I couldn’t find a place to my liking in the church, so I went outside and sat on the steps.
“Where is Easter now?” I began to speculate. “Is it soaring in the heavens, or treading in the forest outside of town, through the marshes, on the fine needles of pine, on snowdrops, along the paths of heather and juniper, and what does it look like?”
I recalled a story that on the night of Christ’s luminous resurrection, a ladder descends from heaven and down it comes the Lord to us with the Holy Apostles, saints, passion-bearers, and martyrs. The Lord walks throughout the land, blessing the fields, forests, lakes, rivers, birds, mankind, beasts and all that was created through His holy will, and the saints sing, “Christ is risen from the dead . . .” The song of the saints scatters like seed along the ground, and from these seeds fine-scented lilies-of-the-valley sprout in the forests.
Midnight was approaching. The courtyard was thick with human voices. Someone came out of the church-keeper’s hut with a lantern.
“He’s coming! He’s coming!” the kids screamed madly, clapping their hands.
“Who’s coming?”
“’Leksandr, the bell ringer. He’s going to wham it now.”
And he did. A huge silver wheel seemed to roll along the earth after the first strike of the bell, and then another wheel, and then a third, and the paschal darkness spun in the silver ringing of all the city’s churches. Jacob, the beggar, noticed me in the darkness. “It’s a light-bearing ringing,” he said. “It’s the sound of enlightenment,” he said, and crossed himself several times.
The Matins service of Great Saturday began. Priests in white raiment raised up the Plashchanitsa and carried it into the sanctuary where it would lie on the altar until the feast of the Ascension. The heavy golden sepulchre was
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moved to its usual place with a rumbling sound. In that rumbling there was something paschal, significant. It was as if the heavy stone was being rolled away from the Lord’s tomb.
I noticed my father and mother. Going up to them I said, “I will never offend you.” And pressing myself to them, exclaimed, “What happiness!”
And the paschal joy kept rising like the Volga in flood, which father had described many times. The tall banners began to tremble like spring trees in a sunny breeze. People were getting ready for the procession around the church. The silver cross that stood behind the altar was brought out as was the gold-encased Gospel, and a great round bread—the artos.4 The uplifted icons began to smile, and everyone took up a red, lit paschal candle.
Silence was upon us. It was transparent and so light that, if one were to blow on it, it would tremble like gossamer. And in the midst of this silence the choir slowly began: “The angels in heaven, O Christ our Savior, sing thy resurrection.” And to this exalting song the procession began to stream in a sea of lights. My feet were stepped on; wax dripped on my head, but I hardly felt it, thinking, “That’s the way it’s supposed to be.” It’s Easter. The Lord’s Easter—little “sunspots” danced in my soul. Pressed tightly to each other, in the midnight darkness, on the streams of the resurrection song, showered by the pealing bells and warmed by flames of the candles, we circled the church lit white by hundreds of flames and stopped in anticipation before the tightly shut doors. The bells grew still. My heart suppressed its beating. My face was afire. The earth disappeared from underfoot—I seemed to be standing on a heavenly blue. And where was everybody? They had all been transformed into exultant paschal candles.
And now that enormous event, which I could not encompass at first, occurred. They sang, “Christ is risen from the dead.”
They sang it thrice, and the great doors threw themselves open before us. We entered the resurrected temple, and before our eyes, in the glow of the chandeliers, great and small votive lights, in the sparkling of silver, of the gold and precious stones on the icons, in the bright paper flowers on the Easter cakes—blazed up the Lord’s Easter. The priest, wrapped in incense smoke, his face radiant, exclaimed joyfully and volubly: “Christ is risen!” and the people answered him with the tremor of a heavy snow avalanche: “Indeed, he is risen.”
Grishka appeared next to me. I took both his hands and said, “Tomorrow I will give you a red egg. The best there is. Christ is risen.” Fed’ka was standing nearby. I promised him a red egg as well. Then I saw Davyd, the yardman. I went up to him and said, “I’ll never call you ‘street sweeping martyr’ again. Christ is risen.”
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All this time the words of the Easter canticle flew through the church like lightning:
For meet is it that the heavens should rejoice, and that the earth should be glad, and that the whole world, both visible and invisible, should keep the Feast. For Christ is risen, the everlasting joy.
My heart contracted with joy; near the amvon I saw a girl with blond braids whom I had noticed at the Good Friday service. I went up to her in a dreamlike state, my face burning, and lowering my eyes said: “Christ is risen.”
She was taken aback, dropped her candle, then quiet as a flame leaned to me and we kissed three times . . . and then, totally embarrassed, we stood a long time with our heads lowered.
And all that time from the amvon thundered the paschal sermon of St. John Chrysostom:
“If any man be devout and loveth God, let him enjoy this fair and radiant triumphal feast . . . Christ is risen, and life reigneth!”
NOTES
In Orthodox churches the apse (referred to as the altar) is located on an elevated level (amvon) which extends beyond the icon screen (ikonostas, “ikonostasis” in Greek) out into the main space of the church. It is from here that the priest reads the Gospels and delivers the sermon. The word is derived from the Greek “ambon,” (raised edge).
Tradition had it that there were 1600 churches in Moscow; it was customary to refer to them in units of forty.
Scripture was written not in Russian but in Old Church Slavonic; the relationship of OCS to contemporary Russian is somewhat analogous to the relationship of Chaucer’s language to contemporary English.
The bread of eternal life. It is broken up and distributed on Saturday at the end of Easter (“Bright”) Week.
Chapter Nine
Mark Vishniak, In Two Worlds
Mark Vishniak, who was trained in government law, was one of numerous highly educated Russians who joined the opposition to the monarchy. The events of 1905 pushed him into the camp of the Social Revolutionaries, an affiliation he was to maintain. However, his opposition to the Bolsheviks and the Russian Revolution of 1917 ultimately forced him into exile. As part of the Russian diaspora in Paris, where he arrived in 1919, Vishniak became a publicist and writer, helping to found and edit one of the more prominent journals there, the Sovremennye zapiski (Contemporary Notes). He authored a number of books, including a study of Lenin. Taken from Mark Vishniak, Dan’ proshlomu [Tribute to the Past]. New York: Izd. Imeni Chekhova, 1954.
I cannot determine precisely what made the problem of personal guilt and responsibility primary in my consciousness. I was interested in this question for a long while. All the philosophers, legal philosophers, and criminologists with whom I became acquainted touched on this issue. The social side and the sociological school in criminal law and external conditions, wherein responsibility was not an issue, interested me less. But imputation and responsibility, guilt and misfortune were internally linked with morality and law as well as a human’s biology and psychopathology. My attention was drawn to what, in pre-Freudian times, was referred to as moral insanity, i.e., the inability to distinguish right from wrong and resist amoral action. This was irrespective of whether one was conscious or not of the amorality of the deeds. A practical conclusion derives from this: philosophical speculation and jurisprudence were not enough to solve this basic problem. It was also necessary to know the nature of man, be it healthy or ill. But in order to “master” psychopathol-og
y, it was essential to take a course in medicine.
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My legal studies did not take up much time or effort and I came up with the idea of combining jurisprudence with the simultaneous study of medicine in order to save time. But such a circumstance had been anticipated by the administration. The university office to which I went for the required paperwork explained that to be concurrently registered in two academic divisions was impermissible. The only solution was to continue the study of law in Moscow, and medicine—abroad. A romantic affair that had already commenced with my cousin Mania, my future wife, helped me to arrive at that decision. She had also chosen medicine as her field of education. She had no chance of entry into a Russian medical school without a medal [of academic excellence] and decided to go to Heidelberg. In three months, with my help, she was prepared for a supplemental exam in Latin. This was accomplished in approximately the same rapid-fire fashion that was used during World War II in the United States to train officers of the army and navy in Russian, Chinese, Malaysian and other languages.
Despite qualms, my parents nevertheless agreed to send me abroad and finance my trip. I was given only one mandatory condition: the university in which I was to enroll could not be the same one in which my cousin was to study. “Draper-Spencer” instilled the belief that marriages between close relatives did not lead to any good. And mother had good reason to fear that the event, which she definitely did not wish for me, might occur. I accepted the condition without hesitation, aware that the other university could well be close to mine. Let my cousin go to Heidelberg; I would go to Freiburg, only a three-hour ride away.
In the autumn of 1903, while still a third-year student in law school in Moscow, I left for Freiburg, in Baden, to study medicine. We left together with my cousin and my friend Boris Lunts, the son of a Moscow doctor to whom my family went in the event of a serious illness. I parted with my friends in Heidelberg, not without sorrow and sadness, and continued on the same train to Freiburg. It was not difficult to find a room and get set up—the charming town lived off its university and students. I set off for the post office to register my address in case I should get letters for general delivery. The clerk immediately gave me a telegram that was already waiting. It was from Heidelberg: my cousin informed me that she was leaving for Freiburg. I was amazed, happy, and saddened. It was unclear as to what had happened. The forthcoming meeting was gladdening while the cognizance of a broken promise was troubling.
The matter was a simple one. Heidelberg’s medical school felt itself to be overburdened with female students and rejected the new entrants. My cousin had no choice other than to come to Freiburg, at least for mutual consultation as to what to do. Ultimately, it was not difficult to convince myself that a
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promise made under a set of totally different conditions cannot be considered binding. I kept my word honorably, but external circumstances proved stronger than I. I did not yet know the multi-leveled excuse of “rebus six stan-tibus” [given the current circumstances]. But I was already familiar with “force majeure,” and that it was imperative to distinguish between “form” and “content” or essence.
It was much harder to convince my parents, to make them understand and believe everything had happened in precisely this way, that it was not the result of a plan worked out in advance.
As soon as my cousin was settled—in a room with a marvelous view of the famous Freiburg castle—we both took to the pen to inform our parents of the events. My parents were used to trusting me. “Our children don’t lie,” my mother liked to emphasize, boasting, and encouraging us to maintain our high reputation. And this tactic justified itself: I never deceived anyone. In the worst case, I stayed silent or did not speak the whole truth. But in this case, I sensed that I could not possibly convince them that all that had occurred was exactly as I described it and not contrived in advance. I attempted to make the letter reflect all the powers of conviction and sincerity that I possessed. But, nevertheless, I realized that had something similar happened to others, I would not have believed them myself. Everything happened too perfectly— this is not how things usually work.
I did not know to what degree my parents believed me. The withdrawal of fire and water, i.e. of the means necessary for my room, board, and tuition did not follow. In fact, I did not fear this. Our family relationships were too close. But there was no other reaction from my parents. They remained silent on this matter and this was, of course, the wisest thing, for even the sharpest rebuke would not have altered the situation.
My cousin and I were enrolled in the medical school without any complications. As required, she commenced with the natural sciences while I immediately became engrossed in anatomy. Professor Haup, a specialist on frogs who knew everything anyone had ever said or written about frogs, and who himself had published an enormous work called The Frog, was an excellent pedagogue. He attempted to provide a maximum amount of knowledge in the minimum amount of time to his students. Therefore, he arrived in class before the students and wrote a complete summary of his lecture on the blackboard. I worked for Haup in the anatomy laboratory—preparing a leg for experimental purposes, the names of the muscles of which I still remember to this day. I also attended the lectures of the famed August Weissman, an imposing elder of the Old Testament type. He captivatingly expounded his theory of heredity for which Soviet Lysenkoists posthumously labeled him a “formalist” and “obscurantist” in biology.
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Like the rest of Russia, Moscow led a tense political life. But to a substantial degree it mirrored the life of St. Petersburg. The government was in St. Petersburg: Witte, Trepov, Durnovo, the grand dukes and the tsar. The central committees of the political parties were there. Finally, a new professional-political organization arose there and functioned legally—the Soviet of Workers Deputies. There was a branch in Moscow, though the fine-tuning derived from the St. Petersburg soviet. When it was decided to call a strike there at the end of November, the Moscow soviet could only join in support. The question of a strike was also discussed by the Moscow soviet. Mensheviks and SR’s [Social Revolutionary Party] called for caution. But St. Petersburg’s decision predetermined that of Moscow and on December 6th the Moscow soviet unanimously decided to commence a general strike on the next day.
Fondaminskii and I were assigned to the congress of railroad delegates. He argued for the necessity of a general strike and asked them to join it, while I was stitching together the corresponding resolution. The railroaders resolved to support the strike. The strike did not produce the desired result, and with an equal mix of spontaneity and premeditation “turned” into a revolt. The state immediately resorted to extreme measures. The meeting, which had convened in the “Aquarium,” was fired upon. And in the center of the city, artillery was let loose against Fidler’s Realschule [a vocational high school] where the so-called “volunteers” had gathered—most of these were youths who had not yet reached legal age and who were either students or from the working class. Following revolutionary tradition and for self-defense, barricades were set up in the streets of Moscow. They were also intended to impede the movement of mounted patrols.
I was not involved in the decisions. These were made by higher party functionaries. The building of barricades, however, was one of the responsibilities of the mid-level party member. Thus, together with others, in some square in the Arbat district, I hauled chairs, boxes, and barrels with a sense of great uneasiness and helplessness. I piled other things on top of them and unsuccessfully tried to topple a light pole with its glass already broken. I did not at all feel that the destructive spirit was simultaneously a constructive one. Those more adept, and, perhaps, less prone to reasoning, built barricades better and faster in other locations.
The headquarters of the SR committee during the insurrection was in the apartment of Lidiia and Lev Arman
d whom I knew from Rikkert’s seminar in Freiburg. All the directives and guidance emanated from this alley in the Arbat—insofar as guidance was possible in a semi-elemental uprising. This was the center for news and people: news regarding what was happening and people to provide information on the situation and to receive proclamations, directions, and counsel. The proclamations were mainly written by Andrei Aleksandrovich
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Nikitskii, our “scribe” as we called him. It was here also that the combatants and the volunteers came for weapons: revolvers, cartridges, and bombs. We spent all the days and nights of the uprising here, collecting and then discussing information, attempting to bring reason and order to chaos. Sometimes we had to carry out individual assignments ourselves. Thus, Lev Armand and I were sent to get cartridges. We reached the specified point safely. I was loaded up with cartridges hung front and back under my coat and headed back. The way led through the Prechistenka. A sentry stopped me at the house occupied by General Kostanda who was in charge of the forces.
“Where are you going?”
I answered. The soldier ran his hands along the overcoat and spouted out:
“Go ahead, yid face!”
I did not feel insulted. The sensation of an incredibly lucky outcome crowded out all other feelings and thoughts. Had the guard run his hands on the front and back rather than along the sides, I would not have made it alive. Moscow had been placed on military alert, and those held on suspicion, let alone those caught red-handed, were frequently executed on the spot. While unloading the cartridges, I said to my friends:
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