bited in the architecture, we must look back to the period of the Russian history when it was constructed. The stories we have hitherto received of the monarch in whose piety or ostentation it is said to have originated, are so contradictory, that the subject itself merits a little investigation. The more we inquire into the real history of Russia, and of the Russian Sovereigns, the more we shall have reason to believe, that the country and people have undergone little variation since the foundation of the empire. PETER THE GREat might cut off the beards of the nobles, and substitute European habits for Asiatic robes; but the inward man is still the same'. A Russian of the (1) They who knew Potemkin, or who will merely attend to what is related of him in page 118, will find that a picture of the manners of Russian Nobles made in the seventeenth century will equally represent those of their Princes in the eighteenth. "Pendant le répas les rots qui leur sortent de la bouche avec l'odeur de l'eau-de-vie, de l'ail, de l'oignon, et des raves, joints aux vents du bas ventre, dont ils ne sont point scrupuleux, exhalent une corruption capable de faire créver ceux qui sont auprès d'eux. Ils ne portent point leurs mouchoirs dans leurs poches, mais dans leurs bonnets; et comme ils ont toujours la tête nue lorsqu'ils sont à table, s'ils ont besoin de se moucher, ils se servent de leurs doights, qu'ils essuyent ensuite, et leur nez, à la nappe." Voyage en Moscovie, par Augustin, Baron de Mayerburg, Leid. 1688, p.62. OLEARIUS, Secretary to the ambassador from the Court of Denmark, gave a similar account of their morals in the middle of the seventeenth century. The following short extracts are from the best edition of his works, translated from the German by Wicquefort, and published at Paris, A. D. 1666. "Il est vray que les Moscovites ne manquent point d'esprit; mais ils l'employent si mal, qu'il n'y a pas une de leurs actions, qui ait pour pro nineteenth century possesses all the servile pensities, the barbarity of manners, the cruelty, the hypocrisy, and the profligacy, which characterized his ancestors in the ninth. pour le but la vertu, et la gloire, qui en est inseparable . . . . . Leur industrie et la subtilité de leur esprit paroist principalement en leur trafic, où il n'y a point de finesse, ny de tromperie dont ils ne se servent, pour fourber les autres, plustost que pour se defendre de l'estre." Voyage d'Olear. tom. I. p. 145. "Et d'autant que la tromperie ne s'exerce point sans fausseté, sans menteries et sans défiances, qui en sont inseparables, ils sçavent merveilleusement bien s'ayder de ces belles qualités, aussi bien que de la calomnie." Ibid. p. 146. "De cette façon d'agir des Moscovites, et du peu de fidelité qu'ils ont entr'eux, l'on peut juger de ce que les Estrangers en peuvent espérer, et jusqu'à quel point l'on s'y peut fier. Ils n'offrent jamais leur amitié, et n'en contractent jamais, que pour leur interest particulier, et à dessein d'en profiter. La mauvaise nourriture qu'on leur donne en leur jeunesse, en laquelle ils n'apprennent au plus qu'à lire et escrire, et quelques petites prières vulgaires, fait qu'ils suivent aveuglement ce que l'on appelle aux bestes l'instinct; de sorte que la nature estant en elle mesme dépravée et corrompuë, leur vie ne peut estre qu'un debordement et déreglement continuel. C'est pourquoy l'on n'y voit rien que de brutal, et des effets de leurs passions et appétits desordonnés, à qui ils laschent la bride, sans aucune retenuë." Ibid. P. 148. "Le naturel pervers des Moscovites, et la bassesse en laquelle ils sont nourris, joint à la servitude, pour laquelle ils semblent estre nés, font que l'on est contraint de les traiter en bestes, plustôst qu'en personnes raisonnables. Et ils y sont si bien accoustumés, qu'il est comme impossible de les porter au travail, si l'on n'y employe le foüet et le baston." Ibid. p. 155. It is the more necessary to cite these remarks, because authors of celebrity, such, for example, as Puffendorf, offer very erroneous notions to the student in modern history. "On se tromperoit beaucoup," says he, "si pour connoître les Russes d'aujourd'hui, on s'arrêtoit aux portraits qui ont été faits de cette nation avant le commencement de ce siècle." Introd. à l'Histoire Moderne, &c. tome IV. p. 384, edit. Paris, 1756.j CHAP. VI. CHAP. Ivan Basilovich. John Basilovich the First has been considered as one of the founders of the Russian Empire; but his accession did not take place till the middle of the fifteenth century. He arose, like Buonaparte, in a period of national dismay; and although described as a man of impetuous vices, intrepid, artful, treacherous, having all the ferocity of a savage, he has been hailed as the deliverer of his country, and dignified by the appellation of The Great.' It is a title which an oppressed intimidated people have frequently bestowed upon tyrants. Until his time, however, Tahtars were lords of Moscow; the Tsars themselves being obliged to stand in the presence of Tahtar ambassadors while the latter sat at meat; and to endure the most humiliating ceremonies. Basilovich shook off the Tahtar yoke; but it was long before the Russians, always children of imitation, ceased to mimic a people by whom they had been conquered. They had neither arts nor opinions of their own: every thing in Moscow was Tahtarian; dress, manners, buildings, equipages, in short, all, excepting religion and language. Basilovich, at the conquest of Casan, was solemnly crowned with the diadem of that kingdom: this is said to be the same now used for the coronation of the Russian Sovereigns. In the reign of his successor, Moscow was again taken by the Tahtars, and its Tsar subjected to an ignominious tribute. Twelve years afterwards, the eldest son of that successor, John Basilovich the Second, then an infant, but afterwards a ferocious and implacable tyrant, came to the throne'. It is a curious fact, that, in the very opening of his reign, three hundred artists, intended for Russia, were arrested in the town of Lubeck. What the great work then carrying on in Moscow was, is now uncertain; but it evidently proves a disposition, on the part of the sovereign, to superinduce the hearts of Western nations over the long-established Oriental customs of his (1) Some writers endeavour to apologise for the conduct and character of John Basilovich the Second. The Editors of the Modern Universal History even speak of him with eulogium. (Vol. XXXV. p. 259.) Mr. Core thinks his character has been misrepresented; (Trav. vol. I. p. 302.) and yet allows it would be " contrary to historical evidence to deny many of the cruelties committed by him." If the horrible cruelties related of this monarch by Dr. Crull (see Account of Muscovy, vol. I. p. 331. Lond. 1698) be untrue, what will be said of the narrative of those persons who were eye-witnesses of many of his enormities? Crull says, his affected sanctity led Jovius into the mistake of calling him a good Christian. "But if any delight to reade the terrible and bloudie acts of Ivan Basilovich, he may glut, if not drowne himselfe in bloud, in that historie which Paul Oderborne hath written of his life, and both there and in others take view of his other unjust acts. I will not depose for their truth, though I cannot disprove it: adversaries perhaps make the worst. For myselfe, I list not to rake sinkes against him, and would speake in bis defence, if I found not an universall conspiracy of all historie and reports against him." Purchas his Pilgrimes, b. iv. c. 9. sect. 1. VI. CHAP. people. In this reign was built the church to which we have now alluded. The artists arrested in Lubeck were Germans. The architects employed for the Church of St. Basil were Italians; probably obtained by the connexion which subsisted between the Tsars of Muscovy and the Emperors of Constantinople'. From whatever country they came, the taste displayed in the edifice is evidently Tahtarian. How much the manners of the people were so at this period, may be shewn by reference to the curious and interesting documents preserved in Hakluyt's Collection of Voyages. It was during the bloody administration of the tyrant who then ruled in Russia that the first ambassadors went from England to that country. By the accounts they sent home, it appears the situation of Englishmen in Russia was precisely what we experienced two hundred and thirty years afterwards, under the tyranny of the Emperor PAUL; the same disgusting race around them; the same dread of being communicative in their letters; the same desire to quit a scene of barbarity and profligacy. The secretary to (1) Some years afterwards, A.D. 1557, the Tsar again made an unsuccessful application to the Court of Vienna for artists; stating, that he could easily procure them from France and Italy, but that he gave the preference to Germans: knowing them to be an upright, virtuous, and honest people." See the authors cited in the Mod. Univ. Hist. vol. XXXV. p. 217. |
