"Balancing on the edge of the abyss" was Dostoyevsky's description of Russia then. After Alexander II's death, society was persuaded that the way forward was the way back. His son, Alexander III, ...returned Russia to the ruthless autocracy so dear to the hearts of its rulers. He dreamed of reverting to the times of his grandfather, Nicholas I (1796-1855), who had said, "Despotism exists in Russia because only it is in accordance with the spirit of the people." But toward the end of his reign, Alexander III asked his adjutant-general: "There is still something wrong in Russia, isn't there?" The reply should be memorized by all of Russia's rulers: "Your Majesty, imagine an enormous steam boiler filled with simmering gases. But there are people with hammers around it diligently riveting the smallest openings. One day the gases will break though a section that they will not be able to rivet back." The czar, according to accounts, "groaned, as if in pain." Joseph Stalin had studied in a seminary, and he often said that Russia needed God and czar. And he gave the country a new religion: Asiatic Marxism. As befitted medieval religions, dissent was heresy, punished ruthlessly by death. The greatest temple was the Mausoleum, where, following the model of the imperishable saints, lay the body of imperishable Lenin. Many in the West did not believe in the "eternally living Lenin" and insisted that there was a wax dummy in the Mausoleum. In the 1930s, Stalin decided to prove the great power of the party that had conquered death to a group of Western journalists. Louis Fischer, a biographer of Lenin, was among the journalists. He wrote: "Zbarsky the biochemist who mummified the body opened the glass case, and. . . pinched Lenin's nose and then turned his head right and left. We all could tell that it was not wax. It was Lenin." The passionate atheist and iconoclast had been turned into a holy relic. The Mausoleum workers felt like priests, keeping watch over that horrific parody of the Lord's Coffin. (Zbarsky recounted: "I was on call to the Mausoleum 24 hours a day. I taught the workers there: if even a fly gets into the sarcophagus, I categorically forbid you to get rid of it without me. All my life I had this nightmare -- they call from the Mausoleum: 'Comrade Zbarsky, there's a fly in the sarcophagus!?' And I jump up and rush over like a madman. . . . Then I would wake up in a cold sweat.") Stalin gave the country a new religion and he gave it czar and God in one person. Lavrenty Beria, chief of his security apparatus, explained the task of the film, "The Vow," to its director during production: "'The Vow' must be an exalted film, where Lenin is the biblical John the Baptist and Stalin is the Messiah Himself." Stalin's name was repeated all day on the radio. "Stalin this and Stalin that. You can't go to the kitchen or sit down on the toilet, or eat lunch without Stalin pursuing you: he got into your guts, your brain, he filled in all the holes, he ran nipping at your heels, called into your soul, got under the covers with you, and shadowed memory and sleep," wrote a woman in her diary. At the end of his life, Stalin signed a resolution to create an unparalleled statue, which could be compared only with the Colossus of Rhodes. The biggest statue in the world, at almost 50 meters tall, it was erected on the Volga-Don canal, built by convicts. One day, the keeper discovered that birds liked to rest on the head. You can imagine what the new god's face would look like. You couldn't punish birds, but the local authorities, smelling danger, found a solution: high-tension electricity passed through the giant head. Now the statue stood surrounded by a carpet of dead birds. Every morning the keeper buried the little bodies and the earth, so fertilized, flowered.
"Balancing on the edge of the abyss" was Dostoyevsky's description of Russia then. After Alexander II's death, society was persuaded that the way forward was the way back. His son, Alexander III, ...returned Russia to the ruthless autocracy so dear to the hearts of its rulers. He dreamed of reverting to the times of his grandfather, Nicholas I (1796-1855), who had said, "Despotism exists in Russia because only it is in accordance with the spirit of the people." But toward the end of his reign, Alexander III asked his adjutant-general: "There is still something wrong in Russia, isn't there?" The reply should be memorized by all of Russia's rulers: "Your majesty, imagine an enormous steam boiler filled with simmering gases. But there are people with hammers around it diligently riveting the smallest openings. One day the gases will break though a section that they will not be able to rivet back." The czar, according to accounts, "groaned, as if in pain." Joseph Stalin had studied in a seminary, and said that Russia needed god and czar. He gave it a new religion: Asiatic Marxism. As befitted medieval religions, dissent was heresy, punished ruthlessly by death. The greatest temple was the Mausoleum, where, following the model of the imperishable saints, lay the body of imperishable Lenin. Many in the West did not believe in the "eternally living Lenin" and insisted that there was a wax dummy in the Mausoleum. In the 1930s, Stalin decided to prove the great power of the party that had conquered death to a group of Western journalists. Louis Fischer, a biographer of Lenin, was among them. He wrote: "Zbarsky the biochemist who mummified the body opened the glass case, and . . . pinched Lenin's nose and then turned his head right and left. We all could tell that it was not wax. It was Lenin." The passionate atheist and iconoclast had been turned into a holy relic. The Mausoleum workers felt like priests, keeping watch over that horrific parody of the Lord's Coffin. (Zbarsky recounted: "I was on call to the Mausoleum 24 hours a day. I taught the workers there: If even a fly gets into the sarcophagus, I categorically forbid you to get rid of it without me. All my life I had this nightmare -- they call from the Mausoleum: 'Comrade Zbarsky, there's a fly in the sarcophagus!?' And I jump up and rush over like a madman. . . . Then I would wake up in a cold sweat.") Stalin gave the country a new religion and he gave it czar and god in one person. Lavrenty Beria, chief of his security apparatus, explained the task of the film, "The Vow," to its director during production: "'The Vow' must be an exalted film, where Lenin is the biblical John the Baptist and Stalin is the Messiah Himself." Stalin's name was repeated all day on the radio. "Stalin this and Stalin that. You can't go to the kitchen or sit down on the toilet, or eat lunch without Stalin pursuing you: He got into your guts, your brain, he filled in all the holes, he ran nipping at your heels, called into your soul, got under the covers with you, and shadowed memory and sleep," wrote a woman in her diary. At the end of his life, Stalin signed a resolution to create a statue which could be compared only with the Colossus of Rhodes. Almost 50 meters tall, it was erected on the Volga-Don canal, built by convicts. One day, the keeper discovered that birds liked to rest on the head. You can imagine what the new god's face would look like. You couldn't punish birds, but the local authorities, smelling danger, found a solution: high-tension electricity passed through the giant head. Now the statue stood surrounded by a carpet of dead birds. Every morning the keeper buried the little bodies, and the earth, so fertilized, flowered.
"Balancing on the edge of the abyss" was Dostoyevsky's description of Russia then. After Alexander II's death, society was persuaded that the way forward was the way back. His son, Alexander III, ...returned Russia to the ruthless autocracy so dear to the hearts of its rulers. He dreamed of reverting to the times of his grandfather, Nicholas I (1796-1855), who had said, "Despotism exists in Russia because only it is in accordance with the spirit of the people." But toward the end of his reign, Alexander III asked his adjutant-general: "There is still something wrong in Russia, isn't there?" The reply should be memorized by all of Russia's rulers: "Your Majesty, imagine an enormous steam boiler filled with simmering gases. But there are people with hammers around it diligently riveting the smallest openings. One day the gases will break though a section that they will not be able to rivet back." The czar, according to accounts, "groaned, as if in pain." Joseph Stalin had studied in a seminary, and he often said that Russia needed God and czar. And he gave the country a new religion: Asiatic Marxism. As befitted medieval religions, dissent was heresy, punished ruthlessly by death. The greatest temple was the Mausoleum, where, following the model of the imperishable saints, lay the body of imperishable Lenin. Many in the West did not believe in the "eternally living Lenin" and insisted that there was a wax dummy in the Mausoleum. In the 1930s, Stalin decided to prove the great power of the party that had conquered death to a group of Western journalists. Louis Fischer, a biographer of Lenin, was among the journalists. He wrote: "Zbarsky the biochemist who mummified the body opened the glass case, and... pinched Lenin's nose and then turned his head right and left. We all could tell that it was not wax. It was Lenin." The passionate atheist and iconoclast had been turned into a holy relic. The Mausoleum workers felt like priests, keeping watch over that horrific parody of the Lord's Coffin. (Zbarsky recounted: "I was on call to the Mausoleum 24 hours a day. I taught the workers there: if even a fly gets into the sarcophagus, I categorically forbid you to get rid of it without me. All my life I had this nightmare -- they call from the Mausoleum: 'Comrade Zbarsky, there's a fly in the sarcophagus!?' And I jump up and rush over like a madman. . . . Then I would wake up in a cold sweat.") Stalin gave the country a new religion and he gave it czar and God in one person. Lavrenty Beria, chief of his security apparatus, explained the task of the film, "The Vow," to its director during production: "'The Vow' must be an exalted film, where Lenin is the biblical John the Baptist and Stalin is the Messiah Himself." Stalin's name was repeated all day on the radio. "Stalin this and Stalin that. You can't go to the kitchen or sit down on the toilet, or eat lunch without Stalin pursuing you: he got into your guts, your brain, he filled in all the holes, he ran nipping at your heels, called into your soul, got under the covers with you, and shadowed memory and sleep," wrote a woman in her diary. At the end of his life, Stalin signed a resolution to create an unparalleled statue, which could be compared only with the Colossus of Rhodes. The biggest statue in the world, at almost 50 meters tall, it was erected on the Volga-Don canal, built by convicts. One day, the keeper discovered that birds liked to rest on the head. You can imagine what the new god's face would look like. You couldn't punish birds, but the local authorities, smelling danger, found a solution: high-tension electricity passed through the giant head. Now the statue stood surrounded by a carpet of dead birds. Every morning the keeper buried the little bodies and the earth, so fertilized, flowered.
The new Russian woman Radzinsky, Edvard
National post (Toronto),
09/2005
Newspaper Article
"A chicken's hardly a bird, a woman's hardly a person." This is a common Russian saying and it reflects the Russian way of thinking. In spite of the complete absence of women's rights in 18th-century ...Russia, there were five empresses of Russia who presided over the lives and deaths of their subjects. This historical paradox would recur in an inverted form -- with the attainment of equal rights in the 20th century, Russian women vanished from political power and from political life in general. The Bolshevik radicals who established holidays in honor of women's rights made their absence from politics a fixed tradition. There was not a woman to be found in Lenin's or Stalin's Politburo. Stalin himself (as his wife would later write sadly in her correspondence) tended to replace the word "woman" with the somewhat crude and common "baba." The first shock of Gorbachev's new era was his appearance on the television screen together with ... his wife! This was the true beginning of Perestroika. For the first time, the wife of the General Secretary ceased to be "the Empress of the Dark Chambers." And this wife even dared to speak her mind on matters of politics! This was received with bewilderment by the majority of the populace, and in particular, by women. Immediately, there arose one of the most dangerous of Russian rumors: That the wife rules the husband. It was one of the main reasons for the decline of Gorbachev's popularity. The wives of subsequent presidents made their appearances on screen, but they took the experience of the Gorbachevs into account: First ladies now conducted themselves with extreme modesty. They remained what women were supposed to be in Russia -- mere women. Recently, I witnessed something now possible only in Russia. I completed a book on the great and enigmatic Russian emperor Alexander II and decided to speak about the book at one of Moscow's largest auditoriums, the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall, seating 1,500 people. Orchestra tickets cost US$50 apiece. This is a large sum of money in Russia, yet the hall was filled to bursting. Eighty per cent of the public was young, for the most part young girls. The evening was recorded and replayed on TV over three days. The ecstatic cameraman repeatedly cut to the faces of the lovely young women in the audience who, for over three hours, listened in rapt silence to a tale of the history of their Fatherland. This new generation of women promises to become the most successful in Russia's history.
The new Russian woman Radzinsky, Edvard
National post (Toronto),
09/2005
Newspaper Article
"A chicken's hardly a bird, a woman's hardly a person." This is a common Russian saying and it reflects the Russian way of thinking. In spite of the complete absence of women's rights in 18th-century ...Russia, there were five empresses of Russia who presided over the lives and deaths of their subjects. This historical paradox would recur in an inverted form -- with the attainment of equal rights in the 20th century, Russian women vanished from political power and from political life in general. The Bolshevik radicals who established holidays in honor of women's rights made their absence from politics a fixed tradition. There was not a woman to be found in Lenin's or Stalin's Politburo. Stalin himself (as his wife would later write sadly in her correspondence) tended to replace the word "woman" with the somewhat crude and common "baba." The first shock of Gorbachev's new era was his appearance on the television screen together with ... his wife! This was the true beginning of Perestroika. For the first time, the wife of the General Secretary ceased to be "the Empress of the Dark Chambers." And this wife even dared to speak her mind on matters of politics! This was received with bewilderment by the majority of the populace, and in particular, by women. Immediately, there arose one of the most dangerous of Russian rumors: That the wife rules the husband. It was one of the main reasons for the decline of Gorbachev's popularity. The wives of subsequent presidents made their appearances on screen, but they took the experience of the Gorbachevs into account: First ladies now conducted themselves with extreme modesty. They remained what women were supposed to be in Russia -- mere women. Recently, I witnessed something now possible only in Russia. I completed a book on the great and enigmatic Russian emperor Alexander II and decided to speak about the book at one of Moscow's largest auditoriums, the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall, seating 1,500 people. Orchestra tickets cost US$50 apiece. This is a large sum of money in Russia, yet the hall was filled to bursting. Eighty per cent of the public was young, for the most part young girls. The evening was recorded and replayed on TV over three days. The ecstatic cameraman repeatedly cut to the faces of the lovely young women in the audience who, for over three hours, listened in rapt silence to a tale of the history of their Fatherland. This new generation of women promises to become the most successful in Russia's history.
"A chicken's hardly a bird, a woman's hardly a person." This is a common Russian saying and it reflects the Russian way of thinking. In spite of the absence of women's rights in 18th-century Russia, ...there were five empresses of Russia who presided over the lives and deaths of their subjects. This historical paradox would recur in an inverted form -- with the attainment of equal rights in the 20th century, Russian women vanished from political power and political life in general. The Bolshevik radicals who established holidays in honor of women's rights made their absence from politics a tradition. There was not a woman to be found in Lenin's or Stalin's Politburo. Stalin himself (as his wife would later write sadly in her correspondence) tended to replace the word "woman" with the somewhat crude and common "baba." A woman in Russia lived through her family. And she had to have a husband. The key role for women in the USSR was to be a "warrior's holiday." "A man knows the happiness of one who receives; a woman knows the happiness of one who gives" -- this was the dream and the rule. With the advent of Perestroika, all this began to change. The first Russian businesswomen came onto the scene. It was in business, not politics, that the road to true gender equality in Russia began to be laid. The first businesswomen were poor young girls when Perestroika hit. Now they're over 30. They can be found in the most varied professions -- from advertising firms to travel agencies, from computer companies to mass media agencies, from law firms to major commercial enterprises. And professional sport is foremost a business. They arrived speedily at a new slogan for the independent Russian woman: "If pants must be hanging in the closet, they might as well be mine!" They can have children without husbands, they can leave one husband for another -- the important thing is to live as they like, not as he likes. They're finished with the "warrior's holiday" for good.
The Other Russian Revolution Radzinsky, Edvard
The Wall Street journal. Eastern edition,
08/2005
Newspaper Article
"A chicken's hardly a bird, a woman's hardly a person." This is a common Russian saying and it reflects the Russian way of thinking. In spite of the complete absence of women's rights in 18th-century ...Russia, there were five empresses of Russia who presided over the lives and deaths of their subjects. This historical paradox would recur in an inverted form -- with the attainment of equal rights in the 20th century, Russian women vanished from political power and from political life in general. The Bolshevik radicals who established holidays in honor of women's rights made their absence from politics a fixed tradition. There was not a woman to be found in Lenin's or Stalin's Politburo. Stalin himself (as his wife would later write sadly in her correspondence) tended to replace the word "woman" with the somewhat crude and common "baba." A woman in Russia lived through her family. And she had to have a husband. The key role for women in the USSR was to be a "warrior's holiday." "A man knows the happiness of one who receives; a woman knows the happiness of one who gives" -- this was the dream and the rule. With the advent of Perestroika, all this began to change. The first Russian businesswomen came onto the scene. It was in business, not politics, that the road to true gender equality in Russia began to be laid. The first businesswomen were poor young girls when Perestroika hit. Now they're over 30. They can be found in the most varied professions -- from advertising firms to travel agencies, from computer companies to mass media agencies, from law firms to major commercial enterprises. And professional sport, too, one must remember, is foremost a business. They arrived speedily at a new slogan for the independent Russian woman: "If pants must be hanging in the closet, they might as well be mine!" They can have children without husbands, they can leave one husband for another -- the important thing is to live as they like, not as he likes. They're finished with the "warrior's holiday" for good.
Tennis Lolitas Radzinsky, Edvard
Wall Street journal. Europe,
08/2005
Newspaper Article
"A chicken's hardly a bird, a woman's hardly a person." This is a common Russian saying and it reflects the Russian way of thinking. In spite of the absence of women's rights in 18th-century Russia, ...there were five empresses of Russia who presided over the lives and deaths of their subjects. This historical paradox would recur in an inverted form -- with the attainment of equal rights in the 20th century, Russian women vanished from political power and political life in general. The Bolshevik radicals who established holidays in honor of women's rights made their absence from politics a tradition. There was not a woman to be found in Lenin's or Stalin's Politburo. Stalin himself (as his wife would later write sadly in her correspondence) tended to replace the word "woman" with the somewhat crude and common "baba." A woman in Russia lived through her family. And she had to have a husband. The key role for women in the USSR was to be a "warrior's holiday." "A man knows the happiness of one who receives; a woman knows the happiness of one who gives" -- this was the dream and the rule. With the advent of Perestroika, all this began to change. The first Russian businesswomen came onto the scene. It was in business, not politics, that the road to true gender equality in Russia began to be laid. The first businesswomen were poor young girls when Perestroika hit. Now they're over 30. They can be found in the most varied professions -- from advertising firms to travel agencies, from computer companies to mass media agencies, from law firms to major commercial enterprises. And professional sport is foremost a business. They arrived speedily at a new slogan for the independent Russian woman: "If pants must be hanging in the closet, they might as well be mine!" They can have children without husbands, they can leave one husband for another -- the important thing is to live as they like, not as he likes. They're finished with the "warrior's holiday" for good. "A chicken's hardly a bird, a woman's hardly a person." This is a common Russian saying and it reflects the Russian way of thinking. In spite of the absence of women's rights in 18th-century Russia, there were five empresses of Russia who presided over the lives and deaths of their subjects. This historical paradox would recur in an inverted form -- with the attainment of equal rights in the 20th century, Russian women vanished from political power and political life in general. The Bolshevik radicals who established holidays in honor of women's rights made their absence from politics a tradition. There was not a woman to be found in Lenin's or Stalin's Politburo. Stalin himself (as his wife would later write sadly in her correspondence) tended to replace the word "woman" with the somewhat crude and common "baba." A woman in Russia lived through her family. And she had to have a husband. The key role for women in the USSR was to be a "warrior's holiday." "A man knows the happiness of one who receives; a woman knows the happiness of one who gives" -- this was the dream and the rule. With the advent of Perestroika, all this began to change. The first Russian businesswomen came onto the scene. It was in business, not politics, that the road to true gender equality in Russia began to be laid. The first businesswomen were poor young girls when Perestroika hit. Now they're over 30. They can be found in the most varied professions -- from advertising firms to travel agencies, from computer companies to mass media agencies, from law firms to major commercial enterprises. And professional sport is foremost a business. They arrived speedily at a new slogan for the independent Russian woman: "If pants must be hanging in the closet, they might as well be mine!" They can have children without husbands, they can leave one husband for another -- the important thing is to live as they like, not as he likes. They're finished with the "warrior's holiday" for good.
The sanctification of the czar contains an important paradox. The image of Nicholas II has undergone a significant evolution in the minds of the Russian people. When the Bolshevik empire collapsed in ...the early 1990s, the martyred royal family became an eloquent symbol of the struggle against the communists. Russia's people delighted, at that time, in everything that touched upon the czar: his noble face, so unlike the faces of Bolshevik leaders; his love for Alexandra, his wife; and the couple's piety, a feature that was especially important in a country where God's name had not been capitalized for eight decades. By the second half of the 1990s, the image of the last czar was fading fast. Boris Yeltsin revered the czar as an instrument in his struggle against the communists. But the reverential attitude of the authorities had negative consequences for Nicholas II's reputation. People started associating the martyred czar with Russia's widespread poverty, as well as with the thievery of the administration. The nostalgic love for the last czar dwindled, until it became confined to the monarchists. The greatest fallen empire of the 20th century, Russia began to recall its modern creators, imbuing them with new and menacing myths: Lenin, who did not allow the Russian empire to fall apart, and Stalin, who expanded it. Nicholas II now became part of a fresh mythology. The perception of the czar as a victim had lost its charm, and its potency. A new image appeared: Nicholas II as an autocrat, the ruler of an enormous empire, whose banners carried the inscription: "Russia, one and indivisible." This czar was a leader of a mighty army, protected by the prayers of a clergy in showy vestments.
The sanctification of the czar contains an important paradox. The image of Nicholas II has undergone a significant evolution in the minds of the Russian people. When the Bolshevik empire collapsed in ...the early 1990s, the martyred royal family became an eloquent symbol of the struggle against the communists. Russia's people delighted, at that time, in everything that touched upon the czar -- his noble face, so unlike the faces of Bolshevik leaders; his love for Alexandra, his wife; and the couple's piety, a feature that was especially important in a country where God's name had not been capitalized for eight decades. By the second half of the 1990s, the image of the last czar was fading fast. Boris Yeltsin revered the czar as an instrument in his struggle against the communists. But the reverential attitude of the authorities had negative consequences for Nicholas II's reputation. People started associating the martyred czar with Russia's widespread poverty, as well as with the thievery of the administration. The nostalgic love for the last czar dwindled, until it became confined to the monarchists. The greatest fallen empire of the 20th century -- Russia -- began to recall its modern creators, imbuing them with new and menacing myths: Lenin, who did not allow the Russian empire to fall apart, and Stalin, who expanded it. Nicholas II now became part of a fresh mythology. The perception of the czar as a victim had lost its charm, and its potency. A new image appeared: Nicholas II as an autocrat, the ruler of an enormous empire, whose banners carried the inscription: "Russia, one and indivisible." This czar was a leader of a mighty army, protected by the prayers of a clergy in showy vestments.
