History Lessons II
Russian History Part 2
My last letter concerning Russian history, and its significance for today, focused on the Khazars and their baneful influence. This time I thought it wise and prudent to concentrate on Putin’s perception of history and how it affects current affairs.
Putin talked about the “significant date in the history of Russia…988, this was the baptism of Russia when Prince Vladimir, the great grandson of Rurik, baptized Russia and adopted Orthodoxy, or Eastern Christianity. From this time, the centralized Russian state began to strengthen. Why? Because of the single territory. Integrated economic ties. One and the same language.”[1]
Orlando Figes writes: “According to the Primary Chronicle, Vladimir’s conversion was the outcome of his search for the True Faith. The story goes that he was visited by representatives of the neighboring states, each one seeking to convert him to their religion. First came the Islamic envoy of the Volga Bulgars, who enticed Vladimir with promises of carnal satisfaction in the afterlife (this was a man who, according to legend, had 800 wives), but put him off entirely with the Muslim ban on alcohol (‘Drinking is the joy of the Rus. We cannot live without it,’ the prince declared). Next came the German papal emissaries, followed by a Khazar delegation of rabbis (the Khazar leaders had embraced Judaism during the ninth century). Neither impressed Vladimir. Finally, the Byzantines arrived. Their arguments persuaded him to send his envoys to observe the various faiths in their own environment. Among the Volga Bulgars they found only ‘sorrow and a dreadful stench’. In Germany they ‘beheld no glory’. But in the Hagia Sophia of Constantinople, ‘We knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth,’ they reported on the liturgy of the basilica, ‘for surely there is no such splendor or beauty anywhere on earth. We cannot describe it to you. We only know that God dwells there among men. For we cannot forget that beauty.’[2]
More prosaically Figes continues: “Vladimir’s conversion had more to do with statecraft and diplomacy than with the aesthetics of religious rites,” while an alternative source states that the victory of a Greek philosopher from Byzantium “was no doubt dependent on Kiev’s commercial relationship to Constantinople.”[3]
Whatever the case may be (and I suspect Vladimir’s motives were a mixture of all of the above):
“Vladimir’s conversion brought Russia into the cultural orbit of Byzantium. This involved a revolution, not just in the country’s spiritual life but its art and architecture, literature, philosophy, in the symbolic language and ideas of state.”
“Byzantium was a universal culture, a ‘commonwealth’ to adopt the term of its great Anglo-Russian scholar Dmitri Obolensky. Its peoples were united by the dual symbolic power of the emperor (the basileus in Greek or tsar in Church Slavonic) and the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople, who was appointed Kiev’s metropolitan, the head of the Russian Church. The role of Byzantium was thus similar to that of Rome in the Latin West. Just as the Latins looked to Rome as the center of their civilization, so the Russians saw Constantinople (which they called Tsargrad, the Imperial City) as their spiritual capital.”
“Through Byzantium the Russians were connected to the Greeks, Bulgarians, Serbs, Albanians and Romanians, all affiliated to the Eastern Orthodox Church. Through its broader links to Christendom, they also entered into closer contact with Europe, becoming conscious of themselves as Europeans belonging to a common faith. As Obolensky put it, ‘Byzantium was not a wall, erected between Russia and the West: she was Russia’s gateway to Europe.’”[4]
“Christianity was slow to spread through Kievan Rus. Long after Vladimir’s conversion, paganism remained deeply rooted in the countryside and many towns. In 1071, when the clergy came to Novgorod and threw the pagan idols into the Volkhov River, there was a popular rebellion. The uprising was suppressed and a wooden church of St Sophia built; but only slowly did the Novgorodians exchange the amulets they wore to ward off evil spirits for crucifixes and icons.”[5]
Kiev
“Nothing shows more clearly the European acceptance and standing of Kiev than the marriage alliances concluded by Yaroslav, the ruler of Kiev in the second quarter of the eleventh century, and his family. He himself was married to a daughter of the King of Sweden. His sons had German and Polish wives. Three of his daughters, Anna, Elizabeth, and Anastasia, were married to the Kings of France, Norway and Hungary.”[6]
“Kiev itself was, of course, the paramount town in Rus. Yaroslav, in the eleventh century, hoped to make of it a Slav Constantinople, and it did undoubtedly become one of the showpieces of the Middle Ages. One account mentions no fewer than 400 churches, the work of Byzantine architects, stone masons, mosaic workers, and painters. The town was protected by protective walls. Inside there were eight great market-places attended by merchants from the regions with which Kiev Rus traded – Germany, Bohemia, Hungary, Poland, Scandinavia, Byzantium, and the other countries of the orient. Adam of Bremen, the German chronicler, found Kiev ‘the fairest jewel’ in all the Greek world.”[7]
Figes tells us:
“All the indications point to a flourishing economy and culture during the twelfth century. In the major towns churches and cathedrals were being built in stone instead of wood. Monasteries were established. Kiev’s trades and crafts were doing well…Nothing indicates that any of the towns were in decline prior to the Mongol invasion. Kiev had a population of 40,000 people, more than London and not much less than Paris, at the start of the thirteenth century.”[8]
What prevented Kiev from continuing to be a city to rival Paris, Rome or London was, of course, the Mongol invasions.
For Putin, the Mongol invasions ultimately didn’t matter: Moscow (and not Kiev) might have emerged centuries later, once the power of the Mongols was broken, but the religion and culture of Moscow wasn’t fundamentally different to that of Kiev. For Figes one had little to do with the other and there was a decisive break.
One might regard this as merely an academic issue but its geopolitical implications are enormous. It also explains why Putin took so much time (fully conscious of boring most viewers to death) with his extensive monologue about the origins of Russia.
If Figes is to be given credence: Kiev (and the Ukraine) and not Moscow is the rightful heir of Medieval Russia, which means that a new Russian state could (legitimately) be constructed around Kiev.
As I pointed out in my last letter the fact that Zelensky was brought up in Russia and is, to all intents and purposes, Russian (much like his new commander-in-chief), is not accidental. The powers that be seem to have long planned a break-up of Russia and want a powerful Ukrainian state to take its place.
This is exactly what Putin and like-minded Russians wish to prevent. Given the fall of Avdiivka (and the almost inevitable defeat of the Ukraine) they seem to have succeeded in doing so.
[2] p.24 The Story of Russia, Orlando Figes
[3] p.17 The Making of Modern Russia, Lionel Kochan and Richard Abraham
[4] pp.25-26 The Story of Russia, Orlando Figes
[5] p.28 Ibid
[6] p.18 The Making of Modern Russia, Lionel Kochan and Richard Abraham
[7] p.19 Ibid
[8] p.31 The Story of Russia, Orlando Fi