Acknowledgements
To Daniela and Verónica, Tomás and Santiago – presences that are an indissoluble part of my searching.
To Héctor; and to my parents, whose absence is always present.
Foreword
This book’s second edition, revised and updated, evidences the interest it has provoked in the 20-plus years since its publication. I understand that it has already become a classic, bolstered by the author’s growing dedication to the subject of the feminine and women. The work of feminine collectives, the ‘Me Too’ and ‘Not One Less’, among others – especially regarding gender violence and current debates on the legalization of abortion – has also heightened the enthusiastic reception of these contributions.
The book is also required reading for the studies of sexual and gender diversities which have developed remarkably in our milieuin the same period, including through the enactment of laws on gender identity and same-sex marriage. For this purpose, a new foreword and two new chapters – the first and the thirteenth – have been added to the revised contents of the first edition.
The English translation of the first edition, entitled Deconstructing theFeminine, published by Karnac Books in 2007, did justice to the impact it had made on Spanish-speaking readers and enabled the expansion of these ideas in the Northern Hemisphere. An echo of this favourable reception was the author’s invitation as keynote speaker at the International Psychoanalytical Congress held in
London in 2019. André Green’s letter to the author, transcribed in part toward the end of my prologue, expresses the same opinion.
Like many colleagues in Buenos Aires and other parts of the world to which the author is frequently invited, I have been fortunate in the sense that my respect for the way she thinks and her intellectual production has made me a tacit interlocutor of her thought, which has thereby enriched my own clinical work.
At the book launch at the Argentine Psychoanalytic Association (APA), of which I was president at the time, I said that since we had been a pioneering scientific society in the study and spread of psychoanalysis for over 75 years:
the production of a colleague trained in this house who intervenes actively in its activities is a personal product but it also bears witness to the scientific development of this institution and is an outstanding vehicle for its adequate transmission.
Argentine psychoanalysis has been especially outstanding in this sense.
The author explicitly bases her work on ‘today’s consultations by women and their problematic and by persons who respond to unconventional sexualities and genders, and also on new, nontraditional forms of family organization’. She adds that the approach to the feminine transcends studies on women but is inseparable from them.
In order to explain the shortcomings of binary thought when she is working on the complexity of this theme, Leticia Glocer Fiorini begins with the alternatives to her perspective encountered in the history of psychoanalysis.
In her opinion, Freudian theories on the feminine and women ‘present aspects with undeniable clinical value’, although the classical ideas of his era predominate. However, this appreciation does not prevent her from arguing openly with Freud – for example, in relation to what she considers his proposal of the heteronormative
resolution of the Oedipus and, in general, to his view of feminine sexuality.
She highlights that the category of gender is implicit in Freud’s works, although it was not yet labelled as such. She considers that ‘the Freudian theory on sexual difference is based on an (implicit) gender theory; a theory that also presents controversial blind spots, especially in relation to girls’ psychosexual development’.
However, she recognizes that:
in Freud there is not just one proposal with respect to sexual difference; there are other aspects that we must also recognize. At the end of his works, he disbelieves in the active-passive opposition assigned to the masculine and the feminine, respectively, and arrives at the conclusion that, although there is only one libido, it is not masculine, as he had said at first, but is instead neutral (Freud, 1933). Further, his proposal on the complete Oedipus complex opens the perspective for us to think about the multiplicity of possible resolutions.
Although this is a book on ‘the feminine’, it is also an epistemological proposal about how to include the paradigm of complexity in its study: how to articulate different perspectives without simplifications and without forcing hasty integrations. Its arrival was especially welcome since it coincided with our perspective: a scientific policy of articulating the complexity of contemporary psychoanalysis and its institutions.
Albeit that this book is written by a psychoanalyst, it provides different conceptual tools for understanding the topic of ‘the feminine’ – a topic that surpasses psychoanalysis. Far from positioning herself as a psychoanalyst discussing other disciplines, the author is open to the reading of other contributions that she aims to articulate with her psychoanalytic knowledge in order to illuminate her object of study.
The author bases the so-called feminine position on three variables: femininity, feminine sexuality, and ‘the feminine/the archaic’ – distinctions that clarify her proposal. Femininity in relation
to gender identifications, feminine sexuality in relation to desire and object choice, and the feminine in the field of the archaic/maternal, common to both sexes but localized in women through a sliding of categories. She underlines that a basic misunderstanding is thereby generated in which women come to embody the non-representable that is associated with the archaic and early experiences.
True to what Green describes as the work of representation for psychoanalysis, the author speaks about the efficacy of this work to explain what children interpret in what they perceive about sexual difference. She adds another point to this issue: how children conceptualize the ‘difference’ perceived even before the phallic phase and all that relates to the diversity of their genitals. Glocer Fiorini focuses on the idea that anatomical sex is never simply anatomical since recognition always involves interpretation.
In this second edition, the author proposes to ‘make the category of “difference” complex in a broad sense by conceiving of it as a symbolic organizer in the intra- and transsubjective order’. With this aim, she works on ‘difference in the frame of triadic thinking or involving even more than three variables’. In another book, Sexual Difference in Debate (2017), she focuses on this theme, expanding and developing it in the light of interdisciplinary contributions.
Consequently, she proposes that a key factor for conceptualizing ‘the feminine’ and its relationship with women is to ‘discard the structural, eternal, and immoveable thesis based on the phallus signifier, with its inevitable androcentric connotations, on which both sexes have been positioned’.
In this frame, she put forward a necessary distinction between the concepts of diversity and symbolic difference. The concept of diversity is, she considers, ‘indispensable to understand the multiple variants in the movements of desire and genders, intersecting with other diversities (ethnic, religious, class, among others)’.
She also stresses Kristeva’s position concerning the paradox in which women either identify with the mother and are excluded from the symbolic or identify with the father and are called upon to disavow their feminine ego.
Among the additions to this new edition, she includes, in theory and in clinical work, the changes in the category of ‘masculinity’, accentuated in contemporary societies. In the light of a very current problematic, she reviews the category of feminine masochism, so misused in evaluating gender violence and its extreme variant, femicide – both of which scourge our senses almost daily.
For the author, ‘there is a line of understanding that transfers gender violence and its androcentric determinations toward a responsibility of women, thereby replicating folk knowledge of the matter’. Without excluding ‘masochistic fantasies that may exist in men and women’, she proposes to disconnect ‘this erroneous relation between masochism and the feminine’.
As we see, these original ideas have been elaborated in the course of the author’s broad theoretical and clinical trajectory, which not only determines each analyst’s mode of interpretation but is also useful to study and debate on these subjects.
After he had read the text of what was then the recently published English version, entitled Deconstructing the Feminine (2007), André Green wrote a letter from which I extract some fragments to illustrate the impact of its reading on a privileged reader coming from a very distant psychoanalytic culture that is not, however, foreign to many of us:
I would like to write to you about your book Deconstructingthe Feminine which I finally read with great interest. I have many reasons to be pleased reading your book. First, I am happy to say that, to the best of my knowledge, this is the most complete work on the question of the feminine. I have no doubt that it will be considered in the future as the reference on this question. I have been pleased also to see the many references to French psychoanalysis ... Your knowledge of the work of French psychoanalysis is impressive and also of French thinkers like Deleuze, Foucault and others. But I was also pleased to see that you were familiar with Castoriadis, husband and wife, P. Aulagnier Castoriadis, Irigaray, Grunberger, Montrelay, David
Ménard, Granoff, Perrier, and of course, Laplanche. I took pleasure in reading your comments of Freud’s work which you have studied carefully. Your ideas go beyond the classical theorems about the feminine and open new ways. I have been interested by your ideas on the ideals, the rich concepts about the Other ... your tripartite concept of the field of ideals, the field of desire, the archaic and, also on your reference to intersubjectivity ...
As you see there are many points which I would like to discuss. I have been interested by Trías’ ideas about the limit, having myself contributed to this topic. And, also of course the many references to the symbolic, very inspired by French psychoanalysis.
Congratulations for this very valuable book. I hope to have the opportunity to discuss it in the future ...
Cordially ...
André Green
P.S.: I have also been interested in your idea about aging and the decline of beauty in women.
Cognizant of the author’s trajectory, it is easy to coincide with Green’s opinions, since they describe the richness of an original thinking. Hers is further nourished by interdisciplinary contributions from Héritier, Foucault, Deleuze, Trías, Morin, and Bourdieu, which help us to think about these issues. For Glocer Fiorini, it is a question of:
understanding the influence of culture, consensual discourses, and social organization in the construction of theories on sexual difference, as well as in the construction of sexed subjectivity. These theories are not neutral since, as we have underscored, they implicitly involve power relations between the genders.
Deconstructing the Feminine is an imperative today, not only for psychoanalysis. This book invites us to take a stimulating road on the way to this objective at the interface between psychoanalysis
and the rest of contemporary thought. This position avoids, as the author posits, any ‘solipsistic conception of the subject and focuses on its relationship with other categories linked to the field of otherness’.
Its reading influences the everyday clinical work of those who practise psychoanalysis and will doubtless affect its readers’ way of understanding and interpreting. For those in other disciplines, it may provide a deep perspective on the contributions of psychoanalysis to contemporary culture and of the changes in our practice based on our recognition of the Freudian contributions that make it specific without avoiding the debate of contributions hard to defend in the 21st century. All these reasons make it welcome.
Abel Mario Fainstein
Former PresidentoftheArgentinePsychoanalyticAssociationandof theLatinAmericanPsychoanalyticFederation.FormerMemberofthe Board of Representatives and of the Executive Committee of the InternationalPsychoanalyticalAssociation.
Prologue to the Second Edition
DOI: 10.4324/9781003452003-1
In the second edition of this book, expanded and updated, I have added reflections on the feminine and women, and on the concept of ‘difference’ – all of which surpass its original objectives. Although the context in which it was written has changed over the last 20 years, the main aim is the same, while also including new considerations. The proposal was and is to focus on the transformations that we encounter today in the field of ‘the feminine’ which challenge consensual conceptualizations of sexual difference. This goal required a review of these conceptualizations in the light of changes in the feminine position as well as of notions that concern sexual and gender migrations and the rise of biotechnologies and non-conventional family configurations. All these changes impact on the construction of subjectivity.
The obstacles presented by dichotomous thinking (masculinefeminine, phallic-castrated, nature-culture) have been described in depth. In this process, the limits of binary logic became clear when addressing the polyphony of current subjectivities.
I have also highlighted the coexistence in today’s societies of radical masculine-feminine polarity and plural subjectivities that depart from established norms. This coexistence is also intrapsychic.
In this frame, social movements, consensual discourses, established norms, and ideals in relation to the feminine, as well as collective practices, come to the fore, intersect with the psychoanalytic field, and generate powerful effects on the latter. This influence is currently expressed in the characteristics of many consultations and demands ‘open listening’ of psychoanalysts.
Contemporary psychoanalysis faces proposals, narratives, and concepts that merit debate. Is the heterosexual resolution of the Oedipus complex broad enough to include certain conflicts we encounter in consultations? Is the Freudian feminine castration complex or its subsequent theoretical variants an adequate answer to understand the problematic of feminine sexuality, maternity, and sublimation in women? These are only a few questions that aim to differentiate several fundamental aspects of psychoanalysis from others which deserve to be argued in order to focus on a key theme: do the changes in the feminine position generate problems we are unable to confront with our habitual theoretical-clinical tools? If so, shouldn’t certain approaches be revised, even though they may unsettle a comfortable position regarding established knowledge?
In the light of changes observed in the feminine position, the line of action was to work on some key challenges whose theoreticalclinical impact induces us to rethink the category of ‘the feminine’ and its uncertainties, the Oedipus complex and its normative resolution, the primacy of the phallus, the concept of sexual and gender difference, as well as the classical maternal and paternal functions, among other variables to be interpellated.
These problematics were analysed given that one of the crucial proposals of psychoanalysis is the concept of the split subject of the unconscious – a proposal that must be supported, since it introduced a paradigmatic change with respect to the conception of the unitary subject of Modernity. Moving further, this new frame highlighted the need to avoid a solipsistic conception of the subject and to focus on its relationship with other categories in the field of otherness. This proposal implies working on the borders, at the intersections, at the limits.
Hence, this line of thinking focuses on feminine-masculine polarity from different perspectives: intrapsychic and transsubjective, in the latter case as a cultural imperative that should be debated. This line addressed the value of the performative effects of discourse on bodies and genders, their scope, and also their limits. The need to include interdisciplinary contributions that may stimulate necessary revisions has also been indicated.
Current debates reveal two persistent types of psychoanalytic positions that appear to be irreconcilable: on the one hand, those that accentuate the pregnancy of unconscious desire; and on the other, those that emphasize the weight of the androcentric paradigm. In this line, it is important to underscore that the latter position determines schema of perception and knowledge that function as a limit to our listening as psychoanalysts.
This debate also focuses on the question of desire and sexuality in women. Is there onemodel of feminine sexuality or only onepattern of feminine desire, conceived of as universal categories?
This edition aims to think in terms of new scenarios of the feminine and proposes to think about classical sexual difference as a scene constructed upon other, implicit scenes. Among these other scenes, a collective original scene is the sexual division of work, which has assigned an exclusively reproductive destiny to women. This original scene generates power relations and the domination of women as a systemic phenomenon that follows a red thread leading to different types of violence that may culminate in femicide.
This text also addresses the figures of feminine hysteria, feminine masochism, the woman = mother equation, and the itineraries of love and desire, in relation to this original scene that they support. In this frame, the ‘family-ist’ aspect of the Oedipus complex is debated, with the proposal of thinking about it within a trans-family context and in terms of functions.
This project involved rethinking, as we mentioned, the construction of sexed subjectivity beyond the classical dichotomous resolutions: masculine/feminine and phallic/castrated. This modification led to the thesis of necessary distinctions between
sexual and gender difference, as well as their expressions on the linguistic and discursive levels. In view of the blind spots left by binary logic and the consequent stereotypes when thinking about these problematics, my developments aim to rethink the different levels on which the category of ‘difference’ intervenes and to address them through complex logics that include these dualisms within larger complexities.
This methodology implies working with post-binary logics in order to establish an alternative way to understand the feminine and women – which, of course, also includes the masculine position, and the diverse sexual and gender variants present in each singular subjectivity.
In other words, the main point is that speaking about the feminine implies speaking about the way in which the concept of sexual difference is constructed and, furthermore, its opaque background. This finding involves expanding this concept and including other levels on which the category of ‘difference’ comes into play. These new scenarios induce us to utilize complex networks to rethink established ideas regarding sexual and gender difference. Of course, they also aim to dismantle subjacent logics and metatheories that support the beliefs, prejudices, and ideologies that lie at the base of phenomena such as gender violence.
This task demands a necessary work to deconstruct axioms considered eternal and immutable, with the aim of finding new constructions to enable better understanding of the feminine position and of women in general, beyond dichotomous polarities. Needless to say, this effort exerts powerful effects on the analytic process and on everyday life.
The major directions of this text are framed in the context of a poietic psychoanalysis in an ongoing process of production; this means ‘making psychoanalysis work’ by turning away from inertial tendencies. This involves conceiving of a discipline so well rooted in its crucial concepts that it focuses not only on its defence, but also on its ascendant movements with their necessary revisions, differentiating foundations from fundamentalisms; a psychoanalysis
that conceives of a subject also in process, a diversity of sexed and gendered subjectivities of which the recognition of otherness is an inevitable piece; a non-adaptive, ‘subversive’ psychoanalysis that does not shrink from changes in contemporary subjectivities; a psychoanalysis open to the future, conceptualized by the paradigm of hyper-complexity.
Contemporary societies are pervaded by experiential, cultural, and discursive movements in the present; while others will be determined in the future. There is a kind of uncertainty that we need to sustain.
Introduction
DOI: 10.4324/9781003452003-2
This text is the result of a line of work that I have been developing for several years, based on my psychoanalytic training and practice, as well as on my reading and interests relating to women and the feminine in other fields: philosophy, epistemology, anthropology, and history. It is part of my interest in the models of thought underlying conceptualizations of women in psychoanalysis. Advances in the relation between psychoanalysis and the feminine involve considering the complex relations around the question of sexual difference and the always problematic construction of sexual identity. It is not my intention to offer an exhaustive panorama of the psychoanalytic contributions on this subject or of the main tendencies that other disciplines have developed on women and the feminine. Instead, I attempt to reflect a personal path that I have taken in selecting questions and problems, which is basically related to the dilemmas and questions that come up in clinical practice and the corresponding theoretical developments. This theoretical review has a guiding thread: the illumination of the impasses of binary thought and of essentialist conceptions of women and the feminine. In this trajectory, my ongoing dialogue with Freud is connected basically with one aspect of his way of
thinking: its multi-centred and complex characteristics. This means that I do not take up his works chronologically; nor do I do so for the post-Freudian authors who have worked on this subject.
Each chapter includes other authors with whom I have debated or agreed, or who have enriched my way of thinking. But all of them come into the context of some theme, theoretical problem, or clinical matter at stake. No chapter is closed on itself. They all refer, to a greater or lesser extent, to problematic issues, some of which are further developed in other chapters. Certain topics are superimposed; but this was necessary either to accompany a guiding thread through its development or because some concept was analysed in another context, using other reference points.
Throughout this text, questions relating to love, sexual desire, maternity, beauty, and the passing of time are addressed. Current debates concerning women, the feminine, and sexual difference are highlighted, as well as some controversial topics which have been discussed throughout the history of the psychoanalytic movement. One of the most relevant subjects is the notion of ‘feminine enigma’ and the conception of the feminine as the negative of the masculine. This means going into the nature-culture debate, as well as into considerations of the feminine seen as the Other of the masculine. I point out that the notion of ‘feminine enigma’ is a displacement of the enigmas inherent in the origins, in the finite time of life (the inevitability of death), and in sexual difference. The basic misunderstanding stemming from this enigmatic condition is the equation of the feminine to otherness.
In the itinerary of the book, there is a progression from the beginning to the end. I begin by focusing on the interplay between different psychoanalytic theories on the feminine and how they impact on subjectivity. Those theories represent different aspects of subjectivity, and they coexist in the human psyche. Advancing through the text, the aim is to analyse binary dilemmas, their genealogies, and historical conditionings, by means of construction and deconstruction, beyond biological or cultural forms of essentialism.
There is another concept closely related to the category of the feminine: the notion of sexual difference, which is analysed in several chapters. In psychoanalysis, the access to sexual difference is the consequence of Oedipal resolution and implies the inclusion of the subject in a symbolic network of social ties. In this sense, it is a sort of metaphor which explains the exogamic object-choice for each individual. However, we should emphasize that the notions of both sexual difference and symbolic order are ambiguous and have connotations which depend on codes, stereotypes, and ideals embodied in language and culture. The symbolic order is impregnated with empirical and contingent influences. In addition, it does not encompass the broad spectrum of symbolic processes that pertains to each culture and subculture. The concept of sexual difference cannot be defined totally in all its facets: it is more of a problematic search than a definitive position of a subject. To this we must add that the notion of sexual difference also implies hierarchical relations.
For all these reasons, these notions are developed from a point of view that encompasses all of them, in order to sustain ambiguities and contradictions in tension, avoiding false syntheses.
In this context, my proposal is to find areas of passage:
through binary systems to access other types of non/binary logics;
through deconstruction to find complex constructions; and through complex configurations to position singular subjectivity.
These are not only theoretical but also experiential movements that occur incessantly. This perspective assumes that we recognize a leftover of ignorance regarding sexual difference, a remnant of indecisiveness that escapes constituted knowledge. It also implies listening to and including the discourse of the Other, so that the Other can become a subject and be legitimated. I believe this to be an ethical response to the questions I am proposing, in the context of an open and multi-centred psychoanalysis.
In ‘Why the feminine?’, the problems raised in the course of the book are expanded and updated in the light of changes in subjectivities that are seen in current consultations, in everyday life, in theories that attempt to explain those changes, as well as in the logics used to understand them.
In ‘The feminine position: a heterogeneous construction’, my point of departure is the Freud-Jones debate regarding primary or secondary femininity. Psychoanalysis holds diverse and often opposing theoretical positions on the conceptions of women and sexual difference. These include whether the feminine can be symbolized; whether it can have psychic representation or whether it belongs to the category of absence, void, negativity, lack; and, connected to these questions, whether there is a primary femininity, and if so, how to conceptualize it. This debate has assumed increasingly sophisticated forms today, with radical conceptions that permeate psychoanalytic theory. My proposal is to focus on the intersection of the paradigm of complexity (Morin, 1986) with the psychoanalytic theories on women and the feminine, in the conviction that the meaning of each theoretical or clinical element changes when the theoretical and epistemological focus varies.
In ‘The feminine, the pre-discourse and the symbolic’, the need to explore domains beyond the ‘phallic order’ is explained. The concepts of gender diversity and primary femininity and their relation to sexual difference are analysed. I include the concept of ‘additional psychic violence’ in relation to the masculine-feminine polarity.
‘At the limits of the feminine: the Other’ analyses the relation between femininity and the category of otherness, highlighting the polysemic nature of this concept. I introduce the idea of ‘limit’, as conceived by philosopher Eugenio Trías (1991), as a zone of intersections rather than as a negative element in relation to a centre. The goal is to apply this notion to the intersubjective mother/child space and, on another plane, to rethink the constitution of sexed subjectivity.
In ‘The feminine in the middle stages of life’, I emphasize aspects linked to beauty and forms, relating them to certain crises of life and
to Kristeva’s (1980) concept of abjection.
In ‘Love and power: the conditions of love in the Freudian discourse’, the point of departure is the Freudian contribution referring to the split between love and sexual desire, which underscores how, in the view of ideal representations of the heterosexual couple, the feminine position is supported by love while the masculine position is supported by sexual desire.
In ‘Itineraries of love life’, I discuss the paths of love in relation to the categories of repetition and difference. This analysis includes the concept of open systems to apply to the psychoanalytic field. I highlight the relevance of the imaginary realm, which overflows the categories of deceit and illusion.
In ‘Maternity and female sexuality in light of new reproductive techniques’, I take the contributions of biotechnology in assisted fertilization as a starting point to review conceptions of femininity and maternity. The proposal is to develop a multi-centred mode of thought on maternity that articulates several coexisting registers.
In ‘Femininity and desire’, I find an endpoint in the conception of sexual desire based on an ‘original lack’. I take Deleuze’s conceptions (1980) on desire as production, as a poietic path, since it is an alternative for other theoretical options. I also include another perspective: the concept of imaginary production as it intersects with the field of sexual desire.
In ‘Towards a deconstruction of femininity as a universal category’, the categories of universal and singular are analysed in relation to female subjectivity. The contributions and limits of deconstruction are also discussed, as well as the need to create a liaison with operations of symbolic mediation in order to generate new meanings to the feminine.
In ‘Between sex and gender: the paradigm of complexity’, the psychoanalytic theories on sexual difference are reviewed, as well as those on gender diversity. I underscore their apertures and impasses. I discuss the relations between the transsubjective, intersubjective, and intrapsychic fields, pointing out the need for a complex configuration of the elements at play.
In ‘Otherness, diversity, and sexual difference’, I critically analyse some concepts traditionally linked to femininity, such as those referring to its enigmatic essence, as well as disjunctions inherent in dichotomic models of thought. I develop these themes while also considering the polysemic nature of the feminine in relation to each of these models and the lines proposed for the subject’s insertion into a context of social relationships.
The last chapter, ‘Difference(s): new constructions’, was included in this second edition to establish a common thread among diverse issues raised in the book, emphasizing the importance to work at the limits, at the frontiers, in order to decentralize the blind spots of binary thought. Surpassing dichotomic disjunctions (gender versus anatomy, unconscious desire versus gender, among other dualistic options) was part of this project.
Work on the knots that connect different types of variables is part of the proposals in this discussion. The mediations anddisjunctions between sexed bodies, gender beings, and the subjects of sexual difference are included in these propositions. The itinerary of this book is marked by the need to analyse their genealogy and deconstruct their meanings in pursuit of new constructions.
In several chapters, I discuss Foucault’s conceptions (1979, 1984) on power, which consider power and domination as the basis of human relations. In this line of thought, I include the masculinefeminine polarity and point out that it is a source of transmission of identifying enunciations through the bond between the child and his or her primary and Oedipal objects, also expressing power relations.
In the course of this text, questions concerning relations between the feminine and the symbolic universe are developed, as well as the concept of lack in connection with a controversial theme: the relation between the subject and the feminine that Modernity has been unable to resolve. The problems and difficulties that came up led me to try to find ways of thinking that would enable me to take them up from different angles. It is not my intention to reach final answers, but to point out and reformulate questions regarding certain theoretical crossroads, since I believe that the psychoanalytic theory
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campaign, against all expectations, dragged on for six months. Meanwhile it was a war upon which depended, according to the expression used by the emperor, “the political existence of Russia.”
On the 26th of May Diebitsch gained a second victory over the Polish army, which also terminated by the favourable retreat of the latter; and on the 13th of June, the emperor found occasion to write to his field-marshal: “Act at length so that I can understand you.” The letter was however not read by Count Diebitsch, for on the 10th of June the field-marshal suddenly died of cholera in the village of Kleshov near Pultiusk. He was replaced by Field-marshal Count Paskevitch-Erivanski, who was as early as April, 1831, called by the emperor from Tiflis to St. Petersburg. It was decided to cross the lower Vis-Suta and move towards Warsaw. The czarevitch Constantine outlived Count Diebitsch only by a few days. He also died suddenly of cholera at Vitebsk, in the night between the 26th and 27th of June of the year 1831.
F - P (1782-1856)
The Polish insurrection from that time daily grew nearer to its definitive conclusion; it was determined by the two days’ storming of Warsaw, which took place on the 7th and 8th of September. Finally Fieldmarshal Paskevitch was able to communicate to the emperor the news that “Warsaw is at the feet of your imperial majesty.” Prince Suvorov, aide-de-camp of the emperor, was the bearer of this intelligence to Tsarskoi Selo on the 16th of September.
Nicholas wrote as follows to his victorious field-marshal: “With the help of the all-merciful God, you have again raised the splendour and glory of our arms,
you have punished the disloyal traitors, you have avenged Russia, you have subdued Warsaw—from henceforth you are the most serene prince of Warsaw. Let posterity remember that the honour and glory of the Russian army are inseparable from your name, and may your name preserve for everyone the memory of the day on which the name of Russia was again made glorious. This is the sincere expression of the grateful heart of your sovereign, your friend, and your old subordinate.”
After the fall of Warsaw the war still continued for a while, but not for long. The chief forces of the Polish army, which had retired to Novogeorgievsk, finished by passing into Prussian territory at the end of September, and on the 21st of October the last fortress surrendered. The Polish insurrection was at an end. But the peace, attained by such heavy sacrifice, was accompanied by a new evil for Russia; in Europe appeared the Polish emigration, carrying with it hatred and vociferations against Russia and preparing the inimical conditions of public opinion in the west against the Russian government.
THE OUTBREAK OF CHOLERA AND THE RIOTS OCCASIONED BY IT (1830 A.D.)
The emperor had hardly returned to St. Petersburg from opening the diet in Warsaw, when suddenly a new care occupied the attention of the government. The cholera made its appearance in the empire. This terrible illness, until then known to Russia only by name and by narratives describing its devastations, brought with it still greater fear, because no one knew or could indicate either medical or police measures to be taken against it. General opinion inclined, however, towards the advantages to be derived from quarantine and isolation, such as had been employed against the plague, and the government immediately took necessary measures in this direction with the activity that the emperor’s strong will managed to instil into all his dispositions. Troops were without delay stationed at various points and cordons formed from them and the local inhabitants, in
order to save the governments in the interior and the two capitals from the calamity.
In spite of all precautions, however, a fresh source of grief was added to all the cares and anxieties that pressed upon the emperor at that period. Since the 26th of June the cholera had appeared in St. Petersburg and in a few days had attained menacing dimensions. This awful illness threw all classes of the population into a state of the greatest terror, particularly the common people by whom all the measures taken for the preservation of the public health—such as increased police surveillance, the surrounding of the towns with troops, and even the removal of those stricken with cholera to hospitals—were at first regarded as persecutions. Mobs began to assemble, strangers were stopped in the streets and searched for the poison they were supposed to carry on them, while doctors were publicly accused of poisoning the people. Finally, on the 4th of July, the mob, excited by rumours and suspicions, gathered together at the Hay Market and attacked the house in which a temporary cholera hospital had been established. They broke the windows, threw the furniture out into the street, wounded and cast out the sick, thrashed the hospital servants, and killed several of the doctors. The police were powerless to restore order and even the final appearance of the military governor-general Count Essen did not attain the necessary result. A battalion of the Semenov regiment forced the people to disperse from the square into the side streets, but was far from putting a stop to the disturbance.
The next day the emperor Nicholas went on a steamer from St. Petersburg to Elagium Island. When he had heard the reports of various persons as to the state of the town he got into a carriage with Adjutant-general Prince Menshikov and drove to the Preobrajenski parade-ground in the town, where a battalion of the Preobrajenski regiment was encamped. When he had thanked the troops, the emperor continued his way along the carriage road where he threatened with his displeasure some crowds and shopkeepers; from there he drove to the Hay Market where about five thousand people had assembled. Standing up in his carriage and turning to the mob, the emperor spoke as follows: “Misdeeds were committed yesterday,
public order was disturbed; shame on the Russian people for forgetting the faith of their fathers and imitating the turbulence of the French and Poles! They have taught you this: seize them and take those suspected to the authorities; but wickedness has been committed here, here we have offended and angered God—let us turn to the church, down on your knees, and beg the forgiveness of the Almighty!”
The people fell on their knees and crossed themselves in contrition; the emperor prostrated himself also, and exclamations of “We have sinned, accursed ones that we are!” resounded throughout the air. Continuing his speech to the people, the emperor again admonished the crowd: “I have sworn before God to preserve the prosperity of the people entrusted to me by providence; I am answerable before God for these disorders: and therefore I will not allow them. Woe be to the disobedient!”
At this moment some men in the crowd raised their voices. The emperor then replied: “What do you want—whom do you want? Is it I? I am not afraid of anything—here I am!” and with these words he pointed to his breast. Cries of enthusiasm ensued. After this the emperor, probably as a sign of reconciliation, embraced an old man in the crowd and returned, first to Elagium and afterwards to Peterhov. The day afterwards the emperor again visited the capital. Order was re-established, but the cholera continued to rage. Six hundred persons died daily, and it was only from the middle of July that the mortality began to diminish.
Far more dangerous in its consequences was the revolt that arose in the Novgorod military settlements. Here the cholera and rumours of poisoning only served as a pretext for rebellion; the seed of general dissatisfaction among the population belonging to this creation of Count Araktcheiev continued to exist in spite of all the changes introduced by the emperor Nicholas into the administration of the military settlements. A spark was sufficient to produce in the settlements an explosion of hitherto unprecedented fury, and the cholera served as the spark. Order was however finally reestablished in the settlements and then the emperor Nicholas set off for them quite alone and presented himself before the assembled
battalions, which had stained themselves with the blood of their officers and stood awaiting, trembling and in silence the judgment of their sovereign.b
THE WAR IN THE CAUCASUS (1829-1840 A.D.)
The possession of the Caucasus is a question vitally affecting the interests of Russia in her provinces beyond that range of mountains, and her ulterior projects with regard to the regions of Persia and Central Asia. Here are the terms in which this subject is handled in a report printed at St. Petersburg, and addressed to the emperor after the expedition of General Emmanuel to Elbruz in 1829:
“The Circassians (Tsherkessians) bar out Russia from the south, and may at their pleasure open or close the passage to the nations of Asia. At present their intestine dissensions, fostered by Russia, hinder them from uniting under one leader; but it must not be forgotten that, according to traditions religiously preserved amongst them, the sway of their ancestors extended as far as to the Black Sea. They believe that a mighty people, descended from their ancestors, and whose existence is verified by the ruins of Madjar, has once already overrun the fine plains adjacent to the Danube, and finally settled in Panonia. Add to this consideration their superiority in arms. Perfect horsemen, extremely well armed, inured to war by the continual freebooting they exercise against their neighbours, courageous, and disdaining the advantages of our civilisation, the imagination is appalled at the consequences which their union under one leader might have for Russia, which has no other bulwark against their ravages than a military line, too extensive to be very strong.”
For the better understanding of the war which Russia has been so long waging with the mountaineers, let us glance at the topography of the Caucasus, and the respective positions of the belligerents.
The chain of the Caucasus exhibits a peculiar conformation, altogether different from that of any of the European chains. The Alps, the Pyrenees, and the Carpathians are accessible only by the
valleys, and in these the inhabitants of the country find their subsistence, and agriculture developes its wealth. The contrary is the case in the Caucasus. From the fortress of Anapa on the Black Sea, all along to the Caspian, the northern slope presents only immense inclined plains, rising in terraces to a height of 3,000 or 4,000 yards above the sea level. These plains, rent on all directions by deep and narrow valleys and vertical clefts, often form real steppes, and possess on their loftiest heights rich pastures, where the inhabitants, secure from all attack, find fresh grass for their cattle in the sultriest days of summer The valleys on the other hand are frightful abysses, the steep sides of which are clothed with brambles, while the bottoms are filled with rapid torrents foaming over beds of rocks and stones. Such is the singular spectacle generally presented by the northern slope of the Caucasus. This brief description may give an idea of the difficulties to be encountered by an invading army. Obliged to occupy the heights, it is incessantly checked in its march by impassable ravines, which do not allow of the employment of cavalry, and for the most part prevent the passage of artillery. The ordinary tactics of the mountaineers is to fall back before the enemy, until the nature of the ground or the want of supplies obliges the latter to begin a retrograde movement. Then it is that they attack the invaders, and, intrenched in their forests behind impregnable rocks, they inflict the most terrible carnage on them with little danger to themselves.
On the south the character of the Caucasian chain is different. From Anapa to Gagri, along the shores of the Black Sea, we observe a secondary chain composed of schistous mountains, seldom exceeding 1000 yards in height. But the nature of their soil, and of their rocks, would be enough to render them almost impracticable for European armies, even were they not covered with impenetrable forests. The inhabitants of this region, who are called Circassians, are entirely independent, and constitute one of the most warlike peoples of the Caucasus.
The great chain begins in reality at Gagri, but the mountains recede from the shore, and nothing is to be seen along the coast as far as Mingrelia but secondary hills, commanded by immense crags,
that completely cut off all approach to the central part of the Caucasus. This region, so feebly defended by its topographical conformation, is Abkhasia, the inhabitants of which have been forced to submit to Russia. To the north and on the northern slope, westward of the military road from Mozdok to Tiflis, dwell a considerable number of tribes, some of them ruled by a sort of feudal system, others constituted into little republics. Those of the west, dependent on Circassia and Abadja, are in continual war with the empire, whilst the Nogaians, who inhabit the plains on the left bank of the Kuma, and the tribes of the great Kabarda, own the sovereignty of the czar; but their wavering and dubious submission cannot be relied on. In the centre, at the foot of the Elbruz, dwell the Suanetians, an unsubdued people, and near them, occupying both sides of the pass of Dariel, are the Ingutches and Ossetans, exceptional tribes, essentially different from the aboriginal peoples. Finally we have, eastward of the great Tiflis road, near the Terek, little Kabarda, and the country of the Kumicks, for the present subjugated; and then those indomitable tribes, the Lesghians and Tchetchens, of whom Schamyl is the Ab del Kadir, and who extended over the two slopes of the Caucasus to the vicinity of the Caspian.
In reality, the Kuban and the Terek, that rise from the central chain, and fall, the one into the Black Sea, the other into the Caspian, may be considered as the northern political limits of independent Caucasus. It is along those two rivers that Russia has formed her armed line, defended by Cossacks, and detachments from the regular army. The Russians have, indeed, penetrated those northern frontiers at sundry points, and have planted some forts within the country of the Lesghians and Tchetchens. But those lonely posts, in which a few unhappy garrisons are surrounded on all sides, and generally without a chance of escape, cannot be regarded as a real occupation of the soil on which they stand. They are, in fact, only so many pickets, whose business is only to watch more closely the movements of the mountaineers. In the south, from Anapa to Gagri, along the Black Sea, the imperial possessions never extended beyond a few detached forts, completely isolated, and deprived of all means of communication by land. A rigorous blockade was
established on this coast; but the Circassians, as intrepid in their frail barks as among their mountains, often passed by night through the Russian line of vessels, and reached Trebizond and Constantinople. Elsewhere, from Mingrelia to the Caspian, the frontiers are less precisely defined, and generally run parallel with the great chain of the Caucasus.
Thus limited, the Caucasus, including the territory occupied by the subject tribes, presents a surface of scarcely 5000 leagues; and it is in this narrow region that a virgin and chivalric nation, amounting at most to 2,000,000 of souls, proudly upholds its independence against the might of the Russian empire, and has for upwards of twenty years sustained one of the most obstinate struggles known to modern history.
[1835 . .]
The Russian line of the Kuban, which is exactly similar to that of the Terek, is defended by the Cossacks of the Black Sea, the poor remains of the famous Zaparogians, whom Catherine II subdued with so much difficulty, and whom she colonised at the foot of the Caucasus, as a bulwark against the incursions of the mountaineers. The line consists of small forts and watch stations; the latter are merely a kind of sentry-box raised on four posts, about fifty feet from the ground. Two Cossacks keep watch in them day and night. On the least movement of the enemy in the vast plain of reeds that fringe both banks of the river, a beacon fire is kindled on the top of the watch box. If the danger becomes more pressing, an enormous torch of straw and tar is set fire to. The signal is repeated from post to post, the whole line springs to arms, and 500 or 600 men are instantly assembled on the point threatened. These posts, composed generally of a dozen men, are very close to each other, particularly in the most dangerous places. Small forts have been erected at intervals with earthworks, and a few pieces of cannon; they contain each from 150 to 200 men.
But notwithstanding all the vigilance of the Cossacks, often aided by the troops of the line, the mountaineers not unfrequently cross the frontier and carry their incursions, which are always marked with massacre and pillage, into the adjacent provinces. There are bloody
but justifiable reprisals. In 1835 a body of fifty horsemen entered the country of the Cossacks, and proceeded to a distance of 120 leagues, to plunder the German colony of Madjar and the important village of Vladimirovka, on the Kuma, and what is most remarkable they got back to their mountains without being interrupted. The same year Kisliar, on the Caspian, was sacked by the Lesghians. These daring expeditions prove of themselves how insufficient is the armed line of the Caucasus, and to what dangers that part of southern Russia is exposed.
The line of forts until lately existing along the Black Sea was quite as weak, and the Circassians there were quite as daring. They used to carry off the Russian soldiers from beneath the fire of their redoubts, and come up to the very foot of their walls to insult the garrison. Hommaire de Hell relates that, at the time he was exploring the mouths of the Kuban, a hostile chief had the audacity to appear one day before the gates of Anapa. He did all he could to irritate the Russians, and abusing them as cowards and woman-hearted, he defied them to single combat. Exasperated by his invectives, the commandant ordered that he should be fired on with grape. The horse of the mountaineer reared and threw off his rider, who, without letting go the bridle, instantly mounted again, and, advancing still nearer to the walls, discharged his pistol almost at point-blank distance at the soldiers, and galloped off to the mountains.
As for the blockade by sea, the imperial squadron has not been expert enough to render it really effectual. It was only a few armed boats, manned by Cossacks, that gave the Circassians any serious uneasiness. These Cossacks like those of the Black Sea, are descended from the Zaparogians. Previously to the last war with Turkey they were settled on the right bank of the Danube, where their ancestors had taken refuge after the destruction of their Setcha. During the campaigns of 1828-29, pains were taken to revive their national feelings, they were brought again by fair means or by force under the imperial sway, and were then settled in the forts along the Caucasian shore, the keeping of which was committed to their charge. Courageous, enterprising, and worthy rivals of their foes,
they waged a most active war against the skiffs of the mountaineers in their boats, which carry crews of fifty or sixty men.
The treaty of Adrianople was in a manner the opening of a new era in the relations of Russia with the mountaineers; for it was by virtue of that treaty that the czar, already master of Anapa and Sudjuk Kaleh, pretended to the sovereignty of Circassia and of the whole seaboard of the Black Sea. True to the invariable principles of its foreign policy, the government at first employed means of corruption, and strove to seduce the various chiefs of the country by pensions, decorations, and military appointments. But the mountaineers, who had the example of the Persian provinces before their eyes, sternly rejected all the overtures of Russia, and repudiated the clauses of the convention of Adrianople; the political and commercial independence of their country became their rallying cry, and they would not treat on any other condition. All such ideas were totally at variance with Nicholas’ schemes of absolute dominion; therefore he had recourse to arms to obtain by force what he had been unable to accomplish by other means.
Abkhasia, situated on the eastern coast of the Black Sea, and easily accessible, was the first invaded. A Russian force occupied the country in 1839, under the ordinary pretence of supporting one of its princes, and putting an end to anarchy. In the same year General Paskevitch, then governor-general of the Caucasus, for the first time made an armed exploration of the country of the Circassians beyond the Kuban; but he effected absolutely nothing, and his expedition only resulted in great loss of men and stores. In the following year war broke out in Daghestan with the Lesghians and the Tchetchens. The celebrated Kadi Mulah, giving himself out for a prophet, gathered together a considerable number of partisans; but unfortunately for him there was no unanimity among the tribes, and the princes were continually counteracting each other. Kadi Mulah never was able to bring more than 3,000 or 4,000 men together; nevertheless, he maintained the struggle with a courage worthy of a better fate, and Russia knows what it cost her to put down the revolt of Daghestan. As for any real progress in that part of the Caucasus, the Russians made none; they did no more than replace things on
the old footing. Daghestan soon became again more hostile than ever, and the Tchetchens and Lesghians continued in separate detachments to plunder and ravage the adjacent provinces up to the time when the ascendancy of the celebrated Schamyl, the worthy successor of Kadi Mulah, gave a fresh impulse to the warlike tribes of the mountain, and rendered them more formidable than ever.
After taking possession of Anapa and Sudjuk Kaleh, the Russians thought of seizing the whole seaboard of Circassia, and especially the various points suitable for the establishment of military posts. They made themselves masters of Guelendchik and the important position of Gagri, which commands the pass between Circassia and Abkhasia. The Circassians heroically defended their territory; but how could they have withstood the guns of the ships of war that mowed them down whilst the soldiers were landing and constructing their redoubts? The blockade of the coasts was declared in 1838, and all foreign communication with the Caucasus ostensibly intercepted. During the four following years Russia suffered heavy losses; and all her successes were limited to the establishment of some small isolated forts on the sea-coast. She then increased her army, laid down the military road from the Kuban to Guelendchik, across the last western offshoot of the Caucasus, set on foot an exploration of the enemy’s whole coast, and prepared to push the war with renewed vigour.
In 1837 the emperor Nicholas visited the Caucasus. He would see for himself the theatre of a war so disastrous to his arms, and try what impression his imperial presence could make on the mountaineers. The chiefs of the country were invited to various conferences, to which they boldly repaired on the faith of the Russian parole; but instead of conciliating them by words of peace and moderation, the emperor only exasperated them by his threatening and haughty language. “Do you know,” said he to them, “that I have powder enough to blow up all your mountains?”
During the three following years there was an incessant succession of expeditions. Golovin, on the frontiers of Georgia, Grabe on the north, and Racivski on the Circassian seaboard, left nothing untried to
[1839 . .]
accomplish their master’s orders. The sacrifices incurred by Russia were enormous; the greater part of her fleet was destroyed by a storm, but all efforts failed against the intrepidity and tactics of the mountaineers. Some new forts erected under cover of the ships, were all that resulted from these disastrous campaigns. “I was in the Caucasus in 1839,” says Hommaire de Hell, “when Grabe returned from his famous expedition against Shamyl. When the army marched it had numbered 6000 men, 1,000 of whom, and 120 officers, were cut off in three months. But as the general had advanced further into the country than any of his predecessors, Russia sang pæans, and Grabe became the hero of the day, although the imperial troops had been forced to retreat and entirely evacuate the country they had invaded. All the other expeditions were similar to this one, and achieved in reality nothing but the burning and destruction of a few villages. It is true the mountaineers are far from being victorious in all their encounters with the Russians, whose artillery they cannot easily withstand; but if they are obliged to give way to numbers, or to engineering, nevertheless they remain in the end masters of the ground, and annul all the momentary advantages gained by their enemies.”
The year 1840 was still more fatal to the arms of Nicholas. Almost all the new forts on the seaboard were taken by the Circassians, who bravely attacked and carried the best fortified posts without artillery. The military road from the Kuban to Guelendchik was intercepted, Fort St. Nicholas, which commanded it, was stormed and the garrison massacred. Never yet had Russia endured such heavy blows. The disasters were such that the official journals themselves, after many months’ silence, were at last obliged to speak of them; but the most serious losses, the destruction of the new road from the Kuban, the taking of Fort St. Nicholas, and that of several other forts, were entirely forgotten in the official statement.
On the eastern side of the mountain the war was fully as disastrous for the invaders. The imperial army lost four hundred petty officers and soldiers, and twenty-nine officers in the battle of Valrik against the Tchetchens. The military colonies of the Terek were attacked and plundered, and when General Golovin retired to his
winter quarters at the end of the campaign, he had lost more than three-fourths of his men.
The great Kabarda did not remain an indifferent spectator of the offensive league formed by the tribes of the Caucasus; and when Russia, suspecting with reason the unfriendly disposition of some tribes, made an armed exploration on the banks of the Laba in order to construct redoubts, and thus cut off the subjugated tribes from the others, the general found the country, wherever he advanced, but a desert. All the inhabitants had already retired to the other side of the Laba to join their warlike neighbours.d
THE EMPEROR’S CONSERVATIVE PATRIOTISM
However, in spite of all these disastrous campaigns, Nicholas had not lost sight of his most important task—that of consolidating internal order by reforms. His attention had been directed above all to the administration, from the heart of which he had sought especially to exterminate corruption with a severity and courage proportioned to the immensity of the evil. Then he had announced his firm desire to perfect the laws, and had charged Count Speranski to work at them under his personal direction. The digest (svod) promulgated in 1833 was the first fruit of these efforts and was followed by various special codes. Finally, turning his attention to public instruction, he had assigned to it as a basis the national traditions and religion and charged Uvarov, president of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, a man of learning and talent, to animate it with this spirit, so hostile to the ideas of the west, but—let us say it at once—better suited to the real needs of the country.
Nicholas, allowing himself to be ruled by this spirit, plunged further and further into a system which, though contrary to that of Peter the Great, we do not pretend absolutely to condemn on that account, and which the marquis de Custinee has highly extolled in his celebrated book, La Russie en 1839. “The emperor Nicholas,” he said, “thought that the day of mere seeming was past for Russia, and that the whole structure of civilisation was to remake in that country. He has relaid the foundations of society. Peter, called the Great,
would have overturned it a second time in order to rebuild it: Nicholas is more skilful. I am struck with admiration for this man who is secretly struggling, with all the strength of his will, against the work of Peter the Great’s genius. He is restoring individuality to a nation which has strayed for more than a century in the paths of imitation.”
Without ceasing to borrow diligently from Europe her inventions and arts, her progress in industry, in administration, in the conduct of land and sea armies—in a word, all the material improvements which she devises and realises, he endeavoured to close Russia to her ideas on philosophy, politics, and religion. He condemned exotic tendencies as pernicious to his states, and, without depriving himself of the services of the Germans, the principal depositaries of superior enlightenment in that country, as yet only imperfectly moulded to civilisation, he relied by preference on the party of the old Russians, which included the clergy, whom he treated with respect in spite of the inferiority of their position. Nationality, autocracy, orthodoxy— these three words, taken as the national watchword, sum up the ideas to which he subordinated his internal policy. The expression, Holy Russia, which has been the object of such profound astonishment to the Latin world, reflects also this spirit.
He surrounded with great solemnity those acts which he performed in his quality of head of the church in his own country, and posed as the protector of all his co-religionists in Moldavia, Wallachia, Servia, Montenegro, and other countries. Like his ancestors of preceding dynasties, he adorned himself on solemn occasions with a gold cross which he wore diagonally on his breast. This bias was summed up in the new word cæsaropapism. He regarded with special enthusiasm that one act on account of which, the accusation of religious intolerance was fixed upon him—an accusation justified by many of his deeds. In consequence of the decisions of the council of Florence, and up till 1839, there were in Russia 1,500,000 United Greeks, subjected to the papal obedience. At their head was the archbishop, sometimes the metropolitan, of White Russia, and the bishop, or archbishop, of Lithuania. In 1839 these two prelates, having met in conjunction with a third, at Polotsk, the seat of the first of these eparchies, had signed a document in
which they expressed the wish to unite, they and their church, with the national and primitive church, and prayed the emperor to sanction this union. Nicholas referred the matter to the holy synod, and, the latter having with great eagerness signified its approval of the act, he sanctioned it in his turn, adding these words beneath his signature: “I thank God and I authorize it.” It is well known to what complaints on the part of the pope this suppression of the uniate Greek church soon afterward gave rise.c
UNVEILING OF THE MONUMENT AT BORODINO
The emperor Nicholas was fond of great gatherings of the troops, and an occasion for such was afforded in 1839 by the unveiling of the monument erected on the battle-field of Borodino. The thought of this muster of the troops had already occupied the emperor’s mind since 1838, but at that time he had in view not merely the participation of the troops in manœuvres and exercises, but the immortalisation of the tradition of the valorous exploits of the Russian army in the defence of the fatherland against the invasion of Napoleon. On the day of the unveiling of the Borodino monument, August 26th, 120,000 men were gathered around it. The emperor invited to take part in the solemnities all the surviving comrades of Kutuzov and many foreign guests.
On the anniversary of the battle of Borodino a great review of all the troops assembled on this historic spot took place. In the morning, before the review began, the following order of his imperial majesty, written by the emperor’s hand, was read to the troops:
“Children. Before you stands the monument which bears witness to the glorious deeds of your comrades. Here, on this same spot, 27 years ago, the arrogant enemy dreamed of conquering the Russian army which fought in defence of the faith, the czar and the fatherland. God punished the foolish: the bones of the insolent invaders were scattered from Moscow to the Niemen—and we entered Paris. The time has now come to render glory to a great exploit. And thus, may the eternal memory of the emperor Alexander I be immortal to us: for by his firm will Russia was saved; may the
glory of your comrades who fell as heroes be also everlasting, and may their exploits serve as an example to us and our further posterity. You will ever be the hope and support of your sovereign and our common mother Russia.”
This order aroused the greatest enthusiasm amongst the troops, but it was highly displeasing to the foreigners; it appeared to them strange and almost offensive, they considered that “in reality it was nothing but high sounding phrases.”
Three days later the emperor Nicholas had the battle of Borodino reproduced. After the unveiling of the Borodino monument the laying of the first stone of the cathedral of Christ the Saviour took place in Moscow. This solemnity brought to a close the commemoration of the year 1812 which had delivered Russia from a foreign invasion and was the dawn of the liberation of Europe.
The year 1839 was remarkable for yet another important event: the reunion of the Uniates.[68]
DEATH OR RETIREMENT OF THE OLD MINISTERS
Little by little the workers in the political arena of Alexander’s reign had disappeared. Count V. P. Kotchulzi, who had been president of the senate since 1827 and afterwards chancellor of the interior, died in 1834 and had been replaced by N. N. Novseltsev as president of the senate. After his death the emperor Nicholas appointed to that office Count I. V. Vasiltchikov, who remained at his post until his death, which took place in 1847.
The emperor was above all grieved at the death of Speranski in the year 1837. He recognised this loss as irreparable, and in speaking of him said: “Not everyone understood Speranski or knew how to value him sufficiently; at first I myself was in this respect perhaps more in fault than anyone. I was told much of his liberal ideas; calumny even touched him in reference to the history of December 26th. But afterwards all these accusations were scattered like dust, and I found in him the most faithful, devoted and zealous servant, with vast knowledge and vast experience. Everyone now
knows how great are my obligations and those of Russia to him— and the calumniators are silenced. The only reproach I could make him was his feeling against my late brother; but that too is over”.... The emperor stopped without finishing his thought, which probably contained a secret, involuntary justification of Speranski.
In 1844 died another statesman who was still nearer and dearer to the emperor Nicholas; this was Count Benkendorv of whom the emperor said: “He never set me at variance with anyone, but reconciled me with many.” His successor in the direction of the third section was Count A. F. Orlov; he remained at this post during all the succeeding years of the emperor Nicholas’ reign.
In that same year Count E. F. Kankrin who had been minister of finance even under Alexander I was obliged on account of ill health to leave the ministry of which he had been head during twenty-two years. As his biographer justly observes Kankrin left Russia as an heritage: “Well organised finances, a firm metal currency, and a rate of exchange corresponding with the requirements of the country. Russia was in financial respects a mighty power whose credit it was impossible to injure. And all this was attained without any considerable loans, and without great increase in taxes, by the determination, the thrift and the genius of one man, who placed the welfare of the nation above all considerations and understood how to serve it.”
But at the same time it must not be forgotten that all these brilliant results were attainable only because behind Count Kankrin stood the emperor Nicholas. The enemies of the minister and of his monetary reforms were many; but the snares they laid were destroyed before the all powerful will of a person who never wavered. This time that inflexible will was directed in the right path, and the results showed unprecedented financial progress, in spite of the three wars which it had been impossible for Russia to avoid, despite the ideally peaceloving disposition of her ruler; and to these calamities must be added also the cholera and bad harvests. Kankrin’s resignation was accompanied by important consequences; he was replaced by the incapable Vrontchenko, while Nicholas took the finances of the
empire into his own hands, as he had previously acted regarding the other branches of the administration of the state.
Among the old-time servitors of Alexander I, Prince P M. Volkonski remained longest in office. He lived until he attained the rank of field-marshal and died in 1852, having filled the office of minister of the court during twenty-five years.
One of the younger workers of the Alexandrine period, P. D. Kisselev, former chief of the staff of the second army, attained to unusual eminence in the reign of the emperor Nicholas. In 1825 his star nearly set forever, but soon it shone again with renewed brilliancy and on his return from the Danubian provinces, which he had administered since 1829, Kisselev was created minister and count. “You will be my chief of the staff for the peasant department,” said the emperor to him, and with this object, on the 13th of January, 1838 there was established the ministry of state domains, formed from the department which had until that time been attached to the ministry of finance.
GREAT FIRE IN THE WINTER PALACE
A disastrous fire at the Winter Palace began on the evening of the 29th of December, 1837, and no human means were able to stay the flames; only the Hermitage with its collection of ancient and priceless treasures was saved. The ruins of the palace continued to burn during three days and nights. The emperor and the imperial family took up their abode in the Anitchkov palace.
The rebuilding of the Winter Palace upon its previous plan was begun immediately; the palace was consecrated on the 6th of April, 1839 and the emperor and his family were installed there as previously. As a token of gratitude to all those who had taken part in the rebuilding of the palace a medal was struck with the inscription: “I thank you.”—“Work overcomes everything.”
On the last day of the Easter holidays the emperor Nicholas resolved to allow visitors access to all the state rooms, galleries, etc.;
and in that one day as many as 200,000 persons visited the palace between the hours of six in the evening and two in the morning.
Twice the emperor and his family passed in all directions through the palace that was thronged with the public. An eye-witness writes that “the public by prolonging their visitation for seven hours so filled the palace with damp, steamy, suffocating air that the walls, the columns, and carvings on the lower windows sweated, and streams of damp poured down on to the parquet flooring and spoiled everything, while the marble changed to a dull yellowish hue.” 35,000 paper rubles were required to repair the damage. But the matter did not terminate with this; during one night that summer, fortunately while the imperial family were staying at Peterhov, the ceiling in the saloon of St. George fell down with the seventeen massive lustres depending from it.
THE 25TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE CORONATION OF NICHOLAS I (1851 A.D.)
In August 1851, upon the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of his coronation the emperor Nicholas left St. Petersburg for Moscow, accompanied by his family. For the first time the journey was accomplished by the newly completed Moscow railway, constructed in accordance with the will of the emperor, and in opposition to the desires of many of his enlightened contemporaries. The opening of the railway to the public followed only on the 13th of November. In Moscow the emperor was met by Field-marshal Paskevitch, prince of Warsaw. On the eve of the festivities in honour of the anniversary of the coronation Nicholas visited the fieldmarshal, and addressed the following memorable words to him:
[1851 . .]
“To-morrow will complete twenty-five years of my reign—a reign which you, Ivan Feodorovitch, have made illustrious by your valiant service to Russia. It was under sorrowful prognostications that I ascended the throne of Russia and my reign had to begin with punishments and banishments. I did not find around the throne persons who could guide the czar—I was obliged to create men; I
had none devoted to me. Affairs in the east required the appointment there of a man of your intellect, of your military capacity, of your will. My choice rested on you. Providence itself directed me to you. You had enemies: in spite of all that was said against you, I held fast to you, Ivan Feodorovitch. You proved, commander, that I was right. Hardly had affairs in the east quieted down when my empire was overtaken by a public calamity—the cholera. The people ascribe every misfortune to the person who governs. God knows how much suffering this national affliction cost me. The war with Poland was another grievous trial. Russian blood was shed because of our errors or because of chastisement sent from above. Our affairs were in a bad way. And again I had resource to you, Ivan Feodorovitch, as the only means of salvation for Russia; and again you did not betray my trust, again you exalted my empire. By your twenty years’ administration of the Polish land you have laid the foundation for the happiness of two kindred yet hostile elements. I hope that the Russian and the Pole will constitute one Russian Empire—the Slavonic Empire; and that your name will be preserved in history beside the name of Nicholas. It is not so long ago—when western Europe was agitated by aspirations after wild, unbridled freedom; when the people overthrew lawful authority and thrones; when I decided to give a helping hand to my brother and ally, the monarch of Austria—that you, commander, led my soldiers to a new warfare: you tamed the hydra of rebellion. In six weeks you had finished the war in Hungary, you supported and strengthened the tottering throne of Austria, Ivan Feodorovitch. You are the glory of my twenty-five years’ reign. You are the history of the reign of Nicholas I.”
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS’ VIEWS ON LOUIS NAPOLEON
When Prince Louis Napoleon had accomplished his coup d’état of the 2nd of December, 1851, and the restoration of the second empire was to be expected, the emperor Nicholas, judging by a letter which he had received from Frederick William IV, said: “Before the end of next year Louis Napoleon will become our colleague. Let him become what he likes, even the great mufti, if it pleases him, but to the title of Emperor or King I do not think he will be so imprudent as
