THE NOBLESSE
The Nobles In Early Times--The Mongol Domination--The Tsardom of
Muscovy--Family Dignity--Reforms of Peter the Great--The Nobles Adopt
West-European Conceptions--Abolition of Obligatory Service--Influence of
Catherine II.--The Russian Dvoryanstvo Compared with the French Noblesse
and the English Aristocracy--Russian Titles--Probable Future of the
Russian Noblesse.
Hitherto I have been compelling the reader to move about among what
we should call the lower classes--peasants, burghers, traders, parish
priests, Dissenters, heretics, Cossacks, and the like--and he feels
perhaps inclined to complain that he has had no opportunity of mixing
with what old-fashioned people call gentle-folk and persons of quality.
By way of making amends to him for this reprehensible conduct on my
part, I propose now to present him to the whole Noblesse* in a body, not
only those at present living, but also their near and distant ancestors,
right back to the foundation of the Russian Empire a thousand years ago.
Thereafter I shall introduce him to some of the country families and
invite him to make with me a few country-house visits.
* I use here a foreign, in preference to an English, term,
because the word "Nobility" would convey a false impression.
Etymologically the Russian word "Dvoryanin" means a Courtier
(from Dvor=court); but this term is equally objectionable,
because the great majority of the Dvoryanstvo have nothing
to do with the Court.
In the old times, when Russia was merely a collection of some seventy
independent principalities, each reigning prince was surrounded by
a group of armed men, composed partly of Boyars, or large landed
proprietors, and partly of knights, or soldiers of fortune. These men,
who formed the Noblesse of the time, were to a certain extent under the
authority of the Prince, but they were by no means mere obedient, silent
executors of his will. The Boyars might refuse to take part in his
military expeditions, and the "free-lances" might leave his service
and seek employment elsewhere. If he wished to go to war without their
consent, they could say to him, as they did on one occasion, "You have
planned this yourself, Prince, so we will not go with you, for we knew
nothing of it." Nor was this resistance to the princely will always
merely passive. Once, in the principality of Galitch, the armed men
seized their prince, killed his favourites, burned his mistress, and
made him swear that he would in future live with his lawful wife. To his
successor, who had married the wife of a priest, they spoke thus: "We
have not risen against YOU, Prince, but we will not do reverence to a
priest's wife: we will put her to death, and then you may marry whom you
please." Even the energetic Bogolubski, one of the most remarkable
of the old Princes, did not succeed in having his own way. When he
attempted to force the Boyars he met with stubborn opposition, and was
finally assassinated. From these incidents, which might be indefinitely
multiplied from the old chronicles, we see that in the early period
of Russian history the Boyars and knights were a body of free men,
possessing a considerable amount of political power.
Under the Mongol domination this political equilibrium was destroyed.
When the country had been conquered, the Princes became servile vassals
of the Khan and arbitrary rulers towards their own subjects. The
political significance of the nobles was thereby greatly diminished. It
was not, however, by any means annihilated. Though the Prince no longer
depended entirely on their support, he had an interest in retaining
their services, to protect his territory in case of sudden attack, or
to increase his possessions at the expense of his neighbours when a
convenient opportunity presented itself. Theoretically, such conquests
were impossible, for all removing of the ancient landmarks depended on
the decision of the Khan; but in reality the Khan paid little attention
to the affairs of his vassals so long as the tribute was regularly
paid; and much took place in Russia without his permission. We find,
therefore, in some of the principalities the old relations still
subsisting under Mongol rule. The famous Dmitri of the Don, for
instance, when on his death-bed, speaks thus to his Boyars: "You know
my habits and my character; I was born among you, grew up among you,
governed with you--fighting by your side, showing you honour and love,
and placing you over towns and districts. I loved your children, and
did evil to no one. I rejoiced with you in your joy, mourned with you in
your grief, and called you the princes of my land." Then, turning to his
children, he adds, as a parting advice: "Love your Boyars, my children;
show them the honour which their services merit, and undertake nothing
without their consent."
When the Grand Princes of Moscow brought the other principalities under
their power, and formed them into the Tsardom of Muscovy, the nobles
descended another step in the political scale. So long as there were
many principalities they could quit the service of a Prince as soon as
he gave them reason to be discontented, knowing that they would be well
received by one of his rivals; but now they had no longer any choice.
The only rival of Moscow was Lithuania, and precautions were taken to
prevent the discontented from crossing the Lithuanian frontier. The
nobles were no longer voluntary adherents of a Prince, but had become
subjects of a Tsar; and the Tsars were not as the old Princes had
been. By a violent legal fiction they conceived themselves to be
the successors of the Byzantine Emperors, and created a new court
ceremonial, borrowed partly from Constantinople and partly from the
Mongol Horde. They no longer associated familiarly with the Boyars, and
no longer asked their advice, but treated them rather as menials.
When the nobles entered their august master's presence they prostrated
themselves in Oriental fashion--occasionally as many as thirty
times--and when they incurred his displeasure they were summarily
flogged or executed, according to the Tsar's good pleasure. In
succeeding to the power of the Khans, the Tsars had adopted, we see, a
good deal of the Mongol system of government.
It may seem strange that a class of men which had formerly shown a proud
spirit of independence should have submitted quietly to such humiliation
and oppression without making a serious effort to curb the new power,
which had no longer a Tartar Horde at its back to quell opposition. But
we must remember that the nobles, as well as the Princes, had passed in
the meantime through the school of the Mongol domination. In the course
of two centuries they had gradually become accustomed to despotic rule
in the Oriental sense. If they felt their position humiliating and
irksome, they must have felt, too, how difficult it was to better it.
Their only resource lay in combining against the common oppressor;
and we have only to glance at the motley, disorganised group, as they
cluster round the Tsar, to perceive that combination was extremely
difficult. We can distinguish there the mediatised Princes, still
harbouring designs for the recovery of their independence; the Moscow
Boyars, jealous of their family honour and proud of Muscovite supremacy;
Tartar Murzi, who have submitted to be baptised and have received land
like the other nobles; the Novgorodian magnate, who cannot forget the
ancient glory of his native city; Lithuanian nobles, who find it more
profitable to serve the Tsar than their own sovereign; petty chiefs who
have fled from the opposition of the Teutonic order; and soldiers of
fortune from every part of Russia. Strong, permanent political factors
are not easily formed out of such heterogeneous material.
At the end of the sixteenth century the old dynasty became extinct,
and after a short period of political anarchy, commonly called "the
troublous times" (smutnoe vremya), the Romanof family were raised to the
throne by the will of the people, or at least by those who were assumed
to be its representatives. By this change the Noblesse acquired a
somewhat better position. They were no longer exposed to capricious
tyranny and barbarous cruelty, such as they had experienced at the hands
of Ivan the Terrible, but they did not, as a class, gain any political
influence. There were still rival families and rival factions, but
there were no political parties in the proper sense of the term, and the
highest aim of families and factions was to gain the favour of the Tsar.
The frequent quarrels about precedence which took place among the rival
families at this period form one of the most curious episodes of Russian
history. The old patriarchal conception of the family as a unit, one and
indivisible, was still so strong among these men that the elevation or
degradation of one member of a family was considered to affect deeply
the honour of all the other members. Each noble family had its rank in a
recognised scale of dignity, according to the rank which it held, or had
previously held, in the Tsar's service; and a whole family would have
considered itself dishonoured if one of its members accepted a post
lower than that to which he was entitled. Whenever a vacant place in
the service was filled up, the subordinates of the successful candidate
examined the official records and the genealogical trees of their
families, in order to discover whether some ancestor of their new
superior had not served under one of their own ancestors. If the
subordinate found such a case, he complained to the Tsar that it was not
becoming for him to serve under a man who had less family honour than
himself.
Unfounded complaints of this kind often entailed imprisonment or
corporal punishment, but in spite of this the quarrels for precedence
were very frequent. At the commencement of a campaign many such disputes
were sure to arise, and the Tsar's decision was not always accepted by
the party who considered himself aggrieved. I have met at least with one
example of a great dignitary voluntarily mutilating his hand in order
to escape the necessity of serving under a man whom he considered his
inferior in family dignity. Even at the Tsar's table these rivalries
sometimes produced unseemly incidents, for it was almost impossible
to arrange the places so as to satisfy all the guests. In one recorded
instance a noble who received a place lower than that to which he
considered himself entitled openly declared to the Tsar that he would
rather be condemned to death than submit to such an indignity. In
another instance of a similar kind the refractory guest was put on his
chair by force, but saved his family honour by slipping under the table!
The next transformation of the Noblesse was effected by Peter the
Great. Peter was by nature and position an autocrat, and could brook no
opposition. Having set before himself a great aim, he sought everywhere
obedient, intelligent, energetic instruments to carry out his designs.
He himself served the State zealously--as a common artisan, when he
considered it necessary--and he insisted on all his subjects doing
likewise, under pain of merciless punishment. To noble birth and long
pedigrees he habitually showed a most democratic, or rather autocratic,
indifference. Intent on obtaining the service of living men, he paid no
attention to the claims of dead ancestors, and gave to his servants the
pay and honour which their services merited, irrespectively of birth or
social position. Hence many of his chief coadjutors had no connection
with the old Russian families. Count Yaguzhinski, who long held one of
the most important posts in the State, was the son of a poor sacristan;
Count Devier was a Portuguese by birth, and had been a cabin-boy; Baron
Shafirof was a Jew; Hannibal, who died with the rank of Commander in
Chief, was a negro who had been bought in Constantinople; and his Serene
Highness Prince Menshikof had begun life, it was said, as a baker's
apprentice! For the future, noble birth was to count for nothing. The
service of the State was thrown open to men of all ranks, and personal
merit was to be the only claim to promotion.
This must have seemed to the Conservatives of the time a most
revolutionary and reprehensible proceeding, but it did not satisfy the
reforming tendencies of the great autocrat. He went a step further, and
entirely changed the legal status of the Noblesse. Down to his time the
nobles were free to serve or not as they chose, and those who chose to
serve enjoyed land on what we should call a feudal tenure. Some served
permanently in the military or civil administration, but by far the
greater number lived on their estates, and entered the active service
merely when the militia was called out in view of war. This system was
completely changed when Peter created a large standing army and a
great centralised bureaucracy. By one of those "fell swoops" which
periodically occur in Russian history, he changed the feudal into
freehold tenures, and laid down the principle that all nobles, whatever
their landed possessions might be, should serve the State in the army,
the fleet, or the civil administration, from boyhood to old age. In
accordance with this principle, any noble who refused to serve was not
only deprived of his estate, as in the old times, but was declared to be
a traitor and might be condemned to capital punishment.
The nobles were thus transformed into servants of the State, and the
State in the time of Peter was a hard taskmaster. They complained
bitterly, and with reason, that they had been deprived of their ancient
rights, and were compelled to accept quietly and uncomplainingly
whatever burdens their master chose to place upon them. "Though our
country," they said, "is in no danger of invasion, no sooner is peace
concluded than plans are laid for a new war, which has generally no
other foundation than the ambition of the Sovereign, or perhaps merely
the ambition of one of his Ministers. To please him our peasants are
utterly exhausted, and we ourselves are forced to leave our homes and
families, not as formerly for a single campaign, but for long years. We
are compelled to contract debts and to entrust our estates to thieving
overseers, who commonly reduce them to such a condition that when we
are allowed to retire from the service, in consequence of old age or
illness, we cannot to the end of our lives retrieve our prosperity. In
a word, we are so exhausted and ruined by the keeping up of a standing
army, and by the consequences flowing therefrom, that the most cruel
enemy, though he should devastate the whole Empire, could not cause us
one-half of the injury."*
* These complaints have been preserved by Vockerodt, a
Prussian diplomatic agent of the time.
This Spartan regime, which ruthlessly sacrificed private interests to
considerations of State policy, could not long be maintained in its
pristine severity. It undermined its own foundations by demanding too
much. Draconian laws threatening confiscation and capital punishment
were of little avail. Nobles became monks, inscribed themselves as
merchants, or engaged themselves as domestic servants, in order to
escape their obligations. "Some," says a contemporary, "grow old in
disobedience and have never once appeared in active service. . . . There
is, for instance, Theodore Mokeyef. . . . In spite of the strict orders
sent regarding him no one could ever catch him. Some of those sent
to take him he belaboured with blows, and when he could not beat the
messengers, he pretended to be dangerously ill, or feigned idiocy, and,
running into the pond, stood in the water up to his neck; but as soon
as the messengers were out of sight he returned home and roared like a
lion." *
* Pososhkof, "O skudosti i bogatstve."
After Peter's death the system was gradually relaxed, but the Noblesse
could not be satisfied by partial concessions. Russia had in the
meantime moved, as it were, out of Asia into Europe, and had become
one of the great European Powers. The upper classes had been gradually
learning something of the fashions, the literature, the institutions,
and the moral conceptions of Western Europe, and the nobles naturally
compared the class to which they belonged with the aristocracies of
Germany and France. For those who were influenced by the new foreign
ideas the comparison was humiliating. In the West the Noblesse was a
free and privileged class, proud of its liberty, its rights, and its
culture; whereas in Russia the nobles were servants of the State,
without privileges, without dignity, subject to corporal punishment, and
burdened with onerous duties from which there was no escape. Thus arose
in that section of the Noblesse which had some acquaintance with Western
civilisation a feeling of discontent, and a desire to gain a social
position similar to that of the nobles in France and Germany. These
aspirations were in part realised by Peter III., who in 1762 abolished
the principle of obligatory service. His consort, Catherine II., went
much farther in the same direction, and inaugurated a new epoch in the
history of the Dvoryanstvo, a period in which its duties and obligations
fell into the background, and its rights and privileges came to the
front.
Catherine had good reason to favour the Noblesse. As a foreigner and
a usurper, raised to the throne by a Court conspiracy, she could not
awaken in the masses that semi-religious veneration which the legitimate
Tsars have always enjoyed, and consequently she had to seek support
in the upper classes, who were less rigid and uncompromising in their
conceptions of legitimacy. She confirmed, therefore, the ukaz which
abolished obligatory service of the nobles, and sought to gain their
voluntary service by honours and rewards. In her manifestoes she always
spoke of them in the most flattering terms; and tried to convince them
that the welfare of the country depended on their loyalty and devotion.
Though she had no intention of ceding any of her political power, she
formed the nobles of each province into a corporation, with periodical
assemblies, which were supposed to resemble the French Provincial
Parliaments, and entrusted to each of these corporations a large part
of the local administration. By these and similar means, aided by her
masculine energy and feminine tact, she made herself very popular,
and completely changed the old conceptions about the public service.
Formerly service had been looked on as a burden; now it came to be
looked on as a privilege. Thousands who had retired to their estates
after the publication of the liberation edict now flocked back and
sought appointments, and this tendency was greatly increased by the
brilliant campaigns against the Turks, which excited the patriotic
feelings and gave plentiful opportunities of promotion. "Not only landed
proprietors," it is said in a comedy of the time,* "but all men, even
shopkeepers and cobblers, aim at becoming officers, and the man who
has passed his whole life without official rank seems to be not a human
being."
* Knyazhnina, "Khvastun."
And Catherine did more than this. She shared the idea--generally
accepted throughout Europe since the brilliant reign of Louis XIV.--that
a refined, pomp-loving, pleasure-seeking Court Noblesse was not only the
best bulwark of Monarchy, but also a necessary ornament of every highly
civilised State; and as she ardently desired that her country should
have the reputation of being highly civilised, she strove to create
this national ornament. The love of French civilisation, which already
existed among the upper classes of her subjects, here came to her aid,
and her efforts in this direction were singularly successful. The
Court of St. Petersburg became almost as brilliant, as galant, and as
frivolous as the Court of Versailles. All who aimed at high honours
adopted French fashions, spoke the French language, and affected an
unqualified admiration for French classical literature. The Courtiers
talked of the point d'honneur, discussed the question as to what
was consistent with the dignity of a noble, sought to display "that
chivalrous spirit which constitutes the pride and ornament of France";
and looked back with horror on the humiliating position of their fathers
and grandfathers. "Peter the Great," writes one of them, "beat all who
surrounded him, without distinction of family or rank; but now, many of
us would certainly prefer capital punishment to being beaten or flogged,
even though the castigation were applied by the sacred hands of the
Lord's Anointed."
The tone which reigned in the Court circle of St. Petersburg spread
gradually towards the lower ranks of the Dvoryanstvo, and it seemed to
superficial observers that a very fair imitation of the French Noblesse
had been produced; but in reality the copy was very unlike the model.
The Russian Dvoryanin easily learned the language and assumed the
manners of the French gentilhomme, and succeeded in changing his
physical and intellectual exterior; but all those deeper and more
delicate parts of human nature which are formed by the accumulated
experience of past generations could not be so easily and rapidly
changed. The French gentilhomme of the eighteenth century was the direct
descendant of the feudal baron, with the fundamental conceptions of his
ancestors deeply embedded in his nature. He had not, indeed, the old
haughty bearing towards the Sovereign, and his language was tinged with
the fashionable democratic philosophy of the time; but he possessed
a large intellectual and moral inheritance that had come down to him
directly from the palmy days of feudalism--an inheritance which even the
Great Revolution, which was then preparing, could not annihilate. The
Russian noble, on the contrary, had received from his ancestors entirely
different traditions. His father and grandfather had been conscious
of the burdens rather than the privileges of the class to which they
belonged. They had considered it no disgrace to receive corporal
punishment, and had been jealous of their honour, not as gentlemen or
descendants of Boyars, but as Brigadiers, College Assessors, or Privy
Counsellors. Their dignity had rested not on the grace of God, but
on the will of the Tsar. Under these circumstances even the proudest
magnate of Catherine's Court, though he might speak French as fluently
as his mother tongue, could not be very deeply penetrated with the
conception of noble blood, the sacred character of nobility, and the
numerous feudal ideas interwoven with these conceptions. And in adopting
the outward forms of a foreign culture the nobles did not, it seems,
gain much in true dignity. "The old pride of the nobles has fallen!"
exclaims one who had more genuine aristocratic feeling than his
fellows.* "There are no longer any honourable families; but merely
official rank and personal merits. All seek official rank, and as all
cannot render direct services, distinctions are sought by every possible
means--by flattering the Monarch and toadying the important personages."
There was considerable truth in this complaint, but the voice of this
solitary aristocrat was as of one crying in the wilderness. The whole of
the educated classes--men of old family and parvenus alike--were, with
few exceptions, too much engrossed with place-hunting to attend to such
sentimental wailing.
* Prince Shtcherbatof.
If the Russian Noblesse was thus in its new form but a very imperfect
imitation of its French model, it was still more unlike the English
aristocracy. Notwithstanding the liberal phrases in which Catherine
habitually indulged, she never had the least intention of ceding one
jot or tittle of her autocratic power, and the Noblesse as a class
never obtained even a shadow of political influence. There was no real
independence under the new airs of dignity and hauteur. In all their
acts and openly expressed opinions the courtiers were guided by the
real or supposed wishes of the Sovereign, and much of their political
sagacity was employed in endeavouring to discover what would please
her. "People never talk politics in the salons," says a contemporary
witness,* "not even to praise the Government. Fear has produced habits of
prudence, and the Frondeurs of the Capital express their opinions only
in the confidence of intimate friendship or in a relationship still more
confidential. Those who cannot bear this constraint retire to Moscow,
which cannot be called the centre of opposition, for there is no such
thing as opposition in a country with an autocratic Government, but
which is the capital of the discontented." And even there the discontent
did not venture to show itself in the Imperial presence. "In Moscow,"
says another witness, accustomed to the obsequiousness of Versailles,
"you might believe yourself to be among republicans who have just thrown
off the yoke of a tyrant, but as soon as the Court arrives you see
nothing but abject slaves."**
* Segur, long Ambassador of France at the Court of
Catherine.
** Sabathier de Cabres, "Catherine II. et la Cour de Russie
en 1772."
Though thus excluded from direct influence in political affairs the
Noblesse might still have acquired a certain political significance in
the State, by means of the Provincial Assemblies, and by the part
they took in local administration; but in reality they had neither the
requisite political experience nor the requisite patience, nor even
the desire to pursue such a policy. The majority of the proprietors
preferred the chances of promotion in the Imperial service to the
tranquil life of a country gentleman; and those who resided permanently
on their estates showed indifference or positive antipathy to everything
connected with the local administration. What was officially described
as "a privilege conferred on the nobles for their fidelity, and for
the generous sacrifice of their lives in their country's cause," was
regarded by those who enjoyed it as a new kind of obligatory service--an
obligation to supply judges and officers of rural police.
If we require any additional proof that the nobles amidst all these
changes were still as dependent as ever on the arbitrary will or caprice
of the Monarch, we have only to glance at their position in the time
of Paul I., the capricious, eccentric, violent son and successor of
Catherine. The autobiographical memoirs of the time depict in vivid
colours the humiliating position of even the leading men in the State,
in constant fear of exciting by act, word, or look the wrath of the
Sovereign. As we read these contemporary records we seem to have before
us a picture of ancient Rome under the most despotic and capricious
of her Emperors. Irritated and embittered before his accession to the
throne by the haughty demeanour of his mother's favourites, Paul lost no
opportunity of showing his contempt for aristocratic pretensions, and
of humiliating those who were supposed to harbour them. "Apprenez,
Monsieur," he said angrily on one occasion to Dumouriez, who had
accidentally referred to one of the "considerable" personages of the
Court, "Apprenez qu'il n'y a pas de considerable ici, que la personne a
laquelle je parle et pendant le temps que je lui parle!"*
* This saying is often falsely attributed to Nicholas. The
anecdote is related by Segur.
From the time of Catherine down to the accession of Alexander II. in
1855 no important change was made in the legal status of the Noblesse,
but a gradual change took place in its social character by the continual
influx of Western ideas and Western culture. The exclusively French
culture in vogue at the Court of Catherine assumed a more cosmopolitan
colouring, and permeated downwards till all who had any pretensions to
being civilises spoke French with tolerable fluency and possessed at
least a superficial acquaintance with the literature of Western Europe.
What chiefly distinguished them in the eye of the law from the other
classes was the privilege of possessing "inhabited estates"--that is to
say, estates with serfs. By the emancipation of the serfs in 1861 this
valuable privilege was abolished, and about one-half of their landed
property passed into the hands of the peasantry. By the administrative
reforms which have since taken place, any little significance which the
provincial corporations may have possessed has been annihilated. Thus
at the present day the nobles are on a level with the other classes with
regard to the right of possessing landed property and the administration
of local affairs.
From this rapid sketch the reader will easily perceive that the Russian
Noblesse has had a peculiar historical development. In Germany, France,
and England the nobles were early formed into a homogeneous organised
body by the political conditions in which they were placed. They had to
repel the encroaching tendencies of the Monarchy on the one hand, and
of the bourgeoisie on the other; and in this long struggle with powerful
rivals they instinctively held together and developed a vigorous esprit
de corps. New members penetrated into their ranks, but these intruders
were so few in number that they were rapidly assimilated without
modifying the general character or recognised ideals of the class, and
without rudely disturbing the fiction of purity of blood. The class thus
assumed more and more the nature of a caste with a peculiar intellectual
and moral culture, and stoutly defended its position and privileges
till the ever-increasing power of the middle classes undermined its
influence. Its fate in different countries has been different. In
Germany it clung to its feudal traditions, and still preserves its
social exclusiveness. In France it was deprived of its political
influence by the Monarchy and crushed by the Revolution. In England
it moderated its pretensions, allied itself with the middle classes,
created under the disguise of constitutional monarchy an aristocratic
republic, and conceded inch by inch, as necessity demanded, a share of
its political influence to the ally that had helped it to curb the Royal
power. Thus the German baron, the French gentilhomme, and the English
nobleman represent three distinct, well-marked types; but amidst all
their diversities they have much in common. They have all preserved to
a greater or less extent a haughty consciousness of innate
inextinguishable superiority over the lower orders, together with a more
or less carefully disguised dislike for the class which has been, and
still is, an aggressive rival.
The Russian Noblesse has not these characteristics. It was formed out of
more heterogeneous materials, and these materials did not spontaneously
combine to form an organic whole, but were crushed into a conglomerate
mass by the weight of the autocratic power. It never became a
semi-independent factor in the State. What rights and privileges it
possesses it received from the Monarchy, and consequently it has no
deep-rooted jealousy or hatred of the Imperial prerogative. On the other
hand, it has never had to struggle with the other social classes, and
therefore it harbours towards them no feelings of rivalry or hostility.
If we hear a Russian noble speak with indignation of autocracy or with
acrimony of the bourgeoisie, we may be sure that these feelings have
their source, not in traditional conceptions, but in principles learned
from the modern schools of social and political philosophy. The class
to which he belongs has undergone so many transformations that it has no
hoary traditions or deep-rooted prejudices, and always willingly adapts
itself to existing conditions. Indeed, it may be said in general that it
looks more to the future than the past, and is ever ready to accept any
new ideas that wear the badge of progress. Its freedom from traditions
and prejudices makes it singularly susceptible of generous enthusiasm
and capable of vigorous spasmodic action, but calm moral courage and
tenacity of purpose are not among its prominent attributes. In a word,
we find in it neither the peculiar virtues nor the peculiar vices which
are engendered and fostered by an atmosphere of political liberty.
However we may explain the fact, there is no doubt that the
Russian Noblesse has little or nothing of what we call aristocratic
feeling--little or nothing of that haughty, domineering, exclusive
spirit which we are accustomed to associate with the word aristocracy.
We find plenty of Russians who are proud of their wealth, of their
culture, or of their official position, but we rarely find a Russian
who is proud of his birth or imagines that the fact of his having a
long pedigree gives him any right to political privileges or social
consideration. Hence there is a certain amount of truth in the
oft-repeated saying that there is in reality no aristocracy in Russia.
Certainly the Noblesse as a whole cannot be called an aristocracy. If
the term is to be used at all, it must be applied to a group of families
which cluster around the Court and form the highest ranks of the
Noblesse. This social aristocracy contains many old families, but its
real basis is official rank and general culture rather than pedigree or
blood. The feudal conceptions of noble birth, good family, and the like
have been adopted by some of its members, but do not form one of
its conspicuous features. Though habitually practising a certain
exclusiveness, it has none of those characteristics of a caste which
we find in the German Adel, and is utterly unable to understand such
institutions as Tafelfähigkeit, by which a man who has not a pedigree of
a certain length is considered unworthy to sit down at a royal table.
It takes rather the English aristocracy as its model, and harbours the
secret hope of one day obtaining a social and political position similar
to that of the nobility and gentry of England. Though it has no peculiar
legal privileges, its actual position in the Administration and at
Court gives its members great facilities for advancement in the public
service. On the other hand, its semi-bureaucratic character, together
with the law and custom of dividing landed property among the children
at the death of their parents, deprives it of stability. New men force
their way into it by official distinction, whilst many of the old
families are compelled by poverty to retire from its ranks. The son of
a small proprietor, or even of a parish priest, may rise to the highest
offices of State, whilst the descendants of the half-mythical Rurik may
descend to the position of peasants. It is said that not very long ago
a certain Prince Krapotkin gained his living as a cabman in St.
Petersburg!
It is evident, then, that this social aristocracy must not be confounded
with the titled families. Titles do not possess the same value in Russia
as in Western Europe. They are very common--because the titled families
are numerous, and all the children bear the titles of the parents even
while the parents are still alive--and they are by no means always
associated with official rank, wealth, social position, or distinction
of any kind. There are hundreds of princes and princesses who have not
the right to appear at Court, and who would not be admitted into what is
called in St. Petersburg la societe, or indeed into refined society in
any country.
The only genuine Russian title is Knyaz, commonly translated "Prince."
It is borne by the descendants of Rurik, of the Lithuanian Prince
Ghedimin, and of the Tartar Khans and Murzi officially recognised by the
Tsars. Besides these, there are fourteen families who have adopted it by
Imperial command during the last two centuries. The titles of count
and baron are modern importations, beginning with the time of Peter
the Great. From Peter and his successors about seventy families have
received the title of count and ten that of baron. The latter are all,
with two exceptions, of foreign extraction, and are mostly descended
from Court bankers.*
* Besides these, there are of course the German counts and
barons of the Baltic Provinces, who are Russian subjects.
There is a very common idea that Russian nobles are as a rule enormously
rich. This is a mistake. The majority of them are poor. At the time of
the Emancipation, in 1861, there were 100,247 landed proprietors, and
of these, more than 41,000 were possessors of less than twenty-one male
serfs--that is to say, were in a condition of poverty. A proprietor who
was owner of 500 serfs was not considered as by any means very rich, and
yet there were only 3,803 proprietors belonging in that category. There
were a few, indeed, whose possessions were enormous. Count Sheremetief,
for instance, possessed more than 150,000 male serfs, or in other words
more than 300,000 souls; and thirty years ago Count Orloff-Davydof
owned considerably more than half a million of acres. The Demidof family
derive colossal revenues from their mines, and the Strogonofs have
estates which, if put together, would be sufficient in extent to form a
good-sized independent State in Western Europe. The very rich families,
however, are not numerous. The lavish expenditure in which Russian
nobles often indulge indicates too frequently not large fortune, but
simply foolish ostentation and reckless improvidence.
Perhaps, after having spoken so much about the past history of the
Noblesse, I ought to endeavour to cast its horoscope, or at least to
say something of its probable future. Though predictions are always
hazardous, it is sometimes possible, by tracing the great lines of
history in the past, to follow them for a little distance into the
future. If it be allowable to apply this method of prediction in
the present matter, I should say that the Russian Dvoryanstvo will
assimilate with the other classes, rather than form itself into an
exclusive corporation. Hereditary aristocracies may be preserved--or at
least their decomposition may be retarded--where they happen to exist,
but it seems that they can no longer be created. In Western Europe there
is a large amount of aristocratic sentiment, both in the nobles and in
the people; but it exists in spite of, rather than in consequence of,
actual social conditions. It is not a product of modern society, but an
heirloom that has come down to us from feudal times, when power, wealth,
and culture were in the hands of a privileged few. If there ever was in
Russia a period corresponding to the feudal times in Western Europe,
it has long since been forgotten. There is very little aristocratic
sentiment either in the people or in the nobles, and it is difficult to
imagine any source from which it could now be derived. More than this,
the nobles do not desire to make such an acquisition. In so far as
they have any political aspirations, they aim at securing the political
liberty of the people as a whole, and not at acquiring exclusive rights
and privileges for their own class.
In that section which I have called a social aristocracy there are a
few individuals who desire to gain exclusive political influence for
the class to which they belong, but there is very little chance of their
succeeding. If their desires were ever by chance realised, we should
probably have a repetition of the scene which occurred in 1730. When in
that year some of the great families raised the Duchess of Courland to
the throne on condition of her ceding part of her power to a supreme
council, the lower ranks of the Noblesse compelled her to tear up the
constitution which she had signed! Those who dislike the autocratic
power dislike the idea of an aristocratic oligarchy infinitely more.
Nobles and people alike seem to hold instinctively the creed of the
French philosopher, who thought it better to be governed by a lion of
good family than by a hundred rats of his own species.
Of the present condition of the Noblesse I shall again have occasion to
speak when I come to consider the consequences of the Emancipation.