Dr Matthew Raphael Johnson blows apart the myths surrounding the Crimean war and identifies it as the start of British hostilities towards Russia. Like all other areas of history, the common knowledge about Crimea is mostly wrong and just about all the textbooks get right are the years. Once the assumption is internalised by a historian or journalist, he then interprets data through it. In Russia's case, stereotyping is acceptable even in academic circles. The Crimean War was the start of the modern British obsession with destroying Russia at all costs. Her statesmen and academics have blackened her name, shamelessly lied about her and harbored all manner of revolutionaries within their borders. Crimea is where the “black legends” about Russian “Asian-ness” and lack of civilization began. It remains a part of the construction and invention of western foreign policy analysts. Crimea was both a confrontation of Westernism and Orientalism – so to speak – as well as that of liberalism versus nationalism (in the form of protectionism). Russia didn't lose the Crimean War and she wasn't technically inferior to the west. Casualty figures vary wildly, but the most objective figures show very similar casualty numbers. The war aims of the Anglo-French alliance were thwarted and the British press, once screaming for war, began accusing the government of utter incompetence in it’s prosecution of it. Crimea should be the First World War since it was spread from Turkey to the Balkans, to the Danube, to the far North, to the pacific. In most of these theatres, the Russians were victorious despite being outnumbered by the allies. Presented by Matt Johnson The Orthodox Nationalist: The Crimean War – TON 092519
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