owe to them the fact that the highly qualified scholars of Russia may now be numbered, not by tens, but by hundreds and perhaps by thousands.

A very prominent part in the development of Russian learning has been taken by private learned societies and by certain official State organisations having some learned purpose in view. The great work lately done for the study of the geography and ethnography of Russia was done almost entirely by the Russian Geographical Society. Most of our knowledge of the Archæology of Russia is due to the great Archæological Societies in Petrograd, Moscow and Odessa, to the State Archæological Commission, and to the periodical Archæological Congresses. The study of the geology of Russia has lately been concentrated in the hands of the State Geological Committee. The work of collecting, classifying and studying the extensive records of Russian History is chiefly done by the States Archæographic Commission and by many private societies, both in Moscow and Petrograd. The private societies of Kieff, Odessa and other towns and many provincial Record Commissions, as well as the archives of certain State Institutions, have taken an important part in this work.

These facts, scanty as they are, suffice to show how the interest in learning and learned work has spread over the whole of Russia during the last few decades, and also how great has been the increase of persons gradually drawn into the vortex of scholarly achievement. An attempt made by the Academy to enumerate the learned forces of Russia gave quite unexpected results. The Russian Minerva,' an annual publication, now to be printed by the Academy, will form an imposing volume of many hundreds of pages.

In addition to these Institutes, I must also mention the Russian Museums. The Hermitage at Petrograd is known to all, by name at any rate. Every one has heard of the great historic and artistic treasures contained in that Museum. Its creation was a great scientific achievement, which we owe to the Emperor Nicholas I. The Hermitage was and is an important centre of learning; its publications have earned for it an honoured name in the scientific world. Nor does this museum stand alone in Russia. In Petrograd itself we have two splendid

Ethnographical Museums, one of which is combined with a Museum of Russian art. In Moscow there is a beautiful Historical Museum and one of the best museums of casts as yet in existence. In Odessa there is a rich Archæological Museum. The number of museums, that is to say of centres of learned life in Russia, grows from year to year. Every provincial town in Russia now possesses a complete museum, or at any rate the nucleus of one, containing good scientific or artistic collections.

Finally, Russia is rich in splendid libraries. The Public Library of Petrograd, the Rumiantzeff Library and the Library of the Historical Museum in Moscow, the Library of the Holy Synod, also in Moscow, many monastic libraries scattered all over Russia, the libraries of the Universities and other centres of higher education, are second to none of the libraries of Western Europe.

Such is Russian learning viewed from the outside. I now pass on to enquire what is the nature of the work done in these many learned institutions. Thanks to their age-long labours, we now know Russia. It would be possible for foreigners also to know Russia if they were willing to become acquainted with the language and to study Russian scientific literature. It is not our fault that they have not done so up to the present time. Of course the enormous task of investigating Russia is far from being concluded, but we must remember what the Russian Empire is, and how difficult are the problems which it presents to investigators. Part of its territory borders on the Carpathians and the Baltic Sea; the other reaches the Himalayas and the Pacific Ocean. One part surrounds a portion of the Black Sea, and another borders on the Arctic Ocean. It is a land in which high mountains alternate with rich plains, vast forests, uncultivated steppes, northern tundras and southern deserts; a land in which there exist side by side hundreds of nations and peoples of Finnish, Mongolian, Caucasian and Indo-European extraction. Such a land presents in itself a very difficult and very important scientific problem, the complexity of which can only be understood by persons who have worked at its elucidation. Much has, however, been done to solve this problem. Let me adduce a few examples.

The geographical survey of the country, of its mountains and waterways, is carried out year by year systematically and without respite. Frequent corrections are made in the map, and new maps are brought out yearly. Side by side with this geographical work, we have a study of the country from the point of view of ethnography in connexion with the scientific study of the dialects and phonetics of the Great Russian language and of other Indo-European, Finnish, Turkish and Caucasian languages. The work done in this domain is very important. Russian scholarship has produced many standard works on the history of the Russian language, for example the works of Sobolevsky, Shakhmatoff and others, and also of some monumental works on dialectology. A big volume has been devoted by the Academy to the enumeration of the many different publications on this subject; and this volume is only the first of a projected series, which when finished would give a complete idea of the stupendous development of linguistic studies in Russia in the domain of the Slavonic languages.*

In order to give some idea of the type of men working in Russia on this subject I will cite the words of one of the best specialists on the history of the Russian language, Olaf Broch, a Professor in Christiania. In a letter addressed to myself he gives the following description of the work of Alexis Shakhmatoff, Professor and Fellow of the Russian Academy:

'The solution of such complicated and refined questions as the Slavonic accent (accent tonique) in its primitive features and historical development, the explanation of such important historical facts as the movement of the population on the enormous plains of Eastern Europe in ancient times, the enquiry into the foundation and development of the primitive historical literature of ancient Russia, the study and classification of the linguistic life of contemporary Russia, of her dialects and phraseology-in which some use is made, for purposes of comparison, of non-Slavonic, IndoEuropean languages-the enquiry into the question of the origin and growth of the different features of Russian literary language, the investigation both of the Russian and of

* See vol. 1 of the Encyclopædia of Slavonic Philology published by the Academy, St Petersburg, 1910.

other Slavonic languages from the phonetic, morphologic and syntactic point of view, essays and publications about the evolution of Russian thought and Russian literature-all this and much more has found in Shakhmatoff an indefatigable, first-class investigator. . . . His energy is invincible. Even now, under the most tragic conditions, he pursues his work, though weakened by physical inanition and broken in spirit by the sad occurrences in his country, but proudly conscious of his duty towards his beloved work and towards the eternal values of humanity as a whole.'

A very high standard is reached in Russia in the systematic study of Oriental and Caucasian languages. Two of the Russian Universities, Petrograd and Kazan, have special Oriental Faculties, which can boast of many students and an ever-increasing number of 'chairs.' In Moscow and Vladivostock there are special institutes for the promotion of Oriental Studies. Lately the energy of Prof. Nicholas Marr, a member of the Academy, created a Caucasian Historic and Archæological Institute. We can say with certainty that, in the matter of studying the East, Russia takes one of the first places, and in some domains she plays even a leading and determinative part. A splendid page in the history of Oriental learning is represented by the study of Siberia. The work begun in the 18th century and carried on in our own time by Potanin, Miklucha-Maklai, Radloff, Przevalskij and others, gave us for the first time an idea of the amazing riches and variety of the archæological and ethnological treasures of Siberia. At the same time the work of Zoologists, Paleontologists, Geologists, Botanists and Mineralogists has made us acquainted with its natural conditions and its inexhaustible riches. One of the results of this great work is that lately the Academy of Science and the Geographical Society have been able to put in hand an ethnographical map of Russia. The Bolshevist revolution has, however, arrested the progress of this undertaking.

Let me now speak a little more in detail about those aspects of the study of Russia with which I am most familiar; I refer to the study of the prehistoric, protohistoric and historic past of Russia. The historical evolution of that country is exceedingly complicated

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and difficult to analyse. The study of Russian history is closely connected with that of the development of the national psychology. It presents problems more difficult and more complicated than any to be found in the history of the Western European peoples. First of all you must take into consideration that the Slavs, as a nation, have well-defined peculiarities and are quite different from the other branches of the Indo-European family. Besides this, you must always remember that the evolution of the Russian part of the Slavonic people is closely connected with the cultural development of the lands in which the Slavs settled and remained, both in the pre-Slavonic and in the Slavonic period of their history. Russia was always a bridge between the great Oriental or Eastern and the great Western civilisations. She was imbued with both influences, absorbed them both, and, thanks to the creative genius of her inhabitants, transformed these elements into a new, original and quite independent form of culture. At the same time the Eastern and Western centres of culture bordering on Russia were the cradles of powerful and warlike States for which Russia was ever an attractive prey, owing to the fact that she was not separated from them by any natural barriers. The defence of her own independence, on this account a very difficult task, was further complicated by the mixture of races in a land which was geographically and economically predestined to form one State.

The economic life of Russia is also very complicated. Russia tends on the one side towards the Baltic, on another towards the White Sea, and on a third towards the Euxine. Great commercial highways, whether by land or water, radiate through the country in all directions. At the same time it is important to point out that Russia forms one whole with the very peculiar world of Northern and Central Asia. These facts add to the complexity of the tasks before the historian and archæologist of Russia. The archæological materials are enormous and remarkably divergent in character. Their ordering can only be achieved by scholars who are entirely familiar with the archæology of the West as well as with that of the East, and especially with the archæology of Central and Farther Asia, a country still very little explored. Not less rich and various are the Vol. 233.-No. 463.

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