Russia: Forever a Time of Troubles
Fears over his legitimacy mixed with suspicions over his past. Had he plotted the murder of nine-year-old Dmitri so as to seize power upon the older brother’s death? Or had Dmitri miraculously survived, meaning that Godunov’s election had violated the divine order of succession?
The last idea became fertile ground for much of the violence that followed. A rival to Godunov emerged, claiming to be Dmitri. Backed by Polish troops, this ‘false Dmitri’ also attracted Russians wanting to overthrow the unholy usurper and regain God’s favour. As this army of mixed religions, nationalities and motivations marched on Moscow in 1605, Godunov died, a sure sign of the righteousness of Dmitri’s cause.
What then befell Russia defies imagination and conventional categorisation. More false Dmitris, then false Fyodors and still other claimants to the throne emerged. As devastation spread through the population and across the land, central power collapsed. At one point Russia had two tsars, two royal courts and two patriarchs. It could only be described as smuta, a term signifying confusion, disorder and foreboding doom.
.. Others followed suit and a wave of literary broadsides appealed to ‘Christ’s flock’ to fight ‘Satan’s hordes’. The tropes were not original but the impact was real, as Russians could rally around the idea that they, members of the true faith, standing alone against their predatory neighbours, whether Catholic, Protestant or Muslim, were under existential threat.
.. Orthodox Christianity lies on Russia’s side, as do moral propriety, compassion for others, human decency, ‘pure love’ and traditional family values. On the other side we find debauchery amid a world of corruption and lies.
.. Such versions of smuta, echoed in popular histories, religious venues, academic tomes and elsewhere, have armed Putin and the governing elite with exceptionally strong language to speak about their country and their presumed role in it. Favoured refrains concerning ‘chaos’ and ‘disorder’ tap into some of the deepest fears in Russia’s collective consciousness while, at the same time, reflexively justifying the power they have amassed and the suppression of dissident voices…
surrounded by these threats, Russia can never trust its neighbours; Russia can only rely on Russia. This is why, no matter how distant in the past, the Time of Troubles resonates today more than ever.