As the agencies reported on 26 October, the Russian occupation authorities have decided to “evacuate” from Kherson the remains of Prince Field Marshal Grigory Potemkin: lover and advisor of Catherine II, conqueror of the Cossacks, grand-governor of Crimea and Novorossiya.

One can only sympathise with the exhumation team: the Ukrainian offensive is progressing, any moment now the troops will reach the banks of the Dnieper. A great hurry (the order from the acting governor – by Moscow’s appointment – Volodymyr Saldo, arrived by phone two hours earlier), gunfire (the AFU artillery is already shelling the river) and now you have to grub in some cellar. The electricity’s been out for a week now, the generator’s on high speed (no light at all, don’t even mention it), the head is starting to hurt from the exhaust fumes and you peck, poor man, you peck blindly with a spade in a poky crypt.

It would have been easier had it not been for Paul I, the Emperor of All Russia. He took such posthumous revenge on his mummy that he changed all her decrees in reverse. In 1791, Catherine II had Potemkin embalmed and buried in a crypt – so Pavel, when he took the throne five years later, promptly ordered the corpse “to be removed from the lead coffin and buried somewhere in the crypt, obliterating all traces so that the exact place of burial would not be known”. When Paul was silenced with a pillow a few more years later, it no longer occurred to anyone to put the Field Marshal back in his place. And now you’re there. The stench of diesel (let’s assume it’s diesel), machine-gun volley from Perekopskaya Street can be heard all the way up here, and you’re trying to jemmy that granite floor, it’s cold, there’s rubble, take care with that crowbar, Stiopa...!

Where are the plumes?

There is something. Kind of large, certainly femoral. And this? Pelvis I think, we’ll take it. Identification? You’ve got to be kidding. Although Catherine had her lover put her miniature diamond-studded portrait in the coffin, its fate has been uncertain since at least the eviction of the late 18th century. Along the way, there have been two more restorations of the Orthodox church, its two desacralisations by the Soviets (in 1922 and again in 1962), a Nazi “stocktaking” (1941), an offensive (1944), three fires, one flood and one Yeltsin reprivatisation. What portrait, madman? Get that mandible and let’s wrap up, chop-chop Stiopa!

Did they slam the flap of the waiting UAZ truck with the engine running, or did they run with a large oilcloth bag, limping, through the nearby (Soviet) Glory Park to the motorboat waiting on the waterfront? This is something we will only find out from witness accounts or testimonies. In any case, the Field Marshal moved on.

    SIGN UP TO OUR PAGE 
  Those were the days, the jaw snaps with indignation, those were the days… “As the prince’s body was carried away, troops lined up on either side of the procession. Eleven salvos rang out, accompanied by the ringing of bells from all the churches in Kherson. At the beginning of the procession marched a squadron of hussars and a regiment of cuirassiers. To the mournful sound of drums, one hundred and twenty torch-bearing soldiers in black ostrich feather plumes and hats with a black veil with a fleur-de-lys motif stepped out into the square. They were followed by twenty-four sergeants in white cloaks, local nobles, generals and clergy. Officers walked next, carrying regalia: an icon given by the empress, medals, a chamberlain’s key, a mace and a hetman’s sword, a marshal’s staff and a banner. Behind them rode a carriage trimmed with black velvet and drawn by eight horses” (an excerpt from a 1791 account). There you have it: once black velvet and eight horses, and today a muddy UAZ and a spade that Stiopa shoves between your ribs without respect. Eh...

– You shall now an emperor by their ceremonies, Grigory Aleksandrovich.

Strange they are, these Russians: they left 30,000 behind corpses of their own soldiers in Ukraine, having no regard for Antigone’s duty, and evacuated a oilcloth bag filled with earth with debris and rot.

They steal toothbrushes, leave teeth behind

But it’s always like that with them. They take, cart away whatever they can: washing machines, dryers, valances, nightstands, light bulbs, nappies, rakes, ambulances, motor-pumps, carburettors, supermarket trolleys and prams, “the washbowl, bottle, tumbler, bread, breadknife and china, crystal, pots and pans, fresh linen, nightlamp, chests of drawers, a clock”. A nomadic people, no question about it (say what you like, however, Steppe Peoples are Steppe Peoples, Gumilov would rejoice). It’s all almost like in Adam Zagajewski’s poem “Russia Comes Into Poland”:

Through the meadow and hedgerow, village and forest,
cavalries on the march, infantries on the march,
horses and cannons, old soldiers, young soldiers, children,
wiry wolfhounds at full gallop, a blizzard of feathers,
sleds, Black Marias, carriages, taxis,
even the old cars called Moskvitch come roaring in,
and warships and rafts and pontoon bridges roar in,
and barges, steamships, canoes (some of which sink),
barrage balloons, missiles, bombers,
howitzer shells whistling arias from an opera,
the shriek of flagellants and the growl of commands,
songs slashing the air with notes made of steel,
yurts and tents break camp, ropes tighten,
banners of dyed linen tremble overhead.
(Translated by Renata Gorczynski, Benjamin Ivry, and C.K.)

Almost the same, only in reverse order: cannons, kibitzers, fiacres, mosquitoes, washers, dryers, rafts, pontoons, yurts, tents, steamers, bark boats and the pelvis of a handsome Field Marshal are evacuated when necessary.

All right, but why did the Russians really do it? They abandon the corpses of their soldiers and their wounded, they leave behind the testaments of torture and the freshly established labour camps, handfuls of gold teeth torn out during interrogation and tank scrap, interrogation protocols and full boxes of medals – and they send a five-man necro-comando to collect the crossbone of Catherine’s lover? Isn’t this too much of a consideration for the erstwhile feelings?

Scholarly interpreters argue that this is about historical politics. For, after all, Potemkin’s merits are not confined to the bed: it was he who persuaded Catherine II to break the peace of Küczük Kajnardja concluded with Turkey in 1774, to launch an offensive into the Crimea and the Black Sea steppes and to create the province of Novorossiya, stretching from Moldavia to the Sea of Azov.

As its governor, he went to great lengths: establishing shipyards and vineyards, orchards and garrisons, silkworm and mouflon farms, Kherson and Odessa (only with the university and opera house did he fail). “Potemkin villages” erected by him as if from canvas during Catherine II’s visitation trip, a favourite anecdote of all those who doubt Russian propaganda, are – according to the Field Marshal’s biographers, from Alexander Panchenko to Simon Sebag-Montefiore – rather a fabrication of the envious. But that he showed off in front of the Empress – there is no doubt: it was the planting of ripening peach trees in the sand, it was in order to amuse his Distinguished Friend that he called up from the Russian and Greek noblewomen of Odessa (fortunately, accepting the nomination involved only donning purple pantaloons) a “rota of Amazons”…

Who dispersed the Sich?

Yes, Potemkin’s merits for the forcible modernisation of Novorossiya and the consolidation of Russian rule there are indisputable. But to what extent has he thus become part of the Ukrainian pantheon? To what extent – as politician Vladimir Tikhomirov and Marc Santora of The New York Times unanimously argue – is the theft of his mortal remains (an obvious crime; UNESCO launched an investigation into Russian crimes concerning the destruction of monuments in Ukraine some time ago) an attempt to deplete, if not destroy, Ukrainian tradition and memory?

Given that it was Potemkin who finally eliminate the Zaporizhzhya Sich by force of arms and exiled the last kosher ataman Petro Kalyshevsky and most of the Cossack elders of the time to cells in Solovki – I would not overestimate the merits of the Field Marshal for the modern Ukrainian identity. And I don’t think the Kremlin’s oppressors seriously thought they could destroy that identity with the looting of remains.

I know it’s not serious, but my imagination – educated on Bulgakov, fed by Andrzej Pilipiuk’s stories about Jakub Wędrowycz, and additionally rocked by supermarket Halloween offers (a tube of fake blood, a pumpkin and three washable scars for only 19.99 PLN!) – stubbornly leads me towards a completely different vision.

In a large room, lit by thousand-light bulbs, on three zinc sheet-clad tables lies what quite a long time ago was Grigory Aleksandrovich Potemkin. On the first table – the femur, on the second – the pelvis, on the third – the mandible. Connected to the mandible are wires that lead on one side to a battery removed from a Tesla (model 3 Long Range – quite a machine, 82 kWh!) and on the other to an iPhone, lying on a small plate.

On a table adjacent to the dissecting table lies a saucer with some smeared offal, a severed cock’s head, a photo of Zelenski, into which a few pins have been stuck, and Aleister Crowley’s Book of Thoth in a Russian translation from 1992, quite a worn out volume.

Two figures are leaning over the mandible and the table. The lower of the two, limping (the box of pins has gone soft from the offal and some have spilled out), is typing something on an iPhone keyboard with one hand, hissing something through his teeth and sucking his burnt fingers every now and then (82 kWh, quite a machine!). – Novorossia! – resounds in the great hall, lit by thousand-light bulbs. – Field Marshal, lead the way! I call upon you, oh, joy of the Empress! Novorossiya! Novorossiya!

Well, Vladimir Vladimirovich, good luck.

–Wojciech Stanisławski

TVP WEEKLY. Editorial team and journalists

–Translated by jz