Functionaries and Teachers.Students.St. Petersburg59433Moscow82932Dorpat66530Kharkof79468Kasan74237St. Vladimir (Kiev)55140Richelieu (Odessa)2552Demidof ditto2033Bezborodko ditto1519Medico-chirurgical academies of Moscow and Vilna94797Pedagogical institute of St. Petersburg4368
According to the same report the Russian empire possessed at the close of the year 1840, 3230 establishments under the superior direction of the ministry of public instruction, and containing 103,450 pupils.
The young men who attend the university courses, have all but one single object in view, that of acquiring a grade of nobility; and the examinations are too slight to make industry and proficiency in their studies really requisite to the attainment of their purpose. Besides, they are most of them educated at the cost of the government, and as the latter does not like to lose its money, they must all enter the imperial service, whether well taught or not. In this manner are formed all the physicians, surgeons, and subordinate professors of gymnasia.
As for the civil departments the sole condition required for admission into them, is the knowledge of writing and arithmetic; accordingly the common class Russian thinks he has completed his education when he can read, write, and cypher; and he is indeed sufficiently erudite to get a footing in some chancery office, a common clerkship in which admits him to the first grade as a civil officer, and from thence he may arrive at the highest rank in the service.
Many young men on leaving the universities, are of course employed in the public offices; but then, whatever talents they may possess, and whatever fruit they may have gathered from their studies become utterly useless to them. From the moment they enter any office whatever, they perceive with astonishment that they know nothing of what it is essential they should know. They have stepped into a new world of which they do not even know the language. They hear nothing talked of around them but forms, rules, tricks for evading the laws and ordinances, artifices for giving a legal colouring to abuses and extortions, and all sorts of inventions for squeezing money out of those who have the misfortune to need the help of theemployés.
They soon see that the greatest adepts in those frauds which areconveniently styled office usages, the least scrupulous, or, in plain terms, the greatest rogues, are considered clever fellows, and make their way rapidly; whilst those who still retain some sense of honesty and a lingering respect for the principles of morality, are laughed at as fools. What then does the novice, who has perhaps carried off the prize of eloquence at the university? Finding himself obliged to defer to the lowest pupil of an elementary school, who has already gained some knowledge of office practice, he tries to forget all he has learned, and applies himself to a new course of study. His conscientious scruples are soon silenced; prompted by emulation he gradually becomes as accomplished as his mates, and by dint of this second education the clever fellow at last quite effaces the honest man.
It is also from the universities that the young men are taken who are designed for the business of public instruction; and as we have already stated, they are for the most part educated at the expense of the state. When their studies are completed they are appointed professors in the gymnasia and other schools. The government has neglected no means of making their calling as advantageous as possible, both as to salary and honorary advancement. These encouragements would have the happiest effect anywhere else than in Russia, but there they have quite the contrary result. It follows from the existing system of nobility with its graduated scale, the privileges it confers, and the means of fortune its offers, that a man's whole status in life resolves itself into a question of official rank. Now, as no calling presents a greater chance of rapid advancement than that of the public instructor, in which capacity a young man rarely fails to obtain the rank of major (hereditary nobility) after five or six years' service, the consequence is that all the sons of the petty nobles, burghers, and priests, eagerly rush into this thriving profession. This, however, is not the real mischief; on the contrary, the great number of competitors might produce a very salutary rivalry; but unfortunately the little power and influence exercised by the professors, who after all, can only command boys, and still more than this, their want of opportunity to enrich themselves under cover of their office, strip the business of public instruction of all prestige, and cause it to be considered, notwithstanding its high pay, as much less advantageous than many other posts the fixed salary of which is almost nothing, but which enable the holders to levy almost unlimited contributions on those who come under their hands. What follows? As soon as the professors have obtained the rank of major, they quit the universities and enter the civil administrations, where they can fatten on law suits, chicanery, and exactions, and all the countless means by which the law enables them to make fraudulent fortunes. And here we may remark that this state of things is another consequence of the want of definite callings and professions in Russia. The career of official rank is the only one known to the Russian; for him there exists none other.
We must not wonder, therefore, if the instruction given in the elementary schools, and the gymnasia is incomplete and almost barren of good effect. The teachers are almost always mere boys without experience or sound knowledge. They content themselves with going through their routine of business according to the letter of the rules, and the military discipline imposed on them; but once escaped from their classes, they think of nothing but enjoying themselves, eating, drinking, and playing cards. I have visited many gymnasia in Russia, and I have always seen in them the same effects flowing from the same causes.
Besides the great universities and high schools, all the leading towns of the empire formerly contained numerous boarding schools, most of them kept by strangers; but these were suppressed by ukase in the year 1842. The means of instruction are at present confined to the imperial establishments, from which all foreigners not naturalised in Russia are excluded. These new regulations dictated by false vanity, will infallibly have a disastrous influence, and render the progress of education more and more difficult.
There still exist in Russia several establishments for the education of officers and civil and military engineers. The Institute of Ways and Communications was established in the reign of Alexander, under the superintendence of four pupils of the Ecole Polytechnique of France, MM. Potier, Fabre, Destrême, and Bazain, who entered the service of Russia, at the request to that effect preferred by the tzar to Napoleon. This school (which I have not visited) might have rendered great service to the empire, had the government been discreet enough to leave it its foreign professors, and not subject it to the absurd interference of the Russian military drill. Very few able men have issued from this institution, and the profound ignorance I have seen exhibited in all the great works executed at a distance from the capital, attests the decay of a school which at first promised so fairly. Again, it must be owned, that from the time when engineers enter on active service, they have no leisure to complete their studies; as soon as they receive an appointment, their whole time is taken up with reports, accounts, writings without end, and all the countless formalities devised by the quibbling and captious spirit of the Russians. I have known several engineers at the head of important works; they had not a moment to themselves, their whole day being spent in writing and signing heaps of paper. The same observations apply to the military, for whom secondary manœuvres and minute costume observances form a never relaxing and stultifying slavery. Under such a system, all the germs of instruction implanted in the schools, soon disappear in service.
Besides, it must be admitted that the generality of Russians have a natural indifference to the sciences and the arts, which will long defeat the efforts of sovereigns desirous of effecting an intellectual regeneration. Though I have gone over a large portion of the empire, I have found very few persons, young or old, who were reallystudious and well-informed, and too often I have met with nothing but the most utter apathy, where I had a right to expect interest and enthusiasm. It matters not that the emperor showers tokens of favour and respect on hissavans, the Russians themselves continue, notwithstanding, to treat them with great disdain. The reason is, that the arts and sciences do not lead to fortune in Russia, and as they fall exclusively to the lot either of foreigners, or of the petty nobles, they cannot enjoy high consideration in a form of society which respects only might and authority, and consequently recognises but two vocations worthy of ambition, viz., the military profession and the civil service.
But independently of the influence of a bad social organisation, the Russians seem to me to be at this day the least apt by nature of all the nations of Europe to receive solid instruction. The Sclavonic race may be divided into two great branches: the first of these, which contains the Poles among others, has felt the influence of the west, with which it has been in long and immediate contact, and so enabled to adopt its civilisation more or less closely; the second, on the contrary, has acknowledged the paramount influence of Asia, and the Russians who compose it, are still in our day under the action of the Mongol hordes, to which they were enslaved for more than three centuries. Again, Russia is absolutely and entirely a novice in civilisation; go over her whole history, and you will not find a single page which gives proof of a really progressive tendency. It is a very remarkable fact that her political and commercial relations with the Lower Empire were entirely barren of result upon her civilisation, which remained completely stationary, even in circumstances most favourable to its development: it is therefore by no means surprising, that despite all the efforts of her sovereigns, she has been unable to place herself on the level of the other nations of Europe within the space of a hundred years.
The results of our civilisation, more than twenty centuries old, are not to be inculcated so rapidly: there needs we think, a long series of progressive initiations, so that the moral constitution reacting on the physical, may render the perceptions and the organs of the latter more delicate, and more suited to intellectual development: and this period of transition must necessarily be very long for a nation to which the past has bequeathed only reminiscences of slavery and destruction. Look, on the other hand, at Greece, Moldavia, and Wallachia, countries which have all had glorious periods in history; they have made great strides within ten years, and have in that short space of time established their claim to rank as members of the European family of nations. To their past history belongs in part the honour of their present advancement. That thirst for instruction, that incredible aptitude to seize and understand every thing, which is characteristic above all of the Greeks, are evidently but old faculties long sunk in torpor under the pressure of slavery, and which waited but for a little freedom to break forth with new energy.
ENTRY INTO THE COUNTRY OF THE DON COSSACKS—FEMALE PILGRIMS OF KIEV; RELIGIOUS FERVOUR OF THE COSSACKS—NOVO TCHERKASK, CAPITAL OF THE DON—STREET-LAMPS GUARDED BY SENTINELS—THE STREETS ON SUNDAY—COSSACK HOSPITALITY AND GOOD NATURE—THEIR VENERATION FOR NAPOLEON'S MEMORY.
ENTRY INTO THE COUNTRY OF THE DON COSSACKS—FEMALE PILGRIMS OF KIEV; RELIGIOUS FERVOUR OF THE COSSACKS—NOVO TCHERKASK, CAPITAL OF THE DON—STREET-LAMPS GUARDED BY SENTINELS—THE STREETS ON SUNDAY—COSSACK HOSPITALITY AND GOOD NATURE—THEIR VENERATION FOR NAPOLEON'S MEMORY.
Beyond Nakhitchevane, several valleys abutting on the basin of the Don, isolated hamlets, and a few stanitzas, diversify the country, and make one forget the sterility of the steppes, that spread out their gray and scarcely undulating surface to the westward. The banks of the Don which are seldom out of sight, are enlivened by clumps of trees, fishermen's huts, and herds of horses that seek there a fresher pasture than the desert affords. But except these animals, we saw not a single living creature; the heat was so intense, and the country is still so little inhabited, that most of the fields appeared to us in a state of wild nature. Nothing around us indicated the presence of man. In the country of the Don Cossacks, as elsewhere throughout Russia, the post road is barely marked out by two ditches so called, which you often drive over without perceiving them, and by distance posts two or three yards high. This is all the outlay the government chooses to incur for the imperial post roads leading to the principal towns of the empire.
Before arriving in Novo Tcherkask, the capital of the Cossacks, we encountered another wandering party at least as curious as our gipsies.
Imagine our surprise when having passed through a wide ravine, which for a long while shut in the road, we saw defiling over the steppes a countless string of small cars, escorted by I know not how many hundreds of women. We advanced, puzzled and curious to the last degree; and the more we gazed the more the numbers of these women seemed to multiply. They were everywhere, in the cars, on the road, and over the steppes; it was like a swarm of locusts suddenly dropped from the sky. Most of them walked barefoot, holding their shoes in one hand, and with the other picking up fragments of wood and straw, for what purpose we could not conceive. Their carts were just like barrels with two openings, and were driven by themselves, for there was not the shadow of a beard among them. They were all returning, as they told us, from the catacombs of Kiev, to which they had been making a pilgrimage. Among them I remarked some old women who had scarcely a breath of life remaining. They seemed dreadfully fatigued, but at the same time very well pleased with their pious expedition.
Further on we met another procession of the same kind, which had already arranged its encampment for the night. Two fires, fed with those little chips of wood that had so much perplexed us, served to prepare the evening meal. All the pilgrims were busy, and formed the most varied groups. Some were fetching water inearthen pitchers, which they carried on their heads; others were kneeling devoutly, making the sign of the cross; and the genuflexions so frequent among the Russians and Cossacks; the oldest were feeding the fire and telling stories. It was an indescribable scene of bustle and noise, displaying a variety of the most picturesque attitudes and physiognomies.
All the women were of Cossack race. There is much more of pious fervour in this nation than in the Muscovites. A slight difference of text between the Bibles of the two people has occasioned a very great one in their religious sentiments. The Cossacks call themselves the true believers, and abstain on religious grounds from the pipe, and from many other things which the Muscovites allow themselves without scruple. The natural integrity of their character is rarely sullied by hypocrisy. They love and believe with equal ardour and sincerity.
At the extremity of a plateau, on the verge of a wide and deep valley, the town of Novo Tcherkask suddenly appeared to us, rising in an amphitheatre, and embracing in its huge extent several hills, the broad slopes of which descend to the bottom of the valley. All the towns we had previously seen, and which had shocked us by the extravagant breadth of their streets and their dearth of houses, were nothing in comparison with what now met our eyes. Seen from the point where we then stood, the whole town was like an enormous chess board, with the lines formed by avenues broader than the Place du Carousel in Paris. These lines, bordered at intervals by a few shabby dwellings, and separated from each other by open spaces in which whole regiments might manœuvre quite at their ease, some churches, and a triumphal arch erected in 1815 in honour of Alexander, are the only salient points of this desert which they call a capital, and the superficial dimensions of which are, without exaggeration, as great as those of Paris.
Novo Tcherkask, now the seat of all the public offices of the Don country, was founded in 1806 by Count Platof, who became so celebrated through the unfortunate French campaign of Moscow. Its very ill-chosen position forbids all chance of future prosperity. It is situated nearly eight miles from the Don, on a hill surrounded on all sides by the Axai and the Touzlof, small confluents of the river from which it is so fatally remote. Platof is said to have selected this site for the purpose of building a fortress; but his intentions have not been realised. Another most serious inconvenience for the town is the absolute want of good water. Wealthy persons use melted ice to make tea.
In the great square there are two very large bazaars with wooden roofs, in which are found all sorts of goods, and especially an abundant collection of military equipments for the use of the Cossacks. There is also a great arsenal, but quite destitute of arms. As for the other edifices, they are not worth mentioning, notwithstanding all the fine descriptions given of them by geographers.
But Novo Tcherkask has one precious thing to boast of—a thing unique in Russia—and that is an excellent hotel kept by a Frenchman, in which the traveller finds all the comforts he can desire. The nobility who have strongly encouraged this establishment, have formed in it a casino, in which many balls are given in the winter.
The Emperor Nicholas visited the Don Cossacks in 1837, and to this auspicious event the capital owed the good fortune of being supplied with lamps in the streets. But the lights went out when his majesty departed; and it is said, that in order to save the lamps from being stolen, the authorities had been obliged to make an armed Cossack stand sentry over each of them.
The population of Novo Tcherkask, formed by the union of four stanitzas, amounts to about 10,000. Staro Tcherkask, the old capital, now abandoned, has nothing to attract the traveller's attention, though Dr. Clarke has bestowed on it the pompous title of the Russian Venice.
Our arrival in the Cossack capital fell on a Sunday. As the windows of our hotel looked full on the only promenade in the town, the greater part of the population passed in review before us. Every thing here bespeaks the nomade and warlike temper of the Cossacks. There is no copying of European fashion, no Frank costumes, no mixed population; every thing is Cossack, except a few Kalmuck figures, telling us of the vicinity of the Volga.
The Cossacks we had seen at Taganrok, had given us but a poor opinion of the beauty of the women of the country; we were, therefore, agreeably surprised at the sight of all the pretty girls that passed continually before our windows. Even their costume, which we had thought ugly, now seemed not wanting in originality, and even in a certain piquancy. The young girls let their braided hair fall on their shoulders, and usually tie the braids with bright ribbons, that hang down to their heels. Some of them confine their tresses in a long bag made of a silk handkerchief, a style of head-dress by no means unbecoming.
It was really a very pretty sight to see the crowd of elegant officers and young women in gala attire that filled the footways, exchanging looks, smiles, and even soft discourse, as if they were in a ball-room. The men are tall and handsome, and look remarkably well in uniform. Bravery and noble pride are legible in their features and their eyes, as if they were still those fiery children of the steppes, who, before the days of Catherine II. acknowledged no other power than that of their ataman, freely chosen by themselves. Arms are at this day their sole occupation, just as they were a hundred years ago, and their organisation is still altogether military, as we shall see by and by.
What erroneous notions are entertained in France, of these good-natured, inoffensive, and hospitable Cossacks! The events of 1814 and 1815, have left a deep repugnance towards them in all Frenchminds, and indeed it could hardly be expected it should be otherwise. But speaking of them as we found them in their own land, they do not deserve the aversion with which our countrymen regard them. There is no part of Russia where the traveller is more safe than in their country, nor does he anywhere meet with a more kindly welcome. The name of Frenchman, especially, is an excellent recommendation there. The portrait of Napoleon is found in every house, and sometimes it is placed above that of the great St. Nicholas himself. All the old veterans who have survived the great wars of the empire, profess the greatest veneration for the French emperor, and these sentiments are fully shared by the present generation.
ORIGIN OF THE DON COSSACKS—MEANING OF THE NAME—THE KHIRGHIS COSSACKS—RACES ANTERIOR TO THE COSSACKS—SCLAVONIC EMIGRATIONS TOWARDS THE EAST.
ORIGIN OF THE DON COSSACKS—MEANING OF THE NAME—THE KHIRGHIS COSSACKS—RACES ANTERIOR TO THE COSSACKS—SCLAVONIC EMIGRATIONS TOWARDS THE EAST.
The origin of the Don Cossacks has, like that of the Tatars of Southern Russia, given rise to interminable discussions. Some have represented this people as an offshoot of the great Sclavonic stock; others consider it as only a medley of Turks, Tatars, and Circassians. Vsevolojsky adopts the former of these opinions, in his Geographical and Historical Dictionary of the Russian Empire. M. Schnitzler boldly decides the question, in his Statistics of Russia, by declaring that the Cossacks of the Don have proceeded from the Caucasus, and belong for the most part to the Tcherkess or Circassian nation.
Constantino Porphyrogenitus, a writer of the ninth century, mentions a country calledKasachia. "On the other side of the Papagian country," he says, "is Kasachia, and immediately afterwards are discovered the tops of the Caucasus." The Russian chronicles likewise mention a Circassian people subjugated in 1021 by Prince Mstizlav, of Tmoutarakan. These, it must be owned, are very vague data, and the resemblance between two names is not warrant for our concluding that the Cossacks of our day and the Kasachians of the ninth century, are one and the same nation. Except the few words we have just cited, we have no other information respecting the latter people, and all the historical researches hitherto made, have failed to determine the real situation of Tmoutarakan. This town has been placed sometimes at Riazan, sometimes at the mouth of the Volga, on the site of Astrakhan, sometimes on the Asiatic shore of the Bosphorus. A stone, with a Sclavonic inscription, discovered at Taman, seemed for a while tohave solved the problem. But it was afterwards fully demonstrated, that this grand historical discovery was only a hoax practised on the credulous antiquarians.
The Kasachia of the ninth century is thus but very imperfectly known to us; even with the help of Constantino Porphyrogenitus, it would be difficult to determine its position with any real precision; and when the Cossacks, now known to us, appear for the first time, 600 years afterwards, it would be rash and arbitrary in the extreme to declare them the descendants of a people so briefly mentioned by the Byzantine writer. This opinion will appear the less admissible, when it is considered that the country of the Cossacks, situated around the Sea of Azov, lay directly in the route of all those conquering hordes that issued from Asia to overrun and ravage Europe, and afterwards disappeared successively, without leaving any other trace of their existence than their name in the pages of history.
Is it likely that Kasachia was more fortunate? Is there any probability that its people, after 600 years of absolute obscurity, again arose out of the chaos of all those revolutions, to produce the Cossacks of our day? We cannot think so. Historical inquiries, and above all a knowledge of the regions extending between the Sea of Azov and the Caspian, prove beyond question that all those countries were never occupied by a nation having fixed habitations. We have ourselves traversed those Russian deserts, up to the northern foot of the Caucasus; and except the somewhat modern remains of Madjar, on the borders of the Kouma, we nowhere found any vestige of human occupancy, or any trace of civilisation. It is, therefore, by no means likely, that amidst all the convulsions of the Asiatic invasions, from the ninth to the fifteenth century, whilst so many races were disappearing completely, that a little remote nomade people shall have preserved for 600 years its nationality and its territory, without being swept away and absorbed by all those warlike hordes that must have passed over it in torrents. This would be an historical fact perfectly unique in that part of the world; to us it appears in flagrant contradiction with historical experience. We are of opinion then, that the Cossacks of our day have nothing in common with the Kasachia of Constantino Porphyrogenitus, and that we must look elsewhere for their origin and for the reason of their appellation.
Let us in the first place examine this wordCossack. According to the use in which it was formerly and is still employed, it seems evidently not to belong to a special people, but simply to express the generic character of every nation, having certain distinct manners and customs. Thus in Russia, at this day, the name of Cossacks is given to all those persons who are under military organisation: there are Turcomans, Kalmuks, and Tatars so called in the steppes of the Caspian; and in Bessarabia, some gipsies and a medley of nondescript people constitute the Cossacks of the Dniestr. TheDon Cossacks, themselves, attach no historical significance to their designation, which they seem to regard merely as a by-name given to them in former times, and they readily share it with the nomade tribes around them, whose organisation is the same as their own. The only appellation they assume among themselves, is that of true believers.
The existence of the Khirghis Kaissacks of our day, can be traced back to more remote times; but there is certainly no analogy between this Mussulman people and our Cossacks. Furthermore, it seems proved that the Tatars before their invasions of Europe, used to give the appellation of Cossacks to all those individuals of their own race, who, having no property, were obliged to subsist by pillage, or to sell their services to some military leader.Cossackthen, according to our apprehension, signifies only a nomade and a vagabond people, and it is likely that the Tatars on their arrival in Europe, gave that name to all the wandering tribes they found in the steppes of Azov and of the Don. What tends still more to confirm this opinion is, that no mention of Cossacks is made by Rubruquis and Du Plan de Carpin, who traversed all the regions of Southern Russia, on their embassy to the grand khan, in the beginning of the thirteenth century.
And now let us ask whence came those nomade people that preceded the modern Cossacks in the steppes of the Don and the Sea of Azov? Here again we must dissent from the views of Dr. Edmund Clarke and Lesur which have been generally adopted in Schnitzler's statistics.
According to the testimony of all historians the Slaves already occupied various parts of Southern Russia, during the first period of the decadence of the Lower Empire: every one knows indeed that the descendants of Rurik often carried their attacks on the emperors of the East up to the very gates of their capital. The annals of Russia also demonstrate the existence of the Slaves at the same period, in all Little Russia, and even in the country of the Don. This region was then called Severa. Its inhabitants, after a long contest with the Petchenegues, emigrated in part, and we now find their name attached to one of the principalities of the Danube, viz., Servia.
Again, it is universally admitted even by the adversaries of our opinions that the Don country was occupied previously to the Tatar invasions by a nomade and warlike people, the Polovtzis, who, there is every reason to think, were no other than Slaves.[13]
It may well be conceived that the dissensions and continual wars between the numerous chieftains, among whom the Russian soil was formerly parceled out, must naturally have produced numerous emigrations; and these partial emigrations being too weak to act against the west, must of course have turned eastward towards those remote regions of the steppes where the fugitives might find freedom and independence. It would be difficult then to disprove that a Slavic people existed on the banks of the Don when the Tatars arrived; and that people was apparently the Polovtzis, an agglomeration of fugitives and malcontents, who, during the convulsions of the Russian empire, under Vladimir the Great's successors, seem to have laid the first foundations of the Cossack power in the steppes of the Sea of Azov and the Don.[14]
The name of the Polovtzis disappeared completely under the Tatar sway; but it would be illogical thence to infer that the people itself utterly perished, and did not share the destiny of the other Sclavonic tribes of Russia. We agree, therefore, with some historians in thinking that the Polovtzis merely exchanged their appellation for that of Cossacks, imposed on them by the Tatars, and made permanent by a servitude of more than three centuries. We have besides already remarked that the Tatars used among themselves to call all adventurers and vagabonds Cossacks: it is not, therefore, surprising that they should on their arrival in Russia, have given this designation to the nomade hordes of the Polovtzis. This historical version seems far more rational than the supposition that the Polovtzis completely disappeared, and were entirely supplanted by a Caucasian race, which had taken part in the expeditions of Batou Khan.
The traveller, who has studied the Cossacks and the mountaineers of the Caucasus, can never admit the doctrine that would make but one nation of these two. Our notions on this subject are corroborated in every point by physiological observations. In the first place, considerations founded on religion and language, are not so lightly to be rejected as Clarke and Lesur assert. The conversion of the Cossacks would not certainly have been passed over unnoticed in the history of the Lower Empire; the Byzantine writers would have been sure to record such a triumph of their creed; but they say not a word about it; and every one knows perfectly well in what manner Christianity was categorically introduced into Russia. Moreover, if the Cossacks had been nothing but Circassians at the beginning of the thirteenth century, it would be hard to account for their ready adoption of a foreign language and religion, at a time when that language and that religion were, if not proscribed, at least muchdiscredited under the Tatar sway. The last Russian expeditions into the Caucasus, towards the sources of the Kouban, have, it is true, given birth to new historical ideas as to that part of Asia. Thus, there have been discovered two churches in a perfect state of preservation, the origin of which is evidently Genoese or Venetian, and we can scarcely fail to recognise in the Circassians some traces of Christianity in the profound respect they bear to the cross. But, on the other hand, nothing indicates that this people was ever Christian; on the contrary, every thing proves that its primitive religion, if its religious notions may be so called, has undergone no alteration. Those Christian edifices, too, which we have alluded to, belong to a later period than the inroads of the Tatar hordes, consequently they can only testify in favour of our views.
No chronicle speaks of the emigration of a Tcherkess people in the middle ages. The only tradition relating to any thing of the kind, is that of a strong tribe from the Caucasus, which, after occupying the plains of the Danube, is said to have settled at last in Pannonia. Every one is aware that mountain tribes are the least migratory of all, and the most attached to their native soil; it is, therefore, natural to suppose that the Circassians, so proud of their independence and so often ineffectually attacked, did not receive the warriors of Genghis Khan as friends, or take part in their sanguinary expeditions.[15]Hence M. Schnitzler appears to me to propound a more than questionable fact when he alleges, following Karamsin, that the Circassians entered Russia with Batou Khan, and so formed by degrees that new people, which, to borrow the language of this statician,on the breaking up of the Tatar rule and the dispersion of the clouds, which till then had hung over their country, appears to us as Russian and Christian, but with Circassian features, with Tatar manners and customs, and hating the Muscovites.
How can we assign such an origin to the Don Cossacks when there exists neither among them, nor among their supposed brethren, any tradition of so modern a fact? Besides, if the Cossacks had really come from the Caucasus, would they not have retained some neighbourly relations with the mountaineers? Is it not a singular notion to take Circassians, the most indomitable of all men, and the most attached to their hereditary usages and manners, to subject them to the Tatars for more than 300 years, and then to transform them at once, and without transition, into a people speaking pure unmixed Sclavonic, and professing the Greek religion? This is certainly one of the most curious of metamorphoses; before it could happen there must have been a combination of circumstances exactly the reverse of those which have really existed. The Circassians, one would think, would have been much more disposed to adopt the religion of the victors, than of the vanquished, the more so asislamism having already at that period made considerable progress in Eastern Caucasus, would give them a much stronger bias towards the Tatars, than towards the wandering hordes of the Polovtzis, from which we derive the Cossacks.
Notwithstanding the assertions of Dr. Clarke, it is not easy to trace much resemblance between the Circassians and the Cossacks. At present we see all the people who dwell at the foot of the Caucasus, generally adopting the habits of the mountain tribes. A great number of Nogai Tatars have become completely blended with them. The Cossacks of the Black Sea have borrowed from them their costume and their arms. The Muscovites and the German colonists themselves have not escaped the energetic influence of the Caucasian tribes; and yet some would have us believe that the Don Cossacks, a Tcherkess tribe, separated from the parent stock not more than 400 years, have undergone a contrary impulse during all that time, and now present, in a manner, no resemblance to their ancestors. The two peoples differ in costume, arms, industry, and every other particular. The Circassians are extremely apt in manufactures, and excel in all sorts of handicraft productions, to which they give a very marked and original character. The Cossacks, on the contrary, have little or no turn for manufactures; in this respect they exhibit no trace of what characterises the Caucasian tribes in so high a degree. As for the Tatar habits, of which M. Schnitzler speaks, I know not where to look for them, unless they consist in the trousers generally worn by the Cossack women. After all, the Tatars must necessarily have left some traces of their habits in the countries over which they ruled for so many centuries.
The real point of contact between the Cossacks and the Circassians, consists in their love of freedom, and their intense hatred for every thing Russian. But these sentiments evidently flow from their ancient and primitive constitution; and if they detest the Russians, it is because the Muscovite sovereigns, who have never ceased to attack their privileges, have at last succeeded in annihilating their whole political existence.
Undoubtedly the Cossacks are not pure Sclavonians, like the people of Great Russia, but are mixed up with many other races. The Don country long remained a soil of freedom, a real land of asylum for all refugees. The Circassians have probably not been strangers to their past history, and the adventurous life of the Cossack must have fascinated many a mountain chief. History, too, informs us that the Sclavons of Poland have mingled their blood with that of the inhabitants of the Don country. It is this medley of races, and the combination of all these various influences, added to the thoroughly republican character of their primitive constitution, that give the Cossacks their intellectual superiority, and make them a nation apart. But the principle stock is nevertheless Sclavonic.
The partisans of the Circassian origin have also dwelt on the resemblance between the name of the capital of the Don country,and that of a Caucasian tribe. But really when a historical question of this importance is under discussion, such a resemblance cannot be of much weight. We know that some fugitives from the Boristhenes, about the year 1569, fell in with Cossacks on the Don, and joined with them in an attack on Azov, which then belonged to the Turks. It was just about this period, 1570, that Staro Tcherkask was founded. We should hence be disposed to believe that the fugitives from the Ukraine had a great share in the creation of that town, and that they called it Tcherkask, in memory of the name of the old capital of their native land.
The Don Cossacks appear to us for the first time in the thirteenth century, on the ruins of the Tatar empire. Not till then did they begin to make a certain figure in the history of the Muscovite empire. In the reign of Ivan IV. the Terrible, they put themselves under the protection of Russia. From that time until near the end of the last century, we see them sometimes marching under the banners of the Muscovite sovereigns, sometimes rising against them, and often bringing the empire to the very verge of ruin. Their political condition was in those days a real republic, founded on a basis of absolute equality. The head of the government, styled ataman, was selected by the whole assembled nation, and retained his office but for five years; but his power was dictatorial, and no one could call him to account for his acts, even after the expiration of his office. All the subaltern leaders were likewise elected, and retained their posts for a greater or less time, according to circumstances. Equality, however, resumed its sway at the end of each military campaign; each officer, on returning into private life, enjoyed only the rights common to all; and the colonel or starshine often made the ensuing campaign as a private soldier. Aristocracy was totally unknown to the Don Cossacks in those days; if some families were distinguished from the rest by their greater influence, they owed this solely to their courage and their exploits. So strong was then the sense of independence, that the Cossacks despised as vile mercenaries those who took permanent service under the Russian sovereigns. As for the imperial suzerainty, it was limited to the right of calling for a military contingent in case of war, and of disposing of a small body of troops to defend the frontiers against the nomades of the steppes.
Cossack freedom was doomed to perish when brought into collision with the principles of absolutism and servitude which rule in the Russian empire; accordingly, as soon as the Empress Catherine II. felt strong enough to make the attempt, she decided on a radical change in the political constitution of the Don country.
The first of her ukases to this effect enacted that all the Cossack officers in the service of Russia should retain their rank and privileges on their return to their own country; a regulation directly opposed to the habits and usages of that republican people. How,indeed, could that haughty soldiery have endured that slave-officers, as it called them, should be put on the same footing with its own, elected by the acclamations of the nation? A revolt ensued, but it was promptly put down. The illustrious Potemkin could not understand that insurrection, for it seemed to him incredible that the Cossacks should rebel because they were granted almost all the privileges of Russian officers. After these unhappy troubles, their elections were abolished, and their political system was gradually changed, until it came to resemble that of a Russian government. Count Platof was the last ataman of the Cossacks, and he owed the authority he was allowed to enjoy, in a great measure to the peculiar circumstances in which he was placed by the wars of the empire.
The Don country continued through the last century as before, to be a land of asylum and freedom for all refugees. This led to the settlement of a great number of Russians among the Cossacks. The Emperor Paul took advantage of this circumstance to secure the attachment of the principal families by publishing an ukase, in which he at once, and without warning, declared all the Russian fugitives slaves of the landowners, whose patronage they had accepted. This first partition of the people was not the last; another ukase of the same sovereign completed the work of Catherine II., abolished equality, and constituted an aristocracy by ennobling all the officers andemployésof the government. The nobility at present amount to a considerable number, and all the officers are taken from that body. The young Cossacks, like the Russians, enter the St. Petersburg corps as cadets, at ten or twelve years of age; after some years they join a regiment asjunker, and two or three months afterwards they become officers.
The political power of the Cossacks being annihilated, active means were taken to deprive them of all military strength, by dispersing them all over the empire, and stationing them wherever there were quarantines, custom-house lines, and hostile frontiers to guard. Cossack posts were simultaneously established on the frontiers of Poland, and at the foot of the Caucasus. Lastly, every means of enfeeblement was largely employed, and after the death of Platof, under pretext of rewarding the nation for its devotedness during the campaign of Moscow, the functions of ataman-in-chief were suppressed, and the title was conferred on the heir-apparent.
All these arbitrary measures, which, after all cannot be blamed, have naturally excited the most violent discontent in the country of the Don, and the Cossacks would undoubtedly cause the empire serious uneasiness in case of war. The government is not ignorant of this hostile temper. In recent times it did not dare to trust the Cossacks with real pieces of artillery, and the regiments were compelled to exercise with wooden cannons. It is certain that the campaign of 1812 would not have been so disastrous for France, if Napoleon hadtaken care to send emissaries among the inhabitants of the Don with promises to re-establish their ancient political constitution. I have questioned a great number of military men on this subject, and all were unanimous in assuring me of the alacrity with which the Cossacks would then have joined the French army. Nothing can give an idea of the antipathy they cherish to their masters; the feeling pervades all classes, in spite of every effort of the government. The Russians affect so much disdain for the Cossack nobles, that the latter, notwithstanding their epaulettes and their decorations, cannot but bitterly regret the old republican constitution. Furthermore, the military service is so onerous, that it checks all agricultural and industrial activity; for be it observed, that the Cossacks of the present day are far from being the plunderers they were in former times. The service is to them but a profitless task, and they all long eagerly for a sedentary life, which would allow them to attend to rural occupations, and to trade.
The country of the Don Cossacks is now definitively a Russian government. All the laws of the empire are there in full force, and the administrative forms are the same, under other names. Nevertheless, the still free attitude of the Cossacks has not hitherto permitted the installation of the Russianemployésamong them. Within the last three years only, the government has succeeded in having itself represented at Novo Tcherkask, by a general placed at the head of the military staff of the country. The Cossacks regard this innovation with dislike, and spare their new military superior no annoyance. The following is the present organisation of the Don Cossacks:—
The ataman (locum tenens) holding the grade of lieutenant-general, is the military and civil head of the government, and at the same time the president of the various tribunals of the capital. The functions of vice-president having been conferred since 1841 on the general of the staff before mentioned, the latter is in fact the sole influential authority in the country.
The province of the Don Cossacks is divided into seven civil and four military districts; the courts are similar to those of the other governments.
The army amounts at present, to fifty-four regiments, of 850 men each (not including the two regiments of the emperor and the grand duke) and nine companies of artillery, having each eight pieces of cannon. In 1840, there were twenty-eight regiments in active service, fifteen of them in the Caucasus, with three companies of artillery. At the same time, nine other regiments were under orders to march for the lines of the Kouban.
All the Cossacks are soldiers born: their legal term of service is twenty years abroad, or twenty-five at home. But no regard is paid to this regulation, for most of them remain in active service for thirty or even forty years. They pay no taxes, but are obliged to equip themselves at their own expense, and receive the ordinarypay of Russian troops only from the day they cross their native frontiers.[16]
The organisation of the regiments is effected in rather a curious manner. When a regiment is to be sent to the Caucasus, each district receives notice how many soldiers and officers it is to supply, and then the first names on the military books are taken without distinction. The place of muster is usually near the frontier, and every one arrives there as he pleases, without concerning himself about others. When all the men are assembled, they are classed by squadrons, the requisite officers are set over them, and the detachment begins its march. Hence we see there is nothing fixed in the composition of the regiments. The Cossacks are subjected nevertheless to the European discipline, and formed into regular corps; but this innovation seems likely to be fatal to them, by completely destroying their valuable aptitude for acting as skirmishers. The Emperor Nicholas visited the Don country in 1837, and reviewed the Cossack troops at Novo Tcherkask, but it appears that he was exceedingly displeased with the condition of the regulars. Accordingly, that he might not expose them to the criticism of foreigners, he took care not to be accompanied by the brilliant cortège of European officers who had been present at the grand military parades of Vosnecensk.
The population of the Don Cossacks amounts to about 600,000, occupying 14,000,000 hectares of land, and divided into four very distinct classes: 1. The aristocracy founded by the Emperor Paul; 2. The free Cossacks; 3. The merchants; 4. The slaves. The free Cossacks form the mass of the population, and furnish the horse soldiers; they have however the opportunity of acquiring nobility by military service, but to this end, they must serve for twelve years as non-commissioned officers.
The merchants form a peculiar class, which can hardly exceed 500 in number. They are not bound to do military service, but in lieu of this, they pay taxes to the government. The slaves, whose origin we have described, amount to about 85,000 souls.
The revenues of the government of the Cossacks, are about 2,000,000 rubles, more than sufficient for the expenditure, that is to say, for the payment of theemployés. The spirit duties produce 1,500,000 rubles, the rest is made up by the salt works of the Manitch, and the pasturage dues.
The country of the Don Cossacks is bounded on the north by the two governments of Voroneje and Saratof; on the east by the latter, and that of Astrakhan; on the south by the government of the Caucasus, the country of the Cossacks of the Black Sea, and the Sea of Azov; on the west, by the governments of Voroneje and Iekaterinoslav and the Ukraine slobodes. All this territoryforms a vast extent, no part of which is detached as M. Schnitzler asserts; on the contrary, the regency of Taganrok is completely encompassed by it.
The country of the Cossacks may be divided into two very distinct parts: that situated to the north and west, presenting lofty plains intersected by many rivers and ravines, is admirably adapted for agriculture, and possesses excellent pastures. Among its numerous rivers, are the Donetz, the Mious, and the Kalmious, which marks its frontier on the west, and the Khoper and the Medveditza on the north-east. It is principally along the two latter streams, that the Cossacks have established their most celebrated studs, among the foremost of which, are those of Count Platof. The second division of the country, consists of all the steppes that extend along the left bank of the Don, to the confines of the government of the Caucasus, and along the Manitch to the frontier of Astrakhan. The soil is here unvaried; it is the Russian desert in all its uniformity, and the basin of the muddy and brackish Manitch, is perfectly in harmony with the regions it traverses. But those monotonous plains are a source of wealth to the Cossacks, who rear vast herds of horses and other cattle; several thousands of Kalmucks too find subsistence in them.
Until 1841, the government of the Cossacks exhibited one very singular peculiarity. Its whole territory formed but one vast communal domain, without any individual owners or ownership. After several fruitless attempts, the Russian government finally determined on dividing the lands, and the work must by this time have been completed. Besides the new arrangements adopted, there have been granted to each family thirty hectares of land for each male, and fifteen additional for each slave. After this distribution, there will remain to the government, 2,000,000 hectares of land, on which it will no doubt establish Muscovite colonies. This division of the land is a final blow to the old Cossack institutions, and ere long the population will consist only of nobles and peasants, just as in the rest of Russia. The peasants are free it is true, but their properties will soon be absorbed by the wealthier and more powerful: and then an ukase will do the work of establishing slavery in the country. The community of landed property was hitherto the only obstacle to a complete severance between the new nobles and the other Cossacks. It was another remnant of the old republican equality, and was naturally doomed to fall before the principles of unity and centralisation of the Russian government. When we see Russia laying her hand on all the free populations of the southern part of the empire, and bringing them gradually under the yoke of serfdom, we cannot but be struck with astonishment, and compare the revolution it is now effecting before our eyes, with that which so deplorably signalised the Roman sway.
It may easily be conceived how fatal the military organisation ofthe Cossacks must be to their prosperity and well-being. Never sure of what the morrow may bring forth, and liable at any moment to be called to arms, they have of necessity fallen into indifference and sloth. Their domestic ties are broken, for they are often many years without seeing their wives and children. Under such a system, all intellectual improvement becomes impossible; and there has also resulted from it an incipient demoralisation, compressed as yet by the force of primitive manners, but which will not fail at last to spread over the whole population. Yet the Cossacks are eminently intelligent. I saw thirty young men at Novo Tcherkask execute topographical plans extremely well, after a few weeks' study. The Russian generals themselves could not refrain from expressing their surprise to me at so rapid a progress. Let Russia renounce the oppressive system she is forcing on the Cossacks; let the latter, on their part, make up their mind to admit that their ancient constitution is in our day become an utopia; and the Don country will soon make rapid advances in colonisation, and exhibit all that constitutes the prosperity and wealth of a nation.
The means of instruction enjoyed by the Cossacks are still extremely limited. In the whole country there is but one gymnasium, very recently established in Novo Tcherkask; but the wealthier Cossacks have long been used to have their children educated in the neighbouring governments, particularly in Taganrok, where the private schools kept by foreigners afford them great advantages.
The rearing of cattle, especially of horses, is now the chief source of gain to the Cossacks. Count Platof's studs, as we have already said, are reputed the best: they are descended from the trans-Kouban races, crossed by Persian and Khivian stallions, procured by the late count during the war of 1796 with Persia. Very good cavalry horses are also produced by Platof's stallions out of Tatar and Kalmuck mares. Count Platof's horses fetch from 250 to 350 rubles; but in the steppes of the Manitch, where there are very extensive herds, the price seldom exceeds 150. The care of the herds is chiefly committed to Kalmucks; usually 100 horses are kept by one family, five hundred by three, a thousand by five, and from 1500 to 2000 by six. Except a few proprietors, who are careful about the improvement of the breed, the Cossacks allow their vast herds to wander about the steppes without any care or superintendence. The horses of the Don never enter a stable; summer and winter they are in the open air, and must procure their own food, for which they have often to strive against the snow; hence they become extremely vigorous, and support the most trying campaigns with remarkable hardiness. Nothing can be more simple and expeditious than the way in which they are broken in. The horse selected is caught with a noose; he is saddled and bridled; the rider mounts him, and he is allowed to gallop over the steppe until he falls exhausted. From that moment he is almost always perfectly tamed, and may be usedwithout danger. I rode a mare thus broken, in one of my longest journeys on horseback. Six days before my departure she was completely free; yet I never rode a more docile animal.
The Cossacks have three sorts of horned cattle, the Kalmuck, the Hungarian, and the Dutch breeds. The first is generally preferred because it does not require to be stalled either winter or summer, or to receive any particular care, and always can pick up its feed in the steppes. At the same time the loss of cattle is enormous in long and severe winters, for the proprietors can never procure hay for more than six weeks' consumption, on account of the great numbers of their herds. At the end of the year 1839, the Don country possessed in cattle: