literature, is incomparably superior to it in authority. Of other
works it is only possible to give a classified selection. In general,
the reader must be warned that most Russian works on history,
especially those dealing with recent years, are inspired by a violent
party bias—the inevitable result of the conflict of diametrically
opposed political ideals,—and this quality is shared by not a few
foreign books about Russia.
Sources.—See Sienkiewicz, Recueil de documents relatifs à la Russie, 1502–1842 (1852); Soloviev, Russian Historical Writers (Pisateli russkoe ist. in collected works, vol. xviii. sqq.); Nikolai Ivanovich Kostomarov (1817–1885), professor of history at Kiev and St Petersburg, whose monographs and researches are collected in his Sobranye sochinenye (collected) works, 21 vols., St Petersburg, 1903–6); V. Burtsev and S. M. Kravchinski, Za sto lyet, 1800–1896. Documents relating to the political and social movements in Russia (London, 1897). There is a French translation by L. Leger (Paris, 1884), of the chronicle of Nestor, the main source for early Russian history. The publications of the Imperial Russian Historical Society of St Petersburg, amounting to upwards of 100 vols., are of great value. For diplomatic history, see F. F. de Martens, Recueil des traités conclus par la Russie avec les puissances étrangères (St Petersburg, from 1878 still incomplete), which contains valuable historical introductions based on unpublished sources; A. N. Rambaud, Recueil des instructions aux ambassadeurs de France, vols. viii. and ix., Russie, 1657–1793 (Paris, 1890).
General Works.—In addition to those of Karamzin and Soloviev, already mentioned, see R. Nisbet Bain, The Pupils of Peter the Great . . . 1697–1740 (Westminster, 1897); The Daughter of Peter the Great . . . A History of Russian Diplomacy under the Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, 1741–1762 (1899); The First Romanovs, 1613–1725 (1905); K. N. Bestuzhev-Riumin, Russkaya istoriya (2 vols., St Petersburg, 1872), especially for internal history and social life; A. Brückner, Gesch. Russlands . . . bis zum Tode Peters des Grossen (Gotha, 1896); Gaston Créhange, Histoire de la Russie depuis la mort de Paul I. (Paris, 1882; 2nd ed. extended to 1894, ibid. 1896); T. von Bernhardi, Geschichte Russlands . . . 1814–1831 (3 vols., Leipzig, 1868–78); J. W. A. von Eckardt, Russland vor und nach dem Kriege (1879; Eng. trans. 1880); N. Flerovski, Three Political Systems: Nicholas I., Alexander II., Alexander III. (Russ., Geneva, 1897; Germ. transl., Berlin, 1898); V. Kluchevski, Kurs russkoe istoriy (1904–8); A. Kleinschmidt, Drei Jahrhunderte russischer Geschichte, 1598–1898 (Berlin, 1898); A. Krausse, Russia in Asia, 1558–1899 (1899); W. R. Morfill, Russia (Story of the Nations Series, New York, 1891), History of Russia (New York, 1902); H. H. Munro, Rise of the Russian Empire (Boston, 1900); F. Neuburger, Russland unter Kaiser Alexander III. (Berlin, 1895); W. R. S. Ralston, Early Russian History—1613 (1874); A. N. Rambaud, Histoire de la Russie (Paris, 1878; new ed. 1900; Eng. transl. of 1st ed. by L. B. Lang, 2 vols., 1879); Theodor Schiemann, Russland, Polen und Livland bis im xvii. Jahrhundert (2 vols., in Oncken’s Allgemeine Gesch., Berlin, 1886–87), Gesch. Russlands unter Kaiser Nikolaus I. (vol. i., “Kaiser Alexander I. und die Ergebnisse seiner Lebensarbeit,” Berlin, 1904, vol. ii. 1908), with appendices giving many unpublished documents; J. H. Schnitzler, Gesch. des Russischen Reichs (Leipzig, 1874); F. H. Skrine, The Expansion of Russia, 1815–1900 (Cambridge, 1903); V. L. P. Thomsen, The Relation between Ancient Russia and Scandinavia and the Origin of the Russian State (London, 1877); the series of works by K. Waliszewski under the general title of Les Origines de la Russie moderne: L’Héritage de Pierre le Grand, 1725–41 (Paris, 1900), La Dernière des Romanov (1902), La Crise révolutionnaire, 1584–1614 (1906), Le Berceau d’une dynastie. Les Premiers Romanov (1909). For the relations of Russia with the papacy, see T. Pierling, Russie et le Saint-Siège, 1417–1758 (4 vols., 1896–1907). The only history of Little Russia is that in Russian by D. N. Bantysh-Kamenski (Moscow, 1842). Of the numerous books on the Russian revolutionary movement, besides those of “Stepniak,” Kropotkin, and other revolutionary writers, the following may be mentioned: C. A. de Arnaud, The New Era in Russia (Washington, 1890); E. von der Brüggen, Das heutige Russland (Eng. trans. “Russia of To-day,” 1904); G. Drage, Russian Affairs (New York, 1904); P. N. Miliukov, La Crise russe (Paris, 1907; an earlier English edition appeared in 1905); Bernard Pares, Russia and Reform (1907); A. Thun, Geschichte der revolutionären Bewegungen in Russland (Leipzig, 1883); Konni Zilliacus, The Russian Revolutionary movement (London, 1905).
Economic Works.—Georges Alfassa, La Crise agraire en Russie (Paris, 1905); Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu, L’Empire des Tsars (3 vols., Paris, 1882–88; Eng. trans., 1896), an admirable account, partly historical, partly based on personal observation of the government, religion and the social and economic conditions of Russia; Combes de Lestrade, La Russie économique et sociale (Paris, 1896); “Nikolai” (pseudonym of Danielson), Histoire des développement économique de la Russie depuis l’abolition du servage (Paris, 1899).
Law and Constitution.—A. Chasles, Le Parlement russe (Paris, 1910); H. D. Edwards, Das Staatsrecht Russlands (vol. iv., of Marquardsen’s Handbuch des öffentlichen Rechts, Freiburg, 1888); S. N. Harper, The New Electoral Law for the Russian Duma (Chicago, 1908); J. Kapnist, Code d’organisation judiciaire russe (Paris, 1893); V. Kluchovski, Boyarskaya Duma (1882), an account of the boyars' duma from the 10th to the 17th century; Maksim M, Kovalevsky, Modern Customs and Ancient Laws of Russia (London, 1891); Max von Öttingen, Abriss des russischen Staatsrechts (1899); F. de Rocca, Les Assemblés dans la Russie ancienne; Zemskié Sobors (1899); L. Z. Slonimsky, Polit. entsiklopyediya (t. 1, 1907), compiled from the Liberal standpoint.
There is a fuller bibliography of Russian history in vol. xvii. of the Historians' History of the World (“Times” ed., 1907), which also includes considerable extracts from Russian works not elsewhere translated. Many additional works will be found s.v. “Russia” in the Subject Index of the London Library (1909). (W. A. P.)
RUSSIAN LANGUAGE. For the characteristics which this
special branch of the Slavonic family shares with the rest, for
a table showing the Russian alphabet and the transliterations
of it used in this and in other (non-linguistic) articles of the
Encyclopaedia, and for the points which distinguish Russian
alike from the Southern (Balkan) and from the North-Western
(Polish, Čech, &c.) branches of Slavonic, see Slavs. These
latter points, fully treated under corresponding sections of the
article Slavs, are here summarized:—
I. Proto-Slavonic (Proto-Sl.) half vowels ŭ and ĭ have disappeared as such: ŭ (ъ), though still written at the ends of words, is mute; it serves but to show that the foregoing consonant is “hard.” See V. below for “hard” and “soft” (denoted by ′) consonants, not the “hard” = surd, tenuis, “soft” = sonant, media of Eng. usage. Where a vowel was indispensable to help out a group of consonants, ŭ has been replaced by o or e, but these vowels sometimes appear without such justification (e.g. ogonĭ, Lat. ignis); ĭ when so needed becomes e, otherwise it disappears or else leaves a trace in the “softness” of the preceding consonant, in which case it is still written: Old Slavonic (O.S.), sŭnŭ, “sleep”; dĭnĭ, “day”; R. sonŭ (ŭ mute), denĭ(d′en′).
II. Proto-Sl. y survives in R. and Polish. The sound is a “high-mixed-narrow i,” pronounced with the lips as for i and the tongue as for u, not unlike Eng. y in “rhythm.” After labials there is a distinct w sound before the vowel. After gutturals it has become i.
III. Treatment of Liquids: retention of r′ instead of the ř of N.W. Slav.; retention as in Polish of hard l (between l and w, not unlike Eng. l in “milk,” “people”); helping out of sonant r and l by a vowel put in before the r or l; especially the so-called full vocalism by which, e.g. Proto-Sl. [1]gordŭ, “town,” became R. gorodŭ, O.S. gradŭ, Polish, gród; Proto-Sl. [1]melko, “milk,” R. moloko, O.S. mlĕko, Polish, mleko.
IV. Proto-Sl. nasals: ą. (Fr. on), became R. u; ę (Fr. in), R. ′a, ja: O.S. pątĭ, “way”; pętĭ, “five,” R. putĭ, p′atĭ.
V. Softening (Palatalization, &c): Proto-Sl. tj, dj gave R. č, ž, Proto-Sl. [1]svĕtja, “candle”; [1]medja, “boundary”; R. svěča, m′eža. Proto-Sl. pj, bj, vj, mj gave R. and S. Slav. pl, bl, vl, ml, e.g. R. z′ eml′a; Polish, ziemia, “land.” Before Proto-Sl. soft vowels e, ě, ę, i, ĭ consonants were affected, the tongue being raised in anticipation of the narrow vowel, and so not making so clean a contact with the palate. Then what amounted to a new j developed in R., as ĭ became practically j; e and ě (orig. ē) came to sound as je, ę as ja at the beginning of a syllable, and all together with i began very much to soften the preceding consonant in literary R.; however, this new j never broke down the consonant into a palatalized sibilant or affricate, though it had this effect in White Russian (Wh. R.) and Polish.
The result is that almost every consonant in Russian can be pronounced “hard” or, “soft,” a distinction which is very difficult for a foreigner to make, as his tendency is to overdo the softness and pronounce a full j after the consonant instead of the palatal element melting into it. This is encouraged by the alphabetic system by which the letters е (ъ̌), ю, я, stand for je, ju, ja at the beginning of a syllable, but after a consonant merely indicate that the consonant is soft, the vowel being the same as in з, у, а (e, u, a), e.g. т я stands for t′-a rather than for t-ja. A soft consonant in its turn narrows the vowel before it, e.g. the vowel in jelĭ, “fir,” is like a in “Yale”; that in jělŭ,
