THE CHARACTER OF THE RUSSIAN PEASANT.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5043, 23 May 1877, Page 3

THE CHARACTER OF THE RUSSIAN PEASANT.

(From the Spectator.)

Nothing is more difficult, at least for men who have to depend upon reading instead of observation, than to make up one's mind whether the Russian is essentially an Asiatic or a European, a point of the last importance to all who wish to form an opinion as to the future of the great Russian people. The most observant travellers, Mr. C. Pearson, for example, who took a keen interest in the question, declare that tho majority of Russian peasants are in physique, color, and personal ways —such, for instance, as their cheerfulness and geniality—essentially European, that is, they display that indescribable nuance of difference from Asiastics which no one who knows both ever mistakes. They may be crossed a good deal with Asiatic blood—-

though that is doubtful—but the balance of evidence tends to the opinion that the true Russian race is not only nearly pure European, but tends to become more European still, and it is ' not very difficult to understand the process. There can be no doubt that an originally European population—we are not, of course, discussing their first origin—encamped for the most part on the Dnieper, was submerged by successive Asiatic waves of immigration and conquest; and quite possible that, as iu the case of the Mahometan invasions of India, these waves were very shallow, that they were swelled by absorptions from among the aborigines, and that the latter, with their superior adaptability to the climate in which they had been so long settled, multiplied the faster of the two. That has happened in France, in Spain, and iu Southern Ireland, the conquered race iu each case displaying a superior vitality and faculty of reproduction which ultimately enabled it to obtain, partly by the absorption of the intruders, an ascendancy so complete, that Gauls, Iberians, and Milesians seem to occupy France, Spain, and Southern Ireland, and Franks, Visigoths, and Englishmen are nowhere. But then if that be the true explanation, how does it happen that a white race, so to speak, displays so many of the characteristics of a dark one, till keen observers familiar with Asia do not hesitate to to say that, appearances notwithstanding, Russians must he Asiatics ? Nothing can he more unlike European instincts than Asiatic notions about property in land, yet the Russians appear to have no other. They believe exactly as Rajpoot peasants believe, that the land belongs to the heads of households iu each village, and that the landlord does not own it, but is only entitled to take from them so much service or money as the Sovereign iu his wisdom allows him to exact. “ We are yours, but the land is ours,” they used to say to their lords. This idea, which is absolutely Asiatic, is universal, says Mr. Mackenzie Wallace ; and so is the idea of the sacredness of the authority of the Mir, or Commune, when convened in a council of all heads of houses. That council is often oppressive to a grave degree, constantly inflicts the gravest of all minor penalties—perpetual banishment as an outcast—and is severely exacting about taxation, but nobody ever dreams of resisting its decisions. In the whole history of Russia, says Mr. Mackenzie Wallace, with its endless revolts, there is no instance of a revolt against the Mir, which, as in India, outlasts all changes. It is accepted, as many institutions are accepted by Asiatics, as neither pleasant nor unpleasant, but as part of the order of things, which it is preposterous to question, to blame, or to approve. One may not like that clouds should yield rain, or one may like it, but in either case they will yield rain in perfect indifference to human approval or dislike. That attitude of mind towards a human institution which those who maintain it make and unmake every year, is entirely Asiatic, as is also the peculiar form of Russian loyalty, that ingrained notion that a Czar’s order, if one could only be sure he gave it, ought to be obeyed for reasons apart from fear, a notion which has given the Czars, like the Mikados, power to decree things which seem to involve alterations in the mind. For instance, if a mob is murdering doctors for poisoning the wells iu choleratimes, and the Czar orders them to go home, they not only go home, but leave off murdering doctors, the evident feeling being not so much that the Czar can punish, but that if he says doctors do not poison wells, then they do not. That feeling, so far as we can recollect, never existed among Europeans—though there is some trace of it in the confidence French peasants repose in officials —whose loyalty is either an affection, a conviction, or a fear, rather than a faith. Asiatic, too, is the immovable tenacity of a Russian, usually a light-headed, gas-brained being, when he has once made up his mind, particularly upon a religious question, and his absolute tolerance of differences of religious opinion, however extreme, provided certain ceremonial observances are strictly though it may be contemptuously observed. A Hindoo does not care if his son holds any opinions possible, Christian, Atheist, or Buddhist, if only he will perform the proper ceremonials, and that is, Mr. Wallace repeats over and over again, the speciality of the Russian peasant and of the Russian priest. His idea of women is the Asiatic one—that she is very silly, and ought to be kept in seclusion and subjection—but like the Asiatic, he does not interfere with her property-rights, and if she is head of a house gives her a full vote in the Mir. He lies, too, exactly like a Hindoo, Mr. Wallace doubts, as all who know Hindoos doubt, whether Russians have any innate tendency to lying, but iu practice they resort to lyintr as a weapon, and with as little shame as they would to any other method of defence. No Anglo-Indian, for instance, could read this story without supposing it told of Hindoo peasants:— “ In one of the villages through which I passed I met with a very characteristic littß incident. The village was called Saranvdlnaya Ivauofka, that is to say, ‘ Ivanofka the Selfwilled ’ or ‘ the Non-authorised.’ Whilst our horses were being changed my travelling comnanion, in the course of conversation with a group of peasants, inquired about the origin of this extraordinary name, and discovered a curious hit of local history. The founders of the village had settled on the land without the permission of the owner, and obstinately resisted all attempts at eviction. Again and again troops had been sent to drive them away, hut as soon as the troops retired these ‘self-willed’ people returned and resumed possession, till at last the proprietor, who lived in St. Petersburg or some other distant place, became weary of the contest, and allowed them to remain. The various incidents were related with much circumstantial detail, so that the narration lasted perhaps half an hour. All this time I listened attentively, and when the story was fi ished I took out ray note-book in order to jot down the facts, and asked in what year the affair had happened. No answer was given to my question. The peasants merely looked at eacli other in a significant way, and kept silence. Thinking that my question had not been understood, I asked it a second time, repeating a part of what had been related. To my utter astonishment and discomfiture they all declared that they had never related anything of the sort ! In despair I appealed to my friend, and asked him whether my ears had deceived me—whether I was laboring under some strange hallucination ? Without giving mo any reply he simply smiled and turned away. When we had left the village and were driving along in our tarantass, the mystery was satisfactorily cleared up. My friend explained to me that I had not at all misunderstood what had been related, but that my abrupt question and the sight of my notebook had suddenly aroused the peasants’ suspicions, and cut short their communicativeness. ‘ They evidently suspected, he continued, ‘ that you were a Tchindvnik, and that you wished to use to their detriment the knowledge you had acquired. They thought it safer, therefore, at once to deny it all. You don’t yet understand the Russian muzhik !’ ” And this is exactly and minutely true of the Bengalees:— “ Thus, for example, when a muzhik is implicated in a criminal affair and a preliminary investigation is being made, he probably begins by constructing an elaborate story to explain the facts and exculpate himself. The story may be a tissue of self-evident falsehoods from beginning to end, but he defends it valiantly as long as possible. When be perceives that the position he has taken up is utterly untenable, be declares openly that all be has said is false, and that be wishes to make a new declaration. Tliis second declaration may have the same fate as the former one, and then he proposes a third. Thus groping his way, he tries various stories till he finds one that seems proof against all objections. In the fact of his thus tefling lies, there is of course nothing remarkable, for criminals in all parts of the world have a tendency to deviate from the truth when they fall into tho hands of justice. The peculiarity is that he retracts his statements with tho composed air of a chess-player who requests his opponent to let him take back an inadvertent move. Under the old system of procedure, which was abolished about ten years ago, clever criminals often contrived, by moans of this simple device, to have their trial postponed for many years.” Lying like this is] all the stranger, because the

1 Russians, so far from being a timid people, are as brave as any Europeans, and excessively tenacious of any rights which they claim to belong to them, a tenacity which would seem to be needless. We suppose the truth is that the Raassian is a European who at an exceedingly early stage was forced, by circumstances we shall never know, and the pressure of Asiatic conquerors, to give up to the individualism whioli is the differentia between Asia and Europe, and adopt the Communal life. He has never submitted quite to the self-effacement which the majority of Asiatics accept so complacently. He had never been tempted to seek protection in the castes which ought, if he is an Asiatic, to have grown up in such a system of society. He is not at heart indisposed for radical changes, but is rather, when a little educated, an Utopian, hoping too much from sudden reforms made in accordance with the last new set of philosophic principles. And above all, though he endures or, it may be, likes the Communal organisation, so intolerable to the Englishman that he thinks himself a benefactor for allowing his Hindoo subjects to give it up, if they like, he does not cordially approve the system of the common household. Formerly this was almost universal in Russia, but though they had tried it for four hundred years, the moment emancipation came the peasants abandoned it, and resorted to family life in such numbers, that their indebtedness for new and separate houses is just now one of their most serious difficulties. “ In the time of serfage the peasant families, as I have already remarked, were generally very large. They remained undivided, partly from the influence of patriarchal conceptions, but chiefly because the proprietors, perceiving the economic advantage of large families, prevented them from breaking up into independent units. As soon as the proprietor’s authority was removed the process of disintegration began and spread rapidly. Every one wished to be independent, and in a very short time nearly every able-bodied married peasant had a house of his own. The influence of this on the Communal self-government I have already pointed out; its influence on the economic position of the peasantry was still more injurious. The building and keeping up of two or three houses instead of one necessarily entailed a large amount of extra expenditure. It must be remembered, too, that many a disaster which may be successfully resisted by a large family inevitably ruins a small one.”