Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 1.pdf/77

 frank expression to the need for far-reaching reforms. Prince Kurbskii, with good reason denominated the first "westerner," was one of the earliest to give a clear demonstration of Moscow's poverty in point of morals and civilisation. Kurbskii was a pupil of Maxim, and his correspondence with John IV (see the first letter of 1563) gives eloquent testimony to the pitiful condition of Moscow, but manifests in addition how outstanding was Russian intellectual capacity.

We have similar documents from the seventeenth century. In order to stress the need for reform, Kotošihin gives an admirable description of the Muscovite realm. In personal character this writer was thoroughly a child of his age. In 1667 he was beheaded in Stockholm for a murder committed when in a state of intoxication.

The testimony of Križanič, the Croat, may also be cited. A Catholic priest educated in Italy, he had had personal experience of contemporary Europe, in Constantinople, Rome, Vienna, and elsewhere. He was the first of the panslavists. Through contact with the Russian embassy in Florence he was in 1657 inspired with the idea of emigrating to Moscow. On the way thither he made intimate acquaintance with Poland and Little Russia. His frank writings concerning Little Russia smoothed his path to—Siberia! In the year 1661, almost immediately after his arrival in Moscow, he was sent to Tobolsk, but there he appears to have been permitted freedom of movement. In Tobolsk he wrote a number of works, including his Politics, in which he subjected Muscovite civilisation to severe criticism and advocated European reforms. Križanič was permitted to return to Moscow in 1676; it seems probable that he died in Europe.

Notwithstanding its religious and ecclesiastical isolation, there was in Moscow (and it is important to bear the fact in mind) a spontaneous impulse towards reform and towards Europeanisation. By the term Europeanisation we have to understand something more than the mere imitation of Europe or borrowing from Europe. From the first, the Russian state evolved in accordance with its own principles, but this evolution ran on parallel lines with that of Europe, being not merely similar but in many respects positively identical. The Russians were Indo-Europeans just as were the Teutons and the Latins;