Note (return) — Chapter IV

But even if Russification had been a much easier process, Russian civilization was hardly worth the having.22 To become Russified would have meant not only religious but also intellectual suicide. Whatever was good in the Russia of that day was an importation. The language was scarcely beyond the barbarous state. Its literature possessed neither original nor adopted writings, no profound philosophical systems, no Rousseau or Goethe, no Franklin or Kant, not even any practical information with which to reward the student. The best writers were Kryloff, Pushkin, Zhukovsky, and Dyerzhavin. The prices of books were so high as to make them unattainable. Karamzin's History of the Russian Empire sold at fifty-five rubles per copy. The royal library, which had been founded by the Jewish court physician Sanchez, contained only eight Russian books during the reign of Alexander I, and not many more were added by his successor. The dramatic art developed by the Jewish playwright Nebakhovich remained for a long time in the same state as when he ceased his work.23 If Russia was the most powerful, it continued to be the most fanatical and uncivilized country in Europe. All who had occasion to visit and study it during the first half of the nineteenth century testify to its deplorable intellectual status. According to a very ingenious and observing writer, quoted by Buckle in his History of Civilization, it consisted of but two ranks, the highest and the lowest, or the nobility and the serfs: Les marchands, qui formaient une classe moyenne, sont en si petit nombre qu'il ne peuvent marquer dans l'état; d'ailleurs presque tous sont étrangers. The higher classes were distinguished for "a total absence of all rational tastes on literary topics."