In 1986, the Mosfilm film studio completed the two-year filming of Mikhailo Lomonosov, one of the most successful multi-part films about the history of Russia. The film consists of three sections: "From the depths of their own", "The Gates of Learning" and "To the Glory of the Fatherland", each of which has three episodes.
In the first series of the third part of the film - "For the Glory of the Fatherland", the viewer becomes aware of a certain letter from Lomonosov, which he sent to Count Shuvalov as a gift, because of which Lomonosov could have big trouble, since the first to read it was Shuvalov - a faithful companion and patron scientist. Turning directly to Shuvalov, Lomonosov hoped that the system of state measures proposed by him would be quickly implemented, but this was not destined to come true …
What was this letter that was banned for printing for many years?
It was called "On the reproduction and preservation of the Russian people." Lomonosov sent this letter to I. I. Shuvalov on November 1, 1761. It was published several times, but not during the life of the scientist. For the first time, excerpts from the letter were published in the Journal of Ancient and New Literature in 1819. This treatise confused and horrified the officials, as well as the reactionary minister of public education and spiritual affairs, A. N. Golitsyn, on whose orders it was recognized that “Lomonosov's letters in the public should be prohibited ", as it contains" reprehensible, unjust, contrary to the Orthodox Church and insulting the honor of our clergy."
The next publication (also in abbreviated form) was published in 1842 - in the "scientific and literary magazine" "Moskvityanin". It was published by the editor-in-chief and founder of the magazine, the famous Russian historian and publicist Mikhail Pogodin.
Only 110 years after its writing, having lost its relevance and significance, the letter was published in full in the St. Petersburg Historical Bulletin - "Russian Starina". From a historical point of view, it is of particular importance, for it demonstrates the true state of affairs in Russia in the 18th century. It is symbolic to this day, because like 250 years ago, the problem with the “reproduction and preservation of the Russian people” remains unresolved.
We print Lomonosov's letter while maintaining the inviolability of the author's spelling, since it would be a sin to change the characteristic features of Lomonosov's letter.
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MIKHAIL VASILIEVICH LOMONOSOV
On the reproduction and preservation of the Russian people. 1761 g
Dear sir Ivan Ivanovich.
Analyzing my writings, I found old scraps of my thoughts, extending to the increment of the general benefit. After considering it, it was for the good that I should more extensively and thoroughly inform them of your Excellency, as if a true zealot about any good of the kind fatherland in the hope, maybe there is something in them that serves for the real correction of the Russian world, which by your insight and diligence has been dismantled, located and can be brought to true performance. All these at different times, noticed separately, thoughts can be summed up, it seems to me, under the following chapters:
- On the reproduction and preservation of the Russian people.
- About the destruction of idleness.
- About the correction of morals and about the greater education of the people.
- On the correction of agriculture.
- On the correction and reproduction of handicrafts and arts.
- About the best benefits of the merchants.
- About the best state economy.
- On the preservation of the art of war during a long-term peace.
These only important chapters require deep discourse, long-term art in state affairs to explain and precautionary power to work into action. So, m. G., excuse my insolence for not having the necessary ability to do so, I only touch a heavy burden out of zeal, which does not allow me to leave anything (even if only apparently) useful to society hidden. I believe the beginning of this is the most important thing: the preservation and reproduction of the Russian people, which is the majesty, power and wealth of the entire state, and not in the vastness, vain without inhabitants. Divine work and mercy and our humane monarch of a meek heart is a worthy task - to save subjects from death, even though others were worthy according to the laws. This mercy is explicit and directly dependent on her maternal highest will and command. But there is a lot of murder and suicide, the people belittling, which directly by decrees, without correction or complete destruction of some customs and some more, under the name of rooted legalizations, it is impossible to destroy.
1
It has become a custom in many Russian regions, and especially in the villages, that young children, incapable of marriage, are married to adult girls, and often a wife could be the mother of her husband for years. This with nature controversial behavior is followed by bad circumstances: tearful adventures and the human race accrue harmful murder. The first summers after marriage are fruitless, therefore, such a marriage is not a marriage and, moreover, it is harmful to the multiplication of the people, then that such an adult woman, being equal, could give birth to several children in society. The boy, prompted by being from a perky adult wife, by strengthening himself before his time spoils and henceforth in his time will not be quite capable of fertility, and when he reaches a man's age, the wife will soon leave those years in which she was more capable of fertility. Although she can become more masculine even in her early childhood in an inappropriate way, however, fearing disgrace and reproach and beatings from her husband's parents, she can easily go for infanticide while still in her womb.
There are enough examples that, disdaining a small and stupid peasant, a wife recognizes another and, in order to marry him, pit her husband or otherwise kills, and after being exposed, she is put to death. So, by these disorders the unborn die and the guilty and innocent perish.
The second inequality in marriage occurs when a man in his old years marries a very young girl, which, although not so dangerous, is harmful to the growth of the people, and although the lack of unallowed love can be filled, however, this unfriendliness, suspicion, anxiety and burdens in inheritance and great misadventures are the cause. For this purpose, the inequality of marriage, which is harmful to the growth and preservation of the people, should be prohibited and included within moderate limits.
In all, it is more similar if the wife's husband is older than 7 to 10 years. Although in the villages they show the reasons that they marry little children for the working women, but the whole wasteland, then if someone has a small family, and has a lot of arable land or cattle, then hire workers, accept third-party or half-men, or sell the surplus to someone else.
2
An unequal marriage is much like a forced marriage, for where there is no love, fertility is also unreliable. Disagreements, disputes and fights harm the fetus conceived and are often the cause of an untimely and immature birth. For this, the crowning priests must firmly confirm that, when they heard about an involuntary combination, they would not allow it and do not marry it under fear of deprivation of rank, the bride and groom would not only be asked for appearance when they had already been brought to church for the wedding, but several before.
3
Although it is not allowed to have more than one wife in our law, however, the fourth after the third death is not ordered in our legalizations, except that a certain Armenopulus, a judge of Solunsky, ordered privately, relying, as I hope, on the words of Nazianzinov: “The first marriage is law, the second is forgiveness, the third is transgression. But this is not approved by any conciliar legalizations, then that he said this as an orator, as a preacher, and not as a legislator, and, in spite of the words of this great saint, the Holy Church blesses the third marriage, and the fourth prohibition came to us from Solun, and not from ecumenical councils or monarchical and national legalizations.
This custom prohibits a lot of popular growth. I have seen many widowers from a third wife about 30 years of age, and my father widowed for the third time, although he was 50 years old, but still in full vigor and could still marry a fourth.
It is true that sometimes it happens, not without doubt, whether everything happened naturally, when someone becomes a widow in the third and, moreover, in a few years, and was there not some secret villainy? For this, a person demanding a fourth or fifth marriage must present as witnesses neighbors or, even better, relatives in the first matrimony, that in these actions he was not spiteful and shameless, and who would have probable signs of infidelity or ferocity, and especially in two or in all three marriages, those persons do not allow a fourth marriage.
4
It has become a custom that human nature is disgusted with (whether it is contrary to the laws laid down at councils, I don’t remember), that widows of young priests and deacons are forcibly tonsured into the Cherni population, which gives rise to sin, and not to salvation, and the growth of the people is suppressed. Ridiculous negligence! It is not allowed to perform the sacred rites, marrying a second marriage legally, honestly and blessedly, but in monasticism, a fornicator, an adulterer, or even a sodomite is given the will to serve the liturgy and perform all sorts of secrets.
For these reasons, it seems that young widows and deacons should be allowed a second marriage and not tonsured before the age of fifty, or, having removed the priesthood, should be allowed to be secular. This also includes the tonsure of young people directly into monks and nuns, which, although in modern times, has diminished before the previous one, there is still a lot of excesses, especially in Little Russia and at synodal schools. Glances, attire, courtesy, luxury and other deeds everywhere show that monasticism in youth is nothing but a black dress covered with fornication and sodomy, causing significant damage to the reproduction of the human race, without mentioning the occasional infanticide, when crime is covered up with atrocity. It seems to me that the hood should be banned for men under 50, and women under 45.
five
The above dealt more with the abundant fertility of the giving birth; the following should be especially true before the preservation of those born. Although the prohibition of unequal and forced marriage, the permission of the fourth and fifth marriages, the permission to marry widows of priests and deacons, and the non-permission of the adoption of the monastic rank before the indicated years, undoubtedly may follow a noble increase of the people and not so many lawless people, therefore, less child murder, however, according to different For reasons and for the weakness of human constitution, it is impossible for a woman who is burdened with unallowable voluptuousness or violence, not even to be dishonored, and not seek ways to conceal her iniquity and misfortune, which is why mothers sometimes kill their children in despair.
To avoid such a terrible atrocity and to preserve the life of innocent babies, it would be necessary to establish special almshouses for unselected shameful children, a reception where old women who were poor could follow them instead of mothers or grandmothers; but about this in particular, in a letter about the correction and multiplication of handicrafts and arts.
6
This is followed by infantile diseases, exhausting and in the mortal jaws plunging the beginning of human life, of which the first and most severe torment is birth itself. The baby suffers no less than the mother, and so their longing differs, that the mother remembers it, the baby does not remember. If it is great, the prophet David expresses, for, although he depicts the terrible enemies of his sorrows, he says: "There is a disease like giving birth" (that is, women). Passing a painful path into a deplorable and vain light, since often a gentle person undergoes great injuries, and especially in the head, by the fact that at his very birth he loses his barely begun life and the spirit that was first gleaned in the last emits either several hours or days only with real death struggling. This is the first suffering, by which health is often damaged from those born alive for the whole century.
To diminish the only great evil, I advise you to do the following:
1) Choose good books about the art of midwives and, putting the best one as a foundation, compose an instruction in Russian or, having written in another, translate into Russian, to which it is necessary to add the good techniques of Russian skilled midwives; for this, having called the elected, long-term art of the knowledgeable, to ask each one in particular and all in general, and what will be accepted for the good, put in this little book.
2) To cure other childhood diseases, laying the foundation for the great physician Hoffmann, who, after 60 years of training in the doctoral title, at the end of his life wrote an instruction on the cure of infantile diseases, for which I saved my daughter twice from death, and added the best of others, combine with the above-mentioned book about the art of midwives; besides, do not forget that our grandmothers and doctors generally use it with benefit.
3) In both of these combined arts in one book, to observe that the methods and medicines for the most part were not difficult to find everywhere in Russia, then that our pharmacies are so scarce that not only in every city, but also in noble great cities to this day arranged, about which they should have had long ago; but this will be especially presented.
4) Having printed this book in a contented number, to sell it to the whole state in all churches, so that priests and literate people, reading, could know themselves and use others' instruction.
So, suppose that in Russia there are 12 million men, of which one million are in such a marriage that children will be born, putting in total, one in two years. Therefore, for each year there will be half a million born, of which half die in three years, or even more due to local negligence and more, so that for every year, death will get a hundred thousand babies under three years old. Is it not worth our labor and care so that at least a tenth, that is, 10 thousand, could be preserved in life in convenient ways?
7
Hitherto about natural circumstances harmful to babies; it remains to mention the damage from superstition and gross obstinacy occurring. Priests, not only village ones, but also city ones, baptize babies in winter in the coldest water, sometimes with ice, pointing out the prescription in the missal that water should be natural without admixture, and impute warmth for mixed matter, and do not think that in summer they themselves baptize with warm water, in their opinion mixed. So, they will contradict themselves, but especially because of their thoughtlessness they do not know that there is still a lot of heat in the coldest water.
However, there is no need for ignorant priests to interpret physics, it is enough to compel the authorities to always baptize with water, equal to summer warmth in reasoning, then that the cold one that has recently escaped from the warm mother's womb is certainly harmful to the baby, and especially which has suffered a lot in birth. One immersion in moderate water is not without a burden to the baby, when phlegm is poured into the eyes, ears, nostrils, and sometimes into the mouth (and when the mouth and nostrils closes the pop with a hand, then breathing is stopped, which the baby has recently received). When cold water with ice covers the limbs, then there are often signs of an epileptic illness, and although he will get rid of the font, he will still get rid of the font, but in the following diseases, which every baby must overcome after, and especially when the first teeth come out, this deadly disease will resume more conveniently.
Such stubborn priests, who want to baptize forcibly with cold water, I regard as executioners, then what they want after homeland and christening soon and a funeral for their own gain. Since there are many such unhappy parents who gave birth to up to 10 and 15 children, but not a single one remained alive?
8
The troubled infantile beginning of life is followed by adventures that attack human health in other ways. And, firstly, intemperance and imprudence with established customs, especially in Russia, rooted and having the appearance of a certain holiness. More than other times, Shrovetide and St. week a great crowd of people by only one variable use of food and drink.
The conversation is similar. And there is nothing to wonder for. In addition to intemperance on the days of the past with food and drink, many try to be content with fleshly mixing lawfully and unlawfully during the entire Great Lent, and so they exhaust themselves until Clean Monday that they cannot fix their health by any measure, using coarse lean food, which is painful even to a healthy stomach.
Moreover, the beginning of spring soon follows, when all the impurities accumulated from humans and other animals, which were prisoners from frost throughout the winter, are suddenly freed and filled the air, mixed with water and we with phlegm and scurvy fish in the stomach, in the lung, in blood flows into the nerves and into the entire structure of the vital members of the human body, gives birth to diseases in healthy people, multiplies them in sick people and accelerates death in those who could still live longer.
After that, the bright resurrection of Christ, universal Christian joy, approaches; then, although the passions of the Lord are read almost incessantly and repeated many times, our thoughts are already on St. week. Some imagine pleasant and quick food, some thinks whether his dress will ripen for the holiday, some imagine how they will have fun with relatives and friends, others expect supplies from the village to arrive, others cook picturesque eggs and undoubtedly have a chance to kiss the beauties or dear to meet. Finally, they began matins at midnight and sung mass until light. Christ is Risen! only in the ears and on the tongue, and in the heart what place is there for him, where everybody's desires and even the smallest wells are filled.
As dogs let loose, as accumulated water from an open dam, as vortices bursting from a cloud, tear, break, knock down, refute, torment. There are scattered parts of various meats, broken dishes, spilled drinks are flowing, there lie unconsciously burdened by greed and drunkenness, there are lying naked and fornication, tired recent strict fasting. O true Christian fasting and celebration! Is it not such that God is indignant with the prophet: "My soul hates your feasts, and your censer is an abomination before me!"
Meanwhile, the poor stomach, having got used through debts of time to food with little nutrition, is suddenly forced to take fat and strong brushes into the shrunken and weakened passages and, not having the required contentment of vital juices, it sends indigested poisons through the veins, they spiral, the blood flow is cut off, and the soul goes into then the heavenly doors opened from the tightness of the body straight away. To be sure of this, one can consult the church notes: around which time in the whole year does the priests get more honey for kutya?
It is true that if someone at Shrovetide prepares himself for fasting by living a moderate life, during fasting he does not exhaust himself unnecessarily and fast more in spirit than belly, on St. week rejoices about passing Great Lent in true virtues, in works useful to society and kind to God, and not about the fact that he has lived to see the resolution of everything, he, of course, will feel less seizures from unhealthy times, and it is salty when through labor the blood sets in motion and, in a word, he maintains himself, albeit now with lean, now with meager food, but equally moderate, without steep jumps and hills.
But here, in the north, this is fat at the ends, and in the middle of the dry time there is the most idle part of the year, when the peasants do not have any big work and only the sown, reaped, threshed and ground fruits of the field eat up; merchants, behind the ruined roads and muddy roads, almost no passage from city to city with goods; no sailing ships and sea people are satisfied with the movement; military men are on hikes in winter quarters, and at home it is not convenient for frost or slush to exercise. So, most of the people should remain in idleness, which in the spell and breaking the fast gives the reason for unbridled luxury, and in fasting, with last year's poor food and unhealthy air, combined, spoils health and shortens life.
Many will say: “Yes, people live! Our fathers and great-grandfathers lived for long centuries! True, the Lapps also live, eating almost nothing but fish, but look, since they are large in body and how crowded, and compare them with samoyids living in the same climate, eating mostly meat. The first are small in growth, poorly populated, so that at 700 versts in length, and in width by 300 Lapps, there is only a little that in large soldiers' requisitions from all over the earth, two soldiers from the number of souls are hired from our people, then which of them is very rare, so that who, and at least in a small measure, is suitable for soldiers.
The samoyads, on the other hand, are not small in height, broad-shouldered and strong and in such a multitude that if the internecine frequent bloody battles between many of their princelings did not happen, then the noble part of the eastern-northern coast of them would be populated with people.
Look that those Russian regions are more populous, where livestock is more abundant, then that in many places where livestock is scarce, and in the meat-eater for the most part they feed on fish or empty cabbage soup with bread. If our Maslenitsa had been laid in the month of May, then Lent would have been in full spring and at the beginning of summer, and St. a week around Petrov's day, then, in addition to new fruits of earthly and fresh fish and well-dissolved air, 1-f) the movement of the body in the peasants by plowing work, in the merchants by long-distance travel on land and by sea, in the military - by exercise and campaigns, would have helped preserve health;
2-e) for the sake of correcting such necessary work, there would be less idleness, mothers of intemperance, less guests and parties, less drunkenness, unequal living and intermittent food, straining human health, and moreover, at least someone got drunk, however, returning home, would not freeze on the road, as happens with Shrovetide, and would not fall under the ice, as happens on St. week.
I turn to you, great teachers and organizers of fasts and holidays, and with all reverence I ask your holiness: what did you think about us at that time, when St. Have you set a great fast at this time? It seems to me that you, in your holiness, meekness, patience and righteousness, will give a gracious answer and not in the same way as Andreev's Archpriest Yakov did, in the church you will not be abusively elected, or else, as he and the sea captain Yankov on bright Sunday at the cross for not kissing I entered my hands, do not hit my chest with a fist. You will say: “Having fasts and holidays, we lived in Greece and in the promised land. It was then established to keep the Holy Forty-days when the earth's rich interior opens up with the full radiance of the spring sun, it grows with healthy juices filled with young greenery and the air renews with fragrant spirits; early fruits ripen, for food,in the cooling and in the medicine of the bank employees; Our singing for the praise of God was matched by murmuring streams, rustling leaves and singing sweet-voiced birds.
And about your midnight sides, we reasoned that not only there is not and will not be a Christian law, but below a single verbal inhabitant for the sake of a great cold. Don't complain about us! How would we prescribe you to eat dates and figs and drink good Krasole grape wine, which you will not have? Arrange, like reasonable people, according to your climate, use another most capable time for fasting, or use moderately healthy foods at bad times. You have a clergy, equal to us authority from Christ, who has knit and decide. For only an important matter, an ecumenical council can be drawn up in Russia: preserving the life of a great multitude of people is worth it.
And besides, by teaching, instill in everyone in the thought that it is more pleasant for God when we have a clear conscience in our heart than a scurvy fish in our stomach, that fasts were established not for suicide with harmful foods, but for abstaining from excess, that a deceiver, a robber, an unjust, a bribe-taker, the thief and other images of his neighbor will not find forgiveness, even if he ate wood chips, bricks, bast, clay and coal instead of ordinary lean food at seven weeks and would have stood on his head instead of bowing to the ground for most of that time.
Pure repentance is a good life, adoring God to mercy, to generosity and to our love. Keep the commandments given by Christ, on which the whole law and the prophets hang: "Love your Lord your God with all your heart (that is, not with your guts) and your neighbor as yourself (that is, with your conscience, not your tongue)."
nine
In addition, a great many people fall into other various diseases, for the cure of which there are still very few decent institutions, as mentioned above, and only at most simple, illiterate men and women treat at random, often combining natural methods, as far as they know, with with spells and whisperings, and so not only do they not give any strength to their medicines, but they also strengthen superstition in people, they cause the sick to fear with dull views and multiply the disease, bringing them closer to death.
True, there are many of them who really know to cure some diseases, and especially external ones, like horsemen and chiropractors, so that sometimes they surpass scientific surgeons in some cases, but it's better to establish medical science according to the rules. To this, in all cities, a sufficient number of doctors, healers and pharmacies are required, satisfied with medicines, at least only for our climate decent, which is not only a hundredth part, but the Russian army is not very well equipped with doctors, so that the doctors do not have time to bandage and the wounded, not only to examine everyone, to inquire about the circumstances, to give medicine and so calm the suffering. Many, who could be revived, die from such disdain.
This shortcoming can not be filled with anything as soon as possible to send a sufficient number of Russian students to foreign universities to study doctorate, and to give the universities established within the state, among other privileges, the power to produce worthy doctors; 2nd (there is no 1st item in the manuscript). The medical office should firmly confirm that both in pharmacies and in the presence of doctors there was a contented number of Russian students, whom they would teach their art and represent to the Senate at a certain time.
ten
Deaths from disease are followed by violent, natural and accidental circumstances as the reasons for the deprivation of human life, that is, pestilences, fires, drowning, frosts. Fates on people, although for the most part in the southern limits of the local state, do occur, but all sorts of ways should be used against it. They consist in the destruction of what has already begun, or in the revulsion of the coming.
The first requires certain means used against such misfortune, and in order to do this, the best should be chosen from among the authors, compose a book for the Faculty of Medicine and, having printed it, sold it to the state.
For the second, it is necessary to collect signs from former examples, of which the main one is an eclipse of the sun, which almost always soon causes a death on livestock, and then on people a fad.
In our enlightened ages, people who are turning from astronomers in the great light know and can be warned by not letting livestock out of the house and not giving the grass removed that day: so in other states they are wary of two or three days after and no fruits themselves at that time removed and not consumed, saying that during a solar eclipse poisonous dew falls.
Time will teach how much electrical force can act in reasoning fads. Eclipses in the entire state do not know, and for this it is necessary to publish in advance and what is required to command by decrees, following the example, as is the case in other states.
To get rid of fiery death is the precaution of quenching frequent and great fires, which will seem at length in a letter about the best state economy. The essence of drowning is twofold: from floods and from careless insolence, especially in drunkenness.
The first can be easily averted by forbidding that there should be no dwellings at great rivers in low places, especially exposed to spring water. This is done out of laziness, so that water, hay, and all the comfort of water is close, but often in high places people who live see in the spring, being themselves safe, like cattle, and people, and whole houses, impregnable ice carries in despair of all salvation …
Second sinkings cannot be averted by anything without belittling a lot of eating and drunkenness, for whom people dare to cross rivers in stormy weather, overloading ships with many, or cross the ice in autumn and spring, when it is very unreliable and dangerous. In the chapter on the destruction of idleness, methods are proposed, as well as for the deliverance of the freezing of many in winter.
eleven
Much damage is caused to the people by murders, which are in fights and from robbers. Fights occur harmful between neighbors, and especially between landowners, who can not be extinguished by anything but land surveying. Although detectives are sent against the robbers, there is almost no hope of bringing this evil out, or although notably reducing it. The most thorough and strongest methods are required for this. The next one seems to me more reliable, thrifty and the most merciful monarch is more glorious and, moreover, more amiable, then that he will take his action with a lesser shedding of human blood.
The almighty and long-term peace within our fatherland after a hundred and fifty years, at some time after the devastation from the Poles, there was no need to defend against enemies with walls, gave our neglect reason to have little concern for city fences, and therefore most of the small towns and townships and many provincial and provincial cities not only have stone walls or, although reliable ramparts and ditches, but also have no wooden gardens or tynov, which I see, not without regret, from the answers sent to geographical questions to the Academy of Sciences from all cities by decree of the Governing Senate, in my opinion.
In addition to the fact that passing foreigners, not without contempt, look at our disorderly cities, or, better to say, almost at ruins, the robbers use them for their refuge and can also hide themselves from dignified punishment in the city or even better than in the village, then that the city is larger and from all sides to it, in every place, the gates are constantly open day and night to thieves and good people. When would all the most merciful orders be given to all Russian cities, whose fencing was crumbling or did not exist, to strengthen, though not with stone walls, but only with a shaft and a moat and a high front garden and not in many places leave the gates with strong locks and with reliable bourgeois guards where there are no garrisons, so that the rows of the bench are inside the fence,then it would be very difficult for thieves to carry robbed things into the city for sale, and it would be incomparably easier to use everything for inspection as a precaution than in a place opened on all sides; and the robber may be more likely to be seen at the gate, who, without selling the plundered things, will not receive gain.
On top of that, in each fenced-off city to appoint permanent lodgings for passers-by and passers-by with written permits and with a signboard, and to order that every owner, every day, announce in the town hall who was at his place for the night and how much time, and other bourgeoisie should be welcomed in the house of visitors and passers-by they did not have the will, under fear of punishment, except for their relatives, famous in the city.
Although it seems enough to be, where cities are not very far away, there are many places in Russia that are deaf, 500 miles or more without cities, direct shelters for robbers and all kinds of fugitive and unmanned people; an example is the wooded area near the Vetluga River, which, stretching for 700 versts from the top to the mouth, does not have a single city with it. There from the Volga a great multitude of barge haulers take refuge in winter, of which a considerable part are robbers. The peasants keep them all winter for half a man, and if he works, they feed them without pay, without asking for passport. In such places, cities should be founded and installed, giving the noble villages civil rights to establish town halls and voivodships, and protecting them with reliable fortifications and cautions from robbers, as shown above.
This will serve not only for the general security and for the preservation of the Russian people, but also for the special glory of our all-merciful autocrat as a regenerator of the old and the builder of many new Russian cities.
12
Stopping talking about the loss of the Russian people by disease, misfortune and killings, I must mention the living dead. People leave the borderlands for foreign states, and especially for Poland, and thus the Russian crown loses its subjects. It is true that having placed precautions at the Lithuanian border, however, it is impossible to completely shut off the great well with force: it is better to act with meekness. Escapes are more from landlord burdens of peasants and from soldiers' kits. So, it seems to me, it is better to lighten the inhabitants of the border with Poland with taxes and remove the soldier's sets, placing them throughout the state. For the split, many Russian people are leaving for Vetka: could the fugitives there be returned in the current military event? And henceforth, there can be ways that will present themselves about the correction of morals and about the greater education of the people.
13
The place of fugitives abroad can be conveniently filled with the reception of foreigners, if decent measures are taken to this. The current unhappy wartime in Europe is forcing not only lonely people, but entire ruined families to leave their homeland and look for places remote from military violence. The extensive possession of our great monarch is able to accommodate entire nations in its safe depths and satisfy all sorts of needs, which people expect only feasible work from people for their useful work. The conditions by which foreigners can be attracted to settle in Russia, I cannot imagine, not knowing the rather allied and hostile circumstances between the belligerent and peaceful parties.
I would like to compose an approximate account of how many of these 13 methods (and there are still more) followed by the preservation and growth of the subjects of her imperial majesty. However, it takes many circumstances and not a little time for the news; for that, with just one guess I can reach a few that for each year an increase of the Russian people against the previous one can rise up to half a million souls, and from revision to revision in 20 years - up to 10 million. In addition, I hope that these methods will not be burdensome for the people, but will serve to the safety and reassurance of the nation.
Concluding this, I hope that your Excellency will like something from my publicly friendly opinions, and I ask for your uninterrupted health and in all the pleasure of the supreme builder and ruler of all peoples and languages, who made you this day and who has poured you the blood of the son of the fatherland to to the work of useful deeds, and even more to the patronage of the sciences and arts, to which I, as well as to you, zealously from all sincerity, with due high esteem dwell.
November 1 1761