VIII. 1815. 16. dity of in the Russian 1840 to 1850, as one to one hundred, and that notwith- CHAP. standing the fearful ravages of the cholera, which in 1847 caused a decrease of 296,000.* This average increase will cause a duplication of the population in Great rapiseventy years, being as nearly as possible the rate of crease of increase in the British empire for thirty years prior to population. 1846; since that time the prodigious drain of the emigration, which has now reached the enormous amount of 365,000 a-year, has occasioned an annual decline, probably only temporary, of from 200,000 to 250,000. It is greater than that of any other state in Europe, Prussia alone excepted, which is increasing at such a rate as to double in fifty-two years; but far from equalling that of the United States of America, which for two centuries has Tegob, regularly doubled its inhabitants every twenty-four years, 93; Koepaided, it is true, by a vast immigration from Europe, which sur la popuhas latterly risen to the enormous amount of 500,000 Russie. a-year.1 1 i. 88, 92, per, Mém. lation de 17. for future increase in its inhabi tants. But the formidable nature of this increase, which, if it remains unchecked, will bring Russia, in seventy years, Great room to have 140,000,000 of inhabitants, or about half of the whole population of Europe at this time, which is estimated at 280,000,000, arises from the vast and almost boundless room which exists in its immense possessions for future augmentation. Such is the extent of its territory, that, great as its population is, it is at the rate less than 30 the square mile for Russia in Europe, while in Great Britain it is at the rate of 220, and in France of 171. If Russia in Europe were peopled at the rate of VIII. 1815. CHAP. Great Britain and Ireland, it would contain 500,000,000 souls a number by no means impossible, if the vast extent of waste land in the Highlands of Scotland, and the mountains of Cumberland and Wales, not less sterile than the fir forests of the north of Russia, is taken into account. Its entire superficies is 2,120,000 square geographical miles, while that of Great Britain and Ireland Russie, Por is 120,340; that of France, 207,252; that of Austria, 257,830; that of Prussia, 107,958; facts which, even more than its present number of inhabitants, demonstrate the prodigious capabilities which it contains, and the destinies to which it is ultimately called.1 logne, et Finland, 238; Tego borski, i. 98, 99. What renders a people, advancing at such a rate, and possessed of such resources, in a peculiar manner formidthe whole able, is the unity of purpose and feeling by which the 18. Unity of feeling in empire. whole of the immense mass is animated. It is a common opinion in western Europe that a people inhabiting so vast and varied a territory cannot by possibility remain united, and that Russia broken up, as it must ere long be, into a number of separate dominions, will cease to be formidable to the other powers of Europe. There never was a greater mistake. To reason thus is to fall into the usual error of supposing that all mankind are placed in the same circumstances, and actuated by the same desires. There have been many insurrections and revolts in Russia, but none which ever pointed in the most remote degree either to a change in the form of government, or to a separation of one part of the country from the other. It is in its Polish conquests alone that this passion has been felt. Even when the Rus The population of Great Britain and Ireland, however, was only 27,435,315 by the census of 1851, but that was in consequence of the Irish famine, 1846, and emigration ever since, so that the rate for it must be taken at what it was in 1845. VIII. 1815. sians have appeared in revolt, as they have often done, it CHAP. was ever in obedience to the impulse of loyalty they combated the Czar in the name of another Czar, not knowing which was the right one, as the Scotch Highlanders did the Hanoverian family in the name of the Stuarts. The principle of cohesion is much stronger in Russia than it is in the British dominions, infinitely more so than in the United States of America. England and France may be subjugated, or broken into separate states, before the integrity of Russia is threatened; and many rival republics will be contending for the superiority on the Transatlantic plains, while the Muscovites are still slumbering in conscious strength and patient expectation under the sceptre of the Czar. 19. this unity. and reli ings. The cause of this remarkable, and, to the other states of Europe, most formidable unity of feeling in the Russian Reason of dominions, is to be found, in the first place, as that of all Their Asigreat national peculiarities is, in the original character atic habits and disposition of the race. The Russians are not, it is gious feeltrue, encamped on the plains of Scythia as the Turks have been for four centuries on those of the Byzantine empire; they have taken root in the soil, they constitute its entire inhabitants, and are now devotedly attached to it by the possession of its surface and the labours of agriculture. But they are not on that account less Oriental in their ideas, feelings, and habits; on the contrary, it is that very circumstance, joined to their agricultural pursuits, which renders them so formidable. They unite the devotion and singleness of purpose of Asia to the industry and material resources of Europe. It is incorrect to say that the Russians, like the inhabitants of England or France, are generally loyal, and only occasionally seized with the disturbing passions of revolution or religion. They are loyal at all times, and in all places, and under all circumstances. They can never be brought to combat the Czar but in the name of the Czar. Devotion to the throne is so interwoven with the inmost feel VIII. 1815. CHAP. ings of their hearts that it has become part and parcel of their very being; it is as universal as the belief in God or a future state is in other countries. No disturbing or rival passions interfere with the unity of this feeling, which is sublime from its universality, and respectable from its disinterestedness. The Czar is at once their temporal sovereign, their supreme chief, whose will is law in all temporal affairs, and the head of their church, under the ægis of whose protection they alone hope for entrance into paradise in the world to come. The Patriarch of Constantinople is, properly speaking, the head of the Greek Church, but he is a foreigner, and at a distance; the real ecclesiastical authority resides in the Czar, who Histoire de appoints all the bishops; and his brows are surrounded, in their eyes, at once with the diadem of the sultan and the tiara of the pontiff.1 1 Levesque, Russie, v. 89, 90. 20. Unity of interest in This unity of feeling-the result of the combination, in the same people, of the Asiatic principle of passive obedithe empire. ence in temporal, and the Roman Catholic one of unity of belief in religious concerns-has been much enhanced in Russia by the entire identity of material interests over every part of the empire. Other nations are partly agricultural, partly manufacturing, partly commercial; and experience has proved that not the least serious causes of internal division are to be traced to the varied and conflicting interests of these different classes of society. But in Russia no such cause of division exists. The empire is, speaking in general terms, wholly agricultural. Its seaports are only emporiums for the sale of its rude produce; its merchants, its grain and hemp factors; its manufacturers, the clothers of its rural population; its nobles, the persons enriched by their labours. So inconsiderable is the urban population-only a twelfth of the rural-that it can secure no sort of influence in the State; and such as it is, its most lucrative professions are chiefly in the hands of foreigners. St Petersburg itself has, including the garrison, which is never less than 60,000 men, only 470,000 inhabitants ; VIII. 1815. but for the court, it would soon sink below 100,000; CHAP. Moscow 349,000,-neither greater than Manchester or Glasgow at this moment.* If this extremely small proportion of the urban to the rural population is prejudicial to the national wealth, by depriving the State of the great hives of industry which in other states are the nurseries of capital, it is eminently favourable to the unity of feeling which pervades the empire. The Russians have the two strongest bonds of cohesion which can exist in a State-identity of religious belief, and unity of temporal interests. 21. sufficiency produce ment. The Empress Catherine took some steps towards introducing schools into her vast dominions; and great General inestablishments for the young of both sexes excite the of the admiration of travellers both at St Petersburg and Mos- schools to COW. But she did so, only that her vanity might be enlightengratified by the praise of the philosophers of western Europe; for she at the same time wrote to one of her favourites that if they were general through the empire, neither he nor she would long remain where they then were.+ Catherine was right; the unbounded authority of the Czar, both as the temporal sovereign of the State and the head of the Church, is based on the general ignorance which prevails. Before the light of knowledge the vast fabric would insensibly melt away, but with it would disappear at the same time the internal solidity and external strength of the empire. The Emperor Alexander "Mon cher Prince,-Ne vous plaignez pas de ce que les Russes n'ont pas le désir de s'instruire. Si j'institue des écoles, ce n'est pas pour nous; c'est pour l'Europe, où il faut maintenir notre rang dans l'opinion: mais du jour où nos paysans voudraient s'éclairer, ni vous ni moi nous ne resterions à nos places.”—CATHERINE, Impératrice, au Gouverneur de Moscow, 8 June 1772 ; DE CUSTINE, La Russie en 1839, ii. 115. |