Stephen Graham about Russian Women

[Olga]

Stephen Graham (1884 - 1975) was a British author, noted for his travel writing, though he also wrote novels. His most famous books recount his travels around pre-revolutionary Russia and his journey to Jerusalem with a group of Russian pilgrims.

"Undiscovered Russia" Chapter XLIV. Holy Russia by Stephen Graham

In Russia there are many such women. They flourish and perish, and flourish again like flowers upon the roadway of existence. They are the strength behind the Russian nation, the spirit of its beauty.

Strong women rear them: strong men look down upon them. They spring up slenderly; they work within the house; they toil upon the fields; they feed cows, rock cradles, chop wood, bake bread; they gather in the harvest; they pray many times a day; they go on long pilgrimages; they marry and bear strong children and again they pilgrimage and they die. During all their life they never forget God, they never sully themselves, they are never tempted by evil. Simply and tranquilly they live, their eyes full of light because their hearts are pure.

Because of them Russia is strong. Because of them the sun shines freshly and the birds sing. Because of their holiness men are allowed to be secular.

For as a priest once said to me naively, "Man is a Kremlin wall, and the woman is the church inside. The Kremlin is the army of warriors who have put their women inside. The men fight the outside world, but inside the women pray. The woman is the more sacred and precious part of the race. Better five men perish than one woman. That's why a husband protects his wife, and why all men wish to protect women—because the women are holy." And the strength and beauty of the men outside depends on the prayers of the women within.

Russia herself, as has been observed, is a woman-nation. She is the Western-man's wife, the womb of nations. Because of her holiness and simplicity, we may be worldly wise and live in towns. She gives us bread, and gives us prayers. She is the contented one. She is our steady, beating heart. For woman is an inner and more sacred consciousness, a temple within our souls, a place of refuge from the outside world. Woman is a church. Coming into her presence we lift our hats and compose our souls. Russia also is a church, a holy place where the Western may smooth out a ruffled mind and look upon the beauty of life.

The devils could not destroy Peer Gynt because of the women behind him; Peer Gynt in all his worldly career was saved by the faith of Solveig kneeling in his forgotten forest hut. Ibsen was symbolical. He meant that the commercialised man was saved from damnation by the peasant girl behind him. Woe for Europe when it has brought all her 'peasants to the towns, when the Solveigs are no more and Holy Russia has vanished away.

The strength of the young man may be seen in his eyes where behind the mysterious veil of the soul one sees his women kneeling. The man forgets God in the town and lives evilly. Then one by one those kneeling women rise and flee, till the man's house remains desolate. As long as one woman remains he is saved to life, but when the last is gone he is devoted to death. The money changers have full possession of the temple. His soul has ceased to be a church and has become a tavern, and now behind the curtained windows of his eyes a mysterious company sits over the wine.

Sometimes it seems to me that in any man lives all mankind, and that every man going to and fro upon the earth represents a self within myself, and that because each other man is living his peculiar life I can live mine freely. I live my little life and give my little contribution to the grand harmony, in the faith that all other people are fulfilling their parts and making their due contributions. And England also lives its peculiar life in the faith that other nations are living their peculiar lives.

England needs Russia living on the soil in holiness and simplicity, needs it living so, as a man needs a woman, for the food she gives him and the prayers she offers.

Holy Russia is our peace with God.