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of the idolizing of Vilna’s executioner, Muravief, in
St. Petersburg, after the attempts at revolt were drowned
in the blood of the Poles; and it was she who, on an
appeal to the liberal Prince Suvórof for a subscription
for the memorial present which was being procured for
the hero, at a public dinner received the courageous
answer, which deprived the prince of all popularity,
“If you will make the general a present of a gold axe,
my purse is at your service, countess.” She took care
that Katkóf’s most fanatical and bloodthirsty articles
were laid before the Tsar just at the moment when he
was in a receptive mood for that kind of reading; and
when, after Karakósof’s attempts at assassination in
1866, a decisive re-action took place, she contributed
perhaps more than any one else to bringing about the
result of placing the whole educational system in
bigoted hands, hostile to culture. From that time to
the present, this religious re-action has continued
uninterrupted, partly from fashion and partly as a prudential
precaution. The political re-action took it up in its
current, and carried it farther on.
This political re-action can be dated from 1863. An
orgy of ideas had preceded it, in which the whole nation
revelled in hopes of progress, and became intoxicated
with plans of emancipation.
The result of the Crimean War had put an end to the
system of the Tsar Nicholas. The time was passed
when fanatical narrowness and cruel harshness alone
ruled over everything in the Russian Empire. Not
only had the books and newspapers of Europe been
excluded, but the greatest obstacles had been put in
the way of travellers across the frontiers, whether going
or coming; nay, the hatred to the age had gone so far
in the first man of the empire, that he detested
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