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The New Muscovite Cultural History: A Collection in Honor of Daniel B. Rowland. Valerie Kivelson, Karen Petrone, Nancy Shields Kollmann, and Michael S. Flier, eds. Bloomington, IN: Slavica Publishers, 2009, 77–90. The Heavenly Host and the Sword of Truth: Apocalyptic Imagery in Ivan IV’s Muscovy* Sergei Bogatyrev In St. John’s Revelation, the Heavenly Host is the army of Christ that appears in the sky to defeat the armies of the Beast: “And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war.… And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood.… And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean” (Rev. 19: 11, 13, 14, hereafter references to the King James Bible). Daniel Rowland has offered a powerful interpretation of the image of the Heavenly Host in Muscovite art in his article about the “Church Militant” icon (also known as the “Blessed Host of the Heavenly Tsar”).1 According to Rowland, Muscovite images of the Heavenly Host represent the idea of the Muscovite ruler and his army as a counterpart to the Archangel Michael and the Heavenly Host and the Muscovite state as the ancient Israelite army.2 Inspired by Rowland’s pioneering work, this article seeks to examine the transformation of the image of the Heavenly Host in Muscovite art over the 16th century. This subject seems to be important in the context of the recent * This article is a reworked version of my paper delivered at the AAASS convention in Washington, DC in 2006. I wish to thank Daniel Rowland for his thoughtful and encouraging comments on my paper. I am also grateful to Elena Boeck (DePaul University ), I. Ia. Kachalova (Kremlin museums), S. P. Orlenko (Kremlin museums), M. P. Golovanova (Kremlin museums), and Dorena Caroli (Università di Macerata) for their valuable help and advice. 1 Both names of the icon are anachronistic and imprecise. In this article I use the “Church Militant” because it helps distinguish the peculiar imagery of the icon from traditional representations of the Heavenly Host. 2 Daniel Rowland, “Biblical Military Imagery in the Political Culture of Early Modern Russia: The Blessed Host of the Heavenly Tsar,” in Medieval Russian Culture, vol. 2, ed. Michael S. Flier and Rowland (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 183, 188, 190. For a synopsis of Rowland’s views, see also Daniel Rowland, “‘Blessed Is the Host of the Heavenly Tsar’: An Icon from the Dormition Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin ,” in Picturing Russia: Explorations in Visual Culture, ed. Valerie A. Kivelson and Joan Neuberger (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), 33–37. 78 SERGEI BOGATYREV debates about the significance of apocalyptic imagery in Muscovite culture under Ivan the Terrible. Thus, N. V. Kvlividze and V. M. Sorokatyi argue that the theme of apocalypticism is central to the “Church Militant” icon, which is an important work of Muscovite official art.3 However, I. A. Kochetkov thinks that the Final Judgment and the Apocalypse are irrelevant to the meaning of the icon.4 I am going to discuss the “Church Militant” in a separate study. Still, the issues raised by students of the icon have implications for our understanding of Ivan IV’s reign in general. Historians actively discuss the role of Revelation in the acculturation of violence under Ivan IV. Some scholars have argued that the Bible, and Revelation in particular, might have inspired Ivan to subject his people to terror like God inflicted suffering on the chosen people.5 At the same time, Michael Flier thinks that apocalyptic imagery in Ivan IV’s residence in the Kremlin (Golden Chamber) evoked not violence but the coming end of times and the eternity of Ivan’s kingdom.6 Capitalizing on Flier’s ideas, 3 N. V. Kvlividze, “Ikona ‘Blagoslovenno voinstvo nebesnogo tsaria’ i ee literaturnye paralleli,” in Iskusstvo khristianskogo mira: Sbornik statei, vyp. 2, ed. Aleksandr Saltykov (Moscow: Pravoslavnyi Sviato-Tikhonovskii bogoslovskii institut, 1998), 49–56; V. M. Sorokatyi, “Ikona ‘Blagoslovenno voinstvo nebesnogo tsaria’: Nekotorye aspekty soderzhaniia ,” in Drevnerusskoe iskusstvo: Vizantiia i Rus’. K 100-letiiu Andreia Nikolaevicha Grabara, 1896–1990, ed. E. S. Smirnova (St. Petersburg: Dmitrii Bulanin, 1999), 399–417. 4 I. A. Kochetkov, “K polemike ob ikone ‘Blagoslovenno voinstvo nebesnogo tsaria…,’” in Ikonograficheskie novatsii i traditsiia v russkom iskusstve XVI veka: Sbornik statei pamiati Viktora Mikhailovicha Sorokatogo, ed. O. A. D’iachenko and...

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