Abstract
If any single factor militated against late Victorian support for a Russian revolution, it was the entrenched belief that Russians were barbarians, incapable of governing themselves, a race of ‘besotted savages utterly unfit for civilisation'. Yet during the last years of the nineteenth century, England faced a challenge to her conception of the Russian race. Educated and cultured Russian exiles toured up and down the country lecturing on Russian themes; they also published propaganda aimed at winning English hearts over to the Russian revolution. This paper examines two emigre magazines – the pro-Nihilist Free Russia (1890–1914) and its ostensibly less radical rival, The Anglo-Russian (1897–1914). Specifically, it explores how they used fiction, commentaries on Russian literature, and descriptions of Russian literary culture to advertise the race's creative and spiritual potential and its readiness for self-government.
Highlights
If any single factor militated against late Victorian support for a Russian revolution, it was the entrenched belief that Russians were barbarians, incapable of governing themselves, a race of ‘besotted savages utterly unfit for civilisation’
Marquis de Custine’s famous travelogue, printed many times in England after 1843, described Russian culture as ‘masked barbarism, nothing more’.2. Another commentator pointed out that for two hundred years, Germanblooded Tsars had whipped the shuffling and reluctant Russians along the road to civilisation to no avail: ‘The Russian is captivated with the thought of ceasing to pretend to be civilised
His is the longing of the young Indian brave at the missionary-school ... to exchange the school-desk and books for forest glades and the chase.’[3]. The well-known journalist William Stead, played the ‘barbarian’ card to counter Russian reformers’ calls for a constitution and the democratic freedoms enjoyed by the west. ‘[Not] one man in a hundred can read’, Stead cautioned, ‘and not one man in a hundred would have the remotest idea what to do with his vote if he had one.’[4]
Summary
If any single factor militated against late Victorian support for a Russian revolution, it was the entrenched belief that Russians were barbarians, incapable of governing themselves, a race of ‘besotted savages utterly unfit for civilisation’.1 Marquis de Custine’s famous travelogue, printed many times in England after 1843, described Russian culture as ‘masked barbarism, nothing more’.2 Another commentator pointed out that for two hundred years, Germanblooded Tsars had whipped the shuffling and reluctant Russians along the road to civilisation to no avail: ‘The Russian is captivated with the thought of ceasing to pretend to be civilised.
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