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DW:
New DNA tests on bones of Russia's last czar, Nicholas II, and his family confirm they are authentic. Researchers exhumed Nicholas's father Alexander III — himself assassinated in 1881 — to prove "they are father and son."
The test results could lead to the Russian Orthodox Church recognizing the remains for a full burial. It said it would consider the findings and commended the progress of the investigation.
Nicholas II, his German-born wife and their five children were shot by Bolsheviks as a consequence of the October Revolution of 1917. The bodies of the last members of the Romanov dynasty were thrown into a mineshaft, before being burned and hurriedly buried by the killers. They were first tracked down by amateur historians in 1979, although the discovery was only revealed in 1991. The Russian Orthodox Church had recognized the ex-tsar as a martyred saint in 1981.
[Ed. note: Anastasia's supposed escape and possible survival was one of the most popular historical mysteries of the 20th century, False reports of survival]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Thursday July 19 2018, @01:18PM (4 children)
Everyone who is rational has known these remains are "authentic" for decades. TFA omits the essential background to this investigation, which was mostly yet another in a long stream of "investigations" encouraged by the Russian Orthodox Church in an effort to promote anti-Semitic conspiracy theories [meduza.io].
Those unfamiliar with this background will undoubtedly think my statement sounds crazy. But this is part of a strand of ultra-nationalist conservatives in Russian these days. You can read more about the history in the link above, but in sum: DNA testing confirmed these were the remains of the Romanovs decades ago. But the Russian Orthodox Church had doubts in the 1990s and forced a reopening of investigations over whether the killing of the Romanovs was a "ritual killing." More specifically, they asked questions about whether there was sufficient evidence of aspects of the killing (such as any evidence of decapitation, use of Jewish elements, etc.) that indicated this was related to a Jewish "ritual killing." (That specific phrase had been used in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about the Romanov murders since the 1920s; note that one of the leaders of the execution was ethnically Jewish, but was an atheist -- the rest of those involved had no relation to Judaism at all.) There were some in the church who apparently thought these remains were even some sort of "hoax" (undoubtedly, in their minds, perpetrated by the Jews).
Since then, the church has forced multiple other investigations, repeating the same stuff over and over. Last year, when this current investigation was reopened, a senior Orthodox bishop (and personal confessor for Putin) yet again referenced the "ritual killing" aspect, which was a dog whistle to the ultraconservative anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists. The church backpedaled afterward and claimed it supposedly wasn't anti-Semitic -- this time, unlike previously, they avoided directly using the word "Jewish" when asking their probing questions -- but the specific phrase and the repeated questions (again, about decapitation and other aspects of the classic Jewish conspiracy theory around these murders) make it clear that similar motives were still behind this.
So no, this isn't "news." It's just something the Russian Church apparently does periodically to keep Jewish conspiracy theories alive. I mean, there are legitimate concerns about identifying the remains for certain, given that the Russian Church canonized the family and thus their remains would become holy relics. But again, the DNA science was settled decades ago. (Well, except for the remains of Alexei and one of his sisters which weren't discovered until 2007, but their DNA was also conclusively confirmed a decade ago.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @02:38PM (2 children)
From what I recall reading of the "Jewish Bolshevism" conspiracy, the actual claims were that atheistic, ethnic Jews inspired by The Zohar [wikipedia.org] were massively overrepresented amongst the Bolsheviki. The myth of sanguinary ritual is then conflated with the Bolshevik death count. Is that accurate?
(Score: 4, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Thursday July 19 2018, @04:17PM (1 child)
"Accurate" is a funny word when dealing with conspiracy theories. While I've read about some of this in the past, and I'm sure your characterization is correct for some conspiracy theorists, I honestly don't care to go back and read more about this now. Suffice it to say that yes, many modern Jewish conspiracy theories depend on the notion that ethnic Jews (not necessarily religious) are all potentially involved. That's how Hitler for example justified his targeting based on ancestry.
In Russia specifically, you had the Protocols of the Elders of Zion [wikipedia.org] nonsense, and stuff from that trickled into the various Bolshevism conspiracy theories [wikipedia.org]. Yes, generally the idea was that a huge number of Bolsheviks were ethnic Jews, and the theory specifically around the Tsar's assassination involved various wacko combinations of Kabbalah, blood libel theories, etc.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @11:48PM
The reason the Russian Orthodox Church keeps bringing up antisemitic conspiracies is over property disputes in Israel:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Orthodox_properties_in_Palestine [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Orthodox_Church_of_Jerusalem [wikipedia.org]
https://www.timesofisrael.com/orthodox-patriarch-jewish-settlers-threat-to-christian-presence-in-holy-land/ [timesofisrael.com]
https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2017/12/02/565464499/greek-orthodox-church-sells-land-in-israel-worrying-both-israelis-and-palestinia [npr.org]
It's shit going back 200 years. Suffice to say that one nice example of such religion meets corruption and nationalism is how the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, had the lands it was built on leased from the Church (at below market price as the local Church official was likely bribed) and how the current Palestinian Church officials tend to stir the pot whenever a new Israeli government wants to review the Church's books or when some Palestinian finds their grandfather's Ottoman deeds to lands that the Church claimed ownership over after 48'...
(Score: 2) by legont on Friday July 20 2018, @01:22AM
Hmmm... I wonder why the US administration sanctions against Russia are targeting mostly Russian Jews. The biggest one being Deripaska https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oleg_Deripaska, [wikipedia.org] a Jew who owns Rusal as well as the biggest house in Washington. Perhaps because he stole Rusal from an Uzbekistan-Izraeli Jew Michael Cherney https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Cherney [wikipedia.org] who himself is a sponsor of a very interesting organization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Intelligence_Summit [wikipedia.org]
There got to be Putin and Russian church here somewhere - any help finding it?
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.