



Produced by Al Haines









[Frontispiece: The Empress of Russia and Queen Alexandra]




RUSSIAN MEMORIES

BY

MADAME OLGA NOVIKOFF "O.K."


WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY STEPHEN GRAHAM


AND FIFTEEN ILLUSTRATIONS


HERBERT JENKINS LIMITED 12 ARUNDEL PLACE HAYMARKET LONDON S.W. MCMXVII




WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD., PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH, ENGLAND




{1}

INTRODUCTION

BY STEPHEN GRAHAM

It is perhaps a little superfluous for one of my years to write an
introduction for one so well known and so much esteemed and admired as
Madame Novikoff.  And yet it may seem just, if it does not seem vain,
that a full-hearted tribute should come to her from this generation
which profits by the result of her life and her work--the great new
friendship between England and Russia.

She is one of the most interesting women in European diplomatic
circles.  She is a picturesque personality, but more than that she is
one who has really done a great deal in her life.  You cannot say of
her, as of so many brilliant women, "She was born, she was admired, she
passed!"  Destiny used her to accomplish great ends.

For many in our society life, she stood for Russia, was Russia.  For
the poor people of England Russia was represented by the filth of the
Ghetto and the crimes of the so-called "political" refugees; for the
middle classes who read Seton Merriman, Russia was a fantastic country
of revolutionaries and bloodthirsty police; but fortunately the ruling
and upper classes always have had some better vision, they have had the
means of travel, they have seen real representative Russians in their
midst.  {2} "They are barbarians, these Russians!" says someone to his
friend.  But the friend turns a deaf ear.  "I happen to know one of
them," says he.

A beautiful and clever woman always charms, whatever her nationality
may be, and it is possible for her to make conquests that predicate
nothing of the nation to which she belongs.  That is true, and therein
lay the true grace and genius of Madame Novikoff.  She was not merely a
clever and charming woman, she was Russia herself.  Russia lent her
charm.  Thus her friends were drawn from serious and vital England.

Gladstone learned from her what Russia was.  The great Liberal, the man
who, whatever his virtues, and despite his high religious fervour, yet
committed Liberalism to anti-clericalism and secularism, learned from
her to pronounce the phrase, "Holy Russia."  He esteemed her.  With his
whole spiritual nature he exalted her.  She was his Beatrice, and to
her more than to anyone in his life he brought flowers.  Morley has
somehow omitted this in his biography of Gladstone.  Like so many
intellectual Radicals he is afraid of idealism.  But in truth the key
to the more beautiful side of Gladstone's character might have been
found in his relationship to Madame Novikoff.  And possibly that
friendship laid the real foundation of the understanding between the
two nations.

Incidentally let me remark the growing friendliness towards Russia
which is noticeable in the work of Carlyle at that time.  A tendency
towards friendship came thus into the air far back in the Victorian era.

{3}

Another most intimate friendship was that of Kinglake and Madame
Novikoff, where again was real appreciation of a fine woman.  Anthony
Froude worshipped at the same shrine, and W. T. Stead with many another
in whose heart and hand was the making of modern England.

A marvellously generous and unselfish nature, incapacity to be dull or
feel dull or think that life is dull--a delicious sense of the
humorous, an ingenious mind, a courtliness, and with all this something
of the goddess.  She had a presence into which people came.  And then
she had a visible Russian soul.  There was in her features that
unfamiliar gleam which we are all pursuing now, through opera,
literature and art--the Russian genius.

Madame Novikoff was useful to Russia, it has been reproachfully said.
Yes, she was useful in promoting peace between the two Empires, she was
worth an army in the field to Russia.  Yes, and now it may be said she
has been worth an army in the field to us.

When Stead went down on the _Titanic_ one of the last of the great men
who worshipped at her shrine had died.  Be it remarked how great was
Stead's faith in Russia, and especially in the Russia of the Tsar and
the Church.  And it is well to remember that Madame Novikoff belongs to
orthodox Russia and has never had any sympathy whatever with
revolutionary Russia.  This has obtained for her not a few enemies.
There are many Russians with strong political views, estimable but
misguided men, who have issued in the past such harmful rubbish as
_Darkest Russia_, journals and pamphlets wherein {4} systematically
everything to the discredit of the Tsar and his Government, every ugly
scandal or enigmatical happening in Russian contemporary life was
written up and then sent post free to our clergy, etc.  To them Madame
Novikoff is naturally distasteful.  But as English people we ask, who
has helped us to understand "Brightest Russia"--the Russia in arms
to-day?  And the praise and the thanks are to her.

STEPHEN GRAHAM.

  Moscow,
  27_th August_, 1916.




{5}

EDITOR'S PREFACE

The late W. T. Stead in saying to Madame Novikoff, "When you die, what
an obituary I will write of you," was paying her a great compliment;
just as was Disraeli, although unconsciously, in referring to her as
"the M.P. for Russia in England."  With that consummate tact which
never fails her, Madame Novikoff has evaded the compliment and
justified the sarcasm.  Disraeli might with justice have added that she
was also "M.P. for England in Russia"; for if she has appeared
pro-Russian in England, she has many times been reproached in Russia as
pro-English.

Of few women have such contradictory things been said and written,
things that clearly show the gradual change in the political barometer;
but her most severe critics indirectly paid tribute to her remarkable
personality by fearing the influence she possessed.  In the dark days
when Great Britain and Russia were thinking of each other only as
potential antagonists, she was regarded in this country as a Russian
agent, whose every action was a subject for suspicious speculation, a
national danger, a syren whose object it was to entice British {6}
politicians from their allegiance.  Wherever she went it was, according
to public opinion, with some fell purpose in view.  If she came to
London for the simple purpose of improving her English, it meant to a
certain section of the Press Russian "diplomatic activity."  The Tsar
was told by an English journalist that he ought to "be very proud of
her," as she succeeded where "Russian papers, Ambassadors and Envoys
failed"; another said that she was "worth an army of 100,000 men to her
country"; a third that she was a "stormy petrel."  She was, in fact,
everything from a Russian agent to a national danger, everything in
short but the one thing she professed to be, a Russian woman anxious
for her country's peace and progress.

In Serbia there is a little village whose name commemorates the death
of a Russian hero, Nicolas Kiréef, Madame Novikoff's brother.  In his
death lay the seed of the Anglo-Russian Alliance.  Distraught with
grief, Madame Novikoff blamed Great Britain for her loss.  She argued
that, had this country refused to countenance the unspeakableness of
the Turk in 1876, there would have been no atrocities, no Russian
Volunteers, and no war.  From that date she determined to do everything
that lay in her power to bring about a better understanding between
Great Britain and Russia.  For years she has never relaxed her efforts,
and she has lived to see what is perhaps the greatest monument ever
erected by a sister to a brother's memory--the Anglo-Russian Alliance.

{7}

Nothing discouraged her, and at times, when war seemed inevitable, she
redoubled her efforts.  In all her work, she had chiefly to depend on
her own ardour and sincerity.  It was this sincerity, and a deep
conviction as to the rightness of her object, that caused Gladstone to
become her fearless ally.  Politically he compromised himself by his
frank support of her pleadings for peace and understanding.

For many years feeling ran too high in this country for a reasoned
consideration of Madame Novikoff's appeals.  "Peace with honour" talk
became a meaningless catch phrase, otherwise it would have been seen
that it was "peace with honour" that she advocated, and has never
ceased to advocate, peace with honour, not to one, but to two great
peoples.

Slowly the eyes of empire shifted from one continent to another, and
gradually Madame Novikoff found her voice commanding more and more
attention, until at last the Anglo-Russian Agreement paved the way for
the present Alliance.

Her success is largely due to the methods she adopted.  She gave and
received hard knocks, and she never fell back upon her sex as an
argument or a defence.  She was fighting with men, and she fought with
men's weapons, and this gained for her respect as an honourable and
worthy antagonist.  Even at the time when feeling was most strongly
against her work, there appeared in the newspapers many spontaneous
tributes to her ability and personality.  {8} The very suspicion with
which she was regarded was in itself a tribute.

Later when Russia and Great Britain had drawn closer together, there
appeared in the Press some of the most remarkable tributes ever paid to
a woman, from which in justice to her and the Press I venture to quote
a few of the many that appeared.

"If we were writing at a date which we hope is a good many years
distant of the career of Madame Olga Novikoff, we should begin by
saying that she was one of the most remarkable women of her
time."--_Daily Graphic_.

"Whatever the reader's political predilections may be, he is unlikely
to dispute the claim of Madame Novikoff to rank as one of the most
remarkable women of her generation."--_Daily Telegraph_.

"No one will deny the right of Madame Novikoff to a record in history:
... For nearly ten years her influence was probably greater than any
other woman's upon the course of national politics."--_Daily News_.

Madame Novikoff, "who for so many years held a social and political
position in London which few women, and no ambassador, have ever
equalled."--_Observer_.

"From beginning to end Madame Novikoff's record is clear and
honourable.  There is not the slightest evidence of any intrigue on her
part, of any effort to use the statesman she influenced for underhand
purposes, or to work for or against any {9} particular individual in
her own country."--_Westminster Gazette_.

"It is seldom that anyone sees such a fruition of his labours as does
this marvellous lady, who has worked all her life for one thing and
almost one thing only--an Anglo-Russian understanding."--_Daily Mail_.


And now in the autumn of her life (it is impossible to associate the
word winter with so vital a personality) Madame Novikoff has seen her
years of work crowned with success.  To-day she is as keen in regard to
public affairs, especially where her beloved Russia is concerned, as
she was in the days when her life was one continuous fight with the
war-spirit.  In the preparation of these Memories I have seen something
of her application, her industry and her personality.  In the past I
have often asked myself what was the secret of Madame Novikoff's
remarkable success.  But now I know.  Time after time when we have seen
things from a different angle, I have found myself accepting her point
of view before I was even conscious of weakening.

Of all the compliments ever paid to Madame Novikoff, the one that
probably pleases her most is that which recently appeared in a London
daily written by a famous writer upon Russian life, who described her
as "a true Russian."

This is not an autobiography; for Madame Novikoff has always refused to
undertake such a responsibility.  In the first place she thinks it {10}
would be too long, and in the second too personal.  "I have been talked
about quite enough," she will say, "without starting to talk about
myself."  In 1909 there appeared _The M.P. for Russia_, edited by the
late W. T. Stead, which told much of her association with her
distinguished friends, Gladstone, Kinglake, Villiers, Clarendon,
Carlyle, Tyndall, Froude and others.  "These have been taken," she
says, "and I am left."  But she has continued her work, and many of her
friends have told her that at this time, above all others, she should
tell personally something of her Russian memories.  As she phrases it,
"For forty years I have been wandering in the Wilderness, and now I
have been permitted the happiness of entering the Promised Land.  At
last the gates have been opened.  We are now brothers-in-arms."

THE EDITOR.




{11}

CONTENTS


EDITOR'S PREFACE


CHAPTER I

THE RUSSIAN SPIRIT

July 1914--Enthusiasm at Moscow--My Ambition Realised--England and
Russia Allies--A War of Right--Wounded Heroes--Russia's Faith in
Victory--Our Emperor's Call--England's Greatness--I am Introduced to
Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Disraeli--"The M.P. for Russia in England"--Mr.
Gladstone's Championship--An Unpopular Cause


CHAPTER II

THE AWAKENING OF RUSSIA

A New Era--My Brother Nicholas--Hadji Ghiray: Hero--Terrible News--A
Heroic Advance--My Brother's Death--Aksakoff's Famous Speech--Russia
Aflame--A Nation's Sacrifice--My Heart-broken Letters--Mr. Gladstone's
Response--Mutual Suspicion--My Visits to England


CHAPTER III

MR. GLADSTONE AND I STRIVE FOR PEACE

The Real England--The St. James's Hall Meeting--Remarkable
Enthusiasm--Mr. Gladstone's Speech--He Escorts Me Home--Newspaper
Comment--Lord Salisbury and General Ignatieff--Mutual Regard--The Turks
Displeased--An Embarrassing Tribute--The End of the Constantinople
Conference--Mr. Gladstone Compromised--War Declared--"What Will England
Do?"--Bismarck's Policy--Prince Gortschakoff's Opinion


CHAPTER IV

MR. GLADSTONE

His Last Utterance.--His Fearlessness---His Opinion of _Russia and
England_--A Christian Revolution--Cardinal Manning's Tribute--Gladstone
and the Old Catholics--The Question of Immortality--Mr. Gladstone's
Remarkable Letter--A Delightful Listener--His Power of
Concentration--Hayward and Gladstone--Their Discussion--Miss Helen
Gladstone--We Talk Gladstone--The Old Lady's Delight--I Miss my Train


{12}

CHAPTER V

SOME SOCIAL MEMORIES

My Thursdays in Russia--Khalil Pasha's Death--Lord Napier and the
Lady-in-Waiting--Madame Volnys--My Parents-in-law's _ménage_--An
Exceptional Type--Prince Vladimir Dolgorouki's Embarrassment--The Grand
Duchess Helen--A Brilliant Woman--The Emperor's Enjoyment--The
Campbell-Bannermans--A Royal Diplomatist--Mark Twain on Cour