[Footnote 1: It would be equally correct to speak of the English nobility of the present day as "the barons."]

As for the real pigeons and doves, they are to be found everywhere,—on the belfries of the churches, in the courtyards of the houses, in the streets blocking up the pavement, and above all, beneath the projecting edges of the roofs, where you may see them clustering in long deep lines like black cornices.

At home we associate snow with darkness and gloom; but, when once the snow has fallen, the sky of Moscow is as bright and as blue as that of Italy; the atmosphere is clear and pure; the sun shines for several hours in the day with a brightness from which the reflection of the snow becomes perfectly dazzling; and if the frost be intense, there is not a breath of wind. The breath that really does attract your notice is that of the pedestrians, who appear to be blowing forth columns of smoke or steam into the rarefied atmosphere, and who look like so many walking chimneys or human locomotives. And if breath looks like smoke, smoke itself looks almost solid. Rise early, when the fires are being lighted which are to heat the stoves through the entire day, and if the thermometer outside your window marks more than 15 deg., you will see the grey columns rising heavily into the air, until at a certain height the smoke remains stationary, and hangs in clouds above the houses. Looking from some great elevation, such as the tower of Ivan Veliki in the Kremlin, you see these clouds beneath you, agitated like waves, and forming a kind of nebulous sea, which is, however, soon taken up by the surrounding atmosphere.

It is astonishing how much cold one can support when the sky is bright and the sun shining; certainly ten or fifteen degrees more by Reaumur's thermometer, than when the day is dark and gloomy. And the effect is the same on all. On one of these fine frosty days there is unwonted cheerfulness in the look, unwonted energy in the movements of everyone you meet. If there were the slightest wind with so keen a temperature, you would feel, every time it grazed your face, as if you were being shaved with a blunt razor,—for to be cut with a sharp one is comparatively nothing. But the air is calm; and as the day exhilarates you generally, it makes you walk more briskly than you are in the habit of doing in your shouba of cloth, wadding, and fur; and the result is, you are so warm and so surrounded by sunshine, that, but for seeing the cold, you might fancy yourself on the shores of the Mediterranean instead of on the banks of the Moskva, which is now a long, shiny, serpent-like path of ice. In London, on a damp, foggy, sunless winter's day, when the thermometer is not quite down to freezing-point, the system is so depressed by the atmosphere and the cheerless aspect of the streets, that you feel the cold more acutely than you would do on a sunshiny morning in Moscow with ten degrees of frost. In St. Petersburg, where the winter sun is, "as in northern climes, but dimly bright," and where the city is frequently enveloped in a mist (which is, however, ethereal vapour compared to the opaque fogs of London), the cold is, on the same principle, more severely felt than in Moscow. Nevertheless, in St. Petersburg people go about far more lightly clad than in the more southern towns of the empire,—for St. Petersburg is half a foreign city, and the numerous pedestrians have found it necessary to reject the ponderous shouba for a long wadded paletot with a fur-collar. The real Russian shouba is undoubtedly very warm; for it enables the Moscow merchant to go upon 'Change, which in the old capital, during the coldest weather, is held in the open air.

In considering the advantages and disadvantages of a Russian winter, one should not forget the question of rain. It is evident, then, that where there is frost there can be no rain; and accordingly, for nearly six months in the year, you can dispense altogether with that most unpleasant encumbrance, the umbrella. For it must be remembered that in Russia the snow does not fall in the soft feathery flakes to which we are accustomed in the more temperate latitudes. It comes down in showers of microscopic darts, which, instead of intercepting the light of the sun, like the arrows of Xerxes' army, glitter and sparkle in the rays as they reflect them in every direction. The minute crystals, or rather crystalline fragments, can be at once shaken from the collars of fur, on the points of which they hang like needles, but above all like Epsom salts; and on the cloth of the men's shoubas and the satin of the women's cloaks they have scarcely any hold.

The most pleasant time of the whole winter is during the moonlight nights, when the wind is still and the snow deep on the ground. In the streets the sparkling trottoir, which appears literally paved with diamonds, is as hard as the agate floor of the Cathedral of the Annunciation in the Kremlin. In the country, where alone you can enjoy the night in all its beauty, the frozen surface crunches, but scarcely sinks, beneath the sledge, as your troika tears along the road as fast as the centre horse can trot and the two outsiders gallop. For it is a peculiarity of the troika that the three horses that constitute it are harnessed abreast; and that while the one in the shafts, whose head is upheld by a bow, with a little bell suspended from the top, is trained to trot, and never to leave that pace, however fast he may be driven, the two who are harnessed outside must gallop, even if they gallop but six miles an hour; though it is far more likely that they will be called upon to do twelve. Lastly, the troika must present a fan-like front; to produce which the driver tightens the outside reins till the heads of the outriggers stand out at an angle of forty or fifty degrees from that of the horse in the shafts. At the same time the centre horse trots with his head high in the air, while the two who have their existences devoted to galloping have their noses depressed towards the ground, like bulls running at a dog.

There may be enough moonlight to read by when the moon itself is obscured by clouds. But if it shines directly on the white ermine-like snow, which covers the vast plains like an interminable carpet, the atmosphere becomes full of light, and the night in its brightness, its solitude, and its silence, broken only by the bells of some distant team, reminds you of the calmness of an unusually quiet and beautiful day. As you turn away from the main road towards the woods, you pass groups of tall slender birch-trees, with their white silvery bark, and their delicate thread-like fibres hanging in frozen showers from the ends of the branches, and clothing the birch with a kind of icy foliage, while the other trees remain bare and ragged. The birch is eminently a winter tree, and its tresses of fibres, whether petrified and covered with crystal by the frost, or waving freely in the breeze which has stripped them of their snow, are equally ornamental. The ground is strewed with the shadows of the trees, traced with exquisite fineness on the white snow, from which these lunar photographs stand forth with wonderful distinctness. To drive out with an indefinite number of troikas to some village in the environs, or to the first station on one of the Government roads, is a common mode of spending a fine winter's night, and one which is equally popular in Moscow and St. Petersburg. These excursions, which always partake more or less of the nature of a picnic, form one of the chief pleasures of the cold season. Of course such expeditions also take place during the day, but, whatever the hour of the departure, if there happen to be a moon that night, the return is sure not to take place before it has made its appearance.



A JOURNEY BY SLEIGH

FRED BURNABY

"Bring out another sleigh," said my friend. "How the wind cuts! does it not?" he continued, as the breeze, whistling against our bodies, made itself felt in spite of all the precautions we had taken. The vehicle now brought was broader and more commodious than the previous one, which, somewhat in the shape of a coffin, seemed especially designed so as to torture the occupants, particularly if, like my companion and self, they should happen to be endowed by nature with that curse during a sleigh journey—however desirable appendages they may be when in a crowd—long legs. Three horses abreast, their coats white with pendent icicles and hoar-frost, were harnessed to the sleigh; the centre animal was in the shafts and had his head fastened to a huge wooden head-collar, bright with various colors. From the summit of the head-collar was suspended a bell, while the two outside horses were harnessed by cord traces to splinter-bars attached to the sides of the sleigh. The object of all this is to make the animal in the middle trot at a brisk pace, while his two companions gallop, their necks arched round in a direction opposite to the horse in the centre, this poor beast's head being tightly reined up to the head-collar.

A well-turned-out troika with three really good horses, which get over the ground at the rate of twelve miles an hour, is a pretty sight to witness, particularly if the team has been properly trained, and the outside animals never attempt to break into a trot, while the one in the shafts steps forward with high action; but the constrained position in which the horses are kept must be highly uncomfortable to them, and one not calculated to enable a driver to get as much pace out of his animals as they could give him if harnessed in another manner.

Off we went at a brisk pace, the bell dangling from our horse's head-collar, and jingling merrily at every stride of the team.

The sun rose high in the heavens: it was a bright and glorious morning in spite of the intense cold, and the amount of oxygen we inhaled was enough to elevate the spirits of the most dyspeptic of mankind. Presently, after descending a slight declivity, our Jehu turned sharply to the right; then came a scramble and a succession of jolts and jerks as we slid down a steep bank, and we found ourselves on what appeared to be a broad high-road. Here the sight of many masts and shipping which, bound in by the fetters of a relentless winter, would remain imbedded in the ice till the ensuing spring, showed me that we were on the Volga. It was an animated spectacle, this frozen highway, thronged with peasants who strode beside their sledges, which were bringing cotton and other goods from Orenburg to the railway. Now a smart troika would dash by us, its driver shouting as he passed, when our Jehu, stimulating his steeds by loud cries and frequent applications of the whip, would vainly strive to overtake his brother coachman. Old and young alike seemed like octogenarians, their short thick beards and mustaches being white as hoar-frost from the congealed breath. According to all accounts the river had not been long frozen, and till very recently steamers laden with corn from Southern Russia had plied between Sizeran and Samara. The price of corn is here forty copecks the pood of forty pounds, while the same quantity at Samara could be purchased for eighteen copecks. An iron bridge was being constructed a little farther down the Volga. Here the railroad was to pass, and it was said that in two years' time there would be railway communication, not only between Samara and the capital, but even as far as Orenburg.

Presently the scenery became very picturesque as we raced over the glistening surface, which flashed like a burnished cuirass beneath the rays of the rising sun. Now we approach a spot where seemingly the waters from some violent blast or other had been in a state of foam and commotion, when a stern frost transformed them into a solid mass. Pillars and blocks of the shining and hardened element were seen modelled into a thousand quaint and grotesque patterns. Here a fountain, perfectly formed with Ionic and Doric columns, was reflecting a thousand prismatic hues from the diamond-like stalactites which had attached themselves to its crest. There a huge obelisk, which, if of stone, might have come from ancient Thebes, lay half buried beneath a pile of fleecy snow. Farther on we came to what might have been a Roman temple or vast hall in the palace of a Caesar, where many half-hidden pillars and monuments erected their tapering summits above the piles of the debris. The wind had done in that northern latitude what has been performed by some violent pre-adamite agency in the Berber desert. Take away the ebon blackness of the stony masses which have been there cast forth from the bowels of the earth, and replace them on a smaller scale by the crystal forms I have faintly attempted to describe, and the resemblance would be striking.

Now we came to some fishing-huts, which were constructed on the frozen river, the traffic in the finny tribe which takes place in this part of Russia being very great, the Volga producing the sterlet (a fish unknown in other rivers of Europe), in large quantities. I have often eaten them, but must say I could never appreciate this so-called delicacy. The bones are of a very glutinous nature, and can be easily masticated, while the taste of a sterlet is something between that of a barbel and a perch, the muddy flavour of the former predominating. However, they are an expensive luxury, as, to be perfection for the table, they should be taken out of the water alive and put at once into the cooking-pot. The distance to St. Petersburg from the Volga is considerable, and a good-sized fish will often cost from thirty to forty roubles, and sometimes even a great deal more.

We were now gradually nearing our first halting-place, where it was arranged that we should change horses. This was a farm-house known by the name of Nijnege Pegersky Hootor, twenty-five versts distant from Sizeran. Some men were engaged in winnowing corn in a yard hard by the dwelling; and the system they employed to separate the husks from the grain probably dates from before the flood, for, throwing the corn high up into the air with a shovel, they let the wind blow away the husks, and the grain descended on to a carpet set to catch it in the fall. It was then considered to be sufficiently winnowed, and fit to be sent to the mill. The farm-house was fairly clean, and, for a wonder, there were no live animals inside the dwelling. It is no uncommon thing in farm-houses in Russia to find a calf domesticated in the sitting-room of the family, and this more particularly during the winter months. But here the good housewife permitted no such intruders, and the boards were clean and white, thus showing that a certain amount of scrubbing was the custom.

The habitation, which was of a square shape, and entirely made of wood, contained two good-sized but low rooms, a large stove made of dried clay being so arranged as to warm both the apartments. A heavy wooden door on the outside of the building gave access to a small portico, at the other end of which there was the customary obraz, or image, which is to be found in almost every house in Russia. These obrazye are made of different patterns, but generally take the form of a picture of saints or of the Trinity. They are executed in silver-gilt or brass relief, and adorned with tawdry fringe or other gewgaws. The repeated bows and crosses made by the peasantry before these idols is very surprising to an Englishman, who may have been told that there is little difference between the Greek religion and his own; but if this is the case, the sooner the second commandment is omitted from our service, the better. It may be said that the Russian peasantry only look upon these images as symbols, and that in reality they are praying to the living God. Let any one who indulges in this delusion travel in Russia and talk to the inhabitants with reference to the obrazye, or go to Kief at the time of a pilgrimage to the mummified saints in that sanctuary, and I think he will then say that no country in the world is so imbued with superstitious credences as Russia.

Above the stove, which was about five feet high, a platform of boards had been erected at a distance of about three feet from the ceiling. This was the sleeping resort of the family, and occasionally used for drying clothes during the day. The Russian moujik likes this platform more than any other part of the habitation, and his great delight is to lie there and perspire profusely, after which he finds himself the better able to resist the cold of the elements outside. The farm-house in which I now found myself had cost in building two hundred roubles, about twenty-six pounds of our money, and her home was a source of pride to the good housewife, who could read and write, an accomplishment not often possessed by the women of this class in the province of Russia.

By this time our former team had been replaced by three fresh horses, and the driver who was to accompany us had nearly finished making his own preparations for the sleigh journey. Several long bands of cloth, first carefully warmed at the stove, were successively wound round his feet, and then, having put on a pair of thick boots and stuffed some hay into a pair of much larger dimensions, he drew the latter on as well, when, with a thick sheep-skin coat, cap, and vashlik, he declared that he was ready to start.

The cold was very intense when we quitted the threshold, and the thermometer had fallen several degrees during the last half-hour; the wind had also increased, and it howled and whistled against the eaves of the farm-house, bearing millions of minute snowy flakes before it in its course. Presently the sound of a little stamping on the bottom of the sleigh announced to me that the cold had penetrated to my companion's feet, and that he was endeavouring to keep up the circulation.

Very soon that so-called "pins-and-needles" sensation, recalling some snow-balling episodes of my boyish days, began once more to make itself felt, and I found myself commencing a sort of double-shuffle against the boards of the vehicle. The snow was falling in thick flakes, and with great difficulty our driver could keep the track, his jaded horses sinking sometimes up to the traces in the rapidly forming drifts, and floundering heavily along the now thoroughly hidden road. The cracks of his whip sounded like pistol-shots against their jaded flanks, and volumes of invectives issued from his lips.

"Oh, sons of animals!"—[whack].

"Oh, spoiled one!"—[whack]. This to a brute which looked as if he never had eaten a good feed of corn in his life. "Oh, woolly ones!" [whack! whack! whack!].

"O Lord God!" This as we were all upset into a snowdrift, the sleigh being three parts overturned, and our Jehu precipitated in the opposite direction.

"How far are we from the next halting-place?" suddenly inquired my companion, with an ejaculation which showed that even his good temper had given way under the cold and our situation.

"Only four versts, one of noble birth," replied the struggling Jehu, who was busily engaged endeavouring to right the half-overturned sleigh. A Russian verst about night-fall, and under such conditions as I have endeavoured to point out to the reader, is an unknown quantity. A Scotch mile and a bit, an Irish league, a Spanish legua, or the German stunde, are at all times calculated to call forth the wrath of the traveller, but in no way equal to the first-named division of distance. For the verst is barely two-thirds of an English mile, and when, after driving yet for an hour, we were told that there were still two versts more before we could arrive at our halting-place, it began fully to dawn upon my friend that either our driver's knowledge of distance, or otherwise his veracity, was at fault.

At last we reached a long, struggling village, formed of houses constructed much in the same way as that previously described, when our horses stopped before a detached cottage. The proprietor came out to meet us at the threshold. "Samovar, samovar!" (urn), said my companion. "Quick, quick! samovar!" and hurrying by him, and hastily throwing off our furs, we endeavoured to regain our lost circulation beside the walls of a well-heated stove.

The Russian peasants are not ignorant of the good old maxim that the early bird gets the worm, and the few hours' daylight they enjoy during the winter months makes it doubly necessary for them to observe this precept. We were all up a good hour before sunrise, my companion making the tea, while our driver was harnessing the horses, but this time not three abreast, for the road was bad and narrow; so we determined to have two small sleighs with a pair of horses to each, and put our luggage in one vehicle while we travelled in the other.

Off we went, a motley crew. First, the unwashed peddler who had wished to be my companion's bedfellow the night before; then our luggage sleigh; and, finally, my friend and self, who brought up the rear, with a careful eye upon our effects, as the people in that part of the country were said to have some difficulty in distinguishing between meum and tuum.

The sun was bright and glorious, and in no part of the world hitherto visited have I ever seen aurora in such magnificence. First, a pale blue streak, gradually extending over the whole of the eastern horizon, arose like a wall barring the unknown beyond; then, suddenly changing colour until the summit was like lapis-lazuli, and its base a sheet of purple waves of grey and crystal, radiating from the darker hues, relieved the eye, appalled by the vastness of the barrier; the purple foundations were in turn upheaved by a sea of fire, which dazzled the eye with its glowing brilliancy, and the wall of colours floating in space broke up into castles, battlements, and towers, which were wafted by the breeze far away from our view. The sea of flame meanwhile had lighted up the whole horizon; the eye quailed beneath the glare. The snowy carpet at our feet reflected like a camera the wonderful panorama overhead. Flakes of light in rapid succession bound earth to sky, until the globe of sparkling light arising from the depths of this ocean of flame dimmed into insignificance the surroundings of the picture.

Presently a sudden check and exclamation of our Jehu told us that the harness had given way, and a conversation, freely interlarded with epithets exchanged between the driver and the peddler, showed that there was decidedly a difference of opinion between them. It appeared that the man of commerce was the only one of the party who knew the road, and having discovered this fact, he determined to make use of his knowledge by refusing to show the way unless the proprietor of the horses who drove the vehicle containing our luggage would abate a little from the price he had demanded for the hire of the horse in the peddler's sleigh. "A bargain is a bargain!" cried our driver, wishing to curry favour with his master, now a few yards behind him. "A bargain is a bargain. Oh, thou son of an animal, drive on!" "It is very cold," muttered my companion. "For the sake of God," he shouted, "go on!" But neither the allusion to the peddler's parentage nor the invocation of the Deity had the slightest effect upon the fellow's mercenary soul.

"I am warm, and well wrapped up," he said; "it is all the same to me if we wait here one hour or ten;" and with the most provoking indifference he commenced to smoke, not even the manner in which the other drivers aspersed the reputation of his mother appearing to have the smallest effect. At last the proprietor, seeing it was useless holding out any longer, agreed to abate somewhat from the hire of the horse, and once more the journey continued over a break-neck country, though at anything but a break-neck pace, until we reached the station—a farm-hause—eighteen versts from our sleeping quarters, and, as we were informed, forty-five from Samara.



RUSSIAN ARCHITECTURE

EUGENE EMMANUEL VIOLLET-LE-DUC

The Russian people, composed of diverse elements in which the Sclav predominated at the moment when that vast empire began to be established under great princes and amid incessant struggle, was in too close communication with Byzantium not to have been to a certain extent in submission to Byzantine art; but nevertheless each of these elements was in possession of certain notions of art which we must not neglect.

The Sclavs, like the Varangians, knew scarcely anything but construction by wood, but at a comparatively early period they had already carried the art of carpentry very far, and in many different channels.

The Sclavs (as extant traditions show), proceeded by piles in their wooden buildings: and the Scandinavians resorted to joining and dove-tailing. Thus, the latter early attained great skill in naval construction.

These two methods of construction in wood have persisted till the present day, which fact is easily established on examining the rural dwellings of Russia.

The Sclavs, moreover, as well as the Varangians, possessed certain art expressions which denote an Asiatic origin.

Even in Byzantine art, so far as ornamentation is concerned, there were origins that were evidently common to those that are felt in the Sclav arts; and these original elements are again found in Central Asia.

That ornamentation, composed of interlacings and conventional floral motives, dry and metallic, which was adopted at Byzantium, where it very soon destroyed the last vestiges of Roman art, also appears on the most ancient monuments of the Sclavs, and even on objects that in France are attributed to the Merovingians, that is to say, the Franks who came from the shores of the Baltic.

Thus, Russia was to take her arts, as regards ornamentation, from branches that are far apart from one another in time and distance, but which sprang from a common trunk.

About the Tenth Century, the Russian buildings were of wood; all texts agree on this point, and consequently these constructions could have no part in Byzantine architecture, which does not recall even the traditions of carpentry work.

Towards the Eleventh Century, when the Russians began to build religious edifices of masonry, the structure of which, particularly in the vaulting, is inspired by Byzantine art, they adapted to this structure, together with a sensibly modified Byzantine garb, an ornamentation, derived from Asiatic, Sclavic and Turanian elements in variable, that is to say local, proportions.



For at least three centuries, Byzantium was the great school sought by the Latin, Visigothic and Germanic nations of Europe for art teaching, and it was not till the end of the Twelfth Century that the French broke away from these traditions. Their example was followed in Italy, England and Germany more or less successfully. Russia held aloof from these attempts: she was too closely identified with Byzantine art to try any other course; it may be said that she was the guardian of that art, and was to carry on its traditions by mingling with it elements due to the Asiatic Sclavic genius.

All the dominant elements in Russian art, whether they come from the north or south, belong to Asia. Iranians or Persians, Indians, Turanians, or Mongols have furnished tribute, though in unequal quantities, to this art.

It may also be said that if Russia has borrowed much from Byzantium, the art elements among her population have not been without influence upon the formation of Byzantine art. We think even that the influence of Byzantine upon Russian art has been greatly exaggerated, and that Persia may have had at least as much effect upon the course of art in Russia.

However, we must except everything pertaining to images. But even here Asiatic influence makes itself felt, not in the form, but in the preservation of the types. The imagery of the Greek school has never gone out of favour in Russia, and it still holds its place there in the representation of holy personages. In this, Russia shows her attachment to tradition, as all the Asiatic races do, and shows how little her intimate sentiments have suffered modification.

The Russians avoided the influence of the Iconoclasts which was felt so violently in the Western Empire in the Eighth Century, and later still in various parts of Western Europe; among the Vaudois and Albigenses in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Century, the Hussites in the Fifteenth, and the Reformers in the Sixteenth.

But if Russian architecture and ornamentation show marked originality, this does not seem to be the case with the representation of holy personages. These remain Byzantine. It was the school of Mount Athos that supplied Russia with the types, as it did to almost all the Greek Christians of the Orient.

In these representations, we have difficulty in finding a tendency towards realism, which, morever, does not appear till quite late, and does not come to full bloom.

In Russian art, it is possible to find a few Scandinavian traces, or, to be more exact, in the arts of Scandinavia we find some elements borrowed from the same sources whence the Russians took theirs.

Russia has been one of the laboratories in which the arts, brought from all parts of Asia, have been united to adopt an intermediate form between the Eastern and the Western world.

Geographically, she was favourably placed to gather together these influences; and, ethnologically, she was entirely prepared to assimilate these arts and develop them. If she has stopped short in this work, it was only at a very recent period, and when repudiating her origin and traditions, she tried to become Western, in spite of her own genius.

In the first place, the oldest religious edifices of Russia affect slender forms, in elevation, which distinguishes them from the purely Byzantine buildings.

Evidently, the Russians, from the Twelfth Century on, employed in their religious edifices a geometrical plan that was different from that employed by the Byzantine architects, but one very close to that admitted by the architects of Greece during the early years of the Middle Ages.

In Georgia and Armenia, a number of ancient churches, the majority of which are very small, are also of this character. But, while submitting to these dispositions, as soon as they adopted masonry instead of wood for building, the Russians gave quite individual proportions to their religious edifices.

By the Fifteenth Century, Russia had combined all the various elements by the aid of which a national art should be constituted. To recapitulate these origins: We find already among the Scythians some elements of art fairly well developed, foreign to Greek art and derived from Oriental tradition. Byzantium, in constant contact with the people of Southern Russia, made its arts felt there; but in the North, some slight Finnish influences and then some Scandinavian ones, make themselves felt. From Persia likewise, Russia received impulses in art, on account of her commercial relations with that country through Georgia and Armenia. In the Thirteenth Century, the Tartar-Mongol domination was imposed upon Russia, employed her artists and craftsmen, and thus placed her in direct contact with that Mediaeval Orient that was so mighty and so brilliant in all its art productions.

At length left to herself, in the Fifteenth Century, Russia constituted her own art from these various sources. But this variety of sources is more apparent than real. It is enough to examine Scythian ornamentation to recognize that it is of a pronounced Indo-Oriental character. Byzantine taste has exerted a preponderating influence upon Russia. But it has been recognized that this Byzantine style is itself composed of very varied elements among which figure most largely the art of Eastern Asia, and that from this Byzantine art Russia likes to appropriate the Asiatic side in particular.

So that we may regard Russian art as composed of elements borrowed from the Orient to the almost complete exclusion of all others.

Moreover, if we follow the streams of art to their sources, we soon come to recognize that the tributaries are not at all numerous.

In the matter of architecture, there are only two principles: structure by wood and concrete structure: grottoes, and construction with clay, and with masonry, which is derived from it. As to construction with cut stones, there results, either from a tradition of building with wood or from concrete construction, grottoes or conglomerate masses, sometimes both, as in Egyptian art, for example.

The innumerable races who issued from the East and finally overwhelmed the Roman Empire had preserved from their cradle their own traditions, and continued to keep up communication with their old homes. Better than any other nation, the Russians preserved these traditions, and they were, so to speak, rejuvenated every time a new wave passed across their territories; for it was always from the northern or southern Orient, from the Ural or the Taurus, that the invaders came. Whether they presented themselves as enemies or colonists they brought with them something of Asia, the great mother of civilizations.

This Russian art, therefore, was never struck with decadence as was the Byzantine art. It did not live solely upon itself, but profited by all that was brought from the Orient. So, when the Eastern Empire fell during the Fifteenth Century, leaving only a pale trace of the last expressions of its arts, Russia, on the contrary, was raising edifices and fabricating objects of great value from an artistic point of view.

The West had only a small share in these productions, but even this was enough to enable Russian art to be distinguished from the arts of the East by a certain freedom of conception and variety in the execution that rendered it an original product full of promise, the developments of which might have been marvellous if the natural course of events had not been hindered by the passion with which high Russian society threw itself on the works of art of Italy, Germany and France.



SCULPTURE AND PAINTING

PHILIPPE BERTHELOT

Western influence was very strongly felt in sculpture and painting in Russia during the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Narrowly confined to the representation of conventional types of saints, these arts did not acquire either personality or expression for two centuries. It was not until the Eighteenth Century that they began to raise statues to the memory of Russia's great men: one of the first monuments was consecrated, as was indeed just, to Peter the Great, Russia's great reformer; in his lifetime, Count Bartolomeo Rastrelli the sculptor, father of the architect, executed a Peter the Great on Horseback, which was cast in bronze in 1847; but the successors of Peter the Great did not like this group which they did not consider sufficiently animated and would not allow it to be erected on a public square. Catherine II. had Falconet model a Peter the Great mounted on a fiery horse climbing up a rock; this bronze group is placed in the centre of the Square of Peter the Great on the Neva, at St. Petersburg. Among the most celebrated works of Russian sculpture, we may cite the bronze monument erected to the memory of Prince Poyarski and the butcher Minine on the Red Square, Moscow (by Martoss, rector of the Academy of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, in 1888); Lomonossov's monument (by Martoss); those of Generals Barclay de Tolly and Koutousov (1818-1836 after the model by B. Orlovski, placed in front of the Cathedral of Kazan, St. Petersburg); the colossal bust of Alexander I. (by Orlovski); the commemorative monument of Alexander I. (1832, by Montferrand), with a statue of the Angel of Peace, by Orlovski; the statue of Krilov, the fabulist, 1855, by Baron Clodt in the Summer Garden, St. Petersburg; an equestrian statue of the emperor Nicholas I. (by Clodt, 1859, on the St. Mary square); the monument of Novgorod, elevated in memory of the millenary of the Russian occupation (1862), in the form of a gigantic bell containing scenes from Russian history, by Mikiechin; the monument to Catherine II. by Mikiechin, she being represented as surrounded by her generals and statesmen (1874, before the Alexander Theatre); the monument to Pushkin in Moscow (1830, by Objekuchin and Bogomolov); the monument to Bohdan-Chmelnizki, at Kiev (1873, by Mikiechin and other sculptors). The principal Russian sculptors are Popov, Antokolski (statue of Ivan the Terrible, 1871, in St. Petersburg), Tchichov and E. Lanceray. They are characterized by a very pronounced realism that is common to all.

Russian painting has developed in various directions during the last two centuries under the influence of Western Europe; until the first half of the Nineteenth Century the imitation of Italian painting, the classical French school and the execution of strictly academic painting were the three principal paths attempted by the Russian artists. But for half a century, art has found a national expression for itself. At the end of the Eighteenth and beginning of the Nineteenth Century, the principal representatives of religious and historical painting were Losenko (died in 1773), Antropov (died in 1792), Akimov (died in 1814), Ugriumov (died in 1823), Levizki (died in 1822), Ivanov (died in 1823), and Moschov (died in 1839). The landscape and marine painters of greatest repute are Sim. and Sil. Schtchedrin (the first died in 1804, and the second in 1830), Pritchetnikov (died in 1809), F. Alekseiev (died in 1824). Academic painting was cultivated principally by Tropinin (died in 1827), Warnek (died in 1843), Lebediev (died in 1837), Worobiev (died in 1855), K. Rabus (died in 1857), Bruni (died in 1875), Markov (died in 1878), A. Beidemann (died in 1869) and Willewalde. The chief painter of the romantic school is K. Brullov, who formed a school and had numerous scholars. Other romantic painters of repute are Bronnikov and various landscape and marine painters such as Aivasovski, Bogolnibov, L. Lagorio and A. Mechtcherski. Religious and popular painting has A. Ivanov for its representative. The principal realistic painters in genre and historical painting are Fedotov, Makovski, Perov, Polenor, Vereschagin, etc.



Ornamental sculpture seems to be superior to statuary in Russia: it is abundantly practised in the decoration of churches; the innumerable chapels standing at the street corners in honour of some saint possess icons and lamps of bronze and silver; the iconostases of the cathedrals are extremely rich,—gold, silver-gilt, silver, lapis-lazuli, malachite and enamel-work are lavishly employed there. In the churches of Saint Isaac and the Saviour there are many admirable and veritable chefs d'oeuvre of originality and brilliancy to be found. The industry of bronze and goldsmith's work in religious objects is very flourishing and gives occupation to numerous workmen and artists in Moscow and St. Petersburg. An imperial manufactory produces the mosaics which occupy such a great place in the decoration of the churches.

Industrial arts are very prosperous in Russia and have made great progress during the last century: silken goods are no longer imported from Lyons; and the Russian cabinet-makers produce beautiful furniture, not only in their national style, but in the purest forms of French art of the Louis XV. and Louis XVI. styles. Civil goldsmith's work and jewellery have also been benefited by the national Renaissance: the Emperor Alexander III. restored to honour the national feminine costume for official balls, and ordered works of art to be made after the models of the Muscovite style, and indeed even after the marvels found in the excavations of the Cimmerian Bosphorus. The religious images, particularly those made in Moscow and Kazan, come very near being works of art. Numerous manufactories produce icons painted on wood or copper, ornamented with reliefs of copper, crysocale, silver, silver-gilt and gold. The workmen are monks and peasants: each part of the icon—eyes, nose, mouth, hands and feet—is executed by a specialist who always makes the same thing, after the immutable types that the Muscovite convents received from Mount Athos.



RUSSIAN MUSIC

A. E. KEETON

Russian music is the strangest paradox—it owes more to the music of other countries than any other school, yet no music is more thoroughly individual and unmistakable. It clothes itself after the form and fashion of its neighbours, but beneath its garb peeps out a physiognomy indubitably Sclavonic. Its utterances impress us as the most modern—yet the student who would correctly analyze many of its unique characteristics of harmony and modulation is often obliged to take a flying leap backwards over a space of centuries in order to investigate old Church modes, or Persian and Arabian scale systems, both so ancient as to be well-nigh forgotten in Western Europe.

Sixty years ago, there was no Russian school of music, properly speaking; then suddenly it sprang into being. The wonderful rapidity of its growth almost confuses one. Its exponents at once displayed the astonishing receptiveness common to their race. D'un trait, as the French would say, they appropriated the knowledge and experience which the Italian and German schools had been slowly amassing for centuries. Technique, form, counterpoint—all these they found ready made to their hand, and borrowed them unstintingly. Had they done this and no more, the onlooker might have dismissed them as clever plagairists, and probably no one would have paid them any further attention. But they had other means at their disposal. Their country contained a treasure-house of native melody and rhythm; a region albeit which few Russians had hitherto thought it worth their while to explore. It is true that, since the middle of the Seventeenth Century, tentative excursions had been made in this direction from time to time, chiefly, though, by outsiders settled in Russia, nor had any of their efforts led to very appreciable results. The man who first turned with serious intent to the pent-up musical resources of his own country was Michael Ivanovitch Glinka. He had sufficient strength of purpose to carry out his designs—he became the founder of the modern Russian school of music and the father of Russian opera.

Glinka belonged to a good if not very wealthy family, who lived upon their estate in the government of Smolensk, where he was born in 1804. From babyhood upwards he delighted his friends and relations by his aptitude not for music alone, but also for languages, literature, zoology, botany—in fact, for each and every intellectual pursuit which came in his way. The brilliance of his college course in St. Petersburg was noteworthy. He quitted it to occupy a civil post under Government, a position, however, which he soon abandoned, in order to devote himself solely to music. Like so many other men of genius, he married a woman quite incapable of comprehending his artistic aims and ambitions; to quote the words of a Russian writer, Madame Glinka, nee Maria Petrovna, "was only a pretty doll, who loved society and fine clothes, and had no sympathy whatever with her husband's romantic, poetic side." One is glad to state that Glinka never had to struggle with poverty. He died at Berlin in 1857.

He did for Russian music what his contemporary, Pushkin, did for Russian literature, each in his own department representing a national movement. Perhaps it is not too far-fetched a theory to trace this movement to the momentous date of 1812, when it fell to the lot of Russia to administer the first check in Napoleon's triumphant career. Ever since the reign of Peter the Great it had been the fashion to ape foreign habits, to speak foreign tongues, to import foreign music, to mimic foreign literature. But when a foreign invader, who had marched all-conquering through the rest of Europe, appeared in serious earnest at the very gates of Moscow, there was a rebound: slumbering patriotism awoke with a great shout, and, united by a common danger, all classes gathered together for the protection of their Tsar and their Kremlin. To have repulsed a Napoleon was a mighty deed, which could reveal to the Russians of what stuff they were made. It taught them to rely upon each other and be strong in themselves; and as the art of a nation is invariably the outcome of its history, so the rising generation of Russian thinkers looked inwards rather than abroad. Glinka, Pushkin, and their followers sought no foreign aid; they represent a Russian Renaissance. They were content, indeed, to abide by the forms universally adopted elsewhere, but the spirit of their art manifestation was Russian to its core. In literature, Pushkin and Gogol were never weary of delineating their compatriots in every grade of Sclavonic society, whilst Glinka took his musical inspirations from his native folk-songs and dance-rhythms—from the historic chronicles of his country or its legendary lore. In reality, the foreign influences and environment with which he came so continuously into contact served more and more to convince him that Russia in her turn had as great a mission in music as any other nation. For thirty years the idea was gradually gaining strength in his mind. "I want," he said to a friend, "to write an essentially national opera both as regards subject and music; something which no foreigner can possibly accuse of being borrowed, and which shall come home to my compatriots as a part of themselves."

His fame depends solely upon the two operas, La Vie pour le Tsar and Russlan et Ludmille. That he should have chosen to express himself especially in opera is a significant fact. The unerring instinct of his genius evidently told him that in this form, rather than in purely instrumental music, he would most truly represent that people whose musical aspirations he wished above all else to portray faithfully, and certainly in opera lay his surest way towards enlisting the sympathies of his compatriots. As before remarked, one might have imagined that opera would scarcely ally itself to his personal individuality; it seems probable, therefore, that various salient traits inherent in the Russians as a nation must have led him to the choice. First and foremost, any music which claims to proceed from the very heart of the Russian people must contain a vocal element. So universal a love of singing as exists throughout Russia is to be met with in no other country.

By this one does not mean to infer that Russian cultivated singing, either solo or choral, is in any way superior to what is heard elsewhere. The Russian peasant knows absolutely nothing about voice production, nor, maybe, is he gifted with any unusual vocal material, nevertheless, singing is closely bound up with every rural event of his cheerless existence. During the last half-century many hundreds of the native melodies sung by the Russian country people for generations past have been collected and written down by different musicians—Balakireff, Rimsky-Korsakoff, Prokoudin, and Lisenko amongst others. The variety of these folk-songs is astonishing. They never become monotonous, each song having its distinctive climax, and the air always suits the words. Often the untutored singer has one melody in his repertoire, but intuitively he modifies its strains according to the sentiment of his subject.

This general love of music applies as much to the noble as to the peasant. "Where there is a Sclav there is a Song," says a Sclavonic proverb, and no public ceremony or Court function is ever deemed complete in Russia without an outburst of singing to heighten its impressiveness. There is besides a marked dramatic ingredient in the Sclavonic character. The typical Russian loves acting. To discover this, it is only necessary to visit a Russian village and witness the unconscious presentments of lyric drama or of desolate tragedy set forth by the quaint rites of a country wedding or a rustic funeral. Or study a Russian legend. It at once impresses you with its wealth of dramatic situations most concisely defined. In this, the Sclavonic folktale differs radically from its Celtic neighbour. A comparison of the two types suggests that the Russian principally desires a clear statement of facts; a poetic idea which must be extracted from clouds of metaphor conveys but little significance to his mind. An innate love of song, an innate love of acting, a keen perception of dramatic unity, combined with a passionate love of colour and a strong sense of movement—here surely, without any manner of doubt, one has the basis of a well-nigh perfect school of opera. Glinka, the cultivated musician, himself a Russian, thoroughly appreciated these national qualities; indeed they were part and parcel of his birthright. He could assimilate the characteristics of his race and merge them into his own very remarkable originality. The first product of the combined motors was La Vie pour le Tsar, given at St. Petersburg in 1836. Fifty years later it had reached its 577th performance, and from all accounts it still retains an undiminished popularity.



If we dissect this opera and examine its wonderful mastery of technique and its depth of musical inspiration, it displays beauties which cannot fail to appeal to connoisseurs of every race and school. But regarded as a whole, one is inclined to doubt its ever becoming a standard work outside its native home. Its true scope and meaning can only be justly estimated by a public acquainted with Russia herself, with her people, her history and her innermost modes of thought.

Glinka attached the highest value to the folk-song, of which, as already stated, he found a treasure trove ready to his hand. Nothing, though, was further from his thoughts than to employ this material in pot-pourri style. Russians themselves are all agreed that it would be difficult to select one whole folk-song from any single work of Glinka's. It would naturally require a native of Russia with an accurate knowledge of these native tunes to tell us exactly when and where he used them. He seized their mood. In this way he developed every species of Sclavonic folk-song—Great Russian, Little Russian, Circassian, Polish, Finnish—with a passing flavour contributed by Persia, for undoubtedly Oriental music had, at some remote period, influenced its Sclavonic neighbour very strongly. Glinka may be said to have attained his end almost unconscious of his mode of procedure. Determined to compose Russian music, he pursued his idea unremittingly, but it was only towards the close of his life that he began to seriously analyze his effects, asking himself whence he had obtained them and in what essential points they exhibited their nationality. This inquiry involved him in a field of research bewildering in its magnitude, and one which his early death unfortunately prevented him from thoroughly investigating. Nor is the task by any means completed now, some forty years later, although many Russian musicians have thrown considerable light upon its varied aspects. The first step towards a folk-song analysis was the collecting of the melodies in sufficient numbers for comparison. So much being done, it flashed upon Glinka that there was an intimate connection between the Russian folk-song and the most ancient Russian Church music. That is to say, the melody and the freedom of rhythm typical of the folk-song had been evolved by the people, whilst its harmonization, in which lay one of its most striking essentialities, had been bequeathed it by the Church. From all that can be gathered concerning music in Muscovy prior to the introduction of Christianity, it seems justifiable to admit that harmony, or part singing, was already practised amongst the inhabitants, in what manner it is impossible to conjecture. At any rate, when the Church of Byzantium took root there, the Sclav was sufficiently advanced musically to imbibe a new idea. We know that the Byzantine Church modes were purely diatonic, so is the harmonization of the Russian folk-song in its most elementary and uncorrupted form. That the one produced the other is a most natural conclusion. In the oldest of the Russian national melodies Glinka discovered the most clearly defined type of the earliest Christian songs on record.

A wonderful testimony this to the indwelling religious spirit of the Russian people, who change but little and who are singularly tenacious of their customs in spite of all their ready receptiveness. In one sense the folk-song is as rude and hardy as its singer; from another point of view it is a shy, delicate emanation shrinking from all human intercourse outside its own small coterie of familiar voices. In Russia, as in every other country, it has had to be sought in the remote Steppes and far-off districts where foreign influences had never penetrated, and by a curious inverse process its harmonies, of course, transmitted orally, were the means of preserving the Byzantine Church tonality long after this "first cause" had accepted chromatic and enharmonic modulations. In the chief Russian cities and more opened-up parts of the country, the Italian, French, and later on German elements gradually formed themselves into Church as well as secular music, and only within the last sixty years have attempts been made to restore this to its pristine and, perhaps it may be added, somewhat monotonous purity. The minor key in which the Sclavonic folksong was usually couched, together with its extraordinary variety of rhythm and phrase, protected it from this monotony, the minor keys having infinitely richer resources of colour, even when strictly diatonically treated, than the major.

Sclavonic music figures so constantly upon every concert programme in these days that we are probably most of us accustomed to its vagaries of rhythm, or what may be styled irregularity of metre. This is a direct heritage from the folk-song, which Glinka and his successors have borrowed largely.

The leading musical spirits of his day were quick to accredit him a kindred genius. Berlioz welcomed him gladly, and furthered his cause by eloquent writing as well as by obtaining him a hearing in Paris. Liszt was another enthusiastic "Glinkite," and Schumann, unfailingly keen to notice new talent pursuing a new path, speedily drew attention to a Russian who was doing for the music of his country what Chopin and Moniusco had done for Poland. Rubinstein, who was still a boy when Glinka's sun was near setting, grew up with a warm admiration for the founder of his native school, and in 1855 he spent some of his ardour upon a highly laudatory article in the Wiener Zeitschrift fir Musik, placing Glinka on a par with Beethoven. Glinka thoroughly detesting anything that savoured of flattery, took the young musician soundly to task for his pains; but Rubinstein remained true to his tenets, and later on, when years had matured his judgment, we find him including the name of Glinka with that of Bach, Beethoven, Schubert and Chopin, as the chief germinators of modern music; whilst one of the last acts of his generous public career was a concert given in aid of a national monument to the composer of La Vie pour le Tsar. With one or two minor exceptions, successive Russian masters have followed faithfully in Glinka's footsteps. To Borodine, Dargomijsky, Seroff, Balakireff, and Rimsky-Korsakoff a full meed of nationality has been granted. To Rubinstein and Tschaikowski criticism is at present disposed to deny the quality in its most salient features. But their prolific mass of compositions has so far scarcely been sufficiently explored outside their own Russian domain for a final judgment to be hazarded. A nearer inspection of their work, indeed, together with a more accurate study of Russian art as a whole, distinctly leads to the opinion that a revolution of feeling may eventually spring up, especially on the subject of their operas. Also Rubinstein's dramatic works, now mostly dismissed by foreigners as his weakest productions, may in due course be accepted as his finest creations. From the different reasons previously deduced there can be little doubt that in opera Glinka purposely laid the corner-stone of what he earnestly believed to be a true Russian school, and a glance at contemporary musical activity shows that here Russia has every opportunity for distinguishing herself, and that with very little competition.



RUSSIAN LITERATURE

W. R. MORFILL

Of the Russian there are the following chief dialects—Great, Little, and White Russian. The Great Russian is the literary and official language of the Empire. In its structure it is highly synthetic, having three genders and seven cases, and the nouns and adjectives being fully inflected. Its great peculiarity (which it shares in common with all the Sclavonic languages), is the structure of the verbs, which are divided into so-called "aspects," which modify the meaning, just as the Latin terminations sco, urio, and ita, only the forms are developed into a more perfect system. The letters employed are the Cyrillian, held to have been invented by St. Cyril in the Ninth Century. They are on the whole well adapted to express the many sounds of the Russian alphabet, for which the Latin letters would be wholly inadequate, and must perforce be employed in some such uncouth combinations as those which communicate a grotesque appearance to Polish. It would be out of place here to discuss the Ecclesiastical Sclavonic employed in so many of the early writings composed in Russian. I shall proceed to speak of the literature in Russian properly so-called. The great epochs of this will be—

I. From the earliest times to the reign of Peter the Great.

II. From the reign of Peter the Great to our own time.

The Russians, like the rest of the Sclavonic peoples are very rich in national songs, many (as one may judge from the allusions found in them), going back to a remote antiquity. For a long time, and especially during the period of French influence, these productions were neglected. In the last twenty years, however, they have been assiduously collected by Bezsonov, Kirievski, Ribnikov, Hilferding and others. The Russian legendary poems are called Bilini (literally, tales of old time), and may be most conveniently divided into the following classes:—

1. That of the earlier heroes. 2. The Cycle of Vladimir. 3. The Royal, or Moscow Cycle.

The early heroes are of a half-mythical type, and perform prodigies of valour. To this class belong Volga Vseslavich, Mikoula Selianinovich and Sviatogor. The great glory of the Cycle of Vladimir is Ilya Murometz. The Bilinas are filled with his magnificent exploits, either alone, or in the company of Sviatogor.

The national songs are carried on through the troublous times of Boris Godunov, and the false Dimitri, to the days of Peter the Great, when they seem to have acquired new vigour on account of the military achievements of the regenerator of his country. Nor are they extinct in our own time, for we find exploits of Napoleon, especially his disastrous expedition to Russia, made the subject of verse. The interest, however, of these legendary poems fades away as we advance into later days. The number of minstrels is rapidly diminishing; and Riabanin, and his companions among the Great Russians, and Ostap Veresai among the Malo-Russians, will probably be the last of these generations of rhapsodists, who have transmitted their traditional chants from father to son, from tutor to pupil. A great feature in Russian literature is the collection of chronicles, which begin with Nestor, monk of the Pestcherski Cloister at Kiev, who was born about A. D. 1056, and died about 1116.

During the time when Russia groaned under the yoke of the Mongols, the nation remained silent, except here and there, perhaps, in some legendary song, sung among peasants, and destined subsequently to be gathered from oral tradition by a Ribnikov and a Hilferding. Such literature as was cultivated formed the recreation of the monks in their cells. A new era, however, was to come. Ivan III. established the autocracy and made Moscow the centre of the new government. The Russians naturally looked to Constantinople as the centre of their civilization; and even when the city was taken by the Turks its influence did not cease. Many learned Greeks fled to Russia, and found an hospitable reception in the dominions of the Grand Duke. During the reigns of Ivan the Terrible and his immediate successors, although the material progress of the country was considerably advanced, and a strong Government founded, yet little was done for learning. Simeon Polotzki (1628-80), tutor to the Tsar Feodor, son of Alexis, was an indefatigable writer of religious and educational books, but his productions can now only interest the antiquarian. The verses composed by him on the new palace built by the Tsar Alexis, at Kolomenski are deliciously quaint. Of a more important character is the sketch of the Russian government, and the habits of the people, written by one Koshikin (or Kotoshikin—for the name is found in both forms), a renegade diak or secretary, which, after having lain for a long time in manuscript in the library of Upsala, in Sweden, was edited in 1840, by the Russian historian Soloviev. Kotoshikin terminated a life of strange vicissitudes by perishing at the hands of the public executioner at Stockholm, about 1669.

With the reforms of Peter the Great commences an entirely new period in the history of Russian literature, which was now to be under Western influence. The epoch was inaugurated by Lomonosov, the son of a poor fisherman of Archangel, who forms one of the curious band of peasant authors—of very various merit, it must be confessed—who present such an unexpected phenomenon in Russian literature. Occasionally we have men of real genius, as in the cases of Koltzov, Nikitin, and Shevchenko, the great glory of southern Russia; sometimes, perhaps, a man whose abilities have been overrated as in the instance of Slepoushkin. Lemonosov is more praised than read by his countrymen. His turgid odes, stuffed with classical allusions, in praise of Anne and Elizabeth, are still committed to memory by pupils at educational establishments. His panegyrics are certainly fulsome, but probably no worse than those of Boileau in praise of Louis XIV., who grovelled without the excuse of the imperfectly educated Scythian. The reign of Catherine II. (1762-96), saw the rise of a whole generation of court poets. The great maxim, "Un Auguste peut aisement faire un Virgile," was seen in all its absurdity in semi-barbarous Russia. These wits were supported by the Empress and her immediate entourage, to whom their florid productions were ordinarily addressed.



From Byzantine traditions, from legends of saints, from confused chronicles, and orthodox hymnologies, Russia was to pass by one of the most violent changes ever witnessed in the literature of any country, into epics moulded upon the Henriade, and tedious odes in the style of Boileau and Jean Baptiste Rousseau. Oustrialov, the historian, truly characterizes most of the voluminous writers of this epoch, as mediocre verse makers, for claiming merits in the cases of Bogdanovich, Khemnitzer, Von Vizin, Dmitriev, and Derzhavin. Bogdanovich wrote a very pretty lyric piece, styled Dushenka based on the story of Cupid and Psyche, and partly imitated from Lafontaine, with a sportive charm about the verse which will preserve it from becoming obsolete. With Khemnitzer begin the fabulists. But I shall reserve my remarks upon this species of literature and its Russian votaries until I come to Krilov, who may be said to be one of the few Sclavonic authors who have gained a reputation beyond the limits of their own country. In Denis Von Vizin, born at Moscow, but as his name shows, of German extraction, Russia saw a writer of genuine national comedy. Hitherto she had to content herself with poor imitations of Moliere. His two plays, the Brigadier and the Minor (Nederosl), have much original talent. No such vigorous representations of character appeared again on the stage till The Misfortune of being too Clever (Gore et Ouma) of Griboiedov, and the Revisor of Gogol. Dmitriev deserves perhaps no more than a passing mention.

The name of Derzhavin is spoken of with reverence among his countrymen: he was the laureate of the epoch of Catherine, and had a fresh ode for every new military glory. There is much fire and vigour in his productions and he could develop the strength and flexibility of his native language which can be made as expressive and concise as Greek. Perhaps, however, we get a little tired of his endless perfections of Felitza, the name under which he celebrates the Empress Catherine, a woman who—whatever her private faults may have been,—did a great deal for Russia.

In Nicholas Karamzin appeared the first Russian historian who can properly claim the title. His poems are almost forgotten: here and there we come upon a solitary lyric in a book of extracts. His History of the Russian Empire, however, is a work of extensive research, and must always be quoted with respect by Sclavonic scholars. Unfortunately, it only extends to the election of Michael Romanov. Karamzin was followed by Nicholas Polevoi, son of a Siberian merchant, who hardly left any species of literature untouched. His History of the Russian People, however, did not add to his reputation, and is now almost forgotten. In later times both these authors have been eclipsed by such writers as Soloviev and Kostomarov. A new and more critical school of Russian historians has sprung up; but for the early history of the Sclavonic peoples, the great work is still Schafarik's Sclavonic Antiquities, first published in the Bohemian language, and more familiar to scholars in the West of Europe in its German version.

With the breaking up of old forms of government caused by the French Revolution, came the dislocation of the old conventional modes of thought. Classicism in literature was dead, having weighed like an incubus upon the fancy and fresh life of many generations. England and Germany were at the head of the new movement, which was at a later period to be joined to France. The influence was to extend to Russia, and may be said to date from the reign of Alexander I. It was headed by Zhukovski, who was rather a fluent translator than an original poet. He has given excellent versions of Schiller, Goethe, Moore, and Byron, and has better enriched the literature of his country in this way than by his original productions. He had, however, some lyric fire of his own; the ode entitled The Poet in the Camp of the Russian Warriors, written in the memorable year 1812, did something to stimulate the national feelings, and procure for the poet a good appointment at court.

In Alexander Pushkin, the Russians were destined to find their greatest poet. His first work, Rouslan and Lioudmilla, was a tale of half-mythical times, in which the influence of Byron was clearly visible, but the author had never allowed himself to become a mere copyist. The same may be said of The Prisoner of the Caucasus, in which Pushkin had an opportunity of describing the romantic scenery of that wild country, which was then entirely new ground. In the Fountain of Bakchiserai he chose an episode in the history of the Khans of the Crimea, which he has handled very poetically. The Gipsies is a wild oriental tale of passion and vengeance. The poet, who had been spending some time amid the Steppes of Bessarabia, has left us wonderful pictures of the wandering tribes and their savage life. Many Russians consider the Evgenie Oniegin of Pushkin to be his best effort. It is a powerfully written love-story, full of sketches of modern life, interspersed with satire and pathos.

A criticism of Pushkin would necessarily be imperfect, which left out of all consideration his drama on the subject of Boris Godunov. Here he has used Shakespeare as his model. Up to this time the traditions of the Russian stage—such as they were—were wholly French. The piece is undoubtedly very clever, and conceived with true dramatic power.

Since Pushkin's attempt, the historical drama based upon the English, has been very successfully cultivated. A fine trilogy has been composed by Count A. Tolstoi (whose premature death all Russia deplored), on the three subjects, The Death of Ivan the Terrible (1866), The Tsar Feodor (1868) and the Tsar Boris (1869).

The Russian fabulists, whose name is legion, demand some mention; Khemnitzer, Dmitriev, Ivanov and others, have attempted this style of poetry; but the most celebrated of all is Ivan Krilov (1768-1844). Many of his short sentences have become proverbs among the Russian people, like the couplets of Lafontaine among the French, and Butler's Hudibras among ourselves. His pictures of life and manners are most thoroughly national. In Koltzov the true voice of the people, which had before only expressed itself in the national ballads was heard. The life of this sensitive and warm-hearted man of genius was clouded by poverty and suffering.

The poems of Koltzov are written, for the most part, in an unrhymed verse; the sharp, well-defined accent in Russian amply satisfying the ear, as in German. His poetical taste had been nurtured by the popular lays of his country. He has caught their colouring as truly as Burns did that of the Scottish minstrelsy. He is unquestionably the most national poet that Russia has produced; Slepoushkin and Alipanov, two other peasant poets, who made some little noise in their time, cannot for one moment be compared with him; but, on the other hand, he has been excelled by the fiery energy and picturesque power of the Cossack, Taras Shevchenko, of whom I shall speak. Since the death of Pushkin, Lermontov alone has appeared to dispute the poetical crown with him. The short life of this author (1814-41), ended in the same way as Pushkin's—in a duel provoked by himself. Many of his lyrics are exquisite, and have become standard poems in Russia, such as the Gifts of Terek and The Cradle Song of the Cossack Mother.

In Gogol, who died in 1852, the Russians had to lament the loss of a keen and vigorous satirist. With a happy humour reminding us of Dickens in his best moods, he has sketched all classes of society in the Dead Souls, perhaps the cleverest of all Russian novels. No one, also has reproduced the scenery and habits of Little Russia, of which he was a native, more vigorously than Gogol, whether in the pictures of country life in his Old-Fashioned Household (if we may translate in so free a manner the title Starovetskie Pomestchiki), or in the wilder sketches of the struggles which took place between the Poles and Cossacks in Taras Boulba. In the Portrait and Memoirs of a Madman, Gogol shows a weird power, which may be compared with that of the fantastic American, Edgar Allan Poe. Besides his novels, he wrote a brilliant comedy called the Revisor, dealing with the evils of bureaucracy.

Towards the end of the year 1877, died Nicholas Nekrasov, the most remarkable poet produced by Russia since Lermontov. He has left six volumes of poetry, of a peculiarly realistic type, chiefly dwelling upon the misfortunes of the Russian peasantry, and putting before us most forcibly the dull grey tints of their monotonous and purposeless lives.

I have not space to enumerate here even the most prominent Russian novelists. No account, however, of their literature would be anything like complete which omitted the name of Ivan Tourgheniev, whose reputation is European. With the Russians the English novel of the realistic type is the fashionable model. In this branch of literature, French influences have hardly been felt at all. The historical novel—an echo of the great romances of Sir Walter Scott—had its cultivators in such writers as Zagoskin and Lazhechnikov; but at the present time, with the exception of the recent productions of Count Tolstoi, it is a form of literature as dead in Russia as in our own country. The novel of domestic life bids fair to swallow up all the rest, and it is to this that the Russians are devoting their attention.

Tourgheniev first made a name by his Memoirs of a Sportsman, a powerfully written work, in which harrowing descriptions are given of the miserable condition of the Russian serfs. Since the publication of this novel, or rather series of sketches, he has written a succession of able works of the same kind, in which all classes of Russian society have been reviewed. No more pathetic tale than the Gentleman's Retreat (Dvorianskoe Gnezdo) can be shown in the literature of any country. There are touches in it worthy of George Eliot. In Fathers and Children and Smoke, Tourgheniev has grappled with the nihilistic ideas which for a long time have been so current in Russia.

The study of Russian history, so well commenced by Karamzin, has been further developed by Oustrialov and Soloviev.

The Malo-Russian is very rich in skazki (national tales) and in songs. Peculiar to them is the douma, a kind of narrative poem, in which the metre is generally very irregular; but a sort of rhythm is preserved by the recurrence of accentuated syllables. The douma of the Little Russians corresponds to the bilina of the Great Russians.

As might naturally be expected, most Malo-Russian authors of eminence, have preferred using the Great Russian, notably Gogol, who however is very fond of introducing provincial expressions which require a glossary. The foundation of the Malo-Russian cultivated literature was laid by the travisty of the AEneid, by Kotliarevski, which enjoys great popularity among his countrymen. A truly national poet appeared in Taras Shevchenko, born a serf in the Government of Kiev, at the village of Kirilovka.

Of the literature of the White Russians, but little need be said, as it is very scanty, amounting to a few collections of songs edited by Shein, Bezsonov and others.



PRESENT CONDITIONS

E. S.

Nicholas I., Tsar of all the Russias (born in 1868), the eldest son of Alexander III. and the Princess Dagmar, daughter of King Christian IX. of Denmark, ascended the throne on the death of his father in 1894. He is descended from Michael Romanof, elected Tsar in 1613, after the extinction of the House of Rurik, and also from the Oldenburg family. Nicholas II. was married in 1894 to Princess Alexandra Alix (Alexandra Feodorovina), daughter of Ludwig IV., Grand Duke of Hesse, and Alice Maud Mary, daughter of Queen Victoria. Their four daughters are: Olga (born 1895); Tatiana (born 1897); Marie (born 1899); and Anastasia (born 1901). The Grand Duke Michael (born 1878), brother of the Emperor, is the Heir Presumptive. The Emperor's vast revenue is derived from Crown domains: the amount is unknown, as no reference is made in the budgets or finance accounts. It consists, however, of more than a million of square miles of cultivated lands and forests, besides gold and other mines in Siberia.



Russia is an absolute hereditary monarchy. The Emperor's will is law, and in him the whole legislative, executive and judicial power is united. The administration of the Empire is entrusted to four great boards or councils: the Council of the State; the Ruling Senate; the Holy Synod; and the Committee of Ministers.

The Council of State, established by Alexander I. in 1801, consists of a president nominated every year by the Emperor and a large number of members appointed by him. This council is divided into four departments: Legislation; Civil and Church Administration; State's Economy and Industry; Sciences and Commerce.

The Ruling Senate, founded by Peter I. in 1711, is really the high court of justice for the Empire. It is divided into six departments, or sections.

The Holy Synod, founded by Peter I. in 1728, has charge of the religious affairs of the Empire. Its members are the Metropolitans of St. Petersburg, Moscow and Kief, the archbishop of Georgia and several bishops who sit in turn. The President is Antonious, the Metropolitan of St. Petersburg. The Emperor has to approve of all the decisions of the Holy Synod.

European Russia consists of Russia Proper (50 Provinces), Poland (10 Provinces), and Finland (Grand Duchy). The population in 1897 was respectively, 93,467,736; 9,401,097; and 2,527,801. Asiatic Russia consists of Caucasia (11 Provinces; population 9,291,000); Siberia (8 Provinces and Regions; population 5,726,719); and Central Asia (10 Provinces and Regions; population 7,740,394). Russian subjects in Khiva and Bokhara number 6,412. Of the total population 128,161,249, 64,616,280 were men and 64,594,883, women. In European Russia the annual increase of population is at the rate of nearly a million and a half. The chief cities of European Russia are St. Petersburg (1,267,023); Moscow (988,614); Warsaw (638,208); Odessa (405,041); Lodz (315,209); Riga (256,197); Kief (247,432); Kharkoff (174,846); Tiflis (160,645); Vilna (159,568); Tashkend (156,414); Saratov (137,109); Kasan (131,508); Ekaterinoslav (121,216); Rostov-on-the-Don (119,889); Astrakhan (113,001); Baku (112,253); Tula (111,048), and Kishineff(108,796). The population of Novgorod, Samara, Minsk and Nikolaieff is between 95,000 and 90,000. Tiflis and Baku in the Caucasus have respective populations of 160,000 and 112,000. The largest towns in the Trans-Caspia are Askhabad (19,500) and Merv (8,750), and those of Turkestan are Tashkend, Namangan Samarkand and Andijan. There are about 50,000 in each of the Siberian towns of Tomsk, Irkutsk and Ekaterinburg.



There has been no census since 1897, but in 1900 the population of St. Petersburg was 1,439,739; Moscow, 1,035,664; and Riga, 282,943. The mortality in the towns is so great that the deaths exceed the births. Emigration is on the increase, and, of late years, the Russians, particularly the Jews, flock to the United States, chiefly through Hamburg, Luebeck and Bremen. In 1900, 49,580 emigrated to the United States; 1,253 to Argentina; and numbers to Canada and Brazil. Emigration to Siberia varies from year to year, but is on the increase. In 1898, 80,000 went and in 1901 from 150,000 to 200,000. There is also much emigration to the Southern Ural and the Steppe provinces.

In European Russia, there is an average of a town or village to every four or seven square miles, and in the Caucasus, one to every nine square miles; but in Asiatic Russia the average varies; for example, in Samarkand there is one to every fourteen square miles, and in the province of Yakutsk, one to every 2,760 square miles.

The principal ports are St. Petersburg, Cronstadt, Narva, Riga, Libau, Pernau and Vindau (on the Baltic); Hango (on the Gulf of Bothnia); Revel, Helsingfoers and Wiborg (on the Gulf of Finland); Archangel and Ekaterinsk (Arctic and White Seas); Odessa, Nicolaieff, Sebastopol, Nova-Rossiisk, Berdiansk and Batoum, Taganrog, Marinpol, Rostov and Kertch (on the Black Sea and Sea of Azov); Astrakhan, Derbent and Baku (on the Caspian Sea); Nicolaieffsk, Vladivostok and Petrapaulovsk in Kamtchatka; and Port Arthur and Dalni or Ta-lien-wan (Gulf of Pechili), have been occupied since the Russo-Chinese Treaty of 1898.

The established religion is the Russo-Greek, or Graeco-Russian, known officially as the Orthodox Catholic Faith. It maintains the relations of a sister church with the four patriarchates of Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem and Alexandria. The Emperor is the head of the church. The Russian Empire is divided into 64 bishoprics, under 3 metropolitans, 14 archbishops and 48 bishops; in 1898, there were 66,146 churches (718 of which were cathedrals), and 785 monasteries. With the exception of the Jewish, all religions are allowed to be professed. There are more than 12,000,000 dissenters scattered throughout the Empire. The numbers are: Orthodox Greek, 87,384,480; Dissenters, 2,173,738; Roman Catholic, 11,420,927; Protestants, 3,743,209; other Christians, 1,221,511; Mohammedans, 13,889,421; Jews, 5,189,401; and other religions, 645,503. In 1903, the Holy Synod received 28,388,049 roubles from the Imperial budget, besides other revenue and gifts.

The Empire is divided into 15 educational districts: St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kasan, Orenburg, Kharkoff, Odessa, Kief, Vilna, Warsaw, Riga, Caucasus, Turkestan, West Siberia, East Siberia and Amur. In some of the primary village schools, there are school-gardens, while bee-keeping and silk-worm culture, as well as trades and handiwork, are taught. In 1900, the Ministers contributed 51,062,842 roubles for schools and universities. The universities are in Moscow (4,344 students in 1902); St. Petersburg (3,708); Kief (2,316); Kharkov (1,340); Dorpat (1,791); Warsaw (1,312); Kasan (823); Odessa (1,116); and Tomsk (549). Helsingfors, Finland, had 1,211 students in 1900-1.

Since 1874 military service has been obligatory for all men from the age of 21. The period of service in European Russia is five years in the active army (reduced by furloughs to four) 13 in the Zapas those who have passed through active service and five years in the Opolchenie, or reserve; in Asiatic Russia, seven years in the active army and six in the Zapas; and in Caucasia, three years in the active army and 15 in the Zapas. The Opolchenie is a reserve force of drilled conscripts.

The Cossacks (Don, Kuban Terek, Astrakhan, Orenburg, Ural, Siberia, Semiryetchensk, Transbaikalia, Amur and Usuri) are divided in three classes; the first in active service, the second on furlough with their arms and horses; the third with arms and without horses. Some of the Cossack cavalry serves with the regular cavalry. Military service is also obligatory in Finland.

The Russian army consists of 31 corps. The lowest estimate of its peace strength is about 1,100,000 with 42,000 officers; the war strength about 75,000 officers, 4,500,000 men and 562,000 horses.

Owing to its widely separated seas, the Russian navy maintains four squadrons: the Baltic, the Black Sea, the Pacific and the Caspian. Cronstadt is the chief base of the Baltic Fleet; Sebastopol of the Black Sea; and Vladivostok and Port Arthur of the Pacific. The Caspian fleet is comparatively insignificant. In 1903, the navy consisted of 26 battleships, 14 coast defence ships, 24 first-class cruisers, 15 second-class cruisers, 161 gunboats and torpedo craft.

The ocean shipping of the Russian Empire is not relatively large, but its lake and river shipping is very extensive. In 1900, the sea-going marine consisted of 2,293 sailing vessels and 745 steamers.

The total length of railway open for traffic and travel on January 1, 1903, was 35,336 miles (not including 1,753 miles in Finland). Of this 4,965 miles were in Asiatic Russia.

The legal unit of money is the silver rouble of 100 kopecks of the value of 2s. 1.6d., or about fifty cents of American money. The coins called imperial and half-imperial contain 15 and 7-1/2 roubles respectively. There are also credit notes of 100, 25, 10, 5, 3 and 1 rouble.

Russia's chief source of revenue is the liquor traffic. Her chief exports are spirits, tallow, wool, tow, bristles, timber, hides and skins, grain, raw and dressed flax, linseed and hemp. Her principal imports are tea, cotton and other colonial produce, iron, machinery, wool, wine, fruits, vegetables and oil.

Russia is the second largest European grower of wheat. Hemp, flax, potatoes and tobacco are also raised in large quantities. Barley, buckwheat, oats, millet and rye form the staple food of the inhabitants.

Mines of great value exist in the Ural, Obdorsk and Altai mountains, which produce gold, copper, iron, silver, platinum, rock-salt, marble and kaolin or china clay. Rich naphtha springs exist on the Caspian and an immense bed of coal has been discovered between the Donetz and Dnieper rivers.

The Grand Duchy of Finland, which Russia conquered from Sweden and finally annexed in 1808, had a population in 1898 of about 2,595,000 (2,230,000 Finns; 350,000 Swedes; 12,000 Russians; 2,000 Germans; and 1,000 Laps). The chief religion is the Lutheran. The capital is Helsingfors with a population of 111,000, including the Russian garrison. The Tsar of Russia is the Grand Duke; Lieut.-Gen. N. Bobrikov, the governor-general; and V. von Plehwe, Secretary of State. The Diet, convoked triennially, consists of nobles, clergy, burgesses and peasants, but the country is chiefly governed by the Imperial Finnish Senate of twenty-two members. The army consists of nine battalions of Finnish Rifles (5,600 men), and one regiment of dragoons (900 men, with a reserve of 30,000). The chief export is timber and the chief industry iron mines. In 1898, the marine comprised 2,298 vessels of 324,344 tons.

Bokhara and Khiva in Central Asia are vassal states of Russia. Bokhara, bounded on the north by Russian Turkestan, was once the most famous state of Central Asia. Genghis Khan took it from the Arabs in the Thirteenth Century, and it was taken by the Uzbegs, fanatical Sunni Mahommedans of Turkish extraction, in 1505. After the Russian capture of Tashkend in 1865, the Amir Muzeffared-din proclaimed a holy war against the Russians, who invaded his province and captured Samarkand in 1868. By a treaty of 1873, no foreigner may be admitted into Bokhara without a Russian passport. The population is estimated at 2,000,000. The Amir Syed Abdul Ahad succeeded in 1885. The Uzbegs are still the dominant race. The religion is Mahommedan. The chief towns are Bokhara (about 75,000) and Karshi (25,000). The chief products are sheep, goats, camels, horses, rice, cotton, silk, corn, fruit, hemp and tobacco. Gold, salt, alum and sulphur are the chief minerals. There are cotton, woollen and silk manufacturers. Many Indian goods such as shawls, tea, drugs, indigo and muslins are imported. The Amir has 11,000 troops, 4,000 of which are quartered in Bokhara. The Russian Trans-Caspian Railway runs through Bokhara and there is steam navigation on the Oxus. A telegraph connects Bokhara with Tashkend.

The conquest of Khiva, another Uzbeg State also founded on the ruins of Tamerlane's Central Asian Empire, was attempted by Peter the Great in 1717 and again in 1839 by the Tsar Nicholas. On the pretext that the Khivans had aided the rebellious Kirghiz, the Russians invaded Khiva in 1873 and forced the Khan to sign a treaty putting the Khanate under Russian government. The reigning sovereign is Seyid Mahomed Rahim Khan who succeeded his father in 1865. He was born about 1845. The population is estimated at 800,000, including 400,000 nomad Turcomans. The principal towns are Khiva (about 5,000) and New Urgenj (3,000). The religion is Mahommedan. The army consists of about 2,000 men. The chief productions are silk and cotton.

THE END