The Slav Nations

by Srdan Tucic

II. Siberia—White Russians—Little Russians—Great Russians—Cossacks—The People of the Sunflower—Made in Germany—The Reaction.

I.

Roughly speaking, there are 172 million Slavs in the world. The Russians alone number about 110 millions, and these millions occupy a vast country reaching from the snows of the far North, to lands where the orange-trees bloom all the year round. The Russian holds that his dear “little mother Russia” is the most beautiful land of all the earth. The mountain fastnesses and precipices of the Urals, the green slopes of the Caucasus, the Siberian wastes, the grey shores of the Baltic and the sunny shores of the Euxine—the Volga and the Don, and even the sacred steppes—to him they are all beautiful, to him they reflect the image of his soul and his feelings. The Western traveller will find some difficulty in understanding this passionate love of the Russian for his country, and will feel[21] tempted to draw sharp comparisons between the degrees of beauty in the various districts. But the landscape of Russia is as peculiar as the Russian people. It is as Russian as the Russian himself. There is probably not another country in the world where the climatic and geological conditions have so deeply influenced the inmost character of the people, even to their external features. Where the landscape is beautiful and the climate sunny, the handsome noble Russian type prevails; whereas the cold, inhospitable tracts produce the characteristic wide-faced, flat-nosed type. Yet there is a strange resemblance between the rough type and the handsome type analogous to that which a careful observer cannot fail to notice between the different types of Russian landscape. For though the steppe is grey, and the fields of Caucasia are green, yet both are animated by something that wears the same countenance, breathes the same purely Russian atmosphere, and is suffused with the same wonderful charm. It is the charm of perfectly balanced contrast. The soil of Russia has a soul like the soul of her children, for whom she cares and lives and breathes. This soul appears everywhere the same; it exhales the same perfume from the dry grass of the steppe as from the Crimean groves of syringa.

The Russian soil is fertile, inexhaustively fertile, as if it were conscious of the millions dependent upon it. Metaphorically speaking, this soil produces its gifts out of itself, and offers them lavishly to its children. The Russian never works more than he is obliged to—he need not wrestle with the soil, he need only not forget it. But he tills it with love; he does not force the gifts of Nature, he coaxes them from her, and where these fruits do not appear on the surface, he seeks them in the heart of the earth, and goes down the coal-shafts and lead-mines with the same serene confidence with which he ploughs the sunlit surface. Is he not still with his “little mother”?

The Russian is a farmer by nature. The great industrial developments of the last decades have resulted automatically from the natural wealth of the country, but the true Russian reaps little benefit from this industrial boom. His commercial gifts are not great, and he has been content to leave the business exploitation of the country in the hands of foreigners, so long as he makes his own little profit. Mills and factories are “German monsters” in his eyes, and he prefers to give them a wide berth. But latterly there has been a great agitation in favour of the resuscitation of all home industries. The Russian has grasped the fact that his policy of sentiment in business will have to be modified to suit modern times, and that the welfare of the people must not be dependent on foreign middle-men. The present great conflict with the Germans, who have hitherto so largely monopolised Russian industry, will doubtless do much to further this movement towards industrial emancipation.

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The History of Russia begins practically with Rurik (862) who is supposed to have come from Scandinavia and laid the foundations of a Russian state.[2] At the coming of Rurik the Russians were split up into many separate communities under independent chiefs. Rurik introduced a new spirit of united organization, and all efforts towards establishing a Russian Empire date from him. Of course it was inevitable that this founding of an Empire should involve much opposition, revolt, war, and bloodshed. Each district was proud and jealous of its independence, and only yielded after a hard and bitter struggle. During the period of Empire-making Russian history abounds in such bloody episodes. The Grand-Dukedom of Muscovy was the largest of the Russian petty States and in every way the best equipped, so that the task of organization naturally devolved upon it, together with the fruits of victory. Six centuries of ceaseless struggle against foes from without and within bring us from Rurik’s day to the accession of Ivan Vassilievitch III. (1462-1505), who is regarded as the founder of Russian Tsardom. He incorporated the still independent principalities of Twer, Moshnik, and Vologda with the Grand-Dukedom of Muscovy, defeated the powerful Republic of Novgorod, and freed himself completely from the Tatar yoke (1480). In 1472 he married Zoë, a daughter of Thomas Palaeologus, the brother of the last Byzantine Emperor. European customs were first brought into Russia through this princess, and the double-headed eagle of Byzantium introduced in the Russian coat of arms. The celebrated Uspenskij and Blagoveshchenski Cathedrals in Moskva were built in the reign of Ivan Vassilievitch III. He promulgated a decree pronouncing the realm henceforth united and undivisible by law, and was the first Russian ruler to assume the title of “Tsar of all the Russias.” Christianity, introduced by St. Vladimir (980-1054), had by this time fully blossomed forth as the national religion, so that we can date the foundation of “Holy Russia” of to-day in all her greatness from the age of Ivan Vassilievitch III.

During the following ages the power of Tsardom increased and finally reached its zenith with Peter the Great, who may be called the first of the modern Russian Tsars. He applied his own acquired Western knowledge to Russia, and enormously improved the general status of the realm. In his reign Russia began to play her part as a political and military power, for it was he who founded the Russian navy and mercantile marine. He was a ruthless autocrat, and many pages of his reign are traced in blood; yet with him autocracy was not so much a matter of sentiment as of dire necessity. He loved his Russian people passionately, but said that it was a people who had to be made great by force. Confident in the inalienable national character he saw no danger in importing foreigners wholesale to help in the building up of Russian administration. He surrounded himself with German advisers, appointed Germans to responsible offices, and freely admitted the German element into Russia as a means of spreading “culture.” In many ways German thoroughness proved a most useful asset in carrying out the Tsar’s intentions. On the other hand it gave rise to a dynasty and an autocratic aristocracy of foreign stock who failed to understand the Russian people, and whose influence proved disastrous to civilization and intellectual freedom in Russia. Outwardly, Russia became a world-power under Peter the Great, but internally it fell a prey to a system of spiritual slavery, which has been perpetuated even to recent years by the successors of Peter and their councillors, the descendants of German immigrants. Here lies the true cause of the revolutionary movement of more than a century. The last three Tsars of Russia—the two Alexanders and the present Tsar—have taken steps to eliminate the great evil, and if, so far, they have only been partially successful, the fault lies not with them nor with the Russian people, but with the still German mind of their advisers. The abolition of serfdom, repeated constitutional manifestos and the introduction of the Duma system are momentous steps towards a brighter future. But the gate to this future can only be fully opened with the conclusion of the present war.

II.

Although Russia has acquired millions of non-Russian subjects—chiefly through the Crimea, Bessarabia and her Asiatic possessions—she has never lost her purely Russian character. The laws concerning land purchase are so constituted that the territories belonging to the heart of Russia cannot to any great extent pass into non-Russian hands, which accounts for the fact that these parts of the Empire have remained essentially Russian. Siberia holds an exceptional position, and is to-day a great colonial province with a mixed population. Every year the wealth and fertility of Siberia become more and more apparent, and instead of being bleak and uninhabited, this country is now distinctly populous. The horrors of Siberia as a penal colony are becoming a thing of the past, and only the perpetrators of grave crimes are still condemned to labour in the lead-mines and languish in the Katorga (penal servitude). Convicts who are simply exiled to Siberia are able to earn a comfortable livelihood under tolerable conditions—apart from the loss of liberty and vexatious police supervision. Thus it often happens that time-expired convicts prefer to remain in Siberia, and eventually find not only a home but prosperity in the new country.