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 A POPULAR 
 
 HISTORY OF RUSSIA, 
 
 From the Earliest Times to 1880. 
 
 BY 
 
 ALFRED RAMBAUD, 
 
 CHIEF OF THE CABINET OF THE MINISTER OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION AND FINE ARTS, AT PARIS \ 
 
 CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF 
 
 ST. PETERSBURG ; ETC, ETC. 
 
 THIS WORK HAS BEEN CROWNED BY THE FRENCH ACADEMY. 
 
 TRANSLATED BY L, B. LANG. 
 EDITED AND ENLARGED BY NATHAN HASKELL DOLE. 
 
 INCLUDING 
 
 A HISTORY OF THE TURKO-RUSSIAN WAR OF 1877-78, 
 
 FROM THE BEST AUTHORITIES, BY THE EDITOR. 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 FULLY ILLUSTRATED 
 
 WITH WOOD-CUTS, STEEL. PLATES, AND MAPS AND PLANS. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 DANA ESTES AND CHARLES E. LAURIAT, 
 
 301 WASHINGTON STREET. 
 I880.
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1879. 
 BY ESTES AND LAURIAT. 
 
 II E.MASS.}. 
 
 ~
 
 College 
 Library 
 
 41 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THE field of Russian history has not hitherto seemed to 
 offer great attraction for the student. This is partly due to 
 the lack of interesting and reliable works upon the subject. 
 It is now nearly a quarter of a century since any history of 
 Russia pretending to completeness has appeared in the English 
 language, and Kelly's Compilation in the Bohn Collection, 
 published immediately after the Crimean War, is full of 
 prejudice and error. The abundance of materials which throw 
 new light on the development of the Empire, the labors of the 
 faithful and conscientious modern Russian historians, have been 
 almost entirely neglected. It has not been felt to be essential 
 for the well-educated man to add to his other accomplishments 
 a complete knowledge of Russian history, and a few items of 
 general information have completely satisfied him. The name 
 of Ivan the Terrible has seemed to him typical of the early 
 Tsars, and by its very sound conjured up a phantom of some- 
 thing indefinitely cruel and barbaric. An acquaintance with 
 Peter the Great, " the giant, the wonder-worker," he has per- 
 haps made through the medium of Voltaire. But however 
 brilliant Voltaire's style may be, it does not suffice to cover its 
 superficial and untrustworthy character. And the study of 
 modern European history has led to more or less familiarity 
 with Napoleon's campaign against Moscow and the details of 
 the Crimean War. But the prominence of the Eastern Ques- 
 tion and the portentous growth in all directions of the vast
 
 IV PREFACE. 
 
 Empire of the Russias, threatening the Turk in his sunny 
 home on the Bosphorus, the Englishman in his Indian do- 
 main, the Celestial in his flowery kingdom, have attracted 
 universal attention, and a knowledge of general Russian his- 
 tory is almost indispensable if one would understand the com- 
 plicated relations of Russia with Europe. The influence of 
 the Tatar invasion, the growth of autocracy, the reforms 
 effected by Peter the Great and his successors, the policy of 
 emancipation and of the protection of Christians in Turkish 
 dominions, must all be considered, not as isolated facts, but as 
 legitimate consequences of more or less patent causes. 
 
 It has not been easy to find authentic material in anything 
 but the Russian language for such study. Mr. Ralston has 
 published some excellent lectures on early times, and M. Pros- 
 per Merimee wrote a thorough monograph on the Epoch of 
 the False Dmitri ; various sketches of Russian history can be 
 found in travels and other works on Russia ; the industrious 
 seeker might be rewarded by studying the ponderous volumes 
 of Levesque or Esneaux, or Bernhardi's " Geschichte Russ- 
 lands " ; but it is safe to say that there has hitherto existed no 
 trustworthy, unprejudiced, and complete history of Russia in 
 either English or French. 
 
 When the "Histoire de la Russie," by M. Alfred Rambaud, 
 made its appearance, it was immediately welcomed by the 
 press of both countries with the most flattering approval, and 
 it was also crowned by the French Academy. The London 
 
 Athenaeum says of it : 
 
 
 
 " We have the ' Histoire de la Russie/ by M. Alfred Rambaud, \vho, 
 by his ' Russie E pique* and other publications, has already shown him- 
 self a competent scholar. In this book we have the results of the 
 researches of all the latest Russian historiographers summarized ; he 
 has especially laid under contribution the voluminous labors of Solovief 
 and Oustrialov, and the less ambitious productions of Kostomarov and 
 Bestuzhev-Rioumin.
 
 PREFACE. V 
 
 " The various theories on the origin of Rurik and his companions are 
 clearly set forth, and a wise discretion is exercised in abridging the 
 tedious story of the struggles between the early Russian principalities. 
 Any one who has read the classical Slavonic histories on those times 
 must remember how hopelessly dreary they seem. The chapters on the 
 Republics of Novgorod, Pskov, and Viatka, and the Lithuanian Princi- 
 pality are very well done; without an examination of their relations 
 to early Russian history it becomes unintelligible, and probably few 
 Western students have realized how slender was the tie which bound 
 the latter country to Poland. The culmination at Moscow of a cen- 
 tralized despotism is fully brought out, and the reign of Ivan the Terri- 
 ble is necessarily made a very prominent feature in the book. At this 
 point Russian history becomes especially interesting to Englishmen, 
 owing to our commercial dealings with the tyrant, and monographs 
 on the subject have been written by Kostomarov and Youri Tolstoi. 
 The pages of Hakluyt teem with quaint stories of the adventures of our 
 enterprising countrymen. As M. Rambaud is quite familiar with Rus- 
 sian literature, he occasionally stops in the course of his narrative to 
 summarize its progress, and illustrates historical events by reference to 
 contemporary bylinas* .... 
 
 "A great deal of new light has been thrown upon the period of 
 Catherine's reign ; so wide and careful has been M. Rambaud's reading, 
 that he has laid under contribution the valuable memoirs and other 
 
 papers recently published in the Russian reviews and journals 
 
 The narrative is carried down to the latest period 
 
 "A mass of useful information is condensed in this work; it is 
 beyond question the best complete history of Russia which has appeared 
 in the West. In the author's power of seizing upon salient traits of 
 character, and selecting picturesque incidents, the book reminds us very 
 much of Mr. Green's English History. We will venture to prophesy 
 that it will become the work on the subject for readers in our part of 
 Europe. 
 
 "It reflects great credit upon its author, and well deserves to be 
 studied by all who care to instruct themselves in Russian history." 
 
 The Saturday Review declares that " M. Rambaud is never 
 too enthusiastic to be fair," and goes on to say : " The value 
 
 * Historical Ballads.
 
 vi PREFACE. 
 
 of a work like this, which gives us in an unbroken chain 
 events from the time of legend and almost of myth, when truth 
 is hard to be reached, from the scanty amount of information, 
 to the present day, when multiplicity of sources makes truth 
 equally obscure, cannot be overrated." 
 
 Mr. Ralston, who is considered one of the most thorough 
 Russian scholars in England, adds his testimony as follows : 
 " We gladly recognize in the present volume a trustworthy 
 history of Russia, and one based not merely on what foreigners 
 have written about it, but compiled by a scholar who is com- 
 petent to deal with the works which Russian historians have 
 recently produced. M. Rambaud has long been known as a 
 sound authority upon all subjects connected with the great 
 Empire of which he has now written the history." And 
 finally, we select from many other flattering notices the opinion 
 of Turgenief, the great Russian novelist, that, " in spite of 
 some minor faults, this is far superior to any other history 
 accessible to Western Europe." 
 
 M. Rambaud, though a comparatively young man, having 
 been born in eighteen hundred and forty-two, has proved him- 
 self worthy to treat the difficult subject of Russian history by 
 his other historical works, by his frequent visits to Russia, and 
 his knowledge of the Russian language and literature. 
 
 His development of the early and complicated periods of 
 the appanaged princes could hardly be excelled ; it is when 
 he reaches modern times that excessive condensation sometimes 
 injures the style of the book, and in the American edition the 
 translation has been supplemented with frequent additions 
 taken from the original works of Ustrialof and Solovief when- 
 ever perspicuity and interest could be thus served. Hermann 
 and Von Bernhardi have also been found useful in expanding 
 or explaining incomplete or doubtful passages. 
 
 The American edition also includes a continuation of the 
 history through the last war with Turkey and the relations
 
 PREFACE. vii 
 
 with Afghanistan and the East. Lack of historical perspective 
 makes it difficult satisfactorily to deal with events so near at 
 hand, but it is hoped that accuracy and fairness will be found 
 in the treatment of the events of the last few years. The best 
 possible authorities have been studied, arid as information 
 has already been largely collected and classified, the danger 
 of erroneous judgment and important omissions is greatly 
 lessened. 
 
 Throughout the whole work the Russian words scattered 
 freely in the original French have been translated, so far as 
 was practicable, and the simplest possible mode of spelling 
 both Polish and Russian names has been adopted, so as to 
 facilitate the proper pronunciation. In many cases Russian 
 plurals have been substituted for English plurals of Russian 
 words, and in accordance with the best modern English usage 
 the letters ui have taken the place of the meaningless y in such 
 words as Kruilof. The terminations vitch and vna indicate 
 the relation of son and daughter : Peter Alexievitch, Peter son 
 of Alexis ; Elisabeth Petrovna, Elisabeth daughter of Peter. 
 
 The Russian calendar has not adopted the Gregorian re- 
 form ; for every date, therefore, it is necessary to indicate 
 whether it is after the old or new style. Eor important dates, 
 both styles are generally given. In the eighteenth cen- 
 tury the Russian style is eleven days behind ours ; in the 
 nineteenth century it is twelve days. Thus the date of the 
 death of Catherine the Second is given as the sixth or 
 seventeenth of November, a difference of eleven days, since 
 the event happened in the eighteenth century. But we say 
 the revolution of the fourteenth or twenty-sixth of December, 
 eighteen hundred and twenty-five, as we are speaking of the 
 nineteenth century. 
 
 The greatest pains have been taken to render the text free 
 from errors, a complete index has been prepared, illustrations 
 have been freely used, and it is hoped that it will prove to be 
 in reality a Popular History of Russia.
 
 LIST OF STEEL PLATES AND MAPS. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 RURIK ............ Frontispiece. 
 
 ETHNOGRAPHICAL MAP OP RUSSIA IN THE NINTH CENTURY . . . 17 
 
 VLADIMIR 77 
 
 IAROSLAP 82 
 
 ALEXANDER NEVSKI s . 159 
 
 DMITRI DONSKOI 201 
 
 IVAN THE GREAT 216 
 
 IVAN THE TERRIBLE . . . 250 
 
 MIKHAIL THE FIRST 346 
 
 MAP OF THE FORMATION OP THE TSARATE OF MUSCOVY .... 857
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 VOL I. 
 
 KIRGHIZ TATARS 20 
 
 RUSSIAN VILLAGE . 23 
 
 KALMUCK TATARS 29 
 
 THE HERMITAGE 34 
 
 GREAT RUSSIAN TYPES 46 
 
 TATAR SHAMANS 52 
 
 VIEW OF KIEF 66 
 
 CASTLE ON THE DANUBE 72 
 
 ANCIENT GATE IN KOLOSTAR ' 72 
 
 RUSSIAN CHURCHES 95 
 
 SEAL OF NOVGOROD 128 
 
 TYPES OF NOVGOROD 135 
 
 MONASTERY OF IURIEF 137 
 
 REVEL 145 
 
 VIEW OF RIGA . 161 
 
 COSSACK CAVALRY 169 
 
 LITHUANIANS 174 
 
 KHEML OF Moscow ........ 187 
 
 MONASTERY OF ST. SERGIUS AT TROITSA 194 
 
 METROPOLITAN OF Moscow . 214 
 
 VIEW OF NOVGOROD ......... 221 
 
 VIEW OF KAZAN ........ 226 
 
 ARMS OF RUSSIA 232 
 
 MOUNT ATHOS ......... 242 
 
 THE RED PLACE 266 
 
 SIBERIA ...... 277 
 
 BOSNIAN MERCHANT 282 
 
 CATHEDRAL OF SAINT SOPHIA AT NOVGOROD 288 
 
 PALACE OF FACETS 291
 
 x LIST OF ILLUSTEATIONS. 
 
 THE FUNERAL OF A RUSSIAN PEASANT 292 
 
 CHURCH MARRIAGE CEREMONY 302 
 
 RED GATE 305 
 
 307 
 
 SAINT NICHOLAS GATE 
 
 CHURCH OF VASILI THE BLESSED 309 
 
 TSAR KOLOKOL 310 
 
 DIEVITCHI MONASTERY 318 
 
 VIEW IN WOODS 344 
 
 FORTRESS OF SCHLUSSELBURG 349 
 
 CLERGY OF THE RUSSIAN CHURCH 355 
 
 WOMEN OF PSKOF 374 
 
 NEW JERUSALEM MONASTERY . . . . . . 392
 
 CONTENTS, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 GEOGRAPHY OF RUSSIA. 
 
 Eastern and Western Europe compared : Seas, Mountains, Climate. Russian Rivers 
 
 and History. The Four Zones : Geographical Unity of Russia . . . 17-31 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ETHNOGRAPHY OF RUSSIA. 
 
 Greek Colonies and the Scythia of Herodotus. The Russian Slavs of Nestor. 
 Lithuanian, Finnish, and Turkish Hordes in the Ninth Century. Division 
 of the Russians proper into three Branches. How Russia was colonized . 32-50 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 PRIMITIVE RUSSIA: THE SLAVS. 
 
 Religion of the Slavs. Funeral Rites. Domestic and Political Customs : the 
 Family ; the Mir, or Commune ; the Volost, or Canton ; the Tribe. Towns. 
 Industry. Agriculture 51-59 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE VARIAGI : FORMATION OF RUSSIA ; THE FIRST EXPEDITIONS AGAINST 
 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 The Northmen in Russia: Origin and Customs of the Variagi. The First Russian 
 Princes: Rurik, Oleg, Igor. Expeditions against Constantinople. Olga : 
 Christianity in Russia. Sviatoslaf. The Danube disputed between the Rus- 
 sians and Greeks ,60-76 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE CLOVIS AND CHARLEMAGNE OF THE RUSSIANS, SAINT TLADIMIR AND IARO- 
 
 SLAF THE GREAT. 
 972-1054. 
 
 Vladimir (972- 1015). Conversion of the Russians. laroslaf the Great (1016- 
 1054). Union of Russia. Splendor of Kief. Variag-Russian Society at 
 the Time of laroslaf. Progress of Christianity. Social, Political, Literary, 
 and Artistic Results '77-95
 
 xii CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 RUSSIA DIVIDED INTO PRINCIPALITIES. SUPREMACY AND FALL OF KIEF. 
 
 1064. -1160. 
 
 Distribution of Russia into Principalities. Unity in Division. The Successors of 
 laroslaf the Great. Wars about the Right of Headship of the Royal Family, 
 and the Throne of Kief. Vladimir Monomakh. Wars between the Heirs of 
 Vladimir Monomakh. Fall of Kief ....... 96-112 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 RUSSIA AFTER THE FALL OF KIEF. POWER OF SUZDAL AND GALLICIA. 
 
 1169-1264. 
 
 Andrei Bogoliubski of Suzdal (1157 - 1174) and the First Attempt at Autocracy. luri 
 the Second (1212 - 1238). Wars with Novgorod. Battle of Lipetsk (1216). 
 Foundation of Nijni-Novgorod (1220). Roman (1188-1205) and his Son Daniel 
 (1205 - 1264) in Gallicia ......... 113-126 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE RUSSIAN REPUBLICS : NOVGOROD, PSKOF, AND VIATKA. 
 Until 1224. 
 
 Novgorod the Great. Struggles with the Princes. Novgorodian Institutions. 
 
 Commerce. The National Church. Literature. Pskof and Viatka . 127-142 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE LIVONIAN KNIGHTS. CONQUEST OF THE BALTIC PROVINCES BY THE 
 
 GERMANS. 
 1187-1237. 
 
 Conversion of Livonia. Rise of the Livonian Knights. Union with the Teutonic 
 
 Knights ............ 143-148 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE TATAR MONGOLS. ENSLAVEMENT OF RUSSIA. 
 - 1264. 
 
 Origin and Customs 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 Russian Development .... 149-173 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE LITHUANIANS: CONQUEST OF WESTERN RUSSI 
 1240-1430. 
 
 The Lithuanians. Conquests of Mindvog (1240-1263), of Gedimin (1315-1340), 
 and of Olgerd (1345-1377). lagello. Union of Lithuania with Poland 
 (1386). The Grand Prince Vitovt (1392-1430). Battles of the Vorskla 
 (1399) and of Tannenberg (1410) ....... 174-184
 
 CONTENTS. xiii 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE GRAND PRINCES OF MOSCOW : ORGANIZATION OF EASTERN RUSSIA. 
 13O3-1462. 
 
 Origin of Moscow. Daniel. luri Danielovitch (1303-1325) and Ivan Kalita 
 (1328- 1341). Contest with the House of Tver. Simeon the Proud and Ivan 
 the Debonair (1341 - 1359). Dmitri Donskoi (1363 - 1389). Battle of Kuli- 
 kovo. Vasili Dmitrie'vitch and Vasili the Blind (1389 - 1462) . . 185 - 215 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 IVAN THE GREAT, THE AUTHOR OF RUSSIAN UNITY. 
 1462- 15O5. 
 
 Submission of Novgorod. Reunion 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 the Soja reconquered. Marriage with Sophia Palaco- 
 logus. Greeks and Italians at the Court of Moscow .... 216-234 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 VASILI IVANOVITCH. 
 15O5-1533. 
 
 Reunion of Pskof, Riazan, and Novgorod-Severski. Wars with Lithuania. Acqni- 
 sition of Smolensk. Wars with the Tatars. Diplomatic Relations with 
 Europe 235-243 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 IVAN THE TERRIBLE. 
 1533-1584. 
 
 Minority of Ivan the Fourth. He takes the Title of Tsar (1547). Conquest of 
 Kazan (1552) and of Astrakhan (1554). Contests with the Livonian Order, 
 Poland, the Tatars, Sweden, and the Russian Aristocracy. The English in 
 Russia. Conquest of Siberia 244 - 280 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 MUSCOVITE RUSSIA ANT) THE RENAISSANCE. 
 1533-1584. 
 
 The Muscovite Government. The Kin and the Men of the Tsar. The Prikazui. 
 Rural Classes. Citizens. Commerce. Domestic Slavery. Seclusion of 
 Women. The Renaissance: Literature, Popular Songs, and Cathedrals. 
 Moscow in the Sixteenth Century 281-310 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE SUCCESSORS OF IVAN THE TERRIBLE : FEODOR IVANOVITCU AND BORIS 
 
 GO DUN OF. 
 1584-1605. 
 
 Feodor Ivanovitch (1534-1598). The Peasant attached to the Glebe. The Patri- 
 archate. Boris Godunof (1598 - 1605). Appearance of the False Dmitri 311 - 326
 
 xiv CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE TIME OF THE TROUBLES. 
 16O5-1613. 
 
 Murder of the False Dmitri. Vasili Shuiski. The Brigand of Tushino. Vladislaa 
 of Poland. The Poles at the Kreml. National Rising. Minin and Pojarski. 
 Election of Mikhail Romanof 327-344 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE ROMANOFS: MIKHAIL FEODOROVITCH AND THE PATRIARCH PHILARET. 
 
 1613-1645. 
 
 Restorative Measures. End of the Polish War. Relations with Europe. The 
 
 States-General 345-356 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 WESTERN RUSSIA IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 
 1569-1645. 
 
 The Political Union of Lublin (1569) and the Religious Union (1595). Complaints 
 
 of White Russia. Risings in Little Russia 357-369 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 ALEXIS MIKHAILOVITCH AND HIS SON FEODOR. 
 1645-1682. 
 
 Early Years of Alexis. Seditions. Khmelnitsld. Conquest of Smolensk and 
 Eastern Ukraina. Stenko Razin. Ecclesiastical Reforms of Nikon. The 
 . Precursors of Peter the Great. Reign of Feodor Alexie'vitch (1676 - 1682) 370 - 400
 
 NOTE. 
 
 THE perfect simplicity of the metric system of weights and measures, 
 and its immense superiority to all others, make its universal adoption a 
 mere matter of time. It is already used Jby upwards of twenty-seven 
 different nations, and in the majority the system is obligatory. It is 
 legalized in the United States, and the action of Congress, of the various 
 State legislatures, of national and State scientific and educational asso- 
 ciations, is so rapidly spreading a knowledge of it that even in the 
 opinion of its few opponents its adoption is inevitable. Consequently 
 in the American edition of the History of Russia the metric system has 
 been retained, and a simple table of equivalents is added. 
 
 TABLE OF THE METRIC SYSTEM OF WEIGHTS AND MEASURES. 
 
 The unit of length is the meter, a measure equivalent to one ten-millionth part 
 of the distance from the pole to the equator. 
 
 1 meter = 10 decimeters = 100 centimeters = 1000 mJlimeters = 39.37 inches. 
 1000 meters = 1 kilometer = 3280 feet 10 inches, or three fifths of a mile. 
 
 The unit of capacity is the liter, which is the space included in a cubic decimeter. 
 1 liter = 10 deciliters = 100 centiliters = 1000 milliliters = 1.06 U. S. quarts. 
 10 liters = 1 dekaliter, 10 dekaliters = 1 hektoliter = about 3 bushels. 
 
 The unit of weight is the gram, which is the weight of one cubic centimeter of 
 distilled water at the freezing point. 
 
 1 gram = 10 decigrams = 100 centigrams = 1000 milligrams = 15. 4 grains. 
 1 kilogram or kilo = 1000 grams = a liter of water = 2.205 Ibs. avoirdupois. 
 1 sq. meter = 10.75 sq. ft. 1 sq. kilometer = 0.39 sq. mile. 
 
 For ordinary purposes it may be remembered that the meter, liter, and 
 half-kilo are one tenth larger than the yard, quart, and pound respec- 
 tively, and that thirty centimeters make a foot and thirty grams a 
 pound. 
 
 The Russian ruble = 100 kopeks = from $0.70 to $0.80. 
 
 The value of the ruble depends upon whether it is coin or paper. 
 
 The Russian verst = 1067 meters, or about two thirds of a mile. 
 
 The Russian pud = 16.26 kilos = 36.08 Ibs. 
 
 NATHAN HASKELL DOLE. 
 BOSTON, May 1, 1879.
 
 t ft 12 16 20 -II 2 32 36 W> ti M 52 56 60 64 66 7> 76 
 
 -Kam ba nrff fnpu far History f>/~Jrtisstet
 
 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 GEOGRAPHY OF RUSSIA. 
 
 EASTERN AND WESTERN EUROPE COMPARED : SEAS, MOUNTAINS, CLI- 
 MATE. RUSSIAN EIVERS AND HISTORY. THE FOUR ZONES : 
 GEOGRAPHICAL UNITY OF EUSSIA. 
 
 EASTERN AND WESTERN EUROPE COMPARED: SEAS, 
 MOUNTAINS, CLIMATE. 
 
 UROPE may be roughly divided into two unequal parts. 
 iJ If we allow ten million square kilometers to the whole 
 of Europe, only four million five hundred thousand belong 
 to the western, five million five hundred thousand to the 
 eastern part. The former division is shared among all the 
 monarchies and republics of Europe, with the exception of 
 Russia ; the latter is united under the Russian sceptre. Na- 
 ture, no less than policy and 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 in- 
 land seas, pierced by deep gulfs, jagged with peninsulas, head- 
 lands, capes, and promontories ; islands and crowded archipela- 
 goes are thickly sprinkled along the coasts. Great Britain and 
 the Greek peninsula particularly, which have a coast-line out 
 of all proportion to their area, contrast with the impenetrable 
 compact mass of Eastern Europe. This strongly marked con- 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 18 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. I. 
 
 tour of the western lands is the characteristic feature of Euro- 
 pean geography, while the immense spaces of which Russia is 
 composed seem to be the continuation of the plains and plateaux 
 of Northern and Central Asia. No doubt Russia is washed 
 by many seas : in the north by the Arctic Ocean, which pene- 
 trates deep into the country by the vast reaches of the White 
 Sea ; in the south by the Caspian, the Sea of Azof, and the 
 Black Sea ; in the northwest by the Baltic and the gulfs of 
 Bothnia, Finland, and Livonia ; but, with all these waters, it 
 has only a comparatively meagre share of seaboard. While 
 the rest of Europe has about twenty-five thousand kilometers 
 of coast, Russia, with a much more considerable surface, pos- 
 sesses only eight thousand eight hundred and eighty kilometers, 
 and of this, four thousand four hundred and seven, nearly a 
 half, belong to the Arctic Ocean and the White Sea. But 
 these two seas are navigable during only a few months of the 
 year, from June to September, at furthest. The Baltic, in its 
 two most northern gulfs, easily freezes ; armies have been able 
 to cross on the ice, with all their artillery and supplies ; navi- 
 gation is stopped from the month of November to the end 
 of April. The Caspian is often frozen, especially in its north- 
 ern 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, it 
 might be styled continental Europe, in opposition to maritime 
 Europe. 
 
 Western Europe, besides being so jagged in its contour, is 
 extremely irregular 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
 
 CHAP. I.] GEOGRAPHY OF RUSSIA. 19 
 
 the country. England has its chain of the Peak and its High- 
 lands ; France has its Cevennes and its central support in 
 Auvergne ; Spain, its Pyrenees and Sierras ; Italy, its Apen- 
 nines ; Germany, its ranges in Suabia, Franconia, and the 
 Hartz ; Sweden, her Scandinavian Alps ; the Greco-Slav pen- 
 insula has the Balkan and Pindus. On the contrary, all the 
 mountains belonging to Russia are found on the extremities 
 of its territory. It is bounded on the northwest by the 
 granitic system of Finland, on the southeast by the branches 
 of the Carpathians, on the south by the rocky plateaux of the 
 Crimea with the Yaila and the Tcharduir-Dagh rising fifteen 
 hundred and eighty meters, by the Caucasus, extending over 
 eleven hundred kilometers, where Elburz, five thousand six 
 hundred and forty meters in height, surpasses Mont Blanc, the 
 highest mountain in Europe, by more than seven hundred 
 meters. To the east is the Ural range, the longest chain of 
 mountains in Europe or Asia, running two thousand four hun- 
 dred and fifty kilometers parallel to the meridians of longitude, 
 with peaks nineteen hundred meters high. In the Tatar 
 language the word Ural signifies girdle, but it is not only the 
 Urals which may be called the mountain-girdle; all the moun- 
 tains of Russia deserve this name. They bound it, they con- 
 fine it, but have only a slight influence on the configuration of 
 its interior and the distribution of its waters. From the Carpa- 
 thians and the Caucasus only secondary rivers flow, while the 
 four great Russian streams take their rise in hills not one hun- 
 dred meters higher than the surrounding country, or three 
 hundred and sixty meters above the level of the sea. We 
 must observe also that none of these mountains form a sepa- 
 rate system, they are nearly all fragments of systems belong- 
 ing to other countries. The empire of the Tsars is thus an 
 immense 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 multiform soil of the west. From this
 
 20 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. I. 
 
 point of view, Russia may be defined as the Europe of plains, 
 in contradistinction to the Europe of mountains. 
 
 Uniformity of surface is never quite complete, and Russia 
 presents inequalities of soil, though these are far less notable 
 than the depressions and elevations of the West. In the faintly 
 marked surface of Russia we must notice, in the centre of the 
 country, a kind of square tableland, called the central plateau, 
 or the plateau of Alaun, from the name of its northern part. 
 The northeastern angle is formed by the heights of the Val- 
 dai plateau, where the hills are one hundred meters high ; 
 the western side of the central plateau, by the small hills of 
 the Dnieper, which extend as far as the Cataracts, or more 
 properly the Rapids ; the southern side, by the heights which 
 reach from Kursk 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 'Arctic Ocean. Moreover, the central plateau 
 is 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 territory : Between the plateau of the 
 Valdai and the northeast 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 by 
 the Southern Dwina, or Dvina, and the Niemen ; on the south, 
 by the Dnieper and its affluents ; it reaches its lowest level in 
 the wide marshes of Pinsk. 
 
 Again, between the low cliffs on the right bank of the 
 Volga and the spurs of the Ural, the soil gradually sinks 
 throughout the whole length of the Volga, and finally reaches 
 the level of the sea at the Caspian, which is twenty-five 
 meters lower than the Black Sea : here are the steppes of 
 Kirghiz, the lowest part of European Russia, formerly the bed 
 of a great inland sea, which was gradually dried up, and
 
 KIRGHIZ TATARS.
 
 CHAP. I.] GEOGRAPHY OF EUSSIA. 21 
 
 of which the Caspian, the Lake of Aral, and other sheets of 
 water are only the remains. Should the Caspian rise again 
 but to the level of the Black Sea, a large part of this sterile 
 plain, now covered with saline efflorescence, would be inun- 
 dated anew. 
 
 The third great depression of the Russian soil is the slope 
 of the north, covered with lakes and marshes, where the frozen 
 swamps called the tundra are lost among the ice-fields of the 
 Polar Ocean and the White Sea. 
 
 The fourth great depression is the region of the lakes Saima, 
 Onega, Ladoga, which is continued by the sandy tracts of the 
 Baltic, and which forms a series of deep cavities, where the 
 waters of the Baltic and the White Sea must once have found 
 a meeting-point. 
 
 From the fact that Russia, taken as a whole, is only a vast 
 plain, it follows that its surface is swept by Polar winds, 
 which are kept off by no mountain barrier, for the Ural chain 
 runs in a direction parallel to their course. Again, from the 
 fact that Russia is washed only by seas which are small in 
 proportion to the extent of the land, it results that the tem- 
 perature is modified neither by sea-breezes, such as in the 
 West warm in winter and refresh in summer, nor by the aerial 
 and marine current of the Gulf Stream, which finally expires 
 on the coasts and on the mountains of Scandinavia, without 
 being able to influence the shores of the Baltic. This moun- 
 tain barrier makes a notable difference between the Norwegian 
 and the Swedish-Russian climate in similar latitudes. 
 
 Russia, then, like the interior of Asia, Africa, or Australia, 
 has to undergo the effects of a purely continental climate. 
 The first of these effects is a great contrast between the sea- 
 sons. The Russian plain is subject in turn to the influences 
 of Polar regions and to those of Central and Southern Asia, 
 of the deserts of ice and the deserts of burning sand. " In 
 the latitude of Paris and of Venice," says M. Anatole Leroy- 
 Beaulieu, " the countries situated to the north of the Black
 
 22 HISTOBY OF EUSSIA. [CHAP. I. 
 
 Sea and the Caspian have the temperature of Stockholm in 
 January, and the temperature of Madeira in July. At Astra- 
 khan, in the latitude of Geneva, it is by no means rare for the 
 temperature to vary from seventy to seventy-five degrees cen- 
 tigrade in a period of six months. On the coasts of the Cas- 
 pian, in the latitude of Avignon, the cold descends to thirty 
 degrees below freezing ; in summer, on the contrary, the heat 
 rises to upwards of forty degrees. In the steppes of the 
 Kirghiz, in the latitude of the centre of France, the mercury 
 is sometimes frozen for whole days ; while in the summer the 
 same thermometer, if not carefully watched, bursts in the sun. 
 Near the shores of the Sea of Aral these extremes of temper- 
 ature reach their maximum ; there are intervals of eighty, 
 perhaps of ninety degrees, centigrade, between the greatest 
 cold and the greatest heat." Even at Moscow they have had 
 cold of thirty -three and heat of twenty-eight degrees ; at St. 
 Petersburg the temperature may shift between the extremes 
 of from thirty to thirty-five degrees of cold to thirty-one of 
 heat. 
 
 The second consequence of the continental climate of Rus- 
 sia is that the winds do not reach the country till they have 
 lost on the way part of their humidity. Russia suffers gen- 
 erally from dryness. At Kazan the rainfall is only half that of 
 Paris ; it is for this reason that Russia contains so many bar- 
 ren and imwooded plains, while this absence of forests all 
 through the south is, in its turn, an obstacle to the formation 
 of rills and springs, and to the development of a healthy 
 moisture. 
 
 St. Petersburg, situated on the sixtieth parallel of northern 
 latitude, is the most northern capital of the whole world. The 
 longest day in this city lasts eighteen hours forty-five minutes ; 
 the sun rises on that day at twenty minutes to three, and sets 
 at twenty-five minutes past nine, but the twilight is prolonged 
 to the moment of dawn. For two months there is no night. 
 The shortest day is five hours forty -seven minutes; the sun
 
 -
 
 CHAP. I.] GEOGRAPHY OF RUSSIA. 23 
 
 rises at five minutes past nine and sets at eight minutes to 
 three. The Aurora Borealis is frequent in the north of 
 Russia, while the mirage is often seen in the steppes of the 
 south. 
 
 Russia being a country of plains, the geological strata of 
 which the soil is formed are nearly always horizontal ; no vio- 
 lent upheaval has broken them, rent the beds of stone, and 
 driven the fragments through the layers of mould or sand. It 
 follows that, except in the neighborhood of mountains, stone 
 is very scarce in Russia. This fact has had much influence 
 on the economic and artistic development of the country. The 
 people were obliged to build with other materials than in the 
 West. The public buildings were everywhere of oak and pine, 
 or of brick ; the old churches, the palaces of the Tsars, the 
 ramparts of the towns, were of wood. To-day the houses of 
 the citizens and the huts of the peasants are of wood. Russian 
 villages, and most of the towns, are a collection of combusti- 
 ble materials ; hence the fires which break out periodically, 
 and justify the saying that Russia, as a rule, is burned 
 every seven years. Buildings of such materials cannot assume 
 the colossal proportions 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 empire has had cities of stone. Peter 
 the Great gave Russia her first stone capital. From the geo- 
 logical point of view, then, Russia may be defined, according 
 to the expression of M. Solovief, as the Europe of wood, in 
 distinction from the Europe of stone. 
 
 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 its watercourses which 
 prevent Russia from being a continent closed and sealed, like
 
 24 HISTORY OF EUSSIA. [CHAP. I. 
 
 Africa or Australia. In place of estuaries it has great rivers 
 which penetrate to the centre, and have sometimes almost the 
 proportions of seas. In the level plains they have not the im- 
 petuous current of the Rhone, they flow peacefully through 
 wide beds cut in the sand or clay. The rivers were for a long 
 time the only means of communication. When the Russian 
 princes wished 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 Ural 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 
 rasputitsa, 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 rapid- 
 ity with which we see the characters of Russian history trav- 
 erse 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 Orleans. The rivers are the allies of 
 the Russians against what they call " their great enemy," 
 space. Russian conquest or colonization has everywhere fol- 
 lowed 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- 
 system of Russia. It is near this plateau, in Lake Volga, that 
 the Volga, which ultimately falls into the Caspian, takes its 
 rise. In this neighborhood also are the sources of the Dnie- 
 per, flowing to the Black Sea, the Niemen, the Dwina, which 
 falls into the Baltic, the Velikai'a, a tributary of the Pe'ipus, 
 the rivers forming Lake Ilmen, and those which feed the 
 lakes Ladoga and Onega, whence rises the Neva. The hydro-
 
 CHAP. I.] GEOGRAPHY OP RUSSIA. 25 
 
 graphic centre of Russia being at the northwest 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 influ- 
 ence on the development of the national history. This histoiy, 
 indeed, begins in the northwest, near the Valda'i plateau ; on 
 the Pe'ipus and the Ilmen the old commercial cities of Pskof 
 and Novgorod are established. What is their opening to the 
 sea? Not the Narova, flowing from Lake Peipus, the course 
 of which is broken by cataracts, but the network of rivers and 
 lakes "which terminates in the Neva, the Thames of Russia, a 
 river of little length but immense breadth, on which St. Peters- 
 burg, the Novgorod of the eighteenth century, was afterwards 
 to be built. In primitive times Novgorod was safer in the 
 centre of this network of rivers and lakes than it would have 
 been on the Neva. By the Volkhof its 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 it in communication with Lake Onega and the 
 White Lake ; by the Sukhona and the Northern Dwina it had 
 relations with the White Sea, where later the port of Arkhan- 
 gel was built. 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 water- 
 sheds between the slope to the White 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 be- 
 tween two opposite courses : some of them never make up 
 their minds, like the sluggish Sheksna, which connects the 
 White Lake and the Volga. This interlacement of the water- 
 system, which makes the Northern Dwina, the Neva, the 
 Niemen, and the Southern Dwina mere prolongations of the 
 Volga and the Dnieper, and puts the four Russian seas in un- 
 broken communication, is in itself a sufficient explanation of 
 the extent of the conquests and great commercial position of 
 Novgorod the Great.
 
 26 HISTOKY OF EUSSIA. [CHAP. I. 
 
 The Rus of Kief was founded on the Dnieper at a very early 
 date, as a Russian rival to the Russia of Novgorod. It also 
 followed the line marked out for it by the course of the Dnieper, 
 which necessarily turned its attention toward the Black Sea 
 and the Byzantine world. 
 
 It was by the Dnieper that the fleets of war descended against 
 Constantinople; it was by this river, too, that Greek civili- 
 zation and Christianity reached Kief. The Dnieper, which 
 made the greatness of Kief, hastened its decay. As a medium 
 of communication it was imperfect. The celebrated cataracts 
 or rapids below Kief formed an insurmountable barrier to 
 navigation, and consequently the city could not remain the 
 political and commercial capital of Russia. 
 
 The Don, notwithstanding its length of a thousand kilo- 
 meters, has had little influence on the evolution of Russian 
 history. During the whole period of the growth of the nation 
 it remained in the power of the Asiatic hordes. In later 
 years it fell, with Azof, into the possession of the Turks. The 
 sandy shallows near its mouth would in any case have proved 
 fatal to its commercial importance. The Dvina and the Nie- 
 men also remained till the eighteenth century in the hands 
 of the native Finns and Lithuanians, or of the German con- 
 querors. 
 
 But the great river of Russia is the Volga, the " mother 
 Volga," as the popular singers call it. If the Neva, with the 
 great lakes which feed it, may be compared to the St. Law- 
 rence, the Volga may be compared to the Mississippi. With a 
 length of three thousand seven hundred and seventy-eight kilo- 
 meters, it has a course two hundred and fifty leagues longer 
 than that of the Danube. Many of its tributaries may be 
 reckoned among the great rivers of the world. The Oka, with 
 its thousand kilometers of extent, surpasses the Meuse and the 
 Oder ; the Kama, two thousand kilometers long, outvies all 
 other European rivers except the Danube ; for the Elbe is 
 only one thousand and thirty kilometers, the Loire one thou-
 
 CHAP. I.] GEOGRAPHY OF RUSSIA. 27 
 
 sand and ninety, and the Rhine thirteen hundred in length. 
 The junction of the Volga and Oka at Nijni-Novgorod is like 
 the meeting of two arms of the sea ; it is an imposing spec- 
 tacle to contemplate from the hill on which the upper town is 
 built, while the lower town, or the fair, with its one hundred 
 thousand fluctuating inhabitants, spreads its buildings on 
 the banks of both rivers. The Volga, which near laroslavl is 
 six hundred and thirty-nine meters broad, has a breadth of 
 fourteen hundred above Kazan ; towards Samara sometimes it 
 decreases to seven hundred and forty-six meters ; sometimes 
 it spreads, with its tributary streams and lateral branches, 
 over a breadth of twenty-eight kilometers. At the Caspian it 
 divides into seventy-five branches, forming numerous islands, 
 and its delta spreads over one hundred and fifty kilometers. 
 This immense river, the waters of which abound with fish as 
 large as sea-fish, sturgeon, salmon, lampreys, and where 
 the sterlet sometimes weighs four hundred and eighty-eight 
 kilos, would be the wonder of Europe, were it not frost-bound 
 during many months in the year. But at the thaw the ports, 
 the dockyards, the wharves, are full of life. Two hundred 
 thousand workmen flock from all parts of Russia to its banks. 
 Fifteen thousand ships and five hundred steamboats plough its 
 waters. Kostroma, Nijni-Novgorod, Kazan, Simbirsk, Samara, 
 Saratof, Astrakhan, are filled with noise and activity. It seems 
 as if the whole life of Russia were concentrated on the Volga. 
 The basin of the Volga and its tributaries embraces an ex- 
 tent of surface nearly treble that of France. The basin of the 
 Oka alone has three times the extent of the basin of the Loire. 
 In her vast domain the Volga included nearly the whole of the 
 Russia of the sixteenth century, and has exercised an irresisti- 
 ble influence over the destiny of the land. From the day that 
 the Grand Princes established their capital on the Moskova, a 
 tributary of the Oka and sub-tributary of the Volga, Russia 
 turned to the east, and began its struggle with the Turks 
 and Tatars. The Dnieper made Russia Byzantine, the Volga
 
 28 HISTORY OF EUSSIA. [CHAP. L 
 
 made it Asiatic : it was for the Neva to make it European. 
 The whole history of this country is the history of its three 
 great rivers, and is divided into three periods : that of the 
 Dnieper with Kief, that of the Volga with Moscow, that of the 
 Neva with Novgorod in the eighth century and St. Petersburg 
 in the eighteenth. The greatness of this creation of Peter the 
 First consisted in his transporting his capital to the Baltic, 
 without abandoning the Caspian and the Volga, and in seek- 
 ing for the great eastern river a new outlet which should open 
 a communication with western seas. By means of the canals 
 of the Tikvinka and of the Ladoga, which furnished that outlet, 
 the Neva has become, as it were, the northern mouth, the Euro- 
 pean estuary of the Volga. 
 
 THE FOUR ZONES: THE GEOGRAPHICAL UNITY OF RUSSIA. 
 
 Considered as a productive country, Russia may be divided 
 into four unequal bands, which run from the southwest to the 
 northeast, namely : the zone of forests, that of the Black Land, 
 that of the . arable steppes, or prairies, and that of the barren 
 steppes. 
 
 The most northerly zone and the largest is that of the 
 .Russian forest, which touches on one side the ever-frozen 
 marshes of the icy shore, and on the other, the wide clearings 
 formed by the agricultural enterprise of Novgorod, Moscow, 
 and laroslavl. In the north the forest begins with the larch ; 
 in the centre resinous trees, with their dark foliage, alternate 
 with the small leaves and white bark of the birch ; farther 
 south come the lime, the elm, and the maple, and the oak 
 appears at the southern limit. 
 
 The Black Land extends from the banks of the Pruth to the 
 Caucasus, over the widest extent of Russia ; it even passes the 
 Ural and the Caucasus, and is prolonged into Asia. It derives 
 its name from a deep bed of black mould of inexhaustible 
 fertility, which produces without manure the richest harvests,
 
 KALMIUKI, OR KALMUCK TARTARS.
 
 CHAP. I.] GEOGRAPHY OP BUSSIA. 29 
 
 and may be compared to a gigantic Beauce or Champagne 
 of six hundred thousand square kilometers, a cornfield as 
 large as the whole of France. From this alone twenty-five 
 millions are fed, and the population increases daily. From 
 time immemorial this soil has been the granary of Eastern 
 Europe. It was here Herodotus placed his agricultural Scyth- 
 ians, and hence Athens drew her grain. 
 
 The zone of arable steppes lies parallel to the Black Land ; 
 to the south, it descends nearly to the sea : the country is fer- 
 tile, though it cannot do without manure. Before it began to 
 be tilled it formed a bare, grass-grown plain, completely devoid 
 of wood, and with its six hundred thousand square kilometers 
 recalls the American prairie. The vegetation of the steppe, 
 where men and flocks can hide themselves as in a forest, is 
 often five, six, and even eight feet high. This monotonous 
 steppe, unbroken except by the barrows that cover the bones 
 of early races, this steppe, which is an ocean of verdure in 
 spring, but russet and burnt up in the autumn, is very dear to 
 its children. It was long the Russia of heroes, the property 
 of nomad horsemen, the country of the Cossack. The Black 
 Land and the prairie, which is nearly as fertile, have an area 
 of twelve hundred thousand square kilometers, or one hundred 
 and twenty million hectars of excellent earth, a surface equal 
 to that of France and Austrian Hungary united. 
 
 The fourth zone, that of the barren steppes, steppes which 
 are sandy at the mouth of the Dnieper, clay to the north of 
 the Crimea, saline to the north of the Caspian, contains only 
 fifteen hundred thousand inhabitants in its whole extent of 
 four hundred thousand square kilometers. " Unsuited to agri- 
 culture, and in a great degree to civilized life," says M. Leroy- 
 Beaulieu, "these vast spaces, like the neighboring plains of 
 Asia, seem fit only for the raising of cattle and the existence 
 of nomads. Of all Russia in Europe, these are the only parts 
 which, even at the present day, are inhabited by the Kirghiz 
 and the Kalmuiki, nomad tribes of Asia, and up to a few
 
 30 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. I. 
 
 years ago by the Tatars of the Crimea and the Nogaetsui, or 
 Nogais. Here the Asiatics appear as much at home as in their 
 native country." 
 
 The productive parts of Russia are these : the prairie, the 
 Black Land, and in the zone of forests the agricultural and 
 industrial region of Novgorod, Moscow, Nijni-Novgorod, and 
 Kazan. Were the sea-level to rise and drown the northern 
 part of the forest region and the barren steppes of the south, 
 nothing would be taken from the real power and riches of 
 Russia. 
 
 These alternations of low plains and plateaux, this diversity 
 in the direction of the great rivers, this division into forests, 
 arable steppes, and barren deserts, does not hinder Eastern 
 Europe from presenting a remarkable unity. None of the 
 parts of Russia could remain isolated from the others : the 
 plains admit of no barrier, no frontier ; those which the rivers 
 might impose would be broken over in winter by the army- 
 wagons, when the land is ice-bound from the White Sea to 
 the Euxine, and the climate is almost as severe at Kief as 
 at Arkhangel. All these regions, which resume their differ- 
 ent characters in spring, are kept together by economical 
 interests and needs. The forest zone needs the corn of the 
 Dnieper, the cattle of the Volga ; the steppes of the south 
 need the wood of the north. The commerce with Europe, 
 which was conducted by means of the Northern Dwina, the 
 Neva, and the Southern Dwina, was completed by that with 
 the south and the east, carried on by the Dnieper and the 
 Volga. 
 
 Only the region of Moscow, where fields and woods alter- 
 nate, was long sufficient for its own wants ; but since Mos- 
 cow has turned to industrial arts, it needs help from others. 
 In early times it united the products of the north and the 
 south ; it thus formed the connecting link between them, and 
 ended by becoming their ruler. Even Novgorod was forced 
 to acknowledge its dependence on the princes established on
 
 CHAP. L] GEOGRAPHY OF RUSSIA. 31 
 
 the Oka, who had only to forbid the transportation of corn 
 from the Upper Volga to the region of the lakes, to reduce the 
 Great Republic to obedience. 
 
 The wide plains of Russia are as evidently destined to be 
 united as Switzerland to be divided. Between the Carpa- 
 thians and the Urals, between the Caucasus and the system 
 of Finland, nature has marked out a vast empire of which the 
 mountain girdle forms the framework. How this framework 
 has been filled in is the lesson that history has to teach us.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ETHNOGRAPHY OF RUSSIA. 
 
 GREEK COLONIES AND THE SCYTHIA OF HERODOTUS. THE RUSSIAN 
 SLAVS OF NESTOR. LITHUANIAN, FINNISH, AND TURKISH HORDES 
 IN THE NINTH CENTURY. DIVISION OF THE RUSSIANS PROPER 
 INTO THREE BRANCHES. HOW RUSSIA WAS COLONIZED. 
 
 GREEK COLONIES AND THE SCYTHIA OF HERODOTUS. 
 
 early Greeks had established trading-posts and 
 J_ founded flourishing colonies on the northern shores of 
 the Black Sea. The Milesians and Megarians built Tomi, 
 or Kustenje, near the Danube, Istros at its mouth, Tyras 
 at that of the Dniester, Odessos at that of the Bug, Olbia 
 at that of the Dnieper, Chersonesos, or Kherson, on the 
 roadstead of Sevastopol, Palakion, which afterwards became 
 Balaklava, Theodosia, which became KafFa, Pantikapea, now 
 Kertch, and Phanagoria on the two shores of the Strait of 
 lenikale, Tanai's at the mouth of the Don, Apatouros in 
 the Kuban, Phasis, Dioscurias, and Pityus at the foot of 
 the Caucasus, on the coast of ancient Colchis. Pantika- 
 pea, Phanagoria, and Theodosia formed, in the fourth cen- 
 tury before Christ, a confederation with a hereditary chief, 
 called the Arkhon of the Bosphorus, at its head, whose 
 authority was acknowledged also by some of the barbarous 
 tribes. 
 
 Russian archaeologists, and, quite recently, M. Uvarof, have 
 brought to light many monuments of Greek civilization, 
 funeral pillars, inscriptions, bas-reliefs, statues of gods and
 
 CHAP. II.] ETHNOGRAPHY OF EUSSIA. 33 
 
 heroes. We know that the colonists carefully preserved the 
 Greek civilization, cultivated the arts of their mother cities, 
 repeated the poems of Homer as they marched to battle, 
 loved eloquent speeches as late as the time of Dion Chrysos- 
 tom, and paid a special worship to the memory of Achilles. 
 Beyond the line of Greek colonies dwelt a whole world of 
 tribes, whom the Greeks designated by the common name 
 of Scythians, with whom they entered into wars and alli- 
 ances, and who served them as middlemen in their trade with 
 the countries of the north. Herodotus has given us nearly 
 all that was known of these barbarians in the fifth century 
 before Christ. 
 
 The Scythians worshipped a sword fixed in the earth as an 
 image of the god of war, and shed human blood in sacrifice. 
 They drank the blood of the first enemy killed in battle, 
 scalped their prisoners, and used their skulls as drinking-cups. 
 They performed terrible burial-rites in honor of their kings, 
 and celebrated the anniversaries of their death by strangling 
 their horses and slaves, and leaving the impaled corpses to 
 surround the royal burial mound with a circle of horsemen. 
 They honored the memory of the wise Anacharsis, who 
 travelled among the Greeks. Their nomad hordes defied the 
 power of Darius Hystaspes. 
 
 Among the Scythians, properly so called, Herodotus distin- 
 guished the agricultural Scythians established on the Dnieper, 
 probably in the Black Land of the Ukraina; the nomad 
 Scythians, who extended fourteen days' journey to the east ; 
 the royal Scythians, encamped round the Sea of Azof, who 
 regarded the other Scythians as their slaves. 
 
 The barbarism of the inland tribes became rapidly modified 
 under the influence of the powerful cities of Olbia and Cher- 
 sonesos, and the Greco-Scythian state of the Bosphorus. In 
 the tombs of the Scythian kings of what is now the govern- 
 ment of Ekaterinoslaf, as well as in those of the Greco-Scyth- 
 ian princes of the Bosphorus, works of art have been found 
 
 VOL. 1.
 
 34 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. II. 
 
 which show the genius of the Greeks accommodating itself to 
 the taste of the barbarians, precious vases chiselled for them 
 by Athenian artis.ts, and all the jewels which at present enrich 
 the museums of Kertch, Odessa, and St. Petersburg. 
 
 The Hermitage Museum at St. Petersburg, in particular, 
 possesses two vases of an incomparable artistic and archa3ologic 
 value. They are the silver vase of Nikopol in the government 
 of Ekaterinoslaf and the golden vase of Kertch, and date from 
 the fourth century before Christ, or about the period when 
 Herodotus wrote his history, of which they are the lively com- 
 mentary. The Scythians of the silver vase, with their long 
 hair, their long beards, large features, tunics and trousers, 
 reproduce very fairly the physiognomy, stature, and costume 
 of the present inhabitants of the same countries ; we see them 
 breaking in and bridling their horses in exactly the same way 
 as they do it to-day on those plains. The Scythians of the 
 golden vase, notwithstanding their pointed caps, their gar- 
 ments embroidered and ornamented after the Asiatic taste, 
 and their strangely shaped bows, are of a very marked Aryan 
 type. The former might very well have been the agricultural 
 Scythians of Herodotus, perhaps the ancestors of the agricul- 
 tural Slavs of the Dnieper; the latter, the royal Scythians 
 who led a nomad and warlike life. The philological studies 
 of M. Bergmann and M. Miillendorf tend to identify the 
 Scythian idiom with the Indo-European family of languages. 
 "They were then," says M. Georges Perrot, "in spite of 
 many apparent differences of language, customs, and civili- 
 zation, nearly related to the Greeks, and this kinship perhaps 
 contributed, without the knowledge of either Greeks or bar- 
 barians, to facilitate the relations between Hellenes and 
 Scythians." 
 
 Herodotus takes care to make an emphatic distinction be- 
 tween the Scythians properly so called and certain other 
 peoples about whom he has strange stories to tell. These 
 peoples are the Melankhlainoi, who wear black raiment ; the
 
 CHAP. II.] ETHNOGRAPHY OF RUSSIA. 35 
 
 Neuroi, who, once a year, become were-wolves; the Aga- 
 thyrsoi, who array themselves in golden ornaments, and have 
 their women in common ; the Sauromatoi, sprung from the 
 loves of the Scythians with the Amazons ; the Budinoi and 
 Gelonoi, slightly tinged with Greek culture ; the Thysagetai, 
 the Massagetai, the lurkai, who lived on the produce of the 
 chase ; the Argippaioi, who were bald and snub-nosed from 
 their birth ; the Issedones, who used to devour their dead 
 parents with great pomp and ceremony ; the one - eyed Ari- 
 maspoi ; the Gryphons, guardians of fabled gold ; the Hyper- 
 boreans, who dwell in a land where, summer and winter, the 
 snow-flakes fall like a shower of white feathers. 
 
 It seems probable that among all these peoples there may 
 be some who have since emigrated westwards, and who may 
 belong to the German and Gothic races. Others, again, may 
 have continued to maintain themselves, under different names, 
 in Eastern Europe, such as the Slavs, the Finns, and even a 
 certain number of Turkish tribes. M. Rittich believes he can 
 identify the Melankhlainoi of Herodotus with the Esthonians, 
 who still prefer dark raiment; the Androphagoi with the 
 Samoyedui, the Issedones with the Voguls, who may very 
 well have dwelt on the Isseta, a sub-tributary of the Obi ; the 
 Arimaspoi with the Votiaki, whom the Turks now call the Ari ; 
 the Argippaioi, Aorses, and Zyrians of Strabo with the Erzui 
 or Zyrians ; the Massagetai with the Bashkirs. M. Vivien 
 de Saint-Martin recognizes the Agathyrsoi in the Agatzirs of 
 Priscus, who wrote in the year of our Lord four hundred and 
 forty-nine, and Acatzirs of Jornandes, who are the Khazarui. 
 The Finns, then, have formed the most widely spread race of 
 Scythia.
 
 36 HISTOEY OF BUSSIA. [CHAP. II. 
 
 THE RUSSIAN SLAVS OF NESTOR THE CHRONICLER. 
 LITHUANIAN, FINNISH, AND TURKISH CLANS IN THE 
 NINTH CENTURY. 
 
 The great barbaric invasions in the fourth century of our 
 era formed a period of change and terrible catastrophe in 
 Eastern Europe. The Goths, under Hermanaric, founded a 
 vast empire in Eastern Scythia. The Huns, under Attila, 
 overthrew this Gothic dominion, and a cloud of Finnish peo- 
 ples, Avarui and Bulgarians, followed later by Magyars and 
 Khazarui, hurried swiftly on the traces of the Huns. In the 
 midst of this strife and medley of peoples, the Slavs came to 
 the front with their own marked character, and appeared in 
 history under their proper name. They were described by the 
 Greek chroniclers and by the Emperors Maurice and Constan- 
 tine Porphyrogenitus. They clashed against the Roman Em- 
 pire of the East ; they began the secular contest between the 
 Greek and Slavonic races, a contest which is still being waged 
 for the prize of mastery in the peninsula of the Balkans. Cer- 
 tain tribes formed a separate group among the others, and re- 
 ceived the name of the Russian Slavs. Nestor, the first Russian 
 historian, a monk of Kief, of the twelfth century, has described 
 their geographical distribution as it existed two hundred years 
 before his time. The Slavs, properly so called, inhabited the 
 basin of the Ilmen and the west bank of Lake Peipus ; their 
 towns, Novgorod, Pskof, Izborsk, appear in the very beginning 
 of the history of Russia. The Krivitchi, again, were settled 
 on the sources of the Dwina and the Dnieper, round their city of 
 Smolensk. The Polotchane had Polotsk, on the Upper Dwina. 
 The Dregovitchi dwelt on the west of the Dwina and of the 
 Upper Dnieper, and held Turof. The Radimitchi abode on the 
 Soja, a tributary of the Dnieper, and possessed the old cities of 
 Ovrutch and Korosten ; the Viatitchi, on the Higher Oka ; 
 the Drevliane, so called from the thick forests which covered 
 their territory, in the basin of the Pripet. Between the Desna
 
 CHAP. II.] ETHNOGRAPHY OF RUSSIA. 37 
 
 arid the Dnieper, the Severiane were established ; their towns 
 were Lubetch, Tchernigof, and Pereiaslavl. The Poliane faced 
 the Severiane on the right bank of the Dnieper ; Kief was their 
 centre. The White Kroats abode between the Dniester and 
 the Carpathians ; the Tivertssui and the Loutitchi on the Lower 
 Dniester and the Pruth ; the Dulebui and the Bujane on the 
 Bug, a tributary of the Vistula. 
 
 Nestor's list of the Russian Slavs shows that, in the ninth 
 century of our era, when their history begins, they occupied 
 but a small part of the Russia of to-day. They were almost 
 completely penned in the districts of the Dwina and the Upper 
 Dnieper, of the Ilmen and the Dniester. In all the immense 
 basin of the Caspian, their share was only the land they occu- 
 pied around the sources of the Volga and the Oka. 
 
 On the west and north, the Russian Slavs bordered on other 
 Slavonic tribes, which, about this period, acquired distinct 
 national names. Some groups, scattered about the Upper 
 Elbe and the two banks of the Vistula, after the invasion of 
 the Tcheki and the Liakhi, or Lekhitui, from the fourth to the 
 seventh century, formed themselves into the states of Bohemia 
 and Poland. 
 
 Other tribes on the Marsh, or Morava, made, in the king- 
 dom of Moravia, their first attempt to secure political existence 
 during the ninth century. Certain others scattered on the 
 Lower Danube formed the kingdom of Bulgaria, after the in- 
 vasion of the Bulgarians under Asparukh in six hundred and 
 eighty. In a more distant land on the Adriatic, the Servian 
 and Kroatian tribes were preparing to organize themselves 
 into the kingdoms of Kroatia, Dalmatia, and Servia. On the 
 Baltic were the Slavs of Pomerania, the Havelians of Bran- 
 denburg and Sprevanians of the banks of the Elbe, the Obo- 
 tritui, Viltzui, Lutitzi, and Sorabui, or Sorbui, all one day to be 
 absorbed by the German Conquest. 
 
 At this period there was little difference between Russian 
 and Polish Slavs. M. Kulish thinks that conquests achieved
 
 38 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. IL 
 
 by two different races of men ; that the adoption of two 
 irreconcilable creeds, those of Rome and of Byzantium ; that 
 the influence of two rival civilizations, the Greek and the Latin, 
 with their separate literatures and alphabets, that all these 
 influences created two antagonistic peoples in the midst of a 
 race of one blood, and stamped on the inert and unconscious 
 material of the Slavonic kindred the impress of two hostile 
 nationalities. The Slav, moulded by the Liakhi, converted to 
 the Church of Rome, and subject to the influences of the West, 
 became the Pole. The Slav, moulded by the Variagi, con- 
 verted to the Greek Church, and subject to Byzantine influ- 
 ences, became the Russian. In the beginning, on the Vistula, 
 as on the Dnieper, all were Slavs alike ; all practised the same 
 heathen ritual ; all were governed by the same traditions, and 
 spoke almost the same language. Indeed, the affinities of the 
 Russian and Polish idioms, between which the dialects of 
 White Russia, of Red Russia, and of Little Russia serve as 
 links, sufficiently demonstrate an original brotherhood, which 
 the strifes of churches and of thrones have destroyed. 
 
 The Russian Slavs, before taking possession of all the do- 
 main assigned to them by history, had to struggle in the north 
 and east against the nations belonging to three principal races, 
 the Jjetto-Lithuanians, the Finns, and the Turks, in whom 
 Finnish and Tatar elements were more or less mingled. The 
 Finns and the Turks belong to that branch of the human fam- 
 ily which has been named, from its twofold cradle of the Ural 
 and the Altai, Uralo-Altaic. The first of these races belongs 
 to the Aryan family, but is nevertheless distinct from the Ger- 
 manic or Slav races, and its dialects have more resemblance to 
 Sanskrit than any other European tongue. The Zhmudi and 
 the Lithuanians, properly so called, dwell on the Niemen, the 
 latviagi on the Naref. On the western shore of the Gulf of 
 Riga and on the Baltic, the Korsu, who give their name to Kur- 
 land, are to be found, while the Semigals, or Zimegola, inhabit 
 the left bank of the Dwina ; and the Letgola, from whom are
 
 CHAP. II.] ETHNOGKAPHY OF RUSSIA. 39 
 
 descended, by a mingling with the Finnish race of Livonians, 
 the Lettui, or Latitchi, of Southern Livonia. The Livonians 
 on the gulfs of Livonia and Finland, and the Tchud-Esthonians, 
 who gave their name to Pei'pus, the Lake of the Tchud, be- 
 long to the Finnish race. They are the ancestors of the pres- 
 ent inhabitants of Northern Livonia and Esthonia. The three 
 so-called German provinces of the Baltic are then Lettish in the 
 south, Finnish in the north. The Narova were established on 
 the Narova, which is a territory of the Pei'pus ; the Vodi, be- 
 tween the Volkhof and the sea, in a country called by the Nov- 
 gorodians, Vodskai'a Piatina ; the Ingrians, or Izhera, on the 
 Izhora, or Ingra, a tributary on the left bank of the Neva. The 
 Tchud-Esthonians at the present day number seven hundred 
 and nineteen thousand, the Livonians two thousand five hun- 
 dred and forty, the Vodi five thousand, and the Ingrians eigh- 
 teen thousand. 
 
 Finland, or Suomen-maa, the land of the Suomi, is still in- 
 habited by the Suomi, who were divided into three tribes, the 
 lam, or Tavasts, on the southeast, round larnburg and Tavas- 
 tehus ; the Kvins, or Kai'ans, on the Gulf of Bothnia ; the 
 Karelians, who were more numerous than the two other na- 
 tions put together, occupied the rest of Finland. These three 
 peoples at present amount to a total of one million four hun- 
 dred and fifty thousand. The north of Finland was and is 
 inhabited by the Laps, or Laplanders, who form a special 
 division of the Finnish race, and reckon in Russia about four 
 thousand souls. The shores of the Arctic Ocean, from the 
 Mezen to the Yenissei, have been always occupied by the 
 Samoyedui, a very wide-spread but far from numerous people, 
 who amount in Europe to about five thousand souls. In the 
 time of Nestor the Vesi dwelt on the Sheksna and the White 
 Lake; the Muromians, whose name is repeated in that of 
 Murom, on the Oka and its affluents, the Moskova and the 
 Kliazma; the Meria, on the Upper Volga around the Lake 
 Kleshtchin and Lake Nero or Rostof. These three tribes
 
 40 HISTORY OF EUSSIA. [CHAP. II. 
 
 have completely disappeared, having been absorbed or trans- 
 formed by the Russian colonization, but leave behind them 
 innumerable funeral mounds. Between eighteen hundred 
 and fifty-one and eighteen hundred and fifty-four, M. Uvarof 
 and M. Savelief excavated seven thousand seven hundred and 
 twenty-nine in the Merian country alone. Besides these 
 monuments and the remains which they contain, the only 
 traces left of these tribes are to be found in names of places, 
 and in certain peculiarities of the local dialects. It was 
 around their territory that the Muscovite state and the Rus- 
 sian empire were formed. The Tchud-Zavolotchianie were 
 encamped on the Lower Dwina ; the Erzui, or Zyrians, inhab- 
 ited the basin of the Petchora ; the Permiane, the source of 
 the Dwina and the Kama ; the Votiaki, or Ari, lived on the 
 Viatka, where the town of Viatka still preserves their name. 
 These races form what is called the Permian branch of the 
 Finnish nation ; their country was named by the Scandina- 
 vians, Biarmia or Biarmaland, and " Great Perrnia " by the 
 Muscovites. Biarmaland was discovered in the ninth century 
 by the Norwegian navigator Other, who not long afterwards 
 entered the service of Alfred the Great, King of England, 
 and has left in Anglo-Saxon an account of his travels. This 
 narrative proves that the Permians were then a civilized peo- 
 ple, who traded with India and Persia. The temple of their 
 god lumala was so richly ornamented with precious stones, 
 that its brilliance illuminated all the surrounding country. 
 The Erzi number at the present day only eighty thousand, 
 the Permians seventy thousand, the Votiaki two hundred and 
 thirty-four thousand. 
 
 The Ugrian branch is composed first of the Ostiaki, amount- 
 ing to twenty thousand, and of the Voguls, amounting to seven 
 thousand. On the east they inhabit the Urals, and only bor- 
 der on Europe. Formerly they lived more to the south. The 
 Magyars, who made Europe tremble in the tenth century, and 
 founded the kingdom of Hungary, belonged to this race.
 
 CHAP. II.] ETHNOGKAPHY OF EUSSIA. 41 
 
 Between the Kama and the Ural were already to be found 
 the Bash-Kurts, the shaven -heads, or Bashkirs, of the six- 
 teenth to the eighteenth centuries, originally a Finnish people, 
 no doubt 'of the Ugrian branch, but profoundly Tatarized, 
 with whom were mingled the Meshtchera, a tribe named by 
 Nestor. There are at present five hundred thousand Bash- 
 kirs, and one hundred thousand Meshtchera. On the Mid- 
 dle Volga dwelt the Tcheremisa, the Tchuvashi, and the 
 Mordva ; the Tcheremisa are found again to-day in the gov- 
 ernment of Kazan, Nijni-Novgorod, and Viatka ; the Tchu- 
 vashi in Kazan, Nijni-Novgorod, and Simbirsk ; the Mordva 
 in Kazan, Tambof, Pensa, Simbirsk, Samara, and Saratof, but 
 these are now only small islets amid the Russian colonization, 
 whereas in the time of Nestor they formed a compact mass. 
 The Tcheremisa now number only one hundred and sixty-five 
 thousand, the Tchuvashi four hundred and thirty thousand, 
 and the Mordva five hundred thousand ; all the rest have be- 
 come Russians, except a few who have become Tatar. 
 
 All seems strange among these ancient peoples. The type 
 of countenance is blurred and, as it were, unfinished; the 
 costume seems to have been adopted from some antediluvian 
 fashion ; the manners and superstitions preserve the trace of 
 early religions beyond the date of any known forms of pagan- 
 ism ; the language is sometimes so very primitive that the 
 Tchuvashi, for example, do not possess more than a thousand 
 original words. 
 
 The Tcheremis women wear on their breasts two plates 
 forming a cuirass, and ornamented with pieces of silver, trans- 
 mitted from generation to generation. A numismatist would 
 make wonderful discoveries in these walking museums of 
 medals. They drape their legs in a piece of tightly bound 
 black cloth, and think that modesty consists in never showing 
 the legs, just as the Tatar women make a point of never un- 
 veiling the face. 
 
 The Tchuvash women cover their heads with a little peaked
 
 42 HISTORY OF ETJSSIA. [CHAP. II. 
 
 cap like a Saracen helmet, carry on their backs a covering of 
 leather and metal like the trapping of a war-horse, and wear 
 on fete-days a stiff and rectangular mantle like a chasuble. 
 Among this singular people " black " and " beautiful " are 
 synonymous, and when they wish to revenge themselves they 
 hang themselves at their enemy's door. 
 
 In spite of three centuries of Christian missions, these tribes 
 dwelling in the heart of Russia and on the great artery of the 
 Volga are not even yet complete converts to Christianity. 
 
 There are still some pagan districts. It may even be said 
 that a considerable portion of the Tcheremisa, Tchuvashi, 
 Mordva, and Votiaki remain attached to the worship of the 
 ancient deities, which they sometimes mingle with orthodox 
 practices and the worship of St. Nicholas. Their religion 
 consisted essentially in dualism : the good principle is called 
 by the Tchuvashi, Thora ; luma, the " lumal " of the Finns, 
 by the Tcheremisa ; Inma by the Votiaki. The bad principle 
 was named Shaitan, or Satan. Between the two is a divinity 
 whom men had in former times cruelly offended, who is 
 called Keremet. From the good god proceeded an infinity 
 of gods and goddesses ; from Keremet a numerous progeny 
 of male and female Keremets, genii more mischievous than 
 malevolent, to whom the aborigines offer pieces of money, and 
 sacrifice horses, oxen, sheep, swans, and cocks and hens, in 
 sanctuaries also named Keremet, built in the depths of the 
 forests and far from Russian spies. 
 
 Human sacrifices have been talked of. The worship of the 
 dead inspired ideas which guide the savage everywhere. Men 
 have preserved the custom of wife-capture, or buying brides 
 from the fathers by paying the kalm ; they practise agricultural 
 communism. In a word, the life of these races of the Volga 
 in the nineteenth century is the living commentary of the 
 accounts of Nestor of the Russian Slavs of the ninth century. 
 
 It is probable that Slavs and Russians then lived in an ab- 
 solutely identical state of civilization, and had almost the same 
 religious ideas and the same customs.
 
 CHAP. II.] ETHNOGRAPHY OF EUSSIA. 43 
 
 There remain two Finnish peoples still to be spoken of, 
 who, mentioned by Nestor, have at present disappeared, but 
 who were far more remarkable than any of the preceding. 
 These are the Khazarui, who, although mingled with Turkish 
 elements, were essentially Finnish. Remarkable for their 
 aptitude for civilization, they had formed in the ninth century 
 a vast empire, which embraced the regions of the Lower 
 Dnieper, the Don, and the Lower Volga, round the Sea of 
 Azof and the Caspian ; they had built Itil on the Volga, and 
 .Sarkel, or the White City, on the Don ; they had sometimes 
 governors at Bosporos and Kherson, in the Taurid peninsula ; 
 in the Kuban they possessed the Tamatarchia of the Greeks. 
 They had commercial and friendly relations with Byzantium, 
 the caliphate of Bagdad, and even the caliphate of Cordova, 
 the only civilized states of the then known world. The Kha- 
 zarui had flourishing schools, and tolerated all religions besides 
 the national paganism. Mussulman missionaries appeared in 
 the seventh, Jewish missionaries in the eighth century, and 
 Saint Cyril arrived about eight hundred and sixty at the court 
 of their Shagan. A Jewish Shagan of the name of Joseph 
 interchanged some curious letters with the Rabbi Hasdai of 
 Cordova, announcing to him that the people of God, the Israel 
 Khazar, ruled over nine nations of the nineteen of the Cau- 
 casus, and thirteen of the Black Sea, and that he did not allow 
 the Russians to descend the Volga to ravage the territory of 
 the Caliph of Bagdad. The Israelitish Khazarui became after- 
 wards mingled with the Kharaite Jews, and the Moslem Kha- 
 zarui with the Tatars of the Crimea. Among the vassal 
 nations of the Khazarui enumerated by the Shagan Joseph, 
 were the Burtas and the Bulgarui of the Volga ; the latter, 
 kinsmen of the Bulgarui who were subjected by the Danubian 
 Slavs, and apparently nearly related to the Tchuvashi, were a 
 mixture of Finnish, Turkish, and even Slav elements, accord- 
 ing to an Arabian account. Sedentary, industrious, and des- 
 tined to inherit the commercial splendor of the Khazarui, they
 
 44 HISTORY OF BUSSIA. [CHAP. II. 
 
 blended with the native superstitions the Islamism which was 
 preached to them in nine hundred and twenty-two by mis- 
 sionaries from Bagdad, and possessed in the tenth century a 
 flourishing state. Their capital was Bolgarui, or the " Great 
 City," on the junction of the Volga and the Kama. They also 
 owned the cities of Buliar, or Biliarsk, Suvar, Krementchug, 
 and others. Their descendants were fused with the Tatar 
 conquerors of the thirteenth century. 
 
 The Finnish races, even more than the Slavs, are the real 
 aborigines of Russia. In the fifth century before Christ He- 
 rodotus writes of them as already long possessed of the soil. 
 Everywhere in these wide regions the traces of their occupa- 
 tion are visible. At different periods they extended from the 
 Livonian Gulf to the Urals, and from the Arctic Ocean to the 
 Black Sea. They withdrew at various times, especially from 
 the fifth to the ninth centuries, to allow the passage of the 
 great migrations and of the great invasions ; but in the tenth 
 century they occupied, with the Khazarui, the shores of the 
 Sea of Azof and of the Caspian, while the Finns of Esthonia 
 held the Lithuanians in check. 
 
 The Turkish races, on the contrary, made their appearance 
 much later in Russia. In the ninth century the Lower Volga 
 and the Lower Ural began to fall a prey to the Petchenegi, or 
 Kangarui, incorrigible brigands, who marched over the bodies 
 of the Khazarui to establish themselves on the Lower Dnieper. 
 After them appeared the Polovtsui, or Komanui, the Uzi, or 
 Torki. The invasion of the Tatars was more Turkish than 
 Mongolian. The nomads vanished or, according to Nestor, 
 were absorbed by new arrivals, namely, the Nogai's, formed 
 in the thirteenth century of the remnants of the Polovtsui 
 and of the Turko-Kanglis, at present numbering fifty 
 thousand ; the Kirghis, who entered Europe about seven- 
 teen hundred and twenty-one, and to-day amount to about 
 eighty-two thousand souls ; the Kalmuiki, who are Mongols, 
 not Turks, belong to the (Eleutes, or Western Mongols, in-
 
 CHAP. II.] ETHNOGRAPHY OF RUSSIA. 45 
 
 vaders of Russia in sixteen hundred and thirty-six, num- 
 ber eighty-seven thousand in the provinces of Astrakhan, 
 Stavropol, and the Don, and in spite of the efforts of Chris- 
 tians and Mussulmans have remained Lamaists. 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 one million four hundred and twenty thousand souls. 
 
 DIVISION OF THE RUSSIANS OF TO-DAY INTO THREE 
 BRANCHES. HOW RUSSIA WAS COLONIZED. 
 
 At the end of the eleventh century, in the time of Nestor, 
 the Russian Slavs, confined between the Lithuanians on the 
 west, the Finns on the north, and the Turks on the east, occu- 
 pied barely one fifth part of Russia in Europe. To-day we 
 see the Russian race extend from Finland to the Ural, from 
 the Arctic Ocean to the Caucasus and Crimea, amounting to 
 fifty-six millions of men, besides three million colonists in the 
 Asiatic provinces. The Letto-Lithuanians, on the contrary, are 
 reduced to two million four hundred and twenty thousand 
 souls ; the Finns, including the inhabitants of Finland, to less 
 than four millions ; and the Turko-Tatars to less than two 
 millions. 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. 
 
 The name of White Russia is given to the provinces con- 
 quered from the thirteenth to the fourteenth century by the 
 Grand Dukes of Lithuania. These were the ancient territo- 
 ries of the Krivitchi, Polotchane, Dregovitchi, and Drevliane, 
 now forming the governments of Vitepsk, Mohilef, and Minsk. 
 The governments of Kovno, Grodno, and Vilna, at present
 
 46 HISTOEY OF EUSSIA. [CHAP. II. 
 
 unequally Russified, were originally Lithuanian. The Lithu- 
 anian territories of Grodno, Novogrodek, and Bielostok were 
 sometimes called Black Russia. 
 
 Little Russia includes the country of the ancient Severiane 
 and Poliane increased by colonies ; that is, the governments of 
 Kief, Tchernigof, Poltava, Kharkof, Volhynia, and Podolia, 
 It even extends beyond the frontiers of the empire into Red 
 Russia, or Old Gallicia, including the towns of Galitch, laro- 
 slavl, Terebovl, Zvenigorod, Lemberg, or Lvof, belonging to 
 Austria, and peopled by three millions of Ruthenians or Rus- 
 sians. 
 
 Great Russia grouped around the ancient Muscovy, occu- 
 pying the place held in the ninth century by many Turk- 
 ish or Finnish tribes. To Great Russia belong Northern 
 Russia with Arkhangel ; Eastern Russia, including the Volga, 
 Kazan, Astrakhan ; and New Russia, or South Russia, with 
 Kherson, Ekaterinoslaf, Kharkof, Odessa, and the Crimea. 
 Great Russia, as a whole, except Novgorod and Pskof, was won 
 from foreign races by Russian colonization. It was a colony 
 of Kievan Russia, and, though for a time subjugated by the 
 Tatars, was able to shake off their yoke, while Kief still re- 
 mained a Lithuanian province. It continued to extend its 
 conquests in the east ; then, turning to the west in the sev- 
 enteenth and eighteenth centuries, succeeded in recovering 
 White Russia and Little Russia. 
 
 In the empire the White Russians number three millions, 
 the Little Russians twelve millions, and the Great Russians 
 forty-one millions. There are dialectical differences between 
 the idioms of these three families, which historical and liter- 
 ary influences easily explain. Some writers have been anx- 
 ious to establish the existence of a profound difference between 
 Great Russia and its 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,
 
 GREAT RUSSIAN TYPES.
 
 CHAP. II.] ETHNOGRAPHY OF RUSSIA. 47 
 
 and Tatars, in a word, Turanians, Russian only in language. 
 The Muscovite Empire, founded in the midst of Ves, of Mu- 
 roma, and of Meria, extended at the expense of the Tchuvashi, 
 the Mordva, Tatars, and Kirghiz, with its two capitals, Mos- 
 cow and St. Petersburg, in the Tchud region, is not even a 
 European state, if these writers are to be trusted. A more 
 careful study shows us that Muscovy was formed in the first 
 place by the migrations of Russian colonists, in the second 
 place by the assimilation of certain foreign races. When 
 the steppes of the south became the prey of Asiatic nomads, 
 the 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 Suzdal calling to their aid the 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. The names given to the new 
 towns of Suzdal and Muscovy must be noticed. There is a 
 Vladimir on the Kliazma as there is a Vladimir in Volhynia, 
 a Zvenigorod on the Moskova as on the Dniester, a Galitch in 
 Suzdal as in Gallicia, a laroslavl on the Volga as on the San. 
 Suzdal and Riazan, like Kief, have their Pereiaslavl ; that of 
 the former bears the title of Zalieski, or " beyond 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 country. Is it not thus that in America the Dutch 
 founded New York, and the French New Orleans ? More- 
 over, when we have seen a population of three million 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 the Second reckon to-day their five or six million 
 inhabitants, it is easy to understand how, at a more distant 
 epoch, the basin of the Volga was colonized. As for saying 
 that the inhabitants of New Russia are nothing but Finns and
 
 48 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. II. 
 
 Russified Turks, one might as well pretend that the thirty or 
 forty millions 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 
 the forest, into the Black Land, into the prairie. The Rus- 
 sian has his trappers and settlers in the Cossacks of the 
 Dnieper, Don, and Terek ; in the tireless fur-hunters of Sibe- 
 ria ; in the gold-diggers of the Ural and the Altai ; in the 
 adventurous monks who ever lead the way, founding in re- 
 gions always more distant, a monastery which is to be the 
 centre of a town ; lastly, in the Raskolniki, or Dissenters, Rus- 
 sian 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 adven- 
 ture, to " go where the eyes glance." 
 
 The flat and monotonous soil has no hold on its inhabitants ; 
 they will find as bare a landscape anywhere. As for their 
 hovel, how can they care for that, it is burned down so often ? 
 The Western expression, the " ancestral roof," has no meaning 
 for the Russian peasant. The native of Great Russia, accus- 
 tomed to live on little, and ehdure the extremes of heat and 
 cold, was born to brave the dangers and privations of the emi- 
 grant's life. With 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 an Asiatic population, it cannot transmute 
 itself nor disappear, it must become the dominant power.
 
 CHAP. II.] ETHNOGRAPHY OF RUSSIA. 49 
 
 History has helped to make this movement irresistible. 
 When the Russian took refuge in Suzdal, he was compelled 
 to clear and cultivate the very worst land of his future domain, 
 for the Black Land was then overrun by nomads. How could 
 he escape the temptation to go and look in the south for more 
 fertile 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 hus- 
 bandmen. Without these repressive measures the steppes 
 would have been colonized two centuries earlier than they 
 actually were. The report that the Tsar authorized emigra- 
 tion, a forged ukas, a rumor, anything 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 legislation which from 
 the beginning of the sixteenth century chained the serf to the 
 glebe and bound him to the soil. In the thirteenth century, 
 on the other hand, the peasant was free. His prince encouraged 
 him to emigrate, and hence came the colonization of Eastern 
 Russia. 
 
 The Russian race, it is true, has the faculty of absorbing cer- 
 tain aboriginal stocks. The Little Russians assimilated the rem- 
 nants of Turkish tribes, the Great Russians swallowed up the 
 Finnish nations of the East. There must, however, be no relig- 
 ious barrier between the conquerors and the conquered, for the 
 Tchud, while still heathen, is easily assimilated ; but once con- 
 verted to Islamism, he is a refractory element that can scarcely 
 be brought to order. A baptized Tchuvash inevitably becomes 
 a Russian, a circumcised Tchuvash inevitably becomes a Tatar. 
 We have seen the Ves, the Muroma, the Meria, disappear with- 
 out leaving a trace ; the Tchuvashi, the Mordva, the Tcheremisa, 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 50 HISTORY OF KUSSIA. [CHAP. II. 
 
 become more Russian every day. The successive stages, and 
 the steps which lead to the accomplishment of this change, were 
 lately observed by Mr. Wallace, an English traveller : 
 
 " During my wanderings in these northern provinces I have 
 found villages in every stage of Russification. In one every- 
 thing seemed thoroughly Finnish : the inhabitants had a red- 
 dish-olive skin, very high cheek-bones, obliquely set eyes, and 
 a peculiar 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 already 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 Fin- 
 nish 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 in- 
 termarriage had almost completely done its work, and the old 
 Finnish element could be detected merely in certain peculiari- 
 ties of physiognomy and accent." 
 
 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 rise of the 
 tide. 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 pe- 
 culiar way. 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 
 Russian alone has been able to create and to maintain, in face 
 of every obstacle, a vast and durable empire.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 PRIMITIVE RUSSIA: THE SLAVS. 
 
 RELIGION OF THE SLAVS. FUNERAL RITES. DOMESTIC AND POLITICAL 
 CUSTOMS: THE FAMILY; THE MIR, OR COMMUNE; THE VOLOST, OR 
 CANTON; THE TRIBE. TOWNS. INDUSTRY. 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, necessa- 
 rily became a polytheism. Just as the Homeric deities were 
 preceded 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 fore- 
 ground in the historic period. Ancient poets and chroniclers, 
 the Song of Igor, and Nestor, have preserved to us the names 
 of Dazh-Bog, god of the sun, father of nature ; Volos, a solar 
 deity, and, like the Greek Apollo, inspirer of poets and pro- 
 tector of flocks ; Perun, god of thunder, another personifica- 
 tion of the Sun at war witli the Cloud ; Stribog, the Russian 
 ^Eolus, father of winds, protector of warriors ; Khors, a solar 
 god ; Semargl and Mokosh, whose attributes are unknown. 
 In some of the early hymns they sing of Kupalo or larilo, 
 god of the summer sun, and Did-Lado, goddess of fecundity. 
 In the epic songs are celebrated Sviatogor, the giant-hero, 
 whose weight the earth can scarcely bear ; Mikula Selianino- 
 vitch, the good laborer, a kind of Slav Triptolemus, the divine
 
 52 HISTOEY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. III. 
 
 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 three days' journey off; 
 Volga Yseslavitch, a Proteus who can take all manner of 
 shapes; Polkan, a centaur; Dunai', Don Ivanovitch, Dnieper 
 Korolevitch, who are rivers ; then a series of heroes, conquer- 
 ors of dragons like Ilia of Murom, who seem to be solar gods 
 degraded to the rank of paladins. In the stories which be- 
 guile the village evening assemblies, appear Morena, goddess 
 of death ; Koshtchei and Moroz, personifications of the bitter 
 winter weather ; Baba-Yaga, an ogress who lives on the edge 
 of the forest, in a hut built so as to turn with the wind like a 
 weathercock ; and the King of the Sea, who entices sailors to 
 his watery palaces. Popular superstition continues to people 
 nature with good and bad spirits : the Rusalki, water sprites ; 
 Vodiano'i, river genii ; the Lieshii and the Liesnik, forest 
 demons ; the Domovo'i, the brownie of the domestic hearth ; 
 and the Vampires, 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 
 struggle of the heroes of the light with the monsters of 
 darkness, it is possible that it admitted a bad principle at 
 variance with a good principle, a malicious god, of whom Mo- 
 rena, Koshtchei, Baba-Yaga, the dragon, the mountain-serpent, 
 are only types. We cannot find any positive confirmation of 
 this hypothesis, as far as the Russian Slavs are concerned, but 
 Helmold asserts that the Baltic Slays recognize Bieli-Bog, the 
 White God, and Tcherno-Bog, the Black God. 
 
 The Russians seem to have had neither temples nor 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 sor- 
 cerers, 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
 
 TATAR SHAMANS.
 
 CHAP. III.] PRIMITIVE RUSSIA : THE SLAVS. 53 
 
 paganism by purifying the superstitions it cannot uproot. It 
 has turned to account any similarity in names or symbols. 
 It has been able to honor Saint Dmitri and Saint Juri, the 
 slayers of dragons ; Saint John, who thunders in the spring ; 
 Saint Elias, who recalls Ilia of Murom ; Saint Blaise, or Vlaise, 
 who has succeeded to Volos as guardian of the flocks ; Saint 
 Nikolai, or Mikula, patron of laborers, like Mikula Seliani- 
 novitch ; Saint Kozma, or Kuzma, protector of blacksmiths, 
 who has taken the place of Kuznets, the mysterious black- 
 smith in the mountains of the north, the forger of the des- 
 tinies of man. In some popular songs the Virgin Mary 
 replaces Did-Lado, and then Saint John succeeds to Perun 
 or larilo. Who can fail to recognize the myth of the spring 
 and the fruitful rains accompanied by thunder, in this White 
 Russian song that is repeated at the festival of Saint John ? 
 " John and Mary bathed on the hill, while John bathed 
 the earth shook, while Mary bathed the earth germi- 
 nated." The Church took care to consecrate to the Saints of 
 its calendar or to purify by holy rites the sacred trees and 
 mysterious wells to which crowds of pilgrims continued 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 seventh century among the Vends, 
 German Slavs, women refused to survive their husbands, and 
 burned 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-Eoszlan, gives 
 an account of the Russian funeral rites which he himself wit- 
 nessed in the ninth century. Tor 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 instantly strangled. The same ques- 
 tion was also put to the women-servants, one of whom like-
 
 54 HISTORY OF EUSSIA. [CHAP. III. 
 
 wise 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 domestic 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 kvas in her hand 
 sang a song that she would only too willingly have prolonged. 
 " All at once," says the eyewitness, " 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 diffi- 
 culties about entering, the old woman seized her by the hair, 
 dragged 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 was blazing, 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 
 asserts that the same rite prevailed among the Russian Slavs. 
 The excavations made in a great number of barrows or fu- 
 neral mounds confirm his testimony. The discoveries recently 
 made in the tombs of Novgorod by M. Ivanovski prove that 
 the Slavs of Ilmen had preserved or adopted the custom of 
 burying their dead. In these tombs are found a great quan- 
 tity 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 examina- 
 tion of the human bones preserved in the barrows also con-
 
 CHAP. III.] PRIMITIVE RUSSIA : THE SLAVS. 55 
 
 firms the historical accounts, and proves that servants and 
 female slaves were sacrificed over the corpse. 
 
 DOMESTIC AND POLITICAL CUSTOMS: THE FAMILY; THE 
 MIR, OR COMMUNE; THE VOLOST, OR CANTON; 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 by marriage as over its natural members. 
 
 Their domestic manners seem to have been very barbarous. 
 Nevertheless the monk Nestor may be suspected of exagger- 
 ation 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, whose 
 good qualities he extols. " The Drevliane," he tells us, " lived 
 after the manner of wild beasts. They cut each other's throats, 
 ate impure food, declined all marriage-ties ; they ravished and 
 
 stole young girls who came for water to the fountains 
 
 The Radimitchi, the Viatitchi, the Severiane, lived like wild 
 animals in the forests, were fed on all sorts of filth, 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, and often they would take 
 two or three at a time." 
 
 The 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 sym- 
 bolical. 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,
 
 56 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. III. 
 
 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 
 eighth century, where the very name of marriage has a 
 pointed signification, Brauttauft, 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 Luibed, sister of Kii, the fabulous founder 
 of Kief, dividing her paternal inheritance with her brothers, 
 and of Princess Olga becoming heir and avenger of her hus- 
 band and guardian of his son. The epic songs show us many 
 bold heroines side by side with the heroes of the Kievan cycle, 
 and mothers of heroes surrounded with wonderful luxury and 
 extraordinary honors. The excavations of the barrows show 
 us skeletons of women richly ornamented with jewels. 
 
 The commune, or mir, was only the expansion of the 
 family ; it was subject to the authority of the elders of each 
 household, who assembled in a council, or vetchL The village 
 lands were held in common by all the members of the associ- 
 ation ; the individual possessed only his harvest, and the dvor, 
 or enclosure, immediately surrounding his house. This prim- 
 itive condition of property, existing in Russia up to the pres- 
 ent day, was once common to all European peoples. 
 
 The communes nearest together formed a group called 
 volost or pagost, the canton or parish. The volost was gov- 
 erned 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
 
 CHAP. Ill] PRIMITIVE EUSSIA : THE SLAVS. 57 
 
 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 cantons of the same tribe could elect a 
 temporary head, but they refused to submit to a general and 
 permanent ruler. The Emperor Maurice had already observed 
 that passion for liberty among the Slavs which made them 
 detest all sovereignty. The Russian Slavs easily rose from 
 the idea of a commune to that of a canton, with a chief chosen 
 from the elders of the families ; in an emergency they might 
 permit a temporary confederation of all the cantons of one 
 tribe, but we never find that there was a prince of the Severi- 
 ane, Poliane, or Radimitchi. The idea of tribal unity was 
 absolutely foreign to this race, and still more foreign was the 
 idea of the unity of the Russian nation. The ideas of govern- 
 ment and of the state had to come to them from without. 
 
 TOWNS. INDUSTRY. AGEJCULTUKE. 
 
 Nestor declares that the Russian Slavs, for the most part, 
 " lived in forests like the wild beasts." Karamsin and Schloe- 
 zer have concluded from this that they had no towns. But 
 there exist a number of monuments in Russia which have lon^ 
 
 O 
 
 puzzled archaeologists. These are enclosures formed by the 
 earth being thrown up like ruined fortifications, and such are 
 found invariably on the steep bank of a watercourse or on a 
 small hill. M. Samokvasof, who has explored this very coun- 
 try of the Severiane, who according to Nestor lived entirely in 
 forests, has been able to prove that these mounds are the re- 
 mains of the primitive towns of Russia. In the government 
 of Tchernigof alone, M. Samokvasof has counted one hundred 
 and sixty ; in that of Kursk, fifty. We may calculate from this 
 that there are thousands of them in Russia, and that every can- 
 ton had at least one. About these earth enclosures, which 
 were capped by wooden palisades or hedges of osier, and 
 were the common means of defence for each group of fami-
 
 58 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. III. 
 
 lies, we usually find grouped, as in a cemetery, the funeral 
 mounds. 
 
 The excavations made, either in the barrows or in the soil 
 of these village mounds, have shown us the Slavs were more 
 civilized than Nestor supposed. Vessels of pottery, tolera- 
 bly well designed, iron and bronze, gold and silver objects, 
 glass, false pearls, and bells prove that they had a certain 
 amount of trade, and a fairly extensive commerce, particularly 
 with Asia. Oriental coins have been dug up, dating from six 
 hundred and ninety-nine, or near two hundred years before 
 the arrival of the Variagi, or Varangians. There are a great 
 number of these coins in the country. Near Novgorod a vase 
 was discovered, containing about seven thousand rubles' worth 
 of this early money. The fame of the swords made by the 
 Russian Slavs extended to Arabia. Nestor relates that the 
 Khazarui imposed a tribute of swords on the Poliane. When 
 the latter brought the arms to the Khazarui, 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, Mikula and Ilia, were the sons of 
 laborers. They had the more liking for field life, as bondage 
 to the glebe was still unknown among them. It has been said 
 that the Germans borrowed the plough from the Slavs, and 
 that the German name of pflug is derived from the Slav plug. 
 With the wax and honey of their hives, the corn of the Black 
 Land, and the furs of the north, the Russians carried on a 
 great trade. Their dependence upon strangers, together with 
 a sociable instinct, natural 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,
 
 CHAP. III.] PRIMITIVE RUSSIA: THE SLAVS. 59 
 
 who had had dealings with all kinds of adventurous tribes, as- 
 sures us that they were warlike, cruel in battle, full of savage 
 wiles, able to conceal themselves in places where it seemed im- 
 possible their bodies could be hidden, or to lie in ambush in 
 streams for hours together, the water over their heads, breath- 
 ing by means of a reed. Their armor was defective, they had 
 no breastplates, they fought on foot, were naked to the waist, 
 and had for weapons, pikes, large shields, wooden bows, 
 poisoned arrows, and lassos to catch their victims. This sketch 
 specially applies to the invaders of the Roman provinces of 
 the Danube. It is probable that these agricultural 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 cantons, the incessant warfare of canton 
 with canton, delivered them up, defenceless, to their invaders. 
 While the Slavs of the south paid tribute to the Khazarui, the 
 Slavs of Ilmen, exhausted by their divisions, decided on calling 
 in the Variagi, or Varangians. " ' Let us seek/ they said, ' a 
 prince who will govern us and reason with us justly.' Then," 
 continues Nestor, " the Tchudi,* the Slavs of Novgorod, the 
 Krivitchi, and other confederate races, said to the Variag 
 princes, ' Our land is great and fruitful, but it lacks order and 
 justice ; come and take possession, and govern us/ ' 
 
 * The Tchudi here mentioned are rather Slavs who had colonized the Tchud 
 country about Pskof and Izborsk.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE VARIAGI: FORMATION OF RUSSIA; THE 
 FIRST EXPEDITIONS AGAINST CONSTANTI- 
 NOPLE. 
 
 862 - 972. 
 
 THE NORTHMEN IN RUSSIA : ORIGIN AND CUSTOMS OF THE VARIAGI. 
 THE FIRST RUSSIAN PRINCES: RURIK, OLEG, IGOR. EXPEDITIONS 
 AGAINST CONSTANTINOPLE. OLGA : CHRISTIANITY IN RUSSIA. SVIA- 
 TOSLAF. THE DANUBE DISPUTED BETWEEN THE RUSSIANS AND 
 GREEKS. 
 
 THE NORTHMEN IN RUSSIA: ORIGIN AND CUSTOMS OF 
 THE VARIAGL 
 
 WHO were these Variagi, or Varangians ? To what race 
 did they belong ? 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 : 
 The Variagi were of Scandinavian origin, and it was they 
 who gave the name of Russia to the Slav countries. A most 
 weighty argument in support of this theory is the large num- 
 ber of Scandinavian names in the list of Variag princes who 
 reigned in Russia. The Emperor Constantine Porphyrogeni- 
 tus, speaking of Russia, makes a distinction between the Slavs 
 and the Russians proper. In his description of the cataracts of 
 the Dnieper, he gives to each the Russian and the Slav name, 
 and these Russian names may nearly all be understood by 
 reference to Scandinavian roots. Ltiitprand, speaking of the 
 Russians, expresses himself in these terms : " Graeci vocant 
 Russos .... nos vero Normannos." The Annals of Saint 
 Bertinus say that the Emperor Theophilus recommended some
 
 862-972.] FOEMATION OF RUSSIA. 61 
 
 Russian envoys to Louis le Debonnaire, but he, taking them 
 for Norman spies, threw them into prison. Finally, the first 
 Russian Code of Laws, compiled by laroslaf, presents a strik- 
 ing analogy with the Scandinavian laws. The partisans of this 
 opinion place the mother country of the Russians in Sweden, 
 where they point particularly to a spot called Roslog, and asso- 
 ciations of oarsmen called Roslagen. At the present day the 
 Finns call the Swedes Rootzi. 
 
 The second theory is that the Variagi were Slavs, and came 
 either from the Slav shores of the Baltic, or from some Scan- 
 dinavian region where the Slavs had founded a colony. The 
 word Russia is not of Swedish origin ; it is applied very early 
 to the country of the Dnieper. To come from Rus or to go to 
 Rus are expressions to be met with in the ancient documents, 
 and Rus 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. 
 
 The last theory is that the Variagi were not a nation, but a 
 band of warriors formed of exiled adventurers, some Slavs, 
 others Scandinavians. The partisans of this opinion show us 
 that the Slav and Scandinavian races, from very early times, 
 were in frequent commercial 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 Variagi, serves to explain how the 
 establishment of these adventurers in the country but little 
 affected the Slavs of the Ilmen and the Dnieper. It explains, 
 too, the rapid absorption of the new-comers in the conquered 
 race, an absorption so complete that Rurik's grandson, Svia- 
 toslaf, bore a Slav name, while his great-grandson, Vladimir, 
 remains in the memory of the people as the type of a Slav 
 prince. Whether the Variagi were pure Scandinavians, or 
 whether they were mingled with Slav adventurers, it seems 
 certain that the former element predominated, and that we may
 
 62 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. IV. 
 
 identify these men from the North with the sea-kings so cele- 
 brated in the West during the decay of the Carolings. M. Sa- 
 mokvasof has lately opened, near Tchernigof, the Black tomb 
 containing the bones and arms of an unknown prince who 
 lived in the tenth century, and was probably a Variag. His 
 coat of mail and pointed helmet in all respects 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 pictured 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 Variagi, 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, admirable foot- 
 soldiers, the Variagi differed widely from the mounted and 
 nomad races of Southern Russia, Hungarians, Khazarui, 
 Petchenegi, whose tactics were always Parthian. The Russians, 
 according to Leo the Deacon, who was an eyewitness of the 
 fact, fought in a compact mass, and seemed like a wall of iron, 
 bristling with lances, glittering with shields, from which arose 
 a ceaseless clamor like the waves of the sea, the famous bar- 
 ditus, or barritus, of the Germans of Tacitus. A huge shield 
 covered them to their feet, and, when they fought in retreat, 
 they turned this enormous buckler on their backs, and 
 became invulnerable. 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 an- 
 other life. The Greeks had for many years greatly admired 
 these heroes worthy of the Edda. Under the name of Ros or 
 Variagi, they formed the body-guard of the emperor, and 
 figured in all the Byzantine armies. In the expedition of
 
 862-972.] FORMATION OF RUSSIA. 63 
 
 nine hundred and two against Crete, seven hundred Russians 
 took part ; four hundred and fifteen in that of Lombardy in 
 nine hundred and twenty-five ; five hundred and eighty-four 
 in that of Greece in nine hundred and forty-nine. 
 
 The Russian Variagi readily sold their services to foreign 
 nations, to Novgorod as well as to Byzantium. This is one 
 more feature of resemblance with the Normans of France, 
 whom the Greek emperors also employed in their wars against 
 the Saracens of Italy. Sometimes, instead of fighting for 
 others, they made war for themselves. This was the case 
 with the Danes in England, 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 num- 
 ber, they blended rapidly with the conquered nations. Thus 
 the descendants of Rollo quickly became Frenchmen, and 
 those of Robert Guiscard, Sicilians. In the Variag bands 
 Slavs were mingled with Scandinavians ; but we also know 
 that in the bands of Northmen who 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 ad- 
 venturers and the indigenous race explains the rapidity with 
 which both the Normans of Russia and the Normans of France 
 lost their language, customs, and religion. The Variagi re- 
 tained one thing only, their military superiority, the habit of 
 obeying the chosen or hereditary chief. Into the Slav anarchy 
 they brought this element of martial order and discipline, 
 without which a state cannot exist. They imposed on the 
 natives the amount of constraint necessary to drag them from 
 their isolation and division into village communities and can- 
 tons. The Slavs of the Danube in the same way owe their 
 constitution to a band of Finno-Bulgarian adventurers under 
 Asparukh ; the Polish Slavs to the invasion of the Liakhi, or 
 Lekhites ; the Tcheki to the Frank Samo, who enabled them 
 to shake off the yoke of the Avars.
 
 64 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. IV. 
 
 The spontaneous appeal of the Slavs to the Variag 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 volunta- 
 rily to the Variagi of Rurik, as the Gauls are supposed to have 
 done to the Franks of Clovis. But in reality there was no 
 conquest, a statement which is proved by the fact that the 
 municipal organization remained intact, that the Vetche 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 indemnification for the 
 murder of either Slav or Variag, 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 part similar to that of the Ital- 
 ian podestas in the fifteenth century, who were called in to 
 administer justice impartially, or to that of the leaders to 
 whom the cities intrusted their defence. 
 
 As early as eight hundred and fifty-nine the Variagi exacted 
 tribute from the Slavs of Ilmen and the Krivitchi, as well as 
 the Tchudi, Ves, and Meriane. The natives had once ex- 
 pelled the Variagi, but, as 'divisions once more became rife 
 among them, they decided that they needed a strong govern- 
 ment, and recalled them in eight hundred and sixty-two. 
 Whether the name Russia, or Ens, was originally derived from 
 a province of Sweden or from the banks of the Dnieper, the 
 fact remains that with the arrival of the Variagi in Slavonia 
 the true history of Russia commences. It was the one thou- 
 sandth anniversary of this event that was commemorated at 
 Novgorod in eighteen hundred and sixty-two. With the 
 Variagi the Russian name became famous in Eastern Europe. 
 It was the epoch of brilliant and adventurous expeditions ; it 
 was the heroic age of Russia.
 
 862-972.] FORMATION OF RUSSIA. 65 
 
 The Variagi 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 
 in nine hundred and forty-four. Nestor, the monk of the 
 Petcherski convent at Kief, whose history extends down to the 
 year eleven hundred and sixteen, adds to his conscientious 
 accounts many legendary tales, which seem like an echo of 
 Scandinavian sagas and early Russian heroic poems. His 
 Annals, which Greek and French authorities enable us to cor- 
 rect, and which are tolerably exact in all essentials, seem at 
 times, like the first books of Livy, to be epic poetry converted 
 into prose. 
 
 THE FIRST RUSSIAN PRINCES: RURIK, OLEG, IGOR. 
 EXPEDITIONS AGAINST CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 At the call of the Slavs, Rurik, Sineus, and Truvor, three 
 Variag brothers, whose Scandinavian names signify the Peace- 
 ful, the Victorious, and the Faithful, gathered together " their 
 brothers and their families," that is, their warriors, or drujina, 
 corresponding to the truste of the Frank kings, crossed the 
 Baltic, and took up their position on the borders of the terri- 
 tory which they were summoned to defend. Rurik, the eld- 
 est, established himself on the Lake Ladoga, near which, on 
 the southern side, he founded the city of Ladoga ; Sineus, on 
 the White Lake or in the Ves country ; Truvor 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 
 arrival of the Variagi. What he probably did was to trans- 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 66 HISTORY OF EUSSIA. [CHAP. IV. 
 
 form ancient villages with ramparts of mud into fortresses. 
 Two other Variagi, Askold and Dir, who were not of the 
 family of Rurik, went down to Kief, and reigned over the 
 Poliane. It was they who began the expeditions against 
 Tsargrad, or Byzantium, the queen of cities. With two hun- 
 dred vessels, says Nestor, they entered the Sund, in old Slav 
 Sud, the Bosphorus or the Golden Horn, and besieged Con- 
 stantinople. But the Patriarch Photius, according to the 
 Byzantine accounts, took the wonder-working robe of Our 
 Lady of Blacherna?, 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 enter- 
 prising Oleg. At the head of an army composed of Variagi, 
 Slavs, and Finns he marched to the south, received the sub- 
 mission of Smolensk and Lubetch, and arrived under the walls 
 of Kief. By means of treachery he took Askold and Dir pris- 
 oners, and put them to death, observing : " You are neither 
 princes yourselves, nor of the blood of princes ; this is the son 
 of Rurik," pointing to Igor. The tomb of Askold is still 
 shown near Kief. Oleg was charmed with his new conquest, 
 and took up his abode there, saying, " Let Kief be the mother 
 of Russian cities." The Variag chief held communication 
 both with the Baltic and the Black Sea by means of Novgo- 
 rod, Smolensk, and Kief. He subdued the Novgorodians, the 
 Krivitchi, the Meria, the Drevliane, the Severiane, the Poliane, 
 the Radimitchi, and thus united nearly all the Russian tribes 
 under his sceptre. It was about this time that the Hunga- 
 rians crossed the Dnieper near Kief, and invaded Pannonia. 
 The Magyar chronicles speak of their having defeated Oleg ; 
 Nestor is silent on the subject. 
 
 In nine hundred and seven Oleg collected a large army 
 from among the tributary races, equipped two thousand boats, 
 and prepared to invade Tsargrad by land and sea. Russian
 
 862-972.] FORMATION OF RUSSIA. 67 
 
 legends have embellished this expedition 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 
 the Sixth, the Philosopher, in fright, agreed to pay tribute, but 
 the Greeks tried to get rid of the Russians by offering them 
 poisoned food. Oleg divined their perfidy. He imposed a 
 heavy contribution, a commercial 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 wisdom, this " foolish and idolatrous people " looked 
 on him as a sorcerer. In the Scandinavian sagas we find 
 many instances 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 Rus- 
 sian 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 at a distance from him, 
 and when, five years after, the animal died in nine hundred 
 and twelve, 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 in- 
 flicted a mortal sting on the foot of the hero. 
 
 Igor led a third expedition against Tsargrad. The Dnieper 
 conducted, as it were of its own will, the Russian flotilla to 
 the seas of Greece. Igor had ten thousand vessels according 
 to the Greek historians, one thousand according to the more 
 probable calculation of Luitprand. This would allow four 
 hundred thousand men in the first case, and only forty thou- 
 sand in the second. Instead of attacking the town, he cruelly 
 ravaged the Greek provinces. The Byzantine admirals and 
 generals united, and destroyed the Russian army in a series 
 of engagements by the aid of Greek fire. Nestor has not 
 copied the numerous details which the Byzantine historians
 
 68 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. IV. 
 
 give of this battle, but we have the evidence of Luitprand, 
 bishop of Cremona, derived from his father-in-law, the ambas- 
 sador 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, beheaded by order of the Emperor Romanus Leca- 
 penus. In nine hundred and forty-four Igor secured the help 
 of the formidable Petchenegi, and organized an expedition to 
 avenge his defeat. The Greek emperor, now seriously alarmed, 
 offered to pay tribute, and signed a new commercial treaty, the 
 text of which is given by Nestor. Byzantine and Western 
 writers do not mention this second expedition of Igor. On 
 his return from Russia, in nine hundred and forty-five, he was 
 assassinated by the Drevliane, 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. 
 
 OLGA: CHRISTIANITY IN RUSSIA. 
 
 Olga, Igor's widow, assumed the regency in the name of her 
 son Sviatoslaf, then a minor. Her first care was to revenge 
 herself on the Drevliane. In Nestor's account it is impossible 
 to distinguish between the history and the epic. The Russian 
 chronicler relates in detail how the Drevliane sent two depu- 
 tations to Olga to appease her, and to offer her the hand of 
 their prince, and how she disposed of them by treachery, bury- 
 ing some alive, and causing others to be stifled in a bathing- 
 house. Next, says Nestor, she besieged their city Korosten, 
 and offered them peace on payment of a tribute of three pigeons 
 and three sparrows for each house. Lighted i 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 massacred part of the inhabitants of Korosten and 
 reduced the rest to slavery.
 
 862-972.] FORMATION OF KUSSIA. 69 
 
 This vindictive Scandinavian woman, in spite of all, was des- 
 tined to be the first apostle of Russia. Nestor relates that she 
 went to Tsargrad to the Emperor Constantine Porphyrogeni- 
 tus, astonished him by the strength and adroitness of her char- 
 acter, and was baptized under the name of Helen, the Greek 
 Tsar being 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 
 Ceremonies," and perhaps her baptism. If the Greek histo- 
 rians 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 
 eleventh and twelfth centuries, it is because the consequences 
 of the event had by that time been completely developed. 
 
 Even in Russia Olga's conversion passed almost unnoticed. 
 Christianity had made but little progress in that country. No 
 doubt since Cyril and Methodius had invented the Slavonic 
 alphabet, and translated the Holy Books for the Bulgarians, 
 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 Constan- 
 tinople to ask for baptism." The Emperor Basil, the Macedo- 
 nian, then gave them an archbishop, who performed a miracle 
 before them. He threw a copy of the Gospels into a bra- 
 zier, and drew it out unharmed. According to this account, 
 Askold was the first Russian prince who became a Christian. 
 Hence the worship rendered to his tomb and memory. In the 
 list of Byzantine Eparchies under Leo the Sixth, the Bishopric 
 of Russia figures, of which no doubt Kief was the metropolis. 
 These missions, however, do not seem to have been very success- 
 ful ; at the time of the treaty concluded between Oleg and Leo 
 the Sixth, the Russians still swore by their swords, by Volos,
 
 70 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. IV. 
 
 and by Perun. In the treaty concluded by Igor, when the 
 Russians swore at Kief before 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 
 Byzantine provinces, we find them attacking 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 to expose himself to the ridicule of his soldiers 
 by embracing a new faith. " My men will mock me," he re- 
 plied to 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 follow 
 his example. The public mind was not yet in a condition for 
 the example of the prince to be all-powerful. The Christian 
 Olga, canonized by the Church, "the first Russian who mounted 
 to the heavenly kingdom," remained an exception, little noticed 
 or thought of in the midst of the pagan aristocracy. 
 
 SVIATOSLAF. THE DANUBE DISPUTED BETWEEN THE 
 KUSSIANS AND GREEKS. 
 
 The reign of Sviatoslaf, from nine hundred and sixty-four 
 until nine hundred and seventy-two, though short, was sig-
 
 862-972.] FORMATION OF RUSSIA. 71 
 
 nalized by two memorable events : the defeat of the Khazarui, 
 and the great war against the Byzantine Empire for the pos- 
 session of Bulgaria. About the former event the annalist 
 gives few details ; but Sviatoslaf must have gained a complete 
 victory, if it be true that he took the White City, capital of 
 the Khazar Empire on the Don, and that he exacted tribute 
 from the las or Osetinui of the Caucasus, and the Kassogans 
 or Tcherkesui. The Russians had no reason to rejoice in 
 their success, for the decline of the Khazarui, who were a 
 civilized people, favored the progress of the Petchenegi, 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 men, corrupt and impure, 
 bloody and cruel beasts." During one of the frequent ab- 
 sences of Sviatoslaf, the Petchenegi suddenly appeared under 
 the walls of Kief, where the mother and children of the Grand 
 Prince had taken refuge, and reduced it to the last extremity. 
 The bold manoeuvre of a vo'ievod saved the Kievans, who were 
 starving. On his return to his capital Sviatoslaf was horrified 
 at the risks it had encountered. It was at the hands of these 
 same Petchenegi that he was one day to perish. 
 
 On the subject of the Bulgarian war Nestor's narrative is 
 confused and incomplete. He is silent about the Russian 
 defeats, and legend mixes largely with historical facts. Nes- 
 tor relates that the Greeks wished to ascertain what sort of 
 man Sviatoslaf was. They sent him gifts of gold and fine tis- 
 sues, 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 enthusiastically. The Greeks were afraid, and 
 said, "This must be a fierce man, since he despises wealth 
 and accepts a sword for tribute." Happily the very minute 
 account of Leo the Deacon appears both exact and impartial, 
 and we are enabled to follow this campaign, in which a chief 
 of the growing Russian Empire crosses that Danube which
 
 72 HISTOEY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. IV. 
 
 the Russian armies are not again to see till the reign of Cathe- 
 rine the Second and Nicholas. The Greek emperor, Nicephorus 
 Phocas, in order to avenge himself on Peter the Tsar of Bul- 
 garia, had recourse to the dangerous expedient so frequent in 
 Byzantine policy. He called in the barbarians. A certain 
 Kalokuir 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 who owed their constitutions, one to 
 the Variag drujina of Rurik, the other to the Turanian dru- 
 jina of Asparukh were brought into conflict by Greek diplo- 
 macy. Sviatoslaf descended on Bulgaria with a thoroughly 
 equipped fleet, reassured the Byzantines by bringing sixty 
 thousand men to their assistance, took Pereiaslaf, the Bul- 
 garian capital, and all their fortresses. 
 
 The Tsar Peter yielded to his evil destiny at the moment 
 the Petchenegi were besieging Kief. This lesson was, how- 
 ever, lost on Sviatoslaf. He was overjoyed at his conquest, 
 and wished to transport his capital to Pereiaslaf on the Dan- 
 ube, a city distinct from Pereiaslaf, or Prislaf, the modern 
 Eski-Stambul, which was the capital of the Bulgarians in the 
 tenth century. " This place," he said to his mother, " is the 
 central point of my possessions, and abounds in wealth. 
 Prom Greece come precious stuffs, wine, gold, and all kinds of 
 fruit ; from the country of the Tcheki and Hungarians, horses 
 and silver ; from Russia, furs, honey, 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 it to resist a power that ex- 
 tended from the Baltic to the Balkans, and which could add to 
 the Bulgarian legions, disciplined after the Roman fashion by 
 the Tsar Simeon, the Variagi of Scandinavia, the Russian 
 Slavs, the Pinnish hordes of the Ves, Tchudi, and Meria, and 
 even the light cavalry of the Petchenegi ? 
 
 The formation of a 'great Slav Empire so close to Constan- 
 tinople would have been rendered more formidable by the
 
 CASTLE ON THE DANUBE. 
 
 ANCIENT GATE IN KOLOSVAR.
 
 862-972.] FOEMATION OF EUSSIA. 73 
 
 ethnographical constitution of the peninsula. Ancient Thrace 
 and ancient Macedon were peopled by Slav tribes, some of 
 whom were offshoots from the Russian tribes ; for example, 
 Dregovitchi and Smolens were to be found there as mucH as 
 at Minsk and Smolensk. Thessaly, Attica, and the Pelopon- 
 nesos were invaded by these emigrants, who became the sub- 
 jects 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 Okhrid, and that the ancient 
 provinces, under the names of Kroatia, Servia, and Dalmatia, 
 had become almost entirely Slav. This great race extended 
 then almost unbroken from the Peloponnesos, already called 
 by the Slav name of Morea, to Novgorod. Thus, if the town 
 of Pereiaslaf on the Danube had really become the centre of 
 the Russian dominions, according 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 greatly the num- 
 ber of their armies. With their canoes hollowed out of the 
 trunks of trees, such as are still to be seen in the Russian 
 villages, they had to descend the Dnieper, disembark at each 
 of the seven cataracts, or rapids, carry their boats around till 
 they could re-embark farther on, and all the while give battle 
 to the Petchenegi, who were in ambush behind the rocks. 
 After they had escaped these perils, they had to brave with 
 their frail skiffs 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 with terror. Few 
 reached the walls of Constantinople, and their defeat was cer- 
 tain. Now, on the contrary, masters of the Danube, masters 
 of the land-route, they could bring against Constantinople all 
 the hordes of Scythia.
 
 74 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. IV. 
 
 Fortunately for the Greek Empire, it then chanced to be 
 renewing 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, recalled to Bulgaria, had been obliged to reconquer 
 it. It was at this moment that Zirnisces summoned him to 
 execute the conditions of the treaty concluded with his prede- 
 cessor ; that is, to evacuate the country. Sviatoslaf, who had 
 just taken Philippopolis and exterminated the inhabitants, re- 
 plied haughtily that he hoped soon to be at Constantinople. 
 Zimisces then began his preparations. In the beginning of 
 March, nine hundred and seventy-two, he despatched a fleet 
 to the north of the Danube, and himself marched to Adri- 
 anople. 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 body of many thou- 
 sand Russians, and obliged them to retire within the walls ; 
 then he gave the order for the assault, and took the town 
 by escalade. Eight thousand Russians shut up in the royal 
 castle made a desperate resistance, refused to surrender, and 
 perished in the flames. 
 
 When the news of this disaster reached Sviatoslaf, he ad- 
 vanced with the greater part of his army to meet the emperor, 
 and came up with him near Dorostol in Silistria. The Greek 
 historians make the Russian army to have consisted of at 
 least sixty thousand men ; Nestor reckons only ten thousand. 
 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 mail-clad cav- 
 alry. At last they gave way under a desperate charge, and 
 fell back on Dorostol. There they were besieged by the em- 
 peror, and displayed 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 
 combat. The Russians slew themselves rather than ask for
 
 862-972.] FORMATION OF EUSSIA. 75 
 
 mercy. The night following 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 cocks and 
 little children in the Danube. Provisions failed, and Svia- 
 toslaf stole out one stormy night with canoes manned by two 
 thousand warriors, rowed round the Greek fleet, collected 
 millet and corn in the neighboring villages, and, falling sud- 
 denly on the Greeks, re-entered the town victoriously. Zimis- 
 ces 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, one of Zimisces' 
 body-guard. 
 
 Sviatoslaf resolved to make one last effort, and issued from 
 the town with all his forces. Before the battle Zimisces pro- 
 posed 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 bloody 
 as the former. Sviatoslaf came near being slain by Apemas. 
 At last the Russians gave way, leaving on the battle-field, 
 says Leo the Deacon, fifteen thousand five hundred dead and 
 twenty thousand shields. The survivors retired into the town. 
 They were forced to treat. Zimisces allowed them to retire 
 from Bulgaria, and they swore by Perun and Volos never 
 again to invade the 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 capitu- 
 lation, and confirms the account of the Greek historians rather 
 than his own. These relate that Zimisces sent deputies to 
 the Petchenegi to beg them to grant a free passage to the 
 remnant of the Russian army. It is certain that the barba- 
 rians awaited the Russians at the Cataracts, or Rapids, of the
 
 76 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. IV. 
 
 Dnieper. They killed Sviatoslaf, cut off his head, and his 
 skull was used by their prince, Kuria, as a drinking-cup. 
 Sviatoslaf was, in spite of his Slav name, the very type of a 
 Variag prince of the intrepid, wily, and ambitious Northmen. 
 Nestor boasts his good faith. When he wished to make war 
 on a people, he sent to warn them. " I am coming against 
 you," he would say. 
 
 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 one of his ears, ornamented 
 with a ruby and two pearls. Let us notice this portrait ; we 
 shall have to search 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 be- 
 tween the image of a saint and an authentic likeness.
 
 VLADMUR. 
 
 Estps lr Laarut Boston
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE CLOVIS AND CHARLEMAGNE OF THE 
 RUSSIANS, SAINT VLADIMIR AND IAROSLAF 
 THE GREAT. 
 
 972 - 1054. 
 
 VLADIMIR (972-1015). CONVERSION OF THE RUSSIANS. IAROSLAP 
 THE GREAT (1016-1054). UNION OF EUSSIA. SPLENDOR OF 
 KIEF. VARIAG-RUSSIAN SOCIETY AT THE TIME OF IAROSLAF. 
 PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. SOCIAL, POLITICAL, LITERARY, AND 
 ARTISTIC RESULTS. 
 
 VLADIMIR. CONVERSION OF THE RUSSIANS. 
 
 fTHHE Slav tribes owe their organization to a twofold con- 
 JL quest, a military conquest which came from the North, 
 an ecclesiastical conquest which came from the South. The 
 Variagi sent them chiefs of war, who welded their scattered 
 clans into a nation; the Byzantines sent missionaries, who 
 united the Slavs among themselves and to their civilized neigh- 
 bors by the bond of a common religion. 
 
 The man destined to conclude the work of propagandism 
 begun by Olga did not at first seem fitted for this great task. 
 Vladimir, 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 be- 
 comes the assassin of his royal Prankish 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 Drevliane, Vladimir at Novgorod. In the civil
 
 78 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. V. 
 
 wars which followed, and which recall the bloody Merovingian 
 anarchy, laropolk slew Oleg, and in his turn died by the hand 
 of Vladimir. He fell in love with Rogneda, laropolk's be- 
 trothed, and demanded her in marriage from the Variag Rog- 
 volod, who ruled over Polotsk. The princess answered that 
 she would never marry the son of a slave, in allusion to Vladi- 
 mir's mother having been a servant, though he himself had 
 always been treated by his father as his brothers' equal. 
 Maddened by this insult, Vladimir sacked Polotsk, killed 
 Rogvolod and his two sons, and forced Rogneda to marry him. 
 After the murder of laropolk, Vladimir also took the wife 
 whom laropolk had left pregnant, a beautiful Greek nun, 
 captured in an expedition against Byzantium. These two 
 women he had deprived, one of her husband, the other of 
 her father and brothers. He had, besides, a Bohemian and 
 a Bulgarian wife, and another, all of whom bore him sons. 
 Finally this bastard, this " son of a slave," was so abandoned 
 in his profligacy, that he kept three hundred concubines at 
 Vuishegorod, three hundred at Bielgorod, near Kief, and two 
 hundred at Berestof. Lusting no less after war and plun- 
 der, he reconquered Red Russia from the Poles, quelled a 
 revolt of the Viatitchi and Radimitchi, and exacted tribute 
 from the Lithuanian latvagi and Livonian tribes of Letts, 
 or Finns. 
 
 This sensual and passionate barbarian's soul was troubled, 
 notwithstanding, by religious aspirations. At first he turned to 
 the Slav gods, and his reign was inaugurated by a new growth 
 of paganism. On the high sandy cliffs of Kief, which tower 
 above the Dnieper, he erected idols ; among them one of Perun, 
 with a head of silver and a beard of gold. Two Variagi, 
 father and son, both Christians, were stabbed at the feet of 
 Perun. But the day of the ancient gods was passed ; Vladi- 
 mir was undergoing the religious crisis in which all Russia 
 labored. He felt that he must have another form of belief ; 
 so, according to the testimony of Nestor, he took it into his
 
 972-1054.] VLADIMIR AND IAROSLAF. 79 
 
 head, like the Japanese of to-day, to institute a search after the 
 best religion. His ambassadors forthwith visited Mussulmans, 
 Jews, and Catholics : the first represented by the Bulgarians 
 of the Volga, the second probably by the Khazarui or the 
 Jewish Kharaites, 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 ceremonies appeared wanting in magnifi- 
 cence. The deputies that he sent to Constantinople, on the con- 
 trary, returned awe-stricken. The splendors of Saint Sophia, 
 the brilliancy of the priestly 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 imagina- 
 tion of the barbarians. 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 boyars. The proud 
 Vladimir did not intend to beg for baptism at the hands of the 
 Greeks, he would conquer it by his own arms, and ravish 
 it like booty. He descended into the Taurid and besieged 
 Kherson, the last city of this region that remained subject to 
 the emperors. A certain Anastasius, possibly from religious 
 motives, betrayed his country. Rendered prouder than ever 
 by this important conquest, Vladimir sent an embassy to the 
 Greek emperors, Basil and Constantine, demanding their sister 
 Anna in marriage, and threatening, in case of refusal, to march 
 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 demands. But on this occasion the 
 emperors, who were occupied with revolts in the interior, 
 thought themselves driven to consent, on condition that Vladi- 
 mir should be baptized. It was in Kherson that the Russian
 
 80 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. V. 
 
 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 ornaments, the holy relics 
 with which he enriched and sanctified his capital, were his 
 booty. When he returned to Kief it was in the character of 
 an apostle, but of an armed apostle, that he catechized his 
 people. The idols were overthrown 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 farther away, 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, by Vladimir's 
 order, all the Kievans, men and women, masters and slaves, 
 old people and little children, plunged naked into the conse- 
 crated waters of the old pagan stream, while the Greek priests 
 standing on the bank with Vladimir read the baptismal ser- 
 vice. After a sturdy resistance, the Novgorodians were in 
 like manner forced to hurl Perun into the Volkhof, and then 
 be immersed in 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 
 customs. M. Buslaef assures us that, even in the twelfth 
 century, Christian rites were practised only 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 trans- 
 formation. It does not appear that he persecuted the idola- 
 ters, but he occupied himself 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
 
 972-1054.] VLADIMIR AND IAROSLAF. 81 
 
 name which he had taken at his baptism. On the place 
 where the two Variag martyrs had been slain by his orders he 
 raised the Church of the Desiatina or the Tithe, 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 punishment. " I fear 
 to sin," he replied 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 Petchenegi. Vladimir, who in his 
 earlier life reminded us of a Northman of the type of Robert 
 the Devil, suddenly becomes the "good King Robert" of 
 Russia. 
 
 His wars with the Petchenegi 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 Petcheneg giant in his arms ; there are the inhab- 
 itants of Bielgorod, 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 Petchenegi 
 believe these were natural 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 poems 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. 
 
 VOL. I. 6
 
 82 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. V. 
 
 IAKOSLAF THE GREAT. UNION OF RUSSIA. SPLENDOR 
 
 OF KIEF. 
 
 Vladimir died in ten hundred and fifteen, leaving a large 
 number of heirs by his numerous wives. The partition that 
 he made among them of his states tells us what was the ex- 
 tent of Russia at that epoch. To laroslaf he gave Novgorod ; 
 Polotsk to Isiaslaf, son of Rogneda, arid grandson of the Va- 
 riag Rogvolod ; to Boris, Rostof; to Gleb, Murom, these last 
 two principalities being in the Finn country; to Sviatoslaf, 
 the Drevliane ; to Vsevolod, Vladimir in Volhynia ; to Msti- 
 slaf, Tmutorakan, the Tamatarchia of the Greeks ; finally, to 
 his nephew Sviatopolk, the son of his brother and victim 
 laropolk, the principality of Turof, in the country of Minsk, 
 founded by a Variag named Tur, who did not belong to the 
 " blood of princes " any more than Askold and Dir. The his- 
 tory of Vladimir's successors recalls that of the heirs of Clovis. 
 The murder of the sons of Clodomir is paralleled by the assas- 
 sination of Boris and Gleb, sons of Vladimir, by the order of 
 Sviatopolk, who usurped the throne of Kief. His two victims 
 were canonized, and henceforth became inseparable in the 
 orthodox calendar. The prince of the Drevliane perished by 
 the same hand. laroslaf resolved to avenge his brothers and 
 to save himself. At this moment, however, he had alienated 
 his Novgorodian subjects, having enticed the principal citizens 
 into his castle, and then treacherously 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 before them, and besought 
 their help. "Prince," replied the Novgorodians, with one 
 voice, " you have destroyed our brethren, 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 Tmutorakan. The latter
 
 IAROSLAF. 
 
 Lauriir Boston.
 
 972-1054.] VLADIMIR AND IAROSLAF. 83 
 
 had acquired great fame from his wars with the Khazarui, 
 whom, with the aid of the Greek emperor, Basil the Second, 
 he finally annihilated, and with the Tcherkesui, whose chief, a 
 giant named Rhededia, he slew in single combat. At last, 
 laroslaf remained the sole master of Russia, and reigned glo- 
 riously 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 
 Kievan greatness. 
 
 In Poland laroslaf revenged on the son of Boleslas the Brave 
 his father's invasions, and took from him the towns of Red 
 Russia. He fought a bloody battle with the Petchenegi under 
 the walls of Kief, and in their flight part of the vanquished 
 barbarians were drowned in crossing the rivers. It was as 
 fatal a blow to the Petchenegi as that struck by Sviatoslaf at 
 the Khazarui : they never recovered from it. But in the same 
 manner as the defeat of the Khazarui opened the way to the 
 Petchenegi, the ruin of the Petchenegi opened the way to the 
 Polovtsui. The steppes of the Don were incessantly filled by 
 new hordes from Asia. laroslaf also fought against the Fin- 
 nish and Lithuanian tribes. In the country of the Tchudi he 
 founded lurief, or Saint George, called Dorpat by the Germans, 
 on the Embach, near the Peipus ; in the country of the Meria 
 he founded laroslavl on the Upper Volga. Finally, his reign 
 was marked by a new war with Greece, brought on by mer- 
 cantile disputes. His son Vladimir, leader of the expedition, 
 rejected proudly the propositions of the Emperor Constantino 
 Monomachus. A naval battle was fought in the Bosphorus ; 
 Greek fire and the tempests of the Black Sea dispersed the 
 Russian armament. Part of the army, a body of eight thou- 
 sand men, which was retreating into Russia by land, was 
 attacked and exterminated by a Greek force : eight hundred 
 prisoners were sent to Constantinople, where their eyes were
 
 84 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. V. 
 
 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 Constanti- 
 nople. 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 North. The decay of Kievan Russia after the 
 death of laroslaf put off to a later day or nullified the fulfil- 
 ment of this prophecy. 
 
 The legislation of the Russian Charlemagne is comprised 
 in the Code entitled Rttsska'ia Pravda, the Russian Right 
 or Verity. This Code strangely recalls the Scandinavian. It 
 sanctions private revenge, and the pursuit of an assassin by all 
 the relatives of the dead ; it fixes the fine for different crimes, 
 as well as the fine paid into the royal treasury ; it allows the 
 judicial duel ; the ordeal by red-hot iron and boiling water ; 
 the oath corroborated by those of the Compurgatores ; it also 
 established by the side of the judges nominated by the Prince 
 a jury of twelve citizens. In the " Russkai'a Pravda " there 
 is not, properly speaking, any criminal law. Capital punish- 
 ment, 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 Maria was married to Kasimir, King of Po- 
 land ; his daughters also became the wives of kings : Elisabeth, 
 of Harold the Brave, King of Norway ; Anna, of Henry the 
 First, King of France ; Anastasia, of Andrew the First, King 
 of Hungary. Of his sons, Vladimir, the eldest, is said to have 
 married Githa, daughter of Harold, King of England ; Isiaslaf, 
 a daughter of Micislas the Second, King of Poland ; Vseslaf, a 
 Greek princess, daughter of Constantino Monomachus; Via- 
 tcheslaf and Igor, two German princesses. laroslaf gave an
 
 972-1054.] VLADIMIR AND IAROSLAF. 85 
 
 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 Variag dynasty was 
 thus mingled with the families of the Christian princes, and 
 we may say of the Russia of the eleventh century, what we 
 can no longer say of the Russia of the sixteenth century, that 
 it was a European state. 
 
 To Kief was destined the lot of Aachen, the capital of 
 Charles the Great, which, glorious in his life, after his death 
 fell into decay. Under laroslaf, Kief reached the highest pin- 
 nacle of splendor. He wished to make his capital the rival of 
 Constantinople ; like Byzantium, it had its cathedral and its 
 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 Tithe, 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 it amida 
 sceptri Constantinopolitani et darissimum decus Gr&ciae. It 
 was the rendezvous of the merchants from Holland, Hungary, 
 Germany, and Scandinavia, who lived in separate quarters of 
 the town. It had eight markets, and the Dnieper was con- 
 stantly covered with merchant-ships. laroslaf had not enough 
 Greek artists to decorate all the churches, nor enough priests 
 to serve them, for Kief was at that time " the city of four hun- 
 dred churches," so much admired by the writers of the West. 
 What it was then we may partly realize by seeing what it is 
 still at certain seasons of the year. The Monastery of the 
 Catacombs, with the incorruptible bodies of its ascetics and 
 miracle-workers, some of whom bricked themselves up, while 
 living, in the cell which was to be their sepulchre, draws
 
 86 HISTORY OF EUSSIA. [CHAP. V. 
 
 annually, and especially at the Feast of the Assumption, fifty 
 thousand pilgrims. Saint Sophia was the pride of Kief; the 
 mosaics of the time of laroslat 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 appari- 
 tion of Christ, presenting to six of his disciples his body, and to 
 six others his blood, the images of Saints and Doctors, and the 
 Angel of the Annunciation. The frescos which have been pre- 
 served or carefully restored are still numerous, and everywhere 
 cover the pillars, the walls, and the vaulted ceilings of gold. 
 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 monuments of 
 Russian antiquity. Like Charles the Great, he set up schools. 
 Vladimir had founded one at Kief; laroslaf instituted that of 
 Novgorod for three hundred boys. He sent for Greek singers 
 from Byzantium, who taught the Russian clergy. Coins were 
 struck for him by Greek artists, with his Slavonic name, luri, 
 in Slav on one side, and his Christian name, Georgios, on the 
 other. Like all other barbarian neophytes, laroslaf carried 
 devotion into superstition. He caused the bones of his uncles, 
 who had died unconverted, to be disinterred and baptized. He 
 died in ten hundred and fifty-four, and his stone sarcophagus 
 is one of the most precious ornaments of Saint Sophia. 
 
 VARIAG-RUSSIAN SOCIETY AT THE TIME OF LAROSLAF. 
 
 Variag-Russian society presents more than one analogy 
 with the society which was developed in Gaul after the Frank 
 conquest. The government of the Variag princes somewhat 
 resembled that of the Merovingian kings. 
 
 The germ of the future state lay in the drujina, the band 
 of warriors surrounding the prince, as in Gaul it lay in the 
 truste. The drujinniki, like the antrustions, were the faithful 
 followers, the men of the prince. They formed his guard,
 
 972-1054.] VLADIMIR AND IAROSLAF. 87 
 
 and were his natural council in all affairs, public or private. 
 He could constitute them a court of justice, nominate them 
 individually vo'ievodui, or governors of fortresses, or posadniki, 
 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 antrustions, so the drujina of the Russian princes 
 admitted many different elements, not only Variag but Slav. 
 Mstislaf, prince of Tmutorakan, had enrolled lasui and Kas- 
 sogans ; a Lithuanian latviag is mentioned as being in the 
 drujina of Igor, a Hungarian in that of Boris. The military 
 class did not form at that time a close caste in Russia any 
 more than in Gaul ; Saint Vladimir took into his service the 
 son of a leather-worker who had vanquished the Petcheneg 
 giant ; his maternal uncle, Dobruina, was not even a free man. 
 
 The prince in the midst of his drujina seems to be only the 
 first among his equals ; all that he had seems to have belonged 
 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 gusli. 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 drujina with gold and silver ; but 
 with a drujina I can acquire gold and silver, as did my 
 father and my grandfather." The prince did nothing with- 
 out consulting his drujinniki. It was this that prevented 
 Sviatoslaf from listening to the exhortations of Olga ; he said 
 that " his drujina would mock him " if he became a Chris- 
 tian. 
 
 The administration of the Variag 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 griev- 
 ance with another, he summons him before the tribunal of the
 
 88 HISTORY OF EUSSIA. [CHAP. V. 
 
 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 com- 
 batants then come to blows, and the victor may impose any 
 conditions he pleases." 
 
 After justice, the most important of the princely func- 
 tions was the collection of the tributes. The amount was 
 fixed by the prince himself. Oleg imposed on the Drevliane 
 a tax of a marten's skin for every house. The levy 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, Thierry's expedi- 
 tion in Arvernia. " In the year nine hundred and forty-five 
 the drujina of Igor said to him, ' The men of Sventeld are 
 richly provided 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 Drevliane 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 drujina, ' 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 returned with only a few, to the end that he 
 might increase his riches. The Drevliane, when they learnt 
 that Igor was returning, 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 collected all the tribute?' But Igor
 
 972-1054.] VLADIMIR AND IAEOSLAF. 89 
 
 would not hear them, so the Drevliane came out of the town of 
 Korosten, 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 drujinniki in different towns, sup- 
 ported by adequate forces. Thus Rurik distributed the towns 
 of his appanage ; he gave to one of his men Polotsk, to an- 
 other Rostof, to a third Bielozersk. A principality was in 
 some sort divided into fiefs, but the fiefs were only tempo- 
 rary, and always revocable. For the defence of the frontiers 
 new towns were built, where native soldiers kept watch. 
 
 Social conditions from the ninth to the twelfth century 
 were as unequal as in the West. The prince's drujina, which 
 speedily absorbed all the Slav and Finn chiefs, constituted an 
 aristocracy. Still we must distinguish in it three orders of 
 rank, the simple guards, the men corresponding to the French 
 barons, and the boyars, who were the most illustrious of all. 
 The freemen of the Russian soil were " the people." The 
 merchants were not at this period a distinct class ; 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, in Constantinople, which was strictly watched. 
 
 The rural population, on whom the weight of the growing 
 state was beginning to rest, was already less free than in 
 primitive times. The peasant was called smerd, a word per- 
 haps derived from smerdief, to stink, or muzhik, the insulting 
 diminutive of muzh, man. Later he became the Christian 
 par excellence, krestianin. 
 
 Below the peasant, whose situation recalls that of the Roman 
 colonus, were the slaves properly so called. 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 filling 
 certain offices, such as that of house-steward. War was, how- 
 ever, the principal source of slavery. Ibn-Dost relates that the
 
 90 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. V. 
 
 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 CHRISTIANITY. SOCIAL, POLITICAL, LITER- 
 ARY, AND ARTISTIC RESULTS. 
 
 Russia had become Christian : it is the chief event in its 
 primitive history. An important fact is that its Christianity 
 was received not from Rome, like that of the Poles and other 
 Western Slavs, but from Constantinople. Although the sepa- 
 ration between the churches of the East and West was not 
 yet fully consummated, it was evident that Russia would be 
 engaged in what the Latins called " the schism." It is usu- 
 ally considered in the West that this fact exercised an evil 
 influence on Russia. But let us see the opinion of a Russian 
 historian, M. Bestujef-Riumin, 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 preserved us from struggles be- 
 tween 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 its appearance with German missionaries 
 in Slavonic lands ; and if it did not everywhere bring with it 
 material servitude, at least it introduced an intellectual slavery 
 by forcing men to support foreign 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
 
 972-1054.] VLADIMIR AND IAROSLAF. 91 
 
 and Methodius, mingled with the national language, and be- 
 came 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 inestimable advantages that Byzantine Christianity 
 brought into Russia. But if the Russian State was free from 
 all obligations to Rome, it had nothing to hope for from 
 Rome. It could not reckon in its days of peril on the help 
 that Spain received when it grappled with the Moors ; Ger- 
 many in its crusades against the Slavs and Finns ; Hungary 
 in its 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 Ottoman invasion, saw no Europe 
 arming in its defence. 
 
 Its princes were neither laid under the pontifical interdicts, 
 like Robert of France, nor reduced to implore pardon at the 
 feet of a Gregory the Seventh, like Henry the Fourth of Ger- 
 many ; humiliations always followed by a swift revenge, as on 
 the day when Barbarossa expelled Alexander the Third from 
 Italy, and Philip the Handsome 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 from the races to 
 whom they were bound by a common 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 Renaissance 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 trans- 
 formation in Russia. The first effect of Christianity was to 
 reform society, and draw closer family ties. It condemned
 
 92 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. A'. 
 
 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 between the chil- 
 dren 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. 
 
 Vladimir Monomakh 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 obliged to help 
 only those of the same association ; warriors would assist the 
 members of the same drujina ; peasants, members of the same 
 commune ; merchants or artisans, members of the same union. 
 Christianity enjoined benevolence to all the world, without 
 hope of reward in this life. It rendered weakness, poverty, 
 manual labor, honorable. 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 and ardent natures, but at last we see in Russia, 
 as in the West, princes abjure their pride and seek the peace 
 of the cloister, like the good King Robert, or Saint Henry. 
 In the 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.
 
 972-1054.] VLADIMIR AND IAROSLAF. 93 
 
 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 drujina, and 
 in a sense a stranger in the land he governed and on which 
 he levied tribute ? Properly speaking, a Russian prince had 
 no subjects. The natives had the power at any time to expel 
 him, his drujinniki 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 who entered the ranks of the clergy. 
 This Greek ideal was the Emperor, the Tsar of Constantinople, 
 heir of Augustus and Constantine the Great, God's Vicar 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. He had subjects, 
 and subjects only. He alone made the law ; he was the law. 
 He had neither drujinniki nor antrustions that he placed in 
 such and such a town, but a host of movable functionaries, the 
 inviolate Roman hierarchy, by means of whom his all-power- 
 ful 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 Constantinople, either the crown enriched with 
 precious stones, the purple mantle, the sceptre, or the leggings, 
 they were answered, that when God gave the empire to Con- 
 stantinople, he sent these vestments by a holy angel ; that
 
 94 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. V. 
 
 they were not the work of man, and that they were laid on 
 the altar, and worn, even by the emperor, only on solemn 
 occasions. Leo the Khazar was said to have been smitten with 
 a fatal ulcer for having put on the crown without permission 
 of the patriarch. 
 
 An empire one and indivisible, resting on a standing army, 
 a hierarchy of functionaries, a national clergy, and a body of 
 jurisconsults, such was the Roman Empire, and on the 
 same model the monarchies of the seventeenth century were 
 constructed. This was the conception of the State, unknown 
 to both Slavs and Variagi, that the Greek priests brought to 
 Russia. For a long time the reality showed little to corre- 
 spond with 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 Kievan 
 Russia, it found a more propitious soil in Muscovite Russia. 
 Legislation likewise felt the influence of Christianity. Theft, 
 murder, and assassination were not looked upon by the Church 
 as private offences, for which the aggrieved persons could take 
 reprisals or accept money in commutation. They were crimes 
 to be punished by human justice in the name of God. 
 
 For private revenge Byzantine influence substituted a pub- 
 lic penalty ; for the fine it substituted corporal punishment, 
 repugnant to the free barbarian, and to the instinctive senti- 
 ment of human dignity. Imprisonment, convict labor, flog- 
 ging, torture, mutilation, death itself, inflicted by more or less 
 cruel means, such was the penal code of the Byzantines. 
 
 The Greek bishops of the time of Saint Vladimir wished 
 that brigands should be put to death, but it was long before 
 popular objection to such punishment was overcome. Vladi- 
 mir, after having employed this supreme means of repression, 
 returned to the system of fines, which besides helped to fill 
 the treasury. The Byzantine mode of procedure likewise 
 rejected the judicial duel, the judgment of God, and the Com- 
 purgatores long upheld by custom. But, as in Gaul, Roman
 
 972-1054.] VLADIMIR AND IAROSLAF. 95 
 
 law existed for church officers and part of the natives 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 ex- 
 isted together, each being slightly influenced by the other, 
 until the time when they were mingled in a new code, the 
 Ulojenie of Ivan the Great, and the Sudebnik of Ivan the 
 Terrible. 
 
 The Byzantine literature which found its way into Russia 
 consisted not only 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, an inexhaustible source of new poetry ; 
 chronicles destined to serve as models to the Russian annal- 
 ists ; philosophical and scientific books ; even romances such 
 as " Barlaam and Josaphat," " Salomon and Kitovras," and 
 others. Though this literature was partly the fruit of Byzan- 
 tine 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 individual, and public and family life. We 
 shall see up to what point Russian society of the Middle 
 Ages was modelled on the examples afforded by this litera- 
 ture. 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 Christianity which, to use a Western expres- 
 sion, illuminated the Russian cities with magnificent churches, 
 and caused golden cupolas to tower above the ramparts of 
 mud that begirt the towns.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 RUSSIA DIVIDED INTO PRINCIPALITIES. 
 SUPREMACY AND FALL, OF KIEF. 
 
 1054-1169. 
 
 DISTRIBUTION OF RUSSIA INTO PRINCIPALITIES. UNITY IN DIVISION. 
 THE SUCCESSORS OF IAROSLAF THE GREAT. WARS ABOUT THE EIGHT 
 OF HEADSHIP OF THE EOYAL FAMILY, AND THE THRONE OF KIEF. 
 VLADIMIR MONOMAKH. WARS BETWEEN THE HEIRS OF VLADIMIR 
 MONOMAKH. FALL OF KIEF. 
 
 DISTRIBUTION OF RUSSIA INTO PRINCIPALITIES. UNITY 
 
 IN DIVISION. 
 
 THE period that extends from ten hundred and fifty-four, 
 the year of laroslafs death, to twelve hundred and 
 twenty-four, the year of the first appearance of the Tatars, or, 
 to take the French chronology, from the reign of Henry the 
 First to the death of Philip Augustus, is one of the most con- 
 fused and troubled in Russian history. As the barbarian 
 custom of division continued to prevail over the Byzantine 
 ideal 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. Pogodin reckons during 
 this period sixty-four principalities which had an existence 
 more or less prolonged, two hundred and ninety-three 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 wars to augment 
 this enormous mass of historical facts. Against the Polovtsui
 
 1054-1169.] DIVISION INTO PRINCIPALITIES. 97 
 
 alone the chroniclers mention eighteen campaigns, while these 
 barbarians made no less than forty-six invasions of Russia. 
 It is impossible to follow the national chroniclers in the 
 minute details of their annals ; we will only treat of the prin- 
 cipalities which lasted some time, and of the facts which were 
 most important. 
 
 The ancient names of the Slav tribes have everywhere dis- 
 appeared, or remain only in the names of some of the towns, 
 for example that of the Polotchane in Polotsk, and that of 
 the Severiane in Novgorod-Severski. The elements of which 
 Russia was now composed were no longer tribes, but princi- 
 palities. We hear no more of the Krivitchi or the Drevliane, 
 but of the principalities of Smolensk and Volhynia. These 
 little states were perpetually dismembered at each new parti- 
 tion 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 
 distant principality of Tmutorakan, 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 eleventh to the thirteenth cen- 
 tury : 
 
 The principality of Smolensk occupied the important terri- 
 tory which is, as it were, the central point in the mountain 
 system of Russia. It comprehends the ancient forest of Okof, 
 where three of the largest Russian rivers, the Volga, the 
 Dnieper, and the Dwina, take their rise. Hence the political 
 importance of Smolensk, attested by all the wars to gain pos- 
 session of it ; hence, also, its commercial prosperity. It is no- 
 ticeable that all its towns were built on one or other of these 
 three great rivers ; therefore the entire commerce of ancient 
 Russia passed through its hands. Besides Smolensk we must 
 mention Mojaisk, Viasma, and Toropets, which was the capi-
 
 98 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 tal of a secondary principality, the property of two celebrated 
 princes, Mstislaf the Brave and Mstislaf the Bold. 
 
 The principality of Kief was Ens, Russia in the strict sense 
 of the word. Its situation on the Dnieper, the neighborhood 
 of the Greek Empire, the fertility of the Black Land, long 
 secured to this state the supremacy over the other Russian 
 principalities. On the south it bordered directly on the no- 
 mads 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 Pereiaslavl 
 was a dependence of Kief; Vuishegorod, Bielgorod, Tripoli, 
 Torshok, were at times erected into principalities for princes 
 of the same family. 
 
 On the tributaries of the right bank of the Dnieper, nota- 
 bly the Soja, the Desna, and the Se'im, extended the two prin- 
 cipalities of Tchernigof, with Starodub and Lubetch ; and of 
 Novgorod-Severski, with Putivl, Kursk, and Briansk. The 
 principality of Tchernigof, which reached towards the Upper 
 Oka, had therefore one foot in the basin of the Volga; its 
 princes, the Olgovitchi, were the most formidable rivals of 
 Kief. The princes of Severski were always engaged in war 
 with the Polovtsui, their neighbors on the south. It was a 
 prince of Severski whose exploits against these barbarians 
 formed the subject of a sort of epic poem, called the Song of 
 Igor, or the Account of Igor's Expedition. 
 
 Another principality, whose very existence consisted in end- 
 less war against the nomads, was the double principality of 
 Riazan and Murom, the principal towns of which were Ria- 
 zan, Murom, Pereiaslavl-Riazanski, situated on the Oka, Ko- 
 lornna at the junction of the Moskova with the Oka, and 
 Pronsk on the Prona. The Upper Don formed its western 
 boundary. This principality was placed in the very heart of 
 the Muromians and Meshtcheraki, Finnish tribes. The repu- 
 tation of its inhabitants, who were reckoned warlike in charac-
 
 1054-1169.] DIVISION INTO PEINCIPALITIES. 99 
 
 ter, 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. 
 
 The double principalities of Suzdal, with their towns of 
 Suzdal, Rostof, lurief-Polski on the Kolosha, Vladimir on the 
 Kliazma, laroslavl, and Pereiaslavl-Zaliesld, were situated on 
 the Volga and the Oka amongst the thickest of northern for- 
 ests, and in the middle of the Finnish tribes of Murom ians, 
 Meria, Vesui, and Tcheremisa. Although placed at the 
 farthest extremity of the Russian world, Suzdal exercised an 
 important influence over it. We shall find its 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 Dnieper. The Suzdalians were rough and 
 warlike, like the Riazanese. Already we can distinguish 
 among these two peoples the characteristics of a new nation- 
 ality. That which divides them from the Kievans and the 
 men of Novgorod-Severski, occupied like themselves in the 
 great war with 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, who were agricultural and 
 essentially sedentary. This distinction between the two for- 
 eign elements that entered the Slav blood has doubtless con- 
 tributed to the difference in the characters of the two branches 
 of the Russian race. From the eleventh to the thirteenth 
 century, in passing from the basin of the Dnieper to the basin 
 of the Volga, we can already watch the formation of Great 
 and Little Russia. 
 
 The principalities of Kief, Tchernigof, Novgorod-Severski, 
 Riazan, Murom, and Suzdal, situated on the side of the 
 steppe with its devastating hordes, formed the frontier states
 
 100 HISTOEY OF EUSSIA. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 of Russia. The same part to play on the northwest, opposite 
 the Lithuanians, Letts, and Tchudi, fell to the principality of 
 Polotsk, which occupied the basin of the Dwina; and to the 
 republican principalities of Novgorod and Pskof on 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 be- 
 longed the towns of Torjok, Volok-Lamski, Izborsk, and 
 Veliki-Luki, which were at times capitals of particular states. 
 
 Southeast Russia comprehended : Volhynia, in the fan-shaped 
 distribution of rivers formed by the Pripet and its tributaries, 
 with Vladimir-in-Volhynia, Lutsk, Turof, Brest, and even Lub- 
 lin, which is certainly Polish ; Gallicia proper, or Red Russia, 
 in the basins of the San, the Dniester, and the Pripet, whose 
 ancient inhabitants, the White Kroats, seem to have sprung 
 from the stock of the Danubian Slavs. Her chief towns were 
 Galitch, founded by Vladimirko about eleven hundred and 
 forty-four, Peremuisl, Terebovl, and Zvenigorod. The neigh- 
 borhood of Hungary and Poland gave a special character to 
 these principalities, as well as a more advanced civilization. 
 The epic songs speak of Gallicia, the native land of the hero 
 Diuk Stepanovitch, as a fabulously rich country. The Ac- 
 count of Igor's Expedition gives us a high idea of the power 
 of these princes. " laroslaf Osmomuisl of Gallicia ! " cried 
 the poet to one of them, " thou art seated very high on thy 
 throne of wrought gold ; with thy regiments of iron thou sus- 
 tainest the Carpathians ; thou closest the gates of the Dan- 
 ube ; thou barrest the way to the king of Hungary ; 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 
 configuration of the Russian soil. Not one of the river-basins 
 forms an isolated and closed region. There is no line of
 
 1054-1169.] DIVISION INTO PRINCIPALITIES. 101 
 
 heights to establish barriers between them or political fron- 
 tiers. The greater number of the Russian principalities belong 
 to the basin of the Dnieper, 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 Dnie- 
 per and the Dwina, Novgorod-Severski with the basin of the 
 Don, Tchernigof and Smolensk with the basin of the Volga. 
 Watercourses everywhere established communications between 
 the principalities. Already Russia, though broken up into 
 appanages, had the germs of a great united empire. The 
 slight cohesion 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 Bretagne 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 Rus- 
 sian territory at the death of every sovereign. There was, 
 however, a certain cohesion in the midst of all these vicissi- 
 tudes. There was a unity of race and language, the more 
 sensible, notwithstanding all dialectic differences, because the 
 Russian people was surrounded everywhere, except at the 
 southwest, by entirely strange races, Lithuanians, Tchudi, 
 Finns, Turks, Magyars. There was a unity of religion ; the 
 Russians differed from nearly all their neighbors, for in con- 
 trast with the Western Slavs, Poles, Tcheki, 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 civilization, submitted to the Vari-
 
 102 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 agi, pursued certain great enterprises 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 for- 
 ests of Suzdal, it was the same family that filled all the 
 thrones. All these princes descended from Rurik, Saint Vla- 
 dimir, and laroslaf the Great. The fact that the wars that 
 laid waste the country were civil wars, was a new proof of 
 this unity. The different parts of Russia could not consider 
 themselves strangers one to the other, when they saw the 
 princes of Tchernigof and Suzdal 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 descendants of Rurik who governed, successively, 
 the remotest states of Russia, and who, after having reigned 
 at Tmutorakan on the Straits of lenikale, at Novgorod the 
 Great, at Toropets in the country of Smolensk, ended by es- 
 tablishing their right to reign at Kief. In spite of the divis- 
 ion into appanages, Kief continued to be the centre of Russia, 
 It was there that Oleg and Igor had reigned, that Vladimir 
 had baptized his people, and laroslaf had established the 
 metropolis of the faith, of arts, and of national civilization. 
 It is not surprising that it should have been more fiercely 
 disputed than all the other Russian cities. Russia had many 
 princes ; but she had only one Grand Prince, the one who 
 reigned at Kief. He had a recognized 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. Kief, the 
 mother of Russian cities, was always to belong to the eldest 
 of the descendants of Rurik ; this was the consequence of the 
 patriarchal system of the Slavs, as was the custom of division. 
 When the Grand Prince of Kief died, his son was not his 
 rightful heir ; but his uncle or brother, or whichever of the 
 princes was the eldest. Then the whole of Russia, from 
 the Baltic to the Black Sea, held itself in readiness to support
 
 1054-1169.] DIVISION INTO PRINCIPALITIES. 103 
 
 the claims of this or that candidate. It was the same with 
 the other principalities, where the possessors of different 
 appanages aspired to reign in the metropolis of the region. 
 The civil wars, then, themselves strengthened the sentiment 
 of Russian unity. What were they, after all, but family 
 quarrels ? 
 
 THE SUCCESSORS OF IAROSLAF THE GREAT. WARS FOR 
 THE RIGHTS OF ELDERSHIP AND THE THRONE OF KIEF. 
 VLADIMIR MONOMAKH. 
 
 The persistent conflict between the Byzantine law, by which 
 the son inherited the possessions of the father, and the old 
 national 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, 
 giving him the throne of Kief, and though laroslaf on his 
 death-bed 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. He was obliged in 
 ten hundred and seventy-three to seek refuge at the Court of 
 Henry the Fourth of Germany, who sent an embassy to Kief, 
 commanding Sviatoslaf to restore the throne of Isiaslaf. Svia- 
 toslaf received the German envoys with such courtesy, made 
 them such a display of his treasures and riches, that, daz- 
 zled by the gold, they adopted a pacific policy. Henry the 
 Fourth 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 in ten hun- 
 dred and seventy-six. 
 
 When his own death took place, in ten hundred and seventy- 
 eight, his son Sviatopolk did not succeed him immediately. It
 
 104 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 was necessary that all the heirs of laroslaf should be exhausted. 
 Vsevolod, a brother of Isiaslaf, whose daughter married the 
 Emperor Henry the Fourth or Henry the Fifth, it is not 
 quite certain which, reigned for fifteen years, from ten hun- 
 dred and seventy-eight until ten hundred and ninety-three. 
 In accordance with the same principle, it was not the son of 
 Vsevolod, Vladimir Monomakh, who succeeded his father ; 
 but after the crown had been worn by a new generation of 
 princes, it returned to the blood of Isiaslaf. Vladimir Mono- 
 makh made no opposition to the claims of Sviatopolk Isia- 
 slavitch. " 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 against 
 the barbarians. But every one was not so respectful to the 
 national law as Vladimir Monomakh. 
 
 Two terrible civil wars desolated Russia in the reign of the 
 Grand Prince Sviatopolk, between ten hundred and ninety- 
 three and eleven hundred and thirteen : one about the princi- 
 pality of Tchernigof, the other about Volhynia and Red Russia. 
 Sviatoslaf had enjoyed Tchernigof as his share, to which 
 Tmutorakan in the Taurid, Murom and Riazan in the Finn 
 country, were annexed. Isiaslaf and Vsevolod, Grand Princes 
 of Kief, had despoiled the sons of Sviatoslaf, their brother, 
 depriving them of the rich territory of Tchernigof, and only 
 leaving them Tmutorakan and the Finnish country. Even 
 Vladimir Monomakh, 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 Svia- 
 toslavitch, one of the most energetic men of the eleventh 
 century. He called the terrible Polovtsui to his aid, and sub- 
 jected Russia to frightful ravages. Vladimir Monomakh was 
 moved by these misfortunes; he wrote a touching letter to 
 Oleg, expressing his sorrow for having accepted Tchernigof. 
 At his instigation a Congress of Princes met at Lubetch, on 
 the Dnieper, in ten hundred and ninety-seven. Seated on the
 
 1054-1169.] DIVISION INTO PRINCIPALITIES. 105 
 
 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 Monomakh against the Polovtsui. 
 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 war with his nephews, 
 Vasilko and Volodar. The Congress of Lubetch had divided 
 the disputed territories between them, but scarcely was the 
 treaty ratified when David went to the Grand Prince Sviato- 
 polk and persuaded him that Vasilko had a design on his life. 
 With the light faith habitual to the men of that date, the 
 Grand Prince joined David in framing a plot to attract Vasilko 
 to Kief on the occasion of a religious festival. When he arrived 
 he was loaded with chains, and the Grand Prince convoked 
 the boyars and citizens of Kief, to denounce to them the pre- 
 tended projects of Vasilko. " Prince," replied the boyars, much 
 embarrassed, " thy tranquillity is dear to us. Vasilko merits 
 death, if it is true that he is thine enemy ; but if he is calum- 
 niated by David, God will avenge on David the blood of the 
 innocent." Thereon the Grand Prince delivered Vasilko to his 
 enemy David, who put out his eyes. The other descendants 
 of laroslaf the First were indignant at this crime. Vladimir 
 Monomakh united with Oleg of Tchernigof, his ancient enemy, 
 and marched against Sviatopolk. The people and clergy of 
 Kief succeeded in preventing a civil war between the Grand 
 Prince and the confederates of Lnbetch. Sviatopolk was 
 forced to disavow David, and swear to join the avengers of 
 Vasilko. 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 Vititchevo in the year eleven 
 hundred, on the left bank of the Dnieper, a town of which a
 
 106 HISTOKY OF KUSSIA. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 deserted ruin is all that now remains. As a punishment 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, Monomakh led the 
 other princes against the Polovtsui, 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 Monomakh ; but the prince showed how deeply he felt the 
 injuries of the Christians, he refused the gold, and cut the 
 brigand chief in pieces. 
 
 When Sviatopolk died, the Kievans unanimously declared 
 they would have no Grand Prince but Vladimir Monomakh. 
 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 Sviato- 
 polk had made the instruments of his fiscal exactions, were 
 pillaged. Monomakh was forced to yield to the prayers of 
 the citizens. During his reign, from eleven hundred and thir- 
 teen until eleven hundred and twenty -five, he obtained great 
 successes against the Polovtsui, the Petchenegi, the Torki, 
 the Tcherkesui, and other nomads. He gave an asylum 
 to the remains of the Khazarui, 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, emi- 
 nently capable of culture, and already civilized by the Greeks, 
 were further advanced in the arts of construction and fortifica- 
 tion than even the Russians themselves. According to one 
 tradition, Monomakh 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 carnelian 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 Monomakh. It is 
 now known that they never belonged to Vladimir, but it was 
 the policy of his descendants, the Tsars of Moscow, to propa-
 
 1054-1169.] DIVISION INTO PRINCIPALITIES. 107 
 
 gate this legend. It was of consequence to them to prove 
 that these tokens of their power were traceable to their 
 Kievan ancestor, and that the Russian Monomakh, grandson 
 of the Greek Monomachus, had been solemnly crowned by the 
 Bishop of Ephesus as sovereign of Russia. 
 
 The Grand Prince made his authority felt in other parts 
 of Russia. A Prince of Minsk, who had the temerity to 
 kindle a civil war, was promptly dethroned, and died in 
 captivity at Kief. The Novgorodians saw many of their 
 boyars kept as hostages, or exiled. The Prince of Vladimir 
 in Volhynia was deposed, and his states given to a son of 
 the Grand Prince. 
 
 Monomakh 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 procure 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 guilty, 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 ceaselessly to get 
 knowledge. Without ever leaving his palace, my father spoke 
 
 five languages, a thing that foreigners admire in us I 
 
 have made altogether twenty-three campaigns without count- 
 ing those of minor importance. I have concluded nineteen 
 treaties of peace with the Polovtsui, taken at least a hun- 
 dred of their princes prisoners, and afterwards restored them 
 
 * To bury riches in the earth is the custom with which the Emperor Maurice 
 reproaches the Slavs of his time, and which is to this day 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 in Russia.
 
 108 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 to liberty ; besides more than two hundred 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. Sometimes in the middle of the thickest 
 forests I caught wild horses myself, and bound 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 danger, I 
 broke my head, I wounded my arms and legs ! But the Lord 
 watched over me ! " 
 
 Vladimir completed the establishment of the Slav -race in 
 Suzdal, and founded a city on the Kliazma that bore his name, 
 and that was destined to play a great part. Such, in the 
 beginning of the twelfth century, when Louis the Sixth was 
 fighting with his barons of the Isle de France, was the ideal 
 of a Grand Prince of Russia. 
 
 WARS BETWEEN THE HEIRS OF VLADIMIR MONOMAKH. 
 FALL OF KIEF. 
 
 Of the sons of Vladimir Monomakh, luri Dolgoruki became 
 the father of the princes of Suzdal and Moscow, and Mstis- 
 laf 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, was called to the throne in eleven hundred 
 and forty-six by the inhabitants of the capital, his uncle, luri 
 Dolgoruki, put forward his rights as the eldest of the family. 
 Kief, which had been already many times taken and retaken 
 in the strife between the descendants of Oleg of Tchernigof 
 and the descendants of Vladimir Monomakh, was fated to be 
 disputed anew between the uncle and the nephew. It was
 
 1054-1169.] DIVISION INTO PRINCIPALITIES. 109 
 
 almost a war between the Old and New Russia, the Russia of 
 the Dnieper and that of the Volga. The princes of Suzdal, 
 who dwelt afar in the forests in the northwest, establishing 
 their rule over the remnants of the Finnish races, were to be- 
 come greater and greater strangers to Kievan 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. 
 
 luri Dolgoruki found an ally against Isiaslaf in one of the 
 Olgovitchi, Sviatoslaf, who thirsted to avenge his brother Igor, 
 dethroned and kept prisoner in Kief by the Grand Prince. 
 The Kievans hesitated to support the sovereign they had 
 chosen ; they hated the Olgovitchi, but in their attachment to 
 the blood of Monomakh they respected his son and his grand- 
 son equally. " We are ready," they said to Isiaslaf, " we and 
 our children, to make war on the sons of Oleg. But luri is 
 your uncle, and can we dare to raise our hands against the son 
 of Monomakh ? " After the war had lasted some time, a deci- 
 sive battle 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 unable to stand a siege. The Grand 
 Prince then abandoned his capital to luri Dolgoruki, 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 sur- 
 prised Kief, and nearly made his uncle prisoner. Under- 
 standing that the national law was against him, he opposed 
 eldest with eldest, and declared himself the partisan of another 
 son of Monomakh, the old Viatcheslaf, Prince of Turof. He 
 was proclaimed Grand Prince of Kief, adopted his nephew 
 Isiaslaf as his heir, and during his reign, from eleven hundred 
 and fifty to eleven hundred and fifty-four, gave splendid fetes 
 to the Russians and Hungarians. luri returned to the charge, 
 and was beaten under the walls of Kief. Each of these princes
 
 110 HISTORY OF KUSSIA. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 had taken barbarians into his pay : luri, the Polovtsui ; Isia- 
 slaf, the Black Caps, that is, the Torki, the Petchenegi, and 
 the Berendians. 
 
 The obstinate Prince of Suzdal 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 the eldest. " I had already a beard when 
 you entered the world," he said. luri proved himself in- 
 tractable, and went into Gallicia to effect a junction with his 
 ally, 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 sneer, 
 " It was such a little cross ! " To prevent this dangerous co- 
 operation, Isiaslaf, without waiting the expected arrival of the 
 Hungarians, began the pursuit of luri, and came up with him 
 on the borders of the Rut, a small tributary of the Dnieper. 
 A bloody battle was fought, where he himself was wounded 
 and thrown from his horse, but the Suzdalians arid their allies 
 the Polovtsui were completely defeated in eleven hundred and 
 fifty-one. Isiaslaf survived this victory only three years. After 
 his death and that of Viatcheslaf, Kief passed from hand to 
 hand. luri finally reached the supreme object of his desires. 
 He made his entry into the capital in eleven hundred and 
 fifty-five, and had the consolation of dying Grand Prince of 
 Kief, at the moment that a league was being formed for his 
 expulsion, in eleven hundred and fifty-seven. " I thank thee, 
 great God," cried one of the confederates on learning the 
 news, " for having spared us, by the sudden death of our 
 enemy, the obligation of shedding his blood ! " 
 
 The confederates entered the 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 Suzdal, Kief ceased to 
 be the capital of Russia. A final disaster was still reserved 
 for it.
 
 1054-1169.] DIVISION INTO PRINCIPALITIES. Ill 
 
 In eleven hundred and sixty-nine Andrei Bogoliubski, son 
 of luri Dolgoruki, and Prince of Suzdal, being disaffected to 
 Mstislaf, Prince of Kief, formed against him a coalition of 
 eleven princes. He confided to his son Mstislaf and his vo'ie- 
 vod Boris an immense army of Rostovians, Vladimirians, and 
 Suzdalians to march against Kief. This time the Russia of 
 the forests triumphed over the Russia of the steppes, and after 
 a three days' siege Kief was taken by assault. " This mother 
 of Russian cities," says 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 Tithe, were given over to pillage. The precious 
 images, the priestly ornaments, the books, and the bells, all 
 were taken away." 
 
 From this time the lot of the capital of Saint Vladimir, 
 pillaged and dishonored by his descendants, ceases to have a 
 general interest for Russia. Like other parts of Slavonia, it 
 has its princes, but the heads of the reigning families of Smo- 
 lensk, Tchernigof, and Galitch assume the once unique title 
 of Grand Prince. The centre of Russia is changed. It is 
 now in the basin of the Volga, at Suzdal. Many causes con- 
 spired to render the disaster of eleven hundred and sixty-nine 
 irremediable. The chronic civil wars of this part of Russia, 
 and the multitudes and growing power of the nomad hordes, 
 rendered the banks of the Dnieper uninhabitable. In twelve 
 hundred and three Kief was again sacked by the Polovtsui, 
 whom the Olgovitchi of Tchernigof had taken into their pay. 
 On this soil, incessantly the prey of war and invasion, it was 
 impossible to found a lasting order of things ; it was impos- 
 sible that a regular system of government should be estab- 
 
 / 
 
 lished, that civilization should develop and maintain itself. 
 Less richly endowed by nature, and less civilized, the Russia
 
 112 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 of the forests was at least more tranquil. 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 West- 
 ern civilization.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 RUSSIA AFTER THE FALL OF KIEF. POWER 
 OF SUZDAL AND GALLICIA. 
 
 1169-1264. 
 
 ANDREI BOGOLIUBSKI OF SUZDAL (1157-1174) AND THE FIRST ATTEMPT 
 AT AUTOCRACY. IURI THE SECOND (1212-1238). WARS WITH 
 NOVGOROD. BATTLE OP LIPETSK (1216). FOUNDATION OP NIJNI- 
 NOVGOROD (1220). ROMAN (1188-1205) AND HIS SON DANIEL 
 (1205-1264) IN GALLICIA. 
 
 ANDREI BOGOLIUBSKI OF SUZDAL AND THE FIRST 
 ATTEMPT AT AUTOCRACY. 
 
 AFTER the fall of the grand principality of Kief Russia 
 ceased to have a centre round which its whole mass 
 could gravitate. Its life seemed to be withdrawn to the 
 extremities ; and, during the fifty-four years which preceded 
 the arrival of the Mongols, all the interest of Russian his- 
 tory is concentrated on the principality of Suzdal, on that of 
 Galitch, and on the two republics of Novgorod and Pskof. 
 
 luri Dolgoruki was the founder of Suzdal, but we have 
 seen him expend all his energy in securing possession of 
 the throne of Kief. His son Andrei Bogoliubski was, on the 
 contrary, a true prince of Suzdal. From him are descended 
 the Tsars of Moscow ; with him there appears in Russian his- 
 tory quite a new type of prince. It is no longer the chival- 
 rous, light-hearted, careless prince, in turn a prey to all kinds 
 of opposing passions, the joyous prince of the happy land of 
 Kief, but an ambitious, restless, politic, and imperious sov- 
 ereign, going straight to his goal without scruple and without 
 
 VOL. I. 8
 
 114 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 pity. Andrei 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 Suzdal, 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 
 luri he had quitted the Dnieper and his palace at Vuishe- 
 gorod, had established himself on the Kliazma, bringing with 
 him a Greek image of the Mother of God, had enlarged and 
 fortified Vladimir, and founded a quarter that he called Bogo- 
 liubovo. 
 
 When after the death of luri the grand principality be- 
 came vacant, he allowed the princes of the south to dispute it 
 among themselves. He wished to mix with their quarrels 
 only so 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 Suzdal. He established one of his nephews as 
 his lieutenant at Novgorod. A glorious campaign against the 
 Bulgarians increased his reputation in Russia. He deserved 
 more than any one to be Grand Prince of Kief, but we have 
 seen that he preferred to pillage it, that he preferred a sacri- 
 legious spoil to the throne of Monomakh. 
 
 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 Nov- 
 gorod liberty ; it was the same army, and it was the same 
 prince, Mstislaf Andreievitch, who commanded it. But the 
 Kievans, accustomed to change their masters, to sacrifice the 
 vanquished to the victors, fought only for the honor of their 
 princes, while the Novgorodians were to shed their blood for 
 the defence of the laws and institutions established by their 
 ancestors." Mstislaf, who had forced the princes of Smolensk,
 
 1169-1264.] AFTER THE FALL OF KIEF. 115 
 
 Riazan, Murom, and Polotsk, to join him, laid waste the terri- 
 tories of the republic with fire and sword, but succeeded only 
 in exasperating the courageous citizens. When fighting began 
 under the walls of the town, the Novgorodians, to inflame them- 
 selves for the combat, reminded each other of the pillage and 
 the sacrilege with which their adversaries had polluted the 
 holy city of Kief. All swore to die for Saint Sophia of Nov- 
 gorod ; 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 Suzdalian 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 complete ; they slew a multitude of 
 their enemies, and made so many prisoners that Suzdalian 
 slaves became a drug upon the market." Their dependence 
 on Suzdal for corn forced them to make peace in eleven hun- 
 dred and seventy. They abandoned none of the ancient 
 rights of the republic, but of " their own free will," according 
 to the consecrated expression, they accepted as sovereign the 
 prince nominated for them by Andrei of Suzdal. 
 
 Andrei about this time lost his only son, his heir, Mstislaf. 
 The knowledge that in future he would be working for his 
 collateral relatives no whit diminished his ambition or his ar- 
 rogance. The princes of Smolensk, David, Rurik, and Mstis- 
 laf the Brave, could not endure his despotic ways, and, in 
 spite of his threats, took Kief. The Olgovitchi of Tchernigof, 
 delighted to see discord kindled between the descendants of 
 Monomakh, incited Andrei to revenge this injury. So he sent 
 a herald to the princes of Smolensk, to say to them : " You 
 are rebels ; the principality 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 guiltiest of you all." 
 
 Mstislaf the Brave, say the chroniclers, " feared none but
 
 116 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 God." When he received Andrei's message, he shaved the 
 beard and hair of the messenger, and answered him : " Go, 
 and repeat these words unto your prince : ' Up to this time 
 we have respected you like a father, but since you do not 
 blush to treat us 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 Vuishegorod, besieged by more than twenty princes, 
 allies or vassals of Andrei of Suzdal. Mstislaf succeeded in 
 dividing the assailants, and completed their defeat by a victo- 
 rious sortie in eleven hundred and seventy -three. 
 
 When Andrei came to establish himself in the land of Suz- 
 dal, 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 Suzdal, the two most ancient cities of the prin- 
 cipality, which had their assembly of citizens, their vetche. 
 From the beginning he had conceived the project of raising 
 above them a new town, Vladimir on the Kliazma, consid- 
 ered by Rostof and Suzdal merely a subject borough. To 
 give a plausible pretext to this resolution he had his tent 
 pitched on the road to Suzdal 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 Saint Luke. The next day he announced that the 
 Mother of God had 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 monas- 
 tery to the Virgin on the spot where she made herself manifest ; 
 this was the origin of the village of Bogoliubovo. Andrei pre- 
 ferred Vladimir to the old cities, but it was in his house at 
 Bogoliubovo that he best liked to live. He tried to make of 
 Vladimir a new Kief, as Kief herself was a new Byzantium. 
 There were at Vladimir a Golden Gate, a Church of the Tithe
 
 1169-1264.] AFTER THE FALL OF KIEF. 117 
 
 consecrated to the Virgin, and numerous monasteries built by 
 the artists summoned by Andrei from the West. 
 
 Andrei sought the friendship of the priests, whom he felt to 
 be one of the great forces of the future. He posed as a pious 
 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 Andrei triumphed over 
 the Bulgarians, thanks to the image of the Virgin, the Em- 
 peror Manuel had won a victory over the Saracens by means 
 of the true cross and the image of Christ represented on his 
 standard. One anniversary served for both victories of ortho- 
 doxy, and Vladimir was in harmony with Byzantium. Andrei 
 was anxious to make Vladimir a metropolitan city. At the 
 same time that he robbed Kief of the grand principality, he 
 would have deprived it of the religious supremacy of Russia, 
 and given his new city the spiritual as well as the temporal 
 power. This time the patriarch refused, but the attempt was 
 one day to be renewed by the princes of Moscow. 
 
 What more particularly proves this prince who had risen 
 from the conception of appanages to that of the indivisible 
 modern state to have been superior to his century, to have 
 had sure instincts as to the future, is that he declined to share 
 his dominions with his brothers and nephews. In spite of 
 luri's testamentary directions, he expelled his three brothers 
 from Suzdal, and they retired with their mother, a Greek 
 princess, to the court of the Emperor Manuel. It appears 
 that this measure was advised by the men of Suzdal. 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 Variag 
 tradition of the drujina; he treated his men, his boyars, not 
 as companions, but as subjects. Those who refused to bow 
 to his will had to leave the country. We may say that Andrei
 
 118 HISTOKY OF EUSSIA. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 Bogoliubski created autocracy three hundred years before its 
 time. He indicated in the twelfth century all that the Grand 
 Princes of Moscow had to do in the fifteenth and sixteenth 
 centuries, to attain absolute power. His mistrust of munici- 
 pal liberty, his despotic treatment of the boyars, 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 metrop- 
 olis of all the Russias, are the indications of a political pro- 
 gramme that ten generations of princes did not suffice to carry 
 out. The moment was not yet come ; Andrei had not enough 
 power, nor Suzdal resources sufficient to subjugate the rest of 
 Russia. Andrei succeeded against Kief, but he endured a 
 double check from Novgorod the Great, and from Mstislaf 
 the Brave, and the princes of the south. His despotism made 
 him terrible enemies. His boyars, whom he tried to reduce 
 to obedience, assassinated him in his favorite residence of 
 Bogoliubovo in eleven hundred and seventy-four. 
 
 IURI THE SECOND. WARS WITH NOVGOROD. BATTLE OF 
 LIPETSK. NIJNI-NOVGOROD FOUNDED. 
 
 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 Andrei. 
 His succession was disputed between his nephews and his 
 two brothers, Mikhail and Vsevolod, who had returned from 
 Greece. The nephews were supported by the old cities of 
 Rostof and Suzdal, which were animated by a violent hatred 
 of the upstart city of Vladimir, that had torn from them the 
 title of capital, and had taken up the cause of Mikhail and 
 Vsevolod. "The Vladimirians," said the Rostovians, "are
 
 1169-1264.] AFTER THE FALL OF KIEF. 119 
 
 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 Mikhail, the elder of 
 Andrei's brothers, to be recognized Grand Prince of Suzdal. 
 At his death the Rostovians refused to recognize the other 
 brother, Vsevolod, surnamed the Big-Nest on account of his 
 numerous posterity. They resisted all proposals of compro- 
 mise, 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 boyars of Rostof 
 in chains. The two ancient cities were forced to submit; 
 Vladimir remained the capital of Suzdal. Vsevolod, in his 
 reign from eleven hundred and seventy-six to twelve hundred 
 and twelve, managed to secure himself on the throne by de- 
 feating the princes of Riazan and Tchernigof. He extended 
 his influence to the distant Galitch, and contracted matrimo- 
 nial 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 luri Dolgoruki, the great- 
 grandson of Monomakh, to govern us." The princes of Ria- 
 zan having incurred his displeasure, he united their states to 
 his principality. Riazan rebelled, and was reduced to ashes, 
 and the inhabitants transported to the solitudes of Suzdal. 
 This prince, who has likewise been called " the Great," exhib- 
 ited in his designs the prudence, the spirit of intrigue, con- 
 stancy, and firmness which characterized the princes of the 
 Russia of the forests. At his death, in twelve hundred and 
 twelve, the troubles began again. Dissatisfied with his eldest 
 son, Konstantin, Prince of Novgorod, Vsevolod had given the 
 grand principality of Novgorod to his second son, luri the 
 Second. Konstantin had to content himself with Rostof; a 
 third brother, laroslaf, Prince of Pereiaslavl-Zalieski, had been 
 sent to Novgorod.
 
 120 HISTORY OP RUSSIA. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 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 pas- 
 sage of the merchants and boyars. Their communications 
 with the Volga were intercepted ; he prevented 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 inhab- 
 itants, which the dogs devoured. laroslaf was implacable. 
 He persisted in remaining at Torjok, refused to return to 
 Novgorod, and arrested all envoys sent to him. He treated 
 Novgorod as his father had treated Rostof and Suzdal. But 
 help arrived to the despairing citizens in the person of a 
 Prince of Smolensk, Mstislaf the Bold, son of Mstislaf the 
 Brave. " Torjok shall not hold herself higher than Novgo- 
 rod," 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 Vladi- 
 mir supported his brothers, he sought an ally in Konstantin 
 of Rostof, who was discontented with his inheritance. The 
 Novgorodian quarrel speedily expanded into a general war, 
 and Mstislaf contrived to make Suzdal the scene of strife. 
 Before a battle he tried to effect a reconciliation between the 
 two princes of Vladimir and Rostof. But luri answered, "If 
 my father was not able to reconcile me with Konstantin, has 
 Mstislaf the right to judge between us ? Let Konstantin be 
 victorious, and all will be his." This strife between the three 
 sons of Big-Nest had all the usual fierceness of fraternal war- 
 fare. Before the battle luri 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 partition of 
 Russia. But the troops of Novgorod, Pskof, and Smolensk 
 attacked them with such fury that those of Suzdal and Murom 
 gave way, and it was the soldiers of Mstislaf who in their
 
 1169-1264.] AFTER THE FALL OF KIEF. 121 
 
 turn gave no quarter. Nine thousand men were killed, and 
 only sixty prisoners taken. luri threw off his royal clothes, 
 wore out the strength of three horses, and with the fourth 
 just managed to reach Vladimir. This was the battle of 
 Lipetsk, near Pereiaslavl-Zalieski in twelve hundred and six- 
 teen. Konstantin then became Grand Prince of Vladimir, 
 and ceded Suzdal to his brother luri. laroslaf was obliged 
 to renounce Novgorod and release the captive citizens. 
 
 At Konstantin's death, in twelve hundred and seventeen, 
 luri regained the throne of Vladimir. Under him the expe- 
 ditions against the Bulgarians of the Volga and the Mordva 
 were continued. These expeditions were organized both by 
 land and water; the infantry descended the Oka and the 
 Volga in boats, the cavalry marched along the banks. They 
 attacked and burnt the wooden forts of the Bulgarui, and 
 destroyed the population. 
 
 During a campaign, conducted by luri 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 Mordvan tribes, he founded Nijni-Novgorod in twelve 
 hundred and twenty. A Mordvan tradition gives its own 
 account of this important event : " The prince of the Russians 
 sailed down the Volga ; on the mountain he perceived the 
 Mordva in a long white coat, adoring her god ; and he said 
 to his warriors, ' 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 Mordva 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 arrival 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 brought 
 the Russian prince only earth and water. The prince was
 
 122 HISTOEY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 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 Mordvan land became 
 subject to the Russians." 
 
 ROMAN AND HIS SON DANIEL IN GALITCH. 
 
 Galitch offers a remarkable contrast to Suzdal ; peopled by 
 Khorvats, or White Kroats, it had preserved a purely Sla- 
 vonic character, in spite of its conquest by Variag 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 
 country, the boyars. Under the influence of Polish and Hun- 
 garian ideas the boyars had raised themselves above the mass 
 of the people, and formed a strong aristocracy, which really 
 ruled the country. When laroslaf Osmomuisl, a hero glori- 
 fied 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 incur- 
 ring their hatred. He was accused of abandoning himself to 
 vice and drunkenness, of despising the councils of wise men, 
 of dishonoring 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 Hun- 
 gary with his family and his treasures. This was all the 
 boyars desired, and they offered the throne to Roman, Prince 
 of Volhynia, in eleven hundred and eighty-eight. But Bela,
 
 1169-1264.] AFTER THE FALL OF KIEF. 123 
 
 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 
 minerals, for himself. He threw his protege, Vladimir, into 
 prison, and proclaimed his own son Andrei. 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 Frederick 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 Kasimir the Just, he recon- 
 quered Galitch. The turbulent boyars had at last found 
 their master. 
 
 This time Roman held the crown, not by election, but by 
 conquest. He resolved to subdue the proud aristocracy. The 
 Polish bishop, Kadlubek, a contemporary writer, who sym- 
 pathized 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 tortures. He had promised pardon to those who 
 had fled ; but when they returned, he accused them of con- 
 spiracy, 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 Russian chroniclers, on the 
 contrary, praise him highly. He was another Monomakh, 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 wild-cat, deadly as a crocodile, 
 swooped on his prey like an eagle." More than once he van- 
 quished the Lithuanian tribes and the Polovtsui ; in the civil 
 wars of Russia he was likewise victorious, and gave to one of 
 his relations the throne of Kief. He attracted the attention 
 of the great Pope, Innocent the Third, who sent missionaries
 
 124 HISTOKY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 to 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 twelve hundred and five, 
 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 "Chronicle of Volhynia" gives 
 him the surname of " the Great," and " the Autocrat of all the 
 Russias." A historian of Lithuania relates that, after his vic- 
 tories over the barbarous inhabitants of that country, he har- 
 nessed the prisoners to the plough. Hence the popular saying, 
 " Thou art terrible, Roman ; the Lithuanians are thy laboring 
 oxen." Roman of Volhynia is a worthy contemporary of the 
 autocrat of the northwest, Andrei of Suzdal. 
 
 Roman left two sons, minors. Daniel, the elder, was pro- 
 claimed Prince of Galitch in twelve hundred and five, 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, com- 
 plicated by the intervention of Poles and Hungarians. The 
 ferocity shown by the Gallicians in their intestine struggles 
 has gained for them the name of atheists in the Kievan Chron- 
 icles. The princes of the blood of Saint Vladimir were tor- 
 tured and hung by the boyars. Daniel was first replaced on 
 the throne, then expelled, then again recalled. His infancy 
 was the toy of intriguing factions. Mstislaf the Bold also 
 came hither in search of adventures. He chased the Hunga- 
 rians from Galitch, took the title of Prince, 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 remarkable energy 
 and courage in these campaigns. The aid of the Polovtsui 
 had to be sought against these enemies from the west, the
 
 1169-1264.] AFTER THE FALL .OF KIEF. 125 
 
 Hungarians and the Poles, now rivals, now allies. At the 
 death of Mstislaf the Bold in twelve hundred and twenty- 
 eight, Daniel, who five years previously had taken part in the 
 battle of Kalka against the Tatars, became Prince of Galitch. 
 Towards the boyars, whose turbulence had ruined the country, 
 he acted with the salutary policy of Roman, though without 
 employing the same severity. 
 
 The great 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 made by the Mongols in the population, he 
 invited Germans, Armenians, and Jews, whom he loaded with 
 privileges. The economic consequence of this measure was 
 a rapid development of commerce and industry ; the ethno- 
 graphic consequence was the introduction into Gallicia of a 
 Jewish element, very tenacious and very persistent, but alien 
 to the dominant nationality, and forming a separate people in 
 the midst of the Russians. Daniel was one of the last princes 
 to make his submission to the horde. " You have done well 
 to come at last," said the khan of the Mongols. Batui treated 
 him with distinction, allowed him to escape the ordinary hu- 
 miliations, and, seeing that the fermented milk of the Tatars 
 was not to his taste, gave him a cup of wine. Daniel, how- 
 ever, bore with impatience the yoke of these barbarians. 
 
 Feeling himself isolated 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 the Fourth called him his dear 
 son, accorded him the title of King, and sent him a crown and 
 sceptre. Daniel was solemnly crowned at Droguitchin by 
 the Abbot of Messina, Legate of the Pope, in twelve hundred 
 and fifty-four. Both the crusade against the Asiatics and the 
 reconciliation between the two churches came to nothing. 
 Daniel braved the reproaches and threats of Alexander the
 
 126 HISTORY OF EUSSIA. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 Fourth, but kept the title of King. He took part in the Euro- 
 pean 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 
 saddle enriched with jewels and precious metals richly chased." 
 Encouraged by the Hungarians and the Poles, he tried to 
 shake 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 twelve 
 hundred and sixty-four 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 different princes of his family. 
 In the fourteenth century it was absorbed into the kingdom 
 of Poland and was lost to Russia.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE RUSSIAN REPUBLICS : NOVGOROD, PSKOF, 
 AND VIATKA 
 
 Until 1224. 
 
 NOVGOROD THE GREAT. STRUGGLES WITH THE PRINCES. NOVGORO- 
 DIAN INSTITUTIONS. COMMERCE. THE NATIONAL CHURCH. LIT- 
 ERATURE. PSKOF AND VIATKA. 
 
 NOVGOROD THE GREAT. STRUGGLES WITH THE PRINCES. 
 
 NOVGOROD has been, from the most remote antiquity, 
 the political centre of the Russia of the northwest. The 
 origin of the Slavs of the Ilmen, who laid the foundations of 
 it, is still uncertain. Some learned Russians, such as M. Kos- 
 tomarof, 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 Variagi 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 kreml was 
 situated, enclosing both the palaces of the archbishop and the 
 prince; and where the famous Russian monument was con- 
 secrated in eighteen hundred and sixty-two. On the left bank
 
 128 HISTORY OF EUSSIA. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 is the side of commerce, with its Court of laroslaf ; the bridge 
 which joins the two halves of the city is celebrated in the 
 annals of Novgorod. The side of Saint Sophia includes the 
 Nerevsky or Nerevian quarter, as well as those of Zagorodni, 
 or the suburbs, and of the potters. The side of commerce 
 comprised the quarters of the carpenters and Slavs. Ancient 
 documents also speak of a Prussian or 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 fourteen 
 hundred and thirteen, has left us this description of it : " Nov- 
 gorod is a prodigiously large town, 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 
 kreml forms its acropolis. The cathedral has preserved its 
 frescos of the twelfth century ; the pillars painted with images 
 of saints on a golden ground ; the imposing figure of Christ oil 
 the cupola ; the banner of the Virgin, which was to revive the 
 courage of the besieged, on the ramparts ; the tombs of Saint 
 Vladimir 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 
 illustrious people. Without counting the tributary cities of 
 Novgorod, such as Pskof, Ladoga, Izborsk, Veliki-Luki, Sta- 
 raia-Rusa, or Old Russia, Torjok, Biejitchi, its primitive terri- 
 tory was divided into five counties, which included the land 
 to the south of the lakes Ladoga and Onega. Ijs conquests 
 formed five bailiwicks or cantons, occupying the whole of 
 Northern Russia, and extending as far as Siberia. These bai- 
 liwicks were the Zavolotche", or the land lying beyond the 
 canton, between the Onega and the Mezen ; Russian Lapland ; 
 Permia, on the Upper Kama; Petchora, on the river of the
 
 UNTIL 1224.] THE KUSSIAN REPUBLICS. 129 
 
 same name ; and lugria, on the other side of the Ural Moun- 
 tains. To these we must add Ingria, Karelia, and part of 
 Livonia and Esthonia. 
 
 Novgorod, which had summoned the Variag princes, was 
 too powerful, with one hundred thousand inhabitants and 
 three hundred thousand subjects, to allow itself to be tyran- 
 nized over. An ancient tradition speaks vaguely of a revolt 
 against Rurik the Old under the hero Vadim. Sviatoslaf, the 
 conqueror of the Bulgaria of the Danube, undertook to govern 
 it by mere agents, but Novgorod insisted on having one of his 
 sons for its 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 reward for their devotion, 
 accorded them immense privileges, of which no record can be 
 found, but which are constantly invoked 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 itself 
 " My Lord Novgorod the Great." " Who can equal God and 
 the great Novgorod ? " was a popular saying. From the dis- 
 tance of the city from the Russia of the Dnieper, and its posi- 
 tion towards the Baltic and Western Europe, it took little 
 part in the civil wars of which Kief was the object and the 
 centre. The Novgorodians profited by this in a certain sense ; 
 for, in the midst of the strifes of princes and of frequent 
 changes in the grand principality, no sovereign was strong 
 enough to give them a master. They could choose between 
 princes of the rival families. It could impose conditions on 
 him whom they chose to reign over them. If discontented 
 with his management, they expelled the prince and his band 
 of antrustions. According to the accustomed formula, " they 
 made a reverence, and showed him the way " to leave Novgo- 
 rod. Sometimes, to hinder his evil designs, they kept him 
 
 . VOL. I. 9
 
 130 HISTOEY OF KUSSIA. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 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 general pillage of the partisans of the 
 fallen prince, and they were even drowned in the Volkhof. 
 A Grand Prince of Kief, Sviatopolk, wished to force his son 
 on them. " Send him here," said the Novgorodians, " if he 
 has a spare head." The princes themselves contributed to 
 the frequent changes of reign. They felt themselves only 
 half-rulers in Novgorod, so they accepted any other appanage 
 with joy. Thus, in eleven hundred and thirty-two, Vsevolod 
 Gabriel abandoned Novgorod to reign at Pereiaslavl. When 
 his hopes of Kief were crushed, and he wished to return to 
 Novgorod, the citizens rejected him. " You forgot your oath 
 to die with us, you have sought another principality ; go 
 where you will." Presently they thought better of it, and 
 took him back. Four years afterwards he was again obliged 
 to fly. 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 estab- 
 lish himself at Pereiaslavl ; at the battle of Mount Idanof, 
 against the men of Suzdal, he and his drujina 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 
 drujina, 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 de- 
 throned, and popular vengeance exercised on his adherents. 
 Novgorod being above all a great commercial city, its divis- 
 ions were frequently caused by diverging economic interests. 
 Among the citizens, some were occupied in trade with the 
 Volga and the East, others with the Dnieper and Greece.
 
 UNTIL 1224.] THE RUSSIAN REPUBLICS. 131 
 
 The former naturally sought the alliance of the princes of 
 Suzdal, 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 would try to regain 
 his throne by the arms of his family, or to install himself and 
 his drujina either at Pskof, like Vsevolod-Gabriel, who became 
 prince of that town, or at Torjok, like laroslaf of Suzdal, and 
 thence he would blockade and starve the great city. The 
 Prince of Suzdal was soon the most formidable neighbor of 
 Novgorod. We have seen that Andrei Bogoliubski 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 in twelve hundred and sixteen. He was the son 
 of Mstislaf the Brave, who had defended them against Vse- 
 volod Big-Nest, and against Suzdal and the Tchudi. 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 die also at Novgorod. He reduced the principality 
 to order, and then assembled the citizens in the Court of 
 laroslaf, and said to them, " I salute Saint Sophia, the tomb 
 of my father, and you, Novgorodians. I am going to recon- 
 quer Galitch from the strangers, but I shall never forget you. 
 I hope I may lie by the tomb of my father, in Saint Sophia." 
 The Novgorodians in vain entreated him to stay. This was 
 in twelve hundred and eighteen. We have seen him use his 
 last armies in the troubles of the southeast, 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 posad- 
 nik, Tverdislaf, caused one of the boyars of Novgorod to be 
 arrested. This was the signal for a general rising ; some 
 took the part of the boyar, others that of the posadnik. Dur-
 
 132 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 ing eight days the bell of the kreml 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 skir- 
 mish, and then peace was re-established. The prince, who 
 accused Tverdislaf of being the cause of the trouble, demanded 
 that he should be deposed. The vetche inquired what crime 
 he had committed,. " None," replied the prince, " but it is 
 my will." " I am satisfied," exclaimed the posadnik, " as 
 they do not accuse me of any fault ; as to you, my brothers, 
 you can dispose alike of posadniki and princes." The assem- 
 bly then gave their decision. " Prince, as you do not accuse 
 the posadnik of any fault, remember that you have sworn 
 to depose no magistrate without trial. He will remain our 
 posadnik, we will not deliver him to you." On this Svia- 
 toslaf quitted Novgorod, in twelve hundred and nineteen. He 
 was replaced by Vsevolod, one of his brothers, who was ex- 
 pelled two years later. 
 
 The Suzdalian party having made some progress, they 
 recalled the same laroslaf who was beaten at Lipetsk, but the 
 princes of Suzdal 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 Suzdal now interposed, levied 
 a contribution on Novgorod, and a prince of Tchernigof was 
 imposed on them, who hastened in twelve hundred and 
 twenty-five to return to the south of Russia. In seven years 
 the Novgorodians had five times changed their rulers. laro- 
 slaf himself came back for a third and even a fourth time. 
 A famine so much reduced the Novgorodians that forty-two 
 thousand 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 sub-
 
 UNTIL 1224.] THE RUSSIAN REPUBLICS. 133 
 
 dued their turbulence. laroslaf succeeded in governing them 
 despotically till he was called to fill the throne of the Grand 
 Prince in twelve hundred and thirty-six. He left them, as 
 their prince, his son, Alexander Nevski. 
 
 NOVGORODIAN INSTITUTIONS. COMMERCE. THE NA- 
 TIONAL CHURCH. LITERATURE. 
 
 From the fact that no dynasty of princes could establish 
 itself at Novgorod, that no princely band could take a place 
 among the native aristocracy, it follows that the republic kept 
 its ancient liberties and customs intact, under the short reigns 
 of its rulers. In all Russian cities, it is true, the country ex- 
 isted side by side with the prince and boyars, the assembly of 
 citizens side by side with the prince's men, and the native mili- 
 tia side by side with the foreign drujina ; but at Novgorod the 
 country, the vetche, and the municipal militia had retained more 
 vigor than elsewhere. The town was more powerful than the 
 prince, who reigned by virtue of a constitution, traces of which 
 may be observed, no doubt, in other regions of Russia, but 
 which is found in its original form at Novgorod alone. Each 
 new monarch was compelled to take an oath, by which he 
 bound 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 judicial and political functions. He levied tribute 
 on certain cantons, and was entitled to the commutation for 
 crimes as well as to certain fines. In some bailiwicks he 
 had his lieutenant, and Novgorod had its own. He could not 
 execute justice without help of the posadnik, nor reverse any 
 judgment; nor, above all, take the suit beyond Novgorod. 
 This was what the Novgorodians feared most, and with reason, 
 day when the people of Novgorod bethought themselves
 
 134 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 of appealing to the tribunal of the Grand Prince of Moscow 
 was fatal to the independence of the republic. In the con- 
 flicts between the men of the prince and those of the city, a 
 mixed court delivered judgment. The prince, no more than 
 his men, could acquire villages in the territory of Novgorod, 
 nor create colonies. He was forbidden to hunt in the woods 
 of Staraia Rusa 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 vetche had more extensive powers, 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 criminals. According to the old Slav custom, 
 preserved 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 liberum veto. The majority had the 
 resource of drowning the minority in the Volkhof. The prince 
 as well as the posadnik, the boyars 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 its confederations, its " diets under the shield," Novgorod 
 occasionally saw on the banks of the Volkhof two rival and 
 hostile assemblies, which often came to blows on the bridge. 
 Before being submitted 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, first, the posad- 
 nik, called by contemporary German writers the burgomaster, 
 who was changed nearly as often as the prince. The posad- 
 nik was chosen from some of the influential families, one of 
 which alone gave a dozen posadniki to Novgorod. The first
 
 TYPES OF NOVGOROD.
 
 UNTIL 1224.] THE KUSSIAN REPUBLICS. 135 
 
 magistrate was charged to defend civic privileges, and shared 
 with the prince the judicial power and the right of distribut- 
 ing the taxes. He governed the city, commanded its army, 
 directed its diplomacy, sealed the acts with its seal. The sec- 
 ond officer was the tidsatski, who was a military chief, a colonel 
 who had the captains of the town militia under his orders. 
 He had a special tribunal, and seems to have been specially 
 intrusted with the defence of the rights of the people, thus 
 recalling the Roman tribunes. And besides the captains there 
 was a starosta, a sort of district mayor, for each quarter of the 
 town. 
 
 The chief document of the Novgorodian law is the Letter of 
 Justice, of which the definite publication may be placed at 
 fourteen hundred and seventy-one. It contains the same prin- 
 ciples as the Code 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 in- 
 jury inflicted, the oath admitted as evidence, the judgment 
 of God, the judicial duel, which was still resorted to by Nov- 
 gorod even after its decadence, in the sixteenth 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 property 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 different classes of society. 
 An aristocracy of boyars had ultimately formed itself, whose 
 internal quarrels agitated the town. Below the boyars came 
 the dieti boyarskiv, a kind of inferior nobility ; then the dif- 
 ferent classes of citizens, the merchantmen, the black people, 
 and the peasants. The merchants formed an association 
 of their own, a sort of guild, round the Church of Saint
 
 136 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 John. Military societies also existed, bands of independent 
 adventurers or followers of some boyar who, impelled by hun- 
 ger or a restless spirit, sought adventures afar on the great 
 rivers of Northern Russia, pillaging alike friends and enemies, 
 or establishing military colonies in the midst of Tchud 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 ; it became therefore a commercial and colonizing city. 
 In the tenth century Konstantin relates how the Slavs left 
 Nemogard, or Novgorod, descended the Dnieper by Milinisca, 
 or Smolensk, Teliutza, or Lubetch, Tchernigof, Vuishegorod, 
 Kief, and Vititchevo ; 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 barrows of the Ilmen show that the Novgorodians had an 
 early and extensive commerce with the East. "VVe see them 
 exchange iron and weapons for the precious metals found by 
 the lugrians in the mines of the Urals. 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 twelfth 
 century there was a Gothic market and a Variag Church 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 Ger- 
 man market, which finally absorbed the Gothic one. When 
 the Hanse League became the mistress of the North, we find 
 the Germans established not only at Novgorod, but at Pskof 
 and Ladoga, at all the outlets of the network of Novgorodian 
 lakes. There they obtained considerable privileges, even the 
 right to acquire pasture-land. They were masters, and at home 
 in their fortified markets, in their stockade of thick planks,
 
 UNTIL 1224.] THE RUSSIAN REPUBLICS. 137 
 
 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 au- 
 thorized a wholesale commerce only, and, to maintain its goods 
 at a high price, it forbade imports beyond a certain amount. 
 " In a word," says a German writer, Riesenkampf, in " Der 
 Deutsche Hof," " during three centuries the Hanse League 
 held a monopoly of all the external commerce of Northern 
 Russia. If we inquire what profit or loss it brought this 
 country, we must recognize that, thanks to it, Novgorod and 
 Pskof were deprived of a free commerce with the West. 
 Russia, in order to satisfy the first wants of civilization, fell 
 into a state of complete independence. It was abandoned 
 to the good pleasure and pitiless egotism of the German mer- 
 chants." 
 
 The ecclesiastical constitution of Novgorod presents a spe- 
 cial character. In the rest of Russia the clergy was Russian- 
 orthodox. At Novgorod it was Novgorodian before every- 
 thing. It was only in the twelfth century that the Slavs of 
 Ilmen, who had been the last to be converted, could have an 
 archbishop that was neither Greek nor Kievan, but of their 
 own race. From that time the archbishop was elected by the 
 citizens, by the vetche. Without waiting to be invested by the 
 metropolitan bishop 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, "posadnik Daniel and tuisatski Abra- 
 ham 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 reve- 
 nues of the archbishop, the treasures of Saint Sophia, were at 
 the service of the republic. In the fourteenth century we find
 
 138 HISTOEY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 an archbishop building at his own expense a kreml of stone. 
 In the fifteenth century the riches of the cathedral were em- 
 ployed 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 laity in the spiritual. In the fourteenth century 
 the vetche put to death the heretical strigolniki, proscribed 
 ancient superstitions, and burnt the sorcerers. As the citi- 
 zens of Novgorod nominated their archbishop, they could 
 also depose him. The orthodox religion extended with the 
 Novgorod colonization among the Finnish tribes. In oppo- 
 sition to the Finns, the interests of the Church and the 
 republic were identical. It was religion that contributed to 
 the splendor of the city, and that specially profited by its 
 wealth. Novgorod was full of churches and monasteries, 
 founded by the piety of private individuals. Novgorod, which 
 had shaken off the political supremacy of Kief, wished also to 
 free itself from its religious domination, and no longer to be 
 obliged to seek on the Dnieper the investiture of its arch- 
 bishop, but to make him an independent metropolitan. It 
 failed. When Moscow became of importance, she threatened 
 not only the political, but the religious supremacy of Novgo- 
 rod. Religion was, in the hands of the Muscovite princes, an 
 instrument of government. The Novgorodian prelate always 
 made common cause with his fellow-citizens, and endured with 
 them their master's bursts of anger. 
 
 The literature of Novgorod was as national as the Church 
 herself. The pious chronicles of the Novgorodian convents 
 shared all the quarrels and all the passions of their fellow- 
 citizens. " Even their style," says M. Bestujef, " reflects viv- 
 idly the active, business-like character of the Novgorodians. 
 It is short, and sparing of words ; but their narratives em- 
 brace more completely than those of other Russian countries 
 all the phases of actual life. They are the historians, not 
 merely of the princes and boyars, but of the whole city. The
 
 UNTIL 1224.] THE RUSSIAN REPUBLICS. 139 
 
 lives of the saints are the lives of Novgorodian saints ; the 
 miracles they relate are to the glory of the city. They tell 
 you, for example, that Christ appeared to the artist charged 
 with the paintings under the dome of Saint Sophia, and said 
 to him : ' Do not represent me with my hand extended for 
 blessing, but with my hand closed, because in it I hold Nov- 
 gorod, and when it is opened it will be the end of the city.' " 
 The tale of the panic excited among the soldiers of Andrei 
 Bogoliubski by the image of the Virgin wounded by a Suz- 
 dalian arrow was spread abroad. Novgorod has its own 
 cycle of epic songs. Its heroes are not those of the Kievan 
 poems. There is Vasili Buslaevitch, the bold boyar, who 
 with his faithful drujina stood up to his knees in blood on 
 the bridge of the Volkhof, holding in check all the muzhiki 
 of Novgorod, whom he had defied to combat. Vasili Buslae- 
 vitch is the true type of these proud adventurers, who knew 
 neither friend nor enemy, a true Novgorodian oligarch, a 
 hero of civil war. Still more popular was Sadko, the rich 
 merchant, a kind of Novgorodian Sindbad or Ulysses, a 
 worthy representative of a people of merchants and adven- 
 turers, who sought his fortunes on the waves. A tempest 
 rose, and men drew lots to decide who should be sacrificed to 
 the wrath of the gods. Sadko threw a little wooden ring 
 into the water, the others flung in iron rings : O prodigy ! 
 the others swam, his sank. He obeyed his destiny, and 
 threw himself into the waves, but he was received in the 
 palace of the king of the sea, who tested him in various 
 ways and wished him to marry his daughter. Then suddenly 
 Sadko found himself on the shore with great treasures, but 
 what were these compared to the treasures of the city ? " They 
 see that I am a rich merchant of Novgorod, but Novgorod 
 is still richer than I."
 
 140 HISTORY OF EUSSIA. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 PSKOF AND VIATKA. 
 
 Of all the towns subject to Novgorod, Pskof was the most 
 important. On the point formed by the junction of the 
 Pskova and the VelikaTa rises its kreml, with its crumbling 
 ramparts, its ruined gates and towers. These once famous 
 walls are to-day a mass of ruins, and the street-boys amuse 
 themselves by throwing stones in the Pskova to frighten the 
 laundresses. Pskof is only a poor little place with ten thou- 
 sand souls. Scarce anything remains of its past splendor 
 save the Cathedral of the Trinity at one end of the kreml. 
 There rest in metal coffins the bones of the best-loved princes, 
 Vsevolod-Gabriel and Dovmont, a converted Lithuanian who 
 came in the thirteenth century to defend the republic against 
 his own compatriots. This old town has still many churches 
 and monasteries ; the distant view of it is beautiful, and on 
 fete-days the dead city seems to awake at the chimes of its 
 innumerable bells, which ring as merrily as in the days of 
 its glorious past. 
 
 Nestor makes Pskof the native land of Saint Olga. Its whole 
 history is summed up in these two facts : first, the struggle 
 against the Tchudi, and, later, against the Germans of Livo- 
 nia ; second, its efforts to become free from Novgorod. The 
 independence of the city was ultimately secured by its wealth 
 and commerce. The first prince who ruled it as a separate 
 state, Vsevolod-Gabriel, was expelled by his subjects, and 
 therefore was welcomed with the greater eagerness by the 
 Pskovians. When the Suzdalian party ruled at Novgorod, it 
 was generally the contrary party that triumphed in Pskof. 
 About twelve hundred and fourteen the little republic con- 
 tracted an offensive and defensive alliance with the Germans ; 
 Pskof undertook to help them against the Lithuanians, and 
 they were to support Pskof against Novgorod. This was 
 playing rather a dangerous game. In twelve hundred and 
 forty, one Tverdillo delivered the city up to the Livonians,
 
 UNTIL 1224.] THE RUSSIAN REPUBLICS. 141 
 
 and it was not set free till twelve hundred and forty-two. 
 From this moment Pskof ceased to mix in the civil wars of 
 Novgorod. It had enough to do with its own affairs and its 
 struggle against the Germans, Swedes, and Lithuanians. It 
 also claimed the title " My Lord Pskof the Great " ; but it 
 was only in thirteen hundred and forty-eight that the Nov- 
 gorodians, needing its help against Magnus, King of Sweden, 
 formally recognized its independence, by the treaty of Bolstof, 
 and concluded a bond of fraternal friendship. Novgorod be- 
 came the elder brother, and Pskof the younger. The organ- 
 ization of Pskof is almost that of its ancient metropolis. We 
 again find the prince, the vetche, the division into quarters, 
 up to the number of six, each one having its mayor. 
 
 In the twelfth century a new Novgorodian colony was 
 formed between the Kama and the Viatka, which remained a 
 republic till the end of the fifteenth century. " This distant 
 country," says M. Bestujef-Riumin, "is still quite Novgorodian. 
 When the traveller has passed the Viatka, he meets with a 
 peculiar mode of constructing the huts. There are no longer 
 whole lines of hovels joined one to the other, as on this side 
 of the river, but there is a high house, where the court, rooms, 
 and offices are surrounded by a rampart of pales, and united 
 under the same roof; in a word, it is a Novgorodian house. 
 You hear the Novgorodian dialect ; you see the Novgorodian 
 cap. It is the Novgorod colonization still living." In eleven 
 hundred and seventy-four some adventurers from the Great Re- 
 public came from the Kama to the Viatka, and advanced from 
 east to west, and founded a colony on this river, which is to- 
 day the village of Nikulitsuin. Another band defeated the 
 Tcheremisa, and on their territory raised Koshkarof, at present 
 called Kotelnitch. Then the two bands reunited, and pene- 
 trated into the Votiak country. On the right bank of the 
 Viatka, on the summit of a high mountain, they perceived a 
 city surrounded by a rampart and a ditch, which contained 
 one of the sanctuaries of the people. As pious as the compan-
 
 142 HISTORY OP RUSSIA, [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 ions of Cortez and Pizarro, the Russian adventurers prepared 
 themselves for the assault by a fast of several days, then in- 
 voked Saints Boris and Gleb, and captured the town. Next, 
 at the mouth of the Khluinovitsa, in the Viatka, not very far 
 off, they built the city of Khluinof, which became, under the 
 ' name of Viatka, the capital of all their colonies. It had no 
 walls, but the houses, built close together, formed an unbroken 
 rampart against the enemy, a wall and defence. At the news 
 of this success, other colonists flocked from Novgorod and the 
 forests of the north, and founded other centres of population. 
 These bold pioneers had more than once to reunite, sometimes 
 against the aboriginal Finns or the Tatar invaders, sometimes 
 against the pretensions of Novgorod, or the Grand Prince of 
 Moscow. We find among them, as in the metropolis, boyars, 
 merchants, and citizens. They had voievodui or atamans for 
 their military chiefs. Their spirit of religious independence 
 equalled their political independence. Jonas, Metropolitan of 
 Moscow, writes angrily about the indocility of their clergy, 
 and avenges himself by blaming their morals. " Your spirit- 
 ual sons," he wrote to the priests of Viatka, " live contrary to 
 the law. They have five, six, or even seven wives. And you 
 dare to bless these marriages ! "
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE LIVONIAN KNIGHTS. CONQUEST OF THE 
 BALTIC PROVINCES BY THE GERMANS. 
 
 1187-1237. 
 
 CONVERSION OF LIVONIA. RISE OF THE LIVONIAN KNIGHTS. UNION 
 WITH THE TEUTONIC KNIGHTS. 
 
 CONVERSION OF LIVONIA. RISE OF THE LIVONIAN 
 
 KNIGHTS. 
 
 THREE new races of men, three invasions, from the twelfth 
 to the thirteenth century, were to modify the historical 
 development of the different parts of Slavonia; the Russia 
 of the northwest was to make acquaintance with the Germans, 
 Russia of the east and south with the Tatar-Mongols, Russia 
 of the west with the Lithuanians. 
 
 Part of the Tchud or Lett tribes of the Baltic were consid- 
 ered by the Russian princes and republics of the northwest as 
 their subjects or tributaries. If the Danish Cnut the Great 
 had conquered Esthonia, laroslaf the Great had founded lurief, 
 or Dorpat, on the Embach which falls into the Pei'pus, and 
 then separated the Danish and Russian dominions. It sepa- 
 rates to-day the country of the Finns into two peoples speaking 
 different dialects, the dialect of Revel and that of Dorpat. A 
 Mstislaf, son of Vladimir Monomakh, had conquered from the 
 Tchudi the city of Odenpaeh. In the Lett country the princes 
 of Polotsk had captured the native fortresses of Gersike' and 
 Kokenhausen on the Dwina, and extended their influence along 
 this river to Thoreida and Ascheraden.
 
 144 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 With the German merchants Latin missionaries soon began 
 to make their appearance on the Baltic. The monk Meinhard, 
 sent by the Archbishop of Bremen, converted the Livonians, 
 and was created Bishop of Livonia. What the Germans really 
 brought, under the cloak of Christianity, to the Letts and 
 descendants of the Tchud hero Kalevy, and to many other 
 Slav, Lithuanian, or Finnish tribes, now extinct, was the ruin 
 of their national independence and servitude. The German 
 merchant and the German missionary appeared almost at the 
 same time on the Dwina. The apostle Meinhard built a 
 church at Uexkull, and a fortress round the church, in eleven 
 hundred and eighty-seven. From this fatal day these brave 
 tribes lost their lands and their liberty. The Livonians soon 
 saw to what this mission tended. They rose against the mis- 
 sionaries, and in eleven hundred and ninety-eight the second 
 Bishop of Livonia perished in battle. The natives returned to 
 their gods, and plunged in the Dwina to wash off the baptism 
 they had received, and to send it back to Germany. Then 
 Innocent the Third preached a crusade against them, and 
 Albert of Buxhcewden, bishop from eleven hundred and ninety- 
 eight till twelve hundred and twenty-nine, entered the Dwina 
 with a fleet of twenty-three ships, and built the town of Riga, 
 which he made his capital in twelve hundred. He was their 
 third bishop, and the true founder of the German rule in 
 Livonia. The following year he installed the Order of the 
 Brothers of the Army of Christ, or the Sword-bearers, to 
 whom the Pope gave the statutes of the Templars. They 
 wore a white mantle, with a red cross on the shoulders. The 
 greater number were natives of Westphalia and Saxony. 
 Vinno de Rohrbach was their first grand master. The 
 Livonians, after having implored the help of the princes 
 of Polotsk, marched on Riga, and suffered an entire defeat in 
 twelve hundred and six. The Prince of Polotsk in his turn 
 besieged the city during the bishop's absence, but it was saved 
 by the arrival of a German flotilla.
 
 1187-1237.] THE LIVONIAN KNIGHTS. 145 
 
 Three causes were particularly favorable to the success of 
 the knights of the sword, namely : the weakness of the princes 
 of Polotsk, the intestine quarrels of Novgorod, which pre- 
 vented it from watching over Russian interests, and the di- 
 visions among the natives, who had not yet been able to raise 
 their minds from the conception of the tribe to that of the 
 nation. The knights were likewise far superior in their arms 
 and tactics. The German fortresses were solidly built in 
 cemented stone, while those of the natives were ramparts of 
 earth, wood, or loose stones. In vain they tried to drag down 
 with ropes the palisades of the German ramparts. The Sword- 
 bearers afterwards undertook a series of campaigns against the 
 Livonians and the Sernigals of the Dwina, and against the 
 Tchudi of the north and the Letts of the southeast. If a tribe 
 declined baptism and obedience, it was delivered a prey to 
 fire and sword ; when it submitted, hostages were taken, and 
 castles built on its territory, these being often merely German 
 reconstructions of the ancient native fortresses. 
 
 It was in this manner that Riga, Kirchholm, Uexkull, 
 Lennewarden, Ascheraden, and Kreuzburg were built on the 
 Dwina; Neuhausen, near the Peipus, Wolmar, Wenden, Sege- 
 vold, and Kremon on the Aa ; Fellin and Weissenstein among 
 the Northern Tchudi. The strangers managed to take Koken- 
 hausen and Gersike from the princes of Polotsk, Odenpaeh 
 and Dorpat from the Novgorodians ; Pskof was threatened. 
 In the north, Kolyvan was bought from the King of Denmark, 
 after the fiercest disputes. Under its rock lies Kolyvan, a 
 Titan hero of Finnish mythology. The town is now called 
 Revel. 
 
 The conquered country was divided into fiefs, some of 
 which belonged to the Order by whom they were distributed 
 among the knights, the rest were at the disposal of the arch- 
 bishop, who enfeoffed his own men. The new towns received 
 the constitution of the merchant cities of Liibeck, Bremen, or 
 Hamburg. Riga was the most powerful of them. The 
 
 VOL. I. 10
 
 146 HISTOKY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 Archbishop of Riga, the chapter, the town, and the grand mas- 
 ter of the Order often quarrelled over their respective rights. 
 Their divisions were one day to bring about the decline of the 
 institution. 
 
 UNION WITH THE TEUTONIC KNIGHTS. 
 
 About twelve hundred and twenty-five another military 
 fraternity was established among the Prussian Lithuanians, 
 the Teutonic Order, which, on the remains of the subject 
 pagan tribes, built the towns of Thorn, Marienberg, Elbing, 
 and Koenigsberg. The Teutons of Prussia and the knights 
 of Livonia were certain to be friendly ; the black cross frater- 
 nized with the red, and, in twelve hundred and thirty-seven, 
 the two orders united into one association. The Teutonic 
 landmeister, Hermann de Balk, became landmeister of Livonia. 
 The grand master of the Teutonic Order took precedence of 
 all the landmeisters. Strengthened by this alliance, the 
 " brothers of the army of Christ " were able to impose the 
 most cruel servitude on the aboriginal Letts, Livonians, and 
 Finns. These brave barbarians soon became peasants attached 
 to the glebe. The German nobility restored them their lib- 
 erty at the beginning of this century, but it did not restore 
 them their lands. 
 
 The conquering and conquered races are always separate. 
 To the Tchud the word Saxa, meaning Saxon, or German, 
 always signifies the master. A song of the Tchud country of 
 Pskof, called " The Days of Slavery," deplores the time when 
 " the banners of the strangers waved, when the intruders made 
 us slaves, enchained us as the serfs of tyrants, forced us to be 
 their servants. Brother, what can I sing ? Sadly sounds the 
 song of tears. The lot of the slave is too hard." Another 
 song of Wiesland is entitled " The Days of the Past." " The 
 past, that was the time of massacre, a long time of suffering. 
 .... Destroying fiends were unchained against us. The
 
 1187-1237.] THE LIVONIAN KNIGHTS. 147 
 
 priests strangled us with their rosaries, the greedy knights 
 plundered us, troops of brigands ravaged us, armed murderers 
 cut us in pieces. The father of the cross stole our riches, 
 stole the treasure from the hiding-place, attacked the tree, the 
 sacred tree, polluted the waters and the fountain of salvation. 
 The axe smote on the oak of Tara, the woful hatchet on the 
 tree of Kero." 
 
 In the Kalevy-poeg, or " The Son of Kalev," the national 
 poem of the Tchud-Esthonians, the hero, who is the personifi- 
 cation of the race, displays in his various adventures a won- 
 derful Titanic force. He swam the Gulf of Finland, he 
 rooted up oak-trees to make his clubs ; with his horse and 
 his colossal harrow he ploughed up the land of Esthonia ; he 
 exterminated the bears and the beasts of prey; he conquered 
 the magician of Finland, and the genii of the caves ; he de- 
 scended into hell and fought with Sarvig the horned; he 
 sailed away to explore the utmost limits of the world, and 
 when the hot breath of the spirits of the North burnt up his 
 wooden vessel, he continued his voyage in a vessel of silver. 
 He braved whirlwinds at sea ; discovered the isle of flame, 
 of smoke, and boiling water, which is perhaps Iceland, where 
 the three volcanoes vomit forth fire ; he encountered a gigan- 
 tic woman who plucked up several sailors with the grass 
 for the kine, as if the men had been insects ; he rallied the 
 courage of his pilot, horror-stricken by the flames with which 
 the spirits of the North filled heaven, and said to him, " Let 
 them send their darts of fire, they will only lighten us on our 
 way, since the daylight would not accompany us, and the sun 
 has long since gone to rest." He fought with men whose 
 bodies were like dogs, possibly the Esquimaux of Greenland, 
 and retraced his steps only because a magician assured him 
 " that the wall of the world's end was still far off." It is at 
 the close of the poem, when he is told that the men of iron 
 have landed, that his unconquerable heart is troubled. The 
 spear cannot penetrate their armor, nor the axe break it. In
 
 148 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 vain he seeks counsel at the tomb of his father ; the tomb is 
 silent, " the leaves murmur plaintively, the winds sigh drearily, 
 the dew itself is troubled, the eye of the clouds is wet " ; all 
 Esthoiiian nature shares in the sinister forebodings of the 
 national hero. He raised, however, the battle-cry, and his 
 warriors assembled on the Embach. Bloody is the battle ! 
 The Esthonians gain the victory, but what a victory ! The 
 bravest of them are dead, the two brothers of Kalevy-poeg 
 perish, his charger is struck down by the axe of a stranger. 
 The end of Esthonia, the age of slavery, has arrived ; it is 
 time that Kalevy-poeg, the representative of the heroic age, 
 should disappear ; he who had vanquished the demon Sarvig, 
 the sorcerers of Finland, and the spirits of the pole, could not 
 subdue these men whom an unknown, irresistible force sus- 
 tained superior to that of the gods. Behold him, the captive 
 of Mana, god of death, his wrist held fast in a rock, which is 
 the gate of hell. Long his sons trusted that Mana would 
 give him back his liberty, and that once again the iron men 
 would feel the weight of his arm ; but, like King Arthur, he 
 has never appeared, bringing to his people the liberty that the 
 Germans have taken from them.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE TATAR MONGOLS. ENSLAVEMENT OF 
 
 RUSSIA. 
 
 1224 - 1264. 
 
 ORIGIN AND CUSTOMS OF THE MONGOLS. BATTLES OF THE KALKA, OP 
 RIAZAN, OF KOLOMNA, AND OF THE SIT. CONQUEST OF RUSSIA. 
 ALEXANDER NEVSKI. THE MONGOL YOKE. INFLUENCE OF THE 
 TATARS ON EUSSIAN DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 ORIGIN AND CUSTOMS OF THE MONGOLS. 
 
 UP to this time the history of Russia has presented some 
 analogy with that of the West. Slavonia, like Gaul, had 
 received Roman civilization and Christianity from the South. 
 The Northmen had brought it an organization which recalls 
 that of the Germans ; and it had enjoyed a certain semblance 
 of unity under laroslaf, like the West under Charles the Great, 
 while it was afterwards dismembered and divided like France 
 in feudal times. But in the thirteenth century Russia suffered 
 an unprecedented misfortune ; it was invaded and subjugated 
 by Asiatic hordes. This fatal event contributed quite as much 
 as the disadvantage of the soil and the climate to retard its 
 development by many centuries. " Nature," as M. Soloviof 
 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 knew who they were, God and perhaps wise men
 
 150 HISTORY OF EUSSIA. [CHAP. X. 
 
 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, of a Saint Louis, an Innocent the Fourth, we may 
 imagine the terror of the Russians. They bore the first shock 
 of those mysterious foernen, who were, so the people whispered, 
 Gog and Magog, who, according to Joinville, " were to come at 
 the end of the world, when Antichrist is to destroy everything." 
 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 many ways those already traced by Chinese, Latin, 
 and Greek authors, of the Huns, the Avars, and other nomad 
 peoples of former invasions. " The Ta-tzis, or the Das," says 
 a Chinese writer of the thirteenth century, " occupy themselves 
 exclusively with their flocks ; they go wandering ceaselessly 
 from pasture to pasture, from river to river. They are igno- 
 rant 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 institutions. From the prince to the 
 lowest among the people all feed upon the flesh of the animals 
 the skins of which they use for clothing. The strongest among 
 them have the largest and fattest morsels at feasts ; the old 
 men are put off with the fragments that are left. They respect 
 nothing but strength and bravery; age and weakness they 
 despise. When the father dies, the son marries his youngest 
 wives." A Mussulman writer adds, that they adore the sun, 
 and practise polygamy and the community of wives. This 
 pastoral people did not take an interest 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
 
 1224-1264.] ENSLAVEMENT OF KUSSIA. 151 
 
 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 up fosses, or 
 digging trenches. In the capture of a town the loss of ten 
 thousand men was thought nothing. No place could resist 
 them. After a siege all the population was massacred, with- 
 out distinction of old or young, rich or poor, beautiful or ugly, 
 those who resisted or those who yielded ; no distinguished 
 person escaped death, if a defence was attempted." 
 
 It was these rough tribes that Temutchin, or Genghis Khan, 
 who ruled from eleven hundred and fifty-four until twelve 
 hundred and twenty-seven, succeeded in uniting into one 
 nation after forty years of obscure struggles. Then in a gen- 
 eral congress of their princes he proclaimed himself emperor, 
 and declared that, as there was only one sun in heaven, there 
 ought to be only one emperor on the earth. At the head of 
 their forces he conquered Mantchuria, the kingdom of Tangut, 
 Northern China, Turkestan, and Great Bokhara, which never 
 recovered from 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. 
 
 It was during his conquest of Bokhara that his lieutenant 
 Tchep and Subudai-bagadur subdued in their passage a mul- 
 titude 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 Polovtsui. 
 
 BATTLES OF THE KALKA, OF RIAZAN, OF KOLOMNA, AND 
 OF THE SIT. CONQUEST OF RUSSIA. 
 
 The hereditary enemies of the Russians proper, the Po- 
 lovtsui, asked the Christian princes for help against these 
 Mongols and Turks, who were their brothers by a common
 
 152 HISTORY OF EUSSIA. [CHAP. X. 
 
 origin. " They 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 Daniel, Prince of Volhynia, Mstislaf 
 Romanovitch, Grand Prince of Kief, Oleg of Kursk, Mstislaf 
 of Tchernigof, Vladimir of Smolensk, Vsevolod, for a short 
 time Prince of Novgorod, responded to his appeal. To cement 
 his alliance with the Russians, Basti, khan of the Polovtsui, 
 embraced orthodoxy. 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 Polovtsui. Be 
 at peace with us ; we have no quarrel with you." The Rus- 
 sians, with the promptitude and thoughtlessness that charac- 
 terized the men of that time, put the ambassadors to death. 
 They then went farther 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 disorder 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 Kursk 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 Polovtsui were seized with a panic 
 and fell back on the Russian ranks, thus throwing them into 
 disorder. The rout became general, and the leaders spurred 
 on their steeds in hopes of reaching the Dnieper. 
 
 Six princes and seventy of the chief boyars, or vo'ievodui, 
 remained on the field of battle. It was the Crecy and Poi- 
 tiers of the Russian chivalry. Hardly a tenth of the army 
 escaped ; the Kievans alone left ten thousand dead. The 
 Grand Prince of Kief, however, Mstislaf Romanovitch, still 
 occupied a fortified camp on the banks of the Kalka. Aban-
 
 1224-1264.] ENSLAVEMENT OF EUSSIA. 153 
 
 doned by the rest of the army, he tried to defend himself. 
 The Tatars offered to make terms ; he might retire on pay- 
 ment of a ransom for himself and his drujina. He capitu- 
 lated, and the conditions were broken. His guard was mas- 
 sacred, and he and his two sons-in-law were stifled under 
 planks. The Tatars held their festival over the inanimate 
 bodies in twelve hundred and twenty-four. 
 
 After this thunderbolt, which struck terror into the whole 
 of Russia, the Tatars paused and returned to the East. 
 Nothing more was heard of them. Thirteen years passed, 
 during which the princes reverted to their perpetual discords. 
 Those in the northeast had given no help to the Russians 
 of the Dnieper; perhaps the Grand Prince, luri the Sec- 
 ond of Suzdal, may have rejoiced over the humiliation of 
 the Kievans 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 remark on the 
 comet of twelve hundred and twenty-four, the earthquake and 
 eclipse of the sun of twelve hundred and thirty. 
 
 The Tatars were busy finishing the conquest of China, but 
 presently one of the sons of Genghis, Ugudei or Oktai, sent 
 his nephew Batui to the West. As the reflux of the Polovtsui 
 had announced the invasion of twelve hundred and twenty- 
 four, that of the Saxin nomads, a tribe akin to the Khirghiz, 
 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 Suzdalian 
 Russia that was threatened. In twelve hundred and thirty- 
 seven Batui conquered the Great City, capital of the half- 
 civilized Bulgarui, who were, like the Polovtsui, ancient ene- 
 mies of Russia, and who were to be included in its ruin. 
 Bolgary was given up to the flames, and its 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
 
 154 HISTOEY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. X. 
 
 envoys to the princes of Riazan. The three princes of Ria- 
 zan, those of Pronsk, Kolomna, Moscow, and Murom advanced 
 to meet them. " If you want peace," said the Tatars, " give 
 us the tenth of your goods." " When we are dead," replied 
 the Russian princes, "you can have the whole." Though 
 abandoned by the princes of Tchernigof and the Grand Prince 
 luri the Second, of whom they had implored help, the dynasty 
 of Riazan accepted the .unequal struggle. They were com- 
 pletely crushed ; nearly all their princes remained on the 
 field of battle. Legend has embellished their fall. It is told 
 how Feodor preferred to die rather than see his young wife, 
 Euphrasia, the spoil of Batui, and how, on learning his fate, 
 she threw herself and her son from the window of her cham- 
 ber. 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 princi- 
 pality suffered the same fate. 
 
 It was now the turn of the Grand Prince, for the Russia of 
 the northeast had not even the honor of falling in a great 
 battle like the Russia of the southwest, united for once against 
 the common enemy. The Suzdalian army, commanded by a 
 son of luri the Second, was beaten on the day of Kolomna, on 
 the Oka. The Tatars burned Moscow, then besieged Vladi- 
 mir on the Kliazma, which luri the Second had abandoned to 
 seek for help in the North. His two sons were charged with 
 the defence of the capital. Princes and boyars, feeling there 
 was no alternative but death or servitude, 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 retired into the 
 cathedral, where they perished, men and women, in a general 
 conflagration. Suzdal, Rostof, laroslavl, fourteen towns, a 
 multitude of villages in the Grand Principality, were all given 
 over to the flames in twelve hundred and thirty-eight. The
 
 1224-1264.] ENSLAVEMENT OF RUSSIA. 155 
 
 Tatars then went to seek the Grand Prince, who was encamped 
 on the Sit, almost on the frontier of the possessions of Nov- 
 gorod, luri the Second could neither avenge his people nor 
 his family. After the battle the Bishop of Rostof found his 
 headless corpse. His nephew Vasilko, who was taken prisoner, 
 was stabbed for refusing to serve Batui. The immense Tatar 
 army, after having sacked Tver, took Torjok ; there " the Rus- 
 sian 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 Batui. The invading flood reached the Cross 
 of Ignatius, about fifty miles from Novgorod, then returned to 
 the Southeast. On the way the small town of Kozelsk, near 
 Kaluga, checked the Tatars for so long, and inflicted on them 
 so much loss, that it was called by them the wicked town. 
 Its population was exterminated, and the prince, Vasili, still a 
 child, was " drowned in blood." 
 
 The two following years were spent by the Tatars in rav- 
 aging Southern Russia. They burnt Pereiaslaf, and Tcherni- 
 gof, defended with desperation by its princes. Next Mangu, 
 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 its white walls 
 and towers adorned by Byzantine artists, and innumerable 
 churches with cupolas of gold and silver. Mangu offered the 
 Kievans terms of surrender ; the fate of Riazan, of Tchernigof, 
 of Vladimir, the capitals of powerful states, announced to them 
 the lot that awaited them in case of refusal, yet the Kievans 
 dared to massacre the envoys of the khan. Mikhail, their 
 Grand Prince, fled ; his rival, Daniel of Galitch, did not care 
 to remain. On hearing the report of Mangu, Batui came to 
 assault Kief with the bulk of his army. The grinding of the 
 wooden chariots, the bellowings of the buffaloes, the cries of
 
 156 HISTOKY OF EUSSIA. [CHAP. X. 
 
 the camels, the neighing of the horses, the bowlings of the 
 Tatars, rendered it impossible, says the annalist, to hear your 
 own voice in the town. The Tatars assailed the Polish Gate, 
 and knocked down the walls with a battering-ram. "The 
 Kievans, supported by the brave Dmitri, a Gallician boyar, 
 defended the fallen ramparts till the end of the day, then 
 retreated to the Church of the Tithe, which they surrounded 
 by a palisade. The last defenders of Kief found themselves 
 grouped around the tomb of laroslaf. Next day they perished. 
 The khan gave the boyar his life, but ' the Mother of Russian 
 cities ' was sacked. This third pillage, which took place in 
 twelve hundred and forty, was the most terrible. Even the 
 tombs were not respected. All that remains of the Church of 
 the Tithe 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." 
 
 Volhynia and Gallicia still remained, but their princes could 
 not defend them, and Russia found itself, with the exception 
 of Novgorod and the northwest 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 boyars, " 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 
 themselves 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, 
 indicate the following : 
 
 Though the Tatars were not more advanced, from a military 
 point of view, than the Russians, who had made war in Greece 
 and in the West against the most warlike and civilized people 
 of Europe, yet they had an enormous superiority of numbers. 
 Batui probably had with him five hundred thousand warriors. 
 
 This immense army moved like one man ; it could succes-
 
 1224-1264.] ENSLAVEMENT OF EUSSIA. 157 
 
 sively annihilate the small armies of the princes, or the militia 
 of the towns, which presented themselves one at a time to its 
 blows. The Tatars had found Russia divided against itself. 
 
 Even though Russia had wished to form a confederation, 
 the sudden irruptions of an army entirely composed of horse- 
 men did not leave it time. 
 
 In the tribes ruled by Batui 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. 
 
 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. 
 They arrived, proud of their exploits, animated by the recol- 
 lection 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 
 the Ninth prepared for a crusade. Frederick the Second, 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 reckoned are dead or in slavery." The 
 Tatars invaded Hungary, gave battle to the Poles in Liegnitz 
 in Silesia, had their progress a long while arrested by the cour- 
 ageous defence of Olmiitz in Moravia, by the Tchek voievod, 
 laroslaf, and stopped finally, learning that a large army, com- 
 manded by the King of Bohemia and the dukes of Austria and 
 Karinthia, was approaching. The news of the death of Okta'i, 
 second emperor of all the Tatars, in China, recalled Batui from 
 the West, and during the long march from Germany his army 
 necessarily diminished in number. The Tatars were no longer 
 in the vast plains of Asia and Eastern Europe, but in a broken
 
 158 HISTORY OF EUSSIA. [CHAP. X. 
 
 hilly country, bristling with fortresses, defended by a popula- 
 tion 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 the invasion of the Mongols 
 but the fear of it. It exhausted itself principally on those 
 plains of Russia which seem a continuation of the steppes of 
 Asia. Only in Russian history did the invasion produce great 
 results. About the same time Batui built on one of the arms 
 of the Lower Volga a city called Sarai, or the Castle, which 
 became the capital of a powerful Tatar Empire, the Golden 
 Horde, extending from the Ural 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 North- 
 ern Crimea, but particularly of the remains of ancient nomads, 
 such as the Petchenegi and Polovtsui, whose descendants seem 
 to be the present Kalmucks and Bashkirs ; of Turkish tribes 
 tending to become sedentary, like the Tatars of Astrakhan in 
 the present day ; and of the Finnish populations already estab- 
 lished in the country, and which mixed with the invaders. 
 Okta'i, Kui'uk, and Mangu, the first three successors of Genghis 
 Khan, elected by all the Mongol princes, took the title of 
 Great Khans, and the Golden Horde recognized their author- 
 ity; but under his fourth successor, Khubulai, who usurped 
 the throne and established himself in China, this bond of 
 vassalage was broken. The Golden Horde became an in- 
 dependent state in twelve hundred and sixty. United and 
 powerful under the terrible Batui, who died in twelve hundred 
 and fifty-five, it fell to pieces under his successors ; but in the 
 fourteenth century the Khan Uzbek reunited it anew, and gave 
 the Horde a second period of prosperity. The Tatars, who 
 were pagans when they entered Russia, embraced the faith of 
 Islam about twelve hundred and severity-two, and became its 
 most formidable apostles.
 
 ALEXANDER NEVSKI
 
 1252-1264.] ENSLAVEMENT OF RUSSIA. 159 
 
 ALEXANDER NEVSKI. 
 
 laroslaf, after his defeat at Lipetsk, entered Suzdal on the 
 tragic death of his brother, the Grand Prince luri the Second, 
 in twelve hundred and thirty-eight, and found his inheritance 
 in the most deplorable condition. The towns and villages were 
 burnt, the country and roads covered with unburied corpses ; 
 the survivors were hiding in the woods. He recalled the fugi- 
 tives and began to rebuild. Batui, 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. Batui confirmed 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 Amur. To do this was to cross the whole 
 of Russia and Asia. laroslaf bent his knees to the new mas- 
 ter of the world, Oktai, succeeded in refuting the accusations 
 brought against him by a Russian boyar, and obtained a new 
 confirmation of his title. On his return, in twelve hundred 
 and forty-six, he died in the desert of exhaustion, and his 
 faithful servants brought his body back to Vladimir. His 
 son Andrei succeeded him in Suzdal, and ruled until twelve 
 hundred and fifty-two. His other son, Alexander, reigned 
 at Novgorod the Great. 
 
 Alexander was as brave as he was intelligent. He was 
 the hero of the North, and yet he forced himself to accept 
 the necessary humiliations of his terrible situation. In his 
 youth we see him fighting with all the enemies of Novgorod, 
 Livonian knights and Tchudi, Swedes and Finns. The Nov- 
 gorodians found themselves at issue with the Scandinavians 
 on the subject of their possessions on the Neva and the Gulf 
 of Finland. As they had helped the natives to resist the 
 Latin faith, King John obtained the promise of Gregory the 
 Ninth that a crusade, with plenary indulgences, should be 
 preached against the Great Republic and its proteges, the
 
 160 HISTORY OF EUSSIA. [CHAP. X. 
 
 pagans of the Baltic. His son-in-law, Birger, with an army of 
 Scandinavians, Finns, and Western Crusaders, took the com- 
 mand of the forces, and sent word to the Prince of Novgorod, 
 " Defend yourself if you can : know that I am already in 
 your provinces." The Russians on their side, feeling they 
 were fighting for orthodoxy, opposed the Latin crusade with 
 a Greek one. Alexander humbled himself in Saint Sophia, 
 received the benediction of the Archbishop Spiridion, and 
 addressed an energetic harangue to his warriors. He had no 
 time to await reinforcements from Suzdal. 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 one of the 
 patrons of Saint Petersburg under Peter the Great, the second 
 conqueror of the Swedes. By the orders of his great succes- 
 sor, his bones repose in the Monastery of Alexander Nevski. 
 The battle of the Neva was preserved in a dramatic legend. 
 An Ingrian chief told Alexander how, on the eve of the com- 
 bat, he had seen a mysterious barque, manned by two warriors 
 with shining brows, glide through the night. They were Boris 
 and Gleb, who came to the rescue of their young kinsman. 
 Other accounts have preserved to us the individual exploits 
 of the Russian heroes, Gabriel, Skuilaf 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." Notwithstanding the tri- 
 umph of such a service, Alexander and the Novgorodians 
 could not agree ; a short time after he retired to Pereiaslavl- 
 Zalieski. 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 Vojane*, vas- 
 sals of Novgorod, constructed the fortress of Koporie on the 
 territory of the Neva, took the Russian town of Tessof in
 
 1252-1264.] ENSLAVEMENT OF RUSSIA. 161 
 
 Esthonia, and pillaged the merchants of Novgorod within 
 seventeen miles of their ramparts. During this time the 
 Tchudi and the Lithuanians captured the peasants, and the 
 cattle of the citizens. At last Alexander allowed himself to 
 be touched by the prayers of the archbishop and the people, 
 assembled an army, expelled the Germans from Koporie, and 
 next from Pskof, hung as traitors the captive Vojane and 
 Tchudi, 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 law of nations was 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 four 
 hundred of them, took fifty prisoners, and exterminated a 
 multitude of Tchudi. Such was the Battle of the Ice, which 
 took place in twelve hundred and forty-two. He returned in 
 triumph to Novgorod, dragging with him his prisoners loaded 
 with irons. 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 the Fourth, 
 deceived by false information, 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 Saint Peter. Two cardinals brought 
 him this letter from the Pope in twelve hundred and fifty- 
 one. 
 
 It is this hero of the Neva and Lake Peipus, this van- 
 quisher of the Scandinavians and Livonian knights, that we 
 are presently to see grovelling at the feet of a barbarian. 
 Alexander Nevski perceived 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 conduct may not have been chivalrous, but it 
 
 VOL. I. 11
 
 162 HISTOEY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. X. 
 
 was wise and humane. Alexander disdained to play the 
 hero at the expense of his people, like his brother Andrei 
 of Suzdal, 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 Batui's hands could extend as far 
 as the Ilmen. " God has subjected many peoples to me," 
 wrote the barbarian to him : " will you alone refuse to recog- 
 nize my power? If you wish to keep your land, come to me; 
 you will see the splendor and the glory of my sway." Then 
 Alexander went to Sarai with his brother Andrei, who was 
 disputing the Grand Principality of Vladimir with his uncle, 
 Sviatoslaf. Batui 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 twelve hundred and fifty-seven. 
 Kuiuk had confirmed the one in the possession of Vladimir, 
 and the other in that of Novgorod, adding to it all South 
 Russia and Kief. 
 
 The year twelve hundred and sixty put Alexander's pa- 
 tience and his politic obedience to the Tatars to the proof. 
 Ulavtchi, to whom the Khan Berkai had confided the affairs 
 of Russia, demanded that Novgorod should submit to the 
 census and pay tribute. It was the hero of the Neva who 
 was charged with the humiliating and dangerous mission of 
 persuading Novgorod. When the posadnik expressed in the 
 vetche the opinion that it was necessary to submit to the 
 strongest, the people raised a terrible cry and murdered him. 
 Vasili himself, Alexander's son, 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 disap- 
 probation, and counsel the Novgorodians to the commission 
 of the cowardly though necessary act. Alexander arrested 
 his son, and punished with death or mutilation the boyars
 
 1252-1264.] ENSLAVEMENT OF KUSSIA. 163 
 
 who had led him into the revolt. The vetche decided to 
 refuse the tribute, and sent back the Mongol ambassadors 
 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 popula- 
 tion revolted again, and the prince was obliged to keep guard 
 on the officers night and day. In vain the boyars advised 
 the citizens to give in : assembled around Saint Sophia, the 
 people declared they would die for liberty and honor. Alex- 
 ander then threatened to quit the city with his men, and 
 abandon it to the vengeance of the khan. This menace 
 conquered the pride of the Novgorodians. The Mongols and 
 their agents were allowed to go, register in hand, from house 
 to house in the humiliated and silent city to make the list 
 of the inhabitants. " The boyars," says Karamsin, " might 
 still be vain of their rank and their riches, but the simple 
 citizens had lost with their national honor their most precious 
 possession." 
 
 In Suzdal also Alexander found himself in the presence of 
 insolent victors and exasperated subjects. In twelve hundred 
 and sixty-two the inhabitants of Vladimir, of Suzdal, and of 
 Rostof rose against the collectors of the Tatar impost. The 
 people of laroslavl slew a renegade named Zozim, a former 
 monk, who had become a Moslem 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 refused the Mongols a body of 
 auxiliary Russians, wishing at least to spare the blood and 
 religious scruples of his subjects. It is a remarkable fact that, 
 over the most profound humiliations of the Russian nationality, 
 the contemporary history always throws a ray of glory. At 
 the moment that Alexander went to prostrate himself at Sarai, 
 the Suzdalian army, united to that of Novgorod, and com- 
 manded by his son Dmitri, defeated the Livonian knights,
 
 164 HISTOEY OF EUSSIA. [CHAP. X. 
 
 and took Dorpat by assault. The Khan BerkaT gave Alex- 
 ander a kind greeting, accepted his explanations, dispensed 
 with the promised contingent, but kept him for a year near 
 his court. Alexander's health broke down ; on his return he 
 died before reaching Vladimir. When the news arrived at 
 his capital, the Metropolitan Kirill, who was finishing the 
 liturgy, turned towards the faithful, and said : " Learn, my 
 dear children, that the Sun of Russia is set." " 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 it some glory, and hindered it from despairing under 
 the most crushing tyranny, material and moral, which a Euro- 
 pean people had ever suffered. 
 
 THE MONGOL YOKE. INFLUENCE OF THE TATARS ON 
 RUSSIAN DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 The Mongol khans, after having devastated and abased 
 Russia, did not introduce any direct political change. They 
 left to each country its laws, its courts of justice, its natural 
 chiefs. The house of Andrei Bogoliubski continued to reign 
 in Suzdal, that of Daniel Romanovitch in Galitch and Vol- 
 hynia, the Olgovitchi in Tchernigof, and the descendants of 
 Rogvolod the Variag at Polotsk. Novgorod might continue 
 to expel and recall its 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
 
 1224-1264.] ENSLAVEMENT OF EUSSIA. 165 
 
 with more or less rigor, but whom their conquerors never tried 
 in any way to Tatarize. Let us see exactly in what consisted 
 the obligations of the vanquished, and their relations with 
 their conquerors, during the period of the Mongol yoke. 
 
 The Russian princes were forced to visit the Horde, either as 
 evidence of their submission, or to give the khan opportunity 
 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 Amur. They met there the chiefs of the Mongol, 
 Tatar, Thibetan, 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 astounded to meet at 
 his Court. Mangu 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 in- 
 accessible 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 
 consider them as tributes and signs of submission. "We will 
 send for him to confound you," he said to them, and Joinville 
 assures 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 deserts, or countries once rich, but changed by the 
 Tatars into vast wastes. Few who went returned. Planus Car- 
 pinus, envoy of Innocent the Fourth, saw in the steppes of the 
 Kirghiz the dry bones of the boyars of the unhappy laroslaf, 
 who had died of thirst in the sand. Planus Carpinus thus de- 
 scribes the Batui's Court on the Volga : " It is crowded and 
 brilliant. His army consists of six hundred thousand men, one 
 hundred and fifty thousand of whom are Tatars, and four hun- 
 dred and fifty thousand strangers, Christians as well as infidels.
 
 166 HISTOKY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. X. 
 
 On Good Friday we were conducted to his tent, between two 
 fires, because the Tatars 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. 
 Batui 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. 
 Batui has a bright complexion ; he is affable with his men, but 
 inspires general terror." The Court of the Grand Khan was 
 still more magnificent. Planus Carpinus found there a Russian 
 named Kum, who was the favorite and special goldsmith of 
 Gaiuk or Ku'iuk, and Rubruquis discovered a Parisian gold- 
 smith, named Guillaume. Much money was needed for success 
 either at the Court of the Grand Khan or of Batui. 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 in- 
 trigues and corruption ; the heads of the pleaders were often 
 the stakes of these dreadful trials. The most dangerous ene- 
 mies they encountered at the Tatar Court were not the barba- 
 rians, but the Russians, their rivals. The history of the Russian 
 princes at the Horde is very tragic. Thus Mikhail of Tcher- 
 nigof perished at the Horde of Sarai in twelve hundred and 
 forty-six, and Mikhail of Tver in thirteen hundred and nine- 
 teen, the one assassinated by the renegade Doman, the other 
 by the renegade Romanets, at the instigation and under the 
 eyes of the Grand Prince of Moscow. 
 
 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
 
 1224-1264.] ENSLAVEMENT OF RUSSIA. 1C7 
 
 collected it with the utmost rigor, and whom, they protected by 
 appointing superior agents called baskaki, with strong guards 
 to support them. The excesses of these tax-gatherers excited 
 many revolts : in twelve hundred and sixty-two, that of Suzdal ; 
 in twelve hundred and eighty-four, that of Kursk ; in thirteen 
 hundred and eighteen, that of Kolomna ; in thirteen hundred 
 and twenty-seven, that of Tver, where the inhabitants slew the 
 baskak Shevkal, and brought upon themselves frightful re- 
 prisals. Later, the princes of Moscow themselves farmed not 
 only the tax from their own subjects, but also from neighbor- 
 ing countries. They became the farmers-general of the in- 
 vaders. This was the origin of their riches and their power. 
 
 Besides the tribute, the Russians had to furnish to their 
 master the blood-tax, a military contingent. Already at the 
 time of the Huns and Avars, we have seen Slavs and Goths 
 accompanying the Asiatic hordes, forming their vanguards, 
 and being as it were the hounds of Bai'an. In the thirteenth 
 century the Russian princes furnished to the Tatars select 
 troops, especially a solid infantry, and marched in their armies 
 each at the head of his drujina. It was thus that in twelve 
 hundred and seventy-six Boris of Rostof, Gleb of Bielozersk, 
 Feodor of laroslavl, and Andrei of Gorodets followed Mangu 
 Khan in a war against the tribes of the Caucasus, and sacked 
 Dediakof in Daghestan, the capital of the lasui. 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 descendants of 
 Monomakh behaved still more dishonorably in the troubles in 
 the interior of Russia. They excited the Mongols against 
 their countrymen and aided the invaders. Prince Andrei, son 
 of Alexander Nevski, in twelve hundred and eighty-one, in 
 concert with the Tatars, pillaged the provinces of Vladimir, 
 Suzdal, Murom, Moscow, and Pereiaslavl, which he was dis- 
 puting with Dmitri, his elder brother. He helped the bar-
 
 168 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. X. 
 
 barians to profane churches and convents. In thirteen hundred 
 and twenty-seven it was the princes of Moscow and Suzdal 
 who directed the military execution against Tver. In twelve 
 hundred and eighty-four two Olgovitchi reigned in the land 
 of Kursk ; one of them, Oleg, put the other to death in the 
 name of the khan. Servitude had so much abased all charac- 
 ters, 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? 
 
 No prince could ascend the throne without having received 
 the investiture and the iarluik, or letters-patent, from the 
 khan. The proud Novgorodians themselves rejected Mikhail, 
 their prince, saying, " It is true we have chosen Mikhail, but 
 on the condition that he should show us the iarluik." 
 
 No Russian state dared to make war without being author- 
 ized by the khan. In twelve hundred and sixty-nine the 
 Novgorodians asked leave to march against Revel. In thir- 
 teen hundred and three, in an assembly of princes, and in 
 the presence of the Metropolitan Maxirnus, a decree of the 
 Khan Tokhta was read, enjoining the princes to put an end 
 to their dissensions, and to content themselves with their 
 appanages, it being the will of the Grand Khan that the 
 Grand Principality should enjoy peace. When the Mongol 
 ambassadors brought a letter from their sovereign, the Rus- 
 sian 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 iarluik was read. 
 
 Even while the Tatars conquered the Russians, they re- 
 spected their bravery. Matrimonial alliances were contracted 
 between their princes. About twelve hundred and seventy- 
 two Gleb, Prince of Bielozersk, took a wife out of the khan's 
 family, which already professed Christianity, and Feodor of 
 Riazan became the son-in-law of the khan of the Nogai's, who
 
 1224-1264.] ENSLAVEMENT OP RUSSIA. 169 
 
 assigned to the young couple a palace in Sarai. In thirteen 
 hundred and eighteen the Grand Prince luri married a sister 
 of Uzbek Khan, Kontchaka, who was baptized by the name 
 of Agatha. Towards the end of the fourteenth century the 
 Tatars were no longer the rude shepherds of the steppes. 
 Mingled with sedentary and more cultivated races, they re- 
 built fresh cities on the ruins of those they had destroyed : 
 Kruim in the Crimea, Kazan, Astrakhan, and Sarai. They 
 had acquired a taste for luxury and magnificence, honored the 
 national poets who sang their exploits, piqued themselves on 
 their chivalry and even on their gallantry. Notwithstanding 
 the difference of religion, a reconciliation was taking place 
 between the aristocracy of the two countries, between the 
 Russian and the Tatar princes. 
 
 The Russian historians are not entirely agreed as to the 
 nature and degree of influence exerted by the Mongol yoke 
 on the Russian development. Karamsin and M. Kostomarof 
 believe it to have been considerable. " Perhaps," says the 
 former, " our national character still presents some blots 
 which are derived from the Mongol barbarism." M. Solo- 
 viof, on the contrary, affirms that the Tatars hardly influenced 
 it more than the Petchenegi or Polovtsui. M. Bestujef- 
 Riumin estimates the influence to have been specially exerted 
 on the financial administration and military 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 mili- 
 tary system of the victors. The Russian or Mongol princes 
 formed a caste of soldiers henceforth quite distinct from 
 Western chivalry, to which the Russian heroes of the twelfth 
 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 sad- 
 dles, a long caftan, or floating dress, a sort of turban sur- 
 mounted by an aigret, sabres and poniards in their belts, a
 
 170 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. X. 
 
 bow and arrows, such was the military costume of a Rus- 
 sian prince of the fifteenth 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 Byzan- 
 tine manners. If the Muscovite princes inclined to autocracy, 
 it was not that they formed themselves on the model of the 
 Grand Khans, but that they naturally adopted imperial ideas 
 of absolutism imported from Constantinople. It is always 
 the Roman Emperor of Tsargrad, 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 ever-growing 
 influence of Byzantine laws, and the progressive triumph of 
 their principles over those of the ancient Code of laroslaf. 
 Now these laws so very easily admitted torture, flogging, 
 mutilation, and the stake, that there is no need to explain 
 anything by Mongol usages. The habit of prostration, of 
 beating the forehead, of affecting a servile submission, is cer- 
 tainly Oriental, but it is also Byzantine. The seclusion of 
 women was common in ancient Russia, the customs of which 
 were moulded by Greek missionaries, and the Russian terem 
 was derived from the Hellenic plan of women's quarters, 
 rather 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 Rus- 
 sians of the seventeenth century seem strange to us in their 
 long robes and Oriental fashions, we must remember that the 
 French and Italians of the fifteenth century, dressed by Vene- 
 tian merchants, displayed the same taste. But in France 
 fashions made advances, while in Russia, isolated from the 
 rest of Europe, they remained stationary. 
 
 From a social point of view, two Russian expressions seem 
 to date from the Tatar invasion : tchernui, or the black people,
 
 1224-1264.] ENSLAVEMENT OF RUSSIA. 171 
 
 to designate the lower orders ; and krestianin, signifying the 
 peasant, that is, the typical Christian, 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 con- 
 tracted marriages, a certain number of Tatar princes may 
 have become Russian princes by their conversion to ortho- 
 doxy, but the two races, as a whole, remained strangers. 
 Even to-day, while the native Finns continue to be Russified, 
 the Tatar cantons, even though converted to Christianity, are 
 still Tatar. 
 
 If the Mongol yoke influenced Russian development, it is 
 very indirectly. By separating Russia from the West, by 
 making it a political dependency of Asia, it perpetuated in 
 the country that Byzantine half-civilization whose inferior- 
 ity to European civilization became daily more obvious. If 
 the Russians of the seventeenth century differ so much from 
 Western nations, it is above all because they have remained 
 at the point whence all set out. Again, the Tatar conquest 
 also favored indirectly the establishment of absolute power. 
 The Muscovite princes, responsible to the khan for the public 
 tranquillity and the collection of the tax, being all the while 
 watched and supported by the baskaki, could the more easily 
 annihilate the independence of the towns, the resistance of 
 the subordinate princes, the turbulence of the boyars, and the 
 privileges of the free peasants. The Grand Prince of Moscow 
 had 110 consideration for his subjects because no man had 
 any consideration for him, and because his life was always 
 at stake. The Mongol tyranny bore with a terrible weight 
 on all the Russian hierarchy, and subjected 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 means that they 
 became powerful monarchs." No doubt under any circum-
 
 172 HISTORY OF EUSSIA. [CHAP. X. 
 
 stances the Russian principalities would have ended by losing 
 themselves in the same dominion, but Russian unity would 
 have been made, like French unity, without the entire destruc- 
 tion of local autonomies, the privileges of the towns, and the 
 rights of the subjects. It was the crushing weight of the 
 Mongol domination that stifled all the germs of political lib- 
 erty. We may say, with Mr. Wallace, that " the first Tsars 
 of Muscovy were the political descendants, not of the Russian 
 princes, but of the Tatar khans." 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 tolerant nation. Rubru- 
 quis saw in the presence of the Grand Khan Mangu, Nesto- 
 rians, Mussulmans, and Shamans celebrating their own par- 
 ticular form of worship. 
 
 Kuiuk had a Christian chapel near his palace ; Khubila'i 
 regularly took part in the feast of Easter. In twelve hundred 
 and sixty-one the Khan of Saraii authorized the erection of a 
 church and an orthodox bishopric in his capital. The Mongols 
 had no sectarian hatred against bishops and priests. With 
 a sure political instinct, the Tatars, like the Sultans of Stambul, 
 understood that these men could excite or calm the people. 
 After the first fury of the conquest was passed, they applied 
 themselves to gaining them over. They excepted priests and 
 monks from the capitation-tax ; they received them well at 
 the Horde, and gave pardons at their intercession. They 
 settled disputes of orthodox prelates, and established peace in 
 the Church as well as in the State. In thirteen hundred and 
 thirteen the Khan Uzbek, at the prayer of Peter, Metropolitan 
 of Moscow, confirmed the privileges of the Church and for- 
 bade that it should be deprived of its possessions, " 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 was formally granted to the 
 Church. Sacrilege was punished by death.
 
 1224-1264.] ENSLAVEMENT OF EUSS1A. 173 
 
 The convents also increased in numbers and riches. They 
 filled enormously : were they not the safest asylums ? Their 
 peasants 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 ten hundred. It was thus that the 
 great ecclesiastical patrimony of Russia was founded, a wealthy 
 reserve of revenues and capital, on which more than once in 
 national crises the Russian sovereigns were glad to draw. 
 The Church, which, even in its weakness, had steadily tended 
 to unity and autocracy, was to place at the service of the crown 
 a power which had become enormous. The Metropolitans of 
 Moscow were almost always the faithful allies of the Grand 
 Princes.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE LITHUANIANS: CONQUEST OF WEST- 
 ERN RUSSIA. 
 
 1240 - 1430. 
 
 THE LITHUANIANS. CONQUESTS OF MINDVOG (1240-1263), OF GEDI- 
 MIN (1315 - 1340), AND OF OLGERD (1345 - 1377). IAGELLO. 
 UNION OF LITHUANIA WITH POLAND (1386). THE GRAND PRINCE 
 VITOVT (1392-1430). BATTLES OF THE VORSKLA (1399) AND OF 
 TANNENBERG (1410). 
 
 THE LITHUANIANS. CONQUESTS OF MINDVOG, OF GEDI- 
 MIN, AND OF OLGERD. 
 
 THE Lithuanian tribes had already been greatly broken up 
 by the German conquest. Russians, Korsi, Semigals, 
 and Letts had been brought into subjection either by the 
 Teutonic or Livonian knights. Two among the tribes, the 
 Jmudi and the Lithuanians properly so called, had preserved 
 in the deep forests and marshes of the Niemen their proud 
 independence, their ferocity, and their ancient gods. A Rus- 
 sian tradition affirms that formerly they had paid the Russians 
 the only tribute their poverty could afford, bark and brooms. 
 Jmudi and Lithuanians were divided, like the ancient Slavs, 
 into rival and jealous tribes. Although 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'idclots, above whom were the
 
 LITHUANIANS.
 
 1240-1430.] CONQUEST OF WESTERN EUSSIA. 175 
 
 krivits, whose chief was high-priest of the nation. Their prin- 
 cipal divinity was Perkun, the god of thunder, analogous to 
 the Perun of the Russians. The sacred fire burned constantly 
 before this idol. They had also priestesses, the wild Velledas, 
 like that Biruta who, captured by Kestut, became the mother 
 of the great Vitovt. The time had come when the Lithuanians 
 must perish like the Prussians or Letts, if they did not succeed 
 in uniting against Germany. Emigrants from the countries 
 already conquered doubtless brought them new strength and 
 energy. A wily barbarian, Mindvog, created Lithuanian unity 
 at the beginning of the thirteenth century in much the same 
 way as Clovis, by exterminating 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, Alex- 
 ander Nevski and Daniel of Volhynia. Threatened on one 
 side by these princes, on the other by the knights of Livonia, 
 Mindvog bethought himself of hastening to the Pope and em- 
 bracing the Catholic faith. A legate of Innocent the Fourth 
 and the landmeister of the Teutonic order came to Grodno, 
 escorted by a brilliant suite of cavaliers. In presence of an 
 immense concourse of people Mindvog, together with his 
 wife, received baptism, and was consecrated King of Lithuania 
 in twelve hundred and fifty-two. The danger passed, and 
 Rome was forgotten. He and his new co-religionists did not 
 agree, and he was forced to cede the Jmud 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 landmeister in person. 
 He had taken the wife of one of his princes named Dov- 
 mont, and had married her. Dovmont awaited him on the
 
 176 HISTOEY OP KUSSIA. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 road, and assassinated him in twelve hundred and sixty-three, 
 and then fled from the vengeance of Mindvog's son to the 
 Pskovians. He became their prince, was baptized, and de- 
 fended them bravely against his pagan compatriots till he 
 died, and was buried at the Church of the Trinity. Voishel, 
 son of Mindvog, in the first fervor of an ephemeral Christian- 
 ity had become a monk. When he heard of his father's mur- 
 der, he abandoned his cowl, and began a war of extermination 
 against the confederates. Lithuania fell back into anarchy 
 during the contest of Mindvog's descendants with the rest of 
 the princes who refused to accept their supremacy. 
 
 It recovered itself under the enterprising and energetic 
 Gedimin, who ruled from thirteen hundred and fifteen until 
 thirteen hundred and forty, and was the real founder of its 
 power. He turned the exhaustions and divisions of South 
 Russia to his own profit ; and to the conquests of his prede- 
 cessors Grodno, Pinsk, Brest, and Polotsk soon added 
 Tchernigof, and all Volhynia with Vladimir, under whose 
 walls in thirteen hundred and twenty-one he defeated the 
 Russians, aided though they were by an auxiliary army of 
 Tatars. As to Kief, it is not known in what year it fell 
 under his power ; in the universal disorder this memorable 
 event passed almost unnoticed. The old capital of Russia 
 was, however, destined to remain for four hundred years 
 up to the time of Alexis Romanof in the hands of stran- 
 gers. The Russian populations 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 conquests by contracting alli- 
 ances with the house of Saint Vladimir, allowed his sons to 
 embrace the orthodox faith, and authorized the construction of 
 Greek churches in his residences at Vilna and Novogrodek. In 
 the North he had a perpetual struggle to sustain against the
 
 1240-1430.] CONQUEST OF WESTERN RUSSIA. 177 
 
 deadly enemies of his race, the military monks of Prussia and 
 Livonia. Like Mindvog, he addressed himself to the Pope, 
 John the Twenty-Second, and informed him that he wished 
 to preserve his independence, that he only asked protection 
 for his religion, that he was surrounded by Franciscans and 
 Dominicans to whom he gave full liberty to teach their doc- 
 trine, and that he was ready to recognize the Pope as supreme 
 head of the Church, if he would stop the depredations of the 
 Germans. The French Pope sent him Bartholomew, Bishop 
 of Alais, and Bernard, Abbot of Puy. 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 Vilna on the Vilia, 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 Hanse 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 together with his war-horse and his favor- 
 ite groom. 
 
 After his death, in thirteen hundred and forty-five, his sons 
 Olgerd and Kestut deprived two of their brothers of their 
 appanages, and together governed Lithuania, now reunited 
 into a single state. Olgerd humiliated Novgorod the Great, 
 which had received another of his fugitive brothers, ravaged 
 its territory, and forced the inhabitants to put to death the 
 posadnik who had been the cause of the war. He extended 
 his possessions to the east and south, and conquered Vitepsk, 
 Mohilef, Briansk, Novgorod-Severski, Kamenets, and Podolia ; 
 thus rendering himself master of nearly all the basin of the 
 Dnieper, and obtaining a footing on the coast of the Black 
 Sea, between the mouths of the Dnieper and the Dniester. 
 With the republic of Pskof he maintained relations sometimes 
 friendly, sometimes hostile ; gave it help against the Germans, 
 sent his son Andrei to govern it, and occasionally arrested its 
 
 VOL. I. 12
 
 178 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 merchants and laid waste its territory. The Poles disputed 
 Volhynia with him, oppressed the orthodox faith, and changed 
 the Greek into Latin churches. Olgerd then made advances 
 to 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 the check imposed on him by the 
 Poles and the two German orders, Olgerd might have made 
 the conquest of Eastern Russia. In thirteen hundred and 
 sixty-eight he had annihilated the Mongol hordes which 
 infested the Lower Dnieper, and, more destructive than even 
 these barbarians, completed the ruin of Kherson in the Crimea. 
 
 IAGELLO. UNION OF LITHUANIA AND POLAND. 
 
 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 Kestut, who had been his 
 faithful associate. One of his sons, lagailo, or lagello, who 
 ruled from thirteen hundred and seventy-seven until fourteen 
 hundred and thirty-four, cruelly repaired his father's fault. 
 He treacherously made his uncle Kestut prisoner, and caused 
 him to be put to death. His brothers and cousins escaped a 
 similar fate only by flying 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 differ- 
 ent channels, under the Latin form from Poland and under 
 the Greek form from Russia. The fierce war waged by the 
 Lithuanians against the military monks of the North had ren- 
 dered Catholicism particularly hateful to them. Under Olgerd 
 the people of Vilna had risen, and fourteen Franciscans were 
 slain. On the other hand the larger part of the Lithuanian 
 conquests was composed of Russian territory, and Lithuania 
 came under the influence of the Russian religion as well as of 
 the Russian language. Russian became the official tongue ; it
 
 1240-1430.] CONQUEST OF WESTERN RUSSIA. 179 
 
 even seemed as if orthodoxy were to become 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 Hedviga. The 
 Polish nobles concluded that the best way to put an end to 
 the eternal warfare with the Lithuanians was by marrying 
 their queen to the powerful Prince of Vilna. Hedviga's heart 
 is said to have been elsewhere engaged; but the Catholic 
 clergy set forth her consent to this union as a duty, the fulfil- 
 ment 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 thirteeen hundred and eighty-six lagello 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 
 Vladimir. They were divided into groups, and the priest 
 then sprinkled 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. lagello 
 overthrew the idol Perkun, extinguished the sacred fire that 
 burned in the Castle of Vilna, 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 trans- 
 ferring his capital to Cracow, in deference to his new subjects, 
 lagello necessarily irritated his old subjects. The orthodox, 
 provoked by the king's propaganda in favor of Catholicism, 
 allied themselves to the determined pagans. Lithuania be- 
 lieved that by its union with Poland it had lost its inde- 
 pendence.
 
 180 HISTOEY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 THE GRAND PRINCE VTTOVT. BATTLES OF THE VORSKLA 
 AND OF TANNENBERG. 
 
 Vitovt, son of the hero Kestut and the priestess Biruta, put 
 himself at the head of the malcontents. He allied himself 
 with the Teutonic knights, and twice besieged the Polish gar- 
 rison in the Castle of Vilna. Weary of war, lagello in thir- 
 teen hundred and ninety -two finally ceded him Lithuania with 
 the title of Grand Prince. 
 
 Vitovt, brother-in-law of Vasili Dmitrievitch, Grand Prince 
 of Moscow, took up Olgerd's plans for the subjugation of the 
 northeast of Russia. Sviatoslaf, the last prince but one of 
 Smolensk, had made himself hated, even in that iron age, by 
 his cruelties. Fighting in the Russian territory, he took 
 pleasure in impaling and burning women and children alive. 
 He was killed in thirteen hundred and eighty-seven in a battle 
 against the Lithuanians, and his son luri was only the shadow 
 of a Grand Prince of Smolensk, under Vitovt's guardianship. 
 The latter, who combined perfidy with the courage and energy 
 of his father, made himself master of the town by a stratagem 
 worthy of CaBsar Borgia. He contrived to induce the prince 
 and his 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 queen 
 city on the Upper Dnieper was lost to Russia. The Lithua- 
 nian Empire now bordered on the ancient Suzdal and the 
 principality of Riazan. These two countries, with Novgorod 
 and Pskof, were the only ones which had preserved their in- 
 dependence. It seemed as if one campaign would suffice to 
 annihilate the Russian name. But Vitovt cherished great 
 projects, in which the conquest of Moscow was only an inci- 
 dent. He had already fought against the Mongols, and with 
 the prisoners taken in the environs of Azof had peopled many 
 villages round Vilna, where their posterity still exist. He 
 took under his protection the Khan Tokhtamuish, whom Timur
 
 1240-1430.] CONQUEST OF WESTERN RUSSIA. 181 
 
 Kutlui had expelled from Sarai, and resolved to subjugate the 
 Golden Horde, to install a vassal there, and finally add to the 
 conquest of the Tatar Empire that of Moscow and Riazan. 
 The army that he assembled under the walls of Kief was per- 
 haps the most important that had marched against the infidels 
 since the first crusade. To his Lithuanian troops he had 
 united the Polish contingent, sent by lagello under the famous 
 voievodui Spitko of Cracow, loann of Mazovia, Sandivog of 
 Ostorog, Dobrogost of Samotul, and the drujinui of the Rus- 
 sian princes, Gleb of Smolensk, Mikhail and Dmitri of Vol- 
 hynia, the Mongols of Tokhtamuish, 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 
 Poltava. It was almost the battle-field where fought in seven- 
 teen hundred and nine the heroes of the North. To Timur's 
 proposals of peace Vitovt answered that God had designed 
 him to be master of the world, and that the khan must recog- 
 nize him as his father, pay him tribute, and place his armorial 
 bearings on the Mongol coins. The khan negotiated only to 
 gain time till the bulk of the Tatar army, commanded by 
 Ediger, came up. Ediger, in his turn, ironically summoned 
 Vitovt to acknowledge him as father, and to place his arms 
 on the Lithuanian coins. Vitovt, who hoped to make up for 
 his deficiency in numbers by his artillery, gave the signal for 
 battle. A manoeuvre of the Tatars on the rear of 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. Timur pursued the remnant as far as 
 the Dnieper, and levied a war contribution on Kief and the 
 Monastery of the Catacombs. So fell the prestige of Vitovt. 
 Even the princes of Riazan thought that they might safely 
 insult his frontiers. But he was still formidable, and the 
 Grand Prince of Moscow, after having tried to attack him, 
 judged it more prudent to make peace.
 
 182 HISTOEY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XL 
 
 When Vitovt began to recover from his disaster, he directed 
 a still more famous expedition against the Teutonic knights. 
 The 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 fourteen hundred and nine 
 the Jmudi 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 forty thousand Tatars 
 and twenty-one thousand Bohemian, Hungarian, Moravian, 
 and Silesian mercenaries, making a total of ninety-seven thou- 
 sand infantry, sixty-six thousand cavalry, and sixty cannons, 
 entered Prussia. The Grand Master had only fifty-seven 
 thousand infantry and twenty-six thousand cavalry, with which 
 to oppose them. The battle of Tannenberg in fourteen hun- 
 dred and ten, gained chiefly by Vitovt, who broke the German 
 centre and left wing, was a blow from which the power of the 
 Teutonic Order never recovered. The Grand Master and 
 nearly all the high dignitaries, two hundred Knights of the 
 Order, and four hundred foreign knights, besides four thou- 
 sand soldiers, were killed. Nearly all the princes of West- 
 ern Russia took part in the combat, and the contingent of 
 Smolensk especially distinguished itself. The Jmud country 
 was freed from the Teutonic rule and united to Lithuania. 
 
 Three years afterwards, in fourteen hundred and thirteen, 
 the Congress of Horodlo on the Bug, between lagello, accom- 
 panied by the Polish nobles, and Vitovt, accompanied by his 
 Lithuanian chiefs, took place. It was settled that the Lithu- 
 anian Catholics should receive the rights and privileges of the 
 Polish nobility ; and that the representatives of the two coun- 
 tries should unite in a common diet to elect the Kings of Po-
 
 1240-1430.] CONQUEST OF WESTERN RUSSIA. 183 
 
 land and the Grand Dukes of Lithuania, and decide important 
 affairs. Vitovt soon had differences with his own subjects : 
 the Jmudi, 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 govern them only by force. 
 
 The Russian provinces of Lithuania were orthodox, and 
 depended 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 orthodox prelates ; a learned Bulgarian monk, 
 Gregory Tsamblak, was elected Metropolitan of Kief. Thus 
 Russia had two religious chiefs, as it 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 its supremacy over Lithuania. In fourteen hun- 
 dred and twenty-nine 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 Vilna, attended by his 
 grandson Vasili Vasilievitch, Grand Prince of Moscow, who 
 was accompanied by the Muscovite Metropolitan Photius, the 
 Princes of Tver and Riazan, lagello, King of Poland, the Khan 
 of the Crimea, the exiled Hospodar of Valakhia, the Grand 
 Master of Prussia, the Landmeister of Livonia, and the ambas- 
 sadors of the Emperor of the East. Daily were seven hundred 
 oxen, fourteen hundred sheep, and game in proportion con- 
 sumed. In the midst of 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 stopped as they were 
 bringing him the sceptre and the crown. Vitovt fell ill, and 
 died of disappointment in fourteen hundred and thirty.
 
 184 HISTOEY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XL 
 
 After this Lithuania ceased to be formidable. We find it 
 in turns governed by a Grand Duke of its own, united to 
 Poland under Vladislas, separated again, then definitely placed 
 under the Polish sceptre after fifteen hundred and one. Though 
 henceforward it always had the same sovereign as Poland, it 
 remained a state apart, the Grand Principality, or Grand 
 Duchy, of Lithuania. Its Lithuanian and Russian provinces 
 gradually became Polish, and the princely descendants of 
 Rurik and Saint Vladimir, or of Mindvog and Gedimin, as- 
 sumed the manners and language of the Polish aristocracy.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE GRAND PRINCES OF MOSCOW: ORGANI- 
 ZATION OF EASTERN RUSSIA. 
 
 1303-1462. 
 
 ORIGIN or Moscow. DANIEL. IUKI DANIELOVITCH (1303-1325) AND 
 IVAN KALITA (1328-1341). CONTEST WITH THE HOUSE OF TVER. 
 SIMEON THE PROUD AND IVAN THE DEBONAIR (1341-1359). 
 DMITRI DONSKO! (1363-1389). BATTLE OF KULIKOVO. VASILI 
 DMITRIE'VITCH AND VASILI THE BLIND (1389-1462). 
 
 ORIGIN OF MOSCOW. DANIEL. 
 
 WHILE Western Russia grouped itself around the Lithu- 
 anian state, which had given the conquered Russian 
 provinces a new capital in Vilna, and soon involved them in its 
 own union with Poland, Eastern Russia grouped itself around 
 Moscow. When this double concentration on the Moskova 
 and on the Vilna should be accomplished, Great Russia, proud 
 of its 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 sovereigns, 
 in other centuries, will fall the task of reconstituting the Rus- 
 sian unity in its fullest extent. The honor of the princes of 
 Moscow is that they created the living germ which became 
 Great Russia. 
 
 Around Moscow, under the Mongol yoke, a race was
 
 186 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 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 upper hand over Western Russia and 
 Lithuania. There grew a dynasty of princes, politic and per- 
 severing, prudent 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 Capets were 
 of the French monarchy. 
 
 The means used by the sovereigns of Russia were very dif- 
 ferent. Here we shall find no sympathetic figures like that 
 of Louis the Sixth careering proudly in the narrow domains of 
 France, capturing rebel castles in the face of the sun, of a 
 Louis the Ninth, true mirror of chivalry, the noblest incar- 
 nation of the kingly ideal. The princes of Moscow gained 
 their ends by intrigue, corruption, the purchase of consciences, 
 servility to the khans, perfidy to their equals, murder, and 
 treachery. They were at once the tax-gatherers and the 
 police of the khans. But they created the germ of the Rus- 
 sian 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 Lithua- 
 nia, at Smolensk and' in Gallicia, at Tchernigof and at Kief, 
 at Vladimir and at Riazan. The mutilation of Russia, con- 
 quered 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 fif- 
 teenth century escaped the Lithuanian conquest was very 
 small. Without counting Smolensk, whose days were num- 
 bered, there remained the following principalities : Riazan, 
 with its appanages of Pronsk and Pereiaslavl-Riazanski ; Suz- 
 dal, with the towns of Vladimir, Nijni-Novgorod, Suzdal, 
 Galitch in Suzdal, Kostroma, and Gorodets; Tver, situated
 
 1303-1462.] THE' GRAND PRINCES OF MOSCOW. 187 
 
 on the Upper Volga, and chiefly made up of bailiwicks taken 
 from Novgorod by the Grand Princes of Suzdal, with the 
 towns of Rjef, Kashin, and Zubtsof ; Moscow, shut in on the 
 north by Tver, on the east by Suzdal, on the south by Riazan, 
 nearly stifled by its powerful neighbors, like the France of the 
 Capets between the formidable states of English Normandy, 
 Flanders, and Champagne. 
 
 The name of Moscow appears for the first time in the 
 chronicles at the date of eleven hundred and forty-seven. It 
 is there said that the Grand Prince luri Dolgoruki, having 
 arrived on the domain of a boyar named Stephen Kutchko, 
 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 Moskova, the very spot whereon the 
 Kreml now stands, he built the city of Moscow. In the 
 Capitol of ancient Rome the founder, Romulus, discovered 
 the head of a man ; the Capitol of Moscow, destined to be- 
 come the centre of an empire, was sprinkled in its beginning 
 by human blood. The name of a still-existing church, 
 " Saint Savior of the Pines," preserves the memory of the 
 thick forests that then clothed both banks of the Moskova, on 
 the space now covered by an immense capital. During the 
 century following its foundation Moscow remained an obscure 
 and insignificant village of Suzdal. The chroniclers do not 
 allude to it except to mention that it was burned by the 
 Tatars in twelve hundred and thirty-seven, or that a brother 
 of Alexander Nevski, Mikhail of Moscow, was killed there in 
 a battle with the Lithuanians. The real founder of the prin- 
 cipality 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 important town, 
 Pereiaslavl-Zalieski, that belonged to one of his nephews, and 
 by the addition of Kolomna, which he took from the Riazan- 
 ese. At his death, in thirteen hundred and three, he was the 
 first to be buried in the Church of Saint Michael the Arch-
 
 188 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 angel, which till the time of Peter the Great remained the 
 bury ing-place of the Russian princes. He was followed, in 
 due course, by his sons luri and Ivan. 
 
 IURI DANTELO VETCH AND IVAN KALITA. CONTEST 
 WITH THE HOUSE OF TVER, 
 
 The first act of luri Danielovitch, who reigned from thir- 
 teen hundred and three till thirteen hundred and twenty-five, 
 was to capture 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 Andrei 
 Alexandrovitch, Grand Prince of Suzdal, died, in thirteen 
 hundred and four, two competitors presented themselves, 
 Mikhail of Tver, cousin-german of the deceased, and his 
 nephew luri of Moscow. The claim of Mikhail was incon- 
 testable ; was he not the eldest of the family ? The boyars 
 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. 
 Mikhail, who had on his side the national law and the sov- 
 ereign will of the Mongols, could also use force ; he twice be- 
 sieged Moscow, and obliged the son of Daniel to leave him in 
 peace. In this young man he had an implacable enemy. The 
 chroniclers, indignant at luri's revolt against the old hereditary 
 custom, unanimously pronounce 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 possession of his territories, if the khan had not ordered 
 the rights of the young heir to be respected. Then luri caused 
 himself to be recognized as Prince of Novgorod, to the preju- 
 dice of Mikhail, but the army of Tver and Vladimir defeated
 
 1303-1462.] THE GRAND PRINCES OF MOSCOW. 189 
 
 that furnished him by the republic. An unexpected event 
 suddenly changed the face of things. The Khan Tokhta died ; 
 luri managed to gain the good graces of his successor Uzbek, 
 so that the latter gave him his sister Kontchaka in marriage, 
 and, reversing the decision of Tokhta, adjudged him the grand 
 principality. Daniel's son returned to Russia with a Mongol 
 army, commanded by the baskak Kavgadi. Mikhail consented, 
 say the chroniclers, to cede Vladimir, if his hereditary appa- 
 nage were respected ; but luri began to lay waste the country of 
 Tver, and war was inevitable. Mikhail triumphed completely. 
 The Tatar wife of luri, his brother Boris, the Mongol general 
 Kavgadi, and nearly all the officers of the khan, fell into his 
 hands. Mikhail covered his prisoners with attentions dictated 
 by prudence. Kavgadi, released with honor, swore to be his 
 friend, but, as the khan's sister 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, Mikhail had the 
 imprudence to send his son, a boy twelve years old, in his 
 place. Finding luri was occupied in accusing, intriguing, and 
 corrupting, Mikhail 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 Uzbek deferred 
 judgment. This, however, did not meet luri'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 Cau- 
 casus. Mikhail was dragged in the train of the court, loaded 
 with irons, from Sara'i to Dediakof in Daghestan. One day 
 he was put in the pillory in the market of a thickly populated 
 town, and the spectators crowded to see him, saying, " This 
 prisoner was, a short time ago, a powerful prince in his own
 
 190 HISTORY OF EUSSIA. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 country." Mikhail's boyars had told him to escape ; he re- 
 fused, not wishing his people to suffer for him. luri was so 
 energetic, and scattered about so much money, that, finally, 
 the death-warrant was signed. One of Mikhail's pages en- 
 tered the tent which served him as a prison, in great alarm, 
 to tell him that luri and Kavgadi were approaching, followed 
 by a multitude of people. " I know the reason," replied the 
 prince ; and he sent his young son Konstantin to one of the 
 khan's wives, who had promised to take him under her pro- 
 tection. His two enemies took their stand near his tent, dis- 
 missed the boyars of Tver, and sent their hired ruffians to 
 assassinate the prince. They threw him down, and trampled 
 him under their feet. As in the case of Mikhail of Tcher- 
 nigof, it was not a Mongol that stabbed him and tore out 
 his heart, but a renegade named Romanets. When luri and 
 Kavgadi entered and contemplated the naked corpse, " What," 
 said the Tatar, " will you allow the body of your uncle to be 
 outraged ? " One of luri's servants threw a mantle over the 
 victim. His death took place in thirteen hundred and nine- 
 teen. Mikhail was bewailed by the Tverians. His body, 
 incorruptible as that of a martyr, was afterwards deposited 
 in a silver shrine in the Cathedral of Tver. He became a saint, 
 and the patron of his city. On the walls of the cathedral 
 ancient and modern pictures recall his martyrdom, and con- 
 demn the crime of the Muscovite. All the contemporary 
 chroniclers warmly take his part against the assassin. Karam- 
 sin has made himself the echo of their apologies and curses. 
 But at the same time that Mikhail became a saint luri 
 became the all-powerful sovereign of Moscow, Suzdal, and 
 Novgorod. Mikhail's tragic fate foretold the ruin of Tver. 
 
 Some years afterwards things were reversed at the Horde. 
 Dmitri of the Terrible Eyes, son of the unhappy Mikhail, ob- 
 tained the title of Grand Prince, and the baskak Seventch 
 Bonga was charged to place him on the throne of Vladimir, 
 luri found himself obliged to go again to Sarai; there the
 
 1303-1462.] THE GRAND PEINCES OF MOSCOW. 191 
 
 two rivals, Dmitri of Tver and luri of Moscow, met. Dmitri 
 had his father to avenge ; his sword leaped from the scabbard, 
 and the Prince of Moscow fell mortally wounded, in thirteen 
 hundred and twenty-five. All that his friends could obtain 
 was that Dmitri should be put to death. The latter was suc- 
 ceeded in Vladimir by his brother Alexander. 
 
 Unluckily for the house of Tver, the following year the 
 Tverians, exasperated by the baskak Shevkal, rose in rebellion 
 and murdered him and all his suite. Alexander, instead of 
 imitating the firm prudence of his Muscovite neighbors, 
 allowed himself to be carried away by the popular passion. 
 He himself assaulted the palace of the baskak, and lighted the 
 fire. After such an action, he had no pity to expect from the 
 khan ; and if Uzbek could have forgotten the insult to his 
 majesty, the princes of Moscow would have kept him in mind 
 of it. luri's brother, Ivan Kalita, offered to complete the ruin 
 of Tver. Uzbek promised him the title of Grand Prince, and 
 gave him an army of fifty thousand Tatars, to whom were 
 joined the contingents of Moscow and Suzdal. Alexander, 
 who had not had the wisdom to resist his people, had likewise 
 not the courage to defend them and die with them. He fled, 
 with his brothers, to Pskof and Ladoga. Pitiless was the 
 vengeance of the khan and the vengeance of Moscow. Tver, 
 Kashin, and Torjok were sacked. Novgorod had to buy itself 
 off by a war indemnity. Not content with exterminating the 
 Tverians, Uzbek put to death at the same time the Prince of 
 Riazan, son of that Prince laroslaf whom luri Danielovitch 
 had murdered in prison. The Horde and Moscow seemed to 
 have the same enemies, they struck in concert. It is re- 
 markable that it was in the blood of the martyrs Mikhail of 
 Tver and Dmitri " with the terrible eyes " that " holy Russia" 
 came to her growth. 
 
 Ivan Kalita became Grand Prince in thirteen hundred and 
 twenty-eight, and made the journey to the Horde with Mikhail's 
 son Konstantin, who had replaced the fugitive Alexander on
 
 192 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 the throne of Tver. ' Ivan was well received, but Uzbek com- 
 manded him to make Alexander appear before him. The 
 ambassadors of the Grand Prince went to Pskof, to conjure 
 Alexander to appear, or to summon the Pskovians to deliver 
 him up. " Do not expose," they said, " a Christian people to 
 the wrath of the infidels." But the Pskovians, touched by 
 the prayers of the Prince of Tver, replied, " Do not go to the 
 Horde, my lord ; whatever happens, we will die with thee." 
 As magnanimous as the Novgorodians at the time of Alexan- 
 der Nevski, as heroically absurd, they ordered the ambassa- 
 dors to be gone, took up arms, and built a new fortress near 
 Izborsk. Ivan assembled an army and persuaded the Metro- 
 politan Theognostus to place Alexander and the Pskovians 
 under an interdict. Thus men saw a Christian prince per- 
 secute one of his kinsmen by order of the Tatars, and a 
 metropolitan excommunicate the Christians to force them to 
 obey the khan. The Pskovians, though alarmed, would not 
 yield an inch ; but Alexander left them and took refuge in 
 Lithuania in thirteen hundred and twenty-nine. Then they 
 said to the Grand Prince, " Alexander is gone ; all Pskof 
 swears it, from the smallest to the greatest, popes, monks, 
 nuns, orphans, women, and children." 
 
 Alexander afterwards returned, and was again recognized by 
 them as their prince, but still regretted his good city of Tver. 
 The protection of the Lithuanian Gedimin was too dangerous 
 and too burdensome. Alexander thought it would be easier 
 to bend the terrible Uzbek. He went to the Horde with his 
 boyars. " Lord, all-powerful Tsar," he said to Uzbek, " if I 
 have done anything against you, I have come hither to receive 
 of you life or death. Do as God inspires you; I am ready for 
 either." The khan pardoned him, and Alexander returned to 
 Tver. Ivan Kalita had hoped he had forever got rid of him. 
 In Alexander's absence he was the master of Russia, had in- 
 terfered in the affairs of Tver, married one of his daughters to 
 Vladimir of laroslavl and another to Konstantin of Rostof,
 
 1303-1462.] THE GRAND PRINCES OF MOSCOW. 193 
 
 brother of the banished prince. The return of Alexander 
 gave a chief to those who were discontented with Ivan. In- 
 stead of declaring war, Ivan preferred to resort to his ordinary 
 means. He flew to the Horde, and there represented Alexan- 
 der as the most dangerous enemy of the Mongols. In conse- 
 quence of these insinuations Alexander was summoned before 
 the khan ; this time he was beheaded, with his son Feodor. 
 The rivalry with Moscow had already cost four princes of the 
 house of Tver their lives. Uzbek, who had confidence only in 
 Moscow, and who wished to govern the rest of Russia by 
 terror, about this time put the Prince of Starodub to death. 
 The princes Konstantin and Vasili of Tver, sons, brothers, and 
 uncles of the victims, felt that they could maintain themselves 
 only by obedience to their terrible father-in-law. As a proof 
 of submission they sent to Kalita the great bell of the Cathe- 
 dral of Tver. The princes of Riazan and Suzdal were also 
 obliged to fight under his standards. Novgorod, threatened 
 by him, began the course which afterwards proved so fatal, 
 and which almost brought about the ruin of Russia ; it allied 
 itself with Lithuania, accepted as prince Narimond, a son of 
 Gedimin, and gave him the Novgorodian possessions in Ingria 
 and Karelia as hereditary appanages. It tried also to make 
 friends with the Grand Prince of Moscow, but Ivan desired 
 only to restrict its liberties, and exacted, in the name of the 
 khan, a double capitation-tax. 
 
 This un warlike prince, at the same time that he strengthened 
 his supremacy, acquired by purchase the towns of Uglitch, 
 Galitch, Bielozersk, and lands in the neighborhoods of Kostro- 
 ma, Vladimir, and Rostof. He was at once Prince of Moscow 
 and Grand Prince of Vladimir; but Moscow was his inherit- 
 ance, of which he could not legally be despoiled by the khan, 
 while Vladimir could be given to another house. It was thus 
 that in Germany the archduchy of Austria was hereditary, while 
 the imperial crown might legally pass to another family. It 
 may therefore be imagined how Kalita chose to sacrifice Vla- 
 
 VOL. I. 13
 
 194 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 dimir to Moscow, as the Hapsburgs sacrificed Frankfort to 
 Vienna. His Tverian rivals, the two grand princes, his prede- 
 cessors, had acted in the same way. Mikhail and Dmitri of 
 Tver had hardly appeared at Vladimir, except to be crowned 
 in the cathedral. They lived habitually in their appanage 
 towns, one at Tver, the other at Pereiaslavl. Under Kalita, 
 Vladimir remained the legal capital of Russia ; Moscow was 
 the real capital, and Kalita was working to make it the legal 
 as well as the actual capital. The Metropolitan of Vladimir, 
 Peter, who had an affection for Moscow, often resided there. 
 His successor, Theognostus, established himself there com- 
 pletely. Then the religious supremacy which had first be- 
 longed to Kief, and next to Vladimir, passed to Moscow. 
 Kalita did his best to give it the prestige of a metropolis. He 
 built magnificent churches in the Kreml, among others that of 
 the Assumption, the Uspienski sobor. The first Metropolitans 
 of Moscow, thanks to him and his successors, were beatified. 
 Saint Alexis and Saint Peter are reckoned among the patron- 
 saints of Russia. It is related that the Metropolitan Peter 
 himself marked out the place of his tomb in the new church, 
 and that he said to Ivan, " God will bless thee, and elevate thee 
 above all the other princes, and raise this town above all other 
 towns. Thy race will reign in this place during many cen- 
 turies ; their hands will conquer all their enemies ; the saints 
 will make their dwelling here, and here shall my bones 
 repose." 
 
 What made the chief glory of Kief, the ancient metropolis, 
 was the famous Petcherski monastery, with its holy catacombs 
 and the tombs of so many ascetics and wonder-workers. Mos- 
 cow had also its heritage of virtues and glorious austerity. 
 Under Kalita's successor, not far from the capital, in a deep 
 forest, where he had at first no companion but a bear, on water- 
 courses which were haunted only by the beavers, Saint Sergius 
 founded the Troi'tsa, or monastery of the Trinity, which became 
 one of the richest and most venerated of Eastern Russia. On
 
 MONASTERY OF ST. SERG1US AT TROITSA.
 
 1303-1462.] THE GRAND PRINCES OF MOSCOW. 195 
 
 account of its increase of wealth, it was obliged to be sur- 
 rounded with ramparts ; and its thick brick walls with a 
 triple row of embrasures, its nine war-towers, arid its still 
 existing fortifications, were afterwards destined to brave the 
 assaults of Catholics and infidels. The princes of Moscow, 
 in spite of their perfidious and pitiless policy, were as pious 
 as good King Robert, devotees, 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 kalita, or alms-bag, he wore always at his girdle. 
 This kalita may also have been Shylock's purse, the bag of 
 a prince who was farmer-general and usurer, who demanded 
 from Novgorod double what he intended to pay on its behalf 
 to Uzbek. 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 ton- 
 sured and adopt the religious dress and a new name. 
 
 If the princes of Moscow labored with fierce energy to bind 
 together the Russian lands under one head, they continued to 
 divide it into appanages among their sons. But many causes 
 contributed to prevent the return of the former anarchy. 
 These princes, as a rule, had few sons ; they gradually got 
 into the way of giving only very weak appanages to the 
 younger ones, and these on condition of an absolute depend- 
 ence on the eldest. Ivan, for example, had only three sons ; 
 he gave by far the larger share, Mojai'sk and Kolomna, to 
 Simeon, and forbade Moscow to be divided. The idea of the 
 state as one and indivisible was certain to gain the day. 
 
 SIMEON THE PROUD AND IVAN THE DEBONAIR. 
 
 Kalita was succeeded by his two sons one after the other : 
 Simeon the Proud reigning from thirteen hundred and forty- 
 one to thirteen hundred and fifty-three, and Ivan the Second 
 from thirteen hundred and fifty-three to thirteen hundred and
 
 196 HISTORY OF EUSSIA. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 fifty-nine. They were all three contemporaries of the early 
 Valois. At the news of Ivan's death many princes at once 
 disputed the throne of Vladimir with his sons. Konstantin 
 of Tver and Konstantin of Suzdal, especially, were supported 
 by the other 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 that 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 thirteen hundred and forty-one Olgerd of 
 Lithuania besieged the town of Mojaisk, Simeon's own appa- 
 nage. The friendship of Saint 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 Kreml were adorned with 
 new paintings, that of the Assumption, by Greek artists ; 
 that of Saint Michael, by the Court painters ; that of the 
 Transfiguration, by a foreigner named Goiten. Paper replaced 
 parchment ; and it was on paper that Simeon's will was 
 written. Russia then still maintained its 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 the Second, the brother who succeeded the Proud in 
 thirteen hundred and fifty-three, deserves, on the contrary,
 
 1303-1462.] THE GRAND PEINCES OF MOSCOW. 197 
 
 the surname of " the Debonair." He was of a different type 
 from the sinister princes of Suzdal, and was pacific and 
 gentle. The anarchy into which Russia fell during the six 
 years of his reign shows how little his virtues were those of 
 his century. Without attempting to avenge himself, Ivan 
 permitted Oleg of Riazan to insult his territory, burn his vil- 
 lages of the Lopasnia, and ill-treat his lieutenant. He allowed 
 the Novgorodians to despise his authority and obey Konstan- 
 tin of Suzdal ; he let the Grand Duke Olgerd occupy Rjef, 
 and Andrei of Lithuania menace Pskof. He interfered neither 
 in the civil wars of the princes of Riazan, nor in those of the^ 
 principality of Tver, nor in the troubles excited at Novgorod 
 by the rivalry of the Slavonian quarters and that of Saint 
 Sophia, nor in the storm raised in the Church by the Patri- 
 arch of Constantinople, who dared to consecrate a rival of 
 Saint Alexis as Metropolitan. The murder of one of his 
 officers, Alexis, military governor of Moscow, remained un- 
 punished. In this weakness of the prince, the churchmen 
 naturally came to the front, and took up the part abandoned 
 by him. Moses, Archbishop of Novgorod, quelled a revolt in 
 the republic ; Saint 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 the Second the title of Grand Prince, which 
 his three predecessors had made such efforts to perpetuate in 
 the house of Moscow, passed to that of Suzdal. Dmitri of 
 Suzdal, furnished with the iarluik, made his solemn entry 
 into Vladimir in thirteen hundred and fifty-nine. It was 
 again Saint Alexis who saved the supremacy of Moscow. 
 After having blessed the Grand Prince in Vladimir, he re- 
 turned to his care of the voung children of Ivan the Second, 
 
 */ 
 
 and to Moscow, which had for a moment ceased to be the 
 capital. It was by his counsels that Dmitri Ivanovitch, at the 
 age of twelve, dared to declare himself the rival of Dmitri of 
 Suzdal, and determined to appeal to the tribunal of the khan.
 
 198 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 The Golden Horde was then a prey to civil wars ; the fero- 
 cious Mamai harassed Murut, but as the latter reigned at 
 Sarai, and seemed the legitimate successor of Batui, it was to 
 him that the Suzdalian and Muscovite boyars addressed them- 
 selves. Murut adjudged the Grand Principality to Dmitri 
 Ivanovitch, Kalita's grandson, whom a Muscovite army led to 
 be consecrated in Vladimir. 
 
 DMITRI DONSKOL THE BATTLE OF KULIKOVO. 
 
 Dmitri Ivanovitch, who reigned from thirteen hundred and 
 sixty-three until thirteen hundred and eighty-nine, is distin- 
 guished from nearly all the Suzdal princes by a warlike and 
 chivalrous character 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 preux chevaliers of Louis the Ninth or 
 of John the Good. Dmitri had at once to sustain a series of 
 wars against the neighboring princes ; notably against Dmitri 
 of Suzdal, Mikhail of Tver, and Oleg of Riazan. As changes 
 took place at the Horde, Dmitri of Suzdal obtained from the 
 Khan Murut 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 Suzdalian appanage of Nijni-Novgorod having become 
 vacant, Dmitri supported his ancient enemy against his com- 
 petitor Boris. Like his grandfather Kalita, who had caused 
 Novgorod to be excommunicated, Dmitri Ivanovitch entreated 
 Saint Sergius, the founder of the Troitsa Monastery, to lay 
 Nijni-Novgorod under an interdict. Then Boris yielded, and 
 Dmitri of Suzdal, now Prince of Nijni-Novgorod, gave the 
 Prince of Moscow his daughter Evdokia in marriage, and 
 henceforward remained his friend. Dmitri Ivanovitch de-
 
 1303-1462.] THE GRAND PEINCES OF MOSCOW. 199 
 
 prived the rebel princes of Starodub and Galitch of their 
 appanages, and forced Konstantin Borisovitch to recognize his 
 supremacy. He made, under the guaranty of Saint 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 
 acknowledge him as his father and his Grand Prince. Vladi- 
 mir kept his word, and was always Dmitri's bravest lieutenant 
 and his right arm. 
 
 The struggle now recommenced with the house of Tver. 
 Mikhail 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. Mikhail paid no attention to this decision, took 
 Tver with a Lithuanian army, besieged his uncle in Kashin, 
 and obliged him to renounce his claims. He then took the 
 title of Grand Prince of Tver. It was chiefly the alliance 
 with Olgerd, the husband of his sister Juliana, that rendered 
 him formidable. Thrice in thirteen hundred and sixty- 
 eight, in thirteen hundred and seventy-one, and in thirteen 
 hundred and seventy-two Olgerd conducted his brother- 
 in-law, burning and pillaging on his way, up to the walls of 
 the Kreml of Moscow. Neither the Lithuanian nor the Mus- 
 covite army on any of these occasions fought a decisive battle. 
 Dmitri's boyars felt that a lost battle would be the ruin of 
 Russia ; while Olgerd was too old and experienced to stake all 
 on a hazard. At last, in thirteen hundred and seventy-five, 
 after the death of his brother-in-law, Mikhail 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. Re- 
 duced to extremities, and abandoned 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 Nov- 
 gorod and Vladimir, not to disquiet the allies of Moscow, and
 
 200 HISTOEY OP RUSSIA. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 to imitate Dmitri's conduct towards the Tatars, whether he 
 continued to pay tribute or declared war. 
 
 Another enemy, not less dangerous, was Oleg of Riazan, 
 who had formerly braved Ivan the Debonair. In thirteen 
 hundred and seventy-one the Muscovites 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 
 disorderly style. It is true it was no longer a point of honor 
 with the Christian princes to submit to them. Oleg of Riazan 
 himself united with the princes of Pronsk and Kozelsk, and 
 defied the Tatar prince Tagai, who had burnt Riazan. Dmitri 
 of Suzdal, Prince of Nijni-Novgorod, had defeated Bulat-Temir, 
 who on his return to the Horde had been disavowed and put 
 to death. Finally, Dmitri of Moscow had many times dis- 
 obeyed the terrible 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 in thirteen 
 hundred and seventy-one. In thirteen hundred and seventy- 
 six Dmitri sent a great expedition against Kazan by the Volga, 
 and forced two Tatar princes to pay tribute. Conflicts multi- 
 plied between the Christians and the infidels. In this man- 
 ner the princes of Suzdal exterminated a band of Mordva, 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 thirteen hundred and seventy-eight, Dmitri of Moscow 
 gained a brilliant victory over Mamai's lieutenant on the 
 banks of the Voja in Riazan. In the first intoxication 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, abandon- 
 ing his lands to the ravages of the enemy.
 
 DMITRI DUNSKOI
 
 1303-1462.] THE GRAND PRINCES OF MOSCOW. 201 
 
 It took Mamai two years to mature his plans of vengeance, 
 and he assembled in silence an immense host of Tatars, Turks, 
 Polovtsni, Tcherkesui, lasui, and Burtanians, or Caucasian 
 Jews. Even the Genoese of Kaffa, settled in the Crimea and 
 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 remembering only his 
 mistrust and jealousy of Moscow, betrayed the common cause. 
 While keeping on good terms with Dmitri, even while warn- 
 ing him of what was preparing, he secretly negotiated an 
 alliance between the two most formidable enemies of Russia, 
 lagello of Lithuania and Mamai. 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, laro- 
 slavl, Starodub, and Kashin, with their drujinui; the boyars 
 of Vladimir, Nijni-Novgorod, Suzdal, Pereiaslavl-Zalieski, Kos- 
 troma, Murom, Dmitrof, Mojaisk, Zvenigorod, Uglitch, and 
 Serpukhof, at the head of their contingents, successively made 
 their entrance into the Kreml, amid the acclamations of the 
 Muscovites. At Kostroma, Dmitri was to be joined by two 
 Lithuanian princes, Andrei and Dmitri, who brought 
 him troops from Pskof and Briansk. The Grand Prince, 
 with his cousin Vladimir, went to the hermitage 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 Peresvet and 
 Osliaba, formerly a brave boyar of Briansk, to accompany 
 Dmitri. On their cowls he made the sign of the cross. " Be- 
 hold," he cried, " a weapon which never faileth." 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 
 thought of revenge. In spiter of private jealousies, the princes
 
 202 HISTOEY OF KUSSIA. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 were animated by the same ardor as the Spanish kings when 
 they marched against the Moors, or the companions of Godfrey 
 of Bouillon on the road for the Holy Land. Never had such 
 an army been seen in Russia. Dmitri is said to have had 
 one hundred and fifty thousand 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 imme- 
 diately ; but it was urgent to dispose of the Mongols before 
 having on their hands lagello, who had already arrived at 
 Odoef, fifteen leagues off. A letter which Dmitri received 
 from Saint Sergius, recommending him to "go forwards," 
 decided the matter. The Don was crossed, and they found 
 themselves on the plain of Kulikovo, or the Field of Woodcocks, 
 watered by the Nepriadva. The centre was occupied by the 
 princes of Lithuania and Smolensk, with Dmitri's drujina; the 
 right was commanded by the princes of Rostof and Starodub, 
 the left by those of laroslavl and Vologda; the reserve by 
 Prince Vladimir, the brave Dmitri of Volhynia, and the princes 
 of Briansk and Kashin. The Mongols soon came up, and the 
 battle began. It was bloody and hard fought. The enemy 
 had broken through the Grand Prince's drujina when Vladimir 
 and Dmitri of Volhynia, who had been lying in ambush, sud- 
 denly attacked the Tatars. Mamai, from the top of a funeral 
 mound, 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, a hundred 
 thousand 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 Petcheneg 
 giant, who had fought with him hand to hand, and perished 
 along with him. Fora long while Dmitri could not be found ; 
 at last he was discovered in a swoon, his armor bloody and 
 broken. This memorable battle of Kulikovo has been related
 
 1303-1462.] THE GRAND PRINCES OF MOSCOW. 203 
 
 in more than one way by the Russian historians. With the 
 annalists, properly so called, the Grand Prince's official histo- 
 rians, Dmitri is the hero. In the poetical recitals which were 
 inspired by the account of the Pope Sophronius it is Saint Ser- 
 gius who at each moment supports the courage of Dmitri, whom 
 they represent with rather too much humility for a general-in- 
 chief. The battle of the Don, which gained for Dmitri the 
 surname of Donsko'i and for Vladimir that of the Brave, is as 
 celebrated in Russia as that of Las Navas de Tolosa in Spain. 
 It showed the Russians that they could vanquish the invincible ; 
 and the Mongol yoke, even after they again fell under it, no 
 longer seemed unconquerable. Dmitri had heroically broken 
 the tradition of slavery ; he had proclaimed the future freedom. 
 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 con- 
 queror of the two Bokharas, of Hindostan, of Iran, and of Asia 
 Minor. Tokhtamuish, one of his generals, caused Mamai to 
 be put to death, and announced to Dmitri that he had tri- 
 umphed over their common enemy; 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 Kulikovo ? The khan assembled an immense army. 
 Dmitri found no longer the same wisdom or energy among his 
 councillors. Not knowing what to do, he left Moscow and 
 went to assemble an army at Kostroma. Tokhtamuish marched 
 straight on the capital, and during three days tried to carry 
 the walls of the Kreml by assault. Then he had recourse to 
 a ruse, and affected to enter into a negotiation. At last the 
 Tatars surprised the gates and delivered up Moscow to fire 
 and sword. A tolerably exact calculation proves that twenty- 
 four thousand men perished, besides the precious documents 
 and earliest archives of the principality.
 
 204 HISTORY OP EUSSIA. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 Vladimir, Mojaisk, lurief, and other towns of Suzdal suf- 
 fered the same fate. When Tokhtamuish 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 itself to its Tatar collectors, it 
 felt that the Horde would never recover its former power. 
 
 Dmitri longed at least to avenge himself on the perfidious 
 Oleg. The latter escaped him, but Riazan, which was re- 
 garded as a harbor for traitors, was sacked. Mikhail of Tver 
 merited the same chastisement ; he had refused to fight Mamai', 
 and was one of the first to fly to the Horde of Tokhtamuish. 
 The war continued with Oleg of Riazan, who ravaged the 
 territory of Kolomna. Saint Sergius again intervened, en- 
 treated and threatened Oleg, and finally induced him to con- 
 clude a " perpetual peace " with Dmitri, and to cement it 
 by the marriage of his son Feodor with Sophia, daughter of 
 Dmitri. 
 
 The Novgorod adventurers, the " Good Companions," had 
 about this time committed many ravages on the territories of 
 the Grand Principalities. They insulted laroslavl and Kos- 
 troma in thirteen hundred and seventy-one, and Kostroma and 
 Nijni-Novgorod in thirteen hundred and seventy-five, pillaging 
 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 Metropoli- 
 tan. Dmitri marched against the republic with the contin- 
 gents of twenty-five provinces. Novgorod had to pay an in- 
 demnity for the high-handed deeds of the Good Companions, 
 and to engage to furnish a yearly tribute. 
 
 When Dmitri died, in thirteen hundred and eighty-nine, 
 the principality of Moscow was by far the most considerable 
 of the states of the Northeast, since it extended on the south 
 to Kaluga and Kasimof, and included on the northeast Bielo-
 
 1303-1462.] THE GRAND PRINCES OF MOSCOW. 205 
 
 zersk 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 his five 
 younger sons, he at least established the principle of inherit- 
 ance in a direct line instead of the ancient principle of collat- 
 eral succession. He had signed a treaty with his cousin 
 Vladimir, by which the latter renounced his rights as " eldest 
 of the family," engaging to consider Vasili, eldest son of 
 Dmitri, as his " elder brother." In the reign of Donsko'i the 
 monk Stephen founded the first church in the country of 
 the Permians, confuted their priests and sorcerers, overthrew 
 the idols of Voissel 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 Andrei, 
 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 marten-skins. About thirteen hun- 
 dred and eighty-nine the first cannons appeared in the Russian 
 army. Moscow continued to be beautified, and the monasteries 
 of the Miracle, of Andronii, and of Simeon were built. 
 
 VASILI DMITRlfivrrCH AND VASILI THE BLIND. 
 
 In thirteen hundred and eighty-nine Vasili Dmitrievitch, 
 the contemporary of Charles the Sixth 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 Moskova, the 
 other on the Kliazma, affluents of the Oka. Vladimir, like 
 Moscow, had its kreml 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
 
 206 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 it to escape the piracies of the Good Companions. Vladimir 
 had been in other respects as favored as Moscow. Andrei 
 Bogoliubski 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 government 
 with a population of fourteen thousand, while Moscow is a 
 metropolis with six hundred thousand souls. 
 
 With regard to Novgorod, the Grand Prince of Moscow 
 began 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 conceded 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 homage rendered to the ancient Slav 
 freedom. After the fall of Alexander of Tver, in thirteen 
 hundred and twenty-eight, 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. 
 But with Lithuania it was not only a competition of candi- 
 dates, but it was a great national and religious question. It 
 would be more advantageous for Moscow to ruin Novgorod 
 than to allow it to pass into the hands of the most danger- 
 ous enemy of Russian orthodoxy. We may say that after thir- 
 teen hundred and twenty-eight Novgorod had no longer a 
 special prince, but only a boyar of Moscow, who represented 
 the Grand Prince. The power of the latter was sometimes 
 exerted with severity. In thirteen hundred and ninety-three, 
 Novgorod having revolted against Moscow, Vasili sent in his 
 troops, and seventy inhabitants of Torjok, accused of having 
 put to death one of his men, were cut to pieces.
 
 1303-1462.] THE GEAND PRINCES OF MOSCOW. 207 
 
 Thus Vasili Dmitrievitch, on his accession to the throne, 
 found his power considerably strengthened, since 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 thirteen hundred and ninety-two, it was less 
 to obtain the confirmation of this triple crown than to acquire 
 new territories. From the Khan Tokhtamuish he bought a 
 iarluik, which put him in possession of the three appanages 
 of Murom, Nijni-Novgorod, and Suzdal. The boyars of 
 Moscow and the ambassador of the khan betook themselves 
 to Nijni. Boris, the last titular prince of the two latter 
 appanages, 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, Vasili of Moscow was proclaimed Prince of Nijni 
 and Suzdal. 
 
 This prince, who lived on such good terms with the Horde, 
 was witness, however, of two Tatar invasions of Russia. Tam- 
 erlane, conqueror of the Ottoman Turks at Ancyra, attacked 
 his old favorite, Tokhtamuish, and pillaged the Golden Horde. 
 He continued to move towards the West, putting the Russian 
 territory to fire and sword. Moscow was threatened with an 
 invasion as terrible as that of Batui. The famous Virgin of 
 Vladimir, brought by Andrei Bogoliubski from Vuishegorod, 
 was taken solemnly to Moscow. The Tatars reached Elets 
 on the Don, and made its princes prisoners. There they 
 stopped, and suddenly retreated. Accustomed to the rich 
 booty of 'Bokhara and Hindostan, and dreaming of Constan- 
 tinople and Egypt, they found, no doubt, that the desert 
 steppes and deep forests offered only 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 in thirteen hundred and ninety-five.
 
 208 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 The irruption of Tamerlane resulted in the more rapid 
 dissolution of the Golden Horde. We have seen that Vitovt 
 took advantage of it to organize against the Mongols his 
 great crusade of the Vorskla in thirteen hundred and ninety- 
 nine. Vasili Dmitrievitch had taken good care not to inter- 
 fere in the war between Lithuania and Kiptchak. 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. Vasili 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 forbore to pay the tribute, affecting not to know which 
 was the legitimate khan. Ediger, the vanquisher of Vitovt, 
 resolved to reduce the Russian vassals to obedience. He 
 lulled the prudence 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. Vasili imitated his father's conduct in 
 similar circumstances. He retired to Kostroma to assemble 
 an army, and confided the defence of Moscow to Vladimir the 
 Brave. Defended by artillery, the Kreml 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 Mikhail. He abstained from coming to the help of 
 the Tatars against his formidable suzerain. In these circum- 
 stances Ediger learned that his master Bulat 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 ; and obtained three 
 thousand rubles from the Muscovite boyars as a war indemnity 
 in fourteen hundred and eight. 
 
 Vitovt of Lithuania, whose daughter Sophia Vasili had
 
 1303-1462.] THE GRAND PRINCES OF MOSCOW. 209 
 
 married, was a still more dangerous enemy. Great caution 
 was necessary in all dealings with him. Vasili saw the hand 
 of his father-in-law in the troubles of Novgorod, and every- 
 where else; at Pskof, where Vitovt had taken the title of 
 Grand Prince ; at Smolensk, which he had united to Lithu- 
 ania ; at Tver, where he supported Mikhail against the Grand 
 Prince. Like Olgerd, Vitovt marched thrice against Moscow. 
 Each of the two rivals had too many other enemies to dispose 
 of, to risk in one battle the fortunes of Moscow or Lithuania. 
 In fourteen hundred and eight they signed a treaty by which 
 the Ugra was fixed on as the limit of the two Grand Prin- 
 cipalities, leaving Smolensk to Vitovt, and restoring Kozelsk 
 to Russia. Besides Murom and Suzdal, Vasili had united to 
 his domains many appanages of the country of Tchernigof, 
 such as Torusa, Novosil, Kozelsk, and Peremuisl. In the 
 quarrels with Novgorod, generally occasioned by the exploits 
 of the Good Companions or by commercial rivalry, he had 
 appropriated vast territories on the Dwina; among others, 
 Vologda. In an expedition against the republic of Viatka he 
 had reduced it to submission and made one of his brothers 
 its prince. He had imposed a treaty on Feodor Olgovitch, 
 Prince of Riazan, by which the latter undertook to look on 
 him as a father, and to make no alliances to his hurt. Vasili 
 on his side ceded to him Tula and the title of Grand Prince. 
 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 Palseologus. 
 
 The reign of Vasili the Blind, from fourteen hundred and 
 twenty-five until fourteen hundred and sixty-two, contempo- 
 rary with Charles the Seventh of France, marks a pause in 
 the development of the Grand Principality. A civil war of 
 twenty years broke out in the bosom of Donsko'i's family. One 
 of his sons, George, or luri, whom he had made Prince of 
 Rusa and Zvenigorod, attempted to revert to the ancient 
 national law, and invoked his right as " eldest " against his 
 
 VOL. I. 14
 
 210 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 nephew, Vasili Vasilievitch. Vasili's other uncles declared in 
 favor of the young prince. In fourteen hundred and thirty- 
 one it was necessary to carry the dispute to the Horde. Each 
 of the two parties set forth his right to the Khan Ulu-Makh- 
 met. Vsevolojski, a boyar of the Prince of Moscow, found the 
 best of arguments for his master. " My Lord Tsar," 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 iarluik. Thou 
 art master and canst dispose of it according to thy good pleas- 
 ure. My lord the Prince luri Dmitrievitch, 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 contest of 
 baseness the prize was adjudged to the Prince of Moscow. The 
 khan ordered luri 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 Vladimir, 
 but at the Assumption in Moscow. From this time Vladimir 
 lost its privilege as the capital, although, in the enumeration 
 of the titles, the Grand Princes continued to inscribe the name 
 of Vladimir before that of Moscow. 
 
 Vasili owed his throne to the clever boyar, 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 boyar left 
 Vasili's service and retired to his enemy, luri, whose resent- 
 ment against his nephew he fanned. Another circumstance 
 exasperated luri ; his two sons, Vasili Kosoi, or the Squinting, 
 and Shemiaka, were attending the Grand Prince's marriage. 
 The Princess Sophia recognized round the waist of Vasili Kosoi 
 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 luri. On this affront the two princes at
 
 1303-1462.] THE GRAND PRINCES OF MOSCOW. 211 
 
 once left the banqueting-hall and retired to their father. The 
 latter instantly took up arms and departed for Pereiaslavl. 
 The Prince of Moscow with difficulty assembled a few troops, 
 and fell into his uncle's hands at Kostroma in fourteen hun- 
 dred and thirty-three. Vasili tried in vain to soften him by 
 his tears. The Kosoi and Shemiaka wished their prisoner to 
 be put to death, but by the self-interested counsel of the boyar 
 Morozof, luri 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 in a body, and 
 crowded into Kostroma. luri 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 boyars pressed around Vasili on 
 his return to his capital "as bees press around their queen." 
 The war, however, continued : thanks to Vasili's cowardice, 
 luri again took the Kreml, and made the wife and mother of 
 the Grand Prince prisoners, while Vasili Kosoi and Shemiaka 
 occupied Vladimir and marched on Nijni-Novgorod. 
 
 luri had hardly been recognized as Grand Prince of Nov- 
 gorod when he died suddenly. His sons then made peace 
 with Vasili, but immediately took up arms again. In one of 
 the many reverses of this civil war Vasili Kosoi fell into the 
 hands of the Grand Prince, who in fourteen hundred and 
 thirty-six had his eyes put out in an excess of fury. Then, by 
 one of those changes common to violent and impulsive natures, 
 he passed from anger to dismay ; and to atone for his crime 
 against his cousin set free Shemiaka, whom he had made pris- 
 oner at the same time. Shemiaka promised to serve him, but 
 served him very badly. In a battle with the Tatars his deser- 
 tion caused the rout of the Russian army at the siege of Bielef, 
 in Lithuania. In fourteen hundred and forty-one the war
 
 212 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 began again between the Grand Prince and Shemiaka. The 
 latter, with some thousands of Free-lances and Good Com- 
 panions, suddenly undertook the siege of Moscow. Zenobius, 
 superior of the Troitsa monastery, succeeded once more in 
 reconciling them. Shemiaka displayed his ordinary duplicity 
 on the occasion of a military incursion of the Tatars of Kazan. 
 The Grand Prince waited in vain for the help that had been 
 promised him, and it was with only fifteen hundred men that 
 he finally took the field, so much had the discords between the 
 descendants of Dmitri Donskoi weakened the Grand Princi- 
 pality, loosened the ties of obedience among the vassals, and 
 degraded that Russia which had armed one hundred and fifty 
 thousand men against Mamai. Vasili, covered with fifteen 
 wounds, fell into the hands of the barbarians, and was carried 
 prisoner to Kazan. 
 
 Moscow was in despair. The Prince of Tver insulted its 
 territory ; Shemiaka was intriguing at the Horde to get him- 
 self nominated Grand Prince. All at once the Tsar of Kazan 
 took it into his head to liberate his prisoners for a small ran- 
 som. Vasili re-entered his capital amid the acclamations of 
 his people. Shemiaka had done enough to fear the vengeance 
 of the Grand Prince ; in the interests of his own safety Vasili 
 must be overthrown. Following the example of his father 
 and grandfather, Vasili went to the Troitsa monastery to 
 return thanks to Saint Sergius for his deliverance. He had 
 few companions, and Shemiaka and his associates surprised 
 the Kreml in his absence, and captured his wife, his mother, 
 and his treasures. Then he flew to Troitsa, where his accom- 
 plice, Ivan of Mojaisk, discovered the Grand Prince, who had 
 taken refuge in the principal church near the tomb of Saint 
 Sergius. He was brought back to Moscow, and ten years 
 after the punishment of Vasili Kosoi, Shemiaka avenged his 
 brother by putting out the eyes of the Grand Prince, in four- 
 teen hundred and forty-six. 
 
 During his short reign at Moscow Shemiaka had made
 
 1303-1462.] THE GEAND PEINCES OF MOSCOW. 213 
 
 himself hated by the people and the boyars, who were faithful 
 from the bottom of their hearts to their unhappy prince. In 
 the popular language a "judgment of Shemiaka" became the 
 synonyme of a crying wrong. Soon Vasili's partisans assem- 
 bled their troops in Lithuania, joined those of the two Tatar 
 princes, and marched against the usurper. At this epoch 
 Russia was infested by armed bands, the relics of the great 
 Tatar and Lithuanian wars, Lithuanian adventurers, young 
 nobles banished from the Horde, Novgorodian Good Com- 
 panions, Free-lances of all races. They ravaged the flat coun- 
 try, attacked the strongest towns, and their chiefs sometimes 
 created ephemeral principalities for themselves. As the Asiatic 
 element predominated in them, they might be termed Great 
 Mongol Companies, analogous to the Great English or the 
 French Companies that, about the year fourteen hundred and 
 forty-four, Charles the Seventh sent to Alsace and Switzerland. 
 Serving Shemiaka or the Grand Prince indiscriminately, they 
 did their best to perpetuate the quarrel. Shemiaka wished to 
 march against his enemies ; but hardly had he left Moscow 
 ere he saw the city revolt and Vasili enter in triumph. She- 
 miaka fled, and accepted a reconciliation with his victim in 
 fourteen hundred and forty-seven. Incapable of repose, he 
 again took up arms, was completely defeated near Galitch by 
 the Muscovites and Tatars in fourteen hundred and fifty, 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. 
 
 Freed from this dangerous enemy, Vasili the Blind hastened 
 to take up the work of his predecessors. Novgorod had not 
 ceased to give asylum to his enemies, to despise the author- 
 ity of his lieutenants, to contest his right of final appeal and 
 the supremacy of the Metropolitan. A Muscovite army re- 
 duced the town to terms ; it was forced to annul all the acts 
 of the vetche which tended to limit the authority of the Grand 
 Prince, to pay him a heavy indemnity, and to promise to im-
 
 214 HISTOEY OP RUSSIA. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 pose the seal of Vasili alone on its deeds. Pskof received one 
 of his sons as its prince. The republic of Viatka had to pay 
 tribute, and to furnish a military contingent. The Prince of 
 Riazan having just died, Vasili took his young heir to Mos- 
 cow, under pretence of bringing him up, and sent his lieuten- 
 ant to govern the appanage. Vasili of Borovsk, grandson of 
 Vladimir the Brave, had rendered him important services, but 
 none the less was he imprisoned, and his possessions swal- 
 lowed up in the Grand Principality. The authority of the 
 Grand Prince began to be exercised on his subordinates with 
 new rigor; and against the rebels, real or supposed, the 
 knout, tortures, mutilations, and refined horrors were used. 
 Vasili, who had suffered so much from the appanaged princes 
 luri and Shemiaka, and who was so energetic 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 insure the succession of the direct line, he had, since 
 the year fourteen hundred and forty-nine, associated with 
 himself his eldest son, Ivan. 
 
 Memorable events had agitated the orthodox world during 
 his reign. In fourteen hundred and thirty-nine the Pope 
 Eugenius the Fourth assembled the Council of Florence to 
 discuss the union of the two Churches. The Greek Emperor, 
 John Palasologus, who hoped to obtain the help of the Pope 
 against the Ottomans, had sent the bishops of his communion ; 
 Isidor, Metropolitan of Moscow, was also present. It was in 
 vain that the Emperor of Constantinople, three vicars of the 
 Patriarchs of the East, seventeen metropolitans, and a multi- 
 tude 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. But Isidor 
 announced at Kief and Moscow that he had signed the act 
 of reconciliation ; the appearance of the Latin cross at the
 
 METROPOLITAN OF MOSCOW.
 
 1303-1462.] THE GEAND PRINCES OF MOSCOW. 215 
 
 Assumption in the Kreml, the name of Pope Eugeriius in the 
 public prayers, and the reading of the formal document, as- 
 tonished the Russians. Vasili, who piqued himself on his 
 theology, also raised his voice, began a polemic against Isidor, 
 and so overwhelmed him with insults, that the " false shep- 
 herd " thought it prudent to take refuge in Rome. This 
 check to the union heralded the fall of the Greek Empire. 
 In fourteen hundred and fifty-three Mahomet the Second 
 entered Constantinople. There was no longer a Christian 
 Tsar; Moscow became the great metropolis of orthodoxy, 
 since it was the heir of Constantinople. Soon the monks, the 
 artists, the literary men, of Constantinople were to bring to 
 Moscow as well as to the rest of Europe the Renaissance.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 IVAN THE GREAT, THE AUTHOR OF RUSSIAN 
 
 UNITY. 
 
 1462-1505. 
 
 SUBMISSION OF NOVGOROD. KEUNION OF TVER, EOSTOF, AND IAROSLAVL. . 
 
 WARS WITH THE GREAT HORDE AND KAZAN. END OF THE 
 TATAR YOKE. WARS WITH LITHUANIA. WESTERN RUSSIA AS FAR 
 AS THE SOJA RECONQUERED. MARRIAGE WITH SOPHIA PAL^EOLOGUS. 
 
 GREEKS AND ITALIANS AT THE COURT OF Moscow. 
 
 SUBMISSION OF NOVGOKOD. REUNION OF TVER, ROSTOF, 
 AND IAROSLAVL. 
 
 AT the death of Vasili the Blind Russia was contained be- 
 tween the great Lithuanian Empire and the vast posses- 
 sions of the Mongols. To the north it had two restless neigh- 
 bors, 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 weak- 
 ened, still existed. Novgorod and Pskof hesitated between 
 the Grand Princes of Moscow and Lithuania. The heirs of 
 Kalita, by creating new appanages, incessantly destroyed the 
 unity which they had brought about by means of a pitiless 
 policy. Moscow, which is bounded by no sea, had only in- 
 termittent relations with the centres of European civilization. 
 It was, however, the time when the nations of the West began 
 to be organized. Charles the Seventh and Louis the Eleventh 
 in France, Ferdinand and Isabella in Spain, the Tudors in 
 England, Frederick the Third and Maximilian in Austria, 
 labored to build up powerful states from the ruins of feudal
 
 I VAX THE ( i UK AT
 
 1462-1505.] IVAN THE GREAT. 217 
 
 anarchy. European civilization took an unprecedented start ; 
 the Renaissance began, the art of printing spread, Christo- 
 pher Columbus and Vasco da Gama discovered new worlds. 
 Was not Russia also going to achieve its unity, to take part 
 in the great European movement ? The man who was to 
 restore this country to itself, to free it from the Mongol yoke, 
 to bring it into relations with the West, this man was 
 expected. His coming had been predicted. When a son 
 named loann, or Ivan, was born in fourteen hundred and 
 forty to Vasili the Blind, an old monk had a revelation about 
 it in Novgorod the Great. He came and said to his arch- 
 bishop : " Truly it is to-day that the Grand Prince triumphs ; 
 God has given him an heir; I behold this child making 
 himself illustrious by glorious deeds. He will subdue princes 
 and peoples. But, alas for us ! Novgorod will fall at his 
 feet, never to rise again." 
 
 Ivan the Third, whose reign of forty -three years was to per- 
 mit him to realize the expectations of Russia, was a cold, im- 
 perious, calculating prince, the very type of the Suzdalian 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 Kreml. His 
 father had taken long journeys, and had met with 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 precisely the verdict of Edward 
 the Third on Charles the Fifth. Ivan exhausted his enemies 
 by negotiations and delay, and never employed force till it 
 was absolutely necessary. His devotion was mixed with 
 hypocrisy. He wept for his relatives whom he put to death, 
 as Louis the Eleventh bewailed the Duke of Guienne. Born 
 a despot, "he had penetrated the secret of autocracy," says 
 Karamsin, " and became a formidable deity in the eyes of the 
 Russians." His glance caused women to faint. When he
 
 218 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 slept after his meals, it was wonderful to see the frightened 
 respect of the boyars for the sleep of the master. He was 
 prodigal of punishments and tortures to his boyars, even to 
 those of the highest rank ; he mutilated the counsellors of his 
 son, whipped Prince Ukhtomski and the archimandrite of a 
 powerful monastery, and burned alive two Poles in an iron 
 cage on the Moskova for having conspired against him. He 
 had already won the surname of " Terrible," which his grand- 
 son 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 
 aristocracy, the dissensions of the people, the Church, and es- 
 pecially of the boyars. It is of this epoch that M. Bielaef has 
 said, that " parties in Novgorod had become so complicated 
 that often it is difficult to perceive from what motive this or 
 that faction excited troubles and revolts." They thought them- 
 selves able to despise the authority of a new prince, and had the 
 imprudence to neglect the complaints and suggestions made 
 in a tolerably moderate tone by Ivan the Third. He then 
 signified to the Pskovians that they would have to second him 
 in an expedition against the rebels. This the Pskovians did 
 not wish to do, foreseeing that the fall of Novgorod would 
 drag them down also. They offered their mediation to their 
 " elder sister," but it was rejected, and they were obliged to 
 proceed. Ivan the Third received, however, Theophilus, the 
 Archbishop of Novgorod, many times at Moscow, and con- 
 tinued to negotiate. He had a large party in Novgorod, but 
 the opposing faction was the boldest. Marfa, the widow of 
 the posadnik Boretski, mother of two grown-up sons, put her- 
 self at the head of the anti-Muscovite party. Ready speech, 
 immense wealth, and an audacity equal to everything, had 
 given her a great influence with the people and the boyars. 
 This intrepid woman was the last incarnation of Novgorodian 
 liberty. To save the republic, Marfa wished to put it into 
 the hands of the King of Poland, Kasimir the Fourth. She
 
 1462-1505.] IVAN THE GREAT. 219 
 
 desired also that the Archbishop of Novgorod should be nomi- 
 nated 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 vetche, 
 between 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 was handed over to the King 
 of Poland by a formal act, by which the same conditions were 
 stipulated as in its pacts with the ancient princes. Ivan the 
 Third tried once more to recall the citizens to obedience, and 
 sent them an ambassador, but Marfa's party was always the 
 most numerous or the most noisy. At last Ivan decided to 
 begin the war. The contingent made the conquest of the 
 territory of the Dwina; the Muscovites, supported by the 
 Tatar cavalry, cruelly ravaged the territory of the " perfidious " 
 Novgorodians ; after the battle of Korostuin they cut off 
 the noses and lips of the prisoners. The republicans had 
 fallen from their ancient valor : Marfa had hastily enrolled ill- 
 disciplined artisans. At the battle of the Shelona five thou- 
 sand Muscovites defeated thirty thousand Novgorodians. At 
 Rusa the Grand Prince caused many boyars to be beheaded, 
 one of whom was the son of Marfa, and sent others as prison- 
 ers into Muscovy. Ivan the Third kept advancing by battles 
 and by treaties. Novgorod submitted in fourteen hundred 
 and seventy, paid a war indemnity, and, if it still remained a 
 republic, it was a republic dependent on the good pleasure of 
 the Prince. 
 
 From that time Ivan aimed at the entire reduction of the 
 town, and his party in Novgorod increased. If the people 
 complained of the injustice of his lieutenants, he accused the 
 insufficiency of the ancient laws of the city. He tried to ex- 
 cite the animosity of the other classes against the boyars. It 
 was by the invitation of the latter that he came in fourteen
 
 220 HISTORY OF EUSSIA. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 hundred and seventy-five to hold a solemn court in Novgorod. 
 Great and small immediately crowded to his tribunal, 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 posadnik, and many boyars 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 the liberties of Novgorod had 
 never been known. Profiting by a documentary error made 
 by the envoys of the town, he declared himself gosudar, or sov- 
 ereign, of Novgorod, instead of gospodin, or lord. Now, if this 
 interpretation were accepted, the subjection of the republic, 
 which was only a matter of fact, would become a matter of 
 law. Marfa's party made a last effort to reject this sover- 
 eignty ; the friends of the Grand Prince were massacred. Ivan 
 declared that the Novgorodians, after having accorded him 
 the title of sovereign, had the effrontery to deny it. Then 
 the Metropolitan, the bishops, the boyars, 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 boyars appeared 
 at the Grand Prince's camp. The city was blockaded, and 
 reduced to starvation. 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 
 persons and possessions, their ancient jurisdiction, and ex- 
 emption from the Muscovite service ; but the vetche* and the 
 posadnik were abolished forever. The belfry was reduced to 
 silence. The Republic of Novgorod thus ceased to exist in 
 fourteen hundred and seventy-eight. 
 
 Marfa and the principal oligarchs were transported to Mos- 
 cow, and their goods confiscated. Many times afterwards 
 there were party agitations, which were quelled by Ivan the
 
 1462-1505.] IVAN THE GREAT. 221 
 
 Third and his successor, by numerous transportations. In 
 fourteen hundred and eighty-one some boyars were tortured 
 and put to death. Eight thousand Novgorodians were trans- 
 planted to the towns of Suzdalia. Ivan the Third struck 
 another terrible blow at the prosperity of the city when, in 
 fourteen hundred and ninety-five, after a quarrel with the peo- 
 ple of Revel, he caused the merchants of forty-nine Hanse 
 towns to be arrested at Novgorod, pillaged the " German mar- 
 ket," and removed wares to the value of a million to Moscow. 
 The covetous Grand Prince doubtless did not see he was kill- 
 ing the hen with the golden eggs. A long while elapsed be- 
 fore the merchants of the West again made their appearance 
 in Novgorod. Pskof, more docile, preserved its vetche and its 
 ancient institutions. 
 
 While he was destroying the liberty of Novgorod, Ivan also 
 took away its colonies, and began on his own account the con- 
 quest of Northern Russia. By this time Muscovy extended 
 as far as Finland, the White Sea, and the Arctic Ocean, and 
 had already obtained a footing in Asia. Ivan conquered Per- 
 mia in fourteen hundred and seventy-two, by which means he 
 became master of the " silver beyond the Kama," obtained 
 by the Novgorodians as an article of commerce. In fourteen 
 hundred and eighty-nine Viatka, which had fallen for a short 
 time in the power of the Tatars of Kazan, was reconquered, 
 and lost its republican organization. In fourteen hundred 
 and ninety-nine the voievodui of Ustiug, 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 Urals, in the 
 teeth of the wind and snow, slew fifty of the Samoyedui, and 
 captured two hundred reindeer ; invaded the territory of the 
 Vogului and Ugrians, the Finnish brethren of the Magyars ; 
 took forty enclosures of palisades, made fifty princes prisoners, 
 and returned to Moscow, after having reduced this unknown 
 country, supposed by the geographers of antiquity to be the
 
 222 HISTORY OF EUSSIA. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 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 
 immense territories to be conquered, but only the territories 
 of the smaller appanaged princes to be grafted on to the 
 already united mass. Ivan the Third 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, 
 Anna Vasilievna, and send him back to his territories in four- 
 teen hundred and sixty-four. The absorption of the princi- 
 palities of Riazan and Novgorod-Severski was reserved for his 
 successor. He showed the same moderation about Tver, but 
 in fourteen hundred and eighty-two Prince Mikhail, whose 
 position had been maintained only by sufferance, had the im- 
 prudence to ally himself with Lithuania. Ivan hailed this 
 pretext with joy, and marched in person against Tver, accom- 
 panied by the celebrated Alberto Fioraventi of Bologna, sur- 
 named Aristotele, grand master of his artillery. Mikhail took 
 refuge in Lithuania; and Ivan began to organize his new 
 subjects. A principality which could furnish forty thousand 
 soldiers was thus united to Moscow without a blow in fourteen 
 hundred and eighty-five. In like manner he obtained posses- 
 sion of Vereia and of Bielozersk, and deprived the princes 
 of Rostof and laroslavl of their ancient rights of sovereignty. 
 
 His father, by giving appanages to his brothers, had pre- 
 pared for him a new and ungrateful task, but Ivan undertook 
 it without scruple. When his brother luri died, in fourteen 
 hundred and sixty-eight, he wept much for him, but at once 
 laid hands on his towns of Dmitrof, Mojaisk, and Serpukhof, 
 thereby causing his other brothers, who hoped to share the 
 spoil, great discontent. Andrei, accused of an understanding 
 with Lithuania, was thrown into prison, where he died in 
 fourteen hundred and ninety-three. The Grand Prince con- 
 voked the Metropolitan and bishops to his palace, appeared
 
 1462-1505.] IVAN THE GREAT. 223 
 
 before them with eyes cast down, 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 Andrei's appanage notwithstanding, and 
 that of his brother Boris, who died a short time after, thus 
 reuniting all his father's domains. 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 ; 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. 
 
 WARS WITH THE GREAT HORDE AND KAZAN. END OF 
 THE TATAR YOKE. 
 
 The Empire of the Horde had at last dissolved. The prin- 
 cipal states which had risen from its remains were the Tsarate 
 of Kazan, that of Sarai or Astrakhan, the Horde of the Nogais, 
 or Nogaetsui, and the Khanate of the Crimea. Kazan and the 
 Crimea particularly presented strange ethnographical amalga- 
 mations. In the reign of Vasili the Blind the Tsarate had 
 been founded by a banished prince on the ruins of the ancient 
 Bulgaria on the Volga, formerly so flourishing and civilized. 
 It was the same Makhmet who had tried to establish himself at 
 Belef, and had defeated Shemiaka. The Mongols had mixed 
 with the ancient Bulgars, and built up an important centre of 
 commerce and civilization. The rule of the Tsarate extended 
 over the Finnish tribes of the Mordva, the Tchuvashi, and the 
 Tcheremisa, as well as the Bashkirui and Meshtchera. The 
 Khanate of the Crimea had been founded almost at the same 
 date by a descendant of Genghis Khan named Azi. A peas- 
 ant named Ghirei having saved him from death, Azi added
 
 224 HISTOKY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 his benefactor'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 Khara'ites, who pretended to have settled in 
 five hundred before Christ on the rocks and in the Troglodyte 
 cities of Tchufut-Kale and Mangup-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 in- 
 vaders. Likewise, while the Tatars of the Northern Crimean 
 steppes are pure Nogais, 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 Turko-Tatar races. 
 
 Anarchy and dissensions reigned in the bosom of each of 
 these states. The princes of Kazan, Sarai, and the Crimea 
 
 came to seek an asvlum from the Grand Prince, who made 
 
 * 
 
 use of them to perpetuate these divisions. In fourteen hun- 
 dred and seventy-three 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 tsars, especially those of the 
 Great Horde or Sarai, the sovereign of Moscow held himself 
 on the defensive, repelling the attacks of adventurers, but 
 taking care not to provoke them ; avoiding the payment of the 
 tribute, but willing to send them presents. At the same time 
 he schemed for alliances against the Khan of Sarai, and in 
 fourteen hundred and seventy-seven despatched his Italian 
 ambassador, Marco Ruffo, to the Turkoman Ussum-Hassan, 
 master of Persia and an enemy of the Mongols. A more use- 
 ful friendship united him with Mengli-Ghirei, Khan of the 
 Crimea, and lasted all their lives. Mengli was as serviceable 
 to him against Lithuania as against the Horde. 
 
 In fourteen hundred and seventy-eight, having carefully 
 taken all his measures, he openly rebelled. When the Khan
 
 1462-1505.] IVAN THE GREAT. 225 
 
 Akhmet sent his ambassadors with his image to receive the 
 tribute, Ivan the Third trampled the khan's image under his 
 feet, and put all the envoys to death, excepting one, who con- 
 veyed 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-constituted army than that of Dmitri 
 Donskoi. His one hundred and fifty thousand men and pow- 
 erful artillery did not, however, prevent him from reflecting 
 much on the 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. " What ! " exclaimed the Muscovites, 
 " he has taxed us heavily, 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 boyars, his 
 bishop. " March bravely against the enemy," was the unani- 
 mous reply. " Does it belong to mortals to fear death ? " 
 said old Archbishop Vasian. " We cannot 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 Ugra ; the two 
 forces contenting themselves with sending arrows and insults 
 across the river. Ivan closed his ears to the warlike counsel 
 of his boyars, and listened rather to the prudent advice of his 
 two favorites, " fat and powerful lords," says the chronicle. 
 However, he refused the propositions 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. Vasian addressed a warlike letter 
 
 VOL. I. 15
 
 226 HISTORY OF KUSSIA. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 to the Grand Prince, invoking the recollection of Igor, 
 Sviatoslaf, Vladimir Monomakh, and Dmitri Donskoi. Ivan 
 assured him that this letter " rilled his heart with joy, cour- 
 age, 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, the 
 one from the other. The khan never stopped till he reached 
 the Horde. Such was the last invasion of the horsemen of 
 the Kiptchak. It was in this unheroic way that Russia at 
 last, in fourteen hundred and eighty, broke the Mongol yoke 
 under which it had groaned for three centuries. Like Louis 
 the Eleventh, Ivan the Third had his battle of Montlhery ; 
 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. Akhrnet was put to death by one of his own 
 men. 
 
 Hostility increased between Kazan and Moscow. In four- 
 teen hundred and sixty-seven and fourteen hundred and 
 sixty-nine Ivan the Third organized two expeditions against 
 Bulgaria. In fourteen hundred and eighty-seven, seven years 
 after having shaken off the supremacy of the Great Horde, 
 the Muscovite voi'evodui marched against the same Kazan, 
 where the father of their Grand Prince had been taken cap- 
 tive. After a siege of seven weeks the city was taken, and 
 the sovereign Alegam made prisoner. A tsar of Kazan was 
 then seen a prisoner in Moscow ! Ivan the Third added the 
 title of Prince of Bulgaria to those he already bore; but, 
 feeling that the Mussulman city was not yet ripe for annexa- 
 tion, he gave the crown to a nephew of his friend the Khan of 
 the Crimea. The people were forced to take the oath of fidel- 
 ity to him. The conquest of the land of Arsk, in Bulgaria 
 itself, and the establishment of a Russian garrison in the 
 fortress, allowed him to watch from close by all that passed 
 in Kazan. The Khan of the Crimea did not care to protest
 
 1462-1503.] IVAN THE GREAT. 227 
 
 against the captivity of the Tsar Alegam, his nephew's enemy, 
 but the princes of the Shiban and the Nogais, who were re- 
 lated to him, and who beheld Islamism humiliated in his per- 
 son, 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 Flemish cloth, fishes' teeth, and gerfalcons, and did 
 not forget the wives of the Tatar princes, 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 envoys, and to communi- 
 cate with them only by means of treasurers, secretaries, and 
 other officers of the second rank. 
 
 WARS WITH LITHUANIA. - WESTERN RUSSIA AS FAR AS 
 THE SOJA RECONQUERED. 
 
 Lithuania united with Poland 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 Russian as well as of Polish and Lithuanian ele- 
 ments, it was many times on the point of annihilating Russia, 
 in the same way as Burgundy, composed of French, Batavian, 
 and German provinces, 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 incorporated with Austria. 
 
 At the beginning of Ivan's reign the King, Kasimir the 
 Fourth, was sovereign of the 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 pos- 
 sessions ; and the Crimean Tatars pillaged Kief and the Mon- 
 astery of the Catacombs in fourteen hundred and eighty-two. 
 When, ten years after, Kasimir died, leaving Poland to his
 
 223 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 eldest son Albert and Lithuania to Alexander, the second 
 son, Ivan the Third, resolved to turn the division to account. 
 He had obtained the friendship of the Turkish Sultan Bajazet 
 the Second, of Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary, 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 was freeing him- 
 self from the Mongols ; now he was to play the same part 
 with the Horde, while the Grand Prince settled old scores 
 with Alexander, but without interfering with the Tatar incur- 
 sions in the Ukraina. The discovery 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 entering into relations 
 with him. It was then that the Belski and the Glinski, 
 afterwards so famous, obtained a footing in Russia, that the 
 Prince of Mazovia sent an embassy to Ivan the Third, and the 
 princes of Viazma, Vorotinsk, Bielef, 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 
 Russian people. In White Russia the Muscovites were to 
 awake old national and religious sympathies. " Lithuania," 
 said the ambassadors of Ivan the Third to the plenipoten- 
 tiaries of Alexander, " Lithuania has profited by the misfor- 
 tunes of Russia to take our territory, but to-day things have 
 changed." Peace was made in fourteen hundred and ninety- 
 four, after a short war. 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, Peremuisl, and others. 
 
 The peace seemed to be cemented by the marriage of Alex- 
 ander with Helena, daughter of Ivan the Third ; but, on the 
 contrary, this union proved the germ of a new war. The
 
 1462-1505.] IVAN THE GREAT. 229 
 
 sovereign of Moscow had stipulated that his daughter was 
 under no circumstances 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 conducting herself towards her new 
 subjects. At her departure he bestowed on her a collection 
 of various pious books. His policy agreed with his convic- 
 tion : it was necessary that in Lithuania orthodoxy should 
 rise from its abasement, 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 Metropolitan of 
 Kief had remained unpunished, and that he was to be suc- 
 ceeded by a man devoted to the Pope. Lithuania, at the 
 beginning of the war, was further enfeebled by new defec- 
 tions. The princes of Bielsk, of Mossalsk, of Khotatof, the 
 boyars of Mtsensk and of Serpeisk, and finally the princes of 
 Tchernigof and Starodub, of Ruilsk and Novgorod-Severski, 
 declared for the Grand Prince of Moscow. All the country 
 between the Desna and the Soja passed into the hands of 
 the Russians, together with Briansk, Putivl, and Dorogobuzh. 
 They had only to show themselves to conquer. Alexander 
 could not abandon the conquests of Olgerd, Vitovt, and Gedi- 
 min without striking a blow, but his army was cut to pieces 
 at the battle of Vedrosha. Konstantin, Ostrqjski, his voievod, 
 fell into the hands of the Muscovites, who tried to gain him 
 over to their cause. The Lithuanians, however, kept the 
 strongholds of Vitepsk, Polotsk, Orsha, and Smolensk. 
 
 This prolonged struggle between Alexander and Ivan the 
 Third had set all Eastern Europe in a blaze. Alexander had 
 made an alliance with the Livonian Order and the Great
 
 230 HISTOKY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 Horde. The Khan of the Crimea pitilessly devastated Gal- 
 licia and Volhynia. The Russian troops again defeated the 
 Lithuanians near Mstislavl, but were forced to raise the siege 
 of Smolensk. 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 Hanse wares 
 at Novgorod. The Grand Master, Hermann of Plettenberg, 
 responded with joy to the appeal of the Lithuanians ; and at 
 the battle of Siritsa, near Izborsk, his formidable German 
 artillery crushed an army of forty thousand Russians in fifteen 
 hundred and one. The latter took their revenge the following 
 year on the iron men near Pskof. Schig-Akhmet, Khan of the 
 Great Horde, wished to make a diversion, but the Khan of 
 the Crimea attacked him with fury, and in fifteen hundred 
 and two so completely extinguished his rule that the ruins of 
 Sarai, Batui's capital, 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, Al- 
 exander the Sixth, and the King of Hungary tried in fifteen 
 hundred and three to mediate between the belligerent powers. 
 As, however, neither of the two parties would abate any of 
 their claims, a truce of six years only could be agreed on, dur- 
 ing which time the Soja was to be the boundary, and the ter- 
 ritories belonging to the cities and the princes deserting to 
 Russia were to be left in its power. What shows the good 
 faith of Ivan the Third is that, after this truce was signed, he 
 obtained the promise from the Khan of the Crimea to continue 
 his attacks against Lithuania. 
 
 MARRIAGE WITH SOPHIA PAL.EOLOGUS. THE GREEKS 
 AND ITALIANS AT THE COURT OF MOSCOW. 
 
 The acquisition of the Novgorod ian possessions and the 
 appanages, the capture of Kazan, the fall of the Horde, and 
 the conquest of Lithuania up to the Soja, had doubled the
 
 1462-1505.] IVAN THE GREAT. 231 
 
 extent of the Grand Principality, even without reckoning 
 the immense territory it had gained on the north. An event 
 not less important in its consequences was the marriage of 
 Ivan the Third with a Byzantine princess. Thomas Palaeolo- 
 gus, 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 the Second to offer her hand to the Grand Prince of 
 Russia. A Greek named luri, and the two Friazini, relations 
 of Friazine, minter of Ivan the Third, were sent on an embassy 
 to Moscow. Ivan and his boyars 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 for- 
 merly overshadowed all orthodox Christianity." Dowered by 
 the Pope, whose heart was always occupied with two things, 
 the crusade against the Turks and the reunion of the two 
 Churches, Sophia went from Rome to Liibeck, from Liibeck 
 by sea to Revel, and was received in triumph at Pskof, Nov- 
 gorod, and the other towns subject to Moscow. This daugh- 
 ter of emperors was destined to have an enormous influence 
 on Ivan. It was she, no doubt, who taught him to " pene- 
 trate the secret of autocracy." She bore the Mongol yoke 
 with less 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. With 
 Sophia a multitude of Greek emigrants came to Moscow, not 
 only from Rome, but from Constantinople and Greece; among 
 them were Demetrios Ralo, Theodore Lascaris, Demetrios 
 Trakhaniotes. They gave to Russia statesmen, diplomatists, 
 engineers, artists, and theologians. They brought with them 
 Greek books, the priceless inheritance of ancient civilization. 
 These manuscripts were the first beginnings of the present 
 " Library of the Patriarchs." 
 
 Ivan the Third was the heir of the Emperors of Byzantium
 
 232 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 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 Palace of Facets of the Kreml. Moscow suc- 
 ceeded Byzantium as Byzantium had succeeded Rome. Hav- 
 ing 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 four- 
 teen hundred and fifty-three. With the Greeks came Italians : 
 Alberto Fioraventi Aristotele of Bologna, who was Ivan the 
 Third's architect, military engineer, and master of artillery ; 
 Marco Ruffo, his ambassador in Persia ; Pietro Antonio, who 
 built his imperial palace ; the metal-founder, Paul Bossio, to- 
 gether with architects and gunsmiths. 
 
 Ivan entered into relations with Venice when Trevisani, 
 envoy of the republic, on his way to the Horde, tried to trav- 
 erse the Grand Prince's states incognito, and was arrested and 
 condemned to death. The Senate interfered, and the impru- 
 dent diplomatist was set at liberty. Ivan sent in his turn a 
 Russian ambassador, Simeon Tolbuzin, charged to bind the 
 two countries in friendly ties, and to bring back some skilful 
 architect from Italy. He was followed in fourteen hundred 
 and ninety-nine by Demetrios Ralo and Golokhvastof. Con- 
 tarini, 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. " When, in 
 speaking, I respectfully stepped back," relates Contarini, " the 
 Grand Prince always drew near, and gave particular attention 
 to my remarks." Ivan the Third, whether to secure himself 
 allies against Poland, or to obtain artists and handicrafts- 
 men from Germany, exchanged more than one embassy with 
 Frederick the Third and Maximilian of Austria, Matthias of 
 Hungary, and the Pope. When attacked by Sweden, he nego- 
 tiated an alliance with Denmark. Pleshtcheef was the first
 
 ARMS OF RUSSIA.
 
 1462-1505.] IVAN THE GREAT. 233 
 
 Russian ambassador at Constantinople under Bajazet the Sec- 
 ond. From the East came envoys of Georgia and even of 
 Djagatai or of Turkestan and Tartar Siberia. 
 
 This prince who, born vassal of a nomad race, founded the 
 greatness of Russia, may be compared with one of the greatest 
 of French kings, Louis the Eleventh. What the latter accom- 
 plished 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 succeeded in reducing 
 Lithuania, just as his Western contemporary managed to dis- 
 member 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 the 
 Eleventh sweetly dismissed the last embarkation of the English 
 under Edward the Fourth. Both had the same taste for for- 
 eigners, especially industrious Italians, and for the useful arts. 
 Both explored the metallic riches of their states. They each 
 created a diplomacy ; the one by means of Comynes, the other 
 by means of Greeks, and Russians as supple as Greeks. They 
 strengthened the national army, and gave it a permanent char- 
 acter ; they both owed their success against the minor princes 
 to their artillery. 
 
 Louis the Eleventh, who wished to put an end to the anarchy 
 in the laws and to the thefts of chicanery, meditated a real 
 code, a complete system of common law, which would put the 
 old laws in harmony with the new order of things. This is 
 precisely what Ivan did in his Ulogenia of fourteen hundred 
 and ninety-seven. In comparing it with the Russkaia Pravda 
 of laroslaf, we are able to gauge the amount of change caused 
 in the national laws by the influence of Byzantium, the ex- 
 ample of the Tatars, and the progress of autocracy. Corporal 
 punishments 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,
 
 234 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 only now it could hardly become mortal ; each of the com- 
 batants had a cuirass, and was armed only with a short club. 
 Women, minors, and ecclesiastics were represented by a cham- 
 pion. In the same way as the end and aim of Ivan's policy 
 was the suppression of appanages, that of his code was to 
 efface the privileges, the legal and judicial peculiarities, of the 
 different provinces. 
 
 For three generations the throne had been inherited in the 
 direct line. When, however, Ivan, eldest son of Ivan the Third, 
 died, the latter hesitated long between his grandson Dmitri 
 Ivanovitch and his second son Vasili. His wife supported 
 Vasili ; his daughter-in-law Helena, Ivan's widow, naturally 
 declared for her own son. The court was divided, and both 
 parties were absorbed in their intrigues. Ivan the Third at 
 first proclaimed Dmitri, threw Vasili in prison, and disgraced 
 his wife. Then he changed his mind, imprisoned his daugh- 
 ter-in-law and his grandson in their turn, and proclaimed 
 Vasili his heir. The Western law of heredity was not estab- 
 lished in Russia without many struggles. 
 
 Soloviof says : " It is to the glory of Ivan the Third that he 
 understood how to make the most of his opportunities and the 
 fortunate circumstances in which he found himself throughout 
 his whole life. He proved himself to be the true descendant 
 of Vsevolod the Third and Ivan Kalita, to be the genuine 
 prince of Northern Jlussia. Economy, deliberation, caution, 
 keen distrust of bold measures which may accomplish every- 
 thing and which may spoil everything, at the same time reso- 
 lution in carrying to the end whatever he had once begun, 
 and finally absolute coolness, such were the leading traits 
 of the character of Ivan the Third."
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 VASILI IVANOVITCH. 
 
 1505 - 1533. 
 
 REUNION OP PSKOP, RIAZAN, AND NOVGOKOD-SEVERSKI. WARS WITH 
 LITHUANIA. ACQUISITION OP SMOLENSK. WAES WITH THE TATARS. 
 DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS WITH EUROPE. 
 
 REUNION OF PSKOF, RIAZAN, AND NOVGOROD-SEVERSKI. 
 WARS WITH LITHUANIA. ACQUISITION OF SMOLENSK. 
 
 THE reign of Vasili Ivanovitch may seem somewhat pale 
 between those of the two Ivans, his father and son, 
 both surnamed the Terrible. It was likewise of shorter dura- 
 tion, lasting only twenty-eight years, from fifteen hundred and 
 five until fifteen hundred and thirty-three, but it was the con- 
 tinuation of the one and the preparation for the other ; the 
 movement which was bearing Russia towards unity and autoc- 
 racy was not retarded under Vasili Ivanovitch. 
 
 There were still three states which had preserved a certain 
 independence, the Republic of Pskof and the principalities 
 of Riazan and Novgorod-Severski. The quarrels still con- 
 tinued at Pskof between the citizens and the peasants, the 
 aristocracy and the lower classes. The whole of Pskof was in 
 conflict with the prince's royal lieutenant. Vasili came to 
 hold his court at Novgorod, and summoned the magistrates 
 of Pskof to appear before him. When they arrived, he 
 arrested them. A merchant of Pskof, who was on his way 
 to Novgorod, returned with the news to his fellow-citizens. 
 Instantly the bell of the vetche began to ring, and the cry
 
 236 HISTORY OF KUSSIA. [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 was heard, " Let us raise the shield against the Grand Prince. 
 Let us shut the gates of the town." The more prudent tried 
 to restrain the people. "What can we do? Our brothers, 
 our magistrates, our boyars, and all our chief men are in the 
 hands of the prince." The imprisoned Pskovians sent a 
 messenger to implor,e their fellow-citizens not to attempt a 
 useless resistance, and to avoid bloodshed. The latter then 
 despatched one of their number to the Grand Prince, and 
 charged him to say, " My lord, we are not your enemies. 
 After God, it is you who have power over all your subjects." 
 Vasili Ivanovitch sent them one of his diaki, or secretaries, 
 who was admitted into the assembly of the citizens, saluted 
 them in the name of the Grand Prince, and informed them 
 that his master imposed on them two conditions : the first 
 was that the towns subject to Pskof should receive his lieu- 
 tenants, the second was the suppression of the vetche and its 
 bell. For a long while they could give him no answer, 
 their sobs and tears choked them. At last they demanded 
 twenty-four hours to deliberate. The day and night passed 
 in lamentations. " The infants at the breast," says the annal- 
 ist, "alone could refrain from tears." The next day the 
 people met for the last time, and the first magistrate of the 
 city thus spoke to Dalmatof, the Grand Prince's diak : " It is 
 written in our Chronicles that our ancestors took oaths to the 
 Grand Prince. The Pskovians swore never to rebel against 
 our lord who is at Moscow, never to ally themselves with 
 Lithuania, with Poland, nor with the Germans, otherwise the 
 wrath of God would be upon them, bringing with it famine, 
 fires, floods, and the invasion of the infidels. If the Grand 
 Prince, on his part, did not observe his vow, he dared the 
 same consequences. Now our town and our bell are in the 
 power of God and the prince. As for us, we have kept our 
 oath." Dalmatof had the great bell, symbol of the independ- 
 ence of the republic, taken down, and carried to Novgorod, 
 amid the general despair. Then Vasili Ivanovitch came to
 
 1505 - 1533.] . VASILI 1VANOVITCH. 237 
 
 visit his " patrimony of Pskof." He installed his men and 
 boyars in the upper town, transplanted three hundred families 
 of the aristocracy into the cities of the interior, and estab- 
 lished three hundred Muscovite families in their place. When 
 he went away, he left a garrison of five thousand knights and 
 five hundred Novgorod artillerymen. This was in the year 
 fifteen hundred and ten. " Alas ! " cries the annalist, " glo- 
 rious city of Pskof the Great, wherefore this lamentation and 
 tears ? " And the noble city of Pskof replies : " How can 
 I but weep and lament? An eagle, a many- winged eagle, 
 with claws like a lion, has swooped down upon me. He has 
 taken captive the three cedars of Lebanon, my beauty, my 
 riches, my children ! Our land is a desert, our city ruined, 
 our commerce destroyed. Our brothers have been carried 
 away to a place where our fathers never dwelt, nor our grand- 
 fathers, nor our great-grandfathers." 
 
 Ivan, Prince of Riazan, was accused, about fifteen hundred 
 and twenty-one, of having made an alliance with the Khan of 
 the Crimea. He was summoned to Moscow and imprisoned. 
 He managed to escape into Lithuania, where he died in 
 obscurity. His fertile country, whose rich harvests " looked 
 like waving forests," was united to the Grand Principality. 
 A certain number of Riazanese were transported to Muscovite 
 soil. Vasili Shemiakin was the ruler of Novgorod-Severski ; 
 he was the grandson of the Shemiaka who had put out the 
 eyes of Vasili Vasilievitch. About fifteen hundred and twenty- 
 three, on the accusation of an understanding with Poland, he 
 was thrown into prison, where he died. There was now only 
 one Russia. One of the Grand Prince's jesters had predicted 
 the fall of the last appanaged prince. He went through the 
 streets of Moscow armed with a broom, crying " that it was 
 time to clean the empire of what remained of this rubbish." 
 Vasili, like the most of his predecessors, had little tenderness 
 for his family. His nephew Dmitri, whom his grandfather 
 had for a moment destined to occupy the throne, and who by
 
 233 HISTOKY OF EUSSIA. [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 Western laws was the rightful heir, died in prison. One of 
 Vasili's brothers, feeling the yoke press too heavily on him, 
 tried to escape, but was brought back. 
 
 The son of Ivan the Great continued the struggle with 
 Lithuania. He had attempted, at the death of Alexander, to 
 get himself nominated Grand Prince of Vilna, and the recon- 
 ciliation of Muscovite and Lithuanian Russia would have 
 changed the destinies of the North. Sigismond the First 
 reunited the two crowns of Vilna and Poland. An unimpor- 
 tant war ended in fifteen hundred and nine by a " perpetual 
 peace," and Vasili renounced all claims on Kief and Smolensk. 
 The perpetual peace lasted three years, which were filled by 
 the recriminations of the two parties. Vasili accused Sigis- 
 mond of never having sent back all the prisoners ; of pillaging 
 the Muscovite merchants ; of maltreating Alexander's widow, 
 daughter of Ivan the Third; of tempting Simeon, Vasili's 
 brother, to fly to Poland ; and of inciting the Crimean Tatars 
 to ravage Russia. He declared that " as long as his horse was 
 in condition for riding, and his sword cut sharp, there should 
 be neither peace nor truce with Lithuania." Smolensk was 
 instantly attacked ; part of its inhabitants were on the side of 
 Russia, and offered to submit to the Grand Prince. A volley 
 of artillery knocked down the ramparts of its Kreml, which 
 towers over the Dnieper. The Polish voievod was compelled 
 by the people to capitulate. " Spare your patrimony," said they 
 to the Grand Prince. The Bishop of Smolensk blessed Vasili, 
 and the inhabitants took the oaths of fidelity to him in fifteen 
 hundred and fourteen. " The taking of Smolensk," says a 
 Russian chronicler, " was like a brilliant fete-day for Russia ; 
 for the capture of the property of another can flatter only an 
 ambitious prince, but to gain possession of what is one's own 
 is ever a cause of joy." Many of the Lithuanians, however, 
 remained undecided ; the name of Russia and of orthodoxy 
 brought them into communion with Moscow, but the Musco- 
 vites appeared very barbarous compared with the Poles, and
 
 1505-1533.] VASILI IVANOVITCH. 239 
 
 the turbulent nobility of Lithuania were better suited to Po- 
 lish anarchy than to Russian autocracy. A Glinski, one of a 
 Podolian family, who went over to Vasili at this time, played 
 the traitor. Konstantin Ostrojski, whom Vasili had tried to 
 gain over to the cause of orthodoxy, fled from Moscow ; and 
 it was he who, in fifteen hundred and fourteen, inflicted on 
 the Russian voievodui the bloody defeat of Orsha. " 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 not Vasili tried to 
 unite the two principalities ? 
 
 As in the time of Ivan the Third, the duel of the two 
 states made itself felt throughout Europe, and occasioned a 
 great diplomatic movement. Sigismond this time had the 
 Tatars of the Crimea on his side ; Vasili opposed them with 
 the Tatars of Astrakhan. Sigismond reckoned on Sweden. 
 Vasili 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 organ- 
 ized by Dashkovitch. But Vasili secured the friendship of 
 the Teutonic Order, who even consented to invade Polish 
 Prussia ; of Maximilian of Austria, who signed a treaty for 
 the division of the Polish territory ; of the Hospodar of Wal- 
 lachia ; and finally, of the Sultan Selim, to whom he sent 
 embassy after embassy. Negotiations were set on foot in con- 
 sequence of the defeat of Konstantin Ostrojski before Smolensk 
 and in the battle of Opotchka. Maximilian of Austria under- 
 took the office of mediator ; his ambassador, Herberstein, the 
 same who has left us the curious book entitled " Rerum Mos- 
 covitarum Commentarii," promised that Vasili should cede 
 Smolensk, and quoted to him the disinterestedness of King 
 Pyrrhus and other great men of antiquity. Pope Leo the
 
 240 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 Tenth intervened without greater success, though he coun- 
 selled Vasili to leave Lithuania alone, and to turn his thoughts 
 to Constantinople, the inheritance of his mother, Sophia Palse- 
 ologus. At last, in fifteen hundred and twenty-two, the nego- 
 tiations opened and terminated in the truce of fifteen hundred 
 and twenty-six. Vasili pronounced a discourse on the sub- 
 ject, in which he expressed his friendship for his noble media- 
 tors, the Pope, the Emperor, and the Archduke of Austria, 
 Clement the Seventh, Charles the Fifth, and Ferdinand, but 
 Russia kept Smolensk. 
 
 WARS WITH THE TATARS. DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS WITH 
 
 EUROPE. 
 
 The Tatars were still dangerous. Mengli-Ghirei, the an- 
 cient ally of Ivan the Third, had declared for Lithuania against 
 Vasili. Perhaps the old khan might have lost the authority 
 necessary to restrain his sons and murzui, who only wished to 
 pillage the Russian territory. Under his successor, Makhmet 
 Ghirei, the Crimea became a deadly enemy of Russia. Kazan, 
 on expelling the protege of Ivan the Third, had elected a 
 prince hostile to Moscow. Two expeditions directed against 
 the rebel city failed completely. At the death of the Tsar of 
 Kazan the principality became the apple of discord between 
 the Khan of the Crimea and the Grand Prince. The Rus- 
 sians, however, had succeeded, and installed their client, Schig- 
 Alei, a Mussulman brutalized by idleness and pleasures, whose 
 enormous belly gave him a grotesque 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 the Taurians prepared, in fifteen hundred 
 and twenty-one, a great invasion of Russia. They crushed 
 the Russian voievodui on the banks of the Oka, ravaged the 
 Grand Principality, looked on Moscow from the Hill of Spar- 
 rows, and made themselves drunk with hydromel found in the
 
 1505-1533.] VASILI IVANOVITCH. 241 
 
 Grand Prince's cellars. At the Kreml there was a formidable 
 array of artillery, but no powder. Herberstein assures us 
 that the powerful son of Ivan the Third 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 voievod of Riazan, who took 
 from him the humiliating treaty. Though the Russian honor 
 was saved by the cannonade of Riazan, this invasion cost 
 Russia dear. All the flat country was a prey to the flames. 
 A multitude of people, especially women and children, were 
 carried off by the barbarians. Many perished on the journey ; 
 the rest were sold in whole troops in the markets of Kaffa 
 and Astrakhan. The following year Vasili 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 Tsarate of Astrakhan, but was assassi- 
 nated by Mamai, Prince of the Nogai's. 
 
 The Tatars of the Crimea, thanks to the vast southern 
 steppes, were 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 fifteen hundred and twenty-three and fifteen 
 hundred and twenty-four against this town, but both were 
 unsuccessful. Vasili discovered a more certain way of ruining 
 his enemies, he established a fair at Makarief on the Volga, 
 and by this means destroyed that of Kazan. It was this fair 
 of Makarief that was afterwards transported to Nijni-Novgorod, 
 and which draws more than one hundred thousand strangers 
 from Europe and Asia. 
 
 Day by day Russia was taking a more important place in 
 Europe. Vasili exchanged embassies with all the sovereigns 
 
 VOL. I. 16
 
 242 HISTOKY OF KUSSIA. [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 of the West, except those of France and England. He was 
 the correspondent of Leo the Tenth and Clement the Seventh ; 
 of Maximilian and Charles the Fifth ; of Gustavus Vasa, the 
 founder of a new dynasty; of Sultan Seliin, 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. 
 Vasili governed without consulting his council of boyars. 
 " Be silent, rustic ! " he said one day to a great lord, who 
 dared to raise an objection. Prince Vasili Kholmski, who 
 was married to one of Vasili's sisters, was thrown into prison 
 for indocility. The boyar Beklemuishef having complained 
 that the Grand Prince decided all the questions alone, " was 
 shut up, with two others, in his bedchamber," and had his 
 head cut off. The Metropolitan Varlaam was deposed and 
 banished to a monastery. Herberstein asserts that no Euro- 
 pean sovereign is obeyed like the Grand Prince of Moscow. 
 This growing power was manifested externally by the splen- 
 dor of the court, which naturally did not preclude the worst 
 barbaric taste. In the reception of his ambassadors Vasili dis- 
 played unheard-of luxury ; many hundreds of horsemen accom- 
 panied him when he hunted. The Prince's throne was guarded 
 by young nobles, 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 cupbearers, 
 chamberlains, and other servants are already very long. Stran- 
 gers 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 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. Vasili 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 as- 
 tonished to find in the Kreml such a large number of ancient
 
 MOUNT ATHOS.
 
 1505-1533.] VASILI IVANOVITCH. 243 
 
 manuscripts : he declared that neither in Italy nor in Greece 
 was to be found such a rich collection. After finishing the 
 translation of the Psalter, he wished to return to Mount Athos. 
 Vasili retained him, made him his favorite, and often granted 
 him the lives of condemned boyars. His works, his science, 
 as well as his reputation, gained him the hatred of ignorant 
 and fanatical monks. The Metropolitan Daniel declared 
 against him. When Vasili 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 tribu- 
 nal, accused of heresy and of false interpretation of the sacred 
 books, he was banished to 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.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 IVAN THE TERRIBLE. 
 
 1533 - 1584. 
 
 MINORITY OF IVAN THE FOURTH. HE TAKES THE TITLE OF TSAR (1547). 
 CONQUEST OF KAZAN (1552) AND OF ASTRAKHAN (1554). CON- 
 TESTS WITH THE LlVONIAN ORDER, POLAND, THE TATARS, SWEDEN, 
 
 AND THE RUSSIAN ARISTOCRACY. THE ENGLISH IN EUSSIA. CON- 
 QUEST OF SIBERIA. 
 
 MINORITY OF IVAN THE FOURTH. HE TAKES THE TITLE 
 
 OF TSAR 
 
 THE character of Ivan the Fourth and the part played by 
 him have been and still are very differently estimated 
 by Russian historians. Karamsin, who has not subjected to a 
 sufficiently severe criticism the narratives and documents from 
 which he has drawn his information, found in him a prince who 
 was cruel and vicious by birth, but was miraculously brought 
 back into the paths of virtue. Under the guidance of two ex- 
 cellent 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. Soloviof and M. Zabielin, 
 has shown more mistrust of the partial accounts of Kurbski, 
 leader of the oligarchic party, of Guagnini, courtier of the 
 King of Poland, of Taube and Kruse, traitors to the sov- 
 ereign whom they served. Above all, they have taken into 
 consideration the time and the environment of Ivan the Terri- 
 ble. These historians concern themselves less with his moral-
 
 1533 -.1584.] IVAN THE TERRIBLE. 245 
 
 ity as an individual than with the part he played as the agent 
 of the historical development of Russia. Did not the French 
 historians for a while refuse to recognize the immense services 
 rendered by Louis the Eleventh in the great work of consoli- 
 dating 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 when Ivan the Fourth 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, Riazan, Suzdal, and Novgorod-Sever- 
 ski and the republics of Novgorod, Pskof, and Viatka had 
 lost their independence ; their possessions had gone to swell 
 those of Moscow. All North and East Russia was now 
 united under the sceptre of the Grand Prince. To the per- 
 petual contests with Tver, Riazan, and Novgorod succeed the 
 great foreign wars ; the crusades against Lithuania, the Tatars, 
 the Swedes, the Livonian 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 
 families which had been dispossessed by money or force of 
 arms, together with the retainers of these ancient reigning 
 houses, enlisted in the service of the master of Moscow. The 
 Court of the latter was full of uncrowned nobles, Belskis, 
 Shu'iskis, Kurbskis, Vorotinskis, descendants of the appanaged 
 princes, proud of the blood of Rurik which ran in their veins. 
 Others sprang from Gedimin, the Lithuanian, or from bap- 
 tized Tatar princes. All these, as well as the powerful boyars 
 of Tver, Riazan, and Novgorod, became the boyars of the 
 Grand Prince. There was only one court for all to serve, 
 that of Moscow. When Russia was divided into sovereign 
 states, discontented boyars were free to change their master, 
 to pass from the service of Tchernigof to that of Kief, or
 
 246 HISTORY OF EUSSIA. [CHAP. XV. 
 
 from the service of Suzdal 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 master was to pass over to the 
 enemy, to be a traitor. To change and betray became syno- 
 nymes. The Russian boyar could go neither to the Germans, 
 to the Swedes, nor to the Tatars ; he could go only to the 
 Grand Duke of Lithuania, but that was exactly the worst sort 
 of change, the blackest of treasons. The Prince of Moscow 
 knew well that the war with Lithuania that state which 
 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. Lithuania was 
 an internal as well as an external enemy, on terms of under- 
 standing and sympathy with the heart of the Russian state, 
 even in the palace of the Tsar himself, and its formidable hand 
 is found in all intrigues and conspiracies. The external strug- 
 gle 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 dispossessed princes, the boyars of the ancient 
 independent states, had renounced the strife with him on the 
 battle-field, but they continued to combat his authority in his 
 own Court. There are no more wars of state against state ; 
 henceforth the war is intestine, that of oligarchy against 
 autocracy. Resigned to being sovereign princes no longer, 
 the boyar princes of Moscow were not yet content to be only 
 subjects. The narrower area intensified the violence of the 
 contest. The Court of Moscow was an arena from which 
 none could pass without changing the Muscovite for the 
 Lithuanian master, without playing the traitor. Hence the 
 passionate character of the struggle between the two princi- 
 ples under Ivan the Fourth. Besides, the sovereigns of Mos- - 
 cow who, after so many efforts, had destroyed the Russian 
 states that held Moscow in check, committed the same fault
 
 1533-1584.] IVAN THE TERRIBLE. 247 
 
 as the Capets 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 sovereign princes of 
 the eleventh century succeeded the princes of the blood, the 
 appanaged princes of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. 
 These also had their domain, their boyars, their men-at-arms. 
 They were the Grand Prince's brothers, uncles, cousins, 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 Capets of Burgundy, Berri, Bourbon, and Or- 
 leans stood to the Capet kings, Charles the Seventh, Louis the 
 Eleventh, and Charles the Eighth. 
 
 Vasili Ivanovitch left two sons, Ivan and luri, under the 
 guardianship of his second wife, Helena Glinski. She had 
 come into Russia with a family of Podolian nobles, proscribed 
 by Sigismond, and accused of having plotted against his life. 
 Helena Glinski had won the heart of her old husband Vasili, 
 not only by her beauty, but by her free and attractive man- 
 ners, an independence of spirit and character, and a variety of 
 accomplishments not to be found among the Russian women 
 of that day, condemned as they were to seclusion. She was 
 almost a Western woman. Vasili, on his death-bed, was able 
 to leave her 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 autocracy of the 
 Grand Prince. One of her husband's brothers, luri Ivano- 
 vitch, convicted of rebellion, was thrown into prison, where he 
 died. Helena's own uncle, Mikhail Glinski, an ambitious and 
 turbulent Podolian, after having enjoyed her confidence for 
 some time, was likewise arrested, and died in confinement. 
 Andrei Ivanovitch, another brother of the late Tsar, tried to 
 escape into Poland to obtain the support of Sigismond ; he 
 was stopped on the way and imprisoned. Lithuania attempted 
 to come to his aid, by taking up arms for the rebels of the
 
 248 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XV. 
 
 interior. This unimportant war was ended in fifteen hundred 
 and thirty-seven by a truce. The Tatars of Kazan and the 
 Crimea suffered many defeats ; and to place Moscow beyond 
 the possibility of being seized by a sudden surprise, Helena 
 enclosed with ramparts the quarter known by the name of 
 Kitai-gorod. As she could not entirely rely either on the 
 boyars 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 being her lover. A gov- 
 ernment as energetic against its internal as against its foreign 
 enemies gave little satisfaction to the oligarchic party. In 
 fifteen hundred and thirty-eight Helena died, the victim of 
 poison. 
 
 The boyars 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 was dis- 
 puted especially by two families, the Shui'skis 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 Metro- 
 politan of Moscow. At last Andrei Shuiski penetrated into 
 the sacred city and the Kreml, by the force of arms overthrew 
 the government of the Belskis, and once more deposed the 
 Metropolitan. 
 
 Whilst the nobles were thus intriguing for the supreme 
 power, Vasili's two sons were left by themselves. luri, 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 contempt in which 
 his turbulent subjects held him. " We and our brother luri," 
 he afterwards writes, " were treated like foreigners, like the 
 children of beggars. We were ill-clothed, we were cold and 
 hungry." They saw the boyars pillage the treasures and lux- 
 urious furniture of the palace ; Shui'ski even threw himself in
 
 1533-1584.] IVAN THE TERRIBLE. 249 
 
 Ivan's presence on the bed of the late Tsar. The empire was 
 plundered as well as the palace. " They wandered every- 
 where," continues Ivan the Fourth, "in the towns and villages, 
 cruelly tormenting the people, inflicting all kinds of evils on 
 them, exacting fines without mercy from the inhabitants. Of 
 our subjects they have made their slaves ; of their slaves, the 
 nobles of the state." He saw 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 Vorontsof, who 
 was roughly handled and nearly killed by the boyars. It was 
 enough that a courtier took pains to plense him, for him in- 
 stantly 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 much, at hap-hazard, the 
 Bible, the Lives of the Saints, the Byzantine Chroniclers 
 translated into Slavonic, whatever came in his wav. Above 
 
 tf 
 
 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 boyars, so insolent towards 
 him in private, did he not see them in public ceremonials, 
 at receptions of ambassadors, rival each other in affected 
 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 implied 
 real power. Ivan, however, dissembled. After the Christmas 
 fetes of fifteen hundred and forty-three he suddenly summoned 
 his boyars before 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 Andrei 
 Shuiski, the chief of the government, and there and then had 
 him torn to pieces by hounds. Some of the most turbulent 
 and the most compromised were banished to distant towns. 
 The author of this coup d'etat was thirteen years old.
 
 250 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XV. 
 
 According to the invariable custom of Muscovite sovereigns, 
 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 prince's relatives, the vremenshtchiki, or men of the 
 season, the Glinskis, were charged to provide for the admin- 
 istration of the empire. In January, fifteen hundred and forty- 
 seven, Ivan ordered the Metropolitan Macarius to proceed 
 with his coronation. He assumed at the ceremony not only 
 the title of Grand Prince, but that of Tsar. The first title no 
 longer answered to the new power of the sovereign of Moscow, 
 who counted among his domestics princes and even Grand 
 Princes. The name of Tsar is that which the books in the 
 Slavonic language, ordinarily read by Ivan, give to the kings 
 of Judaea, Assyria, Egypt, Babylon, and to the emperors of 
 Rome and Constantinople. Now, was not Ivan in some 
 sort the heir of the Tsar Nebuchadnezzar, the Tsar Pharaoh, 
 the Tsar Ahasuerus, and the Tsar David, since Russia was 
 the sixth empire spoken of in the Apocalypse ? Through his 
 grandmother Sophia Palaeologus he was connected with the 
 family of the Tsars of Byzantium ; through his ancestor 
 Vladimir Monomakh he belonged to the Porphyrogeniti ; and 
 through Constantino the Great, to Caesar. If Constantinople 
 had been the second, Moscow was the third Rome, living 
 heir of the Eternal City. We may imagine what prestige was 
 added to the dignity of the Russian sovereign by this dazzling 
 title, borrowed from Biblical antiquity, from Roman majesty, 
 from the orthodox sovereigns of Byzantium. It recalled at 
 the same time the recently acquired 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 its prince to call 
 himself "Tsar." 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
 
 THE TERRIBLE
 
 1533-1584.] IVAN THE TERRIBLE. 251 
 
 whose future destiny was to be so brilliant. His Court was 
 increased by men chosen from the relatives of the Tsaritsa. 
 
 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. 
 Suddenly, in fifteen hundred and forty-seven, a terrible fire 
 broke out and destroyed a great part of Moscow, and seventeen 
 hundred people perished. The Tsar took refuge at Vorobief, 
 and thence contemplated with terror the destruction of his 
 capital. An inquiry was made, and the boyars took advan- 
 tage of it to insinuate to the people that it was the Glinskis 
 who had burnt Moscow. " It is the Princess Anna 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 destruction of Moscow." 
 The enraged multitude burst into the palace of the Glinskis. 
 One of them, luri, was killed in the very porch of the Assump- 
 tion. Then the rioters proceeded to Vorobief and demanded 
 Ivan's grandfather, 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 
 dramatized recital of Karamsin, but very clear if we keep to 
 the logic of facts. Ivan could hardly be ignorant who had 
 raised this revolt, and he was not the man to give himself up to 
 his ancient guardians. But his nervous, impressionable nature 
 had been greatly struck by the spectacle under his eyes. Under 
 the influence of this terror he examined his conscience, and re- 
 solved to amend his life. He took as his spiritual director 
 the priest Silvester, who had dwelt in his palace for nine years, 
 and had a great reputation for virtue ; he gave him at the same 
 time the administration of ecclesiastical affairs. Alexis Ada-
 
 252 HISTOEY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XV. 
 
 shef, one of the smaller nobility, was charged with receiving 
 petitions, and the supervision of the departments of the in- 
 terior and of war. As long as the two new favorites con- 
 fined themselves to their offices, the Court was tranquil. It 
 was the happiest period of the reign of Ivan the Fourth. In 
 the interior, the municipal administration was reorganized in 
 fifteen hundred and fifty-one. A new code was prepared, 
 and a council assembled, whose hundred articles were occu- 
 pied with Church reforms. Abroad, Russia was mistress of its 
 ancient masters. 
 
 CONQUEST OF KAZAN AND OF ASTRAKHAN. 
 
 The kingdom of Kazan continued to be distracted by two 
 opposing influences, that of Russia and that of the Khan of 
 the Crimea. The latter seemed the stronger, and Safa-Ghirei, 
 candidate for the Crimea, distinguished his accession by rav- 
 aging the Russian territory ; the khan supported him in these 
 incursions by advancing with the whole Crimean horde as far 
 as the Oka. 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 seemed to prefer the direct rule of Moscow 
 to this disguised subordination. At the request of the in- 
 habitants Ivan recalled Schig-Alei, and sent them a viceroy, 
 Mikulinski. Suddenly a rumor was spread in Kazan that 
 Mikulinski was approaching with Russian troops with the 
 object of exterminating the population. A rebellion broke 
 out. The gates of Moscow were shut on the Muscovites, and 
 men demanded a prince of the Nogaii Tatars. Ediger-Makh- 
 met was proclaimed Tsar of Kazan. 
 
 Ivan determined to make an end of this Mussulman city. 
 In June, fifteen hundred and fifty-two, the same year that 
 Henry the Second obtained possession of the three bishoprics,
 
 1533-1584.] IVAN THE TERRIBLE. 253 
 
 the Tsar 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 advanced against him 
 as far as the Oka ; there he learned that the barbarians, not 
 being able to take Tula, had hastily retired. Upon this, 
 Ivan's infantry, with one hundred and fifty thousand men and 
 one hundred and fifty pieces of 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 
 Vasilsursk on the Volga ; and he himself had established in 
 fifteen hundred and fifty-one the warlike colony of Sviajsk on 
 the Sviaga. Later he founded those of Kosmodemiansk and 
 Tcheboksarui. 
 
 At the beginning of September Ivan encamped under 
 Kazan, and surrounded it by a line of circumvallation, which 
 cut off all communication between the town and the cavalry of 
 the Murza lapantcha, which had taken the field. The garri- 
 son of Kazan, numbering thirty thousand Tatars and twenty- 
 five hundred Nogais, defended themselves energetically and 
 incessantly, and managed by their sorties to hinder the work 
 of the assailants. The Tsar repeatedly offered them honorable 
 terms ; he even hung up his prisoners on gibbets to frighten 
 the Kazanese into surrendering, but the besieged only shot ar- 
 rows against these unhappy wretches, crying that " it was better 
 for them to receive death from the clean hands of their coun- 
 trymen than to perish by the impure hands of Christians." 
 The Russian army had to struggle with the unchained ele- 
 ments as well as with their enemies. The fleet which bore 
 their provisions and powder was destroyed by a tempest. 
 The voievodui wished to raise the siege, but Ivan reanimated 
 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 besiegers
 
 254 HISTOKY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XV. 
 
 by their words and gestures. Ivan sent to Moscow for a 
 miraculous cross, which immediately destroyed the power of 
 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 ar great noise, 
 and the Russian 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 Tsar 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 repeopled by Russians, and even 
 at the present day the Tatar population is confined to the 
 suburbs. In the Kreml Ivan annihilated all the monuments 
 of the Mongol past, and replaced them by churches and mon- 
 asteries which attested his gratitude towards God and the 
 triumph of the Cross over Islam. 
 
 These events took place long years ago, 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 Rus- 
 sians after a siege conducted according to the rules of war ; it 
 is because the capture of Kazan marks the culminating point 
 in the history of the long struggle of the Slavs against the 
 Tatars, a struggle which began by the total subjugation of 
 Russia by the Mongols, but which has continued to our own 
 day, and probably will end only 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 expense of the con-
 
 1533-1584.] IVAN THE TERRIBLE. 255 
 
 querors, the first stage reached by European civilization in 
 taking the offensive against Asia. In the Russian 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 Tsar was at 
 church, and the deacon read the following verse from the 
 Gospel for the day : " There shall be one flock, one shep- 
 herd." It was with the cry of " God with us ! " that the 
 Russians precipitated themselves into the town. The tri- 
 umph of Moscow mingled with that of Christianity and or- 
 thodoxy. 
 
 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 Tcheremisa, the Mordva, the 
 Tchuvashi, whom M. Radlow considers the descendants of 
 the Bulgarui of the city of Bolgarui, the Votiaki, and the 
 Bashkirs after a resistance of some years were obliged to 
 do homage to Moscow. Ivan sent them missionaries at the 
 same time that he sent his voievodui. 
 
 The fall of the kingdom of Astrakhan soon followed that 
 of Kazan. This great city was also divided between two 
 parties. In fifteen hundred and fifty-four Prince luri Pronski 
 descended the Volga with thirty thousand men, and estab- 
 lished Derbuish, the protege of Russia, on the throne. Der- 
 buish, after a short time, was accused of having an under- 
 standing 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 Khazarui, Bolgarui, capital of the Bulgarui, 
 Sarai, capital of the Golden Horde), which preserve the memory
 
 256 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XV. 
 
 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 Tsars. 
 
 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 the Crimea, sought the alliance of the successors 
 of the Greek Caesars. In order to keep a firmer hold on 
 the Horde of the 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. 
 
 CONTESTS WITH THE LFVONIAN ORDER, POLAND, THE 
 TATARS, SWEDEN, AND THE RUSSIAN ARISTOCRACY. 
 
 Russia, feeling 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 more necessary to the Rus- 
 sians, as by it only could they communicate with Western 
 Europe, and receive vessels, artillery, and engineers. It was 
 from that direction that Muscovy awaited the increase of 
 power that civilization could alone give her. Between Mus- 
 covy and the Baltic lay more than one enemy : Sweden, the 
 Livonian knights, Lithuania, and Poland. In fifteen hundred 
 and fifty-four 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 neighbors, the war was a short one. It ter- 
 minated by a commercial treaty which gave the Swedish mer- 
 chants passage through Russia to India and China, and opened 
 communication through Sweden with Flanders, England, and 
 France for the Russian merchants. Moscow could not yet
 
 1533-1584.] IVAN THE TERRIBLE. 257 
 
 communicate with the West except through a jealous inter- 
 mediary. 
 
 Ivan the Terrible, inspired by the same political and civil- 
 izing 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 he had some grievances. About fifteen 
 hundred and forty-seven Ivan sent the Saxon Schlitte into 
 Germany to engage for him a certain number of engineers 
 and artisans, and Schlitte had managed to collect about a 
 hundred people. The jealousy of the Germans then awoke ; 
 they feared that, as it became civilized, Russia would also 
 become strong. The Livonian Order demanded of the Em- 
 peror Charles the Sixth 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 
 fifteen hundred and fifty-four the envoys of the Order came 
 to Moscow to solicit a renewal of the truce, he summoned 
 them to pay tribute for lurief, the ancient patrimony of the 
 Russian princes. Such a demand meant war. In fifteen hun- 
 dred and fifty-eight the Russian army took Narva, Neuhausen, 
 Dorpat, and seventeen other places. The Grand Master 
 Kettler asked help of his neighbors. Poland alone responded 
 to his appeal, and Sigismond Augustus the Second concluded 
 an offensive and defensive alliance with the Livonian Order. 
 
 At this juncture an important revolution took place in the 
 palace of the Tsar. Ivan's relations with his two counsellors 
 Silvester and Adashef had singularly altered. They disagreed 
 with respect to the war with Livonia ; they desired that after 
 the capture of Kazan and Astrakhan Ivan should turn rather 
 to the third Mussulman state, the Khanate of the Crimea. 
 M. Kostomarof gives excellent reasons for this preference, but 
 the reasons in favor of the opposite opinion are not less good. 
 By conquering the Crimea the safety of the empire would be 
 secured, and the conversion to Islamism, the complete Tatar- 
 
 VOL. I. 17
 
 258 HISTOEY OF EUSSrA. [CHAP. XV. 
 
 ization of the ancient Taurian tribes still professing Chris- 
 tianity, 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 by 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 irritated by the conquest of Kazan and Astrakhan. 
 Peter the Great did not conquer Livonia till after twenty years' 
 hard fighting with the Powers of the North ; but how many 
 Russian expeditions against the Crimea have not been stopped 
 by the distance, 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 Tsar nor his counsellors were completely in the right, but 
 the obstinacy of the latter had a fatal result. To satisfy both 
 sides two wars were declared, which was to run the certain 
 risk of a double check. 
 
 The misunderstanding between the Tsar and his two min- 
 isters dated from further back. Silvester abused his spiritual 
 influence with the Tsar and became more and more meddle- 
 some. Finally, he had left him no liberty ; and when Ivan's 
 favorite son died, he told him brutally that it was a chastise- 
 ment from Heaven for his indocility. He had entered into 
 relations with boyars whom Ivan justly suspected ; he took 
 their part against the Tsaritsa Anastasia (whom he represented 
 as a second Empress Eudoxia, the persecutor of Chrysostom),
 
 1533-1584.] IVAN THE TERRIBLE. 259 
 
 against the Glinskis, and against the Romanofs. Adashef 
 followed the same path. Like Haroun-al-Raschid's favorites, 
 the Barmecides, these two ministers had ended by appropri- 
 ating all the power of their master. Ivan had patience with 
 them, believing them to be faithful ; but in fifteen hundred 
 and fifty-three he fell dangerously ill, and was thought to 
 be at the point of death. Then the boyars resumed their 
 old arrogance ; they obstinately refused to swear allegiance to 
 the Tsar's son, the young Dmitri, declaring that they would 
 not obey his maternal relations, the Romanofs. The noisy 
 discussions reached the bed of the sick man, and his entrea- 
 ties were despised. The boyars approached Vladimir, Ivan's 
 cousin, who had also refused to take the oaths, and it was 
 known that the mother of this ambitious prince was distribut- 
 ing largesses to the army. Silvester took the part of Prince 
 Vladimir against those boyars who remained faithful, and the 
 family of Adashef joined with the mutineers. The faithful 
 boyars even feared for the life of the Tsar ; Ivan could not be 
 under any delusions as to the fate awaiting his wife and his 
 son in case of his death. 
 
 " When God shall have worked his will on me," said Ivan 
 to the few boyars 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 boyars ; 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 boyars 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 boyars." Ivan the Fourth 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 inexplicable fury, we must think of the terrible 
 vigils of fifteen hundred and fifty -three, of the scenes of rebel- 
 lion and violence that troubled the peace of his sick-chamber,
 
 260 HISTORY OF EUSSIA. [CHAP. XV. 
 
 of the obstinate refusals to take the desired vow, of the declara- 
 tions of hatred against the Tsaritsa and her relations, and of 
 the intrigues woven round Vladimir against the Tsarevitch 
 Dmitri. 
 
 He had no more confidence in his favorites ; both were 
 banished from the Court. Silvester retired to the Monastery 
 of Saint Cyril, and was afterwards exiled to Solovetski. Ada- 
 shef was appointed voievod at Fellin in Livonia, and later was 
 forced to live at Dorpat. But they left behind them a com- 
 plete administration, a perfect army of clients. They had 
 peopled the Court, the governments, and the voievodies with 
 their creatures. 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 Adashef s disgrace that 
 Anastasia whom he detested died suddenly. Ivan alleged 
 that she was poisoned. Since the publication of M. Zabielin's 
 careful studies on the " Private Life of the Tsaritsas of Russia " 
 this allegation and others like it do not appear as inconceivable 
 as they seemed to Karamsin. The intrigues of Adashefs 
 friends forced Ivan the Fourth many times to have recourse 
 to severity, but at this epoch he was comparatively merciful. 
 
 " When the treachery of that dog Alexis Adashef and his 
 accomplices 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 belonged to the party of Silvester arid Adashef we 
 commanded to separate from them, and no longer to recog- 
 nize 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 only 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
 
 1533-1584.] IVAN THE TERRIBLE. 2G1 
 
 inflicted on the guilty the penalty of their faults." Capital 
 punishment was indeed rare at this epoch. Ivan usually con- 
 tented himself with demanding a fresh oath from those who 
 were arrested on the road to Lithuania, and exacted surety 
 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 Tsar to be more severe in his 
 treatment was the defection of Prince Andrei Kurbski, who 
 belonged 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 partisan of Adashef and 
 Silvester, he was deeply irritated by their fall. Nominated 
 general-in-chief of the army in Livonia, his carelessness al- 
 lowed the Russians to suffer a shameful defeat. Fifteen thou- 
 sand Russians were beaten by four thousand Poles ; or rather, 
 if the Polish historian Martin Belski is to be believed, forty 
 thousand Russians by fifteen hundred Poles. Kurbski had 
 reason to fear the anger of the Tsar. He had been for some 
 time negotiating with the King of Poland, being desirous of 
 obtaining in Lithuania a command, lands, and advantages 
 equal to those he would lose. At last, abandoning his wife 
 and children to the Tsar's vengeance, he left Venden and 
 crossed into the Polish camp. Thence he sent to Ivan a letter 
 by his servant Shipanof, 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. 
 
 " Tsar formerly glorified by God ! " wrote Kurbski, " Tsar 
 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 infidels ! Exposed to thy cruel 
 persecution, with a heart filled with bitterness, I wish not- 
 withstanding to say a few words to you. O Tsar, why hast 
 thou put to death the strong ones of Israel ? Why hast thou
 
 262 HISTOEY OF KUSSIA. [CHAP. XV. 
 
 slain the valiant voievodui given thee by God ? Why hast 
 thou shed their victorious blood, their holy blood, on the pro- 
 faned pavement of the churches of God, during the sacred 
 ceremonies ? Why hast thou reddened the porch of the 
 temple with the blood of the martyrs ? In what were they 
 guilty towards thee, O Tsar ? Was it not their valor which 
 overthrew, which laid at thy feet, those proud kingdoms of 
 the Volga, before which thine ancestors were slaves ? Is it 
 not their zeal, their intelligence, to which, after God, thou 
 owest the strong towns of the Germans ? And behold thy 
 gratitude to these unhappy ones ! Thou hast exterminated 
 whole families amongst us. Dost thou think thyself then im- 
 mortal, Tsar, or, seduced by some heresy, dost thou think 
 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 nke water, will cry against thee to our Lord. 
 God sees all consciences ! " Kurbski then invokes the 
 victims of Ivan, and shows them standing before the throne 
 of God, demanding 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 angels ? Dost thou reckon on thy servile flat- 
 terers, on thy boon companions, on thy turbulent boyars, who 
 make thee lose thy soul and body, entice thee to the debauch- 
 eries of Venus, and sacrifice their children to vile rites worthy 
 of Saturn ? When my last day comes, I wish that this letter, 
 watered with my tears, should be placed on my coffin." He 
 ended by declaring himself a subject of Sigismond Augustus, 
 " my sovereign, who, I hope, will load me with favors and 
 consolations for my misfortunes." Thus Kurbski spoke " in 
 the name of the strong ones of Israel, of the living and the 
 dead," that is, in the name of all the friends of Adashef; 
 he made himself the organ of their wrath and complaints ;
 
 1533-1584.] IVAN THE TERRIBLE. 263 
 
 he formulated their grievances, and exaggerated them ; he 
 demanded an account of the Tsar of his conduct towards them, 
 threatening him with a higher tribunal, and dared to ask if 
 he thought himself immortal ; he refused Ivan all participa- 
 tion in the glory acquired at Kazan, insulted the boyars who 
 surrounded him, and boasted of the crime which was the 
 most unpardonable in the eyes of the Tsar, the recognition 
 of the Polish sovereignty. 
 
 Kurbski's letter was a manifesto. It helped to irritate the 
 suspicions of the Tsar, 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 Kurbski's letter with a long vindication, 
 adorned with quotations from sacred and profane authors. 
 The Tsar 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 Kurb- 
 ski's manifesto, the punishment of his supposed accomplices. 
 
 Ivan felt that he could no longer govern with a Court, a 
 council of state, and an administration which were filled with 
 the friends of Adashef and Kurbski. Kurbski's conduct 
 shows to what depths of treason their rancor could bring 
 them. He was to return to devastate Russia with a Polish 
 army ! Was the Tsar's life safe in the midst of such men ? 
 In December, fifteen hundred and sixty-four, Ivan quitted 
 Moscow, with all his friends, servants, and treasures, and 
 retired to the Sloboda 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 sover- 
 eign 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 boyars feared
 
 264 HISTOET OF KUSSIA. [CHAP. XV. 
 
 what the people might do to them. Neither the one nor the 
 other could resign themselves to the anger of the sovereign. 
 The boyars and the clergy resolved to ask pardon, and, if 
 necessary, to "carry their heads " to the Tsar. They went in 
 procession to the Sloboda Alexandrof, to beseech him to recall 
 his abdication. Ivan consented 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 empire continued to be 
 governed by the council of the boyars, and constituted the 
 zemshtchina, that is, the " rule of the country." Over this 
 part of Russia Ivan reserved only a general supervision, and 
 the right of punishing treason. The other part was placed 
 under the Tsar's " personal and individual " government, and 
 formed his body-guard. Leaving the ancient Court, the an- 
 cient council, and the ancient administration still in exist- 
 ence, Ivan the Fourth formed with his own favorites 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 thou- 
 sand of the Tsar," who had adopted, as their " canting arms," 
 a dog's head, and a broom suspended from their saddles. 
 They were ready to bite the enemies of the Tsar, and to sweep 
 treason off the Russian soil. This singular regime lasted 
 seven years, from fifteen hundred and sixty -five until fifteen 
 hundred and seventy-two. 
 
 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 
 fresh bursts of madness. We know the names of his victims, 
 but we do not always know their crimes. The writers hostile 
 to Ivan the Fourth Kurbski, 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.
 
 1533-1584.] IVAN THE TERRIBLE. 265 
 
 So far as we can clearly comprehend the facts, we see that 
 Ivan 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 desperate. 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 Tsar 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 France. But in France men fought in open day, on 
 the battle-fields of the Praguerie or of the League of the Pub- 
 lic 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 dialogue between the 
 master and his subjects it was naturally the master who spoke 
 the loudest. In the absence of a sufficient number of authen- 
 tic documents we risk nothing by being a little more sceptical 
 than Karamsin. 
 
 The principal episodes of this autocratic reign of terror 
 are : 
 
 The deposition and perhaps the murder of Saint Philip, 
 Archbishop of Moscow, who was guilty of having nobly inter- 
 ceded for the condemned, and of hating Ivan's body-guard. 
 
 The execution of Alexandra, widow of luri and sister-in- 
 law of Ivan ; of Prince Vladimir and his mother, the ambi- 
 tious Evfrosinia, who thus expiated their intrigues of fifteen 
 hundred and fifty-three. We must remark that Ivan, what- 
 ever Kurbski may say, spared Vladimir's children, and largely 
 provided for them. 
 
 The chastisement of Novgorod, where, it seemed to Ivan, the
 
 266 HISTOEY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XV. 
 
 aristocratic party had entertained the project of opening the 
 gates to the King of Poland, and where the Tsar, according 
 to his own testimony, put to death fifteen hundred and five 
 persons. 
 
 The great execution in the Red Place in fifteen hundred 
 and seventy-one, where a certain number of Muscovites and 
 Novgorodiaus 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 
 Saint Cyril, in which Ivan asks the prayers of the Church for 
 each of his victims by name. This list shows a total of three 
 thousand four hundred and seventy victims, of whom nine 
 hundred and eighty-six 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 Kurbski called " the exter- 
 mination of entire families." 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 col- 
 lective indications are not less significant. For example : 
 " Kazarin Dubrovski and his two sons, with ten men who 
 came to their help " ; " twenty men of the village of Kolo- 
 menskoe," "eighty of Matveishe," these were no doubt 
 peasants and men-at-arms who tried to defend their masters. 
 There is this mention relative to the Novgorod : " Remember, 
 Lord, the souls of thy servants, to the number of fifteen hun- 
 dred and five persons, Novgorodians." Had not Louis the 
 Eleventh 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 in fifteen hundred and seventy the formal prom-
 
 (v vv.'i a
 
 1533-1584.] IVAN THE TERRIBLE. 267 
 
 ise that in case of misfortune he should find in England a safe 
 asylum and the free exercise of his religion. There is, besides, 
 his will of fifteen hundred and seventy-two, which contem- 
 plates the case of his being "proscribed by his boyars and ex- 
 pelled by them from the throne, and being obliged to wander 
 from country to country," and recommends to his sons to live 
 on good terms with each other after his death, to learn how 
 to 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. Notwithstand- 
 ing the help of the latter, the Knights 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 (Esel was sold to Denmark ; Revel was 
 given to the Swedes ; Livonia was ceded by the Grand Master 
 to Poland; Kettler reserved to himself Kurland and Semi- 
 gallia, which were erected into a hereditary duchy. 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 
 fifteen hundred and sixty-three 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 Orsha, the King of Poland demanded 
 a truce in fifteen hundred and sixty-six. 
 
 Ivan at this moment offered a strange spectacle to Russia. 
 To deliberate on the request of Sigismond he assembled a coun- 
 cil, composed of the higher clergy, the boyars who had pos- 
 sessions on the frontiers of Lithuania and were well acquainted 
 with the local topography, and finally the merchants of Mos- 
 cow and Smolensk. This despot, who founded autocracy in 
 blood, convoked real States-general ; he made an appeal to 
 their opinion, as he had many times before, when from the
 
 268 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XV. 
 
 stone tribune of Lobnoe miesto he harangued the three orders. 
 The Assembly decided that the Polish King's conditions could 
 not be accepted, and offered men and money for the continua- 
 tion of the war. This was prolonged for four years, and 
 ended in a truce. The Tsar, who saw difficulties accumu- 
 lating in Livonia, conceived an expedient 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 that same Prince Vladimir whom he had put 
 to death. Magnus, nominal King of Livonia, soon perceived 
 that he was only an instrument of Muscovite policy. He 
 intrigued against the Tsar and w r as dethroned. Ivan the 
 Terrible in person took Venden, which Magnus had garri- 
 soned, and massacred the German soldiers to the last man. 
 
 Unfortunately the war with Poland w r as complicated by the 
 raids of the Tatars of the Crimea. Sigismond did not cease 
 to work upon the khan, who well understood that his cause 
 was allied with that of Poland. The Tsar, however, over- 
 powered 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 Stambul, Selim the Second, was ready to join in 
 the Holy War for Kazan and Astrakhan. In fifteen hundred 
 and sixty-nine, seventeen thousand Turks, commanded by Kas- 
 sim Pasha, and fifty thousand Tatars, led by the khan, besieged 
 Astrakhan. The operations dragged on ; the Pasha 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 twenty thousand men. 
 Was he aided by the treachery of the voi'evodui ? He crossed 
 the Oka, and suddenly appeared under the walls of Moscow. 
 He burned the suburbs, and the fire spread to the town, 
 which, with the exception of the Kreml, was completely
 
 1533-1584.] IVAN THE TERRIBLE. 269 
 
 reduced to ashes. A foreign author gives the evidently exag- 
 gerated number of eight hundred thousand victims. The 
 khan retired with more than one hundred thousand 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 
 crown and your head, but you did not show yourself; you 
 declined a battle, and yet you dare to call yourself a Tsar 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 re- 
 turned the following year, fifteen hundred and seventy-two, 
 but Prince Mikhail Vorotinski met him on the banks of the 
 Lopasnia and inflicted on him a complete defeat. 
 
 The same year, that of the massacre of Saint Bartholomew, 
 died Sigismond Augustus the Second, King of Poland. His 
 reign was especially memorable for the union of Lublin, in 
 fifteen hundred and sixty-nine, 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 degree of 
 energy. A party of nobles was formed at Warsaw who 
 wished to elect the son of Ivan the Terrible as King of Po- 
 land. This was to prepare for the reunion of the two great 
 Slav empires, separated less by language than religion, whose 
 growing antagonism could terminate only in the ruin of one 
 of them, to the great advantage of the German race. Ivan 
 coveted the crown, not for his son, but for himself. We see 
 him paying court to the Polish ambassadors, and trying to 
 defend himself against the accusations of cruelty and tyranny 
 which the banished Muscovites brought against him. 
 
 " If your lords, who are now without a king," said he 
 to the Polish envoy Voropai, " desire me for their sovereign,
 
 270 HISTORY OF KUSSIA. [CHAP. XV. 
 
 they will see what a good protector and kind master they will 
 find in me. Many among you say that I am cruel. It is 
 true that I am cruel and irascible, I do not deny it ; but to 
 whom, I ask you, am I cruel ? I am cruel towards any one 
 that is cruel to me. The good ! ah, I would give them with- 
 out a moment's hesitation the chain and the robe that I wear ! 
 It is by no means wonderful that your princes love their sub- 
 jects if their subjects love them. Mine have delivered me 
 over to the Tatars of the Crimea. My vo'ievodui did not even 
 warn me of the arrival of the enemy. Perhaps it was diffi- 
 cult for them to vanquish a force so superior to them in num- 
 bers; but even if they had lost some thousands of men, and 
 brought me only a whip or a cane of the Tatars, I should 
 have been grateful. Think of the enormity of their treason 
 towards me. If some of them were afterwards chastised, it 
 was for their crimes they were punished. I ask you, do 
 you spare traitors ? " Ivan then spoke of his grievances 
 against Kurbski, and ended by promising "to observe the 
 laws, to respect and even to extend the liberties and fran- 
 chises of Poland." 
 
 The ambassador of France at Warsaw finally carried the 
 day, and Henri de Valois, Due d'Anjou, was proclaimed king. 
 He did not stay long in Poland, and after his flight to the 
 West a new Diet assembled, and the intrigues of the rival 
 Courts began again. 
 
 Stephan Batory, voi'evod of Transylvania, was elected king. 
 He was a young, ambitious, and energetic prince, and no 
 more formidable enemy to Ivan the Terrible in his old age 
 could have been chosen. It was now not only a question of 
 the conquest of Livonia which was pursued so laboriously in 
 the face of so many obstacles, but, in placing the crown on his 
 head, Batory had sworn to give back to Poland the towns 
 conquered from it by the Muscovite princes. It was now a 
 contest between the semi-barbarous army of Russia, its almost 
 feudal soldiery, its Tatar cavalry, its tactics of routine, and its
 
 1533-1584.] IVAN THE TERRIBLE. 271 
 
 feeble artillery, and a disciplined European army, a well-directed 
 artillery, compact regiments of German mercenaries, and Hun- 
 garian veterans seasoned by many combats. Ivan awaited 
 his enemy in Livonia, when suddenly Batory appeared before 
 Polotsk and took it, in spite of a vigorous resistance. The 
 Russian gunners hung themselves by their guns in despair. 
 This and the following years were marked by the capture of 
 many Russian fortresses. Batory, the hero of the North, 
 the Charles the Twelfth of Ivan's age, seemed ready to anni- 
 hilate the work of a long reign, and to check the first effort 
 of Russia to escape from a state of barbarism. The Swedes 
 on their side, commanded by De la Gardie, took Kexholm in 
 Karelia, and invaded Esthonia. Old Pskovian and Novgoro- 
 dian Russia was invaded. In fifteen hundred and eighty-one 
 Batory besieged Pskof, whilst De la Gardie captured Narva, 
 Ivangorod, lam, and Koporie. But Pskof marked the limit 
 of Batory's successes. This little town was defended with 
 so much energy by Ivan Shuiski that, after a three months' 
 siege and many assaults, Poles and Hungarians had to con- 
 fess themselves vanquished. 
 
 Ivan had ceased to appear at the head of his troops, think- 
 ing that a prince who is not sure of his peers would be foolish 
 if he risked himself in a battle, a conclusion to which Louis 
 the Eleventh had come at Montlhery. His diplomatic rela- 
 tions still remained for him to direct. Threatened by Batory, 
 he had .recourse to an expedient. He implored the mediation 
 of Pope Gregory the Thirteenth between the Catholic king . 
 and himself. The Pontiff sent to Moscow the Jesuit Antonio 
 Possevino, with orders at the same time to negotiate the union 
 with the two Churches. Posse vino's account shows us Ivan 
 the Terrible in his true light ; almost free-thinking, inquisi- 
 tive, and sometimes disposed to see the humorous side of 
 things, with ideas of tolerance remarkable for his time. If 
 the Pope's envoy failed in the religious part of his mission, 
 he at least succeeded in concluding a truce between the two
 
 272 HISTORY OP RUSSIA. [CHAP. XV. 
 
 sovereigns, in fifteen hundred and eighty-two, by which Ivan 
 had to cede Polotsk and all Livonia. This bold enterprise for 
 opening the Baltic Sea, which preceded by one hundred and 
 fifty years that of Peter the Great, thus fell miserably to the 
 ground. The fruit of thirty years' efforts and sacrifices was 
 lost. 
 
 THE ENGLISH IN KUSSIA. CONQUEST OF SIBERIA. 
 
 Writers hostile to Ivan love to contrast the end of his reign 
 his personal government with his early years, when Sil- 
 vester and Adashef were in power. In the first period there 
 was nothing but success ; Kazan and Astrakhan were con- 
 quered. In the second period the Russians were vanquished 
 by the Poles and Swedes ; they were expelled from Livonia ; 
 they lost Polotsk, and saw Moscow burnt by the Khan of the 
 Crimea. The meaning of these facts really is that' the Rus- 
 sian arms were triumphant in the East against barbarians 
 ignorant of the military art, and unfortunate in the West, 
 where they had to contend with the artillery, the tactics, the 
 discipline, and the troops of Europe. Ivan needed more wit 
 to be defeated as he was in Livonia than to win as he did in 
 Kazan. It is no dishonor for the Russia of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury to have failed in this great undertaking, since Peter, with 
 all his genius, spent twenty-five years in the same task. This 
 unlucky period of the reign of Ivan was not without fruit for 
 the grandeur and civilization of Russia. The Germans closed 
 to it the Baltic, the English opened for it the White Sea. 
 
 Under Edward the Sixth a company of merchant venturers 
 was formed for the discovery of " regions, kingdoms, islands, 
 and places unknown and unvisited by the highway of the sea." 
 Sebastian Cabot, chief pilot of England, was nominated gov- 
 ernor for life. In fifteen hundred and fifty-three, three vessels, 
 under the command of Sir Hugh Willoughby and Chancellor, 
 set sail towards the northeast, towards that strange sea spoken 
 of by Tacitus "a sluggish mere and motionless which
 
 1533-1584.] IVAN THE TERRIBLE. 273 
 
 forms the girdle of the world, where you hear the sound of 
 sun-rising ! " That sea must lead, men thought, to China. 
 On the coasts of Scandinavia, near Vardehuus, a frightful 
 tempest arose and dispersed the squadron. Willoughby dis- 
 appeared with the " Buona Speranza " and the " Buona Confi- 
 denza." Some fishermen afterwards found the two ships in a 
 bay of the White Sea, where they had been nipped by the 
 ice, and all the sailors who manned them were dead of cold 
 and hunger. Chancellor, with the " Edward Bonaventura," 
 succeeded in doubling Laponia and the Holy Cape, pene- 
 trated first into an unknown sea, and then into the mouth of a 
 river near which was a monastery. The sea was the White 
 Sea, the river the Dwina, the monastery that of Saint Nicholas. 
 Chancellor learned with astonishment that he was on the terri- 
 tory of the Tsar of Moscow ; he had found Russia beneath 
 the North Pole. Farther off was the Monastery of Saint 
 Michael, near which was afterwards built in this desert, chiefly 
 by the energy of the English, the commercial city of Saint 
 Michael the Archangel, usually called Arkhangel. Chan- 
 cellor at once left for Moscow, and delivered to Ivan the Ter- 
 rible the letters which Edward the Sixth, not knowing where 
 his subjects might land, had addressed vaguely "to all the 
 princes and lords, to all the judges of the earth, to their offi- 
 cers, to whoever possesses any high authority in all the regions 
 under the vast sky." Ivan the Fourth admitted the English 
 " to see his majesty and his eyes," feasted them in the Golden 
 Palace, and gave them a letter for their king, in which he 
 authorized the English to trade with his dominions, and made 
 them promise to send ships to the Dwina. 
 
 Mary Tudor succeeded her brother, and shared the throne 
 with her Spanish husband, Philip the Second. They confirmed 
 the privileges of the company of merchant venturers, and in 
 fifteen hundred and fifty-six Chancellor, accompanied by Rich- 
 ard Gray and George Killingworth, again set sail for the mouth 
 of the Dwina, and arrived successfully at Moscow. This time 
 
 VOL. I. 18
 
 274 HISTORY OF EUSSIA. [CHAP. XV. 
 
 they obtained from the Tsar letters-patent formally authorizing 
 the members of the company to establish themselves at Khol- 
 mogory and at Vologda, and to trade east and west. During 
 this time Stephen Burroughs, in the " Searchthrift," navigated 
 the east, gained the shores of the country of the Samoyedui, 
 touched on the islands of Nova Zembla and Vaigats, and was 
 only checked by the approach of the dark polar winter. 
 
 Chancellor's two vessels, the " Edward Bonaventura" and 
 the " Philip and Mary," which had discovered the missing 
 ships of Willoughby, departed for England. The former had 
 on board Osip Nepei, governor of Vologda, the first Russian 
 ambassador that had been seen in England, accompanied by a 
 suite of sixteen Russians, and carrying a letter and presents 
 from Ivan the Fourth. A tempest scattered the fleet, sent the 
 " Philip and Mary " as far as the coast of Norway, sunk the 
 " Speranza " and the " Confidenza," and threw the " Bona- 
 ventura " on the inhospitable rocks of Inverness. Chancellor 
 succeeded in saving the Russian envoy, but perished himself, 
 with his son and nearly all the crew. The cargo and the 
 presents of the Tsar were plundered by the savage natives of 
 the country. 
 
 Twelve miles from London Osip Nepei was received by 
 eighty merchants of the company, mounted on magnificent 
 horses, and adorned with heavy chains of gold. He now be- 
 came acquainted with " all the solid respectability of old Eng- 
 land." His train was increased by new squadrons of merchants 
 and gentlemen as they approached the town, and he made his 
 triumphal entry on the twenty-eighth of February, fifteen hun- 
 dred and fifty-seven. After having been harangued by the 
 Lord Mayor, received by the Queen and the King, feasted by 
 the corporation of drapers, he departed for Russia with letters* 
 patent granting Russian merchants in England a reciprocity 
 of privileges. England did not undertake many obligations. 
 
 Nepei this time was accompanied by Jenkinson, an admi- 
 rable type of an English sailor, bold, indefatigable, ready for
 
 1533-1584.] IVAN THE TERRIBLE. 275 
 
 anything ; a merchant, an administrator, a diplomat at need, 
 who had already visited all the seas of Europe, and, in 
 despair at England not being able to contest the Mediterra- 
 nean with its Venetian rival, wished to secure it a new passage 
 by Russia to the East. His open character and wide knowl- 
 edge were wonderfully seductive to Ivan. He obtained from 
 the Tsar a letter of recommendation to the Asiatic princes, de- 
 scended the Volga, flew the first English flag on the Caspian, 
 landed on the coast of Turkestan; plunged with camels loaded 
 with merchandise into regions infested with brigands and 
 ravaged by the wars of the khans ; was very nearly massacred, 
 reached Bokhara, and was lucky enough to return before the 
 city was sacked by the Sultan of Samarcand in fifteen hundred 
 and fifty-eight and fifteen hundred and fifty-nine. In another 
 voyage, in fifteen hundred and sixty-two, he again crossed the 
 Caspian, and presented specimens of English manufacture and 
 the letters of Elizabeth to Shah Thamas, King of Persia, who, 
 warned by the friends of the Turks and Venetians, received Jen- 
 kinson with an insulting mistrust and coldness. When he re- 
 tired from the Court, a domestic followed him carrying a basin 
 of sand, and scattered it to efface the impure footsteps of the 
 " giaour " on the soil of the sacred palace. Jenkinson brought 
 back to Ivan the Fourth messages from many small princes, 
 notably from those of Shirvan and Georgia, who wished to 
 place themselves under the Muscovite protection. The results 
 of these voyages were negative. Seeing the instability of the 
 Asiatic regions, the English were obliged at that time to con- 
 fine themselves to trading in the territories of the Tsar. The 
 latter, in acknowledgment of the services rendered him by 
 Jenkinson, authorized them to trade on all the rivers of the 
 north, from the Dwina to the Obi, and to establish themselves 
 in the principal Russian towns, Pskof, Novgorod, Nijni- 
 Novgorod, Kazan, Astrakhan, and Narva, which had just fallen 
 into the power of the Russians. 
 
 In fifteen hundred and sixty-eight Ivan wished to conclude
 
 276 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XV. 
 
 with Elizabeth a treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive, 
 against Poland and Sweden. He offered her in exchange a 
 monopoly of commerce with Russia, though this right, by his 
 own showing, weighed more heavily on his empire than a 
 tribute would have done. He also requested her to sign an 
 engagement, reciprocal for the two sovereigns, to furnish each 
 other with an asylum in the event of the success of an enemy, 
 or the rebellion of their subjects, obliging them to fly from 
 their states. Elizabeth declined the offer of alliance, and 
 refused to accept for herself the offered asylum, " finding, by 
 the grace of God, no dangers of the sort in her dominions." 
 It was in fifteen hundred and seventy that she signed the 
 treaty mentioned above, and had it countersigned by Bacon 
 and the principal statesmen. This, however, was far from 
 contenting Ivan, as Elizabeth persisted in declining a refuge 
 in Russia. The discussion on this " great affair," as Ivan calls 
 it in his letters, was prolonged for some time longer. Eliza- 
 beth sent Randolph, Jenkinson, and Daniel Silvester to Russia. 
 Ivan was represented in London by Andrei Sovin, Pisemski, 
 and the English merchant, Horsey. 
 
 The last envoy of England in Ivan's reign was Jerome 
 Bowes, charged to explain to the Tsar the difficulties in the 
 way of his project of marriage with Lady Mary Hastings, 
 Elizabeth's cousin. Notwithstanding his heaviness and want 
 of tact, Bowes obtained great credit with the Tsar, who some- 
 times said to him, " May it please God that my servants prove 
 as faithful ! " Bowes profited by his favor to get the privileges 
 of the English increased, but he made himself many enemies 
 at Court, and was severely maltreated during the reaction that 
 followed Ivan's death. The relations were renewed in Feodor's 
 reign by Horsey, and, above all, by Fletcher, author of a curious 
 account of Russia. 
 
 French merchants had also brought to Ivan a letter of Henry 
 the Third, and had settled themselves in Moscow. Other en- 
 voys arrived from Holland, Spain, and Italy, to try to rival
 
 1533-1584.] IVAN THE TERRIBLE. 277 
 
 the English; but the latter, who had been the first to reach 
 Russia, kept the pre-eminence. 
 
 In fifteen hundred and fifty-eight the Tsar granted Gregory 
 Strogonof ninety-two miles of desert land on the banks of the 
 Kama. Here the Strogonofs created many centres of popula- 
 tion, and began to explore the mineral wealth of the Urals. 
 Their colonists even passed the " mountain girdle," and came 
 in contact with the kingdom of Siberia. The Strogonofs, as 
 audacious as the Spaniards, dreamed of the conquest of this 
 vast empire, and requested authority of the Tsar to take the 
 offensive against the Tatars. To fight, an army was necessary. 
 Russia was so full of vigor, that the most impure elements 
 often became the agents of her security and progress. The 
 Good Companions of the Don had more than once excited 
 the Tsar's anger by pillaging the travellers and boats on the 
 royal road of the Volga. They had not always respected the 
 possessions of the Crown. One of these brigand chiefs, the 
 Cossack Irmak Timofeevitch, obtained pardon from the Tsar, 
 and took service with the Strogonofs. At the head of eight 
 hundred and fifty men Russians, Cossacks, Tatars, German 
 and Polish prisoners of war he crossed the Urals, terrified 
 the natives by the novelty of firearms, traversed the immense 
 untrodden forests of Tobol, defeated the Khan Kutchum in 
 many battles, took Sibir, his capital, and made his cousin 
 Mametkul prisoner. Then he subjugated the banks of the 
 Irtuish and the Obi, and consoled the last years of the Tsar by 
 the news that he had conquered him a new kingdom and added 
 to all his other crowns that of Siberia. Ivan also sent bishops 
 and priests into his new dominions. Irmak, after having 
 finished his conquest and thrown open the communications 
 with the rich Bokhara, survived Ivan only a short time. One 
 day, in fifteen hundred and eighty-four, he allowed himself to 
 be surprised by his enemies, and in trying to swim the Irtuish 
 sank from the weight of the cuirass given him by the Tsar. 
 This rival of Pizarro and Cortez, the conqueror of a new world,
 
 278 HISTORY OF KUSSIA. [CHAP. XV. 
 
 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 Adashef gave to Russia in fifteen hundred and fifty-one 
 her first municipal liberties, Ivan had assembled in fifteen 
 hundred and fifty-six the first States-general, composed of the 
 three orders. The reformation of the Church under Silves- 
 ter was completed by the Council of fifteen hundred and 
 seventy-three, which forbade rich convents to acquire new 
 lands ; and, by the Council of fifteen hundred and eighty, 
 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 power- 
 ful, in the Russia of the sixteenth century, was the constitu- 
 tion of the family. When a noble rose or fell, his whole 
 family rose or fell with him ; even the memory of his ances- 
 tors and the future of his youngest nephews were concerned. 
 This is the reason why a Russian noble never consented to 
 occupy an inferior place, if no precedents on the subject 
 existed. Court and camp were constantly disturbed by the 
 " quarrels of precedence." Neither the knout nor the exe- 
 cutioner's axe could subdue their resistance. They would 
 rather die than dishonor their ancestors. The " Books of 
 Rank " were consulted on all occasions, to know the respec- 
 tive precedence of the different families. Ivan the Fourth 
 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 may be considered as the founder of the 
 National Guard of the streltsui, or strelitz, 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 
 could come for service.
 
 1533-1584.] IVAN THE TERRIBLE. 279 
 
 He gathered strangers about him. He authorized the min- 
 ister Wettermann, of Dorpat, to preach at Moscow, listened 
 to Eberfeld, and refused a discussion with Rosvita, saying 
 that he would not " cast pearls before swine." He permitted 
 the erection of the first Calvinist and Lutheran churches at 
 Moscow, thus anticipating the toleration of the eighteenth 
 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 to the most shameful excesses with his 
 favorites, or, covered with a monkish garment, heading them 
 in processions and other pious exercises. Like Henry the 
 Eighth, he had many wives. After Anastasia Romanof he 
 married a barbarian, the Tcherkess Maria ; next, two legiti- 
 mate 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 with 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 staff 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 
 Tsar. 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 successors foreign to 
 his race for one of the detested boyars that, at the price 
 of so much blood and so many perils, he had founded autoc- 
 racy. He survived his son only three years, and died in 
 fifteen hundred and eighty-four. 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 sixteenth century is the century
 
 280 HISTORY OF EUSSIA. [CHAP. XV. 
 
 of Henry the Eighth, of Ferdinand the Catholic, of Catherine 
 de Medici, of the Inquisition, of Saint Bartholomew, and of 
 strappados. Was the Europe of this era indeed so far ad- 
 vanced beyond Asiatic Russia, newly escaped from the Mon- 
 gol 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 lawless gentry, the hidden 
 danger of Slav nations, which in Poland, under the name of 
 pospolit, began by enfeebling royalty, and ended by enfeebling 
 the nation.
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 MUSCOVITE RUSSIA AND THE RENAISSANCE. 
 
 1533 - 1584. 
 
 THE MUSCOVITE GOVERNMENT. THE KIN AND THE MEN OF THE TSAR. 
 THE PRIKAZUI. RURAL CLASSES. CITIZENS. COMMERCE. 
 DOMESTIC SLAVERY. SECLUSION OF WOMEN. THE RENAISSANCE : 
 LITERATURE, POPULAR SONGS, AND CATHEDRALS. Moscow IN THE 
 SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 THE MUSCOVITE GOVERNMENT. THE KIN AND THE MEN 
 OP THE TSAR. THE PRIKAZUL 
 
 THE Russia of the sixteenth and seventeenth 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 the barbarism of the Rus- 
 sians which insured their inferiority to their weaker neighbors, 
 took good care that neither the men, the arms, nor the sciences 
 of the West should reach them. 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 states, should be 
 provided 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 
 precautions, thanks also to the hatred of the Russians for 
 the " Mussulmans " and " heretics " of the West, remained an 
 Asiatic Empire, as it had been made by the Tatar invasions. 
 The patriarchal rule of ancient Slavonia and the example of 
 the Oriental sovereigns contributed to maintain the despotic
 
 282 HISTORY OF EUSSIA. [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 principle in all its force. The Tsar 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 descended from Rurik, were only his slaves. 
 " A petition " in Russian signifies a " beating of the forehead." 
 The nobles of the empire signed their requests, not with their 
 names, loann or Peter, but with a lackey's nickname, a servile 
 diminutive, Vania or Petrushka. The Byzantine formula, 
 "May I speak and live?" is exaggerated in the Russian, 
 " Bid me not to be chastised ; bid me to speak a word." 
 Men approached the Tsar in fear and trembling ; the people 
 prostrated themselves before that terrible iron staff with which 
 Ivan was always armed. He considered the empire as his 
 private property ; he administered it with his own " people," 
 who had succeeded to the drujina of former princes ; he gov- 
 erned 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 gentlemen of the bedchamber or of waiters at the 
 royal table. These domestic functions led to the rank of 
 boyars, or okol-nitchi, the surrounders of the prince. The 
 principal boyars formed the council of the empire, assembled 
 in the chamber of the prince, and were presided over by him. 
 On solemn occasions the 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 Rus- 
 sian aristocracy did not allow itself tamely to be reduced to 
 this state of dependence ; but the princes, scattered as pro- 
 vincial or municipal governors through Siberia, Kazan, or 
 Astrakhan, or subjected in the capital to a rigorous surveil- 
 lance, had become powerless. To insure the results of their 
 cruel policy, the successors of Ivan the Fourth forbade those 
 who bore certain too illustrious names to marry. 
 
 When the Tsar desired to marry, he addressed a circular to 
 the governors of the towns and provinces, commanding them
 
 BOSNIAN' MERCHANT.
 
 1533-1584.] MUSCOVITE BENAISSANCE. 283 
 
 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 Debonair in the narrative of the 
 " Astronomer," he made his selection out of all these beauties. 
 Fifteen hundred young girls were assembled for Vasili Ivano- 
 vitch to choose from ; after the first meeting, five hundred of 
 these were sent to Moscow. The Grand Prince then made a 
 fresh selection of three hundred, then of two hundred, then 
 of one hundred, then of ten, who were examined by the 
 doctors and midwives. The most beautiful and the healthiest 
 became the Tsaritsa, and she took a new name, as a sign that 
 she was going to begin a new existence. Her father, on be- 
 coming the Tsar's father-in-law, also changed his name ; her 
 relations formed the prince's Court, became his companions, 
 undertook the care of everything, and governed the empire 
 like the house of their imperial relative. The dispossessed 
 ministers and friends tried in secret to reconquer their lost 
 power by putting the new empress to death, and did not hesi- 
 tate 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 successors of Vasili Ivanovitch, even including 
 Alexis Mikhailovitch, 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 drujina, or the prince's followers, thought it 
 beneath their dignity or above their power to serve him other- 
 wise than in war or justice. The work of the pen had to 
 be confided to the sons of the priests and merchants, the sec- 
 retaries whose beginnings were as humble as those of the 
 Capetian lawyers, seated at the feet of the peers of France ; 
 like them, they ended by taking the place of the great lords. 
 The administration of the state was intrusted to twenty or 
 thirty prikazui, or bureaus, whose numbers and functions
 
 284 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 varied at different times. There was notably the prikaz 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 Tsar, the Tsaritsa, 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 functionaries lodged 
 outside of the palace. He was obliged to send them daily 
 cooked meats, wines, and fruits. There was the prikaz of the 
 gold and silver cup, that of the wardrobe, of pharmacy, of 
 horses, of the falconry, of games, to which 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 
 Tsar. The prikaz of the crown had under its control the 
 manufactures fabricating the golden and silken stuffs, of which 
 the prince had a monopoly, and the depot of the precious 
 Siberian furs. It furnished the presents to be distributed 
 among the clergy, the boyars, the ambassadors of foreign 
 powers, and the Greek monks who came from Byzantium or 
 Mount Athos to ask for alms. The prikazui 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 Tsar's buildings, slaves, monasteries, 
 streltsi, embassies, and artillery. The prikazui of Ustiug, of 
 Kazan, of Galitch, of Kostroma, of Little Russia, and Siberia, 
 had a power of jurisdiction in affairs pertaining to the prov- 
 inces. 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 : of the income of the 
 demesne, including thirty-six towns and their territory, the 
 inhabitants of which paid their dues either in kind or in 
 money ; of the taglo, an annual impost on every sixty meas- 
 ures of corn ; of the podat, a fixed tax on every dvor, or fire ;
 
 1533-1584.] MUSCOVITE RENAISSANCE. 285 
 
 the produce of the custom-houses, and of the excess of the 
 municipal dues ; the tax on the public baths ; the farming-out 
 of the Crown taverns ; the fines, the expenses of justice, and 
 the confiscations pronounced by the tribunal of the brigands. 
 Fletcher, who visited Russia in the time of Boris Godunof, 
 estimates the value of the whole of these revenues at one million 
 two hundred and twenty-three thousand rubles of their money. 
 Moreover, the Tsar annually received furs and other things from 
 Siberia, Permia, and the Petchora; he himself exchanged 
 them with the Turkish, Persian, Armenian, Bokharian, or 
 Western merchants, who came to the fairs or landed in the 
 ports of the empire. Further, the Crown, after having allowed 
 the officers to gorge themselves some time by extortions from 
 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 Tsar, who, like the ancient despots of Egypt and 
 the East, had already monopolized certain branches of com- 
 merce, 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 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 purchase from others till the 
 Tsar's warehouses were emptied. Fletcher exposes many 
 other means of extortion, to which the Tsar's government 
 periodically had recourse. 
 
 The grades of courts of civil justice were three : the tribu- 
 nals of the starosta of the district, and of the hundred-man, a 
 magistrate established for every hundred ploughs ; the tribu- 
 nal of the voievod, in the head-city of each province ; and the 
 Supreme Court of Moscow. In spite of the Codes of Ivan 
 the Third and Ivan the Fourth, the law was so confused and 
 uncertain that Fletcher said of it, " There is no written law in
 
 286 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 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 the Third 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 thinking only how to spare themselves. 
 
 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 the praviozh ; that is, he was 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 on 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 hus- 
 band " was buried alive up to her neck " ; heretics went to 
 the stake ; sorcerers were burned alive in an iron cage ; coun- 
 terfeiters had liquid metal poured down their throats. Nor 
 must we forget the death of " ten thousand pieces," the torment 
 in which the sides were torn away by iron hooks, and all the 
 other varieties of mutilation. On the other hand, a noble 
 who slew a muzhik 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
 
 1533-1584.] MUSCOVITE KENAISSANCE. 287 
 
 in the Russian Church was that of the Metropolitan of Moscow. 
 Then came the six Archbishops of Novgorod, Rostof, Smo- 
 lensk, Kazan, Pskof, and Vologda ; the six Bishops of Riazan, 
 Tver, Kolomenskoe, Vladimir, Suzdal, and Krutiski, or Sarai, 
 whose dioceses were immense. This Church was as depen- 
 dent on the Tsar as that of Byzantium had been on the em- 
 perors ; 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 revenues were large and their ceremonies 
 imposing. " As for exhorting or instructing their sheep," says 
 Fletcher, " they have neither the habit of it nor the talent for 
 it, for all the clergy are as profoundly 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 numer- 
 ous, very full, and very rich ; that of Saint Sergius, at Tro'itsa, 
 possessed one hundred and ten thousand 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 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 Tsar, sturgeons, sterlets, figs, 
 dry raisins, oranges, pepper, and saffron. 
 
 In a letter to the monks of Saint Cyril on the White Lake, 
 Ivan the Fourth blames with a mixture of severity and irony 
 their lenity towards the imprisoned boyars. " In my youth," 
 he writes, " when we were at Saint 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,
 
 288 HISTOEY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 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 word of the prophet : ' Speak 
 the truth, and have no shame before the Tsar.' To-day my 
 boyar Sheremetief reigns in his cell like a Tsar ; my boyar 
 Khabarof pays him visits with the monks. They drink as 
 though they were of the world. Is it a wedding? is it a 
 baptism ? The captive treats them to fruit, jellies, cake, and 
 sweetmeats. Beyond the monastery there is a house filled 
 with provisions. Some say that strong drinks are beginning 
 to be smuggled into the cell of Sheremetief. Now in monas- 
 teries it is against the rules to have foreign wines ; how much 
 more, then, strong liquors ! " 
 
 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 sleep the 
 incorruptible bodies of the saints, and where dwell their suc- 
 cessors without ever seeing the light of day ; the Monastery of 
 Saint Cyril, on the White Lake ; of Saint Sergius, at Tro'itsa ; 
 and the Cathedral of Saint Sophia, at Novgorod. Men pros- 
 trated themselves at the tombs of Saint Peter and Saint Alexis 
 of Moscow ; before the wonder-working virgins of Vladimir, 
 Smolensk, Tikhvin, and Pskof. The most pious journeyed as 
 far as the sacred Mount Athos, and the city of Constantinople, 
 full of blessed relics, though polluted by the presence of the 
 Turk ; nay, further still, to the tomb of Christ, to Golgotha, 
 to Mount Sinai, wherever orthodox communities disputed pos- 
 session with Catholic communities. 
 
 The national army was, like the Tatar army, chiefly com- 
 posed of cavalry. The gentlemen of the bedchamber, the 
 waiters at the royal table, and other young courtiers, formed 
 an Imperial Guard of about eight thousand men. All the
 
 CATHEDRAL OF SAINT SOPHIA NOVGOROD.
 
 1533-1584.] MUSCOVITE KENAISSANCE. 289 
 
 gentlemen of the empire, nobles, or men-at-arms were con- 
 fined to the mounted ranks ; the revenues of their lands were 
 counted as pay for these men of service, the ancient distinc- 
 tion between the fiefs and the freeholds was almost abolished. 
 . It was like the regime of the fiefs of the West, or of the ziama 
 and timars of Turkey. This noble cavalry could reckon eighty 
 thousand horsemen ; with the levy of free peasants, it amounted 
 to three hundred thousand. To this we must join the irregu- 
 lar cavalry, composed of the Cossacks of the Don and the Terek, 
 of Tatars and Bashkirs. The national infantry was made up 
 of the peasants of the monasteries, churches, and domains ; of 
 the slreltsui, free archers, or communal soldiers, organized 
 in the time of Ivan the Fourth, and who, in Moscow alone, 
 formed a body of twelve thousand men. Then came the 
 artillery, and the soldiers detailed for service at the gulidi- 
 fforod, the " 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 fifteenth century foreign mercenaries began 
 to be enlisted, Poles, Hungarians, Greeks, Turks, Scotch, 
 Scandinavians, armed and disciplined after the European fash- 
 ion, and enrolled under the names of ritters, or riders, foot- 
 soldiers, and dragoons. History has preserved the names of 
 some of their leaders : Rosen the German, and Margeret the 
 Frenchman, who has left us some curious memoirs of the 
 False Dmitri. 
 
 The equipment of the national troops was thoroughly 
 Oriental. They had long robes, high saddles, short stirrups, 
 rich caparisons, scale or ring armor. The Tsar 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 com- 
 manded by two voievodui of unequal rank, without counting 
 the vo'ievod of the artillery or of the movable camp, and the 
 atamans of the streltsui and of the Cossacks. The grades of 
 
 VOL. I. 19
 
 290 HISTORY OF EUSSIA. [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 the regular army were those of the tuisatski, or chiliarch, com- 
 mander of one thousand, the centurion, or captain of one hun- 
 dred, the commander of fifty, and the deciatski, or commander 
 of ten. All obeyed the grand voievod, or general-in-chief. 
 Each soldier brought provisions for four months, and the Tsar 
 furnished nothing, except occasionally some corn. The men 
 lived almost entirely on biscuit, dried fish or bacon, and were 
 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. Its diplomatic traditions were those of 
 the East or Byzantium. Its first ambassadors were the Greek 
 Demetrios Trakhaniotes, and the Italian Marco Ruffo, sent 
 into Persia. They treated with most deference the neighbor- 
 ing states, not those which were most powerful. Whilst they 
 sent a simple courier to the Emperor, and the kings of France, 
 England, and Spain, they despatched boyars, accompanied by 
 secretaries, to Sweden, Denmark, and Poland. The prikaz 
 of the embassies, which had under its orders fifty translators 
 and seventy interpreters of all languages, gave them their safe- 
 conduct, detailed instructions, letters for the foreign sovereign, 
 presents, two years' pay, and a certain number of furs or 
 costly fabrics from the prikaz of the Crown, which they were 
 to do their best to sell at a high price. The Russian am- 
 bassador, like those of the Greeks and Tatars, was also a 
 commission agent for the Tsar's benefit. 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 Tsar's 
 titles to be diminished, though the titles were rather compli- 
 cated, as he enumerated all his subject states. The mer- 
 cantile preoccupations of the Russian ambassadors, and their 
 eternal quarrels about etiquette, rendered them unbearable at 
 all the European courts. On their return they were sum- 
 moned before the Tsar, gave him a detailed account of their
 
 1533-1584.] MUSCOVITE RENAISSANCE. 291 
 
 mission, and handed over to him the journal of their tour and 
 the notes of all that they had observed in the distant coun- 
 tries. From the sixteenth century a shrewd and observant 
 spirit is noticeable in their relations, which is not unworthy 
 of the wisdom of their masters, the Byzantines. 
 
 When foreign ambassadors arrived in Russia, they were 
 treated with magnificence and yet with distrust. Prom the 
 time they crossed the frontier, they and their retinue were 
 fed, housed, and provided with carriages, but a police inspec- 
 tor 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 rich- 
 est and most populous provinces ; the citizens were every- 
 where required to meet them on their route, dressed in their 
 costliest clothes. At Moscow a palace of the Tsar 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 
 Pacets. The walls of the hall were hung with magnificent 
 tapestries ; gold and silver vessels, of Asiatic form, shone on 
 the dais. The Tsar, crown on head, sceptre in hand, seated 
 on the throne of Solomon, supported by the mechanical lions, 
 which roared loudly, surrounded by his life guard in long 
 white caftans and armed with the great silver axe, by his 
 sumptuously dressed boyars, and by his clergy in their simple 
 costume, received their letters of credit. He asked the am- 
 bassador for news of his master, and how he had travelled. 
 If the Tsar were not contented with him, the ambassadors' 
 palace became a prison where no native was allowed to pene- 
 trate, and carefully studied humiliations were practised to 
 extract from him concessions or to abridge his stay. 
 
 RURAL CLASSES. CITIZENS. COMMERCE. 
 
 The lower classes of Muscovy were composed of three ele- 
 ments : the slave, or kholop, properly so called, the man-
 
 292 HISTORY OF EUSSIA. [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 cipium of the Romans, a man taken in war, sold by himself or 
 some one else, or the son of a kholop ; the peasant fixed to the 
 lands of a noble, corresponding to the colonus adscriptitius 
 of the Roman Empire, whose person M r as legally free, but who 
 was to be reduced by means of a more and more rigorous 
 legislation to the condition of serf of the glebe ; and the 
 free cultivator, who lived like a farmer on the lands of an- 
 other, 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 the 
 peasant might consider himself as the primitive inhabitant 
 of the soil. He was made subject to the gentleman only in 
 order to secure to the latter an income sufficient for military 
 service ; he therefore continued to look on himself as the true 
 proprietor. In these rural masses the primitive features of 
 the Slav organization were preserved in all their vigor. It 
 was the commune, or mir, and not the individuals, who pos- 
 sessed the land ; it was the commune that was responsible to 
 the Tsar for the tax, for the statute labor and dues to the lord. 
 This responsibility armed the commune with an enormous 
 power over its members, and this power was embodied in the 
 starosta, 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 starosta over the commune or the 
 Tsar over the empire. The paternal authority became harder 
 and more stern from the contact with serfage and the despotic 
 rule. Ancient barbarism was still intact among these igno- 
 rant people ; the graceful customs or the savage manners, the 
 poetic or cruel superstitions of the early Slavs, were per- 
 petuated by them. The Russian peasant remained a pagan 
 under his veneer of orthodoxy. His funeral songs seem des- 
 titute of all Christian hope. His marriage songs preserve the
 
 1533-1584.] MUSCOVITE RENAISSANCE. 293 
 
 tradition of the purchase or capture of the bride. The sad 
 lot of the rustic was destined to be made more and more bur- 
 densome during the three centuries of progress which the 
 upper classes had still to accomplish. In the view of the 
 state, as of the proprietor, he tended more and more to become 
 a beast of burden, a productive force to be used and abused 
 at pleasure. 
 
 The Russian towns were composed, first, of a fortress or 
 kreml, generally built with wooden walls, into which at need 
 a garrison of militia could be sent ; next, of districts or wards 
 inhabited by the citizens or merchants. They were governed 
 by voievodui nominated by the prince, or by a starosta, or 
 mayor, who was elected by an assembly of the inhabitants, 
 nobles, priests, or citizens, but was always a gentleman. The 
 starosta 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 Ro- 
 man Empire, bound to the city glebe. Alexis Mikhailovitch 
 afterwards attached the pain of death to this prohibition. 
 To assess the impost, the starosta convoked at once both the 
 deputies of the town and those of the rural communes. The 
 impost of the taglo was paid by the town collectively, in pro- 
 portion to the number of fires, and all the people were collec- 
 tively responsible for each other to the state. 
 
 In the burgess class may be counted the merchants, whose 
 Russian name, signifying guests or strangers, shows how far 
 commerce still was from being acclimatized in this land and 
 under this regime. Muscovy produced in abundance the 
 hides of cattle ; furs from the blue and black fox, the zibeline, 
 the beaver, and the ermine ; wax, honey, hemp, tallow, oil 
 from the seal, and dried fish. From China, Bokhara, and 
 Persia came 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 decay the insecurity created by anarchy and
 
 294 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 despotism. The muzhik 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 trem- 
 bling with fear, lest a boyar should know what they 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 men-at-arms here ; they would take away my mer- 
 chandise by force.' " " The merchants and the citizens," says 
 M. Leroy-Beaulieu, " could with difficulty become a powerful 
 class in a country cut off from Europe and the sea, and cut 
 off, too, from all great commercial routes by the Lithuanians, 
 the Teutonic Order, and the Tatars." The citizen, like the 
 inhabitant of the French towns of the fourteenth 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 muzhiki 
 of commerce. 
 
 DOMESTIC SLAVERY. SECLUSION OF WOMEN. 
 
 Only two more facts were needed to give to Russian society 
 the same Asiatic character which we noted already in the 
 despotism of the Tsars and the communism of the people, 
 domestic slavery, 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 
 domestic serfs, both men and women, bought or born in the 
 house, whom he never paid, whom he fed badly, and who
 
 1533-1584.] MUSCOVITE EENAISSANCE. 295 
 
 served him badly in return, but whose numbers served to give 
 an idea of the wealth of their master. The train of a noble 
 on his way to the Kreinl may be compared to that of a Jap- 
 anese 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 last of all, a host of servants, often with naked feet 
 beneath their magnificent liveries, filled the streets of the city 
 with their stir and noise. These domestic slaves were sub- 
 jected, 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 serf was attached to the land the slave could 
 be sold, either by heads or by families, without compunction. 
 Wives were separated from their husbands and children from 
 their parents. 
 
 The custom of secluding women is older than the Tatar in- 
 vasion. The Russian Slavs were Asiatics even before they 
 were subdued by the Mongols. Byzantium 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 women's apartments, which became in Moscow the 
 lerem, or attic chamber. In Russia, as in the Rome of the 
 Twelve Tables, the woman was always a minor. This was 
 one consequence of the patriarchal organization of the family. 
 She always remained under the guardianship of her father, her 
 husband'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 obeys his master " ; to consider herself 
 only as the " property of the man " ; never to allow herself to 
 be called mistress, but to look on her husband as her lord and 
 master. The father of the family had the right to correct her,
 
 296 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 like one of his children or slaves. The priest Silvester, in his 
 " Domostro'i," only advises him not to employ too thick sticks, 
 or staves tipped with iron ; nor humiliate her unduly by whip- 
 ping her before his men, but, without anger or violence, to 
 correct her moderately in private. No woman dared to object 
 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 her- 
 self loved because he never beat her. At home the Russian 
 woman was hid behind the curtains of the terem ; in the street, 
 by those of her litter. Over her face fell the 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 Tsar's 
 wife. A stranger might have thought himself at Stamboul or 
 Ispahan. It appeared so highly necessary that this fragile 
 being should remain at home, that she was allowed to dis- 
 pense even with going to church. Her church was her own 
 house, where she had to occupy herself with prayers, pious 
 reading, prostrations, genuflexions, and alms, and was sur- 
 rounded 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 with her own hands, like Lucretia of old or 
 the wise woman of the Proverbs. In reality she had many 
 other ways of occupying her time. The toilet of the Rus- 
 sian ladies was very complicated. " They paint themselves 
 all colors," says Petrei ; " 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 visi- 
 ble to every one. At the time of my visit to Moscow the 
 wife of an illustrious boyar, who was exceedingly beautiful, 
 declined to paint herself, but she was an object of scorn to all
 
 1533-1584.] MUSCOVITE RENAISSANCE. 297 
 
 the other women. ' She despises our customs,' said they. 
 They induced their husbands to complain to the Tsar, and 
 obtained 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 martyrs 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 exer- 
 cises 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 gusli ; 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 them- 
 selves with bears, dogs, and falcons, with dice, chess, or 
 backgammon, will together go to hell, and together will be 
 damned." 
 
 Owing to the general ignorance, there was no intellectual 
 life in Russia ; owing 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 noth- 
 ing 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, with-
 
 298 HISTOEY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 out surprising any one. The priests, in their visits to their 
 sheep, got theologically drunk. " Even at the houses of the 
 great lords," says M. Zabielin, " no feast was gay. and joyous 
 unless every one was drunk. It was precisely in drunken- 
 ness that the gayety consisted. The guests were never gay 
 if they were not drunk." To this very 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 drunken- 
 ness ? You lose memory and reason, like a madman, 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 
 does not answer. He foams, he stinks, he grunts like a brute. 
 Think of his poor 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 per- 
 form sacrifices to Satan. The devil rejoices, and says, ' No ; 
 the sacrifices of the pagans never caused me half so much joy 
 and happiness as the intoxication 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 
 fabliaux, never spared Churchmen ; the coarse pleasantries of 
 male or female jesters, 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 accompanied with music, and sometimes a 
 blind singer would come and celebrate the heroes of Old 
 Russia. The rich never willingly went to sleep without be- 
 ing lulled by tales told by some popular story-teller. Ivan 
 the Terrible always had three, who succeeded each other at his
 
 1533-1584.] MUSCOVITE RENAISSANCE. 299 
 
 bedside. Soon, under Alexis Mikhailovitch, theatrical repre- 
 sentations in imitation of Europe were to begin. 
 
 All Western superstitions were current among the Russians, 
 who also added follies of their own. The people believed in 
 horoscopes, diviners, sorcery, magic, the miraculous virtues 
 of certain herbs or certain formulae, the evils produced by 
 " lifting the footmarks " of an enemy, in bewitched swords, 
 in love philters, 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 Tsars shared this weakness, 
 and Boris Godunof made all his servants swear " never to 
 have recourse to magicians, male or female, or to any other 
 means of hurting the Tsar, the Tsaritsa, or their children ; 
 never to cast spells by the traces of their feet or of their 
 carriages." They had more confidence in the receipts of a 
 wise woman, in holy water in which the relics had been 
 dipped, than in doctors, whom they regarded only as an- 
 other 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 
 people, a Jew, was executed under Ivan the Third in a public 
 place, for having allowed a Tsarevitch to die. Anton, an- 
 other, a German by birth, was accused of having put a Tatar 
 prince to death, and delivered up his relatives to suffer by the 
 law of retaliation. He was stabbed. Towards the end of 
 the sixteenth century the situation of doctors was somewhat 
 ameliorated j but when a Tsaritsa or a great lady had to be 
 attended, whose face they were never allowed to see, and 
 whose pulse they might touch only through a muslin cover- 
 ing, what proper means had they of taking a diagnosis ? 
 
 Such was ancient Russia, that European China discov- 
 ered and described by the European travellers of the six- 
 teenth and seventeenth centuries, by Herberstein, Mayerberg,
 
 300 HISTOEY OP EUSSIA. [CHAP. XVL 
 
 Cobenzel, envoys of Austria ; Chancellor, Jenkinson, and 
 Fletcher, envoys of England; the Venetians Contarini and 
 Marco Foscarini j the Roman merchant Barberini j Ulfeld 
 the Dane ; Petrel the Swede ; the Germans Heidenstein, Eric 
 Lassota, Olearius ; Possevino the Jesuit ; the French captain 
 Jacques Margeret ; the English doctor Collins, and others. 
 It now remains to speak of literature and the arts. 
 
 THE RENAISSANCE: LITERATURE, POPULAR SONGS, AND 
 CATHEDRALS. MOSCOW IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 Ecclesiastical literature was chiefly composed of a collection 
 of teachings borrowed from the Fathers, of " Readings for 
 Every Day in the Year," called " Waves of Gold," " Months 
 of Gold," and " Emeralds " ; or of Lives of the Saints of the 
 Greek or Russian Churches. The most considerable monu- 
 ment belonging to this last group is the " Tcheti-Minei," a 
 vast compilation of the Metropolitan Macarius, one of the con- 
 fessors of Ivan the Terrible. The chronicles continue to be 
 written, among others the " Stepennaia Kniga," which con- 
 tains the genealogy of the Russian princes from Rurik until 
 Ivan Vasilievitch. Besides the great legal collection of the 
 " Code " and of the " Hundred Articles," we must mention 
 the " Domostroi " of the Pope Silvester, Minister of Ivan the 
 Fourth. This is a collection of precepts instructing readers 
 in the arts of keeping house and securing salvation. It enu- 
 merates the days on which swans, cranes, capons, egg-pasties, 
 and cheese are to be eaten. It gives receipts for making 
 hydromel, kvas, 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 ser- 
 vants ; avoid the sin of wicked conversation ; please God, 
 honor the Tsar, the princes, and all persons of rank ; how he 
 should conduct himself well at table, to blow his nose, and 
 to spit without noise, taking care to turn away from the com-
 
 1533-1584.] MUSCOVITE KENAISSANCE. 301 
 
 pany, and put his foot over the place." The " Domostroi " 
 gives the characteristics of the Russian civilization, as the 
 De Re Rustled of the elder Cato gives those of the ancient 
 Roman civilization. From Cato to Silvester there is an evi- 
 dent progress. Whilst the Roman advises that the old oxen, 
 the old iron, and the old slaves should be sold, the Pope Sil- 
 vester 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 domestics by force around them, and do not 
 nourish them sufficiently, they turn them into bad servants, 
 who lie, steal, are dissipated, spoil everything, and get drunk 
 at the tavern. These foolish masters sin against God, are 
 despised by their slaves, and contemned 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 preceding 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 
 or the 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
 
 302 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 must not look to see what it is ; and if it should be eatable, 
 neither his tongue nor his fingers are to know it." 
 
 At the head of the literary movement of the time Ivan the 
 Terrible and his enemy Kurbski occupy a place of honor. 
 They exchanged many letters, in which the one displayed a 
 great knowledge of sacred and profane literature, close reason- 
 ing, and bitter irony ; the other an indignant and tragic elo- 
 quence. Besides these letters, Ivan addressed an admonition 
 to the monks of Saint Cyril, full of vigor and mocking grav- 
 ity. The same Kurbski wrote, in eight books, a passionate 
 history of the Tsar who persecuted " the strong ones of Israel, 
 the high-born heroes of Russia " ; in his exile in Lithuania 
 he defended orthodoxy against the encroachments of Jesuit- 
 ism and Protestantism, compiled the " History of the Council 
 of Florence," and learned Latin in order to translate into Rus- 
 sian the Fathers of the Church. 
 
 Like his rival, Louis the Eleventh in France, Ivan the Ter- 
 rible was in Russia the protector of printing, which was 
 abhorred by the people as an impious drt. Mstislavets 
 and the deacon Feodorof printed the Acts of the Apostles 
 and a " Book of Hours " ; 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 splen- 
 did 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, perpetuated by passing from generation to generation, 
 has at last been collected in our own day by many Russians 
 interested in preserving the songs and traditions of the 
 masses. The people had their lyric poetry, marriage-songs, 
 funeral dirges, rural dance-songs, hymns for Christmas, 
 Epiphany, Easter, and the Feasts of Saint George and Saint 
 John, hymns in which they celebrated the death of winter,
 
 CHURCH MARRIAGE CEREMONY.
 
 1533-1584.] MUSCOVITE RENAISSANCE. 303 
 
 the birth of spring, the harvest, and preserved the recollec- 
 tions of the ancient religions and ancient Slav gods. There 
 were epic songs which glorified the legendary exploits of the 
 early heroes of Russia, the demigods of primitive paganism : 
 Volga Vseslavitch, Sviatogor, Mikula Selianinovitch, Polkan, 
 Dunai, and others. In these songs Vladimir, the " Beautiful 
 Sun " of Kief, groups around him, like the Charlemagne of 
 the chansons de gestes and the King Arthur of the Breton 
 romances, a whole pleiad of heroes. They immortalize Ilia of 
 Murom, the hero-peasant ; Dobruina Nikititch, the hero-boyar ; 
 Alesha Popovitch, conqueror of the gigantic dragon, Tugarin ; 
 Solovei Budimirovitch, navigator of the falcon-ship Potuik, 
 whom the perfidy of an enchantress caused to descend alive 
 into the tomb ; Diuk Stepanovitch, who crossed the Dnieper 
 at one leap of his horse ; Stavr Godinovitch, the warrior- 
 musician, released by his wife's artifice from the prisons of 
 Vladimir ; Thoma Ivanovitch, whom the Princess Apraxia 
 calumniated like another Joseph, but for whom God worked 
 a miracle ; Vasili, 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 Apraxia, 
 who is seated on the throne by the side of Vladimir, her hus- 
 band ; the heroines Nastasia and Marina, the Penelope and 
 Circe of the Russian spies ; Maria the White Swan, who 
 belongs to the cycle of bird-women ; and Vasilisa, who passed 
 herself off as a man, 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 ; Mikhail of Tchernigof, Alexan- 
 der Nevski, and Ivan the Terrible, around whom are grouped 
 the songs of the taking of Kazan, the conquest of Siberia, and 
 the famous legends entitled " The Tsar wishes to kill his Son," 
 " The Tsar sends the Tsaritsa to a Convent," and " How 
 Treason was introduced into Russia." This epic current 
 flows on up to the nineteenth century ; and others, born of
 
 304 HISTORY OF EUSSIA. [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 the shock of events on the popular imagination, celebrate the 
 deeds of Skopin Shui'ski, the wars of Peter the Great, the 
 victories of Elisabeth and Catherine the Second ; the cam- 
 paigns of Suvorof, 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 Ruslan Laza- 
 revitch. Wonderful stories are told by the peasants of Helen 
 the Fair, of the Tsar of the Sea, and of Vasilisa 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 cripples, who sang the praises of 
 the Russian saints from village to village, Saint luri the 
 Brave and Saint Dmitri of Solun, vanquishers of dragons and 
 infidels ; Boris and Gleb, sons of Vladimir the Baptist ; Saint 
 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 selfish calculations of their wives. 
 
 Thanks to the Greeks who fled from Constantinople, and 
 their pupils the Italians, Russia had a sort of artistic Renais- 
 sance from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century, under the 
 same influences as the West. The revolution was, however, 
 less complete in Muscovy than in the West ; there was no 
 need to substitute the round for the pointed arch, since Rus- 
 sia had no Gothic churches, and the Roman Byzantine style, 
 borrowed in the eleventh century by Saint Sophia at Novgo- 
 rod and Saint Sophia at Kief from Saint Sophia at Constanti- 
 nople, 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 at the present
 
 1533-1584.] MUSCOVITE RENAISSANCE. 305 
 
 day, in the Russian convents, the custom of the church causes 
 the saints and the Mother of God to be painted as they might 
 have been painted by Panselinos in the tenth century in the 
 churches of Mount Athos. The Renaissance chiefly manifests 
 itself by the number and magnificence 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 its new monumental 
 splendors to be the capital of a great empire ; it was then 
 that it became the Holy City, with forty times forty churches, 
 with innumerable cupolas of gold, of silver, and of blue, 
 which the Russian pilgrim, kneeling on the Hill of Prostra- 
 tions, salutes from afar. 
 
 Moscow was at that time composed of the Kreml or 
 Kremlin, a fortified enclosure in the form of a triangle, of 
 which the smallest side rests on the Moskova, and the apex 
 is turned towards the north ; of the Kitai-gorod, not, as so 
 many travellers translate it, the Chinese City, but perhaps 
 derived from Kitai-gorod in Podolia, the birthplace of Helena, 
 mother of Ivan the Fourth, who founded the Kitai-gorod of 
 Moscow, which encloses the bazaars and the palaces of the 
 nobles, and is separated from the Kreml by a vast space which 
 is called the Red Place or Beautiful Place; of the Bielui- 
 gorod, or White City, which surrounds this double centre of 
 the Kreml and the Kitai-gorod as the outer skin of an almond 
 encloses the two cotyledons ; of the Zemlianui-gorod, or City 
 of the Earthen Ramparts, enveloping in its turn the White 
 City, enclosing the suburbs, gardens, woods, lakes, and vast 
 unimproved spaces, then occupied by the villages of the 
 streltsui. Lastly, on the outer circle of Moscow, like de- 
 tached 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 were grouped almost by accident along the 
 wide, marshy, tortuous streets, which were scarcely laid out. 
 
 VOL. I. 20
 
 306 HISTORY OF KUSSIA. [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 Hovels built of pine, like those of the Russian villages, stood 
 by the side of the palaces of the nobles. The people either 
 chose them ready made from the yards, or ordered them 
 according to their measure. The carpenters built them in 
 two days on the place pointed out ; they cost only a few 
 rubles. 
 
 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 was a city of wood, which a spark might 
 set on fire. It had been burned almost entirely under Dmitri 
 Donsko'i, and twice under Ivan the Terrible ; it was to burn 
 again during the Polish invasion of sixteen hundred and 
 twelve and the French invasion of eighteen hundred and 
 twelve. The decrees of the Tsars ordered certain precautions 
 under the most severe penalties : all the fires had to be put 
 out at nightfall; in summer it was absolutely forbidden to 
 have lights 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 fatalistic as the people of the East. 
 
 It was chiefly the Kreml that profited by the embellish- 
 ments undertaken by the two Ivans and their successors. 
 The enclosure, made of wood before the city was burnt by 
 Tokhtamuish, was now of solid white stones, cut in facets, 
 whence was derived the poetical name of " Holy mother 
 Moscow with the white walls " ; it was surmounted by high 
 and narrow battlements in the form of teeth. Eighteen 
 towers protected it, and five gates led into the interior. 
 These five gates present much originality and variety. That 
 of the Savior was built in fourteen hundred and ninety-one by 
 Pietro Solario 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 Savior, and 
 the new Emperor always made his entrance through it on
 
 1533-1584.] MUSCOVITE RENAISSANCE. 307 
 
 his way to his coronation at the Assumption. Another Italian 
 built at the same date the gate of Saint Nicholas of Mojaisk, 
 avenger of perjury, before whose image the suitors made oath. 
 That of the Trinity was built in the seventeenth century by 
 Christopher Galloway. 
 
 The wall of the Kreml, like that of the old imperial palace 
 of Byzantium, encloses a number of churches, palaces, and 
 monasteries. The most celebrated of these churches is the 
 Uspienski Sobor, or the Cathedral of the Assumption, in 
 which since the fifteenth century the Tsars have always made 
 a point of being crowned. It is their Cathedral of Rheims. 
 Its architect was Alberto Fioraventi, surnamed Aristotele, who 
 had already worked for Cosmo de Medici, Francis the First, 
 Gian Galeazzo of Milan, Matthias Corvinus, and the Pope 
 Sixtus the Fourth, and whom Tolbusin, ambassador of Ivan 
 the Third, met at Venice, and engaged for the service of the 
 Tsar. 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 
 reproduce 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 dungeon. This pale glow touches the massive 
 pillars covered with burnished gold ; gleams upon the mag- 
 nificent yet gloomy background, from which stand out, severe 
 and grave, the faces of saints and doctors ; it dwells here and 
 there on the projections of the golden altar partition, cov- 
 ered by miraculous 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 
 enveloped in shadows, like the crypts of the Pharaohs ; the 
 pictures which cover the vault can hardly be distinguished. 
 The artist has evidently made them for the eye of God, not
 
 308 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 for that of man ; for the eye of man can contemplate them 
 only on the rare occasions, such as the Feast of the Assump- 
 tion or a coronation-day, when the whole cathedral is illu- 
 mined to its farthest corners by innumerable wax-tapers. It 
 seems that Aristotele built this church according to a for- 
 mer plan of some other architect, but it is said that, finding 
 that the constructions already begun were not sufficiently 
 solid, with a battering-ram, perfected by himself, he over- 
 threw the walls ; then he caused new foundations to be laid ; 
 and, finally, he taught the Russians a better way of baking 
 bricks. At the Assumption is the tomb of Saint Peter, the 
 first Metropolitan of Moscow, and people come here to wor- 
 ship before the holy images of Vladimir and laroslavl. The 
 Cathedral of Saint Michael the Archangel, built in fifteen 
 hundred and five, is the Saint Denis of the Tsars 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 Annuncia- 
 tion, 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 was built in the 
 year sixteen hundred by Boris Godunof. It is three hundred 
 and twenty-five feet high, surmounted with a golden cupola, 
 with Slavonic inscriptions in letters of gold which may be 
 distinguished from afar, and it has a chime of thirty-four 
 bells. 
 
 Of the imperial palace, built in fourteen hundred and 
 eighty-seven, only a few fragments still remain : the little 
 " Golden Palace," where the Tsaritsa received the members of 
 the clergy ; the " Palace of Facets," where the solemn audi- 
 ences of ambassadors were held ; the " Red Staircase," from 
 the top of which the Tsar allowed the people to contemplate 
 ".the light of his eyes"; finally the " Terem," with the 
 painted roof, in which we still find the dining-hall, the hall 
 of council, and the hall of the oratory, vaulted rooms of 
 no great dimensions, where shine on golden backgrounds the
 
 CHURCH OF VASILI THE BLESSED.
 
 1533-1584.] MUSCOVITE RENAISSANCE. 309 
 
 images of the saints who protect the Tsar. The Palace of 
 Facets was begun in fourteen hundred and eighty-seven by 
 the Italian Mario, and finished by Pietro Antonio. The other 
 palaces are the work of the Milanese Aleviso. In the Tsarian 
 apartments rarities imported from the West already began to 
 find a place with the ancient Russian furniture. In fifteen 
 hundred and ninety-four the German ambassador presented 
 the Tsar Feodor with a gilt clock, on which were marked 
 the planets and the calendar; and in fifteen hundred and 
 ninety-seven with another clock, where little figures played on 
 trumpets, Jews'-harps, and tambourines each time the hour 
 struck. 
 
 The most curious edifice in Moscow is perhaps the Church 
 of Vasili the Blessed, on the Red Place. It was built by 
 Ivan the Terrible in fifteen hundred and fifty-four, in memory 
 of the taking of Kazan, and is the work of an Italian artist. 
 The legend declares that Ivan put out the eyes of the artist, 
 to prevent his building a similar marvel for others. We must 
 imagine a church surmounted by eight or ten cupolas, like 
 bulbs, all of different heights and forms, " some," in the words 
 of Gautier, " beaten into facets, others ribbed ; these carved 
 into diamond points, like pineapples, those striped in spirals ; 
 others, again, covered with overlapping scales, lozenge-shaped, 
 or 'celled like a honeycomb." A powerful imagination has 
 defied all symmetry. From the base to the summit the 
 church is covered with colors, which are glaring, and even 
 gaudy. This many-colored monster has the gift of stupefy- 
 ing the most hardened traveller. " You might take it," says 
 Haxthausen, " for an immense dragon, with shining scales, 
 crouching and asleep." Conceive the most brilliant bird of 
 tropical forests suddenly taking the shape of a cathedral, and 
 you have the Vasili-Blagennoi church. 
 
 It was not only architects that Russia owed to Italy. 
 Fioraventi Aristotele coined money for Ivan the Third, built 
 him a bridge of boats over the Volkhof during the expedition
 
 310 HISTORY OF EUSSIA. [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 to Novgorod, cast the cannons which thundered against Ka- 
 zan, and organized his artillery. Paolo Bossio of Genoa cast 
 for him the Tsarpushka, the king of guns, the giant piece of 
 the Kreml. Pietro of Milan made him arquebuses. The art 
 of the founder shed its greatest brilliancy under Boris Godu- 
 nof, whose effigy adorns the monarch of bells, Tsar-kolokol, 
 subsequently recast under Alexis and Anne Ivanovna, the 
 bronze Titan whose weight of two hundred and eighty-eight 
 thousand 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 begin- 
 ning of this century by Montferrand.
 
 TSAR KULOKOL.
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE SUCCESSORS OF IVAN THE TERRIBLE: 
 FEODOR IVANOVITCH AND BORIS GODUNOF. 
 
 1584 - 1605. 
 
 FEODOR IVANOVITCH (1584-1598). THE PEASANT ATTACHED TO THE 
 GLEBE. THE PATRIARCHATE. BORIS GODUNOF (1598-1605). 
 APPEARANCE OF THE FALSE DMITRI. 
 
 FEODOR IVANOVITCH. THE PEASANT ATTACHED TO THE 
 GLEBE. THE PATRIARCHATE. 
 
 T71EODOR, son of Ivan the Fourth and of Anastasia Roma- 
 JL nof, was totally unlike his father. He had neither his 
 instinctive love of cruelty and debauchery, nor his lively intel- 
 ligence, nor his iron will. The throne of the Terrible came 
 to be occupied by a saint, a monk. In the words of Ustrialof, 
 " Feodor was distinguished for his excellent heart ; he was of 
 a sweet, philanthropic disposition and of boundless piety ; he 
 fulfilled with scrupulous fervor all the obligations of a perfect 
 Christian, but he looked upon the world as simply frivolous, 
 he avoided the onerous labors of government, and, though he 
 had every virtue expected of a private citizen, he was a feeble 
 monarch, especially in contrast to such an autocrat as Ivan the 
 Terrible, and in the face of the troublous circumstances into 
 which Russia was about to enter. His father, knowing his 
 weakness, appointed for his aid an upper council of five dis- 
 tinguished nobles," Prince Ivan Mstislavski, a descendant 
 of Gedimin ; Prince Ivan Shui'ski, a descendant of Rurik, a 
 member of a family disgraced in the early years of Ivan the
 
 312 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XVII. 
 
 Fourth, but himself celebrated as the defender of Pskof ; and 
 Prince Bogdan Belski, another descendant of Rurik. After 
 these three heads of princely families came two chiefs of 
 boyar families. Both became sovereigns, and both owed 
 their elevation to their wives. The importance of Nikita 
 Romanof came from his sister, the first wife of Ivan the 
 Fourth ; Boris Godunof owed his to his sister Irena, wife of 
 the Tsar Feodor. Minister of Ivan the Fourth, brother-in-law 
 of the reigning Tsar, Godunof was devoured by an insatiable 
 ambition. Sorcerers who had escaped from the persecutions 
 of Ivan the Terrible are said to have prophesied that he should 
 become Tsar, but that his reign was to last for only seven 
 years. From that time his policy consisted in putting aside 
 all rivals, in overcoming all the obstacles that lay between 
 him and the throne. 
 
 The Tsar Feodor had a brother, Dmitri, son of Ivan's 
 seventh wife. The council of boyars feared the intrigues 
 of which this infant might be made the centre, and, by the 
 advice of Godunof, sent him to his appanage Uglitch, with 
 his mother and her relations, the Nago'is. Prince Bogdan 
 Belski, one of the five regents, an intelligent and ambitious 
 man, irritated the people to such a degree that they besieged 
 the Kreml, and demanded his head. Boris took advantage of 
 such a good opportunity, and despatched this rival to Nijni- 
 Novgorod. When Feodor, at his coronation, had placed on 
 his head the crowns of Russia, Kazan, Astrakhan, and Siberia, 
 it was his maternal uncle, Nikita Romanof, who governed in 
 his name ; but at his death the power passed naturally to 
 Boris Godunof, who, by his relationship to the Tsar, was at 
 the head of a new family clique. There still remained in the 
 council two rivals to Boris. Mstislavski allowed himself to be 
 implicated in a plot, and was forced to become a monk ; 
 Prince Shu'iski, who had tried to make himself a party among 
 the merchants, was accused of treason, arrested with his whole 
 family, and all were banished to different distant towns. The
 
 1584-1605.] SUCCESSORS OF IVAN THE TERRIBLE. 313 
 
 Metropolitan Dionysius, who had taken his part, was deposed, 
 and replaced by Job, a man completely at the disposal of 
 Godunof, who now was supreme. He induced his brother- 
 in-law to grant him the title of Allied Chief Boyar, the vice- 
 royalties of Kazan and Astrakhan, and immense territories 
 on the Dwina and the Moskova. His revenues were enor- 
 mous, 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 ; he was more powerful 
 than ever Adashef had been, he had a whole army of clients. 
 It was he who replied to the ambassadors, and who received 
 the presents of the Emperor, of the Queen of England, and 
 of the Khan of the Crimea. His enemies were treated as 
 though they were the enemies of the prince. He lacked 
 nothing that is royal but the title. 
 
 In foreign affairs, the regency of Godunof strengthened the 
 prestige of Russia. Batory, King of Poland, who had never 
 ceased to threaten revenge, died in fifteen hundred and eighty- 
 six. A new danger appeared in this quarter. Sigismoncl, 
 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 
 which 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 two Powers. Boris put for- 
 ward 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 Catho- 
 lic ; they feared that, instead of a fraternal union, the Musco- 
 vite would only "join their monarchy to that of Moscow, 
 like a sleeve to a coat." The interests of caste were added 
 to national and religious prejudices ; the nobles, who had in 
 view only the weakening of the royal power, were not likely
 
 314 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XVII. 
 
 to give themselves as master a sovereign as absolute as the 
 Tsar of Muscovy. Finally, nothing could be done without 
 money in the Polish Diets ; Boris committed the mistake of 
 sparing 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, arid 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 fifteen hundred and ninety-two, it is true, saw him- 
 self 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 in a rupture. The 
 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 occa- 
 sion was favorable for Russia to undertake the conquest of 
 Livonia. Boris Godunof had never abandoned this great 
 scheme of Ivan the Terrible, but 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 Boyar, 
 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 
 himself a strong party in the nation. Boris, who felt himself 
 to be hated by the princes and boyars, sought the support 
 of the small nobility and the clergy. Hence resulted two of 
 the most important actions of the reign of Feodor, the bind-
 
 1584-1605.] SUCCESSORS OF IVAN THE TERRIBLE. 315 
 
 ing of the peasant to the soil, and the institution of the pa- 
 triarchate. 
 
 The Russian peasant was in fact subjected to the will of 
 his master. But in law he remained a free man, as he was 
 allowed to pass from the service of one proprietor to that of 
 another. This right brought with it an abuse. The large 
 proprietors, who, being the richest, could also be the most 
 generous, tried to attract to their lands the peasants of the 
 smaller landowners, by insuring them privileges and immuni- 
 ties. We must remember that at this epoch the population 
 was very scanty, and land had of itself no value. It was pre- 
 cious according to the number of laborers who could be in- 
 duced to settle on it. Thus the lands of the smaller pro- 
 prietors ran the risk of being depopulated for the benefit of 
 the great lords ; if they lost their laborers, the value of the 
 land became proportionately depreciated. But 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 Tsar, according to the text of the 
 ordinances, " mounted, armed, and accompanied " ? Their 
 interest thus became confounded with that of the empire, 
 which would soon become unable to support its armies. Bo- 
 ris Godunof found a way of saving the rights of the state, and 
 at the same time gaining for himself the gratitude of a numer- 
 ous and powerful class. The comfort of the peasant did not 
 trouble any one at this epoch. He was an instrument of 
 agriculture, a force, and nothing more. An edict of Feodor 
 forbade the peasants henceforth to go from one estate to an- 
 other. The free Russian peasant 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 immemorial right 
 was extinguished. We must not think that these silent 
 masses were insensible. Saint George's day, when, once a
 
 316 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XVII. 
 
 year, the ancient laws permitted the peasant to pass from one 
 domain to another, remained for centuries a day of bitter re- 
 gret. He cursed for long the authors of this decree, and even 
 protested when he had the opportunity ; but his protestation 
 took rather the form of flight than of revolt. The develop- 
 ment 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 passively allowed the prescription of this new 
 form of slavery to be established ; in one way or another he 
 has constantly resisted it. Boris Godunof afterwards partially 
 repealed this ukas ; while they were still forbidden to pass 
 from the small to the great proprietor, they were allowed to 
 change the service of one small landowner for that of another. 
 The feeling of the time was not in favor of liberty ; the more 
 Russia tended to become a modern state, the more its expenses 
 increased, and the more the government was conscious of the 
 need of assuring the revenues by fixing to the soil the popu- 
 lation which contributed money and performed statute labor. 
 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 
 establishment of the patriarchate. The Russian ecclesiastics 
 complained, with reason, of having to obey patriarchs who were 
 themselves only slaves of the infidels. Ancient Rome was 
 polluted by the Pope ; Constantinople, the second Rome, was 
 profaned by the Turk : had not Moscow, the third Rome, a 
 right at least to independence ? Boris encouraged these mur- 
 murs : it was his interest that at the death of the Tsar there 
 should be a great ecclesiastical authority standing alone, and 
 that this great authority should owe all to him. He profited 
 by the arrival at Moscow of Jeremiah, Patriarch of Constan- 
 tinople, to induce him to found the Russian patriarchate and
 
 1584-1605.] SUCCESSORS OF IVAN THE TERRIBLE. 317 
 
 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 Nagoi's, from their exile at Uglitch, 
 watched carefully all the variations in the health of the Tsar, 
 and every movement of Boris. Feodor's death would give the 
 throne to Dmitri, and power to his relatives, power to avenge 
 themselves for all that they had suffered. It would deliver 
 Boris up to the reprisals of his enemies. He knew this only 
 too well. In fifteen hundred and ninety-one it was suddenly 
 announced that the young Dmitri had been slain. The story 
 was that he was playing in the courtyard of his palace at 
 Uglitch in open daylight with several of his young compan- 
 ions, when he was suddenly murdered by a son of Betiagovski 
 who was superintendent of the palace, and in the pay of 
 Boris. The sacristan of the cathedral, seeing the deed, gave 
 the alarm ; attendants appeared, and immediately put to death 
 Betiagovski, his cousin and accomplice Katchalof, and oth- 
 ers suspected. Public suspicion pointed to Boris as the real 
 author of the deed. To stifle rumor 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 
 Nagoi's and the people of Uglitch had put to death innocent 
 men as murderers. The result of the inquiry was that the 
 dowager Tsaritsa was obliged to take the veil as a punishment 
 for her carelessness, the Nagoi's were sent to different prisons, 
 and the inhabitants of Uglitch were cruelly transported to the 
 deserts of Siberia. Seven years after, the pious Feodor died, 
 and in the person of this spiritless and virtuous sovereign 
 the race of bloody and violent men of prey who had created 
 Russia was extinguished. The dynasty of Andrei Bogo- 
 liubski had accomplished its mission ; it had founded the 
 Russian unity. The task of obtaining the entrance of this 
 semi-Asiatic state into the society of civilized Europe was 
 reserved for another dynasty.
 
 318 HISTOEY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XVII. 
 
 BORIS GODUNOF. APPEARANCE OF THE FALSE DMITRI, 
 
 Boris Godunof reached the aim of his desires, but at 
 what a price ! The murder of Dmitri, the last descendant 
 of Saint Vladimir, of Monomakh, of luri and the Ivans, was 
 no ordinary crime. Russia had seen many horrors, but never 
 one like this. The Tsar might have put the Russian princes 
 to death, but they were his enemies, they were often guilty, 
 and then he was the Tsar. Now a simple boyar 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 which make a deep and lasting im- 
 pression on the people. Boris vainly believed that he had 
 buried all in the earth with the corpse of the Tsarevitch. 
 
 After the death of Feodor his widow Irena entered the 
 Dievitchi monastery, and took the veil there, mourning her 
 sterility, and lamenting that " by her the sovereign race had 
 perished." 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 Godu- 
 nof. As she refused to govern, the council had to take charge 
 of affairs under the presidency of the Patriarch Job, who owed 
 everything to Godunof. It was impossible that the throne 
 should escape Boris; yet it seemed strange that a simple 
 boyar, a creature of Ivan the Fourth, should take precedence 
 of all the princes descended in direct line from Rurik. How- 
 ever, the Patriarch and his clergy, the boyars and citizens of 
 Moscow, appeared before the Dievitchi monastery, in which 
 Godunof had shut himself up with his sister. Job entreated 
 him to accept the crown. Godunof 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 despot- 
 ism of Ivan, it was a strange sight to see this assembly dis-
 
 1584-1605.] SUCCESSORS OF IVAN THE TERRIBLE. 319 
 
 pose of the crown. The Russia of Ivan the Terrible had, like 
 Poland, its elective diet, but the lesson of obedience had been 
 so well learned, that there was no fear of anarchy. They were 
 told that Ivan the Fourth on his death-bed had confided to 
 Boris his family and his empire, and that Feodor had put 
 round 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, Po- 
 land, 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 the Fourth, on Livonia ; and as the Terri- 
 ble 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 about to marry Xenia, 
 daughter of the new Tsar, when he died suddenly. Denmark 
 declared that he had been poisoned ; and in the Russia of 
 that date everything is conceivable. The Khan of the Crimea, 
 who had vainly tried to make two incursions, and who had 
 then a quarrel with the Turks, sought the friendship of Boris. 
 Affairs in the Caucasus were in a less prosperous condition. 
 Alexander, Prince of Kakhetia, who had acknowledged him- 
 self vassal of Boris, was assassinated, and succeeded by his 
 son, who was on the side of Shah Abbas, King of Persia, 
 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 with assurance to take the field in those distant regions. 
 In Siberia, Kutchum, the dethroned khan, was vanquished 
 and driven far beyond the Irtuish ; this battle decided the 
 fate of Asian Siberia, though the two Russian voiievodui 
 had only four hundred men, and Kutchum only five him-
 
 320 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XVII. 
 
 dred. The Russians took possession of many towns and built 
 several important fortresses, and thus secured control of the 
 country. 
 
 The firm rule of Boris gave confidence to the foreign gov- 
 ernments which sought his friendship. The Powers of the 
 West, especially Austria and England, continued to negotiate 
 with him, and Sweden and Poland were in no condition to 
 cause him injury. In sixteen hundred he sent Gregory 
 Mikulin to Queen Elizabeth. " He had learned," says the 
 Tsar's letter, " 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-beloved sister, you ought not for the future to enter 
 into relationships of friendship with 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 
 potentates 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." 
 
 Mikulin was received in London with great honors. In 
 the audience given him by the Queen " she arose from her 
 throne and advanced some distance " to listen to his compli- 
 ments ; after which she bowed her head and asked for news 
 of the health of the Tsar, the Tsaritsa, Maria Gregorievna, 
 and of the Tsarevitch Feoclor Borisovitch. She received his 
 credentials " with great joy," and, being seated, listened to 
 Mikulin's message. 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, Mikulin 
 was present at the revolt of sixteen hundred and one, led by
 
 1584-1605.] SUCCESSORS OF IVAN THE TERRIBLE. 321 
 
 Essex, and saw the citizens rush through the streets armed 
 with cuirasses and arquebuses to defend the Queen. He left 
 London in May, sixteen hundred and one, and in his account 
 he gives many curious details of the English Court at this 
 epoch which was the most brilliant of Elizabeth's reign. 
 
 Boris surrounded himself with soldiers, learned men, and 
 artists. With their help he raised monuments, built the 
 tower of Ivan the Great in the Kreml, and had the Monarch 
 of Bells cast. It was he who first sent young Russians to 
 Liibeck, England, 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, even his 
 charities, 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 arms." When a 
 dreadful famine, accompanied by pestilence, desolated Russia 
 from sixteen hundred and one till sixteen hundred and four, 
 Boris caused immense quantities of provisions and large sums 
 of money to be distributed. Multitudes flocked to Moscow, 
 and the misery was increased by the very concentration. 
 Half a million people are said to have perished in the city ; 
 the dead lay by thousands in the streets. Parents devoured 
 their own children, and cannibalism became rampant. The 
 famine was attributed to the crimes of Boris Godunof. The 
 oligarchic party, ashamed of obeying a simple boyar, were be- 
 ginning to grow uneasy. After having pardoned 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 
 Philaret, and his wife took the veil under the name of Marfa. 
 But from the son of this monk and this nun emperors were 
 destined to spring. 
 
 Feeling himself surrounded by plots, Boris Godunof did not 
 
 VOL. I. 21
 
 322 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XVII. 
 
 hesitate to devise any means of security, and he received the 
 denunciations of slaves against their masters. The peasants, 
 driven to desperation by the famine, joined the servants of the 
 disgraced nobles, and formed themselves into bands of brig- 
 ands 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 uni- 
 versal presentiment of others yet greater. The term of seven 
 years assigned by the astrologers to the reign of Boris was 
 approaching. The crime of Uglitch, still imexpiated, had 
 left a strange uneasiness throughout Russia. Suddenly there 
 arose a rumor that the murdered Dmitri was living, and with 
 arms in his hands was making ready to assert his rights to 
 the empire. 
 
 At the Monastery of the Miracle notice had been attracted 
 to a young monk, Gregory Otrepief, who, after having for a 
 long while wandered from convent to convent at his own 
 pleasure, finally reached this monastery; and the Patriarch 
 Job, discerning his intelligence, made him his secretary. In 
 discharge of these functions he became acquainted with more 
 than one state secret. " Do you know," he used to say to 
 the other monks, " that I shall be one day Tsar of Moscow ? " 
 They spat in his face, and the Tsar Boris Godunof 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 : " I am the Tsarevitch Dmitri, and 
 I will not forget your kindness." Then he renounced his 
 orders, enrolled himself among the Zaporoshtsui, and became 
 a bold rider and a brave Cossack. He passed into the ser- 
 vice of Adam Vishnevetski, a Polish noble ; he fell ill, or 
 feigned to do so, summoned a priest, and revealed to him, 
 under the seal of the confessional, that he was the Tsarevitch 
 Dmitri, who had escaped from the hands of the assassins at 
 Uglitch, by another child being substituted and buried in his
 
 1584-1605.] SUCCESSORS OF IVAN THE TERRIBLE. 323 
 
 place. He showed a cross, set with jewels, that hung round 
 his neck, given him by Mstislavski, godfather of the Tsare- 
 vitch. The Jesuit did not dare to keep such a secret to him- 
 self. Otrepief was recognized by his master, Vishnevetski, 
 as the son of Ivan the Terrible. Mnishek, vo'ievod of Sando- 
 mir, promised him his support and the hand of his daughter, 
 Marina, who consented with joy to be Tsaritsa of Moscow. 
 The strange news spread throughout the kingdom. The 
 Pope's nuncio took the Tsarevitch under his protection, and 
 presented him to King Sigismond. Were they really de- 
 ceived ? It is more probable that they saw in him a formi- 
 dable 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 Tsare*- 
 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 prince's misfortune, to help him if they wished. The 
 nobles did not need the royal authority ; many of them, with 
 the levity and love of adventure which characterized the Po- 
 lish nobility, took up arms in favor of the Tsarevitch. 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 putting in motion the dregs of 
 society, without the clashing of a mass of interests, and the 
 gathering together 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 peasants, 
 whom the laws of Boris had but recently attached to the 
 glebe, were everywhere sullenly hostile. Many of them had 
 escaped, and joined the bands of free Cossacks. The lesser 
 nobility, for whose profit this law had been made, were
 
 324 HISTOEY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XVII. 
 
 scarcely able to live on their lands ; the Tsar's service had 
 become ruinous, and many were inclined to supplement the in- 
 sufficiency of their revenues by brigandage. The boyars and 
 the great nobility were profoundly demoralized ; they were 
 ready for any treason. The warlike republics of the Cossacks of 
 the Don and the Dnieper, the bands of serfs, of fugitive peas- 
 ants, who infested the Russian territory, were waiting only for 
 an opportunity to lay waste the country. The ignorance of 
 the masses was profound, and their minds greedy of wonders 
 and change ; no other nation ever allowed itself to be deceived 
 so often by the same fable, the sudden apparition of a prince 
 who had been supposed to be dead. Adventures like those 
 of Otrepief the false Dmitri, and of Pugatchef the false Peter 
 the Third, could not have taken place in any other European 
 country. These two adventurers rendered themselves particu- 
 larly famous, but the secret archives show us that in the Rus- 
 sia of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries there were 
 hundreds of impostors who falsely took the name of Dmitri, 
 of Alexis, of Peter the Second, and of Peter the Third. 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 government was powerless, 
 in a country so utterly without communication, to put a stop 
 to the most absurd rumors. Besides, the ignorant and super- 
 stitious masses were hostile to. it, and delighted to allow 
 themselves to be deceived. So many elements of rebellion 
 required only 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 Godunof, he was able to maintain order, to restrain 
 the authors of revolt, and to discourage the false Dmitri. 
 The Patriarch Job and Vasili Shuiski, who had conducted the 
 inquest at Uglitch, made proclamations to the people affirm- 
 ing that Dmitri was really dead, and that the impostor was
 
 1584-1605.] SUCCESSORS OF IVAN THE TERRIBLE. 325 
 
 none other than Otrepief. Similar declarations were sent to 
 the King and the Diet of Poland. Finally, troops were put in 
 marching order, and a line of communications established with 
 the western frontier. But already the towns of Severia were 
 revolting at the approach of the Tsarevitch, and the boyars 
 publicly announced that it was hard to bear arms against their 
 lawful sovereign. At Moscow the health of the Tsar Dmitri 
 was drunk at feasts. In October, sixteen hundred and four, 
 the impostor crossed the frontier with an army of Poles, 
 Russians banished in the preceding reign, and German mer- 
 cenaries. Severia at once rose, and Novgorod-Severski opened 
 her gates to him. Prince Mstislavski tried to check his prog- 
 ress by a battle, but the soldiers were struck by the idea that 
 the man whom they fought was the real Dmitri. " They had 
 no hands to fight, but only feet to fly." Vasili Shu'iski, 
 Mstislavski's successor, did his best to rally their courage, and 
 this time, in spite of his intrepidity, the impostor was defeated 
 at Dobruinitchi. Boris believed the war finished ; but in 
 reality it had only begun. After Severia, the Ukraina re- 
 belled, and four thousand Cossacks of the Don came to 
 join the brigand. The inaction of the Muscovite voievodui 
 proved that the spirit of treason had already penetrated the 
 nobility. 
 
 In sixteen hundred and five Boris died, commending his 
 innocent son to the care of Basmanof, the boyars, the Patri- 
 arch, and the people of Moscow. But hardly had Basmanof 
 taken the command of the army of Severia, than he under- 
 stood that neither the soldiers nor the leaders were going to 
 fight for a Godunof. 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 confidence united with Galitsuin 
 and Soltuikof, 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 he 
 was the first to throw himself at the feet of the Pretender, who
 
 326 HISTOEY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XVII. 
 
 was at once proclaimed by the troops. Moscow followed the 
 example of the army, and the result was that the whole people 
 took oath to Dmitri, who marched from Putiol to the capital, 
 received everywhere with acclamations as the heir of Ivan the 
 Terrible. Godunof's wife and his son Feodor were cruelly 
 massacred. Such was the end of the dynasty which Boris 
 had thought to found in the blood of a Tsarevitch !
 
 CHAPTER XVIIL 
 THE TIME OF THE TROUBLES. 
 
 1605- 1613. 
 
 MURDER OP THE FALSE DMITRI. VASILI SHUISKI. THE BRIGAND 
 OF TUSHINO. VLADISLAS OF POLAND. THE POLES AT THE KREML. 
 NATIONAL EISING. MININ AND POJARSKI. ELECTION OF 
 MIKHAIL ROMANOF. 
 
 MURDER OF THE FALSE DMITRI. VASILI SHUISKI. 
 THE BRIGAND OF TUSHINO. 
 
 event that had taken place in Russia is one of the 
 I most extraordinary in the annals of the world. A run- 
 away monk entered Moscow in triumph as the Tsar, among 
 the joyful tears of the people, who thought they beheld a de- 
 scendant of their long line of princes. Only one man had the 
 courage to affirm that he had seen Dmitri assassinated, and 
 that the new Tsar was an impostor. This was Vasili Shu'iski, 
 one of those who had directed the inquest at Uglitch, and 
 who had defeated the Pretender at the battle of Dobruinitchi. 
 Denounced by Basmanof, 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 Tsar. Men 
 did not recognize the son of Ivan the Terrible in this act of 
 clemency, and Otrepief had afterwards cause to repent of it. 
 Job, the tool of Godunof, was replaced in the patriarchate 
 by a favorite of the new prince, the Greek Ignatius. The 
 Tsar had. an interview with his pretended mother, Maria 
 Nagoi, widow of Ivan the Fourth. Whether because she
 
 328 HISTOEY OE RUSSIA. [CHAP. XVIII. 
 
 wished to avenge her injuries, or merely to recover her 
 honors, Maria recognized Otrepief as her son, and publicly 
 embraced him. He loaded the Nagoi's, whom he regarded as 
 his maternal relations, with favors ; the Romanofs were like- 
 wise recalled from exile, and Philaret made Metropolitan of 
 Rostof. 
 
 The Tsar presided regularly at the council, where the boy- 
 ars 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 Zaporoshtsui an accomplished horseman, 
 bold and skilful in all bodily exercises. He was fond of 
 foreigners, and even spoke of sending the Russian nobles 
 to be educated in the West. This taste for strangers went 
 hand in hand with openly expressed contempt for the national 
 ignorance and grossness. He offended the boyars by his sar- 
 castic raillery, and alienated the people and the clergy by his 
 disdain of Russian customs and religious rites. He neglected 
 to salute the images of the saints; he ate veal, which was 
 considered an unclean meat ; he dined without having the 
 table blessed and sprinkled with holy water ; he often was 
 impious enough to rise without washing his hands ; he never 
 slept after dinner, but took that time to walk the streets almost 
 unattended ; he borrowed money from the convents in order 
 to pay his soldiers, turned the monks into ridicule, fought 
 with bears ; he rode untamed horses at a furious speed, while 
 it had always been the custom for the Tsar to ride slowly and 
 with dignity ; he visited jewellers and foreign artisans famil- 
 iarly ; and he 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 sur- 
 rounded himself by a European guard, with Margeret, Knut- 
 sen, 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 resist-
 
 1605-1613.] TIME OF THE TKOUBLES. 329 
 
 ing the Pope and the King of Poland, for declining to assist 
 the former in the reconciliation of the two churches and 
 refusing to cede to the latter an inch of Russian land. The 
 arrival of his wife, the Catholic Marina Mnishek, with a 
 suite of Polish gentlemen, who assumed an insolent demeanor 
 towards the Russians, completed the irritation of the Musco- 
 vites. Less than thirty days after his entrance into the 
 Kreml, men were ripe for a revolution. 
 
 Vasili Shuiski, who had been so magnanimously pardoned 
 by Otrepief, was the head of the conspirators. The extreme 
 confidence of the Tsar was his ruin. He felt that the soldiery 
 were attached to him, and he felt secure against any move- 
 ment on the part of the patient Russian populace. On the 
 twenty-ninth of May, sixteen hundred and six, the boyars 
 attacked the Kreml, which had been left guarded by only a 
 small company of halberdiers. Otrepief, after a short resist- 
 ance, in which he killed several of his assailants with his own 
 hand, was thrown, or leaped, out of a window, and was stabbed 
 in the court of the palace ; Basmanof, who defended him, being 
 killed by his side. They took the two corpses, and exposed 
 them on the place of executions, with Otrepief s feet resting 
 on Basmanof's breast. They threw over his face a ribald 
 mask, said to have been found in the renegade's chamber in 
 the place usually devoted to the holy images. A flute was 
 thrust into his mouth, and a set of bagpipes was placed 
 under his arms as a fitting mark for the Tsar who has dis- 
 graced his high position. Otrepief' s widow and the Polish 
 envoys sent to assist at the wedding narrowly escaped with 
 their lives, and were kept prisoners by the boyars. To satisfy 
 the popular superstition that he was a sort of vampire who 
 would come to life again, the corpse of the heretic was burned, 
 and a cannon was charged with his ashes, which were blown 
 to the winds. Ustrialof thus speaks of the character of Otre*- 
 pief : " He comprehended the immense greatness of Russia in 
 comparison with the other European states, and since he was
 
 330 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XVIII. 
 
 the head of many tsardoms which had submitted to the Rus- 
 sian sceptre, not being satisfied with the title of Tsar he took 
 the name of Emperor. He established the senate; he de- 
 signed to give a better organization to the state ; he formed 
 a regular army ; he began to care for the national education 
 and the improvement of manners. He brought Russia into 
 close relationship with Europe, and especially with France, 
 whose king, Henry the Fourth, he seemed to appreciate better 
 than did most of his contemporaries, and whose friendship he 
 wished personally to gain. Finally, comprehending the real 
 relations of Russia with the neighboring towns, he prepared 
 vigorously for the campaign against the Turkish Sultan, as 
 the enemy of the Christian faith, and consequently of the 
 Russian fatherland, and for this purpose he employed his pre- 
 ponderating influence over the Khan of the Crimea and the 
 other Tatar princes. But while he understood the necessities 
 of the empire, he did not comprehend his own personal situa- 
 tion. He awoke against himself universal hatred, and the 
 annals hint at unheard-of crimes, and call him by the name of 
 bloodthirsty tyrant, renegade from the faith, and God-detested 
 man." 
 
 It was now necessary to elect a new Tsar. Two candidates, 
 two chiefs of princely families, presented themselves, Vasili 
 Shuiski and Vasili Galitsuin. Shuiski had signalized himself 
 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 boyars would have preferred assembling 
 the States-General, as in fifteen hundred and ninety-eight, but 
 Vasili would not await their decision. More impatient and 
 less wise than Boris Godunof, he chose to owe his crown to 
 the Muscovites alone, and not to the delegates of the whole 
 nation. It was the original sin of the new administration. 
 Vasili had on his side neither hereditary right, like the an- 
 cient Tsars, although he falsely claimed to be a descendant of 
 Alexander Nevski, nor the vote of the three orders, like Boris.
 
 1605-1613.] TIME OF THE TROUBLES. 331 
 
 His right to the throne thus remained open to doubt in 
 times of the greatest disturbance. The Patriarch Ignatius, 
 the nominee of the impostor, was replaced by Hermogenes, 
 a prelate of undoubted orthodoxy, formerly Metropolitan of 
 Kazan. Thus, at each change in the government, a cor- 
 responding change took place in the principal office of the 
 Church. 
 
 On ascending the throne, Vasili swore a solemn oath to ob- 
 serve all the laws, to put no boyar to death without trial, not 
 to confiscate the goods of criminals, and to chastise calumnia- 
 tors. True Russians felt profound sorrow when they saw 
 the Tsar thus despoil himself of his sovereign rights, and 
 alienate part of his autocratic power for the benefit of the 
 boyars. He was entering, indeed, on the path of the pacta 
 conventa, which, at every new election in Poland, deprived 
 the king of some of his attributes, and led to the enfeebling 
 of the crown, and the triumph of the aristocratic anarchy of 
 the nobles. 
 
 The provinces were discontented at not being consulted in 
 the choice of a sovereign. They heard almost at the same 
 moment the news 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 Tsar was reigning 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. 
 
 Vasili, 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 revolutions were not yet appeased. Neither ambi- 
 tious boyars, nor felonious nobles, nor insurgent peasants, nor 
 brigands, nor the Cossacks and Zaporoshtsui, nor the compa-
 
 332 HISTOEY OF KUSSIA. [CHAP. XVIII. 
 
 nies, 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 Tsare- 
 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. Some 
 declared that the dead man had a beard, while Otrepief was 
 known to be without one. Vasili tried in vain to disabuse 
 the people ; he was not more successful than Boris. Had 
 not Boris overwhelmed the Muscovites and the King of Po- 
 land with evidence ? At the head of the revolt in favor of 
 the second false Dmitri was Prince Shakhovskoi, who had 
 been a favorite with Otrepief and knew better than any one 
 else the fact of his death. As voievod of Putiol he sent letters 
 throughout all southern Russia announcing the news of the 
 safety of Ivan's son. Although more than a year elapsed 
 before any one was found suitable to play the part of the 
 Pretender, yet the letters had the desired effect. Severia and 
 the turbulent cities of the South again rose ; the discontented 
 masses armed again for a new Otrepief against a new Godu- 
 nof. In the South, a certain Bolotnikof, by birth a serf, be- 
 longing to Prince Teliatevski, called all the brigands, all fugi- 
 tive slaves and peasants, to his standard, and began a servile 
 war in the name of Dmitri. He began to march against 
 Moscow, defeated two of the Tsar's voievodui near Krom, 
 and by his successes caused a revolt among the citizens of 
 Riazan, where an army of nobles was organized, the princi- 
 pal leader of which was Prokopi Liapunof. On the banks of 
 the Volga the Tatars and Finnish tribes, under pretext of sus- 
 taining the son of Ivan the Terrible, proclaimed their national
 
 1605-1613.] TIME OF THE TROUBLES. 333 
 
 independence. The empire was menaced with total dissolu- 
 tion by the reaction of all the forces till then repressed by 
 the strong hand of the Tsars. 
 
 The reappearance of the false Dmitri was announced through- 
 out Russia. In reality no one had dared to take up this role ; 
 but the impostor was so absolutely necessary that he was 
 everywhere recognized even before he existed. Bolotnikof 
 and his peasants, by a second victory gained over the Tsar's 
 army in front of the village of Troitska, opened the way to 
 Moscow, threatened the capital, and agitated the lower classes. 
 Under the very walls of the city he was joined by Prince 
 Liapunof, and, establishing his camp in the village of Kolo- 
 menskoi, announced the fall of Shuiski. The Tsar seemed 
 lost, when he was saved by the military talents of his nephew, 
 Skopin Shuiski. Liapunof and two other noble leaders were 
 disgusted with their popular allies, and afraid of them ; they 
 separated from Bolotnikof, offered to submit to the Tsar, and 
 were received at Moscow with caresses. Bolotnikof, left alone, 
 fell back on Tula, and was so closely pressed that he wrote 
 to Mnishek that all was lost if he could not produce the false 
 Dmitri. At last the man desired and expected by all the 
 rebels appeared. His real name is undivulged ; his origin 
 is uncertain. He was by some said to be a Jew ; others said 
 he was the son of a priest, others still that he was a native 
 of Sokol in White Russia ; but he is mentioned only by the 
 title of the " second false Dmitri." All we know of him is 
 that he was a clever, intelligent man, tolerably educated, and 
 very brutal. He came too late to save Tula. Bolotnikof was 
 drowned, and the false Peter hanged. 
 
 Lisovski and Rojinski, two Polish nobles of great repute, 
 soon came to the aid of the false Dmitri. The Zaporoshtsui 
 and the Cossacks of the Don, under Zarutski, hastened to 
 take part in the expected booty. It is a curious fact that 
 there were in their ranks five or six impostors, who all 
 gave themselves out as being sons or grandsons of Ivan the
 
 334 HISTORY OF EUSSIA. [CHAP. XVIII. 
 
 Terrible. With all these forces the impostor marched on 
 Moscow, defeated the detachments of the Tsar's army, and 
 established himself twelve versts from the capital, at the 
 village of Tushino. This encampment has remained cele- 
 brated in the history of the troubles ; it has gained for this 
 second impostor the surname of the brigand of Tushino, and 
 for his Russian partisans the designation of Tushinists. Thus 
 in face of the Tsar of Moscow who owed his elevation to 
 the Muscovites alone, and who hardly seemed the Tsar of 
 Russia stood the Tsar of Tushino. He, like his rival, had 
 his Court, his army, his administration. He distributed titles 
 and dignities ; and, as evidence of profound popular degrada- 
 tion, an ambitious crowd was to be seen passing from one 
 Court to the other, falling at the feet of both Tsars, receiving 
 double pay, and, loaded with honors by Vasili, flying to 
 Dmitri, to return again to Vasili. A nickname was invented 
 to designate these refugees. They were called " birds of 
 passage." 
 
 While Tushino menaced and braved Moscow, Polish rein- 
 forcements flocked to the camp of the brigand, in spite of the 
 promises and assurances of the perfidious Sigismond. The 
 celebrated voievod, John Sapieha, came to join Lisovski, and 
 they both tried to capture the Troitsa monastery. This 
 famous convent tempted them by its riches. With its ram- 
 parts and towers, it was a stronghold for the partisans of 
 the Tsar ; its monks were convinced that they knew how 
 the country was to be saved, and did not cease to call all the 
 neighboring cities to take up arms " for the faith and the 
 Tsar." These warlike monks, who were like the " Church 
 militant " of the French league, though they, to be sure, 
 were defending at once the national and the orthodox cause, 
 repelled all the assaults of the Catholic adventurers. After a 
 siege of sixteen months Sapieha had to acknowledge himself 
 beaten. Abraham Palitsin, treasurer of the convent, has nar- 
 rated the exploits of his brethren. Suzdal, Vladimir, Pereia-
 
 1605-1613.] TIME OP THE TROUBLES. 335 
 
 slaf, Rostof, and eighteen other northern towns, not being able 
 to decide which was the legitimate sovereign, opened their gates 
 to the Tushinists. Shuiski was still disliked at Moscow, but 
 they knew what they had to expect from the second false 
 Dmitri. Honest people who dreaded the triumph of the 
 brigand, and who saw no possible Tsar but Vasili, forced 
 themselves to support him. What saved the capital was the 
 bad discipline that reigned in the enemy's camp ; new rebel- 
 lions broke out against the rebel. Serfs and muzhiki threat- 
 ened their masters and ravaged the country, and the brigand 
 was forced to employ part of his forces to suppress this 
 brigandage. 
 
 About this time the Tsar Shuiski turned for help to Sweden ; 
 he ceded the town of Karela to Charles the Ninth, contracted 
 with him an offensive and defensive alliance against Poland, 
 and received in return a body of five thousand Swedes, under 
 the command of De la Gardie. With this reinforcement, 
 Skopin Shuiski expelled the Tushinists from the cities of the 
 North, advanced on Moscow, and obliged the brigand to 
 evacuate Tushino. The perfidious policy of the Polish gov- 
 ernment, which armed the impostors against the Tsar and 
 allowed their voievodui to attack a friendly country, amply 
 justified Shuiski in seeking an ally in Sweden. But this 
 foreign intervention gave rise to another : the King of Poland, 
 affecting to think himself endangered by the Tsar's alliance 
 with his worst enemy, decided to drop the mask and openly 
 interfere. It was thus that under the most fatal auspices the 
 long rivalry began between these two Slav nations, which 
 statesmanship had once tried to unite under the same sceptre. 
 Poland, governed by an instrument of the Jesuits, inflicted on 
 Russia a frightful wrong. Sigismond disloyally affected zeal 
 for a pretender whom he knew to be an impostor ; he violated 
 treaties and all the rights of nations, allowing Russia to be 
 attacked by his armies all the while that he was asserting his 
 peaceful disposition. His invasion of Russia filled up the
 
 336 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XVIII. 
 
 measure of his iniquities. This conduct necessarily left inef- 
 faceable memories in the hearts of the Russians. 
 
 By 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 fifteenth 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 pro- 
 tect them ; and that he was prepared to guarantee to them the 
 maintenance of their worship and liberties. The people of 
 Smolensk, who knew the ardor with which Sigismond per- 
 secuted orthodoxy in his own dominions, repelled all his 
 advances, and the voi'evod Shei'n made ready to defend the 
 town to the last. Sigismond wrote from his camp at Smolensk 
 to the Polish voievodui who were serving under the impostor, 
 with orders to abandon him. The Polish Tushinists obeyed 
 with regret, complaining that the king would appropriate the 
 reward of their toils ; the Russian Tushinists, not knowing 
 what to do, followed their allies, and, already accustomed to 
 every sort of treason, made their submission to the king, and 
 offered to recognize his son Vladislas as Tsar of Russia. At 
 the head of these refugees were the boyar Mikhail Soltuikof 
 and the currier Andronof. 
 
 Shuiski had now two enemies equally formidable, the 
 King of Poland and the false Dmitri, who, himself threatened 
 by the ambition of his royal rival, had to retreat to the South. 
 Vasili's nephew, Skopin, 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 Tsar, and accused him of poisoning his nephew. 
 Another of the Shulskis, the ambitious Dmitri, was also 
 involved in the accusation. Dmitri Shuiski, as unpopular 
 with the army as he was with the capital, was betrayed 
 in battle by the foreign regiments, and this defeat completed 
 Vasili's ruin. The people rose in Moscow ; a great assem- 
 bly of the populace and the boyars was held in the plains
 
 1605-1613.] TIME OF THE TROUBLES. 337 
 
 of Serpukhof. The Tsar was " humbly requested " to vacate 
 the throne, because he caused Christian blood to be shed, and 
 was not successful in his government. The southern frontier 
 towns also refused to obey him. Vasili Shuiski yielded, and 
 abdicated ; a short time afterwards he was forced to become 
 a monk. 
 
 VLADISLAS OF POLAND. THE POLES AT THE KREML. 
 
 Every one was obliged to take an oath of obedience to the 
 council of boyars, who naturally seized the executive power 
 during the interval before the election of a new Tsar. There 
 were two candidates for the vacant throne, Vladislas, son of 
 the King of Poland, and the false Dmitri. But the latter 
 was evidently an impostor. He ruled the upper and middle 
 classes by 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 Tushino, they chose the lesser of the two evils. 
 
 A Polish army, under the hetman Zolkievski, had arrived 
 at Moja'isk : the impostor occupied Kolomenskoe. The boyars 
 invited Zolkievski to approach Moscow, and they began to 
 negotiate. 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 council. 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 Rus- 
 sians began to like the Polish system of the pacta conventa. 
 The inhabitants of Moscow vowed fealty to the Tsar Vladislas. 
 One point still remained to be decided : the Russians desired 
 that Vladislas should embrace orthodoxy. Zolkievski left the 
 decision to the King of Poland. He induced the boyars to 
 send ambassadors to Sigismond, and Prince Vasili Galitsuin 
 and the Metropolitan Philaret Romanof immediately started 
 for the camp at Smolensk. This terrible crisis seemed at the 
 point of resulting in a way that was tolerably advantageous for 
 
 VOL. I. 22
 
 338 HISTORY OP EUSSIA. [CHAP. XVIII. 
 
 Russia. It was to have a foreign sovereign, but one ahead v 
 acquainted with Slav manners, and his being a foreigner was 
 even a gage for the partisans of reforms and Western civiliza- 
 tion. Poland and Russia, which might have united under 
 Ivan and under Feodor, had another chance of doing so under 
 a Polish prince. Such was the confidence of the boyars, that, 
 finding the security of Moscow troubled by the neighborhood 
 of the impostor, they proposed to Zolkievski to enter into the 
 town and even the Kreml. This unpatriotic resolution, dic- 
 tated to the nobles by their mistrust of the lower classes, was 
 to bring fatal consequences on Moscow. Zolkievski wished 
 to take his guaranties against the chiefs of the nation : 
 Galitsuin and Philaret were already under Smolensk at the 
 discretion of the king ; he sent for the fallen Tsar 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 him- 
 self. He stipulated with the ambassadors that Smolensk 
 should be ceded to Poland, but they courageously repelled 
 this proposition. They demanded on their own part that 
 Vladislas should leave immediately for Moscow, as being the 
 only means for allaying the suspicions to which the conduct 
 of the king had given rise. Sigismond refused. He wished 
 to be Tsar himself. Since he had no hope of conquering the 
 scruples of the two chief ambassadors, he addressed himself 
 to their inferior colleagues. The Secretary Tomila, on being 
 asked to open the gates of Smolensk, replied : " If I were to 
 do it, not only would God and the Muscovites curse me, but 
 the earth would open and swallow me. We are sent to nego- 
 tiate in the interests of our country, not of ourselves." Not 
 all the Russians showed this probity. The disgusting spec- 
 tacle of the camp of Tushino was repeated at Smolensk. Men 
 crowded round the king, as formerly around the brigand, to 
 wring from him dignities, land, and money. Soltuikof, Msti- 
 slavski, and the currier Andronof especially distinguished them-
 
 1605-1613.] TIME OF THE TROUBLES. 339 
 
 selves "by their baseness. At Moscow the boyars denounced 
 each other to the commandant of the Polish garrison. By the 
 suggestion of Soltuikof they wrote to the king to beg him to 
 make his entry into Moscow. The Patriarch Hermogenes 
 refused to sign the letter, and the people, more patriotic than 
 the boyars, supported the Patriarch. Some few nobles, like 
 Andrei Galitsuin and Ivan Vorotinski, had the honor of being 
 suspected by the Poles, and were arrested by Leo Sapieha, 
 successor of Zolkievski. By 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 important con- 
 sequences. 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. Whispers were heard in the streets of Moscow 
 that it was necessary to combine against the Lithuanians. 
 Soltuikof and Andronof denounced these generous intentions 
 to the enemy. The Patriarch Hermogenes, suspected of patri- 
 otism, was thrown into prison, where he afterwards died of 
 starvation. The provinces were agitated, 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 men-at-arms made 
 their preparations for war, and Liapunof collected an army at 
 Riazan. At his approach Moscow began to fill with reinforce- 
 ments, and the Poles fortified the rampart of the Kreml. 
 Suddenly a quarrel broke out between the people and the 
 soldiers. In the first heat the Poles and Germans are said to 
 have massacred seven thousand men ; but resistance was organ- 
 ized in the streets of the Bielui-gorod, and the foreigners, re- 
 pulsed by Prince Pojarski, had to intrench themselves in the 
 Kreml and the Kitai-gorod. To clear the neighborhood, the
 
 340 HISTORY OF BUSSIA. [CHAP. XVIII. 
 
 Poles set fire to the neighboring streets. Moscow was almost 
 entirely destroyed by the flames. 
 
 On hearing of the preparations of Liapunof and the revolt 
 of Moscow, Sigismond caused the Muscovite ambassadors, 
 Galitsuin and Philaret, to be arrested, and sent them pris- 
 oners to Marienburg, in Prussia. A short time afterwards 
 Smolensk fell, after a resistance compared by the Poles them- 
 selves to that of Saguntum, though the king was not ashamed 
 to torture the brave vo'ievod Shein, who had dared to resist 
 him. He entered Warsaw in triumph, and the unhappy 
 Vasili Shuiski, a Tsar of Russia, was dragged a prisoner 
 through the streets in triumph. Liapunof was now reinforced 
 by Prince Trubetskoi and Ivan Zarutski, at the head of the 
 Cossacks of the Don. A hundred thousand men besieged the 
 Poles, who were shut up in the Kreml, but the elements com- 
 posing this large army were too conflicting and corrupt for the 
 enterprise to succeed. The three leaders were mutually jealous 
 of each other. Liapunof had committed more than one treason, 
 Zarutski had been one of the first to declare for Otrepief, and 
 the others were hardly more loyal. The soldiers of Liapunof 
 hated the Cossacks, who on their part sought only occasions 
 for pillage. The Poles managed to stir up the men of the 
 Don, by inventing a pretended letter of Liapunof, saying, 
 " Wherever you take them, slay them or drown them." A 
 revolt broke out in the camp : Liapunof was assassinated, many 
 of his adherents were murdered, and this great army was mis- 
 erably dispersed. 
 
 Russia, a prey to civil war, as France in the sixteenth century 
 was a prey to the wars of religion, suffered likewise from foreign 
 intervention. 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 Vladislas was proclaimed Tsar, Sweden considered 
 itself offended, and acted as an enemy. De la Gardie took
 
 1605-1613.] TIME OF THE TROUBLES. 341 
 
 the ports of the Baltic; and the boyars 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 Mnishek on her side, who after the 
 death of Otrepief had thrown herself into the arms of the brig- 
 and of Tushino, acknowledged the Cossack Zarutski as guar- 
 dian of her son. 
 
 NATIONAL KISING. MININ AND POJARSKI. ELECTION OF 
 MIKHAIL ROMANOF. 
 
 The situation of Russia, like that of France during the Eng- 
 lish wars, or the wars of the League, was frightful. The Tsar 
 was prisoner, the Patriarch captive, the Swedes were at Novgorod 
 the Great, the Poles at the Kreml, and the higher nobility 
 bought by the strangers. Everywhere bands of brigands and 
 highwaymen pillaged towns, tortured peasants, and desecrated 
 churches. Famine increased : in certain districts men were 
 driven to eat human flesh. This country, accustomed to be 
 governed autocratically, had no longer any government. In 
 its supreme need, who was to save Russia ? It was the peo- 
 ple, by a movement similar to that which in France produced 
 Joan of Arc ; it was the people, in the largest acceptation or 
 the word, including the best of the nobility and the patriotic 
 clergy. Already rumors of miracles showed the excitement 
 that possessed all minds. At Nijni-Novgorod, at Vladimir, 
 apparitions were seen. The monks of Tro'itsa, with the superior 
 Dionysius and treasurer-historian Palitsuin 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 
 Tro'itsa reached Nijni, and the protopope read them to the 
 assembled people, a citizen of the town, the butcher Kozma 
 Minin, rose and said, " If we wish to save the Muscovite Em- 
 pire, we must spare neither our lands nor our goods ; let us
 
 342 HISTORY OF EUSSIA. [CHAP. XVIIL 
 
 sell our houses ; let us put our wives and children to service ; 
 let us seek a man who will fight for the orthodox faith and 
 lead us to battle." To give up all, and to take arms, such 
 was the word that was handed round. Minin and others gave 
 the third of their possessions ; one woman who had twelve 
 thousand rubles gave ten thousand of them. Force was 
 employed to make those contribute who hesitated. Minin 
 accepted the office of treasurer of the insurrection only on 
 condition that his fellow-citizens should place themselves abso- 
 lutely at his discretion. A chief was necessary ; the people 
 saw that he must be a noble. He took the title of The Elect 
 of the Whole Muscovite Empire. Prince Dmitri Pojarski, still 
 weak from wounds he had received in the revolt of Moscow, 
 was at this time living at Starodub. Minin went to seek him, 
 and besought him to take the command of the army. Their 
 preparations then began, and they fasted and prayed. Russia 
 was felt to be in a sinful condition ; so many oaths had been 
 taken and violated, to Godunof, to his son Feodor, to Otrepief, 
 to Shui'ski, to Vladislas. Three days of fast were commanded. 
 Every one took part in it, even the infants at the breast. With 
 the money collected they organized the streltsui and equipped 
 the men-at-arms ; but they refused to admit those impure ele- 
 ments 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 
 Liapunof. 
 
 With the army marched the bishops and monks ; the holy 
 images were borne at the head of the columns. This enthu- 
 siasm did not exclude political wisdom ; they wished at least 
 to secure the support of Sweden against Poland, so they 
 amused De la Gardie by negotiating for the election of a 
 Swedish prince. When the troops had completely assembled 
 at laroslavl, they marched on Moscow. The Cossacks of 
 Zarutski and Trubetskoi were still encamped under its walls ;
 
 1605-1613.] TIME OF THE TROUBLES. 343 
 
 but these two armies, though fighting for the same object, 
 could not act together. An attempt to murder Pojarski had 
 still more imbittered the feelings of the army against the men 
 of the Don. When, however, in August, sixteen hundred and 
 twelve, the hetman Khotkievitch tried to throw a detachment 
 into Moscow, he was defeated on the left bank of the Moskova 
 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 Palitsuin to bring them into 
 line, and the intervention of Minin and his troops to decide 
 the victory. The Polish garrison of the Kreml were then 
 pressed so close that they were reduced to eat human flesh. 
 They capitulated, on the twenty-second of October, on condi- 
 tion that they were to have their lives. They gave up their 
 prisoners, among whom was young Mikhail Romanof. 
 
 The Kreml and the Kitai-gorod had just opened their gates, 
 when the news came that Sigismond was advancing to the 
 help of the Polish garrison. It was too late. At the news of 
 these events he had to retrace his steps ; the devotion of the 
 people of Russia had freed their country. This year of sixteen 
 hundred and twelve remained long in the memory of the na- 
 tion ; and when the invasion of eighteen hundred and twelve 
 came to refresh their recollections, they raised on the Red 
 Place a colossal monument to the two liberators, the butcher 
 Minin and the Prince Pojarski. 
 
 Russia, once more its own master, could proceed freely to 
 the election of a Tsar. A great National Assembly gathered 
 at Moscow in sixteen hundred and thirteen. It was composed 
 of the high ecclesiastical dignitaries, of delegates nominated 
 by the nobles, by the men-at-arms, the merchants, the towns 
 and districts. The delegates had to be furnished with special 
 powers. It was agreed that no foreigner should be elected, 
 neither Pole nor Swede. When it became a question of choos- 
 ing among the Russians, scheming and rivalry commenced ; 
 but one name was pronounced which gained all the votes, that
 
 344 . . HISTORY OF EUSSIA. [CHAP. XVIII. 
 
 of Mikhail Romanof. He was elected not for his own sake, 
 for he was then only fifteen years old, but for that of his ances- 
 tors the Romanofs, and his father, the Metropolitan Philaret, 
 then prisoner at Marienburg. The name of Romanof, of the 
 kin of Ivan the Fourth, was the highest expression of the na- 
 tional feeling. 
 
 The new dynasty had better chances of stability than that 
 of Godunof or that of Shuiski. There were no crimes with 
 which to reproach it ; it had its origin in a national move- 
 ment, it dated from the liberation, and recalled 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 stifled the regrets for the true. The acces- 
 sion of the Romanofs coincided with a powerful awakening of 
 patriotism, with the passion for unity, with a universal longing 
 for order and peace. Already they inspired the same devotion 
 as the oldest dynasty. It is said that the Poles, on hearing of 
 the election of Mikhail, sent armed men to seize him in Kos- 
 troma. A peasant, Ivan Sossanin, misled the Poles through 
 deep woods in the darkness of the night, and died under their 
 blows, in order to save his prince. This is the subject of the 
 beautiful opera by Glinka, of " Life for the Tsar." The time 
 of troubles had ended.
 
 
 VIEW IN WOODS.
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE ROMANOFS: MIKHAIL FEODOROVITCH 
 AND THE PATRIARCH PHILARET. 
 
 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 it was in the situa- 
 tion in which Henri the Fourth found France at his 
 accession. The great civil and foreign war was finished, but 
 it had left everywhere its evil traces. Henri the Fourth, when 
 he became king, had been obliged to reconquer all his king- 
 dom, 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, Zarutski, having tried 
 in vain to raise the Don Cossacks, had seized upon Astrakhan, 
 with Marina and the son she had borne to the brigand of 
 Tushino ; the polish partisan Lisovski was ravaging the coun- 
 try of the southwest ; the Zaporozh Cossacks were infesting 
 the regions of the Dwina : scarce a province but was a prey to 
 some robber-band. To be sure, the Poles had been expelled 
 from the Kreml as the Spaniards were expelled from recon- 
 quered Paris, but an offensive movement of the enemy might 
 be expected ; moreover, they still retained many places, notably 
 the important town of Smolensk. Sweden had profited by
 
 346 HISTORY OF EUSSIA. [CHAP. XIX. 
 
 the state of Russia to lay hands on the cities of Karelia 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 universal plague. 
 At the Court, the Russian lords had learned to disobey, and 
 were not less turbulent than the Leaguers who surrounded 
 Henri the Fourth. What Russia needed was a reign of 
 restoration. 
 
 Mikhail Romanof had not the genius of the restorer of 
 France. He was almost a child, and the boyars turned his 
 authority against himself: the silent and bloody intrigues that 
 Ivan the Fourth had restrained only by capital punishment 
 broke forth again, 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 
 Tsar 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 presented a request for pay, as 
 their devastated fiefs no longer gave them any revenue. The 
 Tsar and the clergy sent letters to the Russian towns to entreat 
 them to help the state to pay the troops, and to aid it with 
 men and money against the foes within and without. Zarutski 
 was the first who was attacked. He had been defeated by the 
 Tsar's army near Voronezh before he seized upon Astrakhan. 
 Then he proclaimed Marina the rightful Tsaritsa, but the 
 inhabitants, outraged by his barbarities, had revolted, and 
 he was driven out of the city by Prince Odoevski, pursued 
 by superior forces, and in July, sixteen hundred and fourteen, 
 he was captured on the banks of the laik and sent to Moscow. 
 Then he was condemned to be impaled ; the three-year-old 
 Ivan, son of the brigand of Tushino, in spite of his youth, was 
 hung, and his mother, Marina the Pole, died in prison. By 
 the punishment of Zarutski the turbulent Don was quieted ; 
 by the imprisonment of Marina an end was put to the claims
 
 
 .MIKHAIL TMK FIRST
 
 1613-1645.] THE EOMANOFS. 347 
 
 of all impostors. The Cossacks of the Don and Little Russia 
 and the runaway serfs retired to their cities and villages. 
 Order was restored in Southern Russia. By the advice of the 
 clergy and the boyars the Tsar tried to negotiate with Baloven, 
 another brigand chief, who, by way of answer, attacked Mos- 
 cow, but was defeated and his band destroyed. The people 
 of the Dwina themselves executed justice on the Zaporoshtsui. 
 Lisovski 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 sixteen hundred and fifteen a congress assembled be- 
 neath the walls of Smolensk, under the mediation of Erasmus 
 Handelius, envoy of the Emperor of Germany. It was impos- 
 sible to come to an understanding : the Poles refused to admit 
 the election of Mikhail Romanof, and wished to recognize 
 Vladislas as Tsar of Russia. " You might as well," said 
 Handelius, " try to reconcile fire and water." The negotia- 
 tions were broken off. With Sweden, however, 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 reopen Russia to their merchants, and secure for 
 themselves greater advantages. 
 
 In May, sixteen hundred and fourteen, Ushakof and Zabo- 
 rovski 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 Tsar no substantial aid, but would do 
 their utmost to induce the King of Sweden to make peace. 
 Alexis Ziusin had been despatched to London in June, sixteen 
 hundred and thirteen ; he was ordered to narrate all the ex- 
 cesses committed by the Poles in Moscow, and to say to King 
 James, "After the destruction of Moscow, the Lithuanians 
 seized your merchants, Mark the Englishman, and all the
 
 348 H1STOKY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XIX. 
 
 others, took away all their wares, subjected them to a rigor- 
 ous imprisonment, and ended by massacring them." If by 
 chance he discovered that the English 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 excuses ready. The Tsar 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 Tsar money, provisions, powder, 
 lead, sulphur, and other munitions, to the value of about one 
 hundred thousand rubles ; but would content themselves with 
 seventy thousand rubles' worth, or, in case of absolute neces- 
 sity, with fifty thousand. 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 in succession to cover themselves. 
 The Russians declined to do this. " When we see thy frater- 
 nal 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, slaves as we are, 
 put our hats on our heads at such a moment ? " In August, 
 sixteen hundred and fourteen, the year following this embassy, 
 there appeared at Moscow John Merrick, who had long traded 
 with the holy city, but who came this time as ambassador from 
 James the First, qualified with full powers, as prince, knight, 
 and gentleman of the bedchamber. In an interview with 
 Prince Ivan Kurakin 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. 
 Kurakin alleged that this route was unsafe, that Astrakhan 
 had only lately been delivered from Zarutski, and that numer- 
 ous brigands still infested the Volga. 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 Parlia-
 
 FORTRESS OF SCHLUSSELBUBG.
 
 1613-1645.] THE ROMANOFS. 349 
 
 ment to consider the best means of helping the Tsar, but that 
 the Parliament had as yet decided nothing, and that he had 
 no instructions on this head. " But," said Kurakin, "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 com- 
 mercial matters : liberty of trade by the Obi and the Volga, 
 concessions of iron and jet mines on the Sukhona, grants of 
 territory about Vologda, for new establishments, and other 
 concessions. The Russian boyars continued to expatiate on 
 the difficulty of the situation, and John Merrick went to Nov- 
 gorod to negotiate with the Swedes, where he was joined by 
 the envoys of Holland. Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, 
 had obtained some successes over the voievodui, but he had 
 not contented the Novgorodians, nor been able to take Pskof. 
 The Kings of Denmark and Poland were his enemies, and 
 he may have felt a presentiment of the splendid career that 
 awaited him in Germany. He consented to open a congress, 
 and in sixteen hundred and seventeen concluded with Russia 
 the Peace of Stolbovo, by which he received an indemnity of 
 twenty thousand rubles, equivalent to more than ten times as 
 much at present valuation, and kept Ivangorod, lam, Koporie, 
 and Oreshek or Schliisselburg, but ceded Novgorod, Rusa, 
 Ladoga, and some smaller places. 
 
 Russia was now able to concentrate all its forces against its 
 worst enemy, the instigator of all its troubles. Before the 
 conclusion of the treaty of Stolbovo, the diet of Warsaw, at 
 the urgent entreaty of Sigismond, had (determined to send an 
 army against Russia for the purpose of establishing Vladislas 
 on the throne of Moscow by force of arms. Vladislas in per- 
 son took the chief command of the Polish forces, with the hope 
 of attracting the fidelity of the Russians from their legal sover- 
 eign. Dorogobuzh and Viazma were surrendered by the
 
 350 HISTORY OF EUSSIA. [CHAP. XIX. 
 
 treachery or weakness of their voi'evodui ; but Mojaisk and 
 Kaluga, the latter defended by Pojarski, resisted and arrested 
 the progress of the enemy. Vladislas, who had all the instincts 
 of a soldier, resolved in sixteen hundred and eighteen to march 
 on Moscow. Mikhail Romanof, like Ivan the Terrible, dreaded 
 treason more than the arms of the enemy, and determined to 
 exact a new oath of allegiance from his subjects. He assem- 
 bled the Estates, and informed them that he was ready once 
 more to suffer hunger in besieged Moscow, and to fight 
 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. Every one made the required promise, and 
 fresh letters went out from Moscow, calling all the towns to a 
 holy war. Vladislas, however, had stopped at Tushino, where 
 the hetman of Little Russia, after having ravaged the frontiers 
 of the southwest, had joined him with his Cossacks. The 
 days of the second impostor and of Tushinism seemed to have 
 come back. The Poles, having been defeated in an attack on 
 Moscow, proposed a congress, which met in December, sixteen 
 hundred and eighteen, at the village of Deulino, not far from 
 the Troitsa monastery, which during this campaign had been 
 forced to withstand another siege. A truce of fourteen years 
 and six months was agreed on. The terms of the treaty were, 
 that all hostile operations should cease ; that Vladislas should 
 renounce his claim to the title of Tsar, and Mikhail his claim 
 to Livonia, Tchernigof, and Smolensk, which, together with 
 Severia, were ceded to Poland. Such a peace was only an 
 armistice ; there was, however, an exchange of prisoners : the 
 brave voi'evod Shein and the Metropolitan Philaret, who had 
 been a captive nine years, returned to Russia, and the latter 
 was at once made Patriarch. 
 
 By the return of his father the young Tsar obtained the 
 counsellor his inexperience had hitherto needed, and even 
 more than a counsellor, a colleague, and almost a master. 
 Philaret was in some sort associated with the throne. The
 
 1613-1645.] THE ROMANOFS. 351 
 
 empire had two chief nobles, two sovereigns, the Tsar 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 boyars and foreign ambassadors. It was time that a 
 master was given to the boyars. The Soltuikofs, Mikhail's 
 favorites, had distributed the empire among their partisans, 
 and plundered the treasury and the nation. They were charged 
 with having falsely accused Mikhail's first bride, who was ex- 
 pelled from the palace, and with having poisoned the second. 
 This was a common practice with the nobles of Muscovy, those 
 who were in favor fearing a new Tsaritsa 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 Mikhail the hand of 
 his niece, because, " in the reign of Boris Godunof, his brother, 
 the betrothed of the Princess Xenia, had been poisoned ; and 
 this would also be the fate of this young girl." Philaret made 
 the boyars feel the weight of the Tsar's hand, and exiled the 
 most guilty. 
 
 RELATIONS WITH EUROPE. THE STATES-GENERAL. 
 
 Russia had begun at last to be a European nation. Its 
 political or commercial alliance was sought from all quarters. 
 Gustavus Adolphus, who was making preparations to play his 
 part as the champion of Protestantism in Germany, wished to 
 assure himself of the friendship of Russia against Poland. He 
 represented to Mikhail, 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 succumbed the turn of orthodoxy would follow, 
 and that the Swedish army was the outpost of Russian security. 
 " When your neighbor's house is on fire," writes the King, 
 " you must bring water and try to extinguish it, to guarantee 
 your own safety. I beg your Tsarian majesty to help your 
 neighbors in order to protect yourself." The terrible events
 
 352 HISTOEY OF EUSSIA. [CHAP. XIX. 
 
 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 con- 
 cluded with Sweden, and a Swedish ambassador appeared at 
 the Court. 
 
 England had rendered more than one service to Russia. 
 In her pressing need James the First had lent her twenty 
 thousand rubles, and British mediation had led to the' Peace 
 of Stolbovo. John Merrick considered he had the right to 
 demand that Russia should open to English commerce the 
 route to Persia by the Volga, and to Hindostan by Siberia. 
 The Tsar consulted the merchants of Moscow. They unani- 
 mously replied that such a concession would be their ruin, for 
 they could never hope to rival the wealthier and more enter- 
 prising English. They were, however, ready to sacrifice their 
 interests to those of the empire, if the dues paid by the for- 
 eigners were essential to the treasury. John Merrick declined 
 to pay any dues, and the negotiation was broken off. They 
 paid him, however, the twenty thousand rubles, as he assured 
 them the King had need of them for the help of his son-in- 
 law, the Elector Palatine. 
 
 In sixteen hundred and fifteen the Tsar sent an envoy into 
 France, to announce to Louis the Thirteenth his accession to 
 the throne, and to ask his aid against Poland and Sweden. 
 In sixteen hundred and twenty-nine there appeared at Moscow 
 the ambassador Duguay-Cormenin, who was commissioned to 
 solicit for French commerce what had been refused to English 
 trade, free passage into Persia. He also spoke of a politi- 
 cal alliance. " His Tsarian 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 Tsar, 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 Poland, the Tsar must be allied to the King of
 
 1613-1645.] THE ROMANCES. 353 
 
 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 the men of Brabant 
 are obedient only when they choose. The latter buy their 
 wares in Spain, and sell them to the Russians at a high price, 
 but the French will furnish them with everything at a rea- 
 sonable 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 boyars, who said that the French 
 might buy the Persian merchandise from the Russians. 
 
 Another ally against Poland offered itself to Muscovy. The 
 Sultan Osman sent to Moscow the Prince Thomas Cantacuzen, 
 to announce that Turkey had already declared war against the 
 king. The Russians asked no more than to help him, and 
 Philaret and Mikhail assembled the States-General. The 
 deputies " beat their foreheads " to the sovereigns, beseeching 
 them to " hold themselves firm against the enemy for the holy 
 churches of God, for their Tsarian honor, and for their own 
 country. The men-at-arms were ready to fight, and the mer- 
 chants to give money." The troops were already assembling 
 when news was received that Turkey had been defeated, and 
 war was postponed. The preparations had revealed certain 
 faults existing in the national army, and it was decided to 
 enlist foreign mercenaries, and instruct the native soldiers in 
 Western tactics. Orders were accordingly given to buy arms, 
 and to attract into Russia gun-founders and artillerymen. The 
 Russia of Mikhail and Philaret already announced the Russia 
 of Peter the Great ; the era of reform had begun. Each day 
 Muscovy strengthened itself against its European enemies, by 
 turning against them the weapon of their own civilization. 
 
 Russia remained quiet for eight years. In sixteen hundred 
 and thirty-two Sigismond the Third died, and the Elective 
 Diet assembled at Warsaw. Mikhail 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 
 
 VOL. i. 23
 
 354 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XIX. 
 
 vices of the old organization and institutions showed them- 
 selves anew. The two voi'evodui commanding the army 
 suddenly became possessed with the old mania of disputing 
 precedence. They were deprived of their command, and re- 
 placed by Shei'n and Ismailof, who crossed the frontier with 
 thirty-two thousand men and one hundred and fifty-eight 
 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 appearance. 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 Shei'n, thus 
 enfeebled, was attacked by the king, and cut off from com- 
 munications. Famine obliged him to surrender in the open 
 field, and he obtained leave to retreat, though forced to aban- 
 don both his baggage and his artillery. His only fault lay 
 in not understanding as well as his Western adversaries the 
 strategy of modern warfare. He was guilty only of being a 
 Russian of unreformed Russia. His enemies, however, accused 
 him of treason in a council of war, and he was condemned with 
 his colleague to be beheaded. Philaret was no longer there 
 to force the boyars to live at peace with each other. He died 
 in sixteen hundred and thirty-three. Vladislas, successful at 
 Smolensk, was defeated at Biela'ia, and a congress was held 
 on the Polianka. The conditions of the truce of Deulino were 
 confirmed. The Russians paid twenty thousand rubles, and 
 Vladislas renounced all claim to the throne of Moscow, and 
 recognized for the first time the right of the Grand Princes 
 to the title of Tsar. 
 
 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 
 Poland, and the Cossacks of the Don, who were subjects 
 of Russia, still continued to fight against Islam. To them, 
 besides being a holy war, it was the means of procuring frocks
 
 1613-1645.] THE KOMANOFS. 355 
 
 or wide trousers of a beautiful scarlet cloth. Determined par- 
 tisans 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 galleys, 
 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 brigands and corsairs of 
 Christianity, as the Tatars were of Islamism. 
 
 In sixteen hundred and twenty-seven, four thousand four 
 hundred Cossacks of the Don, aided by one thousand Znpo- 
 roshtsui of the Dnieper, surprised Azof, and offered to make a 
 gift of it to the Tsar of Moscow. The acquisition of such an 
 important place, which would secure the command of the mouth 
 of the Don and access to the Black Sea, was very tempting 
 to Russia. Again Mikhail Romanof assembled his Estates. 
 We must observe that since Ivan the Fourth first assembled 
 them the meetings had become more and more frequent. 
 The parliamentary history of Russia dates from the reign of 
 " the Terrible." This time the nobles declared themselves 
 ready to fight if they had money given them for their equip- 
 ment, and begged the Tsar to exact it from the clergy and 
 merchants. The latter alleged that the robberies of the pub- 
 lic functionaries, the prolongation of the wars, and the rivalry 
 with the Germans and Persians, had ruined them. The officers 
 sent by the Tsar to Azof reported that it was in too bad a state 
 for defence. In fact, the conquest of Azof, like that of the 
 Crimea in the time of Ivan, was premature, Russian coloniza- 
 tion not having as yet extended itself sufficiently towards the 
 South. The Tsar gave orders accordingly to the Don Cos- 
 sacks for its evacuation, and they did not leave one stone upon 
 another. 
 
 Western influence made considerable progress during this 
 reign. The merchants entreated that access into the interior 
 might be forbidden to those strangers whose rivalry was their
 
 356 HISTOKY OF EUSSIA. [CHAP. XIX. 
 
 ruin ; but the latter were, on the contrary, so necessary to the 
 state and to the general progress that they had to be invited 
 into the country by all possible means. Under Mikhail, more 
 foreigners than ever came into Russia. Vinius the Dutchman 
 established foundries at Tula for guns, bullets, and other iron 
 weapons. Marselein the German opened similar ones on the 
 Vaga, the Kostroma, and the Sheksna. Privileges were granted 
 to other foreign merchants or artisans, and the only condition 
 imposed on them was not to conceal the secrets of their indus- 
 tries from the inhabitants of the countries. This is another 
 point of resemblance between this reign of reform and that of 
 Henri the Fourth, who also summoned to his kingdom Flemish, 
 English, and Venetian artisans. One European import did 
 not, however, find favor in Russia, the use of tobacco was 
 forbidden, and snuff-takers had their noses cut off. 
 
 Learned men were also sought from Europe. Adam Olea- 
 rius of Holstein, a celebrated astronomer, geographer, and 
 geometer, was invited to Moscow. Already the Academy of 
 Sciences of Peter the Great was foreshadowed. A cosmo- 
 graphical treatise was translated from Latin into Russian. 
 The Patriarch Philaret had established at Moscow an academy 
 where Greek and Latin, the languages of the Renaissance, 
 were taught. The Archimandrite Dionysius of Troitsa, who 
 had distinguished himself in the struggle with the Poles, 
 undertook to correct the text of the Slavonian books, a 
 hazardous enterprise, which cost Dionysius himself a short 
 period of persecution. Native historians continued to re-edit 
 their chronicles, and Abraham Palitsui, cellarer of Troitsa, 
 narrated the famous siege of the convent.
 
 MAP OF THE FORMATION 
 
 of tke 
 
 TSARATE OF MUSCOVY. 
 
 . "7 *^A>W White J 
 ' ^r-.Hf ^/s ^-^^
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 WESTERN RUSSIA IN THE SEVENTEENTH 
 CENTURY. 
 
 1569 - 1645. 
 
 THE POLITICAL UNION OP LUBLIN (1569) AND THE RELIGIOUS UNION 
 (1595). COMPLAINTS OF WHITE RUSSIA. RISINGS IN LITTLE 
 RUSSIA. 
 
 POLITICAL UNION OF LUBLIN AND THE RELIGIOUS UNION. 
 
 SPAIN in the sixteenth century had taken a large share in 
 the troubles of Prance ; Prance in the seventeenth century 
 dismembered the Spanish Pmpire. In like manner Poland 
 expiated the part it had played in the civil wars of Russia. 
 After the reforming reign of Mikhail Romanof, his son Alexis 
 was to inaugurate the era of reprisals. Russia had almost 
 fallen before Poland, like Prance before Burgundy or Austria, 
 but it now grew strong at Poland's expense, and on the ruins 
 of Poland its own greatness was to be founded. A glance at 
 the constitution of the Polish Empire will show us what inter- 
 nal difficulties prepared the way for the external enemy, the 
 Muscovite, the Moskal, as he was called by the men of the 
 West. 
 
 White Russia and Little Russia had been conquered by the 
 Lithuanians, and formed with them part of the Polo-Lithuanian 
 state. They kept, however, for a long time their Russian 
 manners and habits. The Russian language was used in the 
 acts of legislation till the sixteenth, and even till the seven- 
 teenth century. Por a short time, under the early lagellons,
 
 358 HISTOKY OP RUSSIA. [CHAP. XX. 
 
 it had even been the language of the Court. Soon, however, 
 Polish influence predominated in the ruling class. The Russo- 
 Lithuanian nobility were divided, like the Polish nobility, into 
 the magnates, who possessed large territories and occupied the 
 high offices, and the lesser nobles, who formed the retainers 
 and almost the servants of the magnates. The military class 
 assembled in the diets and dietines. The king's officers bore 
 the titles of voievod, castellan, and starosta. The Russo- 
 Lithuanian towns, like those of Poland, received what was 
 called " the law of Magdeburg." They were governed by a 
 bailiff of the king, who administered justice, assisted by the 
 burgomaster and by counsellors. The trading classes organ- 
 ized themselves, after the German fashion, into unions or 
 corporations. 
 
 Up to that time Russo-Lithuania and Poland had formed 
 two states, distinct in law ; and at the extinction of the lagel- 
 lons, who had always maintained them in a personal union, 
 it was feared they would again separate. Ivan the Fourth 
 founded great hopes on this expected separation, but the Poles 
 in the reign of Sigismond made a great effort to accomplish 
 a definite union. A diet was held at Lublin. The Russo- 
 Lithuanian aristocracy were much averse to the union ; differ- 
 ence of religion, national pride, and interests arising from 
 separate existence, created a barrier between them and Poland. 
 The government shrank from no means of overcoming their 
 resistance. It threatened not to defend Lithuania against the 
 incursions of the Tsar, and to resume the Crown lands held by 
 the refractory nobles. In spite of all these efforts, the Polish 
 party were almost checkmated ; rather than yield, the Lithua- 
 nian deputies left the diet in a body. At last the king con- 
 trived to gain two of the most influential members, 
 Konstantin Ostrojski, voievod of Kief, and Alexander Tchar- 
 toruiski, voievod of Volhynia. Nikolai Radzivil, who had so 
 long held the Polish tendencies in check, and who was the 
 last representative of independent Lithuania, was dead. The
 
 1569-1645.] WESTERN RUSSIA. 359 
 
 king managed also to win over the Little Russian nobility, 
 who were less hostile to Catholic Poland than the Protestant 
 nobility of Lithuania. The Union of Lublin provided that the 
 two crowns should be united on the same head, with equal 
 rights ; that there should be only one general diet and one 
 senate ; that they should sit at Warsaw, a Mazovian town, 
 which was to become the capital of the new state ; and that 
 Poland and Lithuania should preserve each its great digni- 
 taries, chancellor, vice-chancellor, marshals, and hetmans, 
 each its own army and laws. The Russian countries, 
 properly so called, underwent a fresh dismemberment. Little 
 Russia was specially united to Poland. 
 
 The natural result of the Union of Lublin was the growth 
 of Polish influence in the Russian territory. On one side, the 
 Polish nobles had obtained the right of acquiring lands and 
 holding offices in Lithuania ; on the other, the Russian nobil- 
 ity, by mingling more completely with the nobility of the 
 neighboring country, adopted its ideas, habits, fashions, and 
 even its language. It began to be Polonized, thus widening 
 the breach that separated it from the masses of the people, 
 who were profoundly attached to their tongue and their 
 nationality. The division between the aristocracy and the 
 people increased still further, when the nobility of the Russian 
 territory became more and more permeated with Roman 
 Catholicism. 
 
 A special article of the Union of Lublin insured respect to 
 the orthodox religion. Poland and Lithuania had not, how- 
 ever, been able to escape from the great religious struggles 
 which at that time were dividing Western Europe, the effects 
 of which were felt even in Poland. A certain number of lords 
 had embraced Protestantism, in such forms as Lutheranism, 
 Calvinism, and Socinianism. The Jesuits, who were every- 
 where at the head of the reaction against reform, and whose 
 hand may be traced in all the civil wars of the sixteenth and 
 seventeenth centuries, soon made their appearance in Poland.
 
 360 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XX. 
 
 Protestantism had taken only a feeble root in the country, con- 
 sequently it did not occupy them long ; they then turned their 
 attention to orthodoxy, the real national religion of the Russo- 
 Lithuanian provinces. They employed the same means by 
 which they had hitherto succeeded everywhere in Europe : 
 they founded colleges, obtained a hold on the young people, 
 insinuated themselves into the confidence of the women, gained 
 the ear of the kings, and made far greater use of their clever- 
 ness in worldly matters than of the purely ecclesiastical means 
 of preaching, confession, and pilgrimages. The brave Batory, 
 who specially occupied himself with all that concerned the 
 public peace and national greatness, kept them at a distance. 
 Thev found a monarch more to their taste in Sigismond the 
 
 ti 
 
 Third, a feeble copy of the Philips of Spain and the Fer- 
 dinands of Austria, and well fitted to draw on the East the 
 calamities that desolated Germany and the West. He pro- 
 tected the Jesuits, and exhausted all the influence and seduc- 
 tions that the throne put at his disposal, to convert the orthodox 
 nobility of his Oriental provinces to Catholicism. In order to 
 enlarge the field of conversions, the Jesuits invented a com- 
 promise, which was to obtain from the Russian clergy and 
 people their submission to the Holy See, while their Slavonic 
 liturgy and special usages were guaranteed them ; this is what 
 is called the Union of the two Churches. In fact, the union 
 once obtained, they thought it but a step to unity, and even 
 uniformity. Peter Skarga the Jesuit, who published the book 
 of " The Unity of the Church of God," wished to exclude the 
 teaching of Slavonic, and admit only that of Greek and Latin. 
 In order to make their plan more easily accepted by govern- 
 ment, they represented to it that the effect of their religious 
 union would be to strengthen the political union of Lublin, 
 and that a true Polish Estate would not exist till all the sub- 
 jects held the same faith as their prince. 
 
 At first, when orthodoxy was menaced by the King of Po- 
 land, it found a powerful support in the Russian princes, the
 
 1569-1645.] WESTERN RUSSIA. 361 
 
 descendants of Rurik and Gedimin. We have seen Prince 
 Kurbski in the time of Ivan the Fourth, and later, Konstantin 
 Ostrojski, defending the faith of their fathers by pen, word, 
 and influence, and translating, compiling, and disseminating 
 books in favor of orthodoxy. Little by little, however, the 
 nobles yielded to the influence of the Court, and in their 
 struggle with the Roman religion the people saw themselves 
 abandoned almost entirely by their natural chiefs, and even by 
 their bishops. The king filled the Lithuanian sees with prel- 
 ates who were great princes, wholly indifferent to theological 
 questions, and proud of their immense riches, of their numer- 
 ous villages, and their strong castles bristling with artillery. 
 Still the people did not give up all hope. From Novgorod 
 the Great, from Pskof, from Germany, the principle of asso- 
 ciation had spread widely among the cities of Western Russia. 
 Societies were formed for mutual assistance, which had their 
 roots in the most distant Slavonic, German, or Scandinavian 
 past ; they were at the same time religious confraternities, and 
 took an energetic part in the strife with the Jesuits. They 
 had their elected chiefs, their common treasury, and they 
 began to found schools, to establish printing-presses, and to 
 disseminate polemical and pious books. They entered into 
 friendly relations with each other, and formed ties with the 
 patriarchs of the East ; they used the power of a democracy 
 in opposition to the bishops appointed by the king, keeping a 
 strict watch upon them, reprimanding them and denouncing 
 to orthodox Christendom the carelessness of their manners 
 and religion. The most celebrated of these confraternities 
 were those of Lemberg in Gallicia, of Vilna in Lithuania, of 
 Lutsk in Volhynia. The one in Kief founded the great 
 ecclesiastical academy of Little Russia. 
 
 Under the stimulus of these popular societies the orthodox 
 bishops could not long remain in a state of indifference. They 
 were obliged to take their position at the head of the orthodox 
 believers or pass over to the ranks of the enemy. Conse-
 
 362 HISTORY OF EUSSIA. [CHAP. XX. 
 
 quently they were in a very difficult situation ; by remaining 
 orthodox they incurred the disgrace of the government, and 
 at the same time they were harassed by their factious orthodox 
 agitators on account of their lack of fervor. 
 
 In fifteen hundred and eighty-nine Jeremiah, Patriarch of 
 Constantinople, visited Western Russia on his return from 
 Moscow. The laity were not slow in bringing before him 
 loud complaints about the disorders caused in the church by 
 the misdemeanors and indifference of the bishops. In defer- 
 ence to these complaints, the Patriarch removed the chief 
 prelate, Onisephoras, Metropolitan of Kief, and at the recom- 
 mendation of the laity consecrated Mikhail Ragoza in his 
 stead. Mikhail was in reality a man of irreproachable life, 
 but weak, lacking character, and incapable of filling the chief 
 place in such stormy times. The most active, shrewd, witty, 
 and learned prelate of Western Russia at this period was 
 Kirill Terletski, Bishop of Lutsk, but he was rather an able 
 steward of the church domains than a priest. In his mode of 
 living, in his habit of capricious violence and brutal expedients, 
 he resembled a temporal lord of those days rather than a Chris- 
 tian bishop. Nevertheless, the Patriarch appointed Terletski 
 his exarch or deputy, with the duty of superintending the 
 bishops and removing those who proved themselves unworthy. 
 This duty, which was transferred from the Metropolitan, 
 diminished Ragoza's importance, and made him feel great 
 displeasure at the Patriarch. Thus, instead of order being 
 restored, fresh elements of disorder were brought into the 
 church. The Metropolitan was annoyed at the foundation of 
 the exarchy in Terletski's interest; Terletski was annoyed 
 because, notwithstanding his office of deputy, he did not enjoy 
 the full confidence of the Patriarch, who received the com- 
 plaints of the other prelates against him. Finally, Terletski 
 was engaged in a quarrel with the chief pillar of orthodoxy, 
 Prince Konstantin Ostrojski, and at the same time was exposed 
 to a violent persecution from the Catholic party, headed by
 
 1569-1645.] WESTEEN RUSSIA. 363 
 
 the bailiff of Lutsk, who had lately been converted. Terletski 
 was taken, imprisoned, and reduced almost to starvation in his 
 dungeon. He complained, but no heed was paid to an ortho- 
 dox bishop. Then Terletski and certain other prelates re- 
 solved to free themselves from trouble both from within and 
 without, and thus escape all humiliation, disarm the Catholics, 
 and enjoy the revenues of their bishoprics in peace. This 
 freedom could be obtained in only one way, a way long 
 pointed out by the Jesuits ; it was to join the Union. The 
 bishops wrote a letter to King Sigismond the Third, in which 
 they consented to submit to the Church of Rome on condition 
 that the Russian Church should preserve in its integrity all its 
 rites and ceremonies and its service in the Slavonic tongue. 
 Sigismond received these first defections with joy. Terletski 
 soon gained a powerful ally in Ipati Potiei, who had been 
 Castellan of Brest, and was now Bishop of Vladimir-in-Vol- 
 hynia. Potiei showed himself a great ascetic, was devoted to 
 temperance and fasting, was rigorously watchful over the church 
 interests, and kept himself aloof from the vanities of the world ; 
 but he was very ignorant of ecclesiastical duties, indifferent to 
 the questions which divided the churches, and so easily in- 
 clined to the Union that the friends of orthodoxy, and espe- 
 cially Prince Ostrojski, desired to forestall his defection by a 
 union among the Eastern churches. Potiei felt this to be 
 impracticable, and joined Terletski in the furtherance of his 
 plans. They laid their design before the Metropolitan Mikhail 
 Ragoza. With his usual weakness of character, he began to 
 balance advantages ; on the one hand, he feared his opposition 
 would irritate the king ; on the other, he feared the anger of 
 the orthodox and the indignation of the prelates if he, without 
 their knowledge, entered the Union ; consequently, he began 
 to play a double game. All the time that he was pretending 
 to be in sympathy with the king's plans, and had even ac- 
 cepted from Terletski and Potiei the promise of preferment in 
 the United Church, he was writing to the orthodox lords and
 
 364 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XX. 
 
 confraternities that he did not approve of the Union, and did 
 not take any part in it. He deceived Terletski and Potie'i by 
 not joining them at the time appointed for deliberation. But 
 it was impossible for him long to play his double game. 
 Prince Ostrojski sent a circular to all the orthodox, in which 
 he attacked in vigorous terms the Metropolitan and the bishops, 
 accusing them of their apostasy. 
 
 In fifteen hundred and ninety-five Terletski and Potiei left 
 for Rome, and there, on the part of the Metropolitan and their 
 brethren the bishops, they placed the Russian Church at the 
 feet of Clement the Eighth. The Pope celebrated this success 
 by pompous solemnities ; but the projected union could not 
 be realized without the consent of all the Russian bishops, of 
 whom only three, the Metropolitan and the two Volhynians, 
 were as yet gained over. Balaban, Bishop of Lemberg, who, 
 although he was having a scandalous conflict with the confra- 
 ternity, had not sacrificed the national cause to his private 
 enmity, remained with Konstantiri Ostrojski, the soul of 
 orthodoxy. At Warsaw, in the diet of fifteen hundred and 
 ninety-six, Ostrojski and other deputies demanded the removal 
 of the bishops who had deserted the Orthodox Church, and 
 without authority surrendered it to the Church of Rome. 
 Finally, in October, a council was held at Brest, in Lithuania, 
 under the presidency of Nikephoros, envoy of the Patriarch of 
 Constantinople. Three times the dissidents were summoned, 
 but they refused to attend. Then the bishops formulated the 
 sentence of excommunication and deposition. The Uniates 
 hastened to retaliate by publishing an anathema against those 
 who clung to orthodoxy, but their attempt in favor of the 
 cause of Rome failed piteously. The people everywhere 
 declared against them. At Vilna Bishop Potiei narrowly 
 escaped assassination at the hands of the citizens. At Vitepsk, 
 Bishop Kuntsevitch, who, from a renegade, had become a per- 
 secutor, raised a terrible riot ; he was stabbed and thrown into 
 the Dwina. Many of the citizens were punished, and the city
 
 CLEHGY OF THE RUSSIAN CHURCH.
 
 1569-1645.] WESTEKN RUSSIA. 365 
 
 deprived of the law of Magdeburg. The Uniates fished the 
 prelate's body out of the Dwina, and his tomb shortly became 
 famous for its reputed miracles. At Kief, Veniamin Rutski, 
 a successor of Ragoza, reorganized the convents on the model 
 of Latin monasteries ; the monks took the name of Basilians. 
 They did not gain in popularity. A Little Russian saying 
 attributes to them the following catechism : " Wherefore did 
 God create thee and put thee in the world ? " " To do the 
 lords' dirty work." 
 
 The Eastern Church did not allow itself to be defeated so 
 easily as the Jesuits had hoped. It opposed schools with 
 schools, propaganda with propaganda; it preached and it 
 printed. The Uniate Rutski was replaced even at Kief by 
 Peter Mohila, a zealous partisan of orthodoxy. He was a 
 rough prelate, such as was needed in those hard times, and an 
 old soldier, ready to meet force with force. A monastery of 
 the diocese resisted his authority ; he marched to it instantly 
 with troops and guns, and chastised the rebels. In sixteen 
 hundred and thirty-three he made into a college, like those of 
 the Jesuits, the school which had been founded by the confra- 
 ternity ; instituted professors of Latin, Greek, and philosophy, 
 and made it the intellectual centre of Western Russia, and one 
 of the points of departure of the Russian Renaissance. 
 
 COMPLAINTS OF WHITE RUSSIA. RISINGS IN LITTLE 
 
 RUSSIA. 
 
 In the diets of Warsaw the complaints of the orthodox 
 clergy and of the country people, who were more completely 
 enslaved, more cruelly oppressed, since they no longer held the 
 religion of their masters, did not remain without an echo. A 
 deputy from Volhynia, Lavrenti Drevninski, exclaimed at the 
 Diet of sixteen hundred and twenty : " When your Majesty 
 makes war on Turkey, from whom do you obtain the greater 
 part of your troops ? From the Russian nation, which holds
 
 366 HISTORY OF EUSSIA. [CHAP. XX. 
 
 the orthodox faith ; from that nation which, if it does not 
 receive relief from its sufferings and an answer to its prayers, 
 can no longer continue to make itself a rampart for your king- 
 dom. How can you beg it to sacrifice all to secure for the 
 country the blessings of peace, when in its homes there is no 
 peace ? Every one sees clearly the persecutions that the old 
 Russian nation suffers for its religion. In the large towns our 
 churches are sealed up, and the church domains are pillaged ; 
 from the monasteries the monks have departed, and cattle in 
 their stead are quartered within them. Children die without 
 baptism ; the remains of the dead, deprived of the prayers of 
 the Church, are carried out of the city like dead beasts ; men 
 and women live together without the benediction of the priest; 
 they die without confession, without communion. Is not 
 this to offend God himself, and will not God avenge these 
 crimes ? At Lemberg no one except a Uniate can live in 
 the city, trade freely, and become a member of the union 
 
 of artisans For twenty years in each dietine, in each 
 
 diet, we have asked for our rights and liberties with bitter 
 tears, and for twenty years we have not been able to obtain 
 them. We shall have to cry with the prophet, ' God, judge 
 me, and judge my actions.' ' The situation of the serfs had 
 become specially intolerable : besides the Polish or Polonized 
 scourge, the Jew, whom the noble had made steward of his 
 lands, and to whom he had given the right ef life and death 
 over his subjects, and farmed out the fishing and hunting, the 
 lord, besides the Latin missionary, they suffered from a third 
 roads and taverns, even the orthodox Church, so completely, 
 that the peasant could neither marry nor baptize his child 
 without having bought from this miscreant the right to 
 approach the sanctuary. 
 
 The populations of White Russia had suffered, and were 
 still to suffer long, without rebellion. But this was not the 
 case with the Little Russian populations of the Ukraina. 
 They had colonized the steppes of the south, and reconquered
 
 1569-1645.] WESTERN EUSSIA. 367 
 
 the desert from the Tatars. To attract emigrants to fill the 
 royal grants, the Polish lords offered twenty or thirty years of 
 absolute liberty. Owing to this, the desert was peopled with 
 wonderful rapidity, and on this virgin soil a new nation was 
 formed, which was ignorant of slavery, which would not listen 
 to the idea of only thirty years' liberty, but dreamed of perpet- 
 ual freedom. The King of Poland favored this race of hardy 
 pioneers, these intrepid soldiers. The Ukraina was for him 
 a sort of military frontier, a strong rampart for Poland against 
 the Tatar and the Turk. 
 
 These warlike populations were organized in twenty polki, 
 or regiments, of Cossacks, those of Pereiaslaf, Tcherkask, Mir- 
 gorod, Poltava, and others. Each polk had its polkovnik, or 
 colonel : all obeyed one supreme chief, the hetman of Little 
 Russia, nominated by the king, who presided over the starsltina, 
 or council of elders. The starshina was composed of the 
 oboznoe, the head of the baggage department ; of the judge ; 
 of the pisar, the secretary or chancellor ; of the esaul, or cap- 
 tain ; of the standard-bearer; of the polkovniki; of ihetsotnifci, 
 or centurions ; of the atamans. When the king invested the 
 hetman, he handed to him the bantchuk, or banner, like a 
 horse's tail, the stick or mace, and the seal. In time the 
 Cossacks became formidable to the King of Poland himself; 
 they incessantly embroiled him with his dangerous neighbor, 
 the Ottoman Empire. Batory was forced to punish with death 
 more than one Cossack chief for having violated a truce or a 
 treaty of peace, and he also limited the number of the military 
 population, recognizing as Cossacks only those who were in- 
 scribed on the register, to the number of six thousand, con- 
 demning the others to the cultivation of the soil, that is, to 
 serfage. But the Cossacks would have nothing to do with the 
 labor due the Polish lords, nor would they admit the limita- 
 tions of the king. Notwithstanding the register, they re- 
 mained under arms, a formidable force, who in the religious 
 struggle \vere all enlisted on the side of orthodoxy, and who
 
 368 HISTORY OF EUSSIA. [CHAP. XX. 
 
 caused royalty and the Uniate hierarchy and aristocracy to 
 tremble. 
 
 Besides the Cossacks of the sedentary populations, or the 
 Cossacks of the towns, there were also the Zaporoshtsui, the 
 men from beyond the porogi, the rapids or cataracts of the 
 Dnieper. They stood in the same relation to the Little Rus- 
 sian Cossacks as the latter did to the Russo-Lithuanian popu- 
 lation ; they were the vanguard of the vanguard, the advanced 
 sentry of the Russian nationality. They had intrenched them- 
 selves in the Veliki Luki, or "Large Meadows," a fortified 
 island of the Dnieper, and had built a fort, surrounded by a 
 palisade. They recognized no authority ; like the Knights of 
 Rhodes and Malta, they encamped on the land wrested from 
 the Mussulmans, and continued the holy war with Turk and 
 Tatar, when Christendom was at peace with them. They 
 neither gave nor asked quarter, existed on the plunder of the 
 infidel, courted dangers and martyrdom, and received no 
 women in their camp. They were a race of warrior-monks, 
 a Church militant, the Templars and Hospitallers of the 
 Dnieper. More than one Polish noble of high rank came to 
 join them in their life of adventure and heroic poverty, and 
 learned from them lessons of courage and chivalry. All were 
 equal, all brothers, and ate like the Spartans at a common 
 table ; the offices of the ataman of the camp, and of the ten 
 atamans of the hiren, or Cossack village, were obtained by 
 election. They had intimate relations with the Cossacks of 
 the Don, and on land and sea were the scourge of Islamism, 
 the Barbary Christians of the Black Sea. 
 
 The ill-feeling between the aristocratic government of Poland 
 and the orthodox population of Little Russia continued to in- 
 crease. When the Polish nobles wished to treat the free hus- 
 bandmen as serfs they deserted in crowds to the countries of the 
 Ukraina ; the boldest went to reinforce the hordes of the Dnie- 
 per Cossacks or the camp of the Zaporoshtsui. Their blind 
 bards hastened from village to village, singing the song of
 
 1569-1645.] WESTERN RUSSIA. 369 
 
 justice : " In this world there is no justice, justice is not to 
 be found here ; now justice lives under the laws of injustice. 
 To-day justice is imprisoned by the nobles ; injustice is seated 
 at her ease by the noble lords in the hall of honor. To-day 
 justice stands near the threshold, and injustice is throned with 
 the noble lords, and hydromel is poured out into cups for in- 
 justice. justice ! our mother with the wings of an eagle, 
 where shall we find thee ? May God send the man who will 
 perform justice, may God send days of prosperity ! " These 
 wandering poets sang so persistently, that the villages were 
 emptied for the benefit of the Cossack camps, and justice 
 ended by spreading her " eagle's wings," and the men " who 
 were to perform justice " showed themselves openly. 
 
 The orthodox religion persecuted by the Uniates, the threat- 
 ened serfage, the insolence of the nobles, the robberies of the 
 Jews, the register and its limitation, gave rise in the sixteenth 
 and seventeenth centuries to a series of revolts in which the 
 Zaporoshtsui, who were always zealous adherents of orthodoxy, 
 in spite of their brigandage, played a great part. Specially 
 distinguished among the Cossack chiefs were Nalivaiko, 
 Pavliuk, Ostranitsa, and many others, whose memory has been 
 retained by the wandering singers of the Ukraina. The gov- 
 ernment wished after each victory to give satisfaction to the 
 Little Russians, but their authority was not sufficient to restrain 
 either the demands of the lords or the intolerance of the Jesuits. 
 To the horrible atrocities perpetrated on the insurgents, the 
 latter retaliated at each insurrection by atrocities still greater. 
 Each time the government was victorious, and after each defeat 
 the yoke pressed more heavily on Little Russia. From these 
 successes sprang a new danger for Poland. The eyes of the 
 oppressed turned towards an orthodox sovereign, the Tsar 
 of Russia ; the democratic populations of the Ukraina over- 
 came their repugnance to authority when they saw the lawless- 
 ness and violence produced by Polish liberties. The Cossacks 
 imagined they could conquer if they had an ally, and this ally 
 was to be found only at Moscow.
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 ALEXIS MIKHAILOVITCH AND HIS SON 
 FEODOR. 
 
 1645 - 1682. 
 
 EARLY TEAKS OF ALEXIS. SEDITIONS. KHMELNITSKI. CONQUEST 
 OF SMOLENSK AND EASTERN UKRAINA. STENKO EAZIN. ECCLE- 
 SIASTICAL EEFORMS OF NIKON. THE PRECURSORS OF PETER THE 
 GREAT. EEIGN OF FEODOR ALEXIE>ITCH (1676-1682). 
 
 EARLY YEARS OF ALEXIS. SEDITIONS. 
 
 fTUlE reign of Alexis Mikhailovitch may be summed up in 
 JL three facts : the reaction against Poland and the union 
 with Little Russia ; the struggle between the empire and the 
 Cossacks ; the first attempt at religious reform and the growth 
 of European influence. 
 
 The new Tsar, the son of Mikhail and Evdokia Streshnef, 
 was good and easy, like his father. In his most violent fits 
 of passion, say the contemporary writers, he never allowed 
 himself to go beyond kicks and cuffs. Though his mind was 
 quicker than his father's, he gave himself up to any one who 
 took the trouble to influence him, even to the point of permit- 
 ting himself to be ruled entirely, unlike Ivan the Terrible, 
 who, as we have seen, never long retained the same favorites. 
 The extreme good-nature of the prince towards his relations 
 had grave consequences. The people were oppressed with 
 impunity, and were allowed to make no complaint. Alexis 
 gave all his confidence to the boyar Morozof, who had taken 
 charge of his education, and who for thirty years had never
 
 1645-1682.] ALEXIS MIKHAlLOVITCH. FEODOB. 371 
 
 left him. Morozof was proud, ambitious, and unscrupulous ; 
 but learned, intelligent, and full of shrewdness. He excelled 
 above all in disentangling the diplomatic complications be- 
 queathed to him by the last reign. When in January, sixteen 
 hundred and forty-eight, Alexis determined to marry, Morozof 
 naturally was not disturbed at seeing the young bride, Maria 
 Ilyinitchna Miloslavski, arrive with a whole new dynasty of 
 relations and " men of the time," because the choice had re- 
 sulted from his manipulations, and he knew that the Milo- 
 slavski family were subservient to his interests. Instead of 
 conspiring, therefore, as was usual, against the health or beauty 
 of the Tsaritsa, he preferred to associate her family with his 
 power, and thus secure his position. Only ten days after the 
 Tsar's unostentatious wedding, he married Anna, a younger 
 sister of Maria Ilyinitchna, and became the brother-in-law of 
 his sovereign. He thus added to the old title of favorite the 
 new one of a kinsman by his wife, and was strengthened in 
 his power instead of being ejected from it. His influence with 
 his master was greater than Richelieu's with Louis the Thir- 
 teenth, and he had the honor of beginning the revenge for the 
 civil wars, the war with Poland. 
 
 Affairs in the interior were always too complicated for 
 Alexis to be able to act very energetically in his relations with 
 foreign powers. The Russian people in the " time of the 
 troubles " had unlearned the passive and resigned obedience 
 that had formerly distinguished them ; they knew no longer 
 how to suffer uncomplainingly, and complaint soon led to 
 revolt. We must also recognize the fact that they suffered 
 more than formerly. Russia had come out of its civil wars 
 exhausted; its agriculture and commerce were ruined, and its 
 population diminished by emigrations and the flight of the 
 peasants into the Cossack country. The state, which was 
 already beginning to feel the heavy expenses of a modern 
 empire, which had to keep up an army, foreign troops, all the 
 machinery of war, diplomacy, and an administration, saw itself
 
 372 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XXL 
 
 forced to increase the taxes, which fell more and more heavily 
 in proportion as the population decreased in numbers. The 
 Russian government united the vices of the past with those 
 of modern times ; the corruption of its agents, the impunity 
 of the favorites and their creatures, and the defective organi- 
 zation of justice, tried to the utmost the diminished patience 
 of the people. 
 
 The year sixteen hundred and forty-eight, which saw the 
 breaking out of the Fronde in France, witnessed a terrible 
 revolt in Moscow. Miloslavski, a man of great arrogance and 
 avarice, had taken advantage of his new position to put his 
 relatives into places of profit, which they abused. The indig- 
 nation of the people became boundless, and, after ineffectual 
 protests, as the Tsar was returning to his palace from the 
 cathedral, on the first of June, they stopped him and de- 
 manded righteous judges and the destruction of the monopoly 
 held by Miloslavski' s relatives. Alexis, powerless to stem the 
 torrent, had to deliver the judge, Pleshtcheef, over to the people, 
 who dealt him summary justice, together with Nasar Tchistoi, 
 the clerk of the council, who by his monopoly had enormously 
 increased the price of salt, thus affecting the consumption of 
 fish, which was the staple food of the poor. Then they plun- 
 dered Morozof's house and those of many other wealthy and 
 influential men. On the same day a terrible conflagration 
 devastated Moscow, and that was followed by a new sedition. 
 The people demanded the officer of the crown, Trakhaniotof, 
 who was likewise handed over to them ; then, finally, their fury 
 turned against Morozof himself, but the Tsar aided his brother- 
 in-law to escape ; he took refuge in the convent of Saint Cyril, 
 in Bielozersk, whence he emerged quietly, like another Maza- 
 rin, when the public excitement was calmed. Though the 
 revolts which were instigated in Moscow by certain malcon- 
 tents were thus easily appeased, in several other Russian cities 
 the people gave more trouble. At Pskof an insurrection broke 
 out because the Tsar paid in corn from the imperial granaries
 
 1645-1682.] ALEXIS MIKHAlLOVITCH. FEODOE. 373 
 
 of that city the indemnity of forty thousand rubles due the 
 Swedish government for those who emigrated from the Rus- 
 sian provinces which had been ceded to Sweden. This was 
 in accordance with the stipulations of a treaty subsequent to 
 that of Stolbovo, but the rumor spread among the people that 
 the traitor Morozof was sending money and corn to the Ger- 
 mans, who would soon make their appearance in Pskof and 
 Novgorod. Lewin Nummens of Narva, a Swedish merchant, 
 who had come with considerable money from Moscow in 
 February, sixteen hundred and fifty, was seized by the popu- 
 lace, tortured, and put in prison ; the Tsar's envoys, the 
 vo'ievod Nikophor Sabakin and Prince Volkonski, were also 
 imprisoned, and narrowly escaped with their lives ; and Arch- 
 bishop Makari was twice put in chains. From Pskof the 
 revolt spread to Novgorod, where the German merchants were 
 first attacked. A Novgorodian named Wolk forewarned them 
 that they were in danger, and many of them had fled with 
 their possessions from the city. But Wolk, after receiving a 
 reward from the Germans, began to instigate the inhabitants 
 against the foreigners as traitors and friends of Morozof, who 
 used them as spies. The houses of the Germans were 
 assaulted and plundered ; the Danish ambassador, on the 
 pretence that he was forwarding money to the Germans, was 
 attacked by the people and left dead in the street. Archbishop 
 Nikon, who tried to quell the rebellion by spiritual arms, was 
 met by blows ; the streltsui made common cause with the 
 people, and even some of the nobles refused to assist Feodor 
 Khilkof, the voievod, in the discharge of his duty. Novgorod 
 submitted only at the approach of Prince Khovanski, on the 
 twentieth of April, at the head of his troops. The ringleaders 
 were handed over to the Tsar's officers, but only Wolk was put 
 to death in expiation of the murder of the Danish ambassador. 
 Ivan Sheglof and ten others received the knout, and were sent 
 to Siberia. The three hundred remaining were either slightly 
 punished or set free unconditionally. Khovanski's troops were
 
 374 HISTOEY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XXI. 
 
 insufficient for the reduction of Pskof, which, behind its tried 
 ramparts, with abundant supplies of - provisions, prepared to 
 resist the Muscovites, as it had resisted the Poles. Although 
 the Pskovians made many unsuccessful sorties, they held out 
 until the middle of August, and capitulated only under the 
 promise of a general amnesty, which was brought by a depu- 
 tation of nobles and merchants from. Moscow. The Pskovians 
 then acknowledged their fault, and voluntarily surrendered the 
 instigators of the insurrection. 
 
 While these seditions and revolts were in progress, an ad- 
 venturer by the name of Timoshka Ankudinof, the son of a 
 linen-draper in Ukraina, determined to play the part of another 
 false Dmitri. By the connivance of a Polish nobleman he 
 proclaimed himself the son of the Tsar Vasili Shui'ski, using 
 for proof certain mysterious marks which were imprinted on 
 his body. A Greek priest interpreted them in accordance with 
 this theory. He was received with some distinction at the 
 Court of Vladislas, was sent to Constantinople with letters of 
 recommendation, but being refused by the Sultan he went to 
 Vienna, thence to Stockholm, and was finally delivered over 
 to the Tsar in sixteen hundred and fifty-four, by the Duke 
 Priedrich of Holstein, and was quartered alive. The old trick 
 of imposture had become too palpable to have any effect upon 
 even the credulous masses. 
 
 It was now time to turn against external enemies the spirit 
 of turbulence that the civil war had left in the masses. 
 Happily for Russia, Poland was still more profoundly agi- 
 tated, and a revolt more considerable than those of Moscow, 
 Pskof, or Novgorod was to open to the Muscovite armies the 
 entrance into the Ukraina. 
 
 KHMELNITSKI. CONQUEST OF SMOLENSK AND EASTERN 
 UKRAINA. STENKO RAZIN. 
 
 We have seen that Little Russia, after many partial risings, 
 was waiting only for a chief to break out into a general insur-
 
 WOMEN OF PSKOF.
 
 1645-1682.] ALEXIS MIKHAlLOVITCH. FEODOR. 375 
 
 rection. This chief was found in Bogdan Khmelnitski, a 
 brave, clever, energetic, and even educated Cossack. His 
 father had been a Polish noble, and for some crime had taken 
 refuge with the Cossacks, married a Cossack maiden, and had 
 been considered a famous warrior. His only son, Bogdan 
 Khmelnitski, after a training in Kief and probably in a Jesuit 
 college, was advanced to the position of Notary of the Cos- 
 sacks, and as a reward for his faithful services received the 
 estate of Subotovo, about a mile from Tchigirin, the principal 
 city of the Cossacks, situated near the Rapids. The Pole 
 Tchaplinski, under-bailiff of Tchigirin, envious of Bogdan's 
 good fortune, on the pretext that Subotovo belonged to the 
 bailiff, managed to drive him from the estate, seduced his wife, 
 while he was in Warsaw seeking justice, and also seized his 
 son, a boy of ten years, and had him whipped in the public 
 market-place by his men. Khmelnitski could obtain neither 
 redress for himself nor help for his countrymen against the 
 Jews and the taxes. But King Vladislas is said to have told 
 him that the senators would not obey their king, and, drawing 
 a sword on paper, he handed it to Bogdan, observing, " This 
 is the sign royal : if you have arms at your sides, resist those 
 who insult and rob you ; revenge your wrongs with your 
 swords, and when the time comes you will help me against 
 the pagans and the rebels of my kingdom." In the Polish 
 anarchy of that date it is quite possible that the king may 
 have held this language, and himself placed the sword in the 
 hands of those whom he could not protect. Vladislas then 
 gave Bogdan the staff and colors of a Cossack hetman, and 
 in return Bogdan promised him the following year a body of 
 twelve thousand men. 
 
 The royal field-marshal Konetspolski, one of the richest 
 landholders of Poland, in sixteen hundred and thirty-five 
 caused the French engineer Beauplan to build a strong fortress 
 on the first of the rapids above Kief. Hardly was the new 
 work completed before Soliman, the Cossack commander, on
 
 376 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XXI. 
 
 his return from an expedition, attacked it and cut off the gar- 
 rison. But soon after he was seized by Konetspolski, sent to 
 Warsaw, and executed. Two years later eighteen thousand 
 Cossacks seized their arms and deposed the royal hetman, but 
 were defeated by Nikolai Pototski, and a third of their num- 
 ber were left dead on the field. Thereupon the Diet still 
 further reduced the privileges of the Cossacks, and in all 
 respects they were treated like slaves. Consequently, when 
 Bogdan Khmelnitski informed them of the secret stipulations 
 of the king, they acknowledged him as their hetman in six- 
 teen hundred and forty-eight, and were ready to unite with a 
 Mussulman army against the hated Polish nobility. Bogdan 
 then passed over to the Khan of the Crimea, who, when he 
 found that the Cossacks were in earnest, furnished him with 
 forces. To Tatars and Zaporoshtsui were soon added all the 
 malcontents of Little Russia. Cossacks and people were alike 
 determined to finish with it. When Nikolai Pototski learned 
 from the Jewish tax-gatherers the news of the commotions 
 among the Cossacks, he sent against them his son Stephan 
 with an army of five thousand men, of whom thirty-five hun- 
 dred were registered Cossacks, who immediately deserted to 
 Khmelnitski at the battle of the " Yellow Waters." Bogdan 
 was then reinforced by an army of forty thousand men under 
 Tohaibeg, and Stephan Pototski and his whole force were taken 
 prisoners. Finally, he defeated Nikolai Pototski at Kersun, 
 and captured eight thousand men and forty-one guns. The 
 generals were given to the Tatars as a reward, and one of them, 
 Sienavski, was ransomed for twenty thousand ducats. This 
 double victory was the signal of a general insurrection. The 
 orthodox clergy everywhere preached a crusade against the 
 Jesuits and Uniates, and everywhere the peasants rose against 
 the Polish or Polonized nobles. The castles were demolished, 
 the governors put to death. The Jews were in a sad strait. 
 According to a popular song, they only asked one thing, 
 to be allowed " to escape in their shirts beyond the Vistula,
 
 1645-1682.] ALEXIS MIKHAlLOVITCH. FEODOR. 377 
 
 abandoning their wealth to the Cossacks, and promising to 
 teach their children to live honestly, and to covet no more the 
 land of the Ukraina." 
 
 Khmelnitski now thought that he had attained all the ad- 
 vantage that was necessary, and in June, eighteen hundred 
 and forty-eight, he wrote the king a letter, explaining how the 
 Cossacks, after vainly asking for their rights, had been obliged 
 to use force in order to bring their Polish oppressors to terms. 
 He went on to say that they were ready to take an oath of 
 faithful allegiance so soon as their grievances should be re- 
 dressed. The king never received this letter, for at this critical 
 moment for Poland he died, in consequence of a cold caught 
 while on a hunting expedition in Lithuania, and the Diet met 
 at Warsaw for the election of a new king, with all its accus- 
 tomed turbulence. At this news the revolt in Little Russia 
 increased. Wherever the nobles could defend themselves, they 
 gave back cruelty for cruelty. leremia Vishnevetski, a pow- 
 erful Polonized Russian lord, assaulted a town belonging to 
 him, and took vengeance in the most horrible manner upon 
 those who had revolted from him. " Make them suffer," he 
 cried to the executioners, " they must be made to feel death " ; 
 and his prisoners were impaled. The Cossacks, who, now that 
 Vladislas was dead, had no one to whom they could look for 
 justice, broke out more violently than ever ; they felt that they 
 were fighting for life or death, that there was for them no 
 choice but between total extinction and absolute liberty. 
 Khmelnitski pursued his course of success ; he defeated the 
 Poles near Pilava, and penetrated into Gallicia as far as Lvof, 
 or Lemberg, a rich, half-Jewish city, which had to pay a war 
 indemnity. He was besieging Zamostie when he learned that 
 Ian Kasimir was elected in the place of his brother Vla- 
 dislas. The new king at once sent envoys to bring about an 
 understanding. Adam Kisiel, Maximilian Brsovski, Castellan 
 of Kief, and other Poles of high rank, met Khmelnitski in 
 Pereiaslavl in February, sixteen hundred and forty-nine. They
 
 378 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XXL 
 
 brought him from the king the commission of hetman, the 
 hetman's staff set with sapphires, and a red flag decorated with 
 the white eagle and the king's name. Khmelnitski appeared 
 in rich clothing, and poured out brandy into golden cups for 
 the commissioners. His wife, decked with diamonds and 
 precious stones, filled their pipes. But he refused to treat 
 with them except openly in the market-place. The commis- 
 sioners promised them the free use of their religion, and that 
 all the Cossacks should have their former rights and privileges ; 
 but they demanded that all the insurgent peasants should forth- 
 with return to their ploughs and herds. " Let the Cossacks 
 alone bear arms," said the Poles. A universal shout of in- 
 dignation arose at these terms. Bogdan then broke up the 
 assembly, and when, five days later, the commissioners were 
 about to withdraw, he offered them terms of peace which they 
 in turn rejected. Bogdan could abandon neither the Cos- 
 sacks, who would not hear of the register, 7ior the peasants, 
 whose revolt had given him the victory. " The time for nego- 
 tiations is past," he said to the commissioners ; " I must free 
 the whole Russian nation from the yoke of the Poles. At first 
 I took up arms to avenge my own injuries ; now I am fighting 
 for the orthodox faith. The people, as far as Lublin, as far as 
 Cracow, will stand by me. I will not betray them." The 
 war then began anew. Khmelnitski's army consisted of more 
 than two hundred thousand Cossacks and armed peasants, and 
 in addition the Khan of the Crimea sent him one hundred and 
 sixty thousand Tatar cavalry. The Polish forces, strongly in- 
 trenched at Zbarash, were entirely surrounded, but they held 
 out from the tenth of July until the fifteenth of August, when 
 the king arrived in person with reinforcements. Ian Kasimir 
 found himself at Zborovo surrounded by the innumerable 
 cavalry of the enemy. It would have been all over with him 
 had he not purchased the defection of the Khan of the Crimea 
 by a large sum, and the promise of an annual tribute. The 
 Khan then retired, assuring his ally that the king pardoned
 
 1645-1682.] ALEXIS MIKHAlLOVITCH. FEODOE. 379 
 
 the Cossacks, and was ready to take their commander into his 
 favor. Under these circumstances a treaty was brought about ; 
 the Cossacks were restored to their former privileges; and, 
 though the register was re-established, the number of Cossacks 
 enrolled was raised to forty thousand ; Bogdan was recognized 
 hetman of Little Russia, and the town of Tchigirin assigned 
 to him as a residence. It was agreed that there should be 
 neither Crown troops nor Jews in the localities inhabited by 
 the Cossacks, and no Jesuits where orthodox schools existed. 
 The Metropolitan of Kief was to have a seat in the senate of 
 Warsaw. 
 
 What Bogdan had foreseen when he refused to come to 
 terms really happened ; the treaty could not be executed. 
 The number of fighting men who had taken part in the elec- 
 tion exceeded forty thousand, were those in excess to be 
 relegated to the work of the fields, to forced labor for the 
 lords ? The people had helped the Cossacks, were they 
 then to be surrendered to their masters who would not be 
 likely to show themselves very cordial to those who had de- 
 serted from them? Bogdan soon found himself involved in 
 inextricable difficulties : on one side he was violating the treaty 
 to enroll more than forty thousand men in his register ; on the 
 other hand, if he executed it, he would have to begin by in- 
 flicting death on those who refused to submit. He was wear- 
 ing out his popularity in performing this ungrateful task. 
 His subjects grew rebellious, and sent him a deputation who 
 said that if he were playing the traitor to them, he must be 
 prepared to see a successor take his place. He preferred to 
 resume warlike operations, with the excuse that the Poles had 
 broken certain clauses of the treaty. This war was less suc- 
 cessful than the first ; the Khan of the Crimea, who a second 
 time came to the aid of the Cossacks, by his cowardice a 
 second time betrayed them, and the Cossacks were beaten at 
 Berestetchko. The conditions of the Peace concluded at the 
 village of Bielaia Tserkov, or White Church, were more severe
 
 380 HISTOEY OF EUSSIA. [CHAP. XXL 
 
 than those of the first treaty. The number of registered Cos- 
 sacks was reduced to twenty thousand ; and twenty thousand 
 more, thus finding themselves excluded from the army, were 
 thrown back upon the people. Being restricted to the vicinity 
 of Kief and unable to find the means of subsistence, the greater 
 part chose rather to emigrate to Russian soil, to wander to the 
 Don, or to live by brigandage on the Volga. 
 
 A peace such as this was only a truce, and the Cossacks 
 were certain to break it as soon as they could find an ally. 
 Bogdan wrote to entreat the Tsar to take Little Russia under 
 his protection. The government of Alexis had been seeking 
 for some time a pretext for rupture with Poland. The Polish 
 government, in writing to the Tsar, had not used the full royal 
 title. Moscow never missed an opportunity for remonstrance ; 
 Warsaw assured them that it was pure inadvertence. " Then," 
 said the Russians, " an example must be made of the guilty." 
 No example was made, and the diminution of title was used 
 at every interchange of notes. The Court of Russia had been 
 keeping up this excuse for war, and was waiting for a moment 
 to profit by it ; this was found in the appeal of Khmelnitski. 
 The Estates were convoked, and to them were reported the 
 repeated insults to his Tsarian Majesty, and the persecution of 
 the true faith in Little Russia. It was added, that the Little 
 Russians, if the Tsar refused to come to their aid, would have 
 to place themselves under the protection of the Sultan. On 
 this occasion the Estates declared for war. Alexis sent the 
 boyar Buturlin to receive the oath of the hetman, the army, 
 and the people of Little Russia. 
 
 It was time for the Tsar to decide. Bogdan, betrayed a 
 third time by the Khan, had been defeated at Ivanets on the 
 Dniester, but on receipt of the news from Moscow, in January, 
 sixteen hundred and fifty-four, he called the General Assembly 
 at Pereiaslavl to announce to them the fact. " Noble colonels, 
 captains, and centurions, and you army of Zaporoshtsui, and 
 you orthodox Christians," cried the hetman, " you see it is no
 
 1645-1682.] ALEXIS MIKHAlLOVITCH. FEODOR. 381 
 
 longer possible to live without a prince. Now we have four 
 to choose from : the Sultan of Turkey ; the Khan of the Crimea ; 
 the King of Poland ; and the Tsar of orthodox Great Russia, 
 whom for six years we have not ceased to entreat to become 
 our Tsar and lord. The Sultan is a Mussulman ; we know 
 what our brethren the orthodox Greeks suffered at his hands. 
 The Khan is also a Mussulman, and our alliances with him 
 have brought us nothing but trouble. It is needless to remind 
 you of what the Polish nobles have made us endure. But the 
 orthodox Christian Tsar is of the same religion as ourselves. 
 We shall not find a better support than his. Whoever thinks 
 otherwise may go where he likes, the way is open." The air 
 rang with applause ; the multitude cried out with one voice, 
 " We will go with the Eastern Tsar " ; the oath demanded by 
 Buturlin was taken ; and an embassy set out for Moscow, to 
 ask the maintenance of Ukrainian liberties. The Tsar freely 
 granted all their conditions : the army was to be raised per- 
 manently to the number of sixty thousand ; the Cossacks were 
 to elect their hetman; the rights of their nobility and the 
 towns were to be maintained ; the administration of the towns 
 and the imposition of taxes were to be intrusted to the natives ; 
 the hetman was to have the right of receiving foreign ambas- 
 sadors, but was to signify the fact to the Tsar ; and he was 
 forbidden, without special leave, to receive the envoys of Tur- 
 key and Poland. 
 
 In May, sixteen hundred and fifty-four, the Tsar Alexis 
 solemnly announced in the Uspienski Sobor, the Cathedral 
 of the Assumption, that he had resolved to march in person 
 against his enemy, the King of Poland. He commanded that 
 in this campaign no occasion should be given for the generals 
 to dispute precedence. The Polish voi'evodui affirm that on 
 this occasion " Moscow made war in quite a new way, and 
 conquered the people by the clemency and gentleness of the 
 Tsar." This humanity, so well-timed in a war of deliverance, 
 contributed greatly to the success of the Muscovites. Polotsk,
 
 382 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XXI. 
 
 Mohilef, and all the towns of White Russia, in sixteen hundred 
 and fifty-four, opened their gates, one after the other; and 
 Smolensk, strongly fortified and garrisoned, resisted only five 
 weeks, and its final surrender was attributed to the treason of 
 its commander. The following year the Prince Tcherkasski 
 defeated the hetman Radzivil, and began the conquest of 
 Lithuania proper ; Vilna, the capital, Grodno, and Kovno, fell 
 successively. During this time Khmelnitski and the Mus- 
 covites invaded Southwestern Poland and took Lublin. All 
 the East resounded with the Russian victories : it was said at 
 Moscow that the Greeks prayed for the Tsar and refused 
 obedience to any but an orthodox emperor, and that the 
 Hospodars of Valakhia and Moldavia implored Alexis to 
 take them under his protection. 
 
 Poland seemed reduced to the last extremity; and there 
 was still a third enemy to fall on her. Charles the Tenth, 
 King of Sweden, dissatisfied with the conquests of Alexis, 
 arrived and captured Poznania, Warsaw, and Cracow, the three 
 Polish capitals. The King Ian Kasimir saved himself only by 
 escaping from Cracow to Silesia. This conflict of ambitions 
 was, however, the salvation of the country ; the Swede threat- 
 ened the Russian conquests, and claimed Lithuania. He 
 entered into relations with Khmelnitski, who forgot the oath 
 he had taken ; it was the situation of Charles the Twelfth and 
 Mazeppa half a century before their day. The Tsar Alexis feared 
 that he had shaken Poland only to strengthen Sweden, and 
 would not risk the reunion of these two formidable monarchies 
 under the same sceptre. He hastened to negotiate with the 
 Poles, who promised to elect him after the death of their pres- 
 ent king ; then he turned his arms against Sweden. On the 
 Baltic, the latter was the heir of the Livonian Order. Alexis 
 trod in the steps of Ivan the Terrible ; like him, his successes 
 were rapid, but they as rapidly vanished in smoke. He took 
 Diinaburg and Kokenhusen, two old castles of the Knights ; 
 but the Russians besieged Riga in vain, and succeeded no
 
 1645-1682.] ALEXIS MIKHAlLOVITCH. FEODOR. 383 
 
 better at Oreshek or Kexholm. The occupation of Dorpat 
 in sixteen hundred and fifty-six terminated the first campaign ; 
 after that, hostilities languished, and Alexis concluded a truce 
 of twenty years, which secured him Dorpat and a part of his 
 conquests. The affairs of Poland and Little Russia became, 
 however, so terribly complicated in sixteen hundred and sixty- 
 one, that the truce became the Peace of Kardis, by which 
 Alexis abandoned all Livonia. 
 
 The hetman Khmelnitski had more than once given his new 
 sovereign cause for discontent. In spite of his oath, he had 
 negotiated with Sweden and Poland. In fact, now that he 
 had got rid of his former master, he did not want to become 
 the vassal of a new sovereign, but to create a third Slav state 
 between Poland and Russia, and to remain its independent 
 sovereign. This hope was shared by the Cossacks. They 
 had revolted against Poland because the king was weak and 
 could not make himself respected by the aristocracy; they 
 feared the Tsar of Muscovy would be only too strong. All 
 government, all authority, was a burden to the free Cossack. 
 
 Bogdan, however, kept up the appearances of submission. 
 His death, in July, sixteen hundred and fifty-seven, was the 
 signal for disorder. His son luri was only sixteen years of 
 age, but the assembly of the people, in honor of his father, 
 elected him hetman. Ivan Vigovski, chancellor of the Cossack 
 army, was chosen to be his guardian. Vigovski, however, 
 desired to have exclusive command, and he himself took the 
 mace of the hetman ; but Martin Pushkar, the polkovnik, or 
 colonel, of Poltava, and the Zaporoshtsui, refused to recognize 
 him. Vigovski, Pushkar, and the Zaporozh ataman denounced 
 each other at Moscow. Vigovski caused Pushkar to be assassi- 
 nated, and made advances to Poland, to secure himself an ally 
 against the Tsar ; he also applied to the Khan of the Crimea, 
 and with his assistance defeated Prince TrubetskoY at Konotop ; 
 but after the Khan had retired from Little Russia the majority 
 of the Cossacks declared for Moscow, and obliged Vigovski to
 
 384 HISTORY OF EUSSIA. [CHAP. XXI. 
 
 fly to Poland. luri Khmelnitski placed himself at the head 
 of those who were dissatisfied, and was again elected hetman, 
 in sixteen hundred and fifty-nine, and took the oath of alle- 
 giance to the Tsar. 
 
 Meanwhile the troubles of Little Russia revived the courage 
 of the Poles. They succeeded in expelling the Swedes, and 
 refused to execute the treaty of Moscow. The war began 
 afresh, and the Russians were unsuccessful. The very ex- 
 tremity of their misfortunes seemed to have bound the Poles 
 together. After some slight successes one Russian army 
 under Prince Khovanski was defeated at Polonka by the 
 vo'ievod Tcharnetski, the conqueror of the Swedes ; in the 
 south the boyar Sheremetief had made an agreement with 
 the hetman luri Khmelnitski to march by two different 
 routes against Lemberg and there reunite. But Khmelnitski 
 was unexpectedly attacked by the Poles and forced to capitu- 
 late, and the whole army of the enemy, including twenty thou- 
 sand Tatars, turned its attention to Sheremetief, who was 
 completely surrounded in his camp at Tchudnovo. Shereme- 
 tief was forced to surrender, rather by hunger, thirst, and 
 sickness than by the efforts of the Polish commander, Stanislas 
 Pototski. On the twenty-first of September, sixteen hundred 
 and sixty-one, he was allowed to lay down his arms on the 
 condition of paying sixty thousand dollars, evacuating the 
 Ukraina, renouncing the Russian right to protect the country, 
 and remaining a prisoner, with all his staff officers, until Kief, 
 Tchernigof, and Pereiaslavl were opened to the Poles. But 
 hardly had the Poles approached Kief, when the commandant 
 of the city, Prince Boratinski, declared that he was not bound 
 by Sheremetief's promises, and would suffer no Poles to enter. 
 Thereupon the Tatars sent the Russian officers to the Crimea, 
 and took the whole army as prisoners with them. So the 
 Tsar lost in the Ukraina even more than in the north, where 
 Vilna and Lithuania were taken from him. 
 
 After his defeat by Liubomirski near Tchudnovo, Khmelnitski
 
 1645-1682.] ALEXIS MIKHAlLOVITCH. FEODOR. 335 
 
 had deserted the Russian cause and had been placed in com- 
 mand of Hadiatch and Mirgorod, while Somka took his place 
 as hetman, and tried to drive the Poles again from the Ukraina. 
 Somka, with the aid of Romodanovski, completely defeated 
 Khmelnitski at Kanief, in July, sixteen hundred and sixty-two, 
 and the latter resigned his office of hetman and entered a 
 monastery at Korsun. Teteria, his successor, had done homage 
 to the king ; but the country on the left bank of the Dnieper 
 refused to recognize him as hetman, and elected Briukhovetski, 
 who was devoted to Russia. Ian Kasimir crossed the river, 
 and was on the point of reconquering the whole Ukraina ; but 
 having been repulsed at the siege of Glukhof, he lost all his 
 best troops through hunger and cold in the steppes of the 
 desert. The two empires were exhausted by a war which 
 had already lasted ten years. The whole of Poland had been 
 overrun by Swedes, Russians, and Cossacks. Russia had no 
 longer money with which to pay its army, and had recourse 
 to a forced currency, by which a bronze coinage was given the 
 fictitious value of silver. Everywhere were heard bitter com- 
 plaints of the famine. At Moscow a riot broke out against 
 the Miloslavskis, the kinsmen of the Tsaritsa, and the multi- 
 tude marched to the palace of Kolomenskoe to drag them out 
 by force. The soldiers had to fire on the rebels, and seven 
 thousand of them were killed or taken. 
 
 Notwithstanding all this, neither the Poles nor the Russians 
 would lay down arms without being assured the possession of 
 all that they had conquered with so many sacrifices. Poland, 
 in sixteen hundred and sixty-four, was attacked by two new 
 ' misfortunes, the revolt of Prince Ltibomirski, who, having 
 gained the ill-will of the court, and of the queen especially, 
 was declared a traitor, with confiscation of his property ; and 
 the death of Teteria, whose successor, Doroshenko, went over 
 to the Sultan, and by so doing involved the government in a 
 war with both Turks and Tatars. It was necessary to treat 
 with Russia, and a truce of thirteen years and six months was 
 
 VOL. i. 25
 
 386 HISTOEY OP RUSSIA. [CHAP. XXI. 
 
 concluded in sixteen hundred and sixty-seven at Andrusovo. 
 Alexis renounced Lithuania, but kept Smolensk and Kief on 
 the right bank of the Dnieper, and all the Little Russian left 
 bank. 
 
 The treaty with Poland did not give peace to Little Russia. 
 Neither the Dnieper Cossacks nor the Don Cossacks could 
 become reconciled to the obedience and regularity essential to 
 a modern state. The more Russia became civilized and cen- 
 tralized, the more it became separated from the men of the 
 Steppe ; the further the frontier of this civilized Russia ad- 
 vanced to the south, the nearer approached the inevitable 
 conflict. The reign of Alexis, troubled at first by the revolts 
 of the Muscovite cities, was now vexed by the revolts of the 
 Cossacks. 
 
 The hetman Briukhovetski was a devoted adherent of Russia, 
 but he was surrounded by many malcontents. As usual, the 
 people had not gained all they had hoped by the revolution ; 
 he saw, however, in the absolute authority of the Tsar, a bul- 
 wark against the Little Russian oligarchy of the starshina and 
 the polkovniki, and against the turbulence of the Cossacks. 
 He said to the latter, " God has delivered us from you ; you 
 can no longer pillage and devastate our houses." The Cos- 
 sacks and the starshina, or, in other words, the military and 
 aristocratic party, were still more displeased to see the Musco- 
 vite voi'evodui establish themselves in the towns. The Repub- 
 lic of the Zaporoshtsui already feared that it had given itself 
 a master. Mefodi, Metropolitan of Kief, encouraged the resist- 
 ance of a party of the clergy who wished to remain subject to 
 the Patriarch of Constantinople, and not to be transferred to 
 the Patriarch of Moscow. It was Mefodi who organized the 
 rebellion ; he made advances to the hetman, who opened a 
 negotiation with Doroshenko, the ataman of the right bank, 
 who promised to resign his office and to recognize as chief of 
 Little Russia the man who would be its deliverer. The weak 
 Briukhovetski allowed himself to be persuaded, and at the
 
 1645-1682.] ALEXIS MIKHAlLOVITCH. FEODOfi. 387 
 
 Assembly of Hadiatch, in sixteen hundred and sixty-eight, it 
 was decided to revolt against the Tsar, and to take the oath to 
 the Sultan, as the men of the right bank had already done. Two 
 voievodui and one hundred and twenty Muscovites were put to 
 death. A short time after, Briukhovetski was slain by order of 
 Doroshenko, who became hetman of both banks. Two parties 
 divided Little Russia, the party of independence, or the Polish 
 and Turkish party, and the party favorable to Moscow ; the 
 latter was predominant on the left bank. It did not hesitate 
 to make terms with the Tsar, and, at the price of a few con- 
 cessions, a second time submitted to him entirely. Mnogo- 
 greshnui, the new hetman, took up his abode at Baturin. 
 
 The right bank had no reason to pride itself on the policy 
 to which it was committed by Doroshenko. It became the 
 theatre of a terrible war between Turkey and Poland, and was 
 cruelly ravaged by Mahomet the Fourth with a force of one 
 hundred and fifty thousand men. The Khan of the Crimea 
 and Doroshenko joined with the Sultan, and Kamieniets, 
 the capital of the southern frontier, was captured. In sixteen 
 hundred and seventy-two, Ian Kasimir's weak successor, King 
 Mikhail Vishnevetski, concluded a disgraceful truce with Ma- 
 homet, and agreed to abandon the Cossacks and Kamieniets 
 and pay an annual tribute. But Mikhail died in the follow- 
 ing year, and Ian Sobieski, after gaining a glorious victory 
 over the Turks at Khotsim, was recalled, and elected king 
 by a majority over his rival, the tsarevitch Feodor, who had 
 been nominated. Meanwhile the left, or Muscovite, bank had 
 less to suffer, although the Sultan claimed it equally as his own 
 possession, but the inhabitants had to fight with only their old 
 enemies the Tatars. 
 
 The Cossacks of the Don at this period were, on the whole, 
 tolerably quiet ; but one of their number, Stephan or Stenko 
 Razin, overturned all Eastern Russia. The immigration of 
 the Cossacks of the Dnieper, expelled from their native land 
 by war, had created a great famine in these barren plains of
 
 388 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XXI. 
 
 the Don. Stenko assembled some of these starved adventurers, 
 and formed a scheme for the capture of Azof; but, on being 
 hindered by the starshina of the Dontsui, he turned towards 
 the East, towards the Volga and the laik, now called the Ural. 
 His reputation was wide-spread ; he was said to be a magi- 
 cian, against whom neither sabre, balls, nor bullets could pre- 
 vail, and the brigands of all the country crowded to his banner. 
 He swept the Caspian, and ravaged the shores of Persia. The 
 Russian government, powerless to crush him, offered him a 
 pardon if he would surrender his guns and boats stolen from 
 the Crown. He accepted the offer; but his exploits, his 
 wealth acquired by pillage, and his princely liberality created 
 him an immense party among the lower classes, and among 
 the Cossacks and even the streltsui of the towns. The lands 
 of the Volga were always ready for a social revolution ; hence 
 the success of Razin, and later of Pugatchef. There brigands 
 were popular and respected ; honest merchants, who came to 
 the Don for trading purposes, and learned that Stenko had 
 begun the career of a pirate, did not hesitate to join him. 
 
 In sixteen hundred and seventy, Stenko, having spent all 
 the money he had gained by pillage, went up the Don with 
 an army of vagabonds, and thence crossed to the Volga. All 
 the country rose on the approach of a chief already so famous. 
 The inhabitants of Tsaritsuin opened their gates to him. A 
 flotilla was sent against him, but the sailors and the streltsui 
 surrendered, and betrayed to him their commanders. Astra- 
 khan revolted, and delivered up its two voievodui, one of 
 whom, Prince Prozorovski, was thrown from the top of a bell- 
 tower, and his son was barbarously murdered. Ascending 
 the Volga, he took Saratof and Samara, and raised the country 
 of Nijni-Novgorod, Tambof, and Penza. Everywhere in the 
 Russia of the Volga the serfs revolted against their masters, 
 the Tatars, Tchuvashi, Mordva, and Tcheremisa against 
 the domination of Russia. It was a fearful revolution. In 
 sixteen hundred and seventy-one Stenko Razin was defeated,
 
 1645-1682.] ALEXIS MIKHAlLOVITCH. FEODOR. 389 
 
 near Simbirsk, by Prince luri Boriatinski. His prestige was 
 lost ; he was pursued into the steppes, arrested on the Don, 
 and sent to Moscow, where he was executed in sixteen hun- 
 dred and seventy-one. 
 
 His death did not immediately check the rebellion. The 
 brigands still continued to hold the country. At Astrakhan 
 Vasili Us governed despotically, and threw the archbishop 
 losiph from a belfry. Finally, however, all these imitators 
 of Razin were killed or captured, the Volga freed, and the 
 Don became as peaceful as the Dnieper. 
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL REFORMS OF NIKON. THE PRECURSORS 
 OF PETER THE GREAT. 
 
 If Alexis, father of Peter the Great, was not himself a re- 
 former, his whole reign was a preparation for reform. Who 
 can tell how much Peter owed to the example of his father, 
 and of his mother Natalia, the pupil of Matveef, to the ideas 
 of Nikon, Polotski, and Nashtchokin ? Nikon was the son of 
 a simple peasant of the government of Nijni-Novgorod. His 
 baptismal name was Nikita ; as a child he was devoted to the 
 reading of ecclesiastical books, and he spent a portion of his 
 youth with a worthy monk in the monastery of Saint Makari, 
 about sixty versts from Nijni-Novgorod. But his father ob- 
 jected to his becoming a priest, and at the death of the latter, 
 by the advice of his relatives, he married and went to Moscow. 
 After ten years of secular priesthood the husband and wife 
 agreed to separate, each to serve God in religious orders. 
 Nikita betook himself to the Anzerskoi Hermitage, on an 
 island in the White Sea. Each of the twelve cells was sepa- 
 rate on the shore, and the recluse held no conversation with 
 his brethren, but spent his time in prayer and meditation, or 
 in service at the church, which was situated in the centre of 
 the island. Here Nikita assumed the name of Nikon. After 
 three years of this seclusion he was chosen abbot of the 
 Kosheozerskoi Monastuir, and after another three years he
 
 390 HISTOBY OF KUSSIA. [CHAP. XXI. 
 
 returned to Moscow, where he became known to the Tsar, and 
 was made archimandrite of the Novospasski Monastuir; he 
 was at last, in sixteen hundred and forty-eight, nominated 
 Metropolitan of Novgorod, where we have seen him quell a 
 sedition at the peril of his life. The Tsar loved and admired 
 him, and made him Patriarch, and allowed him to take the 
 title of Veliki Hosudar, Chief Noble and Sovereign, once borne 
 by Philaret. A man who had raised himself to such a height 
 from such a depth was not capable of mastering his ambition. 
 Proud and imperious, he made himself a multitude of enemies 
 among the clergy and the nobles, and despised them. 
 
 Nikon took up the correction of the holy books begun by 
 Dionisi of Troitsa. A number of gross mistakes, and even 
 interpolations, had slipped into the Slavonic manuscripts, and 
 thence passed into print. On being informed of these mistakes 
 by some Greek prelates who had come to Moscow, Nikon 
 assembled a council, where it was decided that the printed 
 books must be corrected according to the ancient Slavonic or 
 Greek manuscripts. Nikon collected these texts from all parts, 
 and, with the help of learned ecclesiastics, set to work in six- 
 teen hundred and fifty-four. This attempt, which denotes a 
 truly modern and scientific spirit, was the cause of a schism. 
 To the people, and to a large party of the clergy and monks, 
 everything in the holy books, even including the mistakes of 
 the copyists, was sacred. Certain altered or interpolated texts 
 had in their turn consecrated usages opposed to those generally 
 followed by the Church. The sectaries relying on these texts 
 forbade the beard to be shaven under the penalty of committing 
 a mortal sin, and ordered the sign of the cross to be made with 
 two fingers and not with three, and the liturgy with seven 
 wafers and not with five. Fanatics were ready to die sooner 
 than read lisas instead of Isus for the name of Christ. Besides 
 those whom an excessive respect for ancient texts and customs 
 drove into schism, we must reckon the genuine heretics, who 
 adopted falsified or apocryphal renderings, and who, after hav-
 
 1645-1682.] ALEXIS MIKHAlLOVITCH. FEODOR. 391 
 
 ing been long hidden and ignored in the bosom of the ortho- 
 dox Church, were all at once unmasked. Thus the reforms 
 of Nikon brought to light the raskol, or heresy, latent in the 
 Russian Church, with all its multiplicity of sects, Old Be- 
 lievers, Drinkers of Milk, Champions of the Spirit, Flagellants, 
 Skoptsui, or voluntary eunuchs, and many others, whose origin 
 may be traced to Alexandrine Gnosticism, Persian Manichaeism, 
 and perhaps even to Hindu Pantheism. 
 
 The Tsar energetically supported his Patriarch. He dili- 
 gently sought out the religious madmen, and the wandering 
 prophets who led the people astray, disgraced the men and 
 women of his Court who persisted in crossing themselves with 
 two fingers, imprisoned rebellious monks and ecclesiastics, and 
 hunted down assemblies of nonconformists. One of Nikon's 
 enemies was burnt alive. The most curious episode of this 
 religious war was the revolt of the holy monasteries of the 
 White Sea. The monks, passionately attached to their ancient 
 customs, won over the streltsui and the men-at-arms who formed 
 the garrison of the fortified convent of Solovetski. The Archi- 
 mandrite of Moscow was sent to them with a letter from the 
 Tsar ; but they replied that they were obedient to the Great 
 Lord of Russia in all things, but they would not accept the 
 revised Scriptures. An army had to be sent against them in 
 sixteen hundred and sixty-eight, but the monastery only capitu- 
 lated after a siege of eight years. It was then taken by assault, 
 and the rebels hung. 
 
 At the same time that Alexis enabled Nikon to subdue his 
 religious foes, he delivered him up to his political enemies. 
 The proud and imperious character of the Patriarch had at last 
 rendered him insupportable to the Tsar. It was a reproduc- 
 tion of the rivalry of the Byzantine Patriarch Keroularios and 
 the Emperor Isaac Comnenus in the eleventh century. The 
 courtiers did their best to encourage the Tsar in his coldness. 
 Nikon, instead of resisting his enemies, would not lower him- 
 self by employing their underhand arts, nor did he take any
 
 392 HISTORY OF EUSSIA. [CHAP. XXI. 
 
 pains to do away with the misunderstanding between himself 
 and Alexis. On the contrary, he absented himself from Mos- 
 cow in order personally to superintend the building of his three 
 favorite monasteries. Meanwhile his enemies took advantage 
 of his absence to insure his fall. In sixteen hundred and 
 fifty-eight, Teimuras, Tsar of Georgia or Gruzia, came to Mos- 
 cow to implore the help of Alexis against the Turks and Per- 
 sians. He was received with great courtesies, and Nikon 
 expected to take part. But the Tsar's officer detailed to enter- 
 tain Teimuras insulted Nikon openly, and refused satisfaction. 
 Nikon then arranged a service at which he hoped that the 
 Tsar would be present, and that an understanding would be 
 the result. But Alexis was hindered from attending, and in 
 his place came Prince Romadonovski to the Uspienski Sobor, 
 and reproached him for his arrogance and his assumption of 
 the title of Veliki Hosudar. This title Nikon had never 
 claimed, and his patience came to an end at this public insult. 
 After the mass and the sermon he turned to the people and 
 humbly apologized for his faults, renounced his patriarchate, 
 and amid the tears of the people he solemnly placed his pon- 
 tifical insignia on the altar, and retired to a convent which he 
 had founded near Moscow, and called New Jerusalem. This 
 was to relinquish the field of battle to his adversaries. He 
 expected that the Tsar would beseech him to resume his office, 
 but the Tsar did not trouble himself about his old favorite. 
 His voluntary exile lasted eight years, from sixteen hundred 
 and fifty-eight until sixteen hundred and sixty-six, when a 
 council was assembled on the occasion of the arrival of the 
 Patriarchs of Antioch and Alexandria at Moscow. The council 
 was held in the Tsar's palace in the Kreml, and was composed 
 of two Patriarchs, four Russian and six Greek Metropolitans, 
 six Russian archbishops, the Archbishops of Mount Siniai and 
 Valakhia, innumerable bishops, archimandrites, and priests of 
 all ranks. Nikon was three times examined by the council, 
 which approved of his reforms and his corrections of the Sacred
 
 1645-1682.] ALEXIS MIKHAlLOVITCH. FEODOK. 393 
 
 Books ; but for his voluntary desertion of the patriarchate, his 
 unwillingness to have a successor appointed, his audacious 
 attacks on the Tsar and the bishops, his avarice, his arrogance, 
 and the abuse of his power over the inferior clergy, he was 
 condemned to be deprived of his dignities and to be impris- 
 oned for life. He was removed from the council to the police 
 court by an insulting throng of officers, and on the next day 
 he was sent to the Hermitage of Ferapontof, about thirty versts 
 from the White Lake. At first he was subjected to harsh 
 treatment, but gradually his imprisonment was lightened, and 
 the Tsar Feodor finally allowed him to return to his favorite 
 monastery Voskresenski, near Moscow, where he died on the 
 seventeenth of August, sixteen hundred and eighty-one, and 
 was buried with all the honors of a patriarch. 
 
 By the side of Nikon, among the reformers, we must men- 
 tion Simeon Polotski, tutor of the sons of Alexis, who, in six- 
 teen hundred and sixty-eight, published against the raskolniki, 
 the "Rod of Government"; wrote light verses, panegyrics, 
 sermons, dramatic compositions the subjects of which were 
 drawn from the Scriptures, maxims, and examples translated 
 from ancient and modern writers and put into verse in order 
 to attract the reader. In one of his poems he called to the 
 Tsar's mind the example of a French king. " There was 
 once," he wrote, " a King of France called Francis the First. 
 As he loved literature and science, though his ancestors did 
 not love them, and lived in ignorance like barbarians, the sons 
 of illustrious families sought instruction, in order to please the 
 monarch. Thus knowledge spread through the country, for 
 it is the custom of subjects to imitate the prince ; all love what 
 he loves. Happy is the kingdom whose king gives a good 
 example to all ! " Simeon was a White Russian ; others, like 
 the monks Slavinetski and Satanovski, who were commissioned 
 by Nikon with the translation of foreign books, were natives of 
 Little Russia, of Kief the learned. These two western divis- 
 ions of Russia served as a link between Muscovy and Europe.
 
 394 HISTOEY OF KUSSIA. [CHAP. XXI. 
 
 Two writers of this epoch merit special mention. Gregory 
 Kotoshikhin, imder-secretary of the Prikaz of Embassies, was 
 obliged, in consequence of a quarrel with the voievod Dolgo- 
 ruki, to fly first into Poland and then into Sweden, where he 
 wrote a curious treatise, called " Russia under the Reign of 
 Alexis Mikhailovitch," which appeared about sixteen hundred 
 and sixty-six. He does not concern himself either with the 
 clergy or the inferior classes, but gives a frightful picture of 
 the ignorance, sensuality, and brutality of the boyars and 
 nobles. So graphic is it that, as Polevoi remarks, we are 
 forced involuntarily to ask, " In what state could the lower 
 orders have been ? " He speaks with horror and disgust of 
 the administration of justice, compares foreign institutions with 
 those of his own country to the advantage of the former, and 
 regrets that his compatriots did not send their sons to be 
 educated abroad. 
 
 luri Krijanitch, a Servian by birth and a Catholic priest, 
 was one of those learned Slavs who now came into Russia to 
 seek employment for their talents. He had proposed to him- 
 self three aims in coming to Moscow : First, to elevate the 
 Slavonic tongue by compiling a grammar and a lexicon, so 
 that the Slavs might learn to speak and write correctly ; and 
 to place a larger number of words and phrases at their dis- 
 posal, so that they might be able to express all the thoughts 
 common to the human mind, and also political and general 
 ideas. Secondly, to write the history of the Slavs, and to 
 refute the falsehoods and calumnies of the Germans. And 
 lastly, to unmask the tricks and sophisms made use of by 
 foreign nations to deceive the Slavs. In his work entitled 
 " The Russian Empire in the middle of the Seventeenth Cen- 
 tury," dedicated to Alexis Mikhailovitch, and lately republished 
 by M. Bezsonof, he touches on all points of manners and cus- 
 toms, politics, and political economy. Like Kotoshikhin, he 
 attacks ignorance and barbarism, and advocates instruction, 
 study, and civilization as being the only remedies for the 
 misfortunes of Russia.
 
 1645-1682.] ALEXIS MIKHAlLOVITCH. FEODOR. 395 
 
 Krijanitch is the first of the Slavophiles, or the Pan-Slavists, 
 as they are at present called. He appeals to all the Slav na- 
 tions, " Boristhenites, or Little Russians, Poles, Lithuanians, 
 and Serbs." He advises the Russians to mistrust Germans 
 and Greeks alike. It was probably his philippics against the 
 Greek clergy established in Russia that caused him in sixteen 
 hundred and sixty to be exiled to Tobolsk. 
 
 Aphanasi Ordin-Nashtchokin, son of a gentleman of Pskof, 
 had long been known as a brave voi'evod, and as a man par- 
 ticularly skilled in conducting diplomatic conferences ; but he 
 so distinguished himself in the successful negotiations for the 
 Peace of Andrusovo, which gave Kief and Smolensk to Russia, 
 that he was summoned to take part in the councils of the Tsar. 
 He applied his activity to all branches of the administration : 
 to the army, which was in need of reform ; to commerce, which 
 needed to be freed from the interference of the vo'ievodui ; to 
 diplomacy, for which men skilled in languages, representatives 
 worthy of the Court of Russia, had to be found. His object 
 was to make Muscovy the centre of Asiatic and European 
 trade ; he made an agreement with an Armenian Company, 
 in accordance with which all Persian silks obtained by this 
 company should be sent to Russia ; he originated the idea of 
 building fleets on the Caspian, and on the Oka constructed 
 the first Russian vessel. He had extracts from foreign news- 
 letters regularly translated for the enlightenment of the sover- 
 eign, and thus founded, though for the Tsar's benefit alone, 
 the Russian press. 
 
 As he had necessarily to praise the usages of foreign coun- 
 tries, and to find fault with those of Russia, Nashtchokin could 
 not but make himself many enemies. His morality was equal 
 to his talent: incorruptible, indefatigable, and self-controlled, he 
 was the first great European that Russia had produced. But 
 while praising Europe he still remained a Russian. In his 
 old age he became a monk. 
 
 When Nashtchokin, by the machinations of his enemies, lost
 
 396 HISTOKY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XXI. 
 
 the Tsar's favor and was obliged to leave his post, the boyar 
 Matveef, a familiar friend of Alexis, was appointed his succes- 
 sor. One day, when the Tsar was dining with Matveef, he 
 noticed a young girl who was serving at table, and who pleased 
 him by her modest and intelligent air. This was a motherless 
 girl, Natalia Naruishkin, to whom her uncle Matveef had been 
 a second father. " I have found a husband for her," said the 
 Tsar to Matveef some days after. This husband was the Tsar 
 himself. The marriage drew closer still the ties that bound 
 him to Matveef. But the latter was, like Nashtchokin, full of 
 European ideas. His house was furnished and ornamented 
 according to Western notions. His chosen guests did not 
 give themselves up to the orgies authorized by national cus- 
 tom ; they behaved as courteously as if they were in a French 
 salon. His Scotch wife, a Hamilton by birth, was the only 
 lady of the Court who did not paint herself, and, instead of 
 keeping herself secluded in her apartments, took part in the 
 conversation of men. We may conceive the influence of the 
 boyar and his wife on their adopted daughter ; and it is not 
 surprising that Natalia was the first Russian princess who 
 drew back the curtains of her litter, and allowed her face to 
 be seen by her subjects. Matveef protected foreign artists, 
 " masters in perspective writings," as they were called. In 
 the German Slobod of Moscow he established a sort of dra- 
 matic academy, where twenty-five merchants' sons learned to 
 act comedies. The Tsar acquired a taste for theatrical enter- 
 tainments. Likatchof, his envoy at the Court of Florence, 
 wrote to his sovereign enthusiastic letters full of the marvels 
 which he had seen at the opera, of palaces which appeared 
 and disappeared, of a sea that rose and fell and was filled with 
 fish, of men who rode on monsters of the deep, or pursued 
 each other into the clouds. Moscow undertook to rival Flor- 
 ence. In a wooden theatre, ballets and dramas, adapted from 
 the Bible, were represented before the Tsar : " Joseph sold by 
 his Brethren/' "The Prodigal Son," and a drama of " Esther,"
 
 1645-1682.] ALEXIS MIKHAlLOVITCH. FEODOR. 397 
 
 which preceded that of Racine by seventeen years. At Mos- 
 cow, as at Saint Cyr, the piece gave scope to many allusions. 
 Here Esther was Natalia Naruishkiii ; Mordecai was Matveef, 
 the protector of her youth ; and the vremianshtchik Haman, 
 who was hung at the petition of Queen Esther, was, no doubt, 
 Khitrovo, the former favorite. These pieces were enlivened 
 by somewhat rough pleasantries. In " Holofernes," when 
 Judith has cut off the head of the Assyrian voievod, the ser- 
 vant cries, " Here is a poor man who will be much astonished, 
 on awaking, to find his head carried away ! " 
 
 In sixteen hundred and forty-five, Alexis sent Gerasim 
 Dokturof to notify the King of England, Charles the First, 
 of his accession. The Russian envoy arrived in England in 
 the midst of the Revolution. Being received at Gravesend 
 with great honors and the firing of guns by the company of 
 merchants that traded with Russia, he at once inquired where 
 the king was. They replied, they did not know exactly 
 where he was, because for three or four years there had been 
 a great civil war, and instead of the king they had now the 
 Parliament, composed of deputies from all the orders, who 
 governed London as well as the kingdoms of England and 
 Scotland. 
 
 But the Russian envoy recognized the king only, and per- 
 sisted, according to the text of his instructions, in trying to 
 deliver his letters of credit to the king himself. " Hast thou 
 a letter from thy sovereign, and a mission to the Parliament ?" 
 they asked him. He replied, " I have neither a letter nor a 
 mission to the Parliament. Let the Parliament send me im- 
 mediately before the king, and give me an escort, carriages, 
 and provisions. Let the Parliament present me to him, 
 it is to him that I will speak." His demand was naturally 
 refused, and he wished instantly to leave for Holland ; but this 
 was not allowed. 
 
 The following year, Charles the First was brought a prisoner 
 into London. Dokturof insisted on being presented to him.
 
 398 HISTORY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XXI. 
 
 His request was ill-timed. " You cannot be brought before 
 him," they said to him ; " he no longer governs anything." 
 
 Dokturof was summoned before the House of Lords on the 
 thirteenth of June. At his entrance all the " boyars " took 
 off their hats, and Lord Manchester, the " chief boyar," rose. 
 Then Dokturof, to the general consternation, made the follow- 
 ing speech : " I am sent by my sovereign to your king, Charles, 
 King of England. I have been sent as a courier to negotiate 
 important affairs of state, which offer great advantages to both 
 sovereigns and to all Christendom, and may help to maintain 
 peace and concord. It is the thirteenth of June, and, since I 
 arrived in London on the twenty-sixth of November last, I have 
 never ceased to show you the letter of the Tsar, and to beg you 
 to allow me to go before the king. You have kept me in 
 London without permitting me either to have an interview 
 with the king or to return to the Tsar ; and yet in all the 
 neighboring countries the route is free to all ambassadors, 
 envoys, and couriers of the Tsar." 
 
 Manchester replied that they would explain to the Tsar by 
 letter their reasons for acting thus. They gave him a chair, 
 and the English " boyars " likewise seated themselves ; and 
 he began to look about the House, of which he gives a minute 
 description in his report. He was then conducted to the 
 House of Commons, and the dignitaries came to meet him, 
 preceded by the royal sceptre. He renewed his declarations, 
 and then retired ceremoniously. In June, sixteen hundred 
 and forty-six, he left England, much discontented. Alexis 
 could no more understand the English Revolution than his 
 envoy. He maintained, like Catherine the Second, the cause 
 of kings against the liberty of the subjects. In May, sixteen 
 hundred and forty-seven, he received at Moscow Nawtingall, 
 envoy of Charles the Eirst, who denounced the captivity of the 
 king, and said Charles would see with pleasure the English 
 Company deprived of its privileges, and every one allowed to 
 trade freely with Russia. Alexis listened to his request, and
 
 1645-1682.] ALEXIS MIKHAlLOVITCH. FEODOR. 399 
 
 granted him, as aid to the king, thirty thousand tchetvertui, or 
 quarters, of corn, out of the three hundred thousand that were 
 asked of him. But the English merchants settled in Russia 
 accused Nawtingall of imposture, saying that the king's letter 
 was apocryphal, and that the dog he had brought as a present 
 to Alexis had never been bought by Charles the First. Naw- 
 tingall was expelled in disgrace, and avenged himself by 
 accusing his compatriots of a project of attacking Arkhangel, 
 and of pillaging the Russian merchants. His honors as am- 
 bassador were then given back to him, but he quitted Russia. 
 
 When Alexis heard of the execution of Charles the First, 
 he published the ukas of June, sixteen hundred and forty-nine, 
 which, as a punishment to the regicides, forbade the English 
 merchants to live in the cities of the interior, and confined 
 them to Arkhangel. The Tsar furnished help in money and 
 corn to Charles, Prince of Wales, who in sixteen hundred and 
 sixty became Charles the Second, and resumed relations with 
 him when he ascended the throne of the Stuarts. 
 
 At the opening of the war with Poland it occurred to 
 Alexis to notify the fact to the sovereigns of the West. In 
 sixteen hundred and fifty-three he sent to Louis the Four- 
 teenth a certain Matchekin, who was also presented to Anne 
 of Austria. In sixteen hundred and sixty-eight, just after the 
 Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, Peter Potemkin was accredited first 
 to the Court of Spain and then to the Court of France. The 
 object of the embassy was to induce Louis the Fourteenth 
 to enter into regular relations with Russia, and to send 
 French vessels to Arkhangel. Potemkin had conferences with 
 Colbert and the six merchant guilds of Paris. But the results 
 of this embassy were hardly greater than those of the preced- 
 ing one. 
 
 REIGN OF FEODOR ALEXIEVITCH. 
 
 On the death of Alexis, in January, sixteen hundred and 
 seventy-six, his eldest son Feodor succeeded to the crown.
 
 400 HISTOEY OF RUSSIA. [CHAP. XXI. 
 
 The Miloslavskis, Feeder's maternal relatives, profited by his 
 accession to ruin their enemy Matveef, who was accused of 
 magic, deprived of his property and his title of boyar, and 
 banished to Pustozersk. In this reign the Little Russian 
 question received a solution. The hetman Samoilovitch and 
 Prince Romodanovski defeated Doroshenko, and obliged him 
 to resign the office of ataman. They then had to fight the 
 Turks and Tatars, who twice invaded the Ukraina and ad- 
 vanced to Tchigirin. 
 
 The country, according to a contemporary account, was cov- 
 ered with ruined towns and castles, and heaps of human bones 
 that whitened in the sun. Finally, the Sultan concluded at 
 Bakhtchi-Serai a truce of twenty years, which ceded to Russia 
 Zaporogia and the Ukraina. In sixteen hundred and eighty- 
 one Feodor sent a new embassy to Louis the Fourteenth ; his 
 envoy being the son of the old Poternkin, who managed, ac- 
 cording to the diplomatic historian Flassans, to give by his 
 own wisdom and learning a favorable idea of the nation which 
 he represented. 
 
 In order to defend the orthodox Church against the heresies 
 of the West, and to connect it more closely with the Eastern 
 Church, Feodor founded the Slavo-Grseco-Latin Academy of 
 Moscow. Greek and Latin, Christian philosophy and the- 
 ology, were taught there. The brothers Likhoudi were brought 
 from Greece to be professors there. This school, although 
 ecclesiastical, was an advance on all other establishments of 
 the kind in Russia, and produced some brilliant pupils. 
 Among them we may mention the mathematician Magnitski 
 under Peter the Great, and the historian Bantuish-Kamenski 
 and the Metropolitan Plato under Catherine the Second. The 
 school was afterwards transferred to the Monastery of Tro'itsa. 
 
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