Page:EB1911 - Volume 23.djvu/924

 of higher schools, in which careful instruction is given in natural and social sciences, have been opened in the chief cities under the name of “pedagogical courses.” At St Petersburg a women's medical academy, the examinations of which were even more searching than those of the ordinary academy (especially as regards diseases of women and children), was opened, but after about one hundred women had received the degree of M.D. it was suppressed by government. In several university towns there are free teaching establishments for women, supported by subscription, with programmes and examinations equal to those of the universities.

The natural sciences are much cultivated in Russia. Besides the Academy of Science, the Moscow Society of Naturalists, the

Mineralogical Society, the Geographical Society, with its Caucasian and Siberian branches, the archaeological societies and the scientific societies of the Baltic provinces, all of which are of old and recognized standing, there have lately sprung up a series of new societies in connexion with each university, and their serials are yearly growing in importance, as, too, are those of the Moscow Society of Friends of Natural Science, the Chemico-Physical Society, and various medical, educational and other associations. The work achieved by Russian savants, especially in biology, physiology and chemistry, and in the sciences descriptive of the vast territory of Russia, is well known to Europe.

The ordinary revenue of the empire is in excess of the ordinary expenditure, but the extraordinary expenditure not only swallows

up this surplus, but necessitates the raising of fresh loans every year. On the other hand, there is a good deal to show for this extraordinary expenditure. A considerable number of new railways, including the Siberian, have been built with money obtained from that source. But since 1894 all extraordinary items of expenditure, with the exception of those for the construction of new lines of railway, have been defrayed out of ordinary revenue. The only sources of extraordinary revenue still remaining under that head are the money derived from loans and the perpetual deposits in the Imperial Bank. The ordinary revenue, obtained principally from the sale of spirits (28%), which is a state monopoly, from state railways (23½%) and customs (10½%), steadily rose from a total of £132,750,000 in 1895 to a total of £214,360,000 in 1905. Other noteworthy sources of revenue are trade licences, direct taxes on lands and forests, stamp duties, posts and telegraphs, indirect taxes on tobacco, sugar and other commodities, the crown forests, and land redemption payable annually by the peasants since 1861. At the same time the total ordinary expenditure has increased at a similarly steady rate, namely, from £119,391,000 in 1895 to £202,544,000 in 1905. In 1904, 81½% of the extraordinary expenditure, namely, £71,550,000, was incurred in consequence of the war with Japan, and to this must be added in 1906 a further expenditure of £42,085,000. The total national debt of Russia nearly trebled between 1852 (£57,038,600) and 1862 (£145,500,000), and again between 1872 (£242,277,000) and 1892 (£526,109,000) it more than doubled, while by 1906 it amounted altogether to £812,040,000. Of the total, 77% stands at 4% and 17 at less than 4%.

The system of obligatory military service for all, introduced in 1874, has been maintained, but the six years' term of service has

been reduced to five, while the privileges granted to young men who have received various degrees of education have been slightly extended. During the reign of Alexander III. efforts were mainly directed towards—(1) reducing the time required for the mobilization of the army; (2) increasing the immediate readiness of cavalry for war and its fitness for serving as mounted infantry (dragoon regiments taking the place of hussars and lancers); (3) strengthening the W. frontier by fortresses and railways; and (4) increasing the artillery, siege and train reserves. Further, the age releasing from service was raised from 40 to 43 years and the militia (landsturm) was reorganized. The measures taken during the reign of Nicholas II. have been chiefly directed towards increasing the fighting capacity and readiness for immediate service of the troops in Asia, and towards the better reorganization of the local irregular militia forces. Broadly speaking, the army is divided into regulars, Cossacks and militia. The peace strength of the army is estimated at 42,000 officers and 1,100,000 men (about 950,000 combatants), while the war strength is approximately 75,000 officers and 4,500,000 men. However, this latter figure is merely nominal, the available artillery and train service being much below the strength which would be required for such an army; estimates which put the military forces of Russia in time of war at 2,750,000—irrespective of the armies which may be levied during the war itself—seem to approach more nearly the strength of the forces which could actually be mustered. The infantry and rifles are armed with small-bore magazine rifles, and the active artillery have steel breech-loaders with extreme ranges of 4150 to 4700 yds.

Before the Japanese war Russia maintained four separate squadrons: the Baltic, the Black Sea, the Pacific and the Caspian.

But in the operations before Port Arthur and in the disastrous battle of Tsushima the Russian fleets were almost completely annihilated. The bulk of the Black Sea fleet and a few other battleships were, however, still left, and since 1904

steps have been taken to build new ships, both battleships and powerful cruisers. Kronstadt is the naval headquarters in the Baltic, Sevastopol in the Black Sea and Vladivostok on the Pacific.

Fortresses.—The chief first-class fortresses of Russia are Warsaw and Novogeorgievsk in Poland, and Brest-Litovsk and Kovno in Lithuania. The second-class fortresses are Kronstadt and Sveaborg in the Gulf of Finland, Ivangorod in Poland, Libau on the Baltic Sea, Kerch on the Black Sea and Vladivostok on the Pacific. In the third class are Viborg in Finland, Ossovets and Ust Dvinsk (or Dünamünde) in Lithuania, Sevastopol and Ochakov on the Black Sea, and Kars and Batum in Caucasia. There are, moreover, 46 forts and fortresses unclassed, of which 6 are in Poland, 8 in W. and S.W. Russia, and the remainder (mere fortified posts) in the Asiatic dominions.

II.

Geography.—The administrative boundaries of European Russia, apart from Finland, coincide broadly with the natural

limits of the East-European plains. In the N. it is bounded by the Arctic Ocean; the islands of Novaya-Zemlya, Kolguyev and Vaigach also belong to it, but the Kara Sea is reckoned to Siberia. To the E. it has the Asiatic dominions of the empire, Siberia and the Kirghiz steppes, from both of which it is separated by the Ural Mountains, the Ural river and the Caspian—the administrative boundary, however, partly extending into Asia on the Siberian slope of the Urals. To the S. it has the Black Sea and Caucasia, being separated from the latter by the Manych depression, which in Post-Pliocene times connected the Sea of Azov with the Caspian. The W. boundary is purely conventional: it crosses the peninsula of Kola from the Varanger Fjord to the Gulf of Bothnia; thence it runs to the Kurisches Haff in the southern Baltic, and thence to the mouth of the Danube, taking a great circular sweep to the W. to embrace Poland, and separating Russia from Prussia, Austrian Galicia and Rumania.

It is a special feature of Russia that she has no free outlet to the open sea except on the ice-bound shores of the Arctic Ocean. Even the White Sea is merely a gulf of that ocean. The deep indentations of the gulfs of Bothnia and Finland are surrounded by what is ethnologically Finnish territory, and it is only at the very head of the latter gulf that the Russians have taken firm foothold by erecting their capital at the mouth of the Neva. The Gulf of Riga and the Baltic belong also to territory which is not inhabited by Slavs, but by Finnish races and by Germans. It is only within the last hundred and thirty years that the Russians have definitely taken possession of the N. shores of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. The E. coast of the Black Sea belongs properly to Transcaucasia, a great chain of mountains separating it from Russia. But even this sheet of water is an inland sea, the only outlet of which, the Bosphorus, is in foreign hands, while the Caspian, an immense shallow lake, mostly bordered by deserts, possesses more importance as a link between Russia and her Asiatic settlements than as a channel for intercourse with other countries.

The great territory occupied by European Russia—1600 m. in length from N. to S., and nearly as much from E. to W.—is on the whole a broad elevated plain, ranging between 500 and

900 ft. above sea-level, deeply cut into by river-valleys, and bounded on all sides by broad swellings or low mountain-ranges: the lake plateaus of Finland and the Maanselkä heights in the N.W.; the Baltic coast-ridge and spurs of the Carpathians in the W., with a broad depression between the two, occupied by Poland; the Crimean and Caucasian mountains in the S.; and the broad but moderately high swelling of the Ural Mountains in the E.

From a central plateau, which comprises the governments of Tver, Moscow, Smolensk and Kursk, and projects E. towards Samara, attaining an average elevation of 800 to 900 ft. above the sea, the surface slopes gently in all directions to a level of 300 to 500 ft. Then it again rises gradually as it approaches the hilly tracts which enclose the great plain. This central swelling may be considered a continuation towards the E.N.E. of the great line of upheavals of N.W. Europe; the elevated grounds of Finland would then represent a continuation of the Scanian plateaus of S. Sweden, and the northern mountains of Finland a continuation of Kjölen (the Keel) which separate Sweden from Norway, while the other great line of 