Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [437]
Seeing them, Rosa smiled. For as long as she could remember, she had played Cossacks and Robbers with the Karpenko boys and the other village children; young Ivan was her special playmate. And ever since, some years before, her father had sold Taras some farm equipment which had proved successful, the burly Cossack had looked upon the family with a kindly eye.
There was also another reason why Rosa’s father had found favour with Taras.
It was strange to think that the heavyset farmer was the nephew of the illustrious poet Karpenko, whose delicate features still looked out from drawings or prints on the walls of several local houses. Taras was enormously proud of this fact, however, and would mention his uncle’s name in the same breath, and with the same reverence, as that of the most famous of all Ukrainian poets, the great Shevchenko. When he discovered, therefore, that Rosa’s father not only possessed a copy of Karpenko’s verses, but genuinely loved them and knew many by heart, he had clapped him on the back and always thereafter, if anyone mentioned Rosa’s family, he would announce: ‘Not a bad fellow, that.’ Which stood them in good stead in the village and often caused Rosa’s mother to remark: ‘Your father is very wise.’
He was indeed wise – and very unusual – since this knowledge which formed a bond between him and the Cossack was becoming increasingly rare.
For the rule of the Tsars in the Ukraine, with each decade that passed, had become even more heavy-handed. The Tsars liked uniformity. True, in their huge empire it could not always be achieved. In Poland and the westernmost parts of the Ukraine, they had to put up with the Catholics; as the empire continued to expand eastwards into Asia, they had to tolerate increasing numbers of Moslems. But insofar as possible, everything should be Russified: autocracy, orthodoxy, nationality – those were the things. In 1863 therefore, with that genius for official blindness in which it specialized, the Russian government announced that the Ukrainian language, which was spoken by much of the southern population, did not exist! In the years following, Ukrainian language books, newspaper, theatres, schools and even Ukrainian music were banned. The works of Shevchenko, Karpenko and other Ukrainian national heroes passed out of sight. Intellectuals spoke and wrote in Russian. As for the people, while in the north education was spreading, in the south it declined; and by the late-nineteenth century, eighty per cent of Ukrainians were illiterate. The Tsars were pleased: the Ukraine was not disturbed by discordant voices. No wonder then if the proud Cossack Karpenko would occasionally remark to Rosa’s father: ‘Well, my friend, at least you and I seem to know what’s what.’
As the two Cossacks drove by, therefore, they acknowledged her in a friendly manner: young Ivan with a happy grin and his father with a smile and a nod; and seeing this, Rosa felt a sense of reassurance.
They will not come here. There was nothing to be afraid of, she reminded herself.
For Rosa Abramovich was Jewish.
Until a century before when Catherine the Great took most of Poland, there had been hardly any Jews in the empire of Russia. By adding these western lands, however, Russia gained a large Jewish community.
Where did they come from? The history of the Diaspora is confused and often obscure, but the Jews of Russia derived from Germany, the Mediterranean and Black Sea ports; and also, it can hardly be doubted, from the remnants of the Turkish Khazar community that had spread into many parts of south-east Europe. Of their racial origins therefore, it is hard to say anything except that they were mixed.
But they believed in the one God of Israel.
What should be done with them? Some thought