[s|k]

I took Modern Russian History at the university. It was an eye opening class. It began with Peter the Great father (the first Romanov?) up until modern times but most of the class was basically Romanov policies and scandals. The Russian peoples were under a brutal serfdom-ship that lasted well beyond the emancipation's of the western Europe. In most European countries serfdom ended in the 1600's, in Russia it was abolished (in name only) in 1861. Freedom didn't follow, and many of you already know what happened after the Russian revolution.

The Russian peoples don't have a history nor a culture of freedom, instead they have the opposite. Russia, from what I read in the media, seems to be moving away from freedom. According to the December issue of Atlantic Monthly, Putin is expected to change the constitution to enable him to run for an unprecedented 3rd term in 2008. Garry Kasparov, the world chess champion, according to the same source, is going to run against him from a minority party. The only other party that gets any votes is the communist party, but during the last presidential election only gained 18% of the vote - Putin got most of the rest.

Anyhow, I recommend reading up on Russia's very long struggle with serfdom. They wrote a lot about it in the 1800's. War & Peace deals with it extensively.