MR. RALSTON ON RUSSIAN HISTORY.*
WE do not know that Mr. Ralston was quite wise in publishing these lectures. They are intended, he says, only as a snack to whet the appetite for Russian history ; but a snack, with the time of dinner still uncertain, is no pleasure to the tame epicure. It satisfies no appetite, and if it raises one, raises it usually too soon. Mr. Ralston, doubtless, knows his subject, and the curious style he has adopted, that of a man slightly doubtful if he is instructing a class in history or telling children a fairy-story, was probably effective for his first purpose, but is a little tiresome for any other. The early history of Russia, in fact, exceedingly clembtfuT as it is, and little known to Englishmen, hardly bears rapid analysis. It needs, first of all, to be narrated, and nar- rated at length, with much proof of the reasons which have pro- duced any certain conviction. Mr. Ralston is compelled in these lectures, for mere want of space, to huddle up his statements until they become almost dry, and certainly much less tempting than the clear narrative prepared by some nameless author for Dr. Lardner's Encyclopedia. If Mr. Ralston does not intend to give us a full history of his own, we wish he would republish the really readable account of his first volume, with ample notes, confirmatory or corrective. His method in these brochures has necessarily in it something too short and, as it were, peremptory. For example, he explains the origin of the name "Russia" and the dynasty of Rurik. In 862, when the Slavons of Dawn were discontented with their anarchy, " Gostomys], Prince or President of Novgorod, feels that his days are drawing to a close. He sees that the commonwealth is threatened with great perils, on account of its constant dissensions and revolutions, and so he calls the people together, and beseeches them to invite from abroad some wise and strong man to govern them. And they listen to his voice, and send envoys across the sea to the Varangian tribe or family of Rue. The envoys arrive and say, 'Our land is large and rich, but order in it there is none. Do ye come over and govern us.' And the chieftains of the tribe, Rurik and his brothers Sineus and 'Truvor, accept the offer, summon their kinsmen and the rest of the tribe of Rus, and in the year 862 arrive in the land, which is thenceforward called Russ/cage, Russish, or Russian. At first the three brothers occupy separate strongholds, but after two years Sinew! and Truvor die, and Rurik settles and rules supreme at Novgorod."
That is told in the legendary style, but the author of the above- mentioned history of Russia gives a much more prosaic and natural account of the affair. He says that Barik, a leader of the piratical Nortbmen, had been hired by the Republic of Nov- gorod, had learned the condition and the weakness of the city, which was distracted by internal divisions, and having settled at Ladoga and gathered large bands of his comrades, in 862 marched upon the city, claiming it for his own. The citizens, who seem to have looked upon Rurik as the people of Normandy looked on Rollo, distracted by divisions, and possibly demoralised by prosperity, refused to endure a siege, and handed over the government to their former mercenary, who thenceforward described himself as the "Grand Prince." We, of course, do not venture to place the authority of a nameless writer against that of Mr. Ralston on his own subject ; but Mr. Ralston's account looks the less vraisemblable-of the two, and he assumes as a certainty the debateable point that the name of Rurik's tribe was " Rus." The nameless writer declares with equal positiveness that the name is older than the invasion of Rurik, and its origin lost in the obscurity which envelops all Russian history previous to the foundation of the grand principality. If Mr. Ralston is right, this change, great as it was, was not unprecedented, the generic name of the conquerors having adhered to the land occupied by Rollo and his Northmen. The strange hold which the dynasty subsequently acquired over the faith and affections; of all Russians may have been due to a tradition of Bunk's govern- ment, just as the hold of the descendants of Alfred was, but is more probably due to the fact that one member of the dynasty rescued the people from the Tartars and another made it Christian, and for that act was exalted by all Russian priests and monks to the skies. The hold, however, is certain, and once saved Russia from imminent dissolntion,--,a -most remote descendant of Rurik, * Burly Ruesiaof Aiduro. By W. B,, 8. Balaton, MA. London : Sampson Low and Co.
the first Romano, being accepted by the people on that account alone. Mr. Ralston seems to believe, or rather repeats as half- legend, half-history, the story of Vladimir listening to men of all creeds before he compelled his people to adopt Christianity :—
" We see him at first lending ear to Mohammedan proselytisers, find- ing their glowing descriptions of Paradise much to his taste. But when they tell him that he must give up eating pork and drinking wine, he cries aloud, 'We Russians delight in drinking. Impossible for us to live without that.' And he listens no more to the Koran. Next he listens with favour to what Jewish pleaders urge in behalf of their creed—until it occurs to him to ask where lies their native land. But when they reply-that for their sins God has driven them from their own country, and scattered them abroad among the nations, he at once refuses to have anything more to do with so sinful and ill-omenea a race. Then comes a Christian sage. He troubles Vladimir's mind by strange words concerning this life and that which is to come, and con- firms the deep impression they have made by revealing to his gaze a pictured scroll on which are represented the souls of the just, angel- led, rising on the right hand into Paradise, and the souls of the unjust, demon-driven, descending on the left into the jaws of hell. Long does Vladimir gaze upon the picture. Then he sighs deeply, and utters words betraying a strong inclination to place reliance upon his new teacher. But before coming to a decision upon so momentous a ques- tion he sends envoys into various lands to report upon their respective religions. They, on their return speak unfavourably of all that they have seen elsewhere, but in rapturous terms do they describe the mag- nificent rites of the Greek Church, the splendid Christian temples of Constantinople. Vladimir calls his chieftains together to hear the report e the envoys. And when they have heard it, and they are asked if they are in favour of adopting the religion of the Greeks, they promptly answer Yes !' adding, 'Were it not a ,good one, would thy grand- mother Olga have adopted it—she, the wisest among the children of men ?' Thereupon Vladimir asks : In what place shall we receive baptism?' To which their ready reply is, 'Wheresoever it pleaseth thee !'"
All Russian accounts seem to repeat this story, which is probably true in the sense in which it is true that Constantine christianised the world. In other words, Christianity having entered Russia, and the people having lost their old superstitions, Vladimir gave an official recognition to the new creed, which he evidently thought would bring him nearer to Constantinople, the great object of Russian reverence, and persecuted the Pagans out of his-dominion. This Russian worship of Constantinople, though no doubt deepened by their respect for it as the place from which their creed was derived, is older than their Christianity, and was originally the result of the admiring awe which the capital of the Western Empire, with its civilisation, its luxury, and its traditions, had inspired in tribes still more than half-savage. We are glad to perceive that Mr. Ralston accepts the idea, which is almost certainly true, that Ivan the Great was compelled for the safety of Russia to build up the Czardom—to assume that monopoly of power which has driven half his successors mad—but he is surely rash in assuming that Ivan the Terrible could have had no method in his madness :—
"With all that Kostomarof says in condemnation of Ivan IV. we may safely coincide. That terrible madman was a disgrace, not only to Russia, but to humanity. There was not really, as some writers have tried to prove, any method in his madness. He seems to have raged, and tortured, and slain, not so much from a desire to serve any private ends, as in obedience to an impulse towards destruction due to a frantic fear. A vision of treachery appears to have been ever before his eyes. a voice counselling destruction never to have ceased ringing in his ears. What is really inexplicable is how it was that he was endured, why his subjects did not rise in just wrath, and sweep the monster from off the face of the earth which his presence disgraced. The explanation of this mystery is hard to find. To a certain extent it must be sought in the peculiarities of the Slavonic nature ; mild, yielding, easily impressed, and believing implicitly in a destiny against which it is useless to struggle. In part, also, it must be looked for in the devotion to their native and orthodox Princes of the members of the great Russian branch of the Slavonic family, and especially of its Muscovite division. The Grand Prince or Tsar of Moscow was for his subjects something very different from a Constitutional Ring or an Elective President. He was supposed to reign by the divinest of rights, to be the visible embodi- ment of the power and will of God. Obedience to him, at all times, under all circumstances, was considered so clearly the first duty of man, that resistance to his will could scarcely occur to a well-regulated Muscovite mind. This servile form of allegiance was partly due to the teaching of the Church. Great as had been the merits of the clergy in supporting the courage of the nation when all but crushed under the feet of the Infidels, so do their demerits appear to have been great, in that they inculcated a perfectly blind obedience, an utterly abject sub- mission, to the orthodox Chief of the State. Here and there a solitary ecclesiastic like the Metropolitan Philip made a noble stand against the ferocious Tsar, and perished a true confessor in the cause of morality and justice. But as a general rule the clergy do not seem to have been able to see with clearer eyes than the great body of the people. Nor was it likely, it must be remembered, that the monarchs would take a less favourable view of their own claims to worship and devotion than was entertained by their subjects. Ivan the Terrible probably believed without a shadow of doubt that he had been invested with despotic power by direct celestial agency, and that all attempts to thwart his purpose or limit his will must be due, at least to infernal suggestion, if not to diabolical support. But even when every modifying influence is taken into consideration, and full attention has been paid to the peculiar features which the case presents, it must remain inconceivable to us, to whom freedom has come as naturally as the light of day or the air we breathe, how men could have witnessed the atrocities committed day after day by the terrible madman upon the throne, and not have made some attempt to stay his destroying hand."
There is no doubt whatever that Ivan was a wild brute, who loved slaughter as Nadir Shah did, because it terrorised his subjects as well as his enemies ; but there can be none either that he had a most shrewd knack of satisfying his fury exactly where it was most politic—witness his treatment of Novgorod—and that he had in his worst fits the power of instantly restraining himself. He may have gone mad in the medical sense after the death of his wife, but he seems to us much more like one of those men in whom will, by constant indulgence, has become almost a disease The strongest point in Mr. Ralston's favour is not that his sub- jects did not rise—for they may have liked him, as the Romans liked Nero, and the Spaniards Ferdinand VII., because his ven- geance fell on those whom they themselves disliked—but that he was not killed, as such princes are in the East, by his own household. That looks like true religious terror, like the feeling which for so many centuries preserved the Popes against the bitter personal hatreds they must have heaped up. Mr. Ralston's little book will help young students, but we wish he would, with all his know- ledge, give us something larger and more solid, and prepared after careful weighing of the Russian historians he quotes.
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