Russia is under siege – from Ivan the Terrible to the present day. Part Six

It took Ekaterina II twelve years before she finally signed the manifesto "On the acceptance of the Crimean Peninsula, Taman Island and the entire Kuban side under Russian Power” on April 19, 1783. This date, as everyone understands, is especially important to remember today in connection with the events around Ukraine. Therefore, I will focus on this point in more detail.

Formally, Russian troops took Crimea back in 1771. They controlled the entire peninsula and, if necessary, were able to break the resistance of the Tatars. But then the Russian soldiers would have found themselves in a hostile country, risking a stab in the back every second, since not all local residents were in favour of an alliance with Russia, and they could not find agreement among themselves. And the Empress and her advisers decided that it was unwise for the Russians to interfere in this "madhouse" at that stage.

In addition, it was known that the Turkish sultan, who was in a difficult situation, sought support in Europe, primarily from France and Austria. He even tried to bribe the Austrian Emperor Joseph II for a lot of money to encourage him to join the war against Russia. At that time, the Austrians did not hide their concern about Russia's growing influence in the Balkans and the Danube region, so their entry into the conflict was quite possible. But they feared the strengthening of the Ottoman Empire no less.

But when the guns are silent, diplomats say, and in 1772 negotiations between Russia and Turkey began. Negotiations were difficult, the main stumbling block was the Crimea. Russia demanded the independence of the peninsula, but the Turks did not agree to this. As a result, our troops were ordered to resume military operations and show the utmost activity in order to force the enemy to accept the proposed conditions.

At the same time, Russian diplomats managed to carry out a cunning intrigue and neutralised Austria, handing to it, roughly speaking, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (that is, Poland and Lithuania), which, by the way, all these years has not ceased to bother Russia, and its other neighbours, with military fuss on the borders. Austria, Prussia and Russia simply brought troops into the territory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and divided it into three parts. This was the first, but not the last, division of Poland between the great Powers. No one asked the opinion of the Poles, and Warsaw did not have the strength to resist the armies of the three great empires.

Having received its "share", Austria agreed to the independence of Crimea and the actual annexation of Malorossiya and the Taman Peninsula to Russia. And without the support of Austria, the Turks also had to surrender. That's how Crimea became Russian.

It took a lot of time, but human losses were minimised. That's how Russia killed three birds with one stone: a) legalised its presence in Crimea, b) neutralised Turkey at least temporarily, and c) got rid of Poland, which ceased to exist as an independent state for more than a century.

As the course of further events showed, the Poles are clearly learning very poorly from history. As a result, Poland, at least three more times fell under the dismantling of the great powers and was subjected to one section after another. And, by the way, it, like Ukraine, again owes its independence to the Bolsheviks. But we did not hear any words of gratitude from them for this. But the national revanchism of their current political leadership is bursting out of all holes.

To say that Russia got Crimea with sweat and blood is an understatement. Its entire land is soaked in the blood of Russian soldiers, and its subsequent history is inextricably linked with the history of Russia. Many world-historical events took place on the peninsula. So just the thought that Russia could have lost it already in our days cannot but cause an internal shock to any normally thinking Russian person. And this, not to mention the fact that Sevastopol could turn into a NATO naval base. Thank God that our leadership had the courage to return Crimea to its native harbour eight years ago.

Russia, of course, has been trying to do everything in its power over the past eight years to resolve the issue of eastern Ukraine peacefully. But when the other participants in the negotiations see them only as a screen for preparing for war, then in the end they have to say "finita la comedia" and put the dots on the “i” already with the help of weapons.

The Empress waited 12 years before declaring Crimea Russian. We waited a long, painful 8 years before recognising Donbass and Lugansk as essentially Russian. It remains only to wait until all the tasks assigned to our military will be solved - and the inevitability of this is obvious - Ukraine will be freed from the nazi regime, and the West will once again receive a very good lesson, which our ancestors taught it more than once.

The 18th century is clear evidence of this. The growing power of the Russian Empire could not but provoke, to put it mildly, a negative reaction from the once leading countries of Western Europe, which made attempts not only by military means, but also with the help of various kinds of sanctions and psychological pressure to disrupt the further strengthening of its authority. This can be most clearly illustrated by the example of England, relations with which already at the end of the reign of Ekaterina II sharply deteriorated.

The apotheosis was the ultimatum to Russia that on March 22, 1791, in the midst of another Russo-Turkish war, was put forward by the British Cabinet of Ministers. It demanded that Russia return the Ochakov region to Turkey, and in case of refusal, Great Britain and its allied Prussia threatened to declare war. The British prepared for this conflict ahead of time, and back in 1788, in order to distract the Russian army from the south, they persuaded the Swedish King Gustav III to once again go to war against Russia.

The fact is that, although Russia won access to the Baltic Sea, navigation and trade there were actually completely controlled by the British fleet. The incorporation of Crimea into Russian territory provided a workaround for Russia to trade with Europe, which did not sit well with Britain. As a result, in the spring of 1791, an acute international conflict broke out, which went down in history as the "Ochakov crisis".

Although most of her entourage was inclined to meet the demands of England, Ekaterina II showed political firmness. It ended not with humiliating concessions to European diplomats, as has already happened, but with the victorious Peace of Jassy, which finally confirmed the transition of Kuban and Crimea to Russia.

The Georgian issue was also resolved: the Turks abandoned their claims to Georgia, pledged not to take hostile actions against it and to restrain the Caucasian peoples under its control from raiding Russian lands. In addition, Russia gained control of the entire Northern Black Sea coast. The old borders were also confirmed — along the Kuban River in the Caucasus, and new ones were defined - along the Dniester River in Moldova. It was on these new lands, by the way, that a new Russian, I emphasise, Russian city - Odessa - soon appeared.

Simultaneously with military pressure in the 18th century, the psychological war of Europe against Russia sharply intensified.

Here is just one of the most striking examples. At the end of the reign of Pyotr I, the book "Conversations in the Realm of the Dead" about the "bloody reign" of Ivan the Terrible was published in Germany, including the so-called investigation of the circumstances of the "murder" of his son by the Tsar. In fact, it cemented this myth in the minds of Europeans, which was described in detail in one of the previous comments.

But we can say that the book actually formulated the main theses of the entire anti-Russian propaganda campaign. Namely, Russia is a country of barbarians and tyrants, child killers and inhumans, which threatens civilised Europe.

The book was richly illustrated with drawings of Ivan the Terrible's executions of his enemies. It is in this lampoon – at least earlier similar images have not come down to us – that the Russian sovereign, symbolising Russia, is first depicted as an evil bear.

The author imposes on Europeans the "right" version of the history of Russia, regardless of how events actually unfolded.

Europe at that time was faced with a choice: whether to recognise Russia, which rose to extraordinary heights under Pyotr I, as a fully-fledged member of European civilisation, or still consider it a kind of alien, incomprehensible entity at the junction of Europe and Asia. So, something strange – like not Muslims, but clearly not Europeans. What choice Europe made then, I think, is clear to everyone. It hasn't changed much since then. We were and remain strangers to Europe. Hence the constantly heated Russophobia.

And in those distant times, this became completely clear precisely thanks, in modern terms, to the “black PR” that was conducted against Russia. Its apotheosis was the informational, not only "special operation" against Ekaterina II and her son, the last of the rulers of the 18th century, Emperor Pavel I.

The European press strongly created a negative image of Ekaterina. In the cartoons of those times, she is depicted again in the form of a bear with a female head. In one of them, Prince Potemkin stands next to Ekaterina II with a drawn saber in his hand, protecting her from a group of British politicians. Behind them are two bishops, one of whom reads the prayer: "Deliver me, Lord, from the Russian bears ...".

We, modern people, perceive this text quite straightforwardly. Like scaring Europeans with a Russian beast. But in fact, it was a reference to the famous prayer in the early Middle Ages "Deliver me, Lord, from the wrath of the Normans ...". Let me remind you that the Normans in Western Europe were called evil tribes of Scandinavians who made robber raids on other states of the continent in the 8th-9th centuries.

As in the previous century, European propagandists used religious themes to create the desired negative image of "barbaric Russia”. At the same time, it is now Russia, and not the Turks and other gentiles, who are becoming the main enemy of Europeans.

To illustrate the "Russian atrocity", the image of our great commander Suvorov, who, among other things, participated in restoring order in the Russian part of the Polish protectorate, was widely used. Russian soldiers were exposed in the image of "inhuman Cossacks".

In one of the widely circulated cartoons, they kill civilians, in another, entitled “Royal Fun”, Suvorov, approaching the throne, hands Ekaterina the severed heads of Polish women and children with the words: “So, my Royal Lady, I have fully fulfilled your affectionate motherly assignment to the erring people of Poland, and brought you a collection of ten thousand heads, carefully separated from their erring bodies on the day after the Surrender. Behind Suvorov, three soldiers carry baskets with the heads of unfortunate Polish men and women.

These caricatures are dated 1799-1800. One could, of course, smile condescendingly, but I dare remind you that cartoons in those days, due to the mass illiteracy of the population, were the most powerful, if not the main weapon of information warfare at that time. Flyers with them were published daily and sold out by all layers of European society.

But it wasn't just drawings. The virus of Russophobia did not escape the great Byron, who dedicated one poem to Suvorov that did not glorify him at all:

Suvorov on this day excelled
Timur and, perhaps, Genghis Khan:
He contemplated the burning Izmail
And he listened to the cries of the enemy camp;
He composed a dispatch to the Queen
With a bloody hand, oddly enough -
Verses: "Glory to God, glory to you! -
He wrote. "The fortress is taken, and I'm there!"

In other words, the great Russian commander - and through him the whole of Russia - was equated with the most cruel villains of past centuries. The essence of the image of Suvorov imposed on Europeans was very precisely formulated by the English The Times: "all honours cannot wash away the shame of whimsical cruelty from his character and force the historian to paint his portrait in any other colours than those that are worthy of a successful mad militarist or a clever savage."

The propaganda offensive against Russia reached its peak under Emperor Pavel I, during which Russia's relations with England sharply deteriorated due to his attempts to encroach on its overseas fiefdoms, and, in particular, Malta and India. He considered Malta as a base for the Russian Mediterranean fleet, and as for India, shortly before his death, the Emperor even managed to start negotiations with Napoleon, who came to power in France, about organising a joint campaign to the English colonies in Asia.

In the case of Pavel, the "black PR" campaign eventually led to the physical elimination of the Emperor by the conspirators on the night of March 11, 1801. It is known that this palace coup was financed by the British ambassador and developed with his participation.

Here is such a fat bloody point put in the history of the 18th century. The English historian A. Toynbee summed up its results very figuratively: "the pressure on Russia from Poland and Sweden in the 17th century ... inevitably had to provoke a response. The temporary presence of the Polish garrison in Moscow and the permanent presence of the Swedish army on the banks of the Narva and Neva constantly traumatised the Russians, and this internal shock prompted them to take practical action ... It took just over a century, counting from Pyotr's exploits, for Sweden to lose all its possessions on the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea, including its ancestral lands in Finland. As for Poland, it was erased from the political map."

Still, it is unfortunate that the current ignoramuses in power in European countries do not learn from history, but constantly nurture revanchist sentiments, hoping, apparently, that they will be able to bring Russia to its knees. It won't work, gentlemen. Learn history!