Copyright, 1899, 1904, 1906,

BY MARY PLATT PARMELE




PREFACE.

If this book seems to have departed from the proper ideal of historic
narrative--if it is the history of a _Power_, and not of a _People_--it
is because the Russian people have had no history yet. There has been
no evolution of a Russian nation, but only of a vast governing system;
and the words "Russian Empire" stand for a majestic world-power in
which the mass of its people have no part. A splendidly embroidered
robe of Europeanism is worn over a chaotic, undeveloped mass of
semi-barbarism. The reasons for this incongruity--the natural
obstacles with which Russia has had to contend; the strange ethnic
problems with which it has had to deal; its triumphant entry into the
family of great nations; and the circumstances leading to the
disastrous conflict recently concluded, and the changed conditions
resulting from it--such is the story this book has tried to tell.

M. P. P.