[7]As the plan of the present work does not allow of our entering on the subject in this place, we reserve it for our "Travels in the Principalities of the Danube," to be hereafter published.
[7]As the plan of the present work does not allow of our entering on the subject in this place, we reserve it for our "Travels in the Principalities of the Danube," to be hereafter published.
[8]The construction of a canal or a railroad between the Don and the Volga has long been talked of. Peter I. began a canal, but the works were soon abandoned. A new project was laid before the government in 1820, the expense of which was estimated at 7,500,000., but it remains still to be realised.
[8]The construction of a canal or a railroad between the Don and the Volga has long been talked of. Peter I. began a canal, but the works were soon abandoned. A new project was laid before the government in 1820, the expense of which was estimated at 7,500,000., but it remains still to be realised.
GENERAL REMARKS ON NEW RUSSIA—ANTIPATHY BETWEEN THE MUSCOVITES AND MALOROSSIANS—FOREIGN COLONIES—GENERAL ASPECT OF THE COUNTRY, CATTLE, &c.—WANT OF MEANS OF COMMUNICATION—RIVER NAVIGATION; BRIDGES—CHARACTER OF THE MINISTER OF FINANCE—HISTORY OF THE STEAMBOAT ON THE DNIESTR—THE BOARD OF ROADS AND WAYS—ANECDOTE.
GENERAL REMARKS ON NEW RUSSIA—ANTIPATHY BETWEEN THE MUSCOVITES AND MALOROSSIANS—FOREIGN COLONIES—GENERAL ASPECT OF THE COUNTRY, CATTLE, &c.—WANT OF MEANS OF COMMUNICATION—RIVER NAVIGATION; BRIDGES—CHARACTER OF THE MINISTER OF FINANCE—HISTORY OF THE STEAMBOAT ON THE DNIESTR—THE BOARD OF ROADS AND WAYS—ANECDOTE.
New Russia, which we have now traversed in its whole length, from west to east, consists of the three governments of Kherson, Taurid, and Iekaterinoslav. It is bounded on the north by the governments of Podolia, Kiev, Poltava, and Kharkov; on the east by the country of the Don Cossacks, the Sea of Azov, and the Straits of Kertch; on the south by the Black Sea, and on the west by the Dniestr, which divides it from Bessarabia. Its surface may be estimated at 1882 square myriamètres. It contains a population of 1,346,515, which makes about 715 inhabitants to a square myriamètre.
The existing organisation of the three governments dates from the year 1802. Their territory was successively annexed to the empire, by the treaty of Koutchouk Kainardji, the conquest of the Crimea, and the convention concluded at Jassy, in 1791.
The population of these regions is extremely mixed. The Malorossians (Little Russians) formerly known by the appellation ofCossacks of the Ukraine, form its principal nucleus; then come numerous villages of Muscovites (Great Russians) belonging to the crown and to individuals; colonies of Germans, Greeks, Armenians, Jews, and Bulgarians; the military establishments of Vosnecensk, formed with the Cossacks of the Boug and fugitives from all the neighbouring nations; and lastly the Tatars, who occupy the greater part of the Crimea and the western shores of the Sea of Azov.
Here are certainly very various and heterogeneous elements; nor can there exist between them any religious or political sympathy. The Muscovites and the Malorossians are even very hostile to each other, though professing the same creed and subject to the same laws. In spite of all the efforts of the government, and notwithstanding all the Muscovite colonies disseminated through the country, no blending of the two races has yet been effected. The old ideas of independence of the Cossacks of the Ukraine, are very far from being entirely extinguished, and the Malorossians, who have not forgotten the liberty and the privileges they enjoyed down to the end of the last century, always bear in mind that serfdom was established amongst them only by an imperial ukase of Catherine II. When the Emperor Alexander travelled through the Crimea, in 1820, it is said that he received more than 60,000 petitions from peasants claiming their freedom. Two years afterwards an insurrection broke out at Martinofka, in the environs of Taganrok; but it was speedily put down, and led to nothing but the transportation of some hundreds of unhappy serfs to Siberia.
As for the foreign colonies established in New Russia, the government adapted its regulations at first in strict accordance with their wants. Each of them possessed a constitution in harmony with its manners, its usages, and its state of civilisation, and nothing had been neglected that could prompt the development of their prosperity.
But within the last few years, the principles of political unity have been gaining the upper hand, and all the government measures are tending to assimilate the foreign populations to the free peasants of the crown. It is with this view that the special administrative committees have been suppressed, and the ministry of the domains of the crown has been created. Undoubtedly, as we have already said, when speaking of the German colonies, Russia has an incontestible right to strive to render herself homogeneous; the interests of her policy and her nationality require that she should neglect no means of arriving at a uniform administrative system. Unfortunately, generalisations are still impossible in the empire. Where there are so many conflicting forms of civilisation, the attempt to impose one unvarying system of rule upon so many dissimilar peoples, cannot be unattended with danger, particularly when that system is an exclusive one, and belongs only to one of the least enlightened portions of the population. It is, at this day, quite asimpolitic to apply to the German colonists the administrative system practised with the Russian peasants, as it would be absurd to govern the latter like the Germans.
The government would act more wisely if it tried, in the first place, to raise its native subjects to the level of the foreigners, instead of depressing the latter by subjecting them to the same conditions as its 40,000,000 of serfs. The difficulties would no doubt be great; but obstinately to persist in establishing a forced administrative unity by dint of ukases, is nothing short of ruin to those thriving and industrious foreign colonies, which for more than half a century have done so much for the prosperity of the country, by bringing the soil of Southern Russia into productive cultivation; and it is well known, that already, several hundred families have abandoned their settlements and returned to Germany.
The whole of Southern Russia from the banks of the Dniestr to the Sea of Azov, and to the foot of the mountains of the Crimea, consists exclusively of vast plains called steppes, elevated from forty to fifty yards above the level of the sea. The soil is completely bare of forests; it is only in some sheltered localities along the banks of the Dniepr and the other rivers, and in their islands, that we find a few woods of oak, birch, aspen, and willow. The inhabitants of the country are obliged to use for firing, reeds, straw, and the dung of cattle kneaded into little masses like bricks. In Odessa, they import wood from Bessarabia, the Crimea, and the banks of the Danube; but it costs as much as eighty rubles the fathom. English coal is also consumed, and as the merchant vessels carry it as ballast, its cost is very moderate. Within the last few years the native coal from the government of Iekaterinoslav and the Don country, is also beginning to be used throughout Southern Russia.
The growth of wheat and the rearing of cattle, chiefly Merino sheep, are the main sources of wealth in these regions. The best cultivated tracts are, in the first place, those occupied by the German colonies, and next, the environs of Podolia and Khivia. But the most productive soil is, unquestionably, that of the north-east of the government of Iekaterinoslav, where the surface of the country is more varied and better irrigated. Unfortunately, the inhabitants have scarcely any markets for their produce.
The grand want of this part of the empire is, the means of transport. Within the sixty years or thereabouts, during which the Russians have been in possession of these regions, they have founded many towns and erected many edifices to accommodate the public functionaries; but they have completely forgotten the most important thing, the thing without which agriculture and trade can make no progress worth speaking of. There are no causeways anywhere; the roads are mere tracks marked out by two ditches a few inches deep, and a line of posts set up from verst to verst to mark the distance. But usually no account is made of the imperial track, and the wheel-ruts vary laterally over a space of half aleague and more. With every fall of rain the course of the road is changed. In winter, when snow-storms and fogs prevail, travelling in New Russia is beset with serious perils. It is then so easy to wander from the route, that travellers are often in danger of losing themselves in the steppes, and dying of cold.
Bridges over the streams and rivers are as rare as causeways, and where any exist they are so defective, that drivers always try to avoid them, and so save their vehicles from the chance of being broken. Whenever the traveller is suddenly roused up from a sound sleep by a violent shock, he may be certain he is passing over a bridge or a fragment of a causeway. Spring and autumn are the seasons when he has most reason to curse the bad management of the Board of Bridges and Roads, for then the roads are impracticable: the smallest gully becomes the bed of a torrent, and communications are often totally interrupted. The consequence is that the transport of goods can only be effected in winter and during four months of summer. Nor must we allow ourselves to imagine that sledging is a very safe mode of carriage; the snow-storms cause great disasters, and if the winter be at all rigorous, an enormous number of draught oxen are lost.
Every one knows what fine rivers nature has bestowed on New Russia. The Dniestr and the Dniepr are two admirable canals, which, after having traversed the central parts of the empire and its most fertile regions, terminate in the Black Sea. Their navigation, if well managed, would certainly compensate largely for the difficulties in the way of constructing roads, and might amply suffice for the wants of the population. But, as we have said in our chapter on the commerce of the Black Sea, every thing in Russia bears deplorable proof of the supineness of the government. It must, however, be owned that it is not to be reproached in every case with want of the will to do better; for recently, upon the enlightened solicitation of Count Voronzof, it was determined to establish on the Donetz, one of the confluents of the Don, a steam-tug to take in tow the coal-barges of the government of Iekaterinoslav.
The two grand obstacles which, in our opinion, impede the accomplishment of useful works in Russia, consist in the self-sufficient incapacity of the ministry of finance, and in the peculation of the functionaries. Count Cancrine[9]may be an excellent bookkeeper; we grant that he possesses no ordinary talent in matters of account; but we believe, and facts demonstrate it, that his administration has greatly diminished the financial resources of the empire. The man possesses not one enlarged idea, no forecast; he sacrifices every thing to the present moment. Every item of expenditure must bring in an immediate profit, or he looks on it as money mis-spent; he can never be brought to understand that all capital expendedin promoting agriculture and trade, returns sooner or later to the exchequer with large interest.
In 1840, a landowner, deeply interested in the navigation of the liman of the Dniestr, after many fruitless efforts, at last succeeded by stratagem in inducing him to establish a small steamer on those waters, in order to facilitate the commercial intercourse between Akermann and Ovidiopol. The salt works of Touzla, situated in the vicinity, were to advance the necessary funds to the directory of the steamer, and although that directory was entirely dependent on the government, it was, nevertheless, obliged to enter into an engagement for the repayment of the small sum advanced, within a specified time. The steamboat was set plying; but whether from mismanagement or from other causes, no profit was realised in the first few years; on the contrary, there was some loss. Angry expostulations on the part of the ministry soon followed; and for a while there was an intention of suppressing the new means of communication, though so highly important to both banks. Such is the behaviour of the ministry on all industrial or commercial questions. We shall have many other facts of the same kind to mention, when we come to speak of Bessarabia and the Crimea.
Now for an anecdote exemplifying the proceedings of the Board of Roads and Ways.[10]It was proposed by Count Voronzof in 1838, to have a bridge constructed over a brook that crosses the road from Ovidiopol to Odessa, and which is twice every year converted into a torrent. The chief engineer of the district having estimated the expense at 36,750 rubles, the scheme was discountenanced by the ministry, and the bridge remained unbuilt for four years. In 1841, Count Voronzof visited Bessarabia, and his carriage was near being overturned on the little old bridge by which the brook is crossed. "It is very much to be regretted," said he to M——i, who accompanied him, "that there is not a suitable bridge here; the ministry would not, perhaps, have refused to sanction it, if the engineers had been more moderate in their demands."
Some days afterwards M——i sent for an Italian engineer, and put into his hands a statement of all the measurements on which the government engineers had founded their estimate. The Italian asked at first 8400 rubles, and finally reduced his demand to 6475. M——i hastened to lay his proposal before Count Voronzof, who was amazed, and instantly accepted the terms. The bridge was to be forthwith constructed. It was not long before the chief engineer visited M——i, and beset him with reproaches and remonstrances, to which the former replied thus: "My good sir, I havenot slandered you, nor do I bear you the least enmity. I wanted a bridge that I might visit my estate without danger. It is not enough to have a steamer on the liman of the Dniestr, unless one has also the means of making use of it. Your demand for the execution of the works was 36,750 rubles; another person, who has no desire to lose by the job, is content to perform it for 6475. I am sorry you think he has asked too little. Be that as it may, I shall have the bridge, and that was a thing I had set my mind on. Excuse me this once."
We see by this, with what difficulty useful improvements are effected in Russia. The most earnest and laudable purposes are constantly frustrated by the vices of the administrative system. Unhappily there never can be an end to the fatal influence and the tyranny everywhere exercised by the public functionaries, until a radical reform shall have taken place in the social institutions of the empire; but nothing indicates as yet that there is any serious intention of effecting such a system.
[9]See Appendix, p. 101.
[9]See Appendix, p. 101.
[10]It is needless to say that our remarks do not apply to all the Russian engineers without exception, for we ourselves have known many upright and worthy men amongst them; and these men were the more deserving of esteem, as they always ended by being the victims of their own integrity.
[10]It is needless to say that our remarks do not apply to all the Russian engineers without exception, for we ourselves have known many upright and worthy men amongst them; and these men were the more deserving of esteem, as they always ended by being the victims of their own integrity.
"Count Cancrine was the only statesman in Russia who possessed some share of learning and general information, though somewhat deficient in the knowledge specially applicable to his own department. He was a very good bookkeeper; but chemistry, mechanics, and technology were quite unknown to him. His sense of duty overbore all feelings of German nationality; he really desired the good of Russia, while at the same time he did not neglect his own affairs, for the care of which his post afforded him peculiar facilities. Colbert's fortune was made matter of reproach to him; a similar reproach may be fairly made against M. Cancrine, even though he leaves to his children the care of expending his wealth. He has amassed a yearly income of 400,000 rubles. 'It will all go,' he says, 'my children will take care of that.'
"He was the most ardent partisan both of the prohibitive and of the industrial system; and the feverish development he gave to manufactures does not redeem the distress of agriculture to which he denied his solicitude. A true Russian would never have fallen into this error, but would have comprehended that Russia is pre-eminently an agricultural country. The question of serfdom found this minister's knowledge at fault. His monetary measures were but gropings in the dark, with many an awkward fall, and sometimes a lucky hit. He deserves credit, however, for having opposed the emperor's wasteful profusion, with a perseverance which the tsar called wrongheadedness, though he did not venture to break with him. It was Mazarine's merit that he gave Colbert to Louis XIV. In appointing M. Vrontshenko as his successor, Count Cancrine has rendered a very ill service to Russia."—Ivan Golovine, Russia under Nicholas I.
THE DIFFERENT CONDITIONS OF MEN IN RUSSIA—THE NOBLES—DISCONTENT OF THE OLD ARISTOCRACY—THE MERCHANT CLASS—SERFDOM.
THE DIFFERENT CONDITIONS OF MEN IN RUSSIA—THE NOBLES—DISCONTENT OF THE OLD ARISTOCRACY—THE MERCHANT CLASS—SERFDOM.
The Russian nation is divided into two classes: the aristocracy, who enjoy all the privileges; and the people who bear all the burdens of the state.
We must not, however, form to ourselves an idea of the Russian nobility at all similar to those we entertain of the aristocracies of Germany, or of ante-revolutionary France. In Russia, nobility is not exclusively conferred by birth, as in the other countries of Europe. There every freeman may become noble by serving the state either in a military or a civil capacity; with this difference only, that the son of a nobleman is advanced one step shortly after he enters the service, whilst the son of a commoner must wait twelve years for his first promotion, unless he have an opportunity of distinguishing himself in the meanwhile. Such opportunities indeed are easily found by all who have the inclination and the means to purchase them.
The first important modifications in the constitution of the noblesse were anterior to Peter the Great; and Feodor Alexievitch, by burning the charters of the aristocracy, made the first attempt towards destroying the distinction which the boyars wanted to establish between the great and the petty nobles. It is a curious fact, that at the accession of the latter monarch to the throne, most offices of state were hereditary in Russia, and it was not an uncommon thing to forego the services of a man who would have made an excellent general, merely because his ancestors had not filled that high post, which men of no military talent obtained by right of birth. Frequent mention has of late been made of the celebrated phrase,The boyars have been of opinion and the tzar has ordained, and it has been made the theme of violent accusations against the usurpation of the Muscovite sovereigns. But historical facts demonstrate that the supposed power of the nobility was always illusory, and that the so much vaunted and regretted institution served, in reality, only to relieve the tzars from all personal responsibility. The spirit of resistance, whatever may be said to the contrary, was never a characteristic of the Russian nobility. No doubt there have been frequent conspiracies in Russia; but they have always been directed against the life of the reigning sovereign, and never in any respect against existing institutions. The facility with which Christianity was introduced into the country, affords a striking proof of the blind servility of the Russian people. Vladimir caused proclamation to be made one day in the town of Kiev, that all the inhabitants were to repair next day to the banks of the Dniepr andreceive baptism; and accordingly at the appointed hour on the morrow, without the least tumult or show of force, all the inhabitants of Kiev were Christians.
The existing institutions of the Russian noblesse date from the reign of Peter the Great. The innovation of that sovereign excited violent dissatisfaction, and the nobles, not yet broken into the yoke they now bear, caused their monarch much serious uneasiness. The means which appeared to Peter I. best adapted for cramping the old aristocracy, was to throw open the field of honours to all his subjects who were not serfs. But in order to avoid too rudely shocking established prejudices, he made a difference between nobles and commoners as to the period of service, entitling them respectively to obtain that first step which was to place them both on the same level. Having then established the gradations of rank and the conditions of promotion, and desirous of ratifying his institutions by his example, he feigned submission to them in his own person, and passed successively through all the steps of the scale he had appointed.
The rank of officer in the military service makes the holder a gentleman in blood, that is, confers hereditary nobility; but in the civil service, this quality is only personal up to the rank of college assessor, which corresponds to that of major.
The individual once admitted into the fourteenth or lowest class, becomes noble, and enjoys all the privileges of nobility as much as a count of the empire, with this exception only, that he cannot have slaves of his own before he has attained the grade of college assessor, unless he be noble born.
It results from this system that consideration is attached in Russia, not to birth, but merely to the grade occupied. As promotion from one rank to another is obtained after a period of service, specified by the statutes, or sooner through private interest, there is no college registrar (fourteenth class) whatever be his parentage, but may aspire to attain precedence over the first families in the empire; and the examples of these elevations are not rare. It must be owned, however, that the old families have more chance of advancement than the others: but they owe this advantage to their wealth rather than to their personal influence.
With all the apparent liberality of this scheme of nobility, it has, nevertheless, proved admirably subservient to the policy of the Muscovite sovereigns. The old aristocracy has lost every kind of influence, and its great families, most of them resident in Moscow, can now only protest by their inaction and their absence from court, against the state of insignificance to which they have been reduced, and from which they have no chance of recovery.
Had it been necessary for all aspirants to nobility to pass through the wretched condition of the common soldier, it is evident that the empire would not possess one-tenth of its present number of nobles. Notwithstanding their abject and servile condition, very few commoners would have the courage to ennoble themselves byundergoing such a novitiate, with the stick hanging over them for many years. But they have the alternative of the civil service, which leads to the same result by a less thorny path, and offers even comparatively many more advantages to them than to the nobles by blood. Whereas the latter, on entering the military service, only appear for a brief while for form's sake in the ranks, become non-commissioned officers immediately, and officers in a few months; they are compelled in the civil service to act for two or three years as supernumeraries in some public office before being promoted to the first grade. It is true, the preliminary term of service is fixed for commoners at twelve years, but we have already spoken of the facilities they possess for abridging this apprenticeship.
But this excessive facility for obtaining the privileges of nobility has given rise to a subaltern aristocracy, the most insupportable and oppressive imaginable; and has enormously multiplied the number ofemployésin the various departments. Every Russian, not a serf, takes service as a matter of course, were it only to obtain rank in the fourteenth class; for otherwise he would fall back almost into the condition of the slaves, would be virtually unprotected, and would be exposed to the continual vexations of the nobility and the public functionaries. Hence, many individuals gladly accept a salary of sixty francs a year, for the permission of acting as clerks in some department; and so it comes to pass that the subalternemployésare obliged to rob for the means of subsistence. This is one of the chief causes of the venality and of the defective condition of the Russian administrative departments.
Peter the Great's regulations were excellent no doubt in the beginning, and hardly could that sovereign have devised a more efficacious means of mastering the nobility, and prostrating them at his feet. But now that the intended result has been amply obtained, these institutions require to be modified; for, under the greatly altered circumstances of the country, they only serve to augment beyond measure the numbers of a pernicious bureaucracy, and to impede the development of the middle class. To obtain admission into the fourteenth class, and become a noble, is the sole ambition of a priest's or merchant's son, an ambition fully justified by the unhappy condition of all but the privileged orders. There is no country in which persons engaged in trade are held in lower esteem than in Russia. They are daily subjected to the insults of the lowest clerks, and it is only by dint of bribery they can obtain the smallest act of justice. How often have I seen in the post stations, unfortunate merchants, who had been waiting for forty-eight hours and more, for the good pleasure of the clerk, without daring to complain. It mattered nothing that their papers were quite regular, the noble of the fourteenth class did not care for that, nor would he give them horses until he had squeezed a good sum out of theparticularnii tchelovieks, as he called them in his aristocratic pride. The same annoyances await the foreigner, who, on the strength of his passport, undertakes a journey without a decoration at hisbuttonhole, or any title to give him importance. I speak from experience: for more than two years spent in traversing Russia as a private individual, enabled me fully to appreciate the obliging disposition of the fourteenth class nobles. At a later period, being employed on a scientific mission by the government, I held successively the rank of major, lieutenant-colonel, and colonel; and then I had nothing to complain of; the posting-clerks, and the otheremployésreceived me with all the politeness imaginable. I never had to wait for horses, and as the title with which I was decked authorised me to distribute a few cuts of the whip with impunity, my orders were fulfilled with quite magical promptitude.
Under such a system, the aristocracy would increase without end in a free country. But it is not so in Russia, where the number of those who can arrive at a grade is extremely limited, the vast majority of the population being slaves. Thus the hereditary and personal nobility comprise no more than 563,653 males; though all free-born Russians enter the military or civil service, and remain at their posts as long as possible; for once they have returned into private life they sink into mere oblivion. From the moment he has put on plain clothes, the most deserving functionary is exposed to the vexations of the lowest subalterns, who then omit no opportunity of lording over their former superior.
Such social institutions have fatally contributed to excite a most decided antipathy between the old and the new aristocracy; and the emperor naturally accords his preference and his favours to those who owe him every thing, and from whom he has nothing to fear. In this way the new nobles have insensibly supplanted the old boyars. But their places and pecuniary gains naturally attach them to the established government, and consequently they are quite devoid of all revolutionary tendencies. Equally disliked by the old aristocracy whom they have supplanted, and by the peasants whom they oppress, they are, moreover, too few in numbers to be able to act by themselves; and, in addition to this, the high importance attached to the distinctions of rank, prevent all real union or sympathy between the members of this branch of Russian society. The tzar, who perfectly understands the character of this body, is fully aware of its venality and corruption; and if he honours it with his special favour, this is only because he finds in it a more absolute and blind submission than in the old aristocracy, whose ambitious yearnings after their ancient prerogatives cannot but be at variance with the imperial will. As for any revolutions which could possibly arise out of the discontent of this latter order, we may be assured they will never be directed against the political and moral system of the country; they will always be, as they have always been, aimed solely against the individual at the head of the government. Conspiracies of this kind are the only ones now possible in Russia; and what proves this fact is, the impotence of that resentment the tzars have provoked on the part of the old aristocracy, whenever they have touched on the question of emancipating the serfs.
The tzars have shown no less dexterity than the kings of France in their struggles against the aristocracy, and they have been much more favoured by circumstances. We see the Russian sovereigns bent, like Louis XI., on prostrating the great feudatories of the realm; but there was this difference between their respective tasks, that the French nobles could bring armies into the field, and often did so, whereas the Russian nobles can only counteract the power of their ruler by secret conspiracies, and will never succeed in stirring up their peasants against the imperial authority.
What may we conclude are the destinies in store for the Russian nobility, and what part will it play in the future history of the country? It seems to us to possess little inherent vigour and vitality, and we doubt that a radical regeneration of the empire is ever to be expected at its hands. The influence of Europe has been fatal to it. It has sought to assimilate itself too rapidly with our modern civilisation, and to place itself too suddenly on a level with the nations of the west. Its efforts have necessarily produced only corruption and demoralisation, which, by bastardising the country, have deprived it of whatever natural strength it once possessed.
No doubt there are in Russia as elsewhere, men of noble and patriotic sentiments, who feel a lively interest in the greatness and the future destinies of their native land; but they are, perhaps, committed to an erroneous course; and it is to be feared that by adopting our liberal principles in their full extent, and seeking to apply them at home, they will do still more mischief than the obstinate conservatives who suffer themselves to be borne along passively by the current of time and circumstances.
Hence, after having studied the influence of European civilisation on Russia, we are fully prepared to understand the efforts which the Emperor Nicholas is making to isolate his empire as much as possible, and to restore its primitive nationality. Despairing of the destinies of his aristocracy, he, no doubt, wishes to preserve the middle class (whose development will infallibly be effected sooner or later) from the rock on which the former class have made shipwreck of their hopes. And certainly it is not among a few thousand nobles he can hope to find sufficient elements of greatness and prosperity for the present and for future times.
After the nobles come the merchants and burghers, about a million and a half in number, and now constituting the first nucleus of a middle class. They are wholly engrossed with commerce and their pecuniary interests. Among them there are some very wealthy men, and they are allowed to discharge the inoffensive functions of mayors in the towns. The nobility profess almost as much contempt for this class as for the slaves, and are not sparing towards it of injustice and extortion. But the Russian merchant is the calmest and most patient being imaginable, and in comparison with slavery and the sad condition of the soldier, he regards his own lot as the very ideal of good fortune. Down to the reign of Ivan IV., merchants enjoyed tolerably extensive privileges in Russia. They were, it istrue, placed below the lowest class of the nobility, just as in our days; but they were considered as a constituent part of the government, were summoned to the great assemblies of the nation, and voted in them like the boyars.
The Emperor Nicholas has sought of late years to raise their body in public estimation, by granting them many prerogatives of nobility; but his efforts have hitherto not been very successful. The only means of giving outward respectability to this important class, would be to afford it admission into the body of the nobles without compelling it to enter the government service. And surely an individual who contributes to develop the trade and commerce of the land, has as strong claims to honorary distinctions as a petty clerk, whose whole life is passed in cheating his superiors, and robbing those who are so unfortunate as to have any dealings with him. Should the emperor ever adopt such a course, there would follow from it another advantage still more important, namely, that it would gradually extinguish the abuses of the present nobiliary system, and would immediately rid the public departments of all those useless underlings, who now encumber the various offices solely with a view to acquire a footing among the privileged orders.
The Russian and foreign merchants, established in the country, are divided into three classes, or guilds. Those of the first guild must give proof of possessing a capital of 50,000 rubles. They have a right to own manufactories, town and country houses, and gardens. They may trade with the interior of the empire, and with foreign countries; they are exempt from corporal punishments, and are privileged like the hereditary nobility to drive four horses in their carriages; but they must pay 3000 rubles for their licence.
Those of the second guild are required to prove only a capital of 20,000 rubles, and their trade is confined to the interior of the empire. They may be proprietors of factories, hotels and boats; but they are not allowed to have more than two horses to their carriages.
The third guild merchants, whose capital needs not exceed 8000 rubles, are the retail dealers of the towns and villages, they keep inns and workshops, and hold booths in the fairs.
The peasants who engage in trade, are not required to prove any capital. The statistics of these several classes, in 1839, were as follows:—
First guild merchants889Second guild merchants1,874Third guild merchants33,808Peasants having permission to trade5,299Clerks8,345Total50,215
The slaves form by far the most considerable part of the population; their numbers, exclusive of those belonging to the crown and to private proprietors, exceed 45,000,000; an enormous amount in comparison with the numbers of the nobles.
We will not enter into any historical details respecting the origin of serfdom in Russia; every one knows that the institution is one of somewhat modern date, and that servitude, though long existing virtually, was established legally in the empire only by an ukase of Boris Godounof. We will confine our remarks to the institution as it exists at the present day.
The slaves are divided into two classes, those belonging respectively to the crown, and to private individuals. The former are under the control of the ministry of the domains of the crown, a special board created January 1st, 1838, and presided over by General Count Kizelev. By law they are required to pay to the crown a capitation tax of fifteen rubles yearly for every male, but this tax is almost always raised to thirty or thirty-five rubles by the rapacity of the government servants. Besides these money contributions, they are subjected tocorvéesfor the repair of the roads and public works, and they may also be required to furnish means of conveyance and food for the troops. For these latter services, it is true, they receive a nominal compensation in the shape of orders payable by treasury, but these are never cashed. Lastly, they are liable to military recruitment, which of late years has annually taken off six out of every 1000 male inhabitants in the governments of New Russia.
In exchange for all these burdens, the peasant receives from the crown the land necessary for his subsistence, the quantity of which varies from ten or eleven deciatines, to one or two, according to the density of the population. Whatever may have been said on the subject, the condition of the crown serf is neither miserable nor destitute, and his slavery cannot but be favourable to physical and animal life, the only life as yet understood by the bulk of the Russian people. Except in years of great dearth, such as often desolate the country, the peasant has his means of existence secured; his dwelling, his cattle, and his little field of buckwheat; and as far as freedom from moral and physical sufferings constitute happiness, he may be considered much better off than the free peasants of the other European states. With plenty of food, his dwelling well warmed in winter, his mind disencumbered of all those anxieties for the future that harass our labouring poor; and endowed by nature with a vigorous constitution, he possesses all the elements of that negative happiness which is founded on ignorance and the want of all awakened sense of man's dignity. The slave besides is so frugal, he needs so little to live, his wants and desires are so circumscribed, that poverty, as it exists in our civilised lands, is one of the rarest exceptions in Russia. But all these conditions of existence constitute a life essentially brutish; and the most wretched being in France would certainly not exchange his lot for that of the Muscovite peasant.
It cannot, however, be questioned that the crown serfs enjoy almost complete liberty. Simply attached to the soil, they aremasters of their own time, and may even obtain permission to go and seek employment in the towns, or on the estates of private landowners. Hence, were it not for the difficulties connected with the emancipation of the private serfs, the crown peasants might be declared independent to-morrow, without any sort of danger to the empire. Their physical condition is in perfect harmony with the present state of civilisation, and in this respect the system established by the crown, does not deserve the outcry raised against it. The penury and distress in which the imperial serfs are plunged in some districts, are ascribable solely to the cupidity and corruption of the public functionaries, or to the want of outlets for the produce of the soil, and not to the laws regulating serfdom.
The condition of the slaves on seignorial lands is both morally and physically less satisfactory than that of the crown serfs. They are subject to arbitrary caprice, and to countless vexations, particularly when they belong to small proprietors, or are immediately dependant on stewards. There exist, indeed, very strict regulations for their protection against the undue exactions of their lords; but the latter are, nevertheless, all-powerful through their social position and the posts they fill, and however they may abuse their authority, they are always sure of impunity. Thanks to judicial venality, they know that all appeals to justice against them are futile. There is only one case in which the peasant can hope for a favourable hearing, namely, where there is any ill-will between his master and the higher powers; but his wrongs must be very cruel indeed if they goad him to seek legal redress, for he well knows that sooner or later he will be made to pay dearly for his rebellion. We are bound, however, to acknowledge that the lords often act with the greatest humanity towards the serfs, and they have at last come to understand that in caring for the welfare of their peasants, they are taking the best means to augment their own fortunes. It is only to be regretted that their benevolent efforts are almost constantly paralysed by the rapine and insatiable cupidity of their stewards and agents.
The private slaves, who number about 23,000,000, pay a poll tax of eight rubles for every male to the crown, and must give half their time to their masters. They usually work three days in the week for the latter, and the other three for themselves. Their lord grants them five or six hectares of land, and often more, and all the produce they raise from them is their own. They are required furthermore to supply out of their numbers all the domestic servants requisite for their master's establishment, and to do extra duty labour of various kinds, dependent solely on the caprice of the latter. A peasant cannot quit his village without his master's permission, and if he exercises any handicraft trade whatever, he is bound to pay an annual sum proportioned to his presumed profits. This sum is called hisobrok, and is often very considerable; in the case of agricultural and other peasants, it averages fifty rubles. Butwhatever be the position the serf may have attained to by his talents and his skill, he never shakes off his absolute dependence on his master, one word from whom may compel him to abandon all his business and his prospects, and return to his village. Many of the wealthiest merchants of Moscow have been named to me, who are slaves by birth, and who have in vain offered hundreds of thousands of rubles for their freedom. It flatters the pride of the great patrician families to have men of merit among their serfs, and many of them send young slaves into the towns, and supply them with all the means necessary for pursuing a creditable and lucrative calling.
All the hawkers and pedlars that go from village to village, and from mansion to mansion, from the banks of the Neva to the extremity of Siberia, are slaves, who bring in large profits to their masters; it frequently happens that apometchikhas no other income than that which he thus derives from his peasants.
Marriages between serfs can only take place with the consent of the lord. They are usually consummated at a very early age, and are arranged by the steward, who never consults the parties, and whose sole object is to effect a rapid increase in the population of his village. The average price of a whole family is estimated as ranging from 25l.to 40l.
A great deal has been often said of the boundless attachment of the serfs to their lords; I doubt that it ever existed; at any rate, it exists no longer. The slaves no longer regard with the same resignation and apathy the low estate which Providence has assigned them in this world; the more liberal treatment enjoyed by the imperial serfs, has inoculated them with ideas of independence, and they are all now ambitious of passing into the domain of the crown—a good fortune, which in their eyes is equivalent to emancipation. This tendency of the serfs to detach themselves from the aristocracy is a most important fact, and if the emperor succeeds in regulating this great social movement so that it may be effected without turbulence, he will have rendered a signal service to Russia, and have mightily contributed to the regeneration and future welfare of her people.
Every village has its mayor, calledgolova, and itsstarosts, whose number depends on that of the population, there being usually one for every ten families. They are all elected by the community, and to them it belongs to regulate the various labours performed by it, and to apportion and collect the taxes. Whatever petty differences may arise between the peasants, are settled before thestarostsor council of elders, whose decisions are always received with blind submission.
Military service is the onlycorvéewhich the Russian peasants regard with real horror. Their antipathy to it is universal, and the regiments can only be recruited by main force. There is no conscription in Russia, but whenever men are wanted, an imperial ukase is issued, commanding a certain number to be raised in such or such a government. In the crown lands, it is the head man of the villageaided by the district authorities, who selects the future heroes, and this is usually done in secret, in order to prevent desertion. The young men chosen are forthwith arrested, generally in the middle of the night, and remain fettered until they have been inspected by the surgeon, after which they are sent off in small detachments to the regiments, under the guard of armed soldiers. In the seignorial villages, the selection is made by the steward. But the business is here of more difficult execution than in the domains of the crown, and the unfortunate recruit is often chained to an aged peasant, who acts as his keeper, and cannot quit him day or night. I saw two young peasants thus chained to two old men, in a village belonging to General Papof; they spent their time quietly in drinking in the dram-shops, without exciting any surprise in the spectators. When we reflect on the privations and sufferings that await the Muscovite soldier, we cannot wonder at the intense repugnance the peasants entertain for the service.
The military spirit, so potent elsewhere, scarcely exists in the empire. Glory and honour are things for which the Russian serfs care very little, nor have they any conception of the magic that lies in the words "Our country," "Our native land." The only country they know is their village, their stove, theirkasha, the patch of ground they daily cultivate, and that mud which a French grenadier lifted up with his foot, exclaiming, "And this they call a country!" "ils appellent cela une patrie!" At the same time, it is evident that this antipathy of the Russians for military service, is to be attributed as much to the political constitution of the empire, as to the character of the inhabitants; and as that constitution has hitherto been a national necessity, it would be unjust to charge as a crime upon the government, the unhappy moral condition of its armies. We shall speak at more length in another place, on the subject of the Russian soldiery.
Moral and intellectual instruction have hitherto made very little way among the slave population. Attempts indeed have been made to found schools in some of the crown villages, but these attempts have been always ill-directed, and necessarily unsuccessful. Religion which everywhere else constitutes the most potent instrument of civilisation, can have in Russia no favourable effect on the improvement of the people. Consisting solely in fasts, crossings, and outward ceremonies, it leaves the mind totally uninfluenced, and in no respect acts as a bar to the demoralisation which is gradually pervading the immense class of the serfs. The peculiar circumstances of the Russian towns and villages are also perhaps among the greatest obstacles to intellectual progress. The advance of civilisation depends in a great measure on facility of intercourse. When a population is compact, and its several members are continually in presence of each other, each man's knowledge is propagated among his compatriots, facts and opinions are discussed, and men become mutually enlightened as to what is thought and done around them.From this continual interchange of mental wealth, there naturally arises an amount of enlightenment and capacity that tends greatly to extend the domain of thought. But let any one cast his eyes on Russia, and he will be struck by the unfavourable manner in which its population is distributed. Not only are the great centres of population very thinly scattered over the surface, but the several dwellings too in the towns are placed very wide apart, and those of the villages still more so. Every man is isolated, every man lives by and for himself, or at least within a very contracted sphere. Social meetings are rare, and in winter almost impossible; in a word, it is not at all unusual for people not to know their neighbours on the opposite side of the street; hence the invariablenesnai(I do not know) with which the Russian replies to every question the traveller puts to him, ought not to astonish or incense the latter. At first I was disposed to think this ignorance was pretended, and to attribute it to sulkiness and indolence; but I afterwards perceived that it was occasioned in much greater measure by the absurd style of building adopted in the country.
Another thing that tends to enervate the Russians and keep them in their brutified condition, is the immoderate use of brandy, to which both men and women are addicted. It is truly deplorable that the government feels constrained to favour the sale of that pernicious liquor which forms its most important source of revenue. How often have I seen the dram-shops full of women dead drunk, who had left their poultry yards tenantless, and sold their household furniture to gratify their fatal passion.
A thing by which I have always been much struck in Russia, is the stationary uniformity which prevails over the whole surface of the empire, both in ideas and in physical productions. You see everywhere the same plans and arrangements of the buildings, the same implements, and the same agricultural practices and modes of carriage. Contact with foreigners has as yet had no influence on the Sclavonic population, and the prosperity generally enjoyed for sixty years by the German colonies has done little in the way of example. Is this intellectual insensibility the result of servitude exclusively? I think not. Servitude may indeed repress, but it cannot extinguish, the various qualities with which nature has endowed us; and if the Russians are still so backward, and give so little promise of improvement, we must explain the fact by the nature of their race, by their still infant state as a nation, and their want of precedents in civilisation. At the same time there is no reason to despair of them. In our opinion, the future civilisation of Russia rests in a great measure on the contingency of a religious reformation; but as that reformation could not but be hazardous to absolute power by awakening ideas of independence and resistance to oppression, the government impedes it by every means in its power, and labours unceasingly to reduce all the inhabitants of the empire to religious uniformity, as is proved by its conduct towards the UnitedGreeks of Poland, and towards the Douckoboren and the Molokaner. I had opportunities of observing among the members of the two latter communities, how great an influence a change of religion may have on the character and intellect of the Russians. The Douckoboren and the Molokaner differ essentially in this respect from the other subjects of the empire. Activity, probity, intelligence, desire of improvement, all these qualities are developed among them to the highest degree, and after having consorted with the Germans for fifteen years, they have completely appropriated all the agricultural ameliorations, and even the social habits of those foreign colonists. Among the Russian peasants on the contrary, whether slave or free, a complete immobility prevails, and nothing can force them out of the old inevitable rut. All the efforts and all the encouragements of the government have hitherto been of no avail.
The emancipation of the slaves seems earnestly to occupy the Emperor Nicholas; and the measures adopted of late years testify in favour of his generous intentions. Unfortunately, the task is beset with difficulties for the legislator, and an abrupt attempt to make the Russian people independent, would infallibly expose the empire to the greatest dangers.
There are in the Russian slave two natures, essentially distinct: the one, destitute of all energy, of all vitality, is the result of the servitude under which the nation has bent for ages; the other, a bequest of barbarism, starting into action at the breath of liberty, is prompt to the most alarming excesses, and inspires the revolted serf with the desire, above all things, to massacre his master. Emancipation, therefore, is not so easy as certain philanthropists would believe it to be, and the details we have just given may enable one to conceive all the mischiefs that might ensue from it.
The greatest obstacle to this social metamorphosis is presented by the private slaves, the majority of whom belong to the hereditary aristocracy; it is especially on the part of this class that premature liberty might occasion fatal and bloody reactions, which would endanger the empire itself, though immediately directed against the lords only. Accordingly the tzar, who is not ignorant of these facts, does all in his power to withdraw the serfs from their proprietors, and bring them into the crown domain: hence the position of the serfs has been considerably altered within the last few years. Slaves can now no longer be purchased without the lands to which they are attached. Formerly owners often hired out their slaves: they can now only grant them passports for three years, and the serf himself chooses the master he will serve, and the kind of labour to which he will apply himself.
It was evidently with a view to the same end that a bank was created some years ago in St. Petersburg, for the purpose of rendering pecuniary assistance to the aristocracy. Every proprietor can borrow from the bank at eight per cent., on a mortgage of his lands. But by the rules of the institution, when the term ofpayment is past, the property of a defaulting creditor may be immediately sequestrated to the crown. What the government foresaw has happened, and does happen daily, and it has acquired numerous private estates, and incorporated them with the imperial domains.
A new ukase respecting the emancipation of the slaves which was issued in 1842, fixed the relative position of freedmen and their former lords. The measure was shaped so as to give the government a direct influence conducive to the gradual emancipation of the population. The owners were left, as before, the power of emancipating their serfs; but by the terms of the ukase, they could only do so in accordance with certain rules, and with the express sanction of the emperor. This ukase excited so much dissatisfaction among the oldnoblesse, that the tzar was induced subsequently to neutralise its effect by a police enactment. The primary end was, nevertheless, obtained, and the ukase dealt a heavy blow to the subsisting relations between lord and serf.[11]We believe, nevertheless, that the course adopted by the Emperor Nicholas (by the advice, no doubt, of Count Kizilev) is erroneous, and that the last ukases are impolitic. Do what it will, the government will never succeed in liberating the private slaves without the co-operation of their owners. It is impossible to think of making all the peasants exclusively serfs of the crown; such a means of emancipation is impracticable, for it implies that the government should remain, in the last result, sole possessor of all the lands in the empire, and that the nobility, great and small, should be infallibly ruined. In our opinion, the last ukases have only served to make emancipation more difficult, by exciting hatred between masters and slaves, and fostering the germs of a dangerous rebellious spirit. The Russians are still so backward in civilisation, that ideas of independence, abruptly and incautiously introduced amongst them, would be very likely to cause disastrous convulsions. Liberty must reach them gradually; and above all, it is absolutely necessary that they should be prepared, by instruction, to exchange their slavery for a better state of things. Otherwise, with their present character, liberty, after being first summed up by them in the privilege of doing nothing, in pillage and massacre, would inevitably end in wretchedness and destitution. In the treatment of this great social question, it is before all things necessary that the government should come to a fair understanding with the nobles, and labour conjointly with them for the regeneration of the slave population: it is only by earnest mutual aid that those two powers will ever succeed in advancing the cause of emancipation without imminent peril to the empire. But in any case, there is no denying the manydifficulties of this enterprise, no answering for all future contingencies. Considerations connected with landed property will probably long defeat all efforts in this direction, unless the peasants be freely permitted to become landowners, on payment of a certain sum for the redemption of their persons, and the purchase of the land requisite for their subsistence. This seems to us the only rational, nay, the only possible means, of arriving at complete emancipation without violence. No doubt if such a privilege be granted to the peasants, the present improvident and prodigal race of nobles will be rapidly dispossessed; but this will not occasion the country any serious inconvenience, and the new order of things will but favour the development of the middle class, in which really reside, in our day, all the strength and prosperity of a nation.
As for the clergy, whose numbers amount to about 500,000, both males and females, we mention them here only to repeat our declaration of their nullity and immorality. Utterly unacquainted with any thing pertaining to polity and administration, having nothing to do with public instruction, and being in their own persons ignorant to excess, the priests enjoy no sort of influence or consideration, and are occupied solely with corporeal things. We will not enter further into this subject. We are loath to unveil completely the vices and ignoble habits that distinguish the priests of the orthodox Russian church.
The following is a general table of the Russian population as published by the ministry in 1836: