2 i ^ SLAV AND MOSLEM, COPYRIGHT BY J. BRODHEAD, DEC., 1893. PRINTED AND BOUND BY WALKEK, EVANS & COGSWELL Co. CHARLESTON, S. C. 1894. SLAV AND MOSLEM. HISTORICAL SKETCHES -BY- J. MILLIKEN NAPIER BRODHEAD. AIKEN PUBLISHING CO., AIKEN. S. C. COTsTTEISTTS. CHAPTER I. PRELIMINARY REMARKS. PAGE Governments are not improvised Liberties are taken not given The present must be read in the light of the past Slow development is not a sign of inferiority Conflicting opin- ions about Russia 1 CHAPTER II. RUSSIA'S ORIGIN AND EARLY CIVILIZATION. Peculiarity of Russia's antecedents Rurick and the Yaregs Expeditions to Constantinople Introduction of Christianity 17 CHAPTER III. TARTAR DOMINATION. Partition Anarchy Small Republic s Gen- ghis Khan The Greek Church Isolation of Russia 27 CHAPTER IY. THE GRAND DUKES OF Moscow. Dimitri Donskoi Overtures from Rome Ivan the Great and Ivan the Terrible Autocracy a popular government 36 M501587 VI CHEPTEK Y. SERFDOM. PAGE. Origin and peculiarities of Serfdom in Russia Significance of the Emancipation Impervious- ness to Nihilism Peasant colonization 46 CHAPTER VI. RUSSIAN CHARACTERISTICS. Topographical and climatical influences Tran- sition State Democracy in Russia Political inaptitude Patriotism 64 CHAPTER VII. SLAVOPHILS AND OCCIDENTALS. Definition Pan slavism The Mir The Zemst- vos Autocracy plus autonomy Apotheosis of the People 86 CHAPTER VIII. THE ROMANOFFS AND THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT. German bureaucracy National dualism The Russian Police Bakounin and Nihilism Atchinoff The ideal side of Nihilism Failure and evil consequences 102 CHAPTER IX. RUSSIA IN ASIA. The ebb and flow of Humanity The Roman Eagle at the gates of British India Motives and mode of Russia's advance in Asia Her policy and achievement 129 Vll CHAPTEK X. THE AFGHAN QUESTION. PAGE. Ethnical Side Pen djeh incident England's pol- icy A possible casus belli 149 CHAPTEK XI. THE OTTOMAN TURKS. Origin Fall of Constantinople Decadence of the Ottoman Empire Amalgamation and pro- gress impossible 158 CHAPTEK XII. TuRco-Kusso WARS. Russia's reprisals against the Moslems Defeat of Peter the Great Victories of Catherine II Treaty of Kainardji, 1774 Kevolt of the Ser- vians Massacre of 1821 170 CHAPTEK XIII. THE CRIMEAN WAR. Greek Independence Navarino, 1827 Shop- keeper Policy The Khedive Treaty of Adrianople, 1829 Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi Convention of the Straits, 1841 Kemote causes of the Crimean War Napoleon III Lord Stratford de Kedcliffe Sinope Treaty of Paris, 1856 178 Vlll CHAPTER XIY. THE BULGARIAN WAR. PAGE. The Situation re viewed by Gladstone Schuyler's Report Plewna San Stefano and the Berlin Conference, 1879 210 CHAPTER XV. ALEXANDER THE THIRD. Consolidation of the Russian Empire Russian- izing of Russia begun by Nicholas First Finland and the Baltic Provinces The Jewish Question Russian Dissenters G. Kennan and the Fourth International Prison Congress 232 CHAPTER XVI. CONCLUSION. The Triple Alliance The Eastern Question The future of Constantinople Irretrievable de- composition of the Ottoman Empire 279 CHAPTEK I. PRELIMINARY REMARKS. When we have reached the term we are apt to lose sight of the starting point, the slow initiation, the tardy progress by which we advanced to the goal. Americans, in particular, are disposed to think that any nation can, at a given moment, draw up a Decla- ration of Independence, and endow itself with a free Constitution, like our own, forgetting that the first springs of this admirable mechanism were devised in the Councils of the Witenagamot, many hundreds of years ago, and that the battles of Bunker Hill and Lexington began to be fought on the plains of Rimymede. "Nations always have the government they deserve." In other words they have the form of government which comports witli their actual status, whether this status be the result of uncontrollable antecedents, or the expression of inherent and inalienable race qualities good or bad. Lawlessness arms the tyrant, imbecility and incapa- city create despotism. When the leaven of civilization has penetrated the masses and developed humaneness and individualism, the self recognition of personal royalty, tyranny and despotism cease of themselves. The social body has outgrown the fungus to which defective vitality had given rise. Nations, as well as 2 SLAV AND MOSLEM. individuals, have their infancy and minority, and during these periods they are necessarily in leading strings. Madame de Stael asserts that "liberty is ancient in the world, and that it is despotism which is new." Is this indeed so '( The most ancient form of government, the form which prevailed among nomadic and pastoral tribes, was the patriarchal form, and in it the head of the family was certainly a despot, though a paternal one. He had absolute right of life and death over his wife and children and servants, who belonged to him quite as much as his ox or his ass. Moreover, if we examine closely the history of the nations of antiquity, even that of the so called republics, we shall find that they were really under the regimen of despotism, either military, oligarchic or senatorial. Liberty can only be the concomitant of advanced civilization. A French philosopher, de Maistre, has rightly said "that liberties are not given, they are taken" and they can only be taken in communities where civilization has developed the self recognition of the individual. The Hanseatic Towns, Novgorod was one of them, were remarkable exceptions to the crushing rule of feudal despotism that prevailed in Europe during the middle ages. Commerce is the great resolvent of barbarism and ignorance and these flourishing com- mercial centers, seem to have stolen a march in civilization on their neighbors. Accordingly they arrogated the liberty of constituting themselves into independent republics, and despotic feudal lords were forced to concede the franchises exacted by these sub- PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 6 jects. Unfortunately for "my lord Novgorod the Great" political liberty degenerated into anarchy, and then the great Republic's doom was sealed. "Some- times, writes Mackenzie Wallace, it was a contest between rival families, sometimes it was a struggle between the municipal aristocracy and the common people who wished to have ,a larger share in the government. A State thus divided could not long resist the aggressive tendencies of powerful neighbors, Novgorod must fall under the yoke of the Lithuanian Poles or of the Muscovite Princes. The great families inclined to the former, the clergy and the people to the latter." These internal causes of decadence seem to be overlooked by writers, who see only in the fallen Novgorod, a monument of Ivan the Terrible's execrable barbarity, when he made a terrible example of the traitorous citizens of Novgorod. Russia, as it has been presented to our consideration by some writers, appears a monstrous anachronism, and her sovereigns are described as modern Neros, or little better. The impartial mind, however, will iind in a brief consideration of Russia's origin and early his- tory, the explanation of her tardy development ; for, as Freeman has remarked, " the present will be very imperfectly understood, unless the light of the past is brought to bear upon it." Have we not all seen unfortunate creatures who carry to the grave traces of mishaps that have befallen their cradles '? And what are the accidents of heredity but new proofs of the necessity of reading the present in the light of the past \ 4: SLAY AND MOSLEM. Moreover, slow development is the law of certain organisms, and not always of inferior ones, by any means. The chicken's notions of perspective and dis- tance are as fully developed, the iirst day of its ex- istence, as they are capable of being developed ; whereas, the human animal blunders along in space for a long while, making many painful experiences from false perspective, and is many years in acquiring the full complement of his physical and mental equip- ment. It is noteworthy, too, that the children of savages are far more precocious, and arrive at matu- rity more rapidly than those of civilized races ; and Sir James Crichton Browne ably contends that the higher the degree of culture to be attained, the longer must be the process of training, the more arduous must be the apprenticeship. When the illustrious painter of the " Last Judgment " had reached the advanced age of eighty, he drew a sketch of himself in a child's go-cart, with this legend beneath, " ancwa impara" still he learns. When we consider the immense disadvantages under which Russia has labored, the crudities and the anom- alies of her civilization will no longer surprise and shock us. Our wonder will be, not that she is behindhand in some things, but that she should already have done so much towards retrieving the past, and have become a leading factor in the politics of Europe, to-day, and perhaps the arbiter of its destinies in the future. In reading the story of the past, we shall also see that Russia's ambitious views, regarding Constantinople, are by no means of recent date. "They have grown with her growth and strength- PKELIMINABY KEMAKKS. 5 ened with her strength." There can "be but little doubt that she intends to have no limits to her em- pire than those which bounded the empire of the West- ern Caesars, and the chances that she will ultimately succeed are strong in her favor. Whether therein con- sists a terrible menace to the world ; w T hether the re- alization of her projects will be the knell of civiliza- tion, as some writers seem to fear, is, to say the least, an open question. Nations cannot remain stationary on the plane of civilization. When they cease to advance, they retro- grade, and their decadence has already begun. Now he who runs may read that the movement in Russia since fifty years has been decidedly progressive, and any unprejudiced observer must be struck with the advances she has made in the way of liberal reforms and education, in spite of the difficulties arising from the absolutism of the government and many other causes. " Ever since Peter the Great's appearance among them, says Carlyle, they have been in steady- progress of development. In our own time they have done signal service to God and man, in drilling into order and peace anarchic population all over their side of the world." Absolutism, or in other words autocracy, is a natural and normal growth of the Russian soil, as I shall endeavor to show later on. It is autocracy, plus bureaucracy, by no means indigenous that constitutes the redoubtable problem of Russian politics to-day. When enlightened well intentioned autocrats have sought to introduce ameliorations, they have found t) SLAV AND MOSLEM. themselves taken in the toils that absolutism has woven around them. All powerful when they wish to indulge a caprice, their action is singularly neutral- ized in the sphere of good. For, however paradoxical the assertion may appear, the supreme power is not in the hands of the Czar but in the bureaucracy. The Czar can do nothing without them and nothing against them, for though imperial disgrace may strike individual members, it cannot strike the whole body without entirely changing the system of govern- ment. Thus the instrument is stronger than the hand that wields it, and many good projects fail before the inertia and ill-will of red tapeism opposed to progress, or intent on self aggrandisement. The guarantee of publicity not existing, the personal vigilance of the sovereign can alone secure the execution of his wishes, and in a vast empire like Russia, this vigilance cannot be ubiquitous. Consequently, a great hiatus seems, at times, to exist between the legislative and executive powers, and disastrous results are produced, such as the con- spiracies of 1825 and 1848, and more recent out- rages perpetrated by the nihilists then follows a great re-action. The reprisals of autocracy on the one hand, while on the other, the nation sinks discouraged into oriental lethargy and fatalism, resigning itself to evils which seem irremediable. Autocrats are human after all. They love their lives as other mortals do, and when they are tracked down like wild beasts, because t/ they could not accomplish all the good they desired, or accomplished it imperfectly, we cannot wonder, if PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 7 to protect themselves they fall back upon the means devised by tyranny. These cowardly stabs in the dark, perpetrated by rabid patriotism, are in themselves proof, that the nation is still unfit for any other form of government. Can we imagine a people redeemed and reconstituted by a band of semi-lunatics, wrecking trains and launch- ing bombshells with a grandiloquent "Sic semper tyrannis ?" Every one knows and deplores the evils of the present system of administration and realizes more or less distinctly that they can only be remedied by giv- ing the people a larger share in the government, thus throwing down the wall of bureaucracy which is inter- posed between them and the Czar, and prevents his acquiring a true knowledge of their needs. But the first and most essential condition for a rep- resentative government is the intelligent co-operation of the people, and it is impossible to obtain this co- operation from those who have never heard political questions discussed and have not the remotest idea of the intricacies of governmental problems. Projects of self government can only be realized safely, and for the real good of the masses, when education has estab- lished a certain general level in the nation. If the assassination of Alexander the Second (1881,) had not prevented the promulgation of the Constitu- tion with which he was about to endow the nation, it is more than probable that we should have seen re- peated, on a larger scale, the experiences of the " Mire." In these rural democracies, whose assemblies, like 8 SLAV AND MOSLEM. the American Town Meetings, are the original unit and germ of self-government by the people, sharp witted, ci-devant serfs, having acquired wealth and learning, often used both to the detriment of their poor, benighted fellow villagers, over whom they tyrannized to such an extent, as office bearers of the community, that recently, the Czar, urged by the complaints of the peasants, has found it expedient to establish rural chiefs of districts, chosen among the landed gentry. This was a benevolent measure, de- vised entirely for the benefit of the poor peasants, but it has, of course, been misconstrued into an act of tyranny, tending to destroy the ancient liberties of the village communes. In the course of this work I have endeavored to indicate some of the causes that have retarded Russia, and why the nation is still in swaddling clothes, or at best, in leading strings. Until it outgrows them, autocracy must continue to bear the unenviable bur- den of omnipotence and unshared responsibility, while echoing the sigh of Frederick the Great, who exclaimed towards the close of, his long and eventful reign : " Reigning over a nation of slaves is a weari- some task indeed." Like many strong personalities, Russia has bitter detractors as well as enthusiastic admirers, even among her own sons, for nowhere do we see greater diver- gency of opinion than among Russian writers them- selves. Foreigners are apt to judge superficially from the limited point of preconceived notions, as time and opportunity are often lacking for accurate observa- tion. "When they have seen St. Petersburg and its PRELIMINARY REMARKS. society, they flatter themselves that they know the whole country, though a Russian writer has pithily remarked, that St. Petersburg was built by Peter the Great, to be a window through which he might look out upon Europe ; but it is by no means a window through which strangers can examine Russia, (Madame Novikoff.) The heart of this great Empire throbs in every rural commune ; its head is nowhere, and St. Petersburg might be swept away to-morrow, without causing any great inconvenience to the nation. Moreover, travel- ers who hurry through the country by steam, with the purpose of " interviewing " it, are at a greater disadvantage than ever, unless they happen to be familiar with the Russian language, which is now uni- versally used, even in fashionable circles, where French was de rigueur some twenty years ago ; and it is not every one who has the frankness to say, as Mr. Stead does : " I have only been two months in the country, " I cannot speak six words of the language of the peo- " pie. The whole of my previous training, political, " religious and social, has been such as to render it " difficult to occupy the standpoint from which these " questions should be judged, that is, from the stand- " point of the Russians themselves." Rec'ently a Russian naval officer was forcibly ejected from the elevated cars in New York, because on his way home from the theatre one night, he had inno- cently lighted a cigarette on the platform. The out- rage on his liberty seemed so preposterous to him, that on the following day he lodged a complaint at the consulat of his country, and was, with difficulty, 10 SLAY AND MOSLEM. made to understand that the prohibition of smoking on these platforms was a rule against which no one in this free country ever thought of rebelling. Yet this same Russian at home, probably, submitted with- out a second thought, to usages which are constantly provoking indignant protestations on the part of those who visit Russia. This is a trivial incident, but it shows how necessary it is to look at things from the right standpoint, if we would form a just appreciation. Anglo-Saxons, unfor- tunately, are remarkably incapable of measuring things otherwise .than by their own ell. National preju- dice is one of the strongest of passions, though quite impersonal, and no passion is more blind and more blinding. It leads men to prevaricate uncon- sciously, and is generally accompanied, moreover, by an arrogant, self-complacent contempt for all that does not come up to their own national standards. Independently, however, of bad faith, inadequate knowledge, and the desire to pander to a morbid taste for the sensational, there are several reasons for the divergency of opinions that are expressed, and the dis- crepancy of statements that are made regarding Russia. Not the least important of these reasons is the fact that the country is in a state of transition, so that what may be affirmed truly one day may be false the next. Like her frontiers, Russia's physiognomy is always changing, and it is not easy to delineate the fitful expressions of her ever varying countenance. The most contradictory statements may, therefore, be equally true, in some respects, and even while PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 11 adhering strictly to truth, the writer may give an entirely false impression to the public. To do this, it is only necessary to separate the wheat from the chaff, and present either .to the exclusion of the other ; or, as is often done, to describe as actual and general, what is true, only of certain epochs, or certain indi- viduals. Russophobists of different nations have ex- ploited these methods ad infinitum in a vast amount of prison literature and Nihilist martyrology. Abso- lute impartiality in the choice of subject matter, and in the manner of treating it, is, no doubt, a most ex- ceptional quality, almost as rare as the blossoming of the century plant, But the intelligent reader can always strike a fair average by acquainting himself, as soon as possible, with the bias of the author, and theli taking what he says at a premium, or at a discount, as the case may require. A condemned criminal's estimate of his judges can hardly be considered a fair basis whereon to found our own, and it seems incomprehensible, that men and women of no mean intelligence should be so entirely guided in the formation of their opinions regarding Russia, by the statements and descriptions of writers, whose hatred and passion are patent to the most cursory reader; men with whom the mot d'ordre seems to be the same, which Yoltaire gave to his fol- lowers in the crusade against religion : " Mentez, mentez, sans cesse, il en restera tou jours quelque chose:" ( " Lie, lie, without ceasing, something will always remain.") Why, indeed, should those who resort to dynamite and murder to forward their ends, scruple about lying '> And as the French philosopher ob- 12 SLAV AND MOSLEM. serv es : " Something always remains." A bitter prejudice is created in the minds of many against a country about which they really have no definite in- formation, and know absolutely nothing but what has been derived from the most questionable sources. Travelers who enter Russia, particularly the Siberian provinces, with the averred purpose of finding " black spots," wherewithal they propose to feather their nests, are apt to have their vision obfuscated by " black spots," like atrobilious subject?. Nations, like individuals, have their family skele- tons, no doubt. Every subject, too, has its seamy side, though to be always dwelling on it is somewhat like constantly applying the lens and the magnifying glass to the wart on a great man's forehead, by way of making people acquainted with his character and career, when there are many more desirable means of informing the mind, which might be employed. The following passage is extracted verbatim from the New York Times, (February 14th, 1889,) and refers to the Grammar School, No. 9, West 81st street : " The rooms for the primary department are situ- " ated on the ground, and the floors are so cold that " the children and the teachers suffer continually with " aching feet and limbs. The largest room is 18 by 20, " and into this seventy-five children are crowded. In " one of the rooms forty-two children are seated in a " space twelve feet square," etc. We could refer to similar and even to more revolt- ing details regarding other public schools, prisons and lunatic asylums in some of the richest cities of this PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 13 great Republic ; and yet it would hardly be fair for foreign writers to take up these texts and dilate upon them, ad nauseam, as if there were no palliations, no exceptions which might be alleged. Although the cases are not exactly parallel, the treatment Russia has received at the hands of some English and American writers is not less unfair. The deplorable condition of some of her prisons, that of Tinmen in particular, has been made the subject of minute description and unsparing animadversion, while of the new and admirable establishments which have been erected at immense cost, in spite of straitened means, little or nothing is said, or at best, they are sneeringly referred to as Russia's " show prisons." Why do not these writers, at least, inform the public that it was the suppression of corporal punishment that led to the overcrowding of prisons in Russia, and that if the Russians were to hang all their murderers, as is generally done among other nations, reputed more humane, the problem of want of space would be greatly simplified ? Knouting was never as shocking to the Russian mind as it is to ours, albeit that whipping posts and pillories lingered in our midst for a good many cen- turies. In former days when a man was convicted of stealing, for instance, in Russia, and the local prison happened to be full, he received a knouting, supposed to be commensurate with the oif ense, and he was forth- with dismissed. On the other hand, however, the Russians have a Bhudistic horror of taking life. Capital punishment, which was introduced by the Tartars and adopted by the Grand Dukes of Moscow, 14 SLAV AND MOSLEM. is never resorted to except in extreme cases, and the power of sentencing to death is the prerogative of the Czar, in his quality of lieutenant of the divinity. For, notwithstanding, the enormity of the anachronism, Russia is still, to all intents and purposes, a theocracy. The Director in Chief of the Russian prisons is as humane and philanthropic, as any member of the Howard Society, to which he belongs I believe, and he is doing his utmost to ameliorate the condition of the criminal classes. Much more would have been done if Frank and Saxon had not combined in the cause of injustice and Moslem inhumanity, to drain the coffers of a nation who has so freely poured forth her life blood on the altar of freedom, on behalf of oppressed fellow Slavs. The admirable care and humanity with which steamers have been constructed for transporting con- victs from Odessa to Saghalien can certainly compare favorably with the manner in which English and French criminals were packed off to Australia and Cayenne, like so much cargo or ballast, stowed away in the holds of sailing vessels. And this, at a time, when these two nations were considered the most civilized and wealthiest in the world, and were certainly able to afford better accommodation for trans- porting their unfortunate condemned ones to the penal settlements. Even figures and hard facts are not all sufficient for informing the mind correctly, there are many con- comitant circumstances which alter cases, and when these are suppressed, the mind may be misled quite as much as if absolute deceit had been practised upon it. PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 15 It is easy to harrow the public mind with state- ments about laborers who receive only a few cents a day, live on black bread and cabbage soup, breathe foul air and so on and so on. But what if, owing to secular habits and the difference of monetary value, they are no worse off than English or American wage workers who starve and strike on twenty-five times the amount ? Mr. George Kennan, whose articles have been widely circulated in the Century Magazine, has done his best to enlist the sympathies of the American public on behalf of the unfortunate political exiles, justly or unjustly implicated in Nihilistic outbreaks but he does not remind his readers that most of the har- rowing cases with which he points his articles, somewhat irrelevantly at times, belong to periods when Nihilism was in the heyday of its reign of terror. When incendiary conflagrations, conspiracies and assasinations were of such frequent occurrence, that they left little room for considerations of humanity and moderation. Martial law prevailed at these periods ; conspirators were tried by military tribunals, as the apologists of Nihilism are themselves careful to inform us ; and "inter arma silent leges" is a well known axiom. The Rev. Dr. Lansdell, who in his extremely in- teresting work, "Through Siberia," goes over the same ground as Mr. Kennan, and Harry de Windt, a more recent traveler, seem to have seen things in a very different light, and by no means from the same standpoint. Nor do the experiences which Baron Rosen, a political exile, has described in his "Con- 16 SLAV AND MOSLEM. spirators in Siberia," seem to have been at all like those of Herzen, Dragomonoff (Stepniak) and other alleged eye-witnesses. Though of course no one would, for an instant, think of impugning the veracity of any of these gentlemen. The circumstance of time is also an important con- sideration, which must never be overlooked in speak- ing of Russia, for as we have remarked, what is per- fectly true one day may be equally false the next. In 1882 Dostoievski's "House of the Dead, or Ten Years in Siberia," was published in England and produced a great sensation. No dates being given in this nar- rative, which purports to be the diary of a convict, the public were easily led to believe that many re- voting details, therein contained, were true pictures of the existing state of things in Siberia. Yet the fact is, that Dostoievski having been implicated in the con- spiracy of Petrachevski, was banished to Siberia in 1848, and it is to this distant period that his narrative refers. Russia has been, until recently, one century, at least, behind hand ; this is an indisputable fact, but it is equally true that since fifty years, she has lived by steam. Many a race has been won on the home stretch, and it certainly looks as if this might be the experience of the great young empire of the Russiaii- Csesars. IT CHAPTEK II. RUSSIA'S ORIGIN AND EARLY CIVILIZATION. Though forming part of Europe, geographically, Russia has developed in conditions, which were in no- wise analogous to those of other European nations. Among these nations modern institutions are the evo- lutions of slowly matured germs. Sublimation, not precipitation, has been the process of their formation. Russia, unfortunately, had no roots in the past which were not torn up over and over again ; no middle ages, no middle classes, who are the great strength of a nation, and when occasion calls for it, a powerful lever in the hands of Reformers. She must hastily supplement the deficiencies of her early life, like a man suddenly called upon to play a part for which he has received no adequate training. She must rapidly adjust herself to the equipments of modern civilization, without having undergone the apprentice- ship of centuries. Time, the great educator of nations, has been to her but a rude task-master ; no painful experience has been spared her, and yet the deficien- cies of her education are numerous. During the first four centuries of the Christian era the plains of Sar- matia, the site of the future Russian Empire, were nothing but a highway for the barbarian hordes from Asia and the north of Europe, who deluged Europe and overthrew the Roman Empire. These ancestors of the nations of modern Europe 2 18 SLAV AND MOSLEM. reaped many advantages from the civilization they had supplanted. The Justinian code had already laid the foundations of their legislation ; and Saint Denys, the Areopogite, Saint Irene, Saint Pothin and other missionaries had already evangelized the Gauls and the Britons, when some Slav tribes settled on the banks of the Dneiper, in the basin of the Danube, and in other parts of Europe. Many of these Slavs were, in all probability, descended from the Scyths whom Herodotus described four centuries before Christ. The early records of the Western Slavs are neither numerous nor authentic. It is certain, however, that they were of Aryan descent. Comparative tables of able philologists like Max Muller, prove that among Indo-European languages the Slavonian has the closest resemblance with the Sanskrit ; indeed, there is less difference between them than there is between an- cieiit and modern Greek. Name the Veda to a Russian peasant and it will be a familiar word. If he should speak to you of fire he will use the same word used by his ancestors when they worshipped this element. Fire was worshipped by the ancient Slavs under the name of Ogon (Ogina in the oblique case,) answering to the Vedic Ogni, while their principal divinities were the Yedic Veruna and Yelos the Sun God. As among the Hindoos of India, cremation was in use among the early Slavs, as well as the Suttee ; the widows resign- ing themselves to perish on the funeral pile or in the bark of their defunct husbands. An Arabian traveler in the ninth century has left a curious description of the ceremonies of cremation, as practiced among the Slavs. "While the funeral pile was flaming," 19 says the narrator, "one of them said to me, "You Arabs are fools. You bury the one you most love and he is the prey of worms ; we, on the contrary, burn them in the twinkling of an eye, that they may go to Paradise as quickly as possible." "Many Russian philosophers, writes de Vogue, profess the doctrines of Budha, and glory in their Aryan descent. "You strangers, they say, will never understand the doctrines of the old Aryans ; you are only their collaterals, we are their lineal descendants." The origin of the word Slav is very uncertain, but it has given rise to the words slave, esclave, esclavo, schiavo, owing to the state of degradation to which most of the Slavs were reduced in Europe. The Western Slavs, however, maintained their independ- ence and attained a certain degree of civilization. Small townships arose, rude forms of municipal gov- ernment were established, which have, more or less, survived the shocks of many centuries, and may yet be the "grain of mustard seed" out of which will grow the great tree of political liberty for Russia in the future. Archaeologists have found in Russia a multitude of monuments resembling those left by the Toltec races in America, and which Samokvassof has shown to be the remains of the primitive cities (Oppida) of the an- cient Slavs. Excavations made among the earthen outworks and the funeral mounds which surround them have revealed potteries, instruments of iron, bronze, gold, silver and glass, and pieces of Eastern money bearing the date 699. In a vase discovered near Novgorod were found about 7,000 rubles worth of these coins. The swords made by the Slavs were re- 20 SLAV AND MOSLEM. nowned in Arabia long before those of Toledo in Spain, and Nestor records, that the Khagars imposed a tribute of swords on the Polians, a Slav tribe whom they had subdued. But the progress of this precocious civilization was arrested by tribal dissensions, which resulted in foreign intervention. About the year 850 some Northmen, call- ing themselves Russes, or sons of Rurick, established theii- headquarters at Novgorod, by right of conquest, according to some, though the generality of historians say, that they had been invited by the Slavs, who, wearied of the state of permanent anarchy in which they lived. " Let us look for a prince who will govern with justice," said the Slavs of Illmen, worn out by dissensions and civil wars. And then, says Nestor, the Tchoudes, the Krivitches and others united, and said to the Yareg princes : " Our country is vast, and we have all things in abundance, except order and justice ; come and govern us." Some writers pretend that these Yaregs were Slavs from the Baltic coast, but the probabilities are, that they were pure North- men or Scandinavians. For about ten years ago Samakovossof opened an ancient tomb, containing the remains of one of these warrior princes of the tenth century, and it was found, that the coat of mail and helmet were entirely similar to those represented on the famous tapestries of Bayeux, worked by Mathilda, wife of William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy, which province, we know, was conquered and settled by the Northmen, in the eighth and ninth centuries. If the Yaregs came as invited guests, their occupation of the country was very much the same as that of the RUSSIA'S ORIGIN AND EARLY CIVILIZATION. 21 Saxons in Britain. The foundations of the future Russian Empire were laid ; the house of Rurick be- came the reigning house, and has governed Russia ever since, the Romanoffs, who ascended the throne in 1681, being descended from Rurick by the female branch. The Northmen were by no means a pastoral and agricultural race like the Slavs. They were essentially ambitious and aggressive, witness their domination in France and in England. And though the Slavs, with the remarkable faculty of assimilation which still dis- tinguishes them, absorbed their conquerors, instead of being absorbed by them, as the Britons were by the Saxons, the infusion of this new element gave a dif- ferent direction to their development. At this early period of their history begins the long series of Russia's conquests, which is still far from being closed. Having heard of the beautiful city of the Caesars on the Bosphorus, the Russes floated down the Dneiper in their rude barks, nothing but the hollow trunks of birch and oak. They took Kieff on the way, and arrived at Constantinople, where the Greeks and the Emperor Michael, " the drunkard," were disputing about the schism begun by the patriarch Photius. Their presence caused a panic almost as great as that which seized the Romans, when Attila, " the scourge of God," appeared at their gates ; the inhabitants of Constantinople were fain to secure immunity by bribing the barbarians with w r ine and oil, and spices and tissues of all kinds. Meanwhile a violent tempest made havoc with the frail embarkations of the inva- ders, and they decamped in haste. The Byzantine 22 SLAV AND MOSLEM. legend tells us that the patriarch Photius took the " miraculous robe of our Lady of Blacherun, plunged it " into the Bosphorus, and a mighty tempest arose.'' Messudi, an Arabian writer, thus records this first expedition of the Russes to Byzance : " At the be- ginning of the fourth century of the Hegira came about 500 ships of Russians, each carrying a hundred men, and ran into the arm of the Mit (Azof ) which is connected with the Khagars River. They sent to the king of the Khagars asking leave to pass through his land and to sail down his river into the Khagar Sea, in which case they promised to give him, on their re- turn, half the booty they might bring back." In 904, Oleg, uncle of Igor, made a new expedition to Constantinople. He found the Bosphorus de- fended, but, with the calm determination of his race, he was not to be deterred by so small an obstacle. The Russes shouldered their light canoes, crossed the isthmus which connects Constantinople with the mainland, (as did Mahomed II some centuries later,) sailed up the Golden Horn, and suspended their shields on the walls of the Imperial City. It is said that they were an army of 80,000, and that their barks num- bered 20,000. The Emperer, Leon the Philosopher, whose philosophy was quite unequal to the emergency, hastened to treat with the invaders ; and the successor of Constantine the Great, and a thousand C?esars be- came the tributary of a band of pirates. The tribute was not forthcoming in season, it seems, for in 941, Igor, the Charlemagne of Russia, whose exploits have been sung in many popular ballads, came in person to claim his due, while Constantine V II was struggling against the Saracens, and endeavoring to repress the revolt of Lecapemus, an ambitious general. The moment was favorable, and the chronicler, Nestor, tells us that " Igor would have taken Con- stantinople there and then, if the elders of his council had not represented to him, that their nation was still unorganized and without a stable government ; so that, though they could easily take and pillage Constanti- nople, they were not yet able to keep it." The policy of conquerors has not always been marked by so much prudence, and if this episode be illustrative of Russian diplomacy, from first to last, the world may some day feel the preponderance of a nation, that matures its projects with Oriental slowness and protracted caution, but never relinquishes them. The Emperor Constantine, in Byzantine fashion, offered the Russes money to become his allies against the Bulgarians and the Thracians ; and while they were occupied in this mission, a hostile tribe of Slavs besieged Kieff at the instigation of the Greeks. At the same time Jean Zimices attacked them at Preslau and Adrianople, and the Russian invaders were forced to evacuate the country. Even after their conversion to Christianity the Rus- sians continued to be feared and distrusted by the Western Caesars. Many Slav colonies remained estab- lished in Thracia, the Peloponnesus and Attica, and the formation of a Slav confederation so near the gates of Constantinople, appeared to the Greek Emperors, as much fraught with danger as the growing power of the Bulgarians ; for, a prophetic inscription, hidden in the iron boot of an equestrian statue, announced " that 24 SLAV AND MOSLEM. " men from the North would one day take possession " of the capital of the Empire." During her sojourn in Byzance, (955-973,) Olga, the mother of Sviastolf , had become a Christian with some of her household, but she could not persuade her sons to follow her example. " My soldiers will turn me into ridicule," objected Sviastolf. His warriors, it is true, were, as a rule, very ill disposed towards the Christian religion, and, like the Northmen in France, they particularly enjoyed pillaging monasteries and torturing priests. Nor was the tendency of public opinion as yet such that the example of the Chief would be readily followed by the people, as it was some years later. It was not till 980 that diplomacy moved the inert conscience of thesn pagans and decided them to em- brace the Greek schism, after having long remained insensible to solicitations from Roman Catholics, Ma- hometans and Jews. Affinity of religion identifying them with the Greeks, Constantinople would more easily accept their yoke when the time came for them to supplant the Caesars. Tales are told of visions and miracles, but it may safely be said that it was the prac- tical side of the question which most appealed to the rulers. Accordingly baptisms were administered wholesale on the banks of the Dneiper ; the Russes followed the example of their Grand Prince Vladimir, and became Christians of the Schism of Photius, Pa- triarch of Constantinople or Greek Catholics, much as the subjects of Clovis, of Witikind and of Egbert be- came Roman Catholics. The conversion of the nation was cemented by the marriage of Vladimir with Anne, sister of the Greek Emperor, Basil II. This amiable princess exchanged the society of a highly civilized court for the semi- barbarous capital of the Russes. But she soon tf^ns- formed Kief? into another Constantinople, and so great was the esteem in which she was held that the daughters of her son Yarsolof were sought in marriage by Kings of Norway, of France, and of Poland. During her reign pagan idols were destroyed, Chris- tian churches were built, and learning and the arts re- ceived every encouragement. Indeed, Russia at this time was far from being inferior to the rest of Europe. But her civilization was wholly Oriental, borrowed from Asia and from Constantinople. This civilization, too, was only a phase in her history, and it was des- tined to be swept away by the bitter waters of a for- eign inundation. The Christian religion slowly modified the character and customs of the nation, but pagan practices and Christian dogmas long subsisted side by side. The people clung tenaciously to their heathen superstitions, and it is even asked if they do not still survive, at least in the hearts of some of the ignorant peasantry. The establishment of Christianity was a pledge of Russia's admission, at some future day into the fellow- ship of other European nations, but the fact of her having received this religion from schismatic Constantinople, and not from Rome, placed Russia, for many centuries, outside the pale of European civil- ization and progress. At the present day it is this difference of creed, however slight, that divides Greek and Roman Catholics in the Balkan Peninsula, and is ZO SLAV AND MOSLEM. one of the chief obstacles to the formation of a great Slav confederation under the hegemony of the Czar. If, on the one hand schismatic Russia was spared the long struggles between the secular power and a foreign spiritual power, which mark the annals of England, France and the Germanic empire during the middle ages, she also forfeited the material assistance she would have received in her hour of need from the Vatican and the Latin Christians against her Tartar dominators during the thirteenth and fourteenth cen- turies. TARTAR DOMINATION. 27 CHAPTER III. TARTAR DOMINATION. Vladimir established a fatal precedent, when he divided the kingdom among his seven sons, and under his successors the power of the throne was further weakened by repeated partitions of the country among princes of the house of Rurick, each of whom sought, like Vladimir, to provide for all his sons. This unnatural division and subdivision of a country possessing no natural barriers, and which was evidently designed by nature to be one united empire, led to inter- minable civil wars. According to ancient Slav custom, a defunct prince must be succeeded, not by his son, but by the eldest member of his family, uncle, brother, or cousin ; the Byzantine laws; on the contrary, which had been introduced with Christianity, required that the son, and not the head of the family, inherit from his father. And in consequence of the struggle be- tween the old and the new systems, every succession was a disputed one, and gave rise to a small War of the Roses. From 1054, death of Yarsolof the Great, Russia's legislator, par excellence, to the Tartar in- vasion, 1224, Pogodine enumerates sixty-four prin- cipalities more or less short-lived, two hundred and ninety-three princes and eighty-three civil wars. Kieff long maintained her supremacy, as the only Grand Princedom, but during the Tartar domination, 28 SLAV AND MOSLEM. the sceptre passed to Sousdalia, the future Grand Duchy of Moscow. In the midst of the pele mele of the civil wars, Nov- gorod, already great by her commerce, established her independence. The Novgorodians only tolerated a prince, because innate Slav anarchy seemed to need some such corrective. But at least, they meant to maintain the right of choosing their prince, and show- ing him the door very politely if he did not strictly conform to their many injunctions, and submit to the restrictions of his very limited civil and judicial powers. The figure of his revenues, and the sources whence they were to be derived, were regulated, and he was not allowed to acquire landed property, nor even to hunt in the woods, nor reap his harvests except at stated seasons. The office of Prince of Novgorod was not, on the whole, a very desirable distinction, and as may be easily supposed, it often went begging. During the seven years which preceded the Mongol conquest, not less than five princes w r ere deposed or abdicated. The Vetche, or governing Assembly, was the real sovereign of Novgorod. Like the " liber um veto " of the Polish Diet, the decisions of the Vetche always required the unanimity of votes, and this was obtained, if necessary, by throwing the minority into the Volk- hof. Sometimes, too, an anti- Vetche arose, and the two Vetches decided their rival differences by a hand to hand fight on the bridge, which spanned the Volk- hof. The Novgorodians enjoyed immunity from the civil wars of succession, which were always raging in the" other principalities, but civic dissensions and the TARTAR DOMINATION. 29 strife of rival factions were endemic among them- selves, and led to the fall of their republic, to which we have alluded elsewhere. Under the protecting wing of " My Lord Novgorod the Great," the republics of Pskof and Viatka were established, and went through similar experiences as the parent city ; they were all subdued and united under the scepter of the Grand Dukes of Moscow. A country thus divided was the self -adjudged spoil of foreign invaders. The Russians were attacked and vanquished by the Tar- tars on the east and on the south ; by the Poles and Lithuanians on the west and on the north. " At this time, say the Slav chronicles, for the pun- "ishment of our sins, there came some unknown peo " pie, no one knew their origin nor whence they came, " nor what religion they professed. God only knows, " and perhaps the wise men versed in book lore." Even Italy, France and Germany were panic-stricken by the .arrival of these hordes. Sieur de Joinville, the chron- icler of the reign of Saint Louis, (the ninth) thought they were Gog and Magog of the Bible, who were to come at the end of the world, when anti-Christ was to destroy all things." About the year 1224, Genghis Khan, an Asiatic warrior chief, succeeded after forty years' struggle, in imposing his authority on all the semi-barbarous tribes who belonged to the Mongolian race, and peopled the table lands of Central Asia, south of the Altai Moun- tains. He conquered Mandchuria, China, Turkestan, nearly the whole of Asia, in fact, and his empire was the most extensive that has ever existed. It was with this formidable enemy that the sons of Rurick had to con- 30 SLAV AND MOSLEM. tend ; but they were not subjugated without a strug- gle. They offered a brave resistance and only suc- cumbed at last, to overwhelming numerical force. One by one the chief towns of the south and east were taken, burnt and pillaged, and the inhabitants put to the sword, without distinction of age or sex. When the Persian invaders sent word to Leonidas and his brave companions to surrender their arms, " Come and take them," replied the hero of Thermopyle. Not less Spartan like was the rejoinder of the Princes of Mos- cow, Riazan, Mouron and Prousk. "If you wish peace, said the ambassadors of Genghis Khan, give us one-tenth of all you possess." " When we are dead, was the answer, you can take the whole." And the carnage continued. " Russian heads, says the Chroni- cle, were mowed down like the grass of the field, while thousands were led away into captivity. 2s either Genghis Khan nor his successors, proposed to subject themselves to the inclemencies of the Rus- sian climate, but they established baskakes, or receivers of tribute, in the different provinces, where the extor- tions of these tax gatherers often drove the people to rebellions, which were cruelly suppressed. Beside the tribute money, the vanquished were bound to furnish a military contingent to their dominators, and, in the moral decadence which followed, it was not unusual to see them fighting side by side with Tartars, against their own compatriots. In concert with them, An- drew, son of the saintly Alexander Nevaski, devastated the provinces of Vladimir and Sousdalia, (1281) and in 1327 we see the princes of Vladimir and Sousdalia, helping the Tartars to sack and burn Tver. TARTAR DOMINATION. 31 Baty Khan, Genghis Khan's generalissimo in Rus- sia, built at the mouth of the Yolga, Serai, (Astrakan) which became the capital of the Tartars of the Golden Horde, when they shook .off their allegiance to the successors of Genghis, and established an independent empire. Thither the Russian princes were forced to repair to do homage for their domains, and obtain permission to govern, which they could never do until they had received the " iarlik " of investiture. They deemed themselves fortunate, too, if they were not summoned to the court of the Grand Khan, at the other extremity of Asia, and which meant a journey of two years, from whence many never returned. The Russian princes could not engage in any war without the Khan's permission, and when the Tartar ambassa- dors brought them communications from their foreign masters, they were obliged to go on foot to meet them, to spread a precious carpet under the feet of these messengers, and listen, on their knees, to the reading of the communication. At the Court of the Golden Horde, the princes grovelled at the feet of their Asiastic masters, but only to crush down their own subjects under the iron heel of despotism, when they returned. As Karamsin justly observes ; " The liberty of a nation cannot exist when their rulers are the slaves of a foreign power." The old landmarks of civilization and free- dom disappeared one by one. The Vetches were suppressed ; the people no longer chose their civil and military magistrates ; and indeed, we may say, that every trace of law and liberty was obliterated. " When wolves fight, sheep lose their wool," says a Russian 32 SLAV AND MOSLEM. proverb, and such has been the experience of this unfortunate nation, in more than one instance. At the Court of the Golden Horde, the dissensions of rival princes were arbitrated by the Khans, and, by dint of bribery and servility, the Grand Dukes of Moscow (Sousdalia) obtained territorial supremacy. " The princes of Moscow, says Karamsin, took the humble title of servants of the Khan, and thus they became powerful monarchs." Solovief pretends that the Tartar domination but little affected the character and development of the Russians. However, I incline to the judgment of Kostomarof, Karamsin and other historians, as it seems more reliable in this matter. These writers attribute a considerable influence for evil to the thraldom of the nation to Moslem masters. For more than two cen- turies the Russians were crushed beneath the Mongol yoke, the slaves of a nation of slaves ; and, like all nations subjected to ra'ia domination, they still bear the stigma of the yoke. Here the masses learnt the uncomplaining endurance which distinguishes them, and were schooled to a serfdom still more bitter which awaited them. Here, too, were learnt those lessons of duplicity, cru- elty, venality and corruption, which it is so difficult to unlearn. Nor was this all. There was a considerable infusion of Tartar blood into the native race, among the upper classes chiefly, perpetuating the evils of per- nicious examples, and naturalizing the vices of these barbarians, who arrived Pagans, but soon became fervent Moslems. Boris Godonof, whose name was accursed by many generations of Moujiks, was of Tartar origin. TARTAR DOMINATION. 33 During this period, the National Church acquired immense power and wealth. The Khans, recognizing the influence of the clergy over the people, sought to ingratiate themselves with the former, by according them many privileges and immunities, while the people, seeing the favor enjoyed by their spiritual leaders with their common masters, sought the protection and patronage of the clergy by gifts and services. The wealthy classes meanwhile, thought they could not better employ their riches than by endowing churches and monasteries, as was the case at the time of the " religious terror" of the milleiiium in France and Germany during the Middle Ages. It is just, how T - ever, to recognize that the clergy of the Greek Church in Russia always employed their influence and ascen- dency on behalf of their countrymen, and that they were unremitting in their efforts to keep alive the smouldering flame of hope and patriotism in the hearts of prince and people. When the Grand Duke, Dimitri Donskoi faltered in his perilous enterprise of expelling the Tartars from the basin of the Don, it wyas the clergy who urged him on to victory by every argument that heaven and earth could furnish. In 1612, in 1812, in every solemn hour of great national peril, and for Russia there have been many, the clergy have always been foremost in courage and patriotism. No wonder, then, that indestructible bonds were established between the Russian people and their church ; that Orthodoxy is for the masses, another name for Fatherland, hearth and home, and that Orthodoxy, this synonym for the Greco-Russian Church 3 34 SLAV AND MOSLEM. still appeals so strongly to the hearts of all Russians, even of those penetrated by the leaven of Western free-thinking. During the dark centuries of Moslem domination the National Church was in Russia, as in the whole Balkan Peninsula, the supreme bond of union that held together the scattered and demoralized victims of alien oppression. "Do not laugh too much," said an Athenian of culture arid good sense, to Mr. Des- champs, author of " La Grece d'au jourd'hui," at our trivial forms of worship, our "ignorant pappas, and " our lazy and dirty monks. We love our religion as " it is. The Greek people has been preserved in that " religion as tish is preserved in salt." The Mongol domination entirely separated Russia from all communication with the other European na- tions, and in this respect these centuries of Tartar domination followed as they were by Polish invasions and the institution of serfdom, immeasurably retarded the progress of Russia. Her only participation in European civilization during the middle ages, had been through the medium of Byzantium in decay ; and even the meager stream which used to flow in from Constantinople was cut off when this city fell into the hands of the Turks (1453). While Russia was struggling to shake off the yoke of her Tartar dominators and then reducing her own sons to bondage, the aurora of a new civilization was dawning for Europe. Chaucer wrote his Tales, Spencer sang his Fairy Queen, and were followed by a galaxy of poets and prose writers, who lent lustre to the reign of Elizabeth, whom Ivan IV sought in marriage. The TARTAR DOMINATION. 35 invention of printing, the discovery of America, the reformation of Luther, and many othe** causes, gave a great impetus to learning, art and literature in Western Europe. But no ray of the great day of the Renaissance penetrated into Russia. 36 SLAV AND MOSLEM. CHAPTER IY. THE GRAND DUKES OF MOSCOW. Patriotism at least was not entirely destroyed amid the general demoralization of the nation. Many efforts were made to throw off the foreign yoke, but they only resulted in greater oppression. However, the vast empire of Genghis Khan was in its turn undergoing the process of disintegration, and the Grand Duke Dimitri Donskoi, taking advantage of the internal dissensions among the Tartars, assem- bled the forces of the Russian nation and defeated the enemy in several battles, expulsing them from the basin of the Don. Dimitri,. though not naturally inhumane, established corporal and capital punishment as means of repress- ing anarchy and brigandage and maintaining the ex- ercise of his absolute power. However odious in itself there can be no doubt that in the chaotic condi- tion of affairs which then existed, no milder form of government could have reconstituted a half civilized nation on the verge of dissolution. The history of the Grand Duchy of Moscow^, the nucleus of the future Russian Empire, commences, so to speak, at this period. At the beginning of the thirteenth century, Tamer- lane restored the fortunes of the Tartar empire. He reconquered the nations over whom Genghis Khan had reigned, and restored the Mogul domination iii THE GRAND DUKES OF MOSCOW. 37 Russia, devastating the City of Moscow in person at the head of a wild horde from the plains of Asia. It was not until the reign of Ivan III (the Great) 1462 1505 that the Tartars were again repulsed, and the Crescent slowly receded from Russian territory. Several feudal principalities were also united under his scepter, and Ivan became the prototype of the future autocrats of Russia. In 1453, the Turks under Mahomed II conquered the Byzantine capital and established their long domination in- the city of the western Csesars, the Tzaragrad, so coveted by the sons of Rurick. Pre- vious to this event, Jean Palgeologus one of the last Greek emperors of Constantinople desiring the help of the Latins against the Turks, had become reconciled with Rome, at the Council of Florence, 1436, where the Credo was sung for the last time in unanimity by the Greek and Latin churches. The patriarch of Con- stantinople made Isidore, a friend of the Pope, metro- politan of Moscow. But when the latter read the act of union and prayed for his Holiness at the Krem- lin, an ominous silence reigned, broken only by the Grand Duke Vasili, who like a true descendant of the Greek emperors, began a theological discussion with the prelate, and ordered that a council of bishops and boyars should examine the act of union. It was re- jected, and the metropolitan Isidore was imprisoned in a convent whence he escaped to Rome, where he was made a Cardinal. "He had gone to his Pope, led to his destruction by the devil," said the schismatics. Notwithstanding this defeat, Pope Paul III, know- ing that Ivan had revived the ambitious projects of 38 SLAV AND MOSLEM. Ids predecessors, which had necessarily been in abey- ance during the Tartar domination, and that he was forming designs on Constantinople, offered him the hand of Maria Palgeologus, daughter of Thomas Pal- seologus, and niece and heiress of the last Greek Em- peror, Constantine Dragases. The princess (Sophia) had abjured the Greek schism at Rome, taking the name of Maria at her baptism, and the Pope thought that by this alliance he would accomplish a double purpose, expulse the iniidels from Constantinople, and bring about the conversion of Ivan, who had become the supporter and chief of the Greek schism, since the fall of the Imperial City. Ivan was as obdurate as his predecessors in reject- ing all overtures of union with Rome, but he willingly espoused the Princess Sophia and her rights' to the Byzantine throne. "It was God Himself, he said, " who had sent him this offshoot of the imperial tree, " which formerly covered all orthodox Christendom " with its shadow." To this Greek Princess, whose family had so recently been dethroned by the Turks, vassalage to the Tartars seemed far more intolerable than it did to Russians, accustomed to the foreign yoke; and she continually urged Ivan to destroy the Moslem power. "How much longer am I to be the vassal of the Khan?" was her oft repeated complaint. Sophia Palaeologus did for Moscow, what Anne, sister of the Emperor Basil II had done for Kieff. By the fall of Constantinople, Moscow became the metropolis of or- thodoxy, and on her, too, devolved henceforth the duty of protecting the Eastern Christians, and avenging the catastrophe of 1453, against Islam. THE GRAND DUKES OF MOSCOW. 39 In 1472 Ivan assumed the arms of the Greek em- pire, the black eagle with two heads, together with the title of Tzar or Caesar, and when he sent an ambas- sador to negotiate a treaty of commerce with the Sultan, he forbade his envoy to bend the knee in the presence of the Moslem potentate. Pletscheff; another envoy e, even refused to dine with the Sultan, saying that "he would not sit at the table of the oppressor of his brethren." Exiled and fugitive Greeks .were warmly welcomed at Moscow, particularly men of learning like Theodore Lascaris, his son Demetrius, and Fioraventi Aristote, who was for Ivan III what Lefort was to Peter the Great architect, engineer and artilleryman. The Greek calendar and alphabet were adopted, Greek manners and customs prevailed. Such was the policy of the Grand Dukes, one well calculated to pave their way to the throne of the Caesars of Constantinople, when the favorable moment should arrive to enforce their claims. The defeat of the Tartars, the conquest of Kazan and Astrakhan, and the reunion of several republics and feudal principalities had given to the Grand Dukes the basin of the Don and of the Volga ; but they had nothing west of the Dneiper. Alexander, Duke of Lithuania and King of Poland, ruled at Kieif and Smolensk, while Livonia Courland and the whole coast of the Baltic were held by the Knights of the Sword, a branch of the Teutonic Order, whose Grand Master, the Elector of Brandenburg, became King of Prussia towards the end of the seventeenth century. In 1491 Maxamillian, Emperor of Austria, recog- ,40 SLAV AND MOSLEM. nizecl Ivan II as Czar of Russia, and made with him the treaty of Nuremberg, by which Austria engaged to help Russia against the Poles and Lithuanians, on con- dition that Ivan should help Austria to conquer Hun- gary. It was the first time that the descendants 'of Rurick were admitted into European politics. About a century later Ivan IY (the Terrible,) having been defeated by Stephen Bartori, King of Poland, sought to obtain a favorable treaty by the intervention of the Pope. The all powerful Jesuits had brought about a "Holy League" among Catholic sovereigns for the maintenance of religious unity in Europe, and the opportunity again seemed favorable for terminating the Greek schism. Pope Gregory XIII sent Father Possevino, a famous Italian diplomatist, to negotiate the treaty of Kiverova Horka. Ivan was delighted, but remained inaccessible to overtures of union with Rome. The following passage from "Moscovia del Possevino," gives an idea of the pretensions of Russia at this epoch of her history : 'This Jean or Ivan, besides the titles of King of Astrakhan and Kazan, has thought fit to call himself Emperor of Germany in writing to the Sultan, under pretext that he is a descendant of Augustus Caesar, who used to call himself the "Prussian." It is easy to see what is in his mind regarding the confines of Germany and of Europe. He thinks that all the Catholics whom he calls "Romans" will soon be here- tics, and that it will be easy for him to subjugate them and open the way to the conquest of all the rest." Ivan the Terrible refused all recognition of the King of Sweden, saying, " that it was not suitable THE GRAND DUKES OF MOSCOW. 41 " that he, a descendant of the Caesars, should treat " with an elected King of obscure birth, but that the " latter might confer with the Governor of Moscow, " if necessary. " Ivan's cruelty was as great as his ambition. During the latter part of his reign, Russia was steeped in blood, and stories of his maniacal furies are among the facts of Russian history with which foreigners are best acquainted. He was a Henry VIII broken away from the restraints of the Magna Charta and let loose upon a country accustomed to be trodden upon. Nevertheless, if we would judge these " Great" and " Terrible" Muscovites aright, we must do, what people often forget to do ; we must recall the century to which they belonged, and the men and women it has produced, of purpose so stern, of sueh unflinching and remorseless determination, that they might almost serve as foils to Ivan the Terrible himself. It was the century of Louis the Eleventh, of Catherine de Medici, of Torquemada, of the " She Wolf of France." If their " evil manners live in brass," the work accomplished by these two sovereigns was certainly not " written in water." And so Titan was their task, that it is probable that no finer instruments or gentler means than those which they employed would have been adequate to the difficulties of the undertaking. Ivan the Great, and Ivan the Terrible, did for Russia what Louis the Eleventh did for France. They crushed the power of the great nobles, whose rival dissensions kept the country in a perpetual state of civil war ; and they prepared the way for national unity by conquest and by annexation. For Russia, 42 SLAV AND MOSLEM. even more than for France, this unity was a sine qua non of existence and development, the country being evidently destined by nature to be the seat of one vast empire. There exists among the inhabitants of the different regions a mutual dependence which cannot be evaded. The regions of the forests must have the cereals and the animals of the arable steppes, and these fertile steppes of the South are in equal need of the timber from the North. The commerce of the Dwina and the Neva would be crippled without the co-operation of the Dneiper and the Volga. By substituting autocracy to oligarchic despotism, Ivan III and Ivan IV saved Russia from aristocratic oppression and anarchy, which ruined Poland, and led to her final dismemberment. Muscovite autocracy created the Empire of the Czars, and was itself a natu- ral growth of Russian soil. Long before the advent of Rurick, the stern rigors of their physical condi- tion rendered the Russians forcibly gregarious, and necessitated the patriarchal despotism of the family, of which the absolutism of the Mir was only an ex- tended form, and autocracy the final evolution. The independent life of the American squatter and backwoodsman would in all times have been imprac- ticable in Russia, where the urgent need of the strength which comes from union was so keenly felt by all, that they unhesitatingly laid aside personal interests, never questioning the law, which requires that in all socie- ties the individual good be made subservient to the general weal of the community. This unlimited capacity for self-sacrifice which still characterizes the great Russians, and seems to be a kind of second THE GRAND DUKES OF MOSCOW. 43 nature with them, is a factor of considerable impor- tance which must never be overlooked by those who would cast the horoscope of the Slav Empire. For, universal history teaches us that self-seeking, the pur- suit of personal aggrandizement, the race for filthy lucre, and a complete indifference for the weal of the community at large, are the causes and the precursors of the decadence of nations. When, to the rigors of a pitiless nature, were added the miseries of Moslem domination, and the perils of aggressive wars on the part of European neighbors, it is easy to understand what vast proportions this senti- ment of individual abnegation acquired, and how it disposed the people, not only to submit to the des- potism of the Mirs, (village assemblies of self-govern- ment,) and to the patriarchal discipline of the family, as it existed until recent years, but also to accept, nay to create an official autocracy, or State despotism strong enough to deliver them from the Moslem yoke, and from the Poles and Swedes ; capable, too, of gathering together the fragments of national existence, and cementing the foundations of a great Empire. Thus we see that the autocrats are truly the man- dataries of the people, and the powerful progressive Russian Empire of to-day, bears testimony to the fidelity with which they accomplished their mandate. Autocracy, therefore, is by no means the anomalous tyranny that it is misrepresented to be. It is essen- tially a popular government. I do not mean a gov- ernment in which " every man has his say," according to Mark Twain's definition ; I use the word popular in its general acceptance. And, we must also bear in 44 SLAV AND MOSLEM. mind, that when the direct line of Rurick became ex- tinct, Prince Michael, the founder of the present House of Romanoff, was, literally, called to the throne by popular acclamation, on the market place. When political agitators devise a scheme for over- turning existing institutions, and establishing a new form of government, their idea or concept, is, so to say, submitted to the vote of the people. If it is blackballed by them, the agitation is called a rebellion and the agitators pay the penalty. If, on the contrary, the idea, or concept obtains the consensus of the peo- ple, the agitation rises to the dignity of a revolu- tion, and the agitators become the rulers. In 1825, in 1848, and in 1881, the idea of would-be revolution- ists was submitted for popular approval, and was most decidedly blackballed. It is generally conceded that if a plebiscite were taken to-day, two-thirds of the people would vote for the Czar. The rural millions are, according to Mr. Dragamonof , (Stepniak) too besotted to be roused into rebellion. " What can you do with a people whose " greatest preoccupation is whether the sign of the " cross should be made with three fingers or with " two ?" he exclaims with disgust ; while elsewhere he writes : "Our writers and publicists are too lacking in " political training to make the attempt to re-organize "our political regime." (P. 3736, Russia under the Czars.) Now, be the cause stupidity or whatever it may, the Radicals and Nihilists of Russia, by their own admis- sion, have never succeeded in gaining the adhesion of the people, and until they do so, I maintain that Auto- cracy is a popular government in Russia. THE GRAND DUKES OF MOSCOW. 45 It may riot be to the taste of Mr. George Kennan nor to that of Mr. Dragamonof and other members of the " intelligencia," as that class is called to which cul- tured perturbators of the. peace like him belong. But governments exist for the masses and should be adapted to the requirements of the great majority of the nation, and not to the liking of these distinguished individuals, who are, no doubt, a law unto themselves. ~Not only is autocracy a popular government, but it is also the government the best suited to the actual needs of the people, with their inherent race qualities, and in conditions which have been induced by uncon- trollable antecedents. Freely then, do I bear my share of Mr. Dragamonof s contempt for " the blindnesss of " certain writers, who contend that Russia is still un- " fitted to be her own mistress." (P. 333, Russia un- der the Czars " Stepniak.") If, what are commonly called political liberties, developed so rapidly in England, it was probably due in a great measure, to more facile physical conditions, and to comparative immunity from foreign aggression, which their insular position afforded. And even with these advantages, how many centuries elapsed before the complete affranchisement of the nation was ef- fected ? The able historian of " The English People," (Greene,) repudiates this theory, which is, perhaps, somewhat fatalistic ; but there may be a medium be- tween according too much to physical environment and wholly denying its importance, as a factor, in the for- mation and development of national institutions, his- tory and character. 46 SLAV AND MOSLEM. CHAPTER Y. SERFDOM. Delivered from a foreign yoke, reconstituted as a nation, endowed with some of the inventions of mod- ern progress, Russia began to occupy a position by no means inferior, among the nations of Europe. But her progress was soon brought to a stand still again ; this time, by internal causes. Feodor, son of Ivan the Terrible, was incompetent, and his brother-in-law, Boris Godonof, ruled during his life-time, and, at his death,^ usurped the throne, after having assassinated the rightful heir x y In 1593, Boris, by a stroke of his pen, decreed the thraldom of the masses, though it is probable that he did not himself foresee the extent of the evils he was entailing on Russia. Some writers say he was forced to take this measure, in order to prevent the emigration, en masse, of the peasants, to the newly conquered fer- tile Provinces of the South, as it was depopulating the environs of Moscow. There may be some truth in this statement, but there is no doubt that he was also actuated by motives of self-interest, and sought to for- tify himself on the throne he had usurped, by ingra- tiating himself with the landed proprietors, who were then the mainstay of the army, and to whom this measure was very acceptable. Serfdom in some form is as old as the world, and it persisted in Europe long SERFDOM. 47 after the introduction of Christianity. Monastic insti- tutions which spread so rapidly during the Middle Ages, were but a form of serfdom, ennobled by re- ligion ; a means of enchaining the human will without degrading the individual. The inhabitants of these monasteries and their number was legion could neither inherit nor bequeath, and, as regards the exer- cise of any of the functions of a citizen, their condition was exactly the same as that of the serf. This system of " civil death," as it was called, was abolished by the French revolution of 1799. But serfdom had ceased in France and in England, with the decline of the Feudal System. In Prussia it was not abolished until 1835 ; and it will be remembered that the Elec- tor of Hesse Cassel sold many of his serfs to England, to reinforce her armies during the American war of Independence. The ancient Russian legislature recognized two classes of domestics. Firstly, domestics or serfs by contract, who sold themselves to a master for a term of years, or for his life-time. Secondly, complete domestics or serfs. The latter class was composed ex- clusively of prisoners of war. Even these could not be sold if they were Christians, and domestics or serfs of both classes became free at the death of the master. The fatal law of Boris did not, however, constitute slavery as it existed in 1860. It only reduced the peasants to the condition of the " glebse adscript! " of the Feudal System. They and their descendants were chained to the soil, on which they happened to be at the time of the promulgation of the decree. The prac- tice of buying and selling slaves individually, was an 48 SLAV AND MOSLEM. abuse which established itself imperceptibly. The law of 1593 expressly forbidding the selling or even the bequeathing of peasants, without the land, or of the land without the peasants. For a long time evaders of the law took the precaution of selling an acre or two of land with the peasant ; but, in the course of time, even this precaution became unnecessary, and men and women were advertised for sale like animals and chattels. At the beginning of his reign, Alexander I, received a petition from a number of serfs who had been sold to a Scotchman, and were cruelly ill-used at his found- ries at Saint Petersburg. Only nobles were supposed to hold serfs, and this man had received a title, in recompense of the services he had rendered, by the introduction of steam navigation. The Czar sent the petition to the Council of State to have the matter examined, adding a few lines in his own writing to express his surprise that peasants had been sold in this illegal way. " I am sure," said his Imperial majesty, " that the sale of serfs without the land, is forbidden by the law." And the Czar, says Turguenef, the Sena- tor, (not the novelist,) "was convinced that these " abuses were abolished, whereas they were becoming " more flagrant from day to day. At the Palace of " Justice, not two steps from the Imperial residence, " serfs were being sold to the highest bidder, at bank- " rupt sales." So utterly ignorant are autocrats of what is going on around them. From the beginning of Alexander the First's reign, one million rubles of the public revenue were devoted annually to the purchase of lands to which serfs were SERFDOM. 49 attached, while many nobles offered to liberate theirs without compensation of any kind ; and though the Ukase of Emancipation was delayed until 1860, Russia was not the last stronghold of slavery among Christian nations. A peculiar feature of serfdom in Russia was, that none but Russian Slavs could be reduced to this unhappy condition. Even Tartars, who furnished large contingents to the army, were exempt from the law of Boris, and slaves of any other nationality be- came free on touching Russian soil. Pouchkine, one of Russia's greatest poets in the last century, was the grandson of an African slave, on whom it had pleased Peter the Great to confer a title and marry to a grand dame of his court. At the time of the Emancipation there were two classes of serfs. Serfs a 1'obrok and serfs a la corvee. The condition of the former was really not a painful one, when they belonged to wealthy and kindly dis- posed nobles. They paid their owner a certain rede- vance or rent, and were free to employ their time and make money as they chose. Thirty years ago most of the masons and carpenters of St. Petersburg and Moscow were serfs of this class, who had come from the provinces. Turguenef speaks of one of these serfs, who had made a large fortune as a hatter, and offered his master 800,000 rubles as the price of his freedom ; the latter was in need of ready money and gladly accepted the offer. Others engaged in com- merce and became quite wealthy. Their chain was long and light, but they were not the less slaves. In many respects their condition was similar to that of married women in England until recent years. They 50 SLAV AND MOSLEM. could do nothing except in their masters name, and he could appropriate all their earnings if he chose to do so. This cruel injustice was sometimes perpe- trated, but it was, happily, the exception not the rule. Before the Emancipation there used to be at St. Petersburg and the principal cities, agencies which supplied commercial houses and. private individuals with cashiers, clerks and superintendents. Agents and employes were all serfs a 1'obrok, and equally re- nowned for their great probity and capacity. The condition of serfs a la corvee was by no means as favorable. They were forced to work for their masters at least three days in the week, and many ra- pacious owners were in the habit of exacting extra labor, as well as a tribute in the way of eggs, butter and honey. These unfortunate serfs were subjected to much ill treatment and injustice. They were often hired out to contractors of public works, scantily fed, and forced to work hard every day of the week, with- out remuneration. However, the crying wrongs of the serfs, like the cruel treatment of political exiles, have been dw r elt upon so extensively, that it would be useless to expatiate here upon what cannot be too much vituperated. "Most foreigners," says Mackenzie Wallace, "are already only too ready to exaggerate the oppression and cruelty to which serfdom gave rise, so that in quoting a number of striking examples, I shall only be pandering to a taste for the horrible and the sensa- tional which is in no need of stimulus," The same writer informs us that in the year which preceded the Emancipation, the number of estates, placed under SERFDOM. 51 curators, in consequence of the abuse of authority on the part of the owners, amounted to two hundred and fifteen. On the other hand, when the proprietors were en- lightened and humane, as was often the case, the life of the Russian serf "was much easier than that of " many free men, who live in a state of complete indi- " vidual freedom and unrestrained competition. And, " when I say that the condition of many free men is " worse than was the condition of many Russian " serfs, the reader must not imagine that I am think- " ing of some barbarous tribe, among whom freedom "means an utter absence of law and unrestricted " right of pillage. On the contrary, I am thinking of " a class of men who have the good fortune to live " under the beneficent protection of English law, not " in some distant inhospitable colony, but between St. " George's Channel and the North Sea." (Wallace's Russia.) So extreme a statement could only be made on the authority of a man who passed six years in Russia with the express purpose of studying the national institutions. Since the beginning of this century all parties, the autocrats and the Slavophils, as well as the liberals and the radicals, deeply felt the necessity of abolishing a system w r hich was opposed to all moral and material progress of individuals as well as of the nation, and must be overthrown before any other reforms could be effected. For the first time public opinion asserted itself in Russia. Poetry, romance and the drama pre- pared the w^ay. Madam Markevitch was the serfs 52 SLAV AND MOSLEM. Harriett Beecher Stowe, while "Dead Souls of Gogol" and Turguenef s "Memoirs of a Hunter," awoke pub- lic interest by presenting most faithful pictures of the lives of the serfs and their masters. The Emancipation was accomplished by the united efforts of all classes, if we except the class, the most interested. To use the expression employed by Alex- ander II in his manifesto, announcing the termination of the Crimean war, and his projected reforms, it was truly the result "of the combined efforts of the govern- ment and the people," and in this respect it differs entirely from the reforms effected by Peter the Great without the nation, and in spite of it. The Emanci- pation considered in this light, marks a new era in Russian history, and shows the progress made by the nation during the last two centuries. The great difficulty, lay in devising a means of con- ciliating the rights of proprietors with the liberation of their serfs, and of emancipating so large a body of inhabitants, without introducing the two devouring evils of Western Europe pauperism and proletariat, hitherto unknown in Russia. The method adopted was this. Half the arable land was taken from the serf owners, and given to the Mirs or Village Communes, who held it in trust for the emancipated serfs, to whom they portioned it out, according to the needs of each family. The dues on these lands were liberally estimated, and capitalized at six per cent, the government immediately paying to the proprietors four-fifths of the whole sum, by bonds or otherwise. The peasants were to pay six per cent, to the government, during forty-nine years, for the sums SERFDOM. 53 advanced, and the remaining fifth to the proprietors, either at once or by instalments. Strange as it may seem, the peasants were by no means overjoyed. Freedom in these conditions hardly appeared a boon. The brain of the moujik, is, as a rule, quite impervious to the meaning of the word liberty in the abstract ; to him, the jargon of liberal- ism is an unknown tongue. "What has this French- man been jabbering about ?" is all the response a revolutionary propagandist elicits from his moujik audience (Turguenef's Virgin soil.) This is the stone wall against which the hopes of radicals and nihil- ists have always been shattered. They forget that the people of whom they are the self -constituted cham- pions against the autocrats, are absorbed by their phy- sical necessities, and quite unconscious of the needs and aspirations which are attributed to them. "Rus- " sian radicalism is founded on the ignorance of the " nature and the needs of the people, whose wants are " reduced to such a minimum, that only extreme " misery can rouse them to revolt, and very meager " concessions suffice to appease them. Nor will this " change, until the people have attained a certain " degree of culture." (Fragment of a memoir found in the possession of a propagandist named Tsvilinef.) What the Russian peasant does want, is to have the necessaries of life, and this, as easily as possible. When, therefore, they understood that the ukase of emancipa- tion left them hampered with the burden of obliga- tions, as onerous as before, their first feeling was one of discontent. So much the more so, that they had never considered themselves exactly as serfs, and that 54 SLAV AND MOSLEM. there was, among them, a traditional belief that the land belonged to the Commune, the nobles being only temporary occupants, with a delegated authority, who were allowed by the Czar, to exact labor and dues within certain limits. It was this feeling of proprietor- ship, no doubt, that preserved the moujik from the debasing influence of slavery, and maintained the simple dignity and self-respect which has always characterized these poor sons of toil. The ancient feudal tenure was probably at the root of this belief, which persisted, long after the former had become absolute ownership. "We are yours but the land is ours," was a popular saying among the serfs. So genuine was this conviction, that at the time of the emancipation a large commune in a province of Mos- cow naively sent a deputation to their former pro- prietor, to inform him that "as he had always been a " good master, the Mir would allow him to retain his " house and garden during his life time." And in recent years, when a general re-distribution of the land wsis confidently expected by the peasants, they kindly sought to reassure landlords who had large families, by telling them, "that they had nothing to fear, because, at the coming redistribution, they would certainly receive an extra piece of land in addition to what they already held." The number of serfs emancipated in 1861, if we include the crown peasants and the domestic serfs, was about forty millions. The latter were not an agricul- tural class, and they received no lands, but generally continued to serve their former owners or new mas- ters for wages. SERFDOM. 55 Discontented, idle members of this class congregate in large towns, and may, in time, become a disturbing proletariat, open to revolutionary seduction. In the fertile districts, where land is always increasing in value, both peasants and their ci-devant proprietors congratulate themselves on their changed relations. Such is not the case, however, in less favored districts, where peasants and nobles alike find their well-being diminished by the emancipation. From a moral standpoint, the reform was, for the nobles, a most undoubted and immediate benefit. They were deprived of the exercise of "power without " right," of which Chatham truly says : " that it is " the most detestable object which can be presented to " the human imagination ; it is not only pernicious to " those whom it subjects, but works its own destruc- " tion." Moreover, the nobles were forced to shake off some of their oriental lethargy, and take means to adapt themselves to the new state of affairs, which, in many cases, diminished their revenues, and, always, made them more precarious and dependent on their own exertions. " Formerly," said one of them, " we kept no accounts and drank champagne, now, we keep accounts and drink beer." Indirectly, the emancipation did ruin some nobles : those whose position was like that of insolvent mer- chants, who postpone the day of reckoning by means of credit and promissory notes ; and those w r ho con- tinued to live recklessly beyond their income, without taking any means to adapt themselves to the new regime, were inevitably ruined, ere long. For the peasants, the benefits of the emancipation 56 SLAV AND MOSLEM. were less tangible ; for them, the seamy side was at first the most apparent. In the days of serfdom, they grazed their cattle on the pastures of their owners, and they used his timber for building and repairing their izbas, now they are forced to rent pasturage, and must buy every piece of wood they need. If they were improvident or unlucky, the master was their resource ; overtaken by sickness or old age, he was their providence. All this they naturally regret. The emancipation has improved their legal position, and undoubtedly increased their opportunities of moral and material progress. Have they availed them- selves to the utmost of their new advantages ? Hardly. Their present condition, as compared with the past, is correctly described by a peasant's answer to inqui- ries on the subject : " How shall I tell you ?" he replied ; " it is both better and worse." Better for those whom industry, ability and favorable circum- stances have enabled to profit by their liberty, to build up a little fortune, and become village plutocrats or " Koulaks," as they are called ; worse for those whom improvidence, idleness or ill luck has reduced to the condition of wage- workers ; whom penury has com- pelled to mortgage their time and labor. The burden of taxes is heavy, no doubt, though it has been some- what diminished in recent years. But even admitting with the Nihilist " Stepniak," that " the peasant gives " up in taxes of all descriptions forty-five per cent. of. w his income, or, in other terms, three days work in a week," it is hardly fair to make the agrarian condi- tions of the Ukase of 1860 wholly responsible for the misfortune of those peasants, who have fallen into SERFDOM. 57 " kabala," or state of dependency of the laborer on his employer, which arises from the former's irretriev- able indebtedness." For, at the outset, all were equally handicapped by the burden of taxes ; those who succeeded in building up small fortunes, as well as those who fell into " kabala," which, after all, is really the condition of the masses of wage workers in all civilized countries. " Arbiters of the peace," as they were called, who undertook the difficult task of conciliating the in- terests of the nobles and the serfs, acquitted them- selves of their arduous duties with great skill and devoted disinterestedness, and the disappointed peas- ants were finally persuaded into appreciating their liberty, in spite of the onerous conditions by which it was accompanied. As much praise cannot be bestowed on the peasant judges. The elders of the Mir or village self-government, are afflicted with the prevalent malady venality, in all its forms. They sell their integrity for vodka (whiskey) and tamper with the funds that pass through their hands. Well-to-do honest peasants will not hold office, and in consequence the government of the village democracies often falls into the most un- worthy hands. The supineness and inebriety of the Russian peas- ants continue to be unfortunate facts, though they are often exaggerated. Their dishonesty, too, is prover- bial, but it must be remembered that centuries of serf- dom which impeded the development of civil and moral personality, also blunted the sense of personal responsibility. For generations they had been accus- tomed to supply themselves from their master's posses- 58 SLAV AND MOSLEM. sions, and they could not instantaneously acquire a moral sense, in harmony with their new social status. They are not, however, devoid of good qualities and are often possessed of great mental resources. Even in the days of servitude, many showed themselves faithfully devoted, nobly disinterested, and, at the same time, endowed with remarkable acuteness. Speaking of a serf who had been sent to Saint Peters- burg to watch over his master's interests, in a case which was passing through the courts there, Turguenef says, he was struck by the great ability and technical knowledge with which this illiterate peasant pleaded his owner's case, while he, himself, was uncomplain- ingly enduring the privation of the necessaries of life. " My master is poor and cannot afford to do more," he said, apologetically, when Turguenef alluded to his privations, and offered him pecuniary aid, which he accepted with simplicity and dignity. (La Russie et les Russes.) Great revolutions can never be accomplished with- out more or less destroying the political equilibrium of a nation. Contending rights and conflicting interests must for a time, disturb the social organism and raise serious doubts, as to whether the remedy is not worse than the evil. Hence the device of conservators: " Quieta non movere." The magnitude and importance of the revolution accomplished in Russia, by the abolition of serfdom, as it existed in 1861, is not, perhaps, duly estimated. The very foundations on which the social structure reposed, were shaken, and a new legislation, so to say, became necessary to regulate the condition of these SERFDOM. 59 millions who had had no legal existence hitherto. All this has necessarily induced what geologists would call a prolongation of the " liquid state," and many years must elapse before the nation can be consolidated on a new basis. The absence of middle classes has been a long felt want in Russia, and it was intensified by the law of Boris Godonof, which isolated and nullified a large portion of the nation, who vegetated for centuries in the shadow of their rural institutions. More than one Russian sovereign has recognized the need of having a middle class of traders and artisans, and has sought to create one. Ivan, the Terrible, destructor of the com- monwealths of Novgorod and Pskof, endeavored to raise and aggrandize the citizens of Moscow in particu- lar, with a view to forming an influential urban class, as a counterpoise to the proud Kinaz, (Princes) and boyars (landed gentry.) Peter the Great pursued the same policy, and endowed the cities with many privileges, even according them a certain local auton- omy. Unfortunately the restriction of these privileges by his successors, and the transforming of several branches of commerce into State monopolies, retarded the for- mation of a bourgeoisie. Catherine II, strove in vain to complete the w^ork of Peter the Great, by dividing the traders and mer- chants into groups or guilds, having their own admin- istration and privileges. To Alexander Second was reserved the glory of re- moving the great obstacle, to the formation of a class of intelligent, responsible workers, capable of becom- 60 SLAV AND MOSLEM. ing some day the co-operators of the Czar. This class is in process of formation, but these millions of ci-de- vant serfs are not yet sufficiently developed to become the guardians of political liberty, and the controllers of the bureaucrats. Like the giant Illya of Mouron, in the Russian legends, the people of whom he is sup- posed to be a personification, have been so long shackled and manacled, that even now, when the fet- ters have been forged off, they have not the full con- sciousness of their power, nor the free use of their latent faculties. Until they acquire both, autocracy and bureaucracy must needs reign, if the masses are to be saved from the tyranny of the learned proletariat, and of what Horace Greely calls " swashy politicians." The cordial relations which continue to exist, be- tween the ci-devant serfs and the nobles, are worthy of remark. At the Zemstvos or provincial assemblies of self-government, they deliberate side by side, with- out the least animosity or systematic opposition. Still it takes time for the serf to forget his former state, and for the owner to forget that these men who now speak of their rights and maintain them, were once his property. Since the emancipation, the social dualism has been greatly attenuated, but not until it has been entirely destroyed, and the different classes linked together in common efforts for the common weal, will Russia show to the world, the whole gamut of her genius and strength. If for individuals, adversity is the best training school for greatness, can the rude discipline which the Russian people have undergone, be unavailing for SERFDOM. 61 their future grandeur ? Even now, it is the Spartan stoicism, the unlimited obedience and patient self- abnegation of the peasant soldier, that make the force of the Russian army, while his mansuetude and bon- homie are the organs of Russia's genius for coloniza- tion and assimilation. The conquered find the yoke less galling and soon become reconciled to it, when their yoke fellows of the conquering race are not overbearing, supercilious and arrogant. Like many a partial, discriminating mother, Russia will, no doubt, some day find that the children whom she has the most ill-used and neglected, are those to whom she will owe the most. Revolutionary propagandists are not wanting, who endeavor to persuade the people and the public, that the condition of the peasants is worse than it was in the days of serfdom, and that soon they will fall into a state more deplorable than that of the "English peo- ple, whom the rich have deprived of their lands and reduced to the state of slaves." But they find the peasants quite inaccessible. Some writers are pleased to attribute their want of responsiveness to these incendiary efforts to brutish stolidity and rank in- anity. "What can you do," they say, with people whose greatest pre-occupation is whether the sign of the cross ought to be made with three fingers or with two ?" (Stepniak.) In reality, however, it is the filial devotion of the people to the Czar that is their best preservative. To rouse these apparently inert masses, it is necessary to appeal to them in his name. We have seen this done 62 SLAV AND MOSLEM. very successfully in the massacre of the Jews. They were so persuaded in the latter instance that they were obeying the Czar, that in a certain village the peasants naively requested the permission of the gov- ernment authorities, to leave certain houses unpillaged till the next morning. The only way to disabuse their mind in such cases, is for the troops to fire on them, and this means has been resorted to on more than one occasion, to convince them that they were not acting in conformity with the Czar's wishes. They have un- bounded confidence in his omnipotent beneficence, and have lived, since the emancipation, in constant expectation of a new Ukase, which is to give them full possession of their lands, and better their condition in every way. Their dreams would probably have been realized to a great extent, if the unfortunate Bulgarian war had not drained the public coffers and rendered fiscal re- forms impossible for the time being. However, re- cent reforms in the system of taxation have somewhat ameliorated their condition, and, above all, the peas- ants are now free to indulge their love of roving. Strange as it may seem the land in many districts is quite unequal to the support of the rapidly increasing population. Not only does the supply of food not in- crease in the same ratio as the population, which Mal- thus affirms to be always the case, but the productive- ness of the soil decreases, absolutely as well as rela- tively, owing to the impoverishment of the land by unscientific farming on the one hand, and on the other to the accelerated rapidity with which the popu- lation has multiplied of late years. In 1877 the cen- SERFDOM. 63 BUS numbered about seventy-eight millions, to-day there are nearly a hundred and ten millions. Fortunately for Russia the remedy is within reach. The peasants are free to indulge their innate love of wandering, which provoked the measure taken by Boris in 1593. The Perm railway has been fully oc- cupied of late in running emigrant trains across the Ural mountains. Sometimes in the course of a single year thirty to forty thousand peasants make their way to the fertile regions of Tomsk in Siberia ; it is their promised land, "flowing with milk and honey." So much for the horrors of exile as they appear to the Russian mind. Formerly they used to tramp on foot two thousand miles to reach their destination, leaving many colonies and tomb-stones on the road like some of the aborigines of America. But the rapid devel- opment of the railway system has shortened these arduous journeys. Most of the peasants now tramp or ride as far as the Yolga, sell off their cattle, pro- ceed by steamer to Perm and take the train across the Urals to Tiumen, where the navigation system to Siberia begins. Thence they continue their journey to Tomsk by steamer. This form of tramp coloniza- tion, accomplished entirely by private initiative, existed long before the conquest of Siberia. In military districts, at Kars or in the basin of the Amour for instance, the colonists are provided for by the government, they are transferred to their destina- tion free of cost and find everything prepared to re- ceive them when they arrive. SLAV AND MOSLEM. CHAPTER VI. RUSSIAN CHARACTERISTICS. Montesquieu, and other philosophers of history, have attributed undue importance to the influence of phy- sical environments, and insisted in seeing in every social and political organization the logical sequence of certain climatic and topographical premises, as if these implied a fatality, from which there were no escape. Apart from the exaggerations of this school, the fact remains, that geographical and geological con- formation, as well as latitude and longitude are im- portant factors in the development of the character and history of nations, subjected to their influence for centuries. Speaking of the effect of their surroundings on the ancestors of the English, Taine remarks : " Rain, wind " and surge leave room for naught but gloomy, melan- " choly thoughts. The very joy of the billows has in " it an inexplicable restlessness and harshness," and it is to these influences that the eminent critic ascribes the melancholy note that rings through English litera- ture in general. Unfortunately for Russia's commercial development, it is not the foggy, moaning sea that affects the inhabi- tants. Indeed, for many centuries she had no access to it whatever, and even now, that she has fought her RUSSIAN CHARACTERISTICS. 65 way to the ocean in every available direction, her harbors, except in the Black Sea, are frozen during several months of the year. But an effect, similar to that described by Taine, is produced by those ever- lasting plains, which roll on monotonously from verst to verst, and made Madame de Stael say, that when she woke in the morning after a night's travel in Russia, it always appeared to her as if she were exactly at the same place as the night before. Anyone who has crossed the ocean will understand this. Those clear-cut lines of lofty peaks, which constantly confront the mountaineer, nowhere meet the Russian's gaze to shape his aspirations towards something definite and elevated, while bracing his nerves to energetic and persevering action. No distinct horizons, no well characterized contours relieve the eye, in these vast plains, that nurture vague aspirations, erratic ideas, and long-suffering resignation, broken only by fits of violence and undefined longing. Hence the vague melancholy, that is the keynote of the Slav nature, and this compassionate tenderness, sad as the song of a Moujik, which sighs through the writings of all typical Russian authors. But this substratum of melancholy in the national character is by no means an unsurmountable evil, for, in spite of it, the Saxon has achieved marvels on land and sea, in every latitude. The Slavs have a more serious enemy to contend with in the extremes of their climate. An over-exuberant nature is man's worst foe ; and luxurious climates are by no means favorable to the development of a nation ; the most desirable conditions being those w^here great 5 66 SLAV AND MOSLEM. difficulties exist, together with available means for overcoming them. The intense cold, the long boreal nights of the in- terminable winter, crush and sadden the spirit of the rural millions, whom it condemns to forced inactivity through the greater part of the year. At St. Peters- burg, in latitude 63 north, the interval between sun- rise and sunset is reduced, on certain days, to a minimum of five hours and forty-seven minutes, the sun rising about 9 A. M. and setting at 2.52 P. M. The intense heafrof summer is, perhaps, not less trying in its way. In the plains of Kirghiz, which correspond to the latitude of the centre of France, the thermometer which has remained frozen for weeks, sometimes bursts with the summer heat ; and these transitions are accomplished, w r ith an abruptness of which inhabitants of more temperate regions have no conception. In the same latitude as Paris and even of Venice, some places situated north of the Caspian and of the Black Sea, have, in January, the temperature of Stock- holm, and in July, that of the Madeira Islands. These unfortunate extremes of climate are attributable to her geographical conformation, Russia being only a vast plain over which the glacial blasts from the north and scorching south winds, sweep unmolested by any mountain chain. She is, moreover, beyond the tem- pering influences of the Gulf Stream, without which the British Isles and the Scandinavian Peninsula would be uninhabitable. Barbarian hordes and invading armies have also found, in these vast plains, a treacherous ally ; and from time immemorial, they have swept over them RUSSIAN CHARACTERISTICS. 67 as ruthlessly as Euroclydon and the Sirocco. The Tartars were at home in these plains, which seem to be a continuation of the Steppes of Asia ; but when they penetrated into Moravia and Hungary, it was a new apprenticeship. Their cavalry rapidly diminished for want of pasturage, and they were unable to cope with the difficulties of inarches through mountainous regions. Thus it was that Russia had the monopoly of this terrible scourge. It has often been remarked that in mountainous regions men are bound to the soil, as it were, and suffer, when they are torn from it, from that mysteri- ous malady called nostalgia. The plain, on the con- trary, never holds her sons, and the ever receding horizon, like some will-o-the-wisp, seems to lure the wanderer to advance further and further. The roof tree has no significance for the Russian peasant ; his log house burns so often that he cannot possibly be attached to it. Nor have the privations and hard- ships of the exile and the emigrant any terrors for one inured to all the evils of poverty and inclement skies. " "With the sign of the cross, his hatchet in his belt, and his boots slung over his shoulder, the Russian peasant will set out for the other extremity of Asia," (Rambaud.) It was to restrain this propensity for Avandering, that the law of Boris Godonof was pro- mulgated. Before and since this law, discontented or ambitious peasants, runaway serfs, persecuted non- conformists, all wandered from their homes and peo- pled the frontier districts, particularly the sunny Ukraine, the romantic lands of Kosac life. Like their climate, the character of the Russians 68 SLAV AND MOSLEM. has great extremes, and is composed of traits that might well be supposed to exclude each other. Fe- brile energy often gives way to lifeless torpor ; listless indifference suddenly becomes impetuous energy and vice versa. Optimism and pessimism, credulity and scepticism, realism and idealism, characterize the same individual, alternately and even simultaneously. I was at one time intimately acquainted with a Russian Princess, Alexandrine Molostwoff, of Kasan, whose nature was a tissue of contradictions, and quite a study from its continual play of light and shade, which always reminded me of the glints we see on the dark waves of a storm tossed ocean. She had come to France to undergo a very dangerous operation, and the chances of her recovering or succumbing were about even. Nevertheless she took advantage of her sojourn to replenish her wardrobe with quite a num- ber of toilettes, not the least recherche of which was a burial robe, as she fully realized that she might soon need one. And I have seen her examine and discuss the furbelows of all with equal interest, passing from grave to gay with undisturbed equanimity. What Bryce says of Americans, in his admirable work on the American Commonwealth, applies equally to Russians. " They are a changeful people, not u tickle, but they have what chemists call low specific " heat ; they grow warm suddenly and cool as sud- " denly. They are liable to swift and vehement out- u bursts of feeling, which rush like wild tire across the " country." Like the American, too, the Russian temperament craves for moral stimulants, and loves to run risks and take chances. Commercial and stock RUSSIAN CHARACTERISTICS. 69 speculation not yet offering sufficient scope to these propensities, gambling is extensively indulged in. Common places about the " Russian Bear," have so long and so often been repeated, that there is a popu- lar belief that Russians, of all classes, are more or less uncouth and inhuman, and altogether lacking in that politeness and polish for which the French and Span- ish are* renowned. Nothing can be more erroneous. I have often been struck by the exquisite politeness with which members of the same family treat each other, and I do not think that in any part of the world, women are treated with greater deference in their own families than they are in Russia. It is quite a common practice among the upper classes of France and Spain, for a son to kiss a mother's hand before embracing her, but I never saw brothers greet their sisters in this way, except among Russians. As to the peasantry, travelers seem to agree in saying, that they are, perhaps, the most kind hearted, affable and courteous people in the world. Some years ago De Custine said, "that in Russia the " traveler of observant and independent mind was " constantly confronted with the task of laboriously " discerning two nations in a multitude. These two " nations are Russia as she is, and Russia as she would " like to appear to Europe." It would perhaps have been more correct to say, " Russia as she is and Russia as she is trying to become." To use a popular ex- pression she "has left one bank and has not yet reached the other." It may truly be said that Russia is a great, robust, overgrown, backward child, struggling with all the 70 SLAV AND MOSLEM. difficulties and perturbations of the transition state from childhood to adolescence ; and in her case these difficulties are so much greater that her development lias been stunted and abnormal. At the beginning of this century, Tchadief, a pessi- mist patriot, expressed himself thus : ''Solitary in the " world we have neither given nor received. We " have not added one idea to the treasury of " humanity, we have in nowise aided in perfecting the " human mind." And Turguenef indulges in this sarcasm against his well-loved country : "We have " given nothing to the world but the Samovar, and it " is even doubtful if the Samovar be our own inven- " tion." No wonder then that it was generally asked of Rus- sia, as of the despised province of Judea, that gave a Saviour to the world, "Can any good thing come out of Galilee ?" Nay, it was trenchantly affirmed that " Russia was rotten before she was ripe." But while French philosophers thus summarily disposed of their destinies, the Russians were gathering up their latent forces and preparing to make a new departure in liter- ature as well as in sociology. All is rudimentary inchoate and experimental, it is true, but even her ene- mies admit that the deficiencies and shortcomings are those of youth and inexperience, not of senility or valetudinarianism. " Fifteen years ago," wrote Leroy Beaulieu (in 1882,) when I was going to Moscow for the first time, the proprietor of the Revue des deux Mondes said to me, "Go and see if Russia is not a rotten plank ? " To-day, alas, he adds, the managers of the RUSSIAN CHARACTERISTICS. 71 Evropsy or the Rouskaia Mysl could repeat the same injunction to their editors en route for Paris." Speaking of the wonderful city built on a number of marshy islands at the mouth of the Neva, which were chiefly inhabited by bears and wolves at the be- ginning of the seventeeth century, de Custine thus expressed himself fifty years ago : a St. Petersburg "with its magnificence and immensity, is a trophy " raised by the Russians to their future greatness. " Never since the building of Solomon's Temple, has " a nation's faith in its destinies, obtained anything so " marvelous from the earth." This confidence in the future destinies of the country certainly is strong among Russian patriots. Their firm conviction is that " they have a great mission to fulfil," and it is on their future greatness that national self-complacency dwells, rather than on their present status, to the evils of which, they are keenly alive. It is a well established fact, that at the root of all achievements, is that undefined, underlying self-assur- ance, which is, itself, a pledge and a forerunner of success. When nations or individuals have lost faith in themselves, little is attempted, and still less accom- plished. If they do not always succeed, even with this faith, it is certain that they never succeed without it. A celebrated general was once asked ; " What is a battle gained ?" He was at first at a loss to answer, then, after a few moments reflection, he replied. " A battle is won when it is believed to be won." It is not numerical force that turns the scales, it is the moral persuasion of victory that storms the citadel, captures the redout, scales the rampart. The battle of Bull Run, 72 SLAV AND MOSLEM. during the American civil war, is a remarkable illus- tration of this truth. Both sides thinking they were beaten, became panic stricken and fled. Philosophers of history have remarked that sover- eigns, even autocrats, command safely and absolutely, only what is consonant with the genius and sympathies of the nation, or at least not opposed to them. With- out eliciting a murmur, Peter the Great could trans- port thousands of his subjects to lay down their lives in the foundations of the city, which it pleased him to build on slimy morasses, and exercise many other acts of arbitrary power ; but, when he ordered his subjects to shave their chins, and that their wives and daugh- ters should lay aside their Eastern seclusion, he was attacking their national superstitions, and raised a tempest, which nearly submerged the house of Roma- noff. The Russian people appear to be a great inert mass, mechanically heaving to and fro, according to the impulsion given by the supreme motor. But this is only an optical illusion. In her ice-bound rivers, when all vitality seems extinguished, the current of animated life, with all its phenomena, goes on unin- terruptedly beneath ; and so it is with the nation. It lives, thinks, feels, grows ; but slowly, and obscurely, according to its Oriental nature, imperceptibly, latently so to speak, but verily. The policy of aggrandisement which is generally attributed to the personal ambition of the Tzars, has the entire sympathy of the nation. The Turkish wars in particular, whatever may be affirmed to the con- trary in England and in Germany, were essentially popular wars. Writers like Haxthausen, affirm that RUSSIAN CHARACTERISTICS. 73 " young Eussia dreams of a great Slavonic empire, of "the restoration of Byzantium, of the ancient Tzaragrad, "but these dreams have not penetrated among the peo- " pie." It is not the less true, however, that the sov- ereigns who were victorious against the Turks, have always been the most beloved and popular, no matter how cruel and oppressive. When Ivan the Terrible, whose cruelty was certainly unsurpassed, threatened to abdicate, his subjects retained him by entreaties and supplications, for they remembered only that he had destroyed the last vestiges of Tartar domination. An instinct, like that which urged Attila and successive generations of barbarians to march upon Rome, still animates the Russians with regard to Constanti- nople. Centuries of oppression, have, moreover, caused an undying animosity towards the Turk, and created a powerful bond of sympathy which unites all Slavs, who have been subjected to Moslem domina- tion. This sentiment of solidarity was the soul of the Bulgarian war, in 1877, and transformed simple, stolid peasants into heroic crusaders, who laid down their lives with joy to rescue their oppressed brethren from the tyranny of the Turks. " When disturbances " break out in the East, the Russian peasantry begin " to think the time has come, when a crusade will be " undertaken for the recovery of the Holy City on " the Bosphorus, and for the liberation of their breth- " ren in the faith, who now groan under Turkish " bondage. This, says Wallace, is the religious ele- " ment in that strange, attractive force, which con- " nects Russia with Constantinople." Alexander the Second's doom was sealed, when, at 74 SLAV AND MOSLEM. the conference of Berlin, he allowed German influ- ence to preponderate by the candidature of Prince Alexander of Battenberg. The nation did not forgive him for frustrating them in their aspirations, and ren- dering void the many sacrifices they had made on behalf of their brother Slavs. It was their resent- ment of the Tzar's disloyalty towards them, more than his irresolute policy, that gave new strength to the machinations of Nihilism, which culminated in the assassination of the thirteenth March, 1881. No Tzar of Russia can, with impunity, neglect any oppor- tunity of weakening and overthrowing the Osmanlis Turks. If he does so, it will be at the risk of his life or of his throne. Whatever may be its disadvantages, Russia is, by no means tired of autocratic government. Nothing can equal the devotion and the veneration of the people for the person of their ruler. Their worship has more of superstition in it than of slavish fear. Everything belonging to him is sacred in their eyes. "Kayionne (property of the Tzar) does not drown in water, does not burn in fire," is a popular saying. There is scarcely an instance on record of a col- lector of taxes being robbed, though these officers often traverse the country with large sums of money. When the collector entered a village he used to tap at the window calling Kerya, and the yearly tax was thrown into his bag. He did not need to verify the amount, and at night he could lay down his treasure, well assured, that the neighboring shrine was more likely to be despoiled than he. RUSSIAN CHARACTERISTICS. 75 No distinction is made between the will of God and the will of the Tzar. He and the Supreme Pontiff of Rome are the only sovereigns, who thus reign over the hearts and minds of their people. Yet no Rus- sian sovereign has ever officially proclaimed himself head of the national Church as did Henry VIII. It is governed by the Synod established by Peter the Great, when he abolished the patriarchat of Mos- cow, which Ivan III had instituted to replace that of Constantinople, when this city was taken by the Turks. Such filial tenderness for their sovereign on the part of a nation governed as the Russians are, seems incomprehensible to foreigners. It would appear as though there were in the masses, an unconscious re- cognition, that it is not an individual despotism that oppresses them but the despotism of a system, itself the inevitable growth of unfortunate circumstances. Though the Tzar seems to be the first Tchin of the empire, and so to say identified with the Tchinovism or bureaucracy, whom they hate, the Russian people, with the sure intuition of the unlettered, separate them entirely. For the Tzar they have the most filial veneration, while for the Tchinoviks they have the utmost contempt. They make the same discrimination with regard to the clergy in their sacred character and the clergy as officials of the government. It must be acknowledged, too, that whatever may have been the crimes and vices of some of the Russian rulers they have always been animated by the most sincere love of Russia. Absolute power and unlimited 76 SLAV AND MOSLEM. adulation have never interfered with their earnest en- deavor to promote her interests, to the best of their knowledge and ability. Indeed it is quite phenome- nal, that mortals, sorely tempted as they are, should have retained so much humanity, and practised virtues, which would do honor to a private citizen. When in 1711,Peter the Great was surrounded by the Turks at Yassy on the Pruth, with nothing before him but captivity or death, he wrote thus to the Senate at Moscow : " If I fall into the hands of the enemy, consider me no longer your sovereign, and obey no order that shall proceed from my place of confinement, though it should be signed by my own hand. If I perish, cb oose the worthiest among you to succeed me." Would not such perfect self-abnegation be considered sublime on the part of any military commander ? It was Peter the Great, too, who said to his son : " If you do not change your conduct, I will disinherit " you. For my country and my subjects I have " offered my life, and I will never refuse to lay it " down ; do you think, then, that I shall spare yours ? " I would rather have a stranger succeed me, if it " were for the good of Russia, than my own blood, if " it is good for nothing." And this same Czar, who ordered every member of the Strelitz or Imperial Body Guard to be put to death for traitorously conspiring with foreigners against their country, did not hesitate to risk his own life by plunging into the frozen Baltic to rescue a common soldier from drowning. Peter the Great may truly be said to have ~knouted Russia into civilization, yet no one will deny that he, and even Ivan the Terrible, were fierce lovers of their RUSSIAN CHARACTERISTICS. 77 country. When the latter turned Novgorod into a great slaughter house, it was not to revenge a per. sonal offense, as when Theodosius the Great destroyed Ephesus because his statue had been insulted there, but because the citizens of Novgorod were traitorously conspiring with the Poles and the Lithuanians in order to maintain their civic independence which Ivan deemed incompatible with national unity. " After Russia I have loved you more than any- thing else in this world," said the dying Emperor Nicholas to his son, Alexander ; and every Czar could truly affirm, that Russia was always uppermost in his affections ; and, that according to his lights, he had always acted for the country's greatest good. Towards the close of his long reign, Nicholas, broken hearted at the defeat of his troops in the Crimea, seems to have perceived that his policy was an anachro- nism, and detrimental to the country. " But I cannot " change," he sighed ; " my son will do what he thinks " right ;" and it is believed that he deliberately sought to remove an obstacle to his people's good, when he knowingly exposed himself to certain death. Though suffering from pneumonia, the Czar insisted on re- viewing his troops at an appointed day in mid-winter. " Sire," said his physician, " no soldier would be allowed to stir out of the hospital in the condition you are in." " You have done your duty," replied Nicholas ; " now let me do mine ;" and this great and good- much abused despot returned home, a few hours later to die ! I recommend to the thoughtful perusal of those for SLAV AND MOSLEM. whom the Czars are monsters, wallowing in luxury and vice, the following passage from Count von Moltke's " Letters from Russia." After minutely describing the magnificences of the Winter Palace at St. Petersburg? the great Prussian General writes : " But, besides this, there is en the ground floor of " the Palace, also on the northeast corner, a little " vaulted room with one window, in which the mighty " Emperor really lived ; he who ruled over one-tenth " of the inhabitants of the earth ; he for whom Greeks, " Catholics, and Protestant Christians, Mahometans, " and Jews and heathen pray in four quarters of the " globe, and on whose territory the sun never sets, " and in some parts of which its does not rise in six " months here lived the man whom his people loved, " whom Europe hated, because they feared him, but " whom they were forced to respect ; whose personal " appearance calmed the wildest insurrections ; at " whose order, in the first cholera epidemic, the frantic " multitude sunk upon their knees, begged pardon of " God, and delivered up the ringleaders ; who, by his " will, entangled Europe in a war which broke " his heart. Here he died. His room has been " left as the Emperor last saw it. Here is his little " camp bed, with the same sheets, the coarse Persian " shawl and the cloak with which he covered himself. " All the little toilet articles, the books and maps of " Sebastopol and Cronstadt all lie unchanged even " the old torn slippers, which, I believe he wore 28 " years, and always had mended. The Almanac which " was set every day marks the day of his death." Conjointly with their devotion to the Czar, Russians, RUSSIAN CHARACTERISTICS. 79 of all classes, are remarkable for their great respect for authority, their implicit obedience, and their keen sense of duty. It is an understood thing, in Russia, that personal merit confers 'higher rank than the mere accident of birth. The nobles are accustomed to see men from the lowest ranks take precedence of them, in virtue of services rendered to the State ; and in these cases, the former obey unhesitatingly, and the latter command without the least consciousness of in- feriority. The word Prikazeno (it is ordered) always acts like a talisman. "What think you brother (every Russian peasant considers and call his fellow citizen a brother) shall we be able to take those fortifications," said a young recruit to his veteran comrade, a little before the seige of Warsaw. "I think not, they are very strong," was the reply. "Ay, but suppose we are ordered to take them, what then ?" "That is different, if we are commanded to take them, we will do so." And it was commanded and the fortifications were taken. We may smile at the blind obedience of soldiers, continuing to water a parade ground when it had just been soaked by an unexpected shower, or at those, who in an accident on the Neva, having been ordered to rescue "chiefly the officers of the guard," enquired of every drowning man "are you an officer of the guard," before they tried to save him ; But we cannot with- hold our admiration, when we read of those who per- ished in the inundations of the Neva, rather than de- sert their post. 80 SLAV AND MOSLEM. It is related that at the conflagration of the Winter Palace, a priest who rushed through the buildings to rescue the Pyx from the burning chapel, perceived, in one of the passages, a soldier enveloped in smoke. "Come away quickly or you are lost," cried the priest. "No, said the soldier, this is my post, but give me your blessing" the priest remonstrated in vain ; he gave his blessing and barely escaped. The soldier was never seen again. Who can measure the strength of a nation where a hundred and ten millions are pervaded by a spirit like this and animated by a most unlimited devotion to their chief ? Startling as the assertion may seem the Russians are sincerely and essentially democratic, aud all the recent reforms have a democratic tendency. The true Russia, that is, rural Russia, which com- prises two-thirds of the Czar's subjects, is governed democratically, and nowhere in the world, do the rights of the "sovereign people" receive practical recognition as they do there. The autocraphobe "Stepniak" (Dragamonof) whose testimony on this point is unimpeachable, writes : "Up to the present "time the law has allowed the Mirs a considerable " amount of self government. They are free to manage " all their economical concerns in common, the land, " the forests, the census, the public houses, t ; the interest of which was to be paid, for the next five years, half in gold and half in new five per cent, bonds, the tribute from Egypt and the tobacco reve- nue being mortgaged as security. Bondholders be- came alarmed, and the European Powers awoke to the necessity of seeing that the reforms stipulated for, by the Treaty of Paris, were executed. The Balkan provinces are chiefly agricultural, and the Christians, (rams) are the cultivators of the soil. If they were allowed to be exterminated, or if they abandoned the plough for martial weapons, no taxes could be collected, and Turkey would be less and less able to pay her debts. The Powers, therefore, intervened by the Protocol known as the Andrassy Note, and the Sultan once THE BULGARIAN WAR. 213 more made brilliant promises of reform, which the Powers believed, or again affected to believe. Eng- land even tendered to the Sultan the cordial expres- sion of her hopes, " that he would soon succeed in quelling the revolts of his subjects and restoring " order." Let us trust, that she did not foresee how the Bulgarian atrocities would soon realize her " hopes." Some of the records of her Blue Books, regard- ing the Eastern Question, will be an everlasting blot on England's escutcheon. Through them all is heard, more or less distinctly, the " jingling of the guinea, that helps the hurt that honor feels." (Locksley Hall.) I will quote only one passage, which is from a letter addressed to Lord Derby, by Sir Henry Elliott, ambassador at Constantinople, September 4, 1876. " We have been upholding what we know to be " a semi-civilized nation, liable under certain circum- " stances to be carried into fearful excesses : but the " fact of this having just now been strikingly brought " home to all of us (by the Bulgarian massacres) can " not be a sufficient reason for abandoning a policy, " which is the only one that can be followed with a " due regard to our own interests." Disraeli, (Beaconsfield) like Lord Palmerston, had, or affected to have, absolute faith in the Turks. It w r as a fixed idea with this party, that the repression of Russia, by any and all means, was a sine qua non of the existence of British India, and the only pal- ladium of England's commerce in the East. And as the maintenance of Turkey seemed the only means of preventing Russian expansion, they refused absolutely 214 SLAV AND MOSLEM. to heed any considerations, opposed to a policy shaped entirely by " British interests." Millions of Christians must, if necessary, be sacri- ficed to this Moloch, and their cries must be drowned as effectually as possible, so as not to cause a scandal in Europe. All reports of Turkish oppression and Christian disaffection were treated as mere u coffee house babble," invented by Russia for her own wicked ends. Disraeli, an Anglican Jew, could not be ex- pected to feel much interest in the fate of the Balkan Christians ; but even Lord Derby's only suggestion to the Porte was that the insurrections must be put down, as promptly and effectually as possible. Historians and humanitarians, in future ages, will " O ponder in amazement over the strange moral aberra tion of a nineteenth century government, supposed to be in the vanguard of Christian civilization. " O tempora, O mores," they may well exclaim, as they read, how the interests of millions of oppressed Christians, the rights of humanity and justice were laid in the balance with British dollar and cent in- terests, and found wanting. Meanwhile the Montenegrins and the Servians joined the insurgents of Bosnia and Herzegevonia, and the rebellion assumed alarming proportions. " With us," said Milan, of Servia, " are our brave " Montenegrin allies, led by their noble chief, Nikita, " with us are those valiant Herzgevonians and those " martyr Bosnians. Our brothers, the Bulgarians, " await our coming, and we hope that the glorious " Hellenes, the descendants of Themistocles and Boz- " zaris, will join us ere long. Forward, then, noble THE BULGARIAN WAR. 215 " heroes. Let us march in the name of Almighty " God, protector of nations ; let us march in the name " of justice, liberty and civilization." Thousands of Russians of all ranks hastened to the assistance of their fellow Slavs, without even the for- mality of seeking the consent of the Czar, or of their local authorities. Foremost among these volunteers, whose chivalrous devotion to a noble cause, convinced this poor old money-making world of ours, that the race of preiwo chevaliers is not yet wholly extinct, was the valiant young Ivireef, of Moscow, whose lofty stature, " all clothed in white," like Henry of Navarre at Ivry, made him the common target of the Moslems. In his preface to the Crimean War, Mr. Kinglake has admirably related the death of this young hero, which kindled a name of enthusiasm, that spread like wild fire through the whole length and breadth of Russia, and made the Bulgarian war a necessity for the Gov- ernment. In Bulgaria, the arrest of two conspirators, who were rescued by their compatriots from prison, gave rise to an insurrection, (May 1876) and to quell and punish it, an improvised militia of frantic Moslems, (bashi bazuks) were let loose upon the Christian vil- lages. Many thousands, (fifteen thousand, according to Schuyler) of innocent victims, mostly women and children, were inhumanly massacred, while many more were dragged to slave markets, and sold for a few lires apiece. This time England's better nature was fairly roused. There was a veritable " uprising of the English people." Four hundred public meetings were held in different 216 SLAV AND MOSLEM. parts of the Kingdom to protest against these atroci- ties ; and, be it said to the glor j of the British working classes, the much maligned proletariat, that there were no ingredients of politics and politicians in these es- sentially popular and spontaneous manifestations of righteous indignation. The diplomats and politicians, the men of wealth and elegant leisure, were all off on summer tours, on pleasure bent. Great men like John Bright, always the friend of Russia, Gladstone, Freeman, and others, publicly denounced England, as the accomplice of the Turks in their deeds of horror, by the moral and material support she had so freely given them in recent years. My pen refuses to retrace the details of these horrors, and to stigmatize them, I will borrow the eloquent language of the great statesman : " There has been " perpetrated," said Gladstone, " under the authority " of a Government, to which all the time we have " been giving the strongest moral support, and for part " of the time material support, crimes and outrages u so vast in scale, as to exceed all modern examples " arid so unutterably vile as well as fierce in character, " that it passes the power of heart to conceive and of " tongue and pen adequately to describe them. These " are the Bulgarian horrors. There is not a criminal " in an European jail ; there is not a cannibal in the " South Sea Islands, whose indignation would not " arise and overboil at the recital of that which has " been done, which has been too late examined, but " which remains unavenged which has left behind " the fierce passions that produced it, and which may " spring up in another murderous harvest, from the THE BULGARIAN WAR. 217 " soil reeked with blood, and in the air tainted with " every imaginable deed of crime and shame. That " such things should be once is a damning disgrace to " the portion of our race -which did them ; that a door " should be left open for their ever so barely possible " repetition would spread that shame over the whole." Almost immediately after these horrible massacres, the British fleet anchored in Besica Bay. It was never clearly explained why, but it certainly looked very much as if England were preparing to champion the Turks once again, as she had done in the Crimean war. However this may be, every Englishman's cheek must tingle with shame at the thought, that all lookers-on, the Turks themselves included, took for granted that the presence of this fleet in Turkish waters was a friendly demonstration on the part of the English towards the Sultan, and that they were, in fact, going to help him to restore order among his rebellious sub- jects. The true facts of the case will probably never be known. The government in England even did their utmost to prevent the real state of affairs in the Balkans from transpiring, and succeeded, for a long time, in keeping the country in the dark. The Turkish government made some feeble and lying attempts to disavow the Bulgarian atrocities, but, practically, they gave themselves the lie, by publicly rewarding the chief instigators and perpetrators, and disgracing those who had humanely intervened on behalf of unoffending villages. Fortunately for the true knowledge of the facts, the Government of the United States sent a special com- 218 SLAV AND MOSLEM. mission of inquiry to Bulgaria, and history will owe them a debt of gratitude, for having furnished reliable documents on this matter, in which every European State was more or less exposed to an imputation of bias ; whereas, "America, as Mr. Gladstone observed, " had neither alliances with Turkey nor grudges " against her, nor purposes to gain by her destruction. " She entered into this matter simply on the ground " of its broad human character and moment. She had " no "American interests " to tempt her from her in- " tegrity and to vitiate her aims." On the 22nd August, 1876, Mr. Eugene Schuyler reported to the American Government that the out- rages of the Turks were fully established. "An "attempt however, has been made, he said, and not by " Turks alone, to defend and to palliate them, on the " ground of the previous atrocities which, it is alleged " were committed by the Bulgarians. I have carefully " investigated this point and am unable to find that the " Bulgarians committed any outrages or atrocities, or "any acts which deserve that name. I have vainly " tried to obtain from the Turkish officials a list of " such outrages. No Turkish women were killed in " cold blood. No Mussulman was tortured. No pure- " ly Turkish village was attacked or burned. No " Mussulman house was pillaged. No mosque was desecrated or burned." Thus, it was through the American Consul and Commissioner, and thanks to the " Daily News " of London, that the English people, who had been kept in the dark and hoodwinked by their own government, were enlightened as to these atrocities. "What can THE BULGARIAN WAR. 219 and should be done, either to punish or to brand, or to prevent ? " was the question proposed by Gladstone at this momentous moment ? How it was answered the sequel will tell. About the middle of May, (1876,) Germany, Aus- tria, Russia, France and Italy, agreed to send a threat- ening note to the Porte, demanding redress and repa- ration for the Christians, as the Andrassy Note had proved quite ineffectual. England (Lord Derby,) de- clined her signature, pretending that such peremptory language on the part of the Powers, was " a breach of international courtesy." A few months later, how- ever, the envoy e of the European Powers, England included, assembled at Constantinople and sent a Pro- tocol to the Sultan, much in the same sense as the pre- vious one. It was rejected by the Turkish government in toto, and all the plenipotentiaries immediately left the city, shaking the dust from their feet, but too righteous to sin against the Treaty of Paris, (1856.) And thus, were these hapless Christians, once again, abandoned to their fate, and to the ruthless vengeance of the Moslems. It was on this same principle of non-intervention, that, during the massacres in Crete, (1866) the Foreign Secretary, (Lord Derby then Stanley,) inhumanly for- bade the English consul, Mr. Dickson, and the naval officers, to aid even helpless women and children to escape from their Turkisli hell hounds, by transfering them to Greece. It would have been interfering in the " relations of the Sultan with his subjects," and this the Powers had pledged themselves in 1856, not 220 SLAV AND MOSLEM. to do. Any such interference would have been a breach of courtesy, all the more inadmissible, that the Sultan Abdul Aziz was, at that very moment, being feasted at Windsor, and receiving the adulations of the British public. Was there ever a more Pharisaical ' whitening of sepulchers " and " washing of platters " a more miserable " straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel ?" The Russians, having traditional and ineluctable duties towards their fellow Slavs, and fellow Chris- tians, did not feel bound by any such Pharisaical scru- ples, and they were preparing to arm in their defence, as soon as it became clear that the negotiations of the Powers were futile. In January, 1877, Prince Gortchakoff, sent a Circu- lar to the European Cabinets, calling to their notice, " that after more than a year of diplomatic efforts, the " position was the same as at the beginning of the " crisis, still further aggravated by the blood that has " been shed, the passions that have been stirred, " the ruins that have been accumulated. The " Porte pays no heed to its engagements. Far * from having progressed to a satisfactory solution, " the state of the East has grown worse, and remains " a permanent menance to the peace of Europe, the " sentiments of humanity, and the conscience of " Christian nations." Another Protocol was launched from London, (April, 1877,) and was declared by the Porte to be kt des- titute of all equity, and of all obligatory character." Lord Derby declared he really did not see what fur- THE BULGARIAN WAR. 221 ther steps the British government could take to avert war. Apparently, he did not think like Mr. Glad- stone, " that the time had come for England to emu- late Kussia, by sharing in her good deeds." Kussia, who " had been playing the part," he says, " which " the English think especially their own, in resistance " to tyranny, in befriending the oppressed, in laboring " for the happiness of mankind." It was, at least, fortunate for Kussia and the Balkan Christians, that the Bulgarian atrocities had produced so great a revulsion of popular feeling against the Turks, that even a Disraeli Cabinet did not dare to enter into another monstrous alliance with them against the champions of the Christians. But I am ashamed to say that official neutrality did not prevent the Turks from recruiting many officers in England ; and that in spite of it, British guineas and firearms eked out their powers of resistance during the struggle with Russia. On the 20th of April, 1877, about two weeks after the last Protocol had been declared by the Porte, " to be devoid of all equity," the Czar Alexander the Second proclaimed his Manifesto, announcing the campaign against the Turks. " Our faithful subjects," he said, " know the lively " interest we have always felt in the destinies of the " oppressed population of Turkey. Our desire to im- " prove and render their lot secure, is shared by the " whole Russian people, who now show themselves " ready to offer fresh sacrifices, in order to alleviate " the position of the Christians. In concert with the " great European Powers, our allies and friends, we SLAV AND MOSLEM. " have endeavored, by means of pacific negotiations, " to effect an improvement in the condition of the u Balkan Christians. For two years we have made " unceasing efforts to induce the Porte to grant such " reforms as would assure the Christians against the " arbitrary use of authority by the local magistrates, " but the Porte has remained unshaken in its categori- " cal refusal of any guarantee for the safety of the " Christians. By its refusal, the Porte places us under " the necessity of having recourse to arms. "We now " invoke the blessing of God Almighty on our valiant " armies, and we give the order to cross the Turkish " frontier." It was not too soon. The insurgents had obtained many victories over the Turks, but they could not long have maintained themselves against superior num- bers. The wild Bashi-Bazucks were bearing down upon them ; and butcheries, more horrible than those of Bulgaria, would undoubtedly have been perpe- trated, if the Russians had not intervened at this moment. The frontier State of Roumania had unhesitatingly placed its rivers, railways, roads, ports and telegraphs at Russia's disposal, and, as might have been expected, the Porte declared war against this Province. The Roumanians replied by a declaration of independence, and placed an army in the field under Prince Charles, to join the Russians. During the Bulgarian campaigns, which lasted about a year, the Russians were nearly always successful. At Plewna, a strong place that com- manded the road to Constantinople, the Turks THE BULGARIAN WAR. 223 fought with all the energy of despair, and the Russians, ill equipped and lacking victuals, were three times repulsed. For nearly seventy hours these brave soldiers subsisted on one day's rations of biscuits, while the nearest water supply was a mile off. Finally, however, Plewna was taken ; and the victo- rious army advanced to Adrianople. The Russians were within a few hours' march of Constantinople, but they abstained from entering the Sultan's capital. For, at the beginning of the war, Alexander the Second had pledged his word to England, " that he had no inten- " tioii of acquiring Constantinople, and that if he " were forced to occupy a part of Bulgaria, it would " only be provisionally, until the peace and secu- " rity of the Christian populations were secured." But for this promise, and popular feeling in Great Britain, it is quite probable that England would have resumed her role of protecting the Turks, and there would have been a repetition of the Crimean war. When General Grant said that Russia's abstention from entering Constantinople at this conjuncture was the greatest mistake a nation ever committed, he was either not aware of this secret engagement made with Lord Loftus, the British Ambassador at St. Peters- burg, or he considered, with reason, that England's sending her fleet into the Bosphorus was a violation of her engagements of neutrality, which justified Russia in not abiding by her promises. Evidently the Russians were masters of the situa- tion, and had well earned the right to dictate their own terms, when the Sultan sued for peace. In the Treaty of San Stefano, drawn up by Ignatief, and 224: SLAV AND MOSLEM. acceded to by the Porte, they certainly evinced great moderation and disinterestedness. All that they demanded was the independence of Bulgaria, Servia, Montenegro and Roumania, with extension of terri- tory ; the evacuation of certain forts, and the payment of war indemnity. Traitrous and blood-thirsty in war as in peace, the Turks had, during the Bulgarian campaigns, shame- fully violated the rights of humanity, laid down in the Convention of Geneva, and subscribed to by every nation having any pretension to being civilized. The wounded and the dying left on the battlefield were barbarously mutilated ; ambulances and surgeons were brutally fired on while discharging their duties. Altogether, the conduct of the Turks had been such that it might well be supposed that they had, at last, alienated every particle of interest felt in their desti- nies by European nations. Perhaps this was so. But the fiction of the " balance of power," that cloak for many iniquities, which has sheltered so much selfishness, so many petty passions, and despicable interests the " balance of power" must be maintained, said England, and all the Powers answered, Amen ! When the true state of affairs in the Balkans had transpired in England, the tide of popular indignation became so strong, that it seemed for a moment as if Glad- stone's plea for the total expulsion of the Turks from Europe would be heard. But it was not long before his "bag and baggage policy," as it was called, and the complete defeat of the Turks again evoked the old phantom. The danger flag, with the legendary "Bear," THE BULGARIAN WAR. 225 was waved ominously. Troops were ordered to Malta from India, and the leader of the Government Party, Disraeli, declared significantly, " that in a righteous cause England would commence a fight that would not end till right was done." While the speech from the throne announced, that " some unexpected occur- " rence might render it incumbent to adopt measures " of precaution." " The unexpected occurrence" did not happen, for the Russians scrupulously abstained from entering Constantinople, as they had promised. But after having allowed Russia, single-handed, to monopolize the glory of defending the Christians against their oppressors, England, and the European Powers at her suggestion, now insisted on making the settlement between the belligerents a matter of interna- tional diplomacy. To the Treaty of San Stefano they substituted the Congress of Berlin, whose chief aim, apparently, was to give the Sick Man a new lease of life, and afford him more opportunities of exercising his execrable power against his hapless Christian sub- jects, to say nothing of the pleasure of mortifying their magnanimous champions. By the Congress of Berlin, Bulgaria was divided into three unequal portions. Bulgaria proper, alone, was to be autonomous under Prince Alexander of Battenberg, a ward of the Teutonic Cabinets. South- ern Bulgaria, or Roumelia, was to have a Christian Governor under the control of the Porte; while the country stretching westward to Mount Pindus was given back to the Sultan's accursed rule. In other words, the Bulgaria to whom Russia deeded the precious boon of freedom, at San 15 226 SLAV AND MOSLEM. Stefano, consisted of 65,560 square miles, with 3,980,- 000 inhabitants ; and the Bulgaria mutilated by the Congress of Berlin, Consisted of only 24,404 square miles, and 740,000 inhabitants. Yes, four million and a half Christians, including the most laborious and intelligent portion of the Bul- garian nation, were handed back like so many dumb, driven cattle, to the tender mercies of the wicked Turks, by so-called Christian and liberal nations. Indeed, it was the openly averred intention of the Beaconsfield (Disraeli) Cabinet, to maintain to the utmost, " the integrity and the independence of Tur- key." It was no fault of theirs, that every one of these unfortunate Christians, who had fought so bravely for their deliverance, was not again cast into the odious bondage from which Russia had rescued them. International crimes like this, must cry to Heaven for vengeance, and the most powerful and enlightened nation who participated in it, is also the most guilty. The Berlin Congress furthermore decreed, that Bosnia and Herzgevonia were to be occupied by Aus- tria ; Russia was to retain Batoum, Kars and Bessara- bia. The independence of Servia and Montenegro was recognized. While England, having concluded a secret convention with the Porte, acquired the Island of Cyprus, by way of counsel fees, probably, and no doubt congratulated herself on the good offices she had rendered. Lord Salisbury thus summed up the situation in 1879. " The Sultan's dominions, he informed the Powers, have been provided with a defensible fron- tier, far removed from his capital. The interposition THE BULGARIAN WAR. 227 " of the Austrian power between the two independent " Slav States, while it withdraws from him no terri- " tory of strategical or financial value, offers him a " security against renewed aggression, on their part, ' which no other possible arrangement could have " furnished. Rich and extensive Provinces have been " restored to his rule, at the same time that careful " provision against future misgovernment has been " made, which will, it may be hoped, assure their loy- " alty and prevent a recurrence of calamities, which " have brought the Ottoman power to the verge of " ruin. Arrangments of a different kind, having the c same end in view, have provided for the Asiatic " dominions of the Sultan, security for the present, " and hope of prosperity and stability in the future. " Whether use will be made of this, probably the last " opportunity which has thus been obtained for Tur- " key, by the interposition of the Powers of Europe, " of England, in particular, or whether it is to be " thrown away, will depend upon the sincerity with " which Turkish statesmen now address themselves to " the duties of good government, and the task of " reform." Does it not appear as though there had been an urgent need to protect the wolf against the lamb ? And would not one be tempted to suppose, that the Bulgarian campaigns had been undertaken with the sole and express purpose of assuring the " integrity and independence " of Turkey, to use the consecrated formula of British political cant? The interference of the Powers by the Berlin Con- ference, was altogether a most unmitigated imperti- 228 SLAV AND MOSLEM. nence, quite as unjustifiable as if Austria, Germany and Russia had stepped in after the war of the Rebellion, and said to the United States : " You have beaten England with the help of France, and conquered your independence it is true, but we, the Powers, have decided, in European Consis- tory, that only Massachusetts, New York and Ver- mont shall henceforth be autonomous. Mexico shall occupy militarily, the country adjoining her territory; the larger States of Ohio, Texas, etc. shall be divided into three unequal portions, one of these shall be restored to British rule, another shall be allowed to elect a governor, subject to England's approval, and the remaining portion only shall be autonomous." This iniquitous Congress of Berlin has prolonged the always critical condition in the Balkan Peninsula and prevented these nations from getting a fair start. The unnatural mutilation of Bulgarian Territory and the rule of foreign princes, Alexander and Ferdi- nand, the Mannikins of Austria and Germany have handicapped this once powerful nation, before whom the Western Caesars trembled. Worst of all, this Congress has postponed the day of reckoning for the Turk, this miserable, insolent, parasite boarder, who should have been hustled out of Europe long ago. In Russia the Treaty of Berlin called forth the most indignant disapprobation. It was a scandal to the whole nation, to the Slavophils in particular. Assa- koff the great Panslavist Editor, declared that the Congress was "a colossal absurdity, a blundering failure " and an impudent outrage on Russian susceptibilities. " Russian diplomacy he said, was more disastrous than THE BULGARIAN WAR. 229 " nihilism; the nation had been mocked with a fool's " cap and bells and their honor trampled under foot." To this day the Congress of Berlin is a bitter sub- ject in Russia. The Czar has steadfastly refused to recognize Ferdinand of Coburg, and his occupancy of the Bulgarian throne is a direct violation of the Treaty of Berlin, which requires that this Province be gov- erned by a Prince, whose nomination shall be accepted by all tli 3 Signatory Powers. Only the autocratic will of the Czar holds back the nation from war, and prolongs a precarious reign of peace. At any moment a spark may kindle a flame, which would spread like wild fire, and the pressure brought upon the Government be so great, that resistance may become impossible, as was the case in 1876. The unjust Treaty of Paris which had been wrung from the vanquished in 1856, was practically can- celled by the Congress of Berlin (1879), and Russia's attitude towards the Turks, in 1852, was further justi- fied by England's concluding with the latter, the Anglo Turco Convention. For, this convention gave to England not only the Island of Cyprus, but also a right of protectorate over the Eastern Christians, much the same as that conferred on Russia by the Treaty of Kainardji, the maintaining of which had led to the Crimean war. Before another decade is over we may see the Treaty of Berlin blotted out, suo vice, in the smoke and gore of battle fields. It is impossible that the en- tire emancipation of the Balkan Peninsula should not be accomplished, for whenever a germ has been de- posited, involving the progress of any portion of the SLAV AND MOSLEM. human race, it is bound to develop sooner or later. The days have gone by when the inhabitants of a coun- try could be parcelled out like dumb driven cattle, re- gardless of natural affinities, and identity of language and creed. If we could surmount all prejudice, and look above, and beyond the accumulated rubbish that has been written and spoken about the Russian Bear's voracious appetite, we would see that, ever since the fourteenth century, it has been the historic mission of Russian autocracy to deliver the Slavs from the tyranny of the Crescent, and also from themselves. Muscovite autocracy saved the Russian Slavs from the Moslems; and Imperial autocracy, in the person of Peter the Great, rescued them from drifting completely out of the current of European life and civilization, back into the Dead Sea of Asiatic stagnation and barbar- ism. Russian blood and Russian treasure have paid the ransom of such of the Balkan Slavs, who now enjoy immunity, more or less complete, from the Moslem yoke. And, never has Poland, the inspiring subject of so much "shrieking," from the days of the poet, Campbell, to our own, enjoyed so much freedom and prosperity, as since she had the good fortune to be annexed to Russia. I do not speak of the Polish aristocracy, but of the people. For in all the conquered provinces, their palmy days were over for the ruling classes, who generally composed two-thirds of the population, the rest being practically serfs. The Slav family comprises two-thirds of the entire population of Europe ; and only when autocracy shall THE BULGARIAN WAK. 231 have fulfilled its historic mission of raising all these Slavonic races, beginning by Russia herself, to the rank of progressive nations, may we look for the de- cline of this absolute power, which appears, to many, an offensive anachronism. When Russian autocracy shall have accomplished this work, it will probably disappear to make room for a new order of things, bequeathing to history the not unusual task of tardy vindication and justification of what is no more. 232 SLAV AND MOSLEM. CHAPTEK XY. ALEXANDER THE THIRD CONSOLIDATION OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE. The reign of Nicholas the First was perhaps as critical a time in Russian history as that of Ivan the Great and Peter the Great. The power of the boyars, or nobles descended from Rurick, had been, to a great extent, crushed by these two rulers. But there remained the minor nobility, many of whom were foreigners, who had either inherited titles or ac- quired them, and were all serf holders. These still interposed a barrier between the throne and the masses, and from their ranks, chiefly, rose the conspira- tors of 1825, of 1848, and the nihilists of more re- cent times. If the Emperor Nicholas strengthened the bureau- cracy and the police, it was not done to repress the people, but to crush their would-be oppressors, who were violently opposed to the projected emancipa- tion of the serfs. The " people of Russia " are not this handful of ambitious malcontents, known at home as " the intelligence," and so widely represented abroad by their literary spokesmen, magazinists and newspaper correspondents. The " people of Russia " comprise two-thirds of the nation, and compose the rural democracies described in a preceding chapter. The distinction between the alleged " people of Russia," and the true people of Russia, is one that ALEXANDER III. CONSOLIDATION. m 233 cannot be too much insisted on. This people of Rus- sia is not craving for constitutions and political liber- ties, nor for self-government, which they already possess in their " Mirs," in a form which is entirely to their taste : and, where they regulate their own lit- tle home affairs without the assistance of any " boss politicians," " rings," and other political machinery. Their only craving is for the full possession of the land they till, a most healthy craving, which all gov- ernments would do well to foster and gratify. The great work of consolidating and homogenizing the nation was begun by Nicholas the First. To him fell the ungrateful task of repressing, with an iron hand, the incipient efforts of the nobility to destroy the only power capable of restraining them from es- tablishing in Russia, as in Poland, the reign of oli- garchic anarchy, under cloak of constitutional govern- ment. When autocracy shall have succeeded in crushing out this troublesome intermediate stratum of ambi- tious malcontents, the levers of civilization will be, more easily and effectively, applied to raise the masses to the plane of a great progressive nation. Only then * can bureaucracy, and even autocracy itself, dis- appear, leaving the people of Russia to work out their own destinies. Nicholas the First most effectually prepared the way for the emancipation of the serfs by liberating those on his private estates, and by a succession of Ukases, which conferred on all, the right of possessing property of entering into contracts of giving evi- dence in courts of justice. In many instances, too, 234 SLAV AND MOSLEM. when proprietors were ruined, peasant communities were aided, by loans from the Imperial Treasury, to buy the land ; and thus they became, practically, free, as it was not permitted, by law, to buy and sell serfs without the land. This was certainly u something at- tempted, something begun," that might well have earned, for the " Iron Emperor," some of the meed of praise, so freely bestowed upon his successor, the Czar Liberator. Full of solicitude and tenderness for his soldiers in the Crimea, and for all around him, holding in his hand to the last, that of his admirable consort, the proud, stern Czar Nicholas, who had presented only his iron mask to his enemies, passed away cheerfully and humbly, in the little vaulted, one windowed room, he had occupied, for thirty years in the Winter Pal- ace, counting for naught the splendors of his official residence. His only regret in dying, was, " that he could not live to bear all that was painful " in the con- sequences of the Crimean War, instead of his son Alexander the Second, to whom his last words were : " After Russia, I have loved you better than anything " in this world." The true character of Nicholas is revealed in the remarkable holograph will that he left and which reads as follows : " I thank all those who love and served me. I for- " give all who hated me. I ask forgiveness of those " whom I have involuntarily offended. I endeavored " to correct the bad qualities which I discovered in " myself, and I succeeded in some points but not ID " others. With all my heart I ask forgiveness." ALEXANDER III. CONSOLIDATION. 235 Nicholas the First, was the man of the hour for his country, and posterity will exonerate him from much of the blame, so unjustly heaped upon his memory. Others have entered into his labors, and reaped where he had sown in tears, amid the reprobation and male- dictions of his contemporaries, amid the ruins and the dilapidation, that enshrouded the closing years of his long and prosperous reign. In 1826, it had appeared to all that the throne of the Czars was so completely undermined, that the least con- cussion of ill success would cause an explosion, in which the whole structure of Church and State would be shattered, for ever. " Russia will fall into a thousand " pieces, the common fate of barbarous States," said Grenville Murray, with characteristic national self complacency. Nevertheless, when Alexander the Second succeeded his father in 1855, after the tremendous reverses of the Crimean War, no throne was more firmly estab- lished, both at home and abroad. The death of Nich- olas the First, re-instated autocracy in the hearts of all, and restored to the throne the love and fidelity of the whole nation. Never had the coronation of any Czar excited such universal interest, or been more brilliantly attended, than was that of Alexander the Second. The admiration excited by the brave resist- ance of the Russians during the Crimean War, had enlisted the sympathies of all Europe. And, never, perhaps, in her whole history, had Russia been so much respected and feared, as she began to be, immediately after a most disastrous war, and a still more humiliat- ing peace. 236 SLAV AND MOSLEM. Strange to say, too, the period that followed the death of Nicholas was the dawning of Russia's great day of the " Renaissance " the tardy awakening of her national genius. This period was to the Northern Empire, what the Elizabethan Era was to England, the Augustan Age to classical literature. If Peter the Great, may be said to " have knouted Russia into civilization," it might also be said that Nicholas the First knouted Russian literature into ex- istence by the severe system of literary repression he instituted. During his reign, when every current seemed frozen, every source petrified, intellectual life was acquiring unusual force and fecundity. And, as soon as the reign of " Censorial Terror " ceased, it burst forth into verdure and blossom like the snow- clad bosom of the earth, at the first touch of the vernal equinox. Melchior de Vogue, has admirably described the surprising genesis of a National literature in Russia, that had hitherto produced only copyists and imitators. In a preceding chapter we have traced the strange divagations of imported liberalism, which followed close upon the important reforms, instituted by Alexander the Third. The human mind seems to be ever ready to go off on a tangent ; and, to maintain a just equilibrium, a strong centripetal force is as neces- sary in the political sphere, as in the sphere of nature. The night that followed the assassination of Alexan- der the Second, was a solemn hour in the history of Russia. Her political destinies hung in the balance. The Czar Liberator had arrived at the conclusion, that ALEXANDER III. CONSOLIDATION. 237 constitutional liberties were necessary for Russia's greatest good, and, being a true patriot, he vanquished his personal susceptibilities, laid aside the prejudices born of secular traditions, and, was about to promul- gate the Ukase, that was to transform "Holy Russia," from a theocratic autocracy, into a Constitutional Monarchy. The most natural, and, apparently, the only safe course for the new Czar, was to complete the work of his father, and endow the nation with the legacy be- queathed to them by their murdered sovereign. But Alexander the Third, whose only guiding star is an exalted sense of duty, takes no counsel with expe- diency, or considerations of personal safety. In the middle of the night he summoned the Counsellors of State, and after many hours of momentous delibera tion, his course of action was determined on. The orders were countermanded that had already been given for the promulgation of the Ukase, which lay on the table of Alexander the Second, awaiting his signature, on the day of his assassination. To the country, where all the demons of anarchy were abroad, with the bombs and steel of a thousand assassins aimed at his breast, Alexander the Third, deliberately and unfalteringly, pronounced his memorable Manifesto on Autocracy, in which he declared to all parties that it was his iirm intention to govern Russia according to her own national traditions only. It seems quite ludicrous that newspaper correspon- dents should represent as trembling before the Nihilists, and concealing himself in the recesses of his palace, a sovereign, who showed so much nerve and 238 SLAV AND MOSLEM. courage at such a critical moment. And it is still more pitiful that they should actually find credence with the public. But how should this dear gullible public refuse its adherence to an oft-repeated lie, when Mr. Algernon Swinburne vouches for its truth in an epileptical alliteration, meant for poetry, by which he incites to the assassination of Russia's greatest patriot, to whose home he refers as, " Halls wherein men's murderers, crowned and cowering, dwell." In the recent railway accident at Borki, half stunned by the shock, Alexander the Third's first impulse was to rush to the assistance of the victims of the catas- trophe. The safety of his much loved family was only his second thought, and his personal safety, appar- ently, never occurred to this timorous Czar, who was singularly endangering his life, if the accident were the work of the Nihilists, as might well be supposed. It w r as in similar circumstances that the second bomb did its fatal work on the 13th March, 1881. For, if Alex- ander the Second had not insisted on descending from his carriage to pick up a small boy, wounded by the explosion of the first bomb, he might have driven home safely. The Extradition Treaty having been, at last, con- cluded between the United States and Russia, it is probable that these murderous attempts on the Czar's life will become more rare, as these would-be assassins will no longer find an asylum on this side of the Atlantic, where they can pose as persecuted patriots, and regale the public with blood-curdling ALEXANDER III. CONSOLIDATION. 239 tales of autocratic despotism, from which they have fled. When, on his accession to the throne, Alexander the Third boldly upraised the standard of Autocracy in the face of the Nihilists, and declared to the nation that he intended to govern, according to their own traditions only, and not according to any foreign ideals, he did not mean that his people should, henceforth, vegetate in the shadow of ancient abuses, or slacken their onward march in the least. To the Czar Alex- ander, autocracy is not merely a supreme dignity, devolved upon him by the accident of birth, but a sublime charge, a sacred burden, imposed by Provi- dence, and fraught with creative potentialities, which it is his high mission to render operative for the public w r eal, regardless of all personal repugnance for the task. It is not for a foreigner to decide in a single chapter of a brief essay on Russia, whether, or no, it is to be re- gretted that the Ukase of a Free Constitution was not promulgated. We are all apt to imagine that the nostrums, which we ourselves have used successfully, must, necessarily, be beneficial to our neighbor, afflicted with a similar complaint. And yet, it may well happen, that owing to pathological idiosyncracies, what is health and life to us may be death to him. It w r ould be temerarious indeed, to break a lance for Autocracy, at a time when half the world is Republic struck. Men's eyes are so dazzled by the glamor of " Universal Suffrage," the "sovereignty of the people," and various other political mirages and catchwords, that it is almost an impertinence to ask them to examine 240 SLAV AND MOSLEM. if the new system be not the old one in a new dress ? and the new methods the old ones with more eupho- nious names? Whenever the new system is proclaimed in any part of the world by a handful of soldiers, or would-be politicians, are not the old methods of repression and "stamping out," so bitterly reproached to autocratic rulers, immediately resorted to by these apostles of freedom and Republican forms against all who dare to advocate the old system, or offer any opposition to the new government ? The infallibility, de facto, this inalienable ex hy- pothesi, without which no form of government can exist, is loudly proclaimed by the new rulers, and in spite of their much vaunted "majesty," the "sover- eign people" are not long in discovering that the rule of King Majority, and sometimes of King Min- ority too, is quite as absolute as that of any of those old time despots, who swore by the "divine right of Kings." Ardent free Tradists, citizens are condemned in the name of Liberty to live and die Protectionists. Prohibitionists, by earnest conviction, they must en- dure to the end the hateful eye sore of liquor saloons on every street corner. Nay, they must submit to the added grievance of liquor franchises, and to the vexa- tions of a McKinley Bill, and a tariff that protects everything but the homespun product of the brain ; even manufactures that do not exist, that of albumen- ized paper for instance, and tin plate. The relations between the governed and the gov- erning being, therefore, much the same in substance, ALEXANDER III. CONSOLIDATION. 241 under all circumstances, the substitution of one form of government for another is not necessarily an indication of progress. When justice arid uprightness reign the nation is free, be the government what it may. But when self- seeking and corruption lurk in high places, the nation is in bondage, be the suffrage never so universal. During the thirteen years of his reign which have elapsed since 1881, Alexander the Third, whom even Mr. George Kennan admits to be "a well meaning man,"* has been unremitting in his vigilance, and in his efforts to reform the bureaucracy and eliminate Teutonic formalism and red tapeism, which rendered the administration of justice in particular so com- plicated and protracted. The cumulation of offices, another fruitful source of evils, has also been abolished, and reforms in the de- 'partment of education, have removed one of the prin. cipal causes of the Revolutionary movement by open- ing to Russian youth careers which had seemed hitherto to be the monopoly of privileged foreigners, German Jews in particular. It was the lack of expansion for their intellectual energies that often led young people of the rapidly increasing educated proletariat to en- gage in political conspiracies by way of expending the mental activity, for which they found so little scope. Alexander the Third is a Slav and a Slavophil, par excellence'^ he believes that Russia has in her own tra- *This admission was made before Mr. Kennan discovered "that the rulers of Russia to-day are oppressors, whose chief aim seems to be the destruction of all the liberal institutions that their predecessors founded." July, 1893, Century, 16 242 SLAV AND MOSLEM. ditions and institutions all the elements needed for her consolidation and edification, and that to herself, only, must she look for her own salvation. "With un- erring logic, too, has he pursued two fundamental policies the Russianizing or homogenizing of Russia, and the extirpation from her midst of all parasite growths. The position of Finland and some of the Baltic Pro- vinces, had been, hitherto, somewhat that of a "nation within a nation," as the inhabitants of these provinces spoke their respective languages, and were governed by local laws and customs. Not long since when some well intentioned German- American priests tried to have the mother tongue exclusively used in churches and parochial schools, frequented by German immi- grants, a cry of "Cahenlyism" was raised, and the movement was soon crushed out, as being un-Ameri- can and unconstitutional. Yet, when Alexander the Third resolved to Russianize his outlying provinces, and decreed that none but the Russian language should, henceforth, be used in public schools, and that these provinces should be governed by the same laws as the rest of the Empire, a wail of vituperation went up from the English speaking Press on either side of the Atlantic. A truly enlightened policy was denounced as mediaeval persecution, and anathemas were hurled at the perpetrator of retrograde barbarisms. An "Ostee Junker," Samson Ilimmelstierna by name, has recently written a voluminous work on Russia from the exclusive point of view of an " Ostee Jun- ker," that is, a Roman Catholic member of the Ger- ALEXANDER III. CONSOLIDATION. 243 man nobility of the Ostee or Baltic provinces, whose reign of tyranny and oppression over the peasantry of these countries has ceased since their annexation with Russia, during the last century. The Macmillans have published a mutilated translation, by J. Morrison, of this work, with a long introduction and copious notes by Yolkhovsky, an adept of the school of "Stepniak." Neither the translator nor the editor seems to have much respect for, nor sympathy with the author, be- yond that inspired by the bond of a common enmity against Russia ; and the title, "Russia under Alexan- der III" is a misnomer, for the book deals chiefly with what can be alleged against Russia prior to 1881, year of the present Czar's accession to the throne. For Mr. Samson, "the whole Russian people are nothing else than a horde of barbarians," whose "his- toric mission has been to crush out all Western cul- ture." Fas est ab hoste doceri and a few passages gleaned from so unimpeachable a document as the work of this Russophobist, will throw some light on the condition of Finland, in the past, and since her annexation with Russia, (1808) and also, by analogy, on that of the Baltic Provinces, if we, substitute the words "Swedish nobility" for " Ostee Junkers." For, in Esthuania, Livonia, and Courlaiid, as in Fin- land and Poland, the welfare and interests of the peasant masses had been, for centuries, sacrificed to those of the aristocracy. During the reign of Charles IX of Sweden, who had captured Moscow and Novgorod, chiefly with the aid of his Finnish troops (1617) we read : "that it was only "then, that the real period of suffering commenced for 244 SLAV AND MOSLEM. " the not only neglected, but actually misused and " maltreated Step brother." "On the abdication of Queen Christina, Finland was " a bundle of little principalities ; two-thirds of the " country and one-third of the revenue had been given " away to noblemen living in Sweden, who were for " the most part foreigners. Finland became the plun- " der ground of the Swedish aristocracy, who were "granted oppressive privileges Church patronage, "judicial and political powers &c." (Russia under Alexander III, p. 112.) Later on, in 1658, we find : " That Finland was " again exploited by greedy and corruptible Swedish " judges and officials." (Ibid, p. 114.) Thirty years later, " a total suppression of the Finnish language was aimed at," while " the constant miseries of wars " were obviously intensified by the total neglect and " abandonment of Finland by Sweden." (P. 116.) After the peace of Nystadt, 1721, " the exceeding- " ly thoughtless and wild rule of the nobility, dis- " graced by the constant party hatred of the Hats and " Caps," contributed towards estranging " the hearts " of the Finns." (P. 118.) And subsequently to the treaty of Abo, between Russia and Sweden, 1742, " instead of allaying the increased discontent in Fin- " land, by refraining from acts of injustice, the Swe- " dish nobility preferred to introduce a regular reign " of terror, by making use of a severe press gang sys- " tern, and keeping a strict watch over all mal- " contents, who were speedily brought to trial and " executed." Such was the hapless condition of Finland under ALEXANDER III. CONSOLIDATION. 245- Swedish rule, if we may rely on statements made in " Russia, under Alexander III." Regarding the condition of Finland since her annex- ation with Russia, we read' in the same work, p. 296, that " whereas, during a long period of the Swedish " rule, trade and industry had been artificially kept " down, in Finland, in 1851 it possessed 148 manu- " factures, with a produce of about five million Fin- " nish marks, and in 1876, this figure reached the fig- " ure of 60 millions. In 1825, Finland possessed 250 " ships, trading with foreign parts ; in 1882, the mer- " can tile navy comprised 1980 vessels, among them " 152 steamers." " In 1810, the State revenue amounted to 6,700,000 " marks ; in 1882, it reached the impressive total of " 36,320,714." In view of these facts and figures, let us judge for ourselves, if these Provinces (for as I remarked ex uno omneSj) have advanced or retrograded since their annexation with Russia, and whether the further Rus- sianizing of these countries should be deprecated as a calamity, and branded as barbaric persecution, " noth- " ing but the fanatical degradation of culture to the " lowest depth of barbarism," (p. 131,) unless some " unforseen calamity overtake their giant oppressor, " for his body is corrupt and covered with sores." Sic Samson Himmelstierna, p. 132, Ibid. The remarkable progress made by these Provinces since their annexation with Russia, finds its counter- part in the annals of Poland, since her final dismem- berment, and particularly during the last decade. In proof of what I allege, I transcribe a passage from the 246 SLAV AND MOSLEM. work of Robert Mackenzie, who can hardly be accused of Russophil tendencies. " By three gigantic acts of " spoliation, the guilt and the gains of which were " shared with Austria and Prussia, Poland was effaced " from the map of Europe. Russia has justly been " blamed for the severities which she inflicted on Po- " land. In judging of the relations of the two coun- " tries, it should, however, be remembered, first that " for six centuries there had been continual war be- " tween Poland and Russia ; that Poland was habitu- " ally the aggressor ; that, being the stronger, she " inflicted terrible evils upon Russia, and sought by " diplomacy, as well as by war, to strangle the nation- " al life of her rival. When Russia, now grown " strong, shared in the final assault upon Poland, she " was not attacking a harmless neighbor, she wa& " avenging centuries of cruel wrong. Second, at the " time of the dismemberment, the Poles were ' in the " lowest state of degradation ignorant, indolent, poor, " drunken, improvident.' The recent reports of the " English consuls, represent the condition of Poland " as most satisfactory. There ' is a very remarkable " progress in commerce, agriculture and manufacture/ " ' The country is becoming rich and prosperous be- " yond all expectation." (See the " Nineteenth Cen- tury," by Robert Mackenzie, page 379.) I do not ignore the fact that when these countries, Finland in particular, were annexed, certain conces- sions were made to the inhabitants regarding the pre- servation of their local usages and customs. But may it not happen in the course of a hundred years, that a government finds it advisable, nay, imperative, to ALEXANDER III. CONSOLIDATION. 247 change its policy regarding the administration of an- nexed provinces ? Does England govern India to-day as she did in 1793 ? Would there, indeed, be a British Indian Em- pire, if she had not repeatedly " foreclosed the mort- gage," to use Mr. Trevelyan's expression in describing the process of annexing native principalities, whose relative or absolute independence had been guaran- teed at the outset. Majestically unmindful of the howls of ignorance and malevolence, Alexander the Third pursued the even tenor of his way, though the vociferations of his slanderers became louder, when, in conjunction with the policy of homogenizing, the policy of extirpation only a correlative was carried out by the revival of many of the anti-S emetic laws, framed by Igna- tieff in 1881, but which had practically remained in abeyance. It must be borne in mind that the Russian Jew, un- like his congeners in other parts of the world, is pre- eminently subversive and refractory to all national amalgamation. It is among them that the bacillus of nihilism was fostered, and their unrestricted admission to seats of learning and rural districts, was invariably followed by a crop of discontent and rebellion. Scat- tered among a rural population, they remain essentially non-productive. When they do happen to own land they almost invariably sell it, or rent it to Christian farmers. Like the miseltoe and other parasites, they have no roots in the soil, but they draw their suste- nance from the poor delvers of the earth, who them- selves extract but a scant subsistence therefrom. As 248 SLAV AND MOSLEM. publicans and usurers, they prey upon the populations of rural districts. At their low taverns and saloons the poor peasants are often enticed into drinking away the last grain of their hardly raised crop, even before it is harvested. And when the crop is pledged in advance, gaunt famine soon stares them in the face. Bread must he had, and the Jew is at hand to lend money at most extortionate rates, on the stock and land, which soon pass out of the hands of the peasants, who become the hapless wage workers of the Hebrew. The latter even holds a mortgage on the very sinews and time of his victims, who are thus reduced to a kind of serfdom far more appalling than that from which they were emancipated. As a striking commentary on what I have just ad- vanced, I transcribe the following passages that were not written for pot-boiling or party interests, but are spontaneous observations made by distinguished travel- ers at different extremities of the globe in California and in Eussia, in 18YT and in 1892. The first of these passages is from R. J. Stoddard's " Across Russia," page 236, Scribner. "If those philanthropists, who in America and Eng- " land know little or nothing of the ways and habits " of Jews in such countries as Russia and Poland, " could spend a few days among them, and see how ' they live, and what sort of people they are, their " views regarding them might be changed. * " As a people, they are always shrewd, money getting, " lying and unclean, and hostile to the moral and " physical welfare of the places where they dwell. A " peculiar people,^never assimilating with other nations, ALEXANDER III. CONSOLIDATION. 24:9 " though dwelling among them, they drain, by indi- " vidual extortion and cheating, the resources of those " among whom they dwell, contribute little to the " general wealth, and nothing to the public happiness. " They evade the laws which are designed to hinder " their evil practices, and make themselves so odious " to the communities which they invade that their " toleration is only a question of time." The second of these two passages is from Robert Louis Stevenson's " Silverado Squatters," p. 78, Rob- erts Brothers. The Jew store-keepers " in California, profiting at " once, by the needs and habits of the people, have " made themselves, in too many cases, the tyrants of " the rural population. Credit is offered, is pressed " on the new comer, and when, once, he is beyond his " depth, the tune changes, and he is, from henceforth, * a white slave. I believe, even from the little I saw, " that Kelmar, if he wished to put on the screw, could " send half the farmers packing within a radius of " seven or eight miles round Calistoga. These are " continually paying him, but are never allowed to get " out of debt. He palms dull goods upon them, for " they dare not refuse to buy, etc." It is an unfortunate fact that the only thing that prevents people of small means from borrowing is the want oi security. Now the farmer always has some- thing to pledge, his land, or at any rate, his stock and implements ; and, as long as any of these are still in his possession, the usurer dogs his footsteps, as the leech and the horsefly pursue their victims. When we to this fact a little knowledge of the character of 250 SLAV AND MOSLEM. the Russian peasant, who is the most reckless and im- provident of borrowers, can we wonder any longer, that the Czar, whom every moujik calls his " Little Father," should seek to protect these poor simple tillers of the soil from the harpies who prey upon the vitals of the country ? I use the word vitals advis- edly, for as I have said elsewhere, the heart of Kussia throbs in every rural commune. There, are found the true arteries of the nation, its latent strength, and the pledge of its longevity and unlimited expansion. When Napoleon I, who called England a " nation of shop-keepers," sneeringly declared, " that Kussia was nothing but a nation of peasants," he forgot that no people can be permanently great and powerful with- out a strong rural population. Carthage, Phoenicia and Genoa were commercial queens in their day, but they lacked this element of stability, and their reign was but short-lived. So, among all nations, the deca- dence of agricultural pursuits and national decadence are found to be synchronous. In interdicting white men from settling on the Indian Reservations, the Government of the United States was evidently actuated by a laudable desire to protect these wards of the nation from being imposed upon and over-reached by sharpers of every descrip- tion. And, no one ever thought of stigmatizing this policy as tyrannical ; not even when troops were under orders from Washington to eject, by force, an enter- prising railroad man of the name of Ross, who insisted on carrying his works through one of these reserva- tions. (New York Herald, April, 1893.) Why then should the policy of Alexander the Third, in exclud- ALEXANDER III CONSOLIDATION. 251 ing the Jews from rural districts raise such a hue and cry ? The Press has plied us with the verbiage of horrent large type and italicised exclamations on the subject, till we have been almost led to believe that the Jews were compressed into a space, about as limited, as the " Black Hole," of Calcutta ; and, that in consequence of this privation of light and oxygen, they were dying off like sheep in a murrain. 'Now the true facts of the case are, that the Jews compose about one sixteenth of the Russian popula- tion, say about six millions : the " Jewish Pale," or that portion of the Empire in which they may legally dwell, is on the south-west of Russia, the side by which they first entered, and it comprises the provinces of Poland, Bessarabia, Vilna, Nirebsk, Volhynia, Grodno, Ekaterinoslaf, Taurica, Kershow, Tchernigof, Kowno r etc. Now, surely six or seven million Hebrews can find breathing space and elbow room, in a territory of over 400,000 square miles ? Their not being allowed to live outside towns and townlets, at the present mo- ment, should scarcely be considered a great hardship, seeing that they have no use for the soil, and eschew all manner of agricultural pursuits. The following statistics should tend to allay all fears as to the Jews being literally exterminated in Russia : JEWS. ALL OTHERS. 1867-71 61,420 2,132,000 1872-76 71,720 3,207,000 1877-81 76,180 3,200,200 1882-86 90,040.... ....3,815,800 252 SLAV AND MOSLEM. At this ratio the Jews could double their number in thirty years, whereas it would take the Russians ninety years to double theirs. Surely, a condition of things as alarming as that which suggested to the Pharoahs the expediency of suppressing every male child of the Hebrews. If Russian Jews would lay aside their clannishness, and adopt the Russian lan- guage and customs as they do those of the Americans in the United States ; if they would do a little less smuggling and a little more farming, they would be treated on the same footing as other Russian subjects who are of different race and creed from the Slavs, but have no reason to complain of their treatment. Nor would Russian Jews need to come all the way to New Jersey to have farms allotted them by the Hirch fund, for the Russian Government would be only too happy to found agricultural colonies for them in that vast empire, where there is land enough and to spare. Moreover, it is noteworthy that Hebrews who are law abiding, and exercising some legitimate business, are, as a rule, unmolested in Russia, even in cities where they have not legally the right to dwell. In St. Petersburg, strange to say, many of the lawyers and most of the merchants are Jews, and they have re- cently erected in the heart of the metropolis a mag- nificent synagogue of Moorish architecture, which is a standing protest against the outcry of religious per- secution. In the abstract, it does seem strange that subjects of a certain class should not have the right to dwell in any part of the empire, they may choose ; but circum- stances alter cases, and the question must be examined ALEXANDER III. CONSOLIDATION. 253 in the concrete, and not in the abstract only. Jews have never been really incorporated with the Russian nation. In the days of serfdom they did not fall under the law of Boris Godonof, which applied to Slavs only, and they are always free to emigrate to any country and become naturalized citizens thereof, whereas the Russian Slav is always a Russian subject. The position of the Jews in Russia though more advan- tageous in many respects, is, in fact, not unlike that of the Chinese in the United States, though I never heard of a Chinaman being admitted to the bar in America. Nor have the Jews ever been ejected by law, and en masse, from the land of their adoption ; they have simply been subjected, as semi aliens, to cer- tain restrictions, to which poor John Chinaman would, gratefully and cheerfully have subscribed, if any choice had been left him. It will not be inapposite to transcribe here the following passage from the New York Herald, re- garding Russian persecution of the Jews, into which Congress had requested the Secretary of State to inquire : RUSSIA AND THE JEWS. THE HEBREWS THEMSELVES DENY THE STORIES OF PERSECUTION. (New York Herald.) WASHINGTON, Oct. 16, 1890. Secretary Elaine has been informed by the Minister of the United States at St. Peters- burg, in regard to the various reports of the alleged persecu- tion by the Russian government of the Hebrews living in that country ; that upon a thorough investigation, it is a source of special gratification to be able to present not only 254 SLAV AND MOSLEM. the denial of the Russian government, but of the Hebrews themselves, and confirmatory testimony that these injurious allegations are baseless. He goes on to say, that it appears that a statement re- cently appeared in the London Times, stating that, despite the disavowal of the Russian government, some five or six hundred Hebrew families residing at Odessa had been sum- marily notified that they must immediately abandon their homes, and, in fact, had already been expelled. Soon after this publication appeared, the British Embassy at St. Peters- burg called upon the British Consul at Odessa to make a full investigation of the same. The Consul reports that the same is not only denied by the Government, but by the Hebrews themselves, even more emphatically by the latter. No such order was issued, and no movement of the kind attempted. The report evidently originated from the fact that some Hebrew families had voluntarily, on their own part, emi- grated, or were preparing to do so. The Rabbis and highest authorities explained this emigration as due to the fact that in the Hebrew families there were many youths, and as the number admitted to the universities was limited, they re- moved to other countries to secure the opportunty of higher education, and that there was no ground for the charges against the Government. (New York Herald, 1893.) A dispatch from St. Petersburg, May 8, 1893, announces that the Russian government proposes to convene a com- mission of Rabbis next September, to take the whole Hebrew question into consideration, and assist in bringing it to a settlement. It must be admitted that Alexander the Third is a genuine mujik in his personal antipathy for the Jew- ish race. But Russia is certainly not the only country where Jews are regarded with misgiving and aver- sion. ALEXANDER III. CONSOLIDATION. 255 The anti-Semite party is strong in France, and still more so in Germany. In the latter country it is al- leged that the Renter Telegram Company and the Wolff News Bureau are combined to promote the con- trol of the world by the Jews. Money and the press are trumps to-day, and it cannot be gainsaid that both these cards are in their hands all over the world. In the New York World, September 26th, 1893, we read that in Berlin the Anti-Semite party "have f ormu- " lated a parliamentary programme, that proposes to " forbid Hebrew immigration, to prohibit Hebrews " from owning land or taking mortgages on it, to ex- ' port all Hebrews not natives, and to shut Hebrews " out of the learned and military professions." This is not the programme of an autocratic govern- ment, but of liberal members of the German Reich- stag. In free England the Test and Corporation Act, which in 1828, restored the rights of citizenship to all dissenters from the Anglican Church, imposed new disabilities on the Jews. "By it," says Sir Ers- / v kine May, "a Jew could not hold any office, civil, " military or corporate. He could not follow the law " as a barrister, or attorney's clerk ; he could not be a " schoolmaster or an usher of a school. He could not " sit as a member of either House of Parliament, nor " even exercise the elector's franchise if called upon " to take the elector's oath." In 1852, Mr. Solomons, more pugnacious than Baron Lionel Rothschild, insisted on taking his seat in Par- liament when he was elected for Greenwich. He was ousted by the sergeant-at-arms, and furnished a test 256 SLAV AND MOSLEM. case to the Court of Exchequer, that decided against the Jew candidate. It was not till 1858, after much bickering and com- promising, that the Jews were finally made eligible to all public offices without being required to subscribe to the obnoxious shiboleth, "on the true faith of a Christian," The maintenance of religious unity may also be con- sidered a correlative of the policy of homogenizing, and has given rise to many accusations of persecution against Alexander the Third. We have already seen that, historically and politically, Russia has developed in conditions that were in nowise analogous to those of other European nations. In 870 the Greek Emperors and the clergy of Constan- tinople alike appealed to and recognized the authority of the Pontiff of Rome, when Pope Nicholas and the Eighth General Council deposed Photius, who had usurped the place of the venerable patriarch Ignatius. But eight years later the ambitious Photius, abetted by a new Emperor, again assumed the patriarchal dig- nity, shook off his allegiance to Rome, and added heresy to schism by leaving out a word from the Credo. Instead of "qui ex Patre Filioque procedit" the Greek Church henceforth read, "QuiexPatrepro- cedit" The rupture with Rome was not, however, consummated till 1053 by the Patriarch Michel Ceru- larius, who was himself deposed and exiled by the Emperor Isaac Commene. It was in these unfortunate circumstances, that Russia's rulers received the Christian religion from Constantinople. Had she been christianized a few ALEXANDER III. CONSOLIDATION. 257 years sooner, her history would probably have been quite different, and more like that of the rest of Europe. Henceforth, and more especially after her subjugation by the Tartars,' Russia became an exile a pariah, in fact, politically, socially and religiously speaking, to the rest of Europe. No Peter the Her- mit arose to preach a Crusade on her behalf, no Coeur de Lion, no Godfrey de Bouillon crossed himself to deliver her from the infidel Turk. No Bernard of Clairvaux, no Thomas Aquinas, no Pic de la Miran- dole, no Albertus Magnus, lent lustre to her annals in these Dark Ages. "While the Realists and Nominal- ists of the Germanic Universities were waging hot warfare over split hairs, and consigning each other to unpleasant nether regions, because they could not agree, as to whether ivory from the elephant's tusk was real ivory, or only nominal ivory. Russia was eking out a hard and precarious existence from day to day, while each to-morrow threatened to be the last of her national existence. There was none, in their hour of abasement, and isolation, to whom the people of Russia could look, but to their clergy. For their Princes had fallen into moral as well as political servitude to their conquerors. It was the Greek clergy, who kept alive the flickering spark of patriotism in Prince and people, and fanned the dying embers of national self-respect who used their influence, alike, with Tartar dominator and vas- sal prince, to render the condition of the people more endurable. It was the clergy who roused the slumber- ing energies of Prince and people, to avail themselves of a favorable moment, and shake off the Tartar yoke. 17 258 SLAV AND MOSLEM. No wonder, then, as I remarked elsewhere, that indissoluble bonds of union were established between the nation and the National Church that "Ortho- doxy" is, for every Russian, another name for Hearth and Fatherland. For some unknown reason, the words Greek and Orthodox are always used to designate the National Church in Russia, though it is neither Greek nor Or- thodox. The period of Tartar domination was the Golden Age of this Church. Her clergy, then, were by no means inferior, as the times went. When the Grand Dukes of Moscow assumed control of the whole country, the State absorbed the Church, as well as the independent Republics and the minor principalities. The union and identity of Church and State thus became so close, that it was difficult, hence- forth, to separate them. A renegade from the National Church was regarded as a traitor to his flag and his country, and treated as such. I do not wish to dilate on the evil consequences which the Schism of Photius entailed on Russia, and on the Eastern Church in general. I only note the. fact of the peculiar identity that exists, in Russia, be- tween Church and State. In England, the conditions were never the same after Henry VIII shook off the supremacy of the Pope, and assumed the title of Supreme Head of the Anglican Church. Though much has been written about religious in- tolerance in Russia, it is a curious fact, that Religious Tests, which were not finally abolished in Britain till 1858, have never been known in Russia. A man's ALEXANDER III. CONSOLIDATION. 259 religions opinions are no bar sinister to his holding office in State and Army. The highest military and civil positions have been, and are still, held by Luthe- rans, Anglicans, Roman . Catholics, Mahomedans, Loris Melikoff, Count Nesselrode, Alikhanoff, are a few instances of this religious toleration. The present Prefect of St. Petersburg, is a Lutheran, and I could cite many other examples. The only person in the Empire who is subjected to a Religious Test on entering into office, is the Czar of all the Russias. The most important part of the cere- mony of Coronation, is the Public Profession of Faith that the Czar makes before he is annointed. It is as binding on the Russian Sovereign to main- tain the integrity of the Greek Orthodox Church, as it is on other rulers, to safeguard the Constitutions of their respective countries as it is on the Popes to maintain their right to the temporal estates bestowed on them by Charlemagne. Independently of these considerations, there are others that make the repression of the religious sects that swarm in Russia just now, a matter of grave im- port for the national welfare. To explain what I wish to convey, I quote the following passage from "E. B. Lanin," a prejudiced writer, but one who is certainly well informed on Russian subjects. (Contemporary Review, Jan. T, 1893.) " Every Russian may be said to bear within him, " the leaven of religious mania. Hundreds of Christs " and Virgins are being continually born in Russia, " and find thousands of worshippers and disciples. " Mystic sects are continually being formed and dis- 260 SLAV AND MOSLEM. " solved like cloud pictures, throughout the length and " breadth of the land, and no more striking instance " can be given of the power and extent of that mystic " element over the Eussian mind, than the recent re_ " markable transformation of the most rationalistic of " Russian Sects, (Stundism,) which has rapidly drifted " from cold rationalism into the vortex of ecstacy, ex- " altation and madness, which distinguish the Dancers " of Toranto." What E. B. Lanin says of Stundists, is equally true of Rasconliks. Is it not, indeed, the common fate of religious sects, all over the world, to drift away completely from the lines on which they were originally formed ? Until the seventeenth century, religious sects were unknown in Russia. The political and civil conditions were such, that the " leaven of religious mania," to which E. B. Lanin refers, did not get a chance to fer- ment. The insignificant liturgical reforms instituted by Nikon, the Metropolitan of Moscow, during the reign of Peter the Great, were the the signal for the protes- tations of the Rascols, or the old believers, who re- garded, as blasphemous, any change made in the an- cient customs by priest or Caesar. The Rascols were the Non-Conformists and Puritans of Russia. Not only did they split up into a multi- tude of sects, like the latter in England, but the spirit of mysticism and dissent, so long latent, became ram- pant. To-day, it is computed, that there are about thirteen million sectarians in Russia, who have revived the teachings of many of the heresies of the Middle Ages, particularly the communistic theories. Circon- ALEXANDER III. CONSOLIDATION. 261 cillians, Albigenses, Yandois, Flagellants, etc., etc., all find imitators and caricaturists among the inujiks. The latter are so possessed with Henry George's theory concerning land, that any one who preaches this to them as the fundamental article of religious creed, can graft thereon, all kinds of extravagances and recruit followers. There are, no doubt, honest, earnest men like Tols- toi, to be found among dissenters from the National Church. But many of these sects, unfortunately, are addicted to obscene and cruel rites, common to fanatics in all ages and climes. They are given to the coarsest superstitions, worship the devil, denounce all author- ity, spiritual or temporal, and often mutilate and kill themselves and others, in the insanity of religious ex- altation. When such as these are punished, a hue and cry of religious persecution is raised all over the world. Because these fanatics justify their immoral and cruel practices by the Bible, which they read assiduously, evangelical, and Bible Society Christians denounce Alexander the Third as Antichrist and the Arch Persecutor of " those who search the Scrip- tures." This is absolutely false. Neither Leo Tolstoi, nor any man in Russia who is capable of forming religious theories, no matter how extravagant, is molested, so long as he is moral, and law-abiding, and does not seek to propagate practices contrary to public order. When a man, for instance, feels persuaded that war is unlawful, and that no one should be a soldier, we say that he has a perfect right to his opinion, which is probably not unfounded. But when he seeks to propa- 262 SLAV AND MOSLEM. gate liis opinions, and rouses his fellow-citizens to re- duce them to practice in a country that is compelled to maintain large standing armies, and has a severe sys- tem of military conscription, the case is altered. He becomes a teacher and abettor of sedition and revolt, amenable to the laws of the State, that would not have interfered with his freedom of conscience, but does, most emphatically, coerce his freedom of .action when it is subversive of public order. Independently of the streak of religious mania and anarchy which are innate in the Slavs, human nature, in general, is always apt to seek escape from material evils by oblivion, the Lethe of the ancients. The moujik drowns the horrors of a Russian winter in vodka and seeks surcease from the drearv monotony of his hard life, in visions, ecstacy and religious excesses. So long as these pastimes are indulged in, in private, there is no danger to the community. But we all know that in every agglomeration of individuals a magnetic current is generated, powerful for good or evil ; and the Russian government would be wanting indeed, if it did not do its utmost to suppress the meetings of these wild visionaries, whose religious saturnalia would not be tolerated for a moment by Mr. Comstock, however protected they might be, in theory, by the Constitu- tion of the United States. " Angel Dancers " in New Jersey did not escape police coercion and in- carceration, recently. That religious thought will and must work out various channels for itself in Russia, as everywhere else, is as certain as that mountain streams will over- leap their banks, and find new beds, as they hasten ALEXANDER III. CONSOLIDATION. 263 oceanwards. But it is clearly the duty of the govern- ment of a nation of grown up children to guide and restrain them from pernicious excesses. At least,, until they have reached an . age when they are capable of reason, discretion and moderation. No man is allowed in any civilized country to doctor his fellow-men without a license. Why, then, should any uneducated, cranky peasant, endowed with a mes- meric faculty, be allowed to set up as a teacher and prophet of his equally ignorant brethren \ That the Greek clergy has, since two centuries, some- what failed in its mission, and retrograded, is an unfor- tunate fact, though not without ample palliation. Alexander the Third, keenly alive to all that concerns his peasant subjects, has been strenuous in his en- deavors to educate and elevate the Orthodox clergy, so that they may become better fitted to be the edu- cators of the people. Melchior de Vogue affirms, from personal observation, that in many parishes of the Empire a marked improvement is noticeable. If it were given to Leo the Thirteenth and Alexan-. der the Third to accomplish the important work of re- uniting the Greek and Latin Churches, we should, ere many years, see a great empire, or rather a Grand Con- federation, which would be without a parallel in the world's history, and would prove a precious rampart on the east of Europe, should this continent be again menaced by Mongolian hordes, as in the days of Gengis Kahn and Tamerlane. "It was neither the French nor the English who de- feated us in the Crimean War," said a Kussian officer, "it was our own administration ;" and this was equally 264 SLAV AND MOSLEM. true of the reverses which the Russians sustained at Plewna. The rapacity and venality of State officials has al- ways been a subject of anxious preoccupation for the Czars, but the evil is so inveterate that it can only be extirpated by radical measures, which would be pre- mature at the present hour. This plague spot was im- ported from the East, and borrowed from Constanti- nople. Among Orientals, bribery is a very venial of- fence, if an offence at all. Even among the Romans, and under the Feudal System, those who held influen- tial positions in the Senate, or at Court, received money, or were paid in specie by their inferiors, to whom they extended protection, or patronage. But such practices can no longer be tolerated by the re- fined conscience of modern civilization. If they do exist, it is in an inverse sense generally. It is the " Sovereign people, " who are now bribed by those who need their suffrages, in order to become their rulers. Venality among public officials was so flagrant in the time of Peter the Great, that the irate Czar once swore that " he would hang every officer, who stole so much as a rope. " "Then you will have to hang us " all, said his confidential minister, for we all steal, " the only difference lies in the quantity stolen, and in i; the manner of stealing. " Neither Peter, nor his successors seem to have suc- ceeded in extirpating the evil ; for, the Czar Nicholas declared, with too much truth, unfortunately, that " he was the only honest official in the empire. " In 1880-1881, under the administration of Loris Melikoff, four Senators, whose probity was unimpeach- able, were commissioned to investigate and report. ALEXANDER III. CONSOLIDATION. 265 Most unusual publicity was given to the result of these investigations, and for weeks, the press and the public indulged in unlimited vituperation of the misde- meanors and peculations of. officials of all ranks. From the Grand Duke at the head of the naval department, to the subaltern of the Commissariat, and the hostler who deprived the horses of their quantum of fodder, they all diverted the public money into their own pockets. The following year the Czar Alexander II was assasinated, and since then, no publicity has been given to similar investigations. It was hardly to be expected. Though bribery and corruption are by no means confined to Russia, as we all know full well, yet it is easy to understand, that in a country, where public opinion and an unmerciful Press are not constantly unearthing offenders and denouncing them to Justice, these evils may acquire dangerous proportions, and be- come a serious danger to the State. One of Bismarck's favorite maxims was that " in the profession of politics there was no honest man ; " and while he was in power, he, unhesitatingly, utilized every available talent, even if it were picked up in the slums. Whereas Alexander the Third, who is the quintessence of honor and uprightness, has so great a horror of all dishonesty, that he will not tolerate any- one around him, whom he even suspects of being lack- ing in this respect. In consequence of his profound antipathy for all kinds of dishonesty, he often de- prives himself of the assistance of men, who happen to have more brain than conscience ; and maintains in power many whose chief recommendation is an an- swerving probity and singleness of purpose. 266 SLAV AND MOSLEM. The Czar is himself scrupulously conscientious, and husbands the resources of the State as though he were only a Steward, liable to be called to account at any moment. Like Nicholas, he is an indefatigable worker, and tries to go into the details of every subject with a zeal that is apt to be detrimental to the general good. Alexander the Third has a private letter box and flatters himself that any and all communications reach him : but it is greatly to be feared, that his im- perial majesty's correspondence is more tampered with than that of any of his subjects. No breath of scandal has ever tarnished his fair fame, (the barefaced lies of nihilists do not count) and he shares with the late Count de Chambord (Henri V.) the rare distinction of being a perfect royal gentleman. Simple in his tastes, frugal in his habits, wholly imper- vious to feminine wiles, devoted to his task, firm and sagacious, it is hard to understand how this monster of official corruption continues to flourish in the light of a throne, resplendent with so many virtues. Alexander the Third began his reign with the firm intention of stamping out this inveterate evil, by every means compatible with autocracy. If he does not use means available under advanced Republican govern- ments it is not as Mr. Yolkhovsky alleges, because of his anxiety "to transmit undiminished to his children and grandchildren this power " which to himself is such an undesirable burden but because he sees, with every impartial and disinterested observer, that in the astual status of the country, only a strong autocratic hand, at the helm, can keep the evil of official venality and pilfering in check, and prevent its acquiring the proportions it would rapidly reach, if the country were ALEXANDER III. CONSOLIDATION. 26T now given over to constitutional, or parliamentary an- archy. The Czar has made many examples among dishonest officials of high rank, and -even in his own household. But he has been so unfortunate as to incur the repro- bation of Mr. Felix Yolkhovsky in that he did not ad- minister condign punishment to Count Lieven, Minis- ter of State Domains, and other stealers of " Virgin oak forests "-1,358,14:8 acres it is alleged. Indeed, the Czar is even accused of compounding with felony, in that he restored some of the offenders to office, in view, it is said, of covering his own stealing of a slice of the oasis of Merv. (Introduction to Alexan- der III by Himmelstierna.) I do not pretend to controvert the fact of the forest stealing, nor do I question the exact number of the acres stolen. I would venture, only, to remark that it is the prerogative of all rulers, even of provincial gov- ernors, and governors in Republican States to reprieve certain criminals and give them a chance of retrieving their ill doings. Moreover, I should like to inquire if Mr. Yolkhovsky's knowledge of the statistics of bribery and corruption in other countries has led him to be- lieve that parliamentary and republican institutions are so infallible a panacea against these evils, that Alexan- der the Third ought, at his suggestion, to give them a trial immediately, and at all hazards ?* *MINNESOTA ROBBED OF MILLIONS. STARTLING DISCOVERIES MADE BY THE PINE LAND INVESTIGATING COMMIT TEE. \_By' Telegraph to The Herald.} ST PAUL, Nov. 2, 1893. The Minnesota Executive Pine Land Inves- tigating Committee made some startling discoveries during its session 268 SLAV AND MOSLEM. It is true that one will, however resolute and pow- erful cannot accomplish everything in a limited span of years, in a country whose area is greater than that of the full moon, according to Humboldt. Russia, as I have already remarked, is in a transition state since fifty years. " She has left one bank and has not yet reached the other. " The emancipation of a handful of negroes in the United States has created problems of grave menace to the future of the Repub- lic. How much greater must be the complications of a government that has, so recently, conferred the rights of citizenship on about forty millions of its subjects, hitherto debarred therefrom ? In the lives of nations a thousand years are but as one day in the life of the individual. Generations of men pass, and are buried away, ingloriously, in the building up of a national structure, like the myriads of little carcasses whose dust serves to build up the Coral Islands of the Pacific Ocean. The true test of the progress of a nation is not found by applying a microscope to its actual short- comings and deficiencies, but by comparing it with itself in the present and in the past. Judged by this test, Russia can certainly challenge the criticism of the most unprepossessed observer.. The enthusiastic yesterday. The session was an executive one, but Chairman Ignatius Donnelly made public some ol the findings last evening. He said : "The Stata has been robbed of millions of dollars by some ol its most prominent citizens. Some of the robberies are of the most surprising character. Logs have been stolen by wholesale without pretext of title to ownership. We have found one case where the State of Min- nesota was paid for 600.000 feet or lumber, and the quantity of lumber actually taken from the tract measured more than six million feet." ALEXANDER III. CONSOLIDATION. 269 reception given, recently, to the Russian fleet by the French is an interesting sign of the times, and a proof of the remarkable strides made by Russia since a hundred years. In the eighteenth century St. Pe- tersburg was a boggy marsh inhabited chiefly by bears and wolves, and the Muscovites were no more consid- ered in Europe than are the Siamese or Persians, at the present time. To-day, France, so long the leader and the dominator of Europe, feels flattered and reassured by the friendship and alliance of the contemned Mus- covites. We are impatient because we are mortal. Because the evils, that are the accumulated legacy of many untoward generations, are not all cured in a decade or two, some Russian patriots, as well as foreigners, are unsparing in their denunciations of a Ruler, whose every thought is devoted to the welfare of his country, and whose life is one continuous act of self-abnegation. For to Alexander the Third the burden of royalty is almost intolerable. "It is very hard lines, indeed, that I, of all others, should have to become Emperor of Russia, " he is said to have exclaimed, when he was unexpectedly called to the throne, by the untimely death of his elder brother. The only happy hours of his life are when, on his free evenings, he shakes off the gilded trappings of State, dons a peasant's blouse with leather belt, and enjoys the society of his wife and children. By choice he would infinitely rather spend his life in physical and manual labor, of which he is as great an advocate as Leo Tolstoi. But hewing trees and planing lumber are pastimes in which the Czar of all the Russias may only indulge at his hours of recreation. 270 SLAV AND MOSLEM. The argument against the Czar's government that George Kennan, a Tinstar of "Stepniak," draws from the condition of these ci-devant serfs is unfair in the extreme. Is Russia, the only country in the world " where, as Mr. Kennan alleges " millions are engaged " in a desperate and almost hopeless struggle for a " bare subsistence ? " Has Mr. Kennan never read about the Irish Peasantry and their sufferings in time of famine ? Of the crofters on the bleak and barren uplands of Scotland ? Of the starving multitudes who live " from hand to mouth " in London ? Has no echo of the periodical famines that decimate millions of her majesty's subjects in India reached the psuedo cham- pion of the alleged " people of Russia ? " Because these evils exist, does it follow that " The " Rulers of England " are oppressors, whose chief aim " seems to be the complete destruction of all the lib- " eral institutions that their predecessors founded " or that her Britannic Majesty's Government should be made the target of every scribbling sensationalist ? Mr Samson Himmelstierna alleges against Alexan- der the Third that " he avoids the discussion of sub- jects with which he is not acquainted. " (Russia un- der Alexander III p. 1 5.) This, I should say was that better part of valor, which many of the Czar's tradu- cers would do well to imitate. Though he may, wisely, object to being taken out of his depths, Alex- ander III, in his unceasing efforts for the public weal, gives proof of the highest order of mind. Though he believes in exercising his royal prerogatives, he is never too wise to be taught, and earnestly seeks to enlighten his own judgment, by consulting with those who ALEXANDER III. CONSOLIDATION. 271 fire likely to be better informed. Like Peter the Great he sends Commissioners abroad to enquire into the most improved methods for conducting the differ- ent branches of industry and agriculture. Kot long since, he sent a thousand years old Kussia to the School of Young America to learn the best modes of cotton culture, of reclaiming lands by irrigation, and running railroads. ^ Still more recently Michael Kazarin, delegate of the Russian Minister of the Interior, and of the Rus- sian Prison Administration, has been charged to in- spect the Penitentiaries of the United States " to learn the exact methods of conducting American Prisons, in order that Russian Jails may be improved accordingly " " Prisons in Russia, " said Mr. Kazarin, " have been greatly misrepresented by novelists and newspaper men who have travelled through our country. They obtained their information by interviewing prisoners and not by observation. It is not to be supposed that a man who is placed in prison likes it. He's not put there to like it or for his comfort. A prison is for punishment. Fifteen years ago Russian prisons were far behind those of other countries, but that cannot be said of them to-day. Millions of dollars have been expended in improving them during the last three years, and not a day passes that some change for the better does not take place. " There is one thing connected with American pris- ons that would not be tolerated in Russia. It is the contract labor system. The sooner it is abolished the better it will be for the people in general. Men in 272 SLAV AND MOSLEM. prisons in Russia do about the same class of work as prisoners in the United States. The articles manufac- tured by them are sold to retail dealers by the Gov- ernment at the same price they would have to pay for them if they bought them of free producers. In America, producers cannot compete with contract la- bor and they suffer in consequence. I have talked with many high personal officials regarding the matter and they all unite in declaring the contract labor sys- tem a bad one. " One thing is very noticeable about American prison rules, and that is the large number of visitors allowed to call upon the prisoners. In one peniten- tiary I visited, 10,000 visitors had been admitted dur- ing a year. In Kussia, only relatives are allowed to see the prisoners, and then only on certain days. The rules regarding Siberian exiles are not half so strict as they used to be, and have been modified greatly re- cently. The majority of those sent to Siberia now are given tracts of land there, their families are allowed to accompany them and they are perfectly free, only they cannot leave the country. " After being there some time, it is not difficult for them to receive pardons, if their conduct has been good. Many men sent to Siberia become quite wealthy and remain there for life, notwithstanding pardons. Of course, the worst classes of criminals sent there have to work in prisons so many years, and when they come out they are not allowed to leave the country. Many of these men are of ten given the privi- lege of returning to Russia. * Altogether, I think American prisons the best in ALEXANDER III. CONSOLIDATION. 273 the world, but Russia is rapidly making all the im- provements von have. I think the new intermediate State reform prison, which is being built at Mansfield, Ohio, the most perfect prison, in every respect, I have seen in the United States. "-The Evening Telegram, Xew York, Sep. 9th, 1S93. This is %i barbarous " Russia's response and the only one she is likely to vouchsafe to the scathing criticisms of which she has been the object in the United States, among a certain class. It is in this magnanimous way that Alexander the Third responds to the abuse that has been heaped upon his government by a leading Magazine. I refer, in particular, to two virulent ar- ticles, by the Jew, Joseph Jacobs and George Kennan, that appeared in the July Century, 1893, at the very time when the officers of the Russian fleet sent here to do honor to the World's Fair, were the guests of the City of Xew York. Let us hope, en passant, that when Mr. M. Kazarin returns home, he will not go into the business of tra- ducing this country to his compatriots, with a view to " making his everlasting fortune." Nothing would be easier for him, than to establish, by quotations from the daily Papers, that America was the chosen home of barbarism, oppression and crime. He might refer sneeringly to the magnificent Penitentiary at Mans- field, Ohio, as one of our " Show Prisons, " and then drawing out a bundle of ^s ew York Worlds, regale his readers with the " horrors of the Elmira Prison " or those described in this passage : "Cincinnati, July " 14th, 1S93. Xew York World. Thomas McKer- " nan, a convict who had been shirking work, was sub- 18 274 SLAY AND MOSLEM. " jected to horrible torture lie was handcuffed " and hanged by the wrists his ankles were " weighted by a ball and chain, " etc., etc. He might also moralize on the treatment meted out recently to Emma Goldman, Zimmerman and other patriots, con- victed and incarcerated in New York and New Jersey for no other crime than speaking out their minds freely in public and this in a country where free speech and a free Press are the inalienable rights of every citizen. Nor could anyone say that his assertions were " un- proved and unsupported " for he would be armed with the New York Dailies and his Articles in the " North- ern Messenger, " the " Messenger of Europe, " or the " New Time " Novoe Yremya, etc., would be bristling with quotations regarding current events, and not like those of Mr. Kennan's which refer chiefly to 1881- 1882-1885. In his Article (Century, July, 1893) Mr. Kennan, unable to appreciate the tact and reticence of Mr. Botkine in his "Yoice for Russia " Century, Eeb. Y, 1893) launches out on a very sea of interrog- atory interjections, which lie hurls one after the other at the unarmed champion of a bad cause, minus " proofs " minus " extracts " minus " selections "- minus " statistics " " minus ail things " Or nearly all The only prop of poor Mr. Botkine's " unproved and unsupported " assertions is the Report of the Fourth International Prison Congress. And this, the Goliath of the alleged " people of Russia " proceeds to demol- ish with logic so startling, that I cannot refrain from a little digression. " They had neither experience " nor knowledge to justify them in coming to any ALEXANDER III. CONSOLIDATION. 275 " conclusion at all. " Such is Mr. Kennan's mages- terial verdict. Primo, they were poaching on his pre- serves. Secundo, their assertions were " unproved and unsupported " by quotations from Mr. Kennan's " Si- beria and the Exile System " and from his " penologists of recognized reputation. " We are further expected to believe, on the author- ity of the Times' St. Petersburg Correspond- ent, and of Mr. Kennan's correspondents, that " warned by the Chief of the Russian Prison Ad- " ministration, that if they attempted to broach the " Siberian Scandals they would make a great mistake " the Members of this Congress forthwith devoted themselves " to banquets, complimentary speeches, and "excursions" this, too, at a time says one of the "penologists of recognized reputation," "when the " remarkable book of Gr. Kennan upon Siberia was " still fresh in the minds of many of its members. " (p. 468, Century, July, '93.) In other words, the want of conformity in the judg- ment of these gentlemen with that of Mr. G. Kennan is to be attributed ; firstly, to gross ignorance of the matter on hand : and, secondly, to eating and drinking too freely, instead of attending to the business that had taken them to Russia. They were even so perverse as not " to apply for information to Profes- " sor Sergeifski, Professor Foinitiski, Mr. Nitkin or "any Russian penologist of recognized reputation, " who would have furnished them with a translation " of two remarkable articles upon Russian Prison " methods written by a Russian expert, published in a " legal Journal of the highest character ( ? ) and ex- 276 SLAV AND MOSLEM, " pressly dedicated to the Members of the Fourth In- " ternational Prison Congress. " Finally, we may judge of the full depth of their perversity, when we are further informed that " the pictures of Russian " Prison life presented by the author of these Articles " are painted in colors as black as any that I ( G. Ken- " nan ) have ever used and reproduced in an article " entitled " The Truth about Russian Prisons, " by E. B. Lanin in Fortnightly Review, July, 1890, " which " inspired Swinburne's fiery poem in defense and jus- " tification of tyrannicide. " Quite a pool among these gentlemen ! G. Kennan, E. B. Lanin, Volkhovsky, and Dragomonof seem to have all things in common, and the way they quote from themselves, and from each other is quite interesting. As Czarowich, Alexander III acquired a personal knowledge of the horrors of war, during the Bulgarian campaigns, and these sad experiences served to inten- sify the love of peace which he shares with his peace- ful moujiks. Certainly, if there be war in Europe ere long, it will not be the fault of Alexander the Third. But can even the hand of an Autocrat restrain the operation of this strange law of mutual destruction, that reigns throughout Nature, beginning in the vegetable Kingdom, and becoming more direful as it culminates in the highest sphere of its operations. In every great division of the Vegetable and Animal Kingdom, we find a class whose role seems to be the destruction of other creatures. We have beasts of prey, birds of prey, reptiles, insects and even plants of prey. Man, the arch destroyer of life, who kills for ALEXANDER III. CONSOLIDATION. 277 every conceivable purpose, for food, for clothing, for ornament, for art and science, for amusement, and of- ten from mere wantonness, seems charged to execute the portentous law against his fellow man. Men have slaughtered each other from time immemorial ; and the more sacred the cause, the more advanced the na- tion, the more deadly has been the carnage. It is customary to judge most superficially of Eu- ropean Wars and to attribute them, without any fur- ther reflection, to the petty passions of despotic Kings and Priests. But has human blood ceased to flow where the power of these factors is no longer exer- cised ? Can we even hope that in the " Confederation of Nations, " international arbitration will stem the gory tide, and stay the fratricidal effusion of blood, -when we have seen the most deadly intercine warfare rage, for years, in a country endowed with an ad- mirable Constitution, and free Republican institu- tions ? Perhaps the extermination of savage tribes in Af- rica may, for some time to come, satisfy the exigencies of this dire law, and ensure a prolonged peace to civil- ized nations. But it is greatly to be feared, that the scramble for foothold on the Dark Continent will, on the contrary, be only another casus belli, and give rise to a new series of wars to maintain " the balance of power" in Africa. 8i mspcicem para bellum, and the Czar has, for this very reason, not neglected to fortify his frontiers and place his fleet on a par with the foremost, while the Russian army is, undoubtedly, the largest and the best equipped in Europe. 278 SLAV AND MOSLEM. Tliis peace loving Czar has, by infinite tact and for- bearance, brought about what the sword was unable to accomplish ; for the Balkan Peninsula, including Greece and Montenegro, are practically Russianized, and the House of Romanoff reigns, already, in the hearts of these various peoples. Against such sov- ereignty, diplomacy, and the sword are alike unavail- ing. If, " Peace hath her victories not less renowned than war, " it may be, that to Alexander the Third is- reserved the glory of replacing the Cross on the dome of Saint Sophia, where the Credo and the Te Deum were sung in union by the Greek and Latin Churches, for the last time, in I486. And, whatever may be our lines of religious demarkation, it would surely be a joy, transcending all petty sectarian differences, to see, again, on this Venerable Basilica, the Sign of the Re- demption, that Constantine the Great exalted on all the public monuments of Constantinople, fifteen cen- turies ago. CONCLUSION. 279 CHAPTEE XYI. CONCLUSION. Notwithstanding the complacency of the Powers, who conferred at Berlin in 1879, the Eastern question was far from solved. It was only complicated and postponed. Contrary to all precedent, the prime minister, Lord Beaconstield, insisted on representing England him- self, at this conference. So anxious was he to assure to the Porte every shred of territory and authority, by which it was still possible to bolster up the crumb- ling institution on the Bosphorous, whose days were evidently numbered. The man who had been hooted in the House of Commons, when he made his maiden speech, "in a bottle green frock coat, and waistcoat " of white, of the Dick Swiveller pattern, the front " of which exhibited a net work of glittering chains ; " large fancy pattern pantaloons ; clustering ringlets " of coal black hair that fell in bunches of well oiled " ringlets over his left cheek " Benjamin Disraeli, now in the zenith of his political career, found, more- over, on this occasion, an irresistible opportunity for indulging his Oriental love of theatrical display. He surrounded his journey to the Continent, with all the pomp of a royal progress, and postured during the Congress, as if he were the arbiter of the destinies of Europe. The alleged object of this Congress had been to 280 SLAV AND MOSLEM. ameliorate the condition of the Balkan Christians, and provide for their future welfare. But, underlying the averred object, was a deter- mined intention on the part of at least one of the Powers, England, to maintain the Ottoman Empire, at all costs, and no matter what the consequences to the peoples for whom Russia had waged war in 1877. Since fourteen years Austria continues to occupy Bos- nia and Herzegovina, militarily, to the dissatisfaction of all parties. The Moslems naturally resent the presence and interference of foreign " Christian dogs : ' : Roman Catholic Slavs are discontented at having Magyar Bishops instead of Slavs ; while Greek Catholics, who compose the bulk of the population, are sullen, and distrustful of Austria, whom they fear and dislike. On 27 May, 1893, the Emperor, Franz Joseph " congratulated the Austrian and Hungarian delega- " tions on the fact that the expenses of the administra- " tion and military occupancy of Bosnia and Herze- " govina were covered by the revenue of these prov- " inces." New York Herald. It was alleged at the Conference, that the measure was requisite for the maintenance of peace in Europe, with which it absolutely has no connection. Later on, Lord Beaconsfield himself, openly acknowledged that the arrangement had been made, in order that another Power, not Russia, should be on the high road to Constantinople, in case the long expected de- mise of the " Sick Man " should occur, unexpectedly. The motive was puerile, but most unfortunate in its re- sults for these provinces, whose resources are taxed CONCLUSION. 281 to the utmost, to support a foreign army of occu- pation. The most unwarrantable partition of Bulgaria was another point on which Lord Beaconsiield succeeded in defeating what should have been the object of the Berlin Conference. It is needless to say, that this measure, too, was a kind of prophylactic against future contingent aggression, on the part of Russia ; though it is not easy to see how it was to operate. The Conference of Paris, in 1856 had, on the same principle, endeavored to provide against the union of the Danubian Principalities, and signally failed. Mol- davia and Wallacliia became united under an heredi- tary Prince of the House of Hohenzollern. Roumania, as the new State was called, joined Russia in the Bul- garian war, and obtained the full recognition of her independence by the Porte and by the Powers, who conferred at Berlin in IS 79. Slav influence is pre- dominant in the governing assemblies of this thriving little frontier State. And, should the Russians wish to invade the Sultan's dominions to-morrow, the right of way through the Dobrudja would, no doubt, be ac- corded to them, as freely as in 1877, the very contin- gency against which the Powers were so anxious to provide. Eastern Roumelia, a portion of Bulgaria, handed back to Turkey, succeeded by a series of revolts against Moslem misrule, in acquiring a certain inde- pendence, and is now in a sort of anomalous condition, waiting for Russia to complete the work she initiated by the Bulgarian War. Austrian influence in Servia has entirely ceased. 282 SLAV AND MOSLEM. Prince Milan prudently abdicated in favor of liis son: Alexander, who is to all intents and purposes a ward of Russia ; his mother Queen Nathalie, being a Rus- sian and a devoted Panslavist. Ristitch, the minister during the minority of King Milan expressed the sen- timents of his countrymen and indeed of all the Bal- kan Slavs, when he said : "We can never forget what " Russia has done for us. It is to her we owe our ex- istence. It was Russia who in 1812, 1815, 1821, " 1830, intervened in our behalf. It is useless to re- " call her services in the last war, (1877.) It is from " Russia, that we expect the deliverance of all the Slav " populations." The Croatians too, resent being treated like a Hun- garian dependancy, and look forward to the time when, " a few million Magyars will be swallowed up in the " Slav ocean, that will overwhelm them." Montenegro, the brave little State that resisted Mos- lem domination, with more or less success, for five centuries, enjoys complete independence since 1879, and is devoted to the House of Romanoff, is one of the family in fact. Justin McCarthy, correctly diagnosed the situation in the Balkan Peninsula when he said, that " to the " Slav populations the neighborhood of Russia has all " the disturbing effect, which the propinquity of a " magnet might have on the works of some delicate "piece of mechanism, or which the neighborhood " of one great planet has on the movements of " another." And it is about as useless to seek to undermine and destroy Russian influence, nay Russian preponderance,. CONCLUSION. 283 in the Balkans, as to demagnetize the pole, or change the immutable laws of gravitation. Nevertheless great efforts have been made in this direction. It was in Bulgaria chiefly that German diplomacy, steered by Bismarck, was the most strenuous in its ef- forts to supplant Russia. After the Bulgarian War and the Conference of Berlin, there was at Constanti- nople a veritable invasion of the Teutons. In the course of a single year, it is said that two , hundred million piasters of German products were imported. Many German officers commanded in the Sultan's army, and patriotically enabled the Fatherland to get rid of her cast off guns and amunition, by foisting them on the Turks. Other Germans filled high offices in the State ; and they were all fortunate enough to receive their salaries, rather an unusual thing among Turkish employees. Strong influences were brought to bear on the Bul- garians, who were, for a time, persuaded that their worst enemies were the Russians, to whom they owed their existence, as an independent State. But the irresistible attraction exercised by Russia is reasserting itself in Bulgaria. The tenure of Prince Bismarck's creature, Ferdinand of Coburg, is very precarious. No ovations tendered to him in foreign States, or in Bulgaria ; no private loans made to him by his father-in-law, or by Baron Hirch, can confirm his throne, nor induce Russia to countenance his in- cumbency. His presence in Bulgaria is a direct vio- lation of the Treaty of Berlin, which requires that the Prince of Bulgaria be unanimously elected by all the signatory powers. 28-i SLAV AND MOSLEM. Ferdinand of Coburg is in Sophia, merely on suffer- ance, and until some other arrangement can be made. Unless he succeed in propitiating Russia, and obtain- ing her approval, he is bound, sooner or later, to go the way of Alexander of Battenberg, and Milan of Scrvia. The good he is said to have accomplished must be attributed to some stronger personality than his own. In spite of all the good advice he received from de Burien, Austria's representative at Sophia, he had not even sense enough to avoid the impolicy of rousing the antagonism of the Greek National Church of Bulgaria ; and it is doubtful, if lie can ever be any- thing but a man of straw. The Triple Alliance, whose mandatary he is, has, itself, but a precarious existence, quite as much so, in- deed, as the superannuated, rotten institution on the Bosphorus, which the Allied Powers are pledged to maintain. This " Dribund " is composed of elements so incon- gruous and antithetic, that it must end in dissolution. There can be little sympathy between Protestant Ger- many and Catholic Italy, whose natural ally would be France, to whom she owes her political unity. Austria cannot so soon have forgotten Sadova, while the Irridentists of Italy openly claim the Italian Provinces incorporated with Austria. Moreover Austria's sym- pathies are entirely with the dethroned Pope. How then can she consistently band herself with the Gov- ernment that has overthrown him ; and how long can the entente cordial e be maintained in this " Happy Family," where so many elements of discord are rife ? ' CONCLUSION. 285 Even if the pressure of circumstances should, for a time, hold together the nations who compose the Tri- ple Alliance, the ethnical attraction, which is drawing together the peoples of the same race, will assert itself some day. When this day arrives, the political mosaique, known as the Austrian Empire, will be the first, to feel the effects of the working of these latent forces, and resolve itself into its pristine proportions. The Slav peoples, who compose the greater part of this heterogeneous empire, and of the Balkan Peninsula, will gravitate towards Russia ; those of Teutonic origin towards Germany. And the Latin provinces, wrested from Italy, will probably return to the mother country. That the actual modus vivendi in the Balkans is a precarious one, is generally, felt, though not openly acknowledged. The present Sultan, Abdul Hamid, is only a locus tenens of his brother Mourad, who, on account of par^ tial insanity was pronounced incapable of reigning by a " Fetwa " of the Sheik-ul-Islam. The same symp- toms are manifesting themselves in Abdul Hamid, and State and religious functionaries are already discussing the advisability of removing him from the throne. A civil war in Turkey, is one of the many contingencies, which may precipitate the dissolution of this five hundred year old monstrosity. Nor are theories for disposing of the future of Turkey in Europe wanting. The most plausible of them, seems to be the scheme of constituting a Feder- ation somewhat like that of the Swiss Cantons, and in which Constantinople, would be neutralized and trans- 286 SLAY AND MOSLEM. formed into a Free Port, under the conjoint tutelage of all the Powers. If this plan were carried out, the Powers would probably find rocking a cradle, quite as onerous as watching by the " Sick Man's " death bed. The Swiss Cantoris enjoy immunity from political interference, on the part of European nations, for many reasons, which do not exist in the Balkan Peninsula. Constantinople, itself, w r ould always be a tempting en jeu for ambitious rulers ; for, by her posi- tion, this city commands the commerce of both conti- nents, and the European nation who held it, would be, practically, mistress in Europe and in Asia. This is one of the reasons, why the Turkish nonentity has been so zealously maintained and defended against Russia, whose chances of gaining the prize are many. Russopholists, imbued with the traditional cant about Russian greed, and the urgent need of saving the world from Muscovite despotism, have often smiled at the naivete of those who believed in the disinter- estedness of Russia's services on behalf of the Balkan Christians, whereas, the Northern Bear was only seek- ing to devour new prey. Formerly such accusations might have had some weight. But, as Mr. Gladstone once remarked : " The public can no longer be scared " by the standing hobgoblin of Russia. Many a time " has it done good service on the stage ; it is at present " out of repair and unavailable." There is, indeed, something ludicrous in the panicky fear that Russia arouses among the English, and in the Quixotic measures taken, from time to time, to stave off the inevitable. The disastrous Afghan wars, CONCLUSION. 287 as well as the Crimean and the Persian wars were in- spired by this dread, which increased with every step of Russian advance in Central Asia. In 1878, on one memorable night, when there was a rumor that the Russians were actually in the suburbs of Constantinople, "the House of Commons," says Justin McCarthy, " nearly lost its head. The lobbies, " the corridors, St. Stephen's Hall, the great West- " minster Hall itself, the Palace Yard beyond, became " filled with wildly excited and tumultuous crowds," p. 604, Yol. II, "A history of our own times." The English fleet immediately anchored below Constantinople, and then followed a little scene worthy of school boys on a play-ground. " You promised to keep your hands " off," protested Russia. " And you promised not to " enter Constantinople," cried England. " Nor have I " done so," calmly retorted Russia, " but I will if you " advance another step." " I will stay where I am," said England, " but will not land, if you will promise " again not to pass the gates of Constantinople." And thereupon pourparlers and secret understandings began, that resulted in the Congress of Berlin. To-day Russia is, as regards territory, much in the position of a Crossus, to whom a million, more or less, must be so indifferent, that he can hardly be accused of struggling and dissimulating in order to secure it. Indeed, for many years to come, additional territory can mean nothing but added burden and expense to Russia ; so that, if she should make any new conquests, it certainly would be done only under the pressure of necessity. I am well aware that some Russian writers depre- 288 SLAV AND MOSLEM. ciate the value of Constantinople, and repudiate all covetous feelings on the subject. Nevertheless, the Russians are certainly heirs at law of the Greek Em- perors, from whom Constantinople was wrested by the Turks in 1453; and the "Holy City," on the Bosphorus, must be, to all members of the Greek Church, what Rome is to Roman Catholics, all over the world. It is their religious metropolis. Moreover, there is a law of national, as well as physical organisms, that compels them to seek, neces- sarily, their natural good, self-preservation and develop- ment. Now a free way to the ocean, at all seasons of the year, is as necessary to Russia's growth and expan- sion as an adequate supply of oxygen is to a powerful and growing organism. She must have it or stifle: Russia cannot, therefore, forego Constantinople ; ic is for her an imperious necessity that she have fre6 access to the Mediteranean ; and to secure this, the 1 key of her house must be in her power, if not in her actual possession. She might not object to a vassal door-keeper ; indeed, I think she would prefer one. But a turnkey, she certainly will not tolerate, if she can possibly help it, nor could any one expect her to do so. But Constantinople, all important though it be, is not the kernel of the Eastern Question. Russia could, & la rigtieur,.fmd. her way to the Mediterranean by way of Asia Minor. One of the tendencies of civilization is to render> men gregarious. It was thus that our far away ances- tors formed themselves into groups and societies, that developed into nations. Several of these nations, CONCLUSION. 289 kindred by origin, creed and language, have, in the course of time, been arbitrarily segregated by con- querors and statesmen, who have parcelled them out among different rulers, according to certain laws of expediency, and, wholly irrespective of natural affini ties. But an irresistible movement is drawing together, again, these disjointed parts, and has been the under- lying cause of recent wars in Europe, vulgarly ascribed to the susceptibilities and ambitions of those in power. German unity was preluded by the annexation of Holstein, wrested from Denmark ; the Italian wars of 1859, the war between Germany and Austria in 1866, the Franco German war of 1870, were the unconscious elaboration of this attractive force, and the reconstitu- tion of Europe according to the ethnical principle. It is the fermentation of this leaven, complicated by Moslem misrule, that, properly speaking, constitutes the Eastern Question. The unnatural distribution of Europe effected by the bloody wars of Louis XI Y, and the First Napoleon, will probably be swept away some day in a still more sanguinary conflict. In their new baptism of blood, the masses will awake to a better life ; and, in the knowl- edge of their long unrecognized royalty, become, for the first time, the arbiters of their own destinies. We are advancing towards a time, when the "con- federation of nations, and the Parliament of man," will no longer be a poet's dream, but accomplished facts. North America has already furnished a proto- type of the Confederation of Sovereign States, harmo- niously welded together under a common chief. And 19 290 SLAY AND MOSLEM. if such confederations are to exist 011 a larger scale, we should, of course, expect that the great branches of the human race, would each constitute a separate confed- eration under the hegemony of the principal group. In this case, nothing would be more natural, than that there should be a great Slav Confederation, of which the Czar of all the Russia s would be the center ; and a great Teutonic Confederation, to which all the scattered families of the Fatherland would gravitate. England, herself, would be the greatest gainer by such a movement. Instead of undergoing periodical dismemberments, which would leave her, finally, an object of venerable pity, in the insular isolation of her waning years, she would rally around her flag the great young nations, who stole her fire, and became strong and prosperous, at a bound, so to speak, because they were backed by centuries of training ; and had, moreover, inherited a noble strain, that has always produced great men, in every walk of life. As to the actual masters of Constantinople, and the fair lands of Turkey in Europe, which they desolate, enough has been said to convince an impartial mind that they have not the slightest claim to any civilized man's sympathy. Their right to the soil is one of conquest, it is true. But though a long established precedent has unjustly decided, that "might is right," even conquerors must, by conferring benefits, justify their "right," if it is to become imprescriptible. And this the Turks, unlike other conquerors, have never done. It would be monotonous to multiply documents, and I will therefore restrict myself to a few statements CONCLUSION. 291 which will amply prove, that "the careful provision against future misgovernment," supposed to have been made by the Congress of Berlin was an utter failure. And that "the opportunity-, probably the last obtained for Turkey, by the interposition of the Powers, of England in particular," was completely " thrown away." In 1880 Sir Henry Layard, an earnest Turcophil, admitted that "he had exhausted every diplomatic re- " source to bring the Sultan to a sense of the danger, " to which the empire is exposed." For, to minds like his, Turkish misrule has no significance, except when considered subjectively ; what the unfortunate victims of this misrule suffer is quite a secondary con- sideration, if indeed it be at all worth considering. Lord Granville, in the same year, wrote thus to Mr. Gochen, during the latter's official residence in Con stantinople "your excellency will do well to make " the Sultan understand, that the only hope of main- " taining the Ottoman Empire rests upon a complete " and radical reform, both in the capital and in the " provinces." Five years later Mr. Lavelye wrote : "No reforms " have been effected. The situation has become in all " ways much w r orse. The Porte ridicules the admoni- " tion and the threats of England and the other Powers, " and nevertheless all the Powers agree in supporting " this abominable rule, which is ruining the popula- " tions of every race and every faith." Mr. Lavelye is by no means a Russophil, and his testimony is in every respect reliable. Not less reliable is the testimony of Robert Mac- 292 SLAV AND MOSLEM. kenzie. I quote the following passage from his historical work, " The Nineteenth Century;" p. 399. " If the social condition of the Turks could be fully " explained, the English people would shudder at the " thought of maintaining a horde of savages, so utterly " debased. But that is impossible. It was truly said " by Cobden; that we must remain ignorant of the " social condition of Turkey, because it is indescrib- able." " Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise." And as it suited " British interests " to maintain the Turks, they have persistently ignored and palli- ated the utter corruption and crimes of a government, of whom they are the self -constituted sponsors, by the Anglo-Turkish Convention and by the Treaty of Berlin, 1879. Hall Cain's " Scape Goat," presents a truthful pic- ture of Turkish misrule everywhere. The system of farming out taxes in Morocco which he describes, is a common practice in the Turkish Empire. Not the office of tax collector only, but of judges and magis- trates ; and in fact every official position is obtained by purchase, and retained by bribery. Slavery is still a recognized institution ; and quite a lucrative traffic, carried on chiefly by women of rank. Not only have the Turks paralyzed, in the inarch of progress, the nations on whom they have preyed for centuries, but these Moslems have not even, in them- selves, any elements of evolution. The encomiums lavished on them by Turcophils are, no doubt, justified in individual cases ; but, as a nation, they are essen- tially non-progressive. Their limitations were many, CONCLUSION. 293 and they were quickly reached. Since the fifteenth century, there has been, no development, no progress among them. And there can be none for the Koran fixes their civil and criminal laws. A hard and fast legislation, adapted to the status and welfare of nomadic bandits, who roved around the plains and plateaus of Asia, twelve centuries ago, sack- ing and pillaging, and appropriating, cannot possibly be that of a civilized and progressive State. For education the Turks care nothing, as a rule. The only book the men are taught to read is the Koran. The women, with few exceptions, are wholly illiterate. Why indeed should anything be taught to a creature supposed to have no soul ? Financially speaking, Turkey is bankrupt, and her revenues are mortgaged to the fullest extent ; only one step is needed to precipitate the dissolution of a body in the last stage of decay. This would be the secular- ization of the Yakoufs, or ecclesiastical estates and religious foundations, as was done in France, by the Rev- olution of 1793. It would be the extinguishing of the last spark of religious enthusiasm, the generating and vivifying principle of the Turkish Empire. The dan- gerous experiment of appropriating ecclesiastical property, has been tried to some extent, but it was not successful, even from a financial point of view ; for little of the money reached the Sultan's coffers, having been diverted into the pockets of State function- aries. As regards agricultural industry, which is the principal resource of the country, it will die out com- pletely, if the present administration lasts much longer. 294 SLAV AND MOSLEM. " The ground lies waste at the very gates of the " capital, and solitude spreads in the most beautiful " regions of the Empire, on the shores of the Sea of "Marmora and the ^Egean. The country through " which we passed, writes de Blowitz, was a desert of " immense plains, grassy and fertile, but uncultivated. " The deserted villages, on all sides, indicated former ft prosperity, but the inhabitants had fled, and bram- " bles grew over all. Half a century ago, " many of these villages were still inhabited, others " have been long deserted." Not only do the Balkan regions enjoy the most delightful climate in Europe, but they are rich in mineral resources. Gold, quicksilver, iron, coal, salt and copper abound, in easily accessible localities ; while a long stretch of sea-coast affords singular facilities for commerce. Recently, the opening of the Corinth Canal has added to these facilities, by making closer communication, between the Mediterranean and the ^Egean Sea. Trading vessels are no longer obliged to double Cape Matapan. Many centuries ago, Venice and Genoa realized the great natural advantages, enjoyed by the Balkan Peninsula, and struggled to maintain their ascendency in the ^Egean and the Bosphorus, against all commer- cial rivals. They carried on a lucrative commerce with Asia, until both were dispossessed, by the savage conquerors of the Western Csesars, the Ottoman Turks, in the fifteenth century. The Malthusian theory is quite at fault in the Bal- kan Peninsula. For in spite of the exuberant fertility of the soil, the population is only about one-third of CONCLUSION. 295 what it used to be in the time of the Romans, before the fall of Constantinople. During the present century alone, more than forty villages are said to have become extinct in Turkey. But the desolation that is rapidly gaining ground, in Turkey, is not the greatest nor the only evil. There is a more serious one, which may well be deprecated, even by remote countries, in these days of facile inter- communication. Constantinople is becoming more than ever a plague center, whence pestilential germs are constantly being exported and disseminated throughout the world. The only practical result of the Emperor William's visit to the Sultan in 1889, was, that the streets of Constantinople, which " had been in a deplorably filthy condition for the previous ten years," received a thorough cleaning up. Sanitary reforms moreover are quite impossible under the present regime, where everything remains to be done, while inertia and cor- ruption reign supreme. Justin McCarthy, who is so frank and impartial a writer, in spite of Russophobist tendencies, alleges the difficulty of their task in extenuation of the notorious misgovernment of the Ottoman Turks. " It is not less Turkey's misfortune," he says, " than " her fault certainly not less her fault than her mis- it is quite amusing to read in the New York Herald, October, 1893, that Turkey has quarantined against the United States ; that no vessel will be admitted to Ottoman Ports without a clean bill of health, which must be signed by the Turkish Consul, of New York. They are perhaps beginning to realize that they have no use for im- ported germs, of any kind, as they cultivate enough to supply not only the Russian Empire, but the whole world with comma baciii. 296 SLAV AND MOSLEM. " fortune that her way of governing her foreign pro- " vinces, (meaning Turkey in Europe, the major part " of the Ottoman Empire.) Fate, (represented by " England since 1696,) has given to the most incapa- " ble and worthless government in the world, a task " that would strain the resources of the most accom- " plished statesmanship." " The Turkish Government managed the matter " worse than it might seem possible for a government " to do, which had been brought for centuries, within " the action of European civilization. Turkish rule " seems to exist only in one of two extremes. In cer- " tain places, it means entire relaxation of authority ; " in others, it means the most rude and rigorous " oppression. The warlike inhabitants of some high- " land region, live their wild and lawless lives, with " as much indifference to the officials of Stamboul. as " to the remonstrances of Western statesmanship. " But it may be, that not far from their frontier " line, there is some hapless province, whose people " feel the hand of Turkey, strong and cruel, at every " moment of their lives. It happens, as is not 1111- " natural in such a system, that the repression is lieavi- " est where it is least needed, and that in the only " cases where severity and rigor might be exercised, " there is an entire relaxation of all central authority. " P. 586, vol. II. A history of our own times." All this is rigorously true. The Ottoman Govern- ment has abundantly proved, since five centuries, that it is utterly unworthy and incapable of tilling the posi- tion it occupies. Yet, in 1856, England made a des- perate effort to re-organize and admit the Turks into CONCLUSION. 29 T the political fellowship of European States, a privilege from which they had hitherto, been debarred, by com- mon consent and for good reasons. Yet, during the thirty-five years that have elapsed since the Crimean War, the Porte has given no signs that it is more fitted to govern. On the contrary, the most sanguine of its supporters begin to despair of its future. Between 1756 and 1857, England has deposed Mus- sulman Princes in India, one after another, and an- nexed their territory, on the ground that they were incapable, or unworthy to govern, even peoples of their own race and creed. Why should Russia's hand have been stayed whenever she has attempted to carry out the same policy, in a country adjoining her Empire ? She could, at least, allege that the peoples so oppressed were her kindred, by origin and creed ; whereas Eng- land had no such pretext in India. So much for the carrying out in European Turkey of the programme of reform, devised by the Berlin Conference. But " the careful provision against future misgov- ernment," made by the Signatory Powers at Berlin in 1879, did not regard Turkey in Europe only. Lord Salisbury, alluding to the Anglo Turco Convention, also informed the Powers, that "arrangements of a " different kind, having the same end in view, had " provided for the Asiatic dominions of the Sultan, " security for the present, and hope of prosperity and " stability for the future." If he meant " security and prosperity," for the unfortunate Christians in the East, certainly these arrangements were most unsatis- factory, as far as Armenia was concerned. 298 SLAV AND MOSLEM. In June, 1889, Lord Carnarvon informed the House of Lords, that " a million of Christian people were " being ground down by misery and oppression in " Armenia. Men were put to death in the most bar- " barous manner ; women carried off or subjected to " the most horrible cruelties." (New York Herald, June 30th, 1889.) And these miserable Turks, for whom the Treaty of Berlin and the Anglo Turko Convention, were no more sacred than the treaties of Kainardji, or of Ad- rianople, looked on complacently at the atrocities com- mitted by Moussa Bey and his savage Kurds, utterly unmindful of their solemn engagements, to protect these Christian subjects from the outrages to which they were subjected. Like Pilate of old, Lord Salisbury washed his hands from any responsibility, and lefused to admit that England had made herself in any way answerable for the maintenance of order in Turkish dominions. Yet she most certainly did so, conjointly with the other Powers at Berlin, (Section 6) and more especially so by the Anglo Turko Convention. If she does not see fit to call her proteges to account, Russia may once again, as in 1877, relieve her in the discharge of this duty. Nor was it in Armenia alone that the "provisions" made by the Berlin conference, totally belied the ex- pectations of Christendom. In July, 1889, the Sultan sent re-inforcements of troops to quell the insurrec- tions that were expected to break out in the island of Crete, among the oppressed Greek Christians. The Triple Alliance having undertaken the maintenance CONCLUSION. 299 of the Turkish Empire as the basis of their pro- gramme, "carefully considered" the condition of these unfortunate Greek Christians. The allied powers demanded from the Sultan that the Island should have a Christian governor, and a mixed council, half Moslem and half Christian, ac- cording to the Treaty of Berlin. The Porte responded by sending another Moslem governor, with a well established reputation for religious fanaticism. In a word, the same nugatory negotiations were gone through between the European Powers and the Porte as in 1876, the former demanding guarantees against future misgovernment and oppression, the latter promising full satisfaction, and always evading the fulfillment of any of its engagements. Massacres in Crete in 1866 preluded the great atro- cities that led to the Bulgarian war in 1876. And it may be that what is being perpetrated in Armenia is only the signal for some new developments in the blood-stained career of the Osmanlis Turks. "We " may ransack the annals of the world," says Glad- stone, "but I know not what research can furnish " us with so portentous an example of the fiendish " misuse of the Powers established by God for the " punishment of evil-doers, and to reward them that " do well. No government has ever so sinned, none " has so proved itself incorrigible in sin, or which is " the same thing, so impotent for reformation." When during one of Russia's most successful cam- paigns, (1774,) some one suggested to the Turks that it might well happen that the tide of war landed them at Scutari, on the other side of the Bosphorus. "What's 300 SLAV AND MOSLEM. the odds," was the reply, "we can smoke our pipes there as well as here." This rejoinder is characteristic of the Osmanlis Turks. Sloth, selfishness, absence of all chivalry, patriotism and justice. Such are the flowers and fruits of this upas tree, under whose baneful shadow the fairest lands of Europe languish since nearly five centuries. When will all the nations of the world concur in saying "Cut it down, why cumbereth it the ground ?" Overwhelmed by their own pre-occupations and the struggle to live, civilized nations have somewhat lost sight of the sad condition of fellow Christians, groan- ing under Turkish misrule. A wailing echo reaches us from time to time, as recently, in April, 1893, and again in August, 1893, when Armenians residing in New York "adopted resolutions against the oppres- " sion of their countrymen in Armenia by the Turks, " and asking civilized communities to aid them in re- " lieving their native land. They appeal to the sig- " natory powers of the Berlin treaty for protection, " and state that the reforms vouchsafed by the various " existing treaties affecting their country have never " been secured. They also ask the British govern- " ment to lose no time in the specific enforcement of " her treaty stipulations with Turkey." (New York Herald, 22d August, 1893.) The total and most notorious non-observance, by the Porte of the stipulations of the Treaty of Berlin, is another casus ~belli, of which Russia may at any mo- ment avail herself, whether the other signatory powers choose to join her or not, in the invasion of Ottoman Territory, to coerce the Turks into due performance of their obligations. CONCLUSION. 301 As in the past, the momentary indignation roused by new acts of Moslem brutality, is quickly appeased by perfidious protestations and nugatory concessions. Christian peoples lay to their souls the nattering unction contained in Lord Salisbury's suave words, "careful provision has been made against future mis- government." And so time glides by, till the inevitable day, when the inexorable Eastern Question will burst upon us again like a thunder clap. NEW YOKK, APRIL, 1889. AIKEN, S. C., NOVEMBER, 1893. 7 U.C.BERKELEY LIBRARIES