Haynes: Russia's rich history — suffering of the powerless at hands of the powerful

Three years ago this month, my wife and I booked a Viking river cruise from St. Petersburg to Moscow. Yes, Russia.

We were supposed to board the boat more than a year later in the summer of 2020. At the time, traveling in Russia had become fairly common since the downfall of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991. In fact, the popular Viking cruise line had gotten its start in 1997 with Norwegian entrepreneur Torstein Hagen’s small ships taking vacationers along the Volga and other rivers between Russia’s two largest cities.

Travel had opened up, the result of Mikhail Gorbachev’s relaxing of the iron-fisted Soviet rule and the breakup of the USSR as most of its pieces became independent nations. Christian missionaries from the West also were more free to operate in Russia and in former Soviet republics. From Amarillo, minister Roy Wheeler and Bill Duncan led many Christian outreach trips to Belarus in the 1990s.

Now, reports have said Belarus is a staging ground for some of the Russian attacks on Ukraine that have dominated the news since Feb. 24. Under Vladimir Putin, Russia’s openness gradually had been receding, including more restrictions on foreign church activity, and the invasion of Ukraine pretty much put a stop to all western involvement in Russia, a country with a rich history — some good and some bad.

As for the river cruise Kathy and I booked, the cruise line canceled it in 2020 because of COVID-19. We rebooked, and the pandemic again forced its cancellation in 2021. We rebooked for summer 2022, and … well, the war in Ukraine put an anchor on the boats again.

Part of the enjoyment of planning a big trip, though, is learning about your destination. Since 2019, I have read three or four books on Russia and watched two video lecture series on Russian history and culture. One of the books is “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow,” published by Alexander Radishchev in 1790 during the reign of Catherine the Great.

Like the Russians protesting this year’s atrocities in Ukraine, Radishchev was arrested because Catherine, despite preaching reform of the Russian empire’s repression of the lower classes, saw his writing as a threat.

Radishchev’s book reminds me of “The Canterbury Tales” but with less humor. He describes a nobleman traveling by coach through multiple villages on the way from the Baltic Sea port of St. Petersburg to Moscow in the interior of the country. At each stop to change horses, he meets various characters who either have strong political opinions or stories of hardship under the ruling authorities. The tales include a young maid forced to marry a rich aristocrat, peasants coerced into the army illegally and a big landowner getting away with murder.

The author touches on the strong influence of the Russian Orthodox Church in the country’s history which — long after his and Catherine’s time — was pushed underground by the 1917 revolution and the ruthless Bolsheviks. The colorful “onion domes” of St. Basil’s Cathedral, which opened in 1561, were the top visual treat that Kathy and I had hoped to see in Moscow.

Historically, maybe Putin’s brutal push into Ukraine shouldn’t be surprising. Russia has had high points, such as the acceptance of Christianity as the state religion in 988, Peter the Great building St. Petersburg into a European-style city in the early 1700s and reforms by Catherine in the late 1700s that improved life for the poor. Some czars were better than others, and Russian literature, music and dance have enriched world culture.

But suffering has been common, from leaders such as Ivan the Terrible (who had St. Basil’s built but otherwise earned his nickname) to the devious Lenin after the revolution to Stalin’s bloody purges under Communism from the 1920s to the 1950s. And now, Putin is trashing his country’s reputation again.

Russia actually began in Ukraine. Its people descended from the Kievan Rus, who had origins in Viking Scandinavia and in Slavic territories. In the 800s, they centered their society on Kiev (currently spelled Kyiv), where Orthodox Christianity became the official religion.

Radishchev’s book reflects the strong influence of the Russian Orthodox Church when he wrote in the late 1700s. Describing a forced wedding, the author laments the misuse of the church of “the Father of all blessings, the giver of tender sentiments and joys, the architect of true happiness, the creator of the universe.” He notes the importance of several monasteries around the city of Novgorod.

And he recalls the 1570 attack by Ivan the Terrible on Novgorod that started with Ivan’s forces surrounding the city: “Stung by the resistance of this republic, this proud, savage but intelligent ruler wished to raze it to its very foundations.”

Historians estimate that 2,500 to 12,000 residents were killed, with many tortured, and the city was ravaged. Radishchev writes, “…by what right did he rage against them? What right did he have to annex Novgorod. … because he styled himself the Tsar of All Russia? … Can a right exist when the blood of peoples seals an outcome?”

The same questions could be asked about Putin and Ukraine. I suspect that if Radishchev lived today, he would be on the streets of Moscow protesting the invasion. The overall theme of his book is the suffering of powerless people at the hands of powerful leaders, which has been the case through much of Russia’s history.

Radishchev says, “Blessed is the writer if he is able to enlighten even one person through his creation; blessed is he if he has sown virtue in even a single heart.”

I wish the current Russian leader would embrace those words of his countryman.

Mike Haynes taught journalism at Amarillo College from 1991 to 2016 and has written for the Faith section since 1997. He can be reached at haynescolumn@gmail.com. Go to www.haynescolumn.blogspot.com for other recent columns.

This article originally appeared on Amarillo Globe-News: Haynes: Russia is a country with a rich history — some good, some bad