Latest / Ridiculous History / Russia’s Real-life Ice Queen, Part 1: The Tsar is a Jerk

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Russia’s Real-life Ice Queen, Part 1: The Tsar is a Jerk · Ridiculous History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. Who is that over there?
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: A guy who describes himself on Twitter as dispassionate. That
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: is our super producer, Mr Max Williams. Give him a hand.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Uh they call me Ben mainly because that's my name
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: here in the US, and uh, Noel. I gotta say
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: this one is interesting because I would say you and
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: I are pretty, um, pretty compassionate people. You know what
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: I mean. We're We're a little warm and fussy. We
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: maybe a little compassionate, also dispassionate at times, which I
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: think could be considered a compliment, which means you don't
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: get swept up in the hullabaloo. It's true, and it's true.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: He wants that you gotta keep a level head to
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: keep a keep a you know, what is it? Bright
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: eyes and bushy tails? No, that's not the what is
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: the what's the thing from Friday Night Lights? Bright dark eyes,
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: clean hearts? I don't know. I've never seen the show.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: There's explosions in the sky. It's all about explosions in
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: the sky. No, we I would say so we're all
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: pretty warm and gentle individuals, you know, who would never
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: build a massive ice palace and four star of nemeses
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: to spend the night in the nude data just to
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: like scratch some weird like revenge ith. We'd never do that,
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: would we, guys? I mean you get in situations, no,
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: you some people just push right, Some people just push it,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: you know, they just insist upon themselves. Uh, no, we're
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: we're doing inside jokes this early in the show. This
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: is it's true. No, you're You're absolutely correct. And what
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: we're exploring today is a story that comes to us
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: from the sixteen hundreds. It is the story of passion.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: It is a story of empire, it is a story
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: of well, it's a story that almost anyone can connect
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: with once you get past the names. Today's story is
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: about someone called Avanna the Terrible, and we don't let
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: that turn you off, folks. Okay, she was great. Yeah,
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: a lot of people have a lot of you know,
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: monarchs and royals from back in the day get these
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: weird nickname names. You know. I would point out that
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: not all of them were that great, Not all of
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: the greats were that great. Her real name Anna Ivanovana. Yeah,
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: all the greats weren't that great, but usually the terribles
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: were pretty terrible. I don't think you get a nickname
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: like the Terrible unless you've done something pretty ghastly. Uh.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: And Anna certainly did do that. But let's but she
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: wasn't born that way, as Lady Gaga would say. She
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: was born in se presumably a very normal, relatively healthy baby.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: I mean, she's bored into board, into royalty. She was
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: born into royalty. But you know, she was a clean
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: slate for at least a second daughter of Czar Ivan
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: the Fifth, who is often referred to he got a
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: good one as Ivan the Ignorant. Yeah. Uh and apparently
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: that nickname may have actually been under selling his vast incompetence.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: It wasn't a little John joke, Yeah, for no, he
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: did in fact suffer from some form of of a
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: mental deficiency. He actually oftentimes would enter some kind of
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: like fugue state where he would remain for hours and hours. Um.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: He was only able to walk with the support of
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: you know, his staff, who you know, essentially carried him
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: around or at least had him had him looped his
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: arms over their shoulders. And he was essentially a czar
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: and ceremony only um Peter the Great on his uncle
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: was the cos are and did most of the actual zaring.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: I love that man, most of the actual a zari, right, like, well,
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: my title is not technically tsar, but I do a
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: lot of czari. He was a cozar, but since his
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: brother was you know, mainly just there to be kind
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: of propped up and you know, perform rituals and such,
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: he was doing the heavy lifting. So let's h let's
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: get to Anna. Her mom is super into tradition, and
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: the way that her mom is into tradition is unfortunately
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: bad for her daughter. So Anna unfortunately was despite being
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: born into the upper class, she wasn't superliterate. People described
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: her as an unpleasant person. There was a lot of
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: misogyny then as now, and folks wrote about how unattractive
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: they thought she was physically, and they wrote about how
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: unattractive they thought she was as a person. Apparently she
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: was rude, she was morbid. It's the old trope of
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: who's going to marry this person? Because everyone had to
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: get married back then. In seventeen ten, she married a
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: guy in Frederick William the Duke of Corlands and that
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: is part of modern day Latvia. And again we have
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: to put in the note. I know it's a controversial thing.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you guys about this. What's the
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: deal with people who have like two first names as
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: as their whole name. That's a that's like, uh, that's
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: the thing, right. People tell you not to trust folks
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: with two You've told me that, No, you've said that before.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: I definitely find them a little suss. But it's not
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: their fault, you know, it's just sort of the nominal
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: terminism kind of situation, like if you're born with two
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: first names, you're inevitably going to become some sort of
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: conniving monster. But Frederick William, you know, made quite an
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: impression on she. Um was was really smitten by the guy.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: She's incredibly excited. All she'd ever wanted was to be married.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: You know, she had a door all of these really
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: nasty um insults, you know, she was like literally openly
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: people compared her the look of her face to a
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: Westphalian ham. This comes up in every source that we've
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: we've looked at about this story. I mean, it's obviously
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: worth mentioning because it really is you. That's something that
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: kind of followed her around, you know. That was like, uh,
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: I looked up ham, and I looked up west failure.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: This is a true story. The it's just regular ham.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: I don't but but you're right there, absolutely Westphalian. It's
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: it looks like a nice ham on the bone, you
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: know it. You know, it's like a really nice, thinly
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: sliced ham that looks great. It's fancy. It is fancy. Yeah,
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: you'd eat it with like some nice bread and cheese. Um.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: I think that guy, Yeah, I think it was saying
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: she looked like a pig, which is very rude. It's very,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: very very rude. She know, she was what you might
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: just describe as she She was a little plain looking.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: She didn't dress particularly lavishly, but she's a freaking person anyway.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: So she was definitely treated really poorly, and so she
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: was excited to kind of like turn a corner and
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: and wed and become you know, a true princess, right uh.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: And she said this of the of the marriage to
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: where she goes, I cannot but assure your Highness that
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: nothing could delight me more than to hear of your
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: declaration of love for me. For my part, I assure
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: your Highness that I share your feelings at our next
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: happy meeting, to which I look forward eagerly. I shall
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: god willing avail myself of the opportunity of expressing them
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: to you personally. Oh yeah, yeah, she's shooting her shot, right,
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: that's what we call it in the parlance of the day. Um, yeah,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: it worked out. You're right. The wedding is beautiful. There
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: are fireworks at the end of the ceremony, and this
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: is of course, this is a royal wedding, so it's
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: a it's a huge event. It's like a geopolitical event.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: And then again people made fun of her and this
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: is this is really messed up. This is this is
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: beyond ridiculous. Yeah. I would say some of the stuff
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: in this episode definitely ventures into the realm of cruel
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: and unusual. Um, and this is no exception cruel and unusual. Yeah,
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: well said. So there's this guy we're talking about how
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: weird royal nicknames are. There's this Russian czar named Peter
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: the Great, and he has this thing with very short
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: people with people who are affect it by the condition
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: known as dwarf is um. Peter the Great was a
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: pretty tall dude. He was a little less than seven
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  Speaker 1: ft tall, which is wild, and he was obsessed. He
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: was obsessed with dwarves. So imagine this guy was like
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  Speaker 1: the most influential, important dude in the country. He basically
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: owns the country. He's six ft seven inches tall. He's
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: obsessed with people of very short stature, and he will
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: make these folks be like his court jestures. It was
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: not a weird thing. Oh, I shouldn't say it wasn't
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: a weird thing. Sorry, it is very weird. But it
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: was not uncommon for him to do things like have
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: one of these folks he had hired as a permanent
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: jesterre two leap out of a high naked during a party.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: Kind of the way for any fans of Always Sunny
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: in Philadelphia that Danny de Vito emerges oiled up and
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: naked from a leather couch during the Christmas episode if
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: you remember it was it Christmas? I think it was
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: the Christmas episode anyway, or sell me into the couch? Yes,
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: what sell me into the couch? Into the couch? That
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: reminds me of that scene and like I think Ace
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: Venture and when nature calls when he sort of births
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: himself out of this weird like rubber zebra or something.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's an elephant, I can't remember, but it's quite
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: disgusting and he's very like covered and like glistening fluids. Yes, yes,
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: so that was That was the kind of stuff this
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: dude would pull. He's Peter the Great. He's on his uncle.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: Two days after she gets married to Frederick William. This
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: guy does like he does like a my gery of
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: of that marriage. He holds it in it's and he's
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: like he's baller about it. So, you know how like
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: Saturday Night Live usually opens with something satirical about the week,
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: this guy stage day fake wedding to ridicule his niece, right,
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: was it a real wedding? Well, no, it was. So
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: if anyone's seen um movies like The Favorite or there's
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: a new show on Hulu called The Great about Catherine
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: the Great, it's really fantastic. Actually it's about adjacent periods
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: in Russian history. Um, it's not entirely historically accurate, but
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: it definitely depicts a lot of the bizarre, fetishistic, bacchanalian
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: kind of behavior at court, especially when it involved men.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: Lots of weird open sexual stuff, lots of like indoor
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: hunting of bears and like duck racing and things like that.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: It's really weird um, you know, and often involved humiliating underlings,
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: humiliating lower class uh for you know money, really like
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: pay them like a pittance. So they would literally just
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: call them out from their homes to to kind of
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: parade them around, whether in like you know, weird outfits
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: or new they like throw fruit at them, just horrible,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: horrible stuff. And oftentimes they would make use of dwarves
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: um in a really cruel again borderline fetishistic way. And
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: that's exactly what Peter the Great did when he staged
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: this wedding as a mockery of Anna's wedding or in
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: his wedding um. And there's a quote from Lindsay hughes
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: biography of Peter the Great where he says at the feast,
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: the dwarfs sat at miniature tables in the center of
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: the room, while full sized guests watched them from tables
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: at the sides. They roared with laughter as dwarfs, especially
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: the older lear ones, whose hunchbacks, huge bellies, and short,
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: crooked legs made it difficult for them to dance, fell
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: down drunk or engaged in brawls, and that yeah, that's again,
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: that's not from us. That is from the biography of
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: Peter the Great by Lindsey Hughes. So Hughes is pretty
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: clear in assuming this is meant to be a shot
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: at Anna. And it's not just that this weird spectacle
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: is expressive of his contempt for all of the Russian court,
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: and he was known for this. It was he would
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: have these mockery's, he would have these spectacles in a
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: way that was meant to be for him. And it
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: sounds weird to say it, kind of social commentary. And
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: courtiers and Russia were own around Europe for a certain stereotype.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: They were thought to be rude, and they were thought
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: to be drunkards. And it is possible that in some
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: ways Old Pete may have been making fun of his
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: own crew because the folks he forced into this fake
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: wedding sketch, I guess you would call it. Uh. He
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: made them wear Western clothing as well, and this was
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: thought to be possibly a pot shot at the Russian
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: courtiers because they were still not considered civilized by the
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: French and the British and so, um, this is like
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: a pretty rude thing to do. Anybody who is been married,
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: anybody who's getting married, anybody who was weirdly enough mentioning
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: ridiculous history at their marriage. Thank you. I think we
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: end up and mentioned in divorce courts more often, but
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: I appreciate the flex. Uh. If you've ever if you've
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: ever been married, you can imagine how insulting this would
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: be for the literal leader of the country. Two kind
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: of out of nowhere, say you look like ham and
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: your wedding is dumb, and I think it's funny that
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: you're happy, and we didn't mention this. We didn't mention this. No,
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: Frederick William had to go to that fake wedding, to
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: the mockery wedding. Ha ha ha. He's gonna like smiling
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: through grid teeth. Yes, this is delightful. Yes, yes, so clever.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah yeah right, it's like it's like I'm making
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: fun of you, which, yeah, I see, that's very clever.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: He's just just like, um, yeah, really really strange, really
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: really cruel and uh, something that ultimately sets some things
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: in motion and in a lot of ways in terms
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: of on a psyche um, you know, is it's almost
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: like a carry type situation. You know, Carrie is bullied
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: to the point where you know it triggers her psycho
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: kinetic fire mind powers and then she just like you know,
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: go scorched earth on everybody. That bucket of pigs blood
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: at the problem was just a bridge too far. John
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: trow Voltata, Yeah, isn't John Travolta and Carrie? Yeah? But
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: is he? Is he bad? He's like going to the
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: dance with her, isn't he? I don't know. I was
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: cutting it up for an episode of Feberal. I'm not
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: a great reference on this one. No, it's perfect, No,
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: keep it in mix, im, it's all, it's all staying. Okay.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: I think he might be right. I think John Travolta
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: maybe is like the nicer of the bullies who like
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: sort of tries to stop it. He's definitely in with
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: the bad with the rough crew. Though. Well, I think
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: it's like he's like the guy she has a crushed on,
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: that the bad guy. But they go to the dance
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: gather and like they're winning, like prom King and Queen,
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: and that's when the blood dumps. Okay, Okay, screaming at everybody.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: He's like, why would you do? That's right? Okay, completely, yeah,
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: let's keep it all in. Frederick William is our John
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: Travolta because he's not, you know, he's maybe, you know,
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: maybe feels a little sorry for Carrie Anna, but he
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: also doesn't doesn't necessarily despise her in the way that
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: everyone else seems to he He doesn't, you know, um,
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: I feel the need to to ridicule her. And again,
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: it's an arranged marriage, so he has a certain duty.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: But also, like you know, you've seen these arranged marriages
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: where the husbands are intensely cruel to their new wives.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: But a lot of this, you know, a person can
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: only take so much, including um, our boy Frederick William,
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: who was you know, not unlike the stereotype of the
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: Russian court, a bit of a lush And he actually
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: got into a drinking contest with Peter the Great. And
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: again I'm picturing this and knowing where the story ends
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: up going, I would not be surprised if Peter the Great,
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: having forced this poor guy to go to the mockery
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: of his own wedding, probably also goaded him into this
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: drinking contest. And pushed him too far, um, trying to
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: keep up with Peter the Great Frederick Drake so much
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: that he got very, very very sick and died two
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: months after the wedding. Yeah, I can't say no to
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: the king, right, you know you can't, can't you know
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: you can't. And we don't really know how he treated on.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: Uh presumably you know, she had nothing negative to say
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: about him, and this like calls her to spiral into
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: despair or at the very least, she wanted to remarry
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: as quickly as possible. This is very important for her.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: Uh So we we we assumed that he was relatively
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: decent to her. That's why I was calling him the
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: John Travolta once I figured out, you know what part
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: he actually played in Carried No, we did good, We
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: did good work with that tangent. And it's yeah, uh
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: so you know what we didn't say this part. She
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: is seventeen years old at this point, when when when
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: her husband dies and she is a widow at seventeen,
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: she lives a real black mark. Right and in this
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: type of period, right, I mean it would be you
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: you'd be almost considered like damaged goods or in some way,
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: you know, like other from society for sure. Yeah. Uh,
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: And she very much wanted to marry again. She wanted
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: that she wanted that state of matrimony. So she wrote
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: hundreds and hundreds of letters saying the same thing. We
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: know this is true. It's on the historical record from
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: her correspondence. And she needed the co sign of her uncle,
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: Peter the Great, the guy with a terrible sense of humor,
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: and he would not green light a one of them. Uh.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: He kept saying, you know, we can, we can freestyle
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: on this part, but like I'm sure in some cases
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: he had something that he had something to say that
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: he thought was funny. You know. He would be like, oh,
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: that guy's elbows look like you know, they look like
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: what's an animal in Russia. I don't really know much
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: about Russian bears. He'd be like, is elbows looked like
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: bear elbows? Nope, And she would be like, damn, I
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: gotta marry someone else now. Anyway, Eventually she she got
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: very bitter and uh, in no small way nihilistic. Um.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: The idea that is proposed by most historians is um,
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: it's the idea that this guy's if you turned her
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: into someone who just didn't like seeing other people happy. Right,
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: So Frederick William was John Travolta in the scenario. Then
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: Peter the Great is whoever the ringleader bully was, you know,
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: carry which I think it was mean girls mainly, and
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: then them kind of just like goating their dumb boyfriends
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: along for the ride. If I'm not mistaken. The girl
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: with the hat, it's the girl with the hat is
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: Peter the Great. She's like the ring and all and
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: all the other guys are just like, we're allowed for this.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: But exactly so, at this point, Anna is descending into
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: full carry the rage territory um, where like you said, Ben,
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: she does not want to see happiness in anyone, especially
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: when it comes to romantic love. And this is this
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: is problematic, especially as someone that has or would you
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: continue to escalate in her power over others and her
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: ability to you know, exercise her will upon people in
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: her court. Uh. And that really happens when our boy
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: Peter the Great dies as well, um, leaving Anna to rule.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: Anna Ivanovna is now um the well, I guess the
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: Empress right of Russia. That so the man would be
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: a czar and she was the empress actually the title
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: that she had was Duchess of Courland, because if we
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: will recall, that was what Frederick Williams title was. Uh,
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: So she rolled under that title for twenty years until
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: seventeen thirty when she was summoned to the Russian Supreme
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: Privy Council. Hold the telephone, that's something people say, Yeah, well,
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: who knows have we even gotten there yet? Unclear' Gonna
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: end this definitely proactive to parter right now, um, and
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: then we'll be back uh in just a day or so.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: Right for the stunning and tragic conclusion to the story
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: of Vanna the Terrible. Yeah, which again is it an
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: unfair name? These answers will be revealed or at least
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: speculated upon in Part two of this story. Thanks as
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: always one and only Max Williams are super producer. Thanks
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: to Casey Pegraham, thanks to Gabe Lousier, Thanks to Jonathan Strickland,
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: who you may remember as the Twister. Uh, we're probably
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: gonna have him back on at the end of the year.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: He said that he couldn't come on today's episode because
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: it was still too soon, which I don't know what
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: he means by that. It's okay it's okay. We we
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: were a big fan of riddles. Here are radiculous riddles.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: But it's never too soon to hang out with you guys.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: It's always exactly the right time. And looking forward to
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: doing it again very soon. I see you next time. Books.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: your favorite shows.