) you say there was no feudalism wooden castles functioned the same, villagers fled to the woods, while those close to cities - went to the city walls. 3) yes, most of cities' walls before the end of mongol yoke were wooden (majority, but not all), yet after 14th century this started to change in favor of stone kremlins remnants of which you can find still in some old cities (in most they were rebuilt later). 4) speaking of parliamentarism you miss out on Zemstva, which had substantial power when Romamovs just came to power. 5) no merchants, wat?! That was a whole set of classes under Peter's and Ekaterina II order of social classes. These don't undermine nor explained what happened in the second half of 19th century, 20th and modern russia simply because the revolution and fall of the soviet union changed the social layout drammatically.
1) Nomads and hunter gatherers are literally interchangable. You can't hunt and gather at the same spot for long. 2)Uh, what? Strange that we can't see any of theese "wooden castles" anywhere east of Moscow. 3)Okay, so Kremlin remnant walls. Which other walls are the example that are left? Not counting those under control by the Commonwealth.
i think he refers to Dukedom as in lithuania , Moscow, Luxemburg...etc small independent states to small to be a kingdom or part of the HRE while Duchies are part of a kingdom
@@lettuceman9439 Funny you should say that, because both Lithuania and Luxemburg were ”Grand Duchies” while Muscovy was a ”Grand Principality”. That is to say, they formally referred to themselves this way.
@@GamingWithChf just saying the distinction sine kraut spoke it during the russian serf vs western peasant argument its probably me just overanalyzing it got into a agrument while comcasting this near my orthodox relative
In finnish I thought of them as "ruhtinaskuntia, kaupunkeja ja herttuakuntia" When it comes to duchies, the duke's title can be either a prince or a duke in historical discussion, unless explicitly called a duke. "Ruhtinas" is simply a general noble ruler's title.
Great video! When are you going to resume the series on pre-WWII Japan's descent into authoritarian madness from democracy? I thought the first video in that to-be series made a year or so ago both fantastic and entertaining and would love nothing more than to learn more about the subject!
As a Japanese I really want that too. He has some mistakes in the first video though, like he didn't mention the fact that the democratization was top-down which pissed off a lot of people or the fact that the constant economic crisis in the 20s alienated the parliament from their main support, bourgeois metropolitan middle class and the zaibatsu, which the army took advantage off.
Great video, there are a few points tat I kinda disagree on a bit. 1) 7:59 using castles to make the point that that the russians adopted mongol tactics to me feels to me to be a bit lacking, in that the nature of warfare in the large plains of Russia isn't conducive to building castles and that the usage of cavalry was key. A similar ish story can be told with the usage of cavalry by the Poles (Winged Hussar ftw) which also saw more cavalry and less castles and sieges compared to Western Europe. 2) On the what-if of the Novgorod Republic - a bit of a disagreement on a conceptual basis in that would a state that developed from the Novgorod republic be "Russia" or an entity that we would agree that would take the form similar to that of Russia that we see today? This is very much speculation but would such a state expand into the form of Russia? 3) On the chinese system getting less corrupt as you go up - I don't think less corrupt is the correct term to use here, but more that the incentives of higher officials is very different to that at the provincial level, since at the higher levels their power are in a sense the power of the state, not the power of the individual alone and therefore have to in a sense play along to the rules of the state. Xi jinping cannot rule without the Party, he has control of it now but even the Party will outlive him. The same cannot be said of Putin and whatever structures he uses to maintain power. On the whole, a lot of what I think made Russia is not just the nature of Mongol rule in Russia (which you also noted seems to be an exception to what Mongols did elsewhere, which was to assimilate), I kinda wonder what made that the case, almost as though Russia was the frontier lands for the Mongols and that characterised the nature of their rule there. And on some level I think the nature of the Russian geography itself drives the logic of how its systems adapt and develope
This comment essentially is my sentiment specifically in the no.3 statement. With the Chinese adopting Communism through Maoism, and especially the during the Cultural Revolution. China essentially shifted to be a chimera of its old values but with corrupted elements of Communism in which I daresay, far beyond the level of "corruption" in which the Russians (as the USSR) ever attained as their means and scale of the masses they can exploit is huge. Despite their massive population and resource potential, the current diplomatic ineptitude of the CCP is slowly catching up into them and a self-perpetuating disaster bigger than the Cultural Revolution will be inevitable in Xi's China.
In relation to the mongol rule in russia, maybe the mongols did not assimilate into russian culture because of its decentralised nature, remember these were still princely states with largely different customs and rivalries with each other so it must've made sense to simply appoint a grand prince to sort this out for them. The nearby steppes may have also been a factor, the mongols could easily exert their influence over most major cities and since they preferred the plains they could still retain their lifestyle without sacrificing control over the princes. This is in contrast with mongol rule china and persia where they were forced to move their administrative centres further inland which meant a nomadic lifestyle simply was not possible.
@@totally-not-lost Based Putin. Jokes aside, the diference here was kinda pointed out, the CCP exists on it's own, it will outlive Xi, as did the CPSU with Lenin, Stalin and Brezhnev, on the other hand the current structre of the Russian state is centered on Putin, there's no incentives to think long term, because the current structres will be changed once Putin's gone, there's no strong institution in modern day Russia as the Comunist Party in China.
@@AlvaroMF13 Can't say i agree with you, since despite Putin having his image of the one and only leader, the system as a whole is more or less stable. Russia still suffers from both communistic reign and fall of it, but i dont think that reformations or change of a government would destroy or damage a system (at least from my perspective as a russian)
@@kirillf1780 I agree, I meant more as the people in those places of power, not as the system itself, since Putin more or less inherited the system from Yeltsin, though with his own twists
I would say this video is overall accurate, but there were a few glaring points that stood out to me as either inaccurate or exaggerated: 1) The real origin of Russian absolutism is not the Mongols but the Byzantine empire, where you had an autocratic emperor answering only to God who had no checks and balances on his authority. There is a reason why Russian rulers called themselves "tsar" (caesar) and not "khans". Indeed, the fact is that the Orthodox Church (brought over from Byzantium) was actually one of the strongest forces pushing for a more powerful central state - the reason why Ivan the Terrible became the first divinely-appointed "tsar" at just the age of 14, which laid the foundation for his tyranny later on, is because the Church hierarchy pushed for it. For this reason, I think it is a much more convincing argument that the Orthodox Church is to blame for Russian absolutism, and not the Mongols who left very little real impact on the laws and institutions of Russia. 2) The solidification of serfdom in Russia took place not under the Mongols, but more than 2 centuries after their arrival at the end of the 16th century, when Russian peasants gradually lost their right to leave their landlords. While slavery is one of the oldest institutions in Russian history, going back to the first legal codes of Kievan Rus, it is not accurate to say that serfdom was the result of Mongol influence - in fact, Russia ended up embracing serfdom just like countries like Poland-Lithuania which were much more "free"/decentralized at a state level. 3) Saying that Russia had no real "classes" is extremely inaccurate. In the 17th century, in fact, you had the start of a very rigid caste system that separated serfs from free peasants and townsmen/merchants, which was codified into law in the 1649 Ulozhenie. This system did not last forever, of course, and by 1917 both Moscow and St. Petersburg (and many other cities in Russia) had as big and respectable of a bourgeoisie as any comparable European city - and it is that same bourgeoisie which ended up spearheading the November and October revolutions. After looking at the sources for this video, I think it is clear that it is not based on a strong academic foundation, but is more rooted in shallow/mistaken claims made in popular history books, and particularly in the discredited "Mongol yoke" theory. For that reason, I would recommend anyone interested in an actual look at Russian history to read the "Cambridge History of Russia" series of volumes, which is about as accurate and detailed as you can get.
How can we know that your source wasn't biased either where you only recommend one book instead of multiple ones and while i don't think Cambridge's has a lot of bias on it, for me it's certainly important to look at some other sources to paint the whole picture of Russian's authoritarianism
Russian absolutism is a tendency linked to the Vladimir-Suzdal Principality, which would eventually become the Grand Principality of Moscow. Including pre-Mongol events such as the sacking of Kyiv and stronger princely authority in Vladimir and later Moscow, the Mongols granting Ivan I Kalita the privilege of Yarylk, or the right to gather tributary from the Christian principalities under the Golden Horde, including the Rus and the principalities established in the north by Kyiv, including Tver, Rostov, Beloozero and other colonial establishments that had by this time mostly Slavicised and Christianised their Finno-Uralic inhabitants. While the Muscovite Church and the Orthodox Byzantine tradition had a defining influence in the development of the Muscovite autocracy that we know all too well today, it only really gave a Christian face to an already long-established tradition of despotism and lawlessness (i.e. the decrees of the Tsar rather than any real law) that defined Muscovite civilisation in contrast to Rus. Serfdom was indeed not codified until the 17th century, but it existed in Muscovy well before then. English accounts of serfdom during the reign of Ivan IV show that serfdom and slavery were alive and well within Muscovy, regardless of whatever ukazy the Tsar gave at the time. To say that Muscovy had no codified class system is accurate, as there was a deep inequality between a peasant and the Grand Prince, and later Tsars, where the entire land under Muscovite rule was the property of the Grand Prince. This created a system of the autocrat and those he ruled, with the ruled divided into the simple divisions of the peasants, the clergy, and those who helped rule, those being the nobles. It is due to the modernising efforts of various emperors to take advantage of unseen talent to more efficiently and ruthlessly rule that we see the lessening of the caste system that was established in 1649, and indeed there would be a growing bourgeoisie in many cities by 1917, as you said. However, it is important to note that the caste system would continue to exist, this time in the form of the Party and those ruled by the Party, after 1918, as well as the continuation of the time-honoured tradition of brutal, cruel autocracy justified by what-about-isms and other bullshit. Lastly, the Mongol Yoke theory is not much of a theory. Much of our post-Soviet systems of power, including the idea of verticals and using them to consolidate power around oneself to prevent power going to any sort of opposition, is still a thriving strategy in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and other post-Soviet dictatorships.
@@masonharvath-gerrans832 This is not criticism, this is an ideology designed to strengthen the Ukrainian nation around the myth of Kievan Rus. When you write a people out of their ethnicity because you don't like the country and its actions, this is not a healthy criticism. On the topic of criticism of Russia, you can find much more important and interesting than the clichés of chauvinists about clean Ukraine and dirty Finno-Ugric peoples from Muscovy.
As a Russian, I was around 18 years old when I fully internalized that Absolutism is not the norm: I would read about the nobles opposing king and go “wtf, he is king, he can just kill them for that, but why is he not doing it, wired Europeans”
Me, a Regionalist Mexican would think: why they don't just organize themselves and shoot the King? He is just one guy. Mexico is full of regional power structures that are constantly at odds with the Mexico's city government, usually resulting in regional alliances overthrowing the government and establishing themselves, and so on for the last couple of centuries. Plus, up to 1970's almost everybody had a couple guns at home, quite hard to subdue the population. Nowadays, drug lords have guns and self-defense groups are becoming more common as corrupt officials do nothing. My hometown has expelled provincial and national officials at gun point like 6 times the last century alone.
@@victorrenevaldiviasoto9728 That's some missing piece when I was studying the drug wars and peeked into Mexico's stuff: why the cartels took swaths of territory and the central government had little sway, and how easy militas formed
@@richardsilva5110 yeah the 2006 Mexican drug war is often overlooked when discussing the world of drugs as a whole, I recommend that you definitely research into former Mexican president Vincente Fox and his policies regarding the issue
@@rejvaik00 I've read a little on the LSE report on the Drug wars since 2006, where there was a military approach and violence skyrocketed, but never understood why
One of the main reasons why Novgorod had balance of rule was because they upheld older tradition. Originally “princes” were nothing more than Scandinavian mercenary leaders, who would protect the trade route from Scandinavia to Greece. Most of them forgot their role and overtook power.
A lot of Russia as we know it was borne from these trading posts along the great rivers to inland Russia and Greece; Byzantines, Scandinavians and even Muslim.
Novgorod was a city state whose primary source of income was trade. It was more centralized, more urban and less in need of a strong centralized government that can wrangle a massive and sparese country
@@dango470 it was a country for a while, with territories and smaller towns and villages under it’s rule. It was less of need, and more of keeping your words.
if a 20 minute video has so many errors that require over an hour to address (see recent video by Noj Rants), I shudder at the thought of a 4 hour one.
I've been watching your content for a while now and I've enjoyed every second of it. You've given me a deeper look into concepts I never thought I would understand on my own as well as a deeper understanding of history. Thank you for all your hard work. Please keep making vids.
I hoped going into this video that there would be a comparison to China, because from what I've gathered over the years reading into the topic of states invaded by the Mongols, they all shared such authoritarian similarities. Great that you included such a comparison! I love the video!
@@stevenx399 I'd say that depends on your political views. There are certainly more or less authoritarian governments, but yes, there is a certain degree of authority within every government.
@@QuanHoang-qd1ye Wasn't Legalism also a huge influence on Chinese authoritarianism, though to a lesser extent? "Serve your monarch under all conditions" as state policy should leave a large impact on state structure for future administrations, too.
@@hanspetrich6520 it's rather complicated. Legalism is basically the Chinese version of Machiavellianism. Its ideas were only practiced by the Emperor. Confucius ideas, on the other hand, were frequently spread to keep the populace obedient to the state. Thus the Mandate of Heaven was not a religious belief, it was a form of justification for the Emperor's behaviors.
"Next video we will cover the past millennia of political, economic, and social developments in China and India" oh is that all? Fantastic video as usual!
Kraut makes an interesting point about the Mongols, personally I find them fascinating but I think part of the reason why they are seen as a positive force by some historians and UA-camrs is because for a long time they got demonized to the extreme by western culture and media, to the point where it was basically shorthand for monster or brute to be compared to mongols, I'm thinking of Tolkien's orcs as a specific example, or course to an that means studying the mongol empire has more in common with studying the British or Spanish empire, right down to the millions of people killed by plague
Your comparison to European empires imo is pretty accurate. The details are of course different, but as far as general concepts the mongols and the Europeans starting at the industrial revolution are very comparable. They killed a ton of people along the way of making massive empires, but then what they did for the world completely and irreversibly altered history and greatly advances technology and the whole world's economy (except the mongols ofc didn't effect the americas and the Europeans fucked up all of Africa but Ethiopia, who screwed themselves over by being an empire in their own right and then keeping that land to this day, and also the middle east)
@@kevincronk7981 Well, both cases of imperialism did more than just take lives, they fucked up everybody they touched first. And the Europeans never absorbed themselves into any of the cultures they touched, they imposed themselves on everyone, as opposed to the Mongols with China and Iran.
@@peterwang5660 because where the european imperialism touches natives die. mongols were much more tolerable. they require one thing. money. pay it in time and ur good. europe require money,people,land,culture all of it to be exploited.
@@kevincronk7981 Except that western armies did not go on pillaging and slave capture trips, did not kill people for fun and did not collapce entire states just because their diplomat was killed.
Zemskiy sobor was not a "Counsel of aristocrats", it included people's representatives from different classes and from different parts of country. The word "zemskiy" itself means, there were firstly representatives from regions (zemlya in that context means the place, where people live - a city, a village, a region). Also I don't think you can call Novgorod's Veche a parlament, cuz there were not only representatives, there were all the people of Novgorod with equal rights formally, though there was a real power in those, who could buy votes (merchants and aristocrats). And though the Moscow really ended the Novgorod's reign, you shouldn't forget that Novgorod wasn't and couldn't become the center of gathering territories: it was never intended to and it couldn't make a some kind of alliance with the Pskov city, similar to Novgorod state. They even fought sometimes. Novgorod was a great city with interesting state structures, but they were never oriented onto something other than trading, crafting and raiding neighbours because of nature of those, giving them the state power. BTW, funny to see the picture-reference to "Бурлаки на Волге" (Burlaks at Volga), which was painting the realities of tsar's Russia when author mentions the teeeeerrribleee "GULAGs"! Hahaha Russia had a trader and bourgeoisie classes. Kuptsy (купцы) and fabricants (фабриканты).
Well. Novgorod was just like any European city as the video says that did not dream of creating an empire, however, Novgorod was active in invasion into finish-hungarian lands in the North East. Kuptsy and fabricants did not have any political rights in Russia, they were dirt even in comparison with bancrupt aristocrats, real rise of merchants and fabrikants began only in late 19th after abolishment of serfod, creation of a real court system and start of modernization of Russia before that any person in Russia was just a property of a tsar
While it is true that the Mongols dealt the final blow to destroy the Kievan Rus, it is important to remember that by the time they came it was already crumbling. The reason for that was that the Crusades had severely crippled Byzantium, disrupting trade across the Varangian-Greek route and thus destroying the main incentive for the Rus to remain a unified state.
*Dude... I'll tell you a terrible secret, there was no Kievan Rus, this is the name of the period when the capital of Rus' was in Kiev, the term Kievan Rus was coined by the historian Solovyov in the 19th century! And for that formation, Kiev became one of the first cities that the Golden Horde destroyed, because they attacked Rus' not from the east, but from the South, there is such a people in Russia, Kalmyks, they are the only people in Europe who profess Buddhism, they are descendants of the Golden Horde!*
@@UltraTotenkopf Kalmyks are not from the golden horde, they are oirat mongols that migrated after converting to buddhism and the dzungar massacre by the Qing i.e a very long time after the golden horde.
I would love longer extended versions of these videos. Your narrations and your voice is 77% of why I love your videos. If u did hour long voice-only narrations of ur research, I would still listen/watch that, and I think many of ur fans would too!
It is a good video and really explains much, BUT there is a huge mistake you made there 4:20. The fact is, there was no shift from Kiev to what is now known as Moscow. The principalities of the North-East such as Suzdal didn't really associate themselves with Kiev by the time the Mongols came. In fact, the leader of Suzdal - Andrey Boholubskiy had burned Kiev to the ground and pillaged it like some sort of a FOREIGN capital before the Horde conquered everything. North-eastern "Rus" principalities had been doing their own thing independently from Kiev for a long time before the Mongols came around. Russia originates not from the shift from Kiev to Moscow, but from the reign of Boholubskiy, who (kinda) declared his independence by burning Kiev in 1169.
Russia has no relation to Kyiv, so much so that Moscovy would come pillage anf destroy anything left from Ru. There was definitely no shirt, Moscovy is not Rus or had relation to Rus.
yeah no. Rus were one people back then and languages such Ukrainian Belarusian or Russian didn't exist. instead there was old Church Slavonic which was kinda of a Latin for Eastern slavs western Slavs branched out long ago so western slavs already had Polish and Czech Slovak languages for 100 years at that point. Russian, Belorussian and Ukrainian didn't really become distinct until the 1600s. these are relatively new languages and identities that were formed. thats why Kievian Rus is the ancestor of all East Slav nations Russians Ukrainians and Belorussian's.
@@covfefe1787 прр том что "киевская Русь" это не государство а период истории . не понимая этого момента можно городить ложные сущности. И поэтому видео данного автора дико предвзятое . и не отображает сущности . авторитарный тип правления присутствует во всех государствах в тот иди иной период времени. Про Китай сравнивать еще смешнее государство что первое в мире создало систему бюрократии и постоянного замены местных представителей через несколько лет. В то время когда в Европе бегали обамзаные говном саксы, немцы , славяне. Где Рим был по сути военной авторитарной державой . где место в совете можно было получить за деньги.
Thanks for this. I love your history channels for it has a unique perspective that makes complex history easier to understand without oversimplification.
I love how starkly contrasting Kraut's seriousness of narration and joviality, meme-ness of animation is. It's like finding the perfect middle-ground between history channels and meme channels.
@grand nagus they are clearly talking about how they enjoy the channel because of the seriousness of the narration, and the cheekiness of the animation, creating a great dynamic for the video, increasing their enjoyment of the content. Are you incapable of comprehending what you read?
I would like to point out that tethering this north-east migration solely to mongol invasion is a mistake. The migration started a century before the invasion. The reasons were compound: the feudal fragmentation and Cuman raids. The migration of power to north-east was pretty much cemented in 1169 by Mstislav Alexeevich the son of Vladimir-Suzdal principal sacking of Kiev and moving the de facto capital to Vladimir. Kiev still was treated as a de jure seat of the Great Knyaz, but most of them since that time didn't reside there and ruled Kiev by means of appointing vassals. Mongol invasion indeed is important, but don't make it as if it is the only thing. Especially concerning the emergence of north east. It was set to be long before.
we shot our general governor and caused a large scale strike when they tried to Russify us. The russian occupation was also an incredibly harsh time that still causes strife to east
"Russia should be thrown back into the Stone Age to make sure that the oil and gas industry and any other sensitive industries that are vital for survival of the regime cannot function without Western technological support," Kasparov said. What sort of person talks like this about their own country?
@@gb-fs1tz Kasparov is not really Russian that’s why he says those kind of things . He’s really an Armenian Jew who pretends to be Russian for some reason
2:15 "the Chagatai Turks conquered India...", Although it is true that Amir Timur worked for the Chagatai Khanate in the beginning, his descendants including Babur always traced their lineage from Timur, thus calling them Timurids would be more accurate. Babur if you read the Baburnama (his autobiography) has nothing but disdain for the Mongol mercenaries in his army calling them greedy and cowardly, by no means does he consider himself a Mongol. In the first half of the book getting back Samarkand and Ferghana means the greatest thing to him because those were his ancestral lands (Samarkand being Timur's capital) and he gets them only to be chased out to Kabul by Shaibani Khan Uzbek and even after his conquest of Northern India, he tells Humayun his oldest son to one day return back and take Ferghana their ancestral homeland.
@nano death The Golden Horde was Mongol, it was the Khanate given to Chinggis's (Genghis's) oldest son Jochi's Family. Timur's descendants did not consider themselves Mongols.
@nano death 1. The Golden Horde was at its peak between the period when Genghis Khan died and Jochi received it to when Möngke Khan died and it got further broken up. It briefly became militarily strong under the rulership of Uzbeg Khan. 2. There is no Turkic tribe called the "Tartars", it's a generic term used by Europeans to describe steppe nomads all the way from Avars and Kipchaks to the Mongols so your statement that it turned "tartar" is grossly wrong on top of that Turkic tribes were assimilated with Khamag Mongols (Chinggis Khan's Tribe) from the beginning of his conquest that doesn't make his empire Turkic, at no point after the Mongol conquest did a Turkic non Mongol sit on the throne of any khaganate because after Chinggis's death the title of Khan became hereditary meaning you had to trace your lineage to the Borjigin lineage (Chinggis's Lineage) i.e a Turkic ruler can't become a Khagan, that is why Amir Timur could never take the title of Khan and was stuck with using Amir (Major Islamic Noble Title).
@@disce. Timur was from the turkified Barlas tribe, a mongol tribe who migrated into central asia and adopted turkic culture. Interestingly enough his descent could even be traced back to a great ancestor between him and Genghis and he would even later marry a Borjigin princess. Thus i find it frankly ironic that Babur considers himself to be Timurid but not mongol.
@@googane7755 1. The only common ancestor between Chagatai and Qarachar Barlas, his retainer and the scion of Barlas clan is the common ancestor of Bodonchar (a legendary khan) and the only proof of this lineage was that Barlas claimed that was case, they couldn't and have never traced his lineage back to Bodonchar, he could've just as easily lied about their lineage to secure his position as a Chagatai retainer (an extremely common practice in the medieval age). 2. Lineage does not start with the oldest, it starts with the greatest, you might find it ironic that Babur would call himself a Timurid while being born in Ferghana (Central Asia), near Samarkand (Timur's Capital) even though Timur had carved an empire only three generations ago as an Islamic Amir (which coincidentally was what Babur was too) instead of a pagan shamanist Mongol (who were seen as barbaric invaders by almost all settled people till recent times) retainer to a son of Chinggis (Chagatai) whose lineage would lose all political power to the Toluid line (Kublai, Ariq Boke were all Toluids) but to Babur and his family made all the sense. Timur looked up to Chinggis even married a Borjigin woman and even Babur was matrilineally related to Chinggis but to him religiously, politically and culturally the Mongols were foreigners because if his family identified themselves as Mongol then they would have to swear fealty to the Borjigin Khans (closest being the Chagatai Khanate) but as Timurids (which is what they identified as) they were an independent group who owed their greatness to Timur which they did.
Russia certainly has an autocratic history, but the idea that meritocracy was irrelevant is absurd. Peter the Great had defective artillery manufacturers test-fire their own cannons, cutting down on corruption there (mostly cheap metal substitution). Everyone competent and useful was promoted, including former Ottoman slaves, like Pushkin's grandfather. The old empire might not have had a strong artisan base, but Peter imported the Volga Deutsch in the 18th century. Catherine later sponsored Euler. Various academies became very prestigious places, and a strong lift for social mobility. In fact, it's this over-educated (in theories) upper-middle class that really led the Revolution. All the 19th and early 20th century literary classics (Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Turgenev's Fathers and Sons, Chekhov's plays) all point to an active society with many internal divisions and an active intellectual life. I think this video is a reasonable critique of pre-Peter Russia, but the state changed a LOT under and after him.
As we can see in a top comment, Kraut probably should have made this perhaps even 4 hours long. It seems that he did fast-forward a great deal at times.
I'd counter by saying that meritocracy was only authorized when it served the purpose of the Czar and again mostly as way to keep his/her underlying nobility on its tow. Merit was only understood as serving the purpose of existing power, not as challenging it and even less as serving the peasant mass. The Volga Deutsch mostly existed as a controlled and controllable experiment somewhat disconnected from the rest of Russian society, by design. The rise of intellectual (urban) life was likely understood initially as an epiphenomenon of little incidence on the general way of doing things beyond the city walls. Of course this took a different turn once serfdom was abolished and cities became hotspots of cross-class intellectual debate. And while one might read the socialist troubles and the Revolution as proof of a functioning intellectual meritocracy. One can also look at it as the result of only a partial one coming to terms with its own contradictions, that is: meritocracy only sponsors social mobility up to bourgeois status but the higher strata of society (nobility) remains out of reach regardless of merit or wealth. And like in all places where a taste of social mobility was granted it eventually explodes in social challenges for the Man/Woman on top (e.g. English or French Revolution). So yes the state changed after Peter, but in that Russia tried to have it both ways: economic dynamism through some meritocracy while maintaining the Czar's power base of stable aristocracy and absolutism. This never works. Freedom always reshapes power structures. Post-revolution Russia has since alternated between phases of somewhat liberalization (which tend to create disorder has no institution beyond the state can give it a framework) and phase of brutal stabilization orchestrated by the man on top. Even to this day any accumulation of power - regardless of the means, maybe allowed through the modicum of meritocracy - by a regular Russian eventually ends up as a dilemma: integrating the power structure supporting the Man on top or being crushed by it.
@@thibautnarme6402 Physically large countries are more prone to authoritarianism and centralization unless they are set up from the beginning as decentralized federations with limited powers for the federal government and a division of power between province/state and federal governments so that neither level can act on absolute authority. Even then the federal government may grab more power over the centuries anyways as more loopholes are found and supreme courts are more willing to interpret constitutions in "creative" ways. If there is another Russian Revolution the people need to be given the absolute right maybe even an obligation to firearm ownership.
The part about north-eastern principalities isn't true. Kiev started to lose its importance since the Rus became more and more fragmented and Kiev needed strong defences provided by a relatively centralized state to avoid nomad raids. + Kiev was the center of many feudal wars so it's people suffered from that too, especially the rural folk. The climate was also getting warmer at the time which made settling in the north easier. And lastly, the trade routes also changed, so Kiev was gradually losing its status of a trade hub. There's much more to it than just "Mongols came, Kiev ded" because many cities were rebuilt and restored much of their previous glory, but not Kiev despite the fact that, if anything, it would've been safer after the invasion since Mongols wouldn't constantly attack and pillage their own tributaries. And yeah, the Russians build wooden fortresses long before the Mongols since the wood was just much more easily accessible
well yes, since before the mongols burned down Kyiv it was also burnt down by Andrey the first of Muscovy, aswell as his father Yuriy Dolgorukiy (the founder of moscow) trying to capture the Ruthenian crown aswell
Listen here mister I mean no problems but it is convenient for british colonial system of extracting wealth from conquered lands like India. Also kraut didn't tell anything about Napoleon, First World War and bloody as hell war against nazis. According to his view, Europe was just in process of building parliamentary systems. Europe got freedom from Russia several times you sons of parliament!
tbf it is need to provide further contrast and context as russia identify itself as european and majority of its history was trying to catch up to Western European Development while expanding in Central Europe
Very interesting video. I've always figured that Putin's death would lead to a power vacuum that would be very destabilizing, maybe to the point of collapse. But this gives me food for thought, maybe the authoritarianism is so baked into the system that it will automatically produce a new authoritarian.
Russia is a country that has never in it's entire history had a genuine democratic government. Currently, knowing many russians, the people there have actively been primed against western liberal democracies. Thus I don't belive that we'lI see a democratic Russia for at least another generation. I know many young Russians who simultaneously adore many forms of western wealth, like cars and entertainment, and despise the "sinking degenerate west". These people are found mostly on the Putinist side, but plenty of people supporting Navalny and the opposition also think the same way. Many also see China in a similar way as many Europeans still saw America some decades ago, a land of fast economic growth and opportunity. I was talking to a girl a while back who said that she would not want to move to the USA due to her not getting along very well with feminists, but would be open to moving to China, this despite the objectively more discriminatory nature of the mainland Chinese people.
Nah I do think Putin is to the Russian Federation what Stalin was to the Soviet Union, it's peak authoritarian ruler. Who become so overwhelmingly powerful, that during their "reign", they try so hard to make sure there is no other big names to even begin to challenge their influence, and when they die, there is really no another authoritarian replacement with the same capacity to grip to power. There will be a vacuum, and it for sure will be interesting to witness in real time.
@@ferchi9953 You probably do not know that the Russians have voted Stalin as the greatest leader of Russia above and beyond Lenin.The Soviet power and Stalin expressed and served the interests of the millions of the working class and the poor peasantry. The Soviet Union's giant contribution to the Victory against Germany and its Allies was achieved because of the Soviet workers' authority power to the advantages which offers the socialization of the means of production and the pivotal planning of the economy in the leading role of the people and in the leading role of the Communist Party of the workers' as a revolutionary vanguard.Stalin appears as a criminal figure, the anti-communism has Stalin as its main peak , because during to the period when he was general secretary of the communist party he completed the abolition of capitalist relations of production. With the abolition of the exploitation of wage labor the foundations laid ,for the new socio-economic system. with ''arguments'' like Stalin slaughtered people and he was ''bloodthirsty'' , they attempt to tarnish the class struggle of the workers who defended the socialism especially at that time against the sabotage done by the capitalists and their supporters ''Fifth column'' ''CIA Liberals''. Stalin argues that the class struggle continues within the socialism system that the defeated bourgeois forces did not abandon their struggle for restoration that the forces of the opportunists of the liberals as expressed in his days helped the anti-socialist currents to reorganize theirs forces and to counterattack the Soviet authority. And the history has shown us that these forces were also behind the overthrow of socialism.These forces hit in the head In a fierce class struggle, the Soviet Communist Party, led by Central Committee Secretary Joseph Stalin and it is no coincidence that these forces raised the anti-Stalinist flag first of all.
The biggest irony with the effect of the Church on democracy in the difference between the Western vs Eastern dichotomy was the former divvied up the power of the monarch and the lords by granting them the legitimacy and the right of kings and lordship through the grace of god - the Catholic Church had a hand in the draft of the Magna Carta in the 13th century, and their insistence of the Church's role being made discrete in the form of legislated rights and powers that were distinct from the barons is sometimes cited as a marker that would inspire the role of the separation of church and state. In a way, the albeit intolerable influence of the western Church we've grown so accustomed to ridicule as decrepit and backwards compared to modern institutions may well have actually been the primitive force that was able to push for exchange of powers through civil debate rather than brute force between our "moral" institutions and secular estates.
In a similiar sense in western europe the church and state were rivals, while in the islamic world they were rather allied. The end of the islamic golden era which coincides with the mongols conquering arabia was made possible by an combined effort of state and church. Unthinkable in europe
It's strange. I don't think people should be shaking the Catholic Church's hand, but we should give credit where it's due in the advent of a plurality of power that prevents pure totalitarianism to form. Or, even worse, an alliance of elites instead of pitting them against each other.
The rise of absolute states and the end of universalism in the Western world being an reaction to the Catholic Church overreaching with the secular powers is my favourite irony in history.
Honestly, the trend of passing judgement on history's past using modern moral norms is very tiring, brings nothing of value to the science of history and quickly devolves into screaming matches and platitudes upon platitudes spewed out. Guess it partly based on "we shouldn't repeat mistakes of the past", but we don't need this, humanity already committed it's fair share of atrocities in modern age (20th and 21st century) to learn from, which can be appraised via modern morals, no need for "catholic church was bad, m'key", or "mongols were bad m'key" or whatever.
@@pineapplethief4418 I dont read any of that here. Yet, it is clear that The mongols had a tremendous impact of europe and traumatised eastern europe, much like the two World wars traumatised europe and asia
Nevsky is celebrated in Russia is a hero, but his ancestors were very likely either slaughtered or expropriated during Ivan the Terrible's massacres of Novgorod. I guess this does make him "Russian", if you take the idea that "Russian" is more a joint historical trauma than anything else.
Note that despite Ukraine and Belarus being inheritors of the legacy of the Kyivan Rus', this video oversimplifies the Kyivan Rus' as a medieval Russia. The distinction between Russia/=/Kyivan Rus' is very important.
@@TheZerech This is a big problem since people think that Rus somehow means Russia. Ukraine inherited the currency and emblem of Kyivan Rus which is shown in the video, but author still adds Russian flag to it...
@@YuraK25 Well, come on, tell us how Ukraine colonized Mars for epochs. The fact that your currency is called hryvnia does not mean that you are 1000% heirs of Kievan Rus. In general, foreigners called Russia Russia (at the same time calling it Muscovy). The fact that Kiev was outside the Russian lands for a long time makes the descendants of the inhabitants of the Lithuanian era of Kiev not descendants of Kievan Rus directly. For example - the Russian language is much closer to the East Slavic dialect in the source, precisely because of the absence of assimilation defects in it. Ukrainians and Belarusians were assimilated during the years of Polish rule and as a result, the stratification of the Eastern Slavs into 3 nations was obtained. So your geographical location, currency and the fact of belonging to the Slavs does not allow you to call yourself descendants of anything. Hungarians also live in Eastern Europe and look like Slavs, but they are far from Slavs. And yes, the theme of the video - Russia and the history of our absolutism, what does Ukraine have to do with it? Or do you have Russia = Mongolia/Turks, in your sore head? If so, have a good evening.
The moment that sticks out to me as a "what-if" for Russia is the death of Alexander II. It was Alexander II's rule that saw the abolition of serfdom. Up until an assassination attempt in 1866, the Tsar had introduced a number of liberal reforms that included local elections of judges and governing councils. He took a more reactionary turn after the assassination attempt, but even so he was in 1881 about to accept some legal reforms that he himself acknowledged as "the first steps towards a constitution" . But he was killed. An anarchist bombing attempt did him in in 1881, and that experience was a huge factor in the firm reactionary turn of his son and grandson, Alexander III and Nicholas II. It makes me wonder what if Alexander II had lived longer? Would he have seen the creation of a Russian Constitution?
Probably, but I have the feeling it wouldn't have stuck. Chances are Alex III (Who is basically worshiped by Putin btw) would probably end up ignoring and/or abolishing it and no one would really do anything to keep it in place.
I mean it got significantly better fro. 1917 to around 1960 something. Employment skyrocketed, literacy skyrocketed, life expectancy, access to healthcare, homelessness dropped to basically 0, then things got slowly worse and worse through the late 20th century untill things got way way way worse in the 90s.
@@CComrade I mean yeah but the rise of Fascism was pretty much completely out of their control. It also could've been way worse, they defeated the Nazis, and liberated China and Eastern and Central europe as well, so not that bad all things considered, even if the losses were many and the rebuilding was hard.
Adding the stench fumes around louis the XIV was a nice historically accurate touch ;) Great video man, really like your shorter yet more frequent uploaded works!
Could you do the history of the Balkan Peninsula, it's a interesting subject learning about how so many nomads settled there and how so many religions are there
The claim at 17:55 that Russia "never had a bourgeoisie / trader class" is a complete lie. By the end of the XIXth century, Russian "Kuptsi" (traders) had collectively much more wealth than the "Dvoriani" (aristocrats). Even the Yusupov aristocratic family was a number of times richer than the Romanov rulers. I don't understand why that claim was made and it put into question anything said in this video. But the army of adorers of this channel will swallow anything said here because it is said eloquently and cites sources (most of the time).
I don't know much about the specifics you've mentioned, but what you've described isn't a "bourgeoisie", it's more in line with today's Oligarchs. What he means is "middle class"; tradespeople living in more urbanized areas who aren't peasants and live more comfortably but aren't necesarily wealthy either.
Please, talk about South American nations on one of your videos! it would be interesting to hear the story of Argentina or Brazil one day, sounds similar to Russian absolutism
It is, more or less, we (I'm Argentine) were colonized by an absolute monarchy, Spain, which appointed the viceroys (Virreyes), which sort of deferred power to the local oligarchies in the cities and to the caudillos (warlords) in the more climatic harsh parts of the country. Eventually both caudillos and oligarchies seize the chance to revolt against the crown but we never break away from the absolutist culture, even though we establish a constitution and reform it several times, culturally we still have the same ''vertical structure'' that power comes from above, that means weak institutions that don't hold politicians accountable. Extreme oversimplification of course, didn't even talk about dictatorships or Peron, but you get the gist.
More similar to democratic Turkey maybe. But it's complicated. Even here we can't completely understand it because all the sources and analysis are flawed by the views of fanatics and irrational people that want to throw all the dirt to their "oponents"
Yes. I think what a lot of Liberals need to learn is that all events in that part of the world need to be viewed in a very particular way. Or to be more precise, through the prism of the Hispanic Conquests, and their long term aftermath. Most notably, the old Iberian ruling elites and its deeply corrupting nature towards to body politic as a whole. You name any of the main countries in South America, and you will see the indigenous population trying, in one way or another to free themselves from this almighty millstone.
@@НосокТёплый у нас могла бы быть нормальная страна, но как всегда все прое*али. И даже в 90х можно было бы развиваться а не деградировать, но коррупция убила все начинания
I would absolutely LOVE a dedicated video about how this played out in Europe, namely the tug of war between merchants, guilds/craftsmen/industry (, intellectuals/clergy) and the state; and how we ended up with the current mixed economy in the various countries (especially France, Britain and Germany). If I have time, I will drop by on the discord later to share some stuff about China that most people do not know, including some current developments. I'm a Sinologist living in China, so I'm really looking forward to the next video as well. Cheers.
"now typically the mongols would become absorbed into the ruling class of the conquered nation, unless of course, your the Russians" cue Hercules and the Mongols clip
@@kevincronk7981 Rus was the only conquered region to the north of their original area. The settled everything to the south of the steppes, but they never tried to move north into harsher climate
@@dango470 Because they became a Russian sphere of influence in the late 19th/20th century and changed their alphabet to fit their benifactors. Mongolians in Outer Mongolia(which is part of China), use the original Mongolian text.
I as always love the video and as a Russian found this very eye opening. I belived myself to know much about Russian history and while that may be true to an extent your video has shown me something that I doubt I would see otherwise. I knew that the russian state was increadibly corrupt and didn't think much else, but by showing me the root of the problem and going into such depth I was able to understand. Perhaps these videos of yours may one day help some future politican. I have one question for you, and that would be how would you go to start fixing these issues? I belive this to be much harder than simply finding them, I am very curious to see your answer :)
I believe to resolve Russia's problems the first thing needed would be systems of public accountablilty. Like an independent judiciary that operates outside of any political restraints.
@@Kraut_the_Parrot Actually, I have been reading Always With Honor by Pyotr Wrangel. And I have to say, I do believe that it is possible, were a Russian leader to use the political and economic policies he used during his time as commander of the Armed Forces of Southern Russia. As well as being willing to fully implement them. PS: Since I'm sure many are not familiar with whom I speak, Wrangel was the last leader of the white movement in the Russian civil war. And passed numerous reforms that would have undoubtedly changed Russia for the better. For example, created an independent judiciary under the army's high command. This was for the express purpose of stopping soldiers and officers from looting or theft from civilians. He also granted productive peasants their own land through peasant soviets.
@@Kraut_the_Parrot you need to import judges for this)) There is a well known factual anecdote that Catherine II, being European, tried to convene an "All-Russian Legislative Commission" (as a some kind of proto-parliament) and this commission took a week to argue about... What honorary title to bestow upon the Empress for gathering them ))
Wow. 1918-1922 really was the worst missed opportunity in Russian history. Absolutism was abolished and completely crushed by the russian poor for the first time in literal centuries. And the nascent liberal democratic institution of the Kerensky government, and then the nascent social democratic institution of the Soviets, were immediately crushed in turn by Stalin. It makes his rise all the more sad.
@@flutee6162 Tortsky and lenin were for a world revolution, so they would most-likely start World War II before germany could do any of its shenanigans, so no, Lenin and Trotsky would not be better.
It was Lenin who made USSR what it was. He and other Bolsheviks launched a coup and ignored the results of democratic elections on which SRs won. He also abolished independent trade unions and any internal opposition in RCPB and outlawed all other parties. Also he combined with Trotsky were responsible for brutal suppression of any opposition. Stalin didn't crush anything, he just inherited the system Lenin created. And if Trotsky would win... Russia would probably turn into a giant revolutionary Cambodia and start a global war.
There is one thing I don't understand (which I like to learn about). By looking at the examples you gave in this and previous videos, I came to the conclusion that the countries who had historically strong aristocracy and decentralized governments ended up becoming democracies, like England, France, Germany (most of Europe), Japan and India. On the other hand, states who historically had (or even lacked) weak aristocracy and highly centralized government ended becoming today's authoritarian states, like Russia and China. There are three particular countries that really interests me when it comes to this issue - Turkey, France and Iran. Turkey is a successor of the Ottoman Empire. And Ottoman Empire didn't have a real aristocracy. There were no land-owner aristocrats with their local armies, as the Europeans had. Ottoman Empire a highly centralized state. Yet, today's Turkey did end up becoming a democratic state. Yes of course, Erdogan is an Islamic conservative, which brings certain social restrictions but in no way he (or any other government that came before him) could be categorized as "dictator" and Turkey as "dictatorship" or authoritarian state. All governments of Turkey came to power through elections and all of them left through elections (excluding 2 coups). Even today, Erdogan's party lost key cities of Turkey, like Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Mersin, Bolu and etc. to the opposition. So free and fair elections are still in place. How come Turkey managed to become a democracy despite being a successor of an absolutist and centralized Ottoman Empire, similar to Russia and China? Similarly France. As the country that was the most centralized country of Europe, as the country who was ruled by absolutist rulers like Napoleon, how it managed to become a democracy? Wasn't it supposed to become an authoritarian state? Because from what I see, France was much more centralized and its aristocrats had much less power compared to England. Yet, both of them are today democracies. I would be extremely grateful if you would answer my question
Germany was not very centralized. Only after the kaiser and Hitler Germany became a nation. Even today many bavarians want to get independent, because they are closer to Austrians than to northern germans.
I suggest you read all or at least part of Alexis de Tocqueville's "The Old Regime and the Revolution" (he's the author of the more famous "Democracy in America" from 1835) before calling the Kingdom of France a highly centralized state. It's been a long time since I've read it, but he pointed to a number of decentralizing trends. At the time of the first Revolution, the nobles wielded considerable power - there was a reason why there were 3 estates - there was a sort of parliamentary structure as described here by Kraut.
I'm going to second Malte's hypothesis concerning Turkey. Following the Great War, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk took control of the new Turkish state and was obsessed with modernity. My understanding is that he had sort of a military dictatorship at the time - which could be considered "modern" by the standards of the 1920's. However, as the 20th Century progressed, it became increasingly difficult to consider anything that wasn't democratic "modern" and so any political system that was built on modernity would need to become increasingly democratic to stay relevant. Also, Napoleon was a rather liberal reformer within the territory he ruled, so he definitely contributed to the establishment of proper democracies in France and elsewhere, even if he himself ruled as essentially a monarch who hoped for an heir.
I don’t know much about French history, but I assume that the oddity can be explained as there was a prominent aristocracy in France before the Revolution and after it there was an established democratic (kind’ve? Can we say that?) system in place. So even though Napoleon took power, the privileges of democracy were still in with the people who once (kind’ve) held that power. That’s just my perspective.
Thank you Kraut for another well researched history lesson. Understanding always leads to discussion and when 2 party's are talking there is no time for fighting. They should make your videos mandatory in school- oh how I love them!
11:47 “Опричнина” happened before the struggle for power had begun. “Boyars” - upper-walkers in Russia had been struggling for power and using brutal methods even against Tsar family. The centralization of power had been forming as controversy to state split because of Boyars’ and other upper-hands’interests
14:06 - I feel like denying the fact that political authoritarianism is deeply rooted in modern russia's culture puts people in the bias of 1950's US historians, who thought they could invade USSR and be seen as liberators, whereas all the wars against Russia in past 200+ years had shown the opposite and largerly even further reinforced the authoritarianism. 18:40 - yeah... well... Ezhov (NKVD leader before Beria, perhaps even more ruthless than his successor) isn't the best victim example... Along with Marshal Toukhatchevski who used poisonous gas against peasant rebels but still portrayed as "a hope of a democratic USSR killed by Stalin". Stalin is a product of his time and of a political system that was built with the priority of surviving the period of political instability at all costs, but that perpetuated violence and repression at the times when modernisation should've been done. 20:58 - That makes a lot of sense to me. What I am asking myself, is what Russia lacks as opposed to China, to become a more meritocratic and a less corrupt state? In my opinion, it is not so much the repressive structure that shoots corrupted superiours itself, than a strong ideological project with, give it an extremely blurred nowadays, a collectivist nationalism. I've got a feeling that in China, people believe that, at the end of the day their governement will do good, which makes propaganda so powerful and overwhelming and make them tolerate huge human rights abuses. In Russia, on the contrary, the general popular belief right now, since 1993 and Putinism, is that no matter what you do, at the end of the day the governement will be plutocratic and corrupt. I suppose that Chinese authoritarianism would be overall better for the russian masses than current state of things. I certainly wouldn't like to live this way and that's why I live in France and I don't want to return. I'm much better off here.
I definitely clicked on a video named "The Origins of Russian Absolutism" and am now watching a video named "The Origins of Russian Authoritatianism" somehow... strange
18:00 Absolute lies, the bourgeoisie was both large and small, there were simply not enough of them, the main problem for its development was 'serfdom', after its abolition in 1861, the growth in the number of the bourgeoisie began to accelerate greatly.
This was touched on a bit in the video, and I am sure would be covered in depth if the video would have been longer. But alongside the Mongols the other major difference between Russia and the rest of europe is simply how much land it had available. Anywhere else in Europe and you get blocked by the sea and neighbors quickly enough, being on the eastern fringe meant that land was always available as a resource both as a unique negative for Russia but more so as a unique advantage that encouraged and incentivized certain behaviors. More land meant more space for agriculture and rural homesteads and thus a disincentive compared to Europe for urbanization, soldiers could always be paid in land thus allowing the rulership to hold on to more gold and creating a greater growth rate of the classic agrarian estate based economy compared to Europe, serfdom was in place partially to prevent commoners from homesteading in the vast land that was always available. Larger amounts of land to cover meant more castles would have been needed to an almost unfeasible degree thus Russia simply never developed that same aspect of European rulership, the vast land came with vast natural resources that to make use of required yet more rural workers and disincentized urbanization even more since wealth could still be brought in aplenty without major cities like in Europe. Less urban centers meant less 'middle class' the kinds of people that historically led and caused rebellions throughout western history since the middle ages, and more peasants/serfs who even if they wanted to simply had far less capability to mount any successful rebellion. The political structure of Russia is influenced by both it's environment and moreso the Mongol yoke. But the Russian economic situation wouldn't have allowed the state to sustain itself if the country didn't have the geography that it did, and by having unique economic circumstances that worked especially well with the political system, a feedback loop came into existence where the system functioned at a base level, not causing any need for introspection and thus potential for reform until far later in the country's history.
I STRONGLY RECOMMEND TO READ: To be honest, another attempt to give a simplified explanation of complex socio-political, economic and historical processes. Russia survived the period of medieval feudalism in the same way (although we did not have stone castles, there were many fortresses: both wooden and stone). We also had specific principalities, where the vassals of the Grand Duke ruled. Often these were the younger brothers of the Prince, nobility from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Russia or from the Horde and its later fragments. Peasants had to pay taxes (obrok), which were both food and cash, and work for a certain time of the year on the fields of the feudal lord (barschina). For the fact that the feudal lord owns the land and receives food along with money, he had to serve the Prince militarily with his horses, people and weapons (appear to the Prince "konno, lyudno i oruzhno"). The last specific principality was liquidated under Tsar Fyodor the Blessed at the end of the 16th century, but the nobles and boyars continued to serve the tsar on the same principle. Some historians even draw analogies: the serfs were serfs for the nobility, just as the nobles were serfs for the Prince and Tsar. The situation will change radically after Peter the Great. The regular army will finally appear after Peter and His Grandfather and Father (Mikhail I & Alexei I). In the reign of Elizabeth the Merciful, the nobles will actually cease to be serfs of the Monarch, and there will be almost no wars for 20 years. Therefore, already under Peter the Third and Catherine the Great, two important documents (very similar in essence) will be issued that will allow the nobility not to serve the Monarch without fail; including civil service. The historian Vasily Klyuchevsky said better than others about this: “The day after the Manifesto on the Liberty of the Nobility, a decree on the Liberty of the Peasantry was to follow.” But this was not done. The peasants were still required to work for the nobles for another 99 years. I also want to say that in Russia serfdom developed VERY LATE. In Russia, 1497 is usually considered the date of the beginning of the enslavement of the peasants, when Ivan the Great introduced his Sudebnik (Code of Laws to judge (sudit')). But then the peasants were simply limited in the transition from working for one feudal lord to another. The Day of St. George the Victorious was celebrated in Russia 2 times a year: April 23 (May 6) and November 26 (December 9). A week before November 26 and within a week after it, the peasants could change the owner and pay a special tax to the former owner for this. That is, only 2 weeks a year, the state opened such an opportunity for the peasants. And it is late in the fall - when the crop is harvested, and it is too early to sow a new one. In 1550 Ivan the Terrible introduces his Sudebnik. Then he increased that tax. And in 1581 he introduces "Forbidden years", when the peasants in some years could not change their master. In 1597, Fyodor the Blessed introduced a 5-year term for the search for fugitive peasants. And in 1607, Vasily Shuisky increased this period to 15 years. In 1649, the Zemsky Sobor adopted the Council Code, which made the search for fugitives indefinite. It is 1649 that is considered in Russia by most historians as the final year of the introduction of serfdom, except for the theory of the decree of 1592, which has no direct evidence and almost no supporters. It is important to point out here that enslavement since 1581 was carried out solely due to the fact that the Russian economy was in crisis after the Oprichnina, and then also after the Time of Troubles and during constant wars with the Crimea, Poland and Sweden. Speaking about the Church, it is important to understand that for a long time the metropolitan was sent to Russia by Byzantium or the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, which caused scandals and quarrels for a very long time. Often Patriarchs in Russia were elected against the will of the Tsar, and in 1700 the Church lost a Patriarch altogether for 217 years. Also, the Church often stood up in opposition to the royal power. So it was under the Oprichnina, so it was at the beginning of the reign of Peter the Great, so it was during the feudal internecine strife of the princes. (The Church, by the way, also had its own peasants and was an important economic actor that could only be strangled under Catherine the Great.)
Localism / mestnichestvo - the principle according to which the nobility received positions NOT because of favoritism, but because of the degree of nobility of the family. At the same time, the historian Dmitry Volodikhin believes that despite the obvious flaws, localism at the very least reconciled the serving aristocrats, determining who could apply for which official level. The nobility of the Russian state consisted of the old Moscow aristocracy, princely families from the annexed Russian lands, fugitive Lithuanian-Russian princes and serving Tatar princes. According to the researcher, without a regulatory system, noble people would now and then arrange strife and coups, arguing for a place at the helm of power. Thus, localism protected the Russian state from difficult internal wars. The oprichnina didn't start like that at all. Tsar Ivan escaped from Moscow and took the treasury with him. The people, of course, were very surprised and even frightened, since the Tsar refused to rule the country; he sent 2 letters to the capital. In one, he turned to the people and said that he did not hold evil "on the simple good people". In another letter he sent to the boyars, Ivan accused them of many evil deeds. According to Russian Wikipedia: "After reading the message of the Tsar in Moscow, the anti-boyar situation sharply escalated - thousands of Muscovites came to the Kremlin, enraged by the betrayals of the boyars named in the message, and the Boyar Duma had no choice but to ask Ivan to return to the kingdom." At the same time, historians (like Skrynnikov) note that the split between the tsar and the elite was heating up for a long time. Many managed to escape abroad, someone was caught but forgiven, someone was exiled to a monastery, some lands were taken from someone, etc. Although the oprichnina existed after 1572, it was changed, and terror was brought to naught, because. in 1571, the Crimean hordes burned Moscow, and the Oprichnina army simply fled. By the way, there are studies that show that Ivan did not achieve anything by terror, because the boyars did not lose their enormous influence and privileges. So the author of the video exaggerates the horrors of Oprichnina. And boyar families have always been few historically. They were in the Boyar Duma - the council under the Tsar. Well, speaking of journalists; you can find similar listings for many other countries in Europe. Russia is not alone here, and journalists are killed not only by the authorities - media figures stepped on toes to many people. As for Novgorod, the local republic very quickly became a plutocracy and an oligarchy. And Russian goods, by the way, were often not allowed into Europe. In addition, trade was barter, not monetary. Already in the 15th century, the Hansa fell into decline, and in the second half of the 16th century it completely bent - therefore, Russia would hardly have been so cool and democratic if it had developed not on the basis of Moscow, but of Novgorod, which militarily was VERY weak. Even as part of "despotic" Moscow, Novgorod actively traded with the Hansa. Novgorod tried to leave Moscow and go to Lithuania - they called for one of the Lithuanian princes to rule. Many soldiers did not want to fight for the boyars they hated, and the personal army of the Novgorod lord generally stood inactive throughout the battle in 1471. After the battle, Ivan III moved with the main army to Novgorod. Meanwhile, there was no help from Lithuania. The people sent the archbishop to ask the prince for mercy. As a result, Novgorod renounced communication with the Lithuanian sovereign, ceded part of the Dvina land to the Grand Duke and undertook to pay an indemnity. Ivan dealt with many representatives of the local nobility, taking away their lands, and exiling them to the central regions of the country (this is not the Gulag, as the author of the video says, Moscow is located in Central Russia). In 1477-78 Novgorod was finally annexed. In 1477, a group of pro-Moscow Novgorod boyars sent a petition to Ivan III asking him to take power in Novgorod into his own hands. Delighted by this proposal, the prince sent ambassadors to Novgorod to find out what kind of government they would like. Veche spoke in favor of maintaining the existing order. After that, Ivan III set out on a new campaign - Novgorod lost again. As for Parliaments, there were almost none in Europe either. Estates General in France is no better than Zemsky Sobors in Russia. The feeding system reached its greatest development in the 14th-15th centuries (and from the author’s video it comes as if it existed in the new Russia after 1480 and right up to Peter the Great). Russian Wiki: "Feeding gave rise to arbitrariness and abuse of local authorities interested in enrichment during their stay in the feeders. Therefore, already from the 15th century, the Moscow Grand Dukes regulated the income of feeders by issuing special “kormlenny`kh” and statutory letters. At the end of the 15th - beginning of the 16th century, natural feed was converted into cash. As a result of the zemstvo reform of 1555-56, the feeding system was abolished. In 1555, a decree was issued on the abolition of feedings, which was applied, however, not immediately and not everywhere: sources continue to mention feedings during the second half of the 16th century. Fees for the maintenance of feeders have been converted into a special tax in favor of the treasury (“kormleny`i` okup”), set at a certain amount for various categories of land." Increasing the retirement age is more than normal in today's world. Even if Russia were more developed, this would postpone the reform, but would not cancel it. In Russia, every year there are more and more pensioners per working person - the population is rapidly aging due to demographic pits. Russia has a solidary system of pensions: the pensions of current pensioners are partly state money, and partly taxes from working citizens in favor of the Pension Fund of Russia. Well, to expose everything as if the only thing she did was to squeeze all the juice out of the common people, it’s completely wrong. Peasants are property and an instrument of earning. It is unprofitable for the owner that they be poor and hungry - such peasants do not work well. The owner helps his peasants when, for example, their house burned down. The owner gives them tools and seeds if necessary. And that further... And some strange comparison with China: he says, their bureaucracy controlled the Emperor, while our Tsars did whatever they wanted. The aristocracy in the same way limited the Royal Power, being a significant counterbalance to the central power. Many Russian rulers could not realize one or another of their ideas only for the reason that most of the aristocrats were against it, some of them were killed.
@@AlexanderSergeevRus By the time absolutism started to develop in Russia in 1700s, nobles gradually ceased to be a political force which would counteract Tsars power. More often than not they sided with the monarch in order to guard their rights and privileges, as more and more of them became dependent on the royal family for money and influence. By the time this time of absolutism had ended, russian tsars essentially could have done whatever they wanted to within their realm.
@@Pelaaja20 But it was the nobles and the army who overthrew rulers in Russia that they did not like during the entire 18th century. So Catherine the First, and Anna Ioannovna, and Elizabeth Petrovna, and Catherine the Great ascended the throne. It was the nobles who did not allow Catherine the Great to begin the process of emancipating the peasants. She wrote about this to Baron Melchior Grimm (if I remember correctly). She said that she would immediately be stoned to death for trying to abolish serfdom. Her husband Peter III was also overthrown by the nobles and the guards. Her son (Paul the First) was killed in the same way by aristocratic conspirators in 1801. After his death, a joke arose that in Europe autocracy is limited by parliaments, while in Russia it is limited by a noose around the neck of the Tsar. Catherine's grandson - Alexander the Blessed - created 2 advisory bodies with him: the Private Committee and the State Council. The first was disbanded over time. The second had many predecessors, but the State Council then existed in this format until 1917, even having been the upper house of Parliament. It was the State Council that prevented the Tsar from implementing projects to abolish serfdom. Under Catherine's other grandson and Alexander's brother, Nicholas I the Unforgettable, the reorganization of the country's economy began and the first serious steps were taken to emancipate the peasants and grant them certain rights. During these decades, a series of reforms were wilyly introduced that would legally abolish serfdom in 1861 and make it die out completely by the early 1900s. But Nicholas the First was indeed a military man by education and strongly crushed liberal ideas in the country, however, he was also afraid to anger the nobles. Moreover, since the time of Catherine the Great, city and noble self-government began to develop normally in the country for the first time. After the reforms of Alexander II the Liberator in the 1860s, it intensified and strengthened even more. If the terrorists had not blown it up, then perhaps His Son and Grandson would not have strengthened their power and crushed the opposition...
Kraut makes videos decent enough to be taken serious by people uneducated in the subjects. Mostly based on very outdated political books, not history books. If you want to learn history from the eyes of a European historian from the 1970s... go ahead.
I am somewhat familiar with the subject and have spotted several mistakes in this video. Now I question all the other videos from Kraut that I watched.
@@Wayne_Wheeler i feel it a sort of a spiritual successor or continuation to his Tale of Two Colonies about the history of Mexico and the USA. Where better to see a clash of systems than the islands that saw both Spanish and American Colonization.
So...many...mistake. In the first 5 minutes, no less. From the total ignorance of the fact that Alexander Bogolubsky did exist and during his reign Vladimir-Suzdal Rus was already a pretty centralised powerhouse, who was powerful enough to do with Kyiv/Kiev/Kijów/whatever to do what he liked - before the Mongols. To the fact that the Russians really started to employ Golden Horde tactics during Ivan the Great - and it was during the end of Tatar Yoke in Russia, dude. Oh well, just from checking your sources everything becomes clear to me.
Kraut said that he wouldn't promote products he wouldn't use himself, from which we can conclude that he's suffering from hair loss
He doesn't have hair bro, he's an orb with a flag on him
This of course implies he has hair
Due to kraus diligent use of keeps he no longer is suffering from hair loss
Kraut has long and luscious hair last time I checked. It would be a shame to think he's starting to lose it :(
@@franciasii2435 No more Jesus Kraut :(
This combined with the crippling alcoholism doesn't really create the brightest future for Russia
Or past
you here, Hi there yeah Russias Future looks bleak
Hope your wrong and eat your words
Yooo its alternate history hub
..but what if it wasn't so bleak, what if in an..
I can only think about the fact that Kraut had to search "copyright free throat singing"
Hopefully he didn't have to search for "copyright free throating"
@@MrMediator24
Posted by the true anti-capitalist exhibitionist.
@@skaldlouiscyphre2453 I have been executed by my king for laughing at this comment.
where ?
I always found it silly when some people said the Soviet Union was coming back. Clearly it's the Russian Empire that's returning.
lol really bro good luck
the soviet union was just the russian empire with a new aristocracy. russian ruling systems have barely changed since the russian princes started extorting the populace for their mongol overlords.
the only thing that changed where the surnames of the people at the top and their titles, from "princes" to "inner party" and whatever putin calls his buddy group.
After Lenin's death and Trotsky G O N E, Stalin made "Soviet Union" into "Soviet Russia" with Moscow being center and Russia still being empire
@@justanaverageguy912 not even 70% of USSR leaders were Russian.
Any downsides?
I wish I could have made a 4 hour series about this topic instead. It's such a deeply fascinating and important story.
Well maybe you can in the future when in time the UA-cam algorithm can be fixed
Agreed, your insight and presentation of the course matter is incomparable. As an individual I ponder deeply about political, social and leadership structures. You really help bring about some form of understanding of the modern chaos that has ensued and the propaganda both negative and positive that has transpired from it. Thank you greatly Kraut. I await your next video with great impatience as I am Tamil but born in the west. If I understand correctly there is a great difference between Indo-European society and Davidian society, especially gender roles and crossing the classes.
Have you considered getting in touch with Magellan? They seem to be working with youtube historians giving them another platform to work with.
@@skrettsnerk508 the algorithm
@@skrettsnerk508 The cost to produce
Russian politicians: Keep their power.
Kraut‘s video: Sponsored by Keeps.
Coincidence? *I. THINK. NOT! :D*
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bald-hairy
I guess that is half-true :p
But..... Putin bald....
@@sedakame1 The next president will be hairy (there is a strict bald/hairy tendency in Russian leadership ever since Lenin:) )
Balderdash,
That powers receding ;)
@s wind So does this mean Russia's history can be summarized by the ongoing war that most men must wage against hair loss?
rip novgorod, your land force limit was too low for this world.
a man of culture
explain
@@clouds-rb9xt Europa Universalis reference
@dihvocfoscocudvyvdd when Denmark and Commonwealth save you, but send you on a wild ride across Europe
It is a true shame
I appreciate that there were no ads during this 22-minute video. I will subscribe
Oh snap he did it, posted another masterpiece
Yes, yes he did
Liberal western country worst nightmare LMAO
he can’t stop improving with every video
He only posts masterpieces, it’s amazing
Masterpiece of propaganda that put Nazis to shame.
I appreciate you resisting the current trend of painting the Mongols as some kind of positive, enlightened force. It's always struck me as strange and a little gross when I see them presented as this amazing economic power that was so beneficial to the people they conquered. As though brutally destroying dozens if not hundreds of towns and cities if they didn't fully capitulate to them was a perfectly reasonable, unobjectionable thing.
@@akimananikita5374 You have a good day as well.
@Gr8sc0tt Not to mention, ending the great age of Science and progress in Islamic Arabia (so I've heard, I need to do more research).
@Gr8sc0tt Mongols became progressive when they started to adopt the culture of nations they conquered. Many consider Yuan dynasty as a golden age for China. But sack of Baghdad is just extreme even for mongol standards. Normally if a city surrenders mongols would pick useful people for themselves and use their skills. In Baghdad they murdered everyone and burned the library.
@@jeffbenton6183 by that time Islamic powers were already divided amongst each other and weakened by nomadic Turkic invasions and shia sunni schism. Caliph was weaker than ever and scientific progress was already shifting to Europe. Mongols were I'd say final nail in the coffin.
@@desselerant1806 iirc they spared only the christian quarter of the city
These thumbnail images are getting more and more elaborate and eye-catching. Their quality does more justice to the longstanding quality of your videos. Regards to the artist.
Thank you!
5:23 - 5:30
"the Russian princes recruited army of cavalryman who paid not in money but in land"
well that basically the definition of west europe feudalism but then you said this feudalisn didn't exist in medieval russia
If you go to Azar Gat Feudalism a deep societal and economic system. It only applied to medieval Europe, Japan and Bronze Age China. Something like the three Kingdoms, Sengoku Jidai or the HRE would not have been possible in Tsarist Russia
Also is taken near directly from Fukiyama's "Origins of Political Order".
Average Kraut moment.
@@basileus6743 there are 0 russian hystory in this video. Poorly researched piece of liberal political theory.
Damn ruskie propagandists are here
When talking about Mongols being responsible for increased isolation and autocracy in Russia, while mentioning the decline of feudalism in Europe due in part to the black plague, it's fun to consider that the Mongols were also a major contributor to the plague spreading throughout half the globe.
I think on some level that might also have contributed to the largely positive perspective that many western scholars tend to have on the Mongols these days, because in retrospect, western and central Europe were probably the biggest beneficiaries of the Mongol invasions, even moreso than the Mongols themselves. However if we were to examine the effect the Mongol conquests had on the places they actually conquered, I don't think the conclusion would've been nearly as positive on the Mongols.
@@bobjones2959 Therefore, the opinion still prevails in Russia (and in principle it was the only one) that the Mongols are an indisputable evil that brought only ruin and death to Russia. Although there are sometimes researchers who talk about some advantages in this hell.
Source on that? Plague kills faster than Mongol armies could travel.
Also, what about the earliest outbreaks in Italian ports?
@@LMB222 If I'm not mistaken, they way they contributed to it was more indirectly by reopening the Silk Road, which was from there that the Plague traveled some good amount of time much later.
@@СтариГенералъ You turned into your oppressors. Russian state represents everything that Mongol Empire and Golden Horde used to. I would really like to see an alternative history where Kievan Rus survived or Novgorod was the uniting power in Russia.
But we got Muscovy and slaughter of Novgorod instead.
Who would sponsor authoritarianism this question brought to you by raid shadow legends
In this case it's more Raid Mongol Legends.
@@Silver_Prussian +15 roubles, shill
Hammer Video. Sehr interessant
Ranton! I love your channel. Didnt think id see you here. Sorry to bother but are there any new uploads coming?
Make more videos, Rantoni invasioni.
We miss you buddy
Rantoni Hammeroni, yours is the top gaming channel across russian, chinese and english youtube
Du bist ein Kartoffelschnitzel
Weltfrieden
Russian here. Pretty accurate. The only thing you forgot to mention was the quality and quantity of arable lands in Russia in the Middle Ages compared to Europe. Europe had much more and much better arable lands with a much better climate, which made it possible to save up surplus food for getting the economy moving. Meanwhile, the Russians were busy not with economic development, but with survival. That applied also to the ruling class, with princes often going hungry themselves more than once in a season.
Я бы даже дополнил это тем, что до века 16-17, бояре отличались от простых крестьян только наличием оружия.
there are much mankurts and patriots of America in Russia who could say that especially on American youtube lol. like you surprised someone
@@wederMaxim i dont speak orcish. sorry.
yeah..like your pesants did not endure slavery with extra steps. had to fight for those who were put in place to protect them and stuff like that. it might be true that russian winters are hard and long. but that russia did not have fertile land back than is like saying russia is not comiting warcrimes in ucaine today.
@@satakrionkryptomortis свинью не спрашивали.
I love how this channel has essentially become the "Why Nations Fail" channel.
Also, read Why Nations Fail
Honestly it’s the content we need
It’s essentially visualized (and if I may, improved) version of that book.
Check out mine if you want to see more or "Why Nations Succeed"
It's listed a source
Last episode was straight from the Narrow Corridor. Both books deserve more attention
Under any circumstance, this man, this dude, this austrian gentleman manages to make such quality videos of the most interesting currents of history and often ignored dictacting parameters, it is absolutely fascinating.
Quality content with effort.
Krauts German actually
Austrian gentleman, say that slowly
German*
He is Bavarian
I now await the "Origins of Chinese meritocracy" video with great anticipation!
Oh yea
Huh, I thought it would be named "original of Chinese bureaucracy" but yeah, I guess what works too
@@recordkeepingandinformatio8206 that’s reserved for western governments! (:
Origins of Chinese meritocracy with Chinese characteristics, aka join the party
The Chinese invented exams. Now everyone suffers.
I was today years old when I found out that some historians portray the Mongols in a favorable light.....
They may have conquered the largest area of any army ever, but they did so at a tremendous human cost. Tens and dozens of millions of people from China to Persia to Russia to the Levant to Hungary were slaughtered in their insatiable thirst for plunder and tribute. They burned, destroyed and sacked possibly thousands of towns and cities, and enslaved and subjugated the people they conquered. Some places that they attacked took hundreds of years to recover, demographically and economically.
Kind of a no-brainer that they were a negative force in human history.
economically, yes, but in terms of military, they caused a lot of progress, similar to how the ancient greeks and romans caused military development by conquering large areas. to resist the mongols, chinese and european states were forced to develop military material and tactics to resist their invasions, such as building stone walls and castles, improving military formations, and the creation of professional military forces, notably heavy infantry and cavalry. in western europe, mostly in france, this was forced by the moor invasions from iberia. in central europe, it was the nomadic tribes such as the bulgars and mongols that forced these developments. without these invasions, europe would not have gained the military and technological progress that lead to worldwide military dominance and colonialism.
If the Mongols never existed, imagine the world nowadays.
No communist China, no communist Russia. . .
I hate this fucking mongol-like cultture that so many asian countries have. Fuck that.
You see Mongols from the westerners point of view is a good thing because they were never under mongol invasion themselves, and those ugly easterners who even count how much of them die to the benefits of Western civilization
Well, there's a very interesting and good scene in a channel 4 series "Utopia". What if the mongols weren't around and we would face the same problems we do but with a billion people more? It's an excercise in futility but still.
The Mongols had positive review from Marco Polo though. Western Europeans once had favorable views about the Mongols because both the Mongols and Catholic Christendom were enemies of the Abbasid Caliphate and Mameluke Sultanate of Egypt. In short, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
This video is probably getting more and more important as time goes on.
This video convinced me that Putin is not Hitler or Stalin reborn. The Russian spirit moving through whatever current fleshly vessel occupies the Kremlin is the ghost of the Ghengis Khan wearing a Slavic skinsuit.
@@IAmTheOnlyLucas Long story short: Ghengis Khan is to be blamed for why Russia is screwed up today.
Someone should brings this fact up more often.
@@IAmTheOnlyLucas This is actually a really good explanation and also very funny out of context.
@@IAmTheOnlyLucas technically Stalin is also Ghengis Khan in a slavic skin suit, like Putin
EDIT: way too many people thought I was saying Stalin was Slavic (I know he’s not, he was born in Georgia). I was referring to him coming to power in Russia.
Yes. Bad enough how much money goes into PsyOps warfare. Look at the pathetic russian army. But then look at Fox News and Co. Dangerous destabilisation of the west. Just by words. I think they took this desinformation thing to seriously.
I thought the tile meant “Russian Authoritarianism with a sponsor”, like the authoritarianism was sponsored
sponsored in Russia by yours truly
@@kaisreece6491 This brutal beating of innocent civilians was brought to you by RAID SHADOW LEGENDS
@@MorbidMindedManiac bruh lol
@Eros Matthew Montallana The royal family is just a mask used to hide the real threat
Keeps funds the ex-KGB agents that protect Kraut from the russian mafia
Ayyy been waiting for this.
*What in the God damn world*
...
Same here, was hoping for a longer video but oh well. It is what it is.....
OH SHIT ME TOO
Same
I ain't no fink, ya dig?
Thank you so much for this video. Now, we know the reason behind each country's political system. It all results from years of history.
What about the influence of geography on absolutism? Russia has little natural defenses like mountains. This might have led to centralization due to lack of ability to defend local areas without the state.
You could say the same thing about poland
@@taptiotrevizo9415 That's interesting, because Poland was always more of a Confederacy than an Empire? They seemed to go the exact opposite direction that Russia took, being more decentralized than the typical European state. It still seems plausible to me that being on a large flat expanse of land could still lead to reliance on local lords for national defense, under the right conditions.
Compare that to Ethiopia (110 million) today where the people from the mountainous region of Tigray (population 6 million) are beating back the central government in a civil war. Mountains are op.
Poland is also flat, yet experienced their period of "golden liberty" instead.
@@keeganmoonshine7183 Every time I hear of highlanders resisting a local government or power (and surviving) I'm reminded of the state motto of West Virginia: "Mountain Men are Always Free".
I know UA-cam's algorithm forces creators to abandon quality for quantity. I really hope you continue to fight this trend, you deserve much more viewers and subscribers. Also looking forward to that video on India.
Shi bola
What for quality this is one of most garbage vids i have seen lol
@@kloe996 Me and 600,000 other people don't agree with you.
Age like fine wine made of grapes from northern Italy on the eastern side of the mountain.
Ok, this is weird, but straight forward some mistakes:
1) slavs were hunter gathrers, but not nomads
2) you say there was no feudalism wooden castles functioned the same, villagers fled to the woods, while those close to cities - went to the city walls.
3) yes, most of cities' walls before the end of mongol yoke were wooden (majority, but not all), yet after 14th century this started to change in favor of stone kremlins remnants of which you can find still in some old cities (in most they were rebuilt later).
4) speaking of parliamentarism you miss out on Zemstva, which had substantial power when Romamovs just came to power.
5) no merchants, wat?! That was a whole set of classes under Peter's and Ekaterina II order of social classes.
These don't undermine nor explained what happened in the second half of 19th century, 20th and modern russia simply because the revolution and fall of the soviet union changed the social layout drammatically.
Вы оба не вполне правы. Славяне были кочевниками, как и остальные индоевропейцы, пока не перешли к земледелию
1) Nomads and hunter gatherers are literally interchangable. You can't hunt and gather at the same spot for long.
2)Uh, what? Strange that we can't see any of theese "wooden castles" anywhere east of Moscow.
3)Okay, so Kremlin remnant walls. Which other walls are the example that are left? Not counting those under control by the Commonwealth.
@@gae_wead_dad_6914 nomads are cattle breeders, it's producing economy, hunt and gathering is appropriative economy
@@gae_wead_dad_6914 say your second point again. Very very slowly.
@@Ben-ek1fz We literally can find mounds where wooden castles of the iron age used to stand all over europe.
“Duchies, cities, and dukedoms”
Sorry to nitpick, redundancies are bound to happen.
He had to mention three different nouns if it was to sound good, even though duchy and dukedom might not have been the best choice of words.
i think he refers to Dukedom as in lithuania , Moscow, Luxemburg...etc small independent states to small to be a kingdom or part of the HRE while Duchies are part of a kingdom
@@lettuceman9439 Funny you should say that, because both Lithuania and Luxemburg were ”Grand Duchies” while Muscovy was a ”Grand Principality”. That is to say, they formally referred to themselves this way.
@@GamingWithChf just saying the distinction sine kraut spoke it during the russian serf vs western peasant argument its probably me just overanalyzing it got into a agrument while comcasting this near my orthodox relative
In finnish I thought of them as "ruhtinaskuntia, kaupunkeja ja herttuakuntia"
When it comes to duchies, the duke's title can be either a prince or a duke in historical discussion, unless explicitly called a duke. "Ruhtinas" is simply a general noble ruler's title.
Great video! When are you going to resume the series on pre-WWII Japan's descent into authoritarian madness from democracy? I thought the first video in that to-be series made a year or so ago both fantastic and entertaining and would love nothing more than to learn more about the subject!
Caesar would be proud of them, right tropper?
(your Pic showd it)
There’s already a video that be made on it,you’re lucky!
@@dairyskeptic7428 watch the vid first
Maybe he should do one on Rome
As a Japanese I really want that too. He has some mistakes in the first video though, like he didn't mention the fact that the democratization was top-down which pissed off a lot of people or the fact that the constant economic crisis in the 20s alienated the parliament from their main support, bourgeois metropolitan middle class and the zaibatsu, which the army took advantage off.
Great video, there are a few points tat I kinda disagree on a bit.
1) 7:59 using castles to make the point that that the russians adopted mongol tactics to me feels to me to be a bit lacking, in that the nature of warfare in the large plains of Russia isn't conducive to building castles and that the usage of cavalry was key. A similar ish story can be told with the usage of cavalry by the Poles (Winged Hussar ftw) which also saw more cavalry and less castles and sieges compared to Western Europe.
2) On the what-if of the Novgorod Republic - a bit of a disagreement on a conceptual basis in that would a state that developed from the Novgorod republic be "Russia" or an entity that we would agree that would take the form similar to that of Russia that we see today? This is very much speculation but would such a state expand into the form of Russia?
3) On the chinese system getting less corrupt as you go up - I don't think less corrupt is the correct term to use here, but more that the incentives of higher officials is very different to that at the provincial level, since at the higher levels their power are in a sense the power of the state, not the power of the individual alone and therefore have to in a sense play along to the rules of the state. Xi jinping cannot rule without the Party, he has control of it now but even the Party will outlive him. The same cannot be said of Putin and whatever structures he uses to maintain power.
On the whole, a lot of what I think made Russia is not just the nature of Mongol rule in Russia (which you also noted seems to be an exception to what Mongols did elsewhere, which was to assimilate), I kinda wonder what made that the case, almost as though Russia was the frontier lands for the Mongols and that characterised the nature of their rule there. And on some level I think the nature of the Russian geography itself drives the logic of how its systems adapt and develope
This comment essentially is my sentiment specifically in the no.3 statement. With the Chinese adopting Communism through Maoism, and especially the during the Cultural Revolution. China essentially shifted to be a chimera of its old values but with corrupted elements of Communism in which I daresay, far beyond the level of "corruption" in which the Russians (as the USSR) ever attained as their means and scale of the masses they can exploit is huge. Despite their massive population and resource potential, the current diplomatic ineptitude of the CCP is slowly catching up into them and a self-perpetuating disaster bigger than the Cultural Revolution will be inevitable in Xi's China.
In relation to the mongol rule in russia, maybe the mongols did not assimilate into russian culture because of its decentralised nature, remember these were still princely states with largely different customs and rivalries with each other so it must've made sense to simply appoint a grand prince to sort this out for them.
The nearby steppes may have also been a factor, the mongols could easily exert their influence over most major cities and since they preferred the plains they could still retain their lifestyle without sacrificing control over the princes. This is in contrast with mongol rule china and persia where they were forced to move their administrative centres further inland which meant a nomadic lifestyle simply was not possible.
@@totally-not-lost Based Putin. Jokes aside, the diference here was kinda pointed out, the CCP exists on it's own, it will outlive Xi, as did the CPSU with Lenin, Stalin and Brezhnev, on the other hand the current structre of the Russian state is centered on Putin, there's no incentives to think long term, because the current structres will be changed once Putin's gone, there's no strong institution in modern day Russia as the Comunist Party in China.
@@AlvaroMF13 Can't say i agree with you, since despite Putin having his image of the one and only leader, the system as a whole is more or less stable. Russia still suffers from both communistic reign and fall of it, but i dont think that reformations or change of a government would destroy or damage a system (at least from my perspective as a russian)
@@kirillf1780 I agree, I meant more as the people in those places of power, not as the system itself, since Putin more or less inherited the system from Yeltsin, though with his own twists
I would say this video is overall accurate, but there were a few glaring points that stood out to me as either inaccurate or exaggerated:
1) The real origin of Russian absolutism is not the Mongols but the Byzantine empire, where you had an autocratic emperor answering only to God who had no checks and balances on his authority. There is a reason why Russian rulers called themselves "tsar" (caesar) and not "khans". Indeed, the fact is that the Orthodox Church (brought over from Byzantium) was actually one of the strongest forces pushing for a more powerful central state - the reason why Ivan the Terrible became the first divinely-appointed "tsar" at just the age of 14, which laid the foundation for his tyranny later on, is because the Church hierarchy pushed for it.
For this reason, I think it is a much more convincing argument that the Orthodox Church is to blame for Russian absolutism, and not the Mongols who left very little real impact on the laws and institutions of Russia.
2) The solidification of serfdom in Russia took place not under the Mongols, but more than 2 centuries after their arrival at the end of the 16th century, when Russian peasants gradually lost their right to leave their landlords. While slavery is one of the oldest institutions in Russian history, going back to the first legal codes of Kievan Rus, it is not accurate to say that serfdom was the result of Mongol influence - in fact, Russia ended up embracing serfdom just like countries like Poland-Lithuania which were much more "free"/decentralized at a state level.
3) Saying that Russia had no real "classes" is extremely inaccurate. In the 17th century, in fact, you had the start of a very rigid caste system that separated serfs from free peasants and townsmen/merchants, which was codified into law in the 1649 Ulozhenie. This system did not last forever, of course, and by 1917 both Moscow and St. Petersburg (and many other cities in Russia) had as big and respectable of a bourgeoisie as any comparable European city - and it is that same bourgeoisie which ended up spearheading the November and October revolutions.
After looking at the sources for this video, I think it is clear that it is not based on a strong academic foundation, but is more rooted in shallow/mistaken claims made in popular history books, and particularly in the discredited "Mongol yoke" theory. For that reason, I would recommend anyone interested in an actual look at Russian history to read the "Cambridge History of Russia" series of volumes, which is about as accurate and detailed as you can get.
How can we know that your source wasn't biased either where you only recommend one book instead of multiple ones and while i don't think Cambridge's has a lot of bias on it, for me it's certainly important to look at some other sources to paint the whole picture of Russian's authoritarianism
Russian absolutism is a tendency linked to the Vladimir-Suzdal Principality, which would eventually become the Grand Principality of Moscow. Including pre-Mongol events such as the sacking of Kyiv and stronger princely authority in Vladimir and later Moscow, the Mongols granting Ivan I Kalita the privilege of Yarylk, or the right to gather tributary from the Christian principalities under the Golden Horde, including the Rus and the principalities established in the north by Kyiv, including Tver, Rostov, Beloozero and other colonial establishments that had by this time mostly Slavicised and Christianised their Finno-Uralic inhabitants. While the Muscovite Church and the Orthodox Byzantine tradition had a defining influence in the development of the Muscovite autocracy that we know all too well today, it only really gave a Christian face to an already long-established tradition of despotism and lawlessness (i.e. the decrees of the Tsar rather than any real law) that defined Muscovite civilisation in contrast to Rus.
Serfdom was indeed not codified until the 17th century, but it existed in Muscovy well before then. English accounts of serfdom during the reign of Ivan IV show that serfdom and slavery were alive and well within Muscovy, regardless of whatever ukazy the Tsar gave at the time.
To say that Muscovy had no codified class system is accurate, as there was a deep inequality between a peasant and the Grand Prince, and later Tsars, where the entire land under Muscovite rule was the property of the Grand Prince. This created a system of the autocrat and those he ruled, with the ruled divided into the simple divisions of the peasants, the clergy, and those who helped rule, those being the nobles. It is due to the modernising efforts of various emperors to take advantage of unseen talent to more efficiently and ruthlessly rule that we see the lessening of the caste system that was established in 1649, and indeed there would be a growing bourgeoisie in many cities by 1917, as you said. However, it is important to note that the caste system would continue to exist, this time in the form of the Party and those ruled by the Party, after 1918, as well as the continuation of the time-honoured tradition of brutal, cruel autocracy justified by what-about-isms and other bullshit.
Lastly, the Mongol Yoke theory is not much of a theory. Much of our post-Soviet systems of power, including the idea of verticals and using them to consolidate power around oneself to prevent power going to any sort of opposition, is still a thriving strategy in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and other post-Soviet dictatorships.
@@masonharvath-gerrans832I do not approve of Ukrainian chauvinism.
@@Человеквпиджаке projection much? Today I have learned that any criticism of Russia is [insert country] chauvinism.
@@masonharvath-gerrans832 This is not criticism, this is an ideology designed to strengthen the Ukrainian nation around the myth of Kievan Rus. When you write a people out of their ethnicity because you don't like the country and its actions, this is not a healthy criticism.
On the topic of criticism of Russia, you can find much more important and interesting than the clichés of chauvinists about clean Ukraine and dirty Finno-Ugric peoples from Muscovy.
As a Russian, I was around 18 years old when I fully internalized that Absolutism is not the norm: I would read about the nobles opposing king and go “wtf, he is king, he can just kill them for that, but why is he not doing it, wired Europeans”
Me, a Regionalist Mexican would think: why they don't just organize themselves and shoot the King? He is just one guy.
Mexico is full of regional power structures that are constantly at odds with the Mexico's city government, usually resulting in regional alliances overthrowing the government and establishing themselves, and so on for the last couple of centuries.
Plus, up to 1970's almost everybody had a couple guns at home, quite hard to subdue the population. Nowadays, drug lords have guns and self-defense groups are becoming more common as corrupt officials do nothing.
My hometown has expelled provincial and national officials at gun point like 6 times the last century alone.
@@victorrenevaldiviasoto9728 That's some missing piece when I was studying the drug wars and peeked into Mexico's stuff: why the cartels took swaths of territory and the central government had little sway, and how easy militas formed
Funny how people see there locals history as the same as everybody else’s
@@richardsilva5110 yeah the 2006 Mexican drug war is often overlooked when discussing the world of drugs as a whole, I recommend that you definitely research into former Mexican president Vincente Fox and his policies regarding the issue
@@rejvaik00 I've read a little on the LSE report on the Drug wars since 2006, where there was a military approach and violence skyrocketed, but never understood why
joke concerning the sponsor: Do you know what definitely stops hair falling? The floor....
Ba dum-tss 🥁
One of the main reasons why Novgorod had balance of rule was because they upheld older tradition. Originally “princes” were nothing more than Scandinavian mercenary leaders, who would protect the trade route from Scandinavia to Greece. Most of them forgot their role and overtook power.
A lot of Russia as we know it was borne from these trading posts along the great rivers to inland Russia and Greece; Byzantines, Scandinavians and even Muslim.
Novgorod was a city state whose primary source of income was trade. It was more centralized, more urban and less in need of a strong centralized government that can wrangle a massive and sparese country
@@dango470 it was a country for a while, with territories and smaller towns and villages under it’s rule. It was less of need, and more of keeping your words.
@پیاده نظام خان well, someone missed their simple Russian history class
Also if we really look into it. Novgorod wasn't really Slavic, it was actually Finnic.
if a 20 minute video has so many errors that require over an hour to address (see recent video by Noj Rants), I shudder at the thought of a 4 hour one.
I've been watching your content for a while now and I've enjoyed every second of it. You've given me a deeper look into concepts I never thought I would understand on my own as well as a deeper understanding of history. Thank you for all your hard work. Please keep making vids.
I hoped going into this video that there would be a comparison to China, because from what I've gathered over the years reading into the topic of states invaded by the Mongols, they all shared such authoritarian similarities. Great that you included such a comparison! I love the video!
Every government in the world is authoritarian. It’s a buzz word
China's authoritarianism is due to Confucius influence mostly. The nation is the extension of the family, and the Emperor is the father of the people.
@@stevenx399 I'd say that depends on your political views. There are certainly more or less authoritarian governments, but yes, there is a certain degree of authority within every government.
@@QuanHoang-qd1ye Wasn't Legalism also a huge influence on Chinese authoritarianism, though to a lesser extent? "Serve your monarch under all conditions" as state policy should leave a large impact on state structure for future administrations, too.
@@hanspetrich6520 it's rather complicated. Legalism is basically the Chinese version of Machiavellianism. Its ideas were only practiced by the Emperor. Confucius ideas, on the other hand, were frequently spread to keep the populace obedient to the state. Thus the Mandate of Heaven was not a religious belief, it was a form of justification for the Emperor's behaviors.
01:14 Total War Attila! Ah, I see you're a man of culture as well.
Old Russian joke: “The future is certain; it is only the past that is unpredictable”
That Harambe easter egg lol. You thought you could sneak it by with Cyrillic, huh >:)
Timestamp ?
@@Snp2024 19:10
@@iWatchFromBehind thanks
I just realized it says “dicks out for Harambe”!
"Next video we will cover the past millennia of political, economic, and social developments in China and India" oh is that all?
Fantastic video as usual!
And do so in 20 mins!
Kraut makes an interesting point about the Mongols, personally I find them fascinating but I think part of the reason why they are seen as a positive force by some historians and UA-camrs is because for a long time they got demonized to the extreme by western culture and media, to the point where it was basically shorthand for monster or brute to be compared to mongols, I'm thinking of Tolkien's orcs as a specific example, or course to an that means studying the mongol empire has more in common with studying the British or Spanish empire, right down to the millions of people killed by plague
Your comparison to European empires imo is pretty accurate. The details are of course different, but as far as general concepts the mongols and the Europeans starting at the industrial revolution are very comparable. They killed a ton of people along the way of making massive empires, but then what they did for the world completely and irreversibly altered history and greatly advances technology and the whole world's economy (except the mongols ofc didn't effect the americas and the Europeans fucked up all of Africa but Ethiopia, who screwed themselves over by being an empire in their own right and then keeping that land to this day, and also the middle east)
@@kevincronk7981 Well, both cases of imperialism did more than just take lives, they fucked up everybody they touched first. And the Europeans never absorbed themselves into any of the cultures they touched, they imposed themselves on everyone, as opposed to the Mongols with China and Iran.
@@peterwang5660 because where the european imperialism touches natives die. mongols were much more tolerable. they require one thing. money. pay it in time and ur good. europe require money,people,land,culture all of it to be exploited.
@@kevincronk7981 Except that western armies did not go on pillaging and slave capture trips, did not kill people for fun and did not collapce entire states just because their diplomat was killed.
@@dwarow2508 You can't be serious with your factually incorrect statement.
Zemskiy sobor was not a "Counsel of aristocrats", it included people's representatives from different classes and from different parts of country. The word "zemskiy" itself means, there were firstly representatives from regions (zemlya in that context means the place, where people live - a city, a village, a region). Also I don't think you can call Novgorod's Veche a parlament, cuz there were not only representatives, there were all the people of Novgorod with equal rights formally, though there was a real power in those, who could buy votes (merchants and aristocrats). And though the Moscow really ended the Novgorod's reign, you shouldn't forget that Novgorod wasn't and couldn't become the center of gathering territories: it was never intended to and it couldn't make a some kind of alliance with the Pskov city, similar to Novgorod state. They even fought sometimes. Novgorod was a great city with interesting state structures, but they were never oriented onto something other than trading, crafting and raiding neighbours because of nature of those, giving them the state power.
BTW, funny to see the picture-reference to "Бурлаки на Волге" (Burlaks at Volga), which was painting the realities of tsar's Russia when author mentions the teeeeerrribleee "GULAGs"! Hahaha
Russia had a trader and bourgeoisie classes. Kuptsy (купцы) and fabricants (фабриканты).
Well. Novgorod was just like any European city as the video says that did not dream of creating an empire, however, Novgorod was active in invasion into finish-hungarian lands in the North East. Kuptsy and fabricants did not have any political rights in Russia, they were dirt even in comparison with bancrupt aristocrats, real rise of merchants and fabrikants began only in late 19th after abolishment of serfod, creation of a real court system and start of modernization of Russia before that any person in Russia was just a property of a tsar
@@alexanderakh4955 тот самый знаток истрии, подписанный на варламова ХАХАХАХАХАХАХАХАХАХАХАХ
@@alexanderakh4955 это тебе варламов рассказал?
@@alexanderakh4955 фанаты варламова виднее
@@alexanderakh4955 потому что до Новгорода не добрались татары и не сожгли его.
3:21
Good job on making Mongolia look terrifying AF. I mean, that smile really tops it off (I know it's a crescent, but it looks like a smile).
3:32 and 3:51 too
While it is true that the Mongols dealt the final blow to destroy the Kievan Rus, it is important to remember that by the time they came it was already crumbling. The reason for that was that the Crusades had severely crippled Byzantium, disrupting trade across the Varangian-Greek route and thus destroying the main incentive for the Rus to remain a unified state.
*Dude... I'll tell you a terrible secret, there was no Kievan Rus, this is the name of the period when the capital of Rus' was in Kiev, the term Kievan Rus was coined by the historian Solovyov in the 19th century! And for that formation, Kiev became one of the first cities that the Golden Horde destroyed, because they attacked Rus' not from the east, but from the South, there is such a people in Russia, Kalmyks, they are the only people in Europe who profess Buddhism, they are descendants of the Golden Horde!*
@@UltraTotenkopf Kalmyks are not from the golden horde, they are oirat mongols that migrated after converting to buddhism and the dzungar massacre by the Qing i.e a very long time after the golden horde.
I would love longer extended versions of these videos. Your narrations and your voice is 77% of why I love your videos. If u did hour long voice-only narrations of ur research, I would still listen/watch that, and I think many of ur fans would too!
Watch his previous works
It is a good video and really explains much, BUT there is a huge mistake you made there 4:20. The fact is, there was no shift from Kiev to what is now known as Moscow. The principalities of the North-East such as Suzdal didn't really associate themselves with Kiev by the time the Mongols came. In fact, the leader of Suzdal - Andrey Boholubskiy had burned Kiev to the ground and pillaged it like some sort of a FOREIGN capital before the Horde conquered everything. North-eastern "Rus" principalities had been doing their own thing independently from Kiev for a long time before the Mongols came around. Russia originates not from the shift from Kiev to Moscow, but from the reign of Boholubskiy, who (kinda) declared his independence by burning Kiev in 1169.
Я бы не сказал, что от Боголюбского меди наша государственность, скорее от Ивана 3
Russia has no relation to Kyiv, so much so that Moscovy would come pillage anf destroy anything left from Ru. There was definitely no shirt, Moscovy is not Rus or had relation to Rus.
"like a foreign capital"? What? We constantly burned each other's cities throughout our history, Kiev wasn't an exception
yeah no. Rus were one people back then and languages such Ukrainian Belarusian or Russian didn't exist. instead there was old Church Slavonic which was kinda of a Latin for Eastern slavs western Slavs branched out long ago so western slavs already had Polish and Czech Slovak languages for 100 years at that point. Russian, Belorussian and Ukrainian didn't really become distinct until the 1600s. these are relatively new languages and identities that were formed. thats why Kievian Rus is the ancestor of all East Slav nations Russians Ukrainians and Belorussian's.
@@covfefe1787 прр том что "киевская Русь" это не государство а период истории . не понимая этого момента можно городить ложные сущности. И поэтому видео данного автора дико предвзятое . и не отображает сущности . авторитарный тип правления присутствует во всех государствах в тот иди иной период времени. Про Китай сравнивать еще смешнее государство что первое в мире создало систему бюрократии и постоянного замены местных представителей через несколько лет. В то время когда в Европе бегали обамзаные говном саксы, немцы , славяне. Где Рим был по сути военной авторитарной державой . где место в совете можно было получить за деньги.
Thanks for this. I love your history channels for it has a unique perspective that makes complex history easier to understand without oversimplification.
I love how starkly contrasting Kraut's seriousness of narration and joviality, meme-ness of animation is. It's like finding the perfect middle-ground between history channels and meme channels.
@grand nagus they are clearly talking about how they enjoy the channel because of the seriousness of the narration, and the cheekiness of the animation, creating a great dynamic for the video, increasing their enjoyment of the content. Are you incapable of comprehending what you read?
I would like to point out that tethering this north-east migration solely to mongol invasion is a mistake. The migration started a century before the invasion. The reasons were compound: the feudal fragmentation and Cuman raids. The migration of power to north-east was pretty much cemented in 1169 by Mstislav Alexeevich the son of Vladimir-Suzdal principal sacking of Kiev and moving the de facto capital to Vladimir. Kiev still was treated as a de jure seat of the Great Knyaz, but most of them since that time didn't reside there and ruled Kiev by means of appointing vassals. Mongol invasion indeed is important, but don't make it as if it is the only thing. Especially concerning the emergence of north east. It was set to be long before.
U know, that Stalin was Georgian. Brejnev and Khrushev was Ukrainians? Lenin was Jew. So , why you are speaking about russians?
Nikita Krushchev was russian his mother Kseniya Krushcheva was a russian peasant and his father Sergei krushchev was a russian peasant too, just info
Vladimir Lenin's father is russian, just info
16:13 There´s one exception, the grand duchy of Finland. Which retained it´s swedish law and order system, nobility, and society.
we shot our general governor and caused a large scale strike when they tried to Russify us. The russian occupation was also an incredibly harsh time that still causes strife to east
"Most states have some mafia. But in Russia mafia has a state"
- Kasparov
Venezuela be like:
Mexico: b*tch please
"Russia should be thrown back into the Stone Age to make sure that the oil and gas industry and any other sensitive industries that are vital for survival of the regime cannot function without Western technological support," Kasparov said. What sort of person talks like this about their own country?
@@gb-fs1tz Kasparov is not really Russian that’s why he says those kind of things . He’s really an Armenian Jew who pretends to be Russian for some reason
@@gb-fs1tz What sort of person defends Putin or group rapes old women infront of children... Russians.
2:15 "the Chagatai Turks conquered India...", Although it is true that Amir Timur worked for the Chagatai Khanate in the beginning, his descendants including Babur always traced their lineage from Timur, thus calling them Timurids would be more accurate. Babur if you read the Baburnama (his autobiography) has nothing but disdain for the Mongol mercenaries in his army calling them greedy and cowardly, by no means does he consider himself a Mongol. In the first half of the book getting back Samarkand and Ferghana means the greatest thing to him because those were his ancestral lands (Samarkand being Timur's capital) and he gets them only to be chased out to Kabul by Shaibani Khan Uzbek and even after his conquest of Northern India, he tells Humayun his oldest son to one day return back and take Ferghana their ancestral homeland.
@nano death sounds like kraut needs to do another 2 hour long video on the history of the mongol empire
@nano death The Golden Horde was Mongol, it was the Khanate given to Chinggis's (Genghis's) oldest son Jochi's Family. Timur's descendants did not consider themselves Mongols.
@nano death
1. The Golden Horde was at its peak between the period when Genghis Khan died and Jochi received it to when Möngke Khan died and it got further broken up. It briefly became militarily strong under the rulership of Uzbeg Khan.
2. There is no Turkic tribe called the "Tartars", it's a generic term used by Europeans to describe steppe nomads all the way from Avars and Kipchaks to the Mongols so your statement that it turned "tartar" is grossly wrong on top of that Turkic tribes were assimilated with Khamag Mongols (Chinggis Khan's Tribe) from the beginning of his conquest that doesn't make his empire Turkic, at no point after the Mongol conquest did a Turkic non Mongol sit on the throne of any khaganate because after Chinggis's death the title of Khan became hereditary meaning you had to trace your lineage to the Borjigin lineage (Chinggis's Lineage) i.e a Turkic ruler can't become a Khagan, that is why Amir Timur could never take the title of Khan and was stuck with using Amir (Major Islamic Noble Title).
@@disce. Timur was from the turkified Barlas tribe, a mongol tribe who migrated into central asia and adopted turkic culture. Interestingly enough his descent could even be traced back to a great ancestor between him and Genghis and he would even later marry a Borjigin princess. Thus i find it frankly ironic that Babur considers himself to be Timurid but not mongol.
@@googane7755
1. The only common ancestor between Chagatai and Qarachar Barlas, his retainer and the scion of Barlas clan is the common ancestor of Bodonchar (a legendary khan) and the only proof of this lineage was that Barlas claimed that was case, they couldn't and have never traced his lineage back to Bodonchar, he could've just as easily lied about their lineage to secure his position as a Chagatai retainer (an extremely common practice in the medieval age).
2. Lineage does not start with the oldest, it starts with the greatest, you might find it ironic that Babur would call himself a Timurid while being born in Ferghana (Central Asia), near Samarkand (Timur's Capital) even though Timur had carved an empire only three generations ago as an Islamic Amir (which coincidentally was what Babur was too) instead of a pagan shamanist Mongol (who were seen as barbaric invaders by almost all settled people till recent times) retainer to a son of Chinggis (Chagatai) whose lineage would lose all political power to the Toluid line (Kublai, Ariq Boke were all Toluids) but to Babur and his family made all the sense. Timur looked up to Chinggis even married a Borjigin woman and even Babur was matrilineally related to Chinggis but to him religiously, politically and culturally the Mongols were foreigners because if his family identified themselves as Mongol then they would have to swear fealty to the Borjigin Khans (closest being the Chagatai Khanate) but as Timurids (which is what they identified as) they were an independent group who owed their greatness to Timur which they did.
I love the Hunnic references to Unbiased History, truly a man of culture
@@ahmedbolbol9243 go away abuser
Ahmed you are insane
Wot
Kind of hard to enable a good democracy when you have never known it.
Смешно говорить о демократии когда по факту её никогда не существовало, все "демократические" государства по факту являются тоталитарными.
@@YaroslavNevazno I don't speak whatever the hell that is.
@@Jakob_Herzog So just use a translator, is it that difficult?
@@YaroslavNevazno Nah just lazy. ;)
Russia certainly has an autocratic history, but the idea that meritocracy was irrelevant is absurd. Peter the Great had defective artillery manufacturers test-fire their own cannons, cutting down on corruption there (mostly cheap metal substitution). Everyone competent and useful was promoted, including former Ottoman slaves, like Pushkin's grandfather. The old empire might not have had a strong artisan base, but Peter imported the Volga Deutsch in the 18th century. Catherine later sponsored Euler. Various academies became very prestigious places, and a strong lift for social mobility.
In fact, it's this over-educated (in theories) upper-middle class that really led the Revolution. All the 19th and early 20th century literary classics (Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Turgenev's Fathers and Sons, Chekhov's plays) all point to an active society with many internal divisions and an active intellectual life.
I think this video is a reasonable critique of pre-Peter Russia, but the state changed a LOT under and after him.
This should get more likes
As we can see in a top comment, Kraut probably should have made this perhaps even 4 hours long. It seems that he did fast-forward a great deal at times.
I'd counter by saying that meritocracy was only authorized when it served the purpose of the Czar and again mostly as way to keep his/her underlying nobility on its tow. Merit was only understood as serving the purpose of existing power, not as challenging it and even less as serving the peasant mass. The Volga Deutsch mostly existed as a controlled and controllable experiment somewhat disconnected from the rest of Russian society, by design. The rise of intellectual (urban) life was likely understood initially as an epiphenomenon of little incidence on the general way of doing things beyond the city walls. Of course this took a different turn once serfdom was abolished and cities became hotspots of cross-class intellectual debate. And while one might read the socialist troubles and the Revolution as proof of a functioning intellectual meritocracy. One can also look at it as the result of only a partial one coming to terms with its own contradictions, that is: meritocracy only sponsors social mobility up to bourgeois status but the higher strata of society (nobility) remains out of reach regardless of merit or wealth. And like in all places where a taste of social mobility was granted it eventually explodes in social challenges for the Man/Woman on top (e.g. English or French Revolution).
So yes the state changed after Peter, but in that Russia tried to have it both ways: economic dynamism through some meritocracy while maintaining the Czar's power base of stable aristocracy and absolutism. This never works. Freedom always reshapes power structures. Post-revolution Russia has since alternated between phases of somewhat liberalization (which tend to create disorder has no institution beyond the state can give it a framework) and phase of brutal stabilization orchestrated by the man on top. Even to this day any accumulation of power - regardless of the means, maybe allowed through the modicum of meritocracy - by a regular Russian eventually ends up as a dilemma: integrating the power structure supporting the Man on top or being crushed by it.
@@TheRedAirOn Well Kraut is biased so.
@@thibautnarme6402
Physically large countries are more prone to authoritarianism and centralization unless they are set up from the beginning as decentralized federations with limited powers for the federal government and a division of power between province/state and federal governments so that neither level can act on absolute authority. Even then the federal government may grab more power over the centuries anyways as more loopholes are found and supreme courts are more willing to interpret constitutions in "creative" ways.
If there is another Russian Revolution the people need to be given the absolute right maybe even an obligation to firearm ownership.
The part about north-eastern principalities isn't true. Kiev started to lose its importance since the Rus became more and more fragmented and Kiev needed strong defences provided by a relatively centralized state to avoid nomad raids. + Kiev was the center of many feudal wars so it's people suffered from that too, especially the rural folk. The climate was also getting warmer at the time which made settling in the north easier. And lastly, the trade routes also changed, so Kiev was gradually losing its status of a trade hub. There's much more to it than just "Mongols came, Kiev ded" because many cities were rebuilt and restored much of their previous glory, but not Kiev despite the fact that, if anything, it would've been safer after the invasion since Mongols wouldn't constantly attack and pillage their own tributaries. And yeah, the Russians build wooden fortresses long before the Mongols since the wood was just much more easily accessible
well yes, since before the mongols burned down Kyiv it was also burnt down by Andrey the first of Muscovy, aswell as his father Yuriy Dolgorukiy (the founder of moscow) trying to capture the Ruthenian crown aswell
Если что, то еще за 100 лет до нашествия монголов, владимир стал новой столицей руси, вместо киева
@@hohli_pidorasiЧто такое Русь вообще?
Титул киевского князя. Владимир наоборот свой титул создавал.
>that hellish horse and daedric bow for the Huns
I see Kraut is a fellow patrician, even if a foederatus
Roman femboys appreciation club
Wow, what a great review!
Good job done!
Thank you for the dedication!
Never used the description “predatory” to describe such systems but makes complete sense
Listen here mister I mean no problems but it is convenient for british colonial system of extracting wealth from conquered lands like India. Also kraut didn't tell anything about Napoleon, First World War and bloody as hell war against nazis. According to his view, Europe was just in process of building parliamentary systems. Europe got freedom from Russia several times you sons of parliament!
@@cardinalerror1 well, now NATO needs to give ruzzia some freedom.
@@mikhaelgribkov4117 well in that case NATO will receive some a few of Sarmats I'm afraid
@@mikhaelgribkov4117 Comment that absolutely didn't age well.
Kraut: in *insert central and western European country here* there was *insert good thing here*
Kraut 10 seconds later: in Russia
tbf it is need to provide further contrast and context as russia identify itself as european and majority of its history was trying to catch up to Western European Development while expanding in Central Europe
Very interesting video. I've always figured that Putin's death would lead to a power vacuum that would be very destabilizing, maybe to the point of collapse. But this gives me food for thought, maybe the authoritarianism is so baked into the system that it will automatically produce a new authoritarian.
It definitely will unless the entire system is overhauled, which has never happened - even during the establishment of the Soviet Union
Russia is a country that has never in it's entire history had a genuine democratic government. Currently, knowing many russians, the people there have actively been primed against western liberal democracies. Thus I don't belive that we'lI see a democratic Russia for at least another generation.
I know many young Russians who simultaneously adore many forms of western wealth, like cars and entertainment, and despise the "sinking degenerate west". These people are found mostly on the Putinist side, but plenty of people supporting Navalny and the opposition also think the same way. Many also see China in a similar way as many Europeans still saw America some decades ago, a land of fast economic growth and opportunity. I was talking to a girl a while back who said that she would not want to move to the USA due to her not getting along very well with feminists, but would be open to moving to China, this despite the objectively more discriminatory nature of the mainland Chinese people.
Nah I do think Putin is to the Russian Federation what Stalin was to the Soviet Union, it's peak authoritarian ruler.
Who become so overwhelmingly powerful, that during their "reign", they try so hard to make sure there is no other big names to even begin to challenge their influence, and when they die, there is really no another authoritarian replacement with the same capacity to grip to power.
There will be a vacuum, and it for sure will be interesting to witness in real time.
@@ferchi9953 You probably do not know that the Russians have voted Stalin as the greatest leader of Russia above and beyond Lenin.The Soviet power and Stalin expressed and served the interests of the millions of the working class and the poor peasantry. The Soviet Union's giant contribution to the Victory against Germany and its Allies was achieved because of the Soviet workers' authority power to the advantages which offers the socialization of the means of production and the pivotal planning of the economy in the leading role of the people and in the leading role of the Communist Party of the workers' as a revolutionary vanguard.Stalin appears as a criminal figure, the anti-communism has Stalin as its main peak , because during to the period when he was general secretary of the communist party he completed the abolition of capitalist relations of production. With the abolition of the exploitation of wage labor the foundations laid ,for the new socio-economic system. with ''arguments'' like Stalin slaughtered people and he was ''bloodthirsty'' , they attempt to tarnish the class struggle of the workers who defended the socialism especially at that time against the sabotage done by the capitalists and their supporters ''Fifth column'' ''CIA Liberals''. Stalin argues that the class struggle continues within the socialism system that the defeated bourgeois forces did not abandon their struggle for restoration that the forces of the opportunists of the liberals as expressed in his days helped the anti-socialist currents to reorganize theirs forces and to counterattack the Soviet authority. And the history has shown us that these forces were also behind the overthrow of socialism.These forces hit in the head In a fierce class struggle, the Soviet Communist Party, led by Central Committee Secretary Joseph Stalin and it is no coincidence that these forces raised the anti-Stalinist flag first of all.
@@ferchi9953 I was thinking Marshall Tito but y'know what
Sure
This sure explains A LOT!
The biggest irony with the effect of the Church on democracy in the difference between the Western vs Eastern dichotomy was the former divvied up the power of the monarch and the lords by granting them the legitimacy and the right of kings and lordship through the grace of god - the Catholic Church had a hand in the draft of the Magna Carta in the 13th century, and their insistence of the Church's role being made discrete in the form of legislated rights and powers that were distinct from the barons is sometimes cited as a marker that would inspire the role of the separation of church and state.
In a way, the albeit intolerable influence of the western Church we've grown so accustomed to ridicule as decrepit and backwards compared to modern institutions may well have actually been the primitive force that was able to push for exchange of powers through civil debate rather than brute force between our "moral" institutions and secular estates.
In a similiar sense in western europe the church and state were rivals, while in the islamic world they were rather allied. The end of the islamic golden era which coincides with the mongols conquering arabia was made possible by an combined effort of state and church. Unthinkable in europe
It's strange. I don't think people should be shaking the Catholic Church's hand, but we should give credit where it's due in the advent of a plurality of power that prevents pure totalitarianism to form. Or, even worse, an alliance of elites instead of pitting them against each other.
The rise of absolute states and the end of universalism in the Western world being an reaction to the Catholic Church overreaching with the secular powers is my favourite irony in history.
Honestly, the trend of passing judgement on history's past using modern moral norms is very tiring, brings nothing of value to the science of history and quickly devolves into screaming matches and platitudes upon platitudes spewed out.
Guess it partly based on "we shouldn't repeat mistakes of the past", but we don't need this, humanity already committed it's fair share of atrocities in modern age (20th and 21st century) to learn from, which can be appraised via modern morals, no need for "catholic church was bad, m'key", or "mongols were bad m'key" or whatever.
@@pineapplethief4418 I dont read any of that here. Yet, it is clear that The mongols had a tremendous impact of europe and traumatised eastern europe, much like the two World wars traumatised europe and asia
This video made me sad about a republic that hasn't existed for over 500 years
Novgorod, along with other princedoms, submitted to Mongols. That was essentially why Alexander Nevsky became the Grand Prince.
Nevsky is celebrated in Russia is a hero, but his ancestors were very likely either slaughtered or expropriated during Ivan the Terrible's massacres of Novgorod. I guess this does make him "Russian", if you take the idea that "Russian" is more a joint historical trauma than anything else.
6:55 We didn't have enough stone to build fortresses, and cavalry was needed to move quickly through the territories of Russia...
This video inspired my semester-long work on transitions to democracy in Germany and Russia. I cannot thank you enough!
Well... How did you conclude your work? since as far as definitions go, democracy has yet to come to exist.
@@-the_emperor-1660 it existed for a full blown 2 years before yeltsin decided to crack down on the DUMA (or something like that)
Germany has democracy? Why they seem to be occupied?
U know, that Stalin was Georgian. Brejnev and Khrushev was Ukrainians? Lenin was Jew. So , why you are speaking about russians?
@@ПростоКосмос-я5шSo it's still Russia. Putin is also a Jew (in the end, Jews are to blame as always)
Given what is happening in Ukraine, I felt that I had to revisit this video on 2022.
frighteningly relevant.
Note that despite Ukraine and Belarus being inheritors of the legacy of the Kyivan Rus', this video oversimplifies the Kyivan Rus' as a medieval Russia. The distinction between Russia/=/Kyivan Rus' is very important.
@@TheZerech This is a big problem since people think that Rus somehow means Russia. Ukraine inherited the currency and emblem of Kyivan Rus which is shown in the video, but author still adds Russian flag to it...
@@TheZerech so? Both are very closely related?
More closely than Anglo-Saxon and Native Americans
@@YuraK25 Well, come on, tell us how Ukraine colonized Mars for epochs. The fact that your currency is called hryvnia does not mean that you are 1000% heirs of Kievan Rus. In general, foreigners called Russia Russia (at the same time calling it Muscovy). The fact that Kiev was outside the Russian lands for a long time makes the descendants of the inhabitants of the Lithuanian era of Kiev not descendants of Kievan Rus directly. For example - the Russian language is much closer to the East Slavic dialect in the source, precisely because of the absence of assimilation defects in it. Ukrainians and Belarusians were assimilated during the years of Polish rule and as a result, the stratification of the Eastern Slavs into 3 nations was obtained. So your geographical location, currency and the fact of belonging to the Slavs does not allow you to call yourself descendants of anything. Hungarians also live in Eastern Europe and look like Slavs, but they are far from Slavs. And yes, the theme of the video - Russia and the history of our absolutism, what does Ukraine have to do with it? Or do you have Russia = Mongolia/Turks, in your sore head? If so, have a good evening.
I've been waiting so long for this. Thank you Kraut. Keep up the good work!
The moment that sticks out to me as a "what-if" for Russia is the death of Alexander II.
It was Alexander II's rule that saw the abolition of serfdom. Up until an assassination attempt in 1866, the Tsar had introduced a number of liberal reforms that included local elections of judges and governing councils. He took a more reactionary turn after the assassination attempt, but even so he was in 1881 about to accept some legal reforms that he himself acknowledged as "the first steps towards a constitution" .
But he was killed. An anarchist bombing attempt did him in in 1881, and that experience was a huge factor in the firm reactionary turn of his son and grandson, Alexander III and Nicholas II.
It makes me wonder what if Alexander II had lived longer? Would he have seen the creation of a Russian Constitution?
Probably, but I have the feeling it wouldn't have stuck.
Chances are Alex III (Who is basically worshiped by Putin btw) would probably end up ignoring and/or abolishing it and no one would really do anything to keep it in place.
Every era of Russian history begins with "...and then it got worse."
I mean it got significantly better fro. 1917 to around 1960 something. Employment skyrocketed, literacy skyrocketed, life expectancy, access to healthcare, homelessness dropped to basically 0, then things got slowly worse and worse through the late 20th century untill things got way way way worse in the 90s.
Counterpoint: WW2 was very much a "Then it got worse" moment for the Soviets.
Then we wouldn't see russia as a country obviously. So it cant be true
@@nvizible commie detected!
@@CComrade I mean yeah but the rise of Fascism was pretty much completely out of their control. It also could've been way worse, they defeated the Nazis, and liberated China and Eastern and Central europe as well, so not that bad all things considered, even if the losses were many and the rebuilding was hard.
Adding the stench fumes around louis the XIV was a nice historically accurate touch ;)
Great video man, really like your shorter yet more frequent uploaded works!
Could you do the history of the Balkan Peninsula, it's a interesting subject learning about how so many nomads settled there and how so many religions are there
The claim at 17:55 that Russia "never had a bourgeoisie / trader class" is a complete lie. By the end of the XIXth century, Russian "Kuptsi" (traders) had collectively much more wealth than the "Dvoriani" (aristocrats). Even the Yusupov aristocratic family was a number of times richer than the Romanov rulers.
I don't understand why that claim was made and it put into question anything said in this video.
But the army of adorers of this channel will swallow anything said here because it is said eloquently and cites sources (most of the time).
But there is no such claim at that timemark?
@@Medicus_Asur I corrected the time mark, my bad
I don't know much about the specifics you've mentioned, but what you've described isn't a "bourgeoisie", it's more in line with today's Oligarchs. What he means is "middle class"; tradespeople living in more urbanized areas who aren't peasants and live more comfortably but aren't necesarily wealthy either.
Please, talk about South American nations on one of your videos! it would be interesting to hear the story of Argentina or Brazil one day, sounds similar to Russian absolutism
It is, more or less, we (I'm Argentine) were colonized by an absolute monarchy, Spain, which appointed the viceroys (Virreyes), which sort of deferred power to the local oligarchies in the cities and to the caudillos (warlords) in the more climatic harsh parts of the country. Eventually both caudillos and oligarchies seize the chance to revolt against the crown but we never break away from the absolutist culture, even though we establish a constitution and reform it several times, culturally we still have the same ''vertical structure'' that power comes from above, that means weak institutions that don't hold politicians accountable. Extreme oversimplification of course, didn't even talk about dictatorships or Peron, but you get the gist.
More similar to democratic Turkey maybe.
But it's complicated. Even here we can't completely understand it because all the sources and analysis are flawed by the views of fanatics and irrational people that want to throw all the dirt to their "oponents"
Yes. I think what a lot of Liberals need to learn is that all events in that part of the world need to be viewed in a very particular way. Or to be more precise, through the prism of the Hispanic Conquests, and their long term aftermath. Most notably, the old Iberian ruling elites and its deeply corrupting nature towards to body politic as a whole. You name any of the main countries in South America, and you will see the indigenous population trying, in one way or another to free themselves from this almighty millstone.
We have had 0 days of democracy. Our record is 0 days.
Democracy is a lie westerners tell themselves to feel superior.
У нас была надежда на демократию и мы потеряли её 30 лет назад.
@@НосокТёплый you mean that puppet who nearly collapsed Russia?
@@wrpg9955 Я говорю про советский союз. У нас могла бы быть демократия если бы он успешно реформировался, а не развалился.
@@НосокТёплый у нас могла бы быть нормальная страна, но как всегда все прое*али. И даже в 90х можно было бы развиваться а не деградировать, но коррупция убила все начинания
I would absolutely LOVE a dedicated video about how this played out in Europe, namely the tug of war between merchants, guilds/craftsmen/industry (, intellectuals/clergy) and the state; and how we ended up with the current mixed economy in the various countries (especially France, Britain and Germany).
If I have time, I will drop by on the discord later to share some stuff about China that most people do not know, including some current developments. I'm a Sinologist living in China, so I'm really looking forward to the next video as well. Cheers.
18:03 Что такое "члены наружу для харамбе"?
В 2016 обезьяну застрелили по кличке Харамбе, тогда писали такое на английском
@@ABCDEF-l4b5k Спасибо!
Наверное ykhcucyodhkc7fufhc8ruriv7rhrdufhryxifuf или я не знаю
Ah one of my favorite past time, watching a German talking about the problems of Russia.
"now typically the mongols would become absorbed into the ruling class of the conquered nation, unless of course, your the Russians" cue Hercules and the Mongols clip
Wait the mongols are supposed to be the exception, not the other way around
@@kevincronk7981 Rus was the only conquered region to the north of their original area. The settled everything to the south of the steppes, but they never tried to move north into harsher climate
what are you talking about, Mongols write in cyrillic
@@dango470 Because they became a Russian sphere of influence in the late 19th/20th century and changed their alphabet to fit their benifactors. Mongolians in Outer Mongolia(which is part of China), use the original Mongolian text.
@@jojoni1134
joke
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I as always love the video and as a Russian found this very eye opening. I belived myself to know much about Russian history and while that may be true to an extent your video has shown me something that I doubt I would see otherwise. I knew that the russian state was increadibly corrupt and didn't think much else, but by showing me the root of the problem and going into such depth I was able to understand. Perhaps these videos of yours may one day help some future politican.
I have one question for you, and that would be how would you go to start fixing these issues? I belive this to be much harder than simply finding them, I am very curious to see your answer :)
I believe to resolve Russia's problems the first thing needed would be systems of public accountablilty. Like an independent judiciary that operates outside of any political restraints.
@@Kraut_the_Parrot Actually, I have been reading Always With Honor by Pyotr Wrangel. And I have to say, I do believe that it is possible, were a Russian leader to use the political and economic policies he used during his time as commander of the Armed Forces of Southern Russia. As well as being willing to fully implement them.
PS: Since I'm sure many are not familiar with whom I speak, Wrangel was the last leader of the white movement in the Russian civil war. And passed numerous reforms that would have undoubtedly changed Russia for the better. For example, created an independent judiciary under the army's high command. This was for the express purpose of stopping soldiers and officers from looting or theft from civilians. He also granted productive peasants their own land through peasant soviets.
@@Kraut_the_Parrot you need to import judges for this)) There is a well known factual anecdote that Catherine II, being European, tried to convene an "All-Russian Legislative Commission" (as a some kind of proto-parliament) and this commission took a week to argue about... What honorary title to bestow upon the Empress for gathering them ))
@@Kraut_the_Parrot unfortunately it's in too deep to really fix anything at this point
@@ict9745 I mean look at most of Europe now, they're doing well to say the least and at one point they were far worse off than even Russia
"Члены наружу для харамбе" XD
Wow. 1918-1922 really was the worst missed opportunity in Russian history. Absolutism was abolished and completely crushed by the russian poor for the first time in literal centuries.
And the nascent liberal democratic institution of the Kerensky government, and then the nascent social democratic institution of the Soviets, were immediately crushed in turn by Stalin.
It makes his rise all the more sad.
Wow that really is sad, if only Lenin didn't die so early and Trotsky wasn't essentially assassinated in the perfect dictatorship of all places.
@@flutee6162 Tortsky and lenin were for a world revolution, so they would most-likely start World War II before germany could do any of its shenanigans, so no, Lenin and Trotsky would not be better.
@@jojoni1134 I guess they could've also fallen to some other Stalin while vying for world domination as well.
@@jojoni1134 bukharin or pre-Stalin Krushchev seems alright but the failure of both to reform after lenin and Stalin's Legacy
It was Lenin who made USSR what it was. He and other Bolsheviks launched a coup and ignored the results of democratic elections on which SRs won. He also abolished independent trade unions and any internal opposition in RCPB and outlawed all other parties. Also he combined with Trotsky were responsible for brutal suppression of any opposition.
Stalin didn't crush anything, he just inherited the system Lenin created.
And if Trotsky would win... Russia would probably turn into a giant revolutionary Cambodia and start a global war.
There is one thing I don't understand (which I like to learn about). By looking at the examples you gave in this and previous videos, I came to the conclusion that the countries who had historically strong aristocracy and decentralized governments ended up becoming democracies, like England, France, Germany (most of Europe), Japan and India. On the other hand, states who historically had (or even lacked) weak aristocracy and highly centralized government ended becoming today's authoritarian states, like Russia and China.
There are three particular countries that really interests me when it comes to this issue - Turkey, France and Iran. Turkey is a successor of the Ottoman Empire. And Ottoman Empire didn't have a real aristocracy. There were no land-owner aristocrats with their local armies, as the Europeans had. Ottoman Empire a highly centralized state. Yet, today's Turkey did end up becoming a democratic state. Yes of course, Erdogan is an Islamic conservative, which brings certain social restrictions but in no way he (or any other government that came before him) could be categorized as "dictator" and Turkey as "dictatorship" or authoritarian state. All governments of Turkey came to power through elections and all of them left through elections (excluding 2 coups). Even today, Erdogan's party lost key cities of Turkey, like Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Mersin, Bolu and etc. to the opposition. So free and fair elections are still in place. How come Turkey managed to become a democracy despite being a successor of an absolutist and centralized Ottoman Empire, similar to Russia and China?
Similarly France. As the country that was the most centralized country of Europe, as the country who was ruled by absolutist rulers like Napoleon, how it managed to become a democracy? Wasn't it supposed to become an authoritarian state? Because from what I see, France was much more centralized and its aristocrats had much less power compared to England. Yet, both of them are today democracies.
I would be extremely grateful if you would answer my question
Germany was not very centralized. Only after the kaiser and Hitler Germany became a nation. Even today many bavarians want to get independent, because they are closer to Austrians than to northern germans.
@@mmerald-t5w Its still there
I suggest you read all or at least part of Alexis de Tocqueville's "The Old Regime and the Revolution" (he's the author of the more famous "Democracy in America" from 1835) before calling the Kingdom of France a highly centralized state. It's been a long time since I've read it, but he pointed to a number of decentralizing trends.
At the time of the first Revolution, the nobles wielded considerable power - there was a reason why there were 3 estates - there was a sort of parliamentary structure as described here by Kraut.
I'm going to second Malte's hypothesis concerning Turkey. Following the Great War, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk took control of the new Turkish state and was obsessed with modernity. My understanding is that he had sort of a military dictatorship at the time - which could be considered "modern" by the standards of the 1920's. However, as the 20th Century progressed, it became increasingly difficult to consider anything that wasn't democratic "modern" and so any political system that was built on modernity would need to become increasingly democratic to stay relevant.
Also, Napoleon was a rather liberal reformer within the territory he ruled, so he definitely contributed to the establishment of proper democracies in France and elsewhere, even if he himself ruled as essentially a monarch who hoped for an heir.
I don’t know much about French history, but I assume that the oddity can be explained as there was a prominent aristocracy in France before the Revolution and after it there was an established democratic (kind’ve? Can we say that?) system in place. So even though Napoleon took power, the privileges of democracy were still in with the people who once (kind’ve) held that power. That’s just my perspective.
Thank you Kraut for another well researched history lesson. Understanding always leads to discussion and when 2 party's are talking there is no time for fighting. They should make your videos mandatory in school- oh how I love them!
11:47 “Опричнина” happened before the struggle for power had begun. “Boyars” - upper-walkers in Russia had been struggling for power and using brutal methods even against Tsar family. The centralization of power had been forming as controversy to state split because of Boyars’ and other upper-hands’interests
14:06 - I feel like denying the fact that political authoritarianism is deeply rooted in modern russia's culture puts people in the bias of 1950's US historians, who thought they could invade USSR and be seen as liberators, whereas all the wars against Russia in past 200+ years had shown the opposite and largerly even further reinforced the authoritarianism.
18:40 - yeah... well... Ezhov (NKVD leader before Beria, perhaps even more ruthless than his successor) isn't the best victim example... Along with Marshal Toukhatchevski who used poisonous gas against peasant rebels but still portrayed as "a hope of a democratic USSR killed by Stalin". Stalin is a product of his time and of a political system that was built with the priority of surviving the period of political instability at all costs, but that perpetuated violence and repression at the times when modernisation should've been done.
20:58 - That makes a lot of sense to me. What I am asking myself, is what Russia lacks as opposed to China, to become a more meritocratic and a less corrupt state? In my opinion, it is not so much the repressive structure that shoots corrupted superiours itself, than a strong ideological project with, give it an extremely blurred nowadays, a collectivist nationalism.
I've got a feeling that in China, people believe that, at the end of the day their governement will do good, which makes propaganda so powerful and overwhelming and make them tolerate huge human rights abuses. In Russia, on the contrary, the general popular belief right now, since 1993 and Putinism, is that no matter what you do, at the end of the day the governement will be plutocratic and corrupt.
I suppose that Chinese authoritarianism would be overall better for the russian masses than current state of things. I certainly wouldn't like to live this way and that's why I live in France and I don't want to return. I'm much better off here.
I definitely clicked on a video named "The Origins of Russian Absolutism" and am now watching a video named "The Origins of Russian Authoritatianism" somehow... strange
Kraut Made an error on the naming , and he didn't correct it since he felt, in the context of this video they are the same thing
Another Mandela effect...
In his biography of Ivan The Terrible "Fearful Majesty," the historian Benson Bobrick called the autocrats of Muscovy Mongol khans in Byzantine robes.
You just wouldn't stop with your hatred toward russians. We're ok with that.
@@hulking_presence wat
18:00 Absolute lies, the bourgeoisie was both large and small, there were simply not enough of them, the main problem for its development was 'serfdom', after its abolition in 1861, the growth in the number of the bourgeoisie began to accelerate greatly.
Loved this. Loved the choice of Tchaikovsky as background music. Just sad you didn't include the version with cannons.
This was touched on a bit in the video, and I am sure would be covered in depth if the video would have been longer.
But alongside the Mongols the other major difference between Russia and the rest of europe is simply how much land it had available. Anywhere else in Europe and you get blocked by the sea and neighbors quickly enough, being on the eastern fringe meant that land was always available as a resource both as a unique negative for Russia but more so as a unique advantage that encouraged and incentivized certain behaviors.
More land meant more space for agriculture and rural homesteads and thus a disincentive compared to Europe for urbanization, soldiers could always be paid in land thus allowing the rulership to hold on to more gold and creating a greater growth rate of the classic agrarian estate based economy compared to Europe, serfdom was in place partially to prevent commoners from homesteading in the vast land that was always available. Larger amounts of land to cover meant more castles would have been needed to an almost unfeasible degree thus Russia simply never developed that same aspect of European rulership, the vast land came with vast natural resources that to make use of required yet more rural workers and disincentized urbanization even more since wealth could still be brought in aplenty without major cities like in Europe. Less urban centers meant less 'middle class' the kinds of people that historically led and caused rebellions throughout western history since the middle ages, and more peasants/serfs who even if they wanted to simply had far less capability to mount any successful rebellion.
The political structure of Russia is influenced by both it's environment and moreso the Mongol yoke. But the Russian economic situation wouldn't have allowed the state to sustain itself if the country didn't have the geography that it did, and by having unique economic circumstances that worked especially well with the political system, a feedback loop came into existence where the system functioned at a base level, not causing any need for introspection and thus potential for reform until far later in the country's history.
I STRONGLY RECOMMEND TO READ:
To be honest, another attempt to give a simplified explanation of complex socio-political, economic and historical processes.
Russia survived the period of medieval feudalism in the same way (although we did not have stone castles, there were many fortresses: both wooden and stone). We also had specific principalities, where the vassals of the Grand Duke ruled. Often these were the younger brothers of the Prince, nobility from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Russia or from the Horde and its later fragments. Peasants had to pay taxes (obrok), which were both food and cash, and work for a certain time of the year on the fields of the feudal lord (barschina). For the fact that the feudal lord owns the land and receives food along with money, he had to serve the Prince militarily with his horses, people and weapons (appear to the Prince "konno, lyudno i oruzhno"). The last specific principality was liquidated under Tsar Fyodor the Blessed at the end of the 16th century, but the nobles and boyars continued to serve the tsar on the same principle. Some historians even draw analogies: the serfs were serfs for the nobility, just as the nobles were serfs for the Prince and Tsar. The situation will change radically after Peter the Great. The regular army will finally appear after Peter and His Grandfather and Father (Mikhail I & Alexei I). In the reign of Elizabeth the Merciful, the nobles will actually cease to be serfs of the Monarch, and there will be almost no wars for 20 years. Therefore, already under Peter the Third and Catherine the Great, two important documents (very similar in essence) will be issued that will allow the nobility not to serve the Monarch without fail; including civil service. The historian Vasily Klyuchevsky said better than others about this: “The day after the Manifesto on the Liberty of the Nobility, a decree on the Liberty of the Peasantry was to follow.” But this was not done. The peasants were still required to work for the nobles for another 99 years.
I also want to say that in Russia serfdom developed VERY LATE. In Russia, 1497 is usually considered the date of the beginning of the enslavement of the peasants, when Ivan the Great introduced his Sudebnik (Code of Laws to judge (sudit')). But then the peasants were simply limited in the transition from working for one feudal lord to another. The Day of St. George the Victorious was celebrated in Russia 2 times a year: April 23 (May 6) and November 26 (December 9). A week before November 26 and within a week after it, the peasants could change the owner and pay a special tax to the former owner for this. That is, only 2 weeks a year, the state opened such an opportunity for the peasants. And it is late in the fall - when the crop is harvested, and it is too early to sow a new one. In 1550 Ivan the Terrible introduces his Sudebnik. Then he increased that tax. And in 1581 he introduces "Forbidden years", when the peasants in some years could not change their master. In 1597, Fyodor the Blessed introduced a 5-year term for the search for fugitive peasants. And in 1607, Vasily Shuisky increased this period to 15 years. In 1649, the Zemsky Sobor adopted the Council Code, which made the search for fugitives indefinite. It is 1649 that is considered in Russia by most historians as the final year of the introduction of serfdom, except for the theory of the decree of 1592, which has no direct evidence and almost no supporters.
It is important to point out here that enslavement since 1581 was carried out solely due to the fact that the Russian economy was in crisis after the Oprichnina, and then also after the Time of Troubles and during constant wars with the Crimea, Poland and Sweden.
Speaking about the Church, it is important to understand that for a long time the metropolitan was sent to Russia by Byzantium or the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, which caused scandals and quarrels for a very long time. Often Patriarchs in Russia were elected against the will of the Tsar, and in 1700 the Church lost a Patriarch altogether for 217 years. Also, the Church often stood up in opposition to the royal power. So it was under the Oprichnina, so it was at the beginning of the reign of Peter the Great, so it was during the feudal internecine strife of the princes. (The Church, by the way, also had its own peasants and was an important economic actor that could only be strangled under Catherine the Great.)
Localism / mestnichestvo - the principle according to which the nobility received positions NOT because of favoritism, but because of the degree of nobility of the family. At the same time, the historian Dmitry Volodikhin believes that despite the obvious flaws, localism at the very least reconciled the serving aristocrats, determining who could apply for which official level. The nobility of the Russian state consisted of the old Moscow aristocracy, princely families from the annexed Russian lands, fugitive Lithuanian-Russian princes and serving Tatar princes. According to the researcher, without a regulatory system, noble people would now and then arrange strife and coups, arguing for a place at the helm of power. Thus, localism protected the Russian state from difficult internal wars.
The oprichnina didn't start like that at all. Tsar Ivan escaped from Moscow and took the treasury with him. The people, of course, were very surprised and even frightened, since the Tsar refused to rule the country; he sent 2 letters to the capital. In one, he turned to the people and said that he did not hold evil "on the simple good people". In another letter he sent to the boyars, Ivan accused them of many evil deeds. According to Russian Wikipedia: "After reading the message of the Tsar in Moscow, the anti-boyar situation sharply escalated - thousands of Muscovites came to the Kremlin, enraged by the betrayals of the boyars named in the message, and the Boyar Duma had no choice but to ask Ivan to return to the kingdom." At the same time, historians (like Skrynnikov) note that the split between the tsar and the elite was heating up for a long time. Many managed to escape abroad, someone was caught but forgiven, someone was exiled to a monastery, some lands were taken from someone, etc.
Although the oprichnina existed after 1572, it was changed, and terror was brought to naught, because. in 1571, the Crimean hordes burned Moscow, and the Oprichnina army simply fled. By the way, there are studies that show that Ivan did not achieve anything by terror, because the boyars did not lose their enormous influence and privileges. So the author of the video exaggerates the horrors of Oprichnina. And boyar families have always been few historically. They were in the Boyar Duma - the council under the Tsar. Well, speaking of journalists; you can find similar listings for many other countries in Europe. Russia is not alone here, and journalists are killed not only by the authorities - media figures stepped on toes to many people.
As for Novgorod, the local republic very quickly became a plutocracy and an oligarchy. And Russian goods, by the way, were often not allowed into Europe. In addition, trade was barter, not monetary. Already in the 15th century, the Hansa fell into decline, and in the second half of the 16th century it completely bent - therefore, Russia would hardly have been so cool and democratic if it had developed not on the basis of Moscow, but of Novgorod, which militarily was VERY weak. Even as part of "despotic" Moscow, Novgorod actively traded with the Hansa. Novgorod tried to leave Moscow and go to Lithuania - they called for one of the Lithuanian princes to rule.
Many soldiers did not want to fight for the boyars they hated, and the personal army of the Novgorod lord generally stood inactive throughout the battle in 1471. After the battle, Ivan III moved with the main army to Novgorod. Meanwhile, there was no help from Lithuania. The people sent the archbishop to ask the prince for mercy. As a result, Novgorod renounced communication with the Lithuanian sovereign, ceded part of the Dvina land to the Grand Duke and undertook to pay an indemnity. Ivan dealt with many representatives of the local nobility, taking away their lands, and exiling them to the central regions of the country (this is not the Gulag, as the author of the video says, Moscow is located in Central Russia). In 1477-78 Novgorod was finally annexed. In 1477, a group of pro-Moscow Novgorod boyars sent a petition to Ivan III asking him to take power in Novgorod into his own hands. Delighted by this proposal, the prince sent ambassadors to Novgorod to find out what kind of government they would like. Veche spoke in favor of maintaining the existing order. After that, Ivan III set out on a new campaign - Novgorod lost again.
As for Parliaments, there were almost none in Europe either. Estates General in France is no better than Zemsky Sobors in Russia.
The feeding system reached its greatest development in the 14th-15th centuries (and from the author’s video it comes as if it existed in the new Russia after 1480 and right up to Peter the Great). Russian Wiki: "Feeding gave rise to arbitrariness and abuse of local authorities interested in enrichment during their stay in the feeders. Therefore, already from the 15th century, the Moscow Grand Dukes regulated the income of feeders by issuing special “kormlenny`kh” and statutory letters. At the end of the 15th - beginning of the 16th century, natural feed was converted into cash. As a result of the zemstvo reform of 1555-56, the feeding system was abolished. In 1555, a decree was issued on the abolition of feedings, which was applied, however, not immediately and not everywhere: sources continue to mention feedings during the second half of the 16th century. Fees for the maintenance of feeders have been converted into a special tax in favor of the treasury (“kormleny`i` okup”), set at a certain amount for various categories of land."
Increasing the retirement age is more than normal in today's world. Even if Russia were more developed, this would postpone the reform, but would not cancel it. In Russia, every year there are more and more pensioners per working person - the population is rapidly aging due to demographic pits. Russia has a solidary system of pensions: the pensions of current pensioners are partly state money, and partly taxes from working citizens in favor of the Pension Fund of Russia.
Well, to expose everything as if the only thing she did was to squeeze all the juice out of the common people, it’s completely wrong. Peasants are property and an instrument of earning. It is unprofitable for the owner that they be poor and hungry - such peasants do not work well. The owner helps his peasants when, for example, their house burned down. The owner gives them tools and seeds if necessary. And that further...
And some strange comparison with China: he says, their bureaucracy controlled the Emperor, while our Tsars did whatever they wanted. The aristocracy in the same way limited the Royal Power, being a significant counterbalance to the central power. Many Russian rulers could not realize one or another of their ideas only for the reason that most of the aristocrats were against it, some of them were killed.
@@AlexanderSergeevRus By the time absolutism started to develop in Russia in 1700s, nobles gradually ceased to be a political force which would counteract Tsars power. More often than not they sided with the monarch in order to guard their rights and privileges, as more and more of them became dependent on the royal family for money and influence. By the time this time of absolutism had ended, russian tsars essentially could have done whatever they wanted to within their realm.
@@Pelaaja20 But it was the nobles and the army who overthrew rulers in Russia that they did not like during the entire 18th century. So Catherine the First, and Anna Ioannovna, and Elizabeth Petrovna, and Catherine the Great ascended the throne. It was the nobles who did not allow Catherine the Great to begin the process of emancipating the peasants. She wrote about this to Baron Melchior Grimm (if I remember correctly). She said that she would immediately be stoned to death for trying to abolish serfdom. Her husband Peter III was also overthrown by the nobles and the guards. Her son (Paul the First) was killed in the same way by aristocratic conspirators in 1801. After his death, a joke arose that in Europe autocracy is limited by parliaments, while in Russia it is limited by a noose around the neck of the Tsar. Catherine's grandson - Alexander the Blessed - created 2 advisory bodies with him: the Private Committee and the State Council. The first was disbanded over time. The second had many predecessors, but the State Council then existed in this format until 1917, even having been the upper house of Parliament. It was the State Council that prevented the Tsar from implementing projects to abolish serfdom. Under Catherine's other grandson and Alexander's brother, Nicholas I the Unforgettable, the reorganization of the country's economy began and the first serious steps were taken to emancipate the peasants and grant them certain rights. During these decades, a series of reforms were wilyly introduced that would legally abolish serfdom in 1861 and make it die out completely by the early 1900s. But Nicholas the First was indeed a military man by education and strongly crushed liberal ideas in the country, however, he was also afraid to anger the nobles. Moreover, since the time of Catherine the Great, city and noble self-government began to develop normally in the country for the first time. After the reforms of Alexander II the Liberator in the 1860s, it intensified and strengthened even more. If the terrorists had not blown it up, then perhaps His Son and Grandson would not have strengthened their power and crushed the opposition...
@@AlexanderSergeevRus Man, you're just the best
Лайк тебе, добрый человек
Kraut makes videos decent enough to be taken serious by people uneducated in the subjects. Mostly based on very outdated political books, not history books.
If you want to learn history from the eyes of a European historian from the 1970s... go ahead.
I am somewhat familiar with the subject and have spotted several mistakes in this video. Now I question all the other videos from Kraut that I watched.
By the way, what exactly do you consider outdated? What would you recommend to read?
Lovely video as always Kraut.
Can I ask you to do a video about the impact of Spanish and later American Colonization on the Philippines?
@@Wayne_Wheeler i feel it a sort of a spiritual successor or continuation to his Tale of Two Colonies about the history of Mexico and the USA.
Where better to see a clash of systems than the islands that saw both Spanish and American Colonization.
You’re definitely right about the predatory nature of the medieval mongols. It’s insane how many people they killed.
Kraut, a PSA for you - beware of 5'th floor balconies and open windows.
Or stairs
So...many...mistake. In the first 5 minutes, no less. From the total ignorance of the fact that Alexander Bogolubsky did exist and during his reign Vladimir-Suzdal Rus was already a pretty centralised powerhouse, who was powerful enough to do with Kyiv/Kiev/Kijów/whatever to do what he liked - before the Mongols. To the fact that the Russians really started to employ Golden Horde tactics during Ivan the Great - and it was during the end of Tatar Yoke in Russia, dude.
Oh well, just from checking your sources everything becomes clear to me.