Putin unveils memorial to Tsar Alexander III (VIDEO)

Putin unveils memorial to Tsar Alexander III 

President Putin this week opened a monument to Tsar Alexander III in Yalta, Crimea. The 19th century Russian Emperor thus returned to Livadia, which had been his favorite residence for many years. 




Western reporting on this has been - unsurprisingly - limited and, where present, wholly derogatory and insulting, with the British Telegraph suggesting that in doing so Putin is "seeking the reflected glory of Russian tsars." 

Real people know that Putin has no need to seek such a thing, and that the Russian government's motive in promoting the memory of Alexander III, if anything, follows the same pattern of 'historical perestroika' ('opening up') that Russia has undergone in recent decades as it remembers its true history before it was eviscerated by the Bolshevik revolution. 

The following passages are from The Third Rome: Holy Russia, Tsarism and Orthodoxy, ch. 14:

Alexander III was one of the greatest tsars in Russian history and one of the greatest monarchs in European history. He was just, fair, intelligent and amazingly strong in every sense of that word. He was a populist - in the truest sense - despising court etiquette and that pseudo-European tenor of dishonesty, oligarchy and liberalism that had been growing at court since Peter the Great. Alexander staunchly refused to dress 'like a monarch', preferring instead a simple military cloak and uniform. He hated palaces and luxury. He slept on the floor, and his diet consisted only of oatmeal and gruel.

He was a massive man with a huge beard, and his presence alone kept the unruly oligarchs as close to being 'in line' as is possible for this nearly demented liberal and western class.

Alexander III came to the throne over the corpse of his father. The revolutionaries, emboldened as they always are by liberal pacification, and the communist and other far-left groups were becoming increasingly violent. From the reign of Alexander II to 1905, the total number of people - both innocent civilians and government officials (including lowly bureaucratic clerks) - murdered by the Herzenian 'New Men' came roughly to 12,000.

On the other hand, the Russian government's attitude towards the 'New Men' was mixed. Generally, the monarchy was lenient.

Under Alexander III, however, this reign of terror ground to a halt.

Additionally, labor laws under Alexander III were world firsts - introducing workers' rights such as for limiting the number of hours worked by women and children in factories to 8, and only during the daytime, as well as guaranteeing them fair wages. It wouldn't be until the next century that western countries caught up. 

He is remembered as 'the Peacemaker' because Russia fought no wars during his reign.

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