Dreams of an Asian Spiritual Kingdom h e couple believed that World War I and the collapse of empires, along with bloody class and ethnic i ghts all over Eurasia, were a necessary purgatory: an Armageddon that would eventually bring a new golden age of universal happiness and spiritual bliss, which the Roeriches in-terchangeably called the Shambhala kingdom and the age of Maitreya.
To Nicholas and Helena, the disorder that reigned in Inner Asia at er the downfall of the Russian and Chinese empires and the expanding prophecies about mighty heroes that would come to deliver people appeared to provide an ideal stage for them to try out their role of saviors.
Sometime by 1923, the Roeriches concluded the moment was right for them to plug into and use Shambhala and similar prophecies to build in Asia a powerful spiritual state based on reformed Buddhism: “For those who imagine Shambhala as a legendary invention, this indication is superstitious myth. But there are also others, fortii ed by more practical knowledge.” 13 h e Roeriches assumed that, if properly channeled, these prophecies might develop according to the scenario prescribed by the Great White Brotherhood.
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h e l ight of the Panchen Lama from Tibet in December 1923 was seen as another powerful sign from the otherworldly brothers for them to step up. Without an assertive spiritual leader, thought Roerich, Tibetan Buddhists would “become prey to the intrigues of the retrograding lamaistic parties.” To signal the coming of the new age, the painter would act as that assertive leader by bringing the Panchen Lama to Lhasa, i xing the situation, and making sure that the thirteenth Dalai Lama would be the last. h e authority of the Yellow Pope (a derogatory nickname Roerich frequently used to refer to the sitting Dalai Lama) was to be erased: “h e sacred army will purge Lhasa of all its nefarious enemies,” and “the realm of righteous will be established.” Roerich was convinced that all Tibetans were just awaiting “the prophecy that a new ruler from Shambhala, with numberless warriors, shall come to vanquish and to establish righteousness in the citadel of Lhasa.” 14 An expedition to Inner Asia, headed by the painter and disguised as a scientii c archeological enterprise, was to accomplish this task.
h e i nal goal of this venture gradually crystallized into what Helena and Nicholas called the Great Plan—an idea to bring all Tibetan Buddhist people of Asia, from Siberia to the Himalayas, together into the Sacred Union of the East with the Panchen Lama and Roerich presid-ing over this future theocracy. h is state was to be guided by reformed Buddhism cleansed from what the painter and his wife considered “shamanic superstitions,” adjusted to the original teachings of Buddha, and injected with the Roeriches’ Agni Yoga. h e couple envisioned this utopia as a commonwealth of people who would live a highly spiritual life and work in cooperatives—the economic foundation of this new state. 15
h eir theocracy would stir a spiritual revival in the rest of the world.
h is grand dream certainly did not spring up overnight. For Helena and Nicholas, the Great Plan was a work in progress that continued from 1921 to 1929 and then was renewed in 1933–35.
Although they were dreamers, the Roeriches were not totally out of touch with reality. In fact, Nicholas and Helena’s geopolitical scheme 166
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would not have sounded outlandish to their contemporaries, as many of them, both on the let and on the right, seriously believed there were absolute solutions to the world’s problems, and that political and cultural messiahs were capable of delivering salvation. h ese solutions were usually based on collectivism and suppression of individuals to the will of a nation, class, or religion. With their grand geopolitical scheme designed to guide humankind to the correct spiritual path, the Roeriches perfectly i t their time.
At the end of 1921, the otherworldly teacher Morya gave his i rst hints on how to proceed with the unii cation of Inner Asian peoples into a spiritual kingdom: “In this life, without a fairy tale, you must visit us in Tibet, then go teach in Russia. I witness this by those happy events that take place in America” (August); “h ink about Tibet, help to bring about harmony” (September); and i nally, “Urusvati [Helena], I lead thee to the revealed Lhasa” (December). 16 h e master also recommended they reread such spiritual classics as Ouspensky’s Ter-tium Organum (1922) and Blavatsky’s Secret Doctrine (1888) in order to be armed philosophically for the grand Asian journey On July 29, 1922, when “conversing” with Helena and Nicholas, Morya delivered a stunning revelation: in his past life, Nicholas had been the i t h Dalai Lama (1617–82), one of the most prominent Tibetan leaders, who brought the people of the Forbidden Kingdom together and had the famous Potala Palace built in Lhasa. On that same day, the painter learned that the Great White Brotherhood had chosen him to go to Tibet as a spiritual ambassador and then to proceed farther north to Russia. h e otherworldly master added that when they went to Tibet the couple would have to shed their European dress and replace it with Oriental garments. At er Tibet, upon their arrival in Russia Maurice Lichtmann would welcome them with the Torah in his hands, and on behalf of the Jewish nation would “deliver a welcoming address to the East.” At the end of their journey, prophesized Morya, representatives of various Inner Asian and Siberian peoples would come together and consummate the Sacred Union of the East. Eventually, out of this 167
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Asia-centered theocracy the superior race of people would spread the light of true spirituality all over the world. 17
Like many Western intellectuals, including contemporary h eosophists, Helena and Nicholas were convinced that humankind’s enlightenment and salvation would come from the East. h is habit of looking to the Orient as the source of high wisdom has a long history. It started during the Enlightenment and then received an additional boost from Romanticism in the i rst half of the nineteenth century. By the beginning of the twentieth century, quite a few intellectuals had built up in their minds an idealized ancient Orient soaked in rich spiritual life and contrasted it to the imperfect contemporary West that scared Western seekers with its materialism, industrialization, and individualism.
Much like contemporary h eosophists, the Roeriches merged their Asia-centered geopolitical utopia with Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theory, which had become fashionable at the end of the nineteenth century not only in the sciences, but also in the humanities and popular media. Following their predecessor Blavatsky, the Roeriches talked about a coming superior race that would dislodge spiritually degenerate races in the process of evolution. h e Great White Brotherhood from the Himalayas and its messengers (the Roeriches) could speed up this evolution by navigating human beings toward the better future beyond materialism. To be exact, both Blavatsky and the Roeriches meant a spiritual evolution, not a biological one. At that time in the West, this kind of talk about superior and inferior species and races, as well as grading cultures into primitive and advanced ones, was common, taken for granted, and never raised any eyebrows. Politicians, writers, scholars, and scientists all shared this mindset.
Besides Blavatsky’s h eosophy, another powerful out-of-Asia source for the Roeriches was the Siberian autonomist movement. For some reason, all existing writings about the Roeriches somehow downplay this movement’s inl uence on their geopolitical ideas. Autonomists were a small but outspoken group of Russian writers, artists, and scholars in Siberia, headed by the folklore scholar Grigorii Potanin (1835–1920), 168
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who worked to boost the status of their area within the Russian Empire.
h ese men and women of arts and letters were convinced that their vast northern Asian homeland was a colony of European Russia. To them, Siberia was destined for a better role than to serve simply as a dump for common criminals and political prisoners and as the source of raw materials. At one point, when they became too vocal in demanding autonomy for Siberia, the Russian tsar condemned Potanin and several of his friends to exile in the European part of Russia. h e emperor surely
did not want to give these cultural rebels such a treat as an exile to Siberia.
Of special interest to the autonomists were the indigenous cultures of Siberia and Inner Asia. Potanin and his comrades were on a mission to use archeological, folkloric, and ethnographic materials to show that Siberia, with its ancient Asiatic legacy, was a land steeped in rich culture more ancient than that of European Russia. h e Russians in Siberia were not counted. As Europeans and newcomers to the area, they did not have ancient roots. What counted were lore, legends, and the ethnography of the indigenous folk of the Altai, Tuva, Buryat, and Mongolia. Like any cultural separatists living on the periphery, autonomists argued that their land was better and more ancient than other places:
“h e older the better” is the mantra of all nationalists and separatists who try to empower themselves. Talking and writing about the creative role of Inner Asian nomads were an important part of the autonomists’
agenda. As if anticipating present-day politically correct historians, Potanin and his friends worked hard remaking the Mongols from ruthless barbarians and conquerors into noble cultural heroes and civilization carriers. At one point, Potanin went as far as arguing that Bible stories and Anglo-Saxon lore originated from Mongol and Siberian legends carried to the West and conl ated with Middle Eastern and European oral culture.
Nicholas Roerich equally liked to indulge in such nomads-as-cultural-heroes talk. Moreover, for him, the Inner Asian nomads were potential foot soldiers in the coming Shambhala kingdom. Not spoiled by 169
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Western civilization, they would become the spearheads of the world’s liberation. Potanin’s books about Turkic and Mongol legends became must-reads in the curriculum of Roerich’s arts and humanities Master School in New York. h e painter especially liked how Potanin worked with facts, i nding links other writers somehow did not see. For example, if the Hebrew name Solomon sounded similar to Solmon, a character from the old epic tales of the Mongol and Altaian people, Potanin quickly concluded that Hebrew mythology had been af ected by Asian nomads.
Although Roerich read Potanin’s works and from them picked up many Asia-centric ideas, the only autonomist he had a chance to in-teract closely with was George Grebenstchikof , whom he met while visiting Paris. h is fellow émigré and struggling writer from southern Siberia was one of Potanin’s close followers. Grebenstchikof bragged about traces of Mongol blood in his veins and struck a chord with Roerich by expounding on the special historical role of his “ancestors” in world civilization. Roerich was drawn to Grebenstchikof ’s stories about the traditions and mysteries of Siberia and Inner Asia. His stories about the landscapes and legends of the Altai sounded especially fascinating, and Roerich began to dream about this picturesque mountain country at the intersection of Siberia, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan as the center of his future spiritual kingdom. He and Helena contemplated erecting Zvenigorod (the city of bells), the capital of their future Pan-Asian state, in the Altai. h e Siberian writer turned out to be so useful to the Great Plan that Nicholas concluded, “Grebenstchikof knows everything.” 18
Special ef orts were made to bring Grebenstchikof from Paris to New York to keep him around as an expert on the area. h e writer, who lived
a miserable life in France, was more than happy to join the Roeriches’
inner circle. Roerich gave him money (that came from Horch), helped him to settle in America, and endowed him with a new esoteric name: Tarukhan (from Tarlyk-khan, supposedly a Mongolian great grandfa-ther of Grebenstchikof ). Helena and Nicholas made sure that Grebenstchikof felt comfortable and secure in his new home. Once Helena 170
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instructed one of her sons, “Be close to Tarukhan. It is not only our request, it is also Mahatma Morya’s order. Help our American friends understand the complexity and power of his character and the beauty of his visions. He is absolutely necessary for our project. I want them to trust him more. h
ey will not be able to accomplish anything without him!” 19 In exchange, the writer eagerly fed the geopolitical fantasies of the painter and his wife with his ethnographic tales.
h e painter spent many hours with Tarukhan, inquiring about landscape, particular sites, and prophecies of the Altai. Grebenstchikof ’s stories about the mysterious Belovodie (White Waters Land) layered well on what the painter read about Shambhala. Belovodie was a prophecy shared by Altai Russian Orthodox schismatics who envisioned a utopian land of plenty where they could worship freely without being harassed by the tsarist government. h e painter was equally captivated by Grebenstchikof ’s talks about the Oirot prophecy that sprang up at the turn of the 1900s among indigenous nomads of the Altai; the legendary chief Oirot was a personii cation of the glorious seventeenth-century nomadic confederation of Oirot tribes and their prince Amursana. Local nomads expected this legendary character to resurrect and save them from the Russian advance into their land and culture. For Roerich, both Belovodie and Oirot were local versions of the Shambhala prophecy. In hindsight, Roerich turned out to be more useful to Tarukhan than vice versa. At er 1929, Grebenstchikof gradually and politely disentangled himself from the adventurous couple and their dangerous projects, and eventually built up a successful career in the United States as a writer and college professor.
Not a small inl uence in stirring the Roeriches’ geopolitical dreams was the book Beasts, Men and Gods (1922) by Ferdinand Ossendowski, a former Russian-Polish reporter in St Petersburg exiled by the tsar to Siberia in 1905 for his revolutionary activities. h ere he became a professor of chemistry at Tomsk Polytechnic College and later secretary of i nance for the White government of Siberia and a leader of the White Russian against the Bolsheviks. Ossendowski’s action-packed book, 171
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which reads as half adventure story and half esoteric thriller, is a hair-raising account of his escape from the Bolsheviks southward through Tuva and Mongolia at er the White cause collapsed in Siberia in 1921.
En route, the professor got stuck with the bloody sadist Baron Roman von Ungern-Sternberg, who, as we have seen, dreamed, like Roerich, about building a grand pan-Asian empire.
