Tsardom

“ Russia will never be Protestant; Russia will never be juste-milieu; Russia will not make a revolution simply in order to get rid of Tsar Nicholas and to replace him by tsar-deputies, tsar-judges, and tsar-policemen.
Herzen now found himself able to explain certain undesirable historical facts quite in the slavophil manner.
Take tsarism, for example. Tsarism is not monarchy. European monarchy developed out of feudalism and Catholicism, and is animated by a peculiar social and religious ideal. The tsar is tsar for tsardom's sake. He is nothing more than an unlimited dictator. ”

“ Then the Tsar, her father, made a proclamation that people should come and read the prayers for the dead over her dead body, and so exorcise the evil spirit, and whosoever delivered her was to have half his power and half his tsardom. ”

“ The first practical result of the Russian revolution was the cheapening of bread and food; the great task of new Russia is to reform the bureaucracy, to turn it from the absolutist regnare to the democratic gubernare. In absolute Tsardom every bureaucrat is a tsar, and, in his own domain, the tsar. Russia is handicapped by her size ”

“ In a word, Russia is bound hand and foot. She cannot make a warlike move. And if her diplomatists speak as though she contemplated such a step,37 it will be nothing more than bluff.
Moving along this line of reasoning, the statesmen of Berlin and Vienna reached the comforting conclusion that they had nothing to fear from the Tsardom. And that was the crucial point that had needed elucidation. For if the Tsar’s Government remained inactive while Servia was being punished and Turkey and Bulgaria bribed, there would be no cause to apprehend a hitch. ”

“ All this was changed when the independent principalities were transformed into the Tsardom of Muscovy. The Tsars had new reasons for opposing the migration of the peasants and new means for preventing it. The old Princes had simply given grants of land to those who served them, and left the grantee to do with his land what seemed good to him; the Tsars, on the contrary, gave to those who served them merely the usufruct of a certain quantity of land, and carefully proportioned the quantity to the rank and the obligations of the receiver. ”

“ For a time they seemed to be suffering mutely as the beasts suffer; but there is a limit to the endurance even of the most ignorant. A profound disgust for Tsardom was creeping through these armies of betrayed and wasted men. From the close of 1915 onward Russia was a source of deepening anxiety to her Western Allies. ”

“ Tsardom was well protected by its numerous police and secret service, as well as by the official church, press, and school which trained the people in abject servility to the Tsar and unquestioning obedience to "law and order." Dire punishment was visited upon anyone daring to voice a liberal sentiment; the most severe laws punished even the attempt to teach the peasants to read and write. ”

“ Shallow democrats in the West were deploring the lack of prevision and provision exhibited by their democratic Governments, but no democracy endured a tithe of the sufferings inflicted upon Russian soldiers by the blindness, incompetence, and corruption of the bureaucratic Tsardom. ”

“ Only from the moment when Russia ceased to be a menace to Germany and Austria, from the moment when Russia repudiated the ambitious aims of Tsardom, did the Burgfrieden in Germany begin to waver. All attempts to break down Germany by external force have led and are bound to lead to a strengthening of Germany's internal unity. The same would be true of England, America, or any other nation. Had the Russian democracy had a fresh and well-equipped army at their disposal, they would none the less first have tried the political method of destroying German unity. ”

“ For the Tsar is not only the executive and the law-making power of the state, head of the Church, fountain of justice, commander-in-chief of the army and navy, but, more than all these, he is father to his people. His subjects owe him, in theory, a filial respect and obedience; and, with the exception of the Nihilists, they are dutiful children. The relation is an Oriental one, which we of the West can not understand. But it is powerfully operative in Russia. It has not been really weakened by anything that the Nihilists have done, but, on the contrary, strengthened. ”

“ Why ride you so sorrowfully, my lord? Have you received an unkind word from the Tsar?" Prince Lasar answered: "My dear child Yaroslav, I have indeed received a cruel order from the Tsar. Other children are a joy to their father from their youth up, a support in his old age, and the guardian of his memory when dead. Not so, alas! with you, my son. You go to the Tsar's Court and play mischievous tricks with the children of the princes and boyars, and they have complained to the Tsar Kartaus, and he has banished you from the kingdom." ”

“ Was history repeating itself; a state-fed mob, state-governed industries, the fist of autocracy beneath the glove of impotent democracy, and those terrific incarnations of cruelty and insane pride in power?
I saw the Tsar, a dwarfish, wretched figure in a tinsel crown, dragged, groveling, to Lembken’s feet, while Lembken assumed an attitude of inflexibility; and then once more the curtain darkened.
“Praise your Boss!” hooted the funnels. “He is the people’s friend. That’s how he deals with kings! He shows no mercy to the people’s enemies. The Tsar is a low-grade moron. ”

“ No wonder if some anarchist pots him. There is not a railroad manager in the United States that could do all that the Tsar is alleged to have his hand in on the railroads, and at the same time run a great nation, a national church, and the largest army in the world. Consequently the Imperial permission did not make the impression upon me that it would have, had I believed that the Tsar had done anything more than nod his head, or make a scratch of the pen, when Prince Chilkoff asked for the pass.
I had seen the Tsar the year before, just after his coronation in Moscow. ”

“ Better fitted is he for the routine of an office and a desk than for the perils and responsibilities of a crown. Then, when the day's work is done, what joy to reach his home and toss his children in his arms, and picnic on a holiday or a Sunday in the suburbs with his family. Such, they tell us, is the gentle, homely, wife loving nature of the present Tsar. Whatever the destiny of the autocrat and of the autocracy, the Russian people remain. ”

“ The crimes of Tsarism are continually on your lips. We, too, denounce these crimes; for Tsarism is our enemy, and what I wrote but recently, I repeat now. But it is likewise the enemy of the intellectual élite of Russia itself. This cannot be said of your intellectuals, who are so slavishly obedient to the commands of your rulers. A few days ago I received that amazing "Address to the Civilised Nations" with which the Imperial army-corps of German intellectuals bombarded Europe ”

“ With such a base to the pyramid as is constituted by the peasant proprietors of Russia, aided by the enormous army, recruited almost to any extent from among their ranks, whose chief religion is a superstitious reverence for the "great father," the Tsar is safe in refusing all concessions, all improvements; and the hopeless nature of Russian reform hitherto, mainly hangs upon the conviction of the Government that nothing external can possibly act upon this inert mass. "Great is stupidity, and shall prevail." ”

“ At any moment the Tsar can call you to account; he is no respecter of persons; it may be the highest noble at the Court, the poorest serf on the steppes, the fashionable beauty of the hour, the hired governess of your children, the maid of your toilette, the valet de place; the very highest and the very lowest, one and all must obey when the voice of the Tsar of all the Russians speaks the word of command. ”

“ I think, from my description, which possesses the merit of accuracy, that it will be recognised what simplicity of life surrounded the rulers of one of the greatest Empires the world has ever known. Simplicity characterised all their doings, the simplicity which was to prove their undoing. The Imperial pair wished to lead the lives of private individuals; they imagined that it was possible. In Russia it has never been popular or possible for a Tsar to be human ”

“ To whom shall we give our daughter in marriage that he may govern our realm, defend it in war, sit as judge in the royal council, help the Tsar in his old age, and succeed him at the end of his days? The Tsar and the Tsaritsa sought for a bridegroom who was to be a valiant young warrior, a handsome hero, who was to love the Tsarevna, and make the Tsarevna love him. ”

“ Were I one of them I should pray to God from this moment until the last hour of the choice that the Tsar might choose any one of the maidens rather than myself. Imagine, my brothers, the being mated with such a thing! A Tsar that dribbles at the mouth and chatters to himself, but will speak to no other if he can avoid it. A Tsar that falls in a fit if startled or loudly spoken to; a creature that—if he were not a Tsar—must be laughed at, or wept over ”

“ The Tsar may be called the infinite unit. In Russia there is another or an atomic unit, just as real, but in compar- ison infinitely small. This is the mir. None the less mir is the most important word in the Russian language. It means the village and the village assembly. To the mind of the peasant it means the world. European Russia is made up of 107,676 communes or villages. Each is and has its mir. As in national af- fairs the Tsar decides or acts through his senate or council or synod, so in local affairs the mir acts for him. ”

“ Rejoice to-day, orthodox Tsar! A glorious son has been born to you! May your years and the years of the Tsarítsa be many, and may you and your children prosper, and the new-born Tsarévich, Peter Aleksyéevich, even now glorious! May you vanquish all foreign mights, and unite all lands and kingdoms under your rule! May God grant you to see the third and fourth generation, and your throne for ever unshaken! ”

“ Listen, it has been whispered me that his Highness my brother looks kindlier upon you than upon any other maiden that he has yet seen: there, sweet one, does not that awaken thy slumbering fancy? He is a great king—remember this—though, to say truth, but an afflicted youth.{77} Do not lose sight of the greater issue by foolishly magnifying the lesser. The Tsar is the Tsar, whether he be lusty or afflicted; a handsome youth or, by the will of God, a pale invalid. ”

“ Then they went to Koshchei’s treasure room and took from it all the most precious jewels,—all that the faithful bear could carry they loaded upon his back and carried away with them.
After that they journeyed back to their own kingdom, and if any one was glad to see them it was the Tsar himself.
He built for them a castle close to his own, where they could not even see the swamp. There Ivan and his frog princess lived in the greatest love and happiness, and after the old Tsar’s death they themselves ruled over the kingdom as the Tsar and Tsaritsa. ”

“ Petersburg was named Baranov, and baran is the Russian for ram. "Restrict education" was the tsar's formal command to the minister for education.
The manifesto in which Alexander promised to maintain and to strengthen the autocracy entrusted him by God, was described by Katkov as "the heavenly manna ... which restores to Russia the Russian autocratic tsar, empowered by God and responsible to God alone." [1] In this spirit the administration was now centralised in such a way as to increase the strength of autocracy. ”

“ And the Tsar called them to him and said: "Let your wives, to-morrow morning, bake me soft white bread."
Ivan returned home, and he was not happy, and his impetuous head hung down lower than his shoulders. "Qua! qua! Ivan Tsarevich! wherefore art thou so sad?" asked the Frog. "Or hast thou heard unpleasant words from thy father the Tsar?"
"Why should I not be sad? My father and sovereign lord hath commanded thee to bake soft white bread to-morrow."
"Do not afflict thyself, O Tsarevich! lie down and rest. The morning is wiser than the evening." ”

“ They are not down-trodden; and, out of their 100,000,000 free souls, there is a proportion of Nihilists no larger, probably, than that of Socialists in Germany, Communists in France, “Dynamiters” in London, or Anarchists in Chicago. The Tsar enjoys the confidence and love of the vast majority of his people. Russia may safely challenge the rest of Europe to exhibit a parallel to the comparative progress, social and political, which she has made in the past thirty years. ”

“ He lived in a palace of black marble and ivory with terraces of turquoise mosaic, windows of pure crystal and heavy curtains of silver cloth brocaded with brilliant designs. The Tsar had no pity for the poor and humble; he wrapped himself in a mantle of pride, and made subject kings and princes wait on him at table, and help him into his coat when he went out to drive in his golden chariot behind twelve black horses. If a poor beggar was bold and foolish enough to cry out to him: “Alms, alms, for the love of St. Peter, O most wealthy and wonderful!” ”

“ The hero galloped back, glad that Nikita had left him alive, came to the castle, and said to the Tsarevna: “Men of immeasurable strength have come to our place. They ask thee for their terrible Tsar in marriage, and commanded me to tell thee to put an end to thy pride, not to waste thy army in vain, and to marry their Tsar.” ”

“ They regard themselves as of superior type, a sort of cream of humanity, the “vanguard of the revolutionary proletariat,” as they often call themselves. The Tsarist Government, except in its final degenerate days, was at least Russian in its sympathies. ”