Russia in 1839 -Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia

by Astolphe De Custine

  * I would beg the reader to remember that it is not I who thus speak.

  AN INSURRECTION.

  81

  crown lately purchased a considerable estate in the district that has since revolted. Immediately the peasants sent deputies from every part of the surrounding country to the new superintendants of the imperial lands, to supplicate the emperor to purchase them also. The serfs chosen as ambassadors were sent on to Petersburg. The Emperor received them and treated them with kindness ; but, to their great regret, he did not buy them. ' I cannot,' he said to them, ' purchase all Kussia, but a time will come, I hope, when each peasant of this empire will be free; if it depended only upon me, the Russians should enjoy from this day forth the independence which I wish for them; and to procure them which, at a future period, I am labouring with all my powers.'"

  " Well, this answer seems to me full of reason, candour, and humanity."

  " No doubt: but the emperor should have known to whom he addressed such words; and not have murdered his noblemen out of tenderness towards his serfs. These words, interpreted by barbarous and envious men, have set a whole province on fire; and thus has it become necessary to punish a people for crimes which they were instigated to commit. ' Our Father desires our deliverance,' cried the returned deputies on the borders of the TVolga ; ' he wishes for nothing but our happiness, he said so to us, himself: it is, then, only the nobles and their agents who are our enemies, and who oppose the good designs of Our Father! Let us avenge the Empei`or!' After this, the peasants believed they were performing a pious work in rising upon their masters, and thus all the nobles of a canton, and all their agents were massacred together E 5

  82BLOODY SCENES ON THE WOLGA.

  with their families. They spitted one and roasted him alive; they boiled another in a cauldron ; they disembowelled and killed in various other ways the stewards and agents of the estates; they murdered all they met, burnt whole towns, and, in short, devastated a province, not in the name of liberty, for they do not know what liberty means, but in the name of deliverance and of the emperor."

  í¢ It was perhaps some of these savages whom we saw passing in the prisoner's conveyance. How could such beings be influenced by the gentle means employed by the governments of Western Europe ?"

  " It would be necessary gradually to change the ideas of the people; instead of which they find it more convenient to change their location. After every scene of this kind, villages and entire cantons are transported. No population is sure of preserving its territory, the result of which is, that men, attached as they become to the soil, are deprived, in their slavery, of the only compensation which could comport with their condition. By an infernal combination they are made moveable, without being made free. A word from the monarch roots them up as though they were trees, tears them from their native soil, and sends them to perish or to languish at the world's end. The peasant, exposed to these storms of supreme power, loves not his cabin, the only thing in this world that he could love ; he detests his life, and ill-understands its duties, for it is necessary to impart some happiness to a man in order to make him feel his obligations ; misery only instructs him in hypocrisy and revolt. If 8elf interest, when well understood, is not the foundation of morals, it is at least their .support.'1

  THE POET POUSKINE.83

  " Yet it is difficult to change the spirit of a people: it is the work neither of a day, nor of a reign."

  " Is it a work at which they sincerely labour ? "

  " I think so, but with prudence."

  " What you call prudence, I call insincerity: you do not know the emperor."

  " Reproach him with being inflexible, but not with being false: in a prince, inflexibility is often a virtue."

  " Do you believe the character of the emperor to be sincere ? Remember his conduct at the death of Pouskine."

  " I do not know the circumstances of that event."

  Thus talking, we arrived at the Champ de Mars, a vast square which appears a desert, though it occupies the middle of the city. A man may converse there with less danger of being overheard than in hit-chamber. My cicerone continued : —

  " Pouskine was, as you are aware, the greatest poet of Russia."

  " We are no judges of that."

  " We are, at least, of his reputation. Whether well founded or not, his reputation was great. He was yet young, and of an irascible temper. You know he had Moorish blood on his mother's side. His wife, a very handsome woman, inspired him with more passion than confidence. His poetical temperament and his African blood, made him easily jealous : and it was thus that, exasperated by appearances and by false reports envenomed with a perfidy which calls to mind the conception of Shakspeare, this Russian Othello lost all reason, and sought to foi`ce the man by whom he believed himself injured, to E 6

  84

  DEATH OF rOUSKINE :

  fight with him. This person was a Frenchman, and, unfortunately, his brother-in-law ; his name was M. de Antes. A duel in Russia is a serious affair, the more so, because, instead of according, as among us, with ideas and customs in opposition to laws, it militates against all preconceived notions : this nation is more oriental than chivalrous. Duelling is illegal here as elsewhere, but, besides this, it is less supported by public opinion than in other lands. M. de Antes did all he could to avoid the difficulty. Urged vehemently by the unhappy husband, he refused him satisfaction, though in a manner that was dignified: but notwithstanding this, he continued his assiduities. Pouskine became almost mad. The constant presence of the man whose death he wished, appeared to him a permanent insult, and in order to rid himself of him, he acted in a way that made a duel inevitable. The two brothers-in-law7 fought, and M. de Antes killed Pouskine. The man whom public opinion accused, triumphed ; and the injured husband, the national poet, the innocent party, fell.

  " This death excited public indignation. Pouskine, the Russian poet, par excellence, the author of the finest odes in the language, the glory of the country, the restorer of Slavonian poetry, in short, the pride of the age, the hope of the future, to fall by the hand of a Frenchman ! this was an event that roused public passion to the highest pitch. Petersburg, Moscow, the whole empire was in excitement. The emperor, who knows the Russians better than any man in Russia, took care to join in the public affliction. He ordered a service to be performed, and I am not pure that he did not carry his pious affectation so far

  FATE OF HIS SUCCESSOR.8ð

  as to assist in person at the ceremony, in order to publish his regret by taking God to witness his admiration of the national genius, removed too soon for his glory.

  £< However this may be, the sympathy of the sovereign so flattered the Muscovite spirit as to awake a generous patriotism in the breast of a young man, endowed with much talent. This too credulous poet was so enraptured by the august protection accorded to the first of all arts, that he grew bold enough to believe himself inspired ! In the ingenuous yearnings of his gratitude, he ventured even to write an ode — a patriotic ode, to thank the emperor for becoming the protector of literature. He concluded his remarkable production by singing the praises of the departed bard. This was all he did; I have read the verses and I can attest the innocent intentions of the author: unless at least it might be a crime to conceal in the depths of his bosom a hope, perhaps, of becoming one day a second Pouskine — a hope very pardonable, it seems to me, in a youthful imagination.

  " Audacious youth ! to aim at renown, to betray a passion for glory under a despotism ! It was the same as if Prometheus had said to Jupiter — 'Take care of yourself, I am going to rob you of your thunderbolts.'

  " The recompense which this young aspirant received for having thus publicly shown his confidence in his master's love for the fine arts and the belles let-tres, was a secret order to go and pursue his poetical studies on the Caucasus, a chapel of ease to the ancient Siberia.

  " After having remained there two years, he has

  86DESPOTISM IN LITERATURE.

  retur
ned, his health destroyed, his mind cast down, and his imagination radically cured of its chimeras. After this trait will you yet put trust in the official words or the public acts of the Emperor?"

  " The Emperor is a man ; he shares human weaknesses. Something must have shocked him in the allusions of the young poet. Perhaps they were European rather than national. The emperor proceeds on a principle the very opposite to that of Catherine II., he braves Europe instead of flattering it. This is wrong, I admit; for studied opposition is in itself a species of dependence, since under it a man is only influenced by contradiction ; but it is pardonable, especially if yon reflect on the evil caused to Russia by princes who were possessed all their life with the mania of imitation."

  " You are incorrigible !" exclaimed the advocate of the ancient boyards. " You believe, then, in the pos-siblity of Russian civilisation ? It promised well before the time of Peter the Great, but that prince destroyed the fruit in its germ. Go to Moscow, it is tli£ centre of the ancient empire; yet you will see that all minds are turned towards speculations of industry, and that the national character is as much effaced there as at St. Petersburg. The Emperor Nicholas commits to-day, though with different лаеws, a fault analogous to that of Peter the Great. He does not take into account the history of an entire age, the age of the Emperor Peter : history has its fatalities, — the fatalities of faìts accompl¡s. Woe to the prince who does not submit to these !"

  The day was advanced; wTe separated, and I continued my walk, musing upon the energetic feeling

  POETRY OF POUSKIXE.

  87

  of opposition which must spring up in minds accustomed to reflect under the silence of despotism. Characters which such a government does not debase, it steels and fortifies.

  On my return, I sat down to read again some translations of the poems of Pouskine. They confirmed me in the opinion that a previous reading had imparted. This author has borrowed much of his colouring from the new poetical school of Western Europe. Not that he has adopted the anti-religious opinions of Lord Byron, the social notions of our poets, or the philosophy of those of Germany ; but he has adopted their manner of describing. I therefore do not recognise him as a real Muscovite poet. The Pole, Mickiewiteh, strikes me as being much more Slavonic, although he, like Pouskine, has bowed to the influence of occidental literature.

  The real Russian poet, did one exist, could, in the present day address only the people; he would neither be understood nor read in the salons. Where there is no language, there is no poetry ; neither indeed are there any thinkers. The Emperor Nicholas has begun to require that Russian be spoken at court; they laugh at present at a novelty which is viewed as merely a caprice of their master's; the next generation will thank him for this victory of good sense over fashion.

  How could the national genius develope itself in a society where people speak four languages without knowing one ? Originality of thought has a nearer connection than is imagined with purity of idiom. This fact has been forgotten in Russia for a century, and in France for some years. Our children will

  88FOREIGN NURSES AND GOVERNESSES.

  feel the effects of the rage for English nurses which

  оо

  has, among us, taken possession of all "fashionable " mothers.*

  In France formerly, the first, and I believe the best French tutor, was the nurse. A man should study his native language throughout his whole life, but the child should not be formally taught it; he should receive it in the cradle, without study. Instead of this, our little Frenchmen of the present day lisp English. and stammer German from their birth, and are afterwards taught French as a foreign language.

  Montaigne congratulated himself on having learned Latin previously to French. It is perhaps to the advantage in which the author of the Essays thus glories, that we owe the most pure and national style in our ancient literature ; he had a right to rejoice, for the Latin is the root of our language; but all purity and spontaneity of expression is lost among a people who do not respect the language of their fathers. Our children speak English, just as our footmen wear powder ! 1 am persuaded that the want of originality in modern Slavonian literature is attributable to the custom, which the Poles and Russians adopted during the eighteenth century, of introducing into their families foreign tutors and preceptors. When the Russians turn their thoughts again into their own language, they translate; and this borrowed style cheeks the flow of thought, at the same time that it destroys the simplicity of expression.

  How is it that the Chinese have hitherto done more for the human race in literature, in philosophy,

  * Les mèresfashionables.?-

  CONFUSION OF TONGUES.89

  in morals and in legislation than the Russians ? It is, perhaps, because these men have not ceased to entertain a strong affection for their primitive dialect.

  The confusion of languages does not injure mediocre minds ; on the contrary, it aids them in their efforts. Superficial instruction, the only kind which is suited to such minds, is facilitated by a study, equally superficial, of the living languages — an easy study, or rather a mental recreation perfectly suited to indolent faculties, or to faculties devoted to material aims. But whenever, by mischance, this system is applied to the education of superior talent, it checks the work of nature, leads genius astray, and prepares for it either a future source of fruitless regrets,— or efforts which few even of the most distinguished men have the leisure or the courage, after the period of early youth is passed, to undertake. All great writers are not Rousseaus. Rousseau studied our language as a foreigner, and it woidd require his genius of expression and his susceptibility of imagination, joined to his tenacity of character, and also his isolation in society, in order to learn French as he learned it. Still the French of the Grenevese is less at variance with that of Fénélon, than the jargon, mixed with English and German, which is now taught in Paris to the children of the highest classes. Perhaps the laboured artifices that too often appear in the sentences of Rousseau would not have existed, if the great writer had been born in France at a time when (as was then the case) the children spoke French.

  The study of the ancient languages, then in vogue, far from being attended with a mischievous result,

  90DECLINE OF FRENCH LITERATURE.

  afforded us the only means of attaining a profound knowledge of our own, which is derived from them. This study led us back to the pure waters of our source, and there strengthened our national genius, independently of its advantages as being the most appropriate to the developeraent of the faculties of childhood, into whose mind, before all else, should be instilled the power of language as the instrument of thought.

  Whilst Russia, slowly regenerated by the sovereign who now governs her, from the errors entailed by former monarchs, may hope to attain a language, the poets, the prose writers, the refined and soi-disant enlightened people amongst ourselves, are preparing for France a generation of scribbling imitators, of readers without independence of mind ; people who understand Shakspeare and Goethe so well in the original, that they can neither appreciate the prose of Bossuet and of Chateaubriand, the winged poetry of Hugo, the classic periods of Racine, the originality and boldness of Molicre and of La Fontaine, the refined wit and taste of Madame de Sévigné, nor the sentiment and the divine harmony of La-martine ! Thus it is that they will be rendered incapable of producing anything sufficiently original to perpetuate the glory of their language, and to attract, as formerly, the men of all countries to France, there to study and to appreciate the mysteries of taste.

  DISTURBANCES IN RUSSIA.

  91

  CHAR XVIII.

  DISTURBANCES IN RUSSIA. PARALLEL BETWEEN FRENCH AND

  RUSSIAN CRIMES AND CRUELTIES.CHARACTERISTICS OF REVOLT

  IN RUSSIA. ORDER IN DISORDER.DANGER OF INCULCATING

  LIBERAL IDEAS AMONG IGNORANT POPULATIONS. REASONS FOR

  RUSSIAN SUPERIORITY IN DIPLOMACY. HISTORY OF THELENEF,

  A TALE OF MODERN RUSSIA.
>
  Tnis morning, early, I received a visit from the individual whose conversation is recounted in the last chapter. He brought me a French manuscript, written by the young prince, the son of his patron. It is the relation of an occurrence, only too true, that forms one of the numerous episodes of the yet recent event with which all feeling and thoughtful minds are still silently and secretly occupied. Is it possible to enjoy, without any feelings of uneasiness, the luxury of a magnificent abode, when one thinks that, at a few hundred leagues from the palace, murder is rampant, and society would fall to pieces, were it not for the terrific means employed to uphold it ?

  The young Prince, who has written this story,

  would be ruined if it could be discovered that he was the author. It is on this account that he has confided his manuscript to me, and entrusted me with its publication. He permits me to insert the account of the death of Thelenef in the text of my travels, where I shall faithfully give it, without, however, compromising the safety of any one. I am assured of the accii-

  92 PARALLEL BETWEEN FRENCH AND

  racy of the principal facts; the reader can put as much or as little faith in them as he pleases; for my own part, I always believe what people whom I do not know say to me. The suspicion of falsehold never enters my mind until after the proof.

  The young Russian, who is the author of the fragment, wishing to justify, by the memory of the horrors of our revolution, the ferocity of his own countrymen, has cited an act of French cruelty, the massacre of M. de Belzunce at Caen. He might have increased his list: Mademoiselle de Sombreuil forced to drink a glass of blood to redeem the life of her father; the heroic death of the archbishop of Aries, and of his glorious companions in martyrdom, within the cloisters of the Carmelite convent at Paris; the massacres of Lyons; the executions, by drowning, at Nantes, surnamed by Carrier, the republican marriages ; and many other atrocities which historians have not even recorded, might serve to prove that human ferocity only sleeps among nations even the most civilised. Nevertheless, there is a difference between the cold, methodical, and abiding cruelty of the Mugics, and the passing frenzy of the French. These latter, during the war which they carried on against God and humanity, were not in their natural state; the mood of blood had changed their character; and the extravagances of passion ruled over all their acts; for never were they less free than at the epoch when everytlùng that was done among them was done in the name of liberty. We are, on the contrary, going to see the Russians murder each other without belying their characters; it is still a duty which they are performing. '