Samson, Steven Alan

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Liberty UniversityDigitalCommons@LibertyUniversityFaculty Publications and Presentations Helms School of Government2014James H. Billington: The Icon and the Axe StudyGuide, 2013Steven Alan SamsonLiberty University, ssamson@liberty.eduFollow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/gov_fac_pubsPart of the Other Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons, Political Science Commons, and thePublic Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration CommonsThis Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Helms School of Government at DigitalCommons@Liberty University. It has beenaccepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications and Presentations by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@Liberty University. For moreinformation, please contact scholarlycommunication@liberty.edu.Recommended CitationSamson, Steven Alan, "James H. Billington: The Icon and the Axe Study Guide, 2013" (2014). Faculty Publications and Presentations.Paper 427.http://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/gov_fac_pubs/4271  JAMES H. BILLINGTON:  THE ICON AND THE AXE STUDY GUIDE, 2013 Steven Alan Samson  II. THE CONFRONTATION  1. THE MUSCOVITE IDEOLOGY  Outline  A. THE GREAT RUSSIAN CULTURE: ITS EMERGENCE AFTER THE ECLIPSE OF KIEV   (47-49)  1. Architecture: Tent Roof and Onion Dome  2. Adoption of Wooden Construction Methods   a. Onion dome   b. Church of the Transfiguration at Kizhi  3. Moscow’s Kremlin   a. Bell tower of Ivan the Great  4. Moscow (Muscovy)   a. Third Rome (after Constantinople)  5. Shabby Beginnings  6. Lack of Surviving Records from the Fall of Kiev in 1240 until 1380   a. Turning of the Tatar Tide: Battle of Kulikovo Field B. RISE OF MUSCOVY  (49-58)  1. Religious Stirrings  2. Role of the Orthodox Church   a. Peasants known as krest’ianin   b. Transfer of the Metropolitan seat from Vladimir to Moscow, 1326   c. Ivan Kalita, Prince of Moscow  3. Monastic Revival   a. Metropolitan Alexis built a large number of churches inside the Kremlin    1) Biakont family  4. Sergius of Radonezh  5. New Role of Monasteries as Fortress and Colonizing Center  6. Hesychasm   a. Inner calm   b. Divine illumination  7. Pioneering Russian Hermit   a. Doctrine emphasizing direct contact with God   b. God’s involvement in all creation  8. Theme of Transfiguration  9. Cultivation and Colonization  10 Stephen of Perm   a. Komi people  11. Life of St. Sergius of Radnezh   a. Victory at Kulikovo  12. Mt. Athos Monasteries in Greece Served as a Model  13. Spiritual Energy and Icon Painting  14. Literary Culture   a. Weaving  15. Conscious Development of a National Art 2    a. Life of Alexander Nevsky  16. Victory at Kulikovo   a. Dimitry Donskoy   b. Tale from Beyond the Don   c. Call for Christian crusade  17. Russian Christendom Seen as a Special Culmination of Sacred History  18. Chiliastic (Millennial) Teachings   a. Fall of Jerusalem and transfer of relics to Constantinople  19. Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire   a. Specially genealogy claimed through Babylonia, Persia, and Rome  20. Orthodox Theology   a. Emphasis on the drama of cosmic redemption rather than personal     salvation  21. Flight into Apocalyptic Prophecy  22. Serbia   a. Stephen Dushan: Tsar, Autocrat, and Emperor of the Romans  23. Bulgaria   a. Trnovo as the New Rome {capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire)  24. Turkish Conquests at Kosovo and Sofia   a. Cyprian becomes Metropolitan of Moscow   b. Tale of the Great Princes of Vladimir  25. Prayer for the Tatar Khan  26. Byzantine Union with Rome, 1437-39: Florentine Union   a. Metropolitan Isidore driven into exile and became a Catholic in exile  27. Capture of Constantinople, 1453   a. Prophetic significance for the Russian church   b. Khan Akhmet’s attack on Moscow, 1480 C. RELIGIOUS EXPECTATIONS  (58-61)  1. Philotheus   a. Apollinarian heresy: Denial of the humanity of Christ   b. Hagarenes [Ishmaelites, descendants of Hagar; according to Islam,    Muhammad is a descendent of Ishmael] 2. Marriage of Ivan II (the Great) to Sophia Paleologus [latinized from Palaiologos] 3. Apocalyptical Expectations  a. Judaizers  b. Revival of the Apocrypha, including the apocalypse of Ezra 4. Alternation between Anticipation and Fear 5. Rise of Prophecy 6. Pillar-like Immobility 7. Holy Fools  a. Renunciation of the flesh b. Erasmus’s The Praise of Folly c. Ascetic hermits (skitalets) d. Nil Sorsky e. All externals are regarded as tillers, means of steering men back into the   wind of the spirit f. Trans-Volga Elders D. RISE OF MUSCOVY  (61-67)  1. Muscovy Resembled an Expectant Revivalist Camp   a. Sacerdotium [church] and imperium [state authority] were intertwined     [caesaropapism]  2. There Was Almost No Exposure to the Texts of Classical Antiquity  3. Platonic Idealism  4. Pamiat’ = Memory  5. Collective Memory: Special Authority of Elders Who Preserved Apostolic Memory   a. Role of the starets, starosta, and the stariny 3   6. Monastic support as an underpinning for authority   a. Aura of sanctity for the Grand Duke of Muscovy  7. Ideology of Muscovite Tsardom   a. Joseph Sanin    1) Wealthy chain of cloisters through bequests by the tsar’s brother    2) Contrast with Nil’s doctrine of apostolic poverty  8. Controversy between the “Possessors” and the “Non-possessors”  9. Victory of the Possessors    a. Influence of the Josephite party   b. Tradition of “the Tsar’s words”  10. Alliance between Monks and Tsars  11. Blurred between the Monastery and the Outside World   a. Tsar as archimandrite-in-chief  12. Temptations to Worldliness   a. Alcoholism and sexual perversion  13. Increasing Monasticism of the Outside World   a. White (married) vs. black (celibate) parish priests                            b. Fasts   c. Church services   d. Religious processions  14. Cult of Humility and Self-Abnegation   a. Kenotic [kenosis = emptying] manner of Russia’s first national saints:     Boris and Gleb  15. Podvizhnik: A Champion  16. Emphasis on Following or Serving Rather than Imitating Christ   a. Focus on Christ’s mission rather than His teachings  17. The Monastic Civilization of Muscovy Was Dominated More by Fanaticism Than    Kenoticism E. IVAN IV GROZNY: THE TERRIBLE, THE DREAD, OR THE MENACING  (67-69)  1. First Formally-Crowned Tsar  2. Ivan Grozny Can Be Seen as a Fundamentalist Survival of Byzantium   a. Josephite teachers   b. Caesaropapism   c. Cruelty and caprice, like the Tatar khans   d. Legends of Dracula  3. Oprichnina (Oprichniks)  a. A secret police that has been likened to the Turkish janissaries and the   builders of the modern service state  4. Supreme Codifier of the Muscovite Tradition   a. His ambivalence toward modernization and Europeanization   b. Unresolved tension   c. Pilgrimages to Muscovite shrines   d. Debates  5. Humiliation of Rival Centers of Power   a. Traditional landholding boyars and cities like Novgorod   b. Church leaders   c. Religious dissenters  6. Hagiography  7. Campaign against the Tatars at Kazan   a. Cathedrals  8. Legislative Council   a. Zemsky sobor   b. Church code, 1551: Hundred Chapters   c. Household Book   d. Oprichnina bound by the vows, rules, and dress of a monastic order  9. Radical Monasticization of Society 4    a. Censorship of literature F. COMPARISONS WITH SPAIN  (69-72)  1. Spain and Muscovy Both Found Their National Identity in the Fight to Expel   Muslim Invaders   a. Fanaticism: Dispute over the filioque clause [addition of the phrase “and     from the Son” in the creed]  2. Fight against Judaizers   a. The words for Jew and Spaniard are easily confused [Spain was a center     of Sephardic Judaism until the Jews were expelled in 1492]   b. Partial imitation of the Inquisition  3. Love-Hate Relationship   a. Music [Mikhail Glinka and Nikolai Rimsky-Korskov]   b. Both were breeding grounds of revolutionary anarchism  4. Partisan (Guerrilla) Activities against Napoleon   a. Russian Decembrists drew inspiration from Spanish partisans  5. José Ortega y Gasset   a. Russia and Spain: Two pueblo races  6. Modern Russians Idealization of Spain   a. Picaresque roguery of Lazarillo de Tormes (anonymous, 1554) and the     implausible gallantry of Don Quixote (Miguel de Cervantes)   b. Dostoevsky on Cervantes   c. Turgenev preferred Calderón to Shakespeare  7. Music and Other Parallels   a. Mikhail Glinka   b. Opera   c. Dostoevsky’s Legend of the Grand Inquisitor   d. Spanish and Russian revolutions  8. Role Played by Jews   a. Hebrew-derived letters in Russian   b. Philo-Semitism of the Russian dissidents [likewise in the music of     Sergei Prokofiev and Dmitry Shostakovich]  9. Transfer Eastward of the Center of World Jewry G. COMPARIONS WITH ANCIENT ISRAEL  (72-75)  1. Sources of Anti-Jewish Fervor   a. Peasant antipathy to the city   b. Jealousy of a newly proclaimed chosen people  2. Medieval Muscovy gave a prophetic interpretation to bondage and humiliation   a. Both were more of a religious civilization than a political order   b. Old Testament analogues  3. Khazar Kingdom   a. Khazars disappearance in the 12C   b. Jewish influence on early Russian music  4. Later Influx of Talmudic Jews   a. Their emergence from the Pale of Settlement   b. Doctors’ plots  5. Messianic Fervor   a. Two periods of apocalyptic expectation   b. Massacres of 1648-50 [the Cossack leader Bogdan Chmielnicki    launched a pogrom in Ukraine against Polish rule that destroyed as     many as 300 Jewish communities at the cost of 100,000 dead]  6. Assimilation and Persecution [cf. René Girard, The Scapegoat]  7. Populism and Zionism in 1917   a. Jews who lent apocalyptic passion to the revolution became its victims   b. They became scapegoats for the Muscovite legacy of xenophobia H. IVAN GROZNY REDUX  (75-77)  1. Spanish and Jewish Comparisons 5    a. Ivan’s “crusading zeal, ideological fanaticism, and hatred of deviation     made him closer in spirit to Philip II of Spain than to any other     contemporary.”   b. Josephites   c. Ivan’s favorite reading: The Book of Kings   d. Tatars seen as Canaanites   e. Poles seen as Philistines: Defection of Prince Kurbsky  2. Moses Regarded as a Tsar  3. Ivan’s and Stalin’s Campaigns of Vilification  4. Acceptance of the Muscovite Ideology   a. Metropolitan Philip   b. Discourse of Valaam   c. Absence of an effective program for resisting Ivan   d. Ivan Peresvetov   e. The necessity of dread  5. Muscovy as a Realm of Fear   a. Oprichnina: Hooded order of vigilantes   b. Livonian War   c. Dramatic conflict with the diffuse and worldly West  Review  wooden construction methods Kremlin    Battle of Kulikovo Field Metropolitan Alexis  Sergius of Radonezh  hesychasm transfiguration   chiliastic   Stephen Dushan Constantinople   Apollinarian heresy  Nil Sorsky sacerdotium   imperium   pamiat’  starets    Grand Duke of Muscovy Joseph Sanin and Josephites the Tsar’s words  kenotic    Ivan Grozny caesaropapism   Oprichnina   boyars revolutionary anarchism  José Ortega y Gasset  Don Quixote Philo-Semitism   Pale of Settlement  doctors’ plots massacres of 1648-50  xenophobia   Livonian War         

James H. Billington: The Icon and the Axe Study Guide, 2013

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