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Author : Armen Oganesyan
Editor-in-Chief of Mezhdunarodnaia zhizn'
IN RESPONSE to my lamenting about how difficult it is
to choose a topic for an article at New Year, a historian I
know said with a shrewd wink: "Write about New Year 'in
reverse.'" Anticipating my bewilderment, he went on to say
that he has long used this kind of exercise; he chooses a re-
cent date and, reading it in reverse, tries to reinstate what
was happening in world history at that distant time.
I found the suggestion intriguing; indeed, why not picture
what was going on at New Year "in reverse," in other words
in 1102 A.D.
That year King Henry I became embroiled in a fierce con-
frontation with the barons in England. Henry did not have any chance of ascending to the throne.
Henry was forced to fight many battles, but, borrowing the words of Scipio Africanus, he liked to repeat: "My
mother bore a general, not a soldier."
Henry's fiscal flair and his constant control over how tributes were collected and what his clerks were doing
eventually manifested themselves in other European innovation. He established the first Accounts Chamber
called the Exchequer. It was so called due to the checkered cloth that was used to cover the table on which
the money was counted and the calculations performed. This practice instantly migrated from England to the
continent.
The year 1102 duly provides us with a chance to take a look at Palestine, a country both far from and near to
Europe of that time. That same year, on Sunday, July 13, Anglo-Saxon Saewulf set out on a pilgrimage to the
Holy Land from the shores of Italy. He was to face many trials and tribulations both on land and at sea. The
death of his fellow travelers, ferocious winds, storms, and even a shipwreck - all of these deadly dangers were
finally overcome. But at what price?!
With respect to the First Crusade, Russian historian Alexander Vasiliev writes that during these fifty years,
economic, religious, and all the cultural aspects of European life radically changed. A new world opened up
for Western Europe.
When arguing with Vassily Klyuchevsky, a later historian would write, "There cannot be anything in common,
even from a token standpoint, between the crusades of the West European knights to the Middle East aimed
at far from only liberating the Holy Land from the hands of the infidels and Russia's fight against the Cumans,
who did not seize any relics of Christianity. These two very different historical phenomena have only one
thing in common - the struggle of the Christians against the infidels."
The practice of forced baptism was also off-putting, which was applied first to the Jews in Europe and then
to ordinary "infidels." It is no accident that later Russian Orthodox missionary work would greatly differ from
Catholic.
After Alexander Nevsky's stubborn refusal to accept the Roman faith not much time would pass before the
Pope declared a crusade against Rus. It is worth noting that Novgorod with its extensive trade ties and nu-
merous overseas visitors was informed, like no other Russian city, about the history of the crusades. "God is
not in strength, but in truth," these words should not be seen as the battle cry of a warrior prince in the face
of amenacing enemy, but as a civilizational response to that inconceivable militarization and distortion of
Christianity to which Alexander Nevsky who is not called the Blessed for nothing, was witness.
New Year "in Reverse"
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