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

religious power that, during the incomprehensible reign of Ivan IV., made the longest resistance. At an after-period, Peter I. and Catherine II. avenged their predecessor. The sacrifice is consummated; the Russian priest, impoverished, humiliated, degraded, married, deprived of his supreme spiritual head, divested of all spiritual influence, a mere thing of flesh and blood, follows the triumphal car of his enemy, whom he still calls his master. He has become, through the perseverance of Peter and of Catherine, the humblest slave of the autocracy ; and the spirit of Ivan is appeased. From one end of the empire to the other,

NATIONAL AND UNIVERSAL RELIGION.335

the voice of God can no longer rise above the voice of the emperor.

Such is the inevitable final fate of national churches. The circumstances may vary, the moral abjectedness will be the same everywhere : whenever the priest abdicates, the state usurps. To make a sect, is to enslave the minister of Christ. In every church separated from the trunk, the conscience of the priest is an illusory power; thenceforward the purity of faith becomes adulterated, and charity, that fire of heaven with which the hearts of the saints burn, degenerates into mere humanity. Grace gives place to reason, which, in matters of faith, is only the hypocritical auxiliary of physical power. Hence the profound hatred of all ministers, of all sectarian teachers, towards the Catholic priest. All recognise him as their only enemy, for he alone is priest, he alone teaches; the others do but plead.

To complete the portrait of Ivan Ave must again have recourse to Karamsin. I shall finish my sketch by some of the most characteristic passages in his history.

After recounting that quarrels respecting preeminence still took place at court (etiquette in the den of a wild beast!), he observes : ' But if the Czar shut his eyes to disputes about precedency that took place among the Vaivodes, he never pardoned faults in their military conduct: for example, Prince Michael Nozdrovoty, an officer of high rank, was whipped in the stables, for having ill-managed the siege of Milten.'

Such was a Czar's appreciation of the dignity of the nobles and the army.

336 ANECDOTE OF CONSTANTINE.

This fact, which occurred in 1577, reminds me of another, which belongs to the history of Russia in our days. There is less difference than some may think between the past and the present in this land. The event happened at Warsaw, under the Grand Duke Constantine, and in the reign of the Emperor Alexander, the most philanthropieal of the Czars.

One day, Constantine was reviewing his guard, and desirous of proving to a foreignev the point to which discipline was carried in the Russian army, he descended from horseback, approached one of hisgenerais, and, without addressing him a word, quietly ran his sword into his foot. The general remained immoveable, and did not breathe a complaint. He was carried away after the Grand Duke had drawn back his sword. Such stoicism of the slave justifies the definition of the Abbe Galiani: ' Courage,' he said, ' is nothing more than a very extreme fear! '

The spectators remained silent witnesses of this scene, which took place in the public square of Warsaw, in the nineteenth century !

The Russians, then, of our epoch, are worthy de

scendants of the subjects of Ivan. Let it not be

said, in excuse, that Constantine was mad. That

madness, if real, must have been known ; for from

his early youth his conduct had been marked by

similar public acts of insanity. After so many

proofs, then, of mental alienation, to give him the

command of armies and the government of kingdoms,

was to proclaim, in a manner the most revolting, con

tempt for the human race. But I do not believe

in this insanity of Constantine ; I see in his life the

mad excesses only of cruelty,k

a subject's devotion to the czar. 337

It has often been repeated that madness is hereditary in the Imperial Russian family. This i^ flatter-in<7· them. I believe that the madness lies in the nature of the government, and not in the faulty organization of the individuals. Real absolute power must, in the long run, disturb the reason even of the most healthy faculties; despotism blinds both people and sovereign. This truth appears proved, even to demonstration, by the history of Russia. To continue our extracts from Karamsin : we are next to see an ambassador avowing his concurrence in the disgraceful idolatry of tyranny.

' Prince Sougorsky, sent as envoy to the Emperor Maximilian, in 1576, fell ill in travelling through Courland. Out of respect to the Czar, the duke sent a minister several times to inquire after his health. The sick man unceasingly repeated, ' My health is nothing, if only that of my sovereign pros-?H rs.`` At length the astonished minister asked him, 1 How can you serve such a tyrant with so great a zeal?' 'We Russians,' responded Prince Sougorsky, ' are always devoted to our Czars, be they good or cruel.' In proof of his assertion the sick ambassador related that, a short time before, Ivan had caused one of his nobles to be impaled for a slight fault, and that the unhappy wretch lingered twenty-four hours in excritciating torments, conversing with his wife and children, and repeating incessantly, 'Great God, protect the Czar!' '*

* This devotion of the victim to the tyrant is a species of

fanaticism that seems peculiar to the people of Asia and of

Russia. — Note of Author of Travels.

VOL. II.Q

338CORRESPONDENCE OF IVAN

Karamsin himself adds, ' The Russians gloried in the very thing for which they were reproached by foreigners — a blind and unbounded devotion to the will of the monarch, even when, in his most insensate vagaries, he trampled all the laws of justice and humanity under his feet.'

I am sorry I must not venture to multiply these curious quotations. I will, however, give one more illustration, in the correspondence of the Czar with one of his creatures.

' The Khan of the Crimea had taken prisoner a favourite of Ivan, Vassili Griaznoi, whom he offered to exchange for Mouzza Divy, a proposal which the Czar would not accept, although he lamented the fate of Griaznoi, and wrote him friendly letters, in which, as was his wont, he ridiculed the services of his unlucky favourite. 'You fancied,' he said, 'that it was as easy to make war with the Tartars as to make jokes at my table. They are very different people from you Russians. They do not go to sleep in the enemy's country; they do not constantly repeat to themselves, It is time to return home! What a droll idea came into your head when you thought you could make yourself pass for a great man ! It is true that, obliged to keep at a distance the perfidious boyards who surround us, we call near to our person slaves of low extraction like yourself, yet you must not forget your father and your grandfather. Do you dare to put yourself on a par with Divy ? Liberty would restore you to a voluptuous life, at the same time that it would put a sword into his hand against the Christians. It must suffice that, willing to protect such of our