Parmele, Mary Platt, 1843-1911 / 2008-06-26 00:00:00

EBOOK A SHORT HISTORY OF RUSSIA ***


Produced by Al Haines





[Frontispiece: Peter the Great.]



A SHORT HISTORY OF RUSSIA

BY
MARY PLATT PARMELE


ILLUSTRATED


NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1907


Copyright, 1899, 1904, 1906,
BY MARY PLATT PARMELE


PREFACE.
If this book seems to have departed from the proper ideal of historic
narrative--if it is the history of a _Power_, and not of a _People_--it
is because the Russian people have had no history yet. There has been
no evolution of a Russian nation, but only of a vast governing system;
and the words "Russian Empire" stand for a majestic world-power in
which the mass of its people have no part. A splendidly embroidered
robe of Europeanism is worn over a chaotic, undeveloped mass of
semi-barbarism. The reasons for this incongruity--the natural
obstacles with which Russia has had to contend; the strange ethnic
problems with which it has had to deal; its triumphant entry into the
family of great nations; and the circumstances leading to the
disastrous conflict recently concluded, and the changed conditions
resulting from it--such is the story this book has tried to tell.
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