But to the native Slav race, corporal punishment, with its humiliations and its refinements of cruelty, was unknown until brought to it by stronger and wiser people from afar.
When we say that Russia was putting on a garment of civilization, let no one suppose we mean the _people_ of Russia.

It was the Princes, and their military and civil households; it was official Russia that was doing this.

The _people_ were still sowing and reaping, and sharing the fruit of their toil in common, unconscious as the cattle in their fields that a revolution was taking place, ready to be driven hither and thither, coerced by a power which they did not comprehend, their horizon bounded by the needs of the day and hour.
The elements constituting Russian society were the same in all the principalities.

There was first the Prince.

Then his official family, a band of warriors called the _Drujina_.