Russian army during the Napoleonic and Turkish wars of the early 19th century, and was drowned in the river Rimnik in 1811. His grandson Alexander Arkadievich (1804-1882) was also a Russian general.
Among the Russians the memory of Suvárov is cherished to this day. A great captain, viewed from the standpoint of any age of military history, he is specially the great captain of the Russian nation, for the character of his leadership responded to the character of the Russian soldier. In an age when war had become an act of diplomacy he restored its true significance as an act of force. He was reckless of human life, bent only on the achievement of the object in hand, and he spared his own soldiers as little as he showed mercy to the population of a fallen city. He was a man of great simplicity of manners, and while on a campaign lived as a private soldier, sleeping on straw and contenting himself with the humblest fare. But he had himself passed through all the gradations of military service; moreover, his education had been of the rudest kind. His gibes procured him many enemies. He had all the contempt of a man of ability and action for ignorant favourites and ornamental carpet-knights. But his drolleries served, sometimes to hide, more often to express, a soldierly genius, the effect of which the Russian army has not outgrown. If the tactics of the Russians in the war of 1904-05 reflected too literally some of the maxims of Suvárov's Turkish wars, the spirit of self-sacrifice, resolution and indifference to losses there shown was a precious legacy from those wars. Dragomirov (q.v.) avowed that his teaching was based on Suvárov's practice, which he held to be representative of the fundamental truths of war and of the military qualities of the Russian nation.
See Anthing, Versuch einer Kriegsgeschichte des Grafen Suworow (Gotha, 1796-1799); F. von Smitt, Suworows Leben und Heerzüge (Vilna, 1833-1834) and Suworow und Polens Untergang (Leipzig, 1858); Von Reding-Biberegg, Der Zug Suworows durch die Schweiz (Zürich, 1896); Lieut.-Colonel Spalding, Suvórof (London, 1890); G. von Fuchs, Suworows Korrespondenz, 1799 (Glogau, 1835); Souvorov en Italie, by Gachot, Masséna's biographer (Paris, 1903); and the standard Russian biographies of Polevoi (1853; Ger. trans., Mitau, 1853); Rybkin (Moscow, 1874) and Vasiliev (Vilna, 1899).
SUWALKI, a government of Russian Poland, of which it occupies the N.E. corner, extending to the N. between East Prussia and the Russian governments of Vilna and Grodno, with the government of Kovno on the N. Its area is 4846 sq. m. It includes the east of the low Baltic swelling (800 to 1000 ft. above the sea) and is studded with lakes. Its northern slopes descend to the valley of the Niemen, while in the south it falls away gently to the marshy tract of the Biebrz. The rivers flow there in deep-cut gorges and hollows, diversifying the surface. The Niemen forms its eastern and northern boundary and has many affluents from both slopes of the swelling. The Augustowo canal connects the navigable Hancza, a tributary of the Niemen, with a tributary of the Biebrz, which belongs to the basin of the Vistula, and an active traffic is carried on by this canal. Forests cover about one-fourth of the area. Tertiary and cretaceous strata occupy large areas, and the entire surface is covered with Post-Tertiary deposits. The bottom moraine of the great ice-sheet of north Germany, containing scratched boulders and furrowed by depressions having a direction N.N.E. and S.S.W., extended over immense tracts of the ridge of the lake-districts and its slopes, while limited spaces are covered with well-washed glacial sands and gravel. On the northern slopes of the coast-ridge, the boulder-clay being covered with lacustrine deposits, there are in many places areas of fertile soil; and in the southern parts of the province the boulder-clay is stony, and sometimes covered with gravel. Still, nearly nine-tenths of the surface are suitable for cultivation.
The population in 1906 was estimated at 633,900. The majority (52.2%) are Lithuanians, mostly in the north; there are 21.5% Poles (and Mazurs), chiefly in the towns; 16.7% Jews; 5.3% Germans and 4.2% Russians. The chief towns of the seven districts into which the government is divided are Suwalki, Augustowo, Kalwarya, Mariampol, Seiny, Wilkowiszki (or Volkovyshki) and Wladislawow. The principal crops are rye, wheat, oats, barley and potatoes, which are largely exported to Prussia for use in the distilleries. Bee-keeping is widely spread, and about 40,000 ℔ of honey are obtained every year. The weaving of linen, woollen cloth and fishing-nets is extensively carried on in the villages as a domestic industry, and in small factories. A large number of the inhabitants are compelled to seek work in winter in other parts of the empire. The felling of timber, which is floated down the Niemen, gives occupation to many.
SUWALKI, a town of Russian Poland, capital of the government of the same name, situated at the source of the Hancza, a tributary of the Niemen, 65 m. by rail N.W. of Grodno. Pop. 27,165. In the 15th century it was a small village amid forests, peopled by Lithuanians. Its trade is chiefly in timber, grain, woollen cloth and other manufactured goods.
SUYŪṬĪ [Abū-l Fadhl‘Abd ur-Rahmān ibn Abī Bakr Jalāl ud-Dīn us-Suyūṭī] (1445-1505), Arabian encyclopaedic writer, was the son of a Turkish slave woman. His father, who was of Persian descent, had been cadi in Suyūṭ (Upper Egypt) and professor in Cairo, but died before his son was six years old. The boy's training was taken in hand by a Sufi friend of the father. He was precocious and is said to have known the Koran by heart before he was eight years old. In 1462 he was already a teacher; in 1464 he made the pilgrimage to Mecca; in 1472 he became a professor, and in 1486 was promoted to a chair in the mosque of Bibars. Here, however, he provoked a revolt among the students and in 1501 was discharged for maladministration of trust funds. Two years later he was offered the same post again, but declined, and worked in seclusion at Rauḍa, an island of the Nile, and there died in 1505. He was one of the most prolific writers of the East, though many of his works are only pamphlets and some are mere abridgments of the work of others.
We know of 561 separate titles of his works, and over 316 exist in manuscript. A list of these is given in C. Brockelmann's Gesch. der Arabischen Litteratur, ii. 144-158 (Berlin, 1902). They deal with almost every branch of Moslem science and literature. Among the best known are the Itqān fi ‘Ulūm ul-Qurān (on the exegetic sciences of the Koran), published with an analysis by A. Sprenger (Calcutta, 1852-1854) and often in Cairo; the commentary on the Koran, known as the Tafsīr ul-Jalalain, begun by Jalāl ud-Dīn ul-Maḥalli (1389-1459) and finished by Suyūṭī, published often in the East; and the history of the caliphs, published at Calcutta (1858) and elsewhere.
(G. W. T.)
SUZERAINTY. “Suzerain,” a term of feudal law, is now used to describe persons or states in positions of superiority to others. Definitions. Its etymology, according to Professor W. W. Skeat (Etymological Dictionary), is as follows: “A coined word; made from French sus, Latin susum or sursum, above, in the same way as sovereign is made from Latin super; it corresponds to a Low Latin type suseranus.” Another form of the word is souseran (F. Godefroy, De l’Ancienne langue française). Suzerain has been defined as “Qui possède un fief dont d'autres fiefs relèvent” (Littrê and Dictionnaire de l'académie française). C. Loyseau, in his Traité des seigneuries (3rd ed., 1610, p. 14), explains that there are two kinds of public seigneuries, that is, sovereign seigneurs, possessing summum imperium, and suzerains, “Les suzeraines sont celles qui ont puissance supérieure mais non suprème.” Elsewhere he says that suzerainty is a form of public seigneuries which has been “usurpée par les particuliers pour laquelle exprimer il nous a fallu forger un mot exprés, et l'appeller suzeraineté, mot qui est aussi étrange comme celle espèce de seigneuries est absurde” (p. 11). Loyseau adds, “Seigneurie suzeraine est dignité d'un fief ayant justice” (p. 38). Bousquet (Nouveau dictionnaire de droit) defines suzerain as “supérieur, celui dont un fief relevait”; Rogulau (Glossaire dti droit français), “supérieur en quelque charge ou dignité autre que le roy.” The name does not occur in the Consuetudines feudorum, or in Hotoman's De verbis feudalibus commentarius. It was rare in feudal times in England. But it was used in France to describe a feudal lord, the supreme suzerain being the king. Merlin, under suzeraineté, shows that the word was not used by all feudal writers in the same sense. (See also Chas. Butler's note to Coke on Litt. 191 a.)
In modern times the term has come to be used as descriptive of relations, ill-defined and vague, which exist between powerful Modern Usage. and dependent states; its very indefiniteness being its recommendation. According to feudal law the vassal owed certain duties to the lord; he promised fidelity and service; and the lord was bound to perform reciprocal duties, not very
