Most likely coincidentally, on the eve of Unity Day, precisely when Makiivka’s peace was shattered by explosions (later officially recognized as acts of terrorism), the Russian embassy in Kyiv staged the so-called Ambassador’s Soiree under what could be described as a rather provocative title: “Oprichnina — Administrative Reform.” [Oprichnina was a term coined by Tsar Ivan the Terrible, who could be described as Stalin’s prototype; it is to designate a period in Russian history, from 1565 until 1572, marked by mass repressions, public executions, and confiscation of land from Russian aristocrats. The term derives from the Russian word oprich, meaning apart from, except of. The oprichniki were Ivan the Terrible’s secret police who enforced his policy. Oprichnina also denoted the territory in which, during that period, the tsar ruled directly and his oprichniki operated. — Ed.] If slightly altered — “Administrative Reform — Oprichnina” — this title would be a blatantly provocative act, an intrusion into Ukraine’s domestic affairs. As it was, the soiree proved another ambassadorial get-together, albeit complemented by a discussion held mostly in the spirit of Russian and Soviet history.
Russian Ambassador Mikhail Zurabov launched the soiree at the Intercontinental Restaurant and stressed in his opening address that Ivan the Terrible was good at drawing the line. At the same time, true to his intellectual self, Zurabov dotted no I’s and crossed no T’s prior to the debate: “We will discuss the year 1565. We have to try to understand whether this year is far away or close to us.” In order to help the agitated participants in the debate immerse themselves into the cultural environment of that period, the Russian embassy invited the Early Russian Music Ensemble “Sirin.” Their songs served to illustrate some of the realities of that formidable epoch.
Unlike the Ambassador, Dr. Vladimir Pastukhov, journalist, lawyer, philosopher, historian, and special guest from Oxford, made his stand immediately clear, saying that “the Oprichnina is our current reality rather than history, it’s just that we fail to realize the fact.” He added that the Oprichnina has stayed with us, since it’s easy to determine the date, even the hour when it began, “yet when it will end is anyone’s guess… It isn’t over, it has just faded in the background; it has become the air several generations of Ukrainian culture have been breathing… The Oprichnina is like the Big Bang that created the Universe, for it created the Russian State.” Dr. Pastukhov believes that medieval Big Bang left a relict kind of irradiation penetrating all public life of Russia.
I’m not going to relate every argument stated during the debate, concerning Ivan the Terrible and that Russian despot’s epoch, considering that the Oprichnina theme keeps being debated. However, for those who know little about or have forgotten Russian history: originally in Muscovy, oprichnina meant the “widow’s share” — what the widow of a prince was entitled to after his death. Later the meaning of the word changed. Under Ivan the Terrible, on his initiative, the Oprichnina meant a part of Muscovy subject to a special kind of governance, meant to sustain the royal court and the oprichniki. Later, Russian historians agreed that this period (1565-72, approximately) was marked by mass terror and a “system of emergency/extreme measures.”
Vladimir Sorokin, a noted Russian fiction author, wrote the sci-fi novel
A Day in the Life of an Oprichnik. He describes a dystopian Russia in 2028, with a tsar in the Kremlin, and portrays the Oprichniks as cold-blooded marauders and killers, while assessing the Oprichnina as a negative phenomenon that cannot be justified by any positive objectives. In an interview with a prestigious Russian newspaper, Sorokin declared: “The Oprichnina is far worse than the FSB or KGB. This is an old and very persevering Russian phenomenon. Although it is formally attributed to the 16th century, and although it only lasted ten years [seven years, according to historians. — Ed.] under Ivan the Terrible, it has made a tangible impact on Russian consciousness and history. All our law enforcement agencies, in many respect our whole government machine, are the result of the Oprichnina’s influence. Ivan the Terrible divided his society into the people and the oprichniki, creating a state within a state. This showed the citizens of the Russian state that they didn’t possess all the rights [due them under the law], that all of these rights belonged to the oprichniki. You wanted to live a secure life, you had to become an oprichnik and live separately from the rest of the people — precisely what our bureaucrats have been doing over the past four centuries.” (Let me point out that being a part of the law enforcement agencies has never guaranteed personal safety, even less so under the Soviets, for the tyrants have been fond of replacing and executing their oprichniki, their merits notwithstanding.) Sorokin added, “It seems to me that the Oprichnina, its perfidious nature, has not been fully assessed.”
Ambassador Zurabov deserves every credit for his civic courage in placing this topic on the agenda, during a complicated period in the relations between Ukraine and Russia, with both striving for European va-lues, on the one hand, while dealing with the legacy of Oprichnina, consciously or subconsciously, in some or other way, on the other hand.
Historically speaking, Joseph Sta-lin must have been the strongest supporter of the Oprichnina, after Ivan the Terrible. Nikolai Cherkasov [Soviet Russia’s movie star who played the title role in the film Ivan the Terrible (1945-46). — Ed.] wrote in his diary, after visiting Stalin and discussing Sergei Eisenstein’s film: “Iosif Vissarionovich [Stalin’s first name and patronymic. — Ed.] also noted the Oprichnina’s progressive role; he said that Maliuta Skuratov, the leader of the Oprichniks, was an outstanding Russian military leader who died a hero’s death in the struggle against Livonia. Commenting on Ivan the Terrible’s mistakes, Iosif Vissarionovich noted that one of them was his failure to liquidate five of the remaining large feudal families; that he failed to bring his struggle against the feudals to completion. Had he done so, then Russia wouldn’t have suffered the Time of Troubles… Then, with a touch of good humor, Iosif Vissarionovich added that ‘God prevented Ivan the Terrible from acting that way.’ Ivan the Terrible would wipe out one feudal aristocratic family and then spend a whole year repenting, whereas he ought to have acted in a more determined manner.”
We all know that Dzhugashvili [Stalin’s family name. — Ed.], a semi-nary dropout, now in vogue in Russia and even in Ukraine, for reasons that remain to be explained (as evidenced by a monument built and then blown up in Zaporizhia) never repented. Nothing could stop his climb up the hierarchical ladder. He believed that once the man causing problems was killed the problems stopped.
The debate at the Intercontinental Restraint was food for thought about what is happening in Ukraine and Russia. St. Petersburg’s historian and journalist Lev Usyskin noted that the introduction of the Oprichnina halved Russia; rather, it created two countries under the rule of the tsar, resulting in an active redistribution of property, with the Oprichnina’s military units serving as tools of terror, not only in the Oprichnina but also Zemshchina territories. [Zemshchina was the basic part of the territory of the Russian state (with its center in Moscow) not included by Ivan the Terrible in the special appanage of the sovereign, the Oprichnina. — Ed.]. Isn’t this reminiscent of Soviet Russia under Stalin, or even today’s Ukraine?
In response to a question about why Ivan the Terrible needed this reform Usyskin said the most ridiculous fact is that some historians claim that it was how he struggled for national unity, after having destroyed it by creating the Oprichnina and Zemshchina. In the end, Russian scholars researched archival documents, traced individual destinies, and came up with findings to the effect that none of the existing historical concepts were valid! In other words, the truth about the Oprichnina remains to be established. Usyskin believes that this truth will never be found, because there is nothing left to be studied.
Personally I think this isn’t the main point. What is most important is to prevent these seeds of discord from growing. Ambassador Zurabov reminded those present of the Oprichnina’s background. A pipe-dreaming fellow wanted reforms and believed that, with their aid, he would give his people freedom. He decided to carry out an administrative reform, curbing the powers vested in the central go-vernment and voivodes, while extending lower-level authorities, granting more power to what is currently known as local government. Anyway, this reform didn’t work. “The result was bad, with loud-mouthed muzhiks forming gangs and shouting so loud at every skhod (public assembly) that no one could understand what they were shouting about. Two years later, they had so much power in their hands that the voivodes looked like selfless public servants to the common folk. Then the reform-minded tsar started receiving petitions from all sides, asking to reinstate the voivodes, saying they didn’t need this kind of freedom. That was how the Oprichnina came to be,” said Zurabov and posed what first appeared to be a strange question to the Ukrainian Foreign Minister Petro Poroshenko: “Will all our hopes for reform end up in another kind of Oprichnina?”
There was no direct answer. Poroshenko said: “All events that took place at the time have everything to do with our current realities.” He went on to draw historical parallels, saying that a number of initiatives at the time not only determined Muscovy’s achievements, but also started what Russia has today. At the time, Russia got Siberia, enforced a rigid vertical command, and kept developing its culture; the church choir score was systematized. In fact, the tsar was the author of the very interesting Akathist Hymns that are still used by the Russian Orthodox Church. At the same time, Poroshenko continued, since the time of Ivan the Terrible certain elements of legislation have survived that “envisage the absence of the law as such.” In other words, a situation has developed in which the law serves the tyrant’s will: “This is what makes us different from Europe, where, despite the Inquisition, rigid law enforcement, even the Nacht der langen Messer — the Night of the Long Knives — the sovereigns and other rulers have relied on written as well as unwritten rules.” In Russia, he said, “the only rule was that laid down by the tsar, regardless of the Russkaia Pravda code established by Prince Yaroslav the Wise in Kyivan Rus’, despite even the Sudebnik enforced by Ivan the Terrible, considering that this ruler was simply insane at times… I can’t rule out the possibility that the number one judicial principle, formulated by one of the oprichniki — ‘thou shalt pass thy judgment correctly, so that our men shalt not be judged’ — is still effective in our judicial system.”
At the time, the terror principle turned into the organizing principle of the state, said Poroshenko, and concluded that this principle was actively used by all the 20th-century totalitarian regimes — ditto nowadays. Ditto administrative reform’s, spin-doctor techniques, then and today. Poroshenko said the re-privatization campaign was effective under Ivan the Terrible, about as much as it is effective these days. In his opinion, this is proof that this emotion-packed title [of the ambassadorial soiree] will produce no good results.
Stepan Havrysh, Deputy Secretary of National Security and the Defense Council of Ukraine, unexpectedly found himself being given the floor. He tried to answer the question about whether the Oprichnina was a purely Russian phenomenon or something linked to human nature in ge-neral. Havrysh said Ivan the Terrible nipped a liberal system in the bud, while building his state and bureaucracy as his most reliable support. This was done at a time when Europe was enjoying the Renaissance, when Machiavelli was determining the branches of power [doubtlessly meaning to say Montesquieu. – Ed.]; that this system could have led Russia to Europe. A versed Ukrainian politician, Poroshenko compared this approach to a method of medical treatment where you are told that all your limbs must be amputated and you end up beheaded.
