Thread by @NitnelavGS

Giles Fletcher: Of the Russe Commonwealth, 1591

"poor people that are now oppressed with intolerable servitude" (ch. 5)

"The (...) form of their government is plain tyrannical, as applying to the behoof of the prince, and that after a most open and barbarous manner" (ch .7)
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"unmeasured liberty to command and exact upon the commons"

"both nobility and commons are but storers for the prince, all running in the end into the emperor's coffers"

"any law (...) is ever determined of before any public assembly or parliament be summoned"
(ch. 7)

"the emperors are content to make much of the corrupt state of the church (...) knowing superstition and false religion best to agree with a tyrannical state and to be a special means to uphold and maintain the same"
(ch 7)

"jurisdiction concerning (...) life and death (...) all at the appointment and pleasure of the emperor" (ch 7)

"practice to keep down these houses...many of their heirs are kept unmarried perforce that the stock may die with them. Some are sent into Siberia...Some are put into abbeys" (chapter 9)

"This manner of government (...) is to prevent innovations by keeping of the nobility within order and commons in subjection (...) the oppression and slavery is so open and so great that a man would marvel how the (...) people should suffer (...) to be brought under it" (ch 10)

"By this it appeareth how hard a matter it were to alter the state of the Russe government (...) First, because they have none of the nobility able to make head. (...) As for the common people, (...) they are robbed continually both of their hearts and money (...)

(...) there is no means (...) to attempt any innovation"

"THIS DESPERATE STATE OF THINGS AT HOME MAKETH THE PEOPLE FOR THE MOST PART TO WISH FOR SOME FOREIGN INVASION" (ch 10)

"it is lawful for him to sell his wife and children (...) and if the price of them do not amount to the full payment, the creditor may take them to be his bondslaves"

"If a man kill his own servant, little or nothing is said (...) right over his very head." (ch 14)

ch 14)

"If the Russe soldier were as hardy to execute an enterprise as he is hard to bear out toil and travail, or were otherwise as apt and well trained for the wars as he is indifferent for his lodging or diet, he would far excel (...)

(...) whereas now he is far meaner of courage and execution in any warlike service which cometh partly of his servile condition that will not suffer any great courage or valor to grow in him" (ch 16)

"THE RUSSE TRUSTETH RATHER TO HIS NUMBER THAN TO THE VALOR OF HIS SOLDIERS OR GOOD ORDERING OF HIS FORCES. THEIR MARCHING OR LEADING IS WITHOUT ALL ORDER" (ch 17)

"When Vasilii (...) conquered those countries (...) the second time, he killed and carried away with him three parts of four, (...) and instead of them placed there his Russes, so many as might overmatch the rest (...) the soil lying there in the meanwhile waste" (ch 18)

"THIS MAY BE SAID OF THE RUSSE PRACTICE WHEREVER HE RULETH (...) HE ROBBETH THEM CONTINUALLY (...) AND LEAVETH THEM BARE WITH NOTHING BUT THEIR BODIES (...) HE GOVERNETH HIS COUNTRIES BY MEN OF SMALL REPUTATION" (ch 18)

"the clergy of Russia (...) are altogether ordered (...) by the emperor" (ch 21)

"their manner of bringing up (void of all good learning and civil behavior) is thought by their governors most agreeable to that state and their manner of government which the people would hardly bear if they were once civilized (...)" (ch 28)

"THE RUSSE NEITHER BELIEVETH ANYTHING THAT ANOTHER MAN SPEAKETH NOR SPEAKETH ANYTHING HIMSELF WORTHY TO BE BELIEVED. These qualities make them very odious to all their neighbors" (ch 28).

All that has been written in 1591.

Now explain to me in which aspect russia has evolved these last 430 years except for the development of nukes. 🧵

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