Thank you for correcting the text in this article. Your corrections improve Papers Past searches for everyone. See the latest corrections.

This article contains searchable text which was automatically generated and may contain errors. Join the community and correct any errors you spot to help us improve Papers Past.

Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image

WHAT IS HAPPENING IN RUSSIA.

"What, one would give much to know, is really happening at the Court of the Czar ? The strange story of the Emperor’s own hypnotist, which seems, after ail, to be true, is followed by the mysterious announcement that M. Plelnve took with him to Livadia the other day the draft of Iroris Melikoil’s Constitution, which for 20 years has lain hidden in the secret archives of liussia. There is a world of possibility in such a statement, should it prove to be true, and it may be that at this moment, in the Czar’s Palace at Livadia, a now era for Russia is dawning. Or it may be, like so many announcements of mighty import, nothing but the wild imagining of a correspondent. It serves, at any rate, to bring to mind one of the most tragic and romantic stories of an Empire which is at once tragic and romantic in itself. Loris Melikofl was in his day what

Pobiedonostseif ia in our own—a power behind the Russian throne. In all else but this he was the antithesis of the Count who rules behind the Czar to-day with an iron rod of Mediaevalism. His own rise to power was a romance. An American peasant’s son, he rose high in the Russian Army, and became Governor of Circassia at lift, ft was he who, in the war with Turkey, forced Moukhtar Pasha to evacuate Kars, and the next year, after ho had been appointed second in command of the army in the Caucasus, Melikofl was made a Count and then Governor of Astrakhan. In the early days of the ’eighties he was summoned to St. Petersburg, and placed at the head of a commission to maintain order, and from that time his star rose in the ascendant, and Count Loris Melikoil', the peasant’s son, was one of the real rulers of the world. lie would Jliave given Russia a Parliament, and it is one of the strangest facts in history that only a mad act of the reformers kept back the mightiest reform which perhaps has ever been achieved by ono stroke of the pen in the history of human affairs. The transformation of Japan is as nothing to the miracle which i would have come about before the open ; oyes of the world if the murderers of a - Czar had stayed their hand but 24 hours. 1 Loris Melikoil had talked the Emperor into popular government, and even the German Emperor—Bismarck’s Emperor —had urged the Czar to promulgate a 1 moderate Constitution, Russia was to have had a Parliament recruited from the proI viucial assemblies, which was to grow ' slowly to the full freedom of a democratic assembly. •• Gentlemen,” said the Emperor to ins Ministers, “ what they propose to us is the Assembly of Notables of Louis XYI. We must not forgot what followed. Still, if you think ,it for the country’s good, I will not oppose it.” The Council thought it for the country’s good, and the principle was established. At a meeting at the heir-apparent’s palace the details were fixed upon and embodied in a charter. The Constitution was ready for the people ; only the signature of the Emperor was wanting. And Alexander was dilatory ; ho was newly married, and had his own . affairs to see to, and the act of signing the ’ Constitution was put off. Nobody in Russia, save the Czar and those about him, dreamed of the revolution that was com-

Sunday morning, March 13, 1881, opened brightly for the Czar. He was to attend a parade of troops, and before leaving for the parade he wrote an order to Loris Melikoff authorising the promulgation of the Constitution the next day. “ I have just signed a paper,” he said to the Empress as ho left the Palace, 11 which I hope will produce a good impression upon Russia, and show that I am ready to givo her all that it is possible to give. To-mor-row,” ho added, lt it will be published ; 1 have given the order.” But to-morrow never came for Alexander II.; the clock had gone barely round when he was brought home a mangled mass. In the highest moment of Russia’s history an act of madness had shattered the nation’s hopes. “ Change nothing in what my father ordered,” said Alexander 111., “ this shall be his bequest to the people ” ; and Loris Melikoff prepared to announce the Constitution on the morrow. Cut in the night Pobicdonostseff came, and Loris Melikoff received a countermanding order before he sent his proclamation to the “ Official Messenger.” The new Emperor had changed his mind, the influence of Pobiedonostscff had superseded that of Melikoff, and though at a meeting of the Council the Constitution was again adopted, it was again withdrawn. Now, if we are to believe the story from Vienna, it is once more in the hands of a Czar, and those who are fascinated by the future of mighty Russia will ask with impatient) eagerness' — “ What will he do with it '! ” “ St, James’ Budget.”

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/GIST19030204.2.41

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Gisborne Times, Volume IX, Issue 817, 4 February 1903, Page 4

Word count
Tapeke kupu
843

WHAT IS HAPPENING IN RUSSIA. Gisborne Times, Volume IX, Issue 817, 4 February 1903, Page 4

WHAT IS HAPPENING IN RUSSIA. Gisborne Times, Volume IX, Issue 817, 4 February 1903, Page 4

Help

Log in or create a Papers Past website account

Use your Papers Past website account to correct newspaper text.

By creating and using this account you agree to our terms of use.

Log in with RealMe®

If you’ve used a RealMe login somewhere else, you can use it here too. If you don’t already have a username and password, just click Log in and you can choose to create one.


Log in again to continue your work

Your session has expired.

Log in again with RealMe®


Alert