of the far North, who, as we have seen, so literally "forsook all"
for their ancient Faith, to some few of the many new, or lately
developed creeds whose followers are seeking after truth with equal
earnestness and vigour, but along very different lines. Sect begets
sect in the world of theology, much as cell begets cell in the
economy of life. Change seems the active principle of all dissent;
new cults are forever springing up in the mystic childlike minds of
the Tsar's great peasant family, nor could one expect uniformity
of confession, when the size and neighbours of that family are
considered, for Mohammedan, Protestant, Catholic, Buddhist, and
Shamanist surround it, are made subject to it, and eventually become
a part thereof. A Mosque stands opposite the Orthodox church in
the great square which forms the centre of Nijni-Novgorod, a Roman
Catholic and a German Lutheran church almost face the magnificent
Kazan Cathedral, in the Nevski-Prospekt of St. Petersburg. The
waiters of nearly all restaurants, from Archangel to Baku, are
Mohammedan Tartars, the Jew is in every market-place, the native
heathen races, Lapp, Samoyede, Ostiac, Yakout, and a score of others,
are closely connected by the bonds of commerce: can it be wondered
at if the ideas of the peasant become tinted by his surroundings?
It cannot be gainsaid that the lifelessness and emptiness of the
State Church, with its hireling and often ignorant priesthood,
fails to satisfy the great mind of Russia--the peasant mind--but
now awakening from its long infant slumber, as did the mind of
Western Europe three centuries ago. Next perhaps to the extreme
literalness with which the Mujik interprets Holy Writ, this
dissatisfaction with the official Church is the greatest cause of
the grip which the chameleon-like "dissent" has taken hold of the
popular mind. With very few exceptions--notably the Skoptsy--the
150 sects which are stated to exist within the pale of Christianity
and the borders of the Empire of the Tsar, begin and end with the
Mujik; the official world is of necessity Orthodox, the wealthy
world careless, and this fact, of the peasant origin and development
of the denominations, must be carefully borne in mind when attempting
to form any idea of the widely different meanings and shades of
meaning which have been put upon the one Bible story.
Of the strictly rational, and more or less Protestant, portion
of Russian dissent, the Dukhobortsy, or "Wrestlers with the Holy
Spirit," and their descendants in the faith, the Molokans, or "Milk
Drinkers," are perhaps the best known to us, from the fact of their
having emigrated to English-speaking lands, and from the valiant
championing of their cause by Count L. D. Tolstoi. They form the
antithesis of the Old Believers, as is well set forth in the
conversation between A. Leroy-Beauleau (in the _Empire of the Tsars_)
and a fisherman of the persuasion, who said, "The Raskolniks would
go to the block for the sign of the Cross with two fingers. As
for us, we don't cross ourselves at all, either with two fingers
or with three, but we strive to gain a better knowledge of God";
and, indeed, his words may stand for a declaration of the simple
faith of his people, for their worship is marked by a deep contempt
for tradition, dogma, and ceremony. They have even done away with
the church, and, as a rule, use the house of their elders as a
meeting-place. Communion has been simplified away, marriage reduced
to a simple declaration, and invocation of God's blessing, the
priesthood question, the rock which first split the Old Faith,
solved by making every man a priest in his own family: surely their
motto, "The letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life," has been
well acted up to. Indeed, the whole theology of the Dukhobortsy
may be summed up as a bold attempt to depart from the empty Greek
formalism and arrive at a spiritual and unconventional worship,
an enlargement of the outline given in the shortest and grandest
of sermons.
The Molokani are said to have obtained this name from taking milk
and butter during fast times when they are forbidden to the Orthodox,
but more probably from the fact of their having colonies on either
bank of the river Molochnaia, so called from the whiteness of its
waters, due to potassium salts. They are very closely akin to the
Dukhobortsy, of which sect they are an offshoot. They hope for a
millennium, and to this end tend all their communistic experiments;
for each of their village settlements is striving to manufacture
its own earthly Paradise and run it on its own lines.
[Illustration: SHRINE IN THE CONVENT SOLOVETSKII, KOLA.]
The Stunda is perhaps the largest and most rapidly developing faction
of nonconformity, for it has ramified from Odessa--its starting
point--throughout Tsarland, save in the extreme north and north-east.
This faith can be traced directly to the influence of certain Lutherans
who emigrated from Würtemberg and settled in the fruitful
"_tchenoziom_," or black earth lands, some half-century ago. The
Stundist organization is much like that of the "Low Church" division
of Protestantism, save that it has no ordained clergy, a body whom
it regards as a somewhat expensive luxury, and replaces by elected
elders, who lead the very simple services, at which any man or
woman who feels called upon to do so may say what he or she will.
These gatherings are more prayer-meetings than services, for there
is no "Form of Prayer" to be used, but simply informal prayer,
praise and song in the best room of a farmhouse, though, now that
the Government are not so strict in their search after heretics,
regular wooden "meeting-houses" have appeared in some of the Stundist
villages.
If few of the rational sects have committed their history and their
views, or indeed their creeds, to writing, lest they should fall
into the hands of spies and be used in evidence against them, much
more is this the case with those whose search after truth has led
them to forsake the lines of rationalism and enter the land of
mysticism and spiritualism. But two of these mystic schisms need
we touch upon in this article, in order to show to what lengths
the Mujik will go in his efforts to escape from the trammels of
Orthodoxy, and with what logic he will follow up any given line of
thought. Most of the irrational sects are older than those already
mentioned, and do not seem to have their roots in other lands,
but to be the expression of the Mujik's own mind in its waking
moments: thus the "Khlystsy"--the name is a nickname taken from
the word "Khlyst" (a whip)--date back to the early days of the
Seventeenth Century. They hold that Christ has made and still makes
repeated appearances on earth and in Russia, and indeed they are
seldom without an incarnate God present with them in flesh and
blood.
The Khlystsy meet by night, with the utmost secrecy, and are reported
to dance, after the manner of the Dervishes, with ever-increasing
rapidity, until their feelings are worked up to such a pitch that
they are able to receive messages of inspiration, which they shout
out to their fellows. If one of their number has a fit--not an
uncommon event in some communes where close intermarriage among
relations has been the practice for generations--he is safe to be
regarded as an inspired messenger and duly honoured as such. Charges
of every kind of vice have been laid at the door of the Khlystsy;
their secret services have been called cloaks for immorality, and
doubtless on occasion have been used as such; but, as the character
of their congregation stands for high honesty and industry, it
is surely more charitable to assume that their worst feature is
their extreme secrecy, and that this, when added to the hatred of
orthodox marriage which the sect shows, lies at the base of most
of the accusations. Closely connected with these dancing Khlystsy
are the jumping Shakuny, whose jumps are said to increase in height
as do the circular movements of the former, until the proper state
of mind for inspired prophecy is reached.
Among the stockbrokers and money-changers of Russian cities, as
well as among peasants, may be seen the pale and almost hairless
face, wavering voice, and mild manner of the "Skopets" who has put
in practice upon himself the strange doctrine of self-mutilation.
These "White Doves" as they call themselves, base their self-sacrifice
upon the literal rendering of such texts as, "If thy right eye
offend thee, pluck it out," "Except a man become as a little child,
he shall not enter into the Kingdom of heaven," and argue that in
order to be pleasing to God, man--and in some instances woman--must
become like the angels, whom they assert to be sexless, on the
ground that "they neither marry nor are given in marriage."
We notice the hold which religion, in its vast variety of forms,
has over the popular mind of Russia. No one who has visited, however
casually, a Russian city can doubt this; the icon hangs in the
station office, and men bow to it, the cabman crosses himself ere
he drives over a bridge; shrines are interposed between shops, many
of which latter are devoted to the sale of crucifixes, swinging
lamps and sacred pictures; green cupolas and golden crosses gleam
against the sky, look which way you will. So it is in the village,
the white wooden church stands out in front of the black wooden
houses, crosses are placed in the cattle pastures to ward off evil
spirits, the folk cross themselves if they yawn, lest "chort,"
the devil jump in at their mouth, and the drunkard, at the tavern
door, kneels and uncovers as the procession passes on its way, may
be to bless the waters but now released from the winter grip of
ice, or may be to leave some neighbour in the communal graveyard.
We notice, too, the stern logic with which the peasant theologian
follows up the ideas of his sect, how he works out his own salvation
along lines which he himself lays down, and in so doing invents
some new creed almost daily; for a Russian newspaper can hardly
ever be taken up without seeing the discovery of such in one corner
or other of the vast Empire. That he has the full courage of his
opinions, that he will suffer for conscience' sake--Russian officials
only know how bitterly--that he will lay down his life, or--almost
equal sacrifice for him--forsake his land and "_izba_," and face
the future among the wild native races which bound European Tsarland
on its north and east--not so very long ago--he suffered the knout
and the stake rather than recant one iota of what he thinks to be
the only true rendering of the Biblical text, all this must in
common fairness be allowed to the poor Russian.
_ST. PETERSBURG_
_J. BEAVINGTON ATKINSON_
Cronstadt, the strong fortress which stopped the advance of the
English squadron in the last Russian war, is as the water-gate of
St. Petersburg. A bright July sun made no unpleasing picture of
the huge hulks of the men-of-war, and of the many-masted merchant
ships which lay within the harbour, or behind the fortifications.
Passing Cronstadt the capital soon comes in sight; the water is so
smooth and shallow, and the banks are so low, that I was actually
reminded of the lagoons of Venice. Far away in the distance glittered
in the sunlight cupola beyond cupola, covered with burnished gold or
sparkling with bright stars on a blue ground. The river, stretching
wide as an estuary, was thronged with merchandise as the Tagus or the
Thames: yachts were flying before the wind and steam-tugs laboured
slowly against the stream, dragging behind the heavily-laden lighter.
Warehouses and wharfs and timber-yards now begin to line either bank;
yet the materials for a sketch-book are scanty and uninviting: an
artist who, like Mr. Whistler, has etched at Battersea and Blackwell,
would find by comparison on the Neva the forms without character,
the surface without texture, the masses without light, shade, or
colour. As the boat advances the imperial city grows in scale and
pomp. The river view becomes imposing, the banks are lined on either
side by granite quays, which for solidity, strength, and area, have
no parallel in Europe. Beneath the bridges the unruly river rushes,
bearing along rafts and merchandise, and in the broad-laid streets
people hurry to and fro, as if the day were too short for the press
of business: only in great commercial capitals, the centres of large
populations, is life thus rapid and overburdened. Throughout Russia
generally time hangs heavily, but here at the seat of empire, the
focus of commerce, life under high pressure moves at full speed. I
know of no European capital, excepting perhaps London and Vienna,
which leaves on the mind so strong an impression of power, wealth,
and ostentation, as the city of St. Petersburg.
Possibly the first idea which may strike the stranger on driving
from the steamer to the hotel, is the large scale on which the
city has been planned; the area of squares and streets seems
proportioned to the vast dimensions of the Russian empire: indeed
the silent solitudes of the city may be said to symbolize the desert
tracks of central Russia and Siberia. Only on the continent of
America is so much land at command, so large a sweep of territory
brought within the circuit of city life. In the old world, Munich
offers the closest analogy to St. Petersburg, and that not only
by wide and half-occupied areas, but by a certain pretentious and
pseudo-classic architecture, common to the two cities alike: the
design of the Hermitage in fact came from Munich. St. Petersburg,
like Munich too, has been forced into rapid growth; indeed while
looking at the works raised by successive Tsars, I was reminded
of the boast of Augustus that he found Rome of brick and left her
of marble.
St. Petersburg, though sometimes decried as a city of shams, is
certainly not surpassed in the way of show by any capital in Europe.
As to natural situation she may be said to be at once fortunate and
infelicitous: the flatness of the land is not redeemed by fertility,
the monotony of the panorama is not broken by mountains; the city
rides as a raft upon the waters, so heavily freighted as to run the
risk of sinking. And yet I know of no capital more imposing when
taken from the strong points of view. Almost beyond parallel is the
array of palaces and public buildings which meets the traveller's eye
in a walk or sail from the English quay up to the Gardens of the
Summer Palace. The structures it is true tend a little too much
of what may be termed buckram and fustian styles; indeed there
is scarcely a form or a detail which an architect would care to
jot down in his note-book. And yet the general effect is grand:
a big river rushing with large volume of water through the arches
of bridges, along granite quays and before marble palaces, is a
noble and living presence in the midst of city life. The waters of
"the great Neva" and of "the little Neva" appear as an omnipresence;
the rivers are in the streets, and great buildings, such as the
Admiralty, the Fortress, and the Cathedral of St. Peter and St.
Paul, ride as at anchor on a swelling flood. The views from the
three chief bridges--Nicholas Bridge, Palace Bridge, and Troitska
Bridge--are eminently palatial and imperial. The Academy of Arts,
the Academy of Sciences, St. Isaac's Cathedral, the Admiralty,
the Winter Palace, the Hermitage, and the fortress and cathedral
of St. Peter and St. Paul, give to the stranger an overpowering
impression of the wealth and the strength of the empire. The Englishman,
while standing on these bridges, will naturally recall analogous
positions on the river Thames; such comparison is not wholly to the
disadvantage of the northern capital, yet on the banks of the Neva
rise no structures which in architectural design equal St. Paul's
Cathedral, Somerset House, Westminster Abbey, and the Houses of
Parliament. Indeed, with the exception of the spire of the Admiralty,
I did not find in St. Petersburg a single new idea.
[Illustration: ST. PETERSBURG.]
Of the famous Nevski-Prospekt, the chief street in St. Petersburg,
it may be said as of our London Regent Street, that it can stand
neither weather nor criticism. As to style of architecture, strictly
speaking the Nevski-Prospekt has none: the buildings, consisting
of shops, interspersed with a few churches and public edifices,
so much partake of the modern and mongrel Italian manner, that
the traveller might easily fancy himself in Paris, Brussels, or
Turin. Few cities are so pretentious in outside appearances as
St. Petersburg, and yet the show she makes is that of the whited
sepulchre: false construction and rottenness of material, façades
of empty parade, and plaster which feigns to be stone, constitute
an accumulative dishonesty which has few parallels in the history
of architecture. Classic pillars and porticos, which have been
thrust in everywhere on slightest pretext, are often built up of
brick covered with cement and coloured yellow. Columns, here the
common and constant expedient, are mostly mismanaged; they are as
it were gratuitous intrusions, they seem to be stuck on, they fail
to compose with the rest of the building. Neither do the architects
of St. Petersburg understand mouldings or the value of shadow, there
is scarcely a moulding in the city which casts a deep, broad or
delicate shadow: hence the façades look flat and thin as if built
of cards. In the same way the details are poor and treated without
knowledge; it thus happens that conceptions bold and grand are
carried out incompletely. The great mistake is that the architects
have made no attempt to gather together the scattered elements of a
national style. With the noteworthy exception of the use of fine,
fanciful and fantastic domes, often gilt or brightly coloured, the
architecture of Russian capitals is either Classic or Renaissance
of the most commonplace description.
I shall not think it worth while to dwell on the very many churches
which adorn the northern capital, because, with few exceptions,
there is nothing in point of art which merits to be recorded. Yet
I can scarcely refrain from again referring to the fine fantasy
played by many-coloured domes against the blue sky. The forms are
beautiful, the colours decorative. The city in its sky outline
presents a succession of strange pictures, at one point the eye
might seem to range across a garden of gourds, at other positions
peer above house-tops groups which might be mistaken for turbaned
Turks; and when the sun shines vividly, and throws glittering light
on the "patens of bright gold," over these many-domed churches,
a stranger might almost fancy that above the city floated fire
balloons or bright-coloured lanterns. The large cupola of St. Isaac,
covered with copper overlaid with gold, has been said to burn on
a bright day like the sun when rising on a mountain top. I can
never forget the sight when I returned to St. Petersburg from the
most brilliant civic and military spectacle I ever witnessed, the
fête of the Empress at Tsarskoé Sélo. It was still dark, but before
I reached my hotel for the short repose of a night which already
brightened into morning, every cupola on the way was awakening
into daylight; the sun, hesitating for a moment on the horizon,
announced his coming as by electric light on the golden stars which
shone on domes more blue than the grey sky of morning. In Moscow
church cupolas playa part in the city panorama still more conspicuous
than in St. Petersburg.
The Cathedral of St. Isaac is the most costly and pretentious of
Russian churches. The noble edifice has the advantage of a commanding
situation; not, it is true, as to elevation--for that is impossible
in a city set throughout on a dead level--but the surface area in
its wide sweeping circuit at all events contrasts strikingly with
that cribbed and cabined church-yard of St. Paul's in London, which
the Englishman may have just left behind him. Yet St. Isaac's can
scarcely venture on comparison with St. Paul's, though the style of
the two buildings is similar. The great Cathedral of St. Petersburg
has, however, the advantage of that concentration which belongs to
the Greek as distinguished from the Latin Cross, a distinction
which has always been to the disadvantage of St. Peter's in Rome.
A cross of four equal arms, with columned porticos mounted nobly
on steps at the four extremities, the whole composition crowned by
central and surrounding cupolas, is assuredly an imposing conception,
of which the French artist M. Montferrand has known how to make
the most. I may here, by way of parenthesis, remark that the two
works which do most honour to St. Petersburg, the Cathedral of
St. Isaac and the adjacent equestrian statue of Peter the Great,
are severally due not to Russian but to French artists. This is
one example among many of the foreign origin of the arts in Russia.
But at all events let it be admitted that the materials used, as
well as the ideas often brought to bear, are local or national. For
example, the grandest of all architectural conceptions, the idea
of a dome, is here glorified in true Russian or Oriental manner,
not so much by magnitude of proportion as by decorative splendour,
heightened to the utmost by a surface of burnished gold. Then the
four porticos which terminate each end of the Greek cross with
stately columns and entablatures of granite from Finland, albeit
in design mere commonplace complications, are wholly national in
the material used. I do not now stop to mention the large and bold
reliefs in bronze, which though French in design were, I believe,
cast in St. Petersburg: indeed here, as in Munich, the government
makes that liberal provision which only governments can make, for
noble but unremunerative art. The great dome is said to be sustained
by iron; indeed the science of construction brought to bear is great,
yet again it must be acknowledged that whether the material be
iron, bronze, or stone, the art, the skill, and even the commercial
capital, are not Russian but foreign, and often English. Russian
workmen, however, are employed as mechanics or machines, partly
because in copyism and mechanism Russian artisans cannot throughout
Europe be surpassed. When I got to St. Petersburg I could scarcely
believe the statement to be true that the "English Magazine" and
not any Russian factory had executed the eight stupendous malachite
pillars within the church, weighing about 34,000 pounds and costing
£2,500 sterling. Yet while the organization might be English, the
operatives were Russians. The unsurpassed malachite pillars combine
in the grand altar-screen with columns of lapis-lazuli: the latter
are said to have cost per pair £12,000 sterling. I need scarcely
observe that this parade of precious metals partakes more of barbaric
magnificence than of artistic taste; indeed these columns of malachite
and lapis-lazuli, which to the eye present themselves as solid and
honest, have been built up as incrustations on hollow cast-iron
tubes. Thus hollow are the most precious arts of Russia. Justice,
however, demands that I should speak hereafter in fair appreciation
of the interiors of Russian churches, whereof the Cathedral of
St. Isaac is among the chief. Nevertheless, material rather than
mind, money rather than art, is the governing power; malachite,
lapis-lazuli, gold, and other precious substances are heaped together
profusely, yet no architect in Europe of the slightest intellectual
pretensions, would care to look a second time at the constructive
or decorative conceptions which the churches of St. Petersburg
display. St. Isaac's in fact is miraculous only in its monoliths.
I could scarcely believe my eyes when first I stood beneath the
stately porticos and looked from top to bottom of the very many
columns, seven feet in diameter and sixty feet high, all polished
granite monoliths from Finland. Already I had made the assertion
that there was nothing new in St. Petersburg when these granite
monoliths at once compelled a recantation.
The monoliths in St. Petersburg are so exceptional in number and
often so gigantic in dimension as to call for special mention. The
monolith obelisks of ancient Egypt are scarcely more remarkable.
In addition to the magnificent columns, each sixty feet high, which
sustain the four porticos of the Cathedral of St. Isaac, are fifty-six
monoliths, also of granite from Finland, thirty-five feet high
in the Kazan Cathedral; likewise the noble entrance-hall of the
Hermitage is sustained by sixteen monoliths, and the magnificent
room which receives the treasures from the Cimmerian Bosphorus has
the support of twenty monoliths. But the greatest single block of
modern times stands in front of the Winter Palace, as a monument
to Alexander I. The height is eighty-four feet, and the weight
nearly four hundred tons. The story goes that the contractor in
Finland, finding that he had exceeded the required length, actually
cut off ten or fifteen feet. The vast granite quarries of Finland
supply the Tsars with these stupendous columns, just as the granite
quarries of Syene on the Nile furnished the Pharaohs with obelisks.
These enormous masses are too heavy to be conveyed on wheels, the
only practicable mode of transit is on rollers. In this way each of
the sixty-feet columns for St. Isaac's was transported across country
all the way from Finland. Each column represents so incredible an
amount of labour as to make it evident that monoliths are luxuries
in which only emperors can indulge. And even when these heavy weights
have reached their destination the difficulty next occurs how to
secure a solid foundation. St. Petersburg was once a swamp, and so
rotten is the ground that it would be quite possible for a monolith
to sink out of sight and never more be heard of. To provide against
such contingencies a forest of piles was driven into the earth at
the cost of £200,000 as the foundation of St. Isaac, and yet the
cathedral sinks. Like causes render the roads of St. Petersburg
the worst in Europe; winter frosts, which penetrate several feet
below the surface, seize on the imprisoned waters and tear up the
streets. The surface thus broken is so destructive to wheels that
I have known an Englishman, who, though he kept four carriages,
had not one in a condition to use. The jolting on the roads is so
great as to make it wise for a traveller to hold on fast, and when
a lady and gentleman ride side by side, it is usual for the gentleman
to protect the lady by throwing his arm round his companion's waist.
This delicate attention is so much of a utilitarian necessity as
in no way to imply further obligations.
St. Petersburg is considerably indebted to the art of sculpture:
public monuments adorn her squares and gardens. Indeed the art of
sculpture has, like the sister arts of architecture and painting,
been forced into preternatural proportions. In the large area within
sight of the church of St. Isaac and of the Admiralty, stands
conspicuously one of the few successful equestrian statues in modern
or ancient times, the colossal bronze to Peter the Great. The huge
block of granite, which is said to weigh upwards of 15,000 tons, was
conveyed from a marsh, four miles distance from St. Petersburg, by
means of ropes, pulleys, and windlasses, worked by men and horses.
A drummer stationed on the rock itself gave the signal for onward
movement. It would seem that the methods used in Russia to this
day for transporting granite monoliths, are curiously similar to
the appliances of the ancient Egyptians for moving like masses. In
point of art this equestrian statue, though grand in conception,
is, after the taste of barbarous nations, colossal in size. Peter
the Great is eleven feet in stature, the horse is seventeen feet
high. The nobility lies in the action, the horse rears on his hind
legs after the favourite manner of Velasquez in well-known equestrian
portraits of Ferdinand IV. The attitude assumed by the great Emperor
is triumphant, the fiery steed has dashed up the rock and pauses as
in mid-air on the brink of the precipice. The idea is that Peter
the Great surveys from the height the capital of his creation, as
it may be supposed to rise from the waters. His hand is stretched
forth for the protection of the city. This work, like many other
proud achievements in the empire, unfortunately is not Russian.
The design is due to the Frenchman Falconet; Marie Callot is said
to have modelled the head, and the casting was done by Martelli,
an Italian. Falconet, in order to be true to the life, carefully
studied again and again a fine Arab horse, mounted by a Russian
general who was famous as a rider; the general day by day made a
rush up a mound, artificially constructed for the purpose, and when
just short of the precipice the horse was reined in and thrown on
its hind legs. The artist watched the action and made his studies;
the work accordingly has nature, movement, vigour. I may here mention
that I have nowhere found such large masses of stone conveyed from
place to place as here in St. Petersburg. It is true I have seen
marble fresh from the mountains of Carrara tugged along by teams
of bullocks, but I have nowhere witnessed so much power brought to
bear as in the transit of the granite used in the immense memorial
to the Empress Catherine.
The art collections in St. Petersburg may give the traveller pleasant
occupation for several weeks; indeed if the tourist be an art student
he will find work for months. The Winter Palace, adjoining the
Hermitage, on the Neva, is like the palace at Versailles, conspicuous
for rooms or galleries commemorative of military exploits. Here
are well-painted battle-pieces by Willewalde and Kotzbue, also
naval engagements by Aivasovsky, highly coloured as a matter of
course. Likewise are hung the best battle-pieces I have ever seen,
by Peter Hess, the renowned Bavarian painter, who appears to less
credit in Munich than in the Winter Palace, St. Petersburg. Also
may be noted the portrait of Alexander I. by Dawe, the Englishman,
who worked much in Russia. Here likewise is the imperial gallery
of portraits of all the sovereigns of the reigning Russian house.
I pass over these multitudinous works thus briefly, because, though
the collection is of importance in the history of the empire, it
has little value in art.
"The Crown Jewels" I shall not attempt to describe; no description
of jewels can be worth much. I may venture to say, however, that
after seeing all the royal jewellery in Europe, I found these Russian
crowns, sceptres, etc., richer in diamonds than any other. Also
pearls, rubies, Siberian aqua-marines, etc., add colour and splendour
to the imperial treasure. The comparison on the spot, which I not
unnaturally instituted, was with the imperial treasury at Vienna.
Next, a word may be given to the room in which the proud, stern,
and unrelenting Nicholas died, where all is kept intact as he left
it. I have seldom been more impressed than with this small, simple,
and almost penurious apartment, so striking in contrast with the
splendour of the rest of the palace. Silence, solitude, and solemnity
all the more attach to the spot from the statement to which credence
is given that the great emperor, on learning of the reverses in
the Crimea, here committed suicide. In other words, it is said
that he directed his physician to prepare a medicine which after
having taken he died. The sword, helmet, and grey military cloak
are where he laid them. Here lies a historic tragedy which remains
to be painted; one of the most dramatic pictorial scenes in Europe,
the death of Wallenstein in Schiller's drama, painted by Professor
Piloty and now in the new Pinakothek, Munich, might in the death
of the great Nicholas find a parallel. The emperor lies buried
with all the sovereigns of Russia since the foundation of St.
Petersburg, in the cathedral fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul.
Nothing in Europe is grander in the simplicity and silence which
befit a sepulchre--not even the imperial tombs in Vienna--than
this stately mausoleum of the Tsars. The Emperor Nicholas lies
opposite to Peter the Great. In the Hermitage, or rather in the
Winter Palace, is a gallery illustrative of the life and labours of
Peter the Great. The collection, besides turning-lathes and other
instruments with which the monarch worked, contains curiosities,
knickknacks, as well as some works of real art value: the connecting
point of the whole collection is in Peter himself. An analogous
collection was some years ago opened in the Louvre as the Museum
of Napoleon I. Dynasties all the world over thus seek to perpetuate
their memories.
[Illustration: THE HERMITAGE, ST. PETERSBURG.]
The Academy of Fine Arts is a noble institution, imposing in its
architecture, and richly endowed. The Corps des Mines must also
be visited, the collection of minerals proves the amazing riches
of European and Asiatic Russia. I wish I had knowledge and space
to describe this unexampled collection, which though not falling
within my art province has direct art relations. Nothing beauteous
or wondrous in nature lies beyond the sphere of art; the forms of
crystals, the colours of precious stones are specially objects of
delight to the artist's eye. The Imperial Public Library is one of
the richest libraries in Europe; its literary treasures can hardly
be overrated; I regret that I cannot enter into its contents. Private
collections, though scarcely numerous, are choice; the celebrated
Leuchtenberg Gallery, formerly in Munich, is the richest. The royal
residences of Peterhof and Tsarshoé Sélo I also found to contain
much in the way of art, and yet scarcely of sufficient importance
to need special description.
The Imperial Hermitage alone repays a journey to St. Petersburg;
for a whole fortnight I visited almost every day the picture and
sculpture galleries of this vast and rich museum, and in the end
I left with the feeling that I had done but inadequate justice
to these valuable and exhaust-less collections. I am tolerably
well acquainted with the great museums in the south and west of
Europe, and I was interested to find that the Hermitage does not
suffer by comparison with the Vatican, the Museum of Naples, the
Galleries of Florence, the Louvre in Paris, or the Great Picture
Gallery in Madrid. In some departments, indeed, St. Petersburg has
the advantage over other capitals; the collection of gold ornaments
from Kertch is not surpassed by the gold work in the Etruscan room of
the Vatican; the coins are not inferior to the numismatic collections
in Paris, or in the British Museum; the Dutch pictures are not
to be equalled save in Holland or in Dresden; the Spanish school
has no competitor save in Madrid and Seville; the portraits by
Vandyck, and the sketches by Rubens, are only surpassed in England
and Bavaria. It is thus obvious that the collective strength of
the assembled collections, is very great. The picture galleries
contain more than 1,500 works; the number of drawings is upwards
of 500, the coins and medals amount to 200,000, the painted vases
are above 1,700, the ancient marbles number 361, and the collection
of gems is one of the largest in existence. The Hermitage has been
enriched partly to the prejudice of other cities or palaces. From the
Tauris Palace came classic sculpture. Tsarshoé Sélo also furnished
contributions. The policy has been to make one astounding museum,
which shall represent not a capital but an empire, and stand before
the world as the exponent of the wealth, the resource, and the
refined taste of the nation and its rulers.
_FINLAND_
_HARRY DE WINDT_
"What sort of a place is Finland?" asked a friend whom I met, on
my return from that country, in London. "Very much the same as
Lapland, I suppose? Snow, sleighs, and bears, and all that kind
of thing?"
My friend was not singular in his idea, for they are probably those
of most people in England. At present Finland is a _terra incognita_,
though fortunately not likely to remain one. Nevertheless, it will
probably take years to eradicate a notion that one of the most
attractive and advanced countries in Europe, possessed in summer
of the finest climate in the world, is not the eternal abode of
poverty, cold, and darkness. It was just the same before the railway
opened up Siberia and revealed prosperous cities, fertile plains,
and boundless mineral resources to an astonished world. A decade
ago my return from this land of civilization, progress, and, above
all, humanity was invariably met by the kind of question that heads
this chapter, with the addition, as a rule, of facetious allusions
to torture and the knout! My ignorance, however, of Finland as
she really is was probably unsurpassed before my eyes were opened
by a personal inspection, so I cannot afford to criticise.
What is Finland, and what are its geographical and climatic
characteristics? I will try to answer these questions briefly and
clearly without wearying the reader with statistics. In the first
place, Finland (in Finnish, "Suomi") is about the size of Great
Britain, Holland, and Belgium combined, with a population of about
2,500,000. Its southern and western shores are washed by the Baltic
Sea, while Lake Ladoga and the Russian frontier form the eastern
boundary. Finland stretches northward far beyond the head of the
Gulf of Bothnia, where it joins Norwegian territory. There are
thirty-seven towns, of which only seven have a population exceeding
10,000, viz., Helsingfors, Abo, Tammerfors, Viborg, Uleaborg, Vasa
(Nikolaistad), and Bjorneborg.
Finland is essentially a flat country, slightly mountainous towards
the north, but even her highest peak (Haldesjock, in Finnish Lapland)
is under 4,000 feet in height. South of this a hill of 300 feet
is called a mountain; therefore Alpine climbers have no business
here. The interior may be described as an undulating plateau largely
composed of swamp and forest, broken with granite rocks and gravel
ridges and honeycombed with the inland waters known as "The Thousand
Lakes" (although ten thousand would be nearer the mark), one of
which is three times the size of the Lake of Geneva. The rivers
are small and unimportant, the largest being only about the size
of the Seine. On the other hand, the numerous falls and rapids on
even the smallest streams render their ascent in boats extremely
difficult and often impossible. But lakes and canals are the natural
highways of the country; rivers are only utilized as a motive power
for electricity, manufactories, and for conveying millions of logs
of timber yearly from the inland forests to the sea. A curious fact
is that, although many parts of the interior are far below the
level of the Baltic, the latter is gradually but surely receding
from the coast, and many hitherto submerged islets off the latter
have been left high and dry by the waves. You may now in places
walk from one island to another on dry land, which, fifty years ago,
was many fathoms under water, while signs of primitive navigation
are constantly being discovered as far as twenty miles inland!
It is therefore probable that the millions of islands which now
fringe these shores, formed, at some remote period, one continuous
strip of land. How vessels ever find their way, say from Hangö to
Nystad, is a mystery to the uninitiated landsman. At a certain
place there are no less than 300 islands of various sizes crowded
into an area of six square miles! Heaven preserve the man who finds
himself there, in thick weather, with a skipper who does not quite
know the ropes!
The provinces of which the Grand Duchy is composed are as follows,
running from north to south: (1) Finnish Lapland, (2) Ostrobothnia,
(3) Satakunta, (4) Tavastland, (5) Savolax, (6) Karelia, (7) Finland
proper, (8) Nyland, and (9) the Aland Islands.
Finnish Lapland may be dismissed without comment, for it is a wild,
barren region, sparsely populated by nomad tribes, and during the
summer is practically impassable on account of its dense forests,
pathless swamps, and mosquitoes of unusual size and ferocity. In
winter-time journeys can be made quickly and pleasantly in sledges
drawn by reindeer, but at other times the country must be crossed
in cranky canoes by means of a network of lakes and rivers; and
the travelling is about as tough as monotony, short rations, and
dirt can make it. I am told that gold has lately been discovered
there, but it would need a considerable amount of the precious
metal to tempt me into Finnish Lapland in summer-time.
Ostrobothnia, which lies immediately south of this undesirable
district, contains the towns of Tornea and Uleaborg. We will pass
on to the provinces of Central Finland, viz., Tavastland, Savolax,
and Karelia. The Finns say that this is the heart of their country,
while Helsingfors and Tammerfors constitute its brains. So crowded
and complicated is the lake system in this part of Finland that
water almost overwhelms dry land, and the district has been likened
to one huge archipelago. Forests abound, especially in Tavastland,
whence timber is exported in large quantities, while agriculture
flourishes in all these provinces. Crops are generally grown in
the valleys, while in other parts the sides and summits of the
hills are usually selected for cultivation. Large tracts of country
about here once laid out for arable are now converted into grazing
grounds, for the number of cattle is yearly on the increase.
Dairy-farming is found to be more profitable and less risky than
the raising of wheat and barley in a land where one night of frost
sometimes destroys the result of a whole year's patient care and
labour. The land is cleared for cultivation by felling and burning,
and it is then ploughed in primitive fashion and sown, but only
one harvest is generally gathered on one spot. The latter is then
deserted, and the following year another patch of virgin soil takes
its place. There is thus a good deal of waste, not only in land,
but also in trees, which are wantonly cut down for any trifling
purpose, regardless of their value or the possible scarcity in
the future of timber. Accidental forest fires also work sad havoc
at times, destroying thousands of pounds' worth of timber in a
few hours. Pine resin burns almost as fiercely as petroleum, and
it sometimes takes days to extinguish a conflagration.
Many of the poorer people in the central provinces live solely
by fishing in the lakes teeming with salmon, which find a ready
market both salted and fresh. There is plenty of rough shooting to
be had for the asking, but no wild animals of any size. In the far
north bears are still numerous, and elk were formerly obtainable.
A few of the latter still exist in the wilder parts of the country,
but it is now forbidden to kill them. Some years ago the forests of
Tavastland were infested with wolves, and during one fatal season
a large number of cattle and even some children were devoured,
but a _battue_ organized by the peasantry cleared the brutes out
of the country. You may now shoot hares here, and any number of
wild fowl, but that is about all.
The remainder of Finland consists of Finland proper and Nyland
on the south and south-western coasts, and as these comprise not
only the capital, but also the large towns of Abo and Viborg, they
may be regarded as the most important, politically, commercially,
and socially, in the country. Here lakes are still numerous, but
insignificant in size compared with those of the interior. On the
other hand, the vegetation is richer, for the oak, lime, and hazel
do well, and the flora, both wild and cultivated, is much more
extensive than in the central and northern districts. Several kinds
of fruit are grown, and Nyland apples are famous for their flavour,
while very fair pears, plums, and cherries can be bought cheaply
in the markets. Currants and gooseberries are, however, sour and
tasteless. In these southern districts the culture of cereals has
reached a perfection unknown further north, for the farms are usually
very extensive, the farmers up to date, and steam implements in
general use. Dairy-farming is also carried on with excellent results
and yearly increasing prosperity. Amongst the towns, Bjorneborg,
Nystad, Hangö, and Kotka will in a few years rival the capital
in size and commercial importance.
The last on the list is the Aland archipelago, which consists of
one island of considerable size surrounded by innumerable smaller
ones, and situated about fifty miles off the south-western coast
of Finland. Here, oddly enough, Nature has been kinder than almost
anywhere on the mainland, for although the greater part of the island
is wild and forest-clad, the eternal pines and silver birch-trees
are blended with the oak, ash and maple, and bright blossoms such
as may and hawthorn relieve to a great extent the monotonous green
foliage of Northern Europe.
That the Alander has much of the Swede in his composition is shown
by the neatness of his dwellings and cleanly mode of life. He is an
amphibious creature, half mariner, half yeoman, a sober, thrifty
individual, who spends half of his time at the plough-tail and the
other half at the helm. Fishing for a kind of small herring called
"strömming" is perhaps the most important industry, and a lucrative
one, for this fish (salted) is sent all over the country and even
to Russia proper. Farming is a comparatively recent innovation,
for the Alanders are born men of the sea, and were once reckoned the
finest sailors in Finland. Less than a century ago Aland harboured
a fine fleet of sailing-ships owned by syndicates formed amongst
the peasantry, and engaged in a profitable trade with Great Britain
and Denmark. But steamers have knocked all this upon the head,
and the commercial future of the islands would now seem to depend
chiefly upon the fishing and agricultural industries.
The population of these Islands is under 25,000, of which the small
town of Mariehamm, the so-called capital, contains about 700 souls.
Steamers touch here, so that there is no difficulty in reaching the
place, which is certainly worth a visit not only for its antiquity
(the Alands were inhabited long before the mainland), but on account
of the interesting ruins it contains--amongst them the Castle of
Castelholm, built by Birger Jarl in the Fourteenth Century, and the
time-worn walls of which could tell an interesting history. A part
of the famous fortress of Bomarsund, destroyed by an Anglo-French
fleet in 1854, may also be seen not far from Mariehamm. Plain but
decent fare may be obtained here, but the fastidious will do well
to avoid the smaller villages, where the Alander's diet generally
consists solely of seal-meat, salt fish, bread and milk. A delicacy
eaten with gusto by these people is composed of seal-oil and the
entrails of sea-birds, and is almost identical with one I saw amongst
the Tchuktchis on Bering Straits. And yet the Alanders are cleanly
enough in their habits and the smallest village has its bath-house.
At one time Aland was famous for sport, and in olden days Swedish
sovereigns visited the island to hunt the elk, which were then
numerous. But these and most other wild animals are now extinct and
even wild fowl are scarce. Only one animal appears to thrive,--the
hedgehog; but the natives do not appear to have discovered its
edible qualities. An English tramp could enlighten them on this
point.
[Illustration: HELSINGFORS, FINLAND]
The entire population of Finland amounts to rather over 2,500,000,
including a considerable number of Swedes, who are found chiefly
in the Aland Islands, Nyland, and Finland proper. Helsingfors,
the capital, contains over 80,000 souls, and Kemi, the smallest
town, near the northern frontier, under 400. Of the other cities,
Abo has 30,000, Tammerfors, 25,000, and Viborg, 20,000 inhabitants.
I should add that there is probably no country in creation where
the population has so steadily increased, notwithstanding adverse
conditions, as Finland. After the Russian campaign of 1721 the
country contained barely 250,000 souls, and yet, although continually
harassed by war and its attendant evils, these had increased thirty
years later to 555,000. Fifty years ago the Finns numbered 1,500,000,
and the latest census shows nearly double these figures, although
in 1868 pestilence and famine swept off over 100,000 victims.
The languages spoken in the Grand Duchy are Finnish and Swedish,
the former being used by at least eighty-five per cent. of the
population. Russian-speaking inhabitants number about 5,000, while
the Lapps amount to 1,000 only, other nationalities to under 3,000.
Although Swedish is largely spoken in the towns, Finnish only is
heard, as a rule, in the rural districts. There is scarcely any
nobility in the country, if we except titled Swedish settlers. Most
Finns belong to the middle class of life, with the exception of a
few families ennobled in 1809 by the Tsar of Russia on his accession
as Grand Duke of Finland. The lower orders are generally quiet and
reserved in their demeanour, even on festive public occasions, and
make peaceable, law-abiding citizens. "'Arry" is an unknown quantity
here, and "'Arriet" does not exist. A stranger will everywhere
meet with studied politeness in town and country. Drive along a
country road, and every peasant will raise his hat to you, not
deferentially, but with the quiet dignity of an equal. The high
standard of education, almost legally exacted from the lowest classes
in Finland, is unusually high, for the most illiterate plough boy
may not marry the girl of his choice until he can read the Bible
from end to end to the satisfaction of his pastor, and the same
rule applies to the fair sex.
The climate of Finland is by no means so severe as is generally
imagined. As a matter of fact, no country of a similar latitude,
with the exception of Sweden, enjoys the same immunity from intense
cold. This is owing to the Gulf Stream, which also imparts its genial
influence to Scandinavia. In summer the heat is never excessive, the
rainfall is insignificant, and thunderstorms are rare. July is the
warmest, and January the coldest month, but the mean temperature of
Helsingfors in mid-winter has never fallen below that of Astrakhan,
on the Caspian Sea.
The weather is, however, frequently changeable, and even in summer
the thermometer often rises or falls many degrees in the space
of a few hours. You may sit down to dinner in the open air in
Helsingfors in your shirt-sleeves, and before coffee is served be
sending home for a fur coat. But this is an unusual occurrence, for
a summer in Finland has been my most agreeable climatic experience
in any part of the world.
The winter is unquestionably hard, and lasts about six months,
from November till the middle of April. At Christmas time the sun
is only visible for six hours a day. The entire surface of the
country, land, lake, and river, then forms one vast and frozen
surface of snow, which may be traversed by means of sledge, snowshoes,
or ski. A good man on the last-named will easily cover his seven
miles an hour. Although tourists generally affect this country
in the open season, a true Finlander loves the winter months as
much as he dislikes the summer. In his eyes boredom, heat, and
mosquitoes are a poor exchange for merry picnics on ski, skating
contests, and sledge expeditions by starlight with pretty women and
gay companions, to say nothing of the nightly balls and theatre and
supper parties. Helsingfors is closed to navigation from November
until June, for the sea forms an icy barrier around the coast of
Finland, now no longer impenetrable, thanks to the ice-breakers at
Hangö. In the north the Gulf of Bothnia is frozen for even longer.
Towards April winter shows signs of departure. By the middle of
May ice and snow have almost disappeared, except in the north,
where Uleaborg is, climatically, quite three weeks behind any of
the southern towns. Before the beginning of June verdure and foliage
have reappeared in all their luxuriance, and birds and flowers
once more gladden field and forest with perfume and song. Even now
an occasional shower of sleet besprinkles the land, only to melt
in a few minutes, and leave it fresher and greener than before.
May and June are, perhaps, the best months, for July and August
are sometimes too warm to be pleasant. October and November are
gloomy and depressing. Never visit Finland in the late autumn, for
the weather is then generally dull and overcast, while cold, raw
winds, mist and sleet, are not the exception. Midwinter and midsummer
are the most favourable seasons, which offer widely different but
equally favourable conditions for the comfort and amusement of
the traveller.
And, if possible, choose the former, if only for one reason. No
one who has ever witnessed the unearthly beauty of a summer night
in Finland is likely to forget it. The Arctic Circle should, of
course, be crossed to witness the midnight sun in all its glory,
but I doubt if the quiet _crépuscule_ (I can think of no other
word) of the twilit hours of darkness is not even more weird and
fascinating viewed from amid silent streets and buildings than
from the sullen dreariness of an Arctic desert, which is generally
(in summer) as drab and as flat as a biscuit. In Arctic Lapland,
where for two months the sun never sinks below the horizon, you may
read small print without difficulty throughout the night between
June and August. This would be impossible in Helsingfors, where
nevertheless from sunset till dawn it is never quite dark. In the
far north the midnight sun affords a rather garish light; down
south it sheds grey but luminous rays, so faint that they cast
no shadows, but impart a weird and mysterious grace to the most
commonplace surroundings. No artist has yet successfully portrayed
the indescribable charm and novelty of a summer night under these
conditions, and, in all probability, no artist ever will!
His Majesty the Tsar's manifesto has not as yet (outwardly, at
any rate) Russianized the capital of Finland. It will probably
take centuries to do that, for Finland, like France, has an
individuality which the combined Powers of Europe would be puzzled to
suppress. A stranger arriving at the railway station of Helsingfors,
for instance, may readily imagine himself in Germany, Austria, or
even Switzerland, but certainly not within a thousand miles of
Petersburg. Everything is so different, from the dapper stationmaster
with gold-laced cap of German build down to the porters in clean
white linen blouses, which pleasantly contrast with the malodorous
sheepskins of unwashed Russia. At Helsingfors there is nothing,
save the soldiery, to remind one of the proximity of Tsarland. And
out in the country it is the same. The line from Mikkeli traverses
a fair and prosperous district, as unlike the monotonous scenery over
the border as the proverbial dock and daisy. Here are no squalid
hovels and roofless sheds where half-starved cattle share the misery
of their owners; no rotting crops and naked pastures; but snug
homestead, flower gardens, and neat wooden fences encircling fields
of golden grain and rich green meadow land. To travel in Southern
Finland after Northern Russia is like leaving the most hideous
parts of the Black Country to suddenly emerge into the brightness
and verdure of a sunlit Devonshire.
_LAPLAND_
_ALEXANDER PLATONOVICH ENGELHARDT_
The Peninsula of Kola, which forms the District of that name, extends
about 650 versts, or 433 miles, from west to east, from the frontiers
of Norway and Finland to the White Sea, and about 400 versts, or 266
miles, from north to south, from the Arctic Ocean to the Gulf of
Kandalax, covering an area of 131,860 square versts, or 37,022,400
acres. The coast belt from the Norwegian border-line to Holy Cape
(or Sweet-nose), is called the Murman Coast, or simply the Murman;
the eastern and south-eastern part, from Holy Cape along the White
Sea to the mouth of the Varzuga, goes by the name of the Tierski
Coast; and the southern part, from the Varzuga to Kandalax, the
Kandalax Coast; whilst the whole of the interior bears the name of
Russian Lapland. The surface of the Peninsula is either mountainous,
or covered with _tundras_ (i. e., moss-grown wilds), and swamps.
The Scandinavian mountain range, which divides Sweden from Norway,
extending to the Kola Peninsula, breaks up into several separate
branches. Along the shores of the Murman they form craggy coast
cliffs, rising at times to an elevation of 500 feet. Further to
the east they become gradually lower, so that near the White Sea
they seldom exceed fifty or one hundred feet, with less precipitous
descents. The reach their greatest height further inland, to the
east of Lake Imandra, where they form the Hibinski and Luiavrout
chains, veiled in perpetual snow. Some of the peaks rise to 970
feet above the level of the lake, which, in its turn, is 140 feet
higher than the sea-level, so that the mountains surrounding the
lake are over 1,000 feet above the level of the sea.
Not far from Lake Imandra is the lofty Mount Bozia, (or Gods' Hill),
at the foot of which, according to the traditions of the Lapps,
their ancestors offered up sacrifices to their gods. Even at the
present time the Lapps of the district speak of this site with
peculiar veneration. Between the village of Kashkarantz and the
Varzuga rises Mt. Korable, remarkable for its many caverns, studded
with crystals of translucent quartz and amethyst, the former, together
with fluor and heavy spar, being met with, too, in the eastern
parts of the mountain. The Kola Peninsula was carefully explored
by Finnish Expeditions in 1887-1892.
The climate of Lapland is not everywhere uniform, but in general
it is bleak and raw. Winter begins about the end of September and
continues till May. It is colder inland than by the ice-free shores
of the Northern Ocean, where the warm currents of the Gulf Stream
moderate the cold. And yet the severity of the weather does not
injuriously affect the health or longevity of the inhabitants.
The winter roads are well set in by the end of October (or early
in November), the snow-fall during the winter months amounting
to seven quarters, or four feet one inch. The Polar night lasts
from the 25th of November to the 15th of January, but the darkness
is not by any means so great as one would imagine. The white of
the snow gives a certain glimmer of light, and the frequent and
prolonged flashes of Aurora Borealis set the heavens in a blaze as
with clouds of fire, turning night into twilight, as it were, and
by their brilliancy and beauty making some amends to the natives
for the absence of the sun's rays. It is easy even to read by their
light; while each day, about noon, there is enough daylight for an
hour or so to enable one to dispense with candles. So that under
the name of Polar Night should be understood not the total absence
of light, but rather the season when the sun no longer appears
above the horizon. It begins to show itself again about the 17th
of January, gradually rising higher and higher as the days advance.
[Illustration: REINDEER TRAVELLING]
Snow vanishes from the plains towards the middle (or end) of May,
but remains the whole year round in the gorges of the mountains.
The rivers are clear of ice about the beginning (or middle) of
May, and within a month from that time the first shoots of verdure
begin to appear on the meadows and hill-sides. The sun never sets
from the 24th of May to the 21st of July. There is neither twilight
nor night,--the long Arctic Day has set in. During this period the
sun warms the soil only at noon, simply shining for the rest of
the day, seemingly a golden orb without heat. Summer, beginning
about the middle (_i. e._, end) of June, barely lasts two months.
By July flowers are already shedding their blossoms, their rapid
growth being aided by the unbroken daylight.
Any attempts at agriculture in such a climate are, of course, foredoomed
to failure, but along the river banks some fairly good meadows
enable the settlers of the Murman to rear all the cattle they need.
Turnips are the only vegetables that can be raised, with, here
and there, a few potatoes.
The southern and western portions of the Peninsula are covered with
pretty good timber, mostly pine (_Pinus silvestris_). As you go
further north, the timber becomes more and more stunted, consisting
chiefly of birchwood, till you reach the open _tundra_, which is
clothed in moss and low-growing shrubs.
The Lapps lead a semi-nomadic life. The settlements in which they
live are called _pagosts_, each group of Lapps having its particular
summer and winter _pagost_. The latter is usually inland near the
forests, where they herd their deer in winter. In summer they wander
nearer to the coasts and lakes for the sake of the fishing. The
winter dwelling of the Lapp is called a _toopa_, a small smoky
sod-covered hut, covering some 150 to 200 square feet; whereas in
summer he lives in his _vieja_, a large wigwam resembling a Samoyede
_choom_, but covered over, not with skins as with the Samoyedes,
but with branches, tree-bark and turfs.
The typical Lapp is dwarf-like and thick-set. He usually wears
a grey cloth jacket, his head being encircled in a high woollen
cap tapering to a tassel at the top, while his feet, wrapped up
in rags, are then covered with big shoes. In general, his whole
appearance, with his pointed beard, bears a striking resemblance
to the familiar representations of "gnomes," as these denizens of
the subterranean world are pictured to us in fairy books. Few of
the Lapps, however, confine themselves to this characteristic type
of Lapp costume, but wear whatever comes to their hands,--hats,
caps, clothes "made in Germany" and so on.
Among the women, especially the younger ones, some fairly pretty
faces may be met with. Their dress is usually a calico _sarafan_,
and generally speaking, there is nothing specially distinguishing
about their apparel.
The Lapp race is evidently dying out, or rather, is gradually
intermingling with, and being absorbed by, the neighbouring races.
With neither written memorials nor a historic past to cling to,
nor any particular religious belief, they are all of the Orthodox
Faith. In assuming the customs and civilization of the Russians,
the Lapps often abandon their own tribe, and assimilate with the
stronger race. I have often heard such sayings as the following
from Lapps who have more or less settled down: "I'm not a Lapp at
all, I'm a Russian now," or "He's a good man" (_i. e._, active,
energetic) "and not a Lapp."
So that they evidently have no particularly high opinion of themselves,
and put no great value on their tribal individuality; and yet, as
the free-born child of the broad and boundless _tundra_, the Lapp
dearly loves his home and open roving life.
The chief occupations of the Lapps are reindeer-rearing and fishing,
and in winter, the transport of goods by means of their deer. They
are unfortunately bad husbandmen, utterly reckless about the increase
of their herds, and never dreaming of looking upon them as sources
of gain. Deer-herding is not, in their eyes, a regular business,
they merely keep such head as are required for domestic uses, that
is, for food, clothing and travelling. Very few Lapps own big herds,
while most of them hardly know or care how many in reality they have.
In summer, when the deer are not wanted for travelling purposes, they
dismiss them to range at large, without any surveillance whatever. To
escape the persecutions of gadflies and mosquitoes the deer generally
flock to the Hibinski Mountains, or else wander to the sea-shore.
When thus at large they multiply freely of themselves, and, by
this time half wild, often stray away from the herds altogether.
The rearing of reindeer might easily be made such a profitable
business as to be sufficient in itself to insure a comfortable
livelihood to the Lapps. The deer itself hardly requires any looking
after the whole year round. All through the summer it feeds on
various grasses, and in winter on the _yagel_, or reindeer lichen
(_Cladonia rangiferina_), which it scratches out from under the
snow, with its hoofs. This lichen, or moss, grows in profusion all
over the _tundras_ and forests of the Kola Peninsula. It is his
deer which supply the Lapp with food and clothing, convey his family
and goods hundreds of versts in his wanderings, and, finally, give
him the opportunity of adding to his income by acting as carrier,
and by supplying teams to the government postal-stations, etc.
Some years ago some Ziriàns from the Petchora settled in the Kola
Peninsula with their herds, numbering some 5,000 head. The Lapps
welcomed them into their community, looking upon them, indeed,
as benefactors, as the Ziriàns, a smart and enterprising race,
get everything needed for household purposes, which they obtain
much cheaper than the Lapps themselves could before, at the same
time giving good prices for the skins of reindeer and other wild
animals killed by the Lapps. So far no want of grazing plots has been
felt. The Ziriàns have already over 10,000 head of deer, deriving,
comparatively speaking, enormous gains from them. But then, unlike
the Lapps, the Ziriàns go about their business in systematic and
sensible fashion, safeguarding their stock from the incursions of
beasts of prey, tending them carefully winter and summer, driving
them from time to time to suitable pastures, etc.
_MOSCOW_
_THE KREMLIN AND ITS TREASURIES. THE ANCIENT REGALIA. THE ROMANOFF
HOUSE_
_ALFRED MASKELL_
Moscow is the second capital of the Empire, but by ancient right
the first, although now surpassed both in commerce and population by
the modern city of Peter the Great. Moscow occupies almost exactly
the geographical centre of European Russia. Artistically it is of
far greater interest to us than its northern rival. It has preserved
the old oriental type: in its palaces has been displayed the barbaric
pomp of the Muscovite Tsars of which much yet remains, not only
in their renovated halls but also in what is left of the plate,
jewels and ornaments with which they once abounded.
The general plan resembles somewhat that of Paris; the different
quarters have gradually developed around a centre, and the river
Moskva meanders through them as the Seine. The centre is the Kremlin;
in shape an irregular triangle surrounded by high walls, outside
which is the first walled-in quarter--the Kitai-Gorod, that is
the Chinese city, about the meaning of which term there is some
dispute. It is not, nor ever has been, in any way Chinese.
The name of Moscow appears first in the chronicles in 1147, when
Youri, a son of Vladimir Monomachus, built the first houses of a
town on the hill where the Kremlin now stands, but it was not until
at least a century later that the city became of any importance.
In 1237, it was burned by the Tartars and the real founder was
Daniel, a son of Alexander Nevski. He was the first prince buried
in the church of St. Michael where, until the time of Peter the
Great, all the sovereigns of Russia have been buried; as in the
metropolitan Cathedral of the Assumption, but a few steps distant,
they have all been crowned up to the present day. From the Fifteenth
to the Seventeenth Centuries, at the time when the arts flourished
in Russia, in the greatest profusion and magnificence, Moscow was
endowed with her richest monuments. It was then the numerous churches
arose, the Kremlin, and the palaces of the boyars. At that time the
city consisted of the Kremlin and the three walled-in enclosures
which encircle it and each other as the several skins and shell
inclose the kernel of a walnut. It appears to have been built in a
haphazard fashion, though the old plans, with the houses sketched
in rows, exhibit an uniformity of streets and buildings. They show
us also that the houses were for the most part of wood, having each
a covered outside staircase leading to the upper stories. Built
so much of wood it was exposed to frequent conflagrations, the last
being the great burning at the time of the French invasion in 1812.
But so quickly was it always rebuilt and on the same lines that it
has ever retained its original and irregular aspect. The Kremlin
was at first of wood, but under the two Ivans it was surrounded by
the solid stone walls of white stone cut in facets, which have
given to the city the name "White Mother," or "Holy Mother Moscow
with the white walls."
[Illustration: MOSCOW.]
The Kremlin is at the same time a fortress and a city contained
within itself, with its streets and palaces, churches, monasteries,
and barracks. Eighteen towers and five gateways garnish the long
extent of the inclosing wall; two of the gateways are interesting;
that of the Saviour built by Pietro Solario in 1491, and that of
the Trinity by Christopher Galloway in the Seventeenth Century.
Here, among the churches are those of the Assumption and of St.
Michael; here are the new palace of the Tsar, the restored Terem
(what is left of the old palace), the sacristy and library of the
patriarchs, the treasure and regalia, the great tower of Ivan Veliki
in which hangs the largest bell in the world that will ring, and
beneath it the "Tsar Kolokol," the king of bells, which it is supposed
has never been rung and the king of cannons which has never been
fired.
The ancient "Kazna," or treasury of the Kremlin, where the riches
of the Tsars have been preserved from time immemorial was in the
reign of Ivan III. situated within the walls of the Kremlin, between
the Cathedrals of St. Michael and of the Annunciation. Here it
remained until the great fire of 1737. The treasure had already
suffered a heavy loss: in the early part of the Seventeenth Century,
at the time of the war with Poland, a large quantity of plate was
melted down to provide for the payment of the troops. The fire
of 1737 caused a further and greater loss and destroyed also a
large part of the armoury. At the time of the French invasion in
1812 the whole of the treasure, together with the regalia, was
removed to Novgorod, and thus escaped destruction of seizure. On
its return to Moscow in 1814, systematic arrangements were made
for its preservation, and for the formation and arrangement of
the museum in which it is now exhibited. In the year 1850 the new
building of the Orujénaia Palata which forms part of the modern
palace of the Kremlin was completed, and to this the entire collection
was transferred.
The treasury of Moscow has been almost from the time of the
establishment of the Russian Empire the place where the riches
of the Tsars have been kept; consisting of the regalia, of the
state costumes, of the plate and vases used in the service of their
table, of their most magnificent armour and horse-trappings, of
their state carriages and sledges and of the presents which from
time to time the sovereigns of other countries sent through their
ambassadors, of whose embassies so many interesting accounts have
come down to us.
The collection of plate is exposed on open stands arranged in tiers
round the pillars, or otherwise displayed in a vast hall of the
new building of the Orujénaia Palata.
The riches thus brought together have suffered many changes. The
court was frequently moved, the state of the empire was continually
disturbed, fires were of frequent occurrence, and necessity at times
caused much treasure to be melted down. The Tsar's favourites received
no doubt from time to time acceptable marks of his approbation in
the shape of rich presents, and many specimens of plate found their
way probably in a similar manner to the churches and monasteries. But
notwithstanding all this, there still remains permanently installed
and carefully guarded in the treasury of the Kremlin a collection
of plate which, for extent, variety, and interest, may rival that
in any other palace in the world.
It appears to have been customary during the last two centuries
at least to make a grand display of this treasure on the occasion
of the visit of the sovereign, and especially during the ceremonies
of the coronation. Then, in the centre of the hall in the ancient
_Terem_, known as the gold room, where the Tsar dines in solitary
state, a kind of buffet is arranged and other stands disposed,
loaded and groaning with this rich accumulation.
Great splendour and richness of material, the lavish use of jewels in
the decoration, and the brilliant colour derived from the employment
of enamels are characteristics of eastern art in the precious metals.
But while we are struck by the delicacy and refinement with which
these are employed by many eastern countries, and while we admire
the taste and harmony of colour displayed by the workmen of India
or of Persia, it must be confessed that the Russian tempted by the
glitter and display which are so much in accordance with his own
taste, has been unable to use the same judgment as those whom he
has taken as his models. Few would deny that there reigns throughout
his work that quality which is best expressed by the term--barbaric
magnificence. This is not vulgarity: such a term is not applicable;
it is the outcome of the desire which is to be found amongst all
nations who have attained a certain degree of civilization and
riches to impose respect and awe by a lavish display of material
wealth or by the use of gorgeous colour, which always calls forth
the admiration of the multitude.
In the plate and jewelled ornament which we find in the treasury
of the Kremlin, we shall find that Russian taste was fond of solid
material and ornament, enriched with many and large precious stones
of value. All Oriental nations have ever loved to accumulate riches
of this description which, at the same time that they are of use
as ornament, are also of intrinsic value. The crowns, and thrones,
and sceptres, the ornaments of the imperial costume, the gold and
silver plate and vases and other precious objects of the court
of the Tsars have, therefore, a character of solid splendour, a
want of refinement and delicacy, which is almost uniformly
characteristic. Still they are not deficient in a certain grandeur
and even elegance, and in details there is much that is admirable,
much that is strikingly original.
By far the greater number of pieces that we shall find in the Kremlin
and elsewhere belong to the Seventeenth Century. In the treasury
of the Kremlin we have but one piece of the Twelfth Century and
some few of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries. All the rest
are later.
The entire number of pieces in the Kremlin amounts to sixteen hundred.
After the disasters of 1612, all the ancient plate for the service
of the Tsar's table was melted down and converted into money; many
objects in gold and silver and jewelled work being at the same time
given in pledge to the troops of Vladislas IV. There are therefore
few examples earlier than the dynasty of the Romanoffs.
The treasure contains also some of the most highly venerated icons,
crosses, and reliquaries in Russia. As regards many of these it
is difficult to assign a date or a place of production. Many of
them have histories more or less legendary, but while some may
appear to belong absolutely to the Greek school, we must not forget
that Russia sent its workmen to Mount Athos to be instructed and
to work there, and on their return the traditions and models of
the school were scrupulously observed in the workshops of Moscow.
The regalia of the ancient Tsars scarcely yield in interest to
that of any other country. They consist of a large number of crowns
or jewelled caps of peculiar form, of orbs and sceptres, of the
imperial costume, and especially of that peculiar part of the latter,
a kind of collar or shoulder ornament, known as the _barmi_.
Other important pieces of the regalia of Alexis Michailovitch are
the orbs and sceptres, the bow and arrow case of the same description
of workmanship. These are gorgeous specimens of jewelled and enamelled
work attributed to Constantinople. The sceptre of the Tsar Michailovitch
is of similar enamelled work, and is probably a good specimen of
the effect of western influence on the goldsmiths of Moscow. The
figures especially appear to be of the Italian renaissance. Another
sceptre is unmistakably Russian work, and if not of pure taste is
at least of fine workmanship and imposing magnificence.
The thrones are of high interest from more than one point of view.
We must content ourselves with choosing two from amongst them,
viz.: the ivory throne of Ivan III. (_Antiquities of the Russian
Empire_, ii. 84-100), and the throne known as the Persian throne
(_Ibid_, ii. 62-66).
The first was brought from Constantinople in 1472 by the Tsarina
Sophia Paleologus, who, by her marriage with Ivan III., united
the coats of arms of Byzantium and Russia.
There is a certain resemblance between this throne and that known
as the chair of St. Peter at Rome. The general form is the same, as
is the manner in which the ivory plaques and their borderings are
placed. The second throne is a magnificent work, which, according
to a register as the _Book of Embassies_, was sent from Persia in
the year 1660 to the Tsar Alexis by a certain Ichto Modevlet, of
the Shah's court. M. Weltman, in his enumeration of the treasury of
the Kremlin, says: "It was therefore probably made in the workshops
of Ispahan about the same time that the globe, sceptre, and _barmi_
were ordered from Constantinople."
[Illustration: THE KREMLIN, MOSCOW.]
The Kremlin contains a large number of pieces of decorative plate
of all kinds made for the service of the table of the Tsars, or
displayed on buffets on state occasions. Much of it is the production
of other countries, presented by their ambassadors or purchased
for the Tsar. The frequent fires and the melting down of treasure
during the Polish disturbances have much diminished this collection,
and possibly also many of the finest pieces have disappeared. Of
the large service of gold plate of the Tsar Alexis, which consisted
of 120 covers, two plates are all that remain. These are, however,
sufficient evidence of the skill and taste of the Moscow goldsmiths
of the period and of their dexterity in the use of enamel.
The Treasury of the Kremlin contains a large number of cups or
vases of silver-gilt, for table use, of Russian work. There is
no great variety in the cups, but some forms are peculiar to the
country. There are especially the cups called _bratini_ (loving
cups, from _brat_, a brother), the bowls or ladles termed _kovsh_,
and the small cups with one flat handle for strong liquors. Tall
beakers expanding at the lip and contracted at the middle are also
favourite forms, but the bulbous shape is the most frequent. Indeed,
that form of bulb or cupola which we see upon the churches is peculiarly
characteristic. We find it with more or less resemblance, in the
ancient crowns, in the mitres of the popes, in the bowls of chalices
and in vases and bowls for drinking. In the _bratini_ and _kovsh_
the bulging form of ornament, the coving up of the bottoms of the
bowls, and the use of twisted lobes are very common.
The Cathedral of the Assumption is one of the many churches situated
within the precincts of the Kremlin. It was reconstructed by Fioraventi
in 1475 after the model of the Cathedral of Vladimir, and in spite
of the frequent calamities and fires which have half ruined Moscow
still preserves in a great measure its primitive character. The
church of the Assumption has five domes resting in the centre of
the building on four massive circular pillars, and the sanctuary
is composed of four hemicycles. The Cathedral of the Archangel
Michael is close by and was built in 1507 in imitation of it. Near
this again is the Cathedral of the Annunciation. This, which was
built in 1416, is more original in style and recalls the churches of
Mount Athos, or that of Kertch, which dates from the Tenth Century.
Mention must be made of an ancient building, the house known as
the Romanoff House in Moscow. It was the birthplace of the Tsar
Michael Theodorovitch, founder of the now reigning family, and
also of his father Theodore Nikitisch, who became patriarch under
the name of Philaret. In its restored state the Romanoff House
is still perhaps the most remarkable ancient building existing
in Russia as a perfect specimen of the old dwelling-houses of the
boyards. It is built of stone, and the solid exterior walls are
as they originally stood. The interior restoration, completed by
the emperor Alexander in 1859, has been carried out with great
care in the exact style of the time, the furniture and ornaments
being authentic and placed as they would have been.
_VASSILI-BLAGENNOI_
(_ST. BASIL THE BLESSED_)
_THÉOPHILE GAUTIER_
We soon reached the Kitai-Gorod, which is the business quarter,
upon the Krasnaia, the Red Square, or rather the beautiful square,
for in Russia the words red and beautiful are synonymous. Upon
one side of this square is the long façade of the Gostinnoi-Dvor,
an immense bazaar with streets enclosed by glass-like passages,
and which contains no less than 6,000 shops. The outside wall of
the Kremlin rears itself on another side, with gates piercing the
towers of sharply peaked roofs, permitting you to see above it the
turrets, the domes, the belfries and the spires of the churches and
convents it encloses. On another side, strange as the architecture
of dreamland, stands the chimerical and impossible church of
Vassili-Blagennoi, which makes your reason doubt the testimony of
your eyes. Although it appears real enough, you ask yourself if
it is not a fantastic mirage, a building made of clouds curiously
coloured by the sunlight, and which the quivering air will change
or cause to dissolve. Without any doubt, it is the most original
building in the world; it recalls nothing that you have ever seen
and it belongs to no style whatever: you might call it a gigantic
madrepore, a colossal formation of crystals, or a grotto of stalactites
inverted.
But let us not search for comparisons to give an idea of something
that has no prototype. Let us try rather to describe Vassili-Blagennoi,
if indeed there exists a vocabulary to speak of what had never been
imagined previously.
There is a legend about Vassili-Blagennoi, which is probably not
true, but which nevertheless expresses with strength and poetry
the sense of wondering stupefaction felt at the semi-barbarous
period when that singular edifice, so remote from all architectural
traditions, was erected. Ivan the Terrible had this cathedral built
as a thank-offering for the conquest of Kasan, and when it was
finished, he found it so beautiful, wonderful and astounding, that
he ordered the architect's eyes to be put out--they say he was an
Italian--so that he could never erect anything similar. According
to another version of the same legend, the Tsar asked the originator
of this church if he could not erect a still more beautiful one,
and upon his reply in the affirmative, he cut off his head, so
that Vassili-Blagennoi might remain unrivalled forever. A more
flattering exhibition of jealous cruelty cannot be imagined, but
this Ivan the Terrible was at bottom a true artist and a passionate
dilettante. Such ferocity in matters of art is more pleasing to
me than indifference.
Imagine on a kind of platform which lifts the base from the ground,
the most peculiar, the most incomprehensible, the most prodigious
heaping up of large and little cabins, outside stairways, galleries
with arcades and unexpected hiding-places and projections, unsymmetrical
porches, chapels in juxtaposition, windows pierced in the walls at
haphazard, indescribable forms and a rounding out of the interior
arrangement, as if the architect, seated in the centre of his work
had produced a building by thrusting it out from him. From the
roof of this church which might be taken for a Hindu, Chinese, or
Thibetan pagoda, there springs a forest of belfries of the strangest
taste, fantastic beyond anything else in the world. The one in the
centre, the tallest and most massive, shows three or four stories
from base to spire. First come little columns, and toothed
string-courses, then come some pilasters framing long mullioned
windows, then a series of blank arches like scales, overlapping
one another, and on the sides of the spire wart-like ornaments
outlining each spire, the whole terminated by a lantern surmounted
by an inverted golden bulb bearing on its tip the Russian cross.
The others, which are slenderer and shorter, affect the form of the
minaret, and their fantastically ornamented towers end in cupolas
that swell strangely into the form of onions. Some are tortured
into facets, others ribbed, some cut into diamond-shaped points
like pineapples, some striped with fillets in spirals, others again
decorated with lozenge-shaped and overlapping scales, or honeycombed
like a bee-hive, and all adorned at their summit with the golden
ball surmounted by the cross.
[Illustration: VASSILI-BLAGENNOI (ST. BASIL THE BLESSED), MOSCOW.]
What adds still more to the fantastic effect of Vassili-Blagennoi,
is that it is coloured with the most incongruous tones which
nevertheless produce a harmonious effect that charms the eye. Red,
blue, apple-green and yellow meet here in all portions of the building.
Columns, capitals, arches and ornaments are painted with startling
shades which give a strong relief. On the plain spaces of rare
occurrence, they have simulated divisions or panels framing pots
of flowers, rose-windows, wreathing vines, and chimæras. The domes
of the bell-towers are decorated with coloured designs that recall
the patterns of India shawls; and, displayed thus on the roofs
of the church, they recall the kiosks of the Sultans.
The same fantastic genius presided over the plan and ornamentation
of the interior. The first chapel, which is very low and in which
a few lamps glimmer, resembles a golden cavern; unexpected stars
throw their rays across the dusky shadows and make the stiff images
of the Greek saints stand out like phantoms. The mosaics of St.
Mark's in Venice alone can give an approximate idea of the effect
of this astonishing richness. At the back, the iconostas looms up
in the twilight shot through with rays like a golden and jewelled
wall between the faithful and the priests of the sanctuary.
Vassili-Blagennoi does not present, like other churches, a simple
interior composed of several naves communicating and cut at certain
points of intersection after the laws of the rites followed in
the temple. It is formed of a collection of churches, or chapels,
in juxtaposition and independent of each other. Each bell-tower
contains a chapel, which arranges itself as it pleases in this
mass. The dome is the terminal of the spire or the bulb of the
cupola. You might believe yourself under the enormous casque of
some Circassian or Tartar giant. These calottes are, moreover,
marvellously painted and decorated in the interior. It is the same
with the walls covered with those barbaric and hieratic figures,
the traditional designs for which the Greek monks of Mount Athos
have preserved from century to century, and which, in Russia, often
deceive the careless observer regarding the age of a building.
It is a peculiar sensation to find yourself in these mysterious
sanctuaries, where personages familiar to the Roman Catholic cult,
mingle with the saints peculiar to the Greek Calendar, and seem in
their archaic Byzantine and constrained appearance to have been
translated awkwardly into gold by the childish devotion of a primitive
race. These images that you view across the carved and silver-gilt
work of the iconostas, where they are ranged symmetrically upon
the golden screen opening their large fixed eyes and raising their
brown hand with the fingers turned in a symbolic fashion, produce, by
means of their somewhat savage, superhuman and immutable traditional
aspect, a religious impression not to be found in more advanced
works of art. These figures, seen amid the golden reflections and
twinkling light of the lamps, easily assume a phantasmagorical
life, capable of impressing sensitive imaginations and of creating,
especially at the twilight hour, a peculiar kind of sacred awe.
Narrow corridors, low arched passages, so narrow that your elbows
brush the walls and so low that you have to bend your head, circle
about these chapels and lead from one to the other. Nothing could
be more fantastic than these passages; the architect seems to have
taken pleasure in tangling up their threading ways. You ascend, you
descend, you seem to go out of the building, you seem to return,
twisting about a cornice to follow the curves of a bell-tower,
and walking through thick walls in tortuous passages that might
be compared to the capillary tubes of madrepores, or to the roads
made by insects in the barks of trees. After so many turnings and
windings, your head swims, a vertigo seizes you, and you wonder if
you are not a mollusk in an immense shell. I do not speak of the
mysterious corners, of inexplicable ccums, low doors opening no
one knows whither, dark stairways descending into profound depths;
for I could never finish talking of this architecture, which you
seem to walk through as if in a dream.
_POLAND_
_THOMAS MICHELL_
The Tsar still bears the title of King of Poland, but the constitutional
kingdom created at the great settlement of political accounts in
1815 has been officially styled "The Cis-Vistula Provinces," ever
since the absolute incorporation with the Russian empire in 1868.
The provinces in question, ten in number, have an aggregate area
of 49,157 English square miles, and a population of eight millions,
composed to the extent of sixty-five per cent. of Poles, the remainder
being Jews (in the proportion of thirteen per cent., and settled
chiefly in towns), Lithuanians, Russians, Germans, and other aliens.
The Poles (the Polacks of Shakespeare), are a branch of the Sclav
race, their language differing but little from that of the Russians,
Czechs (Bohemians), Servians, Bulgarians, and other kindred remnants.
Contact and co-operation with Western civilization, and escape
from Tartar subjugation, permitted the Poles to work out their
own development on lines so widely apart from those pursued by
their Russian brethren, that the complete amalgamation of these
two great Sclav branches has long been a matter of practical
impossibility.
Polish history begins, like that of Russia, with Scandinavian invasion;
Szainocha, a reliable authority of the present century, asserted
that the Northmen descended on the Polish coast of the Baltic,
and became, as in Russia, ancestors of the noble houses. On the
other hand, it is on record that the first Grand Duke of Poland
(about A. D. 842), was Piastus, a peasant, who founded a dynasty
that was superseded only in 1385 by the Lithuanian Jagellons.
Christianity was introduced by the fourth of the Piasts, A. D. 964,
and it was a sovereign of the same House, Boleslas I., the Brave,
who gave a solid foundation to the Polish State. He conquered Dantzig
and Pomerania, Silesia, Moravia, and White Russia, as far as the
Dnieper. After being partitioned, in accordance with the principle
that long obtained in the neighbouring Russian principalities,
the component territories of Poland were reunited by Vladislaf
(Ladislaf) the Short, who established his capital, in 1320, at
Cracow, where the Polish kings were ever after crowned. Casimir
the Great, the Polish Justinian (1334-1370), gained for himself
the title of _Rex Rusticorum_, by the bestowal of benefits on the
peasantry, who were _adscripti gleh_, and by the limitation of the
power of the nobles, or freeholders. On his death, Louis, King of
Hungary, his sister's son, was called to the throne; but in order
to insure its continued possession he was compelled to reinstate the
nobles in all their privileges, under a _Pacta Conventa_, which,
subject to alterations made at Diets, was retained as part of the
Coronation Oath so long as there were Polish kings to be consecrated.
He was the last sovereign of the Piast period. After compelling
his daughter to marry, not William of Austria, whom she loved, but
Jagellon, Duke of Lithuania, who offered to unite his extensive
and adjacent dominions with those of Poland, and to convert his
own pagan subjects to Christianity, the nobles, in virtue of their
Magna Charta, elected Jagellon (baptized under the name of Ladislas)
to the throne of Poland, which thus became dynastically united
(1386), with that of Lithuania.
On the death, in 1572, of Sigismund II., Augustus, the last of
the Jagellons, the power of the king, already limited by that of
two chambers, was still further diminished, and the crown became
elective. While occupied in besieging the Huguenots at Rochelle,
and at a time when Poland enjoyed more religious liberty than any
other country in Europe, Henry of Valois was elected to the throne,
in succession to Sigismund II.; but he quickly absconded from Cracow
in order to become Henry III. of France. The Jesuits, introduced in
the next reign, that of Stephen Bathori, brought strong intolerance
with them, and one of the reasons that led the Cossacks of the Polish
Ukraine to solicit Russian protection was the inferior position to
which their Greek religion had been reduced in relation to Roman
Catholicism. The Russians and Poles had been at war with each other
for two centuries. Moscow had been occupied in 1610 by the Poles in
the name of Ladislas, son of Sigismund III., of the Swedish Wasa
family, elected to the Muscovite throne by the Russian boyars, but
soon expelled by the patriots, under Minin and Pojarski. Sobieski,
who had saved Vienna for the Austrians, could not keep Kief and
Little Russia for the Poles. Such was the outcome of disorders and
revolutions in the State, and of wars with Muscovy, Turkey, and
Sweden, as well as with Tartars and Cossacks. Frederick Augustus
II., Elector of Saxony, succeeded Sobieski, and reigned until 1733,
with an interval of five years, during which he was superseded by
Stanislas I.
[Illustration: NOWO ZJAZD STREET, WARSAW.]
Dissension and anarchy became still more general, in the reign of
the next sovereign, Augustus III. Civil war, in which the question
of the rights of Lutherans, Calvinists, and other "dissidents"
obnoxious to the Roman Catholic Church played a great part, resulted
in the intervention of Russia and Prussia, and in 1772 the first
partition of Poland was consummated. The second followed in 1793,
under an arrangement between the same countries, which had taken
alarm at a liberal constitution voted by the Polish Diet in 1791,
especially as it had provided for the emancipation of the _adscripti
gleb_. The struggle made by Thaddeus Kosciuszko ended in the entry
of Suvoroff into Warsaw over the ashes of the Prague suburb, and
in the third dismemberment (1795), of ancient Poland, under which
even Warsaw was absorbed by Russia.
Previous to these several partitions, Poland occupied a territory
much more extensive than that of France. In addition to the kingdom
proper, it included the province of Posen and part of West Prussia,
Cracow, and Galicia, Lithuania, the provinces of Volhynia and Podolia,
and part of the present province of Kief. In 1772, Dantzig was a
seaport of Poland, Kaminets, in Podolia, its border stronghold
against Turkey; while to the west and north its frontier extended
almost to the walls of Riga, and to within a short distance from
Moscow. In still earlier times, Bessarabia, Moldavia, Silesia,
and Livonia were embraced within the Polish possessions.
These successive partitions gave the most extensive portion of
Polish territory to Russia, the most populous to Austria, and the
most commercial to Prussia. Napoleon I. revived a Polish state
out of the provinces that had been seized by Prussia and Austria.
This was first constituted into a Grand Duchy under the King of
Saxony, and in 1815, when Galicia (with Cracow) was restored to
Austria, and Posen to Prussia, Warsaw became again a kingdom under
a constitution granted by Alexander I. The old Polish provinces
that had fallen to the share of Catherine II. at the partitions
remained incorporated with the Russian Empire, but were not fully
subjected to a Russian administration until after the great Polish
insurrection of 1830, when also the constitution of 1815 was withdrawn,
the national army abolished, and the Polish language proscribed in
the public offices.
Notwithstanding the wide measures of Home Rule introduced by Alexander
II. into the administration of the kingdom, and which, in combination
with many liberal and pregnant reforms in Russia Proper appeared
to offer to the Poles the prospect of no inconsiderable influence
over the destinies of the Russian Empire, the old spirit of national
independence began to manifest itself, and in 1862, not without
encouragement from Napoleon III., an insurrection broke out at
Warsaw.
Outside Warsaw and its immediate vicinity there is little in Russian
Poland to interest the tourist. The country is generally level
and monotonous, with wide expanses of sand, heath, and forest,
and it is only towards the north and east that the ground may be
said to be heavily timbered. Dense forests stretch down from the
Russian, anciently Polish, province of Grodno, and now form the
last retreat in Europe of the _Bison Europeans_, the survivor of
the Aurochs (_Bos primigenius_), which is supposed to have been
the original stock of our horned cattle. Although much worried by
the wolf, the bear, and the lynx, the bison is strictly preserved
from the hunter, and are not therefore likely to disappear like the
_Bos Americanus_, or buffalo, which has so long been ruthlessly
slaughtered in the United States.
Interspersed among these barren or wooded tracts are areas containing
some of the finest corn-bearing soil in Europe, supplying from
time immemorial vast quantities of superior grain for shipment
from ports in the Baltic. It is produced on the larger estates of
two hundred to fifteen hundred acres, belonging to more than eight
thousand proprietors. The peasantry, who hold more than 240,000
farms--seldom exceeding forty acres--contribute next to nothing
towards exportation, their mode of agriculture being almost as
rude as that of the Russian peasantry, and their habits of life but
little superior, especially in the matter of drink. Towns, large
and small, occur more frequently than in Russia, and while some are
rich and industrial, others--we may say the great majority--are
poor and squalid, affording no accommodation that would render
possible the visit of even the least fastidious traveller.
Consequently we confine ourselves to Warsaw, which we take on our way
by rail to or from St. Petersburg or Moscow. Founded in the Twelfth
Century, and, during the Piast period, the seat of the appanaged
Dukes of Masovia, Warszawa, replaced Cracow as the residence of the
Polish kings and therefore as the capital of Poland, on the election
of Sigismund III. (1586). It has now a population of about 445,000,
not including the Russian garrison of 31,500 officers and men. The
left bank of the Vistula, on which Warsaw is chiefly built, is
high, and the pretty, gay, and animated city, with its stately lines
of streets, wide squares, and spacious gardens, is picturesquely
disposed along the brow of the cliff and on the plains above. Across
the broad sandy bed of the stream, here "shallow, ever-changing,
and divided as Poland itself," and which is on its way from the
Carpathians to the Baltic, is the Prague suburb, which, formerly
fortified, has never recovered from the assault by Suvoroff in
1794, when its sixteen thousand inhabitants were indiscriminately
put to the sword. A vast panorama spreads out in every direction
from this melancholy and dirty point of vantage. Opposite is the
Zamek, or castle, built by the Dukes of Masovia, and enlarged and
restored by several of the Polish kings, from Sigismund III. to
Stanislas Augustus Poniatovski. Its pictures and objects of art
are now at St. Petersburg, and Moscow, and the old royal apartments
are occupied by the Governor-General. The square in front of the
castle was the scene of the last Polish "demonstrations," in 1861,
when it was twice stained with blood.
In the Stare Miasto, or Old Town, strongly old German in aspect,
stands the cathedral, built in the Thirteenth Century, and restored
on the last occasion by King John Sobieski. A still more ancient
sacred edifice is the Church of Our Lady in the Nove Miasto, or New
Town; but it certainly retains no traces of deep antiquity. Beyond
the great Sapieha and Sierakovski Barracks towers the Alexander
Citadel, with its outlying fortifications, built in 1832-35, at the
expense of the city, as a penalty for the insurrection in 1830.
In the same direction, but a considerable distance from the town,
is Mariemont, the country seat of the consort of John Sobieski;
also Kaskada, a place of entertainment much frequented by the
inhabitants of Warsaw, and Bielany, a pretty spot on the Vistula
commanding a fine view. The churches and chapels, mostly Roman
Catholic, are numerous (eighty-five), and so are the monasteries
and convents (twenty-two).
Near Novi Sviat (New World) Street, we find the Avenues, or _Champs
Elysées_, bordered by fine lime-trees, in front of elegant private
residences. Crossing a large square, in which the troops are exercised,
and the military hospital at Uiazdov, formerly a castle of the
kings of Poland, we reach the fine park of Lazienki, a country
seat of much elegance built by King Stanislas Augustus, and now
the residence of the Emperor when he visits Warsaw. The ceilings
of this _château_ were painted by Bacciarelli, and its walls are
hung with portraits of numerous beautiful women.
Contiguous to the Lazienki Park are the extensive gardens of the
Belvedere Palace, in which the Poles attempted in 1830 to get rid
of their viceroy, the Grand Duke Constantine. We drive hence in
less than an hour to one of the most interesting places near Warsaw.
This is the Castle of Villanov, built by John Sobieski, who died
in it. To this retreat he brought back the trophies of his mighty
deeds in arms, and here sought repose after driving the Turks from
the walls of Vienna. The _château_, now the property of Countess
Potoçka, is full of historical portraits, objects of art, and other
curiosities, of which the most interesting is the magnificent suit
of armour presented by the Pope to Sobieski in memory of his great
victory. The apartments of his beautiful consort are of great elegance.
In the gallery of pictures we notice an admirable Rubens--the _Death
of Seneca_; although we are more strongly attracted by an original
portrait of Bacon, which is but little known in England.
[Illustration: HOTEL DE VILLE, WARSAW.]
For want of space, again we must plead guilty of omitting to describe
many palatial residences, and several noticeable monuments, among
which is one to Copernicus, the Polish founder of modern astronomy.
On the same ground we pass over handsome public buildings, theatres,
gardens and cemeteries, in one of which, the Evangelical Cemetery, is
buried John Cockerell, to whom Belgium owes so much of her industrial
prosperity.
_KIEF, THE CITY OF PILGRAMAGE_
_J. BEAVINGTON ATKINSON_
Kief, the Jerusalem of Russia, is by nature marked for distinction;
she rises like an Etruscan city from the plain; she is flanked by
fortifications; she is pleasantly clothed by trees, and height
beyond height is crowned by castle or by church. Fifty thousand
pilgrims annually, many of whom are footsore from long and weary
journeying, throw themselves on their knees as they see the sacred
city from afar: her holy places shine in the sun as a light set
upon a hill which cannot be hid. Three holy shrines which I can
recall to mind--Kief, Assisi, and Jerusalem--are alike fortunate in
command of situation; the approach to each is most impressive. In
Kief particularly the natural landscape is heightened in pictorial
effect by the picturesque groups of pilgrims, staves in hand and
wallets on back, who may be seen at all hours of the day clambering
up the hill, resting under the shadow of a tree, or reverently
bowing the head at the sound of a convent bell.
Kief is not one city, but three cities, each with its own fortification.
The old town, strong in position, and enclosing within its circuit
the Cathedral of St. Sophia and the Palace of the Metropolitan,
was in remote ages a Sclavonian Pantheon, sacred to the Russian
Jupiter and other savage gods. The new town, separated from the
old town by a deep ravine, stands on a broad platform which rises
precipitously from the banks of the Dnieper. The walls are massive,
the fort is strong, and the famous monastery, the first in rank
in Russia, with its gilt and coloured domes, shines from out the
shade of a deep wood. The third division, "the Town of the Vale,"
situated between the hills and the river, is chiefly devoted to
commerce. Without much stretch of fancy it might be said that Kief,
like Rome, Lisbon and some other cities, is built on seven hills.
And thus the pictorial aspect changes almost at every step; a winding
path will bring to view an unsuspected height, or open up a valley
previously hid. The traveller has in the course of his wanderings
often to feel thankful that a kind providence has planted sacred
places in the midst of lovely scenery. The holy mountain at Varallo,
the sacred hill at Orta, are, like the shrines of Kief, made doubly
pleasant for pilgrimage through the beauties of nature by which
they are surrounded. It is said that at the monastery of the Grande
Chartreuse the monks do not permit themselves to look too much at
the outward landscape, lest their hearts should by the loveliness
of earth be estranged from heaven. I do not think that Russian
priests or pilgrims incur any such danger. When they are neither
praying nor eating they are sleeping; in short, I did not among
the motley multitude see a single eye open to the loveliness of
colour in the sky above, or to the beauty of form in the earth
beneath. It is singular how obtuse these people are; I have noticed
in a crowded railway carriage that not a face would be turned to
the glory of the setting sun, but if a church tower came into view
on the distant horizon, every hand was raised to make the sign
of the cross. While taking my observations among the pilgrims at
Kief I was struck with the fact, not only that a superstitious
faith, but that a degraded art blinds the eye to the beauty of
nature. It is one of the high services of true art to lead the mind
to the contemplation, to the love and the better understanding,
of the works of creation. But, on the contrary, it is the penalty
of this Byzantine art to close the appointed access between nature
and nature's God. An art which ignores and violates truth and beauty
cannot do otherwise than lead the mind away from nature. This seemed
one of the several lessons taught by Kief, the city of pilgrimage.
Sketchers of character and costume will find excellent studies
among the pilgrims of Kief. The upper and educated classes, who
in Russia are assimilating with their equals in other nations, and
are therefore not tempting to the pencil or the brush, do not, as
we have already seen, come in any numbers to these sacred shrines.
It is the lower orders, who still preserve the manners and customs
of their ancestors, that make these church festivals so attractive
to the artist. The variety of races brought together from afar--a
diversity only possibly within an empire, like Russia, made up of
heterogeneous materials--might serve not only to fill a portfolio,
but to illustrate a volume; the ethnologist equally with the painter
would find at the time of great festivities curious specimens of
humanity. I remember some years ago to have met with the French
artist, M. Théodore Valerio, when he had brought home the _Album
Ethnographique_ from Hungary, Croatia, and the more distant borders
of the Danube. It was quite refreshing, after the infinite number
of costume-studies I had seen from Italian peasantry, to find that
art had the possibility of an entirely new sphere among the Sclavonic
races. A like field for any painter of enterprise is now open in
Russia. The large and famous composition, _The Butter Week (Carnival)
in St. Petersburg_, by C. Makowski, may serve to indicate the hitherto
undeveloped pictorial resources of the empire. When the conditions
are new there is a possibility that the art may be new also. The
ethnology, the physical geography, the climate, the religion, the
products of the animal and vegetable kingdoms, so far as they are
peculiar to Russia, will some day become reflected into the national
art. It is true that the painter may occasionally feel a want of
colour, the costumes of the peasant are apt to be dull and heavy, yet
not unfrequently rags and tatters bring compensation by picturesque
outlines and paintable surface-textures. At Kief, however, the traveller
is sufficiently south and east to fall in with warm southern hues
and Oriental harmonies, broken and enriched, moreover, among the
lower orders by that engrained dirt which I have usually noted as
the special privilege and prerogative of pilgrims in all parts of
the world. The use of soap would seem to be accounted as sacrilege
on religious sentiment. What with dust, and what with sun, the
wayfarers who toil up the heights leading to the holy hill have
gained a colour which a Murillo would delight in. The face and
neck bronzed by the hot sun tell out grandly from a flowing mass
of hair worthy of a patriarch.
[Illustration: THE DNIEPER AT KIEF.]