Part 900

In November, 1879, "the Czar paid his annual visit to the memorial church at Sevastopol, when a requiem was celebrated, and he left the Crimea on November 30. The following evening, as his train was entering Moscow, followed by another carrying his baggage, an explosion took place under the baggage train from a mine of dynamite below the rails, which destroyed one carriage, and threw seven more off the line: He was informed of the cause of the noise he had just heard, as he stepped on to the platform at Moscow, and it proved to be another Nihilist outrage [see NIHILISM], designed chiefly by an ex-Jew, who escaped to France, and by Sophia Perovsky, who was afterwards concerned in the Emperor's death. A similar mine, of which the wire was accidentally cut by a passing cart before the train arrived, had been laid further south at Alexandrovsk; and another nearer to Odessa was discovered in time by the officials, who reversed the usual position of the Imperial trains, thereby probably saving the Czar's life. He telegraphed the same night to the Empress at Cannes that he had arrived safely at Moscow, but did not mention his escape, which she learned from the newspapers, and from her attendants. In her weak, nervous state, it is not surprising that the effect was most injurious. … Another plot was discovered to blow up the landing stage at Odessa when the Emperor embarked for Yalta on his way from Warsaw in September; but the arrest of the conspirators frustrated a scheme by which hundreds as well as the sovereign might have perished. … The Revolutionary Committee put forth a circular acknowledging their part in the explosion, and calling on the people to aid them against the Czar. … A formal sentence of death was forwarded to him at Livadia by the Revolutionary Committee in the autumn of 1879; and December 1 was evidently selected for the Moscow attempt, being the anniversary of the death of Alexander I.; therefore a fatal day for monarchs in the eyes of the Nihilists. The Empress continued very ill, and her desire to return to Russia increased. At last it was decided to gratify her, as her case was pronounced hopeless. … The Emperor joined her in the train three stations before she arrived at St. Petersburg, and drove alone with her in the closed carriage, in which she was removed from the station to the Winter Palace. Only a fortnight later [February 17, 1880], a diabolical attempt was made to destroy the whole Imperial family. The hours when they assembled in the dining-room were well known. … The Empress was confined to her room, only kept alive by an artificial atmosphere being preserved in her apartment, which was next to the dining-room. Her only surviving brother, Prince Alexander of Hesse-Darmstadt, had arrived the same evening on a visit, and his letter to his wife on the occasion describes the result of the plot: … 'We were proceeding through a large corridor to His Majesty's rooms, when suddenly a fearful thundering was heard. The flooring was raised as if by an earthquake, the gas lamps were extinguished, and we were left in total darkness. At the same time a horrible dust and the smell of gunpowder or dynamite filled the corridor. Some one shouted to us that the chandelier had fallen down in the saloon where the table was laid for the dinner of the Imperial family. I hastened thither with the Czarovitz and the Grand-Duke Vladimir, while Count Adlerberg, in doubt as to what might happen next, held back the Emperor. We found all the windows broken, and the walls in ruins. A mine had exploded under the room. The dinner was delayed for half an hour by my arrival, and it was owing to this that the Imperial family had not yet assembled in the dining-hall.' One of the Princes remarked that it was a gas explosion; but the Emperor, who fully retained his composure, said, 'O no, I know what it is;' and it was subsequently stated that for several weeks past he had found a sealed black-bordered letter on his table every morning, always containing the same threat, that he should not survive the 2nd of March, the twenty-fifth anniversary of his accession. His first care was to see that his daughter was safe, and he then asked her to go to the Empress, and prevent her from being alarmed, while he personally inspected the scene of the catastrophe. General Todleben was of opinion that 144 lbs. of dynamite must have been used; and one of the cooks —a foreigner—and another official disappeared; but none of those concerned in the plot was arrested at that time. Subsequent information showed that the explosion was intended for the 2nd of March, but hastened on account of the arrest of some one acquainted with the plot. It was caused by machinery placed in the flue, and set for 6 P. M. It killed and wounded two servants and thirty-three brave soldiers of the Finnish Guard, who were assembled in the hall under the dining-room and above the flue where the dynamite was laid. … The Russian and foreign newspapers teemed with advice to the Emperor to grant a constitution, or abdicate in order to save his life; and it is reported that in a Council of his Ministers and relations he offered to hand over the sceptre at once to his eldest son, if they agreed that it would be best for their own safety, and for Russia; but that he was earnestly requested to continue in power. However this might be, he took an extraordinary and decisive step. He appointed an Armenian, General Melikof, a man of 56 years of age, distinguished in the war with Turkey, and subsequently as Governor of Charkof, to be the temporary dictator of the Empire, with almost absolute powers, and over the six Governors-General who in 1879 were established throughout Russia. The Commission was for six months. … The explosion in the Winter Palace caused the greatest panic in St. Petersburg, and people would no longer take tickets for the opera, till they ascertained that the Emperor was not likely to be there. … The sad condition of the Empress, who lingered, hardly conscious, between life and death, the incessant Nihilist circulars which day after day were found among his clothes, or on his writing table, with the real attempts made to poison him in letters and other ways, and of assassins to penetrate into the Palace under the guise of sweeps, petitioners, fire-lighters, and guards, the danger to which his nearest relations were exposed, and the precautions which he looked upon as a humiliation that were taken to ensure his safety, added to the cares of Empire, must have rendered his [the Emperor's] existence hardly tolerable. It is not surprising that at last he desired to be left to take his chance. … He was again seen driving in the streets in an open droschky, with only his coachman and one Cossack. … In May the Court usually repaired to Gateschina for the summer manœuvres of the troops. … The Empress, having somewhat rallied, desired to go as usual to Gateschina. … But early in the morning of June 3, she passed quietly away in her sleep. … {2785} It has been since ascertained that the Nihilists had planned to blow up the bridge over which the funeral procession must pass, so as to destroy all the mourners, including the foreign princes, the Imperial hearse, and the numerous guards and attendants; but a tremendous storm of rain and wind on the previous night and morning, which raised the Neva to a level with its banks, and threatened to postpone the ceremony, prevented the last measures being taken to secure the success of the plot. … On March 2, the Emperor, as usual, attended the Requiem Mass for his father, and the service to celebrate his own accession to the throne. During the last week of his life, he lived in comparative retirement, as it was Lent, and he was preparing for the Holy Communion, which he received with his sons on the morning of Saturday, March 12. At 12 that day, Melikof came to tell him of the capture of one of the Nihilists concerned in the explosion in the Winter Palace. This man refused to answer any questions, except that his capture would not prevent the Emperor's certain assassination, and that his Majesty would never see another Easter. Both Melikof and the Czarovitz begged the Emperor in vain not to attend the parade the next day. … After the Parade [Sunday, March 13, 1881] the Emperor drove with his brother Michael to the Michael Palace, the abode of their cousin, the widowed Grand-Duchess Catherine; and, leaving his brother there, he set off about two o'clock by the shortest way to the Winter Palace, along the side of the Catherine Canal. There, in the part where the road runs between the Summer Garden and the Canal, a bombshell was hurled under the Imperial carriage, and exploded in a shower of snow, throwing down two of the horses of the escort, tearing off the back of the carriage, and breaking the glass, upsetting two lamp-posts, and wounding one of the Cossacks, and a baker's boy who was passing with a basket on his head. As soon as he saw the two victims lying on the pavement, the Emperor called to the coachman to stop, but the last only drove on faster, having received private orders from the Emperor's family to waive all ceremony, and to prevent his master from going into dangerous situations, or among crowds. However, the Emperor pulled the cord round the coachman's arm till he stopped; and then, in spite of the man's request to let himself be driven straight home, got out to speak to the sufferers, and to give orders for their prompt removal to the hospital, as the thermometer was below zero. … The Emperor gave his directions, and seeing the man who had thrown the bomb in the grasp of two soldiers, though still struggling to point a revolver at his sovereign, he asked his name, on which the aid-de-camp replied: 'He calls himself Griaznof, and says he is a workman.' The Emperor made one or two more remarks, and then turned to go back to his carriage. It was observed he was deadly pale, and walked very slowly; and as splashes of blood were found in the carriage, it was afterwards supposed that he had already received slight wounds. Several men had been placed at different points of the road with explosive bombs, and hearing the first explosion, two of these hurried up to see the effect. One of them flung a bomb at the Emperor's feet when he had gone a few paces towards his carriage, and it exploded, blowing off one leg, and shattering the other to the top of the thigh, besides mortally wounding the assassin himself, who fell with a shriek to the ground, and injuring twenty foot passengers. The other accomplice, according to his own evidence, put down his bomb, and instinctively ran forward to help the Emperor, who did not utter a sound, though his lips moved as if in prayer. He was supporting himself with his back against a buttress by grasping the rails on the canal. His helmet was blown off, his clothes torn to rags, and his orders scattered about on the snow, while the windows of houses 150 yards distant were broken by the explosion, which raised a column of smoke and snow, and was heard even at the Anitchkof Palace. … Besides his shattered limbs, the Emperor had a frightful gash in the abdomen, his left eyelid was burnt, and his sight gone, his right hand was crushed, and the rings broken. … The Emperor expired from loss of blood at five-and-twenty minutes to four. … More than twenty persons were killed and injured by the two bombs."

_C. Joyneville, Life of Alexander II., chapter 13._

ALSO IN: _Annual Register, 1879-1881._

RUSSIA: A. D. 1881. Accession of Alexander III.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1881-1894. Character and reign of Alexander III. Persecution of Jews and unorthodox Christians. Hostility to western civilization.

"According to an apparently authentic report in the Cracow paper 'Czas,' confirmed by later publications, the Emperor Alexander II. had signed the very morning of the day on which he was murdered a Ukase addressed to the Senate, by which a committee was to be appointed for realising Count Loris Melikow's project of a general representative assembly composed of delegates from the provincial assemblies. On March 20th Alexander III. convoked a grand council of the principal dignitaries, asking their opinion on Loris Melikow's proposal. A lively discussion took place, of which the 'Czas' gives a detailed account. … The Emperor, thanking the members, said that the majority had declared for the convening of an assembly elected by the nation for discussing the affairs of the State, adding, 'I share this opinion of the majority, and wish that the reform Ukase shall be published as under the patronage of my father, to whom the initiative of this reform is due.' The Ukase, however, was not published, Podobenoszew and Ignatiew having succeeded in discrediting it in the eyes of the Czar, asserting that it would only create excitement and increase the existing fermentation. On May 13th a manifesto appeared, in which the Czar declared his will 'to keep firmly the reins in obedience to the voice of God, and, in the belief in the force and truth of autocratic power, to fortify that power and to guard it against all encroachments.' A few days later Count Ignatiew, the head of the Slavophil party, was appointed Minister of the Interior, and by-and-by the other more liberal Ministers of Alexander II. disappeared. By far the most important personage under the present government is Podobenoszew, High Procurator of the Holy Synod, an office equivalent to a Minister of Public Worship for the State Church. Laborious and of unblemished integrity, this man is a fanatic by conviction. Under Alexander II., who was too much of a European to like him, he had but a secondary position, but under his pupil, the present Emperor, he has become all-powerful, the more so because his orthodoxy wears the national garb, and he insists that the break-down of the Nicolas I. system was only caused through governing with Ministers of German origin. {2786} He is seconded by Count Tolstoi, the Minister of Internal Affairs (who replaced the more liberal Saburow), to whom belong the questions concerning the foreign, i. e., non-orthodox, confessions. These two, supported by the Minister of Justice, Manasseïn, have enacted persecutions against Catholics, Uniates, Protestants, and Jews [see JEWS: 19TH CENTURY], which seem incredible in our age, but which are well attested. Thousands of persons who have committed no wrong other than that of being faithful to their inherited creed have been driven from their homes, and exiled to Siberia, or to distant regions without any means of livelihood. As regards Catholics, these measures are principally directed against the clergy; but the Uniates, i. e., the Catholics who have the Slav liturgy, are unsparingly deported if they refuse to have their children baptised by an orthodox Pope, and this is done with men, women, and children, peasants and merchants. Twenty thousand Uniates alone have been removed from the western provinces to Szaratow. Those who remain at home have Cossacks quartered upon them, and all sorts of compulsory means are used to stamp out this sect. … It is pretty certain that Alexander III. is ignorant of the atrocities committed in his name, for he is not a man to sanction deliberate injustice or to tolerate persons of manifest impurity in important offices. Though the Czar insists upon having personally honest Ministers, mere honesty is not sufficient for governing a great empire. Truth does not penetrate to the ear of the autocrat; the Russian Press does not reflect public opinion with its currents, but is simply the speaking-tube of the reigning coterie, which has suppressed all papers opposed to it, while the foreign Press is only allowed to enter mutilated by the censorship. Some people have, indeed, the privilege to read foreign papers in their original shape, but the Autocrat of All the Russias does not belong to them. … The Emperor is peaceful and will not hear of war: he has, in fact, submitted to many humiliations arising from Russia's conduct towards Bulgaria. … With all this, however, he is surrounded by Panslavists and allows them to carry on an underground warfare against the Balkan States. … He is strongly opposed to all Western ideas of civilisation, very irritable, and unflinching in his personal dislikes, as he has shown in the case of Prince Alexander of Battenberg; and, with his narrow views, he is unable to calculate the bearing of his words and actions, which often amount to direct provocation against his neighbours. If, nevertheless, tolerable relations with England, Austria, and Germany have been maintained, this is for the most part the merit of M. de Giers, the Foreign Secretary, an unpretending, cautious, and personally reliable man of business, whose influence with the Czar lies in the cleverness with which he appears not to exercise any."

_Professor Geffcken, Russia under Alexander III. (New Review, September, 1891)._

ALSO IN: _H. von Samson-Himmelstierna, Russia under Alexander III._

RUSSIA: A. D. 1894. Death of Alexander III. Accession of Nicholas II.

The Czar Alexander III. died on the 1st of November, 1894, at Livadia, and the accession of his eldest son, who ascends the throne as Nicholas II., was officially proclaimed at St. Petersburg on the following day. The new autocrat was born in 1868. He is to wed the Princess Alix of Hesse Darmstadt.

RUSSIA: End--------

RUSSIA, Great, Little, White, and Black.

"Little Russia consists of the governments of Podolia, Volhynia, Kief, Tchernigof, Poltava, and Kharkof. … To protect Poland from Tartar raids, the Polish king entrusted to the keeping of the Cossacks the whole south-east frontier of Poland, the former Grand Duchy of Kief, which acquired the name of Ukraine, 'borderland,' and also of Little Russia, in contradistinction to the Grand Duchy of Moscow or Great Russia. …

See COSSACKS.

The provinces of Moghilef, Minsk, and Vitebsk are popularly known by the name of White Russia. … The peaceful, industrious, good tempered White Russians are descendants of the old Slav race of the Krevitchi. … The name of 'the land of the Krevitchi,' by which White Russia was called in the 11th century, died out on the rise of the Principalities of Polotsk, Misteslavsk, and Minsk, which belonged first to Kief, next to Lithuania, and later still to Poland."

_H. M. Chester, Russia, Past and Present, pages 225. 228, 270-271._

"The epithet of 'White,' applied also to the Muscovite Russians in the sense of 'free,' at the time when they were rescued from the Tatar yoke, has been the special designation of the Russians of the Upper Dnieper only since the end of the 14th century. At first applied by the Poles to all the Lithuanian possessions torn from the Muscovites, it was afterwards used in a more restricted sense. Catherine II. gave the name of White Russia to the present provinces of Vitebsk and Moghilov, and Nicholas abolished the expression altogether, since when it has lost all its political significance, while preserving its ethnical value. … The term 'White' is generally supposed to refer to the colour of their dress in contradistinction to the 'Black Russians,' between the Pripet and Niemen, who form the ethnical transition from the Little to the White Russians. … The terms Little Russia (Malo-Russia, Lesser Russia), Ukrania, Ruthenia, have never had any definite limits, constantly shifting with the vicissitudes of history, and even with the administrative divisions. … The name itself of Little Russia appears for the first time in the Byzantine chronicles of the 13th century in association with Galicia and Volhynia, after which it was extended to the Middle Dnieper, or Kiyovia. In the same way Ukrania—that is 'Frontier'—was first applied to Podolia to distinguish it from Galicia, and afterwards to the southern provinces of the Lithuanian state, between the Bug and Dnieper."

_É. Reclus, The Earth and its Inhabitants: Europe, volume 5. pages 282-290._

RUSSIAN AMERICA.

See ALASKA.

RUSTCHUK, Battle of (1594).

See BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: 14-18TH CENTURIES (ROUMANIA, ETC.).

RUTENI, The.

The Ruteni were a Gallic tribe, who bordered on the Roman Gallia Provincia, between the Cevennes and the Cadurci occupying the district of France called Rouergue before the Revolution.

_G. Long, Decline of the Roman Republic, volume 4, chapter 17._

RUTENNU, The.

See ROTENNU.

{2787}

RÜTLI, GRÜTLI, The Meadow of.

See SWITZERLAND: THE THREE FOREST CANTONS.

RUTULIANS, The.

See LATIUM.

RUTUPIÆ.

The principal Kentish seaport of Roman Britain; now Richborough. It was celebrated for its oysters.

_T. Wright, Celt, Roman and Saxon, chapter 5._

ALSO IN: _C. Roach Smith, Antiquities of Richborough._

See ENGLAND: A. D. 449-473.

RUWARD OF BRABANT.

"This office was one of great historical dignity, but somewhat anomalous in its functions. … A Ruward was not exactly dictator, although his authority was universal. He was not exactly protector, nor governor, nor stadholder. His functions … were commonly conferred on the natural heir to the sovereignty—therefore more lofty than those of ordinary stadholders."

_J. L. Motley, The Rise of the Dutch Republic; part 5, chapter 4._

RYE-HOUSE PLOT, The.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1681-1683.

RYOTS OF BENGAL, The.

See INDIA: A. D. 1785-1793.

RYSWICK, The Peace of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1695-1696; and 1697.

S

SAARBRÜCK, OR SAARBRÜCKEN: United to France (1680).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1679-1681.

SAARBRÜCK, OR SAARBRÜCKEN, Battle of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1870 (JULY-AUGUST).

SABÆANS, The.

See ARABIA: ANCIENT SUCCESSION AND FUSION OF RACES.

SABANA DE LA CRUZ, Battle of (1859).

See VENEZUELA: A. D. 1829-1886.

SABBATHAISTS.

A Jewish sect, believers in the Messianic pretensions of one Sabbathai Sevi, of Smyrna, who made an extraordinary commotion in the Jewish world about the middle of the 17th century, and who finally embraced Mahometanism.

_H. H. Milman, History of the Jews, book 28._

SABELLIANS, The.

See SABINES; also, ITALY: ANCIENT.

SABELLIANS, The sect of the.

See NOËTIANS.

SABINE CROSS ROADS, OR MANSFIELD, Battle of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (MARCH-MAY: LOUISIANA).

SABINE WARS, The.