The Icon and the Axe

THE ICON AND THE AXE

An Interpretive History of Russian Culture

by James H. Billington

Vintage Books

A DIVISION OF RANDOM HOUSE NEW YORK

PREFACE

This is an interpretive history of modern Russian thought and culture. It is the product of one man's scholarship, reflection, and special interests. There is no illusion-and I hope no pretense-of offering an encyclopedic inventory of the Russian heritage or any simple key to understanding it. This is a selective account which seeks to provide new information and interpretation and not merely to codify an already established consensus: to open up rather than to "cover" this vast subject.

The period under consideration is the last six hundred years, during which Russia has emerged as a powerful, distinctive, creative civilization. The narrative will deal with some of the anguish and aspiration as well as the achievements of Russian culture; restless dissenters as well as ruling oligarchies; priests and prophets as well as poets and politicians. No attempt will be made to provide a complete picture of any individual cultural medium or personality, or to make the quantity of words devoted to a given subject a necessary index of intrinsic cultural quality. This work will draw on those materials which seem to illustrate best the distinctive central concerns of each era of Russian cultural development.

Two artifacts of enduring meaning to Russians-the icon and the axe-have been chosen for the title. These two objects were traditionally hung together on the wall of the peasant hut in the wooded Russian north. Their meaning for Russian culture will be set forth in the early pages of this book; they serve to suggest both the visionary and the earthy aspects of Russian cultufeTThe eternal split between the saintly and the demonic in all human culture is, however, not provided in the Russian case by any simple contrast between holy pictures and unholy weapons. For icons have been used by charlatans and demagogues, and axes by saints and artists. Thus, the initial focus on these primitive artifacts contains a hint of the ironic perspective with which we shall end our examination of Russian culture. The title also serves to suggest that this is a work which will seek

to locate and trace symbols that have played a unique role for the Russian imagination rather than examine Russian reality primarily in terms of the ideas, institutions, and art forms of the West.

The emphasis in this work is on the elusive world of ideas and ideals which Russians refer to as dukhovnaia kul'tura: a term far less narrowly religious in suggestion than its English equivalent of "spiritual culture." This work does not purport to relate ideology systematically to economic and social forces, or to prejudge the deeper question of the relative importance of material and ideological forces in history. It seeks only to establish more fully the historical identity of the spiritual and ideological forces which are recognized even by Marxist materialists in the USSR to have been of great importance in the development of their country.