CH. I.]

CHAPTER I.

EARLY POLICY OF RUSSIA.

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MILITARY AND ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION OE RUSSIA SUBSEQUENTLY TO THE 16TH CENTURY.-CONSEQUENCES OF THE WANT OF PRIVATE PROPERTY.— CHARACTER OF PETER THE GREAT'S REFORMS. ABOLITION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF LEGITIMACY IN THE SUCCESSION TO THE CROWN.-AGGRESSIVE POLICY.-OLD AND NEW RUSSIANS.-CATHARINE II.— -HER PLAN OF CONQUERING POLAND AND TURKEY.-HER OBJECTS, AND THE RELATION OF AUSTRIA AND PRUSSIA TO THEM. ATTITUDE ASSUMED BY LEOPOLD II. TOWARDS RUSSIA.

DURING the years which intervened between the warlike exploits of Frederick II. and Napoleon, the Empress Catharine II. sat on the throne of Russia. She ruled over this colossal empire for more than 30 years, extended all its frontiers, raised herself to a dominant position in Europe, and maintained a silent, nay a trembling obedience at home. She, a woman, accomplished this, though born in a foreign country and reared in a foreign religion, without possessing a shadow of legal title to the crown, and after having murdered her husband; she did it too, under the very eyes of a son, who alone had any claim to rule. She accomplished all this in a court which she herself filled with shameless immorality, in the midst of a people who regarded her with deep aversion, by means of an army in which she neither inspired, nor placed, the slightest confidence for a single hour. It could be no small talent which made itself a sphere of action under such circumstances; but there was no other country in the world besides Russia, where even the greatest genius for ruling could have accomplished such a task.

When we look for the starting points of modern civilization in the West, our attention is sure to rest upon the

great religious wars, the discovery of the New World, and the revival of classical learning. In Russian history all these are represented by the rule of the Mongols,-who in the 13th century subjected Moscow to their yoke - and the liberation of the country from these barbarians in the 16th century by the Grand Duke of the Kremlin. In these struggles the polity of the old Grand Dukes perished; a polity which, though in many respects sui generis, was in the main similar to the contemporaneous institutions of the West, and afforded a prospect of similar progress. But all the germs of this nature were trampled down by a century of Asiatic rule. Nothing remained but petty Lords, who, in humble dependence on the Khans of the Golden Horde, ruled over a population crushed by a double weight. Ecclesiastical independence, strong corporations, intellectual progress-all these life-springs of the West were here utterly unknown.

When at last the Princes of Moscow worked their way to independence out of the ruins of the Mongol Empire, a new era began, which had nothing in common with the past. The new rule, even in the interior of the land, was from the very first one of conquest. A warlike prince who called his companions to horse, rode forth with them to subdue the neighbouring districts, the lords of which he destroyed from the face of the earth (unless they took service in his army), and distributed their lands among his followers under the constant obligation of military service; a government which regarded every acquisition only as a means of further conquest, and allowed no other impulse or thought to arise in the heart of its people but that of war;-such is the picture of the Russian Empire in the time of the German Reformation-in the reign of Elizabeth of England, and Henry of France! We find no trace of the Commonwealth of the Greeks, with its exuberant life, or of the Roman State, based on inflexible laws, or on the rich individuality of the Germans-not a trace, therefore, of the elements of which Western States have been composed. The distribution of lands

CH. I.] ASIATIC CHARACTER OF THE RUSSIAN POLITY.

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among the Bojards did not create an aristocracy, since every fief was only granted in usufruct, and at will, in the same way as among the Osman Timarli. The principle was laid down, that all the property of the subjects was held on condition of service to the Czar in his wars; and the most important of his revenues were not the regular taxes, but the extraordinary exactions. "They are pleased in Moscow," said the English Ambassador, Fletcher, "when the Governors depart for their provinces poor, and return to Court rich, because the Czar in that case takes from them the larger half of their booty; and in the same way, since all property really belongs to the Czar, he exercises the right of preemption in every lucrative branch of trade, and buys and sells at his own price." Since the subject in Russia virtually possessed only so much right as pleased the Czar, the administration of justice was only so far impartial as the Czar required it to be so; otherwise every sentence was publicly bought and sold. We see here a state of things in all respects purely oriental-the old Persian administration-the Turkish military system-and the Mahometan omnipotence of the Caliph.

This is not the only point in which the contrast between the German-Italian nations and the Russians is apparent. The religion as well as the civil policy of the latter points towards Asia. When we consider the effect of Divine Worship on the public life of nations, we may distinguish two fundamental forms of religion in their history. According to the one, religion is simply the Law which God lays down for the world; and, consequently, the Church, as the organ of the Omnipotent will, is the supreme ruling authority, furnished with visible depositories of its power, and armed, like every other dominion, with the right of judging and punishing. This is the prevailing view in the East, on which both Islam and Judaism are entirely founded, and certain elements of which were transferred from these religions into Medieval Christianity. The other form sees in

religion the inward relation between creature and Creator, the deep personal union between the spirit of man and its original Source, the influx of Divine grace and salvation into the thirsting souls of created beings. The main-spring of the former is the commandment, of the latter the glad tidings of the former, discipline, of the latter freedom-of the former, the subjection, of the latter, the emancipation, of the individual. The latter is the ground on which the Christianity of the Apostle Paul grew up; on which every reaction of a personal longing after salvation takes its stand against the benumbing influence of ecclesiastical forms. It is the only mode of thought in connexion with which Church life has, at any period, prospered among the Germans; Russia, on the contrary, has never known any other than the Oriental view of religion.

It is true that the Romish Church of the Middle Ages undertook not only to give spiritual life to the individual, but, at the same time, to bring the whole world into subjection. It disciplined the masses of the people, exercised a surveillance over the laws of the State, humbled Kings, and made war on infidels with fire and sword, by land and water. But a complete carrying out of this system was rendered impossible in our regions, both by the character of their inhabitants and the force of circumstances. The Church was not strong enough to take complete possession of the secular power; and on the other hand, it was far too strong to allow the Monarchs to assume the position of Heads of the Church. And thus Church and State continued separate under different leaders, and space was found between the two for the growth of independence in the mind of individuals. The union of ecclesiastical and secular power in one hand could alone have rendered despotism complete: but in the West, fortunately for freedom, Emperor and Pope were at feud with one another; while in the East the union of the two powers crushed every germ of original thought. Russia derived its Christianity from Constantinople, where

CH. I.]

ABSOLUTE POWER OF THE CZAR.

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for a long period a submissive clergy had done homage to the Emperor as the apostolic and angelic Bishop of foreign affairs. The clergy had from the beginning been dependent on the Grand Dukes; then came the Mongol storm; and the military despotism which subsequently arose subjected the Church of the country as completely as the State, and ruled over the minds of men as absolutely as over their lands. "The Russians," said the Imperial Ambassador, Herberstein, "worship St. Basil, St. Gregory and St. Chrysostom,—allow no sermon to be preached in their churches, because it might contain heresy, and believe and follow every thing which the Czar lays down as the orthodox faith." We know that from that period there has been no developement of Chrisian doctrine, no earnest care of souls, and no inward sense of religion. Here, too, despotism had an innate suspicion against every intellectual movement, and the Jesuit Possevin bitterly complained of the utter want of education: "The man who wished to learn anything," said he, "would become an object of suspicion, and not get off without punishment." Salvation depended on a connexion with the external Church; and this Church followed with blind devotion all the commands, not of a priest, but of a soldier. The Patriarch indeed governed the Church but the Czar ruled it.

Where the Monarch unites in his own person all the prerogatives of military chief and supreme pontiff over all his subjects, the very idea of personal freedom is entirely excluded. Private property in the German and Roman sense existed only in appearance. An Englishman of the 16th century observed; "The poorest man in our country says of his house, it belongs to God and me; but the noblest Russian says, it belongs to God and the Czar." Nor was this by any means a mere loyal phrase, but an accurate description of the real state of things. "For though there is indeed," explains Fletcher, "a legal distinction between fiefs and hereditary estates-i. e. between those lands which are granted by the Czar in usufruct, and those which pass