Evening star., 1902-09-11
RUSSIAN CHURCH BELLS
A NATIONAL INSTITUTION IN
THE REALM OF THE CZAR.
The Important Part They Play in the
Lives Of the
People.
From the London Globe.

rom the LONDON GlODe.
There is no other country in the world In
which the church bell plays So prominent a
part in the life of the people as Russia. The
ringing Of the church bell Is there a ma
tional Institution. like public speaking in
England. The tongue of the man is simply
replaced by the clapper Of the bell In the
majority of the provincial cities in Russia
there Is practically no public life at all. The
inhabitants drag along from day to day
their dull. humdrum and petty life as If
there were nothing else in the world but
their shops and their bed rooms. No par
liamentary elections. no party politics rouse
their PASSIONS d no theaters. no public or
private Libraries amuse them. Nay, not
even a bookseller or newspaper stall. Only
one thing is there to awaken the tmagina-
ton and excite some public interest, and
that is the sound of the church bell.
Different Meanings.
And what variety of interest. what full
ness Of emotion does the Russian church
bell give, There is the everyday ringing
for morning and evening prayer; there Is
the festival peal of the Sunday the solemn
ringing at Christmas. the incessant drone
at Easter the abrupt banging at baptism,
the gay tinkling for a marriage and the
grave and slow toll of the funeral. Besides,
there are many local holidays and other
occasions when the church bell Is very
busy. 1t summons and awakens the sleepy
population in case fire breaks out; 1t
greets the bishop or some other big eccle-
siastical or civilian dgnitary on his ar
rival al the city, and so on. Verify, in no
other country but Russia has the church
bell a right to the inscription, ''Vivos voco
mortuos plango fulgura frango, that
adorns the bell in Schaffhausen, and was
taken by Schiller as a motto to his famous
n q EurODe
bell is usually fixed to beam with which
it circles here and there. This system
makes it very difficult to ring a bell Of
heavy weight, and, besides the double
swinging of the bell and It's clapper causes
a certain lack OF clearness and dlstinctness
in the sound, and that is why We find in
some of the churches Of western Europe
large bells which are like giants who have
lost their voice. Such. for instance. Is the
so-called ''Kaiserglocke'' of the Cologne
Cathedral. which weighs twenty-six tons.
thirteen hundredweight but never rings.
The same fate shares the Big Brunnen"
of the Notre Dame In Paris. By It's swing
ing 1t has shaken almost the bell tower to
pieces and since 1851 1t has never been
used.
Method Of Ringing.
In Russia the bell remians almost mo-
tionless and 1t Is the clapper which Is
swung and which beats the rim of the bell.
On account of this the Russian bell can be
made Of immense proportions, as 1t Is al
ways easier to swing the clapper than the
whole mass Of the bell Hence we find in
Russia the largest church bells in the world
The largest bell in Russia. the famous
"Tsar- -Kolokol' in Moscow. is, however. of
no use. on account Of a crack which 1t got
when it fell In 1877. 1t weighs more than
205 tons 02,327 Russian poods), and till the
year 1886 was lying deep sunk in the
ground. but then it was put up on pedes-
tai This dead bell Is like mammoth
among the living bells in Moscow. which
Is the richest town in large bells. There are
two bells Of over sixty tons each, one in
the Simon monastery and the other in the
Assumption Church Then there is quite a
number of bells which weight forty tons
each. The best-known bells in Russia for
their musical tone are to be found how
ever. not in Moscow. but in the cathedral Of
the provincial town Rostov. Out of the
thirteen bells of this cathedral nine are
known by special names and have been
described by many historians and archaeol-
ogists. The ringing Of the bell as an art in
Russia was. however for long time very
much neglected, and 1t Is only since 1871
that it has been studied and improved
through the efforts of the priest Israelev.
who Is great, and the only Russian. cam
panologist. He invented a special instru-
ment to obtain easily the number of vibra-
tions per second Of the bell. and thus to de-
fine its pitch. Thanks to him there are now
in Russia many churches with musically
arranged bells.
Have a History.
Some of the church bells in Russia have
quite a peculiar history. There Is. for In
stance. the bell known as the Exile Of
Oogiich." In 1891 this bell. which used to
hang In the cathedral Of Ooglich. sounded
the alarm when the Tsarevich Demetrius
was murdered. For some inexplicable rea-
son such an alarm was held to be a crime
which had to be punished Accordingly,
after having been fiogged and deprived Of
the top ring. the bell was exiled to Tobolsk,
In Siberia, where 1t was put up in some OBJ
scure church. Only after three centuries Of
exile. and after many petitions on the part
of the people Of Ooglich. this unfortunate
bell returned at last to It's old quarters. to
the joy Of the new generation. Another bell
this time from Moscow. was a century later
exiled to the Kore1 monastery, in the north.
on account Of having once rudely awakened
Czar Theodor Alexeyevich from a most
agreeable night dream. Certainly all this
sounds very ridiculous and quite prepos-
ferrous. And 50 1t Is. But the Russians are
an emotional people. and are very much
addicted to symbolism, which. In some de-
gree. explains these almost incredible his
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