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Thi
History of Russia
From the Karliest Times to 1877
BY
ALFRED RAMBAUD
TRANSLATED BY
LEONORA B. LANG
ilibrarv coition
Complete in Two Volumes
Volume I
NEW YORK:
Thf. Pttrt.tshrrs Plati', Rent INC, Co,
°^/5T]oo70
v,/
PREFACE.
This Translation of M. Alfred Rambaud's "Historie de la Rus-
sie" (Paris, 1878) contains a number of emendations by the Au-
thor. M. Rambaud has also written many additional pages : on
Russian ethnography ; on the Esthonian Epic ; on the early rela-
tions of England and Russia ; and on the Emperor Paul's project
of attacking England in India. The Translator has to express a
grateful sense of M. Rambaud's constant and courteous aid. In
whatever is hasty or inaccurate in these volumes, he has no share.
The Translator has compiled Genealogical Tables, of which M.
Rambaud has approved. The French book has no index, and an
attempt has been made to supply this deficiency. The Translator
regrets that, by a too close following of the French spelling of the
ancient tribal names, new varieties have been introduced, where
variety was already too plentiful and confusing. There seem, for
example, to be about thirteen ways of spelling " Patzinak." A list
of some of these names as here printed, and of the forms used by
Dr. Latham ("Russian and Turk," London, 1878), is subjoined:
Dr. Latham.
Tchouvach - - - Tshuvash.
Tcheremiss - - Tsherimis.
Mordvians . - - Mordvins (otherwise Mordwa).
Tchoud - - - Tshud.
Dregovitch - - - Dragovitsae, Dregoviczi.
Polovtsi - - - Polovcszi.
latvegues - - - Yatshvings.
Pat.-.inaks - - - Petshinegs.
Zaporogues - - - Zaporogs.
CONTENTS, VOL. I.
THE BEGINNINGS OF RUSSIA.
CHAPTER I.
GEOGRAPHY OF RUSSIA.
Eastern and Western Europe compared : seas, mountains, climate —
The four zones — Russian rivers and history — Geographical unity
of Russia, .__.--- 13-33
CHAPTER II.
ETHNOGRAPHY OF RUSSIA.
Greek colonies and the Scythia of Herodotus — The Russian Slavs of
Nestor — Lithuanian, Finnish, and Turkisli hordes in the 9tli cent-
luy — Division of the Russians proper into three branches — How
Russia was colonized, ..... 24-87
CHAPTER III.
PRIMITIVE RUSSIA : THE SLAVS.
Religion of the Slavs — Funeral rites — Domestit; and poHtical cus-
toms : the family, the nur or commune, the uoZo.s^ t r canton, the
tribe — Cities — Industry — Agricnilture, - - . 38-44
CHAPTER IV.
THE VARANGIANS : FORMATION OF RUSSIA ; THE FIRST EXPEDITIONS
AGAINST COXSTANTINOPI-E, 802-972.
The Northmen of Russia — Origin and customs of the Varangians —
The first Russian princes : Rurik, Oleg, Igor — Expeditions agamst
Constantinople • — Olga — Christianity in Russia — Sviatoslaf —
The Danube disputed between the Russians and Greeks, 45-57
PRINCELY RUSSIA.
CHAPTER V.
THE CLOVIS AND CHARLEMAGNE OF THE RUSSIANS : SAINT VLADIMIR
AND lAROSLAF THE GREAT, 972-1054.
Vladimir (972-1015) — Conversion of the Russians — laroslaf tlie
Great (1010-1054) — Union of Russia — Si)leud()r of Kief — Varan-
gian-Russian society at the time of laroslaf — Progress of Chris-
tianity — Social, political, literary, and artistic results, - 58-71
viii. CONTENTS.
CHAPTER VI.
RUSSIA DIVIDED INTO PRINCIPALITIES — SUPREMACY AND FALL OF
KIEF, 1054-1169.
Distribution of Russia into principalities — Unity in division — The
successors of laroslaf the Great — Wars about the riglit of head-
ship of the royal family, and the throne of Kief — Vladimir Mon-
omachus — Wars between the heirs of Vladimir Monomachus —
Fall of Kief, 72-«3
CHAPTER VII.
RUSSIA AFTER THE FALL OF KIEF — POWER OF SOUZDAL AND
GALLICIA, 1169-1224.
Andrew Bogolioubski of Souzdal (1157-1174), and the first attempt at
autocracy — George II. (1213-1338) — Wars with Novgorod — Bat-
tle of Lipetsk (1316) — Foundation of Nijni-Novgorod (1330) —
Roman (1188-1305) and his son Daniel (1305-1364, in Gallicia, 84-94
CHAPTER VIII.
THE RUSSIAN REPUBLICS : NOVGOROD, PSKOF, AND VIATKA, UP TO 1334.
Novgorod the Great — Her struggles with the princes — Novgorodian
institutions — Commerce — National Church — Literature — Pskof
andViatka, 95-106
THE INVASIONS FROM THE 13th TO THE 14th CENTURY.
CHAPTER IX.
THE LIVONIAN KNIGHTS : CONQUEST OF THE BALTIC PROVINCES BY
THE GERMANS.
Conversion of Livonia — Rise of the Livonian knights : union with
the Teutonic knights, ----- 106-111
CHAPTER X.
THE TATAR MONGOLS : ENSLAVEMENT OF RUSSIA.
Origin and manners of the Mongols — Battles of the Kalka, of Ria-
zan, of Kolomna, and of the Sit — Conquest of Russia — Alexan-
der Nevski — The Mongol yoke — Influence of the Tatars on the
Russian development, ----- 113-139
CHAPTER XI.
THE LITHUANIANS : CONQUEST OF WESTERN RUSSIA (1340-1430).
Tlie Litluianians — Conquests of Mindvog (1340-1363), of Gedimin
(1315-1340), and of Olgerd (1345-1377) — JageUon — Union of Li-
thuania with Poland (1386) — The Grand Prince Vitovt (1393-1430)
— Battles of the VorsUa (1399) and of Tannenberg (1410), 130-137
CONTENTS. ix.
MUSCOVITE RUSSIA.
CHAPTER XII.
THE GRAND PRINCES OF MOSCOAV : ORGANIZATION OF EASTERN
RUSSIA (1303-1462).
Origin of Moscow — Daniel — George Danielovitch (1303-1325) and
Ivan Kalita (1328-1341) — Contest with thehouseof Tver — Simeon
the Proud and Ivan the Debonnaire (1341 — 1359) — Dmitri Dons-
koi (1363-1389) — Battle of Koulikovo — Vassili Dmitrievitch and
Vassili the BUnd (1389-1462), - - - - 138-160
CHAPTER XIII.
IVAN THE GREAT, THE UNITER OF THE RUSSIAN LAND (1462-1505).
Submission of Novgorod — Annexation of Tver, Rostof , and laro-
slavl — Wars with the Great Horde and Kazan — End of the Tatar
yoke — Wais with Lithuania — Western Russia as far as the Soja
reconquered — Marriage with Sophia Palaeologus — Greeks and
Itahans at the Court of Moscow, . - - - 161-174
CHAPTER XIV.
VASSILI IVANOVITCH (1505-1533).
Annexation of Pskof , Riazan, and Novgorod-Severski — Wars with
Lithuania — Acquisition of Smolensk — Wars with the Tatars —
Diplomatic relations with Europe, ... 175-181
CHAPTER XV.
IVAN THE TERRIBLE (1533-1584).
Minority of Ivan IV. — He takes the title of Tzar (1547) — Conquest
of Kazan (1552) and of Astrakhan (1554) — Contests with the Li-
vonian Order, Poland, the Tatars, Sweden, and the Russian aris-
tocracy — The English in Russia — Conquest of Siberia, 182-208
CHAPTER XVI.
MUSCOVITE RUSSIA AND THE RENAISSANCE.
The Muscovite government — The kin and the men of the Tzar —
The i^rikazes — Rural classes — Citizens — Commerce — Domestic
slavery — Seclusion of women — The Renaissance : Literature,
popular songs, and cathedrals — Moscow in the 16th centvury,
209-230
CHAPTER XVII.
THE SUCCESSORS OF IVAN THE TERRIBLE : FEODOR IVANOVITCH AND
BORIS GODOUNOF (1584-1605).
Feodor Ivanovitch (1584-1598) — The peasant attached to the glebe
— The patriarchate — Boris Godounof (1598-1605) — Appearance
of the false Dmitri, 231-241
X. CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE TIME OF THE TROUBLES (1605-1613).
Murder of the false Dmitri — Vassili Chouiski — The brigand of
Touchino — Vladislas of Poland — The Poles at the Kremlin
— National rising — Minme and Pojarski — Election of Michael Ro-
manof, 242-253
CHAPTER XIX.
THE ROMANOFS: MICHAEL FEODOROVITCH AND THE PATRIARCH
PHILARETE (1613-1645).
Restorative measures — End of the Polish war — Relations with Eu-
rope — The States-general, .... 254-262
CHAPTER XX.
WESTERN RUSSIA IN THE 17TH CENTURY.
The political union of Lublin (1509), and the religious Union (1595) —
Complaints of White Russia — Risings in Little Russia, 263-271
CHAPTER XXI.
ALEXIS MIKHAILOVITCH (1645-1676) AND HIS SON FEODOR.
Early years of Alexis — Seditions — Khmelnitskl — Conquest of
Smolensk and the Eastern Ukraine — Stenko Razine — Ecclesiasti-
cal reforms of Nicon — The precursors of Peter the Great — Reign
of Feodor Alexievitch (1676-1582), - - - 272-290
CHAPTER XXIL
PETER THE GREAT ■. EARLY YEARS (1682-1709).
Regency of Sophia (1682-1689) — Peter I. — Expeditions against
Azof (1695-1696) — First journey to the West (1697) — Revolt and
destruction of the streltsi — Contest with the Cossacks: revolt of
the Don (1706); Mazeppa (1709), - . - 291-309
HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
CHAPTER I.
GEOGRAPHY OF RUSSIA.
Eastern and Western Europe compared : seas, mountains, climate— The
four zones — Russian rivers and history— Geograpliical unity of Russia.
EASTERN AND WESTERN EUROPE COMPARED : SEAS, MOUNTAINS,
CLIMATE.
Europe may be roughly divided into two unequal parts. If we
give 4,000,000 square miles to the whole of Europe, only 1,800,-
000 belong to the western, 2,200,000 to the eastern part. The
former division is shared between all the monarchies and repulv
lies of Europe, Russia excepted; the latter is united under the
Russian sceptre. Nature, not less than policy or_ religion, has
established a strong opposition between the two regions, between
Eastern and Western Europe.
The shores of the latter are everywhere broken up by inland
seas, pierced by deep gulfs, jagged with peninsulas, isthmuses,
capes, and promontories; islands and crowded archipelagos are
thickly sprinkled along the coasts. Great Britain and the Greek
peninsula particularly, which have a coast-line out of all propor-
tion to their area, contrast with the impenetrable compact mass
of Eastern Europe. This strongly-marked outline of the western
lands is the characteristic feature of European geography, while
the immense spaces of which Russia is composed seem the con-
tinuation of the plains and plateaux of Northern and Central
Asia. No doubt Russia is washed by many seas : in the north
by the Icy Ocean, which bites deep into the country through the
great fissure of the White Sea ; in the south by the Caspian, the
1 4 HISTOR Y OF RUSSIA.
Sea of Azof, and the Black Sea ; in the north-west by the Baltic
and the gulfs of Bothnia, Finland, and Livonia ; but, wiih all
these seas, it has only a comparatively meagre share of sea-
board. While the rest of Europe has about 15,525 miles of
coast, Russia, with a much more considerable surface, possesses
onlv 5514 miles of coast; and of this nearly half (2680 miles)
belongs to the lev Ocean and the White Sea. Now, these two
seas are only navigable during a few months of the year, from
June to September, at furthest. The Baltic, in its two most
northern gulfs, freezes easily; armies have been able to cross
on the ice, with all their artillery supplies ; navigation is stopped
from the month of November to the end of April. The Caspian
often freezes, especially in its northern half, which includes
Astrakhan, its most flourishing port. The Sea of Azof, here and
there, is little better than a marsh. It may be said that, with the
exception of the Euxine, the Russian seas have an anti-European
character; they cannot be of the same use as our western seas.
From this point of view Russia is worse endowed by nature than
any other European country ; compared with the privileged lands
of the West, she might be styled conthiental Europe, in opposition
to mari/ivie Europe.
Western Europe, so jagged in its contour, is no less broken
in its surface. Without speaking of the vast central mass of the
Alps, there is not one European land which does not possess,
either in its length or breadth, a great mountain system forming
the scaffolding or the backbone of the country. England has
her chain of the Peak and her Highlands ; France has her
Cevennes and her central support in Auvergne ; Spain her
Pyrenees and the Sierras; Italy her Apennines; Germany her
ranges in Suabia, Franconia, and the Hartz ; Sweden her Scan-
dinavian Alps ; the Greco-Slav peninsula has the Balkan and
Pindus. What mountains Russia possesses on the other hand,
are banished, as it were, to the extremities of her territory. She
is bounded on the north-west bv the granitic svstem of Finland,
on the south-ea^ by the branches of the Carpathians, to the
south by the rocky plateaux of the Crimea with the Yalia and
Tchardyr-Dagh (5183 feet), by the Caucasus, extending over 687
miles, where Elburz (18,000 feet) surpasses by more than 2000
feet the highest mountain in Europe, Mont Blanc. To the east
is the Oural range, the longest chain of mountains (1531 miles)
in Europe or Asia, running parallel to the meridians of longitude,
with peaks 6233 feet high. In the Tatar language, the word
Oural signifies girdle, but it is not only the Ourals which may be
called the mountain girdle ; all the mountains of Russia deserve
this name. They bound her, they confine her, but have only a
blight influence on the configuration of her mterior and the dis-
HTSTORY OF RUSSIA.
15
tribLition of her waters. From the Carpathians and the Cauca-
sus only secondary rivers flow, while the four great Russian
streams take their rise in hills not 300 feet high.* \\'e must ob-
serve also that none of these great mountains form a seijarate
system ; they are nearly all fragments of systems belonging to
other countries. The empire of the Tzars is thus a huge plain,
which is continued on the west by the level lands of Poland and
Prussia, and on the east by the limitless steppes of Siberia and
Turkestan, and is in striking contrast with the rugged and multi-
form soil of the west. From this point of view, Russia may be
defined as the Europe of plains, in opposition to the Europe of
mountains.
Uniformity of surface is never quite complete, and Russia
does present inequalities of soil, though these are far less notable
than the depressions and elevations of the ^^'est. In the faintly-
marked soil of Russia, we must notice, in the centre of the
country, a kind of square table-land, called the central plateau,
or the plateau of Alaoune, from the name of its northern part.
The north-eastern angle is formed by the heights of the Valdai
plateau, where the hills are 300 feet- high ; the western side of
the central plateau by the small hills of the Dnieper, which ex-
tend as far as the GrArrrtt-Zx/ the southern side by the heights
which reach from Koursk to Saratof ; the eastern side by the
sandy stretches which extend along the right bank of the Volga
and the Kama ; the northern side by the undulations of the land
which separate the basin of the Volga from the rivers that drain
into the Icy Ocean. The central plateau is besides divided into
two unequal parts by the deep valleys of the Upper Volga, of
the Oka, and their tributaries.
Considerable depressions correspond to this swelling in the
centre of the Russian plateau : — i. Between the plateau of the
Valdai and the north-east slope of the Carpathians lies a deep
valley, in which during the quaternary age the Baltic and Euxine
mingled their waves. It is traversed on the north bv the southern
Diina or Dwina, and the Niemen ; on the south by the Dnieper,
and its affluents ; it reaches its lowest level in the wide marshes
of Pinsk. 2. Between the low rocks on the right bank of the
Volga and the spurs of the Oural (obc/ifc/iiisirt), the soil gradu-
ally sinks throughout the whole length of the Volga, and reaches
the level of the sea at the Caspian, which is 80 feet lower than
the Black Sea : here are the steppes of Kirghiz, the lowest part
of European Russia, formerly the bed of a great inland mere
which was gradually dried up, and of which the Caspian, the
Lake of Aral, and other sheets of water are only the remains.
♦ HOC feet above the level of the sea.
l6 HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
If the Caspian could only regain the level of the Black Sea, a
large part of this sterile plain, now covered with saline efflores-
cence, would be inundated anew. 3. The third great depression
of the Russian soil is the slope of the north, covered with lalas of the peasants. Russian villages, and
most of the towns, are a collection of combustible materials :
hence the fires which break out periodically, and justify the
saying that Russia, as a rule, was burned every seven years.
Ijiiildings of such materials cannot assume the colossal propor-
tions of the castles of the Isle de France, or of the Rhenish
cathedrals ; the old churches of Russia are small. It is only
since the conquest of the Baltic and the Black Sea that the em-
])ire has had cities of stone. Peter the Great gave Russia her
first stone capital. From the geological point of view, then,
Russia may be defined, according to the expression of M. Solo-
vief, as the Europe of woody in opposition to the Europe 0/ stone.
l8 HIS TOR Y OF K l/SS/A.
RUSSIAN RIVERS AND HISTORY.
In a country so extensive and so destitute of seaboard as
Russia, rivers have an immense importance, and with rivers
Eastern Europe is well endowed. It is her watercourses which
prevent Russia from being a continent closed and sealed, like
Africa or Australia. In place of arms of the sea, she has great
rivers which penetrate to her centre, and have sometimes almost
the proportions of seas. In the level plains they have not the
impetuous current of the Rhone, they flow peacefully through
great beds cut in the sand or clay. The rivers were for a long
while the only means of communication. When the Russian
princes Vv^ished to make a progress through their dominions, or
begin a campaign, they had either to take advantage of winter,
which from the Dnieper to the Oural gave them a flat surface
for their sledges, or await the thaw and follow the course of the
rivers. Boats in summer, sledges in winter, were the only
means of conveyance ; in spring, the thaw and floods, which
transformed the plain into a marsh, brought the raspoutitsa (the
season of bad roads). Commerce followed the same routes as
war or government. The rivers which, in Russia especially, are
" the roads that run," explain the rapidity with which we see
the characters of Russian history traverse immense spaces, and
go as easily from Novgorod to Kief, from Moscow to Kazan, as
a French king from his good city of Paris to Rheims or Or-
leans. Tiie rivers are the allies of the Russians against what
they call " their great enemy " — space. Russian conquest or
colonization has evervwhere followed the course of the waters ;
it was on the banks of the Oka, the Kama, the Don, and the
Volga, that the Russian element of the population chiefly
gathered, the aboriginal races everywhere retreating into the
thickness of the primitive forests.
The plateau of Valdai is the dominant point in the river-sys-
tem of Russia. It is near this plateau, in the lake Volgo, that
the Volga, w'hich ultimately falls into the Caspian, takes its
rise. In this neighborhood also are the sources of the Dnieper
(flowing to the Black Sea), the Niemen, the Dwina, which falls
into the Baltic, the Velikaia, a tributary of the Peipus, the rivers
forming lake Ilmen, and those which feed the lakes Ladoga and
Onega, w'hence rises the Neva. The hydrographic centre of
Russia being at the north-west angle of the central plateau, it
follows that the slopes are turned to the south and to the east ;
a disposition which has had its influence on the development of
the national history. This history, indeed, begins in the north-
west, near the VaUlai" plateau ; on the Peipus and the Ilmen the
old commercial cities of Pskof and Novgorod are established.
HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
J9
What is their opening to the sea ? Not the Narova, which falls
out of lake Peipus, and of which the course is broken by cata-
racts, but the network of rivers and lakes which terminates in
the Neva, the Thames of Russia, a river of little length but im-
mense breadth, on which St. Petersburg, the Novgorod of the
i8th century, w^as afterwards to be built. In primitive times
Novgorod was safer in the centre of this network of rivers and
lakes than she would have been on the Neva. By the VoJkhof
her vessels sailed from the Ilmen to the Ladoga, and by the
Neva from the Ladoga to the Gulf of Finland, and the great
Baltic Sea. Other small rivers put her in communication with
the lake Onega and the White Lake (Bie'loe-Ozero) ; by the
Soukhona and the northern Dwina she had relations with the
White Sea, where later the port of Arkhangel arose. By the
tributaries of the Dwina the Novgorod explorers penetrated
deep into the northern forests, peopled by aboriginal races, on
whom they imposed tribute. The watersheds between the slope
to the ^Vhite Sea, the basin of the Novgorod lakes, and the
basin of the Volga, are scarcely marked at all. The rivers seem
to hesitate at their rise between two opposite courses : some of
them never make up their minds, lilZ
Khazars, the shores of the Sea of Azof and of the Caspian, while
tlie Finns of Esthonia lield the Lithuanians in check.
The Turkish races, on the contrary, made their appearance
much later in Russia. In the glh century the Lower Volga and
I he Lower Oural began to fall a prey to the Patzinaks, incor-
rigible brigands who marched over the bodies of the Khazars
to establish themselves on the Lower Dnieper. After them ap-
peared the Polovtsi or Koumans, the Ouzes or Torques. The
invasion of the Tatars was more Turkish than Mongolian. The
nomads vanished or, according to Nestor, were absorbed by new
arrivals, namely the Nogais, formed in the 13th century of the
remnants of the Polovtsi, and of the Turko-Kanglis, at present
numbering 50,000; the Kirghis, who entered Europe about 1721,
and to-day amount to about 82,000 souls ; the Kalmucks, wiio
are Mongols not Turks, belong to the (Eleutes or Western
Mongols, invaders of Russia in 1636, number 87,000 in the
provinces of Astrakhan, Stavropol, and the Don, and in spite of
the efforts of Christians and Mussulmans have remained La-
maists. As to the Tatars, properly so called, or sedentary Turks
(more or less a mixture of Finnish and Mongol elements), who
inhabit the governments of the Volga, Kazan, and Astrakhan, as
well as those of Stavropol and the Crimea, they number altogether
about 1,420,000 heads.
DIVISION OF THE RUSSIANS OF TO-DAY INTO THREE BRANCHES —
HOW RUSSIA WAS COLONIZED.
In the time of Nestor (end of the nth century), the Russian
Slavs confined between the Lithuanians on the west, the Finns
on the north, and the Turks on the east, hardly occupied one-
fifth part of Russia in Europe. To-day we see the Russian
race extend from Finland to the Oural, from the Icy Ocean to
the Caucasus and Crimea, amounting to 56,000,000 men, be-
sides 3.000,000 colonists in the Asiatic provinces. The Letto-
Lilhuanians on the contrary are reduced to 2,420,000 souls;
the Finns, including the inhabitants of Finland, to less than
4.000,000 ; and the Turko-Tatars to less than 2,000,000. The
Russians form six-sevenths of the population of Russia. The
proportions are more than reversed. What a change has been
wrought in ten centuries ! The present Russians may be
divided into three branches, deriving their names from certain
historical circumstances, i. Tlie name of White Russia is
given to the provinces conquered from the 13th to the 14th
century by the Grand Dukes of Lithuania. These were the
ancient territories of the Krivitches, Polotchans, Dregovitches,
34. /riSTORY OF RUSSIA
Drevlians, Doulebes, now forming the governments of Vitepsk,
Mohilef, and Minsk. The governments of Kovno, Grodno and
Wilna, at present unequally Russicized, were originally Lithu-
anian. The Lithuanian territories of Grodno, Novogrodek and
Belostok were sometimes called Black J^iissia. 2. Little Russia
includes the country of the ancient Severians and Polians in-
creased by colonies; that is, the governments of Kief, Tcher-
nigof, Pultowa, Kharkof, Volhynia, and Podolia. It even ex-
tends beyond the frontiers of the empire into Jicd Hassia or
Old Gallicia (Galitch, laroslavl, Terebovl, Zvenigorod, Lemberg,
or Lvof), belonging to Austria, and peopled by 3,000,000 ot
Ruthenians or Russians. 3. Great /•Russia grouped around the
ancient Muscovy, and occupying the place lield in the gth cen-
tury by many Turkish or Finnish tribes. To Great Russia be-
long Northern Russia (Arkhangel), Eastern Russia (the Volga,
Kazan, Astrakhan), and New Russia or South Russia (Cherson,
Ekaterinoslaf, Kharkof, Odessa, the Crimea). Great Russia as
a whole, apart from Novgorod and Pskof, was won from foreign
races by Russian colonization. It was a colony of Kievian
Russia, and, though for a time subjugated by the Tatars, was
able to shake off their yoke, while Kief still remained a Lithu-
anian province. It continued to extend its conquests in the
East ; then turning to the West in the 17th and i8th centuries,
was able to recover White Russia and Little Russia.
In the empire the White Russians number 3,000,000, the
Little Russians 12,000,000, and the Great Russians 41,000,000.
There are dialectical differences between the idioms of these
three families, which historical and literary influences easily ex-
plain. Some writers have been anxious to establish the existence
of a profound difference between Great Russia and her two
neighbors. They have reserved the name of Russians and the
character of Slavs for the White Russians and the Little Russians,
and have pretended to see in the " Muscovites " nothing but
descendants of Finns, Turks and Tatars, in a word Turanians,
Russian only in language. The Muscovite Empire, founded in
the midst of Vesses, of Mouromians, and of Merians, extended
at tlie expense of the Tchouvaches, the Mordvians, Tatars and
Kirghiz, with its two capitals Moscow and St. Petersburg in the
Tchoudic region, is not, if these writers are to be trusted, even
a European state. A more careful study shows us that Muscovy
was formed in the first place by the migrations of Russian col-
onists, in the second place by the assimilation of certain foreign
races, i. When the steppes of the south became the prey of
Asiatic nomads, tlie Russian population flowed back in a vast
wave, from the banks of the Dnieper to the Upper and Middle
Volga. We see the princes of Souzdal calling to their aid the
MIS TORY OF RUSSIA.
35
inhabitants of the banks of the Dnieper, while in the forests of
the north new cities are constantly founded by the people of
Novgorod. The Russia of Kief once destroyed, a new Russia
begins to form itself, almost out of the same elements, at the
opposite extremity of the Oriental plain. Tiie names given to
the new towns of Souzdal and Muscovy must be noticed. There
is a Vladimir on the Kliazma as there is a Vladimir in Volhynia,
a Zvenigorod on the Lloskowa as on the Dniester, a Galitch in
Souzdal as in Gallicia, a laroslavl on the Volga as on the San.
Souzdal and Riazan, like Kief, have their Pereiaslavl ; that of
the former bears the title of Zaliesski, or " bevond the forests."
In a different land and under another sky the emigrants clearly
tried to restore the name, if they could not find the image of
their native countrv. Is it not thus that the English in America
founded New York, and the French New Orleans ? Moreover,
when we have seen a population of 3,000,000 Russians gather in
the Caucasus and in Siberia — when we see that the steppes of
the south which were deserts in the time of Catherine II. reckon
to-day their 5,000,000 to 6,000,000 inhabitants, — it is easy to un-
derstand how, at a more distant epoch, the basin of the Volga was
colonized. As for saving that ihe inhabitants of New Russia
are nothing but Finns and Russified Turks, one might as well
pretend that the 30,000,000 or 40,000.000 of North America are
Red-skins who have learnt English and embraced Protestantism.
We must recognize that the Russian, almost as much as the
Anglo-Saxon, has the instinct which drives men to emigrate and
found colonies. The Russians do in the far East of Europe
what the Anglo-Saxons do in the far West of America. They
belong to one of the great races of pioneers and backwoodsmen.
All the history of the Russian people, from the foundation of
Moscow, is that of their advance into tiie forest, into the Black
Land, into the prairie. The Russian has his trappers and set-
tlers in the Cossacks of the Dnieper, Don, and Tereck ; in the
tireless fur-hunters of Siberia ; in the gold-diggers of the Oural
and the Altai ; in the adventurous monks who ever lead the way,
founding in regions always more distant, a monastery which is
to be the centre of a town ; lastly, in the Raskolnicks, or Dissen-
ters, Russian Puritans or Mormons, who are persecuted by laws
human and divine, and seek from forest to forest the Jerusalem
of their dreams. The level plains of Russia naturally tempted
men to migration. The mountain keeps her own, the mountain
calls her wanderers to return; while the steppe, stretching away
to the dimmest horizon, invites you to advance, to ride at advent-
ure, to "go where the eyes glance."
The flat and monotonous soil has no hold on its inhabitants ;
they wiU fiud as bare a landscape anywhere As for their hovel,
3D UISTOR Y OF k USSIA.
how can they care for their hovel? it is burned clown ft
often. The Western expression, the " ancestral roof," has no
meaning for the Russian peasant. The native of Great Russia,
accustomed to live on little, and endure the extremes of heat and
cold, was born to brave the dangers and privations of the emi-
grant's life. VViih his crucifix, his axe in his belt, and his boots
slung behind his back, he will go to the end of the Eastern world.
However weak may be the infusion of the Russian element in
a:i Asiatic population, it cannot transmute itself nor disappear — ■
it must become the dominant power.
History has helped to make this movement irresistible.
When the Russian took refuge in Souzdal, he was compelled to
clear and cultivate the very worst land of his future domain, for
the Tchernoziom was then overrun by nomads. How could he
escape the temptation to go and look in the south for more fer-
tile soil which without labor or manure would yield four times
as great a harvest? Villages and whole cantons in Muscovy
have been known to empty themselves in a moment, the peasants
marching in a body, as in the old times of the invasions, towards
the " Black Soil," the "Warm Soil" of the south. Government
and the landholders were obliged to use the most terrible means
to stop these migrations of the husbandmen. Without these re-
pressive measures the steppes would have been colonized two
centuries earlier than they actually were. The report that the
Tzar authorized the emigration— a forged ukase, a rumor— any-
thing was enough to uproot whole peoples from the soil.
The peasant's passion for wandering explains the development
of Cossack life in the plains of the south ; it explains the legis-
lation which from the beginning of the i6th centurv chained the
serf to the glebe and bound him to the soil. In 'the 13th cen-
tury, on the other hand, the peasant was free. His prince
encouraged him to emigrate, and hence came the colonization
of Eastern Russia.
2. The Russian race, it is true, has the facultv of absorbing
certain aboriginal stocks. The Little Russians assimilated the
remnants of Turkish tribes, the Great Russians swallowed up
the Einnish nations of the East. There must, however, be no
religious barrier between the conquerors and the conquered, for
the Tchoud, while still heathen, is easily assimilated; but once
converted to Islamism, he is a refractory element that can
scarcely be brought to order. A baptized Tchouvach inevitably
becomes a Russian, a circumcised Tchouvach inevitably be-
comes a Tatar. We have seen the Vesses, the Mouromians,
the IMerians disappear without leaving a trace ; the Tchouvaches,
the Mordvians, the Tcheremisses become more Russian every
day. The successive stages, and the steps which lead to the
HIS TOR y OF K USSIA. 3 7
accomplishment of this change, were lately observed by Mr.
Wallace, an English traveller : —
" iJuring my wanderings in these northern provinces I have
found villages in every stage of Russification. In one every-
thing seemed thorousfhlv Finnish : the inhabitants had a reddish-
^live skin, very high cheek-bones, obliquely-set eyes, and a pe-
culiar costume ; none of the women and very few of the men
could understand Russian, and any Russian who visited the
place was regarded as a foreigner. In a second there were al-
ready some Russian inhabitants ; the others had lost something
of their pure Finnish type, many of the men had discarded
the old costume and spoke Russian fluently, and a Russian
visitor was no longer shunned. In a third, the Finnish type
was still further weakened ; all the men spoke Russian, and
nearly all the women understood it ; the old male costume had
entirely disappeared, and the old female costume was rapidly
following it, and the intermarriage with the Russian population
was no longer rare. In a fourth, intermarriage had almost com-
pletely done its work, and the old Finnish element could be de-
tected merely in certain peculiarities of physiognomy and ac-
cent " (vol. i. p. 231).
The density and resisting power of these ancient peoples,
scattered over such immense spaces of the continent, must
have been comparatively slight, while the Russian emigrants
came on in vast waves, or stole in like the constant dropping of
water. The aboriginals must often have recoiled and concen-
trated their forces, thus leaving room and verge for the pure
Slavonic element. The more or less considerable mixture of
races, on the other hand, cannot but have influenced the physi-
cal type, character, and powers of the Great Russian in a pecul-
iar wav. The bright Slavonic nature, when blended with tribes
of a duller cast, gained in strength and weight what it lost in
vivacity. Hence, of all the Slavonic peoples, the Great Rus-
sian alone has been able to create and to maintain, in face of
3very obstacle, a vast and durable empire.
38 HISTOR Y OF R CrsSSA.
CHAPTER ITT.
PRIMITIVE RUSSIA : THE SLAVS.
Religion of the Slavs — Funeral rites — Domestic and i)olitical customs . the
family, the w/> or commune, the volost or canton, the tribe — Cities — In '.us-
try — Agriculture.
RELIGION OF THE SLAVS FUNERAL RITES.
The religion of the Russian Slavs, like that of all Aryan
races, was founded on nature and its phenomena. It was a
pantheism which, as its original meaning was lost, necessarily
became a polytheism. Just as the Homeric deities were pre-
ceded by the gods of Hesiod, Ouranos and Demeter, or Heaven
and Earth, so the most ancient gods of the Russian Slavs seem
to have been Svarog, the heaven, and " our mother, the dank
earth." Then new conceptions appeared in the first rank in the
historic period, i. Ancient poets and chroniclers (see the Song
of Igor, and Nestor) have preserved to us the names of Dagh-
Bog, god of the sun, father of nature ; Voloss, a solar deity, and,
like the Greek Apollo, inspirer of poets and protector of flocks ;
Pcnm^ god of thunder, another personification of the Sun at wai
with the Cloud ; Stribog^ the Russian ^olus, father of winds,
protector of warriors ; Khors, a solar god ; Seviargl ^.Ttdjlfokoc/i,
whose attributes are unknown. 2. In some of the early hymns
they sing of Koupalo or larilo, god of the summer sun, and Did-
Laih), goddess of fecundity. 3. In the epic songs are celebrated
Sviaiogor, the giant-hero, whose weight the earth can scarcely
bear; Mikoula Selianhiovitch, the good laborer, a kind of Slav
Triptolemus, the divine personification of the race's passionate
love of agriculture, striking with the iron share of his plough
the stones of the furrow, with a noise that is heard tliree days'
journey off ; Volga VseslaviicJi^ a Proteus who can take all man-
ner of shapes; Polkan, a centaur; Doiuiai, Don Ivanoviich,
Dnieper Korolevitch^ who are rivers ; then a series of heroes,
conquerors of dragons like Ilia of Moii7'07n, who seem to be solar
gods degraded to the rank of paladins. 4. In the stories which
beguile the village evening assemblies, a]5pear Aforena, god.
dess of death; Kochtchei imA Aforoz, personifications of the bit-
ter winter weather ; Jyaba-Yaga, an ogress who lives on the edge
of the forest, in a hut built on the foot of a fowl, and swayed by
the winds ^ and the King of the iSca, who entices sailors to his
HISTORY OF RUSSIA. 3^
watery palaces. 5. Popular superstition continues to people
nature witli good and baci spirits : the Russalki, water sprites ;
rodianoi, river genii ; the Licchii and the IJcsnik, forest de-
mons ; the Domovoi (ires, ghosts who steal by night from their
tombs, and suck the blood of the living during their sleep.
Since Mythology reproduces under so many forms the strug-
gle of the heroes of the light with the monsters of darkness, it is
possible that she may have admitted a bad jjrinciple at variance
with a good principle, an ill-doing god, of whom Morena, Koch-
tchei, Baba-Yaga, the dragon, the mountain-serpent, are only
types. We cannot find any positive confirmation of this hypo-
thesis, as far as the Russian Slavs are concerned, but Helmold
asserts that the Baltic Slavs recognize Biclibog, the White God,
and Tc/wnioliog, the Black God.
The Russians do not seem to have had either temples or
priests in the proper sense of the word. They erected rude
idols on the hills, and venerated the oak consecrated to Perun ;
the leaders of the people offered the sacrifices. They also had
sorcerers, or magicians, analogous to the Tatar Shamans, whose
counsels appear to have had great weight.
It has been the study of the Russian Church to combat pa-
ganism by purifying the superstitions she cannot uproot. She
has turned to account any similarity in names or symbols. She
has been able to honor Saint Dmitri and Saint George, the slay-
ers of dragons ; Saint John, who thunders in the spring; Saint
Elias, who recalls Ilia of Mourom ; Saint Blaise or Vlaise, who
has succeeded to Voloss as guardian of the Hocks; Saint Nich-
olas, or Mikoula, patron of laborers, like Mikoula Selianino-
vitch ; Saint Cosmas, or Kouzma, protector of blacksmiths, who
has taken the place of kouzucts, the mysterious blacksmith forger
of the destinies of man in the mountains of the north. In some
popular songs the Virgin Mary replaces Did-Lado, and then
Saint John succeeds to Perun or larilo. Who can fail to recog-
nize the myth of the spring and the fruitful rains accompanied
by thunder, in this White Russian song that is repeated at the
festival of St. John ? "John and Mary — bathed on the hill —
while John bathed — the earth shook — while Mary bathed — the
earth germinated." The Church has taken care to consecrate
to the Saints of her calendar or to purify by holy rites the sacred
trees and mysterious wells to which crowds of pilgrims contin-
ued to flock.
Russian Slavs certainly had visions of another life, but, like
all primitive peoples, they looked forward to a life which was
gross and material. In the 7th century among the Wends, Ger-
man Slavs, women refused to survive their husbands, and burned
40 HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
themselves on their funeral pile. This ancient Aryan custom
must have been in vigor among the Russian Slavs at an equally
early epoch. The Arabic writer, Ibn-Foszlan, gives an account
of the Russian funeral rites which he himself witnessed in the
9th century. For ten days the friends of the deceased bewailed
him, and intoxicated themselves over his corpse. Then the
men-servants were asked, which of them would be buried with
his master? One of them replied in the affirmative, and was in-
instantly strangled. The same question was also put to the
women-servants, one of whom likewise devoted herself. She
was then washed, adorned, and treated like a princess, and did
nothing but drink and sing. On the appointed day the dead
man was laid in a boat, with part of his arms and his garments.
The man-servant was slain with the favorite horse and other do-
mestic animals and was laid in the boat, to which the young girl
was then led. She took off her jewels, and with a glass of kvass
in her hand sang a song that she would only too willingly have
prolonged. " All at once," says the eye-witness, " the old
woman who accompanied her, and whom they called the angel
of death, ordered her to drink quickly, and to enter into the
cabin of the boat, where lay the dead body of her master. At
these words she changed color, and as she made some difficul-
ties about entering, the old woman seized her by the hair, drag-
ged her in, and entered with her. The men immediately began
to beat their shields with clubs to prevent the other girls from
hearing the cries of their companion, which might prevent them
from one day dying for their masters." While the funeral pile
blazed, one of the Russians said to our narrator, " You Arabs
are fools : you hide in the earth the man you have loved best,
and there he becomes the prey of worms. We, on the contrary,
burn him up in the twinkling of an eye, that he may the quicker
enter paradise." Nestor found the rite among the Russian
Slaves. The excavations made in a great number of koiirgans
(barrows) confirm his testimonv. The discoveries recently made
in the tombs of Novgorod by M. Ivanouski, prove that the
Slavs of Ilmen had preserved or adopted the custom of bury-
ing their dead. In these tombs are found a great quantity of
arms, instruments, jewels, animals, bones, and grains of wheat ;
from which we may conclude that the Russian Slavs expected
the future life to be an exact continuation of the present one,
and that they surrounded the dead with all the objects that here
contributed to his happiness. The examination of the human
bones preserved in the kourgans also confirms the historical ac-
counts, and proves that servants and female slaves were sacri-
ficed over the corpse.
HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
4«
DOMESTIC AND POIJTICAL CUSTOMS : THE FAMILY ; THE MIR OR
COMMUNE ; THE VOLOST OR CANTON J THE TRIBE.
The Slav family was founded on the patriarchal principle.
The father was the absolute head, and after his death the power
passed to the eldest of the members composing it.: first, to the
brothers of the deceased, if he had any under his care, then
successively to his sons, beginning with the eldest. The chief
had the same rights over the women who entered his family b);
marriage, as over its natural members.
Their domestic manners seemed to have been very barbarous.
The monk Nestor may be suspected of exaggeration wherever
he describes the condition of pagan Russia, which baptism was to
regenerate. There is no exception to this exaggerated censure
but in the case of the Polians. " The Drevlians," he tells us,
" lived after the manner of wild beasts. They cut each other's
throats, ate impure food, declined all marriage-ties ; they ra\-
ished and stole voung srirls who came for water to the foun-
tains The Radimitches, the Viatitches, the Severians lived
like wild animals in the forests, were fed on all sorts of horrors,
and spoke of all kinds of shameful things in the presence of
their sisters-in-law and relatives. . . . They captured women,
who were willing parties to the transaction, often two or three at
a time."
Tiie charges which Nestor chiefly urges against the Slavs,
are the capture of women and polygamy. This latter charge is
completely established ; as to the capture, it might be symbol-
ical. In the text quoted above we see the women "came" to
the fountain, and that they were parties to the transaction.
This capture, if we take it for a simple ceremony, may imply, in
very early times the existence of abduction by violence. To-
day, the marriage-customs of Russia still preserve traces of
these ancient usages. There is still a pretended capture of the
woman ; a custom to be found in the Germany of the 8th cen-
tury, where the very name of marriage has a pointed significa-
tion — Braiiilaiift, the flight of the bride. The songs at Russian
weddings also imply the existence of a time when the maiden
was bought. One of these songs accuses the kindred of avarice :
" Thy brother — the accursed Tatar — has sold his sister for a
piece of silver."
Some historians have thought, with Karamsin, that the Slavs
held women in less consideration than the Germans did, and in
fact " treated them as slaves." We may doubt if there was so
great a difference between the two nations. The chronicles
speak of Lybed, sister of Kii, the fabulous founder of Kief,
dividing her paternal inheritance with her brothers, and of
42 HISTORY OP RUSSIA.
Princess Olga becoming heir and avenger of her husband and
guardian of his son. The epic songs show us many bold heroines
side by side with the heroes of the Kievian cycle, and mothers
of heroes surrounded with wonderful luxury and extraordinary
honors. The excavations of the kourgans show us skeletons of
women richly ornamented with jewels.
The commune, or ;;///•, was only the expansion of the family ; i'v
was subject to the authority of the elders of each household,
who assembled in a council or vctcIiL'. The village lands were
held in common by all the members of the association ; the in-
dividual only possessed his harvest, and the dvo?- or enclosure
immediately surrounding his house. This primitive condition
of property, existing in Russia up to the present day, was
once common to all luu'opean peoples.
The communes nearest together formed a group called volosi
ox pagost (canton, parish). The volost was governed by a council
formed of the elders of the communes : one of these elders, either
by hereditary right, age, or election, was recognized as more
powerful than the rest, and became chief of the canton. His
authority seems much to have resembled that of Ulysses over
the numerous kings of little Ithaca. In times of danger, the
volosts of the same tribe could elect a temporary head, but de-
cline to submit to a general and permanent ruler. The Kmper-
or Maurice had already observed that passion for liberty among
the Slavs, which made them detest all sovereignty. The Rus-
sian Slavs easily rose from the idea of a commune to that of a
canton, with a chief chosen from the elders of the family; in an
emergency they might permit a temporary confederation of all
the cantons of one tribe (dlemia), but we never find that there
was a prince of the Severians, Polians, or Radimitches. Only
princes of the volost could exist among them, like the prince of
Korosthenes in the legend of Olga. The idea of the unity of a
tribe, and a fortiori the unity of the Russian nation, was abso-
lutely foreign to the race. I'he ideas of government and of the
State had to come to them from without.
TOWNS — TRADE — AGRICULTURE,
Nestor declares that the Russian Slavs, for the most part,
" lived in forests like the wild beast." Karamsin and Schloezer
have concluded from this that they had no towns. Now there
exist a number of monuments in Russia which have for long
puzzled archaeologists. There are the gorodichtchifs (from gorod,
town), enclosures formed by the earth being thrown up, and these
we find invariably on the steep bank of a watercourse, or on a
HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
43
»
small hill. M. Samokvassof, who has explored this very country
of the Severians, described by Nestor as living wholly in forests,
has been able to prove that these gorodic/itc/ies are the oppida,
the primitive towns of Russia. In the government of Tcherni-
gof alone, M. Samokvassof has reckoned 160 ; in that of Koursk.
50. We may calculate from this that numbers exist in Russia,
and that every volost had at least one. About these earih-en-
closures, which were capped by wooden palisades or hedges of
osier, and were the common means of defence for each group of
families, we usually find grouped, as in a cemetery, the kourgaus
or tumuli of the dead.
The excavations made, either in iho. kourgaus or in the soil of
the gonhiic/itch.'s, have shown us the Slavs were more civilized
than Nestor supposed. Vessels of potiery, tolerably well de-
signed, iron and bronze, gold and silver objects, glass, false
pearls, rattles, prove that they had a certain amount of trade,
and a fairly extensive commerce, particularly with Asia. Orien-
tal coins have been dug up, dating from 699, or near two hun-
dred years before the arrival of the Varangians. There are a
great number of these coins in the country. Near Novgorod a
vase was discovered, containing about 7000 roubles' worth of this
earlv monev. The fame of the swords made bv the Russian
Slavs extended to Arabia. Nestor relates that the Khazars im-
posed a tribute of swords on the Polians. When the latter
brought the arms to the Khazars, they were afraid, and said to
their princes, " Our swords have only one edge — these have two.
We tremble lest one day this people should levy a tribute on us
and other tribes."
Agriculture was the favorite occupation of the Slavs. Nearly
all their deities are of an agricultural character. The favorite
heroes of their epic cycle, Mikoula and Ilia, were the sons of
laborers. Thev had the more likino; for field life, as the serfasG
of the glebe was still unknown amongst them. It has been said
that the Germans borrowed the plough from the Slavs, and that
the German name oi pJJug is derived from the ^]a.\ ploug. With
the wax and honey of their hives, the corn of the Tchernoziom,
and the furs of the north, the Russians carried on a great trade.
Their need of strangers, together with a sociable instinct, natu-
ral to primitive races, made them very hospitable ; it was even
permitted to steal for the benefit of the unexpected guest. A
peaceful race, devoted to liberty, music, and dancing, appears
in the idyllic picture painted for us of the early Slavs. The
Emperor Maurice, on the contrary, who had had dealings with
all kinds of adventurous tribes, assures us that they were war-
like, cruel in battle, full of savage wiles, able to conceal them-
selves in places where it seemed impossible their bodies could
^ HISTOR Y QF R USSIA.
be hidden, or to lie in ambush in streams for hours together, the
"Vater over their heads, breathing by means of a ^(z^i^'j.. Their
armor was defective, they had no breast-plates, they fought on
foot, were naked to the waist, and had for weapons, pikes, large
shields, wooden bows, poisoned arrows, and lassoes to catch their
victims. This sketch specially applies to the invaders of the
Roman provinces of the Danube. It is probable that_ these ag-
ricultural races had in general a military organization inferior to
that of their Turkish and Scandinavian neighbors who lived by
plunder. The imperfection of their political condition, their
minute division into clans and volosis, the incessant warfare of
canton with canton, delivered them up, defenceless, to their in-
vaders. Whilst the Slavs of the south paid tribute to the Kha-
zars, the Slavs of Ilmen, exhausted by their divisions, decided
on calling in the Varangians. " ' Let us seek,' they said, ' a
prince who will govern us and reason with us justly.' Then,"
continues Nestor, " the Tchouds,* the Slavs (Novgorod), the
Krivitches, and other confederate races, said to the princes of
Varangia, ' Our land is great and fruitful, but it lacks order and
justice ; come and take possession, and govern us.' "
*The Tchouds here mentioned are rather Slavs who had coloniaed the
Tchoud country about Pskof and Izborsk.
HIS TOR Y OF R USS/A. 45
CHAPTER IV.
THE VARANGIANS : FORMATION OF RUSSIA ; THE FIRST EXPEDI-
TIONS AGAINST CONSTANTINOPLE, 862-972.
The Northmen of Russia — Origin and customs of the Varangians — The first
Russian princes: Rurik, Oleg, Igor — Expeditions against Constantinople
— Olga — Christianity in Russia— Sviatoslaf — The Danube disputed be-
tween the Russians and Greeks.
NORTHMEN IN RUSSIA — ORIGIN AND CUSTOMS OF THE VARAN-
GIANS.
Who were these Varangians ? To what race did they be-
long? No questions in the early history of Russia are more
eagerly debated. After more than a century of controversy, the
various views have been reduced to three : —
1. The Varangians were of Scandinavian origin, and it was
they who imposed the name of Russia on the Slav countries. A
most weighty argument in support of this theory is the large
number of Scandinavian names in the list of Varangian princes
reigning in Russia. The Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus,
speaking of Russia, makes a distinction between the Slavs and
the Russians proper. Describing the cataracts of the Dnieper,
he gives to each the Russian and the S/a7' name. Now these
Russian names may nearly all be understood by reference to
Scandinavian roots. Liutprand, speaking of the Russians, ex-
presses himself in these terms : — " Grceci vocant Russos . . . iios
vero A'ormannos." The Annals of Saint Bertimis say, that the
Emperor Theophilus recommended some Russian envoys to
Louis le De'bonnaire, but he, taking them for Norman spies,
threw them into prison. Finally, the first Russian Code of Laws,
compiled by laroslaf, presents a striking analogy with the Scan-
dinavian la'ws. The Partisans of this opinion place the mother
country of the Russians in Sweden, where ihey point particulaHy
to a spot called Roslog, and associations of oarsmen called Ros-
lagen. At the present dav the Finns call the Swedes Rootzt.
2. The Varangians were Slavs, and came either from the
Slav shores of the Baltic, or from some Scandinavian regiou
where the Slavs had founded a colony. The word Russia is
not of Swedish origin ; it is applied very early to the country of
i-ho Hnieper. To come from Rouss or to go to Rouss are ex-
46 HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
pressions to be met with in tlie ancient documents, and Rousi
there signifies the country of Kief. Arabic writers give the
name of Russians to a nation they consider very numerous, and
they mean in this case, not Scandinavians, but indigenous
Slavs.
3. The Varangians were not a nation, but a band of war-
riors formed of exiled adventurers, some Slavs, other Scandina-
vians. The partisans of this opinion show us the Slav and
Scandinavian races from very early times, in frequent commer-
cial and political relations.' The leaders of the band were
generally Scandinavian, but part of the soldiers were Slav.
This hypothesis, which diminishes the Norman element in the
Varangians, serves to explain how the establishment of these
adventurers in the country but little affected the Slavs of Jhe
Ilmen and the Dnieper. It explains, too, the rapid absorption
of the new comers in the conquered race, an absorption so com-
plete that the grandson of Rurik, Sviatoslaf, already bears a
Slav name, while his great-grandson, Vladimir, remains in the
memory of the people as the type of Slav prince. Whether the
Varangians were pure Scandinavians, or whether they were
mingled with Slav adventurers, it seems certain that the former
element predominated, and that we may identify these men
from the North with the sea-kings so celebrated in the West
during the decay of the Carolings. M. Samokvassof has lately
opened, near Tnhernigof, the black iovib containing the bones
and arms of an unknown prince who lived in the 10th century,
and was probably a Varangian, His coat-of-mail and pointed
helmet completely resemble the arms of the Norman warriors.
The Russian princes that we find in the early miniatures, are
clothed and armed like the Norman chiefs in the Bayeux
Tapestry of Queen Matilda. It is therefore not surprising that,
in our own age, art has made almost identical representations
of Rurik on the monument lately erected at Novgorod, and of
William the Conqueror on the monument at Falaise. The
Varangians, like the Normans, astonished the nations of the
South by their reckless courage and gigantic stature. " They
were as tall as palm-trees," said the Arabs. Bold sailors, ad-
mirable foot-soldiers, the Varangians differed widely from the
mounted and nomad races of Southern Russia. Hungarians,
Khazars, Patzinaks, whose tactics were always Parthian. The
Russians, according to Leo the Deacon, who was an eye-witness
of the fact, fought in a compact mass, and seemed like a wall of
iron, bristling with lances, glittering with shields, whence rang
a ceaseless clamor like the waves of the sea — the famous bar-
ditiis or harritus of the Germans of Tacitus. A huge shield
covered them to their feet, and, when they fought in retreat.
HISTOR Y OF R USSIA. 4 7
they turned this cnonnous buckler on their backs, and became
invuhierable. The fury of battle at last made them beside
themselves, like the Bersarks. Never, says the same author,
were they seen to surrender. When victory was lost, they
stabbed themselves, for they held that those who died by the
hand of an enemy were condemned to serve him in another life.
The Greeks had for long highly esteemed these heroes worthy of
the Kdda. Under the name of Kos or Varangians, they formed
the body-guard of the Emperor, and figured in all the Byzantine
armies. In the expedition of 902 against Crete, 700 Russians
took part; 415 in that of Lombardy in 925; 584 in that of
Greece in 949.
The Russian Varangians readily took the pay of foreign
nations of Novgorod as well as Byzantium. This is one more
feature of resemblance with the Normans of France, whom the
Greek emperors also employed in their wars with the Saracens
of Italy. Sometimes, instead of fighting for others, they made
war for themselves. This was the case with the Danes in Eng-
land, the Normans in Neustria, the descendants of Tancred in
Naples and Sicily, the companions of Rurik in Russia. As they
were usually a very small number, they blended rapidly with
the conquered nations. Tiius the descendants of Rollo quickly
became Frenchmen, and those of Robert Guiscard, Sicilians.
In the Varangian bands, Slavs as well as Scandinavians were
mixed ; but we likewise know that in the bands of Northmen
that ravaged the country of France, there was a large number
of Gallo-Romans, renegades from Christianity, who thirsted
more for pillage and murder than did the Vikings themselves.
This mingling of the adventurers and the indigenous race ex-
plains the rapidity with which both the Normans of Russia and
the Normans of P'rance lost their language, customs and re-
ligion. The Varangians only retained one thing, their military
superiority, the habit of obeying the chosen or hereditary chief.
Into the Slav anarchy they brought this element of warlike and
disciplined force, without which a State cannot exist. They im-
posed on the natives the amount of constraint necessary to drag
them from their isolation and division into gorodichtche's and
volosts. The Slavs of the Danube also owe their constitution to a
band of Finno-Buigarian adventurers under Aspar Asparuch ; the
Polish Slavs to the invasion of the Liakhs or Lechites; the
Tcheques to the Frank Samo, who enabled them to shake off
the yoke of the Avars.
The spontaneous appeal of the Slavs to the Varangian
princes may seem to us strange. We might believe that the
annalist, like the old French historians, has tried to disguise the
fact of a conquest, by representing that the Slavs submitted
48 H/SrOR Y OF R USS/A.
voluntarily to the Varangians of Rurik, as the Gauls are sup«
posed to have clone to the Franks of Clovis. In reality there
was no conquest, a statement which is proved by the fact that
the muncipal organization remained intact, that the 7'(f/^/// con-
tinued to deliberate by the side of the prince, the local army to
fight in conjunction with the band of adventurers. The laws of
laroslaf established the same wer-gild for the murder of either
Slav or Varangian, while the Merovingian laws recognize a great
difference between a Gallo-Roman and a Frank. The defence
of the country, the administration of justice, and the collection
of the tribute were the special cares of the prince, the last being
considered his legitimate reward. He played in the Slav towns
a role similar to that of the Italian podestas in the 15th century >,
who were called in to administer justice impartially, or that of
che leaders of condotticri, to whom the cities entrusted their
defence.
As early as 859 the Varangians exacted tribute from the
Slavs of Ilmen and the Krivilches, as well as the Tchouds, Ves-
ses, and Merians. The natives had once expelled the Varan-
gians, but as divisions once more became rife among them, they
decided that they needed a strong government, and recalled the
Varangians in 862. Whether the name of Russia or of Rouss
was originally derived from a province of Sweden, or from the
banks of the Dnieper, the fact remains that with the arrival of
the Varangians in Slavonia, the true history of Russia commences
It was the 1 000th anniversary of this event that was commem-
orated at Novgorod in 1862. With the Varangians the Russian
name became famous in Eastern Europe. It was the epoch of
brilliant and adventurous expeditions; it was the heroic age of
Russia.
The Varangians of Novgorod and Kief are not unworthy
mates of the Normans of the West — the bold conquerors who
sought their fortunes from the coasts of England, Sicily, and
Syria. They are to be found nearly at the same time under the
walls of Constantinople and at the foot of the (Caucasus, where
they captured the town of Berdaa from the Arabs (944). Nes-
tor, the monk of the Petcherski convent at Kief, whose history
extends to 11 16, adds to his conscientious accounts many legen-
dary traits, which seem an echo of Scandinavian j^r^rt-J and early
Russian hylinas. His Annals, which Greek and French author-
ities enable us to check, and which are tolerably exact in all es-
sentials, seem at times, like the first books of Livy, to be epic
poetry converted into prose.
HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
49
THE EARLY RUSSIAN PRINCKS : RURIK, OLKO, IGOR — EXPEDITIONS
ACAINSr CONSTANTINOPLE.
At the call of the Slavs, Rurik, Sineous and Trouvor, three
Varangian brothers, whose Scandinavian names signify the
Peaceful, the Vidorioi/s, and the Fait/ifnl, gathered together
" tlieir brothers and tiicir families," that is, their warriors or
r//7;///7«ifj (resembling the irnste oi the Frank kings), crossed the
Bailie and took up th.eir positions on the borders of the terri-
tory they were summoned to defend. Rurik, the eldest, estab-
lished himself on the lake Ladoga, near to which, on the
southern side, he founded the city of Ladoga ; Sineous on the
White Lake (Bieloe-Ozero), in the Vess country; Trouvor at
Izborsk, to hold the Livonians in check. When the two latter
died, Rurik established himself at Novgorod, where he built, not
a town as Nestor would have us believe, but a castle. It is
thus we must explain the pretended foundation by his orders of
Polotsk and of Rostof, which had existed long before the ar-
rival of the Varangians. What he probably did was to trans-
form ZiX\c\Q\\\ gorodiclitchcs with ramparts of mud into fortresses.
Two other Varangians, Askold and Dir, who were not of the
familv of Rurik, went down to Kief, and reigned over the Pol-
lans. It was they who began the expeditions against Tzargriui
(Byzantium), the queen of cities. With 200 vessels, says Nestor,
they entered the Sound, in old Slav Soud (the Bosphorus or the
Golden Horn), and besieged Constantinople. But the patriarch
Bholius, according to the Byzantine accounts, took the wonder-
working robe of Our Lady of Blachernes, and plunged it in the
waves. A fierce tempest instantly arose, and the whole Russian
fleet was destroyed.
Rurik's successor was not his son Igor, then a minor, but the
eldest member of the family, his fourth brother, the enterprising
Oleg. At the head of an army composed of Varangians, Slavs
and Finns, he marched to the south, received the submission of
Smolensk and Loubetch, and arrived under the walls of Kief.
15y means of treachery he took Askold and Dir prisoners, and
put them to death, observing: "You are neither princes your-
selves, nor of the blood of princes ; this is the son of Rurik," point-
ing to Igor, The tomb of Askold is still shown near Kief, ^^leg
was charmed with his new conquest, and took up his abode t^'iere,
saying, " Let Kief be the mother of Russian cities." The Va-
rangian chief held communication both with the Baltic and, the
Black Sea by means of Novgorod, Smolensk, and Kief. He
subdued the Novgorodians, the Krivitches, the ]\Ierian», the
Drevlians, the Sevcrians, the Polians, the Radimitches, and thus
50
HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
united nearly all the Russian tribes under his sceptre. It was
about this time that the Hungarians crossed the Dnieper near
Kief, and invaded Pannonia. The Magyar chronicles speak of
their having defeated Oleg ; Nestor is silent on the subject.
In 907 Oleg collected a large army from among the tributary
races, equipped 2000 boats, and prepared to invade Tzargrad
by land and sea. Russian legends have embellished this expe-
dition with many wonderful details. Oleg built wheels to his
vessels, and spread their sails ; blown by the wind they reached
the gates of the city. Leo VI. the Philosopher, horror-stricken,
agreed to pay tribute, but the Greeks tried to get rid of the
Russians by offering them poisoned food. Oleg divined their
perfid}'. He imposed a heavy contribution, a commerical treaty
advantageous to the Russians, and suspended his shield on the
Golden Door.
To his subjects Oleg was more than a hero. Terror-stricken
by his v.'isdom, this "foolish and idolatrous people " looked on
him as a sorcerer. In the Scandinavian sagas we find many in-
stances of chiefs, such as Odin, Gylf and Raude, being at the
same time great warriors and great magicians. It is strange
that neither Greek, Frank, nor Venetian historians allude to
this campaign. Nestor cites the names of the Russian envoys
who negotiated the peace, and gives the text of the treaty.
A magician had predicted to Oleg that his favorite' horse
would cause his death. It was kept apart from him, and when,
five years after, the animal died, he insisted on being taken to
see its body, as a triumph over the ignorance and imposture of
the sorcerers. But from the skull of the horse issued a serpent
which inflicted a mortal sting on the foot of the hero.
Igor led a third expedition against Tzargrad. The Dnieper
conducted, as it were of her own will, the Russian flotilla to the
seas of Greece. Igor had 10,000 vessels according to the
Greek historians, 1000 according to the more probable calcula-
tion of Liutprand. This would allow 400,000 men in the first
case, and only 40,000 in the second. Instead of attacking the
town, he cruelly ravaged the Greek provinces. The Byzantine '
admirals and generals united, and destroyed the Russian armv
in a series of engagements by the aid of Greek fire. N-stor has
not copied the numerous details the Byzantine historians give of
this battle, but we have the evidence' of Liutprand, bishop ol
Cremona, derived from his father-in-law, the ambassador of the
king of Italy at Constantinople, who saw with his own eyes the
defeat of Igor, and was present at the sacrifice of prisoners, be-
headed by order of the Emperor Romanus Lecapenus. In 944
Igor secured the help of the formidable Patzinaks, and organizeG^
an expedition to avenge his defeat. The Greek Lmperor, now
ins TORY OF RUSSIA,
S»
seriously alarmed, offered to pay tribute, and signed a new com-
mercial treaty, of which the text is given by Nestor. Byzantine
and Western writers do not mention this second expedition of
Igor. On his return from Russia, he was assassinated by the
Drcvlians, from whom he had tried to exact tribute. Leo the
Deacon, a Greek writer, says he was torn in pieces by means of
two young trees, bent forcibly to the earth, and then allowed to
take their natural direction (945).
OLGA — CHRISTIANITY IN RUSSIA.
Olga, widow of Igor, assumed the regency in the name of
her son Sviatoslaf, then a minor. Her first care was to revenge
herself on the Drevlians. In Nestor's account it is impossible
to distinguish between the history and the epic. The Russian
chronicler relates in detail how the Drevlians sent two deputa-
tions to Olga to appease her, and to offer her the hand of their
prince, and how she disposed of them by treachery, burying
some alive, and causing others to be stifled in a bathing-house.
Next, says Nestor, she besieged their city Korostiienes, and she
offered them peace on payment of a tribute of three pigeons
and three sparrows for each house. Lighted tow was tied to
the tails of the birds, and they were set free. They flew straight
home to the wooden town, where the barns and thatched roofs
instantly took fire. Lastly the legend relates that Olga massa-
cred part of the Korosthenians, and the rest became slaves.
This vindictive Scandinavian woman, in spite of all, was des-
tined to be the first apostle of Russia. Nestor relates that she
went to Tzargrad to the Emperor Constantine Porphyrogeniius,
astonished him by the strength and adroitness of her charar*^er,
and was baptized under the name of Helen, the Greek Tzar be-
ing her godfather. Only two facts in Nestor's account are
historical, namely, the reception of Olga at the imperial palace
of Constantinople, related in detail in the ' Book of Ceremo-
nies,' and perhaps her baptism. If the Greek historians do not
mention it in the contemporary chronicles, it is because they
did not perceive the important consequences of this event. If
writers allude to it in the chronicles of the nth and 12th cen-
turies, it is because the consequences of the event had by that
time been completely developed. *
Even in Russia (Jlga's conversion passed almost unnoticed.
Christianity had made but little progress in that country. No
doubt since Cyril and Methodius had invented the Slavo/iic
alphabet, and translated the Holy Books for the BulgaK. ,%
p A. Rambaud, / L'Empire grec au dixieme siecle,' p. 383.
52
HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
Christianity, which had already triumphed over some Slav
peoples, was being handed on from one to the other. Some
missions were already established in Russia. The Byzantines
say, that alarmed by the miraculous defeat of Askold and Dir,
and seized with a respectful awe of the Christian talismans of
the Patriarch Photius, the Russians " sent envoys to Conslanti-
nople to ask for baptism." The Emperor Basil the Macedonian
then gave them an archbishop, who performed a miracle before
them. He threw a copy of the Gospels into a brazier, and drew
it out unharmed. According to this account, Askold v\as the
first Russian prince who became a Christian. Hence the wor-
ship rendered to his tomb and memory. In the list of Byzar-
tine Eparchies under Leo VL, the Bishopric of Russia figures,
of which no doubt Kief was the metropolis. These missions,
however, do not seem to have been very successful ; at the time
of the treaty concluded between Oleg and Leo VI., the Rus-
sians still swore by their swords, by Voloss and Perun. In the
treaty concluded bv Igor, when the Russians swore at Kief be-
fore the Emperor's envoy, to confirm it, some ascended the hill
of Perun and performed the vows in the ancient way ; others
went to the chapel of Saint Elias, and laid their hand on the
Gospel. There existed then, in the " mother of Russian cities,"
a Christian community, though a very weak one, if it is true that
Olga refused to be baptized in Kief "for fear of the pagans."
The mass of warriors kept Christianity at a distance. In their
expeditions against the B\zantine provinces, we find them at-
tacking monasteries and churches by preference, giving them up
to the flames, and finding a peculiar pleasure in torturing priests
and monks by driving nails into their heads. It was thus that
the Normans of France, the fanatics of Odinism, treated the
ecclesiastics with refinements of cruelty, boasting that they
" sang them the Mass of lances." " When one of the soldiers
of the Grand Prince wished to become a convert," says Nestor,
" he was not prevented, but only laughed at." The efforts of
Olga for the conversion of her son Sviatoslaf, who had assumed
the reins of government on reaching his majority, were fruitless.
He did not like exposing himself to the ridicule of his soldiers
by embracing a new faith. " My men will mock me," he replied
tf) the prayers of his mother. " And often," Nestor affirms
sadly, " he became furious with her." Olga vainly assured him
that if he would be baptized, all his subjects would soon tollow
his example. The public mind was not yet in a condition for
the example of the prince to be all-powerful. The Chtrsuan
Olga, canonized by the Church, " the first Russian who i^ uo,nt-
ed to the heavenly kingdom," remained an exception, i.\L\z
noticed or t-kought of in the midst of the pagan aristocracy
HISTORY OF RUSSIA. 5^
SVTATOSLAF — THE DANUBE DISPUTED BETWEEN GREEKS AND
RUSSIANS.
The reign of Sviatoslaf, 664-972, though short, was signaliz-
ed by two memorable events : the defeat of the Khazars, and
the great war against the Bvzantine Empire for the possession
of Bulgaria. About the former event the annalist gives few de-
tails ; but Sviatoslaf must have gained a complete, victory, if it
be true that he look the White City, capital of the Khazar Em-
pire on the Don, and that he exacted tribute from the lasses or
Ossets of the Caucasus, and the Kassogans or Tcherkesses.
The Russians had no reason to rejoice in their success, for the
decline of the Khazars, who were a civilized people, favored the
progress of the Patzinaks, the most ferocious of all barbarians.
The Arabs spoke of them as wild beasts and Matthew of Edessa
calls them "a greedy people, devouring the bodies of mei^
corrupt and impure, bloody and cruel beasts." During one ol
the frequent absences of Sviatoslaf, the Patzin?ks suddenly ap-
peared under the walls of Kief, where the mother and children
of the Grand Prince had taken refuge, and reduced it to the
last extremit}'. The bold manoeuvre of a voievode saved the
Kievians, who were starving. On his return to his capital,
Sviatoslaf was horritied at the risks it had »^ncountered. It
was at the hands of these same Patzinaks that he was one day
to perish.
On the subject of the Bulgarian war the narrative of Nestor
is confused and incomplete. He is silent about the Russian
defeats, and legend mixes largely with historical facts. Nestor
relates that the Greeks wished to ascertain what sort of man
Sviatoslaf was. They sent him gifts of gold and fine tissues, but
the Grand Prince looked on them with disdain, and said to his
soldiers, " Take them away." Then they sent him a sword and
other weapons, and the hero seized them and kissed them en-
thusiastically. The Greeks were afraid, and said, " This must
be a fierce man, since he despises wealth and accepts a sword
for trilnite." Happily the very minute account of Leo the Deacon
appears both exact and impartial, and we are enabled to follow
this campaign, where a chief of infant Russia crosses that Danube
which the Russian armies are not again to see till the reign of
Catherine H. and Nicholas. The Greek Emperor Nicephorus
Phocas, in order to avenge himself on Peter the Tzar of Bulgaria,
had recourse to the dangerous expedient so frequent in Byzantine
policy. He called in the barbarians. A certain Kalokyr was
sent as envoy to Sviatoslaf with a sufficient sum of money to allow
him to take the field. It was thus that these two Slav races —
54
HTSTORY OF RUSSIA.
who owned their constitutions, one to the Varangian droujintx
of Rurik, the other to the Turanian droujina of Asparuch — were
urged to conflict by Greek diplomacy, Sviatoslaf descended on
Bulgaria with a thoroughly-equipped fleet, reassured the Byzan-
tines by bringing 60,000 men to their assistance, took Pereiaslaf,
the Bulgarian capital, and all their fortresses.
The Tzar Peter yielded to his evil destiny at the moment the
Patzinaks were besieging Kief. This lesson was, howeyer, lost
on Sviatoslaf. He was everjoyed at his conquest, and wished to
transport his capital to Pereiaslaf on the Danube, a city distinct
from Pereiaslaf orPrislaf, the modern Eski-Stamboul, which was
the capital of the Bulgarians in the loth century. "This place,''
he said to his mother, " is the central point of my possessions,
and abounds in wealth. From Greece come precious stuffs, wine,
gold, and all kinds of fruit ; from the country of the Tcheques
and Hungarians, horses and silver ; from Russia, furs, money,
wax, and slaves." This resolution of Sviatoslaf was fraught with
immense danger to the Greek Empire. If Byzantium feared the
neighborhood of an enfeebled Bulgaria, how was she to resist a
power that extended from the Baltic to the Balkans, and which
could add to the Bulgarian legions, disciplined after tlie Roman
fashion by the Tzar Simeon, the Varangians of Scandinavia,
the Russian Slavs, the Finnish hordes of the Vesses, Tchouds,
and Merians, and even the light cavalry of the Patzinaks ?
The formation of a great Slav J^m.pire so close to Constanti-
nople would have been rendered more formidable by the ethno-
graphical constitution of the peninsula. Ancient Thrace and
ancient Macedon were peopled by Slav tribes, some of whom
were offshoiDts from the Russian tribes ; for example, Drego-
vitches and Smolenes were to be found there as much as at Minsk
and Smolensk. Thessaly, Attica, and the Peloponnesus were
invaded by these emigrants, who became the subjects of the
Greek Empire. The famous mountain Taygetus, in Laconia,
was inhabited by two Slav tribes, still unsubdued — the Milingians
■ and the Ezerites. We must not forget that Bulgaria extended
as far as the Ochrid, and that the ancient provinces under the
names of Croatia, Servia, and Dalmatia, had become almost
entirely Slav. This great race extended then almost unbroken
from the Peloponnesus, already called by the Slav name of INIorea,
to Novgorod. Thus, if the town of Pereiaslaf on the Danube
had really become the centre of the Russian dominions, accord-
ing to the wish of Sviatoslaf, the Greek race and the Roman
domination in the Balkan peninsula would speedily have come
to an end. The Greek emperors had been able to resist Askold,
Oleg, and Igor. The Russians of their day had lived far from
the Empire, and were obliged to go by water, which limited
HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
S5
Efreailv the number of their armies. With their canoes hollowed
out of the trunks of trees, such as are now to be seen in the
Russian villages, they had to descend the Dnieper, disembark at
each of the seven cataracts, carry canoes (monoxyles) till they
could re-embark further on, and all the while gave battle to the
Patzinaks, who were in ambush behind the rocks. After they
had escaped these perils, they had to brave with their frail barks
the tempests of the Black Sea, the powerful Roman galleys
manned by the best sailors of the East, and the mysterious Greek
fire which filled them wiih terror. Few reached the walls of
Constantinople, and their defeat was certain. Now, on the con-
trary, masters of the Danube, masters of the land-route, they
could precipitate on Constantinople all the hordes of Scythia.
Fortunately for the Greek Empire, it then chanced to be re-
newing its youth. A series of great captains succeeded each
other on this tottering throne. In John Zimisces the Russian
prince was to find an adversary worthy of him. Sviatoslaf, re-
called to Bulgaria, had been obliged to reconquer it. It was at
this moment that Zimisces summoned him to execute the condi-
tions of the treaty concluded with his predecessor; that is, to
evacuate the country. Sviatoslaf, who had just taken Philippopolir
and exterminated the inhabitants, replied haughtily that he hoped
soon to be at Constantinople. Zimisces then began his prepara-
tions. In the beginning of March 972, he despatched a fleet to
the north of the Danube, and himself marched to Adrianople.
He surprised the Russians, who had not expected him so soon,
in the defiles of the Balkans ; appeared suddenly under the walls
of Pereiaslaf, defeated a bodv of manv thousand Russians, and
obliged them to retire within the walls ; then he gave the order
for the assault, and took the town by escalade, fjght thousand
Russians shut up in the royal castle made a frantic resistance,
refused to capitulate, and perished in the flames.
When the news of this disaster reached Sviatoslaf, he advanced
with the greater part of his army to meet the Emperor, and came
up with him near Dorostol (Silistria). The Greek historians
make the Russian army to have consisted of at least 60,00c
men ; Nestor only reckons 10,000. Here a bloody battle took
place, and twelve times victory appeared to shift from one side
to the other. The solidity of the Russian infantry defied the
charges of the cava' rv— "the Ironside" (Karac^paKTot).
At last they gave way under a desperate charge, and fell back on
Dorostol. 'Phere they were besieged by the Emperor, and dis-
played a wild courage in their sallies. Even their women, like
the ancient Amazons, or the heroines of the Scandinavian sagas
or Russian songs, took part in the vieh'e. The Russians slew
themselves rather than ask for mercy. The night following on
£6 HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
an action, they were seen to leave the town by moonlight to burn
their dead. On their ashes they sacrificed prisoners of war, and
drowned in the Danube cocks and little children. Provisions
failed, and Sviatoslaf stole out one stormy night with canoes
manned by 2000 warriors, rowed round the Greek fleet, collected
millet and corn in the neighboring villages, and, falling suddenly
on the Greeks, re-entered the town victoriously. Zimisces then
took measures to prevent any boat from getting out. This epic
siege was signalized by some strange combats. One of the
bravest of the Russian chiefs was slain by Apemas, a baptized
Arab, son of an Emir of Crete, and himself one of the guards of
Zimisces.
Sviatoslaf resolved to make one last effort, and issued from
the town with all his forces. Before the battle Zimisces proposed
to Sviatoslaf to terminate the war by a duel between themselves.
It was the barbarian who refused : " I know better than my
enemy what I have to do," said Sviatoslaf. " If he is weary of
life, there are a thousand means by which he can end his days."
This battle was as obstinate and blood v as the former. Sviatoslaf
came near being slain by Apemas. At last the Russians gave
way, leaving on the battlefield, says Leo the Deacon, 15,500 dead
and 20,000 shields. The survivors retired into the town. They
were forced to treat. Zimisces allowed them to retire from Bul-
garia, and they swore by Perun and Voloss never again to invade
ihe empire, but to help to defend it against all enemies. If they
broke their vows, might they "become as yellow as gold, and perish
by their own arms." Nestor gives us the text of this convention,
which was really a capitulation, and confirms the account of the
Greek historians rather than his own. These relate that Zimisces
sent deputies to the Patzinaks to beg them to grant a free passage
to the remnant of the Russian army. It is certain that the barbar-
ians awaited the Russians at the Cataracts, ox porogs oi the Dnie-
per. They killed Sviatoslaf, cut off his head, and his skull was
used by their Prince Kouria as a drinking-cup. Sviatoslaf was, in
spite of his Slav name, the very type of a Varangian prince of
the intrepid, wily, and ambitious Northmen. Nestor boasts his
good faith. When he wished to make war on a people, lie sent to
warn them. " I march against you," he said.
After the surrender of Dorostol, he had an interview with his
enemy Zimisces. Leo the Deacon profits by the occasion to
give us his portrait. The Emperor being on horseback by the
shore, Sviatoslaf approached him by boat, handling the oar like
his companions. He was of middle height, but very robust ; he
had a wide chest, a thick neck, blue eyes, thick eyebrows, a flat
nose, long mustaches, a thin beard, and a tuft of hair on his
shaven head as a mark of his nobility. He wore a gold ring in
II IS TOR y OF /V C'SSIA .
SJ
one of his ears, ornamented with rubies and two pearls.
Let us notice this portrait ; we shall have to searcli far into
Russian annals to find another. Between the description given
by Leo the Deacon and those of the Russian annalists, there
is the same difference as between the eikon of a saint and an
authentic likeness.
«8
HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
CHAPTER V.
THE CLOVES AND CHARLEMAGNE OF THE RUSSIANS: SAINT VLADIMIR
AND lAROSLAF THE GREAT 972-IO54.
Vladimir (972-1015 ) — Conversion of the Russians — laroslaf the Great (1016-
1054 — Union of Russia — Splendor of Kief — Varangian-Russian society at
the time of laroslaf — Progress of Christianity — Social, political, literary,
and artistic results.
VLADIMIR (972-1015) — CONVERSION OF THE RUSSIANS.
The Slav tribes owe their organization to a twofold conquest —
a military conquest which came from the North, and an ecclesias-
tical conquest which came from the South. The Varangians
sent them chiefs of war, who welded their scattered tribes
into a nation ; the Byzantines sent missionaries, who united the
Slavs among themselves and to their civilized neighbors by the
bonds of a common religion.
The man destined to conclude the work of propagandism be-
gun by Olga did not at first seem fitted for this great task. Vladi-
mir, like Clovis, was at first nothing but a barbarian — wily,
voluptuous, and bloody. Only while Clovis after his baptism is
not perceptibly better than he was before, and becomes the
assassin of his royal Frankish relations, the Russian annalist
seems to wish to establish a contrast between the life led by
Vladimir prior to his conversion and the life he led after it.
Sviatoslaf left three sons : laropolk at Kief, Oleg ruler of the
Drevlians, Vladimir at Novgorod. In the civil wars which
followed, and which recall the bloody Merovingian anarchy, laro-
polk slew Oleg, and in his turn died by the hand of Vladimir.
He fell in love with Rogneda, laropolk's betrothed, and demand-
ed her in marriage from the Varangian Rogvolod, who ruled over
Tololsk. The princess answered, that she would never marry
the son of a slave, in allusion to Vladimir's mother having been
a servant, though he himself had alwavs been treated bv his
father as his brother's equal. Maddened by this insult, Vladimir
sacked Polotsk, killed Rogvolod and his two sons, and forced Rog-
neda to marry him. After the murder of laropolk, Vladimir also
tof)k the wife whom laropolk had left enceinte, a beautiful Greek
nun,cajJtured in an expedition against Byzantium. These two wo-
VLADiMlK.
HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
59
men he had deprived, one of her husband, ihe other of her faiher
and brothers. He had, besides, a Bohemian and a Bulgarian
wife, and another, all of whom bore him sons. Finally this bas<
tard, this " son of a slave," was so abandoned in his profligacy,
that he kept 300 concubines at Vychegorod, 3000 at Bie'lgorod,
near Kief, and 200 at Berestof, Lusting no less after war and
plunder, he reconquered Red Russia from the Poles, quelled a
revolt of the Viatitches and Radimitches, and exacted tribute
from the Lithuanian latvaguians, and Livonian tribes of Letts
or Finns.
The soul of the sensual and passionate barbarian was trou-
bled, notwithstanding, by religious aspirations. At first he
turned to the Slav gods, and his reign was inaugurated by anew
growth of paganism. On the high sandy cliffs of Kief, which
tower above the Dnieper, he erected idols ; among them one of
Rerun, with a head of silver and a beard of gold. Two Varan-
gians, faiher and son, both Christians, were stabbed at the feet
of Rerun. But the day of the ancient gods was passed ; Vlad-
imir was undergoing the religious crisis in which all Russia
labored. He felt other faiths were necessary to him ; so, ac-
cording to the testimony of Nestor, he took it into his head, like
the Japanese of to-day, to institute a search after the best re-
ligion. His ambassadors forthwith visited Mussulmans, Jews,
and Catholics : the first represented by the Bulgarians of the
Volga, the second probably by the Khazars or the Jewish Khar-
aites, the third by the Poles and Germans. Vladimir declined
Islamism, which prescribed circumcision and forbade "the wine,
which was dear to the Russians ; " Judaism, whose disciples
wandered through the earth; and Catholicism, whose cere-
monies appeared wanting in magnificence. The deputies that
he sent to Constantinople, on the contrary, returned awe-
stricken. The splendors of Saint Sophia, the brilliancy of the
sacerdotal vestments, the magnificence of the ceremonies,
heightened by the presence of the Emperor and his Court, the
patriarch and the numerous clergy, the incense, the religious
songs, had powerfully appealed to the imagination of the bar-
barians. One final argument triumphed over the scruples of
Vladimir. "If the Greek religion had not been the best, your
grandmother Olga, the wisest of mortals, would not have
adopted it," said the boyards. The proud Vladimir did not in-
tend to beg for baptism at the hands of the Greeks — he would
conquer it by his own arms, and ravish it like a prey. He de-
scended into the Taurid and besieged Cherson, the last city of
this region that remained subject to the Emperors. A certain
Anastasius, possibly from religious motives, betrayed his coun-
try. Rendered prouder than ever by this important conquest,
6o tfIS TOR Y OF R USSIA.
Vladimir sent an embassy to the Greek Emperors Basil and
Constantine, demanding tlieir sister Anne in marriage, and
threatening, in case of refusal, to marcli on Constantinople; It
was not the first time the barbarians had made this proposal to
the Greek Caesars, and Constantine Porphyrogenitus himself
teaches his successors how to get rid of these inconvenient de-
mands. But on this occasion the Emperors, who were occupied
with revolts in the interior, thought themselves driven to con-
sent, on condition that Vladimir was baptized. It was in Cher-
son that the Russian prince received baptism, and celebrated
his marriage with the heiress of the Emperors of Rome. The
priests he brought to Kief were his captives ; the sacred orna-
ments, the holy relics with which he enriched and sanctified his
capital, were his booty. When he returned to Kief it was as an
Apostle (Jsapostolos), but as an armed Apostle that he cate-
chized his people. The idols were pulled down amid the tears
and fright of the people. Perun was flogged and thrown into
the Dnieper. They still show on the side of the Kievan cliffs
the rock called " The Devil's Leap ; " and further away, the
the place where Perun was thrown up by the waters on the
shore. The people instantly rushed to worship him, but the
soldiers of Vladimir cast him back into the river. Then, b\-
Vladimir's order, all the Kievans, men and women, masters and
slaves, old people and little children, plunged naked into the
consecrated waters of the old pagan stream, while the Greek
priests standing on the bank with Vladimir read the baptismal
service. After a sturdy resistance, the Novgorodians were in
like manner forced to hurl Perun into the Volkhoff, and enter it
themselves.
We have already seen that the Russians had not lost all
recollections of their ancient gods, and that nature was still the
home of a whole world of deities. A long time had to pass
before Christianity could penetrate into their hearts and cus-
toms. M. Bouslaef assures us that, even in the 12th centurv,
Christian rites M^ere only practised by the higher classes. The
peasants kept their old pagan ceremonies, and continued to
contract their marriages " around the bush of broom." They
preserved even longer their faith in magicians and sorcerers,
who were often of more authority than the priests. Vladimir, at
any rate, wished to prepare the transformation. It does not
appear that he persecuted the idolaters, but he occupied him-
self in adorning the churches of his capital, which he had shorn
of its idols. On the spot where Perun stood he built the church
of Saint Basil, the Greek name which he had taken at his bap-
tism. On the place where the two Varangian martyrs had been
elaiw by his orders he raised the church of the D^ciatine or the
HISTOR Y OF R USSTA. ^1
Dime, embellished and ornamented with Greek inscriptions by
artists who came from the South. He founded schools, where
boys studied the holy books translated into Slavonic, but he was
obliged to compel the attendance of the children, whose parents,
convinced that writing was a dangerous kind of magic, shed tears
of despair. Nestor cannot sufficiently praise the reformation of
Vladimir after his baptism. He was faithful to his Greek wife,
he no longer loved war, he distributed his revenues to the
churches and to the poor, and, in spite of the increase of crime,
hesitated to inflict capital puhishment. " I fear to sin," he re-
plied to his councillors. It was the bishops who had to recall
to him the fact that " criminals must be chastised, though with
discretion," and that the country must not be left a prey to the
Patzinaks. Vladimir, who reminded us formerly of a Northman
of the type of Robert the Devil, suddenly becomes the " good
King Robert " of Russia.
His wars with the Patzinaks are recorded by Nestor with all
kinds of episodes borrowed from the epic poetry. There is the
Russian champion who tears in pieces the furious bull, or stifles
a Patzinak giant in his arms; there are the inhabitants of Biel-
gorod, who, having been reduced to famine by the barbarians,
let down into wells two large caldrons, one full of hydromel and
the other of meal, to make the Patzinaks believe these were nat-
ural productions of the soil. We see in the popular songs of
what a marvellous cycle of legends Vladimir has become the
centre ; but in these bylinas he is neither Vladimir, the Baptist,
nor the Saint Vladimir of the orthodox Church, but a solar
hero, successor of the divinities whom he destroyed. To the
people, still pagans at heart, Vladimir is always the " Beautiful
Sun " of Kief.
lAROSLAF THE GREAT (1016-IO54) UNION OF RUSSIA SPLEN-
DOR OF KIEF.
Vladimir died in 1015, leaving a large number of heirs by
his numerous wives. The partition that he made between them
of his states tells us what was the extent of Russia at that epoch.
To laroslaf he gave Novgorod ; to Isiaslaf, son of Rogneda, and
grandson of the Varangian Rogvolod, Polotsk ; to Boris, Rostof ;
to Gleb, Mouroni (these two principalities were in the Finn
country) ; to Sviatoslaf, the Drevlians ; to Vsevolod, Vladimir
in Volhynia ; to Mstislaf, Tmoutorakan, the Tamatarchia of the
Greeks; finally, to his nephew Sviatopolk, the son of his brother
and victim laropolk, the principality of Tourof, in the country
of Minsk, founded by a Varangian named Tour, who did not be-
6a HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
long to the "blood of princes " any more than Askold and Dir.
The history of Vladimir's successors recalls that of the heirs of
Clovis. The murder of the sons of Clodomir is paralleled by
the assassination of Boris and Gleb, sons of Isapostolos, by the
order of Sviatopolk, who usurped the throne of Kief. His two
victims were canonized, and henceforth became inseparable, and
are, as it were, the Dioscuri of orthodoxy. The prince of the
Drevlians perished by the same hand. laroslaf resolved to
avenge his brothers and to save himself. At this moment, how-
ever, he had alienated his Novgorodian subjects, having en-
ticed the principal citizens into his castle, and then treacher-
ously slain them. When he learnt the crimes of Sviatopolk, he
trembled for his own life, and threw himself on the generosity
of those he had so cruelly outraged. He wept for his sins be-
fore them, and besought their help. " Prince," replied the
Novgorodians, with one voice, " you have destroyed our breth-
ren, but we are ready to fight for you." After a bloody war, in
which Boleslas the Brave, king of Poland took part, the usurper
fled, and died miserably in exile. laroslaf had still to defend
himself against the Prince of Polotsk and Mstislaf of Tmou-
torakan. The latter had acquired great fame from his wars
with the Khazars, whom, with the aid of the Greek Emperor,
Basil n., he finally annihilated, and with the Tcherkess, whose
chief, a giant named Rhededia, he slew in single combat. At
last, laroslaf remained the sole master of Russia, and reigned
gloriously at Kief. He recalls Charles the Great by some suc-
cessful wars, but particularly by his code of laws, his taste for
building, and his love of letters in a barbarous age. He owes
part of his reputation to the anarchy which followed his death,
and which caused his reign to be regretted as the climax of
Kievian greatness.
In Poland laroslaf revenged on the son of Boleslas the
Brave the invasions of his father, and took from him the towns
of Red Russia. He fought a bloody battle with the Patzinaks
under the walls of Kief, and in their flight part of the van-
quished barbarians were drowned in crossing the rivers. It was
as fatal a blow to the Patzinaks as that struck by Sviatoslaf at
the Khazars : they never recovered it. But in the same man-
ner as the defeat of the Khazars opened the way to the Pat-
zinaks, the ruin of the Patzinaks opened the way to the Polovtsi.
The steppes of the Don were incessantly filled by new hordes
from Asia. laroslaf also fouiiht airainst the Finnish and Lilhu-
anian tribes. In the country of the Tchouds he founded lounef
(Saint George) on the Embach, near the Pei'pus (the Germans
called it Dorpat) ; in the country of the Merians, he founded
laroslavl on the Upper Volga. Finally, his reign was marked
HIS TOR V OF A' USS/A. 63
by a new war wiih Greece, brought on b}' mercantile disputes.
His son Vladimir, leader of the expedition, rejected proudly the
propositions of the Emperor Consiantine Alonomachus. A
naval battle was fought in the liosphorus ; Greek fire and the
tempests of the Black Sea dispersed the Russian armament.
Part of the army, a body of 8000 men, which was retreating
into Russia bv land, was attacked and exterminated bv a Greek
force : 800 prisoners were sent to Constantinople, where their
eyes were put out. Notwithstanding the bonds of religion which
had been riveted between the Byzantines and their neophytes
on the Dnieper, the Russians were always dreaded by Constan-
tinople. An inscription hidden in the boot of one of the eques-
trian statues of Byzantium announced that the day would come
when the capital of the empire would fall a prey to the men of
the Nortli. The decay of Kievian Russia after the death of
laroslaf, adjourned or nullified the fulfilment of this prophecy.
The legislation of the Russian Charlemagne is comprised in
the Code entitled J^ousska'ia Fravda the Rtissian right or verity.
This Code strangely recalls that of Scandinavia. It consecrates
private revenge, and the pursuit of an assassin by all the rela-
tives of the dead ; it fixes the wcrgehi for different crimes, as
well as the fine paid into the royal treasury ; it allows the judi-
cial duel; the ordeal by red-hot iron and boiling water; the
oath corroborated by those of the compurgaiorcs ; it also estab-
lished by the side of the judges nominated by the Prince, a jury
of twelve citizens. In the " Rousskaia Pravda," there is not,
properly speaking, any criminal law. Capital punishment, death
by refinements of cruelty, corporal chastisement, torture to
wring out confessions, even a public prison, were all unknown.
These are Scandinavian and German principles in all their
purity. At this period Russia had almost the same laws as the
West.
laroslaf occupied a glorious place among the princes of his
time. His sister Mary was married to Casimir, king of Poland ;
his daughters also became the wives of kings : Elizabeth, of
Harold the Brave, king of Norway; Anne, of Henry I., king of
France ; Anastasia, of Andrew I., king of Hungary. Of his
sons, Vladimir, the eldest, is said to have married Githa, daugh-
ter of Harold, king of England; Isiaslaf, a daughter of Micislas
II., king of Poland ; Vseslaf, a Greek princess, daughter of
Constantine Monomachus ; Viatcheslaf and Igor, two German
princesses. laroslaf gave an asylum to the proscribed princes.
Saint Olaf, king of Norway, and his two sons ; a prince of
Sweden ; Edwin and Edward, sons of Edmund Ironside, king of
England, expelled from their country by Knut the Great. The
Varangian dynasty was thus mingled with the families of the
64 HTSTOR Y OF RUSSIA,
Christian princes, and we may say of the Russia of the nth
century, what we can no longer say of the Russia of the i6th
century, that she was a European State.
To Kief was destined the lot of Anchen, the capital of
Charles the Great, which, glorious in his life, after his death fell
into decay. Under laroslaf, kief reached the highest pinnacle
of splendor. He wished to make his capital the rival of Con-
stantinople ; like Byzantium, she had her cathedral and her
Golden Gate. The Grand Prince also founded the monastery
of Saint Irene, of which only a few ruins now remain, and those
of Saint George and the Catacombs, the latter made illustrious
by the virtues of its first superiors, Saint Theodosius and Saint
Antony. He repaired the church of the Dime, and surrounded
the city with ramparts. The population began to increase, and
the lower town to grow at the feet of the upper. Kief, situated
on the Dnieper, the great road to Byzantium, seemed to be part
of Greece. Adam of Bremen calls her ceniula sceptrl Constatifino-
folitani et clarissimuin dcciis Gnecice, She was the rendezvous
of the merchants from Holland, Hungary, Germany, and Scandi-
navia, who lived in separate quarters of the town. She had
eight markets, and the Dnieper was constantly covered with
merchant-sliips. laroslaf had not enough Greek artists to dec-
orate all the churches, nor enough priests to serve them, for
Kief was at that time " the city of 400 churches," so much ad-
mired by the writers of the West. What she was then we may
partly realize by seeing what she is still at certain seasons of
the year. The Monastery of the Catacombs, with the incor-
ruptible bodies of its ascetics and thaumaturges, some of whom
bricked themselves up while living, in the cell which was to be
their sepulchre, draws annually, and especially at the Assump-
tion, 50,000 pilgrims. Saint Sophia was the pride of Kief ; the
mosaics of the time of laroslaf still exist, and the traveller may
admire on the " indestructible wall " the colossal image of the
Mother of God, the Last Supper, with a double apparition of
Christ, presenting to six of His disciples His body, and to six
others His blood, the images of Saints and Doctors, the Angel
of tlie Annunciation of the Virgin, The frescoes which have
been preserved or carefully restored are still numerous, and
everywhere cover the pillars, the walls, and the vaults floored
with gokl. The inscriptions are not in Slavonic, but in Greek,
laroslaf did not forget Novgorod, his first residence, and there
he built another Saint Sophia, one of the most precious monu-
ments of the Russian past. Like Charles the Great, he set up
schools. Vladimir had founded one at Kief; laroslaf instituted
that of Novgorod for 300 boys. He sent for Greek singers from
Byzantium, who taught the Russian clergy. Coins were struck
HISTORY OF RUSSIA. 65
for him by Greek artists, with his Slavonic name in Slav on one
side, and his Christian name, loury (George), on the other
Like all other barbarian neophytes, laroslaf pushed devotion
into superstition. He caused the bones of his uncles, who had
died unconverted, to be disinterred and baptized. He died in
1054, and his stone sarcophagus is one of the most precious
ornaments of Saint Sophia.
VARANCJIAN-RUSSIAN SOCIETY AT THE TIME OF lAROSLAF.
Varangian-Russian society presents more than one analogy
'\ith tlie society which was developed in Gaul after the Frank
conquest. The government of the Varangian princes some-
wiiat resembled that of the Merovingian kings.
The germ of the future State lay in the droi/Jifia, the band
of warriors surrounding the prince, as in Gaul it lay in the
tricste. The droi/Jinniki, like the antrustions, were the faithful
followers, the men of the prince. They formed his guard, and
were his natural counc'l in all affairs, public or private. He
could constitute them a court of justice, nominate them individ-
ually vo'ievodes or governors of fortresses, or possadniks or
lieutenants in the large towns. In the same way as the body
surrounding the Merovingian kings was not composed so entirely
of Franks, but that shortly Gallo-Romans crept into the antrus-
tions, so the droujina of the Russian princes admitted many
different elements, not only Varangian but Slav. INIstislaf,
prince of Tmoutorakan, had enrolled lasses and Kassogans ; a
Lithuanian latiague is mentioned as being in the droujina of
Igor, a Hungarian in that of Boris. The military class did not
form at that time a caste apart in Russia anymore than in Gaul ;
Saint Vladimir took into his service the son of a leather-worker
who had vanquished the Patzinak giant ; his maternal uncle
Dobrvna was not even a free man,
I'he prince in the middle of his d}-ouji7ia seems to be only
the first among his equals ; all that he had seems to belong to
his men. We see them eat at the same table, and listen to-
gether to the songs of the blind poets who accompanied them-
selves on the gouzzla. It was as it were a family of soldiers,
from which one day the Russian administration was to come.
The prince had great respect for the demands of his men. Those
of Vladimir complained one day that they had to eat from
wooden bowls. He gave them silver ones, and added, " I could
not buy myself a droujina with gold and silver ; but with -^drou-
ii/ia I can acquire gold and silver, as did my father and my
grandfather," The prince did nothing without P'^nsulting \\is
66 IflSTORY OF RUSSIA.
droit jinniki. It was this that prevented Sviatoslaf from listening
to the exhortations of Olga ; he said that " his d)-oujina would
mock him " if he became a Christian.
The administration of the Varangian princes was very elemen-
tary. Let us see what the Arab writer Ibn-Dost says of the way
they distributed justice : " When a Russian has a grievance
with another, he summons him before the tribunal of the prince,
where both present themselves. When the prince has given
sentence, his orders are executed ; if both parties are displeased
by the judgment, the affair must be decided by arms. He
whose sword cuts sharpest gains his cause. At the moment of
the combat the relations of the two adversaries appear armed,
and surround the space shut off. The combatants then come
to blows, and the victor may impose any conditions he pleases."
After justice, the most important of the princely functions
was the collection of the tributes. The amount was fixed by the
prince himself. Oleg imposed on the Drevlians a tax of a
marten's skin for every house. The raising of taxes was always
very arbitrary. Nestor's account of the death of Igor is a lively
picture of the political customs of the time ; we might imagine
ourselves reading a page of Gregory of Tours about the sons of
Clovis, for example the expedition of Thierry in Arvernia. " In
the year 945 the droiijhia of Igor said to him, 'The men of
Sveneld are richly j^rovided with weapons and garments, while
we go naked ; lead us, prince, to collect the tribute, so that thou
and we may become rich.' Igor consented, and conducted them
to the Drevlians to raise the tribute. He increased the first
imposts, and did them violence, he and his men ; after having
taken all he wanted, he returned to his city. While on the road
he bethought himself and said to his droujina. ' Go on with the
tribute ; I will go back to try and get some more out of them.'
Leaving the greater part of his men to go on their way, he re-
turned with only a few, to the end that he might increase his
riches. The Drevlians, when thev learnt that Igor was re-
turning, held council with Mai their prince. ' When the wolf
enters the sheepfold he slays the whole flock, if the shepherd
does not slay him. Thus it is with us and Igor ; if we do not
destroy him, we are lost.' Then they sent deputies and said to
him, ' Why dost thou come anew unto us.' Hast thou not col-
lected all the tribute ?' But Igor would not hear them, so the
Drevlians came out of the town of Korosthenes, and slew Igor
and his men, for they were but a few."
For the government and defence of the country the prince
established the chief of his droiijinniki in different towns, sup-
ported by adequate forces. Tims Rurik distributed the towns
of his appanage : he gave to one of his itten Polotsk, to anothei
HTSTOKY OF RUSSIA.
67
Rostof, to a third Bielozersk. A principality was in some sort
divided into fiefs, but the fiefs were only temporary, and always
revokable. For the defence of the frontiers new towns weie
built, where native soldiers kept watch.
Social conditions from the 9th to the 12th century were as
unequal as in the West. The droujina of the prince, which
speedily absorbed all the Slav and Finn chiefs, constituted an
aristocracy. Siiil we must distinguish in it those who were only
simple guards or gridi (gi/din among the Scandinavians), the
vioiiges or men {vir in Latin, baron in French), and the boyafds
who were the most illustrious of all. The freemen of the Rus-
sian soil were " the people " or lioudi. The gosti or merchants
were not at this period a class apart ; it was in fact the warriors
or the princes who pursued commerce with arms in their hands.
Oleg was disguised as a merchant when he surprised Kief and
slew Askold and Dir; the Byzantines mistrusted these terrible
guests, and assigned them a separate quarter, closely watched,
of Constantinople.
The rural population, on whom the weight of the growing
State was beginning to rest, was already less free than in primi-
tive times. The peasant was called jwtvv/t' (perhaps derived from
smerdief, to stink), or jnougik, insulting diminutive oimouge, man.
Later he became the Christian par excellence, krestianine.
Below the peasant, whose situation recalls that of the Roman
colonus, were the slaves properly so called, rain or kJinlopy. The
slave might have been taken in war, bought in a market, born in
the house of his master, or have lost his liberty by the mere fact
of fulfilling certain ofiices, such as that of house-steward. War
was, however, the principal source of slavery. Ibn-Dost relates
that the Russians, when they marched against another people,
did not depart without having destroyed everything; they carried
off the women, and reduced the men to slavery. They main-
tained a great slave-trade with foreign nations. " From Russia,"
said Sviatoslaf, the conqueror of Bulgaria, " will be brought
skins, wax, honey, and slaves."
PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITV — SOCIAL, POLITICAL, LITERARY, AND
ARTISTIC RESULTS.
Russia had become Christian : it is the chief event in her
primitive history. An important fact is that her Christianity
was received not from. Rome, like that of the Poles and other
Western Slavs, but from Constantinople. Although the separa-
tion between the Churches of the East and West was not yet
fully consummated, it was evident that Russia would be engaged
6g HTSTO/^Y OF RUSSIA.
in what the Latins called " the schism." It is usually considered
in the West that this fact exercised an evil influence on Russia,
Now let us see the opinion of a Russian historian, M. Bestoujet-
Rioumine, on the subject. "What is no less important is that
Christianity came to us from Byzantium, where the Church put
forth no pretensions of governing the State, a circumstance which
Dreserved us from struggles betv.een the secular, a national, and
the spiritual, a foreign power. Excluded from the religious
unity of the Romano-Germanic world, we have perhaps gained
more than we have lost. The Roman Church made her ap-
pearance with German missionaries in Slavonic lands ; and if she
did not everywhere bring with her material servitude, she at least
introduced an intellectual slavery by forcing men to support for-
eign interests, by bringing among them foreign elements, and by
establishing in all parts a sharp division between the higher
classes who wrote and spoke in Latin, and the lower classes
who spoke the national tongue and were without literature."
No doubt an ecclesiastical language which, thanks to Cyril
and Methodius, mingled with the national language, and became
intelligible to all classes of society; a purely national Church,
which was subject to no foreign sway; the absolute independence
of the civil power and of national development, were the ines-
timable advantages that Byzantine Christianity brought into
Russia. But if the Russian State was free from all obligations
to Rome, she had nothing to hope for from her. She could not
reckon in her days of peril on the help that Spain received when
she grappled with the Moors; Germany in her crusades against
the Slavs and Finns ; Hungary in her national war with the
Turks. Separated from the West by difference of faith, Russia
in the time of the Mongols, like Greece at the epoch of the Ot-
toman invasion, saw no Europe arming in her defence.
Her princes were neither laid under the pontifical interdicts,
like Robert of France, nor reduced to implore pardon at the feet
of a Gregory VII., like Henry IV. of Germany; humiliations
always followed by a swift revenge, as on the day when Bar-
barossa expelled Alexander III. from Italy, and Philip the Hand-
some caused Boniface to be arrested in Anagni. Humiliations
still more cruel awaited the Russians at the court of the Mongols.
Another misfortune attending the entrance of the Russians into
the Greek Church is, that they found themselves separated by
religion froir> the races to whom they were bound by a cominon
origin, and who spoke almost their own tongue. It was the
difference of religion which inflamed their long rivalry with the
Poles, and which at present deprives them of much influence
over part of the Slavs. This same difference of religion delayed
for them the benefits of civilization resulting from the RenaiS'
nrSTORY OF RUSSIA.
(59
sance of the West, but it spared them the terrible crisis of the
wars of the Reformation.
Oriental Christianity, with the Byzantine civilization that was
inseparable from it, produced in time a considerable transform^
ation in Russia, The first effect of Christianity was to reform
society, and draw closer family ties. It condemned polygamy,
and forbade equal divisions between the children of a slave and
those of the lawful wife. Society resisted this new principle for
some time. Saint Vladimir, even after his conversion, divided
his possessions equally among the children the Church regarded
as natural and those she considered legitimate. In the long
run Christianity prevailed, and by the abolition of polygamy the
Russian family ceased to be Asiatic, and became European.
Christianity prescribed new virtues, and gave the ancient
barbaric virtues of hospitality and benevolence a more elevated
character.
Yladimir Monomachus charged his children to receive stran-
gers hospitably, because, says he, they have it in their power to
give you a good or evil reputation. The hospitality of primitive
peoples may often be explained by their need of merchants and
foreigners. Pagan Slavs were only obliged to help those of the
same association ; warriors, the members of the same droiijiiia ;
peasants, those of the same commune; merchants or artisans,
those of the same artel. Christianity enjoined benevolence to
all the world, without hope of reward in this life. It rendered
honorable, weakness, poverty, manual labor. If it prescribed
excessive humility, it was useful at least as a reaction against the
brutality of overweening pride. Between these two societies,
aristocratic and religious, which rest on opposite and equally
exaggerated principles, there would one day be room for lay and
civil society.
The influence of Christian principles was rather slow among
these excitable a. id ardent natures, but at last we see in Russia,
as in the West, princes abjure their pride and seek the peace of
tlie cloister, like the good King Robert, or Saint Henry. In ihe
end it became an established custom with the Russian sovereigns
that, on the approach of death, they should be tonsured, change
their worldly for a monkish name, and so die in the garb of one
of the religious orders.
From a political point of view, the influence of Byzantine
Christianity was bound in the long run to cause a complete
revolution. For what was a Russian prince, after all, but the
head of a band, surrounded by the men of his droujina, and in a
sense a foreigner to the land he governed and on which he levied
tribute ? Properly speaking, a Russian prince had no subjects.
yo HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
The natives might always expel him — his droujifiniki were
always free to forsake him.
The princes of Kief were no more sovereigns in the modern
or Roman sense of the term, than Merwig or Clodowig the long-
haired. But the priests who came from Constantinople brought
with them an ideal of government ; in a little while it was that
of the Russians M'ho entered the ranks of the clergy. This
Greek ideal was the Emperor, the Tzar of Constantinople, heir
of Augustus and Constantine the Great, Vicar of God upon earth,
the typical monarch on whom the eyes of the barbarians of Gaul
as well as those of Scythia were fixed. He was a sovereign in
the fullest sense of the word, as, by a legal fiction, the people by
the Lex Rcgia was supposed to have yielded its power to the
\mpejator. He had subjects, and subjects only. Alone he made
the law ; he zvas the law. He had neither droujinniki nor an-
irnstions that he placed in such and such a town, but an host of
movable functionaries, the inviolate Roman hierarchy, by means
of whom his all-powerful will penetrated to the remotest parts of
his dominions. He was not the leader of a band of exacting
soldiers, free to quit his service for that of another, but master
of a standing army, to guard both frontiers and capital. He did
not consider his states as a patrimony to be divided between his
children, but transmitted to his successor the Roman Empire in
its integrity. He inherited his power, not only from his people,
but from God. His imperial ornaments had, 'like his person, a
sacred character : and whenever the barbarian kings demanded
one of them at Constantmople, whether it was a crown enriched
with precious stones, the purple mantle, the sceptre or the brode-
guitjs^ (leggings), they were answered, that when God gave the
Empire to Constantinople, He sent these vestments by a holy
angel ; that they were not the work of man, and that they were
laid on the altar, and only worn, even by the Emperor, on
solemn occasions. Leo the Khazar was said to have been smit-
ten with a fatal ulcer for having put on the crown without per-
mission of the patriarch.
An empire one and indivisible, resting on a standing armv,
a hierarchy of functionaries, a national clergy, and a body of jur-
isconsults, — such was the Roman Empire, and such it revived in
the monarchies of the 17th century. This was the conception of
the Stale, unknown to both Slavs and Varangians, that the Greek
priests brought to Russia. Eor a long while the reality answered
little to the ideal ; the princes continued in their wills to divide
their soldiers and their lands among their children ; but the idea
did not perish, and if it was never realized in Kievian Russia, it
found a more propitious soil in Muscovite Russia. Legislation
likewise felt the influence of Christianity. Theft, murder, and
HIS IVRY OF R USSIA. y I
assassination were not locked upon by the Church as private
offences for which tlie aggrieved persons could take reprisals or
accept a tocrgcld. They were crimes to be punished by human
justice in the name of God.
Yox private revenge IJyzantine influence substituted a public
l)enalty ; for the fine it substituted corporal punishment, repug-
nant to the free barbarian, and to the instinctive sentiment of
human dignity. Imprisonment, convict labor, flogging, torture,
nuiiilation, death itself, inflicted by more or less cruel means ;
such was the penal code of the Byzantines.
The Greek bishoj^s of the time of St. Vladimir had wished
that brigands should be put to death, but the custom was, and
long remained, against it. Vladimir, after having employed this
supreme means of repression, returned to the system of the wer-
gelJ, which besides helped to fill the treasury. The Byzantine
mode of procedure likewise rejected the judicial duel, the judg-
ment of God and the cotnpurgato7-cs long defended by habit. But,
as in Gaul Roman law existed for Church officers and part of the
naiives, side by side with the Frank or Burgundian law, so in
Russia the Byzantine codes of Justinian and Basil the Macedonian,
were established at the side of the Scandinavian code of laroslaf.
During many centuries the two systems of legislation existed
together, each being slightly influenced by the other, to the
time when they were mingled in a new code, the Oulojenie of
Ivan the Great,' and the Soudebnik of Ivan the Terrible.
The Bvzantine literature which found its wav into Russia
consisted not onlv of the sacred books, but also of the Fathers
of the Church, among whom we may reckon some writers of
the first order, like Saint Basil and Saint John Chrysostom ;
lives of the saints, the inexhaustible source of new poetry;
chronicles destined to serve as models to the Russian annalists ;
philosophical and scientific books ; even romances such as
' Barlaam and Josaphat,' ' Salomon and Kitovras,' &c. Though
this literature was partly the fruit of B}zantine decay, we may
perceive how it implanted fresh ideas in the mind of a young
nation, and would largely influence the moral life of the individ
ual, and public and family life. We shall see up to what point
Russian society of the Middle Ages was modelled on the exam-
ples afforded by this literature. Finally, it must not be forgotten
that Christianity brought music in its train to a people whose
music was highly primitive, and architecture to a people who had
absolutely none. It was she who, to use a Western expression,
illuminated the Russian cities with magnificent churches, and her
golden cupolas towered above the ramparts of mud that begirt
the cities.
72 HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
CHAPTER VI.
RUSSIA DIVIDED INTO PRINCIPALITIES. SUPREMACY AND FALL
OF KIEF, I054-I169.
Distribution of Russia into principalities — Unity in division — Tlie successors
of laroslaf the Great — Wars about the right of headshi]) of the royal
family, and the throne of Kief — Vladimir ^lonomachus — Wars betweeo
the heirs of Vladimir Mouomachus — Fall of Kief.
DISTRIBUTION OF RUSSIA INTO PRINCIPALITIES — UNITY IN
DIVISION.
The period that extends from 1054, the year of laroslaf'a
death, to 1224, the year of the first appearance of the Tatars,
or to take the French chronology, from the reign of Henry I,
to the death of Philip Augustus, is one of the most confused and
troubled in Russian history. As the barbarian custom of di\i-
sion continued to prevail over the Byzantine ideas of political
unity, the national territory was ceaselessly partitioned.
The princely anarchy of Eastern Europe has its parallel in
the feudal anarchy of the West. M. Pogodine reckons during
this period, sixty-four principalities which had an existence more
or less prolonged, 293 princes who disputed the throne of Kief
and other domains, and eighty-three civil wars, in some of which
the whole country was engaged. There were besides foreign
ft'ars to augment this immense heap of historical facts. Against
'he Polovtsi alone the chroniclers mention eighteen campaigns,
vhile these barbarians made no less than forty-six invasions of
R-Ussia. It is impossible to follow the national chroniclers in
the minute details of their annals.; we will only treat of the
principalities which lasted some time, and the facts which were
the most important.
The ancient names of the Slav tribes have everywhere dis-
appeared, or only remain in the nam(!s of some of the towns,
for example that of the Pololchanes in Polotsk, and that of the
Severians in Novgorcnl Severski. The elements of which Russia
was now composed were no longer tribes, but principalities.
We hear no more of the Krivitches or the Drevlians, but of the
HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
73
principalities of Smolensk and Volhynia. These little States
were perpetually disnieniberetl at each new partition between
the sons of a prince, and then were reconstituted to be divided
anew into appanages.
Notwithstanding all these vicissitudes, some of them main-
tained a steady existence, corresponding to certain topographi-
cal or ethnographical conditions. Without speaking of the dis-
tant principality of Tmoutorakan, situated at the foot of the
Caucasus in the centre of Turkish and Circassian tribes, and
reckoning eight successive princes, the following are the great
divisions of Russia from the nth to the 13th century: —
1. The principality of Smolensk occupied the important ter-
ritory which is, as it were, the central point in the mountain
svstem of Russia. It comprehends the ancient forest of Okof,
where three of the largest Russian rivers, the Volga, the Dnii'-
per, and the Dwina, take their rise. Hence the political import-
ance of Smolensk, attested by all the wars to gain possession of
her ; hence, also, her commercial prosperity. We must observe
that all her towns were built on one or the other of these three
great rivers ; all the commerce, therefore, of ancient Russia
passed through her hands. Besides Smolensk, we must mention
Mojai'sk, Viasma, and Toropetz, which was the capital of a
secondary principality, the property of two celebrated princes,
Mstislaf the Brave {khrabryi) and Mstislaf the Bold (^Oudalot).
2. The principality of Kief was Roiiss, Russia in the strict
sense of the word. Her situation on the Dnieper, the neighbor-
hood of the Greek Empire, the fertility of the Black Land^ for
long secured to this State the supremacy over the other Russian
principalities. On the south she bordered directly on the
nomads of the steppe, against whom her princes were forced to
raise a barrier of frontier towns. They often took these bar-
barians into their pay, granted them lands, and constituted them
into military colonies. The principality of Pcre'iaslavl was a
dependence of Kief ; Vychegorod, Bielgorod, Tripoli, Torchesk,
were at times erected into principalities for princes of the same
family.
3. On the tributaries of the right bank of the Dnieper,
notably the Soja, the Desna and the Scniic, extended the two
principalities of Ir/ieniii^of, with Starodoub and Loubetch ; and
of No7'gorod-SeTerski\ with Poutivl, Koursk, and Briansk. The
principality of Tchernigof, which reached towards the Upper Oka,
had therefore one foot in the basin of the Volga; her princes,
the Olgovitches, were the most formidable rivals of Kief. The
princes- of Severski were always occupied with their ceaseless
wars against the Polovtsi, their neighbors on the south. It was
74
HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
a prince of Severski whose exploits against these barbarians
formed the subject of a sort of cJianson de gcste, the Soni^ of Igor,
or the Account of the Expedition of Igor (S7o7'0 o polkon Igore'vie.)
4. Another principaUty, whose very existence consisted in
endless war against the nomads, was the double principality of
Riazivi and Mourom. Her principal towns were Riazan, Mou-
rom, Pereiaslavl-Riazanski, situated on the Oka, Kolomna at
the junction of the Moskowa with the Oka, and the Pronsk on
the Prona. The Upper Don formed its western boundary.
This principality was placed in the very heart of the Mouromians
and Mechtcheraks, Finnish tribes. The reputation of her in-
habitants, who were reckoned warlike in character, and rough
and brutal in manners, was no doubt partly the result of the
mixture of the Russian race with the ancient inhabitants of the
country, and of their perpetual and bloody struggle with the
nomad tribes.
5. The double principalities of Souzdal, with their towns of
Souzdal, Rostof, lourief-Polski on the Kolocha, Vladimir on the
Kliazma, laroslavl, and Pereiaslavl-Zaliesski, were situated on
the Volga and the Oka amongst the thickest of northern forests,
and in the middle of the Finnish tribes of Mouromians, Merians,
Vesses, and Tcheremisses. Although placed at the furthest ex-
tremity of the Russian world, Souzdal exercised an important
influence over it. \\& shall find her princes now establishing
a certain political authority over Novgorod and the Russia of
the Lakes, the result of a double economic dependence ; now
intervening victoriously in the quarrels of the Russia of the
Dneiper. The Souzdalians w^ere rough and warlike, like the
Riazanese. Already we can distinguish among these two peo-
ples the characteristics of anew nationality. That which divides
them from the Kievians and the men of Novgorod-Severski, oc-
cupied like themselves in the great war wiih the barbarians, is
the fact that the Russians of the Dnieper sometimes mingled
their blood with that of their enemies, and became fused with
the nomad, essentially mobile Turkish races, whilst the Russians
of the Oka and the Volga united with the Finnish tribes, agri-
cultural and essentially sedentary. This distinction between the
two foreign elements that entered the Slav blood, had doubtless
contributed to the difference in the characters of the two
branches of the Russian race. From the nth to the i3lh cen-
tury, in passing from the basin of the Dneiper to the basin of
the Volga, we can already watch the formation of Great and
Little Russia.
6. The principalities of Kief, Tchernigof, Novgorod-Severski,
Riazan, Mourom, and Souzdal, situated on the side of tha
HISTORY OF RUSSIA. yc
Steppe with its devastating hordes, formed the frontier Slates,
the Marches of Russia. The same role, on the nortii-west oppo-
site the Lithuanians, Letts, and Tchouds, fell to the principality
of Folotsk, which occupied the basin of the I3wina ; and to the
republican principalities of Novgorod and Fskof ox\ the lakes
Ilmen and Peipus. To the principality of Polotsk, that of
Minsk was attached, which lay in the basin of the Dnieper. The
possession of Minsk, thanks to its situation, was often disputed
by the Grand Princes of Kief. To Novgorod belonged the
towns of Torjok, Volok-Lamski. Izborsk, and Veliki-Louki,
which were at times capitals of particular States.
South-east Russia comprehended — i. Volhyiiia in the fan-
shaped distribution of rivers formed by the Pripet and its tribu-
taries, with Vladimir-in-Volhynia, Loutsk, Tourof, Brest, and
even Lublin, which is certainly Polish. 2. Gallicia proper, or
Red Russia, in the basin of the San, the Dniester, and the
Pripet, whose ancient inhabitants the White Croats seemed to
have sprung from the stock of the Danubian Slavs. Her chief
towns were Galitch, founded by Vladimirko about 1 144, Peremysl,
Terebovl, and Zvenigorod. The neighborhood of Hungary and
Poland gave a special character to these principalities, as well
as a more advanced civilization. The epic songs speak of Gal-
licia, the native land of the hero Diouk Stepanovitch, as a
fabuloush'-rich country. The Tale of ike Expedition 0/ Igor gwes
us a high idea of the power of these princes. " laroslaf Os-
momysl of Gallicia! " cried the poet to one of them, " thou art
seated very high on thy throne of wrought gold; with thy regi-
ments of iron thou sustainest the Carpathians ; thou closest the
gates of the Danube ; thou barrest the way to the king of Hun-
gary ; thou openest at thy will the gates of Kief, and with
thine arrows thou strikest from afar ! "
The disposition of these fifteen or sixteen principalities con-
firms all that we have said about the essential unity of the con-
figuration of the Russian soil. Not one of the river-basins forms
an isolated and closed region. There is no line of heights to
establish barriers between them or political frontiers. The
greater number of the Russian principalities belong to the
basin of the Dneiper, but extend everywhere beyond its limits.
The principality of Kief, with Pereiaslavl, is nearly the only one
completely confined within it ; but Volhynia puts the basin of
the Dnieper in communication with those of the Bug and the
Vistula, Polotsk with the basins of the Dnieper and the Dwina,
Novgorod-Severski with the basin of the Don, Tchernigof and
Smolensk with the basin of the Volga. Water-courses ever}'-
wher*, established communications between the principalities.
76
HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
Already Russia, though broken up into appanages, had the
germs of a great united empire. The slight cohesiun of nearly
all the States, and their frequent dismemberments, prevented
them from ever becoming the homes of real nationalities. The
principalities of Smolensk, Tchernigof, and Riazan have never
possessed as definite an historic existence as the duchy of Bre-
tagne or the county of Toulouse in France, or the duchies of
Saxony, Suabia, and Bavaria in Germany.
The interests of the princes, their desire to create appanages
for each of their children, caused a fresh division of the Russian
territory at the death of every sovereign. There was, however,
a certain cohesion in the midst of all these vicissitudes. There
was a unity of race and language, the more sensible, notwith-
standing all dialectic differences, because the Russian people
was surrounded everywhere, except at the south-west, by entirel^^'
strange races, Lithuanians, Tchouds, Finns, Turks, Magyars.
There was a unity of religion ; the Russians differed from
nearly all their neighbors, fc" in contrast with the Western
Slavs, Poles, Tcheques, and Moravians, they represented a
particular form of Christianity, not owning any tie to Rome, and
rejecting Latin as the language of the Church. There was the
unity of historical development, as up to that time the Russo-
Slavs had all followed the same road, had accepted Greek civili-
zation, submitted to the Varangians, pursued certain great en-
terprises in common — such as the expeditions against Byzantium
and the war with the nomads. Finally, there was political unity,
since after all in Gallicia as in Novgorod, on the Dnieper as in
the forests of Souzdal, it was the same family that filled all the
thrones. All these princes descended froni Rurik, Saint Vladi-
mir, and Laroslaf the Great. Tiie fact that the wars that laid
waste the country were civil wars, was a new proof of this unity.
The dilTerent parts of Russia could not consider themselves
strangers one to the other, when they saw the princes of Tcher-
nigof and Souzdal taking up arms to prove which of them was
the eldest, and which consequently had most right to the title
of Grand Prince and the throne of Kief. There were descend-
ants of Rurik who governed successively the remotest States of
Russia, and who, after having reigned at Tmoutorakan on the
Straits of lenikale, at Novgorod the Great, at Toropetz in the
country of Smolensk, ended by establishing their right to reign at
Kief. In spite of the division into appanages, Kief continued tc
be the centre of Russia. It was there that Oleg and Igor hac
reigned, that Vladimir had baptized his people, and larosla'
had established the metropolis of the faith, of arts, and of na-
tional civilization. It is not surprising that she should have
HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
77
been more fiercely disputed than all the other Russian cities.
Russia had many//-///a'j'; but she had only one Grand Frlnct
(^Veliki-kniaz) — the one who reigned at Kief. He had a rec-
ognized supremacy over the others which he owed not only to
the importance of his capital, but to his position as eldest of the
royal family. Kiyf, the mother of Russian cities, was always to
belong to \\\q eldest oi the descendants of Rurik; this was the
consequence of the patriarchal system of the Slavs, as was the
custom of divi?ion. When the Grand Prince of Kief died, his
son was not his rightful heir; but his uncle or brother, or which
ever of the princes was the eldest. Then the whole of Russia,
from the Celtic to the Black Sea, held itself in readiness to sui>
port the claims of this or that candidate. It was the same with
the other principalities, where the possessors of different ap-
panages aspired to reign in the metropolis of the region. The
civil wars, then, themselves strengthened the sentiments of
Russian unity. What were they, after all, but family quarrels ?
THE SUCCESSORS OF lAROSLAF THE GREAT WARS FOR THE
RIGHTS OF ELDERSHIP AND THE THRONE OF KIEF VLADI-
MIR MONOMACHUS.
The persistent conflict between the Byzantine law, by which
the son inherited the possessions of the father, and the old na-
tional law of the Slavs which caused them to pass to the eldest
of all the family, was an inexhaustible source of civil wars.
Even had the law been perfectly clear, the princes were not
always disposed to recognize it. Thus, although the eldest of
laroslaf's sons had in his favor the formal will of his father, giv-
ing him the throne of Kief, and though laroslaf on his deathbed
had desired his other sons to respect their elder brother as they
had done their parent, and look on him as their father, Isiaslaf
at once found his brother Sviatoslaf ready to take up arms and
overturn his throne (1073). He was obliged to seek refuge at
the Court of Henry IV. of Germany, who sent an embassy to
Kief, commanding Sviatoslaf to restore the throne of Isiaslaf.
Sviatoslaf received the German envoys with such courtesy, made
them such a display of his treasures and riches, that, dazzled by
the gold, they adopted a pacific policy. Henry IV. himself,
disarmed by the liberalities of the Russian prince, spoke no
more of chastising the usurper. Isiaslaf did not return to Kief
till after the death of his rival (1076).
When his own death took place (1078), his son Sviatopolk
did not succeed him immediatel}^ It w-as necessary that all the
7 8 HIS TOR Y OF R USSIA.
heirs of laroslof should be exhausted. Vsevolod, a brother of
Isiaslaf, whose daughter married the Emperor Henry IV., or
Henry V. — it is not quite certain which — reigned for fifteen
years (1078-1093). In accordance w'ith the same principle, it
was not the son of Vsevolod, Vladimir Monomachus, who suc-
ceeded his father; but after the crown had been worn by a new
generation of princes, it returned to the blood of Isiaslaf. Vladi-
mir Monomachus made no opposition to the claims of Sviatopolk
Isiaslavitch. " His father was older than mine," he said, "and
reigned first in Kief," so he quitted the principality which he
had governed with his father, and valiantly defended a2;ainst
the barbarians. But everyone was not so respectful to the na-
tional law as Vladimir Monomachus.
Two terrible civil wars desolated Russia in the reign of the
Grand Prince Sviatopolk (1093-1113): one about the princi-
pality of Tchernigof, the other about Volhynia and Red Russia.
Sviatoslaf had enjoyed Tchernigof as his share, to which
Tmoutoraken in the Taurid, jNIourom and Riazan in the Finn
country, were annexed. Isiaslaf and Vsevolod, Grand Princes
of Kief, had despoiled the sons of Sviatoslaf, their brother, de-
priving them of the rich territory of Tchernigof, and only leaving
them Tmoutorakan and the Finnish country. Even Vladimir
Monomachus, whom we have seen so disinterested, had accepted
a share of the spoil. The injured princes were not people to
bear this meekly, especially the eldest, Oleg Sviatoslavitch, one
of the most enersretic men of the nth century. He called the
terrible Polovtsi to his aid, and subjected Russia to frightful
ravages. Vladimir Monomachus was moved by these misfor-
tunes ; he wrote a touching letter to Oleg, expressing his sorrow
for having accepted Tchernigof. At his instigation a Congress
of Princes met at Loubetch, on the Dnieper (1097). Seated on
the same carpet, they resolved to put an end to the civil wars
that handed the country as a prey to the barbarians. Oleg re-
covered Tchernigof, and promised to unite with the Grand
Prince of Kief and Vladimir Monomachus against the Polovtsi.
The treaty was ratified by the oath of each prince, who kissed
the cross and swore, "That henceforth the Russian land shall
be considered as the country of us all ; and whoso shall dare
to arm himself against his brother becomes our common
enemy."
In Volhynia, the prince, David, was at warwdthhis nephews,
Vassilko and Volodar. The Congress of Loubetch had divided
the disputed territories between them, but scarcely was the treaty
ratified when David went to the Grand Prince Sviatopolk and
persuaded him that Vassilko had a design on his life. With the
HISTORY OF RUSSIA. 79
light faith hal)iuial to the men of that date, tlie Grand Prince
joined David in framing a plot to attract Vassilko to Kief on the
occasion of a religious ftte. When he arrived he was loaded
with chains, and the Grand Prince convoked the boyarcis and
citizens of Kief, to denounce to them the pretended projects of
Vassilko. '-Prince," replied the boyards, much embarrassed,
"thy tranquillity is dear to us. Vassilko merits death, if it is
true that he is thine enemv ; but if he is calumniated bv David,
God will avenge on David the blood of the innocent." Thereon
the Grand Prince delivered Vassilko to his enemy David, who
put out his eyes. The other descendants of laroslaf I. were in-
dignant at this crime. Vladimir Monomachus united with Oleg
of Tchernigof, his ancient enemy, and marched against Sviato
polk. The people and clergy of Kief succeeded in preventing a
civil war between the Grand Prince and the confederates of Lou-
betch. Sviatopolk was forced to disavow David, and swear to
join the avengers of Vassilko. David defended himself with
vigor, and summoned to his help, first the Poles, and then the
Hungarians. At last a new congress was assembled at Viti-
tchevo (iioo), on the left bank of the Dnieper, a town of which
a deserted gorodichtcht is all that now remains. As a punish-
ment for his crime, David was deprived of his principality of
Vladimir in Volhynia, and had to content himself with four small
towns. After the new settlement of this affair, Monomachus
led the other princes against the Polovtsi, and inflicted on them
a bloody defeat ; seventeen of their khans remained on the field
of battle. One khan who was made prisoner offered a ransom
to Monomachus ; but the prince showed how deeply he felt the
injuries of ihe Christians — he refused the gold, and cut the
brigand chief in pieces.
When Sviatopolk died, the Kievians unanimoush'- declared
they would have no Grand Prince but Vladimir Monomachus.
Vladimir declined the honor, alleging the claims of Oleg and
his brothers to the throne of Kief. During these negotiations,
a sedition broke out in the city, and the Jews, whom Sviatopolk
had made the instruments of his fiscal exactions, were pillaged.
Monomachus was forced to yield to the prayers of the citizens.
During his reign (i r 13-1 125) he obtained great successes against
the Polovtsi, the Patzinaks, the Torques, the Tcherkesses, and
other nomads, He gave an asvlum to the remains of the Kha-
zars, who built on the Oster, not far from Tchernigof, the town
of Belovega. The ruins of this city that remain to-day prove
that this Finnish people, eminently perfectible, and already civ-
ilized by the Greeks, were further advanced in the arts of con-
srruction and fortification than even the Russians themselves.
8o HISTORY OF K I A.
According to one tradition, Monomachus also made war on the
Emperor Alexis Comnenus, a Russian army invaded Thrace, and
the Bishop of Ephesus is said to have brought gifts to Kief,
among others a cup of cornelian that had belonged to Augustus,
besides a crown and a throne, still preserved in the Museum at
Moscow under the name of the crown and throne of Monoma-
chus. It is at present ascertained that they never belonged to
Vladimir, but it was the policy of his descendants, the Tzars of
Moscow, to propagate this legend. It was of consequence to
them to prove that these ensigns of their power were traceable
to their Kievian ancestor, and that the Russian Monomachus,
grandson of the Greek Monomachus, had been solemnly crowned
by the Bishop of Ephesus as sov'ereign of Russia.
The Grand Prince made his authority felt in other parts of
Russia. A Prince of Minsk who had the temeritv to kindle a
civil war, was promptly dethroned, and died in captivity at Kief.
The Novgorodians saw many of their boyards kept as hostages,
or exiled. The Prince of Vladimir in Volhynia was deposed,
and his states given to a son of the Grand Prince.
Monomachus has left us a curious paper of instructions that
he compiled for his sons, and in which he gives them much good
advice, enforced by examples drawn from his own life. " It is
neither fasting, nor solitude, nor the monastic life, that will pro-
cure you the life eternal — it is well-doing. Do not forget the
poor, but nourish them. Do not bury your riches in the bosom
of the earth, for that is contrary to the precepts of Christianity.*
Be a father to orphans, judge the cause of widows yourself. . . .
Put to death no one, be he innocent or gni/fv, for nothing is more
sacred than the soul of a Christian Love your wives,
but beware lest they get the power over you. When you have
learnt anything useful, try to preserve it in your memory and
strive ceaselesslv to get knowledsfe. Without ever leaving his
palace, my father spoke five languages, a thing that foreigners
admire in jis. . . I have made altogether twenty-three campaigns
without counting those of minor importance. I have concluded
nineteen treaties of peace with the Polovtsi, taken at least loo
of their princes prisoners, and afterwards restored them to liberty ;
besides more than 200 whom I threw into the rivers. No one
has travelled more rapidly than I. If I left Tchernigof very
early in the morning, I arrived at Kief before vespers. Some
* To bnrv riches in the eartli is the custom with wliich tlie Emperor Mau-
rice re])roachesihe Slavs of his time, and which is to this clay characteristic
of the Russian peasants. Often the head of the family dies, without having
revealed the hiding-place to his children. Treasure trove is frequent iv
Russia.
Ceown called "The Cap of Monomachus.'?
HIS TOR V OF RUSSIA. 8l
times in tlic middle of the thickest forests, I caught wild horses
myself, and bonnd them together with my own hands. How
many times I have been thrown from the saddle by buffaloes,
struck by the horns of the deer, trampled under foot by the
elands ! A furious boar once tore my sword from my belt ; my
saddle was rent by a bear, which threw my horse down under
me ! How many falls I had from my horse in my youth, when,
heedless of dansrer, I broke mv head, I wounded mv arms and
legs ! But the "Lord watched over me ! "
Vladimir completed the establishment of the Slav race in
Souzdal, and founded a city on the Kliazma that bore his name,
and that was destined to play a great part. Such, in the begin-
ning of the 1 2th century, when Louis VI. was fighting with his
barons of the Isle de France, was the ideal of a Grand Prince
of Russia.
fV^ARS BETWEEN THE HEIRS OF VLADIMIR MONOMACHUS — FALL OF
KIEF.
Of the sons of Vladimir Monomachus, George Dolgorouki
Oecame the father of the Princes of Souzdal and Moscow, and
Mslislaf the father of the Princes of Galitch and Kief. These
two branches were often at enmity, and it was their rivalry that
struck the final blow at the prosperity of Kief. When Isiaslaf,
son of Mstislaf (1146-1154), was called to the throne by the
inhabitants of the capital, his uncle, George Dolgorouki, put
forward his rights as the eldest of the family. Kief, which had
been already many times taken and re-taken in the strife between
the Olgovitchcs (descendants of Oleg of Tchernigof) and the
Motiomachivitches (descendants of Vladimir Monomachus), was
fated to be disputed anew between the uncle and the nephew.
It was almost a war between the Old and New Russia, the
Russia of the Dnieper and that of the Volga. The Princes of
Souzdal, who dwelt afar in the forests in the north-west, establish-
ing their rule over the remnants of the Finnish races, were to
become greater and greater strangers to Kievian Russia. If
they still coveted the " mother of Russian cities," because the
title of Grand Prince was attached to it, they at least began to
obey and to venerate it less than the other princes.
George Dolgorouki found an ally against Isiaslaf in one of
the Olgovitches, Sviatoslaf, who thirsted to avenge his brother
Igor, dethroned and kept prisoner in Kief by the Grand Prince.
The Kievians hesitated to support the sovereign they had chosen ;
they hated the Olgovitches, but in their attachment to the blood
8 2 HIS TOR YOF R USSIA.
of Monomachus, they respected his son and his grandson equally,
" We are ready," they said to Isiaslaf, " we and our children, to
make war on the sons of Oleg, But George is your uncle, and
can we dare to raise our hands against the son of Monomachus ? "
After the war had histed some time, a decisive dattle was fought.
At the battle of Pereiaslavl, Isiaslaf was completely defeated,
and took refuge, with two attendants, in Kief. The inhabitants,
who had lost many citizens in this War, declared they were un-
able to stand a sicire. The Grand Prince theii abandoned his
capital to George Dolgorouki and retired to Vladimir in Volhynia,
whence he demanded help from his brother-in-law, the King of
Hungary, and the kings of Poland and Bohemia. With these
reinforcements he surprised Kief, and nearly made his uncle
prisoner. Understanding that the national law was against him,
he opposed eldest 7aith eldest and declared himself the partisan
of another son of Monomachus, the old Viatcheslaf, Prince of
Tourof. He was proclaimed Grand Prince of Kief (ii 50-1 154),
adopted his nephew Isiaslaf as his heir, and gave splendid fetes
to the Russians and Hungarians. George returned to the charge,
and was beaten un ler the walls of Kief. P^ach of these princes
had taken barbarians into his pay : George, the Polovtsi ; Isiaslaf
the Black Caps, that is the Torques, the Patzinaks, and the
Berendians.
The obstinate Prince of Souzdal did not allow himself to be
discouraged by this check. The old Viatcheslaf, who only desired
peace and quiet, in vain addressed him letters, setting forth his
rights as elder. " I had already a beard when you entered the
world," he said, George proved himself intractable, and went
into Gallicia to effect a junction with his allv, Vladimirko, Prince
of Galitch. This Vladimirko' had violated the oath he had taken
and confirmed by kissing the cross. When they reproached him,
he said, with a tiueer, " It w^as such a little cross." To prevent
this dangerous co-operation, Isiaslaf, without waiting the expected
arrival of the Hungarians, began the pursuit of George, and
came up with him on the borders of the Rout, a small tributary
of the Dnieper. A bloody battle was fought, where he himself
was wounded and thrown from his horse, but the Souzdalians
and their allies the Polovtsi were completely defeated (1151).
Isiaslaf survived this victory only three years. After his death
and that of Viatcheslaf, Kief passed from hand to hand. George
ended by reaching the supreme object of his desires. He made
his entry into the capital in 1155, and had the consolation of
dying Grand Prince of Kief at the moment that a league was
being formed for his expulsion (1157). "I thank Thee, great
God," cried one of the confederates on learning the news, "for
HIS TOR Y OF HUSS/A. 83
having spared us, by the sudden death of our enemy, the obliga-
tion of shedding his blood ! "
Tiie confederates entered tlie town ; one of them assumed
the title of Grand Prince, the others divided his territories.
Henceforth there existed no Grand Principality, properly speak-
ing, and with the growing power of Souzdal, Kief ceased to be
the capital of Russia. A final disaster was still reserved for her.
!n 1 169, Andrew Ijogolioubski, son of George Dolgorouki
and i'rince of Souzdal, being disaffected to Mstislaf, Prince of
Kief, formed against him a coalition of eleven princes. He con-
fided to his son Mstislaf and his voievode Boris an immense
army of Rostovians, Vladimiris, and Souzdalians to march
against Kief. This time the Russia of the forests triumphed
over Russia of the steppes, and after a three days' siege Kief
was taken bv assault. "This mother of Russian cities," savs
Karamsin, " had been many times besieged and oppressed.
She had often opened her Golden Gate to her enemies, but none
had ever yet entered by force. To their eternal shame, the
victors forgot that they too were Russians ! During three
days not only the houses, but the monasteries, churches, and
even the temples of Saint Sophia and the Dime, were given over
to pillage. The precious images, the sacerdotal ornaments, the
books, and the bells, all were taken away.''
From this time the lot of the capital of Saint Vladimir, pil-
laged and dishonored by his descendants, ceases to have a gen-
eral interest for Russia. Like other parts of Slavonia, she has
her princes, but the heads of the reigning families of Smolensk,
Tchernigof, and Galitch assume the title, formerly unique, of
Grand Prince. The centre of Russia is changed. It is now in
the basin of the Volga, at Souzdal. Many causes conspired to
render the disaster of 1169 irremediable. The chronic civil wars
of this part of Russia, and the multitudes and growing power of
nomad hordes, rendered the banks of the Dnieper uninhabitable.
In 1203 Kief was again sacked by the Polovtsi, whom the Olgo-
vitches of Tchernigof had taken into their pay. On this soil, inces-
santly the prey of war and invasion, it was impossible to found
a lasting order of things ; it was impossible that a regular system
of government should be established — that civilization should
develop and maintain itself. Less richly endowed by nature, and
less civilized, the Russia of the forests was at least more tran-
quil. It was there that a grand principality was formed, called
to fulfil high destinies, but which unhappily was to be separated
for three hundred years, by the southern steppes and the nomads
who dwelt there, from the Black Sea ; that is, from Byzantine
and Occidental civilization.
84 HISTORY OF RUSSIA,
CHAPTER VII.
RUSSIA AFTER THE FALL OF KIEF. POWER OF SOUZDAL AND
GALLICIA, 1 169-1224,
Andrew Bogolioubski of Souzdal (1157-1174), and the first attempt at autoc-
racy — George II. (121 2-1 238) — Wars with Novgorod — Battle of Lipetsk
(1216) — Foundation of Nijni-Novgorod (1220) — Roman (1188-1205) andhis
son Daniel (1205-1264) in Gallicia.
ANDREW BOGOLIOUBSKI OF SOUZDAL (1157-I174) AND THE
FIRST ATTEMPT AT AUTOCRACY.
After the fall of the grand principality of Kief, Russia
ceased to hav^e a centre round which her whole mass could
gravitate. Her life seemed to be withdrawn to her extremities ;
and during the fifty four years which preceded the arrival of
the Mongols, all the interest of Russian history is concentrated
on the principality of Souzdal, on that of Galitch, and on the
two republics of Novgorod and Pskof.
George Dolgorouki was the founder of Souzdal, but we have
seen him expend all his energy in securing possession of the
throne of Kief. His son Andrew Bogolioubski was, on the con-
trary, a true prince of Souzdal. From him are descended the
Tzars of Moscow; with him there appears in Russian hiscory
quite a new type of prince. It is no longer the chivalrous light-
hearted careless ktiiaz, in turn a prey to all kinds of opposing
passions, the joyous kniaz of the happy land of Kief — but an
ambitious, restless, politic, and imperious sovereign, going
straight to his goal without scruple and without pity. Andrew
had taken an aversion to the turbulent cities of the Dnieper,
where the assemblies of citizens sometimes held the power of
the prince in check. In Souzdal, at least, he found himself in
the centre of colonists planted by the prince, who never dreamed
of contesting his authority : he reigned over towns which for the
most part owed their existence to his ancestors or himself.
During the lifetime of his father George, he had quitted the
Dnieper and his palace at Vychegorod, had established himself
on the Kliazma, bringi'ng with him a Greek image of the mother
of God, had enlarged and fortified Vladimir, and founded a
quarter that he called Bogolioubovo.
HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
8S
When after the death of George the grand principality be-
came vacant, he allowed the princes of the south to dispute it
among themselves. He only wished to mix with their quarrels
as far as would suffice for the recognition of his authority, not at
Kief, but at Novgorod the Great, then bound by the closest ties
to Souzdal. He established one of his nephews as his lieuten-
ant at Novgorod. A glorious campaign against the Bulgarians
increased his reputation in Russia. He deserved more than
anyone to be Grand Prince of Kief, but we have seen that he
preferred to pillage it — that he preferred a sacrilegious spoil to
the throne of Monomachus.
After having destroyed the splendor and power of Kief,
and guided by the sure instinct that afterwards led Ivan the Great
and Ivan the Terrible against Novgorod, he longed to subdue
the great republic to a narrower dependence. " The fall of
Kief,'' says Karamsin, " seemed to presage the loss of Novgorod
liberty ; it was the same army, and it was the same prince
(Mstislaf Andreievitch) who commanded it. But the Kievians,
accustomed to change their masters — to sacrif^ca the vanquished
to the victors — only fought for the honor of their princes, while
the Novgorodians were to shed their blood for th^ defence of the
laws and institutions established by their ancestors." Mstis-
laf, w'ho had forced the princes of Smolensk, Riazan, Mourom,
and Polotsk to join him, put the territories of the republic to
fire and sword, but only succeeded in exasperating the courage-
ous citizens. When fighting began under the walls of the town,
the Novgorodians, to inflame themselves for the combat, re-
minded each other of the pillage and the sacrilege with which
their adversaries had polluted the holy city of Kief. All swore
to die for St. Sophia of Novgorod ; their archbishop, Ivan, took
the image of the Mother of God and paraded it with great pomp
round the walls. It is said that an arrow shot by a Souzdalian
soldier having struck the image of the Virgin, her face turned
towards the city, and inundated the vestments of the archbishop
with miraculous tears. Instantly a panic seized the besiegers.
The victory of the Novgorodians was complet>^ ; they slew a
multitude of their enemies, and made so many prisoners, that
according to the contemptuous expression of their chronicler,
"You could get six Souzdalians for a grivna (1170)." Their
dependence on Souzdal for corn soon forced them to make
peace. They abandoned none of the ancient rights of the repub-
lic, but of " their own free will," according to the consecrated
expression, they accepted as sovereign the prince nominated for
them by Andrew of Souzdal.
Andrew about this time lost his only son, his heir, Mstislaf.
86 HISTOR Y OF R USSTA.
The knowledge that in future he would be working for his col
lateral relatives no whit diminished his ambition or his arro-
gance. The princes of Smolensk, David, Rurik, and Mstislaf
the Brave, could not endure his despotic ways, and, in spite of
his threats, took Kief. The Olgovitches of Tchernigof, delighted
to see discord kindled between the descendants of Monomachus,
incited Andrew to revenge this injury. So he sent a herald to
the princes of Smolensk, to say to them, " You are rebels ; the
principalitv of Kief is mine. I order Rurik to return to his
patrimony of Smolensk, and David to retire to Berlad ; I can no
longer bear his presence in Russia, nor the presence of Mstislaf,
the most guilty of you all."
Mstislaf the Brave, say the chroniclers, " feared none but
God." When he received Andrew's message, he shaved the
beard and hair of the messenger, and answered him : " Go, and
vepeat these words unto your prince — ' Up to this time we have
respected you like a father, but since you do not blush to treat
lis as your vassals and common people, since you have forgotten
that you speak to princes, we mock at your menaces. Execute
them — we appeal to the judgment of God.' " The judgment of
God was an encounter under the walls of Vychegorod, besieged
by more than twenty princes, allies or vassals of Andrew of
Souzdal. Mstislaf succeeded in dividing the assailants, and
completed their defeat by a victorious sortie, 1173.
When Andrew came to establish himself in the land of
Souzdal, the inhabitants themselves elected him their prince, to
the exclusion of other members of the family. But this enemy
of municipal liberty had no intention of fixing his residence
either at Rostof or Souzdal, the two most ancient cities of the
principality, which had their assembly of citizens, their vefchif.
From the beginning he conceived the project of raising above
them a new town, Vladimir on the Kliazmaj considered by
Rostof and Souzdal merely a subject borough. To give a plaus-
ible pretext to this resolution he had his tent pitched on the
road to Souzdal ten versts from Vladimir, and installed himself
there with his miraculous image of the Virgin which came from
Constantinople, and was, we are assured, the work of St. Luke.
The next day he announced that the Mother of God had ap-
appeared to him in a dream, and had commanded him to place
her image, not at Rostof, but at Vladimir. He was likewise to
build a church and a monastery to the Virgin on the spot where
she made herself manifest; this was the origin of the village of
Bogolioubovo. Andrew preferred Vladimir to the old cities, but
it was in his house at Bogolioubovo that he best liked to ]i\e.
lie tried to make of Vladimir a new Kief, as Kief herself was a
HIS TORY OF R USSIA, 8 7
tiev/ Byzantium. There were at Vladimir a Golden Gate, a
Chuich of the Dime consecrated to the Virgin, and numer-
ous monasteries built by the artists summoned by Andrew from
':he West.
Andrew sought the friendship of the priests, whom he felt to
be one of the great forces of the future. He posed as a jjious
prince, rose often by night to burn tapers in the churches, and
publicly distributed alms in abundance. After a victory over the
Bulgarians of the Volga, he obtained leave from the Patriarch
of Constantinople to establish a commemorative feast. It
happened that on the same day that Andrew triumphed over the
Bulgarians, thanks to the image of the Virgin, the Emperor Man-
uel had won a victory over the Saracens bv means of the true
cross and the image of Christ represented on his standard. One
anniversary served for both victories of orthodoxy, and Vladimir
was in harmony with Byzantium. Andrew was anxious to make
Vladimir a metropolitan city. At the same time that he robbed
Kief of the grand principality, he would have deprived her of
the religious supremacy of Russia, and given his new city th*
spiritual as well as the temporal power. This time the patriarch-*
refused, but the attempt was one day to be renewed by th»
princes of Moscow.
What more particularly proves this prince — who had rise«
from the conception of appanages to that of the indivisible
modern state — to have been superior to his century, to have hack
sure instincts as to the future, is that he declined to share bis
dominions with his brothers and nephews. In spite of the tes-
tamentary directions of George, he expelled his three brothers
from Souzdal, and they retired with their mother, a Greek
princess, to the court of the Emperor Manuel. It appears tha<
this measure was advised by the men of Souzdal. The subjects
then had the same instinct of unity as the prince. If he broke
with the patriarchal custom of appanages, and wished to reign
alone in Vladimir, he broke equally with the Varangian tradition
of the droiijifia ; he treated his men, his bovards, not as com-
panions, but as subjects. Those who refused to bow to his will
had to leav3 the countrv. We mav sav that Andrew Bosfolioub-
ski created autocrac}'' 300 years before its time. He indicated
in the 12th century all that the Grand Princes of Moscow had
to do in the 15th and 16th centuries, to attain absolute power.
His mistrust of municipal liberty, his despotic treatment of the
boyards, his efforts to suppress the appanages, his proud
attitude towards the other Russian princes, his alliance with the
clergy, and his project of transporting to the basin of the Oka
the religious metropolis of all the Russias, are the indications ol
B8 HIS TOR y OF R USSIA.
a political programme that ten generations of princes did not
suffice to carry out. The moment was not yet come ; Andrew
had not enough power, nor Souzdal resources enough to sub-
jugate the rest of Russva. Andrew succeeded against Kief, but
he endured a double check from Novgorod the Great, and from
Mitislaf the Brave, and the princes of the south. His despotism
made him terrible enemies. His boyards, whom he tried to
reduce to obedience, assassinated him in his favorite residence
of Bogolioubovo (1174).
GEORGE II. (12 1 2-1 238) — WARS WITH NOVGOROD — BATTLE OF
LIPETSK (12 16) NIJNI-NOVGOROD FOUNDED (l22o).
The death of this remarkable man was followed by great
troubles. The common people attacked the houses of rich men
and magistrates, gave them up to pillage, and committed so
many murders that to establish quiet the clergy were forced to
have a procession of images. The unpunished murders show
how premature was the autocratic attempt of Andrew. His
succession was disputed between his nephews and his two
brothers Michael and Vsevolod, who had returned from Greece.
The nephews were supported by the old cities of Rostof and
Souzdal, which were animated by a violent hatred of thcparvenue
city of Vladimir, that had torn from them the title of capital,
.■ind had taken up the cause of Michael and Vsevolod. " The
Vladimirians," said the Rostovians, " are our slaves, our masons ;
let us burn their town, and set up there a governor of our own,"
The Vladimirians had the advantage in the first war, and caused
Michael, the elder of Andrew's brothers, to be recognized Grand
Prince of Souzdal. At his death the Rostovians refused to re-
cognize the other brother Vsevolod, surnamed the Big-A^est, on
account of his numerous posterity. They resisted all proposals
of compromise, declaring that " their arms alone should do
them right on the vile populace of Vladimir." It was, on the
contrary, the vile populace of Vladimir who put the boyards of
Rostof in chains. The two ancient cities were forced to submit ;
Vladimir remained the capital of Souzdal. Vsevolod (1176-
1212) managed to secure himself on the throne by defeating the
])rinces of Riazan and Tcliernigof. He extended his influence
to the distant Galitch, and contracted matrimonial alliances with
the princes of Kief and Smolensk, He reduced the Novgorodians
to beg for one of his sons as their prince, " Lord and Grand
Prince," said the envoys of the republic to him, " our country is
your patrimony ; we entreat you to send us the grandson of
HISTORY OF RUSSIA. 89
George Dolgorouki, the great-grandson of Monomachus, to
govern us." The prhices of Riazan having incurred his dis-
pleasure, he united their states to his principality. Riazan re-
belled, and was reduced lo ashes, and the inhabitants trans-
ported to the solitudes of Souzdal. This prince, who has like-
wise been called " The Great," exhibited in his designs the
prudence, the spirit of intrigue, constancy, and tirmness which
characterized tiie princes of the Russia of the forests. At his
death (12 12) the troubles began again. Dissatisfied with his
eldest son Constantine, prince of Novgorod, Vsevolod had given
the grand principality of Novgorod to his second son, George
II. Constantine had to content himself with Rostof ; a third
brother, laroslaf, prince of Pere'iaslavl-Zaliesski, had been sent
to Novgorod,
laroslaf quarrelled with his turbulent subjects, left their
town and installed himself at Torjok, a city in the territory of
Novgorod, where he betook himself to hindering the passage of
the merchants and boyards. Their communications with the
Volga were intercepted ; he preuented the arrival of corn, and
reduced the town to starvation. The Novgorodians were obliged
to eat the bark of pines, moss, and lime-leaves. The streets
were filled with the bodies of the wretched inhabitants, which
the dogs devoured. laroslaf was implacable. He persisted in
remaining at Torjok, refused to return to Novgorod, and arrested
all envovs sent to him. He treated Novgorod as his father had
treated Rostof and Souzdal. But help arrived to the despair-
ing citizens in the person of a prince of Smolensk, Mstislaf the
Bold, son of Mstislaf the Brave. " Torjok shall not hold her-
self higher than Novgorod," he cried ; " I will deliver your
lands and your citizens, or leave my bones among you." Thus
Mstislaf became prince of Novgorod ; and as he saw that the
Grand Prince of Vladimir supported his brothers, he sought an
ally in Constantine of Rostof, who was discontented with his
inheritance. The Novgorodian quarrel speedily expanded into
a general war, and Mstisaf contrived to make Souzdal the scene
of strife. Before a battle he tried to effect a reconciliation be-
tween the two princes of Vladimir and Rostof. But George
answered, " If my father was not able to reconcile me with
Constantine, has Mstislaf the right to judge between us } Let
Constantine be victorious and all will be his." This strife be-
tween the three sons of Big-Nest had all the fierceness of frater-
nal warefare. Before the battle George and laroslaf issued
orders that quarter was to be given to no one, to kill even those
•who had " embroideries of gold on their shoulders ; " that is,
the princes of the blood. Already they had decided on the
Q o HIS TOR V or J^USSTA.
partition of Russia, But the troops of Novgorod, Pskof, and .
Smolensk attacked them with such fury that those of Souzdal
and Mourom gave way, and it was the soldiers of Mstislaf who
in their turn gave no quarter. Nine thousand men were killed
and only sixty prisoners taken. George threw off his royal
clothes, wore out the strength of three horses, and with the
fourth just managed to reach Vladimir. (Battle of Lipetsk, near
Pereiaslavl-Zaliesski, 1216.) Constanline then became Grand
Prince of Vladimir, and ceded Souzdal to his brother George,
laroslaf was obliged to renounce Novgorod, and release the cap-
tive citizens.
At the death of Constantino (12 17) George regained the
throne of Vladimir. Under him the expeditions against the
Bulgarians of the Volga and the Mordvians were continued.
These expeditions were organized both by land and water; the
infantry descended the Oka and the Volga in boats, the cavalry
marched alon^ the banks. Thev attacked and burnt the wooden
forts of the Bulgars, and destroyed the population.
During a campaign, conducted by George in person along
the whole length of the Volga, he noticed a small hill on its right
bank, near its junction with the Oka. Here, in the midst of the
Mordvian tribes, he founded Nijni-Novgorod (1220). A Mord-
vian tradition gives its own account of this important event.
" The prince of the Russians sailed down the Volga ; on the
mountain he perceived the jMordva in a long white coat, adoring
her god ; and he said to his warrors, ' What is that white birch that
bends and sways up there, above its nurse the earth, and inclines
towards the east ? ' He sent his men to look nearer, and they
came back and said, ' It is not a birch that bends and sways, it
is the INIordva adoring her god. In their vessels they have a
delicious beer, pancakes hang on sticks, and their priests cook
their meat in caldrons.' The elders of the Mordva, hearing of the
Russian prince, sent young men with gifts of meat and beer.
But on the road the young men ate the meat and drank the beer,
and only brought the Russian prince earth and water. The
prince was rejoiced at this present, which he considered as a
mark of submission of the Mordva. He continued to descend
the Volga : where he threw a handful of this earth on the bank,
a town sprang up : where he threw a pinch of this earth, a village
was born. It was thus that the Mordvian land became subject
to the Russians."
HISTORY OF RUSSIA,
ROMAN (l 188-1205) AND HIS SON DANIEL (1205-1264) IN
GALITCH.
9«
Galitch offers a remarkable contrast to Souzdal ; peopled by
Khorvates or White Croats, she had preserved a purely Slavonic
character in spite of her conquest by Varangian princes. " The
prince," says M. Kostomarof, " was a prince of the old Slavonic
type. He was elected by a popular assembly, and kept his
crown by its consent."
The assembly itself was governed by the richest men of the
countrv, the boyards. Under the influence of Polish and Hun-
garian ideas the boyards had raised themselves above the mass
of the people, and formed a strong aristocracy which really
ruled the country. When laroslaf Osmomysl (glorified in the
Song of Igor) neglected his lawful wife Olga for his mistress
Anastasia, the nobles rose, burnt Anastasia alive, and obliged
the prince to send away his natural son, and to recognize his
legitimate son Vladimir as his heir.
When Vladimir became prince, he lost no time in incurring
their hatred. He was accused of abandoning himself to vice
and drunkenness, of despising the councils of wise men, of dis-
honoring the wives and daughters of the nobles, and of having
married as his second wife the widow of a priest. It did not
need all this to exhaust the patience of the Gallicians. They
summoned Vladimir to give up the woman that they might punish
her. Vladimir took fright, and fled to Hungary with his family
and his treasures. This was all the boyards desired, and they
offered the throne to Roman, prince of A^olhynia (i i88). But
Bela, king of Hungary, brought back the fugitive prince with an
army, and entered Galitch. There he suddenly changed his
mind, and coveted this beautiful country, rich in salt and miner-
als, for himself. He threw his /w/c'^/ Vladimir into prison, and
proclaimed his own son Andrew. The Hungarian yoke seemed
naturally more heavy to the Gallicians than the authority of their
easy-going princes. They expelled the strangers, and recalled
Vladimir, who had found means to escape, and had taken refuge
with P'rederick Barbarossa. When Vladimir died, Roman of
Volhynia resolved at all hazards to enter Galitch. His rival had
previously appealed to the Hungarians, so he applied to the
Poles, and, with an auxiliary army given him by Casimir the
Just, he reconquered Galitch. The turbulent boyards had at
last found their master.
This time Roman held the crown, not by election, but by con-
quest. He resolved to subdue the proud aristocracy. The Po-
lish Bishop Kadloubek, a contemporary writer, who sympathsized
Q 2 ffIS TOR Y OF R USSIA.
with the oligarchs, draws a frightful picture of the vengeance
exercised by Roman on his enemies. They were quartered,
buried alive, riddled with arrows, delivered over to horrible tor-
tures. He had promised pardon to those who had fled; but
when they returned, he accused them of conspiracy, condemned
them to death, and confiscated their goods. " To eat a drop of
honey in peace," he said cynically, " you must first kill the bees."
The kussian chroniclers, on the contrary, praise him highly. He
was another Monomachus, an invincible and redoubtable hero,
who " walked in the ways of God, exterminated the heathen, flung
himself like a lion upon the infidels, was savage as a wildcat, deadly
as a crocodile, swooped on his prey like an eagle." More than
once he vanquished the Lithuanian tribes and the Polovtsi ; in
the civil wars of Russia he was likewise victorious, and gave to
one of his relations the throne of Kief. He attracted the atten-
tion of the great Pope, Innocent HI., who sent missionaries tn
convert him to the Catholic faith, promising to make him a great
king by the sword of Saint Peter, Drawing his own sword,
Roman proudly answered the envoys of Innocent : " Has the
Pope one like mine ? While I wear it at my side, I have no need
of another's blade." In 1205, when he was engaged in a war
with Poland, he imprudently ventured too far from his army on
the banks of the Vistula, and perished in an unequal combat.
His exploits were long remembered in Russia, and the ' Chroni-
cle of Volhynia' gives him the surname of " the Great," and
" the Autocrat of all the Russias." A historian of Lithuania re-
lates that, after his victories over the barbarous inhabitants of
that country, he harnessed the prisoners to the plough. Hence
the popular saying, " Thou art terrible, Roman ; the Lithuan-
ians are thy laboring oxen." Roman of Volhynia is a worthy
contemporarv of the autocrat of the north-west, Andrew of Souz-
dal.
Roman left two sons, minors. Daniel the elder was pro-
claimed prince of Galitch (1205-1264), but in such a turbulent
country, rent as it was by factions, it was impossible for a child
to reign under the guardianship of his mother. Red Russia fell
a prey to a series of civil wars, complicated by the intervention
of Poles and Hungarians. The ferocitv shown bv the Gallicians
in their intestine struggles has gained for them the name of
atheist in the Kievian Chronicles. The jMinces of the blood of
Saint Vladimir were tortured and hung by the boyards. Daniel
was first replaced on the throne, then expelled, then again re-
called. His infancy was the toy of intriguing factions. Mstis-
laf the Bold also came hither in search of adventures. He
chased the Hungarians from Galitch, took the title of Prince.
HISTORY OF RUSSTA. 93
and married his daughter to Daniel. Both were immediately
obliged to turn their arms against the Poles. Daniel, whose
character had been formed in such a rough school, displayed re-
markable energy and courage in these campaigns. The aid ot
the Polovtsi had to be sought against these enemies from the
west, the Hungarians and the Poles — now rivals, now allies.
At the denlh of Mstislaf the Bold (1228), Daniel, who five years
previously had taken part in the battle of Kallia against the Ta-
tars, becauic prince of Galitch. Towards the boyards, whose
turbulence /^ad ruined the country, he acted with the salutary
policy of Roman, though without employing the same severity.
The gre;£t Mongol invasion once more expelled him from
Galitch, which it covered with ruins. Daniel, who had fled to
Hungary, did his best to help his unhappy country. To fill up
the void matie by the Mongols in the population, he invited
Germans, Arm2nians, and Jews, whom he loaded wiih privileges.
The economic consequence of this measure was a rapid develop-
ment of commeice and industry ; the ethnographic consequence
was the introduction into Gallicia of a Jewish element, very
tenacious and very persistent, but alien to the dominant nation-
ality, and forming a. separate people in the midst of the Rus-
sians. Daniel was one of the last princes to make his submis-
sion to the horde. " You have done well to come at last," said
the khan of the Mongols. Bati treated him with distinction, al-
lowed him to escape the ordinary humiliations, and, seeing that
the fermented milk of the Tatars was not to his taste, gave him
a cup of wine. Daniel, however, bore with impatience the yoke
of these barbarians.
Feeling himself insolated in the general abasement of the
orthodox world, the prince of Galitch turned towards Rome,
and promised to do his best for the union of the two Churches
and to add his contingent to the crusade preached in Europe
against the Mongols. Innocent IV, called him his dear son, ac-
corded him the title of king, and sent him a crown and sceptre.
Daniel was solemnly crowned at Droguitchine by the abbot of
Messina, Legate of the Pope (1254). Both the crusade against
the Asiatics and the reconciliation between the two Churches
came to nothing. Daniel braved the reproaches and threats of
Alexander IV., but kept the title of king. He took part in the
European wars with great success. " The Hungarians," says
a chronicler, " admired the order that reigned among his troops,
their Tatar weapons, the magnificence of the prince, his Greek
habit embroidered with gold, his sabre and his arrows, his sad-
dles enriched witli jewels and precious metals richly chased."
Encouraged by the Hungarians and the Poles, he tried to shake
94
HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
off the yoke of the Mongols, and expelled them from a few
places ; but he was soon obliged to bow to superior force, and
dismantle his fortresses. No prince better deserved to free
Southern Russia, but his activity and talents struggled in vain
against the fate of his country. He terminated in 1264 one of
the most memorable and most checkered careers in the history
of Russia. The civil wars of his youth, the Tatar invasion in
his ripe age, the negotiations and wars with Western Europe,
left him no repose. After him, Russian Galitch passed to dif-
ferent princes of his family. In the 14th century, she was
absorbed into the kingdom of Poland. She was lost to Russia.
mSTORY OF RUSSIA. 9»J
CHAPTER VIII.
rHE RUSSIAN REPUBLICS : NOVGOROD, PSKOF, AND VIATKA, UP TO
1224.
Novgorod the Great— Her struggles with the princes — Novgorodian institu*
tions — Commerce — National Church — Literature — Pskof and Vitaka.
NOVGOROD THE GREAT STRUGGLES WITH THE PRINCES.
Novgorod has been, from the most remote antiquity, the
political centre of tlie Russia of the North-west. The origin of the
Slavs of the Ilmen, who laid her foundations, is still uncertain.
Some learned Russians, such as M. Kostomarof, suppose them
to belong to the Slavs of the South, others to the Slavs of the
Baltic ; others, again, like M. Bielaef and M. Ilovaiski, make
them a branch of the Krivitch or Smolensk Slavs. We find the
Novgorodians, at the opening of Russian history, at the head of
the confederation of tribes which first expelled and then recalled
the Varangians to reign over Russia.
Novgorod, from very ancient times, was divided into two
parts, separated by the course of the Volkhof, which rises in lake
Ilmen and falls into the Ladoga. On the right bank was the
side of Saint Sophia, where laroslaf the Great built his celebrated
cathedral ; where the Novgorod kremlin was situated, enclosing
both the palaces of the Archbishop and the prince ; and where
the famous Russian monument was consecrated in 1862. On
the left bank, the i-/'/^ of commerce, \\'\\\\\\.s Court of laroslaf ;
the bridge which joins the two halves of the city is celebrated in
the ann.^ls of Novgorod. The side of Saint Sophia includes the
Nerevian quarter as well as those of " beyond the city," and of
the potters {Ncrevski, Zagorod/ii, Gontc/iarni). The side of com-
merce comprised the quarters of the carpenters and S/a7'S. An-
cient documents also speak of a Prussian (Lithuanian) quarter.
Some of these names seem to indicate that many races have
concurred, as in ancient Rome, to form the city of Novgorod.
Gilbert of Lannoy, who visited the republic about 1413, has left
<)6 HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
us this description of it : " Novgorod is a prodigiously large towft
situated in a beautiful plain, in the midst of vast forests. The
soil is low, subject to inundations, marshy in places. The town
is surrounded by imperfect ramparts, formed of gabions ; the
towers are of stone." Portions of these ramparts still exist, and
allow us to form an idea of the immense extent of the ancient
city. The kremlin forms its acropolis. The cathedral has pre
served its frescoes of the 12th century, the pillars painted with
images of saints on a golden ground, the imposing figure of
Christ on the cupola, the banner of the Virgin, which was to re-
vive the courage of the besieged on the ramparts : the tombs of
Saint A^adimir laroslavitch, of the Archbishop Nikita, by whose
prayers a fire was extinguished, of Mstislaf the Brave, the de-
voted defender of Novgorod, and of many other saints and illus-
trious people. Without counting the tributary cities of Novgorod,
such as Pskof, Ladoga, Izborsk, Veliki Louki, Staraia Roussa
(Old Russia), Torjok, Biejitchi, her primitive territory (the
" ager Romanus " of the republic) was divided into ^\%fftJis
[piatines), the Vudskdia, the Chelonskdia, the Obonejs kaia the
Biejetskdia, and the Dcreveksdia, which included the land to the
south of the lakes Ladoga and Onega. Her conquests formed
five bailiwicks or volosts occupying the whole of Northern Russia,
and extending as far as Siberia. These bailiwicks were the Zaiv-
fo/^//// between the Onega and the Mezen ; liie 7)r, or Russian
Laj^land ; Pennia, on the Upper Kama ; PctcJiora, on the river of
the same name ; and lougria, on the other side of the Oural
mountains. To these we must add Ingria, Carelia, and part of
Livonia and Esthonia.
Novgorod, which had summoned the Varangian ]M-inces, was
too powerful, with her 100,000 inhabitants and 300,000 subjects,
to allow herself to be tyrannized over. An ancient tradition
speaks vaguely of a revolt against Rurik the Old under the hero
Vadini. Sviatoslaf, the conqueror of the Bulgaria of the Dan-
ube, undertook to govern her by mere agents, but Novgorod in-
sistiid on having one of his sons for her prince. " If you do not
come to reign over us," said the citizens, " we shall know how
to find ourselves other princes." laroslaf the Great, as a re-
ward for their devotion, accorded them immense privileges, of
which no record can be found, but which are constantly in-
voked by the Novgorodians, as were the true or false charters
of Charles the Great by the German cities. These republicans
could not exist without a prince, but they rarely kept one long.
The assembly of the citizens, the vetche\, convoked by the bell
in the Court of laroslaf, was the real sovereign. The republic
called herself " My Lord Novgorod //^ Great " (Gospodine Vel'
HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
97
Ikii Novgorod). "Who can equal God and the great Novgo-
rod ? " was a popular saying. From the distance of the city
from the Russia of the Dnieper, and her position towards the
Gallic and Western Europe, she took little part in the civil wars
of which Kief was the object and the centre. She profited by
I his in a certain sense ; for in the midst of the strifes of princes
and of frequent changes in the grand principality, no sovereign
was stronir enouiih to irive her a master. She could choose be-
o o o
I ween princes of the rival families. She could impose condi-
tions on him whom she chose to reign over her. If discontented
with his management, she expelled the prince and his band of
aiitrustions. According to the accustomed formula, "she made
a reverence, and showed him the way" to leave Novgorod.
Sometimes, to hinder his evil designs, she kept him prisoner in
the archbishop's palace, and it was left to his successor to set
him at liberty. Often a revolution was accompanied by a gen-
eral pillage of the partisans of the fallen prince, even by 7ioyades
in the Volkhof. A grand Prince of Kief, Sviatopolk, wished to
force his son on them. " Send him here," said the Novgoro-
dians, " if he has a spare head." The princes themselves con-
tributed to the frequent changes of reign. They only felt them-
selves half-rulers in Novgorod, so they accepted any other ap-
]:)anage with joy. Thus, in ii32,Vsevolod Gabriel abandoned
Novgorod to reign at Pereiaslavl. When his hopes of Kief were
crushed, and he wished to return to Novgorod, the citizens re-
jected him. " You have forgotten your oath to die with us, you
have sought another principality ; go where you will." Pres-
ently they thought better of it, and took him back. Four years
afterwards he was ao-ain obli2:ed to flv. In a great vetche, to
which the citizens of Pskof and Ladoga were summoned, they
solemnly condemned the exile, after reading the heads of very
characteristic accusations : " He took no care of the poorer
people ; he desired to establish himself at Pereiaslavl : at the
battle of Mount Idanof, against the men of Souzdal, he and his
dnnijina were the first to leave the battle-field; he was fickle in
the quarrels of the princes, sometimes uniting with the Prince of
Tchernigof, sometimes with the opposite party."
The power of a prince of Novgorod rested not only on his
dro/ijina, which always followed his fortunes, and on his family
relations with this or that powerful principality, but also on a
party formed for him in the heart of the republic. It was when
the opposing party grew too strong that he was dethroned, and
popular vengeance exercised on his adlierents. Novgorod being
above all a great commercial city, her divisions were frequently
caused by diverging economic interests. Among the citizens,
98 HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
some were occupied in trade with tlie Volga and the East, others
with the Dnieper and Greece. The former naturally sought the
alliance of the princes of Souzdal, masters of the great Oriental
artery ; the latter that of the princes of Kief or Tchernigof,
masters of the road to the south. Each of the two parties tried
to establish a prince of the family whose protection they sought.
If he fell, yet succeeded in escaping from the town, he tried to
regain his throne by the arms of his famil\', or to instal himself
and his droiijina either at Pskof, like Vsevolod-Gabriel, who be-
came prince of that town, or at Torjok, like laroslaf of Souzdal,
and thence blockaded and starved the great city. The prince
of Souzdal was soon the most formidable neighbor of Novgorod.
We have seen that Andrew Bogolioubski sent an army against
it, then that his nephew laroslaf besieged his ancient subjects
till Mstislaf the Bold freed them by the battle of Lipetsk (12 16).
He was the son of Mstislaf the Brave, who had defended them
against Vsevolod Big-Nest, and against Souzdal and the
Tchouds. The remains of " the Brave " rest at Saint Sophia, in
a bronze sarcophagus. His son, "the Bold," was of far too
restless a nature to leave his bones also at Novgorod. He re-
duced the principality to order, and then assembled the citizens
in the Court of laroslaf, and said to them, " I salute Saint So-
phia, the tomb of my father, and you. Novgorodians, I am
going to reconquer Galitch from the strangers, but I shall never
forget you. 1 hope I may lie by the tomb of my father, in Saint
Sophia." The Novgorodians in vain entreated him to stay
(1218). We have seen him use his last armies in the troubles
of the South-east, and die Prince of Galitch.
After his departure, the republic summoned his nephew,
Sviatoslaf, to the throne ; but he could not come to terms with
magistrates and a populace equally turbulent. The possadnik,
Tverdislaf, caused one of the boyards of Novgorod to be arrested.
This was the signal for a general rising; some took the part of
the boyard, others that of the possadnik. During eight days the
bell of the kremlin sounded. Finally both factions buckled on
their cuirasses and drew their swords. Tverdislaf raised his
eyes to Saint Sophia, and cried, " I shall fall first in the battle,
or God will justify me by giving the victory to my brothers."
Ten men only perished in this skirmish, and then peace was re
established. The prince, who accused Tverdislaf of being the
cause of the trouble, demanded that he shoidd be deposed.
The vetchd inquired what crime he had committed. " None,"
replied the prince, " but it is my will." " I am satisfied," ex-
claimed the possadnik, "as they do not accuse me of any fault ;
as to you, my brothers, you can dispose alike of possadniks and
HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
99
princes." Theassembly then gave their decision. " Prince, as
you do not accuse the possadnik of any fault, remember that you
have sworn to depose no magistrate without trial. He will re-
main our possadnik — we will not deliver him to you." On this
Sviatoslaf quilted Novgorod (12 19). He was replaced by Vse-
volod, one of his brothers, who was expelled two years later
(1221).
The Souzdalian party having made some progress, they re-
called the same laroslaf who was beaten at Lipetsk, but the
princes of Souzdal were too absolute in their ideas to be able to
agree with the Novgorodians. laroslaf was again put to flight,
and replaced by Vsevolod of Smolensk, who was expelled in his
turn. The Grand Prince of Souzdal now interposed, levied a
contribution on Novgorod, and a prince of Tcheniigof was im-
posed on them, who hastened in 1225 to return to the south of
Russia. In seven years the Novgorodians had five times changed
their rulers. laroslaf himself came back for a third and even a
fourth time. A famine so much reduced the Novgorodians that
42,000 corpses were buried in two cemeteries alone. These
proud citizens implored strangers to take them as slaves for the
price of a morsel of bread. The same year a fire destroyed the
whole of one quarter of Novgorod. These calamities subdued
their turbulence. laroslaf succeeded in governing them des'
potically tiil he was called to fill the throne of the Grand Prinoe
(1236).' He left them, as their prince, his son Alexander
Nevski.
NOVGORODIAN INSTITUTIONS — COMMERCE — THE NATIONAL
CHURCH — LITERATURE.
From the fact that no dynasty of princes could establish it-
self at Novgorod, that no princely band could take a place
among the native aristocracy, it follows that the republic kept
her ancient liberties and customs intact under the short reigns
of her rulers. In all Russian cities, it is true, the country ex-
isted side bv side with the prince and bayards, the assembly of
citizens side' by side with the prince's men, and the native fnilitia
side by side with the foreign droujina ; but at Novgorod, the
country, the vetchc, and tiie municipal 7nilitia had retained more
vigor than elsewhere. The town was more powerful than the
prince, who reigned by virtue of a constitution, traces of which
mav be observed, no' doubt, in other regions of Russia, but
whi'ch is found in its original form at Novgorod alone. Each
new monarch was compelled to take an oath, by which he bound
I oo HISTOR V OF RUSSIA.
himself to observe the laws and privileges of laroslaf the Great.
This constitution, like the pacta conventa of Poland, signified
distrust, and was intended to limit the power of the prince and
his men. The revenues to which he had a right, and which
formed his civil list, were carefully limited, as also were his judi-
cial and political functions. He levied tribute on certain volosts,
and was entitled to the vira (German Wergeld) as well as to
certain fines. In some bailiwicks he had his own lieutenant,
and Novgorod had hers. He could not execute justice without
help of the possadnik, nor upset any judgment ; nor, above all,
take the suit beyond Novgorod. This was what the Novgoro-
dians feared most, and with reason. The day when the people
of Novgorod bethought themselves of appealing to the tribunal
of the Grand Prince of Moscow, was fatal to the independence
of the republic. In the conflicts between the men of the prince
and those of the city, a mixed court delivered judgment. The
prince, no more thaii his men, could acquire villages in the ter-
ritory of Novgorod, nor create colonies. He was forbidden to
hunt in the woods of Staraia Roussa except in the autumn, and
had to reap his harvests at a specified season. Though they
thus mistrusted their prince, the Novgorodians had need of him
to moderate the ancient Slav anarchy. As in the days of Rurik,
" family armed itself against family, and there was no justice."
In Novgorod the T't'/r/z/had more extensive pjowers, and acted
more regularly than in the other Russian cities. It was the
vetche which nominated and expelled princes, imprisoned them
in the archiepiscopal palace, and formally accused them ; elected
and deposed the archbishops, decided peace and war, judged
the State crmiinals. According to the old Slav custom (pre-
served in Poland till the fall of the republic), the decisions were
always made, not by a majority, but by unanimity of voices. It
was a kind of libcnun veto. The majority had the resource of
drowning the minority in the Volkhof. The prince as well as
the possadnik, the boyards as well as the people, had the right
of convoking the vetche. It met sometimes in the Court of
laroslaf, sometimes in Saint Sophia's. As Poland had her con-
federations, her -'diets under the shield," Novgorod occasion-
ally saw on the banks of tke Volkhof two rival and hostile vetches,
which often came to blows on the bridge. Before being sub-
mitted to the general assembly, the questions were sometimes
deliberated in a smaller council, composed of notable citizens,
of acting or past magistrates.
The chief Novgorodian magistrates were : i. '\:\\^ possad7iik
called bv contemporary German writers the burgomaster, who
was changed nearly as often as the prince. The possadnik was
chosen from some of the influential families, one of which aloiie
HISTOR V OF A' [/SS/A. i o i
gave a dozen possadniks to Novgorod. The first magistrate
was charged to defend civic privileges, and shared with the
prince the judicial power and the right of distributing the
taxes. He governed the city, commanded her army, directed
her diplomacy, sealed the acts with her seal. 2. The tysatski
(from tysatch, thousand) bears in German documents the title of
■ iux or lierzog ; he was therefore a military chief, a chiliarch who
ivad the centurions of the town militia under his orders. He had
a special tribunal, and seems to have been specially entrusted
with the defence of the rights of the people, thus recalling the
Roman tribunes. 3. Besides the centurions there \vz.s a.starost,
a sort of district mayor, for each quarter of the town.
The chief document of the Novgorodian law is the Letter of
Justice {Soiidndia Gramota), of which the definite publication
may be placed at 147 1. It contains the same principles as the
Rousskaia Fravda of laroslaf the Great. As in all the early
Germanic and Scandinavian laws, we find the right of private
revenge, the fixed price of blood, the " boot " or fine for injury
inflicted, the oath admitted as evidence, the judgment of God,
the judicial duel, which was still resorted to by Novgorod even
after her decadence, in the i6th century. We also find records
of corporal punishments. The thief was to be branded ; on the
second relapse into crime, he was to be hung. Territorial prop-
erty acquires a greater importance, and, a sure evidence of
Muscovite influence, a second court of appeal is admitted — the
appeal to the tribunal of the Grand Prince.
From a social point of view, the constitution of Novgorod
presents other analogies with the constitution of Poland.
Great inequality then existed between the difTerent classes of
society. An aristocracy of boyards had ullimately formed itself,
whose intestine quarrels agitated the town. Below the boyards
came the dieti boyarskie', a kind of inferior nobility ; then the
different classes of citizens, the merchantmen, the Idack people,
and the smerdes or peasants. The merchants formed an asso-
ciation of their own, a sort oi guild, round the Church of Saint
John. Military societies also existed, bands of independent ad-
venturers or droujiuas of some boyard who, impelled by hungei
or a restless spirit, sought adventures afar on the great rivers
of Northern Russia, pillaging alike friends and enemies, or es
tablishing military colonies in the midst of Tchoud or Finnish
tribes.
The soil of Novgorod was sandy, marshy, and unproductive :
hence the famines and pestilences that so often depopulated the
country. Novgorod was forced to extend itself in order to live;
she became therefore a commercial and colonizing city. In the
102 ^^^ TOR Y OF R USSIA.
loth century, Constantine relates how the Slavs left Nemogarh
(Novgorod), descended the Dnieper by Milinisca (Smolensk),
Telioutza (Loubetch), Tchernigof, Vychegord, Kief and Viti-
tchevo ; crossed the cataracts of the Dnieper, passed the naval
stations of Saint Gregory and Saint Etherius, at the mouth of
the river, and spread themselves over all the shores of the
Greek empire. The Oriental coins and jewels found in the
kourgans of the Ilmen show that the Novgorodians had an early
and extensive commerce with the East. We see them exchange
iron and weapons for the precious metals found by the lougrians
in the mines of the Ourals. They traded with the Baltic Slavs ;
and when the latter lost their independence, and a flourishing
centre, Wisby, was formed in the Isle of Gothland, Novgorod
turned to this side also. In the i2lh century there was a
Gothic trading depot and a Varangian Cliurch at Novgorod, and
a Novgorodian Church in Gothland. When the Germans began
to dispute the commerce of the Baltic with the Scandinavians,
Novgorod became the seat of a German depot, which ended by
absorbing the Gothic one. When the Hanseatic League be-
came the mistress of the North, we find the Germans established
not only at Novgorod, but at Pskof and Ladoga, at all the
mouths of the network of Novgorodian lakes. There they ob-
tained considerable privileges, even the right to acquire jDasture-
land. They were masters, and at home in their fortified dc'pbts,
in their stockade of thick planks, where no Russian had the
right to penetrate without their leave. This German trading
company was governed by the most narrow and exclusive ideas.
No Russian was allowed to belong to the company, nor to carry
the wares of a German, an Englishman, a Walloon or a Fleming.
The company only authorized a wholesale commerce, and, to
maintain her goods at a high price, she forbade imports beyond
a certain amount. " In a word," says a German writer, " dur-
ing three centuries the Hanseatic League concentrated in her
own hands all the external commerce of Northern Russia. If
we inquire what profit or loss she has brought this country, we
must recognize that, thanks to her, Novgorod and Pskof were
deprived of a free commerce with tlie West. Russia, iu order
to satisfy the first wants of civilization, fell into a complete inde-
pendence. She was abandoned to the good pleasure and piti-
less egotism of the German merchants." (Riesenkampf, ' Der-
deutsche Hof.')
The ecclesiastical constitution of Russia presents a special
character. In tlie rest of Russia the clergy was Russian-ortho-
dox. At Novgorod it was Novgorodian before everything. It
was only in the 12th century that the Slavs of Ilmen, who had
HIS TOR Y OF RUSSIA. 1 03
been the last to be converted, could have an archbishop that
was neither Greek nor Kievian, but of their own race. From
that time the archbishop was elected by the citizens, by the
vek/ic^. Without waiting for the metropolitan to be invested
at Kief, he was at once installed in his episcopal palace.
He was one of the great personages, the first dignitary of the
republic. In public acts his name was placed before the
others. " With the blessing of Archbishop Moses," says one
letter-patent ; " possadnik Daniel and tysatski Abraham salute
you." He had a superiority over the prince on the ground of
being a native of the country, whilst the descendant of Rurik
was a foreigner. In return, the revenues of the archbishop, the
treasures of Saint Sophia, were at the service of the republic.
In the 14th century we find an archbishop building at his own ex-
pense a kremlin of stone. In the 15th century, the riches of
the cathedral were employed to ransom the Russian prisoners
captured by the Lithuanians. The Church of Novgorod was
essentially a national Church ; the ecclesiastics took part in the
temporal affairs, the laics in the spiritual. In the 14th century
the 7
ertv, and tiiat once again the iron men would feel the weight of
his' arm; but, like King Arthur, he has never appeared, bring-
ing to his people the liberty that the Germans have taken from
them.
1 1 2 HIS2 OR Y OF R USSIA.
CHAPTER X.
THE TATAR MONGOLS. ENSLAVEMENT OF RUSSIA,
Origin and manners of the Mongols — Battles of the Kalka, of Riazan, of
Kolomna, and of the Sit — Conquest of Russia — Alexander Nevski — The
Mongol yoke — Influence of the Tatars on the Russian development.
ORIGIN AND MANNERS OF THE MONGOLS.
Up to this time tlie destinies of Russia had presented some
analogy with those of the West. Slavonia, iike Gaul, had re-
ceived Roman civilization and Christianity from the South. The
Northmen had brought her an organization which recalls that ot
the Germans ; and under laroslaf, like the W«st under Charlt s
the Great, she had enjoyed a certain semblat ce of unity, while
she was afterwards dismembered and divider"* like France in
feudal times. But in the 13th century, Russia suffered an un-
heard-of misfortune — she was invaded and subju-^ated by Asiatic
hordes. This fatal event contributed quite as n uch as the dis-
advantage of the soil and the climate to retard htv development
by many centuries. " Nature," as M. Solovief says, " has been
a step-mother to Russia ;" fate was another step-mother.
" In those times," say the Russian chroniclers, " there came
upon us for our sins, unknown nations. No one could tell their
origin, whence they came, what religion they professed. God
alone know who they were, God and perhaps wise men learned
in books." When we think of the horror of the whole of Europe
at the arrival of the Mongols, and the anguish of a Frederick, ot
a Saint Louis, an Innocent IV., we may imagine the terror of
the Russians. They bore the first shock of those mysterious
foemen, who were, so the people whispered, Gog and Magog,
who '• were to come at the end of the world, when Antichrist is
to destroy everything." (Joinville.)
The Ta-ta or Tatars seem to have been a tribe of the great
Mongol race, living at the foot of the Altai, who in spite of their
long-continued discords frequently found means to lay waste
China by their invasions. The portrait drawn of them recalls in
HISl'OK \ - or R USSTA. 1 13
many ways those already traced by Chinese, Latiri, and Greek
authors, of the Huns, the Avars, and other nomad peoples of
former invasions. " The Ta-izis or the Das," says a Chinese
writer of the 13th century, "occupy themselves exclusively with
their flocks; they go wandering ceaselessly from pasture to
pasture, from river to river. They are ignorant of the nature of
a town or a wall. They are unacquainted with writing and
books; their treaties are concluded orally. From infancy they
are accustomed to ride, to aim their arrows at rats and birds,
and thus acquire the courage essential to their life of wars and
rapine. They have neither religious ceremonies nor judicial in-
stitutions. From the prince to the lowest among the people all
are nourished by the flesh of the animals whose skin they use
for clothing. The strongest among them have the largest and
fattest morsels at feasts ; the old men are put off with the frag-
ments that are left. They respect nothing but strength and
bravery ; age and weakness are condemned. When the father
dies, the son marries his youngest wives." A Mussulman writer
adds, that they adore the sun, and practice polygamy and the
community of wives. This pastoral people did not take an in-
terest in any phenomenon of nature except the growth of grass.
The names they gave to their months were suggested by the
different aspects of the prairie. Born horsemen, they had no
infantry in war. They were ignorant of the art of sieges. " But,"
says a Chinese author, " when they wish to take a town, they
fall on the suburban villages. Each leader seizes ten men, and
every prisoner is forced to carry a certain quantity of wood,
stones, and other materials. They use these for filling np fosses,
or digging trenches. In the capture of a town, the loss of 10,000
nicn was thought nothing. No place could resist them. After
a siege, all the population was massacred, without distinction of
old or young, rich or poor, beautiful or ngly, those who resisted
or those who yielded ; no distinguished person escaped death, if
a defence was attempted."
It was these rough tribes that Temoutchine or Genghis-Khan
(i 154-1227) succeeded in uniting into one nation after forty years
of obscure struggles. Then in a general congress of their princes
he proclaimed himself emperor, and declared that, as there was
only one sun in heaven, there ought only to be one emperor ou
the earth. At the head of their forces he conquered Mantchouria,
the kingdom of Tangout, Northern China, Turkestan, and Great
Bokhara, which never recovered this disaster, and the plains of
Western Asia as far as the Crimea. When he died, he left to
be divided between his four sons the largest empire that ever
existed.
1 1 4 HISTOR Y OF RUSSIA,
It was during his conquest of Bokhara that his lieutenants
Tchepe and Souboudai-bagadour subdued in their passage a
multitude of Turkish peoples, passed the Caspian by its southern
shore, invaded Georgia and the Caucasus, and in the southern
steppes of Russia came in contact with the Polovtsi.
BATTLES OF THE KALKA, OF RIAZAN, OF KOLOMNA, AND OF THE
SIT CONQUEST OF RUSSIA.
The hereditary enemies of the Russians proper, the Polovsti,
asked the Christian princes for help against these ]\Iongols and
Turks, who were their brothers bv a common orisrin. " Thev
have taken our country," said they to the descendants of Saint
Vladimir; "to-morrow they will take yours." Mstislaf the
Bold, then prince of Galitch, persuaded all the dynasties of
Southern Russia to take up arms against the Tatars : his nephew
Danial, prince of Voihynia, Mstislaf Romanovitch, Grand Prince
of Kief, Oleg of Koursk, Mstislaf of Tchernigof, Vladimir of
Smolensk, Vsevolod for a short time prince of Novgorod, re-
sponded to his appeal. To cement his alliance with the Russians,
Basti, khan of the Polovsti, embraced orthodox}-. The Russian
army had already arrived on the Lower Dnieper, when the Tatar
ambassadors made their appearance. " We have come by God's
command against our slaves and grooms, the accursed Polovtsi.
Be at peace with us ; we have no quarrel with you." The Rus-
sians, with the promptitude and thoughtlessness that character-
ized the men of that time, put the ambassadors to death. They
then went further into the steppe, and encountered the Asiatic
hordes on the Kalka, a small river running into the Sea of Azof.
The Russian chivalry on this memorable day showed the same
disordered, and the same ill-advised eagerness as the French
chivalry at the opening of the English wars. Mstislaf the Bold,
Daniel of Galitch, and Oleg of Koursk were the first to rush
into the midst of the infidels, without waiting for the princes
of Kief, and even without giving them warning, in order to
gain for themselves the honors of victory. In the middle of
the combat, the Polovsti were seized with a panic and fell back
on the Russian ranks, thus throwing them into disorder. The
rout became general, and the leaders S]Durred on their steeds in
hopes of reaching the Dnieper.
Six princes and seventy of the chief boyards or voievodes re-
mained on the field of battle. It was the Cre^y and Poictiers of
the Russian chivalry. Hardly a tenth of the army escaped ; the
Kievians alone left 10,000 dead. The Grand Prince of Kief,
HIS TOR Y OF RUSSIA. 1 1 1^
however, Mstislaf Roinanovitch, still occupied a fortified camp
on the banks of the Kalka. Abandoned bv the rest of the army,
he tried to defend himself. I'he Tatars offered to make terms •
he might retire on payment of a ransom for himself and his
drotijina. He capitulated, and the conditions were broken. His
guard was massacred, and he and his two sons-in-law were
stifled under planks. The Tatars held their festival over the
inanimate bodies (1224).
After this thunderl)olt, which struck terror into the whole of
Russia, the Tatars paused and returned to the Kast. Nothing
more was heard of them. Thirteen years passed, during which
the princes reverted to their perpetual discords. Those in the
north-east had given no help to the Russians of the Dnieper;
perhaps the Grand Prince, George II. of Souzdal, may have re-
joiced over the humiliation of the Kievians and Gallicians. The
Mongols were forgotten; the chronicles, however, are filled with
fatal presages : in the midst of scarcity, famine and pestilence,
of incendiaries in the towns and calamities of all sorts, they re-
mark on the comet of 1224, the earthquake and eclipse of the
sun of 1230.
The Tatars were busy finishing the conquest of China, but
presently one of the sons of Genghis, Ougoudei or Oktai, sent
his nephew Bati to the West. As the reflux of the Polovtsi had
announced the invasion of 1224, that of the Saxin nomads, related
to the Kliirghiz who took refuge on the lands of the Bulgarians
of the Volga, warned men of a new irruption of the Tatars, and
indicated its direction. It was no longer South Russia, but
Souzdalian Russia that was threatened. In 1237 Bati conquered
the Great City, capital of the half-civilized Bulgars, who were,
like the Polovtsi, ancient enemies of Russia, and who were to
be included in her ruin. Bolgary was given up to the flames,
and her inhabitants were put to the sword. The Tatars next
plunged into the deep forests of the Volga, and sent a sorcerer
and two officers as envoys to the princes of Riazan. The three
princes of Riazan, those of Pronsk, Kolomna, Moscow and
Mourom, advanced to meet them. " If you want peace," said
the Tatars, "give us the tenth of your goods.'" '' Wlien we are
dead," replied the Russian j^rinces, " you can have the whole."
Though abandoned by the princes of Tchernigof and the Grand
Prince George II., of whom they had implored help, the dynasty
of Riazan accepted the unequal struggle. They were comjiletely
crushed ; neatly all their princes remained on the field of battle.
Legend has embellished their fall. It is told how Feodor pre-
ferred to die rather than see his young wife, Euphrasia, the spoil
of Bati J and how on learning his fate, she threw herself and her
1 1 6 HISTOR Y OF R USSIA.
son from the window of the tcre7n. Oleg the Handsome, found
still alive on the battle-field, repelled the caresses, the attention,
and religion of the Khan, and was cut in pieces. Riazan was
immediately taken by assault, sacked, and burned. All the
towns of the principality suffered the same fate.
It was now the turn of the Grand Prince, for the Russia of the
North-east had not even the honor of falling in a great battle like
the Russia of the South-west, united for once against the common
enemy. The Souzdalian army, commanded by a son of George
II., was beaten on the day of Kolomna, on the Oka. The Tatars
burned Moscow, then beseiged Vladimir on the Kliazma, which
George II. had abandoned to seek for help in the North. His
two sons were charged with the defence of the capital. Princes
and boyards, feeling there was no alternative but death or servi-
tude, prepared to die. The princesses and all the nobles prayed
Bishop Metrophanes to give them the tonsure ; and when the
Tatars rushed into the town by all its gates, the vanquished re-
tired into the cathedral, where they perished, men and women,
in a general conflagration. Souzdal, Rostof, laroslavl, fourteen
towns, a multitude of villages in the Grand Principality, were all
given over to the flames (1238). The Tatars then went to seek
the Grand Prince, who was encamped on the Sit, almost on the
frontier of the possessions of Novgorod. George II. could
neither avenge his people nor his family. After the battle, the
bishop of Rostof found his headless corpse (1238). His nephew,
Vassilko, who was taken prisoner, was stabbed for refusing to
serve Bati. The immense Tatar army, after having sacked Tver,
took Torjok ; there " the Russian heads fell beneath the sword
of the Tatars as grass beneath the scythe," The territory of
Novgorod was invaded ; the great republic trembled, but, the
deep forests and the swollen rivers delayed Bati. The invading
flood reached the Cross of Ignatius, about fifty miles from Nov-
gorod, then returned to the South-east. On the way the small
town of Kozelsk (near Kalouga) checked the Tatars for so long,
and inflicted on them so much loss, that it was called by them
the wicked totun. Its population was exterminated, and the prince
Vassili, still a child, was " drowned in blood."
The two following years (i 239-1 240) were spent by the Tatars
in ravaging Southern Russia. They burnt Pereiaslaf, and
Tchernigof, defended with desperation by its princes. Next
Mangou, grandson of Genghis Khan, marched against the famous
town of Kief, whose name resounded through the East, and in
the books of the Arab writers. From the left bank of the Dnieper,
the barbarian admired the great city on the heights of the right
bank, towering over the wide river with her white walls and
HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
117
towers adorned by Byzantine artists, and innumerable churches
with cupolas of gold and silver. Mangou proposed a capitula-
tion to the Kievians ; the fate of Riazan, of Tchernigof, of Vladi-
mir, the capitals of powerful states, announced to them the lot
that awaited them in case of refusal, yet the Kievians dared to
massacre the envoys of the Khan. Michael, their Grand Prince,
fled ; his rival, Daniel of Gal itch, did not care to remain. On
hearing the report of Mangou, Bati came to assault Kief with
the bulk of his army. The grinding of the wooden chariots, the
bcllowings of the buffaloes, the cries of tlie camels, the neighing o'
the horses, the bowlings of the Tatars, rendered it impossible, say"
the annalist, to hear your own voice in the town. The Tatars as
sailed the Polish Gate, and knocked down the walls with a batter
ing-ram. " The Kievians, supported by the brave Dmitri, a Galli-
cian boyard, defended the fallen ramparts till the end of the day,
then retreated to the Church of the Dime, which they surrounded
by a palisade. The last defenders of Kief found themselves group-
ed around the tomb of laroslaf. Next day they perished. The
Khan gave the boyard his life, but, the ' Mother of Russian cities '
was sacked. This third pillage was the most terrible, Even
the tombs were not respected. All that remains of the Church
of the Dime is only a few fragments of mosaic in the Museum
at Kief. Saint Sophia, and the Monastery of the Catacombs,
were delivered up to be plundered " (1240).
Volhynia and Gallicia still remained, but their princes could
not defend them, and Russia found herself, with the exception
of Novgorod and the north-west country, under the Tatar yoke.
The princes had fled or were dead ; hundreds of thousands of
Russians were dragged into captivity. Men saw the wives of
boyards, " who had never known work, who a short time ago
had been clothed in rich garments, adorned with jewels and
collars of gold, surrounded with slaves, now reduced to be them-
selves the slaves of barbarians and their wives, turning the
wheel of the mill, and preparing their coarse food."
If we look for the causes which rendered the defeat of the
brave Russian nation so complete, we may, with Karamsin, in-
dicate the following: — i. Though the Tatars were not more ad-
vanced, from a military point of view, than the Russians, who
had made war in Greece and in the West against the most war-
like and civilized people of Europe, yet they had an enormous
superiority of numbers. Bati probably had with him 500,000
warriors. 2. This immense armv moved like one man ; it could
succei'sively annihilate the droiijinas oi the princes, or the militia
of the towns, which only presented themselves successively to its
blows. The Tatars had found Russia divided against herself.
1 1 8 HIS TOR Y OF R USSIA.
3. Even though Russia had wished to form a confederation, the
sudden irruptions of an army entirely composed of horsemen
did not leave her time. 4. In the tribes ruled by Bati, every
man was a soldier; in Russia the nobles and citizens alone bore
arms : the peasants, who formed the bulk of the population,
allowed themselves to be stabbed or bound without resistance.
5. It was not by a weak nation that Russia was conquered.
The Tatar-Mongols, under Genghis Khan, had filled the East
with the glory of their name, and subdued nearly all Asia.
Thev arrived, proud of their exploits, animated by the recollec-
tion of a hundred victories, and reinforced by numerous peoples
whom they had vanquished, and hurried with them to the West.
When the princes of Galitch, of Volhynia, and of Kief ar-
rived as fugitives in Poland and Hungary, Europe was terror-
stricken. The Pope, whose support had been claimed by the
Prince of Galitch, summoned Christendom to arms. Louis IX.
prepared for a crusade. Frederic II., as Emperor, wrote to the
sovereigns of the West : " This is the moment to open the eyes
of body and soul, now that the brave princes on whom we reck-
oned are dead or in slavery." The Tatars invaded Hungary,
gave battle to the Poles in Liegnitz in Silesia, had their prog-
ress a long while arrested by the courageous defence of Olmiitz
in Moravia, by the Tcheque vo'ievode laroslaf, and stopped
finally, learning that a large army, commanded by the King of
Bohemia and the dukes of Austria and Carinthia, was approach-
ing. The news of the death of OktaT, second Emperor of all
}he Tatars, in China, recalled Bati from the West, and during
>he long march from Germany his army necessarily diminished
,n number. The Tatars were no longer in the vast plains of
A.sia and Eastern Europe, but in a broken hilly country, bristling
/ith fortresses, defended by a population more dense and a
chivalry more numerous than those in Russia. To sum up, all
the fury of the Mongol tempest spent itself on the Slavonic race.
it was the Russians who fought at the Kalka, at Kolomna, at
the Sit ; the Poles and Silesians at Liegnitz ; the Bohemians
and Moravians at Olmiitz. The Germans suffered nothing from
ihe invasion of the Mongols but the fear of it. It exhausted it-
self principally on those plains of Russia which seem a continu-
ation of the steppes of Asia. Only in Russian history did the
invasion produce great results. About the same time Bati built
on one of the arms of the Lower Volga a city called Sarai (the
Castle), which became the capital of a powerful Tatar Empire,
4he Go/den Horde, extending from the Oural and Caspian to the
mouth of the Danube. The Golden Horde was formed not only
of Tatar-Mongols or Nogais, who even now survive in the
HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
119
Northern Crimea, but particularly of the remains of ancient
nomads, such as the Patzinaks and Polovtsi, whose descendants
seem to be the present Kalmucks and Bachkirs ; of Turkish
tribes tending to become sedentary, like the Tatars of Astrakhan
in the present day ; and of the Finnish populations already es-
tablished in the country, and which mixed with the invaders.
OktaV, Kouiouk, and Mangou, the first three successors of Gen-
o;his Khan, elected by all the Mongol princes, took the title of
Great Khans, and the Golden Horde recognized their authority ;
but under his fourth successor, Khouboulai, who usurped the
throne and established himself in China, this bond of vassalage
was broken. The Ciolden Horde became an independent Slate
(1260). United and powerful under the terrible I3ati, who died
in 1255, it fell to pieces under his successors ; but in the 14th
century the Khan Uzbeck reunited it anew, and gave the horde
a second period of prosperity. The Tatars, who were pagans
when they entered Russia, embraced about 1272 the faith of
Islam, and became its most formidable apostles.
ALEXANDER NEVSKI (1252-1263).
laroslaf, after his defeat at Lipetsk, entered Souzdal on the
tragic death of his brother, the Grand Prince George II. laros-
laf (1238-1246) found his inheritance in the most deplorable
condition. The towns and villages were burnt, the country and
roads covered with unburied corpses ; the survivors hid them-
selves in the woods. He recalled the fugitives and began to
rebuild. Bati, who had completed the devastation of South
Russia, summoned laroslaf to do him homage at Sara'i, on the
Volga. laroslaf was received there with distinction, Bati con-
firmed his title of Grand Prince, but invited him to go in person
to the Great Khan, supreme chief of the Mongol nation, who
lived on the banks of the river Sakhalian or Amour. To do
this was to cross the whole of Russia and Asia. laroslaf bent
his knees to the new master of the world, Oktai, succeeded in
refuting the accusations brought against him by a Russian boy.
ard, and obtained a new confirmation of his title. On his return
he died in the desert of exhaustion, and his faithful servants
brought his body back to Vladimir. His son Andrew succeeded
him in Souzdal (i 246-1 252). His other son, Alexander, reigned
at Novgorod the Great.
Alexander was as brave as he was intelligent. He was the
hero of the Nortii, and jet he forced himself to accept the neces-
sary humiliations of liis terrible situation. In his youth we see
1 2 o HISTOR Y OF R USSTA.
him fighting with all the enemies of Novgorod, Livonian knights
and Tchouds, Swedes and Finns. Tlie Novgorodians found
themselves at issue with the Scandinavians on the subject of
tlieir possessions on the Neva and the Gulf of Finland. As they
had helped the natives to resist the Latin faith, King John obtain-
ed the promise of Gregory IX. that a crusade, with plenary in-
dulgences, should be preached against the Great Republic and
her p?-oteges, the pagans of the Baltic. His son-in-law, Birger,
with an army of Scandinavians, Finns, and Western Crusaders,
took the command of the forces, and sent word to the Prince of
Novgorod, " Defend \'ourself if vou can : know that I am already
in your provinces." The Russians on their side, feeling they were
fighting for othodoxy, opposed the Latin crusade with a Greek
one. Alexander humbled himself in Saint Sophia, received the
benediction of the Archbishop Spiridion, and addressed an ener-
getic harangue to his warriors. He had no time to await reinforce-
ments from Souzdal. He attacked the Swedish camp, which
was situated on the Ijora, one of the southern affluents of the
Neva, which has given its name to Ingria. Alexander won a
brilliant victory, which gained him his surname of Nevski, and
the honor of becoming under Peter the Great, the second
conqueror of the Swedes, one of the patrons of St. Petersburg.
By the orders of his great successor his bones repose in the
Monastery of Alexander Nevski. The battle of the Neva was
preserved in a dramatic legend. An Ligrian chief told Alexan-
der how, in the eve of the combat, he had seen a myste-
rious bark, manned by two warriors with shining brows, glide
through the night. They were Boris and Gleb, who came
to the rescue of their voune: kinsman. Other accounts have
preserved to us the individual exploits of the Russian heroes —
Gabriel, Skylaf of Novgorod. James of Polotsk, Sabas, who threw
down the tent of Birger, and Alexander Nevski himself, who with
a stroke of the lance " imprinted his seal on his face" (1240).
Notwithstanding the triumph of such a service, Alexander and
the Novgorodians could not agree ; a short time after, he retired
to Pere'iaslavl-Zaliesski. The proud republicans soon had reason to
regret the exile of this second Camillus. The Order of the
Sword-bearers, the indefatigable enemy of orthodoxy, took Pskof,
their ally ; the Germans imposed tribute on the Vojans, vassals
of Novgorod, constructed the fortress of Koporie on her territory
of the Neva, took the Russian town of Tessof in Esthonia, and
pillaged the merchants of Novgorod within seventeen miles of
their ramparts. During this time the Tchouds and the Lithua-
nians captured the peasants, and the cattle of the citizens. At
last Alexander allowed himself to be touched by the prayers of
ALEXANDER NEVSKI.
HIS TOR Y OF R USSIA. 1 2 1
the archbishop and the people, assembled an army, expelled the
Germans from Koporie, and next from Pskof, hung as traitors
the captive Vojans and Tchouds, and put to death six knights
who fell into his hands. This war between the two races and
two religions was cruel and pitiless. The rights of nations were
hardly recognized. More than once Germans and Russians slew
the ambassadors of the other side. Alexander Nevski finally
gave battle to the Livonian knights on the ice of Lake Peipus,
killed 400 of them, took 50 prisoners, and exterminated a multi-
tude of Tchouds. Such was ihe. Battle of i/ie Ice (1242). He
returned in triumph to Novgorod, dragging with him his prisoners
in armor of iron. The Grand Master expected to see Alexander
at the gates of Riga, and implored help of Denmark. The Prince
of Novgorod, satisfied with having delivered Pskof, concluded
peace, recovered certain districts, and consented to the exchange
of prisoners. At this time Innocent IV., deceived by false in-
formation, addressed a bull to Alexander, as a devoted son of
the Church, assuring him that his father laroslaf, while dying
among the Horde, had desired to submit himself to the throne
of St. Peter. Two cardinals brought him this letter from the
Pope (125 1).
it is this hero of the Neva and Lake Peipus, this vanquisher
of the Scandinavians and Livonian knights, that we are presently
to see grovelling at the feet of a barbarian. Alexander Nevski
had understood that, in presence of this immense and brutal
force of the Mongols, all resistance was madness, all pride ruin.
To brave them was to complete the overthrow of Russia. His con-
duct may not have been chivalrous, but it was wise and humane.
Alexander disdained to play the hero at the expense of his peo-
ple, like his brother Andrew of Souzdal, who was immediately
obliged to fly, abandoning his country to the vengeance of the
Tatars. The Prince of Novgorod was the only prince in Russia
who had kept his independence, but he knew Bati's hands could
extend as far as the Ilmen. " God has subjected many peoples
to me," wrote the barbarian to him : " will vou alone refuse to
recognize my power ? If you wish to keep your land, come to
me ; you will see the splendor and the glory of my sway." 'J'hen
Alexander went to Sarai with his brother Andrew, who disputed
the Grand Principality of Vladimir with his uncle Sviatoslaf.
Rati declared that fame had not exaggerated the merit of
Alexander, that he far excelled the common run of Russian
princes. He enjoined the two brothers to show themselves,
like their father laroslaf, at the Great Horde ; they returned from
it in 1257. Kouiouk had confirmed the one in the possession of
I 2 HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
Vladimir, and the other in that of Novgorod, adding to it all
South Russia and Kief.
The year 1260 put the patience of Alexander and his politic
obedience to the Tatars to the proof. Oulavtchi, to whom the
Khan BerkaY had confided the affairs of Russia, demanded that
Novgorod should submit to the census and pay tribute. It was
the hero of the Neva that was charged with the humiliating and
dangerous mission of persuading Novgorod. When the possad-
nik uttered in the vetche the doctrine that it was necessary to
submit to the strongest, the people raised a terrible cry and
murdered the possadnik. Vassili himself, the son of Alexander,
declared against a father " who brought servitude to free men ;"
and retired to the Pskovians. It needed a soul of iron temper
to resist the universal disapprobation, and counsel the Novgoro-
dians to the commission of the cowardly though necessary act.
Alexander arrested his son, and punished' the boyards who had
led him into the revolt with death or mutilation. The 7r/r///had
decided to refuse the tribute, and send back the Mongol am-
bassadors with presents. However, on the rumor of the approach
of the Tatars, they repented, and Alexander could announce to
the enemy that Novgorod submitted to the census. But when
they saw the officers of the Khan at work, the population re-
volted again, and the prince was obliged to keep guard on the
officers night and day. In vain the boyards advised the citizens
to give in : assembled around St. Sophia, the people declared
they would die for liberty and honor. Alexander (hen threaten-
ed to quit the city with his men, and abandon it to the vengeance
of the Khan. This menace conquered the pride of the Novgoro-
dians. The Mongols and their agents might go, register in
hand, from house to house in the humiliated and silent city to
make the list of the inhabitants. " The boyards," says Karam-
sin, " might yet be vain of their rank and their riches, but the
simple citizens had lost with their national honor their most
precious possession " (1260).
In Souzdal also Alexander found himself in the presence of
insolent victors and exasperated subjects. In 1262 the inhab-
itants of Vladimir, of Souzdal, of Rostof, rose against the collec-
tors of the Tatar impost. The people of laroslavl slew a ren-
egade named Zozimus, a former monk, who had become a Mos-
lem fanatic. Terrible reprisals were sure to follow. Alexander
set out with presents for the Horde at the risk of leaving his
head there. He had likewise to excuse himself for having re-
fused a bodv of auxiliarv Russians to the Mongols, wishing at
least to spare the blood and religious scruples of his subjects.
It is a remarkable fact, that, over the most profound humilia-
HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
123
tions of the Russian nationality, the contemporary history al-
ways throws a ray of glory. At tlie moment that Alexander
went to prostrate himself at Sarai, the Souzdalian army, united
to that of Novgorod, and commanded by his son iJmiiri, defeated
the Livonian knights, and took Dorpat by assault. The Khan
Berkai gave Alexander a kind greeting, accepted his explana-
tions, dispensed with the promised contingent, but kept him for
a year near his court. The health of Alexander broke down ;
he died on his return before reaching Vladimir. When the news
arrived at his capital, the Metropolitan Cyril, who was finishing
the liturgy, turned towards the faithful, and said, " Learn, my
dear children, that the Sun of Russia is set, is dead." " We are
lost," cried the people, breaking forth into sobs. Alexander by
this policy of resignation, which his chivalrous heroism does not
permit us to despise, had secured some repose for exhausted
Russia. By his victories over his enemies of the West he had
given her some glory, and hindered her from despairing under
the most crushing tyranny, material and moral, which a European
people had ever suffered.
THE MONCOL YOKE — INFLUENCE OF THE TATARS ON THE RUS
SIAN DEVELOPMENT.
The Mongol khans, after having devastated and abased Rus-
sia, did not introduce any direct political change. They left to
each country her laws, her courts of justice, her natural chiefs.
The house of Andrew Bogolioubski continued to reign in Souz-
dal, that of Daniel Romanoviich in Gal itch and Volhynia, the
Olgovitches in Tchernigof, and the descendants of Rogvolod the
Varangian at Polotsk. Novgorod might continue to expel and
recall her princes, and the dynasties of the South to dispute the
throne of Kief. The Russian States found themselves under
the Mongol yoke, in much the same situation as that of the
Christians of the Greco-Slav peninsula three centuries later,
under the Ottomans. The Russians remained in possession of
all their lands, which their nomad conquerors, encamped on the
steppes of the East and South, disdained. They were, like their
Danubian kinsmen, a sort of rayahs, over whom the authority of
the khans was exerted with more or less rigor, but whom their
conquerors never tried in any way to Tatarize. Let us see ex-
actly in what consisted the obligations of the vanquished, and
their relations with their conquerors, during the period of the
Mongol yoke or latarchtchitta.
124 HIS TOR Y OF H USSIA.
I. The Russian princes were forced to visit the Horde,
either as evidence of their submission, or to give the Khan op-
portunity of judging their disputes. We have seen how they
had to go not only to the Khan of the Golden Horde, but often
also to the Grand Khan at the extremity of Asia, on the borders
of the Sakhalian or Amour, They met there the chiefs of the
Mongol, Tatar, Thibetian and Bokharian hordes, and sometimes
the ambassador of the Caliph of Bagdad, of the Pope, or of the
King of France. The Grand Khans tried to play off against
each other these ambassadors, who were astonished to meet at
his court. Mangou Khan desired Saint Louis to recognize him
as the master of the world, "for," said he, " when the universe
has saluted me as sovereign, a happy tranquillity will reign on
the earth." In the case of refusal, "neither deep seas nor inac-
cessible mountains " would place the King of France beyond
the power of his wrath. To the princes of Asia and Russia he
displayed the presents of the King of France, affecting to con-
sider them as tributes and signs of submission. '• We will send
to seek him to confound you," he said to them, and Joinville as-
sures us that this threat, and "the fear of the King of France,"
decided many to throw themselves on his mercy. This journey
to the Grand Horde was terrible. The road went through des-
erts, or countries once rich, but changed by the Tatars into vast
wastes. Few who went returned. Planus Carpinus, envoy of
Innocent IV., saw in the steppes of the Kirghiz the dry bones
of the boyards of the unhappy laroslaf, who had died of thirst
in the sand. Planus Carpinus thus describes the Court of Bati
on the Volga: — "It is crowded and brilliant. His army con-
sists of 600.000 men, 150,000 of whom are Tatars, and 450,000
strangers. Christians as well as infidels. On Good Friday we
were conducted to his tent, between two fires, because the Ta-
tars pretend that a fire purifies everything, and robs even poison
of its danger. We had to make many prostrations, and enter
the tent without touching the threshold. Bati was on his throne
with one of his wives ; his brothers, his children, and the Tatar
lords were seated on benches ; the rest of the assembly were on
the ground, the men on the right, the women on the left
The Khan and the lords of the Court emptied from time to time
cups of gold and silver, while the musicians made the air ring
with their melodies. Bati has a bright complexion ; he is affa-
ble with his men, but inspires general terror." The Court of
the Grand Khan was still more magnificent. Planus Carpinus
found there a Russian named Koum, who was the favorite and
special goldsmith of Galiouk or Kouiouk, and Rubruquis discov-
ered a Parisian goldsmith, named Guillaume. Much money was
HISTORY OF R
J2S
needed for success, either at the Court of the Grand Khan or of
Bati. Presents had to be distributed to the Tatar princes, to
the favorites ; above all to the wives and the mother of the
Khan. At this terrible tribunal the Russian princes had to
struggle with intrigues and corruption ; the heads of the pleaders
were often the stakes of these dreadful trials. The most dan-
gerous enemies they encountered at the Tatar Court were no^
the barbarians, but 'the Russians, their rivals. The history of
the Russian princes at the Horde is very tragic. Thus Michael
of Tchernigof perished at the Horde of Sarai in 1246, and Mi-
chael of Tver in 13 19, the one assassinated by the renegade
Doman, the other by the renegade Romanetz, at the instigation
and under the eyes of the Grand Prince of Moscow.
2. The conquered people were obliged to pay a capitation
tax, which weighed as heavily on the poor as on the rich. The
tribute was paid either in money or in furs ; those who were
unable to furnish it became slaves. The Khans had for some
time farmed out this revenue to some Khiva merchants, who
collected it with the utmost rigor, and whom they protected by
appointing superior agents called baskaks, with strong guards to
support them. The excesses of these tax-gatherers excited
many revolts : in 1262, that of Souzdal ; in 1284, that of Koursk ;
in 13 18, that of Kolomna ; in 1327, that of Tver, where the in-
habitants slew the (^(7^X'<7,(' Chevkal, and brought down on them-
selves frightful reprisals. Later, the princes of Moscow them-
selves farmed not only the tax from their own subjects, but alsc
from neighboring countries. They became the farmers-general
of the invaders. This was the origin of their riches and their
power.
3. Besides the tribute, the Russians had to furnish to theii
master the blood-tax, a military contingent. Already at the
time of the Huns and Avars, we have seen Slavs and Goths
accompany the Asiatic hordes, form their vanguards, and be as
it were the hounds of Baian. In the 13th century, the Russian
princes furnished to the Tatars select troops, especially a solid
infantry, and marched in their armies at the head of their dtou-
jinas. It was thus that in 1276 Boris of Rostof, Gleb of Bielo-
rersk, Feodor of laroslavl, and Andrew of Gorodetz followed
Mangou Khan in a war against the tribes of the Caucasus, and
sacked Dediakof in Daghestan, the capital of the lasses. The
Mongols scrupulously reserved to them their part of the booty.
The same Russian princes took part in an expedition against
an adventurer named Lachan by the Greek historians, formerly
a keeper of pigs, who had raised Bulgaria. The descendnnts
of Monomachus behaved still more dishonorably in the troubles
126 HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
in the interior of Russia. They excited the Mongols against
their countrymen and aided the invaders. Prince Andrew, son
of Alexander Ne.'ski, piiiaged in 12S1, in concert with the
Tatars, the provinces of Vladimir, Souzdal, Mourom, Moscow,
and Pere'iaslavl, which he was dispniing with Dmitri, his elder
brother. He helped the barbarians to profane churches and
convents. In 1327 it was the princes of Moscow and Souzdal
who directed the military execution against Tver. In 1284, two
Olgovitches reigned in the land of Koursk ; one of them, Oleg,
put the other to death in the name of the Khan. Servitude had
so much abased all characters, that even the annalists share the
general degradation. They blame, not Oleg the murderer, but
Sviatoslaf the victim. Was it not his unbridled conduct that
caused the anger of the Khan ?
4. No prince could ascend the throne without having received
the investiture and the iarlikJi, or letters patent, from the Khan.
The proud Novgorodians themselves rejected Michael, their
prince, saying, " It is true we have chosen Michael, but on the
condition that he should show us the iar/ikh.'"
4. No Russian State dared to make war without being
authorized to do so. In 1269 the Novgorodians asked leave to
march against Revel. In 1303, in an assembly of princes, and
in the presence of the Metropolitan Maximus, a decree of the
Khan Tokhta was read, enjoining the princes to put an end to
their dissensions, and to content themselves with their appan-
ages, it being the will of the Grand Khan that the Grand Princi-
pality should enjoy peace. When the Mongol ambassadors
brought a letter from their sovereign, the Russian princes were
obliged to meet them on foot, prostrate themselves, spread
precious carpets under their feet, present them with a cup filled
with gold pieces, and listen, kneeling, while the iar/ikh was
read.
Even while the Tatars conquered the Russians, they respected
their bravery. Matrimonial alliances were contracted between
their princes. About 1272, Gleb, prince of Bielozersk, took a
wife out the Khan's family, which already professed Christianity,
and Feodor of Riazan bec!ime the son-in-law of the Khan of the
Nogais, who assigned to the young couple a palace in Sara'i. In
13 18 the Grand Prince George married Kontchaka, sister of
Uzbeck Khan, who was baptized by the name of Agatha. To-
wards the end of the 14th century, the Tatars were no longer
the rude shepherds of the steppes. Mingled with sedentary
and more cultivated races, they rebuilt fresh cities on the ruins
of those they had destroyed ; Krym in the Crimea, Kazan,
Astrakhan, and Sarai. They had acquired a taste for luxury and
HISTORY OF RUSSIA. 127
magnificence, honored the national poets who sang their ex-
ploits, piqued themselves on their chivalry and even on their
gallantry. Notwithstanding the difference of religion, a recon«
ciliation was taking place between the aristocracy of the two
countries, between the Russian kjiiazcs and the Tatar trnmrzas.
The Russian historians are not entirely agreed as to the
nature and degree of intiuence exerted by the Mongol yoke on
the Russian development. Karamsin and M. Kostomarof be-
lieve it to have been considerable. " Perhaps," says the former
" our national character still presents some blots which are
derived from the Mongol barbarism." M. Solovief, on the
contrary, affirms that the Tatars hardly influenced it more than
the Patzinaks or Polovtsi. M. Bestoujef-Rioumine estimates
the influence to have been specially exerted on the financial ad-
ministration and militarv organization. On one side the Tatars
established the capitation-tax, which has remained in the financial
system of Russia ; on the other, the conquered race had a
natural tendency to adopt the military system of the victors. The
Russian or Mongol princes formed a caste of soldiers hence-
forth quite distinct from Western chivalry, to which the Russian
heroes of the 12th century belonged. The warriors of Daniel
of Galitch, it is said, astounded the Poles and Hungarians by
the Oriental character of their equipment. Short stirrups, very
high saddles, a long caftan or floating dress, a sort of turban
surmounted by an aigret, sabres and poniards in their belts, a
bow and arrows — sucii was the military costume of a Russian
prince of the 15th century.
On the other side, many of the peculiarities in which the
Mongol influence is thought traceable may be attributed as well
or better to purely Slav traditions, or imitations of Byzantine
manners. If the Muscovite princes inclined to autocracy, it
was not that they formed themselves on the model of the Grand
Khan, but that they naturally adopted imperial ideas of absolu-
tism imported from Constantinople. It is always the Roman
Emperor of Tzargrad, and not the leader of Asiatic shepherds,
who is their typical monarch. If from this time the Russian
penal law makes more frequent use of the pain of death and
corporal punishment, it is not only the result of imitation of the
Tatars, but of the evergrowing influence of Byzantine laws, and
the progressive triumph of their principles over those of the an-
cient code of laroslaf. Now these laws so very easily admitted
torture, flogging, mutilation, the stake, &c., that there is no need
to explain anything by Mongol usages. The habit of prostration,
of beating the forehead, of affecting the servile submission, is
certainly Oriential, but it is also Byzantine. The seclusion ot
J 2 8 HIS TOR Y OF R USSIA .
women was customary in ancient Russia, moulded by Greek
missionaries, and tlie Russian terem proceeds more certainly
ix om \.\\e HeWemc gyncBceum than from the Oriental harem \ all
the more because the Tatar women, before the conversion of the
Mongols to Islamism, do not appear to have been secluded. If
the Russians of the 17th century seem strange to us in their
long robes and Oriental fashions, we must remember that the
French and Italians of the 15th century, dressed by Venetian
merchants, displayed the same taste. Only in France fashions
made advances, while in Russia, isolated from the rest of Europe
thev remained stationarv.
From a social point of view, two Russian expressions seem
to date from the Tatar invasion : tcherne, or the black people, to
designate the lower orders ; and kresiianifie, signifying the peas-
ant, that is, the Christian par excellefice, who was always a
stranger to the Mongol customs adopted for a short time by the
aristocracy. As to the amount of Mongol or Tatar blood mixed
with the blood of the Russians, it must have been very small :
the aristocracy of the two countries may have contracted mar-
ria£:es, a certain number of mourzas mav have become Russian
princes by their conversion to orthodoxy, but the two races, as a
whole, remained strangers. Even to-day, while the autochtho-
nous Finns continue to be Russified, the Tatar cantons, even
though converted to Christianitv, are still Tatar.
If the Mongol yoke has influenced the Russian development,
it is very indirectly, i. In separating Russia from the West, in
making her a political dependency of Asia, it perpetuated in the
country that Byzantine half civilization whose inferiority to
European civilization became daily more obvious. If the Rus-
sians of the 17th century differ so much from Western nations, it
• is above all because they have remained at the point whence all
set out. 2. The Tatar conquest also favored indirectly the es-
tablishment of absolute power. The Muscovite princes, respon-
sible to the Khan for the public tranquillity and the collection of
the tax, being all the while watched and supported by the baskaks,
could the more easily annihilate the independence of the towns,
the resistance of the second order of princes, the turbulence of
the boyards, and the privileges of the free peasants. The
Grand Prince of Moscow had no consideration for his subjects
because no man had any consideration for him, and be-
cause his life was always at stake. The Mongol tyranny bore
with a frightful weight on all the Russian hierarchy, and sub-
jected more closely the nobles to the princes, and the peasants to
the nobles. " The princes of Moscow," says Karamsin, " took
the humble title of servants of the khans, and it was by this
HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
129
means that they became powerful monarchs." No doubt the
Russian principalities would always have ended by losing their.
selves in the same dominion, but Russian unity would have been
made, like French unily, without the entire destruction of local
autonomies, the privileges of ilie towns, and the rights of the
subjects. It was the crushing weight of the Mongol domination
that slilied all the germs of political liberty. We may say with
Mr. Wallace, that " the first Tzars of Muscovy were the political
descendants, not of the Russian princes, but of the Tatar khans."
3. A third indirect result of the conquest was the growth of the
power and riches of the Church. In spite of the saintly legends
about the martyrdom of certain princes, the Tatars were a toler-
ant nation. Rubruquis saw in the presence of the Grand Klian
Mangou, Nestorians, Mussulmans, and Shamans celebrating
their own particular worships.
Kouiouk had a Christian chapel near his palace ; Khoubilai
regularly took part in the feast of Easter. In 1261 the Khan of
Sarai authorized the erection of a church and orthodox bishopric
in his capital. The Mongols had no sectarian hatred against
bishops and priests. With a sure political instinct, the Tatars,
like tlie Sultans of Stamboul, understood that these men could
agitate or calm the people. After the first fury of the conquest
was passed, they applied themselves to gaining them over.
They exce]')ted priests and monks from the capitation-tax ; they
recei\'ed them well at the Horde, and gave pardons at their in-
tercession. They settled disputes of orthodox prelates, and es-
tablished the peace in the Church that they imposed on the
State. In 13 13 the Khan Uzbeck, at the prayer of Peter, Met-
ropolitan of Moscow, confirmed the privileges of the Church
and forbade her being deprived of her goods, " for," says the
edict, "these possessions are sacred, because they belong to
men whose prayers preserve our lives and strengthen our armies."
The right of justice in the Church was formally recognized.
Sacrilege was punished by death.
The convents also increased in numbers and riches. They
filled enormously : were they not the safest asylums ? Their peas-
ants and servants multiplied : was not the protection of the Church
the surest ? Gifts of land were showered on them, as in France in
the year 1000. It was thus that the great ecclesiastical patri-
mony of Russia, a wealthy reservoir of revenues and capital,
was constituted, on which more than once in national crises the
Russian sovereigns were glad to draw. The Church, which,
even in her weakness, had steadily tended to unity and autoc-
racy, was to place at the service of the crown a power which
had become enormous. The Metropolitans of Aloscow were
nearly always the faithful allies of the Grand Princes.
l»^ HISTORY OF RUSSIA,
CHAPTER XI.
THE LITHUANIANS: CONQUEST OF WESTERN RUSSIA (1240-1430)
The Lithuanians— Conquests of Mindvog (1240-1263), of Gedimin (1315-
1340), and of Olgerd (i345-i377)—Jagellon— Union of Lithuania with Po.
land (1386)— The Grand Prince Vitovt (1392-1430)— Battles of the Vorskla
(1399), and of Tannenberg (1410).
THE LITHUANIANS CONQUESTS OF MINDVOG (124O-1263), OF
GEDIMIN (1315-I340), AND OF OLGERD (l345-I377)-
The Lithuanian tribes had already been greatly broken up
by the German conquest, Russians, Korsi, Semigalli, and Letts
had been brought into subjection either by the Teutonic or
Livonian knights. Two among the tribes, the Jmouds and the
Lithuanians properly so called, had preserved in the deep forests
and marshes of the Niemen their proud independence, their fero-
city, and their ancient gods. A Russian tradition affirms that
they formerly had paid the Russians the only tribute their poverty
could afford — bark and brooms. Jmouds and Lithuanians were
divided, like the ancient Slavs, into rival and jealous tribes. Al-
though more than once they marched from their forests, blowing
long trumpets, careering on rough ponies — though they had
made many incursions into the Russian territory — they were
not really dangerous. This old Aryan people, whom European
influences had never modified, had preserved from the time they
dwelt in Asia a powerful sacerdotal caste, — the va'idclotes above
whom were the krivites, whose chief, the krive-kriveito, was high-
priest of the nation. Their principal divinity was Perkun, the
god of thunder, analogous to the Perun of the Russians. The
sacred fire, the zniic/i, burned constantly before this idol. They
had also priestesses, the wild Velledas, like that Birouta who,
captured by Kestout, became the mother of the great Vitovt.
The lime had come when the Lithuanians must perish like the
Prussians or Letts, if they did not succeed in uniting against
Germany. The emigrants from the countries already conquered
would doubtless lend them new strength and energy. A wily
HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
«5i
barbarian, Mindvog, created Lithuanian unity at the beginning
of the 13th century in much the same way as Clovis — by ex-
terminating the princes. "He began," says a chronicle, "by
slaying his brothers and his sons, chased the survivors from the
country, and reigned alone over the land of Lithuania." Thence
he led his savage warriors against the Russian principalities,
now enfeebled by the Mongol invasions, and conquered Grodno
and Novogrodek. Happily Western Russia had two great men
at its head, Alexander Nevski and Daniel of Volhynia. 'I'hreat-
ened on one side by these princes, on the other by the knights
of Livonia, the Lithuanians bethought themselves of hastening
to the Pope and embracing the Catholic faith. A legate of In-
nocent IV. and the lam/mcister of the Teutonic Order came to
Grodno, escorted by a brilliant suite of cavaliers. In presence
of an immense concourse of people, Mindvog received baptisni
with his wife, and was consecrated King of Lithuania (1252).
The danger passed, and Rome was forgotten. He and his new
co-reliirionists did not asfree, and he was forced to cede the
Jmoud country to the Livonian knights. Sharing the irritation
of his subjects, he washed off his baptism as the unfortunate
Livonians had done, re-established paganism, invaded Mazovia,
ravaged the lands of the Order, and defeated the landnieister in
person. He had taken the wife of one of his princes named
Dovmont, and had married her. Dovmont awaited him on
the road, and assassinated him (1263), and then fled from
the vengeance of Mindvog's son to the Pskovians. He
became their prince, was baptized, and defended them
bravely against his pagan compatriots till he died, and
was buried at the church of the Trinity. Voichel, son of
Mindvog, in the first fervor of an ephemeral Christianity, had
become a monk. When he heard of the murder of his father, he
threw his cowl to the winds, and began a war of extermination
with the confederates. Lithuania fell back into anarchy during
the contest of the descendants of Mindvog with the rest of the
princes who refused to accept their supremacy.
She recovered herself under the enterprising and energetic
Gedimin (13 15-1340), the real founder of her power. He
turned the exhaustion and divisions of South Russia to his own
profit ; and to the conquests of his predecessors — Grodno,
Pinsk, Brest, and Polotsk — soon added Tchernigof, and all
Volhvnia with Vladimir, under whose walls he defeated the
Russians, aided though they were by an auxiliary army of Ta-
tars (132 1). As to Kief, it is not known in what year she fell
under his power; in the universal disorder, this memorable
event passed almost unnoticed. The old capital of Russia was,
J - 2 fflS TOR Y OF R USSIA.
however, destined to remain for 400 years — up to the time of
Alexis Romanof — in the hands of strangers. The Russian pop-
ulations willingly received this new master, who would free
them from the heavy yoke of the Mongols and the unceasing
civil wars. As he respected their internal constitution and the
rights of the orthodox clergy, it appears that many towns readily
opened their gates to him. 'Gedimin sought to legalize his con-
quests by contracting alliances with the house of St. Vladimir,
allowed his sons to embrace the orthodox faith, and authorized
the construction of Greek churches in his residences at Wilna
and Novogrodek. In the North he had a perpetual struggle to
sustain against the deadly enemies of his race, the military
monks of Prussia and Livonia. Like Mindvog, he addressed
himself to the Pope, John XXIL, and informed him that he
wished to preserve his independence, that he only asked pro-
tection for his religion, that he was surrounded by Fran-
ciscans and Dominicans to whom he gave full liberty to
teach their doctrine, and that he was ready to recognize the
Pope as supreme head of the Church, if he would arrest the dep-
redations of the Germans. The French Pope sent him Bar-
tholomew, Bishop of Alais, and Bernard, Abbot of Buy. In the
interval he had been exasperated by renewed attacks of the
Teutonic knights, and forced the two legates to fly. He had
transferred his capital to Wilna on the Wilia, and the ruins of
his castle may still be perceived on the height which overlooks
the citadel. He drew thither by immunities German artists and
artisans, and granted them the rights of Riga and the
Hanseatic towns. A Russian quarter was also formed in
his capital. He died and was buried according to the pagan
rite : his body was burned in a caldron with his war-horse and
his favorite groom.
After his death his sons Olgerd (i34S-i377) ^^'^^ Kestout de-
prived two of their brothers of their appanages, and together
,,overned Lithuania, now re-united into a single State. Olgerd
"humiliated Novgorod the Great, which had received another of
his fugitive brothers, ravaged her territory, and forced her to
put to death the possadnik who had been the cause of the war.
He extended his possessions to the east and south, and con-
quered Vitepsk, Mohilef, Briansk, Novgorod-Severski, Kamenetz
and Podolia ; thus rendering himself master of nearly all the
basin of the Dnieper, and obtaining a footing on the coast of
tiie Black Sea, between the mouths of the Dnieper and the
Dniester. With the republic of Pskof he maintained relations
sometimes friendly, someiimes hostile ; gave her help against
the Germans, and sent his son Andrew to govern her, and oc-
HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
«33
rasionally arrested her merchants and laid waste her territory.
The Poles disputed Volhynia with him, oppressed the orthodox
faith, and changed the Greek into Latin churches. Olgerd then
made advancesio Simeon the Proud, Grand Prince of Moscow,
and, though a pagan, married Juliana, princess of Tver, Under
Simeon's successors the Lithuanian army three times took the
road to Moscow, and, without tlie check imposed on him by the
Poles and the two German orders, Olgerd might have made the
conquest of Eastern Russia. In 1368 he had annihilated the
Mongol hordes which infested the Lower Dnieper, and, more
destructive than even these barbarians, completed the ruin of
Cherson in the Crimea.
JAGELLON — UNION OF LITHUANIA AND POLAND (1386).
Although Olgerd had reconstituted the Lithuanian unity, he
fell back into the old error, and divided his States between his
sons and his brother, the brave Kestout, who had been his faith-
ful associate. One of his sons, lagailo or Jagc/hn (1377-1434),
cruelly repaired the fault of his father. He made his uncle
Kestout prisoner by treachery, and caused him to be put to
death. His brothers and cousins escaped a similar fate by fly-
ing to neighboring states. In spite of this the bloody pagan
was the Apostle of Lithuania. For a long while Christianity
had sought to penetrate by two different channels, — under the
Latin form from Poland, and under the Greek form from Russia.
The fierce war sustained by the Lithuanians against the military
monks of the North had rendered Catholicism particularly hate-
ful to them. Under Olgerd the people of Wilna had risen, and
fourteen Franciscans were slain. On the other side the larger
part of the Lithuanian conquests was composed of Russian ter-
ritory, and Lithuania underwent the influence of the Russian
religion as well as of the Russian language. Russian became
the official tongue ; it even seemed as if orthodoxy was to be-
come the ruling faith, and the victors were to be absorbed by
the vanquished, and Russified by their conquest. An unexpected
event turned the natural course of history. The Angevin and
French dynasty in Poland had lately been extinguished in the
person of Louis of Hungary, whose only heir was his daughter
Hedwiga. The Polish nobles felt that the best way of putting
a stop to the eternal warfare with the Lithuanians was by marry-
ing their queen to the powerful Prince of Wilna. The heart of
Hedwiga is said to have been elsewhere engaged ; but the
Catholic clergy set forth her consent to this union as a duty, tba
134
ITISTORY OF RUSSIA.
fulfilment of which was to insure in Lithuania proper the triumph
of the Latin faith, and thus to separate it from the Lithuanian
Russian provinces which still remained orthodox.
In 1386 Jagellon went to Cracow and received baptism and
the crown of Poland,
The conversion of the Lithuanians was then conducted after
a fashion as summary as that of the Russians in the time of Vladi-
mir. They were divided into groups, and the priest then sprin-
kled them with holy water, pronouncing, as he did so, a name
of the Latin Calendar. To one group he gave the name of
Peter, to another that of Paul or John. Jagellon overthrew the
idol Perkun, extinguished the sacred fire that burned in the castle
of Wilna, killed the holy serpents, and cut down the magic
woods. The people, however, worshipped their gods for some
time longer; like the Northmen who were converted by the
Carolingians, many Lithuanians presented themselves more than
once to be baptized, in order to receive again and again the
white tunic of the neophyte. By transferring his capital to
Cracow, in deference to his new subjects, Jagellon necessarily
irritated his old subjects. To the determined pagans the ortho-
dox allied themselves, provoked by the king's propaganda in
favor of Catholicism. Lithuania believed that by her union with
Poland she had forfeited her independence.
THE GRAND PRINCE VITOVT (1392-1430) — BATTLES OF THE
VORSKLA (1399), AND OF TANNENBERG (1410).
Vitovt, son of the hero Kestout and the priestess Birouta,
put himself at the head of the malcontents. He allied himself
with the Teutonic knights, and twice besieged the Polish garri-
son in the Castle of Wilna. Weary of war, Jagellon ended by
ceding him Lithuania with the title of Grand Prince (1392).
Vitovt (1392-1430). brother-in-law of the Grand Prince of
Moscow (Vassili Dmitrie'vitch), took up the plans of Olgerd for
the subjugation of the north-east of Russia. Sviatoslaf, the last
prince but one of Smolensk, had made himself hated, even in
that iron centurv, by his cruelties. Fighting in the Russian ter-
ritory, he took pleasure in impaling and burning alive women
and children. He was killed in 1387 in a battle against the
Lithuanians, and his son loury was only the shadow of a Grand
Prince of Smolensk, under the guardianship of Vitovt. The
latter, who combined perfidy with the courage and energy of his
father, made himself master of the town by a stratagem worthy
of Caesar Borgia. He contrived to induce the prince and his
HISrOR Y OF R USSTA. , 35
brothers to visit him in his tent, embraced and pressed them in
his arms, and then declared them prisoners of war, while his
army surprised and pillaged Smolensk. This queenly city on
the Upper Dneiper was lost to Russia. The Lithuanian Em-
|)ire now bordered on the ancient Souzdal and the principality
of Riazan. These two countries, with Novgorod and Pskof,
were the only ones which had preserved their independence.
It seemed as if one campaign would suffice to annihilate the
Russian name. But Viiovt cherished great projects, in which
the conquest of Moscow was only an incident. He had already
fought against the Mongols, and with the prisoners taken in the
environs of Azof, had peopled many villages round Wilna, where
their posterity still exist. He took under his protection the
Khan Tokhtamych, whom Timour Koutloui had expelled from
Sarai, and resolved to subjugate the Golden Horde, to instal a
vassal there, and finally add to the conquest of the Tatar Em-
pire that of Moscow and Riazan. The army that he assembled
under the walls of Kief was perhaps the most important that
had marched against the infidels since the first crusade. To
his Lithuanian troops he had united the Polish contingent sent
bv Jagellon under the famous vo'ievodes Spitko of Cracow, John
of Mazovia, Sandivog of Ostorog, Dobrogost of Samotoul, and the
droiijiiias of the Russian princes, Gleb of Smolensk, Michael
and Dmitri of Volhynia, the Mongols of Tokhtamych, and five
hundred knights, "iron men," richly armed, sent by the Grand
Master of the Teutonic Order. He came up with the enemy
on the banks of the Vorskla, an affluent of the Dnieper, that
runs near Pultowa. It was almost the battle-field where fought
in 1709 the heroes of the North. To Timour's proposals of
peace, Vitovt answered that God had designed him to be mas-
ter of the world, and that the Khan must recognize him as
his father, pay him tribute, and jilace his armorial bearings on
the Mongol coins. The Khan only negotiated to gain time
till the bulk of the Tatar army, commanded by Ediger, came
up. Ediger, in his turn, ironically summoned Vitovt to ac-
knowledge him as father, and to place his arms on the Lithu-
anian coins. Vitovt, who hoped to make up for his deficiency
in numbers by his artillerv, gave the signal for battle. A
manoeuvre of the Tatars on the rear *f the enemy assured
them the victory. Two-thirds of the Lithuanian army, with
the princes of Smolensk and Volhynia, remained on the field
of battle. The remnant was pursued by Timour to the Dnieper.
He levied war contributions on Kief and the Monastery of
the Catacombs (1399). So fell the prestige of Vitovt. Even
the princes of Riazan thought that they might safely iusull
,36 HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
his frontiers. But he was still formidable, and the Grand Princft
of Moscow, after having tried to attack him, judged it more
prudent to make peace.
When Vitovt began to recover from his disaster, he directed
a still more famous expedition against the Teutonic knights.
'I'he Grand Prince of Lithuania had more than once found
himself at issue with the two German orders. About this time
the Teutonic knights had lost their early energy, thanks to the
development of the system of fiefs, and to the progress of the
commercial towns. In 1409 the Jmouds and Oriental Prussia,
after having protested against the severity of the yoke imposed
on them, revolted, counting on Vitovt to support them. A new
Grand Master, the warlike Ulrich of Jungingen, refused the
mediation of Vitovt's suzerain, the King of Poland. Upon this
the united forces of Poland and Lithuania, with 40,000 Tatars
and 21,000 Bohemian, Hungarian, Moravian and Silesian mer-
cenaries, making a total of 97,000 infantry, 66,000 cavalry, and
60 cannons, entered Prussia. The Grand Master had only 57,-
000 infantry and 26,000 cavalry, with which to oppose them.
The battle of Tannenberg (1410), gained chiefly by Vitovt, who
broke the German centre and left w'ing, was a blow from which
the power of the Teutonic Order never recovered. The Grand
Master and nearly all the high dignitaries, 200 Knights of the
Order, and 400 foreign knights, besides 4000 soldiers, were
killed. Nearly all the princes of Western Russia took part in
the combat, and the contingent of Smolensk especially distin-
guished itself. The Jmoud country was freed from the Teutonic
rule and united to Lithuania.
Three years afterwards (1413) the Congress of Horodlo on
the Bug, between Jagellon, accompanied by the Polish /(?;/j', and
Vitovt, accompanied by his Lithuanian chiefs, took place. It
was settled that the Lithuanian Catholics should receive the
rights and privileges of the Polish schliaclita ; and that the
representatives of the two countries should unite in a common
diet to elect the Kin^s of Poland and the Grand Dukes of
Lithuania, and decide important affairs. Vitovt soon had dif-
ferences with his own subjects : the Jmouds, so refractory under
the Teutonic rule, were pagans and Lithuanians at heart. They
hated Catholicism and the Polish domination. They rose and
expelled the monks. Vitovt could only govern them by force.
The Russian provinces of Lithuania were orthodox, and de-
pended upon the Metropolitan of Moscow. Vitovt wished to
shake off his religious supremacy, and demanded of the Patriarch
of Constantinople a special metropolitan for Western Russia,
In spite of the Patriarch's refusal, he convoked a council of
mS TOR V OF H USSIA. , ,_
si •
orthodox prelates : a learned Bulgarian monk, Gregory Tsrni-
blak, was elected Metropolitan of Kief. Thus Ru.ssia had two
religious chiefs, as she had two Grand Princes — the Metropolitan
of Eastern Russia, and the Metropolitan of Western Russia;
one at Moscow, the other at Kief. Vitovt also wished to free
himself on the western side, and deprive Poland of her suprem-
acy over Lithuania. In 1429 he had an interview with the
Emperor Sigismond, who promised to create him King of
Lithuania. Vitovt, then eighty years of age, was at the height
of his power. We see him at the fetes of Troki and Wilna, at-
tended by his grandson Vassili Vassilidvitch, Grand Prince of
Moscow, who was accompanied by the Muscovite Metropolitan
Photius, the Princes of Tver and Riazan, Jagellon, king of Poland,
the Khan of the Crimea, the exiled Hospodar of Wallachia, the
Grand Master of Prussia, the Landmeister of Livonia, and the
ambassadors of the Emperor of the East. Daily were 700 oxen,
1400 sheep, and game in proportion, consumed. In the midst
oi these fetes the ambitious old man had to swallow a bitter
draught. The Poles had intrigued with the Pope, and he was
forbidden to dream of royalty. The ambassadors of Sigismond
were checked as they were bringing him the sceptre and the
crown. Vitovt fell ill, and died of disappointment (1430).
After this Lithuania ceased to be formidable. We find it in
turns governed by a (}rand Duke of its own, united to Poland
under Vladislas, separated again, then definitely placed under
the Polish sceptre from 1501. Though henceforward it always
had the same sovereign as Poland, it remained a State apart —
the Grand Principality or Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Her
Lithuanian and Russian provinces became steadily Polish, and
the princely descendants of Rurik and St. Vladimir, or of
Mindvog and Gedimin, assumed the manners and language of
the Polish aristocracy.
138 HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
CHAPTER XII.
THE GRAND PRINCES OF MOSCOW : ORGANIZATION OF EASTER!
RUSSIA (1303-1462).
Origin of Moscow — Daniel — George Danielovitch (1303-1325) and Ivan Kalita
(i328-i34r) — Contest withi the liouse of Tver — Simeon the I'roud and
Ivan the Debonnaire {1341-1359) — Dmitri Donskoi' ( 1363-1389) — Battle of
Koulikovo — Vassili Dmitrie'vitch and Vassili the Blind (1389-1462).
ORIGIN OF MOSCOW — DANIEL.
Whilst Western Russia grouped herself around the Lithu-
anian State, which had given the conquered Russian provinces
a new capital in Wilna, and soon involved them in her own
union with Poland, Eastern Russia grouped herself around
Moscow. When this double concentration on the Moskowa
and on the Wilna should be accomplished, Great Russia, proud
of her national and religious unity, and Lithuanian Russia (or
rather a foreign State composed of the Russian, Lithuanian, and
Polish races, and of three religions, the Greek, Roman, and
Protestant, besides the Jewish), would find themselves face to
face. The contest of these two sister-enemies will fill many
centuries of the history of the North. To other sovereisrns, in
other centuries, will fall the task of reconstituting the Russian
unity in its fullest extent. The honor of the princes of Mos-
cow is to have created the living germ which became Great
Russia.
Around Moscow, under the Mongol yoke, a race was formed,
patient and resigned, yet energetic and enterprising, born to
endure bad fortune and profit by good, which in the long run
was to get the ujDper hand over Western Russia and Lithuania.
There a dynasty of princes grew, politic and persevering, pru-
dent and pitiless, of gloomy and terrible mien, whose foreheads
were marked by the seal of fatality. They were the founders of
the Russian empire, as the Capetians were of the French mon-
archy.
The means used by the sovereigns of Russia were very
HISTORY OF lU/SSfA 13^
different. Here we shall find no sympathetic figures like that
of Louis VI. careering proudly in the narrow domains of France,
capturing rebel castles in the face of the sun — of a Louis IX.,
true mirror of chivalry, the noblest incarnation of the kingly
ideal. 'I'he princes of Moscow gained their ends by intrigue,
corruption, tiie purchase of consciences, servility to the khans,
perfidy to their equals, murder, and treachery, 'i'hey were at
once the tax-gatherers and the police of the khans. But they
created the germ of the Russian monarchy, and made it grow.
Henceforward we have a fixed centre around which gathers that
scattered history of Russia which we have had to follow in so
many different places — in Novgorod and Pskof, in Livonia and
in Lithuania, at Smolensk and in Gallicia, at Tchernigof and
at Kief, at Vladimir and at Riazan. The mutilation of Russia,
conquered on the west by the Lithuanians, enslaved on the east
by the Mongols, was to facilitate the work of organization. In
this diminished fatherland the sovereigns of Moscow could play
more easily the part of Grand Princes.
The extent of country which had by the middle of the 15th
century escaped the Lithuanian conquest was very small. With-
out counting Smolensk, whose days were numbered, there re-
mained the following principalities : — i. Riazan, with its appan-
ages of Pronsk and Pert^iaslavl-Riazanski ; 2. Souzdal, with the
towns of Vladimir, Nijni-Novgorod, Souzdal, Galitch in Souzdal,
Kostroma, and Gorodetz ; 3. Tver, situated on the Upper Volga,
and chiefly made up of bailiwicks taken from Novgorod by the
Grand Princes of Souzdal, with the towns of Rjef, Kachine, and
Zoubtsof ; 4. Moscow, shut in on the north bv Tver, on the east
by Souzdal, on the south by Riazan, nearly stifled by its power-
ful neighbors, like the France of the Capetians between the
formidable States of English Normandy, Flanders, and Cham-
pagne.
The name of Moscow appears for the first time in the chron-
icles at the date of 1 147. It is there said that the Grand Prince
George Dolgorouki, having arrived on the domain of a boyard
named Stephen Koutchko, caused him to be put to death on
some pretext, and that, struck by the position of one of the
villages situated on a height washed by the Moskowa, the very
spot wliereon the Kremlin now stands, he built the city of Mos-
cow. In the Capitol of ancient Rome the founder, Romulus, dis-
covered the head of a man ; the Capitol of Moscow, destined to
become the centre of an empire, was sprinkled in its beginning
by human blood. The name of a still-existing church, " St.
Saviour of the Pines " {Spass na Boroti). preserves the memory
of the thick forests that then clothed both banks of the Moskowa,
1 40 HISTOR V OF J? USSIA.
on the space now covered by an immense capital. Durino; the
century following its foundation, Moscow remained an ob.sture
and insignificant village of Souzdal. The chroniclers do not
allude to it except to mention that it was burned by the Tatars
(1237J, or that a brother of Alexander Nevski, Michael of Mos-
cow, was killed there in a battle with the Lithuanians. The real
founder of the principality of the name was Daniel, a son of
Alexander Nevski, who had received this small town and a few
villages as his appanage. He increased his State by an impor-
tant town, Pereiaslavl-Zaliesski, that belonged to one of his
nephews, and by the addition of Kolomna, which he took from
the Riazanese. At his death in 1303 he was the first to be
buried in the church of Saint Michael the Archangel, which
till the time of Peter the Great remained the burying-place of
the Russian princes. He was followed, in due course, by his
brothers George and Ivan.
GEORGE DANIELOVITCH (1303-1325) AND IVAN KALITA (1328-
I341) — STRUGGLE WITH THE HOUSE OF TVER.
The first act of George Danielovitch (1303-1325) was to capt-
ure Mojaisk from the Prince of Smolensk, and to take the latter
prisoner. Almost at the same time began the bloody struggle
with the house of Tver, which, transmitted from father to son.
lasted for eighty years. When Andrew Alexandrovitch, Grand
Prince of Souzdal, died in 1304, two competitors presented
themselves — Michael of Tver, cousin-german of the deceased,
and his nephew George of Moscow. The claim of Michael was
incontestable ; was he not the chlcst oi the family ? The boyards
of Vladimir and the citizens of Novgorod did not hesitate to
acknowledge him as Grand Prince ; at Sarai Tokhta the khan
declared in his favor, and ordered him to be installed. Michael,
who had on his side the national law and the sovereign will of
the Mongols, could also use force ; he twice besieged Moscow,
and obliged the son of Daniel to leave him in peace. In this
young man he had an implacable enemy. The chronicles, in-
dignant at the revolt of George against the old hereditary cus-
tom, unanimously pronounced against him. While making due
allowance for their efforts to blacken his character, we cannot
help seeing that he was not a man to shrink from any crime.
His father had taken the Prince of Riazan prisoner. He had
him assassinated in his dungeon, and would have taken posses-
sion of his territorie.s, if the Khan had not ordered the rights of
the young heir to be respected. Then George caused himself to
HIS TOR V OF H USS/A. 1 4 ,
be recognized as Prince of Novgorod, to the prejudice of
Michael, but the army of Tver and Vhidiniir defeated that fur-
nished him by the republic. An unexpected event suddenly
changed the face of things. The Khan Tokhta died ; George
managed to gain the good graces of his successor Uzbeck, so
that the latter gave him his sister Lontchaka in marriage, and,
reversing the decision of Tokhta, adjudged him the grand princi-
pality. The son of Daniel returned to Russia with a Mongol
army, commanded by the Ixiskak Kavgadi. Michael consented,
say the chronicles, to cede Vladimir, if his hereditary appanage
were respected ; but George began to lay waste the country of
Tver, and war was inevitable. Michael triumphed completely.
The Tatar wife of George, his brother Boris, the Mongol general
Kavgadi, and nearly all the otlficers of the Khan, fell into his
hands. Michael covered his prisoners with attentions dictated
by prudence. Kavgadi, released with honor, swore to be his
friend, but, as the sister of the Khan died, the enemies of the
Prince of Tver set on foot a report that he had poisoned her.
The cause of the two princes was carried before the tribunal of
the Khan. Whilst the indefatigable Muscovite went in person,
with his hands full of presents, to the Horde, Michael had the
imprudence to send his son, a boy of twelve years old, in his
place. Finding George was occupied in accusing, intriguing,
and corrupting, Michael at last made up his mind to follow him.
Not unprepared for the lot that awaited him, he made his will,
and distributed appanages among his children. He was accused
of having drawn his sword against a baskak^ envoy of the Khan,
and of having poisoned Kontchaka. These accusations were so
manifestly absurd, that Uzbeck deferred judgment. This, how-
ever, did not meet George's views, and, by means of intrigues,
he obtained the arrest of his kinsman. The Khan now set out
for some months' hunting in the Caucasus. Michael was dragged
in the train of the court, loaded with irons, from the Sarai to
Dediakof in Daghestan. One day he was put in the pillory in
the market of a thickly-poimlated town, and the spectators
crowded to see him, saying, " This prisoner was, a short time ago,
a powerful prince in his own country." The boyards of Michael
had told him to escape; he refused, not wishing his people to
suffer for him. George was so energetic, and scattered about so
much money, that, finally, the death-warrant was signed. One
of Michael's pages entered the tent which served him as a pri-
son, in great alarm, to tell him that George and Kavgadi were
approaching, followed by a multitude of people. " I know the
reason," replied the prince ; and he sent his young son Constan-
tine to one of the Khan's wives, who had promised to take him
142
HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
under her protection. His two enemies took their stand near
his tent, dismissed the boyards of Tver, and sent their hired
ruffians to assassinate the prince. They threw him down, and
trampled liim under their feet. As in the case of Michael of
Tchernigof, it was not a Mongol that stabbed him and tore out
his heart, but a renegade named Romanetz. When George and
Kavgadi entered and contemplated the naked corpse, " What,"
said the Tatar, " will vou allow the bodv of vour uncle to be out-
raged ? " One of George's servants threw a mantle over the
victim (1319). Michael was bewailed by the Tverians. His
body, incorruptible as that of a martyr, was afterwards deposited
in a silver bier in the cathedral of Tv'er. He became a saint,
and the patron of his city. On tlie walls of the cathedral,
ancient and mwdern pictures recall his martvrdom, and condemn
the crime of the Muscovite. All the contemporary chronicles
warmly take his part against the assassin. Karamsin has made
himself the echo of their apologies and curses. But at the same
time that Michael became a saint, George became the all-power-
ful sovereign of Moscow, Souzdal, and Novgorod. The tragic
fate of Michael foretold the ruin of Tver.
Some years afterwards, things were reversed at the Horde.
Dmitri of the terrible eyes, son of the unhappy Michael, obtained
the title of Grand Prince, and the baskak Seventch Bonga was
charged to place him on the throne of Vladimir. George found
himself obliged to go again to Sarai ; there the two rivals, Dmitri
of Tver and George of Moscow, met. Dmitri had his father to
avenge ; his sword leaped from the scabbard, and the Prince of
Moscow fell mortally wounded (1325), All that his friends
could obtain was that Dmitri should be put to death. The
latter was succeeded in Vladimir by his brother Alexan-
der.
Unluckily for the house of Tver, the following year the Tver-
ians, exasperated by the baskak Ciievl7////r), which became one
of the richest and most venerated of Eastern Russia. On its
increase of wealth, it was obliged to be surrounded with ram-
parts ; and its thick brick walls with a triple row of embrasures,
its nine war-towers, and its still existing fortifications, were
afterwards destined to brave the assaults of Catholics and infi-
dels. The princes of Moscow, in spite of their perfidious and
pitiless policy, were as pious as good King Robert — devots,
alms-givers, indefatigable in building churches and monasteries,
in honoring the clergy, and in helping the poor. The surname
of Kalita given to Ivan comes from the kalUa or alms-bag he
wore always at his girdle. This kalita may also have been Shy-
iock's purse — the bag of a prince who was farmer-general and
usurer who demanded from Novgorod double what he intended
to pay on her behalf to Uzbeck. Ivan liked to converse with
the monks in his Convent of the Transfiguration. Like all the
other princes of the house, he took care, when at the point of
death, to be tonsured and adopt the religious dress and a new
name.
If the princes of Moscow labored with fierce energy to bind
together the Russian soil, they continued to divide it into ap-
panages among their sons. Many causes contributed to prevent
1 46 ins TO K V OF R USSIA.
the return of the former anarchy. These princes, as a rule, had
few sons ; they grackially got into the way of giving only very
weak appanages to the younger ones, and these on condition of
an absolute dependence on the eldest. Ivan, for example, had
only three sons ; he gave by far the larger share (MojaTsk and
Kolomna) to Simeon, and forbade Moscow to be divided. The
idea of the State as one and indivisible was certain to end by
gaining the day.
SIMEON THE PROUD AND IVAN THE DEBONNAIRE (134I-I359).
Simeon the Proud (1341-1353) and Ivan II. (1353-1359)
succeeded one after the other their father Kalita. They were
all three contemporaries of the early Valois. At the news of
the death of Ivan, many princes at once disputed the throne of
Vladimir with his sons, Constantine of Tver, and Constantine
of Souzdal, especially, were supported by the oiher princes who
did not desire the title of Grand Prince to be perpetuated in
the house of Moscow. They went to the Horde at the same
time as Simeon and his two sons travelled thither. Simeon
owed his success neither to his eloquence nor his arguments, but
to the treasure of his father, which won over the infidels. After
being crowned in the Cathedral of Vladimir, he swore to live in
harmony with his two brothers, and exacted from them the same
oath. While pushing his submission to the Khan to the verge
of baseness, he domineered over the Russian princes with a
haughtiness that gained for him the surname of " the Proud."
He forced Novgorod to pay him a contribution, and, in his
capacity of supreme head of Russia, confirmed the liberties of
the republic. He was the first who assumed the title of " Grand
Prince of all the Russias," which was little justified by the
facts, as in 1341 Olgerd of Lithuania besieged the town of Mo-
jaisk, Simeon's own appanage. The friendship of St. Alexis,
third Metropolitan of Moscow, gave him great moral aid. In
his reign Boris, a Russian artist, cast bells for the cathedrals of
Moscow and Novgorod ; three churches of the Kremlin were
adorned with new paintings — that of the Assuinption, by Greek
artists ; that of St. Michael, by the Court painters ; that of the
Transfigiimtion, by a foreigner named Goiten. Paper replaced
parchment: and it was on paper that Simeon's will was written.
Russia then still maintained her old relations with Byzantium,
and entered into new ones with Europe. Simeon died of the
famous " black death " or " black pestilence," which at this
time desolated the West.
Ivan II., brother and successor of "the Proud," deserves,
HIS TOR Y OF R USSIA. , ^
on the contrary, the surname of " the D^bonnaire." He was of
a dilferent type from the sinister princes of Souzdal, and was
pacific and gentle. The anarchy into which Russia fell during^
!he six years of his reign, shows how little his virtues were those
of his century. Witliout attempting to avenge himself, Ivan
permitted Olcg of Riazan to insult his territory, burn his villages
of the Lopasnia, and ill-treat his lieutenant. lie allowed the
No\gorodians to despise his authority and obey Constantine ot
Souzdal ; he let the Grand Uuke Olgerd occupy Rjef, and An-
drew of Lithuania menace Pskof. He interfered neither in the
civil wars of the princes of Riazan, nor in those of the princi-
pality of Tver, nor in the troubles excited at Novgorod bv the
rivalry of the Slavonian quarters and that of St. Sophia, nor in
the storm raised in the Church by the Patriarch of Constanti-
nople, \vho dared to consecrate metropolitan a rival of St.
Alexis. The murder of one of his officers, Alexis, military gov-
ernor of Moscow, remained unpunished. In this weakness of
the prince, the churchmen naturally came to the front, and took
up the part abandoned by him. Moses, Archbishop of Nov-
gorod, quelled a revolt in the republic ; St. Alexis reconciled
the princes of Tver, and acquired, by a miraculous cure, great
power in the Horde, by which he profited to protect his people
and his prince. At the death of Ivan II., the title of Grand
Prince, which his three predecessors had made such efforts to
perpetuate in the house of Moscow, passed to that of Souzdal.
Dmitri of Souzdal (1359-1362), furnished with the iarlikh, made
his solemn entry into Vladimir. It was again St. Alexis who
saved the supremacy of Moscow. After having blessed the
Grand Prince in Vladimir, he returned to his care of the young
children of Ivan II., and to Moscow, which had for a moment
ceased to be the capital. It was by his counsel that Dmitri
Tvanovitch, at the age of twelve, dared to declare himself the
rival of Dmitri of Souzdal, and determined to appeal to the tri-
bunal of the Khan. The Golden Horde was then a prey to
civil wars; the ferocious Mamai harassed Mourout, but as the
latter reigned at Sarai, and seemed the legitimate successor of
Bati, it was to him that the Souzdalian and Muscovite bovards
addressed themselves. Mourout adjudged the Grand Principal-
ity to the grandson of Kalita, whom a Muscovite army led to be
consecrated in Vladunir.
DMITRI DONSKOI (1363-I389) — THE liATTLE OF KOULIKOVO,
Dmitri Ivanovitch (1363-1389) is distinguished from nearly
a]1 the Souzdal princes by a warlike and chivalrous character
1 48 HISTOK Y OF R LiSIA.
worthy of the West. He proves that the Russian soul had been
only repressed, not rendered depraved and servile by the Tatar
yoke, and that Slav chivalry only awaited an opportunity to
raise the cry of war, and make their swords flash like the prcux
chevaliers of Louis IX. or of John the Good. Dmitri had at
once to sustain a series of wars against the neighboring princes ;
notably against Dmitri of Souzdal, Michael of l\-er, and Oleg
of Riazan. As changes took place at the Horde, Dmitri of
Souzdal obtained from the Khan Mourout a reversal of his first
decision, and returned to Vladimir. The Prince of Moscow,
who feared this feeble Khan no longer, did not hesitate to take
up arms, and to expel his rival from Vladimir. A treaty was
agreed on between them. The Souzdalian appanage of Nijni-
Novgorod having become vacant, Dmitri supported his ancient
enemy against his competitor Boris. Like his grandfather
Kalita, who had caused Novgorod to be excommunicated,
Dmitri Ivanovitch entreated St. Sergius, the founder of the
Troitsa Monastery, to lay Nijni-Novgorod under an interdict.
Then Boris yielded, and Dmitri of Souzdal, now Prince of Nijni-
Novgorod, gave the Prince of Moscow his daughter Eudoxia in
marriage, and henceforward remained his friend. Dmitri Ivan-
ovitch deprived the rebel princes of Starodoub and Galitch of
their appanages, and forced Constantine Borissovitch to recog-
nize his supremacy. He made, under the guarantee of St.
Alexis, a treaty with his cousin, Vladimir Andrievitch, by which
he undertook to hand over to him the appanage that Kalita had
secured to his father, and by which Vladimir engaged to ac-
knowledge him as his father and his Grand Prince. Vladimir
kept his word, and was always the bravest lieutenant and the
right arm of Dmitri.
The struggle now recommenced with the house of Tver.
Michael Alexandrovitch, whose father had been killed at the
Horde, disputed the throne with one of his uncles. The Grand
Prince and the Metropolitan of Moscow took the part of the
latter. Michael paid no attention to this decision, took Tver
with a Lithuanian army, besieged his uncle in Kachine, and
obliged him to renounce his claims. He then took the title of
Grand Prince of Tver. It was chieflv the alliance with Olirerd,
the husband of his sister Juliana, that rendered him formid-
able. Thrice — in 1368, in 1371, and in 1372 — Olgerd conducted
his brother-in-law, burning and pillaging on his way, up to the
walls of the Kremlin on Moscow. Neither the Lithuanian nor
the Muscovite army on any of these occasions fought a decisive
battle. The boyards of l^milri felt that a lost battle would be
the ruin of Russia j while Olgerd was too old and experienced to
.^m^rVR Y OF R USSIA . 1 49
Stake all on a hazard. At last, in 1375, after the death of his
brother-in-law, Michael found himself besieged in Tver by the
united forces of all the vassals and allies of Dmitri and of the
Novgorodians who had the sack of Torjok and the devastation
of their territory to avenge. Reduced to extremities, and aban-
doned by Lithuania, he was constrained to sign a treaty by
which he'engaged to regard Dmitri as his " elder brother," to
renounce all claim to Novgorod and Vladimir, not to disquiet the
allies of Moscow, and to imitate Dmitri's conduct towards the
Tatars, whether he continued to pay tribute or he declared war.
Another enemy, not less dangerous, was Oleg of Riazan, who
had formerly braved Ivan the De'bonnaire. In 137 1, the Mus-
covites defeated Oleg, and installed a prince of Pronsk in his
capital, who was not, however, strong enough to maintain his
position. If Tver was sometimes supported by Lithuania,
Riazan had often the Horde' as an ally.
The empire of Kiptchak was gradually falling to pieces. Many
competitors disputed the throne of Sarai. The Tatars acted
after their kind, and invaded the Russian territory in disor-
derlv style. It is true it was no longer a point of honor with
the Christian princes to submit to them. Oleg of Riazan him-
self united with the princes of Pronsk ami Kozelsk, and dctitd
the mourza Tagai, who had burnt Riazan. Dmitri of Souzdal,
])rince of Nijni-Novgorod, had defeated Boulat-Temir, who on
his return to the Horde had been disavowed and put to death.
Finallv, Dmitri of Moscow had many times disobeyed the terri-
ble Mamai. He had, however, the courage to answer to the
summons of the Khan, and the good fortune or the cleverness
to return to Moscow safe and well (137 1). In 1376 Dmitri
sent a great expedition against Kazan by the Volga, and forced
two Tatar princes to pay tribute. Conflicts multiplied between
the Christians and the infidels. In this manner the princes of
Souzdal exterminated a band of Mordvians, and delivered up
their chiefs to be torn in pieces by the dogs of Novgorod ; in
return, Mamai ordered the town to be burnt. In 1378, Dmitri
of Moscow gained a brilliant victory over the lieutenant of
Mamai on the banks of the Voja in Riazan. In the first intox-
ication of victory, he cried, " Their time is past, and God is
with us ! " The' Khan, in his blind fury, caused his anger to
fall on Oleg of Riazan, the rival of Dmitri Ivanovitch, who fled,
abandoning his lands to the ravages of the enemy.
It took Mamai two years to mature his plans of vengeance,
and he assembled in silence an immense host of Tatars, Turks,
Polovtsi, Tcherkesses, lasses, and Bourtanians or Caucasian
Jews. Even the Genoese of Kaffa, settled in the Crimea and
150
HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
on the territory of the Khan, furnished a contingent. In these
critical circumstances for Russia, Oleg of Riazan, forgetting his
grievances against the Tatars, and only remembering his mistrust
and jealousy of Moscow, betrayed the common cause. While
keeping on good terms with Dmitri, even while warning him of
what was preparing, he secretly negotiated an alliance between
the two most formidable enemies of Russia — Jagellon of Lithu-
ania and Mama'i. The Grand Prince's army would probably be
crushed between them ; but Dmitri did not lose heart. The
desire of vengeance awakened in the Russians with the force of
religious enthusiasm. At the call of the Grand Prince, the
princes of Rostof, Bielozersk, laroslavl, Starodoub, and Kachine,
with their droi/Jinas ; the boyards of Vladimir, Nijni-Novgorod,
Souzdal, Pereiaslavl-Zaliesski, Kostroma, Mourom, Dmitrof,
Mojaisk, Zvenigorod, Ouglitch, and Serpoukhof, at the head of
their contingents, successively made their entrance into the
Kremlin, amid the acclamations of the Muscovites. At Kostroma
Dmitri was to be joined by two Lithuanian princes — Andrew
and Dmitri — who brought him troops from Pskof and Briansk.
The grand Prince, with his cousin Vladimir, went to the hermit-
age of Troitsa to ask the benediction of Saint Sergius. The
latter predicted that he would gain the victory, but that it would
be a bloody fight. He sent two of his monks, Alexander Peres-
vet and Osliaba, formerly a brave boyard of Briansk, to accom-
pany Dmitri. On their cowls he made the sign of the cross.
" Behold," he cried, " a weapon which faileih never." The
Prince of Tver had taken good care not to send his contingent,
and the treason of the Prince of Riazan now became known.
The hearts of the Russians beat with joy and enthusiasm at the
throught of revenge. In spite of private jealousies, the princes
were animated by the same ardor as the Spanish kings when
they marched against the Moors, or the companions of Godfrey
of I3ouillon on the road for the Holy Land. Never had such
an army been seen. Dmitri is said to have had 150,000 men.
They crossed the country of Riazan, then under a craven
prince, and reached the banks of the Don. The princes de-
bated as to whether it was necessary to cross the river immedi-
ately ; but it was urgent to dispose of the Mongols before having
on their hands Jagellon, who had already arrived at Odocf,
fifteen leagues off. A letter which Dmitri received from Saint
Sergius, recommending him to " go forwards," decided ihe
matter. The Don was crossed, and tliey found themselves or.
the plain of Koulikovo {the Field of Woodcocks), watered by the
Nepriadva. The centre was occupied by the princes of Lithiv
ania and Smolensk, with the droujina of Dmitri ; the right was
UMITKI Do.NSXoi.
A< ^fj^ Y OP- R USSIA, 1 5 ,
commanded by the princes of Rostof and Starodoub, the left
by those of laroslavl and Vologda ; the reserve by Prince
VLadimir, the brave Dmitri of Volhynia, and the princes of
Briansk and Kachine, The Mongols soon came up, and the
battle began. It was bloody and dubious. The enemy had
already cut to pieces the droujhia of the Grand Prince, when
Vladimir and IJmitri of Volhynia, who had lain in ambush, sud-
denly attacked the Tatars, Mamai, from the top of a koiirgan,
contemplated the flight of his army. His camp, his chariots,
and his camels were all captured. The Mongols were pursued
to the Metcha, in which many drowned themselves. If the
barbarians lost, as they are said to have done, 100,000 men, the
Russian loss was also very severe. They counted among the
dead the two monks of Saint Sergius ; one of them, Peresvet
was discovered in the arms of a Patzinak giant, who had fought,
with him hand to hand, and perished along with him. For a
long while Dmitri could not be found ; at last he was seen in
a swoon, his armor bloody and broken. This memorable battle
of Koulikovo has been related in more than one way by tiie
Russian historians. With the annalists, i)roperly so called, the
official historiographers of the Grand Prince, Dmitri is the
hero. In the poetical recitals which were inspired by the ac-
count of the pope Sophronius, it is Saint Sergius who at each
moment supports the courage of Dmitri, whom they represent
with rather too much humility for ageneral-in-chief. The battle
of the Don, which gained for Dmitri the surname of Donskoi,
and for Vladimir that of the Brave, is as celebrated in Russia
as that of Las Navas de Tolosa in Spain. It showed the Rus-
r^ians that they could vanquish the invincible ; and the Mongol
yoke, even after they again fell under it, did not seem in-
evitable. Dmitri had heroically broken the tradition of slavery ;
he had proclaimed the future freedom (1380).
Unhappily the event showed the advantages of the policy
of resignation over the policy of chivalry — of the patience of the
hero of the Neva over the bravery of the hero of the Don. A
man appeared at this moment at the head of the Mongols, who
was as formidable as Genghis Khan — Tamerlane, the conqueror
of the two Bokharas, of Hindostan, of Iran, and of Asia Minor.
Tokhtamycii, one of his generals, caused Mama'i to be put
to death, and announced to Dmitri that he had triumphed
over their common enemv ; then he summoned the Russian
princes to present themselves at the Horde. Dmitri refused.
Was it in vain that the blood of the Christians had flowed at
Koulikovo? The Khan assembled an immense army. Dmitri
found no longer the same wisdom or energy among his coun.
J ^ 2 HTSTOR Y OF R USSTA,
cillors. Not knowing what to do, he left Moscow and went to
assemble an army at Kostroma. Tokhtamych marched straight
on the capital, and during three days tried to carry the walls of
the Kremlin by assault. Then he had recourse to a ruse, ^XiA
affected to enter in a negotiation. At last the Tatars surprised
the gates, and delivered up Moscow to fire and sword. A
tolerably exact calculation proves that 24,000 men perished,
beside the precious documents and earliest archives of the prin-
cipality.
Vladimir, Mojaisk, lourief, and other towns of Souzdal suf-
fered the same fate. When Tokhtamych had retired, Dmitri came
and wept over the ruins of his capital. "Our fathers," he cried,
" who never triumphed over the Tatars, were less unhappy than
we." Bitter morrow of victory ! However, although Russia
had to resign herself to her Tatar collectors, she felt that the
Horde would never recover its former power.
Dmitri longed at least to revenge himself on the perfidious
Oleg. The latter escaped him, but Riazan, which was regarded
as a harbor for traitors, was sacked. Michaelof Tver merited
the same chastisement ; he had refused to fight Mamai, and was
one of the first to fly to the Horde of Tokhtamych. The war
continued with Oleg of Riazan, who ravaged the territory of
Kolomna. Saint Sergius again intervened, entreated and threat-
ened Oleg, and finally induced him to conclude a "perpetual
peace " with Dmitri, and to cement it by the marriage of his
son Feodor with Sophia, daughter of Dmitri.
The Novgorod adventurer's, the " Good Companions,'' hfyi
about this time committed many ravages on the territories of
the Grand Principalities. They insulted laroslavl and Kos-
troma in 1371, and Kostroma and Nijni-Novgorod in 1375. pil-
laging as far as Sarai and Astrakhan, sparing neither infidels
nor Christians. Novgorod continued to furnish appanages to
the Lithuanian princes, to despise the political authority of the
Grand Prince, and the religious supremacy of the Metropolitan.
Dmitri marched against the republic with the contingents of
twenty-five provinces. Novgorod had to pay an indemnity for
the glorious deeds of the Good Companions, and to engage to
furnish a vearlv tribute.
When i)mitri died, the principality of Moscow was by far the
most considerable of the States of 'the North-east, since it ex-
tended on the south to Kalouga and Kasimof, and included on
the north-east Bie'lozersk and Galitch. As to Vladimir, Dmitri,
in his will, calls it his patrimony. He has been reproached for
having limited himself to the sack of Tver and Riazan, without
hastening their final annexation. If Dmitri gave appanages to
rr/STOfr-i- of a'Ussfa. i^-j
his five younger sons, he at least established the principle of in>
heritance in a direct line instead of the ancient principle of col-
lateral succession. He had signed a treaty with his cousin
Vladimir, by which the latter renounced his rights as " eldest ol
the family," engaging to consider Vassili, eldest son of Dmitri,
as his " elder brother." In the reijrn of Donskoi the monk
Stephen founded the first churcli in the country of the Permians,
confuted tlieir priests and sorcerers, overthrew the idols of
Volssel and the Old Golden Woman who held two infants in her
arms, put a stop to the sacrifice of reindeer, built schools, and
died Bishop of Permia, A certain Andrew, probably a Genoese
by birth, settled on the Petchora. Russia entered into relations
with the West by means of the Genoese of Kaffa and Azof ; coins
of silver and copper, with the image of a knight, replaced the
konnes, or marten-skins. About 1389 the first cannons appeared
in the Russian army. Moscow continued to adorn herself, and
the monasteries of the Miracle, of Andronii, and of Simeon were
built.
VASSILI DMITRIEVITCH AND VASSILI THE BLIND (1389-I465).
Vassili Dmitrievitch (1389-1425), the contemporary of Charles
VI. of France, succeeded his father without opposition as
Grand Prince of Moscow and Vladimir, The preponderance
of the first of these towns over the second became more and
more marked. The situation of both was equally advantageous ;
the one on the Moskowa, the other on the Kliazma, aftiuents
of the Oka. Vladimir, like Moscow, had its kremlin on a high
hill, commanding a vast extent of country. Both cities were in
communication with the great Russian artery, the Volga ; but
were far enough from it to escape the piracies of the Good (Com-
panions. Vladimir had been in other respects as favored as
Moscow. Andrew Boglioubski had ornamented the former, as
Ivan Kalita had embellished the second. Vladimir, to which
the title of Grand Principality was attached, seemed even
better fitted than Moscow to be the capital of Russia. It was
almost an historical accident that decided in favor of the latter.
At the present day Vladimir is merely a simple seat of govern-
ment with a population of 14,000, while Moscow is a metropolis
with 600,000 souls.
With regard to Novgorod, the Grand Prince of Moscow be-
gan to look upon it from the point of view of a sovereign, and
called the city " his patrimony." The Novgorodians on their side
appealed to the charter of laroslaf the Great, which formally con-
»S4
HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
ceded them the right to choose their princes. In the last reigns
they had been accustomed to have recourse to a bargain. The
republicans recognized the sovereign of Moscow as their prince,
if the latter would consent to certain conditions, — the final hom-
age rendered to the ancient Slav freedom. After the fall of
Alexander of Tver (1328), no Russian prince could compete with
the house of Moscow for the throne of Novgorod. The only
possible rivals were the Grand Princes of Lithuania. Now with
Lithuania it was not only a competition of candidates, but it was
a great national and religious question. Moscow would prefer
to ruin Novgorod rather than allow her to pass into the hands
of the most dangerous enemy of Russian orthodoxy. We may
say that after 1328 Novgorod had no longer a special prince,
but only a boyard of Moscow, who represented the Grand Prince.
The power of the latter was sometimes exerted with vigor. In
1393 Novgorod having revolted against INIoscow, Vassili sent in
his troops, and seventy inhabitants of Torjok, accused of having
put to death one of his men, were cut to pieces.
Vassili Dmitrievitch then, on his accession to the throne,
found his power considerably strengthened, as Vladimir on the
Kliazma and Novgorod the Great, the objects of so many bloody
contests with the Russian princes, had in some ways already
become integral parts of his dominions. If he went to the Horde
in 1392, it was less to obtain the confirmation of this triple crown
than to acquire new territories. From the Khan Tokhtamych he
bought a iarlikh, which put him in possession of the three appan-
ages of Mourom, Nijni-Novgorod, and Souzdal. The boyards
of Moscow and the ambassador of the Khan betook themselves
to Nijni. Boris, the last titular prince of the two latter appa-
nages, was betrayed by his men, who persuaded him to open the
gates, and delivered him up to the soldiers of the Grand Prince.
Then, with the ringing of all the bells in the town, Vassili of
Moscow was proclaimed Prince of Nijni and Souzdal.
This prince, who lived on such good terms with the Horde,
was witness, however, of two Tatar invasions of Russia. Tamer-
lane, conqueror of the Ottoman Turks at Anticyra, attacked his
old favorite Tokhtamych, and pillaged the Golden Horde. He
continued to move towards the West, putting the Russian ter-
ritory to fire and sword. Moscow was threatened with an inva-
sion as terrible as that of Bati. The famous Virgin of Vladimir,
brought by Andrew Bogolioubski from Vychegorod, was taken
solemnly to Moscow. The Tatars reached Kletz on the Don,
and made its princes prisoners. There they stopped, and sud-
denly retreated. Accustomed to the rich booty of Bokhara and
Hindostan, and dreaming of Constantinople and Egypt, they
ffIS7-0RY OF Ki'SS/A.
»55
found, no doubt, that the desert steppes and deep forests only
offered a very meagre prey. They indemnified themselves by
the pillage of Azof, where Egyptian, Venetian, Genoese, Catalan
and Biscayan merchants had accumulated great wealth, and
by the destruction of Astrakhan and Sarai (1395.)
The irruption of Tamerlane resulted in the more rapid dis-
solution of the Golden Horde. We have seen that Viiovt took
advantage of it to organize against the Mongols his great crusade
of the Vorskla (1399). Vassili Dmitrievitch had taken good care
not to interfere in the war between Lithuania and the Kiptchaks.
His Western neighbors appeared to him more dangerous than
those of the East ; with the latter the payment of the tribute
still sufficed, with the former the stake was the existence of
Russia. Vassili profited by the defeat of the one and the dis-
organization of the other, and was careful to irritate neither party.
As the Horde was then disputed by many competitors, he for-
bore to pay the tribute, affecting not to know which was the legi-
timate Khan. Ediger, the vanquisher of Vitovt, resolved to
reduce the Russian vassals to obedience. He lulled the pru-
dence of the Muscovites to rest by spreading the rumor that he
was assembling troops for a war against Lithuania. Suddenly
they heard that he had entered the Grand Principality. Vassili
imitated the conduct of his father in similar'circumstances. He
retired to Kostroma to assemble an army, and confided the
defence of Moscow to Vladimir the Brave. Defended by artil-
lery, the Kremlin could withstand the attack of a large force,
but the dense population caused fears of famine. Ediger burnt
the towns in the flat country while blockading Moscow. Ivan,
prince of Tver, showed on this occasion more greatness of soul
and political wisdom than his father Alichael. He abstained
from coming to the help of the Tatars against his formidable
suzerain. In these circumstances Ediger learnt that his master
Boulat himself feared an attack at the Horde by his Oriental
enemies. To cover his forced retreat he addressed a haughty
letter to the Grand Prince, summoning him to pay tribute ; he
obtained three thousand roubles from the Muscovite boyards as
a war indemnity (1408).
Vitovt of Lithuania, whose daughter Sophia Vassili had mar-
ried, was a still more dangerous eliemy. Great caution was
necessary in all dealings with him. Vassili saw the hand of his
father-in-law, in the troubles of Novgorod, everywhere ; at Pskof,
where Vitovt had taken the title of Grand Prince ; at Smolensk,
which he had united to Lithuania ; at Tver, where he supported
Michael against the Grand Prince. Like Olgerd, Vitovt marched
thrice against Moscow. Each of the two rivals had too many
156 HISTOR Y OF RUSSIA.
other enemies to dispose of, to risk in one battle the fortunes of
Moscow or Lithuania. In 1408 they signed a treaty by which
the Ougra was fixed on as the limit of the two Grand Princi-
palities, leaving Smolensk to Vitovt, and restoring Kozelsk to
Russia. Besides Mourom and Souzdal, Vassili had united to
his domains many appanages of the country of Tchernigof, such
as Toroussa, Novossil, Kozelsk, and Peremysl. In the quarrels
with Novgorod, generally occasioned by the exploits of the Good
Companions or by commercial rivalr)^, he had appropriated vasi
territories on the Dwina ; among others, Vologda. In an exped
ition against the republic of Viatka he had reduced it to sub
mission, and made one of his brothers its prince. He had
imposed a treaty on Feodor Olgivitch, prince of Riazan, by
which the latter undertook to look on him as a father, and tc
make no alliance to his hurt. Vassili on his side ceded to him
Toula and the title of Grand Prmce. The Oka formed the
boundary of the two States. He made, no doubt, a similar
treaty with Ivan, prince of Tver. One of his daughters had
married the Emperor John Palasologus.
The reign of Vassili the Blind (1425-1462), contemporary
with Charles VII. of France, marks a pause in the development
of the Grand Principality. A civil war of twenty years broke
out in the bosom of the family of Doiiskoi. One of his sons,
George, or louri, whom he had made Prince of Roussa and
Zvenigorod, attempted to revert to the ancient national law, and
invoked his right as " eldest " against his nephew, Vassili Vas-
silidvitch. Vassili's other uncles declared in favor of the young
prince. In 1 431 it was necessary to carry the dispute to the
Horde. Each of the two parties set forth his right to the Khan
Oulou-Makhmet. Vsevolojski, a boyard of the Prince of Mos-
cow, found the best of arguments for his master. " \l\ Lord
Tzar," he said to Makhmet, " let me speak — me, the slave of
the Grand Prince. My master the Grand Prince prays for the
throne of the Grand Principality, which is thy property, having
no other title but thy protection, thy investiture, and thy iarlikh.
Thou art master, and can dispose of it according to thy good
pleasure. My lord the Prince louri Dmitrie'vitch, his 'uncle,
claims the Grand Principality by the act and the will of his
father, but not as a favor from the All-powerful." In this con-
test of baseness the prize was adjudged to the Prince of Moscow,
The Khan ordered louri to lead his nephew's horse by the
bridle. A Tatar baskak was present at the coronation of the
Grand Prince, which took place, for the first time, not at Vladi-
mir, but at the Assumption in Moscow. From this time Vladi-
mir lost her privileges as the capital, although, in the enumeration
mSTOK Y OF R USSIA. 1 5 7.
of their titles, the Grand Prhices continued to inscribe the name
of Vladimir before that of Moscow.
VassiH owed his throne to the clever boyard, Vsevolojski.
He had promised to marry his daughter, but his own mother,
Sophia, the proud Lithuanian, daughter of the great Vitovt,
made him contract an alliance with the Princess Maria, grand-
daughter of Vladimir the Brave. The irritated bovard left Vas-
sill's service, and retired to his enemy, louri, whose resentment
against his nephew he fanned. Another circumstance exasper-
ated louri ; his two sons, Vassili the Squinting, and Chemiaka,
assisted at the marriage of the Grand Prince. The Princess
Sophia recognized round the waist of Vassili the Squinting a
belt of gold which had belonged to Dmitri Donskoi'. She had
the imprudence, publicly and with open scandal, to take it from
the son of louri. On this affront, the two princes at once left
the banqueting-hall, and retired to their father. The latter in-
stantly took up arms, and departed for Pereiaslavl. The Prince
of Moscow could hardly assemble any troops, and fell into the
hands of his uncle at Kostroma, (1433). Vassili tried in vain to
soften him by his tears. The Squinter and Chemiaka wished
their prisoner to be put to death, but by the sel.' Interested counsel
of the boyard Morozof, louri allowed his nephew to live, and
gave him the appanage of Kostroma, while he took for himself
the Grand Principality. The affection of the Muscovites for
their prince was so great, that they abandoned their city en masse,
and crowded into Kostroma, louri saw that his nephew was
still powerful, reproached Morozof for his perfidious advice, and
had him stabbed by his two sons. " Thou hast ruined our
father," they said. The usurper was indeed unable to remain in
Moscow, and sent to tell his nephew he might come and take
possession of it. The boyards pressed around Vassili on his
return to his capital, "as bees press around their queen," The
war, however, continued : thanks to the cowardice of Vassili,
louri again took the Kremlin, and made prisoners the wife and
mother of the Grand Prince, while the Squinter and Chemiaka
occupied Vladimir, and marched on Nijni-Novgorod.
louri had hardly been recognized as Grand Prince of Nov-
gorod, when he died suddenlv. His sons then made peace with
Vassili, but immediately took up arms again. In one of the
many reverses of this civil war, Vassili the Squinting fell into
the hands of the Grand Prince, who had his eyes put out in an
excess of fury (1436). Then, by one of those changes com«
mon to violent and impulsive natures, he passed from anger to
dismay; and to atone for his crime against his cousin, set free
Chemiaka, whom he had made prisoner at the same time.
1^8 HIS TOR Y OF R USSIA.
Chemiaka promised to serve him, but served him very badly.
In a battle with the Tatars, his desertion caused the rout of the
Russian army (siege of Bielef, in Lithuania). In 1441 the wat
beo^an again between the Grand Prince and Chemiaka. The
latter, with some thousands of Free-lances and Good Companions,
suddenly undertook the siege of Moscow. Zenobius, superior
of the Troitsa monastery, succeeded once more in reconciling
them. Chemiaka displayed his ordinary duplicity on the occa-
sion of a military incursion of the Tatars of Kazan. The Grand
Prince waited in vain for the succors that had been promised
him, and it was with only 1500 men that he finally took the field,
so much had the discords between the descendants of Dmitri
Donskoi weakened the Grand Principality, loosened the ties of
obedience among the vassals, and degraded that Russia which
had armed 150,000 men against Mamai. Vassili, covered with
fifteen wounds, fell into the hands of the barbarians, and was
led prisoner to Kazan.
Moscow was in despair. The Prince of Tver inswlted her
territory ; Chemiaka intrigued at the Horde to get himself nom-
inated Grand Prince. All at once the Tzar of Kazan took it
into his head to liberate his prisoners for a small ransom.
Vassili re-entered his capital amid the acclamations of his
people. Chemiaka had done enough to fear the vengeance of
the Grand Prince ; in the interests of his own safety, Vassili
must be overthrown. Following the example of his father and
grandfather, Vassili went to the Troitsa monastery to return
thanks to Saint Sergius for his deliverance. He had few com-
panions and Chemiaka and his associates surprised the Kremlin
in his absence, and captured his wife, his mother, and his treas-
ures. Then he flew to Troitsa, w'here his accomplice, Ivan of
Mojaisk, discovered the Grand Prince, who was hidden in the
principal church near the tomb of Saint Sergius. He was
brought back to Moscow, and ten years after the blinding of
Vassili the Squinting. Chemiaka avenged his brother by putting
out the eyes of the Grand Prince (1446).
During his short reign at Moscow, Chemiaka had made him-
self hated by the people and the boyards, who were faithful at
bottom to their unhappy prince. In the pojDular language, a
"judgment of Chemiaka " became the synonym for a crying
wrong. Presently Vassili's partisans assembled troops in
Lithuania, joined those of the two Tatar tzarrritcJics, and
marched against the usurper. At this period, Russia was in-
fested by armed bands, the relics of the great Tatar and
Lithuanian wars, Lithuanian adventurers, tzarfviiclies banished
from the Horde, Novgorodian Good Companions, Free-lances
IirSTOR Y OF RUSSIA. I ^g
of all races. They ravaged the flat country, attacked ihe
strongest towns, and tlieir chiefs sometimes created ephemeral
principaliiies for themselves. As the Asiatic element predom-
inated in them, they might be termed Great Mongol Co?i!panies,
analogous to the Great English or tlie French Companies that,
about the year 1444, Charles VII. sent to Alsace and Switzer-
• land. Serving Chemiaka or the Grand Prince indifferently, they
did their best to perpetuate the quarrel. Chemiaka wished to
march against his enemies. Hardly had he left Moscow when
the city broke into revolt, and Vassili entered in triumph.
Chemiaka fled, and accepted a reconciliation with his victim
(1447). Incapable of repose, he again took up arms, was com-
pletely defeated near Galitch by the Muscovites and Tatars
(1450), and fled to Novgorod, where he is said to have died
three years after, by poison. All his appanages were reunited
to the royal domain.
Disembarrassed of this dangerous enemy, Vassili the Blind
hastened to take up the work of his predecessors. Novgorod
had not ceased to give asylum to his enemies, to des])ise the
authority of his lieutenants, to contest his right of final appeal
and the supremacy of the Metropolitan. A 5luscovite army re-
duced her to reason ; she was forced to annul all the acts of the
vetch? which tended to limit the authority of the Grand Prince,
to pay him a heavy indemnity, and to promise to set no seal but
that of Vassili on her deeds. Pskof received one of his sons as
her prince. The republic of Viatka had to pay tribute, and to
furnish a military contingent. The Prince of Riazan having just
died, Vassili took his young heir to Moscow, under pretence of
bringing him up, and sent his lieutenant to govern the appan-
age. Vassili of Borovsk, grandson of Vladimir the Brave, had
rendered him important services, but none the less was he im-
prisoned, and his possessions swallowed up in the Grand Prin-
cipality. The authority of the Grand Prince began to be ex-
ercised on his subordinates with new rigor ; and the rebels, real
or supposed, were subjected to the knout, tortures, mutilations,
and refined cruelties. Vassili, who had suffered so much from
the appanaged princes louri and Chemiaka — who was so ener-
getic in destroying the appanages around him — could not free
himself from the yoke of custom, and began to dismember the
principality which he had aggrandized, in favor of his four
younger sons. However, to avoid all contests about the title of
Grand Prince, and to ensure the succession of the direct line,
he had, since the year 1449, associated with himself his eldest
son, Ivan.
Memorable events had agitated the orthodox world during
1 6 o ffIS TOR Y OF R USSIA.
his reign. In 1439, Pope Eugenius IV. assembled the Council
of Florence to discuss the union of the two Churches. The
Greek Emperor, John Palaeologus, who hoped to obtain the help
of the Pope against the Ottomans, had sent the bishops of
his communion ; Isidore, Metropolitan of Moscow, was also
present. It was in vain that the Emperor of Constantinople,
three vicars of the Patriarchs of the East, seventeen met-
ropolitans, and a multitude of bishops signed the act of
union. The Greek world listened to the energetic protest of
Mark, the old bishop of Ephesus, and rejected the union with
Rome. Isidore announced at Kief and Moscow that he had
signed the act of reconciliation ; the appearance of the Latin
cross at the Assumption in the Kremlin, the name of Pope
Eugenius in the public prayers, and the reading of the formal
document, astonished the Russians. Vassili, who piqued him-
self on his theology, also raised his voice, began a polemic
against Isidore, and so overwhelmed him with insults, that the
"false shepherd" thought it prudent to fly to Rome. This
check to the union heralded the fall of the Greek empire. In
1453, Mahomet II. entered Constantinople. There was no
longer a Christian Tzar ; Moscow became the great metropolis
of orthodoxy. She was heir of Constantinople. Soon the
monks, the artists, the literary men of Constantinople were to
bring to her, as to the rest of Europe, the Renaissance.
JfJSTOA' 1 ' O/'- KC/SS/A. 1 I
CHAPTER XIII.
IVAN THE GREAT, THE UNITER OF THE RUSSIAN LAND
(1462-1505).
Submission of Novgorod — Annexation of Tver, Rostof, and laroslavl — Wars
with the Great Horde and Kazan — End of the Tatar yoke — Wars with
Lithuania — Western Russia as far as tlie Soja reconquered — Marriage with
Sophia Palaeologus — Greeks and Italians at the Court of Moscow.
SUBMISSION OF NOVGOROD — ANNEXATION OF THE PRINCIPALITIES
OF TVER, ROSTOF, AND lAROSLAVL.
At the death of Vassili tlie Blind, Russia was all but stifled
between the great Lithuanian empire and the vast possessions
of the Mongols. To the north, she had two restless neighbors,
the Livonian Order and Sweden. In spite of the labors of eight
Muscovite princes, the little Russian State could not yet make
its unity a fact ; Riazan and Tver, though weakened, still ex-
isted. Novgorod and Pskof hesitated between the Grand
Princes of Moscow and Lithuania. The heirs of Kalitn, by
creating new appanages, incessantly destroyed the unity after
which they toiled, by means of a pitiless policy. Muscovy,
which touches on no sea, had only intermittent relations with
the centres of European civilization. It was, however, the lime
when the nations of the West beoan to be organized. Charles
V'll. and Louis XI, in France, Ferdinand and Isabella in Spain,
the Tudors in England, Frederic III. and Maximilian in Austria,
labored to build up powerful States from the ruins of feudal
anarchy. European civilization made unheard-of strides ; the
Renaissance began, printing spread, Christopher Columbus and
Vasco da Gama discovered new worlds. Was not Russia also
going to achieve her unity, to take jiart in the great European
movement ? The man who was tn restore her to herself, to free
her from the Mongol yoke, to put her into relations with the
West, — this man was expected. It had all been predicted.
When a son named Ivan was born in 1440 to Vassili the Blind,
an old rnonk had a revelation about it in Novgorod the Great.
1 62 HIS TOR V OF A' USSIA.
He came and said to his archbishop : " Truly it is to-day that
the Grand Prince triumphs ; God has given him an heir ; I be-
hold this child making himself illustrious by glorious deeds.
He will subdue princes and peoples. But woe to Novgorod !
Novgorod will fall at his feet, and never rise up again."
Ivan III., whose reign of forty-three years was to permit him
to realize the expectations of Russia, was a cold, imperious, cal-
culating prince, the very type of the Souzdalian and Muscovite
princes. Disliking war, he allowed doubts to be thrown upon
his courage. He was victorious in Lithuania, in Livonia and
Siberia, almost without leaving the Kiemlin. His father had
taken long journeys, which led him into many sad adventures,
but Stephen of Moldavia said of Ivan : " Ivan is a strange man ;
he stays quietly at home and triumphs over his enemies, while
I, though always on horseback, cannot defend my country."
It was the verdict of Edward HI. on Charles V. Ivan ex-
hausted his enemies by negotiations and delay, and never em-
ployed force till it was absolutely necessary. His devotion was
mixed with hypocrisy. He wept for his relatives whom he put
to death, as Louis XL bewailed the Due de Guienne. Born a
desjDot, " he had," says Karamsin, "penetrated the secret of au-
tocracy, and became a formidable deity in the eyes of the Rus-
sians." His glance caused women to faint. When he slept
after his meals, it was wonderful to see the frightened respect of
the boyards for the sleep of the master. He inflicted cruel pun-
ishments and tortures on all rebels, even on those of the highest
rank ; he mutilated the counsellors of his son, whipped Prince
Oukhtomski and the archimandrite of a powerful monastery,
and burned alive two Poles in an iron cage on the Moskowa, for
having conspired against him. He had already won the sur-
name of "Terrible," which his grandson was to bear even more
justly.
Ivan's first effort was directed against Novgorod the Great.
The republic of the Ilmen was dying in the anarchy of the aris-
tocracy, the dissensions of the people, the Church, and especially
of the boyards. It is of this epoch that M. Bielaef has said,
that "parties in Novgorod had become so complicated, that
often il is difficult to perceive from what motive this or that fac-
tion excited troubles and revolts." They thought themselves
able to despise the authority of a new prince, and had the im-
prudence to neglect the complaints and suggestions made in a
tolerably moderate tone by Ivan HI. He then signified to the
Pskovians that they would have to second him in an ex]")edition
against the rebels. This the Pskovians did not wish to do, fore-
seeing that the fall of Novgorod would drag them down als;«
HIS TO K Y OF K USSIA. i G 3
They offered their mediation to their "elder sister" — it was
rejected, and they were obliged to proceed. Ivan III. often
received, however, the Archbishop of Novgorod, Theophilus, in
his palace at Moscow, and continued to negotiate, lie had a
large parly in Novgorod, but the opposing faction was the bolder.
Marfa, the widow of the possadnik Boretski, mother of two
grown-up sons, put herself at the head of the anti-Muscovite
party. Ready and eloquent speech, immense wealth, an auda-
city etjual to everything, had given her a great influence with
the people and the boyards. This intrepid woman was the last
incarnation of Novgorodian liberty. To save the republic, Marfa
wished to throw it into the arms of the King of Poland, Casimir
IV. She contended also that the Archbishop of Novgorod
should be nominated by the Metropolitan of Kief, not by the
Metropolitan of Moscow. In her devotion to Novgorod, she
thus betrayed the cause of Russia and orthodoxy. The sittings
of the vetc/ie, amid the opposition of the two parties, degenerated
into violent tumults. Some cried, "The king;" others, "Long
live orthodox Moscow! long live the Grand Prince Ivan and
our father the Metropolitan Philip!" The friends of Marfa
finally won the day. Novgorod handed herself over to the King
of Poland by a formal act in which she stipulated for the same
rights as she iiad enjoyed under her ancient princes. Ivan III.
tried once more to recall the citizens to obedience, and he sent
them an ambassador, but the party of Marfa was always the
more numerous or the more noisy. At last Ivan decided to
begin the war. His voievodes made the conquest of the terri-
tory of the Dwina; the Muscovites, supported by the Tatar cav-
alrv, cruelly ravaged the territory of the *' perfidious " Novgoro-
dians ; after the battle of Korostyne, they cut off the noses and
lips of the prisoners. The republicans had fallen from their an-
cient valor ; Marfa had hastily enrolled ill-disciplined artisans.
At the battle of the Chelona, 5000 Muscovites defeated 30,000
Novgorodians. At Roussa the Grand Prince caused manv bov-
ards to be beheaded, one of whom was a son of Marfa, and sent
others as prisoners into Muscovy. Ivan III. always advanced,
fighting and negotiating. Novgorod submitted, paid a war in-
demnity, and, if she still remained a republic, she was a republic
dependent on the good pleasure of the Prince (1470).
From that time Ivan labored entirely to reduce the town,
and his party in Novgorod increased. If the people complained
of the injustice of his lieutenants, he blamed the insufficiency of
the ancient laws of the city. He tried to excite the animosity
of the lower classes against the boyards. It was by the invita
tion of the former that he came in 1475 ^° '^^^^ ^ solemn court
164 HISTOR Y OF RUSSIA.
in Novgorod. Great and small immediately crowded to his tri«
bunal, to beg for justice one against the other. Ivan saw how
much his own cause was strengthened by these divisions. An
act of authority that he tried, succeeded completely. Marfa's
second son, the possadnik, and many boyards were loaded
with chains, and sent to Moscow. No one dared to protest.
On his return to his capital, a multitude of complainants
hastened after him ; he forced them all to appear before him.
Since Rurik, say the annalists, such a violation of Novgorod's
liberty had never been known. Profiting by a documentary
error made by the envoys of the town, he declared himself sov-
ereign (goCj'oudar) of Novgorod, instead of lord (gospodine).
Now if this interpretation were accepted, the subjection of the
republic, which was only a matter of fact, would become a matter
of law. The party of Marfa made a last effort to reject this sov-
ereignty ; the friends of the Grand Prince were massacred. Ivan
declared that the Novgorodians, after having accorded him the
title oi gocoudar, had the effrontery to deny it. Then the Met-
ropolitan, the bishops, the boyards, all Moscow, advised him to
make war. Accordingly it was preached as a Holy War against
the allies of the Pope and Lithuania. All the forces of Russia
were put in motion, and many boyards of Novgorod appeared at
the camp of the Grand Prince. The city was blockaded, and
starved out. In vain the partisans of Marfa shouted the old
war-cry: "'Let us die for liberty and Saint Sophia!" They
were forced to capitulate. Ivan guaranteed to them their per-
sons and possessions, their ancient jurisdiction, and exemption
from the Muscovite service ; but the vetche and the possadnik
were abolished forever. The belfry was reduced to silence.
The Republic of Novgorod had ceased to exist (1478).
Marfa and the principal oligarchs were transported to Moscow,
and their goods confiscated. Many times afterwards, there were
party agitations, which were quelled by Ivan III. and his suc-
cessor, by numerous transportations. In 1481 some boyards
were tortured and put to death. Eight thousand Novgorodians
were transplanted to the towns of Souzdal. Ivan III. struck
another terrible blow at the prosperity of the city when, in 1495,
after a quarrel with the people of Revel, he caused the merchants
of forty-nine Hanseatic towns to be arrested at Novgorod,
pillaged the " German market," and removed wares to the value
of ;^4o,ooo to Moscow. The covetous Grand Prince doubtless
did not see he was killing the hen with the golden eggs. A long
while elapsed before the merchants of the West again made
their appearance in Novgorod. Pskof, more docile, had preserved
Jjer vetch^ and her ancient institutions.
rrsrORV OF RUSSIA.
1C5
Whilst he was destroying the liberty of Novgorod, Ivan de-
prived her of her colonies, and undertook on his own account the
conquest of Northern Russia, By this time Muscovy extended
as far as Finland, the While Sea and the Icy Ocean, and had
already obtained a footing in Asia. Ivan had conquered Permia
in 1472, by which means he became master of the " silver beyond
the Kama," which the Novgorodians had hitherto got in the
course of trade. In 1489, Viatka, which had fallen for a short
time into the power of the Tatars of Kazan, was reconquered,
and lost her republican organization. In 1499 the voievodes of
Oustiougue, of the Dwina and of Viatka, advanced as far as the
Petchora, and built a fortress on the banks of the river. In the
depth of winter, in sledges drawn by dogs, they passed the defiles
of the Ourals, in the teeth of the wind and snow, slew 50 of the
Samoyedes, and captured 200 reindeer ; invaded the territory of
the Vogoulsand Ougrians, the Finnish brethren of the Magyars;
took 40 enclosures of palisades, made 50 princes prisoners, and
returned to Moscow, after having reduced this unknown country,
supposed by the geographers of antiquity to be the home of so
many wonders and monsters. Russia, like the maritime nations
of the West, had discovered a new world.
The cultivated provinces of Central Russia were more im-
portant than the deserts of the North. Here there were no im-
mense territories to be conquered, but only the territories of the
smaller appanaged princes to be grafted on to the already united
mass. Ivan III. might have dethroned the young Prince of
Riazan, whom his father had brought to Moscow, but he preferred
to give him the hand of his sister, Anne Vassilievna, and send
him back to his territories (1464). The absorption of the prin-
cipalities of Riazan and Novgorod-Severski was reserved for his
successor. He showed the same moderation about Tver, but in
1482 Prince Michael, who had only maintained his position on
sufferance, had the imprudence to ally himself with Lithuania.
Ivan hailed this pretext with joy, and marched in ])erson against
Tver, accompanied by the celebrated Aristotele Fioraventi of
Bologna, grand master of his artillery. Michael took to flight;
and Ivan began to organize his new subjects. A principality
which could furnish 40,000 soldiers was united to Moscow without
a blow. In like manner he obtained possession of Vereia and
of Bie'lozersk, and deprived the princes of Rostof and laroslavl
of their ancient rights of sovereignty.
His father, by giving appanages to his brothers, had prepared
for him a new and ungrateful task, but Ivan undertook it without
Scruple. When his brother louri died, he wept much for him,
but at once laid hands on his towns of Dmitrof, Mojaisk, and
1 66 HIS TOR Y OF F USSIA.
Serpoukhof, thereby causing his other brothers, who hoped to
share the spoil, great discontent (1468). Andrew was accused
of an understanding with Lithuania, and thrown into prison,
where he died (1493). The Grand Prince convoked the Metro-
politan and bishops to his palace, appeared before them with
downcast eyes, his face sorrowful and bathed in tears, humbly
accused himself of having been too cruel to his unhappy brother,
and submitted to their pastoral admonitions; but he confiscated
Andrew's appanage notwithstanding, and that of his brother Boris,
who died a short time after, thus reuniting all the domains of his
father. He acquired the surname of " Binder of the Russian
Land," a name which his eight predecessors equally merited. It
was owing to their earlier labors that Ivan was able to become
the greatest and most powerful of these " Binders." He avoided
their errors, and if later he gave appanages to his own children,
it was only on condition that they should remain subjects of their
eldest brother, and that they should neither have the right to
coin money nor to exercise a separate diplomacy.
A'ARS WITH THE GREAT HORDE AND KAZAN END OF THE TATAR
YOKE.
The empire of the Horde was at last dissolved. The principal ■
States which had risen from its debris were the Tazarate of Kazan,
that of Sarai or Astrakhan, the Horde of the Nogais, and the
Khanate of the Crimea. Kazan and the Crimea particularly
presented strange ethnographical amalgamations. The Tzarate
of Kazan had been founded in the reign of Vassili the Blind on
the ruins of the ancient Bulgaria on the Volga, formerly so
flourishing and civilized, by a banished prince of the Horde. It
was the same Makhmet who had tried to establish himself at
Belef, and had defeated Chemiaka. The Mongols had mixed
with the ancient Bulgars, and reconstituted an important centre
of commerce and civilization. The rule of the Tzarate extended
over the Finnish tribes of the Mordvians, the Tchouvaches, and
the Tcheremisses, as well as the Bachkirs and Metcheraks. The
Khanate of the Crimea had been founded almost at the same
date, by a descendant of Genghis Khan, named Azi. A peasant
named Ghirei having saved him from death, Azi added his bene-
factor's name to his own, and henceforward the title belonged to
all the khans of the Crimea. The Mongols, on arriving at the
peninsula, found it occupied by the remains of the ancient Tauric,
Hellenic, and Gothic races ; by Armenians, Jews, and Jewish
Kharaites, who pretended to have settled B.C. 500 on the rocks
j^rsTOR Y OF A USSIA . 167
and in the Troglodyte cities of Tchoufout-Kale and Mangoup-
Kale, and finally by the Genoese of Kaffa. The Jews and
Italians excepted, a large part of the ancient population was
absorbed by the Asiatic invaders. Thus while the Tatars of the
steppes of the Northern Crimea are pure Mongols, those of
the mountains of the south seem to be chiefly Taurians, Goths,
and Islamized Greeks. As to the great Horde of Sarai, that
was almost entirely composed of nomads, such as the Nogais
and other Turco-'l'atar races.
Anarchy and rivalry reigned in the heart of each of these
States. The prmces of Kazan, Sarai, and the Crimea came to
seek an asylum from the Grand Prince, who made use of them to
perpetuate these divisions. In 1473 Ivan constituted the town
of Novgorod of Riazan into a fief for one Mustafa ; others served
in the armies, and aided Ivan against Novgorod and Lithuania.
Towards the khans and the tzars, especially those of the Great
Horde or Sarai', the sovereign of Moscow held himself on the
deiensive, repelling the attacks of adventurers, but taking care
not to provoke them ; avoiding the payment of the tribute, but
disposed to send t-Kem presents. At the same time he schemed
for alliances against :be Khan of Sarai, and despatched to the
Turkoman Oussoum-Hassan, master of Persia and enemy of the
Mongols, his Italian ambassador, M.irco RulTo (1477). A more
solid friendship united him with Mengli-Cihirei, Khan of the
Crimea, and lasted all their lives. Mengli was as serviceable to
him aijainst Lithuania as against the Horde.
In 1478, having carefully taken all his measures, he openly
rebelled. When the Khan Akhmet sent his ambassadors with
his image to receive the tribute, Ivan HI. trampled the image
of the Khan under his feet, and put all the envoys to death, ex-
cepting one, who conveyed the news to the Horde. This act,
so very little in accordance with the well-known prudence of
Ivan, is not to be found in all the chronicles. When Akhmet
took the field, Ivan occupied a strong position on the Oka, with
a more numerous and better-organized army than that of Dmitri
Donskoi. His 150,000 men and powerful artillery did not, how-
ever, prevent him from reflecting much on thr: hazard of battles.
He even returned to reflect at Moscow, and it needed all the
clamors of the people to induce him to leave it. "\\'hat ! " ex-
claimed the Muscovites, " he has overtaxed us, and refused to
pay tribute to the Horde, and now that he has irritated the
Khan, he declines to fight ! " Ivan wished to consult his mother,
his bovards, and his bishops. " March bravely against the
enemy,'" was the unanimous reply. '• Is it the part of mortals
to fear death t " said old Archbishop Vassiiin, " We cannot
1 68 HISTOR V OF A' USS/A.
escape destiny." Ivan desired, at least, to send his young son
Ivan back to Moscow, but the prince heroically disobeyed.
The Grand Prince finally decided to return to the army, blessed
by his mother and the Metropolitan, who promised him the
victory as to a David or to a Constantine, reminding him that
"a good shepherd will lay down his life for his sheep," Ivan,
who did not feel himself made of the stuff of a Constantine, kept
his army immovable on the Oka and the Ougra ; the two forces
contenting themselves with sending arrows and insults across
the river. Ivan closed his ears to the warlike counsel of his
boyards, and rather listened to the prudent advice of his two
favorites — " fat and powerful lords," says the chronicle. How-
ever, he refused the proposition of the Khan, who offered to
pardon him if he would either come himself or send one of his
men to kiss his stirrup. At last monks and white-haired bishops
lost all patience. Vassian addressed a bellicose letter to the
Grand Prince, invoking the memories of Igor, Sviatoslaf, of
Vladimir Monomachus, and Dmitri Donskoi. Ivan assured him
that this letter " filled his heart with joy, courage, and strength ;
but another fortnight passed in inaction. On the fifteenth day
the rivers were covered with ice ; the Grand Prince gave the
order to retreat. An inexplicable panic seized the two armies
— Russians and Tatars both fled, when no man pursued. The
Khan never stopped till he reached the Horde (1480). Such
was the last invasion of the horsemen of the Kiptchak. It was
in this unheroic way that Russia broke at last the Mongol yoke
under which she had groaned for three centuries. Like Louis
XL, Ivan HI. had his battle of Montlhe'ry ; but if he fought less,
he gained far more. The Horde, attacked by the Khans of the
Crimea, survived its decay but a short time. Akhmet was put
to death by one of his own men.
Hostility increased between Kazan and Moscow. In 1467
and 1469 Ivan HI. had organized two expeditions against Bul-
garia. In 1487, seven 3'ears after having shaken oiT the suprem-
acy of the Great Horde, the Muscovite vo'ievodes marched
against the same Kazan, where the father of their Grand Prince
had been held a captive. After a siege of seven weeks the citv
was taken, and the sovereign Alegam made prisoner. A tzar of
Kazan was then seen a prisoner in Moscow ! Ivan IH. added
the title of Prince of Bulgaria to those he already bore ; but
feeling that the Mussulman city was not yet ripe for annexation,
he gave the crown to a nephew of his friend the Khan of the
Crimea. The people were foiced to take the oath of fidelity to
him. The conquest of the land of Arsk, in Bulgaria itself, and
the establishment of a Russian garrison in the fortress, allowed
iTf^ TOR Y OF R USSTA. I 6q
him to watch from close by all that passed in Kazan. The Khan
of the Crimea did not care to protest against the captivity of
the Tzar Alegam, his nephew's enemy, but the princes of liie
Chiban and the Noga'is, who were related to him, and who be-
held Islamism humiliated in his person, despatched an embassy
to the Grand Prince. The latter refused to release his prisoner,
but replied so graciously that the envoys could hardly be angry.
He sent to those zealous kinsmen clothes of Flanders, fishes'
teeth, and gerfalcons, and did not forget the wives of the viour-
zas, whom he called his sisters. At the same time, wishing to
make these Asiatics feel that times had changed, he took care
never personally to compromise himself with the Nogai envovs,
and only to communicate with them by means of treasurers,
secretaries, and other officers of the second rank.
WARS WITH LITHUANIA — WESTERN RUSSIA UP TO THE SOJA RE-
CONQUERED.
Lithuania and Poland united remained, after all, Ivan's
great enemy. This composite State plays the same part in
Russian history as the Burgundy of Philip the Good and Charles
the Bold in that of France. Made up in a great degree of Rus-
sian as well as of Polish and Lithuanian elements, it was many
times on the point of annihilating Russia, in the same way as
Burgundy, composed of French, Batavian, and German prov-
inces, had been on the point of annihilating the French nation.
Lithuania was incorporated with Poland in the same manner as
the States of Burgundy, unfortunately for France, were incor-
porated with Austria.
At the beginning of Ivan's reign the King Casimir IV. was
sovereign of tlie two united States, and neglected no means of
disquieting the Grand Prince. The latter, on his part, incited
his ally Mengli to invade the Lithuanian possessions ; and the
Crimean Tatars ]")illaged Kief and the Monastery of the Cata-
combs (1482). When, ten years after, Casimir died (1492),
leaving Poland to his eldest son Albert, and Lithuania to Alex-
ander, the second son, Ivan III. resolved to turn the division
to account. He had obtained the friendship of the Turkish
Sultan Bajazet II., of Matthias Corvinus, king of Hungarv, of
the active Stephen of Moldavia, the determined enemy of the
Lithuanians; but, above all, he counted on Mengli. Mengli had
held Lithuania in check while Ivan had got rid of the Mongols ;
now he was to play the same part with the Horde, while the
Grand Prince settled old scores with Alexander, but without in-
terfering with the Tatar incursions in the Ukraine, The dis-
170
HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
covery at Moscow of a Polish plot against the life of the Grand
Prince spread rumors of war. In the same way that he had
been able to utilize the Mongol refugees against the Horde, he
found the Lithuanian princes and other great personages enter-
ing into relations with him. It was then that Belski, afterwards
50 famous, obtained a footing in Russia, that the Prince of Ma-
zovia sent an embassy to Ivan III., and the princes of Viazma,
Vorotinsk, Belef, and Mezetsk did him homage.
The war was popular in Moscow, for its object was to break
the yoke imposed by the Polish Catholics on the orthodox Rus-
sian people. In White Russia the Muscovites were to awake
old national and religious sympathies. " Lithuania," said the
ambassadors of Ivan III. to the plenipotentiaries of Alexander,
"Lithuania has profited by the misfortunes of Russia to take
our territory, but to-day things have changed." Peace was made
after a short war (1494). The frontier of Muscovy was carried
to the Desna, and comprehended the appanages of the princes
who had taken service with Ivan, with Mstislavl, Obolensk,
Kozelsk, Vorotinsk, Peremysl, &c.
The peace seemed to be cemented by the marriage of Alex-
ander with Helena, daughter of Ivan III. ; but, on the contrary,
this union proved the germ of a new war. The sovereign of
Moscow had stipulated that his daughter was under no circum-
stances to change her religion, that she was to have a Greek
chapel in the palace, and an orthodox almoner. Ivan himself
gave his daughter the most pressing injunctions never to appear
in the Catholic church, and gave her minute directions as to her
toilet, her table, her mode of travelling, and her way of con-
ducting herself towards her new subjects. At her departure he
bestowed on her a collection of various pious books. His policy
agreed with his conviction : it was necessarv that in Lithuania
orthodoxy should raise her lowered head, and reign with his
daughter. Soon afterwards, he complained that Helena was
forced to offend her conscience, that she was made to wear the
Polish costume, that her domestics and orthodox almoners were
dismissed, and their places filled with Catholics — that the Greek
religion was persecuted, that the assassination of the Metropoli-
tan of Kief had remained unpunished, and that he was to be
succeeded by a man devoted to the Pope. Lithuania, at the
beginning of the war, was further enfeebled by new defections.
The princes 'of Pielsk, of Mossalsk, of Khotatof, the boyards
of Mtsensk and of Serpeisk, and finally the princes of Tchtrni-
gof and Starodoub, of Rylsk and Novgo-od-Severski, declared
for the Grand Prince of Moscow. All the country between the
Desna and the Soja passed into the hands of the Russians, to*
.f /STORY OF KUSS/A.
T71
gether with Briansk, Poutivle, and Dorogbouge. They hail only
to show themselves to conquer. Alexander could not abandon
the conquests of Olgerd, Vitovt, and Gedimin without striking a
blow, but his army was cut to pieces at the battle of Vedroclia.
Constantine Ostrojski, his voievode, fell into the hands of tiie
Muscovites, who tried to gain him over to their cause. The
Lithuanians, however, kept the sirongiiolds of Vitepsk, Poloisk,
Orcha and Smolensk.
This prolonged struggle between Alexander and Ivan III.
had set all Eastern Europe in a blaze. Alexander had made
an alliance with the Livonian Order and the Great Horde.
The Khan of the Crimea pitilessly devastated Gallicia and
Volhynia. The Russian troops again defeated the Lithuanians
near Mstislavl, but were forced to raise the siege of Smo-
lensk. In the north, the Grand Prince of Moscow had
stopped the Germans of Livonia from building the fortress of
Ivangorod opposite Narva, and had seized the Hanseatic wares
at Novgorod. The Grand Master, Hermann of Plettenberg, re-
sponded with joy to the appeal of the Litinianians ; and at the
battle of Siritsa, near Izborsk, his formidable German artillery
crushed an army of 40,000 Russians (1501). The latter took
their revenue the followins: vear on the iron men near Pskof.
Schig-Akhmet, Kalm of the Great Horde, wished to make a
diversion, but the Khan of the Crimea attacked him with fury,
and in 1502 so completely extinguished his rule, that the ruins
of Sarai. the capital of Bati, where the Russian princes had
grovelled before the khans, were henceforward a home of
serpents.
Alexander had just been elected King of Poland, and wished
to finish this ruinous war. The celebrated Pope, Alexander
VI., and the King of Hungary tried to mediate between the bel-
ligerent powers. As, however, neither of the two parties would
abate any of their pretensions, a truce of six years only could
be agreed on, during which time the Soja was to be the boun-
dary, and the territories and towns of the princes who had gone
over to Russia were to be abandoned to her (1503). What
shows the good faith of Ivan III. is that, after the truce was
signed, he obtained the promise from the Khan of the Crimea
to continue his attacks against Lithuania.
MARRIAGE WITH SOPHIA PAL.EOLOGUS (1472) THE GREEKS
AND ITALIANS AT THE COURT OF iMOSCOW.
The acquisition of the Novgorodian possessions and the ap-
panages, the capture of Kazan, the fall of the Horde, and the
1 7 2 HIS TOR Y OF RUS ^14.
conquest of Lithuania up to the Soja, had doubled the extent of
the Grand Principality, even without reckoning the immense
territory it had gained on the north. An event not less impor-
tant in its consequences was the marriage of Ivan III. with a
Byzantine princess, Thomas Palaeologus, a brother of the last
Emperor, had taken refuge at the court of Rome. There he
died, leaving a daughter named Sophia. The Pope wished to
find her a husband, and the Cardinal Bessarion, who belonged
to the Eastern Rite, advised Paul II. to offer her hand to the
Grand Prince of Russia. A Greek named louri, and the two
Friazini, relations of Friazine, minter of Ivan III., were sent
on an embassy to Moscow. Ivan and his boyards accepted the
proposal with enthusiasm ; it was God, no doubt, who had given
him so illustrious a wife ; " a branch of the imperial tree which
formerly overshadowed all orthodox Christianity." Sophia —
dowered by the Pope, whose heart was always occupied with
two things, the crusade against the Turks, and the re-union of
the two Churches —went from Rome to Liibeck, from Liibeck
by sea to Revel, and was received in triumph at Pskof, Novgo-
rod, and the other towns subject to Moscow. This daughter of
emperors was destined to have an enormous influence on Ivan,
It was she, no doubt, who taught him to " penetrate the secret
of autocracy." She bore the Mongol yoke with J^ss patience
than the Russians, who were accustomed to servitude. She
incited Ivan to shake it off. " How long am I to be. the slave
of the Tatars ? " she would often ask. Widi Sophia a multitude"
of Greek emigrants came to Moscow, not only from Rome, bu*
from Constantinople and Greece ; among them were Demetrio'
Ralo, Theodore Lascaris, Demetrios Trakhaniotes. They gav*
to Russia statesmen, diplomatists, engineers, artists and tt»eolo-
gians. They brought her Greek books, the priceless inherit
ance of ancient civilization. These manuscripts were first be
ginnings of the present " Library of the Patriarchs."
Ivan III. was the heir of the Emperors of Byzantium and
the Roman Caesars. He took for the new arms of Russia the
two-headed eagle which in its archaic form is still to be found
in the "■ Palais a facettes " of the Kremlin. Moscow succeeded
to Byzantium as Byzantium had succeeded to Rome. Having
become the only metropolis of orthodoxy, it was incumbent on
her to protect the Greek Christians of the entire East, and to
prepare the revenge against Islamism for the work of 1453.
With the Greeks came Italians : Aristotele Fioraventi of Bologna,
who was Ivan III.'s architect, military engineer, and master of
artillery ; Marco Ruffo, his ambassador in Persia ; Pietro
ITTSTORY OF RUSSIA.
173
Antonio, who built his imperial palace ; the metal-founder, Paul
Bossio, besides architects and arquebusier.:.
Ivan entered into relations with Venice when Trevisani, en-
voy of the republic, on his way to the Horde, tried to traverse
incognito the States of the Grand Prince, and was arrested and
condenuied to death. The Senate interfered, and the imprudent
diplomatist was set at liberty. Ivan sent in his turn a Russian
ambassador, Simeon Tolbouzine, charged to bind the two coun
tries in friendly ties, and to bring back some skilful architect
from Italy. He was followed in 1499 by Demetrius Ralo and
Golokhvastof. Contarini, the Venetian ambassador, returned
from Persia with a French ecclesiastic named Louis, who called
himself envoy of the Duke of Burgundy, and the Patriarch of
Antioch. He stopped at Moscow, and was kindly received by
Ivan. He himself was much struck by the Grand Prince. " \Mien,
in speaking, 1 respectfully stepped back," relates Contarini,
"the Grand Prince always drew near, and gave particular at-
tention to my remarks." Ivan III. — whether to secure himself
allies against Poland, or to obtain from Germany artists and
handicraftsmen — exchanged more than one embassy with
Frederic III. and Maximilian of Austria, Matthias of Hungary,
and the Pope. When attacked by Sweden, he nogotiated an
alliance with Denmark. Plehtche'ef was the first Russian am-
bassador at Constantinople under Bajazet II. From the East
came envovs of Georgia and even of Djagatai (Turkestan and
Tatar Siberia).
The prince who, born vassal of a nomad race, founded the
greatness of Russia, mav be comjjared with one of the greatest
of French kings, Louis XI. What the latter accomplished in
the case of appanaged feudalism, Ivan succeeded in doing in
that of appanaged principalities. He was pitiless towards the
smaller Russian dynasties, as the King of France was to Armagnac
or Saint Pol. He detached a slice from Lithuania, as his Western
contemporary managed to dismember Burgundy. He put an
end to the Mongol invasions, as Louis did to the English wars.
He repulsed, without striking a blow, the last incursion of 'the
khans, as Louis XI. sweetly dismissed the last embarkation of
the English under Edward' IV. Both had the same taste for
foreigners, especiallv industrious Italians, and for useful arts.
Both explored the metallic riches of their States. They each
created a diplomacy; the one by means of Comynes, the other
bv means of Greeks, and Russians as supple as Greeks. They
strengthened the national army, and gave it a permanent char-
acter ; they both owed the success against the minor princes to
174
HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
their artillery. Ivan III. had his brothers Bureau in Aristotele
Fioraventi.
Louis XL, who wished to put an end to the anarchy of the
law and to the thefts of chicanery, meditated a real code, or
grand costumier, which would put the old laws in harmony with
the new order of things. This is precisely what Ivan did in his
Oulngenia (1497). In comparing it with the Roiisska'ia Pravda
of laroslaf, we are able to gauge the amount of change caused
in the national laws by the influence of Byzantium, the example
of the Tatars, and the progress of autocracy. Corporal penalties
have notably increased : for homicide, death ; for theft, whipping
in a public place. Torture was making its way in the procedure.
The judicial duel was still admitted, only now it could hardly
become mortal ; each of the combatants had a cuirass, and was
armed only with a short club. Women, minors, and ecclesiastics
were represented by a champion. In the same way as the end
and aim of the policy of Ivan was the suppression of appanages,
that of his code was to efface the privileges, the legal and judi-
cial peculiarities of the different provinces.
For three generations the throne had been inherited in the
direct line. When, however, Ivan, eldest son of Ivan III., died,
the latter hesitated long between his grandson Dmitri Ivanovitch,
and his second son Vassili. His wife supported Vassili ; his
daughter-in-law Helena, Ivan's widow, her own son. The court
was divided, and both parties were absorbed in their intrigues.
Ivan III. at first proclaimed Dmitri, threw Vassili in prison,
and disgraced his wife. Then he changed his mind, imprisoned
his daughter-in-law and his grandson in their turn, and pro-
claimed Vassili his heir. The hereditary right of the West was
not established in T^^ussia without many struggles.
HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
ns
CHAPTER XIV.
VASSILI IVANOVITCH (1505-1533).
Reunion of Pskof, Riazan, and Novgorod-Severski — Wars with Lithuania
— Acc)uisition of Smolensk — Wars with the Tatars — Diplomatic relation?
with Europe.
REUNION OF PSKOF, RIAZAN, AND NOVGOROD-SEVERSKI — WARS
WITH LITHUANIA — ACQUISITION OF SMOLENSK.
The reign of Vassili Ivanoviich may seem somewhat pale
between those of the two Ivans — the two- " 7trr//'/
lyg HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
suited to Polish anarchy than to Russian autocracy. A Glinski^
one of a Podolian family, who went over to VassiU at this time,
played the traitor. Constantine Ostrojski, whom VassiU had
tried to gain over to the "cause of orthodoxy, fled from Moscow :
and it was he who, in 1514, inflicted on the Russian voiievodes
the bloody defeat of Orcha. " The next day," says Karamsin,
"he celebrated the victory that he had won over a people of
the same religion as himself, and it was in the Russian tongue
that he gave thanks to God for having destroyed the Russians."
Even the contemporaries felt vaguely that a struggle between
Lithuanian Russia and Moscow was a kind of civil war. Had
hot VassiU tried to unite the two principalities ?
As in the time of Ivan III., the duel of the two States made
itself felt throughout Europe, and occasioned a great diplo-
matic movement. Now, Sigismond had the Tatars of the Crimea
on his side ; VassiU opposed them with the Tatars of Astra-
khan. Sigismond reckoned on Sweden. Vassili negotiated with
Denmark. The King had gained over to his cause the Dnieper
Cossacks, whose name already began to be heard in history, and
who had been powerfully organized by Dachkovitch. But Vassili
secured the friendship of the Teutonic Order, who even con-
sented to invade Polish Prussia ; of Maximilian of Austria, who
signed a treaty of partition of the Polish territory; of the Hos-
podar of Wallachia ; and finally of the Sultan Selim, to whom he
sent embassy after embassy. Negotiations were set on foot in
consequence of the defeat of Constantine Ostrojski before
Smolensk, in the battle of Opotchka. Maximilian of Austria
undertook the office of mediator ; his ambassador, Herberstein,
the same who has left us the curious book entitled ' Rerum
Moscovitarum Commentarii,' promised that VassiU should cede
Smolensk, and quoted to him the disinterestedness of King
Pyrrhus and other great men of antiquity. Pope Leo X. inter-
vened without greater success, though he counselled Vassili to
leave Lithuania alone, and to turn his thoughts to Constantinople,
the inheritance of his mother, Sophia Pal?eologus. At last in
1522, the negotiations opened and terminated in the truce of
1526. Vassili pronounced a discourse on the subject, in which
he expressed his friendship for his noble mediators, the Pope,
the pjnperor, and the Archduke of Austria (Clement VII., Charles
v., and Ferdinand), but Russia kept Smolensk.
WARS Wn-H THE TATARS — DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS WITH EUROPE.
The Tatars were still dangerous. Mengli-Ghirei, the ancient
ally of Ivan III., had declared for Lithtiania against Vassili
HIS TOR Y OF R USSIA . 179
Perhaps the old Khan might have lost the authority necessary
to restrain his sons and mourzas, who only wished to pillage the
Russian teriiiory. Under his successor, Makhmet Ghirei, the
Crimea became a deadly enemy of Russia. Kazan, on expelling
the //'6'/t'^''t' of Ivan 111., had elected a prince hoslile to Moscow.
Two expeditions directed against the rebel city failed completely.
At llie death of the Tzar of Kazan, the principality became the
apple of discord between the Khan of the Crimea and the
Grand Prince. The Russians, however, had succeeded, and
installed their client, Schig-Alei, a Mussulman brutalized by idle-
ness and pleasures, whose enormous stomach gave him a gro-
tesque appearance ; but he was overthrown by the intrigues of the
Khan of the Crimea, and a kinsman of the Ghirei was placed on
the throne. In support of their candidate, tiie Taurians pre-
pared, in 1521, a great invasion of Russia. They crushed the
Russian voievodes on the banks of the Oka, ravaged the Grand
Principality, looked on Moscow from the Hill of Sparrows,- and
made themselves drunk with hydromel found in the cellars of
the Grand Prince. At the Kremlin there was a formidable array
of artillery, but no powder. Herberstein assures us that the
powerful son of Ivan III. humiliated himself, as in the time of
Ivan Kalita, to save his capital, sent presents to the Khan, and
signed a treaty by which he professed himself his tributary ; but
that in his retreat, Makhmet Ghirei was received with cannon-
balls by the voi'evode of Riazan, who took from him the humiliat-
ing treaty. Though the Russian honor was saved by the can-
nonade of Riazan, this invasion cost Russia dear. All the flat
country was a prey to the flames. A multitude of people, es-
pecially women and children, had been carried off by the bar-
iDarians. Many perished on the journey ; the rest were sold^ in
whole troops in the markets of Kaffa and Astrakhan. The
following year Vassili assembled on the Oka a formidable army,
with an imposing artillery, and sent a challenge to the Khan of the
Crimea summoning him to accept an honorable fight in the open
country. The Tatar answered that he knew the way to Russia,
and never consulted his enemies as to when he was to fight. A
short time after, Makhmet conquered the Tzarate of Astrakhan,
but was assassinated by Mamai, Prince of the Noga'is.
The Tatars of the Crimea were, thanks to the vast southern
steppes, nearly beyond Russian enterprises ; but it was still
possible to attain Kazan. In order to profit by the dissensions
of the Hordes of the South, two new expeditions were fitted out
in 1523 and 1524 against this town, but both were unsuccessful.
Vassili discovered a more certain way of ruining his enemies — he
established a fair at Mak^rief on the Volga, and by this mean^
IffO
HISTORy OF RUSSIA.
destroyed that of Kazan. It was this fair of Makarief that was
afterwards transported to Nijni-Novgorod, and draws more than
100,000 strangers from Europe and Asia.
Day by day Russia took a more important place in Europe.
Vassili exchanged embassies with all the sovereigns of the West,
except those of France and England. He was the correspon-
dent of Leo X. and Clement VII. ; of Maximilian and Charles
V. ; of Gustavus Vasa, founder of a new dynasty ; of Sultan Selim,
conqueror of Egypt ; and of Suleiman the Magnificent. In the
East, the Great Mogul of India, Baber, descendant of Tamerlane,
sought his friendship. Autocracy daily became stronger.
Vassili governed without consulting his council of boyards.
" Moltchi smcrd!" (Be silent, rustic !) he said one day to a
great lord, who dared to raise an objection. Prince Vassili
Kholmaski, who was married to one of his sisters, was thrown
into prison for indocility. The boyard Beklemychef having
complained that " the Grand Prince decided all the questions
alone, shut up, with two others, in his bed-chamber," had his
head cut off. The Metropolitan Varlaam was deposed and ban-
ished to a monastery. Herberstein asserts already, that no
European sovereign is obeyed like the Grand Prince of Moscov/.
This growing power was manifested externally by the splendor
of the court, which naturally did not preclude the worst barbaric
taste. In the reception of his ambassadors, Vassili displayed
unheard-of luxury ; many hundreds of horsemen accompanied
him when he hunted. The throne of the Prince was guarded
by young nobles, the ryndis, with their head-dresses of high caps
of white fur, dressed in long caftans of white satin, armed with
silver hatchets. The lists of his masters of the horse, his cup-
bearers, chamberlains, &c., are already very long. Strangers
continued, though in small numbers, to come to Moscow. The
most illustrious of them was Maximus, surnamed the Greek, a
monk of Mount Athos, and a native of Arta, in Albania. In his
youth he had studied at Venice and at Florence, and been the
friend of Lascaris and Aldus Manutius. He had remained the
sincere admirer of Savonarola. Vassili had sent for him with
other Greeks to translate the Greek books into Slavonic, and
put his library in order. Maximus is said to have been astonished
to find in the Kremlin such a large number of ancient manu-
scripts ; he vowed that neither Italy nor in Greece was to be
found such a rich collection. After having finished the trans-
lation of the Psalter, he wished to return to Mount Athos
Vassili retained him, made him liis favorite, and often granted
him the lives of condemned boyards. His works, his science,
as well as his favor, gained him the hatred of ignorant and fan-
HISTOR V OF RUSSIA. , « x
atical monks. The Metropolitan Daniel declared against him.
When Vassili repudiated against her will his wife Solomonia,
because of her sterility, the philosopher^ it seems, ventured to
blame the prince, who then abandoned him to his enemies.
Denounced before an ecclesiastical tribunal, accused of heresy
and of false interpretation of the sacred books, he was banished
\o a monastery at Tver. Later he obtained leave to retire to that
of Troitsa, where there is still shown the tomb of the man who
was, in Russia, one of the apostles of the Renaissance.
x62 HISTOR y OF R USSiA.
CHAPTER XV.
IVAN THE TERRIBLE (1533-1584.)
Minority of Ivan IV. — He takes the title of Tzar (1547) — Conquest of Kazan
(1552), and of Astraklian (1554) — Contests with the Livonian Order, Po-
land, the Tatars, Sweden, and the Russian aristocracy — The English in
Russia — Conquest of Siberia.
MINORITY OF IVAN IV. — HE TAKES THE TITLE OF TZAR (1547).
The role and the character of Ivan IV. have been and still are
very differently estimated by Ri:ssian historians. Karamsin, who
has not subjected to a criticism sufficiently severe the narratives
and documents from which he has drawn his information, has
seen in him a prince who was born cruel and vicious, but was
miraculously brought back into the paths of virtue. Under the
guidance of two excellent ministers he gave some years of
repose to Russia ; then abandoning himself to his passions —
astounded Europe and the empire with what the historian calls
the " seven periods of massacres." M. Kostomarof supports the
verdict of Karamsin. Another school represented by M. Solovief
^nd M. Zabieline, has shown more mistrust of the partial accounts
•»i Kourbski, leader of the oligarchic party, of Guagnini, courtier
of the King of Poland, of Taube and Kruse, traitors to the so\'-
ereign whom they served. Above all, they have taken into con-
sideration the time and the environment of Ivan the Terrible.
This party concerns itself less with his morality as an individual,
than with' the part he played as the agent of the historical devel-
opment of Russia. Did not the French historians for a while
refuse to recognize the immense services rendered by Louis XI.
in the great work of consolidating the unity of France, and the
creation of a modern State .? He has been justified at last by
an attentive examination of documents and facts.
At the time that Ivan IV, succeeded his father, the struggle
of the central power with the forces of the past had changed its
character. The old Russian States which had for so long held
in check the new power of Moscow — the principalities of Tver.
HISTORY OF RUSSIA. 183
Riazan, Souzdal and Novgorod-Severski — and the republics of
Novgorod, Pskof, and Viatka, had lost their independence;
tiirir possessions had gone to swell those of Moscow. All North
md East Russia is now united under the sceptre of the Grand
i^rmce. To the perpetual contests with Tver, Riazan, and Nov-
gorod succeed the great foreign wars ; the crusades against
Litiuiania, the Tatars, the Swedes, the Livcnian knights.
Precisely because the work of Great Russian unity was
accomplished, the internal resistance to the authority of the
Prince became stronger. The descendants of the princely
tarn. lies which had been dispossessed by money or force of arms,
and the letainers of these ancient reigning houses, enlisted in
die service of the master of Moscow, The Court of the latter
.vas full of uncrowned nobles, Belskis, Choui'skis, Kourbskis,
V^orcjtinskis, descendants of the appanaged princes, proud of the
olood of Rurik which ran in their veins. Others sprang from
Gedimin, the Lithuanian, or from baptized Tatar 7nourzas. All
these, as well as the powerful boyards of Tver, Riazan, and
Novgorod, became the boyards of the Grand Prince. There
was uniy one Court for all to serve — that of Moscow. When
Russia was divided into sovereign States, discontented boyards
were free to change their master, to pass from the service of
Tchernigof to that of Kief, or from the service of Souzdal to that
of Novgorod. Now, where could they go? Outside of Moscow-
there was nothing but foreign sovereigns, the enemies of Russia.
To make use of the ancient right of changing your master, was to
pass over to the enemy to be a traitor. To change and betray
became synonyms. From the Russian word /bw/////(change) is
derived the word iz7nie'nik (to betray). The Russian boyard could
go neither to the Germans, to the Swedes, nor to the Tatars ; he
could only go to the Grand Duke of Lithuania, but that was ex-
actly the worst sort of change the blackest of treasons. The
Prince of Moscow knew^ well that the war with Lithuania — that
State wiiich was Polish in the west, and exercised, by means of
its Russian provinces in the east, a dangerous fascination on the
subjects of Moscow — was a struggle for existence. Litliuanin,
was an internal as well as an external enemy, with links and svni-
patiiies with the heart of the Russian State, even in the palace
of the Tzar himself, and lier formidable hand is found in all in-
trigues and conspiracies. The external struggle with Lithuania,
and the internal struggle with the Russian oligarchy, are different
phases of the same contest, the heaviest and most perilous of
all sustained by the Grand Princes of Moscow. The dispos-
sessed princes, the boyards of the ancier. independent States,
had renounced the strife with ^jim on the Laitlc-field, but they
•J^g4 HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
continued to combat his authority in his own Court. There are
no more wars of States against State ; henceforth the war is
intestine, that of oligarchy against autocracv. Resigned to
being sovereign princes no longer, the boyard princes oi
Moscow were not yet content to be only subjects. The nar-
rower area intensified the violence of the contest. The Court
of Moscow was a fenced-in field, from which none could go
out without changing the Muscovite for the Lithuanian master
— without betraying. Hence the passionate character of the
struggle between the two principles under Ivan IV. Besides,
the sovereigns of Moscow who had destroyed, after so many
efforts, the Russian States that held Moscow in check, com-
mitted the same fault as the Capetians or the early Valois. In
constituting appanages for the younger branches, they built up
with one hand what they pulled down with the other ; to the sov-
ereign princes of the nth century succeeded the princes of the
blood the appanaged princes of the 15th and i6th centuries.
These also had their domain, &c., their boyards, their dieti boy-
rtTj/C'/V (men-at-arms.) They were the brothers, uncles, cousins of
the Grand Prince, who became the chiefs of the vanquished
oligarchy and organized the coalition of the forces of the past
against him. They stood to him as the Capetians of Burgundy,
Berri, Bourbon, and Orleans, stood to the Capetian kings,
Charles Nil., Louis XL, and Charles VIII.
Vassili Ivanovitch left two sons, Ivan and louri, under the
guardianship of his second wife, Helena Glinski. She had come
into Russia with a family of Podolian nobles, jDroscribed by Sig-
ismond, and accused of having plotted against his life. Helena
Glinski had subdued her old husband Vassili, not only by her
beauty, but by her free and attractive manners, an independence
of spirit and character, and a variety of accomplishments not t(j
be found among the Russian women of that dav, condemned as
they were to seclusion. She was almost a Western. Vassili
was able to leave her, on his death-bed, with the guardianship
of her sons, and the care of strengthening his work and that of
his ancestors. This energetic woman knew how to put down all
attempts of princely and oligarchic reaction against the autoc-
racv of the Grand Prince. One of her husband's brothers,
louri Ivanovitch, convicted of rebellion, was thrown into prison,
where he died. Helena's own uncle, Michael Glinski, an am-
bitious and turbulent Podolian, after having enjoyed her confi-
dence for some time, was likewise arrested and died in confine-
ment. Andrew Ivanovitch, another brother of the late Tzai,
tried to escape into Poland to obtain the support of Sigismond ;
he was stopped on the way, and imprisoned. Lithuania at
HISTOR V OF RUSSIA. 185
tempted to come to his aid, by taking up arms for the rebels of
the interior. This unimportant war was ended in 1537 by a
truce. I'he Tatars of Kazan and the Crimea suffered many de-
feats ; and to phice Moscow beyond the possibility of being
seized by a coup de main, Helena enclosed with ramparts the
quarter known by the name of Katai-gorod. As she could not
entirelv rely either on the boyards or on the princes, nor even
on her own relations, she gave all her confidence to the master
of the horse, Telepnef, whom the public voice charged with
belnfr her lover. A frovernment as energetic against its internal
as against its foreign enemies, gave little satisfaction to the oli-
garchic party. In 1538 Helena died, the victim of poison.
The boyards then took possession of the government, after
having put to death the master of the horse, and imprisoned his
sister Agrafena, Ivan's nurse. The chief power w^as disputed
specially by two families — the Chouiskis and the Belskis,
Russia became a prey to anarchy, the governments and the
voievodies were given by turns to the creatures of these two
families, and the people were cruelly oppressed ; the two-
factions even elevated and deposed at will the Metropolitan of
Moscow. At last, Andrew Chouiski overthrew the government
of the Belskis, and finally deposed the Metropolitan.
Whilst the nobles were thus intriguing for the supreme
power, Vassili's two sons were left by themselves. louri, the
younger, was feeble in intellect, but Ivan, like Peter the Great,
whom in many points he resembled, was a highly-gifted boy.
He suffered keenly from the contemi^t in which his turbulent
subjects held him. "We and our brother louri," he afterwards
writes, " were treated like foreigners, like the children of beg-
gars. We were ill-clothed, we were cold and hungry." They
saw the boyards pillage the treasures and luxurious furniture of
the palace ; Chouiski even threw himself in Ivan's presence on
the bed of the late Tzar. The empire was plundered as well as
the palace. "They wandered everywhere," continues Ivan IV.,
"in the towns and villages, cruelly tormenting the people, in-
flicting all kinds of evils on them, exacting fines without mercy
from the inhabitants. Of our subjects they have made tluir
slaves; of their slaves, the nobles of the Sta'te." He had seen
all whom he loved torn from him — his nurse Agrafena ; the
master of the horse, Telepnef, who had been put to death ; and
his favorite Voronzof, who was roughly handled and nearly
killed by the boyards. It was enough for a courtier to take
pains to please him, for him instantly to become an object of
mistrust to the oligarchs. Ivan, like a neglected child, badly
educated, never disciplined, had to be his own master. He read
1 86 TTfSTOR V OF RUss^r^.
much, without method — the Bible, the Lives of the Saints, the
Byzantine Chroniclers translated ir.to Slavonic — whatever came
in his way. Above all, he thought. He had imbibed from his
reading a high idea of what it was to be a king, and knew well
that he was the rightful master. These very boyards, so inso-
lent towards him in private — did he not see them in public cer-
emonials, at receptions of ambassadors, rival each other in af-
fected respect and servility ? It was he who, seated on his
throne, received the compliments of the foreign envoys ; his
signature was necessary to give the force of law to actions the
most contrary to his will. These were no vain forms, but in-
volved real power. Ivan, however, dissembled. After the
Christmas fetes of 1543, he suddenly summoned his boyards be-
fore him, addressed them in a menacing tone, and reproached
them sternly for their manner of governing. " There were
among them," he added, " many guilty ones ; but this time he
would content himself with making one example." He then
ordered his guards to seize Andrew Chouiski, the chief of the
government, and there and then had him torn to pieces by
hounds. Some of the most turbulent and the most compro-
mised were banished to distant towns. The author of this conf>
d'etat was thirteen years old.
According ,to the invariable custom of Muscovite sov^ereigns,
Ivan surrounded himself by his maternal relations, those on his
father's side being naturally objects of suspicion. Then began
what was called a vremia ; that is a season of favor." The rela-
tives of the Prince, the men of the season {j'rejnenchtchiki), the
Glinskis, were charged to provide for the administration of the
empire. In January 1547, Ivan ordered the Metropolitan
Macarius to proceed with his coronation. He assumed at the
ceremony not only the title of Grand P?ince, but that of Tzar.
The first title no longer answered to the new power of the sover-
eign of Moscow, who counted among his domestics, princes and
even Grand Princes. The name of Tzar is that which the books
in the Slavonic language, ordinarily read by Ivan, give to the
kings of Jnda^a, Assyria, Egypt, Babylon and to the emperors of
Rome and Constantinople. Now, was not Ivan in some sort
the heir of the Tzar Nebuchadnezzar, the 7h7r Pharaoh, the
Tzar Ahasuerus, and the Tzar David, since Russia was the sixth
empire spoken of in the Apocalypse ? Through his grandmothei
Sophia Palaiologus, he was connected with the family of the
Tzar of Byzantium ; through his ancestor Vladimir Monoma-
chus, he belonged to the Porphyrogeniti ; and through Con-
stantine the Great, to Caesar. If Constantinople had been the
second, Moscow was the third Rome — living heir of th^ Eternal
HIS TOR Y OF R USSIA. 1 8 7
City. We may imagine what prestige was added to the dignity
of Uie Russian sovereign by this dazzling title, borrowed from
Biblical aniiquity, from Roman majesty, from tiie orthodox sover-
eigns )i Byzantium, It recall-d at the same time the recently,
acqui/ed freedom of Russia ; the Slavonic authors likewise
bestowed this august title on the Mongol khans, suzerains of the
Muscovite princes. Now that fortune smiled upon Russia, it
well became her prince to call himself " Tzar." Shortly after,
Ivan, whose deserted youth had been soiled by debauchery,
confirmed his return to virtue by his marriage with Anastasia, of
that family of Romanof whose future destiny was to be so bril-
liant. His Court was increased by vremenchkhiki chosen from
the relatives of the Tzarina.
The vanquished party naturally would not consent to be set
aside without a struggle for revenge. Fortune soon gave them
an opportunity. For four years Ivan had governed absolutely,
supported by his connections, the Glinskis and the Romanofs,
and it was many years since Russia had been so tranquil. Sud-
denly, in 1547, a'terrible fire broke out and destroyed a great
part of Moscow, and 1700 people perished. The Tzar took
refuge at Vorobief, and thence contemplated with terror the
destruction of his capital. An inquiry was made, ard the boy-
ards took advantage of it to insinuate to the people that it was
the Glinskis who had burnt Moscow. " It is the Princess Anne
Glinski," repeated voices among the crowd, " who, with her two
sons, has made enchantments ; she has taken human hearts,
and plunged them in water, and with this water has sprinkled
the houses. This is the cause of the des' ruction of ^Ioscow."
The enraged multitude burst into the palace of the Glinskis.
One of them, louri, was stabbed in the porch of the Assump-
tion. Then the rioters proceeded to Vorobief, and demanded
Ivan's uncle, the old Glinski. The sovereign's own life was in
danger ; it was necessary to use force to disperse the rebels.
The events which followed are unintelligible from the dram-
atized recital of Karamsin, but very clear if we keep to the
logic of facts. Ivan could hardlv be irrnorant who had raised
this revolt, and he was not the man to give himself up to his
ancient guardians. But liis nervous, impressionable nature
had been greatly struck by the spectacle under his eyes. Under
the influence of this terror he examined his conscience, and
resolved to amend his life. He took the priest Silvester, who
had dwelt in his palace for nine years, and had a great reputa-
tion for virtue, as his spiritual director ; he gave him at the
same time the administration of ecclesiastical aflfairs. Alexis
Adachef, one of the smaller nobility, was charged with receiring
1 88 Hr^^^RY OF RUSSIA.
petitions, and the supervision of the interior and of the war. As
long; as the two new favorites confined themselves to their
offices, the Court was tranquil. It was the happiest period of
the reign of Ivan IV. The municipal administration was re-
organized in the interior (1551). A new code {Soudebnik) was
prepared, and a council assembled, whose hundred articles
\Stoglaf) were occupied with Church reforms. In foreign aflairs
Russia conquered her ancient masters.
CONQUEST OF KAZAN (1552), AND OF ASTRAKHAN (1554).
The kingdom of Kazan continued to be distracted bv two
opposing influences — that of Russia and that of the Khan of the
Crimea. The latter seemed the stronger, and Safa-Ghirei, can-
d date for the Crimea, distinguished his accession by ravaging
the Russian territory ; the Khan supported him in these incur-
sions by advancing with the whole Crimean horde as far as the
ka. When Safa died, leaving a son who was a minor, the
Muscovite party took the upper hand in Kazan and bestowed
the crown on Schig-Alei. He made himself detested by his new
subjects, and things came to such a pass that the Kazanese
appeared to prefer the direct rule of Moscow to this disguised
subordination. At the request of the inhabitants Ivan recalled
ochig-Alei, and sent them a viceroy, IMikoulmski. Suddenly a
rumor was spread in Kazan that Mikoulinski was approaching
with Russian troops with the object of exterminating the popu-
lation. A rebellion broke out. The gates of Moscow were shut
on the Muscovites, and men demanded a prince of the Nogai
Tatars. Ediger-Makhment was proclaimed Tzar of Kazan,
Ivan determined to make an end of this Mussulman city.
In June 1552, the same year that Henry II. obtained possession
of the three bishoprics, the Tzar took the field. He was at
once checked by the news that the Khan of the Crimea, wishing
to save Kazan by a diversion, had invaded Moscow, Ivan ad
vanced against him as far as the Oka ; there he learnt that the
barbarians, not being able to take Toula, had hastily retired.
Upon this, Ivan's infantrv, with 150,000 men and 150 pieces cf
cannon, descended the Volga in boats, while the cavalry followed
along the banks, and directed their course to Kazan. The
creation of advanced posts had diminished the distance that
separated Kazan from Nijni-Novgorod. His father had founded
Makarief and Vassilsoursk on the Volga ,- and he himself had
established in 155 1 the warlike colony of Sviajsk on the Sviaga.
Later he founded those of Kosmodemiansk and Tcheboksarv,
»
HISTORY OF RUSSIA. 189
At the beginning of September Ivan encamped under Kazan
and surrounded it by a line of circumvallation, which cut off all
comimuiication between the town and the cavalry of the Mourza
lapaiit.cha, which had taken ^ the field. The garrison of Kazan,
numbering 30,000 Tatars and 2500 Nogais, defended themselves
energetically and incessantly, and managed by their sori'ws to
hinder the work of the assailants. The Tzar repeatedly oft'ered
them honorable terms ; he even hung up his prisoners on gibbets
to frighten the Kazanese into surrendering, but the besieged
only shot arrows against these unhappy wretches, crying that
" it'was belter for them to receive death from the clean hands
of their countrymen than to perish by the impure hands of
Christians." The Russian army had to struggle with the un-
chained elements as well as with their enemies. The fleet,
which bore their provisions and powder, was destroyed by a
tempest. The voievodes wished to raise the siege, but Ivan re-
animated their failing courage. Prolonged rains flooded the
Muscovite camp, caused, it was said, by the sorcerers of Kazan,
who stood on the walls, their robes girt up, insulting the be-
siegers by their words and gestures. Ivan sent to Moscow for
a miraculous cross, which dispersed the enchantments.
Ivan had secured the services of a German engineer, who laid
mines under the very walls of the town. The ramparts of wood
and bricks at many points fell with a great noise, and the Rus-
sian army entered the town by the breaches. A fierce hand to-
hand fight took place in the streets and around the palace. The
bravest of the Kazanese, after having tried to defend their
prince, cut their way through, but, pursued by the light cavalry,
few escaped. In the town numbers were massacred : those only
were spared who could be sold to slave-merchants. When the
Tzar made his triumphal entry into the middle of these bloody
ruins, he was moved, like Scipio at Carthage, by a feeling of
pity for this great disaster. " They are not Christians," said
he, weeping, " but yet they are men." The town was re-peopled
by Russians, and even at the present day the Tatar population
is confined to the faubourgs. In the Kremlin Ivan annihilated
all the monuments of the Mongol past, and replaced them by
churches and monasteries which attested his gratitude towards
God and the triumph of the Cross over Islam.
The date of these events is already far distant, but they still
live in the memory of the Russian people. Many epics are con-
secrated to this great victory. It is not only, as Karamsin says,
because Kazan was the first fortress taken by the Russians after
a siege according to the rules of war ; it is because the capture
of Kazan marks the culminating point in the history of the long
IQO
HIS I OXY OF RUSSIA,
Struggle of the Slavs against the Tatars — a struggle which be«
gan by the total subjugation of Russia by the Mongols, but
which has continued to our own day, and probably will only end
with the conquest of the Tatar races by the Russian Empire.
The victory of Ivan the Terrible is the first great revenge of the
vanquished over the vanquishers, the first triumph at the ex-
pense of the conquerors, the first stage reached by European
civilization in taking the offensive towards Asia. In the Rus-
sian annals the expedition of Kazan occupies the same glorious
place as the defeat of Abderahman in the history of the Franks,
or Las Navas da Tolosa in the chronicles of Spain. It was
more than a conquest — it was a crusade. During the assault
Ivan did not cease to display the standard of the holy faith.
It was remarked that the day the ramparts fell the Tzar was at
church, and the deacon read the following verse from the Gospel
for the day : " There shall be one flock, one shepherd." It was
with the cry of " God with us ! " that the Russians precipitated
themselves into the town. The triumph of Moscow mingled
with that of Christianity and orthodoxy.
The political consequences of the taking of Kazan were con-
siderable. The five Finnish or Mongol tribes who had been
subject to this royal city — the Tcheremisses, the Mordvians, the
Tchouvaches, whom M. Radlow considers the descendants of
the Bulgars of Bolgary, the Votiaks and the Bachkirs — after a
resistance of some years, were obliged to do homage to Moscow.
Ivan sent them missionaries at the same time as his voiievodes.
The fall of the kingdom of Astrakhan soon followed that of
Kazan. This great city was also divided between two parties.
In 1554 Prince louri Pronski descended the Volga with 30,000
men, and established Derbych, the protegi of Russia, on the
throne. Derbych, after a short time, was accused of having an
understanding with the Khan of the Crimea ; and Astrakhan
was conquered a second time, and finally united to Russia. The
Nogais, who wandered over the neighboring steppes, were
forced to accept the Muscovite protection. Thus the Volga —
that famous river whose banks sustain so many ruined cities,
Itil capital of the Khazars, Bolgary capital of the Bulgars, Sarai
capital of the Golden Horde — that keep the memory of the
ancient races who have vanished from history ; the Volga — that
grand artery of Eastern commerce — now flowed in the whole of
its course from its source to its mouth through the land of the
Tzars.
Persian Asia was thrown open to Russian influence by means
of the Caspian ; and already the petty princes of the Caucasus,
always fighting either among themselves or with the Tatars of
HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
191
the Crimea, sought the alliance of the successors of the Greek
Csesars. In order to keep a firmer hold on the Horde of ihe
Taurid, Ivan took under his protection one of the two warlike
republics which had been formed in the neighborhood of the
Crimea: the Cossacks of the Don declared themselves subjects
of Moscow, the Cossacks of the Dnieper remained Poles.
WARS WITH THE LIVONIAN ORDER, POLAND, TATARS, SWEDEN, AND
ARISTOCRATIC RUSSIA.
Russia, which felt the growth of her forces, felt equally the
need of throwing open the Baltic at the same time as the Black
Sea. The Baltic was even the more necessary to the Russians,
as by it only could they communicate with Western Europe, and
receive vessels, artillery, and engineers. Thence Muscovy
awaited the increase of power that civilization could alone give
her. Between Muscovy and the Baltic lay more than one enemy :
Sweden, the Livonian knights, Lithuania, and Poland. In 1554
a war broke out about the rectification of the frontiers between
Ivan the Terrible and the great Gustavus Vasa ; but as the
founder of the Swedish dynasty was not supported by his neigh-
bors, the war w-as a short one. It terminated by a commercial
treaty which opened India and China to the Swedish merchants
by way of Russia ; and to those of Russia, Flanders, England,
and France, bv way of Sweden. Moscow could not yet commu-
nicate with the West except through a jealous intermcdi-
a^-v.
Ivan the Terrible, inspired by the same political and civiliz-
ing ideas as Peter the Great, wished to " open a window " into
Europe. For this purpose he coveted the ports of the Narva.
Revel and Riga, then in the hands of the Livonian Order,
against which Ivan had some grievances. About 1547 Ivan had
sent the Saxon Schlitte into Germany to engage for him a cer-
tain nun ber of engineers and artizans, and Schlitte had managed
to collect about a hundred people. The jealousy of the Germans
then awoke ; they feared that, as she became civilized, Russia
would also become strong. The Livonian Order demanded of
the Emperor Charles VI. the right to stop these strangers on
their road. None ever reached Moscow. Ivan, then occupied
with Kazan, was unable to avenge himself; but when in 1554
the envoys of the Order came to Moscow to solicit a renewal of
the truce, he summoned them to pay tribute for lourief, the
ancient patrimony of the Russian princes. Such a demand
meant war. In 1558 the Russian army took Narva, Neuhausen,
I g 2 HISTOR Y OF RUSSIA.
Dorpat, and seventeen other places. The Grand Master Kettlet
asked help of his neighbors. Poland alone responded to his
appeal, and Sigismond Augustus II. concluded an offensive and
defensive alliance with the Livonian Order.
At this juncture an important revolution took place in the
palace of the Tzar. Ivan's relations with his two counsellors
Silvester and Adachef had singularly altered. They had dis-
agreed with respect to the war with Livonia ; they had desired
that after the capture of Kazan and Astrakhan Ivan should turn
in preference to the third Mussulman State, the Khanate of the
Crimea. M. Kostoniarof gives excellent reasons for this pre-
ference, but the reasons in favor of the opposite opinion are
not less good. By conquering the Crimea the safety of the em-
pire would be ijecured, and the conversion to Islamism,the com-
plete Tatarization of the ancient Taurian tribes still profess ng
Christianity, would be prevented ; but by conquering Livonia
an ancient patrimony of the Russian princes would be recovered
and it would become possible to enter into direct relations with
civilized Europe. The chances of success were equal. The
Horde was then decimated oy an epidemic, but the Livonian
Order was in the act of dissolution by the result of the contest
between Catholicism and Protestantism. The difficulties were
equal. In attacking Livonia, Russia would come in contact with
Sweden, Denmark, Poland, and Germany ; but behind the Crimea
were the Turks, then at the height of their power, and much ir-
ritated by the conquest of 'Kazan and Astrakhan. Peter the
Great did not conquer Livonia till after twenty years hard fight-
ing with the Powers of the North ; but how many Russian expe-
ditions against the Crimea have not been stopped by the dis-
tance, the difficulty of communication, the sandy deserts, and
the extreme temperatures ? Catherine the Great only conquered
the Taurid in the decadence of the Turkish Empire, and after
many campaigns, when she not only brought into play her armies
of the Danube, but sent a fleet to the Archipelago. In reality
both enterprises were premature-; Russia had not yet strength
to carry them through. Neither the Tzar nor his counsellors
were completely in the right, but the obstinacy of the latter had
a fatal result. To content everybody two wars were declared
— which was to run the certain risk of a double check.
The misunderstanding between the Tzar and his two minis-
ters dated from further back Silvester abused his spiritual in-
fluence with the Tzar to multiply jobs of his own. He had
ended by leaving him no liberty ; and when Ivan's favorite
son died, he told him brutally that it was a chastisement from
Heaven for his indocility. He had entered into relations with
ms TOR Y OF K USSIA. 1 g^
boyards whom Ivan justly suspected ; he took their part against
the Tzarina Anastasia, whom he represented as a second Em-
press Eudoxia, the persecutor of Chrysostom ; against the GHn-
skis, and against the Ronianofs, Adachef followed the same
path. Like Haroun-al-Raschid's favorites, the Barmecides,
these two ministers had ended by appropriating all the power of
their master. Ivan had patience with them, believing them to
be faithful ; but in 1553 he fell dangerously ill, and was thought
to be at the point of death. Then the boyards resumed their
ohl arrogance; they obstinately refused to swear allegiance to
the son of the Tzar, the young Dmitri, declaring tliat they would
not obey his maternal relations, the Romanofs. The noisy dis-
cussions reached the bed of the sick man, and his entreaties
were despised. The boyards approached Vladimir, cousin of
Ivan IV., who had also refused to take the oaths, and it was
known that the mother of this ambitious prince was distributing
largesses to the army. Silvester took the part of Prince Vladi-
mir against those boyards who remamed faithful, and the family
of Adachef joined with the mutineers. The faithful boyards
even feared for the life of the Tzar; Ivan could not be under
any delusions as to tiie fate awaiting his wife and his son in case
of his death.
" When God shall have wgrked His will on me," said Ivan
to the few boyards gathered round him, " do not, I pray you,
forget that you have sworn an oath to my son and to me ; do
not let him fall into the hands of the boyards; fly with him to
some strange land, whithersoever God will conduct you. And
you," he continued, addressing the Romanofs, " wherefore these
terrors .'' Do you think that the boyards will spare you ? You
will fall the first : die then rather — since die you must — for my
son and for his mother ; do not abandon my wife to the fury of
the boyards." Ivan IV. recovered, but he preserved a lasting
impression of these days of anguish. When we see him, later
in his reign, give himself up to revenge, and to apparently inex-
plicable fury, we must think of the terrible vigils of 1553, of the
scenes of rebellion and violence that troubled the peace of his
sick chamber, of the obstinate refusals to take the desired vow
of the delcarations of hatred against the Tzarina and her rela-
tions, and of the intrigues woven round Vladimir against the
Tzarevitch Dmitri.
He had no more confidence in his favorites ; both were ban-
ished from the Court. Silvester retired to the monastery of
Saint Cyril, and was afterwards exiled to Solovetski. Adachef
was appointed voievode at Fellin in Lixonia, and later was
forced to live at Dorpat. But they left behind them a complete
194 HIS TOR V OF RUSSIA.
administration, a perfect army of clients. They had peopled
the Court, the governments, and the voievodies with their creat-
ures. Their partisans were certain to agitate and plot for the
return of their chiefs. Who knew how far these plots might
go ? A short time after Adachef's disgrace, that Anastasia
whom he detested died suddenly. Ivan alleged that she was
poisoned. Since the publication of M. Zabie'line's careful
studies on the ' Private Life of the Tzarinas of Russia,' this
allegation and others like it do not appear as inconceivable as
they seemed to Karamsin. The intrigues of the friends of
Adachef forced Ivan IV. many times to have recourse to severity,
but at this epoch he was comparatively merciful.
" When the treachery of that dog Alexis Adachef and his ac-
complices was discovered," Ivan afterwards writes, " we let our
anger be tempered with mercy ; we did not condemn the guilty
to capital punishments, but only banished them to our different
towns Then we put no one to death. Those who be-
longed to the party of Silvester and Adachef we commanded to
separate from them, and no longer to recognize them as chiefs.
This promise we made them confirm by a vow, but they paid no
heed to our injunction, and trampled their oath under foot. Not
onlv did they not separate from the traitors, but they aided them
by all possible means, and schemed to render them back their
ancient power, and to set on foot against us a perfidious plot.
Then only, seeing their wicked obstinacy and unconquerable
spirit of rebellion, I inflicted on the guilty the penalty of their
faults." Capital punishment was indeed rare at this epoch.
Ivan usually contented himself with demanding a fresh oath from
t'lose who were arrested on the road to Lithuania, and exacted
su-etv from them and their friends that they would not seek
again to pass into Poland. Sometimes he condemned them to
the easy durance of the monasteries.
What finally decided the Tzar to be more severe iti his treat-
ment was the defection of Prince Andrew Kourbski, who be-
longed to a family once royal, and descended from Rurik. He
had distinguished himself against the Tatars on the Oka and at
Kazan, and, being a zealous partizan of Adachef and Silvester,
he was deeply irritated by their fall. Nominated general-in-
chief of the army in Livonia, his carelessness allowed the Rus-
sians to suffer a shameful defeat. 15,000 Russians were beaten
by 4000 Poles ; and even, if the Polish historian Martin Belski
is to be believed, 40,000 Russians by 1500 Poles. Kourbski
had reason to fear the anger of the Tzar. He had been for
some time negotiating with the King of Poland, being desirous
of obtaining in Lithuania a command, lands, and advantageji
mS TOR Y OF H USSIA. 1 95
equal to those he would lose. At last, abandoning his wife and
children to the vengeance of ihe Tzar, he left Wenden and
crossed into the Polish camp. Thence he sent to Ivan a letter
by his servant Chipanof, whose foot, according to the tradition,
Ivan nailed with his iron staff on to a step of the red staircase,
while the message was being read to him.
"Tzar formerlv glorined bv God ! " wrote Kourbski, " Tzar
who formerly shone like the torch of orthodoxy, but who, for
our sins, art now revealed to us in quite a different aspect, with
a soiled and leprous conscience, such as we could not find even
among barbarian iniidels ! Exposed to thy cruel persecution,
with a heart filled with bitterness, I wish notwithstanding to say
a few words to you. O Tzar, why hast thou put to death tlie
strons: ones of Israel ? Whv hast thou slain the valiant voi'e-
vodes jriven thee bv God ? Whv hast thou shed their victorious
blood, their only blood on the profaned pavement of the churches
of God, during the sacred ceremonies ? Why hast thou red-
dened the porch of the temple with the blood of the martyrs ?
In what were they guilty towards thee, O Tzar ? Was it not
their valor which overthrew, which laid at thy feet, those
proud kingdoms of the Volga, before which thine ancestors
were slaves 1 Is it not their zeal, their intelligence, to which,
after God, thou owest the strong towns of the Germans ? And
behold thv gratitude to these unhappy ones ! Thou hast exter-
minated whole families amongst us. Dost thou think thyself
then immortal, O Tzar ? or dost thou think (seduced by some
heresv) that thou canst escape the incorruptible Judge, Jesus
our God ? No ; He will judge the whole world, and chiefly such
proud persecutors as thou art. My blood, which has already
flowed for thee like water, will cry against thee to our Lord.
God sees all consciences ! " Kourbski then invokes the victims
of Ivan, and shows them standing before the throne of God, de-
manding justice against their executioner. " Is it that in thy
pride thou trustest in thy legions to keep thee in this ephemeral
life, inventing against the human race new engines of torture
to tear and disfigure the body of man, the image of the angeis ?
Dost thou reckon on thy servile flatterers, on thy boon com-
panions, on thy turbulent boyards, who make thee lose thy soul
and body, entice thee to the debaucheries of Venus, and sacri-
fice their children to the vile rites worthy of Saturn ? \\'hen my
last day comes, I wish that this letter, watered wiih my tears,
should'be placed on my coflin." He ended by declaring him-
self a subject of Sigismond Augustus, "my sovereign, who, I
hope, will load me with favors and consolations for mv misfor-
tunes." Thus Kourbski spoke " in the name of ihe sviong ones
1 96 HISTOR Y OF RUSSIA,
of Israel, of the living and the dead," that is, in the name of all
the friends of Adachef ; he made himself the organ of their
wrath and complaints ; he formulated their grievances, and ex-
aggerated them ; he demanded an account of the Tzar of his
conduct towards them, threatening him with a higher tribunal,
and dared to ask if he thought himself immortal ; he refused
Ivan all participation in the glorv acquired at Kazan, insulted
the boyards who surrounded him, and boasted of the crime
which was the most unpardonable in the eyes of the Tzar — the
recognition of the Polish sovereignty.
Kourbski's letter was a manifesto. It helped to irritate the
suspicions of the Tzar, already only too disposed to imagine
plots. Ivan, who thought himself a man of letters, and was
really one of the most learned men in his empire, conceived it
necessary to answer the letter of Kourbski with a long vindica-
tion, adorned with quotations from sacred and profane authors.
The Tzar and his rebel subject exchanged many epistles of this
kind. Ivan, who had begun by this time to justify his surname
of Terrible, gave, besides, another answer to Kourbski's mani-
festo — the punishment of his supposed accomplices.
Ivan felt that he could no longer govern with a Court, a
council of state {(iotima), and an administration which were filled
with the friends of Adachef and Kourbski. Kourbski's conduct
shows to what depths of treason their rancor cculd bring them.
He was to return to devastate Russia with a Polish army ! Was
the life of the Tzar safe in the midst of such men ? In Decem-
ber 1564 Ivan quitted Moscow with all his friends, servants, and
treasures, and retired to the Slobode Alexandrof. He then wrote
two letters to Moscow — one to the Archbishop, complaining of the
plots and infidelity of the nobles, and the complicity of the clergy,
who, abusing the right of intercession, prevented the sovereign
from punishing the guilty ; in the other he reassured the citizens
and people of Moscow, by informing them that they were not
included in his censure. The terror of the capital was great;
the people trembled at the thought of falling again under the
government of the oligarchs; the boyards feared what the people
might do to them. Neither the one nor the other could resign
themselves to the anger of the sovereign. The boyards and the
clergy resolved to ask pardon, and, if necessary, to "carry their
heads " to the Tzar. They went in procession to the Slobode
Alexandrof, to beseech him to recall his abdication. Ivan con-
sented to resume the crown, but on his own conditions. As he
could neither govern with the actual administration nor destroy
it, as he was forced to respect its vested interests, he made a
sort of partition of the monarchy. The greater part of the
Ivan IV.
HIS TOR Y OF R USSIA. I n 7
empire continued to be governed by the dotima of the boyards,
and constiliited the zcmchtchira, that is, the " rule of the country."
Over this part of Russia Ivan only reserved a surveillance, and
the right of punishing treason. The other p.vrt was placed under
the "personal and individual" government of the Tzar, and
formed the " opritchnina'' Leaving the ancient Court, the 7iX\-
n.\fiv\\.doin/ia, and the ancient administration still in existence, Ivan
IV. formed with his own creatures a new Court, a new council, and
a new administration to which he confided the towns and villages
that had fallen to his share. He surrounded himself with a
special guard, called " the thousand of the T/ar," or the flpritcJwiki
who had adopted, as armes parlaiitcs, a dog's head, and a broom
suspended from their saddles. They were ready to bite the
enemies of the Tzar, and to sweep treason off the Russian soil.
This singular r(fi^imc lasted seven years (1565-1572).
Ivan made great use of his right to punish traitors, or those
whom he regarded as such. A perfect reign of terror hung over
the Russian aristocracy, with alternations of calm and renewed fury.
We know the names of his victims, but we do not always know
their crimes. The writers hostile to Ivan IV., Kourbski, the Italian
Guagnini, then in the service of the King of Poland, and the
German refugees Taube and Kruse, are not always agreed on
the subject.
About the facts which can be clearly proved, we can see that
Ivnn had real grievances against the nobles whom he put to
death. On the side of the oligarchs the strife, though quiet and
noiseless, was not less bloody. We ought not to be deceived
by their demonstrations of humility and submission With their
foreheads in the dust, they could still conspire. We must beware
of thinking Ivan's enemies were any better than himself. They
were as cruel towards their inferiors as the Tzar was towards
them. This aristocracy of slave-masters, habituated under the
Tatar yoke to an insolent disdain of human life and feeling, was
not superior in morality to its tyrant. It presented more than
one type similar to the French monsters Gilles de Retz and the
Sieur de Giac. Under very different colors, it was the same
battle that raged in Russia and in P>ance. But in France men
fought in open day on the battle-fields of the Praguerie or of the
League of the Public Good ; in Russia the contest was carried
on by silent plots, by noiseless attempts to poison or slay by
magic, met by the axe of the executioner. In this sinister dia-
logue between the master and his subjects, it was naturally the
master who spoke the loudest. In the absence of a sufficient
number of authentic documents, we risk nothing by being a
little more sceptical than Karamsin.
198
HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
The principal episodes of this autocratic reign of terror are.
I. The deposition and perhaps the murder of St. PhiHp, Arch
bishop of Moscow, guilty of having nobly interceded for the con
demned, and of hating the opritchniki. 2. The execution of
Alexandra, widow of Iroui and sisier-in-law of Ivan ; of Prince
Vladimir and his mother, the ambitious Euphrosyne, who thus
expiated their intrigues of 1553. We must remark that Ivan,
whatever Kourbski may say, spared Vladimir's children, and
largely provided for them. 3. The chastisement of Novgorod,
where the aristocratic party had entertained, it seemed to Ivan,
the project of opening the gates to the King of Poland, and
where the Tzar, according to his own testimony, put to death
1505 persons. 4. The great execution in the Red Place in 1571,
where a certain number of Muscovites and Novgorodians were
slain, and where many of Ivan's new favorites, notably Viazemski
and the Basmanofs, underwent the same penalty as his old
enemies.
A curious memorial has been left us of the vengeance of
" the Terrible " ; it is the synodical letter of the Monastery of
St. Cyril, in which Ivan asks for each of his victims by name the
prayers of the Church. This list shows a total of 3470 victims,
of whom 986 are mentioned by name. Many of these names
are followed by this sinister statement, — " with his wife," " with
his wife and children," '• with his daughters," " with his sons."
It was this that Kourbski called '• the extermination of entire
families " (I'siorodno). The constitution of the Russian family
at this epoch was so strong, that the death of the head necessarily
involved that of the other members. Other collective indica-
tions are not less significant. For example : " Kazarine Dou-
brovski and his two sons, with ten men who came to their help."
" Twenty men of the village of Kolmenskoe ; " " eighty of Mat-
veiche;" these were no doubt peasants and dicfi-boyarskie who
tried to defend their masters. There is this mention relative to
Novgorod : " Remember, Lord, the souls of thy servants, to the
number of 1505 persons, Novgorodians." Had not Louis XI.
tender feelings of this nature? He prayed with fervor for the
soul of his brother, the Duke de Berri.
Other records demonstrate that Ivan the Terrible thought he
had serious reasons to fear for his life. His curious corre-
spondence with Queen Elizabeth of England proves this, as he
obtains of her the formal promise that in case of misfortune he
is to find in England a safe asylum and the free exercise of his
worship (1570), There is besides his will of 1572, which con-
templates the case of his being " proscribed by his boyards and
expelled by them from the throne, and being obliged to wander
HISTORY OF RUSSIA. ig^
from country to country," and recommends to his sons to live
on good icrms with each other after his deaih, to learn how tc
restrain and reward their subjects, and above all to be on the
watch against them.
During this terrible intestine strife, the war with Livonia
and her ally the King of Poland continued. Notwithstanding
the help of the latter, the Knighis were everywhere beaten, and
their fortresses taken by the Russian troops.
At last, ruined by so many blows, this famous Order dis-
solved. The Isle of Gisel sold itself to Denmark ; Revel gave
itself to the Swedes ; Livonia was ceded by the Grand Master
to Poland ; Kettler reserved to himself Courland and Semigallia,
which were erected into a hereditarv duchv. There were no
more Livonian knights, but Poland, as heir of the quarrels of
Livonia, became more than ever ardent in the struggle. The
Russians sustained their new reputation. In 1563 Ivan the
Terrible, with a numerous army and many guns, besieged and
took Polotsk, a very important position from its proximity to
Livonia and its situation on the Dwina, the grand commercial
route to Riga. In spite of a victory at Orcha, the King of Po
land demanded a truce (1566).
Ivan at this moment ottered a strange spectacle to Russia.
To deliberate on the request of Sigismond he assembled a coiui-
sel, composed of the higher clergy, the territorial boyards on
the frontiers of Lithuania (and well acquainted with the local
topography), and finally the merchants of Moscow and Smo-
lensk. This despot, who founded autocracy in blood, convoked
real States-general; he made an ap|)eal to their opinion, as he
had many times before, when from the stone tribune of Lobitoe
miesto he harangued the three orders. The Assemblv decided
that the King of Poland's conditions could not be accepted, and
offered men and money for the continuation of the war. This
was prolonged for four years, and ended in a truce. The Tzar,
who saw difficulties accumulating in Livonia, conceived an ex-
pedient to enable him to escape them. No longer hoping to be
able directly to unite the Baltic ports to his empire, he offered
the title of King of Livonia to the Danish Prince Magnus, and
made him marry a daughter of the same Prince Vladimir whom
he had put to death. Magnus, nominal King of Livonia, soon
perceived that he was only an inslrmnent of Muscovite policy.
He intrigued against the Tzar and was dethroned, Ivan the
Terrible took Wenden in person, which Magnus had garrisoned,
and massacred the German soldiers to the last man.
Unfortunately the war with Poland was complicated by the
raids of the Tatars of the Crimea. Sigismond did not cease to
200 HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
work upon the Khan, who well understood that his cause was
aUied with that of Poland. The Tzar, however, overpowered
the Khan, took Kief, and established towns on the Dnieper.
And what could the Tatars gain there, after all ? Had not Ivan
overthrown two Mongol kingdoms ? The Sultan of Stamboul,
Selim II., was ready to join in the Holy War for Kazan and
Astrakhan, In 1569, 17,000 Turks, commanded by Kassim
Pacha, and 50,000 Tatars, led by the Khan, besieged Astrakhan.
The operations dragged on ; the Pacha wished to pass the
winter there, but a sedition broke out in the army. He was
obliged to raise the siege, and lost many of his men in the
steppes of the desert. Two years after, the Khan Devlet-
Ghirei invaded Russia with 20,000 men. Was he aided bv the
treachery of the voievodes .'' He crossed the Oka, and suddenly
appeared under the walls of Moscow. He burned the faubourgs
and the fire spread to the town, which, except the Kremlin, was
completely reduced to ashes. A foreign author gives the evi-
dently exaggerated number of 800,000 victims. The Khan retired
with more than 100,000 prisoners, and despatched the following
insolent message to Ivan : " I burn, I ravage everything because
of Kazan and Astrakhan. I came to you and I burnt Moscow.
I wished to have your crowD and your head, but you did not
show yourself; you declined a battle, and you dare to call your-
self a Tzar of Moscow. Will you live at peace with me ? Yield
me up Kazan and Astrakhan. If you have only money to offer
me, it would be useless, were it the riches of the whole world.
What I want is Kazan and Astrakhan. As to the roads to your
empire, I have seen them — I know them." He returned the
following year (1572), but Prince Michael Vorotinski met him
on the banks of the Lopasnia, and inflicted on him a complete
defeat.
The same year (that of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew)
died Sigismond Augustus II., king of Poland. His reign was
especially memorable for the union of Lublin (1569), in virtue of
which Poland and Lithuania were henceforth to form only one
State under an elective prince. Thus Poland enfeebled royal
power at home, just when it acquired in Russia an extraordinary
iegree of energy. A party of nobles was formed at Warsaw who
A'ished to elect the son of Ivan the Terrible as King of Poland.
This was to prepare for the reunion of the two great Slav em-
pires, separated less by language than religion, whose growing
antagonism could only terminate in the ruin of one of them, to
th.e great advantage of the German race. Ivan coveted the
crown, not for his son, but for himself. Let us see him court
Uie Polish ambassadors, and try to defend himself against the
HISTOR Y OF R USSIA. 2 O I
accusations of cruelty and tyranny which the banished Musco
vites brought against liini.
"If your/(r//jr, who arc now without a king," said he to the
PoUsh envoy Voropai, "desire me for their sovereign, they will
see what a good protector antl liquisi,n/or
of a new world, was reckoned a hero by the people, and is
honored as a saint by the Church. Miracles were accomplished
at his tomb ; epic songs celebrated his exploits. The Tatars
have composed a whole legend about him.
If Adachef had given to Russia in 1551 her first municipal
liberties, Ivan had assembled in 1556 the first States-general,
composed of the three orders. The reformation of the Church
under Silvester was completed by the Council of 1573, which
forbade rich convents to acquire new lands ; and, by the Council
of 1580, extending the prohibition to all convents. The Church
could no longer acquire property. Ivan the Terrible restrained
an abuse which troubled all the public ceremonies, and more
than once imperilled the success of battles. We know how
powerful, in the Russia of the i6th century, was the constitution
of the family. When a noble rose or fell, his whole family rose
or fell with him ; even the memory of his ancestors and the
future of his youngest nephews were concerned. This is the
reason why a Russian noble never consented to occupy an in-
ferior place, if no precedents on the subject existed. Court and
camp were constantly disturbed by the " quarrels of precedence "
{fiiicstnikhestvd). Neither the knout nor the executioner's axe
could subdue their resistance. They would rather die than dis-
honor their ancestors. The ' Books of Rank ' were consulted on
all occasions, to know the respective precedence of the different
families. Ivan IV. forbade all disputes of rank to any noble
who was not the head of his family. This was only to restrain
the evil ; it had yet to be extirpated.
Ivan the Terrible mav be considered as the founder of the
National Guard of the streltsi or stniifz, who during two hundred
years rendered great services to the empire. — He also organized,
on the frontiers threatened by the Tatars, a series of posts and
camps where the soldiers of the country might be exercised.
He gathered strangers about him. He authorized the minister
Wettermann, of Dorpat, to preach at Moscow, listened to Eber-
feld, and refused a discussion with Rosvita, saving that he would
not " cast pearls before swine." He permitted the erection of
the first Calvinist and Lutheran churches at Moscow', thus an-
ticipating the toleration of the i8th century ; but, on seeing the
people's dislike to them, he had them removed two versts from
the capital.
Ivan's character was a strange compound of greatness and
barbarism. Cruel, dissolute, superstitious, we see him by turns
yielding himself, with his favorites, to the most shameful ex-
cesses, or, covered with a monkish garment, heading them in
2 o8 HIS TOR Y OF R USSIA.
processions and other pious exercises. Like Henry VIII, , he
had many wives. After Anastasia Romanof he married a bar-
barian, the Tcherkess Maria; next, two legitimate wives; then
two more whose union the Church refused to sanction. By his
seventh wife, Maria Nagoi he had a son, another Dmitri. At
the close of his days we see him seeking an alliance wiih
foreigners, and asking first the sister of the King of Poland, and
then a cousin of Elizabeth of England, in marriage. His brutal
habits and the facility with which he used his iron stafT, had a
tragic conclusion. In an altercation with his son Ivan he struck
him, and the blow was mortal. Great and fierce was the sorrow
of the Tzar. In slaying his beloved son, he had slain his own
work. He had no longer a successor, since Feodor, the elder
of his remaining sons, was feeble in body and mind ; and the
second Dmitri was only an infant. It was for foreign succes-
sors — for one of the detested boyards — that, at the price of so
much blood and so many perils, he had founded autocracy. He
only survived his son three years, and died in 1584. Without
allowing himself to be biassed by Ivan's numerous cruelties, the
historian ought fairly to compare him with men of his own time.
He ought not to forget that the i6th century is the century of
Henry VIII., of Ferdinand the Catholic, of Catherine de Medici,
of the Inquisiiion, of Saint Bartholomew, and oi strapados. Was
the Europe of this era indeed so far advanced beyond Asiatic
Russia, newly escaped from the Mongol yoke ? Ivan the Terrible,
in decimating, in suppressing, in tyrannizing over the aristocracy,
at least put it out of their power to establish after him that
anarchic fioblesse, the hidden danger of Slav nations, which in
Poland, under the name of /6'x/6'///,?, began by enfeebling royalty,
and ended by enfeebling the nation.
HISTORY OF RUSSIA,
ao9
CHAPTER XVI.
MUSCOVITE RUSSIA AND THE RENAISSANCE.
The Muscovite government — The kin and the inen of the 'IV.ar — 'Y\\z prikazes~-
Rural classes — Citizens — Commerce — Domestic slavery — Seclusion ot
women — The Renaissance ; Literature, popular songs, and cathedrals-
Moscow in the i6th century.
MUSCOVITE GOVERNMENT — THE RELATIONS AND MEN OF THE
TZAR — THE PRIKAZES.
The Russia of the i6th and lyih centuries is an Oriental
state, almost without relations with Europe. The Livonian
knights, the Poles, the Swedes, and the Danes, who understood
that it was only her barbarism which ensured her inferiority to
her weaker neighbors, took good care that neither the men, the
arms, nor the sciences of the West should reach her. Sigismond
threatened the English merchants of the Baltic with death. He
did not intend that " the Muscovite, who is not only our present
adversary, but the eternal enemy of all free Slates, should pro-
vide herself with guns, bullets, and munitions ; and, above all,
with artisans who continue to make arms, hitherto unknown in
this barbaric country." Moscow, thanks to those jealous precau-
tions, thanks also to the hatred of the Russians for the " Mus-
sulmans " and " heretics " of the West, remained what the Tatar
invasions had made her — an Asiatic Empire. The patriarchal rule
of ancient Slavonia and the example of the Oriental sovereigns
contributed to maintain in her the despotic principle in all its
force. The Tzar was at once the father and the master of his
subjects, more absolute than the Khan of the Tatars or the
Sultan of Constantinople. The persons and the goods of his
subjects were his property; the greatest lords, the princes de-
scended from Rurik, were only his slaves ijiholopy). A petition
in Russian signifies a "beating of the forehead " (AV/Z/ir;/!'////).
The nobles of the empire signed their requests not with their
names, Ivan or Peter, but with a lackey's nickname, a servile dim-
niulive, Vania or Pctrouchka. The Bvzantine formula, " Mav I
speak and live ? " it> exaggerated in the Russian, " Bid me not to
2 1 o HISTOR Y OF R USSIA.
be chastised ; bid me to speak a word," Men approached the Tzaf
in fear and trembling; the people prostrated themselves before
that terrible iron staff with which Ivan was always armed. He con-
sidered the empire as his private property; he administered it
with his own " people," who had succeeded to the droujiiia of
former princes ; he governed it by the help of his own relations
or those of his wife. The sons of the greatest lords gloried in
serving him in the capacity of spalniki or gentlemen of the
bedchamber, and siolniki or waiters at the royal table. These
domestic functions led to the rank of boyards ox okolnitchie (sur-
rounders of the prince.) The principal boyards formed Xh^ douma
or council of the empire, assembled in the chamber of the prince,
and were presided over by him. On solemn occasions the Jt'^ijr or
general assembly was convoked, which was composed of deputies
from all the orders, and was a sort of States-general of ancient
Russia. The proud Russian aristocracy did not allow itself tamely
to be reduced to this state of independence ; but the kniazes
scattered as provincial or municipal governors through Siberia,
Kazan, or Astrakhan, or subjected in the capital to rigorous
surveillance, had become powerless. To ensure the results of
their cruel policy, the successors of Ivan IV. forbade the
bearers of certain too illustrious names to marry.
When the Tzar desired to marry, he addressed a circular to
the governors of the towns and provinces, conunanding them to
send to Moscow the most beautiful maidens of the empire, or
at all events those of noble birth. Like Ahasuerus in the Bible,
like the Emperor Theophilus in the chronicles of Byzantium,
like Louis the Debonnaire in the narrative of the ' Astronomer,'
he made his selection out of all these beauties. Fifteen hundred
young girls were assembled for Vassili Ivanovitch to choose from ;
after the first meeting, 500 of these were sent to Moscow. The
Grand Prince then made a fresh selection of 300, then of 200,
then of 100, then of 10, who were examined bv the doctors and
midwives. The most beautiful and the healthiest became the
Tzarina; she took a new name, as a sign that she was going to
begin a new existence. Her father, on becoming father-in law
of the Tzar, also changed his name ; her relations became the
nearest relations {prochcs) of the prince, constituted his compan-
ions, undertook the care of everything, and governed the empire
like the house of their imperial relative. The dispossessed minis-
ters and friends tried in secret to reconquer their lost power by
putting the new sovereign to death, and did not hesitate to have
recourse to magic and poison. Many of these imperial brides
never survived their triumphs, and, suddenly attacked by
mysterious maladies, died before their coronation day. All the
HISTOR Y OF RUSSIA. 2 1 1
successors of Vassili Ivanovitch, even including Alexis Mikhai-
lovitch, instituted these assemblages of beauty for the choice of
their wives. It was the privilege of the sovereigns of Moscow
and of the princes of their blood.
The men of the liroiijina or of the surrounding oi the prince
thought it beneath their dignity or above their power to servp
him otherwise than in war or justice. The work of the pen had
lo be confided to the sons of the priests and merchants — the (Uak\
whose beginnings were as humble as those of the Capetian law
yers, seated at the feet of the peers of France ; like them, the\
ended by taking the place of the great lords. The administration
of the State was entrusted to twenty or \\\\x\.y prikazes or bureaux,
whose numbers and functions varied at different times. There
was notably the p/ikaz of provisions, that of drinks, and that of
the pantry, which were all concerned with the commissariat of
the Court. The duties were very heavy, as not only the Tzar,
the Tzarina, and the princes of the blood kept an open table,
but, in accordance with patriarchal and family ideas, the prince
was supposed to feed from his own table the nobles and function-
aries lodged beyond the palace. He was obliged to send them
daily, cooked meats, wines, and fruits. There was the prikaz oi
the gold and silver cup, that of the wardrobe, of pharmacy, of
horses, of the falconr)', of games, to w'hich belonged comedians
buffoons, dwarfs, fools, keepers of bears and dogs ready to
fight with the bears, the menagerie of rare animals, chess, cards,
and in general everything that served to amuse the Tzai.
The prikaz kazenuyi, or " of the crown," had under its con-
trol the manufactures fabricating the golden and silken stuffs,
of which the prince had a monopoly, and the depot of the pre-
cious Siberian furs. It furnished the presents to be distributed
among the clergy, the boyards, the ambassadors of foreign powers,
and the Greek monks who came from Byzantium or Mount Allios,
to ask for alms. ']^\\t prikazes of the great palace, of the quarter,
of the revenue, and of the tax on liquors, were concerned with
the finances. There were also those of the imperial family, of
secret affairs, of petitions, posts, and police ; of the buildings of
the Tzar, slaves, monasteries, streltsi, embassies, and artillery.
The prikazcs of Oustiougue, of Kazan, of Galiich, of Kostroma^
of Little Russia, and Siberia, had a territorial competence.
Usually the expenses of such and such a bureau were defrayed
by the produce of taxes on a given town or province.
The State revenues were composed : i. Of that of the de-
mesne, including thirty-six towns and their territory, the inhabi-
tants of which paid their dues either in kind or in money. 2.
Of the ta§^h}, an annual impost on every 6o measures of corn.
2 1 2 HIS TOR Y OF R USSIA.
3. Of the fodaie, a fixed tax on every dvor or fire. 4. The
produce of the custom-houses, and of the excess of the municipal,
dues. 5. The tax on the public baths. 6. The farming-out of
the Crown taverns, 7. The fines and expenses of justice, the
confiscations pronounced by the "tribunal of the brigands."
Fletcher, who visited Russia in the time of Boris Godounof,
valued the whole of these revenues at 1.223,000 roubles of their
money. The Tzar annually receiv^ed besides, furs and othei
things from Siberia, Permia, and the Petchora ; he exchangee:
them himself with the Turkish, Persian, Armenian, Bokharian
or Western merchants, who came to the fairs or landed at the
ports of the empire. Further, the Crown, after having allowec
the officers to gorge themselves some time at the expense of the
people, reserved to itself the power of calling them to justice,
and of depriving them of part, or the whole, of their booty. The
Tzar, who, like the ancient despots of Egypt and the East, had
already monopolized certain branches of commerce, kept up an
undignified rivalry with his own subjects. He sent agents into
special provinces, who seized on all the productions of the country,
furs, wax, and honey ; forced the proprietors to sell them to
them at a low price, and then obliged the English of Arkhangel
or the merchants of Asia to buy them at a high rate ; he even laid
hands on the goods brought by these merchants, and made the
Russian tradesmen pay dear for them, forbidding them to pur
chase from others till the warehouses of the Tzar were emptied.
Fletcher exposes many other means of extortion, to which the
Tzarian government periodically had recourse.
The grades of courts of civil justice were three : i. The tri-
bunals of the starost of the district, and of the hundred men,
a magistrate established for every hundred ploughs. 2. The
tribunal of the voi'evode, in the head-city of each province.
3. The Supreme Court of Moscow. In spite of the Codes of
Ivan III. and Ivan IV., the law was so confused and uncertain
that Fletcher said of it, "There is no written law in Russia."
The mode of procedure was that of the Carolingian age ; if a
man could neither produce witnesses nor written proofs, the
judge could take the oath of one of the parties. Often the value
of an oath was confirmed by a judicial duel. The champions,
says Herberstein, loaded themselves with arms and heavy
armor. They were so embarrassed by all this weight of iron,
that a Russian was invariably overcome by a foreigner, and Ivan
III. forbade foreigners to fight with his subjects. Often the
parties had themselves represented by hired champions, and
then the combat became a comedy, the mercenaries only think-
ing how to spare themselves.
HISTOR Y OF R USSFA. 2 1 3
The legislation in the matter of debts equalled in rigor that
of the Roman law of the Twelve Tables. The insolvent debtor
was subjected to \\\q. pfavc'^^e ; that is, tied up half-naked on a
public place, and beaten three hours a day. This punishment
was repeated for thirty or forty days. If by that time no one
was moved by his lamentations and cries to pay his debt for him
he was allowed to be sold, and his wife and children let out to
hire; if he had none, he became the slave of the creditor. The
penal legislation was frightful. In cases of accusation of theft,
murder, or treason, the accused was subjected to tortures worthy
of a Spanish Inquisitor. The punishments were infinitely varied:
a man might be hung, beheaded, broken on the wheel, impaled,
drowned under the ice, or knouted to death. A wife who had
murdered her husband " was buried alive up to her neck ; "
liL-retics went to the stake; sorcerers were burned alive in an
iron cage ; coiners had liquid metal poured down their throats.
We must not forget the death of " ten thousand pieces," the tor-
ment in which the sides were torn away by iron hooks, and all
the varieties of mutilation. On the other hand, a noble who
slew a mougik was only fined or whipped. The noble who killed
his slave suffered no penalty ; he could do what he liked with
his own.
Before the creation of the patriarchate, the highest dignity in
the Russian Church was that of the Metropolitan of Moscow.
Then came the six Archbishops of Novgorod, Rostof, Smolensk,
Kazan, Pskof, and Volog.'la; the six Bishops of Riazan, Tver,
Kolomenskod, Vladimir, Souzdal, and Kroutiski or SaraT, whose
dioceses were immense. This Church was as dependent on the
Tzar as that of Byzantium had been on the Emperors ; at the
expense of a few formalities he could create a prelate or a new
see. The bishops were selected from the Black Clergy ; that
is, the monks who had taken the vow of chastity. Their reve-
nues were large and their ceremonies imposing. " As for exliort-
ing or instructing their sheep," says Fletcher,"" they have neither
the habit of it nor the talent for it, for all the clergy are as pro-
foundly ignorant of the Word of God as of all other learning."
With the secular or White Clergy, marriage was not only a right,
but a duty. Their manners and education hardly distinguished
them from the peasants, and like them, they were sometimes
subjected to the most degrading chastisements. The convents
were numerous, very full, and very rich ; that of St. Sergius, at
Troitsa, possessed 1 10.000 souls, — that is, male peasants. All
broken men took refuge there ; on the other hand, the councils
fulminated against the vagabond monks who infested the country.
More than once the monasteries served as prisons for disgraced
214
HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
nobles, who there led a gay and noisy life, like the Frank nobles
of other days in the cloisters of the Merovingian churches.
Delicate meats were sent them from the table of the Tzar — stur-
geons, sterlets, figs, dry raisins, oranges, pepper, and saffron.
In a letter to the monks of St. Cyril on the White Lake, Ivan
IV. blames with a mixture of severity and irony their lenity
towards the imprisoned boyards. " In my youth," he writes-
" when we were at St. Cyril, if dinner happened to be late, and
if the intendant asked a sterlet or any other fish of the cellarer,
he would reply, ' I have no orders about it ; I have only prepared
what I was ordered. Now it is night, and I can give you nothing ;
I fear the sovereign, but I fear God more.' " " See," continues
Ivan, " what was the severity of the rule. They fulfilled the vvor6
of the prophet : ' Speak the truth, and have no shame before the
Tzar.' To-dav my boyard Cheremetief reigns in his cell like a
Tzar ; mv boyard Khabarof pays him visits with the monks-
They drink as if in lay society. Is it a wedding ? is it a baptism ?
The captive distributes pieces of iced fruits, spiced bread, and
sweetmeats. Beyond the monastery there is a house filled with
provisions. Some say that strong drinks are gradually smug-
gled into the cell of Cheremetief. Now in monasteries it is
against the rules to have foreign wines ; how much more, then,
strong waters.? "
The orthodox faith, deprived of the stimulus of liberty and
instruction, tended to become mere routine. Salvation was
gained by hearing long liturgies, by multiplying Slavonic orisons,
by making hundreds of prostrations and genuflexions, by telling
rosaries, and by frequenting shrines. The most celebrated
centres were the catacombs of Kief, where slept the incorrupti-
ble bodies of the saints, and where dwell their successors with-
out ever seeing the light of day ; the monastery of St. Cyril, on
the White Lake ; of St. Sergius, at Troitsa ; and the cathedral
of St. Sophia, at Novgorod. Men prostrated themselves at the
tombs of St. Peter and St. Alexis of Moscow ; before the won-
der-working virgins of Vladimir, Smolensk, Tischvin, and Pskof.
The most pious journeyed as far as the sacred Mount Athos,
and the city of Constantinople, full of blessed relics, though pol-
luted by the presence of the Turk; nay, further still, to the tomb
of Cnrist, to Golgotha, to Mount Sinai, wherever orthodox com-
munities disputed possession with Catholic communities.
The national army was, like the Tatar army, chiefly com-
posed of cavalry. The sto/niki, spalniki, and other young cour-
tiers, formed an Imperial Guard of about 8000 men. All the
gentlemen of the empire, dvoriane, or dieti-boyarskie, were con-
fined to the mounted ranks ; the revenues of their lands were
HISTOK Y OF RUSSIA. 2 i 5
coiUited a,> pJly for these vicn of service {sloujilii lioudi) ; the an-
:;ient distinction between the pomestie (fiefs) and the votchiny
(free allods) was ahnost abolished. It was nearly the rcgitfte of
the fiefs of the West, or of the ziams and tunars of 'I'urkey.
I his noble cavalry could reckon 80,000 horsemen ; with the
levy of free peasants, it mounted up to 300,000. To this we
must join the irregular cavalry, composed of the Cossacks of the
Don and the Terek, of Tatars and Bachkirs. The national in-
fantry was constituted — i, by the datolchnic lioudi^ peasants of
the monasteries, churches, and domains ; 2, by the stre/tsi, free
archers, or comnuuial soldiers, organized in the time of Ivan IV.,
and who, in Moscow alone, formed a body of 12,000 men. Then
came the artillery, and the soldiers told off to the goulia'igorod,
J^e "city that walks," movable ramparts of wood, which were
used both in sieges and in the open country, where the Russian
troops, if they were not protected, showed little firmness. In
the 15th century, foreign mercenaries began to be enlisted —
Poles, Hungarians, Greeks, Turks, Scotch, Scandinavians,
armed and disciplined after the European fashion, and enrolled
under the names of rittcrs, soldiers, and dragoons. History has
preserved the names of some of their leaders : Rosen the Ger-
man, and Margeret the Frenchman, who has left us some curious
memoirs of the False Dmitri.
The equipment of the national troops was completely Oriental.
They had long robes, high saddles, short stirrups, rich capari-
sons, scale or ring armor. The Tzar himself went into battle
with his lance, bow and quiver. The army was always divided
into five divisions — the main army, the right and left wings, the
van and rear guards. Each was commanded bv two voievodes
of unequal rank, without counting the voievode of the artillery
or of the movable camp, and the atatiiaiis of the streltsi and of
the Cossacks. The grades of the regular army were those of
the tysatski or chiliarch, the centurion, the commander of fifty,
and the deciatski, or commander of ten. All obeyed the grand
voievode, or general-in-chief. Each soldier brought provisions
for four months, and the Tzar furnished nothing, except oc-
casionally some corn. The men lived almost entirely on biscuit,
dried fish or bacon, and proved capable of enduring much
fatigue. The campaigns never lasted long, and only part of the
army was permanent.
From this time Russia sought to enter into regular relations
with foreign Powers. Her diplomatic traditions were those of
the East or Byzantium. Her first ambassadors were the Greek
Dmitri Trakhaniotes, and the Italian Marco Ruffo, sent into
Persia. They treated with most deference the neighboring
2 1 6 HIS TOR Y OF R US SI A.
States, not those which were most powerful. Whilst they sent
a simple courier {gonets) to the Emperor, and the kings of France,
England, and Spain, they despatched boyards, accompanied by
(h'aks, to Sweden, Denmark, and Poland. Tht prikaz oi the em-
bassies, which had under its orders iifty translators and seventy
interpreters of all languages, gave them their safe conduct, de-
tailed instructions, letters for the foreign sovereign, presents,
two years' pay, and a certain number of furs of costly materials
from xh&J)rikaz of the Crown, which they were to do their best
to sell at a high price. The Russian ambassador, like tiiose of
the Greeks and Tatars, was also a commission agent for the
benefit of the Tzar. The envoys were recommended to avoid
all insolence, and to watch their men, but to display the greatest
luxury, to exact due payment of all honors, and, at the peril of
their lives, never to suffer the Tzar's titles to be diminished —
titles which were rather complicated, as he enumerated all his
subject States. The mercantile preoccupations of the Russian
ambassadors, and their eternal quarrels about etiquette, rendered
them unbearable at all the European Courts. On their return
tiiey were summoned before the Tzar, gave him a detailed ac-
count of their mission, and handed over to him the journal of
their tour and the notes of all that they had observed in the dis-
tant countries. From the i6th century a shrewd and observant
s|)irit is noticeable in their relations, which is not unworthy of
the wisdom of their masters, the B}zantines.
When foreign ambassadors arrived in Russia, they were
treated with magnificence and distrust. From the time they
crossed the frontier, they and their people were fed, housed, and
provided with carriages, but a /;■/>/(?/ attached to their persons
watched carefully that they obtained no interviews with the
natives, nor information about the state of the country. They
were taken through the richest and most populous provinces ;
the citizens were everywhere required to meet them on their
route, dressed in iheir costliest clothes. At Moscow a palace of
the Tzar was assigned them as a residence, and they were fed
from his table. Their first interview took place with great pomp
in the Palace of Facets {Granavitaia pala'id). The walls of the
hall were hung with magnificent tapestries ; gold and silver
vessels, of Asiatic form, shone on the dais. The Tzar, crown on
head, sceptre in hand, seated on the throne of Solomon, sup-
ported by the mechanical lions, which roared loudly, surrounded
by his rytidis in long white caftans and armed with the great
silver axe, by his sumptuously-dressed boyards, and by his clergy
in their simple costume, received their letters of credit. He
asked the ambassador for news of his master, and how he had
travelled. If the Tzar were not contented with him, the am-
HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
217
bassadors' palace became a prison where no native might pene-
trate, and carefully-studied humiliations were practised to extract
from him concessions or to abridge his stav.
THE RURAL CLASSES — CITIZENS OF THE TOWNS — COMMERCE.
The lower classes of Muscovy were composed of three ele-
ments : — I. The slave, 01 kholop, properly so called, the 7naniip-
iiim of the Romans, a man taken in war, sold by himself or some
one else, or son of a kliolop. 2. The peasant inscribed on the
lands of a noble, the co/oniis adscriptius of the Roman Empire,
whose person was legally free, but who was to be reduced by
means of a more and more rigorous legislation to the condition
of krepostnyi or serf of the glebe. 3. The free cultivator, who
live-d like a farmer on the lands of another, and had the right to
change his master, but who was soon to be mingled with the
preceding class.
It was the inscribed peasants who constituted almost the whole
of the rural population. In the ancient provinces tlie peasant
might consider himself as the primitive inhabitant of the soil.
He was only made subject to the gentleman in order to secure
to the latter an income sufficient for militarv service: he there-
fore continued to look on himself as the true proprietor. In
these rural masses, the primitive features of the Slav organiza-
tion were preserved in all their vigor. It was the commune, or
w/>, and not the individuals, who possessed the land ; it was the
commune that was responsible to the Tzar for the tax, for the
cori'e'e and dues to the lord. This responsibility armed the com-
mune with an enormous power over its members, and this power
embodied itself in the starost, assisted by elders. In the bosom
of the commune the family was not organized less severely, less
tyrannically than the mir. The father of the family had over his
wife, his sons, married or single, and their wives, an authority
almost as absolute as that of the starost over the commune, or
the Tzar over the empire. The paternal authority became
harder and more stern from the contact with serfafre and the
despotic rule. Ancient barbarism was still intact among these
ignorant people : the graceful customs or the savage manners,
the poetic or cruel superstitions of the early Slavs, were perpet-
uated by thein. The Russian peasant remained a pagan under
his veneer of orthodoxy. His funeral songs seem destitute of
all Christian hope. His marriage songs preserve the tradition
of the purchase or capture of the bride. The sad lot of the
rustic was vet to be aggravated during the three centuries of
progress which the upper classes had still to accomplish. In
2 1 8 tfIS TO A' Y OF R USS/A.
view of the State, as of the proprietor, he tended more and more
to become a beast of burden, a produciive force to be used and
abused at pleasure.
The Russian towns were composed first of a fortress or
kref/il, where at need a garrison of "men of the service " could
be sent, the walls being generally of wood ; next of faubourgs or
possads, inhabited by the citizens or possadskie. They were
governed by voievodes nominated by the prince, or by a starost
or mayor who was elected by an assembly of the inhabitants,
nobles, priests, or citizens, but was always a gentleman. The
starost governed the town and the district depending on it. As
the citizens paid the heaviest taxes, they were forbidden to quit
the town ; they were, as during the last days of the Roman Em-
pire, bound to the city glebe. Alexis Mikhailovitch was after-
wards to attach the pain of death to this prohibition. To assess
the impost, the starost convoked at once both the deputies of
the town and those of the rural communes. The impost of the
tagla was paid by the town collectively, in proportion to the
number of fires, and all the people were collectively responsible
for each other to the State.
In the burgess class may be counted the merchants, whose
Russian name of gosti (guests and strangers) shows how far
commerce still was from being acclimatized in this land and
under this feg'niie. Muscovy produced in abundance leather
from oxen ; furs from the blue and black fox, the zioeline, the
beaver, and the ermine ; wax, honey, hemp, tallow, oil from the
seal, and dried fish. From China, Bokhara, and Persia, she re-
ceived silks, tea, and spices. The Russian people are naturally
intelligent and industrious, but still commerce languished.
Fletcher, the Englishman, has assigned as the reason for this
decav, the insecuritv created bv anarchv and despotism. The
mougik did not care either to save or to lay by. He pretended
to be poor and miserable, to escape the exactions of the prince
and the plunder of his agents. If he had money, he buried it,
as one in fear of an invasion. " Often," says the English
writer, " you will see them trembling with fear, lest a boyard
should know what thev have to sell. I have seen them at times,
when they had spread out their wares so that you might make a
better choice, look all round them, as if they feared an enemy
would surprise them and lay hands on them. If I asked them
the cause, they would say to me, ' I was afraid there might be a
noble or one of the " sons of boyards " here ; they would take
away my merchandise by force.' " " The merchants and the
citizens," savs M. Lerov-T>eaulieu, " could with difhcultv become
a powerful class in a country cut off from Europe and the sea,
HIS TOR Y OF R USSTA. 2 1 9
and cut off, too, from all great commercial routes by the Liiiui-
aiiians, the Teutonic Order, and the Tatars." The citizen, like the
inhabitant of the French towns of the 14th century, was only a
sort of villain ; he wore the costume of a peasant, and lived
almost like him. The merchants were really what they were
called by Ivan the Terrible — the mougiks of commerce.
DOMESTIC SLAVERY — THE SECLUSION OF WOMEN.
Only two more facts were needed to give to Russian society
the same Asiatic character which we noted already in the des-
potism of the Tzars and the communism of the people : domestic
slaverv, and the seclusion of women.
Besides the peasants more or less attached to the glebe, all
Russian proprietors kept in their castles, or in their town-houses
at Moscow, a multitude of servants like those who encumbered
the senators' palaces in imperial Rome. A great lord always
gathered round him many hundreds of these dvorovie\ both men
and women, bought or born in the house, whom he never paid,
whom he fed badlv, and who served him badlv in return, but
whose numbers served to give an idea of the wealth of their
master. The cortege of a noble on his way to the Kremlin may
be compared to that of a Japanese daimio. A long file of
sledges or chariots, a hundred horses, outriders who made the
people stand back by blows with their whips ; a crowd of armed
men, who escorted the noble ; and behind a host of dvorovie,
often with naked feet beneath their magnificent liveries, filled
with their stir and noise the stro-Qts oi Bicly i-go rod. These dom-
estic slaves were subjected, without distinction of sex, to the
most severe discipline, and were forced to submit to all the cruel
or voluptuous caprices of their masters, and, like the slaves of
antiquity, were exposed to the most frightful chastisements.
Whilst the registered colon was attached to the land, the kJwIopy
could be sold, either by heads or by families, without compunc-
tion. Wives were separated from their husbands, and children
from their parents.
The custom of secluding women is older than the Tatar
invasion. The Russian Slavs were Asiatics, even before they
were subdued bv the MoutoIs. Bvzantium had likewise far
more influence than Kazan on Russian manners. Now, in
ancient Athens, and in the Constantinople of the Middle Ages,
the matron and the young girl were alike obliged to remain
in the gyn(sa-um, which became in Moscow the terem or vcrkh
(upper apartment). In Russia, as in the Rome of the Twelve
220 HISTOR V OF RVSS/A.
Tables, the woman was always a minor. This was one con-
sequence of the patriarchal organization of the family. She
always remained under the guardianship of her father, her hus-
band's father, an uncle, an elder brother, or a grandfather. The
Russian monks translated for her use the sermons of the monks
of the Lower Empire, which enjoined the wife " to obey her
husband as the slave obevs his master : " to consider herself
only as the " property of the man ; " never to allow herself to
be c-aWtd gospoja, or mistress, but to look on her husband as her
gospodine or lord. The father of the family had the right to
correct her, like one of his children or slaves. The priest Sil-
vester, in his ' Domostroi,' only advises him not to employ too
thick sticks, or staffs tipped with iron ; nor humiliate her unduly
by whipping her before his men, but, without anger or violence,
to correct her moderately in private. No woman dared to ob-
ject to this chastisement ; the most robust would allow herself
calmly to be beaten by a feeble husband.
The Russian proverb says, " I love thee like my soul, and I
dust thee like my jacket." Herberstein mentions a Muscovite
woman who, having married a foreigner, did not believe herself
loved, as he never beat her. At home the Russian woman was
hid behind the curtains of the icfiDi ; in the street, hy^ those of
her litter. Over her face fell ihQ fata, a sort of nun's veil. It
was an outrage even to raise the eyes to the wife of a noble,
and high treason to see the face of the wife of the Tzar. A
stranger might have thought himself at Stamboul or Ispahan. It
appeared so highly necessary that this fragile being should re-
main at home, that she was allowed to dispense even with going
to church. Her church was her own house, where she had to
occupy herself with prayers, pious reading, prostrations, genu-
flexions, and alms, and was surrounded by beggars, monks, and
nuns. The priest Silvester also wished her to superintend her
house, be the first to rise, to watch over her men and maid-,
servants, to distribute their tasks, and work herself with hei
own hands, like Lucrece of old, or the wise women of the
Proverbs. In reality she had many other ways of occupying
her time The toilette of the Russian boyarines was very com-
plicated. •' They paint themselves all colors," says Petrel ;
" not only their faces, but their eyes, neck, and hands. They lay
on white, red, blue, and black. Black eyelashes they tint white, and
white ones black, or some dark color, but they put on the paint
so badly that it is visible to every one. At the time of my visit
to Moscow the wife of an illustrious boyard, who was exceed-
ingly beautiful, declined to paint herself, but she was an object
of scorn to all the other women. ' She despises our customs,'
HIS TOR Y OF R USSIA. 221
said they. They induced their husbands to complain to the
Tzar, and oblained an imperial order to make her paint.''
Stoutness was the ideal of Turkish and Tatar beauty, so the
Russians did all in their power to deform their slender figures,
and, by means of idleness and drugs, managed to succeed. As
to the men, they always wore a long beard and long dresses.
To shave the beard like the European nations, was, said Ivan the
Terrible, " a sin that the blood of all the martvrs could not
cleanse. Was it not to deface the image of man, created by
God ? "
The influence of Byzantine monachism is also to be found
in the objection to all innocent amusements. Cards, and even,
chess, were forbidden ; music and songs glorifying the ancient
heroes of Russia were condemned as " diabolic " ; the noble
exercises of the chase and dancing were not allowed. " If they
give themselves up at table," says the ' Domostroi," " to filthy
conversation ; if they play the lute or the goussla ; if they dance,
or jump, or clap their hands, then, as smoke chases the bees,
the angels of God are made to fly from that table by those
devilish words, and demons take their place. Those who give
themselves up to diabolic songs ; those who play the lute, the
tambourine, or the trumpet ; those who amuse themselves with
bears, dogs, and falcons — with dice, chess, or tric-trac, will to-
gether go to hell, and together will be damned."
Thanks to the general ignorance, there was no intellectual
life in Russia ; thanks to the seclusion of women, there was no
society. Compared with the gallant and witty society of Poland,
Russia seems a vast monastery. The devil lost nothing in the
long run. The nobles, living in the midst of slaves subjected
to their caprices, degraded themselves while they degraded their
victims. Debauchery and drunkenness were the national sins.
Rich and poor, young and old, women and children, often
dropped down dead drunk in the streets, without surprising any-
one. The priests, in their visits to their sheep, got theologically
drunk. " Even at the houses of the great lords," says M.
Zabieline, " no feast was gay and jo3-ous unless every one was
drunk. Tt was precisely in drunkenness that the gayety con-
sisted. The guests were never gay if they were not drunk."
Even to-day, " to be merry " signifies to have been drinking.
The preachers, even, while attacking the national vice, touched it
delicately. " My brothers," says one of them, " what is worse
than drunkenness ? You lose memory and reason, like a mad-
man, who knows not what he does. Is this mirth, my friends,
mirth according to the law and glory of God ? The drunkard
is senseless. He lies like a corpse. If you speak to him, he
2 ? 2 HIS TOR V OF R USSIA.
does not answer, He foams, he stinks, he grunts like a brute.
Think of his jDoor soul which grows foul in its vile body, which
is its prison. Drunkenness sends our guardian angels away,
and makes the devil merry. To be drunk, is to perform sacri-
fices to Satan. The devil rejoices, and says, ' No ; the sacri-
fices of the pagans never caused me half so much joy and happi-
ness as the intoxicaiion of a Christian.' Fly, then, my brothers,
the curse of drunkenness. To drink is lawful, and is to the
glory of God, who has given us wine to make us rejoice. The
Fathers were far from forbidding wine, but we must never drink
ourselves drunk."
Their only diversions were, in spite of the ' Domostroi,' the
jests of the buffoons, who, like the writers of the French fa-
bliaux, never spared Churchmen ; the coarse pleasantries of court
fools ?Ly\d/oI/fs, who were the inseparable companions of the great,
and were to be found even in the monasteries ; hunts with falcons
and hounds, and bear fights. All these festivities were accom-
panied with music, and sometimes a blind singer would come
and celebrate the bogatyrs of Old Russia. The rich never will-
inirlv went to sleep without being lulled bv tales told bv some
popular story-ieller. Ivan the Terrible always had three, who
succeeded each other at his bedside. Soon, under Alexis
Mikhailovitch, theatrical representations in imitation of Europe
were to begin.
All Western superstitions were current in Russia, which also
added follies of her own. The people believed in horoscopes,
diviners, sorcery, magic, the miraculous virtues of certain herbs
or certain formulae, the evils produced by " lifting the foot-
marks" of an enemy, in bewitched swords, in love philtres, in
were-wolves, ghosts and vampires, which play such a terrible part
in the popular tales of Russia. Their terror of sorcerers is
shown by the horrible deaths they made them die. The most
enlightened Tzars shared this weakness, and Boris Godounof
made all his servants swear " never to have recourse to magi-
cians, male or female, or to any other means of hurting the
Tzar, the Tzarina, or their children ; never to cast spells by the
traces of their feet or of their carriages." Thev had more con-
fidence in the receipts of a wise woman, in holy water in which
the relics had been dipped, than in doctors, whom they only re-
garded as another variety of sorcerers. Nothing was more
difficult and dangerous than the early exercise of this profession.
If the doctor did not succeed in curing his patient, he was pun-
ished as a malicious magician. One of these unfortunate peo-
ple, a Jew, was executed under Ivan III. in a public place for
having allowed a Tzardvitch to die. Anthony, another, a Gar
HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
2*3
man by nation, was accused of having put a Tatar prince to
death, and delivered to his relatives to suffer by the kx talionis.
He was stabbed. Towards the end of the i6th century the
situation of doctors was somewhat ameliorated ; but when a
Tzarina or a great lady had to be attended, whose face they were
never allowed to see, and whose pulse they might only touch
through a muslin covering, what proper means had they of tak-
mz ^ diagnosis ?
Such was ancient Russia, — that European China discovered
and described by the European travellers of the i6ih and lyih
centuries, by Herberstein, Mayerberg, Cobenzel, envoys of Aus-
tria ; Chancellor, Jenkinson, and Fletcher, envoys of England ;
the Venetians Contaiini and Marco Foscarini ; the Roman
merchant Barberini ; Ulfeld the Dane ; Petrei the Swede ; the
Germans Heidenstein, Eric Lassota, Olearius; Possevino the
Jesuit ; the French captain Jacques Margeret ; the English doc-
tor Collins, &c. It now remains to speak of literature and the
arts.
THE RENAISSANCE : LITERATURE, POPULAR SONGS, AND CATHE-
DRALS — MOSCOW IN THE l6th CENTURY.
Ecclesiastical literature was chiefly composed of a collection
of ideas borrowed from the Fathers of ' Readings for Every
Day in the Year,' called ' Waves of Gold,' ' Months of Gold,'
' Emeralds,' &c. ; or of collections of Lives of the Saints of the
Greek or Russian Churches. The most considerable monument
belonging to this last group is the ' Tchetiminei,' a vast compil-
ation of the Metropolitan Macarius, one of the directors of the
conscience of Ivan the Terrible. The chronicles are still pro-
duced, among others the ' Stepennyia knigi,' a history of the
Russian princes after Vladimir. Besides the great legal collec-
tion of the ' Code ' and of the ' Stoglaf,' we must mention the
'Domostroi' of the Pope Silvester, Minister of Ivan IV. This is
a collection of precepts instructing readers in the arts of keep-
ing house and securing salvation. It enumerates the days on
which swans, cranes, capons, egg-pasties, and cheese are to be
eaten. It gives receipts for making hydromel, kvass, beer gruel,
and sweetmeats. It gives bills of fare, and at the same time
teaches the master of the house how he ought to govern his
wife, his children, and his servants ; avoid the sin of wicked con-
versation ; please God, honor the Tzar, the princes, and all per-
sons of rank ; how he should conduct himself well at table, "to
blow his nose, and to spit without noise, taking care to turn
224 HIS TOR Y OF R USSTA.
away from the company, and put his foot over the place." The
' Domostro' gives the characteristics of the Russian civilization,
as the Be Re Riistua of the elder Cato gives those of the an-
cient Roman civilization. From Cato to Silvester there is an
evident progress. Whilst the Roman advises that the old oxen,
the old iron, and the old slaves should be sold, the Pope Silves-
ter enjoins that " the old servants who are no longer good for
anything, be fed and clothed, in consideration of their former
services : this ministers to the salvation of the soul, and we must
fear the anger of God." "Masters," he says again, "ought to
be benevolent towards their servants, and give them to eat and
drink, and warm them properly ; for, if they keep their dvororit
by force around them, and do not nourish them sufficiently,
they turn them into bad servants, who lie, steal, are dissipated,
spoU everything, and get drunk at the tavern. These foolish
masters sin against God, are despised by their slaves, and con-
temned by their neighbors."
"When a man sends his servant to honest people, he should
knock softly at the great door ; when the slave comes to ask
him what he wants, he should reply, ' I have nothing to do with
thee, but with him to whom I am sent.' He should only say
from whom he comes, so that the other may tell his master. On
the threshold of the chamber he will wipe his feet in the straw;
before entering he will blow his nose, spit, and say a prayer. If
no one says amen to him, he will say a second prayer; if they
still keep silence, a third prayer, in a louder voice than the pre-
ceding ones. If they still do not speak, he will knock at the
door. On entering, he must bow before the holy images ; then
he will explain his mission to the master, and during this time
he must take care not to touch his nose, nor to cough, nor spit;
he must conduct himself with propriety, without looking to the
right orthe left. If he is left alone, he must examine nothing
belonging to the master of the house and touch nothing
neither to eat nor drink. If he is sent to carry anything, he
must not look to see what it is; and if it should be eatable,
neither his tongue nor his lingers are to know it."
At the head of the literary movement of the time, Ivan the
Terrible and his enemy Kourbski occupy a place of honor.
They exchanged many letters, in which the one displayed a great
knowledge of sacred and profane literature, close reasoning, and
bitter irony ; the other an indignant and tragic eloquence.
Besides these letters, Ivan addressed an admonition to the monks
of St. Cyril, full of vigor and mocking gravity. The same
Kourbski'has written, in eight books, a passionate history of the
Tzar who persecuted ** the strong ones of Israel, the high-bora
HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
225
heroes of Russia " ; in his exile in Lithuania he defended
orthodoxy against the encroachments of Jesuitism and Protes-
tantism, compiled the ' History of the Council of Florence,' and
learnt Latin in order to translate into Russian the Fathers of the
Church.
Like his rival Louis XI. in France, Ivan the Terrible was in
Russia the protector of printing, abhorred by the people as an
impious art. Mstislavets and the deacon Feodorof printed the
Acts of the Apostles, and a ' Book of I lours ; ' but later they were
obliged to fly into Lithuania to escape from accusations of
heresy and the hate of the people.
There existed a literature which could do without the art of
Gutenberg, and which at this time attained its most splendid
development. This was the literature which from the earliest
centuries of Russian history had been kept alive on the lips of
the people, in the memory of the peasants, and which, perpet-
uated by oral tradition, has at last been collected in our own
day by Rybnikof, Afanasiet, Schein, Sakharof Kirie'e\ski,
Bezsonof, Hilferding, Kostomarof, Koulich, Tchoubinski, and
Dragomanof. The people had their lyric poetry, marriage-songs,
funeral dirges, rural dance-songs, hymns for Christmas (XvV/r?;^//-/),
Kpi|)hany, Easter, and the Feasts of St. George and St. John, —
hymns in which they celebrated the death of winter, the birth ot
spring, the harvest, and preserved the recollections of the ancient
religions and ancient Slav gods. There were epic songs which
glorified the legendary exploits of the early heroes of Russia, the
demi-gods of primitive paganism : Volga Vseslavitch, Sviatogor,
.Mikoula Selianinovitch, Polkane, Douna'i, &c. In these songs
Vladimir, the "Beautiful Sun" of Kief, groups around him, like
the Charlemagne of the chansons de gesfcs and the King Anluir
of the Breton romances, a whole pleiad of bogatyrs. Thev ha\e
innnortalized Ilia of Mourom, the hero-peasant ; D( br_\na
Nikititch, the hero-boyard ; Alecha Popovitch, conqueror of the
gigantic dragon, Tougarine ; Solovei Boudimirovitch, navigator
of the falcon-ship Potyk, whom the perfidy of an enchantress
caused to descend alive into the tomb ; Diouk Ste'panovitch, who
crossed the Dnieper at one leap of his horse ; Stavre Godino-
vitch, the warrior-musician, released by a ruse of his wife from
the prisons of Vladimir; Thomas Ivanovitch, w'hom the Princess
Apraxie calumniated like another Joseph, but for whom God
worked a miracle ; Vassili, the hero-drunkard, who went from a
tavern to save Russia ; Sadko, the rich merchant of Novgorod,
whose maritime adventures form an Odyssey ; the Princess
Apraxie, who is seated on the throne by the side of Vladimir her
husband ; the heroines Nastasia and Marina, the I'enelcpe and
226 HIS TOR V OF A' USS/A.
Circe of the Russian epopee ; Maria the White Swan, who
belongs to the cycle of bird-women ; and Vassilissa, who passed
herself off as a bogatyr, and beat all the athletes of Vladimir
Such were the heroes of Kief and Novgorod.
Historical heroes belong to the cycle of Moscow : Dmitri,
the vanquisher of the Tatars ; Michael of Tchernigof, Alexandei
Nevski, and Ivan the Terrible, around whom are grouped the
songs of the taking of Kazan, ihe conquest of Siberia, and the
famous by-lines entitled ' The Tzar wishes to kill his Son,' ' The
Tzar sends the Tzarina to a Convent,' and ' How Treason was
introduced into Russia.' This epic current flows on up to the
19th century ; and others, born of the shock of events on the
popular imagination, celebrate the deeds of Skopine Chouiski,
the wars of Peter the Great, the victories of Elizabeth and
Catherine H., the campaigns of Souvorof, and even the invasion
of Russia by the " King Napoleon."
Narratives, sometimes in prose and sometimes in poetry,
glorify the heroes of the Eastern epopee : Akir of Nineveh,
Solomon the Wise, Alexander of Macedon, and Rousslan
Lazarevitch. Wonderful stories are told by the peasants of
Helen the Fair, of the Tzar of the Sea, and of Vassilissa the
Wise ; of the Seven Simeons ; of the adventures of Ivan, Son of
the King, and of the lovely Nastasia ; of the Baba-Yaga, and of
the King of the Serpents. There were religious verses, which
were carried by the blind kalicki, who sang the praises of the
Russian saints from village to village — St. George the Brave,
and St. Dmitri of Solun, vanquishers of dragons and infidels ;
Boris and Gleb, sons of Vladimir the Baptist ; St. Theodosius,
founder of the catacombs of Kief ; Daniel the Pilgrim, who
visited Jerusalem ; and others who belong almost as much to the
Slav mythology as to the Christian hagiography. Lastly, there
are satirical tales, light and biting as French fables, turning into
ridicule the greed of the popes, and the interested calculations
of their wives.
Thanks to the Greeks who fled from Constantinople, and
their pupils the Italians, Russia had a sort of artistic Renaissance
from the 15th to the i7tli century, under the same influences as
the West. The revolution was, however, less complete in Mus-
covy than in Russia ; there was no need to substitute the round
for the pointed arch, since Russia had no Gothic churches, and
the Roman Byzantine style, borrowed in the nth century by St.
Sopliia at Novgorod and St. Sophia at Kief from St. So|ihia at
Constantinople, was perpetuated, under the influence of religious
ideas and unbroken traditions, as a legacy from Byzantium.
There was no sort of change in painting ; and even in the
HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
227
present day, ?n the Russian convents, the hieratic usage causes
the saints and the Mother of God to be painted as they might
have been painted by Panselinos in the loth century in the
churches of Mount Alhos. The Renaissance chiefly manifests
itself bv the number and masfnificence of the orthodox churches
with which Italian artists then "illuminated" Old Russia, and
by the greater perfection of their modes of building. It was then
that Moscow became worthy by her new monumental splendors
to be the capital of a great empire ; it was then that she became
the '• Holy City," with forty times forty churches, with innumer-
able cupolas of gold, of silver, and of blue, which the Russian
pilgrim, kneeling on the Hill of Prostrations, salutes from afar
off.
Moscow was at that time composed : i. Of the KremI or
Kremlin, a fortified enclosure in the form of a triangle, of which
the smallest side rests on the Moskowa, and the apex is turned
towards the north. 2. Of the Kita'i-gorod, not, as so many
travellers translate it, the China City, but perhaps derived from
Kitai-gorod in Podolia, the birthplace of Helena, mother of Ivan
IV., foundress of the Kitai-gorod of Moscow, which encloses
the bazaars and the palaces of the nobles, and is separated from
the Kremlin by a vast space that they call the Red Place or
Beautiful Place. 3. Of the Bie'lyi-gorod, or White City, which
surrounds this double centre of the Kremlin and the Kitai-gorod
as the outer skin of an almond encloses the two cotyledons.
4. Of the Zcmlianji-gorod, or City of the Earthen Ramparts,
enveloping in its turn the White City, enclosing the faubourgs,
gardens, woods, lakes, and vast unbuilt-on spaces, then ocDupied
by the slolwdcs of the streltsi. 5. On the outer circle of Moscow,
like detached forts, stood the fortified convents with white walls,
which more than once sustained the assault of the Poles and the
Tatars. This huge Asiatic town was a city of contrasts. The
buildings grouped themselves almost by accident along the
wide, marshy, tortuous, hardly marked-out streets. Isbas of
pine, like those of the Russian villages, stood by ihe side of the
palaces of the nobles. The people either chose them ready
made from the yards, or ordered them according to their meas-
ure. The carpenters built them in two days on the place pointed
out : they only cost a few roubles.
Moscow is situated in that part of Russia which is totally
lacking in stone, and where the forests were formerly thickest.
In point of fact, it is a city of wood, which a spark might set on
fire. It had been burned almost entirelv under Dmitri Donskoi,
and twice under Ivan the Terrible; it was to burn again during
the Polish invasion of 1612, and the French invasion of 1812.
228 HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
The oukazes of the Tzars ordered certain precautions undei
the most severe penalties : all the fires had to be put out at
ni2;htfall: in summer it was absolutely forbidden to have licfhts
in the houses, and cooking had to be done in the open air
There were no means of extinguishing the fires, and, when one
broke out, the Muscovites showed themselves as passively fatal-
istic as the people of the East.
It was chiefly the Kremlin that profited by the embellish-
ments undertaken by the two Ivans and their successors. The
enclosure — of wood before the burning of Tokhtamvch — was
now of solid white stones, cut in facets (thence was derived the
poetical name of " Holy mother Moscow with the white walls ") ;
it was surmounted bv high and narrow battlements in the form
of teeth. Eighteen cowers protected it, and five gates led into
the interior. These five gates present nuicii originality and
variety. That of the Saviour was built in 1491 by Pietro So-
lario of Milan. It is the sacred gate, that cannot be entered
covered ; formerly obstinate people were forced to kneel down
before it fifty times. Criminals were allowed to make their last
prayer before the image of the Saviour, and the new Emperor
alwavs made his entrance through it on his wav to his corona-
tion at the Assumption. Another Italian built at the same date
the gale of St. Nicholas of Mojaisk, avenger of perjury, before
whose image the suitors made oath. That of the Trinitv was
built in the 17th century by Christopher Galloway.
The wall of the Kremlin, like that of the old imperial palace
of Byzantium, encloses a quantity of churches, palaces, and
monasteries. The most celebrated of these churches is the
Oiispiejiski Sohor, or the Cathedral of the Assumption, in which
since the 15th century the Tzars have alwavs made a point of
being crowned It is their Cathedral of Rheims. Its architect
was Aristotele Fioraventi, who had already worked for Cosmo
de Medici, Francis I., Gian Galeazzo of Milan, Matthias Cor-
vinus, and the Pope Sixtus IV., and whom Tolbousine, am-
bassador of Ivan III., met at Venice, and engaged for the ser-
vice of the Tzar. One can hardly believe that the Assumption
is of the same date as the luminous churches of the Renaissance.
The architect, or those who inspired him, has here tried to re-
produce the mysterious obscurity of the old temples of Egypt
and the East. The cathedral has no windows, but only close-
barred shot-holes in the walls, which admit into the interior a
doubtful light, like that which filters through the hole of a dun-
geon. This pale glow touches the massive pillars covered with
a tawny gold ; on tlie tarnislied background stand out, severe
and grave, the faces of the saints and doctors ; it dwells here
''Cim£ifinliiati:;BiM^^^^ '
HISTOK Y OF RUSSIA. 229
and there on the relief oi the golden ieonostase^ covered by mirac-
ulous images, sprinkled with diamonds and jewels ; it hardly
lights the representations of the ' Last Judgment ' and the ' End
of the World,' painted on the walls of the church. All the upper
part of the temple is partly enveloped in shadows, like the crypts
of the Pharaohs ; the pictmes which co\cr the vault can hardly
he distinguished. The artist has evidently made them for the
eye of God, not for that of man ; for the eye of man can only
contemplate them on the rare occasions, such as the Feast of
the Assumption or a coronation-day, when the whole cathedral
is illumined to its furthest corners by innumerable wax tapers.
It seems that Aristotele built this church according to a former
plan of some other architect, only it is said that, finding the
constructions already begun not sufificiently solid, he with a bat-
tering-ram, perfected by himself, overthrew the walls ; that he
caused new foundations to be dug ; finally, that he taught the
Russians a better way of baking bricks. At the Assumption is
the tomb of St. Peter, the first Metropolitan of Moscow, and
people come here to worship before the holy images of Vladi-
mir and laroslavl. The Cathedral of St. Michael the Archangel,
built in 1505, is ihe St. Denys of the Tzars of Russia : here, in a
coffin of pine covered with red cloth, sleep Ivan the Terrible
and his two sons. In the Church of the Annunciation with the
agate pavement, the marriages of the princes are celebrated.
In that of the Ascension are the tombs of the sovereigns. The
Tower of Ivan the Great, 325 feet high, surmounted with a
golden cupola, with Slavonic inscriptions in letters of gold which
may be distinguished from afar, with thirty-four bells in the
carillon, was built in 1600 by Boris Godounof.
Of the imperial palace built in 1487, only a few fragments
still remain : the little " Golden Palace," where the Tzarinas re-
ceived the members of the clergy ; the " Palace of Facets,"
where the solemn audiences of ambassadors were held ; the
" Red Staircase," from the top of which the Tzar allowed the
people to contemplate "The light of his eyes;" finally the
"Terem," with the painted roof, where we still find the dining-
hall, the hall of council, and that of the oratory — vaulted halls
still complete, where shine on golden backgrounds the images
of the saints who protect the Tzar. The Palace of Facets was
begun in 1487 by the Italian Mario, and finished by Pietro An-
tonio. The other palaces are the work of the Milanese Aleviso.
In the Tzarian apartments, rarities imported from the West al-
ready mixed with the ancient Russian furniture. In 1594 the
German ambassador presented the Tzar Feodor with a gilt
clock, on which were marked the planets and the calendar ; and
230 HIS TOR Y OF R USSIA.
in 1597 with another clock, where little figures played on trum-
pets, Jews' harps, and tambourines each time the hour struck.
The most curious edifice in Moscow is perhaps the Church
of Vassili the Blessed, on the Red Place. It was built by Iv;in
the Terrible in 1554, in memory of the taking of Kazan, and is
the work of an Italian artist. The legend insists that Ivan put
out the eyes of the artist, to prevent his building a similar mar-
vel for others. We must imagine a church surmounied by six
or eight round cupolas, all of different heights and forms, " some
beaten into facets, others cut; these carved into diamond points,
like the ananas, those in spirals ; others, again, marked with
scales, lozenge-shaped, or celled like a honeycomb."* A power-
ful imagination has defied all svmmetrv. From the base to the
summit the church is covered with colors, which are glaring, and
even crude. This many-colored monster has the gift of stupefy-
ing the most blase traveller. "You might take it," says Hax-
thausen, " for an immense dragon, with shining scales, crouch-
ing and sleeping." Conceive the most brilliant bird of tropical
forests suddenly taking the shape of a cathedral, and you have
Vassili-Blagamoi.
It was not only architects that Russia owed to Italy. Aris-
totele Fioraventi coined money for Ivan III., built him a bridge
of boats over the Volkhof during the expedition to Novgorod,
cast the cannons which thundered against Kazan, and organized
his artillery. Paolo Bossio of Genoa cast for him the Tzar-
pouchka, the king of guns, the giant piece of the Kremlin. Pietro
of Milan made him arquebuses. The art of the founder shed
its greatest brilliancy under Boris Godounof, whose effigy adorns
the queen of bells (Tzar-kolokol), subsequently re-cast under
Alexis and Anne Ivanovna, the bronze Titan whose weight of
288,000 pounds could be contained in no belfry, which broke
every scaffolding, and rests voiceless like a pyramid of bronze
on its pedestal of masonry, constructed in the beginning of
this century by Montferrand.
* Theophile Gautier, ' Voyage en Russj'e.'
a IS TOR Y OF R US SI A. 23 1
CHAPTER XVII.
THE SUCCESSORS OF IVAN THE TEUKIIiLE : FEODOR IVANOVITCH
AND BORIS GODOUNOF (1584-1605).
Feoclor Ivanovitch (1584-1598) — The peasant attached to the glebe — The
patriarchate — Boris Godounof (159S-1605) — Appearance of the false
Dmitri.
FEODOR IVANOVITCH (1584-1598) — THE PEASANT ATTACHED TO
THE GLEBE — THE PATRIARCHATE.
Feodor, son of Ivan IV. and of Anastasla Romanof, resem-
bled his father in nothing. He had neither his instinctive love
of cruelty and debauchery, nor his lively intelligence, nor his
iron will. The throne of the Terrible was occupied by a saint —
a monk. The power passed naturally to the chamber of the
boyards. Five among them had special influence over the
government — Prince Ivan Mstislavski, a descendant of Gedemin ;
Prince Ivan Chouiski, a descendant of Rurik, a member of a
family disgraced in the early years of Ivan IV., but himself cele-
brated as the defender of Pskof ; and Prince Bogdan Belski,
another descendant of Rurik. After these three heads of
princely families came two chiefs of boyard families. Both be-
came sovereigns, and both owed their elevation to their wives.
The importance of Nikita Romanof came from his sister, the
first wife of Ivan IV. ; Boris Godounof owed his to his sister
Irene, wife of the Tzar Feodor. Minister of Ivan IV., brother
of the reigning Tzar, Godounof was devoured by an insatiable
ambition. Sorcerers who had escaped from Ivan the Terrible
are said to have prophesied that he should become Tzar, but
that his reign was only to last for seven-years. From that time
his policy consisted in pulling aside all rivals — in overcoming
all the obstacles that lay between him and the throne.
The Tzar Feodor had a brother, Dmitri, sou of Ivan's
seventh wife. The doiiina of boyards feared the intrigues of
which this infant might be made the centre, and, by the advice
of Godounof, sent him to his appanage OugUtch, with bis
232
HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
mother and her relations, the Nagois. Belski, another de«
scendant of Gedemin, an intelligent and ambitious man, irri-
tated the people, who besieged the Kremlin, and demanded his
head. Boris took advantage of such a good opportunity, and
despatched this rival to Nijni-Novgorod. When Feodor at iiis
coronation had placed on his head the crowns of Russia, Kazan
Astrakhan, and Siberia, it was his maternal uncle, Nikita Ro-
manof, who governed in his name ; but at his death the power
passed to the natural chief of a new vrc'mia, Boris Godounof.
There still remained in the council two rivals to Boris. Mstis*
lavski allowed himself to be implicated in a plot, and was forced
to become a monk; Prince Chouiski, \\ho had tried to make
himself a party among the merchants, was accused of treason,
arrested with all his family, and all were banished to different
distant towns. The Metropolitan Dionysius, who had taken his
part, was deposed, and replaced by Job, a man completely at
the disposal of Godounof, who was now supreme. He induced
his brother-in-law to grant him the title of Allied Chief Boyard,
the viceroyalties of Kazan and Astrakhan, and immense terri-
tories on the Dwina and the Moskowa. His revenues were
enormous, and he is said to have been able to put a hundred
thousand men in the field. Nothing could be obtained from the
sovereign except through Boris ; more powerful than even Ada-
chef had been, he had an army of clients. It was he who replied
to the ambassadors, and who received the presents of the Empe-
ror, of the Queen of England, and of the Khan of the Crimea.
His enemies were the enemies of the prince. He lacked noth-
ing that is royal but the title.
In foreign affairs, the regency of Godounof strengthened the
prestige of Russia. Batory, who had never ceased to threaten
revenge, died in 1586. A new danger appeared in this quarter.
Sigismond, son of the King of Sweden, had schemed successfully
for the suffrages of the Polish electors. It was to be feared that
he would one day unite under the same sceptre the two nations
whom Russia had most cause to dread in Europe. Rodolph of
Austria, the other candidate, was less dangerous. Austria and
Russia had the same interests with regard to Turks and Tatars,
and this identity was one day to result in the almost perpetual
alliance between the t\TO Powers. Boris put forward Feodor as
a candidate for the crown of Poland, and the idea of the union
of the two Slav monarchies under one prince. The Poles
refused to obey any prince who was not a Catholic; they feared
that, instead of a fraternal union, the Muscovite would only
"join their monarcliy to that of Moscow, like a sleeve to a
coat." The interests of caste were added to national and lelig-
HISTORY OF RUSSIA. 233
ious prejudices ; the noblei, who only liad in view the weakening
of the loyal power, were not likely to give themselves as master
a sovereign as absolute as the Tzar of Muscovy, Finally, nothing
could be done without money in the Polish diets ; Boris was so
mistaken as to spare it. The negotiations fell to the ground,
and the prince of Sweden was elected.
The war with Sweden began again vigorously ; .Russia
recaptured what had been taken from Ivan the Terrible — lam,
Ivangorod, and Koporie. The Poles, who, since they had a
Swedish king, did not care to augment the Swedish power, gave
no assistance. Sigismond Vasa, on his father's death in 1592,
did indeed see himself for a moment king of both countries ; but
his zeal for Catholicism, which made him dear to the Poles,
caused him to be detested by the Swedes. The latter wished
for a separate government, under the regency of Charles Vasa,
and they soon after offered him the crown. This union, so
much dreaded by the Russians, soon ended m a rupture. TLe
Poles and Swedes had never before been such bitter enemies,
and the hatred of the two peoples and the two religions was
complicated still further by that of the two kings. The occasion
was favorable for Russia to undertake the conquest of Livonia.
Boris Godounof had never abandoned this crrcat scheme of Ivan
the Terrible, only he failed to take the proper means for realizing
it. Instead of openly allying himself with Sweden against
Poland, or with Poland against Sweden, he negotiated with both,
tried to play off one against the other, and ended by alienating
both equally. The former minister of Ivan the Terrible, the
intriguing Grand Boyard, was too fond of hidden paths.
To clear his way to the throne, it was not sufficient for him
to be master of the palace and the Court ; he must create him-
self a strong party in the nation. Boris, who felt himself to be
hated by the princes and boyards, sought the support of the
small noblesse and the clergy. Hence resulted two of the most
important actions of the reign of Feodor^ — the binding of the
peasant to the soil, and the institution of the patriarchate.
The Russian peasant was in fact delivered over to the will
of his master. In law, he remained a free man, as he was
allowed to pass from tlie service of one proprietor to that of
another. This right brought with it an abuse. The large pro-
prietors, who, being the richest, could also be the most generous,
tried to attract to their lands the peasants of the smaller land-
owners, by insuring them privileges and immunities. We must
remember that at this epoch the population was very scanty, and
land had of itself no value. It was precious according to the
number of laborers who could be induced to settle on it. Thus
234
HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
the lands of the smaller proprietors ran the risk of being depop
ulated for the benefit of the great lords ; if they lost ll.eii
laborers, the value of the land became proportionately depre-
ciated. Now the class of small landowners was at this period
almost the only military class of Russia ; the national cavalry
was recruited almost entirely from it alone. If the source of
their revenues were cut off, where would they get the money to
equip themselves, to answer to the call of the Tzar, according
to the text of the ordinances, " mounted, armed, and accom-
l~anied '' ? Their interest thus became confounded with that of
the empire, which was soon to become unable to support its
armies. Boris Godounof found means to save the rights of the
State, and gain for himself the gratitude of a numerous and
powerful class. The comfort of the peasant did not trouble
any one at this epoch. He was an instrument of agriculture, a
force — nothing more. An edict of Feodor forbade tlie peasants
henceforth to go from one estate to another. The free Russian
krestiaiiine was now attached to the glebe, like the Western serf.
In the name of the interest of the State and that of the military
nobles, an imuiemorial right was extinguished. We must not
think that these silent masses were insensible. The day of the
" St. George," when the ancient laws permitted the peasant to
pass yearly from one domain to another, remained for centuries
a day of bitter regret. He cursed fur long the authors of this
oukase, and even protested when he had the opportunity; but
his protestation took more the form of flight than of revolt.
The development of Cossack life has a close relation to the
change in the rural regime ; and the more men sought to bind
the peasant to the soil, the more his spirit revolted, and the
more the camps of the Don and the Dniester were filled. The
Russian peasant never allowed the prescription of this new
form of slavery to be established; in one way or another he has
constantly resisted it. Boris Godounof afterwards partially
repealed this oukase : while still forbidding them to pass from
the service of the small to the great proprietor, they were
allowed to change the mastership of one small landowner for
that of another. The feeling of the time was not in favor of
libertv ; the more Russia tended to become a modern State, the
more her expenses increased, and the more the Government was
conscious of the need of assuring the levenues by fixing to the
soil the population which was subject to the tax and corvc'c. It
was the crushed peasant who bore the weight of the reform,
awaiting the day, still very distant, when he also would profit by
the progress accomplished.
The other innovation made in the name of Feodor was the
HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
235
establisliment of the patriaixliate. The Russian ecclesiastics
complained with reason of having to obey patriarchs who were
themselves only slaves of the infidels. Ancient Rome was pol-
luted by the Pope ; Constantinople, the second Rome, was pro-
faned by the Turk: had not Moscow, the third Rome, a right
at least to independence ? Boris encouraged these murmurs :
it was his interest that at the death of the Tzar there should be
\ great ecclesiastical authority standing alone, and that this
great authority should owe all to him. He profited by the ar-
rival at Moscow of Jeremiaii, Patriarch of Constantinople, to iri-
duce him to found the Russian patriarchate and consecrate
Archbishop Job, who was a tool of Boris. The latter had now
a powerful friend.
Boris had need to create for himself a strong party. Many
eyes began to turn towards Ivan's second son, Dmitri. His
mother's kindred, the Nagois, from their exile at Ouglitch,
watched carefully all the variations in the health of the Tzar,
and the movements of Boris. The death of Feodor would give
the throne to Dmitri, and power to his relatives — power to avenge
themselves for all. It would deliver Boris up to the reprisals of
his enemies. He knew this only too well. In 1591, it was sud-
denly announced that the young Dmitri had been slain. The
public voice denounced Boris. To stifle suspicion he ordered
an inquest, and his emissaries had the audacity to declare that
the young prince cut his own throat in a fit of madness, and
that' the Nagois and the people of Ouglitch had put to death in-
nocent men as murderers. The result of the inquiry was the
extermination of the Nagois and the depopulation of Ouglitch.
Seven years after, the pious P'eodor died, and in the person of
this vague and virtuous sovereign the race of bloody and vio-
lent men of prey who had created Russia was extinguished.
The dynasty of Andrew Bogolioubski had accomplished its mis-
sion — it had founded the Russian unity. The task of obtaining
the entrance of this semi-Asiatic State into the bosom of civ-
ilized Europe was reserved for another dynasty.
BORIS GODOUNOF (1598-1605) — APPEARANCE OF THE FALSE
DMITRI.
Boris Godounof had reached the aim of his desires — but at
what a price ! The murder of Dmitri, the last offshoot of St.
Vladimir, of Monomachus, of George and the Ivans, was no or-
dinary crime. Russia had seen many horrors, but never one
like this. The Tzar might have put the Russian princes to
236
HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
death, but they were his enemies, they were often guilty, and
then he was the Tzar. Now a simple boyard sacrificed to his
own ambition the son of his benefactor, the heir of his master,
the last descendant of the founders of Russia. It was one of
those crimes that ever deeply agitate the people. Boris believed
vainly he had buried all in the earth with the corpse of the
Tzarevitch.
After the death of Feodor, his widow Irene entered the
Dievitchi Monastyr, and took the veil there, mourning her ster-
ility, and lamenting that " by her the sovereign race had per-
ished." The nobles and the people took the oaths to her, so
that there should be no interregnum. A woman had the crown
at her disposal, and that woman was the sister of Godounof.
As she refused to govern, the doiima had to discharge affairs
under the presidency of the Patriarch Job, who owed every-
thing to Godounof. It was impossible that the throne should
escape Godounof ; yet it seemed strange that a simple boyard,
a creature of Ivan IV., should take precedence of all the princes
descended in direct line from Rurik. However, the Patriarch
and his clergy, the boyards and citizens of Moscow, appeared
before the Dievitchi Monastyr, in which Godounof was shut up
with his sister. Job entreated him to accept the crown. Go-
dounof refused, apparently from an excess of modesty — in reality,
because he wished to receive it from the hands of the nation.
The States-general were then assembled ; the lesser nobility
and the clergy, that is, the friends of Boris, formed the majority.
After the despotism of Ivan, it was a strange sight to see this
assembly dispose of the crown. The Russia of the Terrible
had, like Poland, her elective diet, but the lesson of obedience
had been so well learnt, that there was no fear of anarchy. They
were told that Ivan IV. on his death-bed had confided to Boris
his family and his empire, and that Feodor had put around his
neck a chain of gold. Men made the most of the experience of
government that he had acquired under two reigns; they
boasted of his skilful dealings with Sweden, Poland, and the
Crimea. The national voice decreed to him the crown, and the
States sent him a deputation. He still feigned to hold back,
and cast out " the tempters "; but his sister " blessed him for
the throne," and thus consecrated the wish of the people.
Boris reigned.
His reign was not without glory. He took up the designs of
his master, Ivan IV., on Livonia; and as the Terrible had his
puppet king Magnus, Boris sought first a Swedish prince Gustaf,
and then a Danish prince John, to play the part of King of
Livonia. John was to marry Xenia, daughter of the new Tzar,
HISTOR Y OF RUSSIA. 237
when he died suddenly. Denmark declared that he was pois-
oned ; and in the Russia of that date everything is conceivable.
The Khan of the Crimea, who had vainly tried to make two in-
cursions, and who had then a quarrel with the Turks, sought
the friendship of Boris. Affairs in the Caucasus were less
happy. Alexander, prince of Kachetia, who had acknowledged
himself vassal of Boris, was assassinated, and succeeded bv his
son, who was on the side of the King of Persia (Shah Abbas)
and Islamism. In Daghestan a body of Russians sent to occupy
the country were exterminated by the Turks. Russia had not
yet approached near enough to the Black Sea to be able to take
the field with assurance in those distant regions. In Siberia,
Koutchoum, the dethroned khan, was vanquished ; the battle
was decisive, though the Russian voievodes only had 400 men,
and Koutchoum 500 ; but none the less did it decide the fate
of Asia.
Boris continued to be sought by the Powers of the West, be-
ginning with Austria. In 1600 he sent Gregory Mikouline to
Queen Elizabeth. "He had learnt," says the letter of the Tzar,
"that the Queen had furnished help to the Turks against the
Kaiser of Germany, We are astonished at it, as to act thus
is not proper for Christian sovereigns; and you, our well-be-
loved sister, you ought not for the future to enter into relation-
ships of friendship with Bousourjuan (Mussulman) princes, nor
to help them in any way, whether by men or silver; but on the
contrary should desire and insist that all the great Christian po-
tentates should have a good understanding, union, and strong
friendship, and make one against the Mussulmans, till the hand
of the Christians rise, and that of the Mussulmans is abased."
Miuoi in t \\ as received in London with sfreat honors. In the
audience given him by the Queen, "she arose from her throne
and advanced some distance " to listen to his compliments ;
after which she bowed her head and asked for news of the health
of the Tzar, the Tzarina, Maria Gregorievna, and of the Tzar
evitch Feodor Borissovitch. She received " with great joy" the
credentials, and, being seated, listened to the message of Mi-
kouline. She replied to the passage touching on her relations
with Turkey by protestations of friendship and union with all
the Christian princes, gave her hand to be kissed by the envoy
and also by the secretary of the embassy, Ivan Zinovief, and
sent them to talk over their affairs with Lord Robert Cecil. The
commercial interests of the two peoples were guaranteed anew.
During his visit to London, Mikouline was present at the revolt
of 1601, led by E«sex, and saw the citizens rush through the
streets with armed cuirasses and arquebuses to defend the Queen.
238 HIS TOR Y OF R USSIA.
He gives in his account many curious details of the Court of
England at this epoch — the most brilliant of the reign of Eliza-
beth, — quitted London in May 1601, and arrived at Arkhangel
in July.
The firm government of Boris gave confidence, and he con-
tinued to be sought by the Powers of the West, especially by
Austria and England. Sweden and Poland could do him no
hurt. He surrounded himself with soldiers, learned men, and
artists. With their help he raised monuments, built the tower
of Ivan the Great at the Kremlin, and had the " queen of bells"
cast. It was he who first sent young Russians to Liibeck, P2ng-
land, France, and Austria, to study European arts. The fashions
of the West penetrated to Moscow, and some of the nobles
began to shave their beards.
This prosperity was all unreal. His services — ev^en his char-
ities — turned against him. " He presented to the poor," says a
contemporary, " in a vase of gold, the blood of the innocents.
He fed them with unholy alms." The oligarchic party, ashamed
of obeying a simple boyard, began to agitate. After having par-
doned his ancient rival Belski, Boris was obliged to throw him
into prison. He acted with severity towards the Romanofs,
who were exiled, many of them having been previously tortured.
, Feodor, the eldest, was forced to become a monk under the name
of Philarete, and his wife took the veil under the name of Marfa.
From the son of this monk and this nun, emperors were to spring.
Feeling himself surrounded by plots, Boris Godounof did not
hesitate before any means of security, and received the denun-
ciations of slaves against their masters. From 1601 to 1604 a
frightful famine devastated Russia, and was followed by a pest-
ilence. The famished peasants joined the servants of the dis-
graced nobles, and formed themselves into bands of brigands
who infested the southern provinces, and even insulted the
environs of Moscow. It was necessary to send a regular army
against them. To these calamities was added the universal pre-
sentiment of others yet greater. The term of seven j-ears
assigned by the astrologers to the reign of Boris was approach-
ing. The crime of Ouglitch, still unexpiated, had left a strange
uneasiness throu;T:hout Russia. Suddenlv there arose a rumor
that the murdered Dmitri was living, and with arms in his hands
was making ready to reconquer the empire.
At the Monastery of the Miracle a young monk, Gregory Otr^-
pief, had brought himself into notice. After having for a long
while wandered from convent to convent at his own pleasure, he
finally reached the Monastery of the Miracle; and the Patriarch
Job discerning his intelligence, made him his secretary. In dis-
HI STOR Y OF R USSIA. 239
charge of thes*, runciions, he bednie acquainted with more than
one "state secret. " Do you know," he used to say to the other
monks, " that I shall be one day Tzar of Moscow ? " They
spat in his face, and the Tzar Boris Goduonof ordered him to
be confined in the Monastery of the White Lake. He succeeded
in escaping ; again became a wandering monk, and, being well
received at Novgorod-Severski, had the temerity to write to the
inhabitants : "1 am the Tzare'vitch Dmitri, and I will not forget
your kindness." Then he threw his frock to the winds, enrolled
himself among the Zaporogues, and became a bold rider and a
brave Cossack. He passed into the service of Adam Vichnev-
etski, a Polish pan ; he fell ill, or feigned to do so, summoned a
priest, and revealed to him, under the seal of confession, that he
was the Tzare'vitch Dmitri, who had escaped from the hands ol
the assassins at Ouglitch, by another child being substituted in
his place. He showed a cross, set with jewels, that hung round
his neck, given him by Mstislavski, godfather of the Tzarevitch,
The Jesuit did not dare to keep such a secret to himself. Otre-
pief was recognized by his master, Vichnevetski, as the son of
the Terrible. Mniszek, palatine of Sandomir, promised him his
support and the hand of his daughter, Marina, who consented
with joy to be Tzarina of Moscow. The strange news spread
throughout the kingdom. The Pope's nuncio took the Tzarevitch
under his protection, and presented him to King Sigismond.
Were they really deceived ? It is more probable that they saw
in him a formidable instrument of agitation, which the king
flattered himself he would be able to use against Russia, and the
Jesuits against orthodoxy. Sigismond feared to take on himself
the rupture of the truce he had concluded with Boris, and expose
himself to Russian vengeance. He treated Otrepief as Tzare-
vitch, but only in private ; he refused to put the royal troops at
his disposal, but he authorized the nobles, who were touched by
the misfortune of the prince, to help him if they wished. The
pans did not need the royal authority; many of them, with the
levity and love of adventure which characterized the Polish
nobilitv, took up arms in favor of the Tzarevitch. Then Boris
recognized, says Leveque, that the weakest enemy can make a
usurper tremble.
No revolution, even if it were the wisest and most necessary,
could be accomplished without patting in motion the dregs of
society — without the clashing of a mass of interests, and the
creation of a multitude who are outcasts from all classes. The
transformation which was then taking place in Russia for the
formation of the modern united State, had engendered all these
elements of disorder. The peasant whom the laws of Boris had
2 40 fJ^S TOR Y OF R USSTA.
attached to the glebe, was everywhere sullenly hostile. The
smaller nobility, for whose profit this law had been made, were
scarcely able to live on their lands ; the service of the Tzar had
become ruinous, and many were inclined to supplement the in-
sufficiency of their revenues by brigandage. The boyards and
the great nobility were profoundly demoralized — they were ready
for any treason. Tlie warlike republics of the Cossacks of the
Don and the Dnieper, the bands of serfs, of fugitive peasants,
who infested the Russian territory, only waited for an opportunity
to lay waste the country. The ignorance of the masses was pro-
found, and their minds greedy of wonders and change ; no other
nation has allowed itself to be deceived so often by the same
fable, the sudden apparition of a prince whom all believed dead.
Adventures like those of Otre'pief the false Dmitri, and of Pouga-
tchef the false Peter III., could not be reproduced in any other
European country. These two adventurers rendered themselves
particularly famous, but the secret archives show us that in
the Russia of the 17th and i8th centuries there were hundreds
of impostors, of false Dmitri's, false Alexis, false Peters IL, and
false Peters III. We might almost think that the Russians, the
most Asiatic of all European nations, had not renounced the
Oriental dogma of re-incarnations and avatars. The Govern-
ment was powerless, in a country so utterly without commu
nication, to put a stop to the most absurd rumors. Besides, the
ignorant and superstitious masses were hostile to it, and delighted
to allow themselves to be deceived. So many elements of rebel-
lion only required to be set in motion by the hand of a skilful
agitator. The entrance of the impostor into Russia was the
signal of dissolution.
As long as the power lay in the hands of the clever and
energetic Godounof, he was able to maintain order, to restrain
the authors of revolt, and to discourage ihe false Dmitri. The
Patriarch Job and Vassili Chouiski, who had conducted the
inquest at Ouglitch, made proclamations to the people affirm-
ing that Dmitri was really dead, and that the impostor was
none other than Otrepief. Similar declarations were sent to
the King and the Diet of Poland. Finally, troops were put in
marchinjr order, and a line of communications established with
the Western frontier. But already the towns of Sevena revolted
at the approach of the Tzarc'vilch, and the boyards publicly an-
nounced " that it was hard to bear arms against your lawful
sovereign." At Moscow the health of the Tzar Dmitri was
drunk at feasts. In October 1604, the impostor crossed the
frontier with an army of Poles, of Russians banished in the pre-
ceding reign, and German mercenaries. Severia at once rose,
HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
2JI
and Novgorod-Severski opened her gates to him. Prince Mstis-
lavski tried to check his progress by a battle, but the soldiers
were struck bv the idea that the man whom thev fought was the
real Dmitri. " They had no hands to fight, but only feet to fiy,"
Vassili Chouiski, Mstislavski's successor, did his best to rally
their courage, and this time, in spite of his intrepidity, the im-
postor was defeated at Dobrynitchi. Boris believed the war
finished; but in reality it had only begun. After Severia the
Ukraine rebelled, and 4000 Cossacks of the Don came to rejoin
" the brigand." The inaction of the Muscovite voievodes proved
that the spirit of treason had already penetrated the nobility.
In 1605 Boris died, commending his innocent son to the care
of Basmanof, the boyards, the Patriarch, and the people of
Moscow. But hardly had Basmanof taken the command of the
army of Severia, than he understood that neither the soldiers
nor the leaders were going: to fight for a Godounof. Rather
than be the victim of treason, he preferred being the author of
it. The man in whom the dying Boris had placed all his confi-
dence united with Galitsyne and Soltykof, secret adherents of
the impostor. He solemnly announced to the troops that
Dmitri was in truth the son of Ivan the Terrible and the lawful
master of Russia, and was the first to throw himself at the feet
of the Pretender, who was at once proclaimed by the troops.
Dmitri marched to Moscow ; at his approach his partisans rose,
and the wife and son of Godounof were massacred. Such was
the end of the dynasty which Boris had thought to found in the
blood of a Tzarrfvitch !
24a HISTORY OF RUSSIA,
CHAPTER XVIII,
THE TIME OF THE TROUBLES (1605-1613).
Murder of the false Dmitri — Vassili Chouiski— The brigand of Touchino—
Vladislas of Poland— The Poles at the Kremlin — National rising— Minine
and Pojarski — Election of Michael Romanof.
MURDER OF THE FALSE DMITRI — VASSILI CHOUISKI — THE BRIG
AND OF TOUCHINO.
The event that had taken place in Russia is one of the most
extraordinary in the annals of the world. A runaway monk
entered Moscow in triumph as her Tzar, among the joyful
tears of the people, who thought they beheld a descendant of
their long line of princes. Only one man had the courage to
afhrm that he had seen Dmitri assassinated, and that the new
Tzar was an impostor. This was Vassili Chouiski, one of those
who had directed the inquest at Ouglitch, and who had defeated
the Pretender at the battle of Dobrynitchi. Denounced by Bas-
manof, he was condemned to death by an assembly of the three
orders, and his head was actually on the block, when he received
a pardon from the Tzar. Men did not recognize the son of
Ivan the Terrible in this act of clemency, and Olrepief had
afterwards cause to repent of it. Job, the tool of Godounof,
was replaced in the patriarchate by a favorite of the new prince,
the Greek Ignatius. The Tzar had an interview with his pre-
tended mother, Maria Nagoi, widow of Ivan IV. Whether be-
cause she wished to avenge her injuries, or merely to recover
her honors, Maria recognized Olrepief as her son, and publicly
embraced him. He loaded the Nagoiis, whom he regarded as
fiis maternal relations, with favors; the Romanofs were likewise
recalled from exile, and Philarete made Metropolitan of Rostof.
The Tzar presided regularly at the dotwia, where the boyards
admired the clearness of his apprehension and the variety of his
knowledge. As a monk he was a man of letters, and as a pupil of
the Zaporogues an accomplished horseman, bold and skilful in
all bodily exercises. He was fond of foreigners, and even spoke
HISTOR V OF RUSSIA. 24j
of sending the Russian nobles to be educated in the West. This
taste for strangers went hand in hand with a certain contempt
for the national ignorance and grossness. He offended the
boyards by his raillery, and alienated the people and the clergy
by his disdain of Russian customs and religious rites, lie ate
veal, never slept after dinner, did not take baths, borrowed
money from the convents, turned the monks into ridicule, fought
with bears, visited jewellers and foreign artisans familiarly, and
took no heed of the severe Court etiquette. He pointed cannons
with his own hand ; organized sham fights between the national
troops and the foreign mercenaries ; was pleased to see the
Russians beaten by the Germans ; and surrounded himself by a
European guard, with Margeret, Knutsen, and Van Dennen at
its head. On his entry into Moscow a struggle took place
between the clergy and the papal legate, and two bishops were
exiled. He got no thanks for resisting the legate and Poland —
for declining to help the one to effect the union of the two
Churches, and refusing to cede to the other an inch of Russian
land. The arrival of his wife, the Catholic Marina, with a suite
of Polish gentlemen, who assumed an insolent demeanor towards
the Russians, completed the irritation of the Muscovites. Less
than thirty days after his entrance into the Kremlin, men were
ripe for a revolution.
Vassili Choui'ski, pardoned by Otrepief, was the head of the
conspirators. The extreme confidence of the Tzar was his ruin.
One night the boyards attacked the Kremlin, which had been
left unguarded. Otrepief was thrown out of a window, and
stabbed in the court of the palace ; Basmanof, who defended him,
being killed by his side. They took the two corpses, put ribald
masks on their faces, and exposed them on the place of execu-
tions between a flute and a bag-pipe. The widow of Otrepief,
and the Polish envoys sent to assist at the wedding, were spared,
but kept prisoners by the boyards. The corpse of the " sorcerer "
was burned, and a cannon was charged with his ashes, which
were blown to the winds (1606).
It was now necessary to elect a new Tzar. Two candidates,
two chiefs of princely families, presented themselves, Vassili
Chouiski and Vassili Galitsyne. Chouiski had signalized him
self by his hatred of the usurper, had defeated him in battle, had
been condemned by him to death, and had been foremost in the
conspiracy. The boyards would have preferred assembling the
States-general, as in 1598, but Vassili would not await their
decision. More impatient and less wise than Boris Godounof,
he chose to owe his crown to the Muscovites alone, and not to
t|ie (delegates of the whple nation, It was the original sin of the
244
HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
new administration. Vassili had on his side neither hereditary
right, like the ancient Tzars, nor the vote of the three orders,
Hlce Boris. His claim to the throne thus remained dubious in
times of the greatest disturbance. The Patriarch Ignatius, the
nominee of the impostor, was replaced by Hermogenes. Thus,
at each change in the government, a corresponding change took
place in the first dignity of the Church.
On ascending the throne, Vassili swore a solemn oath to put
no boyard to death without trial, not to confiscate the goods of
criminals, and to chastise calumniators. True Russians felt pro-
found sorrow when they saw the Tzar thus despoil himself of his
sovereign rights, and alienate part of his autocratic power for the
benefit of the boyards. He was entering, indeed, on the path
of ihe pacta co?ivcnta, which, at every new election in Poland, de-
pri\ ed the king of some of his attributes, and led to the enfee-
bling of the crown, and the triumph of the aristocratic anarchy
of the nobles.
1 he provinces were discontented at not being consulted in
the «:hoice of a sovereign. They learnt almost at the same
moment that Dmitri had regained the throne of his forefathers ;
then that Dmitri was an impostor, who had usurped the throne
by the aid of the devil ; finally, that a new Tzar reigned over
Russia. They did not know what to believe, or in whom to trust ;
everything seemed doubtful. The Russian conscience was greatly
troubled, and, in the universal demoralization, adventurers found
an easy road to success.
Vassili, who was fifty years old, wanted both energy and
prestige. He had specially distinguished himself by his talents
for intrigue, and even his partisans reproached him with avarice.
The elements of disorder put in motion by the last two revolu-
tions, were not yet appeased. Neither ambitious boyards, nor
felonious nobles, nor insurgent peasants, nor brigands, nor the
Cossacks and Zaporogues, nor the companies, nor the foreign
mercenaries were satisfied. In such a situation it was inevitable
that a new impostor should take the place of the former, and
again furnish the worst passions with an outlet. Instead of one,
there were two Pretenders : on one side a Cossack of Terek
gave himself out to be the Tzar^vitch Peter, a pretended son of
the chaste Feodor ; on the other, it was announced that Dmitri
had, for the second time, escaped his murderers. The same
transparent fable was always received with the same credulity,
real or feigned. At Moscow the people recalled the fact that
the face of the corpse exposed on the Red Place was covered
with a mask. Vassili tried in vain to disabuse the people ; he
was not more successful than Boris. Had not Boris overwhelmed
HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
245
the Muscovites and the King of Poland with evidence ? Severia
and the turbulent cities of the South again rose ; the discon-
tented masses armed again for a new Otrepief against a new
Godounof. \x\ the South, a certain Bolotnikof, by birth a serf,
called all the brigands, all slaves and peasants to his standard,
and began a servile war. IJy his side, Prince Chakovskoi
Pachkof, one of the die'ti-boyarskiy taking up arms, Sigismond intended to assure to his son
the throne of Russia, and restore to Poland the places she had
lost in the 15th century. He besieged Smolensk, and wrote to
announce to the inhabitants that he did not come to shed the
blood of the Russians, but, on the contrary, to protect them ;
and that he was prepared to guarantee to them the maintenance
of their worship and liberties. Tire people of Smolensk, who
knew the ardor with which Sigismond persecuted orthodoxy in
his own dominions, repelled all his advances, and the voievode
Cheiin made ready to defend the town to the last. Sigismond
wrote from his camp at Smolensk to the Polish voievodes who
were serving under the impostor, with orders to abandon him.
The Polish Touchinists obeyed with regret, complaining that the
king would appropriate the re'vard of their toils ; the Russian
Touchinists, not knowing what to do, followed their allies, and,
already accustomed to every sort of treason, made their submis-
sion to the king, and offered to recognize his son Vladislas as
Tzar of Russia. At the head of these refugees were the boyard
Michael Soltykof and the currier Andronof.
Chouiski had now two enemies equally formidable — the King
of Poland and the false Dmitri, who, himself threatened by the
ambition of his roval rival, had to retreat to the South. Vassili's
nephew, Skopine, who had saved him by his victories, and won
him popularity by his frank manners, died in the midst of his
successes. The people then revived their old dislike of the
Tzar, and accused him of poisoning his nephew. Another of
the Chouiskis, the ambitious Dmitri, was also involved in the
accusation. Dmitri Chouiskij as unpopular with the army as he
248 HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
was with the capital, was betrayed in battle by the foreign regi-
ments, and this defeat completed the. ruin of Vassili. The peo-
ple rose in Moscow ; a great assembly of the populace and the
boyards was held in the plains of Serpoukhof. The Tzar was
'' humbly requested " to vacate the throne, because he caused
Christian blood to be shed, and was not successful in his gov-
ernment. The southern frontier towns also refused to obey him.
Vassili Chouiski yielded, and abdicated ; a short time afterwards
he was forced to become a monk.
VLADISLAS OF POLAND THE POLES AT THE KREMLIN.
Everyone was obliged to take an oath of obedience to the
dotifna of boyards, who naturally seized the executive power
during the interval before the election of a new Tzar. There
were two candidates for the vacant throne — Vladislas, son of
the King of Poland, and the false Dmitri. Now the latter was
evidently an impostor. He ruled the upper and middle classes
b\- terror alone, and had only the populace on his side. As they
could not at once get rid of both the Poles and the brigand of
Touchino, thev chose the lesser of the two evils.
A Polish army, under the hetman Zolkiewski, had arrived at
Mojaisk : the impostor occupied Kolomenskoe. The boyards
invited Zolkiewski to approach Moscow, and they began to nego-
tiate. The hetman promised in the name of the young prince to
maintain orthodoxy, the liberties and privileges of the orders, the
partition of legislative power between the king and the douina. No
one was to be executed without a trial, nor deprived of his
dignities without a reason; all Muscovites might go, if they
wished, to be educated abroad. The Russians began to like the
Polish system of \.\\& pacta conventa. The inhabitants of Moscow
vowed fealty to the Tzar Vladislas. One point still remained to
be decided — the Russians desired that Vladislas should embrace
orthodoxy. Zolkiewski reserved the decision to the King of
Poland. He induced the boyards to send ambassadors to Sigis-
mond, and Prince Vassili Galitsyne and the Metropolitan Phila-
rete Romanof left immediately for the camp at Smolensk. This
terrible crisis seemed at the point of disentangling itself in away
that was tolerably advantageous for Russia. She was to have a
foreign sovereign, but one already acquainted with Slav man-
ners, and his being a foreigner was even a gage for the parti-
sans of reforms and Western civilization. Poland and Russia,
which might have united under Ivan and under Feodor, had
aix)ther chance of doing so under a Polish prince. Such was
ins TOR V OF R USS/A. 2 49
the confidence of the boyards, that, finding the security of Mos-
cow troubled by the neighborhood of the impostor, they pro-
posed to Zolkiew'ski to enter into the town and even the Kremlin.
This unpatriotic resolution, dictated to the nobles by their
mistrust of the lower classes, was to bring fatal consequences on
Moscow. Zolkiewski wished to take his guarantees against the
chiefs of the nation : Galitsyne and Philarete were already under
Smolensk at the discretion of the king ; he sent for the fallen
Tzar also and his two brothers as hostages.
Sigismond meditated a new treachery against Russia. His
object was to conquer Muscovy, not for his son, but for himself.
He stipulated with the ambassadors that Smolensk should be
ceded to Poland, but they courageously repelled this proposi-
tion. They demanded on their own part that Vladislas should
leave immediately for Moscow, as being the only means for allay-
ing the suspicions to which the conduct of the king had given
rise. Sigismond refused. He wished to be Tzar himself. In
despair of conquering the scruples of the two chief ambas-
sadors, he addressed himself to their inferior colleagues. The
Secretary Tomila, on being asked to open the gates of Smolensk,
reiilied :'" If I were to do it, not only would God and the Mus-
covites curse me, but the earth would open and swallow me. We
are sent to negotiate in the interests of our country, not of our-
selves." All the Russians did not show this probity. The dis-
gusting spectacle of the camp of Touchino was repeated at
Smolensk. Men crowded round the king, as formerly around
the brigand, to wring from him dignities, land, and money.
Soltykof, Mslislavski,^and the currier Andronof especially dis-
tinguished themselves by their baseness. At Moscow the boy-
ards denounced each other to the commandant of the Polish
garrison. By the suggestion of Soltykof they wrote to the king
to beg him to make his entry into Moscow. The Patriarch Her-
mogenes refused to sign the letter, and the people, more patri-
otic than the boyards, supported the Patriarch. Some few
nobles, like Andrew Galitsyne and Ivan Vorotinski had the honor
of being suspected by the Poles, and were arrested by Leo
Sapieha, successor of Zolkiewski. l]y permitting the Poles to
enter the towns, the oligarchs had put Russia in the power of
the King of Poland.
About this time the second impostor died, assassinated by
one of his private enemies. His death had grave consequences.
It healed misunderstandings, as, since the false Dmitri was dead,
Sigismond had no longer any pretext for keeping his troops in
Russia. The nobles had now no motive for distrusting the
people, and could unite with them against the strangers. Whis.
250
HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
pers were heard in the streets of Moscow that it was necessary
to combine against the Lithuanians. Soltykof and Andronof de-
nounced these generous intentions to the enemy. The Patriarch
Hermogenes, suspected of patriotism, was thrown into prison,
where he afterwards died of hunger. The provinces were agi-
tated, and the inhabitants of Smolensk and Moscow wrote to all
the towns entreating them not to accept the perfidious enemy of
orthodoxy as their prince. The citizens did their part, the
dicfi-boyarskie made their preparations for war, and Lapounof
collected an army at Riazan. At his approach Moscow began to
fill with reinforcements, and the Poles fortified the rampart of
the Kremlin. Suddenly a quarrel broke out between the people
and the soldiers. In the first heat the Poles and Germans are
said to have massacred 7000 men ; but resistance was organized
in the streets of the Bielyi-gorod, and the foreigners, repulsed by
Prince Pojarski, had to intrench themselves in the Kremlin and
the Kitai-gorod. To clear the neighborhood, the Poles set fire
to the neighboring streets. Moscow was almost entirely in
flames.
On hearing of the preparations of Lapounof and the revolt
of Moscow, Sigismond caused the Muscovite ambassadors,
Galitsyne and Philarete, to be arrested, and sent them prisoners
to Marienburg, in Prussia. A short time afterwards Smolensk
fell, after a resistance compared by the Poles themselves to that
of Saguntum, though the king was not ashamed to torture the
brave voievode Chein, who had dared to resist him. He entered
Warsaw in triumph, and the unhappy Vassili Chouiiski, a Tzar
of Russia, was dragged a prisoner through the streets in triumj-jh.
Lapounof was now reinforced by Prince Troubetskoi and Ivan
Zaroutski, at the head of the Cossacks of the Don. A hundred
thousand men besieged the Poles, who were shut up in the
Kremlin, but the elements composing this large army were too
conflicting and corrupt for the enterprise to succeed. The three
leaders were mutually jealous of each other. Lapounof had
conunitted more than one treason, Zaroutski had been one of
the first to declare for Otrepief, and the others were hardly more
loyal. The soldiers of Lapounof hated the Cossacks, who on
their part only sought occasions for pillage. The Poles man-
aged to raise the men of the Don, by inventing a pretended letter
of Lapounof, saying, "' Wherever you take them, slay them or
drown them." A revolt broke out in the camp : Lapounof was
assassinated, many of his adherents were murdered, and this
great army was miserably dispersed.
Russia, a prey to civil war, as was France of the 16th ceri'
tury to the wars of religion, suffered, like her, from foreign in'
HIS TOR Y OF R USSIA. 2 3 1
tervention. In France, English and Spaniards watched the tides
of party success, and profited by them all to gain some place or
some province. Russia became the theatre of war for two rival
Powers, Catholic Poland and Lutheran Sweden. When Vladis-
las was proclaimed Tzar, Sweden considered herself offended,
and acted as an enemy. De la Gardie took the ports of the
Baltic; and the boyards of Novgorod the Great, imitating those
of Moscow, opened the gates to the foreigners. It was under
the protection of Poland that the first two impostors had arisen
in the west and south ; under the protection of Sweden a third
false Dmitri started up in the country of Pskof. Marina
Mniszek on her side, who after the death of Otrepief had thrown
herself into the arms of the brigand Touchino, acknowledged
the Cossack Zaroutski as guardian of her son.
NATIONAL RISING — J^IININE AND POJARSKI — ELECTION OF
MICHAEL ROMANOF.
The situation of Russia, like that of France during the Eng-
lish wars, or the wars of the League, was frightful. The Tzar
was prisoner, the Patriarch captive, the Swedes at Novgorod the
Great, the Poles at the Kremlin, and the higher nobility bought
by the strangers. Everywhere bands of brigands and highway-
men pillaged towns, tortured peasants, and desecrated churches.
Famine increased : in certain districts men were driven to eat
human fiesh. This country, accustomed to be governed auto-
cratically, had no longer any government. In her supreme need,
who was to save Russia ? It was the people, by a movement
similar to that which in France produced Joan of Arc; it was
the people, in the largest acceptation of the word, including the
honest nobility and the patriotic clergy. Already miraculous
rumors showed the excitement that possessed all minds. At
Nijni-Novgorod, at Vladimir, apparitions were seen. The nionks
of Troitsa, with the hegumene Dionysius and treasurer-historian
Palitsyne at their head, sent letters to all the Russian cities.
The citizens of Kazan raised the distant Russia of the Kama.
When the despatches from Troitsa reached Nijni, and the pro-
topope read them to the assembled people, a citizen of the town,
the butcher Kouzma Minine, rose. " If we wish," he said " to
save the Muscovite Empire, we must spare neither our lands nor
our goods ; let us sell our houses, and put our wives and children
to service ; let us seek a man who will fight for the orthodox
faith, and march under his banner." To give up all, and to arm
themselves, such was the word that was handed round. Minine
252
HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
and others gave the third of their possessions ; one woman who
had 12,000 roubles gave 10,000 of them. Those who hesitated
to contribute had to do it by force. Minine only accepted the
office of treasurer of the insurrection on condition that his fel-
low-citizens should place themselves absolutely at his discretion.
A chief was necessary ; the people saw that he must be a noble.
Now at Starodoub lived Prince Dmitri Pojarski, still weak from
wounds he had received in the revolt of Moscow. Minine went
to seek him, and besought him to take the command of the
army. Their preparations then began, and they fasted and
prayed. Russia felt herself in a state of sin ; she had taken and
violated so many oaths — to Godounof, to his son Feodor, to
Otre'pief, to Chouiski, to Vladislas. Three days of fast were
commanded. Everyone took part in it, even the infants at the
breast. With the money collected they organized the streltsi^
and equipped the dic'ti-boyarskie ; but they refused to admit those
impure elements which had imperilled the national cause. They
would have none of the help of Margeret, the mercenary who
had perjured himself so many times, nor of the pillaging and
murdering Cossacks. They remembered the assassination of
Lapounof.
With the army marched the bishops and monks ; the holy
images were borne at the head of the columns. This enthusiasm
did not exclude political wisdom ; they wished at least to secure
the support of Sweden against Poland, so they amused de la Gar-
die by negotiating for the election of a Swedish prince. When
the troops had completely assembled at laroslavl, they marched
on Moscow. The Cossacks of Zaroutski and Troubetskoii were
still encamped under its walls ; but these two armies, though
fighting for the same object, could not act together. An attempt
to murder Pojarski had increased the mistrust of the men of the
Don. When, however, the hetman Chodkiewitz tried to throw a
detachment into Moscow, he was defeated on the left bank of
the Moskowa by Pojarski, on the right bank by the Cossacks.
It is true that the latter, at the decisive moment, refused to
fight ; it needed the prayers of Abraham Palitsyne to bring them
into line, and the intervention of Minine and his troops to de-
cide the victory. The Polish garrison of the Kremlin were then
pressed so close that they were reduced to eat human flesh.
They capitulated, on condition that they were to have their lives.
They gave up their prisoners, among whom was young Michael
Romanof.
The Kremlin and the Kita'i-gorod had opened their gates,
when men learned that Sigismond was advancing to the help of
the Polish garrison. It was too late. At the news of these
Michael I.
HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
253
events he had to retrace his steps ; the devotion of the people
of Russia had freed their country. This year of 16 12 remained
for \ox\z in the memorv of the nation ; and when the invasion of
18 1 2 came to refresh their recollections, they raised on the Red
Place a colossal monument to the two liberators, the butcher
Minine and the Prince Pojarski.
Russia, once more herself, could proceed freely to the election
of a Tzar. A great National Assembly gathered at Moscow.
It was composed of the great ecclesiastical dignitaries, of dele-
gates nominated by the nobles, by the dic'ti-boyarskie\ the mer-
chants, the towns and districts. The delegates had to be fur-
nished with special powers. They all agreed they would have
no stranger, neither Pole nor Swede. When it became a ques-
tion of choosing among the Russians, scheming and rivalry
commenced ; but one name was pronounced which gained all
the votes, that of Michael Romanof. He was elected not for
his own sake, for he was only fifteen years old, but for that of
his ancestors the Romanofs, and his father, the Metropolitan
Philarete, then prisoner at Marienburg. The name of Romanof,
of the kin of Ivan IV., was the highest expression of the national
feeling (1613).
The new dynasty had better chances of stability than that of
Godounof or that of Chouiski. There were no crimes to reproach
it with ; it had its origin in a national movement, it dated from
the liberation, and had only glorious memories. No phantom, no
recollection, no regret of the past, stood before it. The house
of Ivan the Terrible had been the cause or the occasion of too
much suffering to Russia; the false Dmitris had stitied the re-
grets for the true. The accession of the Romanofs coincided
with a powerful awakening of patriotism, with the passion for
unity, with universal longing for order and peace. Already
they inspired the same devotion as the oldest dynasty. It is
said that tlie Poles, on hearing of the election of Michael, sent
armed men to seize him in Kostroma. A peasant, Ivan Sous-
sanine, misled the Poles through deep woods in the darkness
of the night, and died under their blows. This is the subject
of the beautiful opera by Glinka, of ' Life for the Tzar.' The
time of troubles had ended.
254
HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE ROMANOFS : MICHAEL FEODOROVITCH AND THE PATRIARCH
PHILARETE (1613-1645).
Restorative measures — End of the Polish war — Relations with Europe — The
States-general.
RESTORATIVE MEASURES — END OF THE POLISH WAR.
Russia had at last a sovereign, but she was in the situation
in which Henry IV. found France at his accession. The great
civil and foreign war was finished, but it had left everywhere its
evil traces. Henry IV., when he became king, had been obliged
to reconquer all his kingdom, province by province, town by
town, half by arms and half by negotiations, to win it from
chiefs of the bands, leaguers, great governors who had become
independent, and foreigners. In the same way, in Russia, Zar-
outski, leader of the Don Cossacks, ruled in Astrakhan, with
Marina and the son she had borne to the brigand of Touchino ;
the Polish partisan Lissovski ravaged the country of the south-
west ; the Zaporogian Cossacks infested the regions of the Dwina:
scarce a province but was a prey to some robber-band. No doubt
the Poles had been expelled from the Kremlin as the Spaniards
were expelled from reconquered Paris, but an offensive move-
ment of the enemy might be expected ; moreover they still
retained many places, notably the important town of Smolensk,
Sweden had profited by the state of Russia to lay hands on the
cities of Carelia and on Novgorod the Great. In the interior of
the country, the towns and cities were in ruins, the population
diminished and impoverished, and brigandage had become a
habit. At the Court, the Russian lords had learned to disobey,
and were not less turbulent than the Leaguers who surrounded
Henry IV. What Russia needed was a reign of restoration.
Michael Romanof had not the genius of the restorer of
France. He was almost a child, and the boyards turned his au-
thority against himself : the silent and bloody intrigues that Ivan
IV. had only restrained by capital punishment broke forth again,
NIS TOR Y OF K USSTA. 255
and the ferocious depravity of the nobles was the shame of Russia.
Quiet men and foreigners regretted Ivan the Terrible. '• Oh
that God would open the eyes of the Tzar as he opened those
of Ivan ! " wrote a Dutchman at this time, " otherwise Muscovy
is lost." Happily the good will of the nation was equal to every
emergency. The day of the coronation the men-at-arms pre-
sented a request for pay, as their devastated fiefs no longer gave
them any revenue. The Tzar and the clergy sent letters to the
Russian towns to entreat them to help the State to pay the troops,
and to aid her with men and money against the foes within and
without. Zaroutski was the first who was attacked. The inhab-
itants of Astrakhan, outraged by his barbarities, had rebelled
and imprisoned him in the Kremlin, whence he attempted to
escape at the approach of the Russian voievodes. He was capt-
ured, and condemned to be impaled ; the son of the brigand of
Touchino, in spite of his youth, was hung, and his mother, Marina
the Pole, died in prison. By the advice of the clergy and the
boyards, the Tzar tried to negotiate with Baloven, another brig-
and chief, who, by way of answer, attacked Moscow, but w^as
defeated and his band destroyed. Th.e people of the Dwina
themselves executed justice on the Zaporogues. Lissovski was
eagerly pursued by Pojarski, but this clever partisan outwitted
all the efforts of the liberator. Peace with Poland had to be
concluded before he could be quieted.
In 16 15 a Congress assembled beneath the walls of Smolensk
under the mediation of Erasmus Handel ius, envoy of the
Emperor of Germany. It was impossible to come to an under-
standing: the Poles refused to admit the election of Michael
Romanof, and wished to recognize Vladislas as Tzar of Russia.
" You might as well," said Handelius, "try to reconcile fire and
water.'' The negotiations were broken off. With Sweden, how-
ever, they were more successful ; here the mediators, England
and Holland, showed more zeal and energy than the house of
Austria had done. The troubles and the impoverished state of
Muscovy reacted on their commerce. By pacifying the North,
they hoped to re-open Russia to their merchants,' and secure for
themselves greater advantages.
In May 1614, Ouchakof and Zaborovski had been sent to ask
help from Holland in men and money. The Dutch gave them
a thousand gulden, but said that they had themselves only
lately ended a great war, that they could give the Tzar no
substantial aid, but would do their utmost to induce the King of
Sweden to make peace. Alexis Ziousine had been despatched
to London in June 1613 ; he was ordered to narrate all the ex-
cesses committed by the Poles in Moscow, and to say to King
2^6 HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
James, " After the destruction of Moscow, the Lithuanians selz:ed
your merchants — Mark the F>ngHshman, and all the others — ■
took away all their wares, subjected them to a rigorous imprison-
ment, and ended by massacring them." If by chance he dis-
covered that the Enolish were aware that it was not the Poles,
but the Cossacks and the lower classes who had put Mark to
death and seized on the merchandise, he was to have other ex-
cuses ready. The Tzar entreated help in money to pay the men-
at-arms, and not in soldiers, as he could give them no pay.
They would think themselves happy if the King of England
would send the Tzar money, provisions, powder, lead, sulphur,
and other munitions, to the value of about 100,000 roubles ; but
would content themselves with 70,000 roubles' worth, or in case
of absolute necessity with 50,000. James received the envoy
and his suite courteously, informed them that he was aware of
the wrongs the Poles and the Swedes had inflicted on them, and
ordered them three times following to cover themselves. The
Russians declined to do this. " When we see thy fraternal love
and lively friendship for our sovereign, when we hear thy royal
words which glorify our prince, and contemplate thine eyes thus
close at hand, how can we, kholopys as we are, put our hats on
our heads at such a moment t " In August 1614, the year follow-
ing this embassy, there appeared at Moscow John Merrick, who
had for long traded with the holy city, but who came this time
as ambassador from James I., qualified with full powers, as
prince, knight, and gentleman of the bedchamber. In an inter-
view with Prince Ivan Kourakine he began by demanding, on
the part of the English merchants, a direct communication with
India by the Obi, and with Persia by the Volga and Astrakhan.
Kourakine alleged that this route was unsafe, that Astrakhan
had only lately been delivered from Zaroutski, and that numerous
brigands still infested the A'^olga. When security should be
established, they would open the question with King James.
They then passed to the subject of mediation. John Merrick
declared that the King of England had assembled his Parliament
to consider the best means of helping the Tzar, but that the
Parliament had as yet decided nothing, and that he had no in-
structions on this head. " But," said Kourakine, " can you not
assure us that your sovereign will send us help in the spring .'' "
" How can I guarantee it ? The journey is long, and there is no
way save that by Sweden I believe, however, he will give
you aid." Merrick, having contented himself with causing the
Russians to hope, returned to commercial matters : liberty of
trade by the Obi and the Volga, concessions of iron and jet
mines on the Soukhona, concessions of territory about Vologda,
HIS TOR Y OF R US SI A. 257
for new establishments, &:c. The Russian boyards continued to
expatiate on the difficulty of the situation, and John Merrick went
10 Novgorod to negotiate with the Swedes, where he was joined
by the envoys of Holland. Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden,
JKid obtained some successes over the voievodes, but he had not
vontented the Novgorodians, nor been able to take Pskof. The
kings of Denmark and Poland were his enemies, and he may
iiave felt a presentiment of ihe splendid career ihat awaited hini
in Germany. He consented to open a congress, and in 1617
concluded with Russia the Peace of Stolbovo, by which he re
ceived an indemnity of 20,000 roubles, and kept Ivangorod, lam
Koporie', and Ore'chek (Schliisselburg), but ceded Novgorod,
Roussa, Ladoga, and some smaller places.
Russia was now able to concentrate all her forces against hei
worst enemy — the instigator of all her troubles. The Poles took
the offensive, under the command of Vladislas and the hetman
Khodkevitch. Dorogobouge and Viasma were surrendered by
the treachery or weakness of their voievodes ; but Mojaisk and
Kalouga (which was defended by Pojarski) resisted and arrested
the progress of the enemy, Vladislas, who had all the instincts
of a soldier, resolved in 16 18 to march on Moscow. Michael
Romanof dreaded treason more than the arms of the enemy,
and determined to exact a new oath of allegiance from his sub-
jects. He assembled the Estates, and informed them that he
was ready once more to suffer hunger in besieged Moscow, and
to %ht Lithuania, but he asked in return that the nobles should
do as much for him, and that they should resist the seductions
of "the king's son." Everyone made the required promise, and
fresh letters went out from Moscow, calling all the towns to a
holy war. Vladislas, however, had stopped at Touchino, where
the hetman of Little Russia, after having ravaged the frontiers of
the south-west, had joined him with his Cossacks. The davs of
the second impostor and of Touchinism seemed to ha\e come
back. The Poles having been defeated in an attack on Moscow
proposed a congress, which met at Devulino, not far from the
Troitsa monastery, lately the victim of a new siege. A truce of
fourteen years and six months was agreed on. Poland kept
Smolensk and Severia, and Vladislas did not even renounce the
title of Tzar of Russia, leaving this difficulty to be solved by the
judgment of God. Such a peace was only an armistice (1618) ;
there was, however, an exchange of prisoners : the brave voie-
vode Chein and the Metropolitan Philarete returned to Russia,
and the latter was at once made Patriarch.
By the return of his father the young Tzar obtained the
counsellor his inexperience had hitherto needed, and even more
258 HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
than a counsellor — a colleague, and almost a master. Philaretft
was in some sort associated with the throne. The empire had
two chief nobles, two sovereigns, the Tzar of all the Russias
and the Patriarch of all the Russias. They figured together
in all public acts, and together received the reports of the boy-
ards and foreign ambassadors. It was time that a master was
given to the boyards. The Soltykofs, Michael's favorites, had
distributed the empire among their partisans, and plundered
the treasury and the nation. They were charged with having
falsely accused Michael's first bride, who was expelled from the
palace, and having poisoned the second. This was a common
practice with the nobles of Muscovy, those who were in favor
fearing a new Tzarina above everything. They shrank from no
means of removing her from their path ; and their reputation on
this head was so firmly established that the King of Denmark
had refused Michael the hand of his niece, because, "in the
reign of Boris Godounof, his \)XO\\\^x, fiance oi the Princess Xenia,
had been poisoned ; and this would also be the fate of this
voung girl." Philarete made the boyards feel the weight of the
Tzar's hand, and exiled the most guilty.
RELATIONS WITH EUROPE — THE STATES-GENERAL.
Russia had begun at last to be a European nation. Every-
where her political or commercial alliance was sought. Gustavus
Adolphus, who was making preparations to play his part as the
champion of Protestantism in Germany, wished to assure him-
self of the friendship of Russia against Poland. He represented
to Michael, with much truth, that the Catholic League of the
Pope, the King of Poland, and the house of Hapsburg were as
dangerous to Russia as to Sweden ; that if Protestantism suc-
cumbed it would be the turn of orthodoxy, and that the Swedish
army was the outpost of Russian security. " When your neigh-
bor's house is on fire," writes the King, "you must bring water
and try to extinguish it, to guarantee your own safety. May
your Tzarian majesty help your neiglibors to protect yourself."
The terrible events of late years had only too well justified
these remarks. The intrigues of the Jesuits with the false
Dmitri, and the burning of Moscow by the Poles, were always
present to the memory of the Russians. A treaty of peace and
commerce was concluded with Sweden, and a Swedish ambas-
sador aj^pearcd at the Court.
pjTirland had rendered more than one service to Russia. In
her pressing need James I. had lent her 20,000 roubles, and
HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
259
British mediation had led to the Peace of Stolbovo. John Mer-
rick considered he had the right to demand tliat Russia should
open to English commerce the route to Persia by the Volga,
and to Hindostan by Siberia. The Tzar consulted the merch-
ants of Moscow. They unanimously replied that such a con-
cession would be their ruin, for they could never hope to rival
the wealthier and more enterprising English. They were, how-
ever, ready to sacrifice their interests to those of the empire, if
the dues paid by the foreigners were essential to the treasury.
John Merrick declined to pay any dues, and the negotiation was
broken off. They paid him, however, the 20,000 roubles, as he
assured them the King had need of them for the help of his son-
in-law, the Elector Palatine.
Tn 1615 the Tzar sent an envoy into France, to announce to
Louis XIII. his accession to the throne, and to ask his aid
against Poland and Sweden. In 1629 there appeared at Mos-
cow the ambassador Duguay Cormenin, who was commissioned
to solicit for French commerce what had been refused to Eng-
lish trade — free passage into Persia. He also spoke of a politi-
cal alliance. " His Tzarian majesty," he said, " is the head of
Eastern countries and the orthodox faith ; Louis, King of France,
is the head of Southern countries; and the Tzar, by contracting
a friendship and alliance with him, will get the better of his
enemies. As the Emperor is closely allied to the King of Po-
land, the Tzar must be allied to the King of France. These two
princes are everywhere glorious ; they have no equals either in
strength or power; their subjects obey them blindly, while the
English and Braban^-ons are only obedient when they choose.
The latter buy their wares in Spain, and sell them to the Rus-
sian,s at a high price, but the French will furnish them with
everything at a reasonable rate." This negotiation for the first
Franco-Russian treaty spoken of in history had no result. As
to the route to Persia, it was refused by the boyards, who said
that the French might buy the Persian merchandise from the
Russians.
Another ally against Poland offered itself to Muscovy. Tne
Sultan Osman sent to Moscow the Prince Thomas Cantacuzene,
to announce that Turkey had already declared war against the
king. The T^ussians asked no more than to help him, and Phil-
arete and Michael assembled the Slates-general. The deputies
" beat their foreheads " to the sovereigns, beseeching them to
" hold themselves firm for the holy churches of God, for their
Tzarian honor, and for their own country against the enemy.
The men-at-arms were ready to fight, and the merchants to give
money." The troops were already assembling when news was
26o HISTORY OF RUSSIA.
received that Turkey had been defeated, and war was post-
poned. The preparations had revealed certain faults existing
in the national army, and it was decided to enlist foreign iner-
cenaries, and instruct the native soldiers in Western tactics.
Orders were accordingly given to buy arms, and to attract into
Russia gun-founders and artillerymen. Tne Russia of Michael
and Philarete already announced the Russia of Peter the Great ;
the era of reform had begun. Each day Muscovy strengthened
herself against her European enemies, by turning against them
the weapon of their own civilization.
She remained quiet for eight years. In 1632 Sigismond III.
died, and the Elective Diet assembled at Warsaw. Michael
was determined not to let this opportunity slip, and the second
war with Poland began. It did not turn out as well as had been
hoped. The vices of the old organization and institutions
showed themselves anew. The two voievodes commandinsr the
army suddenly became possessed with the old mania of disput-
ing precedence. They were deprived of their command, and
replaced by Chein and Ismailof, who crossed the frontier with
32,000 men and 158 guns. Twenty-three towns surrendered to
the Muscovites, but Smolensk held out for eight months, and,
just as it showed signs of capitulating, the Polish army under
Vladislas, now King of Poland, made its aiDpearance. On the
rumor of a Tatar invasion in the south, part of the Russian
nobles at once hastened to the defence of their own lands, and
Chein, thus enfeebled, was attacked by the king, and his com-
munications cut. Famine obliged him to surrender in the open
field, and he obtained leave to retreat, though forced to abandon
both his baggage and his artillery. His only fault lay in not
understanding as well as his Western adversaries the stratesfv
of modern warfare. He was only guilty of being a Russian of
unreformed Russia. His enemies, however, accused him of trea-
son in a council of war, and he was condemned with his col-
league to be beheaded. Philarete was no longer there to force
the boyards to live at peace with each other. He died in 1633.
Vladislas, successful at Smolensk, was defeated at Bielaia, and
a congress was held on the Polianka. The conditions of the
truce of Devulino were confirmed. The Russians paid 20,000
roubles, and Vladislas renounced all claim to the throne of Mos-
cow, and recognized for the first time the Tzarian title.
Shortly after there arose a new occasion for war. In spite
of the treaties of peace concluded by Poland and Russia with
Turkey, the Cossacks of the Dnieper, who were subjects of Po-
land, and the Cossacks of the Don, who were subjects of Russia,
Still continued to fight against Islam. To them, besides being
ins TOR Y OF R USSIA. 2 6 1
a holy war, it was the means of procuring zipotms, — wide trou-
sers, of a beautiful scarlet cloth. Determined partisans and
pirates, both on land and sea, they were thorns in the sides of
the Khan of the Crimea and the Grand Turk, attacking with
their light boats the heavy Ottoman gall-eys, and insulting the
coasts of the Bosphorus and Anatolia. They were disavowed by
their respective governments, and were the subjects of perpetual
recrimination between the Porte and the two Slav States. They
were the briolks, when the Swedish war and the march
3 o8 HIS TOR Y OF R USSIA.
of the Muscovite troops limited his power and augmented the
burdens of his territory, when the Tzar sent pressing injunctions
for the equipment of the army in European style, when he felt
around him the spirit of rebellion against Moscow, he wrote to
Leszczinski, saying that he did not think the Polish army sufficient-
ly strong, but assuring him of his goodwill. His confidant, Orlik,
was in the secret of all his intrigues. Some of his subordinates who
had penetrated his designs made another attempt to denounce him
to the Tzar : among these were Palei, celebrated in the songs of the
Ukraine ; Kotchoubey, whose daughter Mazeppa had taken ; and
Iskra. The information was very exact and revealed his secret con-
ferences with the emissaries of the King and of Princess Dolskaia
It failed, like former denunciations, through the blind confidence
of Peter : Palei was sent to Siberia ; Iskra and Kotchoubey were
tortured, forced to confess themselves false witnesses, delivered
up to the hetman, and beheaded. Mazeppa was conscious that
such extraordinary good fortune could not last, and the malcon-
tents urged him to think of their common safety. At this moment
Charles XII. arrived in the neighborhood of Little Russia.
" The devil has brought him," cried Mazeppa ; and he tried be-
tween the two powers to save the independence of his little
State, without delivering himself over completely either to
Charles XII. or Peter the Great. When the latter invited him
to join the army, he pretended that he was ill, and even received
extreme unction. But Menchikof and Charles were approach-
ing — a choice must be made. Mazeppa left his bed, assembled
his most faithful Cossacks, and crossed the Desna to effect a
junction with the Swedish army. Then Peter the Great made a
proclamation denouncing the treason of Mazeppa, his alliance
with the heretics, his plot to restore the Ukraine to Poland, and
to fill the monasteries and temples of God withUniates. He was
cursed in all the churches of Russia. Batourine, his capital, was
taken by Menchikof, sacked and destroyed ; his accomplices, whom
he had abandoned, died on the wheel and the gibbet ; he himself
fled, after the battle of Pultowa, to the Turkish territory, and per-
ished miserably at Bender. A new hetman, Skoropadski, was
elected in his stead ; the mass of the people and the Cossack army
pronounced loudly for theTzar, and the Swedes had to cope with
the rising of the entire population of the Ukraine. In spite of
this, the independence of Little Russia was past. The privileges
of the Cossacks were over, and twelve hundred of them were
sent to work at the Canal of Ladoga. A Muscovite official was
joined to Skoropadski to govern " in concert with the advice of
the hetman." Muscovite subjects were allowed to hold lands in
the Ukraine by the same titleas the Little Russians 5 Menchikof
CHARLES XII.
HIS TOR Y OF R USSIA. 3 og
and Chafirof were given large domains there by Skoropadski,
whose daughter married another Muscovite, Tolstoi', created com-
mandant of the polk of Ni^jine. In 1722 Little Russia, whose
affairs up to that time had been conducted by the department of
Foreign Affairs, was governed by a special office founded at
Moscow under the name of " Little Russian Affairs." This was
clear proof that the Ukraine had ceased to be an autonomous
State. When Skoropadski died, Peter did not nominate a suc-
cessor, declaring that " the treasons of the preceding hetmans
did not allow a decision to be made lightly in this grave matter
of election, and that he needed time to find a man of assured
fidelity."
From this time the institutions of the Ukraine were modified
at the will of Peter the Great and his successors. The hetman-
nate was now abolished, now restored, till the last man who held
the title, a courtier of Catherine I L, abdicated in 1789. The
affairs of the Ukraine were sometimes directed by the ofBce of
Little Russia, sometimes by the office of Foreign Affairs, till
the time when, under Catherine II., it became an integral part
of the empire. As to the Zaporogues, after their se'tcha had
been taken by Peter the Great, they emigrated to the Crimea,
obtained their restoration to the Lower Dnieper from Anne,
found the neighboring country already transformed, and, as
their existence seemed incompatible with security and coloni-
zation, were finally expelled in 1775.
From the year 1709 we may say that there no longer existed
in the empire a single military force that could oppose its privi-
leges to the will of the Tzar,
IJC SDIITHF RN RFGIONAL I IRRAMY FACILITY
1 1 II 1 1 nil mill
AA 000 503 985 4