Part II

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WEDDING GEAR

The blacksmith from the forge comes he--Glory! And carries with him hammers three--Glory! O blacksmith, blacksmith, forge for me--Glory! A wedding crown of gold, bran-new!--Glory! A golden ring, oh, make me, do!--Glory! With what is left a gold pin too!--Glory! The crown on wedding day I’ll wear--Glory! On golden ring my troth I’ll swear--Glory! The pin will bind my veil to hair--Glory!

--From John Pollen’s _Rhymes from the Russian_.

THE SALE OF THE BRAID

It was not a horn that in the early morning sounded; It was a maiden her ruddy braid lamenting: “Last night they twined my braid together, And interweaved my braid with pearls. Luká Ivánovich--Heaven requite him!-- Has sent a pitiless svákha hither. My braid has she begun to rend. Tearing out the gold from my braid, Shaking my pearls from my ruddy braids.”

--From W. R. S. Ralston’s _The Songs of the Russian People_.

MARRIAGE SONG

Her mother has counselled Máryushka, Has given counsel to her dear Efímovna. “Go not, my child, Go not, my darling, Into thy father’s garden for apples, Nor catch the mottled butterflies, Nor frighten the little birds, Nor interrupt the clear-voiced nightingale. For shouldst thou pluck the apples The tree will wither away; Or seize the mottled butterfly, The butterfly will die. And shouldst thou frighten a little bird, That bird will fly away; Or interrupt the clear-voiced nightingale, The nightingale will be mute: But catch, my child, My dear one, catch The falcon bright in the open field, The green, the open field.”

Máryushka has caught, Caught has the dear Efímovna, The falcon bright in the open field, The green, the open field. She has perched him on her hand, She has brought him to her mother. “Mother mine, Gosudárynya, I have caught the falcon bright.”

--From W. R. S. Ralston’s _The Songs of the Russian People_.

BEGGARS’ SONG

“Whither art Thou fleeing?” they spoke in tears to Christ. “For whom art Thou leaving us? Who will without Thee give us to drink and eat, will clothe us and protect us against dark night?”

“Weep not, poor people,” replied Christ: “Weep not, mendicants and homeless and small orphans! I will leave you a golden mountain, will give you a honeyed river, will give you vineyards, will give you heavenly manna. Only know how to manage that golden mountain, and to divide it among yourselves: and you will be fed and given drink; you will be clothed and covered up in dark nights.”

Then John the Theologue retorted: “Hail to Thee, real Christ, King of heaven! Permit me to tell Thee a few words, and take not ill my words! Give them not a golden mountain, nor a honeyed river and vineyards, give them not heavenly manna! They will not know how to manage that mountain; it will be beyond their strength, and they will not be able to divide up: they will not harvest the grapes, will not taste the manna. Princes and noblemen, pastors, officials and merchants will hear of that mountain, and they will take away from them the golden mountain and honeyed river, the vineyards and heavenly manna: they will divide up the golden mountain among themselves according to their ranks, but the poor people will not be admitted, and there will be much murder, and much spilling of blood. The poor will have nothing to live on, nothing to wear, and nothing to protect themselves with against dark night: the poor will die of starvation, will freeze to death in cold winter. Give them rather Thy holy name and Word of Christ; and the poor will go all over the earth, will glorify Thee, and the orthodox will give them alms; the poor will be fed and given drink, will be clothed and protected against cold night.”

“Thank you, John the Theologue!” replied Christ the heavenly King. “You have said a sensible word, and have discussed well,--you have taken good care of the poor.”

AN ORPHAN’S WAILING

O mother dear that bare me, O with sadness longed-for one! To whom hast thou left us, on whom are we orphans to rest our hopes? From no quarter do warm breezes breathe on us, we hear no words of kindness. Great folks turn away from us, our kinsfolk renounce us; rust eats into our orphaned hearts. The red sun burns in the midst of a hot summer, but us it keeps not: scarcely does it warm us, O green mother-grave! Have a care for us, mother dear, give us a word of kindness! No, thou hast hardened thy heart harder than stone, and hast folded thy uncaressing hand over thy heart.

O white cygnet! For what journey hast thou prepared and equipped thyself; from which side may we expect thee?

Arise, O ye wild winds, from all sides! Be borne, O winds, into the Church of God! Sweep open the moist earth! Strike, O wild winds, on the great bell! Will not its sounds and mine awaken words of kindness?--From Ralston’s _The Songs of the Russian People_.

CONJURATION OF A MOTHER SEPARATED FROM HER CHILD

I, poor mother, weep in the high chamber of my house; from the dawn I look afar over the fields, even until the sun goes to rest. There I sit until night, till the damp dew falls; there I sit in grief, until, weary of this torment, I resolve to conjure my cruel sorrow. I go into the field; I have taken the nuptial cup, the taper of betrothal and the handkerchief of marriage. I have drawn water from the mountain spring, I have gone into the dark forest, and tracing around me a magic circle, I have said aloud these words:--

“I conjure my dearest child by that nuptial cup, by that fresh water and by that marriage handkerchief. With that water I lave his fair face, with that handkerchief I wipe his honeyed lips, his sparkling eyes, his rosy cheeks, his thoughtful brow; with that waxen taper I light up his splendid garments, his sable bonnet, his belt of divers colours, his embroidered boots, his chestnut locks, his noble figure and manly limbs, that thou mayest be, my child, more brilliant than the brightest sunbeams, sweeter to look upon than a sweet spring day, fresher than water from the fountain, whiter than the wax, stronger than the magic stone. Far be from thee the demon of sorrow, the impetuous hurricane, the one-eyed spirit of the woods, the domestic demon of strange houses, the spirit of the waters, the sorcery of Kíev, the woman of the twinkling billows, the cursed Babayagá, the winged and fiery serpent, the crow of evil omen. I put myself between thee and the ogre, the false magician, the sorcerer, the evil magic, the seeing blind and the old of double sight. By my words of power, may thou be, my child, by night and by day, from hour to moment, in the market-place, and asleep or in watching, safe against the power of the evil spirits, against death, grief and calamity; upon the water, against shipwreck; in fire, against burning.

“When thy last hour shall come, recall, my child, our tender love, our bread and salt. Turn thyself towards thy glorious country, salute it seven times--seven times with thy face to the earth, bid farewell to thy family, throw thyself upon the damp ground and lull thyself to a calm sleep.

“May my word be stronger than water, higher than the mountain, weightier than gold, harder than rock, stronger than an armed horseman, and if any dare to bewitch my child, may he be swallowed by Mount Ararat, in bottomless precipices, in burning tar and crackling fire; that sorceries and magic may for ever be powerless against thee.”--From _The Popular Songs of Russia_, in Hogg’s Instructor, 1855.

Fairy Tales.

For an account of the fairy tales see the chapter on Folklore. The following works, of which Ralston’s is still the best, give a large number of such stories: _Russian Popular Tales_, from the German version of Anton Dietrich, London, 1857; W. R. S. Ralston, _Russian Folk-Tales_, London, 1873; J. T. Naake, _Slavonic Fairy Tales_, London, 1874; E. M. S. Hodgetts, _Tales and Legends from the Land of the Tzar_, London, 1890; Jeremiah Curtin, _Myths and Folk Tales of the Russians, Western Slavs and Magyars_, Boston, 1890; A. Gerber, _Great Russian Animal Tales_ (vol. vi, No. 2 of the Publications of the Modern Language Association), Baltimore, 1891; R. Nisbet Bain, _Russian Fairy Tales from the Skazki of Polevoi_, Chicago, 1895. There are also some articles in periodicals: _Household Tales of the Sclavonians and Hungarians_, and _The Household Fictions of Esthonia and Russia_, in Dublin University Magazine, 1867 (vol. lxx); _Russian Popular Legends_ (by Ralston), in Fortnightly Review, 1869; _Russian Songs and Folktales_, in Quarterly Review, 1874 (vol. cxxxvi).

FROST

There was once an old man who had a wife and three daughters. The wife had no love for the eldest of the three, who was a step-daughter, but was always scolding her. Moreover, she used to make her get up ever so early in the morning, and gave her all the work of the house to do. Before daybreak the girl would feed the cattle and give them to drink, fetch wood and water indoors, light the fire in the stove, give the room a wash, mend the dress and set everything in order. Even then her step-mother was never satisfied, but grumbled away at Márfa, exclaiming:

“What a lazybones! What a slut! Why, here is a brush not in its place, and there is something put wrong, and she has left the muck inside the house!”

The girl held her peace, and wept; she tried in every way to accommodate herself to her step-mother, and to be of service to her step-sisters. But they, taking pattern by their mother, were always insulting Márfa, quarrelling with her, and making her cry: that was even a pleasure to them! As for them, they lay in bed late, washed themselves in water got ready for them, dried themselves with a clean towel and did not sit down to work till after dinner.

Well, our girls grew and grew, until they grew up and were old enough to be married. The old man felt sorry for his eldest daughter, whom he loved because she was industrious and obedient, never was obstinate, always did as she was bid and never uttered a word of contradiction. But he did not know how to help her in her trouble. He was feeble, his wife was a scold and his daughters were as obstinate as they were indolent.

Well, the old folks set to work to consider--the husband how he could get his daughter settled, the wife how she could get rid of the eldest one. One day she says to him:

“I say, old man! Let’s get Márfa married.”

“Gladly,” says he, slinking off (to the sleeping-place) above the stove. But his wife called after him:

“Get up early to-morrow, old man, harness the mare to the sledge and drive away with Márfa. And, Márfa, get your things together in a basket, and put on a clean shift; you are going away to-morrow on a visit.”

Poor Márfa was delighted to hear of such a piece of good luck as being invited on a visit, and she slept comfortably all night. Early next morning she got up, washed herself, prayed to God, got all her things together, packed them away in proper order, dressed herself (in her best things) and looked something like a lass! a bride fit for any place whatsoever!

Now it was winter-time, and out of doors there was a rattling frost. Early in the morning, between daybreak and sunrise, the old man harnessed the mare to the sledge, and led it up to the steps, then he went indoors, sat down in the window-sill, and said:

“Now then! I have got everything ready.”

“Sit down to table and swallow your victuals!” replied the old woman.

The old man sat down to table, and made his daughter sit by his side. On the table stood a pannier; he took out a loaf, and cut bread for himself and his daughter. Meantime his wife served up a dish of old cabbage soup and said:

“There, my pigeon, eat and be off; I have looked at you quite enough! Drive Márfa to her bridegroom, old man. And look here, old greybeard! drive straight along the road at first, and then turn off from the road to the right, you know, into the forest--right up to the big pine that stands on the hill, and there hand Márfa to Morózko (Frost).”

The old man opened his eyes wide, also his mouth, and stopped eating, and the girl began lamenting.

“Now then, what are you hanging your chaps and squealing about?” said her step-mother. “Surely your bridegroom is a beauty, and he is that rich! Why, just see what a lot of things belong to him: the firs, the pine-tops and the birches, all in their robes of down--ways and means anyone might envy; and he himself a bogatýr!”

The old man silently placed the things on the sledge, made his daughter put on her warm pelisse and set off on the journey. After a time, he reached the forest, turned off the road and drove across the frozen snow. When he got into the depths of the forest, he stopped, made his daughter get out, laid her basket under the tall pine and said:

“Sit here, and await the bridegroom. And mind you receive him as pleasantly as you can!”

Then he turned his horse round and drove off homewards.

The girl sat and shivered. The cold pierced her through. She would fain have cried aloud, but she had not strength enough; only her teeth chattered. Suddenly she heard a sound. Not far off, Frost was cracking away on a fir. From fir to fir was he leaping and snapping his fingers. Presently he appeared on that very pine under which the maiden was sitting, and from above her head he cried:

“Art thou warm, maiden?”

“Warm, warm am I, dear father Frost,” she replied.

Frost began to descend lower, all the more cracking and snapping his fingers. To the maiden said Frost:

“Art thou warm, maiden? Art thou warm, fair one?”

The girl could scarcely draw her breath, but still she replied:

“Warm am I, Frost dear; warm am I, father dear!”

Frost began cracking more than ever, and more loudly did he snap his fingers, and to the maiden he said:

“Art thou warm, maiden? Art thou warm, pretty one? Art thou warm, my darling?”

The girl was by this time numbed with cold, and she could scarcely make herself heard as she replied:

“Oh! Quite warm, Frost dearest!”

Then Frost took pity on the girl, wrapped her up in furs and warmed her with blankets.

Next morning the old woman said to her husband:

“Drive out, old greybeard, and wake the young people!”

The old man harnessed his horse and drove off. When he came to where his daughter was, he found she was alive and had got a good pelisse, a costly bridal veil and a pannier with rich gifts. He stowed everything away on the sledge without saying a word, took a seat on it with his daughter, and drove back. They reached home, and the daughter fell at her step-mother’s feet. The old woman was thunderstruck when she saw the girl alive, and the new pelisse and the basket of linen.

“Ah, you wretch!” she cries, “But you sha’n’t trick me!”

Well, a little later the old woman says to her husband:

“Take my daughters, too, to their bridegroom. The presents he’s made are nothing to what he’ll give them.”

Well, early next morning the old woman gave her girls their breakfast, dressed them as befitted brides and sent them off on their journey. In the same way as before the old man left the girls under the pine.

There the girls sat, and kept laughing and saying:

“Whatever is mother thinking of? All of a sudden to marry both of us off! As if there were no lads in our village, forsooth! Some rubbishy fellow may come, and goodness knows who he may be!”

The girls were wrapped up in pelisses, but for all that they felt the cold.

“I say, Praskóvya! The Frost’s skinning me alive. Well, if our bridegroom doesn’t come quick, we shall be frozen to death here!”

“Don’t go talking nonsense, Máshka; as if suitors turned up in the forenoon! Why, it’s hardly dinner-time yet!”

“But I say, Praskóvya! If only one comes, which of us will he take?”

“Not you, you stupid goose!”

“Then it will be you, I suppose!”

“Of course, it will be me!”

“You, indeed! There now, have done talking stuff and treating people like fools!”

Meanwhile, Frost had numbed the girls’ hands, so our damsels folded them under their dresses, and then went on quarrelling as before.

“What, you fright! You sleepy face! You abominable shrew! Why, you don’t know so much as how to begin weaving; and as to going on with it, you haven’t an idea!”

“Aha, boaster! And what is it you know? Why, nothing at all except to go out merrymaking and lick your lips there. We’ll soon see which he’ll take first!”

While the girls went on scolding like that, they began to freeze in downright earnest. Suddenly they both cried out at once:

“Whyever is he so long coming? You know, you have turned quite blue!”

Now, a good way off, Frost had begun cracking, snapping his fingers and leaping from fir to fir. To the girls it sounded as if someone were coming.

“Listen, Praskóvya! He’s coming at last, with bells, too!”

“Get along with you! I won’t listen; my skin is pealing with cold.”

“And yet you’re still expecting to get married!”

Then they began blowing their fingers.

Nearer and nearer came Frost. At length he appeared on the pine, above the heads of the girls, and said to them:

“Are ye warm, maidens? Are ye warm, pretty ones? Are ye warm, my darlings?”

“Oh, Frost, it’s awfully cold! We are utterly perished! We’re expecting a bridegroom, but the confounded fellow has disappeared.”

Frost slid lower down the tree, cracked away more, snapped his fingers oftener than before.

“Are ye warm, maidens? Are ye warm, pretty ones?”

“Get along with you! Are you blind, that you can’t see our hands and feet are quite dead?”

Still lower descended Frost, still more put forth his might and said:

“Are ye warm, maidens?”

“Into the bottomless pit with you! Out of my sight, accursed one!” cried the girls--and became lifeless forms.

Next morning the old woman said to her husband:

“Old man, go and get the sledge harnessed; put an armful of hay in it, and take some sheepskin wraps. I dare say the girls are half dead with cold. There is a terrible frost outside! And, mind you, old greybeard, do it quickly!”

Before the old man could manage to get a bite, he was out of doors and on his way. When he came to where his daughters were, he found them dead. So he lifted the girls on the sledge, wrapped a blanket round them and covered them up with a bark mat. The old woman saw him from afar, ran out to meet him and called out ever so loud:

“Where are my girls?”

“In the sledge.”

The old woman lifted the mat, undid the blanket and found the girls both dead.

Then, like a thunder-storm, she broke out against her husband, abusing him and saying:

“What have you done, you old wretch? You have destroyed my daughters, the children of my own flesh, my never-to-be-gazed-on seedlings, my beautiful berries! I will thrash you with the tongs; I will give it you with the stove-rake.”

“That’s enough, you old goose! You flattered yourself you were going to get riches, but your daughters were too stiff-necked. How was I to blame? It was you yourself would have it.”

The old woman was in a rage at first, and used bad language; but afterwards she made it up with her step-daughter, and they all lived together peaceably, and thrived, and bore no malice. A neighbour made an offer of marriage, the wedding was celebrated and Márfa is now living happily. The old man frightens his grandchildren with (stories about) Frost, and does not let them have their own way.--From W. R. S. Ralston’s _Russian Folk-Tales_.

THE CAT, THE GOAT AND THE RAM

Once upon a time there lived in a yard a Goat and a Ram, and they lived in great friendship with each other: say there was but a bunch of hay--even that they divided in two equal halves. If there was anyone to be punched in his sides, it was only Tom-Cat Váska; he was such a thief and robber,--always on the lookout for prey, and let there be anything not under lock, his stomach immediately growled for it.

The Goat and the Ram were once lying quietly and having a friendly chat, when who should turn up but grey-browed, Purring Váska, and he was whining pitifully. So the Goat and Ram asked him:

“Kitty-Cat, grey-browed Cat, why are you whining so, and why do you hop about on three legs?”

“How can I help crying? The old woman has beaten me; she struck me hard, almost pulled my ears out, nearly broke my legs, and came very near choking my life out of me.”

“What have you been guilty of, to deserve such a fate?”

“All the trouble was, I was hungry, and lapped up the cream.” And the Purring Cat once more began to whine.

“Kitty-Cat, grey-browed Cat! What are you whining about?”

“How can I help crying? As the old woman was beating me, she kept on saying: ‘Where shall I get the cream when my son-in-law will come to-morrow? I’ll have to butcher the Goat and the Ram!’”

The Goat and the Ram howled loud: “O you grey Cat, senseless head! Why have you ruined us? We’ll butt you to death!”

Then Purring Váska humbly confessed his guilt and begged forgiveness. They forgave him, and the three held a council of how matters stood and what was to be done.

“Well, middle brother Ram,” asked Purring Cat, “have you a tough head? Just try it against the gate!”

The Ram took a run and hit the gate with his head: the gate shook, but did not open. Then rose the elder brother Billy-Goat, took a run, hit the gate and it flew open.

The dust rose in a cloud, the grass bent to the ground, while the Goat and Ram were running, and the grey-browed Cat was hopping after them on three legs. He grew tired, and he begged his plighted brothers: “Elder brother and middle brother! Don’t abandon your younger brother a prey to the wild beasts!”

So the Goat stopped and took him on his back, and again they raced over hills, and vales, and drifting sands. And they came to a steep hill and a standstill. Under that steep hill was a mowed meadow, and on that meadow there was a whole town of haystacks. The Goat, and Ram, and Cat stopped to take a rest; it was a cold autumn night. Where were they to get some fire? The Goat and the Ram were still thinking about it, when the Purring Cat got some twigs with which he tied the Goat’s horns, and he told the Goat and the Ram to strike each other’s heads. They hit each other with such a might that sparks flew from their eyes: the twigs crackled.

“That’ll do,” said the grey Cat. “Now we will warm ourselves.” No sooner said than he put a haystack on fire.

They had not yet gotten warm, when lo! there was an uncalled guest, a Peasant-in-gabardine, Mikháylo Ivánovich. “Let me,” he said, “warm myself and take a rest; I don’t feel well.”

“You are welcome, Peasant-in-gabardine, Ant-eater! Good fellow, where do you come from?”

“I went to the beehives and had a fight with the peasants; so I am sick now, and I am on my way to the Fox to get cured.”

They passed the dark night together: the Bear under a haystack, Purring Váska on the haystack, and the Goat and the Ram by the fire.

“Ugh, ugh!” said the White Wolf, “it is not Russian flesh I smell. What manner of people may they be? I must find out!”

The Goat and the Ram bleated with fright, and Purring Váska held such discourse: “Listen, White Wolf, Prince of all the wolves! Don’t anger our eldest one, for if he should get at you, it will be your end. Don’t you see his beard? that’s where his strength lies. With his beard he strikes down the animals, but with his horns he only flays them. You had better ask him with due respect to let you have your fun with your younger brother that is lying under the haystack.”

So the wolves bowed to the Goat, and surrounded Míshka, and began to tease him. He got up, waxed angry and just grabbed a wolf with each paw; they howled their “Lazarus,” but somehow managed to get away with drooping tails, and they raced as fast as their feet would carry them.

In the meanwhile the Goat and the Ram seized the Cat, and ran into the woods, where they once more met some grey wolves. The Cat crawled up to the top of a pine-tree, and the Goat and the Ram got hold of a branch of the pine-tree with their fore legs, and hung down from it. The wolves stood under the tree, grinned and howled, watching the Goat and the Ram. The grey-browed Cat saw that things were very bad, so he began to throw down pine cones upon the wolves, and kept saying: “One wolf! Two wolves! Three wolves! Just a wolf apiece. It is not so long ago I, Purring Váska, ate up two wolves with all their bones, so I am not hungry yet; but you, big brother, have been out a-hunting bears, and you did not get any, so you may have my share!”

Just as he said that, the Goat could not hold on any longer, and dropped with his horns straight down on a wolf. But Purring Váska yelled out: “Hold him, catch him!” The wolves were so frightened that they started on a run, and did not dare look back. That was the last of them.

THE FOX AND THE PEASANT

Once upon an evening the Fox, feeling grieved, took a walk to divert herself and breathe the fresh air. Though she had not expected it, there presented itself an opportunity to have her revenge, for whom should she see but Vúkol in his cart! As she scented some fish, she decided to steal them. The question now was how to steal them out of Vúkol’s cart. Of course, it was too risky to crawl in, for Vúkol would lay on his whip, or, catching her by her tail, would kill her altogether. So Lísa Patrikyéevna softly ran all around the Peasant, who was hastening home, lay down on the ground and barely breathed. The rogue lay there as if she really were dead: her mouth open, her teeth grinning, her snout turned upwards, her nose flabby; she neither moved, nor heaved, nor wagged her tail.

Vúkol was travelling at a slow pace, when suddenly his nag neighed. “What’s the matter?” spoke Vúkol, rose and looked down the road. “Oh, I see! God has sent me a nice gift. I’ll pick it up; it will be a fine thing for my wife, for its fur is as soft as a shawl.” Having very wisely discussed thus, Vúkol took the Fox by the tail and put her on the fish, and went over the bridge. But Lísa Patrikyéevna was very happy and, to carry out the first part of her program, quietly devoured a good-sized tench; then she started dropping one fish after another on the road, until she had emptied the whole cart. Then she stealthily dropped down from the cart herself and started on a run without turning back, so that the dust flew up.

It grew dark, and murky night was near; Vúkol Sílych pulled his reins, and the horse raced faster. He reached his house, without discovering the theft, and, smiling to his wife, he said with a merry voice to her: “Woman, just look into the cart and see what I have brought you! I found it in the road, near the bridge, by the pines and birches.”

His wife Dárya rummaged in the hay, tossed it to and fro, hoping to find her present. “Where is it? What a shame!” She turned everything upside down, shook the fish bag, but she only got her hands dirty,--the present she did not find. Put out about such a deception, she said to her husband, Vúkol: “What a stupid you are!”

In the meantime Patrikyéevna carried all the fish to her lair, and she had an easy time of it all autumn, and even winter. But this revenge is insignificant: her greater revenge is still ahead. Things are bad for you, Vúkol Sílych! Be prepared for the worst.

Proverbs.

The first collection of Russian proverbs was made by the poet Bogdanóvich, at Catherine’s command. The most extensive collection of the present time is the one by Dal. In the English language there are but two small accounts of these proverbs: one, in R. Pinkerton’s _Russia; or, Miscellaneous Observations on the Past and Present of the Country and its Inhabitants_, London, 1833, and _Russian Proverbs_, in Quarterly Review, vol. cxxxix.

The heart has ears.

Home is a full cup.

A maiden’s heart is a dark forest.

Calumny is like a coal: if it does not burn it will soil.

Good luck disappears like our curls; bad luck lasts like our nails.

Sorrow kills not, but it blights.

The pine stands afar, but whispers to its own forest.

Blame not my bast shoes, my boots are in the sledge.

The poor man has a sheepskin coat, but a human soul too.

Behind the orphan God Himself bears a purse.

Poverty is not a sin, but twice as bad.

Seven nurses cost the child an eye.

May God make me fleshy: rosiness I can get for myself.

A dog is wiser than a woman: it does not bark at its master.

Seven axes will lie together, but two spindles asunder.

Let a woman into Paradise, she’ll be for bringing her cow with her.

The Holy Russian land is large, but everywhere the dear sun shines.

Our stove is our own mother.

Not corners but pies make a room fair.

Even bad kvas is better than water.

By that which wounded may your wound be cured.

Black may be toil, but white is its price.

God waits long, but hits hard.

Terrible are dreams, but God is merciful.

God is high, and the Tsar far off.

Pray to God, but row to shore.

The wolf catches the destined sheep.

Be born neither wise nor fair, but lucky.

Moustaches for honour, but even a goat has a beard.

An old crow croaks not for nothing.

Love your wife like your soul, and beat her like your fur coat.

Not long hurt the bumps from a loved one’s thumps.

A wife is not a guitar; when your playing is done, you can’t hang her up on the wall.

It’s a bore to go alone, even to get drowned.

A parent’s blessing can neither be drowned in water nor consumed in fire.

A visible girl is of copper, but an invisible one of silver.

Hold out, Cossack; thou wilt become Hetman.

He who sweats afield, and prays to God at home, will never starve.

Boldness drinks mead and chafes fetters.

A bad peace is better than a good quarrel.

If the thunder rolls not, the muzhík will not cross himself.

Don’t beat the muzhík with a cudgel, but beat him with a rouble.

To rotten wares the seller is blind.

A snipe is small, but, for all that, a bird.

Fear not the threats of the rich but the tears of the poor.

Drink at table, not behind a pillar.

Who can withstand God and Nóvgorod the Great?

Where there is an oath, there is also a crime.

God’s will and the Tsar’s decree.

The Tsar’s wrath is the messenger of death.

God loves the just, but judges love the pettifogger.

I bailed him out: he taught me a lesson.

The knout is not the devil, but it will seek out the truth.

Wide is the gateway leading into a boyár’s court, but narrow--out of it.

Slavery drinks mead, and freedom water.

--From Quarterly Review, vol. cxxxix.

THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

Iván Tikhónovich Pososhkóv. (1670-1726.)

An interesting figure that belongs both to the old and the new régime is Pososhkóv. He was the son of a peasant and had received no other education than what he could pick up from the reading of church books. He also acquired a knowledge of arithmetic, a rare science for the men of the older generation, and of grammar, and much practical experience in his wanderings through Russia. Being a good business man and a close observer of current events, he became very rich, owned several factories, and carried on commerce on a large scale. He had brought from his peasant home the religious piety of the old order of things, but at the same time was shrewd enough to see the advantages of reform, which he favoured to the best of his ability. His son was among the first Russians who were sent abroad to be instructed. He provided him with ample means and a written _Father’s Testament to his Son, with a Moral, in Confirmation of Holy Writ_. This _Testament_ belongs in the same category as the _Domostróy_ (see p. 126), but the spirit of reform has softened many of the ancient crudities. Of his other works the most interesting is his _The Book on Poverty and Wealth, That is, An Exposition of what Causes Dire Poverty and Abundantly Increases Wealth_, which is characteristic of the transitional stage of Russia. In this work, Pososhkóv combines shrewd guesses on economic problems with crude conceptions of their solution.

“THE BOOK ON POVERTY AND WEALTH”

FROM THE CHAPTER “ON MERCHANTS”

The merchant guild must not be disregarded, for without merchants no country, neither large nor small, can exist. The merchant is the companion of the military: the soldier fights, and the merchant aids him by furnishing him with all the necessaries. For this reason an unstinted care should be bestowed upon them, for as the soul cannot exist without a body, even so the soldier cannot get along without the merchant; nor can the merchant get along without the soldier. A country expands through the profession of war, and is beautified through commerce. Consequently the merchants must be protected against offenders, so that they receive not the least insult from government officials. Many unthinking people disdain the merchants, loathe them and offend them without provocation, and yet there is no condition of life which can get along without the merchant.

But the merchants must be guarded not only against outside offenders: they must not interfere with each other as well, and men from other ranks must not enter the merchant guild and thus cause them no end of disturbance. Commerce should be free, so that they themselves may be benefited and the interests of his Imperial Highness be guarded.

If commerce were free for the Russian merchants, and neither men from other ranks nor foreigners would in the least impair the commerce of Russians, the revenue would be increased. I am of the opinion that without changing the duties, the revenue would be doubled or trebled, whereas now the greater half is lost through the traders from the other ranks.

If a person belonging to some other rank, whether he be senator, or officer, or nobleman, or government official, or clerical, or peasant, should wish to carry on commerce, let him leave his former rank and join the merchant guild, and trade in a straightforward manner, and not by stealth, and pay his duties and other merchant taxes, and let him never again do anything by stealth, as before, without consent of the Merchant Commander, and escape the paying of imposts.

Every rank must behave in such a manner as not to sin before God and do wrong before the Tsar; and they should live as is their profession: if one be a soldier, let him be a soldier, and if he have another vocation, let him devote himself entirely to that vocation.

Our Lord Himself has said: No man can serve two masters. So let the soldier, or man of another rank, stay in his profession, and let him not enter into another rank, for if he devote himself to commerce, he will curtail his military duties. The Lord Himself has said: Where your treasure is, there will be your heart also. And St. Paul the apostle has said that no soldier can find favour with his captain who meddles with commerce. There is a popular saw which says, Choose one or the other, war or commerce.

For these reasons it does not behoove the soldier or man of another rank to trade. If, however, he have a desire to become a merchant, let him join the guild.

If there be no prohibition for external merchants, from the ranks of the nobles, officers or peasants, the merchants will not be able to become enriched, and it will not be possible for the revenue to be increased.

... At the present time boyárs, noblemen and their people, soldiers and peasants carry on commerce, without paying any tax, and many merchants carry on trade in their names, and pay no tax. Not half the revenue is collected, nor ever can be collected, if commerce is not to be made free from the nobles and officials, since many mighty people have taken to trade, and some who are not themselves powerful but are not subject to the magistrate.

I know, for example, one case in a Nóvgorod county where there are a hundred or two of merchant-peasants, and who do not pay a farthing’s worth of taxes. And if a collector, seeing them, tries to collect the revenue, the gentry take the peasant’s part and send the collector away more dead than alive, and the government officers look on, and dare not interfere. And there are some wealthy men, who have some five or six hundred peasants carrying on such illicit trade, and pay not a farthing to the Great Tsar. If all be arranged as I have proposed, commerce will awaken as if from a dream.

It is a very bad custom the merchant people have, to do each other wrong by cheating each other. Both foreigners and Russians are in the habit of showing good-looking wares that are badly made within or filled up with bad stuff; or bad wares are mixed with wares of a good quality and are sold as if of good quality, taking for them an unfair price, and greatly deceiving inexperienced people. They give wrong weights and measures, deceive in price, and do not think all that to be a sin, although they cause so much injustice to the inexperienced. Yet those who deceive are in the end ruined through their own iniquity, and become impoverished.

... In order to establish justice in the Merchant Rows, let there be appointed hundred-men and fifty-men and ten-men, and over the shop where there is an hundred-man let there be nailed a round board, painted white, so that it can be easily seen, and on that board let there be written “hundred-man.” Do the same with the shop of the fifty-man and ten-man, so that those who purchase any goods may know where to show their wares, if they should want to find out whether they have received the right weight, or measure, or whether the wares are good or bad, and whether they have paid the correct price for them.

If a merchant have received more than the worth of the wares, let him be fined a dime or two for every unfair kopek, and let him be beaten with rods or a whip, that he may not do so again in the future; and if he repeat his offence, let the fine and punishment be increased.

But if one give wrong measure and weight, or sell different goods from what the buyer demanded, and give him inferior goods, let his punishment be much more severe, and the fine be ten times the price of the goods.

And if an hundred-man, or fifty-man, or ten-man be guilty of such a transgression, let the fine for the ten-man be tenfold, for the fifty-man fiftyfold, and for the hundred-man hundredfold, and let the punishment be with the knout, as many strokes as may be decided upon. The hundred-men and fifty-men should receive very stringent instructions to watch without relenting the ten-men and not to be indulgent to them, but to fear the law like fire, lest their transgressions reach the ears of high personages. And the ten-men should watch all the shops under their charge, and see to it that no inferior wares are adulterated by the admixture of better material, but that they are sold such as they are, the good wares as good wares, the mediocre as mediocre, and the poor as poor, and that right weights and measures be given, and that the prices be not raised on the goods, and that there be no adulterations. Let only the right price be asked, and let them measure foreign stuffs, brocade, calamanco and silks from the first end, and not from the last. And no matter what buyer there come, whether rich or poor, whether experienced or inexperienced, let them all be treated in the same fair manner, and let there not a kopek be added to the price of one rouble or ten roubles.

Whatever fine is to be collected should be collected by the hundred-men, without delay, on the day the offence has been committed. All the fines ought to be entered in a ledger which should be reported every month in the proper office. No transaction, neither great nor small, should take place with the foreigners who frequent the fairs, without the permission of the Chief Commander of the Merchant Guild. Whoever dares to sell even a rouble’s worth of goods to these foreigners without the permission of the Chief Commander shall be fined a hundredfold, a hundred roubles for every rouble sold, and the punishment shall be administered with the knout, as many strokes as may be decreed, that they should remember them and never do so again.

FROM THE CHAPTER “ON THE PEASANTRY”

Much might be added to the protection of the peasantry if their houses were rebuilt so that they could live more freely and peacefully; for much damage is done to them through overcrowding: if one man’s house take fire, the whole village is threatened, and frequently not a single house is left. This leads to endless poverty. If they had not been so much crowded in their settlements, they would not be so easily ruined. It is against this ruin that they ought to be protected. Let them build their houses farther from each other, nor join yard to yard, but with intervals, a few houses in a lot; the streets ought to be wide, where there is sufficient space, not less than two hundred feet in width; where the space is crowded, not less than one hundred feet in width. In this way, if there should be a fire, all the neighbours would run to put it out: there being intervals between the houses, it would be easy to reach them from all sides, and as there would be little danger for the neighbouring houses, the peasants would not rush, as before, to save their own possessions, but would aid their unfortunate neighbour. As the settlements are now arranged, it is utterly impossible for the neighbours to bring aid; they rush for their own, which they cannot all save, but generally lose everything they have. Thus they are ruined and become impoverished.

Not a small degree of annoyance is caused the peasants from not having literate people among them. There are many villages of twenty or thirty houses that have not a single man that can read; if any come to them with an ukase, or without an ukase, pretending to have one, they believe him, and suffer damages; for they are all blind,--they see nothing and understand nothing. They are not able to dispute with the people that pretend having ukases, and they frequently pay unwarranted taxes to them. To guard the peasants from such losses, it seems to me, they ought to be compelled to send their children of ten years and less to some subdeacon to be instructed how to read and write. I think it would not be a bad thing if the smallest village were not without a literate man, so there ought to be a strict law compelling the peasants to have their children instructed for three or four years. And there ought to be a severe punishment for those who do not have their children taught anything for four years, or who do not have them instructed at all as they grow up.

Having learned to read and write, they will not only conduct more intelligently the affairs of their masters, but they will be also useful in the Government, being eligible as hundred-men and fifty-men, and no one would abuse them and mulct them for nothing.

Feofán (in private life Eleázar) Prokopóvich. (1681-1763.)

Peter the Great’s reforms were not so much the beginning of a new movement, as the accomplishment of a mental ferment which was taking place in Russia towards the end of the seventeenth century, and they were successful and permanent in the degree that he made use of persons who were already in sympathy with Western culture. The most important of these was Feofán Prokopóvich. Prokopóvich studied in the schools of Kíev, then became a Uniat and continued his studies in Poland, then went to Rome and entered the College of St. Athanasius, which had been established for the purpose of a Catholic propaganda among the Greeks and Slavs of the Eastern Church. There he distinguished himself for his brilliant learning, which included a thorough knowledge of the classics. He returned to Russia in 1702, renounced his Uniat affiliations and became a teacher in the Kíev Academy. Here he composed a text-book on the art of poetry and a tragi-comedy, _Vladímir_, which was played by the students of the Academy. Peter I. met Feofán in 1709, after the victory at Poltáva, when the latter received him in Kíev with a panegyric. In 1716 he was called to St. Petersburg, where, during the absence of Peter, he employed his oratorical powers to advocate the Emperor’s reforms. The following year he was made bishop of Nóvgorod. The following year he was entrusted with reforming the government of the Church, which he did by his famous _Spiritual Reglement_, a work that breathes the most enlightened liberalism. One of the chief changes introduced by this _Reglement_ was the abandonment of the all-powerful Patriarchate, and the substitution for it of the Holy Synod, of which he became the ruling spirit. After the death of Peter the Great, his enemies swooped down upon him, but, having passed the school of the Jesuits, he was an adept at diplomacy and intrigue, and paid them back in their own coin. However, Prokopóvich is remembered for the enormous good he did, for his prodigious learning, to which many foreigners who visited Russia are witnesses, but especially for encouraging scholarship and literature. Tatíshchev and Kantemír were his friends, and upon the appearance of Kantemír’s first satire (see p. 223), he was the first to hail his promising talent.

There is a translation of Prokopóvich’s Catechism under the title, _The Russian Catechism_, composed and published by order of the Czar [Peter I. Translated from the Russian by J. T. Philipps], London [1723], second edition 1725.

FROM “THE SPIRITUAL REGLEMENT” OF INSTRUCTION

It is known to the whole world how weak and impotent the Russian army was when it had no regular instruction, and how incomparably its strength was increased and became great and terrible when our august monarch, his Imperial Highness Peter the First, instructed it in a proper manner. The same is true of architecture, medicine, political government, and all other affairs.

But, most of all, that is true of the government of the Church: when there is not the light of instruction, the Church cannot have any good conduct, and impossibly can there be avoided disorder and superstitions that deserve a great deal of ridicule, as well as strife, and most foolish heresies.

Many foolishly assert that instruction is the cause of heresy. But the heretics of ancient days, the Valentinians, Manichæans, Catharists, Euchites, Donatists and others, whose stupid acts are described by Irenæus, Epiphanius, Augustine, Theodoret and others, raved, not through instruction, but through arrogant foolishness. And did not our own dissenters rave so deliriously through their lack of culture, and ignorance? Though there are some heresiarchs, such as were Arius, Nestorius and a few others, yet their heresies arose not through instruction, but from an imperfect understanding of the Holy Writ, and they grew and were strengthened through malice and false pride which did not permit them to change their wrong opinion after they had discovered the truth, and against their conscience. And though their instruction gave them the power to use sophisms, that is, cunning proofs of their elucubrations, yet he who would want to ascribe this evil simply to instruction would be compelled to say that where a physician poisons a patient, his knowledge of medicine was the cause thereof, and where a soldier valiantly and cunningly strikes down the enemy, military art is the cause of killing. And when we look through history, as through a telescope, at the past ages, we shall discover more evil in the Dark Ages than in those that were enlightened through culture. The bishops were not so arrogant before the fifth century as they were afterwards, especially the bishops of Rome and Constantinople, because before there was learning, and afterwards it grew less. If learning were dangerous to the Church and State, the best Christians would not study themselves, and would forbid others to study; but we see that all our ancient teachers studied not only the Holy Writ, but also profane philosophy. Besides many others, the most famous pillars of the Church have advocated profane learning, namely: Basil the Great in his instruction to the studying youths, Chrysostom in his books on monastic life, Gregory the Theologue in his sermon on Julian the Apostate. I should have a great deal to say, if I were to dwell on this alone.

Good and thorough instruction is the root and seed and foundation of all usefulness, both for the fatherland and the Church. There is, however, a kind of instruction which does not deserve that name, though it is deemed by certain clever but not well-informed men to be the real instruction.

Many are in the habit of asking in what schools such and such an one has been educated? When they hear that he has been in rhetoric, philosophy and theology, they are prone to place him very high, for the sake of those names, but in that they frequently err, for not all get good instruction from good teachers, one on account of his dulness, another on account of his laziness; how much is that the case when the teacher is little, or not at all, proficient in his subject!

It is important to know that from the sixth to the fifteenth century, that is, for nine hundred years, all learning in Europe was of a very meagre and imperfect character, so that we see in the authors who wrote at that time great sharpness of wit, but small enlightenment. With the fifteenth century there began to appear better-informed and more skilful teachers, and by degrees many academies acquired a greater importance than in those ancient Augustan times; many other schools, on the contrary, stuck fast in their ancient slime, preserving, indeed, the names of rhetoric, philosophy and other sciences, but in reality having none of them. Different causes have led to this, but space does not permit their mention here.

People who have received, so to say, an empty and fantastic education in these institutions are generally more stupid than those who have received none at all. Being themselves in the dark, they deem themselves to be perfect, and imagining that they have learned all that there is to be learned, neither have the desire, nor think it worth while to read books and study more. On the other hand, a man who has received the proper schooling is never satisfied with his knowledge, and never stops learning, even though he has passed the age of Methuselah.

But this is the greatest misfortune: the above-mentioned imperfectly instructed people are not only useless, but also very harmful to society, State and Church. They humble themselves beyond necessity before the authorities, attempting through cunning to appropriate to themselves favours, and crawl into higher places. They hate people of the same standing as themselves, and if anyone is praised for his learning, they use their utmost endeavour to depreciate and denounce him before the people and authorities. They are prone to take part in rebellions, hoping to gain advantages for themselves through them. When they take to theological discussions, they cannot help falling into heresies, for, being ignorant, they easily fall into error, after which they will not change the opinion they have uttered, for fear of appearing not to have known all. But wise men have this proverb: “It is the property of a wise man to change his opinion.”

FUNERAL SERMON ON PETER THE GREAT

What is this, and what have we lived to see, O Russians? What are we doing now? We are burying Peter the Great! Is it not a dream? Not a vision of the night? Oh, what a real sorrow! Oh, what certain bitter reality! Contrary to all expectations and hopes he has ended his life who has been the cause of our innumerable benefactions and joys, who has resuscitated Russia as if from the dead, and has raised it to great power and glory, nay, has begot it and brought it up, he the true father of his country, whom for his deserts all the good sons of Russia wished to be immortal, and whom, on account of his youth and bodily strength, they had hoped to see many years alive. O dire calamity! He has ended his life just as he was beginning to live after his labours, unrest, sorrows, calamities, after so many and varied deaths.

We see well how we have angered Thee, O Lord, and how long we have tempted Thy long-suffering! O we unfortunate and unworthy people! O the infinitude of our sins! He who does not see that is blind. He who sees it and does not confess is turned to stone in his heartlessness. But why should we increase our woes and heart-pain, which we ought rather attempt to allay? But if we are to mention his great talents, acts and works we shall only be stung more severely by the loss of our good man, and we shall sob aloud. Only in a lethargy, or some deathlike sleep, could we at all forget our so sad loss. What a great and what a good man we have lost!

O Russia, this Samson of yours came to you when no one in the world had expected him, and when he appeared the whole world marvelled. He found you weak in power, and to conform with his name he made you of stone and adamant. He found an army dangerous at home, weak in the field and scorned by the foe, and he gave his country a useful army that is terrible to the enemy, and everywhere renowned and glorious. He defended his country, and at the same time returned to it the lands that had been taken away from it, and increased it by the acquisition of new provinces. When he crushed those who rose against us, he at the same time broke the strength of our ill-wishers and subdued their spirits, and, closing up the lips of envy, compelled the whole world to proclaim glorious things of himself.

O Russia, he was your first Japheth, who had accomplished a deed unheard of in your annals, having introduced the building and sailing of ships. He gave you a new fleet that, to the wonderment of the world and surpassing all expectation, was in no way inferior to much older fleets, and he opened for you a path to all the ends of the earth, and spread your power and glory to the extreme corners of the ocean, to the limits of your usefulness, to the limits which justice had placed; and the might of your dominion, which heretofore was firm on land, he has now made strong and permanent upon the sea.

O Russia, he is your Moses! Are not his laws like a firm protection of truth, and like unbreakable fetters of wrong-doing? And are not his statutes clear, a light upon your path? And are not the high ruling Senate and the many special institutions of his so many lights in the search of advantage, the warding off of harm, the safety of the peaceful, and the unmasking of the wrongdoers? He has verily left us in doubt whether he is more to be praised for being loved and cherished by the good and simple-hearted, or for being hated by unrepenting flatterers and rascals.

O Russia, he is your Solomon, who has received from the Lord his very great reason and wisdom. Have we not sufficient testimony thereof in the many philosophic arts, which he himself practised and many subjects introduced under his supervision, and in the many cunning industrial arts which have never before been heard of among us? And he also introduced the chins[126] and degrees, and civil order, and decent manners in daily intercourse, and the rules of acceptable habits and customs, and now we see and admire the external appearance and internal worth of our country, which from within and without is far superior to what it was in former years.

He is also, O Russian Church, your David and Constantine. The synodal government is his creation, and its written and oral instructions were his care. Oh, how often his heart was heavy when he saw the ignorance in the path of salvation! How great his zeal was against superstition and deceptive simulations, and the senseless, hostile and destructive heresy amongst us! How great was his desire and endeavour to see more learning among the clergy, and a greater godliness and more decent worship in the people!

But, O renowned man! Can we in a short sermon mention all his glory? The present sorrow and grief which compels us to shed tears and sigh does not allow of an extended speech. Perhaps in time this thorn that stings our hearts will be dulled, and then we will speak at greater length of his deeds and virtues, though we shall never be able sufficiently to praise him according to his worth. To-day, though we are only making a short mention of him and, as it were, are only touching the hems of his garments, we, poor unfortunate people, see, O hearers, who has left us and whom we have lost.

Let us not, O Russians, faint with sorrow and grief, for the great monarch and our father has not left us in a bad plight. He has left us, but not poor and necessitous: the immeasurable wealth of his power and glory, which has been realised by his above-mentioned deeds, is with us. Russia will be such as he has made it; he has made it an object of love to the good, and it will be loved; he has made it terrible to the enemy, and terrible it will remain; he has made it glorious throughout the whole world, and it will not cease to be glorious. He has left us religious, civil and military institutions. He has left us, and his body will decay, but his spirit will stay.

Above all, in leaving this temporal world, he has not left us orphaned. How could we, indeed, call ourselves orphaned when we see his legacy to the throne, his real helpmate in life, a ruler like him after his demise, you, most gracious and autocrat Empress, great heroine and monarch, and mother of all the Russias? The whole world is a witness that your sex does not prevent your being like Peter the Great. Who does not know your wisdom as a ruler, and your motherly womanliness, and your natural God-given talents? And all this took place and was confirmed in you not merely through your association with so great a monarch, but also in your communion with his wisdom, labours and various calamities. He, having tried you during a series of years, like gold in the crucible, deemed it insufficient to have you as a cohabiter of his bed, but made you also the heir to his crown, and power, and throne. How can we help hoping that you will confirm what he has done, will create anew what he has left undone and will keep all in good condition? Only, O valiant soul, try to overcome this unendurable calamity which has been intensified by the loss of your most beloved daughter, and which, like a severe wound, has been torn beyond measure by this new sting. And as you have been seen by all ever present with Peter of glorious deeds, an incessant companion in all his labours and troubles, so try even now to be such in this your very bitter loss.

And you, noble assembly, of all ranks and degrees, sons of Russia, with your faithfulness and obedience console your Empress and mother. Console yourselves also, seeing the undoubted signs of Peter’s spirit in your Empress, and that not all of Peter has passed away. Then let us bow before our Lord who has thus visited us, praying Him, the God of mercy and father of all consolation, to wipe the unrestrained tears of her Highness, our most autocratic Empress, and her precious blood, her daughters, grandchildren, nieces and all the high family, and to soothe the grief of their hearts with His gracious care, and to console us all in His mercy.

O Russia, seeing what a great man has left you, see also how great he has left you. Amen!

FOOTNOTES:

[126] There are fourteen rank distinctions, called “chins,” in Russia; they are acquired through service only, independently of birth.

Vasíli Nikítich Tatíshchev. (1686-1750.)

Tatíshchev was one of the most distinguished and intelligent friends of the reforms of Peter the Great. Having studied first at Moscow and then in Germany, he was attached to the Berg-und-Manufaktur-Kolleg (Department of Mining and Manufactures). The president of the institution pointed out to Peter the Great the necessity for a geography of the empire, and this task was entrusted to Tatíshchev. In the course of his work, the latter was induced to make a thorough study of old historical documents, of which he discovered a large number. Several of the chronicles he mentions and had access to have not been preserved, and later historians have to rely on the statements made by Tatíshchev for some important historical information. In 1720 he was sent to Siberia for the purpose of prospecting for copper and silver and establishing various plants. Then began a laborious career, in a large variety of capacities, among them that of Governor of Astrakhán. The years 1724-26 he passed in Sweden, where he cultivated the acquaintance of Swedish scholars and made a study of foreign sources of Russian history. Thus Tatíshchev had ample opportunities for becoming the first historiographer of Russia. His _History of Russia_, which was published in the reign of Catherine the Great, shows an intimate knowledge of the philosophical systems of Descartes and Tomasius, and the political systems of Christian Wolff, Puffendorf and Hugo Grotius, as well as Machiavelli and Locke. He was opposed to a political supremacy of the Church even more decidedly than Prokopóvich, the author of the _Spiritual Reglement_ (see p. 211). It is an interesting fact that when Tatíshchev found no sympathy for his _History_ in St. Petersburg, he corresponded with a friend in England for the purpose of having it published in English by the Royal Society at London, but there could not be found an Englishman who was competent to undertake the translation. Of his other works, his _Spiritual Testament and Instruction to my Son Evgráf_, though replete with liberal views, is the last in the long chain of _Instructions_ in which the older period abounds, such as the _Instruction_ of Vladímir Monomákh (p. 50), and the _Domostróy_ of Sylvester (p. 126). It has been translated into English: _The Testament of B. Tatischef_, translated from the Russian manuscript by J. Martinof, Paris, 1860.

FROM THE “RUSSIAN HISTORY”

One ought not to discuss the usefulness of history, for everybody can see and feel it; but as some are not accustomed to see things clearly and discuss them in detail, and often through their perverted understanding make the useful to appear as harmful and the harmful as useful, and consequently transgress in their acts and deeds (as indeed I have heard such people, to my disgust, talk loud of the uselessness of history), I deemed it proper to give a short review of it.

To begin with, history is nothing else than the recounting of past acts and occurrences, good and bad; for all that we have experienced in recent or long-passed days through our senses of hearing, seeing and feeling, or that we reproduce by our memory, is really history, and it teaches us, whether through our acts or those of others, to emulate the good and beware of the evil. For example, when I recollect that I saw yesterday a fisherman who had been catching fish and had had a certain success in it, I naturally receive in my mind an impulse to do likewise; or if I saw yesterday a thief or some other criminal, who had been sentenced to a severe punishment or death, terror will naturally keep me from committing such an act as would cause my utter ruin. All the histories we read act upon us in the same manner: the deeds of ancient days are represented to us so vividly that we seem to have seen and felt them ourselves.

For this reason we may say that no man, no condition of life, no profession, science, nor government, much less a single individual, can be perfect, wise and useful without a knowledge of the same. For example, let us take the sciences. The first and greatest of them all is theology, that is, the science of God, His all-wisdom, almightiness, which alone leads us to future bliss, and so forth. Now, no theologian can be called wise who does not know the ancient divine acts which have been revealed to us in the Holy Scriptures, and when, with whom and why there have been disputes about certain dogmas and articles of faith, or when and why this has been established and that discarded; why certain statutes and orders of the ancient Church have been changed, discontinued, and new ones introduced; consequently he must know divine and church history, as well as civil history, as Huet, the famous French theologian, has sufficiently pointed out.

The second science is jurisprudence, which teaches proper conduct and our duties to God, ourselves and our neighbours, in order to acquire peace of body and soul. No jurist can be called wise who does not know former interpretations and discussions of natural and civil laws. And how can a judge pass right judgment if he does not know the origin and application of old and new laws? Indeed, he must know the history of the laws.

The third is medicine, or leechcraft, which science consists in the art of preserving health, and bringing back the lost health, or in preventing the disease from spreading. All this depends on history, for the physician must gain his knowledge from the ancients, must know what is the cause of diseases, what medicine and treatment to give, what the property and strength of each medicine is, all of which no man could find out in a hundred years through his own experience and investigation. But to experiment on the sick is a dangerous matter, from which they could easily be ruined, though this is not infrequently the case with certain ignoramuses. I shall not mention many other parts of philosophy, but I may summarise by saying that all philosophy is based on history and supported by it, for all the right and wrong and faulty opinions which we find with the ancients are history as regards our knowledge, and form the basis for our corrections.

Statesmanship is composed of three different parts: of the internal government, or economy, external relations, and military affairs. All three demand not less history than the other sciences, and without it cannot be perfect. Thus, in political economy it is necessary to know what has caused ruin in former days: how it has been warded off or minimised; what have been the favourable influences; how obtained and preserved, so that the present and future may be wisely judged in the light of that knowledge. On account of this wisdom, the ancient Romans represented their god Janus with two faces, for he knew perfectly the past, and from its examples wisely judged the future.

For the administration of foreign affairs it is necessary to know not only one’s own country, but also other governments: what conditions they have formerly been in; what has brought about changes in them; what states they are in now; with whom they have had disputes and wars, and for what; what treaties have been made and confirmed with them, in order to proceed intelligently in the acts at hand.

For military leaders it is very important to know by what device and cunning great forces of the enemy have been vanquished, or kept from victory, and so forth, as we see Alexander the Great having held Homer’s books on the Trojan war in great respect, and having been instructed by them. For this reason many great generals have described their own acts and those of others. Of these the most illustrious example is Julius Cæsar, who has described his wars, that future generals might after him use his acts for their own examples, and many famous generals on land and on the sea have followed in his footsteps by writing of their exploits. Many great rulers have either themselves written of their acts, or have ordered expert people to write of them, not only that their memory should live in glory, but that their descendants should have examples to follow.

As regards the usefulness of Russian history it must be remarked, that, as is the case with all other histories, the knowledge of one’s own history and geography is more important for any nation or region than that of foreign histories; at the same time it must be kept in mind that without the knowledge of foreign histories, one’s own is not clear and sufficient: 1. That the writer of contemporary history cannot know all the external influences for good and bad; 2. That the writers are frequently compelled, out of fear, to suppress, or change, or modify some very important circumstances of contemporary history; 3. That from passion, love, or hatred, they describe quite differently from what were the actual occurrences, and that the facts are frequently related more correctly and in detail by outsiders. Thus, in my present work, the first part, dealing with the Russian antiquity, has mainly been drawn from foreign sources for lack of native writers, and in the other parts many errors and lacunæ have been corrected and filled out from foreign sources. European historians accuse us of having no old history, and of knowing nothing of our antiquity, simply because they do not know what historians we possess, and though some have made a few extracts, or have translated from them a passage here and there, others, thinking that we have no better ones than those quoted, despise them. Some of our own ignorant writers agree with them, while those who do not wish to trouble themselves by looking into the ancient sources or who do not understand the text, have, ostensibly to give a better explanation, but in reality to hide the truth, invented fables of their own and thus have obscured the real facts as told by the ancients, as, for example, in the case of the foundation of Kíev, and that of Nóvgorod by Slavén, and so forth.

I wish to say here emphatically that all the famous European historians will not be able to know or tell anything correctly of many of our antiquities, no matter what their efforts in Russian history may be, if they do not read our sources,--for example, of the many nations who have existed here in ancient days, as the Amazons, Alans, Huns, Avars, Cimbrians and Cimmerians; nor do they know anything of the Scythians, Sarmatians and Slavs, their tribes, origin, habitations and migrations, or of the anciently famous large cities of the Essedonians, Archipeans, Cumanians, etc., where they have lived, and what their present names are; but all this they could find out through a study of Russian history. This history is not only of use to us Russians, but also to the whole learned world, in order that by it the fables and lies invented by our enemies, the Poles and others, for the sake of disparaging our ancestors, may be laid bare and contradicted.

Such is the usefulness of history. But everybody ought to know, and this is easily perceived, that history describes not only customs, deeds and occurrences, but also the consequences resulting from them, namely, that the wise, just, kind, brave, constant and faithful are rewarded with honour, glory and well-being, while the vicious, foolish, evildoers, avaricious, cowardly, perverse and faithless will gain eternal dishonour, shame and insult: from which all may learn how desirable it is to obtain the first and avoid the second.

Prince Antiókh (Antiochus) Kantemír. (1708-1744.)

Antiókh Kantemír was not a Russian by birth. His father, Demetrius, had for a number of years been hospodar of Moldavia. Harassed by the intrigues of a rival at Constantinople, he emigrated with four thousand of his Moldavians to Russia, where he arrived after the unfortunate Prut expedition, in 1711. Himself one of the most accomplished scholars and linguists of Europe, he with the aid of his cultivated Greek wife bestowed the minutest care on the education of his six children.

Having arrived in Russia in his third year, Antiókh acquired Russian as his mother tongue, though he also spoke fluently six or seven other languages, and was well versed in Latin and ancient Greek. By education, however, he was anything but a Russian, and his sympathies were naturally directed towards the most extreme reformatory tendencies which Peter the Great advocated for the State and Feofán Prokopóvich for the Church; both of them were not slow in recognising his unusual talents. In 1732 Empress Anna appointed him ambassador to the Court of St. James, and in 1738 he was transferred to Paris, where he passed his short life in communion with Maupertuis, Montesquieu, Abbé Guasco, and others. Besides a few shorter poems and imitations and translations of Anacreon, and an unfinished ode on the death of Peter the Great, Kantemír composed ten satires, of which the one below is the first. It is on these satires that his reputation mainly rests. In style, they are imitations of Boileau and Horace, though never slavish. His language is not always free from Gallicisms, but otherwise it represents the first successful attempt to introduce colloquial Russian into poetry. The chief value of the satires, independently of their literary perfection, lay in their powerful attack on all the contemporary elements of Russian society that were antagonistic to the Western reform.

Specimens from several of Kantemír’s satires are given in C. E. Turner’s _Studies in Russian Literature_, London, 1882, and the same article, in Fraser’s Magazine, 1877.

Parts of the First Satire, in article on _Russian Literature_, in Foreign Quarterly Review, vol. i.

TO MY MIND

Immature Mind, fruit of recent study! Be quiet, urge not the pen into my hands: even without writing one may pass the fleeting days of life and gain honours, though one be not a poet. Many easy paths lead in our days to honours, and bold feet need not stumble upon them: the least acceptable is the one the nine barefooted sisters have laid out. Many a man has lost his strength thereon, without reaching a goal. You have to toil and moil there, and while you labour, people avoid you like the plague, rail at you, loathe you. He who bends over the table, fixing his eyes upon books, will gain no magnificent palaces, nor gardens adorned with marbles; will add no sheep to his paternal flock.

’Tis true, in our young monarch[127] a mighty hope has risen for the Muses, and the ignorant flee in shame from him. Apollo has found in him a strong defender of his glory, and has seen him honouring his suite and steadily intent upon increasing the dwellers on Parnassus.[128] The trouble is, many loudly praise in the Tsar what in the subject they haughtily condemn.

“Schisms and heresies are begot by science.[129] He lies most who knows most; who pores over books becomes an atheist.” Thus Crito grumbles, his rosary in his hands, and sighs, and with bitter tears the saintly soul bids us see how dangerous is the seed of learning that is cast among us: our children, who heretofore gently and meekly walked in the path of their forefathers, eagerly attending divine service and listening in fear to what they did not understand, now, to the horror of the Church, have begun to read the Bible; they discuss all, want to know the cause of all, and put little faith in the clerical profession; they have lost their good habits, have forgotten how to drink kvas, and will not be driven with a stick to partake of salt meat. They place no candles before the images, observe no feasts. They regard the worldly power misplaced in clerical hands, and whisper that worldly possessions ill become those who have renounced a worldly life.

Sylvan finds another fault with science: “Education,” he says, “brings famine in its track. We managed to get along before this without knowing Latin much better than we live now. We used to harvest more grain in our ignorance, but now that we have learned a foreign language, we lose our corn. What of it if my argument be weak and without sense and connection,--what matters that to a nobleman? Proof, order of words, is the affair of low-born men; for aristocrats it suffices boldly to assent, or contradict. Insane is he who examines the force and limitations of his soul; who toils whole days in his sweat, in order to learn the structure of the world and the change or cause of things: ’tis like making pease to stick to the wall. Will all that add one day to my life, or one penny to my coffers? Can I by means of it find out how much my clerk and superintendent steal a year or how to add water to my pond, or to increase the number of barrels in my still?

“Nor is he wise who, full of unrest, dims his eyes over a smoking fire, in order to learn the properties of ores. We have passed our A B C, and we can tell without all that the difference between gold, silver and copper. The science of herbs and diseases is idle talk. You have a headache, and the physician looks for signs of it in your hand! The blood is the cause of all, if we are to put faith in them. When we feel weak, it is because our blood flows too slowly; if it moves fast, there is a fever, he says boldly, though no one has ever seen the inside of a living body. And while he passes his time in such fables, the contents of our money-bags go into his. Of what use is it to calculate the course of the stars, and without rhyme or reason pass sleepless nights, gazing at one spot: for mere curiosity’s sake to lose your rest, trying to ascertain whether the sun moves, or we with the earth? We can read in the almanac, for every day in the year, the date of the month and the hour of sunrise. We can manage to divide the land in quarters without Euclid, and we know without algebra how many kopeks there are in a rouble.” Sylvan praises but one science to the skies,--the one that teaches how to increase his income and to save expenses. To labour in that from which your pocket does not swell at once, he deems a very dangerous occupation for a citizen.

Red-faced Lucas, belching thrice, speaks in a chanting voice: “Study kills the companionship of men. We have been created by God as social beings, and we have been given intelligence not for our own sakes alone. What good does it do anybody, if I shut myself up in my cabinet, and for my dead friends lose the living--when all my comradeship, all my good fellows, will be ink, pen, sand and paper? In merriment, in banquets we must pass our lives. Life is short, why should we curtail it further, worry over books, and harm our eyes? Is it not better to pass your days and nights over the winecup? Wine is a divine gift, there is much good in it: it befriends people, gives cause for conversation, makes glad, dispels heavy thoughts, eases misery, gives courage to the weak, mollifies the cruel, checks sullenness, and leads the lover more readily to his goal. When they will begin to make furrows in the sky, and the stars will shine through the surface of the earth; when swift rivers will run to their sources, and past ages will return; when at Lent the monk will eat nothing but dried sturgeon, then will I abandon my cup and take to books.”

Medor is worried because too much paper is used for letters and for printed books, and because he will soon be left without paper to curl his locks with. He would not change for Seneca a pound of good face-powder; in comparison with Egór,[130] Vergil is not worth two farthings to him, and he showers his praises on Rex,[131] not Cicero.

This is a part of the speeches that daily ring in my ears, and for this, O Mind, I advise you to be dumber than a dumpling. Where there is no profit, praise encourages to work, and without it the heart grows faint. But it is much worse, when instead of praises you earn insults! It is harder than for a tippler not to get his wine, or for a priest not to celebrate on Holy Week, or for a merchant to forego heady liquor.

I know, O Mind, that you will boldly answer me that it is not easy for an evil-minded man to praise virtue; that the dandy, miser, hypocrite, and the like, must perforce scorn science, and that their malevolent discourse concerns no men of culture.

Your judgment is excellent, correct; and thus it ought to be, but in our days the words of the ill-disposed control the wise. Besides, the sciences have other ill-wishers than those whom, for shortness’ sake, I merely mentioned or, to tell the truth, dared to mention. There are many more. The holy keepers of the keys of heaven and those to whom Themis has entrusted the golden scales little love, nearly all of them, the true adornment of the mind.

You want to be an archbishop? Don a surplice, above it let a gorgeous chasuble adorn your body, put a golden chain[132] around your neck, cover your head with a high hat, your belly with a beard, order the crosier to be carried in pomp before you; place yourself comfortably in your carriage and, as your heart bursts with anger, cast your benedictions to the right and left. By these signs you will easily be recognised as the archpriest, and they will reverently call you “Father.” But science? What has the Church to gain from it? Some priest might forget a part, if he wrote out his sermon, and thus there would be a loss of the Church’s revenues, and these are the Church’s main privileges and greatest glory.

Do you wish to become a judge? Don a wig full of locks, scold him who comes with a complaint but with empty hands, let your heart firmly ignore the tears of the poor, and sleep in your arm-chair when the clerk reads the brief. When someone mentions to you the civil code, or the law of nature, or the people’s rights, spit in his face; say that he lies at random and tries to impose an intolerable burden on the judges; that it is the clerk’s business to rummage through mountains of documents, but that it suffices for a judge to announce his sentence.

The time has not come down to us when Wisdom presided over everything and distributed wreaths, and was the only means for advancement. The golden age has not come down to our generation. Pride, indolence, wealth, have vanquished wisdom; ignorance has taken the place of wisdom: it glorifies itself under the mitre, walks in embroidered gowns, sits in judgment behind the red cloth, boldly leads armies. Science trudges along in rags and patches, and is driven from nearly all houses with contumely; they do not want to know her and evade her friendship, just as those who have suffered upon the sea avoid service on a ship. All cry: “We see no good in science; the heads of learned men are full, but their hands are empty.”

If one knows how to shuffle cards, to tell the flavours of various wines, can dance, plays three pieces on the flute, cleverly matches the colours in his apparel, for him, even in his tender years, all high honours are but a small reward, and he regards himself to be the equal of the Seven Sages.

“There is no justice in the world!” cries the brainless subdeacon. “They have not yet made me a bishop, though I read fluently the Book of the Hours,[133] the Psalter and the Epistles, and even Chrysostom without stumbling, although I do not understand him.”

The warrior grumbles because he has not yet charge of his regiment, though he knows how to sign his name. The scribe is angry because he is not yet seated behind the red cloth, though he is able to make a copy in a clear hand. He thinks it an insult to grow old in obscurity, though he counts seven boyárs in his family and is possessed of two thousand village houses, even though he can neither read nor write.

Hearing such words, and seeing such examples, be silent, Mind, complain not of your obscurity. His life has no terrors, though he may deem it hard, who silently retires to his quiet nook. If gracious Wisdom has taught you anything, rejoice in secret, meditating by yourself over the advantages of learning. Explain it not to others, lest, instead of praises which you expect, you be roundly scolded.

FOOTNOTES:

[127] Peter II., born 1715; ascended the throne in 1729, the year the satire was written in.

[128] Immediately upon arriving in Moscow, Peter II. confirmed the privileges of the Academy of Sciences.

[129] Compare Feofán Prokopóvich’s _Spiritual Reglement_, p. 212.

[130] A famous shoemaker in Moscow; died in 1729.

[131] A German tailor of Moscow.

[132] With the image of the Holy Virgin or the Saviour,--the so-called panagia.

[133] Prayer-book containing the prayers for every hour; it was commonly used as a text-book for reading.

Vasíli Kiríllovich Tredyakóvski. (1703-1769.)

Like Lomonósov, Tredyakóvski was of humble origin, his father having been a priest in the city of Astrakhán; also, like his more illustrious colleague a few years later, he walked to Moscow and there entered the School of the Redeemer. He later passed a few years abroad, where he became acquainted with French literature. Upon his return to St. Petersburg in 1730, he translated a French book; in this translation the spoken Russian is for the first time used, free from Slavic influence. Even before this, Tredyakóvski had written verses in the syllabic versification, but in 1735 he discovered that the tonic versification was the only one adapted to the Russian language, and at once set out to write in that measure. His chief deserts do not lie in poetry, for his verses show an absolute absence of talent, and he later became a byword for insipidity. He was the first man to point out the necessity of using the Russian language for literary purposes, and to indicate the line in which Russian poetry must develop. By his enormous industry in translating from foreign languages he became an important factor in the dissemination of learning. The following ode is really an imitation of Boileau’s _Sur la prise de Namur_.

ODE ON THE SURRENDER OF DANTZIG

What strange intoxication emboldens my voice to singing? Muses, dwellers of Parnassus, does not my mind perceive you? I hear your sweet-sounding strings, your beautiful measure and moods, and a fire arises in my thoughts. O nations, listen all! Stormy winds, do not blow: my verse sings of Anna.

Pindar, and after him Flaccus, have in high-flowing diction risen from the mist to the bright stars, like swift eagles. But if my song to-day were to equal my sincere and eternal zeal for Anna, Orpheus of Thrace and Amphion of Thebes would be in ecstasy from it.

Now I strike the dulcet lyre to celebrate the magnificent victory to the greater downfall of the enemy. Oh, what victorious might has adorned our joy, for the might of the adversary was equal to ours. There is no limit to our pure joy that surpasses all example, that has given balm to our hearts.

Has Neptune himself built the walls, those that stand by the sea? Do they not resemble the Trojan walls, for they would not let in the innumerable Russian army, mightily opposing it? Do not all call the Vistula Skamander? Do they not all regard Stoltzenberg as Mount Ida?

That is not Troy, the mother of fables: there is not one Achilles here; everyone of the rank and file is in bravery a Hercules. What might is that that hurls lightning? Is it not Minerva gleaming in her helmet? ’Tis evident from her looks, from her whole appearance, that she is a goddess: without her ægis she is terrible,--’tis Anna, chief of all empresses.

That also is a Russian army that has closely invested Dantzig, the city of the foe. Each warrior, hastening to the battle, it behooves to call a Mars. Each is ready boldly to shed his blood, or to crown the undertaking for Anna’s sake. Each one is strong with Anna’s fortune: Anna is their strong hope; and, knowing that Anna is gracious to them, they are faithful and not undecided.

Golden beam of the European and Asian Sun! O Russian monarch, the key to your happiness is the kindness to your subjects and your benign rule! The whole world honours your name, and the universe will not hold your glory seeing that, O beautiful flower of virtues!

What do I see? Does not my eye deceive me? A youth has opposed himself to Hercules, lifting high his brows behind ramparts, beyond the river! ’Tis Dantzig, having taken foolish counsel, as if drunk with heady wine, that dares to oppose the great autocrat! In its blindness it does not see the abysses, nor all death-bearing valleys.

It receives Stanislaus in its midst, who seeks twice a crown, and hopes to be defended to the end through nearby Neptune: fearing the Russian thunder it invokes the aid of a distant people from the banks of the Seine: but they beat the drums at the waters of Wechselmünde for a retreat.

Dantzig is proud of its fire and steel, and its regiments of soldiers, and directs its engines of war against the Russians on the hills. Being rich in stores it calls to Stanislaus; it in vain implores its soldiers that have no brave hearts, but think only of this, how to save their lives, and run.

O Dantzig, oh! What are you daring! Come to your senses, collect yourself, for you are hurling yourself to destruction. Why have you stopped? You are hesitating! Surrender! Wherefore have you such boldness and do not tremble before Anna? Many tribes of their own free will and without strife submit to her: China bows down before her twice, in order not to pay her tribute.

Nowhere has there been the like of Anna in kindness, nor is there anywhere in the world one so able to wage war with the unyielding. Her sword wound with the olive branch is only ominous in war. Abandon, Dantzig, your evil purpose: you see, the Alcidæ are ready with cruel miseries for your inhabitants. You hear Anna’s angry voice: save yourself!

You are closely pressed by thousands of athletes; you are mightily struck by the flash of angry lightnings. You cannot withstand: the thunder is ready not in jest. Your ramparts are without defence; the earth opens up abysses; roofs fly into the air; your walls are emptied of men.

If all the powers combined were to aid you, O Dantzig; if the elements defended you; if from all the ends of the world soldiers came to spill their blood for you,--yet nothing would be able to save you from suffering and to stop your misery, and wring you out of Anna’s hands.

Your adversaries see to-day the bravery of Russian soldiers: neither fire nor water harms them, and they advance with open breasts. How readily they advance! How forgetful they are of their lives! The cannon’s thunder frightens them not! They make the assault, as if going to a wedding feast! Only through smoky darkness one may see that their brows are facing the forts.

Within the walls of the wretched city all are struck down with fear: everything falls and flies to dust,--the besiegers are on the walls! The last magistrates, seeing from their tower their vain hope in the distant armies and Stanislaus who had taken refuge within their walls, besides themselves, exclaim: “We are fated to fall!”

What I have prophesied is about to happen,--Dantzig begins to tremble: all think of surrendering, as before they all decided to fight, and of saving themselves from the engines of war, from flying bombs and from all the pests the city is oppressed by. All cry, for the burden was too heavy to carry, “It is time now to open the gates to Anna’s army.”

So it is done: the sign for surrender is given, and Dantzig is at our feet! Our soldiers are happy in their success; the fires have gone out; there is an end to misery. Immediately Glory took its flight and announced with its thundering trumpet: “Anna is fortunate! Anna is unconquerable; Anna, exalted by all, is their common glory and honour.”

Lyre! abate your song: it is not possible for me properly to praise diadem-bearing Anna and her great goodness, any more than I can fly. It is Anna’s good fortune that she is loved by God. He always watches over her, and through Him she is victorious. Who would dare to oppose her? May Anna live many years!

Princess Natálya Borísovna Dolgorúki. (1714-1771.)

The Princess Dolgorúki was the daughter of Count Sheremétev, who was intimately connected with the reforms of Peter the Great. In 1729 she was betrothed to Prince Iván Aleksyéevich Dolgorúki, the favourite of Peter II.; Feofán Prokopóvich performed the ceremony of the betrothal, and the whole Imperial family and the most distinguished people of the capital were present. A few days later Peter II. died, and Anna Ioánnovna ascended the throne. Dolgorúki was banished to Siberia, and she married him in order to follow him into exile. They passed eight years in the Government of Tobólsk, when her husband was taken to Nóvgorod and executed. For three years she remained in ignorance of his fate, when the Empress Elizabeth permitted her to return to St. Petersburg. In 1758 Princess Dolgorúki entered a monastery at Kíev, and ten years later she wrote her _Memoirs_, at the request of her son Michael. In 1810 her grandson, the poet Dolgorúki (see p. 422), had these _Memoirs_ printed. The Princess Dolgorúki has become a synonym for a devoted Russian woman, and she has frequently been celebrated in poetry, especially by Rylyéev, Kozlóv and Nekrásov. There is also an English book treating of her life: _The Life and Times of Nathalia Borissovna, Princess Dolgorookov_, by J. A. Heard, London, 1857.

FROM HER “MEMOIRS”

My mind totters when I recall all that has befallen me after my happiness which at that time appeared to me to be eternal. I did not have a friend to teach me that I ought to walk more warily on the slippery road of pleasure. My Lord! What a threatening storm arose against me, and what calamities from the whole world befell me! Lord! Give me strength to tell of my sufferings, that I may describe them for the information of the curious and the consolation of the afflicted who, thinking of me, might be consoled. I have passed all the days of my life in misery, and have experienced all: persecution, exile, want, separation from my beloved one,--everything that one can think of. I do not boast of my endurance, but will boast of the mercy of the Lord who has given me so much strength to bear all that I have borne up to now. It would be impossible for a man to endure such strokes, if the power of the Lord did not strengthen him from on high. Consider my bringing up, and my present state!

Here is the beginning of my misery that I had never expected. Our Emperor had departed from this life, and before I had expected it, there was a change of the crown. It evidently had pleased God to chastise the people for their sins: a merciful Tsar was taken away from them, and great was the weeping in the nation. All my relatives came together, were sorrowing and weeping, and wondering how to announce to me the calamity. I generally slept late, until nine o’clock; as soon as I awoke, I noticed that the eyes of all were in tears; though they were careful to hide it, yet it was quite obvious they had been weeping. I knew that the Tsar was sick, and even very sick, but I had great hope the Lord would not abandon His orphans. They were of necessity compelled to tell me the truth. As soon as this news reached my ears, I lost my consciousness; when I regained it, I kept on repeating: “I am lost, lost!” No other words left my lips but “lost.” However they tried to console me, they could not stop my weeping, nor keep me quiet. I knew too well the custom of my country, that all the favourites perish with the death of their Emperors: what could I, then, expect? Yet, I did not think that the end would be as bad as it actually was, for though my fiancé was beloved by the Tsar, and had many distinctions, and all kinds of affairs of State had been entrusted to him, yet I placed some hope in his honest acts. Knowing his innocence, and that he had not been tainted by any improper conduct, it appeared to me that a man would not be accused without a proper judicial trial, or be subject to disfavour, and be deprived of his honours and possessions; I learned only later that truth is not helpful in misfortune.

So I wept unconsolably. My relatives, in their search for means of consoling me, pointed out to me that I was yet a young person, and had no reason to grieve so senselessly; that I could reject my fiancé if things went badly with him, and that there were other suitors who were not of less worth than he, even if they had not his high honours. And indeed there was a suitor who was very anxious to have me, but I did not like him, though all my relatives wanted me to marry him. That proposition weighed so heavily upon me, that I was not able to answer them. Consider yourself, what kind of a consolation that could be to me, and how dishonourable such an act would have been,--to be ready to marry him when he was great, but to refuse him the moment he was cast into misfortune. I could not agree to any such unscrupulous advice; I resolved at once to live and die together with him to whom I had given my heart, and not to allow anyone else to share my love. It was not my habit to love one to-day and another to-morrow; such is the fashion in the world, but I proved to the world that I was faithful in love. I have been a companion to my husband in all his troubles, and I am telling the truth when I assert that in all my misery I never repented having married him, and did not murmur against the Lord for it. He is my witness: I bore everything while loving him, and as much as was in my power, I kept up his courage. My relatives were evidently of a different opinion, and therefore advised me otherwise, or maybe they simply pitied me.

Towards evening my fiancé came to my house, and complained to me of his misfortune. He told me of the pitiable death of the Emperor, who did not lose consciousness to the last, and bid him good-bye. While he told me all this, we both wept, and swore to each other that nothing should separate us but death; I was ready to go with him through all the terrestrial misfortunes. Thus it grew worse from hour to hour. Where were those who formerly had sought our protection and friendship? They had all hid themselves, and my relatives stood aloof from me; they all left me for the new favourites, and all were afraid to meet me, lest they should suffer through the suspicion under which I was. It were better for a person not to be born in this world, if he is to be great for a while, and then will fall into disgrace: all will soon despise him, and no one will speak to him.

* * * * *

Here we remained about a week, while a vessel was being fitted out to take us down the river. All that was terrible to me, and I ought to pass it in silence. My governess, to whose care I had been entrusted by my mother, did not wish to leave me, and had come with me to the village. She thought that we would pass all the days of our misfortune there; but things turned out differently, and she was compelled to leave me. She was a foreigner, and could not endure all the hardships; yet, as much as she could she did for me in those days: went on the ill-starred vessel that was to take us away, fixed everything there, hung the walls with tapestry to keep out the dampness, that I might not catch a cold; she placed a pavilion on board, partitioned off a room, in which we were to live, and wept for me all the time.

At last there arrived the bitter day when we must depart. We were given ten people to attend on us, and a woman for each person, in all, five. I had intended to take my maid with me, but my sisters-in-law dissuaded me: they gave me theirs to take her place, and gave me another maid for an assistant to the laundresses, who could do nothing else but wash clothes; I was compelled to agree to their arrangement.

My maid wept, and did not want to part from me. I asked her not to importune me with her tears, and to take things as fate had decreed. Such was my equipment: I had not even my own serf, and not a penny of money. My governess gave me every kopek she had; it was not a great sum, only sixty roubles, and with that I departed. I do not remember whether we went on foot to the vessel, or whether we drove to it in a carriage. The river was not far from our house; there I bid good-bye to my family, for they had been permitted to see us off.

I stepped into the cabin, and saw how it was fixed up: my governess had done all she could to help me in my evil plight. I had to thank her here for the love she had shown to me, and for the education she had given me; I also bid her farewell, not expecting ever to see her again: we grasped each other’s necks, and my hands grew stiff with cold, and I do not remember how we were torn from each other. I regained consciousness in the place that served as a cabin. I was lying in the bed, and my husband was standing over me, holding me by my hand, and making me smell some salts. I jumped down from my bed, ran upstairs, thinking that I would still catch a glimpse of it all, but those were all unfamiliar scenes,--we had sailed away a long distance. Then I noticed that I had lost a pearl that I wore on my finger; I evidently dropped it in the water as I bade my family farewell; I was not even sorry for it,--other thoughts were occupying me: life was lost, and I was left alone, had lost all for the sake of one man. And thus we sailed all night long.

The next day there was a stiff breeze; there was a storm on the river, and the thunder sounded more terrible on the water than on land, and I am naturally very much afraid of thunder. The vessel rolled from side to side, and every time it thundered people fell down. My younger sister-in-law was very much frightened, and wept and cried aloud. I thought the world had come to an end; we were compelled to make for the shore, where we passed a sleepless night in terror. As soon as it dawned, the storm subsided; we continued our voyage, which lasted three weeks. Whenever the weather was quiet, I sat near the window in the cabin; I wept or washed my kerchiefs, while the water was nearby. At times I bought a sturgeon, and, tying him to a rope, let him swim by my side, so that I was not the only captive, but the sturgeon with me. Whenever the wind began to rock the boat, my head began to ache, and I felt nauseated; then they took me out on deck, where I lay unconscious until the wind subsided, being covered with a fur coat: on the water the winds are piercing. Often he sat by my side, to keep me company. When the storm was over, I rested; but I could not eat much from nausea.

Here is what once happened to us: There was a frightful storm, and there was not a person on board who knew where there were the deep places and the shallows, or where we could land. The sailors were merely peasants that had been taken from the plough, and who were sailing where the wind bore them. It was getting dark, the night was near, and the wind did not permit us to make a landing. They threw out an anchor in the middle of the stream, where it was deepest, and the anchor was carried away. The companion of my misfortunes would not let me go on deck, for he was afraid that I would be crushed in the turmoil. The people were running all about the boat: some were pumping out the water, others were tying up the anchor; all were at work. While nothing was being done successfully, the boat was suddenly drawn into an eddy. I heard a terrible noise, and did not know what had happened. I arose to look out: our boat was standing as if in a box, between two shores. I asked where we were, but nobody could tell me, for they did not know themselves. On one shore there was nothing but a birch wood, but it was not a very thick forest. The earth on that shore began to settle, and the forest slid several fathoms into the river, or eddy, where we were standing. The forest rustled terribly under our very boat, and then we were lifted up, and again drawn into the eddy. Thus it lasted for a long time. All thought that we would perish, and the sailors were ready to save their lives in boats, and to leave us to death. Finally, so much of the land was torn loose that only a small strip was left, and beyond it we could see some water, supposedly a lake. If that strip were carried away, we would be in that lake. The wind was awful, and our end would certainly have come, if God’s mercy had not saved us. The wind calmed down, and no more land was being carried away, and we were saved; at daylight we rode out of the eddy into the river, and continued our voyage. That eddy had carried part of my life away; yet I endured it all, all the terrors, for the end of my sufferings was not yet to be: I was preparing myself for greater woes, and God gave me strength for them.

* * * * *

We reached the provincial town of the island where we were to reside. We were told that the way to that island was by water, and that a change would be made here: the officer of the guard was to return, and we were to be turned over to an officer of the local garrison, with a detachment of twenty-four soldiers. We stayed here a week, while they were fixing the boat that was to take us there, and we were transferred from hand to hand, like prisoners. It was such a pitiable sight that even a heart of stone would be softened. At this departure, the officer wept, and said: “Now you will suffer all kinds of insult. These are not ordinary men: they will treat you like common people, and will show you no indulgence.” We all wept, as if we were parting from a relative. We had at least gotten used to him. However badly we were off, yet he had known us in our fortune, and he felt ashamed to treat us harshly.

When they had fixed the boat, a new commander took us to it. It was quite a procession. A crowd of soldiers followed us, as if we were robbers. I walked with downcast eyes, and did not look around: there was a great number of curious people along the road on which they led us. We arrived at the boat. I was frightened when I saw it, for it was quite different from the former one: out of disrespect to us, they gave us a worthless one. The boat was in accordance with the designation which we bore, and they did not care, if we were to perish the next day: we were simply prisoners,--there was no other name for us. Oh, what can there be worse than that appellation? The honour we received was in conformity with it! The boards on the boat were all warped, and you could see daylight through them; the moment a breeze began to blow, it creaked. It was black with age and soot: labourers had been making fires in it, and no one would have thought to travel in it. It had been abandoned, and was intended for kindling wood. As they were in a hurry with us, they did not dare keep us back long, and gave us the first boat they could find. But maybe they had express orders to drown us. God having willed otherwise, we arrived safely at the appointed place.

We were compelled to obey a new commander. We tried all means to gain his favour, but in vain. How could we have found any means? God grant us to suffer with a clever man! But he was a stupid officer. He had risen from a common peasant to be a captain. He thought he was a great man, and that we must be kept as severely as possible, since we were criminals. He regarded it below his dignity to speak to us; yet in spite of all his arrogance, he came to dine with us. Consider for yourself whether the man had any sense from the way he was dressed: he wore his uniform right over his shirt, and slippers on his bare feet; and thus he sat down to dinner with us! I was younger than the rest, and uncontrollable: I could not help laughing as I looked at his ridiculous get-up. He noticed that I was laughing at him, and said, himself smiling: “Lucky for you that my books have burnt, or I should have a talk with you!” However bitter I felt, I tried to get him to talk more; but he never uttered another word. Just think what a commander we were given to watch us in all we did! What were they afraid of? That we would run away? Not their watch kept us back, but our innocence: we were sure that in time they would see their error, and would return us to our former possessions. Besides, we were restrained by the fact that we had a large family. And thus we sailed with the stupid commander a whole month until we arrived at the town where we were to reside.

Mikhaíl Vasílevich Lomonósov. (1711-1765.)

Lomonósov was born in the village of Denísovka, in the Government of Arkhángelsk, not far from the spot where, one hundred and fifty years before, the English had rediscovered Russia. In his letters to Shuválov, Lomonósov tells us of the difficulties with which he had to contend at home and at the School of the Redeemer at Moscow. His brilliant progress caused him to be chosen among the first men to be sent abroad at Government expense to study mining, and to get acquainted with mining methods in Holland, England and France. In spite of insufficient support from the Government and a roving life at German universities, Lomonósov made excellent progress in philosophy, under Christian Wolff at Marburg, and in the sciences at Freiburg. After marrying a German woman, wandering about and starving, Lomonósov returned to St. Petersburg. Before reaching home, he had sent to St. Petersburg his _Ode on the Occasion of the Capture of Khotín_. It was the first time the tonic versification was successfully applied to the language, and though the diction of the ode is turgid and the enthusiasm forced, yet it became the model for a vast family of odes and eulogies, generally written to order, until Derzhávin introduced a new style with his _Felítsa_.

Upon his return, Lomonósov became attached to the University, which was mainly filled with German professors. His own unamiable temper, combined with the not more amiable characters of German colleagues, was the cause of endless quarrels and exasperations. Under the most depressing difficulties, Lomonósov, the first learned Russian, developed a prodigious activity. He perfected the Russian literary language, lectured on rhetoric and the sciences and wrote text-books, odes and dramas. For a century he passed in Russia as a great poet, and his deserts in other directions were disregarded. But a more sober criticism sees now in Lomonósov a great scientist who has increased knowledge by several discoveries, and only a second-rate poet. Only where he described phenomena of nature or scientific facts, did he become really inspired, and write poems that have survived him. His services to the Russian language and literature are many. He did for them what Peter the Great did for the State: by his own mighty personality and example be put them on the road which they have never abandoned, and though lacking originality, the school of Lomonósov itself survived in Russian literature to the end of the eighteenth century.

But few of Lomonósov’s poems have been translated into English. _Ode from Job_, _Morning Meditations_, _Evening Meditations_, are given in Sir John Bowring’s _Specimens of the Russian Poets_, Part II .; the _Evening Meditations_, in another version, is also given by him in

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