A year in Russia

This book is nothing else but a collection of notes, a bundle of impressions gathered during a year’s stay in Russia. It lays no claim to be either exhaustive or even of any practical use to the serious student of the Russian Evolution. It is written for the ignorant, and with the object of helping them to decide whether they wish to take an interest in what is now happening in Russia, or not. I cannot take them into the house and show them all over it from floor to ceiling with the knowledge and authority of a master-builder; all I can do is to open a small window and ask them to look through it and observe certain things, pointing out how far these things are typical of the whole; and my hope is that the glimpses I have given them will enable them to decide whether they wish to go and knock at the front door and investigate for themselves.

This book consists solely of a record of things I have seen and heard myself in Russia during an interesting year of the history of that country. My experience of English opinion on Russian things has convinced me that in order to make such a record as intelligible as possible, a great deal of introduction and explanation would be necessary. The reason of this is that the ignorance in England about Russia is extraordinary; and most of the current literature—I mean the books published on Russian affairs—instead of dispelling that ignorance, succeed rather in increasing it. Russia and Russian affairs are so little known in England that the country has proved a happy hunting ground for sensational writers of fiction and still more sensational purveyors of facts. Leaving the writers of fiction out of the question, the chief bar which seems to separate writers about Russia from a just estimate and a valuable appreciation of that country is the language. It is possible to convey information about Russia if you are ignorant of the Russian language; and such information may prove to be not only useful, but of surprising interest to people who are totally ignorant of the country. But unless you are acquainted with the Russian language it is impossible to acquire an intimate knowledge of the Russian people, and it is difficult to understand many things which happen in Russia.

I had, therefore, the intention, before proceeding to a record of any things I had seen myself, to collect and convey the impressions I had received of the Russian character and of Russian life in various classes, correcting and illustrating my impressions by those of others who have worked in the same field, and by evidence drawn from Russian literature. I meant to try and illustrate books by examples taken from life, and throw light on events and people by examples taken from literature; but I found when I began to do this that the writing of such an introduction was equivalent to the writing of two large books, one on the Russian people and one on Russian literature, a task which I still hope to accomplish some day, but for which I do not at present feel sufficiently equipped. Moreover, even were I sufficiently equipped, the writing of two such books cannot be accomplished in a hurry in a country which is in a state of political effervescence. I have therefore sadly resigned myself to work backwards, and give to the public my record of raw facts first and the explanation at a later date.

Nevertheless in giving this collection of scraps to the public I still have an aim and a purpose. As I have said, Englishmen are amazingly ignorant of Russia; not only because they deliberately prefer the works of sensation-mongers to those of really well-informed writers like Sir D. M. Wallace or M. Leroy-Beaulieu, but also because, when they honestly seek for truth in the newspapers which are by way of being serious, they are almost invariably misled. On the other hand Englishmen who live in Russia, even if only for a short period—such as officers from the Indian Army who come out on leave to learn the language—find no difficulty in forming a just appreciation of the country and its people. It has always struck me that if any such person were to write a record of what he saw and thought, that record would have a real value because it would constitute an aspect of the truth and not an aspect of the lie. This is therefore my aim, and it is the only merit I claim for this work. It contains aspects of things, seen by some one whose object was to try and understand the ordinary and not to invent the extraordinary. And therefore, although my work has no sort of claim to be taken seriously, either as history, or as a manual of useful information, it will have the negative merit of being free from any attempt at sensationalism, and, I hope, the positive merit of containing some aspects of the truth, some unvarnished record of la chose vue.

If what I have written leads others to take an interest in Russia and to go and see for themselves, and to treat exhaustively in a masterly fashion the things at which I have hinted incompletely and haltingly, I shall feel amply rewarded.

Somebody might object that even if we are totally ignorant of Russia in England there is no great harm done, that Russia is a far-off country with an impossibly difficult language; why should we bother about it? To this I would reply that the British people have shown themselves to be gravely concerned about the increasing competition with which the Englishman has to contend in all branches of life, and at the alarming improvement in the methods of his neighbours, which is met by no similar improvement at home. British trade, British influence, are rapidly, it is said, being outstripped. Remedies, such as protection, are suggested. As to whether such a remedy would prove efficacious or not I have no idea; but one practical reason of our stagnation in certain matters cannot fail to strike the most indolent observer. Our neighbours are well and practically educated. We are not. Is not this fact the cause of a great many things? If we want to remedy an evil we must look for the cause. I firmly believe that the unpractical education which is given to so many of us is largely responsible for the comparative stagnation of Englishmen in matters of trade and enterprise, compared with the sedulous efforts of the citizens of other countries. I am not advocating the introduction of a purely continental system of education, nor would I like to see our system of athletics disappear; but it is obvious that there is not and never will be any danger of either of these two things happening. But I never mean to lose an opportunity of advocating a radical reform in the old-fashioned strictly classical education given and received at our public schools and rendered necessary by the obstinacy of our universities, owing to which Greek and Latin are taught (but no longer learned except by a slender minority), to the exclusion of all other useful knowledge.

The mass of boys who now learn nothing because Greek and Latin mean nothing to them, would gladly assimilate something which would be useful to them in after life: for instance, some smattering of their own history, some mastery of the English tongue, or the knowledge of a modern language.

There is no country where the disadvantage at which an Englishman finds himself compared to his continental rivals is made so plain as in Russia. In Russia there is, and there will be even more in the future, an immense field for foreign enterprise. The Germans have taken, are taking, and will take the utmost advantage of this fact. The English are content to send advertisements here, written in the English language, and never dream of trying to learn Russian themselves.

A working knowledge of the Russian language is acquired here by the average British officer, working for an examination, in the course of six months. Therefore this difficulty, though serious, is not insurmountable. This, then, is the practical reason which I advance for the furthering of knowledge about Russia. I say that such knowledge is useful and advantageous to Englishmen. I have another reason for wishing such knowledge to be propagated, which is personal and moral, but not sentimental. It is this. I confess that I entertain perhaps a foolish desire for goodwill among nations. Of course I know very well that rivalries and conflicts must exist. Sometimes such rivalries and conflicts are the result of a fundamental antagonism and of the struggle for existence. But sometimes they are merely the outcome of misunderstanding and prejudice.