Learning New Stuff

The other day I was listening to The Last Movie Podcast, which is a spin-off from TANIS. These podcasts like to mix real with fiction, which is awesome because I enjoy trying to figure out which is which. The one the other day was about how Nic & MK stumble upon a Doukhobor camp. MK mentions the Freedomites, which is a faction of the Doukhobors. The story about them is pretty crazy and I feel like this is something like I would have come across.

The Doukhobors were this odd Christian sect who left the Russian Empire in the late 1800s. They were against the Orthodox Church because of idols and the priesthood. Yet they also did not just follow the Bible, they felt it was not enough. Czar Nicholas I wanted them to assimilate and tried to force them into the military. He decided to resettle the Doukhobors across the Transcaucasia (think Georgia) region. Eventually they were mistreated enough that the rest of the world objected and the Czar allowed them to emigrate to Canada.

Here is where it gets weird. The Doukhobors had a faction within them (or tangentially related) called the Sons of Freedom (or Freedomites). The Freedomites (and I think to a lesser extent the Doukhobors) had a problem with swearing allegiance to the Czar, and then later to the Queen of England (since Canada is you know, part of the United Kingdom). The Freedomites would use arson to protest against the Canadian government and against materialism. They also committed bombings and attacks…in the nude. They are definitely a weird group.

This made me curious about Georgia…no, not the state, but the actual country. I know very little about it. One of the only things I remember is about how Genghis Khan’s army (actually like half of his army led by one of his generals) showed up in Georgia, who had a pretty impressive military during the Middle Ages and the Mongols absolutely eviscerated them. They took down like 60,000 Georgian & Armenian soldiers.

For example, when did Georgia become part of Russia? Well it turns out that it became a protectorate of Russia in the 1700s, but that did not mean the Russians would help the Georgians when the Persians attacked the capital, Tbilisi. Wait! Persia is still around in 1800? I mean, I know that the people of Iran refer to themselves as Persians, but did that region still call itself Persia that recently?

Huh, well I will be damned. I know so little about the region, and it makes sense that there was a period when the Russian Empire was rising, the Persians were waning in power. There were clashes over places like Georgia, Azerbaijan, and the rest of those countries you cannot remember.

And this is what happens to me. I fall down a rabbit hole. I spend a few hours reading about the invasion of Azerbaijan by Agha Mohammad Khan. Am I the only person who does this stuff?