GEOGBAPHY IN RUSSIAN HISTORY 21 



of course enormous. Unfortunately the state described by Turgeniev as 

 " remorseless laziness " is quite as prevalent with the monks as with 

 the peasants. 



One of the greatest things the clergy has done for the Eussian peo- 

 ple is the creation of a wonderful church music. The singing and 

 intoning is all by male voices and in some of the churches, as for ex- 

 ample, St. Isaacs at Petersburg, or the Synodal Church at Moscow, 

 surpasses in dignity and grandeur any church music in the world. 

 Nothing, it seems to me, can excel in exquisite beauty the singing of 

 the gosopodoy lui, the Eussian for " God have Mercy " from the moment 

 the first notes of the boy soprano reach you, through the manifold varia- 

 tions to the final appeal by the full chorus to which the deep rich 

 Eussian bass gives a power almost of command. Eussian music, 

 whether it be the fine liturgical music of the church, the rhythmic and 

 somewhat monotonous singing of the Volga boatmen, the boisterous 

 Troika song, or an ornate opera like Boris Godunov, is permeated 

 through and through with the spirit of the endless plain and a sense 

 of loneliness that rarely admits of majors. The somber hues of the 

 landscape, the atmosphere of the boundless solitudes, dominate; Eus- 

 sian popular music is all in the minor key. 



Whether it be the result of ignorance, isolation or climate, the 

 bane of the Eussian peasant is intemperance and the amount of vodka 

 he consumes is appalling. The manufacture and sale of the drink is a 

 government monopoly. There are two grades, the best containing about 

 40 per cent, alcohol. It is a white liquor with a cognac taste vitiated 

 however by an after taste of crude oil which the wealthy Eussian over- 

 comes by adding a little palatable sherry. To such an extent has the 

 drink habit grown that the government's revenue from this source 

 last year reached the enormous sum of 800,000,000 roubles or some- 

 what over $400,000,000. 



So threatening has the drink evil become that strenuous efforts 

 have been undertaken to check it. Since the beginning of the war the 

 Tsar has prohibited the manufacture and sale of vodka entirely. That 

 a deep-seated national custom will not be corrected by an edict is evi- 

 dent. Intelligent efforts are, however, being made to bring about the 

 emancipation of the people in this respect. Whatever the outcome of 

 these efforts, the drunkenness of the Eussian masses in the past has been 

 proverbial. With this has gone a brutalizing of human nature; men 

 still beat their wives and children apparently for no other reason than 

 to keep up the ancient tradition. 



But in this respect too conditions are changing. Indeed it is 

 becoming a commonplace that even the Great Eussian is far from 

 being quite so absolutely the master in his house as he used to be. In 

 place of the old folk-song by the young wife : " WTiat sort of husband are 



