For Whom the Bells

Seventy-five years ago, on December 6, 1929, the Soviet government issued Decree No. 118, which forbade all bell ringing in the Soviet State and commanded that all bells be removed from church bell towers and melted down to help industry. Thousands of church bells were destroyed in the 1920s and 1930s. Yet even these repressions did not wipe out Russian bell making traditions.

The Baptism of Rus’ in 988 brought bells to Russia from Byzantium. According to one report, at that time there were just two bells in Kiev. Less than 50 years later, a multitude of bells were reported to have been in use not only in Kievan churches, but in those of other major cities as well. By 1066, bells were becoming war booty in conflicts between principalities. In the 14th century, bells began to be cast in Russia.

Bells have played a rather prominent role in Russian history. They were used as a call to worship, to chime the hours, to inform people about the death of a tsar or the beginning of a war campaign. In some places, bells were rung to announce the execution of a criminal, or the death of a bishop or other notable. Other bells sounded an alarm: the approach of an enemy or a house on fire. Certain church bells were rung to herald an important announcement from the tsar or a ruling body. Different church bells rung in different ways communicated to parishioners (who could not make a church service) which part of the service was being celebrated.

Even the earliest bells made in Russia normally bore information about the date of founding and the weight of the bell, as well as the name of the customer or person in whose honor it was cast; sometimes tsars, tsarinas and saints were also depicted on the bells. The master bellfounder was a very honorable position in Russia. Special services were held prior to a casting, at which the master asked for a blessing. Immediately after that, his apprentices would start a rumor circulating in the town – the more nonsensical, the better. This was based on the superstition that the further a rumor spread, the better the future bell would sound.

There are many Russian legends, tales, riddles and superstitions connected with bells. For example, it was believed that if one heard a bell ringing before starting work, it would bring good luck, but if a bell rang all of a sudden by itself, it signaled trouble. Bells were often treated like living creatures, punished with whips or having their clappers torn out. For example, the Uglich bell was held responsible for riots that followed the death of Ivan the Terrible’s heir – Prince Dmitry – in 1591. Boris Godunov ordered that the bell’s clapper and “ears” be cut off and that the bell be exiled to Siberia.

Some interesting church traditions were also connected with bells. On Easter Eve, the large bell in the Kremlin’s Ivan the Great bell tower would strike at midnight, upon which signal the bells of all Moscow’s churches would start ringing. During the entire week of Easter, anyone who wanted to ring a church’s bells and celebrate Christ’s resurrection was permitted to do so.

In Russia, unlike elsewhere, bells (at least since the 14th century) do not swing when rung. Only the clappers hang free. This gives bell ringers much greater control over the intensity and interval of impact, allowing for a wide variety of rhythmic patterns and combinations with the same bells (from funeral knells to joyful dances).

The 17th century was perhaps the greatest period in Russian bell culture. Production technology had improved and now even giant bells, like the 100-ton Tsar Bell, could be cast (the Tsar Bell on display in the Moscow Kremlin is actually the last of four bells which bore the name Tsar Bell; three previous Tsar Bells are no longer extant). The profession also advanced: by the end of that century, there were 150 bell ringers working in the Moscow Kremlin alone.

After Peter the Great lost nearly all of Russia’s artillery in the battle with Sweden near Narva (1700), he ordered all churches, monasteries and convents to give one-third of their bells for recasting into artillery. The upside was that all these institutions sent the State the worst third of their bells, thus improving the quality of the ringing throughout the country.

In the beginning of the 19th century, Russian bells began to appear in America. After Russian traders founded settlements in Alaska, Orthodox churches were built and bells were brought from Russia and remain in the US to this day.

Early in the 20th century, there were about 200 bells in Moscow, including 39 giants. Only five of these survive (three are in the Kremlin and two are in Rostov the Great). No bell tower or belfry in Moscow managed to keep all its bells. After the October Revolution of 1917, removal and destruction of bells was a communist passion – perhaps a reflection of the historic personification of bells. By 1926, bell ringing could only be authorized by local authorities, not by church officials alone. The afore-mentioned 1929 decree banning bell ringing was intended to avoid the use of bells to call people to anti-Bolshevik actions. The atheistic government also had an economic interest in the non-ferrous metal. In 1920, authorities in Kostroma melted down bells to produce cauldrons for public dining-rooms (stolovayas). Many bells were turned into tractors.

It is therefore not surprising that the limited revival of the Orthodox Church which Stalin allowed during WWII did not lead to a revival in bell ringing – the bells were all gone. And ringing was still not allowed in any case.

By the end of the 1950s, the Thaw allowed reinstallation of some bells, and some sets were cobbled together from bells found in factories, theaters, people’s homes or sheds and even in rubbish pits. Interestingly, at least one complete set of bells did survive the carnage. Harvard Professor Thomas Whittemore intercepted the bells from Moscow’s Danilov Monastery en route to their being melted down. At his suggestion, American businessman Charles Crane purchased the bells from the Soviet government for the price of the bronze with which they were made. Crane had them transported to Harvard University and installed in a tower at Lowell House. For the past half century, these Russian bells have announced the beginning of term and the results of Harvard football matches. The possibility of returning the bells to Danilov Monastery next year and replacing the Harvard originals with replicas is being discussed.

One other famous set of bells survived in Rostov, on the order of Anatoly Lunacharsky, an early Soviet Minister of Culture. When, in 1919, local authorities decided to melt down the Rostov bells, Dmitry Ushakov, director of the Rostov Museum, wrote to Lunacharsky, asking him to protect the bells. Lunacharsky visited Rostov, agreed that the bells were of great historical value and ordered them saved. The Rostov bells were silent until the late 1960s, when the government featured the Bells of Rostov in a recording.

Today, bell founding is experiencing a renaissance in Russia – an annual exhibition and sale in Yaroslavl presents works of contemporary casters from Voronezh, Tutayev, Kamensk-Uralsky and Moscow. Communities collect money to cast a bell (cost: $15 per kilo on average) and, as soon as the exhibition ends, the bells are sent to convents and Orthodox churches. There is also the Museum of Bells, the only one in Russia, situated in Valdai (400 km from Moscow), although there are many more bells in private collections than in museums.