I^USSIA 
 
 Under the Tzars 
 
A 
 
RUSSIA 
 
 UNDER THE TZARS 
 
 BY 
 
 STEPJSriAK 
 
 Author of " Undergroujoj Russia;" formerly Editor of 
 
 ZSilLIA I VOLIA 
 
 RENDERED INTO ENGLISH BY WILLIAM WEST ALL 
 
 A UTRORIZED EDITION 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 1885 / 
 


 CONTENTS. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 THE PAST. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Mia 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 The Vetche 8 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 A Russian Republic 15 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 SuEvivAL OF Self-Government 19 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 The Making of the Despotism 24 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 The Powee of the Chuech 32 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 The Russian Theocracy 88 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 The Great Reformer 44 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 Emancipation 53 
 
 MbO / r 51 
 
Vi COISTTEISTTS. 
 
 PART 11. 
 DARK PLACES. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A Nocturnal Search 58 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 The Pouce C 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 The House of Preventative Detention 78 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 Poor TniRTY-NiNE 86 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 The Tzar's Justice 94 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 The Question 97 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 Political Trials 103 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 iliuTARY Tribunals Ill 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 After Judome.vt 123 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 The Troubetzkoi Ravelin 140 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 Siberia 101 
 
 CHAPTER XXr. 
 Mutual Responsibility 160 
 
CONTENTS. yii 
 
 PART III. 
 
 s 
 
 ADMINISTRATIVE EXILE. 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Innocent Therefore Punished 175 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 Life in Exile 193 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 i/^ K Destroyed Generation 228 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 Higher Education 239 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 Secondary Education 263 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 Primary Instruction 275 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 The Zemstvo 295 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 The Despotism and the Press 313 
 
 . CHAPTER XXX. 
 ^ The Press under Alexander II 881 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 A Sample from the Bulk 345 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 RussLA. AND Europe 859 
 
PKEFACE. 
 
 EussiA is passing through a crisis of gi-eat importance 
 in her social and political life. Within a brief space of 
 time the revolutionary movement has attained a marvelous 
 growth^ and is spreading more and more among the classes 
 which have heretofore been the chief supporters of the 
 established order. The very ferocity of a reaction bewil- 
 dered by personal fear is dragging it to its inevitable 
 doom, and, like bhe French usurper of December 2d, 
 the morally ruined Government of the Tzar is meditating 
 that most desperate of all expedients for the restoration 
 of vanished prestige — a bloody and useless war. 
 
 The growing disquietude of the masses, manifested in 
 wild outbursts against the Jews, and in less irrational, 
 though hardly less frequent, riots and disturbances, as 
 well in agricultural districts as in manufacturing centers — 
 whether as protests against exacting landlords, tyrannical 
 masters, or oppressive laws for the regulation of factory 
 labor, are facts that cannot be gainsaid, and the signifi- 
 cance of which it is impossible to overlook. They show 
 what everybody feels in his heart, if he does not speak it 
 aloud — that momentous changes are pending, and that 
 Russia is on the eve of great events. 
 
 None would be so rash as to attempt to forecast the 
 
Ill PREFACE. 
 
 nature of these events or guess what the fates may have 
 in store for the empire of the Tzar. But of one thing 
 there can be no question : revolutionary changes cannot 
 take place in a country so vast, and whose population is 
 a third of that of all Europe, without affecting directly 
 or indirectly, every other country of the civilized world. 
 
 This fact is the justification and explanation of the 
 growing interest that is everywhere felt in Kussia and her 
 people, and in the hidden forces which are working out 
 her destinies and shaping her future. 
 
 Many valuable contributions have been made on the 
 subject to the literature of the day by foreign writers — 
 French, English, and German. But hitherto the Euro- 
 pean public have seldom, if ever, heard the views of those 
 who, being the most interested in the question, are nat- 
 urally the most competent to give an opinion — the Rus- 
 sians themselves. 
 
 Russian writers, among whom are many able men of 
 honorable name and great erudition, remain silent ; they 
 do not raise their voices to tell the truth about their 
 oppressed country. The cause of this strange silence is 
 easy of explanation. It were as perilous an undertaking 
 for a subject of the Tzar to reveal to the outside world 
 the iniquities of his Government as openly to attack him 
 in the presence of his police. Except a few anonymous 
 articles of slight importance, our best writers have, as yet, 
 said nothing on the politics of Russia in the languages 
 of Europe. The Government party alone and their allies 
 have been able to turn to account the publicity of the 
 Press ; but their contributions to the question, it is hardly 
 
PREFACE. Xlll 
 
 necessary to say, do not tend to the enlightenment of 
 public opinion. 
 
 In these circumstances the task of speaking for the 
 opposite party — that is to say, for the whole of educated 
 Russia — falls naturally to the extreme fraction of the op- 
 position — revolutionists. Socialists, and refugees of every 
 class — who from time to time have tried to win the ear 
 of Europe. And now this duty falls on me — a "Nihilist 
 writer," a *' practical Nihilist," as some English news- 
 papers have been good enough to call me — a man whose 
 sole claim to the indulgence of the English public is the 
 authorship of a book having for its object the explanation 
 and defense of Nihilism — a claim which is far from being 
 the most efficient for such a work as mine. I would 
 willingly have left the task to the member of a less ad- 
 vanced school, who might be less open than myself to 
 the charge of a too great pessimism in his appreciation 
 of the existing system. But there being no such writer 
 at hand, I have no alternative. The work must be done 
 by me ; and whatever other merits or demerits my book 
 may possess, it has at least been done impartially. 
 
 Knowing beforehand the points as to which my readers 
 are likely to be most distrustful, I resolved above all 
 things to avoid exaggeration, and I have aimed through- 
 out at saying too little rather than too much. In this 
 there is no difficulty, for the wrongs done by the Rus- 
 sian Government are so immeasurable that they may be 
 attenuated with no more seeming effect than is made on 
 the fathomless ocean by taking from it a glass of water ; 
 whilst, on the other hand, a slight overstatement on a 
 
XIV PREFACE. 
 
 comparatively immaterial point might impair the value, if 
 not render abortive, montlis of careful and conscientious 
 labor. Yet I neither intend nor desire to put the exist* 
 iug regime in any better light than it deserves. Not at all. 
 Though I '" nothing set down in malice," I "nothing 
 extenuate." I tell only the plain, unvarnished truth, but 
 it is the full truth. In the selection of my facts I have 
 taken the greatest care, rejecting everything that seemed 
 without warrant or not altogether trustworthy. 
 
 I have not swollen the dimensions of my book with 
 unnecessary references and notes. The things I have 
 told may be new to foreigners, but to Eussians and to 
 all who know Russian literature they are matters of 
 common knowledge. 
 
 In my historical sketches I have availed myself of the 
 works of our best historical writers (Kostomaroff, Solovieff, 
 SergueWtch, and Belaeff), works which are to be found in 
 every Russian library. The matters set forth in the second 
 volume are taken from official sources, and from statements 
 which have been allowed to appear in the censured Press 
 at times when it has enjoyed brief snatches of unwonted 
 freedom. 
 
 The six chapters of the second volume have appeared 
 at various times in the most influential of English papers, 
 and I have to thank the Times for its eloquent and 
 appreciative comments on my communications, and the 
 proprietors for the kind permission to include them in 
 the book. All the rest of the two volumes is original. 
 
 It is evident that, as touching the first part of the book, 
 I could not avail myself to any great extent of official 
 
PEEFACE. XV 
 
 publications or newspaper statements. The cruelties 
 inflicted on prisoners and the iniquities of the admin- 
 istration can seldom be openly mentioned in the censured 
 Press, and then only in guarded and evasive language. 
 The excellent publications of the Narodnia Volia printing- 
 oflBce at Geneva, which are as carefully compiled and as 
 trustworthy as they are rich in material, have been my 
 chief sources of information. Many of my statements are 
 drawn either from my own personal experience or from 
 the experiences of friends who have been good enough 
 to place them at my disposal. I have merely put their 
 narratives into literary shape. 
 
 A word as to the form of my book. It is irreguiar 
 and not strictly didactic, for I have tried not alone to 
 narrate events but to describe men. Critics will perhaps 
 say that this double aim derogates from the dignity of a 
 serious work. They may be right. I will only observe 
 that on this point moderation and sobriety have been my 
 rule. 
 
 These explanations rendered, there remains for me only 
 one more duty to perform — the agreeable duty of thanking 
 those who have given me their aid in the writing of my 
 book. 
 
 Being as yet new in the country, and unable to write 
 the English language with ease, I am indebted to Mr. 
 William Westall, who has long been a warm sympathizer 
 with the Russian revolutionary cause, and my literary 
 fellow-worker, for giving the work its English shape ; 
 and I heartily thank him for his careful and idiomatic 
 translation. 
 
xvi PREFACE. 
 
 As for the matter of the book, I owe many thanks to 
 some of my countrymen. Mr. Peter LavrofF, to whom 
 I am indebted for the very kind Introduction to my 
 *• Underground Russia/' which so greatly contributed to 
 the success of my first work, has been good enough to 
 place his rich library at my disposal for the preparation 
 of " Russia Under the Tzars," my second work. To 
 Mr. Isidor Goldsmith, formerly editor of Ztianie and 
 Slovo, Mr. Nicolas Tsakny, and Mr. L. N., all of whom 
 have spent years in exile, I am obliged for much of the 
 interesting information which I have utilized in the 
 chapters on that subject. 
 
 But most of all I have to thank Mr. Michel Dragomanoff, 
 formerly one of the professors at Kieff University, who, 
 from the very beginning of my campaign against the 
 Russian despotism — first in the pages of the Contejnporary 
 Review, and afterwards in the columns of the Times — has 
 given me, without stint of time or trouble, much valuable 
 assistance, and in connection with the present work has 
 supplied me with many original and authentic documents 
 relating to police persecution in the three satrapies of the 
 South. 
 
 S. STEPNIAK. 
 
 T.0ND0N, April 7, 1885. 
 
AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN- 
 EDITION. 
 
 I READILY comply with the kind desire of Messrs. Charles 
 Scribner's Sons, of New York, in declaring that I authorize 
 this American reprint of my " Russia under the Tzars." 
 
 It is among Englishmen that my attempts to expose the 
 truth about Russian conditions found the most indulgent 
 ear, and my appeals in favor of Russian liberty the most 
 touching sympathy. And I was extremely pleased and proud 
 to learn that on the other side of the ocean, the people of 
 the great nation to whom Europe owes so much for its 
 present liberty, has shown also an interest in my modest 
 efforts. I can only congratulate myself with this new proof 
 of their kindness, and hope that the " Russia under the 
 Tzars" may contribute its part in inducing the public 
 opinion of the great American Nation to unite its powerful 
 voice in favor of Russian liberty, and in condemnation of 
 the Tzarism. 
 
 This will be one of the guaranties of the prompt cessation 
 of the horrors, one small part of which the reader will find 
 described in this volume. 
 
 S. STEPNIAK. 
 
 London, April 26, 1885. 
 
PART I. 
 THE PAST. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE MIR. 
 
 Natioi^s, like men, are Judged by their appearance. The 
 despotism which rules the Russian people is naturally re- 
 garded as the outcome and expression of the national char- 
 acter. It is true that of late years Russia has produced both 
 men and women who, in patriotic zeal and devotion to 
 freedom, have never been outdone ; yet, in the seeming 
 futility of their efforts, the public opinion of Europe sees 
 but an additional proof of the stubborn servility of the 
 masses, equally unable to understand any liberal aspiration 
 and unwilling to take part in any liberal movement. 
 
 The facts cannot be gainsaid. The tillers of the soil, who 
 form the bulk of the Russian nation, still profess devotion to 
 an ideal Tzar — the creature of their own imagination — believe 
 that tiie day is at hand when he will drive all lando\vners 
 out of the country, and bestow their possessions on his 
 faithful peasants. 
 
 But if we go beyond mere externals, if we study more 
 deeply, and observe more closely, the character and lives of 
 our lower orders, we shall be struck by many peculiarities 
 1 
 
4 RUSSIA UNDEll THE TZARS. 
 
 opposition, it is essential for the acUoeates ol eonflicting 
 l\L to be brought face to faee, and compelled to tight out 
 
 ihnir differences iu sinirlc combat. _ 
 
 T1.0 fc hod of adjustment I have described .s eminently 
 ch.^:cteristic of the Eussian .ur. The asse-b^I ^o- -^^ 
 force on the minority resolutions wi h which the latter is 
 au'ble to a-ree. Everybody must make concessions for the 
 "e'e al good and the peace and welfare of the community 
 The mafority are too generous to take advantage of their 
 ^:S stLngth. ^le .nir is not a master but ^ o^ 
 parent equally compassionate to all its children. It is this 
 rrty of our villige self-government that exp ams the 
 i'^sen e of humantty which forms so marked a feature of 
 our rural customs-the mutual help in field labor the aid 
 gWen to the poor, the fatherless, and the afflicted-which 
 have elicited the warm admiration of every observer of our 
 village life. To the same cause must be ascribed tlieun- 
 Bwerving loyalty of Kussian peasants to their mir. What- 
 ever the mir decides is ordained of God," says a popular 
 nroverb There are many other sayings as, for instance : 
 - Nobody but God dare Judge^ the mir ; " - Who is greater 
 than the mir 9 who can dispute with it ? " " The mir re- 
 ceives no bribes ; " - Where the mir's hand is, there my head 
 is • " ''Although last in the mir, a man is always one ot the 
 flock ; but once separated from the mir, he is but an orphan ; 
 " Every member of the mir is as a member of the same 
 
 family." . 
 
 An indispensable corollary to the integrity of the mir, and, 
 seein- how the country is ruled, one of its most surpnsmg 
 peculiarities, is the full liberty of speech and debate enjoyed 
 by our rural assemblies. Indispensable, for how could busi- 
 ness be done and justice enforced if, instead of speaking 
 tlieir minds freelv, members of a commune were to fear 
 giving offence to Peter or John, and resort to subterfuge 
 and falsehood ? Rough frankness of manner and unre- 
 
THE MIR. 6 
 
 strained liberty of speech being adopted as a rule and sanc- 
 tioned by tradition, they are not abandoned when by chance 
 there comes under discussion some subject outside the 
 modest sphere of peasant life. It is a fact admitted by all 
 observers that, while in the cities words implying " disre- 
 spect of existing institutions " are uttered even in private 
 with bated breath and heard with trembling, the peasants in 
 their public meetings talk as they list, criticise the very in- 
 stitutions which others are permitted only to admire, censure 
 with easy impartiality the most illustrious members of the 
 administrative oligarchy, treat boldly the burning agrarian 
 question, and often express opinions concei*ning the sacred 
 imperial presence itself which would make the hair of a well- 
 bred townsman stand on end. 
 
 It must not, however, be supposed that this license of lan- 
 guage bespeaks an insubordinate temper or a rebellious spirit. 
 It is nothing more than an inveterate habit begotten of long 
 usage. The peasants have no idea that in speaking their 
 minds they are breaking the law. They do not understand 
 how speech, opinion — whatever the method of its expression 
 — can be considered a crime. There are cases on record of 
 a starosta receiving revolutionary proclamations by post and, 
 in the innocence of his heart, reading them aloud before the 
 village assembly as something curious and suggestive. If a 
 revolutionary propagandist happens to enter a village he is 
 invited to meet the assembly and read or tell whatever he 
 may think likely to edify the community. What harm 
 could arise from so natural a proceeding ? And if the fact 
 becomes known nothing can exceed the surprise of the peas- 
 ants when told by the gendarmes that they have committed 
 a heinous offence. So great is their ignorance that they 
 believe liberty of speech to be a right inherent in every 
 rational being ! 
 
 Such are the main features of our village self-government. 
 Nothinsr can well be more strikins: than the contrast between 
 
6 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 the institutions which prevail among the lower orders of 
 Kussia and the institutions which regulate the lives of its 
 upper classes. The former are essentially republican and 
 democratic ; the latter arc based on imperial despotism, and 
 organized on the strictest principles of bureaucratic control. 
 This contrast, so palpable and portentous, having endured 
 for centuries, has produced, as its inevitable consequence, a 
 phenomenon of great importance — that strongly marked 
 tendency of the Kussian people to hold themselves aloof 
 from the State, which is one of their most significant char- 
 acteristics. On the one hand, the peasant saw before him 
 his mir, the embodiment of justice and brotherly love ; on 
 the other, official Russia, represented by the tcMnovnihs of 
 the Tzar, his magistrates, gendarmes, and administrators- 
 through all the centuries of our history the embodiment of 
 rapacity, venality, and violence. In these circumstances it 
 was not difficult to make a choice. *' It is better," says the 
 peasant of to-day, "to stand guilty before the mir than in- 
 nocent before the judge." And his forefathers said, ''Live 
 and enjoy yourselves, children, while Moscow takes no notice 
 
 of you." 
 
 From the very dawn of our national history the Eussian 
 peasant has shunned intercourse with the Russia of the 
 tchinovnihs. The two have never mingled, a fact which ex- 
 plains why the political evolutions of ages have made so lit- 
 tle impression on the habits of our toiling millions. It is no 
 exaggeration to say that the lives of the bulk of the nation 
 and of its upper classes have flowed in two contiguous yet 
 separate and distinct streams. Tlie common folks live in 
 their liliputian republics like snails in their shells. To them 
 official Russia— the world of tchinovnihs, soldiers and police- 
 men—is a horde of foreign conquerors, who from time to 
 time send tlioir agents into the country to demand the trib- 
 ute of my one and the tribute of blood— taxes for the Tzar's 
 treasury and soldiers for his army. Yet by a startling ano- 
 
THE MIE. 7 
 
 maly — one of those strange contrasts of which, as a celebra- 
 ted geographer has said, Eussia is full — these rudimentary 
 republics, which enjoy so large a measure of social and per- 
 sonal freedom, are at once the surest foundations and the 
 strongest bulwarks of despotic power. 
 
 By what vagary of fortune or caprice of history, it may be 
 asked, has this crying anomaly arisen ? How comes it that 
 institutions in so flagrant contradiction with the whole of 
 our political regime as these peasant parliaments should 
 flourish under the £egis of an arbitrary monarch ? 
 
 The anomaly is only in appearance ; we have to deal nei- 
 ther with an historical riddle nor the fortuitous results of 
 incidental combinations. I lay so much stress on our system 
 of popular self-government because I am convinced that the 
 form which it takes and ideas whereon it is based are 
 more in conformity with the political aspirations of the Eus- 
 sian people than the autocratic and centralized form of the 
 existing system. If there be aught anomalous in our polity, 
 aught imposed on the nation by outward and accidental 
 causes, it is the despotism itself. 
 
1\ 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE VETCHE. 
 
 At the beginning of authentic history the vast 
 now known as Russia was divided into a 
 of principalities, varying in extent, having each i 
 and several more or less important towns and viilag( 
 rulers, however, were not supreme ; they reigned, 
 did not govern, all legislative and executive pow 
 vested in the popular assembly. This assembly t^ 
 posed of free citizens without distinction of rauk or 
 the prince being no more than a public fum 
 elected by the people and obedient to their w 
 traditional custom the princes were chosen am 
 members of the same family from generation to go: 
 or, rather, from a race of warriors of royal blood, all 
 claimed descent from.Rnrik, the supposed found( 
 Russian Empire. The principle of heredity was i 
 ever, regarded as an immiitable law ; the vetclie re 
 no such right, and when a native jirince was not to 
 of his i^eople, they changed him for one more 
 liking. The prince was subject, not superior to hi 
 the subjection of the people being an idea which 
 come into vogue until several centuries later. Tlie 
 was however seldom exercised. Russian history 
 but few instances of the deposition of a native 
 favor of a foreign ruler ; and once only, when the 
 Galitia deemed a change expedient, was a simpL 
 raised to princely rank. But the custom of 
 
 i 
 
THE VETCHE. 9 
 
 21 the same family was really no restriction 
 rty of election ; for the royal stock so increased 
 plied, and established so many off-shoots in 
 )arts of the country, that suitable candidates 
 s forthcoming. 
 
 storians of the so-called Muscovite school, out of 
 for monarchic principles, have pretended to dis- 
 ;erm of this form of government in the supposed 
 jcession and right of birth among the princes of 
 assia. But the more thorough and impartial 
 of the new school prove that no such laws existed, 
 ch rights were recognized — the relations between 
 g prince and the people being in every case regu- 
 e vetclie. The nearest of kin to the ruler had 
 he best opportunities of making himself favorably 
 id in ancient Russia, as among all patriarchal 
 je commanded popular respect. When a prince 
 iS banished, the ruler generally chosen to succeed 
 3 eldest brother, who was probably also the head of 
 , or of that branch of it which the people delighted 
 
 If, however, the brother were unpopular, he 
 lassed over, the choice in that event falling on the 
 late prince ; or, again, if the people so willed it, 
 and the nephew might both be superseded by a 
 )se kinship to the royal line was attenuated almost 
 nition ; for mere genealogy counted for nothing 
 tter, and early Eussian history affords abundant 
 lat the one immutable privilege which regulated 
 don was the will of the vetche. 
 1 of a prince was, however, only the first step in 
 1. The next proceeding was the conclusion of a 
 L — the riada — between the new ruler and the city, 
 ies swore faithfully to observe the contract, and 
 iB riada no prince could consider his position safe. 
 , in fact, was the constitutional pact. It defined 
 
 1* 
 
 \\ 
 
10 
 
 RUSSIA UXDER THE TZAES. 
 
 the mutual obligations of the contracting parti 
 conditions of the compact were subject to modifical 
 only in diii'erent principalities and from time to tii 
 between one prince and another. The leading con( 
 the pact were nevertheless almost always identic 
 highest function of the prince was that of judge 
 smaller principalities he alone filled this ofiice, and 
 of the contracts it was specially stipulated that tl 
 should act in person, never by deputy, the peop] 
 more confidence in the impartiality and indeper 
 their prince than in any of his men. At a lat( 
 when princes, influenced by other ideas, began to t: 
 the popular rights, it was specified in the cons 
 pacts that the prince should only act as judge whe 
 by a colleague appointed by the vetche. 
 
 A second duty of the prince,- hardly less imporl 
 the first, was to defend the country from its ener 
 the right to declare war, or to dispose of the milita 
 which were composed of all citizens able to bear : 
 vested in the vetche. The prince, generally a ma 
 to arms from his youth upwards, was appointed to 
 mand of the army only after the declaration of wj 
 the more important principalities he shared the 
 bilities of command with a special officer electe 
 vetche. The prince had always in his service a m( 
 numerous corps of volunteers — free fighters — hal: 
 native, and half foreign, denominated drugina, or 
 of the prince." And so they were — literally his 
 meeting every day in the same hall, sitting at 
 table, the companions of all his amusements, his a 
 every difficulty. They were, moreover, maintaine 
 at his expense, either out of the revenues granted i 
 the vetcha or his own private resources. If he 
 make war, the vetche was at liberty to refuse bin 
 operation of the militia. In this event, he could, 
 
THE YETCHE. 
 
 11 
 
 it at his own risk and peril, "with the help of his 
 privilege of which the princes of that age often 
 mselves to their great advantage. The drngtna, 
 )rince's personal companions, followed him every- 
 he left his j^rinoipality to rule over a richer and 
 imunity, they accompanied him and shared his 
 ne. On the other hand, when the citizens dis- 
 unpopular ruler, the druyina were expelled at the 
 
 like these were of frequent occurrence, and there 
 princes who had not occupied in the course of 
 half-a-dozen thrones (or ''' dinner-tables," accord- 
 suggestive phrase then in vogue). A change of 
 easily effected. When a prince became unpopular, 
 lad simply to meet and pronounce the sacramental 
 '"e salute thee, Prince !" whereupon his High- 
 . retire, feeling no more ill-will for his former 
 ;s than if he were a candidate for parliamentary 
 ten at an election. If his successor did not prove 
 iud the vetche again changed their minds and re- 
 , he would resume his former position with the 
 icrity. It sometimes came to pass that a prince 
 , dismissed and re-elected three or four times in 
 by the very same city. 
 
 principalities of mediseval Russia, notwithstanding 
 ihical form of their government, were in reality so 
 )lics, and republics they are called by the best of our 
 torians, Mr. Kostomaroff, although with a delicate 
 on for the susceptibilities of the censorship, he 
 use of the Latin term, substituting for it the Slav 
 
 narodopravsivo. The princes were practically 
 fortune, with a following of volunteers whom the 
 ook into their service. A state of things not 
 ilar prevailed in the small Italian republics of the 
 es, the sole difference being the Russian condof- 
 
12 
 
 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 ' *l 
 
 t:l 
 
 tieri formed a separate caste and were all descen 
 the same royal stock. 
 
 Yet this difference was far from being detrimen 
 democratic institutions of the period, for the mos 
 fact in our early history is the entire absence of 
 dencies toward tyranny. Earely, indeed, do we fine 
 opposing by force the popular will. There was too 
 lose thereby and too little to gain. A peo^Dle hal 
 living in a country so thinly inhabited that the 
 no value, could have no strong local ties. Neith( 
 prince's love of country count for much. As nc 
 the people themselves, he and his drngina cared nc 
 they went nor where they settled. Every prince foi 
 and the drugina for their master, were always on 
 out for promotion; that is to say, for a larger city a 
 l^ay. It was therefore against a prince's own interes 
 the will of the vetclie, for such a stain on his r 
 would greatly impair his chances of advancemeni 
 fault of anything better, moreover, he could a^ 
 some petty principality ready to receive him ; fo 
 governed by a simple ^o.safZMi/i: always added to its d 
 and independence by exchanging his rule for 
 prince. In the mean time he might look forward 
 fidence to something better. Princes were so often ( 
 and conflicts with the vetche were so common th 
 adventurer with a good character who kept his 
 bad little difficulty in obtaining the promotion to 
 aspired. At the worst, it was always possible for a 
 enterprise to win honor and wealth by force of ar; 
 expense of his less warlike kinsmen. In these 
 there was nothing tyrannical or hostile to liberty, 
 ular prince ran little risk of attack ; for would-1 
 sors knew that they would have to deal not witli 
 gina alone, but the entire military force of the coi 
 the other hand, when the people had no particula 
 
THE VETCH E. 
 
 13 
 
 ice it was a matter of indifference to them whether 
 r lost. In the latter event they were quite ready 
 IS ruler the prince who had proved himself the better 
 e vetche elected the victor, who immediately signed 
 , and, after taking the usual oath, entered on his 
 
 precisely as if he had acquired his position in the 
 ray. If he in his turn made himself unpopular, there 
 pie and infallible way of getting rid of him. The 
 I only to offer the throne on more than usually favor- 
 s to some prince of military capacity, whereupon 
 would appear on the scene with his drugina, and, 
 he citizens, depose his rival and reign in his stead. 
 ;]iu3 to the rivalry among members of the priucely 
 
 the ancient Russian republics chiefly owed the 
 on of their liberty ; and the more important cities, 
 
 their example naturally influenced the others, 
 iys, 'hj very reason of their extent, and the eager- 
 wliich their suffrages were sought, turn this rivalry 
 t account. 
 
 Nations that prevailed between the prince and the 
 plain how, in older Eussia, freedom so complete 
 cratic was maintained without effort and without 
 trife. All other republics, either of antiquity or 
 ddle Ages, were, so to speak, limited republics or 
 jnal democracies, the will of the people being always 
 ;ss controlled by other social forces, while our early 
 ^publics were absolute and unlimited democracies, 
 le were supreme ; every citizen had an equal voice 
 rernment of the country, and neither the ruling 
 )r any other public functionary, had a vested 
 I his place. The vetche could annul all or any 
 3rees. Though he appointed officers to assist him 
 ministration, the vetclie controlled his choice and 
 niss his nominee. They were not jirotected by 
 3, and the vetche no more hesitated to punish a 
 
14 ItUSSIA UJSDER THE TZAllS. 
 
 prince's nominee than a functionary elected by themselves. 
 Neither the prince nor any other servant of the State was ap- 
 pointed for a fixed term. All held their places at the pleasure 
 of the people. The bishops alone were nominally elected 
 for life, but even they were sometimes summarily dismissed 
 by the vetclie. Thus the vetche was the sovereign power 
 which regulated all the affairs of the country. There was no 
 divided authority ; the vetche spoke the voice and expressed 
 the will of the people. In a word, the republics of ancient 
 Eussiawere primitive states, elementary in their institutions, 
 and purely democratic in their government. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 A RUSSIAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 If from the fragmentary notices dispersed throughout our 
 old chronicles we endeavor to draw a living picture of these 
 same vetches, the primitive and simple character of our 
 ancient republican regime will be rendered more visible and 
 striking. 
 
 On the banks of tlie river Volchow, and not far from Lake 
 Ilmen, lies the famous city of ISTovgorod — now only a small 
 provincial ** chief-town " with some 18,000 inhabitants, but 
 centuries ago one of the greatest of European cities, worthy, 
 by its power and riches, of being called the Northern Venice. 
 In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries Novgorod was the 
 capital of avast republic, which included the northern half 
 of modern Russia, stretching as far as the Ural mountains, 
 and containing large towns and important cities. Favored 
 by its splendid position on the great highway which united 
 Mediteval Europe with the Levant, Novgorod the Great 
 waxed rich and powerful on the commerce and industry of 
 her sons, and for centuries successfully defended her liberties 
 against the ever-growing power of the Muscovite Tzars. It 
 was not until the sixteenth century that the resistance of 
 the heroic republic was finally overcome. None of our old 
 republics ever attained to the same power and S2)lendor 
 as Novgorod the Great, and noae has left us records so 
 rich of a glorious past. In these priceless documents 
 we find the best material for the study of our early institu- 
 tions. 
 
16 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 On one of the squares of the now depopulated city, the 
 stranger is shown the place where, at the stroke of the great 
 bcllAvhich Avas there suspended, the sovereign people were 
 wont to meet. Its sacred rope was free to all, every citizen 
 being competent to summon the vetche for deliberation on 
 any subject affecting the welfare of individuals or the State. 
 The people were masters, even, as we have seen, despots, 
 sometimes violent and hasty, but always noble and generous, 
 like legendary Oriental kings, fathers of their country, ever 
 accessible to 'the humblest of their subjects, ever ready to 
 redress their wrongs, and prompt to punish the trespasses 
 of the great and powerful. If none dared disturb for trivial 
 or inadequate cause the repose of the sleeping lion, none, on 
 the other hand, could hinder the humblest burgher from 
 convoking the people and making complaint of any injustice 
 committed against him ; and forcing the aggressor— who- 
 soever he might be, whether ^o.safZrn'^ (lord mayor) or prince 
 — to appear and answer to the charge. 
 
 The rules touching the convocation of the vetche were few 
 and simple, its meetings being marked by an almost entire 
 absence of formality. Supreme power was vested in the 
 entire body of the people, and wherever and whenever they 
 met their will was law. There are instances on record of 
 the militia of Novgorod while encamped in the face of the 
 enemy constituting themselves into a vetche, and adopting 
 resolutions which were held as binding as if they had been 
 passed by the assembled citizens in the great square of the 
 capital. 
 
 But that which differentiates our ancient vetche, as well 
 as our mirs, from all similar assemblies, is the absence of any 
 system of voting. In every other republic, however free or 
 democratic it might be— at Sparta and Eome, as well as at 
 Athens and Florence — ^voting in one shape or another 
 existed, and the jirinciple that the minority should conform 
 to the rule of the majority was the basis of all theirpolitical 
 
A RUSSIAK REPUBLIC. 17 
 
 procedure. In the Slav nature there seems something 
 antagonistic to this principle. I say Slav, and not Russian, 
 because among all the peoples of that race, possessed of 
 genuinely free institutions, we invariably find that the 
 principle of unanimous decision is the only principle which 
 the popular conscience is able to accept. In Poland these 
 principles were embodied in an unalterable law, than which 
 nothing could be more fatal and absurd. In the national 
 Polish diets, if one man — who might be bribed by a foreign 
 enemy — shouted his liberum veto, it suflBced to annul the 
 decision of the entire assembly. In the Eutheuian republics 
 — those of the Ukrauian Cossacks on either side of the 
 Dnieper, and in warlike Zaporogia — the principle of unanim- 
 ity equally prevailed, and the system of legislation by vote 
 was never practised. There were, however, occasions in 
 which the more numerous, or, at any rate, the stronger 
 party found an effective v/ay of overcoming opposition. 
 When some burning question arose — for instance, the choice 
 of a military chief or higher magistrate — and none of the 
 disputants would yield, they generally came to blows, and so 
 soon as the physically weaker party had been sufficiently 
 belabored, they abandoned their opposition, the desired 
 unanimity was attained, and the candidates were elected by 
 acclamation. These disjoutes were sometimes settled in a 
 manner still more summary — with knife instead of fist. The 
 vetche of old Russia, especially those of IsTovgorod the Great, 
 as to which we have more complete information than any 
 other, seem to have been also at times very turbulent. The 
 chroniclers tell of frequent disputes, some of which ended in 
 sanguinary struggles and loss of life. But these cases were 
 evidently exceptional. The republic could not have existed, 
 much less prospered and grown in power, if civil war had 
 been chronic in its capital. As a rule, moderate counsels 
 prevailed, and differences were pacifically settled by per- 
 suasion and mutual concession. The mildness and docility 
 
18 ErSSIA UKDER THE TZAES. 
 
 of the Slav character rendered possible the application, on a 
 large scale, of a principle based on an undeniably generous 
 sentiment — respect for the rights of minorities, a sentiment 
 declared by an eminent English political writer to be the 
 foundation of true liberty. 
 
CHAPTER lY. 
 
 SURVIVAL OF SELF-GOVER]S'ME]S"T. 
 
 We find, then, in the governing bodies of our ancient 
 states the same striking peculiarity which distinguishes the 
 humble assemblies of our obscure Tillages— the legislation 
 by unanimous decision. 
 
 Nor, as reference to our first chapter will show, is this the 
 only feature common to the vetclie and the mir. The resem- 
 blance extends to details ; their identity is almost complete, a 
 surprising and remarkable fact when it is considered how 
 different are the circumstances of these two institutions, and 
 by how long an interval of time they are separated— the one 
 perished centuries ago, the other still survives. In its 
 methods of procedure, as well as by the primitive variety of 
 its functions and the disorderly character of its proceedings, 
 the obsolete vetcTie is neither more nor less than the modern 
 commune assembly, and, though on a m^^ch larger scale, 
 without any essential difference in its organization. If there 
 be any difference it is certainly less than that which exists 
 between the domestic cat and the Bensral tiger, or between 
 the timid lizard, which hides itself at the first alarm in the 
 nearest hole, and the ferocious saurian which haunts the 
 rivers of the Spanish Main — in spite of their seeming dis- 
 similarity both members of the same family. 
 
 The existence of a close kinship between the mir and the 
 vetche is beyond doubt, and it would not be difficult to trace 
 the noble genealogy of the descendants of our ancient system 
 of self-government. To meet, discuss, provide for their 
 own wants, and manage their own business are the privi- 
 
20 RUSSIA UXDEK THE TZARS. 
 
 leges of freemen, and the vetche was the sole form of govern- 
 ment which it entered the mind of the mediseval Slav to 
 conceive. Even our "skimmers of the sea," the valiant 
 ushconiniki of Novgorod, half warriors, half shipmen, 
 travelling in companies like mediseval masons or modern 
 artels of workmen, carried to unknown lands, together with 
 their wares, the vetche and all its peculiarities. Besides the 
 great vetche, whose doings are recorded in our ancient 
 chronicles, there were the smaller vetche of inferior towns, 
 and the humble assembly of the innumerable villages that 
 were scattered over the face of the laud. All these vetche, 
 though differing as to size, were similarly constituted. 
 
 But in the struggle for existence, a struggle no less real in 
 the realm of politics than the world of zoology, the greater 
 organisms — the vetche of the cities — perished, like those 
 antediluvian monsters which, notwithstanding their size, 
 were either unable to prevail against their enemies, or sur- 
 vive unfavorable climatic changes. The smaller vetche 
 shared the fate of their progenitors, while the village vetche, 
 rendered invulnerable by their very insignificance, still live 
 and flourish. We have thus before us a curious, if not an 
 unique, example of historic paleontology, the conversation 
 for centuries of an ancient institution iinder a political 
 regime essentially different and apparently hostile. 
 
 How, it may be asked, has this anomaly come to pass ? 
 Very simply ; in the same way that small fish escape 
 through the meshes of a large net. All government is based 
 on the idea of taxation. The body politic — the State — can 
 no more exist without money than the human body can 
 exist without taking nourishment. But in a wild, unculti- 
 vated country of vast extent and destitute of roads, with a 
 population always on the move, force fails, and, except in 
 rare cases, individual members of the community can 
 neither be coerced nor controlled. The State may pass 
 laws and demand taxes, but it can neither, by ordinary 
 
SURVIVAL OF SELF-GOVEEJfilENT. 21 
 
 means, enforce obedience to the one nor payment of the 
 other. For these reasons Eassian governments have been 
 compelled to recognize the rural communes, to confirm their 
 privileges, treat with them as independent corporations, and 
 allow them to manage their own affairs. The land register 
 was kept by the communes, and not by individual propri- 
 etors ; the taxes were based on the register, and paid by the 
 village in its corporate capacity. If a villager went away 
 and ceased therefore to contribute his quota to the common 
 fund, the GoTernment made no difference, always exacting 
 the same amount until a new register was prepared, which 
 might not be for years. 
 
 Such is the fiscal system which has been followed by the 
 successive rulers of Eussia — princes, khans, tzars, and em- 
 perors. No other system was possible. Even serfage did 
 not interfere with rural self-government, and the great 
 seigneurs, who owned both the land and bodies of the tillers 
 of the soil, never attempted to restrict the autonomy of the 
 commune. None of the political troubles which have swept 
 over the country have affected the mir any more than the 
 fierce winds which sweep over the ocean disturb the eternal 
 calm of its lowmost depths. The mir can be touched only 
 by the new methods of the present economic regime, a sub- 
 ject on which I cannot dwell in the present work. 
 
 The survival of self-government among the lower orders 
 is a highly significant fact, proving as it does the political 
 as well as the economic vitality of our communes, and ac- 
 counting for the re-appearance of our old republican institu- 
 tions every time the Eussian people are free to manage their 
 own affairs. Of this there are many instances. 
 
 In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the time of the 
 Muscovite autocracy's greatest development, tens of thousands 
 of outlaws, fleeing from unbearable oppression, found a 
 refuge on the steppes of Yaik (now Oural), the Don and the 
 Dnieper. These fugitives, who called themselves Cossacks, 
 
23 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 founded a number of little military republics, identical in al- 
 most every respect with the purely Russian republics of 
 which Novgorod was the most illustrious example. The 
 chief difference consisted in the fact that the Cossack com- 
 munities, having no princely families to supply them with 
 rulers, elected military chiefs, who, under the titles of ata- 
 man, hetman, koshevoi, performed functions similar to those 
 performed by the Rurikovetchi princes of ancient Russia. 
 Even in our own time, whenever, as occasionally happens 
 (for instance in 1830 at Staraia Roussa and other districts, 
 and in 1856 in the province of Orel), a rising is temporarily 
 successful, the insurgents never place themselves under the 
 authority of a chief, but set up immediately a republic, sui 
 generis, and supreme power is vested in a popular assembly. 
 
 Returning to our first theme, and with all the facts before 
 us, we may affirm with full confidence that those who, judg- 
 ing solely by appearances, say that the Russian people have 
 an instinctive j^reference for despotic government, make a 
 great mistake. On the contrary, all their habits and tenden- 
 cies, as revealed in their history, show them to possess a 
 decided bent for freedom and strong aptitudes for self-gov- 
 ernment, wherein the vast majority of the nation are trained 
 from childhood, and which, whenever they have the oppor- 
 tunity, Russian jDcople spontaneously practise. 
 
 But what is, then, their monarchism, their devotion to 
 the Tzar of which so much is said ? The monarchism of 
 Russian peasants is a conception which has exclusive reference 
 to the State in its entirety, the whole body politic. If the 
 peasants were left to themselves and free to realize their 
 strange ideals, they would tell the "White Tzar to remain on 
 the throne, but they would send to the right about, and 
 probably massacre, every governor, policeman, and tchinov- 
 nik in the land, and set up a series of democratic republics. 
 For the peasants in their ignorance do not understand how 
 Russia at large can govern herself ; they do not see that the 
 
SUKVIVAL OF SELF-GOVEKKMENT. 23 
 
 bureaucracy which they hate and the Tzar whom they love 
 are essential parts of the same system, and that to destroy 
 the former and leave the latter would be like cutting off the 
 hands and feet, and leaving the head and trunk. This is a, 
 misconception arising from simple ignorance, a misconcep- 
 tion which, as instruction spreads among the people, will give 
 place to truer ideas. 
 
 Yet it was not always so. A misconception can neither 
 endure through five centuries nor be created by imagination. 
 In the history and social conditions of the country must be 
 sought the causes to which the autocracy owes its being, 
 which maintain it, and form the historic justification of its 
 existence ; for there was a time when autocracy was the pop- 
 ular ideal and the centre of all the aspiration of the nation. 
 
CHAPTEE V. 
 
 THE MAKIKG OF THE DESPOTISM. 
 
 By "what process was the ultra-democratic regime that 
 prevailed in Eussia during the eleventh and twelfth centu- 
 ries transmuted in the course of three or four hundred years 
 into a despotism of which it may well be affirmed, without 
 historic exaggeration, the world has never seen the like ? 
 
 To answer this question in detail it would be necessary to 
 give a complete history of the development of the Muscovite 
 monarchy. But so great an undertaking is beyond the scope 
 of my present work ; I must content myself with such brief 
 sketch as will suffice to show that this unfortunate result 
 is no fortuitous or accidental event, and that my descrip- 
 tion of our ancient liberties is in no respect overdrawn. 
 
 The organization of the central power in the oldest and 
 most developed of our states — Novgorod the Great — was, as 
 we have seen, of an extreme primitiveness and simplicity. 
 Not alone may the entire controlling authority — that is to 
 say the vetche — but the entire state may be likened to one of 
 those plants which, notwithstanding their size, are composed 
 of a single cell. The dominions of the Novgorod greatly 
 surpassed those, of the Queen of the Adriatic. They were 
 always growing by the accretion of colonies, either conquered 
 by arms or acquired by treaty from the wild aboriginals. Some 
 of these colonies, waxing in wealth and population, became 
 in their turn powerful communities. Hence the establish- 
 ment of a perfect understanding — a modus vive?idi — between 
 them and the mother city was one of the most pressing social 
 needs of the time, and essential to the integrity of the State. 
 
THE MAKIKG OF THE DESPOTISM. 25 
 
 But what did ancient Russia to meet this necessity? Nothing 
 at all. The colonies were regarded as integral parts of the 
 metropolis, and the colonists were free to come to the capi- 
 tal whenever it pleased them and join in the deliberations 
 of the vetche. When matters of importance were about to 
 be discussed they were informed betimes and invited to attend. 
 But if the colonists came not the Assembly decided all tho 
 same, giving no more heed to their special interests than 
 to those of any other citizens who were hindered by un- 
 avoidable causes from being present. A colony, in fact, 
 was looked upon as being in some sort a quarter of the city. 
 It was even denominated pregorod, a word which, literally 
 rendered, signifies a ward of the capital, albeit these curious 
 wards might be distant therefrom a month's journey. True, 
 each colony had a vdclia of its own which regulated all local 
 affairs ; on the other hand, general legislation was the jDre- 
 rogative of the metropolitan Assembly, which, as the sujDreme 
 authority, the colonists were compelled in the last resort to 
 obey. The issues of peace or war were also in the hands of 
 the greater vetche. '' That which the elder ordered the 
 younger had to do," says the old chronicler. So long as 
 they were young and struggling the colonists submitted. 
 But so soon as they felt themselves strong enough to walk 
 alone they dismissed the governor appointed by the metro- 
 politan vetche, chose in his stead a prince with a good 
 drugina, and declared themselves independent. Sometimes 
 the separation was effected peacefully. Generally, however, 
 the old vetche and the new State came to blows, and if the 
 rebellious colony succeeded in maintaining its pretensions 
 by force of arms, its independence was definitively acknowl- 
 edged. It rose at once from the position of a ward to that 
 of a "younger brother," and the two communities entered 
 into an alliance, and swore eternal friendship — proceedings 
 which of course did not in the least hinder them from falling 
 
 out on the first occasion. No lessons of wisdom were drawn 
 2 
 
26 EUSSIA UXDER THE TZAES. 
 
 from these frequent scissions, and when in course of time 
 the severed colonies founded other colonies, the process of 
 disintegration went on as before. Thus in older Russia the 
 interior development of the country resulted, as by the 
 ojDcration of a natural law, in the creation of an ever grow- 
 ing number of small independent states, which though 
 republics in fact were principalities in form. The multi- 
 plication of royal families also contributed in no small 
 degree to this outcome ; for ambitious young princes, eager 
 for power and place, were always at hand ready to encourage 
 separation and stir up revolt. 
 
 Something like this, although due to an altogether differ- 
 ent cause, came to pass in some other countries. The issue, 
 however, in both cases was the same — the creation of auto- 
 cracy. Like the feudal barons, these independent princes 
 warred incessantly among themselves. Sometimes they 
 were helped by the citizens. But when the citizens were 
 indifferent or hostile they trusted to their own drngina and 
 contingents of mercenary nomads, whom they enlisted in 
 their service. At last the country, devastated by these eternal 
 feuds, demanded peace at any price. The simplest and 
 easiest, and in existing circumstances the only way of reach- 
 ing this end, was the substitution of a single prince for the 
 multitude of princelings. For it is only by long training, 
 intellectual growth, and material development that com- 
 munities become habituated to the complex and costly 
 mechanism of representative institutions, the only means 
 hitherto discovered whereby union and independence can be 
 reconciled with national security and personal freedom. Old 
 Russia, which had not even learned the alphabet of this 
 difficult lesson, was constrained like other peoples to under- 
 go the hard apprenticeship of despotic government. The 
 social and political condition of the country, moreover, 
 rendered the establishment of autocratic rule both easier and 
 more urgent than elsewhere— more urgent because the Russia 
 
THE MAKING OF THE DESPOTISM. 27 
 
 of that day had not alone to contend with internal disorders, 
 but to make head against incessant invasion. These inva- 
 sions, dangerous and vexatious at the beginning of Eussian 
 history iu the tenth and. eleventh centuries, became in the 
 twelfth century, when feeble nomads were succeeded by fierce 
 Tartars, terrible and almost fatal ; and only after a struggle 
 of five hundred years was the country finally freed from 
 their yoke and relieved from their aggressions. 
 
 On the other hand, the social condition of Russia offered 
 fewer obstacles to union under a single sovereign than most 
 other countries. The ordinary process of consolidation was 
 through conquest and the gradual annexation of neighbor- 
 ing states, a process which, depending as it did on the un- 
 certain fortunes of war, was necessarily slow and difficult. 
 Small independent states generally defended themselves 
 vigorously and long. The powerful local aristocracy, dread- 
 ing to sink into the position of a provincial nobility, threw 
 in their lot with the princes ; and the people, oblivious to 
 their own interests, often joined hands with the great against 
 those who were wrongly stigmatized as foreign enemies. 
 The segregation of their lives gave rise to petty local differ- 
 ences, which, together with the ignorance natural to the 
 age, produced in turn a crop of hatred and jealousy. It was 
 only with the help of the industrial classes that the mon- 
 archies of Central Europe were enabled to overcome these 
 hostile influences and complete the process of unification by 
 the consolidation of their kingdoms. 
 
 In Russia the process of unification took a different course. 
 If there were no burghers — no trading classes — there were, 
 on the other hand, fewer obstacles. The agricultural popu- 
 lation was only in part sedentary. The quantity of unoccu- 
 pied land was so vast, the art of husbandry so backward, 
 that the people were half nomad. After burning the forests, 
 they raised in the rudest fashion such crops as they needed. 
 When the soil was exhausted, or they wanted a change. 
 
23 KUSSIA UifDEE THE TZARS. 
 
 they moved elsewhere; and this process they were 
 continually repeating. A peasant was always willing to ex- 
 change fields with a neighbor, or even migrate to another 
 province. The agricultural classes roamed at will over the 
 vast Russian plains in search of a more fruitful soil or less 
 onerous conditions. Entire villages disappeared from one 
 place to re-appear in another. The political condition of 
 the time, as was natural, determined the general direction 
 of this great human flood. After the irruption of the Tar- 
 tars it flowed chiefly towards the north-west, where the 
 principalities of Vladimir, Tver and Moscow had constitu- 
 ted themselves into a state, and formed a settled govern- 
 ment. But in addition to the main stream there were 
 always minor currents flowing between provinces of the 
 same region. This coming and going, this ebb and flow of 
 peoples, by welding the population into a homogeneous whole, 
 greatly facilitated the unification of the country. The peas- 
 ants of Tver, Kazan, and Viatka came in time to difi!er in 
 nothing from the peasants of Nijni Isovgorod. Such a 
 country as this afforded little room for the development of 
 those peculiar prejudices and strong local ties by which 
 populations that remain long in the same place and become 
 rooted in the soil are invariably characterized. As for the 
 higher or warrior class, which was at once the head and 
 nerve force of the country, they were even more vagabond 
 and had fewer local ties than the peasants ; for the ancient 
 drugina, though they received grants of land "for food," 
 were attached to the person of the prince, and not to the 
 soil. Yet they were always volunteers, free fighters, who 
 had the same right to change their prince as a workman to 
 change his master ; a right which they largely used, never 
 scrupling to abandon a chief whose star had begun to wane 
 for one whom fortune was beginning to favor. In these cir- 
 cumstances an annexation was generally little more than 
 taking possession of a territory which, by reason of the de- 
 
THE MAKING OF THE DESPOTISM. 29 
 
 fection of its military defenders, and the migration of great 
 part of the population to the principality of a more power- 
 ful ruler, could offer no resistance to an invader. It often 
 befell, moreover, that a prince whose independence was en- 
 dangered would anticipate his fate, and avoid the conse- 
 quences of defeat in the field by proceeding to Moscow, and 
 voluntarily surrendering his dominions to his former rival, 
 securing, as the reward of his homage and submission, riches, 
 honor, and the title of boyar. At the court of Moscow the 
 families of boyar princes, all descended from once indepen- 
 dent sovereigns, may still be counted by the dozen. 
 
 Thus, as I have observed, the methodby which unification 
 was accomplished in Russia differed from that by which it 
 was accomplished in most other countries. It may be con- 
 sidered as partaking in equal measure of the gathering of 
 nomad tribes arouud the standard of a valiant and success- 
 ful chieftain, and the process peculiar to countries whose 
 populations are completely sedentary. This explains at once 
 the extreme facility with which Muscovite unification was 
 accomplished and the origin of the despotism that followed 
 in its wake. 
 
 "While the political condition of Russia and the exigencies 
 of a life and death struggle extending over four centuries, a 
 struggle with enemies of an alien race and hostile religion, 
 converted the chief of the state into a permanent military 
 dictator — so loyally supported by his people that to oppose 
 him was regarded as a crime — the social condition of the 
 country lent to the despotism so terrible a conservative force 
 that, long after its energies had begun to decline, and the 
 causes that brought it into being, which causes, to a certain 
 point, Justified its existence, ceased to prevail, the Tzars 
 were enabled to retain all their autocratic powers and con- 
 tinue their encroachments on the rights of their subjects. 
 
 The ideal Muscovite state was an army, a colossal clru- 
 gina transformed into a military caste, and disseminated in 
 
30 EUSSIA UXDER THE TZAES. 
 
 quarters oyer all the vast area of the empire. Diyided by 
 immense distances, this class was divided still further by the 
 rivalry which prevailed between one clan or section and 
 another, and among the members of the clans themselves. 
 It had nothing in common with feudal aristocracies, their 
 hierarchies of nobles, and their dependent vassals. JSTeither 
 did it resemble the class of Polish magnates, who maintained 
 at their own charge thousands of poor knights trained to 
 arms, and attached to their patron by a community of origin 
 and interest. The country was too poor to enable the boy- 
 ars to indulge in costly luxuries, and too expensive to per- 
 mit the smaller nobility to jaock to the palaces of wealthy 
 potentates. The Tzar, moreover, could always recompense 
 their services by grants of land, and confirm their allegiance 
 by hopes of advancement. All the immense material forces 
 of the State were thus represented by a vast horde, depend- 
 ent, both individually and in mass, directly on the Tzar, and 
 living only by his favor — a horde of whom the inferior 
 ranks were always ready to crush at a sign any show of re^ 
 sistance on the part of their superiors to their master's 
 behests. 
 
 And all this in a country where two centuries and a half 
 of slavery had destroyed among the upper classes every senti- 
 ment of honor and dignity, and among tlie lower even the 
 memory of their ancient liberties, habituating them to bow 
 in humble submission to brute force, whereas the turbulent 
 and irascible Russian of the olden time was always prompt 
 to resent injustice with rebellion. 
 
 True, the same natural conditions which hindered the 
 formation of permanent social ties prevented the central 
 government from making its authority effectively felt over 
 the whole extent of its wide-stretching dominions. The 
 greater part of the nation, even the greater part of the mili- 
 tary caste, felt only fortuitously the power of the Tzar, 
 All the more terrible was the position of those whom he 
 
THE MAKING OF THE DESPOTISM. 31 
 
 had within his grasp, for the autocracy had developed into 
 a despotism ■whicli was distinguished less by the greatness 
 of its power than by the boundlessness of its absolutism. 
 What resistance could oppose to it the miserable upper 
 class, formed as it was of boyars, men Avithout either 
 strength in themselves or support in the country, menials 
 of mongrel stock, who had flocked from the four winds of 
 heaven in search of honors and money, with nothing in 
 common save a desire to win the favor of the Tzar, and 
 the fear of being distanced by more fortunate or crafty 
 rivals ? Servility and sycophancy, a ready proneness to 
 every sort of baseness and humiliation, were the sole pass- 
 ports to prosperity, and often the only means of saving 
 their heads. Unlike the similar classes of other countries, 
 the Russian nobility, instead of moderating and opposing 
 the despotism of the Crown, were either its victims, its 
 instruments, or its advocates. Moscow became, in some 
 sort, a vast alembic, where, under pressure of the iron circle 
 that enclosed them, despotism and servility were elaborated, 
 motn inoprio, by the reciprocal action of the ingredients 
 of which they were composed. Having made a step 
 in advance, and seeing all prostrate themselves at its 
 feet, absolutism took the second step. The habits acquired 
 by the fathers became instincts with the sons, who 
 transmitted them augmented and intensified to their 
 successors. The only limits to this development were the 
 tastes and inclinations of the despots themselves. But the 
 latter being as barbarous as the times in which they lived, 
 and having before them the example of their still more 
 savage Tartar predecessors, wrought havoc with every 
 human right, as regardless of personal dignity and honor as 
 of every other virtue which distinguishes men from brutes, 
 until the monstrous result was reached which made the rule 
 of the Tzars a disgrace to our common nature. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE POWER OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 "We shall, howeyer, be far from understanding the 
 strength, the character, and the durability of the Muscovite 
 despotism if, in addition to its exterior and material influ- 
 ences, we do not take into account that deeper moral 
 influence which gives governments so firm a hold over the 
 human heart — the sanction of religion. 
 
 From the very beginning of our political life the Eussian 
 clergy have possessed great influence, for it was they, and the 
 Christianity which they taught, that were the means of 
 introducing the rudiments of culture among the then savage 
 inhabitants of the land. Priests and monks were the mas- 
 ters and counsellors both of princes and subjects. Neverthe- 
 less, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries Greco-Slav 
 culture began to take root in the country, and, side by side 
 with the clerical schools, laymen, who gave themselves dili- 
 gently to study, founded secular schools, even for girls, in 
 every principal town. But successive Tartar invasions 
 utterly destroyed these first germs of secular learning, and, 
 according to the testimony of our historians, the Russia of 
 the sixteenth century was far less cultured and more bar- 
 barous than the Russia of the twelfth. Even among the 
 higher aristocracy the arts of reading and writing became 
 rare accomplishments, and at the diet held in the reign of 
 John ly. there were princes of the blood who were unable 
 to sign their names. 
 
 It was the policy of the Tartars, as of most conquering 
 
THE POWEE OF THE CHURCH. 33 
 
 races, to respect the religion of the conquered. One of the 
 first decrees of the Khans accorded full and entire immunity 
 to churches, monasteries and priests. Study was confined 
 exclusively to the sacristy and the conyent, and so late as 
 the seventeenth century the clergy alone were acquainted 
 with letters. 
 
 If there had been nothing else, the possession of this 
 advantage would have sufliced to confer upon churchmen 
 an influence altogether exceptional, and their joower was 
 still further increased by their social and political position. 
 It was to the clergy that the people, when they had incurred 
 the displeasure of the Almighty, betook themselves for con- 
 solation. It was the clergy who encouraged them in the 
 hour of defeat, and animated them with promises of victory 
 in the sacred warfare against their infidel conquerors. 
 Their two strongest passions were religious fanaticism and 
 patriotic ardor, and of these passions the Church was at once 
 the personification and the expression. It was the monks, 
 again, who roused the too timorous princes to rebellion 
 against the Tartar oppressors, and stories of saintly and fear- 
 less anchorites who themselves took up the sword to combat 
 the enemies of Christ still live in legend and song. In a 
 word, it was the clergy who put themselves at the head of 
 every national movement; and when victory smiled on the 
 Muscovite arms, it was the Church that reaped the richest 
 reward. 
 
 And now the all-powerful clergy, who hold in their hands 
 the ingenuous and confiding soul of the nation, have be- 
 come faithful servitors of the despot and ardent supporters 
 of absolutism. 
 
 The Russian religion was from the beginning an essen- 
 tially national religion, differing in this respect from that 
 of all other European countries, where the Church was an 
 international institution, directed by a single chief who 
 called himself the ''King of kings," and whose members, 
 o.* 
 
34 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 whatever their race, held the same belief, and looked to 
 each other for sympathy and support. For these reasons 
 Hassia has suffered less than most other countries from 
 spiritual usurpations and ecclesiastical abuses. On the other 
 hand, her Church has been completely subjugated by the 
 despotic power, and made an ignoble instrument of tyranny 
 and oppression. Theologians arc pleased to say that the 
 Tzar is not the head of the Eussian Church, that she recog- 
 nizes no other head than Jesus Christ. Be it so. Yet to 
 draw from this abstract theory practical conclusions is 
 counting without the host. As a matter of fact, in a des- 
 potic country where the persons and bodies of the clergy are 
 at the mercy of a sorereign who has power of appointment 
 and deposition, and may exile them, put them to the torture 
 or to death at the least caprice — as the Muscovite Tzars have 
 often done — in such a country as this the pretended inde- 
 pendence of the Church is a delusion and a fraud. This 
 John IV. abundantly proved. For that amiable monarch, 
 not content with strangling the metropolitan of the Eussian 
 Church, and flogging hundreds of priests to death at Nov- 
 gorod, compelled ecumenical councils to sanction practices 
 and doctrines which the canons and the apostles condemned 
 as abominations. 
 
 But the Tzars had rarely need to constrain the clergy to 
 obedience by force. They had only to choose the most zeal- 
 ous of the mitred crowd who were always offering their ser- 
 vices. For the education of our clergy, being based ex- 
 clusively on the literature and history of the Byzantine 
 despotism, they had and could have no other political ideal 
 than unlimited monarchy. And when John III. took to 
 wife Sophia Paleologus, the last scion of the imperial Greek 
 dynasty, the Eussian clergy imputed to their Tzar the heir- 
 ship of the Sancro-sanct eastern emperors and of all their 
 glory and authority. The exaltation and culte of absolutism 
 became thenceforth their historic mission — a mission which. 
 
THE POWER OF THE CHURCH. 35 
 
 in season and out of season, and among every class of the 
 people, they have faithfully and zealously performed. 
 
 Keligious propaganda is the sure, the last, and most po- 
 tent of the influences which confer on the Muscovite au- 
 tocracy its sacred character and its tremendous power. The 
 circumstance arising from the hard necessities of an unfor- 
 tunate political life, strengthened by social conditions 
 M'hicli enlisted on the side of despotism every selfish instinct 
 — ambition, cupidity, and fear — were approved, ennobled, 
 and exalted by the supreme sanction of the Church. Obedi- 
 ence to the Tzar was proclaimed as the first duty and high- 
 est virtue of the Christian believer. The Tzar, on his part, 
 almost believed himself to be an incarnation of the Divinity. 
 Herberstein, the well-known traveller, when he visited Mos- 
 cow, was gi'eatly struck by the sacred character so implicitly 
 imputed to the sovereign power. ''If you ask a Musco- 
 vite," he said, " any question which he is unable to answer, 
 he is almost sure to say, 'God and the Tzar only know ! ' 
 And the Tzar himself, if he were asked anything — for in- 
 stance, the pardon of a prisoner — would be almost sure to 
 say; 'We shall release him if it be the will of God.'" As 
 if he had a perfect understanding with the Deity, and their 
 relations were of the most familiar and confidential charac- 
 ter ! God's will meant, of course, his will. According to 
 the Eussian priests, their Divine Master acted in some sort 
 sts their earthly master's obedient genii, prompt to punish 
 every infraction, open or secret, of the orders of his terres- 
 trial vicegerent, and ready to recompense with eternal bliss 
 all who sufi;ered patiently and humbly the undeserved and 
 unjust punishments which the Tzar, by reason of human 
 fallibility or the fault of his agents, might sometimes inflict. 
 There is no irony in this. It is sober truth. In an extant 
 letter written by John IV., the philosopher of this doctrine, 
 to Prince Kourbski, he chrirges it against him as a sin that 
 he escaped from the clutches of his sacred majesty, in these 
 
36 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 words: "If you are a just and God-fearing man, as you 
 say, tell me why you have lied, instead of receiving from my 
 hand the torture and the death which would procure you a 
 jilace in heaven ?" And the worst of it was that these 
 monstrous ideas were not held by the tyrant alone ; they 
 were shared by his people. Though that ferocious brute 
 John IV. made his reign a very orgie of cruelty, murder, 
 and lust ; though as cowardly as he was vile — seeing every- 
 where about him conspiracies against his life — he scourged 
 to death thousands of his subjects, and inflicted on them 
 tortures of which even to read makes the blood run cold ; 
 though the libidinous tyrant violated the wives and daugh- 
 ters of his boyars, killing all who showed the least un- 
 willingness, and though his infamies went on for forty years 
 without surcease, not once during his monstrous reign was 
 protest made, not a single hand raised either to hinder or 
 avenge these shameful outrages. Historians have not been 
 able to discover the slightest trace of any plot against John 
 IV. His victims might sometimes flee, but resist or con- 
 spire — never. 
 
 And yet these men were not cowards. For the most part 
 brave warriors, celebrated for their exploits in the field, they 
 often showed in the torture-chamber and on the scaffold 
 high qualities of endurance and courage, and rare strength of 
 mind. But by a perversion of their intellectual faculties, 
 due to their training, this strength of mind served no other 
 purpose than to overcome the natural impulse to rebellion 
 and restrain their indignation against the Tzar, to whom 
 abject submission was the sacred ideal which had been held 
 before them from their earliest youth. When Prince 
 Kepnin, after being impaled, was dying a slow death in 
 atrocious suffering, he sang — the miserable wretch — sang 
 hymns in honor of the Tzar, his master and murderer ! 
 
 These are the services which have been rendered to the 
 Russian nation by their Church. During all the ages of the 
 
THE POWER OF THE CHURCH. 37 
 
 existence of the Eussian State she has been faithful to her 
 self-imposed and degrading trust. What more natural than 
 that at the first awakening of political conscience in the 
 instructed classes, their first words were words of maledic- 
 tion against religion ! What more just than now, when the 
 first gleam of the light of culture is reaching the people, 
 they should abandon in thousands the faith of their fore- 
 fathers ! 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE RUSSIAN THEOCRACY. 
 
 Muscovy became a veritable theocracy. True, the Tzar 
 did not celebrate the mass, yet he united in his person all 
 the attributes of an absolute king and of a chief of the 
 State as irresponsible as a Tartar Khan, and as infallible as • ; 
 a Eoman Pontiff. Nothing but the power of a dominant . 
 
 priesthood could have effected this wonderful transforma- | 
 
 tion of the ci-devant condottieri chiefs, such as were once > 
 
 the ancestors of the imperial family, into earthly monarchs 
 with heavenly attributes. | 
 
 The reign of the latter Tzars of the Rurik dynasty was 
 the hot youth period of the autocracy, which had only just 
 emerged from the foam and agitation that accompanied the 
 formation of the State. In the subsequent period, that of 
 the Romanoff Tzars, the despotism, now fully matured, 
 reached the last phase of its development. Sure of itself 
 and confident in the future, it now threw off the roughness 
 and violence that characterized the first epoch of its exist- 
 ence. It ceased to fear and suspect, and became as immov- i 
 able, absolute, and inevitable as a law of nature. I 
 
 But theocracy means stagnation. The Russian people, * 
 
 it should be remembered, adopted the Christianity of the 
 Greek rite, while all other European peoples gathered 
 round the banner of Rome. Now in the popular idea, and, | 
 
 above all, in that of the clergy — who are nowhere distin- 
 guished for tolerance — this was equivalent to saying that 
 the Russians were the only nation who held the true 
 faith of Christ. They were thus immeasurably superior to 
 
 I 
 
THE RUSSIAN THEOCRACY. 89 
 
 all neighboring peoples — schismatics, heretics, and unbe- 
 lievers, without exception. And when in course of time 
 Eussia, acquired force and splendor, not alone freeing 
 herself from the infidel yoke, but attacking her former 
 oppressors, and conquering one after another the Tartar 
 tribes, religious exaltation was reinforced with patriotic 
 pride. The Eussian people were evidently God's elect, who, 
 after having proved them in the fiery furnace of slavery, 
 was now raising them up above all other nations. To keep 
 His favor and deserve His blessing, what else could they do 
 but follow the example of their forefathers, and guard intact 
 the holy faith which had brought them so many benefits 
 and marked them out as His chosen people ? 
 
 The clerg}^, whose bigotry was only exceeded by their 
 ignorance, did not content themselves with conducting 
 public worship and attending to the strict duties of their 
 priestly calling. Like the odor of rancid oil, they pene- 
 trated everywhere, soiling all they touched, and petrifying 
 everything they pretended to bless. It was declared a mor- 
 tal sin to change or modify any custom or practice inherited 
 from the past. ISTothing was too minute to escape their at- 
 tention, and there was no single usage which they did not 
 attempt to control. Dress, the fashion of wearing the hair, 
 the preparation of food — trifles light as air — were gravely 
 discussed by reverend ecclesiastics and canonized by ecum- 
 enical councils, composed of the flower of the clergy under 
 the presidency of the metropolitan, councils which have left 
 behind them, in a document of a hundred chapters, an in- 
 effaceable record of human folly and their own stupidity. 
 
 Priests and people, being thus clothed in perfection from 
 head to foot, had naturally nothing to learn from miscreant 
 nenizi (mutes), as all foreigners were indiscriminately called 
 (a word now exclusively reserved for Germans). They could 
 only contaminate the national purity. 
 
 Thus did clerical fanaticism raise up a barrier between 
 
40 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 Eussia and the rest of Christian Eurojoe more difficult to 
 surmount than the great wall of China, Catholics and 
 Protestants were regarded as being little better than heathens 
 and Mohammedans. Contact with them was sinful. When 
 these misbelievers visited the country on business, they had 
 to live in separate quarters, like Jews in the Middle Ages. 
 Their relations with the natives were limited to occasions of 
 strict necessity, and they might not prolong their stay in 
 the country beyond a limited time fixed beforehand. The 
 envoys of foreign governments, who came from time to time 
 on affairs of state, were placed under continual supervision. 
 The access to them of unauthorized persons was barred 
 by cordons of police, who beset their houses night and day. 
 When they walked through the streets, people shunned them 
 as if they had the plague, and fled in all directions — of 
 course in obedience to orders — and ministers and others who 
 visited the " foreign devils " in an official capacity, ran a 
 very real risk of being charged with the dire crimes of 
 heresy and witchcraft. 
 
 Muscovy, in truth, was sinking into a veritable Chinese 
 torpor. The more the country indulged in self-admiration, 
 the more it tried to preserve itself from contact with the 
 West, the deeper it relapsed into barbarism. All the travel- 
 lers who visited Eussia in the seventeenth century were 
 struck by the lowness of its culture and the backwardness of 
 its civilization. At a time when Western Europe was 
 covered with universities, and printing-presses were found 
 in every city, copying with the pen was the only method of 
 multii)lying books practised by the Muscovites. In 1563 the 
 first printing-office introduced into the country was closed 
 by order of the clergy, who regarded it as an invention of 
 the devil ; and the compositors, John Fedoroff and Peter 
 Mstislavez, only escaped prosecution for necromancy by flight. 
 Arabic numerals, introduced into Europe in the twelfth 
 century, were not used in Eussia until the seventeenth. 
 
THE RUSSIAN THEOCRACY. 41 
 
 Every industry was equally backward ; and two centuries 
 after gunpowder had come into general use, many of the 
 soldiers of the Tzar still fought with bows and arrows — even 
 when the national territory had become so extensive that the 
 army required for its defence, and the consequent outlay on 
 its maintenance, had increased threefold within a hundred 
 years. Wars, moreover, being conducted at greater distances 
 from the capital, were waged v/ith greater difficulty and at 
 much greater cost. Up to the beginning of the seventeenth 
 century, Russia enlarged her borders towards the East. She 
 now began to advance in the opposite direction, and came 
 in contact with the civilized and powerful peoples of the 
 West, against whom her army and her military equipment, 
 however efficient against nomad Asiatic tribes, were of no 
 avail. 
 
 Hence arose demands which the national resources of the 
 country were inadequate to meet, and burdens were laid on 
 the people heavier than they could bear. The reign of Tzar 
 Alexis (father of Peter the Great), when the Muscovite 
 Empire received its greatest accessions of territory, witnessed 
 also, and from this very cause, a social and economic crisis 
 of unexampled severity. 
 
 !N"ever before had the people been so heavily taxed. Mul- 
 titudes of townsfolk and peasants, unable to meet the calls 
 of the State, abandoned their fields and their homes and fled 
 whither they could. This rendered the lot of those who 
 were left behind still harder to bear. They had to pay 
 both their own taxes and those of their fugitive neighbors. 
 Many of the unfortunates died under the tax-gatherer's stick, 
 and hundreds of villages were deserted and their inhabitants 
 dispersed all over the country. It was sought to combat 
 the evil by issuing savage edicts against vagabondage ; but 
 the only effect of these measures seemed to be an increase 
 in the number of vagabonds, and their conversion into 
 brigands. The fugitives hid themselves in forests and 
 
42 RUSSIA U25rDER THE TZARS. 
 
 desert places, and, passing the frontier in crowds, took 
 refuge with the warlike Cossacks of the Dnieper and the 
 Don. These turbulent settlers, who occupied the steppes 
 once possessed by the Tartars, strengthened by so many new 
 arrivals, renounced the passive part of refugees from ojipres- 
 sion, and took up arms to avenge themselves on the country 
 which had driven them forth. Then befell the terrible in- 
 surrection, led by the ferocious Cossack chief and popular 
 hero, Stenka Rasin, who raised the whole of the south-west 
 against the government of the Tzar, took several cities, put 
 to the sword all the nobles and the wealthy who fell into his 
 hands, and shook the vei-y foundation of the Muscovite 
 State. But when the fortunes of Russia seemed to be at 
 their lowest ebb, the Cossack hordes were utterly routed by 
 soldiers armed with modern weapons and instructed by Ger- 
 man ofiBcers. 
 
 There were also popular movements arising from the same 
 cause — the intolerable burden of taxation and the cruelty 
 with which payment was enforced — in Novgorod, Pscov, 
 and other parts of the country. Even in the capital the 
 people rose several times in insurrection, and the Tzar could 
 only pacify them by delivering for execution several of his 
 favorite and most trusty councillors, to whom the jjopulace, 
 according to their wont, ascribed all their misfortunes. 
 
 It could no longer be doubted that a stram was being put 
 on the country greater than it was able to bear. To meet 
 the new requirements of the State and make head against 
 the difficulties of the times, it had become necessary to 
 infuse new life into the body politic and re-invigorate its 
 exhausted members. These ends could be attained only in 
 one way — by adopting the methods of European civilization, 
 and, with the help of industry and science, increasing the 
 productiveness of labor and developing the natural forces of 
 the nation. The need was so evident and urgent that even 
 the hard and superstitious obscurantism of the Muscovite 
 
THE RUSSIAN THEOCRACY. 43 
 
 Government could no longer bar the way of progress. In 
 the reign of Alexis, European civilization obtained a first 
 footing at Moscow. Encouragement was offered to foreign- 
 ers; a whole colony of foreign artisans settled in the capital, 
 and a j)art of the army was drilled in German fashion and 
 eqnipped with German weapons. This was only the begin- 
 ning; it was impossible to put a limit to the advance of 
 civilization. On the other hand, progress in a country 
 where a slight change in the mode of dress was regarded as 
 an enormous innovation could not he otherwise than tenta- 
 tive and slow, and history does not wait. Russia was so 
 much behind other nations, that if she had wallowed in her 
 superstitious stagnation a few generations longer she might 
 never have recovered the lost ground. Pnissant German 
 nations were growing np at her borders; Prussia would have 
 planted her foot firmly on the Baltic and barred for none 
 can say how long Russia's one path to international com- 
 merce and European culture. The emergency could be met 
 only by measures both efucacious and prompt, by the rough 
 ways of revolution rather than by ordinary methods of re- 
 form. These measures were taken under the auspices of 
 Tzar Peter, who has rightly been called "Great," and never 
 was revolution more opportunely wrought. 
 
CHAPTER VIIL 
 
 THE GREAT EEFORMER. 
 
 The career of Peter the Great is so well known in Eng- 
 land that it is unnecessary here to recount his exploits. His 
 work, it may be well to observe, was essentially political. 
 Nothing could be more absurd than to represent the cruel 
 reforming Tzar as a man of lofty sentiment, admiring civili- 
 zation for itself, and desirous of introducing it into his em- 
 pire for the intellectual improvement of his subjects. In 
 order to render Russia equal to the fulfilment of her new 
 destinies the first essential was to make her a strong state, 
 and to this end Peter directed all his energies. Science, 
 culture, and the arts he valued solely for their practical 
 utility, caring for them only so far as they forwarded his 
 political designs. The foremost of these designs was the 
 organization of a powerful military force, well armed and 
 disciplined, and supplied with equipments and material of 
 war from sources exclusively Russian. The sciences that 
 Peter protected and the schools which he founded wore such 
 as promised to give him good officers, engineers, and ad- 
 ministrators. The industries he most favored were those 
 which provided for the wants of his army and navy, and 
 contributed most largely to the revenues of the State. The 
 new culture retained this essentially material character for 
 more than a hundred years, a period during which it enjoyed 
 the unswerving patronage and support of the Government. 
 It was not until near the middle of the eighteenth century, 
 when German ideas were in some measure superseding 
 French influence, that broader views and a more liberal and 
 
THE GREAT EEFOEMER. 45 
 
 humane conception of culture began to obtain, a change 
 which the Government regarded with the reverse of satisfac- 
 tion. 
 
 But to introduce by force a new civilization — even in an 
 exclusively material form — it was needful to enter into close 
 relations with foreigners, break decisively with the past, and 
 scout all the traditions and superstitions of the people, who 
 in their repugnance to reform were supjjorted by the strong- 
 est moral force the nation possessed — its religion. In these 
 circumstances half-measures would have been useless. It 
 was necessary to declare open war, not alone against popular 
 superstitions, but against the priestly caste by whom they 
 were encouraged and maintained. This Peter did, and 
 though on the part of a theocratic Tzar a bold and audaci- 
 cious enterprise, he succeeded to the full. The old ecclesi- 
 astical organization was broken up, and the higher digni- 
 taries of the Church who opposed reform were replaced by 
 less stiff-necked ecclesiastics borrowed from the Orthodox 
 Ukranian Church. But Peter's victory, though complete, 
 was not achieved without loss. A Tzar who dragooned 
 the Church, who foregathered with heretics, dressed Ger- 
 man fashion, and, not content with cutting off his own 
 beard, made his courtiers cut off theirs, could not possibly 
 command the adoration which had been so willingly paid 
 to his predecessors. Peter was even declared to be anti- 
 christ, and it is highly significant of the social and political 
 condition of Russia that, while the unspeakable atrocities of 
 John the Terrible did not provoke even a show of resistance, 
 Peter's reforms provoked several outbreaks of open rebellion, 
 favored by the clergy, and fomented by his more fanatical 
 opponents, some of whom even plotted against his life. On 
 the other hand, it is quite certain that neither Peter nor any 
 of his aftercomers could have committed with impunity the 
 abominations which disgraced the reigns of some of the 
 older Muscovite Tzars. Paul I. was put to death by his 
 
46 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZAES. 
 
 own courtiers for offences far less heinous than theirs had 
 been ; and there can be no question that the conversion of 
 tzardom into an empire has restricted the arbitrary authority 
 of the occupant of the throne. Though still powerful he is 
 no longer a god. 
 
 Yet so far from the chief of the State having lost any of 
 his sovereign prerogatives, the secularization of the govern- 
 ment — if I may be allowed to use such a term — by putting a 
 check on merely personal caprice, has increased tenfold the 
 real power of the crown. 
 
 The Muscovite Tzars, like Oriental despots, might op- 
 press and maltreat individuals to the full extent of their 
 desires ; but as touching institutions they were compara- 
 tively powerless, and had only a limited influence in public 
 affairs. It is a striking fact that when men set up a 
 master to whom they ascribe despotic authority and more 
 than humg^n attributes, they often succeed in neutralizing 
 his power by very excess of devotion. They cripple him with 
 impalpable chains. The courtiers of old Japan succeeded in 
 persuading the Mikado that if he moved the world would 
 fall in pieces. So the poor man, to prevent so terrible a 
 calamitv, remained on his throne for hours tosrether without 
 moving a limb, dropping an eyelid, or uttering a word ; and 
 though worshipped as a demigod, he was in reality more 
 impotent and inoffensive than the meanest of his servants. 
 If the ingenious Japanese could have prevailed on their 
 Mikado to prolong his repose for fifteen hours, we should 
 have had a perfectly original example of that contradiction 
 in terms, a powerless despotism. They did not quite succeed, 
 however, for the Mikado evaded the difficulty by leaving his 
 crown when he quitted his place. Yet for devices of this 
 sort the palm of originality must be conceded to the court- 
 iers of Jajian. Nowhere else has anything at once so simple 
 and so effective been invented. But there is found in all 
 despotisms something not unlike it — thanks to what people 
 
THE GKEAT KEFOKMEE. 47 
 
 call etiquette, -whicli is no more than an expedient for check- 
 ing the activity of the monarch by making him waste so 
 much time and energy in puerile and useless ceremonial 
 observances that he is physically unable to give sustained 
 attention to public affairs, which, whether he likes it or not, 
 must be left in great measure to the uncontrolled manage- 
 ment of ministers and courtiers. It was thus at the old 
 French court, as M. Taine has so well described, and prob- 
 ably even more so at the court of Moscow. The only dif- 
 ference was that the Bourbon kings had to give most of their 
 time to the mere ceremonial of etiquette — receptions, levees, 
 dressing and eating in public, and so forth ; while the Mus- 
 covite Tzars were greatly occupied with religious rites, mas- 
 ses, prayers, visits to the monasteries, and inspection of 
 saintly relics. Then came the regular routine of traditional 
 observances, for in a theocratic state everything is sacred — 
 except the lives and liberties of citizens.' If the fancy took 
 him, the Tzar might lay a town in ashes, and put the popu- 
 lation of an entire province to the sword ; but he could not, 
 without exciting general disapprobation, neglect the least of 
 old customs or break the unwritten laws of his court. He 
 might behead a noble or bastinado a boyar with impunity ; 
 but it was impossible for him, without causing serious and 
 lasting discontent, to promote a man of plebeian birth to 
 high office. Tyrant as was John IV., he could confer only 
 an inferior title of nobility on Adashteff, the favorite of his 
 early years, simply because the latter happened to be the son 
 of an inferior officer ; and it was not until nearly the end of 
 his reign that Alexis ventured to raise his father-in-law and 
 friend, Artamon Matveeff — a simple country gentleman — to 
 the dignity of boyar. In order to reconcile the pretensions 
 of birth with the requirements of the public service a double 
 administration was created. Great boyars were made minis- 
 ters of state, but their functions were strictly limited to 
 military affairs, each of them being provided with a secre- 
 
48 RUSSIA UKDER THE TZARS. 
 
 tai'j of low rank aud high capacity, who did all the work and 
 exercised all administrative power. Those were the diaki 
 and sou-diaki of evil memory. Attached to every ministry 
 were several of these oflBcers, who were formed into cham- 
 bers or colleges. The jealousies and conflicts that inevitably 
 arose between these heterogeneous elements greatly impaired 
 the efficiency of the service as an instrument of government, 
 the boyars being much given to exchange their part of 
 drones for that of drags, to the great detriment of the ad- 
 ministrative machine and the injury of the country. 
 
 The secularization of the State, though it lowered the 
 prestige of its chief as a theocratic sovereign, freed him, on 
 the other hand, from the galling fetters of religious and 
 governmental routine. The Tzar became master of his time, 
 and could give the whole of it to T)ublic affairs. Master also 
 of his jDeople, he could make whatever appointments he 
 thought fit. His political power was thus largely increased, 
 and he was able to make the government really his own. 
 The Great Eeformer wanted nothing more. Making a clean 
 sweep of antiquated and hierarchic pretensions, Peter never 
 hesitated to pass over all his nobles, and raise to the highest 
 posts in his service the obscurest plebeians, in whom he 
 discerned high capacity for affairs. His administration, 
 organized on the German model, with ramifications every- 
 where depending only on the chief of the state, became 
 absolute and supreme. The entire nation— people, nobles, 
 and clergy — Peter seized in his strong grasp, and did with 
 them what he would. His one thought was to make Eussia 
 a powerful state. To this end he bent all his energies, and 
 forced every interest and every class to co-operate in its 
 accomplishment. 
 
 In old Moscow there was no standing army. The fort- 
 resses were occupied by arquebusiers, who, after finishing 
 their term of service, returned to civil life. The army was 
 composed chiefly of nobles, who received for their services 
 
THE GREAT EEFORMER. 49 
 
 grants of lands for life — sometimes, but very rarely, in fee 
 simple. At the end of a war they always returned to their 
 fields. But to place Russia on au equality with neighboring 
 countries, and enable Peter to carry out his plans, a per- 
 manent military force was indispensable. This object he 
 effected in a manner equally simple and effective. By a 
 single stroke of the pen he transformed his militia, com- 
 posed of men who had enlisted under conditions altogether 
 different, into a standing army, permanently embodied. To 
 fill up the gaps in its ranks left by war, and provide fresh 
 food for powder, he established the conscription, under the 
 monstrous condition that the rank and file should serve 
 with the colors for twenty-five years. The nobles were still 
 more unfortunate. From the age of twenty those of them 
 who were sound in mind and body were required, when 
 called upon, to serve the State in one capacity or other, 
 either as soldiers, sailors, or administrators, until death — • 
 only disablement by wounds or complete decrepitude giving 
 them the right to return to their homes. And it was not 
 alone bodily service that Peter required from his nobles; 
 they had to give also their intelligence, and to the end that 
 they might give it effectively, they were ordered to be edu- 
 cated. All young men of noble birth were compelled to 
 attend schools formed specially for their instruction. When 
 they did not go voluntarily, soldiers were sent to fetch them. 
 If they resisted they were flogged, and if their parents, too 
 ignorant and superstitious to appreciate the advantages of 
 culture, concealed them, they were flogged too. When the 
 impressed scholars reached the age of twenty they were 
 examined. Those who passed were eligible for superior 
 appointments ; those who failed were condemned never to 
 marry, and compelled to serve in the lower ranks of the 
 navy. 
 
 To compensate the aristocratic class for this eternal bond- 
 age to the State, or rather to enable them to support the 
 8 
 
50 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 obligations laid on tliem by the Tzar, the estates, whicli bad 
 previously been tenable only for life, were made hereditary 
 possessions in fee simple. But as the peasants always went 
 with the land they cultivated, they became the serfs of their 
 noble masters, to whom their relations had hitherto been 
 those of vassal to seigneur rather than of serf to owner. 
 
 Before the rise of the Muscovite tzardom completely free, 
 the Eussian peasantry were gradually reduced to servitude 
 by the great, and in the middle of the sixteenth century the 
 Government took away from them the last vestige of their 
 ancient liberties— the right of leaving one lando\^ner at the 
 end of the agricultural year and taking service with another. 
 This privilege was greatly restrained by Tzar Boris, and 
 finally abolished a century later by Tzar Alexis. The'peas- 
 ants were thenceforth absolutely forbidden to leave the 
 masters to whom they were assigned by the State. 'J'hcy 
 remained, however, on the land, for to have allowed them 
 to be removed would have been an injury to the State. But 
 after Peter's time the seigneurs could dispose of the peasants 
 a. their pleasure, and buy and sell them as they bought and 
 sold their cattle ; and, provided the noble owner ^nd his 
 heirs male fufilled their duties to the State, the latter never 
 interfered. The peasants thus became, in the fullest sense of 
 the word, the slaves of the nobles, and from that time dates 
 the true slavery of the Russian nation. 
 
 For all were alike held in bondage to the State. From 
 the nobles it required their blood, their time, and their 
 Jives. The people, besides giving many of their sons to the 
 army, supported with enforced labor tlie Tzar's servants and 
 thejr own masters, and sustained with the taxes wrung from 
 their toil the finances of government. Sometimes even they 
 were constrained to give the work of their hands ; as, for 
 instance, in the construction of the second capital, which 
 tlie Eussian Reformer ordered to be built. Multitudes of 
 masons, excavators, carpenters and other laborers were sum- 
 
THE GEEAT EEFORMER. 51 
 
 moncd from every part of the empire, and commanded, 
 '' under pain of confiscation of their goods and death on the 
 scatfold," to raise on the banks of the Neva the great city 
 which bears the name of its founder. But how many when 
 traversing its spacious streets bestow a thought on the hun- 
 dred thousand nameless serfs at the cost of whose lives St. 
 Petersburg was built ! 
 
 The reign of Peter was indeed a hard time for his sub- 
 jects. Never before were a people called upon by sovereign 
 to make such sacrifices of property and life — sacrifices, it 
 must be confessed, in great part wasted, for though the 
 Great Reformer's ideas were generally luminous, his meth- 
 ods were often injudicious. He seemed to prefer violence to 
 moderation, even when violence was not alone adverse to his 
 interests but fatal to his projects. But he did his work — 
 Eussia became a powerful State. His irregular hordes, of 
 whom 85,000 had been utterly routed by 12,000 Swedes, 
 were replaced by a standing, well-disciplined, and woll- 
 equipped army of 180,000 men. He increased the public 
 revenues from three million roubles to fourteen millions. 
 So gi'cat, moreover, was the vigor imparted to the natives 
 by European culture which he introduced, that its power 
 and wealth have continued to grow from generation to gen- 
 eration. Notwithstanding the incapacity of most of Peter's 
 many successors, Eussia has maintained her position as a 
 great power ; and by her acquisitions on the Baltic and her 
 conquest of the Euxine, she has assured to the Slav race per- 
 manent independence, and the development of a national 
 culture most conformable to their social and intellectual 
 genius. 
 
 This was the object, and this is the merit of the military 
 dictatorship founded by Peter the Great. It was an historic 
 necessity, the only remedy for the lethargy of the period 
 produced by the theocratic stagnation of the old Muscovite 
 regime. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 EMANCIPATIOX. 
 
 But political forms, however suitable to one ago and in 
 one set of circumstances, become, in a later age and in other 
 circumstances, not alone superfluous but hurtful. Instead of 
 helping they hinder, instead of promoting progress they 
 produce reaction. It was thus with Russian autocracy. 
 
 In proportion as culture and civilization — following the 
 impulse given by Peter — obtained foothold in the country 
 and were accepted by the people, the element of coercion, 
 which had been introduced into every department of public 
 life, became less and less necessary, and finally lost alto- 
 gether its right to be. In the time of the Great Reformer 
 everything which had the least taint of " Germanism " — in 
 other words, of European culture — had literally to be forced 
 down people's throats. Boys were driven to school with 
 whips, and invitations to court balls and soirees were ac- 
 companied by threats of confiscation in the event of diso- 
 bedience. For the fathers and mothers of that age kept 
 their daughters under lock and key in Oriental fashion, and 
 it was an old custom, faithfully observed, to marry them to 
 men on whom they had never set eyes. Even personal 
 interest and desire for wealth were unable to cope with the 
 combined forces of indolence and superstition. 
 
 Russia was rich in mines, as well of gold as of the loss 
 noble metals, hardly any of which had been explored. 
 When it became manifest that, in this instance at least, 
 self-interest was not a sufiicient incentive to exertion, the 
 Emperor administered a further stimulus — issued stringent 
 
EMAKCIPATION". 53 
 
 decrees ordering owners of mines, under divers penalties, to 
 turn their potential treasures to account, as "well for their 
 own benefit as for that of the State. In the event of any 
 proprietors neglecting to obey this command, private in- 
 dividuals were authorized to open his mmcs and appropriate 
 his miuerals without either asking leave or paying a 
 royalty. 
 
 Another generation, and all was changed. Self-interest, 
 outgrowing superstition, no longer required the spur of 
 Government prescription ! Landowners, not content with 
 working mines already discovered, sought eagerly fresh 
 sources of wealth. It v/as no longer necessary to fine nobles 
 who persisted in wearing the national dress, nor to cut off 
 their beards by force, nor to drag people to balls and amuse- 
 ments by the hair of their heads. The influence of fashion, 
 and love of pleasure were proving more potent than violence 
 and threats. The masters of schools no longer frightened 
 parents and children out of their senses, for the latter, now 
 in their turn parents, were eager to bestow on their children 
 that education which they had once regarded with aversion 
 and alarm. Thus in private life coercion came to an end, 
 for the very sufficient reason that there was nobody to 
 coerce. 
 
 A similar result was wrought in the general functions of 
 the State. 
 
 In the reign of Peter III. (17G2), three generations after 
 the publication of the great Peter's ukase imposing in- 
 voluntary service on the aristocratic class, appeared another 
 ukase known as the " Enfranchisement of the ISTobles," 
 whereby they were left free to serve the State or not, as they 
 pleased, without any derogation of their rights and priv- 
 ileges. The reasons assigned by the Government for this 
 measure afford a remarkable proof of the change which 
 in less than a century had come over the social condition of 
 Eussia. In the emphatic language of the ukase it had been 
 
54 RUSSIA UlSTDER THE TZARS. 
 
 needful, during the reigns of Peter and his immediate suc- 
 cessors, to constrain the nobles to render service to the State, 
 and compel them to instruct their children; but the desire for 
 education being now so general and so great, and the zeal of 
 the upper classes for the public service having produced so 
 many excellent and courageous captains and able admini- 
 strators, the Emperor considered that the system of coercion 
 had become superfluous, and ordered it to be abolished. 
 
 Though suggested mainly by a desire to please the nobil- 
 ity, this measure was fully justifiable on grounds of public 
 policy. The number of men able and willing to serve the 
 State being more than enough, it had become unnecessary, 
 and therefore absurd, to use coercion, and neither then nor 
 since have Russian governments had to complain of a 
 paucity of tchinovnihs or military officers ; they have only 
 had to " take their pick" from a host of competing candi- 
 dates. 
 
 If the Government of that time had been moved solely by 
 considerations of justice and of sound policy, the emanci- 
 pation of the nobles would have been immediately followed 
 by the emancipation of the peasants. For the latter were 
 reduced from the condition of vassals to that of slaves solely 
 to compensate the nobles for the obligatory service to the 
 State imposed on them by Peter the Great. With their re- 
 lief from this burden, the landowning class lost all right to 
 the involuntary and unpaid labor of the tillers of the soil. 
 It was perhaps an instinctive conviction of this truth on the 
 part of the peasants that gave rise to the exaggerated hopes 
 Avhich culminated in the widespread and frequent servile in- 
 surrections of the period. But abstract considerations of 
 equity have little weight in political evolutions. Serfage, no 
 longer needed in the interest of the Government, was re- 
 tained for the benefit of the aristocracy. 
 
 At last came the turn of this institution. Serfage was 
 abolished in 18G1. It would be impossible, even if it v/ere 
 
EilAKCIPATION. 55 
 
 desired, to ignore the salient causes of this great reform — on 
 the one hand, the humane sentiments of our instructed 
 society imbued with modern ideas ; on the other, the wish 
 to remove, once for all, the danger of violent convulsions 
 from which, while the great mass of the people groaned in 
 bondage, the country was neyer free. Both these causes 
 were, however, in full operation fifty years before emancipa- 
 tion came to pass. It is therefore manifest that there must 
 have been a third cause, a cause even more pressing than 
 the other two, and which inclined the balance m favor of 
 freedom. 
 
 This cause is not far to seek. Every manual of political 
 economy tells us, and experience proves, that in every coun- 
 try where slavery prevails there arrives a time when it 
 ceases to profit individuals, and becomes prejudicial to the 
 best interests of the State. When food is dear, a slave, 
 whose heart can never be in his work, may consume as 
 much as he produces, and so earn little if anything for his 
 master ; and industrial deyelopment is altogether incompat- 
 ible with involuntary servitude. Hence the enfranchise- 
 ment of Russian serfs was not alone a question of humanity, 
 it had become an economic necessity. During what may be 
 called the preparatory period, from 1855 to 1860, when the 
 Crimean War had made manifest the misery and backward- 
 ness of Russia, in comparison with other countries, the 
 most effective arguments used by the advocates of freedom 
 were of the economic order. And the immense industrial 
 development which ensued in the sixteen or eighteen years 
 (until, as we shall presently see, despotism put fresh obsta- 
 cles in the way) after emancipation took place, proved to 
 demonstration the justice of their views and the wisdom of 
 the measure. 
 
 In this way, and as a direct consequence s>t the growth of 
 enlightenment and the internal development of the country, 
 the last economic burden laid on the people by political 
 
56 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 coercion was removed. All the functions of the national 
 life were now performed without Government interference, 
 simply by the spontaneous operations of ordinary causes 
 and the promptings of individual needs. The knout was 
 no longer required to drive peasants to the fields and crafts- 
 men to the workshoj). Public life became tranquil. The 
 country ceased to be a volcano in a state of ebullition, be- 
 cause for the implacable hatred felt by the slave for his mas- 
 ter was substituted the relatively mild antagonism between 
 employer and emjiloyed. 
 
 This being the case, what need was there for an autocracy 
 — a military dictatorship ? What need for the Central 
 Government to retain its absolute authority and unlimited 
 power if it had only to perform simple and peaceful admin- 
 istrative duties as they are performed in neighboring coun- 
 tries ? It is a grotesque anomaly. The autocracy has lost 
 its political raison cVHre — its right to be. It has become 
 useless, and consequently, insupportable and tyrannical. 
 The instructed classes were the first to perceive this. It was 
 they who felt so strongly the shame and injustice of keeping 
 the people in bondage, and v/ho wrought so ardently for 
 their emancipation. How, then, could they help being 
 moved to indignation by the virtual slavery imposed by the 
 autocracy on themselves and the country at large ? 
 
 It was only in the nature of things that concurrently with 
 the movement of 1860 in favor of freeing the serfs, there 
 should be a general movement among all the instructed 
 classes of Russian society in favor of liberalism and all 
 that it signifies. But the autocracy remained immovable. 
 Owing to the jjeculiar condition of the country the Govern- 
 ment had at its disposal an immense force, and it resolved 
 to resist to the utmost. 
 
 There are two causes which render an open struggle 
 against the Eussian absolutism extremely difiicult. The 
 first is that which, during the whole of our unhajjpy past. 
 
EMANCIPATION. 57 
 
 has served so well the turn of despotism — the yast size of the 
 country, the immensity of distances, and the poverty of 
 great centres of population — conditions that make the com- 
 mon concerted action of considerable masses materially im- 
 possible. The second cause (less important because less 
 permanent, thongli it promises to disappear within a measur- 
 able time and is for the present of great gravity) arises 
 from the want of moral union among the different classes of 
 the nation. Eussia has no hourgeoisic, in the proper sense 
 of the word, none like that which made the French Revolu- 
 tion of 1789, and provided the people with leaders and 
 guides. Our instructed and liberal class is composed for 
 the most part of ci-devmit nobles and small landowners, to 
 whom the people have not yet forgiven the Avrongs they suf- 
 fered at the hands of their forefathers. 
 
 Thus the Government, which keeps its forces terribly con- 
 centrated, has before it an enemy scattered and crushed, 
 materially and morally disunited. The strategic position 
 of the Government is therefore cruelly strong. It makes the 
 most of its advantages, runs counter to the best interests of 
 the nation, and while oppressing the still ignorant masses, 
 wages against the instructed class a war without mercy and 
 witiiout truce. For twenty-five years has this contest con- 
 tinued, ever extending, ever developing fresh phases, and 
 becoming ever more crnel and desperate. 
 
 In the following pages I propose to make clear the true 
 nature of the struggle which is now going on, and the phase 
 wliich it has reached. That done we shall endeavor to pre- 
 sent its probable result. 
 3* 
 
PART II. 
 DARK PLACES. 
 
 CHAPTEK X. 
 
 A NOCTURIA AL SEARCH. 
 
 At St. Petersburg on a night in the year 1875. The clocks 
 have just gone two ; the town is asleep, and a deep silence 
 reigns in the capital of the Tzar. The wide and empty 
 streets, dimly lighted with flickering gas lamps, straight 
 and erect like a line of soldiers, look as if they, too, were 
 taking thoir repose after the fatigues and excitement of the 
 day. The innumerable little carriages, with their diminu- 
 tive horses, which form so striking a feature of the great 
 city, converting thoir now deserted tlioroughfares into an 
 ever-flowing stream of wheels, horseflesh, and human heads, 
 have vanished from the scene, and tlie few drivers that still 
 remain on the stands, vainly hoping for fares, are fast 
 asleep on their own droshkics. The dvorniks (porters) of 
 great houses, having neither visitors to receive nor suspects 
 to watch, sleep in their niche the sleep of the just, while the 
 hollow ring of his footsteps on the granite flagstone reminds 
 the solitary wayfarer of the lateness of the hour. At the 
 corner of Liteiuaia Street and the Basseinaia, a gorodovvi or 
 city sergeant stands on guard. Having to keep order in his 
 beat, he is supposed to be wide awake, and as he leans 
 against a wall with his hat pressed low on his head, it would 
 
A NOCTrK:N"AL SEAKCH. 59 
 
 puzzle the sharpest of inspectors to know whether all his 
 senses are steeped in oblivion, or he has merely shut his 
 eyes the better to meditate on the world's wickedness, and 
 the most effectual methods of defeating the wiles of pertu- 
 bators of the peace. The good man may indulge without com- 
 punction in these solitary musings. The soothing influence 
 of the night has appeased for a while the passions, the greed 
 and the struggles of the human ant hill around him. St. 
 Petersburg sleeps its first sleep and all is quiet. 
 
 But what is that strange company which emerges noise- 
 lessly and mysteriously from the great house near the sus- 
 pension bridge over the dark and deep canal ? One by one 
 they come until some fifteen are assembled in the street, 
 whereupon, in obedience to a whispered order, they ''fall 
 in " and glide swiftly through the deserted streets. Half of 
 them are clad like common folk, the others are in uniform. 
 Had the civilians marched in the centre, there could be no 
 doubt as to the character of the cortege, but the men in 
 mufti go in front and lead the way, the military bringing 
 up the rear. As this strange company pass towards the 
 Liteniaia, the tramping of their feet and the rattle of their 
 arms seem to affright all who hear them. The slumbering 
 gorodovvi rouses himself with a sudden start, pushes back 
 his hat, stands bolt ujiright, and gives the military salute to 
 the leader of the company, which, however, the latter does 
 not deign to return. The droshky driver, wakening up, rubs 
 his eyes and glances in fear at the portentous apparition. 
 The belated passenger, when he sees it, turns hastily into a 
 by-street, and there waits until the procession has gone past; 
 then, coming from his hiding place, he follows the group 
 with his gaze, wondering whither they are bound, and per- 
 chance regretting that their destined victim, less fortunate 
 than himself, will be unable to keep out of their way. 
 
 For these men are intent on no errand of kindness or 
 mercy. They are servants of the State, guardians and rep- 
 
60 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 resentatives of public order, on their way to vindicate the 
 authority of the hiw and perform an act in its defence. 
 
 Let us follow them. 
 
 After traversing several wards, they turn into a little 
 street on the right, and call a halt, whereupon three of their 
 number draw aside and literally and figuratively put their 
 heads together. Then they separate, and the owners of the 
 heads give whispered directions to the others, pointing the 
 while to a large house hard by. It is against this building, 
 which contains many dwellings, and looms through the 
 darkness like a gi-eat grey giant — the windows all closed like 
 the eyes of a man who sleeps in security, fearing no evil — 
 that the attack is to be made. The force divides, one slij)- 
 ping round the street corner to take the giant in the rear, 
 while the other goes boldly to the front, and wakens the 
 slumbering dvornik. The man, jumping up in sudden 
 alarm, mutters some incoherent words, but is speedily 
 silenced by one of the men in civil dress. Then, without 
 question or hesitation, he lets these peremptory visitors, 
 who may be robbers in disguise, into the house of which he 
 is the appointed guardian, lights a lantern, and, hatless and 
 half-clad as he is, his long beard streaming in the wind, 
 leads the way. With catlike steps, procurator, policemen, 
 and spies mount the staircase, the gendarmes raising their 
 sabres and treading softly, while the civilians exchange 
 remarks in lowered voices. The}^ might be taken for a band 
 of brigands, led by a man whom they had forced to be their 
 accomplice. 
 
 " It is here," says the dvornik at length, pointing to a 
 door. 
 
 On this the leader makes a sign to his men *' to hurry up," 
 and the next moment tliey are all assembled before the door. 
 After assuring himself by a rapid glance that every man is 
 in his place, the chief whispers something in the dvornik's 
 car, and asks him sternly " if he understands." 
 
A KOCTUEN"AL SEARCH. 61 
 
 The dvornik nods his head, goes to the door and gives a 
 strong pull at the bell. This he rings a second time, and a 
 few minutes later the sound of footsteps is heard inside. 
 
 '' Who is there ?" asks a woman's voice. 
 
 **It is I, Nicolas Ivanoff. I have a telegram for the 
 master.'^ 
 
 On this the key is heard turning in the lock, the doors 
 open, and the crowd of sbirris, pushing back the half-dressed 
 servant, swarm into the dwelling. 
 
 The vindicators of order are now in possession of the fort- 
 ress. Their next proceeding is to secure the garrison. 
 Everybody being asleep, they can only do this by going into 
 bedrooms, heedless of the screams and protests of frightened 
 women and the cries of suddenly awakened children. 
 
 The first sur]n-ise over, the father of the family demands 
 of the one who seems to be the leader, who he is, and the 
 meaning of the intrusion. 
 
 '' I am the prisfav," is the answer, "and this gentleman 
 is the procurator. We are come to make a search." 
 
 " I have not the pleasure of knowing you. You have a 
 warrant, I suppose ?" 
 
 '' Of course. Otherwise I should not be here." 
 
 " Would you be good enough to show it me ?" 
 
 " It would be useless. Besides, I have not brought it with 
 
 I left it in my oiSce. But there can be no mistake. 
 
 You are surely Mr. N . Your daughter lives with you. 
 
 She is in that bedroom. We want nothing more. It is on 
 her account we are here." 
 
 "But you will at least send your men out of the rooms. 
 My wife and daughter cannot dress in their presence." 
 
 " They will have to do so, though," says the police officer, 
 with a grim smile. " Do you think I am going to leave 
 them un watched ? They might conceal or destroy some- 
 thing that could boused as evidence against them." 
 
 The father, after a further remonstrance, finding himself 
 
63 EUSSIA UlTDER THE TZARS. 
 
 altogether powerless to hiuder the threatened outrage, asks 
 that his protest may be recorded in the protocol. 
 
 " Certainly, if you wish it," says the officer, with a con- 
 temptuous gesture. "But what difference will that make?" 
 
 The mother and her j'oung daughter are then made to 
 rise from their beds and dress before the men who have taken 
 possession of their room. If the commander of a search 
 party in these circumstances withdraws his men for a few 
 minutes from the room, it is an act of j)ure courtesy and 
 complaisance on his part. The law and his superiors allow 
 him to do as he thinks fit. 
 
 At length all the members of the household are up and 
 clothed. Every adult is tlien given in charge to a policeman 
 — one to each. Another officer is told off to watch over the 
 children and prevent them from communicating vv'itli their 
 elders, and the search begins. First the chambers are over- 
 hauled, bedclothes turned topsy-turvy, drawers opened, 
 their contents tumbled on the floor, and everything minutely 
 examined. The next proceeding is to search the attic 
 rooms, for not a hole or corner of the dwelling is overlooked. 
 BookS; papers, and private letters — especially the last — are 
 eagerly sought and carefully inspected. Nothing is sacred 
 to Russian police agents. The young lady who has in- 
 curred their suspicion and given them all this trouble, 
 watches their doings unmoved, as it would seem, in full 
 assurance that the search will lead to no compromising 
 revelation. But unfortunately for her this confidence 
 proves to be premature, A policeman opens the drawer of 
 a little cabinet in which she keeps her own particular letters, 
 and as he fumbles amongst them she perceives a bit of 
 paper whose existence she had forgotten. The sight of this 
 morsel of manuscriiDt moves her to the quick ; she becomes 
 painfully agitated ; for though there is nothing in it to hurt 
 her, it contains a name and an address which may be the 
 means of delivering another to imprisonment and exile ; 
 
A NOCTUllN'AL SEARCH. 63 
 
 and the fault will be hers ! After a cursory glance at the 
 paper, the officer lays it aside and goes on with his inspec- 
 tion of her letters, a proceeding which suggests to the poor 
 girl a desperate expedient. With a single bound she is at the 
 cabinet, and, seizing the paper, puts it into her mouth. 
 But the very next moment two brutal hands are at her 
 throat. With a cry of indignation the father rushes for- 
 ward to protect his child. In vain ! before he can reach 
 lier he is pushed back, forced into a chair, and held there 
 fast, while three of the ruffians deal with the young girl. 
 One holds her hands, another grasps her throat, and a third, 
 forcibly opening her mouth, thrusts into it his dirty fingers 
 to get out the paper which she is trying to swallow. Writh- 
 ing, panting, and desperate, she does her utmost to accom- 
 plish her purpose ; but the odds against her are too great. 
 After a short struggle the zerhcre lays on the table a piece 
 of white pulp, streaked with blood, and as the men loose 
 their hold, their victim falls fainting on the floor. 
 
 " The insolent conduct," as it is called, of Miss N" 
 
 will be fully set forth in the official depositions.* 
 
 Whether the address which Miss IsT desired to destroy 
 
 be deciphered ornot w'll now make very little difference to her 
 personally. The mere attempt will be taken as proof of 
 conscious guilt and punishment meted out to her accordingly. 
 
 The search is now conducted with greater zeal than ever. 
 Many of the letters are read at once, others are taken to be 
 read at leisure. Everything in the house is necessarily, in 
 these circumstances, at the mercy of the police — plate. Jew- 
 elry, cash, all pass through their hands — and it is an open 
 secret that the victims of a search often lose both liberty and 
 
 The scene above described is no imaginary one. It happened thus 
 to Miss Varrara Battushkoff, daughter of General Nicholas Battush- 
 koff. The police, in trying to force a piece of paper from her mouth, 
 broke one of her teeth, and many more young girls have been simi- 
 larly maltreated. 
 
64 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 money, or money's vrortli. Yet complaints are rarely made, 
 and for very good reason. Even if the thief could be iden- 
 tified, a most improbable contingency, restitution would 
 almost certainly be refused, and the man who attacks the 
 police makes for himself a host of implacable enemies, who 
 are sure sooner or later to have their revenge. 
 
 The search goes on until daylight. Every corner has been 
 examined ; even the chair cushions have been ripped open, 
 and the flooring of the young lady's bedroom taken up, 
 on the chance of finding beneath it some forbidden 
 books or compromising papers. Eor, as all English readers 
 may not be aware, the possession of literature which the 
 State deems pernicious is in Russia a penal offence. 
 
 The business is now over and the tragic moment has 
 arrived. The young lady is sternly bidden to say farewell 
 to her kindred. No tears are shed, they are too j)roud, too 
 indignant to show such weakness in the presence of the 
 enemy. Yet in the outwardly calm countenances of the 
 l^arents, as they fold their child in their arms, may be read 
 a yery agony of apprehension and sorrow. What will 
 become of her ? Will they let her out alive ? Shall they 
 ever see their darling again ? It may be with her as with 
 others. . . AVith a desperate effort the mother keeps down a 
 rising sob — her heart is torn with anguish— she kisses her child 
 agam, perhaps for the last time ; the prisoner, too much 
 overcome to speak, tears herself away and hastens to the door. 
 
 Five minutes later is heard the rolling of the wheels 
 which convey the lost one to the dungeons of the Tzar ; and 
 a darkness, as of night, has descended on these three lives, 
 ]t may be for years, it may be forever. One is that of a 
 young creature now doomed to unknown sufferings, but 
 yesterday full of energy and life ; two others are those of 
 parents long past their prime, whose secret tears and silent 
 grief are all the more bitter and intense that they have 
 neither the martyr's courage nor the hero's hope. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE POLICE. 
 
 The kind of search I have described, known in conti- 
 nental countries as a '^perquisition " (albeit in most of them 
 no domiciliary visit can be made in the night), but for 
 which the English language has no equivalent, because no 
 English-speaking joco^jle have the thing, though it may be 
 regarded as the ordinary and normal Eussian method, is not 
 the only one, being modified according to circumstances and 
 the caprice of those by whom it is conducted. 
 
 From time immemorial Russian police searches have been 
 made by night — deeds of this sort loving darkness rather 
 than light; but it would be wrong to infer therefrom that 
 Russian families enjoy absolute immunity from these unwel- 
 come visitations during the day. The police often make 
 searches during the day, because it is the time when they 
 are least expected, when people are the least prepared to re- 
 ceive and, possibly, to deceive them. They like to take their 
 victims by surprise, and they know that a man whom they 
 want generally leaves his friend's house towards midnight 
 and repairs to some undiscoverable hiding-place. A secret 
 meeting will adjourn rather than continue its deliberations 
 until a late and, therefore, a dangerous hour. As the police, 
 by appearing unexpectedly, may make a rich prize, they do 
 not restrict their visits to any particular time. On the other 
 hand, there are good reasons why they should make them 
 mostly at night. In the first place, nocturnal searches 
 cause less scandal than davlight visits. All that the neigh- 
 bors know next morning is that somebody has disappeared. 
 
66 EUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 At one or two o'clock a.m., moreover, the police are pretty 
 sure to lind people at home and to take them mare or less 
 by surprise. Ilence the watches of the night, when, in 
 other countries, the sanctity of the home enjoys the special 
 protection of the law, is of all others the time when the sub- 
 jects of the Tzar enjoy the least security and are exposed to 
 the gi-a vest jjerils. During the periods of "white terror," 
 which generally follow on great attempts or detected plots, 
 Avhen searches by the hundred are made right and left, there 
 is hardly a family belonging to the educated classes who, on 
 retiring to rest, do not tremble at the thought that before 
 morning they may be roused from their sleep by the despot's 
 emissaries. At one of these periods (after the Solovieff at- 
 tempt), the ordinary gaols being so crowded with prisoners 
 seriously compromised that there was no room for the many 
 persons who were merely suspected, without a shadow of 
 evidence, the latter had to be confined in the common room 
 of Litovsky Castle. They lived together and were very gay, 
 as in Eussia is always the case when many friends meet un- 
 expectedly in prison. Before going to bed, as one who was 
 there has told me, they would say to each other, "Ah, we 
 shall sleep soundly to-night, for here we are in safety" — a 
 grim pleasantry of Avhich none but those who have lived 
 "under the Tzars" can understand the full significance. 
 
 Deceiving people by a falsehood or a stratagem in order 
 to make them open a door without mistrust is a common 
 proceeding of the Russian police. When (on December 16, 
 1878) they wanted to arrest Doubrovkin, an officer quartered 
 at Starai-Russa, a town not far from St. Petersburg, they 
 caused the chief of his battalion to say that he had an im- 
 portant communication to make to him on the business of 
 the regiment. The police of Odessa, desiring on one occa- 
 sion to make an arrest, raised a cry of fire at the door of 
 their victim, who, rushing out in all haste, only half clad, 
 fell into their hands and was carried off without ceremony. 
 
THE POLICE. 67 
 
 But when scarclies arc so frequent that everybody expects 
 them, the police, as a rule, reserve their artifices for special 
 cases'. For as au engineer may be hoist with his own petard, 
 60 may an artifice be turned, against its contrivers. That of 
 the telegram brought by a dvornik in the dead of night is 
 becoming somewhat stale, and when an alarm of fire, or of 
 any other calamity is given, you scent a still greater danger 
 and forthwith burn your papers and otherwise prepare your- 
 self for an imminent police visitation. 
 
 Your arrangements completed, you open the door and 
 play the part of an ingenuous innocent. The police cannot 
 well punish you for not making haste to receive an apocry- 
 phal despatch, or to escape from an imaginary fire. Know- 
 ing this, they mostly prefer to knock loud enough to awaken 
 the dead, crying at the same time, " The police ! the police ! 
 open the door or we will break it in." 
 
 Nor is the threat a vain one. The Eussian police make 
 no scruple about housebreaking, an art in which they are as 
 accomplished as professional burglars. They sometimes be- 
 gin in this way — when they can do so without making a 
 noise. At the seizure of the clandestine printing-office of the 
 Tcherny Peredel (on January, 1880) the gendarmes, either 
 by lifting the doors from the hinges, as the official report 
 said, or by using skeleton keys, as ran the rumor, took the 
 inmates by surprise and arrested them all as they lay in bed. 
 
 Violence and brutality were always in Eussia the concom- 
 itants of domiciliary searches and arrests, and with the in- 
 crease of severity in the treatment of political criminals 
 generally, the violence has become greater and the brutality 
 more ruthless. 
 
 What causes, it may be asked, are held sufficient to justify 
 the defenders of order in making these nocturnal visitations 
 and troubling so cruelly the repose of peaceful citizens ? 
 The question is one which occurs naturally to an English- 
 man, but if put to a Eussian he would merely shrug his 
 
68 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 shoulders, and smile at the simplicity of the obseiTation. 
 " Could anything be more absurd ! " he would probably ex- 
 claim ; for in Russia it is a question of the zeal of the po- 
 lice, never of the rights of the subject. Eussia is in a con- 
 dition of internal warfare, and the police, being the right 
 arm of one of the belligerent parties, does not protect, it 
 ficrhts. Wherever the enemy is they must be ready to attack 
 him ; any place where he is supposed to be they must beset. 
 An officer of police who hesitates to make a search without 
 sufficient cause, or an arrest without a warrant, would be 
 looked upon as not worth his salt, an idler who wanted to 
 receive fat pay without giving anything in return. A mem- 
 ber of the force who desires to win promotion or even to 
 keep his place cannot afford to be scrupulous. He must be 
 as keen, as vigilant, and as ready as a sleuth-hound on the 
 quest. At the least sign, or the merest suspicion of a scent, 
 he must join in the chase and seize the quarry, where he 
 can. And come what may, let the sign be ever so deceptive, 
 the chase ever so fatal, he is always encouraged by the 
 thought that he will merit the approbation of his superiors. 
 For never yet has it happened for an officer of police to be 
 punished for making a search on insufficient grounds. I 
 doubt if for this cause a reprimand has ever been given, and 
 it is quite certain that the men who have the fewest scruples 
 are the most rapidly advanced. 
 
 Here are a few instances — by no means extreme — of the 
 methods of our Russian police, taken almost at random 
 from the great mass of materials at my disposal : 
 
 On a fine day in May, 1879, a small army composed of in- 
 fantr}'', Cossacks, and gendarmes set out from the town of 
 Koupiansk, province of Karkoff, drums beating, music 
 playing, drum-major at their head, and muskets at the trail, 
 as if they were marching to meet an invader. But the force 
 being under the command of the procurator it was evident 
 that the enemies they were about to encounter were either 
 
THE POLICE. 69 
 
 actual rebels or suspected Nihilists. The first object of at- 
 tack was Mr. Boguslavsky, a large landowner. The garden 
 and grounds were surrounded by a cordon of soldiers, while 
 the procurator Metclmikoff, at the head of a posse of police- 
 men and gendarmes, beset the house, which naturally sur- 
 rendered at discretion. After turning everything upside 
 down in their usual fashion, they examined the garden with 
 equal care, dragged the fishpond, and left no corner of the 
 premises unvisited. But their search was fruitless, and they 
 had to go away as empty-handed as they came. Neverthe- 
 less Mr. Boguslavsky was placed under domiciliary arrest, 
 and a guard left in possession of his house. 
 
 The detachment next paid a visit to Mr. Balavinsky, 
 justice of the peace for the district of Senkofr, whom they 
 treated in like manner, but, as before, the police discovered 
 not a shred of evidence to justify their suspicions. Were 
 searched also the houses and grounds of Mr. Voronez and 
 Mr. Dihokovsky, rich landowners who had filled public 
 offices, with the same result. Nothing was found. Never- 
 theless Mr. Voronez was taken away to prison, and, after be- 
 ing kept for some time in custody, exiled to a remote prov- 
 ince in the north, that of Olonez. What he had done to 
 merit this punishment he never knew. It was said at the 
 time that there had been some rumors to his disadvantage 
 among the peasants. 
 
 At length the procurator withdrew his men and took his 
 departure, leaving the representatives of the Koupiansk nobil- 
 ity in a state of utter bewilderment as to the cause of the sud- 
 den and unwelcome visit they had received, and the annoy- 
 ance to which they had been exposed. Nor had they yet 
 done with this zealous official. A few months later he paid 
 them still another visit, proceeded precisely in the same way 
 as before with precisely the same result. But as it was 
 deemed necessary to show some wool for all this cry several 
 innocent persons were arrested and exiled by administrative 
 
70 RUSSIA U2sDER THE TZAES. 
 
 order ; for, on the principle that guilt should not be im- 
 puted until it is proved, we have a right to assume that the 
 very fact of these unfortunates being neither brought to 
 trial nor accused of specific offence implies their innocence. 
 
 With Mr. Kotchalovsky, justice of the peace for the dis- 
 trict of Ekaterinoslav, the procurator was more fortunate. 
 The police found in his house the manuscript copy of a 
 speech delivered by a workman called Peter Alexeeff, at the 
 ** Trial of the Fifty." For this crime the judge was exiled 
 to Archangelesk, in the extreme north of Russia. 
 
 Until it was revealed by the iu discretion of one of his 
 clerks, the cause of the procurator's excessive zeal remained 
 a mystery. In 1874, that is to say five years previously. 
 Ml'. Leo Dmokovsky, one of the early apostles of revo- 
 lution, was sentenced to eight years' hard labor for having 
 printed, in a clandestine printing-office, two socialist pamph- 
 lets. But a part only of his type and plant were taken, the 
 rest he had either destroyed or hidden safely away. Now, 
 as it happened, this gentleman was also a Koupiansk land- 
 owner and akin to several of the neighboring gentry. So 
 Mr. Procurator Metchnikoff, turning things over " in what 
 he was pleased to call his mind," came to the conclusion 
 that the missing type was concealed in some country house 
 of the district. Hence this military pomp and parade, all 
 these portentous visits, house searchings, fish-pond draggings, 
 and the rest, proceedings which both surprised and amused 
 the peasants and other mhabitants of the neighborhood. 
 
 According to another version — in a country where the 
 press is fettered rumor naturally takes the place of news 
 — the procurator had some old scores to settle with the no- 
 bility of Koupiansk, and took this means of '' serving them 
 out," the affair of the lost type being merely a pretext. 
 
 An equally characteristic incident came to pass in August 
 of the same year in the government of Tchernigoff. Mr. 
 F , doctor of the district of Borzensky, a public func- 
 
THE POLICE. 71 
 
 tionary in the service of Zemstvo, received a visit from Mad- 
 ame B , wife of a magistrate of Kieff, a lady of rank and a 
 
 persona grata in the salons of the governor of the p'rovince. 
 She was accompanied by a maid and a man-servant. Imme- 
 diately on Madame B 's arrival her host as in duty bound 
 
 notified the fact to the local ouriadnik, a sort of rural con- 
 stable, at the same time showing him her papers — a pass- 
 port granted by her husband, the magistrate, and a certifi- 
 cate signed by the president of the judges of Kieft'. The doc- 
 tor mentioned that there were two persons in the lady's suite, 
 but that their papers had been inadvertently left behind 
 at Kietf, whither he proposed to telegraph for them. This, 
 however, as Madame B was staying in the neighbor- 
 hood only a few days, and the doctor could personally 
 vouch for her respectability, the ouriadnih declared to be 
 unnecessary. Judge then of her surprise when, three days 
 afterwards, the pristav (chief of police) called at the house 
 and wanted to see her. Thinking that the man had made a 
 mistake, that it was her host he wanted to see, she sent 
 
 word by her maid that Doctor F was not at home. But 
 
 this only led to a repetition of the demand, the pristav insist- 
 ing that it was Madame B he wanted to see, and see her 
 
 he would. So she went to him in no very good humor, and 
 asked what he meant by thus importuning her. But instead 
 of apologizing, he stigmatized her as a "suspect," and put 
 her under domiciliary arrest. He also arrested her two ser- 
 vants, and led them off to the prison of Borzna. 
 
 The true and only motive for this proceeding was the de- 
 sire of Kovalevsky {i\\Q pristav) to distinguish himself, and 
 emulate the example of his comrade, Pristav Malakoff, 
 ■whose zeal in making arrests had been rewarded by the ap- 
 probation of his superiors, rapid advancement, and better 
 
 pay. The reason assigned for the arrest of Madame B and 
 
 her servants as set forth in the official report sent to the chief 
 of the KiefE police by i\\Q pristav of Borza, was that a woman 
 
72 RUSSIA U]SrDER THE TZAES. 
 
 had arrived there without papers, who, according to current 
 rumor, kept amilliner's shop in the Krechtchatik (one of the 
 principil streets of Kieff) the hetter to conceal her partici- 
 pation in revolutionary plots ; and milliners and shopmen 
 being, as was Avell known, Nihilists in disguise, Madame 
 
 B 's pretended maid and man-servant, as well as their 
 
 soi-disant mistress, were placed under arrest. A few days 
 later, when the j^assports had been verified, the lady's 
 identity established beyond doubt, and everything found in 
 order, they were all released ''without a stain on their char- 
 acters ; " but they received no amends for their unwarrant- 
 able detention, nor i\\e ^ristav any reprimand for his sharp 
 practice. 
 
 Mr. Henri Farino, member of a highly respectable 
 French firm, being at Klinzy, a manufacturing town in 
 the province of Moscow, for a purely business purpose, 
 happened to meet at the house of his host, a notary of the 
 name of Szelovsky, the chief of the local police, to whom he 
 was presented in due form. For some unexplained reason 
 the latter gentleman before leaving asked his host for the 
 Frenchman's passport. The document granted by the repub- 
 lic, and vise at St. Petersburg, as also by the Governor of 
 Moscow, was found to be unimpeachably correct. Never- 
 theless Mr. Farino's luggage was overhauled, his person 
 searched, his money taken, his letters and other papers 
 carried off to be searched, and himself placed under arrest. 
 But the intercession of JMr. Subzelovsky, and of Professor 
 Isaeff of the Jaroslav Lyceum, procured his provisional re- 
 lease, and a few days later the French Consul obtained from 
 the central authorities an order for the restoration of his 
 countryman's effects, and his full discharge. 
 
 Yfith such instances as these volumes might be filled. It 
 will be observed that in every case which I have adduced, 
 the initiative was taken by the police. The cases in which 
 the police are set in movement by the denunciation of private 
 
THE POLICE. 73 
 
 enemies and amateur informers, are, if possible, still more 
 mimerous and revolting. Creatures, the vilest and most 
 abject, the very offscourings of society, who would not 
 be believed on their oaths, have it in their power, by secret 
 accusations and pretended revelations, either to gratify spite 
 begotten of envy, or avenge imaginary wrongs on the objects 
 of their hate. 'No denunciation, by whomsoever made, 
 remains innocuous. A cook whom you have dismissed, or 
 a thieving man-servant whom you have threatened to pros- 
 ecute, has only to say you are a Socialist, and the nocturnal 
 search follows as a matten of course. Is there a competitor 
 who annoys you, a former friend to whom you want to do 
 an ill turn ? — ^you have only to denounce him to the police. 
 When the Government, in a lucid interval, instituted the 
 so-called Committee of Revision, they were shocked by the 
 number of false denunciations that came to light ; yet which, 
 despite their fraudulent character, had been most disastrous 
 for their victims. It was said at the time that the minister 
 would prosecute these perjurers and false witnesses. But 
 the times changed. The reaction set in, and under the 
 rcgi7ne of Count Tolstoi, every hope of reform was aban- 
 doned, every good resolution forgotten, and the crowd of 
 spies and denouncers were allowed to resume their dirty 
 work. 
 
 Informers are not even obliged to give their names. An 
 anonymous denunciation has just the same effect as a duly 
 signed charge. It sets the police to work. The domiciliary 
 visit and the midnight search follow as a matter of course. 
 Subsequent proceedings depend on the discovery of com- 
 promising documents, or of facts which the leader of the 
 search party may deem suspicious. 
 
 The police are respecters neither of numbers nor persons. 
 
 There is a house in Cavalregarde Street, St. Petersburg, not 
 
 far from the Tavreda Gardens, which occupies nearly a 
 
 whole quarter. It is a building of five stories, contains 
 
 4 
 
74 RUSSIA U]S"DER THE TZARS. 
 
 scores of small dvv'ellings, and is probably inhabited by at 
 least a thousand persons. Many of the inmates are medical 
 students, attached to the Nicolas Hospital hard b3\ The 
 heads of the police heard a vague rumor that, somewhere 
 in this rabbit warren dangerous jjeople were in hiding, and, 
 possibly, subversive plots being hatched. A nocturnal visi- 
 tation was promptly organized. At dead of night the vast 
 building, big as a cotton factory, was beset with a battalion 
 of infantry and an equal force of policemen. The latter, 
 broken up into detachments of threes and fours, swarmed 
 into the corridors, the staircases and the stair-landings. 
 They made incursions right and left ; a dozen inmates were 
 summoned " to open to the police " at the same time. The 
 alarm spread like wildfire ; in a few minutes everybody in 
 the house was awake and afoot, and lights gleamed in all 
 the windows. But a sentinel posted at every door kept the 
 inmates prisoners until their turn should come. The 
 dwellings were searched in batches of twelve at a time, by 
 as many different search parties, and the inquisition went on 
 until every part of the building had been thoroughly over- 
 hauled. Nothing whatever was found ; but the police, not 
 liking to go away empty-handed, carried off several captives, 
 all of whom were released a few days afterwards. 
 
 This is far from being a solitary case. After great '' at- 
 tempts," above all, after the first and the last, it was seriously 
 proposed to search every dwelling in St. Petersburg. This, 
 of course, could not be done — the thing was physically 
 impossible — but several streets were actually overhauled from 
 house to house, and from end to end. One block of build- 
 ings at a time was surrounded by a regiment of soldiers who 
 arrested and detained every one who tried to enter in or go 
 out. Wliile this went on outside, the police were at work 
 inside. When they had done, they went to the next block, 
 and repeated the operation until the whole street had been 
 gone through. 
 
THE POLICE. 75 
 
 These marchings of soldiers at dead of night, this break- 
 ing like burglars into the dwellings of peaceful citizens, 
 rifling their rooms and terrifying their children, seems to 
 have been conceived in the very wantonness of des})otism. 
 The system was equally scandalous and absurd. The 
 searches were useless ; the searchers found nothing, for their 
 visits being exjjected — sometimes mysteriously announced 
 beforehand — measures were always taken to render them 
 abortive. Sudeikin understood this. After his advent to 
 power they were discontinued, for one reason, perhaps, 
 because since that time there has been no great "attempt." 
 Yet none the less is the fact of the system having existed, 
 and been so rigorously practised, highly characteristic of the 
 methods of Eussian government, and the views of those who 
 rule on the important principle known as "inviolability of 
 the domicile." Judged by the infallible test of their actions, 
 they deem the sanctity of a man's home, the quiet of his 
 house, to be utterly unworthy of respect. Police on the 
 quest are no more expected to give heed to the trouble and 
 harm they may inflict on peaceful citizens than the hunter, 
 hot in chase, is expected to give heed to the grass on which 
 he tramples, or the brambles which he thrusts aside. 
 
 Another extraordinary incident of the system of search, 
 as practised in Russia, is that, as the right of domiciliary 
 visitation belongs to sundry functionaries, who act inde- 
 pendently of each other, several descents — two, three, and 
 even four — are sometimes made on the same house in the 
 same day. This, tliough hardly credible, is strictly true. 
 In the spring of 1881, there was staying at Clarens, on the 
 shores of Lake Leman, a Russian lady, the widow of Coun- 
 cillor R . She was then about forty years old, and had 
 
 four children. During the panic that followed the 13th of 
 March, this lady received seven police visits within the 
 space of twenty-four hours. Seven times in one day and 
 night did she hear the terrible summons, "Open to the 
 
76 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 police ; '* seven times was her house ransacked, and herself 
 compelled to undergo a cruel ordeal. 
 
 *' This was more than I could stand," she said. " I have 
 four children; so I left St. Petersburg and came here." 
 
 It may be thought that this lady was deeply and notori- 
 ously compromised, or, that at any rate, the police had 
 strong ground for suspecting her of complicity to some rev- 
 olutionary enterijriso. Not the least in the world. In that 
 case she would have been promptly arrested. She was inno- 
 cence itself, and so void of offence that when she wanted a 
 passport for Switzerland, the j^olice made no difficulty 
 about complying with her request. The seven searches 
 were made at random, *'by pure misunderstanding," as was 
 afterwards ex23lained. ]\Iisunderstanding3 of this sort are 
 frequent in Russia. It has befallen only too many to be ar- 
 rested by mistake, exiled by a misunderstanding, and kept 
 several years in jDrison under a misapprehension. All this 
 has hai)pened. I shall say more thereupon in a future 
 chapter. It is a fact well known to every Eussian ; and 
 when the police limit themselves to making unwelcome 
 visits, and searching our houses by night, we consider our- 
 selves fortunate in being let off so easily. 
 
 The position of Eussian subjects with reference to the in- 
 violability of their domiciles, is aptly described in a scene 
 by our great satirist. 
 
 '* Do you know what it would be necessary to do, to 
 satisfy everybody ?" asked Glousnov of his friend. 
 
 " It would be necessaiy to have two keys for every house. 
 One I should take for myself, the other I should give to 
 tlie police, so that they might come in whenever they chose 
 to satisfy themselves as to my innocence. Would it not be 
 equally advantageous for both sides ? " 
 
 The friend sees the matter in precisely the same light ; 
 the proposed arrangement, he thinks, would be a great ad- 
 vantage for everybody concerned. But he gravely reminds 
 
THE POLICE. 77 
 
 Glousnov, that in most houses there are a strong box and a 
 plate chest, that his project might jjossibly expose him to 
 the suspicion of desiring to tempt the guardians of order 
 to " Lay hands on the sacred vessels." That would be 
 serious 1 
 
CHAPTER XIL 
 
 THE HOUSE OF PREVENTATIVE DETENTION. 
 
 But let us return to our heroine, whom we left on her 
 way to prison under the escort of a brace of gendarmes. 
 
 From the corner of the vehicle in which she is ensconced 
 she can see over the closed blinds into the street, where, 
 early as it is, people are beginning to more about. The 
 poor girl seems quiet and resigned, but her eye dwells ou 
 every object she passes as if she might never see it again, 
 and despite her outward composure her brain is working with 
 feverish activity. In half an hour, perhaps in a few min- 
 utes, the prison doors will be closed upon her. She will 
 have to undergo an examination. That is certain. But of what 
 will she be accused — what can the police have against her ? 
 And as the carriage rattles over the stony pavement, her eyes 
 still fixed on external objects, she turnsher mental gaze inward 
 and examines herself before the tribunal of her own con- 
 science. She is only eighteen years old, and has lived at St. 
 Petersburg — where she came to pursue her studies — but a 
 few months. Xot a long time, yet long enough for her to 
 have committed several high crimes and misdemeanors, 
 poor child ! First of all she is on terms of close friendship 
 with a certain X, once a student, now an ardent and success- 
 ful revolutionary propagandist among the peasantry. He 
 was the companion of her childhood. When they were in 
 the country he sometimes wrote to her, and it was one of his 
 letters which she had tried to destroy. At St. Petersburg 
 they met as occasion served, and through his introduction 
 
THE HOUSE OF PEEYEXTATIVE DETENTION. 79 
 
 she had made several new acquaintances of like views with 
 
 himself. One was Miss Z , to whom she was indebted 
 
 for many acts of thoughtful kinduess, and to whom she ren- 
 dered several in return. Once, when the former anticipated 
 a visitation from the police, she took into her charge a packet 
 of forbidden books. Another time she took a pamphlet to 
 a fellow student, and, last of all, she had allowed Miss 
 
 Z to use her address for the former's correspondence. 
 
 Serious offences all of them, and if the police knew every- 
 thing she would be utterly lost ! But they could not know 
 everything. Impossible ! Yet something they must know 
 — or suspect. How much, and what ? That was the question. 
 Here our captive's reverie is interrupted by the sudden 
 stoppage of the carriage, and looking through the window 
 she sees a fine four-storied building in a style of architecture 
 at once elegant and severe. It is the palace of the new in- 
 quisition — the House of Preventative Detention. How well 
 she knows the hypocritical building with its long ranges of 
 high andbeautifully arched windows, hiding, like the serried 
 squares of soldiers at an execution, the horrors going on 
 within ! How often had she stopped before the double- 
 faced building, thinking with a mingled sense of admiration 
 and sorrow of the unfortunates who languished behind those 
 pretty semi-rustic walls ! "Who could have thought that in 
 so short a time their fate would be hers ! She alights, and 
 with a grave, preoccupied face approaches a tall, majestic 
 gateway, like that of some beautiful temple, just high enough 
 to admit the car of the condemned, who are prepared for 
 their last journey in the prison yard. A wicket in the 
 massive brown door silently opens, and the sentinel, a great 
 giant of a man who handles his big musket as easily as if it 
 were a bamboo cane, gives no more heed than the stone posts 
 that border the footpath. Then there is a rattle of bolts 
 behind her ; the wicket closes. Who can tell when it will 
 open again — for her ? 
 
80 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZAES. 
 
 They take her to the oflBce ; they put down her uame, age, 
 and description. Then a voice cries from below : 
 
 '' Receive number (let us say) thirty-nine !" 
 
 " Ready ! " answers a voice from above. 
 
 Number Thirty-nine, escorted by a warder, mounts the 
 staircase. On one of the landings she is delivered to another 
 ■warder, who conducts her to cell thirty-niDC. 
 
 This cell is thenceforth the captive's world. A little box, 
 but new, clean and neatly arranged, four paces wide and five 
 long. A truckle-bed, a little table fastened to the wall, a 
 little stool, a gas-pipe and a water-pipe. She examines all 
 these objects with curiosity and a sense of pleasant surprise. 
 After all, the devil is not so black as he is painted. She has 
 hardly finished her examination when she is startled by 
 strange noises — mysterious rappings coming, as it would 
 seem, from the inside of the wall. Placing her ear to it she 
 listens intently. The knocks, though weak, are distinct. 
 They do not come regularly and mechanically, but with a 
 rhythm and cadence, as if they were inspired by an intelli- 
 gence, and were meant to convey some hidden or spiritual 
 meaning. What could be the import of the mysterious 
 sounds ? Ah, she understands ! She has heard say that the 
 inmates of prisons sometimes communicate with each other 
 by means of little knocks— after the manner of a telegraphic 
 alphabet. These rappings must come from a neighbor- 
 some companion in misfortune who wishes to speak to her. 
 So in token of thanks and sympathy she gives back a few 
 answering knocks. The next moment, to her utter surprise, 
 there are rappings all round her. From the opposite wall 
 comes a series of sharp loud knocks as if the knocker were 
 boiling over with impatience or anger. There was then 
 another fellow sufferer in need of sympathy ! As she raises 
 her hand to reply there comes a sound from below as rhyth- 
 mic, yet more sonorous than the others. The medium in 
 this case is the water-pipe, and then, as if it had been an 
 
THE HOUSE OF PEEYEliTATIVE DETENTION". 81 
 
 echo, comes a similar call from above. The little box is 
 filled with these little sounds, as if crickets were at work, or 
 as if the mysterious beings believed in by spiritualists were 
 rapping messages from the invisible world. 
 
 The captive's first feeling was one of fear. Were there, 
 then, prisoners above her, prisoners below her, prisoners on 
 every side of her in this sinister abode ? Was she but a sol- 
 itary unit in a swarm of unfortunates ? Then came a sense 
 of annoyance, of keen regret, that it had never occurred to 
 her to learn this prison alphabet. Her inability to under- 
 stand the rappings which continued to resound in her cell 
 made her ashamed of herself — almost desperate. What could 
 they mean ? What were her unseen neighbors saying ? Not 
 knowing the interpretation she could answer nothing. One 
 by one the knocks ceased, and the same profound silence as 
 before reigned around her. But a few moments later one of 
 the knockers began afresh. Perhaps he pitied the new 
 comer's ignorance, and was offering to instruct her. This 
 time the knocks are lighter and more distinct, as if to en- 
 able her the better to count them, and are not, as previously, 
 so interrupted by pauses. As she listens, strenuously trying 
 to make out what they can mean, she has a happy thought. 
 It is that each knock may correspond with a letter of the 
 alphabet according to the order in which it is given. In that 
 case the reading of the rappings will be an easy task. She 
 will wait for the first pause, and when the knocks recom- 
 mence link them with letters of the alphabet — one for the 
 first letter, two for the second, and so on. The pause comes. 
 It is followed by more knocks. Listening eagerly, and count- 
 ing with rapt attention, she makes out a letter, then another 
 then a third. The three form a word. Then two more 
 words are spelled out. " Who are you ? " asks her neigh- 
 bor. 
 
 ''How shall she answer?" In the same manner of 
 course. So she telegraphs her name, and a few other phrases 
 4* 
 
82 RUSSIA UKDER THE TZAES. 
 
 are exchanged. Her obliging neighbor next teaches her 
 the code, equally simple and convenient, by means of which, 
 after a little practice, conversation becomes easy and rapid. 
 
 It is through this acoustic language that hundreds of in- 
 telligent and sensitive beings, though invisible to each other, 
 and forever divided, exchange ideas and commune together. 
 Deprived by the implacable cruelty of their fellow men of 
 human society, condemned to live and suffer in a silence as 
 of death, it is to the walls that shut them in— dumb wit- 
 nesses of their solitude— that they communicate their mus- 
 ings and tell their griefs. And the stones and the iron, more 
 compassionate than men, transmit their thoughts to others 
 equally unfortunate. When detected, the rappers are severe- 
 ly punished for these infractions of the rule which condemns 
 them to unbroken silence. Yet the walls, kind, faithful 
 friends — accomplices who never betray — are always there 
 inviting them again to beguile their solitude and disburden 
 their griefs by converse with their tinseen companions. 
 
 But it is not possible to punish every violator of the rule 
 of silence ; the black dungeon would not hold them all, and 
 the offenders are so numerous that the authorities are com- 
 pelled to wink at the offence. There is no prison of the 
 Tzar in which communication by knockings does not pre- 
 vail, and it is more prevalent in the House of Preventative 
 Detention than in any other. 
 
 Number Thirty-nine is quickly familiarized with the 
 strange and original life of her prison-house, and forms fast 
 friendships with people whose existence is revealed to her 
 only by the rhythmic rappings on the wall. But community 
 in sutfering and similarity of disposition take the place of 
 less abstract relations, and tics are sometimes formed in cap- 
 tivity which last a lifetime. It is said that love laughs at 
 locksmiths ; he laughs also at gaolers, and people have been 
 known to fall in love through the medium of prison walls. 
 Number Thirty-nine is an apt scholar, and shares to the full 
 
THE HOUSE OF PREVENTATIVE DETENTION. 83 
 
 in the sentiments, the ideas, and the enthusiasm of the new 
 world, which the Tzar's i:»olice have discovered for her. 
 Never before has tlie young girl lived so full a life. Occu- 
 pied almost exclusively with her studies, she has felt hitherto 
 for the cause of liberty but a silent sympathy, accompanied 
 by ideas more or less vague. Now she understands every- 
 thing. She has heard of the sufferings and sounded the 
 souls of the prisoners around her. She sees how devoted 
 they are, how faithful and ardent ; and now, full of the zeal 
 of proselytism, she rejoices in the thought that she also is 
 strong to suffer and to do. 
 
 Yet she is sad withal, for the life histories of her invisible 
 brothers and sisters have been unfolded to her, and they are 
 dark with suffering and sorrow. They belong to every order, 
 from the merely suspected to undoubted rebels and noto- 
 rious propagandists. 
 
 Number Forty, her nest-door neighbor, is seriously com- 
 promised. He was taken in flagrante delicto, disguised as a 
 peasant, provided with a false passport, and carrying on an 
 active revolutionary propaganda. He was a rich landowner 
 and magistrate, and will certainly be condemned to a long 
 term of penal servitude. Sixty-eight can hope for no milder 
 punishment. A young woman of high culture and noble 
 birth, she finished her studies at the University of Zurich ; 
 then, returning to Eussia, she took a place as factory-girl in a 
 Moscow cotton mill. Arrested on suspicion of being a revolu- 
 tionary emissary, several contraband pamphlets were found 
 in her box, and a workman was frightened by the police into 
 confessing that he had heard her read one of them aloud to 
 some of his comrades. No very heinous offence, it may be 
 thought, yet quite enough to ensure conviction and, prob- 
 ably, a long term of penal servitude. These, however, are 
 among the more fortunate. They know the fate in store 
 for them, an advantage denied to many of their companions. 
 Nineteen, in the cell below, for instance, is accused of nothing 
 
84 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 in particular. The pamphlet seized by the police was really 
 too frivolous to make its possession an o£Eence. But on the 
 pretext that he was a friend of Number Forty they have 
 kcjDt him in prison two years and a half. The charge against 
 Sixty-three is equally trivial. He once made a visit to the 
 estate of a propagandist, since convicted. But not one of 
 the peasants with whom he was confronted could testify 
 anything against him. Yet the procurator was "persuaded 
 in his own mind" of Sixty-three's guilt, and this is the 
 latter's third year in prison.* Though quite a young man, 
 confinement has seriously impaired his health. Xumber 
 Twenty-one, on the upper story, is even worse. He suffers 
 from phthisis, and the deadly disease is making rapid progress. 
 He was on friendly terms with a celebrated propagandist, and 
 attended several private Socialist meetings, where politics 
 formed the subject of discussion. For two years he has been 
 in daily expectation of release. But when he leaves his 
 narrow cell it will be for the still narrower confines of the 
 tomb, that last and sure refuge of the oppressed, f AH 
 night through she hears the stricken man's hollow cough, 
 and her heart is full of pity and sorrow. 
 
 But her neighbor of the right gave her yet keener pain, 
 even more than pain — horror and dismay. This neighbor 
 was one of her own sex ; and so rapid and strange — incoherent 
 even — were her rappings, that it was some time before 
 Thirty-nine could understand them. 
 
 " Distrust Forty," she said, " he is a spy. So is Twenty- 
 one. They are put there expressly to surprise our secrets. 
 They come into my cell when I am asleep at nights. They 
 put a pipe into my ear, and pump up all my thoughts to 
 show them to the procurator." 
 
 The woman was mad. The charge against her was preach- 
 
 * A fact. This is precisely the case of Nicolas Morozoff (arrested 1873 
 at Tver). 
 ■f- Equally a fact. The victim in this case was Voinoiasezky. 
 
THE HOUSE OF PREVENTATIVE DETENTION. 85 
 
 ing tlie gospel of Socialism. Like Sixty-three she got work 
 in a cotton mill and played the part of a factory-girl. A 
 few days later, and before she had time to commit any breach 
 of the law, she was arrested. But the fact of her disguise 
 was regarded as proof of her guilt. Eighteen months' sol- 
 itary confinement turned her brain, but they still kept her 
 in seclusion. And from all parts of the vast prison-house 
 the rhythmic rappings on the wall brought equally heart- 
 rending stories of suffering and sorrow. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 POOE THIRTT-KIXE. 
 
 AxD the examination ? And the interrogation ? "Why 
 have I forgotten the main point, and relegated the secondary 
 to the first place ? my readers will probably ask. 
 
 Because in Russia juridic procedure is not the main point. 
 It is secondary and accessory. The chief point is to secure 
 the prisoner, to keep him in " durance vile." As for trying 
 him, examining the proofs against him, determining his 
 innocence or his guilt, these are things about which there is 
 no hurry — they can wait. 
 
 Here is a case in point, perfectly authentic and suscepti- 
 ble of fullest proof, which affords an excellent example of 
 Russian judicial methods. In 1874 Mr. Ponomareff, a 
 student in the Saratov Seminary, was taken into custody on 
 a charge of belonging to a secret society. Among the papers 
 of one of the leaders of the movement, P. Voinaralski, had 
 been found a ticket on which was written Ponomareff's 
 name. This was held to be a suflBcient justification of his 
 arrest. At the interrogatory the latter denied all knowledge 
 of the former, saying that he had not the least idea how 
 Voinaralski became acquainted with his name. Persisting 
 in this denial he was accused of obstinacy, urged to confess, 
 and still proving recalcitrant, sent to prison and advised to 
 ** reflect." As he reflected there three years, it cannot be 
 said that the authorities did not give him ample time to 
 consider both sides of the question. Similar instances of 
 obstinacy are far from rare among political prisoners. But 
 
POOR THIRTT-lSriNE. 87 
 
 the richest part of the affair — the poiut of the story-— did 
 not come to pass until 11877, when Ponomareff, at length 
 placed on his trial, retained Mr. Stassoff, a well-known St. 
 Petersburg advocate, for his defence. The advocate, natu- 
 rally enough, asked to see the piece de conviction, the ticket 
 on which his client's name was affirmed to be written. The 
 ticket was produced accordingly, when lo and behold ! the 
 name was not the name of Ponomareff at all. Owing to a 
 slight similarity in the spelling of their cognomens the 
 police had mistaken him for somebody else, and arrested the 
 wrong man ! So lax is the administration of the law, so 
 cynically indifferent are the dispensers of the Tzar's justice 
 to the rights of the Tzar's subjects, that it took three years 
 — the time allowed Ponomareff for reflection — to rectify an 
 error that in any other country would have been rectified 
 within twenty-four hours. 
 
 But let us take up the thread of our story. 
 
 The very day of her arrest Thirty-nine w-as taken before 
 the procurator, from whom she learnt that the visits she had 
 occasionally made to X. were known to the police ; and his 
 letters, which the latter had seized, showed that their rela- 
 tions were of a somewhat friendly character. The suspicions 
 already conceived — suspicions which had suggested the noc- 
 turnal search — were confirmed by the attempt of Thirty- 
 nine to destroy her friend's letter. Than this, she found to 
 her great relief, nothing more was known. All the same, 
 she was roundly accused of belonging to the secret society 
 directed by X., a society having for its object "the over- 
 throw of the existing order, subversion of property, religion, 
 and the family," and so forth. These charges she naturally 
 denied. She was accused of other offences, and many search- 
 ing questions were put touching her supposed connection 
 •with the revolutionary movement. All were answered in 
 the negative. 
 
 "Very well," said the procurator at length, "you will 
 
88 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 have to reflect. Take Number Thirty-nine back to her cell, 
 "warder. " 
 
 Thirty-nine went back to her cell, rejoicing that she had 
 come so well out of the ordeal, and tbat the police had so 
 little against her. Her spirits rose, and she was full of hope 
 as to the future. 
 
 She was allowed to reflect at her ease ; she could not com- 
 plain that the even tenor of her thoughts was disturbed by 
 too many distractions. A whole week passed, a second, a 
 third. An entire month elapsed, and still nothing was said 
 about another examination. The month multiplied by 
 three, by four, by six. Half a year went by without any 
 break in the monotony of her life, a life passed within the 
 four walls of her little box, from which she emerged but 
 once a day for a few minutes' lonely walk in another box, 
 differing from the first only in being open to the sky — a com- 
 partment of the court divided into squares, each enclosed 
 within high walls for the use of prisoners kept in solitary 
 confinement. No wonder the poor girl began to be some- 
 what weary with the insupportable sameness of her exist- 
 ence ; and wondered, not without anxiety, what would be 
 the end. 
 
 But towards the end of the seventh month, when she has 
 almost abandoned hope, she is called before the procurator 
 to undergo still another questioning. Surely they will let 
 her go now ! 
 
 At any rate, they did not keep her long in suspense. The 
 examination was brief and sharp. 
 
 " Have you reflected ? " 
 
 " Yes, I have reflected. " 
 
 **Have you anything to add to your previous depositions ?" 
 
 *' Nothing.-*' 
 
 "Indeed ! Go back to your cell, then. I will make you 
 rot there." 
 
 " I will make you rot there. " This is the stereotyped ex- 
 
POOR THIRTY-NINE. 89 
 
 pression ; an expression which few political prisoners have 
 not repeatedly heard. 
 
 Thirty-nine does not this time return to her cell with a 
 light heart and a beaming countenance, as she had done 
 after her first interrogatory. She feels crushed and con- 
 fused, weighed down by a strange, almost agonizing sense of 
 apprehension and despair, whicii at first she is unable either 
 to define to herself or to understand. What can it be ? 
 whence came it ? Ah, that snake of a procurator ! And 
 then she remembers the words with which he had dismissed 
 her to her cell. He would let her rot there ! And there 
 were proofs all around her that he did not threaten in vain. 
 
 The maniac in number thirty- eight is knocking furiously 
 at the wall. 
 
 " Wretched traitress, you have been to denounce me. 
 Here is a man with a sack of hungry rats that he is bringing 
 to devour me. Coward, coward, that you are ! " 
 
 The poor lunatic is in one of her paroxysms, 
 
 A horrible fear takes possession of the prisoner's mind. 
 
 '^Dreadful ! dreadful !" she cries ; "shall I one day be- 
 come like her ?" 
 
 The montlis go and come, as if time and memory were 
 not ; the seasons follow in their unvarying round. It was 
 autumn when she lost her liberty, tlien another autumn 
 came and went, and now a third is passing away — yet free- 
 dom returns not ; it seems as far off as ever. ^ Poor Thirty- 
 nine still languishes in her cell, so wofirlly changed by con- 
 finement and solitude that even her own mother would 
 hardly know her. 
 
 At the end of her second year of prison the captive under- 
 went a terrible crisis. Her wretched life within the four 
 walls of the diminutive cell, the frightful sameness — no 
 change, no occupation, no society, no anything — became ut- 
 terly intolerable. The yearning for air, movement, liberty, 
 grew intense, almost to mania. On waking in a morning she 
 
90 EUSSIA UNDER THE TZAES. 
 
 felt that unless sbe was released that very day, she would die. 
 And she had nothing before her but prison — always prison ! 
 
 She bombarded the procurator with letters, entreating 
 him to order her into exile, to send her to Siberian mines, 
 to sentence her to penal servitude. She would go anywhere 
 or do anything to escape from her living tomb. 
 
 The procurator came several times to her cell. 
 
 *' Have you am-thing to add to your depositions ? " was his 
 invariable question on these occasions. "K'o." "Very 
 well, I must still leave you to your reflections." 
 
 She begged her mother to try to get her enlarged on 
 bail, pending her trial. But her parents could in no way 
 help her. All their applications received the same response : 
 *' Your daughter is obstinately impenitent. Advise her to 
 think better of it. TTe can do nothing for you." 
 
 She fell into utter despair. Dark ideas of suicide began 
 to haunt her brain. More than once she thought she was 
 going mad. From these calamities her physical wealaiess, 
 by lessening the intensity of her life and numbing her sus- 
 ceptibility to suffering, alone saved her. ( This is why in 
 Eussian prisons the young and vigorous succumb the soonest. 
 The feeble and delicate have a better chance.) 
 
 TVant of air and exercise, and insufficient and unsuitable 
 food, have produced their natural effect on that young and 
 undeveloped organism. The bloom of health has long since 
 vanished from those cheeks, once so fresh and fair. Her 
 complexion has assumed that yellow-green tint peculiar to 
 eickly plants and to the young who linger long in captivity. 
 But she is not thin ; on the contrary, her face is swollen and 
 puffy, the result of softening of the tissues, produced by 
 seclusion and inaction. All her movements are slow, indo- 
 lent, and automatic. She looks six years older. She can 
 remain half an hour in the same position, with her eyes 
 fixed on the same object, as if she were buried in deep 
 thought. But she is not, for her brain has become as flabby 
 
POOR THIRTY-JTINE. 91 
 
 as her muscles. At first she read greedily all the books 
 which the prison authorities allowed her mother to bring 
 her. Now, however, she finds concentration of thought so 
 difficult that she cannot read two consecutive pages without 
 extreme fatigue. She passes the greater part of her time in 
 a state of torpor, in heavy drowsiness, moral and physical. 
 She has no desire to talk or lay plans. What can it profit to 
 talk to the air, to speak of the future when you are without 
 liope ? The early friends of her imprisonment, the kindly 
 and responsive walls to whom she had once imparted her 
 innermost thoughts, are almost abandoned. She rarely goesi 
 near them. And the walls themselves, with the delicacy 
 of true friendship, understand her silence and respect her 
 sorrow and despair. From time to time they speak softly 
 words of consolation. But receiving no answer they desist, 
 lest they sliould annoy her with what, in her hopaless con- 
 dition, might seem like mocking phrases. Yet they ceased 
 not to think of her and to watch over her with loving care. 
 
 "It is not well with Thirty-nine," said one wall to an- 
 other. 
 
 From wall to wall, from stone to stone, the evil tidings 
 run, and the entire building vibrates sadly in response — 
 
 "Something must be done for poor Thirty-nine." 
 
 The voice of the stones at last finds expression in human 
 voices. The prisoners beg the warders to send a doctor 
 to Thirty-nine. 
 
 The prayer is heard and the doctor comes, accompanied 
 by a policeman. Thirty-nine is examined. It is quite an 
 ordinary case — prison anemia. The lungs are severely 
 affected ! the nervous system is thoroughly deranged. In a 
 word, she is suffering from prison sickness. 
 
 This physician was young at his business as a jail doctor. 
 He had some humanitarian ideas, and his heart was open 
 to pity. But he was so accustomed to the sight of suffering 
 that he could contemplate it unmoved. To show over-much 
 
92 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 compassion for a political prisoner, moreover, might erpose 
 him to the suspicion of being a secret sympathizer with the 
 disaffected. 
 
 " There is nothing serious the matter," said the man of 
 physic. 
 
 The stones learnt the verdict in mournful silence. Oh, 
 how terrible are the suffei-ings, how unutterable the sorrows, 
 these walls have witnessed ! But they can still feel, and 
 when the doom is pronounced they sigh : " Poor Thirty- 
 nine ! What will become of poor Thirty-nine ? " 
 
 Yes, what will become of poor Thirty-nine ? Oh, there 
 are many alternatives for her, all equally possible. If by 
 some shock her vital energy should be awakened and the 
 acute crisis return, she m.ay strangle herself with a pocket 
 handkerchief or a piece of linen, like Kroutikoff ; or poison 
 herself, like Stransky ; cut her throat with a pair of scis- 
 sors, like Zapolsky, or, in default of other means, with a bit 
 of broken glass, as Leontovitch did at Moscow, and Bogo- 
 moloff in the Preventative prison of St. Petersburg. She 
 may go mad, like Betia Kamenskaia, who was kept in prison 
 long after her lunacy had declared itself, and only released 
 when her condition was utterly desperate, to poison herself 
 shortly afterwards in a fit of suicidal mania. If she con- 
 tinues to fade she will die of phthisis, like Lvoff, Trutkov- 
 sky, Lermontoff, and dozens of others. Relenting too late, 
 her custodians may release her provisionally, but only to let 
 her die outside the prison, as they did with Ustugeaninoff, 
 Tchernischeff, Nokoff, Mahaeff, and many others, all of 
 whom fell victims to phthisis a few days after they were 
 provisionally enlarged. If, however, by reason of abnormal 
 strength of character, vigor of constitution, or other excep- 
 tional circumstances, she should survive until the day of 
 trial, her judges, out of consideration for her tender age and 
 long imprisonment, may let her end her days in Siberia ! 
 
 All these eventualities are equally possible for Thirty- 
 
POOR THIRTY-KINE. 93 
 
 nine. Which will come to pass none can tell. The fates 
 must decide. For as I propose in this book to say nothing 
 doubtful or uncertain, I will hazard no conjectures as to the 
 issue. So let us drop the curtain and say farewell to Num- 
 ber Thirty-nine. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE tzar's justice. 
 
 As I have just observed it is impossible to foretell categori- 
 cally the fate in store for any individual prisoner of the Tzar. 
 Yet, by making a calculation of probabilities, according to 
 the rules admitted by statistical science and based on indis- 
 putable facts, we may form a fairly accurate idea of what is 
 likely to befall any of these unfortunates in whom we may 
 happen to take an interest. 
 
 In the trial of the 193 — one of the principal trials of the 
 period in question — the imperial procurator Gelechovskij 
 said, in his requisition, that of the entire number there were 
 no more than twenty who deserved punishment. Neverthe- 
 less, of tlie 193 accused persons no fewer than seventy-three 
 committed suicide and went mad during the four years that 
 the examination lasted. Hence, almost four times as many 
 as the public prosecutor himself deemed worthy of punish- 
 ment were either killed by inches or visited with a doom 
 more terrible than death. 
 
 The 193, moreover, did not include all on whom the 
 police laid hands and brought before the tribunal. Tbe 
 arrests and imprisonments in connection with the trial were 
 at least seven times greater, reaching a total of 1400, of 
 whom, however, 700 were set free after a few weeks' or a 
 few months' detention. The other TOO were kept under 
 lock and key for periods varying from one year to four years, 
 and appeared at the trial either as principals or witnesses, 
 the latter being of course the more numerous. The senate. 
 
THE tzar's justice. 95 
 
 by whom the 193 were tried, pronounced two different sets . 
 of sentences — the one nominal, and of extreme severity, the I 
 other milder, real, and intending, in the form of a recom- 
 mendation to mercy, to be laid before the Tzar and by him 
 sanctioned and confirmed. One was sentenced to penal ser- 
 yitudc, 24 were sentenced to exile in Siberia, 15 to simple 
 exile, and 153 were acquitted. I call the latter the real sen- 
 tences, because recommendations to mercy, above all, when' 
 coming from an exceptional tribunal composed of high 
 magistrates, are, as a rule, never refused by the Emperor. \ 
 But, less merciful than his own judges, Alexander declined 
 to act on their recommendation, and ordered the sentences, 
 passed by the senate in the belief that they would not be 
 enforced, to be carried out in all their rigor. These sen- 
 tences — thirteen of the 193 only being sentenced to penal 
 servitude — amounted in the aggregate to seventy years' 
 penal servitude, the heaviest penalty — inflicted in one case i 
 alone — being ten years' penal servitude.* 
 
 Now if we reckon, on the other hand, but two years of 
 preliminary detention for each of the 700 persons originally 
 implicated in the prosecution — and this is decidedly below 
 the mark — we get a total of 1400 years — fourteen centuries 
 of a punishment far more fatal to its victims than the penal 
 servitude of Siberia. 
 
 Thus the pains inflicted by the police were twenty times 
 greater, for the same offence, than the penalties imposed by 
 the tribunal, albeit the latter went to the utmost limit 
 allowed by the draconian code of Russia. In other words, 
 to obtain evidence for the conviction of one man, the same 
 punishment meted ont to him was inflicted on nineteen in- 
 nocent persons. This, without taking into account the 
 
 * Exclusive of the 700 who were released in the course of the first \ 
 year, and taking no account either of the twenty sentences of police 
 supervision inflicted by the tribunal, or of the sentences to exile after- I 
 wards inflicted by the police. 
 
96 EUSSIA U]SrDER THE TZARS. 
 
 seventj-tLree unfortunates that died during the examination, 
 and whose deaths in at least seventy instances were directly 
 traceable to the effects of their preventative detention, 
 passed, be it remembered, in the solitary, soul-destroying 
 confinement which either maddens or kills. That these 
 seventy-three persons were nearly every one virtually mur- 
 dered is proved by the fact that, according to a calculation 
 based on the mean mortality of St. Petersburg, and taking 
 into consideration their ages, only two or three of them 
 ought to have died during the period in question. 
 Such are the methods of the Russian Inquisition. 
 
 ( 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE QUESTION". 
 
 The system described in the foregoing chapter may be 
 called the slow and quiet system. The "impenitent" are 
 left to rot peaceably in their cells, in the expectation that 
 these fruits of official zeal, which are still green, will after a 
 period of rotting become more pervious to the inquisitors' 
 pincers, and admit of the extraction of their hidden grains. 
 
 Yet, despite its evident advantages, this system has one 
 great drawback. It requires time and patience. So long as 
 Nihilists did not go from words to acts, and limited their 
 proceedings to a peaceful propaganda, there was no need 
 for huny. The agitation was not feared. From time to 
 time suspected propagandists were caught here and there, 
 and, after putting them in prison, their captors awaited with 
 folded arms in the generally vain hope of revelations which 
 might enable them to get up a monster indictment for con- 
 spiracy. 
 
 But when the revolutionists, weary of merely passive 
 resistance, took up arms and gave back blow for blow, the 
 authorities could temporize no longer. With a view to 
 guard against the terrible reprisals which the police had 
 reason to believe were being prepared by the Nihilists out- 
 side, the police deemed it imperative to obtain from the 
 prisoners the fullest information in the shortest possible 
 time. In these circumstances, the slow process of letting 
 prisoners rot until one or other might think fit to reveal did 
 not answer. To obtain prompt results it was needful to in- 
 tensify their sufferings. From this necessity the police did 
 5 
 
98 KUSSIA UKDER THE TZARS. 
 
 not shrink. The rigors of preventative detention were 
 augmented. With cruel craft they struck first at the most 
 sensitive point. The isolation of the prisoners was made 
 absolute and complete. Every indulgence was withdrawn ; 
 it became the isolation of the tomb. The House of De- 
 tention, with its comparatively mild discipline, was reserved 
 for prisoners the least compromised. Serious cases were 
 relegated to that vast and gloomy fortress, where the police 
 can work their will on their victims, unchecked and unseen. 
 In towns so fortunate as not to possess a sufficiency of 
 suitable dungeons, temporary lock-ups were improvised. 
 Political prisoners were hindered from communicating with 
 each other by placing common gaol birds in the inter- 
 vening cells. Their places were sometimes taken by 
 gendarmes and spies, who, knowing the language of the 
 walls, acted as eavesdroj^pers, and even as agents provo- 
 cateurs. No means were spared to break the spirits of im- 
 penitent suspects and render their lives intolerable. They 
 could neither write nor receive letters, were forbidden to see 
 their friends, and deprived of pens, paper, and books, a dep- 
 rivation which to an intellectually active man is alone dire 
 torture. On the other hand, signs of yielding were warmly 
 encouraged, and on the pusillanimous who made depositions 
 
 ^ favors wore showered with lavish hands. 
 
 The cruelties inflicted on the obstinate — and most of the 
 prisoners were obstinate— gave rise to a frightful struggle, 
 the so-called strike by famine. Plaving no other means of 
 asserting their rights against their relentless oppressors, the 
 prisoners refused to e:it. In some instances they went wi^th- 
 out food seven, eight, and even ten days, until they were on 
 the verge of death, when the police, afraid of losing their 
 victims altogether, would promise concessions, such as the 
 privilege of reading and writing, taking their daily walk in 
 common, and the rest— promises, however, which were often 
 
 \ shamelessly broken. Olga Lioubatovich had to refuse food 
 
THE QUESTION?'. 99 
 
 for seyen consecutive days before she could obtain a needle , 
 and thread wherewith to vary the monotony of her life' 
 with some womanly work. There is not a prison in I 
 which the hunger-strikes have not taken place three or four 
 times. 
 
 But the method of examination is that into which the 
 most subtle refinements have been introduced. Beforetime 
 the resources of the inquisitors were limited to somewhat 
 remote threats — Siberian exile, hard labor in dismal mines, 
 solitary confinement, indefinite preliminary detention — 
 penalties severe enough, in all conscience, yet, as was 
 thought, not sufficiently striking in their effect on the im- 
 agination. Xow it is very different. The Tzar's procurator 
 can hold before the eyes of his prisoner the spectre of the 
 gallows. He tries to compel confessions by threats of death, 
 which are much more terrifying than threats of transportation 
 and penal servitude. The horror of capital punishment for 
 puerile offences lends peculiar efficacy to this method of 
 extortinar admissions. 
 
 *' You know that I can hang you,*' Strelnikoff was in the 
 habit of saying to his victims. " The military tribunal will 
 do whatever I direct." 
 
 The prisoner knew it only too well. 
 
 "Very well, then," would continue the public prosecutor, 
 "confess, or in a week you will be hanged like a dog." 
 
 Falsehood and perfidy were likewise resorted to without 
 scruple. 
 
 '' So you won't peach. Very well ; you are determined 
 to sacrifice yourself in order to save men who have admitted 
 their guilt and betrayed you into the bargain. Read this." 
 
 Whereupon the inquisitor would show the prisoner a 
 counterfeit deposition — counterfeit from beginning to one), 
 with bogus signatures and forged evidence — containing all 
 the things which Strelnikoff wanted the prisoner to 
 confess. 
 
100 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 He practised at times other and, if possible, still more 
 cruel devices. After letting a young husband catch a 
 glimpse of his wife, also a prisoner, pale, worn, and sick, he 
 would say — 
 
 *' You have only to cease your useless denials, and both of 
 you shall be set at liberty." 
 
 There were occasions on which this Torquemada of 
 despotism would blend cruelty, deception, and lying in a 
 cynical and ingenious combination. 
 
 " I do not want to harm you. I am a father myself. I 
 
 have a young daughter like you," he said to Miss P , in 
 
 Kieff, in 1881. " I am touched by your youth. Let me 
 save you from certain death." 
 
 The young girl still refused to confess. 
 
 On this Strelnikoff had her father led in, an old grey- 
 haired man, devotedly attached to his daughter, and 
 described to him in highly colored language the peril of her 
 position, and the terrible charges that hung over her head. 
 
 " She will die, die ignominiously in the flower of her 
 youth," he exclaimed. " Nothing but confession and sin- 
 cere repentance can save her. But I am powerless to move 
 her. You try. Beg of her, implore her — on your knees, if 
 necessary. " 
 
 And the poor old man, distracted with terror, sinks weep- 
 ing before his child, and beseeches her not to bring his grey 
 hairs with sorrow to the grave ; and the child, shutting her 
 eyes that she may not behold the terrible sight, tries to 
 flee. 
 
 Though tragical enough for the victims, this was a pure 
 comedy contrived by Sfcrelnikoff, who had not in his posses- 
 sion a shred of evidence against Miss P ; a stratagem 
 
 to draw from her damaging admissions. 
 
 A man who is not very clever, especially a young man, 
 may easily fall into one of these perfidiously laid traps, and 
 let a word or a detail more than he intended inadvertently 
 
THE QUESTION". 101 
 
 escape liim. So soon as the mistake is perceived, it becomes 
 a cause of burning remorse. It may be a mere bagatelle, a 
 nothing. But that matters not ; the overwrought imagina- 
 tion, with its monstrous exaggerations and fantastic appre- 
 hensions of possible consequences, makes everything tend to 
 the worst. The mind of the unhappy prisoner is haunted by 
 the fear that he has ruined his friends and betrayed his 
 cause. "We must read the autobiography of Khudiakoff, a 
 pure-minded aud honest man, who behaved with the great- 
 est firmness in the Karakosoii trial, if we would understand 
 the hell that such an apprehension as this may create for a 
 sensitive and conscientious nature. Nothing can compare 
 with suffering so horrible, self-torture so intense — suffering, 
 moreover, which, on account of the complete isolation of 
 the prisoner, may last for months. In the deadly loneliness 
 to which he is doomed there is no kindly soul to offer him 
 a word of consolation, no thoughtful friend to point out the 
 insignificance of the mistake which he has committed. 
 
 It may, without exaggeration, be affirmed that the rava- 
 ges wrought of late years among Russian political prisoners 
 are due even more to their infamous method of juridic pro- 
 cedure than to the cruel system of preventative detention, 
 the brutality of jailers, or the privations to which their vic- 
 tims are exposed. 
 
 Strelnikoff is the general type of the modern inquisitor, 
 albeit the type necessarily varies according to the predomi- 
 nance of one or other of the characteristics of which it is 
 composed. Paniutin, once aide-de-camp to Mouravieff the 
 hangman, afterwards the right hand of Todleben, hangman 
 of the Souths, is the type of the ferocious inquisitor. The 
 leading features of his methods were violence and brutality. 
 "I may have to hang five hundred and exile five thousand, 
 but I will purge the city." These were his very words. 
 
 The celebrated Soudeikin — who was so well known that I 
 need say no more about him — is the refined inquisitor of the 
 
102 EUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 Judas type, the type most prevalent at St. Petersburg, and 
 whom the highest dignitaries are not ashamed to take some- 
 times as their model. 
 
 For instance, the Dictator Loris MelikofE presented him- 
 self in person to prisoners condemned to death, the day after 
 trial, and under threat of confirming the sentence, and with 
 the rope almost literally in his hands, demanded names and 
 betrayals. Yet the General had in his possession commuta- 
 tions of their sentences signed by the Emperor. 
 
 I will not bewilder and shock my readers with further de- 
 scription of the different species of this family of reptiles. 
 I shall only observe in conclusion that the judicial code of 
 Kussia, repeating the codes of neighboring countries, runs 
 thus : "The object of preliminary detention is to prevent 
 the accused from evading examination and judgment." An- 
 other paragraph of the same code interdicts the use of 
 " threats, cajoleries, promises, and all other like means for 
 prevailing on the accused to give evidence." And it is fur- 
 ther laid down that in the event of the examining judge 
 having recourse to such means the depositions shall be null 
 and void. 
 
 This, as mil be seen, is the very antithesis of the practice 
 with regard to political prosecutions. Here the system of 
 the inquisition is in full force. The Government having 
 decided that avowals and revelations are necessary for its 
 own protection, stops at nothing to obtain them. In its 
 eagerness for useful information, it neither heeds the suffer- 
 ings of the innocent nor respects the laws itself has ordained. 
 The examination designed for the furtherance of justice has 
 become a system of moral torture and physical pain ; and 
 preventative detention an expedient for rendering it impos- 
 sible for suspected persons to escape these new substitutes 
 for the thumbscrew and the rack. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 POLITICAL TRIALS. 
 
 '•' But "we must nuish, my dear sir. We cannot let a pre- 
 liminary exaniination last ten years. It will become a scan- 
 dal. Foreign papers are beginning to make a noise about it. 
 The Emperor is dissatisfied. Do the best you can, but in 
 any case see that your requisition is ready at the latest in 
 two months." 
 
 These words were addressed by the minister to the public 
 procurator at an early stage of the revolutionary movement. 
 
 A little later a general — satrap of his district — spoke as 
 follows : 
 
 " The Court is quite furious about the last attempt of 
 these cursed Nihilists. We must let them see that we mean 
 to have an eye for an eye. Fudge a trial for two weeks hence. 
 We must strike the iron while it is hot. " 
 
 And the procurator, fired by ambition and a wish to be 
 well thought of in high quarters, did ^'get up " a trial. Tiie 
 merit of a public prosecutor, it may be well to explain, is 
 always estimated by the magnitude of his prosecutions and 
 the complexity of the plots which he discovers and exposes. 
 It seldom happens, however, that in cases of supposed con- 
 spiracy the procurator can obtain sufficient evidence to con- 
 vict justly those whom he suspects and has decided to arraign. 
 But that matters little. He treats conjectures as certainties, 
 suspicions as evidence, personal friendships as proofs of affil- 
 iation, visits of courtesy as proofs of complicity in the su))- 
 posed plot. In a word, the trial is "fudged up." It is 
 sometimes not unlike a game of cross purposes and crooked 
 
104 RUSSIA r2«DER THE TZARS. 
 
 answers. People who have never met in their lives before 
 are accused of belonging to the same secret society, the of- 
 fence of one person is attributed to another ; a man is charged 
 with instigating an act which he did his best to prevent. 
 But these are trifling errors, unworthy of serious attention. 
 The indictment was drawn at haphazard and by fits and 
 starts. The main point is that a sufficient number of -per- 
 sons, supposed to be implicated in the same diabolical con- 
 spiracy, havmg been got together they can be tried in com- 
 mon. 
 
 And the tribunal before which they are brought, what is 
 it, how does it work ? English readers of a judicial turn of 
 mind may be desirous of knowing how a court for the trial 
 of political offences is composed in Eussia. I will try to 
 satisfy them, but before doing so I must observe that it is 
 merely a question of curiosity, and that the subject possesses 
 no more than an academic interest. In a country like Eus- 
 sia, where the authorities can do absolutely what they please 
 ■with a man, after as well as before judgment, the way in 
 which trials are conducted becomes a matter of secondaiy 
 importance. If the history of Eussian political tribunals be 
 really worthy of attention, it is as showing the character of 
 the Government, as an illustration of its pusillanimity, of 
 its lack of confidence in its own functionaries, and, still more, 
 of the contemptuous disregard which, at the slightest awaken- 
 ing of its suspicious timidity, it displays for the miserable 
 thing that in Eussia bears the name of law. 
 
 The Nechaeff case (September, 1871), the first after the 
 promulgation of the new judicial regulations, was the only 
 one tried — not by a jury, that the Government could not 
 think of, but by the regular courts, before magistrates of 
 the Crown performing judicial functions under ordinary 
 conditions. It was, moreover, the only political trial as to 
 which the privileges allowed by the law of publicity were 
 not more restrained than is usual. The court-house was 
 
POLITICAL TRIALS. 105 
 
 open to the public as in other trials, and the papers were 
 permitted to publish reports of the proceedings, under tho 
 general conditions imposed by the censorship of the press. I 
 This unfortunate case was not of the class which appeals 
 to the sympathy either of society or of youth. The tribunal 
 did uot err on the side of leniency, but it acquitted those of ; 
 the accused against whom there was really no evidence, and ' 
 it treated them with too much consideration, allowed them 
 too much liberty in the conduct of their defence. Moreover 
 the president, in addressing, after the verdict, the prisoners 
 whose guilt had not been proven, reminded these reprobates 
 that, being acquitted, they were now in the same position as 
 all other honest citizens. Mr. Katkoff, albeit he was then far 
 from being all that he has since become, protested that this 
 was the prostitution of justice and the perversion of power. 
 The Minister of Justice, Count Pahlen, was beside himself 
 with rage, and a few months later (1872) appeared a " law " 
 withdrawing political cases from the jurisdiction of the or- 
 dinary tribunals and placing at the same time considerable 
 restrictions on reports of political trials. It was ordained 
 that political cases should henceforth be judged by special 
 tribunals, created for the purpose, under the designation 
 of Particular Senatorial Chambers. A number of senators, 
 named by the Emperor, ad hoc, formed the nucleus. That 
 the constitution of the new court might not be too bureau- 
 cratic, there were added to it so-called representatives of tho- 
 three orders — nobility, third estate, and peasants. These 
 representatives were chosen by the Government for each 
 trial from among the marshals of the nobility, the mayors 
 of towns, and the starschina (managers) of rural communes 
 througiiout the empire. On the first trial which took place 
 after the introduction of the new law, there sat with tho 
 three senators the marshal of the nobility of Tchernigoflf, tho 
 , mayor of Odessa, and the starschina of Gatschino. Thus, \ 
 in order to find three representatives to whom he could com- 
 5* 
 
106 RUSSIA UKDER THE TZAES. 
 
 mit this delicate charge, the lyux-eyed Minister was con- 
 strained to search the entire region between the Euxine and 
 the Baltic. The upshot showed that Count Pahlen had not 
 labored in vain. He made a choice which did credit to his 
 I discernment. The so-called representatives of the three 
 ' orders represented, in reality, nothing but the Minister's 
 wishes. Their docility was admirable. The representative 
 of. the peasantry distinguished himself by a zeal which 
 might be called excessive. When the witnesses had been 
 heard and the pleadings were finished, the six judges retired 
 to their consulting-room, Mr. Peters, the president, requested 
 this gentleman, as the junior member of the hierarchic order, 
 to say what sentence, in his oj)inion, should be passed on the 
 I delinquents. 
 
 In every instance the worthy man gave the same answer : 
 
 *' Hulks. Give them all the hulks." On this the presi- 
 dent suggested that, as the accused were not all equally 
 guilty, it would not be right to visit every one of them Avith 
 the same punishment. • 
 
 But the starschina of Gatschino was quite impervious to 
 such fine drawn distinctions. 
 
 " Give them all penal servitude, your Excellency," repeated 
 the improvised judge, ''all of them. Plave I not sworn to 
 decide impartially ? " * 
 
 The minister, it must be admitted, could not have made 
 a better choice. Even he, the exacting Count Pahlen, was 
 satisfied ; so much so, indeed, that he relegated the next 
 trial to the same representatives, except, I believe, to him 
 of the nobility, for whom somebody still more pliable was sub- 
 stituted. But it is an incontestable fact that the sta?'schina 
 of Gatschino and the mayor of Odessa retained their posi- 
 tions and continued to exercise their judicial functions for a 
 considerable time. 
 
 * This is authentic. 
 
POLITICAL TRIALS, 107 
 
 With a tribunal of tliis sort there could be neither 
 difficulty nor apprehension of difficulty. It not alone con- 
 formed to positive injunctions, but listened with bated breath 
 to the veriest whisper from above. All depended on the 
 Minister's good pleasure. When the reactionary current 
 was in full force the sentences were of an atrocious severity. 
 When it slackened somewhat, and the alarm at Court abated, 
 the tribunal became more indulgent. I can, however, recall 
 but one instance of the latter mood having any practical 
 result ; and even Mr. Peters and his worthy colleagues made, 
 to use an expressive colloquialism, "a bad shot." 
 
 The incident came to pass shortly after the return of 
 Alexander II. from the Turkish war. According to common 
 report his Majesty had seen so many proofs of devotion on 
 the part of young Nihilists, some of whom acted as nurses 
 in the hospitals, others, fresh from the medical schools, as 
 assistant surgeons, that he was deeply moved. He had, it 
 was said, completely changed his views concerning the 
 youthful enthusiasts who had been described to him by his 
 courtiers as monsters of iniquity. The judges were there- 
 fore all for indulgence. But it was precisely at this time 
 that the memorable trial of the 193 took place, and, antici- 
 pating, as they thought, their master's wishes, the disjjensers 
 of imperial justice gave him the opportunity of exercising 
 the prerogative of mercy in the way I have already men- 
 tioned. Unfortunately, however, an accident altogether 
 unforeseen marred the finely calculated scheme of the courtly 
 tribunal. On the very day after the declaration of the ver- 
 dict, Trepoff, who, during six months had remained un- 
 punished for his shameful treatment of Bogoliuboff, Avhom 
 he had flogged for not doffing his hat — met with his deserts. 
 Vera Zassoulich's pistol-shot not alone startled Europe, but 
 changed in an instant, and to an extent almost incompre- 
 hensible, all the Emperor's ideas about young Nihilism, and 
 converted his good intentions into bitterest anger. Instead 
 
108 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 of a gracious smile Pahlen received a terrible reprimand, 
 which he transmitted in due course to the dismayed senators, 
 and their recommendations to mercy, as the reader is aware, 
 were contemptuously disregarded. 
 
 On another occasion — the trial of the fifty (March, 1877) 
 — it was the Government itself that did not stand to their 
 guns. The sentences in this case were neither under nor 
 over the limit fixed by the law for the crime of propa- 
 gandism — from five to nine years' penal servitude. Among 
 the prisoners most hardly dealt with were several 5'oung 
 girls from eighteen to twenty years old, belonging to the 
 best families of Russia. For these ladies wide-spread sym- 
 pathy was felt, even among their enemies. Most of them 
 had studied science in Swiss universities, and they might 
 have had a brilliant career as physicians, but fired with revo- 
 lutionary ideas, they returned to their native country, there 
 to take part in the movement. But a seemingly insur- 
 mountable obstacle hindered the accomplishment of their 
 wishes — the deep distrust felt by the lately enfranchised people 
 for all who belonged, really or apparently, to the same class 
 as their former masters. Then in their burning enthusiasm 
 these young girls resolved to renounce all the refinements of 
 life and take upon their delicate shoulders the very same 
 burdens which were crushing women trained to hard work. 
 They became common mill hands, wrought fifteen hours a 
 day in Moscow cotton factories, endured cold, hunger, and 
 dirt, and submitted uncomplainingly to all the hardships of 
 a sordid lot, in order that they might preach the new gospel 
 as sisters and friends, not as superiors. 
 
 There was something profoundly touching, something 
 that recalled the times of primitive Christianity, in this 
 apostolate. The public present at the trial, among whom 
 were several high dignitaries and ladies of the court, were 
 deeply impressed, and the authorities deemed it expedient 
 to commute the ferocious sentences passed on these young 
 
POLITICAL TRIALS. 109 
 
 girls (whose worst offence "was reading a few Socialist pam- 
 phlets to their fellow-workers), to perpetual exile in Siberia. 
 This indulgence was not, however, extended to their com- 
 panions of the other sex. Danovitch, Dgebodari, Prince 
 Zizianov, Peter Alekseeff, whose offences were precisely the 
 same, were compelled to undergo penal servitude in all its 
 rigor and in its cruellest form. 
 
 Except in these two cases the tribunal and the Govern- 
 ment have had the courage of their convictions. Onuoj 
 other occasion have they shown ''the quality of mercy.'*' 
 Every act of propagandism is punished by penal servitude. 
 And this propagandism, it should be remembered, resembles 
 only very remotely that which is known by the same name in 
 other countries. It does not mean the vast and sustained activ- 
 ity of a German, a French, or an English political movement. 
 The conditions of Eussian life do not admit of open agita- 
 tion. The propaganda has to be conducted secretly in pri- ; 
 vate houses and informal meetings. In the great majority 
 of eases, moreover, the propagandist, unless he be a man of j 
 extraordinary ability, follows his arduous calling only a very 
 short time before he falls into the hands of the police. As 
 was proved at their trial, Dolgtshinzi printed but two pam- 
 phlets, and to neither of them were brought home more 
 than two or three cases of propagandism. The only act 
 proved against Gamoff was giving a couple of pamphlets to 
 two factory operatives, an act for which he was awarded the 
 terrible sentence of eight years' penal servitude. Those 
 convicted in the trial of the fifty were not more fortunate. ' 
 Sophia Bardina, though one of the most deeply implicated, 
 was found guilty of nothing more serious than reading, on 
 two or three occasions, revolutionary pamphlets to an audi- 
 ence of factory folks, yet for this trifling offence, the tribu-l 
 nal condemned her to nine years' penal servitude — after-; 
 wards commuted by special favor of the Tzar to lifelong 
 exile in Siberia. 
 
110 RUSSIA U2?DER THE TZAKS. 
 
 Prosecutions of single individuals, when there can be no 
 question of conspiracy or the organization of a secret society, 
 and the charge is therefore limited to simple propagandism, 
 almost alwajs result in sentences equally severe. In Sep- 
 tember, 1877, Marie Boutovskaia, accused of giving one 
 book to a workman, was awarded seven years' hard labor. 
 Malinovsky, a working man, convicted of propagandism, 
 was sentenced by the tribunal to ten years' penal servitude. 
 Diakoff and Siriakoif. who, though tried together, had no 
 accomplices, received the same jiunishment foralike offence. 
 
 Thus the utterance of a few words in favor of social or 
 political reform is visited with precisely the same punish- 
 ment — ten years' penal servitude — as that which the com- 
 paratively mild criminal code of Russia awards for premedi- 
 tated murder (unaccompanied by aggravating circumstances), 
 and for highway robbery with violence, provided violence 
 does not result in death. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 MILITARY TRIBUNALS. 
 
 Such was the way in which political trials were conducted 
 in Russia during the propagandist period, corresponding 
 with the first five or six years of the revolutionary move- 
 ment. 
 
 When the attacks on Government servants hcgan, which 
 marked the opening of the Terrorist period, tlie Government 
 promptly repealed the existing law and abolislicd that 
 strange Judicial machine, the famous Senatorial Chamber. 
 TThy this was done, why the worthy gentlemen who com- 
 posed the tribunal were deemed unworthy of confidence, it 
 is not easy to guess. It was so docile and obedient, so well 
 in hand, and its high-sounding designation, the character 
 imputed to it of "representing the three orders," were all 
 in its favor. People at a distance might easily take this 
 simulacrum of a court of justice for a genuine tribunal, and 
 deem it worthy of its pretentious title. It is true that after 
 the disappearance of the Senatorial Chamber the Govern- 
 ment was no longer satisfied with sentences of penal servi- 
 tude. Resolved to answer the red terror with the white, it 
 demanded the gallows, always the gallows. But wliy^not have 
 required this from Mr. Peters ? The spirited senator would 
 certainly not have refused, and the honest starschinav^ould 
 doubtless have cried, "Give the mall the rope," as he for- 
 merly cried, "Give them all penal servitude." And the 
 courtly and cultured Mr. Kovoselski, the mayor of Odessa, 
 would probably have answered that he was too well bred to 
 differ from his Excellency. If the highly improbable con- 
 
112 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 tiugency of these gentlemen professing scruples of conscience, 
 or showing some sense of humanity, had come to pass, the 
 Government could easily have replaced them with instru- 
 ments who would stop at nothing. It is really impossible 
 to suggest any plausible reason for the withdrawal of political 
 cases from the competence of tlie civil courts, unless it was 
 the hope that Nihilists would be terrified by the formidable 
 spectacle of courts-martial, a hope, however, which could 
 only have been realized if the Nihilists had reposed some 
 confidence in the previous tribunal. But the fact being 
 altogether the reverse, the conclusion was self-evident. 
 
 But the point is of little importance. Whatever may 
 have been the motives of the Government, the fact remains 
 that after August 9, 1878, a certain category of political 
 offenders, and after April 5, 1879 — when Russia was divided 
 into six satrajjies under military dictators — political offenders 
 of every sort were tried exclusively by officers of the army, 
 the only class in the country whom the authorities consid- 
 ered competent to exercise judicial functions.* The part of 
 Minister of Justice was taken by generals and other military 
 dignitaries in high command. 
 
 But he is no good captain who, having to operate against 
 an enemy, follows in the track of common routine. A good 
 captain possesses tlie faculty of adaptability; he knows how 
 to conform to local conditions and the varjing phases of a 
 campaign. Nothing is more natural than that our valiant 
 generals, transformed into satraps, and being called upon to 
 combat Nihilism, should act on the same principle of sound 
 military tactics. The present political jurisdiction lacks the 
 uniformity of the time of Pahlen, who, like a true German, 
 had a passion for method, regularity, and rule. The com- 
 position of the courts varies according to the taste, the 
 
 * Only two trials out of sixty-one — that of the tzaricides, on 13th 
 March, and of SolovicfE — were judged by the High Court, another 
 special tribunal. 
 
MILITARY TEIBU^'ALS. 113 
 
 caprice, and the ideas of the different generals by whom 
 they are ordered. The normal military tribunal is com- 
 posed of ot5icers of various grades, divided into two cate- 
 gories. The president and two acolytes are permanent mem- 
 bers of the court. The others are selected for each session 
 from among officers of the line. The governors-general 
 sometimes let the court remain unchanged. Sometimes 
 they xarj its personnel by replacing a portion of the mem- 
 bers with other officers named ad hoc. Prisoners are allowed 
 counsel, only the latter must be military officers who are 
 candidates for juridic functions, and officially subordinate 
 to the procurator as to their own chief. At Kieff prisoners 
 cannot be defended by civil advocates independent of the 
 administration — although the law permits it — and at St. 
 Petersburg, in the prosecution of the fourteen, permission 
 was given to the accused to retain regular counsel. Buttiie 
 latter were not allowed access to the depositions until two 
 hours before the trial ; and all the members of the court- 
 martial were named ad hoc by the Government. 
 
 On certain occasions, when a general desires to strike the 
 imaginations of friends and foes alike by some act of extra- 
 ordinary vigor, he goes straight, and with soldierlike prompt- 
 itude, to his point, equally regardless of legal subtleties and 
 judicial precedents. Thus Mlodezki, who attempted the 
 life of Loris Melikoff, was judged, condemned, and executed 
 on the same day. The tribunal hardly took the trouble to 
 ask a question. Kaltourin and Gelvakoff, who killed Gen- 
 eral Strelnikoff (of whom I have spoken in a former chap- 
 ter), a favorite of the Tzar, received the same measure. 
 Eoused at dead of night, the two men were taken to a private 
 house, where they found several officers, nominees of Gen- 
 eral Gourko. These, they were told, were their judges. 
 Fifteen minutes later Kaltourin and Gelvakoff heard their 
 doom, and on the following day both were hanged. 
 
 Yet, though differing somewhat in their form and their 
 
114 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 methods of procedure, these courts are alike in one essential 
 point — passive obedience to the orders of their superiors. 
 The old judges obeyed the Ministers as tcJiinoviiihs are in 
 duty bound to do ; the men render military obedience to 
 their commander, and the latter would be very much sur- 
 prised if they did not. It is an incontestable fact that the 
 sentences are prescribed beforehand. Hence they vary, not 
 according to the degree of a prisoner's guilt, but according 
 to the ideas of the governor-general of the province where 
 the trial takes place. We know, for instance, beyond doubt 
 that the sentences proposed to be passed on the accused in 
 the case of Drobiasgin, Maidanski, and others (December, 
 1870) did not exceed deportation to Siberia, and a term or 
 two of penal servitude. This, in ordinary circumstances, 
 would have been quite sufficient to satisfy even the exigences 
 of Kussian justice, for the most seriously compromised of 
 the prisoners had nothing worse against him than a doubt- 
 ful and problematic charge of complicity in an attempt (that 
 did not end fatally) on the life of a spy, and for which, at a 
 later period, the principal got fourteen years' penal servi- 
 tude.* But a few days before the trial Hartmann's attempt 
 took place (December 19, 1879). 
 
 Seized by a panic, the Government resolved to make a 
 salutary example. 
 
 General Todleben (or, probably, Pauiutin) gave orders 
 that sentence of death should be passed on the prisoners. 
 Seeing, however, that the crime laid to their charge was 
 neither capital nor very clearly proved, the execution of 
 tliese orders, if any show of legality whatever had to be 
 observed, was not very easy. But the tribunal was equal to 
 
 * Leo Deutch, secretly surrendered to Russia by the Grand Duchy of 
 Baden, on the condition that he should be tried as an ordinary criminal 
 by a civil tribunal. The promise was not kept, Deutch being tried by 
 court-martial, which, however, in consideration of the exceptional 
 circumstances of the case, did not pass on him an extra-legal sentence. 
 
MILITARY TRIBUNALS. 115 
 
 the occasion. In the expedient known as "accumulative 
 sentences," it found a way out of the dithculty. In its 
 judgment, which may be read in all tlie papers of the time, 
 there is set down opposite the name of each prisoner crimes, 
 any one of which would, in ordinary circumstances, have 
 been more than adequately punished by a few years' trans- 
 portation to Siberia. Then these sentences were added 
 together, and the sum of the whole was — death ! This 
 judgment, and the tribunal's expositions of its reasons for 
 passing the sentences in question, formed one of the most 
 curious episodes in the annals of Russian jurisprudence. 
 
 The case of Lisogub (August, 1879) is still more extra- 
 ordinary, for he neither belonged to the terrorist party nor 
 committed any overt act whatever, either as principal or 
 accomplice. He was a rich proprietor, whose worst offence 
 was aiding with money the revolutionary cause. Drigo, his 
 steward and confidant, betrayed him, and received as recom- 
 ]iense for his treason his benefactor's considerable property. 
 The Government, however, hoping to turn the informer's 
 services to further account, did not expose him. Drigo 
 neither appeared as a witness against Lisogub, nor was his 
 evidence mentioned in the indictment. The facts were 
 privately communicated to the judges before the trial by 
 Paniutin, who told them, at the same time, that Lisogub 
 must die. The order was obeyed, the capital sentence duly 
 passed, and on the 10th of August, 1879, Lisogub was hanged. 
 
 Some five years ago — to be exact, on February 23, 1880 — 
 there took place at Kieff, under the rule of General 
 Tchertkov, the trial of a young pupil of tlte gymnasium, 
 named Eosovski. While searching his room the police 
 found a proclamation of the Executive Committee. 
 
 " Does this belong to you ?" asked one of the searchers. 
 
 " Yes, it belongs to me." 
 
 "Who gave it to you ? " 
 
 '•That I cannot say. I am not a spy," was the answer. 
 
116 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 In ordinary times he would have been sent to Siberia by 
 administrative order (without trial); possibly, as he was a 
 minor (nineteen years old), he might have got off v,-ith a 
 term of exile in one of the northern provinces. But, on 
 the fifth of the same month, an attempt had been made to 
 
 1 How up the Winter Palace. General Tchertkov was in the 
 same truculent mood rs General Todieben. An example 
 was needed, and young Kosovski paid with his life the 
 penalty of other men's deeds. His sentence was death, 
 and he died on the scaffold (5th March, 1880). 
 
 At Kharkoff General Loris Melikoff showed every dispo- 
 sition to emulate the jDatriotic example of his colleagues. 
 Yet, although it rained political trials in other places, 
 hardly any had taken place in his government. From April 
 
 / 5, 1879, when the six satrapies were created, there had been 
 but one prosecution at Kharkoff, and even then the two 
 principal prisoners were not Nihilists. The case, however, 
 was a very remarkable one. Two ordinary escaped convicts, 
 got up as gendarmes, presented themselves at the Kharkoff 
 prison, provided with forged warrants in the name of the 
 general of gendarmes, Kovalinski, for the delivery to them 
 of a political prisoner called Fomin, who, as they pretended, 
 was wanted by the examining magistrate, their idea being, 
 of course, to effect his escape. All the papers were in order, 
 and General Kovalinski's signature was so well imitated, 
 that on the first blush he acknowledged it as being veritably 
 his own. But the attempt was foiled by the treachery of a 
 tcJiinovnih, from whom the conspirators had bought the 
 blank warrant forms, aud the counterfeit gendarmes fell 
 into the hands of the police. But the contrivers of the 
 enterprise were warned betimes, and got safely away. Only 
 one of the supposed accom]ilices was arrested— a student 
 named Efremoft', in whose room the plotters had met. He 
 had, however, no idea of what they were about, had never 
 been present at their meetings, and denied all knowledge of 
 
MILITARY TlilBUKALS. 117 
 
 their doings. Tliis was likely enough, nothing being more 
 common than for Russian students to place their rooms at 
 the disposal of a friend. It is, moreover, in the highest 
 degree probable that, in order not to expose their host to 
 danger, the conspirators would refrain from taking him into 
 their confidence. Before leaving his apartment they were 
 careful to burn the paper on which they had practised the 
 imitation of General Kovalinski's signature. But they 
 made a fatal omission. It did not occur to them to scatter 
 the charred remnants with the poker ; they were left in tlie 
 grate in a heap, and when the police came, and, after their 
 wont, examined everything, they were able to decipher, on a 
 piece of paper not completely carbonized, the general's 
 name. They showed it to Efremoff, Avho, suspecting 
 nothing, had the imprudence to read the name aloud at the | 
 very moment the fatal fragment fell asunder. This was the 
 sole proof of Efremoff's alleged culpability, and of his com- 
 plicity in the attempt to liberate Fumin. But a victim , 
 being needed, he was condemned to death, and Loris Meli- I 
 kofi confirmed the sentence. It was not, however, carried 
 into effect, for Efremoff sued for the pardon which all the t 
 others had hitherto disdainfully refused to demand, and, in 
 consideration of his submission, his sentence was commuted i 
 to twenty years' hard labor. 
 
 Tiiese examples abundantly prove that the military tribu- 
 nals charged with the trial of political prisoners are merely 
 judicial purveyors for the hangman ; their duty is strictly 
 limited to providing victims for the scaffold and the hulks. 
 The orders they receive they slavishly obey. Their function 
 is to put into the shape of articles and paragraphs of the 
 law the decrees of the administration, and give to tlicir pro- 
 ceedings the sanction of a seeming legality. In the case of 
 Kovalsky (August 2, 1878),* the first who was condemned 
 
 * Altliough Kovalsky's trial took place before the law of August Slh, 
 he was judged (by special order) by a court-martial. 
 
118 EUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 to death, tlie judges, deeply moved by the speech of the 
 advocate, Bardovski, had a moment's hesitation, asked each 
 other how they should act, and finally resolved to demand 
 further instruction from St. Petersburg. A dispatch was 
 sent accordingly, and, pending the arrival of the answer — 
 some three hours — the court reserved its decision. The an- 
 swer was a decided negative, the preceding order being 
 strictly confirmed. After this there could be no further 
 hesitation ; the death sentence was duly passed, and Kovalsky 
 duly shot. 
 
 Did not Strelnikoff boast that the tribunals would do 
 everything he desired ? Yet, until these later times, there 
 remained a sort of check which, though in nowise acting as 
 a restraint on the arbitrary proceedings of the Government, 
 imposed on its agents in ordinary cases a certain measure of 
 decorum. This was the publicity of trials ; not, however, 
 the publicity to which other European countries are accus- 
 tomed, for in Russian official methods there is nearly always 
 something equivocal, and concessions made with one hand 
 are generally more than half taken back with the other. In 
 order to prevent manifestations in favor of the prisoners, the 
 audiences were sorted with particular care. Only those pro- 
 vided with special tickets, signed by the president of the 
 tribunal, were allowed to be present at a trial. A certain 
 number were given to representatives of the press, and the 
 liberalism of the presiding judge was gauged by his gener- 
 osity in this regard. But without risking instant sui)pres- 
 sion, the papers might not publish their own report of the 
 proceedings, however guarded or insignificant it might be. 
 Tiiey had to wait until the official text, revised, purged, and 
 retouched by the Minister and the police, was placed at their 
 disposal. They could not print anything not contained there- 
 in, and the mutilated report had to be strictly followed.* 
 
 Access to the courts being allowed to representatives of 
 
 * This rule gave rise to a curious custom. The official Monitor, 
 having kept the press waiting an undue time for the details of a trial 
 
MILITARY TRIBUNALS. 119 
 
 the national press, it could not well be refused to correspond- 
 ents of foreign journals, who were always both more ini])or In- 
 nate and indiscreet than their Russian confreres. Their 
 telegrams, it is true, could be intercepted, and their letters 
 seized as they passed through the post-office — sometimes ; 
 for the writers had learnt the trick of sending them by ways 
 unknown to the police, and somehow or other the communi- 
 cations generally reached their destinations and appeared in 
 print. The efforts put forth by the Government to check 
 publicity at home and hinder the publication of unpleasant 
 facts abroad showed how much it fretted under these prac- 
 tically impotent restraints on their proceedings. 
 
 Since the trial of the tzaricides (Sophia Perovskaia, Geli- 
 aboff, and others), this last remaining check — if such it could 
 be considered — has been removed. All subsequent political 
 trials have been conducted with closed doors. Nobody un- 
 connected with the proceedings is permitted to be present. 
 To this rule no exception is allowed, even in favor of the 
 ichinovniks of the Tzar ; for albeit these gentlemen are not 
 likely to have revolutionary svmpathies, they might con- 
 ceivably hear something that would sap their loyalty or cor- 
 rupt their morals. At the last trial, that of the fourteen 
 (October, 1884), the interdict was extended to the nearest 
 kindred of the accused. The public on that occasion was 
 represented by the Minister of War and Marine and five 
 superior employes of superhuman fidelity. So well kept was 
 the secret, moreover, that, according to the correspondent of 
 
 in which the public took great interest, the ingenious idea occurred to a 
 paper — if I mistake not, the St. Petersburg Messenger — an idea after- 
 wards acted upon by all its contemporaries, of i)rinting, so to speak, 
 the outside of the trial. For several consecutive days it amused its 
 readers with graphic descriptions- of the demeanor of the prisoners, 
 their faces, the play of their features, the impression they made on the 
 public, and a mass of other insignificant dctiils, witliout letting fall a 
 single word about the thing essential, the indictment, tlie evidence, and 
 the pleadings, until the olTicial re[)ort, having undergone the ordeal of 
 the constabulary, was allowed to be published. 
 
120 EUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 the Times, the inhabitants of the neighboring houses had no 
 suspicion that a political trial was going on in the court- 
 house. 
 
 This, then, is our present position. 
 
 For political offences there is in Russia neither justice nor 
 mercy. There never has been. Ordinary breaches of the law 
 may be tried by a jury, but only once has the Eussian Gov- 
 ernment tried the experiment of appealing to the representa- 
 tives of the public conscience in the matter of political 
 offences. That was the case of Vere Zassoulitch. On this 
 occasion, as is well known, the authorities burnt their 
 fingers, and it is unlikely that the experiment will ever be 
 repeated. The courts have always been the organs of the 
 executive ; they differ only in form from the police, the gen- 
 darmery, and other branches of the administration. All are 
 organized on the same arbitrary principles. The judgment, 
 with its pomp and circumstance, is simply a dress parade, a 
 sort of homage paid by Russian despotism to modern civili- 
 zation. 
 
 And now the Government, out of mere hysterical nervous- 
 ness, has little by little stripped its tribunals of evciy attri- 
 bute which gave them the outward show of courts of justice. 
 The present tribunals are the police, the gendarmes, the ad- 
 ministration in all their nakedness. I do not say that this 
 is barbarous, or despotic, or infamous. It is simply stupid. 
 The Russian Government may be likened to a shopkeeper 
 who, after exposing in his window goods of seemingly fair 
 quality, gradually replaces them with articles whose rotten- 
 ness is visible to all beholders, the quality of which nobody 
 blessed with eyes and a nose can fail to detect. I ask pardon 
 for this imsavory comparison, but there is really no other 
 that fits in with the facts. The conduct of the Tzar's Gov- 
 ernment in this regard can only discredit it in the opinion 
 of Europe without making the least impression on its ene- 
 mies. For once it is decided to put a fowl in the pot, it 
 
MILITARY TRIBUNALS. 121 
 
 must be a matter of supreme indifference to the victim with 
 Avhat sauce it will be eaten. 
 
 So far as revolutionists are concerned, the question of 
 political jurisdiction is of the least possible moment, and 
 among Kussians generally, it excites little if any attention. 
 I have dealt with the subject because I am writing for 
 readers to whom it is naturally of great interest. In Euro- 
 pean countries where the courts of justice are the supreme 
 if not the sole power whereby, in the last instance, the re- 
 lations between the whole body of citizens represented by 
 the State and each individual citizen are regulated, tlie 
 right constitution of the tribunals and the full development 
 of every needful guarantee for the equity of their judgments 
 is a matter of the highest importance. In Russia, on the 
 other hand, where the police can set at naught the decision 
 of a judge, the constitution of the courts may interest you 
 as a political tribune, in that it affords you a means of ex- 
 pressing openly youi' ideas ; but in itself, as a true court of 
 justice — a body competent to pronounce on your fate — you 
 cannot discuss the subject seriously. What matters it 
 though you receive a light sentence, if on its expiration the 
 police gives you another far more severe ? What does it 
 profit you to be discharged '' without a stain on your charac- 
 ter" if the police arrest you in the very precincts of the 
 court, put you a second time in prison, and send you to 
 Siberia ! What, again, is the advantage of having your 
 sentence of twenty years' penal servitude commuted to one 
 of five, if the administration puts you in a dungeon so hor- 
 rible and noisome that, unless you are superhumanly robust, 
 you have not the remotest chance of outliving even the 
 shorter term ? 
 
 If we would learn how the Government treats its enemies, 
 it is not to the tribunals that we must address ourselves ; 
 we must know how they are dealt with after the verdict and 
 after the judgment. 
 6 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 AFTEE JUDGMENT. 
 
 Let us suppose that a prisoner is condemned to the hulks 
 for as many years as it may please the reader to give him — 
 for truly this is a point of slightest importance, a mere mat- 
 ter of detail. The sentence is read with all the circumstance 
 prescribed by the law, and the work of the court is done. 
 Yet it is precisely at this point, when his fate is seemingly 
 decided, that for the prisoner and those he loves arises the 
 burning question: What will the Government do with him ? 
 
 But how ! And the sentence ? Does Russian despotism 
 go the length of changing at once the punishment ordered 
 by the judges and inflicting penalties which they never con- 
 templated ? Not yet. For that there will be ample time 
 later on. Meanwhile, the sentence is respected. But in 
 Russia, as every one well knows, there are hulks and hulks, 
 gaols and gaols. It makes all the difference in the world 
 between being sent to Schliisselburg and a Central Prison, to 
 the ravelin of Troubetzkoi and the bagnios of Siberia. 
 
 Hence, all who take an interest in our prisoner's fate — his 
 kinsfolk and his friends — move heaven and earth to obtain 
 for him the unspeakable favor of being sent to Siberia. The 
 father and mother — above all, the mother, as being the most 
 likely to succeed in this momentous enterprise — are gen- 
 erally the first to make the attempt. If they are poor their 
 son's comrades subscribe among themselves a sufficient sum 
 to defray the parent's expenses to St. Petersburg. If, be- 
 sides being poor, they are ignorant and without friends in 
 bureaucratic spheres, they are instructed and advised — 
 
AFTER JUDGMENT. 123 
 
 directed to appeal to some functionary whose heart is be- 
 lieved to be not altogether hardened, and who may, per- 
 chance, listen to their praj-ers and use his influence on 
 behalf of their child. They are directed, too, to address 
 themselves to certain tender-hearted women who, beliind 
 the scenes, have great influence in high quarters which they 
 are often disposed to exercise in favor of an unfortunate 
 prisoner. 
 
 Next to a mother, a wife is the intercessor whose mission 
 of mercy is the most likely to be crowned with success. 
 When there is no wife — and political jmsoncrs being mostly 
 young, are generally unmarried— the part of intercessor is 
 taken by a sweetheart. Sweethearts are never wanting. If 
 a prisoner has neither father nor mother, neither sister nor 
 brother, nor one still dearer to visit him, to think of him, 
 and intercede for him, his friends at once jirovide him with 
 a fiancee. There are few young girls wlio, in such cir- 
 cumstances, would refuse to play the painful and dangerous 
 part of sweetheart — dangerous, because acceptance of the 
 position implies a degree of sympatliy with revolutionists 
 and their ideas which may bring upon them the undesired 
 attention of the police, with all its consequences. If the 
 prisoner be not too seriously compromised, the lower ad- 
 ministration, which in these cases is the arbiter, is good- 
 naturedly blind to the now common artifice, and grants the 
 improvised sweetheart the privilege of seeing her supposed 
 lover, lets her take him books and, perhaps, an occasional 
 bottle of wine. It is she also who, either alone or in com- 
 pany with the mother, undertakes the onerous and anxious 
 duty of soliciting a commutation of his sentence or his 
 transfer to more desirable quarters. 
 
 To attain this end every possible effort is made, every in- 
 fluence called into play. Mother, sister, wife, or sweetheart, 
 and friends, all set to work and beseech, importune, and 
 torment in turn procurator, police, and gendarmery, and 
 
124 EUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 every person in authority whom they are suffered to ap- 
 proach. Kefused in one quarter they try in another ; and 
 for days, perhaps for weclvs, alternate between the pleasures 
 of hope and the agonies of despair. At last they can breathe 
 a sigh of thankfulness and relief ; their object is accom- 
 plished, their prayer granted — it has been decided to send 
 the prisoner, on whose behalf so many efforts have been 
 made, to the bagnios of Siberia, to the land of cold and 
 misery, of brutal taskmasters and cruel punishments, of 
 hard labor in mines, where men's hands and feet are burnt 
 by the frozen fetters that bind them. And father and 
 mother, sweetheart and friends, are content withal ; they 
 congratulate each other on their success, and say that their 
 beloved prisoner was born under a lucky star ! 
 
 I shall have some observations to offer further on as to 
 the delights which await the Benjamins of fortune who are 
 sent to the frozen north. Let us, in the meantime, accom- 
 pany the unlucky ones who are consigned to one or other of 
 the two central prisons situate a short distance from Khar- 
 koff, in our beautiful South, in that Ukraine which has been 
 justly called the Russian Italy. The first of these prisons is 
 in the district of Borisoglebsk, the other in the district of 
 Novo-Belgorotl, near the village of Petchencghi. I shall 
 confine my remarks to the latter, for there exist authentic 
 documents which describe in full detail the manner of life 
 of its inmates. These documents are two invaluable me- 
 moirs, written by two prisoners who underwent, or saw with 
 their own eyes, all the things they have set down. One of 
 the memoirs deals with the time before 1878, the other takes 
 up the narrative at the point where it was abandoned by his 
 predecessor, and brings it down to 1880. Both are of un- 
 doubted authenticity. They were written secretly, day by 
 day, in the semi-darkness of the writers' cells, and smuggled 
 out of the prison by one of those underground ways which, 
 despite the vigilance of gaolers and i^olicemen, are always 
 
AFTER JUDGMENT. 125 
 
 to be found in the country of the Tzars. The first memoir, 
 entitled '' Buried Alive," and completed and sent away in 
 July, 1878, was forthwith printed in the clandestine print- 
 ing-office of the Zemlia e Volia. The second, which bore 
 the title of "Funeral Oration on Alexander IL," left the 
 gaol of Novo-Belgorod about the middle of 1880. It was 
 copied and re-copied and circulated in manuscript in every 
 important town of the empire, and a few mouths ago the 
 Messenger of the Xarodnaia Volia published the memoir in 
 extenso. 
 
 The Central Prison is a large group of buildings, hard by 
 the village of Petcheneghi, inclosed within a high wall, 
 which completely isolates them from the rest of the living 
 world. The uniformity of this wall is broken by a great 
 gateway, the only one which gives access to this dark abode 
 of sorrow and suffering. On a large board above the gate- 
 way are inscribed the words : " Central Prison of Novo- 
 Belgorod." In the middle of the inclosure, and about 
 fifty paces from the outward walls (to render escape by un- 
 dermining more difficult) rises a vast building — the central 
 body of the gaol. Turning the corner of this edifice the 
 curious visitor, or newly arrived prisoner, sees at the end of 
 the court, and over against its either angle, two single-storied 
 houses which, though large, are much smaller than the prin- 
 cipal building. Each has a gateway ; on the pediment of 
 one is carved the inscription, *' Right Cells ;"' and on that 
 of the other, "Left Cells." 
 
 These two houses are reserved for State prisoners. 
 
 Unlike the fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul, the inmates 
 of the Central Prison do not consist exclusively of political 
 convicts. It is a ]ienitentiary for the reception of common 
 law-breakers of the worst type — confirmed malefactors — 
 whom the Government does not send to Siberia for fear 
 they should escape. The whole of the great central build- 
 ing is occupied by convicts of this class, who form three- 
 
126 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 fourths of the Avhole. Only by comparing the lot and 
 treatment of these two categories of prisoners can the ten- 
 der care, the kind though tfulness of the Government for 
 political offenders be properly ai5i)reciated. 
 
 The common criminals live and work together; minds 
 and hands are alike occupied ; they have the solace of con- 
 genial society, and, beyond the loss of liberty, have little to 
 complain about. But their political confreres are doomed 
 to complete isolation. Each man lives a lonesome life in 
 his little cell. Even outside he is still solitary, for in order 
 that prisoners may see as little of each other as possible, 
 they are made to take their walks at different times and in 
 three different yards. Attempts to exchange words with 
 fellow-captives, casually encountered, are strictly forbidden 
 and severely punished. No exclamation may be uttered, 
 no voice raised in this tomb of the living. 
 
 Nevertheless, some half-dozen common malefactors are 
 confined in as many cells of the thirty which the two 
 houses contain. They are, of course, the greatest scoun- 
 drels of the entire collection — parricides under sentence of 
 hard labor for life,* professional brigands, and wretches who 
 have murdered whole families. Yet even these monsters of 
 crime are treated more humanely than the politicals. They 
 are free all the day long, are allowed to work in the society 
 of their companions, and only sliut up in their cells during 
 the night. They are neither tutored, watched, nor hindered 
 from communicating with their fellows, lleinous as are 
 their crimes, their yoke is easy and their burden light. 
 
 AVhen in July, 1878, the political prisoners of Novo-Bel- 
 gorod, reduced to the extremity of despair, adopted the ter- 
 rible expedient of refraining from food, and began tlie long- 
 est and bitterest " famine strike," recorded in the mournful 
 
 * Capital punishment for other than political ofTenccs has not pre- 
 vailed in Kussia for more than a century, being abolished by the Em- 
 press Elizabeth in 1753. 
 
AFTER JUDGMENT. 127 
 
 annals of Russian prisons, the nltimatum they presented to 
 the governor contained but these demands : — That they 
 might work together in the prison workshops, that they 
 might receive food from without, and be allowed to read 
 any books approved by the official censorship — not merely 
 such as the governor in his caprice thought lit to select. In 
 other words, they desired no more than to be placed on the 
 same footing as murderers, fire-raisers, and highway rob- 
 bers ; for the latter enjoyed all the privileges in question 
 except that of reading, which, as they were utterly illiterate, 
 they could not well have turned to account. 
 
 Yet the director of the prison, and the governor-general 
 of the province (Prince Krapotkin, cousin of Peter Krapot- 
 kin, the prisoner of Clairvaux), let them endure the pangs 
 of hunger for eight days (from the 3d to the 10th of July 
 inclusive) before acceding to these reasonable requests. It 
 was only when the strikers were so weak that they could 
 not rise from their beds, and every hour brought them 
 within measurable distance of death, that, to prevent a ca- 
 tastrophe which would have horrified all Russia, Krapotkin 
 yielded and promised that what they demanded should be 
 done. But this, in the issue, proved to be a deliberate lie— a 
 subterfuge to induce them to eat. The promise made to the 
 ear was broken to the hope ; the privileges granted to rob- 
 bers and murderers were still withheld from the prisoners of 
 state. They remained as before pariahs among outcasts. 
 
 And what, it may be asked, were the crimes of these men ? 
 Their guilt was surely great ; to deserve punishment so 
 severe, treatment so cruel, they must have been inveterate 
 offenders— Terrorists of the deepest dye. Not at all. In a 
 subsequent chapter I shall describe the lot of the Terrorists 
 who were not deemed sufficiently guilty to be dealt with by 
 the hangman. In the Central Prison were only propagand- 
 ists, peaceful workers of the early dawn, the flower of the 
 noBle generation of 18T0, the first that was bred and grew 
 
128 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 lip in a Russia free from the stain of slavery ; generation 
 which from the sorrowful past, pusillanimous and decrepit, 
 inherited but a great yearning and pity for a suffering peo- 
 ple, oppressed during centuries, and which brought to the 
 fatherland an amount of eager devotion, a beautiful ardor, 
 unmatched jDrobably in any other age or country. First 
 among these prisoners of liberty was Hypolitus Myshkin 
 (hero of the trial of the 193), a Government stenographist 
 and owner of a printing-office, which he devoted to the pro- 
 duction of revolutionary literature. When brought up for 
 trial Myshkin proved himself to be an orator of rare power. 
 The president was utterly confounded by his apt replies and 
 ready wit ; the vast audience, one half of whom were State 
 functionaries, hung spell- bound on his lips, transformed for 
 a moment by the magic of his eloquence into admirers and 
 friends. His speech (November 15, 1877) was an event. 
 On the day before, almost unknown, Myshkin, by this single 
 achievement, became famous throughout the land. His 
 name still lives. In the sanctuary of hundreds of solitary 
 students, and of many a young enthusiastic girl, the por- 
 trait most often seen beside the likeness of Sophia Perov- 
 skaia is that of the intrepid young orator, with his high and 
 noble forehead, his intellectual beauty, his large dark eyes, 
 and his defiant bearing. 
 
 In striking contrast with Myshkin was his companion-in- 
 arms Plotnikoff, a quiet, modest young fellow, once a stu- 
 dent. He had not distinguished himself by any striking 
 achievement ; his political life did not last, so to speak, 
 more than a week. Member of the Propagandist Society of 
 the Dolgoushinzi, of which I have already spoken, he got 
 into trouble througli giving a few pamphlets to some peas- 
 ants in the province of Moscow. But after his arrest his 
 high courage and martyr-like zeal won him a lofty place even 
 among the men of his circle, all of whom showed Russia a 
 splendid example of hardihood and resolution. 
 
AFTER JUDGMENT. / 129 
 
 " As for Plotnikoff," said the public prosecutor, iu tlic 
 bureaucratic language of his requisition, "albeit he has 
 acknowledged all the crimes laid to his charge, he has not 
 done so in any spirit of contrition, but out of pure perversity 
 of mind ; a perversity amounting to fanaticism, and exclud- 
 ing all hope of repentance." Better eulogy than this could 
 hardly be made on a man devoted to a great idea. 
 
 Plotnikoff's comrade and friend, Leon Dmokhovsky, the 
 oldest member of the Dolgoushiuzi circle, was a rich "land- 
 owner of the province of Kharkoff, a man of science with a 
 heart of gold. Everywhere— in the society of his young 
 companions as well as in the Central Prison and the hulks, 
 where they sent him to perish— this man was a faithful 
 friend, a wise counsellor, and, in case of need, a just arbiter 
 for all with whom he was brought into contact, and who 
 required his help. His offence was printing clandestinely, 
 with his o■\^^l hands, two socialist pamphlets — his sentence 
 eight years' penal servitude. 
 
 Then there were the two sons of Kaukaze Djebadori, and 
 their adopted brother, Zdanovitch, son of an exiled Polish 
 father and a Circassian mother ; all three revolutionary mis- 
 sionaries among the workmen of Moscow and St. Peters- 
 burg, and all three as full of fire and spirit as the warriors 
 of their noble country. They were sentenced to nine years' 
 hard labor. 
 
 Next on the roll of martyrs come Bocharoff and Cherni- 
 avsky, two young men, one of whom was condemned to ten 
 and the other to fifteen years' penal servitude for taking 
 part in tlie peaceful demonstration in Kazan Scjuarc. 
 
 Peter Alexeeff, another victim, was a peasant whose bold 
 sonorous words at his trial startled the judges, and resounded 
 in the hearts of his companions like a battle-call. Convicted 
 of spreading subversive ideas among his fellow-workmen, 
 Alexeeff was sentenced to ten years' penal servitude. 
 
 Donezky, Gerasimoff, AlexandrolT, Elezky, Papin, Mour- 
 6* 
 
130 EUSSIA UI^DER THE TZAES. 
 
 aysky — their shadows, too, pass before us in this abode of 
 gloom. All are there. All this intelligence, all this bound- 
 less love for the unfortunate, all their striving to raise the 
 lot of the lowly, all are buried in that granite tomb, doomed 
 to languish and decay. 
 
 But there are dwellers in that sinister prison-house whom 
 I have still to mention. I have said nothing of the director 
 and chief — its right arm and moving spirit — the man Griz- 
 elevski. He displayed his peculiar talents and gained his 
 reputation in Poland, where he was the colleague and col- 
 laborateur of Mouravieff, the hangman. He has shed the 
 blood of Poles ; he now sucks the blood of Eussians. It is 
 curious to note, by way of parenthesis, the strong predilec- 
 tion shown by the Government for the butchers of Poland. 
 Paniutin, Grizelevski, Kopnin (Grizelevski's destined suc- 
 cessor), and a crowd of gaolers in Siberia, won their spurs in 
 Poland. 
 
 Promoted by special favor of Prince Krapotkin to the 
 lucrative and honorable post of chief of the great prison of 
 Novo-Belgorod, Grizelevski has shown that he fully under- 
 stands what' is expected of him. By petty vexations without 
 number, contrived with no other end than to torment the 
 prisoners, and by a boundless brutality, he renders their lives 
 a perfect hell. 
 
 Proofs and instances of his tjrrannies are only too abundant. 
 
 One evening in February, 1878, Plotnikoff was walking 
 sadly to and fro in his little cell, reciting in a low voice some 
 verses of his favorite poet, when the door burst suddenly 
 open, and the director appeared on the threshold. 
 
 " How dare you recite verses !" he exclaimed with a furi- 
 ous gesture. '' Know you not that absolute silence must 
 reign here ? I will have you put in irons." 
 
 "I have already finished my probation term,* and accord- 
 
 * A preliminary period lasting several years, during which the prisoner 
 is treated with the gi'eatest severity. 
 
AFTER JUDGMENT. 131 
 
 ing to the law I can no longer be put in irons," answered 
 the prisoner, courteously, ''and the less so that I am ill : 
 you can ask the doctor." 
 
 " Ah ! you want to discuss," cried Cerberus ; " very well ! 
 I will teach you the law. Bring the irons at once." 
 
 The irons were brought, the young man seized, hustled 
 about, dragged to the office and manacled. 
 
 Another incident of the same kind (the victim in this in- 
 stance being Alexandroff) befell in the mouth of June, 
 1877. Towards nightfall the song of some peasants return- 
 ing from their work was heard in the distance. The song 
 found an echo in the aching heart of the prisoner. For a 
 moment he forgets himself and commits a dire offence — he 
 sings. Informed of this extraordinary fact, the all-powerful 
 master hurries in person to the scene of the crime. The 
 criminal has long been silent, and is lying on his bed — i. e., 
 on a piece of felt without covering or i)illow. He gets iip. 
 
 '' Who allowed you to sing ? Answer ! Ah, you forget 
 who and where you are ! Well, I will remind you." 
 
 Before the prisoner, taken aback by this unexpected ad- 
 dress, had time to answer a single word, the director gave 
 him a blow on the face, accompanying the cowardly deed 
 with a volley of oaths. 
 
 On another occasion Grizelevsky flew at Gerasimoff, for- 
 merly a student. 
 
 " What," he shouted, "you have dared to be rude to a 
 gaoler ?" 
 
 " I said nothing rude, sir," answered GerasimofT, quietly. 
 
 ** But you treated him as an equal, and he is your im- 
 mediate superior, whom you are bound to venerate and 
 respect. Do you hear ? Venerate and respect. You are 
 alwavs to remember that vou are not a man, but a convict, 
 that you are not free, but in gaol. You have no right to 
 expect being treated with deference. If a stick is set up 
 before you, and you are told to bow down to it, you must do 
 
132 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 SO without a word. Do not forget what I have told you, for 
 if another time you allow yourself to be impertinent to your 
 warder, I will skin you from head to foot with rods. Do 
 you understand ? From head to foot ! '*' 
 
 And for what offence had the poor prisoner incurred these 
 brutal threats and vile insults ? Because he, the convict, 
 had not yet learnt to treat his warder, a common illiterate 
 soldier, with sufficient veneration, and because in answer to 
 the lattcr's question, ** What do you want ? " answered, 
 '' Bring * me some water," instead of, "' Would you have the 
 goodness to bring me some water ? " 
 
 It might be supposed that walking being a pleasure and 
 not a duty, the prisoners would be free to walk or not as they 
 might think fit. But when the same Gerasimoff, being 
 rather late, and exasperated by the brutal calls of the gaoler, 
 refused to go out, the director, on being informed of this act 
 of insubordination, gave him the following paternal advice : 
 *' Why do you not obey the gaoler ? If you are shut up — 
 you must remain ; ordered to go out — you must go ; if told 
 to walk — you must walk. That is all you have to do, and 
 if you disobey, I'll have you flogged." 
 
 I will not tire my readers by multiplying these descrip- 
 tions. I will only beg them to stop one moment at this last 
 cell. The inmate is an old man, and if he were not without 
 beard and moustache and his head half shaven (as stupid 
 and barbarous a practice as that of mutilating the face), it 
 would be seen that his hair is grey. His hands are in gyve?, 
 he is dressed in a grey jacket, and sits near the table, ab- 
 sorbed in melancholy thought. And then from behind a 
 rough voice bids him " Good-day." lie rises, and slightly 
 bowing his head, answers " Good-day, sir." 
 
 * Speaking to him in the 2d per. sing. Tutoiement of prisoners by 
 gaolors is universal, but the prisoner must uever so address any of the 
 officials, not even common warders. 
 
AFTER JUDGMENT. 133 
 
 Could there be anything more polite and modest ? 
 And yet this quiet answer infuriates the foul-mouthed 
 director. 
 
 *' How dare you answer me thus, beast that you are ? " he 
 cries. *' Do you forget that I am your superior ? " 
 
 And this because, according to the military rule, soldiers 
 are not allowed to answer their superior officers as men do 
 among themselves. They have to say, *' I hope you are 
 well," adding the title of the officer. For this infraction of 
 the rules Elezki (it is he of whom I speak) was thrown into 
 the punishment cell. Has the English reader any idea 
 what punishment cells in the Central Prisons are like ? 
 They are cages at the back of the cabinets d'aisance, and so 
 dark and so narrow that they look, without exaggeration, 
 like coffins — coffins, moreover, that for a man of middle 
 height would be far too small. Prisoners cannot stand up- 
 right in them, and after a few days in this fetid hole even a 
 strong man is seized with giddiness, is unable to stand, and 
 seems to have passed through a serious illness. 
 
 Even when they are innocent of offence, Grizelevsky does 
 not leave his victims in peace. Either out of pure malice, 
 or without any motive whatever, he is always annoying and 
 tormenting them. One day, when he was visiting the cells, 
 he found on a prisoner's table a French exercise book he 
 himself had permitted the man to have. 
 
 " What !" he said with a cynical laugh, "you are learn- 
 ing French, are you ? To jirepare for a journey to Switzer- 
 land, I suppose ? " 
 
 And he took the book away with him, thus robbing the 
 wretched captive of a priceless solace, and depriving him of 
 an occupation which, by exercising his mind, helped him to 
 support the hea\'y burden of his solitude. If you had asked 
 the creature why he did this — why he so harshly withdrew 
 a favor which he had only just granted, he would have 
 been unable to answer you, except that he so acted because 
 
134 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 it pleased him. It was a sudden caprice ; he wanted to 
 show the prisoner his power. When he is in a particularly 
 bad humor, or things have gone wrong at home, he orders 
 the sick to be deprived of their beds (sick prisoners are 
 allowed a mattress, a counterpane, and a pillow), leaving 
 them only the felt rug, which is the normal sleeping accom- 
 modation of the political prisoners of Belgorod. 
 
 But, it may be urged, these are merely tyrannical eccen- 
 tricities of a brutal and ignorant soldier, demoralized by 
 despotic power and left without control. The superior 
 administrators cannot j^ossibly know of these doings ; if 
 they did, they would surely put a stop to them. 
 
 Let us go a step higher, then. 
 
 The person immediately above the director is the governor 
 of the province. For some slight infraction of the rules the 
 director ordered a political jmsoner, affected with consump- 
 tion, and who had finished his "probation time," to be put 
 in irons. Exasperated by this cruelty, several of his com- 
 panions had the audacity to inform the director that they 
 would complain to the governor of his brutal and unjust 
 conduct, giving all the facts, etc. The director could not 
 stop a letter to his superior, but he could punish the prison- 
 ers for writing it. So he deprived them of books, forbade 
 several to go out for exercise, and shortened the exercise 
 time for others. Finally, he had the sky-lights in the cell- 
 doors, used for purposes of ventilation, closed and nailed 
 down. When Seriakow, who was ill, said he could not 
 breathe, the director expressed the wish that he might 
 choke as quickly as possible. 
 
 But most interesting of all was the decision of the gov- 
 ernor. While admitting that the director had no right to 
 put a prisoner who had served his probation time in irons, 
 he nevertheless ordered him, together with all the other 
 prisoners who had signed the petition, to be manacled, on 
 the ground that they had insulted the director by their 
 
AFTER JUDGMENT. J 35 
 
 complaint ; and gave them each, further, from one to three 
 days in the black-hole ! 
 
 Let us go another step higher. 
 
 In the summer of 1877, the Minister of Justice visited 
 the prison of Belgorod in person. He entered the cell of Plot- 
 nikolf, who was almost dying, and who told hira, if the hor- 
 rible conditions of actual prison regime were not changed, 
 all the prisoners would ere long pass from this provisional 
 to an eternal tomb. On this, Count Pahlen, with the delib- 
 eration and German accent peculiar to him, pronounced 
 these ferocious words: "So much the better! Suffer I 
 You have done Russia much harm." 
 
 At this epoch, be it remembered, the Russian Socialists 
 had done nothing more than distribute Socialist pamphlets ! 
 For no Terrorist, properly speaking, was ever sent to the 
 Central Prison. The last group of political convicts for 
 which Xovo- Belgorod opened its doors, were the condemned 
 of the Kovalsky trial — Svitych, Vitashevsky, and two 
 others.* 
 
 With the setting in of the Terrorist period, the position 
 of the prisoners of Novo-Belgorod became more and more 
 intolerable. The Government looked on them as hostages, 
 and after every blow struck by the Terrorists, discharged on 
 their devoted heads all the vials of its impotent rage. 
 
 * To be quite exact, I should say that these men cannot fairly be 
 described as propagandists ; on the other hand, they were certainly not 
 Terrorists. Though more than the one, they were less than the other. 
 They came to the front during the short interval between tlie end ol 
 the propagandist and the beginning of the terrorist periods. Bcfoii 
 deciding to punish, by attacks on the agents of authority, deeds such 
 as those I have been describing, and preventing the infliction of further 
 cruelties on their friends, the revolutionary party resolved to take the 
 defensive, and resist the police whenever the latter sought to arrest 
 them. This was the time when defence of the domicile by force of 
 arms was proclaimed as a duty. The offence of Svitych and Vita- 
 shevsky was taking part in one of these acts of resistance. 
 
136 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 "You shall pay dearly for this," said, on each occasion, 
 the director. 
 
 When Mezenzoff was killed, all their books were taken 
 away ; when Krapotkin was killed, they were put in irons ; 
 and when somebody else was killed, all the prisoners' par- 
 ents were exiled from the province of Kharkoff, and forbid- 
 den to return to their homes. After the first attempt on 
 the Emperors life some of these unfortunates were even 
 sent to Siberia. 
 
 Another piece of petty torture by which the prisoners 
 were vicariously punished, was closing the ventilating ori- 
 fices in their cells. In the end nearly all were closed, and 
 they could hardly breathe. It seemed as if the director 
 wanted to suffocate them. 
 
 In short, the system adopted in the Central Prison is sub- 
 stantially the same as that practised in the House of Pre- 
 ventative Detention. The same isolation, the same denial 
 of opportunity for active exercise, the same deprivation of 
 useful work, mental and physical, followed by the same 
 results — loss of health, phthisis, scurvy, and general bodily 
 decay ; with this difference, that prisoners awaiting their 
 trial may cherish hopes of acquittal, and when brought 
 up for judgment can expose the hardships they have endured, 
 and stigmatize as they desire those by whom they were 
 inflicted. But the others have no such consolation ; hope 
 for them is no more; protest they cannot, and complaint 
 serves only to intensify their sufferings. Altogether at the 
 mercy of their gaolers, they are continually vexed with 
 brutalities and overwhelmed with insults. At the capital, 
 moreover, prisoners under preventative detention can commu- 
 nicate secretly with their friends outside, and are cheered by 
 the expectation of meeting their enemies face to face, as 
 warriors are cheered when they look forward to the day of 
 battle. The others have none of these advantages ; cut off 
 from human fellowship, and oppressed with the deadly 
 
AFTER JUDGMENT. 137 
 
 monotony of their sombre existence, infirm in health and 
 weakened in mind, they have nothing to look forward to but 
 a life of suffering and death before the expiration of their 
 sentence. 
 
 I have already called attention to the effects on the health 
 of prisoners of the system of solitary confinement, as prac- 
 tised in the House of Detention. At Xovo-Belgorod, where 
 the conditions are much less favorable, the consequences 
 are naturally far more deplorable. Phthisis and typhoid 
 fever are always among them. If a half or three-quarters of 
 them still survive, their survival is in no wise due to the care 
 or tenderness of their custodians, who have left nothing 
 undone to shorten their days, but to the fine climate and 
 salubrious air with which nature has blessed the Ukraine, 
 the laud of their captivity. Nevertheless, of the twenty 
 young men in the prime of life — their ages ranging from 
 twenty-three to thirty — six have gone to their long home 
 since their incarceration in the Central Prison some four 
 years ago. Five died within the prison walls ; the sixth 
 (Dmokhovsky) succumbed while being conveyed to the bag- 
 nios of Siberia. But the most terrible scourge endured by 
 the victims of solitary confinement, a scourge against which 
 favorable climatic conditions are of no avail, is insanity. At 
 the time when the second of our chroniclers completed his 
 memoir he says that in the right-hand cells, one of which he 
 occupied, there were five madmen among fourteen inmates 
 — more than a third. He gives their names — Plotnikoff, 
 Donezky, Botcharoff, Bogoluboff, and Sokolovsky. The 
 two first were melancholy mad ; the tliree others raving 
 lunatics, who filled the little cellular prison with fierce 
 bowlings and wild cries, heartrending sobs and maniac.il 
 laughter. Words cannot picture, the imagination is power- 
 less to conceive, the horror of life in that bedlam for those 
 who, though still of sound mind, are continually haunted 
 by the fear that their stricken comi)anions' fate will soon 
 
138 RUSSIA UXDER THE TZARS. 
 
 be theirs, and see ever before them the shadow of their 
 coming doom. All their efforts — and, as may be supposed, 
 they were urgent and persistent — to obtain the removal of 
 the unfortunates to an asylum were for a long time fruitless, 
 and never entirely succeeded. Botcharoff, one of the more 
 violent lunatics, remained months in his cell raving mad 
 before they took him away, and it was only after long impor- 
 tuning, both on the part of the doctor and the prisoners, 
 that the director allowed him to be transferred — but not to 
 an asylum, only to the neighboring central prison of Bori- 
 soglebsk, where he shortly afterwards died. As for Gamoff, 
 they took not the least trouble about him, and he died mad 
 in his cell. Plotuikoff, it is true, was removed to an asylum, 
 but only when his state had become so desperate that it was 
 evident he had not long to live, and he survived his re- 
 moval only a few weeks. 
 
 And this is not the worst. The way in which these poor 
 lunatics are treated by the ofl&cers of the prison is barbarous 
 beyond belief. An access of madness is punished as if it 
 were an act of wilful insubordination. They are kicked and 
 cuffed without mercy, and, when they persist in making a 
 noise, thrown violently down on the floor of their cells and 
 compelled to lie there. This within the hearing of the 
 other prisoners, who are rendered still more wretched by the 
 spectacle of so much suffering and cruelty, and the con- 
 sciousness of their inability either to prevent the one or 
 avenge the other. 
 
 The insane receive no indulgence in matters of discipline. 
 They are compelled to observe the same rules as the sane, 
 and undergo the same penalties for neglect or disobedience. 
 Bogoluboff, condemned, for the part he took in the demon- 
 stration in Kazan Place, to fifteen years' hard labor (the 
 same who was flogged by order of General Trepoff, and 
 avenged by the pistol of Vera Zassoulitch), had a fixed idea 
 that everybody about him was in a conspiracy to take his 
 
AFTER JUDGMENT. 139 
 
 life. Yet lie was compelled to be shaved just as the oth- 
 ers were. When the barber came to perform his ofliccs the 
 poor wretch screamed with terror aud resisted with the fury 
 of despair. But it was of no use. The warders throttled 
 and pinioned him, and he was shaved whether he would or 
 no. 
 
 When in April, 1879, a general, deputed by the new gov- 
 ernor of the province, made an official visit to the Central 
 Prison, asked the prisoners the stereotyped question, " Have 
 you anything to say to me — any request to make ? " one 
 of the Circassians, Prince Zizianoff, made this answer : 
 
 *' Yes, General. I ask a favor which you may easily grant. 
 I ask to be condemned to death. Living here — which means 
 slowly dying — is more than I can bear. I beseech you to 
 put me out of my misery. I beg of you to let me die." 
 
 This answer, which I translate literally, is a full summing 
 up, a complete picture. Comment were useless. 
 
 So we leave the Central Prison, with its horrors and suf- 
 ferings, its martyred prisoners and tyrant gaolers ; and I in- 
 vite the reader to accomijany me to another region and 
 other scenes. But I warn him to brace up his nerves, for 
 the tale I am about to unfold is still more terrible than that 
 to which he has just listened. 
 
CHAPTEK XIX. 
 
 THE TROUBETZKOI RAVELIK. 
 
 On the banks of the Neva, over against the Imperial 
 Palace, stands the Eussian Bastile — the Fortress of Peter 
 and Paul. An immense building, wide and flat, surmounted 
 by a meagre, tapering, attenuated spire like the end of a 
 gigantic syringe. As it is situate between the two quarters 
 of the town, the public may, during the day, pass through 
 the fortress, entering by a narrow defile of sombre and tor- 
 tuous vaults, occupied by sentinels, with the images of 
 saints, holding burning tapers, in the niches. But at sun- 
 set all is closed, and when night broods over the capital, and 
 thousands of lights illumine the quays of the swift-flowing 
 Neva, the fortress alone remains in darkness, like a huge 
 black maw ever open to swallow up all that is noblest and 
 best in the unhappy city and country which it curses with 
 its presence. No living sound comes to break the grim 
 silence that hangs over tliis place of desolation. And yet 
 the lugubrious edifice has a voice that vibrates far beyond 
 this vast tomb of unknown martyrs, buried by night in the 
 ditches, far beyond the oubliettes, where lie those whose 
 turn is to come next. Every quarter of an hour the prison 
 clock repeats a tedious irritating air, always the same — a 
 psalm in praise of the Tzar. 
 
 Here, indeed, is the altar of despotism. From its very 
 foundations tlie Fortress of Peter and Paul has been the 
 principal political prison of the empire. But there is a wide 
 difference in the character and position of the unfortunates 
 who have been its involuntary tenants. In past centuries 
 
THE TROUBETZKOI RATELIX. 141 
 
 the chief sojourners were court-conspirators on their way 
 to Siberia or the scaffold. One of the tirst was the unhappy 
 Prince Alexis, son of Peter the Great, presumptive heir to 
 the crown. They still show you the cell where the poor 
 wretch, after being put to the torture, was strangled by 
 his father's order. Then came generals, senators, princes, 
 and princesses ; among others the celebrated Tarakanora, 
 drowned during the floods that inundated the subterranean 
 cells of the fortress. Since the definitive establishment of 
 the present dynast}-, at the end of the last century, palace 
 conspiracies and coups d'etat have ceased. The fortress re- 
 mained empty till 1825, when it received the elite of the 
 Eussian nobility and army — the Decembrists, who had not 
 sought to overthrow one man in order to put themselves in 
 his place, but to destroy the principle of autocracy itself. 
 
 Two generations passed — and again the picture is changed. 
 Discontent with the present regime has deepened and spread 
 among all classes. It is no longer the army, but the flower 
 of the Russian people that is rising against desi)otism ; it is 
 no longer an isolated attack, but an implacable war, without 
 truce or intermission, between the Russian nation and its 
 Government. The fortress is crowded with prisoners. Dur- 
 ing the last twenty years hundreds have passed through it, 
 and are being followed by more hundreds, without pause or 
 let. 
 
 But until lately the fortress was a *' preventive" rather 
 than a penitentiary prison ; those accused of political crimes 
 were kept here pending their trial, after which they were 
 usually sent to the bagnios of Siberia. There has, neverthe- 
 less, been here at all times a certain number of prisoners — 
 and these the most wretched and rigorously guarded— sent 
 without any formality of trial, simply on a personal order 
 of the Tzar, and kept in prison for years together, often for 
 life. 
 
 In the ravelin of Alexis there is, or was in 1883, a mys- 
 
143 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 terious prisoner, a woman dying of consumption, of whom 
 no one — neither gaolers nor political prisoners — knows the 
 crime or eyen the name, and who in the prison registers is 
 merely designated by the number of the cell she occupies. 
 
 In the not very remote past, before the bureaucracy had 
 succeeded in destroying all individuality, even in the 
 despotism itself, the number of prisoners in the last-named 
 category was much greater than at present. The fortress, 
 Vfith. its flinty dungeons, was always ready to swallow up all 
 who might make themselves disagi*eeable to the master of the 
 hour. For Russia, being a Christian country, there were 
 scruples about adopting the rough Oriental expedient of 
 sewing up objectionable persons in canvas bags and casting 
 them into the sea. In the course of ages, and under a 
 despotic regime, this use of Peter and Paul naturally became 
 more frequent and regular, and its advantages better under- 
 stood. The point never lost sight of was the necessity of 
 seeing that those who were buried alive in its gloomy 
 recesses, depositaries of dark and shameful secrets, both of 
 the masters and their acolytes, should never have the chance 
 of revealing them to living soul. Hence the practice of 
 covering a man's identity with a number as with an iron 
 mask, and concealing his name, origin, and antecedents, a 
 practice, however, of ancient date. Those of our historians 
 who are allowed to search the archives of the secret police 
 often find orders for the incarceration and detention of per- 
 sons whose names the director of the fortress is forbidden, 
 at his \)Qn\, to demand, or to ask any questions concerning 
 them. The warders who took one of these men his food 
 went in fear, and hnstcned away as quickly as possible, lest 
 a chance word spoken by the mysterious prisoner might 
 bring him into the torture chamber of the suspicious secret 
 chancellery. 
 
 No wonder that there has always been an abundance of 
 strange stories and fantastic rumors about this awesome 
 
THE TROUBETZKOI RAVELIX. 143 
 
 prison-hoiTse, and that the popular imagination, taking liold 
 of them, has added legend to legend. One arose out of the 
 revolt of the Decembrists, which, as the people believed, 
 was favored by the Tzar's eldest brother, the Grand Duke 
 Constantine, heir-presumptive to the throne, and to whom 
 the country swore allegiance before it became known that 
 he had secretlv abdicated in favor of Nicolas. The rising 
 created the myth of the Grand Duke being shut up in tho 
 fortress, a gray, decrepit old man, with a long white beard 
 reaching to his knees, whose one thought and desire was to 
 redeem the peasants from slavery. Years after the real 
 Constantine, who led a savage and brutal life, had joined 
 his ancestors, the legend still lived in the popular imagina- 
 tion. 
 
 But the spirit of the age, and the crowds who now fill the 
 fortress, are not propitious for the creation of phantoms, 
 and myth and legend are evolved no more. The reality is 
 enough. On the other hand, the habits and ideas formed 
 during a century and a half have been transmitted from 
 one generation of gaolers to another, all animated by the 
 same spirit. In the oflScers of the fortress the Government 
 possesses an incomparable staff of warders, as well fitted for 
 their duties as the mutes of some Grand Siguier's seraglio. 
 
 The fortress differs from most other gaols, in that every- 
 thing about it — personnel, organization, and description — 
 are strictly military. There are no civil and salaried 
 warders, as in the Preventative and Central Prisons. All 
 the duties are performed by soldiers and gendarmes, over 
 whose heads is ever hanging the Damocles sword of the 
 military code. The charge over prisoners, whom it is 
 desired to keep strictly in solitary confinement, is confided 
 to gaolers carefully selected from among their fellows by a 
 system of supervision and mutual espionage. This is tho 
 more easily done as the fortress, like all similar con- 
 structions built on the design of Vauban, is divided into 
 
144 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 bastions, curtains, and ravelins, every one of -whicli forms a 
 totally distinct prison, with its own director and staff of 
 warders, who are never changed, live quite by themselves, 
 and seldom come in contact with any officers of the prison 
 not belonging to their own section. 
 
 The fortress, moreover, differs from other prisons in the 
 details of its organization, the strictness of its supervision, 
 and the severity of its discipline. Thus, whilst in most 
 other gaols it is considered sufficient to prevent prisoners 
 from communicating with each other, in the fortress they 
 are not allowed to communicate even with the warders. The 
 latter are forbidden to answer any question put to them by 
 a prisoner, however trivial or innocent it may be. A 
 friendly greeting, an observation on the weather, an inquiry 
 about the hour, it is all the same — no answer. In silence 
 they come to your wicket, in silence they hand in your 
 bread, in silence they depart. At the time fixed for the 
 daily walk they open in silence your cell door, and in silence 
 lead you to the yard set apart for exercise. Silently they 
 watch you take your " solitary constitutional," and when it 
 is finished, reconduct you to your cell without having once 
 opened their mouths. *' They," because there are always 
 two, the warders of the fortress being absolutely forbidden 
 to enter a prisoners cell, or even go near a prisoner, under 
 any pretext whatever, except in pairs. The advantages of 
 this regulation are self-evident ; it acts as a check, as well 
 on prisoners as on officers, and facilitates that system of 
 mutual espionage among the members of its staff which is 
 one of the most characteristic features of the Eussiau 
 Bastilc. 
 
 The vast size of the building and its peculiar construction 
 enable the Government to do here what they have vainly 
 attempted to do elsewhere — completely isolate the prisoners 
 among themselves. In the House of Preventative Detention 
 the numerous iron pipes which run through every part of 
 
THE TROUBETZKOI RAVELIN^. 145 
 
 the building, permit the inmates, even when separated by a 
 considerable interval, to exchange messages ; while in the 
 Central Prison the cells are so small and the walls so thin 
 that it is imi^ossible to prevent the prisoners from talking 
 by raps and, when they accidentally meet, by spoken words. 
 In the fortress it is altogether different. The walls of the 
 casements, laid in concrete and built of brick, are of a 
 thickness that renders audible rappings, and consequently 
 communications, almost impossible. To make them alto- 
 gether so it was at one time (1877-8) proposed to deaden the 
 sounds by coating the walls with felt. But as the adoption 
 of this expedient, besides being expensive, would have made 
 the cells drier and warmer, and the prisoners more comfort- 
 able, it was renounced in favor of a plan which possessed 
 neither of these drawbacks. Prisoners were put only in 
 every alternate cell, the intervening cells being either left 
 empty or occupied by gendarmes. This entailed some re- 
 duction in the number of their inmates ; but the fortress is 
 very large, and those who remained were better cloistered. 
 As to prisoners whom it was desired to isolate absolutely, 
 special arrangements, were made. 
 
 To give an idea how complete these arrangements are, 
 how well the great State prison of the Tzar keeps its secrets, 
 a single examjDle will suffice. Netchaef, surrendered by 
 Switzerland, and condemned as an ordinary law-breaker to 
 twenty years at the hulks, instead of being sent thither, was 
 sent to the fortress (1872), and so closely guarded and im- 
 mured that for seven years none of his friends knew what 
 had become of him ; albeit during this period incessant 
 inquiries were made by many who were interested in his 
 fate, and hundreds of prisoners entered and left the fortress. 
 Not until 1880 was the place of his reclusion discovered, 
 through the intermediation of Shiraeff, a prisoner in the 
 Alexis ravelin, who had secret relations with the outer 
 world, and to whom Netchaef, who was also confined in the 
 7 
 
146 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS 
 
 ravelin, had contrived to send a message by a friendly 
 gaoler. 
 
 As may be supposed, the treatment of prisoners incarce- 
 rated in this Russian Bastile does not err on the side of 
 leniency, nor did it become more humane during the last 
 Terrorist period, Vviiich was precisely the time when its dark 
 and lonesome cells received the greatest number of inmates. 
 If in the Central Prison, thousands of miles from the scene 
 of action, the propagandists were made to " pay clearly " for 
 every Terrorist attempt, it may be taken for granted that 
 those of them who were in bonds at St. Petersburg 
 would not fare better at the hands of their enemies. As a 
 matter of fact, they fared worse. They were the victims of 
 every sort of insult and violence, the commission of which 
 was regarded as proof of loyalty and ofiBcial zeal, and their 
 comjDlaints — if they had dared to make any — would either 
 have passed unheeded or been answered by an insulting 
 laugh or a cynical sneer. 
 
 But there is always a lowest depth, and in the place of 
 torment which the fortress in these later days has become, 
 a dungeon-house — human slaughter-house, rather — has re- 
 cently been contrived, the hoiTors of which surpass anything 
 that Englishmen can imagine. This is the Troubetzkoi 
 ravelin. It is not a preventative prison where suspected 
 people await judgment, but a penitential gaol where con- 
 victs condemned for life or very long terms are confined 
 and punished — a sort of bagnio to which are consigned those 
 for whom the bagnios of Siberia or the cells of the Central 
 Prisons are not considered sufficiently severe. Hither, 
 too, are sent the Terrorists, whom their great numbers 
 hindered from being hanged. Converted to its present 
 purpose towards the end of 1881, or about the beginning 
 of 1882, this dungeon within a dungeon has from the 
 first been placed under the most rigorous supervision, 
 and strict precautions taken to prevent knowledge of what 
 
 
THE TROUBETZKOI RAVELIN". 147 
 
 goes on in its dark interior from coining to light. Three 
 letters from prisoners have nevertheless passed the bar- 
 riers, and reached the hands for which they were destined. 
 They tell a tale which has thrilled educated Russia with 
 pity and indignation, and reveal horrors to match which in 
 Western Europe we must go back centuries. Two of these 
 letters were written in haste and very briefly ; they are little 
 more than heartrending cries of suffering and despair. The 
 third and most important is long and full of detail. It was 
 printed forthwith in the clandestine press of the Narodnaia 
 Volia under the title of, " Torture at the Bagnio of St. 
 Petersburg in 1883." Though he had contrived to get a 
 pen and some paper, the writer was compelled to write with 
 his own blood, v/hich (in the absence of a knife) he ob- 
 tained by biting his flesh. Tliis is a common device in Eus- 
 sian prisons, and we often receive letters written not alone 
 metaphorically, but literally, with their author's blood. It 
 was this blood-written letter that so deeply moved the let- 
 tered public of St. Petersburg, and from which some extracts 
 appeared m the columns of the Times in June, 1884. To 
 this very blood-written letter (which I have had in my 
 hands), supplemented by information given by the two other 
 letters, I am indebted for the following particulars. 
 
 Prisoners are generally transferred to the Troubetzkoi 
 ravelin a few weeks after their conviction. You are told one 
 fine morning, at a time perhaps when you are in daily ex- 
 pectation of being sent to Siberia, that you must change your 
 cell. You are ordered to don a regular convict suit, the 
 principal garment of which is a gray coat, ornamented with 
 a yellow ace. Preceded by one gendarme and follov/ed by 
 another, you are then led through a maze of passages, cor- 
 ridors and vaults, until a door, which seems to open into 
 the wall, is reached. Here your conductors stop, the door 
 is opened, and you are told to enter. For a minute or two 
 you can see nothing, so deep is the gloom. The coldness 
 
148 RUSSIA UNDEE THE TZARS. 
 
 of the place chills you to the bone ; and there is a damp 
 mouldy smell like that of a charnel house or an ill-Axnti- 
 lated cellar. The only light comes from a little dormer v.in- 
 dow, looking toward the counterscarp of the bastion. The 
 panes are dark gray, being overlaid with a thick covering of 
 dust, which seems to have lain there for ages. When your 
 eyes have become accustomed to the obscurity, you perceive 
 that you are the tenant of a cell a few paces wide and long. 
 In one corner is a bed of straw, with a woollen counterpane 
 — as thin as paper — nothing else. At the foot of the bed 
 stands a high wooden pail with a cover. This is the par- 
 ashha, which later on will poison you with foul stenches. 
 For the prisoners of the Troubetzkoi bastion are not allowed 
 to leave their cells for any purpose whatever, either night or 
 day (except for the regulation exercise), and the parashha 
 is often left unemptied for days together. You are thus 
 obliged to live, sleep, eat and drink in an atmosphere reek- 
 ing with corruption and fatal to health. In your other cell 
 you had a few requisites, generally considered indispensable 
 for all men above the level of savages, such as a comb, a 
 hair-brush, and a piece of soap. You were also allowed to have 
 a few books, and a little tea and sugar, obtained, of course, 
 at your own expense. Here you are denied even these poor 
 luxuries, for by the rules of the Troubetzkoi ravelin pris- 
 oners are forbidden the possession of any object whatever 
 not given to them by the administration, and as the admin- 
 istration gives neither tea nor sugar, neither bmsh nor 
 comb nor soap, you cannot have them. Worse still is the 
 deprivation of books. In no part of the fortress may books 
 be brought from without. Ordinary prisoners must content 
 themselves during all the years of their solitary confinement 
 with such as are contained in the prison library, a few hun- 
 dred volumes, consisting, for the most part, of magazines 
 dating from the first quarter of the century. But to the 
 doomed captive of the Troubetzkoi — doomed to a fate worse 
 
THE TKOUBETZKOI KAYELIN". 149 
 
 than death — are interdicted books of every sort. " They 
 may not read even the Bible," says the letter. Xo occupa- 
 tion, either mental or manual, beguiles the wretched monot- 
 ony of their lives. The least distraction, the most trifling 
 amusement, is as strictly forbidden to them as if it were an 
 attempt to rob their gaolers, who exact from their victims 
 all the suffering which it is in the power of the latter to 
 give. A prisoner, named Zoubkovski, having made some 
 cubes of bread crumbs wherewith to construct geometric 
 figures, they were taken from him by the gendarmes, 
 on the ground that a prison was not a place of amusement. 
 According to the regulations, the prisoners of the Trou- 
 betzkoi should have precisely the same amount of walking 
 exercise as any other prisoners of the fortress. In point of 
 fact, however, they are taken out only every forty-eight hours, 
 to breathe the fresh air for ten minutes — never longer — and 
 it sometimes happens to them to be left three and four con- 
 secutive days in the fetid atmosphere without break, as would 
 appear for no other cause but the neglect of the warders. 
 
 The rations allowed by the Government are quite insuf- 
 ficient, and of poor quality ; but, bad as they are, the pris- 
 oners do not get them, for the purveyors (who are also man- 
 agers of the prison), in order to economize on the official 
 allowance, buy the worst and cheapest food they can lay 
 their hands on — of course stealing the difference.* The 
 flour is always bad, the meat seldom fresh. In order to 
 make the bread weigh heavier, it is so insufficiently baked, 
 that even the crust is hardly eatable, and when the inside 
 of a loaf is thrown against the wall, it sticks there like 
 
 * In past times things were managed differently. The fortress, being 
 then an aristocratic prison, the prisoners had dinners of three courses, 
 with white bread and even wine, and the linen was clean and fine. 
 This went on, by routine, after the aristocratic prisoners were suc- 
 ceeded by the first Xihilists. But towards the latter end of the last 
 Tzar's reign the fortress was democratized, and placsd on the sanio 
 footing as all the other prisons. 
 
150 EUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 mortar. Here is the daily menu of a Troubetzkoi prisoner : 
 Three iDounds of black bread, quality as described ; in the 
 morning, a jug of yellowish water, supposed to be tea ; at 
 11 o'clock, half a jug of kvas ;* at noon, a plate of soup 
 made of bread crusts and sour cabbages, porridge of dam- 
 aged Indian meal, and — except a few bits of meat, never ex- 
 ceeding three-quarters of an ounce, mixed with the soup — 
 nothing more ; in the evening, another plate of sour soup, 
 much diluted with water and without the least trace of 
 meat. 
 
 The prison is no better warmed than the prisoners are fed, 
 a terrible hardship at sixty degrees of north latitude in the 
 winter time. The cells are always cold, the walls always 
 damp. AVhen the inspector makes his round he never takes 
 off his fur pelisse. The prisoners, who have no furs, shiver 
 even in their beds, and all through the long winter their 
 hands and feet feel like lumps of ice. Even in summer the 
 jorisoners are not in much better plight, for during the 
 warmer months St. Petersburg, built on a marsh, is more 
 unhealthy than at any other time. The unfavorable hygi- 
 enic conditions of the fortress, the dampness of the cells, 
 the lack of sunlight, the continual presence of the malodor- 
 ous parasitica, the bad and scanty food (worse in summer 
 than in winter), aggravate the misery of the prisoners and 
 fatally injure their health. The mortality among them is 
 frightful. The most robust are unable to resist the un- 
 wholesome influence to which they are exposed ; they wither 
 like flowers deprived of water and air. While their bodies 
 lose flesh, their faces become swollen and blotched, and the 
 extremities, especially the hands, are in a continual nervous 
 tremble. It might be supposed that the deprivation of 
 books and the gloom of their cells would tend to preserve 
 their eyesight. But it is the very reverse. Their eyes bc- 
 
 * The national drink ; a sort of soxu: cider, or rather, acidiilated 
 
THE TKOUBETZKOI RAVELIN. 151 
 
 come inflamed, the lids swell and are opened only with great 
 diHiciilty. But the maladies most fatal and frequent — 
 which cause the greatest mortality and entail the most cruel 
 suffering— are dysentery and scurvy, both caused solely by 
 the insufficient and unsuitable dietary of the prison. Yet 
 the sick are treated in exactly the same way as the whole ; 
 get the same food — same sodden black bread, same sham 
 tea, even the same sour soup, which in their condition is 
 nothing less than poison. No wonder that under such a 
 regimen and without proper care — without any care at all 
 — patients suffering from these disorders die quickly. They 
 lose the use of their legs, they cannot reach the parashka, 
 the warders refuse to change the straw of their wretched 
 beds, and they are left to perish and rot in their own cor- 
 ruption. But these are horrors that defy description — that 
 only the pen of a Dante could adequately portray. 
 
 *' Oh, if you could see our sick ! " exclaims the writer of 
 the blood- written letter. "A year ago they were young, 
 healthy, and robust. Now they are bowed and decrepit old 
 men, hardly able to walk. Several of them cannot rise 
 from their beds. Covered with vermin, and eaten up with 
 scurvy, they emit an odor like that of a corpse." 
 
 " But is there no doctor ?" it may be asked ; and ''"What 
 is he doing all this time ?" Yes, there is a doctor ; there 
 are even two doctors. One, however, is past fourscore and 
 past work. He comes to the fortress only occasionally. 
 The other is young, and probably kind enough in intention, 
 but not very resolute in character, and standing in great 
 awe of the officers of the gaol. When he visits his patients 
 he is invariably accompanied by a brace of gendarmes, lest 
 he should surreptitiously convey letters to prisoners. He 
 enters a cell with a troubled countenance, as if he were 
 afraid of something; never goes further than the threshold, 
 much less approaches the sick man's bed or makes any ex- 
 amination of him, feels bis puis? or looks at his tongiie. 
 
152 RUSSIA UKDER THE TZARS. 
 
 After asking a few questions he delivers his verdict, which 
 is almost always couched in the same words: 'Tor your ill- 
 ness there is no cure." 
 
 And what better can the poor man do — what else say ? 
 According to the regulations enforced in the Troubetzkoi 
 no indulgence can be shown to the sick ; they must have 
 the same food as the others — or none ; no extra service is 
 offered, no nurses are allowed them. The water is, more- 
 over, so bad that, if other conditions were favorable, this 
 cause alone would almost render recovery hopeless. 
 
 *' No mercy is shown even to the mad," says another of 
 the letters, " and you may imagine how many such there 
 are in our Grolgotha. They are not sent to any asylum, but 
 shut up in their cells and kept in order with whip and 
 scourge. Often you hear down below you, or at some little 
 distance, the sound of heart-rending shrieks, cries, and 
 groans. It is some wretched lunatic, who is being flogged 
 into obedience." 
 
 The following extracts from the Troubetzkoi regulations 
 fully confirm the prisoners' statements concerning the strin- 
 gency of the discipline imposed upon them, and the barba- 
 rous treatment to which they are exposed : 
 
 " Prisoners of the Troubetzkoi, as bagnio slaves, are placed under the 
 administration of the fortress. For slight offences the administration 
 may order a prisoner to be put from one to six days in a penal cell, on 
 a diet of bread and water, or sentence him to corporal punishment, the 
 said corporal punishment to consist of not more than 20 stripes of the 
 knout, or 100 strokes with a whip. In cases of serious offences 
 (attempted escape, or resistance to authority) the culprit is relegated to 
 the military tribunal, which may order the infliction of 100 stripes of the 
 knout, 100 strokes with a whip, and as many as 8,000 blows with a stick." 
 
 Thus the political prisoners of the Troubetzkoi ravelin, | 
 mostly men of culture and refinement, and belonging to the 
 higher grades of society, have ever before them the possi- 
 bility of being compelled to undergo coi-poral punishment in 
 
THE TROUBETZKOI RAVELIN. 153 
 
 its cruellest and most degrading form. " "We have every 
 reason to believe," says one of the letters in question, "that 
 the threat (of a flogging) is no empty one. Zlatopolsky was 
 flogged for carrying on a secret correspondence with the help 
 of a gendarme." 
 
 "Is it possible to remain quiet," exclaims the writer of 
 another letter, "while the menace of such an outrage hangs 
 continually over your head ; while every cry you hear 
 makes you feel as if one of your friends was being knouted 
 before your eyes ! " 
 
 Nor is this the worst. There are women in the Trou- 
 betzkoi. 
 
 " What is most frightful," continues the writer, " is the position of 
 the women, condemned like ourselves. Like us, they are at the mercy 
 of their gaoler's caprices. No consideration is shown their sex. Their 
 beds, like ours, are searched every day by men. The linen which they 
 have just taken off is examined, at all times, by gendarmes. Nor is 
 this alL Gendarmes may enter their cells day or night, just as they 
 please. It is true that a rule forbids one gendarme to enter the prison- 
 ers' cells save in the company of another gendarme. But who cares for 
 the infraction of such a rule ? The relations between the various 
 gaolers being of the most cordial nature, nothing is easier for them than 
 to come to an understanding among themselves. Cases of rape are there- 
 fore very possible. At any rate attempts of this sort are common enough. 
 Quite recently a young girl (one of the accused in the Odessa trial, 
 L. Terentieva), has died most mysteriously. It is reported that she 
 was poisoned by some venomous substance, administered by mistake in 
 her medicine. There was, however, a rumor that this unhappy young 
 girl, after being violated, was poisoned to prevent her from exposing 
 the crime. It is, at any rate, certain that her death was for a long time 
 kept secret from the superior police and gendarmeiy, that no inquiry 
 has been instituted, and that the doctors have retained their posts." 
 
 Such are the horrors of prison life in the Troubetzkoi 
 ravelin ! 
 
 Shut out from all, surrounded by cruel and insolent 
 gaolers, who never speak except, perchance, to answer- a 
 harmless question with a gross insult, the captives become 
 7* 
 
154 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 at last utterly cowed and moodily silent, living in their lone- 
 some dens without a thought, without a future, and without 
 a hope. If a prisoner can hold no secret communication 
 with his friends, he loses count of the days, then of the 
 ■weeks, then of the months. If he be sick and unable to 
 leave his cell for exercise, he even ceases to observe the 
 seasons ; for whatever may be the weather outside, his 
 dreary abode is always cold, gloomy, and damp, and his ex- 
 istence becomes a chaos which can end only in madness or 
 death. 
 
 And even yet all the terrors of the Troubetzkoi are not 
 told. . 
 
 Under the first floor, and below the level of the Neva, 
 are other cells far worse than those I have described — real 
 underground vaults, dark at noonday and infested with 
 loathsome vermin. They are the condemned cells, provided 
 by the Government for those it most hates, and whom it 
 has doomed to die either in lonesome darkness, or on the 
 scaffold and in the light of day. Let us see what the letter 
 has to say about this pandemonium : 
 
 "The small windows are on a level with the river, which overflows 
 them when the Neva rises. The thick iron bars of the grating, covered 
 with dirt, shut out most of the little light that else might filter through 
 these holes. If the rays of the sun never enter the cells of the upper 
 floor, it may easily be imagined what darkness reigns below. The 
 walls are mouldering, and dirty water continually drops from them. 
 But most terrible ai"e the rats. In the brick floors large liolcs have 
 been left open for the rats to pass through. I express myself thus in 
 tentionally. Nothing would be easier than to block up these holes, and 
 yet the reiterated demands of the prisoners have always been passed by 
 unnoticed, so that the rats enter by scores, try to climb upon the beds 
 and to bite the prisoners. It is in these hideous dungeons that the con- 
 demned to death spend their last hours. Kviatkovsky, Presniakoff, 
 Scukanoff, passed their last nights here. At the present moment, 
 among others, there is a woman, with a little child at her breast. Thi'^ 
 is Jakimova. Night and day she watches over her babe lest ho should 
 be devoured by the rats," 
 
THE TKOUBETZKOI RAVELIN. 155 
 
 ''But," I hear my readers exclaim, " can these things be ? 
 Is it possible that at the end of the nineteenth century, in a 
 great capital v,'hich wears at least the outward semblance 
 of civilization, deeds so monstrous and cruel can be per- 
 petrated ? These letters, written by men languishing in a 
 wearisome captivity, and dwelling continually on their suf- 
 ferings, are they not unconscious exaggerations ? " 
 
 I should be glad to think so. I have no desire to paint 
 with too dark a brush. But, as there is abundance of direct 
 and indirect evidence to show, the statements set down by 
 these necessarily nameless prisoners with their own blood 
 are unfortunately only too true.* 
 
 From October 25 to 30, 1880, there were tried at St. 
 Petersburg sixteen Terrorists, six of whom were condemned 
 to death and eight to hard labor for different terms. Two 
 of the fonner were executed and four reprieved. "When the 
 procurator, Aksharamoff, informed the four that the Em- 
 peror had been j^leased to commute their sentences to penal 
 servitude for life, his news was received with such unmis- 
 takable manifestations of disappointment and displeasure, 
 that he retired in confusion, observing that he could not, 
 unfortunately, change the decrees of the sovereign. And 
 the prophetic souls of the prisoners did not deceive them. 
 The greater part of these young and vigorous men (includ- 
 ing those who were sentenced to hard labor) either died or 
 went mad before they had been in the fortress two years. 
 Isaieff, Okladsky, Zuekerman, and Martynovsky arc mad, 
 Schiraeff is dead, Tichenoff is dying. 
 
 From facts like these only one inference is possible. 
 
 "What must be the system that produces so dire results ! 
 
 * It is well to remember that the extracts from the letter in question, 
 published in the Times, went the round of the European Press, and 
 that the Russian Government has never ventured either to dispute their 
 genuineness or disprove their statements. 
 
156 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 Even if the blood-written letters were not there to tell us, 
 Ave could have no doubt. 
 
 Another fact. On July 26, 1883, there amved at Moscow 
 a number of political convicts of both sexes deported to 
 Siberia, who had been imprisoned in the Fortress of St. 
 Peter and St. Paul; and the following is the description 
 given by an eye-witness— eminently trustworthy — of the 
 condition to which these prisoners,, whose crimes, it should 
 be borne in mind, despite their severe sentences, were not 
 deemed serious, had been brought by one year's detention 
 in the cells of the Troubetzkoi ravelin: 
 
 "The arrival of the St. Petersburg train caused great 
 commotion amongst the officials and others who were in the 
 station. Most of the prisoners could not alight without 
 help, some even were unable to move. The guard wanted 
 to transfer them straightway to our train, so as to conceal 
 their condition from the public. But this was quite im- 
 possible. Six of the prisoners fainted outright. The others 
 could hardly stand. On this the chief of the escort ordered 
 litters to be brought. But as the litters could not be got 
 into the carriages, the unconscious prisoners had to be lifted 
 out, like corpses, and carried on men's shoulders. 
 
 "The first man brought out was Ignat Voloshenko (sen- 
 tenced first to ten years' hard labor in the Osinski trial, 
 secondly, to fifteen years' hard labor for attempting to 
 escape from Irkoutsk, then transferred to Kara, and after- 
 wards to the fortress, where he had been kej^t one year). It 
 is difficult to describe the horrible appearance and condition 
 of this man. Eaten up with scurvy, he was more like a 
 putrefying corpse than a living being. Torn every moment 
 by convulsion — dying. . . . But it is useless. I am utterly 
 unable to speak of him more. 
 
 "After Voloshenko was lifted out Alexander Pribylev 
 (condemned in the trial of June 17, 1882, to fifteen years' 
 penal servitude). He had no scurvy, but long abstention 
 
THE TKOUBETZKOI RAVELIIS". 157 
 
 from food and complete derangement of the nervous system 
 had so reduced his strength that he could not stand and fre- 
 quently fainted. 
 
 "Next came Fomin (a former military officer sentenced 
 for life).* He looked like a corpse, and for nearly two 
 hours several doctors tried in vain to bring him round. It 
 was not until evening that he was sufficiently restored to 
 resume his journey. 
 
 ''Fomin's successor was Paul Orlov (first sentenced to ten 
 years at the hulks, subsequently to twenty-one years for try- 
 ing to escape, and put with Voloshenko in the fortress, 
 where he had been kept a year). Only twenty-seven years 
 of age and once remarkable for his stature and strength, he 
 was now hardly recognizable. He was bent like an old 
 man, and one of his feet was so crippled that he could 
 scarcely walk. He had scurvy in its most terrible shape, 
 blood was continually oozing from his gums and flowing 
 from his mouth. 
 
 ''The fifth was a woman, Tatiana Lebedeva,f whose sen- 
 tence of death (February 15, 1882) had been commuted to 
 penal servitude for life. But imprisonment for Tatiana, 
 whether long or short, had lost its terrors. Her days were 
 numbered, and the greatest boon her enemies could bestow 
 on her would be speedy death. Besides being in the last 
 stage of consumption and torn with a terrible cough, she 
 was so eaten up with scurvy that her teeth were nearly all 
 gone, and the flesh had fallen away, leaving her jawbones 
 quite bare. Her aspect was that of a skeleton, partly cov- 
 ered with parchment-like skin, the only sign of life being 
 her still bright black eyes. 
 
 "After Lebedeva came Yakimova, holding in her arms 
 
 * In 1883 he was at Geneva, a strong man, the very picture of health. 
 — S. S. 
 
 f Some twenty-eight years of age. She was of delicate constitution, 
 but before being arrested, in 1881, in excellent health. 
 
158 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 an eighteen months' old babe born in the Troubetzkoi rave- 
 lin. The most hard-hearted could not look at that poor 
 child unmoved. It seemed as if every moment would be its 
 last. As for Yakimova, she did not appear to have suffered 
 very much, either morally or physically, and, notwithstand- 
 ing the penal servitude for life which was before her, bore 
 herself with composure and firmness." 
 
 In view of facts like these it is impossible to delude our- 
 selves with the hope that the pictures of their lives, drawn 
 by the prisoners of the fortress in the letters I have cited, 
 are in the least overdrawn, even unconsciously. 
 
 ******* 
 
 If the regime of preventative detention and interrogation 
 is virtually a reproduction of the judicial tortures of the 
 Middle Ages, that of penitential imprisonment is an alto- 
 gether new and original system, begotten of the baseness 
 and cruelty of the Russian Government. Too craven to ex- 
 ecute men and women publicly and by the dozen, it kills by 
 inches— yet none the less surely — those of whom, either out 
 of policy or revenge, it desires to rid itself. Torture daily 
 repeated is the means, death not too long delayed the end. 
 Because, if solitary confinement at ISTovo-Belgorod be, as 
 the prisoner Zizianoff avers, and there is abundant evidence 
 to prove, sloio death, the same cannot certainly be said of 
 incarceration in the black holes of the Troubetzkoi. 
 
 It is a portentous fact that the system of punitive or peni- 
 tential imprisonment we have described has ceased to be an 
 exception. It is becoming generalized throughout the em- 
 pire, and the Russian Government are adopting it as part of 
 a settled policy in their dealings with political offenders. 
 Since 1878 no political convicts have been consigned to the 
 Central Prison, and the less seriously compromised alone are 
 now transported to Siberia. Among the Terrorists none 
 but those guilty of offences against State functionaries — 
 
THE TROUBETZKOI KAVELI]S". 159 
 
 and chiefly those of them who are women — arc sent to the 
 northern hulks ; yet not until, like Tatiana Lebedeva and 
 others, they have been brought to death's door by a term of 
 penitential imprisonment. And still there are exceptions, 
 for some, like Hesse Helfmann, Vera Figner, and Ludmila 
 Volkenstein, were kept in the fortress. Hesse died there. 
 
 As for the Terrorists implicated in plots against the Em- 
 peror (of whom the majority naturally consists), they were 
 consigned to the fortress one and all ; yet bow many of 
 them are ''finished," to use a Russian expression, or are in 
 the course of being finished, we have no means of knowing, 
 that being one of the secrets of the prison-house. 
 
 The Fortress of Peter and Paul is great. But there is a 
 limit to everything — even to the capacity of a Russian Bas- 
 tile — and to meet the ever-increasing demand for more ac- 
 commodation, the Government of Alexander III. has deemed 
 it desirable to provide another purgatory for its political 
 prisoners — the fortress of Schliisselburg. It is a second 
 Troubetzkoi — no worse — and surely nothing can be worse ! 
 W'liat still could the Government do more ? — roast its pris- 
 oners alive, or do with them as the Roman emperors were 
 sometimes wont to do with their enemies — throw them into 
 holes swarming with vipers ? 
 
 But Schliisselburg possesses in official eyes this priceless 
 advantage — there is no chance of its horrors being exposed 
 like those of the Troubetzkoi. Because Schliisselburg is 
 not in the middle of a great city, where there are thousands 
 of sympathizers eager to communicate with the prisoners, 
 and who, despite all the vigilance of the authorities, some- 
 times succeed in doing so. At Schliisselburg nature herself 
 acts as sentinel, for the new Castle of Despair is simply a 
 huge block of granite covered with fortifications and sur- 
 rounded by water. No news can be received, no secrets torn 
 from that accursed prison. All who enter therein must 
 abandon hope. From St. Peter and St. Paul volumes of 
 
160 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZAKS. 
 
 clandestine letters have been received. The ravelins most 
 jealously guarded — even the Alexis and the Troubetzkoi — 
 have yielded their secrets to energy and perseverance. But 
 from the prisoners in the Schliisselburg — though they have 
 been there for years — not a word, not a line ; only vague 
 rumors. Yet it is thither that were sent the noble heroes of 
 the latest trials — Lieutenant-Colonel Ashcnbrenner, Captain 
 Pokitonoff, and Lieutenant Tichonovitch. In Schliissel- 
 burg, too, they have shut up fourteen propagandists, lately 
 returned from Siberian hulks. 
 
 Here, also, let me add, there has been immured for two 
 years a man whose name I will not mention — the friend of 
 my boyhood, my fellow- worker in the struggle. On the eve 
 of his removal to the Schliisselburg he sent to us from the 
 depths of the Troubetzkoi ravelin this sublime farewell : 
 "Fight on until the victory is won. For me henceforth 
 there is but one measure ; the more they torment me in my 
 prison the better is it with the struggle." 
 
 By what ferocious language, by what fresh tortures has 
 he learnt the subsequent successes of his friends ? Does he 
 still continue to hear of them ? Or is he, perhaps, with so 
 many others, where there is no more to be suffered, no more 
 to be learnt ? 
 
 I 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 SIBERIA. 
 
 Siberia ! The word sends a thrill of cold through our 
 very bones, and when we think of the unfortunate exiles lost 
 in icy wastes and condemned to life-long servitude in chains, 
 our hearts are moved to pity and compassion. Yet, as we 
 have seen, this word of horror is to some people suggestive 
 of consolation and hope. To them it is a promised land, a 
 place of security and rest. We know, too, that thither are 
 sent men and women who, though reduced to the last ex- 
 tremity, their gaolers do not as yet want quite ''to fiuish." 
 
 "What, then, is this paradise of the lost, this enigmatical 
 Siberian place of punishment, converted by a strange evolu- 
 tion into a Nihilist Kurort — a revolutionary sanatorium — 
 as in a legend of the Plutonic realm its liquid fire is said to 
 be turned into a cool and refreshing drink ? 
 
 Let us, taking the wings of imagination, cross the Uralian 
 mountains, and flying far, far from the confines of Europe, 
 descend in the region of Zabaikalia, beyond Lake Baikal, on 
 the banks of the river Kara, see for ourselves what manner 
 of life these Siberian transports lead. 
 
 But if we travel like ordinary mortals — and political con- 
 victs — we must, after leaving Irkoutsk by the Zabaikalia 
 road, pass through Chita and Xertchinsk, celebrated for 
 their " penitential mines," to Detensk. Here you take one 
 of the Amour Navigation Company's steamers and journey 
 by one of that river's aifiuents (the Shilke) to the little 
 village of Oust-Kara, at the mouth of the river Kara, where 
 
162 RUSSIA UNDEE THE TZAES. 
 
 there are several bouses of detention for ordinary criminals 
 and one for i)olitical convicts of the weaker sex. These 
 prisons are detached buildings, standing on the river's bank, 
 at intervals of from five to eight miles. All these prisons 
 are under the general direction of a single chief ; but the 
 political prison, which consists of four buildings, bas its own 
 special organization and management. Twelve miles from 
 Oust-Kara, and up stream, is the Lower Kara prison. 
 Next comes that of Higher Kara ; and, about the same dis- 
 tance further on, the Amour — that is to say, the prison on 
 the river Amour. 
 
 A political prison is recognized by a characteristic pecul- 
 iarity. Other places of the sort — those destined for ordinary 
 convicts — have outer walls or palisades on three sides only, 
 the fourth being unenclosed, with the front windows facing 
 the road. Political j^risous are arranged diHercntly. Built 
 in the middle of a court, they are surrounded on every side 
 by walls so high that you can see only the roof. When the 
 erection of thase prisons was first proposed the architect 
 designed them on the ordinary plan of similar structures in 
 Siberia. But General Anutchin, at that time governor of 
 Eastern Siberia, issued a special order that all gaols for political 
 offenders were to be enclosed within lofty palisades in such a 
 manner that the horizon of the inmates should be bounded 
 by the wooden walls of their dreary abode. He thought 
 this quite good enough for political prisoners. 
 
 The political prisons of Kara were organized at the same 
 time as the Central Prison of Kharkoff. Their first tenants 
 wore Biberhn,!, Scmenovsky, and others, of the first prop- 
 agandists of 1872 and 1873. iN'ext were sent thither the 
 least compromised convicts of the trial of the 193 — Sinegoub, 
 Tcharushin, and others. 
 
 From 1879 onwards prisoners arrived in crowds. In 1882 
 came the twenty-eight "centralists" (Kharkoff prisoners) 
 liberated by Loris Melikoff from their worse than Babylo- 
 
SIBERIA. 163 
 
 nian servitude. In May of that year there were at Kara 
 more than a hundred political prisoners, not counting 
 women. 
 
 At the beginning of their confinement the Kara prisoners 
 were treated precisely in the same way as other convicts are 
 treated in Siberian lock-ups. The only exception was that, 
 whereas ordinary criminals were allowed to walk freely in 
 the yard during the day, the others were locked up in their 
 rooms day as well as night — save, of course, when they were 
 at work in the mines. These mines are the Emperor's per- 
 sonal property, and the prisoners are employed in removing 
 the earth which overlays the auriferous sand. At Kara, as in 
 Siberia generally, there exists a regulation very favorable 
 to convicts under sentence of penal servitude. After having 
 passed a third of their time in prison " under probation,'* 
 they are allowed to join a "free gang," which gives them 
 the privilege of living outside the prison walls, in towns and 
 villages — always on condition that they remain there. At 
 first, political prisoners enjoyed this privilege equally with 
 other prisoners. Sinegoub, Tcharushin, Semenovsky, and 
 others were provisionally set free in this way. It is a 
 matter of everyday occurrence for ordinary convicts to profit 
 by their comparative freedom to try to escape and join the 
 great horde of vagabonds who throng Siberian roads. But 
 it never occurred to the administration to curtail, on this 
 account, the privileges of those who remained, or make 
 them jointly and severally responsible for the conduct of 
 their comrades. As touching the politicals, however, 
 extreme precautions were adopted. The ''free gangs" of 
 "politicals" were told that at the first attempt on the part 
 ofauy of their number to escape, the "free gang" system, 
 so far as they were concerned, would be abolished. The 
 administration, on the other hand, undertook that, so long 
 as the political prisoners faithfully observed tlie regula- 
 tions, this and all the other privileges should be respected. 
 
164 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 Though the prisoners, on their part, entered into no formal 
 engagement to comply with these conditions, they did in 
 effect faithfully observe them. Not once during the preva- 
 lence of the "free gang" system did there occur any 
 disorder or any attempt to escape. Nevertheless the adminis- 
 tration broke its word and withdrew the privileges. 
 
 This breach of faith was instigated by Loris Melikoff. 
 At the very time the dictator was pretending to better the 
 lot of political prisoners, posing as a man of exceptional 
 benevolence and humanity, and, with a great flourish of 
 trumpets, transferring people from the Central Prisons of 
 Kharkoff and Mzeusk to Kara, a peremptory order was 
 issued withdrawing, as regarded political convicts, the 
 *•' free gang" system, and remitting to gaol those who had 
 been provisionally liberated. A strict interdict was laid on 
 all correspondence between themselves and their kindred 
 and friends. 
 
 The men who had only just been set at liberty, and were 
 looking forward to permanent, if somewhat restricted free- 
 dom, had therefore to return to prison. This was very 
 hard on the poor fellows, yet keenly as they felt the wrong 
 they were compelled to resign themselves to their fate. 
 The evening before they separated and went back to their 
 cells they had a last supper. The meeting was sad, and 
 their hearts, as may be supposed, were very heavy. For one 
 member of the company it was indeed a last supper, and ended 
 in a terrible tragedy. Scmenovsky, maddened by despair, 
 blew out his brains. In ill health, nervous, and with spirits 
 broken by long confinement, tlie idea of returning to prison 
 was intolerable to him. He preferred death. A man of 
 high principle and wide culture, once an advocate in St. 
 Petersburg, Semenovsky was sentenced on October 20, 187G, 
 to a long term of penal servitude for simple propagandism. 
 The administrator telegraphed the news of his tragic death 
 to St. Petersburg. But it had no effect on the Government. 
 
SIBERIA. 165 
 
 SemenoTsky was buried, and his companions were again put 
 in prison. 
 
 Nor was this all. They were not only remitted to con- 
 finement, but annoyed and teased past bearing, and 
 harassed with all sorts of petty yexations. New restrictions 
 were placed on the visits of the devoted wives who had fol- 
 lowed their husbands to this far-away and dreary land. It 
 was made more difficult for the sick to obtain admission to 
 the hospital. But the greatest grievance of all was denying 
 tbem the solace of labor. They were forbidden to work in 
 the mines. In the spring of 1882 this privilege, for as such 
 they esteemed it, was denied to them, a measure which 
 greatly aggravated the hardship of their lot. The hardest 
 labor — even tlie toil of the mines — was a lighter punish- 
 ment than the sedentary and solitary monotony of life 
 within the four walls of their prison house. Muscular 
 exercise, besides doing them good physicalh% made time 
 pass less slowly and more pleasantly. But all the efforts 
 of the prisoners, and they were many, to obtain the hard 
 work to which they were condemned proved abortive. It 
 seemed as if the administration was resolved to let them 
 perish slowly for want of air and exercise, like their friends 
 in the central prisons. If we consider that most of these 
 men were sentenced to very long terms — twenty, thirty, 
 and even thirty-five years — it is easy to understand how 
 ardently they must have longed for freedom, how eager they 
 were to escape. No wonder that attempts to get away 
 became thenceforth more frequent than before. How these 
 attempts were dealt with by the authorities the following 
 chapter will show. 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 MUTUAL KESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 During the first May night of the year 1882 the sentinels 
 of the political prison of Lower Kara noticed a man attempt- 
 ing to escape by the workshop window opening on the fields. 
 Twice they fired on him, and twice they missed aim. An 
 alarm was sonnded, the prisoners were immediately mustered, 
 and it was found that eight of them, among whom was 
 Myshkin, had escaped. When informed by telegraph of 
 what had come to pass, the Minister of the Interior was so 
 angry that the governor of Zabaikalia, General Iliashevitch 
 himself, feared that he should be dismissed for not exercis- 
 ing due vigilance, the more so as about ten days before he 
 had inspected the prison together with the Senator Galkin- 
 Vrasski, and reported everything to be in perfect order. 
 Fearing for their places, the local administration resolved to 
 provoke a riot among the prisoners in order to redeem their 
 characters by its sui^i^ression, and to atone for the neglect 
 that had caused the escape — which could then be explained 
 by saying the rules were too lax, and that for prisoners so 
 intractable ordinary supervision was not sufficiently severe. 
 
 On the 4th of May the prisoners were ordered, without 
 further exjolanation, to shave their heads. They re])lied 
 that, according to the rnles they were allowed to wear their 
 hair, and the rules being drawn up by the Minister of the 
 Interior, he only, and not the director, had a right to change 
 them. 
 
 On the Gth of the same month the political prisoners were 
 officially informed that they would not be roughly dealt with, 
 that all would go on as heretofore, and that they might 
 
MUTUAL EESPOJ^^SIBILITY. 167 
 
 make tliomselves easy. Five days passed in tliis way, and 
 the prisoners were beginning to forget tlio incident. But 
 they were reckoning without their host. The 11th of 
 May was fixed for the riot and its suppression. About three 
 in the morning six hundred Cossacks, under the command 
 of General Iliaslievitch himself, supported by Colonel Rou- 
 denko, surrounded the prison, occupied all the issues with 
 platoons, aud ordered the bulk of the force to rush upon the 
 sleeping prisoners — of whom, it should be added, there were 
 only eighty-four. 
 
 k50 soon as they were awake they were searched, and all 
 their belongings, down to the merest trifles — books, clothes, 
 combs, brushes — seized, and thrown pell-mell into a corner. 
 This done, the prisoners were attired in convict dresses and 
 taken into the courtyard. Here twenty-seven "promoters" 
 and "instigators" of the "riot" were picked out, and led 
 under the escort of Cossacks to Upper Kara, a distance of 
 some ten miles. Encouraged by their officers, the Cossacks 
 grossly insulted and ill-used the prisoners during the jour- 
 ney, and when a few tried to defend themselves, Colonel 
 Eoudenko said, " Tie their hands behind them, and if one 
 of th^m says anything impertinent give him a knock on the 
 head with the butt-end of your guns." Meantime the prison 
 of Lower Kara was being pillaged. Before the struggle be- 
 gan Colonel Eoudenko addressed the Cossacks thus: "If 
 I order you to beat them, do so ; if I order you to fire, shoot 
 them. When you have taken the prison you shall have 
 everything belonging to them." And the Cossacks, having 
 subdued the sleeping rioters, set about pillaging their pos- 
 sessions. The officers, not to be outdone by their men, ap- 
 propriated some of the best things — even carrying off tables, 
 chairs, stools, which had been made by the prisoners them- 
 selves, and giving them to their friends. 
 
 After they had passed some time in the empty room, with 
 no other clothing than the gray regulation cloaks, the depu- 
 
16S RUSSIA U^DER THE TZARS. 
 
 ty-director, Boutakov, appeared before the prisoners, one of 
 whom asked : 
 
 '*Is it possible that we are to remain in this state much 
 longer ? " 
 
 " Yes, always," answered Boutakov. " You were former- 
 ly treated well, but now, after these escapes, we see that your 
 conduct " 
 
 OrlofE observed that the administration itself had pro- 
 voked the escapes, not the prisoners, and that in any case it 
 was unjust to make those who remained suffer for those who 
 had escaped. 
 
 This modest and polite answer put the deputy-director 
 into such a rage that he ordered the Cossacks to seize Orloff, 
 beat him, and drag him to the punishment cell. Some of 
 his comrades wished to prevent this, but he besought them 
 to offer no resistance. When he was outside the door. 
 Colonel Boutakov rushed at him, began to strike him, and 
 ordered the Cossacks to do the same. A little later — while 
 the prisoners were dining — the director came in person, 
 mustered them, and told them to **get up." Some did not 
 obey with sufficient promptitude. •' Make them get up with 
 blows," ordered the director, and afresh summary execution 
 began. "This is the way to muster," said he, with great 
 satisfaction, going out after the disturbance. In the next 
 room a similar scene was being enacted, under the command 
 of the captain of the guard. When he entered, the student 
 Bobokhov was lying on the plank. The captain, turning to 
 his Cossacks, ordered them to "drag him up by the hair," 
 and by the hair he was dragged up. 
 
 Eodionoff, quite a young man, was also beaten by the 
 director himself, who, when he was tired, handed the victim 
 over to his Cossacks, telling them to " give him as much as 
 he could carry." After this Rodionoff was put into the 
 black hole for thirty days. 
 
 This took place at Lower Kara ; but the men who had 
 
MUTUAL RESPONSIBILITY. 169 
 
 been taken to the two other prisons came off no better, save 
 that in one instance, at Upper Kara, the soldiers, to their 
 honor, absolutely refused to beat them. Those at the Amour 
 prison were more complaisant, thereby suggesting Gerasi- 
 moff's grim bon mot, '* We are beaten twice a day, and fed 
 once." 
 
 In the summer of 1882 the Lower Kara lock-up was re- 
 built on a new plan. The large common rooms were divided 
 into small cells, where five and six men were made to sleep to- 
 gether on the same bed, so tightly wedged that it was diffi- 
 cult to move, and impossible to turn. The prisoners who 
 had been dispersed in the other gaols were brought back 
 (except fourteen sent to Schliisselburg as *' promoters "), 
 and everybody was put in irons. Three were chained (the 
 chains being fastened with rivets) to wheelbarrows, which 
 they had, of course, to drag with them everywhere. Then, 
 to render flight more difficult — or rather, recapture more 
 easy — the left half of each man's head was clean shaven, an 
 operation which was effected with some circumstance, the 
 authorities probably fearing that the indignity might be 
 forcibly resisted. The prisoners were called one by one into 
 a room, as they supposed, to be questioned touching their 
 knowledge of the escape. The victim was then surrounded 
 by soldiers, and asked if he would submit quietly ; if not 
 they threatened to tie his hands and shave his head by force. 
 Eesistance in these circumstances was, of course, not at- 
 tempted. 
 
 All the werk of the prison was done by the convicts them- 
 selves ; they cleaned their own rooms, washed their own 
 linen, and prepared their own meals. But whatever they 
 did they were under strict and continual supervision, being 
 never left a moment to themselves. Then, as if to fill the 
 measure of their misery to the full, a common malefactor, 
 named Zijjloff, was brought amongst them. He had carried 
 
 letters between some of the political prisoners, an offence 
 8 
 
170 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 ■which, as the admiuistration chose to think, qualified him 
 for their company. Yet, so far from approving of the 
 change, Ziplolf begged and prayed to be allowed to go back 
 to his old quarters. But the administration had other views. 
 One day he was called into the office, charged with some 
 trilling breach of descipline of ancient date, and ordered to 
 be flogged. The punishment was duly inflicted under the 
 personal suj)ervision of Commandant Kaltourin himself. 
 What this meant the others know only too well. It was a 
 warning, an intimation made in the most forcible way possi- 
 ble, that the political prisoners were no longer to enjoy im- 
 munity from corporal punishment ; and shortly afterwards it 
 was rumored that the fugitives, all of whom had meanwhile 
 been recaptured (Myshkin at the very moment when he had got 
 on board an American ship at Vladivostock, bound for San 
 Francisco), would be publicly flogged. The cup of their 
 sufferings, already full to the brim, now ran over. The 
 prisoners resolved that, rather than submit to this new 
 degradation, they would die ; and, notwithstanding the 
 desire of a considerable minority to adopt a more energetic 
 form of protest, it was decided that they should die of 
 hunger. 
 
 Then began a long fast, a terrible ordeal for men weak- 
 ened with hardship and by confinement. All went to bed, 
 and were soon reduced by abstinence to a state of utter pros- 
 tration. In seven days they had almost lost pow' er of speech, 
 and could not answer to their names at roll call, a formality 
 which takes place three times a day. Then the directors, who 
 had hitherto cherished the hope that the jirisoners, tor- 
 mented by the pangs of hunger, would give up the contest, 
 saw that matters were come to a crisis. They entered the cells, 
 regarded in silence the inanimate forms of the sufferers, and 
 the gravity of their looks showed how much they were con- 
 cerned. Next came Commandant Kaltourin, who, after 
 asking what they wanted, had their demands put in writing. 
 
MUTUAL RESPONSIBIUTY. 171 
 
 and promised to communicate immediately by telegraph with 
 the governor of the province, Iliaschevitch. He assured 
 them, moreover, on his own responsibility, that there was 
 neither truth in tiie rumors they had heard, nor any inten- 
 tion to abolish the rules which proscribed the flogging of 
 political prisoners. But as no confirmation of this state- 
 ment was received from General Iliaschevitch the voluntary 
 famine continued. But it could not go on much longer. 
 The fasters were on the point of death. They suffered from 
 convulsions, sleeplessness, and dysentery. A few, who from 
 the first had objected to this form of resistance and taken no 
 part in it, now adjured their companions to abandon the 
 contest before it was too late. Their persuasions, together 
 with something else that happened of great importance — 
 the nature of which, however, our correspondent did not 
 feel himself at liberty to mention — ^prevailed at last on the 
 strikers to terminate their fast — on the thirteenth day after 
 it had begun. This terrible struggle, which permanently 
 injured the health of most of the prisoners who engaged in 
 it, had no other result than a few concessions, and a not 
 very definite assurance from the administration that their 
 exemption from corporal punishment would be continued. 
 
 In this way did the administration avenge on the prisoners 
 the abortive flight of a few of their companions. Nor was 
 this the full extent of their punishment. Sixteen men, who 
 at the time of what is known as ''the revolt of the 11th of 
 May " had finished their term, and were entitled, according 
 to the regulations, to become free Siberian colonists, were 
 kept in prison another year. Even political prisoners else- 
 where (Kviatkovski, Zoubrilloff, and Frangeoli), who did 
 not even know of the escapes, were dealt with in like man- 
 ner. In 1883, however, they were released, those first set 
 free being sent as colonists to the province of Baikal. But 
 when Shoubin, the new commandant of the political prisons, 
 reported to Governor Iliaschevitch that the Kara prisoners 
 
173 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 still manifested "a spirit of iudocility," he ordered the 
 colonists, and thirteen others whose terms had also expired — 
 "by way of giving them a lesson " — to be exiled to a village 
 in the far north, the region of the polar night, among the 
 savage Yakutes, where life is, if possible, even harder than 
 in the prisons. This is what they call in Russia '^mutual 
 responsibility." 
 
 Among the colonists was a young woman of the name of 
 Maria Koutitonskaia, who, after the affair of May 11th, had 
 been released from jail and " interned "' in a village of the 
 province. That is to say, she was free to go about but not 
 to go away. This girl-heroine resolved with her own hand 
 to avenge the cruel outrages inflicted by the authorities on 
 innocent and helpless prisoners. After obtaining a small 
 revolver, she started secretly for Chita, where lived General 
 Iliaschevitch, the Governor. Arrested as a fugitive, she was 
 taken to Chita — exactly where she wanted to go. On her 
 arrival thither she asked to see the Governor, saying that she 
 wanted to explain to him personally why she had left Aksha. 
 There being no reason why this request should not be com- 
 plied with, she was taken straightway to the palace ; and as 
 General Iliaschevitch came out of his cabinet, Maria drew 
 her revolver, and with the words, " This is the answer to 
 the 11th of May," fired at him point blank. The ball struck 
 the Governor in the abdomen, and he fell, badly wounded, 
 to the ground. Maria was, of course, immediately arrested 
 and put in prison. She was afterwards tried and condemned 
 to death, but the Government deemed it expedient to com- 
 mute this sentence to one of hard labor for life. 
 
 It is hardly necessary to say, however, that this incident 
 had very little effect on the lot of the prisoners of Kara. 
 The barbarities and cruelties we have described went on 
 without surcease. 
 
 Such is life in the political prisons of Siberia, the promised 
 land toward which revolutionists under sentence of penal 
 
MUTUAL KESPONSIlilLITT. 173 
 
 servitude turn longing eyes. And it is certainly an improve- 
 ment on the Fortress. On the other hand, it is very little, 
 if any, better than detention in a Central Prison. If in this 
 latter place of punishment the torture inflicted on prisoners 
 is more sustained and systematic, in Siberian jails they are 
 more exposed to the violence and brutality of warders and 
 guards ; for long-continued immunit}^, the absence of all 
 control, and the evil traditions of despotism, have trans- 
 formed the jailers of our hyperborean prisons into veritable 
 tyrants. "For you I am Chief, and Tzar, and God," is a 
 stereotyped expression in the mouths of these Cerberuses, 
 when addressing a prisoner. 
 
 Time fails me to recount a hundredth part of the known 
 atrocities inflicted on the victims of despotism in every part 
 of Siberia, and on every possible pretext. And how much 
 greater is the number of those we do not, nor ever shall 
 know ! 
 
 But an instance of the sort of treatment which women 
 receive at the hands of the Siberian servants of the Tzar is 
 too relevant and characteristic to be omitted. 
 
 The victim on this occasion was Olga Lioubatovitch, one 
 of the heroines of the trial of the fifty propagandists who, 
 as the reader may possibly remember, won to so remarkable 
 a degree the sympathy of the public. On August 30, 18S3, 
 as Olga (who once escaped from Siberia, reached Geneva, 
 then returned to Eussia, only to fall a second time into the 
 toils) was passing through Krasnoiarsk on her way to her 
 destination in Eastern Siberia, she was called before the 
 ispravnik (local chief of police) and ordered to change the 
 dress she wore for the costume of a convict. But having 
 been condemned to transportation by administrative order — 
 not to hard labor— she had a right to wear her own clothes, 
 and this she tried to make the ispravnik understand. At 
 her first words, however, he became furious, and repeated 
 that she must not only change her dress, but do it there and 
 
174 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 then in the bureau, before everybody. To this monstrous 
 request Olga Lioubatov'itch answered by a plump refusal. 
 Then at a sign from the isprav7iik his subordinates took 
 hold of the j^risoner and proceeded to undress her by force. 
 A shameful struggle ensued. Several men set on this de- 
 fenceless woman, beat her, pulled her hair, and tore off her 
 clothes. So long as she kept her feet she defended herself 
 as best she could, but the chief of the police by a violent 
 kick felled her to the earth. What follows is best described 
 in her own words : 
 
 " I fell into a kind of stupor. I remember confusedly how the 
 licaAT" boot of the ispravnik struck my chest. Some one was pulling 
 my hair, another was striking my face with his fists ; the rest were 
 tearing off my clothes, and at last, naked, crucified on the floor, in 
 the presence of a crowd of men, I felt all the shame and horror of a 
 woman violated. Alarmed by their own deed, the cowards fled, and 
 when I recovered consciousness I saw around me only my companions, 
 pale as death, while Fanny Moreiness was writhing in hysterical con- 
 vulsions." 
 
 But enough, enough ! The sufferings of the Nihilists 
 are truly terrible, and, as being the noblest holocaust ever 
 offered by ]iatriots on the altar of a country's redemption, 
 worthy of all sympathy and respect. Yet com.pared with 
 the trials and sufferings of Eussia at large they are only a 
 drop — a bitter and burning drop, but not to be compared 
 with the ocean of which they form so small a part. 
 
 Let us explore this ocean. 
 
PART III. 
 ADMINISTRATIVE EXILE. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 INNOCENT THEREFORE PUNISHED. 
 
 The judicial procedure, of which the complete cycle — 
 from arrest to punishment — we have already described, is 
 far from including all the means employed by the Russian 
 Government in its struggle with revolution. 
 
 Tribunals from their very nature must deal with facts. 
 However great may be their severity, however willing they 
 may be to conform to orders, impute motives, and visit 
 trifling misdeeds with draconian punishments, they must, at 
 least, have something to go upon. In other words, they 
 cannot convict a man because he is innocent. If a person 
 be found in possession of a revolutionary proclamation, or 
 if he lends his room for revolutionary purposes, he may be 
 condemned to death ; but if no overt act, no equivocal ex- 
 pression, no compromising conduct whatsoever can be 
 brouglit home to him, they are obliged to pronounce a ver- 
 dict of acquittal. This depends not on the quality of the 
 jud'^es but on the nature of tribunals. 
 
 The ordinary m.etliods of prosecution are therefore essen- 
 tially circumscribed. They can be used only against offen- 
 ders who have given some manifest sign of hostility to the 
 existing system, or openly or covertly attacked the Govern- 
 ment. 
 
17G EUSSIA UXDER THE TZARS. 
 
 How, then, are those to be dealt with who have done none 
 of these things, yet who, there is every reason to believe, 
 will do them sooner or later ? 
 
 Let us take an exami:)le. A man who has had secret 
 relations with the revolutionary party and falls under sus- 
 picion is arrested, questioned, and badgered in the usual 
 fashion, and kept in prison several months. But neither in 
 his own admissions nor in any other way can a scintilla 
 of evidence be found against him. In no single respect 
 can he be considered a compromised person, and it is impos- ' 
 sible, by any stretch of ingenuity, to include him in the in- 
 dictment of those who are supposed to be his confederates 
 and friends. So he is let out on bail, and subpoenaed as a 
 simple witness. But by his conduct under examination 
 and before the tribunal, by his unwillingness to testify against 
 the accused and his eagerness to testify in their favor, ho 
 shows only too clearly that he is a sympathizer with them 
 in spirit if not a confederate in fact. 
 
 Against another man, perhaps, the public prosecutor has 
 succeeded in gathering some miserable scraps of equivocal 
 evidence, and so includes him in the indictment. So equiv- 
 ocal is it, indeed, that the tribunal, with all the will 
 in the world to oblige the procurator, has no alterna- 
 tive but either to acquit the prisoner altogether or give him 
 a nominal sentence. There is nevertheless good reason to 
 believe that this individual is just ?i& perverse as those of his 
 friends who nave allowed themselves to be taken in the act, 
 and been sentenced to penal servitude. Wlio can say that 
 this absence of proof is not the result of pure accident ? 
 And even if he has done nothing so far, what signifies that ? 
 It is only because he has had no opportunity— ^that is all. 
 Being a revolutionist in intention, he is sure to take action 
 on the first favorable occasion. It is merely a question of 
 time. Put him outside the court certainly, but only that 
 he may be forthwith re-arrested. 
 
IXKOCEXT THEEEFOKE PUNISHED. 177 
 
 For liow can the police let these men, whom they hare 
 the chance of collaring, depart in peace ? It would be as 
 bad as letting prisoners of war rejoin the enemy. It cannot 
 be done. 
 
 But let us leave judicial considerations to lawyers and ex- 
 perts, and regard the question in another aspect and from a 
 general point of view. Let us take the case of a man so free 
 from reproach that he can neither be arraigned as a prisoner 
 nor called as a witness. But "from information it has re- 
 ceived" (the reports of spies), the Government feels sure 
 that he is a revolutionist. When this conviction is enter- 
 tained about a man, absence of proof is held of no account. 
 The police and procurators have a very high opinion of the 
 integrity of their country's revolutionists. They firmly be- 
 lieve that these men always possess the courage of their 
 opinions and act according to the dictates of their con- 
 science. Want of evidence serves only to increase their sus- 
 picion. None who have had dealings with our procurators 
 and gendarmes can fail to have heard, twenty times, the 
 stereotyped phrase : *' We know quite well there are no 
 proofs against so and so — your husband, brother, sister, or 
 friend — but that only makes them the more dangerous ; it 
 shows that they have arranged matters so cleverly that the 
 police can find nothing out." 
 
 Once the wolf has been discovered under the lion's skin 
 measures must be taken to disarm the enemy of order and 
 society. If these words, ''order" and "society," were un- 
 derstood in their accepted signification, an ordinary govern- 
 ment might deem it expedient to wait a while and defer 
 somewhat to considerations of general utility and public de- 
 cency. But if "order" means its ov/n skin, and "society" 
 its own pocket, tliis becomes a psychological impossibility. 
 A government ruling a nation as a conquered country, a 
 government hemmed in by enemies on every side, with every 
 thought concentrated on its own defence, and possessed of 
 8* 
 
178 RUSSIA UKDER THE TZAES. 
 
 unlimited power to make that defence good — such a govern- 
 ment as this was sure, sooner or later, to supplement the 
 ordinary judicial procedure with another, a prompter, and a 
 more subtle system, designed to redress its failures and cor- 
 rect its sliortcomings — to do that which, in the nature of 
 things, it was out of the question the former should do. 
 
 This system is known as the "administrative procedure." 
 It involves a division of labor. The tribunal jDunishes, the 
 administration prevents. The tribunal deals with acts, the 
 administration with intentions. The tribunal searches peo- 
 ple's houses and pockets, the administration looks into 
 men's hearts and reads their thoughts. 
 
 When the administration has decided that a man has it in 
 his mind to do them an ill turn, they place him under the 
 supervision of the police. 
 
 In this, taken by itself, there is nothing extraordinary or 
 extreme — at any rate, on the Continent, where it is quite in 
 the common course of things to submit people to jjolice sur- 
 veillance. But between the practice of G-ermany and France 
 and the practice of Russia there is this great difference: in the 
 former countries only malefactors who have been tried and 
 convicted are placed under supervision, whereas in Eussia 
 men are treated after this fashion who have been tried and 
 acquitted, as also men who never have been tried or even 
 accused. But wide as is this difference, it is not all. There 
 is supervision and supervision. In its common acceptation 
 the word means that the police will keep its eye upon you. 
 How they do this is their affair and that of their spies. All 
 that is required of you is to inform them of any change in 
 your address. In Russia, however, it is very much other- 
 vrise. In Russia the marked man is required so to arrange 
 matters that the supervisors shall have every facility for per- 
 forming their task and be able to watch their man without 
 giving themselves too much trouble. Suppose, for instance, 
 that a man living at Odessa is ordered to be placed under 
 
I]Sr3<rOCEN"T THEKEFOEE PUKISHED. 1?9 
 
 supervision. The jiolice, in that case, would probably declare 
 it to be quite out of their power to supervise him elt'ectuully 
 except at a place some thousand versts or more away. Ou 
 this, our man would be promptly sent to the locality desig- 
 nated and forced to remain there until the police had done 
 with him. Hence police supervision in Russia is but an- 
 other name for administrative exile. 
 
 The right of putting people under surveillance, which the 
 Russian criminal code, like the codes of France and Ger- 
 many, reserves exclusively to the courts of justice as a peni- 
 tential measure, the administration exercises arbitrarily with- 
 out the least scruple. It orders into exile with equal indif- 
 ference persons who have been tried and acquitted, witnesses 
 who have testified truly, and citizens who, for some inscru- 
 table reasons, are simjily suspected of latent sedition. We 
 therefore come to this — that the liability of Russian subjects 
 to be exiled is limited only by the good pleasure of the gen- 
 darmery and the police. Under the pretext that an exile's 
 conduct has not been satisfactory, moreover, the term of his 
 banishment may be indefinitely prolonged. Thus in the 
 affair of the Netchaeff Society (autumn, 1871), when of 
 eighty-seven prisoners thirty-three were convicted and thirty- 
 four acquitted, the latter v/ere exiled with hardly an excep- 
 tion, as also several witnesses whom the procurator had not 
 ventured to indict. Among the exiled, as is well known, 
 was Miss Vera Zassoulitch. She passed several years in 
 exile, and only recovered her liberty by flight. Mr. Nikiforoff, 
 a kinsman of hers, and one of the witnesses on the trial, was 
 also exiled, and though fourteen years have elapsed is in 
 exile still. 
 
 Administrative exile played an important part even during 
 the first period of the revolutionary movement. The thing 
 was so common that when it was mentioned that these or 
 those persons had been acquitted at this or that trial, the first 
 question asked was invariably, ''And whither are they 
 
180 KUSSIA U2!?'DER THE TZARS. 
 
 exiled ?" This obsoryation implied neither irony nor doubt 
 — was so natural, indeed, that only the fact of their not be- 
 ing exiled would have called forth an expression of surprise. 
 Sometimes the police play with their victim after the man- 
 ner of a cat with a mouse. In 1878 ilr. Alexander Olkhin, 
 a member of the St. Petersburg bar, being suspected of 
 having secret relations with the revolutionary party — albeit 
 there was not a shred of evidence against him — was exiled to 
 Kholm.ogori in the government of Archangelsk, Two years 
 later, the police imagined they had found the desired proof, 
 whereupon Mr. Olkhin was brought back to St. Petersburg 
 and put on his trial. But the iiolice had been in too great 
 haste. The proofs were too flimsy even for the most pliable 
 of tribunals ; the jirisoner was iironounced not guilty (the 
 Mirsky trial, November, 1879). But this result had not the 
 slightest effect on the police, they exiled Mr. Olkhin afresh, 
 and his second condition was worse than his first. 
 
 To finish, I will cite a well-known name, that of Prince 
 Alexis Krapotkiii, brother to Prince Peter, a mathematician 
 and astronomer who never concerned himself with politics. 
 His fault was being akin to Peter aud not showing sufficient 
 respect for the gendarmes. In the autumn of 187G the post- 
 office having intercepted a letter which, as the police sus- 
 pected, was destined for a political refugee whose acquain- 
 tance Alexis had made while travelling abroad, they 
 searched his house. No confirmation of their suspicion was 
 forthcoming, but the prince imprudently showed annoyance 
 at this proceeding, treated the procurator and gendarmes 
 with scant courtesy, and, to use an idiomatic Anglicism, 
 " gave them a piece of his mind." Imprisonment produced 
 no change in his demeanor, and in the end they sent him to 
 Siberia. This came to pass nine years ago, and he is in 
 Siberia still, ruined in health and bereft of his only son. 
 
 All the exiles of this period were banished by subterfuge. 
 While nominally placed under police surveillance as a 
 
IJSTNOCENT THEEEFORE PUKISHED. 181 
 
 measure of precaution, tlicy were sent to the confines of 
 the empire as a matter of fact, and there detained. Thus 
 was committed a double wrong. In the first instance, 
 these people were punished without trial, in itself a gross 
 illegality ; in the second instance, they were not alone placed 
 under surveillance without warrant, but this surveillance, 
 equally without warrant, was converted by a piece of casuis- 
 try into a sentence of unlimited transportation. The code, 
 it may be well to mention, recognizes no such thing as ad- 
 ministrative exile. This, however, is a consideration which 
 has little interest for Eussians, and, save legists, few ever 
 give it a thouglit. 
 
 In 1879, however, the reproach in question was removed, 
 and for six years administrative exile has been a recognized 
 bulwark of order and a regular Eussian institution. On 
 April the 2nd of the year in question, Solovielf attempted 
 the Tzar's life. On the Gth — three days later — a new law 
 was ordained whereby all Eussia, habited and habitable, was 
 divided into six regions, under the rule of six generals, each 
 in his own region clothed with despotic powers. The local 
 civil authorities were ordered to render these satraps the 
 same obedience which they would render in a state of war to 
 a general-in-chief. The six dictators, moreover, had the 
 same powers as are wielded by a commander-in-chief in war 
 time over all the inhabitants of their respective districts. 
 These powers included (a) the right to exile by administra- 
 tive order all persons whose continued stay in the district 
 might be considered prejudicial (to public order) ; (p) to 
 imprison at their discretion all persons, without distinction 
 of rank or title, whenever they might find it advisable ; 
 (c) to suppress, or provisionally suspend, any journal or 
 review the tendencies of which might seem to them danger- 
 ous ; and (d) generally take such measures as they might 
 deem necessary for the maintenance of tranquillity and order 
 in the regions over which they v»'ere placed. 
 
182 RUSSIA UXDER THE TZARS. 
 
 This in Russia they call a law ! Since April, 1879, there- 
 fore, administrative exile has become perfectly legal. In the 
 same way, when the six satrapies were abolished, the coun- 
 try was placed in '*a state of surety" (for surety read 
 *•' siege "), and the exceptional powers intrusted to the gen- 
 erals were permanently conferred on the ordinary govern- 
 ors. 
 
 Since that time the system of administrative exile has re- 
 ceived a great extension and become the favorite weapon of 
 the Russian Government in its contest with the nation — 30 
 much so that de facto juridic jjrocedure is relegated more 
 and more to the background. 
 
 When Solovieff's attempt was followed by several others, the 
 Government fell into a very paroxysm of panic and passion. 
 It felt the ground shaking under its feet, it tried to spread 
 terror everywhere, to strike hard, to tear up sedition by the 
 roots. For this end exile was far more effective than the 
 tribunals, with their forms, ceremonies, and delays ; and on 
 the least suspicion, real or feigned, the least sign or the 
 flimsiest pretext, it was applied right and left. It became a 
 pest, a devastation. 
 
 If, however, the reader were to ask me to define, more or 
 less precisely, the signs and pretexts which the administra- 
 tion deem sufficient to justify the infliction of so severe a 
 punishment as exile, I should find it difficult to give a satis- 
 factory answer. Everything has its measure, even the sus- 
 ceptibility of the Russian police. As in chemistry there are 
 substances whose presence is manifested by very energetic 
 reactions, but the detection of which defies the most delicate 
 scales, so it is with the police. Except in cases where per- 
 sonal antipathy or private vengeance is the motive (cases 
 which are far from being exceptional), the police, before 
 they tear a man from his family and his business, deprive 
 him of his livelihood, and send him to the other extremity of 
 the empire, must have something against him. What this 
 
INifOCEKT THEREFOIIE PUNISHED. 183 
 
 something may be we can form an approximate idea from 
 incidents that have actually occurred, cases in which it has 
 been possible to obtain information as to the motives of the 
 police in sending people into exile. In many instances it is 
 impossible even to conjecture these motives, and I jrarposely 
 confine myself to cases in which the victims have been of 
 good social position, for to them the Government generally 
 shows somewhat more consideration than to people of in- 
 ferior rank. 
 
 We will begin with Mr. Petrounkevitch, landowner, mem- 
 ber of the Zemstvo of Tchernigoff, and president of the 
 justices of peace of his district. In May, 1879, this 
 gentleman was arrested by order of the Minister of the In- 
 terior, the ground assigned for the proceeding being his 
 dangerous opinions as manifested in an official report of the 
 local Zemstvo, drawn up by a commission, of which Mr. 
 Petrounkevitch was the chairman, in answer to a ministerial 
 circular. He was taken in open day while busied with his 
 official diities ; and, without being allowed to say a word to 
 his family, hurried off under police escort to Moscow, and 
 sent thence to Varnavin, in the government of Kestroma. 
 
 About the same time was arrested Dr. Bely, the medical 
 officer of the same Zemstvo. As his name was not appended 
 to the report in question, and he took no part in the pro- 
 ceedings of the Zemstvo, the ''perversity" imputed to him 
 could not be inferred from his acts or his words — it had to 
 be divined by intuition, read in his heart. This duty was 
 undertaken by the parish priest of Ivangorod, a sort of duty 
 for which priests in general have a decided predilection. Ho 
 denounced Dr. Bely as '' evil-intentioned and a suspect" on 
 the following grounds (which I give textually) : " That the 
 doctor was personally acquainted with Petrounkevitch, upon 
 whom he was in the habit of calling (in which, seeing that 
 they lived within a few miles of each other, there was surely 
 nothing very extraordinary), and whose opinions, the per- 
 
184 EUSSIA U^^'DEE THE TZAES. 
 
 Tersifcy of which was well known, he shared." The priest 
 alleged further that Dr. Bely showed a decided partiality for 
 the company of peasants ; that he seldom went into the 
 town, where there was good society, preferring rather to re- 
 main in the village among his peasant neighbors ; that he 
 did not bestow sufficient care on the health of the local 
 nobility, neglecting his patients of that class in order to give 
 more time to his humbler patients ; that in his hospital were 
 two young ladies, one of whom wore the national folks' 
 dress (this was Miss Bogolubova, who had been a Sister of 
 Mercy in the army of the Balkans. She was arrested a few 
 dqys after Dr. Bely, and exiled nobody knows whither). 
 The facts set forth by the priest, leaving no doubt as to the 
 doctor's perversity, Mr. Malakhoff, the pristav (subaltern 
 officer of police), had him arrested on July 1 9th. He was 
 first sent under escort to Vychny-Volotchek, and then exiled 
 to Eastern Siberia — neither more nor less. 
 
 Mr. Jujakoff, a distinguished press writer and publicist, 
 son of a major-general and rich landowner of the south of 
 Kussia, was exiled by Todleben to Eastern Siberia on the 
 following grounds (textual) : (!) because he belonged to a 
 dangerous family, all the members of which (except the 
 general) were imbued with perverse ideas. (His mother had 
 been arrested and kept in prison for ten days for refusing to 
 reveal the name of the owner of a socialist book ; his sister 
 was in prison, and is now in Siberia.) (2) Because it was 
 owing to his influence that certain leaders against the Social- 
 ists tcere not printed in the Odessa Listoh after the attempt 
 of April 2nd ! 
 
 Mr. Kovalevsky, an officer of the Odessa municipality, 
 was exiled to Eastern Siberia because (1) he was his wife's 
 husband. (Madame Kovalevsky, while living at Kieff, away 
 from her husband, became implicated in the Terrorist doings 
 there, and was sentenced in May, 1879, to a term of hard 
 labor.) (2) Because he had been heard to say, in the pres- 
 
INKOCENT THEEEFORE PUK"ISnED. 185 
 
 ence of some of kis fellow-officers of the municipality, that 
 he had no very high opinion of the Government ; and (3) 
 because he exercised a bad influence over his friends. 
 
 The case of Mr. Belousoff, professor in one of the colleges 
 at Kielf, is still richer. He v/as arrested in the summer of 
 1879, dismissed from his post and exiled to the north, all 
 owing to a pure " misunderstanding," as they say in Eussia, 
 on the part of the police, and pure misfortune on his ; the 
 head and front of the poor man's offending being the name 
 he bore — the name of Belousoff. So did somebody else with 
 whom the police confounded him. Five years previously 
 this somebody else had been accused, or suspected, of 
 carrying on a propaganda among the workmen of Kieff, 
 but succeeded in escaping. Thus Mr. Belousoff was made 
 to suffer for the sins of a namesake whom he neither knew 
 nor had ever seen. Already, in 1874, he had been brought 
 before the police under a similar misapprehension, and the 
 error being explained, dismissed — presumably, "without a 
 stain on his character." In 1879, howeyer, he was less for- 
 tunate, for this time the police (who had doubtless on over- 
 hauling their records found his name thereon) condemned 
 him to an indefinite term of administratire exile. 
 
 It may be remarked, by way of parenthesis, that this sort 
 of quid pro quo is far from being uncommon in Eussia. At 
 Kharkoff a student named Semenovsky was arrested for no 
 other reason than that, three years before, an advocate, sim- 
 ilarly named, had been tried and convicted of propagandism. 
 At Odessa, again, the police wanted a certain Mr. Kohan ; 
 but there being ''two Eichmonds in the field," they hesitated 
 at first which to take, but got over the difficulty by arrest- 
 ing both. 
 
 But let us continue Mr. Belousoff's story. When the 
 mistake was explained to General Tchertkoff, Governor of 
 Kieff, and he was requested to revoke the sentence passed on 
 an admittedly innocent and therefore deeply wronged man, 
 
186 EUSSIA UNDER THE TZAES. 
 
 he answered in these words ; " I quite believe that what you 
 say is quite true ; but in a time of trouble like the present, 
 the administration cannot afford to make mistakes. So let 
 him go into exile, and in a little while he may petition me 
 for a revocation ! " 
 
 Another example in conclusion. Mr. Isidor Goldsmith 
 was for eight years editor of two high-class monthly reviews. 
 When, in 1879, the rigors of the censorship obliged him to 
 abandon the career of letters, he betook himself to Moscow, of 
 which city his Vfiie (a member of the well-known and highly 
 popular Androusoff family) was a native, and began prac- 
 tice at the bar. But an untov/ard, yet all too common, in- 
 cident thwarted his plans, and involved himself and his 
 "Wife in interminable trouble. They were denounced by a 
 spy, who accused them to the police of having come to 
 Moscow for nothing else than to organize a central revolu- 
 tionary committee. Search and arrest followed as a matter 
 of course, and, equally of course, nothing whatever was found 
 to justify the statement of the spy and the action of the 
 police. All the same, a formal inquisition was opened, and 
 in ordinary circumstances the accused would have been kept 
 in prison during the six months over which an examination 
 generally extends. But having friends in high quarters and 
 the absurdity of the charge against them being self-evident, 
 the Governor-General of i\Ioscow, Prince Dolgorouk}^ was 
 prevailed upon to interest himself in their favor. The con- 
 sequence was that, instead of being locked up in gaol, they 
 were placed under domiciliary arrest in their own house. 
 But on September 24th they were arrested a second time, 
 and without more ado sent under escort to Archangelsk, on 
 the shores of the White Sea, the chief town of the province 
 of that name. After a stay there of two months, they were 
 transferred to the little town of Kholonogory in the same 
 district. Before being conveyed to their new destination, 
 Mr. Goldsmith had the good fortune to get sight of the doc- 
 
INNOCE:srT THEREFORE PUNISHED. 187 
 
 nmenfc in which the gi'ounds of the action taken against 
 himself and his wife were set forth. It ran as follows : 
 
 " The gendamerie department of Moscow accused Mr. Isidor Gold- 
 smith and his wife Sopliia of having come to Moscow intent on found- 
 ing a central revolutionary committee. After a minute domiciliary 
 search and an examination for the discovery of proofs, the charges 
 brought against the before-mentioned persons were found to bo quite 
 without justification. Consequently the Minister of the Interior and 
 the chief of the gendarmerie decree that Isidor Goldsmith and Sophia 
 his wife be transported to Archangelsk, and there placed under the 
 supervision of the local police." 
 
 Could logic more exquisite be imagined ? These people 
 are innocent, therefore let them be punished, a result so 
 incredibly and grotesquely absurd that the uninitiated may 
 well be excused for preferring to ascribe it rather to an error 
 of transcription than to deliberate intention. But the 
 reader, who is beginning to understand the spirit which 
 animates the Tzar's bureaucracy, and has had time to famil- 
 iarize himself with the manners and customs of official 
 Russia, will find no difficulty in filling up the hiatus which 
 eeems to disconnect the syllogism from the conclusion in 
 this remarkable and, unfortunately, by no means exceptional 
 document. 
 
 The charge being false, says, in effect, the Third Section, 
 there can be no ground for a formal prosecution. But as 
 people who have once been accused are always looked upon 
 with sus^Dicion, this gentleman and his wife, in accordance 
 with the usual custom in such cases, must be sent into exile. 
 
 And I repeat it, the cases I haye adduced are neither ex- 
 ceptional nor extreme. The yictims whose experiences we 
 have narrated were able to ascertain, directly or indirectly, 
 the causes to which their exile was ostensibly due. In every 
 instance the cause was political. But there is ample room 
 for the play of other and even more darker causes ; the 
 methods of the police especially binding themselves to the 
 
18S EUSSIA Ul^DER THE TZARS. 
 
 gratification of private malice and personal reyenge. For 
 they not only protect and support their own creatures — spies 
 by profession — but do all in their power to encourage the 
 spontaneous denunciations of amateur informers. An ac- 
 cused person is never, in any circumstances, allowed to know 
 the name of his accuser, and the charge is always so worded 
 as to throw you off the scent, and jjrevent you, as far as pos- 
 sible, from guessing the name of your secret enemy. For 
 instance, the police will jirotest that they are in possession 
 of evidence showing that you have distributed revolutionary 
 proclamations ; but where, when, or in what circumstances, 
 they will no more tell you than they will divulge the name 
 of their informant. It is, moreover, a positive fact that a 
 great many persons ordered into exile are neither told the 
 reason why, nor informed what they have done amiss. A 
 few years later, perhaj)s, they may learn, by some indirect 
 means, that they owe their ruin to a rogue whom they had 
 threatened with prosecution, or cliantagist (I use the French 
 word because there is no English equivalent) to whom they 
 had refused black-mail. As I have already had occasion to 
 mention, the Eevising Commission appointed by Loris 
 Mclikoff discovered so many cases of exile arising from false 
 evidence, that the Government itself was seized with horror. 
 So at least the censured Journals of the day emphatically 
 affirmed. That the number of these cases was somethino^ 
 enormous we can well believe. Under the existing: system 
 it would be surprising if they were not. But it may be per- 
 mitted to doubt the sincerity of the horror ascribed to the 
 Government. In any event it did not last long, and was 
 speedily forgotten in the greater horror inspired by the 
 dread spectre of revolution. For the system flourishes in 
 full vigor even now, and in every city of the empire the 
 best, the bravest, and the ablest continue to be torn from 
 work profitable to themselves and useful to the country, and 
 sent into hopeless exile. 
 
INXOCENT TnEREFORE PUKISHED. 189 
 
 But v/liat, it may be asked, is this administrative exile ? 
 We know that in ordinary parlance it means simple deporta- 
 tion, and that a man sent to a far country may possibly gain 
 by the exchange. We know, too, what the supervision ex- 
 ercised by the police of continental countries over common 
 criminals whose offences are considered not to have been 
 sufficiently expiated by their previous jranishment is like — 
 an onerous and vexatious system that tends only to increase 
 crime, and is strongly disapproved by the best authorities of 
 the countries in which it prevails. But the Eussian system 
 of political exile is altogether sui generis. The joerson exiled 
 is much more than a political malefactor. The crime he is 
 credited with a desire to commit is speech — the utterance of 
 words. Worse than a malefactor, he is a centre of contagion. 
 Because, when you come near a man he talks — and if his 
 disposition be perverse and his political views unsound, he 
 M-ill inevitably poison with his venom all with whom he 
 comes in contact — if you let him. Hence he must be isolated, 
 even in the place of his exile. Nor is this all. A man of 
 culture can infect even at a distance. By means of letters 
 and the press he may corrupt people Vvdiom he never sees. 
 It is therefore imperative to cut him off from the entire 
 world. 
 
 And this is the principle acted upon, as the following ex- 
 tracts ( textn.ally rendered) from the Regulations for Ad- 
 ministrative Exiles ( March 12-25 ) will show : 
 
 " To exiles is forbidden : — Every sort of pedagogic occu- 
 pation, such as the teaching of arts and trades, the reading 
 ( or giving) of public lectures, participation in the proceed- 
 ings of scientific societies, and all public activity whatso- 
 ever !" 
 
 They are forbidden further to act as " typographers, lith- 
 ographers, photographers, or librarians, or to serve in any 
 such establishments as agents, clerks, overlookers, or simple 
 workmen." The vending of books, or other printed matter 
 
100 EUSSIA UNDER THE TZAES. 
 
 or product of the press, is likewise forbidden to exiles 
 ( p:iragrai3li 24 ). 
 
 All other employments (?) not forbidden by the law ( say, 
 manual labor, for which the average political exile is little 
 apt ) are open to exiles, with the reservation, however, that 
 the local governor may veto the occupation selected in the 
 event of the exile using it for the carrying out of perverse 
 intentions, or if, owing to special circumstances, it is likely 
 to endanger order or disturb the public tranquillity (para- 
 graph 28 ). 
 
 By paragraph 21 it is forbidden to em.ploy exiles in govern- 
 ment offices or local public establishments, except as copyists, 
 and by special permission of the Minister of the Interior. 
 Paragraph 27 lays an interdict on medical or pharmaceuti- 
 cal practice by exiles, except, as in the former case, by special 
 permission of the Minister. But as such permission is as 
 hard to obtain as a revocation of the decree of exile, thein- 
 terdict is practically absolute. 
 
 As the Government deprives exiles of almost every possible 
 way of gaining a livelihood, it is only just that it should 
 keep them. And this it does— after a fashion. In the central 
 provinces they are allowed the pittance of six roubles ( about 
 eighteen shillings ) a month ; in the northern jn-ovinces, 
 where life is more costly, the allowance is eight roubles— 
 in both cases for exiles of the nobility. Members of the non- 
 privileged classes receive exactly half this sum, and, as may 
 be supposed, it is almost more than any of them can do to 
 keep body and soul together. 
 
 And then comes paragraph 37, which reads like the bit- 
 terest irony : " Exiles who shirk work, either from idleness, 
 bad conduct, or lazy habits, will be deprived of their gov- 
 ernmental stipend ! " 
 
 Finally, we have paragraph 29, which is, perhaps, the 
 cream of the collection. It runs thus : 
 
 " The Minister of the Interior is empowered to forbid to 
 
IKKOCEXT THEKEFOKE PUNISHED. 191 
 
 any exile the direct delivery of his letters and despatches 
 which, in that event, are to be handed by the post otBce to 
 the chief of the local police or tlie gendarmes. These latter, 
 after reading them, may give them to the exile, if they find 
 nothing prejudicial therein. In the contrary case, the con- 
 fiscated correspondence must be immediately forwarded to 
 the gendarmerie. In the same way all letters or dispatches 
 which the exile proposes to send away must be first read by 
 the aforementioned authorities." 
 
 Practically, as we have good reasons to know, these rules 
 are applied in the inyei'se sense — all our exile's correspond- 
 ence is submitted to the censorship of the local police. The 
 contrary is the exception. 
 
 It is not difficult to jiicture to ourselves what life must be 
 like under conditions such as these. But as an illustration, 
 and by way of facilitating the process, I will, with the 
 reader's permission, tell the story of a company of my exiled 
 friends. Those who prefer to trust to their own unaided 
 imaginations are, of course, at liberty to skip the following 
 chapter. Let us, then, abandoning laws, regulations, and 
 paragraphs, deal for a moment with creatures of flesh and 
 blood, and study a deeply interesting but little known phase 
 of human life. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 LIFE IN EXILE. 
 
 On" an early June day, in the year 18T9, all the exiles of 
 Gorodishko, a wretched little town on the northern coast, are 
 gathered near the landing-place. They number about 
 thirty, and are of all sorts and conditions — young and old, 
 vigorous and decrepit, some dressed like gentlemen, others 
 like peasants, some in paletots, others in smock frocks, 
 plaids, and jackets — pacing to and fro, leaning against the 
 piles, sitting on bales of merchandise, standing in little 
 o-roups and talking vvatli the absent manner of men who are 
 thinking of something else. From time to time they turn 
 curious and eager eyes toward the upper reaches of the river. 
 For it is thence will come the steamer, whose arrival all are 
 waiting. 
 
 There have been serious troubles in a university town of 
 Southern Russia. Beginning in the university itself, and 
 arising, as usual, out of a misunderstanding with one of the 
 professors, the disturbance speedily involved the entire city. 
 A hundred of the students were expelled, and most of them 
 —as also some others who, although they had been arrested, it 
 was not considered expedient to keep in prison— were imme- 
 diately ordered into exile. According to the accepted usage 
 in such cases they were divided into little groups, the lead- 
 ers being sent to a dozen different places in Siberia, the less 
 compromised to the northern littoral. One of these groups 
 was coming to Gorodishko— an event on which our exiles 
 were warmly felicitating each other. It w&s not, perhaps, 
 very much to their credit to rejoice over the misfortunes of 
 
LIFE IN" EXILE. I'-'S 
 
 others, and the addition of six persons to thirty who were 
 dying of ennui did not promise to be much of a distraction. 
 But the lives of these thirty were so terribly dull that any 
 event, however trifling, was regarded as a blessing. And 
 the new arrivals came from without— ''from liberty,'' as 
 runs the mocking phrase, which sounds strangely from Rus- 
 sian lips. They bring with them a ripple of new life, as a 
 prison door, opening for a moment, lets in a breath of fresh 
 air ! So the exiles were gay, and prepared to give their new 
 confreres a warm welcome. 
 
 They had long to wait, for the poor fellows in their eager- 
 ness had assembled on the wharf two hours before the time 
 fixed for the steamer's arrival, and, as is generally the case 
 in Eussia, she was behind her time. But patience had be- 
 come a habit with these involuntary waiters on Providence, 
 and it never occurred to them to murmur. 
 
 A young man from Odessa of the name of Ursitch, re- 
 cently exiled for taking part in a " demonstration," had 
 stationed himself, binocular in hand, on the top of a pile of 
 wood. Every now and then those near him inquired if he 
 could "see anything." 
 
 At length, towards three o'clock in the afternoon, he ut- 
 tered the long-expected cry — "The steamer." And far 
 away on the horizon could be seen a faint black line, sur- 
 mounted by a thin gray column. A boat beyond question. 
 But so small that a doubt arises whether it is the boat. May 
 it not be some merchant steamer ? The binocular is passed 
 from hand to hand. Everybody stares with all his might 
 into the double tube, but none can decide. The glass does 
 not carry far enough. 
 
 "Uskimbai the sultan !" shouts one of the exiles, "get 
 up there quickly on the pile." 
 
 As if in answer to the summons a strange figure comes 
 pushing through the crowd — large and solid — clad in a long 
 gray capot, with a deep, yellow, hairless face, little Mongol 
 9 
 
19J: KUSSIA UKDER THE TZARS. 
 
 eyes, a big flat nose, and a square neck, the latter covered 
 with short black hair as crisp and bunchy as a horse's mane. 
 
 This was Uskimbai the sultan — a veritable sultau, not 
 merely so dubbed iu sport or derision. For all the chiefs of 
 the Nomad Kirgliis tribes under Eussian domination bear 
 this high-sounding designation. It is recognized by the 
 Eussian authorities, and after some dozen years' service these 
 wandering sultans receive the commission of third lieutenant 
 in the army of the Tzar. But instead of the insignificant 
 epaulettes usually worn by ofl&cers of this rank, they are 
 allowed to don the epaulettes of a major, the long tassels of 
 which, when attached to the khalate — the sort of dressinar- 
 gown which constitutes their sole costume — have a remark- 
 ably brilliant effect. But Allah had not decreed that 
 Uskimbai should receive this coveted mark of distinction. 
 One night when he and some men of his tribe were quietly 
 driving off a flock of sheep belonging to the garrison of a 
 Eussian post, they were caught by some Cossacks in fia- 
 grante delicto. The sultan, who fell into their hands, was 
 taken in bonds to the nearest town, and exiled by adminis- 
 trative order to the northern provinces. 
 
 He moved with the rolling gait peculiar to men who have 
 passed much of their lives at sea or on horseback. 
 
 " Get up and tell us what thou seest, sultan," said the 
 owner of the binocular. 
 
 Uskimbai gave an affirmative nod, and did as he was 
 asked, lie knew they could not do without him ; a large 
 smile broke his great beardless face in halves, exposing un- 
 der the yellow skin two splendid rows of strong white teeth. 
 
 Pushing scornfully aside the glass tendered to him by 
 Ursitch, and turning his eyes, or rather the two narrow slits 
 in which a pair of brilliantly black cockchafers seemed to 
 be hidden, towards the horizon, he declared, after a 
 moment's earnest gaze, that the boat was tlie steamer. He 
 said further that he could see three men on the bridge, one 
 
LIFE IN" EXILE. 195 
 
 of whom wore a white hat, and was looking into a machine 
 like that they had just offered him. 
 
 This seemed rather too much, and the declaration of 
 the Kirghis chief Avas greeted with a shout of incredulous 
 laughter, Avhich evidently annoyed him. 
 
 " Thou Kussian sees nothing ; Kirghis sees everything. 
 Thou'rt blind fowl,"' exclaimed the child of nature from his 
 "coign of vantage " to the crowd below— ''thouing " in the 
 fashion of his country, whose language admits of their 
 using "thou " in the plural. 
 
 This sally was received with great good humor, and the 
 sultan, descending from the timber with a dignified air, 
 took a seat, singing the while a 'Kirghis song of triumjih 
 composed of only tv;o notes, which he repeated continually 
 in a slow and monotonous measure as if it were a funeral 
 dirge. 
 
 Uskimbai's eyes had not deceived him, as fifteen minutes 
 later everybody, with the help of the binocular, were able to 
 see. The steamer was the steamer, and on the bridge stood 
 the three men exactly as the sultan had described them. 
 They were shortly afterwards joined by two others, whose 
 costumes alone, even if they had not been accompanied by a 
 brace of gendarmes, would have proclaimed their quality. 
 When, doubling the wood-covered promontory which im- 
 peded the view, the steamer appeared in her majestic grace 
 rushing with her black prow through the white foaming 
 water, a great shout went up from the landing-stage, and 
 the exiles made tumultuously for the gangway. 
 
 The passengers came ashore, and the new arrivals found 
 themselves in the midst of a noisy exiled crowd. Greetings 
 are exchanged, and in a few minutes strangers and old 
 stagers have made each other's acquaintance, and are on the 
 footing of familiar friends. Three of the new-comers arc 
 students, and as each in turn mentions the cause of his exile, 
 the old stagers learn that the offence of their young 
 
19G EUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 comrades "was putting their names to a petition. The other 
 two are more advanced in years, and evidently not students. 
 The first introduced himself as " Podkova Taras, advocate 
 — for a shirt." 
 
 'TIow? You are indeed a cheap advocate to accept 
 a shirt as retainer," laughed the others. 
 
 " No, no, I don't mean that. I mean that a shirt is the 
 cause of my exile." 
 
 In this answer there larked a touch of Ruthenian humor, 
 Podkova's supposed offence being Ukranian separatism, the 
 evidence against him being, according to the statement of an 
 informer, that he was in the habit of wearing the national 
 shirt affected by the peasantry of his native province. 
 
 His companion. Dr. Michel Losinski, a professor of the 
 healing art, was less fortunate. He had not been able to 
 learn the cause of his exile-. 
 
 "It was perhaps out of consideration for these gentle- 
 men," he said, smiling and pointing to his companions, 
 *' the police did not think it right to let them make so long 
 a journey without their own physician." 
 
 Tlie introductions over and the formalities in the police 
 office completed, the new comers were led by their new 
 friends to one of the large communes, where a modest — 
 a very modest— meal had been prepared in anticipation of 
 their arrival. It consisted of fish, seasoned with powdered 
 horse-radish, specially brought from the garden of a 
 monastery, six miles away, the sole possessor of this culinary 
 treasure. For dessert they had a dish of carrots — in that 
 land of ice a rare gastronomic delicacy — the whole washed 
 down with yellow water, dignified with the name of tea, 
 and drawn from a capacious samovcn which seemed to con- 
 tain an inexhaustible supply. 
 
 Conversation, the chief burden of it being naturally homo 
 by the new comers, was kept up during the repast with 
 great animation. The doctor was in vein. With character- 
 
LIFE IK EXILE. 197 
 
 isfcic Polish spirit (though born on the left bank of the 
 Dnieper, and therefore ''Eussiimized," he was a Pole by 
 origin) be described the more comic incidents of his exami- 
 nation and prelimiuar}' detention, and told several racy anec- 
 dotes about the gendarmes of K and their proceedings 
 
 generally. Orsbine, one of tbe students, Avas called upon 
 for a history of the troubles in which they had been impli- 
 cated. Podkova spoke little. He had been a rising lawyer, 
 of great ability and promise ; but in the society of strangers 
 his manner was timid and constrained. Orsbine, wbo bad 
 made his acquaintance on the way, and was becoming 
 warmly attached to him, said that Podkova after one of his 
 speeches reminded him of a discbarged electric needle. 
 
 Tbe exiles did not separate until late in tbe evening. 
 But as the new comers had neither told all their news, nor 
 exhausted their stock of suppositions, opinions, and con- 
 jectures, the divers communes, great and small, took 
 possession of them as if they had been prisoners of war, 
 and led them away. The distribution was, however, 
 amicably arranged, and every commune had its man. 
 
 But what is a " commune " in this sense ? the reader will 
 ask. 
 
 It is a common institution of Eussian university life. In 
 all the universities and superior schools a great part of the 
 students form themselves into societies, each numbering 
 from eight to twelve men, who hire rooms, make a common 
 purse, and live together in full fraternity. In the common 
 purse every man puts all that he receives from home or earns 
 by teaching, without thinking or knov/ing whether his com- 
 rades contributed more or less than himself. It is only by 
 means of this system that so many poor scholars are enabled 
 to study at the capital, and maintain themselves on their 
 often very limited resources. But useful as is this system of 
 mutual help to Eussian students, to Eussian exiles it is sim- 
 ply a matter of life and death. For without this sort of 
 
198 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 brotherly union and co-operation hundreds of exiles would 
 every year perish of privation and want. 
 
 * 
 * 
 
 If the Russian Government were less besotted with fear 
 it would surely let the unfortunate suspects live in peace 
 whom it sends to eat out their hearts in holes like Goro- 
 dishko. 
 
 Imagine a town "of about 1,000 inhabitants," occupying 
 from 150 to 200 houses, the latter in two rows parallel with 
 the river and forming a single street. The spaces between 
 the dwellings serve as short cuts to the forest and the river. 
 All the buildings are of wood— except the church, which is 
 of brick. If you ascend the steeple to take a survey of the 
 country, you see on every side dense and wide-stretching 
 pine-forests, broken in the neighborhood of the river by great 
 clearings covered with the blackened stumps of departed 
 trees. If the time be winter, you have no need to mount so 
 high ; for you know beforehand that you will see only an 
 immense ocean of snow, whose billowy surface is oftener 
 traversed by hungry wolves than by Esquimaux sledges. In 
 that inclement climate and almost polar region agriculture 
 is out of the question. Bread is imported and therefore 
 dear. The few inhabitants occupy themselves with fishing, 
 hunting, and charcoal-burning. The forest and the river 
 are the sole sources of their existence. Among the people 
 of Gorodishko there are probably no m.ore than a dozen who 
 can read and write. These are the tchinovniks — Govern- 
 ment employes — and even they are half peasants. Little 
 time is given to bureaucratic formalities in this icy desert ; 
 and if you should happen to require the services of the chief 
 magistrate, you would probably be told that he was away on 
 a journey, engaged in the transport of merchandise, for the 
 man acts as a common carrier. When he returns in two or 
 three weeks and with his great fat fingers signs your papers. 
 
LIFE IN EXILE. 199 
 
 he will be happy, for a very moderate consideration, to driye 
 you to your destmation. 
 
 The intellectual horizon of these tchinovniks is not much 
 wider than that of their peasant neighbors. No man of ed- 
 Ticatiou and capacity could be persuaded to take service in 
 so remote and wretched a place. They are either creatures 
 without spirit or rogues sent thither by way of punishment; 
 service in these regions being a sort of exile for the tchinov- 
 nil's themselves. And if among the latter there chance to 
 be some young emj^loye ambitious of promotion, he is care- 
 ful to avoid all contact with the exiles ; for to be friendly 
 with political pariahs would of a surety draw upon him the 
 suspicions of his superiors, and probably ruin his prospects 
 for life. 
 
 * 
 * * 
 
 For ten or twelve days after their arrival the new comers 
 had no fixed abode. The others wanted to make their ac- 
 quaintance thoroughly — to know them — and they wanted to 
 know the others. So they lived first in one commune and 
 then in another, changing about as the fancy took them. 
 After a while three of their number — Losinski, Taras, and 
 Orshine— together Avith Ursitch, the Odessa man, formed 
 themselves into a little commune of their own. They liired 
 a small suite of rooms. Each member of the society acted 
 in turn as cook, all their domestic work being, of course, 
 done by themselves. The question of daily bread — naturally 
 the first which presents itself — was their greatest difficulty. 
 It was the means, too, of getting Taras into bad repute with 
 the local police. The exiles brought, as they thought, 
 enough money to last them until they should receive more. 
 But the authorities did them an ill turn — made tbem pay 
 out of their own pockets the travelling expenses of their es- 
 cort to Gorodishko ! And all their cash being in the hands 
 of the chief gendarme, they were powerless to resist this 
 
200 KUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 curious and unexpected exaction. When TJrsitch heard of 
 the incident, he tried to cousole his newly made friends by 
 telling them that the corps of cadets of which he had been 
 a member were treated even worse. At the termination of 
 the course, every graduate was made to contribute twenty- 
 five roubles toward the expense of the canes consumed dur- 
 ing their pupilage. But this anecdote, amusing though it 
 was, did not seem to reconcile the victims to their loss. As 
 for Taras, he was furious, swearing roundly that if he had 
 known what the gendarmes were going to do, he would have 
 thrown all his money into the sea rather than let them 
 have it. 
 
 All were in great straits. Some even had not a sufiBciency 
 of clothing. People are arrested wherever they may hap- 
 pen to be — as likely as not in the street — thrown into prison, 
 and in some instances sent away without being allowed time 
 either to make provision for their journey or say farewell to 
 their friends. This had happened to Taras. His fellow 
 exiles placed their wardrobes at his disposal, but he refused 
 to profit by their kindness. 
 
 ** You have need of all these things for yourselves," he 
 said. " The Government has brought me here by force, 
 and deprived me of my means of living, and the Govern- 
 ment must feed and clothe me — I will snare it nothing." 
 
 Not a day passed that he not go to the office to ask for his 
 eight roubles, always receiving the same stereotyped reply. 
 The local autliorities had written to headquarters, but the 
 necessary authorization had not yet arrived. He must have 
 patience. Nothing that he said or did seemed to produce 
 any impression, and his companions asked him to desist 
 from his labor in vain. He need not expect anything for 
 several months to come, and to bother the officials would 
 only set them against him. 
 
 " They shall pay me that money," was tlie only answer 
 Taras vouchsafed to their kindly meant counsel. 
 
LIFE IN EXILE. 201 
 
 One fine afternoon, when the other exiles were going out 
 for their usual walk, Taras went out also, but so strangely 
 dressed that all the children ran after him, and the place 
 was quite in a commotion. He had nothing on but his 
 night clothes, and a counterpane. Before he had marched 
 up and down the single street half a dozen times, the isprav- 
 nih (to whom somebody had hurried with the news) ap- 
 peared on the scene in a state of great excitement. 
 
 "Mr. Podkova, what on earth are you doing ?" he said, 
 in a tone of admonition. "Just think ! an educated man 
 like you making a public scandal. The ladies can see you 
 from the windows ! " 
 
 " That is not ray fault. I have no clothes, and I cannot 
 remain for ever within the four walls of my room. It might 
 injure my health. I must take a walk occasionally." 
 
 And for a whole week he promenaded every day in pre- 
 cisely the same guise, paying no heed whatever to the 
 ispravniFs remonstrances, until by his persistency he fairly 
 vanquished ofiicial inertness and got his wretched stipendium. 
 But from that moment he was looked upon as a "turbulent 
 
 man." 
 
 * 
 
 The short summer, which in that far northern region lasts 
 but two months, passed only too quickly. Autumn came 
 and went almost unperceived, and then the long polar win- 
 ter, with its interminable nights, reigned over the land. 
 The sun, after showing himself for a brief space on the 
 southern extremity of the horizon as a small arch of a few 
 degrees of amplitude, went down into the long line of snow, 
 leaving the earth in a night of twenty hours dimly lighted 
 by the faint and distant reflections of the aurora borealis. 
 
 At this time, as may be supposed, the exiles of Gorodishko 
 did not find life very amusing. Enforced idleness amid an 
 environment destitute of everything that can fix the atten- 
 9* 
 
202 EUSSIA UNDER THE TZAES. 
 
 tion of a civilized man, must of necessity deaden the facul- 
 ties and stupefy the mind. In summer it is not quite so bad. 
 There are berries and mushrooms to be gathered in the neigh- 
 boring woods, the authorities being good enough to wink at 
 the slight infractions of the regulations which forbid exiles 
 to put a foot outside the boundaries of the town. A man can 
 read, too ; a resource which in winter is far from being 
 always available. Candles being expensive and exiles poor, 
 they can afford only rush-lights made of fishes' fat, or the 
 loutchina, a splinter of resinous wood, whose flickering and 
 uncertain light ruins the eyesight of those who use it for 
 reading. For these unfortunates the winter, which lasts 
 three quarters of the year, is a period of misery and inaction, 
 a season accursed. The only way in which they can kill 
 time is by exchanging visits a,mong themselves — in the cir- 
 cumstances, however, a poor and altogether insufficient dis- 
 traction. True, they are like a family. They would divide 
 with each other their last cmst of bread. But always the 
 same faces, always the same talk, always the same subjects, 
 their lives never presenting a riew feature — and they end by 
 having nothing to say. Men drag themselves first to one 
 house and then to another, hoping that here or there they 
 will find something less stale, flat, and unprofitable, only to 
 go away disappointed, and repeat the experiment elsewhere 
 with the same result. And this goes on for days, weeks, 
 months. 
 
 One winter evening a company of exiles were gathered as 
 usual around the samoven, sipping tea, yawning wearilv, 
 and staring at each other in dull silence. Everything — faces, 
 positions, movements, even the room itself, half lighted by 
 a single candle stuck in a big rustic chandelier of wood — 
 bespoke the very extremity of weariness. From time to 
 time somebody half unconsciously lets a word or two drop 
 from his lips. A minute or two afterwards, when the 
 speaker has forgotten what he said, there suddenly comes 
 
LIFE IX EXILE. 203 
 
 from a dark corner another word or two, which, with some 
 effort, the listeners understand to be an answer to the prc- 
 Yious observation. 
 
 Taras does not speak at all. Stretched full length on a 
 bench of pine Avood, covered with dry moss, which serves 
 both as bed and sofa, he smokes incessantly, watching with 
 a dreamy air the little blue cloudlets of smoke as they hover 
 over his head and lose themselves in the gloom, and seems 
 quite satisfied with his occupation and his thoughts. Losinski 
 is balancing himself on a chair hard by. Whatever might 
 be the cause, whether worried by his friend's imperturbable 
 phlegm, or rendered nervous by the electric influence of the 
 au.'ora borealis, he is evidently more than usually hipped 
 and uuhapi^y. Though the evening differed in nothing 
 fi'om other evenings, it seemed to him exceptionally unsup- 
 portable. All at once he broke out. 
 
 " Gentlemen !" he exclaimed, in an excited and energetic 
 voice, which, by its contrast with the languid tone most in 
 vogue, awakes immediate attention. '' Gentlemen, the life 
 we lead here is detestable! If we live on in this idle, pur- 
 poseless "way a year or two longer, we shall become incapable 
 of serious work, utterly unnerved, and good for nothing at 
 all. "We must bestir ourselves, we must do something ; if 
 we do not, we shall grow so weary of this sordid, vegetating 
 existence, that we may be tempted to drown our ennui and 
 seek oblivion in the degrading bottle." 
 
 At these words the blood mounted hotly to the face of a 
 man who sat opposite the speaker. They called him Starik, 
 ** the old one." He was the senior member, the doyen of 
 the colony, alike by his age and the greatness of his suffer- 
 ings. He had been a journalist, and was banished m 1870 
 for some articles which had displeased people in high quar- 
 ters. But this happened so long ago that the true cause of 
 his exile had in all probability been forgotten even by himself. 
 To the others it seemed as if Starik must have been born a 
 
204 RUSSIA UXJDER THE TZAKS. 
 
 political exile. Yet he lived in hope, looking always for 
 some change in the higher splieres that might bring about an 
 order for his liberation. But the order never came, and when 
 he could bear the suspense no longer he would grow utterly 
 desperate, and drink furiously for weeks, so that his friends 
 were forced to effect a provisional cure by putting him under 
 lock and key. After a bout of this sort he would quiet 
 down, and for months together be as abstemious as an 
 English teetotaler. 
 
 He lowered his head at the haphazard allusion made by 
 the doctor, who continued to talk in the same strain. Then 
 a shade of displeasure passed over his face as if he were 
 vexed at being ashamed, and looking up he interrupted 
 Losinski bluntly with this point blank question — 
 
 "What the devil would you have us do, then?" 
 
 For a moment Losinski was disconcerted. When he began 
 his remarks he had nothing in his mind very definite or 
 practical. He started on the impulse of the moment, like a 
 spurred horse. But his confusion endured only a moment. 
 An emergency with him never failed to suggest an idea, and 
 the very next instant he conceived a happy thought. 
 
 " What would I have you do ! '' he repeated, in his ordi- 
 nary manner. " Why, for instance, instead of sitting stu- 
 pidly here catching flies, do we not go in for mutual instruc- 
 tion, or something of that sort ? There are thirty-five of 
 ns. Every one knows something that the others don't know. 
 Every one can give lessons in his own specialty turn about. 
 That will occupy the listeners, and stimulate the lesson-giver." 
 
 Here was at least something practical, and a discussion 
 naturally followed. Starik observed that the sort of thing 
 suggested would not be very amusing either, and that they 
 would soon be more ennuye than before. There were of 
 course yjros and cons, and the speakers grew so animated 
 that they wasted their joowder, several talking together, and 
 nobody understanding what they said. It was a long time 
 
LIFE IN" EXILE. 205 
 
 since the exiles had spent so agreeable an evening. On the 
 evening following the proposal was discussed by all the com- 
 munes together, and accepted with enthusiasm. A study 
 plan was drawn uj), and a week later Losinaki opened the 
 course with a brilliant lecture on physiology. 
 
 This promising enterprise was, however, of very short 
 duration. The whole town was thrown into a ferment by 
 the news of a proceeding at once so curious and so unprece- 
 dented. The ispraimih sent for Losinski, and gravely in- 
 formed him that his lectures were in contravention of the 
 regulation wdiich expressly forbids exiles to engage in any 
 sort of public teaching. 
 
 The doctor answered with a laugh, and tried to make the 
 timid tcliinovnik understand that the article in question did 
 not apply to the exiles as amongst themselves. So long as 
 they were allowed to meet and converse with each other, it 
 would be too absurd to forbid them to instruct each other. 
 Though the point did not seem quite clear to the ispravnik, 
 he was for once persuaded to listen to reason, or at least to 
 act as if he did. lie had fortunately as secretary a young 
 fellow who, having almost completed a course at a gymna- 
 sium, was regarded by the people of Gorodishko as a prodigy 
 of learning. It so happened, moreover, that the youth, 
 having a brother in the "movement," w\as a secret sympa- 
 thizer with the exiles, and always willing to do them a good 
 turn whenever it lay in his power. He had already ren- 
 dered them many services : but for reasons easily understood 
 they seldom appealed to him. Such help as he gave was 
 generally spontaneous. It was he who, in this instance, in- 
 terceded on their behalf and decided the ispravnik, after 
 some hesitation, to grant their request. But they little sus- 
 pected that adverse influences were at work, and that danger 
 
 threatened the project from another quarter. 
 
 * 
 
 A day or two afterwards, just when the shadows of night 
 
206 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 were beginning to descend on Gorodishko, that is to say, 
 between two and three o'clock in the afternoon, a strange- 
 looking figure walked rapidly down its single street towards 
 a little gray house hard by the church, a figure covered en- 
 tirely wilh hair. The lower limbs are hidden in huge and 
 heavy boots of double fur — hairy within and hairy without 
 — making the legs look like the forelegs of a bear. The 
 body is enveloped in a savoh, a sort of blouse or surplice, 
 having long sleeves, and a hood, all of deerskin, with the 
 hair outwards. The hands are lost in enormous roukavitsi, 
 gloves of calf-skin — hoof-shaped sacks rather, because the 
 hands W'Ould freeze in fingered gloves after the European 
 fashion. As the temperature is forty degrees (Centigrade) 
 below zero, and there is a piercing north Avind, the hood is 
 lowered, completely hiding the face. So every part of the 
 body — head, arms, and feet — is covered with red-brown hair, 
 and the figure is more like a wild animal v/hich has learnt 
 to walk on its hind legs than a human being. If it were to 
 go on all fours the illusion would be complete. But as the 
 figure is that of one of the most elegant in Gorodishko's 
 beauties the suggestion is perhaps a little ungracious, if not 
 positively ungallant. The lady is none other than tlie 
 judge's wife, and she is just now bent on paying a visit to 
 the Popadia — the wife of the parson of the parish. 
 
 On reaching the little gray house, she enters the court 
 and mounts quickly to the ante-chamber. Here she throws 
 back her hood, showing a square face with large jaws, and 
 eyes as clear and blue as those of the fish of the country, and 
 shakes herself energetically like a dog fresh out of the water, 
 to get rid of the snow which has fallen on her furs. Then 
 she enters the next room and finds the Popadia at home, 
 whereupon the visitor takes off her outer garments, and the 
 friends embrace. 
 
 " Ilave you heard, mother, what the students are about ?" 
 says the judge's wife, excitedly. 
 
LIFE IN EXILE. 207 
 
 In the far nortli political exiles are called "students" in- 
 discriminately, albeit not more than a fourth of them are 
 so. 
 
 " Oh, don't mention them ! I fear so much that they 
 will do me an ill turn, that every time I pass one of them 
 in the street I make a sign of the cross under my savoh. 
 Every time, I assure you. It is that alone which has so far 
 kept me from harm." 
 
 "I fear now, though, it will protect you no longer." 
 
 "Oh, the very Holy Virgin! What do you mean by 
 that ? You make me tremble all over.*' 
 
 "Sit down, mother, and I will tell you. Matrcna, the 
 fish-wife, came to see me half an hour ago, and told me all 
 about it. As you know, she lets them two rooms, and she 
 has heard something through the key-hole. She did not 
 understand everything — you know how stupid the woman 
 is — but she understood enough to enable us to guess the 
 rest." 
 
 Whereupon the Judge's wife, with many exclamations, in- 
 terruptions, and asides, repeated all the terrible things she 
 had heard from the eaves-dropping fish-wife— and some- 
 thing more. 
 
 "The students, according to this account, had conceived 
 a diabolical project. They wanted to take possession of the 
 town and destroy everything. But as they are not allowed 
 to do this they are angry. The doctor, that Pole, you know, 
 is the ringleader; and, as you know, a Pole is capable of 
 anything. He had the others in his room yesterday, and he 
 showed them things— such things ! And he told them things 
 —such things ! It would make the very hair stand on your 
 head to hear them." 
 
 " Oh, the saints of paradise ! Tell me quickly or I shall 
 die of fear ! " 
 
 "He showed them— a skuU— a dead man's skull ! " 
 
 "Ah! ah!" 
 
208 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 *' And then he showed them a book full of red pictures, 
 dreadful enough to dry up your bowels.'* 
 
 '^ Oh ! oh ! oh ! " 
 
 *' But, listen ; there is something still more terrible. 
 After showing them all these things, after speaking words 
 that a Christian cannot repeat, the Pole said this : ' In seven 
 days,' he said, *wc shall have another lesson, then another, 
 and so on for seven times. And then, after the seventh 
 lesson ' " 
 
 Here the speaker raised her voice, and paused for a mo- 
 ment to watch the effect of her words. 
 
 *'0h, oh !" exclaimed the Fopadia, "the powers of the 
 holy cross protect us ! " 
 
 *'* After the seventh lesson,' said the Pole, *we shall be 
 strong and powerful, and able to blow up the city with all 
 its inhabitants to the very last man.'" 
 
 " To the last man— oh ! " 
 
 And the Fopadia made as if she were going to faint; but, 
 remembering the imminence of the danger, she refrained. 
 
 ''And the ispravniJc, what does he say?" 
 
 " The icS^rotvmX- is an ass ; or, perhaps, he has been won 
 over by these plotters — sold himself to the doctor." 
 
 " Do you know vv'hat we must do, then, mother ? We 
 must go to Mrs. Captain. Come !" 
 
 " Yes, that is it. Let us go to Mrs. Captain." 
 
 Ten minutes later the two friends were in the street, both 
 attired in the same grotesque costume, and if they had tum- 
 bled about among the snow they might easily have been mis- 
 taken for a couple of frolicsome young bears. But they were 
 too much concerned about the fate of their native town to 
 thmk of amusing themselves in this or in any other fash- 
 ion. They hurried on to their friend to pour into her sym- 
 pathetic ear tlie story of Matrena, the fish-wife, a story, we 
 may be sure, not likely to lose anytliing in the telling. 
 
 ''' Mrs. Captain " was the wife of the captain of gendar- 
 
LIFE IIT EXILE. 209 
 
 merie, who had been a resident at Gorodishko for several 
 years. So long as the exiles were few the ispravnik had been 
 in sole charge. But when the number rose to twenty and 
 went on increasing, it was thought necessary to provide him 
 with a colleague in the person of a captain of gendarmerie. 
 The exiles were thus placed under the sujjervision of two 
 rival authorities who were always on the watch to trip each 
 other up, and, by a great show of zeal, ingratiate them- 
 selves with their superiors at the expense, it need hardly be 
 said, of the unfortunate objects of their solicitude. Since 
 the captain arrived at Gorodishko not one political exile had 
 been released. If the ispravnik gave a good account of a 
 man the captain gave him a bad one, whereas if the lat- 
 ter had reported favorably of any one the former re- 
 ported unfavorably. 
 
 It was the captain of gendarmerie who on the present oc- 
 casion checkmated his adversary. A well-drawn up de- 
 nunciation was forwarded to the governor of the province 
 by the first courier The answer, the nature of which it was 
 easy to foresee, was not long in coming. The ispravnik re- 
 ceived a severe reprimand, and a threat of dismissal ''for 
 his careless supervision of the political exiles," and the 
 license he had allowed them. 
 
 This rap on the knuckles so terrified the chief of police, 
 that not alone were the exiles forbidden to give each other 
 lessons, but placed under something like a state of siege. If 
 there were too many of them in a room at the same time the 
 gendarmes knocked at the window as a summons to disperse. 
 They were also forbidden to form groups in the streets — in 
 other words, to walk together — an order in a town of one 
 street somewhat difficult of execution, and which led to 
 several misunderstandings with the police. 
 
 * * 
 
 Ties are early formed in exile, for exiles, exposed as they 
 
210 EUS3IA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 are to vexations on every hand, to all sorts of annoyance and 
 ill-will, naturally cling to each other and take refuge in 
 their own little world. Like people in colleges, prisons, 
 barracks, and on board ship, they are thrown so much to- 
 gether that the least similarity of character and sentiment 
 leads to intimacies which may grow into lifelong friendships. 
 
 After the setting in of winter our friends' little commune 
 received an accession in the person of the starik, who had 
 become much attached to them. They lived together 
 like a family, but the two that seemed to form the strongest 
 intimacy were Taras and young Orshine. 
 
 In the growth of friendships there is something strange 
 and not easily definable. Perhaps it was the very contrast 
 of their natures — the one concentrated and sclf-j)ossessed, 
 the other expansive and enthusiastic — which drew these 
 men together ; or perhaps it was the need of having some- 
 body to support and protect that attracted the strong and 
 energetic Taras to the frail boy, tender and impressionable 
 as a woman. Be that as it may, they became almost insep- 
 arable. Yet when the others rallied Taras on their 
 friendship he seemed annoyed, saying it was only habit, and 
 in his manner with Orshine there was often a certain 
 measure of reserve and restraint. They did not even 
 ** thou " each other, common as is this practice among young 
 Russians. Nevertheless Taras, while hiding his feelings 
 under a variety of pretexts and subterfuges, watclied over his 
 friend with the solicitude of a loving and devoted mother. 
 
 One day at the beginning of spring — in the monotony of 
 exile, albeit the days drag as if they would go on forever, 
 the months pass quickly — the friends came in from a walk. 
 They had been repeating for the thousandth time 
 the same conjecture as to the probability of a speedy 
 ending of their exile, and citing for the hundredth 
 time the same signs in support of their hopes. They 
 had also discussed, as usual, the expediency of trying 
 
LIFE IN EXILE. 211 
 
 to escape, and decided, as usual, in the negative. ISTeither 
 of them that at time was bent on flight. They thought it 
 better to wait. The revocation v,'as sure to come. Both 
 were socialists, but Taras was all for influencing society 
 largely and on the mass. He was conscious of being an 
 orator, loved his art, and had tasted the first-fruits of 
 success. He had no wish to sacrifice the future of his dream 
 — the only one to which he aspired — for the underground 
 activity of a member of the Terrorist party. He resolved 
 therefore still to wait, although his lot became even harder 
 to bear and patience less easy to practise. Orshine, on the 
 other hand, had not a spark of personal ambition. It was 
 a sentiment he could not even comprehend. The youth 
 was a genuine type of a class of young men common in 
 Eussia and known as narodnih — enthusiastic admirers of 
 the peasantry. It had been his wish to leave the university 
 and take the position of school-master in some obscure vil- 
 lage, and there pass his life, not in influencing the peasants 
 (tliat would have been unwarrantable presumption), but in 
 giving them the rudiments of culture. Though his plans 
 were temporarily thwarted by the troubles at the university, 
 in which he could not avoid taking part, and which had 
 caused his exile to Gorodishko, he had not renounced them. 
 He even desired to turn his enforced leisure to account by 
 learning some handicraft which might help him to 
 "simplify-' himself, and enable him the better to study the 
 peasantry whom, as yet, he knew only in the poems of 
 Mekinssoff. 
 
 When the friends reached the town it was already late, 
 and the peasant fishermen were going out for their hard 
 night's work. By the rosy light of the setting sun they 
 could see a number of them preparing their nets. One was 
 singing. 
 
 " How these fellows work, and yet they sing ! " said 
 Orshine, pityingly. 
 
212 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 Taras, turning his head, looked vaguely in the direction 
 
 indicated. 
 
 '*' What a fine song ! " went on Orshine. *' It is as if some- 
 thing of the soul of the people vibrated in it. I find it very 
 melodious, don't you ? " 
 
 Taras shook his head and laughed lightly. But his attention 
 had been roused, and when he came near the singer he list- 
 ened. The words of the song struck him. It was evidently 
 an old ballad, and he conceived on the instant an idea. 
 He thought he had found an occupation which would help 
 to while away the time. He would make a collection of pop- 
 ular songs and traditions, a collection which might possibly 
 form a valuable contribution to folk-lore and literature. 
 
 When he communicated his idea to Orshine, the latter 
 found it splendid, another got the peasant to repeat his song, 
 and made a note of it there and then. 
 
 They both went to bed in high spirits, and the next day 
 Taras set out in search of the treasures which he proposed 
 to gather. He did not think it necessary to make any 
 secret of his intention. Twenty years before a company 
 of exiles had openly undertaken a similar work, and 
 enriched science with specimens of the folk-lore of Xorthem 
 Russia previously unknown. But that was one time, 
 this was another." The ispravnik had not forgotten the 
 affair of the lessons. When he heard of the exile's new 
 enterprise he was furious, and sent for Taras to his office, 
 when a scene took place which the latter did not soon for- 
 get. The ispravniTc, that brute with a thief's wages, dared 
 to insult him, Taras ; dared to threaten him with a dungeon 
 for *' disturbing people's minds "—as if these stupid scan- 
 dal-mongers ever had any minds! All the pride of his nature 
 .was thoroughly roused. He would have liked to knock 
 "the fellow down. But he refrained ; they would have shot 
 him on the spot ; that would have been too great a triumph 
 . for the blackguards. So Taras spoke never a word ; but 
 
LIFE IN EXILE. 213 
 
 when he left the police ofiBce, his deadly paleness sLowed 
 how sharp had been the conflict and how much it had cost 
 him to keep his temper. 
 
 The same evening, when he and his friend were returning 
 from a long and silent walk, Taras said suddenly — 
 
 '* Why should we not go away ? The one can be no worse 
 than the other." 
 
 Orshine made no reply. He could not as yet make up his 
 mind. Taras understood. He understood also why Orshine 
 demurred to his proposal ; for exiles, like long-married 
 couj^les, know each other so well that answers are often un- 
 necessary ; they can dirine their companions' thoughts and 
 interpret their unspoken words. 
 
 The younger exile, moreover, was in good spirits. A 
 school had been opened at Gorodishko ; a governess of the 
 new style was on her way to take charge of it, and Orshine 
 awaited her arrival with impatience. It pleased him to 
 think that he would make her acquaintance, and take lessons 
 from her in the art of teaching. He could have consented 
 to stay a long time at Gorodishko if he might have had per- 
 mission to help her. But of that there was no question. 
 
 At length the new teacher came. She had gone through 
 a course of pedagogy, and was the first to begin the new 
 system of teaching at Gorodishko. All the fashionable 
 people of the place went to see the young woman at work 
 with as much curiosity as if the school had been a me- 
 nagerie and she a tamer of wild beasts. Orshine could not 
 help making her acquaintance, and when he waited on her 
 he met with a very cordial reception. Passionately attached 
 to her calling, the young teacher was delighted to meet with 
 somebody who shared in her enthusiasm and sympathized in 
 her views. Orshine left her house with a pile of pedagogic 
 books under his arm, and his visit was followed by several 
 others. But one day when he called he found the young 
 woman in great trouble. She had been summarily dis- 
 
214 EUSSIA UNDER THE TZAE3. 
 
 missed from the situation " for having relations -n-ith politi- 
 cal exiles,'* 
 
 Orshine was in dispair. He protested energetically against 
 the teacher's dismissal, and pleaded warmly in her favor, 
 pointing out that it was he who had sought her acquaiu- 
 tancG, not she who had sought his. But all was in vain ; 
 the authorities vv'ere not to be moved from their purpose, 
 and the unfortunate teacher had to go. 
 
 As Taras and Orshine returned from the wharf, whither 
 they ])ad been to see her off, the former repeated the ques- 
 tion he had so often put before — 
 
 "Well, don't you think I am right ? " he said. ''One 
 can be no worse than the other." 
 
 ** Yes, yes," answered the younger man passionately. He 
 had borne the wrongs inflicted on himself with a patience 
 and forbearance which to his friend was simply exasperat- 
 ing. But now the cup had run over. 
 
 "If we are not liberated this winter we will escape," re- 
 sumed Taras. " What do you say ? " 
 
 "Yes, yes ; by all means." 
 
 The winter brought only new troubles. 
 
 * 
 « * 
 
 It was mail day. Writing and receiving letters were the 
 only events that broke the sameness of that stagnant world. 
 It might almost be said that the exiles lived only between 
 one mail day and the other. The post arrived at Gorodisbko 
 every ten days — that is to say, about three times a mouth. 
 Although, according to the regulations, an exile's corre- 
 spondence is not of necessity censured, none of the Goro- 
 disbko exiles were spared the infliction, for the administra- 
 tion shrewdly calculated that the privilege of exemption, if 
 granted to one, must be granted to all. They therefore 
 granted it to none, and all the letters addressed to the exiles, 
 after being read by the ispravnik, were resealed with his 
 
LIFE IN EXILE. ' 215 
 
 own seal and forwarded to their owners. Their friends 
 never, of course, thought of Wi'iting to them anything of a 
 compromising character, any more than if they had been 
 actual prisoners, everybody being aware that all their letters 
 passed through the hands of the police. But owing to the 
 crass ignorance of the officials of that remote region, the 
 censorship of correspondence gives rise to innumerable vexa- 
 tious. A scientific phrase, or a word of foreign origin, is 
 enough to put them into a paroxysm of suspicion, and a 
 long-looked-for and ardently-desired letter is lost in the bot- 
 tomless pit of the Third Section. The greater part of 
 *' misunderstandings " with the police are caused by the 
 confiscation of correspondence. Letters written by the 
 exiles of Gorodishko were treated in the same way. To pre- 
 vent them from evading the humiliating obligation, a police- 
 man was always stationed by the single letter-box the place 
 possessed, and he seized without scruple any mail matter 
 that an exile or his landlady attempted to post. A few 
 coj^ecks might have closed one of the fellow's eyes — perhaps 
 both of them. But what would have been the use ? The 
 people of Gorodishko are so little given to correspondence, 
 that the postmaster knows the handwriting of every one of 
 them, and can recognize an exile's letter at a glance. Nor 
 is this all. The correspondence of the natives is confined to 
 Archangelsk, chief town of the province and head-quarters 
 of its trade. Letters addressed to Odessa, Kieff, Caucas, 
 and other distant cities, belonged almost exclusively to the 
 exiles. 
 
 To evade tlie censorship, then, it was necessary to hit on 
 some special expedient, and it one day occurred to Orshine 
 to utilize for this purpose a book he was returning to a com- 
 rade at Odessa. He wrote a long epistle on the margins, 
 so arranging the book that, as he thought, it would not 
 easily open at the part where he had written. He had prac- 
 tised the stratagem before, and always with success. But 
 
216 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 this time an accident led to its discovery, and there was a 
 terrible to do. It is hardly necessary to say that Orshine had 
 written nothing very particular or serious. "What that is 
 serious or particular has an exile to say ? But Orshine, when 
 he penned the epistle, being in a bantering vein, drew a 
 picture more sarcastic than flattering of the fashionable and 
 official world of Gorodishko, in which, as mav be supposed, 
 the ispravnih and his wife occupied a prominent place. The 
 chief of police, who had discovered the secret of the book, 
 was beside himself with rage. Running across to our friends' 
 quarters, he threw himself among them like a bombshell. 
 
 "Mr. Orshine, put on your clothes at once. You must 
 go to prison. " 
 
 " Why, what has happened ? " said the young man, in 
 great surprise. 
 
 " You have been sending clandestine correspondence to 
 the papers with the object of exposing the established au- 
 thorities to ridicule and disrespect, and shaking the pillars of 
 rule." 
 
 On this the friends perceived what had come to pass, and 
 were very much disposed to laugh in the ispravnik's face. 
 But it was hardly a time for laughter. They had to protect 
 their friend and assert their rights. 
 
 " Orshine shall not go to prison. You have no right to 
 put him there," said Taras, ilrmly. 
 
 " I did not speak to you. Shut your mouth. Make haste, 
 Orshine. " 
 
 " We shall not let you take Orshine to prison," repeated 
 Taras, looking the ispravnik full in the face. 
 
 He spoke resolutely and slowly, a sign with him of grow- 
 ing anger. 
 
 " He is ill," put in Losinski. 
 
 All took the same line, and thus followed a hot dispute. 
 Meanwhile the other exiles, having got wind of what was 
 going on, hurried to the spot and joined in the remonstrances 
 
LIFE IN" EXILE. 217 
 
 of their friends. Taras took the lead, and despite Orshine's 
 pressing and reiterated request, that they would not com- 
 promise themselves on his account, they refused to let him 
 
 go- 
 
 " If you put him in prison you must put us all there," they 
 
 shouted. 
 
 *' And then we will knock the old carcass in pieces about 
 your ears," said Taras. 
 
 The aSair began to look ugly, for the ispravnih threat- 
 ened to call his men to arms and use force. In the end 
 Orshine insisted on giving himself up, and his friends reluc- 
 tantly allowed him to be taken away. 
 
 . He was kept in the lock-up only two days, but the incident 
 embittered still further the relations between the exiles and 
 the police. The former took their revenge in the only way 
 open to them. It so happened that the ispravnih had a 
 morbid and almost superstitious dread of newspaper criticism. 
 The exiles resolved to strike the man in his tenderest point. 
 They wrote a sarcastic letter about him, and contrived to 
 send it to a St. Petersburg paper by a roundabout way. 
 The letter duly reached its destination and appeared in print, 
 not only hitting its mark, but causing considerable excite- 
 ment. The governor himself was annoyed, and ordered an 
 inquiry. Many of the exiles and their lodgi.igs were searched 
 ** for traces of the crime ; " and as the guilty man could not 
 be detected, all were suspected in turn, and submitted to 
 every sort of petty persecution, especially as touching their 
 correspondence. The police insisted on the strict observance 
 of every article of the regulation, in the application of which 
 the exiles had hitherto succeeded in obtaining considerable 
 indulgence. Losinski was the first to suffer from this change 
 of policy. The eternal question of his medical practice 
 again came up. A contention on this subject had been go- 
 ing on ever since the doctor's arrival at Gorodishko. The 
 last pretext on which he had been refused permission to 
 
218 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 practise was that he might profit by it to make a political 
 propaganda. Yet wheu one of the officials or some member 
 of their families fell ill, he would often be called in. In 
 this way his professional activity came to be practically tol- 
 erated, if not openly recognized. But he was now roundly 
 informed by the ispravnik that if he did not strictly comply 
 with the regulations his disobedience would be reported to 
 the governor. The chief of police had no idea of risking 
 the loss of his place in order " to give Dr. Losinski pleasure." 
 Nor were the others more tenderly dealt with. The 
 supervision exercised over them by the police was almost 
 past bearing. They were not allowed to extend their walks 
 beyond the limits of the wretched little town, which thus 
 became their prison. They were continually annoyed by 
 visits of inspection, equivalent to the roll-calls of the pris- 
 ons. Not a morning passed that a policeman did not call 
 to inquire about their healtli. Every other day they had to 
 call at the police office and enter their names in a book 
 kept for the purpose. Virtually they were in a jail— a jail 
 without cells, yet surrounded by a vast desert which cut 
 Gorodishko off from the world of the living more effectually 
 than granite walls. The police, moreover, had the exiles 
 continually in view ; the latter could never appear in the 
 street without being followed by one or more gendarmes. 
 Whether they went in or out, whether they paid a visit or re- 
 ceived a friend, they were always under the eye of the isprav- 
 oiih or his acrents. 
 
 This was all the more discouraging as there was little 
 prospect of a change for the better. On the contrarv, the 
 chances were rather in favor of an aggravation than an 
 amelioration of their lot, for, as they learned from the isprav- 
 m'k's secretary, a storm was brewing against them at Arch- 
 angelsk. They were in bad odor with the governor, and it 
 was probable that some of their number would be sent before 
 long to a town still more to the north. 
 
LIFE I2f EXILE. 219 
 
 In these circumstances further hesitation would have been 
 foolish, and Taras and Orshine informed their companions 
 of the commune, and afterwards the entire colony, that they 
 had decided to attempt an escape. Their resolution met 
 with general approval, and four of their fellow-exiles deter- 
 mined to follow their example. But it being out of the 
 question for six men to go away at once, it was arranged that 
 they should leave two at a time. Taras and Orshine were 
 to be the first pair, Losinski and Ursitch the nest, while the 
 third was to be composed of two of the older exiles. The 
 colony talked of nothing else. The whole of the common 
 fund was placed at the disposal of the fugitives, and to in- 
 crease it by a fev-^ roubles the exiles imposed on themselves 
 the greatest privations. The remainder of the winter 
 passed in discussing the various projects which vrere sug- 
 gested, and preparing for the great event. 
 
 In addition to the political exiles, Gorodishko possessed 
 about twenty ordinary transports— pickpockets, petty forg- 
 ers, larcenous tcJiinovniks, and other rogues of divers grades. 
 These malefactors were all far more indulgently treated than 
 the politicals. Their correspondence was not censored, and 
 so long as they were occupied were let alone. But they did 
 not much care to be occupied, preferring rather to live by 
 begging and pilfering. The authorities, who are " dogs and 
 wolves" with the politicals, show great forbearance towards 
 the rogues, with whom they have evidently a fellow-feeling, 
 and take tithe of their plunder. These commune transports 
 are the scourge of the country. Sometimes they form them- 
 selves into organized gangs. Tliere was one town, Sheu- 
 koursk, which they actually put in a state of siege. Nobody 
 was allowed either to go out or come in without paying them 
 black-mail. At Kholmogori their conduct rose to such a 
 height that the governor, Ignatieft, had to proceed to the 
 
220 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 place in person before they could be reduced to order. He 
 called the rascals before him, and gave them a paternal lect- 
 ure on their misconduct. They listened with the utmost 
 respect, promised to behave better in the future, and, as they 
 left the audience chamber, stole his samovar. As it was a 
 very fine samovar, and the police were unable to recover it, 
 a message of peace was sent to the thieves, and negotiations 
 were opened for the return of the stolen property. In the 
 end the governor ransomed his samovar with a payment of 
 five roubles. 
 
 The relations between the two classes of exiles are some- 
 what peculiar. The rogues profess great respect for the po- 
 liticals and render them many services— a respect, however, 
 which does not prevent tliem from cheating their fellow- 
 exiles and taking their money whenever opportunity offers. 
 
 As the thieves were less closely watched Ihan the polit- 
 icals, it occurred to Ursitch that they might be turned to 
 good account in the matter of the contemplated escape. 
 But though this plan had many advantages, it had one great 
 drawback. The thieves, most of whom v/ere confirmed 
 drunkards, could not be trusted. Yet the co-operation of 
 somebody outside their own body, if not absolutely neces- 
 sary, was very desirable, and the question arose as to what 
 they should do. 
 
 "I have it!" exclaimed Losinski one day. "1 have 
 spotted my man — Uskinibai ! " 
 
 ''The Sultan?" 
 
 "Yes, the Sultan. He is the very man !" 
 
 The doctor had cured him of an affection of the chest, to 
 which the wild men of the steppes are always liable when 
 transported to the frozen north, and from that moment 
 Uskimbai had shown for his benefactor the blind affection 
 of a dog for his master. He was a man upon whom they 
 could count — honest and simple, a very child of nature. 
 
 The commune invited the Sultan to tea, and explained 
 
LIFE IN EXILE. 221 
 
 what they desired him to do. He agreed without hesitation 
 to everything they proposed, and entered heartily into the 
 exiles' plans. Being nnder a much more liberal regime than 
 the politicals, he was allowed to carry on a little trade in 
 cattle, and from time to time visited the neighboring 
 villages, where he had several acquaintances, and would be 
 able to conduct the fugitives to the first stage. In his 
 anxiety to oblige the doctor and his friends, who alone at 
 Gorodishko had befriended him, the poor fellow made little 
 of the danger of detection. 
 
 It is unnecessary to dwell on the details of the escape. It 
 was effected under the best auspices. Uskimbai acquitted 
 himself of his task to admiration, and brought back the 
 news of the fugitives' safe arrival at the first relay (stage) 
 and their departure for Archangelsk. A week passed quiet- 
 ly ; another, and unwonted activity was observed among the 
 police. It was a bad sign, and the exiles feared that some 
 ill had befallen the fugitives. This foreboding was only too 
 quickly realized. A few days later they heard from the 
 ispravniFs secretary that at Archangelsk their friends had 
 fallen under the suspicion of the police, and that, although 
 they succeeded in getting away, they -were followed, and 
 after a chase of five days, during which they underwent 
 terrible hardships, they fell, faint and exhausted with hunger 
 and fatigue, into the hands of their enemies, who treated 
 them with the utmost brutality. Orshine was struck and 
 rendered almost insensible. Taras defended himself with 
 his revolver, but was overpowered, disarmed and fettered. 
 The two were then thrust into a carriage and taken to 
 Archangelsk, where Orshine had been placed in the hospital 
 to be cured of his wounds. 
 
 This was a thunder-stroke for the exiles, and plunged 
 them into the deepest distress. For a long time they re- 
 mained in mournful silence, every man fearing to look his 
 neighbor in the face lest he should see there the reflection 
 
223 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZAES. 
 
 of his own despair. And yet every object, every incident, 
 recalled these unfortunate friends, whom a community of 
 suffering had made as dear to them as their own kin. It was 
 only when they were gone that they knew how much they 
 had loved these lost ones. 
 
 On one of the three remaining members of the commune 
 this new trouble had an unlooked-for effect. The cvenino- 
 of the third day after the arrival of the fatal news, Starik'^ 
 who had been much depressed, was persuaded to make a 
 visit to one of his old friends of another commune. He was 
 expected back about eleven. Yet eleven came and went, 
 and no Starik ; but at the stroke of twelve the outer door 
 opened, and the tread of halting footsteps was heard in the 
 corridor. It could not be Starik ; he was not wont to walk 
 unsteadily. Ursitch went outside, holding a candle over his 
 head, to see who the intruder was, and by its fitful light per- 
 ceived the figure of a man leaning helplessly against the 
 wall. It was Starik, blind drunk — the first time be had 
 been in such a state since he had joined the commune. The 
 others bfougbt him in, and the work of looking after their 
 unfortunate friend served in some measure to lighten the 
 burden of their affliction. 
 
 The year following was marked by many sorrowful inci- 
 dents. Taras was tried for armed resistance to the police, 
 and sentenced to hard labor for life. Orshiue, before he had 
 recovered from his hurts, was transported to an Esquimaux 
 village in seventy degrees of north latitude, where the 
 ground thaws only six weeks in tlic year. Losinski had a 
 letter from him, full of sadness, a letter that left no doulot 
 as to what the end would be. The poor fellow was very ill. 
 His chest, he said, was in such a state that he felt fit for 
 nothing, ''and you are not here to make me listen to 
 reason." His teeth were playing him traitor, and showed a 
 
LIFE IN EXILE. 223 
 
 gTeat desire to leave his mouth. This was in allusion to the 
 scurvy, a disease peculiarly fatal in polar regions. In the 
 same hamlet with Orshine was another exile, sent thither, 
 like himself, for attempting to escape. ' They were evidently 
 very wretched, being often without either meat or bread. 
 Orshine had abandoned all hope of ever again seeing his 
 friends. Even if a chance of escaping were to present itself 
 he could not profit thereby, so utter was his weakness. He 
 concluded with these words : '' This spring I hope to die." 
 And he died before the time himself had fixed. About his 
 death, moreover, there was something mysterious. It was 
 never exactly known whether he died naturally, or shortened 
 his sufferings by suicide. 
 
 In the meanwhile the lives of the exiles had become more 
 and more insupportable. After the attempted escape of the 
 two friends the tyranny of their custodians increased, and 
 their hope of being restored to liberty and civilization 
 vanished almost to nothingness. For as the revolutionary 
 movement extended, the severity of the Government towards 
 those whom it retained in its power became greater ; and as 
 a further check on attempts to escape it was decreed that 
 every such attempt should be punished by exile to Eastern 
 Siberia. 
 
 But all the same, escapes continued to be attempted. The 
 Gorodishko police, fatigued with their own zeal, had hardly 
 begun to relax their precaution when Losinski and Ursitch 
 made ofc. It was a desperate enterprise, for they were so 
 ill-supplied with money that success was almost out of the 
 question. But Losinski could not wait. He was on the 
 point of being transferred to another town because he had 
 not been able to refuse the appeal of a mother to visit her 
 sick child and of a husband to attend his fever-stricken 
 wife. Fortune, moreover, did not favor them. They were 
 compelled to separate on the way, and from that time forth 
 Losinski was heard of no more. He disappeared without 
 
224 RUSSIA UXDER THE TZARS. 
 
 leavine a trace behind. His fate is therefore a matter of 
 conjecture. Having to traverse the forests on foot, he 
 probably lost his way, and either died of hunger or fell a 
 prey to the wolves which infest that part of the country. 
 
 Ursitch, in the beginning, was more fortunate. Not hav- 
 ing enough money to pay his way to St. Petersburg, he en- 
 gaged himself at Vologdh as a common laborer, and worked 
 there until he had saved enough to continue his journey. 
 But at the very moment he entered the train he was recog- 
 nized and recaptured, and subsequently condemned to life- 
 long exile in the land of the wild Yakoutes. 
 
 As he marched along the tear-bedewed road to Siberia, 
 escorted by soldiers and surrounded by companions in mis- 
 fortune, he met, not far from Krasnoiarsk, a post-carriage 
 drawn by three horses and going at full speed. The face of 
 the principal occupant, a well-dressed man in a cocked hat, 
 seemed familiar to him. He looked more attentively, and 
 could hardly restrain a cry of joy as he recognized in the 
 traveller his friend Taras— Taras himself. He could not be 
 mistaken. This time, at least, Taras had succeeded in es- 
 caping, and was now on his way to Eussia as fast as three 
 fleet horses could take him. 
 
 Quickly the carriage came on, passed like a flash, and dis- 
 appeared in a cloud of dust. But in that brief moment — 
 was it illusion or was it reality ? — it seemed to him that he 
 had caught his friend's eye, and that a gleam of recognition 
 and pity swept over his energetic face. 
 
 As Ursitch looked backward towards the fast-flying car- 
 riage, all the sorrowful past which that face recalled rose 
 before him ; and he saw, like an impassable gulf, the dark 
 future which awaited him and his fellow-captives. But he 
 wished all success to the fugitive, whom he knew to be 
 brave and strong, and made him in thought the bearer of 
 his hopes and the executor of his vengeance. 
 
 Whether Taras really recognized his friend in the fettered 
 
LIFE IK EXILE. 225 
 
 convict by tlie wayside we arc unable to say. But we know 
 that he faithfully accomplished the mission mutely confided 
 to him. At St. Petersburg he joined the party of action, 
 and for three years he fought on — without resting either 
 head or arm — wherever the battle was hottest. When at 
 last he was taken and condemned to death, he could say 
 proudly and with all justice that he had done his duty. 
 Bat they did not hang him ; his sentence was commuted 
 to imprisonment for life, and he was left to perish in the 
 Fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul. 
 
 Thus, at the end of five years, there remained of the little 
 family by adoption, which had first met in that remote 
 northern village, bat one " living " — that is to say free from 
 chains. This solitary survivor was Starik. He is still in 
 the same place, without hope and without future, not de- 
 siring even to quit the wretched tov/n where he has stayed 
 so long, for in the state to which he is reduced what is he 
 fit for, the unfortunate ? 
 
 My story is finished. Though it may not be cheerfal or 
 diverting, it has at least the merit of being true. I have 
 simply tried to reproduce the reality. The scenes I have 
 described are being continually repeated in the hulks of 
 Siberia and other northern towns which the Government 
 has transformed into veritable prisons. Even worse things 
 than I have told come to pass ; for I have narrated only 
 ordinary cases, not wishing to take advantage of the right 
 given me by the form 1 have adopted in this sketch to darken 
 my colors for the sake of dramatic effect. To prove this I 
 need only make a few extracts from the official report of a 
 personage whom none certainly will accuse of exaggeration — 
 General Baranoff, formerly prefect of St. Petersburg, now 
 Governor of Riazan, and who for a short time was governor 
 of the province of Archangelsk. Let the reader himself 
 10* 
 
336 BUSSIA UXDER THE TZARS. 
 
 read between the lines of this matter-of-fact document the 
 tears, the sorrows, and the tragedies which its every page 
 reflects. 
 
 I translate, of course, literally, retaining the conventional 
 expressions employed by a Kussian employe when addressing 
 the cabinet of the Tzar. 
 
 *' From the exjDerience of past years, and my own personal 
 observation," says the general, *' I have arrived at the con- 
 clusion that administrative exile for political causes tends 
 rather to exasperate a man and infect him with perverse 
 ideas than to correct him (correction being the officially 
 declared object of exile). The change from a life of ease to 
 a life of privation, from life in the bosom of society to separa- 
 tion from all society, from an activity more or less active to 
 an enforced inaction— all this produces an effect so disas- 
 trous that often, especially of late — (observe !) — therehave 
 occurred among the exiles cases of madness, of suicide and 
 attempted suicide. All this is but the direct result of the 
 abnormal conditions of life under which exile places educated 
 and intelligent men. We know no instances of a man exiled 
 for motives based on serious suspicion of his political con- 
 victions leaving his exile reconciled with the Government, 
 purged of his errors, and converted into a useful member of 
 society and a faithful servant of the throne. On the con- 
 trary, we can affirm that very often a man sent into exile by 
 misunderstanding — (observe again ! what an exemplary con- 
 fession is this) — or by an error of the administration, be- 
 comes — partly owing to personal exasperation, partly by the 
 influence of men really hostile to the Government — himself 
 hostile to the Government. As for the man in whom are 
 already implanted the germs of anti-governmental tendencies, 
 exile, by the whole of its conditions, will favor the growth 
 of these germs, sharpen his discontent, and transform his 
 theoretic opposition into practical opposition ; i. c, into an 
 opposition extremely dangerous. Among citizens who have 
 
LIFE I]Sr EXILE. 227 
 
 no connection with revolution it develops, in consequence 
 of the same conditions, revolutionary ideas, thus producing 
 results diametrically opposed to those to obtain which exile 
 was instituted. And whatever may be the outward con- 
 ditions of an exile's life, exile itself gives the victim the idea 
 of arbitrary administration, which alone is sufficieut to ex- 
 clude all possibility of reconciliation and amendment."* 
 
 The outspoken general is quite right. All who have suc- 
 ceeded in escaping from exile have almost, without excep- 
 tion, entered the ranks of the extreme Terrorist party. Ad- 
 ministrative exile, as a correctional measure, is an absurdity. 
 General Baranoff must be truly unsophisticated if he believes 
 that the Govei'nment is not fully aware of this, or believes 
 for a moment in the reformatory efficacy of the system. Ad- 
 ministrative exile is at once a punishment and a formidable 
 weapon of defence. Those who escape it become, it is true, 
 determined enemies of the Government. But it is an open 
 question whether this result would not equally come to pass 
 if they were not exiled. There are numbers of revolutionists 
 and terrorists who have never undergone this ordeal. For 
 every one who escapes from exile, moreover, tliere are a 
 hundred who remain and perish irrevocably. Of the hun- 
 dred the great majority are entirely innocent ; but ten or 
 fifteen, or perhaps twenty-five, are really enemies of the 
 Government, or likely in a short time to become so ; and 
 those of them who perish with the others are so many taken 
 from the devil — so many foes the fewer. 
 
 The only practical conclusion Count Tolstoi could draw 
 from the general's naif report would be that a decree of exile 
 should never be revoked ; and this in effect is the principle 
 on which the Government consistently acts. 
 
 * The Moscow Juridic Beview. October, 1883. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 A DESTROYED GEXERATIOX. 
 
 We have so far restricted ourselves to a description of ad- 
 ministrative exile in its mildest form, as it exists in the 
 northern provinces of European Russia. We have said 
 nothing of Siberian exile in general, of which the peculiarity 
 consists in the senseless and despotic brutality of the least 
 and lowest police functionaries, who have been made what 
 they are by the system of penitential colonies which has 
 prevailed in Siberia since its annexation to the empire of 
 the Tzars. 
 
 In the latter part of the reign of Alexander II. there came 
 into vogue another form of exile — that to Eastern Siberia. 
 It still endures, and though considerations of space forbid 
 us to treat the subject at length, it is too important to be 
 alto-T^ether isrnored. The reader will remember that most 
 of the men whose cases we have cited as examples of the ex- 
 treme arbitrariness of the punishment of exile (Dr. Bely, 
 Ju jakofp, Kovalcvski, and others), were banished to Eastern 
 Siberia — the country of the Ynkoutes— a country apart, dif- 
 fering much more from the rest of Siberia than Siberia differs 
 from European Russia. 
 
 We will not weary the reader with descriptions of this 
 almost unknown land, but simply give the translation of an 
 article which appeared in the Moscoio Zemstvo of February 
 4, 1881. This article gives the substance of several letters 
 on the subject published, with the j^ermission of the official 
 censors, during the brief period of liberalism which began 
 with the dictatorship of Loris Melikoff. 
 
 "We know and we are accustomed," runs the article in 
 
A DESTROYED GENERATION. 229 
 
 question, '' to the hard conditions of administrative exile in 
 European Russia, thanks to the bovine patience of our Rus- 
 sian people. But as to the conditions of Siberian exile beyond 
 the Ural we have, until lately, known next to nothing. Our 
 ignorance on this score arises from the fact that before 1878- 
 79 instances of administrative exile in Siberia were extremely 
 rare. In former time3 we were much more humane. The 
 instinct of moralit}^ not yet stifled by political passion, did 
 not permit the sending of untried people by administrative 
 order to a country in which exile is regarded by Russians as 
 equivalent to penal servitude. But after a while the admin- 
 istration, stopping at nothing, began to banish men to places 
 the very name of which excited horror. Even the wild 
 country of the Yakoutes is beginning to be peopled with 
 exiles. It might be supposed that those who are sent thither 
 are criminals of deepest dye. But so far the public has heard 
 nothing of the nature of their offences, while, on the other 
 hand, the Press has published communications which remain 
 without contradiction, proving that these men have been 
 exiled on grounds as strange as they are incomprehensible. 
 Thus M. Vladimir Korolenko relates in the Ifolva his sad 
 history, with the object, as he says, of ascertaining wherefore 
 and for what cause he so narrovdy escaped being exiled to 
 the land of the Yakoutes. In 1879 two searches were made 
 in his lodgings absolutely without result. This, however, 
 did not hinder him from being sent to the province of 
 Kiatka for reasons which he has been unable to discover. 
 After passing five months in the town of Glasvo, he was one 
 day honored with an unexpected visit from the ispravnih, 
 ■who, after making a search of his lodgings without finding 
 anything suspicious, informed our exile that he would be 
 forthwith deported to the Huts {polchinki) of Beriosoff, a 
 place altogether unsuited for a civilized being. 
 
 ''After he had passed some time in these miserable Huts 
 there suddenly arrived several gendarmes — functionaries who 
 
230 EUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 had never been seen there before — took Mr. Koroleuko and 
 his slender baggage, and marched him off to Viatka. Here 
 he was kept fifteen days a prisoner without receiving any ex- 
 planation, or undergoing any examination, and then taken, 
 under escort, to the jaii of Vishne Volotchkov, whence there 
 is only one road — that to Siberia. Fortunately for him this 
 jail was visited during his detention by a member of the 
 Commission of Eevision, Prince Immeretenski, whom Mr. 
 Korolenko prayed to inform him whither, and for what 
 crime, he was to be exiled. The prince was complaisant and 
 humane enough to give him the i^articulars of the case set 
 forth in the official documents. According to these jjapers 
 Mr. Korolenko was to be deijorted into the country of the 
 Yakoutes for attempting to escape, an offence which he had 
 never committed. The Commission of Kevision was ju; 
 then inquiring into the system of i^olitical exile, and a mul 
 titude of cases of revolting injustice was brought to light. A 
 happy change now took place in the fate of Mr. Korolenko. At 
 the Tomek etape (Western Siberia) he and several other un- 
 fortunates were informed that five of them were to be fully 
 liberated, and five others sent to European Russia. But all 
 are not equally fortunate. There are men who continue to 
 enjoy the pleasures of life in the polar circle, albeit the 
 crime imputed to them differ in no essential respect from 
 that imputed to Mr. Korolenko. Thus the Rousshia Ve- 
 domosti gives the history of a young man now at Verkoi- 
 ansk, whose adventures are truly remarkable. He was a 
 student at Kieff university. For complicity in some dis- 
 orders that took place there in April, 1878, he was exiled to 
 Novgorod, which, as being a not very remote province, is 
 reserved by the administration for persons whose offences 
 they regard as venial. Even the severe administration of 
 that period did not attribute to this young man any political 
 importance, as is proved by the fact that a little later he 
 was transferred from Novgorod to the pi'ovince of Kherson, 
 
A DESTROYED GENERATION. 331 
 
 which is much warmer and better in every respect than the 
 former district. It is necessary to add, moreover, that, ac- 
 cording to the directions of Count Loris Melikoff, all the 
 students Oi Kieff university who were exiled to towns in 
 European Eussia for participation in university disorders, 
 have been liberated and allowed to resume their studies. 
 Yet one of these same students is at present living in the 
 Yakoute country, really because the higher administration 
 thought fit to ameliorate his lot by transferring him from 
 Novgorod to Kherson. The fact is that when Count Todt- 
 leben, the Governor-general of Odessa, undertook to purge 
 the region under his charge of its noxious elements, he 
 exiled to Siberia, without exception, everybody who was 
 under the supervision of the police ; and to this fate the ci- 
 devant KiefE student had to submit for no other reason than 
 that it was his ill-fortune to be placed under supervision in 
 the province of Kherson (forming part of the southern dis- 
 trict) instead of tbat of Novgorod ! 
 
 ''Another equally astounding instance of exile to Eastern 
 Siberia is related by the Moscoiv Telegraph. According to 
 the particulars set forth, this fate befell Mr. Borodine, a 
 gentleman who had published in the St. Petersburg papers 
 several articles on local economic questions. He lived at 
 Viatka under police oversight. One evening at the theatre 
 he had a dispute with the deputy pristav (officer of police), 
 Mr. Filimonov, about a place, in the course of which the 
 latter struck Mr. Borodine in the presence of several on- 
 lookers. The blow had a decisive influence on the fortunes 
 not of the insulter, but of the insulted. Though the officer 
 was not so much as reprimanded, Mr. Borodine was put in 
 prison, and it required great efforts on his own part as well 
 as on that of his friends to procure his liberation. His free- 
 dom, however, was of brief duration, for shortly thereafter 
 he was sent by etape (that is to say, on foot, and with a gang 
 of common malefactors) to Eastern Siberia. 
 
232 EUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 (C 
 
 But how came it to pass that Mr. Borodine was exiled, 
 seeing that his quarrel with the deputy pristav ended satis- 
 factorily in his release from prison ? We do not err in say- 
 ing that the answer to this question is found in the com- 
 munication addressed to the Rou^shia Vedomosti on the 
 exile to Viatkaof the author of certain articles printed m the 
 Aiinals of the Country, the True Russian Wo7'd,^ndi other peri- 
 odicals. Yet his name was not mentioned. It is only said 
 that while living at Viatka he committed, in the. eyes of the 
 local administration, a great crime. When the administra- 
 tion affirmed that the province was prosperous, he proved 
 by facts and figures that, so far from this being the case, the 
 people were dying of hunger. The consequence was this 
 turbulent and disagreeable man — to the administration — 
 had to submit to two police visitations ; and at last they 
 found among his papers the manuscript of an article in- 
 tended for the Press, and the supposed cause of the writer's 
 exile to Eastern Siberia. After a long journey on foot, in 
 the costume of a convict, with a yellow ace on his back, 
 our author arrived atlrkoutsk. Here he had the pleasure of 
 receiving the ^l;i;za?s of the Country, wherein was printed 
 at length, without either abbreviations or omissions, the 
 article to which his exile was ascribed. 
 
 *' Let us see now what is the life of a man exiled in the 
 country of the Yakoutcs. Here we have to notice, in the 
 first place, the facilities for communication with the Central 
 Government. If an exile living at Kolimsk should think fit 
 to petition Count Loris Melikoff for a revocation of his exile, 
 the petition would reach St. Petersburg in a year. Another 
 year must pass before the minister's inquiries touching the 
 exile's conduct and political opinion can reach the local 
 police. The third year will be taken up with the convey- 
 ance of the answer from Kolimsk to St. Petersburg that the 
 police see no objection to the petitioner's liberation. Final- 
 ly, at the end of the fourth year, the minister's order for the 
 
A DESTROYED GENERATION. 233 
 
 prisoner's release will reach Kolimsk. If the exile has no per- 
 sonal or hereditary property, and if before his banishment 
 he lived by intellectual work, for which there is no demand 
 in the Yakoute country, he will risk death by famine at 
 least four hundred times during the four years while the 
 post is making the four Journeys between St. Petersburg 
 and Kolimsk. The administration allows nobles by origin six 
 roubles a month ; while apoud (40 lbs.) of black bread cost 
 at Verkhoiansk five to six roubles, and at Kolimsk nine rou- 
 bles. If physical labor, hard and ungrateful to men of educa- 
 tion, or the help of relatives and friends, or, lastly, alms given 
 in the name of Christ, save the exile from death by hunger, 
 the terrible polar cold v/ill give him rheumatism for 
 all his life, and if he has not strong lungs conduct him to 
 the tomb. In such towns as Verkhoiansk and Kolimsk, 
 the former of which has 224 inhabitants of both sexes, the 
 latter a few more, there is no such thing as civilized society. 
 Nearly all are Yakoutes or Eussian Yakoutes. Yet the 
 exile who is allowed to live m any town whatever may es- 
 teem himself fortunate. In the Yakoute country there 
 exists another sort of exile still more cruel and barbarous, 
 an exile of which the Eussian public has no idea, and is in- 
 formed for the first time by the Ronsslcia Vedomosti. This 
 is the exile by oidousses — that is to say, the placing of men 
 administratively exiled one by one in Yakoute yowr/es (huts), 
 distant from each other several kilometres. The correspond- 
 ent of the EoiissJcia Vedomosti cites the letter of an exile 
 living in one of these oulousses, which vividly describes the 
 terrible position of an intelligent man thrown pitilessly into 
 the hut of one of these northern savages. 
 
 '' ' The Cossacks who escorted me from Yakoutsk,' he 
 writes, ' are gone, and I am left alone among the Yakoutes, 
 who know not a word of Eussian. They watch me continual- 
 ly, fearing that if I go away they will be held responsible by 
 the administration. If you leave the jourta — where you are 
 
234 
 
 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 suffocated— for a walk, the suspicious Yakoute follows you. 
 If you take an axe to cut some wood the timid Yakoute tells 
 you by signs to put it down and return to the joicrta. You 
 return and find sitting before the fire a stark-naked Yakoute 
 catching fleas— a fine tableau ! During the winter the 
 Yakoutes live with their cattle, often not separated from 
 them by the slightest partition. The accumulation of ex- 
 creta of every sort inside the jouria, the phenomenal filth 
 and dirt, rotting straw and noisome rags, the multitude of 
 insects on the beds, the insujiportable atmosphere, the im- 
 possibility of speaking a word in Russian— all this is truly 
 enough to make a man mad. And the food of these Yakou- 
 tes it is almost impossible to touch. It is always very dirty, 
 often putrefying, and without salt. If you are not used to 
 food in this state it causes sickness and vomiting. The 
 Yakoutes do not know how to make either pottery or clothes. 
 They have no baths, and during the long winter of eight 
 months you become yourself as dirty as a Yakoute. I cannot 
 go away anywhere, much less to a town, the nearest of which 
 is 120 miles distant. I live with the Yakoutes— turn and 
 turn, about six weeks in one hut, six weeks in another, and 
 so on. I have nothing to read, neither papers nor books, and 
 I know naugl^t of what is going on in the world.' 
 
 ''Further cruelty cannot go except by fastening a man to 
 the tail of a v.-ild horse and sending him into the steppe, or 
 chaining him to a corpse and leaving him to his fate. It is 
 hardly credible that without trial and by a simple adminis- 
 tion order a man can be submitted to sufferings which 
 European civilization does not inflict on the worst of male- 
 factors whose guilt has been pronounced by competent 
 tribunals. Still more incredible seems the assurance of the 
 Rousskia Vedomosti's correspondent, that even yet the lot of 
 exiles in the Yakoute country has been in no way bettered, 
 and that even recently there had arrived ten more adminis- 
 trative exiles, who for the most part are sent to the oulousscs, 
 and that further arrivals were shortly expected." 
 
A DESTROYED GENERATIOIT. 235 
 
 One word as to the pretended incredulity of the writer of 
 the foregoing article. It is a common subterfuge of the 
 censored Russian Press to express thus quietly and indirectly 
 its disapproval of the proceeding of Government. The Mos- 
 coiD Zemstvo, as every Russian who read the account knew, 
 did not doubt for a moment either the reported arrival 
 of the ten exiles in question, or the expected further arrival 
 mentioned by the correspondent of the Roiisskia Vedomosti. 
 
 We have thus reached the utmost limits of the official 
 system of administrative exile as established in Russia. The 
 Zemstvo was quite right— it is impossible to go further. 
 After the facts I have exposed it is only figures that can 
 speak. Let us then call figures in evidence. 
 
 The havoc v/rought by administrative exile is far greater 
 than that wrought by the tribunals. According to the par- 
 ticulars set forth in the almanac of the Narodiiaia Volia 
 for 1883, there took place betv^eea April 1879, when Russia 
 was put under martial law, and the death of Alexander 
 (March, 1881), forty political prosecutions, the accused 
 numbering 215 persons, of whom twenty-eight were acquitted 
 and twenty-four sentenced to trifling punishments. But 
 according to documents in my possession there were exiled 
 to divers places — Eastern Siberia included — from the three 
 satrapies of the south alone (Odessa, Kielf, and Kharkoii) 
 1,7G7 persons. 
 
 The number of political prisoners sentenced in the 124 
 trials of the two reigns was 841, a good third of the penal- 
 ties being little more than nominal. Official statistics relat- 
 ing to administrative exile are not procurable, but when, 
 during the dictatorship of Loris Melikoff, the Government 
 desired to refute the accusation of having exiled the half of 
 Russia, it admitted that in various parts of the empire there 
 were 2,873 exiles, all of whom, with the exception of 271,* 
 were exiled in the short period between 1878 and 1880. If 
 
 * See M. Leroy Beaulieu's work on Russia, vol. ii. pp. 445, 446. 
 
236 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 we make no allowance for the natural reluctance of the 
 Government to acknowledge the extent of its own shame, 
 if we forget that, owing to the number of authorities who 
 can issue decrees of administrative exile at their discretion 
 without giving information to anybody,* the Central Govern- 
 ment itself does not know the number of its victims — if, 
 ignoring all this, we reckon these victims at about three 
 thousand, the true number exiled in 1880, we should 
 double this rate for each of the five years of relentless per- 
 secution which followed. In assuming that durins: the two 
 reigns the totals range from six to eight thousand, we shall 
 not be exceedmg the reality. According to information 
 received in the office of the Narodnaia Volia, Mr. Tichori- 
 moff computed the number of arrests made in the first half 
 of 1883 at 8,157, and in Russia arrests, nine times out of ten, 
 are followed by exile, or worse. 
 
 But we need not dwell on the statistics of punishment. A 
 thousand exiles more or less makes little difference. The 
 great fact is that in a country so poor in intellectual strength 
 as Russia, all that is most noble, generous, and intelligent is 
 buried with these six or eight thousand exiles. All her vi- 
 tal forces are in that great crowd, and if the number be not 
 twelve or sixteen thousand, it is because the nation is un- 
 able to furnish so many. 
 
 The reader has seen what are the motives deemed by the 
 Government sufficient to justify a man's exile. It is no ex- 
 aggeration to say that the spies and collaborateurs of Count 
 Tolstoi alone can count on immunity from this fate. To 
 merit exile it is not necessary to be a revolutionist; it is 
 sufficient not to approve fully and entirely the policy and 
 proceedings of the Government. Under conditions such as 
 these an honest and intellectual man is more likely to bo 
 exiled than to escape. 
 
 Exile in any of its forms — whether banishment amongthe 
 
 * See M. Leroy Beaulieu's work on Russia, vol. ii. pp. 4,45, 44iJ. 
 
A DESTROYED GENERATION. 237 
 
 Yakoutes or exile in the northern proyinces — means, with 
 few exceptions, complete ruin to the victim and the utter 
 destruction of his future. For a mature man, having some 
 profession or occupation — a scientist or writer of reputation 
 — exile is necessarily a great hardship, involving sacrifice of 
 comfort, destruction of his home, and loss of work. Yet if 
 he has energy and strength of character, and does not perish 
 of drink or privation, he may possibly survive. But for a 
 young man, who is generally a scholar, who has not yet ac- 
 quired a profession, or reached the maturity of his powers, 
 exile is simply fatal. Even if he do not perish physically, 
 his moral ruin is inevitable, and the young alone form nine- 
 tenths of our exiles, and are treated with the greatest rigor, 
 Eevocatious, moreover, are rare, and generally only granted 
 in cases of " misunderstandings." And if among political 
 exiles there be a few who, after a few years' detention, are 
 reprieved through some fortunate chance, or by the help of 
 influential friends— without being obliged to purchase their 
 liberty by the cowardly hypocrisy of a feigned repentance— 
 the suspicion pursues them from the very moment of their 
 return to active life. On the least occasion they are struck 
 once more — this time forever. 
 
 How many are the lives this exile has ruined ! 
 
 The despotism of Nicolas crushed full-grown men. The 
 despotism of the two Alexanders did not give them time to 
 grow up. They threw themselves on immature generations, 
 on the grass hardly out of the ground, to devour it in all 
 its tenderness. To what other cause can we look for the 
 desperate sterility of modern Russia in every branch of in- 
 tellectual work ? Our contemporary literature, it is true, 
 boasts of great writers— geniuses even— worthy of the high- 
 est place in the most brilliant age of our country's literary 
 development. But these are all men whose active work 
 dates from the period of 1840. The romance writer, Leon 
 Tolstoi, is fifty-eight ; the satirist, Schedrin (Saltykoff) 
 
238 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 sixty-one ; Goutcharoff, seventy-three ; Tourgneneff and 
 Dostorevsky, both recently deceased, were born in IS 18. 
 Even writers of the second rank, such as Oushensky in IcUcs 
 left res, Mikenlovsky in criticism, belong to the generation 
 which, beginning life in 1860, was far less harassed than its 
 successors. The new generation produces nothing, absolutely 
 nothing. Despotism has stricken with sterility the high 
 hopes to which the splendid awakening of the first half of 
 the century gave birth. Mediocrity reigns supreme. "We 
 have not a single genius ; not one man of letters has shown 
 himself a worthy inheritor of the traditions of our young 
 and vigorous literature. As in letters, so it is in public life. 
 All the leaders of our Zemstvo, modest as are their functions, 
 belong to an older generation. The living forces of later 
 generations has been buried by the Government in Siberian 
 snows and Esquimaux villages. It is worse than the pest. A 
 pest comes and goes ; the Government has oppressed the 
 country for twenty years, and may go on oppressing it for 
 who knows how many years longer. The pest kills indis- 
 criminately, but the present regime chooses its victims from 
 the flower of the nation, taking all on whom depend its 
 future and its glory. It is not a political party whom they 
 crush, it is a nation of a hundred millions whom they stifle. 
 This is wliat is done in Russia under the Tzars ; this is 
 the price at which the Government buys its miserable exist- 
 ence. 
 
CHAPTEE XXV. 
 
 HIGHER EDUCATION. 
 
 At length we are out of tlie darkness and away from the 
 abysmal depths in which despotism immures its countless vic- 
 tims. We have finished oiu* excvirsions into that nether world 
 where we heard at each step cries of despair and impotent 
 rage — the death-rattle of the moribund, and the maniacal 
 laugh of the insane. We are on the surface of the earth and 
 in the full light of day. True, the revelations we have still to 
 make are not gay ; the Russia of to-day is a very unhappy 
 country, dear reader. But we shall have no more to do with 
 wasted lives and blood-curdling horrors. We are about to 
 speak of the inanimate, of institutions which do not suffer, 
 although they are falling in pieces. After crushing the living 
 — the man, the artisan — the Government natiu'ally and inevi- 
 tably attacks the institutions which are the framework and sup- 
 port of human society. 
 
 AVe propose, then, to describe briefly the struggle of the 
 'jrovernment with the most vital institutions of the country, 
 institutions to which, because they favor the cultivation of the 
 mind, it is instinctively hostile — the Schools, the Zemstvo, and 
 the Press. The policy pursued by the autocracy towards these 
 thi-ee cardinal elements of national well-being wdll show us 
 what part it plays generally in the life of the State. 
 
240 EL'SSIA UNDER THE TZAK3. 
 
 I have already had an opportunity of lading bare this policy 
 to the English iDublic. The five chapters on Education and the 
 Press, -which form the mam part of this section of m^' book, 
 have been pubhshed as special articles in the most influential of 
 European journals (April and September, 183-1). I take tliis 
 opportunity of thanking the Times for its appreciative com- 
 ments on the articles in question, and the proprietors for theii- 
 permission to reproduce them in the present work. I should 
 have liked to enrich these chapters Vv^ith examples and citations 
 drawn from that ocean of sadness which Russia now pi-esents 
 to us. But this the limits of my space forbid, and with the ex- 
 ception of some slight changes of phi^ase and a few interpola- 
 tions they appear in their original form. 
 
 It is well to obsei-ve at the outset that Russian universities 
 occupy a position altogether peculiar and exceptional. In 
 other countries universities arc places of learning and nothing 
 more. They are frequented by young men, all of whom, save 
 the idle, are busied with their studies, and whose chief if not 
 the sole desire is to pass their examinations and obtain a de- 
 gree. Though they may take an interest in politics they are 
 not pohticians ; and if they express sympathy with this or that 
 idea, even albeit the idea be extreme, nobody is either sur- 
 prised or alarmed, the fact being regarded as evidence of a 
 healthy vitality', fraught with hope for the future of the na- 
 tion. 
 
 In Russia it is altogether different. There the universities 
 and the pubhc schools are the foci of the most intense and ar- 
 dent political hfe, and in the higher spheres of the Imi^erial 
 administration the name of student is identified, not with 
 something young, noble, and aspiring, but with a dark and 
 dangerous power inimical to the laws and institutions of the 
 land. And this impression is so far justified that, as recent 
 pohtical trials abundantly prove, tlie great majority of the young 
 men who throw themselves into the struggle for liberty ai'e 
 under thirty, and belong either to the class of undergi'aduates 
 or to those whose academic honors are newly won. This, 
 
HIGHER EDUCATION. 
 
 241 
 
 tlioiigh it may surprise Englishmen, is neither unprecedented 
 nor unnatural. When a government in possession of despotic 
 power punishes as a crime the least show of opposition to its 
 wiU, nearly aU whom age has made cautious or wealth selfish, 
 or who have given hostages to fortimes, shun the strife. It is 
 then that the leaders of the forlorn hope turn to the young, 
 who, though th^y may lack knowledge and experience, are 
 rarely wanting either in courage or devotion. It was thus in 
 Italy at the time of the ]\Iazzinian conspiracies ; in Spain at 
 the time of Riego and Queroga ; in Germany at the time 
 of the Tugendbund, and again about the middle of this cen- 
 tui-y. If the ti-ansfer of the centre of poHtical gravity to the 
 youug is more mai-ked in Russia than it has been elsewhere, it 
 is that the determining causes have been more powerful in 
 their action and more prolonged in their duration. One of 
 the most potent of these causes is the conduct of the Govern- 
 ment, whose ill-judged measures of repression exasperate the 
 youth of our universities and convert latent discontent into 
 flat rebellion. That this is no mere assertion, the facts I am 
 about to adduce will sufficiently j^rove. 
 
 Towards the end of 1878 there occurred among the students 
 of St. Petersburg University some so-called " disorders." They 
 were not serious, and in ordinary circumstances would have 
 been punished by sending a few score of 3'oung fellows to waste 
 the rest of their lives in some obscure village of the far norih, 
 and neither the IVIinistry nor the University Council woxild 
 have given the matter furiher thought. But this time there 
 was a new departure. After passing judgment on the rioters, 
 the Council appointed a commission of twelve, among whom 
 were some of the best professors of the university, to institute 
 a searching iuquu-y into the cause of these troubles, which re- 
 cur with periodical regularity. After discussing the question 
 at length, the Commission prepared a draft petition for pres- 
 entation to the Emperor, demanding his sanction for a thorough 
 refoi-m of the discipUnary regulations of the university. This 
 proposal did not, however, find favor with the Council, and in- 
 11 
 
242 KUSSIA UNDER THE TZAKS. 
 
 Btead of it they drew up a report to the ^Ministry "on the 
 causes of the disorders and the best means of preventing a re- 
 newal thereof." 
 
 The document, which is of the highest interest, was pub- 
 lished neither in the annual report of the university nor by 
 the Press. Any journal which had dared even to refer to it 
 would have been promptly suspended. But a few copies were 
 printed in the clandestine office of the Zemlia i Folia, and 
 those of them that stiU exist are prized as rare bibliographic 
 curiosities. From a cojjy in my possession I make the follow- 
 ing extracts, which, as wiU be seen, give a vivid description of 
 the rule under which the students are compelled to live, and 
 the irritating treatment to which they are expected to submit. 
 
 " Of all departments of the administration the one with 
 which students come most in contact is the Department of 
 Police. By its proceedings they naturally form theu* oi^inion 
 of the character of the Government. It is, therefore, in their 
 interest, and that of the State, that the conduct of the police 
 towards the members of our universities should be kind, con- 
 siderate, and reasonable. But what we see is precisely the 
 reverse. For most young men intercourse with comrades and 
 friends is an absolute necessity. To satisfy this necessity there 
 exists in all other European universities (as also in those of 
 Finland and the Baltic provinces, which enjoy considerable 
 local liberties) special institutions, such as clubs, corporations, 
 and unions. At St. Petersbm'g there is nothing of the soi-t, 
 although the gi'eat majority of the students, being from the 
 country, have no friends in the city with whom they can 
 associate. Private reunions might, in some measure, make up 
 for deprivation of other opportunities of social intercourse 
 were it not that police interference renders the one almost as 
 impossible as the other. A meeting of several students in the 
 room of one of theii- number draws immediate attention and 
 gives rise to exaggerated fears. The porters, and even the 
 proprietors of the rooms, are bound on their peril to give 
 prompt information of the fact to the pohce, by whom such 
 
HIGHER EDUCATION. 213 
 
 meetings are often dispersed. Besides being practically for- 
 bidden to enjoy each other's society, students, even in the 
 privacy of their own chambers, ai'e not free from annoyance. 
 Although they may lead studious lives, meddle with nobody, 
 and receive and make few visits, they are none the less sub- 
 mitted to a rigorous oversight. (The professors observe, not 
 without mahce, that exeryhody is under pohce supervision. 
 Ever}i,hing, however, depends on the form it takes and the 
 extent to which it is exercised ; and the supervision exercised 
 over the students, ceasing to be a measm-e of pubhc security, 
 became an interference with their private life.) 
 
 " ' How does he pass his time ? ' ' Whom does he associate 
 with ? ' ' ^Miat time does he generally come home ? ' ' What 
 does he read ? ' ' What does he write ? ' are among the ques- 
 tions put by the pohce to porters and lodging-house keepers, 
 people generally of little or no education, who carry out their 
 instructions with scant regard for the feelings of impression- 
 able youth." (Eead between the lines this means that dming 
 the absence of the students their books and papers are over- 
 hauled, and anything in them that may appear suspicious 
 brought under the notice of the poUce.) 
 
 This is the testimony of the heads of the University of 
 St. Petersburg, speaking in confidence to the Ministers of the 
 Tzar.* But these worthy gentlemen told only half the truth. 
 
 * Shortly after the appearance of the article which forms the substance 
 of this chapter in The Times, Mr. Katkoff, in a warm and eloquent 
 lender in the Mosow Oa-ette, roundly accused me of having invented 
 both the commission of professors and their report ; neither of whieli, 
 according to him, ever existed. As the facts are rather of old date and 
 almost forgotten by the public, and as the charge may be repeated, I am 
 constrained, in my own justitioation, to mention certain details and to 
 give the names which, in the first instance, I omitted. The commission 
 nominated by the University is no more a myth than the twelve pro- 
 fessors of whom it was composed, and who took part in its proceedings. 
 MM. BeketoH, Famiuzine, Eutleroll, Setchcnolf, Grudovsky, Serguc- 
 vitch, Taganzeff, VladislavleU, Miller, Lamansky, Khoolson, and Gotr 
 
24:4 KU88IA UNDER THE TZAKS. 
 
 Tlieir remai-ks apply only to the treatment of students outside 
 the university. A natural feeling of delicacy restrained them 
 from dwelling on the things that are done within the waUs 
 AV'here leai-ning and science should reign supreme. The in- 
 terior oversight of the undergraduate is entrusted to a so-caUed 
 "Inspection," composed of an inspector, appointed by the 
 Ministry, several sub-inspectors, and a number of agents. The 
 students, liie the professors, Uve outside the precfncts'of the 
 University, and meet in the aulas only at appointed hours, and 
 for the sole object of attending the lectures that are there 
 given. The professors are quite competent to maintain order 
 in the schools. 
 
 And what good purpose can be sen-ed by submitting this 
 noble and pacific activity to special police oversight? a's weU 
 organize a special force of spuiTed and helmeted sacristans to 
 supei-A'ise the faithful when tliey meet for Divine worship. In 
 Eussia, however, it is precisely because universities ai-e labora- 
 tories of thought and ideas in constant action, that their super- 
 vision is deemed, above aU things, desirable ; and that inspec- 
 tion in this element of theii' domestic Hfe is kept most in view. 
 Having nothing to do with study, in no wise subject either to 
 the management or to the University Council, depending only 
 on the high poHce, and the IMinistry, this heterogeneous ele- 
 ment, like a foreign body introduced into an organism, de- 
 ranges aU the natural functions of a scliolastic institution. 
 
 Tlu-ee-foui-ths of the so-caUed "university disorders" ai'e 
 caused by the meddlings of the divers agents of the inspection. 
 The inspector— and herein Hes the chief cause of the universal 
 detestation in which he is held— is a delegate of the general 
 police; an Argus sent into the enemy's camp to sow the seeds 
 of sedition. A word whispered in the ear may entail conse- 
 
 stunsky. I hope these gentlemen, most of whom are still professors in 
 St. Petersburg University, ai-e in good hcaUh. Their report was drawn 
 up on December 14, 1878. It is not very long since. They doubtless 
 remember the circumstance, and the question can easily be put. 
 
HIGHER EDUCATION. 245 
 
 quences the reverse of agreeable, not alone on an vinfortunate 
 student but on a college don of high rank. 
 
 These hated spies, moreover, enjoy the most extensive pow- 
 ers. An inspector can do almost anything. "With the ajopro- 
 bation of the Curator, that is to say, of the ]\Iinister who di- 
 rects his proceedings, he may expel a student for one or two 
 yeai's, or forever, without any sort of inquiry or trial. The 
 same f\inctionary controls the scholarships and bursaries, so 
 numerous in Russian superior schools, and by his mere veto 
 can deny them to the destined recipients by classing the latter 
 as neblagonadejen — a word for which the English language has 
 no equivalent, but which means that, albeit the victims are not 
 yet under suspicion they cannot be regarded as altogether im- 
 peccable. The inspector wields another power. By a stroke 
 of the pen he can deprive a host of students of the means of 
 Hvelihood in forbidding them to give private lessons. Many of 
 the students are veiy poor, and depend on work of this sort 
 for their daily bread. No one can give private lessons without 
 police authorization, and authorization is never given without 
 the approval of the inspector, and then only for a limited time. 
 The inspector may, at his own good pleasure, prevent the re- 
 newal of the authorization, or even cancel it before the expira- 
 tion of the teiTQ for which it was granted. This officer, and 
 each of his agents, is also empowered to punish refractory stu- 
 dents by imprisonment in a dungeon for any time not exceed- 
 ing seven days. He may reprimand them for coming late to a 
 lecture, for wearing clothes he does not like, for the cut of their 
 hair and the pose of their hats, and otherwise torment them 
 with any puerihties it may please him to inflict. 
 
 n. 
 
 These petty tyrannies are, if possible, more keenly felt and 
 more bitterly resented by Russian students than they wovild be 
 by students of other nationalities. Our young men are pre- 
 cocious. The sufferings they witness and the persecutions 
 
246 KU3SIA UNDER THE TZAKS. 
 
 they endure biing them rapitUy to maturity. A Russian stu- 
 dent unites tlie dignity of manhood with the ardor of youth, 
 and feels the outrages to which he is exposed, all the more 
 acutely that he is powerless to resist them. The students be- 
 long for the most part to the lower nobility and the lower 
 clergy, both of whom are poor. AH arc familiar with the lit- 
 eratiu-e of Liberalism and free-thought, and the great majority 
 are imbued with democratic and anti-despotic ideas. As they 
 grow older these ideas become intensified by the conditions 
 under which they live. They are compelled either to serve a 
 Government Avliich they detest or betake themselves to callings 
 for which they may have no aptitude. Russia has absolutely 
 no future for young men of noble natui-es and generous aspi- 
 ration. Unless they consent to don the livery of the Tzar, or 
 become members of a coiTupt bureaucracy, they can neither 
 serve their country nor take paii in j^ubHc affairs. In these 
 circumstances it is no wonder that seditious notions are ram- 
 pant among the students of Russian universities, and that they 
 should be ever ready to take part in demonstrations against 
 authority in general, and, above all, against their enemies of 
 the poUce — demonstrations which in official phraseology be- 
 come " disorders " and " troubles," and are ascribed to the 
 machinations of the revolutionary party. The charge is false; 
 for the revolutionary party gains nothing by this warfare. On 
 the contraiy, they are weakened; because those who are lost 
 to the cause by a university squabble might have used their 
 energies to better pui'pose in a truly revolutionary struggle. 
 The disorders in our universities ai*e entirely spontaneous; 
 they have no other cause than latent discontent, which, always 
 accumulating, is ever ready to vent itself in a " manifestation." 
 A student is unjustly expelled from the university, another is 
 arbitrarily deprived of his bursary, an unj^opular professor re- 
 quests the inspectors to force undergi'aduates into his lectvire- 
 room. The news sjireads, the students are excited, they gather 
 in twos and threes to discuss the matter, and, finally, a general 
 meeting is called to protest against the action of the authori- 
 
HIGHEE EDUCATION. 247 
 
 ties, and demand reparation for the injustice tliey have com- 
 mitted. The rector appeal's and declines to make any explana- 
 tion; the inspector orders the meeting to disperse foiihwith. 
 The students, now in a white heat of indignation, refuse to 
 obey; whereupon the inspector, who had anticipated this con- 
 tingency, calls into the room a force of gendannes, Cossacksj 
 and soldiers, and the meeting is dissolved by main force. 
 
 An incident that occuiTed at Moscow in December, 1880, 
 affords an apt illustration of the trivial causes from Avhich dis- 
 orders sometimes arise. Professor Zemoff was giving a 
 lecture on anatomy to an attentive audience, when all at once 
 a loud and unusual noise was heard in the next room, and 
 most of the students ran out to see what had happened. 
 Nothing pai-ticular had happened, but the professor, annoyed 
 by the interruption of his lectui'e, made a complaint to the 
 authorities. The next day it was stated that the complaint had 
 led to the expulsion of several members of the anatomy class. 
 A punishment so severe for an offence so venial kindled gener- 
 al indignation. A meeting was called and a resolution passed 
 calling upon the rector for an explanation. But instead of the 
 rector came the chief of the Moscow jjolice, followed by a 
 great ai'ray of gendannes, Cossacks, and infantr}^, who ordered 
 the meeting to disperse. The young fellows were now greatly 
 excited, and, though they would have listened to reason, re- 
 fused obedience to the behests of brute force. On this the 
 aula was surrounded by the soldiers, aU the issues were beset, 
 the students, to the number of four hundred, were taken 
 prisoners, and amid a square of bayonets marched off to 
 jail. 
 
 Affaii's of this sort do not always end with simple arrests. 
 At the least show of resistance the foot soldiers make free use 
 of the butt-ends of their muskets, the Cossacks ply their 
 whips, the faces of the students stream with blood, some are 
 thrown wounded to the gi'ound, and there ensues a teri'ible 
 scene of armed violence and unavailing resistance. It hap- 
 pened thus at Kharkoff, in November, 1878, when some 
 
248 KUSSIA UNDEK THE TZAE8. 
 
 troubles arose from a mere misunderstanding between a pro- 
 fessor at the Veterinary College and one of his classes — a mis- 
 understanding which a few words of explanation would have 
 sufficed to remove. It was thus at Moscow and St. Petei-s- 
 bui-g dui'ing the disorders of 1861, 1863, and 1866 ; and in 
 certain cii'cumstances the law sanctions even grosser outrages. 
 In 1878 an enactment, the cruelty of which it is impossible to 
 exaggerate, was promulgated. " Considering," it ran, " the 
 frequency of students' meetings in the universities and jDublic 
 schools, the law concerning seditious gatherings in the streets 
 and other i^ublic places is applied to all buildings and estab- 
 lishments used as colleges and superior schools." Thus all 
 students in Russia are placed permanently under martial law. 
 A meeting or group of undergraduates, after being sum- 
 moned three times to disperse, may be shot down as if they 
 were armed rebels. 
 
 Hapi^ily, however, this monstrous law has not yet been ap- 
 plied in all its rigor. The police still hmit their repressive 
 measui'es to beating and imprisoning the students who con- 
 travene their commands or otherwise incur their displeasure. 
 But the students, so far from being grateful for this moder- 
 ation, ai'e always in a state of simmering revolt, and lose no 
 opiDortunity of i^rotesting, by deed and word, against the 
 tyrannical proceedings of the agents of the law. There is, 
 moreover, a strong fellow-feeling among them, and "dis- 
 orders " at one university are often a signal for disorders at 
 half a dozen other seats of learning. The troubles which 
 began at the end of 1882 extended over nearly the whole of 
 scholastic Eussia. They began in the far east, at the Uni- 
 versity of Kazan. Firsoff, the rector, deprived a young man 
 named Voronzoff of his biu-sai-y, a thing which he had no 
 right to do, the bursaiy having been granted by the Zemstvo 
 of Voronzoff's native province. Voronzoff was so exasper- 
 ated that he publicly boxed the rector's ears. In ordinary 
 circumstances, and in a well-ordered university, an outrage so 
 gross would have provoked general indignation, and the stu- 
 
HIGHER EDUCATION. 249 
 
 clents themselves would have punished the offender. But the 
 rector's despotic rule had rendered him so unjDopular that on 
 the day of Voronzoff's expulsion the students — some six hiui- 
 di'ed in number — broke open the assembly room, and held a 
 tumultuous meeting, whereupon the Pro-rector Voulitch hur- 
 ried to the spot and ordered the assembly .to disperse. Nobody 
 listened to him. Two of the students made speeches against 
 Fii'soff and defended Voronzoff. A foimer student of Moscow 
 University, without giving heed to the presence of Voulitch, 
 spoke in the most violent terms against the curator, the rector, 
 and the professors generally. In the end the meeting voted 
 and presented to Pro-rector Voulitch a petition demanding 
 Rector Fii'soff's immediate dismissal, and the revocation of 
 Voronzoff 's expulsion. 
 
 Then, before dispersing, the students resolved to meet again 
 on the following day. On this the heads of the university ap- 
 plied to the governor of the province for the means of restor- 
 ing order, and the great man promptly placed at their dis- 
 posal several companies of infantry and a large force of police. 
 A few days later it was announced that complete tranquillity 
 reigned at the University of Kazan. But the papers that 
 made this announcement were forbidden, under pain of sup- 
 pression, to mention in what manner the pacification was 
 broiight about — that the rebellious students v>'ere beaten, 
 whipped, thrown on the ground, dragged about by the hair of 
 their heads, and many of them hauled to prison. Despite the 
 interdict laid on the Press, these facts were quickly bruited 
 about. On November 8th (as is set forth in the official report) 
 hectographic copies of a letter from one of the Kazan stu- 
 dents, giving a full account of the affair, were circulated 
 among the students of St. Petersbui'g, and caused naturally 
 a great sensation. On the 10th hectographic circulars were 
 issued calling a general meeting of the St. Petersburg stu- 
 dents to protest against the outrages inflicted on their com- 
 rades of Kazan. When the students presented themselves at 
 the place of meeting, the police, who appeared in force, or- 
 11* 
 
250 RUSSIA msDER THE TZAE8. 
 
 dered them to disperse, an order which they refused to obey, 
 aiid while tlie poHce were still there passed a vote of censure 
 on the authorities and of sympathy -wdth the students of 
 Kazan. On this, force was ordered to be used, and 280 stu- 
 dents were arrested and conducted to prison. 
 
 The next day orders went forth for the pro\'isional closing 
 of the university. 
 
 The outbreaks at St. Petersburg and Kazan were speedily 
 followed by similar scenes in other university towns. On No- 
 vember 15th there were disturbances at Kieff, and on the 17th 
 and 18th at Kharkoff. At the latter place they were so serious 
 that the military had to be employed for their supj^ression, 
 and many arrests were made. Almost at the same time troubles 
 befell in the Juridical School of Yaroslivle, and a few days 
 later at the Forest School of Moscow. At all these jJaces 
 events followed in the same order — agitations, meetings, forcible 
 disj)crsions, arrests, and then provisional cessation of lectures. 
 
 Disorders are of frequent occurrence in all the universities 
 and superior scholastic institutions of the empire. Not a ye:ir 
 passes that several do not come to pass in different pai-ts of 
 Eussia. And every one of these outbreaks, whether appeased 
 by the exhoiiations of the professors or suppressed by Cossack 
 whips, entails inevitably the exjDulsion of a crowd of students. 
 In some cases fifty are expelled, in others one hundred, and 
 even more than one hundred. The troubles of October and 
 November, 1882, caused the expulsion of six hundred. The 
 trilnmal which orders the expulsions — that is to say, the Council 
 of Professors — divides the offenders into several categories. 
 The " leaders " and " instigators " are condemned to perpetual 
 expulsion and denied the right of entering thereafter any su- 
 perior school whatever. Others ai'e expelled for a term varying 
 from twelve months to three years. The lightest penalty 
 awarded in these cases is " sending away," a sentence which, 
 in theory at least, does not prevent the offender from entering 
 at once some other university. In reality, however, there is 
 very little difference between one sort of punishment and 
 
IIIGHEK EDUCATION. 251 
 
 anotlior. "The police," says the report of the St. Petershiirg 
 professors which I have ah'cady cited, "regard eveiy disturb- 
 ance that occurs in the university as a political movement. 
 Every student who may be condemned, even to a slight pun- 
 ishment, becomes a political suspect, and to every Russian sus- 
 l^ect there is dealt the same measvu-e — exile by administrative 
 order. Penalties inflicted for the merest breaches of scholastic 
 discipline may be aggravated by administrative exile, as the 
 disorders of March 18 and 20, 1869, clearly showed. AU the 
 students " sent away " for a yeai', as well as those definitively 
 expelled, were immediately exiled, and after the late distiu'b- 
 ances (December, 1878) the rector was asked to furnish the 
 Chief of Police of the quarter with the names of all students 
 who had ever appeared before the university tribunal, even 
 though they might not have been punished (in order that they, 
 too, might be exiled). 
 
 If in other parts of Russia the police are less severe than in 
 St. Petersbm-g, students compromised by participation in iini- 
 versity disorders are none the less dealt with in a way which 
 renders impossible the resumption of their professional studies. 
 
 The minister himself undertakes the task of tracking and 
 marking them. Here is an instance in point : In a weekly 
 jom-nal, published at St. Petersbm-g, there appeared, on No- 
 vember 9, 1881, under the heading " An Incomprehensible 
 Decision of the University Council of Kieff," a communication 
 to the following effect — 
 
 ^t) 
 
 "The students provisionally expelled (rusticated) from Moscow Uni- 
 versity applied for admission to the University of Kieff. But the Coun- 
 cil, after taking the matter into consideration, refused to receive them. 
 This was virtually increasmg, on their own motion, the punishment 
 originally inflicted on tlie postulants. It was denying a right reserved 
 to them by their judges." 
 
 And the Press generally blamed the Council for displaying a 
 severity which was qualified as excessive and inexplicable. The 
 explanation, however, was very simple. The minister, by a 
 
252 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 special cii'cular, had forbidden all other universities to receive 
 the expelled students from IMoscow. This the papers knew 
 better than anybody else, and these diatribes had no other end 
 than to provoke the University of KiefE into an exposure of 
 the double dealing of the Government, an object which, it is 
 hardly necessary to say, was not realized. Similar circular's 
 are almost invariably sent out after university disturbances 
 wherever they may happen to occur. 
 
 The struggle between the jNIinistry and the universities is far 
 from being limited to disorders and their results. These events, 
 after all, are exceptional ; they occur at comparatively long in- 
 tem-als, and are separated from each other by periods of api^ar- 
 ent calm. But quietness brings the students no immunity from 
 espionage and persecution. The police never cease making 
 arrests ; when clouds darken the political sky, and the Govern- 
 ment, with or without reason, take alarm, they arrest multitudes. 
 At these times students ai'e naturally the greatest sufferers, for, 
 as I have already shown, oiu' Russian youths are nearly all 
 eager politicians and potential revolutionists. A fraction of the 
 aiTested are condemned, even after trial, to divers penalties. 
 Some eighty per cent, are exiled, without trial, to Siberia or to 
 one of the northern provinces ; a few, after a short detention, 
 are allowed to return to their homes. A proportion of those 
 sentenced to a term of imprisonment may also be allowed to 
 resume their occupations, instead of being exiled by adminis- 
 trative order. But mercy is a quality unkno-mi to the Russian 
 police ; they take back with one hand what they give with the 
 other. On October 15, 1881, a law was made instituting a 
 sort of double judgment and twofold penalty for students com- 
 ing under the categories last named. Ai'ticles 2 and 3 of this 
 law direct university councils to act as special tribunals for the 
 trial of students who have been tried and acquitted by the 
 ordinary courts, or who have expiated their offences by terms 
 of imprisonment. This law prescribes that, in the event of the 
 police certifying that a young man whose case is under con- 
 sideration has acted " out of pure thoughtlessness and without 
 
ITIGHEK EDUCATION. 253 
 
 evil intent," the council may either admit or expel him at their 
 discretion. But should the police impute to him " perverse in- 
 tentions," albeit in a measure so infinitesimal that they do not 
 deem it necessaiy to proceed against him themselves, the coun- 
 cil must, nevertheless, pronounce a sentence of perpetual ex- 
 pulsion and deprivation of the right to enter any superior 
 school whatever. Article 4 explains that the preceding articles 
 apply not alone to students who have fallen under the lash of 
 the ordinary law, but also to those who have escaped un- 
 damaged from the exceptional " law of public safety " — in other 
 words, from the martial law, which has become one of Russia's 
 permanent institvitions. 
 
 To obtain for those who have not fallen into the hands of 
 the police any remission of their ostracism is a matter of ex- 
 cessive and almost insuperable difficulty. Requests for indul- 
 gence must be made to the Emperor personally (how many 
 students have friends at Court ?), and are only entertained 
 when the suppliant can j^rove that during two 3'ears after his 
 liberation, or the definitive expiation of his offence, he has re- 
 pented him of his error.-; and entirely broken with his old com- 
 panions. 
 
 But apart from the juridic absxu'dity of a condition which 
 reverses the accepted maxim that it is crime, not innocence, 
 that must be demonstrated, how, we ask, can repentance be 
 proved, if not by treachery or betra^'al, or some service ren- 
 dered to the police ? And it may be safely affirmed that the 
 law touching the expulsion of students acquitted by the courts, 
 or who have undergone the punishments assigned to them, 
 notwithstanding its deceptive indulgence, is absolute. The 
 police never pardon ; and even if that body and martial law 
 allowed them to live freely in society, the interdict on their 
 university career would still remain. 
 
 Such are the true forms assiimed by the veritable war which, 
 sometimes open, sometimes latent, has for more than twenty 
 years been waged between the youth of our superior schools 
 and the Government of the country. 
 
254 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 in. 
 
 But tliesG fire the merest palliatives. What has this rutliless 
 persecution of a quarter of a century effected ? Nothing at 
 all. Despite arrests and banishments the students are as hos- 
 tile to the Government as before. The fate of those who go 
 do-wTi in the struggle serves not in the least as a warning to 
 the survivors. More than ever are universities breeders of dis- 
 content and centres of agitation ; and is there not something 
 in the nature of things which necessarily produces this result ? 
 For what is higher education if not the study of European 
 culture — its history and its laws, its institutions and its litera- 
 tnve ? And a man who has gone through a university course 
 and studied these things can liardly be kept in the belief that 
 Russia is the happiest of aU possible countries, and her Gov- 
 ernment the perfection of human wisdom. Hence to destroy 
 the evil at its roots it is imperative to stiike, not men alone, 
 but institutions. Tliis Count Tolstoi, as a far-seeing man, has 
 long felt, though it is only of late that circumstances have per- 
 mitted the practical application of his sagacious counsels. In 
 the result the universities were attacked in two quarters — the 
 high and the low. As a beginning Count Tolstoi made a stren- 
 uous effort to reduce the number of students by increasing 
 academic fees and rendering examinations absurdly severe. 
 "When this measure did not suffice to abate the flood of young 
 men eager for instruction, the Count (by a ministerial order 
 under date of March 25, 1879) arbitrarily deprived seminary 
 l^upils (who formed a largo proportion of the undergraduates) 
 of the right of admission to the universities, a right they had 
 enjoyed from time immemorial. At Odessa the proportion of 
 tliese youths was from a tliird to a half of the total number of 
 undergraduates. Thus the new law wielded by Count Tolstoi 
 did yeoman sen'ice. 
 
 Yet BtiU he was not satisfied, and other measures whono 
 vandalism was cynical and complete were instituted, measures 
 which mutilated to the verge of extinction the system of 
 superior education. 
 
HIGHER EDUCATION. 255 
 
 The first to feel the effect of tlicso measures was tlie Mcdico- 
 clnnirgical Academy of St. Petersbur;^. Thau this there is no 
 institution in the empii*e more useful to the State. It is under 
 the Ministry of War, and sujiplies the army with surgeons, of 
 whom diiring the conflict with T-arkey there was so lamentable 
 a lack. But the medical school, with its one thousand stu- 
 dents, was a centre of political agitation, and an Imperial 
 ukase, dated March 24, 1879, doomed it to complete trans- 
 formation and semi-extinction. The number of students was 
 diminished to five hundi'ed, the terms reduced from five to 
 three, and the first two courses, the luidcrgraduates belonging 
 to which were the most unruly, were a,bolished. 
 
 The only students now received are those who have passed 
 two terms at a provincial university. They are paid, wear a 
 uniform, take the oath of allegiance, and from the day of their 
 admission are considered as forming part of the army, and 
 held amenable to military law. At the instance of the Min- 
 ister of "War the five years' course has lately been re-estab- 
 lished, but the other repressive measiu'es are maintained in aU 
 theii' rigor. 
 
 On January 3, 1880, another ukase ordered a similar trans- 
 fonnation of the Institute of Civil Engineers. This mutilation 
 of a useful school lessened by one-half the few openings in life 
 available for the pupils of our non-classical gymnasiums. 
 
 A httle later came the turn of the Female Medical School 
 of St. Petersbiirg. This school, founded in 1872, proved emi- 
 nently useful. In Russia the supply of medical men is utterly 
 inadequate for the needs of its vast population. Doctors, being 
 much sought, natui'aUy settle by j)reference in the towns where 
 their services bring the best return. With rare exceptions, the 
 rural districts are left a prey to blood-letters, bone-setters, 
 quacks, and sorcerers. Women, on the other hand, settle by 
 preference in the country, and are content with such moderate 
 fees as the zemstvo can afford. The Female School of Medicine 
 was thus a great boon ; requests for women doctors were con- 
 tinually being received from all parts of the country ; and when. 
 
256 RUSSIA UNDEK THE TZAKS. 
 
 in April 1882 the Government announced that, "for pecuni- 
 ary reasons," they would be compeUed to close the scliool, there 
 w^s a general expression of sui-prise and regi-et. The papers 
 protested as much as they dared ; the zemstvo remonstrated ; 
 the municipality of St. Petersburg and several scientific coi-po- 
 rations offered annual subsidies ; private individuals, both rich 
 and poor, and even obscure villages, offered subscriptions to- 
 wards the maintenance of so valued an institution. But the 
 Female School of Medicine was doomed, and m August, 1882, 
 appeared an ukase ordering its abolition. Students ah-eady 
 admitted might complete their coui'se, but no new pupils were 
 allowed to be taken. The cause assigned for this proceeding 
 was the shallowest of pretexts ; the time reason being a fear on 
 the part of the Government that the school might become a 
 seminary of revolutionary ideas. 
 
 Not less characteristic was the conduct of the Government in 
 the matter of the Polytechnic Institution of Kharkoff^ The 
 only estabhshment of the sort in Russia is that of St. Peters- 
 buro- and thither all youths desirous of being educated in the 
 mechanical aris must proceed. In a country so vast this is 
 hi-hly inconvenient, and for a long time past Kharkoff had 
 wanted to have a polytechnic of its own. At length, after re- 
 peated appUcations to the Minister of Public Instruction and 
 negotiations extending over ten years, the authorization was 
 wanted ; whereupon the municipality erected a suitable build- 
 Tn- appointed a staff of professors, and all was ready to begin, 
 ^yhen the Government suddenly changed their mind, withdi-ew 
 the authorization, and forbade the school to be opened-on the 
 ground that they saw no necessity for any establishment of the 
 sort Nor was this all. They offered the building, which hac 
 cost Kharkoff 50,000 roubles, as a present to the university ; bul 
 the university, maldng common cause with the town dechnec 
 the offer. The building is stiU in the hands of the State, anc 
 ynO. it is rumored, be turned into a cavaky ban-ack. 
 
 At len-th, and only a few months ago, came the long-ex 
 pected blow which struck oui- universities in another ^ita 
 
HIGHER EDUCATION. 257 
 
 point — the rep^ulation of September, 1884, whereby was defi- 
 nitely abolished tlie regulation of 1863. 
 
 There ai'e a few recent questions which have so gi'eatly ex- 
 cited public oi:)inion in Russia, and given rise to so much 
 heated polemic in the Press as that of the aboUtion of the 
 regulation of 1863. It was a regulation which, by permitting 
 the professoi's to fill up vacant chau'S and elect the members 
 of the managing body, conferred on the universities a fair 
 measui'e of autonomy and independence. ]\Ir. Katkoff, who 
 is one of the most influential men in the empire, and whose 
 particular friends of the Moscow University have not found 
 this independence to their advantage, entertained for the un- 
 fortunate regulation of 1863 a mortal hatred. For years it 
 was his Delenda Carthago. He protested against it in season 
 and out of season. To hear him you woidd think this regula- 
 tion was the cause of all the so-called "disorders" and 
 most of the misfortunes of the last twent}" years. Sedition 
 (Nihilism) in his opinion derives its chief support from the 
 autonomy of the imiversities. The process by which he 
 an-ives at this conclusion is short and simple. The majority 
 of the professors being secret ministers of subversive ideas 
 (rather a strange confession to be made by a friend and de- 
 fender of the Government), to leave them free to choose their 
 colleagues is to maintain at the expense of the State a per- 
 manent revolutionary propaganda. But this arg\iment, how- 
 ever ingenious, was rather too far-fetched to be used by the 
 administration. A more plausible if not a more truthful pre- 
 text was necessary, something that might enable the Govern- 
 ment to say that in abolishing the obnoxious regulation they 
 were promoting the best interests of the nation. The in- 
 ventive genius of 'Mi\ Katkoff was equal to the occasion. He 
 developed from his inner consciousness the thesis that the 
 abolition of the regulation of 1863 would give an extraordinary 
 stimulus to the study of science, and raise learning in Russia 
 to a level with that of Germany. The idea being eagerly 
 caught up by the official Press, it was soon made to appear 
 
258 KDSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 that, in the interest of knowledge as -well as of order, a new 
 regulation had become absolutely necessar}'. 
 
 Let us now examine a Uttle this palladium of reaction, and 
 see by what means it is proposed to effect the twofold object 
 in question. 
 
 First of all, as to the police ; for whenever anything hap- 
 pens in Kussia the police are sure to be to the fore, and no- 
 body doubts that the object of the present measure is simply 
 repression. This is avowed by its advocates. " The universi- 
 ties," exclaimed the Novoie Vremia, " wOl no longer be cor- 
 rupters of our youth. The universities will henceforth be 
 guaranteed against disloyal intrigues." But will the new 
 regulation be reaUy to the advantage of leai-ning? tunidly 
 whispered the so-called Liberal papers. All alike recognized 
 the true character and aim of the measure. 
 
 We pass by the proposals for the supei-vision of the under- 
 graduates, as to which there nothing, or next to nothing, more 
 remained to be done. That which gives a special savor to the 
 new regulation is placing the professors themselves under 
 stringent police surveillance and an arbitrary regime. Two 
 institutions are charged with this ignoble duty. Fii'st of all 
 the governing body, composed of professors ; next the police 
 of the inspection. Under the old system the rector and the 
 four deans were simply primus inter pares, elected by their 
 colleagues for a term of three years, when others might be 
 chosen to succeed them. Now they ai-e masters, nominated 
 by the Minister, and holding their lucrative places at his pleas- 
 ure. As, moreover, among fifty or sixty men there must nec- 
 essarily be some sycophants and self-seekers, the Minister has 
 no difficulty in finding rectors who will take his orders and do 
 his bidding. Under the new dispensation the rector, now be- 
 come a Government agent, is clothed mth extensive powers. 
 He can convoke and dissolve at his pleasui'e the university 
 council, once the supreme governing body. It is he alone 
 who decides whether the proceedings of the council are ac- 
 cording to mle, and by simply pronouncing it iiregular he 
 
HIGHER EDUCATION. 259 
 
 may quash any resolution to which he objects. The rector 
 may also, if he thinks fit, preside with the same prerogatives 
 at the meetings of the faculties. Like a commander-in-chief, 
 wherever he appears he is supreme. The rector is also en- 
 joined to make any observ-ations to the professors he may 
 deem necessary, and reprimand them whenever he sees fit. 
 Every part of the administrative machine is open to his in- 
 spection, either in person or by deputy. Finally, paragraph 
 17 gives him, in cases of urgency, the right "to take any 
 measures he may think expedient for the maintenance of order 
 in the uriversity, even if they exceed his powers." This article 
 has evidently in view the so-called " collective manifestations," 
 wliich it is the cxistom in Russia to put down by militaiy force. 
 Bat almost any construction might be placed upon the clause, 
 and there is hardly any meas\ire, however extreme, which it 
 could not be held to sanction. 
 
 Thus Russian imiversities resemble fortresses whose garrisons 
 ai'e permeated by sedition, and ready at any moment to break 
 into open mutiny, rather than homes of learning and temples 
 of science. The rector is the commander-in-chief. Under his 
 orders are four deans, rectors of faculties, each exercising in 
 his own dejiaiiment analogous functions, but chosen by the 
 Minister, not by the rector. It is chiefly to the deans that the 
 task is intrusted of overseeing the professors of their respect- 
 ive faculties ; and to render the latter more dependent the 
 new regidation introduces impoi'tant innovations in the method 
 of their appointment. Before a man can become a professor 
 he must henceforth serve tln:ee yeai's as a tutor (privat-docent), 
 and he can only become a tutor on the nomination of the 
 cui'ator of the province, or on the proposal of the councd of 
 professors of the faculty of his choice. In any event the ap- 
 pointment must be confii-med by the curator of the province, 
 and this functionary, who is a high officiid of the Ministry, 
 may revoke any tutor's appointment without assigning a cause. 
 A tutor's pay is only about a third of that of a full-fledged 
 professor ; and as he is subjected to an incessant surveillance 
 
260 RUSSIA UNDER TUE TZARS. 
 
 to guard him against the coutagion of subversive ideas, 1 
 post cannot be considered a very desirable one ; nor is 
 likely to attract young men of large views and independ( 
 mind. 
 
 To the rector and the deans falls the duty of seeing tl 
 the tutor's teaching is all that it ought to be. If his lectu 
 ai'e not in conformity with the dignity of his subject, or ; 
 found to be tainted vntli dangerous ideas, they must admon 
 him. Should the admonition prove ineffectual the rector \ 
 propose to the curator to dismiss this refractory tutor, and i 
 ciu-ator will no doubt give prompt effect to the proposal. I 
 if the cui'ator should learn in some other way (through sp 
 or a member of the inspection) that a tutor's lectru'es are she 
 ing subversive tendencies, he may be removed without ref 
 ence to the rector. The new privat-docents have thus two 
 tln-ee sets of masters, and besides being at the mercy of 1 
 rector and his deputies, as also of the ciu-ator of the provin 
 they are liable at any moment to be denounced by the 
 spector and his satelhtes. The least show of independei 
 will insure their prompt dismissal, the more especially 
 being only young in the scholastic profession they are i 
 likely to command the respect of their superiors. For p 
 motion they depend entirely on the Minister and his ager 
 Formerly the professors were nominated by the council of i 
 faculty. True, the Minister had the power of veto, but he h 
 no power of appointment, and if one man was rejected i 
 council had only to nominate another. According to the n 
 scheme, however, the Minister can appoint to a vacant eh 
 " any scholar possessing the necessary qualifications " — thai 
 to say, one who has served the prescril:)ed time as a privat-i 
 cent. The Minister may if he Hkcs consult the heads of 1 
 university, but only if he likes. He may equally, if he hk 
 consult a private friend or a member of the inspection. I 
 promotion of a jDrofessor from the second to the first class- 
 change Avhich brings with it increased emoluments — also re 
 entirely with the Minister. 
 
HIGHER EDUCATION. 361 
 
 Nor does this exhaust the enumeration of the Minister's 
 powers. He nominates professors to examincrships, which 
 from a financial point of view, and having regai'd to the new 
 system of paying examiners, is a highly important function. 
 Under the old system every professor was i)jso facto an ex- 
 aminer ; under the present, examinations are conducted by 
 special commissions nominated by the IMinister. Under the 
 old, students paid a fixed yearly sum which gave them the 
 right of attending all the university lectui-es. According to 
 the new regulations they have to pay each professor sej)arately. 
 In these circumstances, undergraduates, having the right of 
 choice, natui-aUy flock to the lectures of the professors by 
 whom they ai'e likely to be examined. Hence the placing of 
 a professor on the examining commission is greatly to his 
 pecuniaiy advantage — it brings him hearers and adds to his 
 emoluments. The right of nomination is thus a very effective 
 means of increasing the power of the Government over the 
 teaching body. In a country such as Switzerland, where 
 pohtical motives are not allowed to influence collegiate ap- 
 jDointments, this system produces no injurious results; but ex- 
 peiience proves that in Prussia its consequences are bad, and 
 in Austria nothing less than disastrous. It is easy to under- 
 stand, therefore, the motives of oiu' Government in impoiiing 
 the system into Russia, and the effect it is likely to produce 
 there. 
 
 " But where, then," the reader may ask, " is the teaching 
 strength — where the science and other branches of higher 
 culture ? In what consists the reform which is supposed to 
 conier on the measure its pedagogic character ? Axe we ex- 
 pected to believe that it consists in the new disciiDline imposed 
 on long-suffering rectors, deans, and inspectors, the appoint- 
 ment oi privat-docents and payment by lesson?" 
 
 All these things being, in name at least, borrowed from 
 Gennany, they are expected in some mysterious fashion to 
 render teaching more efficient. If we could have the freedom 
 of German universities, their methods might perhaps be 
 
262 KUSSilA UXDER THE TZAES. 
 
 svJopted with advantage, but the form witliout tlie spii'it can 
 profit notliing. 
 
 To all who are not blinded by self-interest, it is e-sident 
 that the new regulation must prove fatal to all true learning — 
 freedom and indej)endence being as essential to its prospeiity 
 as atmosj)lieric air to ph3-sical life. By making political ortho- 
 doxy the only sure qiialification for all higher university appoint- 
 ments, the intellectual ilite of the nation is almost necess:uily 
 excluded from their v/aUs. The old system of Govenuneiit 
 interference drove from their chaii's some of ovir best pro- 
 fessors — Kostomarov, Stasulevitch, Pipin, Ai'seniev, Setchenov, 
 and many others — aU moderate men, who had retained their 
 positions with honor for years, and were guilty of only one 
 fault — that of maintaining their personal dignity and the 
 dignity of their calling, and refusing to prostrate themselves 
 before the desjDotism of a Minister. That which was formerly 
 an exceptional abuse of power has now become a rule. The 
 professors have been converted into tchinovniks — an odious 
 name, despised by all our Russian youth — and their character? 
 and qualifications ■\viU soon be in strict conformity with their 
 new rank ; one by one all true scholars will abandon theij 
 chairs, and the Government, in the exercise of their rights, 
 will fill them with its creatures. In default of men of high 
 scientific acquirements, the old professors will be succeeded b 
 tutors and soi-disant scholars, whom the ciu'ators are at libert; \ 
 to choose from among persons that have not even undergone 
 the examinations ordained by the faculty, " provided they are 
 favorably known by theu* works," as to the merit of which his » 
 excellency the curator is the sole judge. , 
 
 \ 
 
CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 SECONDAKY EDUCATION. 
 
 The -svar of Russian Governments against higher education, 
 described in a previous article, is of long standing. It began 
 in the time of Alexander I., dui-ing the reaction that followed 
 the murder of Kotzebue by the student Sand, which, originat- 
 ing in Germany, spread quickly over the whole of Continental 
 Euroj)e. In the reign of Nicolas, which was a period of unin- 
 terrupted reaction, the universities were always under the 
 special care of the Thu'd Section. In order, as he hoped, to 
 counteract the pernicious effects of hberal culture, he organ- 
 ized the universities Hlce battalions, and lectvu'es in the class- 
 room were followed by drills in the square. Knowledge he re- 
 gai'ded as a social bane, and military discipHne as its only 
 antidote. The absiu'd regulation in question was suppressed 
 by his son, whose reign began so brightly and ended so terri- 
 bly. Alexander II. loosened the fetters which his father had 
 imposed, and for some time after he had ascended the throne, 
 learning breathed freely and made marked progi'ess. But in 
 1860, when " disorders " and " manifestations " occurred in the 
 universities of the two capitals, the authorities took alarm, re- 
 pressive measures were adopted, and since that time the strug- 
 gle between the State and the flower of our Russian youth has 
 gone on with ever-increasing virulence. The war against sec- 
 ondary education — for war it has become — is of more recent 
 date. On Apiil 4, 18G6, Karakosoff fired the fatal revolver 
 
2G4 KUSSIA UNDER THE TZABS. 
 
 sliot which confirmed, as it woiild seem forever, the resolution 
 of the Government to follow the dangerous path of reaction 
 and repression. 
 
 " You are a Pole, are you not ? " asked the Tzar, when Kara- 
 kosoff was led before him. 
 
 " No ; I am a Eussiau," was the answer. 
 
 " Then why did you try to kill me ? " demanded the astonished 
 sovereign. So difiicult did he find it at that time to believe 
 that any other than a Pole could make an attempt on his life. 
 
 But Karakosoff told the truth; he was one of the Tzar's 
 own Russian subjects, and the subsequent inquiry dii-ected 
 by Mouravieff showed that many of Karakosoff's former 
 feUow-students sympathized with his objects and shared in bis 
 ideas. 
 
 The effect of this attempt, and the discoveiy to which it led, 
 were decisive. The Pohsh insurrection, as is well known, had 
 conveiied Alexander 11. to reactionary views. But it now 
 became evident that the reactionary measui-es which were 
 adopted in 1863 had proved aboi-tive, and that the revolution- 
 ary fermentation was increasing. Yet, instead of inferiing 
 therefrom that the fault of this failure lay with the new policy 
 of reaction, the very opposite conclusion was drawn — that the 
 reins must be siill further tightened. It was then that the 
 reckless reactionary' party brought forward the man of fate, 
 Count Dmitry Tolstoi, whom posterity will call the scourge of 
 Russia and the destroyer of the autocracy. 
 
 This paladin of absolutism was entrusted with j)lenary pow- 
 ers for the purification of the schools of the empire from 
 social heresy and poUtical discontent. 
 
 How he dealt with superior education we have akeady told. 
 Yet he only strengthened and enforced the system which his 
 predecessors had for a long time practiced. To him alone, 
 however, belongs the questionable honor of " purifying " — ac- 
 cording to his lights — first of all secondary, and afterwards 
 primary education. It was especially in relation to the former 
 of these branches that the inventive genius of the man shone 
 
SECONDAKY EDUCATION. 265 
 
 the most brilliantly. His fundamental idea was perfectly just 
 — that thoroughly to " purify " the universities he must go first 
 to the fountain-head and purify the gj-mnasiums, from which 
 they draw their yeaiiy tribute of students. So Count Tolstoi 
 set himself to purge these institutions, which, of coui'se, meant 
 handing them over to the tender mercies of the poHce ; and it 
 is a positive fact that Russian schoolboys of from ten to seven- 
 teen years of age may now be punished for so-caUed political 
 offences and for holding erroneous j)olitical opinions. No 
 longer since than September of 1883, the Minister of Public 
 Instniction issued a circular in which it was stated that in 
 thirteen gyinnasiums, one pro-gymnasiiun, and ten " real " 
 schools, there had been discovered traces of a criminal propa- 
 ganda, and that in f oiu-teen other gymnasiums and four " real " 
 schools there had taken place " collective disorders," whatever 
 that may mean. AU these establishments were ordered to be 
 placed under special poUce oversight. 
 
 It is difficult for a stranger to realize the extent to which 
 espionage is carried in our gymnasiiuns. The pedagogues 
 who ought to enjoy the respect of then* pupils, and imbue the 
 rising generation with sentiments of honor, are transformed 
 into agents of the Thii-d Section. The boys are under con- 
 tinual supervision. They are not left in peace even ia the 
 houses of their kinsfolk. By a special law, tutors are ordered 
 to visit the pupils at their own homes, or wherever they may 
 be living. The Miaister is not ashamed from tune to time to 
 issue circulars, as on July 27, 1884, cynically offering rewards 
 and promotion to professors who show the greatest zeal in su- 
 pervising the " moral dispositions " (read " political tendencies ") 
 of their pupils, and threatening that in the event of any ahti- 
 govermnental propagandism being discovered in their classes, 
 they will be held equally responsible with the directors and 
 inspectors {Rousskia Vedomorti, July 28) — which means money 
 and advancement for those who play the part of spies, dis- 
 missal for those who refuse to bow the knee to Baal. 
 12 
 
260 KU6SIA -CirDlin THE TZARS. 
 
 n. 
 
 But measures of police are not enougli ; they must be 
 backed up by measures of prevention. Boys must be removed 
 from every influence \\liicli migbt predispose tbem to per- 
 nicious ideas, such as sociahsm, hberty, materialism, and so 
 forth. To this end the pedants of the Third Section drew up 
 a series of prescriptions known as the Gymnasial Regulations 
 of 1871, which are stiU in force. The explanatory appendix to 
 the regulations says roundly that "the less historv- is sttidied 
 in the gvmnasiums the better." The study of Russian htera- 
 ture is also banned by Count Tolstoi ; and general geogi'aphy, 
 on account of its " dangerous tendencies," is proscribed by the 
 Minister of Instruction. It may "suggest conflicting con- 
 clusions and give rise to useless reasonings." In other words, 
 the study of geography may peradventui-e lead to discussions 
 on political and social subjects. For these reasons the Regula- 
 tions of 1871 diminished the number of lessons, in histoiy, 
 geographv, and Russian. The void made by these omissions 
 has been filled up with the learned languages. The panacea is 
 found in Greek and Latin. The gymnasiums have become 
 classic, and nothing but classic. The fii-st class of a Russian 
 g^^nnasium (composed of boys of ten years old) has now eight 
 Latin lessons a week ; the third the same in Latin and as many 
 in Greek. All other subjects are declared secondary, and 
 though not ostensibly forbidden, persistently discouraged. 
 However many bad mai-ks pupils may receive in their mother 
 tongue, in history, mathematics, geography, foreign languages, 
 or even in religion, they never fail to obtain theii' promotion to 
 a higher class, but backwardness in the classical languages is 
 severely punished, often by expulsion. 
 
 Is it, however, the fact, that study of the classics serves as a 
 safeguard against " peiwerse," in other words, hberal and 
 humline, ideas? Certainly not. Great authorities hold, and 
 •John Stuai-t Mill has said, that serious study of the hves and 
 histoiy of the peoples of antiquity makes more for the develop- 
 
SECONDARY EDUCATION. 
 
 267 
 
 ment of moral and civic virtues than the study of modern 
 history. 
 
 But we have no desire to discuss the advantages or dis- 
 advantages of classical education. Whichever way the balance 
 may incline, it is quite certain that the classicism devised by 
 Tolstoi, Katkoff, and consorts, is altogether sui generis, and can 
 only stupefy those Avhom it is supposed to enlighten. The ef- 
 fect of their regulation is to make grammar an end instead of 
 a means. Scholars learn the language and nothing else. Their 
 studies are simply a series of linguistic exercises. 
 
 Pedagogues a la Katkoff do not deny this. They merely 
 contend that there is nothing so well suited for the develop- 
 ment of the intelligence as the study of the dead languages. 
 According to an expression of theii's which has been much in 
 vogue, it is a mental gymnastic exercise which no other study 
 can equal. With this inscrutable word "gymnastic" they 
 meet all the arguments of their adversaries. Thus for seven 
 years past the youth of Russia have been doing nothing but 
 gymnastics, whose uselessness is admitted by teachers and 
 bitterly deplored by parents. 
 
 The effect of the system on pupils is nothing less than disas- 
 trous. Boys of ten and eleven years old, who are compelled 
 to give sixteen hours a week to a language so different from 
 their own as Latin, end b}' conceiving for it such a distaste and 
 disgust that its study becomes painful and unproductive. The 
 examinations for removes are moreover so difficult — by special 
 order of the Minister — that an immense number of boys fail 
 to pass them, and are summarily expelled. According to the 
 repoi-t of the Department of Instruction for 1879, which gives 
 the results for the seven years then ending, G,511 pupils only 
 had completed their course during that jieriod, while no fewer 
 than 51,406 had either been expelled for failure to satisfy the 
 examiners or had abandoned the attempt in despair. The 
 chfuices against a boy in the first (lowest) class going through 
 all the upi^er classes, and so being able to enter a university, 
 are nine to one ; that is to say, eight-ninths are rejected. Of 
 
268 RUSSIA UNDEK THE TZAKS. 
 
 the second class tliree-foiu-ths fail, of the third two-thirds, and 
 of the select few who successfully run the gauntlet and reach 
 the seventh class one-fouiih break down in their final exam- 
 ination. 
 
 These ficciu*es tell their own tale. The svstem is not a test 
 of fitness ; it is a massacre of innocents. The plan invented 
 by Count Tolstoi dooms thousands of children to ignorance, 
 and deprives many of them of all chance of a useful career. 
 And it cannot be urged on behalf of the Government that 
 they are unaware of the evil which it works and the discon- 
 tent which it causes. For years past the Press, fettered as it 
 is, has never ceased to protest against the new system of edu- 
 cation and the deplorable consequences which it entails. De- 
 spau'ing parents bewail the fate of their unfortunate childi-en, 
 and the groANing frequency of suicides among boys under 
 thiiieen lends to their complaint a temble significance. But 
 the Government remains firm, and the massacre of innocents 
 goes on. 
 
 But why, it may be asked, do parents continue to send their 
 children to the shambles? Ai'e there in Russia no other 
 schools than these classical gymnasiums? There are. The 
 new classicism is designed only for the weU-to-do. The classi- 
 cal gymnasiums do not give a complete education. They are 
 merely preparatory schools for the universities. To the nu- 
 merous class who look to education for the means of ensuiing 
 theii* children a Uvehhood, the gymnasiums are of no use 
 whatever. It is consequently necessai'y to thi-ow them also a 
 bone, and for their benefit have been founded the professional 
 institutions known as " real " or " realist " schools. But there 
 ai-e very few of them — thii-ty-nine ; while of gymnasiums and 
 pro-gymnasiums there ai'c a huntli'ed and eighty. 
 
 At St. Petersburg, where practical instruction is so greatly 
 needed, there ai'e two " real " scliools, as compared with six- 
 teen classical gymnasiums and pro-gymnasiums, a state of 
 things which proves that the Government has very little desire 
 for the diffusion of instruction among the middle classes. But 
 
SECONDARY EDUCATION. 2G9 
 
 it is in the general organization of these schools that the iH- 
 will of the Government is more particularly manifested. Their 
 object, according to the original regulation, is (1) to afford 
 young men an education susceptible of immediate practical 
 application ; and (2) to prepare them for the higher profes- 
 sional schools ; and they profess to devote much more time and 
 attention to the study of the mother tongue, mathematics, and 
 natural sciences, than the classical schools. Yet these studies, 
 useful though they are as the foundation of a sound technical 
 education, are piu'eW theoretical ; they do not alone conduce 
 to any practical results. To remedy this defect, a supple- 
 mentary class (the seventh) has been organized, which, how- 
 ever, remedies notliing. This class is comj)osed of two sections 
 ■ — one mechanico-technical, the other chemico-technical. In 
 these two sections, though the course is five yeai's, all the 
 practical scientific instruction is comprised within two and 
 ranges over many subjects — mechanics, chemistry, mines, en- 
 gineering — ever}-thing, in fact, that it is hardly possible for a 
 pupil to get even a smattering, much less an efiicient knowl- 
 edge of any one of them. 
 
 The confusion which this system must needs entail is self- 
 evident. These ai-e not courses, rather a catalogue raisonne of 
 every sort of science, a harlequin performance, a kaleidoscope 
 composed of fragments of everything. The result is, that 
 when pupils have passed through this supplementary class, 
 they are no more capable than before of apj^lying practicaU}' 
 any of the scientific knowledge they are supposed to have ac- 
 quu'ed. A manufa,cturer never thinks of employing in his 
 establishment a " realist " graduate, for the latter's pretended 
 science is inferior to that of an overlooker or workman who 
 has been taught only by personal observation and experience. 
 
 liussian commerce requii-es only men of inferior education, 
 but vathout diplomas none can become schoolmasters and in- 
 stinictors. Yet comparatively few either obtain dijolomas or 
 complete their studies in the superior technical schools, the 
 reason being that there is not a sufficiency of these institutions 
 
370 RUSSIA UXDEK THE TZAKS. 
 
 to receive the pupils sent up by tbe " realist " gymnasiums. 
 According to the report of tlie Minister of Public Instruction, 
 published in 1879, the thiiiy " real " schools having the seven 
 classes turned out 330 students fuUy qualified for admission 
 to the superior schools. But as the latter had room for no 
 more than 151, less than half could be received, and the 
 greater part were consequently rejected. And these "real "^ 
 school scholars are far from being the only candidates for 
 admission to the four superior professional schools. In the 
 year 1879 alone, for instance, there -were no fewer than 380 
 applicants for admission to one technical school which could 
 accommodate only 125. In No. 2o38 of the Novori Vremia 
 {New Times) a professor, in warning young men in the prov- 
 inces not to count too confidently on being able to enter these 
 institutions, mentions that out of one thousand candidates 
 who in 1883 presented themselves for admission into the two 
 schools of industry and mines, no more than two huudi'cd 
 could be received, the rest having to be rejected simply for 
 lack of room. But despite the warnings and discouragements, 
 so great is the eagerness of our youth for superior insti'uction 
 that they stiU apj)ly in crowds for admission to the schools, 
 only to meet, time after time, with the same rebuffs and the 
 same disappointments. The demand for professional instruc- 
 tion in Russia arises not only from a thii'st for knowledge, but 
 from a natural desii'e to develop the great natural riches of 
 the countr)% for which a measure of technical education is 
 absolutely necessary. 
 
 But the Government, so far from affording increased facili- 
 ties for instruction, actually forbids the foundation of new 
 colleges, as we have seen in the case of Kharkoff, and will not 
 allow existing institutions to add to their accommodation. 
 The motive of this dog-in-the-manger policy is the fear that, 
 recruited as they are from classes comparatively poor, technical 
 schools are more Hkely to become infected with subversive 
 ideas than the classical g_>^nnasiums of Count Tolstoi. The 
 fate of the rejected among the " real " school men is very sad. 
 
SECONDARY EDUCATION. 271 
 
 Unable to enter tlie universities, and debarred from tlie call- 
 ings for which they were destined, the greater part of them 
 "remain in the streets." WeU may they caU themselves the 
 " Minister's bastards," for while youths from the classical 
 schools, once they have matriculated, are received with open 
 ai'ms, the luckless "reaHsts" are rejected everywhere ; against 
 them all doors are closed. Yet neither society nor the Press 
 can either rest indifferent to the troubles of these unhappy 
 waifs, or ignore the national loss entailed by the riraning to 
 waste of so much intellectual energy. Their position has been 
 the theme of hundreds of articles, written in the cautious and 
 measured language which an imi^erious necessity imposes on 
 Russian journaHsts. The best and natural solution of the 
 difficulty would be the enlargement of existing technical col- 
 leges and the re-estabhshment of new ones ; but this being 
 evidently out of the question, no more is asked than that 
 matriculated " realists " may be allowed to enter the univer- 
 Bities and graduate in medicine, science, or mathematics, 
 for which they are far better prepared than their confreres 
 of the gymnasiums, whose acquisitions are limited to Latin 
 and Greek. It will hai'dly be believed that even this modest 
 request was refused. In 1881 the Zemstvo took action in the 
 matter, and, following the example of the Zemstvo of Tcherni- 
 goff, made a general demand for the admission of " reaHsts " 
 to the scientific faculties of the universities. The IMinistry, 
 not deeniing it pohtic to reject i^eremptorily this petition, 
 appointed a commission to whom the question was to be re- 
 ferred, and a time (January 19, 1882) was actually named for 
 the first meeting. But on the 18th the members of the com- 
 mission received a notification from the Minister that the 
 meeting was to be adjoui'ned indefinitely, and it stands ad- 
 journed to this day. 
 
 It is thus evident that the Government accepts without 
 reserve all the most reactionary ideas of Count Tolstoi, who, 
 rmfortunately for our country, exercises a predominant in- 
 fluence over its domestic policy, and the Minister of Public 
 
273 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZAES. 
 
 Instruction has as evidently decided to deny, as far as lie can, 
 facilities for higher education to all whom lack of means com- 
 pels to take to jDrofessional pursuits. It is this class, he thinks, 
 which is most disaffected to the State, and he would make 
 sui^erior instruction the exclusive apj^anage of the rich and 
 noble, whose position, either as landowners or sei*vants of the 
 Tzar — if urged by necessity, or promj^ted by ambition, they 
 have entered the service of the State — constrains them to sup- 
 port the existing regime. 
 
 m. 
 
 Unsatisfactory as is the condition of our scholastic institu- 
 tions — badgered by the Government, watched by the police, 
 exposed to aU sorts of demoralizing influences — yet so great is 
 the need of instruction, so eager are our youth for knowledge, 
 that schools of every degTee are besieged by applicants willing 
 to submit to all the conditions which the State may see fit to 
 unj)ose, but unable to obtain admission. That this is no over- 
 dra\vn or partisan statement, the following extract from the 
 Nedielia of August 26, 1883, will show : 
 
 " The end of the summer vacation and the beginning of the schola.stic 
 year are marked by the usual chorus of complaints about the lack of 
 vacancies in the public schools, and parents are cruelly embarrassed in 
 their efforts to procure siiitable instruction for their children. As the 
 facts set forth in country papers abundantly testifj^ this evil is by no 
 means conlined to one locality. None of the classical gymnasiums at 
 Moscow have vacancies for first class pupils. In those of St. Petersburg 
 vacancies are extremely rare. In the gymnasium of St. Petersburg no 
 I)laccs whatever are to be had in the first class ; in the pro-gymnasium 
 there are only six disposable places ; in the first class and in the real 
 school there are no vacancies whatever, not even in the second class." 
 
 At the Cronstadt Technical School there were 156 applicants 
 and only thirtj' places. A con-espondent writing from Kicff 
 to the same paper mentioned that for every vacancy there 
 were five postulants, for some classes there were eight 
 
SECONDARY EDUCATION. 273 
 
 and ten. The natural consequences of tLis state of things 
 are excessive crowding and inefficient teaching. Masters 
 are at their wits' end to find room for those whom they 
 actually receive ; at every desk there are four boys in- 
 stead of two. According to the Saratoff Gazette there were 
 sixty-sis applicants for thirty-soven places in that town, and 
 the masters, shrinking from the invidious task of personal 
 selection, made the candidates contend by competitive exami- 
 nation for the vacancies at their disposal. 
 
 These citations, which might easily be multipHed, will give 
 a fair idea of the relation of supply to demand in the domain 
 of Eussian secondary education. The same story comes from 
 every part of the empii'e, and this has been going on for 
 3'ears. It is a virtual denial of education to thousands of 
 Eussian youth, for, as I have already mentioned, there is no 
 room for private effort in the dominions of the Tzar. The 
 Government, which throws away scores of millions in Court 
 festivals and distant wars, spares only a poor ten millions for 
 piu'poses of education. And yet, in spite of its mania for 
 repression and the resolute will of Count Tolstoi, the Govern- 
 ment is forced from time to time to make concessions, often, 
 however, more in appearance than reality. Every class is in- 
 terested in the education of its youth. For the higher orders, 
 without distinction of poUtical opinion or social position, for 
 Government employes as well as for ordinaiy citizens, the ques- 
 tion is one of life and death. For if their children be not 
 instructed, how can they live ? And these classes combined, 
 albeit they possess no recognized political influence, are able, 
 up to a certain point, to force the hands of Government. But 
 when the Goverament yields to pressure, it yields reluctantly 
 and slowly, and with the worst possible grace. For instance, 
 during the last ten years, notwithstanding increase of popula- 
 tion and the ever-growing demand for greater educational 
 facilities, the credit for the gymnasiums has been increased 
 by only 1,400,000 roubles on an expenditure of six millions, 
 a sum altogether and ridiculously inadequate for the needs 
 
274 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 which it is supposed to satisfy. Tired of pestering- the Gov- 
 ernment with petitions and complaints, some of the munic- 
 ipalities and the Zcmstvo lately took the extreme resolution 
 of building new classical gymnasiums, bmdening their modest 
 budgets Avith an outlay which ought really to be borne by the 
 State. The expenditiu'e of the Zemstvo of eighteen provinces 
 on secondaiy education amounts to from 25 to 30 per cent, of 
 the total sum assigned by these bodies for public instruction 
 in general. This proves to what point the Government has 
 carried its policy of opposition to the extension of middle-class 
 instruction. 
 
 The policy of the Minister of Public Instruction as touching 
 secondary schools may be thus summarized : — (1) To oppose 
 by every possible means the diffusion of secondary education, 
 to render it as difficult as possible, and make no concession 
 save at the last extremity, when all the means of resistance 
 have been exhausted. (2) When resistance becomes inipossi- 
 ble, to try to exclude from the benefits of secondary education 
 the professional classes (to whom it is a matter of life and 
 death), in order to confine it, as far as may be, to the higher 
 nobility and richer citizens. (3) The privilege once granted 
 to these classes, to make the instruction gi\en to their chiltb-eu 
 as sterile as possible, and so arrange matters that it may be 
 imparted to the fewest number. 
 
 These conclusions read more like a bad joke than stern real- 
 ity, yet are they not fully justified by the facts we have cited — 
 facts, be it remembered, taken from official documents or from 
 a censured and semi-official Press ? 
 
CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 PRIMARY INSTRUCTION. 
 
 Pkimaey instruction in Russia is of very recent growth, dat- 
 ing no further back than from the emancipation of 1861. It 
 is true that great proprietors and serf-owners used to let a few 
 of theii- thralls learn enough to become stewards and book- 
 keepers. But, on the well-understood principle that educated 
 slaves make dangerous servants, the mass of the rural popula- 
 tion were deliberately left in the deepest ignorance. On the 
 domains of the Crown alone were there a ceiiain number of 
 piimary schools, but being placed under the supervision of the 
 priests and the tchinovnik, who had neither the time nor the 
 wish to look after them, they fell into a state of utter ineffi- 
 ciency. The few pupils they had learnt Httle or nothing, and 
 more often than not the schools themselves were ptu*ely imag- 
 inaiy, " they existed only on joaper," as we say in Russia — in other 
 words, they were to be found only in the rejioi-ts of the admin- 
 istration, in whose accotmts always figvired divers sums, sup- 
 posed to have been paid for teachers' salaries and repairs of 
 buildings, sums which, it is hardly necessary to say, went into 
 the fathomless pockets of the tchinovnik and theu' accomplices. 
 When the schools were afterwards made over to the Zemstvo, 
 the frauds of this sort that came to light were absolutely ap- 
 palling. At St. Petersburg, when the management of the popu- 
 lar- schools was handed over to the municipality of the capitaL 
 in 1872, three, out of a nominal sixteen, were missing. They 
 had never existed; the very names of them were fictitious. Of 
 
276 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZAKS. 
 
 the remainder one alone was tolerably efficient, the remainder 
 being badly organized and destitute of nearly every faculty for 
 study. The fii*st proceeding of the municipality was to provide 
 fresh buildings, furnish the school with books, and appoint a 
 new and competent staff of teachers, and organize ever^v^thing 
 afresh. Yet these schools were founded more than a hundred 
 years ago by the Empress Catharine, and had been ever since 
 under the supeiwision of the State. 
 
 If this was the condition of primary instruction in the cap- 
 ital, it is easy to understand what it must have been in the 
 country. So far as it existed at all, it was due to private 
 effort, either on the part of private individuals or of the Zem- 
 stvo. The Government, as I shall presently show, did little 
 then, and it does little now, but thwart, openly or covertly, the 
 noble endeavors of Russian society to impart some slight de- 
 gree of instruction to the masses of the people. In 1859 the 
 instructed classes, roused to enthusiasm by the approach of 
 emancipation, were eager for all sorts of reform, and, above 
 all, to do something for their poorer fellow-citizens, so soon to 
 be free. The idea of education took as much hold of the 
 imagination of the youth of that day as did later the idea of a 
 Socialist propaganda. But the establishment of children's 
 schools was not enough to satisfy these aspii'ations. The 
 effects of their teaching would not be manifest for a whole 
 generation. "WTiat could be done to fit fathers and mothers 
 for the boon of freedom and make them more worthy mem- 
 bers of the new society ? The question was answered and the 
 want supplied by the creation of Sunday-schools in every city, 
 and in almost every town of the empu'e. The youth of both 
 sexes threw themselves into the work vdth. great ai'dor, and 
 very soon excellent results were obtained. At Odessa alone 
 six hundred persons offered themselves as teachers — of coiu'se 
 without pay. But the Government viewed all this enthusiasm 
 with dire alarm ; there was no telling to what terrible conse- 
 quences the mixing of the poor and the rich, the ignorant and 
 the instructed, micrht not aivc rise, and in the autumn of 18G2 
 
PKniARY INSTRUCTION. 277 
 
 the Sunday-schools were suj)pressed by order of the Tzar. 
 And so ended a good work nobly begun. It was the first 
 check imposed on the initiation of the pabKc in this work. 
 Popular instruction was again turned over to the priests and 
 the tcJiinovniks, to the end that they might reduce it to a 
 sham and a pretence. 
 
 In 1864, however, a step in the right dii-ection was taken. 
 Tlie oversight of jDrimary education was confided to the Zem- 
 stvo and other local bodies. In every district a School Board 
 was constituted, of which three members were nominated 
 by the Zemstvo and the municipality, and thi-ee elected by 
 the commune. The Board was supervised by a provincial 
 council composed of five members, of which two represented 
 the Zemstvo and two the tchinovnik. The fifth member was 
 the bishop, or his substitute, whose special duty it was to see 
 that the character of the teaching in the popular schools was 
 loyal and religious. The bishop received his information and 
 gave his advice through the \illage priests, who were author- 
 ized to visit the schools and direct the masters, and if the latter 
 did not confoiin to then* counsel to make formal complaint 
 against them. But as neither the bishop nor the tchinovnik 
 gave much thought to the matter, rarely attending the meet- 
 ings of the council, the management of the schools was left 
 virtually to the Zemstvo. The new regulation was thus much 
 more liberal and popular than its authors meant it to be, and 
 ofiEered great facilities for the estabHshment of primary schools. 
 The greatest difficulty encountered by the Zemstvo was pau- 
 city of funds, their expenditure being limited to a twentieth 
 of the national revenues. Yet stirred by a noble zeal for edu- 
 cation the Zemstvo did wonders. In 1864 the number of 
 primary schools was 17,678 with 598,121 pupils. We have 
 now 25,000 schools with 1,000,000 scholars. But the progress 
 achieved was even greater than these figui'es denote. The 
 quality of the teaching was vastly improved. The old teach- 
 ers were composed chiefly of sacristans, church singers, and 
 old soldiers, most of whom coiild hardly read, much less write 
 
278 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZAKS. 
 
 or cii^her. To remedy this evil the Zemstvo stai-ted teachers' 
 training schools, and raised the pay of the teachers from fifty 
 to sixty roubles a year to an average of two hundi-ed roubles, 
 in exceptional cases to three hundi-ed and to thi-ee hundred and 
 fifty roubles. Courses m pedagogy were also organized by 
 which teachers could profit during the hohdays, and by these 
 means the efficiency of the schools was improved beyond 
 measure. Though no general statistics are obtainable as to 
 the results of the new depai-ture, some suggestive facts and 
 figures are to be found in the reports of the Zemstvo of Nov- 
 gorod, Moscow, Samara, and a few other districts. 
 
 Of the present teaching staff about one-thiixl have received 
 a superior education in the middle class schools and semina- 
 ries, another thii'd holds certificates from the normal school, 
 and the remainder are men of the old regime. From their 
 modest revenues of 18,000,000 roubles the Zemstvo spai'e 
 4,000,000 for purposes of education; while fi'om its revenue of 
 360,000,000 the Imperial Government spares for the same ob- 
 ject only a milhon and a half, and of this sum 300,000 is taken 
 by the inspection— that is to say, by the pohce of the schools. 
 The countiy population— freed serfs and their chndi-en- whom 
 many consider hopelessly ignorant and brutalized, and unfitted 
 for any pubHc function, show an almost pathetic eagerness to 
 secm-e for then- little ones the benefits of education. Notwith- 
 standing their proverbial povei-ty, oui' rural communes volun- 
 tarily contributed as much towards the maintenance of the 
 primary schools as the Zemstvo and the Government put to- 
 gether. Of the total amount (about 7i million roubles) re- 
 quired for these schools, the peasants pay 41, the Zemstvo 34, 
 the Imperial Government 14, and private individuals, mostly 
 landowners, 11 per cent. And it is a fact of much significance 
 that the provinces which make the greatest sacrifices for the 
 promotion of education are exactly those in whose Zemstvo the 
 peasants have the greatest proportion of deputies. The towns 
 too and, above all, St, Petersburg, have made strenuous efforts 
 to popularize education. The thirteen wretched schools of 
 
PKIMAEY INSTRUCTION. 279 
 
 1864, with a few score pupils, had grown in 1882 to 158 excel- 
 lent estabhshments A^-ith a staff of cei-tificated teachers and 
 6,000 scholars of both sexes. The province of Tamboff, which, 
 before the creation of the Zemstvo, had 174 primary schools 
 with 7,700 pupils, possess now 500 schools with an average at- 
 tendance of 27,000 children. In 1860 Nijni Novgorod had 28 
 schools and 1,500 scholai's; twenty years later the Zemstvo of 
 the province had organized 337 schools, in which nearly 12,- 
 000 children were receiving the rudiments of education. The 
 progress thus achieved woidd be remarkable in any circum- 
 stances; if account be taken of the hostility of the Government 
 and the difficulties thi'own in the way of the Zemstvo by the 
 official class, it seems prodigious. The Government shows 
 scant favor to the universities and superior schools; to the 
 primary schools it shows even less; and its treatment of them 
 has been so unworthy of the rulers of a great country that, if 
 the facts I am about to set forth were not proven, that is to 
 say, if they had not appeared in official reports and been stated 
 in newspapers over which is always hanging the Damocles 
 sword of censure and suspension — they would seem nothing 
 less than incredible, and I should be accused of wilful exag- 
 geration in repeating them. 
 
 n. 
 
 The Zemstvo hardly began the work of reorganization when 
 they encountered the opposition of the JMinistry. Their most 
 pressing need was good teachers. They wanted to be allowed 
 — they asked nothing more — to establish teachers' colleges. 
 After two years of waiting and dozens of joetitions, Mr. Golov- 
 nine, the then ^Minister of Education, seemed to be on the 
 point of giving the required authorization, when (ia 1866) the 
 first attempt to assassinate the Emperor came to pass — an 
 event which was followed by the accession of Count Tolstoi to 
 the Ministry and his assumption of the j^ortfolio of Public In- 
 struction. His first proceeding was to impose a peremptory 
 
280 KUSSIA UNDER THE TZAKS. 
 
 veto on the proposed organization of teachers' colleges, and in 
 his report to the Tzar, pubhshed in 1867, he takes special 
 credit to himself for having burked so pernicious and revolu- 
 tionary a scheme. In his opinion, normal schools, besides be- 
 coming centres of democratic agitation, would be the means of 
 contaminating the minds of Russian childi-en with subversive 
 ideas. For five long years the Minister remained deaf to the 
 prayers and remonstrances of the Zemstvo, who were compelled 
 to get teachers where they could and retain the services of 
 many of the sacristans and old soldiers, who were hardly less 
 ignorant than their own scholars. But the events of 1870 
 wrought a stai-thng change, for it was said — and all beheved — 
 that the victories of Woi-th, of Gravelotte, and of Sedan were 
 Vv^on, not in the cabinet of General von Moltke, but in the 
 schools of the Fatherland. Then it dawned on the minds of 
 some of the Emperor's advisers, notably on that of the Minis- 
 ter of Yf ar, that men make none the worse soldiers for know- 
 ing how to read and write, and the interdict on the estabhsh- 
 ment of normal schools was removed. There are now sixty ox 
 them; but Count Tolstoi, while yielding to necessity, yielded 
 reluctantly, and some of the Zemstvo— though theii- petitions 
 have been incessant — have not even yet received the needful 
 concession. But from then- very mception these excellent in- 
 stitutions have been the objects of official jealousy and inces- 
 sant suspicion, and are continually exposed to the double fire 
 of the pohce of the State and the pohce of the Ministry of 
 Education. 
 
 And a regard for truth constrains us to say that in this 
 strife the Iklinister of Instruction displayed far gi-eater zeal 
 than the Third Section. The fate of our best schools of this 
 class, founded by the efforts of the Zomstvo and the enter- 
 prise of private citizens (by Mr. Moksimov at Tver, Mi'. Dron- 
 ginune at Torjok, the Zemstvo of Kiasan, and many others), 
 destroyed for " admitting too much air," for " extending too 
 largely the scholastic curriculum," for "reducing too much the 
 charges for admission," and for other crimes of the same sort, 
 
PKniARY INSTRUCTION. 281 
 
 are perfect illustrations of the spirit in whicli, for the last 
 fifteen years, oui- so-called lEnister of Instruction lias con- 
 ducted the business of his depai'tnient and promoted the cause 
 of education. 
 
 m. 
 
 The crusade against the universities is of long duration ; 
 that against the gymnasium and secondary education began in 
 1866. As for the primary schools, they remained for several 
 yeai's comparatively free from interference ; but about 1874 it 
 occurred to the Government that by j)reventing the seeds of 
 disaffection from being sown in infant minds they might de- 
 stroy Nihilism at its source. This idea was due to the discoveiy 
 that several of the teachers were revolutionary emissaries. As 
 a laile, these emissaries, in order the better to win over the 
 working classes, assumed the character of common workmen, 
 and actually worked as blacksmiths, masons, bricklayers, and 
 laborers. A few, probably not more than a score, became 
 teachers in village schools, their object being to caiTv on a 
 propaganda among the peasants, certainly not to impart 
 Nihihstic tenets to childi-en struggling with the alphabet or 
 deep in the mysteries of multiplication. This portentous dis- 
 covery led to the placing of all the 25,000 schools of the 
 empu'e under the ban of the police, and suggested to the 
 Government the idea of the famous regulations of 1874. The 
 character and consequences of these regulations were de- 
 scribed by a St. Petersburg journal on November 2, 1880, 
 shortly after the temporary disgrace of Count Tolstoi, when, 
 during a brief space, it was possible for a paper to speak the 
 truth without fear of prosecution or extinction, in the follow- 
 ing terms : 
 
 "Alarmed by the spread of socialism in the provinces, Count Tolstoi, 
 casting about in his mind for the cause of so portentous a phenomenon, 
 came to the conclusion that the primary schools were the source of the 
 mischief, and that the schoolmasters were the most formidable of revolu- 
 
282 EUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 tionary propagandists. So the Minister of Public Instruction, instead 
 of favoring the creation of schools for the diffusion of exact knowledge 
 and correct principles among the masses, began to put every obstacle in 
 the way of this great work. He tried to protect the popular schools, as 
 yet hardly established, from dangerous influences by measures much 
 more likclv to kill than to cure. In the eyes of Count Tolstoi our village 
 schoolmasters, for the most part poor, ignorant, and inexperienced (it 
 was only in 1871 that leave was given for the opening of teachers' train- 
 ing colleges), are enemies of the State and a danger to society, upon 
 whom it is necessary to keep a perpetual watch with thirty-six eyes. In- 
 stead of being insti-ucted in their duties, they are treated with contumely, 
 and supervised like released malefactors. Instead of recei%ing the moral 
 support of the authorities, they are cowed by threats ; they know that 
 the least display of spirit or of independence would bring them under 
 suspicion of being politically heterodox : and their lives are made miser- 
 able by the knowledge that all their movements are watched, and that at 
 any moment they may fall under the lash of the law for offences they 
 
 wot not of. 
 
 "To keep in check enemies so redoubtable as these poor school- 
 masters, it was clear that some agencies were needed even more power- 
 ful than the general police and the Third Section. So, under the form 
 of provincial and district scholastic councils, Count Tolstoi created a 
 police of his own, which it were no misnomer to call the poUtical police 
 of the primary schools. Nothing like it exists or ever did exist in any 
 other country. Never were schools so watched, guarded, tutored, and 
 controlled. Everj- childi-en's school in the country is supervised, in the 
 first line by the governor of the province and the bishop of the diocese ; 
 then come the two ordinary councils, with their fifteen members, making 
 a total of eighteen persons, all of them possessing large powers, 
 though two only, the director and the inspector, have any special knowl- 
 edge°of pedagogy. [In this the writer is wrong. According to Article 
 20°of the regulations of 1874 these two only are authorized to direct the 
 details of instruction, but it by no means follows that they have special 
 qualifications for this duty ; they are often, indeed, less competent than 
 tlieir confreres.-] The surveillance of the other fifteen persons must 
 therefore needs be almost purely inquisitorial." 
 
 Nor is this aU. The author of the " regulations," being ap- 
 parently of opinion that fifteen inquisitors were not enough to 
 safeguard the schools from political contamination (Art. 41) 
 authorized the President of the Council to choose at his dis- 
 cretion from the nobiUty of the district several private persons 
 
PKIMAKY INSTRUCTION. 883 
 
 for tlie pui-pose of keeping an eye on the character of the in- 
 stimclton imparted in the primary schools with special refer- 
 ence to its political tendencies. These persons, albeit no ex- 
 ecutive functions are conferred upon them, were invited to 
 communicate theii- " obsen'ations and conjectui'es (sic) " to the 
 President of the School Council — in other words, to play the 
 spy. M. Kosheleff, one of the most respected members of our 
 Zemstvo, said in an article printed in the Zevistvo (No. 2) that 
 he doubted if there could be found in the whole of Russia a 
 member of the nobility sufficiently servile to accept so ignoble 
 a mission. But this renders the regulations in question 
 neither less characteristic of the methods of our Government, 
 nor the position of village schoolmasters more tolerable. The 
 role refused by the gentlemen of the nobility is accepted by 
 the sfanowi (constable) of the district, the staroste of the com- 
 mune, or village innkeeper, any of whom may communicate 
 his "observations and conjectures" to the school inspector, 
 a proceeding that generally entails the poor schoolmaster's 
 prompt dismissal. 
 
 " The position of our teachers," observes the priest Kult- 
 chinsky in the Samara Zemstvo, "is really insupportable. They 
 are controlled not alone by their many sujDeriors, but by all 
 the busybodies of a neighborhood, in such a manner that it is 
 quite impossible for them to satisfy demands so vaiious and 
 tastes so conflicting." 
 
 The following passage appears in the Kcpoii of the Com- 
 mission of Inquiry of the Zemstvo of Bheinigoff (1880) : 
 
 " The political element which of late has disturbed our provincial life 
 has caused a number of persons and institutions to meddle with school 
 affairs, from whose interference has followed no good results. Teachers 
 find themselves at the mercy, not alone of a crowd of superiors, from 
 the Marshal of the Nobility to the village priest, but of policemen, rural 
 guards, and communal employee. Worried by so many masters, the 
 teacher becomes incapable of performing his duties ; he loses his head, 
 and in order to obtain a little repose is often compelled to abandon hia 
 post." 
 
284 RUSSIA UNDER TUE TZAUS. 
 
 It is also unfoi-tunately tiie fact tbat tlie best men ai'e the 
 "woi'st treated. The more a master is intelligent, instructed, 
 and devoted to his duty, the more is he likely to he susj)ected 
 by his sujieriors and denounced by some agent of the police 
 as a fomenter of sedition and a corrupter of youth. If, on 
 the contrary, he be ignorant and incapable, a dninkard and 
 an idler, it is never imputed to him that he is a wolf in sheep's 
 clothing, a revolutionist in disguise. The effect of the exist- 
 ing regulations is thus to di'ive from the schools the most 
 competent teachers — a fact which is well understood by all the 
 Zemstvo. It has even been publicly acknowledged by the 
 School Council of Novgorod, who in an official report ex- 
 press suri^rise that any properly quahfied teachers can be 
 found ready to accept the conditions imposed upon them, and 
 that it has been possible to achieve the very modest results 
 ah'eady set forth. 
 
 IV. 
 
 And all this vandaHsm, this reign of teiToi', because among 
 25,000 teachers there have been found twenty or thii-ty apos- 
 tles of sedition ! Can it really be that the Russian Govern- 
 ment is so ludicrously nervous as to tremble at the thought of 
 a score or two, or even of a hundred, NiliUist emissaries being 
 scattered over the length and breadth of the empire ? or is it 
 only a pretext to hamper primary education ? Pending an 
 answer to this question I freely give the Government credit for 
 all the stupidity which their conduct, on the hypothesis that 
 they are sincere, inevitably implies. 
 
 But as we shall presently see, its policy in the matter of pop- 
 ular instniction possesses a remarkable peculiarity which cannot 
 be ascribed to fear of socialism. 
 
 As I have already mentioned, the regulations of 18G4 
 placed the direction of the primary schools virtually in the 
 hands of the local authorities. It was the best and most nat- 
 lU'al ai'rangcment ; it worked to the satisfaction of all ; and 
 
PKIMARY INSTKTJCTION. 285 
 
 the Zemstvo by tlieii* zeal, and the peasants by tiieii- contiibu- 
 tions, showed themselves fully worthy of the trust rejiosed in 
 them. But from 1869 the Government began, little by little, 
 to undo the good they had done ; by the regulations of 187-1 
 the local authorities were completely ousted from the manage- 
 ment of the schools, and the tchinovnik ruled in tlieii- stead. 
 The Zemstvo may pay if they hke, for the payment is optional, 
 but they have no longer any right to control the expenditure 
 or take pai-t in the direction, which is vested altogether in the 
 nominees of the Minister under the official designation of In- 
 spector of Popular Schools. The power of these functionaries 
 is httle less than despotic. Without their authorization it is 
 not permitted either to build a school-house, engage a teacher, 
 begin a new course of instruction, or even piu'chase a primer. 
 An inspector, by a mere stroke of the pen, can dismiss a 
 master, close a school, or suppress a com-se of lessons. The 
 so-called council may ask, but they cannot require, information 
 touching the progress of the schools which they subsidize ; 
 the inspectors even refuse to communicate to them the results 
 of the periodical examinations, for this, as one of these func- 
 tionai-ies lately explained to the Zemstvo of the j)rovince of 
 Taurida, would be admitting their right to meddle in matters 
 which concern the inspectors alone. Thus the sole sphere of 
 activity left open to the two councils is that of police ; and it 
 is a cui-ious fact that albeit certain councillors may, if they 
 discover anything poHtically suspicious, either dismiss a 
 master, or shut up a school, they have no right either to 
 recommend a manual or offer an opinion on the quality of the 
 teaching or the progress of the scholars. And the inspectors, 
 be it remembered, have no special qualifications for the posi- 
 tions which they occupy. •' During the last few years," runs 
 the repoi-t of the Zemstvo of Tcheraigoff for 1881, " the ia- 
 spection of our schools has become more stringent and less 
 pedagogic. Among the new inspectors of primaiy schools is 
 hardly to be found one who has received a superior education 
 or obtained a certificate of proficiency as a teacher. Some of 
 
286 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 them are men of phenomenal ignorance. Of one, a certain 
 INIr. Jaukovsky, the report of the Zemstvo of Berdiansk men- 
 tions that, during a pubHc examination held m presence of the 
 governor of the province, he showed utter inabihty to under- 
 stand some of the simplest rules of ai-ithmetic, such as ai-e 
 taught to childi-en of tender age. 
 
 What, it may be ashed, can be the cause of this reac- 
 tionary pohcy of the Russian Government in regard to primary 
 education? To push pohce supei-^^sion over the person of the 
 schoolmaster to so absui-d a length as that which I have 
 described seems nothing less than a senseless freak of power. 
 It is like burning do^^•n a house to rid it of mice. There is, 
 nevertheless, a sufficiently obvious, yet utterly inadequate, 
 reason for all these proceedings. The schoohnasters ai-e gen- 
 erally young men, the mistresses young women, and the young 
 being more receptive of new and strange ideas than the old, 
 are therefore more likely to be contaminated with the pest of 
 Nihilism. It is surely against them that the Government aim 
 these measures of repression, even at the risk of destroying 
 primary education altogether or rendering it inefficient to 
 worthlessness. Yet this theory, though it may be good as far 
 a^ it goes, does not explain why the management of the 
 schools was taken out of the hands of the Zemstvo. For a pro- 
 ceeding so contrary to common sense no deep political motives 
 caii be°as3igned. It has never occuiTed even to the most sus- 
 picious of Ministers that the Zemstvo are capable of converting 
 the schools into centres of a socialist agitation. The Zemstvo 
 are composed of landowners, priests, merchants, and starchina 
 (i-ural mayors), none of them in the heyday of youth, or men 
 whom even the most keen-scented of poUce functionaries can 
 suspect of socialist tendencies. It is tme that they are not in 
 favor of the present ngime. Every member of a Zemstvo, if 
 he be not a traitor to his cause, must needs desu-e self-govern- 
 ment and the free initiative of society— therefore political free- 
 dom more or less extensive. On the other hand, there has 
 never been an instance of the Zemstvo using the schools for 
 
PRIMARY INSTRUCTION. 287 
 
 the propagation of — let us say — constitutional ideas. During 
 the twenty-one years' existence of the thiiiy-fovir Zemstvo, no 
 such chai-ge as this has been brought against them. 
 
 We are thus driven to the conclusion that the reactionary 
 measures of the Government are dictated by an instinctive dis- 
 like of education for its own sake, and a desire to check what 
 they deem a too rapid enlightenment of the masses of the 
 j)eople. At first sight this conclusion may seem as extravagant 
 as some other conclusions concerning the motives of the 
 Russian Government, which, nevertheless, there is no evading. 
 For in this regard the Government has the merit of being 
 frank to cynicism, as the facts I am about to adduce abun- 
 dantly prove. 
 
 The regulation of 1874 strictly limits the instiaiction to be 
 given in the primary schools. In other countries there is a 
 minimum of education which all childi'en must reach ; in 
 Russia there is a maximum beyond which none may go. It is 
 strictly forbidden to oiu' little peasant children to acquire 
 more than (a) an elementary knowledge of the catechism and 
 of sacred history, (b) of reading and writing, and (c) of the 
 four first iTiles of arithmetic. Over and over again have the 
 Zemstv'O besought the Ministry to let them enlarge a Httle this 
 meagre ciuTiculum, and give the poor little ones — some of 
 them very inteUigent and eager to learn — an idea of geometry, 
 of decimals, and of the geography of the land they Hve in. 
 All in vain ; such requests are either treated with contemptuous 
 sUence or answered with a peremptory negative. The same 
 obscui'antism explains the refusal of the Government to j^ermit 
 the use of any other language than Russian in the folk-schooLs 
 of Finland, the Ukraine, and Poland, albeit the peasants of 
 those countries know no tongue but their own. The con- 
 sequence is that the children for the most part learn neither 
 Russian nor anything else, which is probably what the authori- 
 ties want. 
 
 The management of the schools under the present system, 
 as must always be the case when a Inu'eaucracy meddles with 
 
288 KUSSIA UNDKR THE TZAIIS. 
 
 local affaii-s requiring special knowledge, is radically bad. 
 The money spent on the 112 inspectors, which would suffice 
 to build annually 700 new schools, is simply wasted. Each of 
 the 112 has the care of 122 schools, and, as the primary schools 
 make only about 15G working days in the yeai', it foUows that 
 the inspector of a district can give little more than one day 
 during that time to each school — or could if they were close 
 together. But seeing that they are generally spread over an 
 area half as large as Ii'eland, destitute of railways and iU pro- 
 vided with roads, it is evident that no inspector, let him be 
 ever so zealous, can give much more than an hour a year to 
 each of the schools within his jiuisdiction — even if he were to 
 spend every moment of his waking houi's in galloping over the 
 length and breadth of his district. 
 
 These hard-wrought officials, moreover, have a terrible 
 amount of office work to get through. They are always writ- 
 ing and answering letters, making reports, and filling up re- 
 turns. The inspector of Beloosero, when the Zemstvo com- 
 plained that he never visited their schools, asked indignantly 
 how they covild expect him to do anything of the sort, seeing 
 that he had to send off 2,000 depaiimental and other business 
 papers in the course of the year. In 1879 the Zemstvo of 
 Novgorod complained that the inspectors had not time to visit 
 even the model schools of the district, or be present at the ex- 
 aminations, to the great inconvenience of all concerned, none 
 save the inspectors having power either to give orders or pre- 
 sent reports. Similar complaints are continually made by 
 other Zemstvo (for instance by those of Saraloff, Tchernigoff, 
 Ekaterinoslav, and many more), and, though the latter have re- 
 peatedly offered to appoint supi^lemcntary inspectors at their 
 own expense, they have not yet succeeded in i^revailing upon 
 the Ministry to accept this reasonable solution of the difficulty. 
 
 V. 
 
 The schools are thus in effect left without any true scholas- 
 i\c. (n.9i disi,in<TiiiKhed fioni nnlitieal^ overpio'lit or direpfion 
 
PETMAKY INSTRUCTION. 289 
 
 whatever. The inspectors neither act themselves, nor let 
 others act, and the Zemstvo are placed between the alterna- 
 tives — watching- with folded hands the destniction of their 
 favorite work, and engaging in perpetual conflict \^^^h the 
 agents of the State. Hence arise retrogression on the one 
 hand, and endless contests with the inspectors on the other. 
 The miserable history of our primary schools is that of an in- 
 terminable war between these in'econcilable elements, a war 
 in which the inspectors, backed by the Minister, always pre- 
 vail. In a country so habituated to despotism, moreover, it is 
 inevitable that the contest should often assume a character of 
 pru'e vandalism. Of this the affair of Berdiansk, among 
 others, offers a remarkable instance. Berdiansk was remark- 
 able for its zeal in the cause of education ; the best-schooled 
 district in the well-schooled province of Taurida, only one of 
 its eighty-eight primary schools was subsidized by the Govern- 
 ment ; all the rest were supported by the locality. It had no 
 special inspector. The functionary who was charged with the 
 duty, having two other districts to look after, could naturally 
 give very little attention to any of them. So the Zemstvo, having 
 no hope of being allowed to ap^Doint a qualified school inspector 
 of their own, resolved, if possible, to secure the services of a 
 tchinovmk inspector. A request to this effect was forwarded 
 to the Slinister in due fomi, the Zemstvo offering, if it were 
 granted, to pay the man's salary out of their resources. For 
 five years this modest request, though continually reiterated, 
 remained unheeded and unanswered. But perseverance does 
 wonders, and in the fifth year they were gratified by the ap- 
 pointment of a certain Mr. Garousoff, a favor for which they 
 tendered the Minister their warmest thanks. But the Zemstvo 
 were not long in finding out that they had made as great a 
 mistake as the frogs who asked for a king and got a stork. The 
 new inspector conducted himself like the master of a con- 
 quered coimtry. " He annuled all the instructions and rules 
 for the management of schools without substituting others, 
 a proceeding vvOiich j^roduced at first indescribable confusion ; 
 
290 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 and ^vhen (after some time) IMr. Garoiisoff's rules and pre- 
 scriptions appeared, they were so contradictory that the teach- 
 ers did not know what to do or whom to obey. He next, with- 
 out anv plausible pretext, dismissed and transfen-ed from one 
 place to another the best teachers. Alarmed by thi-eats ' to 
 thi-ow them on the streets with a stroke of his pen,' which 
 Mr. GarousofE continually repeated, the teachers began to leave 
 ohe disti-ict. And when, to increase his power, the inspector 
 brought against several of them political accusations-com- 
 pletely false, as was subsequently shown— the teachers were 
 thrown into a veritable panic." 
 
 The Zemstvo complained to the director, as also to the ^Im- 
 ister, and prayed to be relieved of the Vandal ^ith whom the 
 latter had presented them. But all in vain, and in the end the 
 Zemstvo only got rid of their unloved inspector by a happy 
 accident. He made a charge against a teacher of so out- 
 ra'-eous a character that Todtleben was constrained to dis- 
 mrss him, and in October, 1879, Garousoff was succeeded 
 by Saukovsky. But the ^linister evidently held the district 
 in detestation. Its schools were altogether too popular and 
 successful. Saukovsky was no improvement on his predeces- 
 sor. He dismissed teachers without cause, and when the 
 Zemstvo protested against the discharge of a governess whom 
 he had accused of socialism, he tlireatened to accuse the en- 
 tu-e Zemstvo of sympathizing with subversive ideas. He gave 
 no heed to the wishes of the Zemstvo as to the management 
 of the schools, saving that their only duty was the paj-meut of 
 his salary. He introduced so many changes into the scho- 
 lastic course that the books did not arrive until the end of the 
 year, when the course was over, and the schools were kept 
 without teachers merely because the inspector did not take 
 the trouble to confii-m his appointment. This barbarous 
 regime lasted two years and did not terminate until the papers 
 were filled ^^ith letters on the subject, and the schools of Ber- 
 diansk became the question of the day and a pubHc scandal. 
 Were incidents like these of rai-e occun-ence, they might. 
 
PKIMAEY INSTRUCTION. 
 
 291 
 
 by no gi'eat stretch of charity, be ascribed to accident or 
 official stupidity ; but they are too frequent to be uninten- 
 tional, and must be held to express, in deed if not in word, 
 the deliberate policy of the Ministry of Education. In the 
 provinces of Tamboff, Ekaterinoslav, and many others, anal- 
 ogous facts have come to pass, and instances of conflicts be- 
 tween the Zemstvo and the inspectors, arising from similar 
 causes, might be produced ad infinitum. In the session of 
 1879 the Zemstvo of Raizan presented an address of thanks 
 to the five inspectors of the pro"s4nce for " having abstained 
 from using the means at their disposal to thwart the Zemstvo 
 in their efforts to promote primary education and increase the 
 usefulness of the \T.lIage schools." What irony could be more 
 bitter, or better proof be adduced of the determination of the 
 Government to hinder in every possible way, short of absolute 
 suppression, the development of our jDopular schools ? True, 
 they have increased in numbers ; but owing, on the one hand, 
 to the absence of any real inspection, and, on the other, fre- 
 quent changes of system and dismissals of teachers, their 
 efficiency is impaired to an extent that renders them powerless 
 for good. In some instances the Zemstvo, weary of petition- 
 ing and remonstrating, have withdrawn their subsidies and 
 left the schools to take care of themselves. During Count 
 Tolstoi's temporary disgrace there was a hope of better things, 
 and his successor, M. Sabouroff, was HteraUy bombarded with 
 petitions from all parts of the country, beseeching him to re- 
 store to the Zemstvo their liberty of action in the matter of 
 education. But when, three months later. Count Tolstoi re- 
 turned to power as Premier and IVIinister of the Interior, all 
 hope of amendment was at an end. 
 
 YI. 
 
 The Ministry of War has always shown more favor to educa- 
 tion than the IMinistry of Pubhc Instraction, and, according to 
 
292 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 completed their coui'se in a popular scliool are let off with four 
 years' military seiTice instead of six. But owing to the indif- 
 ference of the peasants, arising from the obAdous inefficiency 
 of the schools, this clause has become almost a dead letter. 
 " The condition of our schools," says the Russian Almanac for 
 1880, " is shown by the great number of pupils who abandon 
 their studies before completing their course. In 1877 certifi- 
 cates were gi'anted to no more than 88,255, equal to about 8 
 per cent, of the total number of scholars." Figui'es like these 
 are more eloquent than words. Only one scholar in twelve or 
 thirteen succeeds in reaching the very low mark set by the ex- 
 aminers. 
 
 With this result the Government might surely have been 
 satisfied, for they have virtually suppressed eleven schools out 
 of twelve. But so far is this from being the case, that the 
 Minister of Public Instruction contemplates a measiu-e even 
 more sweeping than the deposition of the Zemstvo— a measure 
 which would be equivalent in the end to the entire suppression 
 of primary instruction throughout the empire.* He proposes 
 to take the schools out of the hands of the Zemstvo altogether, 
 and to make the clergy the sole managers of primary educa- 
 tion. He might as weU propose to make the management over 
 to the chHdren; for the work would never be done, and the 
 schools would perish of neglect. The clergy have neither time 
 nor inchnation for any other than their strictly clerical duties. 
 The Zemstvo of Kazan complained a httlo whHe ago that for 
 two years the schools had not once been visited by a priest; 
 formal complaints on the same score have been made by the 
 Zemstvo of Moscow, Voronej, Tcheraigoff, TambofC, and St. 
 Petersburg. In some provinces even the priests have met and 
 passed resolutions to the effect that rehgious instruction can 
 only be efficiently given by secular teachers, for even this duty 
 it is quite out of the power of the clergy to perform. Nor 
 when it is remembered that some of the parishes ai-e so exten- 
 
 * This was written before June 12, 1884. 
 
PKIMABY INSTRUCTION. 293 
 
 sive that to give one lesson a week in eacli school would 
 take two or three days, is tlais result very sui-prising It ia 
 not given even to a priest to be in two places at one time. 
 What would be the consequence of handing over the schools 
 to a class of men ali'eady so heavily burdened (to say nothing 
 of theii- utter lack of pedagogic qualifications) may easily be 
 imagined. 
 
 All this is well known to Count Tolstoi, both as ex-Minister 
 of Education and ex-President of the Holy Synod. For my 
 own part, I do not think that a scheme so monstrous can be 
 carried into effect There ai-e limits even to the blindness 
 and wickedness of an autocracy based on ignorance and but- 
 tressed by lies. But it is characteristic of the spuit which 
 animates the advisers of the Tzar that a scheine so inimical to 
 the best interests of the country should be seriously enter- 
 tained. 
 
 I wrote thus in the Times in the spring of 1834, and I re- 
 produce the foregoing Hnes by way of penance for my want 
 of foresight and the misplaced optimism which I then ex- 
 pressed. The substitution of the clergy for the Zemstvo in 
 the management of the schools which less than a year ago I 
 beheved to be morally impossible was effected by the law of 
 June 12, 1884^ abolishing the School Councils and transfer- 
 ring aD their powers to the bishoj)s and their nominees among 
 the clergy. 
 
 If the result of this measure be not to throw back the peas- 
 antry into their anti-emancipation condition when, as one of 
 our writers has said, you might travel a week without meet- 
 ing a raoujik who could sign his name, it will be because the 
 moujiks themselves have acquiied a desire for knowledge. 
 
294 KUSSIA UNDER THE TZAK8. 
 
 As for the Minister of Justice, we must do liiiQ tlie justice to 
 acknowledge that be lias now done everything that man can 
 do to realize the golden dream of despotism — complete igno- 
 rance. 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 THE ZEMSTVO. 
 
 The principle of self-government is no novelty in Russia. 
 " When the Muscovite depotism crushed every class under its 
 leaden weight and deprived the people of their most sacred 
 rights," says Kostomaroff, " men and citizens protected after 
 their fashion. They indemnified themselves by putting their 
 hands on ever;j'thing confided to them by the State. To cheat 
 Government, take its money, sell the justice which they dis- 
 pensed in its name, and piUage the provinces they were charged 
 to administer became among the public functionaries of ancient 
 Muscovy an accepted, inveterate, and hereditary custom." 
 From the highest to the lowest, everybody stole. They made 
 no distinction between theft and remuneration, robbery and 
 profit. The Central Government itself did not oppose these 
 practices or principles ; they only protected against peculation 
 and exaction, when, as sometimes happened, the plunderers 
 went to exti-avagant lengths. A poor boyard, on asking the 
 Tzar for the post of voevoda, made no attempt to disguise his 
 motives, generally putting his request in some- such terms as 
 these : " And I, thy faithful slave, am reduced to beggary and 
 my servants perish under the sticks of tax-gatherers. Give me 
 then this place that I may feed myself a little." 
 
 To "give food," or "receive food," was the accepted euphem- 
 ism to designate nomination to the governorship of a province, 
 a city, or a fortress. In course of time the phrase became 
 obsolete, but until very lately the idea still survived. When 
 the Grand Dute Michael Paolovitch (brother of Tzar Nicolas) 
 
396 RUSSIA rNDER THE TZAB8. 
 
 was told that the colonel of a regiment of guards had handed 
 over to the regimental fund a sum of 30,000 roubles, saved out 
 of his allowance for supplies, his Highness exclaimed angrily, 
 " It was not to pick up crumbs that a regiment was given him." 
 
 But the appetites of the locusts who were sent into the prov- 
 inces to fatten, " growing by what they fed on," became so in- 
 satiable that the Central Government, even at a veiy early date, 
 began to take alai-m, the residue left for purposes of State was 
 so little. The check exercised by the privases — chambers com- 
 posed of Muscovite functionaries {dyaki), and themselves as 
 great thieves as the votvodas — was quite illusory, and the Gov- 
 ernment were constrained to call into existence local institu- 
 tions for protection against the dejoredations of their own 
 agents. 
 
 The first attempt to organize a system of local self-govern- 
 ment was made in the reign of Tzar John TV. 
 
 In the first part of the St. Petersburg period of the Eussian 
 Empire (the reign of Peter the Great), no fuiiher attempt to 
 introduce self-government was possible, all the valid forces of 
 the country being engaged in the service of the State. But 
 when a century of progress had produced an educated class the 
 attempt was renewed, taking shape in the so-called Franchise 
 Charter of the Nobility, granted by Catharine IL By this in- 
 strument the Empress conferred on the provincial nobility, in 
 meeting assembled, the right of nominating the agents of the 
 local administration and the magistracy ; the right of control- 
 ling aU Government functionaries, including the govei-nor- 
 general of the province himself, who had to lay before a com- 
 mission of the nobility the financial results of his administi'a- 
 tion. 
 
 In seeming, at least, nothing could well bo more complete 
 than the right of control, especially as touching the provincial 
 budget. Yet this function cotdd never be more than a for- 
 mality ; for seigncm-s Hving amidst hordes of slaves it would 
 have been the height of foUy to quan-el about a few thousand 
 roubles belonging to the " (Jro^vn mother " with the governor 
 
THE ZEM3TVO. 297 
 
 of the province and supreme commander of the military forces, 
 which alone held in check the multitude of serfs who cultiva- 
 ted theu' estates. The new svstem of aristocratic self-o-ov- 
 ernment was really a lifeless institution from its very incep- 
 tion, and utterly incapable of defending the State from the 
 colossal depredations of its tchhiuvniks. It was rightly said 
 after the Crimean Avar that the enemies who had vanquished 
 the armies of Russia were not the aUied forces, but her own 
 administi-ators, fm-nishers, iind functionaries. 
 
 When at the conclusion of that contest a general reorganiza- 
 tion of the national institutions was found needful, the one 
 essential element for safeguarding the State to a certain extent 
 from the immeasurable voracity of its employes could not be 
 overlooked. To this end some sort of local representative 
 government was clearly indispensable. Hence, next to the 
 emancipation of the serfs, the most pressing reform was that 
 of the Zemstvo, and of ail the institutions reformed during the 
 first years of the second Alexander's reign none has suffered 
 relatively so little from the subsequent ferocious reaction as 
 the new Zemstvo. 
 
 n. 
 
 The decision being taken to establish a system of local self- 
 government as an absolute necessity, a measiu-e to this effect 
 was introduced in 1864. But care was taken not to administer 
 it in too large a dose, the more especially as reactionary \dews 
 were ah-eady beginning to prevail. The part assigned to the 
 Zemstvo in local affairs was, in effect, very Hmited. Tliey 
 could only deal with twenty-two millions (roubles) of tlie pro- 
 vincial revenues, and out of this sum they had to support a 
 variety of hea\y extraneous charges — keep ban-acks in repair, 
 feed soldiers, pay the cost of militaiy conscrip-ions, subsidize 
 the imperial ports, and meet other demands of the same sort. 
 These requii-ements, which had nothing to do with local {^ov- 
 
298 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 eriiment, absorbed the lion's share of the local revenues, and 
 left the Zemstvo only f om- milhons for pui-poses within their 
 ovm discretion, and in which they had any dh-ect interest- 
 schools, sanitation, economic enterprises, and so forth. It was 
 not much, and if the Zemstvo were to do any good it could 
 hardly have been less. 
 
 This restriction was a desire to hinder the Zemstvo from dis- 
 playing too much activity in the domain of finance. To pre- 
 vent them from trespassing on the domain of pohtics measui-es 
 equally efficacious were taken. 
 
 Their sessions were very shoi-t, and held at long intervals. 
 The deputies could meet only once a year— the distiict Zemstvo 
 sitting for a fortnight, the provincial Zemstvo three weeks. 
 This scaicely afforded them time to discuss general questions 
 and give then- instinictions to the onprah, an executive commis- 
 sion appointed by each Zemstvo to look after matters in the 
 intervals between their sessions. 
 
 In some particulars, indeed, the system of self-government 
 organized in 1864 was infeiior to the aristocratic charter of 
 Catharine 11. So far from controUing the governor-general, 
 the governor-general controls them, and in the most absolute 
 manner. He audits their accounts, and without his permission 
 the proceedings and discussions of the Zemstvo cannot be 
 made public. He can intei-vene at any moment and suspend 
 by a word any measure which, in his opinion, is not in con- 
 formity with tbe general interests and utihty of the State, 
 that is to say, which does not precisely please him. True, this 
 veto io merely suspension, and the Zemstvo may appeal against 
 it to the senate ; but as the local parhaments meet only once a 
 year, a resolution tabooed by a governor cannot, in any event, 
 be put in force for a twelvemonth— even if the senate should 
 grant his decision at once, and not keep the matter in suspense 
 two or three years. In questions of local administration, 
 which do not admit of delay, the governor's veto is practically 
 
 absolute. 
 
 To render the dependence of the Zemstvo on the Govern- 
 
THE ZEMSTVO. 299 
 
 ment still more complete they were deprived of a right for • 
 merly enjoyed by theu* predecessors of the nobility. They 
 could not ajipoint the chiefs of the inferior administration — 
 ispi'avnik — the right of appointment being vested in the gov- 
 ernors. The Zemstvo, moreover, have no executive agents. 
 Whatever they want done must be done by agents of the Gov- 
 ernment, who give them much trouble, particularly in anything 
 which concerns finance. The collection of the taxes assigned 
 to the Zemstvo, being for the agents of the Imperial Treasury 
 only a secondary service, and, so to speak, a work of com- 
 plaisance and supererogation, is badly done. The sums due 
 from pubHc properties as well as from great landowners re- 
 main outstanding, and aiTears accumulate in all directions, to 
 the great annoyance and inconvenience of the Zemstvo. 
 
 But to return to the subject more especially before us — the 
 precautions taken to prevent the Zemstvo from meddling with 
 politics. One of these precautions is the denial to them of the 
 right — if so modest a privilege can be called a right — of petition- 
 ing the Tzar, a right fully enjoyed by the assemblies of nobles. 
 They are not allowed, in fact, to take the initiative in any ques- 
 tion of public utility whatever. They cannot make their 
 voices heard anywhere but in waiting-rooms of the Minister, 
 who is theii* master, and nine times out of ten does not deign 
 to honor them with a reply. 
 
 But the new system of self-government, whatever may be 
 its faults, had one incomparable advantage over the old sys- 
 tem — it was not a fraud. The law of emancipation destroyed 
 slavery. It made nobles and peasants fellow-citizens of the same 
 country and equal before the law. It was impossible to limit 
 self-government to a single class ; that would have been to 
 revive the old serfage in a new shape. AU classes had thus 
 their part, albeit the division was flagrantly unequal. 
 
 The deputies of the Zemstvo are chosen by the order which 
 they represent. The peasants, the towns, and the nobility, 
 elect their representatives separately in separate electoral 
 meetings, which differ somewhat in their composition. The 
 
300 RUSSIA UNDEK THE TZARS. 
 
 number of the deputies of each order is a fixed quantity, and 
 nothing can be more unfair than the arrangement for the dis- 
 tribution of seats, Avhich is all in favor of the nobility. The 
 peasants, who count sixty milHons and pay 83 per cent, of the 
 taxes (90 per cent, according to the calculations of Prince 
 Vassiltchekoff), ai-e represented, in the mean, by 38-6 per cent, 
 of the total number of deputies. The landowning class, 
 numbering only a miUion individuals and contributing only 
 7 per cent, to the national revenue, elect 46-2 per cent, of the 
 members of the Zemstvo, while the shai-e of the thii'd estate— 
 the toTVTas — is 15-2 per cent. 
 
 In many provinces— the eight central provinces, for in- 
 stance—the anomaly is stiU gi'eater ; 93,000 great landowners 
 being represented by 1,817 deputies, while six million peas- 
 ants are represented by only 1,597. 
 
 On the whole, therefore, the nobihty hold nearly one-half of 
 the seats in our local parliaments. But this proportion is far 
 from being the measui-e of their influence, especially in the 
 provincial Zemstvo, where the election is double. The village 
 ancients, who for the most part represent the peasants, are ad- 
 ministratively subordinate to the Marshal of the Nobility, who 
 is both chief of the bui'eau which regulates rural affairs and 
 president of the Zemstvo. 
 
 And, finally, in order to exclude from the body the more 
 democratic element of the smaller landowners — the Uttle 
 nobility — the electoral qualification was made inordinately 
 high : the possession of from eighty to one hundi-ed and 
 twenty acres in tliickly populated districts, and eight hundred 
 in localities more spai'sely peopled. By this expedient the 
 number of voters belonging to the more highly educated of the 
 ai-istocratic class is kept very low ; they are rather a coterie of 
 personal friends and acquaintances than a body of electors. 
 
 In point of fact, therefore, the self-governing scheme of 
 1864 placed the nation under the tutelage of the privileged 
 class, or, more correctly, imder the richer and more cou- 
 eervativc of tliat class, to tiie exclusion of its more liberal and 
 
THE ZEIISTVO. 301 
 
 progressive element, tlie inferior nobUity. It is difficult to 
 imagine how INIr. Valouzev could have desired anything less 
 liberal or more capable of converting self-government into an 
 instrument of reaction and an obstacle to reform. But the 
 Government, after aU, was out in its calculations. The occa- 
 sions on which the aristocratic members of the Zemstvo have 
 tried to use their power for the profit of the privileged order 
 to which they belong may be counted on the fingers of the two 
 hands. One of the first proceedings of the Zemstvo was an 
 earnest effort to give more seats to the jDeasants — an effort 
 that the Government, which is always proclaiming its partiality 
 for the peasantrs', of course opposed. And when at a later 
 date (1871) the Government asked the Zemstvo of the thirty- 
 four provinces for their advice concerning certain changes in 
 the incidence of taxation, all the thu-ty-four pronounced for 
 the aboKtion of privilege, advocated a lightening of the heavy 
 charges laid on the peasantry, and recommended the adoption 
 of a scale of taxes proportioned to the means of those on 
 whom they were imposed. 
 
 Oirr Zemstvo, on the other hand, are open to the reproach 
 of an excessive deference to authority and a want of ci\'ic 
 courage. The poHtical theories of those of their leaders who 
 have had the boldness to expound them in papers and pam- 
 phlets, printed abroad, are far from being models of political 
 wisdom. Then." projects of economic reform which have been 
 allowed to see the hght are the merest paUiatives. I have no 
 desire to sound the praises of our local parUaments. But 
 nobody can deny that they have shown a praiseworthy activity, 
 or that, at the beginning of their career, before the adminis- 
 tration laid its hands on theii' throats, the Russian Zemstvo 
 labored with all zeal and devotion for the good of the people, 
 and not for the benefit of the class which the majority of them 
 represented. In the modest sphere assigned to them, more- 
 over, they displaced a thorough knowledge of the real needs 
 of the country ; and the measures they adopted proved them 
 to be possessed of soimd sense and practical \'iews. This they 
 
302 KUSSIA UNDER THE TZAES. 
 
 showed by taking so mucli to heart, and at once, the question 
 which is above all others and on which ever^ihing else de- 
 I^ends — popular instruction, whereby alone the masses can be 
 rendered capable of judging and acting for themselves. Yv^'e 
 have seen how energetically they wrought to organize primary 
 schools, and how strenuously they defended their work against 
 the attacks of the Minister of Instruction. But the Zemstvo 
 did not limit themselves to the organization of piimaiT educa- 
 tion. They tried to create secondaiy and professional schools 
 in order to bring within reach of the masses technical instruc- 
 tion and a knowledge of practical science. They desired to 
 co-operate with private effort — of which instances are frequent 
 in Russia — in the foundation and endowment of educational 
 institutions of this class, and did space permit I could adduce 
 many other proofs of the energy and enterprise of our local 
 parliaments. They have done everything, in fact, that with 
 their limited resources it was possible to do. The Zemstvo 
 were the first to give to the peasantry some sort of medical 
 care, with which, up to that time, they had been no better pro- 
 vided than African savages. They engaged doctors for coun- 
 try districts, giving the preference to women and competent 
 dispensers. Where they could they built hospitals. They did 
 all in their power, too, to aid economic enterprises which 
 j)romised to better the wi'etched lot of the peasantry. The co- 
 operative cheese factories of Vereshaghin, the co-operative 
 enterprises of Shapiro, and many other similar undertakings, 
 received from them generous encouragement and substantial 
 support. Among other good works the Zemstvo founded 
 rural banks, which, by making loans to the jieasants at easy 
 rates of interest, rendered them independent of blood-sucking 
 usurers. They advanced money for the purchase by the 
 peasantry of small allotments of land, and introduced the 
 practice of fire ass.ui'ance. They made every effort to protect 
 the rural popijlation from intimidation on the part of the in- 
 ferior agents of the administration at election times ; to safe- 
 guard their home-life from the meddlesomeness of the civil 
 
THE ZE118TVO. 303 
 
 ouriadnik, au inferior order of policeman, yet wiili extensive 
 powers ; and their souls from the spiritual ouriadnik, the pope 
 — the priest-chicaner and informer, who is continually appeal- 
 ing to the police for aid in restraining his flock from lapsing 
 into heresy and schism. 
 
 In all this useful yet moderate activity the greatest obstacles 
 encountex'ed by the Zemstvo, were the indolence of office and 
 the open ill-wiil of the administration. To secure j^assable 
 dispensers, special schools were necessarj', a project which at 
 once roused the spectre of propagandism; and in October, 
 1866, a law was passed making nominations to the schools 
 contingent on the approval of the governors-general. If it 
 were a question of bujdng a large lot of seigniorial land, there 
 was always some zealot of order to decry the proceeding as 
 part of a confiscatory scheme for the benefit of the peasants 
 and the subversion of the existing regime. If it were a ques- 
 tion of making head against plagues of locusts and other in- 
 sectivorous dejjredators, and engaging in the work the com- 
 bined Zemstvo of an infected district, the matter would be al- 
 lowed to drag on for months, for years even, before the neces- 
 sary authorization could be obtained — so great is the dread of 
 the Government that if once the Zemstvo of several provinces 
 come together they will take to political discussion. 
 
 Despite obstacles, however, the Zemstvo made a beginning 
 in all these things; and if they have not been able to do any- 
 thing great, if they have not succeeded in providing the i^cas- 
 ants with good schools and efficient doctors, nor in assisting 
 the progressive impoverishment of the masses, the fault is cer- 
 tainly attiibutable neither to want of will nor lack of capacity 
 and business aptitude, but to the narrowness of their field of 
 action, and the severity of the resti'ictions imposed upon them 
 by the State, restrictions which, from the very inception of lo- 
 cal self-government, has been gi'adually intensified and in- 
 creased. 
 
304 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 m. 
 
 M. Leroy Beaiilieu, in his chapter on the Zemstvo, graphically 
 describes, from his own personal observation, the enthusiasm 
 with which the decree of 1864, for the organization of local 
 parhaments, was received by the Russian people. Next to the 
 emancijpation of the serfs, there was no reform that gave so 
 much satisfaction and kindled so many hopes as the establish- 
 ment of the Zemstvo. The sagacious French "Riiter is, how- 
 ever, mistaken in saying that Russians, in the fei-vor of their 
 excitement, overlooked the shortcomings of the new measure. 
 A reference to the democratic papers of the time is sufficient 
 to show that the more advanced party of society were fully 
 alive to its serious and manifold defects. And if the bulk of 
 the lettered pubhc, httle conversant with practical questions, 
 overrated the meiits of the measure, the men of the Zemstvo 
 — the Zemzy themselves — were far from sharing in their 
 illusion. 
 
 In and about the year 18G0, the delegates of the nobility, 
 who afterwai-ds furnished the largest contingent to the Zem- 
 stvo — including those of St. Petersburg — expressed on several 
 occasions, in their addresses and petitions, a desire for a meas- 
 ure of local self-government, much more extensive and effi- 
 cient than that which, fom- years later, was gi*anted. These 
 men, it may be supposed, could not possibly be blind to the 
 time character of the reform of 18G4, yet they, of all other 
 people, were the most deceived as to its true character and 
 probable residts. 
 
 The readiness of a certain class of Russians to be " thankful 
 for small mercies," and welcome with joy concessions which a 
 man of the west would simply despise, is a noteworthy feature 
 of the national character, contrasting cui-iously \n.i\i the reverse 
 tendency of another party, towards absolute Utoj^ianism — a 
 pai-ty which desii-es to change everything radically and at once, 
 as by the stroke of a ^vizard's wand, without gianting the least 
 
THE ZKMSTTO. • 305 
 
 indulgence to this decrepit old world, or considering its wants, 
 weaknesses, and long-confirmed habits. 
 
 " One of the anomalies of Eussian life," is the stereotyped 
 explanation of this phenomenon. But do not these flagTant 
 contrasts all aiise from the same source — the ardent desire, 
 now latent, now acute, to do something for the weKare of the 
 people which is seething at the present time in the conscience 
 of instructed Eussia ? And the lions that stand in the way 
 may surely be vanquished by courage and devotion. There 
 hare been di'eamers in Eussia who hoped to metamorphose the 
 country by means of schools, model farms, and mutual help 
 societies, just as there have been socialist visionaries who hoped 
 to bring back the age of gold by the magic of a revolutionary 
 propaganda. 
 
 This facvdty for dreaming, which renders people unfit to ap- 
 preciate hard facts and deal with the things of this world, has 
 greatly impeded social and pohtical progress. Perhaj)s the 
 time may come when it will prove a blessing. The futui-e -wlU 
 show. In the meantime we have to note a striking example of 
 its baneful results — the creation of a party which in absm-dity 
 and self-illusion does not yield even to the Slavophihsm of 
 Aksakoff and KhomiakofE — the party, once sufficiently numer- 
 ous, of which the old Slavophile, Kosheleff, was the leading 
 spu-it, and whose fundamental idea was a combination of rep- 
 resentative government below with autocracy above. As well 
 try to unite fire and water, or keep iron hot in fresh-fallen 
 snow. 
 
 The Zemstvo is not a nu'al commune. It cannot, like the 
 mir, sequester itseK in its microscopic world, hapjDy if only left 
 in peace. A Zemstvo represents a province, often half as large 
 as Spain, and with a population equal to that of Wiirtemberg 
 or Denmark. A thousand interests concern it, a thousand ties 
 unite it with neighboring provinces. At every step the Zem- 
 stvo come in contact with agents of the State. Having to deal 
 with a twentieth part of the provincial revenues, they cannot 
 regai'd with indifiference the stupidity and ingrained incapacity 
 
306 RUSSIA UNDER TIIK TZAKS. 
 
 of the tchinovnik, who dispose of the remaining nineteen-twen- 
 tieths. The wish to restrain the bureaucracy, to deprive them 
 more and more of the management of pubhc affau-s, is inher- 
 ent in any system of representative government. The greater 
 the zeal of the Zemstvo for the common weal, the greater must 
 be then- desu-e to lessen stiU fui-ther the power of officialism, 
 beginning with provincial administration, going on to regional 
 business, to finish by controlling and managing the State itself. 
 Political reorganization, representative institutions on the 
 Evu-opean model, are the ends towards which self-government 
 as inevitably tends as a round stone rolls down an inclined 
 plane, and whatever may be the ideas of Mr. Kosheleff and the 
 Slavophilized Zemzij, nothing can arrest its coui'se. 
 
 This the Central Government, being a government of tchino- 
 vnilcs, are unable to comprehend. But the Zemstvo, as other 
 Russian representative bodies have done, do not fail, on occa- 
 sion, to make the administration acquainted with then- views. 
 In 1860, and again in 1862, the Assembly of Nobles openly ex- 
 pressed theu' desii-e for constitutional reform. The dispersion 
 of the Assembly of St. Petersburg— one of the boldest in the 
 land— and the exile of the principal leaders of the nobility of 
 Tver, are fm-ther instances in point. But it is unfortunately 
 a habit of Russian citizens to wait for favorable opportrmities 
 for expressing then- opinions instead of making them. The 
 nobihty waited for the advent to power of Loris Melikoff to 
 offer some protest, and the St. Petersburg Assembly alone had 
 the hardihood to applaud the frankly Hberal speech of ]\Ii'. 
 Platinoff,* Marshal of the Nobility of Zarskoi Selo, when he 
 demanded representative institutions and constitutional guar- 
 antees for the entire body of citizens. Yet, after all, they liad 
 not the coui-age to signify theu- approval of the speech by a 
 formal resolution. 
 
 The Zemstvo showed more courage, though by no means too 
 much. They have taken frequent occasion to express, under 
 
 * See ou Ibis poiut M. Leroy Beaiilieu, vol. ii. 
 
THE ZEMSTVO. 307 
 
 divers pretexts, tlieir constitutional aspu-ations. Sometimes an 
 appeal from tlie Government to society for help in the contest 
 "with terrorism has afforded the ojiportuuity; somethnes it has 
 been fonnd on the presentation of an address to the Emperor 
 after an attempt on his Hfe; or perhaps in a request from the 
 Government for information or advice touching some proposed 
 local measure. Copies of these documents may be found 
 either in the censiu'ed or the clandestine Press. According to 
 the organ of the Zemstvo, edited by MM. Koshcleff and Ska- 
 Ion, there have been presented to the Government since the 
 beginning of the revolutionary period fifteen addresses de- 
 manding constitutional reform — three in 1878-79, twelve in 
 1881. During the existence of the Commission of Experts the 
 greater part of the Zemstvo expressed their desu-e for a Con- 
 stituent Assembly, representative of the cntu*e country'. The 
 majority of these declarations are expressed in obscure and in- 
 dii'ect terms, bordering sometimes on servility. Too often 
 these v.orthy gentlemen of the Zemstvo, intent on pleasing the 
 police-ri Iden government, describe the liberty of the future as 
 the faithf id servant of the Third Section and hold before it the 
 attractive perspective of a common crusade against sedition. 
 But happily not aU the Zemstvo hold the same language. Kus- 
 sia will always remember with respect the names of Noudatoff 
 and Idanoff of Samara, Petrounkevitch of Tchernigoff, Net- 
 chaeff of Novgorod, Vouberg of Taurida, Gordienko of Kliar- 
 koff, and others who have had the coiu'age of their opinions 
 and, in some instances, paid for their temerity with long terms 
 of exile. 
 
 I make no citations from these addresses and speeches' Eng- 
 lish readers would find them modest enough in aU conscience. 
 I wUl merely add that in Russia they have a more than ordi- 
 nary significance. They display civic courage for which, un- 
 happily, Russians in general are not distinguished. Even-body 
 knows that for every sjieech, like that of M. Noudatoff, and for 
 every address, lilce that of the Tchernigoff Zemstvo, there are 
 ten which remain inarticulate — hidden in petto — and that if 
 
308 KUSSIA UNDEK THE TZARS. 
 
 rv. 
 
 The GoveiTiment understands and lias always understood 
 this. It is not deceived as to the real sentiments of the Zem- 
 stvo. The Zemstvo is its natural enemy. The bureaucracy 
 hate it all the more that they are jDOwerless to destroy it, and 
 feel instinctively that sooner or later — if not to-day, then to- 
 morrow — they will have to yield it precedence. 
 
 There is nothing sur[:)rising in the fact that, when the forces 
 of reaction began to gain ground, the bureaucracy should de- 
 sii'e measm-es for keeping the enemy in check, for preventing 
 the possibility of the Zemstvo taking root in the sphere of its 
 activity, or acquiring a moral influence over public opinion in 
 general, or uniting together and making conibined manifesta- 
 tions and protests against the Government. 
 
 But as the Zemstvo were established in ISGi, and the reac- 
 tion began in 1864, it is evident that our yovmg representa- 
 tive institution has had a hard Ufe. Let me enumerate some 
 of the principal laws — all of them premeditated strokes — 
 which, since that time, have been launched against the Zem- 
 stvo. The first affected the most vital piinciple of public 
 finance. The regulation of 1864 conferred on the Zemstvo 
 the right of levying taxes. But to impose additional burdens 
 on the already overcharged peasants was exti-emely difficult 
 and painful for an institution whose chief aim was to better 
 the peasants' condition. It was an expedient, moreover, not 
 likely to be very productive. The only means of ensuring 
 financial prosperity was for the Zemstvo to find new sources 
 of revenue. They thought they had found them in charges 
 on industrial undertakings. Nothing could have been wiser 
 or more just, and the Zemstvo prospered accordingly. Yet 
 the taxes they imposed were very light compared with those 
 imposed on agriculture. In some pro\dnces industry' paid on 
 a scale equal to an income tax of two roubles per thousand, 
 while aginculture paid eleven and a half times as much. But 
 
THE ZEMSTVO. 309 
 
 it was not long before Governmeut came to the rescue of 
 tlie privileged, and by the law of November 19, 1864, put an 
 end to the equitable and successful system of finance which 
 the Zemstvo had introduced. 
 
 The famous measiu'e in question interdicted absolutely the 
 lev}-ing of taxes on the capital or profits of industrial enterprises. 
 As a set-off the Zemstvo were allowed to i)ut an insignificant 
 duty on trade certificates, and lay a trifling rate on factory 
 buildings. This was to re-establish an unjust exemption and 
 virtually ruin the Zemstvo. The law of November 19th was 
 looked upon by the friends of the institution as indirectly in- 
 volving the destruction of local parliaments, and deliberately 
 designed to render them both powerless and unpopular. So 
 heavy was the blow that over half the Zemstvo joined in a 
 chorus of indignant protests. The Government retaliated by 
 dissolving the Zemstvo of St. Petersburg, and all the others 
 laid down their anns. 
 
 The year following — seven months later — came the law of 
 June 13th, which sapped the Zemstvo on the side of their 
 poHtical importance. No longer content with controlling them 
 through the provincial governors, the Government resolved to 
 have an agent in the very heart of the citadel. The chairman 
 of the Zemstvo ceased to be a mere director of debates. He 
 became at once president and chief. The Minister nominated 
 him, and only the Minister can depose him. He is a mere 
 ichinovnik whom the new law empowers to inteiTuj)t any 
 speech at discretion, or stop any motion, discussion, or reso- 
 lution which in his opinion might give umbrage to the Govern- 
 ment. 
 
 Between these two laws — one of the economic order, tlie 
 other of the political order — the Zemstvo were held as in a 
 vise. The other proscriptions concern only matters of second- 
 ary importance. By the regulations of 1864 the different 
 Zemstvo could, in cases of emergency, enter into communica- 
 tions with each other, always provided, of coui-se, that the 
 Government did not object. But on May 4, 1867, there 
 
310 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 appeared an " insti-uction " which explained that this clause 
 must be construed in a strict!}' Pickwickian sense— that the 
 Zemstvo would not be allowed to communicate with each 
 other in any case, let it be as urgent as it might. The strin- 
 gency of the Government on this point was so excessive that, 
 when a plague broke out in Astrakan and the local Zemstvo 
 asked leave to confer with the Zemstvo of neighboring prov- 
 inces as to the best means of meeting the emergency, the 
 request was refused. 
 
 The "mstruction" as to the printing of the Zcmstvo's 
 accounts and the reports of their proceedings may also be 
 noted as a cui-iosity of Russian administration. It explained 
 that these reports might indeed be printed, but only as many 
 copies were to be issued as there were members of the Zem- 
 stvo — not one more. 
 
 It is evident that with a code of laws hke these, to which 
 must be added the right exercised by the Government of 
 arresting and exihng any de]iuty whom it may dislike or mis- 
 ti-ust, the utihty of our local parhaments is attenuated almost 
 to notliingness. In these cu'cumstances it is not surprising 
 that the public should have lost all interest in an institution 
 which at the outset they so enthusiastically acclaimed. The 
 best men have withdrawn altogether from the Zemstvo, and 
 are too often succeeded by intriguers and self-seekers. Mem- 
 bers are slack in their attendance, and it not unfrequently 
 happens that a session cannot be held for want of a quorum. 
 The discussions have degenerated into formahties. Nobody 
 takes an interest in them, for aU know that any proposal for 
 the benefit of the people will be tabooed by the Government. 
 The Zemstvo simply vegetate in sordid abandonment. 
 
 But they still exist in a fashion, and sei*ve as a framework 
 capable of being filled up at any moment with solid material ; 
 and, should a crisis come to pass, the Zemstvo may exercise a 
 decisive influence. The Government fears them, and would 
 gladly destroy thcni utterly. The celebrated commission under 
 the presidency of General Kakhanoff, the little Ijykurgus of 
 
THE ZEMSTVO. 311 
 
 the reaction, proposed so to raise the voting qualification that 
 the suffrage be restricted to the largest landowners, who were 
 among the most inveterate of the anti- abolitionists. This, as 
 Ivussian jjapers have rightly said, would be to re-estabhsh the 
 bureaucratic regime in all its pui'ity. It would not even be an 
 ohgarchy, for Russia possesses no aristocracy in the true sense 
 of the word. Count Tolstoi's oligarchic dreams are no less 
 absiu'd than the clerical dreams of his worthy colleague, 
 Pohedinostzeo. Our great landowners, who spend their Hves 
 in the cai^ital, occupying nearly always places in the adminis- 
 tration, are an element altogether heterogeneous and strange 
 in the locahties to which they belong. 
 
 Not desiring to repeat the penance I have had to perform 
 for my incredulity as to making the clergy the directors of 
 primary education, I refrain from saying that the project in 
 question is impossible. The reaction has become so reckless 
 that it is ready to attempt even the impossible. I will say 
 only that, in view of the general impoverishment of the 
 country, the definitive abolition of the Zemstvo (or a measure 
 equivalent to its abolition) wotdd have the most disastrous 
 effects, and might not improbably be the preciu'sor of national 
 bankitiptcy. 
 
 " If anybody would know the incapacity of our bureaucracy 
 to administer any pubUc affaii's whatever," wrote an old mem- 
 ber of the Zemstvo, in a pamphlet printed not very long ago, 
 " I would recommend him to study the pajDers pubUshed by the 
 eai-her Zemstvo on the state in which they found the inter- 
 esis confided to their charge. According to these reports, 
 especially when read between the lines, the condition of the 
 country coold hardly have been worse if it had just been 
 wasted by a foreign invasion. Instead of stores of grain the 
 Zemstvo found in one place only empty barracks ; in another 
 they foimd no trace of a school whatever, although it was en- 
 tered in the reports of the tchinovniks as possessing several 
 schools, for the maintenance of which they had received yearly 
 grants of money. In another, again, had disappeared a bridge, 
 
312 EUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 nobody knew exactly when, which for years past had required 
 periodical repaii's. In still another locality the same fate had 
 befallen an hospital. The report of the commission of the 
 Zemstvo of Perm thus describes the state of affaii's when they 
 first took them in hand : " We examined the public granaries. 
 One was quite empty ; in the other we saw only a number of 
 boxes gnawed by rats. On inqviiry we were told that they con- 
 tained the confiscated property of some sectaries. We opened 
 them. Instead of j^roperty they contained only rat nests. Of 
 the corn entered as being in store there was not a gi'ain. The 
 funds assigned for supplies existed only on paper ; those for 
 agricidtural subsidies the same. For medical purposes the 
 same, and where hospitals existed they were in such a state 
 that the people fled from them as if they were slaughter- 
 houses" (pp. 3 and 4). 
 
 I leave thereaderto judge for himself what state the finances 
 of Russia are likely to be in when the provinces relapse into 
 theu' former condition. 
 
CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 THE DESPOTISM AND THE PEESS. 
 I. 
 
 If anybody required a thermometer of great sensitiveness, 
 showing at every period and every moment the variation in 
 the intensity of Eussian despotism, he would find it in the 
 position of the Press. " The liberty of the Press is the 
 chief guarantee of the liberty of a country," said Milton. 
 With equal reason we may affirm the opposite — the existence 
 of a despotism depends on the fettering of the Press. Des- 
 potic governments understand this. There is no department 
 of human activity which despots regard with so much sus- 
 picion as the press. In Russia, as we have seen, the Govern- 
 ment has not too much love for schools any more than for 
 local parliaments ; but the Press is in much worse case than 
 either of them. Self-government and schools bring forth 
 their fruits in a time more or less distant ; the Press acts 
 immediately. The domains of the schools and the Zemstvos 
 are limited ; the Press commands the whole extent of the 
 empire. In every other field of action the adversary is 
 always somebody ; professors, members of the Zemstvo, and 
 the rest, however disagreeable they may be, are at least peo- 
 ple, men, known personalities. But a writer, what is he ? 
 Perhaps a monster without law and without faith, capable 
 of anything. To what purpose may he not turn that mys- 
 terious power which by virtue of his venomous pen he wields 
 over the weak and foolish ? 
 
 On the other hand, no human institution is naturally so 
 14 
 
314 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 defenceless as the Press. In all others thought and spirit 
 are more or less intimately allied with matter. Self-govern- 
 ment and instruction are necessary for the State itself, for 
 its efficient working and its material well-bemg. But of the 
 Press the State has no need. True it has recourse to the 
 printer for the preparation of its official publications ; but 
 that is not the Press. The veritable Press, the brain of the 
 nation, despotism can well spare and still live, just as cer- 
 tain animals can survive for a long time the loss of a cerebral 
 lobe. The Press, so to speak, is sublimated thought, and 
 incapable of self-defence. It is the duty of the other mem- 
 bers of the social body to unite for the protection of this 
 vital part of the system ; if they are incapable of doing this 
 the Press is at the mercy of Power. The Government holds 
 it m its grasp, and can either crush the victim to death or 
 let it live and breathe according to its good pleasure. 
 
 The position of the Press is thus an excellent thermometer 
 for measuring at every moment the intensity of despotism. 
 From this point of view the history of the relations of the 
 Russian Press and the Russian Government is very interest- 
 ing. 
 
 Russia has never known anything which remotely resem- 
 bles the liberty of the Press or tolerance for political and 
 religious ideas. Peter the Great, whose reign was the apo- 
 gee of imperial liberalism, tortured and put to death the 
 sectarian writers who wrote pamphlets against his reforms. 
 But the Tzar was all in favor of European culture, and 
 everything savoring thereof passed the frontier without in- 
 spection. It is told that when the translator of Puffendorf's 
 "Universal History" proposed to omit some passages not 
 too complimentary to Muscovy, Peter gave him a little pa- 
 ternal correction with his famous cane, for showing so little 
 respect for the great historian, and ordered the scribe to 
 print the passage just as it was. Peter's successors followed 
 his example. They protected letters and science, made 
 
THE DESPOTISM Als^D THE PEESS. 315 
 
 mezenofs, founded academies, and established literary jour- 
 nals. Catharine II. j)osed as a literary character, wrote 
 with her own hand moral tales and insipid novels '' with a 
 purpose," and deigned to plagiarize Shakespeare's ''Merry 
 Wives of "Windsor." True the censorship existed at that 
 time, but it was not the heterogenous body of tchinovnihs, 
 instinctively hostile to authors and letters, which it has since 
 become. Savants and professors censured the works of 
 other savants and professors, younger or less distinguished 
 than themselves. And, curiously enough, the animosities 
 and jealousies of the writers of that epoch were more inim- 
 ical to the freedom of the Press tlian the despotism itself. 
 Scabitchevsky, in his history of the censorship in Eussia, 
 relates that when the Acaderaic Journal was published 
 without being submitted to the censors, the writers of 
 that day, like the lackeys that they were, mutually de- 
 nounced each other, and lauded the censorship as an insti- 
 tution of the highest value. The Government, on their part, 
 vainly tried to make these angry scribes listen to reason, 
 exhorting them to be more tolerant, and showing them that 
 the world would not come to an end even if people were al- 
 lowed the free expression of their opinions. 
 
 It would be a mistake to attribute the patriarchal relations 
 which prevailed between the Tzars and the tzarnas and the 
 writers of this period, either to the liberalism of the former 
 or the docility of the latter. The cause was much more 
 simple. 
 
 The reforms of Peter the Great had brought Eussia into 
 temporary unison with the rest of Continental Europe, and 
 at that time the autocracies of the Continent were bureau- 
 cratic autocracies like that of Eussia. So long as this uni- 
 son existed the science, laws, and histories of neighboring 
 nations could present no danger. In what respect could 
 they be dangerous ? An occasional sarcastic reference to 
 Muscovite barbarism, like that of Puffendorf, there might 
 
316 EUSSIA UNDER THE TZAES. 
 
 be; but nothing serious, nothing to imperil the basis of the 
 regime. True, in the eighteenth century there was a vast 
 philosophic movement in Europe, which contained the 
 germs of a great political reform. But as yet these germs 
 had not shown themselves. They were hidden under the 
 mask of humanitarianism and philosophy. Princes asso- 
 ciated themselves with the movement, thinking they would 
 be able to dominate and direct it. And our Catharine II., 
 like Frederick the Great, was a philosopher and paid court 
 
 to Voltaire. 
 
 The revolution changed all this, then and forever. As 
 touching its political institutions and its culture Europe 
 made a great step in advance. Russia remained what Peter 
 had made her. Then began the persecutions. Eadiscoff 
 and Novikoff were the two first martyrs of the Eussian Press. 
 The one was exiled to Siberia, the other imprisoned for the 
 advocacy of ideas which Catharine, before the revolution, 
 had herself professed. The mutual positions of the Govern- 
 ment and the Press were then distinctly defined. Since that 
 time the persecutions may have varied in intensity, but they 
 have never been intermitted. 
 
 How Nicolas dealt with authors and journalists is known 
 to all students of contemporary history. In the time of 
 Alexander the Press was the first institution to feel the 
 weight of his hand. The elder Kosheleff, in his posthu- 
 mous memoirs, tells how in 1858, in the very honeymoon of 
 Alexander's liberalism, when the Tzar, supported by the 
 flower of the nation, was wa^rinsc war against the obscurantism 
 of the old nobility for the emancipation of the serfs, the per- 
 secution of the censorship reduced him to despair and ruined 
 the pajjcr edited by the Slavophile, Aksakoff, and himself. 
 This although the journal in question was an ardent advo- 
 cate of emancipation and its two editors were inveterate 
 monarchists ! Despotism will tolerate no criticism, even 
 from its partisans. The condemnation of Mikailoff and 
 
THE DESPOTISM A^'D THE PRESS. 317 
 
 SchapoS and the moral ruin of Tcheruychevsky, men of the 
 greatest intelligence Russia ever possessed, were also the 
 work of the first period of Alexander's reign. 
 
 Sometimes waxing, at others waning, according to changes 
 of the wind in high quarters, the persecution of the Press 
 went on without surcease the whole of the twenty-six years 
 during which the late Tzar swayed the destinies of his coun- 
 try. 
 
 n. 
 
 But it is with the actual condition of the Press, not with 
 the past persecutions of poets, novelists, historians, and 
 journalists, that we have to deal. And here, at the outset, 
 it is well to notice a significant and characteristic fact — that 
 whenever the Government are constrained by financial re- 
 quirements or political necessity to concede some measure of 
 reform the Press is the last to profit by the change. When 
 the emancipation of the serfs, the organization of the 
 Zemstvo, and the establishment of the New Courts lent to 
 the life of the country another aspect and gave promise of a 
 better and a brighter future, the Press, whose duty it is to 
 animate, to enlighten, and to encourage, was still left to the 
 tender mercies of the ancient censorship. Not until 1865 
 was the new Press Law promulgated, and even then, few as 
 were its concessions, it was granted grudgingly and jin- 
 graciously. The Russian Government never hesitates to 
 retrace its steps, or take back with one hand what it gives 
 with the other, and the new law was expressly termed "a, 
 provisional regulation." It was an experiment which could 
 be discontinued at any moment that might be deemed ex- 
 pedient. Its application was, moreover, restricted in a 
 manner altogether exceptional. New laws, if they make 
 for more liberty, are rarely applicable to the whole of the 
 empire. Thus the Zemstvo, the justices of the peace, and 
 the new Courts were instituted gradually, as if the authori- 
 
318 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 ties were afraid of disgusting the country with too much 
 freedom; and the process has been so cautiously conducted 
 that there are still districts where the reforms in question 
 have not even yet come into operation. But, as touching 
 the new Press Law, the authorities surpassed themselves; 
 not content Avitli making the regulation provisional, they 
 limited its application strictly to the two capitals. It is 
 true that the Government officially undertook to extend the 
 enactment to the provinces so soon as the new tribunals were 
 completely organized; but the promise was never fulfilled, 
 and the whole of Kussia outside Moscow and St. Petersburg 
 still remains under the domination of the old Press Law of 
 Nicolas I. 
 
 Let us see what were the character and extent of the con- 
 cessions which the Government so timidly and so reluctantly 
 granted. The new law substituted the correctional for the 
 preventive censure; but, as touching works with less than 
 ten sheets of original matter, or twenty sheets of transla- 
 tion, the old system was retained. Periodical publications 
 whose proprietors desired to enjoy the privilege of the cor- 
 rectional censure could only do so by obtaining a special 
 authorization, not as a right, but by favor of the Minister. 
 
 Yet, although the preventive censure was abolished, 
 measures were taken to hinder the privilege from being 
 abused. It was ordered that after an edition had been 
 printed, and before being sent out for sale, a copy of the 
 book should be submitted to the committee of Censors, nom- 
 inated by the Minister— a body which had power to forbid 
 being delivered to the publishers any work which they might 
 deem dangerous to loyalty, morality, or religion. As for 
 newspapers and other similar publications, the law author- 
 ized the Minister, at his discretion, to warn officially any 
 journal of the views or statements to which he might take 
 exception. A third warning entailed, ipso f ado, the offend- 
 ing paper's suspension and the prosecution of its conductors. 
 
THE DESPOTISM AND THE PRESS. 319 
 
 The Minister may, moreover, by administrative order, 
 which means by the simple exercise of his will, suspend any 
 journal whatever for from three to six months. He has fur- \ 
 ther the right to stop the sale of any paper in the kiosques 
 and by newsboys in the streets — that is to say, he may cut 
 off half its sale at a stroke ; he may also forbid it to publish 
 advertisements. These two measures, when enforced against 
 any journal so unfortunate as to incur the ]\[inister's dis- ^ 
 pleasure, are tantamount to the infliction of a heavy fine, | 
 which, if repeated, it is impossible for the victim to survive, I 
 there being practically no limit to the amount of the penalty 
 he may inflict. This method of crushing an obnoxious 
 journal has of late been frequently practised, for it makes 
 less noise and seems less arbitrary than suspension by admin- ^ 
 istrative order, or even after three warnings. 
 
 On the other hand, the law of 1865 possessed one great 
 and positive advantage. The definitive suppression of a | 
 book or a newspaper could be pronounced only by the judg- | 
 ment of a court, and though provisional suspension by Gov- 
 erment decree or administrative order, or deprivation of its 
 advertisements, might ruin a journal utterly, the mere pos- i 
 sibility of an appeal was a decided gain, tending as it did ■ 
 to make the Minister more cautious in the exercise of his 
 powers, and more amenable to public opinion. The appeal 
 could be made in the last resort to the Senate of the Empire 
 — a body not likely to treat revolutionary theories or sub- 
 versive ideas too leniently, as was sufficiently proved by its ; 
 condemnation jof the journal conducted by M. Aksakoff, ' 
 the Muscovite Slavophile. Nevertheless, the Senate acted 
 always judicially, and, as it showed in the matters of the 
 translation of the first volume of Lecky's '' History of 
 Rationalism," and of \^oundt's " The Soul of Man and 
 Animals," did not hesitate to check flagrant injustice by 1 
 reversing the decisions of the Committee of Censors, In 
 cases of urgency, however, the authorities did not scruple to 
 
320 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 disregard the law which they themselves had made. lu 
 18GC, hardly a year after its enactment, Prince Gagarine and 
 his friends resolVed by hook or by crook to effect the sup- 
 pression of the Contemporary of Nekrasoif and the Russian 
 Word of Blagosvetloff, and they prevailed on the Tzar to act 
 as their Deus ex machind. One evening at a ball His 
 Majesty gave the order in two words for the extinction of 
 the obnoxious journals, and they were suppressed accord- 
 ingly without any formality whatsoever. But after a while it 
 was deemed expedient to convert the exception into the rule. 
 Trials, even when won by the prosecution, made a noise, 
 excited public opinion, and helped to spread ideas which the 
 administration desired to crush. Despotisms prefer dark- 
 ness and shade to publicity and light, and in 1872 the law of 
 1865 was " amended " by a supplementary enactment, de- 
 priving the tribunals of the power of intervening in the 
 affairs of the Press, and vesting the control of them in the 
 Council of Ministers, who decide, in final resort, on the fate 
 of any book or periodical which may be in question, after 
 hearing the report of the Minister of the Interior. Thus 
 the latter, being both accuser and judge — for his colleagues, 
 in matters that concern his department, must necessarily 
 adopt his views — became tlie supreme arbiter of the Press 
 and purveyor of literature for the entire Eussian nation. In 
 1882 another change was introduced, though, practically, it 
 made no great difference. A committee of four was substi- 
 tuted for the full Ministerial Council, but, as before, no 
 defence was admitted, the committee deliberating and decid- 
 ing in camerd. Another measure was the application to 
 recalcitrant journals of the preventive censure. What the 
 preventive censure is and how it works, I shall explain 
 presently. 
 
 Since 1872 suspensions, suppressions, deprivations of the 
 right to receive advertisements and sell single copies have 
 rained on the unfortunate Russian Press as from a horn of 
 
THE DESPOTISM AISTD THE PRESS. 321 
 
 abundance. Books banned by the censors are remorselessly 
 burnt. Thus were condemned to the flames the second 
 Yolume of Lecky's " History of European Morals " (the first 
 volume was sanctioned), Hobbes's " Leviathan/'Haeckel's 
 " History of the Creation," Voltaire's " Essai sur les 
 Moeurs," and many more. The same fate has also befallen 
 divers Eussian authors, who are treated with so little. cere- 
 mony that Prougavine's book, entitled "Eeligious Sects" 
 (albeit the articles composing it had appeared in the period- 
 ical form, and, therefore, been passed by the censors), was 
 burnt by order of the Committee of Ministers. 
 
 III. 
 
 But to gauge rightly the real position of the Eussian 
 Press something more is required than mere knowledge of 
 the law as it stands. We must go behind the scenes, be- 
 cause it is there, in the shade, that the despotism shows it- 
 self without disguise. When the Minister desires to im- 
 pose his will on the Press he has recourse to secret ordo fi- 
 nances, which end always with the same formula — ''In case 
 of disobedience the articles of this or that regulation will 
 be applied to the refractory journal," which means that con- 
 tempt of the order will be visited either with suspension or 
 suppression. This proceeding, re-establishing, as in effect 
 it does, the preventive censure under another form, is of 
 course flagrantly illegal, and contrary both to the lelte? and 
 the spirit of the law. But the despotism of those above is 
 so absolute, the submission of those below so complete, that 
 the representatives of the Press have never been able to join 
 in a protest against the tyranny by which they are so ruth- 
 lessly victimized, and tbe protest of a single journal would 
 expose it to the implacable vengeance of the Government. 
 To give an idea of the character of the nrdonnances in 
 question, I cite a few specimens v.hich were given in the 
 
323 KUSSTA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 Narodnaia Volia of August, 1883, a clandestine journal be- 
 ing the only medium through which facts of this sort can 
 be made known. 
 
 On March 4, 1881, three days after the murder of Alex- 
 ander II., the Minister sent to the Press a secret ordonnance 
 thus conceived : " Several organs of the Press, under the 
 pretext of extraordinary circumstances, have allowed them- 
 selves to print articles very indiscreetly suggesting the ex- 
 pediency of re-organizing our political system, and express- 
 ing doubts as to the existence of patriotism in the higher 
 circles of our society, which are accused of indilferencc to 
 the true interests of "the nation. The appearance of articles 
 of this character will entail the suppression of the journals 
 in which they may be published." 
 
 On March 25th, the department, "considering the near 
 approach of the trial for the abominable crime of March 
 1st, reminds conductors of journals of the order against 
 printing, under pain of suspension, original accounts of 
 political trials." (The papers were permitted to print only 
 the carefully prepared account of the proceedings given in 
 the Official Gazette.) 
 
 In April, 1881, there occurred some disorders among 
 university students. On the 16th of the same month the 
 following order was issued : '' It is considered necessary to 
 forbid the Press to discuss this matter, to give any news 
 concerning it, or print any communications relating thereto. 
 / Disobedience of this ordonnance,^' etc. 
 
 The next order I shall cite is very curious and merits par- 
 ticular attention. It was issued on April 29th, ''In view 
 of the coup d'etat which has come to pass in Bulgaria, and 
 considering the necessity of sui)porting Prince Alexander, 
 the Government is desirous that our Press should speak with 
 circumspection {sic) of the events accomplished at Sofia." 
 This order was supplemented by a circular dated May 9th, 
 wherein it is explained that, although the papers are for- 
 
THE DESPOTISM AND THE PRESS. 323 
 
 bidden to censure, they are free to praise the coup d'etat of 
 General Ernrod. The ordonnance was, therefore, in effect, 
 an invitation to the Press to defend an arbitrary and illegal • 
 act committed in a foreign country, the object being to i 
 make it appear that not alone the Kussian Government but ! 
 Kussian society fully approved the proceeding. The ex- ' 
 planatory circular was issued because the Press, either out of ; 
 malice or timidity, construed the order too literally, and j 
 made no comment whatever on the incident in question. i 
 
 The resignation of Loris Melikoff involved, as is well 
 known, the downfall of the moderate Liberal party and the 
 extinction of all hope of reform, a result that excited 
 among all classes of the capital so general a feeling of dis- - 
 appointment and discontent as seriously to annoy the 
 Government, and on May 18th a circular was sent to the 
 papers instructing them to make no mention whatever of 
 ** to-day's proceedings in the Municipal Council, or to dis- | 
 cuss the proposal to present General Loris Melikoff with the 
 freedom of the city." It was equally forbidden to publish 
 the debates of the Council on this question. 
 
 On August 17th of the same year the Press was requested, 
 in the accepted form, to refrain from printing any articles 
 whatever against General Baranoff, former Prefect of St. 
 Petersburg. The General had a short time before dis- 
 tinguished himself by some very original measures for the 
 preservation of order, and by his so-called " Parliament," an 
 institution which excited general ridicule. 
 
 The Liberalism which prevailed in the higher circles of 
 the administration during the Melikoff period produced a 
 movement among the Zemstvo that continued after the 
 Minister's dismissal, a fact that sufficiently accounts for a 
 circular issued on May 28th, inviting the journals of the 
 two capitals to al)stainfrom all comment on the " decisions, 
 motions, and addresses" of the Zemstvo and the munici- 
 palities. 
 
324 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 When Count Ignatieff, the successor of Loris Melikoff, 
 came into office, one of his first proceedings was to appoint 
 numerous commissioners for the elaboration of projects of 
 reform in various branches of the administration. Troubles 
 in the south and outrages against Israelites in other parts of 
 the empire had directed attention to the Jewish question, 
 and a commission was nominated to prepare a report on the 
 subject. It was a question which greatly interested both 
 the public and the Press, and an open discussion of the mat- 
 ter could hardly have failed to facilitate the work of the 
 commission and might have given rise to some valuable sug- 
 gestions. But the Government, feariug criticism, and 
 haunted as always by the dread of " exciting public 
 opinion " and thereby producing all sorts of terrible conse- 
 quences, sent out, on May 31, 1881, a circular, ''forbidding 
 the publication of articles likely to create discontent with 
 the measures of the Government, which cannot be tolerated, 
 above all at a time so difficult as the present." In other 
 words, the sole alternative of silence was to praise all Gov- 
 ernment measures without distinction. 
 
 A few days later (June 3d) an ordonnance was issued 
 directing the Press to " speak with the greatest circumspec- 
 tion (the reader will understand the meaning of this 
 phrase, so frequently used) of the proceedings of the special 
 commission for reducing the price of the lands acquired by 
 the peasants." On September 19th it was considered neces- 
 sary to forbid the ''publication of any news whatever con- 
 cerning the report of the special commission on the relations 
 between the indigenous population and the Jews." On 
 October 10, 1881, an interdict was laid on the publication 
 *'of any articles whatever on peasant migrations." On 
 I January 28, 1882, it was ordained in the usual manner that, 
 "in view of the preparation of reforms in the organization 
 of professional schools," no discussion of the subject shall 
 take place, nor any news about it be published. On March 
 
THE DESPOTISM A^D THE PRESS. 325 
 
 17th, *'it is absolutely forbidden to publish in the papers 
 any news whatever concerning the re-partition of properties, 
 equalization of lots, etc., or any articles suggesting the 
 justice of changes in tlie economical condition of the peas- 
 antry." On April 20th was issued another circular about 
 the Jews forbidding ''all reference to the deliberations of 
 the Council of Ministers on the subject, or the publication 
 of any articles whatever on the question in general." 
 
 On October 29, 1882, it was forbidden to speak of the ex- 
 pulsion of the gymnasium pupil, Fougalevitch ( of Kamenez 
 Padolsk, who insulted the inspector, but was acquitted by 
 the tribunal). On November 1st a circular was issued in- 
 viting the Press to keep silence as to the troubles in the 
 University of Kazan. On December 16th it was forbidden 
 to say anything about the prosecution of the student Seme- 
 noff for insulting the Curator of the University. On Feb- 
 ruary 4, 1882, it was forbidden to publish any news concern- 
 ing the ''domestic relations" of the family of Councillor 
 JVlarkus. On November 23d it was ordered that no mention 
 should be made of the misunderstanding between the Cu- 
 rator Neuhart and Dr. Kwatz. On October 4th was issued 
 the following order : "The foreign Press makes mention of 
 the implication of Count P. A. Valueff in the trial relating 
 to dilapidation of State property in the province of Oren- 
 burg. It is forbidden to reproduce this news." Here we 
 have an illustration of the Eussian proverb, " One dirty 
 hand washes the other, and both become clean." 
 
 But the worst has yet to be told. On June 12th was is- 
 sued a circular bluntly informing editors that the publica- 
 tion of articles on the relations of peasants to their land- 
 lords, or on " the Lutorique affair," would entail the sup- 
 pression of the journal in which they might appear. On 
 June 26, 1882, the Minister informed editors that " virulent 
 articles having appeared on the affair of Prince Sherbatoff 
 and his former serfs, and as such articles might have a bad 
 
326 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 influence on the relations of proprietors and peasants, it is 
 expressly forbidden to speak of the Sherbatoff affair." The 
 two affairs in question related to cruelties inflicted on peas- 
 ants so horrible that in any other country the perpetrators 
 would have been put upon their trial. 
 
 Still another fact. The catastrophe of Koukoueff was one 
 of the most heartrending of our national calamities. A train 
 ran off the line and went headlong into a morass. Many of 
 the passengers were badly hurt and more than a hundred 
 killed. The accident, as was fully proved, arose from the 
 unsound condition of the permanent way and the rottenness 
 of the jules, the engineers and managers having appropri- 
 ated to their own purposes the moneys assigned for repairs. 
 On this becoming known there was a cry of indignation 
 from one end of Eussia to the other. And the Government 
 — what course did it take ? Promise a searching inquiry 
 and the exemplary punishment of the delinquents ? Noth- 
 ing of the sort. It issued this circular: — ''August 19, 
 1882. — Since the disaster on the Koursk Eailway, several 
 papers have printed articles bringing grave charges against 
 
 I some of the employes of the Ministry of Roads. Articles of 
 this sort having a disturbing character, their publication 
 will bring on the offending journal the severest adminstra- 
 tive penalties." Thus the State forbade parents and friends 
 to protest against the authors of their misfortune, or to offer 
 
 i an opinion on the best method of preventing further simi- 
 lar disasters. 
 
 This terminates our record. The samples I have pro- 
 duced are eminently characteristic. They show the ten- 
 dencies of the Russian Government, and reveal the crooked 
 ways of bureaucratic despotism. The Press is regarded as a 
 hostile and essentially pernicious force, to be partially toler- 
 ated only because it cannot be utterly destroyed. The policy 
 of the Ministry towards the Press is dictated with the nar- 
 rowest official spirit. The moment a question becomes 
 
THE DESPOTISM AND THE PKESS. 327 
 
 prominent or interesting, its discussion is tabooed. Of pub- 
 licity, talk, the free expression of thought, the Government 
 stands in mortal dread. Even when it takes some hesitatino- 
 step m advance, or resolves to attempt this or that reform, 
 its first proceeding is to forbid all discussion of it by the 
 Press. Everything must be done in silence and secresy and 
 in the back rooms of Ministerial Cabinets. But human 
 thought is not easily fettered. Harassed by proscription, 
 indications, warnings and admonitions, threatened on the 
 least show of disobedience with a whole arsenal of pains and 
 penalties, opinion takes the weapon of the feeble and meets 
 force with cunning. A secret understanding is established 
 between writers and readers. An esoteric language, made 
 up of allusions, hints, and conventional phrases, is created; 
 and so the ideas which our rulers have banned still pass 
 from mind to mind. 
 
 IV. 
 
 It is a patent fact that our Press is almost altogether 
 Liberal and anti-Governmental. This Mr. Katkoff himself 
 does not attempt to deny. The organs of reaction may be 
 counted on the fingers of one hand. Most Eussian papers 
 are either frankly liberal or shrewdly artful, alternating be- 
 tween servility to escape the censure and opposition to please 
 their readers. The opportunist tendencies of the Eussian 
 Press on the one hand, and bureaucratic obscurantism on 
 the other, are leading rapidly to a collision which can hardly 
 fail to be fatal to the weaker of the two forces. The history 
 of the struggle between them — if that may be called a 
 struggle in which one party can offer hardly a show of resist- 
 ance — presents three distinct phases. The provincial Press 
 was the first to suffer. Being under the preventive censure, 
 the administration had only to draw the bonds a little 
 tighter in order to crush it utterly. Less known, having 
 less influence and fewer readers, country papers may bo 
 
328 BUSSIA UNDEK THE TZARS. 
 
 treated with less ceremony than their contemporaries of the 
 two capitals. Altogether, it may be averred without exag- 
 geration that, notwithstanding its lack of literary jjolish, 
 the part of our Press the most sympathetic, the most 
 devoted to the public weal and capable of promoting national 
 well-being, were our country papers. But the tcliinovniks 
 of St. Petersburg were not at all disposed to allow free play 
 to their usefulness. The spectre of separatism was summoned 
 against them, and they became the victims of the reaction. 
 The holocaust went on easily and quietly, without too much 
 scandal, and was all but completed before the death of 
 Alexander II. It required only a word to the censors, and 
 the work was begun. One by one the best country papers, 
 weary of the annoyance, the chicanery, and the oppression 
 to which they were continually exposed, gave np the strug- 
 gle. Suppression by decree was unnecessary ; they were 
 worried out of existence by Ministerial ordinances, each more 
 impossible and absurd than the other. Purely political papers 
 were ordered strictly to avoid domestic subjects. Journals 
 founded for the express jDurpose of defending Jewish inter- 
 ests and promoting a fusion of the two races were forbidden 
 to make any allusion to the Jewish question. The expedi- 
 ents of the department were sometimes marked by a grim 
 humor all its own. One was to appoint as special censor 
 'l of an obnoxious print an ofHcial living at the other extremity 
 of the empire. This involved the sending to him of every 
 proof, both of comment and news, before publication. 
 Hence the paper upon which this practical joke was played 
 I could not appear nntil ten or fifteen days after its contem- 
 { poraries of the same town or district. No journal giving 
 news a fortnight out of date could possibly go on, and jour- 
 nals so treated rarely attempted to reappear. But as nobody 
 could say that the Government had suppressed them, there 
 was neither scandal nor ''agitation of spii-its ; " one more 
 unfortunate had died a natural death — that was all. Were 
 
THE DESPOTISM AND THE PRESS. 329 
 
 dealt with in tliis way the XovotcherTcash Don, the Kama 
 Gazette, and the Tifiis Ohzor. They were ordered to send 
 their proofs, not as nsual to the local censors, but to the 
 censor of Moscow, Avhich is distant in time (including the 
 return journey) from Novotcherkask seven days, from Kama 
 ten to twelve, and from Tiflis twenty. The two first made 
 no attempt either to comply with tlie order or to continue their 
 issues, but Mr. Nicoladze, proprietor of the Ohzor, in order 
 to preserve the right of publication (which lapses if not used 
 during a year), brings out his paper every January. The 
 Olzor is probably the only daily paper in the world which 
 appears once a year. 
 
 It would, however, be a mistake to suppose that the 
 department holds to the letter of the law, loose as that is. 
 The expedients I have described, seem to be adopted out of 
 a spirit of pure mischief, pretty much as a cat torments a 
 mouse before giving it the coup de grace; for when the 
 humor takes them, the authorities do not hesitate to 
 suppress by a stroke of the pen a paper which has been 
 submitted to the preventive censure, and is therefore irre- 
 sponsible to the administration. Thus were suppressed the 
 Kieif Telegraph, the Odessa Pravda, and the Smolensk 
 Messenger. The Tiflis Phalanga was suppressed for pre- 
 senting to the censor a drawing which was deemed danger- 
 ous and unsuitable for publication ! I believe, too, that the 
 Kieff Troud has lately shared the same fate. All 
 these were under the preventive regime, which means, of 
 course, that they were not allowed to publish a line unseen 
 by the censor. In 1876, the Government, utterly regard- 
 less of the law, and without assigning a reason, suppressed 
 an entire literature — that of the Ukraine. Except novels, 
 it was forbidden to publish anything whatever in the lan- 
 guage of that country — a proceeding absolutely without 
 precedent even in Russia. 
 
 Nearly all these measures were taken in the time of Alex- 
 
330 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 ander II. By throwing every possible impediment in the 
 way of starting new journals, by having censors only in a 
 few of the principal towns (which rendered it well-nigh im- 
 possible to conduct papers in any other town), the Govern- 
 ment found no difficulty in practically extinguishing the 
 provincial press. Hence Alexander III. had only to do with 
 the Press of the two capitals, and it must be admitted that 
 in this contest Count Ignatieff and, above all, Count Tolstoi, 
 showed more discernment than was displayed by our generals 
 in the war against Turkey — they attacked the enemy where 
 he was weakest. 
 
CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 THE PEESS UNDER ALEXANDER II. 
 I. 
 
 Russia, which differs from Western Europe in so many 
 other things, differs also in the relative importance of its 
 periodic publications. Daily papers, being essentially polit- 
 ical, cannot, in a country without political life wield the 
 same influence as in England, France, and the United 
 States. Popular institutions we have none; public opinion 
 is ignored. There are no questions which depend on the 
 votes of a body of citizens to whom it is necessary to appeal 
 day by day, and whose views may be influenced by argu- 
 ment and explanation. The struggle, so far as it goes, is 
 with us limited to the domain of ideas. But for the discus- 
 sion and development of ideas newspapers, even if they could 
 always afford the necessary space, are not always the most 
 suitable medium. On this point, moreover, the Russian 
 public is exacting ; they demand something more solid and 
 serious than it is possible for daily journals to give. Vital 
 questions, which in free countries are discussed in parlia- 
 ments, meetings, and clubs, can be treated in Russia only in 
 the Press— so far as the censor may permit. Hence the 
 preponderance in our periodic literature of magazines and 
 reviews, which, while not neglecting the events of the day, 
 give a considerable portion of their space to the higher sub- 
 jects of domestic and general interest, sometimes even to 
 standard works of a class that in any other country would 
 be published in separate editions. Works of fiction are con- 
 
332 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 fined to monthly imblicaiions. Novels of merit appear in 
 the first instance nearly always in reviews as serials, never 
 a&feuilletons in newspapers. All this gives an exceptional 
 importance to Russian reviews, and in its crusade against 
 tlic Press the Department, guided and mspired by Igna- 
 tieff and Tolstoi, opened the attack, as has already been 
 said, against the enemy's weakest part — the daily news- 
 paper. 
 
 In order to form an idea of the damage sustained by Rus- 
 sian journals in this unequal warfare we have only to glance 
 at the Souvorine's Almanac, where are recorded all the 
 rigorous measures of which the Press has lately been the 
 victim. Since the beginning of the present reign eight 
 high-class St. Petersburg papers have been either summa- 
 rily suppressed by administrative order or harassed to death 
 by incessant persecutions. During this time they received 
 forty-eight admonitions, were as often provisionally suspend- 
 ed (for from four weeks to eight months), and suffered incal- 
 culable money loss by interdicts to publish advertisements 
 and sell by retail. The daily Press, in fact, has been virtually 
 crushed, for among the defunct journals were some of the 
 most important the country possessed, such as the Poria- 
 doJc, the Golos, and others. Only two or three Liberal 
 papers of any influence still survive the persecution, 
 dragging on a miserable existence, threatened and badgered 
 at every turn, and expecting that every day will be their 
 last. 
 
 The war against the great reviews, which had been re- 
 solved upon from the first, albeit the resolution was al- 
 lowed to remain some time in abeyance, began with the sup- 
 pression of the Slovo. The editor having retired, the De- 
 partment refused to sanction the appointment of a succes- 
 or, and in a private interview with the publisher the chief 
 cynically avowed that he would not accept even a declared 
 monarchist. After eight months of resistance, remonstrance. 
 
THE PRESS UlTDER ALEXANDER II. 333 
 
 and suspense, (during which time the review was not al- 
 lowed to appear), the proprietor lost all hope, and the Slcvo 
 Avas numbered among the slain. Then, after an interval of 
 admonitions which led to no particular result, the Govern- 
 ment dropped the mask and suppressed the Annals of the 
 Country. The Annals was beyond compare the best review 
 we had. In circulation and in influence, as well as in the 
 quality of its articles and the ability of its contributors, the 
 Annals was far ahead of the best of its contemporaries. 
 Its subscribers numbered nearly 10,000 — a figure in Eussia al- 
 together phenomenal. T\\q Messenger of Europe, its strongest 
 competitor, could not boast of a circulation of more than 
 6,000. The tendency of the Annals being essentially Dem- 
 ocratic, it naturally gave much attention to all questions 
 touching on the condition of the people. In this regard it 
 has rendered immense service to the nation ; nobody aan 
 take a single step in the study of our domestic economy 
 without referring for instruction and information to the 
 back numbers of the Annals. Even the members of our 
 unteachable Government, when it is a question of doing 
 something for the toiling millions of the nation, preparing 
 an important financial scheme, or introducing an eco- 
 nomic reform, are compelled to go to the same source, as 
 well for their facts as for their ideas. In an article which 
 I contributed to the Contemporary Review, when speaking 
 of the blindness of certain writers who contend that Eussia 
 is still unfitted to be her own mistress, I observed that the 
 best proof to the contrary lay in the fact that the Eussian 
 Government has never adopted, or even submitted to the 
 fruitless consideration of a commission of tchinovniks, a 
 sinG^le progressive measure which had not been previously 
 indicated, discussed, and put in much better form by the 
 press and the Zemstvo. Of this the Annals afford ample il- 
 lustration and abundant proof. Mr. Scalon pointed out, and 
 thoroughly discussed in the pages of the review, the insxif- 
 
834 RUSSIA U^'DER THE TZAES. 
 
 fiency of the allotments assigned to the peasants, at least 
 ten years before the question was taken up by the Govern- 
 ment. Mr. Chaslavsky and Mr. TrirogofE dwelt on the same 
 thing, and called the attention of the authorities to the 
 necessity of the measures. As is well known, when the so- 
 cialist agitation and the gradual impoverishment of the 
 peasants compelled the Government at length to act, they 
 dealt, however inadequately, with the land question on the 
 lines suggested by the review which they have since sup- 
 pressed. Reform of the methods of taxation and of the 
 law of settlement was exhaustively discussed in the review 
 long before these questions were submitted for the consid- 
 eration of Loris Melikoff's and Count Ignatieff's Commis- 
 sions. The measures adopted to save from total ruin the 
 so-called chinsceviJci, a. sort ot perpetual farmer, were due to 
 the articles of Mr. Koteliansk}-, who was the first to point out 
 their wretched condition, and denounce the injustice to 
 which they were exposed. A still more striking instance 
 of the utility of discussion and the power of the pen is 
 found in the fact that the abolition of the salt duty was 
 brought about in great measure by the efforts of the A71- 
 nals. At the time of Loris Melikoff's advent to power, there 
 appeared in the review a series of articles by Mr. liconidas 
 Cherniaev, in which he sets forth with great force the im- 
 policy of taxing salt, and the manifold hardships which the 
 imposts entailed, and the new dictator, desiring to signalize 
 his accession to office by an act of grace, abolished the ob- 
 noxious tax. Professor Janjiul in his articles on the Eng- 
 lish Factory Law urged the adoption of a measure for reg- 
 ulating the labor of women and children in the Russian 
 factories. The Government followed his advice, and ap- 
 pointed him factory insj^ector for the district of Moscow. 
 
 Li short there is no question of importance relating cither 
 to the land, to commerce, or to taxation, which has not been 
 discussed by specialists in our great review. For the con- 
 
THE PEESS UKDEE ALEXANDER II. 335 
 
 tributors to the Amials included men who were not alone 
 theoretically acquainted with their subjects, but had seen 
 with their own eyes the workings of the systems which they 
 desired to reform and the evils which they wished to abolish. 
 This lent to it an authority altogether exceptional, and the 
 editor was enabled to enlist in the service of the periodical 
 which he directed the most ardent and intellectual spirits of 
 the time, every one of whom was animated with unbounded 
 zeal to enlighten public opinion and promote the best inter- 
 ests of the country. And yet this great, this priceless pub- 
 lication has been struck down without warning, crushed by 
 the stroke of a minister's pen, its useful career stopped, and 
 its noble and enthusiastic band of writers silenced and dis- 
 persed. Why ? In the circular accompanying the decree of 
 suppression the Government gives its reasons for this por- 
 tentous j)roceeding. The Annals, it is alleged, was a sub- 
 versive organ, a sort of Narodnaia Volia (a clandestine 
 revolutionary print), published in defiance of the censorship. 
 Several of the contributors were afl&liated to revolutionary 
 societies, and two members of the editorial staff were po- 
 litically compromised. The futility of these pretexts is 
 self-evident, especially when it is remembered that out of 
 nearly a hundred contributors not one was punished for 
 these pretended crimes. 
 
 "We pass now to the accusation in chief, which suggests 
 more important considerations than any of the others. The 
 Ministerial circular charges the Annals and the Liberal 
 Press generally with having caused all the sad events of re- 
 cent years (that is to say, the assassinations and other acts 
 of terrorism), with advocating doctrines absolutely identi- 
 cal Avith those of the clandestine revolutionary organs, with 
 adopting a similar tone, borrowing their methods of expos- 
 ition, and imitating their literary style. 
 
 Eeaders will remember that only a few years ago the 
 Russian Government proclaimed everywhere that the rev- 
 
336 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 olutionary party was recruited solely among tlie ignorant 
 and the young, among unsuccessful studeuts and men of 
 broken fortunes. Now it openly accuses the entire Liberal 
 Press of having gone over to the enemy with arms and bag- 
 gage. The importance of the fact, if it is a fact, cannot be 
 over-estimated, albeit the prudence of the avowal may well 
 be doubted, for in the Russia of to-day, as in France before 
 the Revolution, all that the country possesses of worth, 
 talent, intelligence, and instruction is found in the ranks of 
 the Liberal Opposition. The reaction has but incapacities. 
 The only true men of talent whom it has secured during the 
 last ten years — from M. Dostoievsky, in belles Icttres, down 
 to Mr. Katkoff in journalism — are both renegades from the 
 Liberal cause. The former was once a socialist, and suffered 
 ten years' penal servitude for his connection with the Petra- 
 chevsky society ; the latter, in his earlier and bettor years, 
 distinguished himself by his warm advocacy of a constitu- 
 tion on the English model. Even the Souvourins and other 
 minor lights of the reaction were once wanderers in the 
 gardens of Liberalism. Yet, as I desire neither to falsify 
 facts nor disguise the truth, even in the seeming interest of 
 the party to which I belong, I am constrained to say that, 
 strongly as the Russian press is opposed to the Government, 
 it is not a revolutionary force, has not indeed as yet grasped 
 the revolutionary idea. 
 
 IL 
 
 All who know our literature will agree that its most strik- 
 ing and characteristic tendency is not subversive, or, to 
 speak more plainly, it does not use its influence to bring 
 about a re-organization of our political regime. The censor 
 stands effectually in the way of any advocacy in this direc- 
 tion being attempted, and our writers and publicists are 
 too lacking in political instruction to make the attempt. 
 True, they have high instincts and noble aspirations ; but 
 
THE PRESS UNDER ALEXANDER II. 337 
 
 the instincts are ill-defined, the aspirations vague and iin- 
 guided by a clear understanding and a resolute will. They 
 are like a locomotive without rails, their course is erratic, 
 and they are always encountering obstacles and being 
 engulfed in quicksands. The most marked trait in our 
 national literature, that which gives it a character all its 
 own, is its deep-seated democratism, its generous and unsel- 
 fish sympathy with the poor and lowly. The greater part 
 of our publications are devoted to subjects connected with 
 the well-being of the people and the amelioration of their 
 lot. It is the same with all our leading periodicals. The 
 peasant, his wants and his woes, are always their favorite 
 theme. Nor is this merely a passing fashion. It has been 
 thus for thirty years. If we pass from articles and reviews 
 to lelles lettres, we are struck by a peculiarity which dis- 
 tinofuishes it from the light literature of all other countries. 
 While fiction that deals with the lives of the lowly is else- 
 where the exception and occupies an inferior position, in 
 Russia the loves, the sufferings, and the virtues of the 
 peasantry form the favorite and the frequent subjects of our 
 younger and more popular authors. It would be difiicult 
 to find a more conclusive proof than this of the prevailing 
 sentiments of our superior classes ; for it is they, not the 
 peasants themselves, who read these romances of humble 
 life. This generous democratism of the instructed and well- 
 placed, arises from the conditions and circumstances of our 
 intellectual development ; it is the best augury and the 
 surest guarantee for the progress and eventual happiness of 
 the people — once they are the masters of their own for- 
 tunes. The sympathy of the instructed classes for the com- 
 mon folk assumes among the leaders of the democratic move- 
 ment a character peculiar to itself and essentially Russian, 
 and is described by an untranslatable Russian word. The 
 members of this party are called narodnik, or, to coin an 
 English equivalent, ''peasantists.*' The origin of this 
 15 
 
338 EUSSIA UNDER THE TZAES. 
 
 phase of opinion is sufficiently remarkable to merit a few 
 words of explanation. How far it may be due to the deep 
 sense of shame and disgust with which the institution of 
 slavery inspired no inconsiderable portion of our nobility, 
 and the desire thence arising to make some amends to the 
 victims of a bad and degrading system ; how far to the some- 
 what effusive enthusiasm of the Eussian character and its 
 proneness to raise every strong conviction to the dignity of a 
 religious dogma, how far to our unfortunate historic past, 
 which renders it easy for us to sacrifice our individuality on 
 the altar of a cause which we deem high and noble, I will 
 not attempt to determine. 
 
 These and several other factors have combined to produce 
 the result in question, for ever since its inception Eussian 
 democratism has been marked by characteristics peculiar to 
 itself. The old advocate, Spassoviteh, in his speech during 
 the Netchiaeff trial related that even in his earlier davs it 
 was not unusual for young aristocrats to dress as peasants 
 and live among the people. In 1856, some young nobles of 
 certain provinces, notably Tver, Kieff, and others, abandoned 
 the privileges of their rank and inscribed their names in the 
 registers of the rural communes as simple peasants, albeit 
 they were thereby rendered liable to be flogged by a mere order 
 of the police and exposed to other unpleasant possibilities. 
 But the movement alarmed the Government, and was stoppod 
 by an ukase in the time of the Minister Lanskoy. It is now 
 no more possible for a Eussian noble to become a peasant 
 than for a British peer to become a member of the House of 
 Commons. The democratic party as a whole, although 
 they did not go the length of offering to be flagellated out 
 of love for the peoj^le, made enormous sacrifices in the 
 people's cause ; not alone material sacrifices, to which none 
 could object, but sacrifices of principle. The instructed 
 classes, nourished on the masterpieces of European litera- 
 ture, could hardly breathe in the stifling atmosphere of 
 
THE PEESS UNDER ALEXA:^^DER II. 339 
 
 LInscovite despotism. They thirsted for i^olitical frer^dom as 
 travellers in an African desert thirst for a drop of cold water. 
 An Englishman in such circumstances would have said, " I 
 need, therefore I will try to have." Said theKnssian narodnik, 
 " I need, therefore will I resign myself not to have." And if 
 asked for an explanation, he would have addc d that it was 
 he and his like alone who had need of political freedom ; 
 the present — chief object of his solicitude — it would profit 
 nothing. Flagrant error, for as touching natural rights, 
 there can be no conflict of interests. But this the demo- 
 crats of 1860 failed to understand, and they agreed to pros- 
 trate themselves before the autocracy on the sole condition 
 that it should promise to promote the Avell-being of the 
 masses. Revolutionists of the stamp of Herzen were unable 
 to resist this tendency, and democrats like ISTicolas Milutin 
 (brother of the Minister) and Mouravieff (of the Amour) 
 became humble servants of the Tzar. Than this it was im- 
 possible for men to push further the principle of abnega- 
 tion, or more completely to efface their individuality. 
 Their love was, indeed, like that of the fabled pelican, who 
 fed her little ones with her own flesh. The stupid bird did 
 not see that her death or disablement would of surety entail 
 the destruction of her offspring. By voluntarily effacing 
 itself the democratic party delivered the people, bound 
 hand and foot, to the venal and cruel bureaucracy which is 
 the true Eussian despotism. It was this fatal error that 
 wrecked the great Liberal movement of 1860, although it 
 had the support of the Polish insurrection. The Govern- 
 ment found no difficulty in forgetting its promises and pre- 
 serving intact its prerogatives. When the reaction set in 
 every concession which had been granted was little by little 
 withdrawn, because, owing to the policy of the democratic 
 party, no force existed whereby the bureaucracy could be 
 withstood. Hence when, twenty years later, a new Liberal 
 movement was initiated, everything had to be begun afre::h^ 
 
3-iO RUSSIA XJJS'DER THE TZAES. 
 
 The movement this time, born of the International and the 
 Paris Commune, was purely socialistic. The leaders had 
 no illusions about the autocracy. But as extreme socialists 
 they are equally opposed to constitutionalism and to mon- 
 archy. Their ideal is the supremacy of the working classes. 
 They would pass at one bound from barbarism and despot- 
 ism to pure socialism. Here we have a new doctrine, revolu- 
 tionary peasantism. The idealization of the people has 
 reached its apogee. The people are omnipotent. True, 
 they are ignorant and illiterate, but instead of culture they 
 have a multitude of noble instincts, which will do quite as 
 well. The favorite idea is to provoke an immediate social 
 revolution ; the idea of political revolution, of reorganizing 
 the State on a Liberal and constitutional basis is clearly as 
 little favored by the revolutionary narodnik as it was a 
 generation ago by the monarchic narodnik. But as no 
 step whatever in advance is possible without political lib- 
 erty, it is evident that i\\Q narodnik oihoiXx categories are in 
 contradiction with themselves, and their policy can result 
 only in the maintenance of the existing regime just as it is, 
 that is to say, of the reaction which now rules Eussia with 
 absolute sway. It is the union of these two influences, of 
 the old narodnik and the new, that has given birth to the 
 so-called narodnicestvo, or literary "peasantism," from 
 which most of our extreme opposition organs draw their 
 inspiration. In these circumstances, as may well be sup- 
 posed, the political programme of the Democratic Press — 
 not even excepting the Awials, which was also narodnik — 
 is vague, inconsistent, and unreal. This being the case, 
 .and seeing, moreover, that there are journals such as the 
 Nedeilia, which, while calling themselves Eadical, adopt 
 all the ideas of Souvourin (although they do not thereby 
 avoid prosecution), and others that panegyrize the domestic 
 policy of Prince Bismarck, it cannot seriously be contended 
 that the democratic section of the Eussiau Press deserves t(^ 
 
THE PRESS UJS"DER ALEXANDER II. 341 
 
 be called subversive. But there is another section of the 
 same party, also represented in the Press, which claims to 
 be "Liberal" par excellence. It professes to be neither 
 narodnik nor Slavophile, and advocates, so far as its civic 
 courage permits, the pure principles of European Liber- 
 alism. But in renouncing the errors of the oldest parties 
 these Liberals have, at the same time, renounced the prin- 
 ciple from which the former cause derives its strength — 
 political Radicalism. Having made moderatism the basis 
 of their political faith, refusing to admit even in theory 
 the idea of any effective protest against tyranny, our so- 
 called Liberals have doomed themselves to complete steril- 
 ity. For in a country like Russia, where law violates 
 justice, and justice disregards law, moderatism has no 
 place. All that these Liberals can do is to imj^lore the 
 Government to be good enough to resign, and their shame- 
 ful servility to the powers that be has alienated from them 
 the best of our Russian youth, and all the most potent 
 progressive forces of the nation. Few papers indeed have 
 known how to reconcile in their programme true Liber- 
 alism with Radical Democratism — the only programme 
 which has a future in our country. True, they did not 
 advocate these ideas openly — the " censor " would not have 
 allowed it — but they did so ''between the lines," and never 
 printed anything incompatible with its principles — which 
 is all we have a right to expect from any Russian journal. 
 Of these papers I will cite only one, the Slovo already 
 mentioned. As it is irrevocably suppressed, I may speak 
 well of it, without exposing it to unpleasant consequences. 
 
 We may thus safely affirm that our Press has done little 
 for the political enlightenment of Russian society. The 
 clandestine journals, printed abroad and circulated secretly 
 at home, have done far more, notwithstanding lack of 
 means and the difficulty of distribution. 
 
342 RUSSIA UXDER THE TZARS. 
 
 III. 
 
 Yet we must give credit where credit is due, and there can 
 be no question that the so-called Liberal and Radical Press, 
 the Annals above all, have greatly helped in the develop- 
 ment of revolutionary ideas, but in another fashion than 
 by direct teaching. They have laid bare the evils of our 
 social system and political order, proving their charges with 
 undeniable testimony and irrefutable logic. For this sort 
 of propaganda, none the less effective because indirect, it 
 suffices to have a love for truth and to see things as they are ; 
 because in Russia of to-day only the blindest optimism or 
 deliberate bad faith can defend the existing order, and 
 impute, as do the Souvourins and Katkoffs, treason and 
 wickedness to all who venture to cast a doubt on the wisdom 
 or patriotism of the bureaucracy. This explains why the 
 Press, almost without exception, is hostile to the Govern- 
 ment. It is impossible in the nature of things that they 
 should be otherwise. No censorship can effectually combat 
 an opposition of this character. Tlie only way to overcome 
 the hostility of the Press is by suppressing all its existing 
 organs and forbidding the establishment of new papers. A 
 Government Press is all but impossible, for, to the honor of 
 Russian journalism be it said, there are to be found in the 
 country few, if any, journalists of the stamp of Mr. Zito- 
 vitch, and even if such editors were forthcoming readers 
 would still be lacking. 
 
 In the year 1884, therefore, matters stood thus : Of old 
 established reviews with some influence and a wide circle of 
 readers there remained only one, The European Messenger. 
 All the others had been harried out of existence by the 
 censorship. Among the St. Peterslnirg reviews there was 
 one, the Dielo, which, by an exceptional piece of spitcfulness 
 on the part of the Government, had always been censured 
 before publication, thereby causing its conductors number- 
 
THE PRESS UXDER ALEXANDER II. 343 
 
 less embarrassments and continual annoyance. On occasions 
 when the censors Tvere more than usually censorious Mr. 
 Blagosvetloff, the publisher, would be compelled to print 
 five or six times as many sheets as were actually required — 
 150 or 180 instead of thirty. As many as five articles out 
 of six were often rejected by the censorship. (The articles 
 were presented in proof, not in manuscript.) The enormous 
 useless expense incurred in this way may be imagined ; but, 
 as some set-off to all, the proprietors had at least a right to 
 assume that the review would be guaranteed against com- 
 plete suppression by the Government — if for no other reason 
 because such a proceeding would be a palpable admission of 
 the uselessness of censorship. And in effect the Dielo was 
 not suppressed, technically. But all the same a very decided 
 stop was put to its career. The Minister sent for Mr. Ostro- 
 gorsky, the nominal editor (who was also a tutor), and told 
 him that he must choose between giving up that position 
 and dismissal from the tutorship by which he made his 
 living. The Minister evidently intended to play the Dielo 
 the same trick he had played the Slovo. If Mr. Ostrogorsky 
 yielded to the threat and gave up the editorship he would 
 refuse to confirm the appointment of another editor in his 
 place. But Mr. Ostrogorsky preferred to forfeit his means 
 of livelihood rather than abandon the nominal editorship of 
 the review. On this the Minister ordered the acting editor, 
 M. Stanukovitch (M. Blagosvetloff 's successor) to sell the 
 review to Mr, Wolfman, a man whose opinions were alto- 
 gether different from those advocated by the Dielo, threat- 
 ening that, in the event of his refusal, the censorship should 
 reject every article presented for approval. In this way the 
 Dielo was worse than suppressed ; it was transformed into an 
 organ of the reaction. 
 
 As I have just observed, one review still survives in pre- 
 carious solitude, the Messenger of Mr. Stassulevitch. People 
 have been in daily expectation of its suppression. But as its 
 
344 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 editor (who has been taken to by several imperial grand dukes), 
 and many of his contributors have "friends at court," Count 
 Tolstoi has so far let it alone. How long he will hold his 
 hand it is hard to say. In the meanwhile, however, he was 
 preparing another stroke against his pet detestation — litera- 
 ture and thought. This time he surpassed himself, and his 
 Index lihrorum prohibitorum — list of books excluded from 
 libraries and reading-rooms — caused throughout Eussia an 
 astonishment mingled with laughter, which left no room for 
 indignation. 
 
CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 A SAMPLE FROM THE BULK. 
 
 IiS" December, 1884, at the Moscow assizes took place the 
 trial of Eykov, once manager of the defunct bank of Sko- 
 pine, who, by the enormity of his depredations, unmatched 
 even in Eussia, has obtained an almost Euroj^ean notoriety. 
 For an entire fortnight the Russian press — albeit the Mos- 
 cow papers had received more than one official caution — 
 were simply full of the case. In society hardly any other 
 subject was discussed. It was the burning question of the 
 hour, and will not soon be forgotten. That malversations 
 are often committed by functionaries charged with the care 
 or administration of public funds is in Russia a matter of 
 common knowledge. The public are so used to scandals of 
 this sort that, as a rule, they attract little or no attention. 
 They are regarded as being in the nature of things. To 
 rouse people from their apathy the thieving must per- 
 sent some striking or dramatic feature, or the sums stolen 
 be of startling amount. These features the Rykov case pre- 
 sented in abundance. The malversations of the ex-manager 
 and his confederates are reckoned at 12,000,000 roubles — 
 probably the biggest robbery of the sort ever perpetrated, 
 even in the empire of the Tzar. This alone would have 
 been enough to excite public attention. But when, after 
 two years of waiting and suspense, the shameful secrets of 
 this band of brigands were revealed in open court, the figures, 
 portentous as they were, paled into insignificance as com- 
 pared with the social and political questions raised by this 
 extraordinary trial. It is from this point of view that the 
 1.=;* 
 
3i!3 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 Eykov case merits the attention of English readers. As a 
 drop of water from a well defiled shows all its impurities, so 
 from this trial may be inferred the unspeakable corruption 
 with which, under the present regime, the official world of 
 Russia is infected from top to bottom. 
 
 The Bank of Skopine was founded in 1863, at a time of 
 considerable industrial activity, and was expected to isrove 
 eminently useful to the trade of the district. It was a com- 
 munal, not a Government institution. On the other hand, 
 the State had very much to do with the bank, for, like all 
 other communal banks, it was placed under the control of 
 the Ministries of the Interior and Finance, and had to ren- 
 der to the latter department a periodical and detailed ac- 
 count of its operations and its position. Rykov was ap- 
 pointed to the managership, although, as everybody knew, 
 he had been guilty, while occupying a previous appointment, 
 of malversation. But the offence was readily overlooked, 
 perhaps for a reason suggested by the Eussian proverb, 
 *' Only he who has not sinned againat God has not robbed 
 the Tzar." True, a few protests were made by the Skopine 
 people. Yet Eykov was sustained by his superiors, and 
 for a short time he seems to have justified their good 
 opinion. But in 1868, as afterwards appeared, there was a 
 deficit of 54,000 roubles. But, being reluctant to publish 
 this unpleasant fact to the world or impart it to the Minis- 
 ter of Finance, he did what, as his advocate ingenuously put 
 it, anybody in his place would have done— drew up a false 
 balance-sheet, and of so satisfactory a character that it at- 
 tracted deposits from all parts of the country. From this 
 date the affairs of the bank went from bad to worse ; but 
 the more desperate became its condition the more brilliant 
 grew its balance-sheets. Though he was doing no legiti- 
 mate banking business whatever, Eykov, by the offer of 7^ 
 per cent, interest on deposits (while other banks were paying 
 five), procured funds in abundance. To show how his ex- 
 
A SAMPLE FROM THE BULK. 347 
 
 ceptional profits were earned, Eykov entered in tlie bank's 
 books divers ingeniously-contrived financial operations. 
 There were fictitious discounts, fictitious loans, fictitious 
 purchases, and fictitious sales. An old man m the pay of 
 the bank, so illiterate that he could hardly write his own 
 name, signed every December a contract for the purchase of 
 several millions' worth of imaginary securities, and this 
 transaction, and the resulting imaginary profit thereon, al- 
 ways figured on the bogus balance-sheet presented to the 
 Minister and published in the Gazette. 
 
 Eykov not alone paid his depositors a high rate of inter- 
 est, he gave away large sums to charitable institutions, 
 supported schools, and subsidized churches, thereby secur- 
 ing the good-will of the clergy and acquiring a high reputa- 
 tion for piety and philanthropy, good works and right views. 
 All these gifts, as well as Rykov's own personal expenditure, 
 which was on a lavish scale, were taken from the bank's 
 coffers and entered as payments to dummy customers. The 
 remainder and greater part of the receipts and deposits were 
 simply stolen, either for the manager's own purposes or to 
 buy the silence of his confederates. Paper was made on an 
 extensive scale, and with little attempt at disguise. Antieff, 
 a man of straw, drew on Safoneff, equally a man of straw, 
 for fifty or a hundred thousand roubles, discounted the 
 bill, and got the money. Then the operation would be 
 reversed, and Safoneff get the money. Purely fictitious 
 bills with imaginary names were discounted, and the porters 
 and messengers of the bank figure in the books as debtors 
 for tens of thousands of roubles taken by their master. 
 *' Everything was done enfamille," said one of the witnesses. 
 
 But to profit by all this profusion it was necessary to 
 belong to the cliqtce, to be either a protector, a kinsman, or 
 an accomplice. Lists of suppliants (sic) were laid regularly 
 before Eykov, who according to his caprice, wrote opposite 
 each name '* granted" or "refused." When a bill fell due 
 
348 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZAES. 
 
 the acceptor was courteously requested to accept another, 
 including the discount, which, it is hardly necessary to say' 
 nobody ever thought of paying in coin. But after a while 
 even these formalities were dispensed with. When the 
 favored few wanted money they simply asked for it— some- 
 times took it without asking. " They took money from the 
 cash box without counting it," said one -witness". ''They 
 came with a pocket-handkerchief, filled it with bank notes, 
 and went home," testified another. 
 
 Such was the method of doing business in the famous 
 bank of Skopine. And the swindle went on, not for a few 
 weeks or months merely, but for something like fifteen long 
 years, an astounding fact even for Russia, and elsewhere un- 
 imaginable. In a small provincial town, where everybody 
 knows everybody else, Eykov's doings and the bank's posi- 
 tion could not possibly be secret— were, in fact, so widely 
 known that when the crash came, the entire province (Ria- 
 san) produced but nineteen unfortunates who had intrusted 
 their savings to Mr. Rykov and his fellow robbers, and 
 among the 6,000 customers of the bank not one dwelt in 
 Skopine. How, then, was it possible for irregularities which 
 ■were known throughout a whole province to escape for fif- 
 teen years the attention of the authorities, local and general ? 
 How, above all, did they escape the attention of the corpo- 
 ration, for the law places communal banks under the imme- 
 diate supervision of mayors and municipalities. It is their 
 duty each month to examine the books, count the cash, and 
 overhaul the securities. How was it, then, that all this 
 time, the municipality failed to remark the gross and pal- 
 pable frauds perpetrated by their manager ? The answer is 
 simple. They were privy to the frauds and participators in 
 the plunder. All robbed the bank. Mayor Ikonnikov rob- 
 bed. Mayor Ovtschinnikov robbed, the Town Clerk robbed, 
 every member of the municipality robbed. The monthly 
 audit was a farce. The books were never looked at, the cash 
 
A SAMPLE FROM THE BULK. 349 
 
 was never counted, the balance-sheet was signed without 
 being examined. 
 
 And the authorities, the administration, the police, usu- 
 ally so vigilant, and, when it is a question of maintaining 
 order or punishing political malcontents, so prompt to act, 
 what were they doing ? How could they be blind to facts 
 known to all the world ? The same explanation applies to 
 them. They were in the ring ; tarred with the same brush 
 as the municipality, and they robbed with the rest. The 
 ispravnik, chief of police, was in Eykov's pay. Aleksandroff, 
 the local justice of the peace, called in derision Rykov's 
 lackey, received from the bank a loan of 100,000 roubles 
 and a stipend of 500 roubles a year. His successor, Likareff, 
 was put on a similar footing. The connivance of the small- 
 er oflBcial fry, such as the postmaster, the pristavs (inferior 
 police), was secured in like fashion, as also the members of 
 the force who acted as the manager's spies. Having thus 
 bought the entire local administration, Rykov became as 
 much the autocrat of Skopine, as the Tzar is of All the 
 Eussias. He could do whatever he liked, and conducted 
 himself with all the insolence of an ignorant parvenu. 
 There dwelt in the town a doctor of the name of Bitni, a 
 man of good repute and highly esteemed for his integrity ; 
 but being so unfortunate as to offend Eykov, he was one day 
 ordered by the police to betake himself to the town of Kas- 
 simvo and there abide. No reason for this arbitrary pro- 
 ceeding was assigned, and it was only when the day of 
 reckoning came that Dr. Bitni learnt that his expulsion was 
 due to Eykov, who had remarked to the ispravnik that the 
 doctor was an " evil-intentioned man." On this hint the 
 chief of police had acted. A young fellow named SokolofE 
 was so ill-advised as to whistle while passing the manager in 
 the public garden of Skopine. Eykov chose to look on this 
 as an insult, and, the ispravnik taking the same view of the 
 matter, the youth was exiled by administrative order. With 
 
350 EUSSIA UKDER THE TZARS. 
 
 Mr. Orloff, an engineer, it fared even worse. He was sent 
 by a company to purchase some coal, the produce of a mine 
 owned by the bank in the province of Eiasan. But finding 
 the article of indifferent quality, he refused, on behalf of his 
 employers, to accept it, and, being presumably an honest 
 man, he was not to be corrupted by the bribes which were 
 no doubt offered to him. Be that as it may, Kykov charged 
 Mr. Orloff with incendiarism, had him arrested, sentenced 
 to a term of imprisonment, from which he was only saved 
 by the intervention of the Imperial Procurator-General from 
 undergoing. " The police of Skopine," said the witness 
 Lanskoy, whose evidence was quoted in the indictment, 
 **jwas ready at any moment to execute Eykov's least de- 
 sire." The (two) brothers, Lanskoy, Sokoloff, and Tiuo- 
 genoff, all employes of the bank, lodged in the house of a 
 Mr. Brigneff, an arrangement which, for some inexplicable 
 reason did not suit Eykov's purpose. So without more ado 
 he ordered the police to remove them, and the order was 
 duly carried into effect. They were one day waited on by 
 the ispravnik, Kobelinzky, and three policemen, and com- 
 pelled to leave their lodgings forthwith. Nor was this all. 
 Eykov counted so confidently on the support of the local 
 representatives of the Government that he lorded it over 
 everybody, openly rated the fire brigade because they did 
 not conduct themselves to his satisfaction at afire, and, vexed 
 by some show of independence on the' part of the chief of 
 police, told him that he had better take care what he was 
 about. " You are nobody very particular," said Eykov, 
 "and I have only to say a word to have sent down on your 
 place a whole wagon-load of t5/?rflv«iX's." Whtn, in order 
 to ruin Mr. Diakonov, who, unfortunately for himself, owed 
 the bank 10,000 roubles, lie had this gentleman's house 
 seized and offered for sale by auction, not a single bidder ap- 
 peared on the scene, so great was the fear inspired by the 
 ail-powerful manager. This was exactly what Eykov de- 
 
A SAMPLE FROM THE BULK. 351 
 
 sired. The house was worth 30,000 roubles ; he made the 
 complaisant police value it at 9,000, and he had the unfortu- 
 nate Mr. Diakonov cast into prison, where he remained for 
 eleven months. In this way an almost illiterate man — for 
 the manager could only just read and write — became abso- 
 lute master of Skopine. " God alone could contend against 
 Eykov," said one of the witnesses. 
 
 But, it may be asked, were there not among this mass of 
 cowardice, servility, and corruption a few just men, with 
 sufficient public spirit to bring the doings of the Nabob of 
 Skopine to the notice of the higher authorities, who could 
 not possibly have yielded to his influence or accepted his 
 bribes ? Yes, certainly, there were several. One of them 
 was the ill-fated Diakonov, and he had his reward. And 
 then there was the ex-mayor, Leonoff, who gave evidence on 
 the trial. While he was in office the affairs of the bank 
 were kept in order, the books properly audited, the cash and 
 securities regularly overhauled. But this did not suit 
 Rykov's purpose ; he bribed the electors and the municipal- 
 ity ; Leonoff was turned out of office and a more complai- 
 sant mayor chosen in his place. Yet, though no longer a 
 magistrate he did not cease his endeavors to protect the 
 bank from the depredations of its managers. So far back as 
 1868 Leonoff and several other citizens addressed a petition 
 to General Boldireff, governor of the province, in which 
 they set forth the condition of the bank, and prayed him to 
 order an inquiry. In 1874 — six years afterwards — came the 
 answer. It was to the effect that, the petition not being drawn 
 up according to the prescribed form, no action could be taken 
 thereupon. In 1878 another like attempt was made, the 
 authority appealed to in this instance being the Minister of 
 the Interior. The answer was as characteristic as before. 
 As the document did not carry the proper stamp (20 
 kopecks, 10c. ), the prayer of the petitioners could not be 
 taken into consideration. On this the petitioners drew up 
 
352 EUSSIA UliTDER THE TZARS. 
 
 another address correctly stamped, and sent tliat to tlie 
 Minister, expecting that this time, at least, something would 
 be done. ''But," said one of them (Maslennikoff), when 
 <r[ym<r his evidence, "we have not received an answer to this 
 
 day." 
 
 This indifference in high quarters is as easily explained 
 as the voluntary blindness of the local administration. 
 Boldireff, the governor of the province, was bribed like the 
 rest. He received from Eykov 79,000 roubles. Yolkov, the 
 vice-governor, did better; he got 100,000 roubles. The 
 Marshal of the Nobility sold himself for a paltry 12,000 
 roubles. When the inquiry was ordered in 1882 this gentle- 
 man found it convenient to be abroad. The Councillor of 
 the Provincial Government, Koumiantzev, the members of 
 the Tribune, Babine and Kirmilitzin, and the Procurator 
 Pottavzki, were proved to have been all in the same boat. 
 
 The trial failed to furnish proofs equally convincing as to 
 the parts played by the bureaucracy of St. Petersburg. 
 Nobody cared to sift this side of the question— neither the 
 President of the Court, the Crown Prosecutor, nor the 
 prisoner's advocate. No functionary in the Ministry of the 
 Interior was either summoned as a witness or required to 
 explain his conduct. But Eykov hinted darkly that certain 
 highly-placed personages deserved much more than he to 
 stand in the prisoners' dock. The hints of a man like Eykov 
 are very far from being trustworthy evidence, but several 
 facts came to light which confirm in a measure the suspicions 
 they suggest. For instance, a mysterious personage named 
 Bernard, a civil general, acted as the manager's diplomatic 
 agent at St. Petersburg, and arranged delicate matters for 
 him in high quarters. As recompense for his services he re- 
 ceived a million roubles— nominally as a loan. In the end 
 they had a quarrel, and Bernard contrived to rid himself of 
 his liability by an expedient as simple as it was significant. 
 Ha applied to his particular friend, General Tcherevin, chief 
 
A SAMPLE FROM THE BULK. 353 
 
 of the gendarmerie, who thereupon requested the manager 
 of the bank at Skopine to return General Bernard his 
 acceptances, amounting to 500,000 roubles. Eykov did as 
 he was asked. It was hardly conceivable, however, that the 
 chief's eloquence could alone have persuaded the manager to 
 so great generosity. What, then, was the consideration that 
 Eykov received, and the service which the other, a great man 
 in the Third Section, rendered ? This mystery the trial left 
 unsolved, but the names of some other personages of high 
 position figured in the proceedings — not greatly to their ad- 
 vantage. The Emperor's Adjutant-General, Grabbe, owed 
 the bank 242,000 roubles ; Prince Obolinski owed it 60,000. 
 and both debts were set down as *'bad." How came it that 
 these gentlemen, neither of whom were connected either with 
 commerce or finance, were able to obtain from the bank these 
 large sums ? When Eykov was pressed on the point, all he 
 had to say was that he had lent them the money *' under the 
 guarantee of their high titles." But the explanation may 
 be hazarded that he found it necessary to spend money at 
 St. Petersburg promiscuously and without stint. In Eussia 
 you cannot move a step without paying. Eykov was well 
 received everywhere, and made much of by great people. 
 On the days of grand solemnity Ministers sent him congratu- 
 latory despatches. " How much did these despatches cost 
 them ? " exclaimed the other day a Eussian paper with seem- 
 ing simplicity. And how much, we may ask, cost him the 
 decorations and titles which were so lavishly conferred upon 
 him ? A striking proof of the tenderness with which, even 
 to the last, the arch rogue and his accomplices were treated 
 by the authorities was mentioned by the Russian Cotirier of 
 December 31, 1882. "Although," it wrote, "the Commis- 
 sion (of Inquiry) is working with zeal, the seizure of the 
 property of Eykov's confederates proceeds very slowly. The 
 accused, to the manifest detriment of the bank's creditors, 
 have every opportunity of concealing and disposing of their 
 
364 EUSSIA UlfDEE THE TZAES. 
 
 assets. Ikonnikov (the mayor), notwithstanding the charges 
 against him and his approaching trial, sends every night 
 loads of merchandise out of the town. The seizure of the 
 property of the other thirteen confederates did not take 
 place until a month after their committal to trial. 
 
 The exposure of the frauds and the punishment of the 
 criminals was due to the efforts of the three or four honest 
 citizens already mentioned, Leonoff, Popoff, and Rausoff, and 
 the courage of a single newspaper. If these men had not been 
 ex-members of the municipality and well-to-do they would 
 have learnt to their cost what it was to denounce a Council- 
 lor of Commerce and chevalier of several orders. Utterly un- 
 able to make any impression on the local administration, or 
 to obtain a hearing from the higher authorities, they did that 
 which in Russia is looked upon as a doubtful and desperate 
 expedient, but which in any other country would have been 
 done at the outset — they appealed to the Press. But even here 
 the irrepressible manager barred the way. For two years the 
 letters they despatched to various papers never reached their 
 destination ; they were stopped at the post office. Accord- 
 ing to the evidence of the witness Simonoff, evidence which 
 was not gainsaid, Peroff, the postmaster, received from Ry- 
 kov 50 roubles per mensem in consideration of which he in- 
 tercepted and handed to his employer every letter addressed 
 to a newspaper which came into the office, and any others 
 that the manager wanted. Atlaroff, the telegraphist, ren- 
 dered in his department analogous services on similar terms. 
 It was only in 1883 that the gentlemen in question succeeded 
 in getting printed in the Russian Courier several letters on 
 the affairs of the bank of Skopine. The journal which did 
 this good service for the community is one of the few liberal 
 organs left, and it has been harried and persecuted by the 
 Government to the verge of extinction. Other papers, either 
 because they were paid to keep silence or hesitated to attack 
 an institution so closely connected with the State, and enjoy- 
 
A SAMPLE FROM THE BULK. 355 
 
 ing the confidence of so many '^snpporters of order," re- 
 fused to publish any letters whatever on the subject. Mr. 
 Katkoff, the celebrated editor of the Moscow Gazette, had 
 the questionable honor of being publicly praised by Rykov as 
 one of his greatest and most esteemed benefactors ! 
 
 The letters in the Courier were the death sentence of the 
 Skopine bank. Creditors rushed from all parts of the coun- 
 try to withdraw their deposits ; but the run ceased almost as 
 soon as it began, for the strong room, instead of containing 
 the twelve million roubles shown on the balance-sheet, was 
 empty, and the bill-cases were filled with bogus paper. The 
 bank fell, and great was the fall thereof. The scandal and 
 the panic it caused spread far and wide, confidence was 
 at an end, and there was a run on nearly every communal 
 bank in Eussia. A few stood the test, but a full dozen came 
 to the ground, and when their affairs were looked into they 
 were found to be pretty much in the same condition as those 
 of the bank of Skopine. 
 
 Among others the bank of Kamychin (province of Sara- 
 toff) had to close its doors, and, when inquisition was made, 
 serious irregularities were discovered ; the mayor of the town 
 and several of its richest merchants were arrested and put on 
 their trial. They had depleted the bank of the whole of its 
 paid-up capital and its reserve, for which there was nothing 
 to show but worthless paper. It was the bank of Skopine 
 over again, but on a less scale. At Krolevez (province of Tcher- 
 nigoff ) the Qniixa jiersonnel of the communal bank were placed 
 under arrest, the charge against them being that, in collusion 
 with several tradesmen of the place, they had committed ex- 
 tensive malversations. The manager and assistant manager 
 of the bank of Roslavl (province of Smolensk), which also 
 broke, were convicted of having embezzled 28,000 roubles of 
 the bank's money. The accounts of this establishment had 
 not been audited for eleven years. At Tamboff the inquisi- 
 tion brought to light quite a multitude of malversations. 
 
356 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 "When the manager -n-anted to oblige a friend and still keep up 
 a show of regularity, he would discount his draft on his wife 
 and provide for the bill at maturity by reversing the opera- 
 tion. Similar discoveries have been made and prosecutions 
 instituted at Voroncz, Kotelnich, Kozloff, and other places, 
 and the i^apers announce that AirlofE, ex-mauagor of the 
 bank of Orel, and all his colleagues in the direction, are 
 charged with misappropriating 4,000,000 roubles of the 
 bank's money. As their defalcations were spread over 
 twelve years, the case is not unlike that of Skopine. 
 
 So much for banks, but it is not bank managers and 
 directors alone who rob their employers and betray their 
 trust. Kobbery is the rule, honesty the exception. Rob- 
 bery goes on in every department of the State. In 1882 a 
 Russian paper, the Sovremenn Tzvestia gave a list of the 
 "great robberies" known to have been committed during 
 the last few years by public functionaries. According to 
 this account there were twenty-five thefts of from 20,000 to 
 60,000 roubles each ; six ranging from 400,000 to 500,000 ; 
 and six ranging from one million to twelve millions — in 
 all, twenty-seven millions. This is exclusive of small affairs 
 of less than 20,000 roubles, which are past counting. 
 *' Russia has in its service but two honest men, you and 
 me," said the Emperor Nicholas to his eldest son, and what- 
 ever progress the country may have made since his time has 
 certainly not extended to the character of its public serv- 
 ants. 
 
 One of the most significant facts brought out by recent 
 revelations is the relatively modest part played by the rep- 
 resentatives of the Central Government. In the matter of 
 the banks, the agents of the local and superior administra- 
 tions acted merely as accomplices and receivers of stolen 
 goods. The active parts and the lion's share wei-e taken by 
 high-placed rogues, who were enabled to rob with impunity 
 by subsidizing the venal army of tchinovniks, always ready 
 
A SAMPLE FROM THE BULK. 35? 
 
 to place at the disposal of the highest bidder the arbitrary 
 powers with which they are intrusted. It may even be said 
 that the inferior agents of authority have been more in fault 
 than the higher representatives of the State. The latter 
 intervene only in exceptional cases ; smaller robberies are 
 left to be dealt with by the local administrations. 
 
 During Eykov's trial he protested warmly and often 
 against what he called the injustice of the public and the 
 Press. " They say that I am a monster ; that I have stolen 
 six millions. It is a gross calumny. I swear before you, 
 gentlemen of the jury, that I stole but one million ; one 
 million only," he protested with indignant gesture and un- 
 conscious humor. This was quite true, as his young advo- 
 cate triumphantly proved. For his personal use Rykov had 
 taken only a million. But he had been enabled to take that 
 million, only by spending five millions more as hush-money. 
 The Government by which Russia has the misfortune to be 
 ruled is for the country pretty much what Rykov was for the 
 bank. In order to obtain money for its own use it must 
 connive at the depredations of its own agents. To maintain 
 its prerogatives the central despotism must tolerate the des- 
 potism of thousands of local autocrats, governors, police- 
 men, and ispravniJcs. To shield itself from criticism, the 
 State must suppress freedom of speech, muzzle the Press, 
 and, for fear lest the latter should expose the abuses of the 
 system, forbid it to expose the malpractices of individuals. 
 
 To show fully what the tchinovniks of the White Tzar 
 are I should have to rake up the scandalous trial of Boush, 
 of the commissariat, tell the story of the Minister MakofE's 
 suicide, make extracts from the bloodstained pages of the 
 '' Revision of Oufa and Siberia." There are things far more 
 serious than the small pedantry of the Minister of the In- 
 terior in refusing to read a petition because it was insuffi- 
 ciently stamped, or the humor of the Minister of Finance in 
 paternally recommending a forger to renounce his danger- 
 
358 BUSSIA UKDER THE TZARS. 
 
 ous practices. But it is not within my present purpose to 
 describe the Russian bureaucracy. I have exposed the case 
 of the Skojjine Bank only to give some idea of another pe- 
 culiarity of the present Government — the facilities which it 
 offers to the dishonest, so turning to account the prevailing 
 system as to rob and ruin the country with impunity. It is 
 easy to see from this episode what are the men who are fill- 
 ing the place left vacant by those whom the Government, 
 by its laws and administrative measures, has excluded from 
 all participation in public affairs on the ground of their sus- 
 pected liberal tendencies. "Whilst the most modest attempt 
 to render the country honest service may endanger a man's 
 liberty, thieves and scoundrels may count on the most am- 
 ple protection. For dishonesty is the surest guarantee of a 
 man's freedom from the taint of disaffection, and that he 
 has approved himself a trustworthy supporter of the exist- 
 ing order. 
 
CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 EUSSIA AND EUROPE. 
 I. 
 
 Now we must stop. Our journey must end. It has been 
 a very hurried one, and we could see only a small part of 
 what is worth seeing. Thus far we have pointed out the 
 2:)rinciple and the spirit of the existing regime ; we have ex- 
 posed the conduct of the Government toward the su^Derior — 
 the instructed — classes, which, however numerically small, 
 accomplish most important functions in the social life. It 
 is over this limited field of governmental action that we must 
 now take a retrospective glance. 
 
 Strange spectacle ! Here are a State and a Grovernment call- 
 ing themselves national and patriotic, which systematically, 
 from year to year, do things that the most barbarous conqueror 
 could do only in some sudden access of wild rage and stupid 
 fanaticism. For, without a shadow of exaggeration, the 
 exploits of our rulers of to-day can be compared with those of 
 the celebrated Kaliph of Egypt alone. Surely in no other 
 country was such a government ever seen. If all we have 
 exposed were not proved, and doubly proved, by heaps of 
 official documents, we might be tempted to disbelieve it. 
 But it is all unhappily only too true ; and, what is still 
 worse, will always be true so long as the autocracy rules in 
 Russia. 
 
 Some optimist may be disposed to say that the policy of 
 the Russian triumvirate is but a tem^iorary aberration, 
 caused by the overweening influence over the Emperor of 
 
360 
 
 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 Potedonorzeff, Katkoff, and Tolstoi. Yes, the policy of the 
 present government is surely an aberration ; but only for 
 its lack of policy, for its cynical frankness. If Potedonor- 
 zeff and Katkoff lose their iulluence and Tolstoi fall, his 
 successor may prove less rash and more cautious. As to the 
 main character of the interior policy, it cannot help but 
 remain the same. The most elementary consideration of 
 self-defence will render it imperative to preserve intact tlio 
 main features of their domestic policy. At the end of the 
 nineteenth century the sole safeguard of the autocracy con- 
 sists in its utter ignorance of the people. It is not enough 
 to confiscate books and suppress liberal papers ; the only 
 way to get rid of propagandism is to suppress readers. If 
 peasants read nothing but the Jfoscoto Gazette, they will 
 find in the columns relating to "foreign affairs," reports of 
 European politics, of parliaments and free meetings, and 
 many other things that will equally "instigate" to 
 disrespect of the existing Government. If they limit 
 their reading to Souvorin's Almanac, they will find in it 
 accounts of the incidence and distribution of taxation which, 
 rightly understood, may prove as inflammatory as a revolu- 
 tionary appeal. At the same time, the Government cannot 
 help shutting out society from all part in the management 
 of public affairs. On whom can the autocracy now rely but 
 on the police and the bureaucracy? And even against the 
 latter it must take precautions, as everybody knows. 
 
 Now being driven by and by to a flagrant contradiction 
 with the culture, and to open war with the whole body of 
 instructed classes, the autocracy is driven to be in contra- 
 diction with the State itself. It is prompting the very 
 State to ruin by both hands. By opposing the instruction 
 in every shape, it quenches the very sources of productivity 
 of all the national labor. By leaving the management of 
 all, or nearly all, the public affairs in the hands of a hired, 
 uncontrollable bureaucracy, which is as unable as it is cor- 
 
RUSSIA AJ^D EUROPE. 361 
 
 rupted, the autocracy add to the original scarcity of resources 
 the damages of their misemplojTnent. The gradual im- 
 poverishment of the State, the growing embroiling of 
 finances, the progressive misery of the masses tilling the 
 soil, are but the natural and unavoidable consequences of 
 such a regime. And it is no more a secret to anybody that 
 it is just what we are witnessing in Eussia. 
 
 n. 
 
 This most anomalous position of as great a country as 
 Eussia cannot last. In one way or another the catastrophe 
 must come — that is what everybody says at present. Some 
 very accurate observer finds many points of likeness between 
 modern Eussia and France before the Eevolution. There is 
 a good deal of analog}^ indeed ; the greatest stands, of 
 course, in the diffusion throughout all the classes of the na- 
 tion of anti- Governmental tendencies, and of those generous 
 and creative ideas which are called "subversions," because 
 they tend to subvert wrong and substitute it by right. The 
 material condition and moral dispositions of the masses are 
 not unlike, either. There is, Iwwever, a point of great dif- 
 ference also, on which we must dwell a moment, because it 
 contributes greatly to quicken and intensify the decomposi- 
 tion of the Eussian State, and to the approaching of the 
 ultimate crisis. It is the political position of Eussia. 
 
 The despotic France of the seventeenth century had 
 around her neighboring States as despotic as herself. Eussia 
 has for neighbors constitutional States. Their constitution 
 is very far from being the ideal of freedom. But in any 
 case it prevents their Governments from being in open war 
 with the whole country. Neither Prussia, nor Austria, nor 
 any other Government in Europe prevent willingly the dif- 
 fusion of education, or the more economical and reasonable 
 management of public affairs, out of fear of giving danger- 
 ous arms to their enemies. All neighboring States are 
 
 16 o o 
 
363 EUSSIA UKDEE THE TZARS. 
 
 growing in strength and riches. All the Governments do 
 their best to promote this general progress, which turns to 
 their advantage. In Eussia this progress is either stopped 
 or extremely slow, from the check it encounters on every 
 hand from the Government. 
 
 Now, being iudissolubly united with the other European 
 States by political ties — being obliged to sustain an econom- 
 ical, military, and political competition with those neighbor 
 States, Russia is evidently obliged to ruin herself more and 
 more. For it cannot without overstraining keep the front 
 with them, notwithstanding the growing difference in the 
 interior development of the respective countries. The 
 longer this competition lasts, the more it becomes dis- 
 astrous and difficult to sustain for the Eussian State. The 
 political crisis is, therefore, much nearer, forcible, and im- 
 mediate than the social one. And the actual position of 
 Eussia in this point presents us a' great analogy with the 
 position of Eussia itself in the period which preceded the 
 reform of Peter the Great. The autocracy plays now just 
 the same part as regards the culture as the Moscovite cleri- 
 calism played in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 
 After being the instrument of the creation of Eussian polit- 
 ical power, it is now the cause of its gradual destruction. 
 If the autocracy do not fall under the combined effects of 
 interior causes, the first serious war will overtlirow it, per- 
 haps by shedding rivers of blood and by dismembering the 
 State. The destruction of the autocracy is become a politi- 
 cal as well as social and intellectual necessity. It is re- 
 quired for the safety of the State as well as for the welfare 
 of the nation. 
 
 m. 
 
 Let us pass to the autocracy of central power itself. It 
 is very edifying, and surely most consoling, to see how cer- 
 tain crimes against humanity generate out of themselves 
 
EUSSIA AND EUROPE. 3G3 
 
 their own punishment. The Bible records the legend of a 
 Babylonian Tzar of old— Nebuchadnezzar —who, in punish- 
 ment for his excessive pride, was transformed by the 
 Almighty into an ox, and for twelve years ate nothing 
 but grass. I do not remember any more in what the pride 
 of the Babylonian Tzar manifested itself to incur such a dire 
 punishment. Surely it was not greater than the pride of 
 his confrere of St. Petersburg, pretending to govern all, to 
 decide for all, arbitrate for all what is doing and to be done 
 in a nation of a hundred million, like the Eussia of to-day 
 is. It was quite just that the punishment inflicted on him 
 may be something very (if not altogether) similar : he is 
 condemned to masticate his life long nothing but paper. 
 In a bureaucratic State, where everything is to be done 
 in writing, and nothing is left to personal freedom and in- 
 itiative, the most trifling particulars ascend from the in- 
 ferior agents of a bureaucratic system up to the topmost — 
 the Tzar. What, for instance, will the reader think of 
 the following, one out of thousands of quite similar " all 
 highest orders," as they are called in ofi&cial language, the 
 Tzar's ukases. It refers to nothing more nor less than to 
 students' blouses. I transcribe it in all its bureaucratical 
 candor : — 
 
 " Having heard the all-humblest report (so the document ran) of 
 the Minister of State Domain, his Majesty the Emperor— 15th October 
 of the current year (1884)— all highly deigned to order, in supplement 
 to the model of dresses all highly approved by his Majesty, the 3d 
 May, 1882, to the students of Moscow Agricultural Academy, is 
 granted the permission during the lessons in the academy, and in prac 
 tical work, to wear blouses ; the winter, of brown-gray woollen stuff, 
 the summer, of light-yellow (unbleached) linen, with a brown leather 
 strap adorned with metallic clasp, on which, interwoven with a crown 
 of spikes, must be drawn the letters P. and A. in Old Slav character," 
 
 Can the time of the supreme ruler of one hundred millions 
 be better employed than with the deep question of the color 
 
364 RUSSIA UXDER THE TZARS. 
 
 and material of students' blouse, their wearing blouses 
 or jackets, the letters on the clasps being of Slav or Gothic 
 character ? This question is not very complicated it is true. 
 If the Tzar have no particular taste for a tailor's trade, he 
 may settle it at once. But this draft of order must be read 
 to him before being signed, must be mentioned at least to 
 him. He must give his yes or no ; must lose a part of his 
 time. And if every minister bring him a hundred of such 
 trifles, how much of his work-time will the Tzar preserve 
 for things that are not trifles ? And it is easy to conceive 
 that every minister can procure as many things of that and 
 even of greater importance as required to fill up his master's 
 leisure, and deprive him of any possibility of giving serious 
 attention to matters of some importance. Thus the Tzar 
 can only act by his ministers' advice. Even such a zealous 
 absolutist as the defunct Moscow Professor Buslaeff, in a 
 letter published in one of our antiquarian magazines, after 
 computing the enormous quantity of this quite useless ukase 
 signing, exclaims that to restore to the White Tzar his lib- 
 erty of action a jiart of this futile, everyday, governmental 
 drudgery must be put on a responsible minister ; although 
 the learned professor does not go so far as to make them res- 
 ponsible before a national representation. If we compare the 
 position of tlie despots of various epochs, we may fairly affirm 
 that the present mode of reducing to impotence the would- 
 be all-powerful master is much more effective than the 
 old one. A despot like the old Russian Tzars with an effort 
 of will may have freed himself with remorse from one or 
 another futility of the court observance. The chief of the 
 modern bureaucratic despots may not, with the same calm- 
 ness of mind, shun the duty of reading a dozen of volumi- 
 nous suits on the decision of which are pending so many des- 
 tinies, or a project of financial reform on which may depend 
 the welfare or misery of a province. 
 And if it happened that, notwithstanding their material 
 
RUSSIA AISTD EUROPE. 3G5 
 
 obstacles, the Tzar being under some particular influence had 
 enforced his own view on some subject, the would-be all- 
 humblest executioners, the ministers,would have no difficulty 
 to put the thing right. They have only to appeal to the 
 marvellous slowness of bureaucratic proceedings, which 
 allow to postijone every measure for as many years — I could 
 say as many generations — as required. Nothing prevents 
 them from effecting at the first opportunity a change in the 
 Tzar's decision if they like. If they do not they may leave 
 the thing to sleep in some office the sleep of the just. The 
 history of our administration is but a long series of similar 
 instances. If Alexander II. could do something in the be- 
 ginning of his reign, it is only because he broke for a short 
 time the bureaucratic routine, and appealed to society. From 
 the moment when, prompted by fear, he threw himself into 
 the arms of bureaucracy, he remained powerless, and went 
 straight to his own ruin. Of all sorts of despots that history 
 knows, the most helpless, most impotent, is surely the bu- 
 reaucratic despots of our time. 
 
 We may go still further. As a rough rock of the moun- 
 tain by long rolling in the bottom of a stream is reduced to 
 a smooth, inoffensive pebble, which may be heavy but no 
 longer cutting, so is the actual autocracy of Eussia. The 
 Tzars of old had for their political insignificance a consola- 
 tion and compensation in their unlimited power of self-in- 
 dulging mischief, if it may be called a consolation. This 
 latter power in our modern Tzars is reduced to quite a pla- 
 tonic kind. There is the all-seeing, all-knowing reporter, 
 with his shrieks and his laughter, his indignation and scan- 
 dal, to limit their despotism in the inner circle where they 
 move. Our forefathers said, to be near the Tzar is to be 
 near to death. But a modern Tzar does not condemn 
 to death anybody by the contraction of his brows as the 
 Moscow Tzar did. And he does not exile to Siberia the 
 courtiers who incur his displeasure, like the first emperor of 
 
366 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 the St. Petersburg period. All is done now by tchinovniks. 
 Personally, a modern Tzar does no harm to anybody at all, 
 and is just as quiet and inoffensive a person as any constitu- 
 tional monarch. He has not given up his power ; he is like 
 a beast with strong teeth and murderous claws still, but he 
 never uses them. He is now quite a tame, domesticated 
 animal, who wears quite obediently the yoke of the courtier. 
 With self-denial worthy of a better cause, he is serving as a 
 screen to their misdeeds, exposing himself to all the just 
 consequences of his assumed all-powerfulness which make 
 his life miserable, his existence an eternal fear, his power a 
 derision, his position a shame. 
 
 The evolution of autocracy is indeed complete. For it 
 could hardly descend lower, it could hardly present a more 
 exhilarating, pleasant, exalting spectacle to its enemies. 
 
 IV. 
 
 But how ? Is it possible that a man without being a fool 
 may act in so strange a mode ? How can he remain in so 
 disagreeable a position, causing the misery of a whole na- 
 tion, who after all did him no wrong whatever ? How 
 could he refuse to redress public wrongs and better his own 
 life by a stroke of the pen, if only he could ? If he do not, 
 it is evident that in reality he cannot. There must be, 
 most likely, some hidden force and hidden party which hold 
 a power over him. Such a doubt is very common, and to 
 answer it there were created in various times different hy- 
 potheses of some extremely powerful court party, to which 
 sometimes the name of old aristocratic, sometimes that of 
 old Slavophile party is given, and so forth. They alone 
 prevent the Tzar from doing that good to his country 
 which personally he would be quite disposed to do. 
 
 It is strange how sometimes extremes meet. Just the 
 same doubt — just in the same shape — rises in the minds of 
 
RUSSIA AND EUROPE. 367 
 
 Russian peasants, and is answered nearly in the same way. 
 Only with the peasants the touch of their imagination gives 
 these hypotheses quite a fantastical dress. Sometimes the 
 legend assumes the character of dramatic performances, 
 where the goc-d principle embodied in the Tzar is overpow- 
 ered by the opposite force embodied now in the Senate 
 (usually confounded with the Synod, a permanent ecclesias- 
 tic council), now in the minister (always in a single person, 
 for the peasant thinks there is only one minister as there is 
 one Tzar). Sometimes these legends give the part of bad 
 genius to some member of the imperial family. During the 
 reign of Alexander II. this not too flattering part was 
 usually conferred to the Tzarevitch (present Tzar); who 
 fills his place now, when he becomes Tzar himself, I do not 
 know. Somebody must be, and may depend on it. Many 
 pages may be filled by recording the naive and childish con- 
 trivances by which the peasants try to save the remainder of 
 their belief in the Tzar against the rude evidence of every- 
 day wrongs inflicted by his orders. 
 
 But only the peasantry indulge in Russia in such reveries. 
 And even they "wiU abandon it as soon as some glimpse of 
 culture reach their minds. Instructed Russia has given it 
 up long ago, knowing perfectly that nothing of the kind 
 exists in Russia. The tales about old Slavophile, old 
 aristocratic party, and such like, have quite the same value 
 as the peasants' legends about the rascality of the Sjmod or 
 the cunning of the Senate. Never in the course of our 
 history was the upper classes able to acquire any political 
 strength of their own. The reader remembers how our soi- 
 disant aristocracy was created, and what it was of old. Such 
 it remained for all time. In the first cffntury after the 
 transfer of the capital to St. Petersburg it seemed to be 
 otherwise. Situated in a far remote, freshly conquered 
 country, St. Petersburg was but a waste military camp. Its 
 lower classes were com2:)osed of foreign Finish tribes ; its 
 
368 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 ui^per classes of military and civil officers, most of whom 
 were of foreign origin. Pretorian insurrection was extremely 
 easy in such a town, and the ambitious foreigner and courtier 
 were able some times to put their foot on the neck of their 
 master. It was due not to the strength of the aristocracy, 
 but the momentary dislocation of the State. These times, 
 however, have passed away long ago. If there should be a 
 Court revolution, it will be that which is directed agaiust 
 the autocracy as a principle, and is calculated on the im- 
 mediate support of the progressive elements of the whole 
 country. A violent change of government without changing 
 principles is an utter impossibility, A coup d'etat, in order 
 to rise a step in court hierarchy, will hardly cross as yet the 
 mind of a modern Field-Marshal Minich. At the Court 
 there is no force whatever which could oppose effectually 
 the will of the Tzar. There is no political body, no aris- 
 tocracy, no statesmen even, in the European sense of the 
 word. We have only courtiers— a type already forgotten in 
 Europe, because only Eussia is the unhappy country where 
 the will of one makes the laws for millions. And what is a 
 courtier ? It is a man in whom training, from generation 
 to generation, has developed to the highest degree and mar- 
 vellous effectiveness one single capacity — that of enforcing 
 his will on the sovereign, while making him believe he is 
 obeyed. All other capacities, all feelings, all inclinations, as 
 things useless and even hurtful, are depressed and gi-adually 
 destroyed in this ignoble representation of the human race 
 called courtiers. Now the thing which is the most dangerous 
 and disagreeable impediment in the courtier's struggles is 
 undoubtedly what is called political convictions— strong 
 political opinions. Such things are not to be sought in the 
 despotic court. A courtier may accept a political banner as 
 he does a dress in the court's parades, when such give better 
 chances to carry him on in the good graces of his master. 
 I will not multiply proofs for things too self-evident. As a 
 
KUSSIA AND EUROPE. 369 
 
 matter of curiosity rather than illustration, let us consider 
 for a moment Mr. Tolstoi. There is no man, of course, 
 whose reactionary convictions seem to be more intransigent, 
 more deeply rooted. And yet this very pillar of reaction, in 
 1859, only a few years before his appearance as minister of 
 white terror and obscurantism, published at Brussels a veiy 
 interesting pamphlet entitled A Voice from Germany.* 
 Treating of the European politic of the epoch, the author 
 exposes his view and political convictions in general. He is 
 all for liberalism, for. constitutional guarantee, for respect 
 to the will of the nation. He pities the Hanover Govern- 
 ment, which has on its side only the officers of the Govern- 
 ment, whilst all the country is against it (p. 7) (just the case 
 in Russia now). Still less satisfied is the Liberal Count 
 with the conduct of the Government of Bavaria, where the 
 king maintained in power, for full nine years, a minister quite 
 odious to the country (pp. 6, 7) (just the case of Mr. Tol- 
 stoi in Russia). He expresses the hope that the rulers of 
 the various German States will not follow the pernicious 
 example of Hanover, and will not crush by police reprisals 
 the lawful aspirations of their subjects" (p. 61). ''Be- 
 cause," he says, " to put obstacles to the progressive reforms, 
 when they become urgent, is as dangerous as to make appeal 
 to insurrection : it is setting fire to the edifice from another 
 corner" (p. 61). He is a strong adversary of clericalism, 
 and stigmatizes the Italian patriots of 1848 for having made 
 *'this monstrous alliance of liberalism with the papism" 
 (p. 12). He is very severe on Napoleon UL, in whom he 
 cannot put confidence, because " he fights for the freedom 
 of foreigners, whilst suppressing the freedom at home " 
 (p. 14). And he is full of noble indignation against des- 
 potic governments, which, ''having little sympathy with the 
 aspiration of their countries, shouted, ' Let us have war ! ' 
 
 * Une Voix (VAllemngne, par le Comte Dmitry Tolstoy, Bruxelles : 
 Muguardt, editeur, 1859. 
 
370 EUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 wanting war in order that people may forget what they are, 
 and let them live at this price" (p. 10) (just what he is 
 urging the Tzar to do now). 
 
 All this is taken from a copy of the brochure in my pos- 
 session. All this the Count Dmitry Tolstoi, this very same 
 present minister, wrote with his own hands in the year 1859. 
 He had hardly the time to return from his journey abroad 
 when his liberalism vanished away. In the year 1859 the 
 influence of Grand Duke Constantine (brother of Alexander 
 II.) was predominant. It was the epoch of constitutional 
 aspirations. From 1863 Prince Gagarin and the anti- 
 abolitionist party take the foremost. Count Dmitry Tol- 
 stoi, at a moment's notice, changes the inmost of his soul's 
 convictions, and becomes the right hand of most sordid 
 reaction. 
 
 With people of this sort a sovereign has no reason to fear 
 opposition. If the Tzar resolved to change his politics, he 
 would have only a sign to make ; half of his court would 
 become, in no time, of the color required, from deep red to 
 the most tender blue, provided by this they could secure for 
 themselves the best jilaces. 
 
 V. 
 
 But, as sure as there is no material obstacle which could 
 prevent the Tzar from changing policy, so sure is the fact 
 that such a change will never be initiated by the will of the 
 Tzar. 
 
 There are moral, intellectual impossibilities no less insur- 
 mountable than the material one. Despots are trained as 
 well as the courtiers, still more carefully than the courtiers. 
 If the despotism exercised by one transform the whole court 
 into a school of servility, on the other hand those hundred 
 courtiers react on their master, whom they surround and 
 educate from their very childhood. One thing generates 
 
RUSSIA AifD EUROPE. 371 
 
 the other. The courtier is the counterpart of the despot ; 
 the despot is the counterpart of the courtier. And both are 
 equally spoiling each other. If the courtiers have an insur- 
 mountable aversion to free institutions because they will 
 render it impossible for them to make best use of the cunning 
 craft they only possess, the despot is as fond of this eternal 
 show of ilunkeyism and obsequiousness, of this possibility 
 to make a man rise and fall by a single word, of all this 
 show of omnipotence, however void it may be. If the con- 
 tinual concentration of thoughts on the sole object to 
 please the caprice of one man, narrow the minds of 
 courtiers, depriving them of the capacity for any compre- 
 hensive view, the artificial life of the court, with nothing 
 but its base desires, produces around the despot a sort of 
 intellectual vacuum which renders him still narrower-minded 
 than his courtiers. 
 
 Having the power to transform into act every thought, 
 every whim of his, he is preserved from all that may suggest 
 him such thoughts or whims. It is a fact that there is not a 
 single man in the hundred and one millions of the Tzar's 
 subjects who is more watched or obsei-ved in his personal 
 intercourse, whose intellectual food is submitted to stricter 
 censorship, or more carefully selected, than that of the 
 Tzar. He reads only extracts of what is thought good for 
 him to know ; he does not meet with anybody whom his 
 courtiers would like him to shun. There are hundreds of 
 ways to obtain this effect without seeming to impose on the 
 sovereign's pleasure. And that is done, and has been done, 
 for years and generations ; and not only with the Tzar him- 
 self, but with every member of his family. 
 
 What is more hopeless than the very depravation of des- 
 potism is the utter, hardly realizable ignorance prevailing 
 in the court on the commonest questions, most element- 
 ary conditions of the country they are raling. We must 
 read the memoir of Senator Tolovieff, and other men con- 
 
372 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 nected with the former reign ; we must hear the professors 
 of universities allo\\-ed to deliver private lectures to small 
 grand dukes, and to speak to them occasionally ; we must 
 give a glance at the leaders of Mr. Katkoff's gazette, which 
 may be said to be destined for the personal edification of the 
 Emperor and his family — to form a feeble idea of this 
 strange, sophisticated, intellectual world, in which our mas- 
 ters live. There is no absurdity about Eussian condition 
 that may not be believed there, and the commonest truisms 
 will seem as strange as if they have told of Satan. It will 
 not be at all surprising if the Tzar believe that Mr. Tolstoi's 
 policy as to public instruction is the very embodiment 
 of progress. Did not Mr. Katkoff say it in his leaders, 
 affirming, for instance, that in this jioint Russia is far more 
 advanced than England ? When Count Tolstoi fell into tem- 
 porary disgi-ace and was removed from the post of Minister 
 of Public Instruction there was jo}" in all Russia, as if the 
 country had been freed from a public calamity. Eye-wit- 
 nesses say that fathers joined in thanksgiving for the blessing 
 of being, on behalf of their children, liberated from the fear 
 of having their careers ruined and their hopes destroyed. It 
 will be not at all surprising, however, if the present Emperor 
 thinks that he has done the greatest satisfaction to the coun- 
 try by recalling Count Tolstoi to power, and fears that if he 
 dismiss him all Russia would be inundated with tears. No 
 absurdity, however gross, will be surprising, and we have 
 many evidences of blunders no less enormous. We must 
 transport ourselves many centuries back, and substitute the 
 effect of time for tlie effect of social distance to realize some- 
 thing of the intellectual bewilderment of our rulers and 
 masters. A scholar of Averroes' times resuscitated would 
 have presented in our times no much greater confusion in his 
 ideas on the science thcWi our rulers on the interior politics. 
 And what must be said about the voluntary misrepresenta- 
 tions, about phantom and imaginary dangers, invented by the 
 
RUSSIA AND EUROPE. 3<<. 
 
 courtiers in order to impress, to puzzle, and frighten their 
 master, who being on such a superior height is so easily 
 alarmed ? The Senator Tolovieii's memoir shows evidence 
 that Tzar Alexander II. was seriously afraid of such an 
 ab3urdity as a murderous attempt on the part of anti- 
 abolitionists ! I was told by a competent person that for 
 S0D18 time Count Loris Melikoff was held up to the present 
 Emperor as a threatening bogie of a Court revolutionist I 
 It will be not at all surprising if he is replaced now by 
 some military general, of M. Komaroff's or Skobeleli's type. 
 Only a man with exceptional firmness of character, with 
 extraordinary courage and, first of all, with quite superior 
 intellectual capacity, may have contrived to break these in- 
 visible intellectual and moral ties and catch now and then 
 a glimpse of trutli. A man who is not favored by nature, 
 a man who, although born in the purple, is rather of unsatis- 
 factory intellectual power, such a man must be inevitably 
 overcome by the incessant efforts of a crowd of eager, un- 
 scrupulous people, who with all their incapacity to real 
 business had made a whole science of the art of leading 
 their master by the nose, of playing on him as on a fiddle, and 
 of putting everything to their profit, his caprices and his as- 
 pirations, his good and his bad humor, his foibles and stub- 
 bornness, his vices and his virtues, if he has any.* No, the 
 
 * The reader will allow me to give a little amusing anecdote of very 
 little significance but quite authentic and characteristic, how the most 
 simple contrivance serves to make a fool of the Tzar. It happened 
 in the first years of Alexander III.'s reign, to a Samara nobleman of 
 
 the name of K . He -wanted a Governmental allowance of 200,000 
 
 roubles to start his leather manufactory. Many big Russian manu- 
 facturers had got considerable sums of State money "as an encourage- 
 ment of national industry." All was arranged well. Everybody who 
 
 had to be bribed was bribed. Mr. K was quite sure of success, 
 
 so far that, returning to Samara, he did not choose to wait the few 
 weeks that remained before the Emperor's definitive confirmation, and 
 borrowed from a Tartar merchant the sum nromised him, and sot to 
 
674 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 crowned heads of our time can no longer take any effective 
 part in the management of State affairs. They are organi- 
 cally incapable of doing it. They cannot govern, let them 
 reign then, as long as peojjle cannot do without them. If they 
 attempt to do more they can but receive the punishment due 
 to themselves, which is a curse for the nation: they become 
 
 work at once. Great was his disappointment and despair when he received 
 a telegram stating bluntly that the Emperor did not comfirm the 
 allowance. He rushes to St, Petersburg to his protectors. How ? What 
 is it ? Nobody knew. All was done right, as promised. But the 
 Emperor refused. A whim took him. " It is quite incomprehensible. 
 
 We cannot help it. " Mr. K deemed himself a ruined man. But 
 
 one fine morning, when he left the Minister of the Interior be was 
 followed by Uolonatchalink, head clerk of one of the numerous offices. 
 The man asked him plainly if he consented to give him the sum of 
 
 10,000 roubles if the thing was put right. Mr. K exclaimed he 
 
 would be happy to give even 20,000. The clerk refused to give any ex- 
 planation and they parted. The next month Mr. K received a 
 
 telegram stating: the allowance is granted by the Emperor. Full of 
 exultation, he rushed once more to St. Petersburg, received his 200,000, 
 found the clerk his benefactor and presented him the 20,000 roubles 
 promised. Touched by such an act of honesty and faithfulness to a 
 promise escaped in a momentary excitement, the clerk said that he 
 
 wanted to tranquillize the conscience of Mr. K by explaining to him 
 
 that in obtaining for him the allowance no underhand means were em- 
 ployed, and all was done with complete honesty and fairness. He then 
 told him the small device which was used to make the Emperor change 
 his mind. "We have," he said, "always a great number of things to 
 present for the Emperor's examination. And we know beforehand what 
 he will he pleased to read and what will be unpleasant. Now all depends 
 on the order in wliich a petition such as yours is placed. If before it wo 
 put four or five things which will be unpleasant to the Emperor, arriving 
 at your petition he will be in bad humor and will refuse it. If, on the 
 contrary, M'e put before it one after another five things that will be agree- 
 able to liim to read, on reaching your petition he will be put in good 
 humor and will grant it at once." 
 
 Nothing more simple indeed. The fact is perfectly authentic, and 
 would be difficult to invent. 
 
RUSSIA AND EUROPE. 375 
 
 marionettes, whose wires are pulled by unseen courtiers, as un- 
 scrupulous as they are irresponsible. To put hope in a Tziar's 
 sudden change of mind is to put hope in the courtiers' 
 turning suddenly honest, and willing to sacrifice their am- 
 bitions and interests to the weal of the country. 
 
 No ; it is sheer madness to hope that the political re- 
 organization of Russia will be due to the initiative of the 
 Tzar himself. If some optimistical hope of this kind were 
 pardonable in the beginning of the former reign, now, after 
 thirty years of experience, we may doubt the very sincerity 
 of such a tardy hopefulness. It is far more likely to be a 
 mere device to conceal pusillanimity of heart ; and there is 
 before us the necessity of appealing to other things than the 
 licking of despots' hands. The autocracy will be destroyed 
 there may be no doubt of it, but it will be done by some 
 force. No country had ever to sustain so hard a struggle 
 for its political liberty as Eussia of to-day. I do not speak 
 of the unhappy social conditions and the enormous concen- 
 tration of power in the hands of the Central Government. 
 The worst is, that in other countries the struggle for liberty 
 was over some time ago, when civilization had not yet 
 put at the disposition of Government those material advan- 
 tages of perfected weapons and surprisingly quick com- 
 munications — advantages which are all in favor of the 
 Government and which would have rendered utterly impos- 
 sible or fruitless many a brilliant insurrection, many a 
 sj)lendid campaign of the heroes of liberty. 
 
 But there is no obstacle which cannot be overcome by 
 energy, spirit of sacrifice, and courage. The Eussian des- 
 potism must and will be destroyed ; for it is not permitted 
 to the stupid obstinacy of one, nor to the infamous egoism 
 of a few, to arrest the progress and light of a nation of a 
 hundred million souls. We can only wish that the mode of 
 execution of the unavoidable may be the least disastrous, least 
 sanguinary, and most humane. And there is a force which 
 
376 KUSSIA UNDER TUE TZARS, 
 
 can strongly contribute to this — it is the public opinion of 
 European countries. 
 
 It is strange, but quite true ; Eassian governmental circles 
 are much more impressed by what is said about them in 
 Europe, than by the wailing of all Eussia from the White 
 Sea down to the Euxine. There are many instances of this. 
 All Eussia heard of the horrors of our political prisons and 
 shuddered. Year after year passed, yet the Government never 
 thought of taking any steps to ameliorate them, nor gave 
 a sign of having it in mind to do it. But some French 
 papers began the agitation in favor of the unfortunate Jessy 
 Helfman, saying that the Government, after having com- 
 muted her sentence of death, killed her by slow torture in 
 the fortress ; and the Government of the Tzar takes an un- 
 heard-of measure : it allows foreign reporters to visit the 
 prisoner in her provisory cell to show that she is alive, and 
 justify itself from the accusations. Thousands of com- 
 plaints and remonstrances of the most respectable bodies of 
 citizens are not honored by an answer, and do not produce 
 on the wooden ears of the governing class more effect than 
 the humming of an importunate gaat. But some leaders 
 appear in the Times, and a correspondent telegraphs to this 
 paper (Dec. 24, 1884), " An extremely sore feeling has lately 
 shown itself here in the highest circles, in which the English 
 Press is accused of having lately taken to basing its opinion 
 about Eussia upon the prejudiced writings of disguised and 
 long-expatriated Nihilists. " 
 
 And to give vent to the soreness of the higher circle's 
 feelings, their writers spread some absurd libels about 
 Nihilists. 
 
 Such instances are easy to be multiplied. What is the 
 cause of this surprising and rather incomprehensible sen- 
 sitiveness ? It may be urged that European public opinion 
 has a great influence on the very material condition of 
 the Eussian Government, which depends so much on foreign 
 
RUSSIA AND EUROPE. 377 
 
 money markets. Yes, it is quite true ; but it is not enough. 
 The conduct of the Government in its interior policy is far 
 more ruinous than any loss that may ever be inflicted on 
 Eussia from this part. It does not frighten it, however. 
 
 The sensitiveness of our camarille to the sense of blame 
 from the European press must have some moral cause. 
 There must be something of the very nature of the slave in 
 the cruel master of to-day. His cruelty is prompted 
 by cowardice. Being merciless toward the feeble, he is 
 mean and timorous before the strong he is bound to rec- 
 ognize. 
 
 However it may be, the fact is a fact : the Russian gov- 
 ernmental caste is extremely zealous to conceal from the 
 public opinion of Europe their misdeeds, and very sensitive 
 to what is said about them abroad. 
 
 ]^ut if the influence of European public opinion was 
 limited only to the vexing of the governing caste, it would 
 have been of little value indeed to have appealed to it. Its 
 influence may be exercised in a much more effective way. 
 
 It is a mistake, even nonsense, I dare say, to affirm that 
 the Russian Government is supported by the mere physical 
 force of its soldiers or the ignorance of its peasants. If all 
 those who are against the existing r'^gime in their heart had 
 resolved to show it openly, the autocracy could not stand 
 a single day. However small in numbers, the instructed 
 classes are the moving spirits and the nervous centres of 
 every social body. These classes are in immense majority 
 against the existing regime. There is a great deal of differ- 
 ence in the parties that divide it. But, besides those who 
 do not care about anything at all, and a lot of scoundrels who 
 profit out of the existing anarchy in the administration to 
 fill their own pockets, all these classes are against the existing 
 regime. And the reader who remembers what we have just 
 exposed will surely find they have sufficient reason to be so. 
 If these classes had resolved to act boldly and energetically. 
 
378 RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 without being afraid of the temporary repression the Gov- 
 ernment may inflict on them, the autocracy, decrepit and 
 timorous as it is, odious to a great part of its own function- 
 aries, could not stand against their common effort. If the 
 Press — when Eussia had still a Press — would have profited 
 by the many moments of governmental panic after the Ter- 
 rorists' successful attempt, had had the courage to ask 
 energetically as one man for freedom and reform, the Gov- 
 ernment would have hesitated perhaps before suspending 
 it. If now all the Zemstvos made a general demand 
 for a free constitution, the Government could not disperse 
 them all. Such an act would produce a more disastrous 
 and permanent effect on tlie Government's funds and 
 finances than a permanent war. 
 
 It is on these elements of Russian society that the public 
 opinion of free countries has — as every Russian will tell — a 
 most decisive and beneficial influence. Every energetic 
 manifestation of sympathy for our liberative movement 
 from the part of the people of the leading countries is an 
 event for Russia, and has no less a moral effect on our people 
 than a manifestation of opposition in Russia itself. That is 
 the mode in which European countries can contribute to 
 strengthening the liberal movement of our country. 
 
 And no moment is more opportune for this kind of moral 
 intervention than the present one. For the Russian libera- 
 tive and revolutionary movement is passing now through 
 an important phase of its development. Having begun by 
 terrorism, it is entering in the period which may be 
 called insurrectional. The attempts against the functionary 
 and the Emperor arc no longer its means of struggle. Hav- 
 ing acquired great adherence in the army, and among the 
 working classes of the capital and other principal towns, it 
 has enlarged its aim and its prospects. It has written on its 
 banner open, though unexpected attack, against the autocracy 
 itself. Insurrections of the kind of that of the Decembrists of 
 
KUSSIA AND EUROPE. 379 
 
 1825, only more exclusively militaiy, are now tlie cliief ob- 
 ject of Eussian revolutionists. This is not an easy task, 
 nor to be prepared from one fortnight to another, as is an 
 attempt against the person of an Emperor. It is a long and 
 hard work, and many a noble victim may fall ; many un- 
 successful attempts may precede the definitive victory of 
 Eussian liberty. The quickness of their success depends 
 entirely on the degree of preparation of the bulk of Eussian 
 society, of the grade of its energy in the moment of the 
 starting of such bold attempts. 
 
 Whether the initiative of the attack on the autocracy will 
 belong to the revolutionists, or the more moderate part of 
 Eussian society will outstrip them by pacific but energetic 
 demonstrations, which we revolutionists will be the first 
 to applaud — in both cases the public opinion of European 
 countries is of great, inestimable value. And that is the 
 reason why we appeal to it. 
 
 Addressing ourselves now to the English people, we have 
 not the slightest doubt that such an appeal will find echo 
 in many thousands of English hearts. There was never a 
 striving of any country for its liberty which found not the 
 warmest support in England : from those of the small tribes 
 of Candiots, to those of Hungarian, Polish, and Italian 
 patriots. Our cause appeals no less to every generous being. 
 Our sufferings are something unheard-of in the bloody 
 annals of despotism. It is not a political party, I repeat, it 
 is a whole nation of a hundred millions that is stifled, a 
 nation, which by the intelligence, aptness to instruction, 
 and kind-heartedness of its masses ; by the good and un- 
 selfish disposition of its upper classes and generous ardor 
 of the young generations, presents the best guarantees of a 
 lasting progress and happy future. 
 
 Humanity is the chief, the main claim of our cause for 
 sympathy and support. But it is not the sole one. 
 
 It was a question of pure humanity when the Bulgarian 
 
380 BUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. 
 
 horrors were spoken of. It was a question of humanity 
 when Mr. Gladstone interrupted diplomatic communica- 
 tion with the King of Naples, nicknamed Re Bomba, for 
 the atrocity committed against the Carbonari. With 
 Eussia it is no longer a question of humanity only, but of 
 general safety and common interest. However badly ad- 
 ministered, however ruined, it is too enormous a body not 
 to endanger by its presence other political bodies which sur- 
 round. It has an army of a million soldiers, who although 
 dying from hunger and half clad, by its courage on the 
 field, is not inferior to any other in the world. Such an 
 enormous force left to the uncontrolled caprice of a despot 
 or a courtier is surely a great inconvenience for human in- 
 tercourse. To have such a State for a neighbor is nearly as 
 unpleasant as to sit by an unfettered madman at an evening 
 party. Nobody can answer for what he will do the very 
 next moment. Now, when I am writing, an absurd, useless, 
 bloody Afghan war is perhaps at hand. No Russian parlia- 
 ment would have answered the proposition otherwise than 
 with laughter. It is a well-known device of despots to 
 get rid of a burning internal question. If it pass over now 
 who may answer for to-morrow, when the need of such a 
 diversion may be more stringent, or the ambition of some 
 bloodthirsty soldier more prevailing ? 
 
 Only the destruction of Russian autocracy will keep 
 Eussia in certainty of peace, and yet rid Europe from the 
 external danger. That is a consideration on which it is 
 superfluous to insist. 
 
 I allow myself to point out another consideration which 
 has not so great an interest for Englishmen, but which they 
 will allow me to mention in a few words : 
 
 In 1547 the Tzar, John IV., sent to Germania, a Sax- 
 onian of the name Shlitte, ordering him to obtain for the 
 Moscow service artisans and scholars of every kind. Shlitte 
 did as bidden, and after some time he had more than a 
 
RUSSIA AND EUROPE. 3S1 
 
 hundred people with whom he proposed to return to Mos- 
 coria. But the magister of the Livonian order, which then 
 occupied the Baltic province, remonstrated with the Emperor, 
 Charles V., of the danger that might come to Livonia and 
 neighboring German states if the Moscovite Empire passed 
 from barbarity to culture. The German Emperor listened 
 to the remonstrance, and the Livonian magister was allowed 
 to stop Shlitte's hundred men at Lubeck, and never to allow 
 a single scholar or artisan to cross the Moscow frontier. 
 
 What in the sixteenth century the Livonian did, the Ger- 
 man Chancellor is doing now. Eussia would be too strong 
 for him, once free. And the Iron Prince is doing his best to 
 prevent the freedom to cross the Russian frontier. He does 
 not want to appeal to any foreign power ; to prevent such 
 an annoyance, he has found the best ally in Count Tolstoi 
 and his consorts. These work for their own as well as for his 
 interest. What the triumvirs would fail perhaps to main- 
 tain by their own exertion, they do with the great personal 
 influence and authority of the German Chancellor over the 
 Tzar. The service is mutual. Tolstoi and company are 
 masters of the State's cash-box. Bismarck is the master in 
 Europe. Eussia of to-day is nothing more than a Caliban, 
 a savage and deformed slave, whom the Prussian Prospero 
 with the three hairs on his head may use for every base work 
 he likes. And with such a slave on his chain, what may 
 this Prospero not venture ? As long as Eussia remains 
 what it is he will be the dictator and arbiter of Europe, and 
 so long Prussian militarism, which is the scourge of all 
 civilized Europe, will remain unchecked. 
 
 All who are for progress, for peace and humanity, may 
 unite in a moral crusade against Eussian despotism. 
 
The Twelfth Thousand now ready, 
 
 THE RUSSIANS 
 
 AT THE 
 
 GATES OF HERAT. 
 
 By CHARLES MARVIN, 
 
 Principal authority of the English press on the Central Asia Dispute. 
 
 Paper, 50 Cents. - - Cloth, $1.00. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED WITH PORTRAITS AND MAPS. 
 
 " A perfect mine of information." — N. Y. Times. 
 
 " The most important contribution to a complete understandirg of 
 the present quarrel between England and Russia." — N. Y. Tribune. 
 
 " Precisely meets the public want. The sale ought to reach 100,000 
 at least. " — N. Y. Journal of Commerce. 
 
 "It is an admirable summary ; as an introduction and key to the 
 daily despatches it is invaluable. " — N. Y. Evening Post. 
 
 " Mr. Marvin is the best informed man in England on the subject. 
 , . . We commend his book." — Washington Army and Navy Register. 
 
 " The book abounds in vivid descriptions and is invaluable at this 
 time. " — Philadelphia Bulletift. 
 
 " Well written, highly impartial, and the best summary of the ques- 
 tions now in issue. It is heartily recommended to everybody who cares 
 to understand the Herat trouble. " — Boston Beacon. 
 
 " Absolutely necessary to an intelligent comprehension of the im- 
 pending struggle, no work has been put forth containing so much 
 accurate and trustworthy information as this." — N'ewark Advertiser. 
 
 For sale by all booksellers, or sent, post-paid, by the publishers. 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, 
 y4j and 7^5 Broadway, New York. 
 
An In7ier History of Russian Nihilism, 
 
 UNDERGROUND RUSSIA 
 
 Revolutionary Profiles and Sketches from Life. 
 
 By Stepniak, formerly Editor of Zemlia i Voila 
 
 (Land and Liberty). With a Preface by 
 
 Peter Lavroff. 
 
 1 Volume, I'Zmo, - - $1.25. 
 
 The very great importance of this remarkable book has now come to 
 be generally recognized. Throughout all Western Europe it has created 
 a most profound impression, and in Russia it marks an epoch in the 
 history of Nihilism. How serious and significant is its inP.uence, may 
 be gathered from an extract taken from a long letter devoted to an 
 account of the book, written by the St. Petersburg correspondent of the 
 New York Sun : 
 
 "At this moment the Russian educated classes have forgotten all about their newly 
 crowned autocrat and his manifesto. Their attention is so much concentrated on 
 underground Russia for the time being, it seems as though there were no over- 
 ground Russia. This has been brought about by a wonderful book, UNDER- 
 GROUND RUSSIA, by a well-known Nihilist journalist, Stepniak (son of the 
 Steppes). The hook first appeared in Italian, and on that account the Czar's 
 ministers were greatly incensed against the Italian government. We hear that 
 an English edition of the work has appeared in London and New York, and that 
 the book is about to be put into French and German. The number of Russians 
 who know Italian or English is limited, so the Italian book of the Russian author 
 has been translated into Russian. Thousands of manuscript copies of UNDER- 
 GROUND RUSSIA are now circulated here from hand to hand, far and wide, 
 and by its attempts to seize the book the government has made the forbidden 
 fruit all the sweeter. In short, UNDERGROUND RUSSIA is the all-absorbing 
 topic of the day." 
 
 For sale by all book-sellers, or sent, post-paid, by the publishers, 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, 
 
 y^j & j^^ Broadway, New- York, 
 
Sterling Biographies. 
 
 Peter tlic Great, Emperor of Siussia. A study of His- 
 torical Biography. By Eugene Schuyler, Th.D., LL.D. 2 vols., 
 8vo. Wiih more than 200 Superb Illustrations. $10 00. 
 I'A work which reflects upon the author very great credit as a painstaking and con- 
 scientious student, one who has toiled for the benefit of English readers in dark places 
 to them i:iacces>ible, and has supplied information which they may fairly consider 
 trujtwor;hy, even if they are, to a certain extent, prejudiced against some of the 
 sources from which it is derived." — London Athenaum. 
 
 Liife of liOrd Lavrrence. By R. Bosworth Smith, M.A., 
 Late Fellow of Trinity College, Assistant Master at Harrow School. 
 With Maps and Portraits. 2 vols., 8vo, $5.00. 
 "We know of no work on India to which the reader can refer with so great certainty 
 
 for full and dispassionate information relative to the povernment of the country, the 
 
 characteristics of its people, and the faithful events of the forty eventful years of 
 
 Lord Lawrence's Indian career."— //a r/^rV Magazitte. 
 
 Memoirs of Prince Ifletternicli. Edited by Prince Richard 
 Metternich, with portrait and fac-similes. 8vo. Vols. I and II 
 (1773-1815), $5.00. Vols. Ill and IV (1815-1829), $5.00. Vol. V 
 (1830-1835), $2.50. 
 
 Tlie Correspondence and Diaries of Jolin "Wilson 
 CroKer, Secretary to the Admiralty from 1809-1830, etc., etc. 
 Edited by Louis J. Jennings. With portrait. 2 vols., 8vo, f 5.00. 
 
 ''Since the Grenville Memoirs saw the light no documents have been published so 
 rich in the material for the political history of England during the first half of the 
 century."— A^. V. Sun. 
 
 "Altogether these volumes must be regarded as among the most valuable and 
 readable contributions which have yet been made towards an elucidation of the 
 political history of thij country during the first fifty years of the present century." — 
 Saturday Revie-w, 
 
 Our Cliancellor: Sketches for a Historical Picture. By MoRlTZ 
 BuscH. I vol., crown 8vo, $2.50. 
 
 hi uniform style. 
 
 Bismarck in the Franco-German "War, 1870-71. i 
 
 Yol., crown 8vo., $2.50. 
 
 Fifty Years' Observation of Men and Events, Civil 
 and Militarj'. By E. D. Keyes, Brevet Brig.-Gen. U.S.A., 
 and late Major-Gen. U.S.V. i vol., i2mo, $1.50. 
 "Among the very best of the memories of America's public men." — Philadelphia 
 
 Bulletin. 
 
 Caesar. A Sketch. By James Anthony Froude, M.A. i vol., 
 i2mo, gilt top, $1.50. 
 
 For sale by all book-sellers, or sent, post-paid, by the publishers, 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, 
 
 ^43 <2f 7^5 Broadway, New- York, 
 
Army Life in Russia. 
 
 By F. V. GREENE, 
 
 Lieutenant of Engineers, United States Army, 
 
 I^te Milittiry Attachi to the U. S. Legation in St. Petersburg., and author oj 
 " The /Russian Army and its Catnpaigiis in Turkey in 1877-78." 
 
 One Volume, 12mo, .... $1.60. 
 
 Lieutenant Greene's opportunities for general as well as technical 
 observation while with the Russian army in Turkey were such as have 
 perhaps never fallen to any other student of the war. The story of this 
 personal experience is embodied in this volume, which contains most 
 vigorous and vivid descriptions of battle scenes, in the chapters on the 
 Shipka Pass, Plevna, and in the very strong and excellent chapter on the 
 winter campaign across the Balkans with Gourko. The chapters on the 
 Tsar and the Russian generals, and the sections devoted to the Russian 
 soldier, to St Petersburg, and the army life of the Russian at home, are of 
 absorbing interest. 
 
 "His sketches are excellently well done, graphic, evidently not exaggerated, and 
 very readable. It is a book that will be read with pleasure, and one that contains a 
 great deal of information." — Hart/ord Courant. 
 
 "This volume is in every way an admirable picture of army life in Russia. It is 
 clear, concise, discriminating, and often very picturesque. The author, besides pos- 
 sessing an excellent style, is extremely modest, and there are very few books of travel 
 in which the first person is kept so absolutely in the background." — International 
 Revieiu. 
 
 " Lieutenant Greene writes in a soldierly way, unaffected, straightforward, and 
 graphic, and, though he has a keen eye for the picturesque, never sacrifices to rhetoric 
 the absolute truthfulness so eminently to be desired in a narrative of this sort. — Neiu 
 York World. 
 
 " He was with the Russian army throughout t>;e campaign, enjoying perfect free- 
 dom of movement, having every opportunity to visit the pomts of greatest activity, and 
 to see the operations of greatest mom'-nt, in company with the officers who conducted 
 them. His book is, therefore, for all the purposes of ordinary readers, a complete and 
 satisfactory history of the war, founded upon intimate personal knowledge of its events, 
 and of its spirit. It is a work of the rarest interest and of unusual merit." — New York 
 Evening Post. 
 
 "It is most fortunate for the reputation of our country and our army that we had 
 such an officer to send to the far-away land of Turkey in Europe, and most creditable to 
 our War Department that it sent such a man. His book deseves to be universally read, 
 and we are sure that no person whom these lines may lead to purchase it will fail to 
 rejoice that they have been written." — The Nation. 
 
 *#* For sale by all booksellers, or sent, post-paid, upon receipt oj 
 frice, by 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers, 
 
 743 AND 745 Broadway, New York. 
 
Turkish life in War Time. 
 
 By HENRY O. DWIGHT. 
 
 One Volume, 12mo, $1.60. 
 
 Mr. Dwight's familiarity with the languages and manners of the capital, 
 and his numerous sources of information from almost all parts of Turkey, 
 have enabled him to give a most faithful account of the transactions of the 
 war as seen from a Turkish point of view, and also incidentally to put his 
 reader in possession of much information respecting the motley races under 
 
 Turkish rule. 
 
 ♦ 
 
 "The work can be especially commended as a graphic, and clear, and never-wearying 
 story." — N. Y. Comntercial Advertiser. 
 
 "The book fills a place in the literature relating to its subject which, so far as we can 
 judge, would be empty without it." — Boston Congregationalist. 
 
 "It is even more charming than a good book of travel ; for the author pictures scenes 
 with which he is familiar, and knows the full value of every incident he records." — Cin- 
 tinttati Christian Standard. 
 
 " It abounds in stirring incident of most exciting times, graphic descriptions of 
 thrilling scenes, and information of importance to statesmen and of great interest to the 
 general reader." — A^. V. Observer. 
 
 "A better idea of the Turkish character may be gained through the many anecdotes 
 and descriptions of scenes given by the writer, than by the study of any previous history 
 with which we are acquainted." — Baptist Weekly. 
 
 " No book yet published covers precisely the same ground, or handles the subject in 
 precisely the same way. We find ourselves, in its pertisal, lending very much the sort 
 of attention to it that we should to the narrative of a friend who had passed through ihe 
 scenes which Mr. Dwight's letters portray." — Syracuse Herald. 
 
 "This book is the most vivid and faithful sketch of Turkish character thnt we have 
 ever seen. . . . It is mainly a series of interesting notes and sketches, givin;j those 
 little details of life and thought from day to day, in a time of great excitement, which 
 are so essential in order to gain an accurate knowledge of any peopk-." — The Nation. 
 
 " The book has more than a transient value. It is a contribution to history. The 
 author has not only descriptive talent, but a gift for discerning the meaning of the political 
 and military manoeuvres, which encompassed Constantinople. While sufficiently mter- 
 esting to the general reader, the book is full of information for the student of manners 
 and of pol tical affairs." — N. Y. Christian Advocate. 
 
 "It is to us admirable in every sense. It is judicious, discrimirrating, comprehen- 
 sive, impartial, free from animosity in its thorough and candid criticisms ; eminently 
 clear, vigorous, and animated in expression ; tells us just what we wish to know, and 
 wastes no time in doing it The b'>ok is one to which the reader can sur- 
 render himself and simply enjoy." — A''. Y. Christian Intelligencer. 
 
 "'Turkish Life in War Time,' does not pretend to be a history of the Russian wa.T, 
 but it is a more valuable work than any so-called history we have seen. It is a record, 
 the almost daily record, of a very keen observer, who set down the events that he saw, 
 and who, from acquaintance with the Orient, understood the be.aring of those events. I<: 
 has all the interest of a personal narrative, and all the weight that we accord to an honest 
 and well-informed observer. It is to such records of eye-witnesses as these that futura 
 bistorians must resort." — Hartford Courant. 
 
 *^(.* For sale by all booksellers, or sent., post-paid., upon receipt of 
 frtce, by 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers, 
 
 743 AND 745 Broadway, New Yort 
 
tfow in process of publication, uniform wUh Epochs op Modkrn History, rmch 
 volume lit i2>no size, and complete in itself. 
 
 %or^x of 'Kmn\ j^isforg. 
 
 A series of Books narrating the HISTORY OF GREECE AND ROME, and of their 
 
 relations toother Countries at Successive Epochs. Edited by the Rev. G- W. 
 
 COX, M. A., Author of the " Aryan Mythology," " A History of 
 
 Greece,'^ etc., and jointly by CHARLES SANKEY, 
 
 M. A., late Scholar of Queen's College, Oxford. 
 
 Volumes already issued in the " Epochs of Ancient History." Each one volum* 
 
 12mo, cloth, $1.00. 
 
 The GREEKS and the PERSIANS. By the Rev. G. W. Cox, M. A., late Scholar of 
 Trinity College, Oxford : Joint Editor of the Series. With four colored Maps. 
 
 The EARLY ROMAN EMPIRE. From the Assassination of Julius Caesar to the 
 Assassination of Domitian. By the Rev. W. Wolfe C.^pes, M. A., Reader of An- 
 cient History in the University of Oxford. With two colored maps. 
 
 The ATHENIAN EMPIRE from the FLIGHT of XERXES to the FALL of 
 ATHENS. By the Rev. G. W. Cox, M. A., late Scholar of Trinity College, Oxford : 
 Joint Editor of the Series. With five Maps. 
 
 The ROMAN TRIUMVIRATES. By the Very Rev. Charles Merivale, D. D., 
 Dean of Ely. 
 
 EARLY ROME, to its Capture by the Gauls. By Wilhblm Ihne, Author of ' ' History 
 of Rome."' With Map. 
 
 THE AGE OF THE ANTONINES. By the Rev. W. Wolfe Capes, M. A., Reader 
 
 of Ancient History in the University at Oxford. 
 
 The GRACCHI, MARIUS, and SULLA. By A. H. Bbeslv. With Maps. 
 
 THE RISE OF THE MACEDONIAN EMPIRE. By A. M. Curtbis, M. A. i 
 vol., i6mo, with maps and plans. 
 
 TROY — Its Legend, History, and Literature, with a sketch of the Topography of the 
 Troad. By S. G. W. Benjamin, i vol. i6mo. With a map. 
 
 ROME AND CARTHAGE. By R. Bosworth Smith, M.A. 
 
 The above 10 voltomes in Roxburg Style. Sold only in sets, Price, per set, $10.00. 
 
 * if* The above books for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent, post er express charg*^ 
 ^iid, upon receipt of the price by the Publishers, 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, 
 
 743 a^jd 745 Broadway, New Youl 
 
"These volumes contain the ripe results of the studies of men wha 
 are authorities in their respective fields." — The Nation. 
 
 (^^iu^% of JUBoSfrn ]lisforg. 
 
 Each 1 vol. 16mo., with Outline IVIaps. Price per volume, in cloth, $1.00. 
 Each Volu.mb co.mplete in itself and sold sepakately. 
 
 Edited by EDWARD E. MORRIS, M.A. 
 
 The ERA of the PROTESTANT REVOLUTION. By F. Seebohm, Author ol 
 " The Oxford Reformers — Colet, Krasmus, More.'" 
 
 The CRUSADES. By the Rev. G.W.Cox, M. A., Author of the " History of Greece." 
 
 The THIRTY YEARS' WAR, 1618—1643. By Samuel Rawson Gardi.-.er. 
 
 The HOUSES of LANCASTER and YORK; with the CONQUEST and LOSS 
 of FRANCE. By James Gairdner, of the Public Record Office. 
 
 The FRENCH REVOLUTION and FIRST EMPIRE ; an Historical Sketch. 
 By W.M. O'Connor Morris, with au Appendix by Hon. Andrew D. White. 
 
 The AGE OF ELIZABETH. By the Rev. 1\L Creighton, M.A. 
 
 The PURITAN REVOLUTION. By J. Langto.v Sanford. 
 
 The FALL of the STUARTS; and WESTERN EUROPE from 1678 to 1697. 
 By ihe Rev. Edward Hale, M.A., Assist. Master at Eton. 
 
 The EARLY PLANTAGENETS .ind their relation to the HISTORY of EUROPE ; 
 the foiinJ.itiou and growth of CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT. By the Kev. 
 Wm. Stlibbs, M.A., etc., Proiessor of Modern History in the University of Oxford. 
 
 The BEGINNING of the MIDDLE AGES ; CHARLES the GREAT and 
 ALFRKD; the HISTORY of Ei\GL.A.ND in its connection with that of EUROPE 
 in the NINTH CENTURY. By the. Very Rev. R. W. Chijrch, M.A. 
 
 The AGE of ANNE. By Edward E. Morris, M.A., Editor of the Series. 
 
 The NORMANS IN EUROPE. By the Rev. A. H. Johnson,M.A. 
 
 EDWARD III. By the Rev. W. Warburton, M.A. 
 
 FREDERICK the GREAT and the SEVEN YEARS' WAR. By F. W. Longman, 
 
 of Ballic College, Oxford. 
 
 The EPOCH of REFORM, 1S30 to 1850. By Justin McCarthy. 
 
 The above 15 volumes in Roxburg Style, Leather Labels and Gilt Top. Put 
 up in a handsome Box. Sold only in Sets. Price, per set, $15.00. 
 
 *^* TJte above books for sale by ail booksellers, or tuill be sent, post or expresi 
 riarget paid, upon receipt 0/ the price by the publishers, 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, 
 
 743 AND 745 Broadway, New York. 
 
A New Edition, Library Style. 
 
 FROM THE EARLIEST TIME TO THE PERIOD OF ITS DECLINE- 
 
 By Dr. THEOCOR MOMMSEU. 
 
 Translated, with the author's sanction and additions, by the Rev. W. P. Dickson, Regius 
 Professor of Biblical Criticism in the University of Glasgow, late Classical Examiner oi 
 the University of St. Andrews. With an introduction by Dr. Lbonhard Schmitz, and 
 a copious Index of the whole four volumes, prepared especially for this edition. 
 
 REPRINTED FROM THE REVISED LONDON EDITION. 
 Fotir Volumes, crown 8vo, gilt top. Price per Set, $8.00. 
 
 Dr. Mommsen has long been known and appreciated through his re- 
 searches into the languages, laws, and institutions of Ancient Rome and 
 Italy, as the most thoroughly versed scholar now living in these depart- 
 ments of historical investigation. To a wonderfully exact and exhaustive 
 knowledge of these subjects, he unites great powers of generalization, a 
 vigorous, spirited, and exceedingly graphic style and keen analytical pow- 
 ers, which give this history a degree of interest and a permanent value 
 possessed by no other record of the decline and fall of the Roman Com- 
 monwealth. " Dr. Mommsen's work," as Dr. Schmitz remarks in the 
 introduction, " though the production of a man of most profound and ex- 
 tensive learning and knowledge of the world, is not as much designed for 
 the professional scholar as for intelligent readers of all classes who take 
 an interest in the history of by-gone ages, and are inclined there to seek 
 information that may guide them safely through the perplexing mazes of 
 modern history." 
 
 CRITICAL NOTICES. 
 
 " A work of the very highest merit ; its learning is exact and profound ; its narrative fuU 
 of genius and skill ; its descriptions of men are admirably -i-ivid. We wish to place on 
 record our opinion that Dr. Mommsen's is by far the best history of the Decline and Fall 
 of the Roman Commonwealth." — London Titties. 
 
 "This is the best history of the Roman RepubHc, taking the work on the whole — the 
 author's complete mastery of his subject, the variety of his gifts and acquirements, his 
 graphic power in the delineation of national and individual character, and the vivid interest 
 which he inspires in every portion of his book. He is without an equal in his own sphere." 
 — Edinbn>sh Review. 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers, 
 
 743 AND 745 Broadway, New York. 
 
A New Edition, Library Style, 
 
 %\i I^isforg of (|ppprp. 
 
 By Prof. Dr. EEHST CTJETinS. 
 
 Translated by Adolphus William Ward, M. A., Fellow of St. Peter's College, Cam- 
 bridge, Prof, of History in Owen's College, Manchester. 
 
 UNIFORM WITH MOMMSEN'S HISTORY OF ROME. 
 Five volumes, crown 8vo, gilt top. Price per set, $10.00. 
 
 f" Curtius's History of Greece is similar in plan and purpose to Mommsen's 
 History of Rome, with which it deserves to rank in every respect as one of 
 the great masterpieces of historical literature. Avoiding the minute de- 
 tails which overburden other similar works, it groups together in a very 
 picturesque manner all the important events in the history of this king- 
 dom, which has exercised such a wonderful influence upon the world's 
 civilization. The narrative of Prof. Curtius's work is flowing and ani- 
 mated, and the generalizations, although bold, are philosophical and 
 sound. 
 
 CRITICAL NOTICES. 
 
 " Professor Curtius's eminent scholarship is a sufficient guarantee for the trustworthines* 
 of his histoiy, while the skill with which he groups his facts, and his effective mode of narrat- 
 ing them, combine to render it no less readable than sound. Prof. Curtius everj'where 
 maintains the true dignity and impartiality of history, and it is evident his sympathies are 
 on the side of justice, humanity, and progress." — London AthencEiitn. 
 
 " We cannot express our opinion of Dr. Curtius's book better than by saying that it may 
 be fitly ranked witli Theodor Mommsen's great work." — London Spectator. 
 
 "As an introduction to the study of Grecian history, no previous work is comparable to 
 the present for vivacity and picturesque beauty, while in sound le.irning and accuracy of 
 statement it is not inferior to the elaborate productions which enrich the literature of the 
 age." — N. Y. Daily Tribune. 
 
 "The History of Greece is treated by Dr. Curtius so broadly and freely in the spirit of 
 the nineteenth century, that it becomes in his hands one of the worthiest and most instruct- 
 ive branches of study for all who desire something more than a knowledge of isolated facts 
 for their education. This translation oujht to become a regular part of the accepted course 
 of reading for young men at college, and for all who are in training for the free political 
 life of our country." — N. V. Evening Post. 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers, 
 
 743 AND 745 Broadway, New Yokx. 
 
'*ji UM>rk of strange power and poetry .'^—N . Y. Worioj 
 
 THE COSSAC 
 
 TRANSLATED BY 
 
 EUGENE SCHUYLER, Ph.D., 
 Front the Russian of Count Tolstoy, 
 
 I Tol., Bmall 12mo, cloth, ....... $1.38 
 
 " The translation is excellent, althougii the Russian flavor still remains. 
 Yet this rather heiijhtens than mars the fascination of the book." 
 
 — Baltimore Gazette. 
 
 "A story of high merit and well-sustained interest." — P .ila. Btdhtin. 
 
 " The Cossacks is a novel likely to please a much wider circle of 
 readers in this country than anything that the more famous novelist 
 (Turguenief) has done, than any other Russian novel which has been 
 translated, indeed, including even the stories of Pushkin." 
 
 —N. y. Evening Post. 
 
 "The characters are all sketched by a master hand, and the story, 
 without being artistically woven, is full of living interest and warmth, and 
 we thank Mr. Schuyler for breaking up this new ground, and ho])e he will 
 follow up the lead, for he ha5 whet our appetites for more of this brilliant 
 writer's work." — New York Herald. 
 
 " Its interest, besides the interest of the qualities we have mentioned, 
 resides in its broad and firm, yet delicate and subtle portraiture ; and apart 
 from its novel characteristics, it should be welcome for the acquaintance it 
 enables one to make of the different personages it so admirably sketches." 
 
 — New York World. 
 
 *• The story is one that American readers will enjoy, not only becau<;e 
 it is in many respects a masterpiece of literary work, but al.so because it 
 takes them into scenes entirely new to them, and among characters ai 
 strange as the scenes in which they are placed." — New Haven Palladium, 
 
 *0* 77ie above book for sale by all booksellers, or ivill be sent, ^st or ejt/tlU 
 ^kariit ^aidy upon rectij>i of the />rice by the Jmblishers, 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, 
 
 743 AND 745 Broadway, New Yoxe. 
 
Messrs. CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 publish, under the general title of 
 
 The campaigns of the CIVIL WAR, 
 
 A Series of volumes, contributed by a number of leading 
 actors in and students of the great conflict of i86i-'65, with 
 a view to bringing together, for the first time, a full and 
 authoritative military history of the suppression of the 
 Rebellion. 
 
 The final and exhaustive form of this great narrative, in which every 
 doubt shaH be settled and every detail covered, may be a possibility 
 only of the future. But it is a matter for surprise that twenty years 
 after the beginning of the Rebellion, and when a whole generation 
 has grown up needing such knowledge, there is no authority which is 
 at the same time of the highest rank, intelligible and trustworthy, and 
 to which a reader can turn for any general view of the field. 
 
 The many reports, regimental histories, memoirs, and other materi- 
 als of value for special passages, require, for their intelligent reading, 
 an ability to combine and proportion them which the ordinary reader 
 does not possess. There have been no attempts at general histories 
 which have supplied this satisfactorily to any large part of the public. 
 Undoubtedly there has been no such narrative as would be especially 
 welcome to men of the new generation, and would be valued by a very 
 great class of readers ; — and there has seemed to be great danger that 
 the time would be allowed to pass when it would be possible to give 
 to such a work the vividness and accuracy that come from personal 
 recollection. These facts led to the conception of the present work. 
 
 From every department of the Government, from the officers of the 
 army, and from a great number of custodians of records and special infor- 
 mation everywhere, both authors and publishers have received every aid 
 that could be asked in this undertaking ; and in announcing the issue of 
 the work the publishers take this occasion to convey the thanks which 
 the authors have had individual opportunities to express elsewhere. 
 
 The volumes are duodecimos of about 250 pages each, 
 illustrated by maps and plans prepared under the direction 
 of the authors. 
 
 The price of each volume is $1.00. 
 
 The /allowing volumes are now ready i 
 
 I,— The Oiifbrealc of BeheUion. By John G. Nicoi.av, 
 Esq., Private Secretary to President Lincoln; late Consul- 
 General to France, etc. 
 
 A preliminary volume, describing the openins; of the war, and covering th» 
 period trom the election of Lincoln to the end of the first battle of Bull Run. 
 
J[I,—Froin Fort Henry to Corinth. By the Hon. M. 
 F. Force, Justice of the Superior Court, Cincmnatti; lata 
 Brigadier-General and Uvt. Maj. Gen'l, U.S.V., commanding 
 First Division, 17th Corps: in 1862, Lieut. Colonel of the 
 20th Ohio, commanding tiie regiment at Shiloh ; Treasurer of 
 the Society of tlie Army of the Tennessee. 
 
 The narrative of events in the West from the Summer of 1861 to May, i86a: 
 tovering the capture of FtS. Henry and Doaelson, the Battle of ShJoh, etc., etc. 
 
 Ill,— The Peninsula. By Alexander S. Webb, LL.D., 
 
 president of the College of tlie City of New York : Assistant 
 Chief of Artillery, Army of the Potomac, iS6i-'62 ; Inspector 
 General Fifth Army Corps; General commanding 2d Div., 
 2d Corps; Major General Assigned, and Chief of Staff, Army 
 of the Potomac. 
 
 The histor>- of McClellan's Peninsula Campaign, from his appointment to tho 
 e id of the Seven Days' Fight. 
 
 JV.—The Army iinder Tope. By John C. Ropes, Esq., 
 of the Military Historical Society of Massachusetts, the Massa- 
 chusetts Historical Society, etc 
 
 From the appointment of Pope to command the Army of Virginia, to the appoint- 
 ment of McClellau to the general command iii September, 1862 
 
 V.—Tfie Antiefam and FredericJcsJmrfj. By Francis 
 WiNxnROP Palfrey, Bvt. Brigadier Gen'l, U.S.V., and form- 
 erly Colonel 20th Mass. Infantry ; Lieut. Col of the 20th 
 Massachusetts at the Battle of the Antietam ; Member of 
 the Military Historical Society of Massachusetts, of the Massa- 
 chusetts Historical Society, etc. 
 
 From the appointment of Mcdellan to the general command, September, 1862, to 
 the end of the batde of Fredericksburg. 
 
 n.—Chancpllorsville and Geffi/sburg. By Abnfr 
 DouBLEDAY, Bvt. Maj. Gen'l, U.S.A., and Maj. Gen 1, 
 U.S. V. ; commanding the First Corps at Gettysburg, etc. 
 
 From the appointment of Hoolcer, through the campaigns of ChancellorsvIUe and 
 Gettysburg, to the retreat of I-ee after the latter battle. 
 
 VII.— The Army of the Cumherland. By Henry M. 
 
 Cist, Brevet Brig. Gen'l U.S.V. ; A.A.G. on the staff of 
 Major Gen'l Rosecrans, and afterwards on that of Major Gen'l 
 Thomas ; Corresi:)onding Secretary of the Society of the Army 
 of the Cumberland. 
 
 From the formation of the Army of the Cumberland to the end of the battles al 
 Chattanooga, November, 1863. 
 
VIII.— The Mississippi, By Francts Vinton Greene, 
 Lieut, of Engineers, U. S. Army; lale Military Attache to the 
 U. S. Legation in St. Petersburg ; Author of " The Russian 
 Army and its Campaigns in Turkey in 1877-7S," and of 
 *'Army Life in Russia." 
 
 An account of the operations — especially at Vicksburg and Port Hudson — by 
 which tlie Mississippi River and its shores were restored to the control of tlic Union. 
 
 IX, — Atlanta, By the Hon. Jacob D. Cox, Ex-Governor of 
 Ohio; late Secretary of tlie Interior of the United States; 
 Major General U. S.V. , commanding Twenty- third Corps 
 during the campaigns of Atlanta and the Carolinas, etc., etc. 
 
 From Sherman's first advance into Georgia in May, 1S64, to the beginning of 
 the March to the Sea, 
 
 X.—T7ie 3Iarch to fJie Sea— Franklin and Nashville. 
 
 By the Hon. J.\COB D. Co.x. 
 
 From the beginning of the March to the Sea to the surrender of Johnston- ' 
 including also the operations of Thomas in Tennessee. 
 
 XI,— Tlie Shenandoah Valley in 1804. TJie Cain- 
 paign of Sheridan. By George E. Pond, Esq., Asso- 
 ciate Editor of the Army and Navy Journal. 
 
 XII, — Tlie Virginia Campaign of 64 and '65, TJie 
 Army of the Potomac and the Army of the 
 Janus, By Andrew A. Humphreys, Brigadier General 
 and Bvt. Major General, U. S. A. ; late Chief of Engineers; 
 Chief of Staff, Army of the Potomac, 1S63-64; commanding 
 Second Corps, i864-'65, etc., etc. 
 
 Statistical Becord of the Armies of the United 
 
 States, By Frederick Phisterer, late Captain U. S. A. 
 
 This Record includes the figures of the quotas and men actually furnished by 
 all States; a list of all organizations mustered into the U. S. service; the strength 
 of the army at various periods ; its organization in armies, corps, etc.; the divisions 
 of the country into departments, etc.; chronological list of all engagements, with the 
 losses in each ; tabulated statements of all losses in the war, with the causes of 
 death, etc.; full lists of all general officers, and an immense amount of other valuable 
 statistical matter relatijig to the War. 
 
 The complete Set, thirteen volumes, in a box. Price, $12.50 
 Single volumes, ...... i.co 
 
 *** T/te above books Jar sale by all booksellers, or will be sent, post-^aid, 
 v^n receipt 0/ price, by 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers, 
 
 743 AND 745 Broadway, New York, 
 
HOW COMPLETE. 
 
 In three volumes, I2mo, with Maps and Plans, 
 
 THE 
 
 Havy in the Civil War 
 
 nnHE WORK OF THE NAVY in the suppression of the Rebellion was 
 ^ certainly not less remarkable than that of the Army. The same 
 forces which developed from our volunteers some of the finest bodies of 
 soldiers in military history, were shown quite as wonderfully in the creation 
 of a Navy, which was to cope for the first time with the problems of modern 
 warfare. 
 
 The facts that the Civil War was the first great conflict in which steam 
 was the motive power of ships ; that it was marked by the introduction of 
 the ironclad ; and that it saw, for the first time, the attempt to blockade 
 such a vast length of hostile coast — will make it an epoch for the techinal 
 student everywhere. 
 
 But while the Army has been fortunate in the number and character of 
 those who have contributed to its written history, the Navy has been com- 
 paratively without annalists. During a recent course of publications on 
 the military operations of the war, the publishers were in constant receipt 
 of letters pointing out this fact, and expressing the wish that a complete 
 naval history of the four years might be written by competent hands. An 
 effort made in this direction resulted in the cordial adoption and carrying 
 out of plans by which Messrs. CH.\RLES SCRIBNER'S SONS are 
 enabled to announce the completion of a work of the highest authority and 
 interest, giving the whole narrative of Naval Operations from 1861 to 1865. 
 
 I. THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS.— By Pro- 
 fessor J. Russell Soley, U. S. Navy. 
 
 II. THE ATLANTIC COAST.— By Rear-Admiral Daniel 
 Ammen, U. S. Navy. 
 
 III. THE GULF AND INLAND WATERS.— By Commander 
 A. T, Mahan, U. S. Navy. 
 
 V^niforni xvlth " Tlie Campaigns of ihe Civil War," ifi/7* maps 
 and diagrams prepared under the direction of the A.uthors, 
 
 Price per Volume, SI.OO. 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers, 
 7^3 i& 7^5 Broadivay, Xcw York, 
 
THE 
 
 Navy in the Civil War 
 
 I -THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 By Professor J. Russell Soley, U. S. Navy. 
 
 "The book is well arranged, written clearly, without technical terms, 
 and shows great familiarity with the subject. It is marked by thoroughness 
 of preparation, sound judgment, and admirable impartiality. It is a promis- 
 ing beginning of the projected series ; and if the other volumes prove 
 worthy of this, they will make a valuable addition to the Army series, 
 which has proved so useful and popular." — The Nation. 
 
 II -THE ATLANTIC COAST. 
 
 By Real-Admiral Daniel AmiMEX, U. S. Navy. 
 
 Admiral Ammen's history of the naval operations on the Atlantic 
 coast, from 1861 to the close of the war, describe the active work of the 
 navy in attacking the defensive strongholds of the Confederacy from 
 Hampton Roads to Florida Keys. It includes a full account of the long 
 siege of Charleston, and the scarcely less arduous operations against 
 Fort Fisher, the capture of Hatteras Inlet, Roanoke Island and Newbern, 
 and other minor movements along the coast. 
 
 III.-THE GULF AND INLAND WATERS. 
 
 By Commander A. T. Mahan, U. S. Navy. 
 
 The achievements of the Naval force on the Mississippi and its tributaries, 
 and on the Gulf and the Red River, either independently or in co-oper- 
 ation with the Army, form one of the most thrilling chapters in the history 
 of the Civil War. The exploits of Farragut, Foote and Porter, with their ^ 
 gallant crews and improvised vessels, teem with acts of daring, marvelous 
 escapes, and terrific encounters. Commander Mahan has done full justice 
 to this side of his narrative, but he has given at the same time a record of 
 this part of the war that has greater claims to historic value than any which 
 have preceded it. 
 
 Each One Volume, 1 2mo, with Maps and Plans. 
 
 Price per Volume, $I.OO. 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNgR'S SONS, Publishers, 
 74^ S 745 Brondtoajf, New Yorh. 
 
AUTHORIZED AMERICAN EDITIONS. 
 
 THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 
 
 Trom the Fall of "Woolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. 
 
 TSE COMPLETE WORK IN TWELVE VOZUJUES. 
 
 By JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE, M- A. 
 
 Mr. Froude is a pictorial historian, and his skill in description and full- 
 ness of knowledge make his work abound in scenes and passages that are 
 almost new to the general reader. We close his pages with unfeigned re- 
 gret, and we bid him good speed on his noble mission of exploring the 
 sources of English history in one of its most remarkable periods. — Brii' 
 ish Quarterly Review. 
 
 THE NEW LIBRARY EDITION. 
 
 Extra cloth, gilt top, and uniform in general style with the re-issue of 
 Momnisen's Rome and Curtius's Greece. Complete in 12 vols. i2mo, 
 in a box. Sold only in sets. Price per set, $18.00. 
 
 Note. The old Library, Chelsea, and Popular Ediiiotu will be discontinued. A few 
 uts and single volumes can still be supplied. 
 
 SHORT STUDIES ON GREAT SUBJECTS. 
 
 THE NEW LIBRARY EDITION. Three vols. I2m0. 
 Uniform in General Style with the New Library Edi- 
 tion of the History of England. Per vol $1.50 
 
 THE ENGLISH IN IRELAND 
 
 During the Eighteenth Century. 
 Three vols. izmo. New Library Edition. Per vol $1.50 
 
 *^ The above books for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent, post or e»» 
 fress cAar^'es paid, upon receipt of the price by the Publishers, 
 
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 743 AND 745 Broadway, New York. 
 
'*A GRijAT SUOCCSS/'-Pall Stall OazatML 
 
 A liT E "VST ^3Sri3 CIiEJLI»EI?, Tr;i3ITZOar. 
 
 MR. EUGENE SCHUYLER'S 
 
 TURKISTAN: 
 
 Notes of a Journey in 1873, in the Russian Province of 
 
 Turkistan, the Khanate,* of Khokan and Bukhara, 
 
 and Provinces of Kuldja. 
 
 By EUGENE SCHUYLER, Ph.D., 
 
 Formerly Secretary of the American Legation at St. Petersburg, now Consul-GoMlft 
 
 at Constantinople. 
 
 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 
 
 Front the London Times. 
 "Mr. Schuyler will be ranked among the most accomplished of hving traveler*. 
 Many parts of his book will be found of interest, even by the most exacting of genera] 
 readers ; and, as a whole, it is incomparably the most valuable record of Central Asia 
 which has been published in this country." 
 
 Fro7n the N. V. Evening Post. 
 *'Th» author's chief aim appears to have been to do all that he says he tried to do, 
 and to do greatly more beside —namely, to study everything there was to study in the 
 countries which he visited, and to tell the world all about it in a most interesting way. 
 He is, indeed, a model traveler, and he has written a model book of travels, in which 
 every line is interesting, and from which nothing that any reader can want to hear about 
 has been excluded.' 
 
 Mr. Glaiistone in the *^ Contemporary Revie7i>." 
 " One of the most solid and painstaking works which have been published among uf 
 In recent years." 
 
 From the New York Times. 
 
 "Its descriptioE-, of ths country and of the people living in it are always interesting 
 amd frequently amusing ; but it is easy to see that they have been written by one who ii 
 not only so thoroughly cosmopolitan as to know intuitively what is worth telling and whaf 
 had better be omitted, but who is, also, so practiced a writer as to understand predselj 
 '.ow to set forth what he has to say in the most effective manner." 
 
 From the Atlantic Monthly. 
 "Undoubtedly the most thoroughly brilliant and entertaining work 3n Turkirta* 
 which has yet been given to the English-speaking world." 
 
 From the Independent. 
 "It is fortunate that a record of the sort appears at this time, and doub'.jr fortunata 
 ihat it come? from the hand of so wise, well-informed, and industrious a traveler and 
 diplomat" 
 
 From the Neiv York World. 
 
 " Its author has the eye and pen of a journalist, and sees at once what is wori. 
 •ecing, and recites his impressions m the most graphic manner." 
 
 Two vols. 8vo. With three Maps, and numerous Illustrations, 
 
 attractively bound in cloth, price reduced from $7.50 to $5. 
 •,* The above book far sale by all booksellers, or will be sent, post or exprtit 
 charges paid, upon receipt of the price by tlie publishers, 
 
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 743 AND 745 Broadway, New York. 
 
LIFE OF 
 
 Lord Lawrence 
 
 BT 
 
 R. BOSWORTH SMITH, M.A., 
 
 LATE FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE; ASSISTANT MASTER AT HARROV* 
 
 SCHOOL. 
 
 With Maps and Portraits, 2 vols,, 8vo, $5.00, 
 
 "As a biography, the work is an inthralling one, rich in 
 anecdotes and incidents of Lord Lawrence's tempestuous nature 
 and beneficent career that bring into bold relief his strongly- 
 marked and almost colossal individuality, and rich also in in- 
 stances of his courage, his fortitude, his perseverance, his self- 
 control, his magnanimity, and in the details of the splendid 
 results of his masterful and masterly policy. . . . We know 
 of no work on India to which the reader can refer with so great 
 certainty for full and dispassionate information relative to the 
 government of the country, the characteristics of its people, and 
 the fateful events of the forty eventful years of Lord Lawrence's 
 Indian career." — Harper's Magazine. 
 
 "John Lawrence, the name by which the late Viceroy of India 
 will always be best known, has been fortunate in his biographer, 
 Mr. Bosworth Smith, who is an accomplished writer and a faith- 
 ful, unflinching admirer of his hero. He has produced an enter- 
 taining as well as a valuable book ; the general reader will 
 certainly find it attractive ; the student of recent history will 
 discover in its pages matters of deep interest to him." — London 
 Daily Telegraph. 
 
 *^* For sale by all booksellers^ or sent, post-paid^ upon receipt of price, by 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers, 
 
 743 AND 745 Broadway, New York. 
 
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