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

by Astolphe De Custine

  I repeat that I am disposed to doubt many things of this kind that are told to me ; but I cannot doubt that they are related pleasantly and complacently to the first newly-arrived foreigner; and the air of triumph of the narrator seems to say—wc also, you see, are civilised !

  The more I consider these debauchees' manner of life, the more I wonder at the social position— to use the language of the day—which they here preserve, notwithstanding conduct that in any other land would shut all doors against them. I cannot tell how such notorious offenders are treated in their own families ; but I can testify that, in public, every one pays them

  90

  LIBERTINISM

  peculiar deference: their appearance is the signal for general hilarity; their company is the delight even of elderly men, who do not imitate them, but who certainly encourage them.

  In observing the general reception which they receive, I ask myself what a person should here do to lose credit and character.

  By a procedure altogether contrary to that observable among free people, whose manners become more puritanical, if not more pure, in proportion as democracy gains ground in the constitution, corruptness is here confounded with liberal institutions ; and distinguished men of bad character are admired as is with us a talented opposition or minority. The young Prince

  did not commence his career as a libertine

  until after finishing a three-years' exile at the Caucasus, where the climate ruined his health. It was immediately after leaving college that he incurred this penalty for having broken the window-panes of some shops in Petersburg. The government, having determined to see a political intention in this harmless riot, has, by its excessive severity, converted a hair-brained youth, while yet a child, into a profligate, lost to his country, his family, and himself.* Such are the aberrations into which despotism — that most immoral of governments—can drive the minds of men.

  Here all revolt appears legitimate; revolt even against reason and against God! Where order is oppressive, disorder has its martyrs. A Lovelace, a Don Juan, or yet worse if it were possible, would be

  * I have been assured, since my return to France, that he baa married, and is living a very orderly life.

  THE FRUIT OF DESPOTISM.91

  viewed as a kind of liberator, merely because he had incurred legal punishments. The blame can only fall on the judge. People here, avow then- hatred of morals just as others would elsewhere say, " I detest arbitrary government."

  I brought witli me to Russia a preconceived opinion, which I possess no longer. I believed, with many others, that autocracy derived its chief strength from the equality which it caused to reign beneath it. But this equality is an illusion. I said, and heard it said, that when one man is all-powerful, the others are all equal, that is, all equally nullities; which equality, if not a happiness, is a consolation. The argument was too logical to prove practically true. There is no such thing as absolute power in the world; there are arbitrary and capricious powers; but, however outrageous they may become, they are never heavy enough to establish perfect equality among their subjects.

  The Emperor Nicholas can do every thing. But if he often did all that he could do, he would not retain this power very long. So long, therefore, as he forbears, the condition of the nobleman is very different from that of the mugic or the tradesman whom he ruins. I maintain that there is at this day, in Russia, more real inequality in the conditions of men than in any other European land.

  The circumstances of human societies are too complicated to be submitted to the rigour of mathematical calculation. I can see reigning under the Emperor, among the castes which constitute his empire, hatreds which have their source solely in the abuses of secondary power.

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  CONDITION OF THE SERFS

  In general, the men here use a very soft and specious language. They will tell you with the most benigu air that the Russian serfs are the happiest peasants upon earth. Do not listen to them, they deceive you : many families of serfs in distant cantons suffer even from hunger; many perish under poverty and ill treatment. In every class in Russia, humanity suffers ; and the men who are sold with the land suffer more than the others. It will be pretended that they are protected by a legal right to the necessaries of life; such right is but a mockery for those who have no means of enforcing it.

  It will be further said that it is the interest of the nobles to relieve the wTants of their peasants. But does every man always understand his interests ? Among us, those who act foolishly lose their fortunes, and there is the end of it: but here, as the fortune of man consists in the life of a number of men, he who mismanages his property may cause whole villages to perish of famine. The government, when attracted by too glaring excesses, sometimes puts the unprincipled nobleman under guardianship; but this ever-tardy step does not restore the dead. The mass of sufferings and unknown iniquities that must be produced by such manners, under such a constitution, with so great distances and so dreadful a climate, may be easily imagined. It is difficult to breathe freely in Russia when we think of all these miseries.

  The nobleman has, in the government of his estates, the same difficulties to contend with as regards the distances of places, the ignorance of facts, the influence of customs, and the intrigues of subalterns, that the emperor has in his wider sphere of action ; but

  AND OTHER CLASSES.

  93

  the nobleman has, in addition, temptations that are more difficult to resist; for, being less exposed to public view, he is less controlled by public opinion and by the eye of Europe. From this firmly-established order, or rather disorder of things, there result inequalities, caprices, and injustices, unknown to societies where the law alone can change the relations of society.

  [t is not correct, then, to say that the force of despotism lies in the equality of its victims ; it lies only in the ignorance of liberty and in the fear of tyranny. The power of an absolute master is a monster ever ready to give birth to a yet greater — the tyranny of the people.

  It is true that democratic anarchy never lasts; whilst the regularity produced by the abuses of autocracy arc perpetuated from generation to generation.

  Military discipline, applied to the government of a state, is the powerful means of oppression, which constitutes, far more than the fiction of equality, the absolute power of the Russian sovereign. But this formidable force will sometimes turn against those who employ it. Such are the evils which incessantly menace Russia, — popular anarchy carried to its most frightful excess, if the nation revolt, and the prolongation of tyranny, applied with more or less rigour according to times and circumstances, if she continue in her obedience.

  Duly to appreciate the difficulties in the political position of this country, we must not forget that the more ignorant the people are, and the longer they have been patient, the more likely is their vengeance to be dreadfid. A government which wields power

  94THE PRESENT POLICY A RESULT OF

  by maintaining ignorance, is more terrible than stable: a feeling of uneasiness in the nation—a degraded brutality in the army—terror around the administration, a terror shared even by those who govern—servility in the chureh — hypocrisy in the nobility — ignoranee and misery among the people— and Siberia for them all: such is the land as it has been made by necessity, history, nature, and a Providence ever impenetrable in its designs.

  And it is with so decayed a body that tins giant, scarcely yet emerged out of Asia, endeavours now to influence by his weight, the balance of European poliey, and strives to rule in the councils of the West, without taking into account the progress that European diplomacy has made in sincerity during the last thirty years.

  At Petersburg, to lie is still to perform the part of a good citizen; to speak the truth, even in apparently unimportant matters, is to conspire. You would lose the favour of the emperor, if you were to observe that he had a cold in his head. *

  But once for all, what is it that can have induced this badly-armed colos
sus to eome to fight, or at least to struggle, in the arena of ideas with which it does

  * While this is going through the press, the Journal desDél·at* is protesting in favour of a Russian who has ventured to print in a pamphlet that theRomanows, less noble than he is. ascended the throne, as all the world knows, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, by means of an election contested with theTroubetzkoi (who were first elected), and against the claims of several other great families. This accession was agreed to in consideration of some liberal forms introduced into the constitution. The world has seen to what these guarantees have brought Russia.

  THE SYSTEM OF PETER THE GREAT.95

  not sympathise — of interests which do not yet exist for it ?

  Simply the caprice of its masters, and the vain glory of a few travelled noblemen. Unlucky vanity of parvenus, which has enticed the government to run blindfold against difficulties that have caused modern communities to recoil backwards, and that have made them regret the time of political wars, the only wars known in former times !

  This country is the martyr of an ambition which it scarcely understands; and, all wounded as it is, it strives to maintain a calm and imposing air. What a part has its head to sustain ! To defend by continual artifices a glory built only upon fictions, or at least, on nothing more than hopes !

  True power, beneficent power, has no need of artifices; but what stratagems, what falsehoods, what disguises, have not you Russians to avail yourselves of, to conceal a part of your object, and to })rocure toleration for the other! You!—the regulators of the destiny of Europe ! you ! pretend to defend the cause of civilisation among nations super-civilised, when the time is not yet long elapsed since you were yourselves a horde, whose only discipline was terror, and whose commanders were savages! On searching for the cause, we shall find that all these vain aspirations are nothing more than the inevitable consequences of the system of false civilisation adopted by Peter the Great. Russia will feel the effects of that man's pride long after she has ceased to admire his greatness. There are many of her people who already agree with me, without daring to avow it, that he was more extraordinary than heroic.

  96ТПЕ TRUE POLICY OF RUSSIA.

  If the Czar Peter, instead of amusing himself with dressing up bears and monkeys—if Catherine II., instead of meddling with philosophy—if, in short, all the Russian sovereigns had wished to civilise their nation by cautiously cultivating and developing the admirable seed which God had implanted in the hearts of this people—these last comers from Asia — they would have less dazzled Europe, but they would have acquired a more solid and durable glory ; and we should now see them pursuing their providential task of making war with the old Asiatic governments. Turkey in Europe herself would have submitted to their influence, without the other states being able to complain of such extension of a power really beneficent. Instead of this irresistible strength, Russia has, among us, the power only that we accord to her — the power of an upstart, more or less skilful in making us forget her origin. The sovereignty over neighbours more barbarous and more slavish than herself is her due and her destiny ; it is written, if I may use the expression, in her future chronicles; but her influence over more advanced people is contingent and uncertain.

  However, this nation once launched on the great higli road of civilisation, nothing will be able to make her return to her own line. God alone knoAvs the result. Peter the Great, it must be remembered, or rather Peter the Impatient, was the cause of her error. The world will also not forget that the only institutions whence Russian liberty could have sprung —the two chambers—were abolished by that prince.

  In politics, arts, sciences, and all other branches of human attainment, men are only great by com pa-

  SONGS OF THE RUSSIAN GYPSIES.97

  rìson. It is owing to this that there are some ages and some countries in which people have become great men with very little difficulty. The Czar Peter appeared in one of those epochs and countries: not but that he also had extraordinary energy of character, but his minute mind limited his views.

  I leave to-morrow for Nijni. Were I to prolong my stay in Moscow, I should not see this fair/which is drawing to a close. I shall not conclude the present chapter until after my return this evening from Pctrowski, where I am going to hear the Russian gypsies.

  I have been selecting a room in the hotel, which I shall continue to keep during my absence at Nijni: having made it a hiding-place for my papers: for I dare not venture on the road to Kazan with all that 1 have written since I left Petersburg; and I know no one here to whom I should like to confide these dangerous chapters. Exactness in the recital of facts, independence in the judgments funned, truth, in short, is more suspicious than anything else in Russia: it is truth which peoples Siberia, not, however, to the exclusion of robbery and murder, an association which frightfully aggravates the fate of political offenders.

  I have returned from Pctrowski, where I saw the dancing-saloon, which is beautifid; it is called, I believe, the Vauxhall. Before the opening of the ball, which appeared to me a dull affair, I was taken to hear the Russian gypsies. Their wild and impassioned song has some distant resemblance to that of the Spanish gitanos. The melodies of the north are

  VOL. III.Г

  98MUSICAL REVOLUTION OF DUrREZ

  less lively, less voluptuous, than those of Andalusia, but they produce a more profoundly pensive impression. There are some which mean to be gay, hut they are more melancholy than the others. The gypsies of Moscow sing, without instruments, pieces which possess originality; but when the meaning of the words that accompany this expressive and national music is not understood, much of the effect is lost.

  Duprez has disgusted me with songs which eonvey ideas by sound only. His manner of intonating the music and accenting the words carries expression to the utmost verge that it is capable of reaching : the power of feeling is thus multiplied a hundredfold, and thought, borne on the wings of melody, soars to the farthest limits of human sensibility, which takes its spring in the confines where mind and body blend. Things that speak to mind only do not soar so far. Such is the achievement of Duprez in the field of poetical song: he has realised lyric tragedy, long so vainly sought in France by incompetent talents. To have thus succeeded in revolutionising the art, it was needful that the artist should know his profession better than did any other. Admiration of such a marvel inclines us to be hard to please, and often unjust as regards others. To neglect the power of words as a means of musical expression, is to reject the true poetry of vocal music ; it is to eon-fine the power, whose full capabilities had not been completely and systematically revealed to the French public until Duprez restored Guillaume Tell. These are the facts that procure for that great artist his place in the history of art.

  THE THEATRE IN RUSSIA.99

  The new school of Italian singing, of which Kon-coni is now the head, is also reviving the powerful effect of ancient music by the expressive auxiliary of words; but it is still Diiprez who has, since his brilliant debuts on the Naples' theatre, contributed to this return, for he pursues his work through all languages, and carries his conquests among all people. The women who took the higher parts in the songs of the gypsies have Oriental faces; their eyes possess a brightness and vivacity that is very unusual. The youngest among them appeared to me very beautiful; the others, with their deep, though premature wrinkles, their darkly-stained complexions, and their black hair, would also serve as models for painters. They express in their various melodies many different sentiments ; the passion of anger they especially depict with admirable effect. I am told that the troop of gypsy singers that I shall find at Nijni is the most celebrated in Russia. Meanwhile, to render justice to these itinerant virtuosi, I can say that those of Moscow have given me much enjoyment, especially when they sung, in chorus, pieces, the harmony of which appeared to me scientific and complicated.

  I found the national opera a detestable exhibition, though represented in a very handsome hall. The p
iece was The God and the Bayadere, translated into Russian ! What is the use of employing the language of the country further to disfigure a Parisian libretto ?

  There is also at Moscow a French theatre, where M. Hervet, whose mother had a name in Paris, plays the parts of Bouffé very naturally. I saw Miehel Perrin г 2

  100FRENCH LANGUAGE IN RUSSIA.

  given by this actor with a simplicity and a gusto which greatly pleased me, notwithstanding my recollections of the Gymnase. When a piece is really spirituelle, there are several styles of performing it. The works which are lost in foreign lands are those in which the author depends upon the actor for the spirit of his character; and this has not been done by Messieurs Mélesville and Duveyrier in the Michel Perrin of Madame de Bawr. I am ignorant how far the Russians understand our theatre: I do not put much faith in the pleasure which they assume the appearance of feeling on seeing the representations of French comedies; they have so fine a tact that they guess the fashion before it is proclaimed to them; this spares them the humiliation of owning that they follow it. The delicacy of their ear, and the varied inflections of the vowels, the multiplicity of the consonants, the numerous hissing sounds in which they are exercised in speaking their own tongue, accustom them from infancy to master all the difficulties of pronunciation. Those, even, who only know a few words of French, pronounce them as we do. This often deceives us : we imagine that they understand our language as well as they speak it, which is a great error. The small number who have travelled, or have been born in a rauk where education is necessarily carefully directed, alone understand the niceties of Parisian intellectual conversation. Our delicate strokes of wit are lost on the mass. TVe distrust other foreigners, because their accent of our language is disagreeable, and appears to us ridiculous; and yet, notwithstanding the labour with which they speak it, they understand us better and less superficially than