A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution, 1891-1924

Not that the idea of Holy Russia lacked a popular base. Folksongs and Cossack epics had talked of the Holy Russian land since at least the seventeenth century. It was only natural that Christianity should become a symbol of popular self-identification for the Slavs on this flat Eurasian land-mass so regularly threatened by Mongol and Tatar invasion. To be a Russian was to be Christian and a member of the Orthodox faith. Indeed it was telling that the phrase 'Holy Russia' (Sviataia Rus') could only be applied to this older term for Russia, from which the very word for a Russian (russkii) derived; it was impossible to say Sviataia Rossiia, since Rossiia, the newer term for Russia, was connected only with the imperial state.* Even more suggestive is the fact that the word in Russian for a peasant (krest'ianin), which in all other European languages stemmed from the idea of the country or the land, was coupled with the word for a Christian (khrist'ianin).

But where the popular myth of Holy Russia had sanctified the people and their customs, the official one sanctified the state in the person of the Tsar. Moscow became the 'Third Rome', heir to the legacy of Byzantium, the last capital of Orthodoxy; and Russia became a 'holy land' singled out by God for humanity's salvation. This messianic mission gave the tsars a unique religious role; to preach the True Word and fight heresies across the world. The image of the tsar was not just of a king, mortal as a man but ruling with a divine right, as in the Western medieval tradition; he was fabricated as a God on earth, divinely ordained as a ruler and saintly as a man. There was a long tradition in Russia of canonizing princes who had laid down their lives pro patria et fides, as Michael Cherniavsky has shown in his superb study of Russian myths. The tsars used Church laws, as no Western rulers did, to persecute their political opponents. The whole of Russia became transformed into a sort of vast monastery, under the rule of a tsar-archimandrite, where all heresies were rooted out.³⁴

It was only gradually from the eighteenth century that this religious base of tsarist power was replaced by a secular one. Peter the Great sought to reform the relations between Church and state on Western absolutist lines. In an effort to subordinate it to the state, the Church's administration was transferred from the patriarchate to the Holy Synod, a body of laymen and clergy

* The difference between Rus and Rossiia was similar to that between 'England' and 'Britain'.

appointed by the Tsar. By the nineteenth century its secular representative, the Procurator-General, had in effect attained the status of minister for ecclesiastical affairs with control of episcopal appointments, religious education and most of the Church's finances, although not of questions of theological dogma. The Holy Synod remained, for the most part, a faithful tool in the hands of the Tsar. It was in the Church's interests not to rock the boat: during the latter half of the eighteenth century it had lost much of its land to the state and it now relied on it for funding to support 100,000 parish clergy and their families.* Still, it would be wrong to portray the Church as a submissive organ of the state. The tsarist system relied on the Church just as much as the Church relied on it: theirs was a mutual dependence. In a vast peasant country like Russia, where most of the population was illiterate, the Church was an essential propaganda weapon and a means of social control.³⁵

The priests were called upon to denounce from the pulpit all forms of dissent and opposition to the Tsar, and to inform the police about subversive elements within their parish, even if they had obtained the information through the confessional. They were burdened with petty administrative duties: helping the police to control vagrants; reading out imperial manifestos and decrees; providing the authorities with statistics on births, deaths and marriages registered in parish books, and so on. Through 41,000 parish schools the Orthodox clergy were also expected to teach the peasant children to show loyalty, deference and obedience not just to the Tsar and his officials but also to their elders and betters. Here is a section of the basic school catechism prepared by the Holy Synod:

Q. How should we show our respect for the Tsar?

A. I. We should feel complete loyalty to the Tsar and be prepared to lay

down our lives for him. 2. We should without objection fulfil his

commands and be obedient to the authorities appointed by him.

3. We should pray for his health and salvation, and also for that of

all the Ruling House. Q. What should we think of those who violate their duty toward their

Sovereign? A. They are guilty not only before the Sovereign, but also before God.

The Word of God says, 'Whosoever therefore resisteth the power,