Kerensky, Nicholas

I admit to a certain fascination with Nicholas Kerensky, not as an historical figure, but as a man. What was it like for him as a child, to deny his heritage under the shadow of Amaris' cutthroats? How did he deal with people looking to his father as a god? What force drove him to develop the whole of Clan culture?

That Aleksandr Kerensky singlehandedly preserved the Star League is a fact. That he was revered as a god is also a fact; one needs only look through The Remembrance to recognize that. However, what is also plain is that Nicholas believed in his father's superiority just as fervently. It  must have been hard for him to live in the shadow of such a  man. Most boys feel the need to impress their fathers. But how could a boy impress someone like Aleksandr Kerensky, who had accomplished more than any other man in history? It is amazing that Nicholas Kerensky managed to move out of the shadow cast by his father to cast his own upon the face of history. At what personal cost was he able to do this?

I am disturbed by another, darker side to Nicholas Kerensky. He was raised during the Amaris occupation of the Hegemony, but in the fragments of his personal writings I have reviewed, Nicholas Kerensky never does more than hint at the atrocities he witnessed on Terra. These images of brutality, torture, and calamity must have scarred the mind of the young boy. Though I am certainly no psychiatrist, the absence of any record of these experiences leads me to believe that Nicholas Kerensky repressed what he saw.

During the first chaotic years on the Pentagon worlds, Nicholas contracted the same brain fever that killed his mother. For two weeks, he burned with an illness known to cause extensive brain damage in most of its victims, yet he survived unscathed. Given everything he was exposed to in his life, the Clans and the new society devised by Nicholas Kerensky appear to be inspired attempts on his part to forever banish the demons of the society that had so traumatized his life. The trials by combat are honorable and do not allow "ganging up" on an enemy, reflecting Nicholas' bitterness over how DeChevilier and his brother Andery had died. There is no way of knowing if the fever damaged his brain, no way to tell how much of what he created was genius and how much was madness.

As I write this report, I continue to wonder if Nicholas Kerensky was the genius that the Clansmen worship or a raving madman tormented by a life that offered no escape. I doubt that we will ever know the truth. One thing is clear, however. Because Nicholas Kerensky created the Clans, every person in the Inner Sphere may someday curse his name.

-From the journal of Anastasius Focht, 22 December

 

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