Circumcision in Russia,
Practices of the Royals
& Circumcision in the old Soviet Republics
So many of our/my prejudices have been challenged recently - such as "Germans don't like circumcision" - that it seems wrong to mention another: "Slavs don't like circumcision". Still, there is some evidence to support this: the Pagan rulers of old Russia sent ambassadors to enquire about the great monotheist religions, and one reason for their ultimate conversion to Orthodoxy was that it did not require circumcision (the others being that Christianity allowed the eating of pork and the consumption of alcohol).
The second cross-piece of the double cross of orthodoxy is a vestigial crescent, and represents the triumph of orthodoxy over Islam, which betrays and anti-Islamic prejudice still very apparent in Balkan politcs (Russia's clear preference for the Serbs and lack of respect for the Bosnians). I have always believed that these political views are in part explained by an underlying hatred/fear of circumcision.
Whatever about these theories, though, there are, no doubt countervailing arguments. And there is one point I would like further information on, if any circlister can oblige. I have read that Peter the Great of Russia was circumcised.
One is told that circumcision was widespread among European royalty. This most probably goes back to Stockmar's advice to have the Prince of Wales (future Edward the 7th) circ'd. One can see how the habit would have spread under Victoria's influence. It was said, for example, that the Prince of the Asturias's haemophilia was discovered when he was circ'd. But all this is much later than Peter the Great. Likewise, there is the story of the operation on Louis 16th of France "pour lui rendre la voix" but I am not sure this has ever been demonstrated to have been a proper circ (rather than dorsal slit or frenoplasty).
I can't tell if circumcision is on the increase in former USSR countries? Of course, if we compare with communist times, it increased. Especially in the Muslim republics of former USSR. Also some Jewish people have it done like returning to their cultural roots. But circumcision isn't part of a fashion or trend for now. In the communist period people thought that circumcision is something that Muslims or Jews did because of their ancient religion. But now the more people know that in the USA it's done for cosmetic and health reasons. But girls don't' insist that men here should be circumcised. Girls of course want to try circumcised cock, but don't insist.
Alex (Moscow, 2006)
I came across a reference to an article, many years ago as I perused the card file in the Chicago Public Library, concerning an article that appeared in Germany around the turn of the century (19th-20th). Apparently the military proposed that all recruits into the new imperial army were to be circumcised. The article or pamphlet was entitled: Muessen wir unsere Bueble beschneiden? Must we circumcize our little baby boys? So there was apparently a movement in Imperial Germany to encourage circumcision almost 100 years ago. I wonder if Kaiser 'Bill' Wilhelm II of World War I infamy was cut. His mother was the sister of Edward VII, both being Queen Victoria's children, and she apparently insisted on the circumcision of her children and she is, therefore, the source of the PA, the Prince Albert ring, now much affected by a certain gay circle of piercing afficionados.
Prince Albert, her consort, apparently refused to submit to circumcision but rather prefered the ring to keep his foreskin continually retracted for the approval of his much aroused wife. It appears that circumcision was not uncommon among the royals of Europe. The uncle of the present King of Spain, Juan Carlos, was discovered to be hemophiliac when he was circumcised.. I wonder if this was also not the case with the Tsarevitch Alexei, son of Nicholas II, the last Romanov. I understand that the at least one of the Danish royal princes, George, a twin, and married to a close relative of the Queen Mother Elizabeth is cut.
The question of circumcision in Russia (mostly the old Soviet Union) came up a while ago and the info that emerged was that while Russian Jews were often not circumcised they tended to live in European Russia, where the central rule was very strong. In Central Asia the custom still continued without interuption since they were that bit more remote from central authority.
Missionary Muslims Find Albania to Be Fertile Ground
James Drake, Special to The Christian Science Monitor
TIRANA, ALBANIA --
"All-aaaaah Aaak-bar!"
It's early Friday morning rush hour in the Albanian capital of Tirana, and from the top of the minaret adjoining the downtown 18th-century Ethem Begmosque, a muezzin is summoning the faithful to prayer.
Nominally, at least, some two-thirds of Albania's 3.4 million people are Muslim, a legacy of 400 years of Turkish occupation that ended in 1912. But during 45 years of post-World War II state atheism, whole generations of Albanians grew up knowing little about the faith of their forefathers. Now, Muslim leaders report a mood of spiritual reawakening.
"On Fridays and holy days, the main Tirana mosques are full," exults HafizSabri Koci, chairman of the Muslim Committee in Albania, the country's ruling Islamic body. "It's like a small revolution."
But not a revolution from within. When the Communist regime finally fell in1991, missionaries from fundamentalist Islamic states such as Iran, Libya, and Saudi Arabia were quick to come calling. And the message they brought to Europe's poorest nation is making some people very anxious.
A major bulwark of resistance to Islamic expansion disappeared when thegovernment collapsed this spring following the failure of fraudulent pyramid investment schemes. Before the crisis erupted, official institutions had worked to dampen over-ardent evangelism.
"I have to emphasize that most Albanians who go to mosque obey the law and are good citizens. Islam offers them moral and spiritual values [which] help them face the hardship of their lives," explains Foreign Ministry spokesman Itland Biçprendi.
But he is concerned that - unlike the many Christian religious revivalists active in Albania - the Islamic activists see a religious state as their ultimate goal.
That's not something Albania's more-radical born-again Muslims would dispute. "We believe there should be no difference between religious law and the laws of parliament. The laws laid down by the Prophet [Muhammad] cover all aspects of our daily lives," insists Nexhmedin Kahrimani, an 11th-grader at the Tirana Muslim High School for Boys. After having been shut down for half a century, the school reopened two years ago due to generous sponsorship from Qatar, one of the Gulf states.
As one of his school's star pupils, Nexhmedin has already received offers ofscholarships to study engineering in Turkey and Malaysia when he graduates -well worth the circumcision he had to endure in order to gain entrance to the academy, he says.
Others are less enthusiastic. The Albanian Helsinki Human Rights Committee has sharply criticized the activities of some Arab educational foundations in Albania, alleging they are bribing poor parents with money and "brainwashing" their children with religious fervor.
In the central Albanian countryside, Alb-Iran, a nonprofit foundation funded by donations from the Tehran government and Iranian businessmen, has established more than 100 farming cooperatives, providing modern machinery and dispensing advice about effective marketing, crop rotation, and disease-resistant strains of seed. But cynics point out that in addition to tractors and combine harvesters, each Alb-Iran co-op has also received abrand new mosque.
Convert to Islam and Come to Moscow for Circumcision.
Chechnya Query Incenses Putin
Tirade Launched At Islamic Rebels
By Robert Wielaard
Associated Press
Wednesday, November 13, 2002; Page A19
BRUSSELS, Nov. 12 -- A French reporter who questioned the Kremlin's war in
Chechnya provoked an angry outburst Monday from Russian President Vladimir Putin,
who challenged him to convert to Islam and come to Moscow for circumcision.
During a news conference following the European Union summit, Putin also said Chechen rebels wanted to kill all non-Muslims and establish an Islamic state in Russia. Putin became agitated after a reporter from the French newspaper Le Monde questioned his troops' use of heavy weaponry against civilians in the war in Chechnya, a predominantly Muslim Russian republic.
"If you want to become an Islamic radical and have yourself circumcised, I invite you to come to Moscow," Putin said. "I would recommend that he who does the surgery does it so you'll have nothing growing back afterward," he added. Circumcision is a tenet of Islam for all males.
Because of poor interpretation, Putin's remarks were not immediately understood by either the 450 journalists present at the news conference Monday or by senior EU officials. The Russian president brought his own interpreters, but even the native Russian speakers were unable to keep pace with Putin's rapid-fire delivery. The Associated Press today translated an audiotape from the news conference.
A spokesman for the EU, Jonathan Faull, who was not at the news conference, said if reports of Putin's remarks were true, they were "entirely inappropriate." Gunnar Wiegand, another EU spokesman, said Putin used "decidedly less robust" language when speaking with EU leaders about the Chechen war and human rights there.
The translation made clear, however, that Putin was issuing a broadside against the Chechen rebels. "They talk about setting up a worldwide [Islamic state] and the need to kill Americans and their allies," Putin said. "They talk about the need to kill all . . . non-Muslims, or 'crusaders,' as they put it. If you are a Christian, you are in danger. "If you decided to abandon your faith and become an atheist, you also are to be liquidated according to their concept. You are in danger if you decide to become a Muslim. It is not going to save you anyway because they believe traditional Islam is hostile to their goals."
In Moscow, the daily newspaper Kommersant said the EU-Russia summit "ended in a serious scandal" because of Putin's comments, which Kremlin aides said were made in response to a "provocative question." Gazeta.ru, a leading online publication in Moscow, quoted unidentified Putin aides as saying the president was tired and angry after being peppered with questions about Chechnya.
Russian teenager converts to Islam
According to KIBRIS (1.11.95), a Russian teenager, Viladik Nelubia, 15, in a religious ceremony in occupied Kyrenia adopted Islam as his new faith and as a necessary condition for a believer in Islam he had a circumcision. He also changed his name into Huseyin.
To this effect, his mother Nika Nelubina placed an announcement in the paper. Huseyin (Viladik) claimed that his father had passed away, that he is living with his mother and will continue to live in the occupied area and that he wanted to serve in the occupation army. (MY)
The Czarevich Alexei Romanov of Russia was almost certainly NOT circumcised. Every bump, scratch, cough, nose drip and other royal irritation such as rashes was documented in Alexandra's tedious diaries and letters. His baptism is described by more than one member of the Imperial family but no circumcision; it is unlikely that any male Romanov was ever circumcised, given the general Russian aversion to it. To this day ethnic Turks in Bulgaria can run afoul of the police for performing circs and find it hard to get exit visas to take teenage boys to Turkey or to get lay circumcisers to come to the country, such is the influence of the Orthodox church. Given that Alexandra embrace Orthodoxy with such fervor (remember that she was a very provincial German princess) it is unlikely she even knew much if anything about circumcision.
I have worked for many years with Soviet/now Russian Merchant Marine and Naval officers; NOT ONE has been circumcised! They regard the practice as grotesque and something done only by Moslems. The great Chekov who was also a doctor wrote graphic descriptions in letters of his and his older two brothers' sex lives and of the sexual complaints of patients, but there is no mention of circumcision.
A friend who is a museum curator describes helping to mount a large exhibit of historic costume/clothing. Inside the fashionable tight pants from as early as the 1700s were rings sewn into the left or right leg; these frequently had ribbon attached. The man put on his pants and adjusted his penis and balls and then secured them by joining the ribbon to a ring, which is believed by these experts to have been a frenulum piercing rather than what we consider a PA. This made it more convenient to urinate, especially when we consider that they also wore cumbersome linen under drawers. So clearly the ring was known 200 years before Albert. Was Albert circumcised? Probably not; Victoria took up with a servant after Albert's death, a man who would not likely have been circumcised in late 19th century England.
Cheers (or na zdarovia!)
ALFRED
Russian Infant Circumcision in Moscow gets good results
