A Tumultuous Century Begins

In January 1805, the New Year’s edition of the newspaper Moscow News opened with a poem that readers must have read with great interest and feeling. After welcoming in the New Year, the author went on to talk of his hopes:

In humility and with reverence,

I welcome the emissary of the Heavens,

And with affection,

The flow of tears trickling down my face,

Addressing myself to the ineffable,

I pour out prayers of the heart.

I, a young son of this time, ask

That what is to come be not as it was,

That tranquility will be glorified,

That all peoples will have peace.

I pray that everywhere a lovely calm will take root

And that human blood shall not flow,

That the plagues of dissension, malice, war, depravity, revolt and sedition

Will cease to orbit the throne,

That the Powers That Be shall not tear at one another again,

And that all the Sons of the Earth

Shall embrace one another with tenderness,

And that everywhere Love shall reign!

Well, people always dream of peace and happiness at New Year’s. But, with the arrival of 1805, this was particularly true. In Europe, as it turned out, Peace had finally arrived. The wars of bloodletting, which had begun with the French Revolution and continued through Napoleon Bonaparte’s ascent to power, had been over for a year. In 1804, for the first time since 1792, the European nations did not war. And of course everyone hoped that things would stay this way for good.

In Russia, life was also getting much better. True enough, there was a war on with Persia, but it was so distant – in some kind of far-off Caucasian region – and military actions proceeded so slowly that one could easily forget about it. Most in the empire experienced the sweet taste of internal and external peace.

Russia, true enough, had not had an active part in the wars against France. However, the echo of the European battles did resound east to Moscow and St. Petersburg – people here were appalled by the atrocities of the French revolutionaries, they cried at the murder of Louis XVI, they were surprised by the initiative and energy of the young Corsican Bonaparte, who had come to power so suddenly. What is more, in the preceding decades, Russian troops had certainly seen action. The Empress Catherine had warred several times with Turkey, expanding her possessions along the Black Sea; she had participated in three partitions of Poland and warred with Sweden.

So war was something familiar, as was delighting in the successive victories won under the Russian standard. The impetuous Emperor Paul, who finally ascended to the throne after waiting many years for his mother to pass on, rushed headlong into adventurous military actions – sending the Russian navy into the Black Sea and sending Suvorov at the head of Russian troops into the Italian and Swiss Alps (a much more distant locale than some strange Caucasian adventure).

Paul, despite the shortness of his reign, managed to make friends with the Corsican Bonaparte, to have a falling out with England (Russia’s former ally), and even to send a detachment of troops to the East – to help the Corsican (or, more correctly, the First Consul of the French Republic) to conquer India.

Now, in 1805, all of these stormy events were in the distant past. Paul I had expired in his bedroom in Mikhailovsky Fortress, from an unexpectedly aggressive illness, the consequences of which could be seen in the gross disfigurement and bruising of his body, and on his face, which was twisted in the hideous grimace of one who had been strangled. The fact that the emperor had been murdered was clear to everyone. But no one was shocked by it – a new, wonderful time was approaching.

In 1801, to general jubilation, the attractive young Emperor Alexander Pavlovich – Alexander I – ascended to the throne. He restored liberties to




the nobility which Paul had trampled, promised to carry out multiple reforms, called back the soldiers who were humbly advancing toward India, and reestablished good relations with England. Wasn’t all this splendid?

And yet, in the ensuing four years, it had become clear that the young tsar was in the grip of melancholy (hardly surprising for a person who had a hand in his father’s death), that he was indecisive and feared carrying out the planned reforms. Yet he was still a good fellow and was loved by all.

In a word, one could hope that life was becoming calm and happy, that people would life peacefully and normally.

In Moscow, someone was selling a newly published book: “on lengthening the human lifespan, or a means for attaining the highest levels of health, happiness and a ripe old age; the most reliable ways to preserve one’s health, to treat all manner of illnesses, with descriptions of causes and of medicines available all around us; ways to protect oneself from lightning during a thunderstorm. Paperback price: two rubles.”

The book’s price is rather high, but then who can afford not to learn how to live to a ripe old age, while remaining healthy and happy, while also learning how to protect oneself from lightning during a thunderstorm? The American Benjamin Franklin invented some kind of marvelous lightning rod a half-century before, but surely there must be something simpler and less strange than putting a metal rod on the roof of your house. Judging by the fact that the advertised book was reputedly going through multiple reprints, there were plenty who sought ways to lengthen their happy and healthy lives.

If life did not always go along happily, it was enough that it should pass peacefully and full. The six-year-old boy Sasha Pushkin played in his parents’ Moscow home, not suspecting that, in a few years, he would be sent off to study at the Tsarskoye Selo lyceum. And he probably as yet had no premonition of how quickly his soul would be consumed by an inexplicable desire to write poetry.

Another Sasha, this one Griboyedov, was 10 years old this year and his future was equally opaque. Who could know that he would one day write one of the greatest Russian plays of all time – Woe of Wit – and make a career as a diplomat, only to have his life cut short, beheaded in that same Persia with whom Russia was now warring.

The honored General Mikhail Kutuzov, who was well-tested in court intrigues, had for three years been enjoying a deserved rest at his estate. He had participated in more than his fair share of wars and diplomatic missions, and his many wounds – including two to the head – were a graphic testament to this. Kutuzov’s continued service to the crown, however, was not helped by the fact that he had played a role – albeit not a major one – in the sentence handed down to Paul I. The new emperor’s pangs of conscience compelled him to distance himself from anyone who reminded him of his sins. Tired, blind in one eye, Kutuzov could not possibly have suspected that the main events of his life were still before him.

In general, no one had the faintest clue of the changes on the horizon. People were born and died, were happy and sad, went about from place to place.

For sale: Home near the Arbat, at the entrance to Nikola na Peskakh, at number 84; 13 sazhens [91 feet] long; built over 14 years; with furniture; plaster walls; three huts in the yard; two outbuildings, one new; on a stone cellar; stable with 12 stalls; two icehouses.

Where had the owner of this house in the very center of Moscow suddenly decided to go? They had spent 14 years building this house, put in a stone cellar and two ice houses. They had a place to store their reserves. In hospitable Moscow, a place that reveled in its feasts, this was far from the least desirable of places. A stable which could hold 12 horses immediately evokes thoughts of luxurious equipage, of owners who loved to ride about the city. Where could they be off to? To Petersburg, to start a career? To one’s estate, because they had squandered their money and could no longer afford to live in the city? Many years later, the heroes of War and Peace, the Rostov family, having spent their riches on endless parties and celebrations, entertained this very idea. Or perhaps the owner of the house at Nikola na Peskakh had gone abroad, in search of a quieter life?

People loved to travel in 1805. Laurence Stern’s A Sentimental Journey and Nikolai Karamzin’s Notes of a Russian Traveler were in fashion, and everyone who had means to do so ventured to distant lands – some out of curiosity, some on business. People of limited means sought ways to travel anyway they could. Thus, in the St. Petersburg News there was an announcement: “Individual departing at the end of this month for Berlin seeks a fellow-traveler paying their own way.” Traveling together is both cheaper and more fun.

Those staying at home were by no means bored. One could read. The capital’s bookstores had a large selection, from Universal Medical Guide and The Newest Russian Songbook to the books of Rousseau or Russian Werther by some fellow named Sushkov, who had decided to offer the sad novels of Goethe to his countrymen. People could also focus on their children’s education, since there were plenty of people seeking work as teachers. In any newspaper, you could find plenty of announcements like these:

Middle-aged woman, German, with excellent references and familiar with housework, desires a position in a manor home as housekeeper or nanny for children.

Young woman from a noble family desires to teach children to play piano.

Potential teachers and even those who pretend to the role of steward, as a rule underlined their knowledge of foreign languages. The capital was full of foreign language speakers; the most unusual people were tossed here by the European storms – milliners, chefs, teachers. So one can easily understand Mr. Miller, who calculatingly placed this ad:

Any woman, knowing how to speak, read and write in German, Russian and French, and desiring a position teaching children, may show up at the Miller Leather Factory, near the Gallernaya harbor in building number 709.

Obviously, many middle-aged women and young women from noble families who came to his door, and, upon verification, turned out to be not quite appropriate for the role of teacher...

The large cities burgeon, attracting people by legal and non-legal means. State Councilor Vasily Bestuzhev places an announcement in the lost and found:

Lost, four recruiting receipts, received for three and a half recruits, in exchange for serfs who escaped from a Simbirsk estate and were registered in Astrakhan as members of the bourgeoisie. It is requested that, if these turn up somewhere, they please be turned
in to the proper authorities.

What happened to these four serfs, who were equivalent for some reason to three and a half recruits? How did they manage to escape from Simbirsk and get themselves to Astrakhan? And how did they manage to register as bourgeoisie – that is, to become citizens?

Judging by the advertisement, the escapees were captured and sent off to be soldiers. Vasily Bestuzhev was probably a relative of the five Bestuzhev brothers who, twenty years from now, along with other members of a secret society, would attempt to change the law on serfdom and pay for it with their freedom. The State Councilor, however, is apparently not troubled by moral dilemmas related to ownership of other people – for him finding the recruiting receipts is most important, so that he does not have to (heaven forbid) give the army other, better working and more settled serfs.

However, no matter how much the population changed and grew in the large cities, life was still very much in keeping with village traditions. There were not many activities beyond the boundaries of one’s own home. Rich people might have their music salons or home theaters, balls or children’s parties. And there were certainly theaters – both in Moscow and Petersburg – but they were not open to the general public. They were places of high society, where aristocrats met.

There were no museums. Those collections which decades from now would attract loads of tourists, were for now in private hands. Around Christmastime, Petersburgers were invited to experience a Nativity Play – a fairy-tale like puppet show. But all other activities took place within the walls of merchants’ homes or noble palaces. Which meant it was quiet and calm on the streets.

Lost goods were brought by those who found them to the Police Department, were those who lost things had them returned to them. For instance, this is where you would go if you “lost women’s sable stoles and 2 wraps, one with silver and the other with gold tassels.” Of course, one had to present “proof of ownership.” Even money was brought here. The individual who “lost a red morocco wallet with 37R and camisole with 260R” is asked to appear at the Police Department. Perhaps they want to ask the individual how he survived not only without his wallet, but also without a camisole? Has he perhaps been overdoing it a bit with visiting kabaks [bars]?

But, of course, the peaceful course of this settled and well-adjusted life was to be rudely interrupted. Once again, there began to be talk about the villain Bonaparte, who had more or less declared himself to be Emperor of the French and was gathering up troops in France, near the city of Boulogne, in order to attack England.

By fall, even more distasteful things came to light. It turns out that the vile Bonaparte, instead of attacking England, turned on Austria, a long-time ally of Russia. The noble Russian Emperor Alexander had no alternative but to send troops in support of Austria’s Emperor Franz.

Groaning and rubbing his blind eye, Kutuzov leaves his village, flattered that he has been remembered, and accepts command of the Russian army. The autumn months pass quickly. But news does not travel quickly back to Russia.

Russian troops had, by November, already skirmished with French troops on German territory, and newspapers described the October victory of the British Navy over France at Cape Trafalgar, in which Admiral Nelson perished. The papers reported on his grand funeral, and on the inheritance he left his wife. But, out of common decency, they said nothing of his affair with Lady Hamilton. The casualties at Trafalgar were counted at 1,587, and it was observed that no naval battle had ever been so large or so bloody.

French, Russian and Austrian troops converged, but in Russia, as Christmas and New Year’s neared, people continued to buy and sell homes, to hire domestic help, to search for things lost.

On November 25, the Academy of Sciences held a ceremonial meeting in honor of its 80th anniversary. Along with various other reports, there was one on essays submitted to the Academy’s competition, announced the previous year. Of course, the majority of the essays did not satisfy the academics – not one eulogizing Alexei Mikhailovich, the father of Peter I, nor one exalting Minin and Pozharsky, who liberated Moscow from the Poles. The gold and silver medals were instead awarded to two works on a rather dubious theme: a glorification of Ivan the Terrible. Obviously, it took a huge expenditure of effort to endorse the actions of this bloodletting tsar, and for this the authors were duly rewarded.

The academics, ceremoniously gathered in Petersburg, did not know that five days previous there had been a horrific bloodbath near Austerlitz, which ended with the crushing defeat of Russian and Austrian forces – one of Napoleon’s greatest victories. Emperor Alexander I, fleeing the field of battle and on his way home, decided to relieve Kutuzov of his command. The cunning general had preferred not to challenge the emperor about the deployment of Russian troops before the battle, and would now pay for it with disgrace. Of course, it was easier for the young tsar to blame everything on the decrepit old general than on his own interference. What is more, Kutuzov had seen Alexander crying after the battle, and a monarch rarely forgives something like that.

But it would be fully a month before Russia learned of this disaster. The newspapers printed news of various small battles, then about the arrival of the tsar back in Petersburg, and then, for some reason, about Austria’s signing a peace treaty with Napoleon, and the recall of Russian troops. The first report of the horrific battle, and the indications of the huge losses on both sides, appeared only on January 2. Perhaps the newspaper publishers did not want to spoil their readers’ holidays. Or perhaps the post really did move that slowly.

Napoleon’s campaign in Germany still lay in the future, as did new battles with Russian troops... and the Peace of Tilsit (1807), yet another humiliation for Alexander I. And it was still quite some time until 1812, to the Battle of Borodino and the burning of Moscow. But, after that, Russian troops would march all the way to Paris, and young officers, who had shown their bravery on the field of battle, would begin to wonder why the tsar did not want to eradicate serfdom, and whether he really was as beautiful and honest as they had thought previous, and whether perhaps they should use force to compel him to free the serfs and, if he refused, unseat him from the throne.

And the young Sasha Pushkin, grown and sent by his parents to study at the Lyceum, would begin to write poems. And Sasha Griboyedov would begin to write poems and plays, and to study Eastern languages, because the Caucasus would suddenly become an exceptionally important place for Russian policy.

But, for now, no one suspected any of this. Cavaliers of the Order of St. George – the most honored of military awards – made a request:

Boldly and in all humility we ask Your Imperial Majesty to bestow on Your Highness the special military award of St. George.

Tsar Alexander’s Order of St. George, it should be noted, was to be for special bravery shown... at Austerlitz.

Citizens were preparing for Christmas and the New Year. The quibbling leather factory owner Miller could still not find teachers for his children. In the capital of St. Petersburg, someone is selling “a home with a milk cow and three young horses.”

Someone, with knowledge of French and German, geography, history and arithmetic, offers their services to persons seeking a governor for their children or a steward for the home.”

Young woman named Dobrozhanskaya, who knows how to sew and make lace, who also speaks German and French, seeks a position in a home in the city.

What will happen with the leather magnate Miller and his children, with the wonderfully educated “someone,” and with the young Dobrozhanskaya? The whirlwind of the next decade has covered their tracks. The tumultuous 19th century has begun, and soon Trafalgar will no longer be neither the biggest nor the bloodiest of battles.  RL