Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 1.pdf/91

 but his reforms initiated the tendency which literature followed.

In this connection it is above all necessary to make further reference to Posoškov, an unschooled peasant. A convert from the raskol to the state church, his writings have, indeed, a certain theological flavour, but his interests are in secular reforms of the army and of the administration. Paternal Inheritance was written to promote the better moralisation of family life. Concerning Poverty and Riches (1721–1724) was a practical work by a keen observer, furnishing penetrating criticism of contemporary conditions and advocating a sound program of reforms in all departments of public life.

Considered as a whole, Peter's reforms were of great value to Russia, constituting a natural advance along the lines indicated by previous development. Lomonosov went too far in the deification of Peter ("He is thy god, thy god, O Russia!"), in his personification of the entire evolution of Russia in the figure of the autocrat; but the reforms effected by Peter and his circle were imposing for all their defects.

At a later date, the slavophils spoke of Peter and his reforms as unpatriotic, unrussian, Moscow and Muscovite Russia being contrasted with St. Petersburg and Europe, but this was unhistorical exaggeration. Europe, too, had to experience revolutionary reforms, more far-reaching than the reforms of Peter. Accurate historical analysis will increasingly show that the reform movements at the close of the seventeenth century were logically determined by the previous course of evolution.

HE need for Peter's reforms is sufficiently proved by the continuance, or rather the consolidation, of these reforms by his successors, for the changes subsequently attempted in this or that branch of the administration were built upon the foundations laid by Peter.

Under the rule of the empresses and the shadow emperors we observe a continuous oscillation in the constitution of the council of state essential to the renovated absolutism.

Rh