Russia: Its People and Its Literature

by condesa de Emilia Pardo Bazán

The Russian Autocracy.

Such was the sad situation in Russia at the opening of the period of European Renaissance, out of which grew the modern age which was to provide the remedy for her ills through her own tyrants. For without intending a paradox, I will say that tyranny is the liberator of Russia. Twice these tyrants who have forced life into her, who have impelled her toward the future, have been called The Terrible,—Ivan III., the uniter of the provinces, he whose very look made the women faint, and Ivan IV., the first to use the title of Czar. Both these despots cross the stage of history like spectres called up by a nightmare: the former morose, dissimulating, and hypocritical, like Louis XI. of France, whom he resembles; the latter demented, fanatical, epileptic, and hot-tempered, clutching his iron pike in hand, with which he transfixed Russia as one may transfix a fluttering insect with a pin. But these tyrants, gifted and guided by a saving instinct, created the nation. Ivan III. instituted the succession to the throne, thus suppressing the hurtful practice of partition among brothers, and it was he who finally broke the yoke of the Mongols. Ivan IV. did more yet; he achieved the actual separation of Europe from Asia, put down the anarchy of the nobles, and taught them submission to law; and not content with this, he put himself at the head of the scanty literature of his time, and while he widened the domains of Russia, he protected within her borders the establishment of the press, until then persecuted as sacrilegious. It is difficult to think what would have become of the Russian nation without her great tyrants. Therefore it is that the memory of Ivan IV. still lives in the popular imagination, and the Terrible Czar, like Pedro the Cruel of Spain, is neither forgotten nor abhorred.

The consolidation of the autocratic idea is easily understood in the light of these historic figures. No wonder that the people accepted it, from a spirit of self-preservation, since it was despotism that sustained them, that formed them, so to speak. It is folly to consider the institutions of a nation as though they were extraneous to it, fruit of an individual will or of a single event; society obeys laws as exact as those which regulate the courses of the stars, and the historian must recognize and fix them.

The autocracy and the unity of Russia were consolidated together by the genius of Ivan III., who made their emblem the double-headed eagle, and by Ivan IV., who sacrificed to them a sea of blood. The municipal autonomies and the petty independent princes frowned, but Russia became a true nation; at the beginning of the sixteenth century, the brilliant age of the monarchical principle, no European sovereign could boast of being so thoroughly obeyed as the sovereign prince of Moscow.

The radical concept of omnipotent power, not tempered as in the West by the humanity of Catholicism, at once rushed headlong to oppression and slavery. The ambitious regent Boris Godonof was not long in attaching the serfs to the soil, and upon the heels of this unscrupulous act followed the dark and bloody days of the false Demetrii, in which the serf, irritated by the burden of his chains, welcomed, in every adventurer, in every impostor, a Messiah come to redeem him. Then the Poles, the eternal enemies of Russia, seized the Kremlin, the Swedes threatened to overcome her, and the nation seemed ready to perish had it not been for the heroism of a butcher and a prince; a suggestive example of the saving strength which at supreme moments rises up in every nation.

But one more providential tyrant was needed, the greatest of all, the most extraordinary man of Russia's history, of the house of Romanoff, successor to the extinct dynasty of the Terrible Ivans. "Terrible" might also be applied to the name of the imperial carpenter whose character and destiny are not unlike those of Ivan IV. Both were precocious in intellect, both were self-educated, and both cooled their hot youth in the hard school of abandonment. Out of it came Peter the Great, determined at all costs to remodel his gigantic empire.

Herodotus relates how the young Anacarsis, on returning from foreign lands wherein he had learned new arts and sciences, came to Scythia his native country, and wished to celebrate there a great feast, after the manner of the Greeks, in honor of the mother of the gods; hearing of which the king Sarillius impaled him with a lance. He tells also how another king who wearied of the Scythian mode of living, and craved the customs of the Greeks, among whom he had been educated, endeavored to introduce the Bacchanalian dances, himself taking part in them. The Scythians refused to conform to these novel ideas, and finally cut off the king's head; for, adds the historian, "The Scythians detest nothing so much as foreign customs." The tale of Herodotus was in danger of being repeated at the beginning of the reign of Peter Romanoff. With him began the battle, not yet ended, between old Russia, which calls itself Holy, and new Russia, cut after the Western pattern. While Peter travelled and studied the industry and progress of Europe with the idea of bringing them to his Byzantine empire, the rebels at home conspired to dethrone this daring innovator who threatened to use fire and sword, whips and scourges, the very implements of barbarism, against barbarism itself.

It is a notable fact in Russian history that none of her mighty sovereigns was possessed of moral conditions in harmony with the vigor of their intelligence and will force. Russia has had great emperors but not good emperors. The halo that wreathes the head of Berenguela of Castile and Isabel the Catholic, Saint Ferdinand, or Saint Louis,—men and women in whom the ideal of justice seemed to become incarnate,—is lacking to Vladimir the Baptizer, to Ivan IV., to Peter the Great. Among Occidental peoples the monarchy owed its prestige and sacred authority to good and just kings, vicars of God on earth, who were impressed with a sense of being called to play a noble part in the drama of history, conscious of grave responsibilities, and sure of having to render an account of their stewardship to a Supreme Power. The Czars present quite a different aspect: they seem to have understood civilization rather by its externals than by its intrinsic doctrines, which demand first of all our inward perfecting, our gradual elevation above the level of the beast, and the continuous affirmation of our dignity. Therefore they used material force as their instrument, and spared no means to crown their efforts.

But with all it is impossible to withhold a tribute of admiration to Peter the Great. That fierce despot, gross and vicious, was not only a reformer but a hero. Pultowa, which beheld the fall of the power of Sweden, justified the reforms and the military organization instituted by the young emperor, and made Russia a European power,—a power respected, influential, and great. Whatever may be said against war, whatever sentimental comparisons may be made between the founder and the conqueror, it must still be admitted that the monarch who leads his people to victory will lead them ipse facto to new destinies, to a more glorious and intense historic life.

If Peter the Great had vacillated one degree, if he had squandered time and opportunity in studying prudent ways and means for planting his reforms, if his hand had trembled in laying the rod across the backs of his nobles, or had spared the lash upon the flesh of his own son, perhaps he would never have achieved the transformation of his Oriental empire into a European State, a transformation which embraced everything,—the navy, the army, public instruction, social relations, commerce, customs, and even the beards of his subjects, the much respected traditional long beards, mercilessly shaven by order of the autocrat. In his zeal for illimitable authority, and that his decrees might meet with no obstacles either in heaven or earth, this Czar conceived the bright idea of assuming the spiritual power, and having suppressed the Patriarchy and created the Synod, he held in his hands the conscience of his people, could count its every pulsation, and wind it up like a well-regulated clock. What considerations, human or divine, will check a man who, like Abraham, sacrifices his first-born to an idea, and makes himself the executioner of his own son?