As a Kyivan by birth and an eternal fan of Kyiv, I could not ignore this book from the first moment I heard about it. Imagine that! A novel about the First Doctor in medieval Kyiv, what's not to like for a person who has been a fan of the Doctor for years and how we all always wanted a story about the Doctor's adventures in his native country. And then there's the hometown!

For a relatively long time, I kept this book in my memories with the idea of buying it someday, so after a while my enthusiasm, although it waned, did not disappear. The book was written in 2001, and we can imagine what this means: Kiev instead of Kyiv, notes of Russian historiography, calling Rus' not Rus' or Ruthenia, but russia, as well as the Rusyns or Ruthenians, who are called russians here (that's why I have a little bit of black pen in my book).

Still, the desire to read the Doctor's Kyiv adventures remained, and my girlfriend, a philologist, also piqued my interest in the Kyiv text as a literary phenomenon, so I was interested in looking at this side of the book as well (hehe...).

Impressions of the text

Before I get to the ‘stuffy’ part of this text, I'd like to talk about something simpler - the book itself and my impressions of it!

Bunker Soldiers is a pretty solid historical story about the Doctor, which doesn't really need aliens in the first place. The conflict that drives the plot is good enough without it - the Doctor, Steven and Dodo are stuck in medieval Kyiv because they've flown to the wrong place and are now being held in custody (although to be fair, it's more the TARDIS than them that's being held). All they have to do is get into the TARDIS, but they are under pressure because it is 1240 and the Mongols will soon reach Kyiv.

The driving conflict, as you can see, is quite strong and basically provides a field for movement - the escape and rescue of the Kyivans. The alien strand is rather auxiliary (despite the title of the novel) and exists as a motivating factor for the Doctor and other characters to take more proactive action, encouraging the Doctor to intervene in the course of historical events and try to prevent the Mongols from entering the city, but simply accept surrender to prevent the Mongols from meeting the alien.

And although the sci-fi branch of this novel is not my main focus, I have to admit that it is done in a cool way. Firstly, although the werewolf alien is not an innovative concept, I like the way Martin Day describes its original form. And in general, the text conveys the physical state of an alien soldier (though more like an alien weapon) tired of eternal war very well. In addition, Martin adds a very nice little feature to the ‘bunker soldier’, which sets his methods and habits in a good light against the background of the other antagonists of the Doctor.

Separately, I want to highlight the way Martin Day works with the character in the middle of the text. Periodically, in some chapters, there are parts that look like a military report from a mission, written specifically in a futuristic setting, so you perceive them as flashbacks that are supposed to explain to you how the bunker soldier got to Earth. However, when you start to realise that these ‘reports’ are actually how the alien explains to himself the attacks he is carrying out in medieval Kyiv, it's really very well done.

However, the science fiction branch does not allow its subplots to develop, while the historical branch grows like a small tree:

• The conflict between the Doctor and Steven is based on the fact that the former does not want to interfere in the course of history, while Steven and Dodo want to save the people of Kyiv.
• Forbidden love between the daughter of the councillor Yevgeny, Lesya, and the son of another councillor, Isaac, Naum. The forbiddenness is based on Yevhen's hostility.
• Yevhen's ambition to gain more power in Kyiv, which puts him at odds with almost everyone. He even has a conflict with his own daughter, though not on the basis of power
• betrayal and conspiracy of the Orthodox Church in the person of Archbishop Vasyl
• attempts by the governor Dmytro to do something
• attempts by the Doctor to prevent the Mongols from meeting the alien

And all these subplots develop quite well and come to a logical conclusion. Perhaps only with the exception of Archbishop Vasily's subplot. This branch is quite weak in principle and its meaning barely makes sense. It seems as if the author wanted to add some kind of anti-clerical note to his text (perhaps against the background of the great clericalism of the Middle Ages), but it comes out very weakly and the motivation of the Orthodox Church for betrayal is rather vague.

I would like to single out the active secondary characters, or rather their names and roles and some, perhaps, subconscious things about them. Let's look at these characters:

• Counsellor Isaac's family - all Jews, all positive characters;
• Counsellor Yevhen (in the text Yevhen) - a Rusyn, in the sense of the text a negative character. Thirsty for power, cruel to his daughter, he frames Stephen for a crime he did not commit in order not to expose himself;
• Lesia (in the text Lesia) - Eugene's daughter, a positive character in her relationship with Naum;
• Archbishop Vasyl (in the text Vasyl) - a Rusyn, a negative character, because he is a traitor;
• Taras (in the text Taras) - a Rusyn, a negative character, because he is Eugene's assistant;
• Mykola (in the text Mykola) - a Rusyn, starts as a negative character, ends as a grey character;
• Oleksandr (in the text Oleksandr) - a Rusyn, a positive character, affected by Eugene's ambitions;
• Dmytro (in the text Dmitri) - a Rusyn, a positive character.

So, why did I want to highlight this? If we look at the characters of the Rusyns, almost all those who have a Ukrainian name in the novel are negative characters, with the exception of Lesya and Olexandr. And Mykola, although he later formed some kind of relationship with the Doctor, did not repent of the murder of Stephen and did not confess who gave him the order. So four out of six Ukrainian names belong to negative characters. Instead, we have the almost perfectly good and fair Dmytro, who is called Dmitri throughout the text, in the Russian manner. I don't know if I'm just being overly hyped, or if the author is most likely unconsciously creating a situation that is becoming identical to how Ukrainians were often portrayed in Soviet cinema in the 50s and 60s. When bright Ukrainian characteristics of a Ukrainian were supposed to mean either a comedy character or an enemy of the system, while Russian characteristics (name, language) carried ‘positive’ connotations.

I am not sure that the author creates this situation on purpose. It is logical that in a story about Kyiv, characters should have Slavic names (let's forgot Taras's wife Elizabeth), but I find it a little disturbing that the author gives the ideal character, the voivode Dmitri, a Russian name. While all other active secondary characters (often negative) have names in the Ukrainian manner.

Is this a coincidence, due to the years of Russian and Soviet narratives being fed to the West by Russia, or is it simply the influence of Russia on the Western history of the Slavic peoples, where under this influence, Voivode Dmytro becomes Dmitri? Who knows, but the case is striking.

Aside from all the negative things I've written above (and a couple of comments on historical accuracy, which will be given later), Bunker Soldiers is really not a bad novel. It's not a masterpiece, and it's not the best Doctor story, but it's just a very good solid Doctor story in a historical setting with a fantasy element.

If you're not triggered by the words Kiev, russia, russians and Dmitri in a 2001 text and are willing to overlook some historical inaccuracies, Bunker Soldiers might be a good option to brighten up a couple of your evenings, if you don't have high expectations.

The Kyivan text

So, as I mentioned at the beginning of the article, one of the motivations for me to read this novel was the opportunity to consider whether and how the Kyiv text works in this work, and for those who do not know, this is a small excursion.

The purpose of any urban text is to comprehend the identity of the influence of a particular urban culture on the recipient's consciousness [1]. Within the framework of the Kyiv text, according to Tamara Gundorova: ‘Kyiv has not yet found its own distinct semiotic formula..... The idea of continuity has become a feature of its textuality - the common genealogy of the city is noted, starting with the old grandfather of Kyiv and ending with the organicity of modern Kyiv as a garden of Eden’ [2].

Ibid: "Kyiv's fragmentation is culturally, religiously, ethnonationally and geographically coloured. Russian Kyiv is usually identified with Bulgakov's City, Ukrainian Kyiv with the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. Historical Kyiv is associated with St Sophia and the Lavra, and geographical Kyiv with Andriyivskyy Descent, which at the same time acts as a metaphysical vector that contrasts the upper and lower city and strings them together on the horizontal expanse of the Dnipro River, as sung by Mykola Gogol. There is Soviet Kyiv with the unfinished square on the site of St Michael's Monastery and Stalin's official Pechersk. There is a bourgeois Kyiv with the memory of Stalin, the Sviatoshyn recreational area, and the ‘Pechersk antiquities’, a gallery of which was described by Nikolai Leskov and which, in his opinion, represented ‘an original type of old Kyivan culture with a Zaporizhzhia twist’. In the end, there is Kyiv with Ukrainian, Russian, and Polish tops."

Adding to the more modern perception of Kyiv, as Bunker Soldiers was written in the early noughties, according to Y. Polishchuk [3]: "Colonial aspects are being re-actualised in contemporary Ukrainian literature, which reflects the reassessment of values that accompanies the process of nation-state building. The city is once again emerging as a centre of ‘historicisation of space’, as the memory of the past not only defines its own identity, but also influences the formation of the collective identity of the wider community."

However, what do we have in the novel itself about the Doctor in Kyiv?

It is obvious that we cannot expect colonial aspects from a British author who does not understand our context. Throughout the text, Kyiv can be perceived as ‘Russian’. Yes, the author writes about Rus', but the use of the terms russia and russians throughout the text creates a completely different picture in the mind of the reader, who most likely does not understand that medieval Rus' is not the same as modern Russia. The use of Kiev instead of Kyiv is also related to this, but here I am more lenient. After all, the work was written in the early noughties, and we didn't exactly use the correct English name for our capital back then.

The only notes of Ukrainian Kyiv are in the Ukrainian names of the supporting characters, and even with them there are problems. Whether to include Sophia of Kyiv in these notes is, in principle, a question.

But the previous two paragraphs have little to do with the Kyiv text as such, and the novel itself. Despite my expectations of a ‘Kyiv story of the Doctor’ and my hopes for a Kyiv text, Bunker Soldiers is not a Kyiv story at all. Yes, the story is set in Kyiv, but Kyiv as a ‘character’ is completely inactive in the novel. Kyiv as such does not exist in the novel. All the actions of the novel take place in locations, let's say, separated from the city, even though they are located in it. Both the house of the governor Dmytro and the catacombs of St Sophia Cathedral are separated from the life of the city, even though it was under the threat of a Mongol attack. Moreover, the presence of the catacombs under St. Sophia's Cathedral in the plot does not mean the active involvement of the cathedral itself, as it is simply present in the background. On the other hand, the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra was not lucky enough to be mentioned in the text at all, as well as other medieval Kyiv monuments.

The streets of Kyiv, if they exist in the text, are as impersonal as possible and do not bear any of the identity of medieval Kyiv, giving the reader not a drop of specific urban culture. Leaving Kyiv as a pale set that exists to fill the stage for a theatrical production about Mongols, aliens, and the game of power.

Which is sad, because writing about medieval Kyiv, Day could have pulled up such identities as city-temple, city-body, city-garden, which are inherent in medieval Kyiv [2] and put it in the face of an existential threat from the Mongol horde. To draw a Kyiv-Rome connection, with a garter about the city's decline and fall under the onslaught of ‘barbarians’. To perceive the latter not as a description of the Mongols, but as a term identical to the terms other/non-Christian (adding the Kyiv-Jerusalem connection based on the sacred dimension and importance of Kyiv).

Historical accuracy

It is obvious that a science fiction novel, especially one by a British author in the early noughties, cannot be expected to be historically accurate. Even the author himself writes in the afterword to Bunker Soldiers:

A bibliography would be out of place here, but it is true to say that Robert Marshall’s Storm from the East was my first port of call for all things relating to the Mongols. Any historical or other errors are, of course, my own — bearing in mind the slippery excuse that the world of Doctor Who is not quite our own.

Also in a short interview on the old Doctor Who website [4]:

Bunker Soldiers essentially evolved out of my interest in the period in general and the Mongols in particular (there was a documentary series called Storm from the East, that I reference in the book, that was especially fascinating). I had come up with something similar before - for a three-part novel about 'season 6b' that the three of us had pitched to Virgin - but that involved werewolves and so on. (Do you detect a running theme here? Nothing's ever wasted.)

I just went back to my original setting and characters and expanded things from there - I wanted a real, epic, Marco Polo-esque feel to everything - and pushed the SF and the monster into the shadows as much as possible.

I was fascinated with the idea of the Mongols - just a bunch of humans - seeming as terrifying and frightening as 'real' aliens to the inhabitants of Kiev. I'd always planned for large elements of it to feel like a straight historical, but with just enough oddness - and some intentionally jarring POV sequences/flashbacks - to keep the reader turning the page.

So it is logical to assume that the author is not necessarily beyond a TV documentary by Robert Marshall in his bibliography for researching the topic.

Nevertheless, I find it interesting to analyse the historical inaccuracies that I have noticed in this novel for two reasons: 1. When else will I have such an opportunity, given that I know the history of my hometown better than the history of the world? 2. It's very interesting to see how foreign authors think about the history of your country in the context of the time of writing and the influences that have been present.

In fact, the main inaccuracies about Kyiv in the plot can be summed up in just two milestones: Voivode Dmytro and St Sophia's Cathedral. But this is understandable, because as mentioned above, the work is not really about Kyiv, its action is located on the pillars of Dmitry's house-catacomb of St. Sophia Cathedral-the Mongol horde. Obviously, the Mongol horde cannot have problems with the historicity of Kyiv, and there is not much truth about the Mongols in the plot.

An inaccuracy about Voivode Dmytro and what follows from it.

I will say right away that there are no problems with the existence of Voivode Dmytro himself, he did sit in Kyiv and led during the Mongol siege in 1240. However, the author has a problem with who put Dmytro at the head of the city.

Martin Day consistently writes that Dmytro was a protege of Prince Mykhailo (Michael) and remained in charge of Kyiv after the prince fled. The author connects Mykhailo and Dmytro to such an extent that he describes in the text how the prince trusted the voivode, although Dmytro did not always agree with him and had conflicts.

Dmitri was a powerful man, whose athletic form complemented the grim authority of his office, but in situations such as this he seemed even more imposing. Isaac had more reason than most to have seen the governor’s humour and warmth when the circumstances so demanded - but he also remembered that Dmitri had never ceased to rigorously pursue what he felt was right, even if that brought him into conflict with Prince Michael. On more than one occasion, he had faced being stripped of office for seeming impertinence, only for the prince to eventually concede that Dmitri had been right all along.

I am Dmitri, appointed by Prince Michael as the one governor of Kiev. I greet you with respect and, I hope, in peace.

The point is that Dmytro was a appointed by and boyar not of Prince Mykhailo of Chernihiv, but of Prince Danylo of Halych. Mykhailo did hold Kyiv, but in 1239 he left the city and really fled, as the Mongols burned his fiefdom, i.e. Chernihiv. Seizing the moment, Danylo Halytskyi occupied Kyiv, and as of 1240 the city was under the rule of Danylo and the Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia. And it was Danylo who appointed Dmytro as Kyiv governor.

Therefore, all the references to Dmytro being appointed by Mykhailo, and even more so, to Mykhailo being able to deprive the voivode of his position, are strange, because he was basically under the rule of another prince and another principality. Just as Batu Khan's words about Mikhail do not make much sense:

We are mindful of your bravery — whereas news of the cowardly flight of Prince Michael and his family has reached even our ears. How dare he leave his people behind to suffer! When we capture him, he will pay a price in keeping with his neglect of his people!

Naturally, after Martin Day ignores the existence of Danylo Halytskyi, the whole Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia is ignored. For, although at the time of the Mongol invasion Prince Danylo himself was in conditional exile and the horde quietly marched through Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia after Kyiv, the paragraph from the novel below is still a complete absurdity.

Kiev was next, less than a hundred miles away. Isaac stared at the awesome path carved by the Mongols through Europe. The principalities of Russia had already fallen, and beyond Kiev lay only the quaking states of Poland, Bohemia, Austria and Hungary. At no point had the progress of the horsemen been even halted; at no battle or capitulation had any knowledge been gained that might assist in future struggles against the horde.

For how could all the Rus' principalities fall and only Kyiv separate Europe from the Mongols, if right behind it was a whole kingdom, of which Kyiv was de jure a part at the time, but was not even the capital! Given that after returning from exile, Danylo Halytskyi would not only regain power in his native principality, but also maintain diplomatic relations with the Golden Horde itself and Batu Khan. So this is quite surprising.

I can only assume that the absence of Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia and Danylo Halytskyi can be explained by the fact that the author somehow used Russian historiography, which puts Prince Michael, who left Kyiv in 1239, in the spotlight, linking Dmytro to him. But these are purely my unverified suspicions based on the fact that among all the characters of the Rus' who bear Ukrainian names, only Dmytri is called Dmitri. However, there is no verification of this thesis, because I do not have the strength to dig into Russian historiography.

Inaccuracy about St Sophia Cathedral

Most likely caused by the fact that the author needed to include the catacombs in the story and tie in the fact that St Sophia Cathedral survived the attack of Batu Khan. And also the fact that, most likely, having no experience of being in Kyiv, he merged St Sophia's Cathedral and Kyiv Pechersk Lavra into one with a drop of hyperbole.

In other words, Martin Day is inventing catacombs under St Sophia's Cathedral! These are not small catacombs:

I finished my descent and examined my surroundings as keenly as the limited light allowed. It seeined that I was in a great, dark space, a void under the cathedral riddled with foundational columns and pillars. I hoped Olexander knew where he was going, and that there was a purpose to his exploration, for surely this was not a place well visited by travellers or guides. It would be easy to get lost in it, and wander in unwitting circles until overcome by exhaustion.

Then he created an intricate system of passages from these catacombs that connected the cathedral and the voivode's house:

I have heard rumours of such tunnels,’ he said. ‘It was considered wise to link the ecclesiastical heart of Kiev to the civic - should a man from one wish to throw himself on the mercy of the men in the other. But the tunnels themselves are known, I am sure, to only a few souls. I have never seen them on any map or design of the city.

And the situation here is not so much that there have never been any catacombs under the cathedral, but that it is not possible to have any catacombs under the cathedral in principle. St Sophia's Cathedral stands on a foundation up to 2 metres deep [5], which actually creates the preconditions for the absence of catacombs.

Another inaccuracy is the use of Latin to denote the language of faith - Christianity, although there is only one such case. However, the use of Latin in the titles of the chapters is natural, most likely due to the author's desire to simulate the important place of faith in the Middle Ages. However, he makes the mistake of extrapolating the Western tradition of Christianity to the Eastern one, for why would the Greek church use Latin in its church service instead of Greek and Church Slavonic? He also adds the mention of incubi by Yevhen, although this knowledge may have some basis, since he may have had some contact with the ‘Latin’ world.

Sources:

1. Лавринович, Л. Б. (2010). Міський текст у сучасній літературі. Актуальні проблеми слов’янської філології, XXIII(1), 310–320.
2. Гундорова, Т. (2013). Романс як архетип київського модерністського тексту. У Київ і слов'янські літератури (с. 217–233). Темпора.
3. Поліщук, Я. (2013). Імагологічний вимір Києва в художній літературі новітньої доби. У Київ і слов'янські літератури (с. 389–399). Темпора
4. BBC - Doctor Who - Martin Day. (б. д.). Wayback Machine. https://web.archive.org/web/20050406223914/http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/news/drwho/2004/09/23/14433.shtml
5. Молочкова, Н., & Ніщук, Л. (2016). Історія будівництва та реставрації «Софії Київської». Світ геотехніки, (2), 12–15.