Part One: Tzar Nicholas II Was A Real Dick | BEHIND THE BASTARDS

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Part One: Tzar Nicholas II Was A Real Dick | BEHIND THE BASTARDS
Robert is joined by Jeff May for part one of our four part series on Tzar Nicholas II.
Original Air Date: February 15, 2022
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There’s a reason the History Channel has produced hundreds of documentaries about Hitler but only a few about Dwight D. Eisenhower. Bad guys (and gals) are eternally fascinating. Behind the Bastards dives in past the Cliffs Notes of the worst humans in history and exposes the bizarre realities of their lives. Listeners will learn about the young adult novels that helped Hitler form his monstrous ideology, the founder of Blackwater’s insane quest to build his own Air Force, the bizarre lives of the sons and daughters of dictators and Saddam Hussein’s side career as a trashy romance novelist.
New episodes twice a week on iHeartRadio.
#BehindtheBastards #BehindtheBastardsPodcast #RobertEvansBehindtheBastards #BehindtheBastardsMerch #BehindtheBastardsJohnLandis #BehindTheBastardsHost #BehindtheBastardsIvermectin #BestBehindtheBastardsEpisodes #BehindtheBastardsBestEpisodes

[@chris999999999999]

What was with the Emergency Alert System test at 13:21?

[@misterjoshua5720]

Numbers station, I bet

[@daniellundberg2875]

Well, there is a reason for the old joke. A jewish man is learning hebrew, and a russian man asks him why to which he answers "In case I go to heaven", "But what if you go to hell?", "Oh, I already know russian"

[@ethantaylor9613]

Fun fact, the Romanovs were originally chosen to be the new royal family in part, because they were kind of nobodies by nobility standards, and didn’t have a lot of ties to powerful groups of aristocrats. They were elevated in the hopes they could be easily controlled.

[@wesshiflet2214]

nobilibodies

[@brendancostello944]

​@@wesshiflet2214 nice

[@starmaker75]

Well to use tv tropes terminology, talk about "nobody to nightmare"

[@user-ym2ne1zg1b]

Yes and no. The Romanovs definitely were less prominent than Schujsky, Skopin-Schujsky, Trubetskoy, Pozharsky, etc. families, but they definitely weren't nobodies even by the high boyar metric. Godunov was a nobody - just look what he was able to do, lmao. While Vasiliy Schujsky was a Rurikid - the dude still was one of the biggest suckers that ever sucked in Russian history (and they definitely have strong contenders for the spot - including Nicky II). Also Mikhail's father was a Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church. Definitely played his part. But, you are still quite right - the Boyars picked the boy because they thought it will be very easy to control him.

[@MrGksarathy]

That, and their relationship to Ivan the Terrible's first wife, which they used as leverage during the Time of Troubles.

[@ZeldaQueen64]

As horrible as I'm sure we'll learn Alexandria is, hearing her enter this story already perpetually anxious that bad things will happen to her family... ouch.

[@TheDarthbinky]

Fun fact: "Caesar" originally was related to the Latin word for "cut". The ancient Romans had a way of denoting separate branches of (especially the rich/powerful) families by giving them a special nickname called a cognomen; "Caesar" was a cognomen for a particular branch of the Julius family, and basically meant "nice haircut". Ironic considering the famous "Ides of March" Julius Caesar was probably bald... Anyway... after Gaius Julius Caesar's assassination on the Ides of March, his will officially made his great nephew Gaius Octavius Thurinus his adopted son. Octavius - now renamed Gaius Julius Caesar* - eventually defeated political rivals like Marcus Antonius and solidified his sole rule of Rome... so he is known to history as the first Roman emperor - and the Senate gave him an extra cognomen "Augustus" meaning "very respected". Augustus then became the title of the emperors. Eventually the emperors started appointing junior co-emperors to help run the massive empire, and these co-emperors became known as "Caesar". Sometimes these Caesars were the emperor's heir, and were made co-emperor to prepare them for when they would ascend to the rank of Augustus. Kaiser and Tsar evolved out of this whole mess, as those monarchies sought to link themselves with the glory of ancient Rome. (the * is because per traditional Roman naming convention, he should've been known as "Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus" but he probably didn't actually use the name, because he intentionally linked himself with his great uncle. Only his political enemies and anyone else who happened to not like him would've called him that. History has decided to go ahead and just use that, and we usually refer to him in English as "Octavian".) And that's your completely un-asked-for linguistic/history lesson for the day.

[@brendancostello944]

Great -- also explains why a "caesarean section" is so named... I thought it was somehow the way Gaius Julius was born but that doesn't really make sense, esp considering JC's mom lived for decades after his birth.

[@TheDarthbinky]

@@brendancostello944 That term originates from an old law that Rome had hundreds of years before Julius Caesar was born, the "Lex Caesaranea" (basically "the cutting law") that ordered babies to be cut from the womb of a dead mother. Ancient Romans had a superstititon about burying a dead woman with a fetus still in her womb, so the king (Rome had kings at the time) made doing so illegal.

[@aruakise9803]

Not probably we know for a fact that he actually began balding fairly early. And actually embraced it.

[@fredericksmith7942]

I thought that while Caesar’s hair was thinning, he was killed before he went bald.

[@Sean_but_Not_Heard]

Fun fact: Jackboots (in the 1880’s) were huge boots with a forward cant made of rigid, tarred horsehide. They were used as armor for rider’s feet/legs and were not intended for walking in since they were VERY heavy, stiff and huge. Plenty easy to hide a bottle of cognac.

[@SpasmFingers]

13:20 what could it have possibly been

[@Oddity00]

good question

[@SesshyLover777]

Thats what I'm saying

[@jizburg]

They came too close to the truth.

[@Southboundpachyderm]

It’s their “mark” sound or rather, the sound they all play when they start recording to make syncing the audio up later in editing easier. Probably a problem in the audio and the video editor put a beep in to keep track of where in the timeline they needed to resync the audio and they just forgot to take the beep out when he was finishing up everything

[@xxkwubb9901]

I was just listening at work and thought an emergency signal went out during the middle of it lol. Scared the hell out of me

[@hungryhedgehog4201]

why is there just a part cut out with beeps

[@BeastNationXIV]

"Not for two years" Fuck, I felt that one.

[@GiveMeYourFACE9089]

Judge a man not by how he treats his friends but how he treats his enemies.

[@gothboschincarnate3931]

Christians and Republicans love Tzar Nicholas II.

[@commandantcarpenter]

ever since watching The Last Tsar or whatever the Netflix series was, I truly understood that, yes, Nicholas II really was that much of a total fucking dunce. and that's the nice way to put it. the Netflix series tried to make his choices seem "human" and "flawed but meaning well" but that gloss couldnt overcome nearly every big choice he had as Tsar being made in what still seemed the dumbest way possible. and although netflix clearly did not want to not delve too deep into his prejudices, it still seemed obvious he was a huge jerk. what I'm saying is, this'll be good

[@dylanrodrigues]

We really need a genuinely unbiased TV show about the Romanovs if not the Russian Empire bc god that regime and society was grim. In the meantime, there’s always the Revolutions podcast by Mike Duncan.

[@hermanessences]

Please understand that a Netflix series will not necessarily give you the truth...............................................

[@raycearcher5794]

Yo big props to Prince George, wracked with consumption, bailing out of his rickshaw with his little stick to save his brother though.

[@MrGksarathy]

Different George.

[@hypnauticasleepsounds9329]

What were those beeps?

[@Tyrentenir]

Yeah, it's weird. Fax machine interrupting their dial-up? Severe weather alert? Timestamp 13:22

[@ColtoB]

hiding the truth

[@KSignalEingang]

This has been a test of the Emergency Bastards Network. This is only a test. If this had been a real emergency, some bastard would have made everything incomprehensibly worse following the tones.

[@0The_Farlander0]

So my best guess is it was a part they wanted to cut, and what you do when you want to cut a specific part and find it easy on an audio track, you add a loud noise at the start and the end of the part. This is good for like, say you're reading a script and fuck up, you can just yell FUCK before you do another take so you can go to that spot. This I think is just a thing for unscripted talking

[@k1ngk4gl3]

Yeah...

[@MrJohndoakes]

51:13 By that point the Tzar's diet was shot through with French and/or German cooking because they were importing chefs, and then the locals cooks picked up that style of food. The Romanovs were big on French furniture, footman dressed in tricorner hats and frock coats, other foreign touches for decades.....it dripped down to how cities like Moscow and Saint Petersburg looked. You had to go out to rural areas to see Old Russia by 1900, and even then there was the local rich merchant with the British-style house or whatnot.

[@alexcarter8807]

I remember as an edgy kid in 1980, telling my dad I want to learn Russian, and he said I should learn French because Russian is based on French, or the educated classes speak French or something ... just learn French. And looking back, I wish I'd learned French. I didn't learn Russian of course, I didn't learn much of anything in any other language, and French would be really handy - it's spoken in tons of places.

[@brendancostello944]

Petersburg was consciously designed to look like the big capitals of its day, especially Venice and Amsterdam.

[@MrJohndoakes]

@@alexcarter8807 He was right inasmuch as the Russian upper classes spoke French because it was the language of the royal court....but that was also true of most of the German dukedoms and principalities of the Holy Roman Empire, which became Germany under the Prussians. Russian the language is related to Old Church Slavonic, Belarusian, and Ukrainian. Russian is as far East as the Slavic world goes. Most Americans learn Spanish, but learning Spanish and French covers a massive part of the world, and would help you in learning Romanian, the Romance language of Eastern Europe.

[@erf3176]

Robert: Nicholas II is the least impressive Czar. Peter III: Hold my imported German beer

[@theautisticguitarist7560]

Nacho Libre voice: "Hes a real douche."

[@The_Raven_1025]

Fun fact: my dad looks almost exactly like Tzar Nicholas II but the tip of his nose is more bulbous. Aside from the nose, dude is like a clone

[@cf453]

Found Anastasia's alt account.

[@dylanrodrigues]

Is… your dad related to the inbred family tree of European monarchy?

[@brendancostello944]

Watch out for that creepy "friend of the family" who is always claiming he can heal you -- he's bad news!

[@What-lt3lj]

It's hard to be Jewish in Russia, yo

[@SgtKaneGunlock]

drop an Old testament beat

[@richardarriaga6271]

Especially Daegestan these days

[@RiflemanIII]

After listening to the Revolutions Podcast, I was kinda hoping that this was somewhere in the lineup.

[@SesshyLover777]

He seriously was a weeb man. He learned the language a bit, got the tattoo (stick and poke mind you), supposedly trained with a katana and shit for funzies 🤭

[@alexcarter8807]

Japan and Germany seem to have been fast friends from when they first met. I dunno why, although I'd guess it's because Germany was so close to its recent feudal history yet was arguably the most advanced nation, technically. I've been in the shooting sports and in those, a recommended book is "Zen In The Art Of Archery" by Eugen Herrigl, who was a German who went to Japan and immersed himself in these things (his wife studied flower arranging). In the the shooting sports milieu, it's a must-read. I recently did a little research on ol' Eugen and .... the guy was a dyed in the wool Nazi. Lovely.

[@TheDarthbinky]

If I remember right, Germany, France, and the UK were the countries that were like "sure Japan, we'll totally sell you guns and teach your soldiers how to use them" around the time of the Meiji Restoration and the mini-civil wars that followed, and they all fought together soon thereafter against the Boxers. Japan and the UK actually became such close friends that Japan sided with the Allies during WW1 and took the opportunity to gobble up most of Germany's colonies in the Pacific. It was after WW1 when Japan decided it should conquer China that, like Italy with its invasion of Ethiopia, their relationship with the UK and France cooled and they suddenly found themselves in the warm embrace of Adolf Hitler..

[@TSmith-yy3cc]

13:21 I don't know what Robert said but I bet that it made Sophie reeeeeeaaaallllly mad lol.

[@Glory4Hypnotoad]

Those beeps thirteen minutes in will never be explained it seems.

[@jellyfishjones4741]

37:00 Love how he became English for his diary entries.

[@dylanrodrigues]

Umm actually 🤓 Nicholas had a very strong English accent (not sure if it was from spending time with his English cousins or he studied in England) so Robert’s rendition isn’t far off. Fun fact: Lenin himself spoke English with an Irish accent.

[@luk6662]

Criticizing a local official rather than the national government still exists in Russia today. Russian living in rural areas will usually critique a local or regional official, rathern than the national government in Moscow.

[@richardarriaga6271]

There's viral videos of Russian soldiers appealing to Putin to help them when placed in an impossible situation like no ammo, conscription to front line infantry when trained for artillery, etc. They all wind up dead anyway.

[@adamzimmerman8345]

ha ha at 13:30ish those two beeps made me think something weird was going on...

[@mats8375]

20:50 Unexpected wholesomeness.

[@FatMadt666]

Little known fact: Hitler often started his rallies with "I'm Adolf Hitler and you're not".

[@BeastNationXIV]

Ah, so that's where Paul Bearer got it from...

[@FatMadt666]

It was Chevy Chase's go to intro when he was behind the desk at weekend update.

[@chrisswan1170]

Hey what's up with the censor at 13:20?

[@leannewho664]

This made me realize that Super Sentai owes a fistful of its character and vehicle names to Caesar. Nowhere near as many as the words 'king', 'oh', or 'dai', but there's still Goggle Caese, Guardian Beast Dragon Caesar, WolKaiser, PatKaiser, LupinKaiser, SaintKaiser, FireKaiser, Battle Kaiser Robo 1-3, and the gloriously named Good Cool Kaiser VSX! Hell, the main three characters of Kikou Sentai Zenkaiger (the 2021 season) were Zenkaiser, Twokaiser, and Staceaser! (for statistics, there's 0 czar or tsar mechs, 3 shoguns, and ~15 kings, depending on how you count them)

[@bwatson77]

Waiting for on the edge of my seat for Robert to complete the Russian Bastards arc by shadow dropping the missing middle chapter about Lenin's villain origin story.

[@soundsnags2001]

Nicholas II was a great dude.

[@thomaskalinowski8851]

"Mama! Was in England and saw Jew!" "My poor dear! Did you see horns? Did he show you horns?"

[@Shadowman4710]

"No, he was a German Jew...He had these stripes..."

[@_NewtonMeter]

13:22 what's going on there

[@wesshiflet2214]

his name was JIM Hercules tyvm

[@youmukonpaku3168]

it's another appearance of the guy making his family watch him eat the single boiled egg! (~ 51:00)

[@corazondelince]

What's the equivalent of drunk driving for a train conductor? "Drunk conducting" doesn't sound catchy.

[@thomaskalinowski8851]

34:00 Richard III's problem was that he was born into the wrong family. If he had been a Habsburg he could have said "I want to marry my niece" and everyone would have been cool with it.

[@Tinblitz]

1:00:23 "Encouraged pederasty and heavy drinking. All these dudes are fucking and getting wasted all the time" 1:00:49 "Now, since Nicholas was the crown Prince, and was straight, he probably wasn't exposed to this. " I get the impression Robert made a slight flub of his lines here, or didn't double check what pederasty is...

[@Wendy_O._Koopa]

From now on, I'll just assume King Louis XIV is the reason assholes don't like pineapple on pizza.

[@Korhanne]

note: Tsar and Kaiser (and Caesar) do not mean king. it means emperor. king of kings. In german, it's Koenig for king. In russian, it's Korol EDIT: apparently Korol is prince (which ruled russia for the most part before the tsar. Damka is king). that doesn't mean tsar/Kaiser aren't used colloquially as such in either of these languages, just wanted to point this out. FWIW, in latin, Tyrant is king. also, language does change, mostly just meaning it didn't start out that way. I'll go away now.

[@TheDarthbinky]

"FWIW, in latin, Tyrant is king." Technically "tyrant" is originally Greek and referred to a sort of dictator who came to power illegally (I'm paraphrasing from memory). Like the Roman "dictator", it didn't originally have a negative connotation as it does now. The Latin word for king was "rex", and it's where we get words like "regal". "Tyrannosaurus Rex" means "king tyrant lizard".

[@Korhanne]

ah, yer right. forgot about Rex. anyway, it's fine. I just remembered they referred to the 'bad old days before the republic, the roman kings' as the 'roman tyrants' -- but I didn't think they all had the bad connotation necessarily :S @@TheDarthbinky

[@kylemills9192]

Also of note, Caesar and Kaiser are actually pronounced the same way. The way most ppl pronounce Caesar is incorrect from a linguistic standpoint.

[@alexcarter8807]

My boss's ancestors left Poland to get away from the Russian Empire. My mom's ancestors left Lithuania to get away from the Russian Empire. See a pattern here?

[@deps6160]

The tzars that ruled the russian empire who ordered and commited crimes and atrocities against civilians all over were not Russians though like a percentage of this empire, which included so many nationalities.They were either of German or Danish descent. Or both. Like the royals all over Europe as we speak. See a pattern here?

[@yensid4294]

Hemaphilia was definitely a problem for the Russian monarchy iirc.

[@sottosopravoce]

What frustrates me in the discussion surrounding the Romanovs' execution is that it's not about what their kids "deserved," it was about the liability of leaving any possible successor for weirdo monarchists to rally around to try to put back in power. The Romanovs *were* the institution that had to go. It's essentially a trolley problem-- the lives of 5 young people who hadn't technically come to power to be horrible yet vs everything your revolution set out to accomplish.

[@dylanrodrigues]

Personally, I still don’t believe in the idea of executing kids but I see your point.

[@joshv.1490]

I see it a little different than the trolley problem, though I appreciate the utilitarian aspect. I look at it as more similarly to the genocide of the whites in the Haitian revolution. It was necessary because it was the legacy that was established that the woman stood by supporting a murderous hegemony, having little boys that would grow into the next raping and murdering owners. You can't blame the oppressed who watch the cycle for doing what appears necessary in such a grotesque system.

[@erikrungemadsen2081]

The problem with the Romanovs were they were potential figureheads, if the Soviets were actually worried about them trying to do something activelly they could have dumped them on the Royal estate in Jutland with a deal that they never leave Denmark again.

[@TheDarthbinky]

But did the Bolsheviks even put that much thought into the execution? I mean, correct me if I'm wrong but my understanding is that the leadership (Lenin, Trotsky, Sverdlov, etc) hadn't actually decided what to do with the family yet (although, yeah, they probably wanted them wiped out). Then the execution only really happened because the family's Bolshevik guards panicked when the Czech Legion was approaching and they feared the Legion would overwhelm them and free the family. It was only really after the execution happened that the Bolshevik leaders were like "yeah, ok, we're fine with this", and subsequent anti-Bolshevik writers have laid the blame at Lenin and/or Sverdlov's feet.

[@BlindErephon]

It's a little more pragmatic than I think needed to happen but then again, Europe is flooded with anemic little freaks just itching to reclaim their lost kingdoms of yore already, so who can say whether it really made much difference either way? Seems like the UK has its own sausage fingered dinguses still sticking their fingers where they're not officially supposed to be, i'm sure there are more so it seems like not having a Russian equivalent of that Habsburg guy who posts on Twitter and likes anime has made much difference. I can see why the guys on the ground were not willing to run the risk of repeating or extending the war, so I dunno. I suppose all I can do is be grateful I'll almost certainly never have to make a choice like that.

[@dylanrodrigues]

5:34 Rasputin may not have been completely anti-Semitic or pro-war, but he also had the habit of sexually assaulting almost every woman he came across. So not the best person either imo.

[@charlesreid9337]

It is called feudalism not monarchism. You're spouting absolute nonsense about 'czarism". Most of that huge area of land is utterly useless. And it was Catherine the Great he was most responsible for Russia's power. You should at least a basic research at the topics before you cover them. There was nothing special in the brutality of the Russian nobility.. it was the standard for feudalism

[@ah7910]

I want to learn things. This has so much potential. The main guy is informed and interesting. We don't need attention-seeking amateur comedian or contrived dry-humour GF. Why does every history podcast given to this ‘bros chillin’ vibe? We want to learn. That’s why we clicked!

[@bonz5983]

Why do these guys have their annoying girlfriend with nothing interesting to say on this show

[@casanovafunkenstein5090]

Because they're in a professional recording studio and the desk is in another room. She's the producer/studio engineer and is responsible for starting and stopping the recording, setting levels, keeping the recording session on schedule, etc. She has a technical job that requires her attention, but in order to facilitate the session she will chime in periodically to keep the conversation going and fill dead air. There's also likely to be a couple of places where the recording needs to be re-done, so she's prompting Robert and his guests in order to get a more naturalistic segue between the different sections of the session when they are edited together to cut out the flubs.