Death on the Nevskii Pros

by David Dickinson

  ‘My father is very competitive. You will see what I mean when you meet him. “Why should this useless family of Stroganov have a dish named after them”, he said, “when they have not done anything for a hundred years except ride their horses and sleep with other people’s wives and drink their vodka? We have done lots of things. We are rich. Why should there not be a Veal Shaporov or something like that?”’

  The young man shook his head. ‘It’s all passed now, the obsession for a recipe that would bear the family name. But for a while it was bad, very bad. We had new cooks coming all the time as the old ones whose new recipes did not find favour were thrown out. I was quite young, so I missed out on most of these strange dishes. There was roast chicken with rhubarb and peaches, I remember. Caviar with chestnut and dill sauce. Christ!’

  The marchers were intending to meet in Palace Square at two o’clock. In the side streets down below Powerscourt could see groups of soldiers, rubbing their hands together to keep warm, rifles slung across their backs. Some distance away, over by the Admiralty, he could see the cavalry trotting slowly along in perfect formation. What this city needs today, he said to himself, is not soldiers or cavalry but a properly trained detachment of the Metropolitan Police, led by officers with experience in controlling large crowds.

  Mikhail was glancing through a roughly printed paper.

  ‘They’ve written a proclamation, gentlemen, a letter to the Tsar. Would you like to hear some of it?’

  Dim memories of great petitions in English history floated across Powerscourt’s brain. The Chartists, hadn’t they marched to London bringing some great petition with innumerable signatures asking for reform? Hadn’t there been a Petition of Right from the Lords and Commons to the King in 1628 that pointed the way to the English Civil War? Not a good omen for the Tsar, Powerscourt thought, King Charles the First in his impeccable white shirt being led to the scaffold outside the Banqueting House in Whitehall.

  ‘I’d love to hear it, Mikhail,’ he said, raising his binoculars to his eyes and staring out to the south.

  ‘“A Most Humble and Loyal Address of the Workers of St Petersburg Intended for Presentation to His Majesty on Sunday at two o’clock on the Winter Palace Square,”’ Mikhail began. ‘“Sire: We, the workers and inhabitants of St Petersburg, our wives, our children, and our aged, helpless parents, come to Thee, O Sire, to seek justice and protection. We are impoverished; we are oppressed, overburdened with excessive toil, contemptuously treated. We are not even recognized as human beings, but are treated like slaves who must suffer their bitter fate in silence and without complaint. And we have suffered, but even so we are being further (and further) pushed into the slough of poverty, arbitrariness and ignorance. We are suffocating in despotism and lawlessness. O Sire, we have no strength left, and our endurance is at an end. We have reached that frightful moment when death is better than the prolongation of our unbearable sufferings.”’

  Way off in the distance Powerscourt thought he could hear singing. He strained his head towards the noise but nothing was clear.

  ‘Christ,’ said de Chassiron, peering at the Russian characters over Mikhail’s shoulder, ‘I shouldn’t think anybody’s talked to the Tsar in that tone of voice in his entire life. I shouldn’t think even his bloody wife talks to him like that. What do you reckon, Mikhail?’

  ‘I’m sure you’re right, Mr de Chassiron,’ said Mikhail tactfully, his eyes skimming further sections of the proclamation. ‘I suspect the great ruler would be furious if he ever read this.’

  ‘I wonder if it isn’t always the same question,’ said Powerscourt. ‘Why this great march now? Why today? Are things much worse now than they were before? Much worse than the day before yesterday or last month? If marches and proclamations today, why not last year? Perhaps you’d better translate a bit more, Mikhail.’

  ‘“And so we have left our work,”’ Mikhail was frowning slightly as he spoke, as if the gap between his life and those described here was almost too great to cross, ‘“and told our employers that we will not go back to it until they have agreed to our demands. Our first request was that our employers discuss our needs with us. But they refused, they would not allow us the right to talk about our needs, because the law does not recognize such a right for us. Our requests also seemed to them to be illegal: reducing the hours of work to eight per day; drawing up a schedule of wage rates for our work along with us and with our agreement; investigating our disputes with the lower management of the factories; increasing the wages of unskilled workers and women to one rouble per day; abolishing overtime; treating us with attention and without abuse.”’

  Powerscourt thought you could have taken the language and the sentiments and applied them to any industrial dispute in any country in Europe. The poor and the working classes of Birmingham or Bologna or Berlin would feel at home with this proclamation. Truly, Peter the Great’s ambition to make Russia European had been realized, but not in ways he would have welcomed. Carried in by subversive pamphlets posted from overseas, brought in by hand by the more daring or least known revolutionaries, maybe even hidden in secret compartments or lining the bottoms of hollow suitcases in the trains and ferries that linked Russia to the West, the seditious thoughts of Europe had come to Peter’s capital as surely as the great columns and pilasters of his baroque architects two centuries before.

  ‘Look, Lord Powerscourt!’ Mikhail shouted. ‘Down there to the south! My God, there’s thousands of them!’

  Staring through his binoculars Powerscourt could see a great column, led by a priest in a long white cassock carrying a crucifix. He was surrounded by a primitive bodyguard. At the front, just behind the man of God, there marched two young men, one with a portrait of the Tsar, the other with a huge icon of the Virgin. Behind them was a large white banner with the words ‘Soldiers, do not shoot at the people!’ A new sound rang out to join the singing. The church bells were ringing to bless people on the way to meet their Tsar.

  ‘That’s the Russian National Anthem they’re singing, Lord Powerscourt.’ Up there on the roof Mikhail gave his own special version in an attractive tenor voice.

  ‘God save the noble Tsar!

  Long may he live, in power,

  In happiness,

  In peace to reign!

  Dread of his enemies,

  Faith’s sure defender,

  God save the Tsar!

  Faith’s sure defender,

  God save the Tsar!

  Faith’s sure defender,

  God save the Tsar!’

  ‘God knows why you have to repeat the last bit three times, gentlemen,’ Mikhail apologized for the reprise, ‘but people get very cross if you don’t.’

  ‘It’s not that different from our own National Anthem, actually,’ said Powerscourt. ‘God, faith, death to the enemies, all the usual stuff.’ De Chassiron was staring through his binoculars at the great column that snaked its way forward behind the priest. Many of them carried their children with them, cradling the little ones in their arms, the fathers holding them on their shoulders for a better view. The old were at the back, shuffling slowly along the ice. They walked with an air of great purpose, as if on this day they walked with destiny. Now Mikhail was tugging his arm again and pointing to the other side of the river. Another vast army from the Petrograd district was approaching the Troitsky Bridge that would bring them very close to Palace Square itself. Further east again the people of Vyborg, behind the Finland station, were also approaching the river. Powerscourt found himself wondering how many of the marchers could be locked up inside the Peter and Paul Fortress. The church bells were ringing out all over the city now for the hour of one o’clock, sixty short minutes before all the marchers were due to arrive in Palace Square. Down below them a group of students, dressed in black from head to foot, were advancing very slowly, taking it in turns to read from the proclamation.

  ‘My God, Powerscourt,’ Mikhail was bright with excitement, ‘they’re not mincing their words, the
people who wrote this proclamation. They’ve dropped all the weasel words and all the weasel sentiments. They’re asking the Tsar for the vote. The vote! People have asked for it before but not tens and tens of thousands of them, all heading for the Winter Palace!’ He began translating again:

  ‘“Let there be here capitalist and worker, official, priest, doctor, teacher: let them all, whoever they are, elect their representatives. Let everyone be equal and free in their right to vote, and to that end decree that the elections to the constituent assembly be carried out under universal, secret and equal suffrage.”’ Mikhail stared at Powerscourt. ‘Assemblies, votes for everyone, not just the rich, I reckon the Winter Palace will fall down if that petition gets anywhere near it.’

  Powerscourt was thinking that these Russian radicals were asking for a wider franchise than that applying in his own country, supposedly a cradle and mother of democracy.

  ‘Do we know anything about that priest? The one leading the column towards the Narva Gates?’ asked Powerscourt.

  De Chassiron laughed bitterly. ‘I have spent quite a lot of time investigating this man, Powerscourt. Forgive me, Mikhail, if I sound unsympathetic to some of your fellow countrymen. It does not apply to you or your family.’ He peered over the balcony, small sections of plaster falling off the parapet as he leant forward to inspect the students beneath. ‘The priest’s name is Gapon, Father Georgy Gapon.’ De Chassiron paused for a moment. ‘Let’s suppose you are the secret police, Powerscourt. You’re quite smart in this country if you’re a secret policeman. After all, some of the time they’re the only thing keeping the imperial family alive. Anyway, you look at all these new factories with their horrible working conditions and their pathetic rates of pay springing up in all the great cities. The lessons from abroad tell you that, at some point, the Russian worker will join a trade union like the German worker or the British worker or the French worker. Fine, you say. Then you have your brainwave. Wouldn’t it be much better, a senior secret policeman called Zubarov thought, if we controlled these trade unions, not the radicals or the revolutionaries or the undesirables. Let’s have Tsarist trade unions without any of the members knowing about it. So lots of these stooges are put in place all over the country briefed to run the trade unions the way the government tells them. Including Father Gapon here in St Petersburg. It’s as if the last French King had not just Danton on his payroll but St Just and possibly Robespierre as well. And what happens? The government gives these Gapons money to set up their union. After a while they go native, or they may go native. They join the opposition. I have reason to believe that our Father Gapon had a meeting with the authorities yesterday but I am sure his heart is with the marchers today. They say he wrote sections of the proclamation after all.’

  Down below the student reader changed. A deep bass voice now soared up into the sunlight.

  ‘What we need are, one: immediate release and return for all those who have suffered for their political and religious beliefs, for strikes and peasant disorders.’

  ‘Empty the Peter and Paul Fortress,’ Mikhail said to Powerscourt and de Chassiron in wonder, ‘bring all those exiles back from Siberia. It’s unbelievable.’

  ‘Two: immediate proclamation of liberty and inviolability of the person, freedom of speech, of the press. Three: universal and compulsory education at the state’s expense. Four: equality of all, without exception, before the law.’

  Centuries of European protest, of reform movements, of radical parties, of revolutions were distilled into a few pages of Russian and shouted through its capital on a sunny January day. Powerscourt wondered about the dead man, Roderick Martin. Was his death in some way connected to the events of today, or to the causes behind the events? Were there clues to his death down there on the streets, somewhere between the marchers and the military? The column approaching the bridge had burst into song.

  ‘Oh Holy Spirit, One in Power,

  With God who reigns in highest heaven,

  Come to our waiting souls this hour

  And let thy Heavenly aid be given.’

  Powerscourt thought to himself that the demonstrators were going to need all the help they could find, divine or human. He was beginning to feel very fearful about the outcome. The marchers were not going to turn round and go home. Would the authorities allow this vast army into Palace Square? He doubted it.

  ‘Thou art light of radiant glow

  And thou canst fill our souls with cheer.

  Come then thy glorious gift bestow

  And with thy presence bless us here.’

  They heard great shouts from behind them as Father Gapon worked his column into a religious fervour, using the same tactics he had employed at his mass rallies in the days before the march.

  ‘Do the police and soldiers,’ Gapon bellowed, ‘dare to stop us from passing, comrades?’

  ‘They do not dare!’ hundreds of voices shouted back.

  ‘Comrades, it is better for us to die for our demands than live as we have lived till now!’ Gapon again, at full volume.

  ‘Do you swear to die?’ he shouted at the faithful.

  ‘We swear!’ Hundreds and hundreds of people raised their hands and made the sign of the cross.

  The marchers were much closer now. Peering through their binoculars, the party on the roof could make out individual faces very clearly, their unkempt beards, their dirty hair, the rough clothes and even the calloused hands. Most were wearing white shirts. The colour red had been banned by the march organizers as too provocative. The children, sitting on their fathers’ shoulders, seemed to think they were as safe as they would be at home. Older children climbed up lamp posts for a better view and screamed encouragement to their parents. Father Gapon’s column was probably less than fifteen minutes from Palace Square, the column approaching the Troitsky Bridge a little longer.

  Then they heard a different sound. Powerscourt checked his watch. It was twenty past one. At first he did not know what it was but Mikhail had swung round to stare at the marchers from Putilov.

  ‘Oh, my God! Oh, my God!’ he said, grabbing Powerscourt by the arm and pointing dramatically to the south. He crossed himself three times. ‘It’s the cavalry, Lord Powerscourt! By the Narva Gates! They’re going to charge! The horses’ hooves make a different noise on the ice,’ he went on hopelessly, as if that was going to change what was just about to happen. ‘And look! Forming up behind them at the top end of Narva Square, lines and lines of infantry with their rifles at the ready. There’s going to be a massacre! God help them all! God help Russia!’

  Powerscourt remembered for the rest of his life the strange way the events seemed to unfold to his little party up there on the roof of the Stroganov Palace. He remembered people who had nearly drowned telling him about their lives passing before their eyes in slow motion. The initial charge of the cavalry, sabres drawn to slash at their victims, seemed to take about half an hour. He watched in horror through his binoculars as the dragoons hacked at the faces of the marchers. They seemed to prefer the uncovered flesh to the more obstinate resistance of greatcoats and trousers. Soon the blood, bright and fresh, was staining the ice red. Many were killed on the spot, their heads half hacked off, arms almost severed from their trunks, faces mutilated, necks severed. Some of the marchers turned and fled. Others carried on. Powerscourt thought he could just hear the voice of Father Gapon, shouting through the screams, ‘Do you swear to die?’ and the answer, still audible in the midday air, ‘We swear!’ For too many of them, those were the last words they said in their lives. Their last wish was granted. For the infantry, the first rank kneeling in the snow, fired two rounds over the heads of the marchers. Then they lowered their sights. Volley after volley crashed into the protesters. Powerscourt saw one little boy lifted off his father’s shoulders and flung back ten or fifteen feet into the crowd, blood cascading from a great wound in his chest. Powerscourt hoped he was dead. He felt his arm being pummelled and the word ‘bastards’ being shouted over and o
ver again as Mikhail Shaporov wept for the destruction of his city. The commander of the infantry was giving his orders as if he was on parade, ‘Reload! Take Aim! Fire!’ and every volley brought another round of death to the hallowed ground round the Narva Gates. They might have been built to commemorate Napoleon’s defeat in 1812. Today they were present to witness another, less glorious, moment of Russia’s history.

  Eventually, when Powerscourt thought he could bear it no longer, the firing ceased. The dead and the dying were lying all over the square. Battalions of crows began circling overhead as if they were unsure what sort of carrion might await them down below. The cavalry, not content with the shattered faces dying on the ground, pursued the marchers as they slouched back towards the working class quarters of the city, their own districts where they might hope to find a place of greater safety. Many fell with wounds across their backs or slashed viciously across the neck to die on the bloodied streets of St Petersburg.

  Then it was the turn of the marchers approaching the Troitsky Bridge. Mikhail Shaporov was sobbing uncontrollably now, his hand still clasping Powerscourt’s arm. De Chassiron had gone pale, almost white. This time the military performed their massacre in reverse order. Volley after volley of infantry fire tore into the head of the column, making its way deeper and deeper into the press of men as the first ranks turned and ran or died where they stood. Then, when the march had turned into a rabble of confused and wounded people, some still trying to advance on the doomed mission towards Palace Square, others wishing to flee back to their homes, the cavalry charged, the lancers screaming their hatred as they cut into the flesh and bones of men of a different class. Powerscourt watched through his binoculars as one dragoon slashed at his victim, cutting him open from his eyes to the chin, and then, his teeth clenched in a grin and the hairs of his moustache standing up on his elevated lip, let out a terrible shriek and spat at the dead man as he fell to the ground.