Evening star., 1947-07-24

+or+;o,s of bis NeD Learned History"
torical truth portrayed in the film.
Ivan " is presented model husband
and ruler, and a victim of the scheming,
vlllainous boyars. He is portrayed as very
religious, wise and farsighted ruler, well versed
in geography diplomacy, etc. According to
the producer Eisensten, Ivan the Terrible was
en- the way to lead Russia to greatness through
industriaization, the creation of streamlined
administration and acquisition of Livonia in
order to have Baltic ports of his own.
Actually Ivan " was neurasthenic and
schizophrenic. AS boy he amused himself by
throwing cats from the high Kremlin walls to
the hungry dogs. He delighted In assisting
at the executions of sentenced boyars (Prus-
sian aristocrats) to satisfy his sadistic instincts,
He was far from being faithful husband but
was philandering type He was married and
divorced more often than Henry VIII Of
England, In rage he killed his eldest son
Ivsn-a very promising prince. The famous
painting OF Repin reproducing this episode
has been removed from the Gretyakov Gallery
in Moscow.
After Ivan had conquered Kazan In war
lasting almost 20 years, he turned to the west.
particularly against Novgorod and Pskov, rich
Slavic republics harboring Hanseatic mer-
lilies in Novgorod, according to the historian
Pavlov-Selivansky, were of Viking Hanseatic
origin. There Ivan conducted a bloody purge
Of the "plutocrats" Before that he had deprived
the feudal manorlords of Muscovy of their
lands and settled the landless gentry on them.
Naturally, these tenants of the Tsar" were
devoted to him and he called them his dogs
Even their symbol was dogs head and
broom These dogs became the most dread
full scourge Of Muscovy; no ones life was secure
any longer
While purging Novgorod and Pskov he
ordered all Jewish merchants to be liquidated,
according to S. Solovyev, the renowned Rus
sian historian. With the same brutality he
ordered Jewish pogrom in Lithuanian Polotzk
after he had taken that city by storm. The
Jewish merchants of Polotzk, according to S.
Solovyev, we're rounded up with their families
and thrown from the bridge into the Dvina
River The soldiers of Ivan w with their
pixies then drowned them. Also the atrocities
of Ivans troops in invaded Livonia remind one
of the behavior of the conquering Red armies
in our time. Eventually Ivan was saved from
complete defeat by Poland, thanks to the inter-
vention of the Pope, who had hoped that Ivan
would turn against the Turks, which he did
not. Finally, the Gear abdicated and became
a monk to repent his sins.
One wonders why the present rulers Of
Soviet Russia have so distorted the truth about
Ivan Nv. Actually Tsar Ivan was really
terrible.
1t is reported that also today there is in
Soviet Russia widespread anti-Jewish senti-
ment even in the Komsomol and the army
AS the Jews by inheritance are gifted financiers,
merchants, business administrators and artists.
they naturally occupied prominent positions in
Soviet Russian economy But for their inge-
nuty, Soviet Russia would have gone to the
dogs long since. AS long as able Jews were
in Office Soviet Russia enjoyed prestige abroad,
stayed within its own frontiers and managed
to exist from the stored vast resources Of
Russia But the moment the Russian national
bolsheviks took over the reins, everything went
from bad to worse.
DR. ALFRED BILMAN1S,
Latvian Minister.