Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 1.pdf/35



USSIAN historians have as yet thrown little light upon the origin and development of the Russian state. In the first place, a number of extremely important facts have not been established with incontestable certainty, while secondly the attempts that have been made to explain the historical evolution of Russia are far from satisfactory.

We need for our purposes a sketch of Russian history, on the one hand because we have to make acquaintance with the problems with which the philosophers of history deal, while on the other hand this historical sketch will form the background for the studies here offered.

Our most direct interest is with recent Russian history, that of the nineteenth century; but to understand this we have to discuss the history of an earlier epoch, from the days of Peter the Great onwards. In especial, we shall give a detailed account of Peter's reforms, since this will furnish the reader with an impression of the characteristics of the pre-reform period, above all in Moscow. The early history of Moscow, and that of the earlier epochs of the petty principalities and Kiev, will be dealt with very brieﬂy.

. The Russian state took its rise in the wide area between the site of the modern Novgorod (on Lake Ilmen) and Kiev, between the two seas, the Baltic in the north and the Black Sea in the south. This region, traversed by the rivers Vistula, Dnieper, Don, and Volga, was considerably larger than the middle Europe of the ninth century inhabited by the Germans and the Latins.

The political organisation of the Russians spread from two centres, a northern on the Baltic and a southern on the