Red Fortress: History and Illusion in the Kremlin

by Catherine Merridale

  Icons, in Russian spirituality, are like mirrors. The saint is glimpsed in reverse perspective, the light is refracted; only in prayer, not in profane existence, can a person engage with the holy being beyond the painted board. It seems to me entirely fitting, then, that these recovered icons should be staring outwards from the Kremlin walls. Though they proclaim Russia’s unbroken nationhood, they do not invite the crowd in the street to look beyond the surface, let alone argue. Not every Russian cares, and few have time, these days, to bow before an icon, let alone reflect about the meaning of the past. But the images, in all their factory-fresh perfection, create a certain atmosphere, adding an extra splash of colour to a message that will have been absorbed, whether consciously or not, by almost every passer-by. Experts who work in the Kremlin have assured me, somewhat awkwardly, that the icons are real, but it would scarcely matter, while the present regime rules, if both eventually turned out to be elaborate fakes. People will see what they are meant to see, and they believe because it suits them to, especially in a country where opposition is often dangerous. Less than a century ago, the grandparents of the Muscovites who are now crossing themselves beneath the rediscovered icons were burning equally prestigious ones in a fervour of the opposite belief. Whether its masters rule an effective or corrupt state, a progressive or reactionary one, whether it is a leader of the world or inward-looking and isolationist, the Kremlin is proclaimed to be as changeless as the icon-painter’s gold.

  Notes

  LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

  AHR

  American Historical Review

  AI

  Akty istoricheskie, sobrannye i izdannye Arkheograficheskoiu komissiei, 5 volumes (St Petersburg, 1841–2)

  CHR

  Cambridge History of Russia. Vol. 1 From Early Rus’ to 1689, ed. Maureen Perrie (Cambridge, 2006); vol. 2 Imperial Russia 1689–1917, ed. Dominic Lieven (Cambridge, 2008)

  DAI

  Dopol’neniia k aktam istoricheskim, sobrannym i izdannym Arkheograficheskoiu komissiei, 12 volumes (St Petersburg, 1846–75)

  GARF

  Archive of the Russian Federation

  JbFGO

  Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas

  JMH

  Journal of Modern History

  Materialy i issledovaniia

  Federal’noe gosudarstvennoe uchrezhdenie ‘Gosudarstvennyi istoriko-kul’turnyi muzei-zapovednik “Moskovskii Kreml”’, Materialy i issledovaniia, 20 volumes to date (Moscow, 1973–)

  PSRL

  Pol’noe Sobranie Russkikh Letopisei, multiple volumes of Russian chronicles (reprinted Moscow, 1965 and 1997)

  PSZ

  Pol’noe sobranie zakonov Rossiiskoi Imperii s 1649 goda, 46 volumes (St Petersburg, 1830)

  RGADA

  Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts

  RGASPI

  Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History

  RGIA

  Russian State Historical Archive

  SEER

  Slavonic and East European Review

  SIRIO

  Sbornik Imperatorskago Russkago Istoricheskago Obshchestva, 148 volumes (St Petersburg, 1867–1916)

  INTRODUCTION

  1. Walter Benjamin, ‘Moscow’, in Reflections, Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writings, ed. Peter Demetz (New York, 1978), pp. 97–100.

  2. Marquis de Custine, Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia, Foreword by Daniel J. Boorstin, Introduction by George F. Kennan (New York, 1989), pp. 412–14.

  3. Mark Frankland, The Sixth Continent: Russia and the Making of Mikhail Gorbachev (London, 1987), p. 5.

  4. Interview with K. A. (Tony) Bishop, CMG, OBE, 6 July 2006.

  5. For evidence of this, it is hard to do better than the outpourings that accom panied the 1997 celebrations of Moscow’s 850th jubilee. See, for example, Petr Palamarchuk, ‘Moskva kak printsip’, Moskva, 6 (June 1997), pp. 3–7.

  6. On the textbooks and misuse of history, see the articles by Liudmila Rybina and Iurii Afanas’ev in Novaia Gazeta, 24 September 2007.

  7. The Moscovia of Antonio Possevino, SJ, trans. Hugh F. Graham (Pittsburg, Pa., 1977), pp. 7 and 11.

  8. The literature on such foreign travellers is huge. For a bibliography, see Marshall Poe, Foreign Descriptions of Muscovy: An Analytic Bibliography of Primary and Secondary Sources (Columbus, Ohio, 1995).

  9. To name two figures from opposite political poles, I could cite the Italian socialist Antonio Gramsci, who wrote despairing comments on the feeble condition of civil society in Russia (Prison Notebooks, eds. G. Hoare and G. Nowell-Smith (London, 1971), p. 238), and the Polish-American historian Richard Pipes, whose classic Russia Under the Old Regime (New York, 1974) reads like a diatribe against this state.

  10. Walter Laqueur, The Long Road to Freedom (London, 1989) p. 8.

  11. David Satter, It Was a Long Time Ago, and It Never Happened Anyway (New Haven, Conn. and London, 2011), p. 228.

  12. Dmitry Shlapentokh, ‘Russian history and the ideology of Putin’s regime through the window of contemporary movies’, Russian History, 36 (2009), pp. 279 and 285.

  13. James H. Billington, The Icon and the Axe: An Interpretive History of Russian Culture (New York, 1970), p. 62.

  I FOUNDATION STONES

  1. For a video introduction to the icon by the museum itself, see http://video.yandex.ru/users/queenksu/view/26/

  2. V. Rodionov, ed., The Tretyakov Gallery Guide, 4th English edn (Moscow, 2006), p. 30.

  3. T. N. Nikol’skaia, Zemlia Viatichei: K istorii naseleniia basseina verkhnei i srednei Oki v IX–XIII vv (Moscow, 1981), p. 177; see also T. D. Panova, ‘Istoriia ukreplenii srednevekovoi Moskvy XII–XIV vekov’, in Materialy i issledovaniia, vol. XV, pp. 86–93. For a discussion by one of the archaeologists involved, see M. G. Rabinovich, ‘O nachal’nom periode istorii Moskvy’, Voprosy istorii, 1 (1956), pp. 125–9.

  4. Nikol’skaia, Zemlia Viatichei, pp. 244–7.

  5. The armies were those of Mikhail Iurevich and the Rostislavovich princes Iaropolk and Mstislav. I. E. Zabelin, Istoriia goroda Moskvy (Moscow, 1904; repr. 2005), p. 38.

  6. For an entertaining review of the possible origins of the word, see Zabelin, Istoriia goroda Moskvy, pp. 51–5.

  7. The Viatichi paid tribute to the Khazar khaganate by the tenth century, but remained almost independent until the reign of Yury Dolgoruky in the twelfth. Nikol’skaia, Zemlia Viatichei, p. 12.

  8. See Janet Martin, Treasure of the Land of Darkness: The Fur Trade and its Significance for Medieval Russia (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 5–34; the routes also fascinated Zabelin (Istoriia goroda Moskvy, p. 38) and they were explored by the archaeological team that prepared the ground for the Moscow metro in the 1930s. Po trasse pervoi ocheredi Moskovskogo metropolitena imeni L. M. Kaganovicha (Leningrad, 1936), pp. 12–13.

  9. Zabelin, Istoriia goroda Moskvy, p. 33. The date on the coins was 862. For more on the settlement itself, which had developed into a small town by the twelfth century, see Rabinovich, ‘O nachal’nom periode’, pp. 126–8.

  10. Al-Mukadassi, cited in Martin, Treasure, p. 12.

  11. Omeljan Pritsak, The Origin of Rus (Cambridge, Mass., 1981), p. 23.

  12. The debate was already raging in the eighteenth century. See Pritsak, Origin, pp. 3–4.

  13. The evidence is reviewed in Simon Franklin and Jonathan Shepard, The Emergence of Rus, 750–1200 (London and New York, 1996), pp. 38–9.

  14. Martin, Treasure, p. 46.

  15. Dmitri Obolensky, The Byzantine Commonwealth (London, 1971), pp. 181–5.

  16. The tale appears in the Russian Primary Chronicle; see Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church (London, 1997), p. 264.

  17. For more discussion, see Franklin and Shepard, Emergence of Rus, pp. 160–64.

  18. For the state and the Christian package, see Michael Cherniavsky, Tsar and People: Studies in Russian Myths (New Haven, Conn. and London, 1961), p. 33.

  19. Though the Riurik legend is very old, Donald Ostrowski
dates the first political prominence of the idea to the fourteenth century. See Sergei Bogatyrev, ‘Micro-periodization and dynasticism: was there a divide in the reign of Ivan the Terrible?’, Slavic Review, 69, 2 (Summer 2010), p. 406.

  20. In the eastern church at least, Rome was considered on an equal footing to the other four, which were Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem. On the patriarchate, see John Meyendorff, Byzantium and the Rise of Russia: A Study of Byzantino-Russian Relations in the Fourteenth Century (Cambridge, 1981), p. 30.

  21. Christian Raffensperger, cited in Bogatyrev, ‘Micro-periodization’, p. 406.

  22. The principles are described by Nancy Shields Kollmann, Kinship and Politics: The Making of the Muscovite Political System, 1345–1547 (Stanford, Calif., 1987), p. 68.

  23. The Meeting of Liubech. See Franklin and Shepard, Emergence of Rus, pp. 265–6.

  24. Ellen S. Hurwitz, Prince Andrej Bogoljubskij: The Man and the Myth (Firenze, 1980), p. 50.

  25. The craftsmen came from ‘every land’; in practice probably modern Germany, the Baltic and the principality of Galich. See Cyril Mango, Byzantine Architecture (New York, 1976), pp. 332–3.

  26. David B. Miller, ‘Monumental building as an indicator of economic trends in northern Rus’ in the late Kievan and Mongol periods, 1138–1462’, AHR, 94 (1989), p. 367.

  27. Hurwitz, Bogoljubskij, pp. 50–51; see also Dmitry Shvidkovsky, Russian Architecture and the West (New Haven, Conn. and London, 2007), p. 36; William Craft Brumfield, A History of Russian Architecture (Cambridge, 1997), p. 46. Very little of the original carving survived.

  28. Hurwitz, Bogoljubskij, p. 20.

  29. On Bogoliubovo, see Brumfield, Russian Architecture, p. 47; the Church of the Intercession on the Nerl was built to celebrate one of Andrei’s victories over the Bulgars.

  30. Obolensky, Byzantine Commonwealth, p. 355.

  31. On the Vladimir Virgin, see A. I. Anisimov, Vladimirskaia ikona Bozhiei Materi (Prague, 1928) and the review of legends in David B. Miller, ‘Legends of the icon of Our Lady of Vladimir: a study of the development of Muscovite national consciousness’, Speculum, 43, 4 (October 1968), pp. 657–70.

  32. Ware, Orthodox Church, p. 60.

  33. Account in PSRL, vol. 1, ss. 460–61.

  34. John Fennell, The Crisis of Medieval Russia, 1200–1304 (London, 1983), p. 84.

  35. D. G. Ostrowski, Muscovy and the Mongols: Cross-Cultural Influences on the Steppe Frontier (Cambridge, 1998), p. 44.

  36. See Janet Martin, Medieval Russia, 980–1584 (Cambridge, 2007), pp. 170–71.

  37. On Moscow’s insignificance, and the bar to Daniilovich succession, see Martin, Medieval Russia, p. 193.

  38. G. A. Fyodorov-Davydov, The Culture of Golden Horde Cities (Oxford, 1984), p. 10.

  39. A Fleming, William of Rubruck, passed through Batu’s own capital and also Karakorum in 1253–5. His account is printed in The Journey of William of Rubruck to the Eastern Parts of the World, 1253–55, as narrated by himself. With two accounts of the earlier journey of John of Pian de Carpine, translated from the Latin, and edited, with an introductory notice, by W. W. Rockhill (London, 1900).

  40. Batu’s original Sarai was later refounded on a new site closer to contemporary Volgograd; few sources explain which of the two is being described.

  41. Fyodorov-Davydov, Golden Horde, p. 220.

  42. Fyodorov-Davydov, Golden Horde, p. 16, citing Ibn-Battuta and al-Omari.

  43. A tradition remarked upon by Marco Polo. See Fyodorov-Davydov, Golden Horde, pp. 31–2.

  44. For the date when Ivan became Grand Prince, see John Fennell, The Emergence of Moscow, 1304–1359 (London, 1968), pp. 111–19. On the bell, see PSRL, vol. 10, s. 211.

  45. Trinity chronicle, cited in Meyendorff, Byzantium, p. 157.

  46. For the boyars, see PSRL, vol. 10, s. 208 (referring to the exodus of 1338).

  47. N. S. Borisov, ‘Moskovskie kniaz’ia i russkie mitropolity XIV veka’, Voprosy istorii, 8 (1986), p. 35.

  48. For a summary, see Martin, Medieval Russia, p. 189.

  49. For two discussions, see Materialy i issledovaniia, vol. XV, and in particular pp. 44–5 (A. N. Kirpichnikov, ‘Kremli Rossii i ikh izuchenie’) and pp. 60–61 (V. B. Silina, ‘Nazvaniia drevnerusskikh krepostnykh sooruzhenii’).

  50. E. I. Smirnova, Materialy i issledovaniia, vol. XIV, p. 34.

  51. On the size of castles elsewhere in Europe, see Robert Bartlett, The Making of Europe (London, 1993), especially p. 66.

  52. Nancy Shields Kollmann gives a figure of six families in 1371. See her table in Kinship and Politics, p. 76.

  53. Archaeological studies of the Kremlin have added a good deal of new information to the outlines presented by Zabelin (Istoriia goroda Moskvy) and his successor, S. P. Bartenev, Moskovskii kreml’ v starinu i teper’, 2 vols. (St Petersburg, 1912 and 1918). Among the pioneering works, see Rabinovich, ‘O nachal’nom periode’, and also I. L. Buseva-Davydova, Khramy Moskovskogo Kremlia (Moscow, 1997).

  54. Buseva-Davydova, Khramy, p. 230.

  55. The archaeological evidence for an older building on the same site is presented in N. S. Sheliapina, ‘Arkheologicheskie issledovaniia v uspenskom sobore’, Materialy i issledovaniia, vol. I, pp. 54–63.

  56. On this, see D. Ostrowski, ‘Why did the Metropolitan move from Kiev to Vladimir in the thirteenth century?’, in B. Gasparov and O. Raevsky-Hughes, eds., Christianity and the Eastern Slavs, vol. 1 (Berkeley and Oxford, 1993).

  57. For a list of Peter’s political moves, see John Fennell, A History of the Russian Church to 1448 (London, 1995), p. 135.

  58. Martin, Medieval Russia, p. 391; Meyendorff, Byzantium, p. 151; Borisov, ‘Moskovskie kniaz’ia’, p. 34. All argue against the view that Peter was merely an ally of Moscow.

  59. Meyendorff, Byzantium, p. 150.

  60. Fennell, Russian Church, p. 220.

  61. The source was his successor, Kiprian. Cited in G. M. Prokhorov, Povest’ o Mitiae: Rus’ i Vizantiia v epokhu Kulikovskoi bitvy (Leningrad, 1978), pp. 310–11.

  62. Again, there is no firm basis for saying that he planned this long in advance. Martin, Medieval Russia, p. 391.

  63. Peter’s status was recognized in 1339. Meyendorff, Byzantium, p. 156.

  64. For a history of this building while it was extant, see I. Snegirev, Spas na Boru v Moskovskom Kremle (Moscow, 1865), pp. 1–5.

  65. Borisov, ‘Moskovskie kniaz’ia’, p. 38.

  66. Zabelin, Istoriia goroda Moskvy, p. 3; see also Buseva-Davydova, Khramy, p. 15 and Miller, ‘Monumental building’, pp. 360–90. Miller (p. 375) suggests that Kalita’s cathedral occupied no more than 226 square metres, compared with 1,183 square metres for Vladimir’s equivalent.

  67. V. P. Vygolov, Arkhitektura Moskovskoi Rusi serediny XV veka (Moscow, 1985), p. 42; there is some doubt about the date of the monastery’s original foundation.

  68. Though white stone anywhere in Moscow is often known as Myachkovo stone, after the village where large quantities were later quarried, the lime-stone for Kalita’s churches and Donskoi’s white walls came from the immediate region of Moscow. See S. O. Shmidt, ed., Moskva: Entsiklopediia (Moscow, 1997), p. 111.

  69. On the ‘epic project’ itself, see Miller, ‘Monumental building’, pp. 376–9 and Sergei Bogatyrev, The Sovereign and His Counsellors: Ritualised Consultations in Muscovite Political Culture (Helsinki, 2000), pp. 104–5.

  70. See A. A. Gorskii, Moskva i Orda (Moscow, 2005), p. 67.

  71. For Donskoi’s flight, see Gorskii, Moskva, p. 104.

  72. Zabelin, Istoriia goroda Moskvy, pp. 95–6.

  73. Martin, Medieval Russia, p. 190.

  2 RENAISSANCE

  1. Spiro Kostof, A History of Architecture: Settings and Rituals (New York, 1985), p. 5.

  2. Geoffrey Parker, ‘The “Military Revolution”, 1560–1660 – a myth?’, JMH, 48, 2 (June 1976), esp. pp. 203–6.

  3. Nikolai Karamzin, ‘Zapiski o moskovskikh dostopamiatnostiakh’, cit
ed in I. Kondrat’ev, Sedaia starina Moskvy, 5th edn (Moscow, 2006), p. 34. Kondrat’ev’s commentary includes more prose and poetry along these lines.

  4. The way the Mongols’ influence on Muscovy was framed in the tale was itself the product of what one historian has recently described as the church’s ‘full-blown anti-Tatar ideology’. See D. G. Ostrowski, Muscovy and the Mongols: Cross-Cultural Influences on the Steppe Frontier (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 139–40.

  5. The most famous are by N. S. Shustov (1862) and Aleksei Kivshenko (1880). For a nationalist reading of Moscow’s ascendancy, see I. E. Zabelin, Istoriia goroda Moskvy (Moscow, 1904; repr. 2005), pp. 127–8; for an assessment of the level of tribute paid in this later period, see Michel Roublev, ‘The Mongol tribute’, in M. Cherniavsky, ed., The Structure of Russian History (New York, 1970), pp. 29–64.

  6. Kostof, History of Architecture, p. 418.

  7. P. V. Sytin, Istoriia planirovki i zastroiki Moskvy, vol. 1 (Moscow, 1950), p. 46.

  8. Sergei Bogatyrev, The Sovereign and His Counsellors: Ritualised Consultations in Muscovite Political Culture (Helsinki, 2000), p. 86. The point is also made by Marshall Poe, The Russian Moment in World History (Princeton, 2003), p. 36.