NIHILISM AND ABSOLUTISM IN RUSSIA

THE HOUSE OF ROMANOFF

Catharine II.
(1762-1796.)
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Paul.
(1796-1801.)
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Alexander I.         Nicholas I.
(1801-1825.)         (1825-1855.)
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Alexander II.    Constantine.    Nicholas.    Michael.
(1855-1881.)
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Nicholas.  Alexander III.  Alexis.   Marie.       Sergius.       Paul. 
(Died in   (1881-1894.)         (Duchess of (Assassinated
1865.)        |                 Edinburgh.) Feb. 17, 1905.)
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Nicholas II.
(1894—.)

The Whig statesman, Charles James Fox, once made the profound though seemingly paradoxical assertion that the most dangerous part of a Revolution was the Restoration that ended it.  In a similar way we may hazard the statement that the greatest danger brought about by war lies in the period of peace immediately following.  Just as the strain involved by any physical effort is most felt when the muscles and nerves resume their normal action, so, too, the body politic is liable to depression when once the time of excitement is over and the artificial activities of war give place to the tiresome work of paying the bill.  England after Waterloo, France and Germany after the war of 1870, afford examples of this truth; but never perhaps has it been more signally illustrated than in the Russia of 1878-82.

There were several reasons why the reaction should be especially sharp in Russia.  The Slav peoples that form the great bulk of her population are notoriously sensitive.  Shut up for nearly half the year by the rigours of winter, they naturally develop habits of brooding introspection or coarse animalism—­witness the plaintive strains of their folk-songs, the pessimism that haunts their literature, and the dram-drinking habits of the peasantry.  The Muscovite temperament and the Muscovite climate naturally lead to idealist strivings against the hardships of life or a dull grovelling amongst them.  Melancholy or vodka is the outcome of it all.

The giant of the East was first aroused to a consciousness of his strength by the invasion of Napoleon the Great.  The comparative ease with which the Grand Army was engulfed left on the national mind of Russia a consciousness of pride never to be lost even amidst the cruel disappointments of the Crimean War.  Holy Russia had once beaten back the forces of Europe marshalled by the greatest captain of all time.  She was therefore a match for the rest of the Continent.  Such was the belief of every patriotic Muscovite.  As for the Turks, they were not worthy of entering the lists against the soldiers of the Czar.  Did not every decade bring further proofs of the decline of the Ottomans in governing capacity and military prowess?  They might harry Bulgarian peasants and win laurels over the Servian militia.  But how could that bankrupt State and its undisciplined hordes hold up against the might of Russia and the fervour of her liberating legions?