A YEAR IN RUSSIA BY MAURICE BARING AUTHOR OF “WITH THE RUSSIANS IN MANCHURIA,” ETC. METHUEN & CO. 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. LONDON _First Published in 1907_ DEDICATED TO LADY CONSTANCE LYTTON “Vieni a veder Montecchi e Cappelletti, Monaldi e Filippeschi, uom senza cura; Color già tristi e costor con sospetti. Vien, crudel, vieni e vedi la pressura De’ tuoi gentili, e cura lor magagne: E vedrai Santafior come si cura. Vieni a veder la tua Roma, che piagne, Vedova, sola, e dì e notte chiama: Cesare mio, perchè non m’ accompagne?” DANTE (_Purg. VI._) “Une nation ne se sépare jamais de son passé sans de cruels déchirements.” “Why, Sir, absolute princes seldom do any harm. But they who are governed by them are governed by chance. There is no security for good government.” DR. JOHNSON PREFACE The basis of most of these chapters is composed of letters contributed during the current year to the _Morning Post_, by whose kind permission they are here republished. They reflect the fleeting ideas, the passing moods of the moment; but as the various moments of which they reflect some kind of image form part of what must constitute an eventful chapter of Russian history, I have thought that it would be worth while to republish them, so as to furnish some kind of record of what people were thinking and saying while the interesting things—which history will relate—were happening, and so as to give a few sidelights showing the attitude of “the man in the street,” during the hours of crisis. Such sidelights tend to show how little even the greatest crises in the lives of States affect the daily life of the average man. The people who cry out that the state of things is intolerable and not to be borne are, for the most part, well-to-do people who work up their indignation towards the end of a good dinner. The people who to the far-off looker-on seem to be undergoing intolerable oppression are themselves lookers-on, and they scarcely look, hardly realise and seldom say anything. I have endeavoured in these chapters to present impartially the widely divergent points of view of various people; at the same time I have made no attempt to disguise the whereabouts of my sympathies, being mindful of the sage, who, as Renan translates him, says: “Ne sois pas trop juste, et n’affecte pas trop de sagesse de peur d’être un niais.”