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Предисловие от Ежи Богуславского
200 years after throwing off the yoke of the Mongols, Peter I became Tsar. Fascinated by Western civilization, on the shores of the Baltic he built St. Petersburg – a window onto the world for Russia which until then, had been closed off and living in isolation. It was her most European city, not only because of its splendid architecture but also the many Europeans who tied their destiny to it. One of these was my mother’s great grandfather, Johann Joach von Sieverbrück, or Ivan Efimovitch Siverbrik.
Barely a half-century after Peter I, Catherine II called The Great came to sit on the throne of the tsars. She was a French-speaking German princess from the distant, nowadays Polish city of Szczecin. She maintained a correspondence with European philosophers, poets and politicians and endeavoured to breathe into Russia the air of modernity and humanism. A true European of her day, she ruled Russia, loved her, and became a Russian.
Jochann Joach von Sieverbrück was born in Rewal (today’s Tallin) during her reign. A Baltic German (Deutchbalte) at birth, he was the offspring of a romance between the Estonian governor’s daughter, a German princess and cousin of the tsarina, Catherine von Holstein-Beck, and Feodor Orlov. Catherine the Great ennobled him, bestowing upon him his hitherto non-existent surname. He was an alumnus of St. Petersburg’s First Cadet Corps and a pupil of the foreign fencing master Fisher. He dedicated his life to the instruction of fencing in Russia. He became a Russian. Fate scattered his descendents all over Europe.
The famous English author Norman Davis stated that he feeling of nationality is not to be found in the blood or the soil or even the language. It exists in the mind. It is the way of perceiving oneself. This was understood by both Catherine the Great and Ivan Efimovitch Siverbrik. The renowned Polish poet Julian Tuwim, who today would be regarded as a Jew, once said: «I am a Pole because that’s what pleases me.» In the XVI century another great man, Father Stanislaw Orzechowski wrote, «Ego natum Polonus, gente Ruthensis sum.» – I am a Pole who was born a Ruthenian.
I hope that today, as in the times of Peter I and Catherine II, we can choose our identity without being limited by old stereotypes, and that a French-speaking German can feel she is a Russian. I hope that in the future we will grow even closer and that the inhabitants of our continent will state, like Stanislaw Orzechowski: I am a European who was born a Russian, a German, a Pole, a Jew…
My dream is that my ancestor will be acknowledged not just as the propagator of the European school of fencing in Russia, but also as one of the first truly modern and European Russians.
