Archive · Books · Monarchies · Society

It is very difficult to write about Russia, because at a certain time individual recollections were concealed; through a whimsical policy, the old rulers of that country forbade their subjects to write so much as the slightest word about their native land

In 1689 a Russian nobleman printed the journal of Golitsyn's Crimean campaign: the publication was burned in public, although it contained nothing against the government or the Grand Duke. This custom still held in the time of Peter the Great, and it is hardly surprising that he himself