SEVERAL years ago, Mr Kinglake, the author of the “Crimean War,” whom we, his friends, generally called “Eothen,” wrote to me suggesting that I should make a study of the Decay of Parliamentarism. Here is a part of his letter:

“Now I am going ‘to set you a subject,’ as your governess would have said in the days of the schoolroom.

“I think it might suit your position to write on the ‘Fall of Parliamentary Government.’ You would, please Moscow, please Petersburg, please your Emperor, and though not exactly pleasing England, you would win her attention, and perhaps put her on her mettle, and teach her to mend her ways. Let me know what you think of this, and if I hear that you incline to the subject I will revert to it.”

Mr Froude urged me to do the same, but the task to which I was invited was far beyond my power. Besides, I should only have repeated what was so much better said by Carlyle, Sir Henry Maine, Mr Lecky, and others. But that difficult duty was undertaken by a Russian, who possesses all the scientific qualifications for such an examination. The book, which Mr Pobyedonostseff published in Russian, and which was immediately, translated into German, French, and Italian referring principally to that subject, has been extensively circulated on the Continent. It has not until now been translated into English.

In securing its appearance in the present form, I feel as if I were in some measure, though vicariously, carrying out the wish of my two departed friends, Kinglake and Froude.

Of the author of this remarkable and pregnant volume of reflections upon the grandest problems of Church and State, it is not necessary for me to say more than a single word.

That word is his name, a name familiar throughout Europe. It stands for Religion as opposed to Atheism, for Orthodoxy as opposed to Romanism on one hand and Protestantism on the other, and for Authority as opposed to Anarchy.

In him all the irreligious forces of modem Nihilism, as well as the theological quacks, with their sham remedies for the ills of the soul, have long recognised the supreme embodiment of all the principles against which they wage unceasing war.

It is not his habit to descend into the arena. For the most part of his long and remarkable career he has been a silent witness, working, not talking, serving his Emperor and his country in the sphere to which he has been called.

As tutor-to our late Emperor he had much to do with implanting in the heart and soul of Alexander III. those profound religious convictions which made him afterwards so famous as the man who, in his private life and in his policy, was dominated by an almost fanatical hatred of all lies, and who earned for himself the noble title of the Peacekeeper of Europe by his not less passionate detestation of war.

To train a pupil who, on the greatest of Imperial thrones, should never forget to hate a lie, and to regard as his most coveted ambition to keep the peace—that was the first merit of Mr Pobyedonostseff.

Even the democratic West would not grudge him that laurel, especially to-day when the French Republic, organised on all the principles of free thought and equality, clings to the Russian alliance as the anchor of all its confidence in the present, and its hopes for the future.

But after fulfilling the duty of tutorship to the Grand Duke, who, at the much-lamented death of his beloved brother, became the heir to the throne, Mr Pobyedonostseff was called to a post of great difficulty and importance, that of Procurator of the Holy Synod—a post tantamount to that of Cabinet Minister.

It is not for me to speak here of the many questions with which he has had to deal during the tenure of his office. I am not writing a history of Russia under Alexander II., Alexander III., and Nicholas II. I only refer to the subject in order to assert, what even his worst enemies will not deny, that during the whole of his life, Mr Pobyedonostseff has never even been accused of acting on any other than the loftiest political and religious principles. He certainly has carried out his convictions with honest pertinacity. He is not a man of compromise. He is a man of principle, and he has been true to his convictions.

What his convictions are he has plainly stated with characteristic frankness in this volume of reflections upon the subjects which underlie all modern political discussions. That they will be endorsed by readers in England and America, I do not pretend to expect; on the contrary, I am afraid they will probably produce the effect of a spray of iced water suddenly turned upon molten lead. It is hardly to be expected that English critics will be otherwise than scandalised by the calm declaration of the typical Russian statesman of our time that “the Parliamentary comedy is the supreme political lie which dominates our age.”

Nevertheless, considering the exceeding liberality with which many Englishmen have showered upon us criticisms of Russian institutions, which, for the most part, have not even been studied or understood at all, it is allowable to hope that modem Democracy, carefully investigated by the most scientific Russian authority, should get the same hearing secured to it as in Germany and France.

To those who insist upon asserting that the Russian views expressed in this volume belong to the dark Middle Ages, and have nothing in common with the “last word of civilisation,” I should like to say, “Strike, but hear.” Mr Pobyedonostseff, by his deep learning and his lofty character, has secured for himself one of the highest positions in an Empire which even the blindest now begin to see is the dominating power in Europe and Asia. He is not afraid of speaking his mind freely to his Emperor, and he is just as unbiassed in appealing to the masses of his readers.

His worst foes cannot deny the perfect frankness and honesty which permeate his book.

The opinions of a statesman who, for many years, has held such a position in an Empire like Russia are surely well worth the attention of the Western nations.

Mr Pobyedonostseff is the critic in the stalls. To him, as to all of us Russians, the parliamentary theatre of the Western world performs a long tragicomedy, which occasionally ascends to tragedy and sometimes sinks into farce. We can observe it dispassionately, critically, and sometimes even sympathetically.

However you may deplore the fact, we are outside of it, and have never shown less disposition than to-day to enrol ourselves in the Democratic troupe.

Even Count Leon Tolstoi, who may, perhaps, be regarded as the most extreme and privileged critic in Russia, treats Constitutionalism with the same supercilious contempt as all the other forms of government.

We have no parliamentary party in Russia. No one, even in the abstract, as a matter of theory, would wish to inoculate the Muscovite politician with the passion of parliamentary faction; hence the observations of Mr Pobyedonostseff have an independence and a detachment from things impossible to those who are themselves in the movement, and who have to consider in all they write and speak the effect which their action may have upon their own future relations to the multitude.

It is not for me to follow every step of the Procurator of the Holy Synod over the wide field which he traverses with such a steady tread. My task is done when, in these few words, I introduce his book to the attention of English readers.

But I cannot resist the temptation of noting especially the prescient words of Mr Pobyedonostseff as to the impossibility of reconciling the pretensions of Nationality and Democracy. The recent developments in Austria have signally justified the grave warnings of the Russian publicist, which were written years before the conflict of national passions which has made parliamentary government impossible in the Cis-Leithan State.

In conclusion, I may remind those who protest against giving a hearing to an advocate of autocracy, that Her Most Gracious Majesty Queen Victoria, even in the sixty-first year of her reign, has not deemed it expedient, or even possible, to govern more than a mere fraction of her subjects on Democratic principles. The government of three-fourths of the British Empire is as autocratic and as free from the chinoiseries of representative government as the government of Russia itself.

OLGA NOVIKOFF.

(“О. K.”)

April 1898.