A GENIIIN NOBL-SMAN'S RECOLLECTIONS

RUSSIA.* Iimeattie evidence carries these thirty-three years' Recollections of Russia as far back as the French invasion of 1812; so that the actual experience of the reminiscent would seem to have termi- nated some ten years ago. "The translator has in confidence been informed of the name of the author ; who vouches for the authenticity of the information it [the work] contains." The ca- pacity in which the German Nobleman visited Russia, and his ob- ject in remaining there for so long a time, do not appear. From passing indications, and the feeling with which he denounces the manner in which tutors and other foreigners tempted into the country are frequently cheated by their Russian employers, it may be inferred that he himself filled some situation scarcely com- patible with English notions of a nobleman. The book consists of personal narrative, particular description, and the result of much experience or observation brought into general conclusions. The principal subjects are serfdom, the police system, including the prisons, the bureaucracy or civil ser- vice, and the public and private life of the Russian people. The capital, with its characteristics, edificial and human, furnishes a chapter, as likewise do the author's first impressions of the country from the German frontier to St. Petersburg : and very sickening first impressions they are, for tyranny and brutality ; but they must have occurred so long ago, that matters have doubtless mended since, at least as regards officers and soldiers. There is also a chapter on the history and rights by treaty of the Ger- mano-Baltic provinces, and an account of the manner in which treaty stipulations were disregarded by the late Emperor. This is the freshest, the truest-looking, the most interesting, and the most informing section of the book. It lays bare the utter disre- gard of the Russian Government for engagements or rights either political or religious ; it exhibits the slow, calculating, and, under the circumstances, irresistible policy of Russia, by which the na- tional life of a people is crushed out of it; so that if the people cannot be actually made Russian, they shall at least cease to be Germans, Poles or any other nation. A principal step in this direction is to destroy a language, and with it of course all that that language teaches and inspires. The process is, not to forbid its use, but to render it useless for purposes of profit or advance- ment.

"The keystone of the Dorpat University was removed,—namely, the right of choosing its own professors. The Russian Government undertook this

• goad office, a piacere. In order to build the new edifice on the right founda- tion; the Russian language was recognized as the only one valid in German countries. No German student can be matriculated in his own fatherland without perfect acquaintance with the Russian language. None can become professors in their own German home who cannot give their lectures in the _ Russian language. The testimony of the ignorant professor of Russian has more weight than that of all the others. If he refuse his testamur,' no genius, no talent is available, even if it spoke with the tongues of angels.

• . "The University has become a Zwing-Uri. The student, like a private, must bow to every general he meets. The German language has been laid aside by Germans, and the Russian taken up in its stead; which is much the same as giving a bottle of hock for the same quantity of Neva water. German is now thought good enough for servants and tradesmen, but the

• literary and educated classes apply themselves to Russian. Literature is the voice of civilization in a nation. Up to the present there has been no Rus- sian literature. What is so termed Is merely an inspiration from foreign sources, because, here and there, a poetical mind has flown beyond the school system—because a romance or novel full of polished Epicurism has been sent to press—because gallantry and witticism are considered genius and 'philosophy—a fond idea is entertained about the flourishing state of native literature. It might have been supposed that a work like Krusenstem's Travels Round the World' would have excited a peculiar interest on the literary horizon of Russia, because it was the first of the kind published bya Russian. Just ask, however, how many copies were disposed of in Runk.', Some despotisms' that pay no regard to political or even civil rights, profess to have a respect for the rights of conscience; and at all events tolerate religions different from that of the state. With great professions of -religions liberality, and great practical indif- ference on the part of the educated classes, this is the way matters were managed in Russia by the late Emperor. "Now that compulsory measures are employed in religious matters, the Greek Church has by ukase been introduced as the dominant one,, even where, according to existing treaties, the Lutheran ought to have remained unmasked. The Evangelical churches are also forced to yield to the Russian ritual. Children of mixed marriages, as well as iRegitimate ones, are the prey of the Greek Church ; and the Russians, settling as they do all over the country, increase the number of these marriages and these children. Go- vernment and clergy are everywhere zealous propagandists. In Finland, especially in Evangelical Wiberg, numerous Lutherans are persuaded to en- ter the Greek Church ; and the public papers told us not long ago that seve- ral hundred Lettonians had been brought over by the secular and clerical Russian influence, and that one peasant had been consecrated a Pope.

"The Lutheran and Catholic Churches have been thus completely ensnared by the Russians. • • "The oppression which the Catholic-religion has endured from the Russians is well known. That things will not remain in their present state, may be assumed certain as a mathematical axiom, and equally so that the Evangeli- cal church within Russian confines will not fare one hair's-breadth better. Lutheranism, which diverges still further from the Greek Church, is a more odious object to the Russian clergy than Catholicism: •• •

• Recollections of Russia during Thirty-three Years' Residence. By a German NObleman. Revised and Translated, with the Author's sanction, by Lascelles

. Vkammil. terustable's by Constab burgh. Miscellany orgoteign Literature, Volume VIM) Published le, Edin 1 • "The Russian Ministry of Worship has the inspection of the Catholic Axe- demy at Petersburg; In the Catholic department of this ministry a Russian State-Councillor is head. The influence of the Bishop is quite ignored by the Academy; he dares not interfereeither with the instruction or the management ; the Russian genius possesses the sole privilege of attending to the mental and spiritual welfare of all the inhabitants of the empire. But under the pretence that the Ministry cannot act according to its good pleasure alone, ' a Catholic Academical Council has been established, composed of Catholic clergymen and Russian lay professors. Any book for the Catholic Church, throughout the whole empire, can only be printed at the office of the Catholic Academy. The revenues of the clergy, derived from estates, funded property, and tithes, have been taken away ; the extraordinary receipts from the parishes restricted, or entirely forbidden. The principal supporters of the Catholic faith among the monastic and secular clergy have been banished to Siberia, others relegated to Russian monasteries."

A more tyrannie proceeding has taken place as regards Pnlancl; but political apprehension may have been the cause : a dread of active conspiracy might possibly have prompted the extreme we-

sores described in this passage. • .• " The importance of the Catholic Church has been undermined in various ways.. Its numbers have been weakened by frequent deportations to Siberia, or to. the steppes of the adjacent desolate government. Those transportations have affected not only the Poles on the left bank of the Vistula, but still more the old Polish districts of Wins, Mohilev, &c., belonging to Runk. In this deportation was included a considerable portion of the Polish Within. —the Odnodworzen, or lower nobility without estates. They were stripped of their privileges of nobility ; and in order to make them feel their humilia- tion still more deeply, a number of this class, who had enjoyed a good edu- cation, were placed as privates in Russian regiments, and on terms of equal- ity with Russian serf-peasant lads. In the Engineers' School at Petersburg, and in other establishments, they may be found as drummers and fifers. In order utterly to extirpate this caste, they are botind, by a recent ukase, to submit to every conscription, whether ordered for the Eastern or Western provinces. Thousands of deported Catholics have also been purposely sent into districts where they are deprived of all religious support, and where the want of Catholic clergy will eventually force them to resign their creed."

The effect of all this has been but too successful: therels as yet no sign of Polish nationality in Poland. The Czar's pro- ceedings often operate in the same way not only in the Ger- mano-Baltic provinces, but even with Germans who go to Russia in search of advancement—that is, as adventurers. "The Russian idolatry is found even among Russianized German Protest- ant families. They cross themselves just as zealously as the Russians before the shrines in their rooms. I never observed this servility among English and French, but in very many German families, who kept the Russian-pic- tures of saints in their apartments, under the pretext that they did-so-foe the sake of the Russian domestics. . " ' Are you of the Russian religion ? ' I asked a State-Councillor, who bowed and crossed himself, together with his wife and ohildren, both before and after dinner, in front of-St. Alexander Nevski.

" 'No ; lama Lutheran. Why do you ask ? '

"'Because I saw you beta-sing quite like a Russian.' " ' Oh ! you must not be sutprised at that : we do not believe in s ...non- senseI of course, but we have-accustomed ourselves to it ; we come 'limit into contact with Russians, and these things please them"

The State eduoation has a similar effect upon children born in Russia of German parents, whether males or females. The writer is speaking of those celebrated institutions for the daughters of the respectable classes on which the late Emperor prided himself, and which some courtly travellers have so much admired.

"Look, for instance, at a young lady educated in one of the two principal institutes—the Jungfern Kloster and the St. Catherine's foundation. She is dressed, fed, and taught, according to the will of the Government. The Russian higher and lower nobility know no better education.

"Suppose a German daughter returns from one ofthese-institutions:to the bosom of her family. For six years she has-not once crossed the-threshold of the paternal home. She has grown a stranger to parents and relatives, who were only allowed an hour on Sunday to speak with her, after the. man- ner of the drawingroom. A finicking stiff Russian being comes out, a na- tural German girl went in. Ignorant of all domesticity, the poor creature is confounded at the sight of that world in which she is nowto live. Her head, filled with phrases is of no more value than the books in which the phrases are written in an elegant hand, and her heart has remained miserablyempty. The mother-tongue is forgotten, in spite of all the grammatical exercises ; the daughter only speaks Russ, or can answer in French when required, about weather, music, dancing, and the visits of the Empress and her ladies to the institution. " ' 0 God!' once complained to me with tears a German mother, whose daughter had come back, after six years' separation, with first-rate iestinio- nials: 'I do not know what has happened to my Sophie. My heart bleeds when I look at the poverty of her mind and heart. Father, mother, and sisters, have become objects of indifference to her. I will never send another child to these institutions, even if we are forced to earn our bread by sewing: "I know a number of these beings, altered in the same manner, without any fault of their own. Many, too, possessing talents ; not one of winch, however, was employed or developed."

The picture of Russia as drawn by this writer is as bad as that of any other author ; in some respects, indeed, it is worse. The only exception he makes is in favour of the army. He describes the officers as being more like gentlemen and men of honour than the generality of travellers do : in which he seems borne out by the facts of the present war. The ignorance, corruption, servility, and immorality of the civil service, he paints in darker colours than any one, we think, has yet done ; at least he enters into the sub- ject more minutely. Of the system of government, and the two great classes of genuine Russians, the serfs and the traders, he gives a sorry account; but the question continually arises, how much of all this is really true? As regards confirmatory evidence, the "German Nobleman" could produce plenty. His opinion is like - that of most modern-travellers ; and he himself, in one part of his work, quotes pretty freely from a Danish traveller of a century ago, with the view of showing how little matters are mended. 011 the other side, the great exertions whicli Russia has made during the last two years, both in the Baltic and Black Sea, as well as in the moving of her large armies with the transport and commissariat of necessity implied, seem scarcely consistent with the corruption and inefficieney universally asoribed to the Tchin or civil service. Strangeness of modes, perhaps, may colour the conclusions of writers, as well as some prejudice against Russia. This writer exhibits a touch of both in his account of the prisons. His pic- ture of misery is sad enough, but he makes out the majority of the noble prisoners to be such rogues that they deserve all they get. Li the fancy picture of a pdsoner innocently imprisoned, he supposes his feelings if relations should be ill and he not able to see them: but this is a hardship to which all prisoners are exposed. It is the arbitrary imprisonment and long detention that are the grounds of complaint; and though the management is bad, what was it in our own country a century ago ?

The sketches of the German Nobleman are animated and read- able ; his general accounts broad and vigorous. Subject to the qualifications already spoken of, the accounts seem true enough ; but the writer has a habit of dramatizing his instances, which throws= air of fiction over parts of the book that the matter itself may not possess.