One ought not to discuss the usefulness of history, for everybody can
see and feel it; but as some are not accustomed to see things clearly and
discuss them in detail, and often through their perverted understanding
make the useful to appear as harmful and the harmful as useful, and consequently
transgress in their acts and deeds (as indeed I have heard such people,
to my disgust, talk loud of the uselessness of history), I deemed it proper
to give a short review of it.
To begin with, history is nothing else than the recounting of past acts
and occurrences, good and bad; for all that we have experienced in recent
or long-passed days through our senses of hearing, seeing and feeling, or
that we reproduce by our memory, is really history, and it teaches us, whether
through our acts or those of others, to emulate the good and beware of the
evil. For example, when I recollect that I saw yesterday a fisherman who
had been catching fish and had had a certain success in it, I naturally
receive in my mind an impulse to do likewise; or if I saw yesterday a thief
or some other criminal, who had been sentenced to a severe punishment or
death, terror will naturally keep me from committing such an act as would
cause my utter ruin. All the histories we read act upon us in the same manner:
the deeds of ancient days are represented to us so vividly that we seem
to have seen and felt them ourselves.
For this reason we may say that no man, no condition of life, no profession,
science, nor government, much less a single individual, can be perfect,
wise and useful without a knowledge of the same. For example, let us take
the sciences. The first and greatest of them all is theology, that is, the
science of God, His all-wisdom, almightiness, which alone leads us to future
bliss, and so forth. Now, no theologian can be called wise who does not
know the ancient divine acts which have been revealed to us in the Holy
Scriptures, and when, with whom and why there have been disputes about certain
dogmas and articles of faith, or when and why this has been established
and that discarded; why certain statutes and orders of the ancient Church
have been changed, discontinued, and new ones introduced; consequently he
must know divine and church history, as well as civil history, as Huet,
the famous French theologian, has sufficiently pointed out.
The second science is jurisprudence, which teaches proper conduct and our
duties to God, ourselves and our neighbours, in order to acquire peace of
body and soul. No jurist can be called wise who does not know former interpretations
and discussions of natural and civil laws. And how can a judge pass right
judgment if he does not know the origin and application of old and new laws?
Indeed, he must know the history of the laws.
The third is medicine, or leechcraft, which science consists in the art
of preserving health, and bringing back the lost health, or in preventing
the disease from spreading. All this depends on history, for the physician
must gain his knowledge from the ancients, must know what is the cause of
diseases, what medicine and treatment to give, what the property and strength
of each medicine is, all of which no man could find out in a hundred years
through his own experience and investigation. But to experiment on the sick
is a dangerous matter, from which they could easily be ruined, though this
is not infrequently the case with certain ignoramuses. I shall not mention
many other parts of philosophy, but I may summarise by saying that all philosophy
is based on history and supported by it, for all the right and wrong and
faulty opinions which we find with the ancients are history as regards our
knowledge, and form the basis for our corrections.
Statesmanship is composed of three different parts: of the internal government,
or economy, external relations, and military affairs. All three demand not
less history than the other sciences, and without it cannot be perfect.
Thus, in political economy it is necessary to know what has caused ruin
in former days: how it has been warded off or minimised; what have been
the favourable influences; how obtained and preserved, so that the present
and future may be wisely judged in the light of that knowledge. On account
of this wisdom, the ancient Romans represented their god Janus with two
faces, for he knew perfectly the past, and from its examples wisely judged
the future.
For the administration of foreign affairs it is necessary to know not only
one's own country, but also other governments: what conditions they have
formerly been in; what has brought about changes in them; what states they
are in now; with whom they have had disputes and wars, and for what; what
treaties have been made and confirmed with them, in order to proceed intelligently
in the acts at hand.
For military leaders it is very important to know by what device and cunning
great forces of the enemy have been vanquished, or kept from victory, and
so forth, as we see Alexander the Great having held Homer's books on the
Trojan war in great respect, and having been instructed by them. For this
reason many great generals have described their own acts and those of others.
Of these the most illustrious example is Julius Caesar, who has described
his wars, that future generals might after him use his acts for their own
examples, and many famous generals on laud and on the sea have followed
in his footsteps by writing of their exploits. Many great rulers have either
themselves written of their acts, or have ordered expert people to write
of them, not only that their memory should live in glory, but that their
descendants should have examples to follow.
As regards the usefulness of Russian history it must be remarked, that,
as is the case with all other histories, the knowledge of one's own history
and geography is more important for any nation or region than that of foreign
histories; at the same time it must be kept in mind that without the knowledge
of foreign histories, one's own is not clear and sufficient: 1. That the
writer of contemporary history cannot know all the external influences for
good and bad; 2. That the writers are frequently compelled, out of fear,
to suppress, or change, or modify some very important circumstances of contemporary
history; 3. That from passion, love, or hatred, they describe quite differently
from what were the actual occurrences, and that the facts are frequently
related more correctly and in detail by outsiders. Thus, in my present work,
the first part, dealing with the Russian antiquity, has mainly been drawn
from foreign sources for lack of native writers, and in the other parts
many errors and lacunae have been corrected and filled out from foreign
sources. European historians accuse us of having no old history, and of
knowing nothing of our antiquity, simply because they do not know what historians
we possess, and though some have made a few extracts, or have translated
from them a passage here and there, others, thinking that we have no better
ones than those quoted, despise them. Some of our own ignorant writers agree
with them, while those who do not wish to trouble themselves by looking
into the ancient sources or who do not understand the text have, ostensibly
to give a better explanation, but in reality to hide the truth, invented
fables of their own and thus have obscured the real facts as told by the
ancients, as, for example, in the case of the foundation of Kiev, and that
of Novgorod by Slaven, and so forth.
I wish to say here emphatically that all the famous European historians
will not be able to know or tell anything correctly of many of our antiquities,
no matter what their efforts in Russian history may be, if they do not read
our sources, -for example, of the many nations who have existed here in
ancient days, as the Amazons, Alans, Huns, Avars, Cimbrians and Cimmerians;
nor do they know anything of the Scythians, Sarmatians and Slavs, their
tribes, origin, habitations and migrations, or of the anciently famous large
cities of the Essedonians, Archipeans, Cumanians, etc., where they have
lived, and what their present names are; but all this they could find out
through a study of Russian history. This history is not only of use to us
Russians, but also to the whole learned world, in order that by it the fables
and lies invented by our enemies, the Poles and others, for the sake of
disparaging our ancestors, may be laid bare and contradicted.
Such is the usefulness of history. But everybody ought to know, and this
is easily perceived, that history describes not only customs, deeds and
occurrences, but also the consequences resulting from them, namely, that
the wise, just, kind, brave, constant and faithful are rewarded with honour,
glory and well- being, while the vicious, foolish, evildoers, avaricious,
cowardly, perverse and faithless will gain eternal evildoers, avaricious,
cowardly, perverse and faithless will gain eternal dishonour, shame and
insult: from which all may learn how desirable it is to obtain the first
and avoid the second.