That must be the tradition. How many centuries have they been sitting like that? And at what age are they expected to exchange their colorful clothes for full-body black, forever abandoning femininity and full living?
At first I thought that this was prolonged widowhood, transformed into death during life. But no, these grannies often coexist with layabout husbands who never sit by the door but spend their days hanging out at the café in the town square with other slacker grandpas. Pale azure short-sleeved shirts, beige trousers (washed and ironed by the grannies in black), thick heads of hair—old Greeks rarely go bald. Some even proudly sport fancy mustaches. Worry beads—hands need to keep busy somehow. Cigarettes and tiny cups of very sweet coffee are de rigueur.
The grandpas in beige congregate at café tables in the shade of a tree—there is always a tree in a town square—where they discuss local, as well as world, politics. With lively curiosity they observe people getting off buses—at every village a bus stops twice a day, dropping off new, interesting, bewildered foreigners and their women. A few of the foreigners ask for directions, and the grandpas oblige with dignity, slowly gesturing with their hand: Go this way, then that way, and then turn there. They follow the clueless tourists with a stern gaze, and then it’s back to world political machinations and ogling women.
The ladies in black don’t discuss anything, they simply sit there. What’s to discuss, right? Gave birth, cooked, did laundry, waited, loved, cried, condemned, forgave, didn’t forgive, hated, harvested olives from a black mesh laid under the trees, bade farewell, buried, mourned, and then again cooked, washed dishes, and returned them to the shelf.
What’s to discuss?
Official Nationality
1. The Triad of Official Nationality—a doctrine proposed by Sergey Uvarov, Russia’s minister of education from 1834 to 1849—continues to amaze me with its ingenuity.
“Orthodoxy, Autocracy, Nationality.” The wording is for brevity and for pleasing the tsar, but also to discourage the Illuminati, the Carbonari, and the Jacobins, with their “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité”—those same who, by the basketful, used to collect their brethren’s heads from under the guillotine, fi donc!
The Uvarov Triad, the Holy Life-Giving Trinity, assembles into a single movable structure three types of power, three kinds of force: the celestial (religion), the earthly (the tsar), and the chthonic (the lower world), whose roots spread out and creep down to God knows where, feeding off God knows what subterranean rivers, maybe even blooming with dead-white flowers, entangling themselves in underground caves impossibly hard to reach.
It is essentially the World Tree—Arbor Mundi—the heavens, the terrestrial world, and the underworld. You can only surmise what’s up top, you can observe what is in the middle, and the bottom is an impenetrable and incomprehensible pit.
By comparison, “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité” is nothing but gibberish smeared over a flat surface. It’s not the Russian way.
Each element of the Triad, however, is a blooming garden of mystery.
First, let’s take Orthodoxy. But what “Orthodoxy,” pray tell? It’s mostly a matter of wishful thinking, a reminder that one mustn’t forget, but must pay attention. The populace has a tendency to regress, one way or the other, into the warm, damp gloom of paganism, with its obscure flickering and alarmed voices, where something hoots and hollers behind your shoulder, beckons and promises in the distance.
Jesus stubbornly grumbles and doesn’t feel like performing miracles. Doesn’t feel like it! That’s just the way He is. Here is Lazarus for you—and that’s enough. A blind man, fine. But people need miracles, they long for astonishing, lively, festive things. Abracadabra and—bam! Open the door—and there! Look out the window—and wow! They need Santa, on a regular basis. With presents. Otherwise, O heavenly creatures, life is empty and cold.
That Russian Orthodoxy and paganism go well together is obvious, plain to see in life’s most important matters. The moment the bride and groom step away from the altar, they are showered with grain to ensure fertility, so that their progeny are as plentiful as the harvest. In fat years they shower them with wheat. And in lean years—and I remember the lean 1980s as if they were yesterday—there were two women standing around an empty Soviet grocery store, without so much as a bit of millet to be had, discussing whether they could use corn grits instead.
And the hearth? The apartment? The most important thing one can possess is his burrow, his nest, his private space. Whether a micro-studio in a tiny rural town or a penthouse on the Golden Mile—it’s all shelter. Before moving in, a Russian will have a cat cross the threshold to purify the space of evil spirits; then he’ll invite a priest to bless it. Sometimes the order is reversed, but only after having done both will he set foot inside. The cat and the priest go hand in hand, so to say; they protect us from evil, they chase away the darkness, exuding an inexplicable aetherial, magic fragrance.
All this despite the fact that a cat, by folk logic, is generally up to no good, and in cahoots with these very same evil spirits. But he also controls them. A cat is our ambassador to the world of evil—and thus pagan—forces; he’s our protector, our Saint Tabby. (Same in Europe; see under “Puss in Boots.”)
There are places where otherworldly forces swirl. In Izborsk, for instance. It’s a tiny town near Pskov.
An oak of green by curving sea bend,
A golden chain that hugs its form;
And day and night that chain is treaded:
A cat walks round, he’s well-informed.
When ambling left—he tells a tale,
When right—a song does part his lips.
There’s magic here: a wood sprite’s trail,
A mermaid hidden in the leaves.
There, in Izborsk, a powerful tree grows; it grants wishes. The top official in town is a former military man; he showed it to us. The tree stood decorated with colorful ribbons. When his wife got pregnant again, he told us, he ran to the tree and tied a ribbon to request a girl. And what do you know? A girl was born. The official’s face beamed with a marvelous kind of internal light as he was telling this story—even Count Uvarov wouldn’t have butted in with his “Orthodoxy,” respectfully tip-toeing away instead.
A woman who sells homemade sunflower oil in the market spent forty minutes telling me about such places; she made a short, half-hour pilgrimage to the local holy spring. (I’ve been to those springs. One grants money, another love, a third good things in general, without specifying; take a wild guess as to which spring has more men in line, which one more women, and which one flows freely, neglected.) So this woman, with a driver named Nikolai, also sells quilted clothes; and once during a delivery they stopped by the spring. So here she is, just walking, when she finds strolling next to her a monk in black robes. He gives her some advice and warns her about a few things, what to do and what not to do; then—zap—he disappears, and Nikolai says, “Who were you just talking to?” She turns this way and that—the monk is nowhere to be found.
Is this Orthodoxy? A disappearing monk in black?
* * *
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2. Autocracy is basically self-explanatory. In fact, it’s hard to comprehend what to do without it. How do you live without an overlord? Whom do you ask for permission? Who would be responsible for things? Who will show you warmth and who will punish you? To whom does one complain?
Goodness me, can you imagine life without a boss? Confusion and chaos will ensue, things will fall apart. And then foreign bosses will take over, because life without an overlord cannot be.
When the Big Bad Soviet Tyrant ceased to oppress the freedom-loving Republic of Turkmenistan, the country breathed a collective sigh of relief and welcomed the one and only Beloved Serdar, His Excellency the Eternally Great Saparmurat Turkmenbashi, who immediately upped the level of what-the-fuckery.
F
or instance, he decreed that a zoo be built in the Karakum Desert, and that it contain penguins. (Have you ever tried those “Karakum” candies? The ones that taste like sand and rocks?) Temperatures can rise to 122 degrees Farhenheit in the Karakum, and surfaces can heat up to 176 degrees, but with a President-for-Life that’s not a problem. Cost: a paltry eighteen million bucks.
He also ordered an ice palace to be built in the mountains. And a funicular to reach it. Just to have one.
Infectious diseases were declared illegal and it was now forbidden even to mention them. An ideological battle was waged against microbes. You couldn’t utter the words “cholera” or “smallpox.” “Herpes,” too, was out. And as a fitness initiative, he ordered his ministers to participate in running a marathon. I’m guessing that a number of offices were vacated and aired out as a result of this “Walk of Health.”
He also outlawed the ballet, the opera, and the circus. Outlawed gold teeth. Forbade video games, beards, smoking, and lip syncing. Sex was declared a government matter, to be engaged in only for the purposes of procreation, as “personal pleasure does not apply to the progressive culture of the Turkmen people.”
He ordered his citizens to believe that the Turkmen had invented the cart and the wheel. He closed the Academy of Sciences and fired fifteen thousand health workers, taking away their pensions. (Is this beginning to sound familiar?)
He introduced a new calendar, erected fourteen thousand monuments to himself (one of them cost ten million dollars; it was gilded and would turn toward the sun). He yearned to be called a shah, but it didn’t take, so he settled for “Marshal” instead. Five times he was awarded the title of Hero of Turkmenistan, but he categorically refused to accept it the sixth time, citing modesty.
He had gray hair, but then his hair grew darker, for that was Allah’s will; then he himself grew younger and died.
I’m personally an anarchist, but I dearly love autocrats and I miss Saparmurat Turkmenbashi. Who else could have concocted such a fantasy out of nothing? He made French concessionaires, holding documents for him to sign, walk on their knees from the golden doors to the golden throne. Sometimes he would refuse to sign the papers, just for shits and giggles. Let them crawl, let them polish the marble. And on their knees, in reverse, never taking their worshipful eyes off the Boss, let them take their leave of him.
If you think about it, compared to Saparmurat’s, Russian autocracy, even today’s, is an apple orchard in full bloom, crystal-clear waters on a July afternoon.
* * *
§
3. Nationality, however, that third component of the Triad, is incomprehensible, not subject to simple logic. Truly, who can see what is underneath the ground? Who wanders there? The Indrik-Beast, king of all animals? The one who lives on the Holy Mountain, eating and drinking from the Blue Sea, not harming a soul?
That’s where, as I say, the roots of the Tree are, and the expanses of the underworld; there, something mysterious is happening, something is talking and mumbling to itself, all of it unknowable.
What is “the Russian people”? Should we decide according to blood or spirit? By face or by language? Such questions could start a brawl.
I think that “Nationality”—that approximate term cautiously chosen by Count Uvarov—as applied to the Russian people, comprises three very important features, three concepts. They are Boldness, Longanimity, and “Let’s hope.” If those three come together, you have “the Russian people”; if not…no “Russian people” for you.
All three features can be separately observed in other nations. For instance, the Poles are particularly bold. One Darwin Award went, posthumously, to a bold Polish gentleman who was drinking with his buddies. As all of them got shit-faced, one yelled out “Look what I can do!” and with a circular saw hacked off his own leg. “That’s nothing,” said our hero, who, grabbing the saw, cut off his own head.
Longanimity, by contrast, is not a particularly Polish quality. It does apply to the Czechs, though there aren’t many stories of Czech boldness. And these nations are practically neighbors.
I’d define Boldness as a pointless rush of testosterone with no regard for the consequences. Among other peoples it might be age related, occurring mostly during puberty. But it can manifest in a Russian person well into his golden years, and in no way correlating with the calendar. For instance, getting drunk and disorderly. My Finnish editor tells me that his people, too, like falling into a drunken stupor, but only on Fridays and Saturdays and never on Sundays, Monday being a workday.
Just tell me, what Russian would be deterred in such purpose by considerations of work? “Fuck work!” they’re likely to opine.
An exemplary instance of Boldness is Leskov’s short story “Chertogon.” And models of longanimity are to be found in Dostoevsky’s humiliated, insulted, and otherwise tortured characters, both men and women.
But, of course, the defining feature of the Russian people is “Let’s hope.”
This “Let’s hope” is a built-in denial of causality, it’s a lack of belief in the material nature of our universe and its physical laws. Remember this and carve it in stone.
“We should attach this part with screws, otherwise it might fall off along the way.”
“Ah, let’s hope it doesn’t.”
But why? Why wouldn’t it fall off? Vibration, gravity, mathematical probability—all these say it will! And it always does! Always! But again and again, a Russian refuses to screw in, to attach, to prop, to fasten with rope, to hammer, to cover, to secure under lock and key. So once again the thing unscrews, comes loose, falls off, comes untied, crumbles, gets wet, gets stolen; but this does not prevent the same Russian, against all odds and with stunning stubbornness, from denying the obvious next time, too.
It must not be so obvious to him. He must be seeing something else. He must be transcending the laws of physics, mathematical probability, and other trifles, instantly focusing his inner eye upon the depths of the Absolute, the inexplicable Maelstrom, the preincarnate fifteen-dimensional vortex where the Creator, swirling inside Himself, refracting a multispectral light of His own glory, does as He pleases—juggling black holes, for instance, or on a whim bending space-time and changing laws that He Himself established.
And therefore a Russian lives every minute, every second, in expectation of a miracle. And so he doesn’t expect a code of conduct, he expects Grace, for that’s what Grace is—a manifestation of goodness and benevolence perpendicular to all probability and merit. Just because, by virtue of the Lord’s wanting it so. You, human, are a foul and drunken swine; I, in My inexpressible mercy, will shower you with the earthly comforts you desire—forget-me-nots, loose women, dough, booze, and chicken potpie—all out of turn. For that is My whim.
That’s what makes a Russian Russian. That’s his faith. Upon such do the Russian World and the Russian Way rest, as brilliantly presaged by the Russian Count Uvarov, though they did accuse him of stealing government firewood—but then again, who in Russia hasn’t been accused of privatizing strategically important fuel?
Whither, then, are you speeding, O Rus of mine? Whither? Answer me! But no answer comes—only the marvelous sound of your sleigh bells. The air, torn to pieces, thunders and turns into wind; everything that there is on this earth whooshes past, and casting a sideways glance and stepping aside, other peoples and empires do yield to you.—N. Gogol
Swedenborg
What were some noteworthy events of 1757? Hard to say right off the bat. Let me think….Okay, William Blake—a poet, a mystic, and an artist—was born. On the other hand, Blo-bzang-bstan-pa’i-srgon-me, His Holiness the 2nd Jebtsundamba Khutughtu, died. Sultan Mustafa III ascended the Ottoman throne. China closed its ports to foreigners. Life flowed as usual—magnificently and mysteriously. Meanwhile, in 1757, without much fanfare, a world event of monumental importance occurred: the Day of Judgment and the Second
Coming, and, therefore, the end of days. This information is certain, straight from the source.
This truth was revealed to Emanuel Swedenborg, assessor-extraordinaire of the Swedish board of mines, a most respected professor and master of many sciences—from mineralogy and mathematics to chemistry and horticulture. He had real anatomical knowledge, too, as well as being an excellent carpenter. As Karl XII’s advisor, he devised a way to transport small ships overland. He even sketched plans for a flying machine: a wide basket with oars—a few more adjustments and you could have sat down and rowed your way into the blue yonder. By the age of fifty-six, Swedenborg had learned several languages, including ancient Hebrew; he had become a fantastic organist and had written twenty-five scientific and philosophical volumes. He was toiling away on an extended opus entitled The Animal Kingdom—its aim was to explain, over seventeen volumes, the existence of the soul from an anatomical perspective—when, suddenly, strange things started happening to him. He began to be tormented by vivid and meaningful dreams.
Restless yellow horses, moaning women throwing themselves into the arms of men, marching soldiers; unknown forces—either spirits or God himself—that would cast him to the ground and thunder in his ears, enveloping him or seizing his arms. Crucially, he knew—yes, he absolutely knew—what all this represented. The meaning of Creation was opening up to him, both the visible and the invisible, the spiritual. The hereafter presented itself to him in his agony, convulsions, and hallucinations; a number of times, the professor could distinctly feel a dagger piercing his leg or his back. Voices dictated various passages, guiding his hand as he wrote; oftentimes he caught strong and unpleasant smells—obviously the stench of his sins. At night he was frequently tormented by evil spirits: they caused him physical pain, strangling him as they blasphemed; sometimes they’d even switch the flavors in his food—sweet for salty, say. This lasted for six months, and then something even odder happened.
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