The Heretic, notices the shyness of English novelists in approaching Russian ground. "How happens it," he says, "that Russia, with her reminiscences of two centuries and a half of Tartar dominion – of her long and bloody struggles with the Ottoman and the Pole, whose territories stretch almost from the arctic ice to the equator, and whose semi-oriental diadem bears inscribed upon it such names as Peter and Catherine – should have been passed over as incapable of supplying rich materials for fiction and romance?" The question is hard to answer, and appears doubly so after reading the third volume of Monsieur A. Blanc's recent work on political conspiracies and executions, – a volume sufficient of itself to set those romance-writing who never wrote romance before. It is a trite remark, that romances, having history for their groundwork, derive their attraction and interest far more from the skill and genius of their authors than from the importance of the period selected, and from the historical prominence of the characters introduced. It is unnecessary to name writers in whose hands a Bayard or a du Guesclin, a Cromwell or a Charles of Sweden, would appear tame and commonplace. Our readers need not to be reminded of others of a different stamp, – and of one, great amongst all, the rays of whose genius have formed a halo of grandeur, glory, or fascination around persons to whom history accords scarcely a word. But such genius is not of every-day growth; and to historical romance-writers of the calibre of most of those with whom the British public is now fain to cry content, the mere devising of a plot, uniting tolerable historical fidelity with some claim to originality, is an undertaking in which they are by no means uniformly successful. To such we recommend, as useful auxiliaries, M. Blanc's octavos, and especially the one that suggests the present article. English and Scottish histories, if not used up, have at least been very handsomely worked, and have fairly earned a little tranquillity upon their shelves: the wars of the Stuarts, in particular, have contributed more than their quota to the literary fund. The same may be said of the history of France, so fertile in striking events, and so largely made use of by purveyors to the circulating libraries. Italy and Spain, and even Poland, have not escaped; whilst the East has been disported over in every direction by the accomplished Morier, and a swarm of imitators and inferiors. But what Englishman has tried his hand at a Russian historical romance? We strive in vain to call to mind an original novel in our language founded on incidents of Russian history – although the history of scarcely any nation in the world includes, in the same space of time, a greater number of strange and extraordinary events.
M. Blanc's book, notwithstanding a certain air of pretension in the style of its getting up, in the very mediocre illustrations, and in the tone of the introductory pages, is substantially an unassuming performance. It is a compilation, and contains little that is not to be found printed elsewhere. At the same time, perhaps in no other work are the same events and details thrown together in so compact and entertaining a form. The author troubles us with few comments of his own, and his reserve in this respect enhances the merit of his book, for when he departs from it his views are somewhat strained and ultra-French. But his narrative is spiritedly put together; and although it will be found, upon comparison, that he has, for the most part, faithfully adhered to high historical authorities, to the exclusion of mere traditionary matter and of imaginative embellishment, yet the dramatic interest of the subject is itself so vivid, that the book reads like a romance.
The Russian history, even to our own day, is a sanguinary and cruel chronicle. Its brevity is its best excuse. The youth of the country extenuates the crimes of its children. For if the strides of Russia have been vast and rapid in the paths of civilisation, we must bear in mind that it is but very recently the progress began. "At the commencement of the eighteenth century," says M. Blanc, "it had certainly been very difficult to foresee that fifty years later a magnificent and polite court would be established on the Gulf of Finland; that soldiers raised on the banks of the Volga and the Don would rank with the best disciplined troops; and that an empire, of itself larger than all the rest of Europe, would have passed from a state of barbarism to one of civilisation as advanced as that of the most favoured European states." This is overshooting the mark, and is an exaggeration even a hundred years after the date assigned. If the civilisation of St Petersburg has for some time vied with that of London or Paris, Russia, as a country, has even now much to do before she can be placed on a footing with England or France in refinement and intellectual cultivation. It is difficult to institute a comparison in a case where the nature of the countries, the characters of the nations, and the circumstances of their rise, are, and have been, so dissimilar. The investigation might easily entail a disquisition of a length that would leave very little room for an examination of the book in hand. And all that we seek in the present instance to establish will be readily conceded – namely, that in the throes of a country accomplishing with unprecedented rapidity the passage, usually so gradual, from barbarism to civilisation, some palliation is to be found for the faults and vices of her nobles and rulers, and for the blood-stains disfiguring her annals.
The early history of Russia, from the foundation of the empire by Rurik to the reign of Ivan IV. – that is to say from the middle of the ninth to the middle of the sixteenth century – is a chaos of traditions and uncertainties, which M. Blanc has deemed unfavourable to the project of his book, and which he accordingly passes over in an introductory chapter. His business, as may be gathered from his title-page, is with the internal convulsions of the country; and these are difficult to trace, until Ivan Vassilivitch threw off the Tartar yoke, and his grandson Ivan IV., surnamed the Tyrant, or the Terrible, began, with an iron hand, it is true, to labour at the regeneration of his country. A bloodthirsty despot, Russia yet owes him much. The people, demoralised by Tartar rule, needed rigid laws and severe treatment. Ivan promulgated a code far superior to any previously in use. He invited to Russia foreign mechanics, artists, and men of science; established the first printing-press seen in the country; and laid the foundation of Russian trade, by a treaty of commerce with our own Elizabeth. By the conquest of Kazan, of the kingdom of Astracan, and of districts adjacent to the Caucasus, he extended the limits of the Russian empire. But his wise enactments and warlike successes were sullied by atrocious acts of cruelty. In Novogorod, which had offended him by its desires for increased liberty, he raged for six weeks like an incensed tiger. Sixty thousand human beings, according to some historians, fell victims on that occasion. Similar scenes of butchery were enacted in Tver, Moscow, and other cities. His cruel disposition was evident at a very early age. He was but thirteen years old when he assembled his boyarins to inform them that he needed not their guidance, and would no longer submit to their encroachments on his royal prerogative. "I ought to punish you all," he said, "for all of you have been guilty of offences against my person; but I will be indulgent, and the weight of my anger shall fall only on Andrew Schusky, who is the worst amongst you." Schusky, the head of a family which had seized the reins of government during the Czar's minority, endeavoured to justify himself. Ivan would not hear him. "Seize and bind him," cried the boy-despot, "and throw him to my dogs. They have a right to the repast." A pack of ferocious hounds, which Ivan took pleasure in rearing, were brought under the window, and irritated by every possible means. When they were sufficiently exasperated, Andrew Schusky was thrown amongst them. His cries increased their fury, and his body was torn to shreds and devoured.
Ivan dead, his son Feodor, who should have been surnamed the Feeble, as his father was the Terrible, ascended the Russian throne. He was the last of Rurik's descendants who occupied it. Even during his reign he recognised as regent of the empire his brother-in-law, the insolent and ambitious Boris Godunof. Possessed of the real power, this man coveted the external pomp of royalty. The crown was his aim, and to its possession after the death of Feodor, who, as weak of body as of mind, was not likely to be long-lived, only one obstacle existed. This was a younger son of Ivan IV., a child of a few years old, named Dmitri or Demetrius. The existence of this infant was a slight bar to one so unscrupulous as Godunof, a bar which a poniard soon removed. Feodor died, and his brother-in-law accepted, with much show of reluctance, the throne he had so long desired to fill. For the first time for many years he breathed freely; his end was attained; he thought not of the many crimes that had led to it, of the spilt blood of his child-victim, or of that of two hundred of the inhabitants of Ouglitch, judicially murdered by his orders in revenge of the death of Demetrius' assassins, whom the people had risen upon and slain; the tears of Ivan's widow, now childless and confined in a convent, and of her whole family, condemned to a horrible captivity, troubled not his repose or his
