CHAPTER XIX.
CIVILIZATION IN RUSSIA
It may be a little startling to set out with the general proposition that Russia is not only very far from being a civilized country, but that it never can be one in the highest sense of the term. The remark of Peter the Great, that distance was the only serious obstacle to be overcome in the civilization of Russia, was such as might well be made by a monarch of iron will and unparalleled energy, at whose bidding a great city arose out of the swamps of Courland, where Nature never intended a city to stand. But the remark is not true in point of fact. Distance can be annihilated, or nearly so; and although Peter the Great was probably aware of that fact, he might well have reasoned that facility of intercommunication is not so much the cause as the result of civilization. The wilderness may be made to blossom as the rose through human agency, but it can only be done by divine permission. I think that permission has been withheld in the case of a very considerable portion of Russia. No human power can successfully contend against the depressing influences of a climate scarcely paralleled for its rigor. Where there are four months of a summer, to which the scorching heats of Africa can scarcely bear a comparison, and from six to eight months of a polar winter, it is utterly impossible that the moral and intellectual faculties of man can be brought to the highest degree of perfection. There must, of course, always be exceptions to every general rule; but even in the dark and bloody history of Russia we find that the exceptions of superior intelligence and enlightenment have been chiefly confined to those who availed themselves of the advantages afforded by more temperate climes. Peter himself, the greatest of the Czars, and certainly the most gifted of his race in point of intellect, perfected his education in other countries, and in all his grand enterprises of improvement availed himself of the intellect and experience of other races. Every important improvement introduced into Russia during his reign was the product of some other country, executed under foreign supervision. This, perhaps, more than any thing else, may be said to afford the most striking evidence of the enlarged and progressive character of his mind. Yet the very same practice has been followed to a greater or less extent by all his successors, and still, with the exception of a railroad built by Americans, a telegraph system, a few French fashions, and a movement professing to have for its object the emancipation of the serfs, the country, beyond the limits of the sea-port districts and those parts bordering on the States of Germany, has advanced but little toward civilization since the reign of Peter.
With such a vast extent of territory, and such a variety of climates as it must necessarily embrace, it may seem rather a broad assertion to say that climate can be any obstacle to Russian civilization; but let us glance for a moment at the general character of the country. Between the sixtieth and seventy-eighth degrees of north latitude, embracing a considerable portion of European and Asiatic Russia, the winters are exceedingly long and severe, the summers so short that but little dependence can be placed upon crops. The greater part of this region consists of lakes, swamps, forests of pine, and extensive and barren plains. The mines of Siberia may be regarded as the most valuable feature in this desolate region. The production of flax and hemp in the province of Petersburg, and the lumber products of the forests which are accessible to the capital, give some importance to such portions as border on the southern and European limit of this great belt; but its general features are opposed to agricultural progress. Whatever of civilization can exist within it must be of forced growth, and be maintained under the most adverse circumstances. South of this, between the fifty-fifth and sixtieth degrees of latitude, comes a still wider and more extensive region, comprising St. Petersburg, Riga, Moscow, Smolensk, and a portion of Irkutsk and Nijni Novgorod. Here the summers are longer and the winters not quite so severe; but a large portion of the country consists of forests, sterile plains, and extensive marshes, and much of it is entirely unfit for cultivation. The European portions are well settled, and corn, flax, and hemp are produced wherever the land is available, and large bands of cattle roam over many parts of the country. In its general aspect, however, considering the duration and severity of the winters, and the large proportion of unavailable lands, I do not think it can ever become very productive in an agricultural point of view. Between fifty and fifty-five degrees latitude, embracing the valley of the Volga, is a more favored region, abounding in fertile lands, and the summers are longer, but the winters are still severe, especially in the eastern portions. From latitude forty-three to fifty, embracing portions of Kief, the Caucasus, and other southern possessions of the empire, the winters are comparatively temperate, and the summers warm and long; but here, again, a great portion of this country consists of mountains, arid plains, and deserts, and it is subject to extreme and terrible droughts. Here is a vast extent of territory, comprising about one hundred and sixty-five degrees of longitude and thirty-five of latitude, which contains within its limits a greater variety of bad climates, and a greater amount of land unavailable for any purposes of human life, than any equal compass of territory upon the globe, if we except Africa, which is at least doubtful. Within the limits of this vast, and, for the most part, inhospitable region, we find nearly all the races who, as far back as the history of mankind dates, have been the most addicted to predatory wars, and the indulgence of every savage propensity growing out of an untamable nature – Tartars, Cossacks, gipsies, Turks, Circassians, Georgians, etc., and the Russians proper, whose wild Sclavonic blood contains very nearly all the vices and virtues that circulate through the veins of all these races, besides many enterprising and unscrupulous traits of character to which the inferior tribes could never aspire. Here we have a mixed population, estimated in 1856 at seventy-one millions, including North American possessions and tributary tribes, a great part of it composed of totally incongruous elements, and with a variety of religions, embracing about nine millions of Roman, Armenian, and irregular Greek Catholics, Lutherans, Mohammedans, Israelites, and Buddhists – the national creed being the Greco-Russe, which, it is estimated, is professed by about fifty millions of the inhabitants, including, of course, infants and young children, and many others who know nothing about it. To keep all these incongruous elements in order, and provide against foreign invasion, requires a standing army of 577,859 troops “for grand operations,” as the last almanac expresses it, besides various corps de reserve, and a navy of 186 from steamers, 41 large sailing vessels, and numerous gun-boats and smaller vessels, in the Baltic, the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea, the White Sea, and the Sea of Azof. More than seven eighths of these are frozen up and totally unavailable for six months every year. It is estimated that, after allowing for the forces necessary to protect the home possessions of the empire, of which Russian Poland is the most troublesome, the number of troops that can be brought into active offensive operation does not, under ordinary circumstances, exceed two hundred thousand men, and it must be obvious, considering that Russia has but little external sea-board, and must submit to the rigors of a climate which locks up the best part of her navy at least half of every year, that she can never attain any great strength as a naval power. I am inclined to believe, therefore, that while this great nation, or combination of nations, is, from the very nature of its climate and topography, almost impregnable to foreign invasion, it can never become a very formidable power at any great distance from home; and there are considerations connected with its form of government, and the difficulty or impracticability of changing it, which, in my opinion, forms an insuperable obstacle to the education of the people, and such general dissemination of intelligence among the masses as will entitle them to take the highest rank among civilized nations. Nor does the history of Russia during past ages afford much encouragement for a different view of the future. Democracy existed for several centuries before the country became subject to despotic rule, and from the ninth to the fifteenth century the aristocracy possessed no hereditary privileges; the offices of state were accessible to all, and the peasantry enjoyed personal liberty. It was not until the reign of Peter the Great – the high-priest of civilization – that the serfs became absolute slaves subject to sale, with or without the lands upon which they lived. In respect to political liberty, there has been little, if any advance since the reign of the Empress Catherine, who accorded some elective privileges to certain classes of her subjects in the provinces, and reduced the administration of the laws to something like a system. The absurd pretense of Alexander I. in according to the Senate the right of remonstrating against imperial decrees is perfectly in keeping with all grants of power made by the sovereigns of Russia to their subjects. There is not, and can not be in the nature of things, a limited despotism. As soon as the subjects possess constitutional rights at all binding upon the supreme authority, it becomes another form of government. The great difficulty in Russia is, that the sovereign can not divest himself of any substantial part of his power without adding to that of the nobles and the aristocracy, who are already, by birth, position, and instinct, the class most to be feared, and most inimical to the process of freedom. It is not altogether the ignorance of the masses, therefore, that forms an insuperable barrier to the introduction of more liberal institutions, but the wealth, intelligence, and influence of the higher classes, who neither toil nor spin, but derive their support from the labor of the masses whom they hold in subjection. It is natural enough they should oppose every reform tending to elevate these subordinate classes upon whom they are dependent for all the powers and luxuries of their position. Admitting that the present emperor may have a leaning toward free institutions, and possibly contemplate educating forty or fifty millions of his subjects to run him into the Presidency of Russia, it is obvious that the path is very thorny, and that the position will be well earned if ever he gets there. But these acts of sovereign condescension, although they read very well in newspapers, and serve to entertain mankind with vague ideas of the progress of freedom, are generally the essence of an intense egotism, and amount to nothing more than cunning devices to subvert what little of liberty their subjects may be likely to extort from them by the maintenance of their rights. I do not say that Alexander II. is governed by these motives, but, having no faith in kings or despots of any kind, however good they may be, I can see no reason why he should prove any better than his predecessors. Upon this point let me tell you an anecdote. You are aware, perhaps, that the Finns have a Constitution which allows them to do what they please, provided it be pleasing to the emperor. Like the ukase of Alexander I. to the Senate, and all similar grants of authority, it is not worth the parchment upon which it is written, and in its practical operation is no better than a practical joke. The Finns, however, are a brave, simple minded, and rather superstitious people, and take some pride in this Constitution. It is the ghost of liberty at all events, and they indulge in the hope that some day or other it will fish up the dead body. Not more than a few weeks ago, a small party of these worthy people, on their way to Stockholm for purposes of business or pleasure, were arrested and put in prison by the Russian authorities on the supposition that they differed from the emperor in his interpretation of this liberal Constitution, and were going to Sweden to lay their grievances before their old compatriots. It is quite possible that this was true. I heard complaints made when I was in Helsingfors that there was quite a difference of opinion on the subject. But it is a marvel how they could misunderstand their right under the Constitution, when there is a strong military force stationed at the principal cities of Finland to make it intelligible. So thought the emperor or his subordinates, and put them in jail to give them light. The point in the transaction which strikes me most forcibly is, that a power like that of Russia, after having wrested the province of Finland from Sweden, with an army and navy far inferior to what she now possesses, should be afraid that a handful of Finns should tell a pitiful tale to the King of Sweden, and prevail upon him to take their country back again. If this be the freedom granted under the free Constitution of Finland, the restraints upon personal liberty must be pretty stringent in dependencies where no Constitutions at all exist.
By a natural law, the waves of despotism gather strength and volume as they spread from the central power. It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that the Autocrat of Russia is the least despotic of all the despots in authority. The landed proprietors in the remote provinces too often rule their dependents with an iron rod, and the strong arm of the supreme authority is more frequently exercised in the protection than in the oppression of the lower classes. The tribunals of justice in these districts are corrupt, and the laws, as they are administered by the subordinate officers of the government, afford but little chance of justice to the ignorant masses. The landed proprietors are subjected to various exactments and oppressions from the governors, and these again are at the mercy of the various colleges or departments above them, and so on up to the imperial council and imperial presence. Each class or grade becomes independent, despotic, and corrupt in proportion as they recede from the central authority, having a greater latitude of power, and being less apprehensive of punishment for its abuse. In truth, the nobles and aristocracy are the immediate oppressors of the ignorant masses, who are taught to regard them as demigods, and bow down before them in slavish abasement. Now and then, in extreme cases, where the autocrat discovers abuses which threaten to impair his authority, he sends some of these aspiring gentlemen on a tour of pleasure to Siberia, and thus practically demonstrates that there is a ruling power in the land. As all authority emanates from him, and all responsibility rests with him, so all justice, liberality, fair dealing, and humanity are apt to find in a good sovereign, under such a system, their best friend and most conscientious supporter. The success of his government, the prosperity and happiness of his people, even the perpetuity of the entire political system, depend upon the judicious and equitable use which he makes of his power. There are limits to human forbearance, as sovereigns have discovered by this time. The Czar is but a man, a mere mortal, after all, and can only hold his authority through the consent, indifference, or ignorance of his subjects; but should he oppress them by extraordinary punishments or exactions, or withdraw from them his protection against the petty tyranny of his subordinates, he would find, sooner or later, that the most degraded can be aroused to resentment. It is the belief on the part of the peasantry, of which the population of Russia is in so large a part formed, that the emperor is their friend – that he does not willingly or unnecessarily deprive them of their liberties. This tends to keep them in subjection. Indeed, they have but faint notions of liberty, if any at all, born as they are to a condition of servitude, and reared in abject submission to the governing authorities. They are generally well satisfied if they can get enough to eat; and, when they are not subjected to cruel and unusual abuses, are comparatively happy.
The unreasonable assumptions of power on the part of their immediate governing authorities present a trait common to mankind. We know from experience in our own country that the negro-driver on a Southern plantation – a slave selected from slaves – is often more tyrannical in the use of authority than the overseer or owner. We know that there are hard and unfeeling overseers on many plantations, where the owner is comparatively mild and humane. So far as he knows any thing of the details of his own affairs, his natural disposition accords with his interest, and he is favorable to the kind treatment of his slaves. But he can not permit them to become intelligent beings. They may study all the mechanical arts which may be useful to him – become blacksmiths, carpenters, or machinists, but they must not learn that they are held in servitude, and that the Almighty has given him no natural right to live upon their earnings, or enjoy his pleasure or power at the expense of their labor and their freedom. The same condition of things, with some variation, of course, arising from differences of climate and races, exists in Russia, and the results are not altogether dissimilar. We find idleness, lack of principle, overbearing manners, ignorance, and sensualism a very common characteristic of the superior classes, mingled though it may be with a show of fine manners, and such trivial and superficial accomplishments as may be obtained without much labor. It is a great negro plantation on a large scale, in which the gradation of powers has a depressing tendency, causing them to increase in rigor as they descend, like a stone dropped from a height, which at first might be caught in the open hand, but soon acquires force enough to brain an ox.
One of the effects of the strong coercive powers of the government is perceptible in this, that the greatest latitude prevails in every thing that does not interfere with the maintenance of political authority; and although it is difficult, in such a country, to find much that comes within that category, occasional exceptions may be found. Thus drunkenness, debauchery, indecency, and reckless, prodigal, and filthy habits, are but little regarded, while the slightest approach to the acquisition of a liberal education, or the expression of liberal opinions on any subject connected with public polity, is rigidly prohibited. Most of the English newspapers are excluded from the empire, although if admitted they would have but few general readers among the Russians – certainly not many among the middle or lower classes. No publication on political economy, no work of any kind relating to the science of government or the natural rights of man; nothing, in short, calculated to impair the faith of the people in the necessity of their political servitude, is permitted to enter the country without a most careful examination. A rigid censorship is exercised over the press, the libraries, the public colleges, the schools, and all institutions having in view the education of the people and the dissemination of intelligence. The Censorial Bureau is in itself an important branch of the government, having its representatives diffused throughout every province, in every public institution, and even extending its ramifications into the sacred realms of private life; for it is a well-known fact that a family can not employ a private tutor whose antecedents and political proclivities have not undergone the scrutiny and received the official sanction of the censorial authorities.
How can a country, under such circumstances, be expected to take a high rank among the enlightened nations of the earth? The very germ of its existence is founded in the suppression of intelligence. It may enjoy a limited advancement, but there can be no great progress in any direction which does not tend at the same time to the subversion of a despotic rule. Even the theatres, operas, cafés, and all places of public amusement, are under the same rigid surveillance. No play can be performed, no opera given, no café opened, no garden amusements offered to the public, unless under the supervision and with the sanction of the censorial authorities. In all well-regulated communities there must be, of course, some local or municipal restrictions respecting popular amusements, based upon a regard for public morals, but in this case the question of morality is not taken into much account. Provided there is nothing politically objectionable in the performance, and it has no tendency to make the people better acquainted with the rottenness of courts, the selfishness, wickedness, and insincerity of men in authority, and their own rights as human beings – provided the theme be Jishn za Zara– “Your life for your Czar,” or the exhibition a voluptuous display – provided it be merely a matter of abject adulation or fashionable sensation, the most fastidious censor can find no fault with it. What, then, does the education of the masses amount to? We read of lectures for the diffusion of knowledge among the people; of colleges for young men; of various institutions of learning; of a liberal system of common schools for the poor. All this is very well in its way. A little light is better than none when the road is crooked, and the country abounds in ruts and deep pitfalls. But the lights shed by these institutions are much obscured by the official glasses through which they shine. The building of fortifications; the manufacture of gunpowder; the use of guns and swords; the beauties of rhetoric abounding in the drill manual; the eloquence of batteries and broadsides; the poetry of ditching and draining; the ethics of primary obedience to the authorities, and afterward to God and reason; all that pertains to rapine, bloodshed, and wholesale murder – the noble art of mutilating men in the most effective manner, and the best method of cutting them up or putting them together again when that is done; the horrid sin of using one’s own lights on any internal problem of right or wrong, religion or public policy, when the emperor, in the plenitude of his generosity, furnishes light enough out of his individual head for sixty-five millions of people – these are the principal themes upon which the intellects of the rising generation of Russia are nourished. In the primary schools a select and authorized few are taught reading, writing, and arithmetic, but they seldom get much farther, and not always that far, before subordinate positions in the army or navy are found for them. Their education is indeed very limited, and may be set down as an exception to the general ignorance.
It will thus be seen that the whole system of education has but one object in view, the maintenance of a military despotism. In this it would scarcely be reasonable to search for cause of complaint. Doubtless the acquisition of knowledge is encouraged as far as may be consistent with public security and public peace. But it is obvious that under such a system these people can never emerge from their condition of semi-barbarism. They must continue behind the spirit of the age in all that pertains to the highest order of civilization. Science, in a limited sense, may find a few votaries; the arts may be cultivated to a certain degree; a feeble school of literature may attain the eminence of a national feature; but there can be no general expansion of the intellectual faculties, no enlarged and comprehensive views of life and of human affairs. Whatever these people do must be subservient to military rule; beyond that there can be little advance save in what is palpable to the grosser senses, or what panders to the savagery of their nature. A statesman or a philosopher, with independence enough to think and speak the truth if his views differed from those of the constituted authorities, would be a very dangerous character, and be very apt to pursue his career, in company with all who have hitherto aspired to distinction in that way, beyond the confines of Siberia. Russia may produce many Karasmins to write glowing histories of her wars and conquests, but her Burkes, her Pitts, and her Foxes will be few, and her Shakspeares and her Bacons fewer still. Her Pascal’s Reflections will be tinged with Siberian horrors; her Young’s Night Thoughts will be of the dancing damsels of St. Petersburg; her Vicars of Wakefield will abound in the genial humor of devils and dragons, saints and tortures; and the wit of her Sidney Smiths will have a crack of the knout about it, skinning men’s back’s rather than their backslidings; effective only when it draws human blood, and best approved by the censors when it strikes at human freedom.
We find the results of such a system strongly marked upon the general character. While equals are jealous of each other, inferiors are slavish and superiors tyrannical. It is often the case that overbearing manners and abject humility are centred in the same class or person. Thus the Camarilla are overbearing to the bureaucracy, the bureaucracy to the provincial nobility, and the provincial nobility to the inferior classes. As I said before, it is a sliding-scale of despotism. The worst feature of it is seen in the treatment of women. Among the better classes conventionality has, doubtless, somewhat meliorated their condition. Absolute physical cruelty would be, perhaps, a violation of etiquette and good breeding; but neglect, selfishness, innate coarseness of thought, and a general want of chivalrous appreciation, are too common in the treatment of Russian women not to strike the most casual observer. Certainly the impressions of one who has been taught from infancy to regard the gentler sex as entitled to the most profound respect and chivalrous devotion – to look upon them as beings of a more delicate essence than man, yet infinitely superior in those moral attributes which rise so high above intellect or physical power – are not favorable to the assumptions of Russian civilization. Yet, since the condition of woman is but little better in any part of Europe, it may be that this is one of the fashions imported from France or Germany, and since these two claim to be the most polite and cultivated nations in existence, it is even possible that the Americans – a rude people, who have not yet had time to polish their manners or perfect their customs – may be mistaken in their estimate of the ladies, and will, some day or other, become more Europeanized.
But, in all fairness, if the Russians be a little uncouth in their way, they possess, like bears, a wonderful aptness in learning to dance; if the brutal element is strong in their nature, so also is the capacity to acquire frivolous and meretricious accomplishments. Like all races in which the savage naturally predominates, they delight in the glitter of personal decoration, the allurements of music, dancing, and the gambling-table, and all the luxuries of idleness and sensuous folly – traits which they share pretty generally with the rest of mankind. Tropical gardens, where the thermometer is twenty degrees below zero; feasts and frolics that in a single night may leave them beggars for life; military shows; the smoke and carnage of battle; the worship of their saints and Czars – these are their chief pleasures and most genial occupations.
But, with all this folly and prodigality, there is really a great deal of native generosity in the Russian character. Liberal to a fault in every thing but the affairs of government, they freely bestow their wealth upon charitable institutions, and, whether rich or poor, are ever ready to extend the hand of relief to the distresses of their fellow-creatures. It is rarely they hoard their gains. There are few who do not live up to the full measure of their incomes, and most of them very far beyond. Whether they spend their means for good or for evil, they are at least free from the groveling sin of stinginess. I never met more than one stingy Russian to my knowledge; but let him go. He reaped his reward in the dislike of all who knew him. Toward each other, even the beggars are liberal. There is nothing little or contemptible in the Russian character. Overbearing and despotic they may be; deficient in the gentler traits which grace a more cultivated people; but meanness is not one of their failings. In this they present a striking contrast to a large and influential portion of their North German neighbors, for whose sordid souls Beelzebub might search in vain through the desert wastes that lie upon the little end of a cambric needle.
In some respects the Russians evince a more enlarged appreciation of the world’s progress than many of their European neighbors. They have no fixed prejudices against mechanical improvements of any kind. Quick to appreciate every advance in the useful arts, they are ever ready to accept and put in practical operation whatever they see in other countries better than the product of their own. Thus they adopt English and American machinery, railways, telegraphs, improvements in artillery, and whatever else they deem beneficial, or calculated to augment their prosperity and power as a nation. While in Germany it would be almost an impossibility to introduce the commonest and most obvious improvement in the mechanical arts – if we except railways and telegraphs, which have become a military and political necessity, growing out of the progress of neighboring powers – while many of their fabrics are still made by hand, and their mints, presses, and fire-engines are of almost primeval clumsiness, the Russians eagerly grasp at all novelties, and are wonderfully quick in the comprehension of their uses and advantages. A similar comparison might be made in reference to the freedom of internal trade, and the encouragement given to every industrial pursuit among the people, being the exact reverse of the policy pursued by the German governments. Thus, while we find them backward in the refinements of literature and intellectual culture, it is beyond doubt that they possess wonderful natural capacity to learn. They lack steadiness and perseverance, and are not always governed by the best motives; but in boldness of spirit, disregard of narrow prejudice, ability to conceive and execute what they desire to accomplish, they have few equals and no superiors. Combined with these admirable traits, their wild Sclavonic blood abounds in elements which, upon great occasions, arise to the eminence of a sublime heroism. Brave and patriotic, devoted to their country and their religion, we search the pages of history in vain for a parallel to their sacrifices in the defense of both. Not even the wars of the Greeks and Romans can produce such an example of heroic devotion to the maintenance of national integrity as the burning of Moscow. When an entire people, devoted to their religion, gave up their churches and their shrines to the devouring element; when princes and nobles placed the burning brands to their palaces; when bankers, merchants, and tradesmen freely yielded up their hard-earned gains; when women and children joined the great work of destruction to deliver their country from the hands of a ruthless invader, it may well be said of that sublime flame —