Women of the Teutonic Nations Part 20

women without tact, training, or moderation, create prejudices against their judicious sisters who try to win their way by the peculiarly womanly, refined and aesthetic qualities in literature. No wonder that thousands of the very best women instinctively shrink back from the movement, and thus withdraw their support from what is legitimate and needful and desirable to woman.

In similar circles, with equal difficulties and drawbacks, moved the progress of women in Holland and the Scandinavian countries. Multatuli (pseudonym for E. Douwes Dekker, 1820-1887), through his genius and originality, attained in Holland well-nigh the importance of a Goethe for his nation. He considered the prevailing opinion regarding the inferiority of woman as the result of her long oppression, and preached her self-determination to the point of free love. He is the father of the movement for the liberation of woman in conservative Holland, and Mina Kruseman and her friend Betsy Perk, the first champions of the woman's movement, are his direct disciples. Frau Storm van der Chijs (1814-1895) attempted to introduce educational reforms and higher scientific culture into Holland. Fraulein W. Drucker sought and obtained the support of the Dutch women in the agitation against the abuse of woman, and child labor in the factories, as hod-carriers; for the protection of illegitimate children, and for a higher training of women for skilled labor. Frau Klerck, nee Countess Hogendofp, profoundly touched by the social misery of fallen women, founded with the aid of a number of n.o.ble women, the Woman's League for the Elevation of Morality.

About five hundred societies are scattered through the kingdom and exert their beneficent influence in all the domains of female activity. The Netherlandish universities opened their doors wide to female students after the graduation of the first woman, Alletta Jacobs, as "M. D." in 1879. Many Dutch women are active and successful in arts and letters; Minka Bosch Reitz is favorably known as a sculptor, Theresa Schwarze as a painter, Fraulein Oosterzee as the composer of an oratorio, and Catharina van Rennes as a composer of children's songs.

An exposition of the works of Dutch women at The Hague in 1898, planned by Frau Pekelharing-Doijer, presided over by Frau Goekoop, gave an admirable survey of the entire domain of the activity of Dutch women.

The exposition aroused the feeling of solidarity among women, which resulted in the formation of a.s.sociations composed wholly of women; the nation, the government, and the queen took a lively interest in the achievements of the Dutch women, whose enfranchis.e.m.e.nt, though just begun, is moving rapidly to completeness.

The same progress is visible everywhere in the other Teutonic countries, Denmark, Sweden, Norway. Excellent abstracts of that progress are given by Kirstine Frederiksen, Maria Cederschioeld, and Gina Krog, respectively, and in Helene Lange and Gertrude Baumer's admirable _Handbook of the Woman's Movement_ (two volumes, Berlin, 1901). We must, however, regretfully forego the pleasure of enumerating even the foremost of the thousands of women with their varied talents, many of the highest order, who belong to the knighthood of the spirit, and who labor bravely in the realm of advancement of the human race in general, and of the Teutonic family in particular.

This chapter would, however, be incomplete and unsatisfactory were we to conclude it without mentioning a few German women who, preeminent and royal, have wielded an immense influence, and in whom, as it were, are crystallized German virtues, German qualities, and German intellect.

The first German empress, Augusta, the daughter of Carl Frederick of Saxe-Weimar and of a Russian princess, was reared in the atmosphere of the Court of the Muses at Weimar; so that the image of Goethe hovered around her throughout her life, and influenced her artistic, literary, and humanistic tastes. At the age of eighteen, in 1829, she was married to Prince William of Prussia, little dreaming at that time of the great future in store for Germany and for herself. By her intellectual qualities, her humanity, and her charity, she soon acquired a highly privileged position at the Prussian court. It was she who inculcated into the soul of her only son, later Emperor Frederick III., those qualities which secured for him the historic t.i.tle "Frederick the n.o.ble." After her consort ascended the throne in 1861, and especially after the great wars, she became the soul of the great charitable movements of Germany. She took an active part in bringing about the establishment of the Geneva Convention, a most beneficial event in its effects upon the humanization of war and its consequences. She was an angel of mercy to the wounded soldiers of both friend and foe, and to their widows and orphans, and was active in the Society of the Red Cross, founded in 1864, and the Patriotic League of Women, founded after the Austrian war in 1866. The Augusta Hospital, the Langenbeck House in Berlin, named after the great surgeon of that name, and the Augusta Foundation in Charlottenburg, were created by her. She was deeply religious and broadly tolerant; so that the so-called Kulturkampf, _i.

e._, the struggle between the Prussian state and the Roman Catholic Church, was profoundly distasteful to her, a fact which precipitated a silent, but bitter, feud between the empress and her party, on the one hand, and Prince Bismarck, on the other. While her political influence cannot at all times be considered to have been beneficent, her cultivation of the arts certainly enriched the national life of Berlin, and indeed of Germany. She was a cultured musician, and composed several marches, an overture and the music to a ballet _The Masquerade_. She died in January, 1890, in Berlin, and was buried beside her great consort in the Mausoleum of Charlottenburg. Beautiful monuments have been erected in her honor at Baden-Baden, at Berlin, and at Coblenz, her favorite resort. The memory of the n.o.ble empress is engraved upon the hearts of her people.

Victoria, princess royal of England, born November 21, 1840, daughter of Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort Albert, became eighteen years later the wife of the Crown Prince of Prussia, finally, for ninety-nine days, Emperor Frederick III. (1888). She came to Prussia when the dawn of its future greatness was scarcely visible. The king, Frederick William IV., was hopelessly ill, his mind affected; her father-in-law, Prince William of Prussia and in 1861 king, was regent for him. The times were gloomy: const.i.tutional conflict, political struggles threatening the monarchy itself, then a seven years' war as it were with Denmark, Austria, and France until 1871, agitated the country and tried the soul of its rulers. This was the time when Victoria appeared greatest and dearest to the German people. From the royal palace to the poorest cottage, there was no household then that had not sent its best and bravest to defend hearth and home and fatherland. The heir to the throne, following the traditions of his race, had gone forth ready to yield up his life, if need were, for the safety and honor of his country. The princess, waiting wearily in her home, shared the anguish of every German woman during that autumn and winter. With her clear insight into political complications, she could realize more vividly than those who were less well informed the frightful contingencies that might arise. She felt deeply her obligations toward the support of her countrywomen. The crown princess as such, in her own name, addressed an appeal to Germans all over the world, in behalf of the families that sacrificed their supporting fathers, brothers, sons:

"Once more has Germany called her sons to take arms for her most sacred possessions, her honor, and her independence. A foe, whom we have not molested, begrudges us the fruits of our victories, the development of our national industries by our peaceful labor. Insulted and injured in all that is most dear to them, our German people for they it is who are our army have grasped their well-tried arms, and have gone forth to protect hearth, and home, and family. For months past, thousands of women and children have been deprived of their bread-winners. We cannot cure the sickness of their hearts, but at least we can try to preserve them from bodily want. During the last war, which was brought to so speedy, and so fortunate a conclusion, Germans in every quarter of the globe responded n.o.bly when called upon to prove their love of the Fatherland by helping to relieve the suffering. Let us join hands once more, and prove that we are able and willing to succor the families of those brave men who are ready to sacrifice life and limb for us! Let us give freely, promptly, that the men who are fighting for our sacred rights may go into battle with the comforting a.s.surance that at least the destinies of those who are dearest to them are confided to faithful hands.

"VICTORIA, Crown Princess."

A truly German woman and princess indeed! She was worthy to be the consort of Frederick the n.o.ble, and the mother of William II., who has imbibed her genius, her versatility of mind, her fine artistic feeling.

Politically she was broad-minded and strictly const.i.tutional; in her home, a true German housewife and mother. She loved the arts, sciences, and letters, and was herself no mean painter. Charity was her chosen domain; the education of the lowly her pa.s.sion. The Pestalozzi-Froebel House is her monument; the Museum of Industrial Arts in the Koniggratzer Stra.s.se is perhaps more representative of her artistic efforts than any other inst.i.tution in Berlin. It is said that the princess chose, if she did not design, each of its sculptured groups, its metal castings, its fine mosaics and ornaments. Hans Holbein the Younger and Peter Visher, the famous bra.s.s founder, stand at its portal; life-sized figures round the building represent the mechanical arts: the loom, the printing press, the potter's wheel, the student's desk; the frieze above represents the great epochs of art and sculpture. The Victoria Lyceum, which we have mentioned above, testifies to her great interest in the higher culture of women. s.p.a.ce forbids us to follow the years of peace, of achievements, of joys and griefs in the princely household, the loss of the beloved young Prince Waldemar; the political controversies which followed the princess's disapproval of many measures, in the inner policy of Prussia, taken by Bismarck; and at last the long and hopeless illness of her consort, her touching sympathy and devoted care of him until his death on June 15, 1888, and certain medical altercations that disturbed her years of sorrow and mourning.

It would hardly be proper to speak at length of Augusta Victoria, the present Empress of Germany, who stands now in the prime of her life and activity for her nation and her own family. She is a princess of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg, who became the consort of the ruler of the German Empire instead of becoming a ruling princess of a petty grand duchy, the rightful inheritance of her house, which became part and parcel of the empire by two great wars. Married in February, 1881, to the present emperor, she is the mother of six sons and one daughter, all of whom are worthy scions of the Hohenzollern race, which has furnished the world with more great rulers than perhaps any other dynasty that ever ruled over the fate of a great nation. The empress is the crystallized type of a n.o.ble German wife and mother on the throne.

She is profoundly religious and especially active in the duties of a devout Christian; she has built many churches; she is the protectress of the Elizabeth Children's Hospital, of several great Evangelical missions, and of the Patriotic Women's League. It is difficult to emphasize sufficiently the great influence upon the morality of the entire nation of an empress so womanly and pure in her simple greatness, just as we cannot estimate the influence for evil by bad examples on the throne on every woman in the land during the eras of the Catherines of Russia, the Pompadours and the Dubarrys in France, the Lichtenaus in Prussia.

In contrast to the happiness of the present Empress of Germany stands the fate of the late martyred Empress of Austria (1837-1898). A daughter of Duke Maximilian Joseph of Bavaria, she became the consort of the present Emperor of Austria under the happiest auspices. Exceedingly beautiful and intelligent, a Greek scholar of a high order, a lover of nature and of all that is beautiful, fond of horseback riding and of every sport tending to produce that symmetry of intellectual and physical beauty called by the Greeks _kalokagathia_; the happy mother of daughters and of one son, the ill-fated crown prince, Rudolf, she adorned the Habsburg throne with beauty and brilliancy instead of the ancient formal etiquette and Spanish grandest. But sorrow came to her in its most terrible form: the tragic and mysterious death, while on a hunting expedition, of her son Rudolf and Countess Vetsera, whom he loved, though he was married to Stephanie of Belgium, broke her heart.

Her entire life changed, she hid herself in her Greek palace on the Island of Corfu, or travelled restlessly through Europe. On a visit to Geneva, while walking from her hotel to the s.h.i.+p, she was a.s.sa.s.sinated by a miscreant Luccheni, an Italian anarchist (September 10, 1898). One of the vilest deeds in the history of criminology ended the brilliant life of the greatest woman martyr on a throne since the Austrian archd.u.c.h.ess Marie Antoinette who shed her royal blood on the guillotine, as Queen of France in 1793, for the crimes of preceding royal generations.

Among the German women authors of the last quarter of the nineteenth century who are really gifted with great poetic talent we meet with a poetess, a German princess on a foreign throne: Princess Elizabeth of Wied, Queen of Rumania, famous under the name of Carmen Sylva. She belongs to a family which for many generations has produced remarkable men. Her great-grandmother, Louise von Wied, was a poetess of considerable talent; other members of her family had excelled as naturalists, poets, and painters; three of her granduncles fell during the Napoleonic wars. The genius of her family seems, however, to have been concentrated in Carmen Sylva. She was exceedingly beautiful in her youth, and is charming to-day at the age of sixty. As a child of seven in Bonn, she frequently sat on the lap of the aged patriot-poet Ernst Moritz Arndt, who inspired the little princess with his patriotic tales.

Her youthful sorrows, the loss of a beloved brother and of her father, and the protracted illness of her mother had a deep and melancholy influence upon her. Extended journeys to the south, to Sweden, and to Russia widened her poetic horizon. In 1869, Prince Carol of Rumania wooed the "Forest Rose," as she was called poetically; in 1870, all the wondrous feelings of a happy mother and a great poet were opened to her by the birth of a daughter; four years later she lost her child, and then she sings the words of despair: "For what purpose the great royal castle, we are but two!" She translated into German verses the Rumanian songs that had pleased her child, and later she translated many of the great Rumanian poems. There is in them the wild melancholy and simplicity of true popular ballads; there is the ring of a poetic sympathy with nature. They come straight from the heart of the people, and the translation is full of the same poetic feeling. Her _Thoughts of a Queen_ (Paris, 1888) are worthy of a Pascal in their depth and earnestness and wide range, covering life, humanity, love, happiness, sorrow, pain, spirit, and art. She is of a wonderful intellectual and spiritual fertility. She wrote _Pilgrim Sorrow_, which has reached its fifth edition, and has been translated into English by Helen Zimmern.

_Sappho, Hammerstein, Storms, Some One Knocks_ (translated into French, prefaced by Pierre Loti), _From Two Worlds_, and _Astra_ are universally recognized.

It is indeed a strange phenomenon that the two most gifted German poets are a queen and a peasant woman: Johanna Ambrosius. It is true that the refinement, the melody and sweetness of Carmen Sylva contrast with the painful plaints of poor Johanna, who suffered physical want many times during her life. Yet both have been in their way chastened in the school of pain and sorrow, only it was in one case the sorrow of the hut, in the other the sorrow of the royal palace.

Of the other women who have excelled in letters in recent times, the great majority exerted their influence through novelistic literature: Wilhelmine von Hillern, spirited, though somewhat too sensational; Louise von Francois, who skilfully characterizes higher sodety; Adelheid von Auer (pseudonym for Charlotte von Cosel), who depicts the social sins of the higher cla.s.ses; Emmy von Dincklage, the painter of the life and nature of the low-lands on the Ems; E. Vely, Helene von Hiilsen, f.a.n.n.y Arndt, Eudemia von Ballestrem, and scores of others whom in the evolutionary process of the present time we must not attempt to describe prematurely.

Indeed, life wells forth with ever increasing strength from the inexhaustible fountains of women's hearts, leaving the problem in the mind of the observer where all this activity is to end, and reminding us of the _Earth-spirit's chant_ in _Faust_ with reference to the "Creative Power" which eternally works and weaves:

"In the tides of Life, in Action's storm, A fluctuant wave, A shuttle free, Birth and the Grave, An eternal sea, A weaving, flowing Life, all-glowing.

Thus at time's humming loom 't is my hand prepares The garment of life which the Deity wears."

CHAPTER XII

WOMEN OF RUSSIA

In the dawn of recorded history woman on the great plains of eastern Europe shared the lot of her western sisters. She was purchased into her husband's family or carried away, she was sometimes only one of his many wives, she took care of the household and helped him in the field, partic.i.p.ated in his manly sports, accompanied him in his military expeditions, enjoyed full social freedom, was treated with respect, ruled the state, and was sometimes burned on the funeral pyre with her husband's body.

Russian annals have preserved for us a picture of one of the most wholesome women of early, heathen Russia Princess Olga Igor. The Prince of Kief, Olga's husband, lost his life while collecting tribute on the upper Dnieper and left her a widow with a child in her arms. She avenged her husband's death on his slayers in true heathen fas.h.i.+on. She destroyed their amba.s.sadors by burying alive some of them and burning others. She besieged their capital, took it, and laid a heavy tribute on them. Having thus performed her last duty toward her husband, Olga, as princess regent, travelled over all her country and made every effort to introduce a good system of government.

She defined the amount of taxes to be paid by the different provinces, left her fiscal agents behind her, and established courts of justice.

Before her death Olga visited Constantinople and returned home a Christian.

To the deep respect for Olga's wisdom a Russian annalist ascribes a preponderating influence in the introduction of Christianity into Russia from the Byzantine Empire rather than from Rome. The Christian clergy immediately began a struggle against polygamy, deeply rooted in the early Russian society, and endeavored to prevent the excess of parental authority in the arrangement of marriages against their children's wishes. Valuable civil rights were secured for women, such as the right to inherit property and to bequeath it to their children at pleasure.

But together with the praiseworthy efforts of the clergy in regard to women, there came, too, an undesirable influence. The Greek priests, full of holy zeal, considered it their sacred duty to combat idolatry in all its forms, and proscribed all ancient religious and semi-religious observances as unholy and coming from the evil one, who deluded the simple-minded and the uncautious into sinful practices and thus led them to eternal d.a.m.nation. The clergy put an end to many games and pastimes, which formerly brought together persons of both s.e.xes, and little by little the church removed woman from male society. To eastern as well as to western monks of ascetic aspirations woman was a source of evil, and therefore had to be kept out of man's way.

[Ill.u.s.tration 5: _PRINCESS SOPHIA AND THE OLD AND NEW SCHOOL RELIGIONISTS After the painting by V. G. Peroff._ _The disorderly and unruly standing army of the Russian tsars, the Strelets, sided with Sophia. Having secured the regency of Russia during the minority of her brothers, Ivan and Peter, she soon acquired almost absolute power. Slighting custom and tradition, she lost no opportunity to appear in public. In the matter of religion, her advanced ideas led her to support the orthodox or reform party. The conservatives or "old believers," having challenged to a discussion the orthodox prelates, Sophia convened a meeting, to be held in the Palace of Facets, on which occasion she presided. The discussion was of such a stormy character that violence was used, and the leader of the "old believers," Nikita was afterward executed by order of the empress._]

During the epoch of troubles and confusion which followed the years marked by the introduction of Christianity, the woman of the higher cla.s.s of Russians became more and more isolated from her former surroundings. The Tartar invasion and domination only contributed to the separatist tendencies in Russian society. Formally, woman retained her old right of being her husband's friend, companion, and adviser; she owned property in her own name, disposed of her dower at will, and was ent.i.tled to a share of her husband's property on his death. But as a matter of fact, the Russian woman was her husband's slave. She was excluded from that part of the house where her husband received his men friends.

Domostroi, the Russian domestic code, compiled in the sixteenth century confines woman to the kitchen and to purely domestic occupations.

Woman's virtues are said to lie in silence and humility. She was to speak only when spoken to. She was to ask questions and advice with utmost deference. She was to have no secrets from her husband. Her husband's will was her law and her guide in life. Her aim in life was to save her soul, to please G.o.d and her husband. Her husband could even apply the rod to her in case of a serious transgression on her part. In her harem-like seclusion, Russian woman acquired a taste for luxury in apparel and house decoration and developed many varieties of fine handiwork.

This seclusion of woman and her separation from her husband's company had as their result a general coa.r.s.ening of social tastes. Men amused themselves with bear hunting, pugilism, and other rough sports. When engagements were arranged between persons totally unacquainted with each other, when a wife was purchased, when another girl was subst.i.tuted in the place of the one bargained for, and when the engaged parties could not see each other until the very wedding ceremony, marriages were often a failure, and led to a mutual deceit, secret immorality, and not infrequently to crime. Even one of the most enlightened Russian writers and educators of the seventeenth century, Simen Polotski, advised that woman should be kept like a slave or a wild beast. We read of many cases where men chastised their wives with heavy whips.

One Russian woman is reported to have frequently cried over the fact that her husband, a German by birth, would not whip her, which to her was a sign of indifference. Men got rid of their wives by sending them to a convent, or by poison. The code of Alexis Mikhailovich does not even punish a husband for disposing of his wife in a criminal way. But if a woman destroyed her husband, she was buried in the ground up to her neck, and everybody had a right to abuse her until she died.

There was no education to be had for woman, and she grew up, lived, and died in ignorance and superst.i.tion. The Russian Middle Ages have left to posterity the memory of only one woman who took an active part in history Martha Boretskaia, the wealthy _posadnitsa_ (mayoress) of Novgorod the Great. The steady growth of the power of the Moscow princes in the fifteenth century began to be dangerous to the independence of the ancient northern republic. The intelligent, energetic, and freedom-loving Martha became on her husband's death an active leader of a powerful political party advocating union with Poland, a union which was to save Novgorod from being subjugated by Moscow. Conscious of her power, Martha often offended the Moscow representative in Novgorod, and was slow to give satisfaction to Ivan III., whose life work it was to unite all Russia under the sovereignty of Moscow and to throw off the Tartar yoke.

In 1471 there was a stormy town meeting in Novgorod in connection with the election of a Moscow partisan to the office of the Archbishop of Novgorod. The adherents of Martha found themselves in a majority. An emba.s.sy was immediately sent to the King of Poland, offering him the supreme power over Novgorod if he consented to rule according to the ancient liberties of the republic. Ivan III. tried to conciliate the city by entreaties, but these failing with the proud posadnitsa, he moved his army toward Novgorod, defeated the troops of the republic in several engagements, laid a tribute on the conquered, exacted a promise to discontinue all relations with Poland and Lithuania, and extorted an oath from the Novgorodians by which they recognized him as their supreme judge. Ivan did not dare as yet to meddle with Novgorod's local self-government and political freedom. But Martha could not be subdued, and soon the parties renewed their struggle. The sympathizers of Moscow were persecuted and complained to Ivan. Under a flimsy pretext Ivan again led his army to Novgorod, was admitted into the city without resistance, and joined it to his domain. Martha was arrested and exiled to a convent in Nizhni-Novgorod. Her spirited though unsuccessful resistance to the growing power of Moscow gave her a lasting name in Russian history. With the accession of the Romanoffs to the throne a new and more promising era began for the Russian woman. Matveyeff, the favorite _boyar_ of Alexis Mikhailovich, was an admirer of the culture of western Europe and treated the women of his family with marked consideration, freely admitting them into the society of his friends.

His clever ward, Natalia Kirillovna Naryshkina, attracted the widowed tsar's attention and became tsarina and mother of Peter the Great.

In the palace of Alexis women enjoyed almost modern freedom. They were allowed to go out of the palace, and to go to the theatre. A daughter of Alexis by his first wife, Sophia Alexeyevna, received as complete an education as could be had at that time in Russia. She grew up to be a woman of unusual intelligence, energy, and ambition, and on her father's death began a struggle with her stepmother, Natalia Kirillovna, for political predominance. The disorderly and unruly standing army of the Russian tsars, the Strelets, sided with Sophia. Having secured the regency of Russia during the minority of her brothers, Ivan and Peter, she soon acquired almost absolute power. Slighting custom and tradition, she lost no opportunity to appear in public. In the matter of religion, her advanced ideas led her to support the orthodox, or reform, party.

The conservatives, or "old believers," having challenged to a discussion the orthodox prelates, Sophia convened a meeting, to be held in the Palace of Facets, on which occasion she presided. The discussion was of such a stormy character that violence was used, and the leader of the "old believers," Nikita, was afterward executed by order of the empress.

She made peace with Poland and China. In 1689 Peter decided to rule independently. The chief of the Strelets, being unable to raise his troops in defence of Sophia's interests, decided to a.s.sa.s.sinate Peter.

The plot did not succeed: its instigators lost their lives, and Sophia was immured in a convent. She caused a revolt of the Strelets during Peter's travels abroad, but they were again subdued; many of them were hanged under the very windows of Sophia's retreat. Sophia died in 1704, leaving the memory of a rare intelligence and an indomitable energy, overmatched only by that of her great brother.

Peter the Great found the Russian woman a painted doll, hung over with pretty ornaments and trinkets, eating fattening foods and sleeping all day long in order to get stout, for stoutness at that time pa.s.sed for beauty. Peter forbade the clergy to marry persons against their will, and required a formal engagement six weeks previous to the wedding, so as to give persons a chance to become acquainted before they were bound to each other for life. He introduced public theatres, and compelled persons of both s.e.xes to attend them. Social intercourse of the s.e.xes, under modern and civilized restrictions, was forced not only upon the Russian n.o.bility, but upon the merchant cla.s.s. Receptions were compulsory functions; these were attended by both men and women. At these receptions, and generally in public, Russians, particularly women, were required to wear western European dress in public. This movement toward the social emanc.i.p.ation of the Russian woman inaugurated by Peter found a powerful support and development during the reigns of Peter's female successors. During the eighteenth century, Russian women were taking part in all the court revolutions. During that time, too, social morality was at a low ebb, owing to a lack of moral restraint.

Peter died in 1725. After the weak reign of Anna Ivanovna (1730-1740) and the unpopular one of her foreign successor, the supreme authority pa.s.sed into the hands of Peter's daughter, Elizabeth Petrovna (1741-1762). She was skilfully kept in the background by the family of her predecessor, spent all her time in amus.e.m.e.nts, and apparently took no interest in state affairs and politics. As Peter's daughter, she was adored by the people and by Peter's Old Guard, whom she attached to herself by constant kindness and attentions. She was an embodiment of unaffected simplicity, warmth, and suns.h.i.+ne, and her apparent light-heartedness and gayeties put to sleep all suspicion of seeking to gather the reins of power in her own hands. But on the night of November 25, 1741, after a prayer and a solemn oath never to sign a death sentence, Elizabeth put on a cuira.s.s, went to the barracks, led the grenadiers to the palace, had the reigning family and their supporters arrested, and was proclaimed empress in the morning, amid general rejoicing.

Though not inheriting all her father's gifts, Elizabeth possessed a high degree of intelligence and showed much wisdom and insight in the selection of her a.s.sistants in the work of governing Russia. She was deeply interested in state affairs, and established a special council whose sessions she often attended. The people called her their "little mother," and in her soul Elizabeth remained a thorough Russian, though into her court a splendor equalling that of the French king was introduced with her accession to the throne. She faithfully adhered to her father's rule in life to do everything for Russia and through Russians. The leading positions in all departments of government were given to Russians, and Elizabeth consented to the appointment of foreigners even to places of secondary importance only when no Russian could be found with the necessary qualifications for the office. Peter's reforms and the work of civilizing Russia by the introduction of western culture and education were continued by Elizabeth. A new Russian literature and a higher learning had their birth during Elizabeth's reign. It is true that her wars weakened Russia, but they gave training to Russian generals, and prepared the ground for Elizabeth's successors.

The favorites and a.s.sistants of the empress were mostly men of ability and broad aims. They encouraged popular education and native literature, fought indolence and corruption, which were deeply rooted in the government, endeavored to do away with the abuses of the provincial authorities, and to increase the government revenue, not by fresh taxation, but by developing the natural resources of the country. A better system of taxation was introduced, and Peter's idea of taking a census of population from time to time was revived. The burden of the compulsory service in the army was made lighter. A higher value was set on the workingman, and capital punishment was entirely dispensed with.

Pioneer settlements were encouraged in the eastern part of European Russia, beyond the lower Volga. Mines were opened and worked.

Russian commercial caravans began to reach Tashkent. Government banks were established which lent money to merchants and landowners on easy terms. A special "commerce commission" was created to look after the welfare of the trading cla.s.s. A general government survey put an end to many territorial disputes among landowners. The internal custom duties were abolished. A new system of public instruction was being gradually built up. The first Russian university was founded in Moscow in 1755, and the Academy of Fine Arts in Saint Petersburg two years later. Two high schools were established in connection with the university, and public schools were opened even in Orenburg and in far southern Russia.

Young men were encouraged to enter foreign universities. Efforts were made to raise the intellectual attainments of the Russian clergy and to make use of it toward the enlightenment of the people. The national consciousness awakened. A new literary language took form and shape, Russian satire began to deride the foibles and the shortcomings of society. Lomonosoff acquired reputation as a scientist and a man of letters even in western Europe. A national historian appeared in the person of Tatishcheff. The first Russian daily paper, the _Moskavskiia Vedomosti_, was published in 1756, and the first Russian monthly appeared in the same year.

Elizabeth did not succeed in all her efforts to raise Russia to the level of her western neighbors. There was much conservatism to overcome.

There were wars to pay for wars which exhausted Russia's resources. But Elizabeth was preparing the way for her energetic successor, Catharine II., who always held Peter the Great as an example before her eyes and who continued his work of reform. During Catharine's reign a woman, Princess Katerina Romanovna Dashkova, was put at the head of the Russian Academy of Science. The princess was a phenomenal woman. She was an accomplished linguist, an enthusiastic reader, an admirer of Bayle, Montesquieu, Boileau, and Voltaire. She travelled abroad, made the acquaintance of many great writers and philosophers, and became one of the most enlightened women of her time. She early manifested a taste for politics, and Catharine owed her a debt of grat.i.tude in connection with the revolution which overthrew the unpopular rule of Peter III. (1762).

The most important service, however, was rendered by Princess Dashkova to her country not in the field of politics, but through her connection with the academy. It was her aim that arts and science should not be the monopoly of the academy, but "should be adopted by the whole country, take root and flourish there." The public lectures established by her in connection with the academy became very popular and drew large audiences. She increased the number of fellows.h.i.+ps given by the inst.i.tution and sent Russian students to Gottingen. A "Translator's Department" was established which enabled the Russian society to read in their own tongue the best productions of foreign literature. Several periodical publications were started under the impulse given by the princess, and the best Russian writers, even the empress herself, sent literary contributions to them. One of the most important undertakings of the academy was the publication of a dictionary of the Russian language to which the princess copiously contributed. She wrote for magazines, and translated from foreign languages. Among her works we have poems in Russian and French, a number of speeches made before the academy, one comedy, one drama, and interesting memoirs.

The great drawback to the social and intellectual progress of woman in the Russia of Dashkova's time was the general lack of educational facilities. In the early Russia only daughters of princes and of the higher n.o.bility could obtain instruction even in reading and writing, though the importance of educating women was always appreciated. At the end of the eleventh century a princess-nun founded a girls' school in Kief. A Russian metropolitan bishop of the sixteenth century spoke in his sermons of the value of the education of women. Beginning with the first tsar of the house of Romanoff, the tsarevas were instructed in reading, writing, and church music. The six daughters of Alexis Mikhailovich received a good education. Peter the Great fully appreciated the importance of schools for women, but did not establish them. During his reign, however, as during that of Elizabeth, there began to appear private schools, to which girls were admitted. A ukase of Catharine II. laid the foundation of an Educational Society for n.o.ble young women, and in connection with it a high school for the daughters of town residents. The chief aim of Catharine's inst.i.tution was the formation of character, the development of good habits, good social manners, and self-reliance in the pupils. Many other schools were opened in Catharine's time, not a few of which were under her patronage, to which children of both s.e.xes and of all social cla.s.ses were admitted, though it was considered improper for girls to attend public schools.

Catharine sought to create a "new race" of men, as well as of women, by offering the latter all possible advantages of education. The policy of Catharine was dominated by her desire for the aggrandizement of Russia and the extension of the central rule. One of the most striking results of her active government is the extraordinary exodus of Kalmuck tribes in 1771. These people are of Central Asian origin. Their incursions led them early in the seventeenth century into Russian territory, where they secured a foothold in the region east of the Volga. Other immigration followed till the Kalmuck population and power became considerable.

Generally nomadic in their habits, they dwelt in circular felt tents, and were impatient of government, but about the middle of the eighteenth century they came into voluntary subjection to Russia. Their splendid horsemans.h.i.+p and hardy character made the Kalmucks a most valuable auxiliary force to the Russian army. But Catharine's measures proved irksome to the independent spirit of some of the tribes, and an immense number escaped from Russian despotism and resumed subjection to the less active tyranny of the Chinese ruler.