In Russia the very opposite is true. There almost every advance has re- ceived its first impulse from the Tsar — that is, the progress has begun from above and worked downward. Thus, for example, were brought about the emancipation of the serfs and the insti- tution of the zemtsvos. Peter the Great was the typical Russian Tsar, though built on the most majestic and colossal scale. He forced his reforms upon an indifferent or unwilling people. While many Russians are, from one point of view, enlightened and others are crudely educated and correspondingly radical, the fact remains that to any proposed change the masses block the way ; nor is it strange that the reforms in other lands extorted from the rulers by the people are in Russia, if they exist at all, forced upon the ruled by the ruler. No other process is possible among a people conservative by instinct and tolerant only of autocracy.[1]
THE PECULIAR ATTITUDE OF THE RUSSIANS TO THEIR TSAR
In May, i8q6, as magnificent a pano- rama as Europe has beheld was presented at the city of Moscow. I leave to poets and word-painters the description of the scene. It was the coronation of the Tsar. Its significance for us is found not in its attendant splendor, but in its enunciation throughout of the funda- mental principle of Russian govern- ment. Though the gorgeous rites con- tinued for hours, the culmination of each ceremony, whether prayer or promise or benediction, was always some fresh as- sertion or acknowledgment of autocracy. The Metropolitan of Moscow, having bestowed the orb and scepter on the new sovereign, concluded his prayer of consecration with the words, "The Lord . . . preserve with His protection the established rule." In the profound silence the kneeling Tsar exclaimed, "Lord God of my fathers, Thou hast elected me to be ruler of this Thy people." Last act of all, the Metropolitan of St Petersburg an- nounced, "God hath crowned this God- given, God-adorned, most God-fearing autocrat . . . Emperor of all the Russias." And then, turning to the Tsar, he said, ( 1 Take thyself the scepter and orb of the Empire, the visible image of the sole sovereignty over the people given by the Most High for their gov- ernment, promotion, and every desira- ble well-being." The Tsar took no oath of obligation like that so many times repeated from the steps of our Na- tional Capitol. He made no promise. He simply accepted the burden placed upon his shoulders. That burden is "sole sovereignty over the people." He personifies the theory of the father who never grows old and never dies, and whose national family is made up of children who never reach maturity and are always young. A few weeks ago at Tsarkoe Selo the Tsar received the deputation of workmen. As they talked of him in the vestibule the only name by which they called him was "The Little Father." They were grizzly veterans of labor, horny-handed by years of toil, and he a stripling, but to them the little father. When ushered into his presence, the first words they heard from his lips were "My children." Despite the difference in years. they were children around their father's feet.
That is the attitude of the Russian Slavs toward their autocratic head. Such an idea of governmental paternalism is absolutely contrary to our own, nor can it be appreciated or credited except as one acknowledges the essen-
- ↑ The Tsar's proclamation of religious freedom and equality, issued on April 30 and received with enthusiasm by the European and American world, is probably most unwelcome to the great majority of his subjects. It seems almost irony that this noble message of religious progress will especially benefit the Rascolniki, or Old Believers, the dissenters or sect reactionary even for Russia and bitterly hostile to all western influence and to all attendant progress.
