THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESENTED BY PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID LONDON PBINTBD BT SPOTTISWOODB AND CO. NKW-STREET SQCAiiB EASTERN EUROPE and WESTERN ASIA POLITICAL AND SOCIAL SKETCHES EUSSIA, aEEECE, AND SYRIA 1861-^-3 HENRY ARTHUR TILLEY LONDON LONGMAN, GREEN, LONGIMAN, ROBERTS, & GREEN 1864 Digitized by tine Internet Arcinive in 2007 witin funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/easterneuropewesOOtillricli rs7 TO ALFRED HENEY BARFORD B.A., F.K.aS., F.L.S. THESE SKETCHES ABE INSCRIBED AS A SOTTVENIB OF MANY YEABS' FEIENDSHIP BY THE AUTHOR PREFACE. TN the following pages the author has attempted to -■- throw some light on the character of a country and the institutions of a people which are little understood in the West of Europe, and, consequently, subject to frequent misrepresentations. A residence of some years among the Eussians has afforded him many opportu- nities of enquiries and research into the national character and history, and of observing the various reforms which have lately been introduced into Russian institutions. An account of these will be found in the third, fourth, and fifth chapters. One chapter is especially devoted to the considera- tion of the much-vexed Polish question. The three chapters on Greece treat of the state of that country, and of the character displayed by the Greeks, both before and during the Revolution ; while the chapter on Syria contains the author's experience in the Lebanon and at Damascus, at a time immediately following the Christian massacres. With a sense of duty towards the public he addresses, the author has endeavoured to combine a spirit of justice and impartiality towards those of whom he writes ; and, if by his remarks an error be corrected or a prejudice removed, his main object in writing will have been attained. London : Febriiary 18, 1864. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE ST. PETERSBURG AND MOSCOW 1 CHAPTER II. Russia's rise and social organisation . . . .23 CHAPTER III. revolution and reform in RUSSIA . . . . 46 CHAPTER IV. THE MILLENNIAL BERTHDAY OF RUSSIA, 1862 ... 70 CHAPTER V. THE EMANCIPATION OF THE SERFS 92 CHAPTER VI. THE INTERIOR OF RUSSIA AND THE FAIRS OF THE UKRAIN . 122 CHAPTER VII. POLAND r. RUSSIA AND RUSSIA r. POLAND . . . .145 CHAPTER VIII. THE STEPPES OF SOUTHERN BUSSIA PAGE 195 CHAPTER IX. THE BLACK SEA AND THE LEVANT 'TER X. TER WITH THE KUSSIANS IN HRiA. CHAPTER XI. J GREECE BEFORE THE REVOLUTION CHAPTER XII. GREECE DURING THE REVOLUTION, 1862 '-- CHAPTER XIII. GREECE DURING THE REVOLUTION. 1863 247 CHAPTER XIV. THE &BB4N0N, AND THE CHRISTLAN MASSACH. ILLUSTEATIONS. THE king's palace AND CONSTITUTION PLACE AT ATHENS TAKEN FROM THE ACROPOLIS . tO foce title-page RUSSIAN COMMUNAL LIFE. AN ARTEL . . . „ page 101 A 'KABAk' OR DRAM SHOP . . . . . ^^ ^^ 113 INTERIOR OF A ' KABAK ' „ „ 117 A STREET SCENE IX CRONSTADT , . . . ,, ,126 A FAIR OF THE UKRAIN, WITH GROUP OF MOSCOW MERCHANTS 141 EASTERN EUEOPE and WESTERN ASIA. CHAPTEE I. ST. PETERSBUKa AND MOSCOW. Leave England — Copenhagen — Blo-wing-up of a Russian Man- of-War — Miraculous Escape — Port Baltic — Reval — Cronstadt — The Baltic Eleet — Entrance to St. Petersburg — Unhealthiness of the City — Its Attractions to a Stranger — Society — Garibaldi and the Russian Ladies — Popular Change during the present Reign — Contrast between the Public Monuments of St. Petersburg and Moscow — Fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul — Story of the Princess Tarakanov — From St. Petersburg to Moscow — Sketch of the Kremlin and its Historical Memorials — Muscovite Illustrations of a Future State. ON returning in 1860 from a voyage of circumnavi- gation on board the Eussian corvette ' Eynda,' I received an invitation to embark on board a large frigate then in Plymouth Harbour on its way to the Mediterranean. Having had a glance at all those ancient, transplanted, or nascent civilisations which I described in my former work.* I was nothing loth to visit the more classic shores of that sea which bounded the great nations of antiquity. Through the kindness of Admiral Popov, with whom I had made the last * Japan, the Armor, and the Pacific. Smith, Elder & Co. Cornhill, 1861. 2 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA. voyage, it was arranged that I should first accompany him to St. Petersburg, and thence proceed overland by the Black Sea to the coast of Syria, whither the frigate had sailed in all haste on account of the massacres at Damascus. By so doing, I should be enabled to see something of Eussia and the Eussians at home, and as I could^now speak their language, the arrangement was the more agreeable to me. ^*The summer was fast fading into autumn, when the squadron of three ships left Cherbourg on their return to Eussia. A strong S. W. wind bore us swiftly through the Channel and the Grerman Ocean, and on the third day, the coast of Norway and the old town of Christian- sand hove in sight. In another day, we were at anchor before the city of Copenhagen, where we stayed just long enough to examine the museum and masterpieces of Thorvaldsen, the curious old palace, and the port where the old wooden navy of Denmark was rotting under its sheds. The day after leaving Copenhagen, we were the horror-stricken witnesses of an awful calamity. The gunboat * Plastoon' had been four years in the Pacific, and its officers only the day before had been rejoicing at the prospect that a few more hours would see them in their native land and among their kindred. All the vessels were going merrily along under reefed top- sails, when a puff of smoke was seen to proceed from the * Plastoon,' which was fortunately the most leeward of the three ships. At first we supposed she had fired ST. PETEESBURG AND MOSCOW. 3 a gun; but as the smoke cleared away, we saw that her foremast was gone, that the yards and sails of the other two masts were hanging in disorder, and that her forecastle was so inclined, that the bowsprit seemed under water. In a moment, the dreadful truth broke upon us ; her magazine had exploded, and the ship was fast settling down. The excitement of the moment was intense — my own eager attention was fixed during the few intervening seconds with equal anxiety on the sinking ship, and on our preparations for bearing down on her and lowering the boats. But long before our ship could wear, the gun-boat was no longer to be seen. Up to the last moment, I could distinctly see with my spyglass the scared features of those on board — some rushing from one point to another, others on their knees and with their arms raised to heaven. On our own vessel meanwhile, a young midshipman was in an agony of despair for his eldest brother, who, at that very moment, was clinging to a ring in the side of the sinking vessel, unconscious of the entreaties of his messmates, who cried to him to let go his hold. He clung on desperately, and was borne down with the ship. In about a minute from the explosion, the vessel, having righted herself for an instant, settled quickly down, and the horizon was unbroken where her tapering masts and expanded sails had just before been seen. The corvettes and their boats were on the spot a few minutes afterwards; but there were only B 2 4 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA. a few blackened timbers, some boats bottom upwards, and quantities of splinters and dust floating in the still eddying waters. About thirty officers and men out of a crew of 120 were picked up, some dreadfully scorched by the explosion, or wounded by nails in the broken timbers to which they had been clinging. During that one minute between the explosion and the foun- dering, those who were on deck had cut away the lashings of the boats, or thrown themselves overboard with the first buoyant object which came to hand. One almost miraculous escape shows how great mental excitement may suddenly and unconsciously overcome physical incapacity. The doctor of the gunboat was lying disabled from paralysis in his berth, when the sea poured in at the gaping breach caused by the explosion. Although he had not moved without assistance for weeks, he now managed, unaided, to crawl up the ladder to the deck, from which he threw himself into the sea, and, sup- ported by the crutch which he happened to have in his hand, remained there without motion till we picked him up. At the same time three officers, strong young men, went down, as they were sleeping in their cabins. This was the second dreadful disaster which had hap- pened during the last three years to Eussian men-of- war in almost the same spot. In 1858, a line-of-battle ship, called the * Lefort,' had left Eeval with a number of officers and their families on boards the whole ST. PETERSBURa AND MOSCOW. O amounting to 800 persons. While tacking, a squall caught her, and she capsized and sank immediately. Although she was sailing in squadron, and other vessels passed over the same spot a few minutes afterwards, not a body or fragment of wreck was to be seen. In the case of the ' Plastoon,' all that the surviv^ors could tell us was, that they were cleaning out the magazine, but that the fires had all been extinguished and the usual precautions taken : beyond this, all was conjecture. To forward these painful tidings to the Government and to the friends of the drowned, the Admiral put into Port Baltic the next morning. This port, situated about forty miles from Eeval, is a rather spacious bay, protected by an old and half- finished breakwater, and is a common resort for the Russian Baltic squadron. Thence an officer was sent to Reval with despatches, and I accompanied him to see something of the country ; the corvettes coming round the next day. Reval of late years has become the fashionable watering-place for the society of Moscow and St. Petersburg. It is surrounded by a pretty, undulating country ; the adjoining Catharinenthal is dotted with the ' chalets ' of the resident nobility or visitors, and contains the palace of the Empress Catharine II. and a small wooden house once inha- bited by Peter the Great, the furniture and other articles used by him being religiously preserved in their places as relics. b EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA. On leaving Reval, the sliips proceeded to Cronstadt. On their arrival they were inspected by the Grrand Duke Constantine, and in a few days afterwards were reviewed by the Emperor. Nearly all vessels returning from foreign stations are thus honoured by an imperial visit, when the Emperor orders some manoeuvres, thanks the officers and crew, and on leaving generally makes a signal, ordering a reward in money to be distributed among the latter. A few days afterwards the ships were paid off, when the men either received a long leave of absence or were housed in barracks on shore, as is the custom, in the Eussian navy. Cronstadt possesses no object of interest for any but professional men. There is, indeed, a small wooden house which Peter the Great built, now the summer residence of the governor; and another still smaller, the model of the house which he inhabited at Saardam. Both are in the Summer Oarden, and beyond these there is nothing to be seen but forts, ships, factories, and uniforms. The foundation and support of a fleet in the Baltic Sea has, like every other undertaking in the north of Russia, been a difficult matter, involving an arduous war against nature ever since Peter, with a lead in his hand, sounded the Channel from Petersburg to Cronstadt. The outlet of the Neva into the Grulf of Finland has only nine feet depth of water ; and, as even line-of-battle ships drawing double that depth are built ST. PETEKSBURG AND MOSCOW. 7 in St. Petersburg, they have to be transported with immense labour in large floating iron docks to Cron- stadt, where they are fitted out. In this manner I saw the last new line-of-battle ship, the 'Imperator Nicholai,' brought down the Grulf, and a large frigate carried up to St. Petersburg for repairs. Since the Crimean war, the Eussian fleet has undergone a thorough change. Most of the surviving seamen of the Black Sea fleet were transferred to the Baltic; and a new set of screw ships has replaced those of the old system. The strength of the steam navy in the Baltic in 1862 may be given as follows ; three 3-deckers, seven 2-deckers, fifteen screw or paddle frigates, between thirty and forty large corvettes and despatch boats, besides a flotilla of small steamers and gunboats.*. Except a few built in England and America, all these were constructed in the dockyards of Finland, at St. Petersburg, or at Ni- cholaev in the Black Sea. As St. Petersburg and Moscow have been at length united to the west by railroads, few travellers will now arrive at the former city by the Neva. Yet the view * All the old line-of-battle ships were sunk in the Nprthern passage of the Grulf during the preparations for war in the spring of 1863. Their place has been supplied by iron-clad ships, or, rather, batteries, one of which, the ' Pervenetz,' was built in England, the rest in Kussia. These batteries, admirably adapted for the defence of a harbour or coast, are totally unfit for rough sea service. The 'Pervenetz' ran some danger of foundering on her passage from the Thames to Cronstadt. There are, altogether, five of these to be completed in the sprmg, besides eighteen rams of smaller size, but mounted with the largest metal. 8 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA. of the city, as the steamer approaches, is very pretty, with the golden cupola of St. Isaac's Cathedral and the slim spires of the Admiralty and fortress churches in the distance towering above the flat on which the city is built. But if the entrance to the Neva is pleasing to the eye, it is not always so to the nose. The smell of the so-called Kussian leather may be agreeable when made into pocket-books and other useful articles, but the stench of its preparation, which floats on the air from the different tanneries at the mouth of the river, is overpowering. St. Petersburg is a city of palaces, barracks, and sheds, which, if situated between the 40th and 50th parallels of latitude, would be the finest of modern European towns. As iti is, it is an anomaly which Folly has raised at an enormous sacrifice, but which it is now Wisdom to uphold. The time may, indeed, come when, as many prophesy, it will sink into the morass from which it was reared ; but that time is far distant. In gpite of the disadvantages of its situation, St. Peters- burg, owing to the increasing civilisation of the country, and the facilities of intercommunication, is more and more bound up with the interests of the Eussian people. The foundations of this city were laid, as all know, at an enormous cost of human life : immense sums of money were lavished in raising its public buildings, and every now and then the city is half swept away by floods or consumed by fire; while anything less hard than ST. PETERSBUEG AND MOSCOW. V granite rots in the damps and snows of very few winters. But all this is as nothing to the perpetual wear and tear of human life experienced every year in this struggle of humanity with resisting nature. During the ten years, from 1852 to 1862, the deaths in St. Petersburg have exceeded the births in the most favour- able year by 3,000; in the most unhealthy (1855), by 10,000. The severity of the climate alone can scarcely account for this. The great drawback to the health of St. Petersburg is the absence of all drainage. The land on which the city is built is so low and marshy, the frost in winter so severe and prolonged, that any system of underground drainage seems to be impossible. A certain portion of the filth of the city might, indeed, be carried off by the river ; but its waters, now drunk by the whole population, would be polluted, and the narrow passage leading into the gulf blocked up in a very short time. Hence the accumulations of sewerage, found in the centre of every family, are constantly sending forth pestiferous gases. As these sinks of filth are disturbed nearly every night throughout the year, the atmosphere for a verst around is reeking with con- tamination. Typhus is, therefore, an endemic, and the cholera is every now and then fearfully active among such an inviting congregation as the inhabitants of St. Petersburg. One of these days it may make such havoc among them, that some means will be taken to provide a better system for cleansing the city. 10 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA. St. Petersburg is not very attractive in autumn to those who seek pleasure in society and amusement. All the world is then out of town, in the islands, at Peterhov, Oranienbaum, Tsarskoe Selo, Paulovsk, or Eeval. But the palaces, museums, and churches, with their metallic riches and grotesque art, are enough to excite the in- terest if not the admiration of visitors. In October the town assumes a little liveliness — the Nevsky Prospect, as the Regent Street of St. Petersburg is called, be- comes tolerably filled during the afternoon, and a fine day will even draw out a little beauty and elegance for a walk in the summer gardens. But to see or know anything of St. Petersburg the stranger must be there in the winter. Two operas, a French theatre, the best ballet in the world, the delights of the omnibus box and first row of stalls, splendid sledges with fur-muffled beauties, a clear sky and the thermometer 20 degrees below zero, will all help the tourist to pass the time quickly. But if he has anywhere read of meetings in the summer gardens, where rich merchants' wives bring their daughters for exhibition and offer them with some tens of thousands of roubles for a penniless or ruined officer of high rank or family to pick and choose from, let him banish such ideas from his thoughts. Some good old woman is now the go-between, and these affairs are arranged in private. Thanks to the friendship of some of my late com- panions, my time was passed very agreeably. Living ST. PETEESBUEG AND MOSCOW. 11 for a month or two in the home of one and making occasional visits to the houses of others, I received such kindness as makes travelling a pleasure, and the re- membrance of it a regret. When a stranger once becomes thoroughly intimate in Eussian society there is none in Europe more pleasant or more free from absurd etiquette. During my stay in St. Petersburg two subjects occu- pied all minds, and were the almost exclusive topics of conversation — the Emancipation of the Serfs and G-aribaldi. The enthusiasm for the latter pervaded barrack and boudoir, his name was in every mouth, his photograph in every hand, the most exaggerated anec- dotes were related and greedily read about him. The ladies, as in all other countries, were his chief advocates; for the Eussian ladies have the most exalted ideas of patriotism and liberty, and admii*e rebellion even to stimulating it. At a later period all this enthusiasm for G-aribaldi and the Italian cause centred itself on home affairs, and many of the fair sex became the most zealous partizans of the Liberals, wearing badges dis- tinctive of their principles — a freak which brought some of them into trouble. I had been accustomed to hear so much of the rigid mode of public life prescribed by the Emperor Nicholas that I could not but be struck by the change which had already taken place since his death. Whereas all public feeling was then held under strict control, it 12 EASTERN EUEOPE AND WESTERN ASIA. was evident now that the Eiissian people had a will, desires, and intelligence of its own. Nowhere was this change more sensibly manifested than in the Imperial theatres. Formerly no expression of applause or dis- approbation was allowed in these places of amusement, but now in the Grand theatre might be heard noisy cheers, hissing, hooting, and stamping of feet, as the en- thusiasm, party spirit, or patience of the upper audience was touched. One incident which occurred just as I left St Petersburg will especially show how the people were beginning to feel their strength. At the interment of the celebrated comic actor, Mortinov, when the people were dragging the funeral car to the cemetery, amid thousands of spectators with heads uncovered, the Commander of the gens d'armerie made his appearance on horseback, with his helmet on his head. He was immediately mobbed and compelled to doff his helmet. Under Nicholas it was as much as the people dared to do to look at such a personage as the Chief of the gens d'armerie, much less force him to bow to their desires. A Eussian gentleman who had just returned from a forced visit to the Caucasus asked me how long the Emperor Nicholas had been dead — ' About five years.' * Nonsense !' he replied, 'at least five hundred, if you calculate by the change which has already taken place in the country.' * * During a second visit to St. Petersburg, in the summer of 1863, the ST. PETEKSBUEG AKD MOSCOW. 13 One of the great privileges of travel is to read the history of a country, illustrated in its monuments and museums ; and there is perhaps no history so well illustrated as that of Kussia in its capitals of Moscow and St. Petersburg. In Moscow are the early and thoroughly national records of the land ; in St. Peters- burg is seen the transformation and the striking out in a new path. The traveller should always pay a visit to Moscow before St. Petersburg. The Oriental character of the former city will give force to the contrast pre- sented by the wooden isba of Peter the Great, the splendid Hermitage of Catharine the Second, the Palace where the foul murder of Paul was accomplished,* and the Palace Square of 1825 celebrity. The mosque- like and grotesque churches of Moscow will challenge comparison with the beautiful church of Our Lady of change, I remarked, was still more decided. People freely discussed politics in public places of resort, the press had a bolder and more digni- fied tone, and hardly any part of the foreign newspapers was obliterated by the censor ; even the police intruded still less on the amusements of the people. Altogether, there seemed to be more freedom of action, with greater expansion of thought and boldness of sentiment, than before. * This palace is now a school of engineers. The room where Paul was murdered was till lately nailed up. The Emperor Alexander, the other day paying a visit to the school, asked why that door was closed, and paying no attention to the confused excuses of the reply of those around him, ordered the door to be forced, and he passed through the room. Since this time it has been used by the students like any other chamber of the establishment. 14 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA. Kazan, or the gorgeous cathedral of St. Isaac, with its monoliths of Finland granite, its rich interior, where gold, silver, and jewels glitter among columns of marble, lapislazuli, and malachite ; and where huge gates in bronze portray the deeds of Alexander Nevsky and other heroes, who, having in a dark age exhibited talents and virtues above their fellows, have been dubbed saints by a too admiring posterity. Let the stranger stroll through the picture gallery in the Hermitage. Among the portraits which hang high on its walls there is a series of Tsars who might well pass for Grrand Llamas or for the first-born of the sun and moon ; close to these is a portrait in the French costume of the end of the 17th century, followed by another series in modern uniforms or mde-spreading hoops.* In one glance is seen the immediate change from Oriental stagnation and semi-barbarism to European progress and civilisa- tion. Whether the bounds between Europe and Asia should be at the Ural or the Niemen was decided by the young genius of Peter, and the city which bears his name and the progress which his descendants have made during two centuries are the living proofs of his genius.f * This is in the room called the PetroTsky Gallery. t The character of Peter and the acts of his reign have lately been thoroughly sifted by Eussian historians, having at their disposal all the archives of the times. Much new matter has been brought forward, but only to confirm what was already known, viz. that he was a man who well understood his times; an extraordinary genius, but a passionate and brutal despot. ST. PETERSBURG AND MOSCOW. 15 As, in more despotic times, London had its Prison- tower and Paris its Bastille, so, surrounded by the waters of the Neva, St. Petersburg has its Petropau- lovsky Krepost. In the church within its walls are the simple tombs of its E^mperors and Empresses, with one exception, from Peter to Nicholas. There also is re- ligiously preserved that broad-beamed boat, built after the fashion of the I7th century, which Peter con- structed and navigated with his own hands, and which has received the name of the Father of the Russian Fleet. From this fortress the signal for opening the naviga- tion of the river is given in spring by firing of cannon, when the Grovernor is the first person to cross. But it is chiefly when the west wind drives the waters of the Grulf of Finland into the river that all eyes are turned towards it. The signal of red flags and the booming of cannon from the fortress proclaims the increasing danger of inundation. Of the many floods which have ravaged the city the most disastrous were those of 1777 and 1825, when the waters rose respectively 10 feet 7 inches and 13 feet 7 inches. In the former, in a low cell of the fortress, perished the young Princess Tarakanov, whose story, as related by some writers, is the saddest that can be found in the annals of secret history. The Empress Elizabeth, the daughter of Peter the Grreat, had secretly married her favourite, Razumovsky, 16 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA. after she had raised him to high rank in the army and made him Ataman of Little Eussia. From this union were born two sons and a daughter, who received the name of Tarakanov. The sons died before their mother. Just before the first partition of Poland, a plot, of which Prince Eadzivil was the head, was formed for the abduction of the young Princess, then about 15 years old, to make her an instrument for the dethrone- ment of Catharine, and perhaps to satisfy some hopes of personal ambition on the side of the Prince. The guardians of the young Elizabeth — for so she was called, after her mother — were bought over, and she was removed, first to Poland and afterwards to Italy. Catharine immediately confiscated the immense estates of the Prince, who, reduced to poverty, promised to abandon his projects if his property were restored. On returning to Eussia he left the young Tarakanov at Eome, under the guardianship of her governess. Thither Alexis Orlov, ready for any deed at the behest of his Sovereign, proceeded, in order, by fair means or foul, to bring the young girl back to Eussia. With a Neapolitan named Eivas, he arrived in Eome, where Eivas, having introduced himself to the Princess, in- formed her of the interest she excited in Eussia. When better acquainted, he let her know that he was only the messenger of Alexis Orlov, who, tired of the tyranny of Catharine, offered to place her on the throne of her grandfather, if she would accept him as her ST. PETERSBUKa AND MOSCOW. 17 husband. The young girl, already somewhat schooled in ambition by her former protector, accepted the pro- posal with gratitude. Orlov presented himself and soon acquired great influence over her. After strangling an Emperor it was nothing for him to ruin a defenceless girl. They were secretly married according to the rites of the Grreek Church by two adventurers, one dressed as a priest and the other as a lawyer. After this mockery the pair removed to a palace at Pisa, in order, as Orlov told his victim, to await the breaking out of the Eevolution in Eussia ; in reality to be in a better position for carrying out his atrocious scheme. The opportunity came a short time after the naval battle of Tschesme, where ten Eussian ships under the flag of Orlov, but in reality commanded by the Scots in the Eussian service, Admiral Elphinstone and Captains Grreig and Dugdale, defeated aiid burnt fifteen Turkish ships. . A squadron, under the command of the two first officers, now put into Leghorn, when Orlov, pre- tending that he must visit them, easily persuaded his wife to accompany him to that place, where she was received into the house of the English consul, At Leghorn the young girl seems to have created a sen- sation, which was destined to increase as the shameful plot unfolded. Orlov without much difficulty persuaded her to visit the ships. A boat decorated with flags bore her on board ; with her were the wives of the English consul and of Admiral Grreig, who, it is to be hoped, c 18 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA. were not privy to the plot. An arm-chair was let down from the rigging, and the princess was hoisted on board. But no sooner was she in the cabin, than the unfortunate girl realised the whole truth of the shameful comedy which had been played around her. She was confined below ; some accounts say that she was even placed in irons. In vain she implored the pity and invoked the pretended love of her barbarous husband. The ship sailed, and on her arrival in St. Petersburg she was put in secret confinement in the fortress of St. Peter and iPaul, where she lingered nearly six years, until, smo- thered by the rising waters of the river, she died the victim of a political necessity.* Winter had already begun to whiten the housetops when I left St. Petersburg, and took the train for Moscow. All my acquaintances assured me that I should steal a march on the bad weather, and find in the South, during the month of October, sunny skies and gentle breezes. The time occupied in passing between the two cities is twenty hours. My journey thither was rendered more agreeable by meeting with a family returning from their travels* The renewal of our acquaintance in Moscow led to an invitation to visit their estate in the south of Eussia. * This girl is said by some to have been an adventuress put forward as the daughter of Elizabeth. Still, her mock marriage with Orlov and her miserable death remain as facts. Her history must necessarily remain a matter of dispute until it shall please the Government to open tbe State Paper Office to the inspection and criticisms of some future Soloviev ; — a time, it would seem, not far distant. ST. PBTERSBURa AND MOSCOW, 19 In this remote part of the world, the hospitality of old times has not yet taken its flight heavenward, and letters of introduction are not indispensable for obtaining admission into society. Unfortunately the aspect of the country, the climate, and the complete want of accommodation, offer little inducement to those who travel only for pleasure or amusement* For those who brave inconveniences for the sake of instruction a tour in the interior of Eussia and an impartial exami- nation of the character and habits of the people would furnish an interest not to be surpassed elsewhere. No country in Europe is so little known or so much misre- presented. The railways now in construction may, however, attract future travellers, especially if the com- forts of Western civilisation be provided for them in the towns through which they pass. But this is not the case at present. In the Kremlin, the Acropolis of Moscow, the visitors may find all that is national in Kussian manners and customs. There he may see the traces of all that is in- teresting in her history^ from the time when the genius and intrigues of one of her princes gained her a pre- eminence over the other vassal States,* down to the ever memorable expedition of Napoleon. Nearly every * The Tartars were bad administrators, and, contenting themselves with the homage and tribute of their vassals, left the administration in the hands of the natives. The Princes of Moscow received from the Grand Khan the right of collecting this tribute, and hence their influence over the other States. C2 20 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA. object which there meets the eye is connected with some episode of her history prior to the epoch of Peter the Grreat, that is, of Muscovite history. There is the celebrated Krasnaya Ploschad, or Red Place, the forum, at different epochs, of popular liberty, of anarchy, and despotism — in the midst of which are the statues raised in honour of a prince and a butcher, who roused up their countrymen to drive out the Poles in 1613. There are its churches of grotesque architec- ture, where, beneath candelabras, lamps, and censers, jewelled crosses. Icons with frames of gilded and curiously-wrought silver, and caskets of sacred dust and bones, are the tombs of her most famous men. There rests the celebrated Dimitri, surnamed the Donskoi, the first but ineffectual conqueror of the Tartars ; there sleeps the not less famous Ivan, who first took the title of Grrand Prince of all the Russias after their final con- quest. There, too, is another Ivan, whose mad barbarity has acquired for him the name of Grosnie (the Terrible), and who died the death of a Herod, after he had played the farce of turning monk, in imitation of the Emperor Charles V.* The first of the Eomanovs also lies there, with Peter II. the last of the male line of that family and the only one of the Emperors not buried in the * A palace of some interest to Englishmen is still to be seen in Moscow, built by this tzar for the reception of our Princess Elizabeth, whose hand he had sought in paarriagp. Ivan was about as much the uxorious despot as the Princess's father. He had, altogether, seven wives. ST. PETERSBURa AND MOSCOW. 21 new city. From the churches let the tourist turn to its palaces and museums. In the Imperial Palace, from the noble halls which are dedicated to the modern orders of Eussian knighthood, a few steps will lead into the vaulted and arabesqued interiors of the half Asiatic tsars. In the museums the eye wanders in amazement over thrones, sceptreSj derjavas (orbs ornamented by a cross), and crowns of jewels; over endless rows of coats of armour, swords, and grotesque weapons of almost every Asiatic people ; from flags of conquered nations now incorporated into the colossal empire, to other objects more simple and time-worn, the sight of which may provoke much more serious contemplation than gold and silver. There may be seen the litter which bore Charles XII. at the battle of Poltava ; the double throne on which sat the two childish tsars, Peter and his brother Alexis, with the recess behind it from which their clever and wily sister Sophia prompted their replies during important receptions; boxes containing codes and constitutions fallen into disuse or abruptly abrogated. One especially attracted my attention. It was a brass box, used as a door weight, which, I was told, contained the late Polish constitution granted by the Emperor Alexander I. and taken away by his brother. Lastly, there are the costly and curious official walking-sticks of the tsars and patriarchs, none of which are half so interesting as the stout and knotted clubs of Peter the Great. Having examined these, let 22 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA. the stranger take a look at the grotesque paintings over the portals of some of the churches. Among them he will find one especially contrived to strike any poor sinner with horror at the fate reserved for him. The subject is ' The Separation of the Sheep from the Goats ' — at least, so I read it. The beatified sheep are safely folded up in one corner quite in the background. The Devil, sic in mundo^ has the foreground to himself. Portrayed in the most popular manner, with erect ears, long tail, and grinning teeth, he is seated between the fangs of an enormous dragon, and, harpooning one after another the awe-stricken sinners, he shoves them down the monster's throat. Looking over the parapet a few yards off, over one of the most curious panoramas in the world, the half-European half-Oriental city, dotted over with some hundreds of golden-domed or green-roofed churches, the reader will no doubt hope, as I hoped, that more merciful doctrines are there taught on a future state than in this pictorial sermon on eternity. 23 CHAPTEE IL Russia's rise and social organisation. Eussia and the United States contrasted — Eussia often misreprer sented— Else and Aggrandisement of Eussia — Peter the Great — Catharine the Second — Increase of Population — Orthodox Eussia, ■ — Social Status of the Empire — The Eussian Nobility — Eussian Princes — The Hereditary Nobles — Nobility of the Tchin — Their Character — The Tchin — Tchinovniks — Merchants of the Three Guilds — Their Habits and Character — Disposition to Trade in the Character of Eussians — Low Social Standing of Traders — Eussian Clergy — The Black or Monastic, and the White or Secular Clergy — Their Position and Character — Celibacy and Monogamy — Dissent in Eussia -The Staroveri — Doukobortzi — Molokani — The Skopsi — Begouni, or Eijssian Mormons. NAPOLEON III. in the ' Idees Napoleoniennes,' pub- lished in his days of exile, remarked that there were only two well-governed peoples in the world, viz : those of Eussia and the United States of America,. Doubtless his later experience has led him to change that opinion. As good working specimens of an ultra autocracy and an ultra democracy, they did not per^ haps show the disease which was undermining them. Both these model Grovernments, now shaken to their very foundations, are in a degree exchanging their characters — Eussia, while her whole society is being transformed, advances slowly towards civil freedom ; 24 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA. the United States of America seem to be making gigantic strides towards despotism. If apparently the best-governed, they were certainly the worst-adminis- tered of States. In America, the civil servants sold their votes for places, which they lost on a change of ministry, or only preserved by political apostacy ; while in Eussia, according to all its writers, an overbearing bureaucracy, master of its corrupt position, conspired to preserve its privileges, and placed barriers in the way of every good measure of the Government. What becomes of that trite saying of the French Emperor, on pent gouverner de loin, il faut administrer de pres, when the administration of any country is so conducted ? This corruption was the very excuse for the great centralising system of the Tzar Nicholas, who mistrusted every- body and everything not under his immediate control. No two countries, however, merit more attention at the present time than Eussia and America. No nation, in proportion to its numbers and its strength, is, I believe, so little known as the former. Any atrocity or absurdity which is told or printed of Eussians, is re- ceived without the slightest criticism. I remember a year or two ago reading in a newspaper at Buenos Ayres, that many Eussians were still cannibals. A Frenchman j who, from his position, should have been an educated man, asked me seriously if the Russians were Christians. More lately at Turin, I overheard the conversation of a group of gentlemen, who believed eussia's kise and social organisation. 25 that the frigate on board of which I was then serving, had proceeded to sea from the neighbouring port of Villa Franca, in order to shoot eight men, and give the knout to some hundred more, for the slight offence of having out-stayed their leave.* The opinions about Russia and the Russians generally, are founded on what may have been their condition a century ago, when, as Macaulay relates, princes dropped jewels and vermin wherever they passed ; f when sensitive and delicate * Here is another tale, taken at hazard from an English newspaper in December 1863. Whoever believes such a tale must have a wonderful amount of credulity or prejudice : * A correspondent informs us that after the engagement in the Palatinate of Prasnysz, in which the Polish leader, Lenzica, perished, several Polish prisoners were brought to Mlawa, to the Russian commandant, Bogdanowicz. This officer, having perceived a boy of sixteen among the prisoners, had him brought before him, addressed him in insulting terms, and flourished his sword about his head. The boy, meanwhile, stood unmoved, and looked boldly in the eyes of his persecutor, who foamed at the mouth with rage. " You Polish vagabond ! You Catholic hangdog ! So you are frightened, are you ? " he exclaimed. To this the boy quietly answered, that he hud not feared him on the field of battle, and did not fear him now. "You do not fear me ! We sliall see ; " and with another flourish of his sword the savage cut off the boy's head, which dashed against the wall. The body stood for a moment with the hand raised, and then fell on the blood- stained ground by the side of the head, Bogdanowicz, meanwhile, taking a pull at his brandy flask. This terrible deed was witnessed by several persons who were in the room at the time.' This is only one tale out of a thousand, which have been spread abroad by Polish agents for rousing the indignation of Eiirope. That the Russians have been merciless in their severities on many occasions, I have not the least doubt, but at least nine-tenths of the atrocities attributed to them have been pure inventions, or the grossest exaggerations of facts. t Critical and Historical Essays. Madame D'Arblay. 26 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA. women were publicly flogged in the capital ; when serfs were sold by auction like negroes ; when Eussians drank train oil out of the street lamps ; and when a whip, the chief article in a marriage basket, was used to enforce conjugal obedience. In the present volume, my wish is to place before the reader materials which may help him to form an opinion for himself. Many arbitrary acts of cruelty, and abuses of authority are, no doubt, still committed, as they always will be, when men have irresponsible power ; but from the change of policy in the Government, and the increasing force of public opinion, they are happily becoming more rare. Although there is much in Eussians and in their in- stitutions which, from difference of education, I cannot admire, still I have no reason for not being impartial. I am not presumptuous enough to denounce sweepingly institutions, which wise men have considered appro- priate to a world in which they lived ; nor unjust enough to anathematise a whole people, because their training has not elevated them to the same level as our own. I propose, therefore, to give a short sketch of the rise of Eussia to an important place among nations; of the organisation of Eussian society ; of the various reforms which 'have lately taken place, or are about to be instituted ; and of the causes and results of that great struggle between Eussia and Poland, with one phase of which we are contemporaries. bussia's eise and social okganisation. 27 . The history of Eussia carries us back to several small groups of men belonging to the Sclavonic race, who, feeling their way into the future, became, through mutual jealousies, a prey to invading hordes of bar- barians, truly named the flails of Grod. We see them receiving and bearing for generations the fatal mark then stamped upon them; freeing themselves, after many vain struggles, by the force of an innate and a superior genius, aided by the natural decay of the prestige of their oppressors — collecting their elements of strength in one spot, and establishing a nucleus of nationality in Moscow. This small State beginning at length to feel its strength, and having to choose between a worn-out and a new system, found in Peter the Grreat a master-spirit to shape its destinies — a com- pound of genius and rude humanity, whose ideas were all of the former, whose actions were all of the latter. Adopting on the one side that civilisation which was necessary to its existence ; stretching forth the other hand over wide wastes of barbarism : from the ice of the pole to the warm and genial regions of the south, the new empire soon comprised climates of which the reindeer and the dromedary are the emblems. After less than 200 years, the tenth part of the world's space has been in some measure moulded into an homo- geneous empire, and has taken its place in the great commonwealth of European nations. The aim of its despotic Grovernment during the last 160 years, but ^ 28 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA. especially under the late Emperor, has been to amalga- mate the various elements of an incongruous mass into an harmonious whole — and, with the exception of Poland and the Caucasus, it has succeeded. But fol- lowing the fate of nations, no sooner does a nationality become firmly established, than, strong in its longings, it aspires to self-government, and rises up against the power which fostered it. Peter the Great began his career with an army of about fifty men under western discipline, a fleet con- sisting of an open boat built by himself with the aid of a Dutch carpenter, a people numbering less than ten millions, and a revenue amounting to .not more than 215,000^. in English money. At the peace of Nystadt in 1721, he had added the so-called Baltic provinces, the frontier provinces of Persia and Turkey, and the whole of Northern Asia as far as the peninsula of Kamchatka, to his empire. He then possessed an army of 220,000 men, a fleet of thirty ships of the line with innumerable smaller vessels, a revenue increased twelvefold, and nearly five millions more subjects. Lastly, a beautiful city, reared from a swamp, to which the white sails of commerce already began to crowd, was left as a monument of his genius and of his barbarity. From his death in 1725 to the accession of Catha- rine II. was a period rather of consolidation than of con- quest. Eussia was received among European nations ; her alliance was eagerly sought, and to obtain it her Russia's 'rise and social organisation. 29 ministers were bribed by all the chief Powers ; * foreign potentates flattered and coaxed her self-love, and her troops made their first excursion into central Europe. With Catharine again came the passion for conquest by arms or by intrigue. Poland, long torn and weakened by internal feuds, was dismembered. The country of the Cossacks and Tartars bordering the Black Sea and the Crimea were added to the empire. Immense tracts of land were taken from Persia and even from the distant frontiers of China. Christian Greorgia, harassed on one side by the Turks, on the other by the Persians, ceded itself to Kussia in 1783, and became finally embodied in the mass. Our own century has seen her troops on the shores of the Mediterranean and the Alantic; the present genera- tion has witnessed her mighty struggle with allied Europe, which, at length, put its veto on further en- croachments. In the empire itself a war with a handful of mountaineers, which has spent blood and treasure for the last fifty years and is not yet finished, together with the revolutions and continued intracta- bility of Poland, that thorn in the side of Kussia, has alone interrupted the internal economy. When Peter died the population of Eussia was only fourteen mil- * Bestujev, the Chancellor of Elizabeth, received hundreds of thousands of pounds from the English Government to promote the English interest in Russia, and annul that of France and Austria. — See La Cour de Bussie il y a Cent Ans. Bk'ptches des Amba&sadeurs Anglais et Frangais. 30 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA. lions; on the accession of Catharine it amounted to nineteen millions. Her conquests, with the natural increase of population, made the number thirty-six millions on her death. Since that time, without any- important conquests, it has doubled itself, and a natural increase is going on of more than half a million per annum. The present population of Eussia in Europe is over sixty-one millions,* and unlike most other parts of the East, where religion far outweighs nationality, in Russia for Russia, in Poland for Poland, the two are closely allied. ^Of these the orthodox Russians present a compact body of fifty-three millions, speaking the same language, kneeling at the same altar^ united by the two strongest ties which can bind men together.J The social status of Russia Proper with the Baltic provinces may be seen from the following table, women and children of course included : — The hereditary or personal nobility, the latter including all persons having a tchin or rank in the service — the privileged class . . . 2*36 per cent Merchants of the three guilds ; the class called * In 1860 the population of Eussia was 61,380,043 „ „ of Poland „ 4,840,466 of Finland „ 1,672,032 Of all these 80 per cent, are of the Orthodox Creed. „ 11 per centi „ Roman Catholics^ „ 5 per cent. „ Protestants, the rest Jews, Mahometans, and Bhuddists. Russia's eise and social OEaANisATiON. 31 Meschani, being the bourgeoisie of other countries — all paying a trade or a capitation tax . . 5*86 per cent. The army and navy 3'78 ,, The clergy and those connected with the churches '95 „ Peasants, workmen, &c 72-27 „ Strangers and others whose social position is un- defined 1-21 86-43 Leaving for Poland, Finland, and the Caucasus . 13-o7 „ The reform of Pqter the Great completely crushed the political influence of the old boyards of the tzars by the creation of the tchin, which rendered nobility personal to all who held one. Their material power remained, however, immense in the provinces, as they possessed fully half the souls, or serfs, of the empire, and until lately many of them kept up almost a ' court in their old city of Moscow, much like the Legitimists in the Faubourg St. Germain, and long maintained the bitterest animosity towards the reigning house of Holstein-Eomanov. There is hardly a name of any one of these old families which has not at different times during the last 150 years been found enrolled in some conspiracy for recovering their political privi- leges of former days. They were emphatically called the Muscovite party in distinction from the Petersburg or Grerman party, in whose hands lay really all the power of the State. The distinction is, however, now more apparent than real. The extremes are, no doubt, at 32 EASTEKN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA. daggers drawn ; but the moderates on either side, more bending in their views, have become woven one into the other by the same social and political interests. The terms Muscovite and Grerman must now be con- sidered as exploded names which have been replaced by the more appropriate epithets of Conservative and Liberal. During the last year or two the hereditary nobility of Eussia must be classed with the latter ; for in their district and provincial assemblies they have been the most active in trying to effect some modifica- tion in the government of the country — a modifica- tion which would give their own class an increase of political power. The oldest families are those who can trace their descent from the Varangian princes, Eurik, Sinav, and Ascold, and number, if I mistake not, only thirty-nine names. With the union of Lithuania, and of the Tartar, the Greorgian, and other Caucasian provinces to Eussia, their chief > men were incorporated with the Eussian nobility, preserving their titles. It is owing to this and to the absence of primogeniture in Eussia, that there are such swarms of Eussian princes. The Gargarins and Galitzins have become almost a proverb from their numbers. Of the latter there are no less than 120 members, bearing the title of kniaz or prince. Descendants of many of the most ancient of Eussian families have fallen into complete poverty, and now belong to the lowest social status of the free population. kussia's eise and social organisation. 33 Besides this nobility of long descent, all holders of a tchin above the fifth class, all who have the Cross of St. Vladimir, and, I believe, one or two other orders, have the privilege of being considered nobles hereditary. These titles of nobility vary much in value. Age and purity of descent furnish a supreme criterion among the old aristocracy.* Those nobles whose patents have been conferred by the Emperors, or who have acquired them from their tchin, rank according to seniority of creation; and, in certain books, called ^ Class Books,' are registered the dates of creation of all nobility, whether the old or the new. All who feel any special interest in the Eussian nobility will do well to consult the work of Prince Peter Dolgoroukov, entitled 'Les Principales Families de la Eussie.' I will here cite the judgment of a Eussian on his own countrymen and class : * ' The higher class,' says M. Gerebtzov, ' has quite departed from the national type ; it is ruled by egotism, personal ambition and formalism ; its sentiment of charity exists only in high-sounding phrases. In a moral point of view this class is in order inverse to its social standing ; it has not preserved any bond of ideas, customs, creed, or moral feeling with the people, but forms a distinct race of itself. It has abjured all profound belief in * The famous Velvet Book, containing the origin and descent of the old Eussian nobility, was first compiled in 1682, and first published in 1787. t Histoire de la Civilisation en Eussie, par Gerebtzov. D 34 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA. orthodox Christianity, and has tried to replace it with the philosophy of the eighteenth century, which has filtered through all its members.' This severe criticism is somewhat softened by an acknowledgment that the Russian nobility can offer a great number of w^orthy exceptions, and that the cause of his condemnation must be looked for in the constant influx of nobles introduced by the tchin, and in the wide difference which is to be found in their moral and intellectual education — which so far is true. The word tchin denotes the rank of all servants of the State, whether in the army, navy, civil service, or church. It is an institution little understood in Western Europe. As established by Peter there were sixteen steps, which were afterwards reduced to four- teen, each of which decides the social standing of the bearer in any service by a comparison with the corre- sponding military rank. Beginning at No. 14, in which are found ensigns, clerks and deacons, it comprises all the intermediate ranks up to No. 2, where are found generals and admirals — No. 1 being reserved for the metropolitans, marshals, and chancellors of the empire. A priest or navy lieutenant is thus equal to a captain in the army ; an archimandrite, a privy councillor, or a post captain, to a colonel ; an archbishop, or a rear- admiral, to a lieutenant-general, and so on. Admission into this hierarchy is obtained by length of service (like rising from the ranks in our army), or by a course Russia's rise and social organisation. 35 of study and the diploma of the university or military school, by which the lower grades of the tchin are avoided. This somewhat corresponds to our competi- tive examinations. Particular titles are appropriated to certain grades of tchin-rank. Thus, from Nos. 14 to 9, an officer or civil servant is only styled * Your Honour ; ' from 8 to 6, ' Your High Honour.' No. 5 is ' High-born ; ' in Nos. 4 and S, it is ' Your Excel- lence;' Nos. 2 and 1, ^Your High Excellence.' The clerical ranks of the tchin have also their own titles. All these titles are strictly observed in writing, and when an inferior addresses a superior. The word tchinovnik, in a broad sense, means the holder of a tchin or rank in the service, but is restricted to civil servants only. The very word has become a reproach in the mouths of all who are not themselves tchinovniks, and the most celebrated Eussian writers have striven to expose the vicious organisation of the tchin — the venality, pride, and vanity of its members. As the distribution of these ranks is often vested in the higher members of the tchinal ladder, a degrading ser- vility has been fostered, which caused Dolgoroukov to remark that all tchinovniks, to get on in the world, must have, if not talents, a very flexible spine. * Who is the Devil, father ? ' asked the son of a moujik. ^ The chief of the tchinovniks, my little son,' D 2 36 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA. was the father's reply. It will show the manner in which the tchinovnik is regarded by the peasant. There is hardly a merchant in Eussia who cannot illustrate the insolence or tantalising indifference of some tchin- ovnik, who has put forward objections, and interposed delay to every demand of signature or service, until propitiated by the accustomed gift. Complaint, and still more prosecution, would be of little avail in such cases. An offensive and defensive alliance exists throughout all the ranks of the service, from the lowest emjploye to his chief. This esprit de corps renders the administrative body in Eussia the most conservative of any class, and of course opposed to any reforms affecting their material well-being. The more arbitrary the Government, the better the tchinovniks thrive, more especially that class which comes into immediate contact with the people, as the police, law officers, &c. The great tolerance allowed to Sectarians was a great calamity to them; but their severest trial has been the abolition of the otkoup, or farming of the brandy, as its abuse was one of their richest sources of revenue. Old tchinovniks pronounce all the intended reforms of the present reign impracticable, and it is not to be expected that they will be very hearty in furthering their execution. But younger men of more liberal ideas will by degrees replace these, and then the tchin must collapse alto- gether. Perhaps if a ukase were to appear forbidding all classes below the fifth to wear breeches, as is the Russia's eise and social organisation. 37 case in Japan, it might have the effect of hastening its disuse. The small middle class in Eussia comprises (1) the merchants of the three guilds, who pay a trade tax on a stated capital, and enjoy certain privileges, such as exemption from corporal punishment, military service, &c. ; and (2) the meschanstvo, or petite bourgeoisie, who, like the peasantry, pay the poll-tax to the Grovern- ment. The merchants, beyond the indirect influence of their money, have no voice in the Grovernment, although they possess certain municipal rights, conferred on them by Catharine II. and her successors. They are the most national part of the Eussian people. Still wearing the national dress and beard, they live in a retired manner, eat tschee and drink quass, dream aboiit the Devil, and send for a priest to exorcise him, besides retaining various other habits of former times. To see them in perfection, the stranger should stroll about the Ketai Gorod of Moscow, and watch them drinking their dozen cups of tea out of a glass, which they hold between the extended fingers of one hand, while they have in the other a piece of sugar, which they nibble between every sip of their favourite beverage. A peep into the interiors of those blinded houses which are in the outskirts of Moscow is more curious still. The master of the house is probably a Euss of the old school — polite, but cowed ; his wife, a fat good- 38 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA. natured dame, dressed in rich furs, with a painted face, and loaded with jewels. There is probably a son who has just returned from the lorettes and lansquenet of Paris, and in whom the old leaven will now and then appear from between the cracks of his varnish ; or a daughter, often pretty, but spoiled, whose only dream is to fall into the arms of some offering swain, who will lead her out into a world of which she has as yet had only a few glimpses. Formerly all Eussian women were kept in close seclusion, and marriages were made up by an old woman, whose trade it became. These dames do not play a less prominent part in such matters, even since exhibition of the daughters of the merchants in the Summer Garden at St. Petersburg has fallen into disuse. Of these three guilds, only the first two can enter into foreign trade. As a rule, the merchants of Eussia are parsimonious, while fond of display. Active in business, but very cautious and deficient in enterprise, they rarely incur any risks. ' The trading class in Eussia,' says M. Aksakov, in contrasting the merchants of Grreat and Little Eussia, ' form a type of themselves ; their wives may also be distinguished from other Eussian women. The merchant of Grreat Eussia unites in a wonderful degree the love of moving about, and of having an esta- blished home ; a passion for money, and a proneness to spend it. He does not shut up his capital in an ancient chest, but puts it in circulation, either to increase his business, or provide himself with comforts, and lead an EUSSU'S RISE AND SOCIAL ORGANISATION. 39 easy life. He is fond of horses, loves to parade himself tod family in fine carriages and trappings, and builds solid stone houses, which, though not always picturesque, help, as he believes, to beautify his native city.* Along all the high roads which connect the different towns of the Uk- rain, where fairs are held, the postmasters and postboys await with impatience the arrival of the '' Moscow mer- chants," and their grandeur and liberal drink-money re- main a subject of conversation long after they have passed. The Little Eussian merchant is, on the contrary, stingy, and makes himself out to be always poor. . . . There is the same difference in their manner of transacting busi- ness. The Little Eussian always fixes his price, although it may be far above the worth of the article, and, sell or not, he sticks to it. The Great Eussian knows immediately, by the dress, manner, and speech of his customer, if he can ask double the price he has already set upon his wares. Yet even then he can often sell so cheap, that the Little Eussian, who has paid high for his goods, thinks him a fool. In fact, the Little Eussians have no such disposition to commerce as their northern brethren, and thus the chief trade of all the Eussian fairs is in the hands of the latter. The Little Euss sells only for ready money ; the whole trade of Great Eussia is based on an enormous and hazardous credit, which frequent • One of the finest private houses in St. Petersburg was built by a rich merchant, who intended it to rival the splendid new palace of the Grand Duke Michael, which is close beside it. 40 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA. bankruptcies cannot shake. The non-credit giving merchant contents himself with a very small though certain gain ; but it is obvious that, without a spirit of enterprise and a little keen daring, no great results can be expected in trade.' Out of 180,000 registered traders, many thousands were till lately serfs, paying the ohrok, or tribute to their proprietors. Among all the lower classes there is, in Eussia as in China, an extraordinary disposition to barter, and the number of little shops and stalls in the streets and about the dvors of the large towns reminds one much of similar scenes in Singapore or Shanghae. Besides the regular licensed traders, there are thousands of petty hawkers in the villages, whom it would be im- possible to register. As many privileges are attached to the three guilds, one of the most important being exemption from military service, private persons whose yearly purchases may be very trifling, frequently take out a patent for trading in order to share this privilege. Hundreds of men, doing a large trade, can neither read nor write ; but a good memory and a counting machine, like those in general use throughout Asia, supply all deficiencies. If Eussia considered her true interest in the various projects of reform, she should immediately tear down the absurd barriers which prevent men of education from entering into the ranks of her traders, that the merchant trading in millions, a farmer or a manufacturer, need not feel himself below the puniest RUSSIA'S RISE AND SOCIAL ORaANISATION. 41 podparuchik, or college secretary, in uniform, who swaggers before him. If a constitution is to be firmly established in Eussia, such a class must be called into existence, with education enough to understand its posi- tion, and dignity and energy enough to act up to it. It is well known that the Eussian like the Grreek clergy are divided into two orders, the black or monastic, and the white or secular clergy — both being under the spiritual authority of the Metropolitans of St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Kiev. The black clergy are superior in education and social standing to the other order — and from these alone are chosen the dignitaries of the Church. Some of their monasteries are exceedingly rich ; but it must be remembered that an inexhaustible source of re- venue is derived from their ministering to the supersti- tions of the people. Saints' bones, wonderful virgins, and ingenious miracles attract the faithful to their convents as a magnet attracts steel filings. A few years ago the finding and canonising of saints' bones became so com- mon in many parts of Eussia, that the Emperor Nicholas was obliged to make his voice heard, and, as Head of the Church, to declare that there were quite enough saints already discovered, without inventing any more. The secular clergy, on the other hand, are extremely poor, with the exception of a few who are attached to churches in the large towns. The village priests are very little above the level of the peasants, from whom they are taken, being generally as lazy, dirty, and 42 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA. drunken as they. All the clergy are paid by the Holy Synod, except in the monasteries, which are mostly self- supporting. A large source of Church revenue in Eussia is from voluntary offerings, and the sale of wax candles. Any traveller in Eussia may always see innumerable small candles burning in the churches or the little chapels in the streets, and the devout peasants buying them at a stall close by. Moneys derived from these sources are funded, and from them the clergy are paid their pittance. This, with a little aid received from the parishioners, and, in the provinces, by their own agricultural labour, just enables them to live. Both orders of the clergy are incorporated in the tchin, and for grave offences — though such are generally hushed up among themselves for fear of scandal — they are liable to be unfrocked and sent to serve as soldiers in the Caucasus or on the frontier. The black clergy are doomed to celibacy, while the white or secular clergy marry only once, not from any. love of the principle of monogamy, but by the laws of the Holy Synod. They generally take their wives from the daughters of other priests, and inherit thereby the living of the father ; often, on their becoming widowers, they are forced by their superiors to become monks. It has been remarked by Madame Doria DTstria that the clergy are much sought after by Eussian girls from the idea that, being unable to marry a second time, they are more likely to take better care of their wives and kussia's eise and social organisation. 43 keep them alive as long as possible. A great object of ambition with them is to obtain an admission for their sons into the monkish orders ; and until the present time the whole clergy forms a caste, not easily to be entered by those who are unconnected with it. But their low social position, their scanty material ad- vantages, and the restraint to which they are liable, prevent any great encroachments on the part of the higher classes. Besides Orthodoxy (as by law established) and the Koman Catholic and Protestant creeds, there exist many Sectarians in Eussia, called Raskohiiki, the chief of which are the Staroveri or old believers, who number more than ten millions. Their origin is this : When the Patriarch Nikon revised the Sclavonic translation of the Holy Scriptures, his act was considered as a sacrilege by many, who continued to follow their old rites and to read the original translations. After a time they became divided into two classes : some without priests, others having their hierarchy, with a patriarch at the head. The greater part of the merchants and middle classes in Eussia belong to those Staroveri. During the reign of Nicholas they were much inter- fered with by the Grovernment, though seldom exposed to actual persecution, for they paid the police well in order to be left in peace. In the present reign they are as perfectly free as the members of the regular Church, and exemplify the truth of the political axiom 44 EASTEEN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA. — that the most perfect tolerance produces the most loyal of subjects.* As a secret sect the Staroveri are a curious subject of study. They appear to have a large written religious code peculiar to themselves, which they preserve in secret places known only to the initiated. If the Grovernment meddled with them, it was not so much because they mingled politics with religion — though persecution would surely lead them to do so — ^but because the exercise of their customs was an infraction of the civil laws of the empire. Among these are some very peculiar practices relating to marriage and the disposal of their dead ; moreover they count it a virtue to harbour all debtors, deserters, and malefac- tors, who are sure to find hospitable refuge and conceal- ment among the Kaskolniki. Besides these respectable Sectarians there are in Eussia several sects of fanatics, some harmless, others most mischievous to society. Among these may be named the Doukobortsi, or those who strive with the Spirit, who profess to renounce all the pomps and vanities of this wicked world, and so abstain from female society altogether. Another sect are the Molo- hani, so called from the word Moloko, milk. These abstain from all animal food and have their peculiar religious rites. A more fanatical set of men and * This was shown in the summer of 1863, when the most loyal addresses and the largest collection of money sent to the Emperor came from the Staroveri. RUSSIA'S EISE AND SOCIAL OEGANISATION. 45 women are the Skopsi, or eunuchs, who are found in small societies all over Eussia, and who make a propa- gand among soldiers, sailors, and peasants, persuading them to submit to a shameful mutilation. If any of these are discovered their sentence is invariably hard labour in the mines of Siberia for life. Lastly, there is a sect called the Begouni, or 'Eunners,' who abjure marriage, government, or property, and live in complete communism ; in fact they are a kind of Eussian Mor- mons, whose place of worship is an Agapemone. 46 CHAPTER III. REVOLUTION AND REFORM IN RUSSIA. Repression of Public Feeling under the Emperor Nicholas — Former Popular Government in Russia — Elective Tsars — The Zemskoe Sobor — Rise of Absolute Government — Attempts of the Nobility to regain thoir Power, under Ann, Catharine, and Alexander — The 25th December, 1825 — The Emperor Nicholas — Spread of Revolution in Europe, and afterwards in Russia — Necessity for Reform — Secret Literature and Societies in Russia in the Reign of Alexander I. and Nicholas— The Kolokol or Bell, and M. Herzen — Its Influence in Russia, and the Caujses of its Decline —Prince Peter Dolgoroukov and the Pravdievie — Russian Travellers — Forbidden Literature — The 'Velikie Russ' — How Circulated — Saint Techon — The Editor of the 'Velikie Russ' Exiled — The University of St. Petersburg — Admiral Putiatin'^ — The Sunday Schools — The Provincial Assemblies of the Nobility in 1862. BEHIND a ponderous machinery of piles and beams, the dammed-up waters of a river may appear calm and unruffled, but the removal of a slight wedge — it may be by the hand of a child — seals the fate of the whole structure. If no channel be already formed, the rushing waters soon form one for themselves; if the channel be too narrow, they run wild on every side. Eussia, and especially Poland, for a long time, re- sembled such a reservoir. The Emperor Nicholas was the wedge of the dam which, for thirty years, had REVOLUTION AND REFORM IN RUSSIA. 47 arrested the wishes of the Russian and Polish peoples. No sooner had the hand of death removed this obstacle than the pent-up stream rushed forth. By a wise discretion, it has been in some degree guided into a hastily-prepared channel. The effort to gather the waters once more within their original bounds would be as vain as the attempt to recall the effects of the last seven years in Eussia. The old machinery may be reconstructed, but these seven years, with all their faults, must be numbered as years of progress. The wishes so long pent-up in the breasts of Russians were for reasonable liberty of individual thought and action, for an impartial administration of law, for equality of civil rights, and for a more responsible Grovernment. These are, no doubt, inestimable blessings ; but the paramount consideration was that of a strong Grovern- ment. The great difficulty in Russia is to reconcile the two. Throughout the early history of Russia, down to the reign of Peter the Great, we cannot lose sight of the share taken by the people in the conduct of public affairs. Nearly every Russian writer of the present day is especially careful to reiterate this truth, and impress it on the public mind. The burghers of Novgorod and Kiev long defended their privileges against the encroachments of the descendants of Rurik, and the name of Martha, the Posadnitza, or Mayoress of Novgorod, who defended her city against the cen- 48 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA. tralising ambition of Moscow and its tsars, is just now in great favour with the Eussians. When Moscow, after the final defeat of the Tartars, gathered around her the other States, the Eussian people, as they might then be called, bore no small part in public affairs. The Krasnaya Ploschad in the old walled town was the Pnyx of the people of Moscow. Here the first Tsar of Eussia convoked an assembly from all the land. Here Boris Groudonov was elected as the head of the State, and here, on the death of that great man, and after the Poles were driven from the country, a Parlia- ment chose the first of the Eomanovs. In the charter which he then subscribed, it was written that he should, without introducing any change, govern ac- cording to the old laws— that he should neither establish new laws, nor make war or peace nor impose taxes — nor estrange the Crown lands — nor sign the death- warrant of any subject without the consent of a Par- liament. ' The Tsar has commanded, and the Boyards have consented ' is the form which headed all public acts. This form continued only while the country had no large standing army. When this was established, liberty died away in Eussia, as in most other States of Europe. We are further told that Ivan IV. convoked the deputies of all the land from all classes, to sit with the Boyards and higher clergy, to make laws and sift important political questions. 'According to usage,' says a Eussian historian, 'the consent of the people KEVOLUTION AND KEFOEM IN RUSSIA. 49 was necessary to confirm the election of the young Peter, on the Red Place of Moscow.' The Sclavonic mire, or commune, was in itself the very germ of self- government; and the guilds of the Gosti, the pro- vincial assemblies, and lastly the Zemskoe Sohor* were all popular meetings for the public weal. The Zemskoe Sohor was, indeed, the Imperial Parliament of the time, in which the Boyards and chief clergy sat in their own right, with delegates from the communes of the peasantry, from the guilds of the Gosti, and the cor- porations of the towDS. In it the right and the liberty of discussion seem to have been more or less kept up, and its decisions, with one or two exceptions, appear to have been carried out by the Executive. The reforms of Peter the Q-reat, his formation of a standing army, his conquests, the creation of the tchin, the forcing of European, and especially of Grerman habits on the people, obliterated all traces of former liberty, and divided the nation into two great parties, the oppressed, and the oppressors who, in their turn, were submitted to many vexations. On one side, the working classes were kept brutalised, and in a state little better than slavery; on the other hand, the * Zemskoe Sohor or Bouma. — Zemla, in Eussian, means the land, soil, country ; sohor, assembly ; douma, council — Assembly or council of the land. The word Gost means foreign merchant ; not necessarily of foreign origin, but coming from another part of the country to the dvors, or bazaars of the large towns, where they ulthnately settled. E 50 EASTEEN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA. privileged class, among whom was portioned out the result of their labours, hustled one another in the hurry of personal ambition up the sixteen steps of the ladder of the tchin, each grade of which gave a greater share in the partition. A small intermediate class remained, the merchants and others, but these were mostly ignorant men, absorbed in the acquirement of wealth, or the enjoyment of it, and, though necessarily protected by the State, destitute of all political rights, and altogether insignificant. It was scarcely possible that one of the people could rise from his caste to a superior one, except by some act of despotic favour, such as raised Menschikov, the pie-boy, or Demidov, the blacksmith, to notice and power ; or by the still less worthy influence of, the bed-chamber, to which many families owe their origin in Eussia, as in other countries. The army, indeed, sometimes brought for- ward its intelligent members to the lower ranks of the tchin, but they seldom mounted higher. Meanwhile the old nobility, whose political power had been crushed by the new German regime, and who would not coalesce with it, lived retired and sullen, but awed and depressed. One great attempt was, indeed, made by them (when 'Ann, Duchess of Courland, was invited to be Empress) to restrain the power of their Sovereign, and regain their former influence ; but their aim was only to govern themselves in the manner of a Venetian or Polish oligarc^iy. They were made to pay EETOLUTION AND REFORM IN RUSSIA. 51 dearly for their rashness, in the indignities heaped on them by Biren, the favourite of Ann. The name of the people was invoked only to favour the views of the Empress's party, as it is now used in semi-despotic countries to cloak some extraordinary act of absolutism. But the old nobility, which since that time had become accustomed to the new order of things, is now again making its voice heard, in its provincial and district assemblies, in favour of a new constitutional Grovemment. Many changes, legislative and administrative, were enacted under Catharine II. but they did not much affect the real condition of the people. The privileged elftss-inereased its privileges, chief among which was an exemption from corporal punishment (i. e. they had to be degraded first), a favour granted by Peter III. when in a maudlin fit ( 1 7 6 2 ). The Emperor Alexander, besides improving greatly the condition of the peasantry, during some years even dreamed of a constitution, and an exten- sion of civil and social liberty to his subjects; but the spirit of revolution, which had been the nursling of his grandmother, appalled him in the end, and he shrunk back to become the corner-stone of the Holy Alliance. The 25th of December 1825, was the result of his tantalising coquetry with constitutional government, and the confusion which existed in people's minds concerning the succession gave the liberal party some hopes of a favourable issue to their undertaking. Their plan was to form a provisional government, whose duty it should 52 EASTERN EUROPE AKD WESTERN ASIA. be to convoke a national assembly, in order to draw up a charter of rights and select a sovereign. Through the indecision of the conspirators and the personal courage of the Grand Duke Nicholas the plot failed, and execu- tions and banishments were the fate of the chief men among them. One of them. Prince Troubetzkoi, the admirable devotion of whose wife, in following her hus- band to Siberia, was a noble contrast to his own pusil- lanimity, only lately returned from exile, and at the time of my first visit was living retired in Moscow, where he died in 1861. The portrait of the Emperor Nicholas has yet to be drawn. He, at least, was consistent in his thoughts and actions, which were to centre all power in himself. As his fine person rose above the hosts of his Guards, the great observed of all observers, so his spirit exercised marvellous influence over Russia and over Europe. Strong men trembled, weak men lost the use of their faculties in his presence. Honest men respected while they blamed, knaves feared while they deceived him. Liberalism was not to be expected from such a nature. A band of ministers imbued with his ideas, a legion of secret police, and the red chalk of his censors, combined to crush the appearance of it. Yet, according to his own stem ideas and despite the arbitrary exercise of power, the improvement of his people, and the national aggrandisement, was the absorbing aim of his life. Some future Eussian historian may have to tell, how, in the REVOLUTION AND REFORM IN RUSSIA. 53 inscrutable designs of Providence, the stern training which he gave his people were causes leading to a happier issue. The Eevolution, begotten in the seventeenth century, sprung into life at the end of the eighteenth in a deluge of blood, which soaked into every soil of Europe. It has been constantly springing up again during the nine- teenth, sometimes under the mild and pleasing aspect of reform, at others in the hideous shape of riot and destruction. As against the ogres and giants of fable arose knights sworn to exterminate them, so in Europe sprang up princes, who, with their ministers, con- spired to crush the hydra of revolution. Their crusade against it was severe; but it has been ineffectual. Barred towers, deep and loathsome dungeons, moral anguish, added to physical torture ; the knout and the mines ; solitary executions, or wholesale fusillades — all were brought to bear against it. The mystery which often enshrouded it, the strange forms which it assumed, the dread with which its proximity filled its antagonists, confounded one kind of revolution with another. The innocent and the guilty, patriotic reformers and mis- chievous socialists, too often shared the same fate. The result we all know. The Holy Alliance, with its secon- dary meetings, its congresses without number as without effect, were answered by fresh outbreaks and reprisals. Thrones have been cast down, and their pos- sessors forced to seek shelter elsewhere. But Eeform, 54 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA. the good genius of Eevolution, made good its way, overcoming all obstacles, and even insinuating itself into favour with its oppressors, who turned it to their own glory and the progress of their country. The remoteness and inertness of Eussia, aided by the jealous watchfulness of the Government, long withstood its influence. But the spark fell on it at last, and, after long smouldering, broke out into a general flame. Times were changed ; reforms became a necessity ; and the necessity made itself felt in a manner not to be mistaken. It was a happy instinct which led the Emperor Alexander to put himself in time at the head of such a movement, and impelled his ministers to help him in directing it. Had they not done so, the people would have brought down the whole fabric of Grovernment upon their heads, and the horrors of revolution would have been in in- verse proportion to the apathy and general inertness of the rude but patient Eussian people. There was a need not of partial, but of radical reforms, affecting the most weighty interests of a State, the settlement of which has hardly in any country been accomplished without bloodshed. But in Eussia such reforms can scarcely be followed by the same results or success as elsewhere. A servile imitation of the insti- tutions of another people is seldom attended with any harmonious working. The complaint of a great part of the Eussian people is, that they have had forced on them a system of Grerman administration and government I EEYOLUTION AND REFORM IN RUSSIA. 55 which was not congenial to the country and could not take root in it, which has only been kept up by the overpowering force of circumstances, but which must now be purged of the abuses which have crept into it. If a constitution similar to that of Grreat Britain were introduced into Eussia, it would be a monstrous ab- surdity. A constitution, like the laws of a people, to be thoroughly effective, must proceed from the people, and must grow up with it. Whether Eussia obtain a constitution or not, the reforms which are now on the point of being introduced justify a hope that those enormities which were sometimes darkly heard of from that country can never be repeated. The long- cherished arbitrary ideas of one class, the venality and lax morality of another, and the general ignorance of the people, cannot soon be eradicated or amended. But the present is only the seed-time of better things ; the harvest must be judged of hereafter. Intimately bound up with the question of reform in Eussia, is the history of its secret societies and its secret literature. In all countries these are the forerunners of revolution. In our own country, after the second Par- liament of Charles I. an abundance of revolutionary writings was scattered along the roads and streets. Sealed and anonymous letters, addressed to the chief men of the counties, were found hanging on bushes or furtively dropped in shops : all giving warning that a time was fast approaching when ' such a work was to be 56 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA. wrought in England as never was the like, and which would be for our good.' * Such, or nearly such, has been the plan pursued in Eussia for some time past ; and it has baffled the researches of a vigilant and expert secret police-^an institution which England was not blessed with. Already in the reign of Alexander I. the movement began". So prevalent and rampant was the liberalism of the young officers who returned to Eussia after their great Western campaign, that one of their old generals was heard to remark 'it would be better for the Emperor to have his army overwhelmed in the Baltic, than that they should return to spread their ideas at home.' The truth of his words soon became evident in the many secret societies which sprang up in Eussia from 1816 to 1825. In these were enrolled the names of some of the highest Eussian families, with those of others to whom personal talent was then opening a career. Among them were the well-known names of Muraviev, Troubetzkoi, Tourguenev, Orlov, Obolenski, Naritchkin, Glinka, Pestel and others. A great deal of sublime but im- possible ideology was, in their plans, mixed up with projects of assassination and changes of dynasty. The well-known military revolt in 1825 and the partial risings in the south were the results of all their plot- tings. Many secret societies had formerly been allowed * Life and Beign of Charles I. by D'Israeli. EEVOLUTION AND KEFOBM IN EUSSIA. 57 in Eussia, but as they were naturally enough used for political purposes, a ukase put a stop to them in 1822, when every official was required to take an oath that he had dropped all connection with any of them. In spite of the repressive measures of the Emperor Nicholas, these movements still went on, though more secretly. The evidence of them oozed out in a hundred different ways. Poets, the creators of history, liberty, and progress, continued to sing — Pushkin, Grogol, Ler- montov, Polijaiev, and many others; and though their political poems could not be published, they were not the less secretly passed from hand to hand, or less eagerly read because they were prohibited. At last some of them reached the highest personage of the State, who, considering nearly all literature useless, if not mischievous, was not very likely to be charmed with effusions which satirised his august person and the institutions which he was bent on consolidating. Graver men, professors of science and polite learning, took up the theme, and gave a form to what poets had vaguely outlined. Young enthusiasts were ever ready to carry out their theories, as they were in 1849. But the time was ill-chosen : an unflinching head and arm swayed the destinies of the nation, and poets, professors, and patriots went one of two roads— to the mines of Siberia, or the defiles of the Caucasus. At last Nicholas died. The tight reins were a little relaxed. Poets, professors, and patriots returned from 58 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA. their exile, where their opinions had only received a deeper tinge from restraint. Those who then could not or would not submit to the censor's pencil, or confine their advanced ideas among a select acquaintance, either returned to their old abodes, or became exiles in Western Europe. Among the latter two men deserve particular attention, on account of the influence which they have exercised on current affairs — M. Herzen and Prince Peter Dolgoroukov, both literary men, both editors of newspapers in the Eussian language, advo- cating more or less advanced opinions. M. Herzen, or, as he is generally known under the pseudonym of Iskander, emigrated on his return from exile, and established a newspaper called the ' Kolokol,' or Bell, in London. To this he afterwards added a yearly publication called the ' Polarnaa Svesda ' (Polar Star), and an occasional supplement called ' Pod Sud ' (under judgment), which exposed various iniquities in the administration of justice. M. Herzen is also the author of some political works, or novels having a political tendency, and has the reputation of being a man of high intellect but of somewhat socialist opinions. His * Kolokol ' soon created an extraordinary sensation in all Eussian circles, as abuse after abuse was laid bare, as acts of the Grovernment were criticised, and numerous incidents of corrupt official life exposed. His correspondents were found not only in every goubernie ef Eussia, but in Irkutsk, and even that KEVOLUTION AND REFORM IN RUSSIA. 59 Ultima Thule of all the Eussias, Nicholaievsk at the mouth of the Amoor river. Although, as may be supposed, most of them were anonymous, still, from the information they sent, many must have been men occupying high positions either about the court or in the administration. Bundles of these newspapers were smuggled into Eussia in all possible ways. Though seldom found, they were known to pass from hand to hand, till every- body read them. M. Herzen's influence became im- mense ; his name spread into remote provinces of the empire, and was whispered in a mysterious manner from the lips of men who could hardly read. A peasant in a remote village asked me who Iskander was. In St. Petersburg a shoemaker begged me to give him his address, in order that he might write a letter to the ' Kolokol,' and expose certain creditors who were dilatory in paying their bills. In fact, writing to the ' Kolokol ' became an idea in Eussia like writing to the ' Times ' in England. There is little doubt that to its determined exposure of abuses and its constant attacks on many arbitrary acts of individuals Eussia owes some of the wholesome reforms which are now taking place. It has, however, of late somewhat lost caste, from its having been made the vehicle of many per- sonal and groundless attacks. As its correspondence is anonymous, a wide field was open for the indulgence of personal malice. One instance came under my own 60 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA. notice. A letter appeared in 1861 in the ' Kolokol/ accusing Admiral Shestakov with having, on board his flag-ship, inflicted corporal punishment on a midship- man. Such an accusation naturally caused much excitement in St. Petersburg among persons connected with the navy, and no little astonishment and disgust, when read, as it was soon afterwards, on board his frigate. It had evidently been sent with a malicious intention, for the writer must have been perfectly aware that no admiral in the service dare commit such an action now, even if he did not know that Admiral Shestakov was just one of those men who are opposed to corporal punishment altogether. The only colour for such an accusation was, that the midshipman in question had been put under an easy arrest for a few days for some act of misconduct. One or two such attacks, with the evident bias of the ' Kolokol ' to doctrines which even liberal men consider highly dangerous, has had the effect of estranging from it the confidence of many of its former admirers. Its editor is, however, always willing to do the amende honors able, and to publish all communications which may be addressed in defence.* * At the present moment, August 1863, the Kolokol has almost entirely lost its influence in Eussia. Nobody any longer questions his neighbour as to the content* of the Kolokol. There are three reasons to account for this. The first has been already given. The second is that the Government, no longer making its existence a mystery, permits .extracts from it, and answers to it, to appear in the Kussian press. Thd REVOLUTION AND REFORM IN RUSSIA. 61 Prince Peter Dolgoroukov, a cousin of the Chief of the Secret Police, successively passed through all the phases of Eussian liberalism. He served, spoke too freely, was exiled, and afterwards emigrated. Recalled to Russia after the publication of his 'Verite sur la Russie,' he refused to obey the order. He then started a newspaper called ^ Pravdievie ' (Truth), with the inten- tion of advocating a constitutional Grovernment. Till lately this paper was published in Leipsic, although it has since been replaced by another journal of somewhat different name. The influence of the ' Pravdievie ' was much less than that of the * Kolokol,' owing, perhaps, to ? the famous trial which lately took place in Paris between Prince Worontzov and the editor, when evidence came out not at all in favour of the veracity of the latter. These two journals, with a host of other publications forbidden in Russia, are circulated all over Europe, wherever a few Russians are found together. Along the frontier, at the baths of Grermany, at Nice or Athens, as \ in Paris and Leipsic, they strike the eye of the travel- ling Russian from the shop windows. Thousands of revolutionary proclamations addressed to the youth of Russia, to officers and men of the army and navy, exciting them to sedition, also flow from the presses of third reason, and the most fatal, is that M. Herzen is no longer con- sidered, as before, a Russian patriot, on account of his siding, in the present dispute, "with the Poles, whose pretensions, in the belief of the Russians, involve a dismemberment of their country. 62 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA. London and Leipsic ; and their ideas, sown in a soil of only superficial cultivation but of hot productiveness, have brought many a young man who offered himself as their apostle to the casemates of a fortress or a dreary banishment. It is only during the last few years that Eussians of any except the higher classes have had permission to travel. The cost of a passport during the reign of Nicholas was alone sufl&cient to deter many from apply- ing for what would probably have been refused. Of the many young men who were then sent to complete their education in Grerman Universities fully half found their foreign training a curse to them on their return. Men of powerful minds became imbued with a political ideology which they found impossible to maintain in their own country and under their own institutions. Many felt bitterly the sudden contrast from Western European life to the deserts of Siberia. The names of hundreds could be mentioned who, possessed of all the talent and adornment which make life respectable and glorious elsewhere, found those talents simply hurtful in the land in which they were born. In advance of the society in which they were called to live, they will in a happier future be enrolled among the army of martyrs who have suffered for the misfortune of being half a century in advance of their fellow-countrymen. When with the new reign greater liberty of travel was accorded, thousands rushed towards the West. With REVOLUTION AND REFORM IN RUSSIA. 63 the greater part this liberty would naturally be exercised at first in running wild among the pleasures and luxuries which more genial climes and a cheaper civili- sation afforded, in catching up crude and extreme ideas, and revelling in a literature which had for them a mysterious charm because it was proscribed at home. Some, attracted b}^ the liberal principles of other coun- tries, but, without tracing them back to the laws and cha- racter of a people, applied them too hastily to their own land, and took on themselves the task of disseminating them. Others, not content with reading alone, must see and converse with the authors of what they read, must have their photographs, and, in the revolutionary atmosphere of Leicester Square, greedily snapped at many a hook which was baited with such tempting words as Liberty, Fraternity, Communism, Eepublic. The year 1861 was a fruitful year for secret literature in the interior of the empire, but chiefly at St. Petersburg. One publication especially created an ex- traordinary sensation. It was called the ' Velikie Euss ' (Grreat Eussian), and was edited by a young man named Michailov. The whole police of the capital were long puzzled to find either editor, printer, or disseminators. Copies of it were strewn about the streets at night, or openly left at the doors of houses : and the connivance with which it was everywhere received must be some evidence of the state of public feeling. Its contents revealed the existence of revolutionary clubs all over 64 EASTEEN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA. the country, with a secret committee in the capital. The members of these seemed to be pretty equally divided into two parties. The one was the ubiquitous republican party, whom nothing less would satisfy than the overthrow of the present dynasty and a complete change in the Grovernment. The other was the consti- tutional party, who wished only to set bounds to the power of the Sovereign, and to effect a reform in the laws and administration. Thus divided in their views, the leading liberals, in the last published number of the ' Velikie Euss,' counselled a general plan of comhiittees throughout the country in communication with the secret club in St. Petersburg, in order secretly to draw up and obtain signatures for a petition to the Emperor. A formula, setting forth grievances, was added to serve as a model for the petition. The chief items of this formula were complaints of the unsatisfactory manner V^ in which the Emancipation was being carried out ; of bureaucratic influence ; of the state of the finances, and the constant depreciation of paper money. It urged that the retention of Poland was the chief cause of Russia's internal weakness, as it required an enor- mous army to keep down the Poles, and that in a manner which was barbarous, besides costing millions of treasure, thus hurting the material prosperity and national honour of the Russian people. It went on to say that as the Emperor then stood he had to struggle with abuses of every description, against which he was KEYOLUTION AND KEFORM IN EUSSIA. Q5 completely powerless; The address concluded by pray- ing the Emperor to convoke a parliament in one of the capitals, to draw up a constitution for Kussia, and an- other in Warsaw for Poland. Among the divers manners in which this newspaper and other revolutionary pamphlets were circulated, one is highly amusing. About two centuries ago there lived somewhere near Moscow a holy bishop called Techon,* who literally followed the Christian injunc- tion of giving all his goods to feed the poor. He died and was buried ; but left a name not to be forgotten among the simple peasantry, whose fathers had shared his bounty. During the perplexities of the Emancipa- tion, it became necessary, by some striking example, to clinch the faith and rivet the religious obedience of the peasantry. So Techon's bones were dug up, and solemnly canonised by the Holy Synod: and, as is every day the case in Eussia, miracles were soon performed on the faithful. Techon's success was immense. Pilgriioas came from all corners of the orthodox empire to kiss his crumbling bones, and even the Emperor, during his journey south in 1861, did them the honour of a solemn visit. The exemplary life of the saint was published in' St. Petersburg. It passed, of course, in an easy manner, the ordeal of the censor, and had an enormous * Commonly called Techon Zadonskoi, from the name of his monas- tery. His theological letters are well known. 6Q EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA. sale. Thousands of copies, in covers illumined by a portrait of the holy man and other sacred but gro- tesque figures, were sold at the book-stalls in the gate- ways of the city. A most praiseworthy inclination for pious literature was evinced by the public of the capital, which could not fail to be remarked with pleasure. At last the truth came out. It was a wolf in sheep's clothing. Under poor Techon's skin were discovered revolutionary writings of the worst descrip- tion, and the real saint soon ceased to attract the public. At last Michailov, the editor of the ' Velikie Euss,' was caught and exiled to Siberia. His deportation, however, only gave a further opportunity for the mani- festation of public feeling. Thousands of his photo- graphs were sold. Subscriptions were opened. The ladies' secret liberal societies (for they had theirs also) exerted themselves, as women only can. Concerts and soirees litteraires were given for poor unfortunate literary men, A carriage was presented to him for his journey, with a valuable set of furs to keep him warm in his Siberian exile. Even on his arrival in Tobolsk he met with further demonstrations of sympathy, not only from exiles who had preceded him, but from public functionaries — an act which caused the Govern- ment to send thither a commission to enquire into the matter. About the same time occurred those disturbances EEVOLUTION AND REFORM IN RUSSIA. 67 which led to the closing of the universities. As in most other countries where the tongue and pen are under control, these were found to be the very wasp's nest of Liberalism. Professors were there who clothed political axioms in the garb of fable, or dressed up some event in earlier history as a satire on the present time and its events. Students applauded or hissed, as the substance of the lecture or the political bias of the lecturer coincided with their own views. At last, during the Emperor's visit in the south, a dispute arose between the students and the authorities of the uni- versity of St. Petersburg, which determined Admiral Putiatin, the Minister of Public Instruction and Morals, to take the wasp's nest and root out all the grubs of infection. This was very cJumsily performed by the troops. The dispersed professors and students went buzzing angrily all over the country, and, of course, propagating their opinions, which good policy might have kept confined between the bounds of the univer- sity. Poor Admiral Putiatin got dreadfully stung in the action, and, no doubt, regretted that he had changed salt water and plain sailing for the intricate navigation and constant luffing of a ministerial bureau. As is known, the universities remained for a long time closed ; and a hasty act, which nearly drove the extreme Liberal party into open rebellion, was only remedied on the Emperor's return by the retirement of the admiral and the appointment in his place of M. Grolovnin, who 68 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA. had the reputation of being a Liberal, and whose first act was to reopen the universities and soften the rigour of literary censure. The Sunday schools which had been established for the purpose of giving instruction to artisans and others engaged during the week, were also closed at the same time. It was found that political doctrines and the rights of man were taught to the scholars at the same time as A. B. V. D. In this affair were found impli- cated one or two personages high in favour at Court, a fact from which we may divine the source of certain intimate communications which appeared from time to time in the * Kolokol.' Early in 1862 took place in certain governments of Kussia the usual triennial meetings of the nobility to choose their president or marshal. These assemblies of the nobility, which were held in every district, with a general one for the province, were founded by Catha- rine, but never possessed any political power. Their business was confined to local administration, to ap- pointing the public functionaries for the district or government, and to arranging or deciding all disputes between the proprietors and their peasantry. But in this year they assumed somewhat different respon- sibilities. At St. Petersburg, Moscow, Toula, Nov- gorod, Smolensk, and Tver they converted their halls into something like a parliament, in which the two parties, Liberal and Conservative, young and old EEVOLUTION AND REFORM IN RUSSIA. 69 Russia, came face to face. At all these places the members soon threw aside their usual subjects of discussion, and broached the ticklish topic of reform. At St. Petersburg, under the very eye of the Court, the two parties were pretty equally divided. At- Moscow, however, the Liberals had the upper hand, and a petition to the Emperor was proposed, voted, and drawn up, praying for local self-government, a thorough reform in the administration of the laws, liberty of the press, the immediate and final settlement of the Emancipation question, the publication of the budget, and a parliament of all the estates of the land. The same petitions were sent up from the other assem- blies; but Toula went farther than the others in the liberal tendency of its address. To the last-named petition alone did the Grovernment deign any notice at the time ; and the answer to this address was a party of gens d'armes, who carried off thirteen of its chief sub- scribers to the fortress of St. Petersburg, where they were confined for a short time. Yet the year did not pass away without the appearance of some more favourable effect to these serious and solemn demon- strations of the feeling of the nation.* * The Polish Insurrection, by absorbing the attention of the country, doubtless explains the interruption of these agitations. When that question is settled, we shall probably see them renewed, if the Govern- ment have not fully carried out its reforming programme. 70 CHAPTER IV. THE MILLENNIAL BIRTHDAY OF RUSSIA, 1862.* Monument at Old Novgorod — The Six Epochs of Eussian History • — Russia's Influence on the World in the Past — Her Aspirations for the Future — Railways and Telegraphs, the Missionaries of Civilisation — Reforms in Russia — Their probable Effect — The Budgets — The OtJcoup or Brandy Panning — Statistics of Russian Finance — Reform in the Administration of Justice — Russian Law — Its Abuses — Immovable Judges — Advocates — A Jury — Rus- sian Law of Habeas Corpus — Great Difficulty of Introducing Reforms — Abolition of Barbarous Punishments — Flogging — The Russian Army — Freedom of the Press — Laws concerning it — Popular Education in Russia —Religious Liberty — Less Meddling in Private Affairs of Subjects — A Constitution for Russia — Con- stitution versus Autocracy — Reasons for and against a Constitu- tion in Russia — Agitations of the Nobility — Difficulties in the "Way — Programme of Russian Government — Conditions for se- curing the Benefit of Reforms already given. IN the month of August 1862 the Tsar celebrated the millenmal birthday of the Eussian monarchy in the old city of Novgorod. On the monument there consecrated as a memorial of that day are inscribed the names of nearly all those men of whom Eussians are * This is, of course, a popular fiction. In 862, the Scandinavian princes came to Novgorod, and thence spread on to Kiev and other centres of population. But the country cannot be said to have had either government or history before the reign of Ivan III. about a.d. 1446. THE MILLENIAL BIRTHDAY OF RUSSIA. 71 proud. Its form is that of a bell, surmounted by a Greek cross. On it are exhibited six groups of cele- brated men, representing the six epochs of Eussian history. The chief figure in the first group is Eurik, the Varangian chieftain, a.d. 862.* The second cen- tral figure is that of Wladimir, who introduced the Christian faith from Constantinople, a.d. 988. The third, that of Dimitri, the Donskoi, who defeated the Tartars at the battle of Koulikouvo, on the Don, A.D. 1380. In the fourth group is Ivan III. Prince of Moscow. The central figure of the fifth is that of Michael Eomanov, the first of that family elected tsar by the Boj^ards and people, a.d. 1613. In the last is that of Peter the Grreat. The secondary figures are those of various heroes, martyrs, saints, poets, and generals who have figured in Eussian history up to the present times, ' A thousand years in the eye of the Lord are but a moment,' sang the wise King David ; but it is never- theless a long time for the childhood and youth of a people. It may be said that Eussia has produced no one great national genius, who has exercised any influence on the world at large. As is the case with all young peoples, the real genius of the nation has been shown in poetry. The rest of its literature may be called exotic. What is to be the result of the next * A curious dispute has lately been going on among learned Kussians, many of whom maintain that he was not, as is generally supposed, a Scandinavian, but that he came from Lithuania. 72 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA. century or two, now that the body is fully grown ? Will it play a noble part ? — or will its acts and thoughts be only faint struggles for prolonging a diseased existence? Till now her career has been that of a young savage, doing all to increase his physical de- velopment, and roaming far and wide to extend his hunting-grounds. That object has now been gained. Kussia has advanced to the shores of two oceans. She has a vast network of internal waters, some of the most fruitful lands, some of the richest and most varied mines in the world. She possesses the means of all prosperity, and her only need is that the people may be trained to take proper advantage of them. Moscow and St. Petersburg have been connected by railways with the cities of the west, and the wires of the telegraph have been laid down to the remote capitals of the celestial empire. Eailways and tele- grfiphs are the arteries and nerves which must bring all mankind into unison. Eussia is at last joined by them to Western Europe, and the sympathy of union will never permit a repetition of the tyrannical and sometimes barbarous deeds of a former age. In judging of reforms in Eussia we must not com- pare them too closely with the more perfect institutions of other countries. Our duty is to measure them by the changes for the better in Eussia itself. The chief reforms which have received the sanction of the Emperor up to the present time are the emancipation THE MILLENNIAL BIRTHDAY OF RUSSIA. 73 of the serfs, the publication of the national receipts and expenditure, the substitution of an excise for the otkoup, or farming of the brandy or vodka, certain reforms in the administration of justice, modifications in the severity of punishments, and a greater liberty in local administrations. Others equally important are being considered, embracing finance, the army and navy, the public press, &c. &c. Throughout the year 1862 the ministers and generals brought up in the political school of the last reign, one after another resigned their functions, and their places were filled by new men, who felt that a great change was impending, and that it behoved the Grovernment to do something to meet the demands of the country. Despotic governments have often before sought to quiet the hungry dogs of Liberalism with choice and tempting morsels. But the times were now too critical for such dealing, and men's minds too highly excited to take promises for facts. Though the reforms which have been granted may appear trifling to those who live in a more liberally organised society, for Eussia they are im- mense ; and though they will certainly be more perfect on paper than they can be in practice, still, flagrant abuse of authority must be detected, and if not punished, will be at least so stigmatised by public opinion as to deter others from offending in like manner. I have reserved for a special chapter the consideration 74 EASTERN EUEOPE AND WESTERN ASIA. of the emancipation of the serfs, and the character and state of the Eussian peasantry. Imperfect copies of the budgets of 1859 and 1860 were surreptitiously obtained from a correspondent of the ' Kolokol,' and published in that paper. The Government, yielding to strong public opinion, pub- lished that of 1862 in its official gazette; and the details of finance may now be examined in Russia as in any other country. At the same time, many retrench- ments in the expenditure of public money were ordered, especially in all that concerned the members of the Imperial family, their extraordinary allowances, and the celebration of their saints' days. One of the most beneficial of the reforms already accomplished is the substitution of an excise for the old system of farming the vodka, or corn brandy, to indi- viduals. This system was a great cause of demorali- sation both in the public officials and the common people. Drunkenness is one of the greatest curses of the Russians : but its encouragement became a political necessity, for by no other means could so large a sum be brought into the revenue. The importance of this Government monopoly may be appreciated, when it is said that the farming of the vodka produced 123,000,000 roubles a year to the State, or about two-fifths of its whole income.* * The income of the Eussian Gorernment for 1862 was as follows, in round numbers : — THE MILLENNIAL BIRTHDAY OF KUSSIA. 75 The corruption to which the otkoup gave rise (such as the adulteration of the spirit and the bribing of inspectors and police of all grades) has been for years exposed in almost every work in Eussia. The new system of excise is said to work well, and a slight increase is perceptible in the revenue. The number of grog shops is greater ; the vodka sold is cheaper and of better quality ; and the tchinovnik would seem at present the only sufferer by the change, if the chief consumers of the vodka could be excepted. But un- fortunately drunkenness has increased among the lower classes in proportion to the diminution of price and the improvement in the quality of the spirit. The greatest need of reform lay in the administration of justice. No country in Europe had a more perfect The poll and other personal taxes levied on the people, the privileged class paying no- direct taxes 55:|^ millions of roubles. Produce of woods and mines . . . . llj „ ,, Excise and customs, salt tax and other in- direct taxes, of which the vodka alone pro- duced 123 millions 198^ „ „ Raiboads, Post-office, government lands, and various other sources .... 80 „ „ ' Interest on Mortgages .... 14^ „ „ 311 Of this sum 106^ millions were required for the army alone; 54^ millions for interest of national debt ; 20^ for the navy ; 8 millions for the court ; 26f millions for the finance department ; and the rest for the usual working of the other administrations.—^^. Petersburg Mcsiatseslov, or Calendar for 1863. 76 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA. written code than Russia; but nowhere perhaps has the practice been so little in accordance with the theory. Pinned on to every law were half a dozen ukases or orders changing or abrogating it, so that a decision could be given and maintained either way. Into this code, drawn from the ancient laws and reformed by Peter the Great, Catharine introduced other laws from Western Europe, and the work of consolidation was completed by the Emperor Nicholas in 1830. If its administration has not been always pure, it was cer- tainly not the fault of the different emperors, who, though superior to the laws the}^ made, wished to have them binding on all classes of their subjects. The reason must be sought elsewhere. The members of the Executive, often badly paid, but with expensive habits, yielded to a system of bribery which extended throughout every branch of the public service. The secrecy which accompanies such transactions in other countries is a proof of public morality. In Russia bribery became open and shameless, and was looked on as matter of course. Crimes could be hushed up, a lawsuit gained, the eyes of a police inspector closed, and things ■utterly impossible quickly executed by the timely administration of hzadld, varying according to the im- portance of the affair or the rank of the receiver, from a silver grivnik (ten copecks) to a bank note for a thousand roubles. The forms of law procedure furnished an opening for I THE MILLENNIAL BIRTHDAY OF RUSSIA. 77 all abuses. Every case, criminal or civil, was heard with closed doors. The depositions were given in writing. From these judgment was formed and sen- tence pronounced, and thus the proceedings ran to an indefinite length of time which a bribe alone could shorten. The secret police had an unlimited power of arrest, and, in minor cases, of punishment. They were thus the terror of the innocent as well as of the guilty, both of whom were only too glad to ransom themselves, the one from a deserved punishment, the other from an impending accusation. The new acts, by which judges will be immovable and will receive a higher salary, the institution of a jury, the pleading of advocates on both sides (a new class in Eussia), oral evidence in open courts, and its publication in the newspapers, an im- mediate and decisive verdict of condemnation or of acquittal in place of a verdict of not proven — all afford, if manfully carried out, sufficient guarantees for the greater security of the subject. Added to these is a law in some measure resembling our habeas corpus, whereby any person arrested on any charge must be brought within twenty-four hours for examination before a magistrate, and in every district a proprietor has been appointed with powers answering to those of our justices of the peace. The secret police are no longer to have the power of arbitrary punishment. All civil processes are to be public, the necessary papers are to be furnished to the counsel on either side, and every 78 EASTEEN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA. pretext is taken away for spinning out a trial, in order to bleed both parties to the utmost.* Such are the wholesome changes ordained by the legislative section of the Imperial chancery. It will be a more difficult task to cleanse the Augean stables of Kussian administration, to root out the love of arbitrary power, and purify the morality of some tens of thousands of functionaries. New professions have to be called into existence. To plead as an advocate requires long and special study ; and to promote this object faculties have been lately established in the Eussian Universities, while the fine law library of the late Count Speransky at St. Petersburg has been thrown open to students. Public education must be fostered for years before an institution like that of a jury can be properly under- stood or appreciated. Even then, judges, pleaders, and 9- jury may be made the instruments of the worst of all despotisms — a despotism which has the sanction of the law to cover it. English history furnishes some melan- choly examples. In ordinary criminal and civil cases a Grovernment is seldom interested in tampering with jus- tice. But in political trials public opinion is generally favourable to the prisoner and adverse to the Govern- ment. It would seem, therefore, of less consequence that the reforms already mentioned are not to apply to cases of treason, where in general they are most needed. * These new laws are to come into force from the year 1864, unless the Polish insurrection delays their promulgation for a short time. THE MILLENNIAL BIRTHDAY OF RUSSIA. 79 Altogether, though these reforms cannot soon become solid institutions, yet, if carried out even imperfectly for a time, they must prove an inestimable benefit to a people who have so long been the victims of caste and of arbitrary power. Barbarous and debasing modes of punishment seem also coming to an end in Russia. That horrid instru- ment called the knout, which, by a fiction of clemency, was inflicted instead of the penalty of death, though a few strokes of it properly applied generally had the same effect, was already abolished in 1845. Corporal punishment seems on the point of being abolished alto- gether, in spite of the unctuous opposition of Philarete, the patriarch of Moscow, who, a supposed Liberal under Nicholas, drew from the New Testament an apology for whipping and for its necessity under the present Emperor. The following reasons for its abolition were lately put forward in the report of the Minister of the Interior to the Emperor : ' That corporal punishment does not exist in other countries, and that its use is not warranted either by the habits of the people or by the frequency of crime in Eussia ; * that such punish- ments offend public morality, and, instead of acting as a warning, rouse only a feeling of pity, in which horror of the crime is lost ; that this is especially true of the * It is a curious coincidence, that whUe the question of abolishing corporal punishments was being mooted in Eussia, many members of the British legislature were desirous of re-introducing it into English law. 80 EASTEKN EUKOPE AND WESTERN ASIA. punishment of women ; and, lastly, that crime has been lessened, since milder sentences have replaced the more barbarous punishments formerly inflicted.' Corporal punishment for women has therefore been abolished altogether ; while for men its infliction has been rendered less cruel, nor can it be inflicted at all unless sanctioned by a legal sentence. The law no longer justifies proprietors in beating their peasants, masters in chastising their servants, or the police in flogging their uncondemned prisoners. It is probable that the severe military punishment of running the gauntlet between two rows of soldiers armed with sticks will also give place to some other, to act more as an example, with less of torture. As it is, commanders in the Eussian service are restrained from severely flogging their men, except by sentence of a court-martial. Eeforms in the military and naval services have long been talked of; but of their nature or extent little is yet known. Enough, however, has come to light dur- ing the last few years to show that a serious disaffection existed in the army, both among officers and men. Revolutionary writings, circulated widely in various regiments, found readers not only among the wild and headstrong youth, but even among some of the superior and more sober officers. The events which took place in repressing certain disturbances in the south of Russia in 1861, and a letter published in the 'Kolokol,' in October 1862, are examples of this. The THE MILLENNIAL BIRTHDAY OF RUSSIA. 81 officers of the Eussian services are patriotic in the highest degree, and, though the younger members are sjpt to be led away by political ideas, they are not in the least revolutionary. The soldier, doubly attached by religion and tradition to the person of the Emperor, is simply dissatisfied with his lot as a soldier, and listens willingly, therefore, to any plan which he thinks can alleviate it. But it must not be supposed, as a certain part of the ultra-press wishes it to be believed, that he is given to sedition and ready to take part in a revolu- tion against his Emperor. He wants only to be better fed, better clothed, and, more than all, to be permitted to return soon to his village and live quietly. In most countries, in which a conscription is in force, the term of service varies from eight to three years. In Kussia it was formerly 25 years, but now it is only 15. During this time the soldier is hardly paid at all, and, if his colonel be corrupt, he is badly fed and clothed, so that he is only too glad to earn a few copecks by odd jobs, when not on duty. At the end of his term of service he returns to settle in his native village, which he had quitted as a young recruit ; but generally he comes back only to find his parents and connections in their graves, and to resume among strangers a life for which he has long lost the habit. If he is wounded or disabled, his pen- sion barely suffices to keep life within him, even in the cheapest part of Eussia. During the present reign his a 82 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA. condition has been mucli improved. The conscription has made no call on the youth of the country since the last war;* it now falls more equally on all classesi; while, during his period of service, the comforts of the soldier have been increased and his punishments mollified. / Another subject which has occupied much attention in Eussia for some time past, is the freedom of the press. This freedom, however, seems still far distant. A greater license has certainly been allowed, the censure moderated, and liberty given to reply to radical literature published in Grermany and England. The necessity for granting this liberty was over- powering. Every educated man in Russia read the secret prints from foreign countries, but he had gene- rally judgment enough to distinguish the wheat from the chaff. The youth of the country, more than ever politically inclined, also read them, and often nothing else ; for in the public press at home, hardly any notice was taken of the ' Kolokol ' and the ' Pravdolubievie,' and if ever the home papers replied to any matter found in those journals, the control which was known to be exercised over them, neutralised any wholesome in- fluence f which they might otherwise have exercised. But it must be remembered that, in the matter of * Until the late preparations for war called forth a conscription of ten in a thousand. August 1863. t See last chapter. THE MILLENNIAL BIRTHDAY OF RUSSIA. 83 education, Eussia is unlike any other country in Europe. Out of more than sixty millions, fifty millions can neither read nor write ; certainly not five millions take interest in political news, and perhaps not more than 100,000 men have education enough to found their judgment of things on facts, and not on newspaper criticism. ' On an average,' says M. Grerebtzov, in his ' History of Civilisation in Eussia,' ^ only 1 in 8 can read and write; in some goubernie, there is not one in a hundred who can read.'* That some form of control is necessary to prevent revolutionary and profane ideas from becoming a source of mischief among ignorant men, no one, who thinks sincerely, can deny. General education must precede a freedom of the press ; if it be the effect of it, it will receive the im- * Till lately, the only instruction received by children of the lower classes from their ignorant village clergy was confined to the Sclavonic Church Liturgy and the principles of morality, with anecdotes and tra- ditions of the Elders, which were learnt by heart. There were also a few schools imder the direction of the different administrations, such as the Ministry of the Imperial Domains, &c. But since 1859 the Ministry of Public Instruction has organised a system of national schools throughout the country. The difficulties in the way of popular educa- tion in Russia are far greater than in any country of Western Europe, and cannot be overcome unless the Government interferes, supplying the buildings and teachers, and compelling the attendance of the young. In some districts schools are already established ; but they are attended only in winter, and then, owing to the rigorous climate and the dwellings being scattered over so large a space, the attendance is necessarily scanty. G 2 84 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA. pression of its teacliings ; and that such impression may be not hurtful to the well-being of the State, some control must be exercised. The changes in the laws concerning the press will make the censure partly preventive, partly penal. Most works, the contents of which are not likely to give umbrage to the Grovernment, may be published without preliminary censure, the authors and publishers being liable to prosecution for any illegal matter which they may contain. The periodicals which fall under this head will, like the press in France, receive so many warnings before they are prosecuted. But for most of the newspapers and political works the censure will remain preventive as before, and that, by the wish of the editors themselves, who prefer the preventive censure to the risk of a prosecution, which may be directed by private animosity, or which it might be necessary to hush up by a large bribe. Eussian orthodoxy, though not very liberal in its dogmas or in its laws where men of other creeds are concerned, is yet tolerant on the whole. But the Emperor Nicholas, in his rage for centralisation and uniformity, had also a mania for converting his sub- jects, which has happily subsided during the present reign. In his lifetime the various Easkolniki, as Dissenters or Sectarians are called in Kussia, had to pay the police well to be allowed to practise their rites in THE MILLENNIAL BIRTHDAY OF RUSSIA. 85 secret. Many a good Jew was turned into a bad Christian, or an indifferent Lutheran into a very hypo- critical orthodox. The most cruel measures were put in force to convert the Uniates and Catholics of the Polish frontier to the national orthodox Church — measures which, unhappily, were only a retaliation on the conduct of Polish proprietors and Jesuit priests towards members of the Grreek Church. Those un- fortunate pariahs of Europe, and especially of Poland, the Jews, are at length also admitted to be men, and allowed civil rights. Looked upon as traitors, some of them actually became so, and it was only a year or two before the last war, that the whole Jewish population was ejected from Sevastopol. As far as civil equality goes, the Jews possess it throughout all the Kussias, but their social equality is still far distant. Altogether, that meddling in the private affairs of subjects, which we natm-ally look for at the hands of a so-called paternal Grovernment, is fast dying out in Kussia. For example, the late Emperor was fond of forcing all his youth into Grovernment schools and colleges, to be trained in the way he thought they ought to go. Parents were frowned at, if not repri- manded, who preferred private or home education for their children in tender years, although, to judge by many examples which have come under my own notice, persons educated under their parents' eye, while not 86 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA. inferior intellectually, are certainly morally superior to those wlio have grown up under the lax morality and deadening routine of these public schools. There remains the subject of a constitution, which many educated Eussians eagerly desire, and many not less earnestly deprecate. As theories of government, both the autocratic and constitutional forms have each their merits and their faults. If the latter is the safest, an autocracy is more prompt and decisive in its action. The traveller must remark the quickness in diplomacy, the compactness of huge armies, the order and regularity with which public works are carried out ; but, though he admire, he need not envy. A despotic Grovernment cannot, in our times, be a lasting one. When Madame de Stael told the Emperor Alexander I. that his character was a constitution in itsexf, his answer was, *I am only a happy chance.' The remark and the reply embody the good and evil of all despotic Grovernments. The loyal and humane character of the Emperor Alexander II. is a guarantee for the time being. But who can answer for the future rulers ? Where an innate sense of justice does not exist in the mind of an absolute prince, there remains no other check to the abuse of authority than the fear of assassination, or the horrors of a revolution which convulses all society. That the Eussians are fit for a constitution few En- glishmen probably will deny. The people are ignorant ; THE MILLENNIAL BIRTHDAY OF RUSSIA. 87 the roads are bad; the principles of the leading men waver with the circumstances which surround them; there are abuses and corruptions of all sorts to be got rid of. But the Eussian people are patient, loyal, and patriotic, and under a rough and semi-barbarous appear- ance they possess much sound common sense. The com- munal system, under which the greater part of them are born and bred, is the very nursery of self-government. At present their wishes are confined to the proper execution of their just laws, the permission to manage their own local affairs, and protection against the rapacity and ill-treatment of Imperial favourites, of the official or proprietor, with whom they have to do. They understand no more of a constitution than they know how to fly, and would probably be quite opposed to it, if they thought it was to weaken the power of the Emperor, to whom they have been accustomed to look as a last resource in their troubles. During the revolution in St. Petersburg and the south of Eussia in 1825, the ringleaders, to rouse the enthusiasm of their followers, shouted ' Hurrah for Constantino and Consti- toutsia ! ' The men did not understand, and remained silent. ' Constitoutsia ! who 's she ? ' they said, ' is she the Grrand Duke's wife ? ' The wish for. a constitution is confined to the million or two of educated, ambitious, and restless Eussian and Polish nobles and students; and there is certainly among them enough talent, science, and principle to 88 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA. carry on to the benefit and honour of the country such a machine of government. But one insuperable difficulty intervenes in the host of interested and talented supporters of an established despotism, backed by an army of three quarters of a million of men. A forced constitution under such circumstances is scarcely to be thought of. Even if acquired, it would probably go the road of other famous European constitutions. The people would neither have the time nor the chance of any organisation in its defence, while the army, if it interferes against one prince, becomes too often a tool in the hands of his successor. Where a ruler has directly or indirectly uncontrolled power of the public money to pay or reward a standing army and talented supporters, a so-called constitution is a farce, and it is better to call things by their right names and say autocrat at once. Some hopes were, however, cherished by many Kussians, that the present Tsar purposed to surrender many imperial prerogatives, and * octroyer ' as the French call it, a sort of constitution. This appeared the more likely when certain Government newspapers published formulas of the different constitutions of Europe. But this was, probably, only a sop thrown out to appease the longings of the moment. Whatever may be the opinions and intentions of the Emperor, it would seem to be quite against the views of the Grand Duke Constantine, who, for his station, is THE MILLENNIAL BIRTHDAY OP RUSSIA. 89 certainly one of the most progressive men in Eussia, and also against the convictions of very many educated men who have studied the wants of their country. Their idea seems to be that the country would not be benefited at present by curtailing the prerogatives of the Emperor, owing to the vast extent of the empire, the variety of its nationalities, the absence of an educated middle class, but chiefly perhaps, also, from a fear that the class whose talents and ambitions would then come into play, might, with their newly-acquired power, prove intractable and turbulent ; and further, that those prerogatives are absolutely necessary to carry out intended reforms in a quiet manner, without •endanger- ing the foundations of society. My own conclusion, so far as I am able to form a judgment by personal obser- vation and by much that has been written, is, that while the Emperor will continue an autocrat,* with his ministers, his chancery, and senate, as consulting and legislative bodies, his Grovernment will take the lead in carrying the country through a series of reforms, some of which have been already accomplished ; that without interference from the central power a certain local self-government will be conceded; and that on western models a system of national education will be organised to pave the way for future reforms ; that the * The Russian word is Samoderjetz, the et3anology of which is pre- cisely the same as the Greek word ' Autocrates ' — he who governs by himself. 90 EASTERN EUEQPE AND WESTERN ASIA. press will enjo}^ greater liberty. At the same time, the Grovernment seems to be averse to a parliament elected by the country, which is naturally enough desired by all who, from their position, would be called to take part in such an assembly. If all these reforms are successfully carried out, a new era will have commenced for Eussia with the anniversary of her thousandth birthday, and when they have reached a stage of prescription, she will be in a better position to obtain and to benefit by the acquirement of a more popular government. To hasten that happy time every patriotic Russian should strive, as far as may be in his power, to carry out and consolidate the reforms which have just been granted by promoting agriculture and other forms of industry, and by residing more among those whose labour is the wealth of a country, instead of deeming it the summum honum of life to pass frivolously through it in the garb of a soldier or a tchinovnik. He must no longer look on trade and commerce as either derogatory to a gentleman or too mean an occupation for a man of education, but, on the contrary, as the chief means of advancing the prosperity of his fatherland, of promoting the liberty of its people and a kindlier feeling towards the stranger. He must remember that they can never have these effects if they are abandoned to men who are at once ignorant and despised almost as much as the traders and mechanics of China or Japan. Lastly, it should be the THE MILLENNIAL BIRTHDAY OF EUSSIA. 91 object of all who have in any way the command over their fellow-men, to promote their education in all useful and practical knowledge ; in the conviction that public opinion and the good common sense of the mass are now more powerful weapons than sword and cannon for effecting happy revolutions,* * A ukase sanctioning the formation of provincial and municipal assemblies has just been promulgated. January 1864. 92 CHAPTEE V. THE EMANCIPATION OF THE SEKFS. The Emancipation a Credit to all Classes in Eussia — Serfdom not Ancient in Eussia — Its Origin — Slaves and Serfs — Serfdom Abolished, and Ee-established by Godounov and Eomanov — Peter the Great confirms it — Public Grants of Land, with Serfs attached, under Peter, Catharine, and Paul — The Crown Serfs and those of Private Proprietors — Three Denominations of Serfs — Their Position and Duties — Causes of their Misery — Duties of a Proprietor — The Land belonged to the Serfs — The Eussian Mire, or Commune — The Artel, or Working Men's Association — Character of the Mire — Anecdotes — Pro and Con. of the Communal System of Labour — The Obrok^Serfs — The Obrok System of Cultivation — The Semi-Emancipation of 1862 — The Dvorovye, or Personal Serfs — Sufferings of the Proprietors — Their Character and Habits — Difficulties of Emancipation — The ' 3rd March, 1863 — The Emancipation completed, except on the Polish Frontier — The final Arrangements — How the Land is paid for — Communal Courts — Effects of Emancipation — Character and Habits of the Eussian Peasantry — Whipping — Eeligion and Patriotic Feelings of the Lower Classes in Eussia — Holy Eussia — The Peasant as a Soldier or Sailor — Anecdote — Social Traits and prevailing Vices — Cost of Living in Eussia — Opinion of a Eussian Landowner on the Emancipation — How the Eussian People is judged in Western Europe. TT7HATEVER may be the future course of tlie Em- * * peror Alexander II. the emancipation of the serfs must remain the chief and most glorious act of his reign. But although he has nobly directed the move- ment, still the self-sacrifice of the proprietors and the THE EMANCIPATION OF THE SERFS. 93 patient forbearance of the people in their newly- acquired power have been such as to win for them all credit from those who know how great has been the loss of money on one side, how great the provocation to avenge old injuries on the other. The early history of nearly all the Sclavonic peoples of Europe is involved in no slight uncertainty. But although the accounts of Polish and Kussian historians are inconsistent, there is on the whole little doubt that as early as the seventh century there were many families of this race, living under a half-patriarchal, half-demo- cratic polity, of which the most powerful ruled after- wards at Novgorod in the north and Kiev in the south. The burghers of these towns seem to have carried on an extensive caravan trade-in furs, amber, &c. with savage tribes on one side and with the luxurious but decaying civilisation of the Byzantine empire on the other. Witlr the arrival of Eurik and his followers, a.d. 862, were; first introduced the germs of feudalism and serfdom; Yet it would appear that, during all those dark years of anarchy and blood which followed the great irruptions of barbarians into Western Europe — while Charle- magne was conquering and consolidating his vast empire, and his descendants were parcelling it out and making slaves of its peoples, down to the time of the Mongol conquest of Eussia — the only slaves in that country were either prisoners of war, debtors, or those who voluntarily sold themselves into slavery. During 94 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA. this epoch, a.d. 990, Christianity was introduced from Constantinople, and its influence, great wherever it took root, became singularly powerful over the mystical dis- position of the Sclavonic races, and helped them in a great measure to support the coming burden from the crushing weight of which they have been only just set free. Speaking of the Tartar dominion, Russian his- torians are accustomed to extol their countrymen as martyrs who saved Europe at the price of their national existence. With more truth it might be said that the senseless feuds and constant rivalry of their rulers well- nigh brought Europe itself to ruin. / Under Mongol rule the peasant was first bound to the soil, in order to facilitate the collection of the tribute then levied on the whole population. When this yoke was removed, he became again more or less free to remove from one district to another, as desire or necessity might prompt him. The slaves, as before, were bought and sold apart from the land. The system /of the Tartars was reimposed by Boris Grodounov, as an act of policy to rally the large proprietors around his throne. In the disorders which followed his death it again fell into disuse, and the final establishment of serfdom was reserved for Mickael Romanov, acting under the advice of his father, the patriarch Philarete, for the same State reasons which influenced Grodounov. Many privileges and immunities were, however, still left to the peasant, now a serf. He could not be sold away THE EMANCIPATION OP THE SERFS. 95 from the land on which he was born, and of which he considered himself as the proprietor, although he him- self was the property of his landlord. He could not be put to forced labour, but cultivated his land and paid over a portion of the produce to his landlord, one-third or one-half, according to circumstances. He was also free from military service, which was considered too noble for hinds, and reserved for a special class.* But all these privileges vanished, one after the other. The pro- prietor soon abused his powers ; Peter the Grreat wanted soldiers ; and it was only in the reign of Nicholas that the secret sale of human beings apart from land was quite done away with. When the Great Eeformer of Eussia re-established the poll-tax, and numbered his people for the purposes of recruitment, he confirmed and aggravated the con- dition of the serf. In the lists of population then made out, the personal slave and soil-bound serf were mixed up together, and such confusion followed that it soon became impossible to distinguish the two classes. As the empire enlarged its bounds, serfdom was introduced into all those countries (as of the Cossacks, &c.), the rural populations of which had hitherto been free. But a certain distinction could still be made among the peasants and slaves thus condemned to a common serfdom. The serfs of the Crown lands were still * The serfdom in Japan at the present day seems to have much of this character. 96 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA. distinct from those of private owners. The former, paying their yearly contribution to the Grovernment for the land they occupied, were in comparison free men ; at all events, they were not subject to the petty tyranny of a poor but extravagant master. But from the time of Peter the Grreat to that of the Emperor Paul, the tsars carried out the odious system of be- stowing Crown lands, together with the serfs attached to them, as rewards to generals or statesmen, or as presents to favourites. Examples of this had, indeed, been given before, when the States-Greneral in Moscow (1613) gave Crown lands to Minime, the butcher of Novgorod, and to Prince Pojarsky, for their services in di'iving out the Poles from their native city ; but these instances were rare. Menschikov, the favourite of Peter the Great, could travel, it was said, from Eiga on the Baltic to Derbend on the Persian frontier, and sleep every night on his own estates. At the age of thirteen he was a poor boy, selling rolls in the Kremlin ; when he died he possessed 150,000 families, or about 500,000 peasants. Catharine II. bestowed millions of serfs on the nobility, whose favour she wished to gain, as well as on her fortunate lovers. Of these the Orlovs received 45,000 souls ; Potemkin no less than 37,000. Her son Paul, following her example without her reasons and necessities, went beyond her in counting off lands containing upwards of 2,000,000 of souls for the use and profit of the Imperial family. The THE EMANCIPATION OF THE SERFS. 97 Emperor Alexander discontinued the system, and would have abolished serfdom altogether throughout his em- pire, as he had done in the Baltic provinces (1816-20), if his firmness had been equal to his humanity. The 42,000,000 of serfs in Eussia might be divided in round numbers as follow: — 20,000,000 of Crown serfs, 2,000,000 on the Imperial domains, and 20,000,000 under private proprietors. The emancipation of the former, of course, could take place without difficulty, the serfs being simply made tenants of the Crown until / they could ransom their land on certain fixed conditions. ^ The emancipation of the rest involved intricate interests,./^ which required all the patience of the Government, proprietor, and peasant to bring to a satisfactory settlement. When the day named for the emancipation arrived j (March 3, 1862), the arrangements were far from com,- plete; and, though serfdom then came nominally and legally to an end, it was in reality retained for another year, in order to reconcile many diversities of interest and opinion. . Serfs might be classed under three denominations : — First, the agricultural serfs, who tilled their land, and . either paid their proprietor the ohvok, or gave him their labour ; secondly, those who pursued any other occupa- tion away from the estate and paid the ohrok or tribute to their masters, much as is the case with hired slaves in South America ; and, thirdly, the dvorovye, court, or H 98 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA. domestic servants. The lot of the former varied with the existence or the absence of the mire or commune. The extent and value of all estates were estimated by the number of souls, i. e. peasants, upon them. If the proprietor farmed his own land, his peasants were \ obliged to work for him three days a week all the year round. This term was established by law but continually evaded. Some proprietors made the peasant work four, five, or even six days a week during the busy times of seed-sowing and harvest, so that he had little time to cultivate his own plot ; and in winter all field labour is impossible. Villages and estates where this slave-driving was in force might always be dis- tinguished by the filth and misery of the peasantry. These were generally found on the estates of small proprietors, of retired tchinovniks and parvenus, whose debts or whose desire for keeping up appearances served as an excuse for squeezing the unfortunate peasantry to the utmost. A proprietor, who had many times travelled the length and breadth of Eussia, told mej^that whenever he passed through a village more tl3,an Usually poor and dirty, with the enclosures badly cultivated and the ishas in a state of dilapidation, the answer to enquiries on the subject invariably was, that ''\ the pameschik or landlord made his peasants work six • days a week, and that they had no time for attending to their own affairs* On one or two occasions during THE EMANCIPATION OF THE SERFS. 99 my journey through Eussia, I put the same questions and received the same reply. These small proprietors of from twenty to fifty souls have been the greatest sufferers by the change. To many the loss of at least three-fourths of their land has been utter ruin. Where the number of the peasants is in too great a proportion to the extent of their land, the money . which they receive would be immediately swallowed up to pay off the mortgage with which most of them were burdened. A fund called the Emancipation Fund was established to relieve the small proprietors of twenty-one serfs or under, who have thus been reduced to great difficulties. Many wise proprietors, when the subject first took a serious aspect, voluntarily emancipated their personal serfs and made private arrangements with those who possessed their land* A friend of mine, an officer in the navy, when his peasants came, according to old custom, to congratulate him on his return from a long voyage, addressed them seriously on the coming change, and told them that they would soon be independent of his control. With one voice they cried out that they did not wish to be free. Indeed, under an easy and y/^ humane master, serfs were almost as much a burden as a profit. They had no other cares than that of labour ; and the jpameschik was bound to them by many ties. He paid their taxes ; if their isha or hut was burnt down, he gave timber to rebuild it ; if the horse, cow, or pig died, he must replace it ; if sickness was in 100 EASTERN EUEOPE AND WESTERN ASIA. the family, he found doctor and medicines ; if the harvest was bad, he had to feed them ; if they were naked, he must clothe them. In a word, in all their wants they looked up to their pameschik for assistance and advice. It is true, this was all charged against them by the proprietor ; but the serf was lazy, and was generally deeply in debt. All such proprietors, who behaved to their serfs with real humanity, will find in the emancipation, when the first loss has been got over, a release from many anxieties and much extra- ordinary expenditure. As the arrangement between them and their serfs has been effected with equity and good feeling, their future relations will be those of respect on the one side and of friendly interest on the other. Men, whose ideas were narrower or whose property was heavily mortgaged, had no alternative but to submit. Few could venture openly to plead the cause of serfdom ; for, when once the serfs heard the word emancipation, they were not to be put off any more, and they would not be free without land. ' God gave our forefathers the land to till,' was the logic of the Eussian peasant. 'We are the children, the land is therefore ours. The Tsar is God's representative ; him and those whom he sets over us we will serve, but the country, the soil is ours.' Such a feeling as this among the peasants was a powerful lever in the hands of Government, and a sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of repugnant proprietory. THE EMANCIPATION OF THE SEEFS. 101 The mire * or commune — one of the curious institu- tions of the Eussian people, though not peculiar to them — still retains all its old vitality. Individuality is completely lost in the mass. Not only in agricul- ture but in commerce and handicraft the Eussian lower orders exhibit the same proneness to possess in com- mon. Mr. Mill, I believe, somewhere remarks, that as civilisation advances, men more readily give up their individuality, and act in masses. This disposition is manifest through the whole history of Eussia. The Eussian people are eminently gregarious in their in- stincts and occupations, and soon become lost if left to thdr own individual resources. If a Eussian peasant leave or be banished from his village commune to seek his fortune elsewhere; if he become a soldier or a sailor, the same instinct of communism remains with him. In the regiment or on board ship a sort of commune is soon formed among those who are of the same village, district, or goubernia. If the peasant become a tailor, cobbler, smith, isvoschik or coach- man, or takes to any other trade, he soon forms w^ith others an association called, in Eussian, Artel, or enters into one already formed ; and this society in Eussia answers the purpose of working men's associations, the order of Odd Fellows, Draids, &c. in England; * Mire in Eussian means the * World.' — The Commune is, indeed, a little "world in itself. 102 EASTERN EUEOPE AND WESTERN ASIA. For the same reason the Eussian peasant seldom emigrates willingly. Where this Tnire or commune exists, as in Great and i White Eussias, the mass of land is held by it and culti- vated in common, a certain portion of the produce beiug paid over to the proprietor or so much labour being given as an equivalent for it. The land is mea- sured and portioned out among the different families which form the commune, according to its quality and convenience of situation. There is a public granary, where corn is stored up in case of dearth ; there is a communal bath, a communal well, and a communal bull. If the wealth increase, a re-division is made; each male child receives his share on arriving at ma- jority; and a habit of industry is kept up among its members, although it is of course accompanied by a spirit of narrow-minded conservatism. If a member wishes to quit the commune he can do so, but he cannot be re-admitted except by general consent. Besides possessing property in the commune, he can also hold some independently. Every village commune is presided over by its starost or elder, who acts as a magistrate, and from whose decision appeal is seldom allowed. A union of several village communes forms a superior commune, which meets to deliberate on the general good, and occasions have not been wanting in their history when they have protested against wrongs THE EMANCIPATION OF THE SERFS. 103 and injustice, shown a firm face, and in the end established their rights. The following anecdote will show how this mire or commune is woven into all the habits of Russians. A large emigration took place a few years ago from over^ crowded districts to the waste but fertile lands which border tl^e Volga. Every family received a large piece of land with certain privileges. The minister of the Imperial domains soon afterwards visited the new settlement. He found the peasai^ts perfectly satisfied with their lot, with one exception — they had no com^ mune, and prayed the minister to allow it to be esta- blished. 'Without the commune,' they urged, 'the justice and equality with which the land had been distributed would soon be troubled. One family would increase faster than another, and so become poorer ; another family would remain the same or even de- crease, and so become richer than the others : whence would arise all sorts of dissensions and disorder,' In another instance the lands of a certain commune were required for Grovernment purposes, and its meni- bers ordered away to other lands at a short notice. The commune assembled, talked over the matter, and the result was a protest to the Emperor Nicholas, who admitted the justice of the demand, and ordered that the peasants should be left where they were. Under this institution two-thirds of the Russian 104 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA. peasantry are born and live. Much has been said and written during the last year or two on the wisdom of continuing or abolishing it. The chief accusations brought against it as a system are — that it is the relic of a barbarous age, unsuited to present civilisation, and deadening individual energy; that, as all men in the mire are not equally capable, the progress of one is retarded by the insufficiency of another; that time lost in consultations, which might be more profitably spent in action, leads to lazy and apathetic habits ; that the commune often keeps in its body men whose capabili- ties might find better and more useful employment out of it ; and, lastly, that its spirit of stubborn con- servatism is a barrier to all improvement either in the peasants themselves or in their mode of agriculture. On the other hand, its advocates not only deny these charges, but insist that it is so deeply rooted in the habits of the people as to be, in practice, indispensable, and that, in order to carry out any good system of national education, the commune, by keeping many families together, is invaluable. It is a happy sign for the welfare of Eussia, that her writers, no longer wasting their talents in introducing an exotic literature from France and England, give their attention to the in- ternal condition of their own country and whatever may lead to its improvement. The surplus serfs on an estate hired themselves out and paid to their proprietors a tribute called ohroh. THE EMANCIPATION OF THE SERFS. 105 These ohvok serfs were generally found among the domestic servants in the towns, as coachmen, post- boys, vendors of small wares, and as workmen in fac- tories. Many of the small shopkeepers about the dif- ferent dvoTS or bazaars of St. Petersburg and Moscow were ohroh serfs. Several had raised themselves to the position of merchants, amassed wealth, and purchased their freedom. One serf, it is said, ofifered a million roubles to his proprietor for his freedom, and was re- fused, the proud noble declaring that he would relish the luxury of having a millionnaire serf. The same nobleman possessed a serf who, having attracted the attention of an Italian artist by his fine voice, was taken by his patron to Italy^ whence he returned to Eussia with an Italianised name. But he was still a serf, and, though his master would not take the ohvok from him, he was compelled to attend on certain occa- sions, when the Prince gave a great dinner, to charm the guests by his singing. As a great part of the proprietors wore absentees during many months of the year, their estates were cultivated on the ohroh system. The peasants under the starost or chief man^ and sometimes controlled by an agent of the proprietor, undertook the entire manage- ment of the estate, whether under the communal system of Grreat Eussia or that of separate farms, as in the Ukrain. The proprietor furnished nothing but seed. The peasants ploughed, dunged, sowed, and gathered 106 EASTEKN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA. in their harvest with their own implements, took the produce to market and sold it, and paid over to the pameschik or his agent a portion of the profits, gene- rally from one-fourth to one-third, and kept the rest themselves. But in these cases they had to bear all risks from fire, tempests, or disease among themselves or their cattle. The new laws chiefly touched those peasants who actually possessed land, whether held by manual or horse labour or by paying ohroh The right to the ^xi^oil was the chief difficulty to be overcome. Every male adult peasant had a right to his isba and a plot of land on the estate, partly arable, partly grass, of about eight acres, but often less in valuable districts, though that quantity was fixed as the medium by the Grovern- ment. For this land he paid an equivalent, either in labour, money, or kind ; and for the future he will pay the same, under a somewhat different arrangement. Where the commune exists it will re-imburse the proprietor. In other parts of the country, where the land is divided into hereditary farms, each peasant will receive about the same area of land, which he must ran- som at once or by degrees from the proprietor, or from the Government who advances the money for him. In cases where there is no actual possession of land, where the estate is too small for the number of serfs, the peasant, after the two years of forced service, i. e. after ]March 3, 1863, can pass on to Crown lands, where THE EMANCIPATION OF THE SEBFS. 107 he will receive wood from the Grovernment for build- ing an isba, and a sum of money to commence life with. Peasants paying the obrok could, during the two years of probation, arrange with their landlords to capitalise their ohrok at the rate of six per cent, or five per cent, in some districts. Artisans, small dealers, domestic ser- vants, and others who exercised any calling and paid their obrok, continued to do so until 1863, but during that time the master could neither recall him from his employment or increase his obrok. The dvorovye or personal servant became simply free "" on March 3, 1863, and henceforward will get his living as he can. Numbers of them immediately inscribed their names as meschani, in order to exercise some petty commerce. During the following month more than 4,000 inscribed their names in the commune of Cronstadt alone, not necessarily to reside there, but because the tax of that town was trifling compared with the tax of the capital. The emancipation of this class will be a great relief to many masters and mistresses, who can thus get rid of half their lazy, lounging, and unprofitable servants. In many families these personal serfs were a thorough and permanent nuisance. They considered themselves as much bound to their masters as their agricultural fellows considered themselves bound to the land. Lounging about the mats when the master was at home, snoring on the velvet arm-chair when he 108 EASTEEN EUEOPE AND WESTERN ASIA. was absent, the Eussian servant has been often painted by foreigners. With all his peculiarities and dirty habits, he was generally honest and affectionate. Feel- ing himself one of the family, he took an interest in it as such ; always said nasli, ^our,' when speaking of the property of his master, and sometimes, in minor matters, such as with the vodka bottle, hair-brush, or such like, carried his ideas of communism into practice. I know families who have tried to get rid of drunken^ dishonest, lazy, or dirty servants; — who have beaten them, put them in prison, sent them miles away — in vain. They would soon wander back, with the sagacity of dogs in keeping to their old masters, would blubber out their promises of amendment, and take up their old stations again. A Eussian proprietor will now be free from all these encumbrances, and in place of half a dozen lazy fellows whom he only fed, he can take one good servant to do double the work of six; only he must pay him his due wages. A measure like this emancipation could not of course be carried through without great difficulty and loss both to individuals and the nation, especially as theories of still more important changes were mixed up with it. Yet March 3, 1862, passed by without any disturbances, although the delay discontented both proprietor and peasant. The former wished to be rid at once of his uncertain position: the peasant, nominally freed, had to remain a forced labourer for twelve months more.' THE EMANCIPATION OF THE SERFS. 109 Later in the year its effects began to be severely felt by many. Incomes were reduced one half; thousands of families who had lived in affluence in the capitals were , obliged to retire to their diminished estates or to foreign countries. Families living abroad found themselves suddenly without their incomes, and hastened back to remedy the evil by their presence. On many estates the peasants struck, and would do no work, or just what they pleased, causing total loss or great waste to the crops on which the incomes of the proprietors in great part depended. Yet after all, good must come out of the evil. The peasant and the absentee landlord had been too long strangers to each other. The proprietor must soon from necessity live more on his estate, and his presence and example must lead to the improvement of his tenantry. At last the eventful day, March 3, 1863, arrived. It was also the anniversary of the Emperor's accession. The peace of the country was not in the least disturbed, and the efforts of the revolutionary party failed before •the obstinate good sense and immobility of the Eussian rural classes. From that day the serfs in all the Russias became free. And this freedom means, that he . will have the liberty of his movements', of his labour, and the full enjoyments of the fruit earned by the sweat of his brow ; he can marry whom and when he pleases ; he can no longer be beaten, banished to Siberia, or carried off to the ranks of the army in some province 110 EASTERN EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA. distant from his village, at the will of a cruel or capri- cious master. Henceforth he is the master of his own land if he can pay for it, or a tenant of the Crown or of the proprietor according to circumstances, until he can do so ; he cannot be punished without the sanction of a magistrate, and is only subject to the lawful call of the conscription. By the end of the same month ninety-five per cent, of all the serfs in Eussia had become free ; 8,642,909 men and their families began a new kind of life, and of these 1,195,715 had already paid for their land and become proprietors themselves. The only districts where the arrangements were not completed were in Lithuania and on the Polish frontier, where the un- settled state of society owing to the Polish insurrection and the intrigues of the small proprietors had retarded their accomplishment. Here the Grovernment intervened with a high hand. A ukas of March 13 ordered the immediate completion of the emancipation. If not carried out before May 1 by amicable arrangement it was to be forcibly brought to a close by the Grovernment, which would then indem- nify the proprietor in full, leaving the peasants to pay the obrok to the Grovernment until they are able to re- imburse the principal. A few words will explain to the reader the terms of the final arrangements. Up to March 3 the affair was left to the proprietor and peasants to settle in a friendly THE EMANCIPATION OF THE SERFS. Ill manner, and, as is seen, with tolerable success. Only, in case of the obstinacy of either party, a law was passed for every district according to its special wants, by which the price to be paid for the land and the term of payment were fixed. In giving the summary of this law and the bases on which it was fixed, I take a district of which I had the particulars ; but it must be remembered that both the quantity of land given and the price paid for it varied according to situation, fertility, and the means of transport. In this district every male adult peasant receives his isbawith its little enclosure free, besides three dessiatins,* more or lesSj of mixed arable and meadow land, for which at some time or another he must pay at the rate of fifty roubles per dessiatin^ in all^ 150 roubles silver, or about 241. English money. If he pay this, he is at once a proprietor ; if he be unable to do so (which is generally the case), he must pay rent to the proprietor at six per cent, per annum until the Grovernment have paid the principal for him. In this ; case the Grovernment pays 120 out of the 150 roubles^ leaving the peasant to pay the remaining thirty roubles himself to the proprietor, as by agreement between them. The sum advanced by the State, with the interest, must be repaid during a term extending over forty-nine years. But, as the Grovernment was unable to find so large a sum at once, bonds, bearing interest at * 1 dessiatiii = 2.699 acres EngHsh. 112 EASTEEN EUEOPE AND WESTERN ASIA. five per cent, were issued, a series of which are to be drawn and cancelled every month.* When the serfs were in excess of the land on any estate, the proprietor was required to* give up two-thirds of the land to his peasants, and to retain the other third, the surplus peasants being removed to Government lands. On certain large estates cultivated on the ohrok system, things are to remain as they are until the year 1865, when the distribution of three dessiatins, more or less, to each peasant must take place. But during this time the ohroh cannot be increased. This in reality amounts simply to this, that the peasants remain tenants until that year. In all these transactions, when the commune existed, as it does in most villages of Eussia Proper, neither the Grovernment on the one side, nor the pameschik on the other, has anything to do with the peasants themselves. The head man or starost of the commune, after consulting his fellows, arranged all matters with the proprietors and Government, and will, for the future, pay the rent or instalments of the principal. In the system of local self-government lately granted to the communes, a court has been established, called the Communal Court, for enforcing * These bonds of 100 roxibles, negotiable on the Exchange at St. Petersburg, at first fell very low, but, owing to some foreign specu- lation, rallied, and are now quoted at about 87 roubles (September 1863). Those proprietors who were in immediate want of their money were great losers by disposing of them on their first issue. V