Russka: The Novel of Russia

  1113

  The first Russian revolution – that is to say, the first organized uprising by the people against an exploitative mercantile class – took place in the year 1113. And it was successful.

  The grievances of the people were entirely justified, and were caused by an unpleasant mixture of what amounted to laissez-faire capitalism, widespread corruption and cartels – in all of which the ruling princes were involved.

  The general speculation which had drawn Sviatopolk into debt had continued and grown worse. It was led by the Prince of Kiev himself who, with increasing age, had grown not wiser, but lazier and more rapacious.

  There was corruption everywhere. Debt, often at crippling interest rates, was positively encouraged. Small artisans and smerdy, in considerable numbers, had been thus forced into becoming zakupy. It was, after all, a very cheap form of labour for the creditor. And if, on distant estates, the friends of the prince ignored the laws concerning the zakup and actually sold him as a slave, the prince turned a blind eye. Because of these widespread abuses, the people were furious.

  But worst of all were the cartels. They were organized by the great merchants. Their object was simple – to obtain monopolies on basic commodities and raise their prices. And the greatest of all was the salt cartel.

  The Prince of Kiev had been successful. His plan for controlling the Polish supply had been effective and prices had soared.

  ‘Are we to welcome visitors with bread alone?’ his people demanded ironically. For every Slav, since time began, welcomed a stranger at his door with bread and salt.

  But the Prince of Kiev was corrupt and cynical. The abuses continued.

  And then, on April 16 1113, he died.

  The next day, an almost unheard of event occurred.

  Years before, after the troubles of 1068, the Prince of Kiev had moved the meeting place of the veche from the podol to the square by the palace, where he could keep an eye on it. Nor did the veche meet unless summoned by the Metropolitan of the Church, or the boyars. But these safeguards did nothing for the ruling powers now. Without consulting anyone, the veche of the people met of its own accord. And their meeting was both stormy and determined.

  ‘They make slaves of free men!’ they rightly protested. ‘They conspire to ruin the people,’ they said of the cartels.

  ‘Let us return,’ many demanded, ‘to the laws of Yaroslav.’ Although in fact the Russkaya Pravda – the Russian Law – which had been collated by Yaroslav the Wise and his sons was chiefly concerned with the payments due for harming the prince’s servants and boyars, it did contain a provision protecting the zakup from being made into a slave.

  ‘Let us return,’ they cried, ‘to another just prince who will maintain the law.’

  There was only one such man in the land of Rus; and so it was that the veche of Kiev, in the year 1113, offered the throne of Kiev to Vladimir Monomakh.

  ‘Praise the Lord!’

  It seemed to Ivanushka that at last there would be order in the land of Rus. He had been in Pereiaslav when the news of the Prince of Kiev’s death had come, and without even waiting to summon his sons from the estates, had ridden hard to the capital.

  He had long been disgusted by the old prince’s rule. At Russka, and on his estates in the north-east, things were well run and the laws were obeyed. But he knew this was an exception. For the reigning prince’s brothers he had no great regard, and it was good judgement as well as personal loyalty, he believed, that made him declare: ‘Only Monomakh can put things right.’

  With admirable good sense, he discovered on his arrival in Kiev, the people’s veche had decided the same thing.

  Before even going to his brother’s house, he sent one of his grooms with all speed to Monomakh with the message: ‘Ivan Igorevich awaits you in Kiev. Come, take what the veche rightly offers you.’

  So he was saddened, as he strode into their childhood home, to find his older brother in a gloomy mood, shaking his head.

  ‘It can’t work,’ Sviatopolk told him.

  Since the campaign against the Cumans they had developed a quiet relationship that suited them both. They were not friends, but Sviatopolk’s hatred, having smouldered all his life, had burned itself out. He felt old and tired. Thanks to Ivanushka, he was well provided for. He lived entirely alone. His sons were serving in other cities, but he preferred to remain in Kiev, enjoying the respect due to him as a boyar and a reputation – alas undeserved – as a successful man of affairs. In general, on most subjects, he was pessimistic. ‘And I tell you,’ he reiterated, ‘Monomakh cannot become Grand Prince.’

  Two days later, it appeared he was right. For word arrived in Kiev that Monomakh had refused.

  In a way, he had no option. By the rules of succession he was not the next in line – there were senior branches of the family who should precede him. And had he not, all his life, striven to preserve an orderly succession and keep the peace? Why should he throw away his principles now, especially at the bidding of the lower classes whom, as a prince, he knew must be kept in their place? He did not come.

  And then the revolution started.

  Ivanushka had gone riding in the woods, that fateful morning, across to the Monastery of the Caves and back. He had no idea that anything was amiss until, coming in sight of the podol, he suddenly saw a dozen columns of smoke starting to rise over the city. He spurred forward. A few moments later he met a merchant in a cart. The fellow was sweating profusely and whipping his horses along for all he was worth.

  ‘What are they doing?’ he cried.

  ‘Killing us, lord,’ the man shouted. ‘Merchants and nobles alike. Turn back, sir,’ he added, ‘only a fool would go in there.’

  Ivanushka smiled grimly to himself, and rode forward. He passed into the podol. The streets were full of people, running to and fro. The uprising looked spontaneous, and seemed to be universal. Some of the small traders were boarding up their houses, but at the same time others were forming into armed groups in the street. Several times he had difficulty getting through.

  In one small street, he came face to face with a group of twenty or so.

  ‘Look,’ one of them shouted, ‘a muzh – a nobleman.’ And they rushed at him with such fury that he only just managed to get away.

  The crowds were surging towards the centre. Already he could see flames coming from the citadel of Yaroslav. And a single thought formed in his mind: I must go and save Sviatopolk.

  It was as he came towards the Khazar Gate that he saw something that made him go cold, and for a moment drove even thoughts of his brother from his mind.

  The crowd numbered at least two hundred. They had entirely surrounded the house. And whereas the people he had seen so far looked either angry or excited, the faces of these rioters had taken on a cruel aspect. A number of them were grinning with obvious pleasure at the punishment they were about to inflict.

  The house belonged to old Zhydovyn the Khazar.

  An expectant murmur rose from the crowd.

  ‘Roast them a little,’ he heard a voice cry.

  There was a chorus of approval.

  ‘Roast pig belongs on a spit,’ a large man shouted jovially.

  Some of them, Ivanushka noticed, carried flaming torches. They were already preparing to set light to one side of the house; but it was obvious from their faces that their desire was not so much to burn it down as to smoke the inmates out.

  ‘Villains,’ a man cried.

  ‘Jews!’ shouted an old woman.

  And at once several more in the crowd took up the cry: ‘Come out, Jews, and be killed.’

  Ivanushka understood very well. The fact that many of the Jewish Khazar merchants were poor; the more significant fact still that nearly all the leaders of the exploiting cartels had been Slavic or Scandinavian Christians – both these truths had been temporarily forgotten. In the heat of the moment, the angry crowd, looking for scapegoats to attack, had remembered that some of the capitalists were foreign. They were
Jewish. There was now a grand excuse for acts of cruelty.

  It was just then, scanning the house, that Ivanushka saw a single face at a window.

  It was Zhydovyn. He was looking out gloomily, unable to gauge what he should do.

  One of the men had pushed his way to the front. He was carrying a long, thin pike. ‘Show us your men,’ he shouted.

  ‘There are no Jewish men,’ someone replied. And there was a general laugh.

  In fact, as far as Ivanushka could tell, old Zhydovyn was probably alone in there except for some servants.

  ‘Show us your women, then!’ the man bellowed, to a general guffaw.

  Ivanushka braced himself and started to push his horse forward, through the crowd. People began to turn. There were cries of anger.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘A damned noble!’

  ‘Another exploiter.’

  ‘Pull him down!’

  He felt hands grabbing at his feet; a spear was thrust up at him, only just missing his face. He wanted to strike at them with his whip, but knew that if he made the slightest angry movement he was lost. Slowly, imperturbably, he coaxed his horse forward, gently nudging his way through the parting crowd to the front. Then he turned.

  Ivanushka looked at the crowd, and they stared at him.

  And to his surprise, he experienced a new kind of fear.

  He had never faced an angry crowd before. He had faced the Cuman horde; he had several times looked at death. But he had never faced a wall of hatred. It was terrifying. Worse than that, he suddenly felt numb. The crowd’s hate came at him like a single, unstoppable force. He felt naked, fearful, and strangely ashamed. Yet why should he feel ashamed? There was no cause for it. True, he was a noble; but he knew very well that he had done these people no harm. Why should their rage make him feel guilty? Yet the force of their united hatred was like a blow to the stomach.

  Then the crowd fell silent.

  Ivanushka gripped the reins and gently patted his horse’s neck, lest he too take fright. How strange, he thought, to have survived the Cumans only to be killed by a mob.

  The man with the pike was pointing at him. Like most of the others, he wore a dirty linen smock with a leather belt; his face was almost wholly covered with a black beard and his hair fell to his shoulders.

  ‘Well, noble, tell us what you want before you die,’ he called out.

  Ivanushka tried to meet his angry eyes calmly.

  ‘I am Ivan Igorevich,’ he replied in a loud, firm voice. ‘I serve Vladimir Monomakh, whom you seek. And I have sent him a messenger, in my name and in yours, begging him to make haste and come to the veche in Kiev.’

  There was a faint hum in the crowd. They were clearly uncertain whether to believe him. The man with the pike narrowed his eyes. It seemed to Ivanushka he was about to thrust the pike at him. Then, from somewhere, came a voice: ‘It’s true. I’ve seen him. He’s Monomakh’s man.’

  The man with the pike turned to the speaker, then back to the noble. It seemed to Ivanushka that there was a trace of disappointment on his face.

  But now, like a tide, he felt the wave of hatred from the crowd receding. ‘Welcome, Monomakh’s man,’ the fellow with the pike said grimly. ‘What are these Jews to you?’

  ‘They are under my protection. And Monomakh’s,’ Ivanushka added. ‘They have done no harm.’

  The fellow shrugged.

  ‘Perhaps.’ Then, suddenly, seeing that this was the moment to strengthen his temporary street-leadership, he turned round upon the crowd and bellowed: ‘For Monomakh! Let’s find some more Jews to kill.’

  And within moments, he had led them away.

  Ivanushka went in. He found the old Khazar alone except for two women servants. He stayed with him until late afternoon, when the city was quieter. Only then did he proceed to his brother’s house.

  It was as he had feared. They had reached the tall wooden house in mid-afternoon. As far as he could judge, Sviatopolk had made no attempt to run. Supposing the boyar to be far more successful than he was, the furious crowd had killed him, ransacked the house, and burned it down.

  Ivanushka found the charred remains of his brother’s body, said a prayer, and then in the failing light, returned to seek shelter as he had once before at the Khazar’s house.

  How strange it was, after so many years, to find himself in that house again, sitting alone in the candlelight with old Zhydovyn.

  The Khazar had recovered from the attack now. And Ivanushka, though saddened by Sviatopolk’s death, found that he did not feel unduly melancholy.

  They ate together quietly, saying little; but he could see that the old man, still brooding over what had happened that day, was longing to say something. And so it did not surprise him when, at the end of the meal, the old man suddenly remarked sharply: ‘Of course, none of this would have happened if the country was properly governed.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Ivanushka asked respectfully.

  ‘Your princes of Rus,’ the Khazar replied scornfully, ‘those fools. None of them knows how to organize an empire. They have no proper laws, no system.’

  ‘We have laws.’

  Zhydovyn shrugged.

  ‘Rudimentary laws of the Slavs and norsemen. Your church laws are better, I admit, but they are Greek and Roman, from Constantinople. Yet who runs your administration, such as it is? Khazars and Greeks half the time. Why are your people revolting now? Because your princes either break the law or don’t enforce it – or just have no laws to prevent them oppressing the people.’

  ‘It is true we have been badly ruled.’

  ‘Because you have no system within which to work. Your princes fight amongst each other all the time, weakening the state, because they can’t devise a workable system of succession.’

  ‘But, Zhydovyn,’ he protested, ‘is it not true that the succession of brother by brother is derived not from the Varangian norsemen but from the Turks? Did we not take this, too, from you Khazars?’

  ‘Perhaps. But your rulers of Rus are incapable of order. You can’t deny it. The royal house is in chaos.’

  What the old man said rang true. Yet Ivanushka was reluctant to agree. For despite his disgust at the people that day, with their foolish, anti-Semitic rallying cries, he could not help himself thinking: How wrong they are, these Jews. How far behind us, with their endless trust in laws and systems.

  He sighed, then said aloud: ‘The law is not everything, you know.’

  Zhydovyn gazed at him. ‘It’s all we have,’ he replied bluntly.

  Ivanushka shook his head. How could he explain? That was not the way to think.

  No. There was a better way. A Christian way.

  He could not, perhaps, find the words himself, but that did not matter. For had they not already been said, better than he could hope to express them, in the most famous sermon ever given in the Russian Church?

  It had been preached just before his birth, yet so well recorded that he had learned sections of it as a child. The sermon had been given by the great Slav churchman, Hilarion, in memory of St Vladimir. He had called it: On Law and Grace. And its message was very simple. The Jews had given mankind God’s law. But then had come the Son of God, with a greater truth – the rule of grace, of God’s direct love, which is greater than earthly rules and regulations. This was the wonderful message which the new Church of the Slavs would demonstrate to the vast world of forest and steppe.

  How could he tell old Zhydovyn this? He could not. The Jews would never accept it.

  Yet had not his own journey through life been a pilgrimage in search of grace? Had not he – Ivanushka the Fool – discovered God’s love without a textbook of laws?

  He had no wish for a world of systems. It was not in his nature. The solution, with God’s grace, must surely be something simpler.

  ‘All we need,’ he told the Khazar, ‘is a wise and godly man, a true prince, a strong ruler.’

  It was a medieval phantom that was to be the curse
of most of Russian history.

  ‘Thank God,’ he went on, ‘that we have Monomakh.’

  Before parting, however, as a token of affection, Ivanushka gave the old man a little gift: it was the little metal disk he wore around his neck on a chain, and which bore the trident tamga of his clan.

  ‘Take it,’ he said, ‘to remind you that we saved each other’s lives.’

  It was a few days later that, by the grace of God, the princes bowed to the veche, and that, thanks to a revolution, there began the rule of one of the greatest monarchs Russia ever had: Vladimir Monomakh.

  Ivanushka’s joy was even further increased when, that very autumn, the little church at Russka, with what seemed like miraculous speed, was completed.

  He would often make the journey down to the village, staying days at a time, pretending to inspect the estate but in fact just enjoying the astonishing peace of the place.

  Above all, at the end of the day, he liked to look at his little masterpiece. How gently it glowed in the evening light, its pink surface warmed by the departing rays of the sun.

  He would sit contentedly gazing at the brave little building on its platform of grass above the river, with the dark woods behind, as the sun slowly went down.

  Was there a sense of threat, of melancholy over the golden Byzantine dome as it caught the last flashes of light at sunset? No. He had faith. Nothing, it seemed to him, would now disturb the tranquillity of the little house of God, before the forest and above the river.

  All nature seemed at peace in the vast, Russian silence.

  And how strange it was, he sometimes thought, that when he stood on the bank by the church and gazed out at the vast sky over the endless steppe, the sky itself, no matter which way the clouds were passing, seemed like a great river to be motionless, yet retreating, always retreating.

  And often, even on summer days, a slight wind from the east came softly over the land.

  The Tatar

  1237, December

  The horseman’s broad Mongolian face was weatherbeaten to an ochre brown.