What Mongols could have threatened Russia in the sixteenth century? Who does not know that it was not the Swedes who attacked Russia under Peter in 1700, but Russia which attacked the Swedes? Stalin could permit himself to say those things—out of ignorance, from political calculation, or because of the paranoia which convulsed him. But how could the professional experts permit themselves this? And yet they did so. Russian historiography suddenly began to speak with the voice of Ivan the Terrible. With the new, militaristic apologia, a third "historiographic nightmare" rolled down on Ivaniana. Forgotten was S. M. Solov'ev's injunction: "Let not the historian say a word in justification of such a person." This person was justified. Forgotten was A. K. Tolstoi's horror in the face of the fact that "there could exist a society which could gaze upon him without indignation." Such a society existed.
7. A Medieval Vision
How could this happen? I understand that this is to some extent a personal question. It concerns not so much the explanation of historical circumstances as the moral collapse of Russian historiography—a phenomenon which in religious parlance would probably be called a fall from grace. For a Western author, the question would presuppose an objective analysis of what in fact did happen. What did not happen, he would leave out of account. I cannot allow myself that luxury. For me, this is a piece of life, and not only the subject of academic consideration. I feel myself infinitely humiliated because this happened to my country in my generation. The problem for me is not only one of describing the past, but of coming to terms with it. For this reason, everything I here offer the reader is closer to personal confession than to scholarly analysis. Those indifferent to historical reflection and inclined to think that "facts are facts and the rest is belles lettres," as one great Russian poet used to say, can quietly skip this subsection.
One cannot come to terms with the fall from grace of a nation without coming to terms with it in one's self. In me, as in every offspring of Russian culture, two souls coexist. But not peacefully: they fight to the death—exactly as its two cultural traditions contend in the consciousness of the nation. Each of these has its own hierarchy of values. The highest value of the one is order (and, correspondingly, the lowest is anarchy or chaos). The highest value of the other is freedom (and, correspondingly, the lowest is slavery). I fear chaos and hate slavery. I feel the temptation to believe in "a strong regime" able to defend the humiliated and aggrieved, to dry all tears and console all griefs. And I am ashamed of this temptation. Sometimes it seems to me that freedom gives birth to chaos (as it seemed to Solov'ev, who saw the major evil of Russian life in "the freedom of movement"). Sometimes it seems to me that slavery gives birth to order (as it seemed to Polosin, who justified serfdom). It is precisely in the epoch of the "historiographic nightmare" which we are considering, that the fundamental incompatibility of both traditions comes to light with ultimate clarity. The time has come to choose between them.
For almost 400 years the gigantic shadow of its first autocrator has loomed over Russian history, now losing his crown, and now raised again to imperial dignity. Never until now, however, has his terrible heritage threatened the very existence of the nation as a moral union. I am not speaking only of the fact that we have lived through the nightmare of the GULAG, but also of the impossibility of living any longer with the consciousness that this nightmare may be repeated, that the most honored and learned preceptors of our nation will again abase themselves—and abase the nation—by justifying serfdom, terror, and aggression. That once again they will help the tyrant to legitimize slavery by legitimizing the tradition of slavery.
It would be infinitely easier for me if I could simply say that this was the price at which the historians of Stalin's time bought their lives and well-being in an epoch when the struggle for physical survival ruled: after all, all countries and all ages have had their collaborationists. This would be easier, but it would be false. It is sufficient to read the works of Sadikov, Polosin, Bakhrushin, Vipper, or Smirnov, to be convinced that this is not bureaucratic prose or official rhetoric. A profoundly personal impulse is present here, a clear certainty of being in the right.
Polosin wrote: "The Oprichnina . . . received its scientific and historical justification only in Soviet scholarship."'15 Bakhrushin wrote: "The true significance of Ivan the Terrible becomes clear only in our time ... in the light of Marxist methodology. "4li They were convinced of this. If this was a false faith, it was a faith nevertheless.
The mighty autocratic tradition of Russian historiography was speaking through their mouths. Lomonosov, Tatishchev, Kavelin, Gorskii, Belov, and Iarosh were speaking. All of those who, without any connection with the "light of Marxist methodology," had justified the Oprichnina long before Polosin, because somewhere in the dark depths of their souls, almost unconsciously, they were convinced that "freedom of movement" creates chaos, that opposition gives rise to anarchy, and that Paris is worth a mass—that is, that "order" is worth the price of slavery. The tradition of slavery spoke through their mouths, and it was tradition—not personal cowardice, or timeserving, or the desire for a good life—which compelled them to lie, and to believe their own lies, and inventively to justify atrocities by reference to "documented facts," wrapping themselves in the cardboard armor of the "Marxist-Leninist ideology." This was not so much their fault, as their calamity.
What happened, happened. If the behavior of Ivan the Terrible's Oprichniki can still be interpreted in various ways, the behavior of Stalin's Oprichniki does not permit two opinions. In order to evaluate it, we do not need either "documented facts" or "the light of Marxist methodology." We were there. We know that we have before us not only beasts and hangmen, but also people to whom the tradition gives a basis for being proud of their corruption.
If we actually are faced by a mighty tradition, and if this tradition actually does lead us to such depths of humiliation, then are we entitled to wait passively for the hour of humiliation and corruption to strike again for us, or for those who come after us? This is no longer a question of national pride, as it was in the time of Lomonosov and Shcherbatov, nor is it a question of national self-respect, as it was in the time of Kavelin and Kliuchevskii. This is a question of national existence. After all, three successive "historiographic nightmares" have demonstrated unmercifully that the tradition of collaboration- ism is not simply implanted by the police. It is not a force external to us, it is within us. And it is killing us from within. Will we survive a fourth "historiographic nightmare"? And, if we survive, will we still be human beings?
The structure of the "myth of the state" is elementary. On what premises, in fact, does the tsar justify his position in his letters to Kurbskii? In the first place, by identifying the goals of the leader with those of the state. In the second place, by identifying the goals of the state with those of the nation. The whole essence of the matter, in my view, is contained in this formula of double identification. To suggest that the leadership proceeds from goals and interests distinct from the interests of the state, and still more from those of the nation, is to be a traitor and an enemy of the people. This was Ivan the Terrible's fundamental postulate, so obvious to him that he does not even state it directly. Behind this postulate stands the vision of an absolutely consensual society-family, the head of which sees everything, knows everything, is concerned for everyone, and by definition cannot have any other interests than those of the members of his household.