Royalotta
Commoner
- Joined
- Aug 10, 2015
- Messages
- 49
- City
- London
- Country
- United Kingdom
Grand-Duchess Maria Vladmirovna has no any position in Russia. That first. Secondly, it is not true that a Sovereign has no opinion. In a modern constitutional system the opinion of the King is the opinion of the Government, and vice-versa.
When King Willem-Alexander wanted to go to Russia, to visit the Olympic Games of Sotchi, this was met with criticism: a substantial part of Parliament wanted the King to boycott Russia. But he was more than backed: the Prime Minister even joined the King on this trip, with that taking the whole politcal responsibility for this exercise.
When Queen Margrethe II urges action against climate change, then this is not an impartiality because there are also people who claim that the whole climate change thing is completely nonsense. But by speaking out for action, Queen Margrethe is 100% in line with the Danish Government which has exactly the same opinion.
So, back to Maria Vladimirovna. When she sees Crimea as part of Russia, she is not only voicing an opinion which is shared by almost all Russians, it is also the opinion of the Russian Government. Was Maria Vladimirovna the Tsarina and the Russian Government acted the same as they did the last two years, then Tsarina Maria had not sounded differently. Stronger even: she would have made three crosses, kneeled down and thanked the Lord Almighty for Crimea and Sebastopol back into the arms of Mother Russia! She would have handed high decorations to "meritorious" soldiers of the "glorious" armed forces! What else do we expect???
This isn't quite true. Queen Margrethe's discussions on things like climate change do not just happen to coincide with the position of her government. She is told what to say by her government. In a similar way, if you look at the speeches given by Queen Elizabeth II in the 1980s, they'll be very different to those given in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Why? Because her governments change and sometimes, they can be poles apart politically. She couldn't deliver her speeches with any sincerity if we knew her true political feelings. For example, it's rumoured that the Queen did not care for Mrs Thatcher and yet we never saw the Queen issue an edict which said, "I oppose the poll tax" or "We must retain hereditary peers in the House of Lords" when Tony Blair was Prime Minister. Constitutional monarchs are told what to say and when to say it. There are opportunities for personal sentiment but they're never political. In this way, the monarchy can survive.
But Maria shows no intention of keeping quiet on overtly political issues. Whether she believes the annexation of the Crimea was a positive thing, whether she thinks that Putin is doing a good job, whether she believes the Russian people support him unconditionally; these are not opinions she should voice if she wants to be taken seriously as a future constitutional monarch in Russia. If anything, she's sounding more and more like an autocrat and Russia already has one of those, why should it need another?
Let us say that one day, Putin's reign comes to an end and he is replaced by someone very far removed from Putin's views. How could Maria carry out an official role when she has backed Putin so publicly? In this way, she proves that she simply isn't upto any kind of restored position of authority. If she wants to do private deals with Putin to get a palace or two back, good luck to her but any sincerity she once claimed is now as suspicious as her claim to the throne in the first place.
Perhaps it's a good thing she stands no chance of ever getting her hands on the Imperial Crown!