Russia Part 4

From the Established Church of the State, the Church of the few in the North, let us turn to the old faith, the Church of the many.

The Old Believers, Raskolniks, or dissenters, are indeed a numerous, although officially an uncounted, body in the North; half the trade of Moscow, most of that which is Russian at all, in the Port of Archangel, all the Pomor s.h.i.+pping lies in their hands.

The word Raskolnik means, literally, one who splits asunder, and that is just what the Old Believer is--one who has split off from the Orthodox Church.

Two hundred and fifty years ago Nikon, a friar of Solovetsk, an island monastery in the White Sea, having quarrelled alike with equal and superior, was set adrift in an open boat; he reached the mainland at Ki, a small cape in Onega Bay, wandered southward to Olonets, where he got together a band of followers, proceeded to Moscow, obtained the notice of the throne, got preferment, was soon made Patriarch. He ruled with an iron hand, made many enemies, and when at last he obtained from Mount Santo, in Roumelia, authentic Greek Church-service books, and, having had them translated into Sclavonic, forced their use upon the Church, with the aid of the Tsar Alexis, in the place of those previously in use, the revolt began in earnest. In addition to the altered service book, Nikon introduced a cross with but two beams, a new stamp for the holy wafer, a different way of holding the fingers in p.r.o.nouncing the blessing, and a new way of spelling the name Jesus, to which the Church was unaccustomed. In each of these changes Nikon and his party really wished to go back to older and purer forms of Greek ritual, but many resisted the alterations, believing them to be innovations.

Such was the beginning of Raskol; the end is not yet. Those who could not accept these reforms, or returns to older forms, took up the name of "Staro-obriadtsi," or Old Believers, holding that theirs was indeed the true old faith of their fathers. For them began, in very truth a hard time; a time which has left its mark most clearly upon their descendants to-day. Excommunicated and persecuted under Alexis and Peter I., they were driven in thousands from their village homes to seek refuge where they could, in forest, mountain or island; a party reaching in the year 1767, even to Kolgueff Island, where, as might be expected, they perished during the following year from scurvy. To these brave bands of Old Believers, setting forth under their banner of the "Eight-ended Cross," to find new homes beyond the reach of persecution, is, in large part, due the colonization of the huge province of Archangel and the northern portion of Siberia. That it was not always easy for the Raskolnik to get beyond the range of official persecutions is shown by many an old "_ukas_," and by many an old entry in the books of far-distant communes. Farther north and farther east, from forest to _tundra_ and Steppe were they driven, spreading as they went their Russian nationality over regions Asiatic; as exiles they settled among Polish Romanists, Baltic Protestants, and Caucasian Mussulmans, and with the heathen Lapp and Samoyede, and Ostiac, on the Murman coast of Russian Lapland, in the bleak Northern _tundra_, on the Petchora, and away beyond the Ural Spur, they found at last the rest they sought.

Their most dangerous enemy was not, however, the persecution of the dominant Church; they had placed themselves geographically beyond the reach of that: far more dangerous was further Raskol--splitting--among themselves, and it was not long before this overtook them. Cut off by their own faith, as well by excommunication, from the Orthodox Church, the supply of consecrated priests soon gave out; they had lost their apostolic succession and could not renew it, for the one Bishop--Paul of Kalomna--who had joined them, had died in prison, without appointing a successor. Without an episcopate they were soon without a priesthood; and the vital question, "How shall we get priests and through them Sacraments?" was answered in two ways, and according to the answer, so were the Old Believers divided into two main sects. One sect declared that, as there were no longer faithful priests, they were cut off from all the Sacraments except Baptism, which could be administered by laymen. These "Bespopoftsi,"

or priestless people, were unable to marry; and to this--in a land where the economic unit, is not man, but man and wife, where the ties of family life are so strong--was due their further splitting.

In 1846, however, they persuaded an outcast bishop to join their ranks, and founded a See at Bielokrinitzkaga, in Austrian Bukovina, beyond the Russian Empire; from thence the succession was handed down, and now after long decades of waiting, they have bishops and priests of their own.

The practice of hiring a priest from the Orthodox Church, to conduct a service for the Old Believers, is still very common in the far North, where all villages have not the means to keep a "Pope" of their own; and many an Orthodox clergyman thus adds considerably to his precarious income by officiating for those whom his great-grandfathers excommunicated as heretics; indeed, the Government now encourages this practice, and has made some attempt to heal up the schism by allowing its priests to adopt, to a slight extent, the old customs in villages where all the inhabitants are Raskolniks.

This can the more readily be understood when it is remembered that the Old Believers hold in all essential points the same creed as the Orthodox; they are--and their name implies--believers in the old faith of the Russian branch of the Greek Church, as expressed since the day of St. Vladimir until the Seventeenth Century, but not in the so-called innovations of Nikon. The points of difference are so small that it seems impossible a Church should by them have been cleft in twain. The Orthodox sign the Cross with three fingers extended, the dissenters with two, holding that the two raised fingers indicate the dual nature of Christ, while the three bent ones represent the Trinity. It does not seem to have occurred to either party that the reverse holds true as well. The Orthodox Cross has but two beams, while that of the Raskolnik has four, and is made of four woods--cypress, cedar, palm, and olive; the latter, too, repeats his Allelujah thrice, the Orthodox but twice.

Such are the points to which in all probability, the peopling of the outlying portions of the Empire of the Tsars is due.

The Raskolniks have set a far higher value upon education than the Orthodox; the instruction given in their settlements often sheds a strong light upon the darkness of Orthodox ignorance around, and with the spread of education so does the sect extend and multiply.

Their house can generally be distinguished by cleanliness, the presence of many Eicons, bra.s.s and silver crosses, and ancient books; its mistress by her greater thoughtfulness and capability.

Old Believers are always glad to seize the opportunity, given so well by the long northern winter, with its almost endless night, of reading, and on their shelves are seen translations of our best authors, from whom, perhaps, it is that they have taken their advanced political views, and the outcome of whose perusal is that the hunter and fisherman will often propound to one questions which show a mind well trained in logical thought. The Raskolnik is generally fairly well to do, for, like the Quaker and the Puritan, he finds a turn for business not incompatible with religious exercise, and to this is in part due the superiority and comfort of their homes.

Most of them in the far North are fishers and hunters, sealers and sailors, and in these and kindred trades they make use of better and more modern appliances than their neighbours, and so generally realize more for their commodities.

Far from civilization, in the impenetrable forests of the great lone land of Archangel, the fugitive Raskolniks were able to found retreats for themselves, untroubled and un.o.bserved; these refuges still exist, and are called "Obitel" or cells. In the district of Mezen there are many such establishments, both for men and women; among the former the Anuphief Hermitage, or cells of Koida, stand in a splendid position, on the banks of both lake and river Koida, some 100 versts in summer by river, and 50 in winter, over ice, from the town of that name.

On Nonconformist, as on Orthodox, is laid the burden of severe fasting; as Master Chancellour tells us, in 1553, "This people hath four Lents,"--indeed, the eating working year is reduced to some 130 days. In the North, where vegetables and berries are few and fruit non-existent, the Mujik is left to fast on "_treska_,"

rotten codfish--and the condition of the man who begins Lent underfed is indeed pitiable when he ends it. The endurance of the Old Believer is marvellous; no offer of food will tempt him from what he considers his duty.

Let us turn our attention from the Raskolniks, or Old Believers of the far North, who, as we have seen, so literally "forsook all"

for their ancient Faith, to some few of the many new, or lately developed creeds whose followers are seeking after truth with equal earnestness and vigour, but along very different lines. Sect begets sect in the world of theology, much as cell begets cell in the economy of life. Change seems the active principle of all dissent; new cults are forever springing up in the mystic childlike minds of the Tsar's great peasant family, nor could one expect uniformity of confession, when the size and neighbours of that family are considered, for Mohammedan, Protestant, Catholic, Buddhist, and Shamanist surround it, are made subject to it, and eventually become a part thereof. A Mosque stands opposite the Orthodox church in the great square which forms the centre of Nijni-Novgorod, a Roman Catholic and a German Lutheran church almost face the magnificent Kazan Cathedral, in the Nevski-Prospekt of St. Petersburg. The waiters of nearly all restaurants, from Archangel to Baku, are Mohammedan Tartars, the Jew is in every market-place, the native heathen races, Lapp, Samoyede, Ostiac, Yakout, and a score of others, are closely connected by the bonds of commerce: can it be wondered at if the ideas of the peasant become tinted by his surroundings?

It cannot be gainsaid that the lifelessness and emptiness of the State Church, with its hireling and often ignorant priesthood, fails to satisfy the great mind of Russia--the peasant mind--but now awakening from its long infant slumber, as did the mind of Western Europe three centuries ago. Next perhaps to the extreme literalness with which the Mujik interprets Holy Writ, this dissatisfaction with the official Church is the greatest cause of the grip which the chameleon-like "dissent" has taken hold of the popular mind. With very few exceptions--notably the Skoptsy--the 150 sects which are stated to exist within the pale of Christianity and the borders of the Empire of the Tsar, begin and end with the Mujik; the official world is of necessity Orthodox, the wealthy world careless, and this fact, of the peasant origin and development of the denominations, must be carefully borne in mind when attempting to form any idea of the widely different meanings and shades of meaning which have been put upon the one Bible story.

Of the strictly rational, and more or less Protestant, portion of Russian dissent, the Dukhobortsy, or "Wrestlers with the Holy Spirit," and their descendants in the faith, the Molokans, or "Milk Drinkers," are perhaps the best known to us, from the fact of their having emigrated to English-speaking lands, and from the valiant championing of their cause by Count L. D. Tolstoi. They form the ant.i.thesis of the Old Believers, as is well set forth in the conversation between A. Leroy-Beauleau (in the _Empire of the Tsars_) and a fisherman of the persuasion, who said, "The Raskolniks would go to the block for the sign of the Cross with two fingers. As for us, we don't cross ourselves at all, either with two fingers or with three, but we strive to gain a better knowledge of G.o.d"; and, indeed, his words may stand for a declaration of the simple faith of his people, for their wors.h.i.+p is marked by a deep contempt for tradition, dogma, and ceremony. They have even done away with the church, and, as a rule, use the house of their elders as a meeting-place. Communion has been simplified away, marriage reduced to a simple declaration, and invocation of G.o.d's blessing, the priesthood question, the rock which first split the Old Faith, solved by making every man a priest in his own family: surely their motto, "The letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life," has been well acted up to. Indeed, the whole theology of the Dukhobortsy may be summed up as a bold attempt to depart from the empty Greek formalism and arrive at a spiritual and unconventional wors.h.i.+p, an enlargement of the outline given in the shortest and grandest of sermons.

The Molokani are said to have obtained this name from taking milk and b.u.t.ter during fast times when they are forbidden to the Orthodox, but more probably from the fact of their having colonies on either bank of the river Molochnaia, so called from the whiteness of its waters, due to pota.s.sium salts. They are very closely akin to the Dukhobortsy, of which sect they are an offshoot. They hope for a millennium, and to this end tend all their communistic experiments; for each of their village settlements is striving to manufacture its own earthly Paradise and run it on its own lines.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SHRINE IN THE CONVENT SOLOVETSKII, KOLA.]

The Stunda is perhaps the largest and most rapidly developing faction of nonconformity, for it has ramified from Odessa--its starting point--throughout Tsarland, save in the extreme north and north-east.

This faith can be traced directly to the influence of certain Lutherans who emigrated from Wurtemberg and settled in the fruitful "_tchenoziom_," or black earth lands, some half-century ago. The Stundist organization is much like that of the "Low Church" division of Protestantism, save that it has no ordained clergy, a body whom it regards as a somewhat expensive luxury, and replaces by elected elders, who lead the very simple services, at which any man or woman who feels called upon to do so may say what he or she will.

These gatherings are more prayer-meetings than services, for there is no "Form of Prayer" to be used, but simply informal prayer, praise and song in the best room of a farmhouse, though, now that the Government are not so strict in their search after heretics, regular wooden "meeting-houses" have appeared in some of the Stundist villages.

If few of the rational sects have committed their history and their views, or indeed their creeds, to writing, lest they should fall into the hands of spies and be used in evidence against them, much more is this the case with those whose search after truth has led them to forsake the lines of rationalism and enter the land of mysticism and spiritualism. But two of these mystic schisms need we touch upon in this article, in order to show to what lengths the Mujik will go in his efforts to escape from the trammels of Orthodoxy, and with what logic he will follow up any given line of thought. Most of the irrational sects are older than those already mentioned, and do not seem to have their roots in other lands, but to be the expression of the Mujik's own mind in its waking moments: thus the "Khlystsy"--the name is a nickname taken from the word "Khlyst" (a whip)--date back to the early days of the Seventeenth Century. They hold that Christ has made and still makes repeated appearances on earth and in Russia, and indeed they are seldom without an incarnate G.o.d present with them in flesh and blood.

The Khlystsy meet by night, with the utmost secrecy, and are reported to dance, after the manner of the Dervishes, with ever-increasing rapidity, until their feelings are worked up to such a pitch that they are able to receive messages of inspiration, which they shout out to their fellows. If one of their number has a fit--not an uncommon event in some communes where close intermarriage among relations has been the practice for generations--he is safe to be regarded as an inspired messenger and duly honoured as such. Charges of every kind of vice have been laid at the door of the Khlystsy; their secret services have been called cloaks for immorality, and doubtless on occasion have been used as such; but, as the character of their congregation stands for high honesty and industry, it is surely more charitable to a.s.sume that their worst feature is their extreme secrecy, and that this, when added to the hatred of orthodox marriage which the sect shows, lies at the base of most of the accusations. Closely connected with these dancing Khlystsy are the jumping Shakuny, whose jumps are said to increase in height as do the circular movements of the former, until the proper state of mind for inspired prophecy is reached.

Among the stockbrokers and money-changers of Russian cities, as well as among peasants, may be seen the pale and almost hairless face, wavering voice, and mild manner of the "Skopets" who has put in practice upon himself the strange doctrine of self-mutilation.

These "White Doves" as they call themselves, base their self-sacrifice upon the literal rendering of such texts as, "If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out," "Except a man become as a little child, he shall not enter into the Kingdom of heaven," and argue that in order to be pleasing to G.o.d, man--and in some instances woman--must become like the angels, whom they a.s.sert to be s.e.xless, on the ground that "they neither marry nor are given in marriage."

We notice the hold which religion, in its vast variety of forms, has over the popular mind of Russia. No one who has visited, however casually, a Russian city can doubt this; the icon hangs in the station office, and men bow to it, the cabman crosses himself ere he drives over a bridge; shrines are interposed between shops, many of which latter are devoted to the sale of crucifixes, swinging lamps and sacred pictures; green cupolas and golden crosses gleam against the sky, look which way you will. So it is in the village, the white wooden church stands out in front of the black wooden houses, crosses are placed in the cattle pastures to ward off evil spirits, the folk cross themselves if they yawn, lest "chort,"

the devil jump in at their mouth, and the drunkard, at the tavern door, kneels and uncovers as the procession pa.s.ses on its way, may be to bless the waters but now released from the winter grip of ice, or may be to leave some neighbour in the communal graveyard.

We notice, too, the stern logic with which the peasant theologian follows up the ideas of his sect, how he works out his own salvation along lines which he himself lays down, and in so doing invents some new creed almost daily; for a Russian newspaper can hardly ever be taken up without seeing the discovery of such in one corner or other of the vast Empire. That he has the full courage of his opinions, that he will suffer for conscience' sake--Russian officials only know how bitterly--that he will lay down his life, or--almost equal sacrifice for him--forsake his land and "_izba_," and face the future among the wild native races which bound European Tsarland on its north and east--not so very long ago--he suffered the knout and the stake rather than recant one iota of what he thinks to be the only true rendering of the Biblical text, all this must in common fairness be allowed to the poor Russian.

_ST. PETERSBURG_

_J. BEAVINGTON ATKINSON_

Cronstadt, the strong fortress which stopped the advance of the English squadron in the last Russian war, is as the water-gate of St. Petersburg. A bright July sun made no unpleasing picture of the huge hulks of the men-of-war, and of the many-masted merchant s.h.i.+ps which lay within the harbour, or behind the fortifications.

Pa.s.sing Cronstadt the capital soon comes in sight; the water is so smooth and shallow, and the banks are so low, that I was actually reminded of the lagoons of Venice. Far away in the distance glittered in the sunlight cupola beyond cupola, covered with burnished gold or sparkling with bright stars on a blue ground. The river, stretching wide as an estuary, was thronged with merchandise as the Tagus or the Thames: yachts were flying before the wind and steam-tugs laboured slowly against the stream, dragging behind the heavily-laden lighter.

Warehouses and wharfs and timber-yards now begin to line either bank; yet the materials for a sketch-book are scanty and uninviting: an artist who, like Mr. Whistler, has etched at Battersea and Blackwell, would find by comparison on the Neva the forms without character, the surface without texture, the ma.s.ses without light, shade, or colour. As the boat advances the imperial city grows in scale and pomp. The river view becomes imposing, the banks are lined on either side by granite quays, which for solidity, strength, and area, have no parallel in Europe. Beneath the bridges the unruly river rushes, bearing along rafts and merchandise, and in the broad-laid streets people hurry to and fro, as if the day were too short for the press of business: only in great commercial capitals, the centres of large populations, is life thus rapid and overburdened. Throughout Russia generally time hangs heavily, but here at the seat of empire, the focus of commerce, life under high pressure moves at full speed. I know of no European capital, excepting perhaps London and Vienna, which leaves on the mind so strong an impression of power, wealth, and ostentation, as the city of St. Petersburg.

Possibly the first idea which may strike the stranger on driving from the steamer to the hotel, is the large scale on which the city has been planned; the area of squares and streets seems proportioned to the vast dimensions of the Russian empire: indeed the silent solitudes of the city may be said to symbolize the desert tracks of central Russia and Siberia. Only on the continent of America is so much land at command, so large a sweep of territory brought within the circuit of city life. In the old world, Munich offers the closest a.n.a.logy to St. Petersburg, and that not only by wide and half-occupied areas, but by a certain pretentious and pseudo-cla.s.sic architecture, common to the two cities alike: the design of the Hermitage in fact came from Munich. St. Petersburg, like Munich too, has been forced into rapid growth; indeed while looking at the works raised by successive Tsars, I was reminded of the boast of Augustus that he found Rome of brick and left her of marble.

St. Petersburg, though sometimes decried as a city of shams, is certainly not surpa.s.sed in the way of show by any capital in Europe.

As to natural situation she may be said to be at once fortunate and infelicitous: the flatness of the land is not redeemed by fertility, the monotony of the panorama is not broken by mountains; the city rides as a raft upon the waters, so heavily freighted as to run the risk of sinking. And yet I know of no capital more imposing when taken from the strong points of view. Almost beyond parallel is the array of palaces and public buildings which meets the traveller's eye in a walk or sail from the English quay up to the Gardens of the Summer Palace. The structures it is true tend a little too much of what may be termed buckram and fustian styles; indeed there is scarcely a form or a detail which an architect would care to jot down in his note-book. And yet the general effect is grand: a big river rus.h.i.+ng with large volume of water through the arches of bridges, along granite quays and before marble palaces, is a n.o.ble and living presence in the midst of city life. The waters of "the great Neva" and of "the little Neva" appear as an omnipresence; the rivers are in the streets, and great buildings, such as the Admiralty, the Fortress, and the Cathedral of St. Peter and St.

Paul, ride as at anchor on a swelling flood. The views from the three chief bridges--Nicholas Bridge, Palace Bridge, and Troitska Bridge--are eminently palatial and imperial. The Academy of Arts, the Academy of Sciences, St. Isaac's Cathedral, the Admiralty, the Winter Palace, the Hermitage, and the fortress and cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul, give to the stranger an overpowering impression of the wealth and the strength of the empire. The Englishman, while standing on these bridges, will naturally recall a.n.a.logous positions on the river Thames; such comparison is not wholly to the disadvantage of the northern capital, yet on the banks of the Neva rise no structures which in architectural design equal St. Paul's Cathedral, Somerset House, Westminster Abbey, and the Houses of Parliament. Indeed, with the exception of the spire of the Admiralty, I did not find in St. Petersburg a single new idea.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ST. PETERSBURG.]

Of the famous Nevski-Prospekt, the chief street in St. Petersburg, it may be said as of our London Regent Street, that it can stand neither weather nor criticism. As to style of architecture, strictly speaking the Nevski-Prospekt has none: the buildings, consisting of shops, interspersed with a few churches and public edifices, so much partake of the modern and mongrel Italian manner, that the traveller might easily fancy himself in Paris, Brussels, or Turin. Few cities are so pretentious in outside appearances as St. Petersburg, and yet the show she makes is that of the whited sepulchre: false construction and rottenness of material, facades of empty parade, and plaster which feigns to be stone, const.i.tute an acc.u.mulative dishonesty which has few parallels in the history of architecture. Cla.s.sic pillars and porticos, which have been thrust in everywhere on slightest pretext, are often built up of brick covered with cement and coloured yellow. Columns, here the common and constant expedient, are mostly mismanaged; they are as it were gratuitous intrusions, they seem to be stuck on, they fail to compose with the rest of the building. Neither do the architects of St. Petersburg understand mouldings or the value of shadow, there is scarcely a moulding in the city which casts a deep, broad or delicate shadow: hence the facades look flat and thin as if built of cards. In the same way the details are poor and treated without knowledge; it thus happens that conceptions bold and grand are carried out incompletely. The great mistake is that the architects have made no attempt to gather together the scattered elements of a national style. With the noteworthy exception of the use of fine, fanciful and fantastic domes, often gilt or brightly coloured, the architecture of Russian capitals is either Cla.s.sic or Renaissance of the most commonplace description.

I shall not think it worth while to dwell on the very many churches which adorn the northern capital, because, with few exceptions, there is nothing in point of art which merits to be recorded. Yet I can scarcely refrain from again referring to the fine fantasy played by many-coloured domes against the blue sky. The forms are beautiful, the colours decorative. The city in its sky outline presents a succession of strange pictures, at one point the eye might seem to range across a garden of gourds, at other positions peer above house-tops groups which might be mistaken for turbaned Turks; and when the sun s.h.i.+nes vividly, and throws glittering light on the "patens of bright gold," over these many-domed churches, a stranger might almost fancy that above the city floated fire balloons or bright-coloured lanterns. The large cupola of St. Isaac, covered with copper overlaid with gold, has been said to burn on a bright day like the sun when rising on a mountain top. I can never forget the sight when I returned to St. Petersburg from the most brilliant civic and military spectacle I ever witnessed, the fete of the Empress at Tsarskoe Selo. It was still dark, but before I reached my hotel for the short repose of a night which already brightened into morning, every cupola on the way was awakening into daylight; the sun, hesitating for a moment on the horizon, announced his coming as by electric light on the golden stars which shone on domes more blue than the grey sky of morning. In Moscow church cupolas playa part in the city panorama still more conspicuous than in St. Petersburg.

The Cathedral of St. Isaac is the most costly and pretentious of Russian churches. The n.o.ble edifice has the advantage of a commanding situation; not, it is true, as to elevation--for that is impossible in a city set throughout on a dead level--but the surface area in its wide sweeping circuit at all events contrasts strikingly with that cribbed and cabined church-yard of St. Paul's in London, which the Englishman may have just left behind him. Yet St. Isaac's can scarcely venture on comparison with St. Paul's, though the style of the two buildings is similar. The great Cathedral of St. Petersburg has, however, the advantage of that concentration which belongs to the Greek as distinguished from the Latin Cross, a distinction which has always been to the disadvantage of St. Peter's in Rome.

A cross of four equal arms, with columned porticos mounted n.o.bly on steps at the four extremities, the whole composition crowned by central and surrounding cupolas, is a.s.suredly an imposing conception, of which the French artist M. Montferrand has known how to make the most. I may here, by way of parenthesis, remark that the two works which do most honour to St. Petersburg, the Cathedral of St. Isaac and the adjacent equestrian statue of Peter the Great, are severally due not to Russian but to French artists. This is one example among many of the foreign origin of the arts in Russia.

But at all events let it be admitted that the materials used, as well as the ideas often brought to bear, are local or national. For example, the grandest of all architectural conceptions, the idea of a dome, is here glorified in true Russian or Oriental manner, not so much by magnitude of proportion as by decorative splendour, heightened to the utmost by a surface of burnished gold. Then the four porticos which terminate each end of the Greek cross with stately columns and entablatures of granite from Finland, albeit in design mere commonplace complications, are wholly national in the material used. I do not now stop to mention the large and bold reliefs in bronze, which though French in design were, I believe, cast in St. Petersburg: indeed here, as in Munich, the government makes that liberal provision which only governments can make, for n.o.ble but unremunerative art. The great dome is said to be sustained by iron; indeed the science of construction brought to bear is great, yet again it must be acknowledged that whether the material be iron, bronze, or stone, the art, the skill, and even the commercial capital, are not Russian but foreign, and often English. Russian workmen, however, are employed as mechanics or machines, partly because in copyism and mechanism Russian artisans cannot throughout Europe be surpa.s.sed. When I got to St. Petersburg I could scarcely believe the statement to be true that the "English Magazine" and not any Russian factory had executed the eight stupendous malachite pillars within the church, weighing about 34,000 pounds and costing 2,500 sterling. Yet while the organization might be English, the operatives were Russians. The unsurpa.s.sed malachite pillars combine in the grand altar-screen with columns of lapis-lazuli: the latter are said to have cost per pair 12,000 sterling. I need scarcely observe that this parade of precious metals partakes more of barbaric magnificence than of artistic taste; indeed these columns of malachite and lapis-lazuli, which to the eye present themselves as solid and honest, have been built up as incrustations on hollow cast-iron tubes. Thus hollow are the most precious arts of Russia. Justice, however, demands that I should speak hereafter in fair appreciation of the interiors of Russian churches, whereof the Cathedral of St. Isaac is among the chief. Nevertheless, material rather than mind, money rather than art, is the governing power; malachite, lapis-lazuli, gold, and other precious substances are heaped together profusely, yet no architect in Europe of the slightest intellectual pretensions, would care to look a second time at the constructive or decorative conceptions which the churches of St. Petersburg display. St. Isaac's in fact is miraculous only in its monoliths.

I could scarcely believe my eyes when first I stood beneath the stately porticos and looked from top to bottom of the very many columns, seven feet in diameter and sixty feet high, all polished granite monoliths from Finland. Already I had made the a.s.sertion that there was nothing new in St. Petersburg when these granite monoliths at once compelled a recantation.

The monoliths in St. Petersburg are so exceptional in number and often so gigantic in dimension as to call for special mention. The monolith obelisks of ancient Egypt are scarcely more remarkable.

In addition to the magnificent columns, each sixty feet high, which sustain the four porticos of the Cathedral of St. Isaac, are fifty-six monoliths, also of granite from Finland, thirty-five feet high in the Kazan Cathedral; likewise the n.o.ble entrance-hall of the Hermitage is sustained by sixteen monoliths, and the magnificent room which receives the treasures from the Cimmerian Bosphorus has the support of twenty monoliths. But the greatest single block of modern times stands in front of the Winter Palace, as a monument to Alexander I. The height is eighty-four feet, and the weight nearly four hundred tons. The story goes that the contractor in Finland, finding that he had exceeded the required length, actually cut off ten or fifteen feet. The vast granite quarries of Finland supply the Tsars with these stupendous columns, just as the granite quarries of Syene on the Nile furnished the Pharaohs with obelisks.

These enormous ma.s.ses are too heavy to be conveyed on wheels, the only practicable mode of transit is on rollers. In this way each of the sixty-feet columns for St. Isaac's was transported across country all the way from Finland. Each column represents so incredible an amount of labour as to make it evident that monoliths are luxuries in which only emperors can indulge. And even when these heavy weights have reached their destination the difficulty next occurs how to secure a solid foundation. St. Petersburg was once a swamp, and so rotten is the ground that it would be quite possible for a monolith to sink out of sight and never more be heard of. To provide against such contingencies a forest of piles was driven into the earth at the cost of 200,000 as the foundation of St. Isaac, and yet the cathedral sinks. Like causes render the roads of St. Petersburg the worst in Europe; winter frosts, which penetrate several feet below the surface, seize on the imprisoned waters and tear up the streets. The surface thus broken is so destructive to wheels that I have known an Englishman, who, though he kept four carriages, had not one in a condition to use. The jolting on the roads is so great as to make it wise for a traveller to hold on fast, and when a lady and gentleman ride side by side, it is usual for the gentleman to protect the lady by throwing his arm round his companion's waist.

This delicate attention is so much of a utilitarian necessity as in no way to imply further obligations.

St. Petersburg is considerably indebted to the art of sculpture: public monuments adorn her squares and gardens. Indeed the art of sculpture has, like the sister arts of architecture and painting, been forced into preternatural proportions. In the large area within sight of the church of St. Isaac and of the Admiralty, stands conspicuously one of the few successful equestrian statues in modern or ancient times, the colossal bronze to Peter the Great. The huge block of granite, which is said to weigh upwards of 15,000 tons, was conveyed from a marsh, four miles distance from St. Petersburg, by means of ropes, pulleys, and windla.s.ses, worked by men and horses.

A drummer stationed on the rock itself gave the signal for onward movement. It would seem that the methods used in Russia to this day for transporting granite monoliths, are curiously similar to the appliances of the ancient Egyptians for moving like ma.s.ses. In point of art this equestrian statue, though grand in conception, is, after the taste of barbarous nations, colossal in size. Peter the Great is eleven feet in stature, the horse is seventeen feet high. The n.o.bility lies in the action, the horse rears on his hind legs after the favourite manner of Velasquez in well-known equestrian portraits of Ferdinand IV. The att.i.tude a.s.sumed by the great Emperor is triumphant, the fiery steed has dashed up the rock and pauses as in mid-air on the brink of the precipice. The idea is that Peter the Great surveys from the height the capital of his creation, as it may be supposed to rise from the waters. His hand is stretched forth for the protection of the city. This work, like many other proud achievements in the empire, unfortunately is not Russian.

The design is due to the Frenchman Falconet; Marie Callot is said to have modelled the head, and the casting was done by Martelli, an Italian. Falconet, in order to be true to the life, carefully studied again and again a fine Arab horse, mounted by a Russian general who was famous as a rider; the general day by day made a rush up a mound, artificially constructed for the purpose, and when just short of the precipice the horse was reined in and thrown on its hind legs. The artist watched the action and made his studies; the work accordingly has nature, movement, vigour. I may here mention that I have nowhere found such large ma.s.ses of stone conveyed from place to place as here in St. Petersburg. It is true I have seen marble fresh from the mountains of Carrara tugged along by teams of bullocks, but I have nowhere witnessed so much power brought to bear as in the transit of the granite used in the immense memorial to the Empress Catherine.

The art collections in St. Petersburg may give the traveller pleasant occupation for several weeks; indeed if the tourist be an art student he will find work for months. The Winter Palace, adjoining the Hermitage, on the Neva, is like the palace at Versailles, conspicuous for rooms or galleries commemorative of military exploits. Here are well-painted battle-pieces by Willewalde and Kotzbue, also naval engagements by Aivasovsky, highly coloured as a matter of course. Likewise are hung the best battle-pieces I have ever seen, by Peter Hess, the renowned Bavarian painter, who appears to less credit in Munich than in the Winter Palace, St. Petersburg. Also may be noted the portrait of Alexander I. by Dawe, the Englishman, who worked much in Russia. Here likewise is the imperial gallery of portraits of all the sovereigns of the reigning Russian house.

I pa.s.s over these mult.i.tudinous works thus briefly, because, though the collection is of importance in the history of the empire, it has little value in art.

"The Crown Jewels" I shall not attempt to describe; no description of jewels can be worth much. I may venture to say, however, that after seeing all the royal jewellery in Europe, I found these Russian crowns, sceptres, etc., richer in diamonds than any other. Also pearls, rubies, Siberian aqua-marines, etc., add colour and splendour to the imperial treasure. The comparison on the spot, which I not unnaturally inst.i.tuted, was with the imperial treasury at Vienna.

Next, a word may be given to the room in which the proud, stern, and unrelenting Nicholas died, where all is kept intact as he left it. I have seldom been more impressed than with this small, simple, and almost penurious apartment, so striking in contrast with the splendour of the rest of the palace. Silence, solitude, and solemnity all the more attach to the spot from the statement to which credence is given that the great emperor, on learning of the reverses in the Crimea, here committed suicide. In other words, it is said that he directed his physician to prepare a medicine which after having taken he died. The sword, helmet, and grey military cloak are where he laid them. Here lies a historic tragedy which remains to be painted; one of the most dramatic pictorial scenes in Europe, the death of Wallenstein in Schiller's drama, painted by Professor Piloty and now in the new Pinakothek, Munich, might in the death of the great Nicholas find a parallel. The emperor lies buried with all the sovereigns of Russia since the foundation of St.

Petersburg, in the cathedral fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul.

Nothing in Europe is grander in the simplicity and silence which befit a sepulchre--not even the imperial tombs in Vienna--than this stately mausoleum of the Tsars. The Emperor Nicholas lies opposite to Peter the Great. In the Hermitage, or rather in the Winter Palace, is a gallery ill.u.s.trative of the life and labours of Peter the Great. The collection, besides turning-lathes and other instruments with which the monarch worked, contains curiosities, knickknacks, as well as some works of real art value: the connecting point of the whole collection is in Peter himself. An a.n.a.logous collection was some years ago opened in the Louvre as the Museum of Napoleon I. Dynasties all the world over thus seek to perpetuate their memories.