Ivan the Terrible (Classic Reprint) - Softcover

Waliszewski, Kazimierz

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1440086346 ISBN 13: 9781440086342

Verlag: Forgotten Books, 2012

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Reseña del editor:

Excerpt from Ivan the Terrible

From the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, then, Russia dwelt apart, or almost apart, from the European community and from civilization. But she had made a previous effort to enter both, and the work to which Voltaire lent his aid and gave his praise was begun when Charles IX. And Henri III. Reigned over France. At that moment Muscovy, huge and barbarous, set forth to enter into contact with her Western neighbours. She found the road barred. Poland, with Sweden, threw herself athwart it, and the removal of the obstacle was the work of more than a hundred years. But, if it had not been for Batory, the hands of the clock which marks the hours of all great historical evolutions might have whirled round the dial a century before. Externally, the acquisition of the Baltic seaboard, the destruction of the last vestiges of the Tartar power, the conquest of Siberia, the opening up of political and commercial relations with all the European countries; inter nally, the introduction of the elements of foreign culture, the' reorganization of the State on the very basis we see at the present day all this, accomplished by Peter and Catherine, was undertaken, outlined, even partly realized, in the course of that first morning on which an all too Speedy evening fell.

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Reseña del editor:

Peter the Great and Catherine the Great show us modern Russia, armed already, cap-a-pie, for all the conquests, moral or material, gained then or since. But this work, as all men know, possessed certain antecedents, and Peter gave himself out to be a follower of whom? His immediate predecessors we know the earliest Romanoffs, obscure sovereigns of anE mpire cut off from allE uropean contact, closed to all external influence, and incapable of evolving even a rudimentary civilization from its own elements. Going back further, to the closing years of the sixteenth century, we see the sinoutnoie vrenica (the troublous times )that is to say, disorder, anarchy, barbarism, darkness. Yet, looking closely, the sudden brightness of the eighteenth century was no dawn. For a rising sun the light was all too brilliant. Peter the Great was not mistaken. The darkness out of which his vivid genius flashed was only an eclipse. The internal and external development of the great Northern Empire seems to partake of the nature of the avalanche. At widely-parted intervals we have a sudden displacement of the centre of gravity, resulting in a swift movement forward, followed by a more or less lengthy period of immobility. This phenomenon has occurred several times already, and appearances are all in favour of its reproduction. The reason and the explanation are both very simple. The nation, in the performance of the mighty task laid upon it, was bound to meet with formidable obstacles, and consequently to make successive efforts. At this moment, and for the past twenty years, its progress has been apparently suspended internally, and checked on the lines it had previously pursued externally. About the Publisher Forgotten Books is a publisher of historical writings, such as: Philosophy, Classics, Science, Religion, History, Folklore and Mytho

Über diese Auflage

• Verlag: Forgotten Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1440086346
• ISBN 13: 9781440086342
• Einband: Tapa blanda
• Anzahl der Seiten: 450