Akunin when the 4th volume of history will be released. Boris Akunin Between Europe and Asia

As a great lover of B. Akunin's work, of course, I could not pass by his project "The History of the Russian State." There were doubts at first. Vid Akunin is interesting for his writing, and history requires a documentary presentation, dry figures and facts. In addition, there are many other sources - why buy this particular book? But still I decided to try and bought the first volume “Part of Europe. History of the Russian state. From the origins to the Mongol invasion. To say that the result exceeded all my expectations is to say nothing.

Firstly, I was very glad that even in documentaries there is a unique style of Mr. Akunin, for which I love his works so much. Secondly, this is not just a dry retelling of history. The text is replete with many facts from various sources, which are compared with each other, analyzed and give the reader a deeper picture. At the same time, the Author, as soon as possible, avoids giving any assessment to events and facts. The truth is, it turns out, as you can see, with difficulty. And not always. At the end of each chapter, the author tries to give a brief summary, which helps to better understand the material. In general, Akunin, as always, is on top. His approach to presentation, his original style, his love of history makes this series unique!

I am not a historian, so I can neither support nor condemn the fact that historians massively branded "History". But it seems to me that this is just envy of a person who was able to tell about historical events in an accessible, intelligible, exciting way. I read with pleasure.

History of the Russian state

I read the first two books "Part of Europe" and "Part of Asia"

I admire the structuring of the "History"

I am not a humanitarian, but I have been interested in the history of our state since childhood. Before Akunin's books, the initial period of our history crumbled for me into separate plots and details, as in a situation where "you can't see the forest for the trees." Now all the previously known "details" easily fit into a single structure, which also includes a picture of the external relations of the state.

Initially, I was somewhat embarrassed by the fact that the author for the "History" used a pseudonym, and not a real surname, as if leaving room for artistic fiction as opposed to scientific accuracy. But at the level of knowledge that I have, there are no fantasies and conjectures. On the contrary, a fairly well-built argumentation with quotations from primary sources, explanations of why this or that interpretation is preferred, and if the author's "additions" to known materials are given, then this is stated quite clearly.

And at the same time it is easy to read, the narrative captivates like in a detective story ...

Thanks to Grigory Shalvovich

I am a regular reader of books by this author, I consider him one of the most erudite and deeply thinking writers of our generation. Now I am happy to read the third book about the history of Russia. What to say first?

Firstly, the period of Ivan III and Ivan the Terrible, perhaps one of the most controversial in the history of our state. Since, on the one hand, quite a lot is already known about him and much is known almost reliably, and on the other hand, there are still a lot of speculation and rooted myths, especially of course about Ivan the Terrible. That is why I liked how the author, with honor and without falling into ideological extremes, simply gives a clear and understandable analysis to the reader of what is happening then in the country, explains, so to speak, where the wind blows, who controls the ship and why it sails there.

Secondly, it is very impressive that all three books are logically linked to each other - it is clear that the author is working in great detail on the concept of presenting the material, on the general ideological idea, which involuntarily arises in a thoughtful reader. Of course, one can endlessly argue about the history of the Russian state, but one thing is objective and this is a fact - the Mongol yoke forever changed our country and it was it that was both evil and good in the subsequent historical period after it. Therefore, thanks to the author that he honestly writes about this and does not hide many points of view and possible interpretations that were previously camouflaged and not very popular with other historians.

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The cycle was conceived by the writer Boris Akunin as a multi-volume historical work, supplemented by a series of fiction. According to Akunin, he took 10 years to implement the project.

It all started in March 2013, when the writer announced on his LiveJournal blog that he would stop writing detective stories ("of course, I will finish the series about Fandorin") and devote himself to creating a new multi-volume "History of the Russian State". That he was always haunted by the laurels of Karamzin, and even the novel "Azazel" was to some extent inspired by "Poor Liza". And that from the first steps in literature, Akunin cherished "a megalomaniacal plan to repeat Karamzin's trajectory and, starting with fiction, come to writing the history of the state."

It is noteworthy that the author of the historical work is not a professional historian Grigory Chkhartishvili, but his writer's "I" Akunin. Grigory Shalvovich, referring to Isaac Asimov, Peter Ackroyd and the same Nikolai Karamzin, explains: when an amateur fiction writer tells the history of the country for amateurs like him, he, by virtue of his profession, tries to be boring. Almost all historical works are boring, ideologized and reveal only fragments of history. Akunin, on the other hand, set himself the goal of being not boring, to give a complete picture of history (“how the state was formed, developed and why it became like this”) without ideological overtones (“I want to know how it really was; the truth or the version closest to the truth, - this is what I need").

"New Karamzin" was criticized by both writers and historians. According to some, today the picture of the world is too complex for one person to grasp it with a glance; it is impossible to repeat the experience of Karamzin or Solovyov. According to others, Akunin still tells the story uninterestingly. According to others, there are many inaccuracies in his "History", and the treatment of historical sources is too free. Grigory Shalvovich got ahead of the latest objections with the following statement: “My method is simple. I read the available primary sources, trying not to miss anything, and see how the information contained there is interpreted by various authors. From the whole mass of facts, names, figures, dates and judgments, I try to select everything undoubted, or at least the most plausible. I cut off the insignificant and unreliable.

The reviewers of the publication, confirming the correspondence of the author's presentation to historical facts, were employees of the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Historical and Archival Institute of the Russian State University for the Humanities.

Akunin illustrates the history of Russia with works of art: in parallel with historical volumes, he publishes volumes of action-packed stories, the action of which takes place in a particular time period. As conceived by the writer, the characters of these stories will belong to the same family - a kind of mega-story a thousand years long about the life of one family. "The history of the state and human history will go side by side, testing each other for strength," Akunin promised his readers.

Boris Akunin

Between Europe and Asia. History of the Russian state. Seventeenth century

Illustrations provided by Shutterstock, Rossiya Segodnya MIA, Diomedia and free sources are used in the design

© B. Akunin, 2016

© AST Publishing House LLC, 2016

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Reviewers:

K. A. Kochegarov

(Institute of Slavic Studies RAS)

Yu. M. Eskin

(Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts)

S. Yu. Shokarev

(Historical and Archival Institute of the Russian State University for the Humanities)

Foreword

The movement of history is uneven. Incidents that are memorable for posterity - usually these are some kind of epoch-making changes or upheavals - alternate with periods about which in ancient chronicles it is briefly reported "nothing happened" (that is, everything was not bad and there was nothing special to talk about). The pace of events accelerates, then slows down; quick "breaths" are replaced by long "exhalations"; sometimes the state begins to develop jerkily - as a rule, this happens when a purposeful leader appears who implements a certain program; there are equally rapid crises - for reasons both internal and external.

That is why it is more convenient to talk about different periods in different ways, adapting the presentation technique to the features and “importance” of the era. The Russian seventeenth century, to which this volume is devoted, is difficult to describe in this sense. In a relatively short period of history, both “fatal minutes” that require detailed study and whole decades of unhurried development are compressed, when it is more interesting to talk not about events, but about phenomena and trends.

This explains the asymmetric structure of the book. Its first part is devoted to a detailed account of just a few years, and the next three parts are much more lapidary. However, the same proportion is observed in the entire body of historical research on the Russian seventeenth century: much more has been written about its dramatic beginning than about subsequent events - right up to the very end of the century, when Russia seemed to wake up or switched from slow walking to fast running.

However, the reforms of Peter I will be the subject of the fifth volume, while the fourth will end in 1689. The tightest knot of this era is the Time of Troubles - the experience of the collapse of the state. A crisis of comparable scale in Russia will only be repeated three hundred years later, at the beginning of the 20th century.

The Russian state, destroyed by the Time of Troubles, was second in historical continuity. The first - the Grand Duchy of Kiev - arose in the 9th century, when the Rurik family took control of the trade route "from the Varangians to the Greeks." The early Russian state persisted until river transit in the 11th-12th centuries lost its former significance. After that, the central government weakened and the country began to break up into separate principalities, which became easy prey for the Mongol invasion.

The second centralization was carried out by Prince Ivan III of Moscow (1462-1505), who took as a model the structure of the Genghis Khan Empire, the greatest state known to the then Russian people. The fortress of the Horde was based on a pyramidal hierarchy of power, the only bearer of which was the great khan. The country was governed not by laws common to all, but by khan's decrees, which were issued taking into account the specific situation and could change the old "rules of the game" at any time. Morally and religiously, the principle of such unlimited power was supported by the sacralization of the person of the monarch, intercessor and mediator for the people before God.

The “second” Russian state was architecturally a very simple structure. All decisions of any importance were made exclusively by the sovereign, who not only was in charge of all areas of politics, but also sought to fully control life in the regions of his rather big country. At the same time, the central government and the regional administration were in their infancy. The country was ruled as a personal fiefdom of one owner.

In the conditions of the Middle Ages, such a structure certainly had its advantages, which included good manageability, accumulation of resources and high mobilization ability. The main rivals of the Moscow autocrats - the Polish-Lithuanian kings - for the war needed to obtain the consent of the aristocracy and get permission to raise finances, so the western neighbor was always late with the start of hostilities, and then often found himself unable to take advantage of the fruits of victories due to lack of money. It was enough for the Russian sovereign to simply order - all the human and material resources of the country were in his full will.

The main weakness of the "second" state, as usual, was the reverse side of its strength. With an active and capable ruler, the country grew stronger and grew, with a ruler of average abilities, it turned out to be in a state of stagnation, a bad ruler led the country to decline. And the absence of an autocrat became a complete disaster, it led the state to paralysis.

This is exactly what happened in April 1605, which was told in the previous volume and to which we will return again, looking at the same events from the other side - the side of the Pretender. We will see that his adventure was poorly organized and would undoubtedly have ended in defeat if Tsar Boris had not died suddenly in Moscow. Two fatal factors coincided here. First, Boris' heir was a teenager and could not rule on his own. Secondly, the new dynasty, which arose only seven years ago, had not yet acquired an aura of sacredness (a circumstance that preserved the country during the infancy of Ivan the Terrible).

To put it very briefly, the main reason for the collapse of the "second" Russia was too strong autocracy with a too weak state. The combination of the unlimited power of the monarch with the underdevelopment of institutions made the political system fragile. It was enough to break the only rod on which it rested, and the state crumbled.

The history of the Time of Troubles (as well as the events of 1917) demonstrates that a seemingly mighty state can fall apart very quickly. This is truly a scary and breathtaking sight.

Compared to the Troubles, the next part of the book looks dull. High drama disappears, bright personalities disappear, everything seems to become smaller and discolored. The story about the reign of Mikhail Romanov is less advantageous - but the story of getting a wound is always more interesting in plot than the description of its treatment. At the same time, from the point of view of the history of the state, the process of healing and restoration of the country's strength, the process of creating a new system instead of the collapsed one is no less important.

The Moscow kingdom of the seventeenth century, with external similarities, is very different from the Moscow kingdom of the sixteenth century. I believe that here we are talking about a slightly different model, and I will explain in detail why I consider this state to be the “third”.

Europe has become the center of the development of world civilization, and politically, technologically, culturally Russia is increasingly drifting in a western direction. In the seventeenth century, it was already closer to Europe than to Asia, but the "Horde foundation" remained the same, and it was difficult to build something fundamentally new on it. In just seventy years, there will be a need for a new modification.

The book "Between Europe and Asia" consists of four parts, which correspond to the stages of life of almost any state: the preceding chaos; birth and growth; maturity and stagnation; finally, exhaustion and crisis.

The death of the state

In the seventeenth century, Russia entered, apparently, a strong and prosperous power. With a population of fifteen million, it was one of the most populated countries in Europe, and the first in size. Moscow maintained peace with neighbors who respected her power; the treasury was full; trade flourished; cities grew. An experienced ruler, Boris Godunov, sat on the throne, seemingly holding the country in an iron fist: the intimidated aristocracy was afraid to intrigue, the downtrodden peasants did not rebel. It seemed that in Russia, after the severe trials experienced in the second half of the previous century, calm, peaceful times were established for a long time.

However, this strength was an illusion.

The most important element of the system of autocracy founded by Ivan III was the deification of royal power - only this, from a religious and rational point of view, could justify the undivided power of one person over a vast country, all the inhabitants of which were considered his "serfs". If such authority is established by God himself, there is nothing to complain about: the Lord is in heaven, and all His servants; on earth - the Sovereign, and all his serfs.

However, Godunov also came out of the "serfs", which the whole power knew and remembered. He himself perfectly understood this vulnerability of his own and compensated for it with a kind of “people's mandate”, for which, during his accession, for the first time in Russian history, he arranged something like an election - he did not arbitrarily sit on the throne, but was “begged” by the patriarch with the boyars and “shouted out” to the metropolitan crowd, that is, he replaced heavenly sacralization with earthly legitimization.

1 Book: From the origins to the Mongol invasion

“The country that we call Ancient Russia was so different from Russia of the post-Mongol era that through the thickness of the past centuries it seems to us some kind of lost, legendary Atlantis ... Was there really Rurik? Did the Slavs invite the Varangians? Did Oleg nail a shield to the gates of Tsaregrad? Boris Akunin addresses his history of the fatherland to a wide readership: people who are interested in learning (or enthusiastically figure out together with the author) how it really was.
Before you is a unique work from one of the best domestic contemporary writers. The author tried to present the history of the Russian state from its very beginnings to the invasion of the Tatar-Mongolians as reliably and without prejudice as possible. To work on the book, Akunin compared sources of information from different countries and time periods. The book will help those who seek to better know the history of Russia, but do not want to spend a long time studying purely scientific literature.

Book 2: Finger of Fire

In support of the work "History of the Russian State. From the origins to the Mongol invasion" the author decided to release a cycle of stories dedicated to Ancient Russia. Here are three stories already released within the framework of this project. The author describes the ups and downs of one clan that has been living on the territory of Russia since very ancient times. The stories associated with this family stretched for a thousand years and the saga will gradually be supplemented with more and more new materials.


Listen online or download an audiobook

Book 3: Boch and Rogue

Before you are two stories by a cult Russian writer, which are the artistic accompaniment of the second volume of his "History of the Russian State". One of the stories tells about the times of the Mongol conquest of Russian lands, and the second takes the listeners to the period of the liberation struggle, which ultimately led to the formation of statehood in the Middle Ages.


Listen online or download an audiobook

Book 4: Widow's Plath

Ivan IV is known as the Terrible, but a hundred years before him, another tsar ruled - Ivan III, who was called by the same name during his lifetime. In the history of the Russian state, both of these rulers played an important role, carrying out a series of reforms that changed the state system. A well-known modern writer decided to tell in more detail about the two greatest kings, whose deeds could be appreciated only centuries later. The collection includes a novel and a story, separated by a hundred-year time period.