Muscovite

“ The greedy eyes of Russia embraced at once the outlets of the Danube and the mountain-range of the Caucasus. There, the business in hand was to conquer supremacy, here to maintain it. The chain of the Caucasus sepa­rates southern Russia from the luxurious provinces of Georgia, Mingrelia, Imertia, and Giuriel, wrested by the Muscovite from the Mussulman. Thus the foot of the monster empire is cut off from its main body. ”

“ The Muscovite temperament and the Muscovite climate naturally lead to idealist strivings against the hardships of life or a dull grovelling amongst them. Melancholy or vodka is the outcome of it all.
The giant of the East was first aroused to a consciousness of his strength by the invasion of Napoleon the Great. The comparative ease with which the Grand Army was engulfed left on the national mind of Russia a consciousness of pride never to be lost even amidst the cruel disappointments of the Crimean War. ”

“ The Muscovite race would not see her misdeeds in the march of conquest she opened for it; and her reputation has steadily increased in its eyes. 'The spirit of the people passes, in its fulness, into her. It was this that enabled her to make a complete conquest of her empire, and by this we do not mean the power which she wrested from the weakness, the cowardice, and the folly of Peter III. ”

“ We behold Muscovite nobles of high rank and descent, cringing under the wanton torments inflicted on them by their oppressor, and submitting to degradations to which death, one would imagine, were, to any free-spirited man, fifty times preferable. ”

“ But the movements of the Muscovite conquerors have none of the torrent rush of those great invasions of the past. The Russian advances with extreme caution, takes no risks, and makes sure of his game before he shows his hand. He prepares the ground in front before taking a step forward, and all that he leaves in his rear falls into the strong folds of the imperial net. Gold and diplomacy are his weapons equally with the sword, and in the progress of his arms we seem to see Europe marching into Asia with a solid and unyielding front. ”

“ The Muscovite princes, responsible to the Khan for the public tranquillity and the collection of the tax, being all the while watched and supported by the baskaks, could the more easily annihilate the independence of the towns, the resistance of the second order of princes, the turbulence of the boyards, and the privileges of the free peasants. The Grand Prince of Moscow had no consideration for his subjects because no man had any consideration for him, and because his life was always at stake. ”

“ Great as the acquisitions of the Muscovite power have been during the last thirty years, they have almost been rivalled by those of the British in India. They have fairly outstripped everything in this age of wonders; a parallel will in vain be [248] sought for them in the whole annals of the world. They do not resemble the conquests of the Romans in ancient, or of the Russians in modern times; they have not been the result of the lust of conquest, steadily and perseveringly applied to general subjugation, or the passions of democracy finding their natural vent in foreign conquest. ”

“ The Great Russians are the most vigorous and expansive element of the Russian nation, albeit the most mixed. Finnish blood has left its traces in their physique; Tatar dominion in their character. Before the advent of the Romanovs they formed alone the Muscovite Empire, and their czars took the title “Sovereign of all the Russias” long before Alexis, father of Peter the Great, justified this title by the annexation of the Ukraine. Hence Great Russia, under the name Muscovite, has been considered by certain foreigners the true, the only Russia. ”

“ The Russian historico-political traditions are quite as different from and as opposed to those of the Ukrainians as the Polish, but in another direction. The Muscovite State was created out of the petty principalities which the ancient Kiev dynasty had founded among the Eastern Slavic races and the Finnish tribes of the north. From the blending of the Slavs and the Finns came the foundation of the present Russian or Great Russian (Muscovite) Nation. ”

“ Novgorod and the other Russian republics enslaved—Lithuania diminished, and its king a tool in Ivan's hands—the Livonian knights vanquished. Astonished Europe, at the commencement of Ivan's reign, hardly aware of the existence of Muscovy, hemmed in between the Tartar and the Lithuanian, was dazzled by the sudden appearance of an immense empire on its eastern confines, and Sultan Bajazet himself, before whom Europe trembled, heard for the first time the haughty language of the Muscovite. ”

“ It was the first step in that jealous watchfulness of England over Constantinople which was to have a more decided outcome in later years. The newborn idea of maintaining the balance of power in Europe stood in Russia’s way, the nations of the West viewing in alarm the threatening growth of the great Muscovite Empire. ”

“ But ambition long deferred, activity long restrained, a certain coarseness of grain which is coming to the surface, have turned him into a bully, quarrelsome and dangerous. A dexterous Muscovite will always be able to provide an opportunity of putting him in the wrong and getting up an ugly fracas. ”

“ The enemy, therefore, would be as well housed as the Allies, supposing the latter succeeded in getting up huts before the winter set in. "Leaving them alone" would never drive a Russian army out of the field; the only thing to do that was the French and English bayonet, and plenty of fighting.
The Muscovite generals cannot be accused of any great regard for their killed and wounded, but they have certainly much respect for the prejudices and feelings of their soldiers. ”

“ Ivan and his closest counsellors felt something else must be done. The prestige of Moscow, the whole future of the Muscovite policy in the countries affected, were at stake. A blow must be dealt, this time, that would win the day, or else all hope of conquest must be relinquished, and the ancient yoke, maybe, assumed once more. ”

“ It will be so to the end of the world; for in the north, and there alone, are found the privations which insure hardihood, the poverty which impels to conquest, the difficulties which rouse to exertion. Irresistible to men so actuated is the attraction which the climate of the south, the riches of civilisation, exercise on the poverty and energy of the native wilds. Slowly but steadily, for two centuries, the Muscovite power has increased, devouring everything which it approaches—ever advancing, never receding. ”

“ The Russian as piously inculcates the precept that “Nicholas is his general.” “God and the Czar know it,” is often the reply of a Muscovite when he can give no direct answer to a question. A gentleman was one evening giving us an account of the Emperor’s journey to Moscow, and of the manner in which he had been received on the route. ”

“ His empire is larger than ours, for the distance between Moscow and the extremities of his dominions on the Chinese frontier measures a thousand leagues.
He is absolute master of the lives and goods of his subjects, who are all slaves, with the exception of four families. The vicar of the prophets, the king of kings, whose footstool is the sky, does not wield a scepter more puissant.
In view of the frightful climate of this country, one would never think that exile could be a punishment for a Muscovite: nevertheless, when a man of consequence is disgraced, he is banished to Siberia. ”

“ On this point, through every vicissitude, from reign to reign, even from dynasty to dynasty, the Muscovite policy was never to be changed. But the grandson, like his grandfather, had to reckon with an opposition which nothing but the long-drawn complicity of time could wear down and overcome. The reorganization of the lay tenure was more difficult still. ”

“ Petersburg to the Czar solely at our own expense, and without any risk to him...."
The safest line of policy would be to return to the treaty of Itolbowa, and to suffer the Muscovite no longer "to nestle [95] in the Baltic." Yet, it may be said, that in "the present state of affairs" it would be "difficult to retrieve the advantage we have lost by not curbing, when it was more easy, the growth of the Muscovite power." A middle course may be thought more convenient. ”

“ Such, at that period, had been the recent aggrandisement of Russia; and the events of the last few years, by weakening and disuniting all her European neighbours, have immeasurably augmented the relative superiority of the Muscovite empire over all the other continental powers.
With a population exceeding sixty millions, all implicitly obeying the impulse of a single ruling mind; with a territorial area of six millions and a half of square miles; with a standing army eight hundred thousand strong; with powerful fleets on the Baltic and Black Seas ”

“ A career of victory and prosperity had not yet raised Peter above the reach of that disaffection, nor had superstitious obedience to the Czar yet become the characteristic of the Muscovite mind. The victorious occupation of Moscow by Charles XII, would have quelled the Russian nation as effectually, as had been the case when Batou Khan, and other ancient invaders, captured the capital of primitive Muscovy. How little such a triumph could effect towards subduing modern Russia, the fate of Napoleon demonstrated at once and for ever. ”

“ Slowly but surely the Scandinavian element was{10} absorbed; with Ivan I. (1328-1341) the time of transition practically ended. A new policy of aggrandisement was adopted and the Muscovite was evolved from the Slav race. Round Moscow, subject to the Tartar yoke, the people became patient and resigned; born to endure bad fortune, they could profit by good. The princes of Moscow gained their ends by intrigue, by corruption, by the purchase of consciences, by servility to the Tartar Khans, by perfidy to their equals, by murder and treachery. ”

“ The thirteenth-century invaders did not prevent all civilization in Russia ; in fact, they imposed their own civilization on the country, and, to judge by the consequences, this side of their conquest was far-reaching. Look at the Muscovite of the sixteenth century. ”

“ Thus, long before the days of Peter, the German Sloboda of Moscow came into existence. Nevertheless, the entry of foreigners into Muscovite Russia seems to have been comparatively difficult when we remember that there had been almost no obstacle to their influx into the petty principalities of earlier days.
During the sixteenth century, thoughtful Russians gave frank expression to the need for far-reaching reforms. Prince Kurbskii, with good reason denominated the first "westerner," was one of the earliest to give a clear demonstration of Moscow's poverty in point of morals and civilisation. ”

“ The internal history of Russia since the time of Peter the Great represents, in its international and domestic affairs, a continual struggle between the native population and German domination. Western civilization and culture were grafted upon Muscovite life by force and in fragments, instead of growing into it by the normal and peaceful influences of science, art, and commerce. ”

“ Muscovite Russia was a centralized State, based on universal and obligatory service, on the division of the population into classes bound to perform definite tasks—forced labour in the lower ranks, employed in commerce or in manual toil, and all feeding the State treasury; 'men who served' in the upper ranks, employed in the State army or in administrative service, and obliged, from childhood till they drew their last breath, to give the State their whole life's labour. ”

“ Kievic territory, however, was detached from Muscovite Great Russia, and was not reunited until the seventeenth century. Thenceforward the south again made its influence felt, politically, socially, and nationally.
§ 3.
"TWO Romes have fallen and have passed away, the western and the eastern: destiny has prescribed for Moscow the position of the third Rome; there will never be a fourth." Such were the words wherein, after the fall of Constantinople, the Russian monk glorified and characterised the historical position of Moscow, which had now replaced Kiev as mistress of Russia. ”

“ The centralisation and bureaucratisation of the Muscovite state led to the development of a species of feudalism. Owing to the prevalence of a natural economy the Moscow sovereign could more frequently bestow land as a reward than had been possible to the petty princes and the Kievic grand prince. Centralisation was perfected by confiscating the estates of refractory and obnoxious princes and their boyars, the serving boyars and princes being rewarded with gifts of land. ”

“ It was the consequence of the fact that only as a politically united whole could the land make progress in all respects, and that only a single ethnical element—that which formed the Muscovite State—possessed the political talent required. But this political structure,—a complex of widely differing economic regions united in the form of an Empire,—and the predominance of the Russian element, impose, and particularly in the economic sphere, an enormous burden of responsibility. ”

“ Ivan, after his coronation, sent to western Europe to engage a number of engineers and mechanics; these men were stopped on the road, and none of them ever reached Moscow. Sigismund of Poland even threatened to kill the British merchants on the Baltic, "because," he said, "if the Muscovite, who is not only our present adversary, but the eternal enemy of all free countries, should provide himself with guns, bullets, and munitions; and, above all, with mechanics who continue to make arms, hitherto unknown in this barbaric country, he would be a menace to Europe." ”