17 - After the Fall: the Bronze Horseman and the Eternal Tsar’grad

Summary

The final stage in the life of the bronze horseman unfolded in early modern Russia, a self-styled refuge of Orthodoxy. Our rider presides over an ambitious sixteenth-century Russian icon that visualizes the totality of triumphant Orthodoxy. The icon is nothing less than a visualization of the Eternal Tsar’grad. No icons from the Byzantine period attempt such an ambitious representation of terrestrial and celestial Orthodoxy. The icon epitomizes decades of Russian thought about a world without Byzantium. The icon advances a claim for perpetual holiness that was first made manifest in Constantinople, was transmitted to the lands of Rus’, and is eternally perpetuated in liturgical commemoration. The Eternal Tsar’grad icon plays upon a number of tensions. It is both a representation of the feast of the intercession and more than an icon of that feast. It is both a representation of a vision of Andrew the Holy Fool and more than that vision. It is both a representation of Constantinople and a vision of more than that city. It both represents Byzantine history and comes to terms with the end of Byzantium. All of these innovative aspects make it the first truly post-Byzantine icon in terms of intellectual vision and content.