IN the year 1492, as you know, Columbus discovered America. Early in the year, a Tyrolese by the name of Schnups, travelling as the head of a scientific expedition for the Archbishop of Tyrol, and provided with the best letters of introduction and excellent credit tried to reach the mythical1 town of Moscow. He did not succeed. When he reached the frontiers of this vast Moscovite state which was vaguely2 supposed to exist in the extreme Eastern part of Europe, he was firmly turned back. No foreigners were wanted. And Schnups went to visit the heathen Turk in Constantinople, in order that he might have something to report to his clerical master when he came back from his explorations.
Sixty-one years later, Richard Chancellor3, trying to discover the North-eastern passage to the Indies, and blown by an ill wind into the White Sea, reached the mouth of the Dwina and found the Moscovite village of Kholmogory, a few hours from the spot where in 1584 the town of Archangel was founded. This time the foreign visitors were requested to come to Moscow and show themselves to the Grand Duke. They went and returned to England with the first commercial treaty ever concluded between Russia and the western world. Other nations soon followed and something became known of this mysterious land.
Geographically4, Russia is a vast plain. The Ural mountains are low and form no barrier against invaders5. The rivers are broad but often shallow. It was an ideal territory for nomads6.
While the Roman Empire was founded, grew in power and disappeared again, Slavic tribes, who had long since left their homes in Central Asia, wandered aimlessly through the forests and plains of the region between the Dniester and Dnieper rivers. The Greeks had sometimes met these Slavs and a few travellers of the third and fourth centuries mention them. Otherwise they were as little known as were the Nevada Indians in the year 1800.
Unfortunately for the peace of these primitive7 peoples, a very convenient trade-route ran through their country. This was the main road from northern Europe to Constantinople. It followed the coast of the Baltic until the Neva was reached. Then it crossed Lake Ladoga and went southward along the Volkhov river. Then through Lake Ilmen and up the small Lovat river. Then there was a short portage until the Dnieper was reached. Then down the Dnieper into the Black Sea.
The Norsemen knew of this road at a very early date. In the ninth century they began to settle in northern Russia, just as other Norsemen were laying the foundation for independent states in Germany and France. But in the year 862, three Norsemen, brothers, crossed the Baltic and founded three small dynasties. Of the three brothers, only one, Rurik, lived for a number of years. He took possession of the territory of his brothers, and twenty years after the arrival of this first Norseman, a Slavic state had been established with Kiev as its capital.
From Kiev to the Black Sea is a short distance. Soon the existence of an organised Slavic State became known in Constantinople. This meant a new field for the zealous8 missionaries9 of the Christian10 faith. Byzantine monks11 followed the Dnieper on their way northward12 and soon reached the heart of Russia. They found the people worshipping strange gods who were supposed to dwell in woods and rivers and in mountain caves. They taught them the story of Jesus. There was no competition from the side of Roman missionaries. These good men were too busy educating the heathen Teutons to bother about the distant Slavs. Hence Russia received its religion and its alphabet and its first ideas of art and architecture from the Byzantine monks and as the Byzantine empire (a relic13 of the eastern Roman empire) had become very oriental and had lost many of its European traits, the Russians suffered in consequence.
Politically speaking these new states of the great Russian plains did not fare well. It was the Norse habit to divide every inheritance equally among all the sons. No sooner had a small state been founded but it was broken up among eight or nine heirs who in turn left their territory to an ever increasing number of descendants. It was inevitable14 that these small competing states should quarrel among themselves. Anarchy15 was the order of the day. And when the red glow of the eastern horizon told the people of the threatened invasion of a savage16 Asiatic tribe, the little states were too weak and too divided to render any sort of defence against this terrible enemy.
It was in the year 1224 that the first great Tartar invasion took place and that the hordes17 of Jenghiz Khan, the conqueror18 of China, Bokhara, Tashkent and Turkestan made their first appearance in the west. The Slavic armies were beaten near the Kalka river and Russia was at the mercy of the Mongolians. Just as suddenly as they had come they disappeared. Thirteen years later, in 1237, however, they returned. In less than five years they conquered every part of the vast Russian plains. Until the year 1380 when Dmitry Donskoi, Grand Duke of Moscow, beat them on the plains of Kulikovo, the Tartars were the masters of the Russian people.
All in all, it took the Russians two centuries to deliver themselves from this yoke19. For a yoke it was and a most offensive and objectionable one. It turned the Slavic peasants into miserable20 slaves. No Russian could hope to survive un-less he was willing to creep before a dirty little yellow man who sat in a tent somewhere in the heart of the steppes of southern Russia and spat21 at him. It deprived the mass of the people of all feeling of honour and independence. It made hunger and misery22 and maltreatment and personal abuse the normal state of human existence. Until at last the average Russian, were he peasant or nobleman, went about his business like a neglected dog who has been beaten so often that his spirit has been broken and he dare not wag his tail without permission.
There was no escape. The horsemen of the Tartar Khan were fast and merciless. The endless prairie did not give a man a chance to cross into the safe territory of his neighbour. He must keep quiet and bear what his yellow master decided23 to inflict24 upon him or run the risk of death. Of course, Europe might have interfered25. But Europe was engaged upon business of its own, fighting the quarrels between the Pope and the emperor or suppressing this or that or the other heresy26. And so Europe left the Slav to his fate, and forced him to work out his own salvation27.
The final saviour28 of Russia was one of the many small states, founded by the early Norse rulers. It was situated29 in the heart of the Russian plain. Its capital, Moscow, was upon a steep hill on the banks of the Moskwa river. This little principality, by dint30 of pleasing the Tartar (when it was necessary to please), and opposing him (when it was safe to do so), had, during the middle of the fourteenth century made itself the leader of a new national life. It must be remembered that the Tartars were wholly deficient31 in constructive32 political ability. They could only destroy. Their chief aim in conquering new territories was to obtain revenue. To get this revenue in the form of taxes, it was necessary to allow certain remnants of the old political organization to continue. Hence there were many little towns, surviving by the grace of the Great Khan, that they might act as tax-gatherers and rob their neighbours for the benefit of the Tartar treasury33.
The state of Moscow, growing fat at the expense of the surrounding territory, finally became strong enough to risk open rebellion against its masters, the Tartars. It was successful and its fame as the leader in the cause of Russian independence made Moscow the natural centre for all those who still believed in a better future for the Slavic race. In the year 1458, Constantinople was taken by the Turks. Ten years later, under the rule of Ivan III, Moscow informed the western world that the Slavic state laid claim to the worldly and spiritual inheritance of the lost Byzantine Empire, and such traditions of the Roman empire as had survived in Constantinople. A generation afterwards, under Ivan the Terrible, the grand dukes of Moscow were strong enough to adopt the title of Caesar, or Tsar, and to demand recognition by the western powers of Europe.
In the year 1598, with Feodor the First, the old Muscovite dynasty, descendants of the original Norseman Rurik, came to an end. For the next seven years, a Tartar half-breed, by the name of Boris Godunow, reigned34 as Tsar. It was during this period that the future destiny of the large masses of the Russian people was decided. This Empire was rich in land but very poor in money. There was no trade and there were no factories. Its few cities were dirty villages. It was composed of a strong central government and a vast number of illiterate35 peasants. This government, a mixture of Slavic, Norse, Byzantine and Tartar influences, recognised nothing beyond the interest of the state. To defend this state, it needed an army. To gather the taxes, which were necessary to pay the soldiers, it needed civil servants. To pay these many officials it needed land. In the vast wilderness36 on the east and west there was a sufficient supply of this commodity. But land without a few labourers to till the fields and tend the cattle, has no value. Therefore the old nomadic37 peasants were robbed of one privilege after the other, until finally, during the first year of the sixteenth century, they were formally made a part of the soil upon which they lived. The Russian peasants ceased to be free men. They became serfs or slaves and they remained serfs until the year 1861, when their fate had become so terrible that they were beginning to die out.
In the seventeenth century, this new state with its growing territory which was spreading quickly into Siberia, had become a force with which the rest of Europe was obliged to reckon. In 1618, after the death of Boris Godunow, the Russian nobles had elected one of their own number to be Tsar. He was Michael, the son of Feodor, of the Moscow family of Romanow who lived in a little house just outside the Kremlin.
In the year 1672 his great-grandson, Peter, the son of another Feodor, was born. When the child was ten years old, his step-sister Sophia took possession of the Russian throne. The little boy was allowed to spend his days in the suburbs of the national capital, where the foreigners lived. Surrounded by Scotch38 barkeepers, Dutch traders, Swiss apothecaries39, Italian barbers, French dancing teachers and German school-masters, the young prince obtained a first but rather extraordinary impression of that far-away and mysterious Europe where things were done differently.
When he was seventeen years old, he suddenly pushed Sister Sophia from the throne. Peter himself became the ruler of Russia. He was not contented40 with being the Tsar of a semi-barbarous and half-Asiatic people. He must be the sovereign head of a civilised nation. To change Russia overnight from a Byzantine-Tartar state into a European empire was no small undertaking41. It needed strong hands and a capable head. Peter possessed42 both. In the year 1698, the great operation of grafting43 Modern Europe upon Ancient Russia was performed. The patient did not die. But he never got over the shock, as the events of the last five years have shown very plainly.
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1
mythical
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| adj.神话的；虚构的；想像的 | |
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vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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chancellor
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| n.(英)大臣；法官；(德、奥)总理；大学校长 | |
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geographically
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| adv.地理学上，在地理上，地理方面 | |
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invaders
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| 入侵者，侵略者，侵入物( invader的名词复数 ) | |
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nomads
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| n.游牧部落的一员( nomad的名词复数 )；流浪者；游牧生活；流浪生活 | |
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7
primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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zealous
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| adj.狂热的，热心的 | |
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missionaries
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| n.传教士( missionary的名词复数 ) | |
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10
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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monks
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| n.修道士，僧侣( monk的名词复数 ) | |
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northward
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| adv.向北；n.北方的地区 | |
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relic
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| n.神圣的遗物，遗迹，纪念物 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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anarchy
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| n.无政府状态；社会秩序混乱，无秩序 | |
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savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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hordes
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| n.移动着的一大群( horde的名词复数 )；部落 | |
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conqueror
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| n.征服者，胜利者 | |
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yoke
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| n.轭；支配；v.给...上轭，连接，使成配偶 | |
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miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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spat
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| n.口角，掌击；v.发出呼噜呼噜声 | |
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misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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inflict
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| vt.(on)把…强加给，使遭受，使承担 | |
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interfered
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| v.干预( interfere的过去式和过去分词 )；调停；妨碍；干涉 | |
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heresy
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| n.异端邪说；异教 | |
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salvation
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| n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困 | |
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saviour
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| n.拯救者，救星 | |
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29
situated
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| adj.坐落在...的，处于某种境地的 | |
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dint
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| n.由于，靠；凹坑 | |
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deficient
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| adj.不足的，不充份的，有缺陷的 | |
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32
constructive
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| adj.建设的，建设性的 | |
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treasury
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| n.宝库；国库，金库；文库 | |
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34
reigned
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| vi.当政，统治（reign的过去式形式） | |
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illiterate
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| adj.文盲的；无知的；n.文盲 | |
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wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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nomadic
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| adj.流浪的；游牧的 | |
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scotch
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| n.伤口，刻痕；苏格兰威士忌酒；v.粉碎，消灭，阻止；adj.苏格兰(人)的 | |
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apothecaries
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| n.药剂师，药店( apothecary的名词复数 ) | |
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contented
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| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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41
undertaking
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| n.保证，许诺，事业 | |
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42
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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43
grafting
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| 嫁接法，移植法 | |
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