Лев Толстой
The Kingdom of God is Within You / Christianity and Patriotism / Miscellanies

CHRISTIANITY AND PATRIOTISM

1894

CHRISTIANITY AND PATRIOTISM

The Franco-Russian celebrations which took place in France, in the month of October of last year, provoked in me, as no doubt in many other people, at first a feeling of amusement, then of perplexity, and at last of indignation, which I intended to express in a short article in a periodical; but, the more I dwelt on the chief causes of this strange phenomenon, the more did I arrive at the considerations which I now offer to my readers.

I

Russians and Frenchmen have lived for many centuries, knowing one another, entering with one another at times into friendly, more often, I am sorry to say, into very hostile relations, which have been provoked by their governments; suddenly, because two years ago a French squadron arrived at Kronstadt, and the officers of the squadron, upon landing, ate and drank a lot of wine in various places, hearing and uttering upon these occasions many lying and stupid words, and because, in the year 1893, a similar Russian squadron arrived at Toulon, and the officers of the Russian squadron ate and drank a lot in Paris, hearing and uttering upon that occasion more lying and stupid words than before, it happened that not only the men who ate, drank, and talked, but even those who were present, and even those who were not present, but only heard and read of it in newspapers, all these millions of Russians and Frenchmen suddenly imagined that they somehow were particularly in love with one another, that is, that all the French loved all the Russians, and all the Russians loved all the French.

These sentiments were last October expressed in France in a most unusual manner.

Here is the way the reception of the Russian sailors is described in the Rural Messenger, a newspaper which collects its information from all the others:

"At the meeting of the Russian and French vessels, both, besides the salvos of guns, greeted one another with hearty, ecstatic shouts, 'Hurrah,' 'Long live Russia,' 'Long live France!'

"These were joined by bands of music (which came on many private steamers), playing the Russian hymn, 'God save the Tsar,' and the French Marseillaise; the public on the private vessels waved their hats, flags, handkerchiefs, and bouquets; on many barques there were peasants with their wives and children, and they all had bouquets in their hands, and even the children waved the bouquets and shouted at the top of their voices, 'Vive la Russie!' Our sailors, upon seeing such national transport, were unable to restrain their tears…

"In the harbour all the ships-of-war which were then at Toulon were drawn out in two lines, and our squadron passed between them; in front was the ironclad of the admiralty, and this was followed by the rest. There ensued a most solemn minute.

"On the Russian ironclad, fifteen salvos were fired in honour of the French squadron, and a French ironclad replied with double the number, with thirty salvos. From the French vessels thundered the sounds of the Russian hymn. The French sailors climbed up on the sail-yards and masts; loud exclamations of greeting proceeded uninterruptedly from the two squadrons and from the private vessels; the caps of the sailors, the hats and handkerchiefs of the public, – all were thrown up triumphantly in honour of the dear guests. On all sides, on the water and on the shore, there boomed one common call, 'Long live Russia! Long live France!'

"In conformity with naval law, Admiral Avelán and the officers of his staff landed, in order to greet the local authorities. On the quay the Russian sailors were met by the chief marine staff of France and the superior officers of the port of Toulon. There ensued a universal friendly hand-shaking, accompanied by the boom of cannon and the ringing of bells. A band of marine music played the hymn 'God save the Tsar,' drowned by the thunderous shouts of the public, 'Long live the Tsar! Long live Russia!' These exclamations blended into one mighty sound, which drowned the music and the salvos from the guns.

"Eye-witnesses declare that at this moment the enthusiasm of the innumerable mass of people reached its highest limits, and that it is impossible to express in words with what sensations the hearts of all those present were filled. Admiral Avelán, with bared head, and accompanied by Russian and French officers, directed his steps to the building of the Marine Office, where the French minister of marine was waiting for him.

"In receiving the admiral, the minister said: 'Kronstadt and Toulon are two places which bear witness to the sympathy between the Russian and the French nations; you will everywhere be met as dear friends. The government and all of France welcome you upon your arrival and that of your companions, who represent a great and noble nation.'

"The admiral replied that he was not able to express all his gratitude. 'The Russian squadron and all of Russia,' he said, 'will remember the reception you have given us.'

"After a short conversation, the admiral, saying good-bye to the minister, a second time thanked him for the reception, and added, 'I do not want to part from you before pronouncing those words which are imprinted in all Russian hearts: "Long live France!"'" (Rural Messenger, 1893, No. 41.)

Such was the meeting at Toulon. In Paris the meeting and the celebrations were more remarkable still.

Here is the way the meeting in Paris was described in the newspapers: "All eyes were directed to the Boulevard des Italiens, whence the Russian sailors were to appear. Finally the boom of a whole hurricane of exclamations and applauses is heard in the distance. The boom grows stronger and more audible. The hurricane is apparently approaching. A mighty motion takes place on the square. Policemen rush forward to clear a path toward the Cercle Militaire, but this is by no means an easy task. There is an incredible crush and pressure in the crowd… Finally the head of the procession appears in the square. At the same moment a deafening shout, 'Vive la Russie! Vive les Russes!' rises over it. All bare their heads, the public, packed close in the windows, on the balconies, perched even on the roofs, wave handkerchiefs, flags, and hats, applaud madly, and from the windows of the upper stories throw clouds of small many-coloured cockades. A whole sea of handkerchiefs, hats, and flags surges above the heads of the crowd in the square: 'Vive la Russie! Vive les Russes!' shouts this mass of one hundred thousand people, trying to get a look at the dear guests, extending their hands to them, and in every way expressing their sympathies" (New Time).

Another correspondent writes that the transport of the crowd bordered on delirium. A Russian publicist, who was in Paris at that time, describes this entrance of the sailors in the following manner: "They tell the truth, – it was an incident of world-wide import, wondrous, touching, soul-stirring, making the heart quiver with that love which discerns the brothers in men, and which detests bloodshed and concomitant acts of violence, the tearing away of the children from their beloved mother. I have been in some kind of an intoxication for several hours. I felt so strange, and even so weak, as I stood at the station of the Lyons Railway, among the representatives of the French administration in their gold-embroidered uniforms, among the members of the municipality in full dress, and heard the shouts, 'Vive la Russie! Vive le Czar!' and our national hymn, which was played several times in succession. Where am I? What has happened? What magic stream has united all this into one feeling, into one mind? Does one not feel here the presence of the God of love and brotherhood, the presence of something higher, something ideal, which descends upon men only in lofty moments? The heart is so full of something beautiful and pure and exalted, that the pen is not able to express it all. Words pale before what I saw, what I felt. It is not transport, – the word is too banal, – it is something better than transport. It is more picturesque, profounder, more joyous, more varied. It is impossible to describe what happened at the Cercle Militaire, when Admiral Avelán appeared on the balcony of a second story. Words will not tell anything here. During the Te Deum, when the choristers sang in the church 'Save, O Lord, thy people,' there burst through the open door the solemn sounds of the Marseillaise, which was played in the street by an orchestra of wind-instruments. There was something astounding and inexpressible in the impression conveyed" (New Time, October, 1893).

II

After arriving in France, the Russian sailors for two weeks went from one celebration to another, and in the middle or at the end of every celebration they ate, drank, and talked; and the information as to what they ate and drank on Wednesday and where and what on Friday, and what was said upon that occasion, was wired home and conveyed to the whole of Russia. The moment some Russian captain drank the health of France, this at once became known to the whole world, and the moment the Russian admiral said, "I drink to fair France!" these words were immediately borne over the whole world. But more than that: the scrupulousness of the newspapers was such that they reported not only the toasts, but even many dinners, with the cakes and appetizers which were used at these dinners.

Thus it said in one issue of a newspaper that the dinner was "an artistic production:"

"Consommé de volailles, petits pâtés

Mousse de hommard parisienne

Noisette de bœuf à la béarnaise

Faisans à la Périgord

Casseroles de truffes au champagne

Chaufroid de volailles à la Toulouse

Salade russe

Croute de fruits toulonaise

Parfait à l'ananas

Desserts"

In the next number it said:

"In a culinary sense the dinner left nothing to be desired. The menu consisted of the following:

"Potage livonien et St. Germain

Zéphyrs Nantua

Esturgeon braisé moldave

Selle de daguet grand veneur,"

and so forth.

The next number described another menu. With every menu a detailed description was given of the wines which the fêted men consumed, – such and such "voodka" such and such Bourgogne vieux, Grand Moët, and so forth. In an English paper there was an account of all the intoxicants consumed by the celebrators. This amount is so enormous that it is doubtful if all the drunkards of Russia and of France could have drunk so much in so short a time.

They reported also the speeches which were made by the celebrators, but the menus were more varied than the speeches. The speeches consisted invariably of the same words in all kinds of combinations and permutations. The meaning of these words was always one and the same: "We love one another tenderly, we are in transport, because we have so suddenly fallen in love with one another. Our aim is not war and not revanche, and not the return of provinces taken, but only peace, the benefaction of peace, the security of peace, the rest and peace of Europe. Long live the Emperor of Russia and the empress, – we love them and we love peace. Long live the president of the republic and his wife, – we love them, too, and we love peace. Long live France, Russia, their fleets, and their armies. We love the army, too, and peace, and the chief of the squadron." The speeches generally ended, as in couplets, with the words, "Toulon, Kronstadt," or "Kronstadt, Toulon." And the names of these places, where so much food was eaten and so many kinds of wine were consumed, were pronounced like words reminding one of the loftiest, most valorous of acts of the representatives of both nations, words after which there was nothing else to be said, because everything was comprehensible. "We love one another, and we love peace. Kronstadt, Toulon!" What else can be added to this? Especially with the accompaniment of solemn music, playing simultaneously two hymns, one – praising the Tsar and asking God for all kinds of benefactions for him, and the other – cursing all kings and promising their ruin.

The men who expressed their sentiments of love particularly well received decorations and rewards; other men for the same services, or simply out of a superabundance of feelings, were given the strangest and most unexpected presents, – thus the Emperor of Russia received from the French squadron some kind of a golden book, in which, I think, nothing was written, and if there was, it was something that nobody needed to know, and the chief of the Russian squadron received, among other presents, a still more remarkable object, an aluminum plough, covered with flowers, and many other just as unexpected presents.

Besides, all these strange acts were accompanied by still stranger religious ceremonies and public prayers, which, it would seem, the French had long ago outlived. Since the days of the Concordat there had hardly been offered so many prayers as in that short time. All the French suddenly became unusually pious, and carefully hung up in the rooms of the Russian sailors those very images which they had just as carefully removed from their schools, as being harmful tools of superstition, and they kept praying all the time. Cardinals and bishops everywhere prescribed prayers, and themselves prayed, uttering the strangest prayers. Thus the Bishop of Toulon at the launching of the ironclad Joriguiberi prayed to the God of peace, making people feel, however, that, if it came to a pinch, he could address also the God of war.

"What her fate will be," said the bishop, in reference to the ironclad, "God alone knows. No one knows whether she will belch forth death from her appalling bosom. But if, invoking now the God of peace, we should later have occasion to invoke the God of war, we are firmly convinced that the Joriguiberi will go forth side by side with the mighty boats whose crews have this day entered into such a close fraternal union with our own. Far from us be such a prospect, and may the present festivity leave nothing but a peaceful recollection, like the recollection of the Grand Duke Constantine, which was present here (in 1857) at the launching of the ship Quirinal, and may the friendship of France and of Russia make these two nations the guardians of peace."

In the meantime tens of thousands of telegrams flew from Russia to France, and from France to Russia. French women greeted Russian women. Russian women expressed their gratitude to the French women. A troupe of Russian actors greeted some French actors, and the French actors informed them that they harboured deeply in their hearts the greeting of the Russian actors. Some Russian candidates for judicial positions, who served in a Circuit Court of some town or other, expressed their enthusiasm for the French nation. General So and So thanked Madame So and So, and Madame So and So assured General So and So of her sentiments for the Russian nation; Russian children wrote verses of welcome to French children, and the French children answered in verse and in prose; the Russian minister of education assured the French minister of education of the sentiments of sudden love for the French, which were experienced by all the children, scholars, and authors subject to his ministry; members of a society for the protection of animals expressed their ardent attachment for the French, and so did the Council of the City of Kazán.

The canon of the eparchy of Arras informed his Worship, the chief priest of the Russian court clergy, that he could affirm that deep in the hearts of all the French cardinals and archbishops there was imprinted a love for Russia and his Majesty Alexander III. and his most august family, and that the Russian and French clergy professed almost the selfsame religion and equally honoured the Virgin; to which his Worship, the chief priest, replied that the prayers of the French clergy for the most august family reëchoed joyfully in the hearts of the whole Russian Tsar-loving family, and that, since the Russian people also worshipped the Holy Virgin, it could count on France in life and in death. Almost the same information was vouchsafed by different generals, telegraph operators, and dealers in groceries. Everybody congratulated somebody on something and thanked somebody for something.

The excitement was so great that the most unusual acts were committed, but no one observed their unusual character, and all, on the contrary, approved of them, went into ecstasies over them, and, as though fearing lest they should be too late, hastened to commit similar acts, so as not to fall behind the rest. If protests were expressed in words and in writing and in printing against these mad acts, pointing out their irrationality, such protests were concealed or squelched.¹⁷

To say nothing of all the millions of work-days which were wasted on these festivities, of the wholesale drunkenness of all the participants, which was encouraged by all the powers, to say nothing of the insipidity of the speeches made, the maddest and most cruel things were done, and no one paid any attention to them.

Thus several dozens of men were crushed to death, and no one found it necessary to mention this fact. One correspondent wrote that a Frenchman told him at a ball that now there could hardly be found a woman in Paris who would not be false to her duties, in order to satisfy the wishes of some Russian sailor – and all this passed by unnoticed, as something that ought to be. There occurred cases of distinct madness. Thus one woman, dressing herself in a garment of the colours of the Franco-Russian flags, waited for the sailors and, exclaiming, "Vive la Russie!" jumped from the bridge into the river and was drowned.

Women in general played in these festivities a prominent part and even guided the men. Besides throwing flowers and all kinds of ribbons, and offering presents and addresses, French women made for the Russian sailors and kissed them; some of them for some reason brought their children to them, to be kissed by them, and when the Russian sailors complied with their wish, all persons present went into ecstasies and wept.

This strange excitement was so infectious that, as one correspondent tells, an apparently absolutely sound Russian sailor, after two days of contemplation of what took place around him, in the middle of the day jumped from the ship into the sea and, swimming, shouted, "Vive la France!" When he was taken aboard and asked why he had done so, he replied that he had made a vow that in honour of France he would swim around the ship.

Thus the undisturbed excitement grew and grew, like a ball of rolling wet snow, and finally reached such dimensions that not only the persons present, not only predisposed, weak-nerved, but even strong, normal men fell a prey to the general mood and became abnormally affected.

I remember how I, absent-mindedly reading one of these descriptions of the solemnity of the reception of the sailors, suddenly felt a feeling, akin to meekness of spirit, even a readiness for tears, communicated to me, so that I had to make an effort to overcome this feeling.

III

Lately Sikórski, a professor of psychiatry, described in the Kíev University Record the psychopathic epidemic, as he calls it, of the Malévannians, as manifested in a few villages of Vasilkóv County of the Government of Kíev. The essence of this epidemic, as Mr. Sikórski, the investigator of it, says, consisted in this, that certain persons of these villages, under the influence of their leader, by the name of Malévanny, came to imagine that the end of the world was at hand, and so, changing their whole mode of life, began to distribute their property, to dress up, and to eat savoury food, and stopped working. The professor found the condition of these men to be abnormal. He says: "Their unusual good nature frequently passed into exaltation, a joyous condition, which was devoid of external motives. They were sentimentally disposed: excessively polite, talkative, mobile, with tears of joy appearing easily and just as easily disappearing. They sold their necessaries, in order to provide themselves with umbrellas, silk kerchiefs, and similar objects, and at that the kerchiefs served them only as ornaments for their toilet. They ate many sweet things. They were always in a cheerful mood, and they led an idle life, – visited one another, walked together… When the obviously absurd character of their refusal to work was pointed out to them, one every time heard in reply the stereotyped phrase, 'If I want to, I shall work, and if I do not want to, why should I compel myself?'"

The learned professor considers the condition of these men a pronounced case of a psychopathic epidemic, and, advising the government to take certain measures against its spread, ends his communication with the words: "Malévannism is the wail of a morbidly sick population and a supplication to be freed from liquor and to have education and sanitary conditions improved."

But if Malévannism is the wail of a morbidly sick population and a supplication to be freed from liquor and from harmful social conditions, then this new disease, which has appeared in Paris and has with alarming rapidity embraced a great part of the city population of France and almost the whole of governmental and cultured Russia, is just such an alarming wail of a morbid population and just such a supplication to be freed from liquor and from false social conditions.

And if we must admit that the psychopathic suffering of Malévannism is dangerous, and that the government has done well to follow the professor's advice and remove the leaders of Malévannism by confining some of them in lunatic asylums and monasteries and by deporting others to distant places, how much more dangerous must be considered to be this new epidemic, which appeared in Toulon and Paris and from there spread over the whole of France and of Russia, and how much more necessary it is, if not for the government, at least for society, to take decisive measures against the spread of such epidemics!

The resemblance between the diseases is complete. There is the same good nature, passing into causeless and joyful exaltation, the same sentimentality, excessive politeness, talkativeness, the same constant tears of meekness of spirit, which come and go without cause, the same festive mood, the same walking for pleasure and visiting one another, the same dressing up in the best clothes, the same proneness for sweet food, the same senseless talks, the same idleness, the same singing and music, the same leadership of the women, and the same clownish phase of attitudes passionelles, which Mr. Sikórski has noticed in the case of the Malévannians; that is, as I understand this word, those different, unnatural poses, which men assume during solemn meetings, receptions, and after-dinner speeches.

The resemblance is complete. The only difference is this, – and the difference is very great for the society in which these phenomena are taking place, – that there it is the aberration of a few dozen peaceful, poor village people, who live on their small means and, therefore, cannot exert any violence on their neighbours, and who infect others only by the personal and oral transmission of their mood, while here it is the aberration of millions of people, who possess enormous sums of money and means for exerting violence against other people, – guns, bayonets, fortresses, ironclads, melinite, dynamite, and who, besides, have at their command the most energetic means for the dissemination of their madness, the post, the telegraph, an enormous number of newspapers, and all kinds of publications, which are printed without cessation and carry the infection to all the corners of the globe. There is also this difference, that the first not only do not get themselves drunk, but even do not use any intoxicating liquor, while the second are constantly in a state of semi-intoxication, which they never stop maintaining in themselves. And so for a society in which these phenomena are taking place, there is the same difference between the Kíev epidemic, during which, according to Mr. Sikórski's information, it does not appear that they commit any violence or murders, and the one which made its appearance in Paris, where in one procession twenty women were crushed to death, as there is between a piece of coal, which has leaped out of the stove and is glowing on the floor without igniting it, and a fire which is already enveloping the door and walls of the house. In the worst case the consequences of the Kíev epidemic will consist in this, that the peasants of one millionth part of Russia will spend what they have earned by hard labour, and will be unable to pay the Crown taxes; but the consequences from the Toulon-Paris epidemic, which is embracing men who are in possession of a terrible power, of vast sums of money, and of implements of violence and of the dissemination of their madness, can and must be terrible.