The Cossacks: An Illustrated History
By John Ure
Overlook Press • March 2003
260 pages • $45
The word “Cossack” is weighted down with immense historical baggage. For some, it conjures up the painting of Zaporozhian Cossacks by Ilya Repin, or images of graceful horsemen in caftans and tall hats—a romantic vision of the cavalry gliding across the steppe. For others, however, it has an echo of anti-Semitism, double-dealing or anarchy. As Ure writes in the introduction to this new history, “Few people are indifferent to the concept of the Cossacks.”
Perhaps most telling is the Russian idiom “volny kazak,” literally “free Cossack,” which means a truly independent person, as in “you are free to do as you like — “ty voobshche volny kazak.” For Cossacks were and are nothing if not independent-minded.
Descended from the Mongol horde, the Cossacks’ ranks were constantly reinforced by disaffected soldiers and runaway serfs. First used by Ivan the Terrible to beat back the Turks and Tatars, the several distinct hosts or tribes of Cossacks rose up throughout Russian history, supporting and threatening the Powers That Be, influencing the tide of events.
Peter the Great was betrayed by them; Catherine the Great’s reign was threatened by them, as was that of Alexis, Peter’s father; they served valiantly in many wars, pestering Napoleon on his retreat from Russia, fighting the Japanese in Manchuria; they were one of the last forces loyal to the tsar during the revolution and were an important part of the White forces during the civil war. Disbanded and repressed under Stalin (notoriously, some Cossacks joined forces with Hitler in WWII), the Cossacks began to awake in the late 1980s and today there are even Cossack units in the Russian Army. Indeed, in early February of this year, the Zaporozhian, Don and Tersk Cossacks announced that in May they will conclude a cooperation agreement as a first step to uniting Cossacks from across Russia, Belarus and Ukraine.
Needless to say, retelling the history of this fascinating people is a daunting task. But Ure does it well, offering the best biographies of the likes of Mazeppa, Stenka Razin, Pugachev and others we have seen anywhere. Ure is a fine storyteller and he offers enough depth to make the history real, but not so much to lose his readers. Some of the illustrations could have been better executed, but this subtracts only somewhat from the final work. At $45, this is certainly an expensive pleasure, but as a single volume history of one of the most important actors in Russian history, it should not be missed.
Bering Strait
Universal South, January 2003
$17.98
Russian Life ran what was likely the first Western story on Bering Strait in Sep/Oct 2000 (“The Russians are Coming”). At that time, the Russian country band’s CD was said to be coming out in 2001. But fate intervened, and, for the next two years, the band endured a spate of record industry upheavals that dragged their recording contract hither and yon, and forced them to live through some trying times (well recorded in Nina Seavey’s documentary film of the band’s incredible path from Obninsk to Nashville—see www.emergingpictures.com for showings). Finally, in January of this year, the album was released on the new Universal South label. The result was well worth the wait.
Bering Strait is a band so innately talented and on fire for success that you know they just have to succeed. No sooner had the album been released than it was announced that one of the cuts on the album, the instrumental “Bearing Straight,” was nominated for a Grammy for Best Country Instrumental Performance. Before this, there had been an article in the New York Times (on the cover of the Arts section, no less). And, as if that were not enough, the band sat for an interview to be aired on “60 Minutes” on Grammy night, February 23.
When it rains, it pours.
But back to the music. When the hype of the Cinderella Story dies down, whether the band wins a Grammy or not, you have to come back to the music. And Bering Strait makes great music. Natasha Borzilova’s lead is clear and resonant, full of a rich power that belies her youth. Ilya Toshinsky’s string playing is truly masterful. After a few playings, the lilting, Chapin-Carpenter-esque melodies send down taproots in your brain and the only way to get them out is to play the CD again and again. The rhythm and punch of “When Going Home” is particularly infectious, and Borzilova’s solos in “I Could be Persuaded” and “Like a Child” are simply perfect. The rip-roaring “Bearing Strait” more than earns its Grammy nomination. For Russophiles, the token Russian song—“Porushka-Paranya”—will be the high point, and it certainly is infused with an incomparable energy.
Perhaps the best thing about this album is that it will delight lovers of country, pop and bluegrass alike. So go out, buy this album, and don’t forget to brag you heard about them first in Russian Life.
Meanwhile, we can only wonder what the band has in store for a second act…
The Commissariat of Enlightenment
By Ken Kalfus
Ecco (Harper Collins), 2003
$24.95
In retrospect, the embalming of Lenin and the installation of his immortal corpse in the granite mausoleum on Red Square was a turning point. It marked the end of revolution and set the cornerstone of a new Orthodoxy—the secular religion of communism. By all accounts, it was a sacrilegious act for the old Orthodoxy, and it was the last thing that Lenin himself wanted. But it was an immensely useful and critical move that served Stalin’s still underestimated goals.
In this debut novel, Kalfus rewrites history and spins the threads backward from this turning point to 1910, where three characters meet at the circus that was the death of Leo Tolstoy in the stationmaster’s house at Astapova. Gribshin, a young filmmaker, Vorobev, the master embalmer, and Stalin, the plotting anti-Lenin, cross paths and have their fates pulled interminably down the path to Lenin’s embalming 14 years later.
It is a tale told with a subtle knowledge of Russian culture and history (to say nothing of crisp prose and a mastery of dialog a la Mamet) that Kalfus displayed in his masterful collection of short stories, Pu-239 and Other Russian Fantasies. It is a fantastic history that will make you want to dive into a volume of Pipes or Conquest to see just how much of this was real. Not much, Kalfus fesses up in a bibliographic note at the end of the book, but more than you might think. RL
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