The power of the tsars kept pace with the
expansion of the state.
[Sidenote: Oriental Characteristics of Russia]
Yet this greater Russia remained essentially Oriental. Its form of
Christianity was derived from the East rather than from the West. Its
social customs savored more of Asia than of Europe. Its nobles and even
its tsars were rated by western Christendom as little better than
barbarians. In fact, the Russian state was looked upon in the
seventeenth century in much the same way as China was regarded in the
nineteenth century.
The reasons for this relative backwardness are not hard to ascertain.
In the first place, the religion of the state was a direct heritage of
the expiring Eastern Empire and was different from either the
Catholicism or the Protestantism of western Europe. Secondly, long and
close contact with the conquering Mongols or Tatars of Asia had
saturated the Russian people with Oriental customs and
habits.[Footnote: See above, pp. 21 f.] Thirdly, the nature of the
country tended to exalt agriculture and to discourage industry and
foreign commerce, and at the same time to turn emigration and expansion
eastward rather than westward.
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