BOOKS.
TURNERELLI'S KAZAN.* THE interest which these volumes possess is owing to present cir- cumstances stimulating attention to anything which has a rela, tion to Russia. Kazan, indeed, is only one of many provinces agglomerated into this vast empire ; and the acquisition goes back to the sixteenth century, before the accession of the house of Ito- manoff or the acknowledgment of Russia as an European power. The Tartar remains of Kazan, though indicating wealth and a cer- tain degree of taste in building, are neither original in design nor of so striking a degree of excellence as to become the type of a particular style. The power, riches, and refinement, said to have characterized Kazan, are questionable : for the Tartar kingdom was an offshoot or settlement; its entire duration was only about three hundred years during which time the capital was once entirely destroyed, and the state in abeyance for nearly half a cen- tury ; its monarchs or rather chiefs were of various families, elected, self-appointed, or nominated by the Muscovites; and its history so far as is known a tissue of small quarrels and great crimes. Its geographical position on the banks of the Volga and approaching the Ural mountains, the boundary of Europe and Asia, gives it some features; for the steppes of Russia sometimes rise into hills or mountains, and the bare plains of Southern Rus- sia begin to be clothed with wood, though the forests are mostly of a swampy nature. The population furnishes a good example of the varied and heterogeneous character of the Autocrat's subjects. By the side of the corrupt and imitative civilization of Russia, are the former conquering but now conquered race of Mahometan - Tartars, not improved by their approximation to Greek Christi- anity. In the hilly and woody regions, as well as occasionally on the plains, the Pagan aborigines are met with, now divided into three tribes, though perhaps originally forming only one tribe. There was matter enough in all this to produce an ethnographi- cal and archaeological work of considerable value, though Of limited attraction. Such a work, however, would have required special powers, which Mr. Turnerelli does not possess. By birth an Englishman, he has a good deal of foreign character and man- ner. But he relies too much upon manner at the expense of mat- ter. There is little substance in his book compared with its words; and though our chatty goodnatured author would admit the fact, that would not alter the fact. A long residence and Imperial blandishments have made Mr. Turnerelli notonly too much of a Miscovite, but too much of a courtier. His sojourn of several years at Kazan resulted in a handsome lithographed "album" of its buildings and antiquities. Permission was graciously granted to dedicate this album to the Emperor. Moreover, Nicholas presented to the author "a valuable diamond ring, which some weeks after was followed by a second gift of a still more important nature." These Imperial favours were further accompanied by the patronage of the family, and, as may be supposed, by that of all who would stand well with the family. Hence the writer looks at everything through rose-coloured spectacles. The history and an- tiquities of Kazan swell to magnificent proportions. The city. of Kazan becomes the third city of the empire, the seat of learning, civilization, hospitality, and we know not what beside. The rule of the Emperor is paternal, his subjects are worthy of himself ; the present attack upon Turkey is a righteous crusade, to which our author wishes every success. It should, however, be said that this was expressed before the Queen's declaration of war. Truth is too powerful for Turnerelli. His particular facts continually contradict his general flourishes. Except for a month or six weeks in the very early summer, this city of paradise appears to be an unhealthy and uncomfortable dog-hole. The thaws of spring render the streets a slough of mud; in the sum- mer there is a plague of dust, and the heat is excessive ; what is autumn in more favoured countries becomes incipient winter in Kazan,—gloom, sleet, frost, snows, and cutting hurricanes. In the winter, such is the severity of the frost that the " hardy crow;' Mr. Turnerelli says, sometimes falls "a congealed mass to the earth." • " December arrives : the rivers, lakes, streams, freeze in every direction ; snow, sometimes seven and eight feet deep, covers the ground ; and at the same time succeeds a frightful frost, from 30° to 33' of Iteaumur, the very name of which causes a shudder, but the experience of which is, as gays Hamlet, horrible, most horrible !' The streets become almost deserted ; the theatre is closed ; travellers, coachmen, and even horses, are frozen to death ; and many other disasters of this nature signalize this terrible period of the year, which fortunately lasts but a month or two."
The hygienic condition of Kazan is bad enough. When the dis- trict is not frozen as hard as iron, it is inundated or marshy The The melting of the snow causes the Volga to overflow its banks with the opening of warm weather ; and as drainage is unknown, a large portion of the water remains on the soil in the form of stag- nant pools or marshes, till winter sets in again. The city, Mr. Turnerelli admits, is somewhat of the dirtiest, and the usual laws of population are reversed.
" A want of proper cleanliness in the town certainly does exist. In many streets there are no sewers ; the ravines, moreover, are filled with every kind of filth and refuse, which is brought and discharged therein by day and night : the consequence is, that the air becomes infected with putrid vapours, which would be sufficient to engender disease without the addition of any other disposing cause. A sufficient proof of the truth of this is the circum- stance, that in the parishes called Illeen, Troitaky, and Ouspensky, where
• Russia on the Borders of Asia. Kazan, the ancient capital of the Tartar Khans: with an Account of the Province to which it belongs, the Tribes and Races which form its Population, &c. By Edward Tracy Turnerelli. In two volumes. Published by Bentley.
numerous inns for the lower classes are to be found, and where much un- cleanliness is collected in the streets and ravines, disease effects a greater ravage than elsewhere, so that in these parishes it is estimated that to every hundred births may be counted 114 deaths. Kazan, as I have before said, is almost surrounded by bogs and marshes, which of themselves would be sufficient to render this town a moat unhealthy one, even if no other causes contributed to make it so. The annual inunda- tion of the Volga forms a fresh source of calamity. This river in overflowing its banks spreads over the plains of Kazan, which it surrounds with its waters ; and these, when they return to their bed, leave behind a quantity of lakes and ponds, which the heat of the sun soon renders putrid. Hence arise unwholesome vapours, (aer paludosus,) which impregnate the air, and produce fevers and other diseases. The hotter the weather the more these diseases rage in Kazan. It is particularly in the lower parts of the town, in the streets nearest the Kazanka, and where these puddles and ponds most exist, that these diseases rage in the severest manner. For instance, the in- habitants of the streets called the Podlujenny, Zaseepkin, and Nijney Fedo- roffsky, suffer most. In the first of these streets, to every hundred births are reckoned 107 deaths ; in the Zaseepkin, to every hundred births 109 deaths • and in the lower streets of the parish called Evdokeemsky to every hundred births 134 deaths. It must be remarked, moreover, that in general the houses of these streets are inhabited by labourers and workmen belong- ing to the different factories, tan-yards, &c., men in the flower of their strength, and inured to fatigue and hardship."
The hospitality of the town is vaunted, and probably with truth as regards a well-recommended foreigner. The extravagance of the upper classes is unbounded ; their industry and morale are not much to boast of. They dance all night, lie abed a great part of the day, and fill up the " balance " with cards.
" But of all the joys that Kazan offers, certainly those of the card-player stand prominent. It is almost incredible to what an extreme the pastime we speak of is- carried in this town. All play,—the rich, the poor ; the high, the low; the learned, and the ignorant ; men, women, and even children ; and ofteia, while the master and his guests are absorbed by their game in the saloon, the servants are as busily engaged in the antechamber. With some persons this amusement is even carried to an excess which in few places I believe is equalled; and I have known a party of inveterate card-players re- main even forty-eight hours at play, scarcely leaving their chairs, unless it be to snatch a precipitate and ill-digested meal. Many of the young ladies likewise—and I trust they will forgive me saying so—as far as their sex and privileges allow, show an equal ardour in the pursuit of this pleasure -, and it often happens that these fair and interesting gamblers, the moment the din- ner is over, take their seats at the card-table, and there (and more's the pity !) they remain till the hour arrives for preparing for the ball. A game called 'Preference' is much in vogue among the ladies and the younger por- tion of the male society. The elder portion, particularly the married, play at Boston, whist, piquet, and ecarte. A game of hazard, called Bank, which allows of a greater degree of gambling than probably any other, was for some time quite the rage in Kazan, until the Emperor thought fit to prohibit it, in consequence of the ruin in which it had involved so many of his subjects."
Such is the intellectual, moral, and physical condition of the third city of the empire—painted, be it remembered, by an admiring partisan. Of course under a despotic police no man's house is his own, nor at Kazan can he choose his company. It would seem to be the custom for the-Governor to order some wealthy Tartar to give a party to distinguished foreigners when such arrive in the city, that they may see Mahometan life.
A. good part of the work consists of descriptions of manners condition, and climate; the nature of which the above extracts will. indicate. There are also many sketches of the city and environs, that would serve as a guide should anybody wish to go there after reading the account of it. Mr. Turnerelli describes the manners, customs, ceremonies, and so forth, of the Tartars and the Pagan dibes—he says from Observation and information, the lat- ter predominating. He also narrates the history of Kazan ; and this history is in a critical sense about the least satisfactory part of the book. In a general case, however a history may fail in rearming the manners and social condition of the times, there is something like cause and effect about it. The early story of Kazan, as told by Mr. Turnerelli, has a kind of theatrical character. Ka- zan is suddenly founded, as suddenly rises to splendour, and is as suddenly destroyed. After a time it is founded again, rising like an exhalation ; to go through a process of anarchy and tyranny till its final destruction. The reader may indeed perceive traces of its being an offshoot of the Tartar power of the middle ages, but this he must see for himself.
Where events in which Russia was directly concerned are in question, the leading facts may be clearer and more intelligible, but the circumstances are not presented. We seem to be reading a modern manifesto. Part of this absence of nature, spirit, and ori- ginality, may be traceable to the effects of a despotic education, "which brings to one dead level every mind." Every Muscovite writes in one way, and the raciness of history is lost, by passing through the minds of the modern historians from whom Mr. Tur- nerelli draws. Even when a contemporary chronicle is quoted, it conveys little of life, truth, or nature ; a vague and wordy gene- rality superseding distinctness and precision. One thing only is clear, and that constitutes the interest of the narrative. Three hundred years ago, there was just the same grasping and unscru- pulous ambition, the same reckless indifference to the lives of sub- jects or the rights of strangers, and the same headstrong will displayed by Ivan the Terrible as there is now by Nicholas the First. The shocking mingling of blood and blasphemy was also the same ostensibly ; but Ivan had more excuse on account of his age. This is the final downfall of Kazan. The town, now completely in the hands of the besiegers, was on fire in several directions : the battle had ceased, but not the effusion of blood ; for the conquerors, irritated by the vigorous and obstinate defence of their enemies, massacred cruelly all whom they met with, in the mosques, houses, and cel- lars. The court of the palace, the streets, ramparts, and ravines, were en- cumbered with thousands of dead bodies; the plain between the town and the Kazanka presented the same scene. The discharge of the artillery and musketry was no longer heard ; but the clang of the sword, the shrieks of the dying, and the cries of the victors, succeeded these frightful explosions. It was then that Prince Vorotinsky, commander-in-chief of the army, sent off a message to the Tzar, which ran as follows—' Rejoice, Prince ! your valour and good fortune have insured you the victory : Kazan is in our power, its Khan at your mercy ; the Tartars are all destroyed or taken prisoners ; in- calculable riches have fallen into our hands. We await your orders.'
" Glory be to the Most High !' exclaimed the Tzar, raising his hands to heaven. Immediately after, he ordered a Te Deum to be sung near the sacred banner ; and having, with his own hands, planted the holy cross on the principal gate of the fortress, he marked out a spot for the erection or- the first Christian temple in this Musaulman land."
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