The Cult of Ivan the Terrible in Stalin's Russia by Maureen s> Perrie (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 365 the old elite stillholds sway. The weakestlinksin the chain are the media and the political opposition. So 'authority starts to act as a marginal force, not willing to amend its decisions in favour of the citizens' changing demands. While on the contrary,authorityshould be accepted as a tool in the hands of society, a tool which is in constantneed of being publiclysupervised'(p. 279). On the issue of the distribution of power between the provinces and the centre, as well as on the strugglebetween civil society and the state, the best Laine can say,with El'tsingone and Putinin place, is that 'itis too earlyto tell' (p. 22). True, but it is a pity that the evidence does not permit a well-founded book to be more optimistic.It would be nice to thinkthatone centuryof waste will not be followed by another. Glasgow W. V. WALLACE Perrie,Maureen. TheCultofIvantheTerrible inStalin's Russia.Studiesin Russian and East European History and Society. Palgrave,Basingstokeand New York, 200I. XV+ 255 PP. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. ?(45?00? NIAUREEN PERRIE'S introduction to this new book explains that it grew out of her earlier study of Ivan the Terrible in Russian folklore(Cambridge, I987). She was also impelled by curiosityabout the notion that the infamousIvan IV provided Stalin with direct inspiration, a suggestion that has featured in the writings of Robert Tucker, Anatoly Rybakov and others. Her clearly-written and scholarly book does not, in fact, prove anything new about Stalin himself the theory that he liked to model himself on Ivan will survivethis onslaught but it does provide a fascinatinginsight into the rise and fall of Ivan's fortunes as a historical figure in Soviet Russia. Indeed, it seems that those who make connections between Stalin and Ivan today are following a traditionthat firstbecame establishedin the 1930s. The treatment of Ivan by modern Russian historians is covered in a prologue and firstchapter. These look respectivelyat Ivan's image before the cultural revolution of 1929-32 and at what Perrie calls the Stalinization of historyfrom 1934 onwards.To set the materialabout Ivan into context, other cases are also analysed, including Peter the Great and Alexander Nevskii, both of whom became near-legendaryfiguresas a resultof resurgentRussian patriotism after I937. As international tension increased and the threat of European war became inescapable, the idea of the 'good' Tsar, or at least of Tsars who had some good qualities, the Tsar as consolidator of state power, for instance, or as instigatorof modernization, replaced revolutionaryimages of Tsarism as an oppressive and irredeemable system. Such new writingwas encouraged from the highest levels of the communist party, which took a directpart in the discussionof historicalrepresentation.At the same time, the party also involved itself in education. School and even university history ceased to deal with impersonal economic forces, turning instead to historical figures,includingTsars, forpatrioticinspiration. While documenting these processes, many of which are broadly familiar, Perrieescapes the trap of assumingthat all historywas reshaped from above. 366 SEER, 8I, 2, 2003 Because she has worked in the archives of the Academy of Sciences, and has also looked in detail at three specificprojects involving the image of Ivan IV (V. I. Kostelyev's multi-volume novel, IvanGroznyi, A. N. Tolstoi'splay of the sametitle,and SergeiEizenshtein'sfilm),Perrieisableto showhow representations of Ivan'simage, and of the main achievementsof his reign,were debated at several levels. The immediate needs of Stalinistpropaganda, for example duringthe annexation of the Balticrepublics,are reflectedin artisticpriorities (theemphasison Ivan'sBalticcampaignswas a featureof Kostelyev'swork,for instance). The depiction of Ivan's mental turmoil in Eizenshtein'sfilm, more famously,angered Stalinso much that he intervenedpersonallyin the process of its censorship. But Perriearguesthat the original impetus to recreate Tsar Ivan IV involved no detailed blueprintsfrom the Kremlin. Instead, following broad general guidelines that encouraged patriotic explorations of national heroes, individual writers assumed the task of creating a new Ivan for themselves,with mixed and occasionallyunsuccessfulresults. Perriemakesit clearthatby the time of Stalin'sdeath the image of Ivan had come to stand for Stalin in the minds of many Soviet writers. To praise the Tsarwas tantamountto patriotism,to criticizehim was to commit covertantiStalinism . The point is emphasized by a brief account...