To this the peasants
submitted; but history has not been able to drown their sighs over this
wrong; their proverbs and ballads make St. George's Day representative
of all ill-luck and disappointment.
A few years later Boris made another bid for oligarchic favor. He issued
a rigorous fugitive-serf law, and even wrenched liberty from certain
free peasants who had entered service for wages before his edicts. This
completed the work, and Russia, which never had had the benefits of
feudalism, had now fastened upon her feudalism's worst curse, a serf
caste, bound to the glebe.
The great good things done by Peter the world knows by heart. The world
knows well how he tore his way out of the fetichism of his time; how,
despite ignorance and unreason, he dragged his nation after him; how he
dowered the nation with things and thoughts that transformed it from a
petty Asiatic horde to a great European Power.
We were present a few years since when one of those lesser triumphs of
his genius was first unfolded.
Pages:
749
750
751
752
753
754
755
756
757
758
759
760
761
762
763
764
765
766
767
768
769
770
771
772
773