Francis R. Nicosia - The Three Romes: Moscow, Constantinople, and Rome
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Moscow, Constantinople (now Istanbul), and Rome itself are vitally alive in the present and are magnets for tourists. Also going back a long way, each lives in history. These cities have their points in common, each wanting to rule the world and establish Rome of the Caesars, Constantinople of the Emperors, and Moscow of the Tsars were also the Rome of St. Peter, the Constantinople of the Patriarchs, and the Moscow of the Orthodox Metropolitans. These were cities on earth that aspired to heaven, kingdoms that succeeded each other as standard-bearers of Christianity from the fourth century on. Indeed, the Russian monk declared to the Tsar: Two Romes have fallen, but the third stands, and a fourth shall never besh the kingdom of heaven on earth. People, recognizing this, link them together as the Three Romes. These cities differ, though, in their understanding of mans nature and business. The Three Romes are three places and also states of mind. Now, with a new introduction which describes the contemporary significance to these cities this book will be assessable to the modern reader at all levels.This fascinating book weaves the past and present in a narrative that is sometimes harrowing, always vivid, and even, at times, amusing. Russell Fraser shows the reader each city as he himself saw it. He shuttles easily between today and yesterday, between todays Central Committee and Ivan the Great, between Turkish Istanbul and the golden Constantinople of Justinian, between todays Roman politics and the splendid Caesars. Great historical events, intellectual concerns, and artistic riches define the three Romes. Fraser goes beyond the facades, images, and myths to lay bare the three great psychologies still vying for the mind of man. The Three Romes is an utterly original book a celebration of the past and an urbane guide to the present.
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THE THREE ROMES
THE THREE ROMES
MOSCOW, CONSTANTINOPLE, AND ROME
RUSSELL FRASER
WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY THE AUTHOR
Originally published in 1985 by Harcourt, Brace, Jo-vanovich Publishers
Published 2009 by Transaction Publishers
Published 2017 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
New material this edition copyright 2009 by Taylor & Francis.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Notice:
Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Catalog Number: 2008035582
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Fraser, Russell A.
The Three Romes : Moscow, Constantinople, and Rome / Russell Fraser. p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4128-0812-5 (alk. paper)
1. Moscow (Russia)Description and travel. 2. Istanbul (Turkey) Description and travel. 3. Rome (Italy)Description and travel.
4. Fraser, Russell A.Travel. I. Title.
DK601.2.F7 2009
947 .31-dc22
2008035582
ISBN 13: 978-1-4128-0812-5 (pbk)
For Marcia and Don Zwiep and all their progeny even to the present.
CONTENTS
LOOKING BACK at The Three Romes and how it came to be written, I think inevitably of William Jovanovich. The master spirit of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, which no longer exists now that he is gone, he did more than just publish me. He put his teeming brain into the book, and his imperious temperament that wouldnt take no for an answer. If he was sometimes over the top, that was part of his charm. I gave him the Three Romes, an ancient conceit linking Rome itself, constantinople, and Moscow. Yes! he said, and ran with it.
It wasnt easy to stop him in the open field. Moscow is only your focus, he told me. You must travel to all the Slavic lands. He was pan-Slavic, of what wasnt he pan? You must visit the Greek orthodox monasteries in the mountains of Yugoslavia. Never mind that theyre a bit off the beaten track. He paused. Of course you know the Bogomils? I got on to these tenth-century Bulgarian heretics as soon as I stepped out of his office.
Mr. J as I called him, though never to his face, bankrolled the travel that went into the book, including my wifes. This was generous, also shrewd. He knew that, without her, I couldnt have gone round the block. Other than writing the book, I had agreed to teach a class in Hawaii, and we journeyed east to get there, circling the globe. Frankfurt, our first stop, is mostly on the way to, in this case nearby Mainz where I feasted my eyes on one of Gutenbergs Bibles. It gave me a rubric, the Word made flesh, and I kept it before me in Socialist Land, i.e., the USSR and its clients. The god of their idolatry was disembodied, like the Platonic logos.
Prague, a Socialist capital, looked sadly bedraggled, beauty coming last on its list of priorities. But we admired the ancient bridge over the Moldau, and hoped that one day soon the baroque churches would get a much-needed face lift. In Warsaw, Communism saw to it that lifes pleasures were hard to come by. Vodka was for export, and we ate hotdogs made from pulped mushrooms. Rome and Moscow gave us the leisure to unpack our bags. A prime rule in traveling, if you can manage it, is to spend at least two nights in the same bed. The mountains of Yugoslavia were my Purgatorial Mountain, but I had my marching orders and the monasteries werent to be missed.
Coming into Istanbul on a drear night in late fall, the grainy air charged with coal dust, I thought at first that Yeats in his Byzantium was pulling the wool over our eyes. But the next day, staring at the mosque of Suleiman the Magnificent, I felt at a loss for words, a novel experience. From Jerusalem I took the memory of a young nun, kneeling in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher on the spot where Christ was born, her eyes astonished and streaming with tears. Cairo and environs, marked indelibly by the Pharaohs but a long time ago, begot reflections on our throw-away culture. Athens put me in mind of Evelyn Waugh, distinguishing between Greeks and Europeans. But in the hotel in Athens, the Parthenon looming over it, I left a copy of Trollope, hoping to warm the heart of a wayfaring stranger.
I got sick more than once, a constant of traveling. When it happened in Dubai, the capital of the Emirates, they put me to bed in a hospital full of shy Arab men. Their eyes bulged and mouths fell open when a young Western woman walked onto the ward. She was my wife and wouldnt wear a headscarf. Bangkok was aswarm with automobiles and hot without reason, its canals called klongs having been buried in concrete. Hong Kong was a supermarket stuffed with Western technology. In Tokyo on New Years Day, we stood before the Imperial Palace with 10,000 Japanese holding Rising Sun flags and cheering. Tiny and doll-like in his brocaded silks, the Emperor Hirohito materialized on a balcony above us. It was still New Years Day when, having crossed the International Date Line, we touched down once more in the States.
The next time I saw Mr. J, he was still sitting behind the big desk in his Fifth Ave. office. He had only recently changed the name of the firm, tacking on his own name, and block letters were going up in front of the building. Inside, he was laying out the grand design of his Austrian campaign. We will catch them on the ice and shell it as they are crossing, he announced to his marshals. Just here, at Austerlitz, and he put down a finger. An inconspicuous ADC attached to the general staff, I basked in his reflected glory.
While we talked, he took phone calls. Tell Gunter Ill meet him at the Frankfurt Book Fair. Georges, I like your new Maigret immensely. Turning back to me: Youll need a quiet place to write, now that youve done the leg work. Why dont we arrange for you to have the Lindberg house on Maui? Ill put in a call to Anne Morrow. Nothing came of that, of course, but the panache was worth many houses.
Mr. J owned a word hoard and liked to rummage in it. When he accepted an earlier book of mine, the biography of R. P. Blackmur, he didnt send me a letter but fired off a telegram. That regrettably obsolete form of address, now usurped by email, was made to order for him. You write with vigor and concinnity, he said, adding, there are so few left who do. I never got a more handsome compliment but have wondered if memory didnt misreport it, and what he really wrote was so few of us left. Years later, I learned from his obit in the Times that he had been baptized Vladimir. The name fit him: Lord of the World.
***
Had I come to Mr.J proposing a travel book, the kind that makes a salad of anecdote mixed with matter-of-fact from the Blue Guide, he would have shown me the door. He wanted a book with intention, and I did my best to please.
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