The Icon and the Axe

WBy Russians did not sink into complete fatalism and resignation during {he dark days of the thirteemlrtndTouf teehth centuries can perhaps be explained in terms of two key pairs of artifacts that stayed with them through all the fires and fighting of the period???????? and icon in the countryside, and the bell and cannon in the monastery and city. Each element in these pairings bore an intimate relationship to the other-demonstrating the close connection between worship and war, beauty and brutality, in the militant world of Muscovy. These objects were also~"important in other societies, but they acquired and retained in Russia a special symbolic S'gRlfiSSSSfi-fiyJESJS1" 1^? complex culture of modefrTlimelF. ~

Axe and Icon

Nothing better illustrates the combination of material struggle and spiritual exultation in Old Russia than the two objects that were traditionally hung together in a place of honor on the wafr7›Te^ry"pTjTs1frit hut?" the axe and the icon. IBe'???? ffle basic inipiemeatoi;ureat Kus,sia: the_ indispensable meaFs~ot"T^

The icon, or religious picture, was the omnipresent reminder of 1?? religious faith which gave the beleaguered frontiersman a sense of ultimate security and highex.pmposejf the axe was_used with delicacy to plane and smooth

the wooden surface on which these holy pictures were painted, the icon, in_

turn, was borne~TJfflitantIy beTSre*^^

forth into the foTSsTI-wTtn" axes for the more harsh bulmesT"6r Telling-trees

or warding off assailants.

'~Th"e~axe was as important to the muzhik of the north as a machete to

the jungle dweller of the tropics. It was the "universal tool" with which a

Russian could, according to Tolstoy, "both build a house and shape a

spoon."44 "You can get through all the world with an axe" and "The axe is

the head of all business"43 were only two of many sayings. As one of the first and best students of daily life in early Russia has explained:

In the bleak wild forests and in the fields wherever the axe went, the scythe, plow, and whirl-bat of the bee-keeper followed; wherever axes cut into them, forests were destroyed and thinned, houses were built and repaired, and villages created within the forests. . . .4e

Pre-Christian tribes of the region frequently used axes for money and buried them with their owners. The axe was popularly called the "thunderbolt," and stones found near a tree felled by lightning were revered as part of the axehead used by the god of thunder.

The baptized Muscovite was no less reverential to the axe. He used it to cut up, plane, and even carve wood. Not until relatively recent times were nails-let alone saws and planes-widely used in building.47 Axes were used for close-range fighting, neutralizing the advantages that might otherwise be enjoyed by wolves, armored Teutonic swordsmen, or Mongol

cavalry.

One of the very few surviving jeweled works from the twelfth-century Russian north is, appropriately, the initialed hatchet of the prince most responsible for the transfer of power from Kiev to the north: Andrew Bogoliubsky.48

The axe played a central role in consolidating the new civilization of the upper Volga region. With it, Russians eventually cuTofflrthe zasechnaia cherta-long clearings lined by sharpened stumps and cross-felled trees- as a defense against invasion, fire, and plague.4" The axe was the standard ins^furnejF^[J^mary_execution, and became an abiding symbol of the hard and primitive life on Europe's exposed eastern frontier. There is a certain suppressed bitterness toward more sheltered peoples in the proverb "To drink tea is not to hew wood." The Russian version of "The pen is mightier than the sword" is "What is written with the pen cannot be hacked away with an axe."50

More than the rifles from the west and the daggers from the east, the axe of tte-notth~Temained--^^????-^??????"1^~19^??^?6:??^7 EverflTiougiriheir nameTiterally meant "shooters," the ,srretoy,~Russia*s first permanent infantry force of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, drilled with axes and carried thern in processions. The axejvas the principal weapon used by the tsars for putting down the urban rebellions of the seventeenth century, ~andby"tEe~ peasants for terrorizing Jhe_groyincial nobility andJJm^alrcracy during their lumsingjTLeaders of these revolts were publicly executed by a great axe in Red Square in the ritual of

quartering. One stroke was used to sever each arm, one for the legs, and a final stroke for the head. Lesser figures merely had their hands, feet, or tongues chopped off.

Though anachrojnistic_jisjJ amp;£ap‹M.Ja^the axe