CHAPTER 5 The People’s War: The Time of Troubles in Russian Literature, 1806–1807 1 he Second and Third Partitions of Poland turned the Russian public’s Tattention to the stories connected to the end of the Time of Troubles— Minin and Pozharskii’s militia, the liberation of Moscow, and the election of Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov as tsar. After just over ten years, during the short period that separated the Austerlitz defeat from the Peace of Tilsit, these figures and events occupied the central place in the nation’s historical pantheon. In 1806 Derzhavin wrote the “historical presentation” entitled “Pozharskii” that was published two years later, and in 1807 one after another there appeared the poems by S. N. Glinka “Pozharskii and Minin,” S. A. Shirinskii-Shikhmatov’s “Pozharskii, Minin, Germogen [Hermogenes], or Russia Saved” as well as M. V. Kriukovskii’s tragedy “Pozharskii.” At the same time the very young A. S. Strudza began writing the tragedy “Rzhevskii,” which was dedicated to the same events and remained unfinished and unpublished (RO IRLI F. 288, op. 1, № 13; cf. Gukovskii 1995, 165–166). In 1807 a competition to design a monument to Minin and Pozharskii was announced, which resulted in I. P. Martos’s celebrated work. The choice from 156 By Fables Alone among the many proposals that were entered was made by the Sardinian Ambassador Joseph de Maistre. In 1808 he reported to his king: His Imperial Highness deemed it proper to order a monument to be erected out of bronze or marble in honor of Prince Pozharskii and a certain butcher by the name of Minin, who in the first years of the seventeenth century saved Russia in miraculous fashion from the foreign yoke. A large number of plans for this monument were located at the house of Princess Kurakina, the wife of Prince Aleksei who was the minister of internal affairs. One fine morning the princess, at whose house I had supped the previous evening, sent me a huge bundle of these plans, requesting my opinion of them in a note. I immediately guessed where this request came from and who would be given my answer, but I didn’t let on. After carefully reviewing the plans, I sent the princess my response, basically supported by quite serious reasons, but in a manner written for ladies. Soon after this there was a dinner for fifty at Count Stroganov’s on his name day. The old count, president of the Academy of Arts, said to us after dinner: “Gentlemen, His Imperial Majesty considered it proper to erect a monument. He was presented with a multitude of projects. Here is the one he preferred and has just presented to me to have carried out.” Thus His Majesty wants it known de perpetuam rei memoriam [for posterity] that his minister decided the choice of monument to Minin and Pozharskii, those celebrated heroes whose name I just learned this year. (Maistre 1871, 117–118) The first sketches for Martos’s monument, exhibited at the Academy of Arts, were discussed on the pages of the Journal of Fine Arts (Zhurnal iziashchnykh iskusstv) (see Koshanskii 1807; cf. Kovalenskaia 1938, 57–62)1 and in the sepa- rately published “Panegyrical Speech on Prince Pozharskii and Kuz’ma Minin” by V. M. Severgin. Simultaneously the Academy of Arts asked its students in the class on historical drawing to address the following theme for their yearly project: “Pozharskii’s praiseworthy deed when he arose from his sick bed and rushed with the citizens of Moscow who had come to him to give aid to the capital city that was being threatened by the enemy” (Petrov 1864, 493). Of course these heroic pages of Russian history had attracted writers before this—it’s enough to mention M. M. Kheraskov’s tragedy “Moscow Liberated,” written in 1798, or Derzhavin’s idea for a long poem called “Pozharskii” that Ia. K. Grot dates to the 1780s (Derzhavin III, 469). And in the post-Tilsit years 1 In N. N. Kovalenskaia’s opinion, one of the sources for Martos’s conception of the monu- ment was an article by S. S. Bobrov of 1806. Chapter 5: The People’s War 157 S. N. Glinka published the “national drama” “Minin” (1809), and P. Iu. L’vov, the historical narratives “Pozharskii and Minin” (1810) and “The Election of Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov as Tsar” (1812). In 1811 S. A. Dekhtiarev’s oratorio “Minin and Pozharskii” with libretto by N. P. Gorchakov was performed with great success; characteristically, the libretto was taken to a large degree from Shirinskii-Shikhmatov’s poem. But it was in 1806–1807 that the events of two hundred years earlier were canonized. The liberation of Moscow from the Poles and the ascension of the Romanov dynasty began to be perceived as the key moments in Russian national history. Throughout the eighteenth century a similar role had been exclusively assigned to Peter’s reign. In the first half of the 1830s Minin and Pozharskii’s Moscow campaign and the Zemskii sobor (Assembly of the Land) of 1613 were definitively canonized as the mythological beginning of the Russian state. The continuity of the new state ideology with the material of 1806 was indicated by the fact that the newly built Alexandrinskii Theater opened in 1832 with a performance of Kriukovskii’s “Pozharskii” (Kriukovskii 1964, 603). It was only later that the ideological baton of the long deceased playwright passed on to Mikhail Glinka’s “A Life for the Tsar” and Nestor Kukol’nik’s “The All-Mighty Hand Saved the Fatherland” (see Kisileva 1997). At the heart of the new official interpretation of the Time of Troubles lay the historical parallel with 1812, made explicit in the titles of M. N. Zagoskin’s first two novels: Iurii Miloslavskii, or the Russians in 1612 and Roslavlev, or the Russians in 1812.2 Moreover, contemporaries could easily perceive the parallel between the July 1830 Revolution in France and the Polish rebellion of November of the same year. It is all the more inter- esting that even before Napoleon’s invasion of Russia, the interpretive models that took on official status in the 1830s had already been worked out in a literary atmosphere notably inimical to the state political course of the time. In one way or another, virtually all of the authors of the works listed above were connected with A. S. Shishkov’s circle. The old Derzhavin and the young Shikhmatov were the leading poets of this circle, and Sergei Glinka was close to him ideologically (Al’tshuller 1984; Kisileva 1981). Shishkov promoted the novice playwright Kriukovskii as an alternative for V. A. Ozerov. In the words of 2 According to D. Rebekkini’s calculations, plots concerning the invasion of 1812 and the Time of Troubles predominated in the corpus of historical novels in the 1830s (see Rebek- kini 1998, 421). 158 By Fables Alone Figure 12 First proposal for a monument to Minin and Pozharskii (1804-1807) by I. P. Martos. Nikolai Grech, “on Aleksandr Semenovich’s advice [Kriukovskii] changed and corrected a lot in his new, just finished tragedy, and through his mediation became known” to the Director of Imperial Theaters A. L. Naryshkin (Grech 1930, 282). The reasons for such a burst of interest in historical thematics are obvious, and were also well understood by readers and writers of those years. S. P. Zhikharev, for example, connected the ecstatic reaction given to the plays by Ozerov and Kriukovskii to the current political situation and the anti-Napoleonic campaign of 1806–1807. He predicted beforehand that Kriukovskii’s tragedy would “have great success on stage because almost all of the verses for Prince Pozharskii’s role relate to current patriotic circumstances and to the patriotic feel- ings of the people” (Zhikharev 1955, 410; cf. Bochkarev 1959 and others). Indeed, the defeat of Austerlitz only increased hatred for Napoleon in Russian society. It also served to heighten the bellicose mood which was essential to Alexander I at the time; the emperor had already begun preparing for a new war, and thus needed justficiation for refusing to ratify the peace agreement of July Chapter 5: The People’s War 159 1806, that had been signed by his envoy P. Ia. Ubri (see Dubrovin 1895; Zharinov 1911). Still, the choice of this one particular episode from out of all of Russia’s rich military history requires explanation. 2 In the consciousness of Russian society there existed a distinct metonymic connection between France and Poland based on their geographical position vis–à–vis Russia, their common religion, as well as political and historical factors. France most actively opposed Russia’s involvement with Poland and the disturbances in Warsaw of 1791 and 1794 were perceived in Russia as the spread of the French revolutionary spirit. The Orthodox Church played a huge role in the ideological justification for the campaign of 1806–1807. In the Synod’s announcement concerning the start of war of November 30, 1806, that was read aloud in all churches, Napoleon was accused of apostasy from Christianity, idolatry, and a desire “to throw down Christ’s Church”; thus the nascent campaign took on the character of a religious war “against this enemy of Church and Fatherland” (Shil’der I, 354–356). Alexander’s ukase of the same day explained and adver- tised the purpose of the Synod’s announcement. Entitled “On the Formation and Development of Temporary Universal Guards or Militias (Militsii),” the emperor’s ukase appealed to all estates, summoning them “to manifest zealous love, a courageous spirit, and true passion for the Fatherland’s glory.