Little Russians

“ Were it only on account of the enormous geographical extent of Russia, great caution is needed in assigning Russian national peculiarities to the influences of nature. Very different is Russian life in Serbia, in Archangel or in Vologda, in Tula or in Caucasia. We must further take into consideration the differences between the Great Russians and the Little Russians; we have to think of the mingling of races; and we must not forget that, as time passes, changes invariably occur in modes of life and in national characteristics. ”

“ They are the excitable, hot-blooded, dare-devil Russians. In type the men are fine-looking and handsome almost without exception, and the women often exceedingly beautiful. Their language differs from other Russian speech by the extreme softness of the dialect (which is not unlike Serbo-Croatian) , and their music and poetry are the finest in the Slav race. In the past the Little Russians were divided into many small and independent clans who outvied each other in reckless warlike enterprises. ”

“ They endeavored to spread their doctrines and practices among Christians of all denominations, and, about 1870, their disciples were found in Little Russia. The dissemination of their teachings in this portion of the empire is remarkable, from the fact that Little-Russians have generally evinced but slight interest in religious movements without the pale of the Church, and feel no sympathy for the foreign population in their midst. ”

“ The whole population, except a small part of civilised natives bring up their children inculcating in them the fear of the Russians. The entertainment began about three o’clock and went on till quite late in the evening. There were about two thousand children. It amused me to watch their enjoyment and see the expression of mistrust, stamped on their small faces, change suddenly into one of keen delight when sweets and toys were being distributed to them. It is to be hoped that the little Sartes returned to their homes carrying sentiments of friendship to the Russians in their small hearts. ”

“ Unless he is a critical analyst of race peculiarities, he will be satisfied with the many varieties of Russia’s population which he sees in Moscow alone. And, as to souvenirs of the country, he will, perhaps, be more fortunate in picking them up at bargains in the Gostinnoi Dvors of the two capitals than if he hunted and chaffered for them at the crowded and noisy fair of Nijni-Novgorod.
In the restaurants and reading-rooms one often notices little groups of Russians earnestly scanning the columns of a newspaper in their own language. ”

“ The Russians alone number about 110 millions, and these millions occupy a vast country reaching from the snows of the far North, to lands where the orange-trees bloom all the year round. The Russian holds that his dear “little mother Russia” is the most beautiful land of all the earth. ”

“ There is only one pane in the whole room which can be opened to let in the outside air. The Russians are afraid of having the cold enter their houses. They have enough of it out-of-doors during at least six months of the year.
What is that strange-looking vessel on the side table? It is of shining copper. The maid polishes it very often, as it is used every evening by papa and mamma. They call it a "samovar," and no Russian home is complete without one. ”

“ Petrovna and Ivan take their sleds every morning as soon as lessons are over, and away they run up the steps of their ice hill. Hurrah! Now hold your breath, for away they go, faster and faster, down the hill and over the pond [24] below. How they shout with delight! They travel more quickly than any express train you ever saw.
I am afraid you will be a little envious of their fun and wish you had a private ice hill like theirs. The best part of it is that these little Russians don't have to wait for a good snow-storm to make coasting for them. It is always on hand and made to order. ”

“ But Russians of the grande monde are so constituted that [Pg 42] when they have no vice, they take all imaginable trouble to affect it.
On leaving the dining room the countess and her son directed their steps toward the garden. In front of the house, in the courtyard, they met Mavra stooping under the weight of an enormous pile of linen, which she was carrying from the laundry. ”

“ Just think of plucky little old Japan winning three battles from those big, brutal, conceited Russians. Why I just want to run and hug the Emperor! And the school girls! Why their placid faces are positively glorified by the fire of patriotism. Once a week a trained nurse comes to give talks on nursing, and if I go into any corner afterward, I find a group of girls practising all kinds of bandaging. Even the demurest little maiden cherishes the hope that some fate may send her to the battle-field, or that in some way she may be permitted to serve her country. ”

“ And now Petrovna and her mamma are seated, the fur robes are tucked snugly in, the coachman jumps to his seat and makes a kind of clucking noise. The horses rush onward at a furious rate, and still Petrovna calls out, "Faster!" She is not afraid of accident, nor is she satisfied, although the horses seem to be doing their best. Russians are not fond of exercising themselves, but they dearly like to be moved as fast as possible. This is why they like sleighing and coasting better than any other sports. ”

“ The streets are crowded with thousands of degraded Chinese and Koreans, who, even in their brutality, are not as bad as the ordinary Russians.
Through this mass of poverty and degradation dash handsome carriages filled with richly clad people. The drivers wear long blue plush blouses with red sleeves and belt, and trousers tucked in high boots. On their heads they wear funny little hats that look as if they had been sat on. They generally stand up while driving and lash the poor horses into a dead run from start to finish. Many of them are ex-convicts and can never leave Siberia. ”

“ The whole city is in confusion, ninety thousand soldiers are here now, and eighty thousand more are expected this week. Every house-holder must take as many as he can accommodate, and the strain on the people is heavy. We heard yesterday of the terrible disaster to the troops that left here on the 13th, three transports were sunk by the Russians. Five hundred of the wounded from South Hill battle have been brought here, and whenever I go out, I see long lines of stretchers and covered ambulances bringing in more men. ”

“ The ceaseless song of the skates, on ice as hard as iron, mingled with the strains of a band playing in a kiosk with open windows. From the ice-hills came the swishing scream of the iron runners down the terrific slope. The Russians are a people of great emotions. There is a candor in their recognition of the needs of the senses which does not obtain in our self-conscious nature. These strangely constituted people of the North—a budding nation, a nation which shall some day overrun the world—are easily intoxicated. ”

“ In Russia, it's different. Their souls are more awake, and less covered. The Russians are not businesslike, and they're not sentimental, or humorous. They are spiritually naked by contrast. An odd, moody people. ”

“ The sight and knowledge of deep human suffering, framed in the soft voluptuous beauty of nature in central Russia, could not fail to sow the seed of future poetical powers in the soul of an emotional child. His mother, who had been bred on Shakespeare, Milton, and the other great poets and writers of the West, devoted her solitary life to the development of higher intellectual tendencies in her gifted little son. ”

“ It is not the war that I object to, it is the form it takes; and our great, grim, ghostly Russia should evolve out of her soul of ice something much more in consonance with her. Beside the burning of Moscow, the little tin cans and the burrowing like moles underground are commonplace and a little vulgar. Russia is so awful in herself. ”

“ The villages in Little Russia are not disposed in streets as they are in Great Russia, but the white-washed houses are scattered, as in Western Europe, in separate little farms, each of which is surrounded by charming little gardens. The more genial climate, the warm nights, the musical language, the beauty of the race, which probably contains a mixture of South Slavonian with Turkish and Polish blood, the picturesque dress and the lyrical songs—all these render Little Russia especially attractive for the Great Russian. ”

“ Even now the process of Russification is far from complete, and the Russian elements in the population are far from being pure in the nationalist sense. The city and the surrounding country are, in fact, Little Russian rather than Great Russian, and between these two sections of the population there are profound differences—differences of language, costume, traditions, popular songs, proverbs, folk-lore, domestic arrangements, mode of life, and Communal organisation. ”

“ Though people were crowded closely together when we were in the market, we saw no indications of anything but good-nature. The Russians are polite to each other as well as to strangers, and it was amusing to see how the rough fellows, when meeting face to face, bowed as though they were great personages. ”

“ The Russian boy of the town is born into a world of more temptations and risks than the English boy. A great deal of disclosed Russian genius must be poisoned between the ages of twelve and twenty by certain social conditions which no one in Russia seems capable of making an effort to clear up. ”

“ The Chinese have sent in embroidered shawls, table-covers, teas, curious and intricate toys, and specimens of handicraft.
Why, we have even specimens of Russian industry, in the Great Exhibition; and very good specimens they are, too. Russia is not such a pleasant country, in some respects, as any of those I have been telling you of; for in the winter the frost is so severe that many of the poor Russians die from cold. The rich wrap themselves up in warm furs, and ride in fur-lined sledges, instead of the usual carriages ”

“ As for saying that the inhabitants of New Russia are nothing but Finns and Russified Turks, one might as well pretend that the 30,000,000 or 40,000,000 of North America are Red-skins who have learnt English and embraced Protestantism.
We must recognize that the Russian, almost as much as the Anglo-Saxon, has the instinct which drives men to emigrate and found colonies. The Russians do in the far East of Europe what the Anglo-Saxons do in the far West of America. ”

“ I cannot think what any one would find of national life in summer in Russia, for everybody has a country-house and everybody goes to it and leaves the city to tourists.
Russia, in spite of her vast riches, has not arrived at supercivilization, where there is corruption in the very atmosphere. She is an undeveloped and a young country, and while the Tzar is wise and kind and beneficent, and an excellent Tzar as Tzars go, still Russians, even the best and most enlightened of them, are slaves. I have met a number of the gentlest and cleverest men who had been exiled to Siberia, and pardoned. ”

“ For the Russian loves the soil with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his mind. His folk-songs are full of affectionate descriptions of it. His plough and his harrow are to him more than mere wood and iron. He loves to think of them as living things, as personal friends. Barbaric instincts have been aroused by the Revolution, and this simple but exalted mentality will remain in abeyance as long as those continue to rule who despise the peasant’s primitive aspirations and whose world-revolutionary aims are incomprehensible to him. ”

“ They belong to one of the great races of pioneers and backwoodsmen. All the history of the Russian people, from the foundation of Moscow, is that of their advance into the forest, into the Black Land, into the prairie. ”

“ Thus he goes on steadily as long as he lives, with no other thought but that of duty, until he lies down beneath the ikon, and, with the wax candle in his hand just as he had always wished, passes away at peace with every living creature and with God.
There are no peasants like the Russians, or who think as they do. They are young, one feels, and “The thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts,” and that is just what those who know them best find out. ”

“ Great Russians form the strongest and toughest race in the whole empire. They are Slavs who in early times intermingled with the Finns and set up the kingdom of Moscow. These Great Russians gradually succeeded in enlarging their borders, until their territory stretched to the Crimea and Turkestan on the south and south-east, to Manchuria in the far east, and to Germany in the west. The Great Russians are now the largest and most important of all the Russian peoples, and they occupy the bulk of the country. ”

“ On the surface is absolutism in glittering completeness, and beneath that—chaos. Lying at the bottom of that chaos is the great mass of Slavonic people undeveloped as children—an embryonic civilization—utterly helpless and utterly miserable. In the mass lying above that exists the mind of Russia—through which course streams of unduly developed intelligence in fierce revolt against the omnipresence of misery. And still above that is the shining, enameled surface rivaling that of any other nation in splendor. ”

“ At every corner stands a tall majestic Sikh, with head bound in yards of crimson cloth, directing the movements of the crowd. Down the street comes a regiment of English soldiers, so big and determined that one well understands their victories. The ubiquitous Russian makes himself known at every turn, silent and grave, but in his simplest dealings as merciless and greedy as the country he represents. Frenchmen and Germans, and best of all, the unquenchable American, join in the panorama, and the result is something that one does not see anywhere else on the globe. ”