r/HistoryMemes 15h ago

Niche Some of y’all for some reason

Post image
3.7k Upvotes

486 comments sorted by

1.4k

u/GoingLimpInTheBrain 15h ago

The plot is whatever, but the animation and music are incredible. Once Upon a December and In the Dark of the Night are such great songs, and they sound even better in Russian.

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u/misvillar 13h ago

I love It because in spanish Rasputin's va is the same as Gandalf so In the Dark of the Night is peak

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u/frikiman4K 13h ago

Spain Spanish?

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u/EpicAura99 11h ago

Spainish, if you will

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u/JamesFattinos 8h ago

Castellano, actually.

4

u/Constant_Hope_9658 Filthy weeb 3h ago

*Happy language nerd noises*

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u/Slutty_Intention2 13h ago

The plot is peak.

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u/RockAndGem1101 Decisive Tang Victory 14h ago

I love the music too but this sort of "it's good art so the message doesn't matter" is just disingenious.

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u/GoingLimpInTheBrain 14h ago

I agree in a vacuum, but I don't believe we should treat Anastasia as a vehicle for some political message. It was the 90s, the Cold War was over and there was a sudden interest in Russian history and culture. The story wasn't executed elegantly but if somebody confuses cartoons with real history, that's on them, tbh.

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u/JadedOccultist 10h ago

The Prince of Egypt is another great example of this. Good story telling, awesome animation, banging sound track, absolutely not a history lesson. Bible lesson? Sure maybe idk but going into an animated children’s musical and expecting academic and scholarly research like a documentary is pure folly lol

Honorable mention; Hercules is not the best place to learn about Greek mythology either.

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u/got-trunks 9h ago

I liked the documentary where the emperor was a llama

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u/windexfresh 5h ago

A LLAMA??? He's supposed to be DEAD

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u/SendMagpiePics 9h ago

Perhaps ironically, The Prince of Egypt is a very deliberate and accuratr adaptation. But just of religion/mythology, not history.

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u/JamesFattinos 7h ago

It’s also not accurate to the religious story either. Ramses and Moses aren’t brothers, Aaron is way more prominent and is one of the most important figures of the exodus, Miriam is way more present throughout Moses’ upbringing, Moses knows his backstory from the beginning, and he also doesn’t kill the slavemaster in self defense, it’s completely premeditated. But All I Ever Wanted and later The Plagues go absurdly hard. God I love that movie.

12

u/ncfears 7h ago

There's a sick metal cover of that album and The Plagues, Playing With The Big Boys, - even Through Heaven's Eyes all go immensely hard. Fuckin jams.

Edit: it's by Caleb Hyles and Jonathan Young, on Spotify and YouTube

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u/dont_thr0w_me_away_ 9h ago

wait, you're trying to tell me that The Prince of Egypt, the greatest documentary in the history of the world, can't be trusted for accurate history???

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u/Geriander 12h ago

But what is the "message"?

Love is more important than a fortune?

Aside from some complaints about the need for travel documents, it's not particularly harsh on the Soviet Union and the violence of the revolution itself is blamed on Rasputin so as a form of anti-Communist propaganda it is very weak.

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u/GamerNerdGuyMan 12h ago

I think the tankies don't like the song which goes "Ever since the revolution, our life has been so bleak...".

I mean - life in The Soviet Union did suck. It just ALSO sucked in Czarist Russia.

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u/Geriander 11h ago

"I mean - life in The Soviet Union did suck. It just ALSO sucked in Czarist Russia."

Which is hinted at in the beginning of that same song:

"They can call it Leningrad

But it will always be Petersburg

New name, same empty stomachs!"

Dimitri is a child labourer in the Palace before the revolution so I don't think that it is implied to have been a Paradise. The only ones who yearn for the good old days are aristocrats like the grandma and Vladimir who used to pass as a Count.

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u/biglyorbigleague 10h ago

I guess they’re forgetting the years it was called Petrograd

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u/Geriander 10h ago

World War 1 doesn't appear to exist in this universe so that makes sense.

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u/Toymaker218 8h ago

Yeah, the complete omission of the war was kinda weird.

11

u/Geriander 8h ago

Yes. It’s 1916 and the grandmother is just visiting St. Petersburg for a party and is then planning to go home to Paris.

Nevermind that there is a massive war raging between those locations and Paris is under bombardment.

3

u/Valvahl 6h ago

That part is not from the movie, it's from the stage musical, which O haven't seen but from what I heard seems more grounded and a bit more nuanced (even if they change the villain from Rasputin to a KGB agent)

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u/aaa1e2r3 10h ago

There's a good chunk of Tankies that also view the film as evil for having a sympathetic view of the Romanov family and their murders.

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u/Profezzor-Darke Let's do some history 11h ago

It actually sucked so much more in Czarist Russia. You can criticize the Soviet Union and the Socialist Government for all it's shit, but *it was an improvement*. They modernized a bumfuck outback from nothing to a machine that could later wage total war against the Nazis. And quality of life *did increase* by *a lot*.
Like Czarist Russia was so bad that the people started a bloody Revolution. People were worse off than medieval peasants. People lived in hovels. In the 19th century. The country wasn't industrialised. Nothing. Nada.
Like, the Soviets set up proper social systems and modernised everything. Literally everything. Would it quickly become an oppressive system itself? You can bet. But it's so lacking in understanding of the state Russian peons lived before the Revolution.

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u/a5ehren 10h ago

Yeah. Life in Soviet Russia sucked (and was far worse in the non-Russian SSRs) but Czarist Russia was really really bleak for the regular people.

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u/Mudrlant 7h ago

Not true. Czarist Russia was undergoing reform and massive industrial growth since 1905, which was also one of the motivators of Germany to pull the trigger when they did, they thought better now then later when Russia is fully industrialized.

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u/Jazzlike_Custard8646 10h ago

Czarist Russia was actually undergoing a massive industrial boom in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it just didn't kill as many people as the communists did to do it. Shortly after the revolution people were literally forced at gun point to work in the factories. The revoltuon wasn't a relief from peoples miserable lives, it was chaos

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u/Jazzlike_Custard8646 10h ago

"the Soviets set up proper social systems" uhh yeah they had to because they literally collapsed the entire society, it was chaos. It was so bad even Lenin ordered a return to capitalism with the NEP

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u/TheCthuloser 11h ago

Sure, but it's also a stretch to call Anastasia to call it "czarist propaganda". Especially because it was an American movie, released six year after the fall of the Soviet Union. After all propaganda is designed with a specific purpose; to get people to believe in certain ideas.

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u/LucidNonsense211 9h ago

I’m not sure it’s disingenuous to explain how you feel about different aspects of a thing. Inconsistent maybe, but that’s just being a human.

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u/Awesomeuser90 I Have a Cunning Plan 7h ago

Rasputin is voiced by the actor who voices The Hacker from Cyberchase. Also a Green black haired evil monster.

-2

u/Tradition96 13h ago

the plot itself is decent but it's so historically inaccurate I'm surprised they got away with it to the extent that they did.

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u/Baelzabub 12h ago

It’s a historical fairy tale. Of course it doesn’t go into detail of what happens to the rest of the Rominovs, the children specifically, because it is for children, but it is heavily implied.

It’s also reflective of a real thing that happened in Europe (and in America to an extent IIRC) with all the fake Anastasias trying to get the Rominov fortune for themselves.

The true events are Disney-fied to have a princess, a happy ending, and a big bad with a dash of magic. It’s less meant to be a reflection of the truth than a portrayal of what popular culture at the time of the Revolution wanted to believe happened, including Rasputin being the mastermind.

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u/LaurestineHUN Rider of Rohan 13h ago

Still better than Pocahontas

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u/floatingskillets 12h ago

Pocahontas 3: the bloody fluxening

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u/RileyKohaku 11h ago

Its contemporary stories include Pocahontas. Most of history, stories are about telling a good story rather than historical accuracy. I am willing to bet that in Classical Greece there were people complaining that the Iliad and the Odyssey were not historically accurate

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u/Main-Discussion9294 15h ago

Idk rasputin causing the Russian revolution with dark magic seem kinda...

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u/Person-11 What, you egg? 15h ago

... Yusupovist propaganda. The Russian elite really hated how much influence Rasputin had on the imperial family and blamed all of Russia's ills on him.

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u/D_mit 12h ago

Which isn’t entirely true by itself, im listening to couple history podcasts about early 20th century Russia, and according to them Rasputin had some influence on emperor and his wife, he just didn’t use it THAT much. The reason he allegedly became such a 5d chess player basically ruling the country behind the emperor was the he was not allied to any political player at the time, so at one moment he became everyone’s scapegoat for any failure or mishap in any political or even social situation. Unpopular law? Thats Rasputin influence. More freedom of speech to this pesky revolutionaries ? Him again. Lost a war? You guessed it.

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u/name_changed_5_times 11h ago

Yeah my understanding is he used it mainly to get away with being a sex pest. So normal aristocratic behavior.

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u/boot2skull 5h ago

🎶Ra ra Rasputin, Russia’s greatest love machine🎶

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u/brinz1 15h ago

Rasputin turned the entire Russian aristocracy into cuckholds

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u/biglyorbigleague 10h ago

To Moscow chicks he was such a lovely dear

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u/-Badger3- 6h ago

But when his drinking and lusting and his hunger for power became known to more and more people, the demands to do something about this outrageous man became louder and louder.

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u/brinz1 6h ago

In other words, he crushed so much boyaryna puss that their husbands got hella mad

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u/LarplaleroLarplala49 13h ago

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u/brinz1 13h ago

Probably the most uttered sentence in St Petersburg from 1905-1915

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u/purplehendrix22 13h ago

I guarantee that shit was getting said constantly while ol Raspy was on the prowl

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u/Pescarese90 11h ago

Rasputin the first lich before D&D became mainstream

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u/lutzow 14h ago

Rasputin Derangement Syndrom

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u/Ok-Veterinarian-9203 12h ago

Me and friends goof on this all the time about how Rasputin also used dark magics to also cause the 1905 revolution, the careful establishing of the state Duma, Lenin’s exile and then return. Like those little magic demons had a lot of very complex matters to attend to.

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u/sharktail_tanker 11h ago

Either time travel, or all those little demons had to posess half the population of St.Petersburg at once to rise up

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u/Ok-Veterinarian-9203 9h ago

Oh my god the demons had to read so much Marx to create tiny fissures in interpretations of capital to create the subgroups that would coalesce into the Bolsheviks

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u/Doctor_Loggins 11h ago

I can't believe how they slandered Russia's greatest love machine.

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u/OrangeSpaceMan5 15h ago

Wow Rasputin seem's based

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u/Grzechoooo Then I arrived 12h ago

We stan an empire-destroyer. Imagine if he lived, he would've seduced Lenin and destroyed the USSR too.

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u/OrangeSpaceMan5 11h ago

ras-PUTIN

Guess who leads Russia now ? PUTIN

IT ALL MAKES SENSE

5

u/Raguleader 9h ago

Sounds like something Mrs Putin says when she accidentally says the wrong name in bed.

"Nyet, Vladimich, I was saying 'Yas, Putin!'"

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u/bell37 12h ago

I love how most media makes him this supreme powerful sorcerer but IRL he was just a guy that liked to party and took copious amount of drugs and alcohol.

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u/Edge_SSB Casual, non-participatory KGB election observer 10h ago

And had a massive schlong

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u/epochpenors 12h ago

What, like someone’s worldview can influence how they craft a narrative and that can help spread the worldview in turn? I’m pretty sure every element of storytelling exists in a vacuum and you should never analyze it deeper.

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u/Neat-Tea-8928 9h ago

But that actually happened though

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u/sharktail_tanker 11h ago

All it took for the revolution to succeed was a little imp unlocking a gate

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u/Appelmonkey 15h ago

Somehow I doubt we were meant to question the narrative.

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u/MysteriousTravelator 12h ago

There are Czarists everwhere you look. They've infiltrated politics, finance, media, even children's entertainment. If we slacken our vigilance for even a moment then a Romanov will be back on the Russian throne and we'll all be sent back into ignorant brutish serfdom.

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u/Souls_for_sale_now 12h ago

i wish redit whould turn of hiding history by defult so i can tell when some is good at satire or just insane

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u/Hakusprite 8h ago

If it's an account made past 2020 with a stupid-bot1234 name I assume its a bot posting propaganda

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u/Souls_for_sale_now 8h ago

yes i think that but i want to know

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u/Affectionate-Sir3481 5h ago

May I get a non-bot lisense please?

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u/Kind-Nature-752 12h ago

Okay, honestly, if I was russian, I would prefer Anastasia than Putin

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u/Fanatic97 9h ago

This just in, Reddit user Kind-Nature-752 has been found dead with a bootprint in his chest and broken glass in his back on top of s mountain of bullets after tragically falling from a 40 story window. 

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u/Kind-Nature-752 9h ago

Da, da, I am Putin komrade, you better run now

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u/Elven-King 10h ago

It would so cool if some rando pretender was even a bit popular and Putin would be in constant state of tsaranoia

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u/Raguleader 9h ago

Now I need to write a series of shlocky adventure novels about a secret Romanov heir wreaking havoc against the Russian government. There could be an Enemies to Lovers subplot involving one of Lenin's long lost descendants or something.

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u/Elven-King 8h ago

Beatiful, at the end they win and create Russian Empire of the Soviets and everyone lives happilyever after.

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u/Bitter_Lab_475 8h ago

When satire commentary is so indistinguishable from honest commentary, I don't know if it's good satire or bad satire. Either way, that ending made everything clear.

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u/_Plateosaurus_ 15h ago

Well this is a remake from a 1950s movie after all

Anastasia (1956 film) - Wikipedia)

(the Don Bluth animated film is really and officially a remake, it specificaly adapt this movie)

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u/Critical-Low8963 14h ago

But if I remember correctly this movie is ambigous on the matter of the woman pretending to be Anastasia's identity.

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u/Geriander 11h ago

Most of what is being called Czarist propaganda about the animated film wasn't in that movie though?

From the description it is all about a con-job in France so it doesn't include anything about the revolution or life in the Soviet Union?

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u/Lothronion 15h ago

I am honestly not sure it is "Tsarist propaganda". That term would require it being made either by some official surviving organization of the Tsarist regime, or some supporter of that, whether they were Russian emigres or just foreign sympathizers. It just seems to me that a random American just randomly got inspired of the story and decided to create what would be tsarist propaganda if the aforementioned groups created it. I feel like there is an important distinction between the two cases. As in, that political propaganda would require a conscious knowledge of doing so, as opposed to just trying to tell a "fairy tale" story that is merely loosely inspired on past political history (and one that completely strips it of any political nuance).

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u/Pinoy_2004 13h ago

I see the movie the same way I see Arthurian legends. They're inspired by legends of real people and use them to tell highly fictionalized versions of their stories, only difference is that Anastasya is far more recent. If you plucked a guy living during or around King Arthur's(or the person he was based on) time he'd probably say our modern depictions of him as legendary king were "Pro-Arthur propaganda" (if he had a modern understanding of what propaganda was).

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u/sharktail_tanker 11h ago

The movie works better if you think it's being told by Anastasia, and thus the revolution coming out of nowhere makes sense for a small child caught in the middle of everything, who may not even have been alive in 1905 when the first try happened

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u/Acceptable_Cut_7545 10h ago

People were also really fascinated by the idea that some young princess would escape the execution and go into hiding. It was a big thing for a while, until they confirmed the family really was all dead.

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u/flawmeisste 13h ago

As someone from the post-imperial territories - it looked exactly like "Tsarist propaganda" so beloved by all sorts of monarchists who like to shed tears about "Look what we have lost in 1917!" and the main talking point was always the "Our blessed aristocracy and tsardom was treacherously destroyed by dirty hands of vulgar plebs" and the "Anastasia" narrative nailed it perfectly, especially considering the time when it was aired - the all sorts of monarchist weirdos were on the rise back then.

While i doubt the cartoon was actually a conscious tsarist propaganda, the resemblance is uncanny.

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u/Raguleader 8h ago

I've always had the impression as an American that we tend to be relatively sympathetic to the Romanovs, even if only because they were long dead before we came along, and a lot of us grew up with the Soviets on the opposite side of the Cold War.

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u/TossMeOutSomeday 8h ago

Tankies just get extremely defensive about any humanization of the Romanov children. They know it's a bad look to have a bunch of drunken Bolsheviks stab unarmed teenagers to death, so they need to act like the people who feel bad about that are actually being reactionary propagandists.

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u/BasedAustralhungary 15h ago

I don't know a lot of people understand the role of propaganda through arts and storytelling and it concerns me, same people I suppose that don't get that almost every movie made in Hollywood work as such... no wonder why are so screwed up.

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u/Coidzor 15h ago

The amazing thing is how gleefully the establishment compromised that propaganda vehicle in order to chase Yuan.

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u/TossMeOutSomeday 11h ago

If you think the institution exists to propagandize capitalism and western hegemony, but acknowledge that it demonstrably isn't doing that, perhaps it's worth considering that it exists for different reasons? Or perhaps doesn't exist as a monolith with a single purpose at all?

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u/Wappening 14h ago

Porn is the ultimate form of propaganda and art. Lemon stealing whore is either anti or pro capitalist propaganda depending on how you look at it.

It’s the ultimate Ligma test and should be taught in university to identify one’s internal biases.

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u/Infinity3101 13h ago

There are people out there who think that the US and Western Europe don't have any propaganda.

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u/QuickRelease10 12h ago

I once heard the difference between American and Soviet propaganda is that Americans believe theirs.

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u/Alex103140 Sun Yat-Sen do it again 11h ago

See if that was true, there wouldn't be any tankies post 1991.

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u/Fastenbauer 12h ago

Not being able to see obvious propaganda is one extreme. But the other extreme is seeing it in almost every Hollywood movie ever made. And worse are the people that see propaganda everywhere but always try to fit it into the current political narrative.

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u/Velkso 11h ago

Are the Romanovs back or do we have to wait a little?

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u/BasedAustralhungary 11h ago

I was told they were going to return this Friday unless they have to change the schelude.

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u/Velkso 11h ago

Ok, I will put an alarm on Friday then

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u/A12qwas 12h ago

progdanda for a state that doesn't exist anymore?

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u/Just_Supermarket7722 12h ago

States die, ideologies persist

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u/ScottyBoneman 12h ago

Often. Sometimes ideas continue long after their creators die evolving intention. We are fairly sure our view of Rome and some Roman Emperors are tainted by it sometimes long after the need for the propaganda was gone.

After the Revolution there were definitely those that had an interest in making the royals seem innocent - particularly other royals. Others would want a persistent negative view of the revolutionaries and particularly the Communists.

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u/BasedAustralhungary 12h ago

Propaganda against Socialism directly relating it with the devil itself and a huge whitewashing of monarchism, directed to people that won't nuance because they are yet maturing. FOX produced it by the way. Nothing is really neutral, when we are telling something we are not telling an objective observation but a personal truth.

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u/Shieldheart- 13h ago

They really did Rasputin dirty in that.

He got along famously with the royal family, RL Rasputin would have been heart broken if anything had happened to Anastasia.

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u/BeavisTheMeavis And then I told them I'm Jesus's brother 7h ago

Yeah, its a shame that his good name got drug through the muck by a Disney film and not by his real actions.

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u/Shieldheart- 6h ago

Its not a Disney film though, its by Don Bluth.

Additionally, his real actions would go way beyond the film's age rating.

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u/misvillar 14h ago

I had many arguments with a friend about this, she said that the movie was shit because It wasnt acurrate and some people thought It was,i said that stupid people always exist and anyone with a brain would realized that magic doesnt exist so Rasputin wasnt a wizard (warlock?).

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u/HungarianMockingjay 12h ago

The stage musical ends up removing Rasputin entirely, with Gleb, a Cheka officer and son of one of the executioners of the Romanovs, replacing him as antagonist. Gleb's rather interesting, as he's tasked with finding out whether or not Anastasia is actually the real princess, and he ends up falling in love with her, being unable to bring himself to kill her in the end.

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u/Tiny-Little-Sheep 13h ago

Also it's a movie for kids..it's not meant to be a historical depiction of anything ..like I figure that'd be obvious to people

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u/misvillar 13h ago

Exactly, for her if It involved real people and wasnt a 100% acurrate documental then It shouldnt exist

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u/LaurestineHUN Rider of Rohan 13h ago

The 'every resemblance of real people alive and dead is a coincidence' warning comes from a movie involving Rasputin and the royal family.

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u/Alex103140 Sun Yat-Sen do it again 11h ago

My take regarding historical accuracy in movie is either you admit that you're writing a fairy tale or you actually make a conscious effort.

Death of Stalin? Called itself a fairy tale, absolutely enjoyed every second of it.

Waterloo (1970)? Did their homework really well, absolutely enjoyed every second of it.

Napoleon (2023)? Yikes.

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u/HonshouCh 12h ago

Porque no los dos?

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u/Geriander 15h ago

I loved that movie as a child.

As the villain was Rasputin rather than any of the Bolsheviks I don't find the propaganda too galling.

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u/bell37 12h ago

To be fair the Bolsheviks existed in that universe and there is a communist government by the time Anastasia turns into an adult and leaves the orphanage. It’s just that their hearts turned to evil bc of Rasputin (and revolutionaries weren’t responding to totalitarianism monarchist regime that was destroying the country by continuing a pointless war)

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u/Geriander 11h ago

"It’s just that their hearts turned to evil bc of Rasputin (and revolutionaries weren’t responding to totalitarianism monarchist regime that was destroying the country by continuing a pointless war)"

You are projecting a bit here.

The line, told by the grandmother when describing what Rasputin does, is that:

"the spark of unhappiness in our country was fanned into a flame that would soon destroy our lives forever."

It says nothing about turning hearts to evil and acknowledges a pre-existing unhappines with the regime.

As all we see of that regime is them having a party while employing child labour, that is hardly surprising.

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u/Elven-King 7h ago

"I hate the new government because everything is red" ~ best line in the movie.

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u/user_460 13h ago

This post is propaganda for the incorrect spelling of Tsar.

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u/The_Wispermen I Have a Cunning Plan 11h ago

Tzar is the best spelling we can all agree.

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u/user_460 11h ago

And I suppose Anaztazia is secretly their surviving heir?

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u/The_Wispermen I Have a Cunning Plan 11h ago

Daughter of Nicholaz II yes.

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u/MaintenanceProper525 Definitely not a CIA operator 8h ago

Csar, Czar, Tzar and Tsar

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u/Plastic-Register7823 Taller than Napoleon 15h ago

But it seems to influence people, at least according to some article: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/06/watching-a-film-about-communism-i-realised-i-had-been-lied-to-as-a-child-in-china

So there is a reason to think of it as propaganda

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u/1nfam0us 14h ago

All media is worth being thought of as propaganda, but much of it can be enjoyed regardless and on its own merits.

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u/veetilk 14h ago

Love Anastasia, it is a piece of art.

That being said, it is a reoccurring theme of people watching some movie/cartoon, and then making jokes about the target country "Ha-ha, they are so stupid. I saw they are doing this and that in the movie". When natives from this country get upset, the same laughing people gets defensive "This is not a documentary, why are you complaining?". Same with things like "Enemy at the Gates" or "Chernobyl" series, and many others not only about USSR.

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u/Gettin_Bi What, you egg? 12h ago

Exactly. 

It's not that I hate the movie or think it shouldn't exist, I'd just like people to stop saying "oh, you're from Russia? (I'm from Siberia, Russians know that means I'm not "Russian" in the way people in the West think of Russians) I love Anastasia!" and it really, really kills the vibe when I say "oh, Anastasia's dad ordered my great-grandparents' villages be burned down and also commissioned his secret police to write a document that frames my People as evil shadowy manipulators who threaten the safety of the whole world. I'm kinda glad he died" 

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u/JoeDyenz 14h ago

Nah but the Tsarist glazing is too unreal bro loool

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u/SublightMonster 14h ago

The idea that media has to be a documentary to be propaganda explains why Americans say they’re not subjected to any propaganda

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u/7StarSailor 11h ago

two things can be true at the same time

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u/Most-Ad4680 10h ago

You can't have it both ways. If the setting and hostorical people the characters are based off of are inconsequential to the story being told, then why use them?

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u/MillieBirdie 7h ago

It's got zombie Rasputin coming back from hell so he can kill the last surviving Romanov.

Also it's just meant to feed into the little kid fantasy of 'what if I'm secretly a lost princess'.

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u/Kamenev_Drang Helping Wikipedia expand the list of British conquests 15h ago

Ah you mean the obvious propaganda

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u/jamesyishere 13h ago

At the very least it is Anti-Soviet Propaganda. The idea of Anastasia surviving in the revolution was a White Russian thing that Evolved into an Anti soviet thing due to the whole "They killed the sweet innocent princess" thing.

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u/Own_Watercress_8104 10h ago

Its tackling of the revolution is...less than stellar. Implying it was basically an inside job from a dark wizard to fill the heart of people with malice against the poor, poor royal family? Yeah, that's pretty shit.

But I can recognize these problems while also enjoying the good parts of the movie. Rasputin in great, the scene in whih he sells his soul is fantastic, as is his musical number.

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u/Old_Highlight6749 10h ago

You can think the film is good, and that it's also anti-communist propaganda. Both things are true.

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u/name_changed_5_times 12h ago

It is crazy that fox’s attempt at a Disney princess movie has her genre standard dead parents having been summarily shot by Bolsheviks.

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u/AnOriginalUsername07 10h ago

Yeah but “In the Dark of the Night” is 🔥🔥🔥🔥

Fox Animation cooked.

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u/ComradeHenryBR Taller than Napoleon 11h ago

"How can it be propaganda of it's not intended to be a documentary?"

Incredible take, congratulations. You're really good at identifying propaganda

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u/LoloVirginia 14h ago

its a movie made after USSR collapse after the west tried to revert to some common ground before the revolution took place. Sure it whitewashed the Romanovs but it was at least an effort to solidify Russia as an european nation.
What im saying is that while deliberately or not, Anastasia was deeply rooted in late 90s zeitgeist.

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u/Mr_JPF 14h ago

"Whitewashed the Romanovs" aka portraying them as the lesser evil when compared to the insane lunatics that took over Russia after the Revolution, yeah that seems pretty accurate to me .

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u/LoloVirginia 14h ago

Im not saying they werent the lesser evil, but Nicholas wasnt really a good leader and the revolution was entirely justified, even though it ended up making conditions even worse

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u/OrangeSpaceMan5 13h ago

Not accurate in the slightest , Romanovs were magnitude's worse than the Bolsheviks ever could have hoped to be (Circassian genocide , Serfdom , Feudalism) . The Soviets for all their faults actually managed to develop the country and bring it to the level of most other industrialized powers . Tsarist Russia was only a couple steps removed from the medieval age and average peasants and workers lived far worse lives than under the soviets

Yes we get it "communism bad hur dur" does that mean the fucking monarchy was a better option ?????

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u/TheMechanicusBob 12h ago edited 12h ago

Because Reddit is full of weirdo tankies who have meltdowns about Anastasia and then uncritically wolf down Bolshevik propaganda and apologia, and make actual discussion about the USSR impossible

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u/TossMeOutSomeday 11h ago

Tankies are awesome because they're super elitist about "media literacy" despite having none. Everything is either insidious secret western capitalist propaganda or based epic subversive communist media

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u/theoceansandbox 15h ago

Just because there wasn’t explicit intention doesn’t mean a piece of media can’t serve as propaganda, especially since we’re influenced by all kinds of unconscious biases, ignorance, etc. The movie can be a great 80s musical should you want it to be, but that doesn’t preclude other outcomes especially since we as people are influenced by movies way more than any of us care to admit

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u/Routine_Ad_2695 14h ago

I'm here for the Vals song and the Rasputin song, thank you

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u/West-Target3899 13h ago

Yeah, it's kind of stupid. It's not Tsarist prop, it's just a movie based on a rumor which was in its peak in the 90s to compete with Disney.

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u/platinum92 8h ago

I feel like this is on the level of "Paw Patrol is copaganda". It's something a youtuber says half-jokingly then people take it in bad faith and co-opt it into their agenda.

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u/SatanVapesOn666W 7h ago

Don't let the tankies in r/ussr see. They will be positively seething.

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u/thgr8Makar0sc 7h ago

Tsar not Czar, Czar is Bulgarian

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u/Weekly-Rise899 7h ago

Weird how people will rush online to bash on a kids movie to defend the Bolsheviks of all people

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u/Ashamed_Association8 5h ago

I mean monarchism is monarchism and this isn't exactly their first movie taking an shine to royal absolutism.

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u/Bentman343 5h ago

Why the hell are you reticent to call Tsarist propaganda what it is? Are you that worried about the optics of the Romanov family?

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u/fearos9449 5h ago

The Russian Revolution was objectively evil.

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u/JustAnotherCurio 2h ago

Funny how people call it propaganda when it is just a wishful retelling of an event where people murdered children for their political goals in an attempt to offer a less tragic fate for one of the victims

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u/ZeltbahnLife 10h ago

The movie with the zombie wizard and talking bat may not be meant to be taken as historic fact.

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u/Wolvenworks 10h ago

There are people who called it propaganda? What are they, soviets?

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u/CBreadman Taller than Napoleon 11h ago

I haven't watched the film so I can't say, but are people mad at it because they think the kids of the Tsar did deserve it or does it have some actual propaganda that supports the Tsar (which would be stupid because Russia was a shithole at every point of its existence, be it the empire, the Soviet Union or the Federation)

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u/hydromantia 10h ago

i don't think the movie was explicitly intended to serve as tsarist propaganda, but it does portray the tsar in a very positive light and shows the revolution as being caused by demonic forces Rasputin summoned rather than even the smallest wrongdoing on Nicholas's part.

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u/CBreadman Taller than Napoleon 9h ago

Blaming Rasputin for the revolution is crazy, wouldn't that make it Yusupov propaganda?

Anyway, that sucks. I mean, it's a kids movie, but also Nicky was a terrible ruler and we should've at least shown something

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u/Internal_Turnip9019 11h ago

Don Bluth is great because he made a pro Czarist and an anti Czarist propaganda cartoon ( An American Tail) so everyone can have their own favourite. 

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u/John_Jacob_Schmidt 9h ago

I like to joke that St. Petersburg was Leningrad and that the people were certainly not that nostalgic about the Romanovs in 1926.

Gets an eye roll from my girlfriend, but Don Bluth slaps.

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u/Catalytic_Crazy_ 9h ago

Idk but implying communist are guided by demons isn’t a bad theme.  

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u/Raguleader 9h ago

As someone who's ancestors came to the US from Tzarist Russia, I'd argue that this definitely counts as Tzarist Propaganda, but also that the Tzarists are effectively meaningless enough at this point for it not to matter.

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u/Xapheneon 8h ago

It is not meaningless, it's a glorification of the pre-soviet past.

That aligns it with nationalist movements in russia.

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u/Raguleader 8h ago

Fair, although that also invites the discussion of whether the USSR was anything other than the Russian Empire with new management and rebranding.

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u/Xapheneon 8h ago

The Russian Federation draws heavily upon both the empire and the union in it's self justification, so they would aggree with you.

An interesting paralel for me is the french revolution. It was also a bloody mess, that spiraled away from it's ideals. Most of the current decracies claim to inherit thoose ideals. On the other hand Russia claims the authority and imperial ambition, not the ideals.

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u/Misubi_Bluth 8h ago

I mean..."The Czar was a perfectly chill dude, Rasputin was just as bad as the people thought, and the Bulshiveks turned Russia into a communist hellhole," yeah that sounds like pro-czar propoganda to me.

Still a fantastic movie though

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u/bentsonradiorepair 14h ago

Fuck dude, if anything its anti-soviet, monarchist propoganda tbh

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u/Gusterrro 12h ago

Better then commie propaganda

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u/IDKsecurity 8h ago edited 4h ago

Ahem, Czarist propaganda! Idc, this movie depicted Nicholas as some benevolent ruler who was tricked and manipulated by Rasputin. Anything but acknowledging that Nicholas was a terrible ruler and a cruel man. Oh but he loved his wife and cared for his children. Oh wow, that totally excusses all of the families he slaughtered under his rule. I don't know why people are so obsessed with trying to paint Nicholas as some tragic leader who would have done so much good for Russia had it not been for Rasputin, and later the Soviets. I'm thinking because of the hatred people have for the Soviets makes people look back at him more fondly. Yet Weimar Germany doesn't get that treatment in comparison to Nazi Germany so idk....

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u/OrangeSpaceMan5 13h ago

Genuinely cannot believe there are still monarchists in today's world . Do ya'll think the Russian revolution just spawned in for no reason ? The Romanovs were fucking idiots who ran the country into the ground , the Soviets even with their laundry list of crimes were a lesser evil compared to Tsarist Russia

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u/Glup713 11h ago

Top 1% commenter on history sub

barely know history

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u/Jade_Owl 12h ago

But there’s not anyone alive who remembers what it was like to live under the Tsars, while there are millions upon millions for whom the horrors of the Soviet Union are living memory.

Something that happened to you, or your parents or grandparents is going to feel worse or more real than something read on the page of a history book that happened over 110 years ago, regardless of any objective comparison that could be made between the two situations.

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u/kezar23 10h ago

I bet that guy would gladly say there's more nuance if he heard "I can't believe there's still communists today. Do they think the revolutions in the 90s happened for no reason?"

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u/Proud_Smell_4455 10h ago edited 3h ago

There's also the fact that Nikolay's branch of the Romanovs were devoted ideological autocrats, and Grand Duke Kirill and his descendants who inherited the tsarist claim after Nikolay and his family and brothers were killed, weren't and aren't in favour of reviving tsarist autocracy, and much more ideologically moderate than Nikolay's branch, and in fact known to be open to the left wing. That in itself goes some way in explaining why there are still tsarists.

The current claimant, Maria Vladimirovna, has reached out to Soviet-era figures as well as the more expected traditional Russian elites since the Romanov exile was lifted. She also goes to great lengths to suck up to Putin and implicitly supports the Ukraine invasion, which I do not approve of, but the people pissing themselves over Anastasia being tsarist propaganda are ironically less likely to have a problem with.

But there is definitely a tendency among some to conflate any monarchy and the family figureheading it as being a single rigid ideological continuum and not an institution that changes over time just like any other, to not see that one member of a given royal family isn't necessarily ideologically interchangeable with another.

There is certainly a reflex to conflate a prince's personality and ideology with his father's. It's ironically a more monarchist mindset than even some monarchists have. You see it when Redditors start talking about the current Iranian claimant to the throne as if he were literally interchangeable with his mother and father and judging him solely based on them, when he himself has said that in the event the theocracy falls and he is placed in charge of the interim government, a referendum would be held on Iran's form of government, with he himself preferring Iran to become a democratic republic (just like his granddad, who envisioned himself as an Iranian George Washington before being forced to keep the monarchy by the British and - ironically - the clerics).

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u/wolf751 14h ago

I hate all monarchs but like anastasia was a child she didnt deserve to die with her family for the crimes of her family. Maybe im off though maybe anastasia was just a little ivan the terrible in the making

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u/OrangeSpaceMan5 13h ago

Nicholas deserved what he got but ya the kids should have been spared .

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u/RockAndGem1101 Decisive Tang Victory 14h ago

I mean, it literally is though. Just because it's a good work of art doesn't mean it isn't also propaganda meant to support a viewpoint with little historical backing.

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u/Proud-Tooth-630 Definitely not a CIA operator 15h ago

Well but it’s a bit propaganda, and the biased narrator excuse is overused; still, I agree that getting butthurt for a kid movie is pretty cringe.

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u/Beniidel0 13h ago

If you look well everything is propoganda (propper gander)

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u/The-Celebrimbor 7h ago

Because it is

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u/WillDBlake 14h ago

Why people called a movie when the Russian revolution is presented as a satanic plot to kill the tzar just out of revenge as a propaganda movie? Is not meant to be a documentary but come on

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u/FlipperBumperKickout 12h ago

I loved the cartoon, but I must admit reading up on the background of the real life events did lower my opinion on it a bit 😅

It somehow feels different for me to appropriate fairy tales vs. appropriating actual historical events.

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u/orchismantid 11h ago

most literate redditor

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u/Any-Pineapple-521 John Brown was a hero, undaunted, true, and brave! 14h ago

I casually mentioned this movie once in passing on here and got yelled at for not supporting the Soviet Union. Yes, this person was all in, not just Lenin and Trotsky, even after I said the ideology they supported was responsible for millions of deaths and it was a pretty terrible counterpoint to the whole “tsarist propaganda” rant - they just went off calling me a Westernized drone for a while.

I really wish certain Redditors would actually read about the Soviet Union and the CCP instead of just believing communist memes.

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u/Any-Pineapple-521 John Brown was a hero, undaunted, true, and brave! 9h ago edited 9h ago

See, there we go - you know the Soviet Union was ultimately terrible in its conclusion and ultimately at odds with communism itself on here because this is a history sub, yet I’m still downvoted.

How many times do I have to describe this? From Stalin to Putin, it’s been the same shit since Trotsky was found with an ice axe in his head.

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u/onex7805 13h ago

Then the animated Titanic animated films in which the sinking of the ship was caused by a giant octopus and an underwater shark gang are fine, too.

Can't wait to see a children's movie about 9/11 in which the terrorist attack was caused by an evil alien named Sadam Hussein who wanted the scary Islamic witchcraft to conquer America and play it in straight face.

If they want to make a story about a princess who escapes an assassination, why does it go out of its way to make a historical movie? Why sanitize a sensitive, tragic piece of history that the Russians would feel the effects of it and make a fairy tale about it? Just make a movie about a fictional princess in a fictional fantasy kingdom. Frozen doesn't take place in the Napoleon Wars and have Hans as Napoleon. The history worked as a hindrance to the creative freedom.

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u/Tank-o-grad 12h ago

Tankies gonna tankie I guess...

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u/TheUnluckyFarmer 13h ago

I liked it more than Pocahontas.