LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. Chap._U_L:"'Wopyright No,. Shelf..iV:.._._>^ UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. A SHORT HISTORY OF RUSSIA A SHORT HISTORY OF RUSSIA BY MARY PLATT PARMELE Author of "France," "England," "United States," "Germany," "Spain," "Who, When, and What?" etc. PUBLISHED FOR THE BAY VIEW READING CIRCLE Central Office, Flint, Mich. 1899 382/9 Copyright, 1899, BY MARY PLATT PARMELE. fwaeo^jji*-. acsfvigo* ^ ^ V press of the Continental Publishing Co., 24-26 Murray St., New York. PREFACE. If this book seems to have departed from the proper ideal of historic narrative — if it is the history of a Power, and not of a People — it is because the Russian people have had no history yet. There has been no evolution of a Russian nation, but only of a vast govern- ing system; and the words '' Russian Em- pire " stand for a majestic world-power in which the mass of its people have no part. A splendidly embroidered robe of Europeanism is worn over a chaotic, undeveloped mass of semi-barbarism. The reasons for this incon- gruity — the natural obstacles with which Rus- sia has had to contend; the strange ethnic problems with which it has had to deal; its triumphant entry into the family of great nations in which it stands second to none — such is the story this book has tried to tell. M. P. P. New York, June, 1899. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE Natural Conditions — Greek Colonies on the Black Sea — The Scythians — Ancient Traces of Sla- vonic Race, c I CHAPTER H. Hunnish Invasion — Distribution of Races — Slavonic Religion — Primitive Political Conceptions, . lo CHAPTER in. The Scandinavian in Russia — Rurik — Oleg — Igor — Olga's Vengeance — Olga a Christian — Sviatos- laf — Russia the Champion of the Greek Em- pire in Bulgaria — Norse Dominance in Heroic Period, 17 CHAPTER IV. System of Appanages — Vladimir the Sinner Be- comes Vladimir the Saint — Russia Forcibly Christianized — Causes Underlying Antagonism Between Greek and Latin Church — Russia Joined to the Greek Currents and Separated from the Latin, . ... . . , ,26 vii Vlll CONTENTS. CHAPTER V. PAGE Principalities — Headship of House of Rurik — Re- lation of Grand Prince to the Others — Civilizing Influences from Greek Sources — Cruelty not Indigenous with the Slavs — How and Whence it Came — Primitive Social Elements — The Dru- jina — End of Heroic Period — Andrew Bogo- liubski — New Political Center at Suzdal, . . 34 CHAPTER VI. The Republic of Novgorod — Invasion of Baltic Provinces by Germans — Livonian and Teutonic Orders — Russian Territory Becomes Prussia — Mongol Invasion — Genghis Khan — Cause of Downfall, 41 CHAPTER VII. The Rule of the Khans — Humiliation of Princes — Novgorod the Last to Fall — Alexander Nevski — Russia Under the Yoke, 51 CHAPTER VIII. Lithuania — Its Union with Poland — A Conquest of Russia Intended — Daniel First Prince of Mos- cow — Moscow Becomes the Ecclesiastical Center — Power Gravitates Toward that State — Centralization — Dmitri Donskoi — Golden Horde Crumbling, 59 CONTENTS. IX CHAPTER IX. PAGE Origin of Ottoman Empire — Turks in Constanti- nople — Moscow the Spiritual Heir to Byzantium — Ivan Married to a Daughter of the Caesars — Civilizing Streams Flowing into Moscow — Work for Ivan III.— And How He Did it- Friendly Relations with the Khans — Reply to Demand for Tribute in 1478 — The Yoke Broken, 70 CHAPTER X. > Vasili the Blind— Fall of Pskof— Splendor of Court Ceremonial — Nature of Struggle which was Evolving, .78 CHAPTER XI. Ivan IV. — His Childhood — Coup d' Etat — Unmask- ing of Adashef and Silvester — A Gentle Youth Developing into a Monster — Solicitude for the Souls of his Victims — Destruction of Novgo- rod — England Enters Russia by a Side Door — Friendship with Elizabeth — Acquisition of Siberia— The Sobor or States-General Sum- moned — Ivan Slays his Son and Heir — His Death, 85 CHAPTER XII. Boris Godunof — The Way to Power — A Boyar Tsar of Russia — Serfdom Created — The False Dmitri — Mikhail the First Romanoff 96 X CONTENTS. CHAPTER XIII. PAGE Time of Preparation — The Cossacks — Attempt of Nikon — Death of Mikhail — Alexis — Sympa- thizes with Charles II. — Natalia — Death of Alexis— Feodor, 104 CHAPTER XIV. Sophia Regent — Peter I. — Childhood — Visit to Archangel — Azof Captured— How a Navy was Built — Sentiment Concerning Reforms — A Conspiracy Nipped in the Bud — Peter Aston- ishes Western Europe, iii CHAPTER XV. Charles XII. — Battle of Narva— St. Petersburg Founded — Mazeppa — Poltova — Peter's Marriage with Catherine, 104 CHAPTER XVI. Campaign against Turks — Disaster Averted — Azof Relinquished — Treaty of Pruth — Re- forms — The Raskolniks — Visit to France — His Son Alexis a Traitor — His Death, . . . 132 CHAPTER XVII. Catherine I. — Annalvanovna — Ivan VI. — Elizabeth Petrovna — French Influences Succeed the Ger- man — Peter III.— His Taking off — Catherine II., ..,,.,.,. 144 CONTENTS. XI CHAPTER XVIII. PAGE Conditions in Poland — Victories in the Black Sea — Pugatchek the Pretender — Peasants' War — Re- forms — Partition of Poland — Characteristics of Catherine and of her Reign — Her Death, . 156 CHAPTER XIX. Paul -I. — Napoleon Bonaparte — Franco-Rnssian Understanding — Assassination of Paul — Alex- ander I., 168 CHAPTER XX. Plans for a Liberal Reign — Austerlitz — Alexander I. an Ally of Napoleon — Rupture of Friendship — French Army in Moscow — Its Retreat and Extinction — The Tsar a Liberator in Europe — Failure of Reforms — Araktcheef's Severities — Conspiracy at Kief — Death of Alexander I., . 175 CHAPTER XXI. Constantine's Renunciation — Revolt — Succession of Nicholas 1. — Order Restored — Character of Nicholas — His Policy — Polish Insurrection — Reactionary Measures — Europe Excluded — Turco-Russian Understanding — Beginning of the Great Diplomatic Game — Nature of the Eastern Question— Intellectual Expansion in Russia, 187 CHAPTER XXII. 1848 in Europe— Nicholas Aids Francis Joseph — Hungary Subjugated — Nicholas claims to be Protector of Eastern Christendom— Attempt to \ xn CONTENTS. PAGE Secure England's Co-operation — Russia's Griev- ance against Turkey — His Demands — France and England in Alliance for Defense of Sultan — Allied Armies in the Black Sea — The Crimean War — Odessa — Alma — Siege of Sevastopol — Death of Nicholas 1., 201 CHAPTER XXni. Alexander II. — End of Crimean War — Reaction Toward Liberalism — Emancipation of Serfs — Means by which It was Effected — Patriarchal- ism Retained — Hopes Awakened in Poland — Rebellion — How it was Disposed of, . . 213 CHAPTER XXIV. Reaction toward Severity — Bulgaria and the Bashi-Bazuks — Russia the Champion of the Balkan States — Turco-Russian War — Treaty of San Stefano — Sentiment in Europe — Congress of Berlin — Diplomatic Defeat of Russia — Wan- ing Popularity of Alexander II., . . . 222 CHAPTER XXV. Emancipation a Disappointment — Social Discontent — Birth of Nihilism — Assassination of Alexander II. — The Peasants' Wreath — Alexander III. — A Joyless Reign — His Death, .... 229 CHAPTER XXVI. Nicholas II. — Russification of Finland — Invitation to Disarmament — Brief Review of Conditions, 241 A SHORT HISTORY OF RUSSIA. CHAPTER I. The topography of a country is to some extent a prophecy of its future. Had there been no Mississippi coursing for three thou- sand miles through the North American Con- tinent, no Ohio and Missouri bisecting it from east to west, no great inland seas in- denting and watering it, no fertile prairies stretching across its vast areas, how differ- ent would have been the history of our own land. Russia is the strange product of strange physical conditions. Nature was not in im- petuous mood when she created this greater half of Europe, nor was she generous, except in the matter of space. She was slow, slug- gish, but inexorable. No volcanic energies threw up rocky ridges and ramparts in Ti- tanic rage, and then repentantly clothed them with lovely verdure as in Spain, Italy, and 2 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. elsewhere. No hungry sea rushed in and tore her coast into fragments. It would seem to have been just a cold-blooded experiment in subjecting a vast region to the most rigorous and least generous conditions possible, leav- ing it unshielded alike from Polar winds in winter or scorching heat in summer, divesting it of beauty and of charm, and then casting this arid, frigid, torpid land to a branch of the human family as unique as its own habita- tion; separating it by natural and almost im- passable barriers from civilizing influences, and in strange isolation leaving it to work out its own problem of development. We have only to look on the map at the ragged coast-lines of Greece, Italy, and the British Isles to realize how powerful a fac- tor the sea has been in great civilizations. Russia, like a thirsty giant, has for centuries been struggling to get to the tides which so generously wash the rest of Europe. During the earlier periods of her history she had not a foot of seaboard; and even now she possesses only a meager portion of coast-line for such an extent of territory; one-half of this being, except for three months in the year, sealed up with ice. EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 3 But Russia is deficient in still another essen- tial feature. Every other European country possesses a mountain system which gives form and solidity to its structure. She alone has no such system. No skeleton or backbone gives promise of stability to the dull expanse of plains through which flow her great lazy rivers, with scarce energy enough to carry their burdens to the sea. Mountains she has, but she shares them with her neighbors; and the Carpathians, Caucasus, and Ural are sim- ply a continuous girdle for a vast inclosure of plateaus of varying altitudes,* and while else- where it is the office of great mountain ranges to nourish, to enrich, and to beautify, in this strange land they seem designed only to im- prison. It is obvious that in a country so destitute of seaboard, its rivers must assume an immense importance. The history, the very life of Russia clusters about its three great rivers. These have been the arteries which have nour- ished, and indeed created, this strange empire. The Volga, with its seventy-five mouths emptying into the Caspian Sea, like a lazy * In the Tatar language the word Ural signifies *' girdle." 4 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. leviathan brought back currents from the Orient; then the Dnieper, flowing into the Black Sea, opened up that communication with Byzantium which more than anything else has influenced the character of Russian development; and finally, in comparatively recent times, the Neva has borne those long- sought civilizing streams from Western Eu- rope which have made of it a modern state and joined it to the European family of na- tions. It would seem that the great region we now call Russia was predestined to become one empire. No one part could exist without all the others. In the north is the zone of forests, extending from the region of Moscow and Novgorod to the Arctic Circle. At the ex- treme southeast, north of the Caspian Sea and at the gateway leading into Asia, are the Barren Steppes, unsuited to agriculture or to civilized living; fit only for the raising of cattle and the existence of Asiatic nomads, who to this day make it their home. Between these two extremes lie two other zones of extraordinary character, the Black Lands and the Arable Steppes, or prairies. The former zone, which is of immense extent. EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 5 is covered with a deep bed of black mold of inexhaustible fertility, which without manure produces the richest harvests, and has done so since the time of Herodotus, at which period it was the granary of Athens and of Eastern Europe. The companion zone, running parallel with this, known as the Arable Steppes, which nearly resembles the American prairies, is al- most as remarkable as the Black Lands. Its soil, although fertile, has to be renewed. But an amazing vegetation covers this great area in summer with an ocean of verdure six or eight feet high, in which men and cattle may hide as in a forest. It is these two zones in the heart of Russia that have fed millions of people for centuries, which make her now one of the greatest competitors in the markets of the world. It is easy to see the interdependence created by this specialization in production, and the economic necessity it has imposed for an un- divided empire. The forest zone could not exist without the corn of the Black Lands and the Prairies, nor without the cattle of the Steppes. Nor could those treeless regions exist without the wood of the forests. So it 6 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIkE. is obvious that when Nature girdled this east^ ern half of Europe, she marked it for one vast empire; and when she covered those monot- onous plateaus with a black mantle of ex- traordinary fertility, she decreed that the Rus- sians should be an agricultural people. And when she created natural conditions unmiti- gated and unparalleled in severity, she or- dained that this race of toilers should be patient and submissive under austerities; that their pulse should be set to a slow, even rhythm, in harmony with the low key in which Nature spoke to them. It is impossible to say when an Asiatic stream began to pour into Europe over the arid steppes north of the Caspian. But we know that as early as the fifth century B. C. the Greeks had established trading stations on the northern shores of the Black Sea, and that these in the fourth century had become flour- ishing colonies through their trade with the motley races of barbarians that swarmed about that region, who by the Greeks were indis- criminately designated by the common name of Scythians. The Greek colonists, who always carried with them their religion, their Homer, their EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 7 love of beauty, and the arts of their mother cities, estabhshed themselves on and about the promontory of the Crimea, and built their city of Chersonesos where now is Sebastopol. They first entered into wars and then alliances with these Scythians, who served them as middle-men in trade with the tribes beyond, and in time a Graeco-Scythian state of the Bosphorus came into existence. Herodotus in the fifth century wrote much about these so-called Scythians, whom he divides into the agricultural Scythians, pre- sumably of the Black Lands, and the nomad Scythians, of the Barren Steppes. His ex- travagant and fanciful pictures of those bar- barians have long been studied by the curious; but light from an unexpected source has been thrown upon the subject, and Greek genius has rescued for us the type of humanity first known in Russia. There are now in the museum at St. Peters- burg two priceless works of art found in re- cent years in a tomb in Southern Russia. They are two vases of mingled gold and silver upon which are wrought pictures more faith- ful and more eloquent than those drawn by Herodotus. These figures of the Scythians, 8 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. drawn probably as early as 400 B. C, repro- duce unmistakably the Russian peasant of to-day. The same bearded, heavy-featured faces; the long hair coming from beneath the same peaked cap; the loose tunic bound by a girdle; the trousers tucked into the boots, and the general type, not alone distinctly Aryan, but Slavonic. And not only that; we see them breaking in and bridling their horses, in precisely the same way as the Russian peas- ant does to-day on those same plains. As- suredly the vexed question concerning the Scythians is in a measure answered; and we know that some of them at least were Sla- vonic. But the passing illumination produced by the approach of Greek civilization did not penetrate to the region beyond, where was a tumbling, seething world of Asiatic tribes and peoples, Aryan, Tatar, and Turk, more or less mingled in varying shades of barbarism, all striving for mastery. This elemental struggle was to resolve itself into one between Aryan and non-Aryan — the Slav and the Finn; and this again into one be- tween the various members of the Slavonic family; then a life-and-death struggle with EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 9 Asiatic barbarism in its worst form (the Mongol), with Tatar and Turk always remain- ing as disturbing factors. How, and the steps by which, the least pow- erful branch of the Slavonic race obtained the mastery and headship of Russia and has come to be one of the leading powers of the earth, is the story this book will try to tell. CHAPTER II. In speaking of this eastern half of Europe as Russia, we have been borrowing from the future. At the time we have been consider- ing there was no Russia. The world into which Christ came contained no Russia. The Roman Empire rose and fell, and still there was no Russia. Spain, Italy, France, and England were taking on a new form of life through the infusion of Teuton strength, and modern Europe was coming into being, and still the very name of Russia did not exist. The great expanse of plains, with its medley of Oriental barbarism, was to Europe the obscure region through which had come the Hunnish invasion from Asia. This catastrophe was the only experience that this land had in common with the rest of Europe. The Goths had established an em- pire where the ancient Grseco-Scythians had once been. The overthrowing of this Gothic Empire was the beginning of Attila's Euro- EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. n pean conquests; and the passage of the Hun- nish horde, precisely as in the rest of Europe, produced a complete overturning. A torrent of Oriental races, Finns, Bulgarians, Magyars, and others, rushed in upon the track of the Huns, and filled up the spaces deserted by the Goths. Here as elsewhere the Hun com- pleted his appointed task of a rearrangement of races; thus fundamentally changing the whole course of future events. Perhaps there would be no Magyar race in Hungary, and certainly a different history to write of Russia, had there been no Attila in 375 B. C. The old Roman Empire, which in its decay had divided into an Eastern and a Western Empire (in the fourth century), had by the fifth century succumbed to the new forces which assailed it, leaving only a glittering remnant at Byzantium. The Eastern or Byzantine Empire, rich in pride and pretension, but poor in power, was destined to stand for one thousand years more, the shining conservator of the Christian re- ligion (although in a form quite different from the Church of Rome) and of Greek culture. It is impossible to imagine what our civiliza- tion would be to-day if this splendid fragment 12 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. of the Roman Empire had not stood in shin- ing petrifaction during the ages of darkness, guarding the treasures of a dead past. While these tremendous changes were oc- curring in the West, unconscious as toiling insects the various peoples in Russia were pre- paring for an unknown future. The Bul- garians were occupying large spaces in the South. The Finns, who had been driven by the Bulgarians from their home upon the Volga, had centered in the Northwest near the Baltic, their vigorous branches mingled more or less with other Asiatic races, stretching here and there in the North, South, and East. The Russian Slavs, as the parent stem is called, were distributing themselves along a strip of territory running north and south along the line of the Dnieper; while the terri- ble Turks, and still more terrible Tatar tribes, hovered chiefly about the Black, the Caspian, and the Sea of Azof. No dream of unity had come to anyone. But had there been a fore- cast then of the future, it would have been said that the more finely organized Finn would be- come the dominant race; or perhaps the Bul- garian, who was showing capacity for empire- building; but certainly not that helpless Sla- EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 13 vonic people wedged in between their stronger neighbors. But there were no large ambitions yet. It meant nothing to them that there was a new " Holy Roman Empire," and that Charle- magne had been crowned at Rome successor of the Roman Caesars (800 A. D.); nor that an England had just been consolidated into one kingdom. Nor did it concern them that the Saracen had overthrown a Gothic empire in Spain (710). For them these things did not exist. But they knew about Constantino- ple. The Byzantine Empire was the sun which shone beyond their horizon, and was for them the supreme type of power and earthly splen- dor. Whatever ambitions and aspirations would in time awaken in these Oriental breasts must inevitably have for their ideal the splen- did despotism of the Eastern Caesars. But that stage had not yet been reached. Although branches of the Slavonic race had separated from the parent stem, bearing differ- ent names, the Bohemians on the Vistula, the Poliani in what was to become Poland, the Lithuanians near the Baltic, and minor tribes scattered elsewhere, from the Peloponnesus to the Baltic, all had the same general 14 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE, characteristics. Their religion, Hke that of all Aryan peoples, was a pantheism founded upon the phenomena of nature. In their Pantheon there was a Volos, a solar deity who, like the Greek Apollo, was inspirer of poets and pro- tector of the flocks — Perun, God of Thunder — Stribog, the father of the Winds, like ^olus — a Proteus who could assume all shapes — Centaurs, Vampires, and hosts of minor dei- ties, good and evil. There were neither tem- ples nor priests, but the oak was venerated and consecrated to Perun; and rude idols of wood stood upon the hills, where sacrifices were ofifered to them and they were wor- shiped by the people. They believed that their dead passed into a future life, and from the time of the early Scythians it had been the custom to strangle a male and a female servant of the deceased to accompany him on his journey to the other land. The barbarity of their religious rites varied with the different tribes, but the gen- eral characteristics were the same, and the people everywhere were profoundly attached to their pagan ceremonies and under the do- minion of an intense form of superstition. Slav society was everywhere founded upon EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. IS the patriarchal principle. The father was ab- solute head of the family, his authority pass- ing undiminished upon his death to the oldest surviving member. This was the social unit. The Commune, or Mir, was only the expan- sion of the family, and was subject to the au- thority of a council, composed of the elders of the several families, called the vetcM, The village lands were held in common by this association. The territory was the common property of the whole. No hay could be cut nor fish caught without permission from the vetche. Then all shared alike the benefit of the enterprise. The communes nearest together formed a still larger group called a Volost; that is, a canton or parish, which was governed by a council composed of the elders of the com- munes, one of whom was recognized as the chief. Beyond this the idea of combination or unity did not extend. Such was the prim- itive form of society which was common to all the Slavonic branches. It was communistic, patriarchal, and just to the individual. They had no conception of tribal unity, nor of a sovereignty which should include the whole. If the Slav ever came under the despotism of 1 6 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. a Strong personal government, the idea must come from some external source; it must be imposed, not grow; for it was not indigenous in the character of the people. It would be perfectly natural for them to submit to it if it came, for they were a passive people, but they were incapable of creating it. CHAPTER III. The Russian Slavs were an agricultural, not a warlike, people. They fought bravely, but naked to the waist, and with no idea of mili- tary organization, so were of course no match for the Turks, well skilled in the arts of war, nor for the armed bands of Scandinavian mer- chants, who made their territory a highway by which to reach the Greek provinces. All the Slav asked was to be permitted to gather his harvests, and dwell in his wooden towns and villages in peace. But this he could not do. Not only was he under tribute to the Khazarui (a powerful tribe of mingled Fin- nish and Turkish blood), and harried by the Turks, in the South; overrun by the Finns and Lithuanians in the North; but in his imperfect political condition he was broken up into minute divisions, canton incessantly at war with canton, and there could be no peace. The roving bands of Scandinavian traders and freebooters were alternately his perse- cutors and protectors. After burning his vil- l8 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. lages for some fancied offense, and appropriat- ing his cattle and corn, they would sell their service for the protection of Kief, Novgorod, and Pskof as freely as they did the same thing to Constantinople and the Greek cities. In other words, these brilliant, masterful intrud- ers were Northmen, and can undoubtedly be identified with those roving sea-kings who terrorized Western Europe for a long and dreary period. The disheartened Slavs of Novgorod came to a momentous decision. They invited these Varangians — as they are called — to come and administer their government. They said: " Our land is great and fruitful, but it lacks order and justice. Come — take possession, and govern us." With the arrival from Sweden of the three Vikings, Rurik and his two brothers Sineus and Truvor, the true his- tory of Russia begins, and the one thousandth anniversary of that event was commemorated at Novgorod in the year 1862. Rurik was the Clovis of Russia. When with his band of followers he was established at Novgorod the name of Russia came into ex- istence, supposedly from the Finnish word ruotsi, meaning rowers or sea-farers. Sla- EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 19 vonia was not only christened but regenerated at this period, and infused into it were the new elements of martial order, discipline, and the habit of implicit obedience to a chosen or hereditary chief; and as Rurik's brothers soon conveniently died, their territory also passed to him, and he assumed the title of Grand Prince. Upon the death of Ruric in 851, his younger brother Oleg succeeded him as regent during the minority of his son Igor; and when two more Varangian brothers — Askold and Dir — -in the same manner — except that they were not invited — took possession of Kief on the Dnieper and set up a rival principality in the South with ambitious designs upon Byzan- tium, Oleg promptly had them assassinated, added their territory to the dominion of Igor, and removed the capital from Novgorod to Kief — saying, " Let Kief be the mother of Russian cities! " Then after selecting a wife named Olga for the young Igor, he turned his attention toward Byzantium, the powerful magnet about which Russian policy was going to revolve for many centuries. So invincible and so wise w^as this Oleg that he was believed to be a sorcerer. When 20 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. the Greek emperor blockaded the passage of the Bosphorus in 907, he placed his two thousand boats (!) upon wheels, and let the sails carry them overland to the gates of Con- stantinople. The Russian poet Pushkin has made this the subject of a poem which tells how Oleg, after exacting tribute from the frightened Emperor Leo VI., in true Norse fashion, hung his shield upon the golden gates as a parting insult. Again and again were the Greeks compelled to pay for immunity from these invasions of the Varangian princes. After the death of Oleg, Igor reigned, and in 941 led another ex- pedition against Constantinople which we are told was driven back by '' Greek-fire." Then enlisting the aid of the Pechenegs, a ferocious Tatar tribe, he returned with such fury, and inflicted such atrocities, that the Greek Em- peror begged for mercy and offered to pay any price to be left alone. The invaders said: " If Caesar speaks thus, what more do we want than to have gold and silver and silks without fighting." A treaty of peace was signed (945), the Russians swearing by their god Perum, and the Greeks by the Gospels; and the victorious Igor turned his face EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE, 21 toward Kief. But he was never to reach that place. The DrevHans, the most savage of the Tatar tribes, had been forced to pay him a large tribute, and were meditating upon their re- venge. They said: '' Let us kill the wolf or we will lose the flock." They watched their opportunity, seized him, tied him to two young trees bent forcibly together; then, let- ting them spring apart, the son of Ruric was torn to pieces. No act of the wise regent Oleg was more fruitful in consequences than the choice of a wife for the young Igor. Olga, who acted as regent during the minority of her son, was destined to be not only the heroine of the Epic Cycle in Russia, but the first apostle of Christianity in that heathen land; canonized by the Church, and remembered as '' the first Russian who mounted to the Heavenly King- dom." When the Drevlians sent gifts to appease her wrath at the murder of Igor, and offered her the hand of their prince, she had the mes- sengers buried alive. All she asked was three pigeons and three sparrows from every house in their capital town. Lighted tow was tied 22 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. to the tails of the birds, which were then per- mitted to fly back to their homes under the eaves of the thatched houses. In the confla- gration which followed, the inhabitants were massacred in a pleasing variety of ways: some strangled, some smothered in vapor, some buried alive, and those remaining reduced to slavery. But an extraordinary transformation was at hand; and this vindictive heathen woman was going to be changed to an ardent convert to the Christian faith. Nestor, who is the Rus- sian Herodotus, relates that she went to Con- stantinople in 955, to inquire into the mys- teries of the Christian Church. The emperor was astonished, it is said, at the strength and adroitness of her mind. She was baptized by the Greek Patriarch, under the new name of Helen, the emperor acting as her god- father. There were already a few Christians in Kief, but so unpopular was the new religion that Olga's son Sviatoslaf, upon reaching his ma- jority, absolutely refused to make himself ridiculous by adopting his mother's faith. ** My men will mock me," was his reply to Olga's entreaties, and Nestor adds '' that he EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 23 often became furious with her " for her im- portunity. Sviatoslaf, the son of Igor and Olga, al- though the first prince to bear a Russian name, was the very type of the cunning, am- bitious, and intrepid Northman, and his brief reign (964-972) displayed all these qualities. He defeated the Khazarui, the most civilized of all those Oriental people, and once the most powerful. He subjugated the Pechenegs, perhaps the most brutal and least civilized of all the barbarians. But these were only incidental to his real purpose. The Bulgarian Empire was large, and had played an important part in the past. It had a Tsar, while Russia had only a Grand Prince, and, although now declining in strength, was a troublesome neighbor to the Greek Empire. The oft-repeated mistake of inviting the aid of another people was committed. Nothing could have better pleased Sviatoslaf than to assist the Greek Empire, and when he cap- tured the Bulgarian capital city on the Dan- ube, and even talked of making it his own capital instead of Kief, it looked as if a great Slav Empire was forming with its center almost within sight of Constantinople. The 24 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. Greeks were dismayed. With the Russians in the Balkan Peninsula, the center of their do- minions upon the Danube — with the Scythian hordes in the South ready to do their bidding — and with scattered Slavonic tribes from Macedon to the Peloponnesos gravitating toward them, what might they not do? No more serious danger had ever threatened the Empire of the East. They rushed to rescue Bulgaria from the very enemy they had invited to overthrow it. After a prolonged struggle, and in spite of the wild courage displayed by Sviatoslaf, he was driven back, and compelled to swear by Perun and Volos never again to invade Bulgaria. If they broke their vows, might they become '' as yellow as gold, and perish by their own arms." But this was for Sviatoslaf the last invasion of any land. The avenging Pechenegs were waiting in ambush for his return. They cut off his head and pre- sented his skull to their Prince as a drinking cup (972). It seems scarcely necessary to call attention to the fact that the transforming energy in this early period of Russian history was not in the native people; but that the Slav, in the hands of his Norse rulers, was as clay in the EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 25 hands of the potter. In the treaty of peace signed at Kief (945) by the victorious Igor, of the fifty names recorded by Nestor only three were Slavonic and the rest Scandina- vian. There can be no doubt which was the dominant race in this the heroic age of Russia. So we have seen a weaker people submit- ting to the rule of a stronger, not by conquest, like Spain under the Visigoths; not overrun and overridden as Britain by the Angles and Saxons and Gaul by the Franks; but, in rec- ognition of its own helplessness, voluntarily becoming subject to the control of strangers. And we see at the same time the brilliant, restless Norseman, with no plan of establish- ing a racial dominion, but simply in the tem- porary enjoyment of his own warlike and rob- ber instincts, engrafting himself upon a less gifted people, and then adopting its language and customs, letting himself be absorbed into the nationality he has helped to create, and be- coming a Russian, with the same facility as Rollo and his sons at the very same period were becoming Frenchmen. CHAPTER IV. So the scattered clans of the Slav race were roughly drawn together into something re- sembling a nation by the strong arm of the Scandinavian. But the course of national progress is never a straight one. Nature un- derstands better than we the value of retard- ing influences, which prevent the too rapid fusing of crude elements. This work of re- tardation was performed for Russia by Svia- toslaf. When, instead of leaving his domin- ions to his oldest son, he divided them among the three, he introduced a vicious system which was to become a fatal source of weak- ness. This is known as the system of Appa- nages. To his son Yaropolk he gave Kief, to Oleg the territory of the Drevlians, and to Vladimir Novgorod. But as Vladimir quickly assassinated Yaropolk, who had already assas- sinated Oleg, the injurious results of the system were not directly felt! Vladimir became the sole ruler. He then 26 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 27 started upon a course of unbridled profli- gacy. He compelled the widow of his mur- dered brother to marry him — then a beautiful Greek nun who had been captured from Byzantium — then a Bulgarian and a Bohemian wife, until finally his household was num- bered by hundreds. But this sensual bar- barian began to be conscious of a soul. He was troubled, and revived the worship of the Slav gods; erected on the cliffs near Kief a new idol of Perun, with head of silver and beard of gold. Two Scandinavian Christians were by his orders stabbed at the feet of the idol. Still his soul was unsatisfied. He de- termined upon a search for the best religion; sent ambassadors to examine into the re- ligious beliefs of Mussulmans, Jews, Catho- lics, and the Greeks. The splendor of the Greek ceremonial, the magnificence of the vestments, the incense, the music, and the presence of the Emperor and his court, filled the souls of the barbarians with awe — and the final argument of his hoyars (or nobles) put an end to doubts: *' If the Greek religion had not been the best, your grandmother Olga, the wisest of mortals, would not have adopted it." 28 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE, Vladimir's choice was made. He would be baptized in the faith of Olga. But this must be done at the hand of the Greek Patriarch; so he would conquer baptism — and ravish it like booty — not beg for it. He besieged and took a Greek city. Then demanded the hand of Anna, sister of the Greek Caesar, threatening in case of refusal to march on Constantinople. Consent was given upon condition of baptism, which was just what the barbarian wanted. So he came back to Kief a Christian, bring- ing with him his new Greek wife, and his new baptismal name of Basil. Amid the tears and fright of the people, the idols were torn down; Perun was flogged and thrown into the Dnieper. Then the old pa- gan stream was consecrated, and men, women, and children, old and young, master and slave, were driven into the river, the Greek priests standing on the banks reading the baptismal service. The frightened Novgorodians were in like manner forced to hurl Perun into the Volkhof, and then, like herded cattle, were driven into the stream to be baptized. The work of Olga was completed — Russia was Christianized (992)! It would be long before Christianity would EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 29 penetrate into the heart of the people. As late as the twelfth century only the higher classes faithfully observed the Christian rites; while the old pagan ceremonies were still com- mon among the peasantry. And even now the Saints of the Calendar are in some places only thinly disguised heathen deities and pa- gan rites and superstitions mingle with Chris- tian observances. The conversion of Vladimir seems to have been sincere. From being a cruel voluptuary and assassin, he was changed to a merciful ruler who could not bear to inflict capital pun- ishment. He was faithful to his Greek wife Anna. On the spot where he had once erected Perun, and where the two Scandina- vians were martyred at his command, he built the church of St. Basil; and he is now re- membered only as the saint who Christianized pagan Russia, and revered as the '' Beautiful Sun of Kief." So the two most important events consid- ered thus far in the history of this land have been, first, its military conquest from the North, and second, its ecclesiastical conquest from the South. If the first helped it to be- come a nation, the second determined the 3© EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. character which that nationaHty should as- sume. To explain one fact by another and unfa- miliar and uncomprehended fact is one of the confusing methods of history! In order to know why the adoption of the form of re- ligion known as the Greek Church so power- fully influenced Russian development, one must understand what that faith was and is, and the source of the antagonisms which di- vided the two great branches of the Church of Christ — the Greek and the Latin. The cause underlying all others is raciaL It is explained in their names. The theology of one had its roots in Greek Philosophy; that of the other in Roman Law. One tended to a brilliant diversity, the other to centralization and unity. One was a group of Ecclesiastical States, a Hierarchy and a Polyarchy, governed by Patriarchs, each supreme in his own dio- cese; the other was a Monarchy, arbitrarily and diplomatically governed from one center. It was the difference between an archipelago and a continent, and not unlike the difference between ancient Greece and Rome. One had the tremendous principle of growth, sta- bility, and permanence; the other had not. EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 3^ Such were the race tendencies which led to entirely different ecclesiastical systems. Then there arose differences in dogma; and Rome considered the Church in the East schismatic, and Byzantium held that that of the West was heterodox. They now not only disapproved of each other's methods, but what was more serious, held different creeds. The Latin Church, after its Bishop had be- come an infallible Pope (about the middle of the fifth century), claimed that the Church in the East must accept his definition of dogma as final. It was one small word which finally rent these two bodies of Christendom forever apart. It was only the word Ulioque which made the impassable gulf dividing them. The Latins maintained that the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father — and the son; the Greeks that it descended from the Father alone. It was the undying controversy con- cerning the relations and the attributes of the three Members of the Trinity; and the insolu- ble question was destined to break up Greek and Catholic Church alike into numberless sects and shades of belief or unbelief; and over this Christological controversy, rivers of blood 32 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. were to flow in both branches of Christen- dom. The theological question involved was of course too subtle for ordinary comprehen- sion. But although men on both sides stood ready to die for the decisions of their councils which they did not understand, there was un- derlying the whole question the political jeal- ousy existing between the two: Byzantium, embittered by the effacement of its political jurisdiction in the West, exasperated at the overweening pretensions of Roman bishops; Rome, watching for opportunity to cajole or compel the Eastern Church to submit to her authority and headship. Such was the condition of things when Rus- sia allied herself in that most vital way with the empire in the East. It is impossible to measure the importance of the step, or to imagine what would have been the history of that country had Vladimir decided to accept the religion of Rome and become Catholic, as the Slav in Poland had already done. By his choice not only is it possible that he added some centuries to the life of the Greek Em- pire itself, but he determined the type of Rus- sian civilization. When she allied herself EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 33 with Byzantium instead of Rome, Russia sepa- rated herself from those European currents from which she was already by natural and in- herited conditions isolated. She thus pro- longed and emphasized the Orientalism which so largely shaped her destiny, and produced a nationality absolutely unique in the family of European nations, in that there is hut one single root in Russia which can be traced hack to the Roman Empire; and whereas most of the European civilizations are built upon a Roman foundation, there is only one current in the life of that nation to-day which has flowed from a Latin source: that is a judi- cial code which was founded (in part) upon Roman law as embodied by Justinian, Empe- ror of the Empire in the East (527-565). CHAPTER V. When Vladimir died, in 1015, the partition of his dominions among numerous heirs in- augurated the destructive system oi Appanages. The country was converted into a group of principalities ruled by Princes of the same blood, of which the Principality of Kief was chief, and its ruler Grand Prince. Kief, the " Mother of Cities," was the heart of Rus- sia, and its Prince, the oldest of the descend- ants of Rurik, had a recognized supremacy over the others; who must, however, also be- long to this royal line. No prince could rule anywhere who was not a descendant of Rurik ; Kief, the greatest prize of all, going to the oldest; and when a Grand Prince died, his son was not his rightful heir, but his uncle, or brother, or cousin, or whoever among the Princes had the right by seniority. This was a survival of the patriarchal system of the Slavs, showing how the Norse rulers had adapted themselves to the native customs as before stated. 34 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE, 35 So while in thus breaking up the land into small jealous and rival states independent of each other — with only a nominal headship at Kief — ^while in this there was a movement to- ward chaos, there were after all some bonds of unity which could not be severed: A unity of race and language; a unity of historical de- velopment; a unity in religion; and the politi- cal unity created by the fact that all the thrones were filled by members of the sam^ family, any one of whom might become Grand Prince if enough of the intervening members could — by natural or other means — be dis- posed of. This was a standing invitation for assassination and anarchy, and one which was not neglected. Immediately upon the death of Vladimir there commenced a carnival of fraternal mur- ders, which ended by leaving Yaroslaf to whom had been assigned the Principality of Novgorod, upon the throne at Kief. The '' Mother of Russian Cities " began to show the effect of Greek influences. The Greek clergy had brought something besides Oriental Christianity into the land of barbari- ans. They brought a desire for better living. Learning began to be prized; schools were 3^ EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. created. Music and architecture, hitherto ab- solutely unknown, were introduced. Kief grew splendid, and with its four hundred churches and its gilded cupolas lighted by the sun, was striving to be like Constantinople. Not alone the Sacred Books of Byzantine lit- erature, but works upon philosophy and sci- ence, and even romance, were translated into the Slavonic language. Russia was no longer the simple, untutored barbarian, guided by unbridled impulses. She was taking her first lesson in civilization. She was beginning to be wise; learning new accomplishments, and, alas! — to be systematically and judicially cruel ! Nothing could have been more repugnant or foreign to the free Slav barbarian than the penal code which was modeled by Yaroslaf upon the one at Byzantium. Corporal pun- ishment was unknown to the Slav, and was abhorrent to his instincts. This seems a strange statement to make regarding the land of the knout I But it is true. And imprison- ment, convict labor, flogging, torture, mutila- tion, and even the death penalty, came into this land by the way of Constantinople. At the same time there mingled with this E VOL UTION OF AN EMPIRE. 37 another stream from Scandinavia, another judicial code which sanctioned private re- venge, the pursuit of an assassin by all the relatives of the dead; also the ordeal by red- hot iron and boiling water. But to the native Slav race, corporal punishment, with its hu- miliations and its refinements of cruelty, was unknown until brought to it by stronger and wiser people from afar. When we say that Russia was putting on a garment of civilization, let no one suppose we mean the people of Russia. It was the Princes, and their military and civil households; it was official Russia that was doing this. The peo- ple were still sowing and reaping, and sharing the fruit of their toil in common, unconscious as the cattle in their fields that a revolution was taking place, ready to be driven hither and thither, coerced by a power which they did not comprehend, their horizon bounded by the needs of the day and hour. The elements constituting Russian society were the same in all the principalities. There was first the Prince. Then his official family, a band of warriors called the Drujina. This Drujina was the germ of the future state. Its members were the faithful servants of the 3^ EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. Prince, his guard and his counselors. He could constitute them a court of justice, or could make them governors of fortresses (posadniki) or lieutenants in the larger towns. The Prince and his Drujina were like a fam- ily of soldiers, bound together by a close tie. The body was divided into three orders of rank: first, the simple guards; second, those corresponding to the French barons; and, third, the Boyars, the most illustrious of all, second only to the Prince. The Drujina was therefore the germ of aristocratic Russia, next below it coming the great body of the people, the citizens and traders, then the peasant, and last of all the slave. Yaroslaf, the " legislator," known as the Charlemagne of Russia, died in the year 1054. The Eastern and Western Empires, long di- vided in sentiment, were that same year sepa- rated in fact, when Pope Leo VI. excom- municated the whole body of the Church in the East. With the death of Yaroslaf the first and heroic period in Russia closes. Sagas and legendary poems have preserved for us its grim outlines and its heroes, of whom Vladi- mir, the " Beautiful Sun of Kief," is chief. EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 39 Thus far there has been a unity in the thread of Russian history — but now came chaos. Who can relate the story of two centuries in which there have been 83 civil wars — 18 for- eign campaigns against one country alone, not to speak of the others — 46 barbaric invasions, and in which 293 Princes are said to have disputed the throne of Kief and other do- m.ains! We repeat: Who could tell this story of chaos; and who, after it is told, would read it? It was a vast upheaval, a process in which the eternal purposes were '' writ large " — too large to be read at the time. It was not intended that only the fertile Black Lands along the Dnieper, near to the civilizing cen- ter at Constantinople, should absorb the life currents. All of Russia was to be vitalized; the bleak North as well as the South; the zone of the forests as well as the fertile steppes. The instruments appointed to accomplish this great work were — the disorder consequent upon the reapportionment of the territory at the death of each sovereign — the fierce rival- ries of ambitious Princes — and the barbaric encroachments to which the prevailing an- archy made the South the prey. 40 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. By the twelfth century the civil war had be- come distinctly a war between a new Russia of the forests and the old Russia of the fertile steppes. The cause of the North had a pow- erful leader in Andrew Bogoliubski. Andrew was the grandson of Monomakh and the son of Yuri (or George) Dolgoruki — both of whom were Grand Princes of extraordinary abiHties and commanding qualities. In 1169 Andrew, who was then Prince of Suzdal, came with an immense army of followers; he marched against Kief. The '' Mother of Rus- sian Cities " was taken by assault, sacked and pillaged, and the Grand Principality ceased to exist. Russia was preparing to revolve around a new center in the Northeast; and with the new Grand Principality of Suzdal, far removed from Byzantine and Western civilizations, it looked like a return toward bar- barism, but was in fact the circuitous road to progress. The life of the nation needed to be drawn to its extremities, and the ambitious Andrew, who assumed the title and au- thority of Grand Prince, had established a line which was destined to lead to the Czars of fu- ture Russia, CHAPTER VI. The Principality of Novgorod had from a remote antiquity been the poHtical center of Northern, as was Kief of Southern Russia. It was the Novgorodians who invited the Norse Princes to come and rule the land; and it was the Novgorodians who were their least sub- missive subjects. When one of the Grand Princes proposed to send his son, whom they did not want, to be their Prince, they replied: " Send him here if he has a spare head." It was a fearless, proud republic, as patriotic and as quarrelsome as Florence, which it some- what resembled. Their Prince was in reality a figurehead. He was considered essential to the dignity of the state, but his fortunes were in the hands of two political parties, of which he represented the party in the ascendant. Novgorod was a commercial city — its life was in its trade with the Orient and the Greek Empire, and like the Italian cities, its politics were swayed by economic interests. Those 41 42 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. in trade with the East through the Volga de- sired a Prince from one of the great families about that Oriental artery in the Southeast; while those whose fortunes depended upon the Greeks preferred one from Kief or the principalities on the Dnieper. When one party fell, the Prince fell with it, and as the formula expressed it, they then '' made him a reverence, and showed him the way out of Novgorod " — or else held him captive until his successor arrived. Princes might come, and Princes might go, but an irrepressible spirit of freedom " went on forever"; the reigns all too short and troubled to disturb the ancient liberties and customs of the repubHc. No Grand Prince was ever powerful enough to impose upon them a Prince they did not want, and no Prince strong enough to oppose the will of the people; every act of his requiring the sanc- tion of their posadnik, a high official — and every decision subject to reversal by the Vetche, the popular assembly. The VetcM was, in fact, the real sovereign of the proud republic which styled itself, " My Lord Nov- gorod the Great." Such was the remarkable state which played an important, and certainly EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 43 the most picturesque, part in the history of Russia. The first thought of the new Grand Prince at Suzdal was to prevent the possible rivalry of this arrogant principality in the North, by conquering it and breaking its spirit. He was also resolved to break thoroughly with the past, to destroy the system of Appanages, and had conceived the idea of the modem un- divided state. He removed his capital from the old town of Suzdal, which had its Vetche or popular assembly, to Vladimir, which had had none of these things, assigning as his rea- son, not that he intended to be sole master and free from all ancient trammels — but that the Mother of God had come to him in a dream and commanded him so to do! But an end came to all his dreams and ambitions. He was assassinated in 1174 by his own bo- yars, who were exasperated by his subversive policy and his proposed reforms. With the setting of the currents of Russian national life toward the North, there was awakened in Europe a vague sense of danger. Not far from Novgorod, on and about the shores of the Baltic, were various tributary Slav tribes, mingled with pagan Finns. This 44 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. was the only point of actual contact, the only point without natural protection between Russia and Europe, and it must be guarded. German merchants, hand in hand with Latin missionaries, invaded a strip of disputed ter- ritory, and, under the cloak of Christianity, commenced a — conquest, A Latin Church be- came also a fortress; and the fortress soon ex- panded into a German town, and these crept every year farther and farther into the East. In order to quell the resistance of native Finns and Slavs, there was created, and authorized by the Pope, an order of knighthood, called the " Sword-Bearers," with the double pur- pose of driving back the Slavonic tide which threatened Germany and at the same time Christianizing it. These were the " Livonian Knights," who came from Saxony and West- phalia, armed cap-a-pie, with red crosses em- broidered upon the shoulder of their white mantles. Then another order was created (1225), the '' Teutonic Order," wearing black crosses on their shoulders, which, after frater- nizing with the Livonian Knights, was going to absorb them — together with some other things — into their own more powerful organi- zation. Russia had no armed warriors to EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 45 meet these steel-clad Germans and Livonians. She had no orders of chivalry, had taken no part in the Crusades, the far-off echoes of which had fallen upon unheeding ears. The Russians could defend with desperate courage their own flimsy fortifications of wood, earth, and loose stones; but they could not pull down with ropes the solid German fortresses of stone and cement, and their spears were in- effectual upon the shining armor. Their con- quest was inevitable; the conquered territory being divided between the knights and the Latin Church. So Konigsberg and many other Russian towns were captured and then Teutonized, by joining them to the cities of Liibeck, Bremen, Hamburg, etc., in the '' Hanseatic League." This conquest was of less future importance to Russia than to Western Europe. It con- tained the germ of much history. The terri- tory thus wrested from Russia became the German state of Prussia; and a future master of the Teutonic order, a Hohenzollern, was in later years its first King; and this was the be- ginning of the great German Empire which confronts the Empire of the Czar to-day. So the conquest by the German Orders was 46 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. added to the other woes by which Russia was rent and torn after the death of her Grand Prince at Suzdal. To us it all seems like an unmeaning panorama of chaos and disorder. But to them it was only the vicissitudes natu- rally occurring in the life of a great nation. They were proud of their nationality, which had existed nearly as long as from Columbus to our own day. They gloried in their splen- did background of great deeds and their long line of heroes reaching back to Rurik. Their Princes were proud and powerful — their fol- lowers (the Drujiniki) — noble and fearless — who could stand before them? They would have exchanged their glories for those of no nation upon the earth, except perhaps that waning empire of the Caesars at Constanti- nople! Such was the sentiment of Russian nation- ality at the time when its overwhelming humiliation suddenly came, a degrading sub- jection to Asiatic Mongols, which lasted 250 years. In the year 1224 there appeared in the Southeast a strange host who claimed the land of the Polovtsui, a Tatar clan which had been for centuries encamped about the Sea of EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 47 Azof. The Russian chronicler naively says: ** There came upon us for our sins unknown nations. God alone knew who they were, or where they came from — God, and perhaps wise men, learned in books " — which it is evi- dent the chronicler was not! The invaders were Mongols — that branch of the human family from which had come the Tatars and the Huns, already familiar to Russia. But these Mongols were the vanguard of a vast army which had streamed like a torrent through the heart of Asia, conquering as it came; gathering one after another the Asiatic kingdoms into an empire ruled by Genghis Khan, a sovereign who in forty years had made himself master of China and the greater part of Asia — saying: " As there is only one Sun in Heaven, so there should be only one Emperor on the Earth "; and when he died, in 1227, he left*' the largest empire that had ever existed, and one which he was preparing to extend into Western Europe. It was the court of this great sovereign which, in 1275, was visited by the Venetian traveler Marco Polo. This was the far-off Cathay, descriptions of which fired the im- agination of Europe, and awoke a consuming 48 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE, desire to get access to its fabulous riches, and which two centuries later filled the mind of Columbus with dreams of reaching that land of wonders by way of the West. The Polovtsui appealed to the nearest prin- cipalities for help, offering to adopt their re- ligion and to become their subjects, in jeturn for aid. When several Princes came with their armies to the rescue, the Mongols sent messengers saying: ''We have no quarrel with you; we have come to destroy the accursed Polovtsui." The Princes repUed by promptly putting the ambassadors all to death. This sealed the fate of Russia. There could be no compromise after that. Upon that first bat- tlefield, on the steppes near the sea of Azof, there were left six Princes, seventy chief ho- yars, and all but one-tenth of the Russian army. After this thunderbolt had fallen an omi- nous quiet reigned for thirteen years. Noth- ing more was heard of the Mongols — but a comet blazing in the sky awoke vague fears. Suddenly an army of five hundred thousand Asiatics returned, led by Batui, nephew of the Great Khan of Khans. It was the defective political structure of EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 49 Russia, its division into principalities, which made it an easy prey. The Mongols, mov- ing as one man, took one principality at a time, its nobles and citizens alone bearing arms, the peasants, by far the greater part, be- ing utterly defenseless. After wrecking and devastating that, they passed on to the next, which, however desperately defended, met the same fate. The Grand Principality was a ruin; its fourteen towns were burned, and when, in the absence of its Grand Prince, Vla- dimir the capital city fell, the Princesses and all the families of the nobles took refuge in the cathedral and perished in the general con- flagration (1238). Two years later Kief also fell, with its white walls and towers embel- lished by Byzantine art, its cupolas of gold and silver. All was laid in the dust, and only a few fragments in museums now remain to tell of its glory. The annalist describes the bellowings of the buffaloes, the cries of the camels, the neighing of the horses, and bowl- ings of the Tatars while the ancient and beau- tiful city was being laid low. Before 1240 the work was complete. There was a Mongol empire where had been a Russian. Then the tide began to set toward 5© EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. Western Europe. Isolated from the other European states by her reHgion, Russia had suffered alone. No Europe sprang to her de- fense as to the defense of Spain from the Sara- cens. Not until Poland and Hungary were threatened and invaded did the Western Kingdoms give any sign of interest. Then the Pope, in alarm, appealed to the Christian states. Frederick II. of Germany responded, and Louis IX. of France (Saint-Louis) pre- pared to lead a crusade. But the storm had spent its fury upon the Slavonic people, and was content to pause upon those plains which to the Asiatic seemed not unlike his own home. CHAPTER VII. Amid the wreck of principalities there was one state remaining erect. Novgorod was defended by its remoteness and its uninviting climate. The Mongols had not thought it worth while to attempt the reduction of the warlike state, so the stalwart Republic stood alone amid the general ruin. All the rest were under the Tatar yoke. Of Princes there were none. All had either been slaughtered or fled. Proud boyars saw their wives and daughters the slaves of barbarians. Deli- cate women who had always lived in luxury were grinding corn and preparing coarse food for their terrible masters. After the conquest was completed the Mongol sovereign exacted only three things from the prostrate state — homage, tribute, and a military contingent when required. They might retain their land and their cus- toms, might worship any god in any way; their Princes might dispute for the thrones as before; but no Prince — not the Grand Prince SI 52 EVOLUTIOM OF AN EMPIRE. himself — could ascend a throne until he had permission from the Great Khan, to whom also every dispute between royal claimants must be deferred. Then when finally the messenger came from the sovereign with the yarlik, or royal sanction, the Prince must lis- ten kneeling, with his head in the dust. And if then he was invited (?) to the Mongol court to pay homage, he must go, even though it required (as Marco Polo tells us) four years to make the journey across the plains and the mountains and rivers and the Great Desert of Gobi! When Yaroslaf, of the family of Dolgoruki, was at last Grand Prince of Suzdal he was m- vited to pay this visit. After reaching there, and after all the degrading ceremonies to which he was subjected — kissing the stirrup of his Suzerain, and licking up the drops which fell from his cup as he drank — then this Prince of the family of Rurik perished from exhaustion in the Desert of Gobi on his return journey. But this was not all. The yoke was a heavy as well as a degrading one. Each Prince with his Dnijina must be always ready to lead an army in defense of the Mongol cause if required; and, last of all, the poll-tax EVOLUTION OF AN- EMPIRE. 53 bore with intolerable weight upon everyone, rich or poor, excepting only the ecclesiastics and the property of the Greek Church, which with a singular clemency they exempted. What sort of a despotism was it, and what sort of a being, that could wield such a power from such a distance! that, across a continent it took four years to traverse, could compel such obedience; could by a word or a nod bring proud Princes with rage and rebellion in their hearts to his court — not to be hon- ored and enriched, but degraded and insulted; then in shame to turn back with their ho- yars and retinues, — if indeed they were permit- ted to go back at all, — one-half of whom would perish from exhaustion by the way. What was the secret of such a power? Even with all the modern appliances for conveying the will of a sovereign to-day, with railroads to carry his messengers and telegraph wires to convey his will, would it be conceivable to exert such an authority? And — listen to the language of a proud Russian Prince at the Court of the Great Khan: " Lord — all-powerful Tsar, if I have done aught against you, I come hither to re- ceive Hfe or death. I am ready for either. 54 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE, Do with me as God inspires you.'* Or still another: " My Lord and master, by thy mercy hold I my principality — with no title but thy protection and investiture — thy yarlik; while my uncle claims it not by your favor but by right! " It was such pleading as this that succeeded; so it is easy to see how Princes at last vied with each other in being abject. In this particular case the presumptuous uncle was ordered to lead his victorious nephew's horse by the bridle, on his way to his corona- tion at Moscow. So the path to success was through the dust, and it was the wily Princes of Moscow that most patiently traveled that road with important results to Russia. Novgorod, as we have said, had alone es- caped from these degradations. Her Prince Alexander was son of Yaroslaf, the Grand Prince who perished in the desert on his way home. At the time of the invasion Alexan- der was leading an army against the Swedes and the Livonian Knights in defense of his Baltic provinces. It was Latin Christianity versus Greek, and by a great victory upon the banks of the Neva he earned undying fame and the surname of Nevski. Alexander Nevski EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 55 is remembered as the hero of the Neva and of the North; yet even he was finally compelled to grovel at the feet of the barbarians. Novgo- rod alone had stood erect, had paid no tribute and offered no homage to the Khan. At last, when its destruction was at hand, thirty-six years after the invasion, Nevski had the hero- ism to submit to the inevitable. He advised a surrender. It needed a soul of iron to brave the indignation of the republic. " He offers us servitude! " they cried. The Posadnik who conveyed the counsel to the Vetche was mur- dered on the spot. But Alexander persisted, and he prevailed. His own son refused to share his father's disgrace, and left the state. Again and again the people withdrew the consent they had given. Better might Nov- gorod perish! But finally, when Alexander Nevski declared that he would go, that he would leave them to their fate, they yielded, and the Mongols came into a silent city, pass- ing from house to house making lists of the inhabitants who must pay tribute. Then the unhappy Prince went to prostrate himself before the Khan at Sarai. But his heart had broken with his spirit. He had saved his state, but the task had been too 56 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. heavy for him. He died from exhaustion on his journey home (1260). On account of internal convulsions in the Great Tatar Empire, now united by Kublai- Khan, the fourth in succession from Genghis- Khan, the Golden-Horde had separated from the parent state, and its Khan was absolute ruler of Russia. So from this time the cere- mony of investiture was performed at Sarai; and the humiHating pilgrimages of the Princes were made to that city. The religion of the Mongols at the time of the invasion was a paganism founded upon sorcery and magic; but they soon thereafter adopted Islamism, and became ardent follow- ers of the Prophet (1272). Although they never attempted to Tatarize Russia, 250 years of occupation could not fail to leave indelible traces upon a civilization which was even more than before Orientalized. The dress of the upper classes became more Eastern — the flowing caftan replaced the tunic, the blood of the races mingled to some extent; even the Princes and hoyars contracting marriages with Mongol women, so that in some of the future sovereigns the blood of the Tatar was to be mingled with that of Rurik. EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 57 A weaker nation would have been crushed and disheartened by such calamities as have been described. But Russia was not weak. She had a tremendous store of vigor for good or for evil. Life had always been a terrible conflict, with nature and with man, and when there had been no other barbarians to fight, they had fought each other. Every muscle and every sinew had always been in the high- est state of activity, and was toughened and strong, with an inextinguishable vitality. Such nations do not waste time in sentimental regrets. Their wounds, like those of animals, heal quickly, and they are urged on by a sort of instinct to wear out the chains they cannot break. By the time Novgorod came under the Tatar yoke the entire state had adjusted itself to its condition of servitude. Its inter- nal economy was re-established, the peasants, in their Mirs or communes, sowed and reaped, and the people bought and sold, only a Httle more patient and submissive than before. The burden had grown heavier, but it must be borne and the tribute paid. The Princes, with wits sharpened by conflict, fought as they always had, with uncles, cousins, and brothers for the thrones; and then governed with a se- 58 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. verity as nearly as possible like the one im- posed upon themselves by their own master — the Great Khan. The g-erm of future Russia was there; a strong, patient, toiling people firmly held by a despotic power which they did not compre- hend, and uncomplainingly and as a matter of course giving nearly one-half of the fruit of their toil for the privilege of living in their own land! When her sovereigns had Tatar blood in their veins and Tatar ideals in their hearts, Russia was on the road to absolutism. All things were tending toward a centralized unity of an iron and inexorable type — a type entirely foreign to the natural free instincts of the Slavonic people themselves. CHAPTER VIII. The tumultuous forces in Russia, never at rest, were preparing to revolve about a new center. Whether this would be in the East or West was long in doubt, and only decided after a prolonged struggle. Western Russia grouped itself about the state of the Lithuan- ians on the Baltic, and Eastern Russia about that of Muscovy. The Lithuanians had never been Christian- ized; they still adored Rerun and their pagan deities; and the only bond uniting them with Russia was the tribute they had for years reluctantly paid. They were ripe for rebellion; and when after long years of conflict with the Livonian and Teu- tonic Orders, Latin Christianity obtained some foothold in their land, they began to gravitate toward Catholic Poland in- stead of Greek Russia; and when a marriage was suggested which should unite Poland and Lithuania under their Prince lagello, who should reign over both at Cracow, and at the 59 6o EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. same time g"ive them their own Grand Prince, they consented. The forces instigating this movement had their source at Rome, where the Pope was unceasingly striving, through Germany and Poland, to carry the Latin cross into Russia. Again and again had the Greek Church repulsed the offers of reconciliation and union made by Rom.e. So, much was hoped from the proselyting of the German Orders, and of Catholic Poland, and from the union effected by the marriage of the Lithu- anian Prince lagello with the Polish Queen Hedwig. The threads composing this network of policies in the West were altogether ecclesias- tical, until Lithuania began to feel strong enough to wash off her Christian baptism and to indulge in ambitious designs of her own: to struggle away from Poland, and to. com- mence an independent and aggressive move- ment against Russia. There was an immense vigor in this move- ment. The power in the Wect, sometimes Catholic and at heart always pagan, absorbed first towns and cities and then principalities. It began to be a Lithuanian conquest, and overshadowed even Mongol oppression. The EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 6r Mongol wanted tribute; while Lithuania wanted Russia! But one of the gravest dan- gers brought by this war between the East and the West was the standing opportunity it offered to conspirators. An army of disaf- fected uncles and nephews and brothers, with their followers, could always find a refuge, and were always plotting and intriguing and negotiating with Lithuania and Poland, ready even to compromise their faith, if only they might ruin the existing powers. Such, in brief, was the great conflict be- tween the East and West, during which Moscow came into being as the supreme head, the living center and germ of Russian autocracy. It seems to have been the extraordinary vitality of one family which twice changed the currents of national life: first drawing them from Kief to Suzdal, then from Suzdal toward Moscow, and there establishing a center of growth which has expanded into Russia as it exists to-day. This was the family of Dolgoruki. Monomakh and his son George Dolgoruki, the last Grand Prince of Kief, were both men of commanding character and abilities; and it will be remembered 62 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. that it was Andrew Bogoliubski, the son of George (or Yuri), who effected the revolu- tion which transferred the Grand PrincipaHty from Kief to Suzdal in the bleak North. Alexander Nevski, the hero of the Neva and of Novgorod, was the descendant of this An- drew (of Suzdal), and it was the son of Nevski who was the first Prince of Moscow and who there established a line of Princes which has come unbroken down to Nicholas 11. Con- trary to all the traditions of their state this dominating family was going to establish a dynasty, and again to remove the national life to a new center, in a Grand Principality toward which all of Russia was gradually but inevitably to gravitate until it became Musco- vite. The city which was to exert such an influ- ence upon Russia was founded in 1147 by George (or Yuri) Dolgoruki, the last Grand Prince of Kief. The story is that upon arriv- ing at once at the domain of a hoyar named Kutchko, he caused him for some offense to be put to death; then, as he looked out upon the river Moskwa from the height where now stands the Kremlin, so pleased was he with the outlook that he then and there planted the EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 63 nucleus of a town. Whether the death of the hoyar or the purpose of appropriating the domain came first, is not stated; but upon the soil freshly sprinkled with human blood arose Moscow. The town was of so little importance that its destruction by the Tatars in 1238 was un- observed. In 1260, when Alexander Nevski died, Moscow, with a few villages, was given as a small appanage or portion to his son Daniel. Nevski, it must be remembered, was a direct descendant of Monomakh, and of George Dolgoruki, the founder of Moscow. So the first Prince of Moscow was of this illustrious line, a line which has remained unbroken until the present time. When Daniel commenced to reign over what was probably the most obscure and in- significant principality in all Russia, it was sur- rounded by old and powerful states, in perpetual struggle with each other. The Lithuanian conquest was pressing in from the West and assuming large proportions; while embracing the whole agitated surface was the odious enslavement to the Mongols and their oft-recurring invasions to enforce their inso- lent demands. 64 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. The building of the Russian Empire was not a dainty task! It was not to be performed by delicate instruments and gentle hands. It needed brutal measures and unpitying hearts. Nor could brute force and cruelty do it alone; it required the subtler forces of mind — cold, calculating policies, patience, and craft of a subtle sort. The Princes of Russia had long been observant pupils, first at Constantinople, and later at the feet of the Khans. They could meet cruelty with cruelty, cunning with cunning. But it was the Princes of Moscow who proved themselves masters in these Ori- ental arts. Their cunning was not of the vulgar sort which works for ends that are near; it was the cunning which could wait, could patiently cringe and feign loyalty and devotion, with the steady purpose of tearing in pieces. Added to this, they had the intel- ligence to divine the secret of power. Certain ends they kept steadily in view. The old law of succession to eldest collateral heir they set aside from the outset; the principality being invariably divided among the sons of the de- ceased Prince. Then they gradually estab- lished the habit of giving to the eldest son Moscow, and only insignificant portions to the EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 65 rest. So primogeniture lay at the root of the policy of the new state — and they had created a dynasty. Then their invariable method was by cun- ning arts to embroil neighboring Princes in quarrels, and so to ingratiate themselves with their master the Khan, that when they ap- peared before him at Sarai — as they must — for his decision, while one unfortunate Prince (unless perchance he was beheaded and did not come away at all) came away without his throne, the faithful Prince of Moscow re- turned with a new state added to his territory and a new title to his name! Was he not always ready, not only to obey himself, but to enforce the obedience of others? Did he not stand ready to march against Novgorod, or any proud, refractory state which failed in tribute or homage to his master the Khan? No gloomier, no darker chapter is written in his- tory than that which records the transition of Russia into Muscovy. It was rooted in a tragedy, it was nourished by human blood at every step of its growth. It was by base ser- vility to the Khans, by perfidy to their peers, by treachery and by prudent but pitiless policy, that Moscow rose from obscurity to 66 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. the supreme headship — and the name of Mus- covy was attained. There was a Hne of eight Muscovite Princes from Daniel (1260) to the death of VasiU (1462), but they moved as steadily toward one end as if one man had been during those two centuries guiding the policy of the state. The city of Moscow was made great. The Krem- lin was built (1300) — not as we see it now. It required many centuries to accumulate all the treasures within that sacred inclosure of walls, crowned by eighteen towers. But with each succeeding reign there arose new buildings, more and more richly adorned by jewels and by Byzantine art. Then the city was made the ecclesiastical center of Russia. The Metropolitan, second only to the Great Patriarch at Constantinople, was induced to remove to Moscow from Vlad- imir, capital of the Grand Principality. This was an important advance; for in the train of the great ecclesiastic came splendor of ritual, and wealth and culture and art; and a cathe- dral and more palaces must be added to the Kremlin. In 1328 the Prince of Moscow, being the eldest descendant of Rurik, fell heir by the old law of succession to the Grand EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE, 67 Principality. Now the Prince of Moscow was also Grand Prince of Vladimir, an opportunity which was not neglected. He continued to dwell in his own capital, and the Grand Princi- pality was ruled from Moscow, and then the first act of the Grand Prince was to claim sover- eignty over Novgorod. The people were de- prived of their Vetche and their posadnik, while one of his own boyars represented his author- ity and ruled as their Prince. Then the com- pliant Khan bestowed upon his faithful vassal the triple crown of Vladimir, Moscow, and Novgorod, to which were soon to be added many others. The next step was to be the setting aside of the old Slavonic law of inheritance, and claim- ing the throne of the Grand Principality for the oldest son of the last reigning Grand Prince; making sure at the same time that this Prince belonged to the Muscovite line. This was not entirely accompHshed until 1431, when Vasili carried his dispute to the Horde for the Khan's decision. The other disputant, who was making a desperate stand for his rights under the old system of seniority, was the " presumptuous uncle " already men- tioned, who was, it will be remembered, com- 6S EVOLUTION OF AM EMPIRE. manded to lead by the bridle the horse of his triumphant Muscovite nephew. The sons of the disappointed uncle, however, conspired with success even after that; and finally, in a rage, Vasili ordered that the eyes of one of his cousins be put out. But time brings its re- venges. Ten years later the Grand Prince, on an evil day, fell into the hands of the remain- ing cousin, — brother of his victim, — and had his own eyes put out. So he was thereafter known as '' Vasili the Blind." This wily Prince kept his oldest son Ivan close to him; and, that there might be no doubt about his succession, so familiarized him with his posi- tion and placed him so firmly in the saddle that it would not be easy to unseat him when his own death occurred. Many things had been happening during these two centuries besides the absorption of the Russian principalities by Moscow. The ambitious designs of Lithuania, in which Po- land and Hungary, and the German Knights and Latin Christianity, were all involved, had been checked, and the disappointed state of Lithuania was gravitating toward a union with Poland. More important still, the Empire of the Khan was falling into pieces. The proc- EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 69 ess had been hastened by a tremendous vic- tory obtained by the Grand Prince Dmitri in 1378, on the banks of the Don. In the same way that Alexander Nevski obtained the sur-name of Nevski by the battle on the Neva, so Dmitri Donskoi won his upon the river Don. Hitherto the Tatars had been resisted, but not attacked. It was the first real out- burst against the Mongol yoke, and it shook the foundations of their authority. Then dissensions among themselves, and the strug- gles of numerous claimants for the throne at Sarai broke the Golden-Horde into five Khan- ates each claiming supremacy. CHAPTER IX. Something else had been taking place dur- ing these two centuries: something which in- volved the future, not alone of Russia, but of all Europe. In 1250, just ten years before Daniel established the line of Princes in Mos- cow, a little band of marauding Turks were encamped upon a plain in Asia Minor. They were led by an adventurer named^ Etrogruhl. For some service rendered to the ruler of the land Etrogruhl received a strip of territory as his reward, and when he died his son Oth- man displayed such ability in increasing his inheritance by absorbing the lands of other people that he became the terror of his neigh- bors. He had laid the foundation of the Otto- man empire and was the first of a line of thirty- five sovereigns, extending down to the present time. It is the descendant of Othman and of Etrogruhl the adventurer who sits to-day at Constantinople blocking the path to the East and defying Christendom. These Ottoman 70 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 7^ Turks were going to accomplish what Russian Princes from the time of Rurik and Oleg had longed and failed to do. They were going to break the power of the old empire in the East and make the coveted city on the Bosphorus their own. In 1453, the successor of Othman was in Constantinople. The Pope, always hoping for a reconcilia- tion, and always striving for the headship of a united Christendom, had in 1439 made fresh overtures to the Greek Church. The Em- peror at Constantinople, three of the Patri- archs, and seventeen of the Metropolitans — including the one at Moscow — at last signed the Act of Union. But when the astonished Russians heard the prayer for the Pope, and saw the Latin cross upon their altars, their indignation knew no bounds. The Grand Prince Vasili so overwhelmed the Metropoli- tan with insults that he could not remain in Moscow, and the Union was abandoned. Its wisdom as a political measure cannot be doubted. If the Emperor had had the sym- pathy of the Pope, and the championship of Catholic Europe, the Turks might not have entered Constantinople in 1453. But they had not that sympathy, and the Turks did 12 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. enter it; and no one event has ever left so last- ing an impress upon civilization as the over- throw of the old Byzantine Empire, and the giving to the winds, to carry whither they would, its hoarded treasures of ancient ideals. Byzantium had been the heir to Greece, and now Russia claimed to be heir to Byzantium; while the head of Russia was Moscow, and the head of Moscow was Ivan III., who had just settled himself firmly on the seat left by his father, '' Vasili the Blind " (1462). Christendom had never received such a blow. Where had been before a rebellious and alienated brother, who might in time be reconciled, there was now — and at the very Gate of Europe — the infidel Turk, the bitter- est and most dangerous foe to Christianity; bearing the same hated emblem that Charles Martel had driven back over the Pyrenees (in 732), and which had enslaved the Spanish Peninsula for seven hundred years; but, unlike the Saracen, bringing barbarism instead of enlightenment in its train. The Pope, in despair and grief, turned toward Russia. Its Metropolitan had become a Patriarch now, and the headship of the Greek Church had passed from Constantino- EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 73 pie to Moscow. A niece of the last Greek Emperor, John Paleologus, had taken refuge in Rome; and when the Pope suggested the marriage of this Greek Princess Zoe with Ivan III., the proposition was joyfully accepted by him. After changing her name from Zoe to So- phia, and making a triumphal journey through Russia, this daughter of the Emperors reached Moscow and became the bride of Ivan III. Moscow had long been the ecclesiastical head of Russia; now she was the spiritual head of the Church in the East, and her ruling family was joined to that of the Caesars. Russia had certainly fallen heir to all that was left of the wreck of the Empire, and her future sovereigns might trace their lineage back to the Roman Caesars! Moscow, by its natural position, was the dis- tributing center of Russian products. The wood from the North, the corn from the fer- tile lands, and the food from the cattle region all poured into her lap, making her the com- mercial as well as the spiritual and political center. Now there flowed to that favored city another enriching stream. Following in the train of Ivan's Greek wife, were scholars, statesmen, diplomatists, artists. A host of 74 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. Greek emigrants fleeing from the Turks, took refuge in Moscow, bringing with them books, manuscripts, and priceless treasures rescued from the ruined Empire. If this was a period of Renaissance for Western Europe, was it not rather a Naissance for Russia? What must have been the Russian people when her princes were still only barbarians? If Ivan valued these things, it was because they had been worn by Byzantium, and to him they symbol- ized power. There was plenty of rough work for him to do yet. There were Novgorod and her sister-republic Pskof to be wiped out, and Sweden and the Livonian Order on his bor- ders to be looked after, Bulgaria and other lands to be absorbed, and last and most impor- tant of all, the Mongol yoke to be broken. And while he was planning for these he had little time for Greek manuscripts; he was in- troducing the knout, ^ until then a stranger to his Slavonic people; he was having Princes and hoyars and even ecclesiastics whipped and tortured and mutilated; and, it is said, roasted alive two Polish gentlemen in an iron cage, for conspiracy. We hear that women fainted at his glance, and hoyars trembled while he slept; that instead of ''Ivan the Great" he * From the word knot. EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 75 would be known as " Ivan the Terrible," had not his grandson Ivan IV. so far outshone him. That he had his softer moods we know. For he loved his Greek wife, and shed tears copiously over his brother's death, even while he was appropriating all the territory which had belonged to him. And so great was his grief over the death of his only son, that he ordered the physicians who had attended him to be publicly beheaded! The art of healing seems to have been a dangerous calling at that time. A learned German physician, named Anthony, in whom Ivan placed much confidence, was sent by him to attend a Tatar Prince who was a visitor at his court. When the Prince died after taking a decoction of herbs prepared by the physi- cian, Ivan gave him up to the Tatar relatives of the deceased, to do with him as they liked. They took him down to the river Moskwa under the bridge, where they cut him in pieces like a sheep. Ivan III. was not a warrior Prince like his great progenitors at Kief. It was even sus- pected that he lacked personal courage. He rarely led his armies to battle. His greatest triumphs were achieved sitting in his palace 76 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. in the Kremlin; and bis weapons were found in a cunning and far-reaching diplomacy. He swept away the system of appanages, and one by one effaced the privileges and the old legal and judicial systems in those Principalities which were not yet entirely absorbed. While maintaining an outward respect for Mongol authority, and while receiving its friendly aid in his attacks upon Novgorod and Lithua- nia, he was carefully laying his plans for open defiance. He cunningly refrained from pay- ing tribute and homage on the pretense that he could not decide which of the five was lawful Khan. In 1478 an embassy arrived at Moscow to collect tribute, bringing as the symbol of their authority an image of the Khan Akhmet. Ivan tore off the mask of friendship. In a fury he trampled the image under his feet and (it is said) put to death all except one whom he sent back with his message to the Golden Horde. The astonished Khan sent word that he would pardon him if he would come to Sarai and kiss his stirrup. At last Ivan consented to lead his own army to meet that of the enraged Khan. The two armies confronted each other on the banks of EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 77 the Oka. Then after a pause of several days, suddenly both were seized with a panic and fled. And so in this inglorious fashion in 1480, after three centuries of oppression and insult, Russia slipped from under the Mongol yoke. There were many Mongol invasions after this. Many times did they unite with Lithuanians and Poles and the enemies of Russia; many times were they at the gates of Moscow, and twice did they burn that city — excepting the Kremlin — to the ground. But never again was there homage or tribute paid to the broken and demoralized Asiatic power which long lingered about the Crimea. There are to-day two millions of nomad Mongols encamped about the south- eastern steppes of Russia, still living in tents, still raising and herding their flocks, little changed in dress, habits, and character since the days of Genghis Khan. While this is writ- ten a famine is said to be raging among them. This is the last remnant of the great Mongol invasion. In 1487 Ivan marched upon Kazan. The city was taken after a siege of seven weeks. The Tsar of Kazan was a prisoner in Moscow and '' Prince of Bulgaria." was added to the titles of Ivan III. CHAPTER X. Vasili, who succeeded Ivan III. in 1505, continued his work on the same lines of ab- sorption and consoHdation by unmerciful means. Pskof, — the sister republic to Nov- gorod the Great, — which had guarded its liberties with the same passionate devotion, was obliged to submit. The bell which had always summoned their Vetche, and which symbolized their liberty, was carried away. Their lament is as famous as that for the Moorish city of Alhama, when taken by Ferdinand of Aragon. The poetic annalist says: " Alas! glorious city of Pskof — why this weeping and lamentation?" Pskof replies: " How can I but weep and lament? An eagle with claws like a lion has swooped down upon me. He has captured my beauty, my riches, my children. Our land is a desert! our city ruined. Our brothers have been carried away to a place where our fathers never dwelt — nor our grandfathers — nor our great-grand- 78 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 79 fathers! " In the whole tragic story of Rus- sia nothing is more pathetic and picturesque than the destruction of the two republics — Novgorod and Pskof. By 1523 the last state had yielded, and the absorption was complete. There was only one Russia; and the head of the consoli- dated empire called himself not '' Grand Prince of all the Russias," but Tsar. When it is remembered that Tsar is only the Sla- vonic form for Ccesar, it will be realized that the dream of the Varangian Princes had been in an unexpected way realized. The Tsar of Russia was the successor of the Caesars in the East. Vasili's method of choosing a wife was like that of Ahasuerus. Fifteen hundred of the most beautiful maidens of noble birth were as- sembled at Moscow. After careful scrutiny the number was reduced to ten, then to five — from these the final choice was made. His wife's relations formed the court of Vasili, be- came his companions and advisers, hoyars vying with each other for the privilege of waiting upon his table or assisting at his toilet. But the office of adviser was a difficult one. To one great lord who in his inexperience 8o EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. ventured to offer counsel, as in the olden time of the Drujina, he said sharply: *' Be silent, rustic." While still another, more indiscreet, who had ventured to complain that they were not consulted, was ordered to his bedchamber, and there had his head cut off. The court grew in barbaric and in Greek splendor. As the Tsar sat upon the throne supported by mechanical lions which roared at intervals, he was guarded by young nobles with high caps of white fur, wearing long caftans of white satin and armed with silver hatchets. Greek scholarship was also there. A learned monk and friend of Savonarola was translat- ing Greek books and arranging for him the priceless volumes in his library. Vasili him- self was now in correspondence with Pope Leo X., who was using all his arts to induce him to make friends with Catholic Poland and join in the most important of all wars — a war upon Constantinople, of which he, Vasili, the spiritual and temporal heir to the Eastern Empire, was the natural protector. All this was very splendid. But things were moving with the momentum gained by his father, Ivan the Great. It was Vasili's in- heritance, not his reign, that was great. That EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 8 1 inheritance he had maintained and increased. He had humiHated the nobility, had developed the movements initiated by his greater father, and had also shown tastes magnificent enough for the heir of his imperial mother, Sophia Paleologus. But he is overshadowed in his- tory by standing between the two Ivans — Ivan the Great and Ivan the Terrible. Leo X. was soon too much occupied with a new foe to think about designs upon Con- stantinople. A certain monk was nailing a protest upon the door of the Church at Wit- tenburg which would tax to the uttermost his energies. As from time to time travelers brought back tales of the splendor of the Mus- covite court, Europe was more than ever afraid of such neighbors. What might these powerful barbarians not do, if they adopted European methods! More stringent measures were enforced. They must not have access to the implements of civilization, and Sigismund, King of Poland, threatened English mer- chants on the Baltic with death. It is a singular circumstance that although, up to the time of Ivan the Great, Russia had apparently not one thing in common with the states of Western Europe, they were still sub- 82 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. ject to the same great tides or tendencies and were moving simultaneously toward identical political conditions. An invisible but com- pelling hand had been upon every European state, drawing the power from many heads into one. In Spain, Ferdinand and Isabella had brought all the smaller kingdoms and the Moors under one united crown. In France, Louis XL had shattered the fabric of feudal- ism, and by artful alliance with the people had humiliated and subjugated the proud nobility. Henry VIII. had established absolutism in England, and Maximilian had done the same for Germany, while even the Italian republics were being gathered into the hands of larger sovereignties. From this distance in time it is easy to see the prevailing direction in which all the nations were being irresistibly drawn. The hour had struck for the tide to flow to- ward centralization ; and Russia, remote, cut ofif from all apparent connection with the West- ern kingdoms, was borne along upon the same tide with the rest, as if it was already a part of the same organism! There, too, the power was passing from the many to one: first from many ruling families to one family, then from EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 83 all the individual members of that family to a supreme and permanent head — the Tsar. There were many revolutions in Russia from the time when the Dolgorukis turned the life-currents from Kief to the North ; many centers of volcanic energy in fearful state of activity, and many times when ruin threatened from every side. But in the midst of all this there was one steady process — one end being always aproached — a consolidation and a centralization of authority before which Euro- pean monarchies would pale! The process commenced with the autocratic purposes of Andrew Bogoliubski. And it was because his hoyars instinctively knew that the success of his policy meant their ruin that they assassi- nated him. In '' Old Russia " a close and fraternal tie bound the Prince and his Drujina together. It was one family, of which he was the adored head. What characterized the '' New Rus- sia " was a growing antagonism between the Grand Prince and his lords or hoyars. This developed into a life-and-death struggle, similar to that between Louis XL and his no- bility. His elevation meant their humiliation. It was a terrible clash of forces — a duel in ^4 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. which one was the instrument of fate, and the other predestined to destruction. It was of less importance during the period between Andrew Bogoliubski and Ivan IV. that Mongols were exercising degrading tyr- anny and making desperate reprisals for de- feat — that Lithuania and Poland, and conspi- rators everywhere, were by arms and by di- plomacy and by treachery trying to ruin the state; all this was of less import than the fact that every vestige of authority was surely passing out of the hands of the nobility into those of the Tsar. The fight was a desperate one. It became open and avowed under Ivan III., still more bitter under his son VasiH II., and culminated at last under Ivan the Terri- ble, when, like an infuriated animal, he let loose upon them all the pent-up instincts in his blood. CHAPTER XL In 1533 Vasili 11. died, leaving the scepter to Ivan IV., an infant son three years old. Now the humiliated Princes and boyars were to have their turn. The mother of Ivan IV., Helena Glinski, was the only obstacle in their way. She speedily died, the victim of poi- son, and then there was no one to stem the tid^ of princely and oligarchic reaction against autocracy; and the many years of Ivan's min- ority would give plenty of time to re-establish their lost authority. The boyars took posses- sion of the government. Ivan wrote later: '' My brother and I were treated like the chil- dren of beggars. We were half clothed, cold, and hungry." The boyars in the presence of these children appropriated the luxuries and treasures in the palace and then plundered the people as well, exacting unmerciful fines and treating them like slaves. The only person who loved the neglected Ivan was his nurse, and she was torn from him; and for a courtier 85 S6 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. to pity the forlorn child was sufficient for his downfall. Ivan had a superior intelligence. He read much and was keenly observant of all that was happening. He saw himself treated with insolent contempt in private, but with ab- ject servility in public. He also observed that his signature was required to give force to everything that was done, and so discovered that he was the rightful master, that the real power was vested only in him. Suddenly, in 1543, he sternly summoned his court to come into his presence, and, ordering the guards to seize the chief offender among his hoyars, he then and there had him torn to pieces by his hounds. This was a coup d'etat by a boy of thirteen! He was content with the banish- ment of many others, and then Ivan IV. peacefully commenced his reign. He seemed a gentle, indolent youth; very confiding in those he trusted; inclined to be a voluptuary, loving pleasure and study and everything bet- ter than affairs of state. In 1547 he was crowned Tsar of Russia, and soon thereafter married Anastasia of the house of Romanoff, whom he devotedly loved. As was the cus- tom, he surrounded himself with his mother's and his wife's relations. So the GHnskis and EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 87 the Romanoffs were the envied famiHes in control of the government. His mother's family, the Glinskis, were especially unpopu- lar; and when a terrific fire destroyed nearly the whole of Moscow it was whispered by jealous hoyars that the Princess Anna Glinski had brought this misfortune upon them by en- chantments. She had taken human hearts, boiled them in water, and then sprinkled the houses where the fire started! An enraged populace burst into the palace of the Glinskis, murdering all they could find. Ivan, nervous and impressionable, seems to have been profoundly affected by all this. He yielded to the popular demand and appointed two men to administer the government, spirit- ual and temporal — Adashef, belonging to the smaller nobility, and Silvester, a priest. Be- lieving absolutely in their fidelity, he then con- cerned himself very little about affairs of state, and engaged in the completion of the work commenced by Ivan III. — a revision of the old code of laws established by Yaroslaf. These were very peaceful and very happy years for Russia and for himself. But Ivan was stricken with a fever, and while appar- ently in a dying condition he discovered the 88 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. treachery of his trusted ministers. He dis- covered their intrigues with his enemies. When he heard their rejoicings that the day of the GHnskis and the Romanoffs was over, he reahzed the fate awaiting Anastasia and her infant son if he died. He resolved that he would not die. Banishment seems a light punishment to have inflicted. It was gentle treatment for treason at the court of Moscow. But the poi- son of suspicion had entered his soul, and was the more surely, because slowly, working a transformation in his character. And when soon thereafter Anastasia mysteriously and suddenly died, his whole nature seemed to be undergoing a change. He was passing from Ivan the gentle and confiding, into '' Ivan the Terrible." Ivan said later, in his own vindication: " When that dog Adashef betrayed me, was anyone put to death? Did I not show mercy? They say now that I am cruel and irascible; but to whom? I am cruel toward those that are cruel to me. The good! ah, I would give them the robe and the chain that I wear! My subjects would have given me over to the Tatars, sold me to my enemies. Think of EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 89 the enormity of the treason! If some were chastised, was it not for their crimes, and are they not my slaves — and shall I not do what I will with mine own? " His grievances were real. His hoyars were desperate and determined, and even with their foreheads in the dust were conspiring against him. They were no less terrible than he toward their inferiors. There never could be anything but anarchy in Russia so long as this aristocracy of cruel slave-masters existed. Ivan (like Louis XL) was girding himself for the destruction of the power of his nobility, and, as one conspiracy after another was re- vealed, faster and faster flowed the torrent of his rage. In 1 571 he devoutly asked the prayers of the Church for 3470 of his victims, 986 of whom he mentioned by name; many of these being followed by the sinister addition: *' With his wife and children"; "with his sons"; ''with his daughters." A gentle, kindly Prince had been converted into a mon- ster of cruelty, who is called, by the historians of his own country, the Nero of Russia. He was a pious Prince, like all of the Mus- covite line. Not one of his subjects was more 9° EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. faithful in religious observances than was this '* torch of orthodoxy " — who frequently called up his household in the middle of the night for prayers. Added to the above pious peti- tion for mercy to his victims, is this reference to Novgorod: '' Remember, Lord, the souls of thy servants to the number of 1505 persons — Novgorodians, whose names, Almighty, thou knowest/' That Republic had made its last break for liberty. Under the leadership of Marfa, the widow of a wealthy and powerful noble, it had thrown itself in despair into the arms of Catho- lic Poland. This was treason to the Tsar and to the Church, and its punishment was awful. The desperate woman who had instigated the act was carried in chains to Moscow, there to behold her two sons with the rest of the con- spirators beheaded. The bell which for cen- turies had summoned her citizens to the Vetche, that sacred symbol of the liberty of the Republic, is now in the Museum at Moscow. If its tongue should speak, if its clarion call should ring out once more, perhaps there might come from the shades a countless host of her martyred dead — " Whose names. Al- mighty, thou knowest." Ivan then pro- EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 9 1 ceeded to wreck the prosperity of the richest commercial city in his empire. Its trade was enormous with the East and the West. It had joined the Hanseatic League, and its wealth was largely due to the German mer- chants who had flocked there. With singular lack of wisdom, the Tsar had confiscated the property of these men, and now the ruin of the city was complete. While Germany, and Poland, and Sweden, — resolved to shut up Russia in her barbaric isolation, — were locking the front door on the Baltic and the Gulf, England had found a side door by which to enter. With great satis- faction Ivan saw English traders coming in by way of the White Sea, and he extended the rough hand of his friendship to Queen Eliza- beth, who made with him a commercial treaty, which was countersigned by Francis Bacon. Then, as his friendship warmed, he proposed that they should sign a reciprocal engagement to furnish each other with an asylum in the event of the rebellion of their subjects. Elizabeth declined the asylum he kindly of- fered her, " finding, by the grace of God, no dangers of the sort in her kingdom." Then he did her the honor to offer an alliance of a 92 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. different kind. He proposed that she should send him her cousin Lady Mary Hastings to take the place left vacant by his eighth wife — to become his Tsaritsa. The proposition was considered, but when the English maiden heard about his brutalities and about his seven wives, so terrified was she that she re- fused to leave England, and the affair had to be abandoned. Elizabeth's rejection of his proposals, and also of his plan for an alliance offensive and defensive against Poland and Sweden, so infuriated Ivan that he confis- cated the goods of the English merchants, and this friendship was temporarily ruptured. But amicable relations were soon restored be- tween Elizabeth and her barbarian admirer. If she had heard of his awful vengeance in 1 571, she had also heard of the massacre of St. Bartholomew in Paris in 1572! Russia had now opened diplomatic relations with the Western kingdoms. The foreign ambassadors were received with great pomp in a sumptuous hall hung with tapestries and blazing with gold and silver. The Tsar, with crown and scepter, sat upon his throne, sup- ported by the roaring lions, and carefully studied the new ambassador as he suavely EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 93 asked him about his master. A poHce inspec- tor from that moment never lost sight of him, making sure that he obtained no interviews with the natives nor information about the state of the country. Although the Tsar was reputed to be, learned and was probably the most learned man in his nation, and had always about him a coterie of distinguished scholars, still there was no intellectual Hfe in Russia, and owing to the Oriental seclusion of the women there was no society. The men were heavily bearded, and the ideal of beauty with the women, as they looked furtively out from behind veils and curtains, was to be fat, with red, white, and black paint laid on like a mask. It must have been a dreary post for gay European diplomats, and in marked con- trast to gay, witty, gallant Poland, at that time thoroughly Europeanized. Next to the consolidation of the imperial authority, the event in this reign most affect- ing the future of Russia was the acquisition of Siberia. A Cossack brigand under sentence of death escaped with his followers into the land beyond the Urals, and conquered a part of the territory, then returned and offered it to Ivan (1580) in exchange for a pardon. 94 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. The incident is the subject of a bilma, a form of historical poem, in which Yermak says: • ' I am the robber Hetman of the Don. And now — oh — orthodox Tsar, I bring you my traitorous head, And with it I bring the Empire of Siberia! And the orthodox Tsar will speak — He will speak — the terrible Ivan, Ha ! thou art Yermak, the Hetman of the Don, I pardon thee and thy band. I pardon thee for thy trusty service — And I give to the Cossack the glorious and gentle Don as an inheritance." The two Ivans had created a new code of laws, and now there was an ample prison- house for its transgressors! The penal code was frightful. An insolvent debtor was tied up half naked in a public place and beaten three hours a day for thirty or forty days, and then, if no one came to his rescue, with his wife and his children he was sold as a slave. But Siberia was to be the prison-house of a more serious class of offender for whom this punishment would be insufhcient. It was to serve as a vast penal colony for crimes against the state. Since the beginning of the nineteenth century it is said one million politi- cal exiles have been sent there, and they con- EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 95 tinue to go at the rate of twenty thousand a year; showing how useful a present was made by the robber Yermak to the '' Orthodox Tsar"! This reign, Hke that of Louis XL of France, which it much resembled, enlarged the privi- leges of the people in order to aid Ivan in his conflict with his nobility. For this purpose a Sohor, or States-General, was summoned by him, and met at long intervals thereafter until the time of Peter the First. Of the two sons left to Ivan by his wife Anastasia, only one now remained. In a par- oxysm of rage he had struck the Tsarevitch with his iron stafif. He did not intend to kill him, but the blow was mortal. Great and fierce was the sorrow of the Tsar when he found he had slain his beloved son — the one thing he loved upon earth, and there remained to inherit the fruit of his labors and his crimes only another child enfeebled in body and mind, and an infant, the son of his seventh wife. His death, hastened by grief, took place three years later, in 1584. CHAPTER XII. Occasionally there arises a man in history who, without distinction of birth or other ad- vantages, is strong enough by sheer ability to grasp the opportunity, vault into power, and then stem the tide of events. Such a man was Godwin, father of Harold, last Saxon King in England; and such a man was Boris Godunof, a boyar, who had so faithfully served the terri- ble Ivan that he leaned upon him and at last confided to him the supervision of his feeble son Feodor, when he should succeed him. The plans of this ambitious usurper were probably laid from the time of the tragic death of Ivan's son, the Tsarevitch. He brought about the marriage of his beautiful sister Irene with Feodor, and from the hour of Ivan's death was virtual ruler. Dmitri, the infant son of the late Tsar, aged five years, was prudently placed at a distance — and soon thereafter mysteriously died (1591). There can be no doubt that the unexplained tragedy 96 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 97 of this child's death was perfectly understood by Boris; and when Feodor also died, seven years later (1598), there was not one of the old Muscovite line to succeed to the throne. But so wise had been the administration of affairs by the astute Regent that a change was dreaded. A council offered him the crown, which he feigned a reluctance to accept, pre- ferring that the invitation should come from a source which would admit of no question as to his rights in the future. Accordingly, the States-General or Sobor was convened, and Boris Godunof was chosen by acclama- tion. The work of three reigns was undone. A boyar was Tsar of Russia — and a boyar not in the line of Rurik and with Tatar blood in his veins! But this bold and unscrupu- lous man had performed a service to the state. The work of the Muscovite Princes was finished, and the extinction of the line was the next necessary event in the path of progress. Boris had large arid comprehensive views and proceeded upon new lines of policy to re- construct the state. He saw that Russia must be Europeanized, and he also saw that at least 98 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. one radical change in her internal policy might be used to insure his popularity with the Princes and nobles. The Russian peasantry was an enormous force which was not utilized to its fullest extent. It included almost the en- tire rural population of Russia. The peasant was legally a freeman. He lived unchanged under the old Slavonic patriarchal system of Mirs, or communes, and Volosts. These were the largest political organizations of which he had personal cognizance. He knew nothing about Muscovite consolidation, nor oligarchy, nor autocracy. No crumbs from the modern banquet had fallen into his lap. With a thin veneer of orthodoxy over their paganism and superstition the people listened in childish wonder to the same old tales — they lived their old primitive life of toil under the same system of simple fair-dealing and justice. If their commune owned the land it tilled, they all shared the benefit of the harvests, paid their tax to the state, and all was well. If not, it swarmed like a community of bees to some wealthy neighbor's estate and sold its labor to him, and then if he proved too hard a task- master — even for a patient Russian peasant — they might swarm again and work for another. £: VOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 99 The tie binding them to special localities was only the very slightest. There were no moun- tains to love, one part of the monotonous pla- teau was about like another; and as for their homes, their wooden huts were burned down so often there were no memories attached to them. The result of this was that the peasantry — that immense force upon which the state at last depended — was not stable and permanent, but fluid. At the slightest invitation of better wages, or better soil or conditions, whole communities might desert a locality — would gather up their goods and walk ofif. Boris, while Regent, conceived the idea of correcting this evil, in a way which would at the same time make him a very popular ruler with the class whose support he most needed, the Princes and the landowners. He would chain the peasant to the soil. A decree was issued that henceforth the peasant must not go from one estate to another. He belonged to the land he was tilling, as the trees that grew on it belonged to it, and the master of that land was his master for evermore! Such, in brief outline, was the system of serfdom which prevailed until 1861. It was loo EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. in theory, though not practically, unlike the institution of American slavery. The people, still living in their communes, still clung to the figment of their freedom, not really under- standing that they were slaves, but feeling rather that they were freemen whose sacred rights had been cruelly invaded. That they were giving to hard masters the fruit of their toil on their own lands. Now that Russia was becoming a modern state, it required more money to govern her. Civilization is costly, and the revenues must not be fluctuating. Boris saw they could only be made sure by attaching to the soil the peasant, whose labor was at the foundation of the prosperity of the state. It was the peas- ant who bore the weight of an expanded civi- lization which he did not share! The visitor at Moscow to-day may see in the KremHn a wonderful tower, 270 feet high, which was erected ifi honor of Ivan the Great by the usurper Boris; but the monument which keeps his memory alive is the more stupendous one of — Serfdom. The expected increase in prosperity from the new system did not immediately come. The revenues were less than before. Bands EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 10 1 of fugitive serfs were fleeing from their masters and joining the community of free Cossacks on the Don. Lands were untilled, there was misery, and at last there was famine, and then discontent and demorahzation ex- tending to the upper classes, and a diminished income which finally bore upon the Tsar him- self. Suddenly there came a rumor that Dmitri, the son of Ivan the Terrible, was not dead! He was living, in Poland, and with incon- testable proofs of his identity was coming to claim his own. In 1604 he crossed the fron- tier, and thousands of discontented people flocked to his standard with wild enthusiasm. Boris had died just before Dimitri reached Moscow. He entered the city, and the in- fatuated people placed in his hand and upon his head the scepter and the crown of Ivan IV.; and after making sure that the wife and the son of Boris Godunof were strangled, this amazing Pretender commenced his reign. An extraordinary thing had happened. A nemeless adventurer and impostor had been received with tears of joy as the son of Ivan and of St. Vladimir, even the seventh wife of io2 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. Ivan the Terrible recognizing and embracing him as her son! But Dmitri had not the wis- dom to keep what his cunning had won. His Polish wife came, followed by a suite of Polish Catholics, who began to carry things with a high hand. The clergy was offended and soon enraged. In five years Dmitri was as- sassinated, and his mutilated corpse was lying in the palace at the Kremlin, an object of insult and derision; and then, for Russia there came another chaos. For a brief period Vasili Shuiski, head of one of the princely families, reigned, while two more '' false Dmitris " appeared, one from Sweden and the other from Poland. The cause of the latter was upheld by the King of Poland, with the ulterior purpose of bringing the disordered state of Russia under the Polish crown, and making one great Slav kingdom with its center at Cracow. This brought the needed crisis. It had been civil war until then. Now there developed a national uprising, in which all classes united in expelling the impostors and intruders. Then a great National Assembly gathered at Moscow in 1613, to elect a Tsar. The name of Romanoff had a kinship by marriage with EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 103 Ivan IV., and yet it was unstained by crime. The newly awakened patriotism turned in- stinctively toward that, as the highest expres- sion of their hopes; and Mikhail Romanoff, a youth only sixteen, was elected Tsar. CHAPTER XIII. In the building of an empire there are two processes — the building up, and the tearing down. The plow is no less essential than the trowel. The period after Boris had been for Russia the period of the wholesome plow. The harvest was far off. But the name Romanoff was going to stand for another Russia, not like the old Russia of Kief, nor yet the new Russia of Moscow; but another and a Europeanized Russia, in which, after long struggles, the Slavonic and half-Asiatic giant was going to tear down the walls of separation, escape from his barbarism, and compel Europe to share with him her civili- zation. The man who was to make the first breach in the walls was the grandson of Mikhail Romanoff — Peter, known as '' The Great." But the mills of the gods grind slowly — espe- cially when they have a great work in hand; and there were to be three colorless reigns J04 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 105 before the coming of the Liberator in 1689 — seventy-six years before they would learn that to have a savage despot seated on a barbaric throne, with crown and robes incrusted with jewels, and terrorizing a brutish, ignorant, and barbaric people — was not to be Great. The reigns of Mikhail and of his son Alexis and his grandson Feodor were to be reigns of preparation and reform. Of course there were turbulent uprisings and foreign wars, and perils on the frontiers near the Baltic and the Black seas. But Russia was gaining in ascendency while Poland, from whom she had narrowly escaped, was fast declining. The European rulers began to see advantages for themselves from Russian alliances. Gus- tavus Adolphus, King of Sweden and champion of Protestantism, made an elo- quent appeal to the Tsar to join him against Catholic Poland — '' Was not the Romish Church their common enemy? — and were they not neighbors? — and when your neighbor's house is afire, is it not the part of wisdom and prudence to help to put it out?" Poland suffered a serious blow when a large body of Cossacks, who were her vassals, and her chief arm of defense in the lo6 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. Southeast, in 1681 transferred themselves bodily to Russia. The Cossacks were a Slavonic people, with no doubt a plentiful infusion of Asiatic blood, and their name in the Tatar language meant Freebooters. They had long dwelt about the Don and the Dnieper, in what is known as Little Russia, a free and rugged community which was recruited by Russians after the Tatar invasion and Polish conquest, by op- pressed peasants after the creation of serfdom, and by adventurers and fugitives from justice at all times. It was a military organization, and its Constitution was a pure democracy. Freedom and independence were their first necessity. Their Hetman, or chief, held of- fice for one year only, and anyone might at- tain to that position. Their horsemanship was unrivaled — they were fearless and endur- ing, and stood ready to sell their services to the Khan of Tatary, the King of Poland, or to the Tsar of Russia. In fact, they were the Northmen of the South and East, and are now — the Rough-Riders of Russia. They had long ago divided into two bands, the " Cossacks of the Dnieper," loosely bound to Poland, and the '^ Cossacks of the Don/' owning the sovereignty of Russia. EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE 107 The services of these fearless adventurers were invaluable as a protection from Turks and Tatars; and, as we have seen in the matter of Siberia, they sometimes brought back prizes which offset their misdoings. The King of Poland unwisely attempted to proselyte his Cossacks of the Dnieper, sent Jesuit mission- aries among them, and then concluded to break their spirit by severities and make of them obedient loyal Catholic subjects. He might as well have tried to chain the winds. They offered to the Tsar their allegiance in return for his protection, and in 1681 all of the Cossacks, of the Dnieper as well as the Don, were gathered under Russian sovereignty. It was this event which, in the long struggle with Poland, turned the scales at last in favor of Russia. One of the most important occurrences in this reign was the attempt of the Patriarch Nikon to establish an authority in the East similar to that of the Pope in the West — and in many ways to Latinize the Church. It was virtually placing the Tsar under spiritual au- thority, and was put down by a popular re- volt — followed by stricter orthodox methods in a popular Church. Mikhail died in 1645, ^^^ was succeeded by lo8 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. his son Alexis. The new Tsar sent an envoy to Charles the First of England to announce his succession. He arrived with his letter to the King at an inopportune time. He was on trial for his life. The Russian could not comprehend such a condition, and haugh- tily refused to treat with anyone but the King. He was received with much ceremony by the House of Lords, and then to their consterna- tion arose and said: ''I have come from my sovereign charged with an important message to your King — Charles the First. It is long since I came, and I have not been permitted to see him nor to deliver the letter from my master." The embarrassed English hoyars re- plied that they would give their reasons for this by letter. When the Tsar was informed by Charles H. of the execution of his father, sternly inflicted by his people, he could not comprehend such a condition. He at once forbade English merchants to live in any of his cities except Archangel, and sent money and presents to the exiled son. An interest attaches to the marriage of Alexis with Natalia, his second wife. He was dining with one of his boyars and was at- tracted by a young girl, who was serving him. EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. lop She was motherless, and had been adopted by her uncle the hoyar. The Tsar said to his friend soon after: '' I have found a husband for your Natalia." The husband was Alexis himself, and Natalia became the mother of Peter the Great. She was the first Princess who ever drew aside the curtains of her litter and permitted the people to look upon her face. Thrown much into the society of Euro- peans in her uncle's home, she was imbued with European ideas. It was no doubt she who first instilled the leaven of reform into the mind of her infant son Peter. One of the most important features of this reign was the development of the fanatical sect known as Raskolniks. They are the dis- senters or non-conformists of Russia. Their existence dates from the time of the Patri- arch Nikin — and what they considered his sacrilegious innovations. But as early as 1476 there were the first stirrings of this movement when some daring and advanced innovators began to sing " O Lord, have mercy," instead of " Lord, have Mercy," and to say '' Alleluia " twice instead of three times, to the peril of their souls! But it was in the reign of Alexis that signs of falling away from no EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE, the faith spoken of in the Apocalypse were unmistakable. Foreign heretics who shaved their chins and smoked the accursed weed were tolerated in Holy Moscow. '' The number of the Beast " indicated the year 1666. It was evident that the end of the world was at hand! Such was the beginning of the Raskolniks, who now number 10,000,000 souls — a conservative Slavonic element which has been a difficult one to deal with. Upon the death of Alexis, in 1676, his eld- est son Feodor succeeded him. It is only necessary to mention one significant act in his short reign — the destruction of the Books of Pedigrees. The question of precedence among the great families was the source of endless disputes, and no man would accept a position inferior to any held by his ancestors, nor would serve under a man with an ancestry inferior to his own. Feodor asked that the Books of Pedigrees be sent to him for exami- nation, and then had them every one thrown into the fire and burned. This must have been his last act, for his death and this holo- caust of ancestral claims both occurred in the year 1682. CHAPTER XIV. A HISTORY of Russia naively designates one of its chapters *' The Period of Troubles " ! When was there not a period of troubles in this land? The historian wearies, and doubt- less the reader too, of such prolonged dis- order and calamity. But a chapter telling of peace and tranquiUity would have to be in- vented. The particular sort of trouble that developed upon the death of Feodor was of a new variety. Alexis had left two families of children, one by his first wife and the other by Natalia. There is not time to tell of all the steps by which Sophia, daughter of the first marriage, came to be the power behind the throne upon which sat her feeble brother Ivan, and her half-brother Peter, aged ten years. Sophia was an ambitious, strong-willed, strong-minded woman, who dared to emanci- pate herself from the tyranny of Russian custom. The terem, of which we hear so much, 112 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. was the part of the palace sacred to the Tsaritsa and the Princesses — upon whose faces no man ever looked. If a physician were needed he might feel the pulse and the tem- perature through a piece of gauze — but see the face never. It is said that two nobles who one day accidentally met Natalia coming from her chapel were deprived of rank in conse- quence. But the terem, with '' its twenty-seven locks," was not going to confine the sister of Peter. She met the eyes of men in public; studied them well, too; and then selected the instruments for her designs of effacing Peter and his mother, and herself becoming sover- eign indeed. A rumor was circulated that the imbecile Ivan (who was alive) had been strangled by Natalia's family. In the tumult which followed one of her brothers, Peter's uncle, was torn from Natalia's arms and cut to pieces. But this was only one small incident in the horrid tragedy. Then, after discovering that the Prince was not dead, the bloodstains in the palace were washed up, and the two brothers were placed upon the throne under the Regency of Sophia. But while she was outraging the feelings of the people by her EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 113 contempt for ancient customs, and while her friendship with her Minister, Prince GaUtsuin, was becoming a pubHc scandal, Sophia was at the same time being defeated in a campaign against the Turks at the Crimea; and her popularity was gone. In the meantime Peter was growing. With no training, no education, he was in his own disorderly, undisciplined fashion struggling up into manhood under the tutelage of a quick, strong intelligence, a hungry desire to know, and a hot, imperious temper. His first toys were drums and swords, and he first studied history from colored German prints; and as he grew older never wearied of reading about Ivan the Terrible. His delight was to go out upon the streets of Moscow and pick up strange bits of information from foreign ad- venturers about the habits and customs of their countries. He played at soldiers with his boy companions, and after finding how they did such things in Germany and in Eng- land, drilled his troops after the European fashion. But it was when he first saw a boat so built that it could go with or against the wind, that his strongest instinct was awak- ened. He would not rest until he had learned 114 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. how to make and then to manage it. When this strange, passionate, self-willed boy was seventeen years old, he realized that his sister was scheming for the ruin of himself and his mother. In the rupture that followed, the people deserted Sophia and flocked about Peter. He placed his sister in a monastery, where, after fifteen years of fruitless intrigue and conspiracy, she was to die. Then, con- jointly with his unfortunate brother, he com- menced his reign (1689). If Sophia had freed herself from the cus- tomary seclusion of Princesses, Peter emanci- pated himself from the usual proprieties of the palace. Both were scandalous. One had harangued soldiers and walked with her veil lifted, the other was swinging an ax like a carpenter, rowing like a Cossack, or fighting mimic battles with his grooms, who not in- frequently knocked him down. In 1693 he gratified one great thirst and longing. With a large suite he went up to Archangel — and for the first time a Tsar looked out upon the sea! He ate and drank with the foreign mer- chants, and took deep draughts of the stimu- lating air from the west. He established a dock-yard, and while his first ship was build- EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. "S ing made perilous trips upon that unknown ocean from which Russia had all its life been shut out! His ship was the first to bear a Russian flag into foreign waters, and now Peter had taken the first step toward learning how to build a navy, but he had no place yet to use one. So he turned his nimble activi- ties toward the Black Sea. He had only to capture Azof in the Crimea from the Turks, and he would have a sea for his navy — and then might easily make the navy for his sea! So he went down, carrying his soldiers and his new European tactics — in which no one beheved — gathered up his Cossacks, and the attack was made, first with utter failure — all on account of the new tactics — and then at last came overwhelming success; and a tri- umphant return (1676) to Moscow under arches and garlands of flowers. Three thou- sand Russian families were sent to colonize Azof, which was guarded by some regiments of the Streltsui and by Cossacks — and now there must be a navy. There must be nine ships of the line, and twenty frigates carrying fifty guns, and bomb- ships, and fireships. That would require a great deal of money. It was then that the ii6 EVOLUTION OF AM EMPIRE. utility of the system of serfdom became ap- parent. The prelates and monasteries were taxed — one vessel to every eighty thousand serfs! — according to their wealth all the orders of nobility to bear their portion in the same way, and the peasants toiled on, never dreaming that they were building a great navy for the great Tsar. Peter then sent fifty young no- bles of the court to Venice, England, and the Netherlands to learn the arts of shipbuilding and seamanship and gunnery. But how could he be sure of the knowledge and the science of these idle youths — unless he himself owned it and knew better than they? The time had come for his long- indulged dream of visiting the Western kingdoms. But while there were rejoicings at the vic- tory over the Turks, there was a feeling of universal disgust at the new order of things; with the militia (the Streltsui) because for- eigners were preferred to them and because they were subjected to an unaccustomed dis- cipline; with the nobles because their children were sent into foreign lands among heretics to learn trades like mechanics; and with the landowners and clergy because the cost of EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 117 equipping a great fleet fell upon them. All classes were ripe for a revolt. Sophia, from her cloister, was in corre- spondence with her agents, and a con- spiracy ripened to overthrow Peter and his reforms. As the Tsar was one even- ing sitting down to an entertainment with a large party of ladies and gen- tlemen, word was brought that someone desired to see him privately upon an impor- tant matter. He promptly excused himself and was taken in a sledge to the appointed place. There he graciously sat down to sup- per with a number of gentlemen, as if per- fectly ignorant of their plans. Suddenly his guard arrived, entered the house, and ar- rested the entire party, after which Peter re- turned in the best of humor to his interrupted banquet, quite as if nothing had happened. The next day the prisoners under torture re- vealed the plot to assassinate him and then lay it to the foreigners, this to be followed by a general massacre of Europeans — men, wo- men, and children. The ringleaders were first dismembered, then beheaded — their legs and arms being displayed in conspicu- ous places in the city, and the rest of the Il8 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. conspirators, excepting his sister Sophia, were sent to Siberia. With this parting and salutary lesson to his subjects in 1697, Peter started upon his strange travels — in quest of the arts of civiH- zation ! The embassy was composed of 270 persons. Among them was a young man twenty-five years old, calling himself Peter Mikhailof, who a few weeks later might have been seen at Saardam in Holland, in complete outfit of workman's clothe^, in dust and by the sweat of his brow learning the art of ship-carpentry. Such was the first introduction to Europe of the Tsar of Russia! They had long heard of this auto- crat before whom millions trembled, rul- ing like a savage despot in the midst of splendors rivaling the Arabian Nights. Now they saw him! And the amazement can scarcely be described. He dined with the Great Electress Sophia, afterwards first Queen of Prussia, and she wrote of him: '' Nature has given him an infinity of wit. With advantages he might have been an ac- complished man. What a pity his manners are not less boorish! " EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE, 119 But Peter was not thinking of the impres- sion he made. With an insatiable inquisitive- ness and an omnivorous curiosity, he was looking for the secret of power in nations. Nothing escaped him — cutlery, rope-making, paper manufacture, whaling industry, surgery, microscopy; he was engaging artists, officers, engineers, surgeons, buying models of every- thing he saw — or standing lost in admiration of a traveling dentist plying his craft in the market, whom he took home to his lodgings, learned the use of the instruments himself, then practiced his new art upon his fol- lowers. At The Hague he endured the splendid public reception, then hurried off his gold- trimmed coat, his wig and hat and white feathers, and was amid grime and dust ex- amining grist-mills, and ferry-boats, and irri- gating machines. To a lady he saw on the street at Amsterdam he shouted ''Stop!" then dragged out her enameled watch, exam- ined it, and put it back without a word. A nobleman's wig in similar unceremonious fashion he snatched from his head, turned it inside out, and, not being pleased with its make, threw it on the floor. I20 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. Perhaps Holland heard without regret that her guest was going to England, where he was told the instruction was based upon the principles of ship-building and he might learn more in a few weeks than by a year's study elsewhere. King WilHam III. placed a fleet at his dis- posal, and also a palace upon his arrival in London. A violent storm alarmed many on the way to England, but Peter enjoyed it and humorously said, '' T3id you ever hear of a Tsar being lost in the North Sea? " England was no less astonished than Holland at her guest, but William HI., the wisest sover- eign' in Europe, we learn was amazed at the vigor and originality of his mind. The wise Bishop Burnet wrote of him: '' He is mechan- ically turned, and more fitted to be a carpenter than a Prince. He told me he designed a great fleet for attacking the Turkish Empire, but he does not seem to me capable of so great an enterprise." This throws more light upon the limitations of Bishop Burnet than those of Peter the Great, and fairly illustrates the incompetency of contemporary estimates of genius; or, perhaps, the inability of talent to take the full measure of genius at any time. EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 1 21 The good Bishop adds that he adores the wise Providence which '' has raised up such a furious man to reign over such a part of the world." Louis XIV. " had procured the postponement of the honor of his visit"; so Peter prepared, after visiting Vienna, to go to Venice, but receiving disturbing news of matters at home, this unciviHzed civilizer, this barbarian reformer of barbarism, turned his face toward Moscow. There was widespread dissatisfaction in the empire. The Streltsui (mihtia) was rebel- lious, the heavily taxed landowners were angry, and the people disgusted by the prev- alence of German clothes and shaved faces. Had not the wise Ivan IV. said: "To shave is a sin that the blood of all the martyrs could not cleanse"! And who had ever before seen a Tsar of Moscow quit Holy Russia to wander in foreign lands among Turks and Germans? for both were alike to them. Then it was rumored that Peter had gone in disguise to Stockholm, and that the Queen of Sweden had put him into a cask lined with nails to throw him into the sea, and he had only been saved by one of his guards taking his place; and some years later many still believed that 122 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE, it was a false Tsar who returned to them in 1700 — that the true Tsar was still a prisoner at Stockholm, attached to a post. Sophia wrote to the Streltsui — " You suffer — but you will suffer more. Why do you wait? March on Moscow. There is no news of the Tsar." The army was told that he was dead, and that the boyars were scheming to kill his infant son Alexis and then get into power again. Thou- sands of revolted troops from Azof began to pour into Moscow, then there was a rumor that the foreigners and the Germans — who were introducing the smoking of tobacco and shaving, to the utter destruction of the holy faith — were planning to seize the town. Peter returned to find Moscow the prey to wild dis- order, in the hands of scheming revolutionists and mutineers. He concluded it was the right time to give a lesson which would never be forgotten. He would make the partisans of Old Russia feel the weight of his hand in a way that would remind them of Ivan IV. On the day of his return the nobles all pre- sented themselves, laying their faces, as was the custom, in the dust. After courteously returning their salutations, Peter ordered that every one of them be immediately shaved; and EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 123 as this was one of the arts he had practiced while abroad he initiated the process by skill- fully applying the razor himself to a few of the long-beards. Then the inquiry into the re- bellion commenced. The Patriarch tried to appease the wrath of the Tsar, who an- swered: " Know that I venerate God and his Mother as much as you do. But also know that I shall protect my people and punish rebels." The " chastisement " was worthy of Ivan the Terrible. The details of its infliction are too dreadful to relate, and we read with incredulous horror that " the terrible carpen- ter of Saardam plied his own ax in the horri- ble employment — and that on the last day Peter himself put to death eighty-four of the Streitsui, " compelling his boyars to assist " — in inflicting this '' chastisement! " CHAPTER XV. The Baltic was at this time a Swedish sea. Finland, Livonia, and all the territory on the eastern coast, where once the Russians and the German knights had struggled, was now under the sovereignty of an inexperienced young king who had just ascended the throne of his father Charles XL, King of Sweden. If Peter ever " opened a window " into the West, it must be done by first breaking through this Swedish wall. Livonia was deeply aggrieved just now because of some oppressive measures against her, and her astute minister, Patkul, suggested to the King of Poland that he form a coalition be- tween that kingdom, Denmark, and Russia for the purpose of breaking the aggressive Scan- dinavian power in the North. The time was favorable, with disturbed conditions in Sweden, and a youth of eighteen without ex- perience upon the throne. The Tsar, who had recently returned from abroad and had 124 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 125 settled matters with his StreUsui in Moscow, saw in this enterprise just the opportunity he desired, and joined the coaHtion. At the Battle of Narva (1700) there were two surprises: one when Peter found that he knew almost nothing about the art of warfare, and the other when it was revealed to Charles XII. that he was a military genius and his nat- ural vocation was that of a conqueror. But if Charles was intoxicated by his enormous success, Peter accepted his humiliating defeat almost gratefully as a harsh lesson in military^ art. The sacrifice of men had been terrible, but the lesson was not lost. The next year there were small Russian victories, and these crept nearer and nearer to the Baltic, until at last the river upon which the great Nevski won his surname was reached — and the Neva was his! Peter lost no time. He personally superintended the building of a fort and then a church which were to be the nucleus of a city; and there may be seen in St. Petersburg to-day the little hut in which lived the Tsar while he was founding the capital which bears his name (1703). No wonder it seemed a wild project to build the capital of an empire, not only on its frontier, but upon low marshy 126 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. ground subject to the encroachments of the sea from which it had only half emerged; and in a latitude where for two months of the year the twilight and the dawn meet and there is no night, and where for two other months the sun rises after nine in the morning and sets before three. Not only must he build a city, but create the dry land for it to stand upon; and it is said that six hundred acres have been reclaimed from the sea at St. Petersburg since it was founded. Charles XI I. was too much occupied to care for these insignificant events. He sent word that when he had time he would come and burn down Peter's wooden town. He was leading a victorious army toward Poland, he had beheaded the traitorous Patkul, and everything was bowing before him. The great Marlborough was suing for his aid in the coalition against Louis XIV. in the War of the Spanish Succession. Flushed with vic- tory, Charles felt that the fate of Europe was lying in his hands. He had only to decide in which direction to move — whether to help to curb the ambition of the Grand Monarque in the West, or to carry out his first design of crushing the rising power of the Great Auto- EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 127 crat in the East. He preferred the latter. The question then arose whether to enter Russia by the North - or by way of Poland, where he was now master. The scale was turned probably by learning that the Cossacks in Little Russia were growing impatient and were ready for rebellion against the Tsar. Peter was anxious to prevent the invasion. He had a wholesome admiration for the terri- ble Swedish army, not much confidence in his own, and his empire was in disorder. He sent word to Charles that he would be satis- fied to withdraw from the West if he could have one port on the Baltic. The king's haughty reply was: *' Tell your Tsar I will treat with him in Moscow," to which Peter rejoined: '' My brother Charles wants to play the part of an Alexander, but he will not find in me a Darius." It is possible that upon Ivan Mazeppa, who was chief or Hetman of the Cossacks at this time, rests the responsibility of the crushing defeat which terminated the brilliant career of Charles XII. Mazeppa was the Polish gen- tleman whose punishment at the hands of an infuriated husband has been the subject of poems by Lord Byron and Pushkin, and also 128 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. of a painting by Horace Vernet. This pic- turesque traitor, who always rose upon the necks of the people who trusted him, whose friendships he one after another invariably be- trayed, reached a final climax of infamy by offering to sacrifice the Tsar, the friend who beheved in him so absolutely that he sent into exile or to death anyone who questioned his fidelity. Mazeppa had been with Peter at Azof, and abundant honors were waiting for him; but he was dazzled by the career of the Swedish conqueror, and believed he might rise higher under Charles XII. than under his rough, imperious master at Moscow. So he wrote the King that he might rely upon him to join him with 40,000 Cossacks in Little Russia. He thought it would be an easy mat- ter to turn the irritated Cossacks from the Tsar. They were restive under the severity of the new military regime, and also smarting under a decree forbidding them to receive any more fugitive peasants fleeing from serfdom. But he had miscalculated their lack of fidelity and his own power over them. It was this fatal promise, which was never to be kept, that probably lured Charles to his ruin. After a long and disastrous campaign EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 129 he met his final crushing defeat at Poltova in 1709. The King and Mazeppa, companions in flight, together entered the Sultan's do- minions as fugitives, and of the army before which a short time ago Europe had trembled — there was left not one battalion. The Baltic was passing into new hands. " The window " opening upon the West was to become a door, and the key of the door was to be kept upon the side toward Russia! Sweden, which under Gustavus Adolphus, Charles XL, and Charles XII. had played such a glorious part, was never to do it again; and the place she had left vacant was to be filled by a new and greater Power. Russia had dis- pelled the awakened dream of a great Scan- dinavian Empire and — so long excluded and humiliated — was going to make a triumphal entry into the family of European nations. The Tsar, with his innovations and reforms, was vindicated. For breadth of design and statesmanship there was not one sovereign in the coaHtion who could compare with this man who. Bishop Burnet thought, was better fitted for a mechanic than a Prince — and " in- capable of a great enterprise." Of Charles XII. it has been said that 13® EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. '' he was a hero of the Scandinavian Edda set down in the wrong century/' and again that he was the last of the Vikings, and of the Varangian Princes. But Mazeppa said of him, when dying in exile: '' How could I have been seduced in my old age by a mihtary vagabond! " Ivan, Peter's infirm brother and associate upon the throne, had died in 1696. Another oppressive tie had also been severed. He had married at seventeen Eudoxia, belonging to a proud conservative Russian family. He had never loved her, and when she scornfully op- posed his policy of reform, she became an ob- ject of intense aversion. After his triumph at Azof, he sent orders that the Tsaritsa must not be at the palace upon his return, and soon thereafter she was separated from her child Alexis, placed in a monastery, and finally di-. vorced. At the surrender of Marienburg in Livonia (1702) there was among the captives the family of a Lutheran pastor named Gliick. Catherine, a young girl of sixteen, a servant in the family, had just married a Swedish soldier, who was killed the following day in battle. We would have to look far for a more romantic story than that of this Protes- EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 131 tant waiting-maid. Menschikof, Peter's great general, was attracted by her beauty and took the young girl under his protection. But when the Tsar was also fascinated by her art- less simplicity, she was transferred to his more distinguished protection. Little did Catherine think when weeping for her Swedish lover in Pastor Gliick's kitchen that she was on her way to the throne of Russia. But such was her destiny. She did not know how to write her name, but she knew something which served her beter. She knew how to establish an influence possessed by no one else over the strange husband to whom in 1707 she was secretly married. CHAPTER XVI. While Peter was absorbing more territory on the Baltic, and while he was with frenzied haste building his new city, Charles XII. was still hiding in Poland. The Turks were burn- ing with desire to recapture Azof, and the Khan of Tartary had his own revenges and re- prisals at heart urging him on; so, at the in- stigation of Charles and the Khan, the Sultan declared war against Russia in 1710. It seemed to the Russian people like a re- vival of their ancient glories when their Tsar, with a great army, was following in the foot- steps of the Grand Princes to free the Slav race from its old infidel enemies. Catherine, from whom Peter would not be separated, was to be his companion in the campaign. But the enterprise, so fascinating in prospect, was attended with unexpected disaster and suffering; and the climax was finally reached when Peter was lying ill in his tent, with an army of only 24,000 men about to face one 132 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 133 of over 200,000 — Tatars and Turks — com- manded by skilled generals, adherents of Charles XII. This was probably the darkest hour in Peter's career. The work of his life was about to be overthrown; it seemed as if a miracle could not save him. Someone sug- gested that the cupidity of the Grand Vizier, Balthazi, was the vulnerable spot. He loved gold better than glory. Two hundred thou- sand rubles were quickly collected — Catherine throwing in her jewels as an added lure. The shining gold, with the glittering jewels on top, averted the inevitable fate. Balthazi con- sented to treat for peace upon condition that Charles XII. be permitted to go back to Sweden unmolested, and that Azof be relin- quished (Treaty of Pruth). Peter's heart was sorely wrung by giving up Azof, and his fleet, and his outlet to the Southern seas. The peace was costly, but welcome; and Catherine had earned his everlasting gratitude. The Tsar now returned to the task of re- forming his people. There were to be no more prostrations before him: the petitioner must call himself " subject," not " slave," and must stand upright like a man in his presence, even if he had to use his stick to make him do 134 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. so! The Asiatic caftan and the flowing robes must go along with the beards ; the terem, with its "twenty-seven locks," must be abolished; the wiv^s and daughters dragged from their seclusion must be clothed like Europeans. Marriage must not be compelled, and the be- trothed might see each other before the wedding ceremony. If it is dif^cult to civilize one willing bar- barian, what must it have been to compel millions to put on the garment of respecta- bility which they hated! Never before was there such a complete social reorganization, so entire a change in the daily habits of a whole people; and so violently effected. It required a soul of iron and a hand of steel to do it; and it has been well said that Russia was knouted into civilization. A secret service was instituted to see that the changes were adopted, and the knout and the ax were the accompaniment of every reforming edict. This extraordinary man was by main force dragging a sullen and angry nation into the path of progress, and by artificial means try- ing to accomplish in a lifetime what had been the growth of centuries in other lands. Then there must be no competing authori- EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. I35 ties — no suns shining near to the Central Sun. The Patriarchate — which, after Nikon's attempt in the reign of his grandfather, had been shorn of authority — was now aboHshed, and a Holy Synod of his own appointing took its place. For the Sohor or States-Gen- eral there was substituted a Senate, also of his own appointing. The Streltsui, or militia, was swept out of existence; the military Cos- sacks were deprived of their Hetman or leader; and a standing army, raised by recruiting, re- placed these organizations. Nobility meant service. Every nobleman while he lived must serve the state, and he held his fief only upon condition of such service; while a nobleman who could not read or write in a foreign tongue forfeited his birthright. This was the way Peter fought idleness and ignorance in his land! New and freer municipal organiza- tions were given to the cities, enlarging the privileges of the citizens ; schools and colleges were established; the awful punishment for debtors swept away. He was leveling up as well as leveling down — trying to create a great plateau of modern society, in which he alone towered high, rigid, and inexorable. If the attempt was impossible and against 136 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. nature, if Peter violated every law of social development by such a monstrous creation of a modern state, what could have been done better? How long would it have taken Rus- sia to grow into modern civilization? And what would it be now if there had not been just such a strange being — with the nature and heart of a barbarian joined with a brain and an intelligence the peer of any in Europe, capable of seeing that the only hope for Rus- sia was by force to convert it from an Asiatic into a European state? One act bore with extreme severity upon the free peasantry. They were compelled to enroll themselves with the serfs in their Com- munes, or to be dealt with as vagrants. Peter has been censured for this and also for not extending his reforming broom to the Com- munes and overthrowing the whole patri- archal system under which they existed — a system so out of harmony with the mod- ern state he was creating. But it seems to the writer rather that he was guided by a sure instinct when he left untouched the one thing in a Slavonic state which was really Slavonic. He and the long line of rulers be- hind him had been ruling by virtue of an au- EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. I37 thority established by aliens. Russia had from the time of Rurik been governed and formed after foreign models. Peter was at least choosing better models than his prede- cessors. If it was an apparent mistake to build a modern, centralized state in the eigh- teenth century upon a social organization be- longing to the eleventh century, it may be that in so doing, an inspired despot builded wiser than he knew. May it not be that the final regeneration of that land is to come some day, from the leaven of native instincts in her peasantry, which have never been invaded by foreign influences and which have survived all the vicissitudes of a thousand years in Russia? The Raskolniks, composed chiefly of free peasants and the smaller merchant class, had fled in large numbers from these blasphemous changes — some among the Cossacks, and many more to the forests, hiding from perse- cution and from this reign of Satan. The more they studied the Apocalypse the plainer became the signs of the times. Satan was being let loose for a period. They had been looking for the coming of Antichrist and now he had come! The man in whom the spirit of Satan was incarnate was Peter the Great. 138 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. How else could they explain such impious demeanor in a Tsar of Russia — except that he was of Satanic origin, and was the Devil in disguise? By his newly invented census had he not " numbered the people " — a thing ex- pressly forbidden? And his new " calendar," transferring September to January, was it not clearly a trick of Satan to steal the days of the Lord? And his new title Imperator (Em- peror), had it not a diabolic sound? And his order to shave, to disfigure the image of God! How would Christ recognize his own at the Last Day? Hunted like beasts, these people were living in wild communities, dying often by their own hands rather than yield the point of making the sign of the cross with two fingers instead of three — 2700 at one time voluntarily perish- ing in the flames, in a church where they had taken refuge. Peter put an end to their per- secution. They were permitted to practice their ancient rites in the cities without moles- tation, upon condition of paying a double poll-tax. The millions of Raskolniks in Russia to-day still consider New Russia a creation of the evil-one, and the Tsar as Antichrist. They EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. I39 yield a sullen compliance — pray for the Tsar, then in private throw away the handle of a door if a heretic has touched it. It is a con- servative wSlavonic element which every Tsar since Mikhail Romanoff has had to deal with. Not one of the reforms was more odious to the people than the removal of the capital from Moscow to St. Petersburg. It violated the most sacred feelings of the nation; and many a soul was secretly looking forward to the time when there would be no Peter, and they would return to the shrine of revered as- sociations. But the new city grew in splen- dor — a city not of wood, to be the prey of con- flagrations hke Moscow; but of stone, the first Russia had yet possessed. The great Nevski was already there lying in a cathedral bearing his name, and the Cathedral of Sts. Peter and Paul was ready to entomb the fu- ture Tsars. And Peter held his court, a poor imitation of Versailles, and gave great entertainments at which the shy and embarrassed ladies in their new cos- tumes kept apart by themselves, and the at- tempt to introduce the European dances was a very sorry failure. In 1712 Peter planned a visit to Paris, with two ends in view — a I40 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. political alliance and a matrimonial one. He ardently desired to arrange for the future marriage of his little daughter Elizabeth with Louis XV., the infant King of France. Neither suit was successful, but it is interest- ing to learn how different was the impression he produced from the one twelve years before. Saint-Simon writes of him: '' His manner was at once the most majestic, the proudest, the most sustained, and at the same time the least embarrassing." That he was still eccentric may be judged from his call upon Mme. de Maintenon. She was ill in bed, and could not receive him; but he was not to be bafifled. He drew aside the bed-curtains and stared at her fixedly, while she in speechless indigna- tion glared at him. So, without one word, these two historic persons met — and parted! He probably felt curious to see what sort of a woman had enthralled and controlled the policy of Louis XIV. Peter did not intend to subject his wife to the criticism of the witty Frenchwomen, so prudently left her at home. Charles XH.died in 1718, and in 1721 there was at last peace with Sweden. But the sad- dest war of all, and one which was never to cease, was that in Peter's own household. EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 141 His son Alexis, possibly embittered by his mother's fate, and certainly by her influence, grew up into a sullen, morose, and perverse youth. In vain did his father strive to fit him for his great destiny. By no person in the empire — unless, perhaps, his mother — were Peter's reforms more detested than by the son and heir to whom he expected to intrust them. He was in close communication with his mother Eudoxia, who in her monastery, holding court like a Tsaritsa, was sur- rounded by intriguing and disaffected nobles — all praying for the death of Peter. Every method for reaching the head or heart of this incorrigible son utterly failed. During Pe- ter's absence abroad in 171 7, Alexis disap- peared. Tolstoi, the Tsar's emissary, after a long search tracked him to his hiding place and induced him to return. There was a ter- rible scene with his father, who had discov- ered that his son was more than perverse, he was a traitor — the center of a conspiracy, and in close relations with his enemies at home and abroad, betraying his interests to Ger- many and to Sweden. The plan, instigated by Eudoxia, was that Alexis, immediately upon the death of 142 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. his father — which God was importuned to hasten — should return to Moscow, restore the picturesque old barbarism, abandon the territory on the Baltic, and the infant navy, and the city of his father's love; in other words, that he should scatter to the winds the prodigious results of his father's reign! It was monstrous — and so was its punishment! Eudoxia was whipped and placed in close con- finement, and thirty conspirators, members of her '' court," were in various ways butch- ered. Then Alexis, the confessed traitor, was tried by a tribunal at the head of which was Menschikof — and sentenced to death. On the morning of the 27th of June, 1718, the Tsar summoned his son to appear before nine of the greatest officers of the state. Con- cerning what happened, the lips of those nine men were forever sealed. But the day fol- lowing it was announced that Alexis, the son of the emperor, was dead; and it is be- lieved that he died under the knout. The question of succession now became a very grave one. Alexis, who had under com- pulsion married Charlotte of Brunswick, left a son Peter. The only other heirs were the Tsar's two daughters Anna and Elizabeth, the EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE, 143 children of Catherine. Shortly after the tragedy of his son's death, Peter caused Catherine to be formally crowned Empress, probably in anticipation of his own death, which occurred in 1825. CHAPTER XVII. The chief objection to a wise and beneficent despotism is that its creator is not immortal. The trouble with the Alexanders and the Charlemagnes and the Peters is that the span of human life is too short for their magnifi- cent designs, which fall, while incomplete, into incompetent or vicious hands, and the work is overthrown. Peter's rest in his mau- soleum at Sts. Peter and Paul must have been uneasy if he saw the reigns immediately suc- ceeding his own. Not one man capable of a lofty patriotism like his, not one man work- ing with unselfish energy for Russia; but, just as in the olden time, oligarchic factions with leaders striving for that cause which would best protect and elevate themselves. Men- schikof, Apraxin, Tolstoi promoting the cause of Catherine that they may not suffer for the death sentence passed upon Alexis; Galitsuin and others seeing their interests in the suc- 144 . EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 145 cession of Peter, son of Alexis and grandson of the Emperor. Catherine's harmless reign was over in two years (1727) and was followed by another, equally brief and harmless, by the young Peter II. The wily Menschikof succeeded in betrothing his daughter to the young Em- peror, but not in retaining his ascendency over the self-willed boy. We wonder if Peter saw his great minister scheming for wealth and for power, and then his fall, like Wolsey's, from his pinnacle. We wonder if he saw him with his own hands building his hut on the frozen plains of Siberia, clothed, not in rich furs and jewels, but bearded and in long, coarse, gray smock- frock; iiis daughter, the betrothed of an Em- peror, clad, not in ermine, but in sheep-skin. Perhaps the lesson with his master the Car- penter of Saardam served him in building his own shelter in that dread abode. Nor was he alone. He had the best of society, and at every turn of the wheel at St. Petersburg it had aristocratic recruits. The Galitsuins and the Dolgorukis would have joined him soon had they not died in prison, and many others had they not been broken on the wheel or be- 146 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. headed by Anna, the coarse and vulgar wo- man who succeeded Peter 11. , when he sud- denly died in 1730. Anna Ivanovna was the daughter of Peter's brother Ivan V., who was asso- ciated with him upon the throne. She had the force to defeat an oligarchic at- tempt to tie her hands. The plan had originated with the Galitsuins and Dolgo- rukis, and was really calculated to benefit the state in a period of incompetent or vicious rulers by having the authority of the Crown limited by a council of eight ministers. But it was reactionary. It was introducing a principle which had been condemned, and was a veiled attempt to undo the work of the Ivans and the Romanoffs, and to place the real power as of old in the hands of ruling families. The plan fell, and the leaders fell with it, and a host of their followers. The executioners were busy at St. Petersburg, and the aristo- cratic colony in Siberia grew larger. Anna's reign was the period of a preponder- ating German influence in politics and at court. Germans held high positions; one of them, Gustav Biron, the highest and most in- fluential of all Anna's infatuation for this EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE, I47 man made him the ruling spirit in her reign and the Regent in the next, until he had his turn in disgrace and exile. Added to the dis- satisfaction on account of German ascendency was a growing feeling that the succession should come through Peter, instead of through Ivan, his insignificant associate upon the throne. Such was the prevailing senti- ment at the time of Anna's death (1740). The Tsaritsa named Ivan, a grand-nephew, the in- fant son of her niece Anna, her successor un- der the Regency of Biron, the man who had controlled the policy of the administration during her reign. This was only a brief and tragic episode. Biron was swiftly swept out of power and into exile, and succeeded in the Regency by Anna, the mother of the infant Emperor; then, fol- lowing quickly upon that, was a carefully ma- tured conspiracy formed in the interest of Elizabeth Petrovna, the beautiful daughter whose marriage with the young Louis XV. had been an object of the great Peter's hopes. In this connection it is well to mention that the terminations vkh and vna, so constantly met in Russian names, have an important sig- nificance — vkh meaning son of, and vna i4^ EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. daughter of. Elizabeth Petrovna is Elizabeth the daughter of Peter, and Feier Alexievich is Peter the son of Alexis. In like manner Tsarevich and Tsarevna are respectively the son and daughter of the Tsar; Czarevich and Czarevna being the modern form, and Czarina instead of Tsaritsa. The historian may for convenience omit the surname thus created, but in Russia it would be a great breach of de- corum to do so. By a sudden coup d'etat, Elizabeth Petrovna took her rightful place upon the throne of her father (1741). In the dead of night the unfortunate Anna and her husband were awakened, carried into exile, and their infant son Ivan VI. was immured in a prison, where he was to grow up to manhood, — shattered in mind by his horrible existence of twenty years, — and then to be mercifully put out of the way as a possible menace to the ambitious plans of a woman. Of the heads that dropped by orders of EHzabeth it is needless to speak; but of one that was spared there is an interesting ac- count. Ostermann, a German, had been vice chancellor to the Empress Anna, and had also brought about the downfall of Biron the Re- Evolution of an empire. 149 gent. Now his turn had come. He was ta- ken to the place of execution with the rest; his gray head was laid upon the block, his collar unbuttoned and gown drawn back by the executioner — when a reprieve was an- nounced. Her Gracious Majesty was going to permit him to go to Siberia. He arose, bowed, said: '' I pray you give me back my wig," calmly put it on the head he had not lost, buttoned his shirt, replaced his gown, and started to join his company of friends — and of enemies — in exile. Elizabeth was a vain voluptuary. If any glory attaches to her reign it came from the stored energies left by her great father. The marvel is that in this succession of vicious and aimless tyrannies by shameless women and in- competent men, Russia did not fall into anarchy and revolution. But nothing was undone. The dignity of Moscow was pre- served by the fact that the coronations must take place there. But there was no longer a reactionary party scheming for a return to the Ancient City. The seed scattered by Peter had everywhere taken hold upon the soil, and now began to burst into flower. A university was founded at Moscow. St. Petersburg was 150 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. filled with French artists and scholars, and had an Academy of Art and of Science, which the great Voltaire asked permission to join, while conferring with Ivan Shuvalof over the History of Peter the Great which he was then engaged in writing. There were no more ugly German costumes; French dress, man- ners and speech were the fashion. Russia was assimilating Europe: it had tried Holland un- der Peter, then Germany under Empress Anna; but found its true affinity with France under EHzabeth, when to write and speak French like a Parisian became the badge of high station and culture. So of its own momentum Russia had moved on without one strong competent person- ality at its head, and had become a tremen- dous force which must be reckoned with by the nations of Europe. In every great politi- cal combination the important question was, on which side she would throw her immense weight; and Elizabeth was courted and flat- tered to her heart's content by foreign diplo- matists and their masters. Frederick the Great had reason to regret that he had been witty at her expense. It was almost his un- doing by turning the scale against him at a EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 151 critical moment. Elizabeth did not forget it and had her revenge when she joined Maria Theresa in the final struggle with Frederick in 1757. And Frederick also remembered it in 1760, when, as he dramatically expressed it, '' The Barbarians were in Berlin engaged in digging the grave of humanity." But all benefit from these enormous suc- cesses was abandoned, when the commanding Russian officer Apraxin mysteriously with- drew and returned with his army to Russia. This was undoubtedly part of a deeply laid plot of which Frederick was cognizant, and working in concert with a certain dis- tinguished lady in Elizabeth's own court — a clever puller of wires who was going to fill some important chapters in Russian history! The Empress had chosen for her successor her nephew Peter, son of her only sister and the Duke of Holstein. The far-seeing Fred- erick had brought about a marriage between this youth and a German Princess, Sophia of Anhalt-Zerbst. Then the Future Emperor Peter III. and his German bride took up their abode in the palace at St. Petersburg, she hav- ing been rechristened Catherine, upon adopt- ing the Greek faith. A mutual dislike deep- 152 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. ened into hatred between this briUiant, clever woman and her vulgar and inferior husband; and there is little doubt that the treacherous conduct of the Russian commander was part of a plan to place her infant son Paul upon the throne instead of his father, and make her Re- gent. Elizabeth's death was apparently at hand and the general mistrust of Peter's fit- ness for the position opened the way for such a conspiracy — which, however, is not known, but only suspected. The one merciful edict which adorns this reign is the '' abolishing of the death penalty." But as the knout became more than ever ac- tive, we are left to infer that by a nice dis- tinction in the Russian mind death under that instrument of torture was not considered '' capital punishment." It is said that when the daughter of the austere Peter died, she left sixteen thousand dresses, thousands of slippers, and two large chests of silk stockings — a wardrobe which would have astonished her mother at the time she was serving the table of the Pastor Gliick. Elizabeth expired in 1761, and the throne passed to Peter TIL, grandson of Peter the Great and Catherine 1. EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. I53 The first act of the new Tsar was a de- lightful surprise to the nobility. He pub- lished a manifesto freeing the nobles from the obligation of service imposed by Peter the Great, saying that this law, which was wise at the time it was enacted, was no longer neces- sary, now that the nobility was enlightened and devoted to the service of their ruler. The grateful nobles talked of erecting a statue of gold to this benign sovereign, who in like manner abolished the Secret Court of Police and proclaimed pardon to thousands of polit- ical fugitives. The Birons were recalled from Siberia, and the old Duke of Kurland and his wife came back Hke shades from another world, after twenty years of exile. But this pleasant prelude was very brief. The nobles soon found that their golden idol would have to be made instead of very coarse clay. Nothing could exceed the grossness and the unbalanced folly of Peter's course. He reversed the whole attitude of the state toward Germany. So abject was his devo- tion to Frederick the Great that he restored to him the Russian conquests, and reached the limit which could be borne when he shouted at one of his orgies: " Let us drink to 154 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. the health of our King and master Frederick. You may be assured if he should order it, I would make war on hell with all my empire." He was also planning to rid himself of Cath- erine and to disinherit her child Paul in favor of Ivan VL; and with this in view the unfor- tunate youth, who after his twenty years' im- prisonment was a mental wreck, was brought to St. Petersburg. Catherine's plans were carefully laid and then swiftly executed. The Emperor was ar- rested and his abdication demanded. He submitted as quietly as a child. Catherine writes: '' I then sent the deposed Emperor in the care of Alexis Orlof and some gentle and reasonable men to a palace fifteen miles from Peterhof, a secluded spot, but very pleas- ant." In four days it was announced that the late Emperor had " suddenly died of a colic to which he was subject." It is known that he was visited by Alexis Orlof and another of Catherine's agents in his '' pleasant " retreat, who saw him privately; that a violent strug- gle was heard in his room; and that he was found lying dead with the black and blue mark of a colossal hand on his throat. That \. EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. I55 the hand was Orlofs is not doubted; but whether acting under orders from Catherine or not will never be known. This is what is known as the '' Revolution of 1762/' which placed Catherine 11. upon the throne of Russia. Her son Paul was only six years old; and in less than two years Ivan VI., the only claimant to the throne who could become the center of a conspiracy against her authority, was most opportunely removed. It was said that his guards killed him to pre- ^vent an attempted rescue. No one knows or ever will know whether or not Catherine was implicated in his '' taking off." But certainly nothing at the time could have pleased her better. CHAPTER XVIII. European diplomacy at this period was centered about the perishing state of Poland. That kingdom, once so powerful, was becom- ing every year more enfeebled. It was a defective social organization and an arrogant nobility that ruined Poland. There existed only two classes — nobles and serfs. The business and trade of the state were in the hands of Germans and Jews, and there existed no national or middle class in which must reside the life of a modern state. In other words, Poland was patriarchal and mediaeval. She had become unsuited to her environment. Surrounded by powerful ab- solutisms which had grown out of the ruins of mediaeval forces, she in the eighteenth cen- tury was clinging to the traditions of feudal- ism as if it were still the twelfth century. It was in vain that her sons were patriotic, in vain that they struggled for reforms, in vain that they lay down and died upon battlefields. 156 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 15 7 She alone in Europe had not been borne along on that great wave of centraHzation long ago, and she had missed an essential experience. She was out of step with the march of civili- zation, and the advancing forces were going to run over her. The more enlightened Poles began too late to strive for a firm hereditary monarchy, and to try to curb the power of selfish nobles. Not only was their state falling to pieces within, but it was being crushed from without. Protestant Prussia in the West, Greek Russia in the East, and Austria on the South, each preparing to absorb all it could get away — not from Poland, but from each other. It was obvious that it was only a question of time when the feeble kingdom wedged in be- tween these powerful and hungry states must succumb; and for Russia, Austria, and Prus- sia it was simply a question as to the share which would fall to each. Such was the absorbing problem which em- ployed Catherine's powers from the early years of her reign almost to its close. Eu- rope soon saw that it was a woman of no ordinary ability who was sitting on the throne of Russia. In her foreign policy, and in the 158 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. vigor infused into the internal administration of her empire, the master-hand became ap- parent. As a counter-move to her designs upon Po- land, the Turks were induced to harass her by declaring war upon Russia. There was a great surprise in store for Europe as well as for the Ottoman Empire. This dauntless wo- man was unprepared for such an emergency; but she wrote to one of her generals: " The Romans did not concern themselves with the number of their enemies; they only asked, * Where are they? ' " Her armies swept the Peninsula clear of Tatars and of Turks, and in 1 771 a Russian fleet was on the Black Sea, and the terror of Constantinople knew no bounds. If afifairs in Europe and disorders in her own empire had not been so pressing, the long-cherished dream of the Grand Princes might have been realized. A plague in Moscow broke out in 1771 which so excited the superstitions of the peo- ple, that it led to an insurrection; immediately following this, a terrible demoralization was created in the South by an illiterate Cossack named Pugatchek, who announced that he was Peter the Third. He claimed that in- EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 159 stead of dying as was supposed, he had es- caped to the Ukraine, and was now going to St. Petersburg with an army to punish his wife Catherine and to place his son Paul upon the throne. As a pretender he was not dangerous, but as a rallying point for unhappy serfs and for an exasperated and suffering people look- ing for a leader, he did become a very for- midable menace, which finally developed into a Peasants' War. The insurrection was at last quelled, and ended with the execution of the false Peter at Moscow. In the midst of these distractions and labors, while fighting the Ottoman Empire for the shores of the Black Sea, and all Europe over a partition of Poland, the Em- press was at the same time introducing re- forms in every department of her incoherent and disordered empire. Peter the Great had abolished the Patriarchate. She did more. The monasteries and the ecclesiastical estates, which were exempt from taxes during all the period of Mongol dominion, had never paid tribute to Khans, had in consequence grown to be enormously wealthy. It is said the clergy owned a million serfs. Catherine placed the property of the Church under the l6o EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. administration of a secular commission, and the heads of the monasteries and the clergy were converted from independent sovereigns into mere pensioners of the Crown. Then she assailed the receiving of bribes, and other corrupt practices in the administration of jus- tice. She struggled hard to let in the light of better instruction upon the upper and middle classes. If she could, she would have abol- ished ignorance and cruelty in the land, not because she was a philanthropist, but because she loved civilization. It was her intellect, not her heart, that made Catherine a reformer. When she severely punished and forever dis- graced a lady of high rank for cruelty to her serfs, — forty of whom had been tortured to death, — it was because she had the educated instincts of a European, not an Asiatic, and she had also the intelligence to realize that no state could be made sound which rested upon a foundation of human misery. She established a Russian Academy modeled after the French, its object being to fix the rules for writing and speaking the Russian language and to promote the study of Rus- sian history. In other words, Catherine was a reformer fully in sympathy with the best EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. i6i methods prevailing in Western Europe. She was profoundly interested in the New Philos- ophy and the intellectual movement in France, was in correspondence with Voltaire and the Encyclopedists, and a student of the theories of Rousseau. Of course the influence exerted by French genius over Russian civiHzation at this time did not penetrate far below the upper and highly educated class; but there is no doubt it left a deep impress upon the literature and art of the nation, and also modified Russian characteristics by introducing religious toler- ance and habits of courtesy, besides making aspirations after social justice and political liberty entirely respectable. Catherine's *' Book of Instructions " to the commission which was created by her to assist in making a new code of laws contained political max- ims which would satisfy advanced reformers to-day; although when she saw later that the French Revolution was their logical conclu- sion, she repudiated them, took Voltaire's bust down from its pedestal, and had it thrown into a rubbish heap. The work she was accom- plishing for Russia was second only to that of Peter the Great; and when she is reproached 1 62 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. for not having done more and for not having broken the chains forged by Boris upon twenty miUion people, let it be remembered that she lived in the eighteenth, and not the nineteenth, century; and that at that very time Franklin and Jefiferson were framing a consti- tution which sanctioned the existence of ne- gro slavery in an ideal republic! A new generation had grown up in Poland, men not nobles nor serfs, but a race of patriots familiar with the stirring litera- ture of their century. They had seen their land broken into fragments and then ground fine by a proud and infatuated nobility. They had seen their pusillani- mous kings one after another yielding to the insolent demands for their territory. Polish territory extended eastward into the Ukraine; now that must be cut off and dropped into the lap of Russia. Another arm extended north, separating Eastern Prussia from Western. That too must be cut off and fall to Prussia. Then after shearing these ex- tremities, the Poland which was left must not only accept the spoliation, but co-operate with her despoilers in adopting under their direc- tion a constitution suited to its new humilia- EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 163 tion. Her King was making her the laugh- ing-stock of Europe — but before long the name Poland was to become another name for tragedy. Kosciusko had fought in the War of the American Revolution. When he re- turned, with the badge of the Order of the Cincinnati upon his breast and filled with dreams of the regeneration of his own land by the magic of this new political freedom, he was the chosen leader of the patriots. The partition of Poland was not all ac- compHshed at one time. It took three repasts to finish the banquet (the par- titions of 1 792- 1 793- 1 794), and then some time more was required to sweep up the fragments and to efface its name from the map of Europe. Kosciusko and his followers made their last vain and des- perate stand in 1794, and when he fell covered with wounds at the battle of Kaminski, Poland fell with him. The Poles were to survive only as a more or less unhappy element among nations where they were aliens. Their race affinities were with Russia, for they were a Slavonic people; their religious affinities were with Catholic Austria; but with Protestant Prussia there was not one thing in common, 1 64 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. and that was the bitterest servitude of all. The Poles in Russia were to some extent autonomous. They were permitted to con- tinue their local governments under a viceroy appointed by the Tsar; their Slavonic system of communes was not disturbed, nor their language nor customs. Still it was only a privileged servitude after all, and the time was coming when it was to become an unmiti- gated one. But effaced as a political sover- eignty, Poland was to survive as a nationality of genius. Her sons were going to sing their songs in other lands, but Mickiewiz and Sink- ewiz and Chopin are Polish, not Russian. The alliance of the three sovereigns en- gaged in this dismemberment was about as friendly as is that of three dogs who have run down a hare and are engaged in picking nice morsels from its bones. If Russia was getting more than her share, the Turks would be in- cited by Austria or Prussia to attack her in the South; and many times did Catherine's armies desert Poland to march down and de- fend the Crimea, and her new fort at Sebas- topol, and her fleet on the Black Sea. In 1787, accompanied by her grandsons, the Grand Dukes Alexander and Constantine, she EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 165 made that famous journey down the Dnieper; visited the ancient shrines about Kief; stood in the picturesque old capital of Sarai, on the spot where Russian Grand Princes had groveled at the feet of the Khans; and then looked upon Sebastopol, which marked the limit of the new frontier which she had created. The French Revolution caused a revulsion in her political theories. She indulged in no more abstractions about human rights, and had an antipathy for the new principles which had led to the execution of the King and Queen and to such revolting horrors. She made a holocaust of the literature she had once thought entertaining. Russians suspected of liberal tendencies were watched, and upon the sHghtest pretext sent to Siberia, and she urged the King of Sweden to head a crusade against this pestilential democracy, which she would help him to sweep out of Europe. It was Catherine, in consultation with the Emperor of Austria, who first talked of dismembering Turkey and creating out of its own territory a group of neutral states lying between Eu- rope and the Ottoman Empire. And Vol- taire's dream of a union of the Greek peoples 1 66 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. into an Hellenic kingdom she improved upon by a larger plan of her own, by which she was to be the conqueror of the Ottoman Empire, while her grandson Constantine, sitting on a throne at Constantinople, should rule Greeks and Turks alike under a Russian protectorate. Upon the private life of Catherine there is no need to dwell. This is not the biography of a woman, but the history of the empire she magnificently ruled for thirty-four years. It is enough to say she was not better than her predecessors, the Tsaritsas Elizabeth and Anna. The influence exerted by Menschikof in the reign of Catherine I., and Biron in that of Anna, was to be exerted by Alexis Orlof, Potemkin, and other favorites in this. Her son Paul, who was apparently an object of dislike, was kept in humiliating subordination to the Orlofs and her other princely favorites, to whose councils he was never invited. Righteousness and moral elevation did not exist in her character nor in her reign; but for political insight, breadth of statesmanship, and a powerful grasp upon the enormous problems in her heterogeneous empire, she is entitled to rank with the few sovereigns who are called " Great." A German by birth, a French- EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 167 woman by intellectual tastes and tendencies — she was above all else a Russian, and bent all the resources of her powerful personality to the enlightenment and advancement of the land of her adoption. Her people were not " knouted into civilization," but invited and drawn into it. Her touch was terribly firm — but elastic. She was arbitrary, but tolerant; and if her reign was a despotism, it was a des- potism of that broad type which deals with the sources of things, and does not bear heavily upon individuals. The Empress Catherine died suddenly in 1796, and Paul I. was crowned Emperor of Russia. CHAPTER XIX. Paul was forty-one years old when he as- cended the throne he had for twenty years beheved was rightfully his. The mystery sur- rounding the death of his father Peter III., the humiliations he had suffered at his mother's court, and what he considered her usurpation of his rights — all these had been for years fermenting in his narrow brain. His first act gave vent to his long-smoth- ered indignation and his suspicions regard- ing his father's death. Peter's remains were exhumed — placed beside those of Catherine lying in state, to share all the honors of her obsequies and to be entombed with her; while Alexis Orlof, his supposed murderer, was compelled to march beside the coffin, bearing his crown. Then when Paul had abolished from the official language the words " society " and '' citizen," which his mother had delighted to honor — when he had forbidden the wearing of i68 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 169 frock-coats, high collars, and neckties, and re- fused to allow Frenchmen to enter his terri- tory — and when he had compelled his people to get out of their carriages and kneel in the mud as he passed — he supposed he was strengthening the foundations of authority which Catherine II. had loosened. To him is attributed the famous saying, " Know that the only person of consideration in Russia is the person whom I address, and he only during the time I am addressing him." He was a born despot, and his reforms con- sisted in a return to Prussian methods and to an Oriental servility. The policy he an- nounced was one of peace with Europe — a cessation of those wars by which his mother had for thirty-four years been draining the treasury. He was going to turn his conquests toward the East; and vast plans, with vague and indefinite outlines, were forming in the narrow confines of his restless brain. But these were interrupted by unexpected condi- tions. In 1796 the military genius of a young man twenty-seven years old electrified Europe. Napoleon Bonaparte, at the head of a ragged, unpaid French army, overthrew Northern I70 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. Italy, and out of the fragments created a Cisalpine Republic. His army already occu- pied Egypt, and by the Treaty of Formio possessed the Ionian Isles. This threatened the East. So Turkey and Russia, contrary to all old traditions, formed a defensive alliance, which was quickly followed by an offensive one between Russia and Austria. But the tactics so successful against Poles and Turks were unavailing against those employed by the new Conqueror. The Russian com- mander Suvorov was defeated and returned in disgrace to his enraged master at St. Peters- burg, who refused to receive him. In 1798 Bonaparte had secured Belgium, had com- pelled Austria to cede to him Lombardy, also to promise him help in getting the left bank of the Rhine from the Germanic body, and to acknowledge his Cisalpine Republic. The Emperor Paul's feelings underwent a swift change. He was blinded by the glory of Napoleon's conquests and pleased with his despotic methods. He conceived not only a friendship but a passion for the man who could accomplish such things. Austria and England had both offended him, so he readily fell into a plan for a Franco-Russian under- EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 171 Standing for mutual benefit, from which there developed a larger plan. The object of this was the overthrow of British dominion in India. Paul was to move with a large army into Hindostan, there to be joined by a French army from Egypt; then they would together sweep through the coun- try of the Great Mogul, gathering up the English settlements by the way and so placat- ing the native population and Princes that they would join them in the liberation of their country from English tyranny and usurpation. Paul said in his manifesto to the army that the Great Mogul and the Sovereign Princes were to be undisturbed; nothing was to be attacked but the commercial establishments acquired by money and used to oppress and to enslave India. At the same time he said to his army, " The treasures of the Indies shall be your recompense," failing to state how these treasures were to be obtained without disturbing the Sovereign Princes. It is known that Napoleon had plans of an empire in the East, and it is also known that some compact of this kind did exist between him and the Emperor Paul. In 1801 eleven regiments of Cossacks, the vanguard of the 1 72 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. army which was to follow, had started upon the great undertaking, when news was received that the Emperor Paul I. was dead. The unbalanced course pursued by the Tsar, his unwise reforms, and his capricious policy had not only ahenated everyone, but caused serious apprehensions for the safety of the empire. He had arrayed himself against his wife and his children; had threatened to disinherit Alexander, his oldest son and heir, whom he especially hated. A plot was formed to compel his abdication. To that extent his sons Alexander and Constantine were aware of and party to it. On the night of the 23d of March, 1801, the conspirators entered Paul's sleeping apart- ment after he had retired, and, sword in hand, presented the abdication for him to sign. There was a struggle in which the lamp was overturned, and in the darkness the Tsar, who had fallen upon the floor, was strangled with an officer's scarf. On the 24th of March, 1801, Alexander, who was entirely innocent of complicity in this crime, was proclaimed Emperor of Rus- sia. EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. I73 It is said that when Bonaparte saw the downfall of his vast design, he could not con- tain his rage; and pointing to England as the instigator of the deed, he said in the Moniteur: " It is for history to clear up the secret of this tragedy, and to say what national policy was interested in such a catastrophe! " The Emperor Paul had an acute, although narrow, intelligence, and was not without generous impulses. But although he some- times made impetuous reparation for injury, although he recalled exiles from Siberia and gave to Kosciusko and other patriots their freedom, unless his kindness was properly met the reaction toward severity was excessive. A little leaven of good with much that is evil sometimes creates a very explosive mixture, and converts what would be a mild, even tyranny into a vindictive and revengeful one. When we behold the traits exhibited dur- ing this brief reign of five years, we are not surprised at Catherine's unwillingness to resign to her son the empire for which she had done so much; and we are inclined to believe it is true that there was, as has been rumored, a will left by the Empress naming as her heir the grandson whom she had carefully 174 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. prepared to be her successor, and that this paper was destroyed by the conspirators. There is one wise act to record in the reign of Paul — although it was probably prompted not by a desire to benefit the future so much as to reverse the past. Peter the Great had placed in the hands of the Sovereign the power to choose his successor. Paul established the principle of primogeniture in the succession, and thereby bestowed a great benefit upon Russia. CHAPTER XX. A YOUTH of twenty-five years was Tsar and Autocrat of All the Russias. ^Alexander had from his birth been withdrawn entirely from his father's influence. The tutor chosen by his grandmother was Laharpe, a Swiss Re- publican, and the principles of political free- dom were at the foundation of his training. It was of course during the period of her own liberal tendencies that Alexander was imbued with the advanced theories which had cap- tured intellectual Europe in the days before the French Revolution. The new Emperor declared in a manifesto that his reign should be inspired by the aims and principles of Catherine 11. He then quickly freed him- self from the conspirators who had murdered his father, and drew about him a group of young men Hke himself, utterly inexperienced, but enthusiastic dreamers of a reign of good- will which should regenerate Russia. With the utmost confidence, reforms of the most 175 176 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. radical nature were proposed and discussed. There was to be a gradual emancipation of the serfs, and misery of all sorts to be lifted from the land by a new and benign system of gov- ernment which should be representative and constitutional. Many changes were at once instituted. The old system of '' colleges," or departments, established by Peter the Great was removed and a group of ministers after the European custom constituted the Tsar's official household, or what would once have been called his Drujina. In the very first year of this reign there was a large accession of territory in Asia, which gravitated as if by natural law toward the huge mass. The pic- turesque old kingdom of Georgia, lying south of the Caucasus between the Black and Cas- pean seas, was the home of that fair and gifted race which had fallen from its high estate and become the victim of the Turks, and, with its congener Circassia, had long provided the harems of the Ottoman Empire with beautiful slaves. The Georgians had often appealed to the Tsars for protection, and in 1800 the suf- fering kingdom was glad to be incorporated with Russia. So day by day, while the young Emperor EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. I77 and his friends were living in their pleasant Utopia, Russia, with all its incoherent ele- ments, with its vast energies, its vast riches, and its vast miseries, was expanding and as- suming a more dominating position in Eu- rope. What would be done at St. Petersburg, was the question of supreme importance; and Alexander was being importuned to join the coalition against the common enemy Bona- parte. The night before the 2d of October, 1805, the Russian Emperor and his young olificers, as confident of victory as they were of their ability to reconstruct Russia, were impatiently waiting for the morrow, and the conflict at Austerlitz. With a ridiculous assurance the young Alexander sent by the young Prince Dolgoruki a note addressed — not to the Em- peror — but to the '' Head of the French Nation," stating his demands for the abandon- ment of Italy and immediate peace! Before sundown the next day the '' Battle of the Three Emperors " had been fought; the Rus- sian army was scattered after frightful loss, and Alexander, attended by an orderly and two Cossacks, was galloping away as fast as his horse could carry him. Then Napoleon 178 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. was in Vienna — Francis II. at his bidding took off his imperial crown — the '' Confederation of the Rhine " was formed out of Germanic States; and then the terrible and invincible man turned toward Prussia, defeated a Rus- sian army which came to its rescue, and in 1806 was in BerHn — master and arbiter of Europe! Alexander, the romantic champion of right and justice, the dreamer of ideal dreams, had been carried by the whirlpool of events into currents too strong for him. He stood alone on the continent of Europe face to face with the man who was subjugating it. His army was broken in pieces, and perhaps an invasion of his own empire was at hand. Should he make terms with this man whose career had so revolted him? — or should he defy him and accept the risk of an invasion, which, by offer- ing freedom to the serfs and independence to the Poles, might give the invader the imme- diate support of millions of his own subjects? Then added to the conflict with his old self, there was the irresistible magic of Napoleon^s personal influence. A two-hours' interview on the raft at Tilsit — June 25, 1807 — changed the whole direction of Alexander's policy, and EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 1 79 made him an ally of the despot he had de- tested, whom he now joined in determining the fate of Europe. Together they decided who should occupy thrones and who should not; to whom there should be recompense, and who should be despoiled; and the Em- peror of Russia consented to join the Empe- ror of the French in a war upon the com- mercial prosperity of England — his old friend and ally — by means of a continental blockade. Times were changed. It was not so long ago — just one hundred years — since Peter the Great had opened one small window for the light from civilized Europe to glimmer through ; and now the Tsar of that same Rus- sia, in a two-hours' interview on a raft, was deciding what should be the fate of Europe! The Emperor's young companions, with small experience and lofty aims, were keenly disappointed in him. This alliance was in contravention of all their ideals. He began to grow distrustful and cold toward them, leaning entirely upon Speranski, his prime minister, who was French in his sympathies and a profound admirer of Napoleon. Alex- ander, no less zealous for reforms than before, hurt at the defection of his friends and trying i8o EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. to justify himself to himself, said '' Does not this man represent the new forces in conflict with the old? " But he was not at ease. He and his minister worked laboriously; a system- atic plan of reform was prepared. Speranski considered the Code Napoleon the model of all progressive legislation. Its adoption was desired, but it was suited only to a homogen- eous people; it was a modern garment and not to be worn by a nation in which feudalism lingered, in which there was not a perfect equality before the law; hence the emancipa- tion of the serfs must be the corner-stone of the new structure. The difficulties grew larger as they were approached. He had dis- appointed his old friends, his nobility was dissatisfied, and a general feeling of irritation prevailed upon finding themselves involved by the Franco-Russian alliance in wars with England, Austria, and Sweden, and the pros- perity of the empire seriously impaired by the continental blockade. But when Bonaparte began to show scant courtesy to his Russian ally, and to act as if he were his master, then Alexander's disenchantment was complete. He freed himself from the unnatural alliance, and faced the inevitable consequences. EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. iSl Napoleon, also glad to be freed from a sen- timental friendship not at all to his taste, pre- pared to carry out his long-contemplated de- sign. In July of 1812, by way of Poland, he entered Russia with an army of over 678,000 souls. It was a human avalanche collected mainly from the people he had conquered, with which he intended to overwhelm the Russian Empire. It was of little consequence that thirty or forty thousand fell as this or that town was captured by the way. He had ex- pected victory to be costly, and on he pressed with diminished numbers toward Moscow, armies retreating and villages burning before him. If St. Petersburg was the brain of Rus- sia, Moscow — Moscow the Holy — was its heart! What should they do? Should they lure the French army on to its destruction and then burn and retreat? or should they there take their stand and sacrifice the last army of Russia to save Moscow? With tears streaming down their cheeks they yielded to the words of Kutuzof, who said: " When it becomes a matter of the salvation of Russia, Moscow is only a city like any other. Let us retreat." The archives and treasures of the churches and palaces were 1 82 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. carried to Valdimir, such as could of the people following them, and the city was left to its fate. On September the 14th, 181 2, the French troops defiled through the streets of Moscow singing the Marseillaise, and Napoleon estab- lished himself in the ancient palace of the Ivans within the walls of the Kremlin. The torches had been distributed, and were in the hands of the Muscovites. The stores of brandy, and boats loaded with alcohol, were simultaneously ignited, and a fierce confla- gration like a sea of flame raged below the Kremlin. Napoleon, compelled to force his way through these volcanic fires, narrowly escaped. For five days they continued, devouring supplies and everything upon which the army had depended for shelter and subsistence. For thirty-five days more they waited among the blackened ruins. All was over with the French conquest. The troops were eating their horses, and thousands were already perishing with hunger. Then the elements began to fight for Russia — the snow-flakes came, then the bitter polar winds, cutting like a razor; and a winding sheet of snow envel- EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 183 Oped the land. On the 13th of October, after Hghting a mme under the Kremhn,with sullen rage the French troops marched out of Mos- cow. The Great Tower of Ivan erected by Boris was cracked and some portions of palaces and gateways destroyed by this vic- ious and useless act of revenge. Then, instead of marching upon St. Peters- burg as he had expected, Napoleon escaped alone to the frontier, leaving his perishing wreck of an army to get back as it could. The peasantry, the muzhiks, whom the Rus- sians had feared to trust — infuriated by the destruction of their homes, committed awful atrocities upon the starving, freezing soldiers, who, maddened by cold and hunger and by the singing in their ears of the rarified air, many of them leaped into the bivouac fires. It was a colossal tragedy. Of the 678,000 soldiers only 80,000 ever returned. The extinction of the grand army of inva- sion was complete. But in the following year, with another great army, the indomitable Napoleon was conducting a campaign in Ger- many which ended with the final defeat at Leipzig — then the march upon Paris — and in March, 18 14, Alexander at the head of the 184 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. Allies was in the French capital, dictating the terms of surrender. This young man had played the most brilliant part in the great drama of Liberation. He was hailed as a Deliverer, and exerted a more powerful in- fluence than any of the other sovereigns, in the long period required for rearranging Europe after the passing of Napoleon — the disturber of the peace of the world. In 1809 Sweden had surrendered to Russia Finland, which had belonged to that country for six centuries. The kindly-intentioned Alexander conceded to the Finns many privi- leges similar to those enjoyed by Poland, which until recent years have not been seriously interfered with. He guaranteed to them a Diet, a separate army, and the continuance of their own language and cus- toms. A ukase just issued by the present emperor seriously invades these privileges, and a forcible Russification of Finland threat- ens to bring a wave of Finnish emigration to America (1899). When the Emperor Alexander returned after the Treaty of Paris he was thirty-four years old. Many of the illusions of his youth had faded. His marriage with Elizabeth of EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 185 Baden was unhappy. His plans for reform had not been understood by the people whom they were intended to benefit. He had yielded finally to the demands of his angry nobility, had dismissed his liberal adviser Speranski and substituted Araktcheef, an intolerant, reactionary leader. He grew morose, gloomy, and suspicious, and a reign of extreme severity under Araktcheef commenced. In 1819 he consented to join in a league with Austria and Prus- sia for the purpose of suppressing the very tendencies he himself had once pro- moted. The League was called the '' Holy Alliance," and its object was to reinstate the principle of the divine right of Kings and to destroy democratic tendencies in the germ. Araktcheef's severities, directed against the lower classes and the peasantry, produced more serious disorders than had yet devel- oped. There were popular uprisings, and in 1823 at Kief there was held secretly a conven- tion at which the people were told that '' the obstacle to their liberties was the Romanofif dynasty. They must shrink from nothing — not from the murder of the Emperor, nor the extermination of the Imperial family." The 1 86 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. peasants were promised freedom if they would join in the plot, and a definite time was pro- posed for the assassination of Alexander when he should inspect the troops in the Ukraine in 1824. When the Tsar heard of this conspiracy in the South he exclaimed: "Ah, the monsters! And I planned for nothing- but their happi- ness!" He brooded over his lost illusions and his father's assassination. His health became seriously disordered, and he was ad- vised to go to the South for change of climate. At Taganrog, on the ist of December, 1825, he suddenly expired. Almost his last words were: " They may say of me what they will, but I have lived and shall die republican." A statement difficult to accept, regarding a man who helped to create the '' Holy Alli- ance." CHAPTER XXI. As Alexander left no sons, by the law of primogeniture his brother Constantine, the next oldest in the family of Paul L, should have been his successor. But Constantine had already privately renounced the throne in favor of his brother Nicholas. The actual reason for this renunciation was the Grand Duke's deep attachment to a Polish lady for whom he was willing even to re- linquish a crown. The letter announcing his intention contained these words: " Be- ing conscious that I have neither genius, talents, nor energy necessary for my ele- vation, I beg your Imperial Majesty to trans- fer this right to my brother Nicholas, the next in succession." The document accept- ing the renunciation and acknowledging Nicholas as his successor was safely deposited by Alexander, its existence remaining a pro- found secret even to Nicholas himself. At the time of the Emperor's death Con- 187 1 88 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. stantine, who was Viceroy of Poland, was re- siding at Cracow. Nicholas, unaware of the circumstances, immediately took the oath of allegiance to his brother and also adminis- tered it to the troops at St. Petersburg. It required some time for Constantine's letter to arrive, stating his immovable determination to abide by the decision which would be found in his letter to the late Emperor. There followed a contest of generosity — Nicholas urging and protesting, and his brother re- fusing the elevation. Three weeks passed — weeks of disastrous uncertainty — with no acknowledged head to the Empire. Such an opportunity was not to be neg- lected by the revolutionists in the South nor their co-workers in the North. Pestel, the leader, had long been organizing his recruits, and St. Petersburg and Moscow were the cen- ters of secret political societies. The time for action had unexpectedly come. There must be a swift overturning: the entire imperial family must be destroyed, and the Senate and Holy Synod must be compelled to adopt the Constitution which had been prepared. The hour appointed for the beginning of this direful programme was the day when the EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 189 senators and the troops should assemble to take the oath of allegiance to Nicholas. The soldiers, who knew nothing of the plot, were incited to refuse to take the oath on the ground that Constantine's resignation was false, and that he was a prisoner and in chains. Constantine was their friend and going to in- crease their pay. One Moscow regiment openly shouted: '' Long life to Constantine! " and when a few conspirators cried " Long live the Constitution!" the soldiers asked if that was Constantine's wife. So the ostensible cause of the revolt, which soon became gen- eral, was a fideHty to their rightful Emperor, who was being illegally deposed. Under this mask worked Pestel and his co-conspirators, composed in large measure of men of high intelligence and standing, including even government officials and members of the aris- tocracy. A few days were sufficient to overcome this abortive attempt at revolution in Russia. Pestel, when he heard his death sentence, said, " My greatest error ^'s that I tried to gather the harvest before sowing the seed "; and Ruileef, " I knew this enterprise would be my destruction — but could no longer endure the 190 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. sight of my country's anguish under despot- ism." When we think of the magnitude of the ofifense, the monstrous crime which was contemplated; and when we remember that Nicholas was by nature the very incarnation of unrestrained authority, the punishment seems comparatively light. There was no vindictiveness, no wholesale slaughter. Five leaders were deliberately and ignominiously hanged, and hundreds of their misguided followers and sympathizers went into per- petual exile in Siberia — there to expiate the folly of supposing that a handful of inexperienced enthusiasts and doctri- naires could in their studies create new and ideal conditions, and build up with one hand while they were recklessly destroy- ing with the other. Their aims were the abolition of serfdom, the destruction of all ex- isting institutions, and a perfect equaHty un- der a constitutional government. They were definite and sweeping — and so were the means for accomplishing them. Their be- nign government was going to rest upon crime and violence. We should call these men Nihilists now. There were among them writers and thinkers, noble souls which, un- EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 191 der the stress of oppression and sympathy, had gone astray. They had failed, but they had proved that there were men in Russia ca- pable of dying- for an ideal. When the cause had its martyrs it had become sacred — and though it might sleep, it would not die. The man sitting upon the throne of Russia now was not torn by conflicts between his ideals and inexorable circumstance. His natural instincts and the conditions of his em- pire both pointed to the same simple course — an unmitigated autocracy — an absolute rule supported by military power. Instead of opening wider the doors leading into Europe, he intended to close them, and if necessary even to lock them. Instead of encouraging his people to be more European, he was go- ing to be the champion of a new Pan-Slavism and to strive to intensify the Russian national traits. The time had come for this great em- pire to turn its face away from the West and toward the East, where its true interests were. Such a plan may not have been formulated by Nicholas, but such were the policies instinc- tively pursued from the beginning of his reign to its close. Such an attitude naturally brought him at 192 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE, once into conflict with Turkey, with which country he was almost immediately at war. Of course no one suspected him of sentimen- tal sympathy when he espoused the cause of Greece in the picturesque struggle with the Turks which brought Western Europe at last to her rescue. It was only a part of a much larger plan, and when Nicholas had pro- claimed himself the Protector of the Ortho- dox Christians in the East, he had placed him- self in a relation to the Eastern Question which could be held by no other sovereign in Europe; for persecuted Christians in the East were not Catholic but Orthodox; and was not he the head of the Orthodox Church? It was to secure this first move in the game of diplo- macy that Russia joined England and France, and placed the struggling little state of Greece upon its feet in 1832. But the conditions in Western Europe were unfavorable to the tranquil pursuit of auto- cratic ends. Charles X. had presumed too far upon the patient submission of the French people. In 1830 Paris was in a state of insur- rection; Charles, the last of the Bourbons, had abdicated; and Louis Philippe, under a new liberal Constitution approved by the people, EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 193 was King of the French. The indignation of Nicholas at this overturning was still greater when the epidemic of revolt spread to Bel- gium and to Italy, and then leaped, as such epidemics will, across the intervening space to Russian Poland. The surface calm in that unhappy state ruled by the Grand Duke Con- stantine swiftly vanished and revealed an en- tire people waiting for the day when, at any cost, they might make one more stand for freedom. The plan was a desperate one. It was to assassinate Constantine, who had re- linquished a throne rather than leave them; to induce Lithuania, their old ally, to join them; and to create an independent Polish state which would bar the Russians from en- tering Europe. In 1 83 1 the brief struggle was ended, and Europe had received the historic announce- ment, " Order reigns at Warsaw." Not only Warsaw, but Poland, was at the feet of the Emperor. Confiscations, imprisonments, and banishments to Siberia were the least terrible of the punishments. Every germ of a Polish nationality was destroyed — the army and the Diet effaced, Russian systems of taxes, justice, and coinage, and the metric system of weights 194 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. and measures used in Russia were introduced, — the Julian Calendar superseded the one adopted all over the world — the University of Warsaw was carried to Moscow, and the Pol- ish language was prohibited to be taught in the schools. Indemnity and pardon were offered to those who abjured the Roman Catholic faith, and many were received into the bosom of the National Orthodox Church; those refusing this offer of clemency being subjected to great cruelties. Poland was no more. Polish exiles were scattered all over Europe. In France, Hungary, Italy, wher- ever there were lovers of freedom, there were thousands of these emigrants without a coun- try, living illustrations of what an unre- strained despotism might do, and everywhere intensifying the desires of patriots to achieve political freedom in their own lands. Nicholas, as the chief representative of con- servatism in Europe, looked upon France with especial aversion. Paris was the center of these pernicious movements which period- ically shook Europe to its foundations. It had overthrown his ally Charles X., and had been the direct cause of the insurrection in Poland which had cost him thousands of EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 1 93 rubles and lives; and now nowhere else was such sympathetic welcome given to the Polish refugees, thousands of whom were in the French army. His relations with Louis Phi- lippe became strained, and he was looking about for an opportunity to manifest his ill will. In the meantime he addressed himself to what he considered the reforms in his own empire. He was going to establish a sort of political quarantine to keep out European in- fluences. It was forbidden to send young men to Western universities — the term of ab- sence in foreign countries was limited to five 'years for nobles, three for Russian subjects. The Russian language, literature, and history were to be given prominence over all studies in the schools. German free-thought was es- pecially disliked by him. His instincts were not mistaken, for what the Encyclopedists had been to the Revolution of 1789, the new school of thought in Germany would be to that of 1849. So from his point of view he was wise in excluding philosophy from the universities and permitting it to be taught only by ecclesiastics. The Khedive of Egypt, who ruled under a Turkish protectorate^ in 1832 was at war with 196 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. his master the Sultan. It suited the Emperor of Russia at this time to do the Sultan a kind- ness, so he joined him in bringing the Khe- dive to terms, and as his reward received a secret promise from the Porte to close the Dardanelles in case of war against Russia — to permit no foreign warships to pass through upon any pretext. There was indignation in Europe when this was known, and out of the whole imbroglio there came just what Nicho- las and his minister Nesselrode had intended — a joint protection of Turkey by the Great Powers, from which France was excluded on account of her avowed sympathy for the Khe- dive in the recent troubles. The great game of diplomacy had begun. Nicholas, for the sake of humiliating France, had allied himself with England, his natural enemy, and had assumed the part of Protector of an Ottoman integrity which he more than anyone else had tried to destroy! There were to be many strange roles played in this East- ern drama — many surprises for Christendom; and for Nicholas the surprise of a crushing defeat a few years later to which France con- tributed, possibly in retaliation for this hu- miliation. EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 197 The Ottoman Empire had reached its zenith in 1550 under Suleyman the Magnifi- cent, when, with its eastern frontier in the heart of Asia, its European frontier touching Russia and Austria, it held in its grasp Egypt, the northern coast of Africa, and every city famous in biblical and classical history. Then commenced a decline; and when its terrible Janizaries became a source of danger instead of defense, and when its own Sultan was com- pelled to destroy them in 1826 for the protec- tion of his empire, it was only a helpless mass in the throes of dissolution. But Turkey as a living and advancing power was less alarming to Europe than Turkey as a perishing one. Lying at the gateway between the East and the West, it occupied the most commanding strategic po- sition in Europe. If that position were held by a living instead of a dying power, that power would be master of the Continent. No one state would ever be permitted by the rest to reach such an ascendency; and the next al- ternative of a division of the territory after the manner of Poland, was fraught with al- most as much danger. The only hope for the peace of Europe was to keep in its integrity 19^ EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. this crumbling wreck of a wicked, crime- stained old empire. Such was the policy now inaugurated by Russia, Great Britain, Austria, and Prussia; and such in brief is the '' Eastern Question," which for more than half a century has overshadowed all others in European diplomacy, and more than any other has strained the conscience and the moral sense of Christian nations. We wish we might say that one nation had been able to resist this in- vitation to a moral turpitude masked by dip- lomatic subterfuges. But there is not one. Although the question of the balance of power was of importance to all, it was Eng- land and Russia to whom the interests in- volved in the Eastern Question were most vital. Every year which made England's Indian Empire a more important possession also increased the necessity for her having free access to it; while Russian policy more and more revolved about an actual and a potential empire in the East, So just because they were natural enemies they became allies, each desiring to tie the other's hands by the princi- ple of Ottoman integrity. But daily and noiselessly the Russian out- posts crept toward the East; first into Persia, EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. I99 then stretching out the left hand toward Khiva, pressing on through Bokhara into Chinese territory; and then, with a prescience of coming events which should make Western Europe tremble before such a subtle instinct for power, Russia obtained from the Chinese Emperor the privilege of establishing at Can- ton a school of instruction where Russian youths — prohibited from attending European universities — might learn the Chinese lan- guage and become familiarized with Chinese methods! But this was the sort of instinct that impels a glacier to creep surely toward a lower level. Not content with owning half of Europe and all of Northern Asia, the Rus- sian glacier was moving noiselessly, as all things must, — on the line of least resistance — toward the East. The Emperor Nicholas, who compre- hended so well the secret of imperial expan- sion, and so little understood the expanding qualities within his empire, was an impressive object to look upon. With his colossal sta- ture and his imposing presence, always tightly buttoned in his uniform, he carried with him an air of majesty never to be forgotten if once it was seen. But while he 200 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. supposed he was extinguishing the Hving forces and arresting the advancing power of mind in his empire, a new world was matur- ing beneath the smooth hard surface he had created. The Russian intellect, in spite of all, was blossoming from seed scattered long be- fore his time. There were historians, and poets, and romanticists, and classicists, just as in the rest of Europe. There were the con- servative writers who felt contempt for the West, and for the new, and who believed Russia was as much better before Ivan III. than after, as Ivan the Great was superior to Peter the Great; and there were Push- kin and Gogol, and Koltsof and Tur- guenief, whom they hated, because their voice was the voice of the New Russia. Turguenief, who with smothered sense of Russia's oppression was then girding him- self for his battle with serfdom, says: " My proof used to come back to me from the censor half erased, and stained with red ink like blood. Ah! they were painful times!" But in spite of all, Russian genius was spread- ing its wings, and perhaps from this very re- pression was to come that passionate intensity which makes it so great. CHAPTER XXII. The Revolution of 1831 was only the mild precursor of the one which shook Europe to its foundations in 1848. It had centers wher- ever there were patriots and aching hearts. In Paris, Louis Philippe had fled at the sound of the word Republic, and when in Paris workmen were waving the national banner of Poland, with awakened hope, even that land was quivering with excite- ment. In Vienna the Emperor Ferdinand, unable to meet the storm, abdicated in favor of his young nephew, Francis Jo- seph. Hungary, obedient to the voice of her great patriot, Louis Kossuth, in April, 1849, declared itself free and independent. It was the Hungarians who had offered the most encouragement and sympathy to the Poles in 1 831; so Nicholas determined to make them feel the weight of his hand. Upon the pretext that thousands of Polish exiles — his sub- jects — were in the ranks of the insurgents, a 202 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. Russian army marched into Hungary. By the following August the revolution was over — thousands of Hungarian patriots had died for naught, thousands more had fled to Turkey, and still other thousands were suffer- ing from Austrian vengeance administered by the terrible General Haynau. Francis Joseph, that gentle and benign sovereign, who sits to- day upon the throne at Vienna, subjected Hungary to more cruelties than had been 'inflicted by Nicholas in Poland. Not only were the germs of nationality destroyed — the Constitution and the Diet abolished, the na- tional language, church, and institutions effaced; but revolting cruelties and execu- tions continued for years. Kossuth, who with a few other leaders, was an exile and a prisoner in Asia Minor, was freed by the in- tervention of European sentiment in 1851. The United States government then sent a frigate and conveyed him and his friends to America, where the great Hungarian thrilled the people by the magic of his eloquence in their own language, which he had mastered during his imprisonment by means of a Bible and a dictionary. It was to Russia that Austria was indebted EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 203 for a result so satisfactory. The Emperor Nicholas returned to St. Petersburg, feeling that he had earned the everlasting gratitude of the young ruler Francis Joseph, little suspecting that he was before long to say of him that ''his ingratitude astonished Europe." There can be no doubt that the Emperor Nicholas, while he was, in common with the other powers, professing to desire the pres- ervation of Ottoman integrity, had secretly resolved not to leave the Eastern Question to posterity, but to crown his own reign by its solution in a way favorable to Russia. His position was a very strong one. By the Treaty of 1841 his headship as protector of Eastern Christendom had been acknowl- edged. Austria was now bound to him irrevocably by the tie of gratitude, and Prus- sia by close family ties and by sympathy. It was only necessary to win over England. In 1853, in a series of private, informal interviews with the English ambassador, he disclosed his plan that there should be a confidential under- standing between him and Her Majesty's government. He said in substance: " Eng- land and Russia must be friends. Never was 204 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. the necessity greater. If we agree, I have no soHcitude about Europe. What others think is really of small consequence. I am as de- sirous as you for the continued existence of the Turkish Empire. But we have on our hands a sick man — a very sick man: he may suddenly die. Is it not the part of prudence for us to come to an understanding regarding what should be done in case of such a catas- trophe? It may as well be understood at once that I should never permit an attempt to reconstruct a Byzantine Empire, and still less should I allow the partition of Turkey into small republics — ready-made asylums for Kossuths and Mazzinis and European revo- lutionists; and I also tell you very frankly that I should never permit England or any of the Powers to have a foothold in Constantinople. I am willing to bind myself also not to occupy it — except, perhaps, as a guardian. But I should have no objection to your occupying Egypt. I quite understand its importance to your government — and perhaps the island of Candia might suit you. I see no objection to that island becoming also an English pos- session. I do not ask for a treaty — only an understanding; between gen- EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 205 tlemen that is sufficient. I have no desire to increase my empire. It is large enough; but I repeat — the sick man is dying; and if we are taken by surprise, if proper precautions are not taken in advance, circumstances ma!^ arise which will make it necessary for me to occupy Constantinople." It was a bribe, followed by a threat. Eng- land coldly declined entering into any stipula- tions without the concurrence of the other Powers. Her Majesty's government could not be a party to a confidential arrangement from which it was to derive a benefit. The negotiations had failed. Nicholas was deeply incensed and disappointed. He could rely, however, upon Austria and Prussia. He now thought of Louis Napoleon, the new French Emperor, who was looking for recognition in Europe. The English ambassador was coldly received, and for the first time since the ab- dication of Charles X., the representative of France received a cordial greeting, and was intrusted with a flattering message to the Emperor. But France had not forgotten the retreat from Moscow, nor the presence of Alexander in Paris, nor her attempted ostra- cism in Europe by Nicholas himself; and, fur- 206 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. ther, although Louis Napoleon was pleased with the overtures made to win his friendship, he was not yet quite sure which cause would best promote his own ends. Fortunately Russia had a grievance against Turkey. It was a very small one, but it was useful, and led to one of the most exciting crises in the history of Europe. It was a question of the possession of the Holy Shrines at Bethlehem and other places which tradition associates with the birth and death of Jesus Christ; and whether the Latin or the Greek monks had the right to the key of the great door of the Church at Bethlehem, and the right to place a silver star over the grotto where our Saviour was born. The Sultan had failed to carry out his promises in adjust- ing these disputed points. And all Europe trembled when the great Prince Menschikof, with imposing suite and threatening aspect, appeared at Constantinople, demanding im- mediate settlement of the dispute. Turkey was paralyzed with fright, until England sent her great diplomatist Lord Stratford de Red- cliffe — and France hers, M. de Lacour. No simpler question was ever submitted to more distinguished consideration or was watched EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 207 with more breathless interest by five sover- eigns and their cabinets. In a few days all was settled — the questions of the shrines and of the possession of the key of the great door of the church at Bethlehem were happily adjusted. There were only a few '' business details " to arrange, and the episode would be closed. But the trouble was not over. Hidden away among the '' business de- tails " was the germ of a great war. The Emperor of Russia '' felt obliged to demand guarantees, formal and positive," assuring the security of the Greek Christians in the Sul- tan's dominions. He had been constituted the Protector of Christianity in the Turkish Empire, and demanded this by virtue of that authority. The Sultan, strengthened now by the presence of the English and French am- bassadors, absolutely refused to give such guarantee, appealing to the opinion of the world to sustain him in resisting such a vio- lation of bis independence and of his rights. In vam did Lord Stratford exchange notes and conferences with Count Nesselrode and Prince Menschikof and the Grand Vizier and exhaust all the arts and powers of the most skilled diplomacy. In July, 1853, the Rus- 2o8 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. sian troops had invaded Turkish territory, and a French and EngHsh fleet soon after had crossed the Dardanelles, — no longer closed to the enemies of Russia, — had steamed by Con- stantinople, and was in the Bosphorus. Austria joined England and France in a de- fensive though not an offensive alliance, and Prussia held entirely aloof from the conflict. Nicholas had failed in all his calculations. In vain had he tried to lure England into a se- cret compact by the offer of Egypt — in vain had he preserved Hungary to Austria — in vain sought to attach Prussia to himself by acts of friendship; and his Nemesis was pursuing him, avenging a long series of affronts to France. Unsupported by a single nation, he was at war with three; and after a brilliant reign of twenty-eight years unchecked by a single misfortune, he was about to die, leaving to his empire the legacy of a disastrous war, which was to end in defeat and humiliation. But a strange thing had happened. For a thousand years Europe had been trying to drive Mohammedanism out of the continent. No sacrifice had been considered too great if it would help to rid Christendom of that great iniquity. Now the Turkish Empire, — the EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 209 spiritual heir and center of this old enemy, — no less vicious — no less an offense to the in- stincts of Christendom than before, was on the brink of extermination. It would have been a surprise to Richard the lion-hearted, and to Louis IX. the saint, if they could have fore- seen what England and France would do eight hundred years later when such a crisis arrived! While the Sultan in the name of the Prophet was appealing to all the passions of a mad fanaticism to arise and '' drive out the foreign infidels who were assailing their holy faith " — there was in England an enthusiasm for his defense as splendid as if the cause were a righteous one. It is not a simple thing to carry a bark deeply loaded with treasure safely through swift and tortuous currents. England was loaded to the water's edge with treasure. Her hope was in that sunken wreck of an empire which fate had moored at the gateway leading to her Eastern dominions, and what she most feared in this world was its removal. As a matter of state policy, she may have followed the only course which was open to her; but viewed from a loftier standpoint, it was a com- promise with unrighteousness when she joined 2IO EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. hands with the '' Great Assassin " and poured out the blood of her sons to keep him un- harmed. For fifty years that compromise has embarrassed her poUcy, and still continues to soil her fair name. In the War of the Crimea, England, no less than Russia, was fighting, not for the avowed, but unavowed ob- ject. But frankness is not one of the virtues required by diplomacy, so perhaps of that we have no right to complain. On the 4th of January, 1854, the allied fleets entered the Black Sea. The Emperor Nicholas, from his palace in St. Petersburg, watched the progress of events. He saw Menschikof vainly measuring swords with Lord Raglan at Odessa (April 22); then the overwhelming defeat at the Alma (Septem- ber 20); then the sinking of the Russian fleet to protect Sebastopol, about which the battle was to rage until the end of the war. He saw the invincible courage of his foe in that im- mortal act of valor, the cavalry charge at Balaklava (November 5), in obedience to an order wise when it was given, but useless and fatal when it was received — of which someone made the oft-repeated criticism — "' Cest mag- niiique — mats ce n'est pas la guerre.'' And EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 21 1 then he saw the power to endure during that awful winter, when the elements and official mismanagement were fighting for him, and when more English troops were perishing from cold and neglect than had been killed by Russian shot and shell. But the immense superiority of the armies of the allies could not be doubted. His troops, vanquished at every point, were hope- lessly beleagured in Sebastopol. The maj- esty of his empire was on every side insulted, his ports in every sea blockaded. Never be- fore had he tasted the bitterness of defeat and. humiliation. Europe had bowed down be- fore him as the Agamemnon among Kings. He had saved Austria; had protected Prussia; he had made France feel the weight of his au- gust displeasure. Wherever autocracy had been insulted, there he had been its champion and striven to be its restorer. But ever since 1848 there had been something in the air un- suited to his methods. He was the incarna- tion of an old principle in a new world. It was time for him to depart. His day had been a long and splendid one, but it was pass- ing amid clouds and darkness. A successful autocrat is quite a different 212 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. person from an unsuccessful one. Nicholas had been seen in the shining light of invinci- bility. But a sudden and terrible awakening had come. The nation, stung by repeated defeats, was angry. A flood of anonymous literature was scattered broadcast, arraigning the Emperor — the administration — the minis- ters — the diplomats — the generals. '' Slaves, arise! " said one, '' and stand erect before the despot. We have been kept long enough in serfage to the successors of Tatar Khans." The Tsar grew gloomy and silent. *' My successor," he said, '' may do what he likes. I cannot change." When he saw Austria at last actually in alliance with his enemies he was sorely shaken. But it was the voice of bitter reproach and hatred from his hitherto silent people which shook his iron will and broke his heart. He no longer desired to live. While suffering from an influenza he insisted upon going out in the intense cold without his greatcoat and reviewing his guards. Five days later he dictated the dis- patch which was sent to every city in Russia: *' The Emperor is dying." CHAPTER XXIII. When his life and the hard-earned con- quests of centuries were together slipping away, the dying Emperor said to his son: " All my care has been to leave Russia safe without and prosperous within. But you see how it is. I am dying, and I leave you a burden which will be hard to bear." The young man upon whom fell these responsibilities was thirty-seven years old. His mother was Prin- cess Charlotte of Prussia, sister of the late Emperor William, who succeeded to the throne of Prussia, left vacant by his brother in 1861. His first words to his people were a passion- ate justification of his father " of blessed mem- ory," his aims and purposes, and a solemn dec- laration that he should remain true to his line of conduct, which '' God and history would vindicate." It was a man of ordinary flesh and blood promising to act like a man of steel. His own nature and the circumstances of his 213 214 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE, realm both forbade it. The man on the throne could not help listening attentively to the voice of the people. There must be peace. The country was drained of men and of money. There were not enough peasants left to till the fields. The landed proprietors with their serfs in the ranks were ruined, and had not money with which to pay the taxes, upon which the prosecution of a hopeless war de- pended. Victor Emmanuel had joined the allies with a Sardinian army; and the French, by a tremendous onslaught, had captured Malakof, the key to the situation in the Crimea. Prince Gortchakof, who had re- placed Prince Menschikof, was only able to cover a retreat with a mantle of glory. The end had come. A treaty of peace was signed March 30, 1856. Russia renounced the claim of an ex- clusive protectorate over the Turkish prov- inces, yielded the free navigation of the Danube, left Turkey the Roumanian prin- cipalities, and, hardest of all, she lost the con- trol of the Black Sea. Its waters were forbid- den to men-of-war of all nations; no arsenals, military or maritime, to exist upon its shores. The fruits of Russian policy since Peter the EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 215 Great were annihilated, and the work of two centuries of progress was canceled. Who and what was to blame for these ca- lamities? Why was it that the Russian army- could sucessfully compete with Turks and Asiatics, and not with Europeans? The reason began to be obvious, even to stubborn Russian Conservatives. A nation, in order to compete in war in this age, must have a grasp upon the arts of peace. An army drawn from a civilized nation is a more effective instru- ment than one drawn from a barbarous one. The time had passed when there might be a few highly educated and subtle intelligences thinking for millions of people in brutish ignorance. The time had arrived when it must be recognized that Russia was not made for a few great and powerful people, for whom the rest, an undistinguishable mass, must toil and suffer. In other words, it must be a nation — and not a dynasty nourished by misery and supported by military force. Men high in rank no longer flaunted their titles and insignia of office. They shrank from drawing attention to their share of responsi- bility in the great calamity, and listened al- most humbly to the suggestions of liberal 2l6 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. leaders, suggestions which, a few months ago, none dared whisper except behind closed doors. A new literature sprang into life, un- rebuked, dealing with questions of state policy with a fearless freedom never before dreamed of. Conservative Russia had suddenly van- ished under a universal conviction that the hope of their nation was in Liberalism. The Emperor recalled from Siberia the exiles of the conspiracy of 1825, and also the Polish exiles of 1831. There was an honest efifort made to reform the wretched judicial system and to adopt the methods which West- ern experience had found were the best. The obstructions to European influences were re- moved, and all joined hands in an effort to de- vise means of bringing the whole people up to a higher standard of intelligence and well- being. Russia was going to be regenerated. Men, in a rapture of enthusiasm and with tears, embraced each other on the streets. One wrote: "The heart trembles with joy. Russia is like a stranded ship which the cap- tain and the crew are powerless to move; now there is to be a rising tide of national life which will raise and float it." Such was the prevailing public sentiment in EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 217 1 86 1, when Emperor Alexander affixed his name to the measurewhich was going to make it forever glorious — the emancipation of over twenty-three million human beings from serf- dom. It would require another volume to tell even in outline the wrongs and sufferings of this class, upon whom at last rested the pros- perity and even the life of the nation, who, absolutely subject to the will of one man, might at his pleasure be conscripted for mili- tary service for a term of from thirty to forty years, or at his displeasure might be sent to Siberia to work in the mines for life; and who, in no place or at no time, had protection from any form of cruelty which the greed of the proprietor imposed upon them. Selling the peasants without the land, unsanctioned by law, became sanctioned by custom, until finally its right was recognized by imperial ukases, so that serfdom, which in theory pre- sented a mild exterior, was in practice and in fact a terrible and unmitigated form of hu- man slavery. Patriarchalism has a benignant sound — it is better than something that is worse! It is a step upward from a darker quagmire of hu- man condition. When Peter the Great, with 2l8 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. his terrible broom, swept all the free peasants into the same mass with the unfree serfs, and when he established the empire upon a chain of service to be rendered to the nobility by the peasantry, and then to the state by the no- bihty, he simply aplied to the whole state the Slavonic principle existing in the social unit — the family. And while he was European- izing the surface, he was completing a struc- ture of paternalism, which was Asiatic and in- compatible with its new garment — an incon- gruity which in time must bring disorder, and compel radical and difficult reforms. To remove a foundation stone is a delicate and difficult operation. It needed courage of no ordinary sort to break up this serfdom en- crusted with tyrannies. It was a gigantic social experiment, the results of which none could foresee. Alexander's predecessors had thought and talked of it, but had not dared to try it. Now the time was ripe, and the man on the throne had the nerve required for its execution. The means by which this revolution was effected may be briefly described in a sen- tence. The Crown purchased from the pro- prietors the land — with the peasants attached EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 219 to it, and then bestowed the land upon the peasants with the condition that for forty- five years they should pay to the Crown six per cent, interest upon the amount paid by it for the land. It was the commune or mir which accepted the land and assumed the obli- gation and the duty of seeing that every indi- vidual paid his annual share of rental (or in- terest money) upon the land within his in- closure, which was supposed to be sufficient for his own maintenance and the payment of the government tax. These simple people, who had been dream- ing of emancipation for years, as a vague promise of relief from sorrow, heard with as- tonishment that now they were expected to pay for their land! Had it not always be- longed to them? The Slavonic idea of ownership of land through labor was the only one of which they could conceive, and it had survived through all the centuries of serf- dom, when they were accustomed to say: " We are yours, but the land is ours." In- stead of twenty-five million people rejoicing with grateful hearts, there was a ferment of discontent and in some places uprisings — one peasant leader telling ten thousand who rose 220 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. at his call that the Emancipation Law was a forgery, they were being deceived and not per- mitted to enjoy what the Tsar, their " Little Father," had intended for their happiness. But considering the intricate difficulties at- tending such a tremendous change in the so- cial conditions, the emancipation was easily effected and the Russian peasants, by the sur- vival of their old Patriarchal institutions, were at once provided with a complete system of local self-government in which the ancient Slavonic principle was unchanged. At the head of the commune or mir was the elder, a group of communes formed a Volost, and the head of the Volost was responsible for the peace and order of the community. To this was later added the Zemstvo a representa- tive assembly of peasants, for the regulation of local matters. Such a new reign of clemency awakened hope in Poland that it too might share these benefits. First it was a Constitution such as had been given to Hungary for which they prayed. Then, as Italy was emancipating herself, they grew bolder, and, incited by so- cieties of Polish exiles, all over Europe, demanded more: that they be given inde- EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 221 pendence. Again the hope of a Polo-Lith- uanian alliance, and a recovery of the lost Polish provinces in the Ukraine, and the re- establishment of an independent kingdom of Poland, dared to assert itself, and to invite a more complete destruction. The liberal Russians might have sympa- thized with the first moderate demand, but when by the last there was an attempt made upon the integrity of Russia, there was but one voice in the empire. So cruel and so vindictive was the punishment of the Poles, by Liberals and Conservatives alike, that Europe at last in 1863 protested. The Polish language and even alphabet were prohibited. Every noble in the land had been involved in this last conspiracy. They were ordered to sell their lands, and all Poles were forbidden to be its purchasers. Nothing of Poland was left which could ever rise again. CHAPTER XXIV. Liberalism had received a check. In this outburst of severity, used to repress the free instincts of a once great nation, the temper of the Russian people had undergone a change. The warmth and ardor were chilled. The Emperor's grasp tightened. Some even thought that Finland ought to be Russianized precisely as Poland had been; but convinced of its loyalty, the Grand Principality was spared, and the privileges so graciously be- stowed by Alexander the First were con- firmed. While the political reforms had been checked by the Polish insurrection, there was an enormous advance in everything mak- ing for material prosperity. Railways and telegraph-wires, and an improved postal serv- ice, connected all the great cities in the em- pire, so that there was rapid and regular com- munication with each other and all the world. Factories were springing up, mines were EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 223 working, and trade and production and arts and literature were all throbbing with a new life. In 1 87 1, at the conclusion of the Franco- Prussian War, the Emperor Alexander saw his uncle William the First crowned Emperor of a United Germany at Paris. The approval and the friendship of Russia at this crisis were essential to the new German Empire as well as to France. Gortchakof, the Russian Chan- cellor, saw his opportunity. He intimated to the Powers the intention of Russia to resume its privileges in the Black Sea, and after a brief diplomatic correspondence the Powers formally abrogated the neutralization of those waters; and Russia commenced to rebuild her ruined forts and to re-establish her naval power in the South. There had commenced to exist those close ties between the Russian and other reigning families which have made European diplo- macy seem almost like a family affair — al- though in reality exercising very little influ- ence upon it. Alexander himself was the son of one of these alliances, and had married a German Princess of the house of Hesse. In 1866 his son Alexander married Princess 224 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. Dagmar, daughter of Christian IX., King of Denmark, and in 1874 he gave his daughter Marie in marriage to Queen Victoria's second son Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh. It was in the following year (1875) that Lord Beacons- field took advantage of a financial crisis in Turkey, and a financial stringency in Egypt, to purchase of the Khedive his half-interest in the Suez Canal for the sum of $20,000,000, which gave to England the ownership of nearly nine-tenths of that important link in the waterway leading direct to her empire in India. During all the years since 1856, there was one subject which had been constantly upper- most in the mind of England; and that one subject was the one above all others which her Prime Minister tried to make people for- get. It was perfectly well known when one after another of the Balkan states revolted against the Turk — first Herzegovina, then Montenegro, then Bosnia — that they were suffering the crudest oppression, and that not one of the Sultan's promises made to the Pow- ers in 1856 had been kept. But in 1876 no one could any longer feign ignorance. An insignificant outbreak in Bulgaria took place. EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 225 In answer to a telegram sent to Constantino- ple a body of improvised militia, called Bashi- Bazuks, was sent to manage the affair after its own fashion. The burning of seventy vil- lages; the massacre of fifteen thousand — some say forty thousand — people, chiefly women and children, with attendant details too re- volting to narrate; the subsequent exposure of Bulgarian maidens for sale at Philippopolis — all this at last secured attention. Pamph- lets, newspaper articles, speeches, gave voice to the horror of the English people. Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, Gladstone, John Bright, Carlyle, Freeman, made powerful ar- raignments of the government which was the supporter and made England the accomplice of Turkey in this crime. However much we may suspect the sin- cerity of Russia's solicitude regarding her co- religionists in the East, it must be admitted that the preservation of her Faith has always been treated — long before the existence of the Eastern Question — as the most vital in her policy. In every alliance, every negotiation, every treaty, it was the one thing that never was compromised; and Greek Christianity certainly holds a closer and more mystic re- 2 26 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. lation to the government of Russia than the Catholic or Protestant faiths do to that of other lands. Russia girded herself to do what the best sentiment in England had in vain demanded. She declared war against Turkey in support of the oppressed provinces of Servia, Herze- govina, and Montenegro. In the month of April, 1877, the Russian army crossed the frontier. Then came the capture of Ni- kopolis, the repulse at Plevna, the battle of Shipka Pass, another and successful battle of Plevna, the storming of Kars, and then, the Balkans passed, — an advance upon Constanti- nople. On the 29th of January the last shot was fired. The Ottoman Empire had been shaken into submission, and was absolutely at the mercy of the Tsar, who dictated the fol- lowing terms: The erection of Bulgaria into an autonomous tributary principality, with a native Christian government; the independ- ence of Montenegro, Roumania, and Servia; a partial autonomy in Bosnia and Herzegovina, besides a strip of territory upon the Danube and a large war indemnity for Russia. Such were the terms of the Treaty of San Stefano, signed in March, 1878. To the undiplomatic EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 227 mind this seems a happy conclusion of a vexed question. The Balkan states were independ- ent — or partially so; and the Ottoman Em- pire, although so shorn and shaken as to be innocuous, still remained as a dismantled wreck to block the passage to the East. But to Beaconsfield and Bismarck and An- drassy, and the other plenipotentiaries who hastened to Berlin in June for conference, it was a very indiscreet proceeding, and must all be done over. Gortchakof was compelled to relinquish the advantages gained by Russia. "Bulgaria was cut into three pieces, one of which was handed to the Sultan, another made tributary to him, and the third to be autono- mous under certain restrictions. Montene- gro and Servia were recognized as independ- ent, Bosnia and Herzegovina were given to Austria; Bessarabia, lost by the results of the Crimean War, was now returned to Russia, together with territory about and adjacent to Kars. Most important of all — the Turkish Empire was revitalized and restored to a po- sition of stability and independence by the friendly Powers! So by the Treaty of Berlin England had ac- quired the island of Cyprus, and had com- 2 28 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE, pelled Russia, after immense sacrifice of blood and treasure, to relinquish her own gains and to subscribe to the line of policy which she desired. A costly and victorious war had been nullified by a single diplomatic battle at Berlin. The pride of Russia was deeply wounded. It was openly said that the Congress was an outrage upon Russian sensibilities — that " Russian diplomacy was more destructive than Nihilism." Emperor Alexander had reached the me- ridian of his popularity in those days of promised reforms, before the Polish insurrec- tion came to chill the currents of his soul. For a long time the people would not believe he really intended to disappoint their hope; but when one reform after another was re- called, when one severe measure after an- other was enacted, and when he surrounded himself with conservative advisers and influ- ences, it was at last recognized that the single beneficent act history would have to record in this reign would be that one act of 1861. And now his prestige was dimmed and his popularity still more diminished by such a sig- nal diplomatic defeat at Berlin. CHAPTER XXV. The emancipation had been a disappoint- ment to its promoters and to the serfs them- selves. It was an appalHng fact that year after year the death-rate had alarmingly increased, and its cause was — starvation. In lands the richest in the world, tilled by a people with a passion for agriculture, there was not enough bread! The reasons for this are too complex to be stated here, but a few may have brief mention. The allotment of land bestowed upon each liberated serf was too small to en- able him to live and to pay his taxes, unless the harvests were always good and he was al- ways employed. He need not live, but his taxes must be paid. It required three days' work out of each week to do that; and if he had not the money when the dreaded day ar- rived, the tax-collector might sell his corn, his cattle, his farming implements, and his house. But reducing whole communities to beggary was not wise, so a better way was 229 23© EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. discovered, and one which entailed no dis- astrous economic results. He was flogged. The time selected for this settling of accounts was when the busy season was over; and Stepniak tells us it was not an unusual thing for one thousand peasants in the winter — in a single commune — to be awaiting their turn to have their taxes '' flogged out." Of course, before this was en- dured all means had been exhausted for rais- ing the required amount. Usury, that surest road to ruin, and the one ofifering the least re- sistance, was the one ordinarily followed. Thus was created that destructive class called Koulaks, or Mir-eaters, who, while they fat- tened upon the necessities of the peasantry, also demoralized the state by creating a wealthy and powerful class whom it would not do to offend, and whose abominable and ne- farious interests must not be interfered with. Then another sort of bondage was discov- ered, one very nearly approaching to serfdom. Wealthy proprietors would make loans to dis- tressed communes or to individuals, the in- terest of the money to be paid by the peasants in a stipulated number of days' work every week until the original amount was returned. EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 231 Sometimes, by a clause in the contract increas- ing the amount in case of failure to pay at a certain time, the original debt, together with the accruing interest, would be four or five times doubled. And if, as was probable, the principal never was returned, the peasant worked on year after year gratuitously, in the helpless, hopeless bondage of debt. Nor were these the worst of their miseries, for there were the Tchinovniks — or government officials — who could mete out any punishment they pleased, could order a whole community to be flogged, or at any moment invoke the aid of a military force or even lend it to private indi- viduals for the subjugation of refractory peasants. And this was what they had been waiting and hoping for, for two centuries and a half! But with touching loyalty not one of them thought of blaming the Tsar. Their " Little Father," if he only knew about it, would make everything right. It was the nobility, the wicked nobility, that had brought all this mis- ery upon them and cheated them out of their happiness ! They hated the nobility for steal- ing from them their freedom and their land; and the nobiUty hated them for not being 232 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. prosperous and happy, and for bringing fam- ine and misery into the state, which had been so kind and had emancipated them. As these conditions became year after year more aggravated acute minds in Russia were employed in trying to solve the great social problems they presented. In a land in which the associative principle was indige- nous, Socialism was a natural and inevitable growth. Then, exasperated by the increasing miseries of the peasantry, maddened by the sufferings of political exiles in Siberia, there came into existence that word of dire sig- nificance in Russia — Nihilism, and following quickly upon that, its logical sequence — An- archism, which, if it could, would destroy all the fruits of civilization. It was Turguenief who first applied the an- cient term " Nihilist " to a certain class of radical thinkers in Russia, whose theory of society, like that of the eighteenth-century philosophers in France, was based upon a negation of the principle of authority. All institutions, social and political, however dis- guised, were tyrannies, and must go. In the newly awakened Russian mind, this first as- sumed the mild form of a demand for the re- EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 233 moval of legislative tyranny, by a system of gradual reforms. This had failed — now the demand had become a mandate. The people must have relief. The Tsar was the one per- son who could bestow it, and if he would not do so voluntarily, he must be compelled to grant it. No one man had the right to wreck the happiness of millions of human beings. If the authority was centralized, so was the respon- sibility. Alexander's entire reign had been a curse— and emancipation was a delusion and a lie. He must yield or perish. This vicious and degenerate organization had its center in a highly educated middle class, men with nine- teenth-century intelligence and aspirations in frenzied revolt against methods suited to the time of the Khans. The inspiring motive was not love of the people, but hatred of their oppressors. Appeals to the peasantry brought small response, but the movement was eagerly joined by men and women from the highest ranks in Russia. Secret societies and organizations were everywhere at work, recruited by misguided enthusiasts, and by human suffering from all classes. Wherever there were hearts bruised and bleeding from official cruelty, 234 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE, in whatever ranks, there the terrible propa- ganda found sympathizers, if not a home; men — and still more, women — from the highest families in the nobility secretly pledging themselves to the movement, until Russian society was honeycombed with con- spiracy extending even to the household of the Tsar. Proclamations were secretly issued calling upon the peasantry to arise. In spite of the vigilance of the police, similar invitations to all the Russian people were posted in conspicuous places — " We are tired of famine, tired of having our sons perish upon the gallows, in the mines, or in exile. Russia demands liberty; and if she cannot have liberty — she will have ven- geance! " Such was the tenor of the threats which made the life of Emperor Alexander a miserable one after 1870. He had done what not one of his predecessors had been willing to do. He had, in the face of the bitterest opposition, bestowed the gift of freedom upon 23,000,000 human beings. In his heart he believed he de- served the good-will and the gratitude of his subjects. How gladly would he have ruled EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 235 over a happy empire! But what could he do? He had absolute power to make his people miserable — but none to make them happy. It was not his fault that he occupied a throne which could only be made secure by a policy of stern repression. It was not his fault that he ruled through a system so elementary, so crude, so utterly inadequate, that to ad- minister justice was an impossibility. Nor was it his fault that he had inherited auto- cratic instincts from a long line of ancestors. In other words, it was not his fault that he was the Tsar of Russia! The grim shadow of assassination pursued him wherever he went. In 1879 the imperial train was destroyed by mines placed beneath the tracks. In 1880 the imperial apartments in the palace of Winterhof were partially wrecked by similar means. Seventeen men marched to the gallows, regretting nothing except the failure of their crime; and hun- dreds more who were implicated in the plot were sent into perpetual exile in Siberia. The hand never relaxed — nor was the Constitution demanded by these atrocious means granted. On the 13th of March, 1881, while the Em- peror was driving, a bomb was thrown be- 236 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. neath his carriage. He stepped out of the wreck unhurt. Then as he approached the assassin, who had been seized by the police, another was thrown. Alexander fell to the ground, exclaiming, ''Help me!" Terribly mutilated, but conscious, the dying Emperor was carried into his palace, and there in a few hours he expired. In the splendid obsequies of the Tsar, noth- ing was more touching than the placing of a wreath upon his bier by a deputation of peas- ants. It can be best described in their own words. The Emperor was lying in the Cathe- dral wrapped in a robe of ermine, beneath a canopy of gold and silver cloth lined with er- mine. '' At last we were inside the church," says the narrative. *' We all dropped on our knees and sobbed, our tears flowing like a stream. Oh, what grief! We rose from our knees, again we knelt, and again we sobbed, this did we three times, our hearts breaking beside the coffin of our benefactor. There are no words to express it. And what honor was done us! The General took our wreath, and placed it straightway upon the breast of our Little Father. Our peasants' wreath laid on his heart, his martyr breast — as we were in all EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 237 his life nearest to his heart! Seeing this we burst again into tears. Then the General let us kiss his hand — and there he lay, our Tsar- martyr, with a calm, loving expression on his face — as if he, our Little Father, had fallen asleep." If anything had been needed to make the name Nihilism forever odious, it was this deed. If anything were required to reveal the bald wickedness of the creed of Nihilism, it was supplied by this aimless sacrifice of the one sovereign who had bestowed a colossal reform upon Russia. They had killed him, and had then marched unflinchingly to the gallows — and that was all — leaving others bound by solemn oaths to bring the same fate upon his successor. The whole energy of the organization was centered in secreting dyna- mite, awaiting a favorable moment for its ex- plosion, then dying like martyrs, leaving others pledged to repeat the same horror — and so ud inHnitum. In their detestation of one crime they committed a worse one. They conspired against the Hfe of civilization — as if it were not better to be ruled by despots than assassins, as if a bad government were not better than none! 238 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. The existence of Nihilism may be ex- plained, though not extenuated. Can anyone estimate the effect upon a single human being to have known that a father, brother, son, sister, or wife has perished under the knout? Could such a person ever again be capable of reasoning calmly or sanely upon '' political re- forms "? If there were any slumbering tiger- instincts in this half-Asiatic people, was not this enough to awaken them? There were many who had suffered this, and there were thousands more who at that very time had friends, lovers, relatives, those dearer to them than life, who were enduring day by day the tortures of exile, subject to the brutal pun- ishments of irresponsible officials. It was this that had converted hundreds of the nobility into conspirators — this which had made So- phia Perovskaya, the daughter of one of the highest officials in the land, give the signal for the murder of the Emperor, and then, scorn- ing mercy, insist that she should have the privilege of dying upon the gallows with the rest. But tiger-instincts, whatever their cause, must be extinguished. They cannot coexist with civilization. Human society as consti- EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE, 239 tuted to-day can recognize no excuse for them. It forbids them — and the Nihilist is the Ishmael of the nineteenth century. The world was not surprised, and perhaps not even displeased, when Alexander III. showed a dogged determination not to be coerced into reforms by the assassination of his father nor threats of his own. His coro- nation, long deferred by the tragedy which threatened to attend it, finally took place with great splendor at Moscow in 1883. He then withdrew to his palace at Gatschina, where he remained practically a prisoner. Embittered by the recollection of the fate of his father, who had died in his arms, and haunted by con- spiracies for the destruction of himself and his family, he was probably the least happy man in his empire. His every act was a protest against the spirit of reform. The privileges so graciously bestowed upon the Grand Duchy of Finland by Alexander I. were for the first time invaded. Literature and the press were placed under rigorous censorship. The Zemstvo, his father's gift of local self- government to the liberated serfs, was prac- tically withdrawn by placing that body under the control of the nobility. 240 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. It was a stern, joyless reign, without one act intended to make glad the hearts of the people. The depressing conditions in which he lived gradually undermined the health of the Emperor. He was carried in dying con- dition to Livadia, and there, surrounded by his wife and his children, he expired Novem- ber I, 1894. CHAPTER XXVI. When Nicholas 11. , the gentle-faced young son of Alexander, came to the throne there were hopes that a new era for Russia was about to commence. There has been nothing yet to justify that hope. The austere policy pur- sued by his father has not been changed. The recent decree which has brought grief and dis- may into Finland is not the act of a liberal sovereign! A forcible Russification of that state has been ordered, and the press in Fin- land has been prohibited from censuring the ukase which has brought despair to the hearts and homes of the people. The Rus- sian language has been made obligatory in the university of Helsingfors and in the schools, together with other severe measures pointing unmistakably to a purpose of effac- ing the Finnish nationality — a nationality, too, which has never by disloyalty or insur- rection merited the fate of Poland. But if this has struck a discordant note, the 241 242 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. invitation to a Conference of the Nations with a view to a general disarmament has been one of thrilHng and unexpected sweetness and har- mony. Whether the Congress now in ses- sion at The Hague does or does not arrive at important immediate results, itS'^;ri\y^€7if^ is one of the most significant facts of modern times. It is the first step on the way to that millennial era of universal peace toward which a per- fected Christian civilization must eventually lead us, and it remained for an autocratic Tsar of Russia to sound the call and to be the leader in this movement. At the death-bed of his father, Nicholas was betrothed to a princess of the House of Hesse, whose mother was Princess Alice, daughter of Queen Victoria. Upon her marriage this Anglo-German princess was compelled to make a public renunciation of her own faith, and to accept that of her imperial consort — the orthodox faith of Russia. The personal traits of the Emperor seem so exemplary that, if he fails to meet the heroic needs of the hour, the world is disposed not to reproach him, but rather to feel pity for the young ruler who has had thrust upon him such an insoluble prob- lem. His character recalls somewhat that of EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 243 his great-uncle Alexander I. We see the same vague aspiration after grand ideals, and the same despotic methods in dealing with things in the concrete. No general amnesty attended his coronation, no act of clemency has been extended to political exiles. Men and women whose hairs have whitened in Si- beria have not been recalled — not one thing done to lighten the awful load of anguish in his empire. It may have been unreasonable to have looked for reforms; but certainly it was not too much to expect mercy I What one man could reform Russia? Who could reform a volcano? There are frightful energies beneath that adamantine surface — energies which have been confined by a rude, imperfectly organized system of force; a chain- work of abuses roughly welded together as occasion required. A system created by emergencies^ — improvised, not grown — in which to remove a single abuse, endangers the whole. When the imprisoned forces tried to escape at one spot, more force was applied and more bands and more rivets brutally held them down, and were then re- tained as a necessary part of the system. On the surface is absolutism in glittering 244 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. completeness, and beneath that — chaoS. Lying at the bottom of that chaos is the great mass of Slavonic people un- developed as children — an embryonic civili- zation — utterly helpless and utterly miser- able. In the mass lying above that exists the mind of Russia — through which course streams of unduly developed intelligence in fierce revolt against the omnipresence of misery. And still above that is the shining, enameled surface rivaling that of any other nation in splendor. The Emperor may say with a semblance of truth Veiat c'est moi, but although he may combine in himself all the functions, judicial, legislative, and ex- ecutive, no channels have been supplied, no finely organized system provided for convey- ing that triple stream to the extremities. The living currents at the top have never reached the mass at the bottom — that despised but necessary soil in which the prosperity of the Empire is rooted. There has been no living interchange — the separated elements in Rus- sia have been in contact, but not in union. Russia is as heterogeneous in condition as it is in elements. It has accepted ready-made the methods of Greek, of Tatar and of Euro- EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 245 pean; but has assimilated none of them; and Russian civilization, with its amazing quality, its bewildering variety of achievement in art, literature, diplomacy, and in every field, is not a natural development, but a monstrosity. The genius intended for a whole people seems to have been crowded into a few narrow channels. Where have men written with such tragic intensity? Where has there been music suggesting such depths of sadness and human passion? And who has ever told the story of the battle-field with such energy and with such thrilling reality as has Verest- chagin? The youngest among the civilizations, and herself still only partially civilized, Russia is one of the most — if not the most — important factor in the world-problem to-day, and the one with which the future seems most serious- ly involved. She has only just commenced to draw upon her vast stores of energy; energies which were accumulating during the ages when the other nations were lavishly spending theirs. How will this colossal force be used in the future? Moving silently and irresistibly toward the East, and guided by a subtle and far-reaching poHcy, who can foresee 246 EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE, what will be the end, and what the ultimate destiny of the Empire which had its beginning in a small Slavonic State upon the Dnieper, and which, until a little more than a century ago, was too much of a barbarian to be ad- mitted into the fraternity of European States. The farthest removed from us in political ideals, Russia has in the various crises in our national life always been America's truest friend. When others apparently nearer have failed us, she has stood steadfastly by us. We can never forget it. Owning a large portion of the earth's surface, rich beyond calculation in all that makes for national wealth and pros- perity, with a peasantry the most confiding, the most loyal, the most industrious in the world, with intellectual power and genius in abundant measure, and with pride of race and a patriotism profound and intense, what more does Russia need? Only three things — that cruelty be abandoned; that she be made a homogeneous nation; and that she be per- mitted to live under a government capable of administering justice to her people. These she must have and do. In the coming century there will be no place for barbarism. There will be something in the air which will make EVOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE. 247 it impossible that the half of a frozen conti- nent shall be dedicated to the use of suffering human beings kept there by the will of one man. There will be something in the air which will forbid cruelty and compel mercy and justice, and which will make men or na- tions feign those virtues if they have them not. The antagonism between England and Russia has a deeper significance than appears on the surface. It is not the Eastern ques- tion, not the control of Constantinople, not the obtaining of concessions from China which is at stake. It is the question which of two principles shall prevail. The one represented by a despotism in which the people have no part, or the one represented by a system of government through which the will of the people freely acts. There can be but one re- sult in such a conflict, one answer to such a question. The eternal purposes are writ too large in the past to mistake them. And it is the ardent hope of America that Russia — that Empire which has so generously accorded us her friendship in our times of peril — may not by cataclysm from within, but of her own volition, place herself fully in line with the ideals of an advanced civilization. LIST OF PRINCES. GRAND PRINCES OP KIEF. Rurik, 862-879 Oleg (Brother of Rurik, Regent), . . . 879-912 Igor (Son of Rurik), 912-945 Olga (Wife of Igor, Regent), .... 945-964 Sviatoslaf, 964-972 Vladimir (Christianized Russia, 992), . . 972-1015 Yaroslaf (The Legislator), ... * loi 5-1054 (Close of Heroic Period.) Isiaslaf, 1054-1078 Vsevolod, 1078-1093 Sviatopolk, 1093-1113 Vladimir Monomakh, 1113-1125 (Throne Disputed by Prince of Suzdal.) Isiaslaf, 1146-1155 George Dolgoruki (Last Grand Prince of Kief) 1 1 55-1 169 (Fall of Kief, 1169.) Andrew Bogoliubski (First Grand Prince of Suzdal), 1169-1174 George II. (Dolgoruki), . . . . . 1212-1238 Yaroslaf (Father of Alexander Nevski and Grandfather of Daniel, First Prince of Moscow), . . 1238-1246 249 250 LIST OF PRINCES. PRINCES OF MOSCOW. Daniel (Son of Alexander Nevski), . , 1260-1303 Iri (George) Danielovich, .... 1303-1325 Ivan I., 1328-1341 Simeon (The Proud), 1341-1353 Ivan II. (The Debonair), .... 1 353-1 359 PRINCES OF MOSCOW AND GRAND PRINCES OF SUZDAL. Dmitri Donskoi, 1363-1389 Vasili Dmitrievich, 1389-1425 Vasili I. (The Blind, Prince of Moscow, Nov- gorod, and Suzdal), .... 1425-1462 GRAND PRINCES OF ALL THE RUSSIAS. Ivan III. (The Great) 1462-1505 Vasili II., . 1505-1533 TSARS OF RUSSIA. Ivan IV. (the Terrible), 1533-1584 Feodor Ivanovich, 1 584-1 598 Boris Godunof (Usurper), .... 1 598-1605 The False Dmitri, 1605-1606 Vasili Shuiski, 1606-160 9 Mikhail Romanoff, 1613-1645 Alexis (Son of former and Father of Peter the Great), 1645-1676 Feodor Alexievich, 1676-1682 Ivan V. and Peter I. ), j- j ^ z- e.Q e. ^ ^ , . ^ , \ Ivan died 1696, . . 1682-1696 Sophia Regent, ) Peter I. (The Great), 1696-1725 Catherine 1 1725-1727 LIST OF PRINCES. 251 Peter II. (Son of Alexis and Grandson of Peter the Great and Eudoxia) 1727-1730 Anna Ivanovna (Daughter of Ivan V., Niece of Peter I., 1 730-1 740 Ivan VI.(Infant Nephew of former Sovereign), 1740-1741 Elizabeth Petrovna (Daughter of Peter I. and Catherine), 1741-1761 Peter III. (Nephew of Elizabeth Petrovna ; reigned five months, assassinated), . 1762 Catherine II. (Wife of Peter III.), . . 1762-1796 Paul I. (Son of former) 1796-1801 Alexander I,, 1801-1825 Nicholas I., 1825-1855 Alexander II., 1855-1881 Alexander III., 1881-1894 Nicholas II., 1894- THE END. I . md Deacidified using the Bookkeeper proce; Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide Treatment Date: j;\{vj 2002 Preservationlechnologie A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATK 111 Thomson Park Drive Cranberry Township, PA 1 6066