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VIII.

1815.

the boundless realms of Siberia, but it was only to sub- CHAP. ject them to a tyranny almost as terrible as that from which they had escaped, and which won for him the lasting surname of the Terrible. Severe as it was, his yoke was cheerfully borne for half a century, because it averted the still more dreadful oppression of the Tartars; and when Peter the Great, a century after, sought to gain for them a place in the European family, he found the Muscovites prepared to submit to any mandates, and ready to be moulded by any will which assumed their direction. Let us not boast of the independent character and fearless disposition of the English peasantry, but rather thank the Almighty, who, in the encircling ocean, has given them a barrier against their enemies. Had the circumstances of both been different-had the Russians been located in Yorkshire, and the Anglo-Saxon on the banks of the Volga-who will affirm that the character Histoire de of the two nations, despite the all but indelible influence 447, 448. of race, would not have been exchanged? 1*

1 Karamsin,

Russie, v.

of the dis

Russia.

The Emperor Nicholas has often said that "its dis- 39. tances are the scourge of Russia ;" and considered with Great effect reference to the march of civilisation, it is obvious that tances in the observation is well founded. It is difficult, indeed, to conceive how civilisation can spread generally in a country of such enormous extent, possessing such slender means, natural or artificial, of internal communication, with so few seaports, and these few, for the most part, blocked up half the year with ice. At the accession of Peter the Great, Russia possessed only one seaport (Archangel) on the White Sea; and it was the pressing want of

"L'orgueil national s'anéantit parmi les Russes; ils eurent recours aux artifices qui suppléent à la force chez les hommes condamnés à une obéissance servile; habiles à tromper les Tartares, ils devinrent aussi, plus savants dans l'art de se tromper mutuellement; achetant des barbares leur sécurité personnelle, ils furent plus avides d'argent et moins sensibles aux injures et à la honte; exposés sans cesse à l'insolence des tyrans étrangers, il se pourrait que le caractère actuel des Russes conservât quelques-unes des taches dont l'a souillé la barbarie des Mongols. Le soutien des boyards ayant disparu, il fallait obéir au souverain sous peine d'être regardé comme traître ou comme rebelle: et il n'existe plus aucune voie légitime de s'opposer à ses volontés, en un mot on vit naître l'autocratie."-KARAMSIN, Histoire de Russie, v. 44; vi. 351.

CHAP.

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1815.

a great harbour to connect it with the commerce and ideas of western Europe which made him lavish such sums, and waste such an enormous amount of human life, in the construction of St Petersburg. The same want is still felt with unmitigated severity in the interior. Civilisation meets with grievous impediments in a country entirely flat, without minerals or coal to stimulate manufactures, covered with snow half the year, in great part shaded by forests, with few navigable rivers, and still fewer canals or railroads, distant from any harbour, and necessarily chained by physical necessity, over great part of its extent, to rude agricultural labour during the whole year. The situation of the basin of the Mississippi, of surpassing fertility, and intersected in every part by a vast network of navigable rivers, which descend from the Alleghanies on the one side and the Rocky Mountains on the other, is not a parallel but a contrast to that of Muscovy; and if we would rightly appreciate the advantages which Great Britain has derived, and Ireland might have derived, from its insular situation, compact provinces, numerous harbours, and mineral riches, we have only to contemplate what Russia has suffered from the want of them. It results necessarily from these circumstances, that as Civilisation much as Russia abounds to overflowing in the elements of physical, is she weak in the materials of intellectual the higher strength; and that if a great destiny awaits her, as it plainly does, it is to be found in the conquest of the bodies, not the subjugation of the souls of men. Civilisation depends entirely on and flows from the higher ranks; there is none of the ascending pressure from below which constitutes so important an element in the society of western Europe. In the very highest ranks it exists in the most refined and captivating form, and one of the many contrasts which strike a stranger most in that extraordinary country, is the strange contrasts which exist between the manners, habits, and tastes of the nobility and those of the great body of the people. After traversing hundreds of leagues over a country imperfectly cultivated, overrun

40.

depends en

tirely on

ranks.

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by forests or swamps, and tilled in the places which the CHAP. plough has reached by ignorant serfs, the astonished traveller finds himself suddenly landed in an enchanted palace, where the last refinements of European civilisation are to be met with, where the finest copies of the Greek statues adorn marble halls of surpassing magnificence, where the choicest gems of Titian or Raphael enchant the eye, in drawing-rooms enriched with all the luxury of Ormolu and Sèvres, and beautiful women, arrayed in the last Parisian fashion, alternately fascinate the mind by conversation on the most celebrated novels or operas of the day, or charm the senses by the finest melodies of Mozart or Beethoven. It is this strange and startling combination of rudeness with refinement, of coarseness with elegance of taste, of barbarity with the last delicacies of civilisation, in one class, with the first attempts at improvement in those beneath it, which strikes the traveller at every step in Russia. Diderot long ago said that "the Russians were rotten before they were ripe;" but it would be more just to say that they are ripe in one class before they are even beginning to form fruit in those below it.

41.

tative turn

sians.

The Russians are essentially an imitative people, and they have carried talent in this respect to a length Strong imiunequalled in any other age or country of the world. of the RusTheir manners, their fashions, their arts, their luxuries, their architecture, their painting, are all copied from those of western Europe. Like the inhabitants of all northern countries, they are passionately fond of travelling, for this plain reason, that they seek in foreign countries gratifications they cannot find in their own. They make good use of the opportunities they thus enjoy: they are well known as the most lavish patrons of art both in France and Italy, and they carry back with them to their deserts not only the finest specimens of ancient statuary or modern painting, but the most refined taste for their beauties, and correct appreciation of their excellencies. Their architecture, in all but the very

VIII.

.1815.

CHAP. oldest structures of the empire, is all copied from the Greek or Roman; it is the Parthenon of Athens, the Pantheon of Rome, at every step. In the Kremlin alone, and some of the oldest structures of Nijni and Great Novgorod, is to be seen the ancient and native emanations of Russian genius before it was crushed by the barbarism of the Tartars, or nipped in the bud by the imitative passion of Peter the Great. The eye of the traveller is fascinated by these long lines of pillared scenery interspersed with monuments and obelisks; but after a time it palls on the senses, from its very richness and uniformity: it is felt to be an exotic unsuited to the climate, and which cannot take root in the soil; and the imagination sighs for the original architecture of the English cathedrals and the Moorish Alhambra, which mark the nativeborn conceptions of the Gothic and Arabian conquerors of the world.

42.

Military

Russia.

But if western Europe has little to fear from the rivalry of Russian art or the flights of Russian genius, it strength of is otherwise with the imitation of the MILITARY ART, which has been carried to the very highest point in the Muscovite armies. The army consisted in 1840 of 72 regiments of infantry, 24 of light cavalry, 90 batteries of foot and 12 of horse artillery. Each regiment consists of 7 battalions of 1000 men each; so that the infantry alone, if complete, would contain above 500,000 men. The guards, which are composed of the élite of the whole male population of the empire, consist of 12 regiments of infantry, 12 of cavalry, 12 batteries of foot and 4 of horse artillery, which are always kept complete. Besides this, there are 24 regiments of heavy reserve cavalry, and 12 batteries of reserve horse-artillery, and the corps of the Caucasus, Orenburg, Siberia, Finland, and the interior, which contain 100 battalions of 1000 men each, 40 regiments of cavalry, and 36 batteries of cannon. Besides these immense forces, the emperor has at his disposal 164 regiments of Cossacks, each containing 800 warriors, of whom 56 come from the steppes of the Don, and are

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superior to any troops in the world for the service of CHAP. light cavalry. If these immense forces were all complete, they would contain above 800,000 infantry,250,000 horses, and 100,000 artillerymen. But the ranks are very far, indeed, from being complete; and in no country in the world is the difference so great between the numerical force of an army on paper and its effective muster in the field. The reason is, that numerous officers in every grade have an interest in representing the force as greater than it really is; as they draw pay and rations for the whole, and appropriate such as is allotted to the nonexisting to themselves. Still, after making every allowance for these great deficiencies, it is not going too far to assert that Russia, when her strength is fully called forth, could produce 400,000 infantry, 100,000 cavalry, and Voyages, i 50,000 artillerymen for service beyond her own frontier, 184, 189; though the distances of the empire are so great that it vi. 408; would require more than a year to bring even the half of derry, this immense force to bear on any point in Europe or 156, 159. Asia.1*

1 Marmont,

London

Russia, ii.

43.

A very curious and interesting part of the institutions of Russia is to be found in the MILITARY COLONIES, which The military are established in several of the southern provinces of the

colonies.

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