PREFACE.

THIS Translation of M. Alfred Rambaud's 'Histoire de la Russie' (Paris, 1878) contains a number of emendations by the Author. M. Rambaud has also written many additional pages: on Russian ethnography; on the Esthonian Epic; on the early relations of England and Russia; and on the Emperor Paul's project of attacking England in India. The Translator has to express a grateful sense of M. Rambaud's constant and courteous aid. In whatever is hasty or inaccurate in these volumes, he has no share. The Translator has compiled Genealogical Tables, of which M. Rambaud has approved. The French book has no index, and an attempt has been made to supply this deficiency. The Translator regrets that, by a too close following of the French spelling of ancient tribal names, new varieties have been introduced, where variety was already too plentiful and confusing. There seem, for example, to be about thirteen ways of spelling "Patzinak." A

VOL. I.

b

# CONTENTS.

## THE BEGINNINGS OF RUSSIA.

### CHAPTER I.

#### GEOGRAPHY OF RUSSIA.

- Eastern and Western Europe compared: seas, mountains, climate
- The four zones — Russian rivers and history — Geographical unity of Russia .. .. .. .. .. .. Pages 1-16

### CHAPTER II.

#### ETHNOGRAPHY OF RUSSIA.

- Greek colonies and the Scythia of Herodotus — The Russian Slavs of Nestor — Lithuanian, Finnish, and Turkish hordes in the 9th century — Division of the Russians proper into three branches — How Russia was colonised .. .. 17-38

### CHAPTER III.

#### PRIMITIVE RUSSIA: THE SLAVS.

- Religion of the Slavs — Funeral rites — Domestic and political customs: the family, the *mir* or commune, the *volost* or canton, the tribe — Cities — Industry — Agriculture. 39-49

### CHAPTER IV.

#### THE VARANGIANS: FORMATION OF RUSSIA; THE FIRST EXPEDITIONS AGAINST CONSTANTINOPLE, 862-972.

- The Northmen of Russia — Origin and customs of the Varangians — The first Russian princes: Rurik, Oleg, Igor — Expe-

vi

CONTENTS.

ditions against Constantinople—Olga—Christianity in Russia
— Sviatoslaf — The Danube disputed between the Russians
and Greeks ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... Pages 50-69

PRINCELY RUSSIA.

CHAPTER V.

THE CLOVIS AND CHARLEMAGNE OF THE RUSSIANS: SAINT
VLADIMIR AND IAROSLAF THE GREAT, 972-1054.

Vladimir (972-1015)—Conversion of the Russians—Iaroslaf
the Great (1016-1054)—Union of Russia—Splendour of
Kief—Varangian-Russian society at the time of Iaroslaf—
Progress of Christianity—Social, political, literary, and
artistic results ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 70-92

CHAPTER VI.

RUSSIA DIVIDED INTO PRINCIPALITIES — SUPREMACY AND
FALL OF KIEF, 1054-1169.

Distribution of Russia into principalities — Unity in division —
The successors of Iaroslaf the Great — Wars about the right
of headship of the royal family, and the throne of Kief —
Vladimir Monomachus — Wars between the heirs of Vladimir
Monomachus — Fall of Kief ... ... ... ... ... 93-111

CHAPTER VII.

RUSSIA AFTER THE FALL OF KIEF — POWER OF SOUZDAL
AND GALLICIA, 1169-1224.

Andrew Bogoliubski of Souzdal (1157-1174), and the first
attempt at autocracy — George II. (1212-1238) — Wars with
Novgorod — Battle of Lipetsk (1216) — Foundation of Nijni-
Novgorod (1220) — Roman (1188-1205) and his son Daniel
(1205-1264) in Gallicia ... ... ... ... ... 112-127

CONTENTS.

vii

CHAPTER VIII.

THE RUSSIAN REPUBLICS: NOVGOROD, PSKOF, AND VIATKA, UP TO 1224.

Novgorod the Great — Her struggles with the princes — Novgorodian institutions — Commerce — National Church — Literature — Pskof and Viatka .. .. .. Pages 128-145

THE INVASIONS FROM THE 12TH TO THE 14TH CENTURY.

CHAPTER IX.

THE LIVONIAN KNIGHTS: CONQUEST OF THE BALTIC PROVINCES BY THE GERMANS.

Conversion of Livonia — Rise of the Livonian knights: union with the Teutonic knights .. .. .. .. 146-152

CHAPTER X.

THE TATAR MONGOLS: ENSLAVEMENT OF RUSSIA.

Origin and manners of the Mongols — Battles of the Kalka, of Riazan, of Kolomna, and of the Sit — Conquest of Russia — Alexander Nevski — The Mongol yoke — Influence of the Tatars on the Russian development .. .. .. .. 153-180

CHAPTER XI.

THE LITHUANIANS: CONQUEST OF WESTERN RUSSIA (1240-1430).

The Lithuanians—Conquests of Mindvog (1240-1263), of Gedimin (1315-1340), and of Olgerd (1345-1377) — Jagellon — Union of Lithuania with Poland (1386) — The Grand Prince Vitovt (1392-1430) — Battles of the Vorskla (1399) and of Tannenberg (1410) .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 181-192

["viii", "CONTENTS.", "MUSCOVITE RUSSIA.", "CHAPTER XII.", "THE GRAND PRINCES OF MOSCOW: ORGANISATION OF\nEASTERN RUSSIA (1303-1462).", "Origin of Moscow — Daniel — George Danielovitch (1303-1325) and Ivan Kalita (1328-1341) — Contest with the house of Tver — Simeon the Proud and Ivan the Débonnaire (1341-1359) — Dmitri Donskoi (1363-1389) — Battle of Koulikovo — Vassili Dmitriévitch and Vassili the Blind (1389-1462).", "Pages 193-227", "CHAPTER XIII.", "IVAN THE GREAT, THE UNITER OF THE RUSSIAN LAND\n(1462-1505).", "Submission of Novgorod — Annexation of Tver, Rostof, and Iaroslavl — Wars with the Great Horde and Kazan — End of the Tatar yoke — Wars with Lithuania — Western Russia as far as the Soja reconquered — Marriage with Sophia Palæologus — Greeks and Italians at the Court of Moscow .. 228-248", "CHAPTER XIV.", "VASSILI IVANOVITCH (1505-1533).", "Annexation of Pskof, Riazan, and Novgorod-Severski — Wars with Lithuania — Acquisition of Smolensk — Wars with the Tatars — Diplomatic relations with Europe .. .. 249-258", "CHAPTER XV.", "IVAN THE TERRIBLE (1533-1584).", "Minority of Ivan IV. — He takes the title of Tzar (1547) — Conquest of Kazan (1552) and of Astrakhan (1554) — Contests with the Livonian Order, Poland, the Tatars, Sweden, and the Russian aristocracy — The English in Russia — Conquest of Siberia .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..

CONTENTS.

ix

CHAPTER XVI.

MUSCOVITE RUSSIA AND THE RENAISSANCE.

The Muscovite government — The kin and the men of the Tzar
— The prikazes — Rural classes — Citizens — Commerce —
Domestic slavery — Seclusion of women — The Renaissance :
Literature, popular songs, and cathedrals — Moscow in the
16th century .. .. .. .. .. .. .. Pages 301-334

CHAPTER XVII.

THE SUCCESSORS OF IVAN THE TERRIBLE: FEODOR IVANO-
VITCH AND BORIS GODOUNOF (1584-1605).

Feodor Ivanovitch (1584-1598) — The peasant attached to the
glebe — The patriarchate — Boris Godounof (1598-1605) —
Appearance of the false Dmitri .. .. .. 335-351

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE TIME OF THE TROUBLES (1605-1613).

Murder of the false Dmitri — Vassili Chouški — The brigand of
Touchino — Vladislas of Poland — The Poles at the Kremlin
National rising — Minine and Pojarski — Election of Michael
Romanof .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 352-370

CHAPTER XIX.

THE ROMANOFS: MICHAEL FEODOROVITCH AND THE
PATRIARCH PHILARETE (1613-1645).

Restorative measures — End of the Polish war — Relations with
Europe — The States-general .. .. .. .. 371-384

CHAPTER XX.

WESTERN RUSSIA IN THE 17TH CENTURY.

The political union of Lublin (1509), and the religious Union
(1595) — Complaints of White Russia — Risings in Little
Russia .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 385-397

X

# CONTENTS.

## CHAPTER XXI.

ALEXIS MIKHAILEVITCH (1645-1676) AND HIS SON FEODOR.

Early years of Alexis — Seditions — Khmelnitski — Conquest of Smolensk and the Eastern Ukraine — Stenko Razine — Ecclesiastical reforms of Nicon — The precursors of Peter the Great — Reign of Feodor Alexiévitch (1676-1682) — *Pages* 398-427

## CHAPTER XXII.

PETER THE GREAT: EARLY YEARS (1682-1709).

Regency of Sophia (1682-1689) — Peter I. — Expeditions against Azof (1695-1696) — First journey to the West (1697) — Revolt and destruction of the *streltsi* — Contest with the Cossacks: revolt of the Don (1706); Mazeppa (1709).

428-456

# HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

## CHAPTER I.

### GEOGRAPHY OF RUSSIA.

Eastern and Western Europe compared: seas, mountains, climate — The four zones — Russian rivers and history — Geographical unity of Russia.

EASTERN AND WESTERN EUROPE COMPARED: SEAS, MOUNTAINS, CLIMATE.

EUROPE may be roughly divided into two unequal parts. If we give 4,000,000 square miles to the whole of Europe, only 1,800,000 belong to the western, 2,200,000 to the eastern part. The former division is shared between all the monarchies and republics of Europe, Russia excepted; the latter is united under the Russian sceptre. Nature, not less than policy or religion, has established a strong opposition between the two regions, between Eastern and Western Europe.

The shores of the latter are everywhere broken up by inland seas, pierced by deep gulfs, jagged with peninsulas, isthmuses, capes, and promontories; islands and crowded archipelagos are thickly sprinkled along the coasts. Great Britain and the

VOL. I.

B

2

HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

Greek peninsula particularly, which have a coast-line out of all proportion to their area, contrast with the impenetrable compact mass of Eastern Europe. This strongly-marked outline of the western lands is the characteristic feature of European geography, while the immense spaces of which Russia is composed seem the continuation of the plains and plateaux of Northern and Central Asia. No doubt Russia is washed by many seas: in the north by the Icy Ocean, which bites deep into the country through the great fissure of the White Sea; in the south by the Caspian, the Sea of Azof, and the Black Sea; in the north-west by the Baltic and the gulfs of Bothnia, Finland, and Livonia; but, with all these seas, it has only a comparatively meagre share of sea-board. While the rest of Europe has about 15,525 miles of coast, Russia, with a much more considerable surface, possesses only 5514 miles of coast; and of this nearly half (2680 miles) belongs to the Icy Ocean and the White Sea. Now, these two seas are only navigable during a few months of the year, from June to September, at furthest. The Baltic, in its two most northern gulfs, freezes easily; armies have been able to cross on the ice, with all their artillery and supplies; navigation is stopped from the month of November to the end of April. The Caspian often freezes, especially in its northern half, which includes Astrakhan, its most flourishing port. The Sea of Azof, here and there, is little better than a marsh. It may be said that, with the exception of the Euxine, the Russian seas have an anti-European character; they cannot be of the same use as our western seas. From this point of view Russia is worse endowed by nature than any other European country; compared with the privileged lands of the

GEOGRAPHY OF RUSSIA.

3

West, she might be styled continental Europe, in
opposition to maritime Europe.

Western Europe, so jagged in its contour, is no
less broken in its surface. Without speaking of
the vast central mass of the Alps, there is not
one European land which does not possess, either
in its length or breadth, a great mountain system
forming the scaffolding or the backbone of the country.
England has her chain of the Peak and her High-
lands; France has her Cevennes and her central
support in Auvergne; Spain her Pyrenees and the
Sierras; Italy her Apennines; Germany her ranges
in Suabia, Franconia, and the Hartz; Sweden her
Scandinavian Alps; the Greco-Slav peninsula has
the Balkan and Pindus. What mountains Russia
possesses, on the other hand, are banished, as it were,
to the extremities of her territory. She is bounded
on the north-west by the granitic system of Finland,
on the south-east by the branches of the Carpathians,
to the south by the rocky plateaux of the Crimea
with the Yaïla and the Tchardyr-Dagh (5183 feet),
by the Caucasus, extending over 687 miles, where
Elburz (18,000 feet) surpasses by more than 2000
feet the highest mountain in Europe, Mont Blanc.
To the east is the Oural range, the longest chain of
mountains (1531 miles) in Europe or Asia, running
parallel to the meridians of longitude, with peaks
6233 feet high. In the Tatar language, the word
*Oural* signifies girdle, but it is not only the Ourals
which may be called the mountain girdle; all the
mountains of Russia deserve this name. They bound
her, they confine her, but have only a slight in-
fluence on the configuration of her interior and the
distribution of her waters. From the Carpathians
and the Caucasus only secondary rivers flow, while

B 2

4

HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

the four great Russian streams take their rise in hills not 300 feet high.* We must observe also that none of these mountains form a separate system; they are nearly all fragments of systems belonging to other countries. The empire of the Tzars is thus a huge plain, which is continued on the west by the level lands of Poland and Prussia, and on the east by the limitless steppes of Siberia and Turkestan, and is in striking contrast with the rugged and multiform soil of the west. From this point of view, Russia may be defined as the Europe of plains, in opposition to the Europe of mountains.

Uniformity of surface is never quite complete, and Russia does present inequalities of soil, though these are far less notable than the depressions and elevations of the West. In the faintly-marked soil of Russia, we must notice, in the centre of the country, a kind of square table-land, called the central plateau, or the plateau of Alaoune, from the name of its northern part. The north-eastern angle is formed by the heights of the Valdaï plateau, where the hills are 300 feet high; the western side of the central plateau by the small hills of the Dnieper, which extend as far as the *Cataracts*; the southern side by the heights which reach from Koursk to Saratof; the eastern side by the sandy stretches which extend along the right bank of the Volga and the Kama; the northern side by the undulations of the land which separate the basin of the Volga from the rivers that drain into the Icy Ocean. The central plateau is besides divided into two unequal parts by the deep valleys of the Upper Volga, of the Oka, and their tributaries.

(Considerable depressions correspond to this swell-

* 1100 feet above the level of the sea.

GEOGRAPHY OF RUSSIA.

5

ing in the centre of the Russian plateau:—1. Between the plateau of the Valdaï and the north-east slope of the Carpathians lies a deep valley, in which during the quaternary age the Baltic and Euxine mingled their waves. It is traversed on the north by the southern Düna or Dwina, and the Nien-men; on the south by the Dnieper, and its affluents; it reaches its lowest level in the wide marshes of Pinsk. 2. Between the low rocks on the right bank of the Volga and the spurs of the Oural (obchtchii sirt), the soil gradually sinks throughout the whole length of the Volga, and reaches the level of the sea at the Caspian, which is 80 feet lower than the Black Sea: here are the steppes of Kirghiz, the lowest part of European Russia, formerly the bed of a great inland mere which was gradually dried up, and of which the Caspian, the Lake of Aral, and other sheets of water are only the remains. If the Caspian could only regain the level of the Black Sea, a large part of this sterile plain, now covered with saline efflorescence, would be inundated anew. 3. The third great depression of the Russian soil is the slope of the north, covered with lakes and marshes, where the frozen toundra are lost amongst the ice-fields of the Polar Ocean and the White Sea. 4. The region of the lakes Saïma, Onega, Ladoga, which is continued by the sandy tracts of the Baltic, and which forms a series of deep cavities, where the waters of the Baltic and the White Sea must once have found a meeting-point.

From the fact that Russia, taken as a whole, is only a vast plain, it follows that her surface is swept by Polar winds, which no mountain barrier keeps out, for the Oural chain runs in a direction parallel to their course. From the fact, again, that Russia is only

6

HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

washed by seas, small in proportion to the extent of
the land, it results that the temperature is modified
neither by sea-breezes, which in the West warm in
winter and refresh in summer, nor by the aërial and
marine current of the Gulf Stream, which finally
expires on the coasts and on the mountains of
Scandinavia, without being able to influence the
shores of the Baltic. In parallel latitudes this Scan-
dinavian mountain-chain makes a notable difference
between the Norwegian and the Swedish-Russian
climate.

Russia then, like the interior of Asia, Africa, or
Australia, has to undergo the effects of a purely con-
tinental climate. The first of these effects is a violent
contrast between the seasons. The Russian plain is
subject in turn to the influences of Polar regions and
to those of Central and Southern Asia, of the deserts
of ice and the deserts of burning sand. "Under
the latitude of Paris and of Venice," says M. Anatole
Leroy-Beaulieu, "the countries situated to the north
of the Black Sea and the Caspian have the tempe-
rature of Stockholm in January, and the temperature
of Madeira in July. At Astrakhan, in the latitude of
Geneva, it is by no means rare for the temperature to
vary from 70 to 75 degrees* in a period of six months.
On the coasts of the Caspian, in the latitude of
Avignon, the cold descends to 30° below freezing;
in summer, on the contrary, the heat rises to up-
wards of 40°. In the steppes of the Kirghiz, in the
latitude of the centre of France, the mercury is
sometimes frozen for whole days; while in the sum-
mer the same thermometer, if not carefully watched,
bursts in the sun. Near the shores of the Sea of
Aral these extremes of temperature reach their maxi-

† Centigrade.

GEOGRAPHY OF RUSSIA.

7

mum; there are intervals of 80°, perhaps of 90° centigrade, between the greatest cold and the greatest heat." Even at Moscow, they have had cold of 33° and heat of 28°; at St. Petersburg, the temperature may shift between the extremes of from 30° to 35° of cold to 31° of heat.

The second consequence of the continental climate of Russia is that the winds do not reach the country till they have lost on the way part of their humidity. Russia suffers generally from dryness. At Kazan the rainfall is only half that of Paris; it is for this reason that Russia contains so many barren and unwooded plains, while this absence of forests all through the south is, in its turn, an obstacle to the formation of hills and springs and to the development of a healthy moisture.

St. Petersburg, situated on the 60th parallel of northern latitude, is the most northern capital of the whole world. The longest day in this city lasts 18 hours 45 minutes; the sun rises on that day at 20 minutes to 3, and sets at 25 minutes past 9, but the twilight is prolonged to the moment of dawn. For two months there is no night. The shortest day is 5 hours 47 minutes; the sun rises at 5 minutes past 9, and sets at 8 minutes to 3. The Aurora Borealis is frequent in the north of Russia, while the mirage is often seen in the steppes of the south.

Russia being a country of plains, the geological beds of which the soil is formed are nearly always horizontal; no raising of the soil has broken them, rent the beds of stone, and driven the fragments through the layers of mould or sand. It follows that, except in the neighbourhood of mountains, stone is very scarce in Russia. This fact has had much influence on the economic and artistic development of

8

HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

the country. The people were obliged to build with
other materials than in the West. The public build-
ings were everywhere of oak and pine, or of brick;
the old churches, the palaces of the Tzars, the ramparts
of the towns, were of wood; of wood are the present
houses of the citizens, and the *isbas* of the peasants.
Russian villages, and most of the towns, are a col-
lection of combustible materials: hence the fires
which break out periodically, and justify the saying
that Russia, as a rule, was burned every seven years.
Buildings of such materials cannot assume the
colossal proportions of the castles of the Isle de
France, or of the Rhenish cathedrals; the old
churches of Russia are small. It is only since the
conquest of the Baltic and the Black Sea that the
empire has had cities of stone. Peter the Great gave
Russia her first stone capital. From the geological
point of view, then, Russia may be defined, according
to the expression of M. Sollovief, as the *Europe of
wood*, in opposition to the *Europe of stone*.

RUSSIAN RIVERS AND HISTORY.

In a country so extensive and so destitute of sea-
board as Russia, rivers have an immense importance,
and with rivers Eastern Europe is well endowed.
It is her watercourses which prevent Russia from
being a continent closed and sealed, like Africa or
Australia. In place of arms of the sea, she has
great rivers which penetrate to her centre, and have
sometimes almost the proportions of seas. In the
level plains they have not the impetuous current of
the Rhone, they flow peacefully through great beds
cut in the sand or clay. The rivers were for a long
while the only means of communication. When the

GEOGRAPHY OF RUSSIA.

9

Russian princes wished to make a progress through their dominions, or begin a campaign, they had either to take advantage of winter, which from the Dnieper to the Oural gave them a flat surface for their sledges, or await the thaw and follow the course of the rivers. Boats in summer, sledges in winter, were the only means of conveyance; in spring, the thaw and floods, which transformed the plain into a marsh, brought the *raspoutitsa* (the season of bad roads). Commerce followed the same routes as war or government. The rivers which, in Russia especially, are "the roads that run," explain the rapidity with which we see the characters of Russian history traverse immense spaces, and go as easily from Novgorod to Kief, from Moscow to Kazan, as a French king from his good city of Paris to Rheims or Orleans. The rivers are the allies of the Russians against what they call "their great enemy"—space. Russian conquest or colonisation has everywhere followed the course of the waters; it was on the banks of the Oka, the Kama, the Don, and the Volga, that the Russian element of the population chiefly gathered, the aboriginal races everywhere retreating into the thickness of the primitive forests.

The plateau of Valdaï is the dominant point in the river-system of Russia. It is near this plateau, in the lake Volgo, that the Volga, which ultimately falls into the Caspian, takes its rise. In this neighbourhood also are the sources of the Dnieper (flowing to the Black Sea), the Niemen, the Dwina, which falls into the Baltic, the Velikaïa, a tributary of the Peipus, the rivers forming lake Ilmen, and those which feed the lakes Ladoga and Onega, whence rises the Neva. The hydrographic centre of Russia being at the north-west angle of the central plateau,

10

HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

it follows that the slopes are turned to the south and to the east; a disposition which has had its influence on the development of the national history. This history, indeed, begins in the north-west, near the Valdaï plateau; on the Peïpus and the Ilmen the old commercial cities of Pskof and Novgorod are established. What is their opening to the sea? Not the Narova, which falls out of lake Peïpus, and of which the course is broken by cataracts, but the network of rivers and lakes which terminates in the Neva, the Thames of Russia, a river of little length but immense breadth, on which St. Petersburg, the Novgorod of the 18th century, was afterwards to be built. In primitive times Novgorod was safer in the centre of this network of rivers and lakes than she would have been on the Neva. By the Volkhof her vessels sailed from the Ilmen to the Ladoga, and by the Neva from the Ladoga to the Gulf of Finland, and the great Baltic Sea. Other small rivers put her in communication with the lake Onega and the White Lake (Bicloe-Ozéro); by the Soukhona and the northern Dwina she had relations with the White Sea, where later the port of Arkhangel arose. By the tributaries of the Dwina the Novgorod explorers penetrated deep into the northern forests, peopled by aboriginal races, on whom they imposed tribute. The watersheds between the slope to the White Sea, the basin of the Novgorod lakes, and the basin of the Volga, are scarcely marked at all. The rivers seem to hesitate at their rise between two opposite courses: some of them never make up their minds, like the sluggish Cheksna which connects the White Sea and the Volga. This interlacement of the water-system, which makes the northern Dwina, the Neva, the Niemen, and the southern Dwina mere prolonga-

GEOGRAPHY OF RUSSIA.

11

tions of the Volga and the Dnieper, and puts the four Russian seas in unbroken communication, is in itself a sufficient explanation of the extent of the conquests and great commercial position of Novgorod the Great.

On the Dnieper, Russia, to rival the Russia of Novgorod, founded at a very early date the *Rouss* of Kief. She too followed the line marked out for her by the course of the Dnieper, which neces- sarily led her to the Black Sea and the Byzantine world.

It was by the Dnieper that the fleets of war de- scended against Constantinople; it was by this river too that Greek civilisation and Christianity reached Kief. The Dnieper, which had made the greatness of Kief, hastened its decay. As a medium of com- munication it was imperfect. The celebrated cata- racts below Kief formed an insurmountable barrier to navigation, and consequently the city could not remain the political and commercial capital of Russia.

The Don, notwithstanding its length of 621 miles, has had little influence on the evolution of Russian history. During the whole period of the growth of the nation it remained in the power of the Asiatic hordes. In later years it fell, with Azov, into the possession of the Turks. The sandy shallows near its mouth would in any case have proved fatal to its commercial importance. The Dwina and the Nie- men also remained till the 18th century in the hands of the native Finns and Lithuanians, or of the German conquerors.

The river, *par excellence*, of Russia is the Volga, —the “mother Volga,” as the popular singers call it. If the Neva, with the great lakes which feed it, may be compared to the St. Lawrence, the Volga

12

HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

may be compared to the Mississippi. With a length
of 2336 miles, it has a course 250 leagues longer than
that of the Danube. Many of its tributaries may be
reckoned among the great rivers of the world. The
Oka, with its 633 miles of length, surpasses the Meuse
and the Oder; the Kama, 1266 miles long, outvies
all other European rivers except the Danube; for the
Elbe is only 643 miles, the Loire 681, and the Rhine
812 in length. The junction of the Volga and Oka
at Nijni-Novgorod is like the meeting of two arms of
the sea; it is an imposing spectacle to contemplate
from the hill on which the upper town is built, while
the lower town or the fair, with its 100,000 fluc-
tuating inhabitants, spreads its buildings on the
banks of both rivers. The Volga, which near Iaro-
slavl is 2106 feet broad, has a breadth of 4593 above
Kazan; towards Samara sometimes it decreases to
2446 feet; sometimes it spreads, with its tributary
streams and lateral branches, over a breadth of
17 miles. At the Caspian it divides into seventy-
five branches, forming numerous islands, and its
delta spreads over 93 miles. This immense river,
the waters of which abound with fish as large as
sea-fish,—sturgeon, salmon, lampreys,—and where
the sterlet sometimes weighs 1073 pounds, would be
the wonder of Europe, if it was not frost-bound
during many months in the year. But at the thaw
the ports, the dockyards, the wharves, are full of
life. Two hundred thousand workmen flock from all
parts of Russia to its banks. Fifteen thousand ships
and 500 steamboats plough its waters. Kostroma,
Nijni-Novgorod, Kazan, Simbirsk, Samara, Saratof,
Astrakhan, are filled with noise and movement. The
whole life of Russia seems concentrated on the Volga.

The basin of the Volga and its tributaries embraces

GEOGRAPHY OF RUSSIA.

13

an extent of surface nearly treble that of France. The basin of the Oka alone has three times the extent of the basin of the Loire. In her vast domain the Volga included nearly the whole of the Russia of the 16th century, and has exercised an irresistible influence over the destiny of the land. From the day that the Grand Princes established their capital on the Moskowa, a tributary of the Oka and sub-tributary of the Volga, Russia turned to the east, and began her struggle with the Turks and Tatars. The Dnieper made Russia Byzantine, the Volga made her Asiatic: it was for the Neva to make her European. The whole history of this country is the history of its three great rivers, and is divided into three periods: that of the Dnieper with Kief, that of the Volga with Moscow, that of the Neva with Novgorod in the 8th century, and St. Petersburg in the 18th. The greatness of this creation of Peter I. consisted in his transporting his capital to the Baltic, without abandoning the Caspian and the Volga, and in seeking for the great Eastern river a new outlet which should open a communication with Western seas. Thanks to the canals of the Tikvinka and of the Ladoga, which furnished that outlet, the Neva has become, as it were, the northern mouth, the European estuary of the Volga.

## THE FOUR ZONES—THE GEOGRAPHICAL UNITY OF RUSSIA.

From the point of view of production, Russia may be divided into four unequal bands, which run from the south-west to the north-east, namely: the zone of forests, that of the *Tchernoziom* or Black Land, that of the arable steppes or prairies, and that of the barren steppes.

14

HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

1. The most northerly and largest zone is the *poliessa* or Russian forest, which borders on one side on the frozen marshes and the *toundra* of the icy shore, and on the other on the wide clearings formed by the agricultural enterprise of Novgorod, Moscow, and Iaroslavl. In the north the forest begins with the larch; in the centre resinous trees, with their dark foliage, alternate with the small leaves and white bark of the birch; further south come the lime, the elm, and the sycamore, and the oak appears at the southern limit.

2. The Black Land extends from the banks of the Pruth to the Caucasus, over the widest extent of Russia; it even passes the Oural and the Caucasus, and is prolonged into Asia. It derives its name from a deep bed of black mould of inexhaustible fertility, which produces without manure the richest harvests, and may be compared to a gigantic Beauce, 375,000 miles square, a corn-field as large as the whole of France. From this alone twenty-five millions are fed, and the population increases daily. From time immemorial this soil has been the granary of Eastern Europe. It was here Herodotus placed his agricultural Scythians, and hence Athens drew her grain.

3. The zone of arable steppes lies parallel to the Black Land; to the south it descends nearly to the sea: the country is fertile, though it cannot do without manure. It formed before tillage a bare grass-grown plain, completely devoid of wood, and with its 375,000 miles square recalls the American prairie. The vegetation of the steppe, where men and flocks can hide themselves as in a forest, is often five, six, and even eight feet high. This monotonous steppe, unbroken except by the barrows that cover the bones of early races,—this steppe, which is an ocean

GEOGRAPHY OF RUSSIA.

15

of verdure in spring, but russet and burnt up in the
autumn, is very dear to her children. It was for
long the Russia of heroes, the property of nomad
horsemen, the country of the Cossack. The Black
Land and the prairie, which is nearly as fertile, have
a superficies of 750,000 miles square, or 300,000,000
of acres of excellent earth, a surface equal to that of
France and Austrian Hungary united.

4. The fourth zone, that of the barren steppes, steppes which are sandy at the mouth of the Dnieper, clay to the north of the Crimea, saline to the north of the Caspian, only contains 1,500,000 inhabitants in its whole extent of 250,000 miles. "Unsuited to agriculture, and in a great degree to civilised life," says M. Leroy-Beaulieu, "these vast spaces, like the neighbouring plains of Asia, seem only fit for the raising of cattle and the nomad existence. Of all Russia in Europe, these are the only parts which even at the present day are inhabited by the Kirghiz and the Kalmucks, nomad tribes of Asia, and up to a few years ago by the Tatars of the Crimea and the Nogaïs. Here the Asiatics appear as much at home as in their native country."

The productive parts of Russia are these: the *prairie*, the *Black Land*, and in the zone of forests the agricultural and industrial region of Novgorod, Moscow, Nijni-Novgorod, and Kazan. Were the sea-level to rise and drown the northern part of the *poliessa* and the barren steppes of the south, nothing would be taken from the real force and riches of Russia.

These alternations of low plains and plateaux, this diversity in the direction of the great rivers, this division into forests and barren and arable steppes, does not hinder Eastern Europe from presenting a

16

HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

remarkable unity. None of the parts of Russia could remain isolated from the others; the plains admit of no barrier, no frontier; those which the rivers might impose would be effaced in winter under the chariot-wheels of armies, when the land is ice-bound from the White Sea to the Euxine, and the climate is almost as severe at Kief as at Arkhangel. All these regions, which resume their different characters in spring, are kept together by economical interests and needs. The forest zone needs the corn of the Dnieper, the cattle of the Volga; the steppes of the south need the wood of the north. The commerce with Europe, which was conducted by means of the northern Dwina, the Neva and the southern Dwina, was completed by that with the south and the east, carried on by the Dnieper and the Volga.

Only the region of Moscow, where fields and woods alternate, was long sufficient for its own wants; but since Moscow has turned to industrial arts, she needs help from others. In early times she united the products of the north and the south; she thus formed the connecting link between them, and ended by becoming their ruler. Even Novgorod was forced to acknowledge her dependence on the princes established on the Oka, who had only to forbid the transportation of corn from the Upper Volga to the region of the lakes to reduce the Great Republic to obedience.

The wide plains of Russia are as evidently destined to be united as Switzerland to be divided. Between the Carpathians and the Ourals, between the Caucasus and the system of Finland, nature has marked out a vast empire of which the mountain girdle forms the framework. How this framework has been filled in is the lesson that history has to teach us.

ETHNOGRAPHY OF RUSSIA.

71

CHAPTER II.

ETHNOGRAPHY OF RUSSIA.

Greek Colonies and the Scythia of Herodotus — The Russian Slavs of Nestor — Lithuanian, Finnish, and Turkish hordes in the ninth century — Division of the Russians proper into three branches — How Russia was colonised.

GREEK COLONIES AND THE SCYTHIA OF HERODOTUS.

THE early Greeks had established factories and founded flourishing colonies on the northern shores of the Black Sea. The Milesians and Megarians built Tomi or Kustenje, near the Danube, Istros at its mouth, Tyras at that of the Dniester, Odessos at that of the Bug, Olbia at that of the Dnieper, Chersonesos or Cherson on the roadstead of Sebastopol, Pala-kion which afterwards became Balaclava, Theodosia which became Kaffa, Panticapea (Kertch), and Phan-agoria on the two shores of the Strait of Ienikale, Tanaïs at the mouth of the Don, Apatouros in the Kuban, Phasis, Dioscurias, Pityus at the foot of the Caucasus, on the coast of ancient Colchis. Panti-capea, Phanagoria and Theodosia formed, in the 4th century B.C., a confederation with a hereditary chief called the Archon of the Bosphorus at its head, whose authority was also acknowledged by some of the barbarous tribes.

Russian archæologists, and quite recently, M. Ouvarof, have brought to light many monuments of Greek civilisation, funeral pillars, inscriptions, bas-

VOL. I.

C

18

HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

reliefs, statues of gods and heroes. We know that the colonists carefully preserved the Greek civilization, cultivated the arts of their mother cities, repeated the poems of Homer as they marched to battle, loved eloquent speeches as late as the time of Dion Chrysostom, and offered a special cult to the memory of Achilles. Beyond the line of Greek colonies dwelt a whole world of tribes, whom the Greeks designated by the common name of Scythians, with whom they entered into wars and alliances, and who served them as middlemen in their trade with the countries of the north. Herodotus has handed on to us nearly all that was known of these barbarians in the 5th century B.C.

The Scythians worshipped a sword fixed in the earth as an image of the god of war, and bedewed it with sacrifices of human gore. They drank the blood of the first enemy killed in battle, scalped their prisoners, and used their skulls as drinking-cups. They gave their kings terrible burial-rites, and celebrated the anniversaries of their death by strangling their horses and slaves, and leaving the impaled corpses to surround the royal *kourgan* with a circle of horsemen. They honoured the memory of the wise Anacharsis, who travelled among the Greeks. Their nomad hordes defied the power of Darius Hystaspes.

Among the Scythians properly so called, Herodotus distinguished the *agricultural* Scythians established on the Dnieper, probably in the *tchernoziom* of the Ukraine; the *nomad* Scythians, who extended fourteen days' journey to the east; the *royal* Scythians encamped round the Sea of Azof, who regarded the other Scythians as their slaves.

The barbarism of the inland tribes became rapidly modified under the influence of the powerful cities of

ETHNOGRAPHY OF RUSSIA.

19

Olbia and Chersonesos, and the Greco-Scythian state of the Bosphorus. In the tombs of the Scythian kings of what is now the government of Ekaterinoslav, as well as in those of the Greco-Scythian princes of the Bosphorus, works of art have been found which show the genius of the Greeks accommodating itself to the taste of the barbarians, precious vases chiselled for them by Athenian artists, and all the jewels which at present enrich the museums of Kertch, Odessa, and St. Petersburg.

The Hermitage Museum at St. Petersburg, in particular, possesses two vases of an incomparable artistic and archaeologic value. They are the silver vase of Nicopol (government of Ekaterinoslav) and the golden vase of Kertch, and date from the 4th century B.C., or about the period when Herodotus wrote his history, of which they are the lively commentary. The Scythians of the silver vase, with their long hair, their long beards, large features, tunics and trousers, reproduce very fairly the physiognomy, stature and costume of the present inhabitants of the same countries; we see them breaking-in and bridling their horses in exactly the same way as they do it to-day in those plains. The Scythians of the golden vase, notwithstanding their pointed caps, their garments embroidered and ornamented after the Asiatic taste, and their strangely-shaped bows, are of a very marked Aryan type. The former might very well have been the agricultural Scythians of Herodotus, perhaps the ancestors of the agricultural Slavs of the Dnieper; the latter, the royal Scythians who led a nomad and warlike life. The philological studies of M. Bergmann and M. Müllendorf tend to identify the Scythian idiom with the Indo-European family of languages. "They were then," says M. Georges

c 2

20

HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

Perrot, "in spite of many apparent differences of language, customs and civilisation, nearly related to the Greeks, and this kinship perhaps contributed, without the knowledge of either Greeks or barbarians, to facilitate the relations between Hellenes and Scythians."

Herodotus takes care to make an emphatic distinction between the Scythians properly so called, and certain other peoples about whom he has strange stories to tell. These peoples are the Melanchlainai, who wear black raiment; the Neuri, who, once a year, become were-wolves; the Agathyrsi, who array themselves in golden ornaments, and have their women in common; the Sauromati, sprung from the loves of the Scythians with the Amazons; the Budini and Geloni, slightly tinged with Greek culture; the Thysagetæ, the Massagetæ, the Iyrx, who lived on the produce of the chase; the Argippei, who were bald and snub-nosed from their birth; the Issedones, who used to devour their dead parents with great pomp and ceremony; the one-eyed Arimaspians; the Gryphons, guardians of fabled gold; the Hyperboreans, who dwell in a land where, summer and winter, the snow-flakes fall, like a shower of white feathers.

It seems probable that among all these peoples there may be some who have since emigrated westwards, and who may belong to the German and Gothic races. Others, again, may have continued to maintain themselves, under different names, in Eastern Europe, such as the Slavs, the Finns, and even a certain number of Turkish tribes. M. Rittich believes he can identify the *Melanchlainai* of Herodotus with the Esthonians, who still prefer dark raiment; the *Androphagi* with the Samoyedes, whose

ETHNOGRAPHY OF RUSSIA.

21

name is derived from the Finnish word *suomeadnæ*;
the *Issedones* with the Vogouls, who may very well
have dwelt on the Isseta, a sub-tributary of the Obi;
the *Arimaspians* with Votiaks, whom the Turks now
call Ari; the *Argippei*, Aorses, and Zyrians of
Strabo with the Erzes or Zyrians; the *Massugetes*
with the Bachkirs. M. Vivien de Saint-Martin re-
cognises the *Agathyrsi* in the Agatzirs of Priscus
(A.D. 449), and Acatzirs of Jornandes, who are the
Khazars. The Finns, then, have formed the most
widely-spread race of Scythia.

THE RUSSIAN SLAVS OF NESTOR THE CHRONICLER—
LITHUANIAN, FINNISH, AND TURKISH CLANS IN
THE NINTH CENTURY.

The great barbaric invasions in the 4th century
of our era formed a period of change and terrible
catastrophe in Eastern Europe. The Goths, under
Hermanaric, founded a vast empire in Eastern Scythia.
The Huns, under Attila, overthrew this Gothic do-
minion, and a cloud of Finnish peoples, Avars and
Bulgarians, followed later by Magyars and Khazars,
hurried swiftly on the traces of the Huns. In the
midst of this strife and medley of peoples, the Slavs
came to the front with their own marked character,
and appeared in history under their proper name.
They were described by the Greek chroniclers and
by the Emperors Maurice and Constantine Porphyro-
genitus. They clashed against the Roman Empire
of the East; they began the secular duel between
the Greek and Slavonic races, a duel which is still
being waged for the prize of mastery in the penin-
sula of the Balkans. Certain tribes formed a sepa-

22

HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

rate group among the others, and received the name of the Russian Slavs. Nestor, the first Russian historian, a monk of Kief, of the 12th century, has described their geographical distribution as it existed two hundred years before his time. The Slavs, properly so called, inhabited the basin of the Ilmen, and the west bank of Lake Peipus; their towns, Novgorod, Pskof, Izborsk, appear in the very beginning of the history of Russia. The Krivitches, again, were settled on the sources of the Dwina and the Dnieper, round their city of Smolensk. The Polotchans had Polotsk, on the Upper Dwina. The Dregovitches dwelt on the west of the Dwina and of the Upper Dnieper, and held Tourof. The Radiitches abode on the Soja, a tributary of the Dnieper, and possessed the old cities of Ouvritch and Korosthenes; the Viatitches on the Higher Oka; the Drevlians, so called from the thick forests which covered their territory, in the basin of the Pripet. Between the Desna and the Dnieper the Severians were established; their towns were Loubetch, Tchernigof, and Pereiaslavl. The Polians faced the Severians on the right bank of the Dnieper; Kief was their centre. The White Croats abode between the Dniester and the Carpathians; the Tivertses and the Loutitches on the Lower Dniester and the Pruth; the Doulebes and the Boujans on the Bug, a tributary of the Vistula.

Nestor's list of the Russian Slavs shows that, in the 9th century of our era, when their history begins, they occupied but a small part of the Russia of to-day. They were almost completely penned in the districts of the Dwina and the Upper Dnieper, of the Ilmen and the Dniester. In all the immense basin of the Caspian, their share was only the land

ETHNOGRAPHY OF RUSSIA.

23

they occupied around the sources of the Volga and the Oka.

On the west and north, the Russian Slavs bor-
dered on other Slavonic tribes, which, about this
period, acquired distinct national names. Some
groups, scattered about the Upper Elbe and the two
banks of the Vistula, after the invasion of the
Tcheques and the Liakhs or Lechites (from the
4th to the 7th century), formed themselves into the
States of Bohemia and Poland.

Other tribes on the March, or Morava, made, in
the kingdom of Moravia, their first attempt to secure
political existence (9th century). Certain others
scattered on the Lower Danube formed the kingdom
of Bulgaria, after the invasion of the Bulgarians
under Asparuch (680). In a more distant land on
the Adriatic, the Servian and Croatian tribes were
preparing to organise themselves into the kingdoms
of Croatia, Dalmatia, and Servia. On the Baltic
were the Slavs of Pomerania, of Brandenburg
(Havelians), and Sprevanians of the banks of the
Elbe (Obotrites, Wiltzes, Lutitzes, and Sorabians or
Sorbes), all one day to be absorbed by the German
Conquest.

At this period there was little difference between
Russian and Polish Slavs. M. Koulich thinks that
conquests achieved by two different races of men;
that the adoption of two irreconcilable creeds (those
of Rome and of Byzantium); that the influence of
two rival civilisations, the Greek and the Latin, with
their separate literatures and alphabets;—that all
these influences created two antagonistic peoples in
the midst of a race of one blood, and stamped on the
inert and unconscious material of the Slavonic kin-
dred the impress of two hostile nationalities. The

24

HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

Slav, moulded by the Lechites, converted to the Church of Rome, and subject to the influences of the West, became the Pole. The Slav, moulded by the Varangians, converted to the Greek Church, and subject to Byzantine influences, became the Russian. In the beginning, on the Vistula as on the Dnieper, all were Slavs alike; all practised the same heathen ritual; all were governed by the same traditions, and spoke almost the same language. Indeed, the affinities of the Russian and Polish idioms, between which the dialects of White Russia, of Red Russia, and of Little Russia serve as links, sufficiently demonstrate an original brotherhood, which the strifes of churches and of thrones have destroyed.

The Russian Slavs, before taking possession of all the domain assigned to them by history, had to struggle in the north and east against the nations belonging to three principal races, the Letto-Lithuanians, the Finns, and the Turks, in whom Finnish and Tatar elements were more or less mingled. The Finns and the Turks belong to that branch of the human family which has been named, from its twofold cradle of the Oural and the Altai, Ouralo-Altaic. The first of these races belongs to the Aryan family, but is nevertheless distinct from the Germanic or Slav races, and its dialects have more resemblance to Sanscrit than any other European tongue. The Jmouds and the Lithuanians, properly so called, dwell on the Niemen, the Iatviagues on the Narev. On the western shore of the Gulf of Riga and on the Baltic, the Korscs, who give their name to Courland, are to be found, while the Semigalli inhabit the left bank of the Dwina; and the Letgols, from whom are descended, by a mingling with the Finnish race of Livonians, the

ETHNOGRAPHY OF RUSSIA.

25

Letts or Latiches of Southern Livonia. The Livonians on the gulfs of Livonia and Finland, and the Tchoud-Esthonians, who gave their name to Peipus, the Lake of the Tchouds, belong to the Finnish race. They are the ancestors of the present inhabitants of Northern Livonia and Esthonia. The three so-called German provinces of the Baltic are then Lettish in the south, Finnish in the north. The Narovians were established on the Narova, which is a territory of the Peipus; the Votes or Vodes, between the Volkhof and the sea, in a country called by the Novgorodians, Vodskaiia Piatina; the Ingrians or Ijors, on the Ijora or Ingra, a tributary on the left bank of the Neva. The Tchoud-Esthonians at the present day number 719,000, the Livonians 2540, the Vodes 5000, and the Ingrians 18,000.

Finland or Suomen-maa (land of the Suomi) is still inhabited by the Suomi, who were divided into three tribes, the Iames or Tavasts on the south-east, round Iamburg and Tavastehus; the Kvins or Kaïans, on the Gulf of Bothnia; the Carelians, who were more numerous than the two other nations put together, occupied the rest of Finland. These three peoples at present amount to a total of 1,450,000. The north of Finland was and is inhabited by the Laps or Laplanders, who form a special division of the Finnish race, and reckon in Russia about 4000 souls. The shores of the Icy Ocean, from the Mezen to the Yenissei, have been always occupied by the Samoyedes, a very wide-spread but far from numerous people, who amount in Europe to about 5000 souls. In the time of Nestor the Vesses dwelt on the Cheksna and the White Lake; the Mouromians (whose name is repeated in that of Mourom) on the Oka and its affluents, the Moskowa and the Kliazma; the Merians

26

HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

on the Upper Volga around the Lake Klechtchine
and Lake Nero or Rostof. These three tribes have
completely disappeared, having been absorbed or
transformed by the Russian colonisation, but leave
behind them innumerable *kourgans* or *tumuli*. Be-
tween 1851 and 1854, M. Ouvarof and M. Savelief
excavated 7729 in the Merian country alone. Be-
sides these monuments and the remains which they
contain, the only traces left of these tribes are to be
found in names of places, and in certain peculiarities
of the local dialects. It was around their territory
that the Muscovite State and the Russian empire were
formed. The Tchoud-Zavolotchians were encamped
on the Lower Dwina; the Erzes, or Zyrians, inhabited
the basin of the Petchora; the Permians, the source of
the Dwina and the Kama; the Votiaks or Ari lived
on the Viatka, where the town of Viatka still pre-
serves their name. These races form what is called
the Permian branch of the Finnish nation; their
country was named by the Scandinavians, Biarmia
or Biarmaland, and "Great Permia" by the Musco-
vites. Biarmaland was discovered in the 9th cen-
tury by the Norwegian navigator Other, who not
long afterwards entered the service of Alfred the
Great, king of England, and has left in Anglo-Saxon
an account of his travels. This narrative proves that
the Permians were then a civilised people, who
traded with India and Persia. The temple of their god
Ioumala was so richly ornamented with precious stones,
that its brilliance illuminated all the surrounding
country. The Erzes number at the present day only
80,000, the Permians 70,000, the Votiaks 234,000.

The Ougrian branch is composed first of the Os-
tiaks, amounting to 20,000, and of the Voguls (7000).
On the east they inhabit the Ourals, and only border

ETHNOGRAPHY OF RUSSIA.

27

on Europe. Formerly they lived more to the south.
The Magyars, who made Europe tremble in the 10th
century, and founded the kingdom of Hungary,
belonged to this race.

Between the Kama and the Oural were already to
be found the Bach-Kourtes (shaven-heads) or Bach-
kirs of the 16th to the 18th centuries, originally a
Finnish people, no doubt of the Ugrian branch, but
profoundly Tatarized, with whom were mingled the
Metcheraks, a tribe named by Nestor. There are
at present 500,000 Bachkirs, and 100,000 Metche-
raks. On the Middle Volga dwelt the Tcheremisses,
the Tchouvaches, and the Mordvians; the Tchere-
misses are found again to-day in the government of
Kazan, Nijni-Novgorod, and Viatka; the Tchouvaches
in Kazan, Nijni-Novgorod, and Simbirsk; the Mord-
vians in Kazan, Tambof, Pensa, Simbirsk, Samara,
and Saratof, but these are now only small islets amid
the Russian colonisation, whereas in the time of Nestor
they formed a compact mass. The Tcheremisses now
only number 165,000, the Tchouvaches 430,000, and
the Mordvians 500,000; all the rest have become
Russians, except a few who have become Tatar.

All seems strange among these ancient peoples.
The type of countenance is blurred and, as it were,
unfinished; the costume seems to have been adopted
from some antediluvian fashion; the manners and
superstitions preserve the trace of early religions
beyond the date of any known pagansisms; the lan-
guage is sometimes so very primitive that the Tchou-
vaches for example do not possess more than a
thousand original words.

The Tcheremiss women wear on their breasts two
plates forming a cuirass, and ornamented with pieces
of silver, transmitted from generation to generation.

28

HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

A numismatist would make wonderful discoveries in these walking museums of medals. They drape their legs in a piece of tightly "tied back" black cloth, and think that modesty consists in never showing the legs, just as the Tatar women make a point of never unveiling the face.

The Tchouvach women cover their heads with a little peaked cap like a Saracen helmet, carry on their backs a covering of leather and metal, like the trapping of a war-horse, and wear on fête-days a stiff and rectangular mantle like a chasuble. Among this singular people, "black" and "beautiful" are synonymous, and when they wish to revenge themselves they hang themselves at their enemy's door.

In spite of three centuries of Christian missions, these tribes dwelling in the heart of Russia and on the great artery of the Volga are not even yet complete converts to Christianity.

There are still some pagan districts. It may even be said that a considerable portion of the Tcheremisses, Tchouvaches, Mordvians, and Votiaks remain attached to the worship of the ancient deities, which they sometimes mingle with orthodox practices and the worship of St. Nicholas. Their religion consisted essentially in dualism: the good principle is called by the Tchouvaches, Thora; Iouma (the "Ioumal" of the Finns) by the Tcheremisses; Inma by the Votiaks, &c. The bad principle was named Chaïtan or Satan. Between the two is a divinity whom men had in former times cruelly offended, who is called Keremet. From the good god proceeded an infinity of gods and goddesses; from Keremet a numerous progeny of male and female Keremets, genii more mischievous than malevolent, to whom the aborigines offer pieces of money, and

ETHNOGRAPHY OF RUSSIA.

29

sacrifice horses, oxen, sheep, swans, and cocks and hens, in sanctuaries also named Keremet, built in the depths of the forests and far from Russian spies.

Human sacrifices have been talked of. The worship of the dead inspired ideas which guide the savage everywhere. Men have preserved the custom of wife-capture, or buying brides from the fathers by paying the *kalym*; they practise agricultural communism. In a word, the life of these races of the Volga in the 19th century is the living commentary of the accounts of Nestor of the Russian Slavs of the 9th century.

It is probable that Slavs and Russians then lived in an absolutely identical state of civilisation, and had almost the same religious ideas and the same customs.

There remain two Finnish peoples still to be spoken of, who, mentioned by Nestor, have at present disappeared, but who were far more remarkable than any of the preceding. These are the Khazars, who, although mingled with Turkish elements, were essentially Finnish. Remarkable for their aptitude for civilisation, they had formed in the 9th century a vast empire, which embraced the regions of the Lower Dnieper, the Don, and the Lower Volga, round the Sea of Azof and the Caspian; they had built Itil on the Volga, and Sarkel or the White City on the Don; they had sometimes governors at Bosporos and Cherson, in the Taurid peninsula; in the Kuban they possessed the Tamatarchia of the Greeks. They had commercial and friendly relations with Byzantium, the caliphate of Bagdad, and even the caliphate of Cordova, the only civilised states of the then known world. The Khazars had

30

HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

flourishing schools, and tolerated all religions besides the national paganism. Mussulman missionaries appeared in the 7th, Jewish missionaries in the 8th century, and Saint Cyril arrived about 860 at the court of their Chagan. A Jewish Chagan of the name of Joseph interchanged some curious letters with the Rabbi Hasdai of Cordova, announcing to him that the people of God, the Israel Khazar, ruled over nine nations of the nineteen of the Caucasus, and thirteen of the Black Sea, and that he did not allow the Russians to descend the Volga to ravage the territory of the Caliph of Bagdad. The Israelitish Khazars became afterwards mingled with the Kharaite Jews, and the Moslem Khazars with the Tatars of the Crimea. Among the vassal nations of the Khazars enumerated by the Chagan Joseph, were the Bourtass and the Bulgars of the Volga; the latter, kinsmen of the Bulgars who were subjected by the Danubian Slavs, and apparently nearly related to the Tchouvaches, were a mixture of Finnish, Turkish, and even Slav elements, according to an Arabian account. Sedentary, industrious, and destined to inherit the commercial splendour of the Khazars, they blended with the native superstitions the Islamism which was preached to them in 922 by missionaries from Bagdad, and possessed in the 10th century a flourishing state. Their capital was Bolgary or the "Great City," on the junction of the Volga and the Kama. They also owned the cities of Bouliar or Biliarsk, Souvar, Krementchoug, &c. Their descendants were fused with the Tatar conquerors of the 13th century.

The Finnish races, even more than the Slavs, are the real aborigines of Russia. In the 5th century B.C. Herodotus writes of them as already long possessed

ETHNOGRAPHY OF RUSSIA.

31

of the soil. Everywhere in these wide regions the traces of their occupation are visible. At different periods they extended from the Livonian Gulf to the Ourals, and from the Icy Ocean to the Black Sea. They withdrew at various times, especially from the 5th to the 9th centuries, to allow the passage of the great migrations and of the great invasions; but in the 10th century they occupied, with the Khazars, the shores of the Sea of Azof and of the Caspian, while the Finns of Estonia held the Lithuanians in check.

The Turkish races, on the contrary, made their appearance much later in Russia. In the 9th century the Lower Volga and the Lower Oural began to fall a prey to the Patzinaks, incorrigible brigands, who marched over the bodies of the Khazars to establish themselves on the Lower Dnieper. After them appeared the Polovtsi or Koumans, the Ouzes or Torques. The invasion of the Tatars was more Turkish than Mongolian. The nomads vanished or, according to Nestor, were absorbed by new arrivals, namely the Nogais, formed in the 13th century of the remnants of the Polovtsi, and of the Turko-Kanglis, at present numbering 50,000; the Kirghis, who entered Europe about 1721, and to-day amount to about 82,000 souls; the Kalmucks, who are Mongols not Turks, belong to the Œleutes or Western Mongols, invaders of Russia in 1636, number 87,000 in the provinces of Astrakhan, Stavropol, and the Don, and in spite of the efforts of Christians and Mussulmans have remained Lamaists. As to the Tatars, properly so called, or sedentary Turks (more or less a mixture of Finnish and Mongol elements), who inhabit the governments of the Volga, Kazan, and Astrakhan, as well as those of Stavropol and

32

HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

the Crimea, they number altogether about 1,420,000 heads.

DIVISION OF THE RUSSIANS OF TO-DAY INTO THREE BRANCHES—HOW RUSSIA WAS COLONISED.

In the time of Nestor (end of the 11th century), the Russian Slavs confined between the Lithuanians on the west, the Finns on the north, and the Turks on the east, hardly occupied one-fifth part of Russia in Europe. To-day we see the Russian race extend from Finland to the Oural, from the Icy Ocean to the Caucasus and Crimea, amounting to 56,000,000 men, besides 3,000,000 colonists in the Asiatic provinces. The Letto-Lithuanians on the contrary are reduced to 2,420,000 souls; the Finns, including the inhabitants of Finland, to less than 4,000,000; and the Turko-Tatars to less than 2,000,000. The Russians form six-sevenths of the population of Russia. The proportions are more than reversed. What a change has been wrought in ten centuries! The present Russians may be divided into three branches, deriving their names from certain historical circumstances. 1. The name of *White Russia* is given to the provinces conquered from the 13th to the 14th century by the Grand Dukes of Lithuania. These were the ancient territories of the Krivitches, Polotchans, Dregovitches, Drevlians, Doulebes, now forming the governments of Vitepsk, Mohilef, and Minsk. The governments of Kovno, Grodno and Wilna, at present unequally Russicised, were originally Lithuanian. The Lithuanian territories of Grodno, Novogrodek and Belostok were sometimes called *Black Russia*. 2. *Little Russia* includes the country of the ancient Severians and

ETHNOGRAPHY OF RUSSIA.

33

Polians increased by colonies; that is, the govern-
ments of Kief, Tchernigof, Pultowa, Kharkof, Vol-
hynia, and Podolia. It even extends beyond the
frontiers of the empire into *Red Russia* or Old
Gallicia (Galitch, Iaroslavl, Terebovl, Zvenigorod,
Lemberg, or Lvof), belonging to Austria, and peopled
by 3,000,000 of Ruthenians or Russians. 3. *Great
Russia* grouped around the ancient Muscovy, and
occupying the place held in the 9th century by
many Turkish or Finnish tribes. To Great Russia
belong *Northern Russia* (Arkhangel), *Eastern Russia*
(the Volga, Kazan, Astrakhan), and *New Russia*
or *South Russia* (Cherson, Ekaterinoslav, Kharkof,
Odessa, the Crimea). Great Russia as a whole,
apart from Novgorod and Pskof, was won from
foreign races by Russian colonisation. It was a
colony of Kievian Russia, and, though for a time
subjugated by the Tatars, was able to shake off
their yoke, while Kief still remained a Lithuanian
province. It continued to extend its conquests in
the East; then turning to the West in the 17th and
18th centuries, was able to recover White Russia
and Little Russia.

In the empire the White Russians number
3,000,000, the Little Russians 12,000,000, and the
Great Russians 41,000,000. There are dialectical
differences between the idioms of these three families,
which historical and literary influences easily explain.
Some writers have been anxious to establish the
existence of a profound difference between Great
Russia and her two neighbours. They have re
served the name of Russians and the character of
Slavs for the White Russians and the Little Russians,
and have pretended to see in the "Muscovites"
nothing but descendants of Finns, Turks and Tatars,

VOL. I.

D

31

HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

in a word Turanians, Russian only in language. The
Muscovite Empire, founded in the midst of Vesses, of
Mouromians, and of Merians, extended at the expense
of the Tchouvaches, the Mordvians, Tatars and Kirghiz,
with its two capitals Moscow and St. Petersburg in
the Tchoudic region, is not, if these writers are to
be trusted, even a European state. A more careful
study shows us that Muscovy was formed in the first
place by the migrations of Russian colonists, in the
second place by the assimilation of certain foreign
races. 1. When the steppes of the south became
the prey of Asiatic nomads, the Russian population
flowed back in a vast wave, from the banks of the
Dnieper to the Upper and Middle Volga. We see
the princes of Souzdal calling to their aid the inha-
bitants of the banks of the Dnieper, while in the
forests of the north new cities are constantly founded
by the people of Novgorod. The Russia of Kief
once destroyed, a new Russia begins to form itself,
almost out of the same elements, at the opposite
extremity of the Oriental plain. The names given
to the new towns of Souzdal and Muscovy must be
noticed. There is a Vladimir on the Kliazma as
there is a Vladimir in Volhynia, a Zvenigorod on
the Moskowa as on the Dniester, a Galitch in
Souzdal as in Gallicia, a Iaroslavl on the Volga as on
the San. Souzdal and Riazan, like Kief, have their
Pereiaslavl; that of the former bears the title of
Zaliesski, or "beyond the forests." In a different land
and under another sky the emigrants clearly tried
to restore the name, if they could not find the image
of their native country. Is it not thus that the
English in America founded New York, and the
French New Orleans ? Moreover, when we have
seen a population of 3,000,000 Russians gather in

ETHNOGRAPHY OF RUSSIA.

35

the Caucasus and in Siberia—when we see that the steppes of the south which were deserts in the time of Catherine II. reckon to-day their 5,000,000 or 6,000,000 inhabitants,—it is easy to understand how, at a more distant epoch, the basin of the Volga was colonised. As for saying that the inhabitants of New Russia are nothing but Finns and Russified Turks, one might as well pretend that the 30,000,000 or 40,000,000 of North America are Red-skins who have learnt English and embraced Protestantism.

We must recognise that the Russian, almost as much as the Anglo-Saxon, has the instinct which drives men to emigrate and found colonies. The Russians do in the far East of Europe what the Anglo-Saxons do in the far West of America. They belong to one of the great races of pioneers and backwoodsmen. All the history of the Russian people, from the foundation of Moscow, is that of their advance into the forest, into the Black Land, into the prairie. The Russian has his trappers and settlers in the Cossacks of the Dnieper, Don, and Terek; in the tireless fur-hunters of Siberia; in the gold-diggers of the Oural and the Altai; in the adventurous monks who ever lead the way, founding in regions always more distant, a monastery which is to be the centre of a town; lastly, in the Raskolniks, or Dissenters, Russian Puritans or Mormons, who are persecuted by laws human and divine, and seek from forest to forest the Jerusalem of their dreams. The level plains of Russia naturally tempted men to migration. The mountain keeps her own, the mountain calls her wanderers to return; while the steppe, stretching away to the dimmest horizon, invites you to advance, to ride at adventure, to "go where the eyes glance."

D 2

36

HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

The flat and monotonous soil has no hold on its inhabitants; they will find as bare a landscape anywhere. As for their hovel, how can they care for their hovel? It is burned down so often. The Western expression, the "ancestral roof," has no meaning for the Russian peasant. The native of Great Russia, accustomed to live on little, and endure the extremes of heat and cold, was born to brave the dangers and privations of the emigrant's life. With his crucifix, his axe in his belt, and his boots slung behind his back, he will go to the end of the Eastern world. However weak may be the infusion of the Russian element in an Asiatic population, it cannot transmute itself nor disappear—it must become the dominant power.

History has helped to make this movement irresistible. When the Russian took refuge in Souzdal, he was compelled to clear and cultivate the very worst land of his future domain, for the *Tchernozem* was then overrun by nomads. How could he escape the temptation to go and look in the south for more fertile soil which without labour or manure would yield four times as great a harvest? Villages and whole cantons in Muscovy have been known to empty themselves in a moment, the peasants marching in a body, as in the old times of the invasions, towards the "Black Soil," the "Warm Soil" of the south. Government and the landholders were obliged to use the most terrible means to stop these migrations of the husbandmen. Without these repressive measures the steppes would have been colonised two centuries earlier than they actually were. The report that the Tzar authorised the emigration—a forged ukase, a rumour—anything was enough to uproot whole peoples from the soil.

ETHNOGRAPHY OF RUSSIA.

37

The peasant's passion for wandering explains the development of Cossack life in the plains of the south; it explains the legislation which from the beginning of the 16th century chained the serf to the glebe and bound him to the soil. In the 13th century, on the other hand, the peasant was free. His prince encouraged him to emigrate, and hence came the colonisation of Eastern Russia.

2. The Russian race, it is true, has the faculty of absorbing certain aboriginal stocks. The Little Russians assimilated the remnants of Turkish tribes, the Great Russians swallowed up the Finnish nations of the East. There must, however, be no religious barrier between the conquerors and the conquered, for the Tchouli, while still heathen, is easily assimilated; but once converted to Islamism, he is a refractory element that can scarcely be brought to order. A baptized Tchouvach inevitably becomes a Russian, a circumcised Tchouvach inevitably becomes a Tatar. We have seen the Vesses, the Mouromians, the Merians disappear without leaving a trace; the Tchouvaches, the Mordvians, the Tcheremisses become more Russian every day. The successive stages, and the steps which lead to the accomplishment of this change, were lately observed by Mr. Wallace, an English traveller :—

"During my wanderings in these northern provinces I have found villages in every stage of Russification. In one everything seemed thoroughly Finnish: the inhabitants had a reddish-olive skin, very high cheek-bones, obliquely-set eyes, and a peculiar costume; none of the women and very few of the men could understand Russian, and any Russian who visited the place was regarded as a foreigner. In a second there were already some

38

HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

Russian inhabitants; the others had lost something of their pure Finnish type, many of the men had discarded the old costume and spoke Russian fluently, and a Russian visitor was no longer shunned. In a third, the Finnish type was still further weakened; all the men spoke Russian, and nearly all the women understood it; the old male costume had entirely disappeared, and the old female costume was rapidly following it, and the intermarriage with the Russian population was no longer rare. In a fourth, intermarriage had almost completely done its work, and the old Finnish element could be detected merely in certain peculiarities of physiognomy and accent" (vol. i. p. 231).

The density and resisting power of these ancient peoples, scattered over such immense spaces of the continent, must have been comparatively slight, while the Russian emigrants came on in vast waves, or stole in like the constant dropping of water. The aboriginals must often have recoiled and concentrated their forces, thus leaving room and verge for the pure Slavonic element. The more or less considerable mixture of races, on the other hand, cannot but have influenced the physical type, character, and powers of the Great Russian in a peculiar way. The bright Slavonic nature, when blended with tribes of a duller cast, gained in strength and weight what it lost in vivacity. Hence, of all the Slavonic peoples, the Great Russian alone has been able to create and to maintain, in face of every obstacle, a vast and durable empire.

PRIMITIVE RUSSIA: THE SLAVS.

39

## CHAPTER III.

### PRIMITIVE RUSSIA: THE SLAVS.

Religion of the Slavs — Funeral rites — Domestic and political customs: the family, the mir or commune, the volost or canton, the tribe — Cities — Industry — Agriculture.

### RELIGION OF THE SLAVS—FUNERAL RITES.

THE religion of the Russian Slavs, like that of all Aryan races, was founded on nature and its phenomena. It was a pantheism which, as its original meaning was lost, necessarily became a polytheism. Just as the Homeric deities were preceded by the gods of Hesiod, Ouranos and Demeter, or Heaven and Earth, so the most ancient gods of the Russian Slavs seem to have been Svarog, the heaven, and “our mother, the dank earth.” Then new conceptions appeared in the first rank in the historic period. 1. Ancient poets and chroniclers (see the Song of Igor, and Nestor) have preserved to us the names of Dagh-Bog, god of the sun, father of nature; Voloss, a solar deity, and, like the Greek Apollo, inspirer of poets and protector of flocks; Perun, god of thunder, another personification of the Sun at war with the Cloud; Stribog, the Russian Æolus, father of winds, protector of warriors; Khors, a solar god; Semargl and Mokoch, whose attributes are unknown. 2. In some of the early hymns they sing of Koupalo or Iarilo, god of the summer sun, and Did-Lado, goddess of

40

HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

fecundity. 3. In the epic songs are celebrated Sviatogor, the giant-hero, whose weight the earth can scarcely bear; Mikoula Sclianinovitch, the good labourer, a kind of Slav Triptolemus, the divine personification of the race's passionate love of agriculture, striking with the iron share of his plough the stones of the furrow, with a noise that is heard three days' journey off; Volga Vseslavitch, a Proteus who can take all manner of shapes; Polkan, a centaur; Dounai, Don Ivanovitch, Dnieper Korolevitch, who are rivers; then a series of heroes, conquerors of dragons like Ilia of Mourom, who seem to be solar gods degraded to the rank of paladins. 4. In the stories which beguile the village evening assemblies, appear Morena, goddess of death; Kochtchei and Moroz, personifications of the bitter winter weather; Baba-Yaga, an ogress who lives on the edge of the forest, in a hut built on the foot of a fowl, and swayed by the winds; and the King of the Sea, who entices sailors to his watery palaces. 5. Popular superstition continues to people nature with good and bad spirits: the Russalki, water sprites; Vodianoi, river genii; the Liechii and the Liesnik, forest demons; the Domoroi (dom, house), the brownie of the domestic hearth; and the Vampires, ghosts who steal by night from their tombs, and suck the blood of the living during their sleep.

Since Mythology reproduces under so many forms the struggle of the heroes of the light with the monsters of darkness, it is possible that she may have admitted a bad principle at variance with a good principle, an ill-doing god, of whom Morena, Kochtchei, Baba-Yaga, the dragon, the mountain-serpent, are only types. We cannot find any positive confirmation of this hypothesis, as far as the Russian Slavs are concerned, but Helmold asserts that the

PRIMITIVE RUSSIA: THE SLAVS.

41

Baltic Slavs recognise *Bielibog*, the White God, and *Tchernobog*, the Black God.

The Russians do not seem to have had either temples or priests in the proper sense of the word. They erected rude idols on the hills, and venerated the oak consecrated to Perun; the leaders of the people offered the sacrifices. They also had sorcerers, or magicians, analogous to the Tatar Shamans, whose counsels appear to have had great weight.

It has been the study of the Russian Church to combat paganism by purifying the superstitions she cannot uproot. She has turned to account any similarity in names or symbols. She has been able to honour Saint Dmitri and Saint George, the slayers of dragons; Saint John, who thunders in the spring; Saint Elias, who recalls Ilia of Mourom; Saint Blaise or Vlaise, who has succeeded to Voloss as guardian of the flocks; Saint Nicholas, or Mikoula, patron of labourers, like Mikoula Selianinovitch; Saint Cosmas, or Kouzma, protector of blacksmiths, who has taken the place of *kouznets*, the mysterious blacksmith forger of the destinies of man in the mountains of the north. In some popular songs the Virgin Mary replaces Did-Lado, and then Saint John succeeds to Perun or Iarilo. Who can fail to recognise the myth of the spring and the fruitful rains accompanied by thunder, in this White Russian song that is repeated at the festival of St. John? "John and Mary—bathed on the hill—while John bathed—the earth shook—while Mary bathed—the earth germinated." The Church has taken care to consecrate to the Saints of her calendar or to purify by holy rites the sacred trees and mysterious wells to which crowds of pilgrims continued to flock.

Russian Slavs certainly had visions of another life,

42

HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

but, like all primitive peoples, they looked forward to
a life which was gross and material. In the 7th
century among the Wends, German Slavs, women
refused to survive their husbands, and burned them-
selves on their funeral pile. This ancient Aryan
custom must have been in vigour among the Russian
Slavs at an equally early epoch. The Arabic writer,
Ibn-Foszlan, gives an account of the Russian funeral
rites which he himself witnessed in the 9th century.
For ten days the friends of the deceased bewailed
him, and intoxicated themselves over his corpse.
Then the men-servants were asked, which of them
would be buried with his master? One of them
replied in the affirmative, and was instantly strangled.
The same question was also put to the women-servants,
one of whom likewise devoted herself. She was then
washed, adorned, and treated like a princess, and
did nothing but drink and sing. On the appointed
day the dead man was laid in a boat, with part of
his arms and his garments. The man-servant was
slain with the favourite horse and other domestic
animals and was laid in the boat, to which the young
girl was then led. She took off her jewels, and with
a glass of kvass in her hand sang a song that she
would only too willingly have prolonged. "All at
once," says the eye-witness, "the old woman who
accompanied her, and whom they called the angel
of death, ordered her to drink quickly, and to enter
into the cabin of the boat, where lay the dead body
of her master. At these words she changed colour,
and, as she made some difficulties about entering,
the old woman seized her by the hair, dragged her in,
and entered with her. The men immediately began
to beat their shields with clubs to prevent the other
girls from hearing the cries of their companion, which

PRIMITIVE RUSSIA: THE SLAVS.

43

might prevent them from one day dying for their masters.” While the funeral pile blazed, one of the Russians said to our narrator, “You Arabs are fools; you hide in the earth the man you have loved best, and there he becomes the prey of worms. We, on the contrary, burn him up in the twinkling of an eye, that he may the quicker enter paradise.” Nestor found the rite among the Russian Slavs. The excavations made in a great number of *kourgans* (barrows) confirm his testimony. The discoveries recently made in the tombs of Novgorod by M. Ivanovski, prove that the Slavs of Ilmen had preserved or adopted the custom of burying their dead. In these tombs are found a great quantity of arms, instruments, jewels, animals, bones, and grains of wheat; from which we may conclude that the Russian Slavs expected the future life to be an exact continuation of the present one, and that they surrounded the dead with all the objects that here contributed to his happiness. The examination of the human bones preserved in the *kourgans* also confirms the historical accounts, and proves that servants and female slaves were sacrificed over the corpse.

DOMESTIC AND POLITICAL CUSTOMS: THE FAMILY;
THE MIR OR COMMUNE; THE VOLOST OR CANTON;
THE TRIBE.

The Slav family was founded on the patriarchal
principle. The father was the absolute head, and
after his death the power passed to the eldest of the
members composing it: first, to the brothers of the
deceased, if he had any under his care, then succes-
sively to his sons, beginning with the eldest. The
chief had the same rights over the women who

44

HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

entered his family by marriage, as over its natural members.

Their domestic manners seem to have been very barbarous. The monk Nestor may be suspected of exaggeration wherever he describes the condition of pagan Russia, which baptism was to regenerate. There is no exception to this exaggerated censure, but in the case of the Polians. "The Drevlians," he tells us, "lived after the manner of wild beasts. They cut each other's throats, ate impure food, declined all marriage-ties; they ravished and stole young girls who came for water to the fountains. . . . The Radimitches, the Viatitches, the Severians lived like wild animals in the forests, were fed on all sorts of horrors, and spoke of all kinds of shameful things in the presence of their sisters-in-law and relatives. . . . They captured women, who were willing parties to the transaction, often two or three at a time."

The charges which Nestor chiefly urges against the Slavs, are the capture of women and polygamy. This latter charge is completely established; as to the capture, it might be symbolical. In the text quoted above we see the women "came" to the fountain, and that they were parties to the trans-action. This capture, if we take it for a simple ceremony, may imply, in very early times, the existence of abduction by violence. To-day, the marriage-customs of Russia still preserve traces of these ancient usages. There is still a pretended capture of the woman; a custom to be found in the Germany of the 8th century, where the very name of marriage has a pointed signification—Brautlauft, the flight of the bride. The songs at Russian weddings also imply the existence of a time when the maiden was bought. One of these songs accuses the kindred of avarice:

PRIMITIVE RUSSIA. THE SLAVS.

45

"Thy brother—the accursed Tatar—has sold his sister for a piece of silver."

Some historians have thought, with Karansin, that the Slavs held women in less consideration than the Germans did, and in fact "treated them as slaves." We may doubt if there was so great a difference between the two nations. The chronicles speak of Lybed, sister of Kii, the fabulous founder of Kief, dividing her paternal inheritance with her brothers, and of Princess Olga becoming heir and avenger of her husband and guardian of his son. The epic songs show us many bold heroines side by side with the heroes of the Kievian cycle, and mothers of heroes surrounded with wonderful luxury and extraordinary honours. The excavations of the *kourgans* show us skeletons of women richly ornamented with jewels.

The commune, or *mir*, was only the expansion of the family; it was subject to the authority of the elders of each household, who assembled in a council or *vetché*. The village lands were held in common by all the members of the association; the individual only possessed his harvest, and the *dvor* or enclosure immediately surrounding his house. This primitive condition of property, existing in Russia up to the present day, was once common to all European peoples.

The communes nearest together formed a group called *volost* or *pagost* (canton, parish). The volost was governed by a council formed of the elders of the communes: one of these elders, either by hereditary right, age, or election, was recognised as more powerful than the rest, and became chief of the canton. His authority seems much to have resembled that of Ulysses over the numerous kings of little Ithaca.

46

HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

In times of danger, the volosts of the same tribe could elect a temporary head, but decline to submit to a general and permanent ruler. The Emperor Maurice had already observed that passion for liberty among the Slavs, which made them detest all sovereignty. The Russian Slavs easily rose from the idea of a commune to that of a canton, with a chief chosen from the elders of the families; in an emergency they might permit a temporary confederation of all the cantons of one tribe (plemia), but we never find that there was a prince of the Severians, Polians, or Radimitches. Only princes of the volost could exist among them, like the prince of Korosthenes in the legend of Olga. The idea of the unity of a tribe, and à fortiori the unity of the Russian nation, was absolutely foreign to the race. The ideas of government and of the State had to come to them from without.

TOWNS—TRADE—AGRICULTURE.

Nestor declares that the Russian Slavs, for the most part, “lived in forests like the wild beasts.” Karamsin and Schloezer have concluded from this that they had no towns. Now there exist a number of monuments in Russia which have for long puzzled archæologists. These are the *gorodichtchés* (from *gorod*, town), enclosures formed by the earth being thrown up, and these we find invariably on the steep bank of a watercourse, or on a small hill. M. Samokvassof, who has explored this very country of the Severians, described by Nestor as living wholly in forests, has been able to prove that these *gorodichtchés* are the *oppida*, the primitive towns of Russia. In the government of Tchernigof alone, M. Samok-

PRIMITIVE RUSSIA: THE SLAVS.

47

vassof has reckoned 160; in that of Koursk, 50. We may calculate from this that numbers exist in Russia, and that every volost had at least one. About these earth-enclosures, which were capped by wooden palisades or hedges of osier, and were the common means of defence for each group of families, we usually find grouped, as in a cemetery, the kourgans or tumuli of the dead.

The excavations made, either in the kourgans or in the soil of the gorodichtchés, have shown us the Slavs were more civilised than Nestor supposed. Vessels of pottery, tolerably well designed, iron and bronze, gold and silver objects, glass, false pearls, rattles, prove that they had a certain amount of trade, and a fairly extensive commerce, particularly with Asia. Oriental coins have been dug up, dating from 699, or near two hundred years before the arrival of the Varangians. There are a great number of these coins in the country. Near Novgorod a vase was discovered, containing about 7000 roubles' worth of this early money. The fame of the swords made by the Russian Slavs extended to Arabia. Nestor relates that the Khazars imposed a tribute of swords on the Polians. When the latter brought the arms to the Khazars, they were afraid, and said to their princes, "Our swords have only one edge—these have two. We tremble lest one day this people should levy a tribute on us and other tribes."

Agriculture was the favourite occupation of the Slavs. Nearly all their deities are of an agricultural character. The favourite heroes of their epic cycle, Mikoula and Ilia, were the sons of labourers. They had the more liking for field life, as the serfage of the glebe was still unknown amongst them. It has

48

HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

been said that the Germans borrowed the plough
from the Slavs, and that the German name of *þlug*
is derived from the Slav *plugy*. With the wax and
honey of their hives, the corn of the *Tchernoziom*, and
the furs of the north, the Russians carried on a great
trade. Their need of strangers, together with a
sociable instinct, natural to primitive races, made
them very hospitable; it was even permitted to steal
for the benefit of the unexpected guest. A peaceful
race, devoted to liberty, music, and dancing, appears
in the idyllic picture painted for us of the early Slavs.
The Emperor Maurice, on the contrary, who had
had dealings with all kinds of adventurous tribes,
assures us that they were warlike, cruel in battle, full
of savage wiles, able to conceal themselves in places
where it seemed impossible their bodies could be
hidden, or to lie in ambush in streams for hours
together, the water over their heads, breathing by
means of a reed. Their armour was defective, they
had no breast-plates, they fought on foot, were naked
to the waist, and had for weapons, pikes, large shields,
wooden bows, poisoned arrows, and lassoes to catch
their victims. This sketch specially applies to the
invaders of the Roman provinces of the Danube. It
is probable that these agricultural races had in gene-
ral a military organisation inferior to that of their
Turkish and Scandinavian neighbours who lived by
plunder. The imperfection of their political condition,
their minute division into clans and *velosts*, the inces-
sant warfare of canton with canton, delivered them
up, defenceless, to their invaders. Whilst the Slavs of
the south paid tribute to the Khazars, the Slavs of
Ilmen, exhausted by their divisions, decided on call-
ing in the Varangians. " 'Let us seek,' they said,
"a prince who will govern us and reason with us

PRIMITIVE RUSSIA: THE SLAVS.

49

justly.' Then," continues Nestor, "the Tchouds,*
the Slavs (Novgorod), the Krivitches, and other
confederate races, said to the princes of Varangia,
'Our land is great and fruitful, but it lacks order
and justice; come and take possession, and govern
us.'"

* The Tchouds here mentioned are rather Slavs who had colonised the Tchoud country about Pskof and Izborsk.'

VOL. I.

E

50

HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

CHAPTER IV.

The Northmen of Russia — Origin and customs of the Varangians
— The first Russian princes: Rurik, Oleg, Igor — Expeditions against Constantinople — Olga — Christianity in Russia — Sviatoslaf — The Danube disputed between the Russians and Greeks.

NORTHMEN IN RUSSIA—ORIGIN AND CUSTOMS OF THE VARANGIANS.

WHO were these Varangians? To what race did they belong? No questions in the early history of Russia are more eagerly debated. After more than a century of controversy, the various views have been reduced to three :—

1. The Varangians were of Scandinavian origin, and it was they who imposed the name of Russia on the Slav countries. A most weighty argument in support of this theory is the large number of Scandinavian names in the list of Varangian princes reigning in Russia. The Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus, speaking of Russia, makes a distinction between the Slavs and the Russians proper. Describing the cataracts of the Dnieper, he gives to each the *Russian* and the *Slav* name. Now these *Russian* names may nearly all be understood by reference to Scandinavian roots. Liutprand, speaking of the Russians, expresses himself in these terms :—

FORMATION OF RUSSIA.

51

"Græci vocant Russos . . . nos vero Normannos." The *Annals of Saint Bertinus* say, that the Emperor Theophilus recommended some Russian envoys to Louis le Débonnaire, but he, taking them for Norman spies, threw them into prison. Finally, the first Russian Code of Laws, compiled by Iaroslaf, presents a striking analogy with the Scandinavian laws. The partisans of this opinion place the mother country of the Russians in Sweden, where they point particularly to a spot called *Rosloy*, and associations of oarsmen called *Roslagen*. At the present day the Finns call the Swedes *Rootzi*.

2. The Varangians were Slavs, and came either from the Slav shores of the Baltic, or from some Scandinavian region where the Slavs had founded a colony. The word *Russia* is not of Swedish origin; it is applied very early to the country of the Dnieper. To come from *Rouss* or to go to *Rouss* are expressions to be met with in the ancient documents, and *Rouss* there signifies the country of Kief. Arabic writers give the name of Russians to a nation they consider very numerous, and they mean in this case, not Scandinavians, but indigenous Slavs.

3. The Varangians were not a nation, but a band of warriors formed of exiled adventurers, some Slavs, others Scandinavians. The partisans of this opinion show us the Slav and Scandinavian races from very early times, in frequent commercial and political relations. The leaders of the band were generally Scandinavian, but part of the soldiers were Slav. This hypothesis, which diminishes the Norman element in the Varangians, serves to explain how the establishment of these adventurers in the country but little affected the Slavs of the Ilmen and the Dnieper. It explains, too, the rapid absorption of the

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52

HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

new comers in the conquered race, an absorption so
complete that the grandson of Rurik, Sviatoslaf,
already bears a Slav name, while his great-grand-
son, Vladimir, remains in the memory of the people
as the type of a Slav prince. Whether the Va-
rangians were pure Scandinavians, or whether
they were mingled with Slav adventurers, it seems
certain that the former element predominated, and
that we may identify these men from the North with
the sea-kings so celebrated in the West during the
decay of the Carolings. M. Samokvassof has lately
opened, near Tchernigof, the *black tomb* containing
the bones and arms of an unknown prince who lived
in the 10th century, and was probably a Varan-
gian. His coat-of-mail and pointed helmet com-
pletely resemble the arms of the Norman warriors.
The Russian princes that we find in the early minia-
tures, are clothed and armed like the Norman chiefs
in the Bayeux Tapestry of Queen Matilda. It is
therefore not surprising that, in our own age, art
has made almost identical representations of Rurik
on the monument lately erected at Novgorod, and of
William the Conqueror on the monument at Falaise.
The Varangians, like the Normans, astonished the
nations of the South by their reckless courage and
gigantic stature. "They were as tall as palm-trees,"
said the Arabs. Bold sailors, admirable foot-soldiers,
the Varangians differed widely from the mounted and
nomad races of Southern Russia, Hungarians, Khazars,
Patzinaks, whose tactics were always Parthian. The
Russians, according to Leo the Deacon, who was
an eye-witness of the fact, fought in a compact mass,
and seemed like a wall of iron, bristling with lances,
glittering with shields, whence rang a ceaseless
clamour like the waves of the sea—the famous *bar-*

FORMATION OF RUSSIA.

53

ditus or barribus of the Germans of Tacitus. A huge shield covered them to their feet, and, when they fought in retreat, they turned this enormous buckler on their backs, and became invulnerable. The fury of battle at last made them beside themselves, like the Bersarks. Never, says the same author, were they seen to surrender. When victory was lost, they stabbed themselves, for they held that those who died by the hand of an enemy were condemned to serve him in another life. The Greeks had for long highly esteemed these heroes worthy of the Edda. Under the name of Ros or Varangians, they formed the body-guard of the Emperor, and figured in all the Byzantine armies. In the expedition of 902 against Crete, 700 Russians took part; 415 in that of Lom-bardy in 925; 584 in that of Greece in 949.

The Russian Varangians readily took the pay of foreign nations, of Novgorod as well as Byzantium. This is one more feature of resemblance with the Normans of France, whom the Greek emperors also employed in their wars with the Saracens of Italy. Sometimes, instead of fighting for others, they made war for themselves. This was the case with the Danes in England, the Normans in Neustria, the descendants of Tancred in Naples and Sicily, the companions of Rurik in Russia. As they were usually a very small number, they blended rapidly with the conquered nations. Thus the descendants of Rollo quickly became Frenchmen, and those of Robert Guiscard, Sicilians. In the Varangian bands, Slavs as well as Scandinavians were mixed; but we likewise know that in the bands of Northmen that ravaged the country of France, there was a large number of Gallo-Romans, renegades from Christianity, who thirsted more for pillage and murder