An excellent, substantial, and perceptive first-hand account of Russia in the years before the Revolution.
Lewis Medland (1845-1914) was a keen traveller, amateur photographer, and Fellow of the Zoological Society. He travelled first to Copenhagen, then to Russia, where he stayed in both St. Petersburg as well as Moscow, then to Stockholm and finally to Oslo (Christiania at the time). In addition to describing these cities, he also details life onboard ship. Furthermore, Medland’s interest in photography is often given centre-stage. He spends many pages detailing the process of using the camera and taking photographs, describing the scenes he captures as well as the process of developing the photos.
The bulk of Medland’s journal concerns his time in Russia. Of particular note are the passages detailing his difficulties in using his camera in Russia due to the tight military control and censorship of the time. Upon having been stopped by a police officer in Moscow due to his attempts to take photographs, Medland writes (rather dramatically) that the police officer made him think he “was ‘wanted’ & that I had to go somewhere - but where that was, I could not conjecture, whether it was to be executed on the spot or sent with the chain-gang to Siberia.” Medland is then driven to “what proved to be the Gates of the Kremlin Police.” After some difficulty in communicating (Medland did not speak Russian), he is made to understand that if he wanted to take photos, he needed to obtain official permission - a process that could take up to three months, with no assurance that it would in fact be granted: “the information I received amounted to this: I first ought to have written & asked permission to photograph. Secondly, the matter would have to be considered. Thirdly, my political status would have to be enquired into, this of course meaning a reference to the Russian Ambassador in England who in his turn would have me literally turned inside out, he would then report the same to head quarters. Then lastly they would make up their minds one way or other & finally, after about three months let me know.”
His experience with Russian censorship wasn’t limited to his camera. Medland writes of his attempting to read an English newspaper at his hotel: “Repairing to the Reading Room to look at the latest English News I took up amongst others the Graphic & on looking it over I saw three places blocked out with some black indelible substance. This I find is the usual custom here – All papers by port or otherwise from England have on their arrival at their destined place, to be delivered to a party called Censors who scan them through & should there be any objectionable (to them) political piece reflecting on the country, its government or the Czar, out it is blocked. If they can’t get through all the papers they deliver only those that have been thus examined.”
Russia has a long history of censorship and media control dating as far back as the sixteenth century, when the printing press was introduced in the country. Periods of liberalisation waxed and waned, dependent upon the ruler of the country, political stability and the perceived popularity and influence of revolutionary ideas, among other factors. At the time of Medland’s trip in 1887, Russia was undergoing a period of renewed restrictions under Czar Alexander III due to the assassination of his father: “An outstanding feature of Alexander Ill’s reign was an increased persecution of everything dissimilar to the officially accepted national type … The press was muzzled, revolutionary organizations were destroyed, and revolutionary movement was stifled” (Encyclopaedia Britannica, Alexander III). Medland’s account provides first-hand evidence of such aspects of Russian culture in the late nineteenth century. Indeed, at one point he writes, “There is no liberty of the Press in Russia.”
Medland also notes the plight of the Russian peasant in his journals. He writes, “They [the peasants] are kept in ignorance in order that it may not dawn upon their thick skulls that they are a down trodden race, every kopeck that can be squeezed out of them is so done & their lives are not their own, by order of the Czar anything can be done to them and they must take it as a matter of course.” Medland writes too that the peasants’ appearance reflects their circumstances, often mentioning their “uncleanliness & their encrusted state” and notes that they cannot afford socks or stocking but rather “wrap a piece of linen round the foot.”
Some of these thoughts on Russian peasants seem somewhat prophetic, as he writes that unless the czar deigns to improve their lives, “one day we shall read in our daily papers the assassination of the Czar.” In addition, Medland notes that “the seeds of Nihilism do not fall on barren ground” amongst the working class, as this ‘radical’ philosophy appealed to them in its desire for social change. While Czar Alexander III was not assassinated, it is interesting to note Medland’s consideration that the rather dire plight of Russia’s working class and the resulting draw to radical philosophies would be a catalyst for political change - a scenario that played out thirty years later with the start of the Russian Revolution.
