The problem confronting the family was a curious one. In the Russian Orthodox Church, priests at the time of ordination were required to make a difficult choice, one which determined the future course and limits of their lives. A young man, his heart aflame with zeal, could elect to become either a black priest or a white, and this designation included priestly costumes proclaiming the decision. A white priest was one who elected to serve the public as head of some local church or as a missionary or as a lowly assistant in God's work. Significantly, he was not only allowed to marry but encouraged to do so, and when he did establish his family in the community he became inextricably affiliated with it. A white priest was a man of the people, and much of the good work of the church stemmed from his and his family's efforts. Luka Voronov, Vasili's father, had been a white priest serving the Irkutsk countryside, which meant that his son, growing up in this tradition, had been indoctrinated as to its merits.
But other young priests, fired with either ecclesiastic ambition or an honest desire to see their church well administered, chose to become black priests, knowing that this would prevent them from ever marrying but knowing also that to their care would be handed the governance of their church. Any boy aspiring to become a metropolitan in Russia or even in a major province like Irkutsk, must choose the black, take a vow of chastity, and adhere to these decisions through life, or he would find himself rigorously excluded from any significant position in the hierarchy.
It was an ironclad rule, one admitting no exceptions: 'Church leaders come only from the black.'
Young Vasili was strongly inclined to follow in his father's footsteps, for no priest in the Irkutsk area was more highly regarded than Luka Voronov, not even the bishop himself, who was, of course, a black. And with considerable encouragement from his father, Vasili would have followed his father's example had not Great-Aunt Marina voiced firm opinions to the contrary: 'Child! It would be horrible to cut yourself off from eventual leadership of our church. Don't even think of electing the white.
You were destined from birth to be a leader, maybe even the supreme leader.'
Her nephew Luka, the young priest's father, reacted rather vigorously to this advice, which he felt visionary: 'My dear Aunt Marina, you know and Vasili knows that leadership in our church does not seek out priests from Siberia.'
'Now wait! Just wait! Because you forsook the high moral road, Luka, and turned your back on preferment, which I never understood, there's no reason why your gifted son should do the same. Look at him! Has he not been ordained by God Himself to be a man of leadership?'
When the family turned to stare at Vasili, dignified in his seminary robes, blond, tall, straight, handsome in appearance and reverent in manner, they saw in him a young man eligible for distinguished service in their church. He was, as his great-aunt properly observed, a man destined for greatness. But his father saw something else nobler than the possibility of preferment: he saw a young man born to serve, perhaps in the humblest position the church provided, perhaps as a metropolitan, but serving always the noble responsibilities of his religion, as he, Luka, had striven to serve.
The young seminarian had that touch of grace which ennobles men, regardless of where chance assigns them; he had a calling, a demand from outside as sharp as a sergeant's insolent cry on a cold morning. He was called to do the Lord's work and was eager to do it wherever assigned.
So he was about to announce his preference for the white when Great-Aunt Marina astounded her family: 'Knowing the importance of this meeting, I took it upon myself to consult with the bishop, and I asked him to be waiting outside just about now, to give us guidance. Luka, see if his carriage has arrived.' And shortly the bishop himself appeared, bowing to the great lady whose ample funds had so often enabled him to complete work the church had started, especially in the islands.
'Madame Zhdanko, as I told you the other day, you grace Irkutsk,' and she said without embarrassment: 'As did my father before me.' Then, belatedly: 'And as Luka has, in his own way.'
She did not propose to waste the bishop's time in persiflage: 'Vasili thinks that if he is to serve the Lord, he must elect the white.'
'At his age I chose the black.'
'And were you able to perform the Lord's work just as capably?'
'Maintaining a healthy church is perhaps the Lord's most urgent desire.'
Marina did not gloat, but she did want more than platitudes: 'Bishop, tell me truthfully, if this young man takes the black, would you consider him for a post in the Aleutians?'
Members of the family gasped at the impertinence of this inquiry into church politics, but the old woman knew she had few years remaining, and in the islands which her late husband had loved, there was work left uncompleted. The bishop was not surprised at the old lady's frontal approach, for her past beneficences entitled her to some meddling, especially since a member of her own family was concerned. Asking for more tea, he balanced his cup, munched on a sweet, and said: 'Madame Zhdanko, I am, as you well know, profoundly worried about the posture of our church in the islands.
The tsarina has placed on my shoulders responsibility for seeing that the Holy Word is disseminated there and that the savages are brought into the family of Christ.'
Staring at each family member in turn, he sipped from his cup, put it down, and said with what amounted almost to sorrow: 'And I have failed. I've sent one priest after another out there, good men in their time, but old men, too, who have banked the fires of ambition and zeal. They waste their lives and the church's funds. They drink, argue with Company officers, ignore their true charges, the islanders, and bring no souls to Jesus Christ.'
'You make my summary for me,' the fighting old woman cried with that intensity which had never diminished since it was ignited while she was a girl here in Irkutsk. 'We need real men in the islands. That is, if we're to build a civilization there. I mean, if we're to hold that new empire and not surrender it like cravens to the English or the Spanish, let alone those damned Americans whose ships are beginning to sneak into what ought to be our waters.' She was obviously prepared to sail to the islands right now, as either governor, admiral, general or head of the local church.
'I've considered the suggestion you made the other day, Madame Zhdanko, and yes, if this fine young man elects the black, he will do so with my blessing. He has a great future in this church. And he can start at no better place than the Aleutians, where he can launch a whole new civilization. Do well there, young man, and your opportunity for serving the church is unlimited.' Then, with a bow to Marina, he added a practical note: 'What I need to head the church in Kodiak is not some young fellow who will marry a local girl and subside into gentle drunkenness like his predecessors, but someone who will marry the church and build a strong new edifice.'
Encouraged by such words, Vasili Voronov, the most promising young man ever to have graduated from the Irkutsk seminary, chose the black, took vows of celibacy, and committed himself to the service of the Lord and the resurrection of His disreputable Orthodox Church in the Aleutians.
MARINA ZHDANKO, ALTHOUGH OVER EIGHTY, POSSESSED such demonic energy that when she finished instructing her grandnephew Vasili as to how he was to conduct his religious life, she turned with great vigor to the straightening out of her own affairs. Since she was already in Irkutsk, where The Company of which she was a leading member kept its headquarters, she felt she ought to initiate certain changes in management, and the male members of the board were surprised when she stalked into their office with the firm announcement: 'I want to send a real manager to organize our Aleutian holdings.'
'We have a manager,' the men assured her, but she snapped: 'I want a man who will work, not whine,' and when they asked: 'Have you someone in mind?' she replied enthusiastically:
'I certainly have.'
There was at this time in Irkutsk an unusual businessman, one Aleksandr Baranov, in his early forties and the veteran of rugged Siberian mercantile wars. Marina had seen him occasionally, pic
king his way about the streets, head bowed as if contemplating some master move, and she had been intrigued by the stories men told about him: 'He's low-born, no family background at all. Has a wife that no one ever sees, because when he first came to Siberia she promised: "I'll join you soon," but she never did.
He's served everywhere, honest as the sunrise but always wiped out by some disaster not of his making.'
'But he is honest?' she asked, and everyone agreed: 'None more so.'
'What's this I've heard about a glass factory?' she asked, and a most improbable story unfolded: 'I was with him when it happened. We were drinking beer when a maid, a real peasant, dropped a beer stein and broke it. Now, glass, as you well know, costs money in a frontier like Irkutsk, so the barman began to knock the poor girl about for having broken such a costly item. Pavel and me, we berated the man for his brutality, but Baranov sat there with fragments in his hands, and after a while he said: "We ought to make our glass here in Irkutsk. Not haul it all the way from Moscow." And do you know what he did?'
'I can't imagine,' Marina said, and another man explained: 'He wrote to Germany for a book on glassmaking, then learned German from a merchant so he could decipher his book, and with no practical experience, never saw one piece of glass blown, he opened a glass factory.'
'Did it fail, like his other dreams?'
'Not at all! He made fine glass. You drank from his work at dinner.'
'What happened?'
'Imports from big factories farther west began to stream in, much cheaper prices.'
When Marina asked if this competition drove Baranov out of business, the men vied with one another to answer her question: 'Not Baranov! He looked at the imported glass and said: "This is better than I make," and he closed down his shop to serve as agent for the other people.'
'I'd like to meet a man with such good sense,' Marina said, and when Baranov was brought before her, she saw a short, unkempt, pudgy man, bald as an iceberg, hands clasped over his belly as if preparing to bow before some approaching superior, but with sharp, dancing eyes that betrayed his eagerness to explore any proposition that might be laid before him.
'Do you know the fur trade?' she asked, and for half an hour he described recent developments in the Aleutians, Irkutsk and China, with a recommendation as to how Aleutian furs could with improved routing be speeded to St. Petersburg.
Her next question 'Are you earning much as a salesman in the glass business?' provided him with an opportunity for an oration on how the Aleutians could be developed by someone with imagination and a little assured capital.
Before the hour ended she was satisfied that he was the man to represent both Russia and The Company in the Aleutians: 'Hold yourself in readiness, Mr. Baranov, while I do some investigating,' and when he was gone she returned to her directors with a succinct recommendation: 'The man we need in the islands is Aleksandr Baranov.'
When the men protested that he had failed in everything, she reminded them: 'But you all said he was honest. I'm saying he has imagination ... and force of character ... and common sense.'
'Then why has he failed?' they asked, and she said: 'Because he did not have an old hand like me setting policy and bright young men like you providing him with funds.'
No better summary of Russia's needs in her American adventure than this had so far been voiced, either in Irkutsk or St. Petersburg, and the directors recognized it, but one cautious man protested: 'Baranov may be too old.'
'I'm twice as old,' Marina snorted, 'and I'd sail out to Kodiak tomorrow if I had to.'
'You might as well bring him in,' the men said grudgingly, and after a few minutes of Marina's expert questioning, Baranov revealed himself as a man who had a clear view of future possibilities, and she complimented him on his astuteness: 'Thank you, Mr. Baranov. You seem to have three attributes we seek. A surplus of energy, boundless enthusiasm and a vision of what Russia might accomplish in her islands.'
'I hope so,' he said modestly, bowing slightly.
The directors, aware that Marina was rushing them into decisions they might not wish to make, were so resentful of her intrusion that they started to demonstrate the flaws in her nominee: 'Mr. Baranov, we're sure you understand that The Company has two obligations. It must make money for us directors here in Irkutsk. And it must represent the wishes of the tsarina in St. Petersburg.' When Baranov nodded enthusiastically, one of the directors pointed out acidly: 'But you've never turned a steady profit on anything you've attempted.' Without embarrassment, the chubby merchant smiled and said: 'Always I've made a good start, then run out of money. This time I'd have the same good ideas and your job would be to see that I had the funds.'
'But could you keep the tsarina happy?' they asked, and with a tradesman's simplicity he answered: 'Make money and you keep everybody happy.'
'Well said!' Marina cried. 'That could be the motto of our company.' But now the directors raised an even more subtle objection: 'If you did become, as Madame Zhdanko seems to be recommending, our representative in the Aleutians, you would be Aleksandr Baranov merchant, and for protection you would be forced to rely upon some naval officer of noble lineage.' No one spoke, and then, from an older man: 'And as you know, there can be on the face of this earth nothing more contemptuous than a Russian naval officer looking down his nose at a merchant.'
Another director agreed, then all leaned forward as he asked: 'Mr. Baranov, do you think you could handle a naval officer?'
With the simple grace that characterized this unusual man, he replied: 'I've never been vain. I've always been eager to concede the other man any rights to which he considers himself entitled. But I've never been diverted from the task which requires to be done.' Looking from one man to the other, he added: 'I am only a merchant, and nobility is far beyond my reach. But I have something the noble officers will never have.'
'And what is that?'
In the quiet of this office in Irkutsk, Baranov the indefatigable dreamer gave his answer: 'I know that Imperial Russia must use the Aleutian Islands as stepping stones to a great Russian occupation of North America. I know that the supply of sea-otter pelts is already dwindling and that other sources of wealth must be found.'
'Such as what?' one of the directors asked, and without a moment's hesitation this amusing little fellow with the trigger-quick brain revealed his compulsive vision:
'Trade.'
'With whom?' someone asked, and he replied: 'With everyone. With the Hudson's Bay Company at Nootka Sound, with the Spaniards in California, with Hawaii. And across the ocean to Japan and China. And with the American ships that begin to invade our waters.'
'You seem hungry to embrace the entire Pacific,' a director said, and he replied:
'Not me, Russia. I see a constant movement of our empire to all corners.'
His vision was so grand, so all-encompassing that on the morrow the directors, frightened by its implications, brought in an officer who represented the tsarina and the more responsible elements in her government: 'Mr. Baranov, these men tell me that you have soaring visions.'
'The future of Russia demands them.'
'But have you any comprehension of Russian policy? No? Well, let me explain, and I shall use no shadowy meanings or oblique references. Our policy is to defend ourselves at all costs from dangers in Europe. That means we must do nothing to alert or offend anyone in the Pacific. If you become our man in the Aleutians, you must not offend Britain in North America, or Spain in California, or the United States or Japan or China or even Hawaii.
Because the fate of Russia will not be determined in these waters. It will be determined only in Europe. Do you understand?'
What Baranov understood was that the temporary concerns of Russia might be in Europe but that her long-term interests lay in the Pacific, and a powerful foothold in North America would, in the future, be of the greatest significance. But he also knew that as a mere merchant, he had no power base or standing from which to put his grand designs into operations, so h
e dissembled: 'I understand my orders. If I'm sent, I'm to tend the islands and touch nothing else.'
Now he was to receive his first lesson in imperial diplomacy, for the officer looked about the room, lowered his voice, and said quietly: 'Now wait, Mr. Baranov. No one said that, not at all. If you're sent to Kodiak, you're to probe outward in all directions.
A fort here if the natives will allow it. Trade with Hawaii if practical. Exploration deep into California when the Spaniards aren't looking. And above all, secure us a foothold on North America.'
In the silence that followed, Baranov did not say triumphantly: 'That's what I was saying.' Instead, he nodded to the official, then to each of the directors, and said:
'Excellency, you're a wise man, a prudent man. You show me horizons I had not seen before,' and the tsarina's officer smiled bleakly, like a winter sun in northern Siberia.
Few imaginative men in history were given diplomatic assignments more precisely tailored to fit their peculiar talents than this one handed to Aleksandr Baranov. As a lowly merchant with no social standing, he was to compete on equal terms with haughty naval officers from the nobility. In a dying fur market he was to earn a profit. In an ocean where he must not make any overt moves he was to extend Russian power in all directions. And burdened with a wife who was never with him, he was to civilize and educate the wild islands of the northern seas. Nodding to those who were about to send him on this impossible mission, he said with quiet dignity: 'I'll do my best.'
Next day he learned that he would have help, for at a luncheon arranged by Madame Zhdanko he met with the Bishop of Irkutsk, who said ominously: 'The tsarina is aware that the international reputation of Russia depends upon how successful we are in establishing a Christian church among the natives, and, frankly, we've not accomplished much'. If the tsarina ever learns how remiss we've been, control of Russian America will be ripped away from The Company and you'll never see a pelt again.' He glared at Baranov as if he were responsible for past error, and thundered: 'We expect you to mend these matters.'