THE BEGINNIHG OF NIHILISM.

Otago Witness, Issue 2273, 23 September 1897, Page 49

THE BEGINNIHG OF NIHILISM.

It would be interesting to trace the factors ia the change which has taken place in Rnssia since the days of Ivan the Terribl% whose persecution of his. snbjtcts ttes taken as the will of God. He was their " Little Father." When he chose to consign them to ' prison, torture, and death, when he had the Metropolitan of the Russian Church strangled' and huudxod* .otjarfwti no£ge& to death. at

Novgorod, when he had thousands of his subjects scourged and tortured to death, not a single hand was raised to binder or avenge these outrages, though they went on for 40 years. The people believed that all who suffered patiently and humbly whatever Jhe Tsar chose to inflict npon them would Be recompensed with eternal bliss. These ideas •were fully shared by Ivan. In a letter of his— still extant — to one of his victims, Prince Kourbski, who chose to flee rather than submit to the will of his sacred Majesty, he charges it against; him as a sin that he should dare to «scape from his clutches. He writes : "If you are a just and God-fearing man, as you say, tell me why you have fled, instead of receiving from my hand the torture and the death which would procure you a place in heaven ? " It is not recorded what answer, it any, Priuce Konrbeki returned to tbis remarkably cool epistle, but it is an undoubted fact that the majority of Ivan's victims accepted the inevitable without a murmur, and went to their fate, however cruel •it might be, in the dogged belief that it was heaven-sent. Abject submission to the Tsar was the sacred Ideal which had been heM before them from their earliest youth. "VVden Prince Kepnin. after being impaled, was dying a slow death of most frightful agony he sang hymns in honour of the Tsar, his master and murderer.

But times change. Petsr the (Jreat'e subjects were by no means so submissive. His reforms provoked several outbreaks of open rebellion.

One of the most extraordinary of his innovations was that against the bearda of his subject*. In 1705; fashion— lhat most autocratic of all monarchs — bad condemned the beard in every other country in Europe, and bad baniehedit from civilised socioly. But this only made the Russians cling more tenaciously to their ancient ornament as a mark to distinguish them from foreigners, whom they bated. Peter, however, resolved that they should be "Bbaven. He did not stop to consider the danger of go despotic an attack upon the time-hallowed customs and prejudices of his countrymen. He ehaved off his own beard, made his courtiers do the same, and determined that the rest of hiß subjects should follow suit without distinction of rank. His fiat want forth ': not only the army, but all ranks of citizens, from the cobles to the serfs, should go beardless ; or, if they still insisted npon wearing a beard, Bhould pay dearly for the privilege. A certain time was given, so that persons might get over their first repugnance to the order, after which every man who chose to retain his beard was to pay a tax of 100 roubles. The priests and the serfs, however, were put on a lower- footing, and were allowed to retain theirri upon payment of a kopeck every time they passed the gate of a city. Peter's sudjects did not submit humbly, as those of Ivan had been wont to do. Great discontent prevailed, and thousands had the will, but lacked the courage, to revolt. The Tsar was not a man to be trifled with, and thongh the murmurs were both loud and ,dsep, the majority thought it "wiser to cat off their beards rather than' ran the risk of incensing a ruler who would make no scruple about cuttiDg off their head?. For Tnany years a considerable revenue was derived from those who still c'ung to their beloved beards. The collectors of the beard tax gave in receipt for its- payment a small copper coin, struck expressly for the purpose, and called the " borodovaia," or the bearded. On one side it bore the resemblance of a nose, a mouth, and moustaches, with a long bushy beard, surmounted by the words " Den jee Vyatee " (money received), the whole encitcled by a wreath and stamped with the Black Eagls of Russia. Oo the other Bide it bore the date of the year. Every man who chose to wear a beard was obliged to produce this receipt on his entry into a town. Those who were refractory and refused to pay the tax were thrown into prison. Times have changed. It is no longer the Tsar who arbitrarily interferes with the facial ornamentation of his subjects ; yet, if some of the Russian writers of the present day are to be believed, despotism ia as rife as ever in the land. It is the officials now who use the power entrusted to them to despotically and habitually abuse their authority. The Tsar is ignorant of much of the in justice that is enacted in his name. It is scarcely to be wondered at that Nihilism has been evolved froai that injustice, or that to the swarming millions of half-famished peasants who are being slowly but surely divorced from the soil revolution seems the onlj way of redressing tbeir wrong?, the only thing in life worth living for. Justice is not to be expected from the officials of the Rus»isn internal- administration. — "The Evclution of Nihilism," by A M Judd, in London Society.