PART XXI THE HISTORY OF RUSSIA BASED CHIEFLY UPON THE FOLLOWING AUTHORITIES R. BELL, R. N. BESTUZHEV-RIUMIN, V. A. BILBASOV, A. BRÜCKNER, A. DE HAXTHAUSEN, E. HERMANN, N. M. KARAMZIN, W. K. KELLY, N. I. KOSTOMAROV, M. KOVALEVSKI, A. LEROY-BEAULIEU, P. MÉRIMÉE, NESTOR, A. RAMBAUD, T. SCHIEMANN, J. H. SCHNITZLER, A. A. SCHUMAKR, N. K. SHILDER, G. M. SOLOVIEV, P. STRAHL, N. TURGENIEV, D. M. WALLACE TOGETHER WITH A STUDY OF THE INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT OF RUSSIA BY S. RAPPOPORT WITH ADDITIONAL CITATIONS FROM ALEXANDER II, A. ALISON, R. N. BAIN, T. VON BERNHARDI, A. J. BEVERIDGE, CATHERINE II, A. P. DE CUSTINE, T. DELORD, J. ECKHARDT, A. DE FERRAND, I. GOLIKOV, P. DE LA GORCE, R. GOSSIP, A. N. KUROPATKIN, LEO, M. LÉVESQUE, C. A. DE LOUVILLE, H. MARTIN, MAURICIUS, A. MIKHAILOVSKI-DANILEVSKI, H. NORMAN, PROCOPIUS, C. C. DE RULHIÈRE, F. SCHLOSSER, P. DE SÉGUR, P. SHCHEBALSKI, F. H. SKRINE, STORCK, H. TYRRELL, VOLTAIRE INTRODUCTION THE INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT OF RUSSIA WRITTEN SPECIALLY FOR THE PRESENT WORK BY DR. A. S. RAPPOPORT School of Oriental Languages, Paris "RUSSIA evolves very slowly, like an empire that is not of yesterday and that has ample time before it," is one of Nietzsche's remarks before his reason had hopelessly gone adrift in the vast ocean of insanity. This remark of the German poet-philosopher is true enough. What Nietzsche, however, did not know or did not say is that one can hardly speak of any evolution, as far as general civilisation, intellectual culture, and development are concerned, of Russia as a whole. Only a small minority, the so-called intelligentia, has evolved intellectually, not Russia itself. Here lies the fundamental difference between Russia and the rest of Europe. There is a vast gulf, ever broadening, between the Russian intelligentia and the muyiks. Thought and culture, nay even civilisation, seem to be limited to a select few. The bulk of the people has not only failed to advance from a state in which it was surprised by Jenghiz Khan, but it has actually retrograded to a more savage condition. Revolutions have passed over their heads without in the least affecting them. "The Russian masses," says Leroy-Beaulieu (The Empire of the Czars), "have not felt the breath of either the Renaissance, or the Reformation, or the Revolution. All that has been done in Europe or America for the last four centuries, since the time of Columbus and Luther, Washington and Mirabeau, is, as far as Russia is concerned, non-existent." The people never think, or at least have not yet left that crude state of barbarism which precedes the dawn of civilisation; the first rays of thought have scarcely tinted with orient hues the dark horizon of ignorance and superstition of the Russian population; the great events have failed to stir its mental inertia. I am, however, far from maintaining that the fault lies with the nature and national character of the people. The rich nature, the subtle spirit of the Slav, his power of adaptation and imitation make him not only accessible to western civilisation and culture but also capable of producing something which bears the impress of the peculiarity of the Slavonic genius. The intelligentia is now giving ample proof corroborating this statement. The Russian intelligentia has passed the phases of growing and changing and doubting and has reached a condition of maturity, asserting its manhood and right. Before examining the intellectual development of the Russian intelligentia and the point it has reached, as compared with western Europe, we must try to find out the causes that first produced that gulf between the few and the many, and the circumstances that were instrumental in widening it. It is a mistake to imagine that the very first foundations of Russian intellectual development were laid by Peter the Great and that Russia, although behind western Europe in culture and civilisation, is still in her youthful vigour and freshness and will soon overtake the old world. There was a time, at the beginning of the eleventh century, when the Slavonic countries under the rule of the Norman conquerors were on the same level of civilisation as western Europe. The foundations were laid before the Norman invasion and very frequent were the relations between this people in the east and those in the north of Europe. Long before the ninth century, Kiev was known to the inhabitants of Scandinavia. Many a jarl sought refuge there and many a merchant ship found its way to the shores of Russia. On the road along which the commercial connection between the East Sea and Byzantium developed were situated the towns of Smolensk, Tchernigov, Pereiaslavl (cf. V. der Bruggen, Wie Russland Europaisch Wurde, p. 22). When the Norman princes, the warags as they were called by the Slavonic nations, conquered these towns and subdued one tribe after the other, the already existing civilisation developed rapidly under the protection of the new rulers. Forth from Byzantium and Greece, from Italy, Poland, and Germany, with which countries the descendants of Rurik kept up a connection, western influence came to the north. Learned monks came from Byzantium, architects, artisans, and merchants from Greece, Italy and Germany, and were instrumental in spreading the languages, customs and ideas of the west. Not only did the kniazi (princes) of Kiev build churches and edifices after the model of Greek and Italian art, but they established schools to which Vladimir compelled his nobles and boyars to send their children. The commercial relations with the west and the south were very vivid and frequent, and on the market places of Kiev and Novgorod a motley crowd of Normans and Slavs, Hungarians, Greeks, Venetians, Germans, Arabs, and Jews were to be seen. The intellectual culture of the time had not yet, one must admit, penetrated the masses of the Slavonic tribes. Yet the Normans, as the propagators of culture, speedily and easily merged into one with the conquered tribes, much easier perhaps than the Normans who came with William the Conqueror amalgamated with Britons and Saxons in England. Had the Tatar invasion not taken place, it is highly probable that the intellectual development of Russia would have followed the same lines as that of western Europe. The commercial and intellectual relations with the rest of Europe, so eagerly sought after and cultivated by the Norman princes, would have continued and brought the Slav countries in increasingly closer contact with the west and under the influence of all the currents that were destined to traverse Europe later on. The Renaissance and the revival of learning which shed their light upon the dark mediæval age (and only a few rays of which found their way to Russia by way of Poland at a much later period) would have made themselves felt in Russia. This was, however, not to happen. The Mongolian invasion had actually cut off Russia from Europe, and brought it under the Tatar influence. The Norman civilisation, which was in a nascent state, was crushed; the threads connecting Russia with Europe were cut off. The wave of Mongolian invasion had inundated the flat land situated between Europe and Asia, carried away and destroyed every vestige of western influence. Kiev, Moscow, Tver, Riazan, Tchernigov, and Smolensk were conquered by the hordes of the Great Khan, who from his seat somewhere in the heart of China or in the centre of Asia sent down his generals and tax collectors. |