“The social, intellectual, and political state of present Russia is the result, and, so to speak, the resume, of the reigns of Ivan IV., surnamed, by Russia herself, the terrible… The Russians of our times are therefore the worthy children of the subjects of Ivan IV.
Other nations have supported oppression, the Russian nation has loved it: it loves it still. Is not such fanaticism of obedience characteristic? It may not, however, be denied that this popular mania has here sometimes become the principle of sublime actions. In this inhuman land, if society has depraved the individual, it has not enervated him: he is not good, but he is also not contemptible. The same may be said of the Kremlin: it is not pleasant to behold, but it inspires awe. It is not beautiful, but it is terrible — terrible as the reign of Ivan IV…
But if the Kremlin was not built by Ivan IV, it was built for him. It was by a spirit of prophecy that the great king, his grandfather, constructed the palace of the tyrant. Italian architects may be found every where, but in no other place have they produced a work similar to that which they raised at Moscow. I may add that there have been elsewhere absolute, unjust, arbitrary, and capricious sovereigns, and yet, that the reign of none of these monsters has resembled that of Ivan IV. The same seed springing under different climates and in different soils, produces plants of the same species, but of many varieties. The earth will never see another masterpiece of despotism similar to the Kremlin, nor another nation as superstitiously patient as was the Muscovite under the monstrous reign of its greatest tyrant. The consequences of that reign are felt even in our days. Had the reader accompanied me in this journey, he would have discovered, as I have done, in the inner depths of the Russian character, the inevitable injury produced by arbitrary power carried to its last excess; showing itself by a careless indifference to the sanctity of truth in speech, of candour in sentiment, and justice in acts; and when fully developed, by falsehood rampant in all its forms, fraud triumphant, and the sense, in fact, wholly destroyed. I could fancy I saw a procession of vices pouring forth from all the gates of the Kremlin to inundate Russia.
Further on, I saw before me, the extraordinary church of Vassili Blagennoi. The style of that grotesque edifice contrasts in a whimsical manner with the classic statues of the liberators of Moscow. A quantity of bulbous-shaped cupolas, not one of which resembles the other, a dish of fruits, a vase of Delft ware full of pine-apples, all pointed with golden crosses, a colossal crystallization, — such, on a near approach, were the only things to which I could compare the church that had appeared so imposing on my first approach to the city. This building is small, like most other Russian churches; and, notwithstanding the interminable medley of its colours, it does not long interest the observer. Two fine flights of steps lead to the esplanade on which it stands. The interior is confined, paltry, and without character. Its erection cost the life of the architect. It was built, according to Laveau, by the order of Ivan IV, politely surnamed the Terrible. That prince, as a reward to the architect, who had greatly embellished Moscow, caused his eyes to be torn out, under the pretext that he did not wish such a cathedral to be built elsewhere.
Ivan the Terrible as Totem of Muscovites-Russians >
