ABUSED RUSSIA
[Illustration: HIS EXCELLENCY A. S. YERMELOFF
To whom the book is dedicated]
ABUSED RUSSIA
BY
DR. C. C. YOUNG
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
THE DEVIN-ADAIR COMPANY
437 FIFTH AVENUE
COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY
THE DEVIN-ADAIR COMPANY
Dedicated
TO ONE OF RUSSIA’S GREAT MEN, HIS EXCELLENCY A. S.
YERMOLOFF, LIFE MEMBER OF HIS MAJESTY’S COUNCIL,
TO WHOM I AM DEEPLY GRATEFUL FOR THE
NUMEROUS COURTESIES SHOWN ME WHILE
TRAVELING IN RUSSIA, AND FOR HIS INTEREST
IN SUBMITTING MY ARTICLES TO
HIS GRACIOUS EMPEROR,
NICHOLAS II
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE 11
CHAPTER I
SOME FALSE IMPRESSIONS 17
CHAPTER II
A BIT OF EARLY RUSSIAN HISTORY 31
CHAPTER III
THE RUSSIAN TEMPERAMENT 41
CHAPTER IV
THE RELIGIOUS VIEW OF THE RUSSIAN 47
CHAPTER V
THE COSSACK 53
CHAPTER VI
THE PASSPORT SYSTEM 57
CHAPTER VII
REGARDING A NEW TREATY WITH RUSSIA 66
CHAPTER VIII
THE RUSSIAN JEWS 70
CHAPTER IX
ASIATIC POSSESSIONS 83
NOTE 101
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FACING PAGE
HIS EXCELLENCY A. S. YERMELOFF _Frontispiece_
A RUSSIAN DANCEUSE IN THE NATIONAL COSTUME
OF A TADJICK WOMAN OF BOKHARA 17
THE CHURCH OF RESURRECTION OF PETROGRAD 18
HIS EXCELLENCY, ACTING GOVERNOR-GENERAL
GALKIN OF WEST TURKESTAN 20
CATHEDRAL OF ST. BASIL 22
THE “TZAR KOLOKOL” OR MONARCH OF BELLS,
MOSCOW 24
VILLAGE AUTHORITIES IN SOUTH RUSSIA 28
TADJICK JUSTICE OF PEACE OF BOKHARA 30
AFGHAN “ISHAN” COLLECTING MONEY IN THE
NAME OF ALLAH 32
TURCOMANS 34
HEIR TO THE THRONE OF AFGHANISTAN 36
TYPICAL PEASANTS OF GREAT RUSSIA 38
TYPICAL “WHITE” RUSSIANS 40
A LITTLE RUSSIAN GIRL-MILKMAID OF KIEV 42
IVAN IVANOVITCH 44
PREPARING FOR THE “SHACHSE WACHSE” CELEBRATION 47
THE “SHACHSE WACHSE” CELEBRATION 48
THE “KREMLIN,” MOSCOW 50
REGISTAN SQUARE IN FRONT OF MECHET SHIR DOR
IN SAMARKAND 53
KARAVAN OF AFGHANS CROSSING THE AMU DARIA
RIVER AT KERKI 57
DR. C. C. YOUNG IN KARA KUM DESERT 60
HIS MAJESTY THE KHAN OF KHIVA, WEST TURKESTAN,
CENTRAL ASIA 64
KOMRAT REAL SCHOOL 71
MR. KONSTANTIN ALEKSANDROVITCH MIMI 72
A HEBREW WOMAN OF BOKHARA 76
“GORODOVOY”--RUSSIAN POLICEMAN 78
THE “PRISTAV”--DISTRICT CHIEF OF POLICE 80
ACTING GOVERNOR KARAUL BEGI 82
THE ATACHADJA MIRACHUR 82
TWO AFGHAN SOLDIERS 84
TREACHEROUS DAGHAS OF AFGHANISTAN 84
AUTHOR’S FATHER, MR. CHRISTIAN YOUNG, SR. 86
GURI-MIR, MAUSOLEUM OF TIMUR 88
KARAKUL EWE AND LAMB 90
THE FAMOUS “ARBA” OF WEST TURKESTAN 92
THE INHABITANTS OF KHIVA, WEST TURKESTAN 94
INTERIOR OF THE SUMMER PALACE OF THE EMIR 96
A TEKIN WEDDING 98
THE MINARET, THE TOWER OF DEATH, IN OLD
BOKHARA CITY 100
ENTRANCE TO OLD FORT OF OLD PALACE 102
KHIRGIZ WOMEN AND CHILDREN IN WEST TURKESTAN 106
HIGH-CLASS, VEILED, SART WOMAN 108
PREFACE
When, in 1907, I began my travels in Russia, I was honored with a
personal letter of introduction from Theodore Roosevelt, and I take
this opportunity to express my gratitude for his invaluable assistance.
It was this letter which enabled me to make the acquaintance of former
United States Ambassador to Russia, Hon. John Riddle, through whom I
met some of Russia’s Ministers and other men of prominence in public
life, including His Excellency A. S. Yermoloff.
In 1912 it was the Hon. J. A. Tawney, of Minnesota, who prevailed on
ex-President William Taft to speak a good word for me to Mr. Guild, our
Ambassador to St. Petersburg, who was at the time on a visit to the
United States. In 1913, I was again put under great obligations to Mr.
Tawney for securing for me a personal letter from His Royal Highness
the Duke of Connaught, Governor General of Canada, to Lord Buchanan,
the British Ambassador in St. Petersburg, to whom I owe a debt of
thanks for the many kindnesses extended me.
The most courteous Morris Sheppard, United States Senator from Texas,
interested President Wilson in behalf of my last Central Asiatic
expedition, so that when I came to St. Petersburg the beginning of last
year, I was most warmly received by our _chargé d’affaires_, Mr. Wilson.
My associate, Mr. Joseph Simonson, of Middlewater, Texas, a warm
friend of Dr. Osborne, our well-known Assistant Secretary of State,
prompted the latter to introduce me to the Russian Ambassador, Mr.
Bakhmeteff, who wrote a letter in my behalf to the Russian Minister
of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Sazonoff, for which I am more than thankful.
To Russia’s great railway Minister, Mr. Ruchloff, who saw fit to give
me an annual pass over every railway in the empire during 1912, 1913
and 1914, I owe no small debt of gratitude. Never in my life will I
forget the exceptional courtesy shown me by Russia’s Secretary of
War, General Suchomlinoff, who received me in his home, and honored
me with a personal letter to the Military Governor General of West
Turkestan, Mr. Samsonoff, to whom I also owe my appreciation. I am
obligated for numerous favors received from the Russian Embassy at
New Bokhara, Khanate of Bokhara, West Turkestan, Central Asia, who had
received special instructions about my visit to the northern border
of Afghanistan from Mr. Klem, Director of the Asiatic Division of the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Dr. Connor, until very recently United
States Consul to St. Petersburg, furnished me with most of the data in
reference to certain points dealing with our treaty with Russia.
For some of the facts contained in this book, I have made reference to
the Russian historians Kostomaroff, Karamzim and Ivanoff.
Mr. B. P. Egert, of St. Petersburg, author of the book “The Conflict
Between the United States and Russia,” placed me under great
obligations by his kindness. I have found the books of D. M. Lagofet, a
member of the Russian Imperial Geographical Society, of great help, as
also those of the English writer, Maurice Baring.
DR. C. C. YOUNG.
REFERENCES
The articles to which I would like to refer the reader are as follows:
“Some Foreigners from Oversea,” _Harper’s Magazine_, February, 1908.
“Why Russia is Misunderstood,” _Taylor & Trotwood Magazine_, November,
1908.
“Russia Waking up Under Third Douma,” New York _Times_, August 16,
1908.
“Is Russia Ripe for a Constitutional Form of Government?” Dallas
(Texas) _Morning News_, Sunday Magazine Edition, September 26, October
3, October 10 and October 17, 1909.
“A Glimpse into the Heart of New Russia,” Chicago Sunday _Tribune_,
September 25, 1910.
“West Turkestan and Bokhara,” New York _Times_, Sunday, January 18,
1914.
Chicago Sunday _Tribune_, August 21, 1910.
Columbus (Ohio) Evening _Despatch_, February 3, 1911.
St. Louis Post _Despatch_, September 10, 1911.
New York _Herald_, September 10, 1911.
_Literary Digest_, September 30, 1911.
New York _Herald_, April 20, 1913.
_The Journal of Heredity_ (Washington, D. C.), October, 1914.
_The Field_, Illustrated, November, 1914, etc., etc.
[Illustration: A RUSSIAN DANCEUSE IN THE NATIONAL COSTUME OF A TADJICK
WOMAN OF BOKHARA]
ABUSED RUSSIA
CHAPTER I
SOME FALSE IMPRESSIONS
In my travels over European and Asiatic Russia, I have often been asked
by apparently intelligent Russian people whether, in view of the Indian
and negro admixture, it will ever be possible to civilize the American
masses. My own sister anxiously asked me what was the ratio of white
people in such Indian cities as New York and Chicago. I couldn’t help
laughing at such questions, and often answered by telling my curious
Russian friends that there are practically only Indians in this country
of expectation and promise--white Indians!
Further discussion of American topics often brought out the fact that
having learned that mob violence occurred in the United States and that
negroes were burned at stake, my friends came to the conclusion that a
people displaying such barbarism could only be the progeny of inferior
Indian and negro admixture. For this reason, they believed one could
find white people only in certain parts of the country and that yellow
or swarthy hybrids filled the other sections.
[Illustration: THE CHURCH OF RESURRECTION OF PETROGRAD
Built on the spot where Alexander II was killed]
On one occasion a Russian Countess, who lived in the interior of
one of the Black Belt provinces, and had a national reputation as
a philanthropist and social worker, hotly and rudely retorted to a
remark of mine, that the lynchings of the United States ought to be
stopped by the well-drilled soldiers of Europe, that the President
ought to be executed for not exercising his power to stop these
inhuman and outrageous death penalties, which proved conclusively
that the Americans were not entitled to be called a civilized people.
It did require some explanation indeed to convince her that our
President could hardly be held responsible for mob violence, that it
was discountenanced by all good American citizens as well as by the
major portion of the press. To further free the mind of the Countess
from these erroneous impressions, I reminded her that even in her
own Russia men have been known to take the law into their own hands
under pressure of circumstances, and cited a case, then in the public
eye, of a certain Count of Crimea who was killed by his nephew for
having compromised the wife of the latter, and that a jury of twelve
representative Russian gentlemen adjudged the culprit “not guilty,”
and that, too, when the Count had been one of Russia’s richest and
most influential noblemen, and a member of the Emperor’s Council.
But the Countess would not be wholly persuaded. “If your President,”
she persisted, “should not be held accountable for these horrible
lynchings--of which we read pages and pages--why do you Americans hold
our gracious Emperor responsible for the deeds of criminals--deeds
which often make us blush for our country--and this when your own
United States seem to have their share of the lawless and unrestrained!”
“Is not the excuse for such degeneracy greater with the Russians,”
continued she, “since we have been the slaves of the barbarous
Mongol-Tartars for three hundred years and it has been our hard lot
to have had to assume the responsibility of educating fifty-three
millions of peasants, slaves for three hundred years, and who were
only liberated about the time your negroes became free men? Then, too,
some of our best people had become hybridized by the injection of the
dreadful Mongolian Tartar blood, the demoralizing influence of which
can be only likened to the awful effect of wolf blood when introduced
into a Scotch collie. To this day still applies the French proverb
‘_Gratez le russe et vous trouvez le tartar_’ (Scratch the skin of the
Russian and you will find the Tartar).”
Of a similar trend was the opinion of Prince Khilkoff, who, in order to
learn railroading, spent twelve years in America. “Instead of having
practically every race on earth to contend with,” he had stated, “your
people are rather homogeneous. They have not had to fight Asiatic
hordes of Mongols and Malays for nearly a thousand years. They are not
shut off from the world as we are by the jealousy of Europe, which has
denied us an outlet. We have no access to the Atlantic Ocean--and that
is practically true of the Pacific, and little can be gained by sailing
on the frozen Arctic seas. Why do your people,” he asked, “insult our
Emperor, who is the kindest-hearted man in the world, and who suffers
more than any other Russian when mob law becomes rampant in certain
communities? Moreover,” the Prince continued, “having been the
Minister of Railways during the Japanese-Russian war, and having had
_entrée_ into the court of our ruler, I know how he suffered because
the war with Japan could not be averted. The senseless attacks made
upon him by the all-powerful Semitic newspapers in the United States
were certainly uncalled for, and what especially pained me was the fact
that these papers were able to turn the entire country against our
government and our nation, all of which we resented and which cost your
people millions in loss of trade.”
[Illustration: HIS EXCELLENCY ACTING GOVERNOR-GENERAL GALKIN OF WEST
TURKESTAN]
Such, then, are some of the ideas current in Russia concerning America
and Americans. Are the conceptions of Russia and the Russians given
credence in the United States as true or just?
To the American who has made no special study of Russian conditions,
Russia is a country without a summer, with frozen landscapes, midnight
sun, and everywhere a covering of snow. He pictures the sleigh with
its troika as the mode of transportation, the wolves chasing behind;
buildings in wild and gaudy colors, terminating in bulb-like steeples,
resembling Mohammedan mechets; private houses, barbarously decorated
inside and out. The people of Russia, in his mind, are divided into
several highly dramatic types: diplomats hiding behind tapestry to hear
the state secrets of unsuspecting foreigners, crooked generals who
can be bribed for a dollar, gendarmes and Nihilists, poor, starving
peasants, who are always being knutted, robbed by the police or the
Russian priests, cigarette-smoking Nihilist princesses, who have
sacrificed themselves to secure liberty for the peasants. And if his
mind goes beyond this, the American layman fills in the picture with
gendarmes of the Ochrana constantly plotting against peaceful citizens
and arranging for their deportation to Siberia, without giving them
even a trial; with dreaded Cossacks, who, in conjunction with the
police, delight in chopping Jews to pieces or knocking them senseless
with knotted wire whips called “knuts”; with brilliantly dressed
Tartars, swooping down upon the people and gouging out their eyes. And
these divers classes are supposed to be ruled by a bloodthirsty Tzar,
who lives somewhere in dreaded Russia, and who is in perpetual fear of
being transported to another sphere by way of a Nihilistic bomb.
[Illustration: CATHEDRAL OF ST. BASIL
Built in 1554 by Tzar Ivan IV, and at that time said to have been the
most beautiful in the world]
These are some of the mistaken impressions of Russia prevailing in
this country. To trace their origin, we must bear in mind that all
peoples have a love of the sensational and will more readily accept
as true a highly colored tale of adventure than a calm, dispassionate
statement of facts. Then, too, a certain element of the press delights
in pandering to the appetite for the marvelous.
Some six years ago, I had an experience which vividly illustrated this
point. I was in Odessa at the time, and that city was then considered
one of the quietest in Europe. I remember being amused by reading
in the Paris edition of the New York _Herald_ an Associated Press
despatch announcing another dreadful Jewish massacre in that city.
On the night of the supposed massacre, I had been with a party of
friends, motoring through Odessa, until three o’clock in the morning,
and we had been aware of no disturbance of any kind, nor saw nor heard
anything that might have been construed as a commotion. When, later,
we showed the paper to Governor Tolmatchoff, he laughingly remarked
that if we stayed long enough in Odessa, we would have a chance to read
more such despatches, as they were being sent to New York from time
to time, and from there cabled back to Paris, by a certain class of
anarchistically inclined Hebrews, to stir up the minds of the better
class of their own people and of the Gentiles, and open a channel of
revenue, supposedly for the cause of the downtrodden Jews. The means so
obtained, the Governor told us, seldom reached the people for whom they
were intended, and generally went to further the ends of the anarchists
and revolutionists and, he laughingly concluded, to contradict these
false reports would consume the entire Russian budget!
Practically everything written on the subject frightfully exaggerates
the worst conditions of Russia and projects those false impressions
into intelligent American thought. Even Tolstoy, the most popular
Russian author in America, has not helped the American people to get an
unbiased view of the Russians, and many there are who do not realize
that the social evils he so ably depicts in his books are universal
maladies--alike in one way or another in all countries.
[Illustration: THE “TZAR KOLOKOL” OR MONARCH OF BELLS, MOSCOW
Its weight is 440,000 pounds. It is 20 feet in height and 60 feet in
circumference. The value of the metal in the bell is estimated at
$2,000,000. Originally it hung in a tower, which was burned in 1737,
and now it lies at the foot of the “Tower of Veliky,” built in 1600 by
Ivan the Terrible]
The truth of the situation was well expressed by the English girl who
said she greatly preferred English stories of Russia to Russian stories
because the Russian accounts lacked local color, while the English
tales of Russia were so much more Russian.
Careful observers have noticed that in the past twenty years, England,
Germany and France have tried in every possible way to influence
our people in favor of their countries. Their ambassadors delivered
numerous lectures, never missed a national convention, and inspired
many newspaper and magazine articles to turn the trend of public
opinion in the United States their way. We cannot say the Russian
representatives made many efforts to defend their country, nor have
Russian writers done even as much.
It seems deplorable that the Russian Department of Foreign Affairs has
not always exercised the best judgment in the selection of its consuls,
and has sent men to represent her here whom it would have been best not
to introduce to the American public. This fact has been brought to the
attention of the chief officials, but since the United States showed
a hostile attitude toward Russia in the Japanese war, and in various
other ways have expressed their unfriendliness, it seemed to them that
Russia’s efforts to cope with the situation here were futile, and
even should she send her most capable diplomats to America, the press
would hear no word in her defense, thanks mostly to a certain hostile
Hebrew influence. Only this year, one of the principal directors of
the Ministry told me that he was assured by some of the men who had in
the past represented the Department in America, that nobody could say
anything in favor of Russia on account of the attitude of the press. I
did not hesitate to produce numerous articles, written by my friends
and myself, and published by some of the largest newspapers in the
country in defense of Russia, and proved that some of the consuls had
apparently tried to hide their criminal inactivity by making false
statements.
It is only fair, however, to mention the fact that at present Russia
is very fortunate in having such representatives at Washington as Mr.
Bakhmeteff and Mr. Scherbatskoi. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is
to be congratulated not only for this wise selection, but for that
of Mr. Oustinoff, as consul general at New York, and for that of his
able assistant, the courteous Mr. de Routsky. Through these worthy
gentlemen, it seems Russia is at last bestirring herself and trying to
make an effort to explain to us her many and intricate problems, and to
right the wrong beliefs and prejudices fostered in the American mind by
misrepresentations and falsehoods.
It would be greatly to Russia’s benefit should she be able to deflect
the stream of travel over the eastern continent, and obtain for
herself the enormous amounts spent annually by American tourists to
see countries no more interesting than her own. To one who knows
Russia, it is pleasant to recall some typical country scene. The
level land divided into narrow strips, sown with barley, rye, wheat,
corn and flax, presents a veritable checkerboard appearance, here
and there interspersed with low-housed villages. In southern Russia,
these generally consist of squat one-story adobe houses, gorgeously
painted in all the shades of blue, vermilion, red and yellow, and
often pure white, while in northern Russia, the dwellings are quite
presentable frame houses. In the center of the hamlet is the church
with its five or more bulb-shaped cupolas crowned with the Greek
Catholic cross resting on the crescent, and this edifice, like the
“isbas” or peasant huts, is beautifully decorated in and outside. Near
the church stand the two most pretentious houses of the village, one
for the school-teacher, the other for the priest of the “derevnia,”
as the village is termed. Beyond, is the laundry place for the
inhabitants. Here the women sing joyously as they work. Close by is
the bathing place, a shallow pool in the river, where with the utter
unselfconsciousness of children, men and women sometimes bathe together
in Nature’s costume. And over all, hovers the beautiful calm--the peace
which comes to minds innocent of the thousand conflicting, complicating
circumstances of city life. Shakespeare could have spoken as truly of
this country as he did of the Forest of Arden, when he made Duke Senior
say,
“Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
Than that of painted pomp?
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
And this life exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.”
Russia has thousands upon thousands of such hamlets, yet what a totally
different picture of her peasant life is maliciously projected into the
minds of those unacquainted with her!
[Illustration: VILLAGE AUTHORITIES IN SOUTH RUSSIA
From left to right: (1) The “starosta,” or village elder. (2) Village
secretary. (3) Village school teacher. (4) The “Uriadnick,” or chief of
village police. (5) The “Schits,” or town crier. Only the “Uriadnick”
is a full-blooded Russian Slav. The others are of Teutonic origin]
No less applicable to Russia than to any other nation is the truism
that the physical characteristics of a country more than anything else
determine the occupation and character of its inhabitants. The two
most important features of Russia in this respect are its uniformity
of surface and its absence of sea front free from ice. These two
characteristics present the keynote to the history of the Russian
nation, and to the character of the Russian people. The uniformity of
surface and the similarity of surroundings have always given impulse to
immigration and expansion.
From the point of view of production, Russia may be divided into four
zones of uneven extent: (1) the great forests of the north; (2) the
black land of the central provinces; (3) the zone of arable steppes;
(4) the deserts of the south and southeast. The largest of these belts
is that of the forests, which extends from the center of Russia to the
frozen marshes of the north. The so-called “chernoziem” or black belt
stretches from the banks of the river Prut to the Black Sea and is a
region of wonderful fertility, and forms a wheat-growing section larger
by one-third than the State of Texas. It was from this very part of
the country that Athens once drew her grain supply. Southeast of this
great section is the region of the arable steppes, the prairie home
of the Cossack or Russian soldier cowboy, and beyond, lie the great
deserts of West Turkestan.
Owing to the level character of the country, the climate of Russia
presents great contrasts in temperature. In winter the land is
ice-bound from the Arctic more or less to the Black Sea, and in summer,
in certain parts, it is too hot to go about in the day-time. Such,
then, is the plain of Russia, “mountain begirdled,” as the Tartar puts
it; the great plain into which have poured Novgorodians, Laps, Finns,
Esthonians, Letts, Lithuanians, Votishs, Tartars, Poles, Kalmucks,
Armenians, Circassians, Georgians, Mongolians and countless others; the
plain which comprises one-seventh of the world’s area and is the home
of a hundred and eighty million souls.
[Illustration: TADJICK JUSTICE OF PEACE OF BOKHARA, DECORATED WITH
MEDALS BY RUSSIAN GOVERNOR]