Fri. Mar 29th, 2024

Why Russia stole Potemkin’s bones from Ukraine?<!-- wp:html --><div></div> <div> <div class="_1665V _2q-Vk"> <p>“We have transported the remains of the Holy Prince that were in Saint Catherine’s Cathedral to the left bank,” Saldo said in an interview broadcast on Russian television. “We transported Potemkin ourselves.”</p> <p>Local Ukrainian activists confirmed that the church had been looted and that, along with the bones, statues of venerated Russian heroes had been removed. By the Earl of historian Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of the book <em>Catherine the Great and Potemkin</em>it was the ninth time Potemkin’s restful peace had been interrupted.</p> <p>Montefiore said in an interview that the Kremlin contacted him shortly after the publication of his book in 2000 to say how much Putin admired his work. But Montefiore said on Thursday that Putin’s reading of history was deeply flawed and that his war has been reduced to ruins of Ukrainian cities such as Mariupol and Mykolaiv that Potemkin and early Russian imperialists helped build.</p> <p>(The term “Potemkin Village” was coined to describe an impressive facade built to hide an undesirable state of affairs, although Montefiore says the term was mistakenly attributed to the prince, whose achievements in the current Ukraine were real.)</p> <p>“Potemkin would have despised Putin and everything he stands for,” he said. Potemkin and Catherine, he said, viewed that area as a cosmopolitan window onto the Mediterranean, populated by a vibrant mix of people of different ethnicities and national backgrounds.</p> </div> <div class="_1665V _2q-Vk"> <p>The destruction of the cities Potemkin helped build, he said, has thrown Putin into the role of destroying those past triumphs.</p> <p>The looting of Potemkin’s grave is part of Russian efforts to erase Ukrainian identity. Russian forces have destroyed and systematically looted Ukrainian treasures, including Ukrainian Orthodox churches, national monuments and cultural heritage sites. They sent specialists to go into hiding with gold antiquities from the Scythian culture dating back 2300 years.</p> <p>By October 24, UNESCO, the United Nations agency, had documented damage and destruction at more than 200 cultural sites.</p> <p>But the bones of Potemkin, a famous military commander and statesman, have resonated with the Kremlin. Recording the “outrageously libertine lifestyle and lavish political triumphs” of Potemkin and Catherine, Montefiore noted the special place in history the couple holds for Putin and the ultranationalists as they attempt to “reclaim the gilded majesty of the Romanov Empire.” merging with the stark glory of a Stalinist superpower into a quirky modern hybrid.”</p> <p>Russian rulers have not always viewed the legacy of Potemkin and Catherine with admiration – a fact underlined by the story of what happened to Potemkin’s remains over the centuries.</p> </div> <div class="_1665V _2q-Vk"> <p>When Potemkin died in 1791, the grieving empress ordered a grand funeral and had his body taken to Kherson, where it was exposed in a purpose-built tomb in a crypt, Montefiore wrote.</p> <p>By the time Catherine died in 1796, it had become a place of pilgrimage of sorts, enraging her son and successor, Paul I, who ruled Russia until his assassination in 1801. He ordered that Potemkin be buried in an unmarked grave, and some reports suggest he ordered a local official to crush and disperse Potemkin’s bones in the nearby Devil’s Gorge.</p> <p>For years it was unclear whether the orders were being carried out.</p> <p>It was not until 1818 that a search of the crypt established that the remains were still there. In 1859 and again in 1873 the tomb was reopened to determine that the remains were indeed those of the great prince. A telltale triangular hole in the skull, left there as part of the embalming process, established that they were.</p> <p>As the Bolshevik Revolution raged, St. Catherine’s crypt was reopened and, as Montefiore noted in his book, there were yellowed photos of revolutionaries holding up the remains.</p> </div> <div class="_1665V _2q-Vk"> <p>In 1930, a young writer visited St. Catherine’s, which the communists had renamed Kherson’s Anti-Religious Museum.</p> <p>He found two strange exhibits featuring “the skull of Catherine II’s lover Potemkin” and “the bones of Catherine II’s lover Potemkin.” Shortly after the discovery, the remains were re-buried in the crypt.</p> <p>The tomb was reopened in the 1980s by officials seeking to confirm the identity of the remains.</p> <p>While examining his book, Montefiore went to St Catherine’s to see the remains, which he believes were still kept in a simple black bag in the wooden box.</p> <p>It is not clear where they are now or what the Kremlin plans to do with them. Montefiore fully expects Potemkin’s remains to make their way to Russia, where they could perform in “a chillingly crude and televised spectacle of ultra-nationalism.”</p> </div> </div> <p>The post <a href="https://whatsnew2day.com/why-russia-stole-potemkins-bones-from-ukraine/">Why Russia stole Potemkin’s bones from Ukraine?</a> first appeared on <a href="https://whatsnew2day.com/">WhatsNew2Day</a>.</p><!-- /wp:html -->

“We have transported the remains of the Holy Prince that were in Saint Catherine’s Cathedral to the left bank,” Saldo said in an interview broadcast on Russian television. “We transported Potemkin ourselves.”

Local Ukrainian activists confirmed that the church had been looted and that, along with the bones, statues of venerated Russian heroes had been removed. By the Earl of historian Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of the book Catherine the Great and Potemkinit was the ninth time Potemkin’s restful peace had been interrupted.

Montefiore said in an interview that the Kremlin contacted him shortly after the publication of his book in 2000 to say how much Putin admired his work. But Montefiore said on Thursday that Putin’s reading of history was deeply flawed and that his war has been reduced to ruins of Ukrainian cities such as Mariupol and Mykolaiv that Potemkin and early Russian imperialists helped build.

(The term “Potemkin Village” was coined to describe an impressive facade built to hide an undesirable state of affairs, although Montefiore says the term was mistakenly attributed to the prince, whose achievements in the current Ukraine were real.)

“Potemkin would have despised Putin and everything he stands for,” he said. Potemkin and Catherine, he said, viewed that area as a cosmopolitan window onto the Mediterranean, populated by a vibrant mix of people of different ethnicities and national backgrounds.

The destruction of the cities Potemkin helped build, he said, has thrown Putin into the role of destroying those past triumphs.

The looting of Potemkin’s grave is part of Russian efforts to erase Ukrainian identity. Russian forces have destroyed and systematically looted Ukrainian treasures, including Ukrainian Orthodox churches, national monuments and cultural heritage sites. They sent specialists to go into hiding with gold antiquities from the Scythian culture dating back 2300 years.

By October 24, UNESCO, the United Nations agency, had documented damage and destruction at more than 200 cultural sites.

But the bones of Potemkin, a famous military commander and statesman, have resonated with the Kremlin. Recording the “outrageously libertine lifestyle and lavish political triumphs” of Potemkin and Catherine, Montefiore noted the special place in history the couple holds for Putin and the ultranationalists as they attempt to “reclaim the gilded majesty of the Romanov Empire.” merging with the stark glory of a Stalinist superpower into a quirky modern hybrid.”

Russian rulers have not always viewed the legacy of Potemkin and Catherine with admiration – a fact underlined by the story of what happened to Potemkin’s remains over the centuries.

When Potemkin died in 1791, the grieving empress ordered a grand funeral and had his body taken to Kherson, where it was exposed in a purpose-built tomb in a crypt, Montefiore wrote.

By the time Catherine died in 1796, it had become a place of pilgrimage of sorts, enraging her son and successor, Paul I, who ruled Russia until his assassination in 1801. He ordered that Potemkin be buried in an unmarked grave, and some reports suggest he ordered a local official to crush and disperse Potemkin’s bones in the nearby Devil’s Gorge.

For years it was unclear whether the orders were being carried out.

It was not until 1818 that a search of the crypt established that the remains were still there. In 1859 and again in 1873 the tomb was reopened to determine that the remains were indeed those of the great prince. A telltale triangular hole in the skull, left there as part of the embalming process, established that they were.

As the Bolshevik Revolution raged, St. Catherine’s crypt was reopened and, as Montefiore noted in his book, there were yellowed photos of revolutionaries holding up the remains.

In 1930, a young writer visited St. Catherine’s, which the communists had renamed Kherson’s Anti-Religious Museum.

He found two strange exhibits featuring “the skull of Catherine II’s lover Potemkin” and “the bones of Catherine II’s lover Potemkin.” Shortly after the discovery, the remains were re-buried in the crypt.

The tomb was reopened in the 1980s by officials seeking to confirm the identity of the remains.

While examining his book, Montefiore went to St Catherine’s to see the remains, which he believes were still kept in a simple black bag in the wooden box.

It is not clear where they are now or what the Kremlin plans to do with them. Montefiore fully expects Potemkin’s remains to make their way to Russia, where they could perform in “a chillingly crude and televised spectacle of ultra-nationalism.”

The post Why Russia stole Potemkin’s bones from Ukraine? first appeared on WhatsNew2Day.

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