1. RUSSIA: An Interview with Madame Olga Novikoff.

 

“A people in despair.”

It is thus that Mme. Olga Novikoff speaks of her countrymen and women in far-away Russia. She loves England, her adopted home; she loves Russia, her real home. She suffers for both, and suffering has done what age had been unable to do: it has bowed her shoulders and dimmed her fine, keen eyes.

But Mme. Novikoff has a proud spirit, and despair finds no dwelling place in it. She cannot, will not believe that Russia is entirely lost as an ally, lost as a country.

“It is hard to talk of Russia now because there is so little one really knows of what is happening there. We Russians here can visualise struggles there of which you others know nothing. We understand so well how many people must be striving to stem the torrent of lawlessness, to stop the onrush of the Germans. But we hear nothing.

“It is six months since any letter has come from Russia to me. I do not know whether my family, my friends are still alive. I do not know whether or not their homes have been destroyed and they are refugees. Life and property mean little in Russia at this time. They are lightly taken.

*     *     *

“I have written of Russia recently. I wish everyone would read what I have written. Really read, I mean, for most men and women do not really read; they glance at words and turn away from them. Perhaps that is why so few of them understand events and peoples.

“Russia is such a vast country. You, in your small, secure island, can hardly realise how vast. For many Russians there is a fine education available, but for others there is none, and those others are superstitious, simple, ignorant. It is not difficult to deceive and betray those who cannot reason and weigh and balance, and for many months these people have been fed on lies, lies, lies!

“Now they are inflamed, enraged, maddened. They do not know which way to turn, whom to trust. Will they let the Germans take their country, deceived again by lies and promises of restored order, greater prosperity?

“Alas, a people in despair will do anything.

“The lies began when everywhere was spread the report that the Emperor desired to abdicate. The outside world knows that he did not desire this, he was forced into it, but the Russian peasant believes the Emperor preferred to retire into obscurity.

“‘Do not fight. The Emperor does not wish you to fight, does not need you to fight for him,’ was the next lie spread through the Army.

“The Empress was not spared in this lying propaganda. Alas, here too the Empress has been calumniated—even in a recent book. So that method of achieving an end spread beyond the wide boundaries of Russia.

“The Russian peasants are not cowards laying down their arms before a foe. They simply do not understand. To have a foe without your gates and a foe within your gates—picture that.

“I have been asked if I know or have ever heard of these present so-called leaders. Does one know ragamuffins or rogues? Only a few days ago one of the papers published the career and various names of one of these men. What despair must a country face, led or dragged by such men.

*     *     *

“Would the Emperor come back to power if asked? Who could say? For myself I think not.

“I believe that what will save Russia will be a great religious war. Perhaps it is beginning now. The deceived, betrayed people are longing to follow some great principle, some pure leader. There is such a one, a patriarch of the Church. He is a voice crying in the wilderness now.

“His voice will ring out louder and stronger until it reaches the hearts of the Russian peoples. It will give them truth instead of lies, and they will know the difference and follow at last a leader who is true.

“This is the gleam of hope I have, I who know my people. And there are other gleams. We do not hear anything of Russian nobles, of Russian merchants, officers, professional men of good standing, but we, who know, do not believe they are making no attempt at reorganisation and order.

“We hear nothing of the Russian women now, but can you or anyone believe that intelligent, brave women such as you all admitted them to be, women who went into the field side by side with their men, who faced the Germans in women’s regiments, are doing nothing now?

“You may be certain they too are struggling, but in a country where the prisons have been flung wide open and alcohol made free to all to buy when and how they choose, and where a rigid censorship controls all so that truth cannot filter in or out, all effort seems hopeless. Nevertheless, it is being made—always.”