United States or Pitcairn Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
In 1479, Viatka, a colony of Novgorod, was reduced to like slavery. The end had come. Republicanism in Russia was extinguished, and gradually the republican population was removed to the soil of Moscow and replaced by Muscovites, born to the yoke. The liberties of Novgorod were gone. It had been robbed of its wealth. Its commerce remained, which in time would have restored its prosperity.
The sword of the Tartar cast into the scales overweighted the balance. It gave Moscow the supremacy, and liberty fell. Ivan the Great, in his determined effort to subject all Russia to his autocratic sway, saw before him three republican communities, the free cities of Novgorod, Viatka, and Pskof, and took steps to sweep these last remnants of ancient freedom from his path.
In Smolensk, for example, it was only about thirty per cent., whilst in Samara it was 436, and in Viatka, where the peasant element predominates, no less than 1,262 per cent.! In order to meet this increase, the rates on land rose from under ten millions in 1868 to over forty-seven millions in 1900.
The Great Russians, or Russians properly so called, especially occupying the Governments round about Moscow, and from thence scattered in the north to Novgorod and Vologda, on the south to Kiev and to Voronezh, on the east to Penza, Simbirsk, and Viatka, and on the west to the Baltic provinces.
The "great god" was seized and carried off, and forced to submit, subsequently, to all kinds of humiliations. On the outskirts of Jaransk, in the Viatka district, a race called the Tcheremis has dwelt from time immemorial.
When questioned by the judge, the accused complained that the orthodox clergy expected too many sacrifices from them, and charged them heavily for marriages and burials, this being their reason for returning to "the more merciful religion of their forefathers." According to the Journal of the Religious Consistory of the Province of Viatka, the Tcheremis were guilty of many other crimes.
I thought of a student of Kazan whom I had known in the days of the past, of a young fellow from Viatka who, pale-browed, and sententious of diction, might almost have been brother to the ex-soldier himself. And once again I heard him declare that "before all things must I learn whether or not there exists a God; pre-eminently must I make a beginning there."
So I called Isaac out; an' the stranger grips 'en by the hand an' kisses 'en, sayin', 'Little father, take me to their graves. My name is Feodor Himkoff, an' my brother Dmitry was among the crew of the Viatka. You would know his body, if you buried it, for the second finger was gone from his right hand.
The police searched the forest, and found several other women in a similar condition. Inquiry revealed that they had left their homes in the neighbourhood of Viatka in order to expiate the sins of their fellows. For nourishment they depended on herbs and strawberries, and prayer was their sole occupation. Their unquenchable desire was to be allowed to die "for the greater glory of Jesus Christ."
His comrade, Herbert Schroeder, of "B" Company, who was captured on the 21st of September, has never been found. His comrades still hope that he was the American printer whom the Reds declared was printing their propaganda in English for them at Viatka. Comrade George Albers, "I" Company, in November, 1918, was on a lone observation post at the railroad front.
Word Of The Day