Hugh Seton-Watson - The Russian Empire 1801-1917 (Oxford History of Modern Europe)

IT is difficult to write the history of another country. The foreigner has not grown up in its physical and mental climate, and he cannot understand them, still less feel them, in the same way as its own people do. He can spend long periods in a foreign land, learn its language, work and live among its citizens, to some extent think as they do, and be accepted as a friend. This is not the same thing as being one of the people of the country, but still it is something. This I have done in several countries, but Russia is not one of them. I have visited Russia briefly, I have known its language for many years, and I have had pleasant contacts with individual Soviet citizens. I might perhaps, if I had been more persevering, have spent much longer periods in this way. However, the most that I could have achieved, and which some persons known to me have indeed achieved, is still far less than what above I have called living among a foreign nation and being accepted as a friend. It has not in fact been possible for many years for a foreigner to live like this in Russia unless he has been willing to turn his back on his own country. There are signs that it may become possible some years hence, that my children's generation may be able to live among Russians as my father's generation were able.

The foreigner is of course writing for his own people, or for peoples whose language is the same as his own. He has to stress at some length points which to a Russian are so obvious that they do not even deserve a mention. He has to put together, and try to make a coherent picture of, many details which are found scattered in many sources; to do this is indeed as important a duty, towards his audience, as that search for new facts in documents which has become the exclusive preoccupation of so many professional historians. British historians have already made substantial contributions to the historical literature on Russia. Besides Sumner and Pares are many lesser names. In recent decades American contributions have been still more impressive--both monographs and general surveys. Nevertheless, there is still room for works in English on nineteenth-century

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Russia. It is to the English-speaking public--and not to the expert on specific sectors of Russian history, not even to the specialist in Russian history, so much as to the reader interested in general history--that this work is offered, after much toil and with little satisfaction.

I do not expect that my work will in any way enlighten Russians. Certainly it will teach them no facts. It is just conceivable that the great distance from which I approach the subject may lend some detachment, or that some comparisons that I have made with other lands or periods may have some small marginal value. To any Russian who may read it, I can sincerely say that if I lack the warm feeling that comes from long experience and human contact, at least I do not lack respect for his great nation, or love for his splendid language, or gratitude for the joy which its literature, above all the great Pushkin, has given me.

The period covered begins with the accession of Alexander I and ends with the abdication of Nicolas II. The Revolution and all that followed will, it is hoped, form the subject for another volume in this series by another author. The centre of attention in this book may be described as political and social history--the history of institutions, classes, political movements and individuals. Other aspects are treated marginally.

Systematic description and analysis of foreign policy is the subject of separate volumes in this series. But I have not been able simply to leave out the foreign relations of the Russian Empire, least of all in the age of Alexander I and Napoleon, when internal and foreign policy, war and peace were inextricably connected. Within the general framework of foreign relations, I have perhaps given relatively more attention than is usual to Russian policy in Asia, including the conquest and consolidation of what may be called the colonial empire. Much less space has been given to foreign policy in the last decades, which is generally well known and has in any case been covered by the first volume published in this series. Military events are too lightly dealt with, but I have at least tried to give the reader the basic facts--where the campaigns were fought and with what result--which are so often omitted in modern general historical surveys.

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The technical aspects of economic history are absent, but there is a very broad overlapping zone between the political, social and economic, which concerns the development of agriculture and industry and the changing pattern of social classes. An economic historian would treat these subjects differently, but I do not think that I have ignored them.

History of literature is another distinct field. But in nineteenth-century Russia literature was so closely connected with political and social history that it often has to be mentioned. There are thus references to the works and lives not only of the most politically minded but also of the greatest creative writers. Arts and sciences are only mentioned in a few bare statements, designed to remind readers that at such and such a time Lobachevsky was developing his mathematics, Chaikovsky composing his symphonies, or Chagall learning to paint.