It kept alive, on the lips of the people and in the memory of the peasants, by oral traditions, the lyric poetry, marriage songs, funeral dirges, and holiday hymns which marked the intellectual life of the masses. Narratives, sometimes in prose and sometimes in poetry, glorified their old heroes. There were religious verses which sang the praises of Russian saints from village to village, and music, painting, and the decorative arts had made considerable advances. All these evidences of intellectual awakening were obliterated under the national depression of the serf system under Boris.
The Cossack peasantry, an industrious and peaceable race, fled in a body from this tyranny, taking refuge in the country of their ancestors on their native steppes in Asia, and the result was a horrible famine, which lasted for three years, spreading despair over the whole country.
Previous article Next article
From General Nelson A. Miles
Thrilling Stories of The Russian-Japanese War, 1904
