Sir Antony Beevor

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363 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jun 2026 last heard 6 Jun

Sir Antony Beevor’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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TRIGGERnometry · The Russian Mindset and Where it Comes From - Historian Sir Antony Beevor · 6 Jun 2026 podcast

He believed that they should never show any emotion at all.

And, for example, there was a German prince staying in Petrograd who'd been invited to dinner, and he suddenly heard that the Tsar's uncle had been blown up in Moscow.

So he immediately rang the palace to say, I assume that the dinner has been canceled or whatever.

And he was told, oh, no, no, no, it's going ahead, it's going ahead.

And he arrives and finds that the Tsar and a cousin are having great fun trying to push the other one off the sofa, I mean, playing sort of childish games.

So it's the question of blocking out anything that is uncomfortable to their worldview.

But the idea that people have died in huge numbers, as you've described, in their defense or under their orders, is not something which troubles them.

They regard that as part of the natural world.

And Rasputin says at one point to the empress, when she is genuinely concerned at the casualties,

He says, oh, you know, think of them, each one of them as candles lit at the throne of God.

Well, it was a brilliant phrase to the point of view of sort of calming her down, of saying, you know, all of this sacrifice is perfectly, it's a tribute, it's a tribute to the Almighty.

Yes.

I mean, it is fascinating that you can have that sort of contrast within the same person.

But again, you know, this is yet one of the fascinating contradictions, partly with, as I say, Rasputin and the relationship with the royal family, but also within the royal family itself, because there were other members of the royal family who were simply appalled.

I mean, the Tsar's mother was horrified

Now, she had actually been influenced by the fact of having this traumatic dream when she was pregnant with him and about a peasant chopping off the head of her baby.

And then 38 years later, she finds that her son and daughter-in-law have become completely besotted with the Siberian peasant.

And she is absolutely certain that they will die in a revolution killed by peasants.

Well, the war happens to a large degree because at this particular period, the Japanese... 1904, right?

We're talking about 1904, exactly.

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