RUSSIA. 



711 



of the Orthodox rite was consecrated at Riga 

 in the autumn. The Lettes and Esthonians 

 continue to join the Russian Church in large 

 numbers, and earnest efforts are made to con- 

 vert the German Lutherans. 



The relations with the Vatican greatly im- 

 proved during the pontificate of Leo XIII. 

 Since the arrangement of a modus vivendi in 

 1883, the Polish bishops have displayed a 

 more conciliatory and loyal disposition. The 

 renewed persecution of the Uniate Catholics 

 again disturbed the relations with the Curia. 

 A deputation of Polish Catholics laid before 

 the Pope a petition with 9,500 signatures on 

 behalf of the Uniates. Pope Leo promised to 

 forward the petition to the Czar, and to inter- 

 cede for the oppressed Catholics. The Russian 

 envoy had been recalled from Rome, and all 

 negotiations broken off several months before, 

 on account of the attitude of the Vatican in 

 this matter. This interruption of friendly re- 

 lations caused the Russian Government to leave 

 in force the regulations relating to the acquire- 

 ment of lands by Russians in the old Polish 

 provinces, which have been one of the main 

 Polish grievances since the rebellion. 



Nihilists. The revolutionists were generally 

 quiet in 1884. Arrests took place more fre- 

 quently than before, and a great number of 

 persons of respectable position, many of them 

 of official rank, were imprisoned. About sev- 

 enty-five officers of the army were arrested at 

 one time for holding socialist opinions. The 

 Government decided, in consequence, to create 

 a military commission, under the presidency 

 of the Grand Duke Nicholas, charged with 

 preventing the propagation of socialism in the 

 army. The suggestions of the Grand Duke 

 were of so rigorous a nature that they failed 

 to obtain the approval of the chief of police. 

 In Odessa a series of political assassinations 

 occurred, beginning with that of Colonel Striel- 

 nikoff. On June 22 Captain Gezhdy was mur- 

 dered by his man-servant and a woman. On 

 August 19 Mary Kaloojny, the daughter of a 

 merchant, a young woman of nineteen, who 

 had joined the Terrorists after the deportation 

 of her brother in 1879 and had been a com- 

 panion of Dagaieff, attempted to shoot Captain 

 Katansky, of the Odessa police. After her re- 

 lease from a ten months' imprisonment she 

 earned a miserable living by teaching, until the 

 tormenting supervision of the police goaded 

 her to the desperate act. In October, the trial 

 of fourteen Nihilists took place in St. Peters- 

 burg in secret, before a tribunal composed ot 

 army officers. The principal culprit was Colo- 

 nel Aschenbrenner, commander of a regiment 

 in the south of Russia, who was one of the 

 chief propagandists in the army, and was a 

 kind of inspector for the party. Another was 

 the beautiful and talented Vera Figner, who 

 has been a leading spirit in nearly every plot 

 since 1878. In the Caucasus and elsewhere 

 she has been exceedingly active and successful 

 in spreading Nihilism among the troops. Two 



other women, two sons of priests, two sons of 

 merchants, a nobleman, and five other officers 

 were the other persons tried. The officers 

 were a staff captain of artillery, two naval 

 lieutenants, and two lieutenants of the army. 

 The women Figner and Wolkenstein, and the 

 six officers were condemned to death, and the 

 others to hard labor in Siberia. Their crimes 

 date back to the beginning of terrorism in 1875 

 and 1876. Figner took part in the first serious 

 demonstration before the Kazan cathedral. 

 After the murder of the Czar she offered shel- 

 ter to Soukhanoff and Perovsky. The two 

 naval lieutenants were friends of Soukhanoff. 

 Colonel Aschenbrenner started a military cir- 

 cle at Nikolaiev in 1882. The other officers 

 organized military and naval revolutionary cir- 

 cles in St. Petersburg, Cronstadt, and Helsing- 

 fors. The capital sentence was executed only 

 on the naval lieutenant, Baron Stromberg, and 

 the artillery lieutenant, Rogatcheff. The sen- 

 tences of Vera Figner, and of Aschenbrenner, 

 Captain Poknitonoff, and Lieutenant Tikhono- 

 vich, were commuted to hard labor for life in 

 Siberia; and those of Wolkenstein and the 

 other officer to hard labor for fifteen years. 

 Mary Kaloojny was tried at Odessa, in Sep- 

 tember, for her attempt on the life of the chief 

 of the Odessa gendarmes, and was sentenced 

 to twenty years' incarceration in the Castle of 

 Schlusselburg, in the dungeons of which polit- 

 ical prisoners are now usually confined. In 

 the early summer a rigorous search was insti- 

 tuted in Warsaw, Lodz, and other manufactur- 

 ing towns of Poland, which resulted in the 

 arrest of a large number of workmen. In 

 September, in consequence of the disturbance 

 at the University of Kiev, there were one hun- 

 dred and sixty-eight students arrested on the 

 charge of being connected with the Nihilists. 

 The university was closed until January, 1885, 

 and no student was permitted to enter any 

 other university. In Warsaw twenty stu- 

 dents, most of them sons of government offi- 

 cials, and a number of girls of good families, 

 were arrested as Nihilists the same month. In 

 St. Petersburg, bombs and documents describ- 

 ing an intended plot were discovered in a 

 lodging-house and the inmates apprehended. 

 Lapatin, one of the leaders of the party, was 

 captured on the Newski Prospect, charged 

 with complicity in the murder of General 

 Mesenzeff. A great number of arrests that 

 never transpired were made during the year 

 in all parts of the empire, and many prisoners 

 were dealt with by secret trial, or by adminis- 

 trative order, without publicity. On Decem- 

 ber 12 a batch of fifty recently arrested Nihil- 

 ists were sent to the Schlusselburg fortress. 



Anti-Jewish Excesses. At Nijni- Novgorod, 

 just before the opening of the fair in June, 

 from 2,000 to 3,000 laborers attacked the Jews 

 in the suburb of Kunarvin, killing nine and 

 wounding twelve. Six houses were razed to 

 the ground and all the others were pillaged, 

 and all the Jewish property in the village de- 



