Opening the text

Anthology of Russian literature from the earliest period to the present time, volume 1 (of 2) : $b From the tenth century to the close of the eighteenth centuryWiener, Leo

General

Anthology of Russian literature from the earliest period to the present time, volume 1 (of 2) : $b From the tenth century to the close of the eighteenth century

Name: Anthology of Russian literature from the earliest period to the present time, volume 1 (of 2) : $b From the tenth century to the close of the eighteenth century
Author: Wiener, Leo

Wiener, Leo

Russia -- Literary collections; Russian literature -- Translations into English

But when did he enact that? When the people were not yet enlightened,
and by thus abating the superstition of the unenlightened, he at the
same time deprived them of their faith in the divine Law. This act of
Peter the Great is to be likened to the act of the unskilled gardener
who lops the watery branches of a weak tree, that absorb its sap. If
the tree were well rooted, this lopping would cause it to bring forth
good and fruitful branches; but, being weak and sickly, the cutting off
of the branches that imbibed the external moisture through its leaves
and fed the weak tree causes no healthy and abundant growth of new
branches, nor does the wound heal up, but there are formed cavities
that threaten the destruction of the tree. Similarly the lopping off of
the superstitions has been injurious to the fundamental parts of faith
itself: superstition has decreased, but so has also faith; there has
disappeared the slavish terror of hell, but also the love of God and
His divine Law; and the manners that were formerly corrected by faith
have lost this corrective and, lacking any other enlightenment, soon
began to be corrupted.

With all the reverence that I have in my heart for this great monarch
and great man, with all my conviction that the weal of the Empire
demanded that he should have other legitimate children than Alexis
Petróvich as heirs of his throne,--I cannot but censure his divorce
from his first wife, née Lopúkhin, and his second marriage to the
captive Catherine Aleksyéevna, after his first wife had been sent to
a monastery. This example of the debasement of the sacred mystery of
marriage has shown that these bonds may be broken without fear of
punishment. Granted that the monarch had sufficient cause for his
action, though I do no see it, except her leaning for the Monses, and
opposition to his new regulations; but what reasons of State led his
imitators to do likewise? Did Paul Ivánovich Eguzínski, who sent his
first wife into a monastery and married another, _née_ Galóvkin, have
any reasons of State for getting heirs by breaking the divine Laws? Not
only many high dignitaries, but those of lower ranks, like Prince Borís
Sóntsev-Zasyékin, have also imitated him.

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Opening the text

Anthology of Russian literature from the earliest period to the present time, volume 1 (of 2) : $b From the tenth century to the close of the eighteenth centuryWiener, Leo

General

Anthology of Russian literature from the earliest period to the present time, volume 1 (of 2) : $b From the tenth century to the close of the eighteenth century

Wiener, Leo

Russia -- Literary collections; Russian literature -- Translations into English

But when did he enact that? When the people were not yet enlightened,
and by thus abating the superstition of the unenlightened, he at the
same time deprived them of their faith in the divine Law. This act of
Peter the Great is to be likened to the act of the unskilled gardener
who lops the watery branches of a weak tree, that absorb its sap. If
the tree were well rooted, this lopping would cause it to bring forth
good and fruitful branches; but, being weak and sickly, the cutting off
of the branches that imbibed the external moisture through its leaves
and fed the weak tree causes no healthy and abundant growth of new
branches, nor does the wound heal up, but there are formed cavities
that threaten the destruction of the tree. Similarly the lopping off of
the superstitions has been injurious to the fundamental parts of faith
itself: superstition has decreased, but so has also faith; there has
disappeared the slavish terror of hell, but also the love of God and
His divine Law; and the manners that were formerly corrected by faith
have lost this corrective and, lacking any other enlightenment, soon
began to be corrupted.

With all the reverence that I have in my heart for this great monarch
and great man, with all my conviction that the weal of the Empire
demanded that he should have other legitimate children than Alexis
Petróvich as heirs of his throne,--I cannot but censure his divorce
from his first wife, née Lopúkhin, and his second marriage to the
captive Catherine Aleksyéevna, after his first wife had been sent to
a monastery. This example of the debasement of the sacred mystery of
marriage has shown that these bonds may be broken without fear of
punishment. Granted that the monarch had sufficient cause for his
action, though I do no see it, except her leaning for the Monses, and
opposition to his new regulations; but what reasons of State led his
imitators to do likewise? Did Paul Ivánovich Eguzínski, who sent his
first wife into a monastery and married another, _née_ Galóvkin, have
any reasons of State for getting heirs by breaking the divine Laws? Not
only many high dignitaries, but those of lower ranks, like Prince Borís
Sóntsev-Zasyékin, have also imitated him.

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Anthology of Russian literature from the earliest period to the present time, volume 1 (of 2) : $b From the tenth century to the close of the eighteenth century

Anthology of Russian literature from the earliest period to the present time, volume 1 (of 2) : $b From the tenth century to the close of the eighteenth century

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