If this book seems to have departed from the proper ideal of historic narrative--if it is the history of a _Power_, and not of a _People_--it is because the Russian people have had no history yet.

There has been no evolution of a Russian nation, but only of a vast governing system; and the words "Russian Empire" stand for a majestic world-power in which the mass of its people have no part.

A splendidly embroidered robe of Europeanism is worn over a chaotic, undeveloped mass of semi-barbarism.

The reasons for this incongruity--the natural obstacles with which Russia has had to contend; the strange ethnic problems with which it has had to deal; its triumphant entry into the family of great nations; and the circumstances leading to the disastrous conflict recently concluded, and the changed conditions resulting from it--such is the story this book has tried to tell.
M.P.

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