The Russian revolt : its causes, condition, and prospects

.ftfLKAL

LIBRARY

OF THE

University of California.

Class

THE

RUSSIAN REVOLT

ITS

CAUSES, CONDITION, AND PROSPECTS

EDMUND NOBLE

BOSTON
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY

New York : 11 East Seventeenth Street

€& Btbersfoe tyresse, Camfcrt&ge

l88q

n

L^uiAi.

Copyright, 1885,
By EDMUND NOBLE.

All rights reserved.

The Riverside Press, Cambridge:
Electrotyped and Printed by H. 0. Houghton & Co.

CONTENTS.

Pagk
Nomadic Survivals 5

Apolism 35

Environment 57

Old Russian Life 76

Byzantinism and the Three Unities 93

Domestic Slavery 110

The Religious Protest 126

Western Enlightenment 145

First Fruits 160

Mysticism and Pessimism 179

The Dynamic Period 193

Personal Characteristics 212

Modern Irritations 231

Europe and the Revolt : The Future 252

171581

UNIVERSITY

OF
£*LfFOR*4\L

THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

NOMADIC SURVIVALS.

The Russian plain, as I saw it almost unin-
termittingly during a ten days' journey in the
summer of 1882, has a strange power of re-
producing some of those illusions that are prop-
erly called marine. At sea most people have
noticed how largely the apparent extent of the
prospect offered to the eye of a spectator de-
pends on the state of the waters, or rather upon
the particular character of their surface at the
moment of observation. Should the waves run
high, presenting their optical effect in a com-
paratively few concentrated masses of large
dimensions, the sense of extension is weakened,
and the sky line made to assume a nearness not
its due. But when the disturbance is over, and
there are left only tiny waves, little more than
ripples, the horizon seems to have receded to a
distance relatively immense. It is this false
vastness of surface, suggested to the eye by

6 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

great multiplicity and regularity, as well as
minuteness, of detail, that gives so much of its
aspect to the landscape of European Russia,
and to a traveler, plodding day after day over
steppe and plain, seems to swell a territory by
no means in need of exaggeration into dimen-
sions almost too abnormal for even the imagina-
tion. And the sensation is the same whether
one experience it in the barren governments of
the southeast, or amid the activities of com-
munal agriculturists in the rich regions of the
" black earth." Summer or winter, seed time
or harvest, the same smooth plateau widens out
as the eye follows to its union with the sky,
and the same circular rim bounds vision with a
line that often looks regular enough to be made
the base of an astronomical calculation. Un-
dulations of surface are very rare, and when
met with sometimes denote mere fluent masses
of sand or mud-dust that have been capriciously
arranged by the wind. Interruptions of the
monotony are, in fact, so insignificant that,
instead of serving as correctives, they actually
seem to add to the general sense of flatness,
whether it be conveyed by plain, forest, or
town.

At a very early period of its history, Russia
in Europe was all but overrun by forests. To-
day the traveler may cross vast tracts of the

NOMADIC SURVIVALS. 7

country without seeing a single tree. Accord-
ing to some native writers, nothing more is
needed than the destruction of a few woods to
turn the whole of European Russia into a
"desert steppe."1 The absence of accessible
stone formations, and particularly of moun-
tains, is more marked still. Hence, no doubt,
the attraction which all hill scenery has to the
modern Russian. It is a strange fact, more-
over, that to mountain scapes, Russian litera-
ture is indebted for some of its finest produc-
tions. Exiled, as each of them was at different
times, to the Caucasus Mountains, both Pushkin
and Lermontov 2 found rich stores of poetic ma-
terial in that sublime range. All who know
this part of the country will agree with me
when I say that scarcely any contrast in scenery
can be conceived at all so striking or so likely
to preside at the birth of new ideas as the con-
trast thus offered between the flat land of
European Russia and the heights of which
Pushkin wrote : —

"Eternal thrones of snow,
Whose lifted summits gloom to the gaze
Like one unbroken, motionless chain of clouds;
And in their midst the twin-peaked colossus,

i "Pustinnaya step." St. Petersburg Novosti, Oct. 4, 1883.

2 Griboyedov, another Russian author, wrote also within sight
of the Caucasus his celebrated comedy, The Misfortune of Hav-
ing Brains.

8 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

The giant monarch of mountains, Elbrus,
Whitens up into heaven's blue deep."

That mountains are not commonplace objects
in Russia, and that the Eastern Slav must
travel for them to the Ural chain, to the Cau-
casus, or to Switzerland, seems even to have
attained a certain expression in the proverbial
philosophy of the common people, who speak
of things at a great distance as "beyond the
mountains."1

To what extent, then, and in what especial
manner, has the course of history and eiviliza-.
tion in Russia been influenced by physical
peculiarities of contour and surface? What
does the GreaT Russian owe to race, and what
to geographical position? Underlying all pos-
sible answers that may be given to these ques-
tions are two facts on which some emphasis
should be laid ; for not only have the Russians
been exposed to a series of peculiar influences
not paralleled by any single case of racial
development in western Europe, but all Russian
phenomena of to-day, be the^c-social, political,
religious, jmJiterary., will be found to~ have a
special character, rendering their reconciliation
with apparently inter-related phenomena in
other countries wholly impossible. M. Pelle-

1 "Za gorami." This is scarcely related to the German "iiber
alle Berge."

NOMADIC SURVIVALS 9

tan 1 says happily that every civilization has an
involuntary collaborateur within its own terri-
tory ; and in Russia the influence of this silent
helper must have been immense. The " coun-
lESLof plains^.' as the historian Soloviev calls it,
was from the first marked out for a kind of
development fundamentally different <_ from that
of the older western civilizations. L Plains in-
vite to movement and migration, just as hills
and mountains attach men to particular spots
of the earth's surface^ In European Russia
this wandering tendency had special circum-
stances in its favor, since, while it was often
nothing more than a protest against absolutism
and centralization, it actually formed one of the
indispensable conditions of the national devel-
opment.

Nor could migratory movements fail to be
largely promoted by influences such as those of
race, intermingling, and environment. Let us
suppose for a moment that the Great Russian
started his racial career as a genuine Slav of the
purest Aryan stock. It by no means necessarily
follows that his lineal descendant of to-day has
no Tnra.njp.n hlnnrl jn his veins, no Asiatic cus-
toms in the various forms of his social and re-
ligious life. The theory of a pure Slav race of
Great Russians has ceased to have attraction

i Profession de Foi du XIX Steele . Paris.

10 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

even for the Slavs themselves. It is not in ac-
cordance with well-known facts. In the earlier
part of their national existence, the Russians
occupied scarcely a fifth part of the territory
which they claim in the Europe of to-day. On
the north and east and southeast they were
closely hemmed in by races of Turanian or-
igin, of wandering habits and AsiaHc'ciistoms.
They lived in every-day contact with the Finns,
the Cheremiss, the Pechenegs, the Mordvs, and
Kazars. What, then, became of these peoples
in the gradual expansion of the Slav colonies to
the north and west ? Were they simply driven
back into Asia?

The evidence available shows that these Ta-
tar-Turkish races were in a large measure ab-
sorbed. The Finnish traits of many Russian
faces seen in the northern cities clearly testify
to blood alliances on the part of the Slavs with
their nomad neighbors, while in the west, ac-
cording to Mr. Wallace, race-intermingling has
left its mark upon whole districts. Transmis-
sion of habits, moreover, must have taken place
quite independently of alliances such as these.
M. Soloviev, in explaining the difference be-
tween Russian and west European customs,
expressly alludes, not only to internal causes,
but to " the constant contact and relations of
the Russians with Asiatic peoples, providing

NOMADIC SURVIVALS. 11

for the absorption of the latter and for the
transmission of their habits."1

What, again, is absorption ? Not a few wri-
ters use the term as if it were synonymous with
disappearance. This is a manifest error. A
type can no more cease to be than the materials
of which it is composed. The function of much
of this so-called " dying out " seems to be the
very useful one of preparing a new race for
new conditions by a process of acclimatization
much more rapid than the ordinary one of air
and food. In some cases absorption serves as a
sort of drawbridge over which inferior peoples
hasten from adverse conditions to a place of
racial safety. If, therefore, where absorption
took place, the early Slavs contributed to the
new ethnological modification such elements as
character, energy, daring, initiative, intellect,
enterprise, the nomads giving form, structure,
some habits and more traditions, we can easily
understand how a glow of new life would arise
in the men of the plains, and how to the Slavs
would come, it may be, hereditary memories of
a more eastern existence, hereditary sympathies
with wild movements and migrations, of which
the only sentiment of nationality was the sense
of numbers, the likeness of faces, the community
of purpose. But a speculation such as this in-

i Uchtbnaya Kniga russkoy Istorii.

12 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

dicates only the kind of influence likely to be
exerted upon the Slav colonies by the Tataric
populations of Eastern Russia. Leaving aside
all supposition or inference, the fact remains,
of an absolute certainty, that the processes men-
tioned — of race-intermingling on the one hand,
and close e^tlmojogical contact on the other —
were continued through very considerable pe-
riods of time, and that each tended to the
modification of the Russian character by the
transference of racial habits and customs.

The Mongol invasion still further helped to
give an Asiatic turn to the earlier forms of Rus-
sian civilization. Remembering that for two
hundred years the country was occupied and
dominated by men of high cheek-bones, of eyes
set obliquely, and of sallow visage, speaking a
Tatar tongue, one cannot think it strange that
Asiatic traits should now and then rise to the
ethnological surface of modern Russia. Some
historians attach little, others great, importance
to the Tatar period of Russian history. Na-
tional sensitiveness and pride have influenced
native writers on this subject when they have
thought themselves most impartial, yet M. Gri-
goriev, a St. Petersburg professor, writes : —

" There was a time when Orthodox Russia seemed
thoroughly Tatar. Everything in it except its relig-
ion was permeated and impregnated with Tatardom,

NOMADIC SURVIVALS. 13

in the same degree, if not more so, as it is now im-
pregnated with Western ideas. . . . Not only in ex-
ternals— in dress, manners, and habits of life — did
the Russian princes and boyards, the Russian officials
and merchants, imitate the Tatars, but in everything
— their feelings, ideas, and aspirations in the region
of practical life — they were in the strongest way in-
fluenced by Tatardom. Our ancestors received this
Tatar influence during two hundred years, at first
from an unwilling, but afterwards from an habitual
conformity to the tone and manners and morals that
reigned at Sarai,1 which in those times bore the same
relation to us as subsequently fell to the lot of Paris.
. . . During the whole of the Moscow period up to
the time of Peter the Great, the statecraft and politi-
cal management of the Russian Tsars and magnates
continued to be in every respect Tatar. So that
without acquaintance with real Tatardom it is impos-
sible correctly to understand many phases in Russian
history."

The more superficial results of the Mongol
domination are easily discovered. The trav-
eler cannot bargain with the droshky driver
in St. Petersburg without hearing words that
were imported into Russian from an Asiatic
speech. The Russian habit of eating food,
usually rice, in commemoration of dead rela-
tives, is clearly of Tatar origin. When Rus-
sian funeral processions pause for a few mo-

1 Seat of the Mongol Khans.

14 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

ments at churches in their line of march, they
are doing precisely what certain Turanian races
do on like occasions in Central Asia. To call
the residence of royalty at St. Petersburg the
" Above," or " Tip-Top " ( VerkK), is a habit of
speech borrowed from a purely nomad fashion
of designating the official domiciles of semi-bar-
barian monarch s beyond the Urals. For a
considerable period of the national history, opu-
lent Russians wore the tafya, or skull-cap, now
in use among the Sarts of Tashkent, and the
Tatar Mahommedans ; like the men of the des-
ert, they shaved their heads.1 Many Russian
dances are of Asiatic origin. The Russian
equivalents for " dog," " water-melon," " night-
cap," " shoe," " boot," " belt," " cossack," are
all borrowed from Tatar languages. Kvas, the
popular Russian drink, is generally used in
China. Med, also a Russian beverage, was
known to the barbarous races of Central Asia.
The striking similarity between the Tatar
customs of to-day and the Russian customs of
three centuries ago is shown by the following
juxtaposed extracts descriptive of the two
periods : —

1 Ocherk domashnei zhizni i nravov velikorusshavo naroda v
xvi i xvii stolyetiakh. N. I. Kostomarava. Page 103.

NOMADIC SURVIVALS.

15

Moscow. — First Half of

16 th Century,
The prince himself point-
ed to the seat, both by word
and gesture. When we
had duly saluted the prince
from this spot, the inter-
preter translated our com-
munication. After hearing
our salutation, he arose,
and descending from his
seat, said, " Is our brother
Charles, Emperor and Su-
preme King of the Ro-
mans, well V " To which
the Count replied, "He is
well." Ascending the
steps, he called each of us
to him and said, " Give
me thy hand ; hast thou
traveled well on thy jour-
ney?" To which each of
us replied, u Heaven grant
that thou mayst live in
health many years. By
the grace of God and thy
favor, I have been well." . . .
It is the custom, after din-
ner, for him to say to the
ambassadors, "Now you
may depart." — Interview
with Vassily Ivanovich.
Herberstein.

Central Asia. — 1874.

As I drew near, the mas-
ters of the ceremonies ut-
tered the usual loud cry,
" God, make his majesty,
Amir Mozaffar, powerful
and victorious ! " . . . As I
entered the tent, the Amir
turned and smilingly held
out his hand, took mine,
and said, " General, Aman !
Is the General well ? " I re-
plied, " Aman, he is well."
He then gave his hand to the
interpreter and motioned to
us to sit down facing him
at the end of the tent. . . .
1 thanked him for the per-
mission, and waited a mo-
ment longer. He began to
look uneasily towards the
door. The taksuba ap-
peared, and the Amir said,
" Now, go ! " upon which we
immediately took our leave.
— Interview with the Bek of
Khitab, Bukhara. Schuy-

16

THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

Russia. — First Half of

16th Century.
They [the Russians] ob-
serve this custom in meeting

o

ambassadors going to Rus-
sia. They send a messenger
to the ambassador to desire
him to alight from his horse
or carriage. . . . The dele-
gate takes watchful heed not
to alight first from his horse
or carriage, lest by doing
so he should seem to dero-
gate from his master's dig-
nity, and will not alight
until he has first seen the
ambassador dismount. —
Herberstein.

Central Asia. — 1874.

Three miles from town, I
met the assistant of the
Bek [of Khitab], with his
suite, when we all alighted
and embraced one another,
each, however, taking par-
ticular pains not to derogate
from his dignity by alight-
ing too soon. I had soon
learnt whether to dismount
first or last, or whether to
watch the motions of the
dignitary who met me, and
so manage it that we should
put our feet on the ground
at one and the same mo-

ment. — Schuyler.
Turgeniev wrote somewhere : " With my
eyes shut, listening in Russia to the rustling of
the leaves, I should be able to tell the season,
or even the month of the year." The Russian
novelist had a faculty not at all common to
dwellers in west European cities. Indeed, the
conditions of our older civilizations neither pro-
duce acuteness of the senses, nor encourage its
survival. The Slavs, on the other hand, boast
of the sharpness of their vision, and the white-
ness of their teeth ; their physical powers of
endurance could scarcely be greater had they
directly descended from the followers of Chin-

NOMADIC SURVIVALS. 17

gis Khan. On this point both. Kinglake and
Vereshchagin pay the most willing testimony.
On the intellectual side of the question, the
evidence is rather scant. It is a fact that the
schot, or counting frame, is used all over Rus-
sia, in the simplest as well as the most com-
plicated arithmetical operations, by the lowest
as well as the highest in the land. In Russia
nobody seems capable of performing the sim-
plest sum in addition or subtraction without
help from the counting frame. I have seen
a merchant deliberately take down the wires
and balls in order, by putting two rows of
the latter side by side, to ascertain that five
and five made ten. Government officials per-
form the most trifling calculations in the same
way.

This perpetual use of the sehot may seem to
justify the inference that Russia!* mental powers
are at fault. No more erroneous assumption
could be even imagined. In the faculty of
remembering, in receptivity for knowledge of
all kinds, the Great Russian carries off the
palm from all western competitors. Hence
his proficiency in acquiring languages. In
this single capacity lies reflected the whole
busy world of racial movement within which
Slav development took place. The Russian
may inherit much of his receptivity from con-

18 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

stantly repeated processes of adaptation to new
circumstances and varying conditions ; but his
memory is a racial characteristic and belongs to
the blood. It has been suggested that Russians
are easily linguists, because of special training in
languages and of unusual facilities for acquiring
them. The fact that most Russian families of
the wealthier class are brought up in constant
intercourse with foreign governesses and tutors
proves nothing. Imported foreign governesses
and tutors do not prevent many English fami-
lies from acquiring their proficiency in foreign
speech abroad. It must be remembered that
in Russia this linguistic faculty is diffused in a
very democratic fashion through all classes of
society, priests and peasants alone excepted.
Take the case of Russian students. A large
number of them are very poor. Many of these
ardent lovers of knowledge would never enjoy
college or university education at all, were it
not for the stipends they receive from the gov-
ernment. In some cases, these stipends cover
the cost of food and lodging, as well as of tui-
tion. Yet it is exceedingly rare to meet with a
Russian student who does not converse fluently
in either French or German. Often the youth
speaks both, and has a reading knowledge of
other languages as well. It has been suggested
that the Russians have a superior system of

NOMADIC SURVIVALS. 19

teaching languages. This is the worst expla-
nation of all, since a born linguist will acquire
languages under* the worst possible system, even
without a system at all ; and no nation ever
yet succeeded in maintaining a monopoly in
methods of education. I must urge, therefore,
that Russian facility in languages is a natural
and not a merely acquired art, that it is a racial
characteristic, favored in its development by
peculiar circumstances of ethnologicaLgrowth,
reference to which will be made" nereafter. It
is this view of the matter that accounts for the
acquirements of the father of Vladimir Mono-
makh, who is said to have learned five lan-
guages without quitting his palace ; and this
view, also, that explains the ease and rapidity
with which in these days Russians domiciled
abroad adapt themselves to the lingual and so-
cial conditions of their new environment.

Habit and racial characteristics thus give
coincident testimony as to the conditions of
Russian development, both showing, however
faintly, that its main features were restlessness,
movement, migration. The evidence of history
is stronger still. In its light we see how to
the baby Slav, barely out of its cradle, destiny
offered immense Volkerwanderungen as specta-
cles. Nearly all the great historic processions
entered Europe by way of Russia ; vast as was

20 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

the road, touching barbarism on the one hand,
civilization on the other, there were times when
it seemed scarcely broad enough for the march
of the races that, beginning with Hun and end-
ing with Mongol, swarmed over it in almost
uninterrupted succession. With such an envi-
ronment around him, the Slav soon began mi-
gratory movements on his own account. The
openness of the land invited the exploits of the
druzhiniki under their kniaz; a warlike spirit
led to expeditions against the Turanian foe.
Later, recoiling from Mongol exaction, attracted
by the virgin soil of the great plains to the east,
the Russians spread in ever increasing waves,
until at last all the European territory of their
present empire lay at the feet of the Slav colo-
nist. Nor was this process, which ultimately
carried the Russian emigrants into Siberia, one
of mere expansion alone. It went on in Euro-
pean Russia as a phase of the restlessness which
in those days seemed to characterize all forms
of life amongst the Slavs. There were wander-
ing migrations as well as colonizing migrations.
The working agriculturists rambled from estate
to estate, from district to district, from govern-
ment to government. The movement at last
grew to such dimensions and had so disastrous
an effect upon the national finances that, as a
preventive measure, the laborer had to be at-

NOMADIC SURVIVALS. 21

tached to the glebe. Migrant habits thus led
to that characteristic feature of Russian civiliza-
tion, the enslavement of the tillers of the soil ;
and if, anticipating somewhat, we look at a
much later period of Russian history, we shall
find that the need of migration to serfs dying
off prematurely for lack of changed conditions
was one of the arguments used and acted upon
in favor of the emancipation ukaz of 1861.1
The movement was in great part checked by
the preventive measures of Boris Godunav*. yet
serfs oppressed by masters did not scruple to
resume their earlier habits ; the Don Cossacks
were for long periods recruited by fugitives of
this class. Tension in religious circles also gave
a powerful impulse to migration. Sectarians,
intolerant of the ecclesiastical order of things
imported from Constantinople and imposed up-
on the people with the aid of Mongol blood,
fled across the country, and plunging through
trackless woods, wandering by the shores of
lakes and seas, sought out quiet refuges for
their ideals in religion. One of the protesting
sects bears to this day the name " Stranniki,"
or Wanderers, its leading dogma being the ne-
cessity of ua perpetual wandering from Anti-
christ." ' Another body of dissenters, calling
themselves " Christ seekers," wander from town

1 See Turgeniev's Zapi&hi Okhotniki.

22 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

to town, and from one government to another,
in the hope of meeting the Saviour.1

Most of the historical migrations have ceased
with the immediate causes which called them
into being ; but the habit of wandering, of
movement from place to place, has not disap-
peared from Russia. New forms have been
given to it by railways and steamboats. Siberia
swarms with escaped convicts, whose wander-
ings and depredations have brought into exis-
tence the sport known as " vagabond hunting." 2
The conditions created by emancipation favored
the development of a class of laborers, half peas-
ants, half artisans, who are confirmed migrants,
spending part of the year in the country, the
remainder of it in the town. In a sense, even
religion is migrant in Russia. The lavra of
Sergius is said to attract over a million pilgrims
every year.3 Kiev, with its tombs, icons, and
relics, is also a spot where thousands of the
orthodox annually gather from all parts of the
Russian empire. Numerous fairs encourage
movement at stated times in the year. Work-
men rarely remain for any considerable period
in one factory or district. The vastness of the

1 Raslcolniki i Ostrozhniki. By Fiodor Vassilievich Livanov.
St. Petersburg, 1873.

2 " Okhota na brodyag." See an article in the now defunct
Review, Otechestvenny Zapishi. Nov., 1882.

s St. Petersburg Golos, 1865. No. 283.

NOMADIC SURVIVALS. 23

country, moreover, gives a migratory character
to almost all forms of the movement of travel.
Students who journey to St. Petersburg from
the southern, central, or eastern governments of
Russia, in order to spend several years of an
educational course in a city which must become
their home for that period, are as truly migrants
as the early Russian colonists who settled ter-
ritories east of the Urals, or as the Tatars who
travel from Central Asia in order to wait at
table in the hotels of St. Petersburg. And it
may be more than a political instinct that leads
so many Russians to exchange habitat with
these swarthy sons of the desert. What espe-
cially surprises a foreigner unaccustomed in
Western Europe to eastern aspects of migration
is the very large number of Russians domiciled
on the banks of the Neva, whose homes may be
at a distance of thousands of versts ; equally
striking is the apparent ease with which even
the poorest peasants make their way from one
end of this vast empire to the other. The ef-
fect of great extent of territory in enlarging
one's ideas of travel is a common experience ;
the Russian never seems more at home than
when en voyage. Whether in the telega, the
railway carriage, or the steamboat, he rarely be-
trays consciousness either of distance or of di-
vorce from any particular part of the territory

24 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

which he calls his fatherland. The lines of
railway seem at times to encourage wide views
of this kind, since some of them, in their effort
to compass vast distances, ignore large cities
lying almost directly in their path. Thus the
Russian locomotive is made to pass within two
miles or less of such important centres of popu-
lation as Tver, Orol, and Kursk. It is note-
worthy that the word for "play" in Russian
literally means " to walk." A child told that
when a lesson is over it shall " go to walk " (idi
gulyaf) anticipates play, not promenade. A
wife unfaithful to her husband is said to " walk
away " from him (gulyaet ot muzha).

The evidence of language ought not to be
lightly passed over. It will be found, as a rule,
that wherever the racial habits and physical
peculiarities of a people tend to create settled
forms of social life; to discourage movement
and lead to the aggregation of masses in partic-
ular districts and centres ; to cause attachment
to particular parts of a country apart from at-
tachment to it as a whole, — there dialects will
inevitably come into existence. The circum-
stances are somewhat analogous to those under
which pools and lagoons, originally deposited
by a main stream, but finally severed from it,
suffer from the cutting of their connection with
the fresh waters. In countries where there is

NOMADIC SURVIVALS. 25

no migration to preserve the homogeneousness
of the spoken tongue, districts become isolated
from districts, towns from towns, people from
people. There being no general diffusion of
the standard customs of speech, differentiations
take place, and from small departures the
change goes on, until the people of one district
or county become with difficulty intelligible to
those of another. Such a process has taken
place in almost all the older countries of Europe,
notably in Greece, Italy, Germany, and France.
The case of England is also of good illustrative
value. The Saxon heptarchy in that country
was once a heptarchy of dialects. Even to-day
it needs a special study to qualify for reading
in the Yorkshire, Lancashire, and Somersetshire
varieties of the spoken tongue. A cockney
brought up within the sound of Bow Bells
would be lingually far more at home in New
York than in the cottage of many a Rochdale
cotton operative. Let us now turn to European
Russia. Here is a country larger than all the
rest of Europe put together, yet utterly devoid
of dialects.1 From the Baltic to the Caspian,
from the Krim to the North Sea, wherever Great
Russian is spoken by Great Russians, its pro-

1 Polish, developed under different conditions, has a number of
dialects, but is a member of the Slavic family — an independent
speech, and not a dialect of Great Russian. Nor is Little Russian
a dialect in the usual acceptation of the term.

26 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

nunciation is practically the same.1 And it is
this capacity for being intelligible over a very
wide area that is one of the characteristic fea-
tures of Turanian (Asiatic) languages. An
Osmanli from Constantinople can, it is said,
make himself understood by a Yakut on the
Lena. Ethnologists, while not accepting this
statement without qualification, admit that the
Turkish languages, when separated by enor-
mous distances, are strangely alike.2

Nor is this all. In its very texture and com-
position, the Russian language bears witness to
the conditions under which Slav development
took place. Max Muller writes : —

" It is an indispensable requirement in a nomad lan-
guage that it should be intelligible to many, though
their intercourse be but scanty. It requires tradi-
tions, society, and literature to maintain forms which
can no longer be analyzed at once. ... In the ever-
shifting state of a nomadic society, no debased coin
can be tolerated in language, no obscure legend ac-
cepted on trust. The metal must be pure and the
legend distinct, that the one may be weighed and the
other, if not deciphered, at least recognized .as a well-
known guarantee. Hence the small proportion of
irregular forms in all agglutinative languages."

Now, Russian is not a nomad tongue, but a

1 The enunciation of the o is not always uniform.

2 Volkerkunde, by Oscar Peschel.

NOMADIC SURVIVALS. 27

member of the Indo-European family of lan-
guages, yet some of its peculiarities approximate
in a striking manner to those described as req-
uisite to the speech of a wandering people. The
agglutinative power of the language is noticed
by Professor Sayce,1 who further observes : " In
Russian the participles have replaced the aorist
and imperfect, which have also been lost in
Ruthenian, though retained in Servian and Bul-
garian ; and in this change we may perhaps
trace the influence of those Tatar tribes whose
blood enters so largely into that of the modern
Russian community." 2 But the testimony may
be carried much further than the extent to
which Professor Sayce draws upon it. Take
the case of irregular forms, of which we have
seen nomad languages to be so intolerant. The
tongues of settled races are overrun with them.
French has 72 irregular verbs, Romaic 88,
Swedish 141, German 217, Italian 514. The
number of irregular verbs in Russian isJL3. It
is requisite to the language of a migratory peo-
ple that its forms shall be intelligible at a
glance — that as little shall be left to the con-
text as possible. Russian leaves nothing to the
context. " Love " in English may be either a

1 Introduction to the Science of Language, vol. ii., p. 95.

2 I quote Professor Sayce's statement for philological rather than
for historic purposes.

28 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

verb or a noun. The noun in Russian is " lyu-
bov ; " the verb " lyubit." Russian verbs, more-
over, go armed with a whole paraphernalia of
variations, insuring a closeness of analysis, an
exactness of definition, and a general intelli-
gibility that in most modern Indo-European
tongues would appear altogether superfluous.
For a learner to use accurately a Russian verb,
he must first decide whether he wishes to ex-
press completed action, incompleted action,
single action, plurality of action, single per-
fect action, or commencing action. Supposing
" spoke," the past tense of speak, were Russian,
the choice would lie between such forms as
" waspoke " (" I spoke " — completed action),.
" spwke " ( " I spoke once " — sem elf active),
" spavoke " (" I spoke more than once " — iter-
ative), "zaspoke" (" I began to speak" —
commencing action), and "spoke" ("I was
speaking " — incompleted action). This striv-
ing after precision and intelligibility is further
seen in nouns expressing relationship. Instead
of using forms possessing a certain inter-resem-
blance, such as " father-in-law," " mother-in-
law," " beau-pere" " beau-frere" etc., the Rus-
sian language has separate terms for presenting
the distinctions between the father of the wife
and the father of the husband, the mother of
the wife and the mother of the husband, and so

NOMADIC SURVIVALS. 29

on, throughout the inter-relationships of blood
and marriage. Russian patronymics illustrate
the same habits of language. Greater closeness
of description is obtained in names by adding
the paternal designation, so that, instead of a
man being called Peter Orlov, or a woman Mary
Romanov, he becomes " John Orlov's Peter,"
and she " Vassily Romanov's Mary." 1 I shall
only add that in Russian there are few homo-
nyms, and an almost complete absence of pho-
netic resemblances like " wright," " right,"
" rite," " write," etc.

The eating habits of modern Russians are not
altogether without traces of the influence of
primitive custom and race environment. It is
well known that life on the plains — whether it
be spent in hunting or have a pastoral charac-
ter — leads to irregularity in eating. Such an
existence tends, owing to the long fasts often
involved, to encourage the merging of several
small meals into a single substantial one, capa-
ble of carrying the hunter or agriculturist over
the needs of, say, a whole day. Herberstein,2
writing in the sixteenth century, speaks of Rus-
sians who, having had one good dinner, abstained
from meat for two or three days. Meals at

1 Literally, " The Johnian Peter Orlov," "the Vassilyan Mary-
Romanov."

2 German ambassador to the court of Ivan Vassilievich at
Moscow.

30 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

stated hours, at the rate of three and four in
the day, could only be taken when a regular
division had been made in the hours of daily
labor, and this division implies a well-developed
urban organization. In Russia a tendency lin-
gers to postpone eating until the middle of the
day, — that is to say, until the midday meal.
Breakfast is almost ignored by large classes of
the population. It rarely consists of more than
a glass of weak tea, with a small morsel of
bread or cake added on rare occasions. Yet
on the strength of such light pabulum as this I
have seen active officials and business men sally
forth for five hours of the most arduous work
of the day. For tea, which is a meal scarcely
more substantial than breakfast, there is no dis-
tinctive name in Russian, the invitation to it
being simply, " Come to drink tea ! " x

The noticeable characteristic of Russian food
is the ease with which it is prepared, and the
facility with which it may be carried about.
The consumption of dried fish is exceedingly
large ; very small kinds of fish are eaten raw.
The joke about candle-eating in Russia probably
arose out of the fact that in the territory of the
river Kura the minoga (petromyson fluviatilis), &
sort of fluvial lamprey, is dried for use as a can-
dle or torch. The native cookery, on the other

^ i "Idftygchaipit."

NOMADIC SURVIVALS. 31

hand, is of the simplest. The people, for the
most part, eat bread without butter. In " table
manners " the Russians are fond of excelling.
Yet, under special circumstances, two persons,
falling to with fork, may eat out of a single
plate without committing any breach of social
propriety. This survival has a smack of ata-
vism about it, since in the sixteenth and seven-
teenth century, as mentioned by Mr. Kostoma-
rov,1 it was the custom to seat guests at table
at the rate of two to a plate. The Russian
habit of sleeping after meals has a still higher
historical justification. That severe code of
domestic morals, the " Domostro'i," 2 expressly
warns the guest not to remain too long, in
order that the host's postprandial siesta may
not be interfered with. Why this fashion of
midday slumber survived in Russia will be best
set forth in the succeeding chapter : that it
would speedily disappear amid the feverish ur-
ban and industrial activities of Western Europe
is evident.

Two habits remain, which there is the strong-
est ground for describing as primarily due to
the influences of steppe life upon the physical
organism. The Russians have a marked aver-
sion to water, and a liking not less strong for
tea. The same choice of tea as beverage, with

l " Ocherk," etc. 2 From the fifteenth century.

32 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

the same dislike of water as its exciting cause,
is found amongst the races of the desert and
plain in Asia, notably the Tatars, Kalmucks,
and Khirgiz. In categorical, if somewhat unfor-
tunate connection with the predilection for tea
stands the habit of spitting ; whatever this may-
mean in other countries, when Russians expec-
torate it is a sign of disgust. In his romance,
" Smoke," Turgeniev mentions the publication
at Heidelberg by a group of Russian emigrants
of a journal, on the title-page of which ap-
peared the words, " A tout venant je crache."
The habit is frequently pointed to in Slav lit-
erature. As I write Zacharjasiewicz's Polish
novel " Na Kresach " is lying before me. On
the first page of the first chapter occur these
words : " Maciejaszek splunal trzy razy i prze-
zegnal sie," — " Maciejaszek spat three times
and crossed himself." The "Domostro'i" en-
joins its readers not to spit carelessly at table,
but rather to spit with caution, and then to
destroy the evidences of the act with the foot.
A habit that could meet with such realistic justi-
fication as this from the pen of an ecclesiastical
dignitary and state counselor must have had a
more solid ethnological foundation than that of
mere coarseness of manners. Are we not justi-
fied in seeking its origin in some wide steppe or
desert land, where the flying sand-dust was with

NOMADIC SURVIVALS. 33

difficulty prevented from entering eyes, ears,
nostrils, and mouth, and where an act of expec-
toration became an act of cleanliness not un-
naturally associated with a temporary feeling
of disgust?

On the whole, the justification seems abun-
dant and irresistible that, partly because of
racial and inherited tendencies, partly owing to
influence of environment and race-intermin-
gling, as well as to contagiousness of habits,
manners, and customs, and partly, as the more
secular cause, in consequence of the general cir-
cumstances of a peculiar national development,
the Russians are more remarkable than any
other people of Aryan blood for the ease with
which they change the place of their domicile,
and for the migrant character of their lives and
activities. /It is fair, moreover, to say that
these characteristics have played a highly im-
portant part in giving its form, its institutions,
and its difficulties, to the modern Russian state.
And while, on the one hand, migrant habits
have tended to stimulate that pride of individ-
uality, that love of liberty and of free institu-
tions which, as I shall hereafter show, form the
foundation of the Slav character and genius,
on the other they have weakened the resist-
ance of the masses and facilitated the arrange-
ments of absolute power. , Russian energies

OF THE ^

UNIVERSITY

THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

have been largely dispersed in steppe and plain.
Engaged in colonizing vast tracts of virgin ter-
ritory rather than in improving the apparatus
and increasing the comfort of life within the
confines of towns, they have had few opportu-
nities of bringing into existence any robust
conception of urban independence and civic
rights. This phenomenon of apolism — this
meagre development of towns and town activi-
ties — came to be the natural corollary of mi-
grant, unsettled habits. How it manifested
itself, and what were its results, will be shown
in the succeeding chapter.

APOLISM.

The facts of city life in Russia, whether
regarded as results or merely as concomitant
phenomena, will be found quite in harmony
with the conditions of national development
already set forth. Circumstances inimical to
the spirit of urban life have hindered the
growth of Russian towns from the first. The
early Slavs not only were without conception
of city existence, but did not even live in
houses. Karamzin 1 mentions the names of four
tribes of Russian Slavs who dwelt habitually in
the woods; the same historian cites testimony
concerning Slavs of the Danube, who had
their retreats in wild, marshy, and inaccessible
places. 2 Another writer describes the Slavs as
possessing neither horses, arms, nor houses, and
as protecting themselves from the weather by
means of interlaced branches of trees. It is
tolerably certain that at a somewhat later period
than that here referred to the Russians lived

1 Istoria goeudarstva rossiiskavo.

2 "Paludes sylvasque pro civitatibus habent." Jordan. M.
Popul.

36 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

in a highly primitive form of oppida, known in
the modern language as gorodishchay ; remains
of these structures, consisting of ramparts of
earth surmounted with palisading, are found to
this day, usually on eminences, the high banks
of rivers, or in other positions equally strategic.
Of one thing we may be certain, — the first
Russian houses must have had wood as the
material of their construction, since stone was
almost unattainable, while the supply of tim-
ber, the country having a plenitude of forests,
was practically inexhaustible. It is impossi-
ble, therefore, to connect the materials of early
Russian housebuilding with the habits of the
builders. It may even well enough be that the
enforced use of wood, leading to the perpet-
ual conflagrations that everywhere light up the
pages of Russian history, helped to intensify
the unsettled character of the national life.
The popular belief, transmitted to the present
day, that every house in Russia is destined soon
or late to be burned to the ground, was not, at
any rate, calculated to strengthen affection for
a particular domicile.

Etymologically, the Russian city, or gorod, is
still an " inclosure," or place inclosed, corre-
sponding with the West-European bourg. For
town the Russians write posad, the equivalent
of stadt (statte) in German and miasto in

APOLISM. 37

Polish; that is to say, " place ;" while the
Russian village is simply derevnya, or "the
wooden." But the characteristic features of
the Russian gorod only appear when we ex-
amine the city in its relation to the country at
large. Compared with urban growth in west-
ern Europe, town life in Russia is strikingly
insignificant. Scarcely a tenth part of the pop-
ulation of European Russia is urban ; in Eng-
land nearly half the people live in the towns
and cities. Nor is the tenth part named any
fixed quantity. It merely represents the time
when urban Russia is fullest, owing to the
periodical influx of a part of the population
which is, strictly speaking, neither urban nor
rural, but belongs to both country and town.

Gogol must have remarked this insignificance
of the urban element ; for in his novel, " Dead
Souls," the humorist compares Russian cities to
" tiny dots that indistinctly mark the centre of
some vast plain."1 That the peculiarity is not
confined to one branch of the Slav family may
be gathered from an expression, singularly
identical with that of Gogol, by which Hiippe 2
compares the cities of the old Polish Slavs to
"drops of oil on a pond." Urban phenomena

1 See Gogol's Complete Works (in Russian). St. Petersburg,
1880, vol. iii., p. 230.

2 Verfassung der Republih Polen.

38 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

are generically the same in Great Russia and
in Poland. The appearances that seem to con-
fer upon Polish cities an urban existence as
well developed as that of the towns of western
Europe are illusive. 1 There are few genuinely
Slav towns in Poland. With populations largely
composed of Jews and Germans, Polish cities
belong neither to the old nor to the new order
of urban phenomena, but form an indescribable
compound of both.

In Russia eleven cities are usually spoken of
with a population of over 50,000 inhabitants.
For an empire so vast as that of Russia, here
is a state of things that, in the light of the
urban statistics of western Europe, seems to
border on the ridiculous. And when care
is taken to eliminate foreign elements, urban
Russia becomes more insignificant still. The
population of the capital itself does not yet
number a million ; of its 860,000 2 inhabitants
fully 100,000 are foreigners. Moscow, with a
population of about 750,000, has a colony of
15,000 Germans, not to say anything of other
nationalities. Odessa, with 150,000 inhabit-
ants, is largely foreign. Kishinev, with 130,-
000, Kiev, with 76,000, and Berdichev, with
55,000 are all largely Jewish and German in

1 See M. Leroy Beaulieu's L' Empire des Tsars et les Musses.

2 Census of 1884.

APOLISM. 39

the character of their population. Of the re-
maining five "largest towns," Saratov, with
96,000, is to some extent German ; Kazan,
largely Tatar. It will be found, in fact, that
very few of the eleven towns have risen to
their present state of development save by rea-
son of some special conditions of growth prac-
tically removing them from the list of purely
Slav cities. Tula, a city in the same category,
has the imperial gun factory, and supplies the
Russian people with their samovars. Both
Odessa and Nikolaiev owe much to their posi-
tion on the Black Sea. The Volga naturally
gives local impulses to urban development in a
country practically without seaboard. Saratov
is a conspicuous example of this kind of growth.
Samara, also a Volga " port," affords a still bet-
ter illustration of conditions that distinguish
these riparian cities from towns in the interior
of Russia. Situation and foreign capital, as
well as Slav enterprise, have raised Samara
from insignificance to a position in which it
aspires to become a sort of Chicago for the
southeastern governments. Tsarftsyn, another
Volga city, owes its comparatively sudden de-
velopment to the naphtha wells at Baku, as
well as to the Swedish enterprise which has
made it the great entrepdt of the petroleum
trade in Russia. There is, indeed, a foreign

40 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

character about most of the urban and trading
activities of this part of the country. The
great brewer of southeastern Russia is of
German nationality. In towns like Kazan,
Astrakhan, and Tsaritsyn, I found the smaller
industries carried on largely by Persians, Ta-
tars, Calmucks, and Germans. I remember see-
ing a whilom Frankfort shoemaker plying his
awl in the shadow of a mosque. Out on the
steppe, three miles from Tsaritsyn, when driv-
ing through an encampment of khibitkas, I en-
countered a German baker supplying his nomad
customers with bread.

But the inherent weakness of urban life in
Russia — the inability, even under the most
favorable circumstances, of the pure Slav town
to maintain the conditions necessary to its
healthy development — is nowhere better seen
than in the case of the old capital itself. Apart
from its German colony, Moscow is the most
genuinely Russian city that can be named.
Hundreds of proverbial sayings testify to its
antiquity and to the veneration in which it is
held by the people. 1 " Moscow was built by
the ages, Petersburg by millions," runs one.
Another is the famous " Moscow, white-stoned,

1 A highly interesting collection of proverbs and sayings relat-
ing to Moscow may be found in a little work entitled Moskva v
rodnoy poesii. St. P., 1882.

APOLISM. 41

golden-domed, loyal, loquacious, hospitable, and
orthodox." In a third, the city is said to be
" renowned for its virgins, its bells, and its
Jcalaches." 2 And in addition to its fame as the
capital of the old Muscovite dominion, the city
has the proud distinction, that even holy Kiev
cannot dispute with it, of being the great heart
of the national religion. In Russia alone the
Moscow cult has endowed native literature with
43 poems, 34 historical works and 13 dramas
and operas, all of them the work of the nation's
most famous literary men. Moscow, besides
being a city of churches, 2 has 816 factories, in
which 74,000 workmen are employed, and en-
joys the reputation of being the industrial me-
tropolis of Russia. Yet, notwithstanding all this
prestige, all these favoring circumstances, Mos-
cow has no resources of population and no ur-
ban vitality that can justly be called its own.
The number of deaths in the city every year
exceeds that of the births. The resultant defi-
ciency is more than made up by immigration,
and it is by the aid of this influx from all parts
of the empire that the old capital is enabled to
put on an appearance of progress. 3 Moscow is

1 A kind of bread roll.

2 The proverbial number of churches in Moscow is "40 times
40," the real number about 400, exclusive of private and cemetery
chapels.

* A similar state of things prevails in St. Petersburg.

42 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

none the less an artificial creation. Its spurious
development is mainly due to habits and move-
ments that have done little in Russia to favor
lasting and healthy urban growth. It is a spec-
tacle rather than a city, a resting-place rather
than a residence, a convenient pied a terre for
the migrant Russian far from his home on the
great plain.

The conclusion is inevitable that the modern
conception of city life and its concomitant activi-
ties had to be imported from without. Living
under roofs did not at once naturalize it amongst
the Slavs. " Every one," writes Karamzin, de-
scribing the beginning of the domiciliary pe-
riod, " made a hut for himself at a little distance
from his neighbors', in order that he might live
the more comfortably and with the less danger."
But afterwards, " beginning to feel themselves
more necessary to each other, the Slavs erected
their dwellings nearer together, thus bringing
settlements into existence ; while others, seeing
fine cities in foreign countries, lost their love for
the dark woods." The development of the set-
tlement into the town was really a long and
tedious process of evolution ; the multiplication
of the new urban phenomenon, when the begin-
ning of town life finally appeared, was retarded
by the habits of the people and by the exactions
of the governors. Many centuries elapsed be-

APOLISM. 43

fore any real need was felt for towns. The
agriculturist, with tastes of the simplest kind,
produced nothing that he did not want for his
own use, and wanted nothing that he could not
produce in the open plain. Side by side with
his knowledge of agriculture was his expertness
in all the industrial arts necessary to secure the
comfort of his household. His domicile, which
he could build himself, was a hive of multifa-
rious industries that held out long against the
principle of the division of labor, and are in
some respects triumphant over it to this day.
Clothes were manufactured at home with the
same celerity as ploughs, and when laborers
were needed there were always lusty sons eager
to grow as many-sided in the business of life as
their fathers. The town, save as a strategic
point, could thus be dispensed with. On the
other hand, migratory movements caused the
desertion of numerous settlements and towns,
and the consequent reversion of many promising
urban oases to the domination of the steppe.
At the end of the reign of Alexis Michaflovich
Russian hamlets and villages were still so ridic-
ulously small that some of them had as few as
ten dvors, or courtyards, while there were others
so diminutive as to possess no more than three,
two, and even one of these domestic inclosures.1

1 Karamzin.

44 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

In the time of Peter, out of a population of 30,-
000,000 only 300,000 were dwellers in towns.
Later, when Catherine II. endeavored to foster
urban development, not a few of the artificial
creations of her uhaz soon became uninhabited,
were destroyed by fire, or reclaimed by the
larger life of the plain. Catherine's real activ-
ity in this direction expended itself in attempts
to turn mere villages into cities, with a view to
tht ' ati m of seats for resident officials in-
truded with the carrying out of her new scheme
of local government. Such of them as have
survived are villages to this day.

To natural causes like industry and trade no
really Russian town can be said to owe its ex-
istence. Urban growth was mainly, almost
wholly, the result of some form of government
initiative. In the earlier periods of the national
history towns were created for strategic pur-
poses ; later, administrative necessities called
them into being. The scheme for the new mu-
nicipal organization of 1870 mentioned five hun-
dred and ninety-five towns. Of these scarcely
a sixth have the character of purely industrial
centres ; in almost a third occupations are partly
industrial, partly agricultural ; the inhabitants
of the remainder devote themselves to agricul-
ture, the smaller industries being carried on in
a few cases by people consigned to them by

APOLISM. 45

scarcity of land. Herr Schlozer writes that " up
to the middle of the ninth century no single
town worthy of the name existed in the whole
of northern Russia." Speaking in 1873 of the
state of urban development Herr Schwanen-
bach 1 said : —

" There are whole governments, such, for example,
as Archangel, Olonets, Vologda, and Pensa, which,
with the exception of the official capitals, have no
town deserving that appellation. There are, more-
over, government towns like Petrosavodsk, Pensa,
Chernigov, Smolensk, that would degenerate into
mere villages were the government officials from
whom they take their importance removed."

The fact that this description needs no sub-
stantial modification to-day shows that urban
life in the north of European Russia has been
all but stagnant since the ninth century.2

So far I have considered the town as con-
trasted with the country, — compared urban
phenomena in Russia with their rural surround-
ings and west European prototypes. What the
Russian town is intrinsically cannot easily be
realized without personal experience. The insig-

1 JRussische Revue, vol. iv.

2 Of the towns mentioned in the scheme of 1870, 27 had a popu-
lation of 1000; 74 between 1000 and 2000 inhabitants ; 194 between
2000 and 5000; 179 between 5000 and 10,000; 55 between 10,000
and 15,000; 35 between 15,000 and 25,000; 23 between 25,000 and
50,000 ; and 8 over 50,000.

46 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

nificant figure cut in the great plains by even the
larger cities is but imperfectly conveyed by mere
reminiscence or description. Some of these
centres of population are generally lost sight
of in a walk of twenty minutes into the sur-
rounding steppe, and their disappearance is all
the more startling to the unwary traveler be-
cause of the smoothness of the plain, and the
absence of everything capable of acting as an
obstacle to vision. Should twilight surprise
him in his wanderings, the dimness of the land-
scape suggests marine openness in a very strik-
ing way. The far-off horizon becomes the
spectator's sea-line; the city, if not gone alto-
gether, seems a cliff long and low, with some
mimic seaport town clinging to its back ; while
the lit-up cottage of the peasant charioteer
gleams from the distance like a welcome pharos
inviting belated wanderers into harbor.

Or, to offer another illustration, let the reader
accompany me in imagination for a moonlight
drive along the post road in one of the south-
eastern governments. We journey for hours in
the gray glimmer, seeing nothing but sky and
plain. All at once a few grayish, dark objects
rise up suddenly in front ; the yamshchik calls
" Derevnya ! " l and we thereupon find ourselves
entering a village by a road fully four times

i Village.

APOLISM. 47

as broad as an English highway or a French
grande route. The course may lead us in a
straight line, or may have a dozen zigzag turn-
ings in it, yet it remains of the same abnormal
breadth throughout. The village itself is so
vast that it takes our driver half an hour or
more to wind us through it at full speed ; and
when at last we emerge again into the open
plain the straggling collection of one-story erec-
tions in wood through which we have flitted
seems immediately to sink back into the earth
and disappear. Thus, if the height of the Rus-
sian city is insignificant, its extent is often im-
mense. I have sometimes found a population
of a few hundred persons spread over an area
wider than that of many an English borough
returning two members to Parliament. At one
period, by no means very remote, European
Russia the country was simply European Rus-
sia the town on a large scale. The spaces be-
tween the towns were the roads, and the Rus-
sian felt uneasy until he had traversed them
from end to end. And to-day there is no urbs
more Russian than the village that lies on the
open plain, — a mere double row of houses,
a domiciliary column on the march, or, at any
rate, a sheltered line of migration inviting to
movement. Let me add that precisely of this
structure and form is the one popular thorough-

48 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

fare in all Russia, — the only thoroughfare
that has ever achieved a reputation in native
literature, namely, the Nevsky Prospect at St.
Petersburg.1

Russian city life has also had a migratory
character in its political aspects. Slav power
in European Russia frequently changed its cen-
tres of administration. The capital was long a
movable urban dignity. "A strange people,
these Russians ! " wrote Gogol, in a playful
mood. " First they have their capital in Kiev,
but there it is too warm ; then the Russian me-
tropolis goes to Moscow, where it is not cold
enough ; and finally Providence gives us St.
Petersburg." 2 Gogol only told a part of the
truth, since, in addition to its presence at the
three cities named, the Russian capital was vir-
tually at Novgorod, Pskov and Viatka. The
earlier selection of sites for the capital depended
mainly upon political circumstances ; the choice
truer to the migrant instincts and habits of the
Russian people was the choice of St. Petersburg.
It opened a door, as well as a window, upon
Europe ; it connected the Nevsky Prospect with
the thoroughfares of the settled civilizations
in the west.

A special character belongs as well to the

1 See Gogol's sketch, Nevsky Prospect.

2 Peterburgskiya Zapiski.

APOLISM. 49

Russian house as to the city. Language bears
testimony to the smallness of the early resi-
dences of the Slavs, since izba, the word which in
Russian means a peasant's domicile, signifies in
Polish (that is to say, in a language that better
preserves the older forms of Slavonic speech
than does Great Russian) simply " room " or
" apartment." Peter's love of small rooms, his
embarrassment in spacious and high apartments,
were characteristics genuinely Slav. To this
day, moreover, the least costly dwellings are
roughly made out of forest timber by the
dweller himself ; the wooden habitations of
merchants and people of the middle class not
only lack complexity of structure, but are fur-
nished in the simplest fashion. Beds in Russian
country houses are often mere couches, or even
drawer-holding chests covered with rugs. In
some of the best hotels they are barely broad
enough to prevent a sleeper from finding his
way to the floor. It is the custom throughout
Russia for the hirer of furnished lodgings to
supply his own bedclothes. When traveling
long distances Russians, delicate women not ex-
cepted, carry pillows with them, and use the
seat of the railway carriage as a bed. Nor is
this carelessness on the score of sleeping accom-
modation any mere modern trait of Russian life.
A certain George Turbernile, in a letter to Eng-

50 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

land "out of Moscow," in 1568, writes the follow-
ing doggerel concerning the traveler in Russia : —

"He is wont to have a beares skin for his bed,
And must instead of pillow clap his saddle to his head ;
In Russie other shift there is not to be had,
For where the bedding is not good, the boalsters are too bad."

The rhymester then attempts an explanation :

" I mused very much what made them so to lie,
Unless it be because the country is so hard :
They feare by likeness of a bed theyr bodj^es would be mar'd."

Pride in the house for its own sake is a sen-
timent almost unknown. This is why, as a
rule, Russians are so careless about their domi-
ciles, and why the domiciles so often wear a neg-
lected look to the foreigner fresh from the west.
It seems so uncommon a thing in Russia for a
man to possess his own house that the language
has a special phrase to express domiciliary own-
ership.1 Russian servants and waiters invariably
enter rooms without knocking, as if intention-
ally ignoring such obstacles to movement as
doors.

The house of the noble, the country house of
the landed proprietor, is not always a genuine
Slav domicile. Not a few of its features have
been borrowed from western Europe. The real
Russian house must be sought far off from the
sound of the French and German language —
that is to say, amongst the peasantry. The

1 " Sobstvenny dom." Literally, "one's own house."

APOLISM. 51

domiciles of the poorer belonging to this class
are little more than so many single rooms. I
remember, traveling through the government
of Samara, having to pass a night in a house
that at first seemed of unusually large propor-
tions, but which, on my entering, at once as-
sumed the ordinary aspect of the Russian izba.
The apartment, swelled in my imagination to
an extra room, turned out to be quite empty ;
the room constituting the house had for furni-
ture a huge stove, a dozen or more broad
shelves nailed up, one over the other, to form
the bed accommodation of the household, sev-
eral rudely fashioned chairs, a table, a low
wooden settle, and the icon frame in an angle
of the apartment. This was the dwelling-place
of three brothers, two of whom had wives and
children.

To apolism, then, as I have endeavored to
sketch this remarkable phenomenon, Russia
owes not a few of the influences by which its
civilization has been moulded. Much in the
Russian character arises from the lack of those
urban associations and activities felt and seen
in the older states of western Europe. Pride
in a profession or trade for its own sake, — the
result of that minute division of labor brought
about by high urban development, — does not
appear to exist in Russia. In its place one no-

52 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

tices a quite realistic readiness to change one
vocation for another, side by side with remark-
able aptitude for acquiring specialistic skill and
many-sidedness in necessary adaptations to new
sets of circumstances. Scientific pursuits of a
recreative character are rarely indulged in by
private persons ; people with " hobbies " may
be said not to exist at all. Nor is there much
room in the native heart for the sentiment of
place. The Russian is attached to his family
and to his friends ; wherever they are, there
also are his affections. But in the house, the
town, or the government in which he may
happen to reside, his interest is conspicuously
small. His domicile may be burned down in
the course of the year ; his town, — and all
Russian towns are alike in this respect, — lacks
everything needed to make a centre of popula-
tion attractive ; while migrant habits have given
to the mere district a conception as generically
wide as that of the province itself. Between
the ardent patriotism of the Russian and the
not less warm personal affections of his home
life stretches an immense plain of colorless in-
difference.

The political consequences of apolism have,
on the other hand, been grave and far-reaching.
Nor will this seem strange, when it is remem-
bered at what critical periods the interests of

APOLISM. 53

urban development have stood in direct antag-
onism to the arrangements of absplute power.
In quite early times the country sacrificed its
free republics and municipal institution to the
peculiarities of administrative centralization ; at
later epochs one finds well-meaning and enthu-
siastic, but unpractical, reformers, conspiring
against city growth by their very efforts to se-
cure its promotion. Fiscal and administrative
necessities taught the wisdom of attempts at
improvement, V' the imitators of the urban
institutions of the wesf. ignored the very first
conditions of successful tinkering with the
autonomous organization of the old Slav com-
mune. It was comparatively easy to import
forms of urban government from the west. To
erect a structure, or series of structures, that
should strike by the novelty of their outlines
and the complexity of their architecture was no
insuperable task. But to give stability and
permanence to those structures was impossible,
simply because they lacked the needed founda-
tion in the life, habits, and traditions of the
people. l

!The latest experiment in municipal organization, that of 1870,
is still on its trial. The journal Dyelo pointed out in the month of
September, 1883, that only 17,751 persons, out of a population of
860,000, elect the 252 deputies for the municipal council (duma)
of the Russian capital. " We thus see," it proceeds, " St. Peters-
burg's population reduced to a mere handful, and nearly a million
people governed by a body that could easily be lodged in a sin-
gle elage of one of our grand hotels."

54 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

The gate of the Slav city, with its rude
masonry and gaudy paint, appeared only at
Moscow, but it was everywhere symbolized by
the yoke under which the Russians passed to
the dregs of their humiliation. The despair of
political subjection menaced them from every
portal, and was the promise of their destiny
in every land. In the west and south they
pledged their allegiance to alien kings. In
the east, we see their individual liberties, their
local autonomies and republican federations,
overridden and trampled under foot by the lust
for centralization and absolute power. Prowess,
courage, endurance — all the qualities neces-
sary to the successful pursuit of war, — these
the Slav never lacked. Russian epic literature is
one continuous story of campaign and conquest,
of military heroes and their martial exploits.
From the time of their first attack on Constanti-
nople down to the fall of Geok Tepe\ or the
acquisition of Merv, the Russians have never
been known to show deficiency in boldness or
enterprise. Slav towns were the real sources
of their political weakness. * Western life,
at a very early period, brought into existence
a class of sturdy burghers, jealous watchers
of the encroachments of sovereignty, and ready
on the smallest provocation to sally forth in
assertion of the rights of citizenship. Such were

APOLISM. 55

the burghers of many of the English towns ;
such were the burghers of Antwerp ; such, in-
deed, were the citizens of all European towns
that had the power of free growth, and were
not cramped in their activities. It is true that
at times this burgher spirit could be humili-
ated ; at times it was even temporarily crushed,
but it never died out of the hearts of the
urban populations. And it was this spirit, —
not to mention the commoner English examples
of its influence, — that in the Middle Ages
brought the free Italian cities into existence,
and forced from Barbarossa the famous conces-
sion of urban rights and privileges. It was
this spirit that animated the successful clamor
of the French towns in the days of Louis le
Gros. It was this spirit, in fine, that scattered
city charters all over western Europe, that al-
most everywhere, winning urban privilege here,
aiding municipal development there, materi-
ally helped to humanize the relations between
the governing and the governed classes. But
Russian towns, once they became entangled in
the web of which the woof was of Byzantium
and the warp from Asia, had neither free cities,
urban privileges, nor charters, f From about the
middle of the thirteenth century, they existed
merely as taxable communities, without other
significance than that which the fiscal necessi-

56 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

ties of the country dictated.1 In Russia, under
such circumstances as these, there could be no
municipal institutions resembling those of west-
ern Europe. The burgher spirit was entirely-
wanting, and remains defective to this day.

The distance between the towns had its par-
allel in the distance between the people ; the
straggling, imperfect character of the former,
the migrant habits of the latter, rendered all
effective solidarity for the purposes of political
combination highly difficult, if not impossible.
In a Slav, and not a Roman sense, the Russians
were doomed to be divided and governed. In
the towns they suffered municipal annihilation,
yet had to bear the burden of fiscal tyranny ;
in the country at large, they underwent en-
slavement, ostensibly as cultivators of the glebe,
but really as convenient instruments of taxa-
tion. And in the one case, as in the other,
the very conditions of their bondage were des-
tined to continually renew in them their old
passion for liberty, — for individual rights, for
freedom of movement, and for a popular auton-
omous form of government.

1 See writings of Dityatin on urban administration in Russia.

ENVIRONMENT.

In its climactic life Russia presents as special-
ized a series of phenomena as it is perhaps
possible to imagine. The severity of its ex-
tremes of heat and cold, the dryness of its
atmosphere, the facilities which its contour
gives for the diffusion of climactic changes, the
freedom of its weather from marine modifica-
tion, — all these isolate it from the cou* ' i#es of
western Europe as completely as it is separated
from them by the conditions of its national
growth. Its seasons present the sharpest con-
trasts. To its brief summer of almost ^ropical
heat is opposed a win*-- . of extrao^aary rigor,
wherein the country loses its rivers and much
of its seaboard for six months out of every
twelve. Between the greatest heat and the
greatest cold of a single year in European
Russia, it is no uncommon thing to experience
a difference of seventy degrees centigrade. To
a "longest day" of nearly nineteen hours in
the capital is opposed in winter a day in which
the sun is scarcely six hours above the horizon.

58 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

Climactic changes, moreover, occur with
characteristic abruptness. The summer ebbs
out with a movement rapid as that of the re-
treating tide along a level shore, and almost ere
one has time to say it freezes, the whole country-
is ice-bound. A few days is a time sufficiently
long to complete even the most startling of
these changes. One week rivers like the Neva
and Volga may be alive with craft, the one gay
with pleasure boats, the other full of freight-
bearing barges; the next week they may be
seen completely frozen over. This stagnation
of rivers in Russia is all the more striking be-
cause of the impressiveness of its appeal to the
imagination. Slav mythology, I think, fitly in-
cludes winter and death in the same personifi-
cation ; for Marana, the goddess of both, pre-
sides over phenomena so suggestive of ordinary
mortality that, with the dying of the rivers, it is
impossible not to associate the dying of animals
and of men. The sudden stagnation of a liv-
ing, flowing mass ; the aspect of immense con-
gealed blocks piled one upon another, or of
irregular masses protruding from the surface,
suggesting forces that once had free play, but
have all at once been stricken with paralysis ;
the abnormal silence of one's progress over the
snow-clad ice ; the gloom of the brief day or
the long glimmer of the moonless night, —

ENVIRONMENT. 59

these not only convey to the mind a sense of
desolation and death, but color it with a feeling
of almost personal bereavement. In the Rus-
sian, at any rate, these climactic changes find
a complete physiological response. His moods
are no more equable than those of the weather.
They often present a series of the most startling
contrasts. The Russian individuality, like the
Russian climate, has its winters of gloomy mel-
ancholy and pessimism, its springs of sudden
hope, its summers of hot feeling and passion.

And if winter is nowhere so desolate and
woe-begone in its aspects as in Russia, nowhere
else, I think, is the idea of resurrection so com-
pletely realized, not only in the suddenness of
the uprising, but in the effects produced by the
returning warmth. On the darkest, longest
night of winter, when to the experience of only
a single season everything would seem hope-
lessly involved in the grasp of cold and dark-
ness, there is still left a sign of life. A low
note reaches the ear listening attentively near
the edge of the frozen stream. This is the
swash of underflowing currents ; or rather, can
we not say, the musical resurgam-chant of some
watery Enceladus that, whatever may happen in
Egypt or in Mexico, must inevitably awake at
the spring? And so nowhere as in Russia is
there the same inner sustenance in times of

60 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

adversity, the same eagerness for renaissance,
for re-birth, the same patient confidence in a
something better, a something warmer and
brighter, destined to arise out of the darkest
and most desolate winters of the individual and
the national life. How far in other countries
the belief in a future existence may have been
promoted by these renewals of nature cannot,
perhaps, be known; but in Russia there are
many evidences of the influence and of the
strength of its appeal to the imagination.
Without embodying any distinct conception of
a future life, the old Slav faith regarded the
souls of the dead as co-participants with the
living in the vicissitudes of the seasons. For
the departed, winter was considered a time of
night ; but as soon as spring returned, the soul
rose to new life and enjoyment. The dead
ascended from their graves at the first prazdnik,
or fete day, of the newly-born sun ; and to this
hour there is a festival, coincident with that
just named in point of time, which the litur-
gical language of the Greek Church associates
with the stranstvovaniya dukhov, or " journey-
ing of souls." The russalki, or so-called water-
nymphs of Slav mythology, — those enchanting
figures that still haunt the realm of poesy and
picture in Russia, — are known to be nothing
more, in a philological sense, than the spirits of

ENVIRONMENT. 61

human beings that have arisen from the grave
to enjoy the re-birth at nature's annual renais-
sance. l Associating them with rivers in the
conception of a common re-awakening, Slav
mythology seems to have put forth its happiest
effort of imagination.

Sun worship, too, lingers amongst the Rus-
sians in interesting ways. Even after Christi-
anity had fairly established itself in the land,
the solar myths of the old Slav nature-worship
continued to retain their hold upon the popular
mind. The same Vladimir who caused the
Pagan thunder god to be flogged and thrown
into the Dnieper came to rank amongst the
people as a sort of solar divinity. At this day
the Russian woman can say to her lover no
words more tender, more natural, or more full
of worship and admiration, than those in which
she calls him her hrdsnoye sdlnyshko, her
"beautiful sun." It was, of course, inevitable
that especial attention should be paid to solar
functions in a country like Russia. The long
rigorous winter, the sudden metamorphosis of
spring, give an immense significance to the pe-
riods of increasing warmth. Solar beneficence
is often acknowledged in Russian poetry. At
times one finds the acknowledgment in the form

1 See Soloviev's Istoriya Rossii s drevnyeishnikh Vremen.

62 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

of personification and apostrophe. Some lines
relating to events of the seventeenth century
run, "Rise, O red sun, and give us warmth!
We are no robbers ; we are the soldiers of
St^nka R&zin." Whoever has been abroad in
the Russian plain in the depth of winter, ex-
posed to an atmosphere thirty1 degrees below
freezing point, — an atmosphere which seems to
penetrate through the thickest wrappings, and
turns water to ice ere it can be thrown to the
ground, — will not wonder at the readiness
with which the Russians see in the sun all that
is glorious, life-sustaining, and bountiful. To
the Slav winter is a despotism, and he witnesses
its overthrow with a joy scarcely less great than
that of a people welcoming the dawn of their
freedom. Such, at any rate, is the testimony of
church festival and folklore, of tradition and
song.

The forest growths of Russia, at one time
overrunning almost all the central and northern
territories, must have contributed powerfully to
the polytheistic faiths of the early Slavs. The
rushing of the wind amongst the trees, the play
of sunlight on trembling leaves, the swaying
and groaning of great trunks, the storm burst-
ing over them with its lightning flash, — every
mood of the forest, from its softest whisper

1 Reaumur.

ENVIRONMENT. 63

to its loudest roar, its thousand variations of
light and -shade, silence and sound, — all these
taught the omnipresence of deity,1 and im-
planted it so deeply in the Slav nature that the
Russians believe in their forest spirits to this
day. True it is that the colonization of the
country, involving the disappearance of an im-
mense number of trees, could not fail to favor
the monotheistic views of the Christian relig-
ion; yet the homeless genii of the woods, de-
prived of their natural habitat, continued to
live on in the imagination that gave them birth.
By atmospheric conditions alone the Russians
were marked out for tendencies towards the
superstitious in religion. Subject to a conti-
nental climate, living in a state of peculiar
nearness to natural forces, they were highly
sensitive to phenomena not visibly the result
of human agency. These atmospheric condi-
tions of Russian development were, in fact,
analogous in several respects to those which,
in quite modern times, have favored curious
superstitions of mountainous territories, to be
found, for example, in Switzerland, the High-
lands of Scotland, and the hills of Derbyshire.

1 The power of forests to suggest the supernatural seems proof
against all processes of civilization. Mr. Emerson mentions the
case of a lady for whom forests always appeared to wait, — that
is to say, to suspend a certain mysterious life until after the pas-
sage of the intruder.

64 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

Even in New England, with its severe and
variable climate, religion has a highly spiritual
character, a strong super-sensual element, be-
traying the influence of conditions that do not
exist, or that exist to a much less degree, in the
mother country. In another way, too, does hill
life help the conservation of superstitious ter-
rors. It separates people instead of bringing
them together. It weakens a community's
sense of numbers, its feeling of nearness, its
consciousness of solidarity and strength. This
is, no doubt, why civilization made so much and
such rapid progress in Europe, which of all the
quarters of the world has the lowest mean alti-
tude. It is true that Russia had no mountains,
but her people were separated very effectively
by geographical, ethnic and political causes.
And Russian civilization came so late that be-
fore the eighteenth century the country had no
literature at all worthy of the name.1

The political effects of climate upon Russian
development must have been considerable. In
some quarters it has been suggested that ex-
treme cold prepared the Slavs for the Mongol
yoke and the autocracy which came after it.2
It is just as probable that extreme heat, by
making people indolent, directly favors abso-

1 Russia's first poet was Lomonosov, born 1711 ; died 1760.

2 M. A. Leroy Beaulieu.

ENVIRONMENT. 65

lute government and the usurpation of power,
— a relation of cause to effect often illustrated
in the history of eastern and southern peoples.
If climate be recognized as one of the factors
of national growth, it will be found that far
more people have been enslaved or deprived of
their liberties through the influence of extreme
heat than owing to that of excessive cold. A
moderate degree of cold has always been favor-
able rather than injurious to civilization. It
braces the physical system, and permits a high
degree of mental activity. I must, therefore,
describe the Russian winter as having been the
enemy rather than the friend of Mongolism in
all its forms. Cold has a special as well as
a general way of aiding a nation's intellectual
growth ; it induces reflective habits ; it favors
the tendency of a monotonous landscape to
throw the mind back upon itself. Under the
influence of cold, faculties deprived of exterior
sources of interest, unable to assimilate and
convert into ideas impressions not satisfactory
to the mind, all the more eagerly seek inte-
rior or reflective occupation. Hence, the Rus-
sian intellect is subjective rather than objective,
reflective rather than observational, analytic
rather than descriptive. While they have done
much as a race for science, I have not been able
to find Russians remarkable for proficiency in

66 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

anything that exacts highly-developed descrip-
tive powers, or close attention to the minute
in nature. A west European novelist having
domiciliary business with one of his characters
will often describe a whole house, from ground
floor to ceiling, not omitting the minutest or
the most multipedalian detail. Russian writers
may picture, but they rarely describe. Pisem-
sky wrote whole novels without a line of de-
scription. Even in the descriptions of Gogol,
who wrote in Great Russian, but was a Little
Russian at heart, a strong subjective element
may be detected. Some of the most striking
of Turgeniev's books contain very few descrip-
tive passages. The descriptions of recent " peas-
ant literature " in Russia are the result of bor-
rowed habit, or of the ethical purposes of certain
modern schools. Among Russian translators
it is very common to shorten or wholly omit
descriptive passages from west European nov-
els. During the recent war between Russia
and Turkey quite a sensation was created in
the former country by the publication of long
descriptive reports translated from the London
44 Daily News."

The Russians excel, on the other hand, in
everything that exacts wide views, broad gener-
alizations. Their talent for philosophical spec-
ulation is, considering all the circumstances

ENVIRONMENT. 67

of the case, remarkably large. It seems to
manifest itself in every department of intel-
lectual activity. Russian poetry revealed the
reflective tendency in the earliest youth of Rus-
sian literature. Lomonosov, whom Aksakov,
the Slavophil writer and critic, describes as
'4 the one true source of all the Russians have
accomplished, are accomplishing, or shall ac-
complish in the field of literary activity," was
as much philosopher as poet.. It was he who
delivered a celebrated discourse on the origin
of light, and out of such material as " the uses
of glass " produced the first, and, as is frequently
alleged, the best, didactic poem in the Russian
language. It was Lomonosov who, long before
the breaking out of the Kulturhampf between
science and theology in Western Europe, pro-
claimed that " science and faith are sisters, the
offspring of one mighty parent ; nor can there
ever arise real dissension between the two." It
was Lomonosov who said that " the man who
thinks he can learn astronomy or chemistry from
his psalter is no more a true theologian than he
is a true philosopher who imagines that with a
mathematical line he can measure the divine
will." Russian art, too, is a Janus with two
faces, one of them imitative in its aspirations,
the other " sicklied o'er with the pale cast of
thought." Russian pictures have a peculiar sug-

68 THE RUSSIAN REVOLl/

gestiveness apart from the fidelity of their rep-
resentations. This tendency seems to reach
its fullest and most successful expression in
Vereshchagin, whose paintings are genuine phi-
losophies, whose appeal is to the reflective, and
through them to the emotional faculties.1 States-
manship, diplomacy, and officialism also have
their reflective side in Russia. Exceedingly
abstract philosophical propositions occasionally
find their way into state papers and public re-
ports. In the schools and educational establish-
ments — not only in professors' lectures, but in
the essays of pupils — the same tendency is dis-
played of the Russian mind to occupy itself
more with categories than with single facts,
more with generalizations than with details,
more with principles than with things.2

Thus far I have spoken only of climactic en-
vironment. There still remain for considera-
tion the material surroundings of Russian life
— the character of its objective world as cog-
nized, to use a philosophical expression, through
the organs of vision. The monotonousness of

1 I refer mainly, of course, to Vereshchagin' s celebrated illus-
trations of the Russo-Turkish War, such as Our Wounded, After
the Attack, Prisoners, All Well in the Shipka Pass, etc.

2 I remember once applying to a Russian library official for the
"main facts in the life and literary activity of Pissarev." The re-
sult was a manuscript discussing the "significance ** of Pissarev as
the founder of the "art school," and his relation to Bielinsky,
founder of the "aesthetic school."

ENVIRONMENT. 69

the Russian landscape is well known. It is
true that, traveling in bright weather through
some parts of the country, one has glimpses of
villages with their gold-capped churches, or of
water-courses glittering in the sunlight, or of the
flash of scythes in distant harvest fields. Mo-
ments like these are like the rare smile of the
sickly invalid rather than the perpetual cheer-
fulness of robust health. There is no real pic-
turesqueness in Russian scenery. Even the
waving steppes, luxuriant of life as they are and
full of flowers, have something mournful and
pathetic about them that may be felt, but can
never be adequately expressed. Russians love
the scenery of their native land with the same
kind of affection as that which parents lavish
upon a consumptive child ; and if these fertile
steppes seem to show more color than may be
found in other parts of Russia, it is only because
they are for moments aglow with the hectic
flush, the fever light of the Russian life and
environment. Much darker is the picture pre-
sented by the woodlands ; these combine the
wild disorder and luxuriance of Russian vegeta-
tion in all its arboreal forms. Immense tracts
of mere brushwood sometimes stretch to the
horizon, or the prospect is darkened by sweeps
of moorland equally vast, without shrub, or bush,
or tree. Elsewhere, broad, ochre- tinted patches

70 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

mark where the communal land is under culti-
vation. But the long, wide plains of a mourn-
ful, deadened green exert a depressing influence
upon the mind, and the eye wanders willingly
for relief to the far-off march of some forest
tract closing in the monotony with a band of
sombre brown.

Portions of European Russia are wild and
desolate in the extreme. Along the lower
Volga one may journey for fifteen miles with-
out seeing a single habitation. The " stations "
are merely oases of wood lost in vast stretches
of steppeland void of vegetation. On each side
the country extends bare and level as far as the
horizon, and if snow enters the prospect, as it
did for me, the dull, blinding monotony of the
spectacle becomes almost unbearable.

The same beggarliness and impoverishment
characterize the exterior aspects of village life
in the provinces. The impression they make
is well suggested by Pushkin's satirical picture :

" Admire the view before us — that wretched row of huts ;
Behind them a long and leyel descent of black land,
Above them a thick bank of grayish clouds.
Where are the gay fields ? Where the shady woods ?
Where the river ? In the yard there, near the fence,
Shoot up two miserable trees to glad the eye —
Just two aud no more; and of them one has been
Shorn by autumn rains of every beauty;
While the sparse leaves on the other are withered and yellow,
Awaiting the first breeze to fall and putrefy
The sluggish pond below."

ENVIRONMENT. 71

And if Russian out-door life in the country has
no hedge-rows or flower gardens to make it at-
tractive, the Russian town is equally deficient
in picturesqueness. If, on the one hand, there
are no ivy-clad ruins to meet the eye with their
pleasant suggestions, there is, on the other, a
marked absence of beauty in all the forms of
architectural design. If it were to be suddenly
discovered that the cathedral at Cologne were
a mere piece of elaborate wood-carving, the
impression that splendid structure now makes
upon admirers would be felt no more ; and so
the most fancifully shaped domicile of urban
Russia is at best but a structure of wood. Most
of these houses are rude rather than ornamental
in their outlines ; to the eye of the traveler
they are a source of continual weariness. Dirty
streets, carts mud-colored as the domiciles them-
selves, the soiled and torn habits of migrant or
beggar peasants, the continual cloud of dust
raised in warm weather by the wind, — all these
intensify the depressing influences of the Rus-
sian environment, giving it a sameness that
seems to pervade everything, animate and in-
animate.

The exceptions do little more than prove the
rule. I am bound to admit that from the high
tower of Ivan Veliky, right in the thick of the
churches and palaces of the Kreml, the view to

72 Ti7£ RUSSIAN REVOLT.

be had of Moscow is striking. The eye rests,
or rather wanders, over a vast panorama of
house-tops painted red and green ; here and
there dazzling gilded cupolas shine in the sun.
But this kind of picturesqueness is rather the
rash extreme of tastes fed perpetually on the
monotonous than the calmly studied ► contri-
vance of a people born into an environment of
cheerful coloring and contour. Taking this
view of the matter one may see in the (Russian
peasant's liking for a red shirt the same search
for contrast as that which, in the villages, some-
times leads a man to paint his house in glaring
colors, or in the cities impels him to provide
his shop with a ludicrously gaudy signboard.1

Pretty women, travelers often say, are scarce
in Russia. This is only another way of stating
the extent to which Russian women have suf-
fered from the imbruting labor of the fields,
from- the long confinement of the terem, from
the domestic slavery of the wife, from the late
and only partial advent of modern comforts,
luxuries, and refinements to the Russian home ;
yet environment has also, done its part in help-
ing to make femm.-o beauty somewhat scarce
in Russia. For 'centuries . the - i-ace has been
looking out over wide, formless plains. Nature*
gave it no ideals of beauty, nor, until a period

1 A common habit in St. Petersburg.

^ OF THE

UNIVERSITY

ENVIRONMENT. 73

comparatively recent, did art. Its efforts at
ornamentation long linked it with the' gaudy-
exaggerations of barbarism. And to this day
its church pictures and icons* are mere repre-
sentations of sallow-faced, melancholy-visaged-
saints wasted by persistent mortification of the
flesh. . . \,'

I speak thus with reference to the people ;m
a§ a whole. Peasants are peasant-like ,; and in" \
ap -empire o£ them it would.be too much to
look for a beauty at every turn. Of the men I -
can only say that in countenance and physique
their superiority over the English and west Eu-
ropean Hodge is indisputable. Some of these.;
inland Slavs, with their regular features and
flowing beards, would tempt many a painter in
Paris or Rome from his artisan model. When
traveling through the Tambov government I
saw many really beautiful " Christ heads "
amongst the peasants. The Russian; country >
woman,' on the other hand, is generally ", plain "
of feature, yet not nearly so wanting in interest
as it has been the habit of foreign prejudice to
represent. Blooming cheeks are impossible in
a dry atmosphere like that of Russia. En re- '
vanehe, the Slav woman displays two rows of
white teeth that would almost make a west
European rival die of jealousy. She is not,
cramped fcy her dress, and has a natural' dignity

74 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

and grace of , movement that might be envied,
yet not easily imitated elsewhere. Nekrassov
■writes : —

"In many a Russian village we may find such women,
With quiet earnestness of face,
With the grace of strength in every movement
As they go by with regal gait and queenly mien.".

Amongst *theVeciutfate4 classes of the towns,
moreover, \the Russian: woman' is not less fre-
quently pretty and much oftener attractive, than
is the woman of the west. * •

But there was another tendency, to the form-
ing of which environment must have made large
contributions. Missing color, variety, perfection
of form, beauty of feature, in his own surround-
ings, the Russian all the more readily went
elsewhere in search of the picturesque. The
very custom of living in houses seems to have
been suggested to the Slavs by the experiences
and sight-seeing of their travelers in foreign
countries. And when the habit of going abroad
became established amongst certain classes of
the people, traveled Russia would not fail to
grow somewhat tired of its environment, or at
least desirous of importing into its surroundings
— intellectual as well as material — certain in-
fluences of modification. But as only a favored
few could go abroad, this tendency would take a
passive form amongst the masses, and hence

ENVIRONMENT. 75

would develop itself that taste ioi the foreign
which found its fullest expression in Peter and
is at this day one of the most striking of all the
characteristics of the Russian Slavs. Only when
it threatened political injury or social grievance
did the outlandish fall into disrepute ; for the
people came at last to draw a marked distinction
between acts of predilection like -that which im-
ported autocracy from Byzantium and those
that merely gave ah Italian architect to the Vas-
sily-Blagennoy Church, or filled the courts of
Tsars and Tsarftsas-with adventurers of Dutch,
German, and French nationality.

OLD RUSSIAN LIFE.

Having thus glanced at the more important
of the permanent influences that have directed
the course of Russian development, — notably
those of habit and environment, — we may
now consider the political and religious causes
which at a very early period completely re-
shaped the destinies of the Russian people. Of
all the influences that helped to mould the na-
tional development, by far the most significant
and far-reaching in their consequences were the
changes by which, on the one hand, Russia ac-
cepted the religion of the Greek Church and
on the other bowed her neck to Mongol rule
during nearly two centuries of enslavement and
humiliation. What the nation lost and what it
gained from these foreign systems of worship
and politics will be best seen by comparing the
early Russia of pagan faith with the middle
Russia, upon which the Tatar oppressors, at
last ejected from Slav soil, had left the indelible
marks of their influence. And here the ques-
tion to be answered is not so much whether

OLD RUSSIAN LIFE. 77

the changes wrought were politically expedient
or even inevitable, or on the whole a good com-
promise between the evils and advantages pre-
sent alike in two systems, but whether they
were calculated to suit the habits and traditions
of the people, whether they caused inroads into
customs and liberties deep-rooted in the national
genius ; whether they made life freer, happier,
and more comfortable for the Russian Slav, or
whether they were destined to plant in the
racial and individual consciousness the seeds of
an eternal discontent. For the purposes of such
an inquiry I propose to divide Russian history
into three great natural periods. The first of
them terminates with the forcible conversion of
the Russians to the Greek faith (972-1015) ;
the second includes the whole formative period
of Byzantine and Tatar influence up to the
beginning of Peter's reign ; in the third may be
included Russian development from the early
years of the eighteenth century down to our own
times. We shall thus see the purely Slav pe-
riod of Russian history, the national life as it
was moulded by Greek and Mongol influences,
and the Russia of modern times, Europeanized
in detail, yet left as Asian in structure as when
it fell to the grand princes of Moscow from the
hands of the Mongol Khans.

In the domain of religion the early Russians

78 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

must have suffered all the disadvantages which,
in modern times, are associated with a " pagan "
faith. Without any system of rewards and pun-
ishments, no prospect of comfort in the next
world tempted them to well-doing in this. But
there was one idea which lay deep in the imagi-
nation of the Slav, and which is still there at
this day despite all the efforts of Christianity to
uproot it. The early Russians, in place of the
modern conception of a future life, not only be-
lieved in the continued existence of the souls of
men after death, but held it possible to have in-
tercourse with them. To the existence of this
faith the old songs and burial lamentations of
the north of Russia bear abundant testimony.
" The bright red sun," 1 runs one of them, "has
hidden itself behind high mountains and wintry
clouds ; it leaves me, poor wretch that I am,
alone with my children." But after the death
of a husband, it was the custom for the widow
to throw herself upon his grave.2 There, mourn-
ing, she confesses she has forgotten to ask where
she must await her spouse. If he will return
to her, let him say whether he will come at mid-
night, in the clear moonlight, or at noon when
the sun is shining, or in the early morning, or
late at night. If he will come at night she will

1 That is, the departed, the deceased.

2 See Prichitanya Syevernavo Kraya, by E. B. Barsovym.
Moscow, 1872.

OLD RUSSIAN LIFE. 79

have everything ready for his visit ; she will
put her children to sleep and will sit beside the
window waiting for him. " Whether thou com-
est as a gray hare out of the bush or as an erme-
lin from behind the stone, I shall not be afraid.
I shall receive thee. Come in the old way, as
was thy wont. Be here again the father of the
household and the chief." Sometimes a small
house was built over the grave in the belief
that the deceased would return and inhabit it.
At the dinner following the interment a vacant
chair was left for the departed, and on the table
before it the guests spilled food. Even after
the introduction of the Christian worship it
was long a habit for the relatives to invite the
priest to the house on the fortieth day after the
burial, it being supposed that the dead member
of the family would accompany him. Occa-
sionally the priest was induced to pass a night
in the domicile ; in which case there was added
to the furniture of his sleeping room a spare
bed, wherein, it was believed, the deceased
would also spend several hours in slumber. The
old Russians had a habit of visiting their dead
in the churchyard, whence the word for burial
ground, pogosta, derived from gost, or guest,
host. Even at the present day, on the occasion
of certain festivals, crowds flock to churchyards
and cemeteries, carrying with them drinks and

80 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

food of various kinds, to be eaten from the
gravestones, which are used as tables. Feasting
in this way, the people believe that they are
brought into close communion with the dead.
Hence, on the whole, paganism was not with-
out a certain consolation. But the great merit
of the old Slav faith in the eyes of Russians was
of a negative rather than of a positive character.
It brought no narrow asceticism or ecclesiasti-
cal prohibition to cramp the heart and chill
the soul, to brand with criminality the most
harmless pleasures, and in a panic fear, born
of dogma and narrowness, to make delight in
existence for its own sake seem a crime rather
than a blessing. Nor did it aid in ruining the
free republics, in destroying the liberties of the
people, in weakening the sense of individual
freedom, in promoting the aims of autocratic
power.

The manners of the early Russians have not
always been depicted in the most favorable
light. Yet it is noteworthy that disparaging
accounts of them had their origin in a source
not unlikely to be influenced by prejudice. The
monk Nestor wrote as a zealous Christian would
naturally write of pagans. His testimony lacks
corroboration in some essential particulars ; even
if accepted implicitly it does not show that the
Russians were in a condition at all worse than

OLD RUSSIAN LIFE. 81

that of other tribes and races from whose hori-
zon the glimmerings of civilization were yet far
off. Yet even Nestor makes an exception in
favor of the Polyans,1 while amongst the Slav-
yans 1 customs prevailed which distance, in their
generosity and philanthropic feeling, the most
altruistic inspirations of the Christian faith.
To these untutored children of the plain and
the forest the traveler or wanderer was a being
of peculiar sanctity — a holy man ^worthy to be
worshiped. They received him with caresses,
and took pride in lodging him and supplying
his needs with the best of that which they had.
Neglect to protect him from evil and misfortune
of all kinds was regarded as a breach of the
rude social order that prevailed in those early
times ; so important, in fact, was this duty of
hospitality that, to discharge it, even theft was
considered lawful. That is to say, if a man
had no means of entertaining a guest, he was
entitled to obtain them from his richer neighbor.
The Slavyan often left his door open, and food
spread ready in the domicile, in order that
the strannik, or traveler, might enter freely and
eat.2

Now, if it be true, as we are constantly told,
that altruism is but a higher form of egotism, it
is quite possible that some utilitarian motives

1 Tribes of the early Slavs. * See Karamzin.

6

82 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

lay at the bottom of these hospitable customs
of the early Slavs. A religious superstition —
some vaguely felt reflex of the old belief that
deities walked the earth at times in the garb of
beggars and of travelers — may have invested
the wanderer with that sanctity which the early
Russian attached to his person and condition.
Even so late as the beginning of the eighteenth
century we find a writer of didactic literature,
one Ivan Possoshkov, teaching that beggars are
the representatives of God, and that unless they
are treated well God will be angry.1 On the
'other hand, a traveler had seen much, and was
likely to bring with him a fund of interesting in-
formation concerning distant cities, or even for-
eign countries. The desire of being well spoken
of was also a possible motive for the kindly
treatment of strangers. In Vladimir's advice to
his sons, — a twelfth century document, — that
pence's children were charged to receive stran-
gers hospitably, " because," runs the text, " they
have it in their power to give you a good or a
bad reputation." Admitting the plausibleness
of all these considerations, there still remains
in the hospitality of the early Russians an altru-
istic, a philanthropic element that cannot be
explained by referring it to gross egotistical

1 Compare Nausicaa's saying in the Odyssey, "Strangers and
the poor are the messengers of the gods."

OLD RUSSIAN LIFE. 83

motives. This is shown in the characteristics
of the old racial virtue as it survives in Russia
to this day. No treatment of the modern
8trannik surpasses in kindliness and disinterest-
edness that which is lavished upon the traveler
constrained to throw himself upon the hospi-
tality of the eastern Slav. I have received at-
tentions from wandering Tatars, and have had
whole nights made comfortable for me by pas-
toral Calmucks, yet I have never fallen asleep
lulled into slumber by such a delicious sense of
the tender solicitude of strangers as when, be-
lated, I have had to seek temporary shelter in
the rude dwelling of a Russian peasant. Me-
thinks Dazh-bog, the sun-god, were he to wan-
der to-day into the hut of the muzhik, disguised
as a man, could meet there with no better
treatment than that which is ungrudgingly,
nay gladly, bestowed upon the genuine mortal.
Remember, moreover, that this hospitality is its
own reward. You pay the dispenser neither
in stories, nor in praise, nor in money. Hence
it may be pertinent to ask, with such a mere
survival before us, what must this Slav virtue
have been in the days of its strength ?

For characteristics and conceptions innate in
the national and individual consciousness of the
Russian Slav, we must look to the bwyliny, the
epic songs of the people, as they were chanted

84 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

before the coming of the Mongols. One of the
most striking of these productions personifies
the national character in its hero. Ilya Muro-
mets lives with his parents in the village of
Karachov. Lame in both hands and feet, he
sits behind the stove for thirty years. But one
day he is visited by Christ and two apostles,
disguised as travelers. These restore him to
health and confer upon him heroic qualities.
The bwylina recounts the story of his subse-
quent wandering and exploits. Ilya delights in
reflecting that he is no knight or prince, but
simply a peasant ; this character he persists in
maintaining to the end. Political or social am-
bition he has none. Ilya is a practical human-
itarian. When fallen upon by robbers, instead
of killing them, he splits an oak tree with a
shaft from his bow, compelling the admiration
of his assailants, who vainly endeavor to per-
suade him to become their chief. At the taking
of Chernigov he refuses to put the population
to the sword. When Vladimir, his prince, sends
a man to certain death in war, in order that,
like David, he may obtain possession of the be-
reaved widow, Ilya reproaches him for the cow-
ardly deed. A quarrel ensues, and the two are
long estranged. Yet the prince has need of
Ilya ; and when the hero's services are necessary
to save the nation, Ilya forgets all the insults

OLD RUSSIAN LIFE. 85

and ingratitude heaped upon him. Vladimir is
represented as calling upon him, with a sum-
mons in these words : " I beg thee to save the
land, not for my sake, not for my wife's sake,
not for the sake of the churches or the monas-
teries, but for the sake of the widows and the
little children/' At first there is a little re-
monstrance. The long pent-up indignation finds
an outlet in reproach : " Why hast thou so long
forbidden me the road to Kiev ? " The prince
repeats his entreaty ; gradually the hero's heart
is gained ; he forgets his wrongs, and sets out
to save the nation. It is characteristic of Ilya
that, for patriotic services of this kind, he de-
clines all reward, even refuses presents offered
to him by the prince. And Ilya's traits of pity,
gentleness, kindness, and mercy are not con-
fined to one bwylina alone, but find a certain
expression in nearly all the early epic songs.
Of delight in cruelty for cruelty's sake, there
are few traces ; when the Russian epic displays
deeds of bloodshed, it mentions them rather as
necessary than as capricious acts ; the general
•impression conveyed associates them with coarse
and rude manners rather than with malicious
bloodthirstiness. In one song it is said that no
one exceeds Vladimir in happiness, Ilya in giant
strength, Alesha in recklessness, Dobrynya in
wisdom, Potok in beauty, Dunai in eloquence,

THk

Duk in riches, or Kirilo in grace. There is no
glorification of cruelty here.1

The constituent molecule of all early Russian
life, social as well as political, was the freedom
of the individual, an intense consciousness of
personal worth, a racial tenaciousness of per-
sonal rights. Karamzin tells us that the Rus-
sian Slavs " tolerated neither rulers nor slaves,"
and believed in "a wild2 and boundless lib-
erty " as the chief good of humanity. Thus, in
the early Russian epos, we find expressed, as a
fundamental principle underlying all thought,
action, and relationship, the most complete free-
dom of the individual. Even when a certain
political organization became necessary, the
Slavs did not abate one jot of their personal
rights. In times of emergency, members of a
tribe consulted with each other on a footing of
the most perfect equality ; and if, at these con-
ferences, some were singled out for special def-
erence, the tribute was paid to age, to eloquence,
or to warlike qualities. The Slav family, of
which the father was the natural head, had
patriarchal customs and conceptions at its foun-

1 In the Ilya story, not having the original before me, I have
followed M. Viskovatov's account.

2 Karamzin, in a moral sketch, entitled Martha, or the Mayor's
Wife, endeavored to prove that "political order can only exist
where absolute power has been established." This throws not a
little light on Karamzin's prejudices as a historian.

OLD RUSSIAN LIFE. 87

dation. The mir, or commune, securing joint
possession of land to the whole people, was the
family on a large scale ; it had a council, or
veehe, in which each household was represented.
The volost was a union of communes, with a
governing body or council formed of the elders
of the rnirs. In times of danger it was cus-
tomary for the volosti of a tribe to appoint a
chief; but these functions of headship were
purely temporary. The people carefully guarded
against investing one of their number with
anything like permanent authority. Even when
merged in the larger organization of the volost
the commune retained all the liberties which
belonged to it. As in the earlier and ruder
conferences, the people continued to discuss
public affairs on an equal footing. They had
the same voice in dismissing as in appointing
their temporary chieftains. After a time a
custom arose of nominating a head from the
elders of the families of a tribe. But the first
real change in this highly popular and demo-
cratic form of government only took place when
the Slavs of the Ilmen called in the Varegs to
rule over them. Looking at the character of
these Scandinavian adventurers, — at their war-
like manners and capacity in military adminis-
tration, — one is prepared to see the democratic
government of the Slavs yield up its essential

X

88 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

features to the political dogmas of the new-
comers. Instead of mere elders, princes now
wielded the sovereignty of the people. Yet the
new system left Russian liberties untouched.
The people, as Karamzin says, continued to
maintain their communal institutions. The
veche remained to the inhabitants of the towns,
who assembled from time to time for the dis-
cussion of public affairs. The chiefs, or head-
men, civil and military, were elected, not by
the prince, but by the people, who chose and
dismissed their ruler as before, sometimes meet-
ing to punish him for his misconduct by a sen-
tence of banishment. 1 The Vareg prince, in
fact, took his place in the Russian political
system as an administrator, rather than as a
ruler ; as a public servant holding his position
by title of good behavior, rather than as a
master claiming it as an hereditary right that
could be maintained by force of arms.

Under the rule of princes, some of the Slav
towns attained to considerable political distinc-
tion as republics. Such were Novgorod,Viatka,
and Pskov. In each of these centres the rights
of the people were insisted upon and conserved
with great jealousy. Five times did the Nov-
gorodians change their rulers in the space of
seven years ; and, in order to set bounds to the

1 This happened at Pskov and Novgorod.

OLD RUSSIAN LIFE. 89

power of the prince and of his armed retainers,
known as the druzhina, the citizens compelled
their chief to promise, on oath, a strict observ-
ance of their privileges. The prince could not
become possessed of villages in the territory-
over which he ruled. In harvesting and hunt-
ing he had to submit to restrictions limiting
him to certain times of the year. Below the
prince was the possadnik, or mayor, whose ten-
ure of office seems to have been no more certain
than that of his superior. The real rulers were
the people ; for, before the prince could take
important action, he had to obtain their consent
in veehe assembled. In addition to Viatka and
Pskov, towns like Polotsk, Smolensk, and Ros-
tov had popular councils of this kind. The
smaller villages and settlements submitted to
the guidance of the town populations. Novgo-
rod, moreover, enjoyed a spiritual, as well as a
political independence. After the introduction
of Christianit}'-, the vechS of the republic ap-
pointed its own archbishop. Such, in fact,
was the democratic and uncompromising spirit
of these free communities that later, in face
of the Tatar domination, the people rose in
rebellion against Mongol tax collectors, or mur-
dered their possad?iik for daring to suggest the
wisdom of a compromise with the foe.

Of early Russian legislation little is known.

90 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

The unwritten code in use prior to the coming
of the Varegs must have been of a rude and
ready kind, in harmony with the crudity of
early Russian civilization. But of its embodi-
ment of principles afterwards formally ex-
pressed in historical documents, there can be
no doubt whatever. The Russians never wholly
surrendered themselves to the foreign influences
they were from time to time compelled to in-
voke. If they accepted the rule of Scandina-
vian princes, they preserved intact, as long as
moral resistance and armed protest were of
avail, all their individual and communal lib-
erties. The Slav mir has maintained itself
through all the vicissitudes of Russian history
to this day. The Russian spirit has survived
in every mingling of native with Asiatic races.
Hence we are justified in assuming that the
first Russian code of laws, — the Russkaya
Pravda} — though drawn up under Scandi-
navian influence, preserved the spirit of Russian
law as it existed prior to the coming of the
Varegs in the ninth century. In the character
of the code itself, this assumption meets with
the strongest support. Its ruling trait is hu-
manitarianism, — the humanitarianism of Ilya,
of the Slav epic, of the Russian nature uncor-
rupted by the dangers and temptations of

1 Reign of Yaroslav (1016-1054).

OLD RUSSIAN LIFE. 91

power. Of criminal law, as it is understood in
modern times, the code contains scarcely a trace.
Public prisons were unknown. No legal sanc-
tion was given to corporal punishment, nor
were tortures practiced to induce confessions,
or debtors beaten because of their poverty. It
was the signal glory of Russia in her rudest
days that she refused to subscribe to the bar-
barous doctrine that the taking of one life
necessarily demands the extinction of another, *
and was equally remiss in carrying to its logical
conclusion the not less barbarous practice of
making collective murder a glorious virtue and
private murder an offense worthy of the deepest
execration.

In this first period of their history the Rus-
sians thus enjoyed what, in a political sense, we
are fairly entitled to regard as the golden age
of their national existence. As free individuals
they ruled themselves. Not only had each citi-
zen or each agriculturist a voice in the manage-
ment of public affairs : his influence was as
direct as his resolve was final. No complex
machinery deranged the popular will, or changed
its direction, or scattered its energies ; no prince,
or possadnik, or ataman, dared veto the decis-
ions of the veche. It was from a picturesque

1 At this day capital punishment exists in Russia only for
political murder.

92 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

point of view the grandest, from an administra-
tive point of view the simplest, and from a
moral point of view the most equitable form of
government ever devised by man. And to-day,
though the veche lives on, a mere shadow of its
former self, quite divorced from political ad-
ministration, and engaged, instead of in the
business of the nation, in discussing crops, har-
vests, and the raising of the communal tax, it
still embodies the same intolerance of sover-
eignty as that which characterized the early
Slavs. So when an old chronicler,1 alluding
to the temper of the Russians, said of them,
"Neminem ferant imperatorem," he was de-
scribing that ineradicable spirit of antipathy
to encroachments upon individual and popular
liberties which lies at the root of all political
discontent in Russia, and which in that country
makes any compromise with the principle of
autocratic rule radically and permanently im-
possible.

1 Cited in Karamzin's notes, vol. i.

BYZANTINISM AND THE THREE
UNITIES.

The Russia upon which our glance fell in
the last chapter was the Russia of the eastern
Slavs ; the Russia in which the racial tendencies
of the people had still free play ; the Russia
which had bowed its neck to no tyranny, sys-
tem or principle ; the Russia in which individ-
uals and communities alike held within their
grasp that most sacred of all possessions, liberty.
But the Russia upon which we are now about
to look is a new Russia, a Russia so metamor-
phosed that one can scarcely recognize it to be
the same ; a Russia blighted into asceticism by
religion, humiliated and debased by enslave-
ment, and finally handed over to the. cupidities
and tyrannies of absolute power. So rude and
sudden a change was perhaps never before
known in the history of national vicissitudes;
one so grave and far reaching in its consequen-
ces has fallen to the lot of no other country. It
long crushed the Slav spirit ; it brought to a
standstill almost all the racial tendencies. It was

94 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

the damming-up of that great stream of national
life that was one day to overflow its banks in a
wide devastation.

The two events that for seven centuries of
Russian history reduce every other occurrence
in the national life to an almost absolute insig-
nificance were the conversion of the people to
Christianity and their enslavement by the Ta-
tar Mongols. Essentially distinct in their char-
acter, separated from each other not only by
three centuries in point of time, but also by
that immense interval which stood between the
barbarism of Asia and the culture of Byzantium,
the two influences were yet so closely related
in their effects that to the student of Russian
history they must ever seem rather the elements
of a subtle union, devised for the accomplish-
ment of a common aim, than any mere fortuitous
concurrence of forces at once separate and dis-
similar. In some sort the Tatars may be said
to have completed the work begun by the Greek
Church. If from Constantinople the priests
brought to Kiev the idea of a political autocracy,
the Tatar Khans materially helped to weld the
scattered elements of government into a central-
ized administration. If Byzantium contributed
the conception of a unified state, Sarai'1 taught

2 I need scarcely remind the reader that Sarai was not only the
seat of Tatar dominion in Russia, but the place of pilgrimage for
the subject princes.

BYZANTINISM. 95

an easy way of raising money for its expenses.
So completely at times are the two influences
interwoven that to decide always what was the
result of Greek ecclesiasticism, and what the
effect of the Tatar domination, would be a task
not only difficult, but unnecessary. In some
cases, nevertheless, the result is distinctly trace-
able to the cause.

Let us first consider the changes wrought or
enforced in the manners of the people by Byzan-
tine ecclesiasticism. Concerning these a large
store of information has been preserved in that
already cited document, the " Domostroi," or
household guide, the composition of one Sylves-
ter, church dignitary, and counselor of Ivan the
Terrible. In this composition we find reflected
not only the injunctions and prohibitions of the
Greek Church, but also the actual attitude of
the people towards almost every possible prob-
lem of conduct, private and public, that the in-
genuity of the time could suggest. Some traits
of the " Domostroi " are undoubtedly humani-
tarian in their character. It enjoined the peo-
ple to show kindness to the poor, and to make
presents of money and food to those in prison.
Certain practices of cleanliness and morality
were also inculcated. But the general effect of
the new religious influences was to turn Russia
into a vast monastery, full of fasting, penance-

96 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

doing, and mortification of the flesh.1 And
though Greek, like Roman, Christianity placed
its ban upon the most innocent enjoyments of
life, no wave of Puritanism ever swept over the
west of Europe with so deadening an effect upon
the heart and the imagination as that exerted
in the East by the gloomy flood of Byzantine
monasticism which is seen depicted in the " Do-
mostro'i." It seemed as if the priests of the new
faith, beginning with a gospel of renunciation,
at last sought to bring their task to its climax
by teaching the criminality of life itself. They
were not content with forbidding horse-racing,
hunting, and dice-playing ; the Church con-
demned music and musical instruments of all
kinds ; it taught that even laughing was a sin.
For a single member of the household to commit
the crime of dancing or singing was to prepare
the whole family for eternal torments in hell.
Even so late as the beginning of the eighteenth
century it was considered a sin for a father to
allow a child in play to take him by the beard.
All intercourse between the young of the two
sexes was forbidden. " The youth," says Ivan
Possoshkov, "must be taken to account for
every idle word he speaks."

1 See Opwyt istoriko-literaturnavo Islyedovaniya o Proiskhozh-
denii Drevnorvsskavo Domostroya, I. S. Nekrassova. Moskva,
1872.

BYZANTINISM. 97

The political influence wielded from the mo-
ment of its appearance in Russia by the Greek
Church was one antagonistic to Slav methods
of public life and government. The national
system had the freedom of the individual as its
foundation. Upon this rested the liberties of
the communes and the towns, the privileges of
the Slav republics, the free will of the people in
the choice and dismissal of their ruler, and in
the settlement of all public affairs. The organ-
ization of the Russian country was that of the
rod, the tribe or family on a large scale, the
prince ruling as an administrator and trans-
mitting his appanages to his children. Here
was a purely democratic form of government.
It was this which the Greek Church attacked
at its very foundation. The ideal brought to
Russia by Byzantine priests was one in which
the individual should count as nothing, and the
ruler as the be-all and the end-all of the new
state. Just as that ideal had replaced the many
gods of the Slav polytheism by a single divin-
ity, so it aimed at gathering the scattered poten-
tialities of princely rule into the hands of a sin-
gle Christian Ceesar, the type of the monarcbs
of Constantinople. And if the deities of the
woods and rivers, of the earth and sea and air
could so readily yield up their territories to the
sway of the monotheistic God, church digni-

98 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

taries naturally argued that it would be just as
easy to familiarize the people with the concep-
tion of an earthly ruler having dominion, not
over one rod alone, but over all the branches of
the eastern Slavs. Gradually, if not simultane-
ously, Byzantine Christianity promulgated in
Russia the three ideas of unity in deity, unity in
sovereignty, and unity in territory. The victory
of monotheism, secured by force, proved easy.
For a time the old method of government main-
tained itself intact. But as Byzantine ideas,
strengthened in their influence by appeals to
the religious emotions, became predominant,
the princes began to take more ambitious
views of their functions as rulers. Instead of
dividing the appanages amongst their children,
we now see them bequeathing patrimonies to
their political successors. In the fierce struggle
which follows, for the preservation of power on
the one hand, for the accumulation of power on
the other, the grand princes of Moscow, aided
by wealth acquired as financial agents of the
Tatar Khans, win undisputed supremacy over
their rivals. In the fifteenth century, under
Ivan III., the work of territorial unification is
accomplished and the country sees the end of
the Mongol domination. A few decades later
Ivan IV. assumes the title of Tsar. In 1547,
Russia has unity in deity, unity in territory,

BYZANTINISM. 99

and unity in sovereignty. The Byzantine ideas
have triumphed.

But what was the price paid by Russia for
the principles of autocracy and centralization ?
Two interesting correlations of cause and effect
meet us at the outset. As long as Russian gov-
ernment retained its simple, patriarchal char-
acter, the necessities of the state were small
and easily supplied. As long as Russian rulers
were only the servants of the people, the priv-
ileges of the veches remained intact, the free-
dom of the individual underwent no curtail-
ment. But the moment the princes began to
aim at the Byzantine type of state, that mo-
ment the old methods of raising money became
inadequate. As soon as governors sought to
override rather than obey the popular will, so
soon were the first attacks made upon individ-
ual and communal freedom. And just as surely
as Russia moved in the direction of unity and
of autocracy, so surely did she create for herself
embarrassments that were to find their relief
in but a single kind of remedy, namely, the
debasement of the people. The Mongol domi-
nation taught the princes the double art of
amassing wealth and accumulating power. In
the new government the individual fell from
the status of a free personality, privileged to
join in the choice of a ruler, to the level of a

100 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

mere taxable unit, not only robbed of every
vestige of political power, but in many cases
metamorphosed into a serf. The Mongol Tatars
enslaved the Russians, and the Russians, profit-
ing by the lesson in finance, enslaved their
working agriculturists.

So much for the fiscal penalties which the
Byzantine policy brought in its wake. Not less
heavy were its political burdens. The Slav
system differed from all other European meth-
ods of government. The right to reign over
western nations was based upon conquest ; the
right to reign over Russia had been conferred
by the free choice of the people. The west
European state had its foundations in force
majeure; the old Slav state rested upon the
will, freely exercised, of the individuals of whom
it was composed. We now see this will ignored
with the most cynical disregard for tradition,
habit, and equity. In order that one prince may
rule over Russia to the exclusion of all the
rest,1 territories like those of Tver, Riazan,
Suzdal, and Novgorod-Sever sky are wrested
from their owners. In order that there may
be but one seat of empire in Russia, the great
republics of Novgorod, Pskov, and Viatka lose
their liberties and go to swell the possessions of

1 Nearly three hundred princes disputed the throne of Kiev
alone.

BYZANTINISM. 101

Moscow. At last there is a united Russia. But
there has been no union consented to by the
people. The people have persistently resisted
the centralizing aims of ambitious politicians.
Hence, at whatever shock to the historical
method of dealing with such processes, I must
call the " unification " of Russia a simple usur-
pation, the " collection of the Russian earth »
by the princes an unvarnished stealing of lands
that did not belong to them. It must be left
to the subsequent events of Russian history to
show what permanent acquiescence there could
be in a policy that, taking advantage of the
national misfortune to effect a mechanical union
of ethnological elements mutually repulsive,
signally reversed the whole course of Slav tradi-
tion and history.

The change was one that affected all classes
of society and all forms of the national life.
For autocracy to appear at the apex of the
pyramid without slavery appearing at its base
would have involved a complete negation of
the laws which govern the distribution of social
and political forces. And so one by one come
the dark shadows cast in this eclipse of popular
liberties. First we see the house-servant become
a chattel in the domicile of his master, and
then witness the binding of the toiler in the
furrow to the land which he believes to be his

102 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

own. The family, in early Slav times " a re-
public," * now displays the characteristics of an
autocracy. The father's relation to it is that
of a despot, permitted by the law and enjoined
by the church to keep wixev-GhiMren, and do-
mestics in subjection by means o'f the1 rod.
" Children should be beaten with sticks," sa^ysT
the " Domostro'i," " for the good of their souls."
" The more a child is beaten," wrote Ivan Pos-
soshkov some centuries later, but in much the
same spirit, " the better it becomes." * " If you "
play with a child, you spoil it ; the more -se-
verely you beat it, the more joy you will have
afterwards." " Love is shown to children in
proportion to the number of beatings given to
them by their parents." 2

Let us now follow the new despotism into
the domain of law. Here, again, the metamor-
phosis is complete. Punishments, frightful and
vindictive, have taken the place of the early
humanitarian code. Russia's gaols are chambers
of horrors, red with every refinement and bar-
barism of cruelty that Mongolism and'Byzan-
tinism can together contrive in the interests of
absolute power. Here they are knouting a poor
wretch to death ; there, a criminal is being

1 Karamzin's expression.

2 The changes wrought in the treatment of women I shall treat
in a special and separate chapter.

BYZANTINISM. 103

broken on the wheel ; in that iron cage yonder,
a " sorcerer " hangs suspended over "a slow fire ;
further still, a coiner lies bound with his jaws
forced open waiting for the draught of molten -
metal that is- £o burn out his vitals. Here they j
are, digging a hole wherein to bury alive some J
woman who, in a fit of despair, has poisoned her
brqtal v husband ; there, instruments are being,
got ready whereby the criminal may be hung,."
decapitated, or torn to death piece by piece.

Torture is thus the new method of dealing
with some of the more serious breaches of .
Russian law.- The penalty of death has been/
introduced for homicide ; theft has come to be
an offense punishable by public chastisement.
Not the least signal difference between the
character of the " Russkaya Pravda " (eleventh
century), and that of the "Ulozhenie' " (1497)
and the " Sudebnik " (sixteenth century), lay
hi the prominence given by the two latter codes
to the remedy of corporal punishment. Under'
Scandinavian influence the Slavs had allowed
murder to be regarded as a private injury and
redressed by private reprisal or the payment
of a sum of money. Under Byzantine influ-
ence they made all acts of vengeance the busi-
ness of the state, and for the money penalty
substituted a degrading corporal punishment.
The debtor who persistently continued to be

104 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

poor was treated with revolting cruelty. He
was subjected to a public chastisement known
as the pravezh, and ran the risk of becoming
the slave of his creditor.

The debtor, it should be remembered, repre-
sented crime in one of the most heinous shapes
which, in the new order of things, it could pos-
sibly assume. The novelties of centralization
and autocratic power rested as an immense bur-
den upon the tax-paying classes, and for a man
to be found unable to contribute his share of
the expenses, or pleading poverty with a view
of escaping exaction, must have seemed to Mos-
cow legislators so remarkable a case of human
perversity as to call for as severe and ingenious
a method of punishment as they could devise.

The debasement of the individual was inev-
itable. In place of the old manly self -con-
sciousness we find a servility painful to witness,
even at this distance. Distinctions of class have
appeared, bringing with them practices of self-
humiliation and abasement. The noble is as
servile to his prince or tsar as is the muzhik to
the land-owner. In signing their names people
write them with unworthy diminutives, in the
Eastern fashion. No longer with form erect
and look unabashed does the Russian Slav ap-
proach his ruler, but in fear and trembling.
The very word used for petition means " a

BYZANTIN1SM. 105

prostration," a beating of the head on the
ground.1 It is highly probable that the expres-
sion vinovat (" I am guilty," corresponding to
the English "I beg pardon ") came into exist-
ence during this period of universal debasement.
Instead of a character like Ilya, the national
epic now brings forth Ivanushka Durachok,2 a
hero in caricature, who evades dangers to save
his skin, plays the fool in order the more effect-
ually to impose upon people, and attains to
honors and dignities by acts of base cunning
and low servility. In Ivanushka Durachok we
see the new period just as truly as in Ilya we
saw the old.

Lying and cunning are first mentioned as
Russian vices after the Mongol domination.
And if to-day certain classes of Russian peas-
ants, engaged in urban industries, still resort to
deceit and subterfuge in compassing their ends,
they do so as a result of the straits in which
their ancestors were placed by Russian princes
and Tatar khans. Cunning in the subject was
the natural result of cupidity in the ruler. The
more the people came to be regarded as the
legitimate prey of the tax-gatherer, the more
they learned the force of ruse, the advantage of
stratagem, in their struggle with the common
enemy. And if deceit arose in this way out of

i " ChelobityeV' 2 « ivaili the Little Fool."

106 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

an unscrupulous system of money-raising, the
habit of lying, as it first appears in Russian his-
tory, had a not less prolific cause in the national
and individual enslavement. The tricky trader,
found to-day the victim of corrupting urban in-
fluences, is the natural descendant of the class
which had to hold its own against the tax-gath-
erer, or oppose duplicity to the power of the
tyrannical owner of serfs. The generous-minded
peasant, full of patriarchal simplicity, alike in-
capable of dishonesty and untruthfulness, be-
longs in his rural isolation to an ancestry which
had not yet felt the Mongol domination, or had
passed through it proof against its corruption
and debasement.

The main weight of the exactions of grand
prince, khan, and tsar must have been felt by
Moscow, which, first the nucleus of the coming
state, finally became the seat of the new gov-
ernment. And it is of the inhabitants of Mos-
cow that Herberstein wrote, just after Russia
had rid herself of the Tatars, " They are more
cunning and deceitful than all others." The
same people are alluded to in the passage con-
cerning Plescov.1 "The citizens," says Her-
berstein, " were dispersed, and Muscovites sent
in to replace them. Hence it followed that, in
place of the more refined and consequently

1 Probably Pskov.

BYZANTINISM. 107

more kindly manners of the people, were intro-
duced those of the Muscovites, which are more
debased in almost everything. There was al-
ways so much integrity, candor, and simplicity
in the dealings of the Plescovians that they
dispensed with all superfluity of words for the
purpose of entrapping a buyer."

Such, then, are a few of the ways in which
Mongolism and Byzantine Christianity left their
mark upon Russian development. The influ-
ence of the former was, as we have seen, wholly
injurious. That of Christianity was in some
respects bad, in others good. To Europeanize
the family, as M. Rambaud has described the
operation, was an achievement of no small mag-
nitude and importance. But the benefits con-
ferred by Christianity were simply the benefits
of a religious system that proved itself superior,
for the purposes of civilization, to the faith of
the early Slavs. The defects of that system
were, on the other hand, the defects of the By-
zantinism in which it was naturally entangled.
Russia drew much strength and sustenance, much
power of patient endurance, during the Mongol
domination, from the teachings and. ministra-
tions of her new faith ; yet her spiritual help
in that trying time would have been just as
great, might even have been greater, had she
obtained it through the Western, instead of from

108 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

the Eastern Church. The civilization promoted
by the Catholic Church was a higher and more
promising one than any that could be brought
to Russia by the priests of the Greek rite. At
the time of Russia's conversion, the civilization
of Constantinople was very much inferior to
that of western Europe. If Russia escaped
Catholicism, she did it by preferring an inferior
to a superior degree of enlightenment. If by
separating her church history from that of the
Poles the country escaped the tyranny of Papal
edicts, she on the other hand submitted to a con-
nection of church with state that finally became
an instrument as well as a bulwark of absolute
power. If Christianity brought refining influ-
ences into Russian life, it also imported views
and conceptions quite opposed to the martial
element of the Slav character ; in this way it
may have prepared the country to some extent
for the Tatar domination. Certain it is that
the new faith inculcated greater respect for life
— especially for Christian life.1 It helped to
soften manners and to modify in the individual
and the nation some of the qualities essential
to the successful practice of war. It must be
remembered, moreover, that the conversion of

1 Vladfmir, in a direction to his son, wrote, * ' Put to death no
one, be he innocent or guilty. Nothing is more sacred than the
soul of a Christian."

BYZANTINISM. 109

the Russians to Christianity was a forcible and
not a voluntary proceeding. To this, rather
than to the fact that the new faith was thrust
upon them by a dissolute prince like Vladimir,
are due the long survival of pagan customs in
Russia, and the necessity under which the
church found itself of compromising with the
beliefs which it could not uproot. Nor is this
all. In the Slav correlation of forces, all vio-
lent reversal of ethnological habits, all nega-
tions of racial tendency and tradition invariably
reappear in the form of protest. The protest
against this forcible indoctrination of the Rus-
sians into Byzantine Christianity took the form
of the raskol or " split," and later came to be
known as Russian sectarianism, heresy, dissent.

DOMESTIC SLAVERY.

Theee is no figure, perhaps, in all Russian
history upon which the eye rests with greater
sympathy and interest than, collectively speak-
ing, that of the Slav woman as w^e see it, first
freely moving in a pagan environment, then
subjected to the regulating influences of Byzan-
tine Christianity, and finally emancipated by
the teachings of Western culture. It is ^this
figure which seems ever bringing into1 Russian
life, however sad or gloomy that life may be,
priceless consolations, impulses of hope and faith
and aspiration, as with the odor of flowers and
the exhilaration of song. So thoroughly respon-
sive, moreover, has been the position of Russian
women to the national vicissitudes that we may
fitly divide its story into the same three great
periods as those selected for the wider theme.
The only difficulty of the parallel is encountered
at the outset. As the first coincides to some
extent with the polygamous epoch of Russian
history, it may seem optimistic to look for much
veneration of women in a family of which the

DOMESTIC SLAVERY. Ill

conceptions were elementary and the ties loose ;
yet it should be remembered that, as in most
Oriental countries where the institution of polyg-
amy expresses a general permission, but by no
means a general practice, the keeping of many
wives would be confined to the wealthy classes,
and quite foreign to the habits of the poor
amongst the Slavs. The treatment of the Rus-
sian woman in the pagan period is no more to
be gauged by the prevalence of polygamous
habits than the civilization of the United States
is to be judged by a reference to the practices
of Mormons in Utah. Just as the first period
of Russian history was favorable to individual
liberties, to personal rights, so it was favorable
to the status of women. The Slav woman was
not Jess a member of the old family republic
than the man ; of her influence in it, whether as
the spouse of the common peasant, or the con-
fidant and counselor of the earliest Russian
princes, there are ample proofs. This Slav wo-
man— polygamy or no polygamy — was quite"
able to take care of herself and watch over her
own interests. , In the old chronicles she stands
before us strong of will, with plenty of chaf acter
and patriotism, bold in conception, fertile of re-,
source, capable of lofty heroism and sublime
negation of self.

Flames form the setting of the picture that

112 THE RUSSIAN REYOLT. c'

represents her first noticeable appearance on the
stage of Slav history. Numberless Russian wo-
men, not yet emancipated from the close attach-
ments of paganism, flung themselves upon the
pyres that were consuming the bodies of hus-
bands whom they refused to survive. Euphra-
sia, whose husband suffered death rather than
deliver her to Bati, the Tatar invader, no sooner
learned her spouse's fate than she seized her son
and with him sprang headlong from the window
of her terem. When Vladimir, who Christian-
ized Russia, had sent Vassilissa's husband to
certain death in battle in order that he might
possess the warrior's bereaved and helpless wi-
dow, Vassilissa, like a true Slav woman, hurried
to the spot where her lord had fallen, and there
mingled her own blood with his. In the annals
of Novgorod we read how Marfa, widow of the
possadnik Boretsky, won undying fame as the
last defender of Novgorod liberties. Placing
herself at the head of the anti-Muscovite party
she brought all her energy, boldness, force of
character, and wealth to the task of erecting a
last barrier against the tide of enslavement that
was gradually but surely overwhelming the
country ; and so successful was the effort that
for a brief interval we see Novgorod sheltered
from the Muscovite attack by the protecting
wing of Poland.

^ DOMESTIC SLAVERY. 113

There 'are abundant evidences that Russian
women not only shared in the advantages con-
ferred by that conception of individual rights
which, as we have seen, was common to early
Slav society, but were specially honored in vari-
ous ways, notably in their capacity to inherit,
and their opportunities of accumulating wealth.
Some of the oldest Russian kurgany, or burial
mounds, have yielded in excavation skeletons
of women richly ornamented with jewels. Ly-
bed, the sister of the founder of Kiev, was able
to divide an inheritance with her brothers. At
the sacking of towns by the Tatars we read of
" women, the wives of boyards, who had never
known work, who but a short time before had
been clothed in rich garments, adorned with
jewels and cloths of gold, and surrounded with
slaves, now themselves reduced to be the slaves
of the barbarians." This deferential treatment
of Slav women continued up to the eleventh and
twelfth century. And as if to carry it to its
highest point alliances were sought with foreign
princes and princesses. Thus Vladimir Mono-
makh, himself the son of a Greek princess, took
as his first wife the daughter of Harold, who met
his death at Hastings. Vladimir's son married a
Swedish princess ; one of his daughters wedded
the king of Poland, another was united to the
king of Hungar^. Perhaps the most striking

114 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

of all proofs of the honor in which the female
sex was held in the first period of Slav history-
is afforded by the admission of a woman to the
dignities and responsibilities of government.
The elevation of Olga to the throne of the
princes was one of the last expressions of the
freedom of the early period. And as the com-
plete exclusion of women from participation in
Russian sovereignty through nearly eight cen-
turies characterizes and corresponds with the
political humiliations and social debasements of
the second period, so will the third period be
found one in which, while the nation at large
reaps the benefits of Western culture, Russian
women in one station of life shake off domestic
tyranny, and in another obtain admission to the
highest position in the state.

For the cause of this suppression of women
for nearly eight centuries we must look to the
same set of influences as those which weakened
the free traits of the individual and national
life. Of the two, Byzantine ecclesiasticism was
by far the more important in its influence, and
the more disastrous in its effects. Scarcely have
the priests of the Greek Church begun their
teaching of the new faith to a not over-willing
people when changes begin to unsettle the posi-
tion of woman, and burden her relationship to
the family and community with a sense of in-

DOMESTIC SLAVERY. 115

feriority. First, we see her confined to a partic-
ular part of the domicile, secluded in the
terem, — an apartment unknown to the early-
Slavs, — ostensibly to keep her out of danger and
properly employed, but really to give validity
to the new conception of her subordination to
the master, or despot, of the household. When
the freedom of the tribe, the commune, and the
individual had disappeared, what particular or
plausible argument could the wife offer in de-
fense of her own meagre liberties ? If the new
state was to be governed autocratically, what
could be more justifiable than to rest the rule of
the household upon the same foundation? If
absolutism was right in the state, what could
make it wrong in the family? And so, her
status falling, pari passu, with the natural ex-
tension of the ecclesiastical policy, the Russian
woman at last became the slave of her Christian
husband ; as much his chattel as if, under an
earlier regime, she had been purchased at mar-
ket or captured in war. The polygamous union
seems to have been one of a voluntary character,
terminable at pleasure. The monogamous mar-
riage was so ingeniously contrived as to be at
once odious by fullness of despotism and indis-
soluble by force of ceremony. The husband
could release himself from its bond by killing
his wife ; the wife could become free only by

116 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

succumbing to the brutalities of her husband.
Whether or not the priests saw in the Slav wo-
man of this period something hostile to the
unified state with its monarch an autocrat, thus
viewing her with a suspicion which modern
rather than old Russian history would seem to
justify, — the fact remains that, in marking out
for her a position full of humiliating restrictions,
the Greek Church was really furnishing to pos-
terity a striking testimony to her influence in
the family and in society.

Elaborate measures were taken to counteract
that influence. Scarcely had she emerged from
swaddling-clothes before her conduct became
an object of ecclesiastical solicitude. Boys and
girls of the most tender age were not allowed
to play together. The didactic writer Possosh-
kov enjoins the father who happens to witness
any playful conduct on the part of his son to-
wards a girl to take a cudgel and break the
lad's ribs with it. All social intercourse be-
tween young men and young women was for-
bidden. Even to look at a woman was a sin.
Indeed, according to the teachings of the church,
woman was not made to be looked at. The
priests treated her as a mysterious subject, full
of evil potencies, safety from which could only
be secured by constant watchfulness. Hence
both church and state favored the policy of

DOMESTIC SLAVERY. 117

seclusion. On the one hand, the terem was con-
trived for the reception of this dangerous ele-
ment; on the other, the church offered it ac-
commodation in the cloister.

Comparatively few came under monastic dis-
cipline, and gave their lives to prayer, disci-
pline, charity. But the mass of Russian women
clung to the duties and debasements of secular
existence with a heroism which is beyond
praise. What they gained from ecclesiasticism
as children we have already seen. As wives,
their sole business was to respond to the ca-
prices of their husbands, to keep house, and
look after food and clothing and servants. They
were to bear children, but not to educate them.
Wives were expected to remain at home and to
know nothing save their household work. Kos-
tomarov, writing of social life in the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries, says that " women
were generally regarded as being of a lower
order of beings than men, and in certain re-
spects even unclean, since they were not al-
lowed to kill animals for the table, it being
supposed that, were they to do so, the meat
would be unpalatable. On certain days a
woman believed herself to be unworthy to eat
in company. . . . Having become a wife (in ac-
cordance with the arrangements of the parents),
she never dared to go from home without the

118 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

permission of her husband ; even for her to at-
tend church his consent had to be obtained.
Many women believed they were only born to
be beaten, and that marital love was best ex-
pressed with the lash. Men often killed their
wives, and went unpunished merely because
the death was slow instead of sudden. When
women poisoned their husbands, as in some
rare cases they did, the culprits were buried
in the ground up to the shoulders, and left to
starve." x

The " Domostro'i " lays stress on the salutary
effects of wife - beating. It talks of the lash
much as a doctor discusses doses of medicine.
If the fault is great, the punishment must be
proportionately severe. If the peccant wife
shows no sign of repentance, she must- be lashed
still more vigorously. The husband is instructed
to hold his victim by the hands, — as much to
render her helpless as to facilitate the beating.
And yet, like the Spanish inquisitor, the hus-
band must be a model of equable temper.
There must be no anger, says Priest Sylvester,
in the chastisement. The use of wooden or
iron instruments was prohibited, nor were blows
to be given in the face, or about the region of
the heart, in order that blindness might be
avoided and bones be kept intact ! ! Thus a

1 Ocherk, etc. Kostomarov.

DOMESTIC SLAVERY. 119

Russian husband might torture his wife to the
verge of death, provided he did nothing to vis-
ibly incapacitate her for the discharge of her
household duties. More appalling still is the
reflection that this domestic brutality was not
only licensed, but actually enjoined by the
church as a religious duty. Somewhere, M.
Renan has written that Christianity was the re-
ligion of women, — that is, a religion created by
their ideals, supported by their moral qualities ;
while Islamism he described as a religion of men.
What strength could be expected to flow from
the approval of Russian women to a faith which
handed them over to cold-blooded outrage and
debasement ; which bade them bring forth chil-
dren to tyrants, in order, as in the Buddhist
story, that their torments might be repeated in
an endless succession of re-births ? It is quite
true that many Russian women were devoted
adherents of the Greek Church ; quite probable
that, in some cases, the more a woman suffered
from Byzantinism, the more faithfully ortho-
dox did she become. But it is equally true
that many women who were beaten by their
husbands continued to love their tormentors,
notwithstanding ; and at any rate probable —
even if it were not established by the old an-
nals— that the more some wives were thrashed,
the better they liked the authors of their chas-

120 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

tisement. Love is a mysterious thing, and may-
bear a heavy burden of cruelty without break-
ing down ; and so a religion does not fail of
devotees merely because the way along which it
has come happens to be moist with blood, or
strewn with bones.

Without the good-will of her husband, the
wife was in a position very similar to that of a
political offender who, in Russia, at the present
day, finds himself without a passsport. If de-
livered for a few brief moments from the terem,
— of which, by the way, her husband kept the
key, — she was expected to carry abroad the
humble demeanor exacted from her at home.
If asked a question relating to other than house-
hold subjects, it was her duty to reply that she
" did not know." This might be a lie, but she^.
was bound to obey her husband and the " Do-
mostroi." To the former it was her business
to carry everything heard by her out of doors.
She was forbidden to drink anything stronger
than kvass,1 had no power of making bargains
with peddlers, and was required to have work in
her hand continually. After marriage it was
considered dishonoring for a woman to show her
hair, even to her relatives. The plait, or volos-
nik, the sign of virginity, now disappeared in
another form of coiffure. In Novgorod it was

1 A non-intoxicating herb drink.

DOMESTIC SLAVERY. 121

the custom for women to cut off their flowing
tresses as a preliminary to the state of wedlock.
How distasteful it must have been to the Greek
Church for a woman to insist on being attrac-
tive after as well as before marriage can be
easily imagined.

A reasonable presumption is that marital beat-
ings diminished in number and severity as a
woman passed from the lower to the higher
walks of life. Seclusion, on the other hand, in-
creased in closeness with rank. Upon the Tsar-
itsa and Tsarevna the strictest watch was main-
tained. The princesses were kept in rooms as
far as possible from any thoroughfare. It was
said by a foreign ambassador, writing from
Moscow in 1663, that out of a thousand court-
iers, hardly one could boast that he had seen
the Tsaritsa, or any of the daughters or sisters
of the Tsar. It was even dangerous for any
one to see these high personages accidentally.
The story is told, for example, how Dashkov
and Buturlin, turning a corner suddenly in one
of the palace courts, met the carriage of the
Tsaritsa Natalia as the empress was on her way
to prayers. Although the rencontre was purely
accidental, the two were arrested and detained
in custody for several days until the affair had
been "cleared up." Reutenfels states that
when Natalia Krilovna ventured on one occasion

122 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

to open the little window of her carriage, the
departure from established rules of propriety-
created a great sensation. Even physicians
came under the operation of these rules, since
pulses had to be felt and other analogous tactual
processes gone through with the face of the
royal patient hidden by a veil, and her cutaneous
membrane protected from the vulgar touch by
a thin gauze !

Herberstein, German ambassador to the
court of Vassily Ivanovich, writes naturally-
enough that " love between those who are mar-
ried is for the most part lukewarm, especially
among the nobles, because they marry girls
they have never seen before, and having engaged
in the service of princes they are compelled to
desert them. . . . The condition of the women
is most miserable*, for they consider no woman
virtuous unless she live shut up at home and be
so closely guarded that she go out nowhere.
They give a woman little credit for modesty, if
she be seen by strangers or people out-of-doors.
Shut up at home the women do nothing but
spin and sew, and have literally no authority or
influence in the house. Whatever is strangled
by the hands of a woman, whether it be a fowl
or any other kind of animal, they abominate as
unclean. The wives, however, of the poorer
classes, do the household work and cook, but if

DOMESTIC SLAVERY. 123

their husbands and manservants are away, they
stand at the door holding the fowl and ask men
who pass to kill it for them. They are very
seldom admitted into the churches, and still less
frequently to friendly meetings, unless they be
very old and free from suspicion. But on cer-
tain holidays men allow their wives and daugh-
ters, as a special gratification, to meet in a very
pleasant meadow." . . .

So much for the women of Moscow and the
remarkable condescension of their husbands.
The general effect of such a policy as that de-
scribed was to reduce women to a state of the
most abject and helpless ignorance. Kotoshchin,
mentioning that it was not the custom to teach
them anything in secular branches of knowledge,
speaks of their general incapacity to read and
write, and describes their manners as shy and
awkward, owing to their seclusion and the habit
of permitting them to see only their relatives.
It was probably because of these superficial ap-
pearances — the natural results of a treatment
at once absurd and outrageous — that women
came to be so mercilessly dealt with in the pro-
verbial philosophy of the people. Hence such
sayings as, " A woman's hair is long, but her
understanding is short;" " The wisdom of the
woman is like the wildness of the animals ; "
" That which the devil cannot do woman can

124 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

do ; " " As a horse by the bridle, so a woman
must be directed by menaces ; " "A bad woman
at home is worse than a devil in the wood; " " It
is better to irritate a dog than a woman ; "
" Compared with a quarrelsome woman, the devil
is a saint." In a didactic composition of the
seventeenth century woman is described as " van-
ity itself ; " "a storm in the house ; " "a flood
that swallows everything ; " "a continually fly-
ing arrow ; " " a serpent nursed in the bosom ; "
" a spear penetrating the heart," etc. Another
writer of the same period warns men to "fly
from the beauty of woman as Noah saved him-
self from the flood, or Lot escaped from Sodom
and Gomorrah," adding that " as Eve did wrong,
so the whole race of women became sinful, and
the cause of all evil." It is worth while noting
that the word for " to marry " in Russian —
zhenit a — means, in a figurative sense, " to de-
ceive " or " cause loss."

How Russian marriages could be expected to
turn out happily in the monastic period is a
mystery. They were entirely arranged by the
parents, the wedded couple being excluded
from all intercourse and acquaintance with each
other before the ceremony. Nor was the wife
always prepared for the household functions
within which the church restricted her activity.

1 Said of the husband, that is, ducere as opposed to nubere.

DOMESTIC SLAVERY. 125

" Many girls," wrote the Servian Krishanich, at
his place of banishment in Tobolsk, " marry so
young that they do not know what a housewife
ought to understand. And many of the mothers
of these girls also understand nothing of domes-
tic work." So impressed was Krishanich with
these feminine defects that he proposed the
foundation of schools, wherein women should be
taught spinning, weaving, sewing, washing, the
salting of fish, brewing, baking, and the making
of drinks, adding the suggestion that, before
being allowed to marry, each young woman
should produce a certificate of her competency
in the various branches of household work.

In 1693 the patriarch Adrian issued an order
admonishing parents not to marry children
against their will. This document marks the
relaxing hold of monasticism upon the family,
and forms one of the signs of those western in-
fluences which were soon to usher in the third
and modern period of Russian history. What
the reaction was from the domestic tyranny I
have endeavored to sketch ; how far it gave
free play to the intellectual and social forces
which had been suppressed during so many cen-
turies ; and whether the recoil was slow and
healthy or quick and dangerous in the propor-
tion of its suddenness, — these questions must
be left for answer to succeeding chapters.

THE RELIGIOUS PROTEST.

THAT sooner or later the people should pro-
test against a system which debased the individ-
ual in order to elevate the autocrat, that made
land-owners proprietors of serfs, turned princes
into tax-gatherers, and gave to every domicile
a tyrant and a slave, — this was inevitable. But
that the first protest of the kind should have
come at a comparatively early period in Russian
history, — a period nearly two centuries before
the epoch at which the intellectual self-con-
sciousness of the educated classes in Russia can
be said to have been fully awakened, — this
was partly due to certain special circumstances
of the national life. Glancing back for a mo-
ment in the line along which our survey has
extended, we shall see that Russian development
has been a double process, involving singular
analogies and contradictions ; since, while the
state idea has seen its highest expression in the
struggle for unity, the masses have found their
interest in keeping alive the movement of ex-
tension. Migratory habits, enterprise, the nat-

THE RELIGIOUS PROTEST. 127

ural temptations of fertile land and an open
country, — all these stimulated the colonization
of European Russia. But to these inducements
we must add the element of coercion. The ex-
actions of the tax-gatherer, the numberless tyr-
annies of the new state, drove the Russian
afield into territories where he hoped to breathe
more freely. And while this expanding move-
ment did not perceptibly hinder the process of
national unification, it sharpened the Slav intel-
lect for coming struggles with absolute power.
The reflective effects of colonization are well
marked and beyond dispute. The process is
the same, the results are the same, whether the
colonizers are from a young stock or go forth to
their work from a civilization settled and old.
Whenever bodies of men, crossing country or
sea, enter a new environment, — a territory in
which new varieties of food, new air, water, cli-
mate, and scenery are encountered, — and there
settle down to the development of social forms
and institutions, to the creation of a civilization
in harmony with the surroundings, the differ-
entiation of the human beings who engage in the
work from the stock out of which they sprang
is inevitable. The changes that follow are still
more marked when the process of colonization
exacts from the colonizer circumspection, bold-
ness, enterprise, activity, and the power of en-

128 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

during hardships and fatigue. Where these
qualities are called forth, the pioneer grows
realistic in his views of life and in the concep-
tions by which his actions are regulated. The
sentimental and religious tendencies may still
remain ; may even be stimulated, by contact
with natural forces, into a hypersensuous con-
dition ; but the mind as a whole assumes that
condition which is usually called "practical."
The luxurious wastes and ornaments of old
civilizations are discarded and not missed ; men
learn to conserve their energies and put forth
just the amount of force needed and no more.
The colonizer becomes a political economist and
a thinker ; idle habits disappear ; spare time is
utilized ; hours formerly spent in hobbies now
slip away in inventions. The immediate inter-
est or necessity is uppermost in all minds. To
all actions, planned or completed, men apply
the cui bono test. Discussion is brief, speech
laconic, the deed following the decision with
especial swiftness. The new conditions of colo-
nization also give a particular impulse to the
development of individuality. Relieved from
the crystallized forms of the older civilization,
free from the tyranny of its standards and pre-
cedents, not controlled, as one inevitably feels
in cities like London or Paris, by the spirit
of their criticisms, by the utterances of their

THE? RELIGIOUS PROTEST. 129

teachers, by their arts and sciences, their litera-
ture, their religion, or their antiquity, — the
colonizers begin life afresh in their own way,
unshackled, unrestricted, themselves the prece-
dents of the new society which is to arise out
of their labors. With everything as yet vague
and in the formative state, with a field of opera-
tions before it probably vast, individuality sees
its opportunity and steps forward. In religion,
new churches spring into existence ; in philoso-
phy, should utilitarianism not exclude it, schools
arise. The man of ability is immediately sur-
rounded by followers ; the man of remarkable
gifts carries off the rewards of genius itself.
Society, in fine, is led by individuals rather than
by coteries, by ideas rather than by maxims, by
originality rather than by authority, and by
reasons rather than by rules.

It was changes analagous to these — like them
in kind, if not in degree — that colonization
brought to the hardy and adventurous bands of
Slavs who, pushing out from nuclei like Kiev
and Novgorod, gradually spread all over Euro-
pean Russia, and were not even kept back by
the Ural range, but surmounting it ceased not
to advance until the rule of the Tsars extended
in an unbroken line from the Baltic Sea to the
Pacific Ocean. The work done, the difficulties
surmounted in this movement were of an es-

9

130 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

pecially trying and arduous kind. Rivers had
to be traversed, forests cut down, wild places
made habitable. Not always could the pioneers
give each other help, such was the insignificant
relation their numbers bore to the vastness of
the country. And as on the one hand they
were exposed to the severities of a rigorous cli-
mate, so on the other they had to face the Mon-
gol or Finnish foe, ever on the alert to notice
their coming and retard their advance. The
rough and ready work of this new life was an
education in itself. It taught them self-reliance.
It quickened their intellectual activities. It
raised them out of a fatalism that was ready to
accept everything simply because it was, into
an incredulity that questioned on principle and
would not be put off with replies that were
mere plausibilities. It quickened the sentiment
of individuality, and developed anew the old
spirit of resistance to usurpations of power, to
suppressions of the popular liberties, to ne-
gations of private right and personal worth,
whether carried out in the interests of state
politics, undertaken on behalf of religion, or per-
petrated to secure the ends of a coalition at once
priestly and regal and disastrous.

And when this first silent protest ripened the
Greek Church seemed peculiarly open to its as-
saults. That institution expressed a double

THE RELIGIOUS PROTEST. 131

authority. The source of those great funda-
mental changes which had banished popular
government from Russia, it became the sup-
porter, not only of its own edicts, but also of
the exactions of the civil power. The Tatars
were among the first to recognize its utility as
an instrument of state, and their politic compro-
mise with it, falsely dubbed " tolerance," formed
no unimportant part of the legacy which fell to
Russia from the Mongol domination. Year by
year the union drew closer, until at last the ten-
sion between the awakened realism of the peo-
ple and the encroachments of the civil power
grew into open and serious rupture.

The real meaning of the outbreak was as
completely hidden from the people who took
part in it as its significance has been veiled
from posterity by the historians. It began in
a trivial and childish controversy. About five
centuries after Russia's conversion to Chris-
tianity, errors began to be discovered in the
ritual and service books of the church. These
had arisen in several ways : partly owing to
the practice of copying texts with the pen,
partly to the blunders of inefficient copyists,
partly to the ignorance and incompetence of
the priests themselves. And as the variations
went on multiplying until it might almost have
been said that there were no two Bibles or mass

132 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

books alike in all Russia, the Tsar Vassily Ivan-
ovich felt himself constrained to cause a colla-
tion of the various texts with the originals, and
ordered Maximus, a learned monk of the famous
monastery of Mount Athos, to proceed with
the work. But the proposed revision was to
meet with a vigorous and determined opposi-
tion. A powerful party took sides against
Maximus, and an ecclesiastical court, rege vo-
lente^ banished the learned monk to a convent.
The reform agitation went on. In 1617, the
Tsar Michael Fiodorovich had the texts col-
lated anew. Again arose the storm, and
Dionysius, the learned archimandrite who had
undertaken to succeed Maximus, was sent to
expiate his revising zeal in prison. At last the
powerful patriarch Nikon threw himself into
the breach. With the sanction of the Tsar
Alexis Michailovich, the work was now prose-
cuted with unexampled energy and determina-
tion. Nikon secured the cooperation of the
oecumenical patriarchs of the Greek Church and
the monks of Mount Athos. No fewer than
seven hundred ancient manuscripts were brought
to Russia in order to facilitate the correction of
the faulty texts. In 1655 the patriarch of An-
tioch, the Servian patriarch, and the metropoli-
tan of Moldavia entered Russia, to offer their
assistance. Finally Nikon completed his task,

THE RELIGIOUS PROTEST. 133

and by a great ecclesiastical council, gathered
at Moscow, all who refused to abide by the re-
sult were solemnly excommunicated. At last
the reformers had triumphed. But the victory
was won in the teeth of an opposition so power-
ful and widespread that it presented the char-
acter of a national movement rather than of a
mere party of resistance within or without the
church. It was gained under such humiliating
conditions of compromise that while the Rus-
sian ecclesiastics eagerly accepted the reforms,
they deemed it politic to throw the reformer
into prison. Nothing could better illustrate the
imminence of a grave public danger than this
very decision which, while it affirmed the excel-
lence and necessity of Nikon's work, dubbed
Nikon a criminal for carrying it to successful
completion. Nor could anything better show
the deeprooted and determined character of the
popular protest than the raslcol, the dissent
and heresy which sprang from the anathema of
the 13th of May, 1667.

The details of the controversy have puerile
and ridiculous elements in almost equal propor-
tion. The whole question turned on whether
in crossing one's-self the index and middle
finger, or the three fingers, of the right hand
should be used ; whether the word Jesus should
be spelled " Iissus" or " Issus," or whether in a

134 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

certain service " Hallelujah " should be sung
twice or three times. But does any reader of
mine suppose for one moment that out of such
absurd elements as these, representing the two
extremes of triviality and absurdity combined,
a movement could arise fateful for all the subse-
quent course of Russian history, as serious for
the fortunes of the Greek Church as if half its
followers had wandered away in some great
hegira, and scarcely less grave for social and
political solidarity in Russia than would have
been the disruption of the planet itself ? The
issues were not trivial. They were tremendous.
Just as beneath the light play of human fancy
and the fleeting reign of passion nature con-
ceals some of the mightiest of her processes, so
below this petty squabble over the spelling of
a name and the raising of a finger lay hidden
the elements of a vast convulsion. The reforms
of Nikon, the ecclesiasts who sought to enforce
them, the Greek Church that forged the anath-
ema ; all these represented the state and its
complex authority. The Old Believers at first,
afterwards the dissenters and heretics, repre-
sented the people. The outbreak had long
been preparing. A cumulative irritation, a
popular spirit of resistance growing deeper and
wider with every augmentation of state su-
premacy, at last enabled the most trivial of con-

THE RELIGIOUS PROTEST. 135

troversies to array the rival forces against each
other.

The struggle against the reforms of Nikon
was a protest against authority in both church
and state. This is shown all through the his-
tory of the raskoL The Old Believers, while
strenuously taking their stand in defense of
points of ritual, showed all through the dispute
a more or less vague consciousness of the politi- i
cal character of the struggle. In declaring the
Tsar to be Antichrist, and declining to pray for i
him, they aimed a blow at what was rapidly /
becoming the final source of authority in the/
double domain of religion and politics. They J
made many attempts to provoke the civil power
into reprisals. At Solovetsky, a monastery
built on an island in the White Sea, the pro-
test assumed the character of an insurrection.
Converted by Old Believers banished for their
obstinate championship of the popular cause,
the Solovetsky monks took sides against au-
thority and armed themselves for resistance.
Three years after the anathema had been pro-
nounced, we see the Tsar's troops laying siege
to this centre of disaffection in the far north.
The defenders reply to the attack with a hun-
dred pieces of cannon, and for a period incredi-
bly long, during which the leadership of the
beleaguering forces has to be twice changed,

\S

/

136 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

maintain a sturdy, determined and effective
resistance. That at last Solovetsky fell to
treachery in no way dims the glory of its de-
fenders. And the brave monks earned a far
too terrible reward for posterity to do them the
injustice of supposing that for seven long years
they held out against the imperial forces simply
in order to be able to shout " Hallelujah "
twice instead of thrice in a church service, or
cross themselves with two fingers instead of
three.

/^% That the spirit of revolt was abroad is shown
by contemporaneous events standing apart in
their origin from the merely religious contro-

w versy. Scarcely a year had elapsed since the
excommunication of the Old Believers when a
frightful insurrection, the first of its kind, broke
out in the governments of the Volga. The
serfs revolted against their masters, Cossacks
joined each other in armed protest against the
curtailment of the privileges, while here and
there Tatar, Chud, Mordv, and Cheremiss rose
against the Russian domination. At the head
of these elements of insurrection Stenka Razin,
the famous brigand, swept the country for three
years. At first sight the bond of connection
between the two movements seems a wholly
general one. But when Stenka Razin falls
into the hands of the government, we see a

THE RELIGIOUS PROTEST. 137

large body of Cossacks, probably the main de-
bris of the insurrection, traverse the whole of
northern Russia by forced marches, and hasten
to reinforce the defenders of the Solovetsky
monastery. By one writer we are told con-
cerning this movement that " between the fa-
natical monks and the Cossacks there could
scarcely be any closer point of contact than that
they all crossed themselves with two fingers
and said Issus instead of Iissus." The proba-
bilities, as well as the facts, are all opposed to so
superficial a theory. The point of contact was
wider, not closer. The insurrection on the
Volga, the insurrection at Solovetsky, were
parts of a general revolt against authority, of
which the religious controversy and the prac-
tice of brigandage formed merely the outward
shapes. The inextinguishable energy of the
revolt, its superiority to all persecutions and
sentences, the endurance of its martyrs, and the
glory cast upon their memory by"admiring dis-
ciples, all bring the struggle into the category
of Russian political movements. Reading of
the priest Avakum lying for punishment in an
underground dungeon in the sixty-eighth de-
gree of latitude, suffering all hardships undis-
mayed, and retaining inviolate his undying
faith in himself and his cause, one naturally re-
verts to modern instances of political expiation ;

/

138 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

and when, perusing the story to the end, we see
the prisoner not only carrying on a propaganda
\/- in chains, but converting his guards to the very
views for which it is their duty to hold him
captive, receiving confidential communications,
holding interviews with agents, and sending
men on secret missions with errands which he
is powerless to do himself, — all this reads like
a page from the contemporary annals of politi-
cal offense in Russia.

The character of the revolt is further shown
by the behavior of the stryeltsy,1 a sort of na-
tional militia stationed at" 'Moscow, who were
strongly impregnated with the views of the Old
Believers. In the reign of Sophia this body,
led by Prince Khovansky, broke into open in-
surrection. The movement was suppressed
with great severity, but no punishment could
destroy the spirit out of which it had arisen.
Again and again the stryeltsy rose against the
combined tyranny of church and state, again
and again they suffered the frightful vengeance
of the government, until at last, in a fashion
characteristically bloody and barbarous, they
were completely extirpated by Peter. The
stryeltsy were crushed, but not the revolt. It
went on widening and deepening in its hold
upon the awakening national consciousness.

1 Literally "archers."

THE RELIGIOUS PROTEST. 139

Once more it was destined to appear in the
shape of armed insurrection. When the Cos- h

sack Pugachev rose in 1770 as Peter III., it \j
was upon the dissenters, and still more upon
the spirit of dissent, that he depended for suc-
cess. Pugachev fell like his predecessor, Stenka \\~
Razin, but the protest against authority did not i?fl
disappear. From " old " belief the movement
grew to dissent and heresy, sects sprang out of
sects and multiplied to such an extent that, to-
day, upwards of 14,000,000 Russian subjects
of the Tsar live outside the Greek Church in a
state of protest against its authority.

Evidences of this protest the various be-
liefs of dissent yield in abundance. The Bezpo-
povtsy, or " priestless " sect, rejects all ecclesi-
astical authority, bestowing upon its members
the right to baptize and perform other priestly
functions. So far does this class of dissenters
carry its rejection of the older dogmas that it
brands marriages within the pale of the Ortho-
dox Church as illegal. The Philippovtsy 1 are
notorious for their fanatical hostility to the
state. The Fedoseyevtsy 1 reject the ortho-
dox sacraments and the institution of the priest-
hood. The Stranniki (Wanderers) regard as
an essential part of their doctrine the suspen-
sion of all relations with the church and state, v

1 From names of persons.

140 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

The Duchobortsy (Warriors of the Spirit) teach
the negation of all dogmas. Under Catherine
II. and Paul I. their attitude was one of pro-
nounced hostility to the state. The Strigolniki l
direct a vigorous polemic against the church.
The Molokani decline to acknowledge Ortho-
dox sources of authority. The members of
a sect known as the Nyemolyaki (Prayerless
People) imitate the Vosdykhantsy (Sighers)
in their opposition to Biblical authority and
all forms of religions supplication. In this
sect, as in the Molchalniki (Silent) who re-
ject the Bible, and disbelieve in a future life,
in God, and in religion, we see the negation
of authority carried to its utmost possible ex-
treme. One body of dissenters selected the
Russian passport system as the object of its
special hostility. The Stundists, at the begin-
ning of their existence as a sect, expressly dis-
avowed their presumptive subjection to the
state.

A sort of atavism is noticeable in not a few
of the sectarian articles of faith. We see the
dissenters falling back, unconsciously enough,
to the dogmas — religious, social, and political
— of the early Slav life. The Obshcheye,
(Commune) taught a purely communistic doc-
trine. Every mir that joined it was forthwith

1 From a proper name.

THE RELIGIOUS PROTEST. 141

erected into a communistical unity, the members
of which enjoyed all property in common under
the administrative direction of " twelve apos-
tles " regularly chosen from the people. The
Stundists believe in and inculcate the equal-
ity of all men, exacting from members of the
sect a pronounced fraternal and philanthropic
activity. Regarding commerce for profit as
sinful, they trade with each other by a pro-
cess of simple exchange. Land, water, and
cattle they regard as the property of all men
in common, and as incapable of being trans-
ferred in inheritance. The popular character
of early Slav legislation finds an echo in the
Stundists' practice of settling all disputes
amongst members inter se, sometimes with
the aid of an elder temporarily invested with
judicial functions. In the principles of the
Duchobortsy, who hold that all men are equal,
and that children ought to have the same con-
sideration and reverence paid to them as that
shown to adults and the aged, we catch a glimpse
of old Slav life, with its recognition of personal
worth and individual rights. This sect disbe-
lieves in a future life, asserting the post-mortem
migration of the soul either into another body, or
to some far-off planet, — a partial reversion to
the old Slav dogma that after death the soul
sometimes journeyed to sun or moon. In the

142 TEE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

case of not a few of the fanatical sects, a truly-
pagan scorn of marriage has wrought not a little
injury to morals ; at times some of the hereti-
cal dissenters link themselves in their atavism
with the erotic orgies of the ancient world.

The motive force of the revolt called dissent
was Russian individuality. We find it every-
where awake. Men ready to lead, groups eager
to be led, are ubiquitous. The raskol, with its
one " split," gives birth to a thousand. A new
idea in dissent, a shade more of faith or incre-
dulity in any given direction, the discovery of
some affirming or denying text in the New Tes-
tament, that armory of arguments for sectarians,
— any one of these causes was amply sufficient
to start a new creed. The influence of individ-
uality in sect-forming is shown by the large
proportion of dissenting systems of faith that
bear the names of their founders. Thus, from
the activity 6f Daniel Vikulin the Danielites
came into existence ; that, of Theodosius Vassi-
liev led to the organization of the Theodosians.
In the former sect an extraordinary influence
seems to have been exerted by a certain Prince
Andrei Dennisov Myshetsky, who left behind
him a voluminous literature on religious sub-
jects. The same passionate enthusiasm and
restless activity in the cause were displayed by
Simeon, his brother and successor. The founder

THE RELIGIOUS PROTEST. 143

of the Philippovtsy, one Philipp, caused himself,
with thirty-eight of his followers, to be burnt
alive. A case is also narrated in which seven-
teen hundred sectarians set fire to their village
and voluntarily perished in the flames, denoun-
cing the Church, the Tsar, and the Orthodox
priesthood. In the commune of Starodub, gov-
ernment of Vladimir, one Daniel Philippovich
gained such influence over his followers that
they consented to receive a series of " ten com-
mandments " at his hands. The peasant Kon-
drati Selivanov, regarded by his Khlysty fol-
lowers as the incarnation of God, but at last
whipped by the authorities and exiled to Sibe-
ria, there became the centre of interest for hun-
dreds of pilgrims who visited the leader in his
banishment. Over the spot where Selivanov
suffered the punishment of the, lash they built
a chapel ; out of~the materials of his life they
composed a legend of , passion anct martyrdom
not unlike those of* which,' more recently, Rus-
sian political patriots have been made the sub-
ject. Gabriel Simin, the Cossack founder of the
Nyemolyaki ; Kapustin, leader of the Ducho-
bortsy; the venerable Abrossim, chief of the
Zhivniy Pokoiniki ; Michael Ratuzhny, who
originated the Stundist movement; these, and
many others whose names might be given, were
all men of awakened self-consciousness and pow-

144 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

erful individuality. Nor did women escape this
intellectual re-birth. At times their enthusiasm
ran over into fanaticism. The Skoptsy (Self-
Mutilators) had amongst their members in Mor-
shausk, government of Tambov, a peasant
.woman named Anna Safonovna, who was held
in great veneration as a prophetess. Amongst
the Khlyst}'r (Self-Whippers) numerous "moth-
ers of God" and prophetesses have made their
appearance. The absurdities into which the
enthusiasm of the time led the softer sex are
further shown by the career of women like Aku-
lina Ivanovna, who led a thousand followers as
the " Queen of Heaven," and of Anna Roman-
ovna, who wielded influence by such means as
ecstasies, paroxysms, and prophecies.

WESTERN ENLIGHTENMENT.

Thus far it has been the strange and abnor-
mal lot of Russia to take her institutions from
the foreigner, aud to have by no means the
most excellent of them foisted upon her against
her will. We have seen how she first called in
the Varegs to teach her government and mili-
tary organization ; how her next appeal was to
the Greek Church to instruct her in ritual
and religion ; and how, from numerous foreign
sources and at various times, she drew laws,
customs, industries, and arts. It is now for us
to look upon Russia under foreign tutelage in
what may be called the European or modern
period of the national life. This nominally be-
gins with the reforms of Peter ; really, its ad-
vent antedates that monarch's birth by several
decades. It is to Poland, the vulnerable side of
the empire, that one naturally looks for the ad-
vanced-guards of the new civilization. The
Poles were already an enlightened race and
had a literature, long before Russia had yet pro-
duced her first writer of note. Under Alexis Mi-
10

146 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

chailovich, in the seventeenth century, the habit
had sprung up of employing Polish teachers in
the wealthier Russian families. In high places,
too, this same Polish influence made itself felt.
Western manners obtained a footing at the
courts of the Tsars. Helen Glinsky, the second
wife of the Tsar Vassily, and mother of Ivan the
Terrible, persuaded her husband to shave his
beard nearly two centuries before Peter's forci-
ble introduction of the practice. The influence
of Marina in promoting western culture at the
court of Demetrius, her husband, was still more
marked. But when we come to the reign of
Peter's predecessor, Russian receptivity for
European civilization seems to enter upon a
new stage. Alexis, the father of the reformer,
showed in himself that love for foreign institu-
tions which he transmitted to his son. A trav-
eler to some extent, he had frequent intercourse
with foreigners* and in the house of Matveiev
met the most cultured men and women of the
time. Polish and Little Russian influence was
strong during the reign of Alexis ; and of the
immigrant savants, teachers, and theologians
who wielded that influence, some were chosen
to teach the children of the Tsar. Stronger
still, perhaps, as a Europeanizing force, was
the German colony at Moscow, representing the
best enlightenment of the time, as a. sort of

WESTERN ENLIGHTENMENT. 147

entrepdt through which a select few were per-
mitted to draw otherwise contraband stores of
culture and idea from the countries of west-
ern Europe. It was in the German colony,
moreover, that the regulations of the " Domos-
tro'i " were first broken through in regard to
woman, who there took her proper place in so-
ciety.

The new influences proved fatal to domestic
tyranny. Tanner writes in 1678 that men had
begun to permit their wives to converse with
other men in their presence ! What it cost the
priests to be obliged to sanction this arrange-
ment is nowhere stated. A little later, Korb
reports that " women no more hide themselves,
but go to church in open wagons." A new pe-
riod is clearly at hand for the long-oppressed
slave of the Russian household. In 1677 and
1679 legislation is enacted in favor- of property-
f holding by wives. Woman, after eight centu-
ries of exclusion from the Russian throne, again
takes her place at the head of the state in the
person of the regent Sophia,1 who in intellect,
enterprise, force of character, and education,
fitly represents the awakened feminine con-
sciousness and aspiration of her time. The ad-

1 To be followed, in due course, as Empresses, by Catherine I.,
the two Annes, Elizabeth Petrovna, and Catherine II., —a whole
galaxy of feminine talent.

148 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

vent of Peter brought, if not the complete
emancipation of "vpmen,,a host of reforms in
their favor. » T$h:tererk was abolished . Hence-
forth Russian*\^nfen were to appear in society
and dress in the European manner. Parents
were prohibited by law from causing children
to marry against their will, while the betrothal
was legally fixed to take place six weeks before
the marriage, in order that the couple might
become acquainted with each other, and break
off the engagement if they thought necessary.
The law forbidding uneducated gentlemen to
marry was an attempt to bring enlightenment
into families which stood in far greater need of
culture than of wealth. Servile diminutives
and prostrations were no longer permitted ; to
wear his beard and continue to be a Russian
Slav entailed upon each subject who refused to
shave a fine of from thirty to one hundred rou-
bles ; the pravezh took a milder form. Numer-
ous foreigners were brought to Russia ; many
books were translated into the language of the
country, to the end that its institutions and in-
dustries, its manners and customs, might thence-
forth belong to European rather than Russian
civilization. So sudden and violent were the
reforms that even church literature underwent
their modifying influence. The orthodox youth
is warned by Possoshkov that he must not pay

WESTERN ENLIGHTENMENT. 149

'court to two or three young women at the same
time, on the ground that I4 woman is not an an-
imal, but a human being." The >same writer
counsels husbands to undertake nothing without
first advising with 'their wives, remarking, " She
is, before God, not his^ ■ servant, but his helper.
She is not even a mere helper, but equal with
the husband. Even when the wife is intellect-
ually incapable, you must hear her counsel, if
only to carry out the will of God. If she gives
bad advice, God will help the husband to see
what it is necessary for him to do."

Peter originated no new movement, but
merely gave a sudden and violent impulse to a
process already begun. He incarnated the spirit
of the time. All its tendencies found expression
in himself. A genuine migrant, he had an in-
tense love of travel. His predilection for the
foreign amounted to a passion ; his eager recep-
tivity for knowledge linked him with the peo-
ple. That he was the most realistic Russian
of his time — perhaps that Russia has ever pro-
duced— is shown by the practical character
and studied utility of all his reforms. Like
those of the people, his aspirations were upward
and onward, for racial movements carry mon-
archs along with them as well as slaves. Yet
despite these common points of agreement to
facilitate understanding with each other, it was

150 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

inevitable that hostilities should break out be-
tween a ruler who lived in the future and sub-
jects whose predilections lay in the past. Peter
was a Slav like the rest, but unlike the rest he
was born an autocrat, and could no more rid him-
self of the influence of circumstance than could
the classes over whom he ruled. The people
could not brook absolute power, and Peter could
not brook popular power. Traditions which,
under one set of circumstances, produced popular
hatred of monocracy, under another set arrayed
the individual against pantocracy. It was the
union of two passions, one individual, arising
out of position, the other racial, a product of
growth, that gave so much harshness to the re-
former's character and activity. Had Peter
been less of a Slav he would have been less of a
despot. On the other hand, had he not been
born to power he might have won it for him-
self. His struggle against the popular resis-
tance had especial elements of difficulty. He
had ascended the throne in the full tide of a
thinly disguised political revolt. By all the
methods which it could compass — by church
secessions, by religious insurrection, by brigan-
dage and risings — the country had expressed
its resistance to authority. Peter not only con-
ceded nothing to that resistance : he provoked
it with every expedient of a fertile brain, and

WESTERN ENLIGHTENMENT. 151

then foiled it at the top of its bent by bringing
against it all the instruments of brute force
which an unlimited command of the resources
of punitive cruelty placed at his disposal. It
was the same old issue that Peter now revived
with a thousand aggravations. Just as merely
superficial appearances failed to explain the
quarrel between Nikon and the Old Believers, so
there was a deeper meaning in the new dispute
than any that could be drawn from the outer
aspects of a petty squabble between the advo-
cates of Slav institutions and the partisans of
west European civilization. In the one as in
the other case the popular revolt was against
authority and all that it represented ; against
centralization, against beaurocracy, against un-
due tax-gathering ; against, in fine, the com-
bined burdens of an ecclesiastically and auto-
cratically governed state.

Jealous of every authority save that of the
Tsar, Peter took early steps to secure the field
of sovereignty wholly to himself. To the popu-
lar resistance he opposed the inquisitions and
barbarities of a secret tribunal. The privileges
of the Little Russians he struck down by abol-
ishing their hetmanate. By a series of terrible
massacres he broke the power of the stryeltsy.
Distrustful of the monks, whose sympathies
were not with the reforms, he forbade them the

152 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

use of pens and ink in their cells. He warned
the bishops against display and ostentation, in-
structing them to receive and permit no marks
of popular reverence. The dissenters were re-
lentlessly persecuted. Peter could brook no
rival, even in spiritual matters, and so, abolish-
ing the patriarchate, he became as supremely
head of the church as he had been before in-
contestably autocrat of the state. Finally, we
see him — distrustful even in the paternal rela-
tionship — sanctioning the murder of his own
son.1

Peter's egoism and energy, his ambition, his
callous insensibility to human suffering, seemed
to give autocratic rule in Russia a new and vi-
rile lease of power. The Tsar reformer left the
Russian state superficially stronger than ever,
— stronger by its union with the church, by
pressure of the nobility into its service, by a
more perfect system of money-raising, and an
increase in the authority of the proprietorial tax-
gatherer over the enslaved tiller of the soil di-
rectly related to the increased authority of the
monarch himself. But Peter did more than
simply perfect this half Mongol, half Byzantine
legacy that had fallen into his hands. The ex-
isting system was essentially Asian. Peter
sought to make it European. Previous Tsars

1 Knouted to death.

WESTERN ENLIGHTENMENT. 153

had been content to build up the Russian state
homogeneously ; Peter and his reforms raised a
problem that was destined at last to form the
one great question of the national life, before
which all others were to be of mere secondary-
interest. How long and to what degree was it
possible to reconcile to the old cadre of auto-
cratic government this filling in of western cul-
ture ? How many centuries could Tsarism hope
to go on pouring out the bright new wine of
modern civilization into those ancient bottles of
Asian despotism that Europe has never toler-
ated save in her curiosity shops ? In the light
of questions like these Peter's work possesses a
double significance. Constructively, and within
the immediate limits of his activity, the re-
former did more to strengthen the foundations
of despotism in Russia, perhaps, than any other
member of the Romanov family. Unconsciously
and prospectively, he struck despotism a blow
from which it was destined never to recover.
No avowed champion of the people, aided by the
most favorable circumstances, could have done
such effective battle for Russian liberties as that
compassed by the champion of absolute power.
Earlier than the reforms by a century had the
West sent out into the Russian land her pio-
neers of enlightenment ; like the serpent brood
at the root of Yggdrasil, the world-tree of Scan-

154 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

dinavian myth, they lay gnawing at the base of
autocratic rule, silently, if slowly, undermining
that structure of ages to its fall. But Peter
was the first to fairly robe Russian tyranny in
the Nessus-shirt of European civilization. This
was the reformer's real significance for the na-
tional, life. This was his title to greatness and
to glory.

Eagerly welcoming as enlightenment what it
had resisted as authority, Russia, once fairly in
the new path, went on steadily assimilating
west European manners. The courts of em-
presses and emperors became brilliant centres
of foreign culture. Under Anna Ivanovna Ger-
man influence reigned almost as despotically as
the Tsaritsa herself. It was the privilege of
Elizabeth Petrovna, who opened relations with
France, surrounding herself with French emi-
grants, to witness not only the first successes of
the new civilization, but also the birth of Rus-
sian literature in Lomonossov. Foreign in-
fluence, principally French, fired the wit as it
embellished the reign of Catherine II., and only
culminated, under Alexander I., in a brilliant
epoch wherein Russia seemed to follow the ex-
ample of France by crowding the most illus-
trious of her names into a single page of the
national history. In some of the earliest years
of the century now about to close, we see Rus-

WESTERN ENLIGHTENMENT, 155

sia not only saturated with the science and
learning of the West, but mature enough to
have a national literature of her own. From
Kantimir, Derzhavin, Karamzin, Zhukovsky,
representing the foreign and unripe period of
the new culture, the country grew to Pushkin,
Gogol, Koltsov, Krylov, Griboyedov, Turgeniev,
and others, representing the national or intro-
spective period of the intellectual movement.
The emancipation of the serfs, the impulse given
to popular and university education, the spread
of the literary spirit by reviews and newspapers,
all events of the reign of Alexander II., seemed
to bring Russian civilization to its highest point.
What, now, was the character of this prog-
ress ? Did it tend to reconcile the people to
authority, or was its influence one provocative
of hostility to the system of rule by absolute
power ? It must be remembered that then as
now the Russian government, alike in the man-
ner of its origin and the methods of its oper-
ation, was a unique national phenomenon in
Europe. It was in the autocratic order of so-
ciety that all Russian literature, uninfluenced
from without, had its foundation. The foreign
literature read so eagerly by the receptive Rus-
sians presupposed an entirely different consti-
tution of society and order of things. When
least political in its character it offered number-

156 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

less contrasts with Russian life ; when most
political it formed a literature of propaganda.
Enlightenment, even when pure and simple,
was the foe of all despotism ; knowledge used to
glorify liberty could not fail to hasten the pro-
cessed tha*t were disintegrating a semi-Asian
state. Such had been the influence of the for-
eign culture and ideas that in the first years of
the century we see Alexander I. consulting with
statesmen whose ideal constitution was a gov-
ernment in the English and not in the Rus-
sian manner. Montesquieu, Rousseau, Byron,
Goethe, Schiller, had an audience in Russia fully
as eager and impressionable, if not as large, as
that to which they appealed amongst their own
countrymen. Griboyedov, in " Gore* ot uma"
(The Misfortune of having Brains), and Gogol,
in "The Revisor," supplied the material for
gloomy comparisons of Russian with west Euro-
pean civilization. In the third and fourth dec-
ades of the ^century we see the Russian youth
studying Schelling and Hegel, absorbing the doc-
trines of Fourrier and St. Simon. The art school
of Bielinsky finds its antithesis in the realistic
school of Pissarev. Popular translations of the
works of Darwhv Biichner, Moleschott, and
Buckle are eagerly read. The^ students devour
Prudhon and. Louis Blanc. -Gferhishevsky in
the sixth decade popularizes the writings of

WESTERN ENLIGHTENMENT. 157

John Stuart Mill, -and formulates, in " Shto
dyelat " (What -s'to be done), a scheme for the
reconstruction of society. The socialistic ideas
of the time find expression in the "Contempo-
rary," in which both Qhefnislievsky' and Dobro-
lyubov champion western thought.

Such, briefly, was the European period of
Russian development. That it was a period of
high and valuable acquisition for the national
life is incontestable. The machinery of the
first reforms was unquestionably despotic. For-
eign manners were frequently associated with
foreign morals. But a real and beneficial en-
lightenment took place. Western culture, in
emancipating women and children from domes-
tic tyranny, merely anticipated by a few years
an inevitable reaction from the sway of the
"Domostroi." Foreign literature stimulated
native minds until the Russians could create a
literature of their own. It was foreign ideas
thai; led to the emancipation of the serf ; it was
foreign ideas that gave the country imperfect
yet priceless educational advantages ; it was
foreign ideas to which must be referred all con-
cessions of absolute power to absolute subjection
that have been made in Russia firing the pres-
ent century.

On the other hand, 'we have seen how intoler-
ance of autocracy increased in proportion to

158 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

the degree ami character of the incoming en-
lightenment.^ The greater the Russian^ love
of foreign institutions, the greater was his de-
testation of those at his own door. ) Science
gave an immense 'impulse to this critical intro-
spection. The realism that produced incredu-
lity in matters of religious faith led to the rejec-
tion of the most venerable dogmas in politics.
If now and then " emancipated " circles of
young people deemed it proper to reject author-
ity in the family, and withdraw reverence from,
the sacred mysteries of the church, whati obe-
dience and consideration could they be expected
to show to the head of the state ? The very
sanctity of life itself came to be questioned.
What was nature, reasoned the young material-
ist, but an eternal process of reproduction and
annihilation, a process in which life is continu-
ally purchased at the cost of death, a process" in
which the general and not the individual weal
is the supreme law ? If by the death of one
man millions could be made happier, would not
that be a gain? Such was the terrible question-
ing that arose out of the new knowledge from
the West, and such the exaggerated forms in
which the issues of a great problem had begun
to present themselves. Yet they were nothing
more than a natural reaction from the evils of
a system which the Russian mind was rejecting

WESTERN ENLIGHTENMENT. 159

with a dangerous suddenness, rather than in a
movement of recoil at once slow and safe. The
emancipation of women could not fail to pre-
r sentvpIiehomena of an analogous character. Of
Russian w^men. in 1843, Haxthausen writes : —

" If, instead" of going into Egypt to look for the
free woman, the Saint Simonians had made a voyage
to Russia, they would have come back perhaps more
satisfied. In a family well organized, it is the hus-
band who reigns and the wife who governs ; but in
Russia it is quite the contrary. Many of the peas-
ant women work very much less than with us in the
country districts. Men in Russia even perform part
of the household work : they carry water, wood, and
make the fire. Amongst the bourgeoisie and mer-
chant class the women pass the day doing nothing."

And when, in comparatively recent times,
young female students donned male garments
and cut their hair short like that of men, the
vagary was not nearly so unnatural as it seemed
to the many superficial observers who held it
up to ridicule. The reaction was from a state
of things for which hardly any exaggeration
could furnish an adequate antithesis. No pe-
culiarity of attire or manner could so unsex
woman as she was unsexed by the terem and
the u Domostroi." The wonder is not that she
rebelled, but that she did not rebel in some
more terrible and tragic manner.

\

FIRST FRUITS.

If the state policy of Peter was faithfully
continued by his successors, the spirit of revolt
was kept alive by the miserable condition of
the people, and by the numerous provocations
they suffered at the hands of autocratic power.
Scarcely had Catherine II. ascended the throne
when a terrible insurrection broke out in Mos-
cow. The mob cried, " It is not for us Ortho-
dox to suffer the injustice of authority ! " Two
years later an extensive rebellion was led by
Pugachev, who gathered under his banner fugi-
tive serfs, dissenters, Volga pirates, and men of
all reputable and disreputable classes from the
Volga regions. The rising was in itself of small
significance. "It is not Pugachev that is im-
portant," wrote Catherine's agent ; " it is the
general discontent." The serfs rebelled against
their masters ; the Tatar tribes rose against the
Russians ; a frightful revolution seemed on the
point of shaking the empire to its fall. But
Tsar ism acted promptly ; Catherine hung Pu-
gachev and destroyed the Zaporog republic of

FIRST FRUITS. 161

free Cossacks. A few years later the dilettante
empress amused her favorite nobles by making
them presents of human beings, a step which
transferred one hundred and fifty thousand men
and women from the crown lands, where their
lot was tolerable, to the conditions of private
serfdom, where it was incomparably more
wretched. In 1767 the correspondent of Vol-
taire issued an ukaz forbidding serfs to make
complaints about their masters and mistresses,
-and giving to the latter the right to deport the
slaves to Siberia. Later, Catherine established
serfage in Little Russia.1

It was in the reign of Catherine that the re-
volt against authority, hitherto expressed in
general discontent or in outbreaks that aimed
only indirectly against the existing regime, began
to take the form of conspiracy. At first the
movement seems to have sheltered itself in free-
masonry societies, and to have been confined to
the planning of an improved form of govern-
ment for Russia, such as might be discussed
amongst the intelligent classes without exciting
suspicion. Its leader in Catherine's time was
one Novikov, who did much to disseminate the
new culture amongst the masses, who after-
wards suffered from the disrepute into which

1 Was not this the lady of whom Voltaire wrote, " C'est du
Nord, aujourd'hui, que nous vient la lumiere " V
11

162 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

freemasonry fell, and finally came to be re-
garded by some as the father of the Russian
revolt. But the modern and aggressive phase
of the revolt had not yet begun. It took the
cumulative irritations of three reigns after that
of Catherine to give it anything like a perma-
nent footing in Russia. Of these, the schemes
of Paul for the support of sovereign authority
were amongst the first signs of the distrust with
which the successors of Peter began to regard
^European ideas. ' At first Tsarism had deluded
ifeelf into the belief that it could combine a
state organization as despotic as that of Russia
and a civilization as advanced as that of Eng-
land or France. Gradually, by force of mere
suspicion at the outset, afterwards by the logic
of facts, this simple faith gave way to a recog-
nition of the utter impossibility of holding to-
gether a dual state, of which the ruling elements
were irreconcilable with each other. To lessen
the antagonism, to correct the harm already
done, Tsarism hit upon the expedient of filter-
ing foreign ideas through the censure ; in urgent
cases, of excluding them altogether. A panic
fear of the West and of Western influences dis-
played itself in many of the measures of Paul
and his successors. In close attendance upon
it we seem to see in the autocratic mind a vague
consciousness of injustice, a sense even as of guilt

FIRST FRUITS. 163

that could not be shaken off. This overwhelm-
ing disproportion in the balance of power on the
side of the ruler, the crowding of all final au-
thority into a single individuality, the practical
annihilation of the people as factors of national
government, — all these pressed upon the rep-
resentative of Tsarism with crushing weight.

Alexander I. began by coquetting with West-
ern culture, and ended by holding it in profound
distrust. He had a particular fear of the for-
eign pedagogue and governess.

" Our nobles," runs a state paper of which Alex-
ander approved, " the support of the empire, are
brought up frequently in the care of persons who . . .
despise everything native, and have neither sound
acquirements nor proper moral principles. The other
classes imitate the nobility, and help to compass the
overthrow of society by handing their children over
to foreigners to be educated. . . . Foreigners are also
chosen to impart instruction in the sciences ; this
doubles the injury, and is rapidly rooting out the
national spirit."

In order to remedy the state of things com-
plained of, Alexander decreed that in future the
founders of private schools should be tested for
" morality " rather than for knowledge. An
ukaz issued in 1824 enjoined the closest watch-
fulness upon the censure, in order that influen-
ces might be counteracted that were spreading

164 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

" immorality, infidelity, and sedition." An
ukaz of the same period aimed at suppressing
the school circulation of certain " dangerous "
works. From the universities several profess-
ors were dismissed. The further teaching of
natural philosophy and the political sciences
was forbidden. The students were henceforth
required to live in the fear of God and the Or-
thodox faith, to show the due respect and hold
themselves in proper subordination to all offi-
cials of the university and the state, to refrain
from attending theatres and social gatherings
without permission, not to go beyond the limits
of the town, even on botanizing tours, without
the authority of the school chief ; not to be seen
in public taverns or hotels, not to read books
inimical to the Orthodox faith or to the existing
method of government, not to leave the univer-
sity or school without permission. The press
was crippled and a ban laid upon the teachings
of Newton and Copernicus. The earth still
moved, but not for Alexander ; the apple con-
tinued to fall, but the Russian monarch had
made up his mind to ignore the phenomenon.
Such were some of the irritations contrived for
the towns and town life. Alexander also found
time to guard the agricultural populations
against evil influences. In a number of dis-
tricts he established military colonies. The

FIRST FRUITS. 165

scheme was one for recruiting the army with-
out crippling agriculture, and for keeping up a
healthy sentiment of loyalty amongst the com-
mon people. These ends were to be accom-
plished by the unmarried soldiers of each colony
becoming the husbands of the peasants' daugh-
ters. The wretched muzhik, upon whom the
whole weight of the state lay, resented this new
burden. In the new temper of the people, his
revolt against authority took the direct form.
It was repressed with great cruelty.

Unfortunately for the success of Alexander's
plotting against Western ideas, there was one
inlet for them which no rigors of censorship
could close up or even hold in surveillance.
The Napoleonic wars and the part Alexander
played in them had brought some of the most
thoughtful men and officers of the Russian
army into direct contact with west European
civilization. No longer mere students of the
French revolution, drinking in from books the
teachings of the Encyclopaedists, at last they
stood in Paris, in the heart of that bright world
of ideas, upon which they had gazed so ardently
and so long from the dark planet of their own
destiny ; at last thousands of observing Rus-
sians, belonging to all ranks in the army and
militia, seemed to have broken through the re-
strictions upon foreign travel, and to be wan-

166 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

dering over western Europe, comparing their
own lot with that of the foreigner, storing up
impressions and experiences, collecting knowl-
edge, and committing facts to memory, that
were afterwards to cross the frontier in too in-
tangible a shape to suffer interference at the
hands of censor or officer of the custom house,
yet full of a potency that could not be esti-
mated in terms of physical force. The true
and first propaganda of the revolt began when
these traveling Russians carried back to their
countrymen at home the story of what they had
seen in Europe. Many of them, like Pestel,

' noticed that u the states in which no revolution
had taken place continued to be deprived of
many rights and privileges ; " not a few of the
officers recrossed the frontier with the fixed

/purpose of " importing France into Russia."
In 1815 the two brothers Muraviev founded the
" Arsamass," a literary society with political
objects. At first the conspirators hoped to ob-
tain a new constitution by peaceful agitation.
But the "crowned Hamlet" of Russian autoc-
racy, as Herzen called him, blighted these
hopes by closing all the Freemasons' lodges,
and by harassing the more enlightened classes
through the censure and the police. In 1817
the " Alliance du Bien JStre " came into ex-
istence under the leadership of Pestel. Then

FIRST FRUITS. 167

followed the Society of the North, with its
headquarters at St. Petersburg, and the Society
of the South, stationed at Moscow. The So-
ciety of Virtue was dissolved, but two other
organizations stepped into its place. Over the
four societies now in existence Pestel's influence
was predominant. The general object of the
conspirators was to set up a federated Slav
republic or constitutional monarchy .\\ Pestel
planned the seizure and execution of the royal
family, and the proclamation of a new govern-
ment by the Senate and the Holy Synod, who
were to be forced into the part assigned to them
by a military insurrection. Many soldiers were
gained over to the scheme, but the outbreak
itself was badly carried out, and had no leaders
worthy of the name. Prince Trubetskoy, the
head elect of the new government, was no-
where to be found in the moment of danger.
When at last the outbreak came Alexander was
dead, and Nicholas, with an insurrection barring
his way to the throne, plied the two thousand
revolting soldiers with grape shot. The rising
was easily crushed. Pestel, Ryliev, Sergius
Muravev, Bestyuzhev-Ryumin, and Kakhovsky
expiated their aspirations and bravery on the
scaffold ; one hundred and sixteen others were
banished to Siberia.

This first conversion of the spirit of revolt

168 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

into terms of force ended in an apparent disaster
, for the conspirators. Yet it was the conspirators
who were really victorious. Nothing could have
given so vital and stimulating an impulse to
the cause of Russian revolt as a failure which
was destined to array the very worst tendencies
of absolutism against the rising intelligence of
the people. Nicholas was a born despot, but
^ his despotism as a Tsar drew not a little of its
selfish egoism and unbounded cruelty from the
irritating events of the 14th of December. Had
.the purpose of the Dekabrists been to show
autocracy at its worst, and in this way to array
against it all the potencies of popular resistance,
their success could not have been greater than
it was. Had Nicholas aimed at calling forth all
the bitterness and hostility which the hearts of
his subjects could cherish towards despotic rule,
he could not have acted more in harmony with
such a purpose than he did. A monarch so in-
genious in devising methods of popular irrita-
tion perhaps never sat on the Russian throne.
We see him laying his iron hand on everything
that could be suspected of contributing to the
fast growing discontent. Foreign travel, the
study of foreign languages and literatures,
teaching by foreigners or by Russians who had
been educated abroad, — all these were made
the subject of numerous prohibitory or restric-

FIRST FRUITS. 169

tive decrees. The inculcation of German philos-
ophy he ingeniously confined to the priests, the
majority of whom did not know the language
of their own liturgies, not to say anything of
the tongue of Schelling and Hegel and Kant.

The revolt gradually obtained recognition in
official circles. Attempts were even made to
explain it. Numerous rescripts and decrees,
particularly school orders and university papers,
declare the harm to have arisen through the
idleness of the student, the " luxury of half
knowledge " wrought by the prevailing system
of education, and the immoral influences of pri-
vate tuition under the care of foreign masters
and pedagogues. The elements of the problem
awaiting solution are thus summed up by Uva-
rov, minister of public instruction, in a report
to the Tsar dated 19th November, 1833 : —

" Russia has preserved a warm faith in certain re-
ligious, moral, and political ideas peculiar to its own
conditions and circumstances. But how shall these
principles, which lack unity and centrality, and have
had to sustain an uninterrupted struggle during the
past thirty years, be brought into harmony with the
present temper of the times ? Shall we be able so to
include them in our system of universal education as
to combine the advantages of our own time with the
traditions of the past and hopes for the future? How
may we devise a system of popular education which

170 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

shall correspond with our own state of things and yet
not be foreign to the European spirit ? Whose strong
and experienced hand can keep intellectual aspirations
within the limits of quiet and order, and at the same
time ward off everything likely to prove inimical to
the welfare of the state ? "

Or, in other words, " How shall we reconcile
a European culture with an Asian method of
government ? " It was the old issue. Uvarov
was seeking a modus vivendi between the two
forces, and he was clearly aiming at the impos-
sible. Western ideas had already shown their
hostility to Tsarism, and no experiments with
education, no dismissing of professors, no cru-
sade against foreign teachers, foreign books, and
foreign travel could force the new thought into
a degrading compromise with its highest veri-
ties and aspirations. The revolt was to awaken
again, and that right quickly. Mr. Wallace
tells his readers that there was little need for
the order that went forth after the hanging of
Pestel and his fellow patriots, — the order de-
claring "that there should be no more fire-
works, no more dilettante philosophizing or new
aspirations." "Society," says the writer named,
" had discovered to its astonishment that these
new ideas . . . led in reality to exile and the
scaffold. The pleasant dream was at an end."
A society that could give birth to men like Pes-

FIRST FRUITS. 171

tel, and Ryliev, and Bestyuzhev, — to men who,
under happier circumstances, would have been
the salvation of their country, — was not a
society to underestimate the hazards of a strug-
gle for liberty, or to basely yield up its aspira-
tions because suffering and bloodshed were to be
the penalties of realization. The " pleasant
dream " was not at an end. It drew a fresh
charm from the intensified despotism of which
it was the bright antithesis ; it furnished gener-
ous minds and hearts with an ever recurring
means of escape from the dreary life of the new
regime. And when at last tyranny at home
and dragooning abroad brought Nicholas to the
ignominious reverse in the Krim, all tongues
that could give voice to the common aspiration
for liberty arose in condemnation and arraign-
ment of the absolutist monarch. From one end
of the empire to the other this voice was heard,
in manuscripts, in pamphlets, in books. The
people declared they had been " kept long
enough in serfage by the successors of the Tatar
Khans." They protested that God had not con-
demned them forever to be slaves.

In the mean time a movement was spreading
in Russia that, hitherto regarded as an outcome
of mere literary and ethnological sentiment,
must here be restored to its true place and signif-
icance as a part of the general revolt. In this,

172 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

as in many other cases, one cannot fail to recog-
nize the extraordinary vitality of the process
which is assailing the fabric of Tsarism. The
revolt never dies. Driven from one means of
aggressiveness, it selects another point of attack.
Its approaches are often as cunningly indirect as
those of a besieger's parallel. Whether as a re-
ligious quarrel, as an act of collective brigandage,
as a military revolution or a conspiracy, it pre-
serves its character and aims through the most
baffling and Protean disguises. We shall next
see it, then, in association with the protest
against that authority which forced upon an
unwilling people the innovations of Peter, the
reformer. That protest had a double character.
In their negative attitude the people resented
the inroad made upon their personal liberties,
or upon so much of them as remained ; their
positive opposition arose out of a love of the
free life of the early Slav period and its allied
sentiment in favor of old Russian habits and
customs. Gradually this protest grew into a
declared opposition to west European culture,
and gradually a class of thinkers was formed
who began to decry everything foreign and laud
every thing Slav and national. Russia had all
the elements for such a reaction within her own
borders. The profound distrust with which
many educated people regarded the reforms was

FIRST FRUITS. 173

intensified amongst the people by a natural
hatred of the despotism with which they had
been enforced, — a despotism which grew as the
state grew, and with every extension of impe-
rial authority placed new burdens upon the
shoulders of the masses. The war with France,
the " patriotic " uprising against Napoleon, the
triumphs of Pushkin in the national field of
Russian literature, and the introspective direc-
tion given to thought by the writings of Gogol,
— all these helped to strengthen a movement
ostensibly directed against foreign culture, but
really aimed at a regime which withheld from
Russia the advantages of its old civilization.

Under the impulse of literary romanticism on
the one hand, and of German philosophy on the
other, the movement or tendency at last sepa-
rated intellectual Russian society into two par-
ties. Both elements, conservative and liberal,
we see represented in the third decade of the
present century by a group of young men who
met to study Hegel at the house of Stankevich, ^
a university professor in Moscow. One of the
questions discussed was, " Is a logical transition
possible, without gap or obstacle, from pure
Being through Nothing to Becoming and Exist-
ence?" In other words, "What governs the
world, the free creating Will, or the law of ne-
cessity ? " Further, " In what consists the antith-

174 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

esis between the Russian and west European
civilization ? Is it the degree of the devel-
opment, or the peculiarity of the elements of
culture ? " Finally, " Is Russian civilization des-
tined to be penetrated not only by the superfi-
cial results, but also by the fundamental sub-
stance of European civilization ? Or will Rus-
sia, after she has absorbed her own Orthodox
intellectual life, find in this a new phase of uni-
versal human culture ? " A political turn might
be given to almost any one of these questions,
yet they seem to have been discussed without
reference to questions of state. The immediate
result of the controversies which sprang from
them was the formation of the two parties, —
the Slavophils, or Nationalists, and the Zapad-
niki, or Westerns.

Both were discontented with the existing r£-
gime. The Westerns, whose polemical head-
quarters were St. Petersburg, admitted the lack
of self-consciousness on the part of society, and
the helplessness and ignorance of the masses,
but looked for a means of remedy to the dis-
semination of European knowledge and the
consistent prosecution of the work begun by
Peter. The Slavophils, who found their party
centre at Moscow, had a policy in harmony with
their choice of camp. They looked for help to the
past, in which they saw, instead of tormenting

FIRST FRUITS. 175

discord, a full unity between authority, society,
and the people. They held that the reforms had
separated the masses from the upper layer of
society, which had abjured them. Thus the
national unity had been destroyed. To restore
that unity it was necessary to reject Western
culture and return to the old Russian civiliza-
tion.1 M. Ivan Aksakov, one of the cleverest
and best known of the Slavophils, describes the
reforms of Peter as having effected a complete
revolution. " The state," he goes on to say,
" breaks with the country and subjects it. It
hastens to build a new residence that has noth-
ing in common with Russia, and has no root in
Russian reminiscences. While it breaks faith
with the land, it forms itself on the pattern of
the West, where state institutions have been
most developed, and introduces the aping of
western Europe. Everything Russian is per-
secuted. Those of the state serve it faithfully ;
the people remain true to the old. Russia is
split into two. It has two capitals. On the one
hand is the state, with its foreign capital St.
Petersburg ; on the other are the people, with
their Russian capital Moscow."

The Slavophils carried on no conspiracy
against Tsarism and had the happy fortune not

In this paragraph I follow the account given by M. Pypin in
vol. ii. of the Vyestnik Yevropy. — '

K

176 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

to be suspected of disloyalty. Yet their views
and policy, — formulated not only by M. Aksa-
kov, but also by talented men like the brothers
Kiryevsky, like Khomyakov, Valuyev, Kon-
stantin, Samarin, Koshelev, Yelagin, Novikov,
Shchiskov, — will be found to raise issues against , y
Russian absolutism precisely identical in essence
with those of the revolt itself. From the very
group of Slavophils who had been studying ^
" non-political " philosophy with Stankevich '
sprang two of the most uncompromising foes of
Tsarism that Russia ever produced.1

The Slavophils had a clear predilection for the
political characteristics of the old civilization.
They were opposed to the evils that had been
wrought by the usurpations of the autocratic
state. In dwelling on the unity which the old
Slav system secured for authority, society, and
the people, they were simply lauding the privi-
leges of the pre-Muscovite days, of the time when
the people had their veckes, when the ruler was
a servant, when the communal and urban liber-
ties were intact, and when the population gov-
erned their own country, neminem ferans im-
perantem. Nothing had done so much to cause
that separation of classes of which they com-
plained as the growth of the autocratic state
and the gradual sacrifice of healthy social equali- (

1 Herzen and Bakunin.

FIRST FRUITS. 177

ties to the financial exigencies of a centralized
administration and a unified territory. The er-
ror, sentimental rather than historical, into
which the Slavophils fell was that of choosing
the pre-Muscovite period for idealization, and of
blaming Peter alone for a work of class separa-
tion which, it is quite clear, began long before
the advent of the reformer, having really been
^originated under Byzantine and Mongolic influ-
ence.

When Slavophilism grew into the wider
ethnological conception of Panslavism, the move-
ment showed its inner solidarity with the revolt
in new forms. The aim of the party was to
bring into a union more or less close all the
branches of the Slav stock. The scheme further
contemplated the headship of the Tsar, and
the Russification of the various members of the
union. Finally a fraction was born to Panslav-
ism under Koshelev, who withdrew his consent
to the Russification of the Poles, and demanded
a new constitution for Russia.

A remarkable feature of the Panslavistic sen-
timent was the federative idea which underlay
it. Herzen, for example, planned a separation
from Russia of the Caucasus, the Baltic prov-
inces, and Finland. Others contemplated Polish
and Little Russian autonomy. The dream of
not a few Panslavists was a federation of all the
12

y

178 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

Slav nationalities. And this idea of federation
directly connected the movement with the re-
volt, since it was a reversion to the federative
principle of old Slav life. We shall see later
how it was utilized and developed by the oppo-
nents of the unified empire.

MYSTICISM AND PESSIMISM.

It now becomes necessary, before the story of
the revolt can be resumed, to consider certain
psychological phenomena due to the oppressive
conditions of the individual and national devel-
opment. The mystical tendencies of thought
in Russia seem to have first declared themselves
on religious ground, but their later manifesta-
tions have invaded all fields of intellectual life
and literary labor. Mysticism, the reader will
remember, has worn innumerable garbs and re-
ceived multifarious definitions. It has been
called theopathetic, theosophic, theurgic. It
has been discovered in the Vedas, in the doc-
trines of Plato, and the philosophy of Hegel.
In the Middle Ages we see it as u purification,"
" illumination," " ecstatic union," and " absorp-
tion." Sometimes it is pantheistic, sometimes
theistic. Strictly speaking, it is an internal il-
lumination, a supersensual exaltation, an as-
cribing of objective existence to the subjective
creations of the mind. But the name has also
been given to morbid tendencies to the myste-

v/

180 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

rious, and to the play of the fancy in the realm
of the spiritual or ghostly. In the individual
the mystical condition may be produced by some
striking experience, — by a crushing disappoint-
ment, by world-weariness, by the discovery of
some truth. It may arise in deep melancholy,
still of tener out of despair. Yet, with depres-
sion for its exciting cause, it appears only in the
form of reaction. The mind seems to triumph
over its old state by a sense of exclusiveness and
exaltation, a consciousness of special endow-
ment, sanctity, or knowledge. Mysticism, as a
national trait, is produced by oppressive condi-
tions of national life ; mysticism in religion
arises out of dry and lifeless formalism. Yet,
in whatever guise it may present itself, mysti-
cism is ever the result of irritation, and always
assumes an attitude antithetical to authority,
whether the dogmas opposed be theological or
political.

Russia is by no means the only country of
Europe in which mystical tendencies have given
their color to intellectual life and religious move-
ments. Spain had her mystical reaction after
the crushing of constitutional and religious free-
dom by Charles and his son Philip. Germany
affords a still more conspicuous example in the
mysticism of the " Sturm und Drang " period.
A whole nation's longing for liberty, for full-

MYSTICISM AND PESSIMISM. 181

ness of knowledge, for the lost simplicity and
delights of childhood, were nowhere so well ex-
pressed as in " Faust," that most mystical of all
Goethe's literary work. By turns, or yielding
to a common impulse, other countries than
Spain and Germany also had their mystical
periods. Yet there is a fundamental difference
between the mysticism of Russia and that of
western Europe. The former is chronic ; the
latter acute. This, as we know it in literature,
is long ago dead ; that was never more vital
than it is to-day. West European mysticism
may be called a phenomenon; Russian mysti-
cism is essentially a growth.

The first considerable appearance of mysticism
in Russia took place simultaneously with the /
development of dissent from the raskol. It was
the peculiarity of the mystical sects of the
eighteenth century that they found converts ex-
clusively amongst the peasants, and sprang up
in parts of the country separated from each other
by great distances. Mystical dissent appeared
not only in the southern provinces, but in Fin-
land, in the Caucasus, at Moscow, Kaluga, even
in Irkutsk and Kamschatka. These facts show
— unless intellectual tendencies, like plant seeds,
can be scattered by the wind — that Russian \
mysticism was a purely native growth, having
no sort of relation or connection with the Ana-

J

182 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

baptism or Quakerism of the west. Its most
pronounced features seem to have found expres-
sion in the Dukhobortsy sect, to which reference
has already been made. The great mystic and
leader of this body was Kapustin, who, proceed-
ing from illumination to illumination, at last
declared himself to be Christ, and was wor-
shiped as such by his followers. Kapustin
reasoned in this wise : " Has not Jesus said, ■ I
shall remain with you till the end of time?'
Thus from century to century, descending from
generation to generation, the divine soul of
Christ has resided in a succession of men in
whom, during its temporary sojourn in the im-
perfect body of a child of man, it has conserved
the remembrance and consciousness of its divine
extraction. During the first centuries of Chris-
tianity this truth was known to all men. At
first the man in whom the soul of Christ resided
was the Pope, but there came false Popes.
Christ has said, ' There shall be many called
and few chosen.' " The chosen, according to
Kapustin, were the Dukhobortsy.

Such, indeed, was the mental tension out of
which dissent arose in Russia that there is
scarcely a sect in existence to-day in the dogmas
of which mystical leanings are not discernible.
The conditions of Russian life in the seven-
teenth and eighteenth centuries had lain upon

t

MYSTICISM AND PESSIMISM. 183

minds and hearts with so heavy a weight that
the people were glad to fly for relief to the wild-
est dreams, to the strangest faiths, to the most
fantastic illusions which highly wrought relig-
ious ingenuity could invent. The Tatar domi-
nation was long over, but a new domination
had arisen, more powerful and more relentless,
of wider range, of deeper humiliation. The
more centralized the state became, the heavier
had grown the fiscal burdens of the people ; the
greater the autocracy at the summit of national
life, the greater the enslavement at its base.
Nor was there any sufficing help for this state
of things in the ministrations of the Greek
Church. Minds that found it a source of light
and life during the dark hours of the Mongol
oppression now looked vainly for consolation to
the national faith. Its assumption of authority,
its alliance with the civil power, its Byzantine
elements, all prepared it for the rashol. But
it was the dreary, lifeless formalism of its wor-
ship that sharpened the dissenter's longing for
a freer and more vital spiritual activity than
any that it could attain within the limits of au-
thority and tradition.

In religious soil Russian mysticism bore abun-
dant fruit, and is active as an element of dissent
to this day. We also see it in the " men of
God " of the political propagandas and conspira*-^*^

184 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

cies of 1873. But it was destined to occupy a
still wider field. Waiting on the new culture
from Europe it gave its color to some of the
earliest productions of the national literature.
Scarcely a single Russian writer of note is alto-
gether free from the wider tendencies of mysti-
cism ; not a few have manifested the quality in a
degree highly marked. Pushkin had an espe-
cial fondness for the weird and spiritual elements
of the national legends. Gogol, with a predilec-
tion for the fantastic not less pronounced, be-
came a confirmed mystic in his later years. The
Russian painter, Ivanov, surrendered himself
completely to religious mysticism. Some of the
later works of the novelist Dostoyevsky, nota-
bly " The Brothers Karamasov," are mystical
to the point of saturation. That strange story,
" Clara Milich," written by Turgeniev not very
long before his death, is pure mysticism. It
raises a singular issue, and decides it in the
affirmative ; that is to say, Can love enter the
living heart and influence the emotional nature
after the object of it has been committed to the
grave ? Another example is afforded by Count
Leo Tolstoi, 1 the author of that much admired
novel, " War and Peace " (Vaind i Mir), who
quite recently, in a fit of religious exaltation,

1 Not to be confounded with the late minister of Public Instruc-
tion, Count Dmitri Andreyevich Tolstoi.

MYSTICISM AND PESSIMISM. 185

pronounced his literary works idle and sinful.
Destroying his poems, the Count began the com-
position of a work on the teachings of Jesus
Christ, with a lengthy introduction narrating
his own religious experiences. On the comple-
tion of the book it was " prohibited " by the
Holy Synod, the result being that only a frag-
ment of it has obtained circulation in Russia.
The mystical element is strong throughout.
The introduction1 narrates the author's struggles
to solve the problem of his own life, his despair
and leaning to suicide, his final questioning of
religion, and " illumination."

The case of Count Tolstoi, in harmony with
all available evidence on the subject, shows that
the tendency to mysticism is one which invari-
ably manifests itself late in life, or at any rate
grows more pronounced with increasing years.
This coincidence of the individual process with
the racial and historic process is of itself evi-
dence that neither in the one case nor in the
other is the phenomenon any mere accident, but
a part of the national life and a result of its
conditions.

It is, at the same time, true that a complex
mental condition like mysticism can only have
a limited field of activity and manifestation.
The tendency really universal in Russia is to i

1 Printed at length in the Obshcheyay Dyelo, No. 57.

186 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

pessimism. This penetrates all spheres of
thought, gives its hues to every coterie and
school, creates resemblances between the most
diverse productions of the pen, restores as with
a bond of -gloom the shattered solidarity of so-
ciety, and between human beings separated by*
impassable gulfs of rank and position stretches
a connecting lin^k of dreary despondency and
common despair. Mysticism enters readily into
composition with some elements ; with others
it is uncompromisingly irreconcilable. Pessi-
mism goes everywhere, combines with every-
thing. Not to be pessimistic in Russia is to be
divorced from all>contact and sympathy with
the national life; to be cut' off, either by foreign
birth or by some monstrous denial of nature,
from the tree of the national development. AIL
influences and epochs have contributed to the
tendency. A monotonous landscape, the loss
of free institutions, Byzantinism with its cruel
law-giving and ascetic tyranny, the fiscal bur-
dens of the new' state, the antitheses suggested
by European culture, the crushing of the indi-
vidual, the elimination from Russian life of all
those healthy activities which^ engage citizen-
ship in other countries, the harassing restric-
tions upon thought and movements, the state-
created frivolities of society, — all these have
contributed to the gloom of the mental atmo-.

MYSTICISM AND PESSIMISM. 187

sphere until today pessimism may be said to
be the normal condition of all Russian thought.
In religion it produced, as in the Zhivniye Po-
koiniki sect, assertions of the evil of existence
and the misfortune of birth. In literature it
has given its tone to the finest efforts of the
poet arid the novelist. The lives of Pushkin,
Lermontov, Gogol, Dostoyevsky, and many
others of Russia's greatest men were passed in
a perpetual struggle with the pessimistic ten-
dency. It was Lermontov who called life a
" stupid, empty jest." When Pushkin had read
a few pages of Gogol's " Dead Souls " he ex-
claimed, " My God, how sad our Russia is ! "
Herzen doubted whether it was possible for any
Russian to be genuinely merry. He called the
Russian laugh a ricanement maladif. Dostoyev-
sky spoke of ideas themselves being in pain,
like patients.1 And Nekrassov, a true poet of
the people, heard everywhere the voice of the
national woe : —

M Where moaneth not the Russian man?
In the fields he groans and in the roads, •
And in the mines, and on the railways;

He groans in the telega, nightly journeying through the steppe,
And in his own miserable little cottage."

Or the Volga itself is made conscious of the
ubiquitous pessimism : —

"Volga, O Volga ! In spring many- watered !
What groan ascends from thee, great Russian river?

1 In Byedniye Lyudi (Poor People).

188 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

That groan we call it singing ;
There burlaki the hawser pull-
But, Volga, thou dost not the fields so inundate
With thy broad waters as this people's sorrow,
This might}' woe, fills all our Russian land." *

" Russian sadness " — russky pechal, as Ne-
krassov called it — invades all the inner life of
the people. Yet it is singularly unobtrusive in
social spheres. I know of no altruism more
agreeable than this power which Russians have
of separating themselves from the interests of
their own individuality, in order that they may
contribute gaiety and liveliness to the general
enjoyment, — this < cheerful insouciance below
which, sacrificed to the social exigencies of the
moment, melancholy, sorrow, all depths of de-
spair may lie hidden. It is this versatility that
constitutes the chief charm of Russian society •
But the Russian has his inner as well as his
outer world, and between the two stretches
a distance relatively immense. The outer is
shown to strangers and acquaintances ; with
the inner only Intimates and relatives come
into contact. Hence the ease with which the
Russian nature is misunderstood, or only inad-
equately comprehended, by foreigners. Hence,
also, the inevitable failure of all attempts to
explore the Russian mind or the Russian coun-
try, with only French or German for one's in-
terpreter.

1 From Razmyshleniya u narodnova padyezda.

MYSTICISM AND PESSIMISM. 189

Is it not the Russians rather than the Eng-
lish who take their pleasures sadly ? Even in
the village festivals, the liveliest of all Russian
popular out-door enjoyments, there is a lack of
earnest merry-making, a want of boisterous joy-
fulness and abandon, almost a shrinking from
relaxation and amusement, that leave a painful
impression in the mind of the sensitive specta-
tor. I never looked upon one of these festivals
without thinking of the women who, as Herber-
stein tells us, were permitted at certain times
of the year, " as a special gratification," to meet
each other outside Moscow " in a very pleasant
meadow." The prohibitions of the "Domos-
troi " linger about the gathering ; men and.
women alike seem in doubt whether they have
a right,' or can afford, to be happy; only the
children can be said to enjoy themselves, for
they represent the early period of Slav history,
the time in which the people were the free arbi-
ters of their own destinies. This half-fatalistic
fear of happiness, or, let us say, of the mere
phantom of it, somewhat in the spirit of the
German lines, —

"Oh, Freude, habe Acht!
Sprich leise,
Dass nicbt der Schmerz erwacht ! "

is also noticed in the cities. On public holi-
days, or days of so-called national rejoicing, the

190 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

crowds which closed factories and places of
business dismiss to the streets wear a gloomy
and spiritless aspect utterly out of harmony
with the idea of out-door enjoyment. On the
other hand, rejoicings by ukaz, in celebration of
events imperial rather than popular in their in-
terest, call forth a most ludicrous half-hearted-
ness on the part of those who participate in
them.

A full harvest of pessimism may be gathered
by the quiet eye of a stroller through the pub-
lic gardens of any of the large Russian cities.
One of the finest of these resorts is the Lyay-
tny Sad, or Summer Garden, in St. Peters-
burg, — a spot of green that in warm weather
daily attracts thousands of visitors, and remains
full of music and pedestrians until long after
midnight. Here the crowd is strangely sub-
dued in its manner. Everybody seems ab-
sorbed in his own reflections. Army officer,
student, chinovnik, governess, all wear the same
aspect of serious gravity. Couples pass along
without seeming to converse ; before the or-
chestra hundreds sit listening, or promenade
through the allSe amid a silence unrelieved by
a solitary laugh. Dress deepens the prevailing
gloom, since it is characterized by a striking
lack of color, most of the women being attired
in black. A cemetery migEtfurnish more con-

MYSTICISM AND PESSIMISM. 191

vincing proofs of the vanity of life, yet it could
scarcely attract a crowd more mournful than
that which goes its sad, mechanical rounds on
summer nights in the Lyaytny Sad.

There is also a noticeable pessimism in nearly
all Russian music of a popular or national char-
acter. A strange plaintiveness, increased by
frequent resort to the minor key, is heard in
countless songs of the people ; the effect is
often so peculiar that it is difficult to express it
even in notes. The saddest of these melodies
are sung by students at their gatherings in the
university towns ; the weirdest, perhaps, take
the form of recitative and chorus, heard mostly
among the peasants and common people of the
country districts. And if Russian music is sad,
Russian street cries are infinitely sadder. Any-
thing so mournful as these I never heard.
Hour after hour, day after day, with the win-
dow of my apartment in the Troitsky Pereulok
open upon the quadrangle below, have I lis-
tened to the voice of the vender. Sometimes
it was a youth, but oftener a man or an old
woman, and always the impression has been the
same. It was a cry, and yet it seemed a song.
And such a song ! Heart-piercing it was, and
sank into one's soul. It was a 'shriek of pain,
an exclamation of anguish, a wail of despair.
It had a life independent of the singer. The

192 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

vender might go with his basket of wares and
return no more, but the lamentation was always
rising, and remained ever the same. No single
human being, however miserable, I used to
think, could have composed it ; nor was it the
product of any guild, or locality, or even epoch.
To me it seemed the rhythmic utterance of cen-
turies of suffering. I saw in it, I heard in it,
only the accumulated burden of the people's
"woe condensed into a single cry of anguish,
and that cry committed to the keeping of the
wretched and the miserable for all time.

THE DYNAMIC PERIOD.

The despotism of Nicholas ushered in a new
era for the revolt. The movement widened and
deepened. From being the affair of a mere
coterie, it began to occupy all classes of edu-
cated society. It rose to the dignity of parties.
It brought the Liberal, the Nihilist, the Social-
ist, the Revolutionist, the Terrorist, one after
another, into the arena. Its newspapers ap-
peared and were circulated through Russia in
tens of thousands. It established its Vehmge-
richt ; it carried on its propagandas ; it com-
passed against absolutism the most deadly
assaults known in the history of political con-
spiracy. That three decades should have suf-
ficed for the maturing of a movement so terrible
in its methods, so inexhaustible in its resources,
so indomitable in its spirit, — should, moreover,
have witnessed its triumph over all the repres-
sive means which Asian and European civiliza-
tion could array against it, — shows abundantly
that the country was already ripe for the out-
break when Nicholas called it into being.

13

fr

194 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

Individualism opened the new period with a
bitter and cynical reaction against the moral
and social obligations. It aimed at being a law
to itself. It repudiated all dogma and tradi-
tion. In the religious domain it championed
materialism ; to morals it gave a utilitarian ba-
sis ; social standards it rejected outright. It
was a gospel of pure negation in which, while
men sought freedom for their individuality,
women thronged to the schools and universities
in quest of the means of independence. Much
has been said to show that at first this nihilistic
movement had no political character, and yet
all its protests were aimed at the principles and
traditions which lay at the foundation of the
Russian state. At bottom it was the same re-
volt against authority as that of the dissenters
in the days of Nikon. And from a negation of
moral, religious, and philosophical principles it
rapidly progressed to the negation of dogmas
in politics.

Socialistic doctrines had already gained a
footing in Russia when the young adherents of
Slavophilism met to discuss philosophy in Mos-
cow. The interest awakened in the writings of
Louis Blanc, Proudhon, St. Simon, Owen, and
Fourier led in time to the formation of certain
associations, the members of which met to dis-
cuss passing events and literary productions.

THE DYNAMIC PERIOD. 195

Some of these societies gradually assumed a po-
litical character, giving birth to what is known
as the Petrashevsky conspiracy ; but on the
breaking up of that organizatiop in 1848 by the
police, most of the associations collapsed.

For a few years longer Nicholas maintained
the iron system which is associated with his
name, and then it fell, and great was the fall
thereof.' The year in which Alexander II. suc-
ceeded to the throne brought new champions to
the side of the revolt. At home Chernishevsky
preached political economy and a £uarded*form
of socialism in the " Sovremennik ; " abroad,
Herzen, from his printing-press in London, thun-
dered against the vices of Russian absolutism.
The new emperor himself posed as a reformer.
His address to the people at the close of the
Crimean War excited the wildest hopes. A
national springtime seemed at hand. The fet-
ters fell from the press. Thought was set free.
Everybody hastened to declare himself a Lib-
eral. Such was the fever of the time, such
the relief from the nightmare of the previous
regime, that even immature youths in the ed-
ucational establishments felt themselves moved
to prepare new schemes of reform.1
^ That a reaction of disappointment would fol-
low was inevitable. The reforms which were

1 Mentioned bv Eckardt.

196 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

in everybody's head had no place in the schemes
. of the emperor himself. It soon became clear
that there would be no radical concession to the
revolt. The authorities even undertook to re-
strict discussion of the changes decided upon.
The marshal of nobles in the government of
Tver was exiled for having permitted a debate
on the subject. Finally came the act of 1861.
The serfs, who had been attached to the glebe
in the interests of the state, were now, alike in
the interests of the state, invested with the
rights of free cultivators, it having been found,
as M. Rambaud justly observes, " that a people
in which the majority of the agricultural classes
was subjected to serfage could not rival the
European nations in intellectual, scientific, or
industrial progress."

But the act of 1861, however desirable, neces-
sary, or inevitable, did not wholly satisfy the
peasants,1 Vor did it, even supplemented by the
judicial and administrative reforms which fol-
lowed, meet the highest wishes of the country.
It was so far from being a concession to the re-
volt that its immediate effect was to intensify
the movement against absolutism. The reac-
tionary steps which followed added fuel to the

v; J/ A hundred of the protesting serfs, the reader will remember,
were forcibly emancipated by one of Alexander's officers, General
Apraxin. He shot them.

THE DYNAMIC PERIOD. 197

flames. The government at first confined itself
to harassing the student classes by withdraw-
ing from them the right of assembly and asso-
ciation. The outbreaks which followed were
repressed with characteristic severity. In the
same year a secret society, composed of army
officers, issued an address to the emperor de-
manding for Russia constitutional government,
for Poland complete freedom and self-rule. The
nobles also began to agitate for a share in polit-
ical power. In 1862 the authorities closed all
the clubs and reading circles known to be in
the service of the revolt. Amongst the insti-
tutions thus attacked were a large number of
Sunday-schools in which the propaganda had
been carried on. The " Sovremennik " was
suspended, and Chernishevsky * thrown into
prison.

Thereupon followed the Polish insurrection
of 1863. As the smoke of that outbreak cleared
away new methods and machinery of aggression
were seen to be in possession of the revolt. A
number of clubs had sprung up in various parts
of the country, ostensibly for educational and
philanthropic purposes, but really to facilitate
propaganda. Amongst these were the Pensa

1 "Pardoned " in 1883, and permitted to return to Europe after
nineteen years of exile in Siberia. At present in Astrakhan, un-
der close police surveillance, practically a prisoner.

198 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

Club, founded in 1861, and the Zemlya i Volya
(Land and Liberty) organization, established a
year later. Simultaneously with the club move-
ment came a systematic distribution of contra-
band literature, smuggled across the frontier by
Sergei Kovalek and others, amongst artisans
in the towns and peasants in the country dis-
tricts. The personal work of the propaganda
was mainly carried on by Ishutin Khudyakov,
Prince Cherkesov, Karakasov, Yurassov, and
Sagibalov.

For three years the revolt gave no other
sign. Then a bolt fell from the blue. On the
4th (16th) of April, 1866, Karakasov, as dele-
gate of one of the clubs, fired at the emperor as
the latter was leaving the Summer Garden on
the Neva side. The attempt failed. The rep-
resentative of absolutism owed his life to the
promptitude of a peasant. Yet the conspiracy
had an immediate and important effect upon
the general agitation. It has always been the
lot of the revolt to profit by its own excesses,
and so the effect of J£arakasov's shot was genu-
inely cumulative; (, The government entered
upon a policy of reaction that not only drove
many outsiders into the movement who would
otherwise have remained aloof from it, but gave
the theoretical nihilism of the time a turn that
was to bear serious fruit at no distant date.

THE DYNAMIC PERIOD. 199

An imperial rescript declared order, property,
and religion imperiled, — though the real danger
was the danger to absolutism, — and Count Tols-
toi, called to the Ministry of Public Instruction,
at once devised and carried into effect a scheme
for harassing the youth of the schools and uni-
versities. Three years later the Nechayev con-
spiracy was organized. Its leading spirit, with
the help of funds obtained in Geneva, aimed at
a general rising of an anarchical character.
For a time the preparations went forward with-
out interference, but on Nechayev using his in-
fluence to procure the murder of a conspirator
deemed " unsafe," the police broke up the or-
ganization, and out of three hundred participa-
tors, a number were punished, including Ne-
chayev1 himself.

The revolt now drifted into a new policy. Of
the puerilities of mere negation every one had
grown heartily tired. A practical activity was
needed, of which the results should be positive
and substantial. Hitherto the agitation had
been mainly confined to the towns. Gradu-
ally the conviction came that the country at
large must be invited to take part in the under-
mining of absolutism. What could a handful
of conspirators, however energetic, hope to ac-

1 Sentenced in 1872 to hard labor in the mines, but said to be
still confined in the Alexeyev Ravelin at St. Petersburg.

-fc

200 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

complish against a principle supported by the
loyalty of fifty millions of peasants ? On the
other hand, everything was to be hoped from
the sympathies and participation of the people.
In this way and under the stimulus given to it
by the secret press, now driven abroad, but there
powerfully inspired by Bakunin and Lavrov,
the revolt entered upon its socialistic phase.
Thereupon began a movement which, whether
one regards its character, the aims which in-
spired it, the forces which it commanded, and
the sacrifices it involved, or the cruel disap-
pointment in which it ended, must be pro-
nounced to have no parallel in history, and to
have been only possible to the Russian country
and the Russian people. No sooner had the
word gone forth that the people were to be
prepared and enlightened for outbreak than
hundreds of volunteers offered themselves for
the work of propaganda.^ Young people of both
sexes forsook the parental roof, or left their
studies at school and university, to hasten by
every road and highway and river with their
message of enlightenment and revolt to the
country districts. In order to win over the peo-
ple and make the task of tuition all the easier,
many of these enthusiasts put on peasants'
attire, gave a blowzed appearance to their faces
by rubbing them with grease, or steeped their

THE DYNAMIC PERIOD. 201

hands in brine until they became as rough and
hard as those of the muzhik himself.

Young men who had been delicately brought
up learned the trade of the blacksmith, the
carpenter, the shoemaker, or the locksmith, in
order to come more immediately into contact
with the artisan classes ; young women of the
best families worked in the factories like com-
mon peasants, or took a share as agriculturists
in the labors of the field. Sometimes the prop-
agandist would be a tutor in a nobleman's
family, or a governess engaged to teach lan-
guages in the house of a land-owner, or even
a woman doctor, winning friends for the cause
in the guise of an accoucheuse.

The activity of these apostles of the revolt
was twofold. On the one hand, the peasants
and artisans were stirred up to discontent by
vivd voce statements of the people's wrongs ; on
the other, they were approached by means of
an enormous flying literature of propaganda
that took all shapes in which it was likely to
appeal to the agricultural and laboring classes.
Schools for the propaganda in the guise of
workshops were founded in St. Petersburg,
where Prince Krapotkin frequently gave lec-
tures to the artisans in socialism. The propa-
ganda possessed similar machinery in Moscow.
In the government of Novgorod, Sophie Lesch-

202 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

ern von Herzfeld, daughter of an army gen-
eral, started a village school and "there gave
instruction to the peasants in the principles of
the revolt. A smithy in the government of
Tver, kept by the peasant Paul Grigoryev,
served as a place of propaganda for a large dis-
trict. Centres for the movement were also
formed by workshops in Yaroslavl and Saratov ;
by a gun factory in Tambov ; schools in Cherni-
gov and Kamenny-Podolsk ; a farm in Kovno ;
and clubs in Pensa, Kasan, Ufa, Orenburg,
Nizhni - Novgorod, Kharkov, Yekaterinoslav,
Poltava, and Kiev. The agitation was car-
ried into every government west of the Ural
range. The propagandists are said to have
numbered several thousands in all. Amongst
them were Enduarov, the rich proprietor and
justice of the peace, of the government of
Pensa ; the wife of Golushev, chief of gen-
darmes at Orenburg ; Dukhovsky, professor at
the Yaroslavl Lyceum ; Kotelev, president of
the government administration in Vyatka ; Por-
tugalov, the writer ; Sophie Subbotina, a rich
land-owner ; Sophie Perovskaya, daughter of
the General Governor of St. Petersburg, and
niece of the Minister of Public Instruction.

Some of the propagandists sacrificed their
whole fortune to the cause, like Yermolov, who
maintained several student comrades until the

THE DYNAMIC PERIOD. 203

time was ripe for " going to the people," or like
Voinaralsky, a justice of the peace, who spent
40,000 rubles in furthering the agitation. All
suffered the greatest hardships. Yet despite
the enthusiasm, the self-sacrifice, the energy
expeficled upon it, the movement proved a fail-
ure. Success was impossible. The people were
not ripe enough for a revolution. The propa-
gandists were not mature or experienced enough
to prepare one. With a simple faith even
more credulous than that of the peasants whom
they hoped to convince, they neglected the
commonest precautions, scarcely concealed their
movements from the police, in some cases al-
lowed- their mission to become matter of public
notoriety. The authorities took early action
against the propaganda. Hundreds were ar-
rested and thrown into prison. ( In two years
the " pilgrimage to the people " movement of
1872-74 was practically at an end*-**'

The next phase of the agitation was to have
a strongly revolutionary character. Tired of
preaching doctrines which the peasant found it
difficult to understand, but above all disap-
pointed at the smallness of the harvest reaped
from so much dev6tion, the friends of the revolt
now applied their energies to the fomenting of
outbreaks. A " settled " agitation took the
place of the wandering propaganda amongst the

204 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

people. Agents of the revolt established them-
selves in small towns, villages, and hamlets, and
thence proceeded to excite the population against
the authorities. For the purposes of agitation
amongst the artisan class, unions and associa-
tions, with revolutionary aims, were formed in
St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kiev, Odessa, .and other
centres v The boldest of all these new. propa-
gandists was Jacob Vassilyev Stepn^anovich,
who in 1876 organized a conspiracy in Chigirin,
government of Kiev^that had over a thousand
participators, embracing the male population
of about thirty villages. A day had been fixed
for the rising, but the police, informed of the
project through the incautiousness of the con-
spirators themselves, broke up the organization
before it could mature its plans, and lodged
nine hundred of the peasants concerned in
prison. In the spring of 1877 the members of
a revolutionary society called the " Narodniki "
(Party of the People) " went to the people,"
establishing a large number of propaganda cen-
tres along the line of the Volga.

But the most terrible epoch of the revolt was
yet to come. The general hopelessness of the
prospect, the cruel severity of the government
reprisals, the failure of all milder measures to
ameliorate the situation, drove the parties of the
revolution to extremes. In 1878-79 the revolt

THE DYNAMIC PERIOD. 205

entered its terroristic period. Already in Sep-
tember, 1876, Gorinovich, the spy, had been shot
by Leiba Deutsch in Odessa. In the same
month Tavleyev, also a spy, fell the victim of
the conspirators whom he had betrayed. Fiso-
genov, a St. Petersburg spy, was murdered in
the following year. Early in 1878 the notori-
ous Yyera Sassulich shot and wounded General
Trepov, police prefect of St. Petersburg, for his
cruel treatment of a prisoner, the student Bogo-
lyubov. The sixteen-year old heroine of tfhis
episode became ihe object of a universal sympa-
thy. Vyera was acquitted by a jury, and,
aided in her escape from " administrative pro-
cedure " by a street crowd, reached Switzerland
in safety. Early in 1878 four spies were shot :
Nikonov in Rostov, Fetissov at Odessa, and in
Moscow Rosenzweig and Reinstein. Sembrand-
sky, of Kiev, who wore a coat of mail, escaped,
but afterwards took his own life. In the same
year an attempt to take the life of an obnoxious
court official named Kotlyarevsky in Kiev re-
sulted in failure. Baron Heyking, chief of the
Kiev gendarmerie, fell in the street, stabbed to
the heart.

The repressive measures of the government
had been growing in severity. The slightest
offenses against absolutism were met with the
most disproportionate punishments. For an in-

206 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

significant disturbance in Kiev, one hundred and
fifty students were dismissed from the university
and thirty banished to a northern province.
The courts had grown vindictive and partisan.
The law of trial by jury was daily ignored. Pris-
oners acquitted by the ordinary processes were
systematically brought under administrative
procedure and banished or imprisoned afresh
without trial. The spy and denunciation system
had become intolerable. The crusade against the
revolt was carried on by a secret and unscrupu-
lous organization of police, known as the Third
Section. Prison life was unendurable. Revolts
broke out in the Fortress of Peter and Paul at St.
^Petersburg and in the central prison at Kharkov.
/ So J?adly were the prisoners fed in these places
^thati numbers of them refused to partake of nour-
ishment until a more humane treatment had
been introduced ; some resolved to die of starva-
tion, others had food forced down their throats.
Cumulative irritations like these worked minds
up to a pitch of frenzy/ On the 2d (14th) of
August, 1878, Kavalsky was shot at Odessa by
order of a military tribunal. Two days later,
in retaliation, General Mesentsev, chief of the
Third Section, was stabbed to death in the Nev-
sky Prospect in full daylight. The reply of the
government was to hand over all political crimes
of violence to a military tribunal, to strengthen

THE DYNAMIC PERIOD. 207

the spy and repressive system, and to appeal to
society for aid and sympathy. A few months
after the murder of Mesentsev, the police broke
up the Zemlya i Volya Society. It was promptly
reorganized. Student demonstrations followed
in several of the university towns. The pro
vincial assemblies began to talk Liberalism.
Otherwise, society seemed bound hand and foot.
Fear of the spy chilled conversation in the most
harmless gatherings. General Drenteln, suc-
ceeding Mesentsev, cast nearly two thousand
persons into prison in St. Petersburg alone.1 In
February, 1879, Prince Krapotkin, governor of
Kharkov, was shot by Goldenberg for ill treat-
ing prisoners under his care. Two months later,
on the 2d (14th) of April, 1879, came Soloviev's
attempt on the life of the emperor. The would-
be assassin fired five shots at the Tsar, but none

of them took effect. Absolutism now fullv

•j

awakened to its danger. The country was di-
vided into six divisions, and a general governor,
armed with extraordinary powers, detailed to
each. The _pass system was enforced with new
rigors. In St. Petersburg, General Gurko con-
verted the dvorniki, or house porters, into a
body of spies charged with regular police duty.

1 An attack upon Drenteln precipitated the abolition of the
"Third Section," but that organization was speedily reestablished
under another name.

208 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

The reply of the revolt was characteristic. In,
the summer of 1879 a congress of socialists, rev-
olutionists, and terrorists met at Voronezh,
and there a terroristic activity was formally
resolved upon. The terrible " Executive Com-
mittee" came into existence. Early in August
sentence of death was passed upon the Tsar.
The conspirators were thoroughly in earnest.
Three mines were laid in anticipation of the
emperor's return journey from the Crimea :
one at Moscow, the second at Odessa, and an-
other in Alexandrovsk. All the attempts failed.
The Moscow explosion, which had been care-
fully prepared by Hartmann, Sophie Per6vskaya,
Goldenberg, and others, occurred prematurely.
The scene of action was then transferred to St.
Petersburg. Khalturin, obtaining service in
the Winter Palace as decorator, stored dynamite
beneath the dining-hall ; the explosion thus
prepared took place on the 5th (17th) of Feb-
ruary, 1880. Ten men of the watch were killed
and fifty-three wounded. The emperor, de-
layed in going to table, had again escaped. In
a proclamation which followed the Executive
Committee expressed regret at the death of in-
nocent soldiers, but declared the determination
of the instigators to continue their struggle un-
til they had won a constitutional form of gov-
ernment for the country. The party of the

THE DYNAMIC PERIOD. 209

"People's Will" had, in the mean time, come
into existence. In 1880 a new and formidable
organization, with the Executive Committee at
its head, arose to carry into effect the sentence
passed at Voronezh. It was a system of inde-
pendent decentralized circles, destructible as
single entities, but collectively invulnerable :
forming a chain of influences without visible
connecting links ; offering to members the max-
imum of scope for enterprise with the mini-
mum of danger; worked by conspirators un-
known to each other ; and wielded by officially
invisible leaders empowered to visit disobedi-
ence with the punishment of death. Early
in the year 1881 the preparations were com-
pleted. The emperor was to return from a re-
view dinner on the 1st (13th) of March, 1881.
He had the choice of three routes ; one over
the " Stone Bridge," another through the Ma-
laya Sadovaya (Little Garden) Street, a third
along the Yekaterinsky Canal. The bridge and
the street were mined. The Tsar returned by
the canal. To the conspirators in waiting So-
phie Perovskaya gave the signal by waving
her handkerchief. Ryssakov's bomb shattered
the imperial carriage; the bomb thrown by
Grinevsky killed the emperor.

A month later Zheliabov, Perovskaya, Kibal-
shchich, Michailov, and Ryssakov suffered the

14

210 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

penalty of death. The actual assassin, Grinev-
sky, had been killed by the explosion. Upon
Hesse Helfmann the capital sentence was not
carried out. A reign of terror followed the
-event 6f the 13th of March. The coronation of
Alexander III. had to be put off for two years,
the new emperor temporarily retreating for
greater safety to Gatchina. The terrorists in the
mean time continued their deadly activity. In
March, 1882, Strelnikov, military procureur of
..Odessa, was fired at and killed. Late in Decem-
ber, 1883, Colonel Sudeikin, a zealous and not
over-scrupulous police agent, fell assassinated in
the Nevsky Prospect. During the past eighteen
months numerous conspiracies, some of them
aiming at regicide, have been brought to light.
At the time of writing, an extensive propaganda
has the army for its sphere of operation ; agra-
rian outbreaks and risings are also being fo-
mented in the south and west.

During the last thirty years there have been
one hundred and thirty-five political prosecu-
tions in Russia, involving the arrest and punish-
ment of 1356 persons. Of these a very large
number were sentenced to hard labor in the
mines or banished for life to Siberia. Forty-
five of the accused were either shot or hung:
five in the reign of Nicholas, thirty-one under
Alexander II., and nine in the reign of the

THE DYNAMIC PERIOD. 211

present emperor. During the same period about
fifty political prisoners met their death by vio-
lence in the gaols, or while serving a sentence of
banishment. Between 1878 and 1882 the po-
lice shot eighV persons during demonstrations,
arrests, etc. Three others took their own lives
in order to avoid falling into the hands of the au-
thorities. The number of persons thrown^ into
prison or banished without preliminary trial,
under the so-called " administrative procedure,"
is very large, but cannot be stated with any de-
gree of certainty. During the past twenty
years about two hundred persons fled from pris-
ons or places of banishment ; most of them suc-
ceeded in reaching western Europe. l

2 For a mass of information concerning the dynamic phases of
the revolt, see the Calendar of the People's Will (in Russian).
For readers of German, Professor Thun's Geschichte der revolu-
tionaren Beweyungen in Russland will be found useful.

PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS.

Thus far the reader has looked merely upon
the external features of the dynamic protest
against absolutism in Russia. The revolt had
an inner, psychological side, best shown, per-
haps, by a glance at the personalities engaged
in it. These may be divided into two classes.
/The first includes what I shall call the literary
forces of the revolt ; to the second belong its
dynamic activities. The former category will
be described in a single illustration. Instead
of again going over the partly-told story of
the career of Herzen, who spent most of his
life abroad ; or of giving an account of Baku-
nin, who was an international rather than a
Russian agitator, I shall direct the reader's
attention to the litterateur of the revolt, par
excellence, Chernishevsky, a man of the people,
who labored for his countrymen on the soil frorn
which they sprang, and whose memory is in-
dissolubly linked with predecessors in common
with whom he spent the best years of his life in
that grave of Russian genius, Siberia.

PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS. 213

Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernishevsky was born
at Saratov in the year 1829. His father, a
priest at the local cathedral, was a man of intel-
lectual gifts, remarkable for his honesty and
uprightness, an affectionate parent, and a warm
friend. The boy received his preliminary edu-
cation at the Saratov Ecclesiastical Seminary,
and was thence transferred to the university
of St. Petersburg, where, a student in its Phil-
ological Faculty, he applied himself with great
ardor and success to the acquirement of the
Latin, Greek, and Slavic tongues. Later, he
gave his attention to socialistic science, in
which field his great receptivity, singular per-
severance, and superior memory quickly ranked
him as an authority even amongst specialists.
Chernishevsky completed his university course
in 1850, and thereupon became professor of
literature to the first corps of cadets. This
post he gave up after the lapse of a year in re-
sponse to the urgent entreaties of his mother,
who had a strong affection for her son and de-
sired his presence in Saratov. Once more in his
native town Chernishevsky became a teacher
in the local gymnasium. He occupied in his
father's house an apartment looking out on the
Volga ; here he received his friends, and gath-
ered round him a circle of young people who
became both his pupils and his admirers. He

214 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

married in 1853, the same year in which his
mother died. Returning to St. Petersburg with
his wife, Nikolai Gavrilovich found himself in
the capital without a copek. Happily for both,
his courage did not desert him. His first effort
to keep the wolf from the door resulted in a feat
which only a Russian would have attempted,
and probably only a Russian could have accom-
plished. Driven to translation, this born lin-
guist acquired sufficient English in two months
to be able at the end of that space of time to
begin publication in the "Annals of the Fa-
therland " of a Russian version of a novel issued
in London. From mere hack work he soon rose
to the position of essay writer and critic, later
winning renown by a brilliant dissertation on
" The aesthetic relation of art to reality." It
was this effort which led to Chernishevsky's ap-
pointment as collaborateur on the staff of the lib-
eral review, " Sovremennik " (Contemporary),
— a position which, affording as it did the full-
est scope for the critic's rare intellectual gifts,
gave Nikolai Gavrilovich the opportunity for
which he had long been waiting. Nothing
could excel the tact and ability with which he
now applied himself to the task of popularizing
the new ideas. Essay after essay issued from
his pen, each full of the rich results of Western
economical science. The views of Malthus and

PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS. 215

the teachings of John Stuart Mill he made al-
most as familiar to his countrymen as they were
to English readers of the time ; his papers on
agriculture and land-holding in Russia were of
especial value and interest. By all classes his
writings were eagerly and widely read, and as
a natural consequence they began to attract the
attention of the government. " At that time,"
said Chernishevsky to the writer, in Astrakhan,
more than twenty years afterwards, " 1 was
not more — if it be permitted to compare a
small man with great ones — than a sort of Rus-
sian Cobden or Bright. I did not, moreover,
always express my own ideas. I had to do a
good deal of hack work in literature, and my
position compelled me to live by my pen."
Modest as was this ambition, it was too much
for the Russia of those days. A charge was
trumped up against Chernishevsky of having,
amongst other things, prepared a proclamation
calling upon the peasants of the crown to re-
volt ; and upon evidence very unreliable and in-
adequate, this promising litterateur was first
imprisoned in St. Petersburg for two years, and
then sentenced to fourteen years' hard labor in
Siberia, with subsequent banishment for life as
a colonist. Such was the cost of trying to be a
Cobden or a Bright in Russia ! Yet Cherni-
shevsky did not lose heart. It was the lot of

216 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

this remarkable man to exert his influence over
minds in Russia under conditions which would
have made the career of his English models
well-nigh impossible. They possessed constitu-
tional means of agitating ; Chernishevsky had
none. Bright and Cobden had public plat-
forms from which to speak openly to the peo-
ple ; Chernishevsky could not talk freely in the
circle of his own intimate friends without ap-
prehension of giving offense to the government
through the ears, of the ubiquitous police spy.
Everything 7and every one seemed to conspire
against Chernishevsky becoming a power. It
was he who had to give painful birth to his
socialistic doctrines under the very eye of the
censor, he who was compelled to produce his
chef d'ceuvre not in a gilded saloon of the
Nevsky Prospect, but in the cheerless seclusion
of a St. Petersburg prison. Yet the man
wielded an influence widespread and extraordi-
nary. Scarcely had he been cast into prison be-
fore he began the composition of a work which
was destined to add enormously to the number
of his followers. It was the famous romance
" What 's to be done ? " The success of this
book — tediously prolix and inartistic as a lit-
erary composition — was mainly due to its so-
cialism, its idealistic views of life, and its hints
rather than schemes for the reorganization of

PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS. 217

labor and of society. Written anonymously for
the "Contemporary," artfully constructed to
evade condemnation by the censor, and suggest-
ing much to be read between the lines, the
novel achieved a fair reputation in the periodi-
cal press before its real tendencies were discov-
ered. Prohibition came at last, and insured, as
it usually does in Russia, the complete success
of the thing prohibited. Since then, public taste
has gone far ahead of "What 's to be dbne^? "
yet the censor cannot even in 1885- find in his
heart to "permit" the volume, even as a lit-
erary curiosity.

At last Chernishevsky was taken from his
cell in the Fortress of Peter and Paul at St.
Petersburg, and transferred to the place of his
exile and hard labor. For nineteen years he dis-
appeared from Europe and from civilization.
What were his thoughts during that long pe-
riod ? How he suffered and in what way, who
can tell ? From 1864 to 1871 he was kept at a
station in the Zabaikal province, Eastern Sibe-
ria; from 1871 to 1883 he was detained at
Viluisk, a town on the river Vilui, not far from
Yakutsk. On one occasion an attempt was
made to rescue him, but Chernishevsky could
not be roused from the lethargic despair into
which he had fallen. The government allowed
nothing to transpire concerning their prisoner ;

218 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

in the end, the exile became a mystery, and the
source of all kinds of rumors. In 1880 literary
Europe heard of his death; in 1881 Herr Ul-
bach asked the Vienna Literary Congress to pe-
tition the late Tsar for the man's release ; just
before the death of Alexander II. the St. Pe-
tersburg journal u Strana " received a first warn-
ing for having called upon the government to
allow Chernishevsky's return to Europe.

In the autumn of 1883, to the surprise of all,
Chernishevsky was transferred from Siberia to
Astrakhan by virtue of an imperial pardon,
forming one of the "concessions " of the Coro-
nation Manifesto. Being in Astrakhan by a
mere coincidence when he entered Europe, I
was the finSt European, not a Russian or a gov-
ernment official, to see him on his return. At
first he seemed to me broad-shouldered, strong-
limbed and active, looking at fifty-five fully ten
years younger. A second glance showed him
to be nervously restless in his manner, in a
state bordering on mental prostration, a com-
plete myope. He received me warmly, and
we conversed together for more than an hour.
What he told me of his experiences in exile
has already been published ; 1 there are other
and special reasons why I do not repeat it here.
The story may have been reliable enough, so

i Daily Neibs, December 22, 1883.

PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS. 219

far as it went, yet the fact that it was told
"in the toils" — at Astrakhan rather than at
Paris or London — deprives it of historic value.
Nineteen years' experience of Russian exile
poorly qualifies a man of shattered nerves and
impaired physical health for any formidable in-
dictment of a government upon whose " clem-
ency " he depends not only for the smallest
comforts of life, but for the right to exist itself.
And when such a man has courage enough to
admit that he was once put into chains, —
" against the wishes of the government," — the
reader may easily fill up the gaps of a narra-
tive like that told to me. Such, then, was our
interview. I have already indicated the short-
ness of its duration. Disturbed by the con-
stant trepidations of the ex-exile's faithful wife,
watched over from without by that body of
spies who still hold Chernishevsky, "pardoned"
by the Russian government, the prisoner of the
Russian police, we at last decided to separate.
Before taking leave of me Chernishevsky placed
in my hand a small volume, in a blank page of
which he had linked out names with the words,
" In memory of our acquaintance, Astrakhan,
1883." On our rising to say good-by, Madame
Chernishevsky entered the room, and with a
hasty movement of solicitude threw her arms
around her husband, as if to shield him from

220 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

some impending peril, — tears the meanwhile
choking her utterance. He gently unclasped
her hands, stroked her forehead caressingly,
and having uttered a few words of affectionate
consolation, kissed: her. "She is so afraid!"
said Chernishevsky in explanation. Then I
took my departure.

Let us now glance at the organizers and con-
spirators of the revolt; in its dynamic period.
Of these nonq was more remarkable than So-
phie Lvovna I^erovskaya, who belonged to one
of the most aristocratic iamilies in Russia. One
of her ancestors was the morganatic husband of
the' Empress Elizabeth Petrovna. Her grand-
father was Minister of Public Instruction ; her
father, General Governor of St. Petersburg.
Sophie Lvovna was born in the capital in the
year 1854. Strongly attached to her mother,
who loved her much in return, she had a pe-
culiar aversion for her father, who is described
as a chinovnik, full of the pettiness and self-
seeking of his class. Her education began at
the age of eight and continued for six years.
In 1869 the family returned to St. Peters-
burg from the Crimea. She at once entered
the women's class of a gymnasium, and there
formed the acquaintance of Sophie Loschern,
Kornilova, and others, all of whom afterwards
took part in the propaganda. On her father

PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS. 221

forbidding the visits of these acquaintances »
Sophie Lvovna left home never to ieturn.
Eager for knowledge, she next joined the Chai-
kovtsy Society, — at first a literary, afterwards
a political organization, — and began an earnest
study of social and political questions. While
qualifying herself as a school-teacher, she be-
came acquainted with the writings of Cherni-
shevsky and Dobrolyubov ; for the famous
" Shty Dyelat ? " (What 's to be donej) of the
former, she entertained^ ail enthusiastic admira-
tion. Prepared at last for *< going to the peo-
ple," she set out on her pilgrimage, traversing
the whole course of the Lower Volga in pursu-
ance of her mission. Hardships under which
a peasant woman would have sunk, she bore
with the greatest resolution, even cheerfulness.
Her food was mostly milk and roots ; her bed
rarely anything more than a sack filled with
straw. In 1872 she had reached Kama, near
the Ural range, and was wandering from vil-
lage to village, endeavoring to awaken the peo-
ple to a knowledge of their lot. We next see
her in Tver, aiding the cause of the revolt as a
school-teacher. Late in 1873 she returned to
St. Petersburg. Her arrest followed, but after
a year spent in prison she was set at liberty
owing to want of evidence. For three years
she remained under police surveillance. This

222 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

space of time she utilized in acquiring a knowl-
edge of the healing art ; her diploma was ob-
tained after a regular course at a medical school
in Simpheropol. In 1877 the members of the
ChaikoY-tsy- Society, to the number of one hun-
dred and ninety-three, found themselves in the
hands of the police, charged with political con-
spiracy. After a long trial the jury set So-
phie Lvovna at liberty, but the authorities ban-
ished her " administratively " to the northern
government of Olonets. On the way thither
she escaped from her guards, concealed herself
for six hours in a wood, and then made her
way back to St. Petersburg. Soon afterwards
she took part, as leader, in various attempts to
rescue conspirators by force from the custody
of the police. At Kharkov she headed a band
disguised as gendarmes. In 1879 she actively
assisted in preparing the famous mine at Mos-
cow. Later she helped to organize the " Nar-
odnaya Volya " (People's Will) party. Her last
act as a conspirator was to give the signal for
the assassination of Alexander II.

Sophie Lvovna's personality has been de-
scribed at great length. With an extraordinary
capacity for conspiracy and organization, she
remained a woman, yet was in some respects a
mere child. - At twenty-six she looked not more
than eighteen. Her features were strikingly

PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS. 223

open, her face oval, her forehead singularly
high. The eyes were blue and the complexion
blonde. To many, her whole aspect was that of
personified youth. She laughed heartily when
provoked to merriment, dressed simply, an4
like most Russian women held uncleanliness
in horror. Her liking for children was great ;
as an attendant on the sick she was unsur-
passed.

Her relations with Varvara Sergeiyevna, her
mother, were of the tenderest kind. To see
this parent, the daughter frequently risked her
life. She was particularly sensitive of Var-
vara's anxiety on her account, and did all in
her power to allay it. At last, under final
arrest and awaiting a sentence that was to send
her to the scaffold, she wrote to her mother
what must be called one of the most eloquent
and solemn and touching epistles ever composed
in anticipation of death.

My darling, my priceless mother [it began],
the thought of how it is with thee pains and tor-
ments me continually. My dear one, I implore thee,
calm thyself, spare thyself, and do not be troubled in
mind, not only for the sake of those who surround
thee, but also for my sake. Not for a moment do I
sorrow concerning my fate ; ^ look forward to it
calmly, for I have long known and anticipated that
it would end thus. And this fate is, after all, dear

224 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

mother, not so terrible. I have lived as my convic-
tions dictated; contrary to them I could not act;
therefore I await with a calm conscience all that im-
pends for me. One thing only weighs upon me like
a heavy burden ; and it is thy sorrow, my precious
mother. That is all that troubles me ; if I could only
lighten thy pain there is nothing that I would not give.
But remember, my darling 1 mother, that thou hast a
large family about thee, and that to the children
who surround thee thou art necessary as a model of
moral strength. In my inmost soul I have always
regretted that I could never attain to that moral height
whereon thou standest; yet in certain moments of
doubt, thy image has always sustained me. I shall
not assure thee of my affection, for thou knowest that
from my earliest childhood thou hast been the object
of my continual and most sublime love. Concern
regarding thee was always for me a great pain. My
darling, I hope thou wilt calm thyself, and to some
extent, at least, forgive me for all the sorrow I am
bringing thee. I hope that thou wilt not blame me
too severely. Thy reproach is the only thing that can
oppress me. Passionately, passionately, in imagina-
tion, I kiss thy dear hands, and on my knees I im-
plore thee not to be angry with me. Give my warm
greeting to all my relatives. I have only one more
request to make, dearest mother ; buy me a collar
and gloves with buttons ; . . . one must prepare one's
costume for the tribunal. Till we meet again, my

1 The expression used in the original is " golubonka " — a word
hardly translatable, literally " dear little dove."

PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS. 225

darling, I repeat my prayer. Do not be angry and
do not trouble thyself about me. My fate is~ not so
sad, after all, and it beseems not that thou shouldst
mourn for me. Thy Sonya. 1

March 22 (April 3), 1881.

On receiving this letter, the mother hastened
to the prison in which her daughter was con-
fined. Permission to see her was refused from
day to day down>tp the very hour of execution.
At last the mother had the- terrible consolation
of seeing her child driven away to the place of
slaughter on an open tumbril, in the midst of
those companions from whom she had implored'
the judges not to separate her.

Andrei Zheliabov, one of the five who "per-
ished in the Semenovsky Field, was born a
serf in the Krim in 1850. His grandfather,
a sectarian, taught him Ecclesiastical Slavonic,
and made him learn the psalter by heart. Soon
Andrei attracted the attention of his owner,
who gave him lessons in Russian and finally
sent him to school at Kerch. He entered Odessa
University as a student in 1868, but was ex-
pelled for having joined in a demonstration
against a professor. Zheliabov thenceforward
had to support himself by giving lessons. At
first he spent his leisure in organizing students'
associations, libraries, etc. ; tiring of this sphere

1 Diminutive of "Sophie."
15

226 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

of activity, he joined a political society formed
in Odessa about the time of the Nechayev con-
spiracy. In this connection he became very
popular amongst his>comrades. In 1872 he be-
came member of an organization affiliated with
the Cfyaikovtsy Society, and later in that ca-
pacity .took part in the movement "to the peo-
ple." One of his disguises as( a propagandist
was that of a vegetable-seller. But his ambi-
tion rose above the work of explaining socialism
to peasants, or distributing revolutionary litera-
ture in workshops and factories. Zheliabov was
a born organizer and leader ; a man of deed
rather than word, yet eloquent and persuasive
in an emergency ; easily angered by insult or
ridicule, he had a pleasin'g manner, and was a
favorite in society. Zheliabov approved of all
the measures likely to further the cause jof the
revolt. Tsarism, the unlimited power of a sin-
gle individual wielded over a whole people, —
this he hated and opposed with all the intensity-
of feeling of which his passionate nature was
capable. The news of Karakasov's shot he re-
ceived, when only a boy of fifteen, with an ex-
clamation of delight. In 1877, involved in the
Chaikovtsy prosecution, he spent seven months
in prison as the penalty of his activity as a prop-
agandist. In 1879 he entered the ranks of the
terrorists, and was one of those who sentenced

PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS. 227

the Tsar to death at Voronezh. Immediately
after the/congress, he proceeded to the south of
Russia and was there active in winning recruits,
particularly in the university towns. As a
speaker, his success was marked. His mastery
of the subject in hand, the logical complete-
ness of his arguments, his clear enunciation and
professorial air, as well as his readiness at re-
partee, charmed many and convinced more.
Late in 1879, Zheliabov, as #gent of the Execu-
tive Committee, superintended the construction
of the mine at Alexandrovsk, and after the
triple failure, went to St. Petersburg, where he
was appointed to the oversight of a number of
dynamite Victories. In the capital he gathered
about him a number of young people who will-
ingly accepted him as their guide and leader.
His description of himself was that of a born
demagogue, his proper place being, as he was
accustomed to assure his friends, in the street,
in the middle of a crowd of workmen. Zhelia-
bov had great fondness for literature. It is re-
lated of him that " Tarass Bulba," Gogol's cele-
brated story, so fascinated him that he could not
close the book until he had lost a night of sleep in
reading it through. " Others will rise up after
us " was his unvarying reply to prognostications
of personal disaster. In Zheliabov's faith the
cause would live, though the individuals might

228 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

perish. The prosecuting attorney said of him,
during the trial which ended in the quintuple
sentence of death : " Zheliabov was a remark-
ably typical conspirator in everything, — in
gestures, in mimicry, in movement, in idea,
and in language, — and did all with a certain
theatrical effect. To the last moment he re-
mained robed in his conspiratorial toga. ' It is
impossible to deny to him the possession of
talent and cleverness."

Nikolai Kibalshchich, born in 1854, was the
son of a priest stationed in a village of the
Chernigov government. In 1871 he studied at
the School for Engineers, two years later join-
ing the Medical Academy in St. Petersburg.
His first collision with the authorities occurred
in 1875. He had casually undertaken to take
charge of a packet of revolutionary publications
for a friend living in constant dread of a domi-
ciliary visitation, and on the police selecting the
house of Kibalshchich for their attentions, they
found the incriminating literature in his posses-
sion. He was kept in prison for three years,
the whole of which time he devoted to study ;
his very " exercise " promenades are said to
have been utilized in the task of winning his
fellow-prisoners over to the cause of the revolt.
He was a man of strongly phlegmatic tempera-
ment; his manner was reserved, his speech

PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS. 229

slow, and his moods so equable that it was im-
possible to say when he was pleased or when in
anger. Only once was he warmed into visible
enthusiasm. It was when his comrades told
him of a plot against the imperial family. Set
at liberty, Kibalshchich at once began the study
of explosives, and knowing French, German,
and English, quickly mastered all that was to
be learned about mines, bombs, and the like.
He had a whole laboratory fitted up for his ex-
periments ; became the chemist, the technolo-
gist of terrorism, and finally prepared those in-
struments of death which were thrown on the
13th of March.

Grinevsky, who killed the Tsar and was hoist
by nis own petard, was a-EaLe*. born in the gov-
ernment of Minsk in the year 1856. His fam-
ily lived in the greatest poverty. The boy was
a diligent scholar. In contact with comrade
students at Bialystock, Grinevsky imbibed so-
cialistic views, and had devoted himself to the
service of the people long before his educational
course was at an end. In 1875 he went to St.
Petersburg, and there joined the pupils of the
Technological Institute. His activity in the
capital was marked. He established a secret
society, collected money for exiles, fabricated
passports, and at last went to the people with
the rest. On his return, disappointed and dis-
couraged, he joined the terrorists.

230 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

Such were four of the personalities who aided
in carrying the revolt into its dynamic phase.
They represented strata of society utterly re-
moved from each other in many ways ; for one
was born an aristocrat, the second came into
the world a slave, the third was the son of a
priest, and the fourth a student in the schools.
Yet they were all united in an intense love of
their country, in a sorrow for its suffering peo-
ple, and a hatred of tyranny and oppression
that made actions immoral in themselves seem
to them the highest virtue ; and all of them
alike met death, not with the selfish circum-
spection of the conspirator who makes success
conditional on his own safety, but with the sub-
lime recklessness of men and women who, how-
ever misguided in their choice of methods, yet
gladly offer their lives for the cause which they
believe to be sacred and true.

MODERN IRRITATIONS.

Such has been the history of the revolt. It
began in an unscrupulous negation of the racial
spirit and traditions; in the gradual destruc-
tion of individual and communal liberties ; in
the forcible unification of tribes and territories
that stood naturally apart ; in the wresting from
the people, by force of ambition and arms, those
privileges of self-government which they have
never yielded up, and which they claim to this
day; in the establishment of an absolutism re-
pugnant to the national temper and genius, in-
consistent with its early history, irreconcilable
with its modern civilization. To these original
causes must also be added a long series of irri-
tations extending from the earliest days of Tsar-
ism down to the present time. Intensified by
domestic tyranny, stimulated not less power-
fully by agrarian enslavement, the revolt be-
came more bitter with every increase in the
burdens which the growing state cast upon the
individual. At first passive, or only indirectly
dynamic, it soon assumed, under the stimulus of

232 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

Western culture, the character of propaganda
and declared resistance to authority ; finally we
see it developed, under cruel methods of reprisal
and repression, into a system of organized vio-
lence and terrorism.

The revolt has its foundation of historic dis-
content, and yet draws much of its modern in-
tensity from irritations and conditions that have
been created by absolutism itself. No one can
live long in Russia without finding himself sur-
rounded by an atmosphere strangely wanting in
restrictive social influences. In the west of
Europe the individual is subordinated, in spite
of himself, to the conceptions and canons and
systems of society at large. In Russia, an ex-
traordinary scope for doing unusual things in
politics, religion, and morals takes the place of
subservience to cumulative prejudices and tradi^
tions. The striking characteristic of Russian
society is that it is held together by no bond of
union at all valid for the regulation of personal
conduct. It seems as though historical as well as
geographical conditions had developed the indi-
vidual, at the expense of the social, sentiment.
And this want of social solidarity, setting in-
dividualism free to act out its own desires and
caprices, often blinding it to the general inter-
ests of the social mass, has been intensified by
the very power which ought to have striven for

MODERN IRRITATIONS. 233

its removal. Fearing all union of thought, all
intercommunication of idea, all free groupings
and assimilations of the intellectual elements of
the national life, the Russian government has
brought its repressive measures to bear upon the
very machinery by which, in other countries,
society hedges its individual elements around
with a healthy moral control. There is nothing
more needed in Russia than a public conscience ;
this the government has destroyed, or rather
rendered impossible.

Various instruments have been employed to
cripple the social sentiment in Russia. Not the
least powerful of them is that of the censorship.
Just as in every theatre in Russia there is a loge
reserved for the chief of police, so in every Rus-
sian newspaper office there is a silent presence,
ever holding in check the pen, if not the
thought, of the unhappy journalist whose duty
it is to write on u the topics of the day." Be-
tween the years 1865 and 1880 the Press Coun-
cil had given one hundred and sixty-seven
warnings and suspended fifty-two newspapers.
In the year 1882 five journals were suspended ;
five others received a first warning, three a
second, and one a third ; from six the privilege
of street sale was withdrawn. Journals indis-
pensable to healthy social development, like the
"Den," the "Moskva," the " Grazhdanin,"

234 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

" Trad," " Poriadok," and the " Golos," have
one by one succumbed to censorial severity un-
til to-day the Russians have scarcely an inde-
pendent, certainly no outspoken liberal, organ
left. The case of the " Otechestvenny Zapiski "
(Annals of the Fatherland), suppressed last
year, affords a striking illustration of the condi-
tion of journalism in Russia. The editor of
that review, the celebrated Prince Saltykov,
better known by his nom de guerre of " Shche-
drin," had brought into existence a new kind of
journalism suited to the exigencies of censor-
ship on the one hand, and to the character of
his own satirical talent on the other. He wrote
mainly tales. They were like clippings from
Boccaccio, just as light, just as witty, just as
immoral. It was like a Russian Heine imitat-
ing the "Decameron" in Slavonic. The aim of
the writer was to show that so long as political
topics were avoided almost any excesses might
be indulged in. And the experiment was thor-
oughly successful, for Shchedrin succeeded in
putting before his public sketches revolting in
their lewdness; such as, in any other Country
than Russia, would have brought upon their
author the punishment of the criminal law. 1

1 The Annals was suppressed, the reader may remember, not
for its indecency, to which the censor paid no (official) attention,
but for its " dangerous " political opinions, and the alleged connec-
tion of members of its staff with secret societies.

MODERN IRRITATIONS. 235

The evil of censorship is multifold. It not
only prevents the formation of healthy public
sentiment ; it discourages thinking ; by trammel-
ing expression, it makes journalism frivolous ;
it forms a serious hindrance to educational
processes, and by menacing them with heavy
losses makes newspaper enterprises the most
precarious of all. Peculiarly vexatious, more-
over, are the restrictions upon the reading of
foreign books, since they not only deprive the
studious classes of valuable and urgently needed
knowledge, but make an invidious distinction
in favor of chin, or rank. A general, or his
hierarchical equivalent, may read a -book like
Zola's "Nana" with impunity, yet the poor
student consults his borrowed scientific treat-
ise or religious essay in fear and trembling.
Young men often spend the whole of their
leisure time, for months together, in copying
volumes which they can only handle at the risk
of being dealt with as readers of "forbidden
literature." While in St. Petersburg I saw a
copy of the French work "Jesus-Buddha" pro-
duced under strangely mediaeval conditions.
The owner of the original was an army general,
who had the full right of his rank to peruse the
book, but had pronounced it "dry reading"
and handed it over to a friend uncut ; the copy
belonged to a young medical student, who was

236 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

precluded by his want of the needed chin from
even buying the work, but had taken so serious
an interest in the volume as to consider five
months well spent in its transcription !

Another condition highly favorable to the re-
volt is the absence from Russian life of all those
specialized activities which citizenship involves
in countries governed constitutionally. For
the purely social effects of this kind of empti-
ness one need only glance at the literary pic-
tures which Gogol has left his countrymen, — at
the petty aspirations and miserable interests of
characters like Ivan Ivanovich and Ivan Nike-
phorOvich, with their lifelong feud over an old
gun ; like the chinovnik Akaky Akakyevich, the
single ambition of whose existence was to have
a new coat ; or Perigov, the officer, whose field
of glory was the Nevsky Prospect, whenever he
could pace it at the fashionable hour in full mili-
tary uniform, with a sword scabbard dangling
at his heels. The results of political emptiness
are seen in the revolt itself. The need of play-
ing a part in politics, of aspiring to office or
power, however petty that power may be, of
organizing something, conducting something,
championing something, — this is so strong in
modern civilization that if it be suppressed for
one side or phase of life, it is sure to find satis^
faction and fulfillment on another. , The energy,

MODERN IRRITATIONS. 237

the talent for organization, the natural leader-
ship and acquired discipline about which one
hears so much in nihilistic literature, are sim-
ply so many qualities~Tihat have been diverted
from their proper spheres of immediate public
usefulness into activities of conspiracy and prop-
aganda and terrorism. Even the intellectual ex-
ercise of popular assemblies gathered to discuss
public affairs is denied to the Russian people.
Hence, while there is no career for the political
orator, the success of the clandestine demagogue
is assured ; while political parties are prohibited
and unknown, secret societies everywhere draw
vitality from the open aid or tacit sympathy
of the people ; wnile the existing system calls
no national representatives together for con-
stitutional purposes, delegates converge from
all the provinces to sanction the dread propo-
sals of the Executive Committee.

Revolt seems natural, sedition innate in the
Russian capital. Its luminous summer mid-
nights tend to mental irritation ; its long win-
ter evenings favor conspiracy. Its populations
seem continually hiding from each other in the
hearts of immense tetragons of brick and stone,
vast as the quadrangles which they inclose.
Thousands of aspiring young men and women
journey annually to St. Petersburg, and there
lead a life free from the slightest parental re-

238 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

straint. An unhealthy atmosphere, a variety of
maladies, the daily spectacle of the most abject
and terrible forms of poverty side by side with
that of the most ostentatious and self-compla-
cent wealth, are of themselves sufficient, with-
out natural predilection or political grievance,
to prompt to pessimistic views of life. The
students are sometimes all but paupers them-
selves, and not a few owe their education and
their prospects wholly to the bounty of the
government. When pinched in resources, they
must be content to occupy the smallest of rooms
in the biggest of buildings ; sometimes not more
than the corner of an apartment falls to their
lot during the hours of sleep. Students have
been known to prepare their lessons by the light
of the staircase or street lamp in order to save
the cost of a candle, or to walk several miles in
order to give a lesson for a midday meal. And
when sorry resources like these fail, one sees in
the newspapers such appeals as "Wanted, some-
thing to do, anywhere and for anything ; "
" Here 's half a year gone, and I 've got nothing
yet ; " or " For the love of God keep a blind
student and his family from starvation ! " 1

The Greek Church merely extends without
strengthening the surface exposed by absolutism
to the assaults of the revolt. The close union

1 Literally translated from the Golos.

MODERN IRRITATIONS. 239

of Tsarism and Orthodoxy, strengthened in
some recent cases to the point of conferring
functions of police espionage upon the clergy,
fails to disguise the relaxing hold of the church
upon the masses of the people. Ignorance,
drunkenness, and greed of wealth continue to be
the vices of the priesthood, as intellectual stag-
nation, unbroken by a single fundamental re-
form, continues to be the fatal weakness of the
national religion. "All the information and
evidence obtainable," runs the report of an im-
perial commission appointed to consider the
state of the people in 1873, " shows that the
influence of the clergy is in a continual state
of decadence. The priesthood is little imbued
with the sacredness of its mission ; it presents
not the slightest example of morality. ... In
Simbersk, Pensa, Samara, and Ufa, there is
a falling off in the performance of religious
duties amongst the peasantry : the causes are
the small moral influence of the clergy, the
absence of all civil and religious instruction,
and the influence of the dram-shop." For the
church to become the genuine church of the
people, it must be divorced from Tsarism and
reformed. The change wrought by the rasJcol
in the days of Nikon left untouched its consti-
tutions, rites, and language, which are conse-
quently the same now as they were a thousand

240 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

years ago. To adapt the church of Vladimir
to the popular needs of modern Russia would
require an ecclesiastical re-birth. To maintain
it in its present condition ; to keep the monks
in their idle and luxurious uselessness, the white
clergy in the contempt of the people, and the
whole functions of religious ministration in an
atmosphere of meaningless formality and petty
commercialism, — this is simply to aid the cause
of the revolt.

The problem of reconciling absolutism with
European civilization is still further compli-
cated by the increasing discontent of the agri-
cultural classes. The sentimental satisfaction
which was conveyed to outsiders by the uhaz
of 1861 did not save peasants from the practi-
cal results of the legislation which made them
free cultivators. It not only lessened their
share of land, but in many cases raised the
government charges upon it to a rate out of all
proportion to the annual yield. Instead of giv-
ing the agriculturist his freedom, it brought him
under the jurisdiction of the new commune.
In a fiscal sense the peasant was just as firmly
attached to the glebe as he had ever been since
the days of Boris Godunov. Where the land
is poor, and agrarian operations require favor-
able conditions for their success, the tillers of
the soil live a life of abject poverty and, over-

MODERN IRRITATIONS. 241

burdened with commercial and state charges,
fall an easy prey to avaricious money-lenders.
The land-owning nobles have also s'uffered seri-
ously from the new conditions imposed upon
agriculture by the Act of 1861. In the prov-
ince of Moscow alone, emancipation has thrown
four fifths of the land out of cultivation in fif-
teen years.

The much lauded judicial reform is almost a
dead letter. It has been paralyzed by modifi-
cations. In thirty -nine provinces out of the
seventy-two the old courts are still maintained.
" The examining magistrates," writes Prince
Krapotkin,1 "never enjoyed the independence
bestowed on them by the new law; the judges
have been made more and more dependent
upon the Minister of Justice, whose nominees
they are, and who has the right of transferring
them from one province to another ; the in-
stitution of sworn advocates, uncontrolled by
criticism, has degenerated absolutely ; and the
peasant whose case is not likely to become a
cause eSlebre does not receive the benefit of
counsel, and is completely in the hands of a
creature like the proeureur-imperial in Zola's
novel."

Most serious of all, perhaps, are the irrita-
tions of the police system, not only on account

1 Nineteenth Century, January, 1883.
16

242 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

of their sensational elements, but because they
appeal to the sympathies and impulses. Noth-
ing is so well calculated to intensify the dy-
namic character of the revolt as the punitive
measures devised by the authorities for its sup-
pression. The practice of administrative exile,
whereby thousands of people were banished to
Siberia without trial, — without even the for-
mality of communicating the cause of disap-
pearance to their relatives, — was continued
up to the year 1881, and only then mitigated
to the extent of handing such, cases over to a
special commission for its approbation, and of
limiting the banishment to a term of five years.
The process still goes on, and retains all the
secret character which before made it obnox-
ious ; the check imposed simply prevents ban-
ishment for private, that is, for other than po-
litical causes. Hence the old questions arise
in every exigency of public excitement. Who
are taken, and whither ? What is the offense,
and who are the judges ? Who prosecute ?
What is the punishment ? The number dealt
with in this fashion is enormous. Under Loris
Melikov it reached 1696, under Ignatiev it was
2836 ! Nor do these figures take account of
the other method of dealing administratively
with, prisoners, by which the authorities are
empowered to take an accused who has been

MODERN IRRITATIONS. 243

acquitted by a jury and punish him secretly as
they see fit. Is it any wonder that Society
should be restive under this suspended sword
of police machinery that, often without more
pretext than the discovery of an " illegal " pub-
lication in a letter-box, or weightier testimony
than that of a paid or otherwise interested de-
nunciator, may now cut off a man or woman
from family, home, and country for life ? It
asks for new processes resting upon righteous
laws of evidence, for other forms of judicial
procedure more European. Above all, it claims
for every political prisoner or person now dealt
with " administratively " the right to a public
trial.

But what will the reader think of Russian
methods of treating political prisoners after they
have been lodged in gaol or sent into exile ?
Not very long ago M. Paul Birvansky, an im-
perial state attorney, was sent upon a special
mission to Orenburg by the Minister of Justice,
with orders to investigate and report upon the
practice of the imperial tribunals in that prov-
ince. He remained absent on his mission four
months, and his experiences were published in
the " Syeverny Vyestnik," (Northern Messen-
ger) : —

During my four months' inquiry [he wrote], it
was revealed to me how our judges trample the laws

244 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

under foot ; how cynical and wanton is the behavior
of our police ; how savagely brute force is brought to
bear upon the weak and friendless. I lived in an at-
mosphere of appalling groans and heart-breaking
sighs. I liberated innocent persons who had been
kept in prison by the executive several years after
they had been publicly acquitted in open court, and
who had been secretly tortured. I took down the
depositions of peasant women who had been subjected
to torment — their flesh pinched with red-hot tongs
— by order and in the presence of the chief commis-
sary of police, merely because they had presumed to
plead on behalf of their unfortunate husbands. I
convinced myself that there was absolutely nothing
in common between myself and the local authorities.
A black and bottomless gulf lay between us. They
trafficked wantonly with our laws, converting them
into instruments of extortion. . . . Words fail me to
'describe the impressions made upon me by my first
visit to the state prisons. Hundreds of human beings
find a premature grave in these loathsome dens. They
die lingering deaths therein, or emerge from them
crippled for life. ... It was horrible to be compelled
to acknowledge to one's self that these semi-animate,
wasted, filthy, and dun-colored objects, draped in a
few rotten rags, were, after all, men and women. . . .
The confined atmosphere, poisoned by exhalations
from every sort of abomination, absolutely stopped
my breath, so rank and fetid was it. ... I pass over
an infinite number of cases, each of which is horrible
enough to make your readers' hair stand on end, and

MODERN IRRITATIONS. 245

come to the last of all. I was making my customary
round of the district prisons when I noticed an abnor-
mal excitement among the prisoners at Ilezk. The
gaol governor was also agitated and pale. I insti-
tuted an inquiry and found that two months pre-
viously all the prisoners had been led out to an open
space outside the town gates, and there beaten with
such inhuman cruelty that the populace wept bitterly
at the spectacle. . . . First they were flogged until
they lost consciousness ; then water was poured over
them till they recovered ; then the warders beat them
with whatever was readiest at hand, — belt buckles,
prison keys, iron chains, and the butt-ends of rifles.
The ground was stained with blood like the floor of
a shambles. Finally, the prisoners were tied together
with ropes by the feet and driven into the great court-
yard of the gaol, where they fell down from sheer
exhaustion into several bleeding and disfigured heaps,
scarcely recognizable as human beings."

Such is the statement not of a terrorist, or of
a prisoner, but of a Russian state_pjQQiiial. It is
superfluous of course to add that M. Birvansky
was speedily dismissed from his functions at
Orenburg, and that for publishing Lis expe- y
riences the " Northern Messenger " was sus-
pended.

The allegation that torture is still a part of
the Russian punitive system is supported by
statements scarcely less confident than that of
M. Birvansky. Prince Krapotkin declares that

246 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

at least two of the four who suffered death with
. ,Perovskaya were tortured prior to their execu-
Jption by electricity ■, in order to compel disclo-
sures. 1 It appears much more certain thatf Is-
sayey was kept in a continual state of nervous
excitement, with the alleged aim of provoking
a confession. Plotnikov, who had been in prison
for years, in last extremes of weakness and ill-
health, was thrown into chains for having one
day ventured to declaim a verse of his favorite
poet in the hearing of the gaoler. Serekov, for
neglecting to salute a guard placed over him,
was put into a dark cage, so small that he could
neither stand nor sit within, and had to main-
tain an attitude highly painful and exhausting.
When ^Alexandrov sang a snatch of melody in
an unguarded moment the gaoler struck him a
blow in the face with his fist. The gaol in
which these occurrences took place is known as
the Novobelgorod Central Prison, situated in
the Volchansk district, about fifty-nine versts
distant from the town of Kharkov. A descrip-
tion of the place appeared in the " Moscow Tel- Y
egraph" of the 6th (18th) of December, 1882. '^

1 It is only fair to say that this allegation is denied in Russian
official circles. The evidence upon which it was based is that of
an eye-witness, who declared that at the place of execution Ryssa- "jf
kov showed his *' mutilated hands " and said, " They have tortured /
us" (muy pytali). That these words were distinctly heard is very
doubtful, since the authorities kept a band of music playing up to I
the last moment.

MODERN IRRITATIONS. 247

The writer spoke of the prison as "so over-
crowded that the convicts lie one atop of an-
other. The air in the cells is so impure that
any one not accustomed to the place cannot re-
main inside for more than a few minutes.
The boards which form the beds are frightfully-
unclean. . . . The prisoners themselves look ill
and exhausted. They live in a state of the
greatest nervous excitement. For punishment
they are put for from one to seven days into
small dark holes, in which a man can lie down
only with the greatest difficulty."

The cells of the citadel (ravelin) prison in
St. Petersburg are described as dark and cold
as the grave. The walls drip with damp, and
there are pools of water on the floor. The food
given to the prisoners here consists of vegetable
soup and bread. The place is warmed in winter
once every three days ; every other day the pris-
oners are allowed to take exercise, that is, for a
quarter of an hour each time. No reading or
relaxation of any kind is permitted. The pris-
oners are closely watched. If one makes a
movement with the head or hand, or only looks
at something, the guard immediately jumps
from his seat and asks the reason of the action.
It was in this prison that Zubkovsky tried to
make geometrical figures with his bread in order
to practice geometry for relaxation, and had it

248 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

taken away from him with the remark that hard
labor convicts were not permitted to amuse
themselves. Blows and the black hole are
amongst the punishments awarded. It was here
that Shiryaev fell into consumption ; here that
Okladslgy .and TsukernoajQ, went mad ; here that
Martynovsky tried to commit suicide.

In the Kharkov prison political convicts are
kept from three to five years in solitary confine-*
ment and in irons, in dark, damp cells that
measure only ten feet by six, altogether isolated
from intercourse with human beings. No books
are allowed and no implements for manual la-
bor. Shut up in places like these, Prince Kra-
gotkin writes, prisoners " go rapidly to decay,
and either descend calmly to the grave, or be-
come lunatics. They do not go mad as, after

being outraged by gendarmes, Miss M , the

promising young painter, did. She was bereft
of reason instantly ; her madness was simulta-
neous with her shame. Upon them insanity
steals gradually and slowly ; the mind rots in
the body from hour to hour." In 1878 the
prisoners at Kharkov, life having become in-
supportable, rebelled ; six determined to starve
themselves to death. For a week they refused
to eat, and after terrible scenes arising from the
attempt to feed them by injection, they were
induced by delusive promises to take nourish-

MODERN IRRITATIONS. 249

ment. Their demands were for regular warm-
ing of the cells, the provision of beds, exercise
by twos instead of singly, placing of the lamp
in the cell rather than in the corridor, and more
humane treatment by the guard and officials in
charge.

The lot of the political exile in Siberia is still
more painful. " We live," writes a prisoner
from Yakutsk, " literally in darkness, only hav-
ing light for an hour and a half or two hours in
order that we may see to eat. Our food is fish;
we have no bread and cannot get meat. I thank
you for the papers sent, but I have no money
to buy candles, and therefore have n't the light
to read by." Another writes, " My scorbutic
ailment gets worse, and I only long now for
death." " We work," says a third, " from six
o'clock in the morning until eight o'clock at
night in cold water that often reaches up to
our knees. We leave work quite exhausted,
and go to bed at once, for to read or converse is
impossible. Last year (1881) we buried four of
our comrades. Semv^anovsky and Rodin com-
mitted suicide. Neizvestny and Krivozhyein
died this year (1882). Kovalevskaya 1 went
mad. The same fate awaits many more of us.
We live in two narrow cells. We get no med-
ical help. We need books, clothes, shoes, and

1 Evidently a woman.

250 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

money. Our torments are frightful .... Fare-
well, dear friends, this is my last letter." The
prison referred to in this communication is
known as the Nizhnaya Kara (Lower Kara).
The political convicts confined therein num-
bered, at the beginning ofJUi&£, about ninety.
One of them describes the prison as dirty and
damp. " There is a physician, but he treats
the sick so badly that they prefer not to ask his
services. It was he who had half-insane^ Kpxa-
ievskaya whipped nearly to death. . . . Arm-
feld was also beaten with a stick for simple im-
politeness. Zhutin died in his chains, bound to
the wall. Kolenkin is on the point of death,
owing to the wounds caused by his chains." 2

Let me close this chapter with a word on the
passport system, which must be described as one
of the most harassing and widespread sources
of all political irritation in modern Russia. It

2 A few of the statements here given are reproduced from the
revolutionary organs, Na Rodinye (At Home), Narodnaya Volya
(Will of the People) and the Chorny Peredyel (Black Partition).
The source is certainly partisan, yet it is the only source available,
and so long as the Russian government restricts to adversaries the
opportunity of collecting and disseminating information on this
subject, so long will that information command the confidence and
faith of the public. It is at any rate as much entitled to credence
as the statements of some of those travelers who have enjoyed the
honor of being "personally conducted " through the prison estab-
lishments of his highness the Tsar, but who have set out on their
mission of exploration without the single indispensable requisite
for that misssion, namely, a colloquial knowledge of Russian.

MODERN IRRITATIONS. , 251

puts the population practically in the position
of convicts discharged on ticket-of-leave, and
compelled to report from time to time to the
police. If, on the one hand, it is a source of
revenue, yielding three million of rubles a year
or thereabouts, on the other it is a serious obsta-
cle to freedom of motion and commercial develop-
ment. Nothing can terrify a peasant more than
the prospect of losing, or being refused his
" papers." People have been known to commit
suicide rather than be found without a passport.
Not a few have been driven by their inability
to procure police certificates into secret socie-
eties, the members of which, for the most part,
live " illegally," that is to say, without pass-
ports, or on the strength of documents fabri-
cated by themselves. The police frequently
refuse passports to persons whom they suspect
of " political infidelity ;" this kind of terrorisi
is a favorite form of ex-judicial persecution in
Russia.

EUROPE AND THE REVOLT: THE
FUTURE.

The conclusion that, under the existing
regime in Russia, the revolt is a permanent ele-
ment of the national life thus becomes inevitable.
It is an essence, a nature of things, rather than a
mere phenomenon. Its inner reality exists inde-
pendently of its outer accident or form. Just as
a mass of water may assume the character of a
still lake, a rippling brook, a noisy waterfall,
may ascend even in vapor and appear as a
cloud, yet retain unchanging the nature and
properties of its essence, so the Russian revolt
takes all protean shapes in the process of its
expression. | Constrained by circumstance to
manifest itself as passive discontent, as religious
protest, as philosophical dogma, as ethnological
sentiment, as negation in criticism, as nihilism in
morals, as socialism, as incitement to revolution,
or as violence and terrorism, the revolt never va-
ries in its inner being, never changes in its es-
sence, but remains the immutable antithesis of
absolutism ; in this aspect not tainted with the

EUROPE AND THE REVOLT. 253

immorality of force, or soiled with the shedding
of blood, but fair as the cause of human liberty,
and irradiated with the sunlight of awakened
human consciousness in its struggle with the
darker hemisphere of the national life.

What is true of the various parties who cham-
pion the revolt is true also of the demands they
make. Their programmes have an illustrative
but no absolute value. Any reforms that re-
move the grievances out of which the revolt
has arisen will at once make the revolt impossi-
ble. At the head of these grievances stands
absolute power. We have already seen to what
a degree this principle is opposed to the racial
sentiment, and contrary to the national tradi-
tions. The popular institutions protest against
it. Organizations like the mir and the artel —
the one representing the agricultural and the
other the urban industries of the country —
alone show how tenaciously the people cling to
the old Slav principle of equality in organization,
and free choice of the instruments of rule. It
is thus not the educated classes alone, but the
masses, — peasant and arjpan, land-owner and
student, — of whose aspirations, at least, it may
be said, as it was said of the earliest and freest
Russians, " Neminem f erant imperantem." True
enough it is that amongst the peasants the re-
volt must long remain in its passive stage. The

254 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT,

glamour which popular superstitions throw
around the personal elements of Tsarism is not
yet fully dissipated by the brighter illumination
of knowledge. Yet year by year, partly owing
to educational processes, partly owing to propa-
ganda, even the peasants are being won over to
the growing battalions of discontent.

How, then, is the struggle likely to end?
Will concession bring it to a premature close,
or will the revolt swell finally into revolution ?
Here it becomes necessary to carry the conflict
somewhat beyond the limits within which it
has hitherto been confined. The struggle is no
mere effort to gain old rights of self-govern-
ment on the one hand, or to resist encroach-
ments upon power on the other. Stated in its
broadest aspect the issue is not only one of
Tsarism against constitutional liberty, but of a
federative union of Russian Slavs^)against cen-
tralized government. The unified empire was
as repugnant to the Russians as absolutism
itself. Left to their own free choice they in-
variably tended to the principle of federalism.
Long before the coming of the Varegs, the
union between the Russian volosts was of a
purely federal character. The federal instincts
of the people were also shown in the division
of the country into appanages. Federalization
was, in fact, the inevitable corollary of the

EUROPE AND THE REVOLT. 255

Russian repugnance to sovereignty; to retain
power in their own hands the people found it
necessary to keep the land divided into a num-
ber of small principalities. And that this was
no accidental arrangement, but a deliberate pol-
icy, is shown by the determination with which
they resisted every attempt to unify the divided
territories. It was only when all opposition
had been broken by force of arms that we at
last see Russia centralized, and absolute power
building itself a home over the ruins of that
federalism which had so effectively sheltered
the liberties of the people.

This predilection for federal institutions has
tinged the revolt from its inception. Slavo-
phils, Panslavists, and Nihilistic parties have
all had schemes in view for securing a federa-
tive union of the races composing the Russian
empire. In this way the revolt may be said to
aim not only at securing constitutional freedom
for 36,000,000 Great Russians, but at provid-
ing political reforms for the Poles, the Little
Russians, the White Russians, Finns, Lithua-
nians, etc. The Russian revolutionary move-
ment of 1860 drew not a little of its virulence
from a federalistic understanding with Polish
conspirators of the time. Both Herzen and
Bakunin prepared schemes of national federa-
tion. Kostomarov, the historian, Shevchenko,

/

256 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

the famous poet, and Kulish, the ethnographer,
jointly founded the Cyrillo-Methodius Union,
the aim of which was the national re-birth of
Little Russia, and a federation of all the Rus-
sian Slavs. Overtures have from time to time
been made to the Cossacks, the Jews, the Esths,
the Letts, and even to the Germans of the Bal-
tic provinces,1 on the basis of a federative alli-
ance against absolutism. The very organiza-
tion of the revolt itself has been throughout
mainly of a federalistic character. The con-
spirators have never jointly chosen a dictator
to direct their movements, nor have they toler-
ated absolutism in any form. Decentralization
has been the strength of terrorism ; sporadic
activity the main source of its success. To
name a leader of the revolt would be difficult,
simply because the revolt never had any leader.
But in another sense all who champion it are
leaders, hence its formidableness.

The issue of the revolt is thus not only an
issue of federalism against centralized govern-
ment : upon the result of the struggle depends
the jfuture of Russian imperialism itself. The
first act of a popular government would be to
replace the existing cohesion of force by a free
grouping of at least the Slav elements of the

1 See Der Baltische Federalist, published at Geneva, also the
address An meine baltische Landsleute.

EUROPE AND THE REVOLT. 257

population in voluntary federation. It needs
no gift of prophecy to predict what would fol-
low. The result would be a change of immense
international significance. The Russian state
would speedily lose its character as an aggres-
sive power.. The champions of the revolt love
their country and their race, but for the empire
they have little historical or political affection.
The country is linked with hallowed and sacred
memories ; the empire is associated with an end-
less succession of degradations and sufferings.
In their country the Russians lived as freemen
and happy ; when the empire came, it brought
absolutism, destroyed the communal liberties,
debased the individual, made millions of slaves.
No reader of Russian history need be reminded
that the growth of Russia the empire did not
really begin until Russia the country had been
forced into receiving a ruler of the Byzantine
type to replace the prince elected in popular
assembly as servant and not master of the
people. The moment autocratic power was
established in Russia, that moment the Rus-
sian empire began its movement of expan-
sSJon. From the beginning to the end of the
sixteenth century, a period which represents
the first hundred years of absolutism and cen-
tralization in Russia, the territory of the em-
pire was quadrupled. Since the beginning of

17

258 . THE RUSSIAN BE VOLT.

the seventeenth century it has increased from
three millions to eight millions of square miles,
in round numbers. Starting from the nuclei
of her national life at Kiev, Novgorod, and Mos-
cow, Russia has extended her borders north-
ward and eastward and southward until she
presents to the startled geographer and politi-
cian a continuous territory equal in surface to
that which the moon turns to the earth.1 And
the expansion has been wrought not by the
Russian people themselves, but at the expense
of the popular liberties ; not owing to the sym-
pathetic acquiescence of international specta-
tors, but by sacrifice of the interests, and by
overriding of the resistance, of protesting na-
tionalities.

Viewed in the light of these facts, the issue
of the revolt is no longer of a partisan or even
of a merely national character ; it becomes of
immense significance for Europe. It is no less
than this : shall this vast empire, drawing from
tyranny at home its means of aggression abroad,
go on in its present path of expansion for a pe-
riod and with results to which limits cannot
even be suggested ? Or shall the Russian peo-
ple, breaking up into peaceful federations, and
drawing from recovered popular rights the
means of a prosperous internal development, de-

i Humboldt.

EUROPE AND THE REVOLT. 259

vote themselves thenceforward to a policy of con-
cession at home and non-interference abroad?
The revolt, it should be remembered, not only
opposes internal tyranny : it is the foe of im-
perial aggrandizement. A stationary Russia
under absolutism is an impossibility. Retrogres-
sion means ruin to imperial interests. The nat-
ural and normal policy of the empire is thus
one which makes Russia a constant menace to
Europe. That this menace should arise from
an immoral usurpation of popular rights and
liberties shows the close moral solidarity of
nations, the intimate dependence of universal
well-being upon universal justice, the impossi-
bility of confining the results of wrong-doing,
and particularly wrong-doing in the form of
offenses against the freedom of a people, to the
country which suffers from them the first. The
nations all have an interest in the removal of
the popular wrong in Russia, since out of that
wrong springs not only the terrorism of the re-
volt, threatening an imperial integrity which is
not needed, but the terrorism of the empire,
menacing an international integrity which must .
be maintained. The cause of democracy in
Russia is the cause of Europe. In a commu- j
nity of constitutional governments absolutism
is the common enemy.

The proofs of all this are cumulative. If

260 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

Russia is the vastest, she is also the youngest
state in Europe. A like rapidity of develop-
ment is unknown in history. The national
literature is scarcely more than a century old.
The first Russian poet came four hundred years
after the English had Chaucer. Juvenile as a
nation, Russia is youthful as a race. She stands,
as Bishop Strossmeyer expressed it, " on the
threshold of the morning. " Her day is in the
future, and she grows towards it continually.
Such is the rate at which her people increase
that in half a century the Russian empire will
number a population of close upon lSS^OC^OOO.1
How these 158,000,000 of people shall be wielded
is, therefore, of immense importance to Europe.
If they are wielded from within, with the good
sense and prudence that naturally characterize
popular self-government, then the nations may
look on with sympathy and approval. But if
they are to be wielded by despotism, some new
means of protecting Europe from Russian en-
croachments will have to be devised. The ex-
pansion of the empire means the spread of
absolutism ; and in this sense, as illustrating an
inevitable tendency that must be promoted by
not being held in check, it may be said, with

1 In the absence of wars or exceptional maladies. The yearly
increase of population is, in Russia, 781,000; in Germany, 564,094;
in Great Britain, 276,623; France, 96,647. (Russian Official Board
of Statistics.)

EUROPE AND THE REVOLT. 261

truth, that if the will of Peter did not exist,
Europe would be under the necessity of invent-
ing it.

The revolt in its widest phase 1 have defined
as a tacit alliance of interest between the Rus-
sian people and the nations of Europe against
a principle and method of government hostile
to the common weal. It is the protest of eighty
millions of people against their continued em-
ployment as a barrier in the path of peaceful
human progress and national development. It
is the protest of Europe against the utilization
of enormous forces of racial growth and repro-
duction for the organized furtherance of per-
sonal ambitions and dynastic wealth. Yet the
narrower and more immediate issue is that of a
struggle which is purely domestic. The early
dissolution of absolutism by force is a contin-
gency the least probable of all. The devoted
and ignorant loyalty of the peasant will remain
the safeguard of the empire against revolution
for many decades yet to come. Terrorism may-
abolish the individual, but it leaves the princi-
ple intact. The most dangerous form of con^
spiracy known in Russian history, that is to
say, military conspiracy, has only succeeded in
compassing dynastic changes. Yet autocracy in
Russia is none the less doomed. The forces
that undermine it are cumulative and relent-

V

262 THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

less. Not terrorism, or nihilism, or socialism,
is it that feeds those forces, but civilization,
national enlightenment, individual awakening,
flence the true policy of autocracy is to spread
its dissolution — after the manner of certain
financial operations — over a number of years.
It will thus be possible, on the one hand, to
avoid a rude shock to imperial amour propre,
and on the other to afford the due preparation
for a comprehensive scheme of constitutional
government. But the demand for an immedi-
ate and substantial concession is none the less
urgent. It might take the form of a tem-
porary convention of popular representatives,
chosen in the various governments, or of an ad-
mission of delegates of the people to co-deliber-
ation with the members of the Imperial Coun-
cil (Gosudarstvenny Sovyet), after a scheme
said to have been devised by the late Tsar.
The method of the change is really not of im-
portance. The vital matter is that the reform
shall at once concede and practically apply the
principle of popular self-government, granting
at the same time the fullest rights of free speech
and public assembly. To further procrastinate
is simply to purchase a merely temporary im-
munity from the inevitable, at immense per-
sonal and political risk.

Let the Tsar and his advisers beware. The

EUROPE AND THE REVOLT. 263

spectacle of this frightfully unequal struggle —
unequal alike in its justifications and In the
physical forces which it arrays against each
other — is not lost upon Europe, or even upon
America. A system that maintains itself by
the infliction of human suffering and the nega-
tion of human rights cannot long expect to re-
ceive from governments the tolerance which is
denied to it by peoples. Already nations are be-
ginning to recognize that the standing menace
in the east of Europe is not the Russian race,
but Russian absolutism ; already a greater dan-
ger is growing up to the " Emperor of all the
Russias " than the danger of constitutional re-
form. And yet it would be sad if the issues
were always to be confined within political lim-
its. Hence it is well that one can look for-
ward to the time when a new conception of in-
ternational rights and obligations shall take
the place of the old ; when serried lines of glis-
tening bayonets and smoking cannon will no
longer be needed to relieve the struggle for lib-
erty from the reproach of crime ; when tyranny
shall be an offense against the community of
nations, as it is now an offense against the
community of individuals, and when countries
that have won their own liberty and gone
through the bitter day shall gladly repay their
glorious gains in noble blows struck for univer-
sal freedom.

INDEX.

Absorption, 11.

Acclimatization, 11.

Administrative procedure, 242, 243.

Agriculturists, Wandering of, 20 ; at-
tached to glebe, 21.

Aksakov, 175, 176.

Alexander I., 156, 163, 164, 165.

Alexander II., 155.

Alexander III., 210.

"Annals of the Fatherland," the,
234.

Apolism, results of, 51.

Art, 67, 68.

Assassination: attempt at, by Kara-
kasov, 19$ ; stabbing of Mesent-
sev, 206 ; Soloviev's attempt, 207 ;
Alexander. II. killed, 209 ; Sudei-
kin assassinated, 210.

Astrakhan, commerce of, 40.

Atavism, in eating, 31 ; in religion,
140.

Authority, protest and revolt
against, 131, 139, 140, 160, 161.

Autocracy, 99 ; doomed, 261 ; true
policy of, 262.

Avakum, 137, 138.

Baku, 39.

Bakuniu, 176, 200.

Banishment, without trial, 242.

Beds, 49.

Berdichev, 38.

Bestyuzhev, 167, 171.

Bielinsky, 156, 195, 209.

Black Sea, 39.

Blanc, Louis, 156.

Breakfast, 30.

Biichner, 156.

Buckle, 156.

Byron, 156.

Byzantinism, 93, 95, 96, 98, 177, 186.

Byzantium, 55.

Catherine, 160-162.

Catholic Church, civilization of, 108.

Caucasus, 7.

Censure, 162, 233-235.

Central Asia, 15, 16.

Centralization, opposed by the re-
volt, 254.

Chaikovtsy Society, 221, 222, 226.

Cheremiss, 10. ^*» ^^ _/_X^

Chernishevsky, 185, Wff, \$B>\ 107 ;
life of, sketched, 2lf
218'; influence,
with,2>C

Children, beating of, 102.

Chin, evils of, 235, 236.

Christianity, defects of Byzantine,
107, 108.

Chuds, 136.

Cities, lack of, 35 ; at first of wood,
36 ; etymology of, 36 ; eleven larg-
est, 38; contrasted with cities of
Western Europe, 54 ; mere taxable
units, 55 ; deprived of burgher
element, 56.

Citizenship, inactivity of, 236.

Civilization, 8; influenced by Mongol
invasion, 12 ; lateness of, 64 ; early
Russian, 176.

Class, distinctions of, 104.

Climate, political effects of, 64, 65.

Colonization, effects of, 127-129 ; in
Russia, 129.

Commune, character of, 87 ; age of,
90.

Conspiracy, beginnings of, 166 ; the
Petrashevsky, 195 ; of Nechayev,
199 ; at Chigirin, 204.

Constantinople, 21.

Contemporary, the, 195, 197, 214,
217.

Cossacks, recruited by fugitive serfs,
21 ; republic of, destroyed, 161.

Counting frame, 17.

Counting, lack of proficiency in, 17.

Country, vastness of, 23.

Cruelty, of legislation, 102.

Cunning, origin of, 105.

Darwin, 156.

266

INDEX.

V^S

Dazh-bog, the sun-god, 83.
Democracy, Russian, 259.
Derzhavin, 155.
Despotism, of father, 102 ; of law,

102, 103 ; paralyzed by Peter, 153.
Dissent, motive force of, 142.
Dissenters, 134, 152. .
Dobrolyubov, yfi, 2£1.
Domicile, easy change of, 33.
Domiciliary period, beginning of, 42,

43.
DomostroV, the, 31, 32, 95, 96, 102,

118, 120, 147, 157, 159.
Dostoyevsky, 184, 187.
Dram shop, influence of, 239.
Drenteln, 207.
Durachok, Ivanushka, 105.

Education, regulation of, 163, 164.

> Emancipation, results of, 240.
Empire, significance of ; national in-
stincts hostile to, 257 ; a creation

of autocracy, 257 ; growth of, 258.
Encyclopaedists, 165.
Enlightenment, influences of, 146, fierbersteinytit^d', 15, 16, 29, 106.

147, etc. ; enemy of autocracy,*j/Herzen, 176, 177, 18f.

153 ; welcome of, 154.
Enslavement, of the servant, 101

of the peasant, 101 ; of the wife

110.
Epic songs, 83 ; story of Ilya, 84, 85
Escapades, 211.
Europe: its relation to the revolt

253, 254, etc.; revolt and, 261;

how menaced, 258.
Executive Committee, 208, 209, 237.
Exile, 7 ; number sent into, 210 ; lot

of in Siberia, 249, 250.
Explosions : at Winter Palace, 208 ;

at Moscow, 208.

Fairs, 22.

Family, becomes an autocracy, 102 ;

Europeanized, 107^
Federation, 255-257.
Festivals, 189.
Finns, 10.
Fish, 30.

Food, eaten in memory of dead, 13.
Foreigners, 38.

Foreign tastes, how formed, 74.
Forests, 6 ; as factors of polytheism,

62, 63.
Fourier, 156, 194.
Freemasonry, 166.
Funerals, 13.

Germans, 38.
Godunov, Boris, 21.
Goethe, 156, 181.

Gogol, 37, 48, 155, 156, 173, 184, 187,
227, 236.

Government, character of early
Slav, 91.

Great Russian language, 25; com-
pared with Turkish tongues, 26 ;
with European speech, 27 ; char-
acteristics, 28.

Great Russians, 8, 9, 17.

Greek Church, protest against, 130 ;
book controversy, 131, 134 ; colla-
tion of texts, 132, 133; triumph
of the reformers, 133 ; outbreak
against, 135 ; union of, with state,
238, 239 ; re -birth of, needed7240.

Griboyedov, 7, 155, 156.

Grinevsky, life of, 229.

Gurko, 207.

Habits, transmission of, 10, 11 ; Asi-
atic, 13 ; eating, 29 ; drinking, 30.
Haxthausen, 159.
Hegel, 156, 173.
Helfmann, Hesse, 210.

History, 5. f /

Hospitality, 81-83.

House, lack of pride in, 50 ; doors
of, ignored by servants, 50 ; dom-
icile of peasant, 51.

;\

mprisoned, number of, 210.

Individual, freedom of, 86 ; ignored
by the Greek Church, 97 ; de-
basement of, 104.

Individualism, reaction by, 194.

Individuality, quickening of, 130 ; a
motive force, 142.

Insurrection, along the Volga, 136 ;
of Pugachev, 139, 160 ; of Decem-
ber, 167 ; Polish, 197.

Intermingling, 10, 12.

Jews, 38.

Judges, behavior of, 243, 244.

Judicial reform, 241.

Kalmucks, 32.
Kantimir, 155.
Kapustin, 182.

Karamzin, cited, 42, 86, 88, 102, 155.
Kazan, 39, 40.
Kibalshchich, life of, 228.
Kiev, a place of pilgrimage, 22 ; pop-
ulation, 38.
Killed, number of, 210, 211.
Kinglake, 17.
Kishinev, 38.
I Koltsov, 155.

INDEX.

267

Kostomarov, 118.
Krim, 1*1; war in, 195.
Krylov, 156.
Kvass, 14, 120.

Landscape, 5, 6; no real pictur-
esqueness in, 69.

Language, evidence of, 24 ; lacks di-
alects, 25.

Legislature, 89 ; humanitarian char-
acter of, 91 ; change to cruelty,
102.

Lermontov, 7, 187.

Liberties, eclipse of, 101.

linguists, Russians as, 17-19.

Literati, 166.

Literature, 7, 155, 156.

Little Russia, serfage established in,
161.

Love, 122.

Lying, origin of, 105.

Malthus, 214.

Manners at table, 31, 32 ; domestic,
31 ; of early Russians, 80.

Marriage, 124, 125.

Materialism, 158. U

Maximus, 132.

Meals, 29. '

Melikov, Loris, 242.

Migrant habits, 20, 23, 52, 56.

Migration, 9, 11, 21, 22; its effect
upon Russian development and
institutions, 33 ; of cities, 48.

Mill, John Stuart, 157, 215.

Moleschott, 156.

Mongolism, influence of, 107.

Mongols, 12, 20, 99, 100.

Monomakh, Vladimir, 19.

Monotony, ol landscape, 6.

Montesquieu, 156.

Mordvs, 10.

Moscow, Herberstein at, 15; popu-
lation, 38 ; a genuine Russian city,
40 ; proverbs about, 40, 41 ; relig-
ious, literary, and industrial sig-
nificance, 41 ; an artificial crea-
tion, 42 ; view of, 71 ; character of
dwellers in, 106 ; insurrection in,
160.

Mountains, lack of, 7.

Municipal government, 53.

Muraviev, 160, 167.

Murder, punished by penalty of
death, 103.

Mysticism, 179-185; a part of the
revolt, 182.

Nechayev, 199.
Nekrassov, 74, 187, 188.

Nestor, 80, 81.

Nevsky Prospect, the, 48, 206, 210,

236.
Newspapers, suppression of, 233, 234.
Nicholas, 167-169, 171, 193,195.
Nihilism, 193, 194.
Nikolaiev, 39.
Nikon, 132, 134, 151, 194.
Nomad languages, 26.
Novgorod, 48, 88, 112.
Novikov, 161,. 176.

Odessa, 38, 39, 225, 226.

Old Believers, excommunicated, 133;

at Solovetsky, 135, 151.
Owen, 194.

Panslavisni, 177.

Paris, Russian travelers at, 165.

Passport system, harassment of,
250, 251.

Patronymics, 29.

Peasants, 73, 83, 106, 165.

Pechenegs, 10.

People, personification of, 84: gov-
ernment by, 87, 88. >> >>

Perovskaya, Sophie, 2^jJ0o; sketch
ofjijgOfe'tc. ; letj^rgtto mother,
225T; execution 6^gQ9. ^

Pessimism, 185-1927

Pestel, 166, 167, 170.

Peter, predilection of, for small
apartments, 49 ; reforms of, 148 ;
significance, character, and work
of, 149-151.

Petersburg, 48, 152-154, 175, 190-
192,229,235,237,238.

Petroleum trade, 39.
v\ Pissarev, JrfKJT

Plain, illusions of, 5.

Poland, influence of, 145, 146.

Police, brutality of, 244, 246-250.

Polish language, 25 ; habits, 32 ; cit-
ies, 37, 38.

Polyans, 81.

Polygamy, 111.

Possoshkov, Ivan, 82.

Poverty, 238.

Priesthood, debasement of, 239.

Princes, rule of, 88, 89.

Prisons : Peter and Paul, 206, 247,
248; Novobelgorod, 247; Khar-
kov, 248 ; Kara, 250 ; food strikes
in, 206.

Profession, lack of pride in, 51.

Prosecutions, number of, 210, 211.

Protest, 109.

Prudhon, 156, 194.

Pskov, 48, 88.

Pugachev, 139, 160.

268

INDEX.

Punishment, of sorcerer, 103; of

debtor, 104 ; corporal, 103.
Pushkin, 7, 70, 184, 187.

Rasin, Stenka, 136.

Realism, 52, 158.

Reform, urgency of, 262.

Religion : ideas of future life, 60 ;
sun worship, 61 , 62 ; intercourse
with the dead, 78-80 ; consola-
tions of paganism, 80 ; Christian-
ity and its influences, 94 ; Greek
Church, 94, 95 ; monasticism, 96 ;
political aspects, 97 ; monotheism,
98; raskol, 109, 142, 181, 183,
239; heresy, 109; protest, 126;
communism in, 141 ; weakness,
239.

Revolt, energy of, 137 ; progress of,
138; takes form of conspiracy,
161 ; recognized by authorities,
169 ; vitality of, 172 ; federative
character of, 177, 178 ; enters the
dynamic period, 193 ; new policy,
199, 200 ; propaganda, 200 ; social-
istic phase, 200 ; pilgrimage to the
people, 201 ; terrorism, 204, 205,
etc. ; conditions favoring revolt,
237 ; how it is intensified, 242 ;
true nature of the revolt, 252, etc. ;
how will it end, 254 , significance
of, for Europe, 261 ; federalistic
character of, 256 ; hostile to em-
pire, 259.

Rights, personal, 86.

Rousseau, 156.

Russia, a country apart, 8 ; country
of plains, 9 ; early territory, 10 ;
Tatar period of, 12, 13 ; climactic
life of, 57 ; united, 101 ; European-
ized, 148, 152, 153 ; sadness of,
187 ; music, 191 ; youth of, 260 ;
future population, 260.

Russians, mental powers and char-
acteristics of, 17, 66-68 ; lingual
capacity, 17-19 ; receptivity, 17 ;
migrant character, 33 ; lack sen-
timent of place, 52 ; political hu-
miliation, 54 ; individuality, 59 ;
intellect, 65 ; sadness, 188-190 ;
versatility, 188.

Ryliev, 167,171.

Ryssakov, 209.

Saltykov, Prince, 234.

Samara, 39.

Samovar, manufacture, 39.

Saratov, population of, 39.

Sassulich, Vyera, shoots Trepov, 205.

Schelling, 156.

Schiller, 156.

Schuyler, cited, 15, 16.

Sects, 21, 139-141.

Serf, enslavement of, 101 ; emanci-
pation of, 157, 196, 240.

Servility, appearance of, 104, 105.

Shevchenko, 255.

Siberia, 20, 210, 218, 242, 249.

Siesta, 31.

Simon, St., 159, 194.

Slav race, 9 ; colonies, 12 ; teeth,
vision, physical powers, 16 ; de-
velopment, 17 ; migration, 20 ;
enterprise, 39 ; residences, 49 ;
characteristics, 49 ; mythology,
60 ; altruism, 81 ; intolerance of
rulers, 86 ; family, 86 ; golden age,
91.

Slavophilism, 172-176, 194.

Slavs, 8, 11, 16, 19, 20 ; of the Dan-
ube, 35 ; without houses, 35 ; liv-
ing in Oppida, 36 ; modern habi-
tations of, 49 ; proposed federa-
tion of, 177.

Slavyans, 81.

Socialism, 157, 194.

Societies, 166, 167, 195.

Society, characteristics of Russian,
232.

Solovetsky, insurrection at, 135 ; fall
of, 136.

Soloviev, 9, 10.

Spitting, a Slav habit, 32 ; its origin,
32, 33.

Spring, effects of, 59.

State, the new, 106.

Steppe, 7. S

Stryeltsy, rising and extirpation of,
138, 151.

Students, 18, 23, 156, 164, 207, 238.

Tatar influence, 13 ; names and
nouns, 14 ; customs, 14 ; domina-
tion, 108.

Tatars, 12, 23, 39, 83, 131.

Tax - gatherer, impositions of, 105,
106.

Tea, 30, 31.

Terem, abolition of, 148.

Third Section, 206, 207.

Tolstoi, Leo, 184, 185, 199.

Torture, sanctioned by Russian
code, 103 ; of prisoners, 246.

Town life, 37 ; populations, 43-45.

Towns, character and growth of,
44 ; their appearance, 46, 47, 71.

Travel, migratory character of, 23 ;
natural to natives, 23 ; encour-
aged by railway freaks, 24.

Tsar, 13.

INDEX.

269

Taarisra, popular superstitions con-
cerning, 254.
Tsaritsyn, 39, 40.
Tula, 39.
Turanians, 10.
Turgeniev, 15, 155, 184.
Tyranny, fiscal, 56 j domestic, 115.

Urals, 8.

Urban life, insignificance of, 37, etc.

Uvarov,169, 170.

Vagabond hunting, 22.
Varegs, 87, 88, 90.
V*ch<5, 87, 88, 89, 91, 92, 99, 176.
Vereshchagin, 17.
Viatka, 48, 88;

Village life, beggarliness of, 70.
Vladimir, 82, 108.

Volga, commerce on, 39; burlaki
and songs, 187 ; propaganda along,

204.

Voronezh, congress at, 208.

Wandering, habit of, 21 ; its modern
forms, 22.

West, influence of, 145.

Western ideas, fear of, 164.

Westerns, 174. —

Winter, its aspects and appeal to
the imagination, 58, 59 ; a despot-
ism, 62 ; enemy of Mongolism, 65.

Womenv-72, 73, 74 ; punishment of,
103 ; characteristics, 144 ; devo-
tion of , 112; treatment and posi-
tion, 113, 114, 115, 117; relation
to husband, 115 ; distrusted by
church, 116 ; chastiseinent of , sanc-
tioned and enjoined, 118 ; seclu-
sion of, 121,122', at Moscow, 123;
ignorance, 123 ; proverbs regard-
ing, 123, 124 ; influence of in sects,
144 ; emancipation of, 147 ; con-
dition of, in 1843, 159 ; eccentrici-
ties of, 159.

Zemlya i Volya, 207, 209.
Zheliabov, 209 ; sketch of, 225, etc. ;

executed, 209.
Zhukovsky, 155.

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Lt>1

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9

14 DAY USE

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RECD LD (lAR2l'68-8AM

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RECEIVED

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LC

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^

41 .NOV -5 1977 «v

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LD2-

LD 21A-45w?-9,'67
(H5067sl0)476B

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University of California

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YB 55%6

171581

***