shadow of britain

Chapter 638 Russian Confucius
"You asked about the talents of Marshal Paskevich?"

This question seemed to embarrass Pushkin. He rubbed his temple and said, "It seems that you must have heard inconsistent comments from other nobles, so you are so curious about him, right?"

Arthur's tone was light, and he held his teacup and vividly described what he had seen and heard at other banquets.

"I met Count Tolstoy at a ball given by the French chargé d'affaires the other day, and he spoke rather harshly of the victory of Marshal Paskevich. Count Tolstoy told me that Paskevich had fought so brilliantly in the Persian expedition that if a clever man wanted to do something different from him, he would have to fight the battle worse."

Arthur joked, "I thought a famous general like him would be highly praised in Russia. But after a tour of St. Petersburg, I found that there were far more people who slandered him than those who praised him. If I hadn't seen the Winter Palace outside the window when I woke up every day, I would have thought I was not in Russia, but in Poland."

"There are many in the army who dislike Paskevich. Count Tolstoy is one, and so is General Yermolov, who lives in Orel."

"Yermolov?"

When Arthur heard the name, he immediately thought of the book "The Russian Strongman Drives Out the French", in which Yermolov played a lot of roles.

Arthur asked, "Is it General Alexey Yermolov? The Chief of Staff of the First Army who boldly led his troops to counterattack the French troops occupying the Rayevsky Battery during the Battle of Borodino?"

Pushkin didn't expect that Arthur knew so much about Russia's Patriotic War of 1812. He nodded in surprise at first, and then explained it to him affectionately.

"General Yermolov, like Marshal Paskevich, is a capable and skilled general. I can even assert that he is the best artillery officer in Russia and the true successor of Marshal Suvorov. He did not have a successful career like Marshal Paskevich, and was also influenced by the Decembrists. Logically, Paskevich's achievements in Persia and the Ottoman Empire should have belonged to General Yermolov, because he was the commander of the Caucasus Army and the commander of the Georgian garrison until 1827. However, because Yermolov sheltered the Decembrists who were exiled to the Caucasus, he was recalled by the emperor's order a few months before the war with the Persians and was relieved of all military posts."

"It sounds like he does have reason to complain about Paskevich. So what has he been studying in his estate these past few years?"

"When I arrived in Orel, the coachman told me that General Yermolov rarely went anywhere except to his father's house. Moreover, he usually did not receive other people, especially the bureaucrats in the city. However, perhaps because of my background, he received me very cordially. I still remember that he was wearing a Circassian jacket that day, and there were several sabers and daggers hanging on the walls of his study, all of which were souvenirs brought back from his tenure in the Caucasus."

Pushkin saw that Arthur was listening with great interest, so he added a few more words: "Although he didn't say it explicitly, I can see that General Yermolov is upset about his dismissal. Although he didn't directly deny Paskevich's success like Count Tolstoy, he thought that fewer people could have died and less money could have been spent. When he knew that I was going to join the army, he also talked to me with great interest about Karamzin's History of the Russian State. By the way, have you read that book?"

As a graduate of the University of London whose main area of ​​research was Russian history, and quite possibly the first Russian expert ever trained by the University of London, Arthur probably knew Karamzin's work better than most Russians.

If you want to understand Russian history, Karamzin is a name you cannot avoid.

The reason is simple, because Karamzin is the first real historian in Russia, and his 12-volume "History of the Russian State" is also the first systematic work that describes and records the history of Russia from ancient Russia to the end of the 18th century.

The most important thing is that although this book contains a lot of content, it is not boring. Perhaps because Karamzin is a novelist, he pays great attention to depicting the psychological motivations of the protagonist when describing historical events, making each plot exciting and interesting.

Therefore, in addition to its historical value, "History of the Russian State" also has great literary value.

To make an analogy, in terms of its status and function, it is basically equivalent to China's "Records of the Grand Historian".

Even due to the scarcity of its subject matter, at least at this point in time, saying "If you don't read Karamzin, you won't understand Russia" is stating the fact.

After arriving in Russia, Arthur discovered that the value of Karamzin's works was still increasing.

Although both the Slavophiles and the Westernists highly recognized Karamzin's status in the Russian literary and historical circles, judging from the debates they waged in newspapers, Karamzin was clearly more important to the Slavophiles.

No matter what arguments and views the Slavophiles put forward, they cannot do without citing Karamzin's works.

Especially the sentence - we have become citizens of the world, but in some respects we have not become Russian citizens, and this fault is Peter's.

There is nothing wrong with this sentence when read alone, but if it is put together with the Western faction leader Pogodin's words "Peter the Great turned Russia into a member of Europe and began to win respect for it", it can easily trigger a war of words between the Slav faction and the Western faction.

However, leaving aside these boring debates, Karamzin is worthy of the title of a master in terms of academic achievements alone.

If it weren't for Karamzin, many people wouldn't even know the concept of "Ancient Rus". Even the word "Ancient Rus" was proposed by Karamzin.

Everyone, even the ladies of the upper class, began to read the history of their country.

According to Pushkin: "This was really beyond everyone's expectations. You can say that Karamzin discovered ancient Russia, just as Columbus discovered America."

Especially against the backdrop of the victory of the Patriotic War of 1812, the whole society was interested in and proud of ancient Russia.

Before Karamzin's work was published, many Russians who grew up under the influence of old ideas had always believed that their history began with the reign of Peter the Great. Now they began to look to the distant past to find unexpected sources of their country's power, and thus the Slavophiles emerged.

From this point of view, Karamzin's role in Russia is obviously greater than that of Sima Qian, who wrote "Records of the Grand Historian", and he is half a step away from Confucius.

Arthur's conclusion is not without basis. The core of his argument lies in three main points.

First, Karamzin and Confucius were both moderate conservatives in their conduct and ideas. Neither of them had any intention of opposing the feudal system, and their political ideals were limited to enlightened monarchy.

Second, both of them have a certain degree of reverence for the ancients. Confucius wrote the Spring and Autumn Annals, lamenting the decline of morals and the change of human hearts, hoping to re-establish the status of the emperor. Karamzin wrote the Studies of Ancient and Modern Russia, arguing that Catherine the Great's autocratic rule was almost perfect, and criticizing the current tsar's patronage policy and the bureaucracy brought about by Speransky's reforms.

Third, both of them have made outstanding contributions in the academic field and have a large number of followers. Karamzin is the core figure of Russian language reform and can be said to be the initiator and benchmark of Russia's "New Culture Movement". Famous poets such as Zhukovsky, Bachushkov, Pushkin, Minister of Education Uvarov, and President of the Petersburg Academy of Sciences Brudov are all his most enthusiastic supporters. There is no need to say more about Confucius. The Ten Philosophers and Seventy-two Sages of Confucius are all worshipped in temples.

After all, it cannot be considered Karamzin’s fault that he was only halfway to Confucius.

In this respect, he mainly suffered from the times.

If you do the same thing before Christ, you are Plato, Socrates, or Aristotle.

But if you want to become the "Veteran King" of Russia in the 19th century, that would be a heinous crime.

Because the Tsar is to Orthodoxy what the Ottoman Sultan is to Islam.

According to the "Religious Charter" promulgated by Peter the Great in 1721, the Orthodox Patriarchate was formally abolished, and a religious committee affiliated with the Senate and parallel to other committees was established, with the Tsar himself as the "Supreme Patriarch". Moreover, due to the demise of the Byzantine Empire, through the "Religious Charter", successive Tsars not only considered themselves the Patriarch of Moscow and the entire Russian Orthodox Church, but also the rulers and spiritual leaders of the entire Orthodox world.

This is also one of the important reasons why the Tsar has been at odds with the Ottoman Turks for centuries.

After all, according to the Tsar's idea, his capital should not be located in Moscow or St. Petersburg, but in the heart of the Orthodox world - Constantinople. As the "Third Rome", the Caesars, in addition to gaining access to the Black Sea, have always wanted to restore the Roman Empire.

Of course, this idea of ​​the Russians is a spiritual insult to the French, Italians, Spanish, Austrians, Germans, and even the British, and it cannot be agreed to in any way.

You have become the successor of Rome, so do we consider ourselves barbarians?
Fuck you.

Arthur asked, "Why? What does General Yermolov think of Karamzin's History of the Russian State?"

Pushkin replied: "He was not very satisfied with Karamzin's book. Especially Karamzin's view on the destruction of Kievan Rus. Karamzin felt that Kievan Rus was destroyed because of insufficient centralization of power. During the more than 200 years of Kievan Rus, the grand dukes failed to achieve centralization and unification, which led to the nobles fighting each other and killing each other, so the national power was wasted, which led to its destruction. Pushing this logic further, we can conclude that the Mongol conquest was a "blessing and disaster" for Russia. The Mongol conquest brought destruction, death and slavery, which was a "disaster". At the same time, it also forced Russia to embark on a path of centralized power and national unification, which was a "blessing". General Yermolov could not accept such a view in any way."

Regardless of whether it was a blessing or a curse, at least when Arthur read this passage, he felt that Karamzin's logic was smooth. And he was not willing to get involved in the debate on these issues. He was here to be a cultural counselor, not to study social sciences.

Pushkin was a nationalist, and who knows if expressing opinions on such issues would touch his nerves.

Arthur asked, "So what does General Yermolov think should be written?"

"He himself didn't want to write, but he hoped that someone with a passionate pen could record the process of the Russian people's rise from humbleness to strength."

Pushkin began to speak: "He also talked about the German problem. I almost forgot to tell you that when Paul I imitated Prussia to carry out military reforms, he was a staunch opponent and was even exiled for it. On military issues, General Yermolov was a loyal supporter of Suvorov's military education and training methods, and he hated Prussia's linear tactics and cordon strategy. He was very worried about the German influence in the court. He said that if no one recorded these contemporary histories, then in another fifty years, the Russians would think that we won the final victory because of the participation of Prussian or Austrian reinforcements led by some German generals in this expedition."

Arthur was surprised and asked, "Is the situation in Russia so exaggerated?"

"Is there not?" Pushkin said in a veiled manner, "You can count how many Germans there are among the ministers in the court."

Arthur briefly recalled that he had not been in Russia for long and had only met two important Russian officials.

But as luck would have it, both of them were Germans.

One of them was the director of the Third Bureau, Count Benckendorff, a second-generation German immigrant from the Baltic region.

The second was Russia’s foreign minister, Count Nesselrode, a German nobleman born in Spain.

Oh, by the way, there is also Mrs. Leven’s husband. The Leven family is also from Germany.

If we look at it from this perspective, there may be more Germans serving in the Russian court than Russians.

But then again, the concept of a true Russian is relatively rare, because according to Arthur's observation, due to Russia's continuous conquests over the past few hundred years, the composition of the nobility in St. Petersburg is too chaotic.

As a reserved item in upper-society salons, you can often hear aristocrats talking about their bloodline and family tree.

The bloodline of the Russian nobility was undoubtedly the most complex Arthur had ever seen.

The descendants of the Rurik family, that is, the Norman nobles, accounted for about one-sixth of the population. The descendants of Poland and Lithuania accounted for one-fifth. Other Western European ethnic groups, such as Germans, Scots, French, etc., accounted for more than a quarter, and the descendants of Tatars and other Eastern ethnic groups also accounted for one-fifth. The real Russians, that is, the native Great Russians, could only be picked out of one in twenty people.

On the one hand, this shows that the problems stated by Pushkin are objectively existing. Even in Prussia, where Bismarck complained, the aristocracy was not as open to foreigners as in Russia, and there was a serious lack of local roots.

Moreover, there is a serious oversupply of titles in Russia, which has almost reached the level of inflation.

This is because every time Russia conquered a place, it would move the local princes and nobles back to the capital, reward them with princely titles and keep them in captivity. In addition, the generals who conquered the local area were also rewarded, and the territory conquered by Russia was so large, so the dukes of St. Petersburg were everywhere, not as rare as in Western European countries such as Britain and France.

Some dukes were not even as wealthy as the barons in Western Europe, let alone the power they held.

This major discovery greatly disappointed Arthur, who had just met seven or eight dukes, so he declined the invitations of several dukes and ran to the British Club in this cold weather just to talk to Pushkin.

But then again, what Pushkin said was correct.

But Arthur thought from the bottom of his heart - Old Putin, look at your dark skin and curly hair. Your ancestors are not Russians, so how can you become a nationalist? If Abyssinia joins Russia, then Russia will be the same?
However, it was not easy to say this publicly. With the mentality of not being afraid of small things and not being afraid of big things, Arthur hinted: "Alexander, your journey sounds very interesting. Have you ever considered writing it down and publishing it?"

"This..." Pushkin pondered for a moment: "I originally didn't plan to publish my diary. After all, it still needs to be reviewed by His Majesty the Tsar. But since the French want to discredit me, I don't mind making my story public."

"Diary?" Arthur was as excited as Karamzin had discovered 'Ancient Rus': "If possible, can I take a look at it?"

Pushkin didn't think much about Arthur's words, because in his opinion, it was just a travelogue that recorded some daily trivialities and what he saw and heard in the Caucasus.

"Of course, but I left the diary in Moscow. Mother-in-law's Day is coming in a few days, and I'm going to Moscow with my wife to reunite with my mother-in-law. When the time comes, I'll take the diary back."

"You're going to Moscow?" Arthur suddenly stood up and said, "What a coincidence! I'm also planning to go to Moscow to visit some friends recently. It's Maslenitsa and I'm bored. Why don't we go together?"

"Going the same way? Hmm..." Pushkin pinched his chin and said, "Not impossible, as long as you don't mind another little Russian who's going the same way."

"Little Russian? You mean Mr. Gogol?"

"Who else could it be but him?" Pushkin seemed to like Gogol very much. He smiled when he mentioned him. "That guy was so anxious about the position of associate professor at Kiev University that he was planning to go to Moscow University to find an old acquaintance to help him intercede."

(End of this chapter)