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Video: 4 examples of ancient propaganda that prove politicians don't change
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
Complaints about the propaganda that pours out of every iron are so frequent that they make people believe that we live in some special new time - when they only do that they control public opinion. But propaganda existed even when little depended on the large masses of the people. And in such forms that it seems difficult to come up with something new.
Peter's fake testament
Napoleon Bonaparte paid great attention to propaganda. Under him, summaries of victories in battle sheets began to be regularly printed for the army, endless parades were held in large cities, and each department was ordered to acquire a copy of the emperor's portrait. All this was supposed to warm up military enthusiasm and, as they would say in the twentieth century, faith in the leader.
And even under Napoleon, a false testament of Peter I was written and published, similar in content to modern texts published on the Internet as the Dulles plan. In this testament, Tsar Peter demanded that the descendants gradually embroil and destroy the whole of Europe in order to swallow it piece by piece, and in Asia to take land for themselves up to the Indian Ocean. In any incomprehensible situation, the Europeans attributed the appearance of opposition, diplomatic scandals and simply a change in the morals of young people to the actions of the Russians according to Peter's will. Few would dare to believe that an immigrant Sokolnitsky, who came to live in Paris after the unsuccessful Polish uprising, could have written such an impudent fake on a government order. The will itself was needed for the "consecration" of the French campaign against Russia.
From more or less modern texts to the testament of Peter in the Napoleonic version, in addition to the Dulles plan, there are similar "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" - a text in which the plans of the Jews to conquer the world are presented. This text was published under the guise of an account of Jewish secret meetings in 1903. How it is that secret Jewish gatherings are so easily covered by the Christian press, not everyone wondered.
Flower Wars
The Aztecs were not the only developed people of Mesoamerica. They had allies and neighbors, the city-states of Tlaxcala, Huescinko and Cholula. At some point, the Aztecs decided that the neighboring cities were very independent, and tried to conquer them one by one. As a result, many young warriors were killed on the battlefields, the city-states remained independent, and relations with them deteriorated.
In order to somehow hush up the shameful defeat, the Aztecs decided to declare that all wars were, as it were, toys (“flower” - this was the expression officials chose to convey the softness and festivity of the event). Allegedly, the cities simply agreed to compete with each other, and all this is to the delight of the gods. This official version was included in all Aztec sources and became the most popular among Europeans, who saw no reason not to trust the Aztec stories about their lives.
But the neighboring cities had their own opinion and memory was not at all like that of a goldfish, so they also managed to convey their version. The last Flower War resulted in the loss of over twenty thousand Aztec soldiers, and the city-states were very proud of that.
Racial issue
The propaganda of the Second World War from the Third Reich is well known to everyone. She points out that all the troubles from the representatives of the "Jewish race" and other "inferior races", says that Jews and Gypsies cannot be corrected - only to completely separate them (early propaganda) or destroy (later) in the name of the prosperity of the "Nordic race". It seems to us that this very racial and uncompromising approach was an invention of Hitler's Germany, but the Germans themselves learned it during the First World War from their French opponents.
If we had read the propaganda articles of that time, they would have shocked us with irreconcilable malice towards the "German race", which is by nature rude, brutal and prone to murder and unleashing wars. The French press assured that nothing would fix a German, and even if you think that some German, having lived in another country for a long time, civilized, then as soon as he hears the sounds of a march, the entire raid of civilization will subside from him: between the country where he was born and grew up, and the Germans he will choose the Germans and kill. Taking into account the fact that at that moment in France itself there were many long-assimilated German families, one can imagine what it was like for them.
The story of the death of Svyatopolk
Vladimir the Saint had many sons. He seriously doubted the paternity of one of them, because he took his mother by force after he killed her husband and his brother Yaropolk. As you know thanks to the old-old chronicle, Svyatopolk, possessed by a thirst for power, killed his brothers Boris, Gleb and Svyatoslav. But soon he lost the war to Yaroslav, and died, struck by both paralysis and madness.
There are, however, a few inconsistencies. The description of Svyatopolk's death is very literary, it is literally copied from the Bible, as if the purpose was simply to indicate that Svyatopolk, as biblical antiheroes, was punished for sins (fratricide) by God himself. There is no more accurate information about the death of Svyatopolk, but an alternative story of the murder of Boris and Gleb is known - in the Scandinavian sagas it is indicated that the Norwegians did it on the orders of Yaroslav. It seems that the entire history of Svyatopolk given in the annals is pure propaganda to whitewash Yaroslav and present someone who can be hated for the civil strife started by Yaroslav and fratricide. On top of that, who died under unclear circumstances (not by order of Yaroslav?) Svyatopolk is stubbornly called the Damned, so that the offspring will get used to perceive him as Cain by their families.
Kill the enemy, say that the Lord punished him and that it was he who committed all your crimes - the rulers later resorted to this method of propaganda more than once.
This tragedy is worthy of Shakespeare himself - Rogvolodovich, not Rurikovich: Why Prince Yaroslav the Wise did not love the Slavs and did not spare his brothers.
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