MOSCOW AND THE SLAVOPHILS
Two Ancient Cities--Kief Not a Good Point for Studying Old Russian
National Life--Great Russians and Little Russians--Moscow--Easter Eve
in the Kremlin--Curious Custom--Anecdote of the Emperor
Nicholas--Domiciliary Visits of the Iberian Madonna--The Streets of
Moscow--Recent Changes in the Character of the City--Vulgar Conception
of the Slavophils--Opinion Founded on Personal Acquaintance--Slavophil
Sentiment a Century Ago--Origin and Development of the Slavophil
Doctrine--Slavophilism Essentially Muscovite--The Panslavist
Element--The Slavophils and the Emancipation.
In the last chapter, as in many of the preceding ones, the reader must
have observed that at one moment there was a sudden break, almost
a solution of continuity, in Russian national life. The Tsardom of
Muscovy, with its ancient Oriental costumes and Byzantine traditions,
unexpectedly disappears, and the Russian Empire, clad in modern garb
and animated with the spirit of modern progress, steps forward uninvited
into European history. Of the older civilisation, if civilisation it can
be called, very little survived the political transformation, and that
little is generally supposed to hover ghostlike around Kief and Moscow.
To one or other of these towns, therefore, the student who desires
to learn something of genuine old Russian life, untainted by foreign
influences, naturally wends his way. For my part I thought first of
settling for a time in Kief, the oldest and most revered of Russian
cities, where missionaries from Byzantium first planted Christianity on
Russian soil, and where thousands of pilgrims still assemble yearly
from far and near to prostrate themselves before the Holy Icons in the
churches and to venerate the relics of the blessed saints and martyrs in
the catacombs of the great monastery. I soon discovered, however, that
Kief, though it represents in a certain sense the Byzantine traditions
so dear to the Russian people, is not a good point of observation for
studying the Russian character. It was early exposed to the ravages of
the nomadic tribes of the Steppe, and when it was liberated from those
incursions it was seized by the Poles and Lithuanians, and remained for
centuries under their domination. Only in comparatively recent times
did it begin to recover its Russian character--a university having been
created there for that purpose after the Polish insurrection of 1830.
Even now the process of Russification is far from complete, and the
Russian elements in the population are far from being pure in the
nationalist sense. The city and the surrounding country are, in fact,
Little Russian rather than Great Russian, and between these two sections
of the population there are profound differences--differences of
language, costume, traditions, popular songs, proverbs, folk-lore,
domestic arrangements, mode of life, and Communal organisation. In these
and other respects the Little Russians, South Russians, Ruthenes,
or Khokhly, as they are variously designated, differ from the Great
Russians of the North, who form the predominant factor in the
Empire, and who have given to that wonderful structure its essential
characteristics. Indeed, if I did not fear to ruffle unnecessarily the
patriotic susceptibilities of my Great Russian friends who have a pet
theory on this subject, I should say that we have here two distinct
nationalities, further apart from each other than the English and the
Scotch. The differences are due, I believe, partly to ethnographical
peculiarities and partly to historic conditions.
As it was the energetic Great Russian empire-builders and not the
half-dreamy, half-astute, sympathetic descendants of the Free Cossacks
that I wanted to study, I soon abandoned my idea of settling in the Holy
City on the Dnieper, and chose Moscow as my point of observation; and
here, during several years, I spent regularly some of the winter months.
The first few weeks of my stay in the ancient capital of the Tsars were
spent in the ordinary manner of intelligent tourists. After mastering
the contents of a guide-book I carefully inspected all the officially
recognised objects of interest--the Kremlin, with its picturesque towers
and six centuries of historical associations; the Cathedrals, containing
the venerated tombs of martyrs, saints, and Tsars; the old churches,
with their quaint, archaic, richly decorated Icons; the "Patriarchs'
Treasury," rich in jewelled ecclesiastical vestments and vessels of
silver and gold; the ancient and the modern palace; the Ethnological
Museum, showing the costumes and physiognomy of all the various races in
the Empire; the archaeological collections, containing many objects that
recall the barbaric splendour of old Muscovy; the picture-gallery, with
Ivanof's gigantic picture, in which patriotic Russian critics discover
occult merits which place it above anything that Western Europe has yet
produced! Of course I climbed up to the top of the tall belfry which
rejoices in the name of "Ivan the Great," and looked down on the "gilded
domes"* of the churches, and bright green roofs of the houses, and far
away, beyond these, the gently undulating country with the "Sparrow
Hills," from which Napoleon is said, in cicerone language, to have
"gazed upon the doomed city." Occasionally I walked about the bazaars
in the hope of finding interesting specimens of genuine native
art-industry, and was urgently invited to purchase every conceivable
article which I did not want. At midday or in the evening I visited the
most noted traktirs, and made the acquaintance of the caviar, sturgeons,
sterlets, and other native delicacies for which these institutions
are famous--deafened the while by the deep tones of the colossal
barrel-organ, out of all proportion to the size of the room; and in
order to see how the common people spent their evenings I looked in at
some of the more modest traktirs, and gazed with wonder, not unmixed
with fear, at the enormous quantity of weak tea which the inmates
consumed.
* Allowance must be made here for poetical licence. In
reality, very few of the domes are gilt. The great majority
of them are painted green, like the roofs of the houses.
Since these first weeks of my sojourn in Moscow more than thirty years
have passed, and many of my early impressions have been blurred by time,
but one scene remains deeply graven on my memory. It was Easter Eve,
and I had gone with a friend to the Kremlin to witness the customary
religious ceremonies. Though the rain was falling heavily, an immense
number of people had assembled in and around the Cathedral of the
Assumption. The crowd was of the most mixed kind. There stood the
patient bearded muzhik in his well-worn sheepskin; the big, burly,
self-satisfied merchant in his long black glossy kaftan; the noble with
fashionable great-coat and umbrella; thinly clad old women shivering
in the cold, and bright-eyed young damsels with their warm cloaks drawn
closely round them; old men with long beard, wallet, and pilgrim's
staff; and mischievous urchins with faces for the moment preternaturally
demure. Each right hand, of old and young alike, held a lighted taper,
and these myriads of flickering little flames produced a curious
illumination, giving to the surrounding buildings a weird
picturesqueness which they do not possess in broad daylight. All stood
patiently waiting for the announcement of the glad tidings: "He is
risen!" As midnight approached, the hum of voices gradually ceased,
till, as the clock struck twelve, the deep-toned bell on "Ivan the
Great" began to toll, and in answer to this signal all the bells in
Moscow suddenly sent forth a merry peal. Each bell--and their name is
legion--seemed frantically desirous of drowning its neighbour's voice,
the solemn boom of the great one overhead mingling curiously with the
sharp, fussy "ting-a-ting-ting" of diminutive rivals. If demons dwell
in Moscow and dislike bell-ringing, as is generally supposed, then
there must have been at that moment a general stampede of the powers of
darkness such as is described by Milton in his poem on the Nativity, and
as if this deafening din were not enough, big guns were fired in rapid
succession from a battery of artillery close at hand! The noise seemed
to stimulate the religious enthusiasm, and the general excitement had
a wonderful effect on a Russian friend who accompanied me. When in his
normal condition that gentleman was a quiet, undemonstrative person,
devoted to science, an ardent adherent of Western civilisation in
general and of Darwinism in particular, and a thorough sceptic with
regard to all forms of religious belief; but the influence of the
surroundings was too much for his philosophical equanimity. For a moment
his orthodox Muscovite soul awoke from its sceptical, cosmopolitan
lethargy. After crossing himself repeatedly--an act of devotion which I
had never before seen him perform--he grasped my arm, and, pointing to
the crowd, said in an exultant tone of voice, "Look there! There is a
sight that you can see nowhere but in the 'White-stone City.'* Are not
the Russians a religious people?"
*Belokamenny, meaning "of white stone," is one of the
popular names of Moscow.
To this unexpected question I gave a monosyllabic assent, and refrained
from disturbing my friend's new-born enthusiasm by any discordant note;
but I must confess that this sudden outburst of deafening noise and
the dazzling light aroused in my heretical breast feelings of a warlike
rather than a religious kind. For a moment I could imagine myself in
ancient Moscow, and could fancy the people being called out to repel a
Tartar horde already thundering at the gates!
The service lasted two or three hours, and terminated with the curious
ceremony of blessing the Easter cakes, which were ranged--each one with
a lighted taper stuck in it--in long rows outside of the cathedral. A
not less curious custom practised at this season is that of exchanging
kisses of fraternal love. Theoretically one ought to embrace and be
embraced by all present--indicating thereby that all are brethren in
Christ--but the refinements of modern life have made innovations in the
practice, and most people confine their salutations to their friends
and acquaintances. When two friends meet during that night or on the
following day, the one says, "Christos voskres!" ("Christ hath risen!");
and the other replies, "Vo istine voskres!" ("In truth he hath risen!").
They then kiss each other three times on the right and left cheek
alternately. The custom is more or less observed in all classes of
society, and the Emperor himself conforms to it.
This reminds me of an anecdote which is related of the Emperor Nicholas
I., tending to show that he was not so devoid of kindly human feelings
as his imperial and imperious exterior suggested. On coming out of his
cabinet one Easter morning he addressed to the soldier who was mounting
guard at the door the ordinary words of salutation, "Christ hath risen!"
and received instead of the ordinary reply, a flat contradiction--"Not
at all, your Imperial Majesty!" Astounded by such an unexpected
answer--for no one ventured to dissent from Nicholas even in the most
guarded and respectful terms--he instantly demanded an explanation. The
soldier, trembling at his own audacity, explained that he was a Jew,
and could not conscientiously admit the fact of the Resurrection. This
boldness for conscience' sake so pleased the Tsar that he gave the man a
handsome Easter present.
A quarter of a century after the Easter Eve above mentioned--or, to be
quite accurate, on the 26th of May, 1896--I again find myself in the
Kremlin on the occasion of a great religious ceremony--a ceremony
which shows that "the White-stone City" on the Moskva is still in some
respects the capital of Holy Russia. This time my post of observation is
inside the cathedral, which is artistically draped with purple hangings
and crowded with the most distinguished personages of the Empire, all
arrayed in gorgeous apparel--Grand Dukes and Grand Duchesses, Imperial
Highnesses and High Excellencies, Metropolitans and Archbishops,
Senators and Councillors of State, Generals and Court dignitaries. In
the centre of the building, on a high, richly decorated platform, sits
the Emperor with his Imperial Consort, and his mother, the widowed
Consort of Alexander III. Though Nicholas II. has not the colossal
stature which has distinguished so many of the Romanofs, he is well
built, holds himself erect, and shows a quiet dignity in his movements;
while his face, which resembles that of his cousin, the Prince of Wales,
wears a kindly, sympathetic expression. The Empress looks even more than
usually beautiful, in a low dress cut in the ancient fashion, her thick
brown hair, dressed most simply without jewellery or other ornaments,
falling in two long ringlets over her white shoulders. For the moment,
her attire is much simpler than that of the Empress Dowager, who wears
a diamond crown and a great mantle of gold brocade, lined and edged
with ermine, the long train displaying in bright-coloured embroidery the
heraldic double-headed eagle of the Imperial arms.
Each of these august personages sits on a throne of curious workmanship,
consecrated by ancient historic associations. That of the Emperor, the
gift of the Shah of Persia to Ivan the Terrible, and commonly called the
Throne of Tsar Michael, the founder of the Romanof dynasty, is covered
with gold plaques, and studded with hundreds of big, roughly cut
precious stones, mostly rubies, emeralds, and turquoises. Of still older
date is the throne of the young Empress, for it was given by Pope Paul
II. to Tsar Ivan III., grandfather of the Terrible, on the occasion of
his marriage with a niece of the last Byzantine Emperor. More recent
but not less curious is that of the Empress Dowager. It is the throne of
Tsar Alexis, the father of Peter the Great, covered with countless and
priceless diamonds, rubies, and pearls, and surmounted by an Imperial
eagle of solid gold, together with golden statuettes of St. Peter and
St. Nicholas, the miracle-worker. Over each throne is a canopy of purple
velvet fringed with gold, out of which rise stately plumes representing
the national colours.
Their Majesties have come hither, in accordance with time-honoured
custom, to be crowned in this old Cathedral of the Assumption, the
central point of the Kremlin, within a stone-throw of the Cathedral of
the Archangel Michael, in which lie the remains of the old Grand Dukes
and Tsars of Muscovy. Already the Emperor has read aloud, in a clear,
unfaltering voice, from a richly bound parchment folio, held by the
Metropolitan of St. Petersburg, the Orthodox creed; and his Eminence,
after invoking on his Majesty the blessing of the Holy Spirit, has
performed the mystic rite of placing his hands in the form of a cross on
the Imperial forehead. Thus all is ready for the most important part of
the solemn ceremony. Standing erect, the Emperor doffs his small
diadem and puts on with his own hands the great diamond crown, offered
respectfully by the Metropolitan; then he reseats himself on his
throne, holding in his right hand the Sceptre and in his left the Orb
of Dominion. After sitting thus in state for a few minutes, he stands up
and proceeds to crown his august spouse, kneeling before him. First he
touches her forehead with his own crown, and then he places on her
head a smaller one, which is immediately attached to her hair by four
ladies-in-waiting, dressed in the old Muscovite Court-costume. At the
same time her Majesty is invested with a mantle of heavy gold brocade,
similar to those of the Emperor and Empress Dowager, lined and bordered
with ermine.
Thus crowned and robed their Majesties sit in state, while a
proto-deacon reads, in a loud stentorian voice, the long list of
sonorous hereditary titles belonging of right to the Imperator and
Autocrat of all the Russias, and the choir chants a prayer invoking long
life and happiness--"Many years! Many years! Many years!"--on the high
and mighty possessor of the titles aforesaid. And now begins the Mass,
celebrated with a pomp and magnificence that can be witnessed only
once or twice in a generation. Sixty gorgeously robed ecclesiastical
dignitaries of the highest orders fulfil their various functions with
due solemnity and unction; but the magnificence of the vestments and the
pomp of the ceremonial are soon forgotten in the exquisite solemnising
music, as the deep double-bass tones of the adult singers in the
background--carefully selected for the occasion in all parts of the
Empire--peal forth as from a great organ, and blend marvellously with
the clear, soft, gentle notes of the red-robed chorister boys in front
of the Iconostase. Listening with intense emotion, I involuntarily
recall to mind Fra Angelico's pictures of angelic choirs, and cannot
help thinking that the pious old Florentine, whose soul was attuned to
all that was sacred and beautiful, must have heard in imagination such
music as this. So strong is the impression that the subsequent details
of the long ceremony, including the anointing with the holy chrism, fail
to engrave themselves on my memory. One incident, however, remains; and
if it had happened in an earlier and more superstitious age it would
doubtless have been chronicled as an omen full of significance. As the
Emperor is on the point of descending from the dais, duly crowned and
anointed, a staggering ray of sunshine steals through one of the narrow
upper windows and, traversing the dimly lit edifice, falls full on the
Imperial crown, lighting up for a moment the great mass of diamonds with
a hundredfold brilliance.
In a detailed account of the Coronation which I wrote on leaving the
Kremlin, I find the following: "The magnificent ceremony is at an end,
and now Nicholas II. is the crowned Emperor and anointed Autocrat of all
the Russias. May the cares of Empire rest lightly on him! That must be
the earnest prayer of every loyal subject and every sincere well-wisher,
for of all living mortals he is perhaps the one who has been
entrusted by Providence with the greatest power and the greatest
responsibilities." In writing those words I did not foresee how heavy
his responsibilities would one day weigh upon him, when his Empire would
be sorely tried, by foreign war and internal discontent.
One more of these old Moscow reminiscences, and I have done. A day or
two after the Coronation I saw the Khodinskoye Polye, a great plain in
the outskirts of Moscow, strewn with hundreds of corpses! During
the previous night enormous crowds from the city and the surrounding
districts had collected here in order to receive at sunrise, by the
Tsar's command, a little memento of the coronation ceremony, in the
form of a packet containing a metal cup and a few eatables; and as day
dawned, in their anxiety to get near the row of booths from which the
distribution was to be made, about two thousand had been crushed to
death. It was a sight more horrible than a battlefield, because among
the dead were a large proportion of women and children, terribly
mutilated in the struggle. Altogether, "a sight to shudder at, not to
see!"
To return to the remark of my friend in the Kremlin on Easter Eve,
the Russians in general, and the Muscovites in particular, as the
quintessence of all that is Russian, are certainly a religious people,
but their piety sometimes finds modes of expression which rather
shock the Protestant mind. As an instance of these, I may mention the
domiciliary visits of the Iberian Madonna. This celebrated Icon, for
reasons which I have never heard satisfactorily explained, is held
in peculiar veneration by the Muscovites, and occupies in popular
estimation a position analogous to the tutelary deities of ancient pagan
cities. Thus when Napoleon was about to enter the city in 1812, the
populace clamorously called upon the Metropolitan to take the Madonna,
and lead them out armed with hatchets against the hosts of the infidel;
and when the Tsar visits Moscow he generally drives straight from the
railway-station to the little chapel where the Icon resides--near one of
the entrances to the Kremlin--and there offers up a short prayer.
Every Orthodox Russian, as he passes this chapel, uncovers and crosses
himself, and whenever a religious service is performed in it there
is always a considerable group of worshippers. Some of the richer
inhabitants, however, are not content with thus performing their
devotions in public before the Icon. They like to have it from time to
time in their houses, and the ecclesiastical authorities think fit to
humour this strange fancy. Accordingly every morning the Iberian Madonna
may be seen driving about the city from one house to another in a
carriage and four! The carriage may be at once recognised, not from any
peculiarity in its structure, for it is an ordinary close carriage such
as may be obtained at livery stables, but by the fact that the coachman
sits bare-headed, and all the people in the street uncover and cross
themselves as it passes. Arrived at the house to which it has been
invited, the Icon is carried through all the rooms, and in the principal
apartment a short religious service is performed before it. As it is
being brought in or taken away, female servants may sometimes be seen
to kneel on the floor so that it may be carried over them. During
its absence from its chapel it is replaced by a copy not easily
distinguishable from the original, and thus the devotions of the
faithful and the flow of pecuniary contributions do not suffer
interruption. These contributions, together with the sums paid for the
domiciliary visits, amount to a considerable yearly sum, and go--if I am
rightly informed--to swell the revenues of the Metropolitan.
A single drive or stroll through Moscow will suffice to convince the
traveller, even if he knows nothing of Russian history, that the city
is not, like its modern rival on the Neva, the artificial creation of a
far-seeing, self-willed autocrat, but rather a natural product which has
grown up slowly and been modified according to the constantly changing
wants of the population. A few of the streets have been Europeanised--in
all except the paving, which is everywhere execrably Asiatic--to suit
the tastes of those who have adopted European culture, but the great
majority of them still retain much of their ancient character and
primitive irregularity. As soon as we diverge from the principal
thoroughfares, we find one-storied houses--some of them still of
wood--which appear to have been transported bodily from the country,
with courtyard, garden, stables, and other appurtenances. The whole is
no doubt a little compressed, for land has here a certain value, but the
character is in no way changed, and we have some difficulty in believing
that we are not in the suburbs but near the centre of a great
town. There is nothing that can by any possibility be called street
architecture. Though there is unmistakable evidence of the streets
having been laid out according to a preconceived plan, many of them show
clearly that in their infancy they had a wayward will of their own, and
bent to the right or left without any topographical justification. The
houses, too, display considerable individuality of character, having
evidently during the course of their construction paid no attention to
their neighbours. Hence we find no regularly built terraces, crescents,
or squares. There is, it is true, a double circle of boulevards, but the
houses which flank them have none of that regularity which we commonly
associate with the term. Dilapidated buildings which in West-European
cities would hide themselves in some narrow lane or back slum here
stand composedly in the face of day by the side of a palatial residence,
without having the least consciousness of the incongruity of their
position, just as the unsophisticated muzhik, in his unsavoury
sheepskin, can stand in the midst of a crowd of well-dressed people
without feeling at all awkward or uncomfortable.
All this incongruity, however, is speedily disappearing. Moscow has
become the centre of a great network of railways, and the commercial
and industrial capital of the Empire. Already her rapidly increasing
population has nearly reached a million.* The value of land and property
is being doubled and trebled, and building speculations, with the aid of
credit institutions of various kinds, are being carried on with feverish
rapidity. Well may the men of the old school complain that the world is
turned upside down, and regret the old times of traditional somnolence
and comfortable routine! Those good old times are gone now, never to
return. The ancient capital, which long gloried in its past historical
associations, now glories in its present commercial prosperity, and
looks forward with confidence to the future. Even the Slavophils, the
obstinate champions of the ultra-Muscovite spirit, have changed with the
times, and descended to the level of ordinary prosaic life. These men,
who formerly spent years in seeking to determine the place of Moscow
in the past and future history of humanity, have--to their honour be
it said--become in these latter days town-counsellors, and have devoted
much of their time to devising ways and means of improving the drainage
and the street-paving! But I am anticipating in a most unjustifiable
way. I ought first to tell the reader who these Slavophils were, and why
they sought to correct the commonly received conceptions of universal
history.
* According to the census of 1897 it was 988,610.
The reader may have heard of the Slavophils as a set of fanatics who,
about half a century ago, were wont to go about in what they considered
the ancient Russian costume, who wore beards in defiance of Peter the
Great's celebrated ukaz and Nicholas's clearly-expressed wish anent
shaving, who gloried in Muscovite barbarism, and had solemnly "sworn a
feud" against European civilisation and enlightenment. By the tourists
of the time who visited Moscow they were regarded as among the most
noteworthy lions of the place, and were commonly depicted in not very
flattering colours. At the beginning of the Crimean War they were among
the extreme Chauvinists who urged the necessity of planting the Greek
cross on the desecrated dome of St. Sophia in Constantinople, and
hoped to see the Emperor proclaimed "Panslavonic Tsar"; and after the
termination of the war they were frequently accused of inventing Turkish
atrocities, stirring up discontent among the Slavonic subjects of the
Sultan, and secretly plotting for the overthrow of the Ottoman Empire.
All this was known to me before I went to Russia, and I had consequently
invested the Slavophils with a halo of romance. Shortly after my arrival
in St. Petersburg I heard something more which tended to increase my
interest in them--they had caused, I was told, great trepidation among
the highest official circles by petitioning the Emperor to resuscitate a
certain ancient institution, called Zemskiye Sobory, which might be
made to serve the purposes of a parliament! This threw a new light
upon them--under the disguise of archaeological conservatives they were
evidently aiming at important liberal reforms.
As a foreigner and a heretic, I expected a very cold and distant
reception from these uncompromising champions of Russian nationality and
the Orthodox faith; but in this I was agreeably disappointed. By all
of them I was received in the most amiable and friendly way, and I soon
discovered that my preconceived ideas of them were very far from the
truth. Instead of wild fanatics I found quiet, extremely intelligent,
highly educated gentlemen, speaking foreign languages with ease and
elegance, and deeply imbued with that Western culture which they were
commonly supposed to despise. And this first impression was amply
confirmed by subsequent experience during several years of friendly
intercourse. They always showed themselves men of earnest character
and strong convictions, but they never said or did anything that could
justify the appellation of fanatics. Like all philosophical theorists,
they often allowed their logic to blind them to facts, but their
reasonings were very plausible--so plausible, indeed, that, had I been a
Russian they would have almost persuaded me to be a Slavophil, at least
during the time they were talking to me.
To understand their doctrine we must know something of its origin and
development.
The origin of the Slavophil sentiment, which must not be confounded
with the Slavophil doctrine, is to be sought in the latter half of
the seventeenth century, when the Tsars of Muscovy were introducing
innovations in Church and State. These innovations were profoundly
displeasing to the people. A large portion of the lower classes, as I
have related in a previous chapter, sought refuge in Old Ritualism or
sectarianism, and imagined that Tsar Peter, who called himself by the
heretical title of "Imperator," was an emanation of the Evil Principle.
The nobles did not go quite so far. They remained members of the
official Church, and restricted themselves to hinting that Peter was the
son, not of Satan, but of a German surgeon--a lineage which, according
to the conceptions of the time, was a little less objectionable; but
most of them were very hostile to the changes, and complained bitterly
of the new burdens which these changes entailed. Under Peter's immediate
successors, when not only the principles of administration but also many
of the administrators were German, this hostility greatly increased.
So long as the innovations appeared only in the official activity of
the Government, the patriotic, conservative spirit was obliged to keep
silence; but when the foreign influence spread to the social life of the
Court aristocracy, the opposition began to find a literary expression.
In the time of Catherine II., when Gallomania was at its height in Court
circles, comedies and satirical journals ridiculed those who, "blinded
by some externally brilliant gifts of foreigners, not only prefer
foreign countries to their native land, but even despise their
fellow-countrymen, and think that a Russian ought to borrow all--even
personal character. As if nature arranging all things with such wisdom,
and bestowing on all regions the gifts and customs which are appropriate
to the climate, had been so unjust as to refuse to the Russians a
character of their own! As if she condemned them to wander over all
regions, and to adopt by bits the various customs of various nations,
in order to compose out of the mixture a new character appropriate to
no nation whatever!" Numerous passages of this kind might be quoted,
attacking the "monkeyism" and "parrotism" of those who indiscriminately
adopted foreign manners and customs--those who
"Sauntered Europe round,
And gathered ev'ry vice in ev'ry ground."
Sometimes the terms and metaphors employed were more forcible than
refined. One satirical journal, for instance, relates an amusing
story about certain little Russian pigs that went to foreign lands to
enlighten their understanding, and came back to their country full-grown
swine. The national pride was wounded by the thought that Russians
could be called "clever apes who feed on foreign intelligence," and
many writers, stung by such reproaches, fell into the opposite extreme,
discovering unheard-of excellences in the Russian mind and character,
and vociferously decrying everything foreign in order to place these
imagined excellences in a stronger light by contrast. Even when they
recognised that their country was not quite so advanced in civilisation
as certain other nations, they congratulated themselves on the fact,
and invented by way of justification an ingenious theory, which was
afterwards developed by the Slavophils. "The nations of the West," they
said, "began to live before us, and are consequently more advanced than
we are; but we have on that account no reason to envy them, for we can
profit by their errors, and avoid those deep-rooted evils from which
they are suffering. He who has just been born is happier than he who is
dying."
Thus, we see, a patriotic reaction against the introduction of foreign
institutions and the inordinate admiration of foreign culture already
existed in Russia more than a century ago. It did not, however, take the
form of a philosophical theory till a much later period, when a similar
movement was going on in various countries of Western Europe.
After the overthrow of the great Napoleonic Empire a reaction against
cosmopolitanism took place and a romantic enthusiasm for nationality
spread over Europe like an epidemic. Blind, enthusiastic patriotism
became the fashionable sentiment of the time. Each nation took to
admiring itself complacently, to praising its own character and
achievements, and to idealising its historical and mythical past.
National peculiarities, "local colour," ancient customs, traditional
superstitions--in short, everything that a nation believed to be
specially and exclusively its own, now raised an enthusiasm similar to
that which had been formerly excited by cosmopolitan conceptions founded
on the law of nature. The movement produced good and evil results.
In serious minds it led to a deep and conscientious study of history,
national literature, popular mythology, and the like; whilst in
frivolous, inflammable spirits it gave birth merely to a torrent of
patriotic fervour and rhetorical exaggeration. The Slavophils were the
Russian representatives of this nationalistic reaction, and displayed
both its serious and its frivolous elements.
Among the most important products of this movement in Germany was the
Hegelian theory of universal history. According to Hegel's views,
which were generally accepted by those who occupied themselves with
philosophical questions, universal history was described as "Progress in
the consciousness of freedom" (Fortschritt im Bewusstsein der Freiheit).
In each period of the world's history, it was explained, some one
nation or race had been intrusted with the high mission of enabling the
Absolute Reason, or Weltgeist, to express itself in objective existence,
while the other nations and races had for the time no metaphysical
justification for their existence, and no higher duty than to imitate
slavishly the favoured rival in which the Weltgeist had for the moment
chosen to incorporate itself. The incarnation had taken place first in
the Eastern Monarchies, then in Greece, next in Rome, and lastly in the
Germanic race; and it was generally assumed, if not openly asserted,
that this mystical Metempsychosis of the Absolute was now at an end. The
cycle of existence was complete. In the Germanic peoples the Weltgeist
had found its highest and final expression.
Russians in general knew nothing about German philosophy, and were
consequently not in any way affected by these ideas, but there was in
Moscow a small group of young men who ardently studied German literature
and metaphysics, and they were much shocked by Hegel's views. Ever since
the brilliant reign of Catherine II., who had defeated the Turks and had
dreamed of resuscitating the Byzantine Empire, and especially since the
memorable events of 1812-15, when Alexander I. appeared as the liberator
of enthralled Europe and the arbiter of her destinies, Russians
were firmly convinced that their country was destined to play a most
important part in human history. Already the great Russian historian
Karamzin had declared that henceforth Clio must be silent or accord
to Russia a prominent place in the history of the nations. Now, by the
Hegelian theory, the whole of the Slav race was left out in the cold,
with no high mission, with no new truths to divulge, with nothing better
to do, in fact, than to imitate the Germans.
The patriotic philosophers of Moscow could not, of course, adopt this
view. Whilst accepting the fundamental principles, they declared the
theory to be incomplete. The incompleteness lay in the assumption that
humanity had already entered on the final stages of its development. The
Teutonic nations were perhaps for the moment the leaders in the march of
civilisation, but there was no reason to suppose that they would always
retain that privileged position. On the contrary, there were already
symptoms that their ascendency was drawing to a close. "Western Europe,"
it was said, "presents a strange, saddening spectacle. Opinion struggles
against opinion, power against power, throne against throne. Science,
Art, and Religion, the three chief motors of social life, have lost
their force. We venture to make an assertion which to many at present
may seem strange, but which will be in a few years only too evident:
Western Europe is on the highroad to ruin! We Russians, on the contrary,
are young and fresh, and have taken no part in the crimes of Europe.
We have a great mission to fulfil. Our name is already inscribed on
the tablets of victory, and now we have to inscribe our spirit in the
history of the human mind. A higher kind of victory--the victory of
Science, Art and Faith--awaits us on the ruins of tottering Europe!"*
* These words were written by Prince Odoefski.
This conclusion was supported by arguments drawn from history--or,
at least, what was believed to be history. The European world was
represented as being composed of two hemispheres--the Eastern or
Graeco-Slavonic on the one hand, and the Western, or Roman Catholic
and Protestant, on the other. These two hemispheres, it was said, are
distinguished from each other by many fundamental characteristics. In
both of them Christianity formed originally the basis of civilisation,
but in the West it became distorted and gave a false direction to the
intellectual development. By placing the logical reason of the learned
above the conscience of the whole Church, Roman Catholicism produced
Protestantism, which proclaimed the right of private judgment and
consequently became split up into innumerable sects. The dry, logical
spirit which was thus fostered created a purely intellectual, one-sided
philosophy, which must end in pure scepticism, by blinding men to those
great truths which lie above the sphere of reasoning and logic. The
Graeco-Slavonic world, on the contrary, having accepted Christianity
not from Rome, but from Byzantium, received pure orthodoxy and true
enlightenment, and was thus saved alike from Papal tyranny and from
Protestant free-thinking. Hence the Eastern Christians have preserved
faithfully not only the ancient dogmas, but also the ancient spirit of
Christianity--that spirit of pious humility, resignation, and brotherly
love which Christ taught by precept and example. If they have not yet a
philosophy, they will create one, and it will far surpass all previous
systems; for in the writings of the Greek Fathers are to be found the
germs of a broader, a deeper, and a truer philosophy than the dry,
meagre rationalism of the West--a philosophy founded not on the logical
faculty alone, but on the broader basis of human nature as a whole.
The fundamental characteristics of the Graeco-Slavonic world--so runs
the Slavophil theory--have been displayed in the history of Russia.
Throughout Western Christendom the principal of individual judgment and
reckless individual egotism have exhausted the social forces and brought
society to the verge of incurable anarchy and inevitable dissolution,
whereas the social and political history of Russia has been harmonious
and peaceful. It presents no struggles between the different social
classes, and no conflicts between Church and State. All the factors have
worked in unison, and the development has been guided by the spirit of
pure orthodoxy. But in this harmonious picture there is one big,
ugly black spot--Peter, falsely styled "the Great," and his so-called
reforms. Instead of following the wise policy of his ancestors, Peter
rejected the national traditions and principles, and applied to his
country, which belonged to the Eastern world, the principles of Western
civilisation. His reforms, conceived in a foreign spirit, and elaborated
by men who did not possess the national instincts, were forced upon the
nation against its will, and the result was precisely what might have
been expected. The "broad Slavonic nature" could not be controlled by
institutions which had been invented by narrow-minded, pedantic German
bureaucrats, and, like another Samson, it pulled down the building in
which foreign legislators sought to confine it. The attempt to introduce
foreign culture had a still worse effect. The upper classes, charmed and
dazzled by the glare and glitter of Western science, threw themselves
impulsively on the newly found treasures, and thereby condemned
themselves to moral slavery and intellectual sterility. Fortunately--and
herein lay one of the fundamental principles of the Slavophil
doctrine--the imported civilisation had not at all infected the common
people. Through all the changes which the administration and the
Noblesse underwent the peasantry preserved religiously in their hearts
"the living legacy of antiquity," the essence of Russian nationality,
"a clear spring welling up living waters, hidden and unknown, but
powerful."* To recover this lost legacy by studying the character,
customs, and institutions of the peasantry, to lead the educated classes
back to the path from which they had strayed, and to re-establish that
intellectual and moral unity which had been disturbed by the foreign
importations--such was the task which the Slavophils proposed to
themselves.
* This was one of the favourite themes of Khomiakof, the
Slavophil poet and theologian.
Deeply imbued with that romantic spirit which distorted all the
intellectual activity of the time, the Slavophils often indulged in
the wildest exaggerations, condemning everything foreign and praising
everything Russian. When in this mood they saw in the history of the
West nothing but violence, slavery, and egotism, and in that of their
own country free-will, liberty, and peace. The fact that Russia did not
possess free political institutions was adduced as a precious fruit of
that spirit of Christian resignation and self-sacrifice which places
the Russian at such an immeasurable height above the proud, selfish
European; and because Russia possessed few of the comforts and
conveniences of common life, the West was accused of having made comfort
its God! We need not, however, dwell on these puerilities, which only
gained for their authors the reputation of being ignorant, narrow-minded
men, imbued with a hatred of enlightenment and desirous of leading their
country back to its primitive barbarism. What the Slavophils really
condemned, at least in their calmer moments, was not European culture,
but the uncritical, indiscriminate adoption of it by their countrymen.
Their tirades against foreign culture must appear excusable when we
remember that many Russians of the upper ranks could speak and write
French more correctly than their native language, and that even the
great national poet Pushkin was not ashamed to confess--what was not
true, and a mere piece of affectation--that "the language of Europe" was
more familiar to him than his mother-tongue!
The Slavophil doctrine, though it made a great noise in the world, never
found many adherents. The society of St. Petersburg regarded it as one
of those harmless provincial eccentricities which are always to be found
in Moscow. In the modern capital, with its foreign name, its streets
and squares on the European model, its palaces and churches in the
Renaissance style, and its passionate love of everything French, any
attempt to resuscitate the old Boyaric times would have been eminently
ridiculous. Indeed, hostility to St. Petersburg and to "the Petersburg
period of Russian history" is one of the characteristic traits of
genuine Slavophilism. In Moscow the doctrine found a more appropriate
home. There the ancient churches, with the tombs of Grand Princes and
holy martyrs, the palace in which the Tsars of Muscovy had lived, the
Kremlin which had resisted--not always successfully--the attacks of
savage Tartars and heretical Poles, the venerable Icons that had many a
time protected the people from danger, the block of masonry from which,
on solemn occasions, the Tsar and the Patriarch had addressed the
assembled multitude--these, and a hundred other monuments sanctified by
tradition, have kept alive in the popular memory some vague remembrance
of the olden time, and are still capable of awakening antiquarian
patriotism.
The inhabitants, too, have preserved something of the old Muscovite
character. Whilst successive sovereigns have been striving to make the
country a progressive European empire, Moscow has remained the home of
passive conservatism and an asylum for the discontented, especially for
the disappointed aspirants to Imperial favour. Abandoned by the modern
Emperors, she can glory in her ancient Tsars. But even the Muscovites
were not prepared to accept the Slavophil doctrine in the extreme form
which it assumed, and were not a little perplexed by the eccentricities
of those who professed it. Plain, sensible people, though they might
be proud of being citizens of the ancient capital, and might thoroughly
enjoy a joke at the expense of St. Petersburg, could not understand
a little coterie of enthusiasts who sought neither official rank nor
decorations, who slighted many of the conventionalities of the higher
classes to which by birth and education they belonged, who loved to
fraternise with the common people, and who occasionally dressed in the
national costume which had been discarded by the nobles since the time
of Peter the Great.
The Slavophils thus remained merely a small literary party, which
probably did not count more than a dozen members, but their influence
was out of all proportion to their numbers. They preached successfully
the doctrine that the historical development of Russia has been
peculiar, that her present social and political organisation is
radically different from that of the countries of Western Europe, and
that consequently the social and political evils from which she suffers
are not to be cured by the remedies which have proved efficacious in
France and Germany. These truths, which now appear commonplace, were
formerly by no means generally recognised, and the Slavophils deserve
credit for directing attention to them. Besides this, they helped to
awaken in the upper classes a lively sympathy with the poor, oppressed,
and despised peasantry. So long as the Emperor Nicholas lived they had
to confine themselves to a purely literary activity; but during the
great reforms initiated by his successor, Alexander II., they descended
into the arena of practical politics, and played a most useful and
honourable part in the emancipation of the serfs. In the new
local self-government, too--the Zemstvo and the new municipal
institutions--they laboured energetically and to good purpose. Of all
this I shall have occasion to speak more fully in future chapters.
But what of their Panslavist aspirations? By their theory they were
constrained to pay attention to the Slav race as a whole, but they were
more Russian than Slav, and more Muscovite than Russian. The Panslavist
element consequently occupied a secondary place in Slavophil doctrine.
Though they did much to stimulate popular sympathy with the Southern
Slavs, and always cherished the hope that the Serbs, Bulgarians, and
cognate Slav nationalities would one day throw off the bondage of the
German and the Turk, they never proposed any elaborate project for the
solution of the Eastern Question. So far as I was able to gather from
their conversation, they seemed to favour the idea of a grand Slavonic
Confederation, in which the hegemony would, of course, belong to Russia.
In ordinary times the only steps which they took for the realisation of
this idea consisted in contributing money for schools and churches
among the Slav population of Austria and Turkey, and in educating young
Bulgarians in Russia. During the Cretan insurrection they
sympathised warmly with the insurgents as co-religionists, but
afterwards--especially during the crisis of the Eastern Question which
culminated in the Treaty of San Stefano and the Congress of Berlin
(1878)--their Hellenic sympathies cooled, because the Greeks showed that
they had political aspirations inconsistent with the designs of Russia,
and that they were likely to be the rivals rather than the allies of the
Slavs in the struggle for the Sick Man's inheritance.
Since the time when I was living in Moscow in constant intercourse with
the leading Slavophils more than a quarter of a century has passed, and
of those with whom I spent so many pleasant evenings discussing the past
history and future destinies of the Slav races, not one remains alive.
All the great prophets of the old Slavophil doctrine--Jun Samarin,
Prince Tcherkaski, Ivan Aksakof, Kosheleff--have departed without
leaving behind them any genuine disciples. The present generation of
Muscovite frondeurs, who continue to rail against Western Europe and the
pedantic officialism of St. Petersburg, are of a more modern and less
academic type. Their philippics are directed not against Peter the Great
and his reforms, but rather against recent Ministers of Foreign Affairs
who are thought to have shown themselves too subservient to foreign
Powers, and against M. Witte, the late Minister of Finance, who is
accused of favouring the introduction of foreign capital and enterprise,
and of sacrificing to unhealthy industrial development the interests of
the agricultural classes. These laments and diatribes are allowed free
expression in private conversation and in the Press, but they do not
influence very deeply the policy of the Government or the natural course
of events; for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs continues to cultivate
friendly relations with the Cabinets of the West, and Moscow is rapidly
becoming, by the force of economic conditions, the great industrial and
commercial centre of the Empire.
The administrative and bureaucratic centre--if anything on the frontier
of a country can be called its centre--has long been, and is likely to
remain, Peter's stately city at the mouth of the Neva, to which I now
invite the reader to accompany me.