The Terrible History Thread

We've listed a lot of sensationalist, nationalistic and liberal-right distortions. It's unfair to leftists (term used broadly here) not to list their distortions also. Anyone care to present a leftist distortion?
I'll try and pull up some Republican writings. Those are always good for a laugh.
 
I've read that in the Russian (Muscovite) version of serfdom the status of a serf was more similar to that of a slave than in the rest of Europe.

But this refers to post-Mongol subjugation times.
"Post-Mongol subjugation" is too broad. The status of a Russian serf finally reached almost completely slave-like status in the end of 17th - beginning of 18th century.
 
Speaking of which, I don't have my example on hand, but I've seen the Mongol Invasion depicted as a kind of Russian Sonderweg, that the Mongol Invasion "warped" the "Russian Character" to be uniquely oppressive. I'm wondering if you've ever encountered something like that in the Russian Language.
 
Speaking of which, I don't have my example on hand, but I've seen the Mongol Invasion depicted as a kind of Russian Sonderweg, that the Mongol Invasion "warped" the "Russian Character" to be uniquely oppressive. I'm wondering if you've ever encountered something like that in the Russian Language.
And much like the Sonderweg, that had its start in positive ideology of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, by which Russia's Asiatic heritage - by way of Mongol invasions and, later, Mongol institutions - made it more warlike and effective, Asiatic enough to make ruling the 'other' Asiatic peoples viable, and European enough to dominate them. Or something like that.
 
Yeah, a dude with no grandkids isn't going to have any great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandkids either. :p

I was never particularly happy with that Činggis explanation. As far as I know, it's an urban legend that grew up because a large proportion of East Asian people have similar genetic information at some point; from there, it's the standard Cracked.com patented "hop, skip, and about five thousand jumps" to get to Činggis being the cause of all that.
The original claim was that 40 million men in Central Asia were descended from the same man, and that the time period in which that man lived corresponded with the Mongol invasions. That's confirmed, so far as I know. Someone conflated that the Genghis within about five seconds of the original report, and there you go.

As an aside though, I thought Genghis did have some grandkids? Show's what I know about the Mongols, I guess.
 
As an aside though, I thought Genghis did have some grandkids? Show's what I know about the Mongols, I guess.
Alexander had two sons and zero grandchildren.
 
I've seen the Mongol Invasion depicted as a kind of Russian Sonderweg, that the Mongol Invasion "warped" the "Russian Character" to be uniquely oppressive. I'm wondering if you've ever encountered something like that in the Russian Language
It's a classic theme of many 19th century Russian thinkers that felt a greater affinity with the West, like Vladimir Solovyov.
 
Speaking of which, I don't have my example on hand, but I've seen the Mongol Invasion depicted as a kind of Russian Sonderweg, that the Mongol Invasion "warped" the "Russian Character" to be uniquely oppressive. I'm wondering if you've ever encountered something like that in the Russian Language.

Blok's poem "Scythians" brilliantly turns this trope on its head, taunting Westerners with its ridiculousness.
 
Blok's poem "Scythians" brilliantly turns this trope on its head, taunting Westerners with its ridiculousness.
Well, there were ideologues that were genuine and non-sarcastic in turning that trope on its head (The Golden Horde granting Russia specifically positive Eurasian qualities, as opposed to European ones). They aren't really found today in their purest form, though their ideas were quite influential.
 
"Post-Mongol subjugation" is too broad. The status of a Russian serf finally reached almost completely slave-like status in the end of 17th - beginning of 18th century.

Didn't that occur during the reign of Peter the Great, and was associated with
the effort to build St. Petersburg?
 
One argument where someone used "witch hunts" as an example where there were no witches, cue a responce from another poster that "There were witches though! They were just practitioners of a different religion."
 
I think that Wiccans simply maintain that pre-Christian "witchcraft" traditions were somehow maintained over the centuries, not that they were as extensive or influential as in the Witch-cult hypothesis. Even then, it's mostly just the New Forest traditions that are invested in the continuity-hypothesis, while "eclectic" Wiccans vary from sharing the general framework to cheerfully accepting that the symbolism is a romantic construction. (My girlfriend has an on-and-off flirtation with neo-paganism, in case anyone's wondering how I know this stuff. ;))
 
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