Anthology of Russian literature from the earliest period to the present time_ volume 1 (of 2) _ From the tenth century to the close of the eighteenth century Leo Wiener 889 downloa

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Title: Anthology of Russian literature from the earliest period to the
present time, volume 1 (of 2)
From the tenth century to the close of the eighteenth century

Author: Leo Wiener

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Original publication: New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1902

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANTHOLOGY
OF RUSSIAN LITERATURE FROM THE EARLIEST PERIOD TO THE
PRESENT TIME, VOLUME 1 (OF 2) ***

ANTHOLOGY OF
RUSSIAN LITERATURE

From the
Earliest Period
to the Present
Time

BY

LEO WIENER
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF SLAVIC
LANGUAGES AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY

In Two Parts

8o with Photogravure Frontispieces

Part I.—From the Tenth Century to
the Close of the
Eighteenth Century

Part II.—From the Close of the
Eighteenth Century to
the Present Time

G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
NEW YORK LONDON

Lomonosow

Anthology of Russian Literature
From the Earliest Period to the Present
Time

By
Leo Wiener
Assistant Professor of Slavic Languages at Harvard University

IN TWO PARTS

From the Tenth Century to the Close of the Eighteenth Century

G. P. Putnam’s Sons
New York and London
The Knickerbocker Press
1902

Copyright, 1902
BY
LEO WIENER

Published, June, 1902

The Knickerbocker Press, New York

TO MY FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE
ARCHIBALD CARY COOLIDGE
THIS WORK IS GRATEFULLY DEDICATED

PREFACE
The time is not far off when the Russian language will occupy the same
place in the curriculum of American universities that it now does in those of
Germany, France and Sweden. A tongue that is spoken by more than one
hundred million people and that encompasses one-half of the northern
hemisphere in itself invites the attention of the curious and the scholar. But
the points of contact between the Anglo-Saxon and Slavic races are so
many, both in politics and literature, that it is a matter of interest, if not yet
of necessity, for every cultured person of either nationality to become well
acquainted with the intellectual and social life of the other. In Russia, the
English language is steadily gaining in importance, and not only the
universities, but the gymnasiums as well, offer courses in English. In
England and America there are many signs of a similar interest in their
Russian neighbour, though at present it expresses itself mainly in the
perusal of Russian novels in translations that rarely rise above mediocrity.
There is also a growing demand for a fuller treatment of Russian Literature
as a whole, which even Prince Wolkonsky’s work cannot satisfy, for the
reason that only a small fraction of the nineteenth-century writers, and
hardly anything of the preceding periods, is accessible to the reader for
verification. It is the purpose of this Anthology to render a concise, yet
sufficient, account of Russian Literature in its totality, to give to the English
reader who is not acquainted with any other language than his own a
biographical, critical and bibliographical sketch of every important author,
to offer representative extracts of what there is best in the language in such
a manner as to give a correct idea of the evolution of Russian Literature
from its remotest time. The selections have been chosen so as to illustrate
certain important historical events, and will be found of use also to the
historical student.
In the preparation of this work, I have availed myself of many native
sources, to which I shall express my indebtedness by a general declaration
that I have with profit perused the monumental works of Pýpin and the
authors on whom he has drawn in the preparation of his history of Russian
Literature. To give variety, I have reproduced such of the existing

translations as are less objectionable. In my own translations, for which
alone I am responsible, I have attempted to render minutely the originals,
with their different styles, not excepting their very imperfections, such as
characterise particularly the writers of the eighteenth century. Only where
the diction is inexpressibly crude, as in Pososhkóv’s writings, or the text
corrupt, as in the Word of Ígor’s Armament, have I made slight deviations
for the sake of clearness.
Russian words are transliterated differently by every translator: some
attempt to give English equivalents, which, even if they were correctly
chosen (they seldom are), cannot possibly give an idea of the phonetic
values in Russian; others follow the simpler method of an etymological
transliteration of letter by letter, but needlessly encumber the words with
diacritical marks and difficult consonant combinations. The method pursued
here, though far from ideal, recommends itself for its simplicity. Where the
Russian and English alphabets are practically identical, the corresponding
letters are used; in the other cases, the combinations are made with h, for
which there is no corresponding sound in Russian; for the guttural vowel y
is used, which does also the duty of the English y in yes. There can be no
confusion between the two, as the guttural y before or after a vowel is
extremely rare. It is useless for anyone without oral instruction to try to
pronounce Russian words as the natives do. The nearest approach will be
attained if the consonants be pronounced as in English (g always hard, zh as
z in azure, r always rolled, kh, guttural like German ch in ach), and the
vowels always open as in Italian (a as a in far, e as e in set, o as o in obey,
or a little longer when accented, u as oo in foot, or a little longer when
accented, y between consonants is guttural, which it is useless to attempt
and had better be pronounced like i: i. e., like i in machine or bit, according
to the accent). The accents are indicated throughout the work. Accented é is
frequently pronounced as yó, but it would be useless to indicate all such
cases. It has not been found practicable to spell Russian names uniformly
when their English forms are universally accepted.
It will not be uninteresting to summarise all that Englishmen and
Americans have done to acquaint their countrymen with the language and
literature of Russia.
When Russia was rediscovered by England in the middle of the sixteenth
century and the Muscovy Company established itself at Moscow, there was

naturally a demand for Englishmen who could speak Russian. There are
frequent references in native reports to Englishmen who spoke and wrote
Russian fluently and who were even used as ambassadors to the Muscovite
Tsars. It was also an Englishman, Richard James, who, in 1619, made the
first collection of Russian popular songs. In 1696, the first Russian
grammar was published by the Oxford University Press, though its author,
Ludolf, was not an Englishman by birth. In the eighteenth century, there
seems to have been in England no interest in Russia except as to its religion,
which received consideration from certain divines. An exception must be
made in the case of W. Coxe, who in his Travels in Poland, Russia, Sweden
and Denmark, 1st edition, London, 1784, gave an excellent account of
Russian Literature from German and French sources. In 1821, Sir John
Bowring startled his countrymen with his Specimens of the Russian Poets,
which for the first time revealed to them the existence of a promising
literature. Though his knowledge of Russian was quite faulty, as his
translations prove, yet he put the poems into such pleasing verses that they
became deservedly popular. A second edition followed the same year, and a
second part two years later.
The impulse given by Sir John Bowring found a ready response in the
periodic press of that time. In 1824 the Westminster Review brought out an
article on Politics and Literature of Russia, which gave a short review of
eighteenth-century literature. In 1827, R. P. Gillies gave a good sketch of
Russian Literature in vol. i of the Foreign Quarterly Review, based on the
Russian work of Grech. The same year, the Foreign Review brought out a
short account, and the next year an elaborate article on Russian Literature
and Poetry, also after Grech, which for some decades formed the basis of
all the articles and chapters dealing with the same subject in the English
language. The Foreign Quarterly Review brought out similar matter in vol.
viii, xxi, xxiii, xxix, xxx. But more interesting than these, which are nearly
all fashioned after some Russian articles, are the excellent literary notes in
every number, that kept the readers informed on the latest productions that
appeared in Russia. There seems hardly to have been a public for these
notes in England, and indeed they get weaker with the twenty-fourth
volume, and die of inanity in the thirtieth. This early period of magazine
articles is brought to an end by Russian Literary Biography, in vol. xxxvi
(1841) of the Westminster Review.

The example set by Sir John Bowring found several imitators. We have
several anthologies, generally grouping themselves around Púshkin, for the
first half of the century: W. H. Saunders, Poetical Translations from the
Russian Language, London, 1826; [George Borrow], The Talisman, with
Other Pieces, St. Petersburg, 1835; W. D. Lewis, The Bakchesarian
Fountain, and Other Poems, Philadelphia, 1849. The Foreign Quarterly
Review brought out in 1832 translations from Bátyushkov, Púshkin, and
Rylyéev, and in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine for 1845 T. B. Shaw
gave some excellent translations of Púshkin’s poems. Other articles, treating
individual authors, will be mentioned in their respective places.
While these meagre accounts of Russian Literature, at second hand, and
the scanty anthologies were appearing, there was published in the Biblical
Repository of Andover, Mass., in 1834, the remarkable work by Talvi, the
wife of Dr. Edward Robinson, entitled: Historical View of the Languages
and Literatures of the Slavic Nations, and this was republished in book-
form, and enlarged, in New York, in 1850. Though there existed some
special works by Slavic scholars, Talvi’s was the first to encompass the
whole field in a scholarly and yet popular manner. It is authoritative even
now in many departments that have not been overthrown by later
investigations, and it is a matter of surprise that none of the later English
writers should have based their Russian Literatures on this important work,
or should have proceeded in the path of Slavic studies which she had so
beautifully inaugurated. There is no excuse for G. Cox’s translation of F.
Otto’s History of Russian Literature, with a Lexicon of Russian Authors,
which appeared at Oxford in 1839, and adds a number of its own
inaccuracies to the blunders of the German original. Nor is there any notice
taken of Talvi in [C. F. Henningsen’s] Eastern Europe and the Emperor
Nicholas, London, 1846, which gives a chapter on Russian Literature,
mainly on Púshkin.
In the sixties W. R. Morfill began to translate some poems from the
Russian, and towards the end of that decade, but especially in the next,
Ralston published his excellent studies on the Folksongs and Folktales and
Krylóv, and in the Contemporary Review, vols. xxiii and xxvii, two articles
on the Russian Idylls. The magazines that in the seventies reviewed Russian
Literature got everything at second hand, and are of little value: National
Quarterly Review, vol. xxiv (1872); Catholic World, vol. xxi (1875);

Harper’s Magazine, 1878. Of books there were issued: Sutherland
Edwards’s The Russians at Home, London, 1861, a very useful work for
contemporary literature, and F. R. Grahame’s The Progress of Science, Art
and Literature in Russia, London [1865], which contains a great deal of
interesting material badly arranged and ill-digested. The chapter on
Literature in O. W. Wahl’s The Land of the Czar, London, 1875, is
unimportant.
Since the eighties there have appeared a number of translations from
good foreign authors bearing on Russian Literature: Ernest Dupuy, The
Great Masters of Russian Literature in the Nineteenth Century, translated
by N. H. Dole, New York [1886]; E. M. de Vogüé, The Russian Novelists,
translated by J. L. Edmands, Boston [1887]; Dr. George Brandes,
Impressions of Russia, translated by S. C. Eastman, New York, 1889; E. P.
Bazán, Russia: Its People and its Literature, translated by F. H. Gardiner,
Chicago, 1890.
The following more or less original works will be found useful: W. R.
Morfill, Slavonic Literature, London, 1883, and The Story of Russia, New
York and London, 1890; also his The Peasant Poets of Russia (Reprint from
Westminster Review), London, 1880; C. E. Turner, Studies in Russian
Literature, London, 1882, and before, in Fraser’s Magazine for 1877; Ivan
Panin, Lectures in Russian Literature, New York and London, 1889;
Memorials of a Short Life: A Biographical Sketch of W. F. A. Gaussen
(chapter on The Russian People and their Literature), London, 1895; Prince
Serge Wolkonsky, Pictures of Russian History and Russian Literature
(Lowell Lectures), Boston, New York and London, 1897; K. Waliszewski, A
History of Russian Literature, New York, 1900, but this work must be used
with extreme caution, on account of the many inaccuracies it contains. W.
M. Griswold’s Tales Dealing with Life in Russia, Cambridge, 1892, is a fair
bibliography of all the prose translations that have appeared in the English
language before 1892. But few anthologies have of late seen daylight: C. T.
Wilson, Russian Lyrics in English Verse, London, 1887; John Pollen,
Rhymes from the Russian, London, 1891 (a good little book); E. L. Voynich,
The Humour of Russia, London and New York, 1895. The periodical “Free
Russia,” published in London since 1890, contains some good translations
from various writers and occasionally some literary essay; but the most
useful periodic publication is “The Anglo-Russian Literary Society,”

published in London since 1892, and containing valuable information on
literary subjects, especially modern, and a series of good translations from
contemporary poets. Nor must one overlook the articles in the
encyclopedias, of which those in Johnson’s Cyclopedia are especially good.
Very exhaustive statements of the modern literary movement in Russia
appear from year to year in the Athenæum. More or less good articles on
modern literature, mainly the novel, have appeared since 1880 in the
following volumes of the periodical press: Academy, xxi and xxiii;
Bookman, viii; Chautauquan, viii and xxii; Critic, iii; Current Literature,
xxii; Dial, xx; Eclectic Magazine, cxv; Forum, xxviii; Leisure Hours,
ccccxxv; Lippincott’s, lviii; Literature, i; Living Age, clxxxv; Nation, lxv;
Public Opinion, xx; Publisher’s Weekly, liv; Temple Bar, lxxxix.
In conclusion, I desire to express my gratitude to my friends and
colleagues who have aided me in this work: to Prof. A. C. Coolidge, for
leaving at my disposal his collection of translations from the Russian, and
for many valuable hints; to Dr. F. N. Robinson, for reading a number of my
translations; to Prof. G. L. Kittredge, to whom is largely due whatever
literary merit there may be in the introductory chapters and in the
biographical sketches. I also take this occasion to thank all the publishers
and authors from whose copyrighted works extracts have been quoted with
their permission.

CONTENTS
PAGE
Preface v
A Sketch of Russian Literature 1
I. The Oldest Period 3
II. The Folklore 18
III. The Eighteenth Century 26
The Oldest Period 39
Treaty with the Greeks (911) 41
Luká Zhidyáta (XI. c.) 44
Instruction to his Congregation 44
The Russian Code (XI. c.) 45
Ilarión, Metropolitan of Kíev (XI. c.) 48
Eulogy on St. Vladímir 48
Vladímir Monomákh (1053-1125) 50
His Instruction to his Children 51
Abbot Daniel, the Palmer (XII. c.) 56
Of the Holy Light, how it Descends from Heaven upon the 56
Holy Sepulchre
Epilogue 61
Cyril, Bishop of Túrov (XII. c.) 62
From a Sermon on the First Sunday after Easter 62
Néstor’s Chronicle (XII. c.) 65
The Baptism of Vladímir and of all Russia 65
The Kíev Chronicle (XII. c.) 71

The Expedition of Ígor Svyatoslávich against the Pólovtses 72
The Word of Ígor’s Armament (XII. c.) 80
The Holy Virgin’s Descent into Hell (XII. c.) 96
Daniel the Prisoner (XIII. c.) 100
Letter to Prince Yarosláv Vsévolodovich 101
Serapión, Bishop of Vladímir (XIII. c.) 104
A Sermon on Omens 104
The Zadónshchina (XIV. c.) 106
Afanási Nikítin (XV. c.) 111
Travel to India 111
Apocryphal Legends about King Solomon (XV. c.) 114
The Story of Kitovrás 114
Prince Kúrbski (1528-1583) 115
The Storming of Kazán 116
Letter to Iván the Terrible 118
Iván the Terrible (1530-1584) 121
Letter to Prince Kúrbski 121
The Domostróy (XVI. c.) 126
How to Educate Children and Bring them up in the Fear of 126
God
How to Teach Children and Save them through Fear 127
How Christians are to Cure Diseases and all Kinds of 128
Ailments
The Wife is always and in all Things to Take Counsel with 128
her Husband
How to Instruct Servants 129
Songs Collected by Richard James (1619-1620) 130
Incursion of the Crimean Tartars 131

The Song of the Princess Kséniya Borísovna 132
The Return of Patriarch Filarét to Moscow 133
Krizhánich (1617-1677) 134
Political Reasons for the Union of the Churches 135
On Knowledge 136
On Foreigners 136
Kotoshíkhin (1630-1667) 136
The Education of the Princes 137
The Private Life of the Boyárs and of other Ranks 139
Simeón Pólotski (1629-1680) 149
On the Birth of Peter the Great 150
An Evil Thought 151
The Magnet 151
The Story of Misery Luckless-Plight (XVII. or XVIII. c.) 152
The Folklore 161
Epic Songs 163
Volkh Vseslávevich 163
Ilyá of Múrom and Nightingale the Robber 165
Historical Songs 172
Yermák 172
The Boyár’s Execution 174
The Storming of Ázov 176
Folksongs 177
Kolyádka 178
Bowl-Song 179
A Parting Scene 179
The Dove 180

The Faithless Lover 182
Elegy 182
The Farewell 183
Sing, O sing again, lovely lark of mine 184
Wedding Gear 185
The Sale of the Braid 185
Marriage Song 186
Beggars’ Song 186
An Orphan’s Wailing 187
Conjuration of a Mother 188
Fairy Tales 189
Frost 190
The Cat, the Goat and the Ram 195
The Fox and the Peasant 198
Proverbs 199
The Eighteenth Century 203
Pososhkóv (1670-1726) 205
On Merchants 205
On the Peasantry 209
Prokopóvich (1681-1763) 211
The Spiritual Reglement 212
Funeral Sermon on Peter the Great 214
Tatíshchev (1686-1750) 218
From the “Russian History” 219
Kantemír (1708-1744) 223
To my Mind 224
Tredyakóvski (1703-1769) 230

Ode on the Surrender of Dantzig 230
Princess Dolgorúki (1714-1771) 233
From her “Memoirs” 234
Lomonósov (1711-1765) 241
Letters to I. I. Shuválov 242
Ode on the Capture of Khotín 246
Morning Meditations 252
Evening Meditations 253
Sumarókov (1718-1777) 254
The False Demetrius 255
Instruction to a Son 257
To the Corrupters of Language 260
The Helpful Gnat 260
Four Answers 261
Vasíli Máykov (1728-1778) 263
The Battle of the Zimogórans and Valdáyans 263
The Cook and the Tailor 267
Danílov (1722-1790) 269
From his “Memoirs” 269
Catherine the Great (1729-1796) 272
O Tempora 272
Prince Khlor 276
Shcherbátov (1733-1790) 287
On the Corruption of Manners in Russia 287
Petróv (1736-1799) 291
On the Victory of the Russian over the Turkish Fleet 291
Kheráskov (1733-1807) 298

The Rossiad 298
Metropolitan Platón (1737-1812) 300
What are Idolaters? 300
Address upon the Accession of Alexander I. 304
Khémnitser (1745-1784) 306
The Lion’s Council of State 306
The Metaphysician 307
Knyazhnín (1742-1791) 308
Vadím of Nóvgorod 309
Odd People 311
Princess Dáshkov (1743-1810) 316
The Establishment of a Russian Academy 316
Poroshín (1741-1769) 321
From his “Diary” 321
The Satirical Journals (1769-1774), and Nóvikov (1744-1818) 326
From All Kinds of Things 328
Sound Reasoning Adorns a Man 329
From the Drone 332
Recipe for His Excellency Mr. Lacksense 332
The Laughing Democritos 333
From Hell’s Post 335
From the Painter 337
Fon-Vízin (1744-1792) 341
The Minor 342
An Open-Hearted Confession 351
Letters to Count Pánin 355
Kostróv (1750-1796) 358

Letter to the Creator of the Ode in Praise of Felítsa 359
Radíshchev (1749-1802) 361
Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow 362
Ablesímov (1742-1783) 370
The Miller 370
Bogdanóvich (1743-1803) 374
Psyche. From Book I. 374
” ” ” II. 375
Derzhávin (1743-1816) 377
Ode to the Deity 379
Monody on Prince Meshchérski 382
Felítsa 385
The Waterfall 390
The Storm 391
The Stream of Time 392
Neledínski-Melétski (1752-1829) 392
To the Streamlet I’ll Repair 392
He whose Soul from Sorrow Dreary 394
Muravév (1757-1807) 395
To the Goddess of the Nevá 395
Kapníst (1757-1824) 397
The Pettifoggery 398
Obúkhovka 402
On Julia’s Death 404
Gribóvski (1766-1833) 405
From his “Memoirs” 405
Kámenev (1772-1803) 411

Gromvál 412
Ózerov (1770-1816) 418
Dimítri Donskóy 419
Prince Dolgorúki (1764-1823) 422
The Legacy 422
My Moscow Fireplace 425
Dmítriev (1760-1837) 428
The Little Dove 429
During a Thunder-Storm 430
Ermák 431
What Others Say 436
Index 441

A SKETCH OF RUSSIAN LITERATURE

I.—THE OLDEST PERIOD

Of the many Slavic nations and tribes that at one time occupied the east
of Europe from the Elbe and the headwaters of the Danube to Siberia, and
from the Ionic Sea to the Baltic and White Seas, some have entirely
disappeared in the ruthless struggle with a superior German civilisation;
others, like the Bulgarians and Servians, have paled into insignificance
under the lethargic influence of the Crescent, to be fanned to life again
within the memory of the present generation by a breath of national
consciousness, which is the result of the Romantic Movement in European
literature; others again like the Bohemians and Poles, rent asunder by
fraternal discord and anarchy, have forfeited their national existence and are
engaged in an unequal battle to regain it. Of all the Slavs, Russia alone has
steadily gathered in the lands of the feudal lords, to shine at last as a power
of the first magnitude among the sisterhood of states, and to scintillate hope
to its racial brothers as the “Northern Star.”
The unity of the Russian land was ever present to the minds of the writers
in the earliest days of the appanages. The bard of the Word of Ígor’s
Armament and Daniel the Palmer made appeals to the whole country and
prayed for all the princes in the twelfth century, and for upwards of four
centuries Moscow has been the centre towards which the outlying districts
have been gravitating. Yet, in spite of so continuous and well-defined a
political tendency, Russia is the last of the Slavic nations to have evolved a
literature worthy of the name. Bohemia had a brilliant literature of the
Western stamp as early as the thirteenth century; Bulgaria had made a
splendid start three centuries before, under the impulse of the newly
introduced religion; the Servian city of Ragusa, receiving its intellectual
leaven from its Italian vicinage, invested Petrarch and Dante with Servian
citizenship in the fifteenth century, and, shortly after, gloried in an epic of a
Gundulić, and in a whole galaxy of writers; Poland borrowed its theology
from Bohemia, took an active part in the medieval Latin literature, and

boasted a golden age for its native language in the sixteenth century. Russia
produced an accessible literature only in the second half of the eighteenth
century, became known to Western Europe not earlier than the second
quarter of the next, and had not gained universal recognition until within the
last twenty-five years.
In the case of the Western and Southern Slavs, a community of interests,
whether religious or social, has led to an intellectual intercourse with their
neighbours, from whom they have received their models for imitation or
adaptation. Without a favourable geographical position, or some common
bond with the external world, no nation can have a healthy development,
especially in the incipient stage of its political existence. Blatant
Slavophiles of fifty years ago heaped reproach on the reforms of Peter the
Great, on the ground that they were fashioned upon Western ideals, and that
he had retarded the evolution of Russia according to its inherent Slavic idea.
There still survive men of that persuasion, though a comparative study of
Russian literature long ago demonstrated that every step in advance has
been made by conscious or unconscious borrowings from abroad. If there
was a Russian literature previous to the introduction of Christianity, it
certainly stood in some kind of relation to the literatures of the neighbours.
The few extant treaties with the Greeks for that period show unmistakable
Byzantine influences, and the Russian Code of Yarosláv, with its purely
Norse laws, dates from a time when the Varyágs had not yet disappeared in
the mass of the Slavic majority.
With the introduction of Christianity, Russia, instead of entering into
closer communion with the rest of the world, was separated from it even
more securely than before, and soon after, an intellectual stagnation began
that lasted very nearly to the end of the seventeenth century. Various causes
combined to produce this singular effect. Chief of these was its
geographical position. Living in the vast eastern plain of Europe, which in
itself would have been productive of a larger life, the Russian tribes had
civilised neighbours on one side only. On the north they were separated
from the Swedes by rude Finnish tribes; on the south, they had for centuries
to contend against all the nomads, Pechenyégs, Cumanians, Khazars, who
slowly proceeded from Asia to central Europe to become lost in the nations
to the south of the Carpathians and in the Balkan peninsula; in the east the
Finns of the north met the Tartars of the south, and behind them lay

unprofitable Asia. On the north-west, it is true, was the civilised Teutonic
Order, but the inveterate hatred between these Germans and the Slavs
prevented any intercommunication from that quarter. There was left Poland,
through which Russia might issue into Europe; but savage Lithuania was
wedged in between the two, so as to reduce still more the line of contact
with the West. When Lithuania became civilised, and a part of Poland, the
latter had grown suspicious of the youthful Ilyá of Múrom who “had sat
thirty years upon the oven,” and enunciated a political maxim that either
Russia would have to become Polish, or else Poland Russian. Knowing that
there was no other exit for Russia, Poland permitted no light to reach it
from the West. When England began to communicate with Russia in the
sixteenth century, King Sigismund made an earnest appeal to Queen
Elizabeth to stop sending skilled mechanics, lest the Colossus should
awaken and become a danger to Europe.
These external causes of Russia’s aloofness were still more intensified by
a systematic determination of Russia to keep out the Catholic contamination
that would come from intercourse with Europe. This was a direct outgrowth
of its adoption of Christianity from Byzantium, instead of Rome. Cyril and
Methodius, the apostles to the Slavs, were themselves Bulgarians from
Macedonia. When they first carried the new religion to Moravia and later to
Bulgaria, they, no doubt, preached and wrote in the dialect with which they
were most familiar. This innovation of preaching the gospel in another than
one of the three sacred languages was a necessary departure, in order to win
over the troublesome Slavs to the north of Byzantium. Though at the end of
the ninth century the various dialects were already sufficiently dissimilar to
constitute separate languages, yet they were not so distant from each other
as to be a hindrance to a free intercommunication. When, a century later,
Christianity was introduced into Russia from Constantinople, Bulgarian
priests and bookmen were the natural intermediaries, and the Bulgarian
language at once became the literary medium, to the exclusion of the native
tongue. Soon after, the Eastern Church separated from Rome, and the
Greek-Catholic clergy inculcated upon their neophytes an undying hatred of
the Latins, as the Romanists were called. In Moscow, the slightest deviation
from the orthodox faith was sufficient cause for suspecting a Romanist
heresy, and anathemas against Roman-Catholics were frequent, but at Kíev,
where the contact with Poland was inevitable, the disputes with the Latins
form a prominent part of ecclesiastical literature. To guard the country

against any possible contagion, the punishment of Russians who crossed the
border, in order to visit foreign parts, was so severe, that few ever ventured
out of the country. The seclusion of Russia was complete.
Even under these difficulties, literature and the arts might have
flourished, if Constantinople had been able to give to the new converts even
its degraded Byzantine culture, or if there had not been other powerful
causes that militated against a development from within. In the west of
Europe the Latin language of the Church did not interfere with an early
national literature. Latin was the language of the learned, whether clerical
or lay, and mediated an intellectual intercourse between the most distant
members of the universal faith. At the same time, the native dialects had
received an impulse before the introduction of Christianity, often under the
influence of Rome, and they were left to shift for themselves and to find
their votaries. The case was quite different in Russia. The Bulgarian
language, which was brought in with the gospel, at once usurped on the
native Russian to the great disadvantage of the latter. Being closely related
to the spoken Russian, Bulgarian was easily acquired by the clergy, but it
was not close enough to become the literary language of the people. On the
one hand, this new gospel language could at best connect Russia with
Byzantium by way of Bulgaria; on the other, Russian was looked down
upon as a rude dialect and was discouraged, together with every symptom
of the popular creation which was looked upon as intimately connected with
ancient paganism.
This Bulgarian language was not long preserved in its purity. Detached
from its native home, it was immediately transformed in pronunciation, so
as to conform to the spoken Russian; thus, for example, it at once lost its
nasals, which were not familiar to the Russian ear. In the course of time,
words and constructions of the people’s language found their way into the
Church-Slavic, as the Bulgarian was then more properly called. Naturally,
many words, referring to abstract ideas and the Church, passed from the
Bulgarian into the spoken tongue. Thus, the two dialects, one the arbitrary
literary language, the other, the language of every-day life, approached each
other more and more. At the present time, the Russian of literature contains
a large proportion of these Church-Slavic words; the language of the Bible
and the liturgy is the Church-Slavic of the sixteenth century, which differs
so much from the original Bulgarian that, though a Russian reads with

comparative ease this Church-Slavic, he has to study Bulgarian as a
German would study Old German. This Church-Slavic of the Russian
redaction has also been, and still is, in part, the ecclesiastical language of
the other Greek-Catholic countries of the Slavs.
Some time passed before Russia could furnish its own clergy. All the
leading places in the Church were at first filled with Bulgarians and Greeks
who were steeped in Byzantine religious lore. The Church at
Constantinople stood in direct opposition to the classical traditions of
Greece. These were not separated from the old heathenism, and to the
luxury and voluptuousness of medieval Greece, which was ascribed to
classical influences, the Church opposed asceticism and self-abnegation.
Monasticism was preached as the ideal of the religious life, and arts and
sciences had no place in the scheme of the Church. Theology and rhetoric
were the only sciences which the hermit practised in his cell, in the
moments that were free from prayer and self-castigation. And it is only the
Church’s sciences that ancient Russia inherited from Byzantium. The civil
intercourse between the two countries was very slight, and the few Russian
ecclesiastics who visited Mount Athos and the Holy Land brought back
with them at best a few legends and apocryphal writings. The Byzantine
influence at home showed itself in a verbal adherence to the Bible and the
Church Fathers, and an occasional attempt at pulpit oratory in the
bombastic diction of contemporary Greece.
Not a science penetrated into ancient Russia. Historically the rest of the
world did not exist for it, and geographically it was only of interest in so far
as it came into contact with Russia: Russia knew more of Tartars and
Cumanians than of Germany or France. Arithmetic, not to speak of
mathematics, and physics, medicine and engineering, were unknown before
the sixteenth century, and then only when a few foreigners practised these
arts in the capital and at the Court. The only literature that reached Russia
was the legendary lore of the South and West, through Bulgaria and Poland,
generally at a time when it had long been forgotten elsewhere: thus, the
Lucidarius and Physiologus were accepted as genuine bits of zoölogical and
botanical science, long after sober knowledge had taken possession of the
universities of the world. The literature of Russia before Peter the Great is
by no means meagre or uninteresting, but it lacks an important element of
historical continuity; in fact, it is devoid of every trace of chronology. What

was written in the twelfth century might with equal propriety be the product
of the sixteenth, and vice versa, and the productions of the earliest time
were copied out as late as the seventeenth century, and relished as if they
had just been written. Where a certain literary document has come down to
us in a later copy, it is not possible to date it back, unless it contains some
accidental indication of antiquity. In short, there was no progress in Russia
for a period of six or seven centuries, from the tenth century to the
seventeenth.
In this achronism of literary history, there may, however, be discerned
two periods that are separated from each other by the first invasion of the
Tartars. Previous to that momentous event, Kíev formed the chief
intellectual and political centre of the Russian principalities. Here the Norse
traditions, which had been brought by the Varyág warriors, had not entirely
faded away in the century following the introduction of Christianity, and the
Court maintained certain relations with the rest of the world, as in the case
of Yarosláv, who was related, by the marriage of his children, to the Courts
of Norway, France, Germany and Hungary. On the other hand, Vladímir’s
heroes were celebrated abroad, and Ilyá of Múrom is not unknown to
German tradition and the Northern saga. Not only its favourable
geographical position, but its climate as well, inspired the inhabitants of
Kíev with a greater alacrity, even as the Little-Russians of to-day have
developed less sombre characteristics than the Great-Russians of the sterner
north. It is sufficient to compare the laconic instructions of Luká Zhidyáta
in the commercial Nóvgorod with the flowery style of Serapión’s sermon,
or the dry narrative of the northern chronicles with the elaborate adornment
of the stories in the chronicles of Néstor and Sylvester, to become aware of
the fundamental difference between the two sections of Russia. The twelfth
century, rich in many aspects of literature, including that beautiful prose
poem of popular origin, the Word of Ígor’s Armament, gave ample promise
of better things to come. Similarly, the bylínas of the Vladímir cycle, the
best and most numerous of all that are preserved, point to an old poetic
tradition that proceeded from Kíev.
The fact that these bylínas have been lately discovered in the extreme
north-east, in the Government of Olónetsk, while not a trace of them has
been found in their original home, has divided the scholars of Russia into
two camps. Some assert that all the Russians of Kíev belonged to the Great-

Russian division, and that the Tartar invasion destroyed most of them, and
caused the rest to migrate to the north, whither they carried their poetry. The
Little-Russians that now occupy the south of Russia are supposed by these
scholars to have come from Galicia to repeople the abandoned places. The
Little-Russians themselves claim, with pardonable pride, to be the direct
descendants of the race that gave Russia its Néstor and the bard of the Word
of Ígor’s Armament. There are weighty arguments on both sides, and both
the Great-Russians, with whom we are at present concerned, and the Little-
Russians, or Ruthenians, who have developed a literature in their own
dialect, claim that old literature as their own.
The terrible affliction of the Mongol invasion marks, on the one hand, the
beginning of the concentration of Russia around Moscow, and, on the other,
accentuates more strongly the barren activities of the Russian mind for the
next few centuries. Historians have been wont to dwell on the Tartar
domination as the chief cause of Russian stagnation, but the calmer
judgment of unbiassed science must reject that verdict. It is true, the Tartars
carried ruin to all the Russian land, but after every successful raid, they
withdrew to their distant camps, ruling the conquered land merely by
exacting tribute and homage from its princes. The Tartars in no way
interfered with the intellectual and religious life of the people; on the
contrary, they mingled freely with the subject nation, and intermarriages
were common. It has already been pointed out that the germ of
unprogressiveness was older than the invasion, that the Byzantine religious
culture was the real cause of it. That Moscow was even less progressive
than Kíev is only natural. All its energies were bent on political
aggrandisement, on throwing off the hated Tartar yoke, and it was farther
removed from Europe than the more fortunate southern metropolis. All
these conditions were unfavourable to the practice of the gentler arts.
The religious lore of ancient Russia was derived from the gospel, which
was hardly ever accessible in continuous form, but only as an aprakos, i. e.,
as a manual in which it was arranged according to the weekly readings. This
was supplemented by two peculiar versions of the Old Testament, the
palæas, in which passages of the Bible were intermingled with much
apocryphal matter, and which originally had served as controversial
literature against the Jews, and to prove the coming of Christ; there was no
translation of the whole Old Testament, and as late as the eighteenth century

a priest referred to the palæa as to Holy Writ. Prayers to saints, lives and
legends of saints, with moral instructions, complete the list of the religious
equipment that Russia received from Byzantium. One of the oldest Russian
manuscripts, the Collection of Svyatosláv, made for Svyatosláv of
Chernígov in 1073, is a copy of a similar production, translated from the
Greek for Simeón of Bulgaria. It is an encyclopedia of ecclesiastic and
moral themes, culled from the Church Fathers, among whom John
Chrysostom is most prominent. Later, there were many similar collections,
known under the names of The Golden Beam, Emerald, Golden Chain, and
so forth.
By the aid of this literature and such Greek models as were accessible to
the priests, were produced the sermons that have come down to us in a large
number, and a few of which, like those of Cyril of Túrov and Serapión, do
not lack literary polish, and are not inferior to Western pulpit oratory of the
same period. Whenever the preachers turned to praise the princes, as in the
case of Ilarión who eulogised Vladímir, they had in mind only their
orthodox Christianity, for religion was the all-absorbing question. Similarly,
when Vladímir Monomákh wrote his Instruction to his children, he
composed it according to the model given in Svyatosláv’s Collection.
Sermons and Instructions, from the introduction of Christianity to the
middle of the eighteenth century, form one of the most important
ingredients of Collections, and served as models for Spiritual Testaments
even in the eighteenth century. Sylvester’s Domostróy belongs to the same
type, though what in Vladímir was the enthusiasm and earnestness of the
new faith, has in this later document become a series of external
observances. Formalism and adherence to the dead letter characterise the
whole period of Russian unprogressiveness, and remained the characteristic
of the Church at a much later time, in spite of the enlightened labours of a
Feofán or Platón; and it was the same formalism that caused the schism of
the raskólniks, who saw in Nikón’s orthographical corrections of the corrupt
Bible text an assault upon the orthodox religion.
Only a small proportion of the literature of ancient Russia was produced
outside the ranks of the clergy. There were few literate persons who were
not priests or monks; for there hardly existed any schools during this whole
period, and even princes could not sign their names. The influence of the
lettered priest was paramount, and if he was at all equal to the task of

composing readable sermons, these were eagerly sought for by all who
could read them. When, in the sixteenth, and still more in the seventeenth
century, rays of light began to penetrate into Moscow, the chief and most
dangerous task of instruction fell to the share of those preachers who had
come in contact with Polish learning at Kíev; in the days of Peter the Great,
Feofán Prokopóvich was an important factor in the civilisation of Russia,
and in the beginning of the nineteenth century the sermons of Platón still
form an integral part of literature.
To the student of comparative literature the semi-religious lore, which
finds its expression in the apocrypha, is of vastly greater interest. The
poetical creative activity of the people, combining with the knowledge of
religious lore, has ever been active in producing spurious legendary
accounts of matters biblical. The book of Enoch and the Talmud
disseminated such legends in regard to the Old Testament long before the
birth of Christianity. The Russian apocryphal literature is rich in legendary
accounts of the creation of the world, the confession of Eve, the lives of
Adam, Melchisedec, Abraham, Lot, Moses, Balaam, the twelve patriarchs,
David, and particularly Solomon. Much more extensive is the store of
legends from the New Testament. The birth of the Holy Virgin is dilated
upon in the gospel of Jacob, the childhood of Christ is told in the gospel of
Thomas, while a fuller story of Pilate’s judgment of Christ and of Christ’s
descent into Hell is given in the old gospel of Nicodemus. Lazarus, Judas,
and the twelve apostles have all their group of legends, but the Assumption
of the Virgin Mary and the Judgment-day were the most popular. The list is
far from being exhausted, and only a small part of the material has been
scientifically investigated and located. Most of these stories travelled by the
customary road over Bulgaria from Byzantium. As they have also reached
the west of Europe, the investigator of their Western forms has to look into
Byzantine sources; but as many of the legends have been preserved in the
Slavic form, and when they have disappeared from the Greek, or as fuller
redactions are to be met with in the North, he cannot well afford to overlook
the Slavic sources. The index librorum prohibitorum of Russia, fashioned
after the Greek, includes all such apocrypha as were current at the time of
the composition of the first index. The clergy were continually preaching
against them, yet their efforts were useless, especially since they themselves
were at the same time drawing extensively on the apocryphal accounts of
the palæas, lives of saints, etc.

There is this vast difference in the literature of this kind as it was current
in Russia and in the West. Elsewhere the legends were early seized upon by
the fancy of the poets, were clothed in the conventional garb of verse,
remodelled, combined, beautified, until they became the stock in trade of
literature, while the memory of the unadorned story had entirely faded from
the popular consciousness. Dante’s Divine Comedy is an illustration of how
transformed the legends had become at a very early date. In Russia nothing
of the kind has taken place. With the usual achronism of its literature,
legends of the eleventh and eighteenth centuries live side by side, or mingle
in the same version, and they have undergone no other change than
corruption of misunderstood passages, transposition of motives,
modernisation of language. The religious songs that a mendicant may be
heard singing at the present time in front of a church are nothing but these
old legends, almost in their primitive form.
Nearly allied to the apocryphal stories are the profane legends that form
the subject-matter of so much of European medieval literature. The stories
of Alexander the Great, the Trojan War, Digenis Akritas, Barlaam and
Josaphat, Calilah-wa-Dimnah, are as common in Russian literature as in
that of France or Germany. Byzantium is the immediate source of most of
these legends both for the East and the West, but there are also many
motives in the Russian stories that were derived from the West through
Servia and Bulgaria. It is not yet quite clear how these stories came to travel
in a direction opposite to the customary route of popular tales; no doubt the
crusades did much to bring about an interchange of the oral literature of the
nations. In the West, these stories have furnished the most beautiful subjects
for medieval poetry, but as before, the Russian stories have not found their
way into polite literature. They have either remained unchanged in their
original form, or, being of a more popular character than the religious
legends, have adapted themselves to the style of folktales, as which they
have been preserved.
It is not unlikely that many of these tales were brought back from
Palestine, the common camping-ground of the Christian nations during the
crusades. Pilgrimages to the Holy Land began soon after the introduction of
Christianity into Russia, and in the twelfth century we have the first account
of such a journey, from the pen of the abbot Daniel. None of the later
accounts of Palestine and Constantinople compare in interest with the

simple narrative of Daniel the Palmer, after whose Pilgrimage they are
fashioned and whose very words they often incorporated in their Travels.
The purpose of all these was to serve as incitements to religious
contemplation. There is but one account of a journey to the west of Europe.
It was undertaken by the metropolitan Isidor who, in 1437, attended the
Council of Florence. A few years later Afanási Nikítin described his journey
to India, which was one of the earliest undertaken by Westerners in the
same century; but while Vasco de Gama and Columbus were
revolutionising the knowledge of geography, and were making the
discovery of a route to India the object of mercantile development, Nikítin’s
report, important though it was, had absolutely no effect upon dormant
Russia.
As there existed no external geography, so there was no external history.
But fortunately for Russia, a long series of chronicles have saved historical
events from oblivion. The earliest chronicle, that of Néstor, was the model
for all that followed. Excepting the history of Kúrbski, who had come into
contact with Western science through the Polish, and Krizhánich, who was
not a Russian, there was no progress made in the chronological arrangement
of historical facts from Néstor to Tatíshchev, while in style and dramatic
diction there is a decided retrogression. The promise held out by the
historian of the twelfth century was not made good for six hundred years.
Néstor and Sylvester, the continuator, were of the clerical profession, and
naturally the religious element, richly decked out with legend, folktale and
reports of eye-witnesses, is the prevailing tone throughout the whole
production. The Bible and the Byzantines, Hamartolos and John Malalas,
serve as models for the fluent style of this production, but the vivid,
dramatic narrative bears witness to considerable talent in the author. At first
only the cities of Kíev, Nóvgorod and Súzdal, and Volhynia seem to have
possessed such chronicles; but those that are preserved show traces of being
composed of shorter accounts of other individual places. In the following
centuries, most of the larger cities and monasteries kept chronological
records of important events, and with the centralisation of Russia about
Moscow there also appeared a species of Court chroniclers whose dry
narration is often coloured in favour of the tsarate.
All this mass of literature is essentially ecclesiastic, and hardly any other
could raise its head against the constant anathemas of the Church. No

prohibition of the priests was strong enough to obliterate the craving for a
popular literature, for no school, no science, was opposed to the superstition
of the people, which therefore had full sway. The best the Church was able
to do for the masses was to foster a “double faith,” in which Christianity
and paganism lived side by side. We shall see later how this state of affairs
has been favourable to the preservation of an oral tradition up to the present
time. Yet, but for the Word of Ígor’s Armament, and its imitation, the
Zadónshchina, no one could have suspected that the elements of a natural,
unecclesiastic literature were present in ancient Russia.
This Word of Ígor’s Armament is unique. It was composed at a time when
Russia was already well Christianised, yet the references to Christianity are
only sporadic, whereas the ancient pagan divinities and popular conceptions
come in for a goodly share of attention. There are some who are inclined to
see in this production a forgery, such as Hanka concocted for Bohemian
literature, or Macpherson for Celtic, for the absence of any later works of
the kind seems to be inexplicable. But this absence need not surprise us, for
no such work could have been written at a later time outside the Church,
which alone was in possession of a modicum of learning. It must be
assumed that the bard of the Word represents the last of a bygone
civilisation that had its firm footing in the people, but stood in a literary
relation to the singers of the Norsemen; for there is much in the Word that
reminds one of the Northern sagas. The tradition of the bard came to an end
with this last production, but his manner, corrupted and twisted by a
wrongly understood Christianity, lived on in the folksong of the people;
hence the remarkable resemblance between the two.
But for the inertia of the Russian Church and people, it would not have
been necessary to wait until a Peter the Great violently shook the country
into activity, for long before his time glimpses of European civilisation
reached Moscow. In the fifteenth century, we have found metropolitan
Isidor travelling to the Council of Florence, to cast his vote in favour of a
union of the Churches under Rome. In the same century foreigners began to
arrive in Moscow to practise medicine or architecture, or to serve in the
Russian army; in the time of Iván the Terrible there was already a
considerable foreign colony in Moscow, and its influences upon individual
Russians were not rare. Iván the Terrible himself made several attempts to

get skilled mechanics from the West, but his efforts were generally
frustrated by Poland and the Germans of the Baltic provinces.
The most important points of contact with the West were in the Church
itself, through Kíev and Western Russia. These outlying parts of Russia had
early come into relation with Poland, and their unyielding orthodoxy had
been mellowed by the prevailing scholasticism of the Polish theology. In
the academy of Kíev, Greek and Latin grammar, theology and rhetoric were
taught, while these sciences—especially grammar, even though it were
Slavic grammar—were looked upon at Moscow as certain expressions of
heresy. The correction of the corrupt church books, which in itself was
advocated by priests who had imbibed the Kíev culture, made the presence
of learned men—that is, of such as knew grammar enough to discover
orthographical mistakes—an absolute necessity. In the reign of Alexis
Mikháylovich, Kíev monks were called out for the purpose of establishing a
school, and only in 1649 was the first of the kind opened. This innovation
divided the churchmen into two camps,—those who advocated the Greek
grammar, and those who advocated the Latin,—that is, those who would
hear of nothing that distantly might remind them of the Latins, and those
who were for a Western culture, even though it was to be only the scholastic
learning already abandoned in the rest of Europe. The battle between the
two was fought to the death. Those who were in favour of the Latin were
generally worsted, and some of the most promising of them were
imprisoned and even capitally punished; but men like Medvyédev, and later
Simeón Pólotski, laid the foundation for an advancement, however gradual,
which culminated in the reforms of Peter the Great.
Where a few individuals gained some semblance of Western culture, they
could not write freely at home, and had to develop their activities abroad.
Kúrbski, who for a long time stands alone as an historian, wrote his History
in Poland, and it remained without any influence whatsoever at home; its
very existence was not known before our own times. The same thing
happened with Kotoshíkhin, whose description of Russia was known to the
learned of Sweden, but the original of which was unknown until its
accidental discovery by a Russian scholar of the nineteenth century. So,
while the ferment of reform began much earlier than the eighteenth century,
it would have been indefinitely delayed, causing many a bloody battle, if
the Gordian knot had not been cut by Peter the Great in favour of the West.

II.—THE FOLKLORE

In the Russian terminology, the people includes all the elements of
society that are not covered by the term intelligence. This latter is a
comprehensive designation of all the classes that have some education and
can give intelligent opinions on social, political and cultural themes. The
vast majority of the nation are the people in the narrower sense, and it is
essentially the characteristic of the democratic nineteenth century to regard
the intellectual life of this people as worthy of consideration. This is true of
the world at large, but, in Russia, preoccupation with the people, down to
the lowest strata of society, has become a dominating note in literature.
Whatever other causes may have been active in creating this strong
sentiment,—and they will be discussed in a later chapter,—the strongest
impulse to such a people—worship was received from the unexpected and
undreamt-of wealth of that popular literature which has been unearthed by
the diligent labours of a few investigators.
In the eighteenth century, the term people had a wider significance. All
those who did not belong to polite society, that is, all those who were not
dignitaries or functionaries of a higher order, were the people, and at first
the literati were included in that general appellation. Literature was entirely
in the service of the higher classes, whom it was intended to amuse and
eulogise; there was no other audience, and writers had to direct their
attention to filling the demand, as hirelings of princes, and as pamperers of
the pseudo-classic taste and Voltairism which held sway in refined society.
Though frequently originating from the people, these writers dissevered all
connection with it, for they had no longer any interests in common. With a
few occasional exceptions, the people had no place in literature, and the
inflated style that prevailed in prose and poetry was so far removed from
the language of the people that the written literature could exert little
influence upon the popular mind, and if there existed anything of a
traditional nature among the lower classes, it was little, if at all,
contaminated by literary influences. Whatever it had received from bygone
ages was transmitted to the nineteenth century and collected just in time,
before its certain disintegration.

This disregard for the enormous majority of the people was an
inheritance of ancient Russia, before the reforms of Peter the Great. We
have already seen with what unintelligent severity the Church persecuted
every creation of a popular nature. As the nation consisted of the Church
and the people, so, also, everything that was not directly of a Christian
tendency was un-Christian and therefore tabooed. True Christianity could
never take possession of the people that was not intelligent enough to
discern what was religion and what not, and the result was that “double
faith” in which, in spite of the persistent endeavours of the clergy, the old
heathenism showed through the varnish of the new faith. The anathemas of
the Church against “pagan rites,” which included the singing of harmless
songs, continue down to the eighteenth century.
In the general unprogressiveness of the whole country, the agricultural
classes, that constituted the bulk of the people, have remained unchanged
for centuries. Russia was as much a country of raw products in the
eighteenth century as in the twelfth, and barter and tribute in kind were
common until a very late time. The life of the peasant has always moved in
the same primitive conditions. Nothing whatsoever has been added to his
physical and intellectual existence since the introduction of Christianity,
and the latter itself did not much affect his spiritual life. He has remained
essentially the same through the ages. The love of singing and story-telling
that characterises him to-day has, no doubt, been his characteristic for
centuries, and as the memory of the untutored man is much better than that
of the lettered, he has been able to transmit orally to our own day the stock
of his ancient songs and tales. The folklore of Russia, more than that of any
Western nation, bridges over the chasm between the most distant antiquity
and the present. It is an inheritance of the past, the more precious because it
has been transmitted by an unsophisticated class, whereas in the West the
people has come to a great extent under the influence of the literary caste.
When the folklore of Russia first became accessible to scholars, the
adherents of the mythological theory of the origin of popular tales and
songs, which had been enunciated by Grimm, set out at once to expound the
epic songs and fairy tales as purely mythical symbols of a pre-Christian era.
It was assumed that the songs and stories had come down to us in an almost
unchanged text from the most remote antiquity, and that they were the
representatives of a distinctly Russian conception. In the meantime, Benfey

and his followers have pointed out that the fairy tales of Europe are
traceable to their Indian home, whence they have wandered to the most
remote regions, crossing and recrossing each other, and mingling in a
variety of ways. Even the casual song that bears every appearance of native
origin is frequently identical with similar songs in distant quarters; so, for
example, Professor Child has brought together a vast number of similar
motives from the whole world in his monumental work on the English and
Scotch Ballads. Under the stress of these discoveries, the greater part of the
mythological ballast had to be thrown overboard, and Russian folklore was
brought into direct relations with the rest of the world.
It has been a rude disappointment to those who believed in an
autochthonous development of the bylínas, to discover that they are often
variations of similar accounts in foreign literatures; that, for example, the
story of Sadkó the Merchant has been found to be identical with a French
story; similarly, the ceremonial songs are not all of native growth. The study
of comparative literature is of recent development, at least so far as Russian
sources are concerned, and only a small part of the material has been
properly located; but this much can even now be asserted,—that the
folklore of Russia is much more intimately connected with that of Europe
and Asia than is the written literature of the old period. Much of the
apocryphal matter came through the South Slavic countries; many stories
and songs must have wandered by way of Poland to White-Russia, and
hence farther into the interior. Anciently there could have been an
interchange of motives between Germany and Russia in the cities of
Nóvgorod and Pskov, which stood in commercial relations with the towns
of the Hansa, while earlier the Northern saga may have left some traces
during the domination of the Norse. But one of the investigators, Stásov,
and after him Potánin, have stoutly maintained that most of the stories of
the Russian epic cycle came with the Tartars directly from Asia.
If we admit all possible borrowings from the West and the East, Russian
folklore is still of unique interest to the student of literature on account of
the evident traces of great antiquity which it has preserved. The same cause
that kept the written literature of Russia at a low level and destroyed all
appreciable chronology has been active in the traditional literature, and has
saved it from violent transformations. It cannot be asserted that any one
song has come down to us in its original shape. The change of the spoken

language naturally affected the stories and songs, and many a word that has
become obsolete has been superseded, or preserved in an unrecognisable
form. Contemporary facts of history have been introduced in the place of
older ones, as when the heroes of the cycle of Vladímir are made to fight
the Tartars. Motives have become mingled by superposition of related
stories, or by accretion of foreign material. But never has the people
wilfully transformed, corrupted, added or taken away. Though individuals
continually produced new songs and stories, yet they moved in narrowly
prescribed traditional limits, and the moment these passed to the people and
became its common possession, they suffered only the accidental changes
just spoken of. The task of separating later and adventitious elements from
the bulk of this literature has only begun, and when that is accomplished,
the past of Russia will be reproduced much more clearly than that of other
countries of Europe, because an achronous period separates the last two
centuries from the tenth.
Only one epic, the Word of Ígor’s Armament, has survived from antiquity.
That others existed, the bard assures us when he tells of princes, for a
period of a whole century, whom Boyán, an older singer, had celebrated.
This precious relic is not only interesting for its intrinsic poetical merit,
permitting us to guess the possibilities of the Russian untutored mind before
the introduction of the repressive Byzantinism, but it serves as a guide in
redating much of the oral literature of the present day. In the bylínas, the
ceremonial songs, the fairy tales, we continually come upon passages that
are constructed in the same manner as in the Word, and the popular poetry
of to-day and the writings of the whole old period contain many identical
phrases and illustrations.
The epic songs, or bylínas, have been discovered in out-of-the-way
places in the swampy region of the Government of Olónetsk. It has puzzled
all the investigators to explain why the memory of Vladímir and his heroes
should have lived so long in these distant regions when every recollection
of them has entirely disappeared in Kíev, the scene of all their deeds.
Throughout these epic songs there is evidence of their southern origin, yet
nothing whatsoever is known of them in the south of Russia. Various
explanations have been attempted, but the most wide-spread is that the
Great-Russians of the south had been exterminated by the Tartars, and that
the few who survived had taken refuge in the north, while the present

inhabitants of the south have come from the south-east and represent a
different tribe. There seems, however, to be a more plausible explanation.
Considering that the Word of Ígor’s Armament has not survived except in
writing, and that there are no old epics living in the mouths of the people,
except in inaccessible regions, it is natural to assume that no longer poem,
nor a cycle of poems, which demanded a great amount of mental exertion
and a special class of singers, could outlive the persecution of the Church,
and that only where the people were separated from the rest of the world by
impassable swamps and forests, and where, therefore, the influence of the
Church was of necessity weakest, was it possible for the class of traditional
bards to maintain itself.
There is ample evidence that these epics were based on historical events,
and that they belong to the same category as the historical songs, of which a
number have been recorded from the seventeenth century and later. The
oldest are those that Richard James had written down in 1619; they were
composed by some popular bard immediately after the incidents which they
relate. Later historical songs deal with Peter the Great, while the song
collections contain many others that range in time from Iván the Terrible to
the nineteenth century. The manner of all these is identical, and strongly
reminds us of the epic songs. From this it may be inferred that the bylínas
were separate songs, composed by contemporary bards, and that their
present condition is merely due to that series of corruptions to which all
orally transmitted literature is subject.
In the Word, Germans, Venetians, Greeks and Moravians are made to sing
the glory of Svyatosláv. This is certainly not a mere adornment of speech,
but rests on the actual fact of a lively intercommunication between the East
and the West before the introduction of Christianity and in the first century
following it. Thus, the chief hero of the Vladímir cycle, Ilyá of Múrom, was
known to German song and the Northern saga, where he is often mentioned.
It has also been found that many of the heroes are real personages whose
names are recorded in chronicles. Yet, though Vladímir is made the centre
of the Kíev cycle, his heroes seem to range over two or three centuries;
from this we may conclude that poetical activity continued for a long time,
and that it is only a later tradition that has grouped all the interesting events
around the famous Vladímir. Originally, there must have been a number of
cities of prominence around which separate epics centred, but in time they

were transferred to the three great cities, Kíev, Nóvgorod and Moscow,
where the national life had its fullest development.
In the ceremonial songs, antiquity is even better preserved than in the
epics, and quite naturally. The epics arose on special occasions, were
adapted to transitory historical incidents, and only the most favourable
conditions of seclusion could save them from entire oblivion. Not so the
ceremonial songs. These belonged to a heathen religion, contained a
mythological element, and were part and parcel of the people’s belief and
customs. The chief labour of the Church consisted in battling against the
survivals from heathenism; but all it accomplished was to ensure an
existence for the Christian tenets by the side of the traditional customs. The
pagan festivities were merged in the corresponding holidays of the Church,
but the old games, rites and songs went on as before. In time, the meaning
of all the customs connected with the seasons, marriage, death, was
forgotten, but the simple ditties were easily remembered, though frequently
transferred to other occasions. Had there existed in the Russian Middle
Ages any incitement to the introduction of new songs, the old ones would
have been abandoned long ago; but city life was weakly represented in the
country, most of the towns hardly differing from agricultural settlements,
and the city song, which always plays havoc with the country tunes, had
little chance to spread. City life is of quite recent growth in Russia, and
industrialism, which is only now developing under our very eyes, draws
many forces away from the plough; when these return to the village, they
bring with them the refrains of the modern opera, and degraded street
ballads. The same lowering of the popular poetry has been caused in the
nineteenth century by the soldiers who have come in contact with the city.
The result of this is the complete disappearance of popular song from some
districts, and its gradual dying out in others. Should this tendency continue
with any regularity, a new kind of folksong will result, but in the meanwhile
there is produced an uninteresting chaos.
The freer form of the prose story and the fairy tale, which are bound by
neither verse nor tune, makes them more subject to change than the
ceremonial song. Whatever their original meaning may have been, they
have been preserved as mere stories to amuse. Though they frequently deal
with mythical beings who had some special meaning, they have all an equal
value, and one tale is as good as another; consequently they easily

combined with each other, and new elements were continually added to
them. The prose story is, therefore, less local and even less national: it
travels far and wide, and may turn up in any corner of the globe. The
Russian peasant is a good story-teller, witty and dramatic; hence he has
added much local colouring to all the flotsam of fairyland, and the folktales
of Russia have a distinct flavour of their own, and are relished even more
than the popular tales of the West. The absence of a book influence on these
stories shows itself in simplicity of narration and lack of moral; the latter is
particularly the case in the animal tales, which, contrary to the usual stories
of the kind, contain no explicit instruction.
In the nineteenth century, the popular element enters more and more into
the literary productions, but a proper beginning has hardly been made in
utilising the extremely rich store of Russian folklore. When the Romantic
spirit held sway over the West, Russia had not yet collected its songs and
popular stories, and a Zhukóvski had to imitate Western models, in order to
make Romanticism accessible. Púshkin divined more correctly the value of
the native stories, and made excellent use of the tales of his nurse.
Otherwise, only sporadic use has been made of the folktale in literature.
One of the best literary rifacimentos is the collection of all the stories told
about the Fox, which Mozharóvski has brought together in one long,
connected series.

III.—THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

The Court at Moscow had come into contact with foreign ideas ever
since the days of Iván the Terrible. The “German Suburb,” as the foreign
colony was called, was itself a piece of the West, transplanted into the semi-
barbarous capital, and foreigners of necessity occupied various posts in the
Government. Germans, Greeks, and especially Englishmen were employed
as ambassadors and foreign agents, and in the seventeenth century it was
not rare to find Westerners as teachers of Russian youths. At the same time,
clergymen from Kíev carried ever more and more the Polish scholasticism
and rhetoric to the most orthodox city, and with it came the weak reflection
of Western culture. Alexis Mikháylovich became fascinated by the theatre,
and a German troupe and even English comedians played before the Tsar;
among these early plays was a crude rifacimento of Marlowe’s Tamerlane.
Sophia went one step further, and had a Russian translation of Molière’s
Médecin malgré lui performed in her apartments. Even poetry of an
European type had made its appearance before Kantemír, though only in the
mediocre syllabic versification of a Karión Istómin and a Simeón Pólotski.
Yet the progress was very slow, and the historian of Peter’s time,
Tatíshchev, had figured out that at the rate at which it was proceeding, it
would take Russia seven generations, or more than two hundred years, to be
equal in civilisation to the rest of Europe.
Then Peter appeared. He found around him weak tendencies to reform,
but hardly any men to help him carry them out, and no institutions of any
kind on which to engraft the new knowledge he had brought with him from
Holland and Germany. There was no native scientific literature whatsoever;
there were no terms in which to express the truths which he and his
disciples had learned; there was no established language even for educated
people. Peter united in his person the extreme of practical sense with the
idealism of youth; while bent on introducing mechanical sciences for the
advancement of his country, he at the same time carried on a
correspondence with the philosopher Leibniz, and favoured the introduction
of every branch of literature. With an indomitable will he wanted to merge
savage Russia into the liberal West, and he frequently used savage means to
attain his end.

Peter’s idea of conviviality consisted in getting drunk in a room filled
with tobacco smoke, as he had known it in the taverns of Holland, and the
whole aspect of literature of his period is that of a crude democracy, such as
he advocated in his own circle. In whatever he or his followers wrote there
is a tone of rough simplicity, practical liberalism, and the ardour of manful
youth. Everything that could be useful to the State and nation received his
equal attention. He familiarised his people with the German and Dutch
jurists, who were translated under his care, and with text-books on the most
necessary sciences and arts; he corresponded with German, French and
English scholars on the subject of establishing universities and academies;
he invited actors from Slavic Austria to play in his theatre; and
superintended the translation of Ovid, of encyclopedias, and of romances.
In this burning activity there could be no such a thing as a literary school;
everything was welcome, provided it advanced his cherished reforms.
There was no time to waste on the mere externals of language. The
authors of the day had to grope their way as best they could. Some
interlarded their style with hybrid words from all the tongues of Europe;
others wavered between a purely Slavic and a more or less Russianised
language, and Peter the Great, though he was fond of a display of Dutch
words, could use a very idiomatic style. While Stefán Yavórski and Feofán
Prokopóvich charmed their congregations with elegant sermons in which
Byzantine rhetoric and Western eloquence had the fullest sway, Tatíshchev
laboured to find the proper expressions for the historical truths which he
had well learned in the West, and the peasant Pososhkóv dimly guessed the
economic problems that presented themselves to the country, vainly trying
to clothe them in an intelligible language.
Peter did not live to see the fruition of his endeavours in literature. The
time was too short to produce any good writers, and though belles-lettres
were encouraged, the whole attention of the best minds was absorbed in the
acquisition of the most-needed information. Knowledge was the watchword
of Peter’s time, and the desire for knowledge was so great that even later
Lomonósov and Tredyakóvski thought no hardships too great, to gain the
coveted instruction. It is characteristic of the times, that these two poets in
the new style walked to Moscow to enter school, one from the extreme
north, the other from the extreme south. A mighty task fell to the lot of the
generation that had been born in the days of the great Tsar. They had to

transfer the whole European culture to Russian soil and to discover a means
of expressing it. Kantemír, whose education was of an European type, chose
the ready model of French verse in which to write his satires, wrestling to
say in Russian what he thought out in French. Tredyakóvski discovered the
proper versification for his native tongue, but his diligence and good sense
did not make up for his barren poetical talent. Sumarókov, single-handed,
created the drama, while Lomonósov fostered the ode, settled grammar and
created Russian science.
The intermediate period between the death of Peter the Great and the
accession of Catherine II. was not one that would in itself have encouraged
people to take to literature, which was looked down upon as the handmaid
of the mighty, if the writers had not inherited an insatiable love of
knowledge. The rough and sincere manner of the Tsar had given way to a
flimsy imitation of the Court at Versailles. With the introduction of Western
civilisation, the Empresses Anna and Elizabeth took over only the mere
external appearance, the love of pleasure, a luxury that was incompatible
with their rude surroundings. Literary men had no public to write for,
except the degraded courtiers who might flatter themselves that they were
the Mæcenases of that literature for which, in their hearts, they cared very
little. Odes by which one might gain a favour, solemn addresses written to
order, tragedies to be furnished by such and such a date, epigrams of a
flippant turn,—these were the verses that the courtiers wanted, and they
were furnished in sufficient quantity. Though Lomonósov was more
intimately acquainted with Günther than with Boileau, yet he, like his
contemporaries, found himself compelled to favour the introduction of the
French pseudo-classic style, which was the only one that high society knew
anything about. From chaos and no literature at all, Russia was of necessity
forced to cultivate the unnatural imitation of what was supposed to be
classic antiquity, before it knew anything about that antiquity, and before it
had tried itself in simpler fields. The literature of that period was
consequently unreal, stilted, distant.
This pseudo-classicism continued to flourish to the end of the century,
though a new spirit had taken possession of men’s minds in the reign of
Catherine. This Empress had educated herself in the school of the great
philosophers who, in the second half of the eighteenth century, were the
dominating spirits in European literature. She corresponded with Voltaire,

had not only studied Montesquieu, but embodied his Esprit des Lois in her
famous instruction for a new code of laws, invited d’Alembert to be her
son’s tutor,—in short, she was in sympathy with the humanitarian
movements of the encyclopedists. She planned reforms on a magnificent
scale,—though but few of them were executed, as her theories were only
academic and had little reference to existing conditions. Though she
planned, with the help of Diderot, a complicated educational system, yet
there were no more schools at the end of her reign than at the beginning,
and the freedom of the press was curtailed much more in the second half of
her rule than in the first. So long as there were no disturbing elements at
home, and things went to her liking, she was pleased to favour the
liberalism which had spread over Europe, and had found its advocates at
other Courts. Her idealism was of a purely intellectual character, and her
humanitarian views as she had expressed them in her Instruction were good
and harmless so long as they remained on paper. The moment she was
disturbed in her philanthropy by the rebellion of Pugachév at home, and
when, later, she was still more startled by the events of the French
Revolution, which it became the fashion to ascribe to the philosophy of
Voltaire, she recanted her liberalism, and tried to crush all intellectual
progress that had grown strong in the earlier part of her reign. The best
authors were ruthlessly persecuted: Radíshchev was banished to Siberia for
his advocating the very theories which she had propounded in her
Instruction; Nóvikov’s philanthropic activity was sufficient cause for his
imprisonment, and it was fortunate for Knyazhnín that he was dead when
his Vadím of Nóvgorod made its appearance.
Yet, Russian literature owes much to Catherine, who, at least in the first
part of her enlightened absolutism, encouraged a healthy development of
Letters, often through her own example. Her own writings familiarised her
people with the best thought of Europe, and as before her Racine and
Boileau, so now Voltaire, Beccaria, Montesquieu, were upon the lips of all.
Literature had begun in imitations of foreign models, and hardly a trace of
anything original is to be found in the eighteenth century; but even a
superficial Voltairism was preferable to the more distant pseudo-classicism
of the preceding reigns, for, though most of its humanitarianism was
spurious and its culture skin-deep, it led a few more gifted individuals to a
clearer perception of actualities, to a fuller interest in that which was
immediate and around them, and, in the end, to true culture.

The most promising influence on Russian literature was the one which
Addison and the English satirical journals began to exert on Catherine and
on nearly all the writers of the day. The Spectator, the Guardian, and the
Tatler had found a host of imitators in continental Europe, and satirical
journals sprang up in astonishing abundance. It is not likely that Catherine
became acquainted with the English originals. Her knowledge came rather
through German and French translations; and the many passages from these
English journals that found their way into Russia after the fifties were
likewise generally derived at second hand. In any case, Addison and the
satirical journals took deep root in Russian soil, and a long series of similar
productions, from 1769 to 1774, had a very salutary effect on the drama and
on those writings in which contemporary manners are held up to the scorn
and ridicule of the people. Catherine herself, the founder of the first of these
journals, had only the intention of practising this kind of literature for
purposes of good-natured banter, and she was rather shocked when she
discovered that her example had given Nóvikov and his adherents a weapon
for attacking all the negative sides of contemporary civilisation. Without
having wished it, Catherine gave into the hands of the disaffected a means
of concentrating themselves around a name, a standard,—and public
opinion became a factor in literature.
Patronage of the mighty was as much a goal towards which authors
aimed in the days of Catherine as in the previous half-century, and the
Empress regarded it as her privilege and duty to draw literary talent to the
Court, by giving them government positions and lavish gifts. Derzhávin,
Fon-Vízin, Bogdanóvich, Kostróv, Petróv, all were attracted to her as the
central luminary. Felítsa was the keynote of what Derzhávin purported to
be a new departure in the writing of odes, but it was in reality an old
laudatory theme with an application of fashionable liberalism, and Felítsa
remained the watchword of a generation of poets that gyrated around the
throne. At the same time, Catherine made a seeming appeal to public
opinion by her comedies and satires. If Nóvikov took her in earnest, and
responded to her invitation by making a stand against her lukewarm satire
by a systematic arraignment of vice in every form, he soon found it
necessary in his next literary venture, the Painter, to appease her suspicion
and anger by a fulsome praise of the Empress. Underneath this outward
dependence upon the Court’s opinion, literary coteries were, however,
beginning to come into existence, and the dramas of the day received their

impulse from their writings, and in their turn were beginning to look to
others than the Court for their approval.
These coteries were concentrated around the Masonic lodges, where,
under the pledge of secrecy, an exchange of ideas could take place, and
which, consequently, Catherine hated more and more. This Freemasonry
was in itself under English influence, whence were taken the ceremonial
and the organisation. It is said that Freemasonry first made its appearance in
Russia under Peter the Great; later it came also under German influence,
had its wide-spread connections in Europe, and, under the guise of
mysterious practices, discussed the means of spreading popular education,
doing unstinted charity, and ensuring freedom of thought. In the uncertain
and superficial state of culture which then prevailed in Russia, much that
these men did was unreal and irrelevant: they lost themselves in the
mystical speculations of the Martinists and the Rosicrucians, and wasted
their time in an unprofitable symbolism. But it is sufficient to read the
biography of a Nóvikov to perceive that their efforts for the advancement of
science and useful knowledge were more real than those of the cultivated
and more materialistic Catherine. If Catherine had made the press free, she
also persecuted those who had availed themselves of the privilege against
her pleasure; if her mouth spoke fine sentiments, her heart was closed
against their realisation. But Nóvikov, in the silence of his mysticism, made
Russia’s past accessible to the scholar, founded the book trade, and took a
practical interest in the common people by giving them useful books to
read. This Nóvikov, and the unfortunate Radíshchev, whose book is even
now prohibited in Russia, and Shcherbátov, who preferred the rough old
times to the flighty manners of the day,—that is, the writers who were at
outs with existing conditions,—were the carriers of a new spirit which,
though not characteristically Russian, was akin to it in that it devoted itself
with ardour to the treatment of burning questions from a native standpoint.
Two of these writers, Shcherbátov and Nóvikov, were Slavophiles in the
best sense of the word.
We shall now make the balance-sheet of the eighteenth-century literature
in the separate departments, and see what residuum it bequeathed to the
nineteenth century.
In the scholastic style of the Middle Ages it became a settled practice to
dedicate books to powerful persons, and to address them with eulogies on

all solemn occasions. Polish influence had made this kind of poetry popular
at Kíev, and Simeón Pólotski introduced it in Moscow in time to sing the
glory of the new-born Peter. Lomonósov’s activity began with an ode, and
Tredyakóvski, Sumarókov, Petróv and a host of minor poets, if that name
can be applied to writers of soulless rhymed adulation, proceeded in the
beaten track of “ecstatic” poetry, until Dmítriev gave it the death-blow by
his What Others Say. The only positive value lay in the odes of Lomonósov
in which he described phenomena of nature, and those of Derzhávin, who,
following his example, made similar use of them as, for example, in his
Ode to the Deity. His Felítsa, which marked the disintegration of the
“ecstatic ode,” left its effect in the lighter epistolary poetry of his
contemporaries, like Kostróv, and may even be traced in the playful
productions of the next generation.
The epic is akin to the ode, in that it is a kind of rapturous eulogy on
some momentous event in history. In the mad intoxication with foreign
pseudo-classic ideals there could be no place for a proper understanding of
native history; hence the flatulent epics of Kheráskov, admired though they
were, could be of no lasting merit. The other epics dealt with foreign
subjects. Tredyakóvski’s Telemachiad could only amuse as a piece of
poetical ineptitude, and a pleasure-loving public of the times of Catherine
II. was more inclined to go into raptures over Apuleius’s Golden Ass which,
having passed through a French transformation, appeared as a species of
mock-heroic in Bogdanóvich’s Psyche. Púshkin still took delight in it, and
his earlier productions of this kind have something of Bogdanóvich’s
manner. Máykov’s Eliséy, which is really superior to the Psyche, was not so
well received because he introduced too freely the popular element, for
which at that time there could be no appreciation.
Lyrics (in the narrower sense of poems expressing the individual emotion
of the writer) can have a place only where the conditions are favourable to
the formation of individual feelings, where well-defined conceptions of
nature and man are common to a certain class of society or to the whole
nation. Nothing of the kind could exist in Russia throughout the greater part
of the eighteenth century, when everything was only external veneer, and no
lyrics made their appearance until the last quarter, when, under the
influence of a thorough acquaintance with Horace and the French lyricists,
some fine verses were produced by Bogdanóvich, Kapníst, Derzhávin,

Dmítriev, Neledínski-Melétski. Most of these poems only appeared in the
nineteenth century, and all belong to that intermediate stage of literature
which was represented by Karamzín and Dmítriev and which, in spirit, no
longer continues the tradition of the days of Catherine.
Krylóv’s fables are justly celebrated as among the best literature that
Russia evolved in the last century; but they are only the culmination of a
series of fables, most of them adaptations from La Fontaine and Gellert, in
which nearly all the poets tried their skill. By 1700, there had been current
in Russia three translations of Esop’s Fables, and Pólotski had imitated a
number of such as he knew. Here again we see the utter inability of the
writers of the eighteenth century to make use of a popular motive. Nothing
is more common in the oral literature of the people than fables, especially
animal fables, yet they had to borrow their themes from abroad.
Sumarókov’s fables make, with rare exceptions, unprofitable reading;
Máykov struck a few times a proper note, and Khémnitser alone, though he
followed Gellert closely, is still read with pleasure on account of the
simplicity of his tales. Dmítriev, as before, belongs to another period.
Modern Russian poetry practically begins with the satires of Kantemír,
and satires, with their adjunct, comedy, have remained down to our day the
most prominent part of belles-lettres; only, whereas their usual purpose is to
provoke laughter, in Russia tears are their more appropriate due. Under the
systematic, though arbitrary and capricious, persecution of the censorship,
writers have evolved the art of telling a bitter truth by means of satire which
by its outward appearance generally escapes the scrutinising attention of the
usually dull censor, but the esoteric meaning of which is quite
comprehensible to the whole class of readers. In the days of Peter the Great,
with his violent reforms, direct command was more effective than a satire
which but few could unravel, and Kantemír’s Satires, in spite of their
literary value, are mere exotics. Catherine thought this species of essays a
good medium for a gentle reproof, but Nóvikov more correctly divined their
office, and much later Gógol and Shchedrín brought them to great
perfection along the path indicated by him.
The same causes which prevented the formation of a Russian epic and of
lyric poetry throughout the greater part of the eighteenth century militated
against the evolution of a native tragedy. Theatrical performances had been
given ever since the days of Alexis, but these were mainly Mysteries and

Moralities that had long been forgotten in the West, or crude plays and
harlequinades by German, Italian and English travelling comedians. Thus, a
taste had been formed for the drama when Sumarókov was ordered to
organise the first Russian theatre, though there did not exist the elements for
a native stage. Sumarókov furnished pseudo-classic tragedies as readily as
he manufactured any other kind of poetry, and his conceit of being the
Russian Racine indicates whence he took his models. Neither Knyazhnín’s
nor Ózerov’s borrowing of incidents from Russian history could make their
tragedies real: they were accessible only to those who were steeped in
French culture. Not so comedy. Comedy stands in direct relation to satire,
and it has taken firm root in Russian soil. Catherine herself wrote a number
of dramatised satires, and Fon-Vízin’s Brigadier made its appearance just as
satire began to occupy an important place in the public eye. Fon-Vízin,
Griboyédov and Gógol are only the greatest of the long series of dramatists,
who in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries used comedy as a weapon
for attacking the corruption of officials, superficiality in education and the
brutality of the serf-owners. Here was an opportunity to introduce a native
element, which becomes for the first time prominent in Ablesímov’s comic
opera.
Though Western novels reached Russia in indifferent translations long
before the end of Catherine’s reign, yet there was no proper soil for them
until Radíshchev came under the influence of the English writers, especially
of Sterne, and Karamzín, on the verge of the century, introduced
sentimentalism into literature. Throughout the whole eighteenth century,
little earnestness was shown in literary pursuits. Prose suffered more than
poetry, for prose demands a more assiduous and constant attention than
verse. It was left for the nineteenth century to settle the prose diction
appropriate to the Russian language. In this neglect of cultivating an elegant
prose style is to be found the main reason for a very extensive literature of
memoirs which were not originally meant for publication, but were
intended as mere records for the use of posterity. The restriction of free
speech was another powerful factor in encouraging this species of historical
revelation. In these memoirs, the student of manners and history and
literature will find much better material for a correct appreciation of the
eighteenth century than in the exotic literature of the upper classes. The
emptiness of the superficial French culture, which was prevalent in Russia,
became apparent only to those who, like Tatíshchev, Shcherbátov, and

Nóvikov, busied themselves with the study of native history. The progress
which history made from Tatíshchev to Karamzín is the most prominent
feature in the evolution of the native literature. By the historians was laid
the real foundation for a native science and interest in the people. It was
quite natural for these men to turn away from the disheartening corruption
of manners which was introduced from abroad, and to find inspiration in
their own past. They, consequently, were the first Slavophiles, though as yet
in the gentler sense of the word. They did not preach a turning away from
European culture, as did their later spiritual descendants, but a more organic
welding of the new life with the Russian reality.

THE OLDEST PERIOD

Treaty with the Greeks (911)

Néstor’s Chronicle contains three treaties made with the Greeks
in the tenth century. It is evident, from the manner of their
composition, that the chronicler quoted some extant documents
which were probably translated by some Bulgarian from the original
Greek. These treaties are interesting as being the earliest specimens
of writing in Russia and as having been composed before the
introduction of Christianity.
We of the Russian nation, Karly, Inegeld, Farlof, Veremud, Rulav, Gudy,
Ruald, Karn, Frelav, Ryuar, Aktevu, Truan, Lidulfost, Stemid, who were
sent by Olég, the Russian Grand Prince, and the illustrious boyárs who are
under his rule, to you, Leo and Alexander and Constantine, the Greek
Emperors and great autocrats by the grace of God, to confirm and proclaim
the amity which has existed for many years between the Christians and
Russians, by the will of our princes and by the order of all those in Russia
who are under his rule. Our illustrious Prince has often thought, more
persistently than the others who have desired to maintain and proclaim the
amity in God which has been between Christians and Russia, that not only
with mere words, but also in writing and with a solemn oath made over our
armour, ought such amity be proclaimed and confirmed, according to our
faith and law. The following are the articles that we wish to establish in the
faith of God and in love:
In the first place, we will make an agreement with you Greeks to love
each other with our souls and as much as is in our power, and we will not
permit, as far as is in our power, that harm or damage be done to any of you
by those who are under the rule of our illustrious princes, but we will try,
according to our ability, to preserve for ever and ever, unbroken and
undisturbed, the amity which we profess both in words and in writing under
oath. Likewise you Greeks shall preserve the same love to our illustrious

Russian princes and to all who are under the rule of our illustrious Prince
unpolluted and unchanged for ever and all time.
Under the head which is called damages we will agree as follows:
Whatever may be made manifest in regard to a grievance, let the
information of such grievance be accurate, and let not him be believed who
begins the action; and let not that party take an oath if he deserve no belief;
but if one swear according to his religion, let there be a punishment if
perjury be found.
If a Russian kill a Christian, or a Christian a Russian, let him die where
the murder has been committed. If he who has committed murder run away,
then if he be possessed of property, let the nearest in kin to the murdered
person receive that part which is his by law, and let the wife of the murderer
have as much as belongs to her by law. If he who has committed the murder
be destitute and have run away, let the case stand against him until he be
found, and then he shall die.
If anyone strike another with a sword or beat him with a drinking vessel,
let him for such striking or beating pay five litras of silver according to the
Russian law. If the offender be destitute, let him pay as much as he can, and
let him take off his upper garment which he wears, and besides let him
swear according to his religion that there is no one to help him, and let the
case against him forthwith be dropped.
If a Russian steal something from a Christian, or a Christian from a
Russian, and the thief at the time when he commits the theft be caught by
him who has lost the article, and the thief struggle and be killed, let not his
death be avenged by either Christians or Russians, but let him who has lost
take back what belongs to him. If a Russian despoil a Christian, or a
Christian a Russian, by torture or by a show of force, or if he take anything
away from a member of the druzhína, let him pay back threefold.
If a boat be cast by a great wind upon a strange shore, where there be any
of our Russians, and someone come to furnish the boat with its belongings,
we will take the boat through all dangerous places until it has smooth
sailing. If such a boat cannot be returned to its place, on account of storm or
impassable places, we Russians shall see the oarsmen off safe with their
goods, if the accident happens near Greek land. But if the same happen near
Russian land, we will take the boat to Russian territory, and let them sell the

belongings of the boat and what else of the boat they can sell, and when we
Russians shall go to Greece, with merchandise or with an embassy to your
Emperor, the proceeds from the sale of the belongings of the boat shall be
forwarded without hindrance. Should any man of the boat be killed, or
beaten, by us Russians, or should anything be taken away, the wrongdoers
shall be punished as above.
Should a Russian slave be stolen, or run away, or be sold by force, and a
Russian make complaint of it, and the fact be ascertained in regard to the
slave, then let him be returned to Russia. And if the merchants should lose a
slave and make complaint thereof, let them search for him and let him be
returned; should anyone prevent making such a search, then the local
magistrate shall be responsible for him.
If a criminal should return to Greece from Russia, let Russia institute a
complaint to the Christian Empire, and let the same be returned to Russia,
even against his will.
All these things the Russians are to do to the Greeks, wherever such
things may happen. To make the peace established between the Christians
and Russians firm and lasting, we ordered this document to be written by
John upon two charts and to be signed by the Emperor’s and our own hand
before the blessed cross and in the name of the holy Trinity and our one,
true God, and to be proclaimed and to be delivered to our ambassadors. And
we have sworn to your Emperor according to the law and custom of our
nation, as being God’s own creatures, not to depart, or let anyone else of our
land depart, from the established treaty of peace and amity. This document
we gave to your Empire in order to confirm the treaty on both sides and to
confirm and proclaim the peace in your country, September the second, the
fifteenth week, in the year from the creation of the world 6024 (911).

Luká Zhidyáta. (First half of XI. century.)

Luká Zhidyáta or Zhiryáta, was bishop of Nóvgorod from 1036-
1060. All we have from him is his Instruction, which is written in a
coarse, unadorned style, and is nothing more than a sententious
statement of gospel teachings. The Nóvgorod style, as it appears in
its chronicles, is always laconic and businesslike. Zhidyáta was
evidently instructing a congregation that had not long been
converted and that was not yet firm in the fundamental teachings of
Christianity.

INSTRUCTION TO HIS CONGREGATION

Above all, brothers, we Christians must keep the command to believe in
one God who is worshipped in the Trinity, in the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Ghost, as the holy apostles have taught, and the holy fathers have
confirmed. I believe in one God, and so forth. Believe also in the
resurrection, and the eternal life, and the everlasting torment of the sinful.
Be not slow in going to church, and to the morning, noon and evening
masses. When you are about to lie down in your room, make your
obeisance to God. Stand in church in the fear of the Lord, speak not, nor
think of worldly matters, but pray to God with all your thought that He may
forgive you your sins. Live in friendship with all men, but particularly with
your brothers, and let there not be one thing in your hearts, and another
upon your lips. Dig not a grave under your brother, lest God throw you into
a worse one. Be righteous, and flinch not from laying down your head for
the sake of truth and God’s Law, that God may count you among the saints.
Be patient with your brothers and with other men, and do not repay evil for
evil; praise each other that God may praise you. Cause no strife that you
may not be called a son of the devil, but make peace that you may be a son
of God. Judge your brother neither in speech, nor in thought, but think of
your own sins, that God may not judge you. Be thoughtful and merciful to
strangers, to the poor and to prisoners, and be merciful to your servants. It is
not proper for you, O brothers, to have devilish games, nor to speak
unseemly words. Be not angry, and rail not at anyone; in danger be patient
and rely upon God. Rave not, be not haughty; remember that to-morrow we

shall be stench and worms. Be humble and gentle, and obediently do the
commands of God, for in the heart of the proud sits the devil, and the word
of God will not stick to him. Honour old people and your parents. Swear
not in the name of God, nor curse anyone else, nor swear by him. Judge
rightly, receive no reward, give not in usury. Fear God, honour the Prince;
first serve the Lord, then your master. With all your heart honour the priest
of God, and honour the servants of the Church. Kill not, steal not, lie not,
bear not false witness, hate not, envy not, calumniate not ..., drink not out of
season to intoxication, but in measure. Be not angry, nor harsh. Rejoice
with those who rejoice, and be sad with the sad. Do not eat abominations;
celebrate the holy days. The peace of the Lord be with you. Amen!

The Russian Code. (XI. century.)

The first draught of the Russian Code, or the Rússkaya Právda, as
it is called in Russian, is ascribed to Yarosláv the Wise, the son of
Vladímir, Grand Prince of Kíev. He is supposed to have given it to
the Nóvgorodians, whose Prince he had been, for their active
participation in the war that he waged against Svyatopólk in order to
maintain himself on the Kíev throne. This Code is the oldest extant
among all the Slavs. It was evidently borrowed from the laws of the
Scandinavians, and in most points almost coincides with the old
English laws of the same period. This is not surprising, for the
druzhína was originally composed of Norsemen; besides, Yarosláv
stood in direct communication with the west of Europe: thus, one of
his daughters was married to Harald of Norway; another was the
wife of Andrew, King of Hungary; a third was married to Henry of
France; and two of his sons had taken German princesses for wives.
If a man[1] kill a man, let him be avenged by his brother, or father, or son,
or nephew. If there is no one to avenge him, let the price on his head be 70
grívnas,[2] if he be a prince’s man, or a prince’s thane’s[3] man. If he be a
Russ,[4] or henchman, or merchant, or a boyár’s thane, or swordsman,[5] or
hapless man,[6] or Slovene,[7] let the price on his head be 40 grívnas. After
Yarosláv, his sons Izyasláv, Svyatosláv, Vsévolod, and their men
Kusnyáchko, Perenyég, and Nikifór, came together and did away with the
blood revenge, but substituted weregild for it, but in everything else his
sons left as Yarosláv had decreed.
If one strike another with the unsheathed sword, or with the haft, the
prince’s fine[8] for the offence is 12 grívnas. If one strike another with a rod,
or cup, or horn, or the blunt edge of a sword, also 12 grívnas; but if the
offence be committed in warding off a sword blow, he shall not be fined. If
one strike a man’s hand, and the hand fall off, or dry up, or if he cut off a
foot, or eye, or nose, the fine is 20 grívnas, and 10 grívnas to the maimed
man. If one cut off another man’s finger, 3 grívnas fine, and to the maimed
man one grívna of kúnas.

If a bloodstained or bruised man comes to the court, he need not bring
any witnesses, but the fine shall be 4 grívnas; but if he have no marks upon
him, let him bring a witness. If both parties complain, let him who has
begun pay 6 kúnas. If the bloodstained man be he who has begun the
quarrel, and there are witnesses to the quarrel, let his bruises be his reward.
[9]
If one strike another with the sword, but kill him not, the fine is 3
grívnas, and to the sufferer a grívna for his wound for medicaments; if he
kill him, there is the usual weregild. If a man pushes another, either to him,
or from him, or strikes him in his face, or beats him with a rod, and there
are two witnesses, the fine is 3 grívnas.
If one mounts another man’s horse, without having asked permission, the
fine is 3 grívnas. If one loses his horse, or arms, or wearing apparel, and
announces his loss in the market-place, and later recognises his property in
his town, he may take it back, and the fine of 3 grívnas is paid to him. If one
recognises what he has lost, or has been stolen from him, either a horse, or
apparel, or cattle, let him not say: “This is mine!” but let him go before the
judge who will ask: “Where did you get that?” and the fine will be on him
who is guilty; and then he will take that which belongs to him, and the fine
shall be likewise paid to him. If it be a horse-thief, let him be turned over to
the prince for banishment; if it be a shop-thief, his fine shall be 3 grívnas.
If one gives money on interest, or money as a loan, or grain, let him have
witnesses, and then receive as has been agreed.
If a hired servant runs away from his master, he becomes a slave; but if
he goes to collect his money, and does so openly, or runs to the prince or the
judges on account of injury done him by his master, he is not enslaved, but
gets his right.
If a master has a farm servant, and his war horse be lost, the servant shall
not pay for it; but if his master gives him, who receives his measure of
grain, a plough and harrow, he shall pay for any damage to them. But if the
master sends him on his own business, and they be damaged while he is
away, he shall not pay for them.
If a free peasant assault another without the prince’s permission, the fine
is 3 grívnas to the prince, and one grívna of kúnas for the wounds. If he
assault a prince’s or boyár’s man, the fine is 12 grívnas, and a grívna for the
wounds. If one steal a boat, the fine is 6 kúnas, and the boat is to be

returned; for a seafaring boat, 3 grívnas, and for a warboat, 2 grívnas; for a
smack, 8 kúnas, and for a barge, a grívna.
If ropes be cut in somebody’s hunting-ground, the fine shall be 3 grívnas,
and a grívna of kúnas for the ropes. If one steal in the hunting-ground a
falcon, or hawk, the fine is 3 grívnas, and to the owner one grívna; for a
dove—9 kúnas, for a chicken—9 kúnas, for a duck—20 kúnas, for a goose
—20 kúnas, for a swan—20 kúnas, and for a crane—20 kúnas. And if hay
or timber be stolen—9 kúnas, and the owner receives 2 nogátas for each
waggonload stolen.
In one puts fire to a barn, he is to be banished and his house confiscated;
first the damage is to be made good, and then the prince shall banish him.
The same, if he put fire to a house. And who maliciously injures a horse or
beast, the fine is 12 grívnas, and for the damage one grívna.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] That is, an older member of the prince’s druzhína, also called boyárs; the
younger members were called hrid, i. e., Norse “hirđr,” henchman, or youth, or
simply druzhína.
[2] A grívna was originally a unit of weight, about a pound, then only half a
pound, and less. About seven grívnas of kúnas were equal to one grívna of
silver; a kúna means “marten’s skin,” which formed the smaller denomination of
money; one grívna was equal to twenty nogátas.
[3] The Russian is tiún, which is the Norse tjonn; the Old English thane is of
the same origin and has almost the same significance.
[4] A Russ was a Scandinavian who did not bear arms; a Scandinavian who
bore arms was a Varyág.
[5] The prince’s guardsman and inspector of the sword trial.
[6] A “hapless man” was more particularly applied to a son of a priest who
could not read, a freedman, an indebted merchant, all Russians at the death of a
prince.
[7] Inhabitants of Nóvgorod.
[8] The fine was paid to the prince’s treasury.
[9] That is, if the bruised man make complaint, and it be found that he had
started the quarrel, he receives no monetary reward for his bruises, but has justly
been punished by his wounds.

Ilarión, Metropolitan of Kíev. (XI. century.)

Hilarion (in Russian Ilarión) was made metropolitan of Kíev in
1050. An extant sermon, to which is added the Eulogy on St.
Vladímir and Exposition of Faith, witnesses to his acquaintance
with classical Greek, and is one of the best examples of ancient
Russian pulpit eloquence.

EULOGY ON ST. VLADÍMIR

Rome sings the praises of Peter and Paul, through whom it believes in
Jesus Christ, the Son of God; Asia, Ephesus and Patmos praise John the
Theologue; India, Thomas; Egypt, Mark. All countries and cities and men
honour and glorify their teacher who has taught them the orthodox faith. Let
us also, according to our power, praise with humble praises our teacher and
instructor, who has done great and wondrous things, the great Khan of our
land, Vladímir, the grandson of old Ígor, the son of the glorious Svyatosláv,
who ruling their days in courage and valour have become famous in many
lands, and are remembered and honoured even now for their victories and
power, for they did not rule in a poor and unknown country, but in Russia,
which is known and celebrated in all the corners of the earth.
A good testimony to your piety, O blissful one, is that holy church of St.
Mary, the Mother of God, which you have builded on an orthodox
foundation, and where your valiant body now resteth, awaiting the
archangel’s trumpets. A very good and fine testimony is also your son
George whom God has made an heir to your power, who does not destroy
your institutions, but confirms them; who does not diminish the
benefactions of your piety, but increases them; who does not spoil but
mend, who finishes what you have left unfinished, as Solomon has
completed the works of David; who has builded a large and holy God’s
temple to His All-wisdom, to sanctify your city; who has embellished it
with all beautiful things, with gold and silver and precious stones and
sacred vessels, so that the church is a wonder to all surrounding lands, and
so that no like can be found in all the north, from east to west; who has
surrounded your famous city of Kíev with grandeur as with a crown; who

has turned over your people and city to the holy, all-glorious Mother of
God; who is ever ready to succour Christians, and for whom he has builded
a church with golden doors in the name of the first holiday of the Lord of
the Holy Annunciation, so that the kiss which the archangel will give to the
Virgin may also be on this city. To Her he says: “Rejoice, blissful one, the
Lord is with you!” but to the city: “Rejoice, faithful city, the Lord is with
you!”
Arise, honoured dead, from your grave! Arise, shake off your sleep, for
you are not dead, but sleep to the day of the common resurrection. Arise!
You are not dead, for it is not right for you to die, who have believed in
Christ who is the life of the whole world. Shake off your sleep, lift your
eyes, that you may see with what honours the Lord has showered you
above, and how you live unforgotten upon earth through your son! Arise!
Look at your son George, see your entrails, your beloved one, see him
whom God has brought out of your loins, see him adorning the throne of
your land, and rejoice, and be glad! Then also see your pious daughter-in-
law Iréna, see your grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, how they live
and are cared for by God, how they keep your piety according to your
tradition, how they partake of the sacrament of the holy church, how they
praise Christ, how they bow before His name! See also your city beaming
in its grandeur! See your blossoming churches, see the growing
Christianity, see the city gleaming in its adornment of saintly images, and
fragrant with thyme, and re-echoing with hymns and divine, sacred songs!
And seeing all this, rejoice and be glad, and praise the good God, the
creator of all this.

Vladímir Monomákh (Monomachos). (1053-1125.)

Vladímir was Grand Prince of Kíev from 1113-1125. As his
Instruction to his Children shows, and as the chronicles witness, he
was a very learned man for his time. From the letters of the
metropolitan Nikifór to the Prince we also learn that he strictly
carried out the rules which he brought to the attention of his
posterity: he often slept on the ground, discarded sumptuous
garments, and only on rare occasions wore the insignia of his office.
He was well versed in Byzantine literature, for his Instruction is not
only after the fashion of older Byzantine Testaments, but many
passages are taken directly from the writings of Basil the Great. This
Instruction is one of the most remarkable productions of early
Russian literature, especially on account of the liberal spirit that
pervades it, as compared, for example, with a similar, somewhat
earlier document by St. Stephen of Hungary. This latter fact has
served the Slavophiles as an important argument for the superiority
of the Slavic spirit over that of the west of Europe. The Instruction
is included in Néstor’s Chronicle under the year 1096, but it has
been conclusively proved that it is the work of Vladímir. Parts of the
Instruction are translated in A. P. Stanley’s Lectures on the History
of the Eastern Church, London, 1861 (and often afterwards), and in
N. H. Dole’s Young Folks’ History of Russia, Chicago, 1895.

HIS INSTRUCTION TO HIS CHILDREN

Being ill and about to seat myself in the sleigh,[10] I have considered in
my soul and have praised God for having preserved me, sinful man, to this
day. Do not make light of this instruction, my children, or anyone else who
may hear it, but if it please any of you children, take it to heart, and give up
indolence, and begin to work.
Above all, for the sake of the Lord and your own souls, have the fear of
the Lord in your hearts by doing unstinted charity, for that is the beginning
of all good. If this instruction should not please any of you, be not angry but

say thus: “Starting out on a distant journey and about to seat himself in the
sleigh, he spoke this insipidity.”
My brothers’ messengers met me on the Vólga and said: “Hasten to us
that we may drive out the sons of Rostisláv,[11] and take away their
patrimony, and if you go not with us, we shall stand alone, and you will be
alone.” And I said: “Even though you may be angry, I cannot go with you
and transgress the cross.” And having sent them away, I picked up a psalter
in my sorrow, opened it, and these words were before me: “Why are you
sad, my soul? Why are you grieved?” and so forth. And then I picked out
words here and there, and put them in order, and I wrote: “If the latter
things do not please you, accept the former....”
Forsooth, my children, consider how kind and overkind God, the lover of
men, is. We men, who are sinful and mortal, wish to avenge ourselves and
immediately to spill the blood of him who has done us any wrong; but our
Lord, who rules over life and death, suffers our transgressions above our
heads, nay to the very end of our lives, like a father, now loving, now
chastising his child, and again fondling it. Our Lord has likewise shown us
how to be victorious over our foe, how to assuage and conquer him with
three good acts: with repentance, tears and charity. It is not hard, my
children, to keep this command of the Lord, and you can rid yourselves of
your sins by those three acts, and you will not forfeit the kingdom of
heaven. And, I beg you, be not slack in the performance of the Lord’s
commands, and do not forget those three acts, for neither solitude, nor
monkhood, nor hunger, such as many good people suffer, is hard to bear,
but with a small act you may gain the favour of the Lord. What is man that
Thou shouldst remember him?
Thou art great, O Lord, and Thy works are wonderful, and human
understanding cannot grasp all Thy miracles! And again we say: Thou art
great, O Lord, and Thy works are wonderful, and Thy name be blessed and
praised for ever and through all the earth! For who would not praise and
glorify Thy power and Thy great miracles and goodness that are evident in
this world: how by Thy wisdom the heaven is builded, how the sun, the
moon, the stars, darkness and light, and the earth is placed on the waters, O
Lord! How the various animals, birds and fishes are adorned by Thy
foresight, O Lord! And we also wonder at the miracle, how that He has
created man from the dust, how different the forms of human faces are, how

if you look at the whole world, you will not find all made in one image, but
the face of each according to God’s wisdom. And we wonder also how the
birds of the sky come from the south, and do not remain in one country, but
both the weak and the strong fly to all lands, by the will of God, in order to
fill the woods and fields. All these God has given for the use of man, for
food and enjoyment.
Listen to me, and if you will not accept all, heed at least half. If God
should mollify your hearts, shed tears over your sins and say: “As Thou hast
shown mercy to the harlot, the murderer and the publican, even thus show
mercy to us sinners.” Do this in church and when you lie down to sleep.
Fail not to do so a single night. If you can, make your obeisance to the
ground; if your strength gives out, do it thrice; in any case, be not slack in
it, for with this nightly obeisance and singing man conquers the devil and
frees himself from the sins he has committed during the day.
When you are riding and have no engagement with anyone, and you
know no other prayer, keep on repeating secretly: “Lord, have mercy upon
me!” for it is better to say this prayer than to think idle things. Above all,
forget not the destitute, but feed them according to your means, and give to
the orphan, and protect the widow, and allow not the strong to oppress the
people. Slay neither the righteous, nor the wrongdoer, nor order him to be
slain who is guilty of death, and do not ruin a Christian soul.
Whenever you speak, whether it be a bad or a good word, swear not by
the Lord, nor make the sign of the cross, for there is no need. If you have
occasion to kiss the cross with your brothers or with anyone else, first
inquire your heart whether you will keep the promise, then kiss it; and
having kissed it, see to it that you do not transgress, and your soul perish.
As for the bishops, priests and abbots, receive their benediction in love, and
do not keep away from them, but love them with all your might, and
provide for them, that you may receive their prayers to God. Above all,
have no pride in your hearts and minds, but say: “We are mortal, alive to-
day, and to-morrow in the grave. All that Thou hast given us, is not ours,
but Thine, and Thou hast entrusted it to us for but a few days.” Put away no
treasure in the earth, for that is a great sin.
Honour the elders as your father, and the younger ones as your brothers.
Be not slack in your houses, but watch everything: Do not rely upon your

thane, nor your servant, lest those who come to see you should make light
of your house and of your dinner. If you start out to a war, be not slack,
depend not upon your generals, nor abandon yourselves to drinking and
eating and sleeping. Put out the guards yourselves, and lie down to sleep
only after you have placed the guards all around the army, and rise early. Do
not take off your armour in haste, without examination, for man perishes
suddenly through his negligence. Avoid lying and drunkenness and
debauchery, for body and soul perish from them.
Whenever you travel over your lands, permit not the servants, neither
your own, nor a stranger’s, to do any damage in the villages, or in the fields,
that they may not curse you. Wheresoever you go, and wherever you stay,
give the destitute to eat and to drink. Above all honour the stranger,
whencesoever he may come, whether he be a commoner, a nobleman or an
ambassador; if you are not able to honour him with gifts, give him food and
drink, for these travellers will proclaim a man to all the lands, whether he
be good or bad. Call on the sick, go to funerals, for we are all mortal, and
pass not by a man without greeting him with kind words. Love your wives,
but let them not rule you.
But the main thing is that you should keep the fear of the Lord higher
than anything else. If you should forget this, read this often; then shall I
have no shame, and all will be well with you. Whatever good you know, do
not forget it, and what you do not know, learn it; just as my father had
learned, staying at home, five languages,[12] for this makes one honoured in
other lands. Indolence is the mother of all vices: what one knows, one
forgets, and what one does not know, one does not learn. While doing good,
be not negligent in any good act, first of all in regard to the Church. Let not
the sun find you in bed. Thus my father of blessed memory did, and thus do
all good, perfect men. Having prayed to God at daybreak, he, noticing the
rising sun, praised God in joy and said: “Thou hast made me see, Christ, O
Lord, and Thou hast given me this beautiful light!” and again: “Lord, add
years to my years that I may repent my sins and, improving my life, may
praise God.” And thus he did when he seated himself to take counsel with
the druzhína, or to judge people, or when he went on the chase, or out
riding, or laid himself down to sleep: but sleep has been intended by the
Lord for the afternoon, when both beasts and birds and men rest
themselves.

And now I shall tell you, my children, of my labours which I have
performed either in my expeditions or on the chase these thirteen years.
First I went to Rostóv[13] through the country of the Vyátiches,[14] whither
my father sent me when he himself went to Kursk; next I went to Smolénsk
[follows an account of his expeditions].... Altogether I have made eighty-
three long journeys and I cannot recall how many shorter ones. I have made
peace with the Pólovtses twenty times lacking one, both with my father and
without him, giving away much of my cattle and garments. I have liberated
from their shackles royal princes of the Pólovtses as follows....
I have undergone many hardships in the chase. Near Chernígov I have
with my own hand caught ten or twenty wild horses in the forests, and I
have besides caught elsewhere many wild horses with my hands, as I used
to travel through Russia. Two aurochses threw me and my horse with their
horns; a stag butted me with his horns; an elk trampled me under his feet,
and another butted me with his horns. A boar took away the sword at my
side; a bear bit me into my knee covering; a grim animal [wolf] leaped at
my loins and threw me with my horse; and yet God has preserved me. I
have often fallen from my horse, I twice injured my head and frequently
hurt my hands and feet in my youth, being reckless of my life and not
sparing my head. Whatever there was to be done by my servants, I did
myself, in war and in the chase, in daytime and at night, in the summer heat
and in winter, without taking any rest. I depended neither on the
posádniks[15] nor the heralds, but did all myself, and looked after my house.
In the chase I looked myself after the hunting outfit, the horses, the falcons
and the sparrow-hawks. Also have I not permitted the mighty to offend the
poor peasants and the destitute widows, and I have myself looked after the
church property and the divine service.
Think not ill of me, my children, nor anyone else who may read this, for I
do not boast of my daring, but praise God and proclaim His goodness for
having preserved me, sinful and miserable man, for so many years from the
hour of death, for having made me, miserable one, active in the
performance of all humane acts. Having read this instruction, may you
hasten to do all good acts and praise the Lord with His saints. Fear neither
death, my children, nor war, nor beast, but do what behooves men to do,
whatever God may send you. Just as I have come out hale from war, from
encounters with animals, from the water, and from my falls, even so none of

you can be injured or killed, if it be not so ordained by God. And if death
come from the Lord, neither father, nor mother, nor brothers can save you.
Though it is good to take care of oneself, yet God’s protection is better than
man’s.

FOOTNOTES:

[10] Karamzín remarks that the dead were always taken away in sleighs,
whether in winter or summer.
[11] Volodár; Prince of Peremýshl, and Vasílko, Prince of Terebóvl.
[12] Karamzín surmises that he knew Greek, Norse, Pólovts (Cumanian) and
Hungarian, besides Russian.
[13] In the Government of Yaroslávl.
[14] A Slavic tribe settled on the river Oká.
[15] Burgomasters.

Abbot Daniel, the Palmer. (Beginning of XII. century.)

Pilgrimages to the Holy Land began in Russia soon after the
introduction of Christianity, but Daniel the abbot is the first who has
left an account of his wanderings. Nothing is known of the life of
this traveller, but from internal evidence it may be assumed that he
visited Palestine soon after the first crusade, from 1106-1108. From
his mention of none but princes of the south of Russia it is quite
certain that he himself belonged there. In a simple, unadorned
language, Daniel tells of his wanderings from Constantinople to the
Holy Land and back again. Characteristic is his patriotic affection
for the whole Russian land and his mention of all the Russian
princes in his prayers,—a rather surprising sentiment for the period
when Russia was nothing but a heterogeneous mass of appanages.
None of the Western accounts of pilgrimages to Palestine surpass in
interest that of the Russian palmer of that period, if they at all equal
it.

OF THE HOLY LIGHT, HOW IT DESCENDS FROM HEAVEN
UPON THE HOLY SEPULCHRE

Here is what God has shown to me, His humble and unworthy servant,
Daniel the monk, for I have in truth seen with my own sinful eyes how the
holy light descends on the life-giving grave of the Lord our Saviour, Jesus
Christ. Many pilgrims do not tell rightly about the descent of the holy light:
for some say that the Holy Ghost descends to the Sepulchre of the Lord in
the shape of a dove, and others say that a lightning comes down and lights
the lamps over the Sepulchre of the Lord. But that is not true, for nothing is
to be seen, neither dove, nor lightning, but the divine Grace descends
invisibly, and the lamps over the Sepulchre of the Lord are lit by
themselves. I shall tell about it just as I have seen it.
On Good-Friday after vespers they rub the Sepulchre of the Lord clean,
and wash the lamps that are above it, and fill them with pure oil without
water, and put in the wicks which are not lit, and the Sepulchre is sealed at

the second hour of night. And not only these lights, but those in all the other
churches in Jerusalem are extinguished.
On that very Good-Friday I, humble servant, went in the first hour of the
morning to Prince Baldwin and made a low obeisance to him. When he saw
me making the obeisance, he called me kindly to him and said to me: “What
do you wish, Russian abbot?” for he had known me before and loved me
much, being a good and simple man, and not in the least proud. And I said
to him: “Sir Prince, I beg you for the sake of the Lord and the Russian
princes, let me also place my lamp over the Holy Sepulchre for all our
princes and for all the Russian land, for all the Christians of the Russian
land!”
The Prince gave me permission to place my lamp there and readily sent
his best man with me to the œkonomos of the Holy Resurrection and to him
who has charge of the Sepulchre. Both the œkonomos and the keeper of the
keys to the Holy Sepulchre ordered me to bring my lamp with the oil. I
bowed to them with great joy, and went to the market-place and bought a
large glass lamp which I filled with pure oil without water, and carried it to
the Sepulchre. It was evening when I asked for the keeper of the keys and
announced myself to him. He unlocked the door of the Sepulchre, told me
to take off my shoes, and led me bare-footed to the Sepulchre with the lamp
which I carried with my sinful hands. He told me to place the lamp on the
Sepulchre, and I put it with my sinful hands there where are the illustrious
feet of our Lord Jesus Christ. At his head stood a Greek lamp, on his breast
was placed a lamp of St. Sabbas and of all the monasteries, for it is a
custom to place every year a Greek lamp and one for St. Sabbas. By the
grace of God the lower lamps lighted themselves, but not a single one of the
lamps of the Franks, which are hung up, was lighted up. Having placed my
lamp upon the Sepulchre of our Lord Jesus Christ, I bowed before the
worshipful grave, and with love and tears kissed the holy and glorious place
where lay the illustrious body of our Lord Jesus Christ. We came out of the
Holy Sepulchre with great joy, and went each to his cell.
Next day, on the Holy Saturday, in the sixth hour of the day, people
gather before the church of the Resurrection of Christ; there is an endless
number of people from all countries, from Babylon and Egypt and Antioch,
and all the places about the church and about the crucifixion of the Lord are
filled. There is then such a crowd inside and outside the church that many

are crushed while waiting with unlit candles for the church doors to be
opened. Within, the priests and people wait until Prince Baldwin’s arrival
with his suite, and when the doors are opened all the people crowd in, and
fill the church, and there is a large gathering in the church and near
Golgotha and near Calvary and there where the Lord’s cross had been
found. All the people say nothing else, but keep repeating: “Lord, have
mercy upon us!” and weep aloud so that the whole place reverberates and
thunders with the cries of these people. The faithful shed rivers of tears, and
if a man’s heart were of stone, he could not keep from weeping, for then
everybody looks within himself, remembers his sins, and says: “Perchance
on account of my sins the Holy Ghost will not descend!” And thus all the
faithful stand with tearful countenances and contrite hearts. Prince Baldwin
himself stands there in great fear and humility, and a torrent of tears issues
from his eyes; and his suite stand around him, opposite the grave and near
the great altar.
In the seventh hour of the Saturday Prince Baldwin started with his suite
from home for the Sepulchre, and they all walked barefooted. The Prince
sent to the abbey of St. Sabbas for the abbot and his monks. And I went
with the abbot and the monks to the Prince, and we all bowed before him.
He returned the abbot’s greeting. The Prince ordered the abbot of St. Sabbas
and me, humble servant, to come near him, and the others to walk before
him, but the suite behind him. We arrived at the western doors of the church
of the Lord’s Resurrection, but such a mass of people barred the way that I
could not enter. Then Prince Baldwin ordered his soldiers to drive the
crowd away by force, and they opened a way through the mass of the
people up to the very Sepulchre, and so we were able to pass by.
We arrived at the eastern doors of the Sepulchre. The Prince came after
us, and placed himself at the right side, near the partition of the great altar,
opposite the eastern doors, where there was a special elevated place for the
Prince. He ordered the abbot of St. Sabbas and his monks and orthodox
priests to stand around the Sepulchre, but me, humble servant, he ordered to
stand high above the doors of the Sepulchre, opposite the great altar, so that
I could look into the doors of the Sepulchre: there are three of these doors
and they are locked and sealed with the royal seal. The Latin priests stood at
the great altar. At about the eighth hour of the day the orthodox priests
above the Sepulchre, and many monks and hermits who had come, began to

sing their vesper service, and the Latins at the great altar chanted in their
own way. I stood all the time they were singing and watched diligently the
doors of the Sepulchre. When they began to read the prayers of the Holy
Saturday, the bishop walked down with his deacon from the altar and went
to the doors of the Sepulchre and looked through the chinks, but as he did
not see any light, he returned to the altar. When they had read the sixth
prayer, the bishop went again with his deacon to the door of the Sepulchre,
but he did not see anything within. Then all the people sang in tears: “Kyrie,
eleison!”
When it was the ninth hour of the day, and they had begun to sing, “To
the Lord we sing,” a small cloud suddenly came from the east and stopping
over the uncovered middle of the church, came down in a rain over the
Holy Sepulchre and gave us who were standing around the tomb a good
drenching. And then suddenly the holy light glimmered in the Sepulchre,
and then a mighty, bright brilliancy burst forth from it. Then the bishop
came with four deacons and opened the doors of the Sepulchre and, taking a
candle from the Prince, went inside the tomb and lighted it. After coming
out again, he handed the candle to the Prince. The Prince remained standing
in his place, and held the candle with great joy. From that candle we lighted
all our candles, and from ours all the other candles were lighted.
This holy light is not like any earthly fire, but quite different: it burns
with a bright flame like cinnabar. And all the people stood with their
burning candles and wept for great joy all the time they saw the divine light.
He who has not seen the great joy of that day cannot believe one who is
telling about it, although good and faithful men believe it all and with
pleasure listen to the account of this divine light and of the holy places, for
the faithful believe the great and small things alike, but to an evil man truth
is crooked. But to me, humble servant, God, and the Holy Sepulchre, and
my whole suite, Russian men from Nóvgorod and Kíev, are my witnesses:
Syedesláv Ivánkovich, Gorodisláv Mikhálkovich, the two Kashkíchs and
many others know me and my narration.
But let us return to our story. When the light shone up in the Sepulchre,
the singing stopped, and all cried aloud: “Kyrie, eleison!” Then they all
went out of the church in great joy and with burning candles, watching
them carefully against gusts of wind, and going home they all lighted the
candles in their churches with that holy light, and finished the singing in

their own churches. But in the large church of the Sepulchre the priests end
the singing without the people. We went with the abbot and the monks to
our monastery, carrying the burning candles, and after finishing our vesper
singing, we went to our cells praising the Lord who had shown us His
grace....
After three days I went to the keeper of the keys of the Holy Sepulchre
and said to him: “I should like to take away my lamp!” He received me with
much kindness, took me alone into the Sepulchre, and walking in, I found
my lamp still burning with the holy light. I bowed before the Holy
Sepulchre and kissed the glorious place where once lay the illustrious body
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Then I measured the length, the width and the
height of the Sepulchre, for one is not allowed to measure it in presence of
others. After having honoured the Lord’s Sepulchre as much as I could, I
gave the keeper a little something and a blessing. He, seeing my love for the
Holy Sepulchre and kindness to himself, removed a little the boards at the
head of the Sepulchre and broke off a small piece of rock from it which he
gave to me after I had solemnly sworn to him that I would not tell anyone in
Jerusalem about it. I bowed to the Sepulchre and to the keeper, took my
lamp which was still burning, and went away with great joy, having been
enriched by the grace of God, carrying in my hand a gift from the holy
place and a token from the Holy Sepulchre. And thus rejoicing at the
treasures which I had acquired, I went back to my cell.

EPILOGUE

I made my pilgrimage in the reign of Grand Prince Svyatopólk
Izyaslávich, the grandson of Yarosláv Vladímirovich of Kíev. God is my
witness, and the Holy Sepulchre, that in all those holy places I did not
forget the Russian princes and their wives and children, nor the bishops,
abbots, boyárs, nor my spiritual children, nor all the Christians, but that I
remembered them everywhere. And I also thank God that He has enabled
me, humble servant, to inscribe the names of the Russian princes in the
monastery of St. Sabbas, where they are mentioned even now in their
services....
May the benediction of the Lord, of the Holy Sepulchre and of all the
holy places be on all who read this message with faith and love! For they

will receive their reward from God equally with those who have made
pilgrimages to the holy places. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet
believe! Abraham came into the promised land through faith, for indeed
faith is equal to good deeds. For the Lord’s sake, brothers and fathers, do
not accuse my simplicity and rudeness, and do not make light of this
writing; not on my account, but on account of the holy places, honour it in
love, that you may receive your reward from the Lord our God, and our
Saviour Jesus Christ, and may the God of peace be with all of you unto
eternity. Amen!

Cyril, Bishop of Túrov. (XII. century.)

Little is known of the life of this remarkable preacher. He was
born at Túrov, Government of Minsk, about the year 1130, where
his parents were wealthy people. Having become a monk, he
distinguished himself by his austere asceticism and great piety. At
the request of the Prince of Túrov he was made bishop. Eight or
nine of his sermons and some prayers have come down to us in
manuscript. His eloquence stands alone in the whole ancient period
of Russian literature. Though other preachers followed Byzantine
models in their sermons, yet none carried the flowery Greek
symbolism so far, or wrote in so fluent a language.

FROM A SERMON ON THE FIRST SUNDAY AFTER EASTER

The Church needs a great teacher and a wise orator to properly celebrate
the holiday, but we are poor in words and dim in mind, not having the fire
of the Holy Ghost,—the enjoyment of words useful to the soul; yet for the
love of my brethren who are with me, we shall say something about the
renewal of the Lord’s resurrection. In the past week of the Easter there was
joy in heaven, and terror in the nethermost regions, a renewal of life and
liberation of the world, a destruction of hell and victory over death, a
resurrection of the dead, and annihilation of the enticing power of the devil;
a salvation of the human race by the resurrection of Christ; an
impoverishment of the Old Testament and enslavement of the Sabbath; an
enrichment of the Church of Christ, and enthronement of the Sunday.
Last week there was a change of all things, for the earth was opened up
by heaven, having been purified from its satanic impurities, and the angels
with their wives humbly served at the resurrection. All creation was
renewed, for no longer are the air, the sun, the fire, the springs, the trees,
thought to be gods; no longer does hell receive its due of infants sacrificed
by their fathers, nor death its honours, for idolatry has come to an end, and
the satanic power has been vanquished by the mystery of the cross. The Old
Testament has become impoverished by the rejection of the blood of calves
and sacrifices of goats, for Christ has given Himself to the Lord as a

sacrifice for all. And with this, Sunday ceased to be a holiday, but the
Sunday was sanctified on account of the resurrection, and Sunday is now
supreme, for Christ arose from the dead on that day....
To-day the heavens have been cleared from the dark clouds that
enshrouded them as with a heavy veil, and they proclaim the glory of God
with a clear atmosphere....
To-day the sun rises and beams on high, and rejoicing warms the earth,
for there has arisen for us from the grave the real sun, Christ, and He saves
all who believe in Him. To-day the moon descends from its high place, and
gives honour to the greater lights. The Old Testament, as had been
prophesied, has stopped with its Sabbath, and with its prophets gives
honour to the Testament of Christ with its Sunday. To-day the winter of sin
has stopped in repentance, and the ice of unbelief is melted by wisdom. To-
day spring appears spruce, and enlivens all earthly existence; the stormy
winds blow gently and generate fruits, and the earth, giving nurture to the
seed, brings forth green grass. For spring is the beautiful faith in Christ
which, through baptism, produces a regeneration of man, and the stormy
winds are the evil, sinful thoughts that, being changed to virtue through
repentance, generate soul-saving fruits; but the earth of our being, having
received the Word of God like a seed, and, passing through an ecstatic
labour, through the fear of Him, brings forth a spirit of salvation.
To-day the new-born lambs and calves frisk and leap about joyfully and
returning to their mothers gambol about, so that the shepherds, playing on
their reeds, praise Christ in joy. The lambs, I say, are the gentle people from
among the pagans, and the calves—the idolaters of the unbelieving
countries who, having accepted the Law through Christ’s incarnation and
the teachings of the apostles and miracles, and having returned to the holy
Church, suck the milk of its teachings; and the teachers of Christ’s flock,
praying for all, praise Christ, the Lord, who had collected all the wolves and
sheep into one herd.
To-day the trees send forth buds and the fragrant flowers bloom, and
behold, the gardens already emit a sweet odour, and the workers labouring
in hope acclaim Christ the giver of fruits. We were before like the trees of
the forest that bear no fruit, but to-day the faith of Christ has been grafted
on our unbelief, and those who already held to the roots of Jesse have

burgeoned with the flowers of virtue and expect through Christ a
regeneration in heaven, and the saints who labour for the Church expect a
reward from Christ. To-day the ploughman of the Word leads the oxen of
the Word to the spiritual yoke, sinks the plough of baptism into the furrows
of thought and deepening them to furrows of repentance plants in them the
spiritual seed and rejoices in the hope of future returns. To-day everything
old has taken an end, and all is new for the sake of the resurrection. To-day
the apostolic rivers are full, and the pagan fish let out their broods, and the
fishermen, having examined the depth of the divine incarnation, drag in full
nets into the Church.... To-day the industrious bees of the monastic order
show their wisdom and set all to wonder, for living in the wilderness and
providing for themselves, they astonish both angels and men, just as the bee
flies upon the flowers and forms combs of honey in order to furnish
sweetness to man and what is needed in the church....
To-day there is a feast of regeneration for the people who are made new
by the resurrection of Christ, and all new things are brought to God: from
heathens, faith; from good Christians, offerings; from the clergy, holy
sacrifices; from the civil authorities, God-pleasing charity; from the noble,
care for the Church; from the righteous, humility; from the sinners, true
repentance; from the unhallowed, a turning to God; from the hating,
spiritual love.

Néstor’s Chronicle. (XII. century.)

Néstor was born about 1056, and at the age of seventeen entered
the monastery of the Grottoes at Kíev. In 1091 he was
commissioned to find in the Grottoes the mortal relics of
Theodosius, the founder of the monastery. Having performed this
task he wrote a life of the founder. He died about 1146. To this
Néstor has been ascribed the authorship of the chronicle which in
one of the manuscripts of the fourteenth century bears the title: The
stories of bygone years, whence the Russian land began, who first
reigned at Kíev, and how the Russian land was formed. It has,
however, been proved that only a small part of the chronicle belongs
to him, and that the last editor of the whole was the abbot Sylvester,
the continuator of Néstor’s Chronicle for the twelfth century.
The chronicle contains the reports of important facts in the life of
the princes, arranged in chronological order. The author, or authors,
being of the clerical profession, the influence of Christianity shows
itself throughout in the use of a biblical diction. This is especially
the case where Byzantine chronographers, whose influence on all
the early Russian chronicles is unmistakable, and church and
monastery notes are the source of the historical narrative. But
popular stories, legends and accounts of eye-witnesses also play an
important part in the composition of the work, and in these the
diction is more dramatic and natural. The chronicle covers the
period from 862 to 1110, and is exceedingly valuable as the chief
source for the history of Russia for the time described. It has not
come down to us in the original, but has reached us in copies of the
fourteenth century, of which the Laurentian manuscript, copied by
the monk Laurentius for Dimítri Konstantínovich, Prince of Súzdal,
is the most important.

THE BAPTISM OF VLADÍMIR AND OF ALL RUSSIA

In the year 6495 (987), Vladímir called together his boyárs and city
elders, and said to them: “There have come to me Bulgarians who said:

‘Accept our religion!’ Then came the Germans, and they praised their
religion; after them came the Jews.[16] But after them came the Greeks, who
spoke slightingly of all the other religions, but praised their own. They
spoke much about the beginning of the universe and the existence of the
whole world. They are cunning of speech, and talk so pleasantly that it is a
pleasure to hear them. They say that there is another world, and that if
anyone enters into their faith, he would live after his death, and would not
die for eternity; but that if he accepts any other faith, he would burn in the
other world. Now, what counsel do you give me? What is your answer?”
And the boyárs and elders said: “You know, O Prince, that nobody
detracts his own, but praises it. If you are anxious to find out the truth, you
have men whom you can send out to see how they all serve God.”
And the speech pleased the Prince and all people. They selected good and
clever men, to the number of ten, and said to them: “Go first to the
Bulgarians and inquire into their religion!” And they went, and saw their
abominable deeds and worshipping in shrines, and returned to their land.
Vladímir said to them: “Go now to the Germans, find out there also, and
thence go to Greece!”
And they went to Germany and, having seen their divine service, they
came to Constantinople, and went to the Emperor. The Emperor asked them
what they had come for, and they told him all as it was. Having heard this,
the Emperor was glad, and gave them a banquet on that very day. Next
morning he sent to the Patriarch saying: “Some Russians have come to find
out about our faith; so have the church and clergy in order, and yourself don
the holy garments, that they may see the glory of our God.”
Having heard this, the Patriarch called together the clergy to celebrate the
day according to the custom, and he had the censers lighted, and arranged
the singing and the choir. The Emperor went with them to church, and they
were placed in a prominent place where they could see the beauty of the
church, hear the singing and archiepiscopal ministration, and watch the
attendance of the deacons in the divine service. They were surprised, and
marvelled, and praised their service. And the Emperors Basil and
Constantine called them and said to them: “Go to your land!” and they sent
them away with many gifts and honours.

They came back to their country, and their Prince called together his
boyárs and old men. Said Valdímir: “The men we have sent away have
come back. Let us hear what has happened!” And he said: “Speak before
the druzhína!” and they spoke: “When we were in Bulgaria, we saw them
worshipping in the temple, where they talk in the shrine and stand without
their girdles. Having made their obeisance, they sit down and look around
hither and thither like madmen, and there is no joy among them, only
sadness and a great stench: their religion is not good. And we came to
Germany, and we saw many ceremonies in their temples, but of beauty we
saw none. We went to Greece, and they took us where they worship their
God, and we do not know whether we were in heaven or upon earth, for
there is not upon earth such sight or beauty. We were perplexed, but this
much we know that there God lives among men, and their service is better
than in any other country. We cannot forget that beauty, for every man that
has partaken of sweetness will not afterwards accept bitterness, and thus we
can no longer remain in our former condition.” And the boyárs answered
and said: “If the Greek religion were bad, your grandmother Ólga, who was
the wisest of all men, would not have accepted it.” And Vladímir answered
and said: “Where shall we receive our baptism?” But they answered:
“Wheresoever it may please you!”
Next year, the year 6496, Vladímir went with his warriors against
Korsún,[17] a Greek city, and the Korsúnians shut themselves up in the city.
Vladímir was encamped at the side of the city nearest the harbour, at one
shot’s distance from it, and they fought valiantly in the city, and Vladímir
beleaguered it. The townspeople were weakening, and Vladímir said to
them: “If you do not surrender, I shall stay here, if need be, three years.”
They paid no attention to it, and Vladímir drew up his soldiers, and ordered
them to build a rampart to the city. While they were asleep, the Korsúnians
undermined the city wall, and, stealing the dirt which they had thrown up,
carried it into the city, and deposited it there. The soldiers again filled up the
rampart, and Vladímir remained there.
A Korsún man, by the name of Nastás, shot an arrow upon which was
written as follows: “It is by the wells that are behind you in the east, that the
water is led by pipes into the city; dig them up, and stop the supply!”
Hearing this, Vladímir looked to the heavens and said: “If it shall come to
pass, I will be baptised,” and immediately he ordered the pipes to be dug

up, and the water was intercepted. The people were exhausted with thirst,
and they surrendered themselves. Vladímir entered the city with his
druzhína, and he sent word to the Emperors Basil and Constantine: “I have
taken your famous city. I hear you have a sister who is still a maiden. If you
will not give her to me for a wife, I shall do unto your city as I have done
unto this.”
And they heard the tsar, and were sad, and gave the following answer: “It
does not behoove Christians to give in marriage to a pagan. If you will
receive the baptism, you shall get her, and you will receive the kingdom of
heaven, and will be of one faith with us. If you do not wish to do so, we
cannot give you our sister.”
Hearing this, Vladímir said to the messengers of the Emperors: “Tell your
Emperors that I will be baptised, that I have inquired before these days into
your faith, and am pleased with your belief and divine service, from what
the men that had been sent by us have told me.”
Which when the Emperors heard, they were glad and persuaded their
sister, by the name of Anna, and sent to Vladímir saying: “Receive the
baptism, and then we will send our sister to you.”
But Vladímir answered: “Let them come with your sister to baptise me!”
The Emperors obeyed, and sent their sister and a few high officers and
presbyters. She did not want to go: “It is as if I were going into captivity,”
she said. “It were better if I died here.” And her brothers said to her:
“Perchance God will through you turn the Russian land to repentance, and
free Greece from a dire war. Do you not see how much evil the Russians
have caused to the Greeks? If you will not go, they will do even thus to us.”
They persuaded her with difficulty. She boarded a boat, kissed her relatives
under tears and went across the sea. She arrived at Korsún, and the
Korsúnians met her with honours, and led her into the city and seated her in
the palace.
By God’s will, Vladímir was at that time ailing with his eyes, and he
could not see, and was much worried. The empress sent to him saying: “If
you want to be rid of your disease, be baptised at once. If not, you will not
be rid of it.”

Hearing this, Vladímir said: “If it will be so in truth, then indeed your
Christian God is great.” And he ordered to baptise him. The bishop of
Korsún with the priests of the empress received Vladímir as a catechumen
and baptised him, and the moment he laid his hands upon him, he regained
his eyesight. When Vladímir saw this sudden cure, he praised God and said:
“Now have I for the first time found the real God!” When his druzhína
perceived this, many were baptised. He was baptised in the church of St.
Basil, and that church is situated in Korsún, there where the Korsúnians
have their market-place. Vladímir’s palace by the church is standing up to
the present day. The palace of the empress is beyond the altar. After the
baptism he led the empress to the betrothal. Those who do not know right
say that he was baptised in Kíev; others say in Vasilév; others again say
otherwise.
After that, Vladímir took the empress and Nastás, and the Korsún priests
with the holy relics of Clement and Phœbus, his disciple, and church
vessels, and images, for his own use. He built a church in Korsún on the hill
which they had thrown up in the middle of the city from the dirt they had
carried away, and that church is still standing there. Going away, he took
along with him two brass statues and four brass horses which stand to-day
behind the church of the Holy Virgin, and which the ignorant think to be of
marble. He gave as a marriage price Korsún back to the Greeks, for the sake
of the empress, and went back to Kíev.
Upon his return, he ordered the idols to be cast down, and some to be cut
to pieces, and others to be consumed by fire; but Perún he had tied to the
tail of a horse, and dragged down the hill over the Boríchev[18] to the brook,
and placed twelve men to strike him with rods, not as if the wood had any
feeling, but as a scorn to the devil who had in that way seduced people, that
he might receive his due punishment from men. As he was dragged along
the brook to the Dnieper, the unbelievers wept over him, for they had not
yet received the holy baptism, and he was cast into the Dnieper. Vladímir
stood by, and said: “Should he be carried anywhere to the banks, push him
off, until he has passed the rapids, when you may leave him!” They did as
they were told. When he passed the rapids, and was let loose, the wind
carried him on a sandbank, which is named from this “Perún’s Bank,” and
is called so to this day.

After that Vladímir proclaimed throughout the whole city: “Whosoever
will not appear to-morrow at the river, whether he be rich or poor, or a
beggar, or a workingman, will be in my disfavour.” Hearing this, people
came gladly and with joy, and said: “If this were not good, the Prince and
boyárs would not have accepted it.” Next morning Vladímir went out with
the priests of the empress and of Korsún to the Dnieper, and there came
together people without number. They went into the water, and stood there
up to their necks, and some up to their breasts, but the younger nearer the
shore, and others held the younger ones, while the grown people waded into
the water. And the priests stood there and said the prayers; and there was a
joy in heaven and upon earth at the sight of so many saved souls, but the
devil groaned, and said: “Woe to me! I am driven away from here. Here I
had intended to have my habitation, for here are no apostolic teachings, and
they do not know God, and I rejoiced in the worship with which they served
me. And now I am conquered by ignorant people and not by apostles and
martyrs. I shall no longer reign in these lands.”
Having been baptised, the people went to their houses. Vladímir was
happy for having, himself and his people, found God, and looking up to
heaven he said: “God, Thou hast created heaven and earth! Guard these Thy
new people, and let them, O Lord, find out the real God, such as the
Christian people know Him. Strengthen the true and constant faith in them,
and help me, O Lord, against my foe, that relying upon Thee and Thy
power, I may escape his ambush!”
The people having been baptised, they all went to their homes, and
Vladímir ordered churches to be built, and to place them there where
formerly stood the idols. He built the church of St. Basil on the hill where
stood the idol Perún and the others, to whom the Prince and others used to
bring sacrifices. And he began to locate churches and priests over the
towns, and to lead people to baptism in all towns and villages. He sent out
men to take the children of noblemen, and to put them out for book
instruction; but the mothers of those children wept for them, for they were
not yet firm in their faith, and they wept for them as for the dead.

FOOTNOTES:

[16] The Khazars, a Tartar tribe that professed the Mosaic Law.
[17] The ancient Tauric Chersonese; this later city was not built on the ancient
site, but near Sebastopol.
[18] A suburb of Kíev.

The Kíev Chronicle. (XII. century.)

The Kíev Chronicle is a continuation of Néstor’s Chronicle, from
1111-1201, and describes mainly the acts of the principality of Kíev.
The best manuscript of this chronicle is from the monastery of St.
Ipáti, near Kostromá, and dates from the end of the fourteenth, or
the beginning of the fifteenth, century. The passage given below is
selected to illustrate the historical account of the same incident
contained in the Word of Ígor’s Armament.

THE EXPEDITION OF ÍGOR SVYATOSLÁVICH AGAINST THE
PÓLOVTSES[19]

In the year 6693 (1185). At that time Ígor, the son of Svyatosláv, the
grandson of Olég, rode out of Nóvgorod on the 23rd of April, which was on
a Tuesday, having taken with him his brother Vsévolod from Trubétsk, and
Svyatosláv Ólgovich, his nephew, from Rylsk, and Vladímir, his son, from
Putívl, and Yarosláv had sent him, at his request, Olstín Oléksich, the
grandson of Prokhór, with Kovúans[20] from Chernígov. They proceeded
slowly, collecting their druzhína, for their horses were very fat. As they
were going towards the river Donéts, Ígor looked one evening at the sky,
and he saw the sun standing there like a moon, and he said to his boyárs and
druzhína: “Do you see this omen?”
They looked up, and having noticed it, hung their heads, and said:
“Prince, this is not a good omen!”
But Ígor said: “Brothers and druzhína! Nobody knows God’s mystery,
and God is the creator of mystery, as well as of all His world; but we shall
find out in time whether God means our good or our evil.”
Having said this, he forded the Donéts and came to the river Oskól,
where he waited for two days for his brother Vsévolod who was marching
by another road from Kursk; thence they proceeded to Sálnitsa. There came
to them the guards whom they had sent out to reconnoitre; they said: “We
have seen the army of the enemy; they were riding rapidly: either you ride
fast, or we had better return home, for the time is not propitious.”

But Ígor consulted his brothers and said: “If we return without fighting,
our shame will be greater than death. Let us proceed with God’s aid!”
Having said this, they travelled through the night, and the next day,
which was a Friday, they met the army of the Pólovtses at noontime. When
they saw them, they were without their tents, for they had left them behind
them, but the old and young were all standing on the other side of the river
Syuurlí. The Russians arranged their six troops as follows: Ígor’s troop was
in the middle, to his right was the troop of his brother Vsévolod, and to the
left that of his nephew Svyatosláv; in front of him was placed his son
Vladímir, and Yarosláv’s Kovúans, and a third troop of archers was in front
of them, and they were selected from the troops of all the princes; that was
the position of their troops.
And Ígor spoke to his brothers: “Brothers! We have found what we have
been looking for, so let us move on them!” And they advanced, placing their
faith in God. When they came to the river Syuurlí, the archers galloped out
from the troops of the Pólovtses, sent each an arrow against the Russians,
and galloped back again, before the Russians had crossed the river Syuurlí;
equally the Pólovtses who stood farther away from the river galloped away.
Svyatosláv Ólgovich, and Vladímir Ígorevich, and Olstín with his Kovúans,
and the archers ran after them, while Ígor and Vsévolod went slowly ahead,
and did not send forward their troops; but the Russians ahead of them struck
down the Pólovtses. The Pólovtses ran beyond their tents, and the Russians,
having come as far as the tents, plundered them, and some returned in the
night with their booty to the army.
When the Pólovtses had come together, Ígor said to his brothers and men:
“God has given us the power to vanquish our enemy, and honour and glory
to us! We have seen the army of the Pólovtses that it is large, and I wonder
whether they have all been collected. If we now shall ride through the night,
what surety is there that all will follow us next morning? And our best
horsemen will be in the meantime cut down, and we will have to shift as
best we can.”
And Svyatosláv Ólgovich spoke to his uncles: “I have driven the
Pólovtses a long distance, and my horses are played out; if I am to travel on
to-day, I shall have to fall behind on the road,” and Vsévolod agreed with
him that it was best to rest.

Ígor spoke: “Knowing this, it is not proper to expose ourselves to death,”
and they rested there.
When the day broke on the Saturday, the troops of the Pólovtses began to
appear like a forest. The Russian princes were perplexed, and did not know
whom to attack first, for there was a numberless host of them. And Ígor
said: “See, I have collected against me the whole land: Konchák, Kozá,
Burnovích, Toksobích, Kolobích, Etebích, and Tertrobích.” And seeing
them, they dismounted from their horses, for they wished to reach the river
Donéts by fighting, and they said: “If we remain on horseback, and run
away, and leave our soldiers behind, we will have sinned before God; but
let us die or live together!” And having said this, they all dismounted and
fought on foot.
By the will of God, Ígor was wounded, and his left arm was disabled, and
there was a great sorrow in his troop; and they captured his general, having
wounded him in front. And they fought that day until evening, and many
were the wounded and killed in the Russian army. They fought till late into
the night, and when the Sunday began to break, the Kovúans became
confused and ran away. Ígor was at that time on horseback, for he was
wounded, and he followed them up, trying to bring them back to the army.
Seeing that he had gone far away from his people, he took off his helmet so
that they might recognise him and might return to the army, and he rode
back to his troop. But no one returned, except Mikhálko Gyúrgevich who
had recognised the Prince. The trouble was, no one, except a few of the
rank and file and boyárs’ youths, had thoroughly mingled with the Kovúans,
for they were all busy fighting on foot; among these, Vsévolod excelled in
bravery. As Ígor was approaching his troop, the Pólovtses crossed his path
and made him prisoner within an arrow’s shot from his troop. While Ígor
was held captive, he saw his brother fighting mightily, and in his heart he
implored for his own death that he might not see his brother fall dead; but
Vsévolod was fighting until he had no weapons left in his hands, and they
were fighting around a lake.
It was on the day of the holy Sunday that the Lord brought down His
anger upon them, and changed joy into weeping, and instead of pleasure
gave them sorrow, on the river Kayála. And Ígor spoke: “I now recall my
sins before the Lord my God, for I have caused much slaughter and
bloodshed in the Christian land, and did not spare the Christians, but took

by storm the town of Glyébov near Pereyáslavl. Then innocent Christians
suffered no small measure of evil, for fathers were separated from their
children, brother from brother, friend from friend, wives from husbands,
and daughters from their mothers, and all was confused in captivity and
sorrow. The living envied the dead, and the dying rejoiced because they had
like holy martyrs received their trial by fire in this life; old men were killed,
young men received fierce and inhuman wounds, men were cut to pieces.
All this I have done, and I am not worthy to live; to-day the revenge of the
Lord has reached me. Where is now my beloved brother? Where is now the
son of my brother? Where is the child of my loins? Where are the
counselling boyárs, where are the brave men, the ranks of the soldiers?
Where are the horses and costly weapons? Am I not separated from all that,
and has not the Lord given me fettered into the hands of the pagans? The
Lord has repaid me for my lawlessness and my meanness, and my sins have
this day come down upon my head. The Lord is just, and His judgments are
right, and I have nothing in common with the living. I see to-day others
receiving the crown of martyrdom, but why can I not, guilty one, suffer for
all of them? But Lord my God! Do not reject me to the end, but as Thy will,
O Lord, is done, so also is Thy mercy to us, Thy slaves!”
The battle being over, the Pólovtses scattered, and went to their tents.
Ígor was captured by the Targólans, by a man named Chilbúk; his brother
Vsévolod was taken by Román Kzich, Svyatosláv Ólgovich by Eldechyúk
of the Boburchéviches, and Vladímir by Kópti of the Ulashéviches. Then
Konchák took care of Ígor on the battlefield, for he was wounded. Of the
many prisoners taken but few could run away, God being willing, for it was
not possible for anyone to escape, being surrounded on all sides by the
Pólovts army as with mighty walls; and yet there escaped about fifteen of us
Russians, and fewer Kovúans, but the rest were drowned in the sea.
At that time Grand Prince Vsévolod’s son Svyatosláv had gone to
Koráchev[21] to collect warriors in the upper lands, wishing in the summer
to go to the Don against the Pólovtses. When Svyatosláv returned and was
at Nóvgorod Syéverski, he heard that his brothers had gone against the
Pólovtses, without his knowledge, and he was displeased. Svyatosláv was
travelling in boats, and when he arrived in Chernígov, Byelovolód
Prosóvich came to him and told him what had happened with the Pólovtses.
When Svyatosláv heard that, he sighed much and, wiping off his tears, he

said: “O beloved brothers and sons and men of the Russian land! Oh, that
God would grant me to crush the pagans! But they, impulsive in their youth,
have opened the gates into the Russian land. The will of the Lord be on
everything! However sorry I was for Ígor, I am more sorry for Ígor, my
brother!”
After that Svyatosláv sent his son Olég and Vladímir into the Posémie,
[22]
for when the cities of the Posémie heard of the disaster, they were
disturbed, and there was a sorrow and heavy anguish upon them, such as
had never before been in the whole Posémie, in Nóvgorod Syéverski and in
the whole district of Chernígov. They had heard that their princes had been
taken prisoners, and the druzhína had been captured, and killed; and they
became restless, as if in turbid water, and the cities revolted, and many had
no care for their relatives, but they renounced their souls, weeping for their
princes. After that Svyatosláv sent to David of Smolénsk, saying: “We had
intended to go against the Pólovtses, and pass the summer on the Don; but
now the Pólovtses have vanquished Ígor, and his brother with his son; now
come, brother, to protect the Russian land!” And David came to the
Dnieper, and there arrived also other help, and they stopped at Trepól, but
Yarosláv collected his troops at Chernígov.
The pagan Pólovtses, having conquered Ígor and his brothers, were filled
with great conceit, and they gathered all their tribes against the Russian
land. And there was a strife among them, for Konchák said: “Let us march
against Kíev, where our brothers and our Grand Prince Bonyák were cut
down!” But Kza said: “Let us go against the Sem, where their wives and
children are left, an easy booty for us; we shall sack their cities without
danger!” And thus they divided into two parts. Konchák went against
Pereyáslavl. He besieged the city, and they fought the whole day. At that
time Vladímir Glyébovich was the Prince of Pereyáslavl. He being bold and
a mighty warrior, rode out of the city and rushed against the enemy, and
then a few men of his druzhína were emboldened, and they fought valiantly.
Many Pólovtses surrounded them. Then the others, seeing their Prince hard
pressed, rushed out of the city, and saved their Prince, who was wounded
with three spear thrusts. This good Vladímir rode back into the city heavily
wounded, and he wiped the sweat from his brave face, having fought
doughtily for his country.

Vladímir sent word to Svyatosláv, and to Rúrik, and to David: “The
Pólovtses are at my gates, help me!” Svyatosláv sent word to David, who
stood at Trepól with his Smolénsk troop. The men of Smolénsk held a
council, and said: “We have marched to Kíev to fight in case there is a war
there; but we cannot look for another war, for we are worn out.” Svyatosláv
hurried to the Dnieper with Rúrik and other troops, against the Pólovtses,
and David went away with his Smolénsk men. When the Pólovtses heard
this, they went away from Pereyáslavl, but on their way they attacked
Rímov. The Rímovans shut themselves up in the city; having climbed the
rampart, two wicker structures gave way with all their men, God having so
willed, and broke in the direction of the enemy. Terror fell upon the city
people. Some of them sallied from the city and kept up a running fight into
the Rímov swamps, and thus escaped capture; but those who remained in
the city were all taken prisoners. Vladímir sent again to Svyatosláv
Vsévolodich and Rúrik Rostislávich, imploring them to come to his aid. But
they were tardy in coming, having waited for David with his Smolénsk
troop, and thus they did not get there in time to meet the Pólovtses. Having
taken the city of Rímov, the Pólovtses returned to their homes, loaded down
with booty. The princes went back to their homes, and they were very sad,
and they were sorry for Vladímir Glyébovich, for he was struck down with
mortal wounds, and they were sorry for the Christians that had been taken
prisoners by the pagans....
The other Pólovtses were going by another road to Putívl. Kza had a
large host with him; they laid waste the country, burnt the villages, and also
burnt the castle near Putívl, and returned home again.
Ígor Svyatoslávich was that year with the Pólovtses, and he said:
“According to my deserts have I received defeat at Thy hands, my Lord,
and not the daring of the pagans has broken the might of Thy servants. I do
not complain of my suffering, for I have been punished for my misdeeds.”
The Pólovtses, respecting his leadership, did not do him any harm, but
placed over him fifteen guards of their sons, and five lords’ sons, in all
twenty. They gave him permission to go where he wanted, and he went a-
hunting with the hawk, and there were with him five or six of his servants.
His guards obeyed him and honoured him, and whithersoever he sent them,
they did his command without grumbling. He had brought with him a priest
from Russia, with all the divine service, for he did not know the divine will,

and he thought he would have to stay there for a long time. But the Lord
delivered him for the many prayers of the Christians which they sent up to
heaven, and the many tears which they shed for him. While he was among
the Pólovtses, there was a man there, himself a Pólovts, by the name of
Lavór; he having a blessed thought said: “I will go with you to Russia!” At
first Ígor had no confidence in him, but had a high opinion of his own
manliness, for he did not intend to take the man and run with him into
Russia; he said: “For glory’s sake I did not then run away from my
druzhína, and even now will I not walk upon an inglorious road.”
But there were with him the son of the thousand-man and his equerry,
and they pressed him and said: “Go, O Prince, back to Russia, if the Lord
will deliver you!” But the time was not propitious. As we said before, the
Pólovtses returned from Pereyáslavl, and Ígor’s advisers said to him: “You
harbour a proud thought and one that is not pleasing to God; you do not
intend to take the man and run with him, but why do you not consider that
the Pólovtses will return from the war, and we have heard that they will slay
all the princes and all the Russians, and there will be no glory for you, and
you will lose your life.” Prince Ígor took their advice to heart, being afraid
of the return of the Pólovtses, and bethought himself of flight. He was not
able to run away either in daytime or at night, for the guards watched him,
but he found an opportune time at the setting of the sun. And Ígor sent his
equerry to Lavór, saying: “Cross on the other side of the Tor with a led
horse,” for he intended to fly to Russia with Lavór. At that time the
Pólovtses were drunk with kumys; and it was towards evening when his
equerry came back and told him that Lavór was waiting for him. Ígor arose
frightened and trembling, and bowed before the image of the Lord and the
honourable cross, and said: “Lord, knower of hearts! If Thou, Master, wilt
save me, unworthy one,”—and he took the cross and the image, lifted the
tent’s side, and crawled out. His guards were gambling and feasting, for
they thought that the Prince was asleep. He arrived at the river, waded
across, and mounted the horse; thus they both rode by the tents.
This deliverance the Lord granted on a Friday, in the evening. He then
walked eleven days to the town of Donéts, and thence he went to his
Nóvgorod, and they were much rejoiced. From Nóvgorod he went to his
brother Yarosláv in Chernígov, to ask for help in the Posémie. Yarosláv was
glad to see him, and promised him aid. Ígor travelled thence to Kíev to

Grand Prince Svyatosláv, and Svyatosláv was glad to see him, as was also
Rúrik.

FOOTNOTES:

[19] For notes consult the Word of Ígor’s Armament (p. 80 et sqq.).
[20] A Finnish tribe.
[21] Town in the country of the Vyátiches.
[22] The country along the river Sem.

The Word of Ígor’s Armament. (End of XII. century.)

No other production of Russian antiquity has roused so much
interest in Russia and abroad as this version of Ígor’s expedition by
an unknown poet of the end of the twelfth century. Thirty-five
translations into modern Russian, numerous translations into Little-
Russian, Polish, Bohemian, Servian, Bulgarian, Hungarian, German,
French, witness to the enormous popularity this production has
attained. The historical background of the poem is found in the
recital from the Kíev Chronicle, which is given on pp. 71-80. The
disasters which befell Ígor and his army are probably told with
better effect in that prosaic version; but the superior value of the
Word lies in its being a precious relic of the popular poetry of the
end of the twelfth century, such as no other nation can boast of. The
Nibelungenlied and the Chanson de Roland are chiefly productions
of a literary character, while the Word bears every evidence of
representing the untutored labour of a popular bard.
Who the author was, when he lived, for whom he sang, are all
unanswered questions, but from internal evidence we glean that he
sang for his contemporaries while Ígor was still alive. From his
apostrophe to Yarosláv Osmomýsl, who died in 1187, we may infer
that the poem was written before that year, and it is not unlikely,
from his vivid description of the battle at the Kayála, that he was an
eye-witness of the expedition which took place in 1185. From the
absence of biblical references it is generally assumed that the author
was not a member of the clerical profession. Here, however, various
difficulties arise. It is quite incomprehensible why there should be
so many references to pagan divinities at a time when Christianity
had been deep-rooted in Russia for fully two centuries; why, except
for the evident imitation of many passages in the Zadónshchina,
there should be no reference to the poem by any medieval writer,
and why only one copy of so remarkable a work should have been
preserved. If this poem came so very near being lost to posterity,
how many other remarkable productions of that early period have
disappeared? It is not at all impossible that there existed an

extensive popular poetry, of which only the barest traces have come
down to us. This suspicion is strengthened by the emphatic mention
by the author of the Word of a poet Boyán who had lived before his
days.
A copy of the poem was discovered by Count A. I. Músin-
Púshkin, Procurator-General of the Holy Synod, in 1795. He it was
who in rummaging St. Petersburg bookstalls had discovered the
manuscript of Néstor’s Chronicle. From a monk he procured a
collection of eight pieces, the fifth of which was this poem. He
published the Word, as this poem is called in the manuscript, in
1800, with a modern Russian translation. The manuscript itself was
burnt in the Moscow conflagration of 1812. The poem has since
been edited a countless number of times, and equally large is the
mass of critical essays to explain the many dark and corrupt places
of what now must pass for the original. When we consider that there
are not less than six versions of the Word in French, it seems strange
that it is now first rendered into English in its entirety. There is an
imperfect translation of a small part of it in H. H. Munro’s The Rise
of the Russian Empire, Boston and London, 1900.

I

Were it not well for us, O brothers, to commence in the ancient strain the
sad story of the armament of Ígor,[23] Ígor son of Svyatosláv? And let the
song be told according to the accounts of the time, and not according to the
cunning of Boyán[24] the Wise, for Boyán the Wise, when he wished to
make a song, soared with his thoughts in the tree, ran as a grey wolf over
the earth, flew as a steel-grey eagle below the clouds. When he recalled the
strife of former time, he let loose ten falcons o’er a flock of swans, and
every swan each touched sang first a song: to old Yarosláv,[25] to brave
Mstisláv[26] who slew Redédya before the Kasóg army, to fair Román
Svyatoslávich.[27] But Boyán, O brothers, did not let loose ten falcons on a
flock of swans, but laid his inspired fingers on the living strings, and they
themselves sounded the glory to the princes.

Let us begin, O brothers, this tale from Vladímir[28] of old to the late Ígor
who strengthened his soul by his valour, and sharpened it by the courage of
his heart, and having filled himself with a manly spirit, led his valiant army
for the land of Russia into the country of the Pólovtses.[29]

II

Then Ígor looked up to the bright sun, and saw that he had covered in
darkness[30] all his warriors. And Ígor spoke to his druzhína: “O brothers
and druzhína! It is better to be cut to pieces than to be made a captive! Let
us, O brothers, mount our swift horses that we may behold the beautiful
Don!”
A strong desire filled the Prince’s soul to drink from the great Don, and
his eagerness blinded him to the evil omen.
“For I wish,” he said, “to break the spear on the border of the Pólovts
land together with you, sons of Russia! I want to lay down my head, and
drink with my helmet from the Don!”
O Boyán, nightingale of ancient time! It were for you to spell this army,
soaring like a nightingale over the tree of thought, flying like an eagle
below the clouds, stringing together words for the deeds of that time, racing
over Troyán’s[31] footsteps over fields to the mountains. You ought to have
sung a song to Ígor, his grandson: “Not a storm has driven the falcons over
the broad fields: flocks of crows hasten to the great Don.”... Or you might
have sung thus, inspired Boyán, grandson of Velés[32]:
“The horses neigh beyond the Sulá[33]; glory resounds in Kíev; trumpets
blare in Nóvgorod[34]; the standards are at Putívl[35]; Ígor waits for his
beloved brother Vsévolod. And Vsévolod, the Grim Aurochs, spoke to him:
“My only brother, my only light, glorious Ígor, we are both sons of
Svyatosláv! Saddle, O brother, your swift steeds, for mine are ready for
you, having been saddled in advance at Kursk! My Kurians are tried
warriors, nurtured by the sound of trumpets, rocked in helmets, fed at the
point of the spear. The roads are known to them; the ravines are familiar to
them; their bows are drawn; their quivers open, their swords—whetted.

They race over the fields like grey wolves, seeking honour for themselves,
and glory for their Prince.”

III

Then Prince Ígor stepped into the golden stirrup and galloped over the
clear field. The sun barred his way in darkness; night groaning with the
cries of birds awoke him; beasts howled, and Div[36] called in the top of a
tree, sending the news to the unknown land, to the Vólga, the Sea border,[37]
the Sulá country, Surózh[38] and Korsún,[39] and to you, idol of
Tmútorokan![40] But the Pólovtses hastened by untrodden roads to the great
Don; the carts creaked at midnight, like swans let loose.
Ígor leads his soldiers to the Don: the birds in the thicket forbode his
misfortune; the wolves bristle up and howl a storm in the mountain clefts;
the eagles screech and call the beasts to a feast of bones; the foxes bark for
the crimson shields. O Russian land, you are already beyond the mound![41]
Night is long and murky; the dawn withholds the light; mist covers the
fields; the nightingale’s song is silent; the cawing of the crows is heard. The
Russians bar the long fields with their crimson shields, seeking honour for
themselves and glory for the Prince.

IV

Early in the morning, on the Friday, they crushed the pagan Pólovts host,
and, spreading like arrows over the field, seized fair Pólovts maidens, and
with them gold and gold-worked stuffs and costly velvet; with cloaks and
coats and Pólovts lace they bridged their way over bogs and muddy places.
A red flag, white pennon, red panache, silver cross-beam, for the brave son
of Svyatosláv!...[42] Olég’s valiant brood has flown afar and dreams in the
field! They thought not to offend the falcon, gerfalcon, nor you, black
raven, pagan Pólovts! But Gza ran like a grey wolf, with Konchák[43] in his
track, to the great Don.

V

Very early the next morning a bloody dawn announces the day. Black
clouds come from the sea and try to veil four suns,[44] while blue lightnings
quiver through them. There is to be a mighty thunder, and the rain is to go
down in arrows by the great Don! There spears will be broken; there swords
will be blunted against Pólovts helmets on the Kayála,[45] by the great Don.
O Russian land, you are already beyond the mound!
Behold the winds, Stribóg’s[46] grandchildren, blow arrows from the sea
on Ígor’s valiant army. The earth groans, the rivers flow turbid; dust covers
the fields; the banners whisper. The Pólovtses come from the Don, and from
the sea, and from all sides: the Russian army recedes. The devil’s children
fill the field with their cries, but the brave Russians line it with their
crimson bucklers.
Grim Aurochs Vsévolod! You stand in the van; you pour arrows on the
warriors; you thunder with steel swords against their helmets. Wherever
you, Aurochs, lead, gleaming with your golden helmet, there fall the heads
of the pagan Pólovtses, their Avar[47] helmets cloven by your tempered
swords, Grim Aurochs Vsévolod! What wound does he brook, O brothers,
having forgotten his honours and manner of life, and Chernígov town, his
paternal golden throne, and the caresses of his sweetheart, Glyeb’s fair
daughter,[48] and the habits and customs of his home?

VI

Troyán’s age is past, gone are the years of Yarosláv; past are the
expeditions of Olég,[49] the son of Svyatosláv. That Olég had fostered
discord with his sword, and had sowed arrows over the land. In Tmútorokan
city he stepped into the golden stirrup. Great Yarosláv, that was, heard the
tocsin,[50] and Vsévolod’s son Vladímir closed his ears all the days at
Chernígov.[51] But Glory brought Borís,[52] the son of Vyachesláv, before
the judgment seat and bedded him, brave young prince, on the green feather
grass of the steppe, through Olég’s offence....
Then, in the days of Olég Gorislávich,[53] feuds were sown and grew, and
Dazhbóg’s[54] grandchildren perished, and the years of men were shortened
by the discord of the princes. In those days the warriors rarely walked

behind the plough in the Russian land, but the ravens croaked as they
divided the dead bodies, and crows chattered, flying to the banquet. Such
were the wars and expeditions then, but the like of this war was never
known.

VII

From early morning until evening, from evening until daylight fly
tempered arrows, thunder the swords against the helmets, resound the steel
spears in a strange field, within the country of the Pólovtses. The black
earth beneath the hoofs was sown with bones, and watered with blood, and
a harvest of sorrow went up in the Russian land.
What noise is that, what din, so early in the morning before dawn? Ígor
leads his army; he is sorry for his beloved brother Vsévolod. They fought a
day, they fought another[55]; upon the third at noon fell the standards of
Ígor. The brothers separated on the bank of the swift Kayála. Here there was
not enough of bloody wine; here the brave Russians ended the feast: they
gave their host their fill to drink, and themselves fell for the Russian land.
The grass withered from sorrow, and the trees in anguish bent down to the
earth.[56]

VIII

There befell a hapless hour, O brothers! Already had the wilderness
covered Russia’s hosts, when Mischief arose in the hosts of Dazhbóg’s
grandchildren: she walked as a maiden in Troyán’s land,[57] splashed her
swan pinions in the blue sea,[58] and splashing them in the Don, recalled
heavy times.
Through the feuds of the princes ruin came from the pagans, for brother
spoke to brother: “This is mine and that is mine also,” and the princes said
of trifling matters, “They are important,” and created discord among
themselves; and the pagans came from all sides victorious into the Russian
land.
Oh, far has the falcon[59] flown, driving the birds by the sea, but Ígor’s
brave army will rise no more! Konchák called, and Gza raced over the

Russian land, hurling fire from a flaming horn.[60] Russian women wept,
saying: “No longer will our thoughts reach our dear ones, nor shall we ever
see them with our eyes, nor be adorned with tinkling gold and silver!”
And Kíev groaned under its sorrow, and Chernígov on account of its
misfortunes. Sadness spread over the Russian land, and a heavy gloom. The
princes fostered discord among themselves, and the pagans victoriously
overran the country, receiving tribute, a squirrel[61] from each house.
It is Ígor and Vsévolod, Svyatosláv’s brave sons, who through their
discord had wakened dishonour which their father, Svyatosláv[62] of Kíev,
the great, the mighty, had put to sleep: he had invaded the Pólovts land and
had carried terror to them, with his mighty armies and tempered swords;
had levelled their hills and ravines, ruffled their rivers and lakes, dried up
their streams and swamps; and, like a whirlwind, had snatched pagan
Kobyák[63] away from his mighty, steel-clad Pólovts army by the Ázov Sea,
until Kobyák fell in Kíev city, in the council-room of Svyatosláv. Germans,
Venetians, Greeks and Moravians sing the glory of Svyatosláv, but blame
Prince Ígor who had merged his wealth in the Kayála, the Pólovts river, and
had filled it with Russian gold. Here Ígor was unseated from his golden
saddle and placed upon the saddle of a slave.

IX

The city walls were silent, and merriment was dead. Svyatosláv saw a
troubled dream: “In Kíev on the mount you enveloped me last night,” he
said, “in a black shroud on a bed of yew; they poured out to me blue wine
mixed with bitterness; from empty quivers they showered large gems upon
my lap, and tried to comfort me. Already are there boards without a cross
beam in my hall of gold, and all night have the devilish crows been
cawing.”[64] ...
The boyárs spoke to the Prince: “Prince, sorrow has enthralled your
mind. Two falcons flew from their paternal throne of gold to find the city of
Tmútorokan, and anxious to drink from the Don with their helmets. The
falcons’ wings have been clipped by the pagan swords, and they have been
enmeshed in iron fetters. On the third day it was dark: two suns were
dimmed,[65] two red torches went out, and with them two young moons,

Olég[66] and Svyatosláv, were shrouded in darkness. On Kayála river
darkness veiled the day: the Pólovtses had invaded the Russian land, like a
litter of lynxes.... Fair Gothic[67] maidens sing upon the shore of the blue
sea, tinkling with the Russian gold: they sing the times of Bus, recall
Sharokán’s[68] revenge. But we, your druzhína, are anxious for the feast.”
Then great Svyatosláv uttered golden words, mingled with tears: “Oh,
my nephews, Ígor and Vsévolod! Too early did you begin to strike the land
of the Pólovtses with your swords, and to seek glory for yourselves. You
were vanquished ingloriously, for ingloriously have you spilled the blood of
the pagans! Your brave hearts are forged with hard steel and tempered in
daring exploits. See what you have done with my silvery hair! I no longer
see with me my mighty, warlike brother Izyasláv with his Chernígov
druzhína.... They overwhelmed their enemies with dirks, not bearing
bucklers, but raising a warcry and resounding the glory of their forefathers.
But you spoke: ‘We alone will vanquish! Let us ourselves gain the future
glory, and share the glory of our fathers!’ Why should not an old man feel
young again? When the falcon is moulting, he drives the birds far away, and
allows not his nest to be hurt. But alas, the princes will not aid me! My
years have turned to nothing. At Rim[69] they cry under the swords of the
Pólovtses, and Vladímir[70] groans under his wounds. Bitterness and sorrow
has befallen the son of Glyeb!”

X

Grand Prince Vsévolod![71] Fly from afar not only in thought, but come
to protect your paternal throne: for you could dry up the Vólga[72] with your
oars, and empty the Don with your helmets. If you were here, a Pólovts
slave-girl would be worth a dime, and a man-slave—half a rouble.[73] And
you know, together with the brave sons of Glyeb, how to hurl the Greek fire
on land.
You, Grim Aurochs Rúrik and David![74] Did not your golden helmets
swim in blood? Did not your valiant druzhína bellow like aurochses, when
they were wounded by tempered swords in a strange field? Put your feet, O
lords, into your golden stirrups to avenge the insult to the Russian land, the
wounds of Ígor, the valiant son of Svyatosláv!

Yarosláv Osmomýsl of Gálich![75] You sit high upon your throne wrought
of gold, propping with your iron-clad army the Carpathian mountains,
barring the king’s path, closing the gates of the Danube, hurling missiles
higher than the clouds, sitting in judgment as far as the Danube. Your
thunders pass over the land, and you hold the key to the gates of Kíev;
sitting on your paternal throne, you slay the sultans in their lands. Slay, O
lord, Konchák, the pagan villain, to avenge the Russian land, the wounds of
Ígor, the valiant son of Svyatosláv!
And you, valiant Román[76] and Mstisláv! A brave thought carries you
into action.[77] You fly high in your onslaught, like a falcon circling in the
air, about to swoop down upon the birds. You wear iron hauberks under
Latin helmets, and the earth has trembled from you in many a pagan land:
the Lithuanians, Yatvyágans, Deremélans and Pólovtses threw down their
warclubs and bent their heads under those tempered swords. But now, O
Prince, Ígor’s sun is dimmed,—the tree, alas, has shed its leaves. Along the
Ros[78] and the Sulá the Pólovtses have sacked the towns, but Ígor’s brave
army will rise no more. The Don calls you, O Prince, and the other princes
to victory!
Olég’s sons have hastened to the war. Íngvar and Vsévolod,[79] and the
three sons of Mstisláv,[80] a mighty winged brood! Not by the lot of war
have you acquired power. Of what good are your golden helmets, and
Polish warclubs and shields? Bar the enemy’s way with your sharp arrows,
to avenge the Russian land, the wounds of Ígor, the valiant son of
Svyatosláv!

XI

The Sulá no longer flows with a silvery stream by Pereyáslavl town,[81]
and the Dviná flows turbid by mighty Pólotsk, agitated by the pagans.
Izyasláv,[82] Vasílko’s son, alone made his sharp swords ring against the
Lithuanian helmets, outstripping the glory of his grandfather Vsesláv, but
himself was worsted by Lithuanian swords, and fell under crimson shields,
upon the bloodstained grass. Lying on his death-bed, he spoke[83]: “O
Prince, the birds have covered your druzhína with their wings, and the
beasts have lapped their blood.” There was not present the brother

Bryachisláv, nor the other, Vsévolod; alone he lost the pearl soul out of his
valiant body through the golden necklace. The voices were subdued,
merriment died away. The trumpets blare at Goródno.
Yarosláv and all grandchildren of Vsesláv![84] Furl your standards, sheath
your blunted swords, for you have leaped away from your grandfather’s
glory! You have with your discords invited the pagan hosts against the
Russian land, against the life of Vsesláv, for through your strife has come
the enslavement by the Pólovts land.
In the seventh age of Troyán,[85] Vsesláv cast his lot for his beloved
maiden.[86] He bestrode his horse, and galloped to the city of Kíev, and with
the thrust of the spear possessed himself of golden-throned Kíev. He
galloped hence as a grim beast to the south of Byélgorod,[87] and
disappeared in the blue mist; next morning he clanked with the battering-
ram, and opened the gates of Nóvgorod; he shattered the glory of Yarosláv,
[88]
and raced as a wolf to the Nemíga from Dudútki.[89]
On the Nemíga, ricks are stacked with heads, and they flail with
tempered chains; the body is placed on the threshing-floor, and the soul is
winnowed from the body. Not with grain were sown the bloody banks of
the Nemíga, but with the bones of Russian sons.
Prince Vsesláv sat in judgment over his people, apportioned cities to the
princes, but himself raced a wolf[90] in the night, and by cockcrow reached
from Kíev to Tmútorokan, and as a wolf crossed the path of great Khors.[91]
When they rang the bell in the church of St. Sophia for matins, early in the
morning at Pólotsk, he heard the ringing in Kíev. Though his cunning soul
could pass into another body, yet he often suffered woe. Thus wise Boyán
of old has justly said: “Neither the cunning, nor the agile, nor the swift bird
can escape the judgment of the Lord!”
Oh, the Russian land must groan as it recalls the former days and the
ancient princes! It was not possible to nail Vladímir to the hills of Kíev[92]:
now there are standards of Rúrik, and others of David....[93]

XII

Yaroslávna’s[94] voice is heard; like a cuckoo in a lonely spot she calls
plaintively in the morning: “I will fly,” she says, “like a cuckoo along the
Danube,[95] will wet my beaver sleeve in the river Kayála, will wipe off the
Prince’s bloody wounds on his manly body!”
Yaroslávna weeps in the morning at Putívl town on the wall, saying: “O
wind, mighty wind! Why, master, do you blow so strong? Why do you on
your light wings carry the Khan’s arrows against the warriors of my
beloved one? Is it not enough for you to blow on high below the clouds,
rocking the ships on the blue sea? Why, master, have you dispersed my
happiness over the grass of the steppe?”
Yaroslávna weeps in the morning at Putívl town on the wall, saying: “O
famous Dnieper, you have pierced the rocky mountains across the country
of the Pólovtses! You have rocked on your waves the boats of Svyatosláv as
far as the army of Kobák.[96] Fondly bring to me, master, my sweetheart,
that I may not in the morning send tears after him out to sea.”
Yaroslávna weeps in the morning at Putívl town on the wall, saying:
“Bright, three times bright sun, you give warmth and joy to all! Why,
master, have you thrust your burning beams on the warriors of my beloved
one? Why have you in the waterless plain dried up their bows, and sealed
their quivers in sorrow?”

XIII

The sea is agitated at midnight: mists are borne in the darkness. God
shows to Ígor a way out of the land of the Pólovtses into the country of
Russia to his father’s golden throne. The evening twilight has gone out. Ígor
sleeps; Ígor is awake: Ígor in his thought measures the plains from the great
Don to the small Donéts. His steed is ready at midnight. Ovlúr whistles
beyond the river, gives a sign to the Prince,—Prince Ígor will be no more!
The earth resounded, the grass rustled, the Pólovts’ tents trembled. But
Ígor raced like an ermine in the reeds, like a white duck over the water; he
jumped on a swift steed, dismounted as a light-footed wolf, and hastened to
the plain of the Donéts; and as a falcon flew through the mist, killing geese
and swans for his breakfast and dinner and supper. When Ígor flew as a

falcon, Ovlúr raced as a wolf, shaking off the cold dew, for they had worn
out their swift steeds.
The Donéts spoke: “Prince Ígor, great is your honour, and the grief to
Konchák, and joy to the Russian land!”
Ígor spoke: “O Donéts, great is your honour, having rocked the Prince on
your wave, having spread out for him the green grass on your silver banks,
having cloaked him with warm mists under green trees. You have guarded
him as a duck on the water, as a gull on the waves, as a mallard in the air.
Not thus the river Stúgna[97]: though having a scanty stream, it has
swallowed other brooks, and has spread the floods over the bushes. To the
young Prince Rostisláv the Dnieper has closed its dark banks. Rostisláv’s
mother weeps for the young Prince. The flowers faded in their sorrow, and
the trees bent in anguish to the ground.”
It is not magpies that are in a flutter: Gza and Konchák ride in Ígor’s
track. Then the raven did not croak, the jackdaws were silent, the magpies
did not chatter, only leaped from branch to branch. The woodpeckers
indicated the road to the river by their pecking; the nightingales announced
the day by their merry song.
Said Gza to Konchák: “Since the falcon is flying to his nest, let us shoot
the fledgling[98] with our golden darts.”
Said Konchák to Gza: “Since the falcon is flying to his nest, let us
enmesh the fledgling with a fair maiden!”
And Gza spoke to Konchák: “If we enmesh him with a fair maiden, we
shall have neither the young falcon, nor the fair maiden, and the birds will
attack us in the Pólovts plain.”

XIV

Boyán has said: “Hard it is for you, O head, to be without your shoulders;
ill it is for you, O body, to be without a head.” Even so is the Russian land
without Ígor.
The sun shines in the heaven,—Prince Ígor in the land of Russia!
Maidens sing at the Danube: their voices are carried over the sea to Kíev.

Ígor rides over the Boríchev,[99] to the church of the Holy Virgin of
Pirogóshch. The country is happy, the towns rejoice; they sing songs to the
elder princes, and then to the younger. Let us sing the glory of Ígor
Svyatoslávich, of Grim Aurochs Vsévolod, Vladímir Ígorevich! Hail,
princes and druzhína, who battle for the Christians against the pagan host!
Glory to the princes and the druzhína! Amen!

FOOTNOTES:

[23] Ígor was the son of Svyatosláv Ólgovich of Nóvgorod Syéverski, and
grandson of Olég of Tmútorokan.
[24] From the references to the princes whose praise he sang, it is evident that
he lived at the end of the eleventh and the beginning of the twelfth centuries.
Nothing else is known of this famous poet.
[25] Yarosláv, the son of Vladímir, lived from 1019-1054: he was the author
of the Russian Code (see p. 45).
[26] Mstisláv, Prince of Tmútorokan, was the brother of Yarosláv († 1036). In
1022 he killed in duel the giant Redédya, chief of the Kasógs who dwelt between
the Black and Caspian seas, and conquered their country.
[27] Román was a brother of Ígor’s grandfather Olég; he was killed by the
Pólovtses in 1079.
[28] Vladímir the Great, father of Yarosláv.
[29] A Turkish tribe, related to the Pechenyégs, who called themselves
Cumanians. They occupied the south of Russia as far as Hungary.
[30] See account of the eclipse in the Chronicle (p. 72).
[31] Troyán is counted among the ancient Russian divinities in The Holy
Virgin’s Descent into Hell (p. 97); but evidently he is also a reminiscence of the
Roman Emperor Trajan, whose ramparts and roads are still to be traced along the
Danube.
[32] The god of the flocks, i. e., of wealth and abundance. It is not quite clear
why the poet is called his grandson.
[33] Tributary of the Dnieper.
[34] Nóvgorod Syéverski, Ígor’s capital, in the Government of Chernígov.
[35] The appanage of Ígor’s son Vladímir, in the Government of Kursk.
[36] A bird of ill-omen; according to some, divinity of darkness.
[37] The border of the Black Sea.
[38] The Ázov Sea.
[39] The ancient Tauric Chersonese, near the modern Sebastopol.

[40] An ancient city of the Khazars, on the eastern shore of the Ázov Sea, on
the peninsula of Tamán. It became a Russian possession in the tenth century.
[41] A frequently recurring sentence, the meaning of which seems to be: You
are lost beyond redemption!
[42] The trophies won by Ígor.
[43] Gza and Konchák, khans of the Pólovtses, were the leaders of the
expedition. See p. 77.
[44] The four suns are: Ígor, his brother Vsévolod, his son Vladímir of Putívl,
and his nephew Svyatosláv Ólgovich of Rylsk.
[45] Tributary of the Don.
[46] God of the winds.
[47] Descendants of the Avars still live between Georgia and Circassia.
[48] Her name was Ólga.
[49] Olég is the grandfather of Ígor. The poet here recalls former encounters
with the Pólovtses. Not having been able to agree with his uncles, Izyasláv who
had occupied the throne in Kíev, and Vsévolod who had his appanage of
Chernígov, Olég escaped to Román the Fair of Tmútorokan, and decided to get
his rights by means of arms. He led three times the Pólovtses into Russia (in
1078, 1079 and 1094).
[50] That is, in the other world.
[51] Vladímir Monomákh hastened to his father’s aid. See his Instruction, p.
55.
[52] Olég and his cousin, Borís, were at that time absent from Chernígov.
When they arrived and opposed themselves to the superior force of Izyasláv,
Olég advised Borís to surrender; but he would not listen and made an attack
upon his uncle’s army and was killed.
[53] Olég is called the son of “Góre,” i. e., woe.
[54] The Russians are sons of Dazhbóg, the god of the sun, while the enemy
are the “devil’s children.”
[55] The first day the Russians defeated the Pólovtses; the next, the Pólovtses
defeated the Russians; on the third day, which was a Sunday, the Kovúans ran
away, and at noon Ígor was made prisoner. See the Chronicle, p. 74.
[56] Nature sympathises with the Russians.
[57] That is, far away; see note 5, p. 82.
[58] The Sea of Ázov.
[59] That is, Ígor; the Pólovtses are the birds.
[60] The Chronicle says the Pólovtses hurled the Greek fire.
[61] A silver coin.
[62] This Svyatosláv, the son of Vsévolod Ólgovich, had been the Prince of
Chernígov. He was Grand Prince of Kíev from 1174-1194. He had to give up his

throne twice, but in 1181 ascended it for the third time. He is called Ígor’s and
Vsévolod’s father by seniority, though he was only their uncle by relationship.
[63] The Russians obtained a famous victory over the Pólovtses, of whom
7000 were taken prisoners, in 1184.
[64] A series of evil omens.
[65] Ígor and Vsévolod.
[66] Probably the son of Ígor; but he was only eleven years old during the
expedition.
[67] Descendants of the Goths who had settled along the Black Sea had been
found and described as late as the sixteenth and even seventeenth centuries in the
Crimea and in the Tamán peninsula.
[68] These Gothic girls evidently sang the exploits of Pólovts princes.
Sharokán had made an incursion into Russia in 1107, but he was defeated and
had to flee. In 1111 Sharokán returned with an immense army to avenge his
defeat.
[69] Now Rómen, in the Government of Poltáva.
[70] Vladímir of Pereyáslavl. See the Chronicle, p. 78.
[71] Vsévolod Yúrevich, Prince of Súzdal, whose father, Yúri Dolgorúki, had
been Grand Prince at Kíev.
[72] In 1183 Vsévolod made an expedition against the Bulgarians of the
Vólga; he went down the Vólga as far as Kazán, and then proceeded on foot.
[73] That is, if Vsévolod were there, he would be so victorious against the
Pólovtses as to lower the price of Pólovts slaves.
[74] The sons of Rostisláv Mstislávich, and great-grandchildren of Vladímir
Monomákh.
[75] Yarosláv Osmomýsl († 1187) was the Prince of Gálich, which in his days
extended as far as the Prut and the Danube and included part of Moldavia. His
daughter was Ígor’s wife.
[76] Román Mstislávich ( † 1205), Prince of Volhynia, twice occupied the
throne in Gálich. He fought successfully against the Lithuanians and Yatvyágans,
and when he was Prince of Gálich he saved Constantinople from the impending
danger of a Pólovts and Pechenyég invasion. The Chronicle says of him: “He
rushed against the pagans like a lion, raged like a lynx, and destroyed them like a
crocodile, and crossed their lands like an eagle, for he was as brave as an
aurochs,” and “The Pólovtses used to frighten their children with his name.”
[77] Mstisláv was probably the brother of Íngvar and Vsévolod, mentioned
below.
[78] Tributary of the Dnieper.
[79] The sons of Yarosláv Izyaslávich, Prince of Lutsk, who was Grand Prince
of Kíev in 1173.
[80] Román, Svyatosláv and Vsévolod, sons of Mstisláv, great-grandchildren
of Vladímir Monomákh.

[81] The Pólovtses divided among themselves the towns along the Sulá. See
the Chronicle, p. 77.
[82] Izyasláv’s appanage was Goródno, in the Government of Minsk, hence
farther down “The trumpets blare at Goródno.”
[83] Izyasláv addresses himself.
[84] These are opposed to the brave Izyasláv, who is also a descendant of
Vsesláv. Vsesláv Bryachislávich, Prince of Pólotsk, was, in 1064, defeated by
Izyasláv and his brothers on the Nemíga; later he was enticed by Izyasláv to
Kíev, where he was imprisoned. In 1067 Izyasláv was driven out by the Kíevans,
and Vsesláv was made Grand Prince. Izyasláv attacked Vsesláv at Byélgorod,
but the latter fled to Pólotsk.
[85] The exact meaning of the “seventh age of Troyán” is not known; some
distant time is designated.
[86] That is, for Kíev.
[87] Ten versts from Kíev.
[88] Tributary of the Svísloch, in the Government of Minsk.
[89] Near Nóvgorod.
[90] The chronicles and popular tradition make Vsesláv a werewolf and a
sorcerer.
[91] Another name for Dazhbóg, the god of the sun.
[92] That is, for ever to retain Vladímir in Kíev.
[93] Now there is discord.
[94] Evfrosíniya (Euphrosyne), daughter of Yarosláv Osmomýsl of Gálich,
Ígor’s second wife.
[95] A standing formula for rivers in general, here the Kayála.
[96] Expedition of 1184.
[97] A swampy river in the Government of Kíev. Rostisláv Vsévolodovich, the
son of Vsévolod and Anna, the daughter of a Pólovts Khan, and the brother of
Vladímir Monomákh. After an unsuccessful attack upon the Pólovtses, he
escaped from captivity by jumping into the Stúgna, but being in heavy armour
he was drowned.
[98] Vladímir, the son of Ígor, who was also taken captive. He really married
Konchák’s daughter and returned with her to Kíev in 1187.

The Holy Virgin’s Descent into Hell. (XII. century.)

In spite of the prohibition of the Church, apocryphal literature
reached Russia from Byzantium by way of Bulgaria, and not only
spread all over Russia as a possession of the people, but even crept
into ecclesiastical literature, serving frequently the same purpose as
the writings of the Church Fathers. These apocryphal productions,
of which there is a very large number, held sway over the people
from the twelfth to the seventeenth century, and even now form the
background of many popular tales and songs, especially of those of
the “wandering people” and beggars. One of the most beautiful
stories of this kind is The Holy Virgin’s Descent into Hell, the
Russian manuscript of which goes back to the twelfth century.
Similar stories were also current in Italy, where there were colonies
of Bulgarian Manicheans, who were most active in disseminating
them. Dante was, no doubt, acquainted with them when he wrote his
Divine Comedy.
The Holy Virgin wished to see the torments of the souls, and She spoke
to Michael, the archistrategos: “Tell me all things that are upon earth!” And
Michael said to Her: “As you say, Blessed One: I shall tell you all things.”
And the Holy Virgin said to him: “How many torments are there, that the
Christian race is suffering?” And the archistrategos said to Her:
“Uncountable are the torments!” And the Blessed One spoke to him: “Show
me, in heaven and upon earth!”
Then the archistrategos ordered the angels to come from the south, and
Hell was opened. And She saw those that were suffering in Hell, and there
was a great number of men and women, and there was much weeping. And
the Blessed One asked the archistrategos: “Who are these?” And the
archistrategos said: “These are they who did not believe in the Father and
the Son and the Holy Ghost, but forgot God and believed in things which
God has created for our sakes; they called everything God: the sun and the
moon, the earth and water, beasts and reptiles. They changed Troyán,
Khors, Velés, Perún[100] to gods, and believed in evil spirits. They are even
now held in evil darkness, therefore they suffer such torments.”

And She saw in another place a great darkness. Said the Holy Lady:
“What is this darkness, and who are those who dwell therein?” Spoke the
archistrategos: “Many souls dwell in this place.” Spoke the Holy Virgin:
“Let the darkness be dispersed that I may see the torment.” And the angels
who watched over the torment answered: “We have been enjoined not to let
them see light until the coming of your blessed Son who is brighter than
seven suns.” And the Holy Virgin was saddened, and She raised Her eyes to
the angels and looked at the invisible throne of Her Father and spoke: “In
the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost! Let the darkness be
taken off that I may see this torment.”
And the darkness was lifted, and seven heavens were seen, and there
dwelt there a great multitude of men and women, and there was loud
weeping and a mighty noise. When the Holy Virgin saw them, She spoke to
them, weeping tears: “What have you done, wretched and unworthy people,
and what has brought you here?” There was no voice, nor an answer from
them. And the watching angels spoke: “Wherefore do you not speak?” And
the tormented said: “Blessed One! We have not seen light for a long time,
and we cannot look up.” The Holy Virgin looking at them wept bitterly. And
the tormented, seeing Her, said: “How is it, Holy Virgin, you have visited
us? Your blessed Son came upon earth and did not ask for us, nor Abraham
the patriarch, nor Moses the prophet, nor John the Baptist, nor Paul the
apostle, the Lord’s favourite. But you, Holy Virgin and intercessor, you are
a protection for the Christian people.”... Then spoke the Holy Virgin to
Michael the archistrategos: “What is their sin?” And Michael said: “These
are they who did not believe in the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost,
nor in you, Holy Virgin! They did not want to proclaim your name, nor that
from you was born our Lord Jesus Christ who, having come in the flesh,
has sanctified the earth through baptism: it is for this that they are
tormented here.” Weeping again, the Holy Virgin spoke to them:
“Wherefore do you live in error? Do you not know that all creation honours
my name?” When the Holy Virgin said this, darkness fell again upon them.
The archistrategos spoke to Her: “Whither, Blessed One, do you want to
go now? To the south, or to the north?” The Blessed One spoke: “Let us go
out to the south!” And there came the cherubim and the seraphim and four
hundred angels, and took the Holy Virgin to the south where there was a
river of fire. There was a multitude of men and women there, and they stood

in the river, some to their waists, some to their shoulders, some to their
necks and some above their heads. Seeing this, the Holy Virgin wept aloud
and asked the archistrategos: “Who are they that are immerged up to their
waists in the fire?” And the archistrategos said to Her: “They are those who
have been cursed by their fathers and mothers,—for this the cursed ones
suffer torment here.” And the Holy Virgin said: “And those who are in the
fiery flame up to their necks, who are they?” The angel said to Her: “They
are those who have eaten human flesh,—for this they are tormented here.”
And the Holy One said: “Those who are immerged in the fiery flame above
their heads, who are they?” And the archistrategos spoke: “Those are they,
Lady, who holding the cross have sworn falsely.”... The Holy One spoke to
the archistrategos: “I beg you this one thing, let me also enter, that I may
suffer together with the Christians, for they have called themselves the
children of my Son.” And the archistrategos said: “Rest yourself in
paradise!” And the Holy One said: “I beg you, move the hosts of the seven
heavens and all the host of the angels that we may pray for the sinners, and
God may accept our prayer and have mercy upon them. I beg you, order the
angelic host to carry me to the heavenly height and to take me before the
invisible Father!”
The archistrategos so ordered, and there appeared the cherubim and
seraphim and carried the Blessed One to the heavenly height, and put Her
down at the throne of the invisible Father. She raised Her hands to Her
blessed Son and said: “Have mercy, O Master, upon the sinners, for I have
seen them, and I could not endure: let me be tormented together with the
Christians!” And there came a voice to Her and said: “How can I have
mercy upon them? I see the nails in my Son’s hands.” And She said:
“Master! I do not pray for the infidel Jews, but for the Christians I ask Thy
forgiveness!” And a voice came to Her: “I see how they have had no mercy
upon my children, so I can have no mercy upon them.”
Spoke again the Holy One: “Have mercy, O Master, upon the sinners,—
the creation of Thine own hands, who proclaim Thy name over the whole
earth and even in their torments, and who in all places say: “Most Holy
Lady, Mother of God, aid us!” Then the Lord spoke to Her: “Hear, Holy
Mother of God! There is not a man who does not praise Thy name. I will
not abandon them, neither in heaven, nor upon earth.” And the Holy Virgin
said: “Where is Moses, the prophet? Where are all the prophets? And you,

fathers, who have never committed a sin? Where is Paul, God’s favourite?
Where is the Sunday, the pride of the Christian? And where is the power of
the worshipful cross through which Adam and Eve were delivered from
their curse?” Then Michael the archistrategos and all the angels spoke:
“Have mercy, O Master, upon the sinners!” And Moses wept loud and said:
“Have mercy upon them, O Lord! For I have given them Thy Law!” And
John wept and said: “Have mercy, O Master! I preached Thy gospel to
them.” And Paul wept and said: “Have mercy, O Master! For I carried
Thine epistles to the churches.”
And those that were in the darkness heard of this, and they all wept with
one voice and said: “Have mercy upon us, Son of God! Have mercy upon
us, King of all eternity!” And the Master said: “Hear all! I have planted
paradise, and created man according to my image, and made him lord over
paradise, and gave him eternal life. But they have disobeyed me and sinned
in their selfishness and delivered themselves to death.... You became
Christians only in words, and did not keep my commands; for this you find
yourselves now in the fire everlasting, and I ought not to have mercy upon
you! But to-day, through the goodness of my Father who sent me to you,
and through the intercession of my Mother who wept much for you, and
through Michael, the archistrategos of the gospel, and through the multitude
of my martyrs who have laboured much in your behalf, I give you from
Good Thursday to the holy Pentecost, day and night, for a rest, and you
praise the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost!” And they all answered:
“Glory be to Thy goodness! Glory to the Father and the Son and the Holy
Ghost, now and for ever!”

FOOTNOTES:

[99] The slope of the mountain near Kíev, where to-day is the suburb of
Podól.
[100] Pagan divinities. For Troyán, see note on p. 82; Khors, the god of the
sun (cf. note on p. 93); Velés, the god of abundance (cf. note on p. 83); Perún, the
god of thunder (see p. 70).

Daniel the Prisoner. (XIII. century.)

For some unknown reason Daniel had been imprisoned in an
island in the Lake of Lach, in the Government of Olónetsk. He
seems to have belonged to the druzhína of Yarosláv Vsévolodovich
of Pereyáslavl, who died in 1247 as Grand Prince of Vladímir. That
is all that is known about the life of this layman, one of the few in
the old period whose writing has come down to our times. The
begging letter which he addressed to the Prince is composed of
incorrectly quoted biblical passages and popular saws and proverbs;
many of these he drew from an ancient collection, The Bee, in
which moral subjects are arranged in chapters. In their turn, Daniel’s
saws have largely entered into the composition of a very popular
collection of the same kind, The Emerald.

LETTER TO PRINCE YAROSLÁV VSÉVOLODOVICH

We will blare forth, O brothers, on the reasoning of our mind, as on a
trumpet forged of gold. We will strike the silver organs, and will proclaim
our wisdom, and will strike the thoughts of our mind, playing on the God-
inspired reeds, that our soul-saving thoughts might weep loud. Arise, my
glory! Arise, psalter and cymbals, that I may unfold my meaning in
proverbs, and that I may announce my glory in words.... Knowing, O lord,
your good disposition, I take refuge in your customary kindness, for the
Holy Writ says: Ask and you shall receive. David has said: There is no
speech nor language, where their voice is not heard. Neither will we be
silent, but will speak out to our master, the most gracious Yarosláv
Vsévolodovich.
Prince my lord! Remember me in your reign, for I, your slave, and son of
your slave, see all men warmed by your mercy as by the sun; only I alone
walk in darkness, deprived of the light from your eyes, like the grass
growing behind a wall, upon which neither the sun shineth nor the rain
falleth. So, my lord, incline your ears to the words of my lips, and deliver
me from all my sorrow.

Prince my lord! All get their fill from the abundance of your house; but I
alone thirst for your mercy, like a stag for a spring of water. I was like a tree
that stands in the road and that all passers-by strike;—even thus I am
insulted by all, for I am not protected by the terror of your wrath, as by a
firm palisade.
Prince my lord! The rich man is known everywhere, even in a strange
city, while the poor man walketh unseen in his own. The rich man speaketh
and all are silent, and his words are elated to the clouds; but let the poor
man speak out, and all will call out to him, for the discourse of those is
honoured whose garments are bright. But you, my lord, look not at my
outer garb, but consider my inner thoughts, for my apparel is scanty, and I
am young in years, but old in mind, and I have soared in thought like an
eagle in the air.
Prince my lord! Let me behold your fair face and form. Your lips drop
honey; your utterances are like paradise with its fruit; your hands are filled
with gold of Tharsos; your cheeks are a vessel of spices; your throat is like
a lily dropping myrrh—your mercy; your look is as the choice Lebanon;
your eyes are like a well of living water; your belly is like an heap of wheat,
feeding many; your head riseth above my head....
Prince my lord! Look not at me as a wolf at a lamb; but look at me as a
mother at her babe. Look, O lord, at the birds of the air, that neither plough,
nor sow, nor gather into granaries, but rely upon God’s kindness. Let not
your hand be closed against giving alms to the needy. For it is written: Give
to him who asketh of you, open to him who knocketh, that you may not
forfeit the kingdom of heaven. For it is also written: Confide your sorrow to
the Lord, and He will nurture you until eternity. Deprive not the needy wise
man of his bread, but extol him to the clouds, like pure gold in a dirty
vessel; but the silly rich man is like a silken pillow-case stuffed full of
straw.
Prince my lord! Though I am not a valiant man in war, yet am I strong in
words, and I cull the sweetness of words, mixing them, as sea-water in a
leather bottle, and wind them and adorn them with cunning parables, and I
am glib of speech and ... my lips are pleasing, like a stream of the river
rapids.

Prince my lord! As an oak is strong by the multitude of its roots, thus is
our city under your domination. The helmsman is the head of the vessel,
and you, Prince, are the head of your people. I have seen an army without a
prince;—you might say: a big beast without its head. Men are the heads of
women, and princes—of men, and God—of the prince. As the pillow-case
that is adorned with silk makes a pleasant appearance, even thus you, our
Prince, are glorified and honoured in many lands through the multitude of
your men. As the net does not hold the water, but keeps a multitude of fish,
even thus you, our Prince, keep not the wealth, but distribute it among the
strong, making them brave, for you will gain gold and cities through them.
Hezekiah, the King of the Jews, boasted before the messengers of the King
of Babylon, when he showed them the treasure of his gold. But they
answered: “Our kings are richer than you, not with the treasure of gold, but
with a multitude of brave and wise men.” (For men will gain gold, but gold
will not gain men.) Water is the mother of the fish, and you are Prince of
your people. Spring adorns the earth with flowers, and you, Prince, adorn us
with your mercy. The sun alone warms with its rays, and you, Prince, adorn
and revive with your mercy.
Prince my lord! I have been in great distress, and have suffered under the
yoke of work: I have experienced all that is evil. Rather would I see my foot
in bast shoes in your house than in crimson boots in the court of a boyár.
Rather would I serve you in homespun than in purple in the court of a
boyár. Improper is a golden ring in the nose of a swine, and a good garment
upon a peasant. Even if a kettle were to have golden rings in its handles, its
bottom would not escape blackness and burning. Even thus a peasant: let
him be ever so haughty and insolent, he will not escape his blemish, the
name of a peasant. Rather would I drink water in your house, than mead in
the court of a boyár; rather would I receive a roasted sparrow from your
hand than a shoulder of mutton from the hand of a bad master.
Often has my bread, earned by work, tasted as wormwood in my mouth,
and my drink I have mingled with tears. Serving a good master, you gain
your liberty in the end, but serving a bad master, you only gain an increase
of your labour. Solomon has said: Better is one wise man than ten brave
men without understanding; better is one clever man than ten rulers of
cities. Daniel has said: A brave man, O Prince, you will easily acquire, but a
wise man is dear; for the counsel of the wise is good, and their armies are

strong, and their cities safe. The armies of others are strong, but without
understanding, and they suffer defeat. Many, arming themselves against
large cities, start out from smaller towns; as Svyatosláv, the son of Ólga,
said on his way to Constantinople to his small druzhína: “We do not know,
O brothers, whether the city is to be taken by us, or whether we are to
perish from the city: for if God is with us, who is against us?”...
Not the sea draweth the ships, but the winds; even thus you, O Prince,
fall not yourself into grieving, but counsellors lead you into it. Not the fire
causeth the iron to be heated, but the blowing of the bellows. A wise man is
not generally valiant in war, but strong in counsel; so it is good to gather
wise men around you. It is good to pasture horses in a fertile field (and to
fight for a good prince). Often armies perish through lack of order. If the
armies are strongly placed, they will, though they be defeated, make a good
running fight; thus Svyatopólk, who was guilty of killing his brothers, was
so fortified, that Yarosláv barely overcame him at night. Similarly Bonyák
the Scurfy through cunning routed the Hungarians at Gálich: when the latter
fortified themselves behind ramparts, the first scattered like hunting men
over the land; thus they routed the Hungarians, and badly defeated them.
Prince my lord! I have not been brought up in Athens, nor have I studied
with the philosophers, but I have pored over books, like a bee over all kinds
of flowers: from them have I gathered sweetness of speech, mingling
wisdom with it, as sea-water in a leather bottle....

Serapión, Bishop of Vladímir. (XIII. century.)

Serapión had been abbot of the monastery of the Grottoes in
Kíev, and in 1274 he was made bishop of Vladímir and Súzdal. He
died in 1275. We have five of his sermons, which are distinguished
for a certain simple, stern eloquence. The thirteenth century
produced very few writers, and Serapión’s sermons have an
additional interest because they contain references to the Tartar
invasion.

A SERMON ON OMENS

The Lord’s blessing be with you!
You have heard, brothers, what the Lord Himself has said in the gospel:
in the last years there will be signs in the sun, in the moon, and in the stars,
and earthquakes in many places, and famine. What had been foretold by the
Lord then, is now fulfilled in our days.[101] We have seen many times the
sun perished, the moon darkened, and the stars disturbed, and lately we
have seen with our own eyes the quaking of the earth. The earth, firm and
immovable from the beginning by the order of God, is in motion to-day,
trembling on account of our sins, being unable to bear our lawlessness. We
did not obey the gospel, did not obey the apostles, nor the prophets, nor the
great luminaries, I mean Basil and Gregory the theologues, John
Chrysostom, and the other holy fathers, by whom the faith was confirmed,
the heretics repelled, and God made known to all the nations. They have
taught us without interruption, but we are living in lawlessness.
It is for this that God is punishing us with signs and earthquakes. He does
not speak with His lips, but chastises with deeds. God has punished us with
everything, but has not dispelled our evil habits: now He shakes the earth
and makes it tremble: He wants to shake off our lawlessness and sins from
the earth like leaves from a tree. If any should say that there have been
earthquakes before, I shall not deny it. But what happened to us afterwards?
Did we not have famine, and plague, and many wars? But we did not
repent, until finally there came upon us a ruthless nation, at the instigation
of God, and laid waste our land, and took into captivity whole cities,

destroyed our holy churches, slew our fathers and brothers, violated our
mothers and sisters. Now, my brothers, having experienced that, let us pray
to our Lord, and make confession, lest we incur a greater wrath of the Lord,
and bring down upon us a greater punishment than the first.
Much is still waiting for our repentance and for our conversion. If we
turn away from corrupt and ruthless judgments, if we do away with bloody
usury and all rapacity, thefts, robbery, blasphemy, lies, calumny, oaths, and
denunciations, and other satanic deeds,—if we do away with all that, I
know well that good things will come to us in this life and in the future life.
For He Himself hath said: Turn to me, and I will turn to you. Keep away
from everything, and I will withhold your punishment. When will we, at
last, turn away from our sins? Let us spare ourselves and our children! At
what time have we seen so many sudden deaths? Many were taken away
before they could care for their houses; many lay down well in the evening
and never arose again. Have fear, I pray you, of this sudden parting! If we
wander in the will of the Lord, God will comfort us with many a comfort,
will cherish us as His sons, will take away from us earthly sorrow, will give
us a peaceful exit into the future life, where we shall enjoy gladness, and
endless happiness with those who do the will of the Lord.
I have told you much, my brothers and children, but I see our
punishments will not be diminished, nor changed. Many take no heed, as if
they weened themselves to be immortal. I am afraid that the word of God
will come to pass with them: If I had not spoken to them, they would not
have sinned; but now they have no excuse for their sin. And I repeat to you,
if we do not change, we shall have no excuse before the Lord. I, your sinful
pastor, have done the command of God in transmitting His word to you.

FOOTNOTES:

[101] These disturbances of nature are mentioned in the Chronicle under the
year 1230.

The Zadónshchina. (XIV. century.)

The Zadónshchina, i. e., The Exploits beyond the Don, has come
down in two versions, and is an interesting poetical account of the
battle at Kulikóvo (1380). The Word of Ígor’s Armament had taken a
strong hold on the author, who seems to have been a certain
Sofóniya of Ryazán. Not only are there many parallels in the two
poems, but whole passages are bodily taken from the older text,
with corruption of some phrases, the meaning of which was not
clear to the author of the Zadónshchina.

THE ZADÓNSHCHINA

Let us go, O brothers, into the midnight country, the lot of Japheth,[102]
the son of Noah, from whom has risen the most glorious Russia; let us there
ascend the Kíev mountains, and look by the smooth Dnieper over the whole
Russian land, and hence to the Eastern land, the lot of Shem, the son of
Noah, from whom were born the Chinese,[103] the pagan Tartars, the
Mussulmans. They had defeated the race of Japheth on the river Kayála.[104]
And ever since, the Russian land has been unhappy, and from the battle of
the Kálka[105] up to Mamáy’s defeat it has been covered with grief and
sorrow, weeping and lamenting its children. The Prince and the boyárs, and
all the brave men who had left all their homes, and wealth, and wives,
children, and cattle, having received honour and glory of this world, have
laid down their heads for the Russian land and the Christian faith.
Let us come together, brothers and friends, sons of Russia! Let us join
word to word! Let us make the Russian land merry, and cast sorrow on the
eastern regions that are to the lot of Shem! Let us sing about the victory
over the heathen Mamáy, and an eulogy to the Grand Prince Dmítri
Ivánovich and his brother,[106] Prince Vladímir Andréevich!... We shall sing
as things have happened, and will not race in thought, but will mention the
times of the first years; we will praise the wise Boyán,[107] the famous
musician in Kíev town. That wise Boyán put his golden fingers on the
living strings, sang the glory of the Russian princes, to the first Prince

Rúrik, Ígor Rúrikovich and Svyatosláv, Yaropólk, Vladímir Svyatoslávich,
Yarosláv Vladímirovich, praising them with songs and melodious musical
words.—But I shall mention Sofóniya of Ryazán, and shall praise in songs
and musical words the Prince Dmítri Ivánovich and his brother, Prince
Vladímir Andréevich, for their bravery and zeal was for the Russian land
and the Christian faith. For this, Grand Prince Dmítri Ivánovich and his
brother, Prince Vladímir Andréevich, sharpened their hearts in bravery,
arose in their strength, and remembered their ancestor, Prince Vladímir of
Kíev, the tsar of Russia.
O lark, joy of beautiful days! Fly to the blue clouds, look towards the
strong city of Moscow, sing the glory of Grand Prince Dmítri Andréevich!
They have risen like falcons from the Russian land against the fields of the
Pólovtses. The horses neigh at the Moskvá; the drums are beaten at the
Kolómna; the trumpets blare at Serpukhóv; the glory resounds over the
whole Russian land. Wonderfully the standards stand at the great Don; the
embroidered flags flutter in the wind; the gilded coats of mail glisten. The
bells are tolled in the vyéche[108] of Nóvgorod the Great. The men of
Nóvgorod stand in front of St. Sophia, and speak as follows: “We shall not
get in time to the aid of Grand Prince Dmítri Ivánovich.” Then they flew
together like eagles from the whole midnight country. They were not eagles
that flew together, but posádniks[109] that went out with 7000 men from
Nóvgorod the Great to Grand Prince Dmítri Ivánovich and to his brother
Vladímir Andréevich.
All the Russian princes came to the aid of Grand Prince Dmítri
Ivánovich, and they spoke as follows: “Lord Grand Prince! Already do the
pagan Tartars encroach upon our fields, and take away our patrimony. They
stand between the Don and Dnieper, on the river Mechá.[110] But we, lord,
will go beyond the swift river Don, will gain glory in all the lands, will be
an object of conversation for the old men, and a memory for the young.”
Thus spoke Grand Prince Dmítri Ivánovich to his brothers, the Russian
princes: “My dear brothers, Russian princes! We are of the same descent,
from Grand Prince Iván Danílovich.[111] So far we brothers have not been
insulted either by falcon, or vulture, or white gerfalcon, or this dog, pagan
Mamáy.”

Nightingale! If you could only sing the glory of these two brothers,
Ólgerd’s sons,[112] Andréy of Pólotsk and Dmítri of Bryansk, for they were
born in Lithuania on a shield of the vanguard, swaddled under trumpets,
raised under helmets, fed at the point of the spear, and given drink with the
sharp sword. Spoke Andréy to his brother Dmítri: “We are two brothers,
sons of Ólgerd, grandchildren of Gedemín, great-grandchildren of
Skoldimér. Let us mount our swift steeds, let us drink, O brother, with our
helmets the water from the swift Don, let us try our tempered swords.”
And Dmítri spoke to him: “Brother Andréy! We will not spare our lives
for the Russian land and Christian faith, and to avenge the insult to Grand
Prince Dmítri Ivánovich. Already, O brother, there is a din and thunder in
the famous city of Moscow. But, brother, it is not a din or thunder: it is the
noise made by the mighty army of Grand Prince Dmítri Ivánovich and his
brother Prince Vladímir Andréevich; the brave fellows thunder with their
gilded helmets and crimson shields. Saddle, brother Andréy, your good
swift steeds, for mine are ready, having been saddled before. We will ride
out, brother, into the clear field, and will review our armies, as many brave
men of Lithuania as there are with us, but there are with us of the brave men
of Lithuania seven thousand mailed soldiers.”
Already there have arisen strong winds from the sea; they have wafted a
great cloud to the mouth of the Dnieper, against the Russian land; bloody
clouds have issued from it, and blue lightnings flash through them. There
will be a mighty din and thunder between the Don and the Dnieper, and
bodies of men will fall on the field of Kulikóvo, and blood will flow on the
river Nepryádva, for the carts have already creaked between the Don and
Dnieper, and the pagan Tartars march against the Russian land. Grey wolves
howl: they wish at the river Mechá to invade the Russian land. Those are
not grey wolves: the infidel Tartars have come; they wish to cross the
country in war, and to conquer the Russian land. The geese have cackled
and the swans have flapped their wings,—pagan Mamáy has come against
the Russian land and has brought his generals....
What is that din and thunder so early before daybreak? Prince Vladímir
Andréevich has reviewed his army and is leading it to the great Don. And
he says to his brother, Grand Prince Dmítri Ivánovich: “Slacken not,
brother, against the pagan Tartars, for the infidels are already in the Russian
land, and are taking away our patrimony!”...

The falcons and gerfalcons have swiftly flown across the Don, and have
swooped down on the many flocks of swans: the Russian princes have
attacked the Tartar might, and they strike with their steel lances against the
Tartar armour; the tempered swords thunder against the Tartar helmets on
the field of Kulikóvo, on the river Nepryádva. Black is the earth under the
hoofs, but they had sowed the field with Tartar bones, and the earth was
watered with their blood, and mighty armies passed by and trampled down
hills and fields, and the rivers, springs and lakes were turbid. They uttered
mighty cries in the Russian land ... and they vanquished the Tartar horde on
the field of Kulikóvo, on the river Nepryádva.
On that field mighty clouds encountered, and in them lightnings
frequently flashed, and terrible thunders clapped: it is the Russian brave
warriors who were engaging the pagan Tartars for the great insult, and their
mighty gilded armour glistened, and the Russian princes thundered with
their tempered swords against the Tartar helmets....
At that time neither soldiers nor shepherds called in the field near the
Don, in the land of Ryazán, but only ravens croaked for the sake of the
bodies of the dead, so that it was a terror and a pity to hear: for the grass
was watered with blood, and the trees were bent to the ground with sorrow,
and the birds sang pitiful songs. All princesses and wives of the boyárs and
generals wept for the slain. Fedósya, the wife of Mikúla Vasílevich,[113] and
Mary, the wife of Dmítri, wept early in the morning at Moscow, standing on
the city wall, and spoke as follows: “Don, Don, you are a swift river, and
have cut through stone walls, and flow through the land of the Pólovtses!
Bring back my beloved one to me!”...
All over the Russian land there spread joy and merriment: the Russian
glory was borne through the land, but shame and destruction came on the
pagan Tartars, evil Mussulmans.... The Grand Prince by his own bravery
and with his druzhína vanquished pagan Mamáy for the sake of the Russian
land and the Christian faith. The pagans deposited their own arms under the
Russian swords, and the trumpets were not sounded, their voices were
silent. Mamáy galloped away from his druzhína, howled like a grey wolf,
and ran away to the city of Khafest....[114]

FOOTNOTES:

[102] The Byzantine chronographers generally begin their accounts with
Noah; so does Néstor, who follows those sources.
[103] The original has a word derived from Khin, which seems to be identical
with “China,” and is used in general for Asiatics.
[104] See pp. 75 and 89.
[105] The battle with the Tartars at the river Kálka took place in 1224.
[106] Vladímir Andréevich was the cousin of Dmítri Donskóy, the son of Iván
II.
[107] In the text the word is boyarin, i. e., “boyár,” evidently a corruption of
Boyán, which is one of the proofs of the Zadónshchina being a later imitation of
the Word of Ígor’s Armament.
[108] Popular assembly of Nóvgorod.
[109] Burgomasters or governors of Nóvgorod.
[110] Tributary of the Don.
[111] Iván Kalitá, 1328-1340.
[112] These Lithuanian Princes had acknowledged the sovereignty of
Moscow.

Afanási Nikítin. (XV. century.)

Nikítin set out about 1468 for India, whence he returned in 1474.
He wrote out an account of his many adventures, which is
interesting for its sober though rather one-sided narration. It stands
alone in the old Russian literature as the writing of a layman bent on
a commercial enterprise. His Travel to India has been translated by
Count Wielhorsky for the Hakluyt Society.

TRAVEL TO INDIA

I, poor sinner, brought a stallion to the land of India; with God’s help I
reached Junir all well, but it cost me a hundred roubles.
The winter began from Trinity day, and we wintered at Junir and lived
there two months; but day and night for four months there is but rain and
dirt. At this time of the year the people till the ground, sow wheat, tuturegan
(?), peas, and all sorts of vegetables. Wine is kept in large skins (?) of
Indian goats....
Horses are fed on peas; also on kichiris, boiled with sugar and oil; early
in the morning they get shishenivo. Horses are not born in that country, but
oxen and buffaloes; and these are used for riding, conveying goods, and
every other purpose.
Junir stands on a stony island; no human hand built it—God made the
town. A narrow road, which it takes a day to ascend, admitting of only one
man at a time, leads up a hill to it.
In the winter, the people put on the fata, and wear it around the waist, on
the shoulders, and on their head; but the princes and nobles put trowsers on,
a shirt and a caftan, wearing a fata on the shoulders, another as a belt round
the waist, and a third round their head.
O God, true God, merciful God, gracious God!
At Junir the Khan took away my horse, and having heard that I was no
Mahommedan, but a Russian, he said: “I will give thee the horse and a
thousand pieces of gold, if thou wilt embrace our faith, the Mahommedan

faith; and if thou wilt not embrace our Mahommedan faith, I shall keep the
horse and take a thousand pieces of gold upon thy head.” He gave me four
days to consider, and all this occurred during the fast of the Assumption of
our Lady, on the eve of our Saviour’s day (18th of August).
And the Lord took pity upon me because of His holy festival, and did not
withdraw His mercy from me, His simple servant, and allowed me not to
perish at Junir among the infidels. On the eve of our Saviour’s day there
came a man from Khorassan, Khozaiocha Mahmet, and I implored him to
pity me. He repaired to the Khan into the town, and praying him delivered
me from being converted, and took from him my horse. Such was the
Lord’s wonderful mercy on the Saviour’s day.
Now, Christian brethren of Russia, whoever of you wishes to go to the
Indian country may leave his faith in Russia, confess Mahomet, and then
proceed to the land of Hindostan. Those Mussulman dogs have lied to me,
saying I should find plenty of our goods; but there is nothing for our
country. All goods for the land of Mussulmans, as pepper and colours, and
these are cheap.
The rulers and the nobles in the land of India are all Khorassanians. The
Hindoos walk all on foot and walk fast. They are all naked and bare-footed,
and carry a shield in one hand and a sword in the other. Some of the
servants are armed with straight bows and arrows.
Elephants are greatly used in battle. The men on foot are sent first, the
Khorassanians being mounted in full armour, man as well as horse. Large
scythes are attached to the trunks and tusks of the elephants, and the
animals are clad in ornamental plates of steel. They carry a citadel, and in
the citadel twelve men in armour with guns and arrows.
There is a place Shikhbaludin Peratyr, a bazaar Aladinand, and a fair
once a year, where people from all parts of India assemble and trade for ten
days. As many as 20,000 horses are brought there for sale from Beder,
which is 20 kors distant, and besides every description of goods; and that
fair is the best throughout the land of Hindostan. Everything is sold or
bought in memory of Shikhbaludin, whose fête falls on the Russian festival
of the Protection of the Holy Virgin (1st October).

In that Aland (Aladinand?) there is a bird, gukuk, that flies at night and
cries gukuk, and any roof it lights upon, there the man will die; and
whoever attempts to kill it will see fire flashing from its beak. Wild cats
rove at night and catch fowls; they live in the hills and among stones. As to
monkeys, they live in the woods and have their monkey knyaz, who is
attended by a host of armed followers. When any of them is caught they
complain to their knyaz, and an army is sent after the missing; and when
they come to a town they pull down the houses and beat the people; and
their armies, it is said, are many. They speak their own tongues and bring
forth a great many children; and when a child is unlike its father or its
mother, it is thrown out on the highroad. Thus they are often caught by the
Hindoos, who teach them every sort of handicraft, or sell them at night, that
they might not find their way home, or teach them dancing.—From India in
the Fifteenth Century, in the Hakluyt Society Publications, London, 1857.

FOOTNOTES:

[113] A thousand-man of the Russian army.
[114] Probably a mistake for Kaffa in the Crimea.

Apocryphal Legends about King Solomon. (XV. century.)

Among the many apocryphal stories of the Old Testament that
were current in Russia the largest number centre about King
Solomon. They are mostly derived from Byzantine sources which,
in their turn, are often based on Jewish apocryphal accounts; thus
the Story of Kitovrás (evidently transformed from Centaurus) is also
given in the Talmud. Kitovrás is mentioned in Russian literature in
the fourteenth century, but the following passage is from a
manuscript of the fifteenth.

THE STORY OF KITOVRÁS

Then came Solomon’s turn to learn about Kitovrás. He found out that his
habitation was in a distant wilderness. Solomon, in his wisdom, prepared a
steel rope and a steel hoop, and on this he wrote an incantation in the name
of God. And he sent his best boyár with his men, and ordered them to take
with them wine and mead, and the fleece of sheep. And they came to the
appointed place, and behold, there were three wells, but he was not there.
By the instruction of Solomon, they emptied the three wells, and closed the
springs with the fleeces of the sheep, and filled two of the wells with wine,
and the third one with mead, but they themselves hid themselves nearby, for
they knew that he would come to the wells to drink water. And he came, for
he was very thirsty, and he lay down to drink, but seeing the wine, he said:
“Nobody becomes wise from drinking wine.” But as he was very thirsty, he
said again: “You are the wine that gladdens the hearts of men,” and he
emptied all three wells, and lay himself down to sleep. The wine heated him
up, and he fell into a deep sleep. Then the boyár approached him, put the
hoop upon his neck, and tied the steel rope to him. When Kitovrás awoke,
he wanted to tear himself loose. But Solomon’s boyár said to him: “The
name of the Lord is upon you with a prohibition”; and he, seeing the name
of the Lord upon him, went meekly along.
His habit was not to go by the crooked road, but by the straight road; and
when he arrived in Jerusalem, they levelled the road for him, and palaces
were destroyed, for he would not go by the crooked road. They came to the

house of a widow. She wept loud, and she begged Kitovrás with the
following words: “I am a poor widow.” He turned around the corner,
without leaving the street, and he broke a rib, and said: “A gentle word
breaks bones, but a harsh word rouses anger.” As he was led through the
market-place, he heard a man say: “Is there not a shoe that will wear seven
years?” and Kitovrás laughed out loud. And he saw another man who was
telling fortunes, and he laughed; and he saw a wedding ceremony, and he
wept....
Solomon asked Kitovrás: “Wherefore did you laugh at the man that asked
for a shoe that would last seven years?” And Kitovrás answered: “As I
looked at him, I saw that he would not live seven days.” And Solomon said:
“Wherefore did you laugh at the fortune-teller?” And Kitovrás said: “He
was telling people hidden things, and he did not himself know that a gold
treasure was right under him.” And the King said: “Go and find out!” They
went, and they found that it was so. And the King said: “Wherefore did you
weep when you saw the wedding?” And he said: “I felt sorry for the groom,
for I knew he would not live another thirty days.” And the King had the
matter investigated, and he found that it was so.

Andréy Mikháylovich Kúrbski. (1528-1583.)

Kúrbski was a descendant of the Yarosláv princes who, as he was
proud of mentioning, derived their origin from the great Vladímir.
At twenty years of age he took part in an expedition against Kazán,
and a few years later he distinguished himself at the storming of that
Tartar city. Iván the Terrible personally decorated him for his valour
in these and other expeditions against the Tartars, and sent him with
an army to Livonia to operate against the Livonian order. In 1563
Kúrbski lost an important battle against Poland. Fearing a terrible
vengeance from the cruel Tsar, not only for this defeat, but also for
having belonged to the party of Sylvester and Adáshev, he fled to
Poland, where he was received with open arms by King Sigismund.
As soon as he had reached the city of Volmar, then in the hands of
the Lithuanians, he sent his faithful servant Váska Shibánov with an
epistle (here given) to the Tsar. Iván, upon learning from Shibánov
that the letter he brought him was from the traitor Kúrbski, struck
the sharp point of his staff through the messenger’s foot and ordered
him to read its contents. Shibánov did so, without expressing any
pain, though he was bleeding profusely.
Kúrbski had belonged in Moscow to the circle of the enlightened
churchman Maksím the Greek, who believed in the importance of
profane studies. Kúrbski had acquired some knowledge of Latin and
Greek, which he perfected in his exile. In Poland he devoted himself
to literary studies, translating Chrysostom and Eusebius, and writing
a series of four epistles to Iván the Terrible, and others to other
prominent personages in Poland. His greatest merit consists in his
having written a History of Iván the Terrible, which is the first work
in the Russian language to deserve the name of history; for, while
the older chronicles gave accounts of events, Kúrbski subordinated
them to a general idea which runs through the whole work.

THE STORMING OF KAZÁN

If I wrote everything that took place around the city, there would be a
whole book of it. But it is worth mentioning that they used charms against
the Christian army by which they caused a great rainstorm. From the
beginning of the siege, and when the sun just began to rise, there walked
out upon the walls of the city, in our sight, now their old men, now their
women, and they began to howl satanic words, all the time waving their
garments to our army and turning around in an improper manner. Then
there arose a wind, clouds were formed, however clear the day may have
begun, and there came such a downpour of rain that all the dry places were
changed into bogs and filled with water. And this happened only over our
army, and not elsewhere, so that it did not proceed from the condition of the
atmosphere.
Seeing this, the Tsar was advised to send to Moscow for the wood from
the Saviour’s cross, which is worked into the rood that always lies near the
crown of the Tsar. With God’s aid, they reached Moscow in a very short
time, travelling by water to Nízhni Nóvgorod in swift Vyátka boats, making
the journey in three or four days, and from Nóvgorod to Moscow by fast
relays. When the rood was brought, into which is worked the wood from the
Saviour’s cross on which our Lord Jesus Christ suffered in the flesh for
men, the presbyters made a procession with Christian ceremonies and
blessed the water according to church use; through the vivifying power of
the cross, the pagan charms disappeared from that very hour completely....
At the end of the seventh week[115] of the city’s investment, we were
ordered to prepare the next day before daybreak for a general assault. This
was to be the signal: when the powder would explode and would demolish
the wall, which had previously been undermined and under which forty-
eight barrels of powder had been placed. More than half of the infantry was
ordered to the assault, a third of the army, or a little more, remaining in the
field to guard the Tsar. We were ready early in the morning, as we were
ordered, about two hours before daybreak. I was sent to make the assault at
the lower gate, above the river Kazán, and I had with me twelve thousand
soldiers. At the four sides of the city were placed strong and brave men,
some of them with large detachments.... The Tsar of Kazán and his senators
had been informed about all this, and they were prepared against us, as we
against them....

Then God helped us! My brother was the first to mount upon the city
wall by a ladder, and other brave soldiers were with him. Hacking and
spearing the Mussulmans about them, they climbed through the windows of
the great tower, and from the tower they rushed down to the large city gate.
The Mussulmans turned their backs on the gate and ran up the high hill to
the Tsar’s court, which was strongly fortified with a high fence, between
palaces and stone mosques. We after them to the Tsar’s palace, even though
we were burdened with our armour and many brave men had wounds on
their bodies, and very few were left to fight against them. Our army which
was left outside of the city, seeing that we were within and that the Tartars
had run away from the walls, rushed into the city,—and the wounded that
were lying on the ground jumped up, and the dead were resurrected. And
not only they, but those in the camp, the cooks and those that had been left
to watch the horses, and others who follow with merchandise, all ran into
the city, not to fight, but to plunder: that place was indeed full of the richest
booty, gold and silver and precious stones, and it teemed with sable furs and
other costly things.

LETTER TO IVÁN THE TERRIBLE

To the Tsar, glorified by God, who had once been illustrious in
orthodoxy, but who now, through our sins, has become the adversary of
both. Those who have sense will understand how that your conscience is
corrupt even beyond what is found among the infidels.... I have not allowed
before my tongue to utter any of these things, but having suffered the
bitterest persecution from you, and from the bitterness of my heart I shall
speak to you a little.
Why, O Tsar, have you struck down the mighty in Israel? Why have you
delivered to various deaths the generals given to you by God, and why have
you spilled their victorious, saintly blood in the temples of the Lord, at your
royal banquets? Why have you stained the thresholds of the churches with
the blood of the martyrs, and why have you contrived persecutions and
death against those who have served you willingly and have laid down their
lives for you, accusing good Christians of treason and magic and other
unseemly things, and zealously endeavouring to change light into darkness
and to call bitter what is sweet?

Of what crime have they been guilty, O Tsar, and with what have they
angered you, O Christian vicar? Had they not, through their bravery,
destroyed haughty kingdoms, and made those subservient to you by whom
our forefathers had been once enslaved? Have not the strong German cities
been given to you by God, through their wise foresight? Is that the way you
have rewarded us, poor men, by destroying us altogether? Do you, O Tsar,
deem yourself to be immortal? Or are you carried away by an unheard-of
heresy and imagine that you will not have to appear before the Supreme
Judge, the godlike Jesus, who will judge the whole world, but especially
cruel tormentors? He, my Christ, who sits on the throne of the cherubim, at
the right of the Supreme Power upon high,—will be the judge between you
and me.
What evils and persecutions have I not suffered from you! And what
misery and torment have you not caused me! And what mean calumnies
have you not brought down on me! So many various miseries have befallen
me that I cannot count them all to-day: my heart is still oppressed with
sorrow on account of them. But I shall say this much: I have been deprived
of everything, and through you I am exiled from God’s own country. I did
not implore with gentle words, did not entreat you with tearful sobs, did
not, through the clergy, beg for any favour from you, and you have repaid
me good with evil, and my love with an irreconcilable hatred.
My blood, which has been spilled for you like water, cries to my Lord
against you! God sees our hearts: I have diligently searched my mind, have
invoked the testimony of my conscience, have looked inwardly, have
rummaged, and have not found myself guilty before you in anything. I have
all the time led your army, and have brought no dishonour upon you: by the
aid of the Lord’s angel, I have obtained brilliant victories to your glory, and
never have your armies turned their backs to the enemy, but he has always
been gloriously vanquished to your honour. And this I did not in one year,
nor in two, but through a long series of years, and with much toil and
patience. I always defended my country, and little saw of my parents, nor
was I with my wife. I was continually out on expeditions, in distant cities,
against your enemies, and suffered much want and sickness, to which my
Lord Jesus Christ is a witness. I have frequently been covered with wounds
from the hands of the barbarians, in many battles, and all my body is
covered with sores. But all this, O Tsar, is as if it had not been, and you

have shown me your relentless fury and bitter hatred which is more fiery
than a furnace.
I wanted to tell you in order all my warlike exploits that I had performed
to your honour, my Christ aiding me, but I did not do so, as God knows
them better than man can, for He gives rewards for all this, nay even for a
glass of cold water; besides, I know that you know all that as well. Know
also this, O Tsar, that you will not behold my face again in this world before
the glorious coming of Christ. Nor imagine that I will forgive you what has
happened: up to my death will I continually cry out against you in tears to
the uncreated Trinity in which I believe, and I call to my aid the Mother of
the Prince of the Cherubim, my hope and intercessor, the Virgin Mary, and
all the saints, God’s elect, and my forefather, Prince Feódor Rostislávich,
whose body is incorrupt, having been preserved for many years, and emits
an aromatic odour from his grave and, by the grace of the Holy Ghost,
causes miraculous cures, as you, O Tsar, well know.
Do not imagine, O Tsar, in your vanity that those who have been
innocently struck down by you, and who are imprisoned and unjustly
banished by you, have all perished; do not rejoice and boast your vain
victory. Those who have been slain by you stand before the throne of God
and ask for vengeance against you; and those of us who are imprisoned or
unjustly banished from our country cry day and night to God! Though in
your pride you may boast of your evil power in this temporal, transitory
world, and invent instruments of torture against the race of Christians, and
insult and tread under foot the image of the angel, with the approbation of
your flatterers and companions of your table and with the approbation of
your boyárs who make your body and soul to perish ... yet this my letter,
which is wet with tears, I shall order to be placed in my tomb, in order to go
with you before the judgment seat of my Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Written in Volmir, a city of my lord, King August Sigismund, from whom
I hope favours and comfort for all my sorrows, through his royal kindness,
the Lord aiding me.

FOOTNOTES:

[115] The siege of Kazán began on August 23, and the city was taken October
2, 1552.

Iván the Terrible. (1530-1584.)

Iván the Terrible united the qualities of a great ruler with those of
a most cruel tyrant. In his long epistles to Kúrbski he develops a
strong sarcastic vein and defends himself with specious arguments,
quoting copiously from the Bible and the Church Fathers. He denies
his cruelty, but admits the execution of traitors, who, in his case,
form an enormous category.

LETTER TO PRINCE KÚRBSKI

Our God, the Trinity, who has existed since eternity but now as Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost, has neither beginning nor end; through Him we live
and move about, through Him kings rule and the mighty write laws. By our
Lord Jesus Christ the victorious standard of God’s only Word and the
blessed Cross which has never been vanquished have been given to
Emperor Constantine, first in piety, and to all the orthodox tsars and
protectors of orthodoxy and, in so far as the Word of God has been fulfillen,
they, in eagle’s flight, have reached all the godly servants of God’s Word,
until a spark of piety has fallen upon the Russian realm. The autocracy, by
God’s will, had its origin in Grand Prince Vladímir, who had enlightened all
Russia through the holy baptism, and the great Tsar Vladímir Monomákh,
who had received memorable honours from the Greeks, and the valiant
great Tsar Alexander Névski, who had obtained a great victory over the
godless Germans, and the praiseworthy great Tsar Dmítri, who had obtained
a great victory over the Hagarites beyond the Don, then it passed to the
avenger of wrongs, our ancestor, the great Tsar Iván, the gatherer of the
Russian land from among the ancestral possessions, and to our father of
blessed memory, the great Tsar Vasíli, until it reached us, the humble
sceptre-bearer of the Russian empire.
But we praise God for the great favour He has shown me in not
permitting my right hand to become stained by the blood of my race: for we
have not snatched the realm from anyone, but by the will of God and the
blessing of our ancestors and parents, were we born in the realm, were
brought up there and enthroned, taking, by the will of God and the blessing

of our ancestors and parents, what belonged to us, and not seizing that
which was not ours. Here follows the command of the orthodox, truly
Christian autocrat, the possessor of many kingdoms,—our humble,
Christian answer to him who was an orthodox, true Christian and a boyár of
our realm, a councillor and a general, but now is a criminal before the
blessed, vivifying cross of the Lord, a destroyer of Christians, a servant of
the enemies of Christianity, who has departed from the divine worship of
the images and has trodden under foot all sacred commands, destroyed the
holy edifices, vilified and trampled the holy vessels and images, who unites
in one person Leo the Isaurian, Constantine Kopronymos and Leo of
Armenia,—to Prince Andréy Mikháylovich Kúrbski, who through treachery
wanted to become a ruler of Yarosláv.
Wherefore, O Prince, if you regard yourself to have piety, have you lost
your soul? What will you give in its place on the day of the terrible
judgment? Even if you should acquire the whole world, death will reach
you in the end! Why have you sold your soul for your body’s sake? Is it
because you were afraid of death at the false instigation of your demons and
influential friends and counsellors?...
Are you not ashamed before your slave Váska Shibánov, who preserved
his piety and, having attached himself to you with a kiss of the cross, did
not reject you before the Tsar and the whole people, though standing at the
gate of death, but praised you and was all too ready to die for you? But you
did not emulate his devotion: on account of a single angry word of mine,
have you lost not only your own soul, but the souls of all your ancestors:
for, by God’s will, had they been given as servants to our grandfather, the
great Tsar, and they gave their souls to him and served him up to their
death, and ordered you, their children, to serve the children and
grandchildren of our grandfather. But you have forgotten everything and
traitorously, like a dog, have you transgressed the oath and have gone over
to the enemies of Christianity, and, not considering your wrath, you utter
stupid words, hurling, as it were, stones at the sky....
We have never spilled blood in the churches. As for the victorious, saintly
blood,—there has none appeared in our land, as far as we know. The
thresholds of the churches: as far as our means and intelligence permit and
our subjects are eager to serve us, the churches of the Lord are resplendent
with all kinds of adornments, and through the gifts which we have offered

since your satanic domination, not only the thresholds and pavements, but
even the antechambers shine with ornaments, so that all the strangers may
see them. We do not stain the thresholds of the churches with any blood,
and there are no martyrs of faith with us now-a-days.... Tortures and
persecutions and deaths in many forms we have devised against no one. As
to treasons and magic, it is true, such dogs everywhere suffer capital
punishment....
It had pleased God to take away our mother, the pious Tsarítsa Helen,
from the earthly kingdom to the kingdom of heaven. My brother George,
who now rests in heaven, and I were left orphans and, as we received no
care from any one, we laid our trust in the Holy Virgin, and in the prayers of
all the saints, and in the blessing of our parents. When I was in my eighth
year, our subjects acted according to their will, for they found the empire
without a ruler, and did not deign to bestow their voluntary attention upon
us, their master, but were bent on acquiring wealth and glory, and were
quarrelling with each other. And what have they not done! How many
boyárs, how many friends of our father and generals they have killed! And
they seized the farms and villages and possessions of our uncles, and
established themselves therein. The treasure of our mother they trod under
foot and pierced with sharp sticks, and transferred it to the great treasure,
but some of it they grabbed themselves; and that was done by your
grandfather Mikháylo Tuchkóv. The Princes Vasíli and Iván Shúyski took it
upon themselves to have me in their keeping, and those who had been the
chief traitors of our father and mother they let out of prison, and they made
friends with them. Prince Vasíli Shúyski with a Judas crowd fell in the court
belonging to our uncle upon our father confessor Fedór Mishúrin, and
insulted him, and killed him; and they imprisoned Prince Iván Fedórovich
Byélski and many others in various places, and armed themselves against
the realm; they ousted metropolitan Daniel from the metropolitan see and
banished him: and thus they improved their opportunity, and began to rule
themselves.
Me and my brother George, of blessed memory, they brought up like
vagrants and children of the poorest. What have I not suffered for want of
garments and food! And all that against my will and as did not become my
extreme youth. I shall mention just one thing: once in my childhood we
were playing, and Prince Iván Vasílevich Shúyski was sitting on a bench,

leaning with his elbow against our father’s bed, and even putting his foot
upon it; he treated us not as a parent, but as a master ... who could bear such
presumption? How can I recount all the miseries which I have suffered in
my youth? Often did I dine late, against my will. What had become of the
treasure left me by my father? They had carried everything away, under the
cunning pretext that they had to pay the boyár children from it, but, in
reality, they had kept it back from them, to their own advantage, and had
not paid them off according to their deserts; and they had also held back an
immense treasure of my grandfather and father, and made it into gold and
silver vessels, inscribing thereupon the names of their parents, as if they had
been their inheritance.... It is hardly necessary to mention what became of
the treasure of our uncles: they appropriated it all to themselves! Then they
attacked towns and villages, tortured the people most cruelly, brought much
misery upon them, and mercilessly pillaged the possessions of the
inhabitants....
When we reached the age of fifteen, we, inspired by God, undertook to
rule our own realm and, with the aid of almighty God, we ruled our realm in
peace and undisturbed, according to our will. But it happened then that, on
account of our sins, a fire having spread, by God’s will, the royal city of
Moscow was consumed. Our boyárs, the traitors whom you call martyrs,
whose names I shall purposely pass over in silence, made use of the
favourable opportunity for their mean treachery, whispered into the ears of a
stupid crowd that the mother of my mother, Princess Anna Glínski, with all
her children and household, was in the habit of extracting men’s hearts, and
that by a similar sorcery she had put Moscow on fire, and that we knew of
her doings. By the instigation of these our traitors, a mass of insensate
people, crying in the manner of the Jews, came to the apostolic cathedral of
the holy martyr Dimítri of Selún, dragged out of it our boyár Yúri
Vasílevich Glínski, pulled him inhumanly into the cathedral of the
Assumption, and killed the innocent man in the church, opposite the
metropolitan’s place; they stained the floor of the church with his blood,
dragged his body through the front door, and exposed him on the market-
place as a criminal,—everybody knows about this murder in the church. We
were then living in the village of Vorobévo; the same traitors instigated the
populace to kill us under the pretext (and you, dog, repeat the lie) that we
were keeping from them Prince Yúri’s mother, Princess Anna, and his

brother, Prince Mikhaíl. How is one not to laugh at such stupidity? Why
should we be incendiaries in our own empire?...
You say that your blood has been spilled in wars with foreigners, and you
add, in your foolishness, that it cries to God against us. That is ridiculous! It
has been spilled by one, and it cries out against another. If it is true that
your blood has been spilled by the enemy, then you have done your duty to
your country; if you had not done so, you would not have been a Christian
but a barbarian:—but that is not our affair. How much more ours, that has
been spilled by you, cries out to the Lord against you! Not with wounds,
nor drops of blood, but with much sweating and toiling have I been
burdened by you unnecessarily and above my strength! Your many
meannesses and persecutions have caused me, instead of blood, to shed
many tears, and to utter sobs and have anguish of my soul....
You say you want to put your letter in your grave: that shows that you
have completely renounced your Christianity! For God has ordered not to
resist evil, but you renounce the final pardon which is granted to the
ignorant; therefore it is not even proper that any mass shall be sung after
you. In our patrimony, in the country of Lifland, you name the city of
Volmir as belonging to our enemy, King Sigismund: by this you only
complete the treachery of a vicious dog!...
Written in our great Russia, in the famous, royal capital city of Moscow,
on the steps of our imperial threshold, in the year from the creation of the
world 7072, the fifth day of July.

The Domostróy. (XVI. century.)

The Domostróy, i. e., House-government, is an important
document of the sixteenth century, as it throws a light on the inner
life of the Russians in the time of Iván the Terrible. Its authorship is
ascribed in the extant manuscripts to Sylvester, the adviser of Iván
the Terrible, but it is assumed that he was only the last compiler of
various codes of conduct that were known in Russia before his day.
At least, the whole production bears the stamp of being a composite
work. Two distinct groups are discerned in it: the first has continual
references to the Tsar and the honours due him; the other deals with
a society whose chief interest is purely commercial, and appeals to
the judgment of the people, instead of to that of the Tsar. From this
the inference is drawn that the first had its origin in Moscow, the
second in Nóvgorod. The morality of the Domostróy is one of
external formalism. To preserve appearances before God and men
is, according to this code, the chief aim in life.

HOW TO EDUCATE CHILDREN AND BRING THEM UP IN THE
FEAR OF GOD

If God send children, sons or daughters, father and mother must take care
of these their children. Provide for them and bring them up in good
instruction. Teach them the fear of God and politeness and propriety, and
teach them some handicraft, according to the time and age of the children:
the mother instructing her daughters, and the father his sons, as best he
knows and God counsels him. Love them and watch them and save them
through fear. Teaching and instructing them and reasoning with them,
punish them. Teach your children in their youth, and you will have a quiet
old age. Look after their bodily cleanliness, and keep them from all sin, like
the apple of your eye and your own souls. If the children transgress through
the neglect of their parents, the parents will answer for these sins on the day
of the terrible judgment. If the children are not taken care of and transgress
through lack of the parents’ instruction, or do some evil, there will be both
to the parents and children a sin before God, scorn and ridicule before men,
a loss to the house, grief to oneself, and cost and shame from the judges. If

by God-fearing, wise and sensible people the children be brought up in the
fear of God, and in good instruction and sensible teaching, in wisdom and
politeness and work and handicraft, such children and their parents are
loved by God, blessed by the clerical vocation, and praised by good people;
and when they are of the proper age, good people will gladly and thankfully
marry off their sons, according to their possessions and the will of God, and
will give their daughters in marriage to their sons. And if God take away
one of their children, after the confession and extreme unction, the parents
bring a pure offering to God, to take up an abode in the eternal mansion;
and the child is bold to beg for God’s mercy and forgiveness of his parents’
sins.

HOW TO TEACH CHILDREN AND SAVE THEM THROUGH FEAR

Punish your son in his youth, and he will give you a quiet old age, and
restfulness to your soul. Weaken not beating the boy, for he will not die
from your striking him with the rod, but will be in better health: for while
you strike his body, you save his soul from death. If you love your son,
punish him frequently, that you may rejoice later. Chide your son in his
childhood, and you will be glad in his manhood, and you will boast among
evil persons, and your enemies will be envious. Bring up your child with
much prohibition, and you will have peace and blessing from him. Do not
smile at him, or play with him, for though that will diminish your grief
while he is a child, it will increase it when he is older, and you will cause
much bitterness to your soul. Give him no power in his youth, but crush his
ribs while he is growing and does not in his wilfulness obey you, lest there
be an aggravation and suffering to your soul, a loss to your house,
destruction to your property, scorn from your neighbours and ridicule from
your enemies, and cost and worriment from the authorities.

HOW CHRISTIANS ARE TO CURE DISEASES AND ALL KINDS
OF AILMENTS

If God send any disease or ailment down upon a person, let him cure
himself through the grace of God, through tears, prayer, fasting, charity to
the poor, and true repentance. Let him thank the Lord and beg His

forgiveness, and show mercy and undisguised charity to everybody. Have
the clergy pray to the Lord for you, and sing the mass. Sanctify the water
with the holy crosses and holy relics and miracle-working images, and be
anointed with the holy oil. Frequent the miracle-working and holy places,
and pray there with a pure conscience. In that way you will receive from
God a cure for all your ailments. But you must henceforth abstain from sin,
and in the future do no wrong, and keep the commands of the spiritual
fathers, and do penance. Thus you will be purified from sin, and your
spiritual and bodily ailment will be cured, and God will be gracious to you.

THE WIFE IS ALWAYS AND IN ALL THINGS TO TAKE COUNSEL
WITH HER HUSBAND

In all affairs of every-day life, the wife is to take counsel with her
husband, and to ask him, if she needs anything. Let her be sure that her
husband wants her to keep company with the guests she invites, or the
people she calls upon. Let her put on the best garment, if she receives a
guest, or herself is invited somewhere to dinner. By all means let her abstain
from drinking liquor, for a drunk man is bad enough, but a drunk woman
has no place in the world. A woman ought to talk with her lady-friends of
handwork and housekeeping. She must pay attention to any good word that
is said in her own house, or in that of her friend: how good women live,
how they keep house, manage their household, instruct their children and
servants, obey their husbands, and ask their advice in everything, and
submit to them. And if there be aught she does not know, let her politely
inquire about it.... It is good to meet such good women, not for the sake of
eating and drinking with them, but for the sake of good converse and
information, for it is profitable to listen to them. Let not a woman rail at
anyone, or gossip about others. If she should be asked something about a
person, let her answer: “I know nothing about it, and have heard nothing of
it; I do not inquire about things that do not concern me; nor do I sit in
judgment over the wives of princes, boyárs, or my neighbours.”

HOW TO INSTRUCT SERVANTS

Enjoin your servants not to talk about other people. If they have been
among strangers, and have noticed anything bad there, let them not repeat it
at home; nor should they bruit about what is going on at home. A servant
must remember what he has been sent for, and he must not know, nor
answer any other questions that are put to him. The moment he has carried
out his commission, he should return home and report to his master in
regard to the matter he has been sent for; let him not gossip of things he has
not been ordered to report, lest he cause quarrel and coldness between the
masters.
If you send your servant, or son, to tell, or do something, or buy a thing,
ask him twice: “What have I ordered you to do? What are you to say, or do,
or buy?” If he repeats to you as you have ordered him, all is well.... If you
send anywhere some eatables or liquids, send full measures, so that they
cannot lie about them. Send your wares after having measured or weighed
them, and count the money, before you send it out. Best of all, dispatch
under seal. Carefully instruct the servant whether he is to leave the things at
the house, if the master be absent, or if he is to bring them back home....
When a servant is sent to genteel people, let him knock at the door softly.
If anyone should ask him, as he passes through the courtyard: “What
business brings you here?” let him not give him any satisfaction, but say: “I
have not been sent to you; I shall tell to him to whom I have been sent.” Let
him clean his dirty feet before the ante-chamber, or house, or cell, wipe his
nose, clear his throat, and correctly say his prayer; and if he does not
receive an “amen” in response, he should repeat the prayer in a louder
voice, twice or three times. If he still receives no answer, he must softly
knock at the door. When he is admitted, he should bow before the holy
images, give his master’s respects, and tell his message. While doing so, let
him not put his finger in his nose, nor cough, nor clean his nose, nor clear
his throat, nor spit. If he absolutely must do so, let him step aside. He must
stand straight and not look to either side when reporting the message; nor
should he relate any matter not relevant to the message. Having done his
duty, he should forthwith return home, to report to his master.

Songs Collected by Richard James. (1619-1620.)

Richard James, a graduate of Oxford, had been sent to Russia to
look after the spiritual welfare of the young Englishmen who were
connected with the Merchant Company. He arrived in Moscow on
January 19, 1619, and started back by the way of Arkhángelsk on
August 20 of the same year. Having been shipwrecked, he was
compelled to pass the winter in Kholmogóry, from which place he
left for England the next spring. He took with him a copy of six
songs that some Russian had written out for him: they are now
deposited in the Bodleian Library. These songs are interesting as
being the oldest folksongs collected in Russia, and as having been
composed immediately after the events which they describe.
The Song of the Princess Kséniya Borísovna is given in W. R.
Morfill’s Story of Russia, New York and London, 1890.

INCURSION OF THE CRIMEAN TARTARS[116]

Not a mighty cloud has covered the sky,
Nor mighty thunders have thundered:
Whither travels the dog, Crimea’s tsar?—
To the mighty tsarate of Muscovy.
“To-day we will go against stone-built Moscow,
But coming back, we will take Ryazán.”
And when they were at the river Oká,
They began their white tents to pitch.
“Now think a thought with all your minds:
Who is to sit in stone-built Moscow,
And who is to sit in Vladímir,
And who is to sit in Súzdal,
And who will hold old Ryazán,
And who will sit in Zvenígorod,
And who will sit in Nóvgorod?”
There stepped forward Diví Murza, son of Ulán:
“Listen, our lord, Crimea’s tsar!
You, our lord, shall sit in stone-built Moscow,
And your son in Vladímir,
And your nephew in Súzdal,
And your relative in Zvenígorod,
And let the equerry hold old Ryazán,
But to me, O lord, grant Nóvgorod:
There, in Nóvgorod, lies my luck.”
The voice of the Lord called out from heaven:
“Listen, you dog, Crimea’s tsar!
Know you not the tsarate of Muscovy?
There are in Moscow seventy Apostles,[117]
Besides the three Sanctified;
And there is in Moscow still an orthodox Tsar.”
And you fled, you dog, Crimea’s tsar,
Not over the highways, nor the main road,
Nor following the black standard.

THE SONG OF THE PRINCESS KSÉNIYA BORÍSOVNA[118]

There weepeth a little bird,
A little white quail:
“Alas, that I so young must grieve!
They wish to burn the green oak,
To destroy my little nest,
To kill my little ones,
To catch me, quail.”
In Moscow the Princess weepeth:
“Alas that I so young must grieve!
For there comes to Moscow the traitor,
Gríshka Otrépev Rozstríga,[119]
Who wants to take me captive,
And having captured make me a nun,
To send me into the monastery.
But I do not wish to become a nun,
To go into a monastery:
I shall keep my dark cell open,
To look at the fine fellows.
O our beautiful corridors!
Who will walk over you
After our tsarian life
And after Borís Godunóv?
O our beautiful palace halls!
Who will be sitting in you
After our tsarian life
And after Borís Godunóv?”
And in Moscow the Princess weepeth,
The daughter of Borís Godunóv:
“O God, our merciful Saviour!
Wherefore is our tsardom perished,—
Is it for father’s sinning,
Or for mother’s not praying?
And you beloved palace halls!
Who will rule in you,
After our tsarian life?
Fine stuffs of drawn lace!—
Shall we wind you around the birches?

Fine gold-worked towels!
Shall we throw you into the woods?
Fine earrings of hyacinth
Shall we hang you on branches,
After our tsarian life,
After the reign of our father,
Glorious Borís Godunóv?
Wherefore comes to Moscow Rozstríga,
And wants to break down the palaces,
And to take me, princess, captive,
And to send me to Ustyúzhna Zheléznaya,
To make me, princess, a nun,
To place me behind a walled garden?
Why must I grieve,
As they take me to the dark cell,
And the abbess gives me her blessing?”

THE RETURN OF PATRIARCH FILARÉT TO MOSCOW[120]

The tsarate of Muscovy was happy
And all the holy Russian land.
Happy was the sovereign, the orthodox Tsar,
The Grand Duke Mikhaíl Fedórovich,
For he was told that his father had arrived,
His father Filarét Nikítich,
From the land of the infidel, from Lithuania.
He had brought back with him many princes and boyárs,
He had also brought the boyár of the Tsar,
Prince Mikhaíl Borísovich Sheyn.
There had come together many princes, boyárs, and dignitaries,
In the mighty tsarate of Muscovy:
They wished to meet Filarét Nikítich
Outside the famous stone-built Moscow.
’Tis not the red sun in its course,—
’Tis the orthodox Tsar that has gone out,
To meet his father dear,
Lord Filarét Nikítich.
With the Tsar went his uncle,
Iván Nikítich the boyár.—
“The Lord grant my father be well,
My father, lord Filarét Nikítich.”
They went not into the palace of the Tsar,
They went into the cathedral of the Most Holy Virgin,
To sing an honourable mass.
And he blessed his beloved child:
“God grant the orthodox Tsar be well,
Grand Duke Mikhaíl Fedórovich!
And for him to rule the tsarate of Muscovy
And the holy Russian land.

FOOTNOTES:

[116] Having destroyed almost the whole of Moscow by fire in 1572, Devlét-
Giréy made again an incursion the next year. He was so sure of an easy victory,

that the streets of Moscow, so Kúrbski tells, were alotted in advance to the
Murzas. He came with an army of 120,000 men, and left on the field of battle
100,000.
[117] Either churches or images of the apostles; a similar interpretation holds
for the next line.
[118] She was shorn a nun by order of the False Demetrius, and was sent to a
distant monastery.
[119] Rozstríga means “he who has abandoned his tonsure.”
[120] Filarét Nikítich, the father of Mikhaíl Fedórovich, returned from his
Lithuanian captivity in 1619 and was at once proclaimed Patriarch.

Yúri Krizhánich. (1617-about 1677.)

Krizhánich was a Croatian who had studied at the Croatian
Seminary at Vienna, at the university of Bologna, and at the Greek
College of St. Athanasius at Rome, where he came in contact with
some Russians. He early dreamed of a union of all the Slavic
nations under the rule of Russia, and in 1657 he went to Southern
Russia, where he began a propaganda among the Cossacks in favour
of a union with that country. Two years later he appeared in
Moscow, where his Catholic religion and his efforts at introducing a
Western culture brought him into disrepute, and he was at once
banished to Siberia, where he lived until the year 1676. He
composed a large number of works on an Universal Slavic
language, on the Russian empire in the seventeenth century, and on
the union of the Churches, writing not in Russian, but in a strange
mixture of several Slavic languages, of his own invention. In these
he developed a strong Panslavism, full of hatred of everything
foreign, except foreign culture, and expressed high hopes for
Russia’s future greatness. His works are said to have been used by
Peter the Great, but they were not published until 1860.

POLITICAL REASONS FOR THE UNION OF THE CHURCHES

The sixth reason for my contention is of a political nature, and refers to
the nation’s weal. For this discord of the Churches is even now the cause of
Doroshénko’s rebellion and the Turkish invasion, and continuation of the
present war, and has from the beginning been the cause of much evil. The
Poles have an ancient adage: Aut Moscovia Polonizat, aut Polonia
Moscovizat, i. e., Either Moscow shall become Polish, or Poland shall be a
part of the Russian empire. It is written in the histories of other nations, and
the advisers of the Tsar know it, that in the days of Feódor Ivánovich and
later there have been many congresses held and embassies sent for the
purpose of securing a Russian ruler for Poland and Lithuania. There is no
doubt but that Poland and Lithuania would have become possessions of the
Russian Tsars, if it were not for the division of the Churches. And there
would not have been many old and new wars, nor bloodshed, in which so

many hundreds of thousands of innocent people have perished by the
sword, and have been led into Mussulman captivity. And the Russian nation
would have long ago been far advanced in profane and political sciences
that are so necessary for all well-educated persons, and would not be
scorned and ridiculed and hated by the European nations for its barbarism.
Nor would it suffer such unbearable disgrace and losses in war and
commerce from the Germans and Crimeans, as it is suffering now. Book
knowledge and political wisdom is a leaven of the mind, and a fast
friendship with the Poles and Lithuanians would have made the Russian
nation more renowned and more feared by the surrounding peoples, and
richer in all earthly possessions.

ON KNOWLEDGE

Kings must instruct their subjects, parents their children, how to obtain
knowledge. The time has come for our nation to be instructed in various
branches, for God has in His mercy and kindness uplifted through Russia a
Slavic kingdom to glory, power and majesty, such as for splendour has
never existed before among us. We observe with other nations that as soon
as a kingdom rises to higher importance, the sciences and arts at once begin
to flourish among them. We, too, must learn, for under the honoured rule of
the Righteous Tsar and Great King Alexis Mikháylovich we have an
opportunity to wipe off the mould of our ancient barbarism, to acquire
various sciences, to adopt a better organisation of society, and to reach a
higher well-being.

ON FOREIGNERS

We are not possessed of an innate vivacity, nor praiseworthy national
characteristics, nor sincerity of heart. For people who have such pride do
not allow foreigners to command them, except by force, whereas our nation
of its own free will invites foreigners to come to its country. Not one people
under the sun has since the beginning of the world been so abused and
disgraced by foreigners as we Slavs have been by the Germans. Our whole
Slavic nation has been subject to this kind of treatment; everywhere we
have upon our shoulders Germans, Jews, Scotchmen, Gypsies, Armenians,

Greeks and merchants of other nationalities, who suck our blood. In Russia
you will see nowhere any wealth, except in the Tsar’s treasury; everywhere
there is dire, bare poverty.

Grigóri Kotoshíkhin. (1630-1667.)

Grigóri Kotoshíkhin was a clerk, and later a scribe (podyáchi) in
the Department of Legations, a kind of Foreign Office. He had been
frequently employed as an ambassador in connection with various
treaties between Russia and Sweden and Poland. While at Moscow,
he had been guilty of some dishonesty to his own country by giving
certain secrets of State to the Swedish ambassador; but that was an
offence not uncommon at Moscow, where patriotism was seldom of
a disinterested character. In 1664 he was sent out with the Russian
army that was then operating against Poland. Shortly after, its two
generals, Cherkásski and Prozoróvski, were recalled, and Dolgorúki
was sent in their place. The latter tried to get Kotoshíkhin’s aid in
denouncing his two predecessors for traitorous actions, but
Kotoshíkhin refused. Fearing the wrath of Dolgorúki, he fled, first
to Poland, and then, through Prussia and Lubeck, to Sweden. He
settled in Stockholm, where he was employed in a semi-official
capacity in the Foreign Office. In a fit of intoxication he killed his
host, who was the official Russian translator of Sweden, and for this
crime he was beheaded.
Kotoshíkhin had evidently formed the plan of writing about
Russian customs before his arrival in Stockholm, but he was also
encouraged by distinguished Swedish statesmen, who hoped to find
important information about Russia in his work. In his capacity of
Legation scribe Kotoshíkhin had an excellent opportunity to become
intimately acquainted with the immediate surroundings of the Tsar;
but he supplemented his knowledge by a clear insight, which he had
gained in his intercourse with other nations. There is no other work
of Old Russia that gives so detailed an account of contemporary
society. Kotoshíkhin’s work was first discovered in 1840, though
several manuscript translations in Swedish were known to be extant
in various libraries.

THE EDUCATION OF THE PRINCES

FROM CHAP. 1.

For the bringing up of the Tsarévich or Tsarévna they select from among
the women of all ranks a good, pure, sweet-tempered and healthy woman,
and that woman resides for a year in the Upper Palace, in the apartments of
the Tsarítsa. At the expiration of the year, the husband of that woman, if she
be of noble origin, is made governor of a city, or receives some lands in
perpetuity; if she be a scribe’s, or some other serving-man’s wife, he is
promoted and granted a goodly salary; if he be a countryman, he is given a
good sum, and both are freed from the taxes and other imposts of the Tsar
during their whole lives. The Tsarévich and Tsarévna have also a chief-
nurse to look after them, a distinguished boyár’s wife,—an old widow, and
a nurse and other servants. When the Tsarévich reaches the age of five, he is
put in the keeping of a renowned boyár, a quiet and wise man, and the latter
has for a companion a man from the lower ranks; they also choose from
among the children of the boyárs a few of the same age as the Tsarévich, to
be his servants and butlers. When the time arrives to teach the Tsarévich to
read and write, they select teachers from the instructed people, who are of a
quiet disposition and not given to drinking; the teacher of writing is chosen
from among the Legation scribes; they receive instruction in Russia in no
other language, neither Latin, Greek, German nor any other, except Russian.
The Tsaréviches and Tsarévnas have each separate apartments and
servants to look after them. No one is permitted to see the Tsarévich before
his fifteenth year, except those people who serve him, and the boyárs and
Near People[121]; but after fifteen years he is shown to all people, as his
father goes with him to church or to entertainments. When the people find
out that he has been presented, they come on purpose from many cities to
get a look at him. As the Tsaréviches, when they are young, and the elder
and younger Tsarévnas go to church, there are borne cloth screens all
around them, so that they cannot be seen; likewise, they cannot be seen
when they stand in church, except by the clergy, for they are surrounded in
church with taffeta, and there are few people in church during that time but
boyárs and Near People. Similarly, when they travel to the monasteries to
pray, their carriages are covered with taffeta. For their winter rides, the
Tsarítsa and Tsarévnas use kaptánas, that is, sleighs in the shape of small
huts that are covered with velvet or red cloth, with doors at both sides, with
mica windows and taffeta curtains; for their summer rides they use

kolymágas that are also covered with cloth; these are entered by steps and
are made like simple carts on wheels, and not like carriages that hang down
on leather straps. These kolymágas and kaptánas have two shafts, and are
without an axle; only one horse is hitched in them, with other horses in
tandem.

PRIVATE LIFE OF THE BOYÁRS AND OF OTHER RANKS (CHAP. 13)

Boyárs and Near People live in their houses, both of stone and wood, that
are not well arranged; their wives and children live all in separate rooms.
Only a few of the greater boyárs have their own churches in their courts;
and those of the high and middle boyárs who have no churches of their
own, but who are permitted to have priests at their houses, have the matins
and vespers and other prayers said in their own apartments, but they attend
mass in any church they may choose; they never have the mass in their own
houses. The boyárs and Near People pay their priests a yearly salary,
according to agreement; if the priests are married people, they receive a
monthly allowance of food and drink, but the widowed priests eat at the
same table with their boyárs.
On church holidays, and on other celebrations, such as name days,
birthdays and christenings, they frequently celebrate together.
It is their custom to prepare simple dishes, without seasoning, without
berries, or sugar, without pepper, ginger or other spices, and they are little
salted and without vinegar. They place on the table one dish at a time; the
other dishes are brought from the kitchen and are held in the hands by the
servants. The dishes that have little vinegar, salt and pepper are seasoned at
the table; there are in all fifty to one hundred such dishes.
The table manners are as follows: before dinner the hosts order their
wives to come out and greet their guests. When the women come, they
place themselves in the hall, or room, where the guests are dining, at the
place of honour,[122] and the guests stand at the door; the women greet the
guests with the small salute,[123] but the guests bow to the ground. Then the
host makes a low obeisance to his guests and bids them kiss his wife. At the
request of his guests, the host kisses his wife first; then the guests make
individual bows and, stepping forward, kiss his wife and, walking back
again, bow to her once more; she makes the small salute each time she

kisses a guest. Then the hostess brings each guest a glass of double-or
treble-spiced brandy, the size of the glass being a fourth, or a little more, of
a quart. The host makes as many low obeisances as there are guests, asking
each one in particular to partake of the brandy which his wife is offering
them. By the request of the guests, the host bids his wife to drink first, then
he drinks himself, and then the guests are served; the guests make a low
obeisance before drinking, and also after they have drunk and as they return
the glass. To those that do not drink brandy, a cup of Rumney or Rhine
wine, or some other liquor, is offered.
After this drinking the hostess makes a bow to the guests and retires to
her apartments to meet her guests, the wives of the boyárs. The hostess and
the wives of the guests never dine with the men, except at weddings; an
exception is also made when the guests are near relatives and there are no
outsiders present at the dinner. During the dinner, the host and guests drink
after every course a cup of brandy, or Rumney or Rhine wine, and spiced
and pure beer, and various kinds of meads. When they bring the round
cakes to the table, the host’s daughters-in-law, or married daughters, or the
wives of near relatives come into the room, and the guests rise and, leaving
the table, go to the door and salute the women; then the husbands of the
women salute them, and beg the guests to kiss their wives and drink the
wine they offer. The guests comply with their request and return to the
table, while the women go back to their apartments. After dinner the host
and guests drink more freely each other’s healths, and drive home again.
The boyárs’ wives dine and drink in the same manner in their own
apartments, where there are no men present.
When a boyár or Near Man is about to marry off his son, or himself, or a
brother, or nephew, or daughter, or sister, or niece, he, having found out
where there is a marriageable girl, sends his friends, men or women, to the
father of that girl, to say that such and such a one had sent them to inquire
whether he would be willing to give his daughter or relative to him or his
relative, and what the girl’s dowry would be in the trousseau, money,
patrimony and serfs. If the person addressed is willing to give him his
daughter, or relative, he replies to the inquiry that he intends to marry off
the girl, only he has to consider the matter with his wife and family, and that
he will give a definite answer on a certain day; but if he does not wish to
give him the girl, knowing that he is a drunkard, or fast, or has some other

bad habit, he will say at once that he will not give him the girl, or he will
find some excuse for refusing the request.
Having taken counsel with his wife and family, and having decided to
give him the girl, he makes a detailed list of her dowry, in money, silver and
other ware, dresses, patrimony and serfs, and sends it to the people who had
come to him from the prospective bridegroom, and they, in their turn, take it
to the bridegroom. Nothing is told of the matter to the prospective bride,
who remains in ignorance thereof.
The dowry of the bride appearing satisfactory, the groom sends his
people to the bride’s parents, to ask them to present the girl. The bride’s
parents reply that they are willing to show their daughter, only not to the
prospective groom, but to his father, mother, sister or near female relative,
in whom the groom may have special confidence. On the appointed day the
groom sends his mother or sister to inspect the bride; the bride’s parents
make preparations for that day, attire their daughter in a fine garment, invite
their relatives to dinner, and seat their daughter at the table.
When the inspectress arrives, she is met with the honour due her, and is
placed at the table near the bride. Sitting at the table, the inspectress
converses with the girl on all kinds of subjects, in order to try her mind and
manner of speech, and closely watches her face, eyes and special marks, in
order to bring a correct report to the bridegroom; having stayed a short
time, she returns to the bridegroom. If the inspectress takes no liking to the
bride, having discovered that she is silly, or homely, or has imperfect eyes,
or is lame, or a poor talker, and so reports to the groom, he gives her up,
and that is the last of it. But if the bride has found favour in the inspectress’s
eyes, and she tells the groom that the girl is good and clever, and perfect in
speech and all things, the groom sends his former friends again to the girl’s
parents, telling them that he likes their daughter, and that he wishes to come
to a parley to write the marriage contract, in order to marry her on a certain
date. The bride’s parents send word to the groom through his trusted people
that he should come to the parley with a few of his friends in whom he has
most confidence on a certain day, in the forenoon or afternoon.
On the appointed day the groom puts on his best clothes, and drives with
his father, or near relatives, or friends whom he loves best to the bride’s
parents. Upon arrival, the bride’s parents and her near relatives meet them

with due honour, after which they go into the house and seat themselves
according to rank. Having sat a while, the groom’s father or other relative
remarks that they have come for the good work, as he has bid them; the host
answers that he is glad to see them, and that he is ready to take up the
matter. Then both sides begin to discuss all kinds of marriage articles and to
set the day for the wedding according to how soon they can get ready for it,
in a week, a month, half a year, a year, or even more. Then they enter their
names and the bride’s name and the names of witnesses in the marriage
contract, and it is agreed that he is to take the girl on a certain date, without
fail, and that the girl is to be turned over to him on that date, without fail;
and it is provided in that contract that if the groom does not take the girl on
the appointed day, or the father will not give him his daughter on that day,
the offending party has to pay 1000, or 5000, or 10,000 roubles, as the
agreement may be. Having stayed a while, and having eaten and drunk, they
return home, without having seen the bride, and without the bride having
seen the groom; but the mother, or married sister, or wife of some relative
comes out to present the groom with some embroidery from the bride.
If after that parley the groom finds out something prejudicial to the bride,
or someone interested in the groom tells him that she is deaf, or mute, or
maimed, or has some other bad characteristic, and the groom does not want
to take her,—and the parents of the bride complain about it to the Patriarch
that he has not taken the girl according to the marriage articles, and does not
want to take her, and thus has dishonoured her; or the bride’s parents,
having found out about the groom that he is a drunkard, or diceplayer, or
maimed, or has done something bad, will not give him their daughter, and
the groom complains to the Patriarch,—the Patriarch institutes an inquiry,
and the fine is collected from the guilty party according to the contract, and
is given to the groom or bride, as the case may be; and then both may marry
whom they please.
But if both parties carry out their agreement, and get ready for the
wedding on the appointed day, then the groom invites to the wedding his
relatives and such other people as he likes, to be his ceremonial guests, in
the same manner as I described before about the Tsar’s wedding[124]; on the
part of the bride the guests are invited in the same way. On the day of the
wedding tables are set at the houses of the groom and bride, and the word
being given the groom that it is time to fetch the bride, they all set out

according to the ceremonial rank: First the bread-men carry bread on a tray,
then, if it be summer, the priest with the cross rides on horseback, but in
winter in a sleigh; then follow the boyárs, the thousand-man, and the
groom.
Having reached the court of the bride’s house, they enter the hall in
ceremonial order, and the bride’s father and his guests meet them with due
honour, and the order of the wedding is the same as described in the Tsar’s
wedding. When the time arrives to drive to church to perform the marriage,
the bride’smaids ask her parents to give the groom and bride their blessing
for the marriage. They bless them with words, but before leaving bless them
with a holy image, and, taking their daughter’s hand, give her to the groom.
Then the ceremonial guests, the priest, and the groom with his bride,
whose hand he is holding, go out of the hall, and her parents and their
guests accompany them to the court; the groom places the bride in a
kolymága or kaptána, mounts a horse, or seats himself in a sleigh; the
ceremonial guests do likewise, and all drive to the church where they are to
be married. The bride’s parents and their guests return to the hall, where
they eat and drink until news is brought from the groom; the bride is
accompanied only by her own and the bridegroom’s go-betweens. The two
having been united, the whole troop drives to the groom’s house, and news
is sent to the bride’s father that they have been propitiously married. When
they arrive at the groom’s court, the groom’s parents and their guests meet
them, and the parents, or those who are in their stead, bless them with the
images, and offer them bread and salt, and then all seat themselves at the
table and begin to eat, according to the ceremony; and then the bride is
unveiled.
The next morning the groom drives out with the bride’s-maid to call the
guests, those of his and the bride’s, to dinner. When he comes to the bride’s
parents, he thanks them for their having well brought up their daughter, and
for having given her to him in perfect health; after having made the round
to all the guests, he returns home. When all the guests have arrived, the
bride offers gifts to all the ceremonial guests. Before dinner the groom goes
with all the company to the palace to make his obeisance to the Tsar.
Having arrived in the presence of the Tsar, all make a low obeisance, and
the Tsar, without taking off his cap, asks the married couple’s health. The
groom bows to the ground, and then the Tsar congratulates those who are

united in legitimate wedlock, and blesses the married pair with images, and
he presents them with forty sables, and for their garments a bolt of velvet,
and atlas, and gold-coloured silk, and calamanco, and simple taffeta, and a
silver vessel, a pound and a half to two pounds in weight, to each of them;
but the bride is not present at the audience. Then the Tsar offers the
thousand-man, and bridegroom, and the ceremonial guests a cup of Rumney
wine, and then a pitcher of cherry wine, and after they have emptied their
wine the Tsar dismisses them.
After arriving home, they begin to eat and drink, and after the dinner the
parents and guests bless the married couple with images and make them all
kinds of presents, and after dinner the guests drive home. On the third day,
the bride and groom and the guests go to dinner to the bride’s parents, with
all their guests, and after the dinner the bride’s parents and their guests
make presents to the married couple, and they drive home; and that is the
end of the festivity.
During the time that the groom is in the presence of the Tsar, the bride
sends in her name presents to the Tsarítsa and Tsarévnas, tidies of taffeta,
worked with gold and silver and pearls; the Tsarítsa and Tsarévnas accept
these gifts, and send to inquire about the bride’s health.
During all the wedding festivities, no women are present, and there is no
music, except blowing of horns and beating of drums.
The proceeding is the same when a widowed daughter, or sister, or niece
is married off: the ceremonial and the festivity are the same.
In the beginning of the festivity, the priest who is to marry the pair
receives from the Patriarch and the authorities a permit, with the seal
attached to it, to marry them, having first ascertained that the bride and
groom are not related by sponsorship, nor by the ties of consanguinity in the
sixth and seventh generation, nor that he is the husband of a fourth wife, nor
she the wife of a fourth husband; but if he discover that they are related by
sponsorship, and so forth, he is not allowed to marry them. Should the
priest permit such an unlawful marriage to take place, with his knowledge
or without his knowledge, he would be discharged from his priesthood and,
if he was knowingly guilty, he has to pay a big fine, and the authorities lock
him up for a year; but the married pair is divorced, without being fined,

except the sin which they have incurred, and if they have not been
previously married three times, they may marry again.
If a widower wants to marry a maiden, the ceremonial at the wedding is
the same, but during the wreathing in church the wreath is placed on the
groom’s right shoulder, whereas the bride wears her wreath upon her head;
if a widower for the third time marries a maiden, the ceremonial is the
same, but the wreath is placed on the groom’s left shoulder, and the bride
wears hers upon her head. The same is done when a widow marries for the
second or third time. But when a widower marries for the second or third
time a widow, then there is no wreathing, and only a prayer is said instead
of the wreathing, and the wedding ceremonial is different from the one
mentioned above.
The manner of the parley, marriage and ceremonial wedding is the same
with the lower orders of the nobility as described above, and the wedding is
as sumptuous as they can afford to make it, but they do not call upon the
Tsar, except those of his retinue.
Among the merchants and peasants the parley and the ceremonial are
exactly the same, but they differ in their acts and dresses from the nobility,
each according to his means.
It sometimes happens that a father or mother has two or three daughters,
where the eldest daughter is maimed, being blind, or lame, or deaf, or mute,
while the other sisters are perfect in shape and beauty and speech. When a
man begins to sue for their daughter, and he sends his mother, or sister, or
someone else in whom he has confidence to inspect her, the parents
sometimes substitute the second or third daughter for their maimed sister,
giving her the name of the latter, so that the inspectress, not knowing the
deceit, takes a liking to the girl and reports to the groom that she is a proper
person to marry. Then the groom, depending upon her words, has a parley
with the girl’s parents, that he is to marry her upon an appointed day, and
that the parents are to give her to him upon the appointed day, and the fine
is set so high that the guilty party is not able to pay it. When the wedding
takes place, the parents turn over to him the maimed daughter, whose name
is given in the articles of marriage, but who is not the one the inspectresses
had seen. But the groom cannot discover on the wedding day that she is
blind, or disfigured, or has some other defect, or that she is deaf or mute, for

at the wedding she is veiled and does not say a word, nor can he know
whether she is lame, because her bride’smaids lead her under her arms.
But in that case the man who has been deceived complains to the
Patriarch and authorities, and these take the articles of marriage and
institute an inquiry among the neighbours and housefolk, each one
individually, whether the person he had married is the one indicated by
name in the marriage articles. If so, the articles are valid, and no faith is to
be put in his contention, on the ground that it was his business to be sure
whom he was going to marry. But if the neighbours and housefolk depose
that the bride is not the same as mentioned by name in the articles, the
married pair is divorced, and the parents have to pay a large fine and
damages to the groom, and besides the father is beaten with the knout, or
his punishment is even more severe, according to the Tsar’s will.
The same punishment is meted out to the man who presents his serving
maid or a widow in place of his unmarried daughter, by giving her another
name and dressing her up so as to look like his daughter, or when his
daughter is of short stature and they place her on a high chair in such a way
that her defect is not noticeable.
When parents have maimed or old daughters, and no one wants to marry
them, they are sent to a monastery to be shorn nuns.
When a man wants to inspect the bride himself, and the parents grant the
request, knowing that she is fair and that they need not be ashamed of her,
but the groom, having taken no liking to her, decries her with damaging and
injurious words, and thus keeps other suitors away from her,—and the
bride’s parents complain to the Patriarch or authorities: these institute an
inquiry, and having found the man guilty, marry him to the girl by force; but
if he has married another girl before the complaint has been entered, the
girl’s disgrace is taken from her by an ukase.
When a man marries off his daughter or sister, and gives her a large
dowry in serfs and patrimony, and that daughter or sister, having borne no
children, or having borne some who have all died, dies herself,—the dowry
is all taken from her husband and is turned over to those who had married
her off. But if she leaves a son or daughter, the dowry is, for the sake of her
child, not taken from her husband.

Gentle reader! Wonder not, it is nothing but the truth when I say that
nowhere in the whole world is there such deception practised with
marriageable girls as in the kingdom of Muscovy; there does not exist there
the custom, as in other countries, for the suitor to see and sue for the bride
himself.
The boyárs and Near People have in their houses 100, or 200, or 300, or
500, or 1000 servants, male and female, according to their dignity and
possessions. These servants receive a yearly salary, if they are married, 2, 3,
5 or 10 roubles, according to their services, and their wearing apparel, and a
monthly allowance of bread and victuals; they live in their own rooms in
the court of the boyár’s house. The best of these married servants are sent
out by the boyárs every year, by rotation, to their estates and villages, with
the order to collect from their peasants the taxes and rents. The unmarried
older servants receive some small wages, but the younger ones receive
nothing; all the unmarried servants get their wearing apparel, hats, shirts
and boots; the older of these servants live in the farther lower apartments,
and receive their food and drink from the kitchen; on holidays they receive
two cups of brandy each. The female servants who are widows remain
living in the houses of their husbands, and they receive a yearly wage and a
monthly allowance of food; other widows and girls stay in the rooms of the
boyárs’ wives and daughters, and they receive their wearing apparel, and
their food from the boyár’s kitchen.
When these girls are grown up, the boyárs marry them, and also the
widows, to some one of their servants to whom they have taken a liking, but
sometimes by force. The wedding takes place in the boyár’s hall, according
to the rank of the marrying parties; the food and festive dresses are
furnished by the boyár. The girls are never married to any person outside
the boyár’s court, because both male and female servants are his perpetual
serfs. In the boyár’s house there is an office for all domestic affairs, where
an account is kept of income and expenses, and all the affairs of the
servants and peasants are investigated and settled.

FOOTNOTES:

[121] A division of nobility below the boyárs.

[122] In the front corner, under the holy images.
[123] Bending as far as the girdle.
[124] “The wedding ceremony is as follows: on the Tsar’s side the first order
is the father and mother, or those who are in place of his parents; the second
order, the travellers,—the chief priest with the cross, the thousand-man, who is a
great personage in that procession, and then the Tsar: eight boyárs. The duties of
the travellers are as follows: they stay with the Tsar and Tsarítsa at the crowning
in church, and at the table occupy higher places than the others; the friends
(drúzhka), whose duty it is to call the guests to the wedding, to make speeches at
the wedding in the name of the thousand-man and Tsar, and to carry presents; the
bride’s maids (svákha) whose duty it is to watch the Tsarítsa, to dress her and
undress her; the candleholder, who holds the candle when they get the Tsarítsa
ready for the crowning; the breadholders, who carry the bread on litters to and
from church (these litters are covered with gold velvet and embroidered cloth
and sable furs); the equerry with his suite. The third order is the sitting boyárs,
twelve men and twelve women, who sit as guests at the tables, with the Tsar’s
parents, but do not go to church with the Tsar. The fourth order is of the court,
who attend to the food and drink.”

Simeón Pólotski. (1629-1680.)

Simeón, whose father’s name was Emelyán Petróvski-
Sitniánovich, studied at Kíev, where the Western scholasticism had
found entrance through the Polish, and where the Orthodox Church
stood in less violent opposition to the Catholic and Protestant
Churches and the sacred and profane learning which they
disseminated. Simeón took the tonsure as a monk in Pólotsk, and
developed there his early pedagogical activity,—hence his name
Pólotski. When Pólotsk was occupied by the Poles, Simeón went to
Moscow, where he attracted the attention of Alexis Mikháylovich by
his verses upon the birth of the Tsarévich Feódor. He became the
first Court poet, was employed as instructor of Alexis, Feódor, and,
later, Peter himself, and had great influence on the education of their
sister Sophia. He was also appointed a teacher of Latin in the School
of the Redeemer, where his first pupils were scribes of the Secret
Department, and where later a new generation of men, among them
Lomonósov, received their earliest instruction in Western culture.
Simeón developed an untiring activity in literature, standing alone
in his efforts to engraft an antiquated scholasticism on the Russian
orthodoxy. He was a very learned man, but, like his spiritual peer
Tredyakóvski of the next century, devoid of poetic genius. His
poetry, collected in two large works, The Flowery Pleasaunce and
the Rhythmologion, is merely a paraphrase of foreign models in
forced rhymes and a syllabic versification which is entirely unsuited
to the Russian language. He wrote two plays, in the manner of the
old Mysteries, which were among the first to be given at the newly
established Court theatre. He translated much from the Latin, and
composed more than two hundred sermons. In spite of the
mediocrity of his literary efforts, his influence on the next
generation was great; Lomonósov received his first impulse for
writing verses from a perusal of Pólotski’s works.

ON THE BIRTH OF PETER THE GREAT

A great gladness the month of May has brought us, for the Tsarévich
Peter was born in it. But yesterday the famous Constantinople was captured
by the Turks;—to-day the most glorious salvation has appeared. The
conqueror has come, and he will avenge the insult, and will free the ruling
city. O Constantine’s city, mightily rejoice! And you, holy church of Sophia,
rejoice! An orthodox Tsarévich was born to us to-day, a Grand Prince of
Moscow, Peter Aleksyéevich: he will endeavour to adorn you in honour,
and to subdue the Moslem abomination. And you, ruling city of Moscow,
rejoice! For a great joy has taken up its abode within you. He strengthened
your stone-walls that surround you, porphyrogenite, God-sent son of the
Tsar! Peter is his name,—a firm rock,[125] and being born to strengthen the
gates he will be brave and terrible to the enemy that opposes him. By a
wondrous name a rock of faith, an adornment and joy to the Tsar is born,
and an eternal glory to his parents.
The younger Joseph was beloved by his father, and thus is the younger
Tsarévich beloved by his father. The youngest Benjamin was loved by his
brothers; even thus the youngest Peter is beloved by his two brothers. Peter
is a rock of fortune and a precious stone, endowed by God for the
confirmation of the Church. You, planet Ares and Zeus, rejoice, for the
Tsarévich was born under your lustre! The Tsarévich was born in the
quadrant aspect, and he has come to rule in his house. He announces the
four-cornered token, as if to rule the four corners of the earth. From God
this being was given to this planet, for this planet was found to be the best
for his achievements: bravery, wealth and glory reside upon it, to place a
wreath upon the head of the Tsar.
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!

AN EVIL THOUGHT

A man found a snake stiff with cold and cast upon the path into the snow;
he took pity on it, and placed it in his bosom. When it was revived, it began

to creep, then bit the senseless man that had warmed it. Even thus it
happens to him who harbours evil thoughts: they soon come to life, and
give mortal stings to the thinker.

THE MAGNET

Iron with a magnet rubbed assumes the power of a magnet: it then
attracts needles, one after another, as long as its power lasts, which God has
placed in the ore. Even so the righteous do in this world: the wisdom which
is given them they give to others, that having been made wise they may turn
from the world, and may turn their hearts to the living God, and may lead
each other into the heavenly region prepared by God for those who serve
Him faithfully.

FOOTNOTES:

[125] That is, deriving Peter from Greek πέτρα, rock.

The Story of Misery Luckless-Plight, How That Misery
Luckless-Plight Caused a Youth to Turn Monk. (XVII. or
XVIII. century.)

This beautiful story was found in a manuscript collection of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It consists of two parts: the
first is an apocryphal account of the fall of man, with the customary
substitution of the grapevine for the apple-tree, in order to inculcate
abstinence from the bowl; the second part, relating the pursuit of the
young man by the demon Misery Luckless-Plight, bears every
evidence of popular origin. The dramatic element of the story, the
symbolic account of the pursuit in the shape of animals, the
parallelism of phrases, are all devices which recur in the popular
tales, from the Word of Ígor’s Armament to the present time.
By the will of the Lord our God and Saviour, Jesus Christ, who
encompasses all, from the beginning of the human race.

In the beginning of this perishable world, God created heaven and earth,
God created Adam and Eve. He ordered them to live in holy paradise, and
gave them this divine command: He told them not to eat the fruit of the
grapevine, from the great tree of Eden. But the human heart is unthinking
and irresistible, and Adam and Eve were tempted. They forgot God’s
command, ate of the fruit of the grapevine, from the great and wonderful
tree, and for that great transgression of theirs God was wroth with Adam
and Eve and drove them out of the holy Edenic paradise. He settled them
upon the low earth, blessed them to grow and multiply, and told them to
appease their hunger through their own labour from the fruits upon earth....
God gave them this commandment: there should be marriages, for the
propagation of the race of men and for beloved children.
But the human race was evil: from the very start it was not submissive,
looked with disdain at the father’s instruction, did not obey the mother, was
untrue to the advice of friends. Then there came a weak and wretched race
that turned to reckless deeds, and began to live in turmoil and wrong, and
discarded humility of spirit. And God grew wroth with them, and sent great
calamities down upon them, and great misery, and immeasurable shame,
evil plight, fiendish visitations, a wretched nakedness, and endless poverty
and extreme want, in order to humble us, to punish us, to lead us on the path
of salvation. Such is the race of man from its father and mother.

The youth had reached the age of discretion and absence of wantonness.
His father and mother loved him much, and they began to teach and instruct
him, to prepare him for good deeds:
“Dear child of ours, listen to your parents’ words of instruction, listen to
their saws, the good and cunning and wise, and you will not be in want, you
will not be in great poverty. Go not, child, to feasts and celebrations; do not
seat yourself on a high place; drink not two beakers at once; be not tempted
by good, fair maidens, fathers’ daughters. Lie not down in the wilderness.
Fear not the wise man, fear the fool, lest the fools lay hands on you and take
off your costly garments, and cause you great shame and aggravation, and
expose you to the scorn and empty prattle of men. Go not, my child, to the
dice-players and innkeepers, and keep no company with the frequenters of

the tavern. Make no friends with the foolish and simple. Steal not, rob not,
nor deceive, nor tell a lie, nor do wrong. Be not tempted by gold and silver;
collect not unrighteous wealth. Be not a witness to false swearing, and think
no evil of father and mother, or any other man,—that God may protect you
from all evil. Dishonour not, child, the rich and the poor, but regard them all
alike. Keep company with the wise and sensible, and make friends with
friends you may rely upon, who will not deliver you to evil.”
The youth was then young and foolish, not in his full senses and
imperfect in mind: he was ashamed to submit to his father and bow before
his mother, but wanted to live as he listed. If the youth earned fifty roubles,
he found easily fifty friends, and his honour flowed like a river: the youth
gained many friends for himself, and they accounted themselves of his race.
And the youth had a trusted friend: he named himself his plighted
brother, and he tempted him with tempting words; he called him to the
tavern yard, led him into the hall of the inn, brought him a cup of green
wine, handed him a beaker of heady beer, and spoke to him the following
words:
“Drink, plighted brother of mine, to your joy, and happiness, and health.
Empty the cup of green wine, and follow it by a glass of sweet mead. And if
you drink, brother, until you be drunk, lie down to sleep where you have
drunk,—depend upon me, your plighted brother. I shall sit down and keep
watch over you: at your head, dear friend, I shall place a beaker of sweet
Ishem wine, by your side I shall place green wine, and near you I shall
place heady beer. I shall watch well over you, dear friend, and shall take
you back to your father and mother.”
At that time the youth depended on his plighted brother; he did not wish
to disobey him. He settled himself near the heady drinks, and emptied a cup
of green wine, followed it by a glass of sweet mead, and he drank also the
heady beer. He drank until he lost his senses, and where he had drunk, there
he fell asleep: he depended upon his plighted brother.
The day was inclining towards night, and the sun was in the west, when
the youth awoke from his sleep. The youth looked all around him: all the
costly garments had been taken away from him, his shoes and stockings
were all gone, his shirt even was taken from him, and all his property was
stolen. A brick was lying under his unruly head; he was covered with a

tavern sackcloth, and at his feet lay ragged sandals; at his head his dear
friend was no more. And the youth stood up on his bare feet, and began to
clothe himself: he put on the ragged sandals, covered himself with the
tavern sackcloth, covered his white body, and washed his white face.
Sorrow entered the youth’s heart, and he spoke the following words:
“Though God has granted me a good life, I have now nothing to eat or
drink! Since my money is gone, even the last half-farthing, I have not a
friend, not even half a friend. They no longer account themselves of my
race, all my friends have disappeared!”
The youth felt ashamed to show himself before father and mother, and his
race and family, and to his former friends. He went into a strange, distant,
unknown land. He found a court, a town in size, and a house in that court, a
palace in height. In that house was given a splendid feast: the guests drank,
ate and made merry. The youth came to the splendid feast, made the sign of
the cross over his white face, bowed before the wonderful images, made his
obeisance to the good people on all four sides. And when the good people
saw the youth, how well he made the sign of the cross, how he acted
according to the written rule, they took him by the hands, seated him at the
oaken table, not in a great place, nor in a small, they seated him in a middle
place, where the younger guests are seated. And the feast was a merry one,
and all the guests at the feast were drunk and merry and boastful; but the
youth sat, not merry at all, gloomy, sorrowful, joyless, and neither ate, nor
drank, nor made merry, nor boasted of anything at the feast. Said the good
people to the youth:
“Wherefore, O good youth, do you sit, not merry at the feast, gloomy,
sorrowful, joyless; you neither drink, nor make merry, nor boast of anything
at the feast? Or has the cup of green wine not reached you, or is not your
seat according to your father’s worth? Or have small children insulted you?
Or foolish and unwise people made light of you, youth? Or are our children
not kind to you?”
But the good youth remained sitting and said:
“Gentlemen and good people! I will tell you of my great misfortune, of
my disobedience to my parents, of my drinking at the inn the cup of mead,
the tempting drinking of heady wine. When I took to drinking the heady
wine, I disobeyed both father and mother: their blessing departed from me;

the Lord grew wroth with me, and to my poverty were added many great
and incurable sorrows and sadness without comfort, want, and misery, and
extreme wretchedness. Want has tamed my flowery speech; sadness has
dried up my white body. For this my heart is not merry, and my white face
is sad, and my eyes dim. I have lost my paternal honour, and my youthful
valour has left me. Gentlemen and good people! Tell me and teach me how
to live in a strange land, among strange people, and how to find dear
friends!”
Said the good people to the youth:
“You are a sensible youth! Be not haughty in a strange land: submit to
friend and foe, bow to old and young, tell not of the affairs of others, neither
what you hear, nor see. Flatter not friends nor enemies; have no tortuous
fits, nor bend as a cunning snake; be humble before all, but withal keep to
truth and right,—and you will have great honour and glory. When people
will find you out, they will respect and honour you for your great truth,
your humility and wisdom;—and you will have dear friends, who will call
themselves your plighted brothers.”
And the youth went hence into a strange land, and began to live wisely,
and through his great wisdom acquired greater wealth than before. He
looked out for a bride according to custom, for he wished to marry. The
youth prepared a splendid feast, according to his father’s worth and as best
he knew, and invited the honoured guests and friends. But through his own
sin, by God’s will and the devil’s temptation, he boasted before his
honoured guests and friends and plighted brothers. A boastful word is
always rotten, and self-praise brings the destruction of man: “I, the youth,
have gained more possessions than ever!”
Misery Luckless-Plight heard the young man’s boasting, and spoke the
following words:
“Young man, boast not of your fortune, praise not your wealth! I, Misery,
have known people who were wiser and richer than you, but I, Misery, have
outwitted them. When a great misfortune befell them, they struggled with
me unto their death; they were worsted by their luckless plight,—could not
get away from me, Misery, until they took their abode in the grave, and I
covered them for ever with the earth. Only then they were rid of nakedness,
and I, Misery, left them, though luckless plight remained upon their grave!”

And again it cawed ominously: “I, Misery, attached myself to others, for I,
Misery Luckless-Plight, cannot live empty-handed: I, Misery, wish to live
among people, from whom I cannot be driven away with a whip; but my
chief seat and paternal home is among the carousers!”
Spoke grey Misery the miserable:
“How am I to get at the youth?” and evil Misery devised cunningly to
appear to the youth in his dream:
“Young man, renounce your beloved bride, for you will be poisoned by
your bride; you will be strangled by that woman; you will be killed for your
gold and silver! Go, young man, to the Tsar’s tavern: save nothing, but
spend all your wealth in drink; doff your costly dress, put on the tavern
sackcloth. In the tavern Misery will remain, and evil Luckless-Plight will
stay,—for Misery will not gallop after a naked one, nor will anyone annoy a
naked man, nor has assault any terrors for a bare-footed man.”
The young man did not believe his dream, but evil Misery again devised
a plan, and stuck once more to the youth for a new luckless plight:
“Are you not, youth, acquainted with immeasurable nakedness, and its
great lightness and inexpensiveness? What you buy for yourself is money
spent, but you are a brave fellow, and can live without expense! They do not
beat, nor torture naked people, nor drive them out of paradise, nor drag
them down from the other world; nor will anyone annoy a naked man, nor
has assault any terrors for a naked man!”
The young man believed that dream: he went and spent all his wealth in
drink; he doffed his costly dress, put on the tavern sackcloth, covered his
white body. The youth felt ashamed to show himself to his dear friends. He
went into a strange, distant, unknown land. On his way he came to a swift
river. On the other side were the ferrymen, and they asked for money to
ferry him across; but the youth had none to give, and without money they
would not take him across. The youth sat a whole day, until evening, and all
that day the youth had nothing to eat, not even half a piece of bread. The
young man arose on his swift feet, and standing he fell to grieving, and he
spoke the following words:
“Woe to me, miserable Luckless-Plight! It has overtaken me, young man,
has starved me, young man, with a hungry death. Three unlucky days have I

passed, for I, young man, have not eaten half a piece of bread! I, young
man, will jump into the swift river: swallow my body, swift river! And eat,
O fish, my white body! And that will be better than my shameful life, for I
have fallen into the hands of Misery Luckless-Plight.”
At that hour Misery leaped from behind a rock near the swift river:
Misery was bare-footed and naked, and there was not a thread upon it, and
it was girded with a bast thong, and it called out with a mighty voice:
“Wait, young man, you will not escape from me, Misery! Jump not into
the swift river, nor be in your misery doleful! Though you live in misery,
you need not be doleful, but let your dolefulness die in misery! Remember,
young man, your former life: how your father spoke to you, and your
mother instructed you! Why did you not then obey them? You would not
submit to them, and were ashamed to bow to them, but wanted to live as
you listed! But he who will not listen to the good teaching of his parents
will learn from me, Misery Luckless-Plight!”
Luckless-Plight spoke the following words:
“Submit to me, impure Misery; bow before me, Misery, to the damp
earth, for there is no one wiser in the whole world than I, Misery; and you
will be ferried across the swift river, and the good people will give you to
eat and drink.”
The young man saw his inevitable calamity, and he submitted to impure
Misery, bowed before Misery to the damp earth!
The good fellow went ahead with a light step over the beautiful fair bank,
over the yellow sand. He went happy, not at all doleful, for he had appeased
Misery Luckless-Plight. And as he went, he thought a thought: Since I have
nothing, I need not worry about anything! And as the youth was not
sorrowful, he started a fair song, a mighty, sensible song it was:
“Sorrowless mother has borne me; with a comb she combed my little
locks, dressed me in costly garments, and stepping aside shaded her eyes
and looked at me: ‘Does my child look well in costly garments? In costly
garments my child is a priceless child!’ Thus my mother always spoke of
me! And then I learned and know it well that a scarlet gown cannot be made
without a master, nor a child be comforted without a mother, nor a drunkard

ever become rich, nor a dice-player be in good renown; and I was taught by
my parents to be a well-dressed boy, who was born devoid of everything.”
The ferrymen heard the good fellow’s song, took the young man across
the swift river, and took nothing from him for the ferrying. The good people
gave him to drink and to eat, took off his tavern sackcloth, gave him
peasant’s clothes, and spoke to him:
“You are a good fellow, so go to your home, to your beloved, respected
parents, to your father and mother dear, greet your parents, father and
mother, and receive from them the parental blessing!”
From there the youth went to his home. When he was in the open field,
evil Misery had gone before him; it met the youth in the open field, and
began to caw above the youth, like an ill-omened crow above a falcon.
Misery spoke the following words:
“Wait! you have not gone away from me, good fellow! Not merely for a
time have I, Misery Luckless-Plight, attached myself to you; I shall labour
with you to your very death! And not I, Misery, alone, but all my family,
and there is a goodly race of them: we are all gentle and insinuating, and he
who joins our family will end his days among us! Such is the fate that
awaits you with us. Even if you were to be a bird of the air, or if you went
into the blue sea as a fish, I would follow you at your right hand.”
The youth flew as a clear falcon, and Misery after him as a white
gerfalcon; the youth flew as a steel-blue dove, and Misery after him as a
grey hawk; the youth went into the field as a grey wolf, and Misery after
him with hounds; the youth became the steppe-grass in the field, and
Misery came with a sharp scythe, and Luckless-Plight railed at him:
“You, little grass, will be cut down; you, little grass, will lie on the
ground, and the boisterous winds will scatter you!”
The youth went as a fish into the sea, and Misery after him with close-
meshed nets, and Misery Luckless-Plight railed at him:
“You, little fish, will be caught at the shore, and you will be eaten up and
die a useless death!”
The youth went on foot along the road, and Misery at his right hand. It
taught the youth to live as a rich man, by killing and robbing, so that they

might hang the young man for it, or might put him with a stone in the water.
The youth bethought himself of the road of salvation, and at once the youth
went to a monastery to be shorn a monk, and Misery stopped at the holy
gates,—no longer clung to the youth.
And this is the end of the story: Lord, preserve us from eternal torment,
and give us, O Lord, the light of paradise! For ever and ever, amen!

THE FOLKLORE

Epic Songs.

The first collection of epic songs was published in 1804, based on
the collection made some years before by the Siberian Cossack
Kirshá Danílov. Since the fifties of the eighteenth century large
numbers of these songs have been gathered in the extreme north-
east, by Kiryéevski, Rýbnikov, Gílferding, and others. They are
generally divided into the cycle of Kíev, with Vladímir and his
druzhína, who defend the country against external enemies, and the
cycle of Nóvgorod, in which is described the wealth and luxury of
the once famous commercial emporium. There is also a division into
the older heroes, of which Volkh Vseslávevich is one, and the
younger heroes, of which Ilyá of Múrom is the most noted.
Good accounts of the epic songs may be found in most of the
general works on Russian literature mentioned in the Preface. The
only work which gives a large number of these epics, with notes, is
The Epic Songs of Russia, by Isabel Florence Hapgood, with an
introductory note by Prof. Francis J. Child, New York, 1886.

VOLKH VSESLÁVEVICH

In the heavens the bright moon did shine,
But in Kíev a mighty hero was born,
The young hero Volkh Vseslávevich:
The damp earth trembled,
Trembled the famous Indian realm,
And the blue sea also trembled
On account of the birth of the hero,
The young Volkh Vseslávevich:
The fish went into the depth of the sea,
The birds flew high into the clouds,
The aurochses and stags went beyond the mountains,
The hares and foxes into the woods,
The wolves and bears into the pine-forests,
The sables and martens upon the isles.
Volkh was old an hour and a half,
And Volkh spoke, like peals of thunder:
“Hail to thee, lady mother,
Young Márfa Vseslávevna!
Swathe me not in swaddling-clothes of bast,
Gird me not with bands of silk,—
Swathe me, my dear mother,
In strong mail of tempered steel;
On my grim head place a helmet of gold,
Into my right hand put a club,
A heavy club of lead,
In weight that club of thirty puds.”
Volkh was seven years old:
His mother gave him to be instructed;
As soon as he had learned to read,
She put him down to write with pen,
And he learned swiftly how to write.
When Volkh was ten years old:
Then Volkh learned all cunning arts:
The first of these cunning arts was
To change himself into a falcon clear;
The second cunning art that Volkh had learned
Was to change himself into a grey wolf;

The third cunning art that Volkh had learned
Was to change himself into a dun aurochs with horns of gold.
When Volkh was twelve years old,
He began to collect a druzhína for himself.
He got together a druzhína within three years,
His druzhína was seven thousand strong.
Volkh himself was fifteen years old,
And all his druzhína were fifteen years old.
All that famous host started out
For the capital, for Kíev town:
The Tsar of India was arming himself,
He was boasting and bragging to all
That he would take Kíev town by assault,
Would let God’s churches go up in smoke,
Would destroy the worshipful monasteries.
As soon as Volkh had found that out,
He started out with his druzhína brave
For the famous kingdom of India,
With his druzhína he at once started out.
The druzhína sleeps, but Volkh sleeps not:
He turns himself into a grey wolf,
Runs, races over dark forests and wolds,
And strikes down the antlered beasts;
Nor does he give quarter to wolf or bear,
And sables and panthers are his favourite morsel,
Nor does he disdain hares and foxes.
Volkh gave his brave druzhína to eat and drink,
Gave apparel and footwear to his valiant men:
His men all wore black sable furs,
And other coats of panthers.
The druzhína sleeps, but Volkh sleeps not:
He turns himself into a clear falcon,
And flies far away, beyond the blue sea,
And strikes down the geese, the white swans,
Nor does he give quarter to the grey-white ducks;
And he gave his druzhína to eat and drink:
And his viands were of many a kind,

Of many a kind, and sweetmeats too.

ILYÁ OF MÚROM AND NIGHTINGALE THE ROBBER

Young Ilyá of Múrom, Iván’s son, went to matins on Easter morn. And as
he stood there in the church, he vowed a great vow: “To sing a high mass
that same Easter day in Kíev town, and go thither by the straight way.” And
yet another vow he took: “As he fared to that royal town by the straight
way, not to stain his hand with blood, nor yet his sharp sword with the
blood of the accursed Tartars.”
His third vow he swore upon his mace of steel: “That though he should
go the straight way, he would not shoot his fiery darts.”
Then he departed from the cathedral church, entered the spacious
courtyard and began to saddle good Cloudfall, his shaggy bay steed, to arm
himself and prepare for his journey to the famous town of Kíev, to the
worshipful feast and the Fair Sun Prince Vladímir of royal Kíev. Good
Cloudfall’s mane was three ells in length, his tail three fathoms, and his hair
of three colours. Ilyá put on him first the plaited bridle, next twelve saddle-
cloths, twelve felts, and upon them a metal-bound Circassian saddle. The
silken girths were twelve in number—not for youthful vanity but for heroic
strength; the stirrups were of damascened steel from beyond the seas, the
buckles of bronze which rusteth not, weareth not, the silk from Samarcand
which chafeth not, teareth not.
They saw the good youth as he mounted,—as he rode they saw him not;
so swift was his flight there seemed but a smoke-wreath on the open plain,
as when wild winds of winter whirl about the snow. Good Cloudfall
skimmed over the grass and above the waters; high over the standing trees
he soared, the primeval oaks, yet lower than the drifting clouds. From
mountain to mountain he sprang, from hill to hill he galloped; little rivers
and lakes dropped between his feet; where his hoofs fell, founts of water
gushed forth; in the open plain smoke eddied and rose aloft in a pillar. At
each leap Cloudfall compassed a verst and a half.
In the open steppe young Ilyá hewed down a forest, and raised a godly
cross, and wrote thereon:

“Ilyá of Múrom, the Old Cossack, rideth to royal Kíev town on his first
heroic quest.”
When he drew near to Chernígov, there stood a great host of Tartars,—
three Tsaréviches, each with forty thousand men. The cloud of steam from
the horses was so great that the fair red sun was not yet seen by day, nor the
bright moon by night. The grey hare could not course, nor the clear falcon
fly about that host, so vast was it.
When Ilyá saw that, he dismounted; flying down before good Cloudfall’s
right foot, he entreated him:
“Help me, my shaggy bay!” So Cloudfall soared like a falcon clear, and
Ilyá plucked up a damp, ringbarked oak from the damp earth, from amid the
stones and roots, and bound it to his left stirrup, grasped another in his right
hand, and began to brandish it: “Every man may take a vow,” quoth he, “but
not every man can fulfill it.”
Where he waved the damp oak a street appeared; where he drew it back,
a lane. Great as was the number that he slew, yet twice that number did his
good steed trample under foot. Not one was spared to continue their race.
The gates of Chernígov were strongly barred, a great watch was kept, and
the stout and mighty hero stood in counsel. Therefore Ilyá flew on his good
steed over the city wall (the height of the wall was twelve fathoms) and
entered the church where all the people were assembled, praying God,
repenting and receiving the sacrament against sure and approaching death.
Ilyá crossed himself as prescribed, did reverence as enjoined, and cried:
“Hail, ye merchants of Chernígov, warrior maidens, and mighty heroes
all! Why repent ye now and receive the sacrament? Why do ye bid farewell
thus to the white world?”
Then they told him how they were deceived by the accursed Tartars, and
Ilyá said: “Go ye upon the famous wall of your city, and look towards the
open plain.”
They did as he commanded, and lo! where had stood the many, very
many foreign standards, like a dark, dry forest, the accursed Tartars were
now cut down and heaped up like a field of grain which hath been reaped.

Then the men of Chernígov did slowly reverence to the good youth, and
besought him that he would reveal his name and abide in Chernígov to
serve them as their Tsar, King, Voevóda,—what he would; and that he
would likewise accept at their hand a bowl of pure red gold, a bowl of fair
silver and one of fine seed pearls.
“These I will not take,” Ilyá made answer, “though I have earned them:
neither will I dwell with you either as Tsar or peasant. Live ye as of old, my
brothers, and show me the straight road to Kíev town.”
Then they told him: “By the straight road it is five hundred versts, and by
the way about, a thousand. Yet take not the straight road, for therein lie
three great barriers: the grey wolf trotteth not that way, the black raven
flieth not overhead. The first barrier is a lofty mountain; the second is the
Smoródina River, six versts in width, and the Black Morass; and beside that
river, the third barrier is Nightingale the Robber.
“He hath built his nest on seven oaks, that magic bird. When he whistleth
like a nightingale, the dark forest boweth to the earth, the green leaves
wither, horse and rider fall as dead. For that cause the road is lost, and no
man hath travelled it for thirty years.”
When Ilyá, the Old Cossack, heard that, he mounted his good steed, and
rode forthwith that way. When he came to the lofty mountain, his good
steed rose from the damp earth, and soared as a bright falcon over them and
the tall, dreaming forest. When he came to the Black Morass, he plucked
the great oaks with one hand, and flung them across the shaking bog for
thirty versts, while he led good Cloudfall with the other. When he came to
Mother Smoródina, he beat his steed’s fat sides, so that the horse cleared the
river at a bound.
There sat Nightingale the Robber (surnamed the Magic Bird), and thrust
his turbulent head out from his nest upon the seven oaks; sparks and flame
poured from his mouth and nostrils. Then he began to pipe like a
nightingale, to roar like an aurochs, and to hiss like a dragon. Thereat good
Cloudfall, that heroic steed, fell upon his knees, and Ilyá began to beat him
upon his flanks and between his ears.
“Thou wolf’s food!” cried Ilyá, “thou grass bag! Hast never been in the
gloomy forest, nor heard the song of the nightingale, the roar of wild beast,

nor serpent’s hiss?”
Then Ilyá brake a twig from a willow that grew nearby, that he might
keep his vow not to stain his weapons with blood, fitted it to his stout bow,
and conjured it: “Fly, little dart! Enter the Nightingale’s left eye; come out
at his right ear!”
The good heroic steed rose to his feet, and the Robber Nightingale fell to
the damp earth like a rick of grain.
Then the Old Cossack raised up that mighty Robber, bound him to his
stirrup by his yellow curls, and went his way. Ere long they came to the
Nightingale’s house, built upon seven pillars over seven versts of ground.
About the courtyard there was an iron paling, upon each stake thereof a
spike, and on each spike the head of a hero. In the centre was the strangers’
court, and there stood three towers with golden crests, spire joined to spire,
beam merged in beam, roof wedded to roof. Green gardens were planted
round about, all blossoming and blooming with azure flowers, and the fair
orchards encircled all.
When the Magic Bird’s children looked from the latticed casements and
beheld the hero riding with one at his stirrup, they cried: “Ay, lady mother!
Our father cometh, and leadeth a man at his stirrup for us to eat.”
But Eléna, the One-Eyed, Nightingale’s witch daughter, looked forth and
said: “Nay, it is the Old Cossack, Ilyá of Múrom, who rideth and leadeth
our father in bond.”
Then spoke Nightingale’s nine sons: “We will transform ourselves into
ravens, and rend that peasant with our iron beaks, and scatter his white body
over the plains.” But their father shouted to them that they should not harm
the hero.
Nevertheless Eléna the witch ran into the wide courtyard, tore a steel
beam of a hundred and fifty puds’ weight from the threshold, and hurled it
at Ilyá. The good youth wavered in his saddle, yet, being nimble, he
escaped the full force of the blow. Then he leaped from his horse, took the
witch on his foot: higher flew the witch then than God’s temple, higher than
the life-giving cross thereon, and fell against the rear wall of the court,
where her skin burst.

“Foolish are ye, my children!” cried the Nightingale. “Fetch from the
vaults a cartload of fair gold, another of pure silver, and a third of fine seed
pearls, and give to the Old Cossack, Ilyá of Múrom, that he may set me
free.”
Quoth Ilyá: “If I should plant my sharp spear in the earth, and thou
shouldst heap treasures about it until it was covered, yet would I not release
thee, Nightingale, lest thou shouldst resume thy thieving. But follow me
now to glorious Kíev town, that thou mayest receive forgiveness there.”
Then his good steed Cloudfall began to prance, and the Magic Bird at his
stirrup to dance, and in this wise came the good youth, the Old Cossack to
Kíev, to glorious Prince Vladímir.
Now, fair Prince Vladímir of royal Kíev was not at home; he had gone to
God’s temple. Therefore Ilyá entered the court without leave or
announcement, bound his horse to the golden ring in the carven pillars, and
laid his commands upon that good heroic steed: “Guard thou the
Nightingale, my charger, that he depart not from stirrup of steel!”
And to Nightingale he said: “Look to it, Nightingale, that thou depart not
from my good steed, for there is no place in all the white world where thou
mayest securely hide thyself from me!”
Then he betook himself to Easter mass. There he crossed himself and did
reverence, as prescribed, on all four sides, and to the Fair Sun, Prince
Vladímir, in particular. And after the mass was over, Prince Vladímir sent to
bid the strange hero to the feast, and there inquired of him from what horde
and land he came, and what was his parentage. So Ilyá told him that he was
the only son of honourable parents. “I stood at my home in Múrom, at
matins,” quoth he, “and mass was but just ended when I came hither by the
straight way.”
When the heroes that sat at the Prince’s table heard that, they looked
askance at him.
“Nay, good youth, liest thou not? boastest thou not?” said Fair Sun
Vladímir. “That way hath been lost these thirty years, for there stand great
barriers therein; accursed Tartars in the fields, black morasses; and beside
the famed Smoródina, amid the bending birches, is the nest of the
Nightingale on seven oaks; and that Magic Bird hath nine sons and eight

daughters, and one is a witch. He hath permitted neither horse nor man to
pass him these many years.”
“Nay, thou Fair Sun Prince Vladímir,” Ilyá answered: “I did come the
straight way, and the Nightingale Robber now sitteth bound within thy
court.”
Then all left the tables of white oak, and each outran the other to view the
Nightingale, as he sat bound to the steel stirrup, with one eye fixed on Kíev
town and the other on Chernígov from force of habit. And Princess
Apráksiya came forth upon the railed balcony to look.
Prince Vladímir spoke: “Whistle, thou Nightingale, roar like an aurochs,
hiss like a dragon.”
But the Nightingale replied: “Not thy captive am I, Vladímir. ’Tis not thy
bread I eat. But give me wine.”
“Give him a cup of green wine,” spake Ilyá, “a cup of a bucket and a
half, in weight a pud and a half, and a cake of fine wheat flour, for his
mouth is now filled with blood from my dart.”
Vladímir fetched a cup of green wine, and one of the liquor of
drunkenness, and yet a third of sweet mead; and the Nightingale drained
each at a draught. Then the Old Cossack commanded the Magic Bird to
whistle, roar and hiss, but under his breath, lest harm might come to any.
But the Nightingale, out of malice, did all with his full strength. And at
that cry, all the ancient palaces in Kíev fell in ruins, the new castles rocked,
the roofs through all the city fell to the ground, damp mother earth
quivered, the heroic steed fled from the court, the young damsels hid
themselves, the good youths dispersed through the streets, and as many as
remained to listen died. Ilyá caught up Prince Vladímir under one arm, and
his Princess under the other, to shield them; yet was Vladímir as though
dead for the space of three hours.
“For this deed of thine thou shalt die,” spake Ilyá in his wrath, and
Vladímir prayed that at least a remnant of his people might be spared.
The Nightingale began to entreat forgiveness, and that he might be
allowed to build a great monastery with his ill-gotten gold. “Nay,” said Ilyá,
“this kind buildeth never, but destroyeth alway.”

With that he took Nightingale the Robber by his white hands, led him far
out upon the open plain, fitted a burning arrow to his stout bow and shot it
into the black breast of that Magic Bird. Then he struck off his turbulent
head, and scattered his bones to the winds, and, mounting his good
Cloudfall, came again to good Vladímir.
Again they sat at the oaken board, eating savoury viands and white
swans, and quaffing sweet mead. Great gifts and much worship did Ilyá
receive, and Vladímir gave command that he should be called evermore Ilyá
of Múrom, the Old Cossack, after his native town.—From I. F. Hapgood’s
The Epic Songs of Russia.

Historical Songs.

The historical songs are composed in the same manner as the epic
songs, of which they are an organic continuation. The oldest
historical songs treat of the Tartar invasion. A large number are
centred about Iván the Terrible, and those that describe Yermák’s
exploits and conquests in Siberia are probably the most interesting
of that period. Some of those referring to the time of the Borís
Godunóv have been given on pp. 130-4, having been collected by
Richard James, the English divine. There are also songs dealing
with Sténka Rázin, the robber, who was executed in 1671, and Peter
the Great, of which that on the taking of Ázov in 1696 is given
below.
There are few collections of these songs in English: W. R.
Morfill’s Slavonic Literature and Talvi’s Historical View are the
only ones that give extracts of any consequence. Accounts of these
songs may be found in most of the Histories of Russian Literature
mentioned in the Preface.

YERMÁK

On the glorious steppes of Sarátov,
Below the city of Sarátov,
And above the city of Kamýshin,
The Cossacks, the free people, assembled;
They collected, the brothers, in a ring;
The Cossacks of the Don, the Grebén, and the Yaík,
Their Hetman was Yermák, the son of Timoféy;
Their captain was Asbáshka, the son of Lavrénti.
They planned a little plan.
“The summer, the warm summer is going,
And the cold winter approaches, my brothers.
Where, brothers, shall we spend the winter?
If we go to the Yaík, it is a terrible passage;
If we go to the Vólga, we shall be considered robbers;
If we go to the city of Kazán, there is the Tsar—
The Tsar Iván Vasílevich, the Terrible.
There he has great forces.”
“There, Yermák, thou wilt be hanged,
And we Cossacks shall be captured
And shut up in strong prisons.”
Yermák, the son of Timoféy, takes up his speech:—
“Pay attention, brothers, pay attention,
And listen to me—Yermák!
Let us spend the winter in Astrakhán;
And when the fair Spring reveals herself,
Then, brothers, let us go on a foray;
Let us earn our wine before the terrible Tsar!”

“Ha, brothers, my brave Hetmans!
Make for yourselves boats,
Make the rowlocks of fir,
Make the oars of pine!
By the help of God we will go, brothers;
Let us pass the steep mountains,
Let us reach the infidel kingdom,
Let us conquer the Siberian kingdom,—
That will please our Tsar, our master.
I will myself go to the White Tsar,
I shall put on a sable cloak,
I shall make my submission to the White Tsar.”
“Oh! thou art our hope, orthodox Tsar;
Do not order me to be executed, but bid me say my say,
Since I am Yermák, the son of Timoféy!
I am the robber Hetman of the Don;
’Twas I went over the blue sea,
Over the blue sea, the Caspian;
And I it was who destroyed the ships;
And now, our hope, our orthodox Tsar,
I bring you my traitorous head,
And with it I bring the empire of Siberia.”
And the orthodox Tsar spoke;
He spoke—the terrible Iván Vasílevich:
“Ha! thou art Yermák, the son of Timoféy,
Thou art the Hetman of the warriors of the Don.
I pardon you and your band,
I pardon you for your trusty service,
And I give you the glorious gentle Don as an inheritance.”

—From W. R. Morfill’s Slavonic Literature.

THE BOYÁR’S EXECUTION

“Thou, my head, alas! my head,
Long hast served me, and well, my head;
Full three-and-thirty summers long;
Ever astride of my gallant steed,
Never my foot from its stirrup drawn.
But alas! thou hast gained, my head,
Nothing of joy or other good;
Nothing of honours or even thanks.”

Yonder along the Butcher’s street,
Out to the field through the Butcher’s gate,
They are leading a prince and peer.
Priests and deacons are walking before,
In their hands a great book open;
Then there follows a soldier troop,
With their drawn sabres flashing bright.
At his right the headsman goes,
Holds in his hand the keen-edged sword;
At his left goes his sister dear,
And she weeps as the torrent pours,
And she sobs as the fountains gush.
Comforting speaks her brother to her:
“Weep not, weep not, my sister dear!
Weep not away thy eyes so clear,
Dim not, O dim not thy face so fair,
Make not heavy thy joyous heart!
Say, for what is it thou weepest so?
Is ’t for my goods, my inheritance?
Is ’t for my lands, so rich and wide?
Is ’t for my silver, or is ’t for my gold,
Or dost thou weep for my life alone?”

“Ah, thou, my light, my brother dear!
Not for thy goods or inheritance,
Not for thy lands, so rich and wide,
Is ’t that my eyes are weeping so;
Not for thy silver and not for thy gold,
’Tis for thy life I am weeping so.”

“Ah, thou, my light, my sister sweet!
Thou mayest weep, but it won’t avail;
Thou mayest beg, but ’tis all in vain;
Pray to the Tsar, but he will not yield.
Merciful truly was God to me,
Truly gracious to me the Tsar,
So he commanded my traitor head
Off should be hewn from my shoulders strong.”

Now the scaffold the prince ascends,
Calmly mounts to the place of death;
Prays to his Great Redeemer there,
Humbly salutes the crowd around:
“Farewell, world, and thou people of God!
Pray for my sins that burden me sore!”
Scarce had the people ventured then
On him to look, when his traitor head
Off was hewn from his shoulders strong.

—From Talvi’s Historical View.

THE STORMING OF ÁZOV

The poor soldiers have no rest,
Neither night nor day!
Late at evening the word was given
To the soldiers gay;
All night long their weapons cleaning,
Were the soldiers good;
Ready in the morning dawn,
All in ranks they stood.

Not a golden trumpet is it,
That now sounds so clear;
Nor the silver flute’s tone is it,
That thou now dost hear.
’Tis the great White Tsar who speaketh,
’Tis our father dear.
“Come, my princes, my boyárs,
Nobles, great and small!
Now consider and invent
Good advice, ye all,
How the soonest, how the quickest,
Fort Ázov may fall!”

The boyárs, they stood in silence,—
And our father dear,
He again began to speak,
In his eye a tear:
“Come, my children, good dragoons,
And my soldiers all,
Now consider and invent
Brave advice, ye all,
How the soonest, how the quickest,
Fort Ázov may fall!”

Like a humming swarm of bees,
So the soldiers spake,
With one voice at once they spake:
“Father dear, great Tsar!
Fall it must! and all our lives
Thereon we gladly stake.”
Set already was the moon,
Nearly past the night;
To the storming on they marched,
With the morning light;
To the fort with bulwarked towers
And walls so strong and white.

Not great rocks they were, which rolled
From the mountains steep;
From the high, high walls there rolled
Foes into the deep.
No white snow shines on the fields,
All so white and bright;
But the corpses of our foes
Shine so bright and white.
Not upswollen by heavy rains
Left the sea its bed;
No! In rills and rivers streams
Turkish blood so red!

—From Talvi’s Historical View.

Folksongs.

Pagan Russia was rich in ceremonies in honour of the various
divinities representing the powers of nature. Christianity has not
entirely obliterated the memory of these ancient rites: they are
preserved in the ceremonial songs that are recited, now of course
without a knowledge of their meaning, upon all church holidays, to
which the old festivities have been adapted. Thus, the feast of the
winter solstice now coincides with Christmas, while the old holiday
of the summer solstice has been transferred to St. John’s Day, on
June 24th.
The kolyádas are sung at Christmas, and seem to have been
originally in honour of the sun. The name appears to be related to
the Latin “calenda,” but it is generally supposed that this is only
accidental, and that Kolyáda was one of the appellations of the sun.
Young boys and girls march through the village or town and exact
contributions of eatables by reciting the kolyádas. In other places
they sing, instead, songs to a mythical being, Ovsén, on the eve of
the New Year. This Ovsén is some other representation of the sun.
During the Christmas festivity fortunes are told over a bowl of
water which is placed on the table, while in it are put rings, earrings,
salt, bread, pieces of coal. During the fortune-telling they sing the
bowl-songs, after each of which a ring, or the like, is removed. After
the fortune-telling follow the games and the songs connected with
these.
Spring songs are recited in the week after Easter. Soon after, and
lasting until the end of June, the round dance, the khorovód, is
danced upon some eminence, and the khorovód songs, referring to
love and marriage, are sung. There are still other reminiscences of
heathen festivals, of which the most important is that to Kupála, on
the night from the 23rd to the 24th of June, when the peasants jump
over fires and bathe in the river.
The wedding-songs, of which there is a large number in the long
ceremony of the wedding (cf. Kotoshíkhin’s account of the

seventeenth century wedding, p. 143 et seq.) contain reminiscences
of the ancient custom of the stealing of the bride, and, later, of the
purchase of the bride. Most of the love songs that are not part of the
khorovód are detached songs of the wedding ceremonial.
The beggar-songs are more properly apocryphal songs of book
origin, handed down from great antiquity, but not preceding the
introduction of Christianity. There are also lamentations, charms,
and other similar incantations, in which both pagan and Christian
ideas are mingled.
An account of the folksong will be found in Talvi’s Historical
View of the Languages and Literatures of the Slavic Nations, New
York, 1850; W. R. S. Ralston’s The Songs of the Russian People,
London, 1872; Russian Folk-Songs as Sung by the People, and
Peasant Wedding Ceremonies, translated by E. Lineff, with preface
by H. E. Krehbiel, Chicago, 1893. Also in the following periodical
articles: The Popular Songs of Russia, in Hogg’s Instructor, 1855,
and the same article, in Eclectic Magazine, vol. xxxvi; Russian
Songs and Folktales, in Quarterly Review, 1874 (vol. cxxxvi). A
number of popular songs have been translated by Sir John Bowring
in his Specimens of the Russian Poets, both parts.

KOLYÁDKA

Beyond the river, the swift river,
Oy Kolyádka!
There stand dense forests:
In those forests fires are burning,
Great fires are burning.
Around the fires stand benches,
Stand oaken benches,
On these benches the good youths,
The good youths, the fair maidens,
Sing Kolyáda songs,
Kolyáda, Kolyáda!
In their midst sits an old man;
He sharpens his steel knife.
A cauldron boils hotly.
Near the cauldron stands a goat.
They are going to kill the goat.
“Brother Ivánushko,
Come forth, spring out!”
“Gladly would I have sprung out,
But the bright stone
Drags me down to the cauldron:
The yellow sands
Have sucked dry my heart.”
Oy Kolyádka! Oy Kolyádka!

—From W. R. S. Ralston’s The Songs of the Russian People.

BOWL-SONG

A grain adown the velvet strolled—Glory!
No purer pearl could be—Glory!
The pearl against a ruby rolled—Glory!
Most beautiful to see—Glory!
Big is the pearl by ruby’s side—Glory!
Well for the bridegroom with his bride—Glory!

—From John Pollen’s Rhymes from the Russian.

A PARTING SCENE

“Sit not up, my love, late at evening hour,
Burn the light no more, light of virgin wax,
Wake no more for me till the midnight hour;
Ah, gone by, gone by is the happy time!
Ah, the wind has blown all our joys away,
And has scattered them o’er the empty field.
For my father dear, he will have it so,
And my mother dear has commanded it,
That I now must wed with another wife,
With another wife, with an unloved one!
But on heaven high two suns never burn,
Two moons never shine in the stilly night,
And an honest lad never loveth twice!
But my father shall be obeyed by me,
And my mother dear I will now obey;
To another wife I’ll be wedded soon,
To another wife, to an early death,
To an early death, to a forcèd one.”

Wept the lovely maid many bitter tears,
Many bitter tears, and did speak these words:
“O belovèd one, never seen enough,
Longer will I not live in this white world,
Never without thee, thou my star of hope!
Never has the dove more than one fond mate,
And the female swan ne’er two husbands has,
Neither can I have two belovèd friends.”

No more sits she now late at evening hour,
But the light still burns, light of virgin wax;
On the table stands the coffin newly made;
In the coffin new lies the lovely maid.

—From Talvi’s Historical View.

THE DOVE

On an oak-tree sat,
Sat a pair of doves;
And they billed and cooed
And they, heart to heart,
Tenderly embraced
With their little wings;
On them, suddenly,
Darted down a hawk.

One he seized and tore,
Tore the little dove,
With his feathered feet,
Soft blue little dove;
And he poured his blood
Streaming down the tree.
Feathers, too, were strewed
Widely o’er the field;
High away the down
Floated in the air.

Ah! how wept and wept,—
Ah! how sobbed and sobbed
The poor doveling then
For her little dove.

“Weep not, weep not so,
Tender little bird!”
Spake the light young hawk
To the little dove.

“O’er the sea away,
O’er the far blue sea,
I will drive to thee
Flocks of other doves.
From them choose thee then,
Choose a soft and blue,
With his feathered feet,
Better little dove.”

“Fly, thou villain, not
O’er the far blue sea!
Drive not here to me
Flocks of other doves.
Ah! of all thy doves
None can comfort me;
Only he, the father
Of my little ones.”

—From Talvi’s Historical View.

THE FAITHLESS LOVER

Nightingale, O nightingale,
Nightingale so full of song!
Tell me, tell me, where thou fliest,
Where to sing now in the night?
Will another maiden hear thee,
Like to me, poor me, all night
Sleepless, restless, comfortless,
Ever full of tears her eyes?
Fly, O fly, dear nightingale,
Over hundred countries fly,
Over the blue sea so far!
Spy the distant countries through,
Town and village, hill and dell,
Whether thou find’st anyone,
Who so sad is as I am?

Oh, I bore a necklace once,
All of pearls like morning dew;
And I bore a finger-ring,
With a precious stone thereon;
And I bore deep in my heart
Love, a love so warm and true.
When the sad, sad autumn came,
Were the pearls no longer clear;
And in winter burst my ring,
On my finger, of itself!
Ah! and when the spring came on,
Had forgotten me my love.

—From Talvi’s Historical View.

ELEGY

O thou field! thou clean and level field!
O thou plain, so far and wide around!
Level field, dressed up with everything,
Everything; with sky-blue flowerets small,
Fresh green grass, and bushes thick with leaves;
But defaced by one thing, but by one!
For in thy very middle stands a broom,
On the broom a young grey eagle sits,
And he butchers wild a raven black,
Sucks the raven’s heart-blood glowing hot,
Drenches with it, too, the moistened earth.
Ah, black raven, youth so good and brave!
Thy destroyer is the eagle grey.
Not a swallow ’tis, that hovering clings,
Hovering clings to her warm little nest;
To the murdered son the mother clings.
And her tears fall like the rushing stream,
And his sister’s like the flowing rill;
Like the dew her tears fall of his love:
When the sun shines, it dries up the dew.

—From Talvi’s Historical View.

THE FAREWELL

Brightly shining sank the waning moon,
And the sun all beautiful arose;
Not a falcon floated through the air,
Strayed a youth along the river’s brim.
Slowly strayed he on and dreamingly,
Sighing looked unto the garden green,
Heart all filled with sorrow mused he so:
“All the little birds are now awake,
All, embracing with their little wings,
Greeting, all have sung their morning songs.
But, alas! that sweetest doveling mine,
She who was my youth’s first dawning love,
In her chamber slumbers fast and deep.
Ah, not even her friend is in her dreams,
Ah! no thought of me bedims her soul,
While my heart is torn with wildest grief,
That she comes to meet me here no more.”

Stepped the maiden from her chamber then;
Wet, oh, wet with tears her lovely face!
All with sadness dimmed her eyes so clear,
Feebly drooping hung her snowy arms.
’Twas no arrow that had pierced her heart,
’Twas no adder that had stung her so;
Weeping, thus the lovely maid began:
“Fare thee well, belovèd, fare thee well,
Dearest soul, thy father’s dearest son!
I have been betrothed since yesterday;
Come, to-morrow, troops of wedding guests;
To the altar I, perforce, must go!
I shall be another’s then; and yet
Thine, thine only, thine alone till death.”

—From Talvi’s Historical View.

Sing, O sing again, lovely lark of mine,
Sitting there alone amidst the green of May!

In the prison-tower the lad sits mournfully;
To his father writes, to his mother writes:
Thus he wrote, and these, these were the very words:
“O good father mine, thou belovèd sir!
O good mother mine, thou belovèd dame!
Ransom me, I pray, ransom the good lad,—
He is your beloved, is your only son!”
Father, mother,—both,—both refused to hear,
Cursed their hapless race, cursed their hapless seed:
“Never did a thief our honest name disgrace,—
Highwayman or thief never stained the name!”

Sing, O sing again, lovely lark of mine,
Sitting there alone in the green of May!

From the prison-tower thus the prisoner wrote,
Thus the prisoner wrote to his belovèd maid:
“O thou soul of mine! O thou lovely maid!
Truest love of mine, sweetest love of mine!
Save, O save, I pray, save the prisoned lad!”
Swiftly then exclaimed that belovèd maid:
“Come, attendant! Come! Come, my faithful nurse!
Servant faithful, you that long have faithful been,
Bring the golden key, bring the key with speed!
Ope the treasure chests, open them in haste;
Golden treasures bring, bring them straight to me:
Ransom him, I say, ransom the good lad,
He is my beloved, of my heart beloved.”

Sing, O sing again, lovely lark of mine,
Sitting there alone amidst the green of May!

—From Sir John Bowring’s Specimens of the Russian Poets, Part II.

WEDDING GEAR

The blacksmith from the forge comes he—Glory!
And carries with him hammers three—Glory!
O blacksmith, blacksmith, forge for me—Glory!
A wedding crown of gold, bran-new!—Glory!
A golden ring, oh, make me, do!—Glory!
With what is left a gold pin too!—Glory!
The crown on wedding day I’ll wear—Glory!
On golden ring my troth I’ll swear—Glory!
The pin will bind my veil to hair—Glory!

—From John Pollen’s Rhymes from the Russian.

THE SALE OF THE BRAID

It was not a horn that in the early morning sounded;
It was a maiden her ruddy braid lamenting:
“Last night they twined my braid together,
And interweaved my braid with pearls.
Luká Ivánovich—Heaven requite him!—
Has sent a pitiless svákha hither.
My braid has she begun to rend.
Tearing out the gold from my braid,
Shaking my pearls from my ruddy braids.”

—From W. R. S. Ralston’s The Songs of the Russian People.

MARRIAGE SONG

Her mother has counselled Máryushka,
Has given counsel to her dear Efímovna.
“Go not, my child,
Go not, my darling,
Into thy father’s garden for apples,
Nor catch the mottled butterflies,
Nor frighten the little birds,
Nor interrupt the clear-voiced nightingale.
For shouldst thou pluck the apples
The tree will wither away;
Or seize the mottled butterfly,
The butterfly will die.
And shouldst thou frighten a little bird,
That bird will fly away;
Or interrupt the clear-voiced nightingale,
The nightingale will be mute:
But catch, my child,
My dear one, catch
The falcon bright in the open field,
The green, the open field.”

Máryushka has caught,
Caught has the dear Efímovna,
The falcon bright in the open field,
The green, the open field.
She has perched him on her hand,
She has brought him to her mother.
“Mother mine, Gosudárynya,
I have caught the falcon bright.”

—From W. R. S. Ralston’s The Songs of the Russian People.

BEGGARS’ SONG

“Whither art Thou fleeing?” they spoke in tears to Christ. “For whom art
Thou leaving us? Who will without Thee give us to drink and eat, will

clothe us and protect us against dark night?”
“Weep not, poor people,” replied Christ: “Weep not, mendicants and
homeless and small orphans! I will leave you a golden mountain, will give
you a honeyed river, will give you vineyards, will give you heavenly
manna. Only know how to manage that golden mountain, and to divide it
among yourselves: and you will be fed and given drink; you will be clothed
and covered up in dark nights.”
Then John the Theologue retorted: “Hail to Thee, real Christ, King of
heaven! Permit me to tell Thee a few words, and take not ill my words!
Give them not a golden mountain, nor a honeyed river and vineyards, give
them not heavenly manna! They will not know how to manage that
mountain; it will be beyond their strength, and they will not be able to
divide up: they will not harvest the grapes, will not taste the manna. Princes
and noblemen, pastors, officials and merchants will hear of that mountain,
and they will take away from them the golden mountain and honeyed river,
the vineyards and heavenly manna: they will divide up the golden mountain
among themselves according to their ranks, but the poor people will not be
admitted, and there will be much murder, and much spilling of blood. The
poor will have nothing to live on, nothing to wear, and nothing to protect
themselves with against dark night: the poor will die of starvation, will
freeze to death in cold winter. Give them rather Thy holy name and Word of
Christ; and the poor will go all over the earth, will glorify Thee, and the
orthodox will give them alms; the poor will be fed and given drink, will be
clothed and protected against cold night.”
“Thank you, John the Theologue!” replied Christ the heavenly King.
“You have said a sensible word, and have discussed well,—you have taken
good care of the poor.”

AN ORPHAN’S WAILING

O mother dear that bare me, O with sadness longed-for one! To whom
hast thou left us, on whom are we orphans to rest our hopes? From no
quarter do warm breezes breathe on us, we hear no words of kindness.
Great folks turn away from us, our kinsfolk renounce us; rust eats into our
orphaned hearts. The red sun burns in the midst of a hot summer, but us it

keeps not: scarcely does it warm us, O green mother-grave! Have a care for
us, mother dear, give us a word of kindness! No, thou hast hardened thy
heart harder than stone, and hast folded thy uncaressing hand over thy heart.
O white cygnet! For what journey hast thou prepared and equipped
thyself; from which side may we expect thee?
Arise, O ye wild winds, from all sides! Be borne, O winds, into the
Church of God! Sweep open the moist earth! Strike, O wild winds, on the
great bell! Will not its sounds and mine awaken words of kindness?—From
Ralston’s The Songs of the Russian People.

CONJURATION OF A MOTHER SEPARATED FROM HER CHILD

I, poor mother, weep in the high chamber of my house; from the dawn I
look afar over the fields, even until the sun goes to rest. There I sit until
night, till the damp dew falls; there I sit in grief, until, weary of this
torment, I resolve to conjure my cruel sorrow. I go into the field; I have
taken the nuptial cup, the taper of betrothal and the handkerchief of
marriage. I have drawn water from the mountain spring, I have gone into
the dark forest, and tracing around me a magic circle, I have said aloud
these words:—
“I conjure my dearest child by that nuptial cup, by that fresh water and by
that marriage handkerchief. With that water I lave his fair face, with that
handkerchief I wipe his honeyed lips, his sparkling eyes, his rosy cheeks,
his thoughtful brow; with that waxen taper I light up his splendid garments,
his sable bonnet, his belt of divers colours, his embroidered boots, his
chestnut locks, his noble figure and manly limbs, that thou mayest be, my
child, more brilliant than the brightest sunbeams, sweeter to look upon than
a sweet spring day, fresher than water from the fountain, whiter than the
wax, stronger than the magic stone. Far be from thee the demon of sorrow,
the impetuous hurricane, the one-eyed spirit of the woods, the domestic
demon of strange houses, the spirit of the waters, the sorcery of Kíev, the
woman of the twinkling billows, the cursed Babayagá, the winged and fiery
serpent, the crow of evil omen. I put myself between thee and the ogre, the
false magician, the sorcerer, the evil magic, the seeing blind and the old of
double sight. By my words of power, may thou be, my child, by night and

by day, from hour to moment, in the market-place, and asleep or in
watching, safe against the power of the evil spirits, against death, grief and
calamity; upon the water, against shipwreck; in fire, against burning.
“When thy last hour shall come, recall, my child, our tender love, our
bread and salt. Turn thyself towards thy glorious country, salute it seven
times—seven times with thy face to the earth, bid farewell to thy family,
throw thyself upon the damp ground and lull thyself to a calm sleep.
“May my word be stronger than water, higher than the mountain,
weightier than gold, harder than rock, stronger than an armed horseman,
and if any dare to bewitch my child, may he be swallowed by Mount Ararat,
in bottomless precipices, in burning tar and crackling fire; that sorceries and
magic may for ever be powerless against thee.”—From The Popular Songs
of Russia, in Hogg’s Instructor, 1855.

Fairy Tales.

For an account of the fairy tales see the chapter on Folklore. The
following works, of which Ralston’s is still the best, give a large
number of such stories: Russian Popular Tales, from the German
version of Anton Dietrich, London, 1857; W. R. S. Ralston, Russian
Folk-Tales, London, 1873; J. T. Naake, Slavonic Fairy Tales,
London, 1874; E. M. S. Hodgetts, Tales and Legends from the Land
of the Tzar, London, 1890; Jeremiah Curtin, Myths and Folk Tales
of the Russians, Western Slavs and Magyars, Boston, 1890; A.
Gerber, Great Russian Animal Tales (vol. vi, No. 2 of the
Publications of the Modern Language Association), Baltimore,
1891; R. Nisbet Bain, Russian Fairy Tales from the Skazki of
Polevoi, Chicago, 1895. There are also some articles in periodicals:
Household Tales of the Sclavonians and Hungarians, and The
Household Fictions of Esthonia and Russia, in Dublin University
Magazine, 1867 (vol. lxx); Russian Popular Legends (by Ralston),
in Fortnightly Review, 1869; Russian Songs and Folktales, in
Quarterly Review, 1874 (vol. cxxxvi).

FROST

There was once an old man who had a wife and three daughters. The wife
had no love for the eldest of the three, who was a step-daughter, but was
always scolding her. Moreover, she used to make her get up ever so early in
the morning, and gave her all the work of the house to do. Before daybreak
the girl would feed the cattle and give them to drink, fetch wood and water
indoors, light the fire in the stove, give the room a wash, mend the dress
and set everything in order. Even then her step-mother was never satisfied,
but grumbled away at Márfa, exclaiming:
“What a lazybones! What a slut! Why, here is a brush not in its place, and
there is something put wrong, and she has left the muck inside the house!”
The girl held her peace, and wept; she tried in every way to
accommodate herself to her step-mother, and to be of service to her step-
sisters. But they, taking pattern by their mother, were always insulting

Márfa, quarrelling with her, and making her cry: that was even a pleasure to
them! As for them, they lay in bed late, washed themselves in water got
ready for them, dried themselves with a clean towel and did not sit down to
work till after dinner.
Well, our girls grew and grew, until they grew up and were old enough to
be married. The old man felt sorry for his eldest daughter, whom he loved
because she was industrious and obedient, never was obstinate, always did
as she was bid and never uttered a word of contradiction. But he did not
know how to help her in her trouble. He was feeble, his wife was a scold
and his daughters were as obstinate as they were indolent.
Well, the old folks set to work to consider—the husband how he could
get his daughter settled, the wife how she could get rid of the eldest one.
One day she says to him:
“I say, old man! Let’s get Márfa married.”
“Gladly,” says he, slinking off (to the sleeping-place) above the stove.
But his wife called after him:
“Get up early to-morrow, old man, harness the mare to the sledge and
drive away with Márfa. And, Márfa, get your things together in a basket,
and put on a clean shift; you are going away to-morrow on a visit.”
Poor Márfa was delighted to hear of such a piece of good luck as being
invited on a visit, and she slept comfortably all night. Early next morning
she got up, washed herself, prayed to God, got all her things together,
packed them away in proper order, dressed herself (in her best things) and
looked something like a lass! a bride fit for any place whatsoever!
Now it was winter-time, and out of doors there was a rattling frost. Early
in the morning, between daybreak and sunrise, the old man harnessed the
mare to the sledge, and led it up to the steps, then he went indoors, sat down
in the window-sill, and said:
“Now then! I have got everything ready.”
“Sit down to table and swallow your victuals!” replied the old woman.
The old man sat down to table, and made his daughter sit by his side. On
the table stood a pannier; he took out a loaf, and cut bread for himself and

his daughter. Meantime his wife served up a dish of old cabbage soup and
said:
“There, my pigeon, eat and be off; I have looked at you quite enough!
Drive Márfa to her bridegroom, old man. And look here, old greybeard!
drive straight along the road at first, and then turn off from the road to the
right, you know, into the forest—right up to the big pine that stands on the
hill, and there hand Márfa to Morózko (Frost).”
The old man opened his eyes wide, also his mouth, and stopped eating,
and the girl began lamenting.
“Now then, what are you hanging your chaps and squealing about?” said
her step-mother. “Surely your bridegroom is a beauty, and he is that rich!
Why, just see what a lot of things belong to him: the firs, the pine-tops and
the birches, all in their robes of down—ways and means anyone might
envy; and he himself a bogatýr!”
The old man silently placed the things on the sledge, made his daughter
put on her warm pelisse and set off on the journey. After a time, he reached
the forest, turned off the road and drove across the frozen snow. When he
got into the depths of the forest, he stopped, made his daughter get out, laid
her basket under the tall pine and said:
“Sit here, and await the bridegroom. And mind you receive him as
pleasantly as you can!”
Then he turned his horse round and drove off homewards.
The girl sat and shivered. The cold pierced her through. She would fain
have cried aloud, but she had not strength enough; only her teeth chattered.
Suddenly she heard a sound. Not far off, Frost was cracking away on a fir.
From fir to fir was he leaping and snapping his fingers. Presently he
appeared on that very pine under which the maiden was sitting, and from
above her head he cried:
“Art thou warm, maiden?”
“Warm, warm am I, dear father Frost,” she replied.
Frost began to descend lower, all the more cracking and snapping his
fingers. To the maiden said Frost:

“Art thou warm, maiden? Art thou warm, fair one?”
The girl could scarcely draw her breath, but still she replied:
“Warm am I, Frost dear; warm am I, father dear!”
Frost began cracking more than ever, and more loudly did he snap his
fingers, and to the maiden he said:
“Art thou warm, maiden? Art thou warm, pretty one? Art thou warm, my
darling?”
The girl was by this time numbed with cold, and she could scarcely make
herself heard as she replied:
“Oh! Quite warm, Frost dearest!”
Then Frost took pity on the girl, wrapped her up in furs and warmed her
with blankets.
Next morning the old woman said to her husband:
“Drive out, old greybeard, and wake the young people!”
The old man harnessed his horse and drove off. When he came to where
his daughter was, he found she was alive and had got a good pelisse, a
costly bridal veil and a pannier with rich gifts. He stowed everything away
on the sledge without saying a word, took a seat on it with his daughter, and
drove back. They reached home, and the daughter fell at her step-mother’s
feet. The old woman was thunderstruck when she saw the girl alive, and the
new pelisse and the basket of linen.
“Ah, you wretch!” she cries, “But you sha’n’t trick me!”
Well, a little later the old woman says to her husband:
“Take my daughters, too, to their bridegroom. The presents he’s made are
nothing to what he’ll give them.”
Well, early next morning the old woman gave her girls their breakfast,
dressed them as befitted brides and sent them off on their journey. In the
same way as before the old man left the girls under the pine.
There the girls sat, and kept laughing and saying:

“Whatever is mother thinking of? All of a sudden to marry both of us off!
As if there were no lads in our village, forsooth! Some rubbishy fellow may
come, and goodness knows who he may be!”
The girls were wrapped up in pelisses, but for all that they felt the cold.
“I say, Praskóvya! The Frost’s skinning me alive. Well, if our bridegroom
doesn’t come quick, we shall be frozen to death here!”
“Don’t go talking nonsense, Máshka; as if suitors turned up in the
forenoon! Why, it’s hardly dinner-time yet!”
“But I say, Praskóvya! If only one comes, which of us will he take?”
“Not you, you stupid goose!”
“Then it will be you, I suppose!”
“Of course, it will be me!”
“You, indeed! There now, have done talking stuff and treating people like
fools!”
Meanwhile, Frost had numbed the girls’ hands, so our damsels folded
them under their dresses, and then went on quarrelling as before.
“What, you fright! You sleepy face! You abominable shrew! Why, you
don’t know so much as how to begin weaving; and as to going on with it,
you haven’t an idea!”
“Aha, boaster! And what is it you know? Why, nothing at all except to go
out merrymaking and lick your lips there. We’ll soon see which he’ll take
first!”
While the girls went on scolding like that, they began to freeze in
downright earnest. Suddenly they both cried out at once:
“Whyever is he so long coming? You know, you have turned quite blue!”
Now, a good way off, Frost had begun cracking, snapping his fingers and
leaping from fir to fir. To the girls it sounded as if someone were coming.
“Listen, Praskóvya! He’s coming at last, with bells, too!”
“Get along with you! I won’t listen; my skin is pealing with cold.”
“And yet you’re still expecting to get married!”

Then they began blowing their fingers.
Nearer and nearer came Frost. At length he appeared on the pine, above
the heads of the girls, and said to them:
“Are ye warm, maidens? Are ye warm, pretty ones? Are ye warm, my
darlings?”
“Oh, Frost, it’s awfully cold! We are utterly perished! We’re expecting a
bridegroom, but the confounded fellow has disappeared.”
Frost slid lower down the tree, cracked away more, snapped his fingers
oftener than before.
“Are ye warm, maidens? Are ye warm, pretty ones?”
“Get along with you! Are you blind, that you can’t see our hands and feet
are quite dead?”
Still lower descended Frost, still more put forth his might and said:
“Are ye warm, maidens?”
“Into the bottomless pit with you! Out of my sight, accursed one!” cried
the girls—and became lifeless forms.
Next morning the old woman said to her husband:
“Old man, go and get the sledge harnessed; put an armful of hay in it, and
take some sheepskin wraps. I dare say the girls are half dead with cold.
There is a terrible frost outside! And, mind you, old greybeard, do it
quickly!”
Before the old man could manage to get a bite, he was out of doors and
on his way. When he came to where his daughters were, he found them
dead. So he lifted the girls on the sledge, wrapped a blanket round them and
covered them up with a bark mat. The old woman saw him from afar, ran
out to meet him and called out ever so loud:
“Where are my girls?”
“In the sledge.”
The old woman lifted the mat, undid the blanket and found the girls both
dead.

Then, like a thunder-storm, she broke out against her husband, abusing
him and saying:
“What have you done, you old wretch? You have destroyed my
daughters, the children of my own flesh, my never-to-be-gazed-on
seedlings, my beautiful berries! I will thrash you with the tongs; I will give
it you with the stove-rake.”
“That’s enough, you old goose! You flattered yourself you were going to
get riches, but your daughters were too stiff-necked. How was I to blame? It
was you yourself would have it.”
The old woman was in a rage at first, and used bad language; but
afterwards she made it up with her step-daughter, and they all lived together
peaceably, and thrived, and bore no malice. A neighbour made an offer of
marriage, the wedding was celebrated and Márfa is now living happily. The
old man frightens his grandchildren with (stories about) Frost, and does not
let them have their own way.—From W. R. S. Ralston’s Russian Folk-Tales.

THE CAT, THE GOAT AND THE RAM

Once upon a time there lived in a yard a Goat and a Ram, and they lived
in great friendship with each other: say there was but a bunch of hay—even
that they divided in two equal halves. If there was anyone to be punched in
his sides, it was only Tom-Cat Váska; he was such a thief and robber,—
always on the lookout for prey, and let there be anything not under lock, his
stomach immediately growled for it.
The Goat and the Ram were once lying quietly and having a friendly
chat, when who should turn up but grey-browed, Purring Váska, and he was
whining pitifully. So the Goat and Ram asked him:
“Kitty-Cat, grey-browed Cat, why are you whining so, and why do you
hop about on three legs?”
“How can I help crying? The old woman has beaten me; she struck me
hard, almost pulled my ears out, nearly broke my legs, and came very near
choking my life out of me.”
“What have you been guilty of, to deserve such a fate?”

“All the trouble was, I was hungry, and lapped up the cream.” And the
Purring Cat once more began to whine.
“Kitty-Cat, grey-browed Cat! What are you whining about?”
“How can I help crying? As the old woman was beating me, she kept on
saying: ‘Where shall I get the cream when my son-in-law will come to-
morrow? I’ll have to butcher the Goat and the Ram!’”
The Goat and the Ram howled loud: “O you grey Cat, senseless head!
Why have you ruined us? We’ll butt you to death!”
Then Purring Váska humbly confessed his guilt and begged forgiveness.
They forgave him, and the three held a council of how matters stood and
what was to be done.
“Well, middle brother Ram,” asked Purring Cat, “have you a tough head?
Just try it against the gate!”
The Ram took a run and hit the gate with his head: the gate shook, but
did not open. Then rose the elder brother Billy-Goat, took a run, hit the gate
and it flew open.
The dust rose in a cloud, the grass bent to the ground, while the Goat and
Ram were running, and the grey-browed Cat was hopping after them on
three legs. He grew tired, and he begged his plighted brothers: “Elder
brother and middle brother! Don’t abandon your younger brother a prey to
the wild beasts!”
So the Goat stopped and took him on his back, and again they raced over
hills, and vales, and drifting sands. And they came to a steep hill and a
standstill. Under that steep hill was a mowed meadow, and on that meadow
there was a whole town of haystacks. The Goat, and Ram, and Cat stopped
to take a rest; it was a cold autumn night. Where were they to get some fire?
The Goat and the Ram were still thinking about it, when the Purring Cat got
some twigs with which he tied the Goat’s horns, and he told the Goat and
the Ram to strike each other’s heads. They hit each other with such a might
that sparks flew from their eyes: the twigs crackled.
“That’ll do,” said the grey Cat. “Now we will warm ourselves.” No
sooner said than he put a haystack on fire.

They had not yet gotten warm, when lo! there was an uncalled guest, a
Peasant-in-gabardine, Mikháylo Ivánovich. “Let me,” he said, “warm
myself and take a rest; I don’t feel well.”
“You are welcome, Peasant-in-gabardine, Ant-eater! Good fellow, where
do you come from?”
“I went to the beehives and had a fight with the peasants; so I am sick
now, and I am on my way to the Fox to get cured.”
They passed the dark night together: the Bear under a haystack, Purring
Váska on the haystack, and the Goat and the Ram by the fire.
“Ugh, ugh!” said the White Wolf, “it is not Russian flesh I smell. What
manner of people may they be? I must find out!”
The Goat and the Ram bleated with fright, and Purring Váska held such
discourse: “Listen, White Wolf, Prince of all the wolves! Don’t anger our
eldest one, for if he should get at you, it will be your end. Don’t you see his
beard? that’s where his strength lies. With his beard he strikes down the
animals, but with his horns he only flays them. You had better ask him with
due respect to let you have your fun with your younger brother that is lying
under the haystack.”
So the wolves bowed to the Goat, and surrounded Míshka, and began to
tease him. He got up, waxed angry and just grabbed a wolf with each paw;
they howled their “Lazarus,” but somehow managed to get away with
drooping tails, and they raced as fast as their feet would carry them.
In the meanwhile the Goat and the Ram seized the Cat, and ran into the
woods, where they once more met some grey wolves. The Cat crawled up
to the top of a pine-tree, and the Goat and the Ram got hold of a branch of
the pine-tree with their fore legs, and hung down from it. The wolves stood
under the tree, grinned and howled, watching the Goat and the Ram. The
grey-browed Cat saw that things were very bad, so he began to throw down
pine cones upon the wolves, and kept saying: “One wolf! Two wolves!
Three wolves! Just a wolf apiece. It is not so long ago I, Purring Váska, ate
up two wolves with all their bones, so I am not hungry yet; but you, big
brother, have been out a-hunting bears, and you did not get any, so you may
have my share!”

Just as he said that, the Goat could not hold on any longer, and dropped
with his horns straight down on a wolf. But Purring Váska yelled out: “Hold
him, catch him!” The wolves were so frightened that they started on a run,
and did not dare look back. That was the last of them.

THE FOX AND THE PEASANT

Once upon an evening the Fox, feeling grieved, took a walk to divert
herself and breathe the fresh air. Though she had not expected it, there
presented itself an opportunity to have her revenge, for whom should she
see but Vúkol in his cart! As she scented some fish, she decided to steal
them. The question now was how to steal them out of Vúkol’s cart. Of
course, it was too risky to crawl in, for Vúkol would lay on his whip, or,
catching her by her tail, would kill her altogether. So Lísa Patrikyéevna
softly ran all around the Peasant, who was hastening home, lay down on the
ground and barely breathed. The rogue lay there as if she really were dead:
her mouth open, her teeth grinning, her snout turned upwards, her nose
flabby; she neither moved, nor heaved, nor wagged her tail.
Vúkol was travelling at a slow pace, when suddenly his nag neighed.
“What’s the matter?” spoke Vúkol, rose and looked down the road. “Oh, I
see! God has sent me a nice gift. I’ll pick it up; it will be a fine thing for my
wife, for its fur is as soft as a shawl.” Having very wisely discussed thus,
Vúkol took the Fox by the tail and put her on the fish, and went over the
bridge. But Lísa Patrikyéevna was very happy and, to carry out the first part
of her program, quietly devoured a good-sized tench; then she started
dropping one fish after another on the road, until she had emptied the whole
cart. Then she stealthily dropped down from the cart herself and started on a
run without turning back, so that the dust flew up.
It grew dark, and murky night was near; Vúkol Sílych pulled his reins,
and the horse raced faster. He reached his house, without discovering the
theft, and, smiling to his wife, he said with a merry voice to her: “Woman,
just look into the cart and see what I have brought you! I found it in the
road, near the bridge, by the pines and birches.”
His wife Dárya rummaged in the hay, tossed it to and fro, hoping to find
her present. “Where is it? What a shame!” She turned everything upside

down, shook the fish bag, but she only got her hands dirty,—the present she
did not find. Put out about such a deception, she said to her husband, Vúkol:
“What a stupid you are!”
In the meantime Patrikyéevna carried all the fish to her lair, and she had
an easy time of it all autumn, and even winter. But this revenge is
insignificant: her greater revenge is still ahead. Things are bad for you,
Vúkol Sílych! Be prepared for the worst.

Proverbs.

The first collection of Russian proverbs was made by the poet
Bogdanóvich, at Catherine’s command. The most extensive
collection of the present time is the one by Dal. In the English
language there are but two small accounts of these proverbs: one, in
R. Pinkerton’s Russia; or, Miscellaneous Observations on the Past
and Present of the Country and its Inhabitants, London, 1833, and
Russian Proverbs, in Quarterly Review, vol. cxxxix.
The heart has ears.
Home is a full cup.
A maiden’s heart is a dark forest.
Calumny is like a coal: if it does not burn it will soil.
Good luck disappears like our curls; bad luck lasts like our nails.
Sorrow kills not, but it blights.
The pine stands afar, but whispers to its own forest.
Blame not my bast shoes, my boots are in the sledge.
The poor man has a sheepskin coat, but a human soul too.
Behind the orphan God Himself bears a purse.
Poverty is not a sin, but twice as bad.
Seven nurses cost the child an eye.
May God make me fleshy: rosiness I can get for myself.
A dog is wiser than a woman: it does not bark at its master.
Seven axes will lie together, but two spindles asunder.
Let a woman into Paradise, she’ll be for bringing her cow with her.
The Holy Russian land is large, but everywhere the dear sun shines.
Our stove is our own mother.
Not corners but pies make a room fair.

Even bad kvas is better than water.
By that which wounded may your wound be cured.
Black may be toil, but white is its price.
God waits long, but hits hard.
Terrible are dreams, but God is merciful.
God is high, and the Tsar far off.
Pray to God, but row to shore.
The wolf catches the destined sheep.
Be born neither wise nor fair, but lucky.
Moustaches for honour, but even a goat has a beard.
An old crow croaks not for nothing.
Love your wife like your soul, and beat her like your fur coat.
Not long hurt the bumps from a loved one’s thumps.
A wife is not a guitar; when your playing is done, you can’t hang her up
on the wall.
It’s a bore to go alone, even to get drowned.
A parent’s blessing can neither be drowned in water nor consumed in fire.
A visible girl is of copper, but an invisible one of silver.
Hold out, Cossack; thou wilt become Hetman.
He who sweats afield, and prays to God at home, will never starve.
Boldness drinks mead and chafes fetters.
A bad peace is better than a good quarrel.
If the thunder rolls not, the muzhík will not cross himself.
Don’t beat the muzhík with a cudgel, but beat him with a rouble.
To rotten wares the seller is blind.
A snipe is small, but, for all that, a bird.

Fear not the threats of the rich but the tears of the poor.
Drink at table, not behind a pillar.
Who can withstand God and Nóvgorod the Great?
Where there is an oath, there is also a crime.
God’s will and the Tsar’s decree.
The Tsar’s wrath is the messenger of death.
God loves the just, but judges love the pettifogger.
I bailed him out: he taught me a lesson.
The knout is not the devil, but it will seek out the truth.
Wide is the gateway leading into a boyár’s court, but narrow—out of it.
Slavery drinks mead, and freedom water.
—From Quarterly Review, vol. cxxxix.

THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

Iván Tikhónovich Pososhkóv. (1670-1726.)

An interesting figure that belongs both to the old and the new
régime is Pososhkóv. He was the son of a peasant and had received
no other education than what he could pick up from the reading of
church books. He also acquired a knowledge of arithmetic, a rare
science for the men of the older generation, and of grammar, and
much practical experience in his wanderings through Russia. Being
a good business man and a close observer of current events, he
became very rich, owned several factories, and carried on commerce
on a large scale. He had brought from his peasant home the religious
piety of the old order of things, but at the same time was shrewd
enough to see the advantages of reform, which he favoured to the
best of his ability. His son was among the first Russians who were
sent abroad to be instructed. He provided him with ample means
and a written Father’s Testament to his Son, with a Moral, in
Confirmation of Holy Writ. This Testament belongs in the same
category as the Domostróy (see p. 126), but the spirit of reform has
softened many of the ancient crudities. Of his other works the most
interesting is his The Book on Poverty and Wealth, That is, An
Exposition of what Causes Dire Poverty and Abundantly Increases
Wealth, which is characteristic of the transitional stage of Russia. In
this work, Pososhkóv combines shrewd guesses on economic
problems with crude conceptions of their solution.

“THE BOOK ON POVERTY AND WEALTH”

FROM THE CHAPTER “ON MERCHANTS”

The merchant guild must not be disregarded, for without merchants no
country, neither large nor small, can exist. The merchant is the companion
of the military: the soldier fights, and the merchant aids him by furnishing
him with all the necessaries. For this reason an unstinted care should be
bestowed upon them, for as the soul cannot exist without a body, even so
the soldier cannot get along without the merchant; nor can the merchant get
along without the soldier. A country expands through the profession of war,

and is beautified through commerce. Consequently the merchants must be
protected against offenders, so that they receive not the least insult from
government officials. Many unthinking people disdain the merchants, loathe
them and offend them without provocation, and yet there is no condition of
life which can get along without the merchant.
But the merchants must be guarded not only against outside offenders:
they must not interfere with each other as well, and men from other ranks
must not enter the merchant guild and thus cause them no end of
disturbance. Commerce should be free, so that they themselves may be
benefited and the interests of his Imperial Highness be guarded.
If commerce were free for the Russian merchants, and neither men from
other ranks nor foreigners would in the least impair the commerce of
Russians, the revenue would be increased. I am of the opinion that without
changing the duties, the revenue would be doubled or trebled, whereas now
the greater half is lost through the traders from the other ranks.
If a person belonging to some other rank, whether he be senator, or
officer, or nobleman, or government official, or clerical, or peasant, should
wish to carry on commerce, let him leave his former rank and join the
merchant guild, and trade in a straightforward manner, and not by stealth,
and pay his duties and other merchant taxes, and let him never again do
anything by stealth, as before, without consent of the Merchant
Commander, and escape the paying of imposts.
Every rank must behave in such a manner as not to sin before God and do
wrong before the Tsar; and they should live as is their profession: if one be
a soldier, let him be a soldier, and if he have another vocation, let him
devote himself entirely to that vocation.
Our Lord Himself has said: No man can serve two masters. So let the
soldier, or man of another rank, stay in his profession, and let him not enter
into another rank, for if he devote himself to commerce, he will curtail his
military duties. The Lord Himself has said: Where your treasure is, there
will be your heart also. And St. Paul the apostle has said that no soldier can
find favour with his captain who meddles with commerce. There is a
popular saw which says, Choose one or the other, war or commerce.

For these reasons it does not behoove the soldier or man of another rank
to trade. If, however, he have a desire to become a merchant, let him join
the guild.
If there be no prohibition for external merchants, from the ranks of the
nobles, officers or peasants, the merchants will not be able to become
enriched, and it will not be possible for the revenue to be increased.
... At the present time boyárs, noblemen and their people, soldiers and
peasants carry on commerce, without paying any tax, and many merchants
carry on trade in their names, and pay no tax. Not half the revenue is
collected, nor ever can be collected, if commerce is not to be made free
from the nobles and officials, since many mighty people have taken to
trade, and some who are not themselves powerful but are not subject to the
magistrate.
I know, for example, one case in a Nóvgorod county where there are a
hundred or two of merchant-peasants, and who do not pay a farthing’s
worth of taxes. And if a collector, seeing them, tries to collect the revenue,
the gentry take the peasant’s part and send the collector away more dead
than alive, and the government officers look on, and dare not interfere. And
there are some wealthy men, who have some five or six hundred peasants
carrying on such illicit trade, and pay not a farthing to the Great Tsar. If all
be arranged as I have proposed, commerce will awaken as if from a dream.
It is a very bad custom the merchant people have, to do each other wrong
by cheating each other. Both foreigners and Russians are in the habit of
showing good-looking wares that are badly made within or filled up with
bad stuff; or bad wares are mixed with wares of a good quality and are sold
as if of good quality, taking for them an unfair price, and greatly deceiving
inexperienced people. They give wrong weights and measures, deceive in
price, and do not think all that to be a sin, although they cause so much
injustice to the inexperienced. Yet those who deceive are in the end ruined
through their own iniquity, and become impoverished.
... In order to establish justice in the Merchant Rows, let there be
appointed hundred-men and fifty-men and ten-men, and over the shop
where there is an hundred-man let there be nailed a round board, painted
white, so that it can be easily seen, and on that board let there be written
“hundred-man.” Do the same with the shop of the fifty-man and ten-man,

so that those who purchase any goods may know where to show their
wares, if they should want to find out whether they have received the right
weight, or measure, or whether the wares are good or bad, and whether they
have paid the correct price for them.
If a merchant have received more than the worth of the wares, let him be
fined a dime or two for every unfair kopek, and let him be beaten with rods
or a whip, that he may not do so again in the future; and if he repeat his
offence, let the fine and punishment be increased.
But if one give wrong measure and weight, or sell different goods from
what the buyer demanded, and give him inferior goods, let his punishment
be much more severe, and the fine be ten times the price of the goods.
And if an hundred-man, or fifty-man, or ten-man be guilty of such a
transgression, let the fine for the ten-man be tenfold, for the fifty-man
fiftyfold, and for the hundred-man hundredfold, and let the punishment be
with the knout, as many strokes as may be decided upon. The hundred-men
and fifty-men should receive very stringent instructions to watch without
relenting the ten-men and not to be indulgent to them, but to fear the law
like fire, lest their transgressions reach the ears of high personages. And the
ten-men should watch all the shops under their charge, and see to it that no
inferior wares are adulterated by the admixture of better material, but that
they are sold such as they are, the good wares as good wares, the mediocre
as mediocre, and the poor as poor, and that right weights and measures be
given, and that the prices be not raised on the goods, and that there be no
adulterations. Let only the right price be asked, and let them measure
foreign stuffs, brocade, calamanco and silks from the first end, and not from
the last. And no matter what buyer there come, whether rich or poor,
whether experienced or inexperienced, let them all be treated in the same
fair manner, and let there not a kopek be added to the price of one rouble or
ten roubles.
Whatever fine is to be collected should be collected by the hundred-men,
without delay, on the day the offence has been committed. All the fines
ought to be entered in a ledger which should be reported every month in the
proper office. No transaction, neither great nor small, should take place with
the foreigners who frequent the fairs, without the permission of the Chief
Commander of the Merchant Guild. Whoever dares to sell even a rouble’s

worth of goods to these foreigners without the permission of the Chief
Commander shall be fined a hundredfold, a hundred roubles for every
rouble sold, and the punishment shall be administered with the knout, as
many strokes as may be decreed, that they should remember them and never
do so again.

FROM THE CHAPTER “ON THE PEASANTRY”

Much might be added to the protection of the peasantry if their houses
were rebuilt so that they could live more freely and peacefully; for much
damage is done to them through overcrowding: if one man’s house take fire,
the whole village is threatened, and frequently not a single house is left.
This leads to endless poverty. If they had not been so much crowded in their
settlements, they would not be so easily ruined. It is against this ruin that
they ought to be protected. Let them build their houses farther from each
other, nor join yard to yard, but with intervals, a few houses in a lot; the
streets ought to be wide, where there is sufficient space, not less than two
hundred feet in width; where the space is crowded, not less than one
hundred feet in width. In this way, if there should be a fire, all the
neighbours would run to put it out: there being intervals between the
houses, it would be easy to reach them from all sides, and as there would be
little danger for the neighbouring houses, the peasants would not rush, as
before, to save their own possessions, but would aid their unfortunate
neighbour. As the settlements are now arranged, it is utterly impossible for
the neighbours to bring aid; they rush for their own, which they cannot all
save, but generally lose everything they have. Thus they are ruined and
become impoverished.
Not a small degree of annoyance is caused the peasants from not having
literate people among them. There are many villages of twenty or thirty
houses that have not a single man that can read; if any come to them with
an ukase, or without an ukase, pretending to have one, they believe him,
and suffer damages; for they are all blind,—they see nothing and
understand nothing. They are not able to dispute with the people that
pretend having ukases, and they frequently pay unwarranted taxes to them.
To guard the peasants from such losses, it seems to me, they ought to be
compelled to send their children of ten years and less to some subdeacon to
be instructed how to read and write. I think it would not be a bad thing if

the smallest village were not without a literate man, so there ought to be a
strict law compelling the peasants to have their children instructed for three
or four years. And there ought to be a severe punishment for those who do
not have their children taught anything for four years, or who do not have
them instructed at all as they grow up.
Having learned to read and write, they will not only conduct more
intelligently the affairs of their masters, but they will be also useful in the
Government, being eligible as hundred-men and fifty-men, and no one
would abuse them and mulct them for nothing.

Feofán (in private life Eleázar) Prokopóvich. (1681-1763.)

Peter the Great’s reforms were not so much the beginning of a
new movement, as the accomplishment of a mental ferment which
was taking place in Russia towards the end of the seventeenth
century, and they were successful and permanent in the degree that
he made use of persons who were already in sympathy with Western
culture. The most important of these was Feofán Prokopóvich.
Prokopóvich studied in the schools of Kíev, then became a Uniat
and continued his studies in Poland, then went to Rome and entered
the College of St. Athanasius, which had been established for the
purpose of a Catholic propaganda among the Greeks and Slavs of
the Eastern Church. There he distinguished himself for his brilliant
learning, which included a thorough knowledge of the classics. He
returned to Russia in 1702, renounced his Uniat affiliations and
became a teacher in the Kíev Academy. Here he composed a text-
book on the art of poetry and a tragi-comedy, Vladímir, which was
played by the students of the Academy. Peter I. met Feofán in 1709,
after the victory at Poltáva, when the latter received him in Kíev
with a panegyric. In 1716 he was called to St. Petersburg, where,
during the absence of Peter, he employed his oratorical powers to
advocate the Emperor’s reforms. The following year he was made
bishop of Nóvgorod. The following year he was entrusted with
reforming the government of the Church, which he did by his
famous Spiritual Reglement, a work that breathes the most
enlightened liberalism. One of the chief changes introduced by this
Reglement was the abandonment of the all-powerful Patriarchate,
and the substitution for it of the Holy Synod, of which he became
the ruling spirit. After the death of Peter the Great, his enemies
swooped down upon him, but, having passed the school of the
Jesuits, he was an adept at diplomacy and intrigue, and paid them
back in their own coin. However, Prokopóvich is remembered for
the enormous good he did, for his prodigious learning, to which
many foreigners who visited Russia are witnesses, but especially for
encouraging scholarship and literature. Tatíshchev and Kantemír

were his friends, and upon the appearance of Kantemír’s first satire
(see p. 223), he was the first to hail his promising talent.
There is a translation of Prokopóvich’s Catechism under the title,
The Russian Catechism, composed and published by order of the
Czar [Peter I. Translated from the Russian by J. T. Philipps],
London [1723], second edition 1725.

FROM “THE SPIRITUAL REGLEMENT”
OF INSTRUCTION

It is known to the whole world how weak and impotent the Russian army
was when it had no regular instruction, and how incomparably its strength
was increased and became great and terrible when our august monarch, his
Imperial Highness Peter the First, instructed it in a proper manner. The
same is true of architecture, medicine, political government, and all other
affairs.
But, most of all, that is true of the government of the Church: when there
is not the light of instruction, the Church cannot have any good conduct,
and impossibly can there be avoided disorder and superstitions that deserve
a great deal of ridicule, as well as strife, and most foolish heresies.
Many foolishly assert that instruction is the cause of heresy. But the
heretics of ancient days, the Valentinians, Manichæans, Catharists,
Euchites, Donatists and others, whose stupid acts are described by Irenæus,
Epiphanius, Augustine, Theodoret and others, raved, not through
instruction, but through arrogant foolishness. And did not our own
dissenters rave so deliriously through their lack of culture, and ignorance?
Though there are some heresiarchs, such as were Arius, Nestorius and a few
others, yet their heresies arose not through instruction, but from an
imperfect understanding of the Holy Writ, and they grew and were
strengthened through malice and false pride which did not permit them to
change their wrong opinion after they had discovered the truth, and against
their conscience. And though their instruction gave them the power to use
sophisms, that is, cunning proofs of their elucubrations, yet he who would
want to ascribe this evil simply to instruction would be compelled to say
that where a physician poisons a patient, his knowledge of medicine was the

cause thereof, and where a soldier valiantly and cunningly strikes down the
enemy, military art is the cause of killing. And when we look through
history, as through a telescope, at the past ages, we shall discover more evil
in the Dark Ages than in those that were enlightened through culture. The
bishops were not so arrogant before the fifth century as they were
afterwards, especially the bishops of Rome and Constantinople, because
before there was learning, and afterwards it grew less. If learning were
dangerous to the Church and State, the best Christians would not study
themselves, and would forbid others to study; but we see that all our ancient
teachers studied not only the Holy Writ, but also profane philosophy.
Besides many others, the most famous pillars of the Church have advocated
profane learning, namely: Basil the Great in his instruction to the studying
youths, Chrysostom in his books on monastic life, Gregory the Theologue
in his sermon on Julian the Apostate. I should have a great deal to say, if I
were to dwell on this alone.
Good and thorough instruction is the root and seed and foundation of all
usefulness, both for the fatherland and the Church. There is, however, a
kind of instruction which does not deserve that name, though it is deemed
by certain clever but not well-informed men to be the real instruction.
Many are in the habit of asking in what schools such and such an one has
been educated? When they hear that he has been in rhetoric, philosophy and
theology, they are prone to place him very high, for the sake of those
names, but in that they frequently err, for not all get good instruction from
good teachers, one on account of his dulness, another on account of his
laziness; how much is that the case when the teacher is little, or not at all,
proficient in his subject!
It is important to know that from the sixth to the fifteenth century, that is,
for nine hundred years, all learning in Europe was of a very meagre and
imperfect character, so that we see in the authors who wrote at that time
great sharpness of wit, but small enlightenment. With the fifteenth century
there began to appear better-informed and more skilful teachers, and by
degrees many academies acquired a greater importance than in those
ancient Augustan times; many other schools, on the contrary, stuck fast in
their ancient slime, preserving, indeed, the names of rhetoric, philosophy
and other sciences, but in reality having none of them. Different causes
have led to this, but space does not permit their mention here.

People who have received, so to say, an empty and fantastic education in
these institutions are generally more stupid than those who have received
none at all. Being themselves in the dark, they deem themselves to be
perfect, and imagining that they have learned all that there is to be learned,
neither have the desire, nor think it worth while to read books and study
more. On the other hand, a man who has received the proper schooling is
never satisfied with his knowledge, and never stops learning, even though
he has passed the age of Methuselah.
But this is the greatest misfortune: the above-mentioned imperfectly
instructed people are not only useless, but also very harmful to society,
State and Church. They humble themselves beyond necessity before the
authorities, attempting through cunning to appropriate to themselves
favours, and crawl into higher places. They hate people of the same
standing as themselves, and if anyone is praised for his learning, they use
their utmost endeavour to depreciate and denounce him before the people
and authorities. They are prone to take part in rebellions, hoping to gain
advantages for themselves through them. When they take to theological
discussions, they cannot help falling into heresies, for, being ignorant, they
easily fall into error, after which they will not change the opinion they have
uttered, for fear of appearing not to have known all. But wise men have this
proverb: “It is the property of a wise man to change his opinion.”

FUNERAL SERMON ON PETER THE GREAT

What is this, and what have we lived to see, O Russians? What are we
doing now? We are burying Peter the Great! Is it not a dream? Not a vision
of the night? Oh, what a real sorrow! Oh, what certain bitter reality!
Contrary to all expectations and hopes he has ended his life who has been
the cause of our innumerable benefactions and joys, who has resuscitated
Russia as if from the dead, and has raised it to great power and glory, nay,
has begot it and brought it up, he the true father of his country, whom for
his deserts all the good sons of Russia wished to be immortal, and whom,
on account of his youth and bodily strength, they had hoped to see many
years alive. O dire calamity! He has ended his life just as he was beginning
to live after his labours, unrest, sorrows, calamities, after so many and
varied deaths.

We see well how we have angered Thee, O Lord, and how long we have
tempted Thy long-suffering! O we unfortunate and unworthy people! O the
infinitude of our sins! He who does not see that is blind. He who sees it and
does not confess is turned to stone in his heartlessness. But why should we
increase our woes and heart-pain, which we ought rather attempt to allay?
But if we are to mention his great talents, acts and works we shall only be
stung more severely by the loss of our good man, and we shall sob aloud.
Only in a lethargy, or some deathlike sleep, could we at all forget our so sad
loss. What a great and what a good man we have lost!
O Russia, this Samson of yours came to you when no one in the world
had expected him, and when he appeared the whole world marvelled. He
found you weak in power, and to conform with his name he made you of
stone and adamant. He found an army dangerous at home, weak in the field
and scorned by the foe, and he gave his country a useful army that is
terrible to the enemy, and everywhere renowned and glorious. He defended
his country, and at the same time returned to it the lands that had been taken
away from it, and increased it by the acquisition of new provinces. When he
crushed those who rose against us, he at the same time broke the strength of
our ill-wishers and subdued their spirits, and, closing up the lips of envy,
compelled the whole world to proclaim glorious things of himself.
O Russia, he was your first Japheth, who had accomplished a deed
unheard of in your annals, having introduced the building and sailing of
ships. He gave you a new fleet that, to the wonderment of the world and
surpassing all expectation, was in no way inferior to much older fleets, and
he opened for you a path to all the ends of the earth, and spread your power
and glory to the extreme corners of the ocean, to the limits of your
usefulness, to the limits which justice had placed; and the might of your
dominion, which heretofore was firm on land, he has now made strong and
permanent upon the sea.
O Russia, he is your Moses! Are not his laws like a firm protection of
truth, and like unbreakable fetters of wrong-doing? And are not his statutes
clear, a light upon your path? And are not the high ruling Senate and the
many special institutions of his so many lights in the search of advantage,
the warding off of harm, the safety of the peaceful, and the unmasking of
the wrongdoers? He has verily left us in doubt whether he is more to be

praised for being loved and cherished by the good and simple-hearted, or
for being hated by unrepenting flatterers and rascals.
O Russia, he is your Solomon, who has received from the Lord his very
great reason and wisdom. Have we not sufficient testimony thereof in the
many philosophic arts, which he himself practised and many subjects
introduced under his supervision, and in the many cunning industrial arts
which have never before been heard of among us? And he also introduced
the chins[126] and degrees, and civil order, and decent manners in daily
intercourse, and the rules of acceptable habits and customs, and now we see
and admire the external appearance and internal worth of our country,
which from within and without is far superior to what it was in former
years.
He is also, O Russian Church, your David and Constantine. The synodal
government is his creation, and its written and oral instructions were his
care. Oh, how often his heart was heavy when he saw the ignorance in the
path of salvation! How great his zeal was against superstition and deceptive
simulations, and the senseless, hostile and destructive heresy amongst us!
How great was his desire and endeavour to see more learning among the
clergy, and a greater godliness and more decent worship in the people!
But, O renowned man! Can we in a short sermon mention all his glory?
The present sorrow and grief which compels us to shed tears and sigh does
not allow of an extended speech. Perhaps in time this thorn that stings our
hearts will be dulled, and then we will speak at greater length of his deeds
and virtues, though we shall never be able sufficiently to praise him
according to his worth. To-day, though we are only making a short mention
of him and, as it were, are only touching the hems of his garments, we, poor
unfortunate people, see, O hearers, who has left us and whom we have lost.
Let us not, O Russians, faint with sorrow and grief, for the great monarch
and our father has not left us in a bad plight. He has left us, but not poor and
necessitous: the immeasurable wealth of his power and glory, which has
been realised by his above-mentioned deeds, is with us. Russia will be such
as he has made it; he has made it an object of love to the good, and it will
be loved; he has made it terrible to the enemy, and terrible it will remain; he
has made it glorious throughout the whole world, and it will not cease to be

glorious. He has left us religious, civil and military institutions. He has left
us, and his body will decay, but his spirit will stay.
Above all, in leaving this temporal world, he has not left us orphaned.
How could we, indeed, call ourselves orphaned when we see his legacy to
the throne, his real helpmate in life, a ruler like him after his demise, you,
most gracious and autocrat Empress, great heroine and monarch, and
mother of all the Russias? The whole world is a witness that your sex does
not prevent your being like Peter the Great. Who does not know your
wisdom as a ruler, and your motherly womanliness, and your natural God-
given talents? And all this took place and was confirmed in you not merely
through your association with so great a monarch, but also in your
communion with his wisdom, labours and various calamities. He, having
tried you during a series of years, like gold in the crucible, deemed it
insufficient to have you as a cohabiter of his bed, but made you also the heir
to his crown, and power, and throne. How can we help hoping that you will
confirm what he has done, will create anew what he has left undone and
will keep all in good condition? Only, O valiant soul, try to overcome this
unendurable calamity which has been intensified by the loss of your most
beloved daughter, and which, like a severe wound, has been torn beyond
measure by this new sting. And as you have been seen by all ever present
with Peter of glorious deeds, an incessant companion in all his labours and
troubles, so try even now to be such in this your very bitter loss.
And you, noble assembly, of all ranks and degrees, sons of Russia, with
your faithfulness and obedience console your Empress and mother. Console
yourselves also, seeing the undoubted signs of Peter’s spirit in your
Empress, and that not all of Peter has passed away. Then let us bow before
our Lord who has thus visited us, praying Him, the God of mercy and father
of all consolation, to wipe the unrestrained tears of her Highness, our most
autocratic Empress, and her precious blood, her daughters, grandchildren,
nieces and all the high family, and to soothe the grief of their hearts with
His gracious care, and to console us all in His mercy.
O Russia, seeing what a great man has left you, see also how great he has
left you. Amen!

FOOTNOTES:

[126] There are fourteen rank distinctions, called “chins,” in Russia; they are
acquired through service only, independently of birth.

Vasíli Nikítich Tatíshchev. (1686-1750.)

Tatíshchev was one of the most distinguished and intelligent
friends of the reforms of Peter the Great. Having studied first at
Moscow and then in Germany, he was attached to the Berg-und-
Manufaktur-Kolleg (Department of Mining and Manufactures). The
president of the institution pointed out to Peter the Great the
necessity for a geography of the empire, and this task was entrusted
to Tatíshchev. In the course of his work, the latter was induced to
make a thorough study of old historical documents, of which he
discovered a large number. Several of the chronicles he mentions
and had access to have not been preserved, and later historians have
to rely on the statements made by Tatíshchev for some important
historical information. In 1720 he was sent to Siberia for the
purpose of prospecting for copper and silver and establishing
various plants. Then began a laborious career, in a large variety of
capacities, among them that of Governor of Astrakhán. The years
1724-26 he passed in Sweden, where he cultivated the acquaintance
of Swedish scholars and made a study of foreign sources of Russian
history. Thus Tatíshchev had ample opportunities for becoming the
first historiographer of Russia. His History of Russia, which was
published in the reign of Catherine the Great, shows an intimate
knowledge of the philosophical systems of Descartes and Tomasius,
and the political systems of Christian Wolff, Puffendorf and Hugo
Grotius, as well as Machiavelli and Locke. He was opposed to a
political supremacy of the Church even more decidedly than
Prokopóvich, the author of the Spiritual Reglement (see p. 211). It is
an interesting fact that when Tatíshchev found no sympathy for his
History in St. Petersburg, he corresponded with a friend in England
for the purpose of having it published in English by the Royal
Society at London, but there could not be found an Englishman who
was competent to undertake the translation. Of his other works, his
Spiritual Testament and Instruction to my Son Evgráf, though
replete with liberal views, is the last in the long chain of Instructions
in which the older period abounds, such as the Instruction of
Vladímir Monomákh (p. 50), and the Domostróy of Sylvester (p.

126). It has been translated into English: The Testament of B.
Tatischef, translated from the Russian manuscript by J. Martinof,
Paris, 1860.

FROM THE “RUSSIAN HISTORY”

One ought not to discuss the usefulness of history, for everybody can see
and feel it; but as some are not accustomed to see things clearly and discuss
them in detail, and often through their perverted understanding make the
useful to appear as harmful and the harmful as useful, and consequently
transgress in their acts and deeds (as indeed I have heard such people, to my
disgust, talk loud of the uselessness of history), I deemed it proper to give a
short review of it.
To begin with, history is nothing else than the recounting of past acts and
occurrences, good and bad; for all that we have experienced in recent or
long-passed days through our senses of hearing, seeing and feeling, or that
we reproduce by our memory, is really history, and it teaches us, whether
through our acts or those of others, to emulate the good and beware of the
evil. For example, when I recollect that I saw yesterday a fisherman who
had been catching fish and had had a certain success in it, I naturally
receive in my mind an impulse to do likewise; or if I saw yesterday a thief
or some other criminal, who had been sentenced to a severe punishment or
death, terror will naturally keep me from committing such an act as would
cause my utter ruin. All the histories we read act upon us in the same
manner: the deeds of ancient days are represented to us so vividly that we
seem to have seen and felt them ourselves.
For this reason we may say that no man, no condition of life, no
profession, science, nor government, much less a single individual, can be
perfect, wise and useful without a knowledge of the same. For example, let
us take the sciences. The first and greatest of them all is theology, that is,
the science of God, His all-wisdom, almightiness, which alone leads us to
future bliss, and so forth. Now, no theologian can be called wise who does
not know the ancient divine acts which have been revealed to us in the Holy
Scriptures, and when, with whom and why there have been disputes about
certain dogmas and articles of faith, or when and why this has been
established and that discarded; why certain statutes and orders of the

ancient Church have been changed, discontinued, and new ones introduced;
consequently he must know divine and church history, as well as civil
history, as Huet, the famous French theologian, has sufficiently pointed out.
The second science is jurisprudence, which teaches proper conduct and
our duties to God, ourselves and our neighbours, in order to acquire peace
of body and soul. No jurist can be called wise who does not know former
interpretations and discussions of natural and civil laws. And how can a
judge pass right judgment if he does not know the origin and application of
old and new laws? Indeed, he must know the history of the laws.
The third is medicine, or leechcraft, which science consists in the art of
preserving health, and bringing back the lost health, or in preventing the
disease from spreading. All this depends on history, for the physician must
gain his knowledge from the ancients, must know what is the cause of
diseases, what medicine and treatment to give, what the property and
strength of each medicine is, all of which no man could find out in a
hundred years through his own experience and investigation. But to
experiment on the sick is a dangerous matter, from which they could easily
be ruined, though this is not infrequently the case with certain ignoramuses.
I shall not mention many other parts of philosophy, but I may summarise by
saying that all philosophy is based on history and supported by it, for all the
right and wrong and faulty opinions which we find with the ancients are
history as regards our knowledge, and form the basis for our corrections.
Statesmanship is composed of three different parts: of the internal
government, or economy, external relations, and military affairs. All three
demand not less history than the other sciences, and without it cannot be
perfect. Thus, in political economy it is necessary to know what has caused
ruin in former days: how it has been warded off or minimised; what have
been the favourable influences; how obtained and preserved, so that the
present and future may be wisely judged in the light of that knowledge. On
account of this wisdom, the ancient Romans represented their god Janus
with two faces, for he knew perfectly the past, and from its examples wisely
judged the future.
For the administration of foreign affairs it is necessary to know not only
one’s own country, but also other governments: what conditions they have
formerly been in; what has brought about changes in them; what states they

are in now; with whom they have had disputes and wars, and for what; what
treaties have been made and confirmed with them, in order to proceed
intelligently in the acts at hand.
For military leaders it is very important to know by what device and
cunning great forces of the enemy have been vanquished, or kept from
victory, and so forth, as we see Alexander the Great having held Homer’s
books on the Trojan war in great respect, and having been instructed by
them. For this reason many great generals have described their own acts and
those of others. Of these the most illustrious example is Julius Cæsar, who
has described his wars, that future generals might after him use his acts for
their own examples, and many famous generals on land and on the sea have
followed in his footsteps by writing of their exploits. Many great rulers
have either themselves written of their acts, or have ordered expert people
to write of them, not only that their memory should live in glory, but that
their descendants should have examples to follow.
As regards the usefulness of Russian history it must be remarked, that, as
is the case with all other histories, the knowledge of one’s own history and
geography is more important for any nation or region than that of foreign
histories; at the same time it must be kept in mind that without the
knowledge of foreign histories, one’s own is not clear and sufficient: 1. That
the writer of contemporary history cannot know all the external influences
for good and bad; 2. That the writers are frequently compelled, out of fear,
to suppress, or change, or modify some very important circumstances of
contemporary history; 3. That from passion, love, or hatred, they describe
quite differently from what were the actual occurrences, and that the facts
are frequently related more correctly and in detail by outsiders. Thus, in my
present work, the first part, dealing with the Russian antiquity, has mainly
been drawn from foreign sources for lack of native writers, and in the other
parts many errors and lacunæ have been corrected and filled out from
foreign sources. European historians accuse us of having no old history, and
of knowing nothing of our antiquity, simply because they do not know what
historians we possess, and though some have made a few extracts, or have
translated from them a passage here and there, others, thinking that we have
no better ones than those quoted, despise them. Some of our own ignorant
writers agree with them, while those who do not wish to trouble themselves
by looking into the ancient sources or who do not understand the text, have,

ostensibly to give a better explanation, but in reality to hide the truth,
invented fables of their own and thus have obscured the real facts as told by
the ancients, as, for example, in the case of the foundation of Kíev, and that
of Nóvgorod by Slavén, and so forth.
I wish to say here emphatically that all the famous European historians
will not be able to know or tell anything correctly of many of our
antiquities, no matter what their efforts in Russian history may be, if they
do not read our sources,—for example, of the many nations who have
existed here in ancient days, as the Amazons, Alans, Huns, Avars,
Cimbrians and Cimmerians; nor do they know anything of the Scythians,
Sarmatians and Slavs, their tribes, origin, habitations and migrations, or of
the anciently famous large cities of the Essedonians, Archipeans,
Cumanians, etc., where they have lived, and what their present names are;
but all this they could find out through a study of Russian history. This
history is not only of use to us Russians, but also to the whole learned
world, in order that by it the fables and lies invented by our enemies, the
Poles and others, for the sake of disparaging our ancestors, may be laid bare
and contradicted.
Such is the usefulness of history. But everybody ought to know, and this
is easily perceived, that history describes not only customs, deeds and
occurrences, but also the consequences resulting from them, namely, that
the wise, just, kind, brave, constant and faithful are rewarded with honour,
glory and well-being, while the vicious, foolish, evildoers, avaricious,
cowardly, perverse and faithless will gain eternal dishonour, shame and
insult: from which all may learn how desirable it is to obtain the first and
avoid the second.

Prince Antiókh (Antiochus) Kantemír. (1708-1744.)

Antiókh Kantemír was not a Russian by birth. His father,
Demetrius, had for a number of years been hospodar of Moldavia.
Harassed by the intrigues of a rival at Constantinople, he emigrated
with four thousand of his Moldavians to Russia, where he arrived
after the unfortunate Prut expedition, in 1711. Himself one of the
most accomplished scholars and linguists of Europe, he with the aid
of his cultivated Greek wife bestowed the minutest care on the
education of his six children.
Having arrived in Russia in his third year, Antiókh acquired
Russian as his mother tongue, though he also spoke fluently six or
seven other languages, and was well versed in Latin and ancient
Greek. By education, however, he was anything but a Russian, and
his sympathies were naturally directed towards the most extreme
reformatory tendencies which Peter the Great advocated for the
State and Feofán Prokopóvich for the Church; both of them were
not slow in recognising his unusual talents. In 1732 Empress Anna
appointed him ambassador to the Court of St. James, and in 1738 he
was transferred to Paris, where he passed his short life in
communion with Maupertuis, Montesquieu, Abbé Guasco, and
others. Besides a few shorter poems and imitations and translations
of Anacreon, and an unfinished ode on the death of Peter the Great,
Kantemír composed ten satires, of which the one below is the first.
It is on these satires that his reputation mainly rests. In style, they
are imitations of Boileau and Horace, though never slavish. His
language is not always free from Gallicisms, but otherwise it
represents the first successful attempt to introduce colloquial
Russian into poetry. The chief value of the satires, independently of
their literary perfection, lay in their powerful attack on all the
contemporary elements of Russian society that were antagonistic to
the Western reform.
Specimens from several of Kantemír’s satires are given in C. E.
Turner’s Studies in Russian Literature, London, 1882, and the same
article, in Fraser’s Magazine, 1877.

Parts of the First Satire, in article on Russian Literature, in
Foreign Quarterly Review, vol. i.

TO MY MIND

Immature Mind, fruit of recent study! Be quiet, urge not the pen into my
hands: even without writing one may pass the fleeting days of life and gain
honours, though one be not a poet. Many easy paths lead in our days to
honours, and bold feet need not stumble upon them: the least acceptable is
the one the nine barefooted sisters have laid out. Many a man has lost his
strength thereon, without reaching a goal. You have to toil and moil there,
and while you labour, people avoid you like the plague, rail at you, loathe
you. He who bends over the table, fixing his eyes upon books, will gain no
magnificent palaces, nor gardens adorned with marbles; will add no sheep
to his paternal flock.
’Tis true, in our young monarch[127] a mighty hope has risen for the
Muses, and the ignorant flee in shame from him. Apollo has found in him a
strong defender of his glory, and has seen him honouring his suite and
steadily intent upon increasing the dwellers on Parnassus.[128] The trouble
is, many loudly praise in the Tsar what in the subject they haughtily
condemn.
“Schisms and heresies are begot by science.[129] He lies most who knows
most; who pores over books becomes an atheist.” Thus Crito grumbles, his
rosary in his hands, and sighs, and with bitter tears the saintly soul bids us
see how dangerous is the seed of learning that is cast among us: our
children, who heretofore gently and meekly walked in the path of their
forefathers, eagerly attending divine service and listening in fear to what
they did not understand, now, to the horror of the Church, have begun to
read the Bible; they discuss all, want to know the cause of all, and put little
faith in the clerical profession; they have lost their good habits, have
forgotten how to drink kvas, and will not be driven with a stick to partake of
salt meat. They place no candles before the images, observe no feasts. They
regard the worldly power misplaced in clerical hands, and whisper that
worldly possessions ill become those who have renounced a worldly life.

Sylvan finds another fault with science: “Education,” he says, “brings
famine in its track. We managed to get along before this without knowing
Latin much better than we live now. We used to harvest more grain in our
ignorance, but now that we have learned a foreign language, we lose our
corn. What of it if my argument be weak and without sense and connection,
—what matters that to a nobleman? Proof, order of words, is the affair of
low-born men; for aristocrats it suffices boldly to assent, or contradict.
Insane is he who examines the force and limitations of his soul; who toils
whole days in his sweat, in order to learn the structure of the world and the
change or cause of things: ’tis like making pease to stick to the wall. Will all
that add one day to my life, or one penny to my coffers? Can I by means of
it find out how much my clerk and superintendent steal a year or how to add
water to my pond, or to increase the number of barrels in my still?
“Nor is he wise who, full of unrest, dims his eyes over a smoking fire, in
order to learn the properties of ores. We have passed our A B C, and we can
tell without all that the difference between gold, silver and copper. The
science of herbs and diseases is idle talk. You have a headache, and the
physician looks for signs of it in your hand! The blood is the cause of all, if
we are to put faith in them. When we feel weak, it is because our blood
flows too slowly; if it moves fast, there is a fever, he says boldly, though no
one has ever seen the inside of a living body. And while he passes his time
in such fables, the contents of our money-bags go into his. Of what use is it
to calculate the course of the stars, and without rhyme or reason pass
sleepless nights, gazing at one spot: for mere curiosity’s sake to lose your
rest, trying to ascertain whether the sun moves, or we with the earth? We
can read in the almanac, for every day in the year, the date of the month and
the hour of sunrise. We can manage to divide the land in quarters without
Euclid, and we know without algebra how many kopeks there are in a
rouble.” Sylvan praises but one science to the skies,—the one that teaches
how to increase his income and to save expenses. To labour in that from
which your pocket does not swell at once, he deems a very dangerous
occupation for a citizen.
Red-faced Lucas, belching thrice, speaks in a chanting voice: “Study kills
the companionship of men. We have been created by God as social beings,
and we have been given intelligence not for our own sakes alone. What
good does it do anybody, if I shut myself up in my cabinet, and for my dead

friends lose the living—when all my comradeship, all my good fellows, will
be ink, pen, sand and paper? In merriment, in banquets we must pass our
lives. Life is short, why should we curtail it further, worry over books, and
harm our eyes? Is it not better to pass your days and nights over the
winecup? Wine is a divine gift, there is much good in it: it befriends people,
gives cause for conversation, makes glad, dispels heavy thoughts, eases
misery, gives courage to the weak, mollifies the cruel, checks sullenness,
and leads the lover more readily to his goal. When they will begin to make
furrows in the sky, and the stars will shine through the surface of the earth;
when swift rivers will run to their sources, and past ages will return; when
at Lent the monk will eat nothing but dried sturgeon, then will I abandon
my cup and take to books.”
Medor is worried because too much paper is used for letters and for
printed books, and because he will soon be left without paper to curl his
locks with. He would not change for Seneca a pound of good face-powder;
in comparison with Egór,[130] Vergil is not worth two farthings to him, and
he showers his praises on Rex,[131] not Cicero.
This is a part of the speeches that daily ring in my ears, and for this, O
Mind, I advise you to be dumber than a dumpling. Where there is no profit,
praise encourages to work, and without it the heart grows faint. But it is
much worse, when instead of praises you earn insults! It is harder than for a
tippler not to get his wine, or for a priest not to celebrate on Holy Week, or
for a merchant to forego heady liquor.
I know, O Mind, that you will boldly answer me that it is not easy for an
evil-minded man to praise virtue; that the dandy, miser, hypocrite, and the
like, must perforce scorn science, and that their malevolent discourse
concerns no men of culture.
Your judgment is excellent, correct; and thus it ought to be, but in our
days the words of the ill-disposed control the wise. Besides, the sciences
have other ill-wishers than those whom, for shortness’ sake, I merely
mentioned or, to tell the truth, dared to mention. There are many more. The
holy keepers of the keys of heaven and those to whom Themis has entrusted
the golden scales little love, nearly all of them, the true adornment of the
mind.